Team Game #2 - OCC Conquest only

[krikav]

@Fippy sorry, won't jump into this game, too far away from my comfort zone.

@Izuul you brave enough to give it a shot? I'm sure Fippy can save the day if you play as I would.

 

[Pangaea]

A blast from the past!

Did we figure out (or care) about who the real AIs are?

If somebody feels like checking the situation, all thoughts are very much welcome ~~
This game is far from over.

Also added a tech screenie, nothing of interest there. SM would obsolete Glib, not good yet, and Democracy adds nothing.

Nongoma has Iron & most important Coal, we should give him Steam Power and grab it for RR.

Lots of other decisions too, who to attack next? Plundering with healthy Cavs meanwhile? (should be an obvious move thou, those towns & villages give lots of gold).

Genghis has Physics, which opens up Artillery..good time to abandon Glib and take SM? Or maybe combustion for destroyers first?

Yep Cathy would be easy, but we basically clear territory for Brennus this way.
(who should be the strongest AI currently)

Makes this game so much fun, would we gain much by rolling over Cathy?
I actually lean towards Sury, despite friendly. He also has no Rifling yet, and like Genghis his cities are west (while Brennus is far east).

Last recall waging war on Catherine, but looking over things you have done a great job smashing Genghis to smithereens. Even capping him now! With one vassal now, it will presumably be easier (less hard) to get the second vassal.

Due to peace treaties (good job!), we can't attack others (except Cathy) for 3 turns. Good time to smash up towns and villages and heal those who need it. Friendly status aside, think I agree with declaring on Sury next. He's right there. A vassal means he won't cap easily, but due to the lay of the land, I reckon there is a good chance Stalin-in-disguise will break free. The island is pretty awkward, so hope we don't have to build ships and deal with that. Better if our good lad Genghis can build up and do it instead, if needed. Hopefully he'll use those Deity bonuses to spam settlers and claim the land left behind (he IS Imperialistic..). Also possible Sury will create a colony there (edit: the island, I mean) once he is reduced in size, but not sure if that happens during wartime?

Spoiler :

Culture view confirms that Hun has been taken.

Cathy hates us but won't be bribed in. Brennus I'm less sure about. Depends who he really is. Him DOWing us would obviously be very bad. He doesn't have OB with anybody currently, but that can change. Maybe? He is cautious with Sury, but Sury is annoyed with him. OB, however, would give Brennus a path through here:

Spoiler :

Losing GLib will cut our research a bit, but do we do that now, and then demand Genghis' coal right away? Or wait a few turns?

Presumably the more long-term plan is to build National Park too, unless the game in practice is over by then, to remove health woes. Or is IW better? Would take a while. So far we have: Oxford, NE, HE, Globe. Room for one more. We wait with Factory I suppose? Looks like we can for the most part 1-turn cannons atm. If we get MilScience and build a Military Academy with a fresh GG, we can probably still 1-turn a lot of units.

Quite a few have Communism already, including Genghis (!), so we may get a chance to go State Property in the near future. That will transform the capital, and we already have many workshops there. Maybe actually do the SciMethod <> Steam Power trade now, put a couple turns into Communism, and then trade him Steel? Or do we risk that he then instantly turns around and trade away Steel to our foes? Even if at war already then? (at least that means Sury isn't a possible receiver). Brennus already has Steel, so we don't have monopoly on it.

We can potentially also cancel the Iron deal with Sury (before the DOW, when it obviously happens automatically), and get Iron from Genghis instead. Not sure how expensive that will be, but we do have quite a few resources on him. Do we need stone? Probably not.

Spoiler :

Quick recap on techs and resources:

Spoiler :

I'd be glad to continue, though perhaps I should hold the horses (and cannons) until feedback, because there are some very important decisions to make here.

(Hopefully I've looked at the last save here, but I think so)

@Fippy sorry, won't jump into this game, too far away from my comfort zone.

