Team Game #2 - OCC Conquest only

[Fippy]

Agree with taking advantage of her sitting in Seattle,
was more thinking ahead for moving out further with Rifling units. We can surely kill some stuff before
Do you want to play those turns?

I suggest cannons until 1t before Rifling, where we can build a musket that upgrades inbetween turns.
If we build more cannons until then, we can cancel Iron once they are done. Will be nice if we have some for bombarding city defenses later, while also attacking with CR3 ones on the same turn.
2 Rifles per stack and then Cavs (for faster catching up) would be what i envision later.

Odds were good after bombarding city defenses, with our CR3 cannons being so strong. Worst around 85% i think? But will change later with Grens defending i guess.
For now against Seattle they should be very good?

 

[Pangaea]

Sure, I can play

Cannons, a handful of rifles and then cavs sound good to me. Cavs are 120 so we probably won't be able to always 1-turn them.

I see another Great Person is soon out. Hopefully another GS or GE. Settle him, right? Don't have the game open now as I'm making dinner, but SciMeth is probably next GS bulb, which is pointless.

 

[Pangaea]

Got in a few turns. As seems to be the theme lately, things didn't go as planned/expected.

But first, the war on Genghis was thankfully reasonably successful and he lost a good bit of power. Perhaps mostly due to losing two cities, but still.

Spoiler :

I haven't seen this before. Severe. Probably won't get invited to her wedding

We sign peace with Genghis and he pays us 175g for it. Then I re-arrange a few deals. Cancel Cow for 5gpt and get Corn for it. Genghis has Rice, but only 2gpt, and I hope for more next turn. Sure enough. 16 gpt now. I give him Copper and we get Rice + 8gpt. Nice. Also sold Liberalism to Genghis for all his gold (1490).

Between turns Hattie moves her stack in an unexpected way, retreating. Thought they'd go into Seattle, at least most of them, but there are only 4 guys, plus some Cuirs outside.

I declare on her anyway. One cannon attacks and the four units and Seattle are wiped. Hadn't thought about this, but despite the city no longer being Genghis', he still got upset about it being razed. Result: No longer Pleased

Hattie's Cuirs are better promoted than Genghis' were, and most have Combat. That means tense fighting against them in the open. Ours have more promotions, but the fights are no walk-overs. We win all, though, and kill 3-4 Cuirs in the open, cleaning her out from the west.

I was concerned about this possibility and thought about building another Conq in Madrid, but stuck with a cannon...

A decent number of Conqs could get back, but sadly I get screwed hard by the RNG this time, and two Conqs lose with 80 and 83% win chances Another Conq kills the first, and the Axe gets a nice little medal head for the mantle.

Oh, and as suspected earlier, Madrid went right back to unhappiness due to previous war weariness when we DOWed Hattie again. It started at 2 . This is a few turns later and it's up to 3, so I'm glad Incense became available from Genghis.

Btw, Stalin gets the Economics GM this turn, in 1180AD. Next turn, and once again Hatty is up to no good. Why can't you just play nice and let me kill you inside your city walls?

No great options here really (unless I missed something). Outright attacking doesn't have wonderful odds, and after losing two Conqs earlier I'm not too keen on risking several Conqs like that. After thinking a while and testing out combat odds, I decide to smash a Barrage3 cannon into the stack. I hoped it would survive at 37% odds, but sadly it did not. Honestly not sure how much more damage Barrage does in cases like this, but hopefully something.

Still not great odds after that, and what ended up being best was attacking the full-health Cuir and then Elephant with Pinch Conqs. They got 91%. Formation Conqs got the Muskets at 80%.

Thankfully those combats went well, and we didn't lose any more horsies We got another GG too, so figured this was a good time to stop for advice. Do we settle him? Would mean 3x promotion Rifles, and another promotion for Cannons. I'm never sure what to pick on them though, after City Raider.

I removed some ancient signs btw, and those visible in the screenshot above are already outdated.

Since we are only two turns away from Rifling now, do we stay in the forest and wait, and then invade in maybe 4 turns when we can get one Rifle as support? How many Conqs do we upgrade to Cavs?

Please have a look at the save and give feedback. I wouldn't mind playing a little further, but want to be sure I don't do something silly or unwanted.

 

[Fippy]

Good stuff, some losses had to happen
Waiting looks good now, we could not protect our cannons with enuf Conqs imo and she might have more units in the fog.
Maybe she does something stupid and attacks Conqs on the forest, Ragnar can be reckless with his units ~~

Forest tile will also be decent for upgrading Cavs in 2t, hmm how about keeping 6 Conqs (3 for each stack) and upgrading the rest?
Formation horsies should all become Cavs i think.
They should also be good enuf to protect our stack on flatland, if Rifles need some catch-up time and we would like to move out quicker for progress.

