Space 5 - Old hands can be newbs too, getting back in the game

[leif erikson]

OK, Got it and will try to post a plan this evening.

May have to think about taking Sparta and having 10-turns of peace to recop as we are building a lot of buildings but will need units to attack Athens.

Military Advisers report weak armies for both France and Russia, so that is good news.

Wish we could speed up Astro some.

 

[mad-bax]

Hi all. I've had a look at the save. I think you did a great job Alan. I was quite worried about attacking Sparta as I felt we were running out of steam a bit, and I left you a lot of nearly dead units. It looks like Sparta will fall the next turn or maybe the one after. There is an archer that can get to withing firing range before "next turn" is hit.

Napoleon has wine and may trade it - but we don't have anything at the moment, though I expect we will get gold when Sparta falls.

Good luck Leif. Hope you've given some thought to Sparta's new name....

 

[leif erikson]

Plan?
Continue war with Greece, take Sparta, not sure Athens has much we need.
Just noticed we have Universities to build.
Ted's Keep needs hammers, so might have to purchase some hills and get another Worker there. Also, more tiles in our core need to be improved, although happiness is the issue.

Strategically, I guess the question is do we use our time to wipe out Greece or, once we take Sparta, do we look to the east and seize Moscow and St. Pete's for Silver and Silk? Or we can look south and take some of Nappy's cities (Orleans and Paris, maybe raze Troyes) in order to gain Wine and Spices?
If they won't trade, it may be time to take what we need, since our advisers say they have little or no military.

City builds need to continue, although I feel like we are half-stepping war and trying to keep up our building towards Science.

 

[ainwood]

I'm back!

Guess I didn't need a skip after all!

 

[AlanH]

@ainwood: my delaying tactics worked

@M-B: Yes. We could move the garrisoned archer from Ainwood's Tor towards Sparta (but is an archer's range 2 within the great wall?)

 

[ainwood]

Range does not suffer with the great wall, only movement.

@Leif: In answer to your questions, I normally make neutral decisions on vindictiveness. However, I like the idea of gaining two luxuries (Cathy, Nappy) more than one (Alex). I'd probably be keen on knocking over Nappy. I would like to capture a capital or two though. I propose taking sparta (gold, removing Alex's Iron) suing for peace, regrouping (building universities and researching towards astronomy) then taking Nappy next.

Please note that I haven't examined the save though...

 

[leif erikson]

@Leif: In answer to your questions, I normally make neutral decisions on vindictiveness. However, I like the idea of gaining two luxuries (Cathy, Nappy) more than one (Alex). I'd probably be keen on knocking over Nappy. I would like to capture a capital or two though. I propose taking sparta (gold, removing Alex's Iron) suing for peace, regrouping (building universities and researching towards astronomy) then taking Nappy next.

My only concern with this is giving time to Nappy and Cathy to recover by building units to oppose us. Their unit count is low now as they just completed a war with each other, I think. Marching over to Cathy's capital shouldn't take too long from Sparta and then we could move south to Nappy?

edit - nice to see you back. Hope you had a great vacation.

 

[mad-bax]

In a game I played recently, I knocked over a pop 10 city and razed it. My happiness went from 9 to -17. Currently we are at -1 I think. With our captured cities puppeted we cannot dictate courthouse builds. The 4 happy faces we get from Spartas gold are not going to save us. No new luxes from Athens, plus we need to stay at war with Alex and wipe him out. This kills our rep. In BNW (which is all I've played Solo) my experience is that lux trades triple in value if you kill a Civ. In other words we have to pay 3 luxes to get one back. Not sure if it's the same in vanilla.

The point I'm making is that we are going to kill Sparta and by doing so we will pretty much put an end to our warmongering. We can't finish Alex as the unhappiness will stall us. We wouldn't be able to trade for luxes until we met the off continent civs.

How many cities do we want? Just taking them out because we can is not a good enough reason. We have to pick the one or two further cities really carefully. I think we should stop the current war.

