Team Game - Isolated Pacal (Deity)

[obsolete]

Well, I see you've gone and botched this one up from the start.
Had it been me in charge, I would have gone with the Amphibious-Elephants strategy, but I guess that has fallen out of fashion these days.

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Alright, on a more serious note- I think you guys had better start planning NOW... ahem, I mean a MONTH AGO, what to do with Wang.

Not to point out the obvious, but you have someone who IS AT WAR WITH YOU, who is just a few ocean tiles away on your West flank, and can hit any of your coastal cities out of the dark at their choosing.

In its place, you are defending not just without hills bonus, but only with 1 or more WARRIORS.

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And time for a question I have. Out of curiosity, if you moved your dangerous looking musket into Bombay NOW, can you upgrade him to a rifle next turn?

I am going from memory, and usually I don't end in these botched up scenarios, but I THINK if an enemy has culture tiles that block off your connection to your capital that is a NO, but is it also true even for RESOURCELESS upgrades?

 

[Pedro78]

Lol.

I think it's Lain's fault. Lain, I know you're new to this game and all, but why oh why did you send the army to Asoka's continent while it was so obvious you should instead have defended our cities against mighty Wang? I think 5 Riflemen + 2 Amphibious WEs per city are a strict minimum. Let's do this NOW

 

[unas876]

 

[Anysense]

Wang probably does not even have ships to carry his units, even if has any apart from basic city garrison. Chances that he won't even bother to show up before cease fire?

 

[Lain]

Yeah, Wang Kon should peace out soon. Anyway, I'll feel much better about the game if/once Dehli falls and at last Giggles soaks up some Indian cannons. So even if he reaches Artillery now, there won't be a stack of them waiting in Dehli. Attacking with Cavalry into those CG2 Rifles won't be so cheap for Asoki.

I wonder if it would have been right to whip cities harder, economy crash or not. Well, drafting wouldn't work then (size 6). But failing here casts some serious doubts on winning chances (at least without grinding too much). Advantage of preserving some population is that we could still tech to Artillery ourselves if need be. Biology first seems natural though, I think the war will swing in Giggle's favor soon and we need something to bribe him off before disaster happens.

Agree on tech trades, should get what we can I suppose.

Think Fippy is taking a break after SGOTM, so I don't know, you want to continue a bit Pedro? Or maybe wait a bit longer

 

[obsolete]

I am in agreement that you must go for India's capital NOW. And also simultaneously take Var out as well. At a bare minimum to get that killer culture out. Then assuming things don't go bad and you are forced to go to peace, take the Versailles 2 tiles away from Delhi. That's the main prize city, with major shrine to boot. Delhi sadly is pretty much a junker, due to 6 of the world wonders in it already useless/obsolete.

Option:
Put a couple turns of tech into Physics, then trade for it from SB? Only takes 1 turn to get airships over to another continent, then you can use them as dual duty for scouts/battering ram to hit India's units all over the board.

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My god, it was painful watching you waste all those worker turns on silly little cottages. But now that you FINALLY got them working to a point after all that effort, you guys end up putting a WS over them. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!

It really is painful to witness.

 

[Pedro78]

Sure I'll play on. Too bad Fippy's away, I think these tricky turns are her favorite.

 

[Pedro78]

Following Anysense's trading pattern we can get Physics in 2 turns. Then 2 turns to build Airships and another turn to transport them to India's continent. But at the moment what we need the most is cannons -- if we had Physics earlier it would probably have been a good move to build some, but here I feel like they won't pay off.

@obsolete your posts are downright insulting to people who have put a lot of effort in this game. If you're as good as you say, why don't you actually put something useful on the table instead of ranting about how others play?