Happy problems will not get better long term, and i guess we should use our remaining forests for GT once we feel that we can take ~2t pause on unit prod (building GT on turns where we can get a chop too). Will also give some extra gpt, with selling all happy resis & not paying for them.

Difficult finding arguments against settling our GG,
they also give some beakers which we might be happy about long term, and i think another super medic would be luxury for now.

Some cannons with CR3 & accuracy looks great, good choice imo.
They are very flexible.

 

[Pangaea]

Only two turns played, and I was a bit more aggressive than advertised. We have Rifling, and I've queued up Steam Power next.

Spoiler :

Genghis has a nice little stack there, which I think moved back home to his core.

Genghis completes Physics, and I'm quite intrigued about what he will pick next... Communism. Good boy

Meanwhile Catherine brings a small expeditionary force from the east.

I move the two cannons in Madrid and a few Conqs to the windmill north of our horses. A worker too, hoping to road while invading.

Noticed Brennus was suddenly very close to Edu, so we may as well get a bit of gold from it. This actually brought him up to friendly. Although it sadly only lasted one turn (The voted for us expired, which I found odd as that vote was like 1-2 turns ago).

Then to the rather aggressive move. I liked our chances, what can I say

First of all, I checked the surroundings with the vision guy, and only saw a Cuir further SE, and the three cats (the other 'dots' are Brennus units). Few units in the city, and many are injured and need healing to be able to reliably fight. So I moved in three cannons and 7 Conqs (from Brennus city in the west), resting on a hill outside first, stealing a worker as well.

Let's hit next turn and assault Braganza!

Spoiler :

Also notice Stalin's Great Merchant moving to Madrid. Hopefully we can sell Liberalism to him for another pack of gold. Not that we particularly need it, but hey, more money can't hurt.

Cathy's small expeditionary force in the east got wiped as well, helped by a Rifle.

Probably need to heal up a little and upgrade more units before moving on further. If my count was right, there are 6 non-Formation Conqs left which we can leave un-upgraded. Going by previous advice, we can produce some more Rifles first, and then move on to more Cavalry. With so many promotions (I settled the GG) they'll be really strong.

Naturally things can go a bit awry between turns, depending on if Hattie is able to reach us with more than the one Cuir (the pike later died). We have some full-health "defenders", but many injured units as well. I think it will be fine, but you never quite know.

Oh, and Brennus is still plotting, which I assume in on Stalin. Two minor players, but I wouldn't want one of them to cap to the other.

Do @Fippy or somebody else want to continue, or shall I play some more turns? Warfare is fun

 

[Fippy]

I really like this game again, come on peoples everybody can add something nice
It's great for improving warfare, when every unit counts.
And also if you win most regular deity games by now (looking at Lain i.e. ~~), those games can take you even a bit further.

If you want to play on Pangaea, i surely will not stop you

More game related, i would look at killing those cats and then see if she accepts cease fire.
From all those games i played against tuff AIs, bad surprises regularly happen when you feel something might just go wrong, and she could have several Cuirs coming & attacking our Conqs next turn.
In standard games that would be fine, but here every lost unit counts.
I think there's no benefit in staying at war when we have some vulnerable guys around.

 

[Pangaea]

More game related, i would look at killing those cats and then see if she accepts cease fire.
From all those games i played against tuff AIs, bad surprises regularly happen when you feel something might just go wrong, and she could have several Cuirs coming & attacking our Conqs next turn.
In standard games that would be fine, but here every lost unit counts.
I think there's no benefit in staying at war when we have some vulnerable guys around.

Thanks, good advice. It was much closer now than when I checked earlier, so once I killed those cats she was willing to cease fire. Think it was down to the last Conq able to attack this turn, but that's enough. Better to not take any risks

 

[Pangaea]

Okay, I'm playing so just a short post, because I wanted to look into the real Genghis. Our cease fire will soon expire, we're about to re-declare on Hatty again, and Hatty and Genghis have really good relations. A recipe for potential dogpile.

As far as I can tell, Genghis has to be Pacal in disguise. +6 for civic, +7 for holy city religion, and -4 for holy city non-religion, and ofc HR.

The good thing is that he's not a massive unit builder, though that's kind of a moot point considering he has a huge army. However, he will declare at pleased (and we're cautious now), and can be bribed on us too. How worried should I be?

Oh, and Brennus re-declared on Sury.

Edit: Hmm, maybe actually not... I just re-declared on Hattie and am pretty sure there didn't appear another -1 for DOW on friend. Guess their combined stance means Genghis is cautious with her. That makes it safer, although he can still backstab us on his own.