 

[AlanH]

For information:

The Mac Steam version has now been updated to full compatibility with Windows version 1.0.3.18.

So I can now load up the last save I posted (played in Windows) in a Mac-native Civ5 build. The Mac AppStore version has not yet been upgraded, but that can't be far behind, I guess.

 

[leif erikson]

Sorry for the delay, played this evening.

Pre-flight
Turn 130 - Moved Archer out of ainwood's Tor to provide support for attacking Sparta.

IBT
Greece moves Worker, looks like a sacrifice to get our Archer.

Turn 131 -
Take bait and capture Greek Worker with Archer.
Promote Cat to Siege and bombard Sparta.
Move units, forgot what a pita Great Wall is.

IBT
We lose a Cat to Greek Companion Cavalry.
Cape Town declares war as an ally to Greece.

Turn 132 -
We take Sparta, gain 121 Gold and create a puppet, Alan's Apple.
Alex must think he has us as we can only sign a straight up peace, so agree.
Make peace with Cape Town and Genoa.

IBT


Turn 133 -
Heal and redeploy units.
Find two French Settlers with escorts east of Ted' Keep.
Set up a block to prevent them from going west.

IBT
France allies with Monaco.

Turn 134 -
Find Greece has built a new Sparta west of Alan's Apple on the coast.

IBT
Alex denounces us.

Turn 135 -
Redeploy army.

IBT
ainwood's Tor completes Circus, we are now at +1 happiness.

Turn 136 -
We have to select a Social Policy. After much consideration, select Citizenship because it opens up Meritocracy and Citizenship, both of which we need.

IBT


Turn 137 -
See a lot of unit movement from Greece, looks like he is setting up to attack.
Start Pike north and hold Army on road between Ted's Keep and ainwood's Tor while we decide what to do.

IBT


Turn 138 -
Keep Workers at it.

IBT


Turn 139 -


IBT


Turn 140 -
Move a Worker and leave everything else for discussion and next player actions.

Recommendations:
Really looks like Alex wants his revenge, so need to keep and, perhaps, move some units north. He has to maintain Peace Deal until Turn 242.

Was moving Army east of Ted's Keep to prepare to attack Nappy, city has 2 lux.

Please remember that Alex is allied with both Cape Town and Genoa, so if he declares, they join him in attacking us. Cape Town is the worry as it is near Ted's Keep.

Sorry, forgot the screenie.

 

[a space oddity]

Sorry to have been a bit silent the last week. we were visiting Rome and the hotel promised have free wifi but I still couldn't connect. Anyway, you seem to have done well without me. I will look at the save later, I agree on peace with Alex, although he doesn't. Such a slow learner.

Roster:
a space oddity
mad-bax
TedJackson
AlanH
leif erikson
ainwood <-- UP

 

[ainwood]

So... Any input?

 

[mad-bax]

Sorry I've been MIA. Work

I think we need to sort out our happiness issues and then take Paris.
I think we should research to Physics (I'm not sure how far off that is) and get Notre Dame.
We also need porcelain tower for when we eventually cross the sea and start research agreements.

I haven't had time to look at the save I'm afraid. But maybe tomorrow.

 

[AlanH]

Well done leif. for Alan's Apple

Are we making the most of the City States? There are a couple with luxuries we don't have - dyes, silk, sugar, incense. Could we buy their friendship to get access and make some smiley faces? How much does that cost, and how often?

 

[mad-bax]

Whoops.

I've just loaded the save and seen what rubbish I've been writing. The tech tree is completely different in this version to BNW.

Porcelain tower and Notre Dame are both available with education (i.e. now. We can't build them both and so I think we should try for the PT since it gives a longer term benefit.

Taking Troyes or Orleans will only yield one lux (wine) probably. I'm not sure that the spices will fall to Troyes when captured.

Maybe we should go for Troyes first and see if we get both luxes and then on to Paris if not.

