STR-02 English Astronomers

[Kanga_DU]

Why didn't you trade Theology for Monarchy and another tech? When I checked Gandhi was willing to trade it. Hereditary Rule could greatly help us with growing our cities. Trading Drama somewhere will also help of course.

Mostly because I wasn't willing to trade techs with Gandhi with his tech lead. I did miss that it was tradable with JC, though I only met him at the end of my turns. I'm not sure I would of traded paper to Gandhi, I did have at the back of my mind that we might of had a shot at liberalism. My bad for not saying so though.

 

[FoolontheHill]

But we should still not leave our military like this for too long!

Agree. It buys us a little time, but astronomy will come fairly quickly. We may be able to spread the military builds out a little, though.

EDIT: Oops, so much for this theory since the borders expanded and he planted a city on us. Actually, that may not be that bad. It will likely flip and I thought that wasn't a horrible spot for a fishing village.

 

[FoolontheHill]

Roster:
4) Foolonthehill --> UP! to capture Libyan (I sent a catapult and a Swordsman there)

See it, got it. Should be able to play tomorrow.

 

[FoolontheHill]

Took a quick look at the save. Do we want to use the GE on the Hanging Gardens?

 

[Strauss]

don't forget to use the Engineer to rush the Hanging Gardens!

Am I being too subtle ?

 

[FoolontheHill]

Am I being too subtle ?

Sorry, apparently I have a reading disorder.

Playing tonight....

 

[FoolontheHill]

Just to show that I can take a subtle hint....

Turn 1 (1226AD) - Mansa offers calendar for paper, I decline (we can research calendar in about 3 turns). Canterbury builds lighthouse, start harbor.

Turn 2 (1232AD) - Lighthouse in London, start catapult.
The above lovely completes (HG).

Turn 3 (1238AD) - Christian missionary completes, start Maceman.

Turn 4 (1244AD) - Mace in York, start market.

Turn 6 (1256AD) - Togu converts to Confucianism!!

Lost one axe attacking Libyan (I've bring bringing down the defense through the last few turns with the catapult).

Turn 7 (1262) - Traded maps with Gandhi. Mansa asks for feudalism and I decline. Buys us a -1 penalty, but he is still only cautious. I'm not too worried as he is pretty far away.

Mace in Nottingham, start harbor.

Turn 8 (1268) -

Turn 10 (1280) - Guilds completes, start calendar. I've been using binary research to get a good idea of where we need markets, libraries, etc. so the first turn of the next set will need to be at 100% wealth to build up some cash. After that, calendar will complete in 3 turns.

Canterbury finishes harbor, start theatre to put more cultural pressure on the Japanese city.

Thoughts - We can reach both of the new barbarian islands that have cities with galleys by island hopping. I have a Mace and catapult on one galley heading that way. It might be worth leaving wealth at 10% for two turns, upgrading one of our CR2 swords to maces and sending it and a catapult from libyan to the next barb city. With a little luck, we can take cities on both of those islands before the AI will get to them (as they will require astronomy to reach them). This would argue for building at least one more galley and mace/catapult combo.

I tried to balance some infrastructure and military builds in this set. The one thing I probably should have done was trade more. Guilds is a monopoly tech and we could use it to pick up several techs. Since we are probably quite a while away from a war (particularly since we now have brothers in the faith plusses with Toku), we can probably risk trading it if the group wishes.

I was able to scout Mansa's island...

And here is a quick shot of our part of the world...

Save is attached.

 

[Strauss]

Roster:
1) Bede --> on indefinite auto-skip
2) Kanga_DU --> UP!
3) Strauss --> converted Rome
4) Foolonthehill --> captured Libyan

Just to show that I can take a subtle hint....

After me repeating it 5 times, yes

 

[Kanga_DU]

Got it, should get to play it tomorrow.

 

[FoolontheHill]

After me repeating it 5 times, yes

But you were so subtle about it.....

 

[Kanga_DU]

Played now:

Quickish write up as I need ZzzZZzz.

IT Looking ok.

T1 Oh oh! (Like the teaser?)

