Team Game #2 - OCC Conquest only

[Pangaea]

Not looked at the actual save yet, sorry about that:

2 new GPs, what shall they do?

If you don't have a super-healer yet, I reckon that is the best use of the GG? Even more so here, since we can't heal faster by having units in a recently captured city (they're all razed, apparently).
Any good bulbs possible with the GS? Otherwise I supposed it's best to just settle him too. Chemistry already half-done, so maybe a waste to bulb that?

 

[Fippy]

Yep settle with GS i think, PP would be the next bulb but AIs always trade that so..
Settled GG would be sweet too, 9 xp Conqs would give 3 promos to all new ones.
I think that beats a super medic for now? Not planning super aggressive attacking yet, most Conqs should be preserved for cannon stacks later (so we can build only cannons for some time, while already having the other part ready).

 

[Fippy]

I took some time today, thinking about the situation..
and i quit :-/

I had hoped somebody would jump in for fun, those games are all for funsies..
making reports takes me at least 1 hour, but honestly..for what?
For 1 guy commenting? Nobody feeling like playing a bit?

Are we turning into 1 of those pseudo-communities where peoples are happy to talk about others games,
or in general about other stuff, probably from their smartphones? Pffff...

 

[Pangaea]

Sorry to hear that, Fippy, but I can understand it as well. It must be frustrating to put in so much effort for little to no "reward" / participation.

 

[krikav]

I understand and feel sorry about it.
I did enjoy your writeup and thank you so much for that, but get it completely that you did not intend this to be a one person show.

 

[rah]

Yeah, too bad, I always enjoyed the read. I've completed many conquest wins but always tweaked the starting location a touch so was interested to see how others would do it. I guess the biggest problem is probably that most consider Flippy a great player and don't want to embarrass themselves trying to replicate his high standards of play. (at least for me that was it) I'm not that good.

 

[krikav]

@rah yes, I think so too. It was mostly the same for me.
I have never played a OCC game, and it was way outside of my comfort zone to jump in.

 

[Pangaea]

...and don't want to embarrass themselves trying to replicate his high standards of play.

Quite sure Fippy is a she.

What you write is partly why I didn't jump in, though. Plus the fact I've barely played any OCCs, so am not very comfortable with it, especially on such a high level. Enjoyed reading the updates, though, and likewise for the Cookbook games I happened to find the other day. The first one was very active.

 

[krikav]

Don't forget the micro challenge series! I had a blast with those.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/special-micro-challenge.639683/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/food-for-fantasia.640178/

 

[rah]

Almost all of my OCC wins were conquest with vassals turned off. Most of my armies were mounted.

 

[Pangaea]

Let's embrace the reverse psychology, shall we? Continuing.

Spoiler :

Of course, it might have been better if I didn't, but... ehrm.

First, I settled both the GS and GG. Means Chemistry in 4 turns (was 5) and 9 XP (3 promotions) out of the gates.

Made a vision guy and peeked into the nearby area. Some workers (could have stolen one) and stray units. An elephant is farmed, and soon after another elephant (on defense) and farmed a pike (funny thing to say, but Conqs are cool). Sury gets a GG in Ulundi.

We're last in power, to nobody's surprise (for now).

Hatty takes Nijmegen, with what appears to be an army of one (!) Crossbowman. Next turn I attack and raze it. I expected a small force of injured units outside it, but there was nothing - zilch!

Vision guy takes a look. Some units around for sure, we can't attack now. Best to move into the forest and cross my fingers, probably with the rest of the guys. Retreat next turn. A few damaged crossbows, so maybe the attack on Nijmegen was a little better, and they simply moved off right away.

However, something else rather big happened that turn too... *gulp*

Spoiler :

Sorry. Didn't catch that this could happen so darn soon. I guess the warfare prior to me picking up this game was the driving force behind it, but still -- should have bought her off I guess (if it was possible). Genghis gives us the full 570g for both Gunpowder and Liberalism btw. Oh, and those deals getting cancelled means Madrid is up **** creek with both happiness and (bigger) health problems.

