Team Farthings

[Grover22]

Napolean needs Nationalism before he can get Constitution, so give that to him this turn, and Constitution next.

I did not do this.

Yes we want Communism next, although we can burn the three Scientists sleeping in Persepolis on Physics and be one turn away from finishing it. Might as well do that now. It will let us start building airships.

We got Communism. I believe we are 1 turn from physics in the save I uploaded.

1) Coastal cities build galleons.

I built one galleon. We had another. It's a start.

1) We can pick up quite a bit of gold per turn from selling resources to Mansa, Mao, Napolean, and Wang. It's ok to trade with Wang because he is not the worst enemy of Napolean or Mao (yet).

I made a couple trades for 8gpt on my first turn.

 

[ShannonCT]

Hmmm... This is getting pretty messy. Napolean and Mansa have met and they are worst enemies. A recent trade we've made with Mansa has given us a -4 with Napolean (voting for him in the AP vote partially makes up for this). And Napolean is the worst enemy of Mansa, so we can't give him Nationalism and Constitution without taking a -4 with Mansa. And with Mansa in Free Religion now, we can't afford a -4, unless we can bribe him back into Buddhism (which means bribing him into whatever religious civic we're in). We really needed to make those trades in 1190AD before Mansa and Napolean had met. I guess our best shot now is to go ahead and make the trade with Napolean and count on being able to get Mansa back into Buddhism before the voting. While we're at it, we might as well give Mao and Napolean Liberalism and see if they'll switch to Free Religion.

For those Great Spies, I think burn one now to extend the golden age, and burn another for another golden age later.

Watermills and workshops are getting strong now. Persepolis can be converted into a strong production city after getting one more Scientist.

 

[Grover22]

Maybe trading is better than giving, since we already have the trading unhappiness. We just need to find something Nap, however valueless, in order to trade. Same for Mao?

 

[ShannonCT]

Maybe trading is better than giving, since we already have the trading unhappiness. We just need to find something Nap, however valueless, in order to trade. Same for Mao?

I'll see if they have some cash available soon. Don't want to wait much longer though because the civics diplo bonus takes time to accumulate. And as far as I can tell, trading and gifting are the same diplomatically.

 

[ShannonCT]

Turn 186 - 189 (1260AD - 1390AD)

T186 (1260AD) - I use a Great Spy to extend our golden age from 2 turns to 10.
I start units in a few cities that don't need markets and grocers.
I sell Nationalism to Mansa for 50 gold, hoping he'll sell it to Napolean.
I sell Philosophy, Education, and Optics to Mao for 70 gold. These are all prereqs to Communism. Trade gold resource to Mao for 3 gold per turn.
I turn all EPs onto Wang so we can see his power graphs soon.

T187 (1270AD) - Physics -> Military Tradition.
Free Scientist from Physics. I burn 3 Scientists on Electricity. We'll need one more.
London grocer -> Heroic Epic
Cimmerian Temple -> galleon
Trade Astro, Printing, and Liberalism to Mao for 40 gold.

T188 (1280AD) - Nottingham treb -> treb
Hastings galleon -> galleon
Trade Scientific Method to Mao for 30 gold.
A random event gives us the option to take some free beakers for Military Tradition or pay 266 gold for +1 relations with everyone. I choose the latter of course.

T189 (1290AD) - Coventry galleon -> resume grocer
Give Communism to Mao for free. He won't switch to State Property at our request because "he does like us enough."

T190 (1300AD) - Military Tradition -> Economics
Napolean declares war on Joao.
London Heroic Epic -> stables
Nottingham treb -> treb
Hastings galleon -> galleon
Persepolis forge -> market

T191 (1310AD) - London stable -> knight
Phoenecian courthouse -> airship
Scientist born in Persepolis, so we bulb:

Our windmills and watermills get a commerce boost.