Pfaph! Maybe that was correct then, I wouldn't know, but it certainly isn't now

 

[krikav]

If we where to start a new game, I think I would try to tag along.
Other than that, I got to try OCC myself sometime soon.

But right now, I'm extremly preoccupied with BOTM206 (the Viking one) who turned out to be way more damanding than I thought.

 

[krikav]

Same problem there though, hidden personalities... I don't know if it's buffy who is bugging, but I have ruled out all possible candidates for an AI I thought had pinned down. >_<

 

[Pangaea]

Hmm, I have that game on hold... should probably stop fooling around and get back to it, so I have a slight chance of actually finishing it! But now I got intrigued by this again, so can probably put it off a little bit more (bound to get bitten in the arse, but yeah..)

Hidden personalities is rough. In some of those games in the past (probably including this one), I thought I had something pinned down, before later realising something wasn't right. And the diplo screen often has me more than a little confused. One AI can be pleased with another despite -1 relations, and another can be annoyed with +2 relations. It's totally bonkers!

 

[Pangaea]

Looking over things and trying to confer with (my signature) and some documents, I'm guessing that:

• Brennus is Catherine
  (friendly for war bribe)
  (friendly for map trade)
• Stalin is Tokugawa
  (pleased for tech trades)
  (-2 penalty for different religion)
• Sury is Peter
  (Buro is favourite civic, currently at +3)
  (+5 for same religion, which is probably the max by now)
  (will stop trading with AI if cautious with them)

Not that it really matters all that much, even if this should prove to be correct. They shall all die anyway (hopefully).

 

[Pangaea]

Okay, that was incorrect, at least partly -- because I forgot to consider shared diplomacy now when we have a vassal. Still think Sury is Peter, but think Brennus is Kublai. +5 shows for Buro now after having played a few turns (when I loaded there was nothing). His current real stance with us is Pleased (Friendly + Cautious). If he is truly Kublai, it means he can be bribed on us, because of Sury-Brennus relations. We can also bribe him on Sury, but we probably don't want to do that at the cost of handing out Steel Steam Power.

I have played a few turns, and am eager to continue.

Spoiler :

Traded Steam Power to Genghis for Scientific Method.....

Nice!!

I'm not entirely sure what the plans are with Combustion. Privateers are annoying, especially when they blockade and we lose around 100 (excellent trade routes here), and Transports would be nice for dealing with islands here and there. But I'm thinking we can do a lot of damage over land. I put a turn into Communism, which means we can do a Comm-Steel trade without paying gold. A bit later I tested with Sury, and it's pretty much right on the beaker. He offered us 5g on top. I'm thinking that it would be really good to go into SP here, for more hammers and better workshops, maybe also grow the city a little bit more. I've pre-built some more workshops, as there wasn't really anything to do with the workers. Cancelled the iron trade with Sury, and got Genghis' iron. He instantly founded a city, with another source, which was nice. When he had put a fort on the coal, I demanded it from him. Otherwise it was kinda crazy, like AI deals for strategics often are (tho they will gladly give away oil for a fish with another AI... does my nut in).

Tech screen looked like this (sorry for rambling, haha)

Went around a pillaged a bit. Probably 5-600 to be honest. Healed some units that needed it (but not all), and moved towards the new front.

With coal in hand, we could build railroads. First turn was spent to increase yields on our mines, then a path down to Nongoma. Also moved a Rifle into our culture and upgraded him to Infantry. Wanted to produce a few more cannons first, and hoped to declare pretty soon here. Ended up waiting 1-2 turns more, so now I'm making fresh Infantry (just got one out). If nothing else, a couple of strong stack defenders/attackers will be nice.

Like to scout through AI territory to check out what 'stuff' they have, and try to locate their main stack. Doesn't look like Sury has all that much, and what may be called the main stack is located by Stalin's borders. Not sure what has happened around the place, but I'm seeing some damaged units for some reason.