Totally understand if somebody want to "re-do" that turnset. Or conclude Fippy made the right call in abandoning the game before somebody else messed everything up I suppose something like that is kind of a catastrophe

 

[Fippy]

Totally fine, ty for playing
I will join again ofc now (had a draining day when writing about quitting), would suggest we plunder & make cease fire for now (also makes Madrid happy).
Citadel this turn for preparation of cannons, and gives an extra trade route which is quiet nice with Ox and so?
Next turn we also get an extra hammer for workshops, should be nps to keep 1 turning units.

Conqs are very powerful, but what do you think about waiting for cannon stacks before declaring again?
(we can build more Conqs, and ~2 Pikes i would suggest too) meanwhile.
I think we will not need that many cannons per stack, they will also be CR3, ~5 should do for safely taking cities with no Rifles or Grens around yet.

 

[Pangaea]

Totally fine, ty for playing
I will join again ofc now (had a draining day when writing about quitting), would suggest we plunder & make cease fire for now (also makes Madrid happy).
Citadel this turn for preparation of cannons, and gives an extra trade route which is quiet nice with Ox and so?
Next turn we also get an extra hammer for workshops, should be nps to keep 1 turning units.

Conqs are very powerful, but what do you think about waiting for cannon stacks before declaring again?
(we can build more Conqs, and ~2 Pikes i would suggest too) meanwhile.
I think we will not need that many cannons per stack, they will also be CR3, ~5 should do for safely taking cities with no Rifles or Grens around yet.

Err, I don't know how to say this, but I kinda continued without a cease-fire (didn't see your post).

1020AD. Mostly good news.

Spoiler :

Situation in Madrid wasn't great, and unfortunately it couldn't be done in 1 turn, but I built the Buddhist temple. AP-hammers, and we could use the extra Then back to one-turning Conqs.

Took out a stray unit here and there along the way. From the previous point I pulled into the forest (defensive bonus), and some of the guys Hatty had invaded instead of attacking. I took them out next turn without losses.

Not entirely sure about this one, but carried out the below trade, including asked Genghis to stop trading with Hatty (he had 500+ gold). I hoped to break up their friendly relations. Next turn they're back to resource trading. Stupid game

With the overflow from turn 2 of the temple, we can overflow-1turn Conqs for a good while, and Madrid is back to happy cap.

The world war is no more, with peace between Brennus and Dona... Genghis Khan. We still have the peace treaty with Brennus, though, and are friendly with Genghis, so we are fine. A few turns later Genghis DOWs Hatty-Cathy -- either of his own will, or being bribed by somebody else. I thought about bribing him on Stalin at this point, but it was too expensive for my liking.

Hatty decides to invade, or so I thought. Therefore I re-arrange the troops so we can hit her on the counter. Figured she would land on the desert hill, but she did not. Instead she went further SW, perhaps intending to invade Sury. A smaller stack was also seen east of the gems (in Portuguese borders) by the vision guy. I resisted the temptation to attack it, and moved onto the windmill hill (1N of horse) and NE of the silk. Sadly the island borders have messed up movement somewhat (the cow-iron area).

Genghis declares on Cathy-Hatty, as mentioned earlier. Loads of Golden Age triggering and ending as well. One of them because Brennus built Taj Mahal.

Here we see Hatty's stacking moving south-west. Also a glimpse of the smaller stack east of gems.

Genghis then very rudely demands free Liberalism from us. We are +12 with him, so I reject his demand. It's a monopoly tech, and I don't like giving that away. Might be useful later.

Since Hatty's stack moved SW, I spend a couple of turns to move our stack towards the east, through the awkward island borders, and take a peek into Maastrict and Hague. Both are lightly defended, but I don't fancy attacks on hill cities here, so I go for Hague with 70+% odds on the top defender.