 

[Pangaea]

Time for another update on the Hatty war.

Spoiler :

As mentioned previously, Brennus declared on Sury. Not the brightest move as it turned out, but hey hoo, it's what the AI do.

Stalin popped the GM in Madrid and has a pile of gold, but very little available A little later he would give us only 110 of 160g for Nationalism, so I sold it to him. Obviously close.

Brennus invades from the east, and Sury walks straight up to his isolated city (turns out it was an AP gift).

Time for WAAAAR! These are the stacks. The idea with the workers was kinda silly as I didn't get any real use out of them, but I thought it was a nice thought *shrug* For the zillionth time a city got founded. I wanted to march straight south for Coimbra, hence the bigger stack there, but we had to raze a brand new city first. In the east the stack is split up, but with more cannons for the bigger city south (I thought it had more than 20%).

Upon DOW Madrid is hauled right back into unhappiness (or very soon), with 4 from war weariness. We're going to need that Globe at some point, good idea, but I haven't done anything with it yet, as I reckoned we needed more units first. Have built 6 Rifles and then on to Cavs. Haven't cancelled the Iron deal, maybe a mistake, but I worry that 12 cannons isn't going to be all that much :-/

Have barely declared before Hattie gets Military Science and Grenadiers. The place will the swarming with them soon enough. Timing was good I think.

A little while later, and we're finally moving in on Coimbra. Due to the river there aren't any great tiles to attack from. Made some minor mistakes with movement here (like in the screenshot), but didn't get punished for it. Moved more units down from the north (healed for a turn), and we gather on the forested hill, before moving in for the kill.

The AI isn't always terribly wise in situations like this, but unfortunately Ragnar is quite gutsy, and threw several trebs into the stack, and then some Cuirs. Didn't notice it at first, but a damaged cannon from the previous attack actually died to flanking Piles of units damaged too, but we didn't lose others. But it made things quite awkward, as the medic was on the other front. Two turns later I got down a fresh normal medic. It helped.

Meanwhile, in the east, Oporto is poorly defended. For the time being. Takes time to move with siege and rifle support, and Deity AIs sure can pump out the units fast (and Hatty is in caste).

Brennus' war on Sury wasn't the smartest move he's ever made. He loses the city, and looks like Sury took it at a canter. The worker continued south and checked out Sury's forces. Not much to brag about really. Didn't take pictures, but just a handful of Cuirs and longbows here and there. Apart from the stack that took Burgundian, he looks pretty weak. Have lost demographics view on him now, but we were up to about ~0.85 power ratio with him.

We killed a few solitary Cathy knights in the north, and here she pops up in Oporto. Turns out she's only passing through, and her real intention is to invade Madrid.

Next turn and the Sury vs Brennus war is put to an end. Oh, and yet another city is plumped down in the vacant land. This is certainly going to be an annoyance. Will the land these cities claim mean we can't cap people?

Finally it's time to attack Oporto. More guys in there now, but we get through okay Hattie is hurting after that, and is willing to give us all her gold (albeit it's only 120g) and most of her gpt.

Well then, over to Coimbra in the west. It was so stuffed with units that I had to attack over two turns. Forgot to take a picture of the first batch, so this is only the last units. It went quite well really, but I did lose a Cavalry at 98% odds The cannons survived, though, which is the main thing.

Oh yeah, and heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Cathy!

We're not in real danger I think, but it's certainly a nuisance. Not least because she could pretty easily smash our horses. If that happens we could probably use some more cannons. It feels a bit short, and requires more time healing than I'm used to from normal games.

 

[Pangaea]

Reckon it's time to hand over this baby now, as it feels like I've played a fair bit. The longer I play, the bigger the chance for howlers.

Some decisions to be made too. Do we grab Constitution from Stalin? Globe? (but stupidly, all our workers are off right now) Bribe Sury on somebody? Another GG is soon out too I see. Another medic may not be the worst idea as it's already a multi-front war, and it will only get worse I guess.

Oh yeah, another annoyance: Some tit has already gone with Emancipation. I always hate when that happens. Madrid is pretty unhappy as a result, and it will only get worse from here, probably already next turn when more of the war weariness ticks in. 7 WW + 1 emancipation currently (city micro is all messed up due to this, and I haven't fixed in the save yet).

What to do in the war effort? Do we continue right away, or cease-fire again? Will Cathy break free soon? I hope so based on the listed values, but it always seems so random.

Kinda got my eyes on Lisbon, but it's a long trek with so much culture everywhere.

 

[Fippy]

Intense, i think you did very good and Rags can be broken soon ~~
Only 6 cities + 1 filler left, and our power is increasing quick despite having only 1 city (pics for lurkers)

Spoiler :

I like GP + PP for Constitution from Stalin, yup. Both techs are widely gone. Cathy misses them, but i consider her and Stalin rather harmless.