19 units isn't all that much, but he does have Cuirs, which can be annoying when they attack in the open and survive (cannon collateral/flanking).

Units have moved into position (more or less) and most are healed up. Others can heal while others remove culture. Think I will declare this turn, and invade in the two marked points. The southern stack will probably come to greet us, but two stacks should confuse the AI, and in any case the 'eastern' stack may have arrived at the hill NW of Bulawayo by then.

The concern is what to do with Brennus... Would be really awkward if he is bribed on us. It will be cheaper to bribe him on Sury once we have declared, but it will probably still be a steep price. Hardly want to give our future foes Steel Steam Power? hmmm.

 

[Pangaea]

Some action. Feels like shooting fish in a barrel, but that can be fun

Spoiler :

After declaring, we could either pay 1077g to bribe in Brennus, or Steam Power + 277g. He was clearly practically there. Went with the last option, as gold is kinda needed here. Perhaps I was overly concerned about a Brennus bribe, but he's by far the strongest AI on the map.

Before declaring, I did the Communism trade and revolted. Not as good as I hoped to be honest, so sorry if this was a mistake. Couldn't work that many workshops, because we were mostly working farms as it was.

The eastern stack arrives on the hill outside Bulawayo, and is greeted by Sury's stack having arrived from the south.

The other city is more lightly defended.

Lots of action between turns, as Sury throws units into our machine guns. Very nice to have some of those around. (I picked heal promo on one of them, because with one more level, I believe it can take March, which would be quite nice)

Cannons do their thing, and we kill those we can. Kind of unfortunate that the western stack had more attackers, but I'm bringing some more guys down from the north, which is very fast now with railroads most of the way. Can get directly into that fort in one turn. Also moved some cavalry over to the hill, since they can move there in one turn.

Capital can almost one-turn infantry. Had to remove a scientist and re-arrange some citizens. Felt like a bit of a waste to work so many farms now with 2f-4h workshops.

T239 and Combustion is done. Not much to choose from next, with Physics the best option. But Genghis already has that. Therefore I give him Railroads in return for Physics, and pick Artillery.

Next turn I spot a Celtic settler moving NW, so he's settled some land over in ex-America. Hope Genghis will re-settle some of it too, but may be slow with so few cities (and in a war). Sury tried to move north too, but I killed that guy and his escort. Brennus may have killed an escort too, there was a damaged cavalry of his.

Also happen to spot parts of Brennus stack. Lots of Cavalry. He took the loner Zulu city near his border. I hope Sury won't cap to him at some point. Maybe we need to buy off Brennus if Sury refuses to cap? From the scoreboard you can also see that Stalin has broken free. Happened sooner than I expected. Sury keeps saying "We're afraid of your enemies," but I don't trust that message. Has bitten me in the past, when I thought peace with another party would lead to earlier capitulation.

Tested out some deals for buying peace with Brennus, and it turns out he is a hair away from finishing Railroads. A little worrisome that he techs this fast. He had 740g and only paid 380g. I sold it to him. He was probably only a quarter of a turn away. Brennus getting infantry would be bad, but as long as we have artillery at the time, it will be fine.

Ulundi is on a hill, and I don't much like these chances for a CR3 cannon.

I'll take my chances on an 80% well-promoted Cavalry instead.

He withdraws after almost killing the scary musket, and the rest is barrel shooting again.

With that, Ulundi is gone. Sury still won't cap, but I suppose that is no big surprise here. Our army is strong, but our lack of land is presumably the issue.

Think it's time for a pause now, and handing off the game (if somebody are interested in continuing). I have played some 12-15 turns. We have the world's second strongest army, but Brennus is solidly in the lead. He has 2.3 million, while we have 1.2 million. So far in the war, four cities have been razed (and Brennus captured another). No units have been lost

Oil has been hooked up (desert sure takes a while). The capital can one-turn a destroyer by re-arranging tiles and specialists, if that is wanted. The privateers that bugged us has left for the moment.

