Sirian's Infantry Variant - Succession Game Challenge

[Charis]

Lt. Col. Charisinfantry came before the regimental CO to discuss his request for funding in the base of Jamaica. General Barksburger roundly reminding him of the no-subsidy policy for our foreign bases, which must learn to be self sufficient. The Colonel realized the folly of his request, and mumbled various excuses... "Sir, if I didn't put in the request no one would have noticed and Jamaica would have surely revolted!" This was followed by "I didn't mean to ask for money per se, it was just a poor phrasing! What I meant to say was 'Be careful about Jamaica at the end of next turn, let him go low food for 3 rounds so that the temple is done before he grows'. He got a cold glare. Finally he broke down and admitted "I'm a recovering colony spend-o-holic!!!! What you MUST note is that just last month I would have shot a treasury of 2000 gold to rush temples in EVERY colony, or at the bare minimum rushed Jamaica right there and then at 200 gold without blinking! I've improved TENFOLD!"

This could not be argued, and the General game him a warm pat on the back... "You're learning, Colonel. And when you've internalized the true nature of fiscal responsibility in our foreign bases, you too will be a General!"

:crazyeyes:
Charis

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Should have gone to see Brotherhood of the Wolf when I was scheduled to play in the French artillery game, but oh well. Good film. Aroooo!

Much micromanagement of cities, and not much else at all, really. Did nothing at all with our military. Here's the details:

0) 1350AD Found a sleeping worker in Liverpool. Send him down to London to improve the last irrigated plains square into a mine. We have just 4 workers on our mainland? With steampower coming soon, I think it's time to convert some of the food surplus in our size 12 cities to extra workers.

Convert the unhappy laborer from Ivory Coast to a tax collector, which *should* trigger WLTQ and improve production -- currently wasting 7 of 9 shields.

Same deal in Leeds, though I'm less sure this will be effective (currently only wasting 3 of 7 shields).

Dublin is at max pop pre-aqueduct and 1/1 production. There's no point working more squares than are needed for zero growth, so convert the other 3 citizens to tax collectors.

Ditto for 2 citizens in Belfast.

Scientist in New Norwich sent to work the mines (and deliver 2 extra science beakers ).

Various other cities at max size rearranged for improved production.

Diplomacy. All our treaties with India are expired. I don't think we're planning on invading them in the next 20 turns, so renegotiate. The RoP and luxuries swap is now acceptable as is (instead of us paying 3 gold/turn). Gandhi agrees to pay 60 gold + 6 gold/turn for the horses he was getting for just 1 gold/turn (!) Renew RoP with French for 4 gold/turn (up from 1 gold/turn). Ceasar wants astronomical prices for Roman silks (no deal), but is prepared to pay 6 gold/turn to renew RoP.

1) 1355AD WLTQ in Ivory Coast doubles shield output, Leeds gains one extra shield.

2) 1360AD Okay, I never looked at the F7 screen before, but I've seen it mentioned around here a couple of times, so pull it up. Heh. This makes it so much easier to decide not to put Hastings onto Bach's Cathedral like the auto-governor wanted me to

Indians start building Smith's.

4) 1370AD New mine outside London shaves 1 turn off Newton's. Workers hang around waiting to learn about rails.

Finish Magnetism, start on Metallurgy (4 turns at 80% science). Our Great Lighthouse stops working.

5) 1375AD Sistine Chapel built in Canterbury. Dover finishes aqueduct, starts colosseum.

AIs cascade to Bach's.

6) 1380AD Eire grows to size 6, and temporarily runs 2 tax collectors until it starves back down next turn. I don't think there's any point letting it grow until one of the Irish cities finishes a harbor.

Our caravel fleet is recalled to port to be upgraded to galleons.

Palace expands. London and Hastings love the Queen

8) 1390AD Ivory Coast gets courthouse, up to 5 shields/turn.

We research metallurgy, expand the palace, and get new designer clothes!

Frenchies start building Shakespeare's Theater.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

 

[Sirian]

Charis: Poor Phrasing? OK OK, much progress being made. Just need to improve that last little bit of "phrasing" soon.

Jaffa: We got Sistine? In-Cred-Uh-Bull. Truly. That thing's been being built by the French for the last 8 billion years, and we got it anyway? Nice work with the WLTQD, probably the best way to squeeze a little wine out of those size 6 grapes. Better cathedrals will surely help a lot in managing weariness. Good diplomacy deals, good work.

- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

Possibly they swapped their best cities to newer, "better" projects somewhere along the way, as more tech came online for them? I don't think that's common practice for them, but it's possible...

 

[Carbon_Copy]

I figured that we were a lock for whichever of Bach or Sistine that we chose (and If Sirian hadn't vetoed my building of both of them, we probably could have gotten them both, but at a cost to infrastructure). France HAD been building it forever, but in a mostly unimproved size 5 town still half-surrounded by jungle. Even their lowered building costs could not help them versus a large, properly developed city, even one with such a sad shield output as Coventry.