T192 (1320AD) - Economics -> Gunpowder
We get the free Merchant from Economics, so I extend the golden age yet again.
London knight -> knight (these will upgrade to Cuirassiers after Gunpowder)
York forge -> treb
Nottingham treb -> treb
Cimmerian galleon -> airship

T193 (1330AD) - Joao asks us to cancel our deals with Napolean. No thanks.
An AP resolution comes up to stop Joao's wa against Mao. I vote no, hoping Mao or Napolean will demand that we join. Why do we even get a vote if the AP is Hindu? Ah, I see. Phoenecian has Hinduism. Interesting.
Hastings galleon -> airship
London knight -> knight
Canturbury market -> airship
Coventry grocer -> galleon
Warwick market -> airship

T194 (1340AD) - Joao demands 670 gold. No again!
Gunpowder -> Replaceable Parts
London Cuir -> Cuir
Upgrade a couple knights and a chariot.
Nottingham treb -> treb
Persepolis market -> airship
The AP resolution succeeds, so Joao makes peace with Mao.
Trade Mao our fur for his gems.

T195 (1350AD) - York treb -> stable
Hastings airship -> airship
Phoenecian airship -> airship
London Cuir -> Cuir

T196 (1360AD) - London Cuir -> Cuir
York stable -> Cuir
Nottingham treb -> treb
Persepolis airship -> airship
Canturbury airship -> airship
Coventry galleon -> galleon
I see that we can bribe Mansa into Pacifism and Buddhism, so I go ahead and do it for Scientific Method. We're back to Friendly with Mansa.
I go ahead and trade Nationalism to Napolean now that we can afford the diplo hit with Mansa. We get -2 for trading with Mansa's worst enemy.

T197 (1370AD) - Replaceable Parts -> Chemistry. Our watermills get +1 hammer.
London Cuir -> Cuir
Hastings airship -> caravel
Persepolis airship -> barracks
Cimmerian airship -> caravel
By now, I have rebased a half dozen airships to the other continent, and I do a recon of Wang's territory. After uncovering almost all of his tiles, we can see:

Most cities have 3-4 units each. His forces are spread out. He doesn't have any big stack in reserve.

T198 (1380AD) -

Mao asks us to convert to Hinduism. I grudgingly accept. We get +1 for "accepting state religion" instead of a -1 for refusing. We've still got 6 turns on the golden age so we an switch back to Buddhism for free soon. Mao is now Friendly with us, while Napolean, Wang, and Mansa are Pleased.
London Cuir -> Cuir
Nottingham treb -> treb
Persepolis barracks -> stable
Canturbury airship -> caravel
Trade Constitution to Napolean for 160 gold. Mansa gives us another -1 for trading with his worst enemy.

T199 (1390AD) - Chemistry -> Radio. Our workshops get +1 hammer.
Mao switches to State Property
London Cuir -> Cuir
York Cuir -> Cuir
Hastings caravel -> frigate
Persepolis stables -> Cuir
Canturbury caravel -> frigate
Coventry galleon -> frigate
Cimmerian caravel -> frigate
Phoenecian airship -> airship
I upgrade 4 caravels to frigates. We will soon dominate the seas.
I stop here so we can think about who we might want to go to war with. Here are our present forces:

If you look at the save, you'll see a full view of Wang's forces from airship recon. We shouldn't have much trouble taking some cities and getting capitulation. And we could get Mao to join us. Or we could instead attack Mansa and remain Hindu.

 

[Grover22]

If we attacked Wang, what would we do with the cities over there? Keep them?

We might consider spawning a colony. Does the colony get to vote for a diplo victor?

Other options would be just giving away cities to make other civs over there love us more.

Or is it best to keep them?

I see we've built 9 galleons, so I guess war over there is almost as easy as war on our continent.

Jim

 

[ShannonCT]

If we attacked Wang, what would we do with the cities over there? Keep them?

Since we are in State Property, there is no distance cost and no overseas colony cost for keeping his cities. The only cost is the empire size maintenance, which is pretty small.

Any AI we go to war with, we can vassalize as soon as they're willing. And vassals must vote the same way as the master in the UN.

We might consider spawning a colony. Does the colony get to vote for a diplo victor?

Sure. The colony would be our vassal and would vote for us in the UN. But votes are based on population, so building a small colony wont give us many more votes. We might be better off just filling out our continent and spamming watermills and farms for more population.

Other options would be just giving away cities to make other civs over there love us more.

Yes, if we captured cities from Wang and then libearted them to Mao or Napolean, we'd get diplo +s. We do need to be careful about letting Napolean get bigger than Joao. We want Joao to be our opponent in the UN.

I see we've built 9 galleons, so I guess war over there is almost as easy as war on our continent.