Attached is the save file. Please take a look.

 

[Fippy]

Wow blast from the past
Busy weekend here, no time to look yet but play as much as you feel
Destroyers (Combustion) was for power rating i think (makes capitulation easier), cos they have so much base strength and can hopefully find lots of easy kills too.

Not sure on bribing AIs, i think even if Brennus would get bribed on us instead we can flank out his cannons and let his other units suicide on Madrid's culture.
When you look at his stack, those Cavs are all flanking so winning some battles with our Cavs on flatland should be no biggie.

 

[Pangaea]

Wow blast from the past
Busy weekend here, no time to look yet but play as much as you feel
Destroyers (Combustion) was for power rating i think (makes capitulation easier), cos they have so much base strength and can hopefully find lots of easy kills too.

Not sure on bribing AIs, i think even if Brennus would get bribed on us instead we can flank out his cannons and let his other units suicide on Madrid's culture.
When you look at his stack, those Cavs are all flanking so winning some battles with our Cavs on flatland should be no biggie.

Cool, didn't think about the power rating. Maybe not as big a deal now, though, given our quite handsome army? That said, it does make sense to get out a destroyer or two to protect the coast (trade routes) and hopefully farm some privateers or frigates. Catherine has produced the privateers.

Agree on Brennus tbh, at least now. Those Cavs will probably be protected by rifles, so not necessarily easy farming for our experienced cavs, but we have infantry and a lot more cannons than he does (presumably). If he declares on us, for example after capping Stalin or Sury, we'll deal with it fine I think. Saves us a DOW too -- not that it matters all that much here. The others hate us anyway. Easier to get more GGs in our own territory though. Builds up slow at 99.9% odds :-|

Don't have Military Science atm, but what do you/people think about the idea of building a Military Academy? I saw @krikav did that in the Toku raging barbs game, and it's kinda nice -- at least prior to factory etc, when hammers go through the roof (will be a gold-printing machine then). Hmm, or does it vaporise without Buffy? I'm never quite sure how those things work.

I'd be glad to continue then, and then you can all cross your fingers I don't make too many boo-boos

News from the front (sort of).

Spoiler :

Think we have enough cannons and reinforcements to split up in three now. One column can march out west and take that city. Unless he caps soon, I expect a colony any moment. Three cities on that 'island', and only 4 left on the main continent. He probably has a ton of boats, which will be useful once he caps.

Edit: Hmm, this would be nice. But then we can't build National Park later to remove health concerns.

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

I love military academies!
Policestate+MilAcademy+State property+Forge is already +110%
So the relative bonus from going from 210% up to 285% isn't that great.

If you already got heroic, and the plan is to win by conquest, then ironworks is probably way overkill.
Unless the idea is to use more citizens for specialists while running pure hammers.

 

[Pangaea]

Continued and this seems like a fine spot to stop. We got a low-chance GE. Can one-turn Ironworks of course, but do we even want it? Causes more health concerns, altho the hammers are of course great -- like when we want to one-turn tanks or something.

Spoiler :

Brennus' stack is on the move, and a bit larger now. Almost entirely Cavalry tho. Using our railroads, it gets to the front super-quick.

The airship arrives, and spot a bunch of Zulu frigates. As an aside, two destroyers and two transports are being built. Partly to defend our shore, but mostly to deal with this island if it is required. Transports are 7-movers due to promotions.

Nobamba is razed, but Sury still refuses to cap. I took some chances here in case this would be enough, with the main army standing outside another city. Didn't have enough cannons in place, so attacked with Cavs. Pretty good odds, but probably fortunate to not lose any.

Uxmal goes down too -- but still he refuses to bow to our mind control agents.

The army of Brennus has arrived, and it's a race for Chitzen Itza. I wouldn't want to be a defender in there...