I think that the AI just assigns wonders to the next available city with a free spot in their build queue without regard for which city could actually build it the fastest (else it would have gone into Paris, most likely), and much like RBD 3 France having a huge (20+ turn) head start on Leonardo, I still maintain that any one of Chicago, Washington, or Boston could have beaten it to Leonardo cold from the end of my turn. I'll have to reload that game and investigate Rheims to see if I am right to say that, but I'm fairly confident.

Well, I guess the target wonder now is Universal Suffrage if we're going to eventually take over somebody (Babylon?). What tech does that come with, Industrialization? I'll figure it out when I get around to playing if someone doesn't chime in.

Another question I want to ask is how high of a priority we are going to place on Sanitation and Hospitals relative to something like Replacable Parts or Electricity or even Refining. I'm just not familiar enough with the Industrial Age to make this call.

 

[Sirian]

Sanitation is important for one main reason: you can't get Battlefield Medicine without five hospitals. London and our four core cities are targets for this. Maybe more as rails/factories come online and we see what develops in other cities.

For a conquest game, I'd suggest first to Industrialization, second to Rep Parts, third to Sanitation, with somewhere in there maybe (or maybe not) stopping to grab Nationalism. This brings rails online first, factories next (and those take a while to build), then hospitals, then police stations. Normall Electronics would be the next priority, but that's a wash here, we'll be building coal plants in our production cities, so it would probably be better to head for flight and mass production, delaying Theory of Evolution as long as we reasonably can (and hoping to get more out of it). The whole bottom of the tree, even including Scientific Method, plus all subsequent techs, are thus lower priority, because we have no use for hydro power or tanks, but a great interest in planes and stronger ships.

How long to wait before we start attacking, I'm not sure. If we can get to artillery/infantry before they get to Nationalism, we can use cash to upgrade some/all of our units and go right then, at least at Babylon. Infantry backed by some artillery will roll over muskets/pikes fairly well -- but improving our production is the first priority, and perhaps having to go secure some coal, our second. Resources are the wildcard here, and thus some of those vanity colonies may yet turn out to be Vital Strategic Centers.


- Sirian

 

[Carbon_Copy]

Someone else can have the crown this weekend. It has become painfully obvious to me that any time spent towards playing Civ3 will be time not spent on a project due Monday at midnight which I desperately need to complete.

So, as a general heads-up, consider me on auto-skip if my turn comes up in Infantry, RBD 3, or RBD 4 prior to Tuesday. I'll post to the same effect in those threads, too.

 

[Sirian]

OK, I got it.

Current roster order is:

Sirian
Charis
Jaffa
Carbon

With Zed "roaming" and able to post "got it" and jump in anywhere he's comfortable on weekends.

- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Inherited Turn: wow, didn't change a thing.

1410AD: Spotted cash burning holes in the pockets of every civ, brokered Democracy to those who didn't have it, got Economics and minor cash from India, got mojo gpt from China and Rome, chump change from Babs at last-civ cost. Sped research to get steam sooner.

1420AD: Saw Joanie had gotten Physics. She had cash. I offered her ToG, she said "Sure, take Free Artistry!" I said, "Uh, no thanks, how about all your treasury and 61gpt?" "You drive a hard bargain, but we'll take it." Research sped up again.

1425AD: India completes Bach.

1430AD: France completes Shakespeare from cascade. Those who don't have Economics (Rome, Babs, China) are shut out of the cascade, rest flop to Smith. We research Steam! THERE IS COAL IN IRELAND! Sirian spends 60 gold to shave 14 turns off of Dublin Harbor. Running science now at 90% and (despite 140+gpt income from brokering) a significant deficit.

1435AD: Coal comes online, rails started. No urgent need for military rails, so improve food in starving cities, shields everywhere else -- look to city benefit over connectivity, for the time being. (No rails through forests for a while).

1450AD: Science budget cut WAY way back... to 80%. Now running a minor surplus, and Industrialization still coming in three turns. After that, recommend increase back to 90% for electricity, MUST RACE AHEAD while this temp surplus is coming in, since we gave Joanie a whole tech to slow her down and speed us up.

The colonies can fend for themselves! I have started some workers in Falklands, which can be used to plant and chop down forests to speed production of that harbor. After that, build some walls? Or coastal forts/barracks. Can only harvest lumber once per tile, but you can plant new forests on grass/plains for the purpose of turning right around and harvesting it. This could work in Ireland, too.