The galleons can also be used against Mansa if needed. They can deliver the current army to Mansa's capital and other old cities while fresh units go overland to his cities in the south.

 

[jmh]

so perhaps the way to go is, invade Wang and give away his cities to our friends on the other continent *and* kill Mansa so we can fill up our continent and build up our population?

 

[Grover22]

so perhaps the way to go is, invade Wang and give away his cities to our friends on the other continent *and* kill Mansa so we can fill up our continent and build up our population?

Diplo is actually more fun than I expected it would be.

 

[Grover22]

I can submit a turnset tonight if Jon doesn't mind the skip.

I guess we still need to come to a decision on whom to battle.
If we go after both Wang and Mansa, I vote for Mansa first because he's closer.

Would the airships come back to help us out?

Do we have enough of an army to begin the re-education program?

Jim

 

[jmh]

I can submit a turnset tonight if Jon doesn't mind the skip.

Sure go for it. I'm not going to be able to do a turn tonight, I'm afraid.

 

[ShannonCT]

I can submit a turnset tonight if Jon doesn't mind the skip.

I guess we still need to come to a decision on whom to battle.
If we go after both Wang and Mansa, I vote for Mansa first because he's closer.

Would the airships come back to help us out?

Do we have enough of an army to begin the re-education program?

Jim

The airships can rebase to any of our cities, and to any cities with which we have open borders. So to fight Mansa, the airships could only help in the south at first. Once we capture a city, 4 airships can be rebased there immediately.

 

[Grover22]

Is there a way to evaluate the "You declared war on our friend" diplo hits we'd take for declaring on Mansa vs declaring on Wang?

Looking at the "glance" screen in the foreign advisor...

Joao and Wang are pleased towards Mansa, but I guess we don't care about either of them, since we'll be running against Joao and we are planning on eliminating Wang.

Mao and Napoleon are both annoyed towards Mansa.

Joao, Mansa, and Mao are all pleased towards Wang, while Napoleon is annoyed with Wang.

I guess there is more diplo penalty to be paid in attacking Wang than in attacking Mansa, correct?

Shannon, could you please explain how attitude works? The numbers in the "glance" screen seem to have little to do with the attitudes. For instance, Wang is +5 towards Mao, but that's just cautious. Mansa is -2 towards Wang, and that counts as pleased. Napoleon is +5 towards Wang, and that counts as annoyed. How does it all work?

 

[Grover22]

All right. I went ahead and took a set. Here's the report.

1390ad, turn 199, 5 golden turns left

I see that Shannon has set research to radio (11 golden turns). I change it to rifles (5 golden turns). We're going to war, and our cities are still defended by warriors and chariots. Ugh.

I think both Mansa and Wang have gunpowder already. Wang even has built muskets.
I vote for steel (5 more golden turns, but we'll be ungilded at that point) after rifles.

It looks like Mansa has just the one source of iron in his southwest. If we deprive him of that, he can't build more knights, right? I don't know if we have the troops to spare to pillage it, though, during the first wave of our attack.

We have 20 attacking units (seige, cuir, mace) with one more in production (due next turn), and 9 galleons. That gives us two spare galleons if we ship all the troops north.

Three cities have just started building more attacking troops but have put no turns into them. I think I'd vote to change those builds to city defenders to hold the cities up north that we take. Either LB or muskets for now.

Timbuktu is Mansa's capital. It's doubly holy and should be cash-positive from the get-go. Taking Gao along with it should provide both of those cities with some tiles to work, even if they're not the most optimal tiles. We have four frigates built and several more in production, and they can help with the shelling. We don't have any city defenders built to garrison those cities once we take them, though. We should get on that asap. We can leave our extra galleons behind to transport up muskets/rifles when we build them.

London has enough production (131 hammers of unit production) to crank out one of any unit each turn. Probably we leave it on cuirassers because they're the most expensive, 100 hammers each. But I think I'd knock out a stock exchange first to help finance our war effort. And actually, I like stock exchanges in hastings, york, and warwick now, too. Those three and London are our biggest cash producers. I add a stock exchange to each of their build queues, which is actually the top slot in all of them except for warwick, which has two turns left on an airship.