We take it in front of Brennus' nose of course, but still Sury refuses. Elsewhere, the airship spots tougher resistance in Maya Stalin. The rifle count in Mutal is steadily rising.

Stalin then surprises me by slamming siege and various Cavalry into our stack. It's wounded, sure, but had plenty of full health units. Sadly for us he is pretty darn lucky there, and wins several 20-25% battles in a row. And with Cavalry, you know what that means. A bad day for our cannons Nobody were lost to flanking, but they're hardly ready to attack cities right now either.

We lost a rifle and cavalry.

Overall this was quite lucky I'd say. He had 3 full-health cavalry there, the best with Combat3. We had winning odds on all of them, but not by huge margins. Stack removed, though, and that's the main thing. Otherwise lightly defended workers could have been in risk. I've been building some railroads down here as well.

Stalin has a city down in the SW corner. However, I'm a little concerned about those numbers, because our stack consists of just cavalry plus a few cannons, protected by a single MG (which is a little injured from an airship). Therefore I hold back a few turns before moving in, so it has a few more units as protection, including an infantry.

That's the picture limit, but another update is coming.

 

[Pangaea]

More about the Sury war.

Spoiler :

First off, we get another GG. After thinking about stuff like a super-attacker, a third healer, or waiting for a military academy, I decide to settle him. 15XP out of the gate is better than 13XP, and a bit closer to another promo. We'll probably get more later. Brennus has a sizeable army after all. 240XP for the next one.

Well bugger. The airship notices that Brennus has gotten Combustion in a whiff, and suddenly there are 50 destroyers in the oceans. Won't be surprised if he goes AL next. We need to deal with him, and probably quickly.

On that note... Brennus has the leap on us now, and is leading the race for Mutal. Kinda fortunate it is heavily defended by rifles, but that stack will tear through him with few problems.

I'm thinking this is a good opportunity for us, though. We can steal the city as Brennus is bound to remove culture first. However, if he takes that city, Stalin may cap, and more importantly, it means Brennus' army will probably heal up inside the city. With no cultural defence. On flatland

Oh yeah. This happened too.

Spoiler :

Nice! No need for those transports heading around the coast for his island 'kingdom'. Somehow the barb city over there hasn't been taken after all. Strange.

Then there is the Great Engineer that popped, from 15% chance or something like that. Didn't pay a lot of attention to it, but GS had 67% odds or thereabouts.

The iron deal suddenly got cancelled. Think it is because a city of Brennus expanded borders over in ex-America, and Genghis and Brennus don't have open borders. Seems a bit odd when we have Astro, but trade routes with him disappeared *shrug* It's not a big deal, though, and would be expensive to put back in place from what I tested out in diplo screen. Next turn we have Artillery, and those babies don't need Iron

Trade screen and capital. Sury has Radio and Mass Media already, and is one turn from Biology.

A nice round number at Turn 250. And some important events that could impact stuff. Like what to do with the random GE.

PS: The gold situation is looking a bit more dire, despite lots of pillaging and heaps of capture gold.

 

[Fippy]

this game delivers like no other, that barb city Yue-Chi wow.
Excellent job with capping Sury

Not totally sure 2sw of Mutal, but i think we should heal in place this turn. Helps one strong Inf catching up too.

West Point maybe with our Engi?
6t build would be short in regular games, but not here. 4xp super nice
For Tanks 2 more workshops used would prolly be enuf, you and Krikav are right i say nopes to IW as well.

I guess some more MGs built wouldn't hurt, in preperation for Brennus.
They are badass at decimating big stacks on defense.
Destroyers i would say nopes.

I think we should stop Bio research for Sury, decreases chances of Brennus getting his hands on it. For now i would only take what we need (and what Brennus has).
Once we are at war with him and they cannot trade stuff away, we can take Bio imo.
Hmm no RP for Sury too, Cathy does not have it yet.