Not a lot else of interest happened. Whipped at Hastings and York during turns. Made no trades, nothing really worth breaking our monopoly on guilds yet. Nothing much of value to be had for paper either. There's a footnote about our trading to be made...

Noticed that Astronomy was set as next to research. Not having a better suggestion I left as it. Still a way to go there.

I'll post a few screenies and let you in on the secret tomorrow.

 

[Kanga_DU]

Well the best screenie didn't take... however the news is Toggy declared war.

Our standing early on:


That ties into the trading comment in a way. Toggy, JC and us are pals. However all our good trading is with Hatty atm. Guess who Toggy declared on then?

I had just checked our resource trading on the inherited turn, noticing most of our happy is from Hatty and Toggy goes and declares. Ok then. I knew what would be coming but I'm hoping we can snag some happy resources asap. The barb city to the NW looks promising and is only garrisonned with archers. There also one due south if it we should snag as well.

Right on time (to be incredibly difficult):


I spent a while deciding here. Pally up to Togs and loose 3 or 4 happy? Take the relations hit? Whats the worst it could be? In the end I went for protecting the economy over Toggy. We have to beat him at some point don't we? Hopefully he won't drag us into this conflict just yet.



In the end I didn't build as many troops as I'd like, but we should get monastaries in the science cities asap for the research boost.

View attachment 134785

 

[Strauss]

Ok I played it, but I have to leave now so I will report tomorrow.

 

[Strauss]

Due to the shortage of manpower, it's 15 turns per turnset from now on.

Turn 1 (1346 AD): Maceman attacks Visigoth at 93% odds and loses.

IBT our catapult fends off 2 barb archers.

Turn 2 (1352 AD): Tokugawa asks us for help against Egypt. Like we'd give up all those happiness resources just to make you happy!

Turn 3 (1358 AD): Swordsman captures Visigoth.

Turn 4 (1364 AD): Trade Paper and WM to Hatty for Music, WM and 20 gold. Music will allow us Cathedrals/Confucian Academies, which give +2 happiness to its cities.

Turn 7 (1382 AD): Gandhi discovers Liberalism.

Turn 8 (1388 AD): Toku and Hatty make up again.

Turn 10 (1406 AD): Mansa demands Paper, I refuse.
I put Hastings to avoid growth. It's still 2 sizes under its happiness limit, but this is because of the Macemen stationed there. Please take garrisons into consideration for happiness, we don't want unhappy citizens when we set out to war.

Turn 13 (1424 AD): We reach a population of 5 million.

Turn 15 (1436 AD): Trade Corn to Mansa for Spices. This means I put Hastings off avoid growth, however when it grows next turn put it back on.
We also discover Astronomy and enter the Renaissance. Research is set on Engineering. I trade Paper to Julius for 310 gold (EDIT: which I did after taking the screenshot below), allowing us to keep researching at 90%.

I also have left some units running about our island. They are moving to Canterbury to build up for our invasion forces.

 

[Strauss]

I think this is a good time to lay out a plan for the continuation of the game. With Astronomy in, we can start aiming for domination.

We now have approx. 11% of the land. I think that we need to settle/conquer 5 islands beside our home island. We will probably be able to obtain northern island for ourselves if we build at least 2 more settlers after the one being built in London atm. Visigoth island will be difficult to settle while keeping up military production. We should probably leave this island for last.
To the west of Nottingham is another island with a barbarian city. It is already quite developed, so I suggest building a catapult after the Galleon finishes, and then transport 2 Macemen and the Catapult to the western island.

When we go to war, Japan and Egypt seem the logical first targets. Tokugawa is very close to us, we can land our forces in Japan in just 2 turns from Canterbury. We should also send a Maceman or two to Izuma to capture it and have it serve as a forward port for reinforcements. Additionaly, Toku's closest cities are Confucian, giving us intel on its garrisons. The cities seem to be quite lightly defended.