Nottingham is pumping out 45 hammers/turn. An LB costs 50 hammers, and Nottingham should have 25 hammers of overflow after it finishes its treb. I think that should be enough to crank out 5 1-turn LB before switching to, say, rifles.

Persepolis is generating 78 hammers per turn and has 8 overflow hammers saved up from its last build. That should be good to crank out one 80-hammer musket per turn for the next four turns, at least. Plus, it's about to grow and add another hammer or two.

I set Phoenecian to build a 1-turn barracks.

Coventry, Canterbury, and Cimmerian I leave on their queued-up frigates.

I hit enter.

1400ad

Persep: musket (heads to Cimmerian for garrison duty) > musket
Phonecian: barracks > longbow
Nottingham: treb > longbow

Phonecian and Persepolis grow. Persep is one under its happy cap. I unwork a farm and hire a merchant to slow its growth a little.

I rebase all our airships back inside our own borders. We go from -5gpt to +4.

1410ad

Napoleon adopts theo and rep.

Not: LB > LB
Lon: Stock Ex > cuir
Persep: Musket > musket
canter: frigate > grocer. It's at both caps. I slow its growth by hiring two merchants.
cimm: frigate > forge

Our fleet loads up and sails off. We drop to -6gpt as our army leaves our culture.
I'm going to let it run at -6 to get rifling in 3.

1420ad

Phoenician: LB > LB

We get a great scientist. He wants to bulb fission. I send him to London to hang out.

Lon: cuir > cuir
Not: LB > LB
Persep: musket > musket
Cov: frigate > market

Our gpt drops to -17. I peel back to 60% science and we're at +47.

1430ad

A barb galley sinks our caravel (Ahab).
Wang offers to trade maps. He is pleased with us. I decline the trade.

Cimmerian: forge > market
Pho: LB > LB
Persep: musket > LB

Some workers near Persep finish a watermill. They built it on the wrong part of the river, though, and now we'll have one less millable tile. If we blow it up, we can mill the other tile first and then remill this tile, and they can both be milled. I'll have workers getting started on that. They're getting a little bored, anwyay, those workers.

1440ad

Steel next, 6 turns.

Our golden age ends. We are down to +12gpt now, and hammer counts are down.

On the plus side, the cuir London was making finished as a cav, and the LBs in production got moved up to redcoats.

Lon: cav > cav
Hastings: Stock Ex > grocer
Canter: grocer > forge

1450ad

Mao finishes the Kremlin.

Lon: cav > cav
Persep: redcoat > redcoat

1460ad

London: cav > cav
Not: red > red
Cimm: ? > grocer

Our fleet has reached timbuktu. War next turn.

1470ad

Mansa adopts free speech, free religion, state property.
Napoleon gets a golden age.
Mao gest a great spy.

Napoleon and Mao are still annoyed with Musa. Joao is pleased and Wang is friendly.

Pho: red > red
Persep: red > red
Lon: cav > cav

Before declaring war, I check our diplo bonuses. The only penalty for "you declared war on our friend" is that Mansa is -3 to us for our war with Darius.

We declare war.

We get -1 from Joao and -1 from Wang. Not so bad.

Our frigates shell timbuktu down to 36% from 60% while our troops land on the silver hill.

1480ad

We catch a Mali spy in Canterbury.

Frigates do the rest of the job on timbuktu.

We get lucky with our first treb to soften up the defenders--he withdraws at 29% odds or so. Our second treb withdraws at 59%.

Man, not even one shrine built in this doubly-holy city? I guess we need to generate some prophets. Notre Dame is a nice prize, though.

London: cav > courthouse
Canter: forge > stock exchange

1490ad

Joao (annoyed) asks us to help him fight the french. I tell him, "We have enough on our hands right now." Heh.

Lon: courthouse > colosseum
Persep: redcoat > redcoat
Cov: market > stock ex
Cimm: grocer > lighthouse

1500ad

Finally. We get back on the path to UN. Radio is next, 13 turns.

Lon: colosseum > cannon
York: stock ex > grocer
Not: redcoat > redcoat

1505ad

We take Gao from Mali. It comes with a lighthouse and nothing else.

Lon: cannon > cannon
Persep: red > red
Cimm: lighthouse > aqueduct

1510ad

Lon: cannon > cannon
hastings: grocer > customs house
canter: stock ex > aqueduct
phoen: red > red

1515ad

Declare war on musa? I vote no. I want him all to myself.