As far as techs are concerned, we should probably go for engineering an machinery (I am a fan of crossbows), and leave the higher priced techs for later. We can use the scientist from the porcelain tower to get acoustics maybe.

I understand Leifs comments now about the differences. BNW is almost a different game.

 

[leif erikson]

Before we get too hung up in going after Nappy, thinking we better keep an eye on Alex because I think he is going to be hungry to retake his Alan's Apple. Think we have enough units to repel him, but not enough to take on Nappy as well.

With Education, think we need to get Science rate up. To do this, we need Universities and we desperately need to find the other civs. Porcelain Tower requires Research Agreements and we cannot take advantage of this until we meet others. Seems to me that self-research rate is more important atm? Do not have the game open, but doesn't rationalism civics provide boosts in tech research and research agreements? PT would be nice, but not sure we are in a good position to use hammers for that atm?

Think in our current situation, XBows would be a good addition. Could also look for Trebs for Monty and to finish Alex.

edit - Agree MB, BNW is a whole new game. I cannot keep things apart.

 

[mad-bax]

I think ainwood is up.....

 

[AlanH]

Does capturing Troyes or Paris do much for us re. happy faces? We seem to lose more by capturing cities than we gain from the luxes? Any thoughts on buying city states for their luxes? I think 200 gold buys 30 points. How long will they last, and is 30 points enough to get us the lux?

 

[Optional]

lurker's comment: When I restored Babylon into my game I was able to upload your saves again. I didn't think you were playing with Babylon? Maybe you are.

I would find Horseback Riding an interesting tech for you as well, since it would enable stables in Ted's Keep. The town has 3 stable resources in its borders (one is currently worked by Mad Bax) so the town's production could go from 7 > 10 hammers. I would even consider buying a stables for that.

It's always difficult to choose between the peaceful route and war, in this game as well. The peace option certainly gives many build opportunities. Porcelain Tower, Notre Dame, universities and Oxford are all good things to have in a science game.
Oxford requires a university in all your 3 self-managed towns. Once completed it gives a free tech and 3 science per turn in the town it's built. Some planning is always needed for Oxford.
If you go to war you'll miss out on a lot of good things for the time being. I would have gone for Athens and then gone for peaceful building. It's true you already had gold (Athens' lux), but you can trade spare luxes for ones you don't yet have. If you declare another time now you're not helping your trade position. CS's also offer opportunities to become happier.
And I would work more production tiles instead of foody tiles in this situation. Space Station is making +14 food, but ignoring some very nice production tiles, like that mined iron on a hill with its 4 hammers per turn. Food is great, but in this game it's over-emphasized, you're easily dropping into unhappiness.

To build a caravel at the moment you've researched Navigation (7 turns away) will also very be interesting, to meet the others. Or maybe they'll meet you, since the demographics are telling you there are 3 civs more advanced then you on this map.

 

[leif erikson]

Does capturing Troyes or Paris do much for us re. happy faces? We seem to lose more by capturing cities than we gain from the luxes? Any thoughts on buying city states for their luxes? I think 200 gold buys 30 points. How long will they last, and is 30 points enough to get us the lux?

Do not have the save open in front of me but iirc, Troyes has 2 lux that we need for a minimal pop gain. That would be a good thing.

wrt City States - the gold gifts wear off at 1 point per turn unless we take some Social Policies in Patronage. Think City-State friends requires 30 while alliance requires 60 points. Gifting 250 Gold gets us 30 points which a turn later brings us below the friend threshold.

What we need is to find the other civs, or have them find us, and trade.

@Optional - taking Athens, imnsho, would have been like grabbing an anchor when you are drowning because of its population. While we would have gained an extra gold, do not know where it could have been traded for other lux. Delaying its capture seemed like the best thing for us atm.

We will soon get our chance if I read Alex correctly, think he will come back after us as soon as he can. We probably need to consider getting XBows after we can sail Caravels.