 

[Pangaea]

What is special about the barb city? That it was created so late in the game? Looks like the barbs have Music too, or are in caste (if they even have civics). Borders expanded pretty quickly, and there are no buildings, not even a granary. There are only longbows btw, so hopefully Genghis takes it soon. Also, Brennus has some units stationed here and there while waiting for settlers. Genghis does have a settler, for a while, but hasn't sent him out yet. I hoped he would be more proficient with city settling with so much free land around him.

That strong infantry was moved back there actually. I wanted to protect the almost dead rifle. It protected two workers earlier, got hit by an airship, and then defeated a cavalry. Didn't want it to get farmed (tho maybe it is safe now, with those cavs removed and the SW city threatened).

West Point!! Of course. Didn't even think about it. Usually so crap and expensive. But here it's really good. Like two free GGs. Means 19XP units out of the gates, or 21XP mounted if we make more of those. Some more MGs would be a good idea. If we get a good chance to DOW Brennus soon, he'll probably come in with some units from his core, and it's nice to have some better defenders back there. MGs with 4-7 first strikes are BRUTAL.

Good idea about Bio on Sury. Figured we could trade for it soon-ish and re-arrange some tiles to get more hammers, but that can be done later. Brennis still lacks Communism for some reason, so maybe he doesn't trade with anybody here? He has lacked it for absolute ages. Thought about selling it to him when he sat on almost 1000g.

If we give Sury RParts (unless it's too risky), we can probably get Electricity for Steel+Rifling soon, and then start on Industrialism for Tanks. Running out of money pretty fast now, though, and it's not like Wealth will do all that much here with just one city and a million in military upkeep. Currently we have gold for 5 turns.

Before the Brennus bribe, he was 70-80 turns away from a culture win. He's gone a bit back and forth between Buro and Free Speech, and is back in FS now. Currently only Bibracte is under 100 turns, so he's not running culture. We should have plenty of time to deal with that possible threat.

Catherine is still a non-factor, so can be dealt with last imo. At that point it will be easier to cap, and the islands will not pose awkwardness.

Do we keep the transports? Maybe gift them to Sury if we don't need them? Might help him to settle the mainland again (tho he has a galleon I see).

Btw, can vassals break free from the human? They have much more land than us ofc, and Genghis has grown a lot from his 'original'.

 

[Pangaea]

This was funny. Not very safe.

 

[jnebbe]

What does OCC mean?

 

[Pangaea]

Once City Challenge. We only have one city, and can't build settlers. Makes empire management a little easier, but harder to win via military means. Very hard to capitulate AIs due to lack of land and population.

 

[Pangaea]

If we were to try a new game like this, what would be good settings, or rather civ/leader combos?

Spain is a strong civ in general, and altho I didn't follow this game from the beginning, it probably went really well with 'breaking out' with Conquistadors, and then transitioning over to very strong siege/cannons.

Looking at traits, partly inspired by this game, I'm thinking Cyrus perhaps. Imperialistic + Charismatic means GGs are raining from the sky. Obviously the settler bonus is irrelevant.

About civs, Germany is good for the late game, but doesn't offer anything until Tanks (the UB isn't very unique, and only has room for two more engineers). But if the game goes to the industrial era, those boosted tanks can be important.

The Ottomans are strong in general. A nice universal unique unit, though the musket itself isn't all that strong in my experience. The timing is a bit wrong, and maybe even more so on Deity. The UB could be nice.

Mongolia would be a little similar to this one, except specialised for mounted units. The Keshik isn't all that in fairness, though easier to move with, but the Ger offers +4XP, which coupled with Charismatic could prove fun (3 promos out of the gates).

Having looked at that a bit quickly, think I'd be leaning towards Cyrus of Mongolia. Any thoughts?

Also, what was the process on starting this game? In the first post there is something about having decided on this start, so maybe there was a different thread with discussion on different starts or scenarios?

 

[jnebbe]

Ah, I guess you can still capture ai cities though.

I'm personally hoping for another cookbook soon