Probably fair to say the attack went well

Sadly I stupidly lost both workers because I roaded the wrong tile and a knight happened to snipe them. Let's fix that, shall we?

With Hague gone and enough units, I can push forward and take a looksie into Utrecht, after sniping two Hatty workers of our own...

Well then....

Fair is fair, and some more units got in there, including a Musket (and I didn't have a unpromoted Conq to tailor), but we take and raze the city without losses.

Forgot to take a picture of this, but with Utrecht gone borders pushed back again, and I can take a look inside Cherokee with the vision guy. Hmmm. Not much there either. 3 vs 3.....

Wiped most of the guys on the desert hill too, but haven't taken the last treb yet as I don't want to be stuck there with a damaged unit and possibly getting farmed (though in truth it looks like Cathy is pretty spent from the earlier Hatty war).

All in all this went rather well I have to say. Unusually kind RNG. I'm used to losing heaps and heaps of 70-80% battles.

A nice point to hand over. I started with a GG + GS, and now we have another pair

Madrid became unhappy again due to war weariness, and this is the last turn we can 1-turn Conq without a chop (but both workers are dead there), or without re-arranging tiles/GPs. Steel and Cannons only 3 turns away. Probably a good time for a short cease-fire? Heal up and get out some cannons, then another round? Currently we have 20 Conqs.

 

[Fippy]

Even better
Will look at the save and give my thoughts tomo.

 

[Pangaea]

Cool, I look forward to it. Lots of injured units around from recent city attacks. If we're going to peace out anyway, may as well wipe those last two trebs and thereby get a look into Delft. And of course pillage whatever we can for a bit more gold. Some towns and such.

Some other comments or ramblings.

#1 When Cathy capped, there was a galley north of Madrid moving east towards the island. I was worried it would pillage our fish. Not sure where it is now. The reason I mention it is that Madrid will soon hit 5000 . That means we could get out a workboat for the clam on the west side, which ironically is considered a military unit

#2 Expanded borders also mean we will claim the rice (I'm currently trading for it for +2 ) and another silk for possible trades. Suppose we might eventually get a third cow too, though that appears to have limited trade value at best.

#3 If the iron trade is cancelled one way or another, will we be able to re-do the trade? We have higher costs now due to the army.

#4 It's possible to cancel the stone for rice trade next turn to one-turn Citadel (there is an Alt-M message for it).

#5 At some point I sold Chemistry to Genghis for 140g + map (hmm, or was it Sury? Suddenly unsure). That sounds dirt cheap, but he was teching it. After checking various trades I deduced we at best could get 200g for it, so I took the 140g he had while we could get something. PP and Banking is available, but I've not fancied those trades yet. Neither does anything for us in truth, at least right now. Obviously we need both for Rifling later. Think we need to stay away from Economics to retain the XP bonus on Citadel?

#6 One of the first things I did when picking up the game was to (try to) re-negotiate the gold deal to Genghis, because he had 19 gpt available. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to get more than 6 gpt, which we already had. Looks like they can't offer more than that? Maybe due to our tiny empire or something. Not sure how that stuff works, but in 'normal' games they typically offer whatever gpt they have.

#7 Any conclusions about AIs? I re-read the thread earlier today as I woke up before the birds took their first dump Saw mention of Sury possibly being Mansa. However, his favourite civic is Buro. I've never played with random personalities, but I suppose the listed favourite civic is the one of their "true" personality? In which case it can't be Mansa because he has Free Market.

Here I am aided by the Excel overview by the most excellent and honourable @DanF. Four AIs have Buro as favourite civic: Hammurabi, Kublai, Peter and Qin. All are pretty religious guys and we have currently have +5 with "Sury" so it's kinda tricky to say. Can't be Peter, though, as Brennus has +4 civics with Genghis (who caps out at +3).