The following cities are on FACTORY PLACEHOLDER:

London
York
Nottingham
Hastings
Canterbury
Coventry
Warwick
Oxford
Newcastle

The following cities are building something, NOT a placeholder:

Reading - Cathedral
Liverpool - Market
Birmingham - Temple
Norwich - Granary

All island colonies: fending for themselves. Some are on WLTQD to decrease corruption. None merit a factory, IMO.


Charis, you're up, but Zed you can jump in here if you have time, just post notice. Whoever says "got it" first, has it.

Defending our coal source a little better would be a good idea, maybe send our Men-O-War over there. We're not exactly gushing spare units to send, but maybe something can be arranged once the factories are rolling.


- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

Ok, I'm going to try to get a turn in, since I know Charis is not playing this weekend from his posts in RBD5, and he still has a turn to go in that game before he gets here. I *may* not have time to finish it before Charis is ready; if so I'll post as much and Charis can take over.

 

[Zed-F]

Not much happened..

- We built a couple Factories and are working on more. London has completed both a Factory and a Coal Plant, and is now pumping out 75+ shields per turn. It's just started Smith's and will be done in 8 turns if left alone. When we get around to getting hospitals it will need a granary (1 turn) and maybe after the Hospital, a Harbour.

- One of our cities in the SW was going to take over 200 turns to build a factory at 1 shield per turn. About the only thing that city can do right now until we get rails down there is grow, so I vetoed that and built a Settler to found the half-city of Dry Gulch in the middle of the desert. A couple of our cities in the South could still use marketplaces for happiness.

- We researched Industrialization and Electronics, and have just started Replaceable Parts -- we could swap to something else if necessary. France, China, and India have all just reached the Industrial age. Fortunately none of them gets a free tech so we should be able to keep expanding our tech lead on them if we keep up our rapid research rate.

- Our rails in the northern grasslands are all complete. Our cities in the south are starved for shields, however; we need to get some rails down there and build some mines instead of all that irrigation.

 

[Charis]

There must have been some odd mistake in the ballot counting, for the
election of Colonel Charisinfantry made no sense to the analysts. This
was a time of building. He was happy to see railroads and the means to
move troops quickly, but it pained him that there was no one to conquer
on his continent. Factories are good things, he reminded himself...

1500 AD (0) - The one thing he notes is that we need railroads in a HUGE
way in the south to get shield production better than "miniscule." (We
could use a few more workers as well, which can poof after hospitals)

Madras finishes Smiths. (BAH!!!!) Darn, poor way to end 'just started it
and will be done in 8 turns'. London switches to Universal Suffrage, due in
10. That will likely be better for us anyway.

1510 AD (2) - York's Factory is done. Goes on Palace-wonder placeholder.
(Thinking ToE or Hoover)

1520 AD (4) - I note still no forbidden palace. Brighton overs one in 50 turns
but Ireland is probably best spot, (Belfast after Courthouse) or Falklands.
Ivory Coast also works. A look at the other civs shows we alone have Steam
(and what comes after it). No one has a tech we don't except the scientific
Babs with Nationalism.

1530 AD (6) - The chinese want to renegotiate their expiring wine and RoP
deal. Hmmm... can't make it acceptable? Oh? They lost their wines?
We sell them incense then for their treasury (150 gold) and 3 gpt.
The loss would make 3 of our top cities sad, so it's either 50 gpt for
10% lux or food shortage/slowed factories. We'll go short briefly.

1540 AD (8) - Replaceable Parts done, chose Medicine (both for city size
and to head to ToE and Hoover -- are we trying for Hoover?)

1550 AD (10) - Babylon and Rome sign an MPP (Poor choice for Rome)
Belfast finishes a courthouse. Now pushing 6 shields/turn the FP is
suggested. But at size 6 with lots of food, an aqueduct first seems best.

With a full ten cities now feeling sad or on entertainers, must push
lux up. That puts us from just surplus to a small (-38) deficit.
Treasury is comfty, over 1200.

The barracks in Dublin seemed odd, but we'll need one on that island
to do upgrades (even if no production needed). Besides, people who we've
fought with signing MPP makes me nervous We can now make Infantry,
so nationalism is useless unless resource dries up. (Well, we'll get it via
ToE if we don't buy it.) None were upgraded, but our next leader will want to
upgrade at least a few. Suffage will complete this turn. As far as ToE, we
could research Sanitation then start ToE. Buy Nationalism and research
Communism. Finish it just before ToE fires, then start Espionage. We would
get thus get Corporation and Atomic Power from the wonder. (Depending on
whether you want Hoover and how long to research that tech, York could
optionally finish the wonder instead of London.

* EDIT * Zed, our Rubber is in Reading on our continent,
Falkland East and Leeds on our islands. India has rubber near china at Hangchow (china has none) and at Lahore, French have it at Tours, Romans have none (but extra saltpeter), and Bablyon has... none! And on the river for Hoovers, ack! Forgot it needs a river - we have none, just 'fresh water lake'. That's going to mean ToE with York's placeholder.