Globe would be 3t with full hammer tiles, not bad but i would delay until we reach an end with the Hatshy war (or feel we need no new units urgently).
For now i suggest 10% culture slider (+2 happy) & getting spices from Brennus.

Bribing Sury, i would say nope.
Could conflict with our chances to vassal Hatshy, and he would roll over Stalin.
New GG, hmm we could get 4 promo Cavs with another settling..tempting.
He might get problems with reaching our stack too, as super medic.

2 Cavs at Madrid, they can attack Cathy's stack and move back (works with hills in our culture, even against stacks, i learned that only some time ago).
This turn a Rifle build maybe, can stay and secure Madrid after helping?

West stack, only healing makes sense this turn imo.
Then i would eye Lagos with them.

East force has more options, here i would suggest destroying Visen with mounted only (97% odds with our best Cav against Gren, should be easy),
good if we can get rid of those 3 Cuirs as well and re-open reinforcement roads.
While our cannons and other injured rest 1 turn. Since both parts can move on the marker tile next turn, they can all combine for Lisbon easily again

Cease fire would move Cathy's mini stack out of Madrid culture, hmm it's interesting..
worth doing i think, with our main stacks not being in her culture this turn.
Genghis dislikes Cathy, maybe that's why we are not getting -diplo with him for dows?
But anyways, an improvement for war planning should be worth more than diplo currently.

 

[Pangaea]

Good stuff

Only loaded the save to have a look, but then my finger slipped. A few times. Some units are cleaned out, including Viseu. Got the GG too. No losses.

Spoiler :

Do you want to continue @Fippy? Or are somebody else interested in jumping in?

Suppose the main decision now (besides the trade and Spice) is whether to cease fire or not.

Normally I'd just keep going after healing, as it feels a little cheesy to cease-fire -> DOW all the time, but here every tiny decision matters more. In any case, we need to heal a little as both stacks saw heavy combat last turn.

 

[krikav]

I'm not interested in playing turns myself yet, but I did load the save and took a look around.
Is it 4 national wonders maximum in OCC?

I did see that there was just 10 xp for a new great general, and I got an idea for consideration:
If we can get MilSci somehow (noone was able to trade it) we could make an academy, and thereby continue to 1turn units while working worse tiles and grow the city.

 

[Fippy]

Productive finger slipping

I can understand if you consider cease fire abusing cheesy, certainly feels a bit this way.
We can play noble and without ~~

I will run out of time today, but happy to continue tomorrow.

 

[Fippy]

5 national wonders i think @krikav, i also thought about an academy and it's a good idea,
but short term we gain more from settling (?)

 

[krikav]

Probably, especially since we don't even have MilSci.

 

[Pangaea]

Thought about the Mil Academy earlier too, but for now it's probably more beneficial to settle him. We should be fine for 1-turning Cavs for a while still. Will be more useful later when we need Infantry.

One more thing. Do we cancel the Iron deal? I've kept it so far, but if we don't intend to make more cannons we may as well just cancel it. Does cost a bit after all.

This warfare larf is more tricky than I imagined a little while back. All the re-settling causes reinforcement issues, and we can't really prevent it very effectively either. Genghis is filling the land to the west currently (the marker for "fort. Pike" already has a settler party). And we can't really take as many risks as we do in normal games, as we can't whip out a new army. Tricky diplomatically too.

Hopefully things will be easier if we manage to cap Hattie and Cathy. That should give us more land and power to enable quicker capping of the rest. They sure are teching fast though. Good they have gone the "wrong" paths so far, although I see Brennus can tech Rifling now.

 

[Fippy]

Hmmm..Cathy might plunder the horsies as you mentioned (without cease fires),
then we would probably like building more cannons for other AIs later meanwhile?
But i agree that we should decide on when we will build more.

Yup but being forced to be careful makes those games so different and interesting
Most regular deity games would be won already.

 

[Pangaea]

Most regular deity games would be won already.

By the AI you mean? Haha (at least in many of my own Deity games).

 

[Fippy]

Did not get very far in this session lol,
first i did a little test if we can still get 6gpt + for Spices:

Spoiler :

Yup barely..and so we picked up +1 happy and 10% culture for a satisfied population. Until next turn anyways, where we are back at -1 hmm.

Why did i stop, well Cathy broke free from Hatshy and tells us this when asking about capitulation:

Spoiler :

I have too little experience here, would we be guaranteed that she vassals if we make peace with Hatshy? (who says we are doing fine on our own)

No other news in between turns, no attacks. I used the chance of some Cavs standing away from our stack to move workers there as well, so they can sneak home hopefully.