Loads of Hereditary Rule people in the game, so those two (Hatty and Genghis) are kinda tricky. Many of them are religious chumps too, and we have +7 with Genghis having the holy city. That means HC, Pacal or Ragnar. "Hatty" has +6 without a holy city, so she should be one of those three as well. Maybe people more familiar with the diplo throughout this game can nail it down further.

There is a question mark for "Stalin" and "Cathy", which I suppose means they have favourite civics that have not been unlocked yet?

 

[Fippy]

Very interesting, your thoughts or questions from the last post:

Yup Rice will be nice for +2, workboat costs us 1 unit so maybe later

We can push our gpt to +61 with wealth and working only hammers, Engi, Priests and so on + some unit supply saved if we move them back into our borders..hmm maybe if we add some resis he would still give us Iron again. Worst case would be building Muskets while waiting for Rifles i guess (decent upgrade) and Cavs later.

Yep no Eco while we still want +5xp from Citadel.
I also check manually what AIs tech from time to time, no harm in trades like Chemistry when they are almost done.

I suggest we gift Stalin Calendar and try for cautious, maybe we can get Banking for old techs from him.
Mil Tradition for PP from Sury looks fine? Genghis already has it, and they are friendly so Sury might pick it up from him anyways later.
In 3t we can start RP and towards Rifling imo (if Stalin trade also works).

They only offer 6gpt for standard resis cos we have only 1 city
Goes up with city count in normal games.

We speculated that a warmonger masks Hatshy in this game, so my guess would be Rags.
Overall Cathy and Stalin look harmless for winning later, Brennus also small.
We will have to look at backstabbing Genghis at some point, strongest AI now.


I think cease fire makes good sense, attacking either Hatshy's core or Genghis with cannons should be our best move now.
Not so much value in her or Cathy's smaller cities, which are close currently.
We could build citadel this turn, then 2 Trebs for upgrade and go again in ~8t with 5 cannons.

 

[obsolete]

Have not even had time to play much of anything all of April... Glad that this is continuing.

 

[rah]

They only offer 6gpt for standard resis cos we have only 1 city
Goes up with city count in normal games.

Didn't know. thx

 

[Pangaea]

I think cease fire makes good sense, attacking either Hatshy's core or Genghis with cannons should be our best move now.
Not so much value in her or Cathy's smaller cities, which are close currently.
We could build citadel this turn, then 2 Trebs for upgrade and go again in ~8t with 5 cannons.

Sounds good to me. Except.... are we able to make a cease fire? I'm not sure what the case is in the last save, but when I checked earlier she demanded 100g for peace (despite losing heavily). So it may be that we need to peace treaty instead, meaning a 10 turn delay. Not necessarily bad, as we need some cannons anyway. And with Genghis busy with the Cathy-Hatty war (those stacks highlighted earlier probably moving towards Genghis), maybe it is just as good to backstab Genghis? I've not looked much at that situation, so just a thought based on your post. Genghis is also fairly advanced, so perhaps not a terrible idea to take him down a notch before he gets high-strength Gunpowder units.

With the situation of the vassal: Would it be best to not raze more of those cities, to increase the chance of Cathy breaking free once we raze more of Hatty's empire? If she's stuck with a few islands cities, it could be awkward to wipe her out, or somehow get her as a vassal (I assume the first vassal will be mighty hard to acquire with just one city).

Edit: For reference, this is the diplo and tech situation in T162/1020AD:

Spoiler :

 

[Fippy]

Good question yup, those 2 are somewhat sorted out for now and are unlikely to vassal more.
Ofc we would feel saver with Genghis still being our ally, while taking Hatshy out.
I think both attacking options are valid, hard to tell which will work best.

Genghis has Cuirs alreay, hmm..
but our Conqs will be better promoted and have def. bonuses.
One big + that i can see with attacking him: only 1 direction, cannons are not losing us that much time with movement in the west.