Good luck,
Charis

 

[Zed-F]

About Hoover -- it doesn't help us, we don't have a river on our main continent or near any of our other cities. We'd have to go to war to secure a likely spot.

FP in Ireland is marginal as well, but we really don't have anywhere good to put it. I'm not fond of the idea of putting it on an island with 3 or fewer cities on it since IIRC corruption is greatly worsened by crossing water. (If not, someone correct me -- in that instance Ireland is sufficiently close to Babylon that it might be worthwhile to build it there.) We could build it in Ivory Coast in anticipation of future conquests there, but that could be risky -- at least Ireland we can defend by sea. Our other option is to save it for when we take over France.

EDIT: AFAIK Rubber does not dry up. Where is ours?

 

[Sirian]

Solid turn. One wonders why the Colonel plans a huge dam project when we have no major rivers anywhere on our continent, but at least he didn't rush libraries in all our colonies.

Let's not bend our whole civ around min/maxing the benefits of Theory of Evolution. If York doesn't have a coal plant yet, it ought to get one, and the wonder can wait. Now that we have Rep Parts, the only things left for us to pursue are: planes, better ships, marines, the draft. A few carriers full of bombers would be quite nice, but we ought not to wait around for that.

It's time to get factories and coal plants online and start cranking the infantry and artillery and ironclads. The only worthy spot for a forbidden palace would be in Occupied Babylon after it's been taken over, and only after we have an army in the field. Nowhere is the army more useful than when eschewing blitz units. A triple stack of infantry does quite well assaulting cities. In fact, other than using one to rush an FP, any leaders we get SHOULD be dedicated forthwith to founding an army. We're going to want the military academy in London, probably, where it can crank out new armies fairly quickly.

- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

I think Charis was thinking of letting Belfast build the FP straight up with no great leader, as with a courthouse it's pumping out a non-trivial number of shields. IF its effects would extend sufficiently into Babylon it might be worthwhile since it would probably be done prior to any time we could get it done in Babylon proper. But, that's a big if.

 

[Sirian]

In a conquest scenerio, we ought to get some leaders out of the wars. There's no place large enough to justify an FP except the middle of Babylon, to affect the whole island. France's continent would be good too, but that would take too long. We're on the doorstep of beginning our offensive action. This thing should not last into the modern age, of if so, not far into it. The only thing going to help France and the others is their distance from our production center. Going to take a lot of galleons. But then, we have a goodly number already. Just need to get about sixteen units together, and start rolling over Babylon.

- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

Counting the dots on a minimap pic earlier in the thread, it looks like the Babs only have 6-7 cities on their island -- not that much at all. In contrast, we have at least a dozen on our island, even if a couple are small. Our odds of getting more than one GL out of Babylon are remote, considering we're not a militaristic civ, unless we milk them heavily (which seems unlikely because of war weariness) -- after all we only got one out of India in RBD5 and there was a lot more fight there than I'd expect out of the Babs. We've already indicated the first GL will go to an army so I don't think it's likely we'll be getting an FP on Babylonian soil unless we build it directly. After all, if we only get our second leader after the Bab war is already over (as seems likely) and assuming we haven't already built our FP, then we will probably be fighting on the main continent and would benefit from a FP on that larger landmass more than we would from one in Babylonia.

It seems to me that there are 3 likely possibilites:
1) we slow-build an FP in Belfast. We get an earlier start but may lose some effectiveness due to distance and water separation from Babylon.
2) we slow-build an FP in Babylonia and try to squeeze in a couple more cities onto that landmass to maximize our benefit. Downside is we start on the FP later.
3) we rush-build an FP on the main continent.

It is possible, if unlikely, that we could get a second GL in Babylonia. If so, all bets are off. We would probably want to rush an FP there ASAP in that instance. Another thing we could do if we don't get a 2nd GL in Babylon but do get one elsewhere before we finish our FP is ship him back to Babylon to rush it -- this would give us a smaller benefit in terms of number of cities influenced but it would be relatively safer from enemy action. This doesn't necessarily strike me as the best option, however.

My guess is we'll wind up doing (2), but we don't have to make a decision now. We can continue prebuilding an FP in Belfast and see where the chips fall -- after all it's not like we're doing anything else important with Belfast right now. If we wind up building an FP elsewhere, we can swap it to a wonder (great or small) or another building (or even a ship!) if necessary.

EDIT: Note: once we capture Babylonia, Belfast and the rest of the Irish cities could very possibly relapse into 1/1-ness even with a courthouse. This would make finishing an FP there problematic if it's not already mostly done.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Already got RBD5 and RBD4 to play today, so this will likely wait for tomorrow.

 

[Charis]

Would it make any sense to make the FP in our main continent, then later move the palace when we've conquered a large area on another continent?

Charis