Lon: cannon > cannon
Not: redcoat > redcoat
Persep: redcoat > redcoat
Cimm: harbor > customs house

1520ad

The resolution failed by 26 votes. We had 24 votes, so our no vote didn't by itself kill it.

London: cannon > cannon

Shelling of Djenne commences.


1525ad

London: cannon > cannon
Persep: redcoat > grocer
Canter: aq > customs house

Djenne is all shelled down.
8 airships have some fun there. Lots of defenders to play with.

1530ad

Djenne suddenly has a rifle.
The 8 airships attack and then a few trebs. We lose a treb there. Our cuirassers go 10 and 0 and 1 (withdrawal). One hurt defender remains.

London: cannon > cannon
Not: red > cannon
pho: red > cannon

1535ad

Napoleon (pleased) demands that we cancel our deals with Joao. Pleased and demanding, eh? I go ahead and cancel the deals.

The confucian holy city.
This one comes with no buildings at all.

London: cannon > cannon
Persep: grocer > cannon
Cimmerian: customs house > colosseum

Ok. I'm going to save it there. We've taken Musa's capital and two other cities in the north. We probably have enough troops left up there to continue taking cities, especially if we buy upgrades for the remaining cannon and trebs.

We have another army in the south marching through jungle to get to agades. Adgades has been shelled down by frigates already, so we won't need many cannon to take it.

Cancelling our deals with Joao resulted in some unhealth all around. I've made all the trades with Wang, Napoleon, and Mao that I could to recover the lost health, but I couldn't get it all back.

Joao is now annoyed with us and he refuses to talk. Great.
Napoleon is pleased.
Wang is pleased.
Mao is friendly. Good ol' Mao. What a guy.

Oh, and Musa, with whom we are at war, is annoyed.

Musa is starting to get rifles now, and maybe we'll need to turn down research in order to buy upgrades for our cuirassers and seige units to keep making progress.

Speaking of research, we have 6 turns left on radio at 40%, with +45 gpt.

 

[ShannonCT]

Looks like we're in good shape.

On the war front, I agree that it makes sense to turn down the slider to upgrade units - to cannons and cavalry. Despite his getting rifles, Mansa situation is looking bleak. We can bombard all of his coastal cities with frigates and reduce defender strength with airships - that is, we don't need to wait for cannons to arrive to take every city. We also have three spies in the area, and the spy mission called "Support City Revolt" can take down a city's cultural defenses for one turn. If we set all of our EPs on Mansa now, we can use spy-supported attacks on 2-3 inland cities. Remember that spy missions get a 10% discount for every turn that a spy is stationary in a city, up to 50%. Let's move our spies into big inland cities.

On the diplo front, things are looking good for a Hindu supported victory. Wang was Friendly before we declared on Mansa, meaning we're only 1 diplo point away from being Friendly again. We should be able to get that from increased religious and civic modifiers (we don't need to do anything). I think we need to be a bit more proactive with Napolean. Napolean has some hidden modifiers that causes his to be overly disagreeable. For instance, Napolean starts with a hidden -1 with all civs, and also has a hidden -1 with civs that have a lower score than he. We might need to get Napolean to +12 or more to get his vote. One thing I'd like to do is get some shared war diplo points with him. We could declare on Joao. The one thing that worries me though is that if Napolean captures Portugese cities, he might become population leader. Instead, we could bribe Napolean to stop the war with Joao, and then bribe him to declare on Mansa. The techs that we give him might also give us a +1 for "sharing technological discoveries".

Once our cities have built enough units so that we can comfortably finish off Mansa, they can build Wealth, so we can run the tech slider at 100%. If we just built cavalry in London, and maybe a few more airships somewhere, we should have enough firepower to finish Mansa in 15-20 turns. The overflow hammers from London's cavalry builds will get turned into gold, so no need to build other things to clear the excess hammers.

Is Jon up?

 

[jmh]

You go ahead and take a turn Shannon, it will probably be friday or saturday before I can do a turn, and if you go next then we can get back into the original order.

 

[Grover22]

Yeah. I thought about spies--that's why I woke them and sent them up there. But the walls were just coming down so quickly that I didn't bother using the spies. We have enough frigates that 2 turns will do for a coastal city.