Egypt will be a tougher target logistically. From Canterbury it can be reached in 2 turns but then reinforcements will take 4 turns to arrive. However, if we conquer Japan, we can send our veteran troops from there and attack Egypt on two fronts. Reinforcing will also be easier from Japan when its cities are no longer in revolt. Furthermore, Egypt is weak and won't be able to stand up to our experienced troops.

After that, we'll have to see who's the next target. At the moment I would suggest Gandhi as he is quite weak and close to Egypt, but since he is so advanced he may possess a big modern army by the time we get to him, as Kanga may remember.

 

[FoolontheHill]

Got it.

Logistically, I'd have to agree that Japan makes the most sense next. Easy jump to his island and then just roll on. We can even island hop if we choose. Take Japan first, then use that island as a base to jump to Egypt.

Personally, I'd like to get the last barb city out of the way first to get a foothold on that island before we move on Toku. So, I see my set as more building and prep of the invasion fleet and force while going after the barb island.

I'll probably play tomorrow.

 

[Strauss]

Personally, I'd like to get the last barb city out of the way first to get a foothold on that island before we move on Toku. So, I see my set as more building and prep of the invasion fleet and force while going after the barb island.

That was my suggestion as well

 

[FoolontheHill]

1436AD - 1520AD (I played 14 turns to get us to an even number).

Summary

Sorry, but only one screenie in this report as I've been pressed for time all weekend.

The barb city was tougher than I thought. It had 4 longbowman so I didn't bring enough friends to the party. As you will see, not my best warmongering on display in this set.

Toku is also going to be tough. He is the leader in power and has knights, longbowman and crossbowman. I'm building a stack in a jumping off point and have a fleet of three galleons and a caravel ready to ferry units, but I think our attack stack is going to have to be bigger. We have gunpowder in about 3 turns, that may be the edge we need. Also, we have an engineer and prophet stashed away and popping them for a golden age right when gunpowder finishes would let us have a good chance to pump out a bunch of muskets to go after Toku.

Turn 1 - Galleon finishes, start several catapults.

Turn 2 - Mansa offers divine right for astronomy. I decline as we still seem to have a monopoly (or close to it) on it.

Turn 3 - National Epic in York, start galleon. Forge in Hastings, start library.

Turn 4 - Hatty demands we cancel deals with Toku. I decline as we aren't ready to take him on and I'd rather he not go to annoyed yet. We drop from Pleased to Cautious with Hatty.

Turn 5 - We get a report that Toku is the most powerful nation.

Turn 6 - Engineering completes, start gunpowder (headed for chemistry eventually, subject to veto). London completes settler, start knight. GE born in Nottingham.

Turn 7 - Forge in Canterbury, start pikeman as I notice that Toku has knights and horse archers.

Turn 8 - Julius offers philosopy for astronomy. I decline. Here was my big of the set. I missed a barb horse archer sneaking up on Libyan, he killed the worker we had there.

Turn 9 - Barb HA dies attacking Libyan. Whew...
Since a couple of folks have astronomy now, I decide to trade it off for what we can get. I wrangle Philosophy, Banking, and 640 gold.

Turn 10 - Popped another prophet so I decide to go ahead and build the Church of the Nativity for the quick 5 gpt.

Turn 11 - Galleon in York, start Bank.

I also went ahead and founded another city near Libyan, hopefully everyone will be okay with the placement. I tried to set it to maximize land tiles and grab resources.

Turn 12 - Knight in London, start another. Started the attack on Jute (barb city). Lost one cat and one mace. One defender left at half strength.

Turn 13 - Jute pops another longbowman. Suicide a cat hoping it will take strenght down enough for our weakened maces to finish it off. It doesn't.

So, I have a galleon loaded with a knight, mace and cat headed to Jute to reinforce the attack. Next player can cancel that if our plans change.

Turn 14 - Hastings completes library, start courthouse.

Save is attached.

 

[FoolontheHill]

Forgot to mention that I have a caravel off of Tokyo to monitor Toku's forces. That is where one of his big stacks is. He has four or five caravels, like number of galleys, knights, longbowmen, etc. and those dreaded ... dots at the bottom.

 

[Kanga_DU]

Got it - play tomorrow.