I think I'd like more units, though. Many of the units I built went towards replacing our stone-age defenders in our home cities. At the very least, I'd keep London cranking them out because it has the general settled.

We have just captured some holy cities that don't have shrines. Can we force out a few prophets to get the shrines? It was agonizingly slow no matter how I tried. (We had one city that could run three priest specs and one that could run four, and the game might end before they generated the GProphet.)

I think 15-20 turns to finish Mansa is a bit optimistic. But I didn't look at the power graph when I saved, and maybe he's licked now.

So we're not thinking of killing off Wang next? Awww.

 

[ShannonCT]

I think I'd like more units, though. Many of the units I built went towards replacing our stone-age defenders in our home cities. At the very least, I'd keep London cranking them out because it has the general settled.

I think the defenders are going to be mostly ceremonial. They can march around in parades and make the people feel proud.

We have just captured some holy cities that don't have shrines. Can we force out a few prophets to get the shrines? It was agonizingly slow no matter how I tried. (We had one city that could run three priest specs and one that could run four, and the game might end before they generated the GProphet.)

Yeah, I don't see any way to generate a quick guaranteed Prophet. And a shrine isn't worth much at this point anyway. A single city can out-cash a shrine by building wealth.

I think 15-20 turns to finish Mansa is a bit optimistic. But I didn't look at the power graph when I saved, and maybe he's licked now.

We'll see.

So we're not thinking of killing off Wang next? Awww.

Well, Wang will be Friendly soon. Diplo will be the fastest victory.

 

[ShannonCT]

Turns 217 - 228 (1535AD - 1590AD)

T217 (1535AD) - Sell silk to Nappy for 5gpt
Give Military Tradition to Nappy to make peace with Joao.
Give Printing and Chemistry to Nappy to make war with Mansa.
Give Military Tradition to Mao to make war with Mansa
Set all espionage on Mansa
Settle Great Scientist in London for 30 beakers per turn.
Set research to 0% to buy troop upgrades

T218 (1540AD) - One of our spies is caught in Malinese territory
Upgrade 6 Cuirs and 1 treb

T219 (1545AD) - Capture Agades losing a cannon and redcoat
Upgrade 2 trebs, 1 cat, 1 mace, and 2 cuirs
research back to 70%
Nappy is now Friendly with us at +12

T220 (1550AD) - Upgrade longbow to redcoat

T221 (1555AD) - Wang completes Spiral Minaret and Versailles
Sell Wang Military Tradition for a bit 180 gold and he is now Friendly

T222 (1560AD) - I use a spy to reduce the culture defense of Kumbi Saleh to 0%, attack with 8 airships, and then 7 cavalry. A bit of bad luck, as cavaly go 4 for 7. I'll have to bring up cannons to take it.
Capture Tekedda losing 1 cannon.
Capture Bulgar losing 1 cannon.

T223 (1565AD) - Radio -> Mass Media
Settle a General in London
Capture Taodeni with no losses
Trade Electricity to Wang for Corporation, Divine Right, and cash
An AP vote comes up to declare war on Mansa. I vote yes. Everyone in the pool.

T224 (1570AD) - AP vote succeeds, so Wang and Joao must declare on Mansa.

T225 (1575AD) - Nothing much but some troop movement

T226 (1580AD) - Spy reduces defenses of Niani. Capture Niani losing 1 cannon.
Capture Wadan losing 1 redcoat
Attack Kumbi Saleh losing 1 cannon, now down to 2 weak defenders.

T227 (1585AD) - Capture the island city of Taghaza with no losses.
Capture Kumbi Saleh with no losses

T228 (1590AD) - Mass Media -> Biology
I set London to start on the UN.


So Mansa is down to 5 cities, and we are knocking on the door of 4 of them. He should be dead in ~5 turns. We could vassalize him, but we'd take a -1 hit with everyone for having a vassal. Might as well finish him. Remember to use our airships to perform airstrikes on city defenders before attacking.

I have 8 forests around London prechopped, with a worker on each. They can be chopped into the UN now and the UN will be done in 8 turns (7 if you build some watermills around London).

 

[jmh]

Looking good. I should be able to do a turn tonight.