 

[Pedro78]

A bit lazy to write-up right now, will do that later (promise). Position is strong -- tech trades were awesome and Asoka is going down steadily. Now we have to think about what we want to do with him and his stupid half-dutch or half-sumerian cities. I'm beginning to think that we should grab the six good cities that he's got left and cap him -- we got just about every trade we could hope for and tanks won't be far away once we're done with him, so I don't think relations are too important anymore (unless we want space but I think conquest will be much easier/faster)

Was the most rewarding turnset I've played in a while btw. It feels so good when you plan stuff and then things actually work as you planned

 

[Fippy]

Good stuff Pedro, cheers

I like that we ran into problems with Asoka, challenge always good.
Taking a Civ break currently, but i follow (had nothing useful to add)

 

[Pedro78]

Thanks!
Yup not sure I would have remained motivated had we fought against longbows.
We all need breaks, enjoy yours

 

[sampsa]

Very interesting and well played game so far IMO. Especially interesting that it's not always about -production (due to abundance of financial river tiles mostly I guess). What is your -plan btw? Start a golden age with the random one from globe-city (need to stop drafting for that though), then run a consecutive one with the next ones?

Glad that the terrible Wang didn't raze all your cities.

 

[Pedro78]

Didn't look much into the GPs yet. But yeah as soon as units aren't needed anymore we'll get a GP from Globe city (can run scientists + a bunch of artists without CS). Golden age will probaby be launched around AL -- it would be wasted early as cities are either very small or still revolting. Even though a win is almost guaranteed, late-war planning to optimize finish date is far from easy and very time-consuming, should be interesting if people are still motivated to play by then.

Glad that the terrible Wang didn't raze all your cities.

Didn't see a single Korean unit for the whole turnset (only 5 turns though). He even gave us money for peace

 

[Anysense]

Thanks!
Yup not sure I would have remained motivated had we fought against longbows.
We all need breaks, enjoy yours

It depends. Fighting longbows with cannons is really nice when you struggle to launch your spaceship around 1290AD rather than struggle to just win the game.

 

[Pedro78]

In this case I prefer fighting flatland Archers with HAs

 

[Anysense]

In this case I prefer fighting flatland Archers with HAs

Nah, I hate horse archers. They always meet spears behind walls on hills. Never managed to do a successful HA rush on Deity. I don't like fighting with odds below 90% at all. Even if you attack 2 archers with 5 HA, success is far from guaranteed. Its outright gambling; you only win if you get lucky. Here even cannons against artillery are more reliable than HA against archers. It may be tough, but it always works as you knew it would.
Lately I've been experimenting with Rome and even CR2 praets get thwarted by RNG sometimes. Tried Egypt too. WC meet spears just like horse archers do, but around 2000BC. No, thanks. No early warfare any more; I had enough horrible experince with it for a lifetime. Just build enough cannons to fight with 5-6 stacks against 2-3 civs simultaneously and take one city every turn.

 

[Pedro78]

I disagree with just about everything you've just said (a year ago I'd have agreed with everything though), but it's not the right place to discuss this anyway. You can make a separate thread to discuss/practice early warfare if you want, I'll be glad to participate!

 

[Pedro78]

If I don't write-up today I'll never do it tomorrow.

Spoiler t184.5-189 :

First, something that's easy to forget: GT city does not need MP

T184.

Reworked a couple of deals in order to draft a bit more -- we really need those Rifles NOW



Then I went shopping around for some techs. This has to be the best tech trades I've ever had in iso.



T185.

SB was researching RP. Couldn't get Physics from him this turn so..




(Didn't take poly nor archery obvsl, was just to show that the trade was balanced)

T186.



Nope, "wheoohrn"



Could've given him 370 gold instead of Lib, but it's a worthless tech anyway and opens up Communism, which we'd like him to tech for us (not to trade with him, just to increase the percentage of players knowing the tech and thus allowing others to trade it to us)

This helps with commerce -



An important thing about war:


If you want to land units on enemy territory on turn T, you need to load them in the shis on T-1. Only case where you can load/unload in one turn is when you unload inside a friendly city.

Meanwhile Asoka captured Larsa -




But Gilgamesh will still make peace with Asoka, meaning he's not hurting too much. Anyways he's providing a good distraction for Asoka's stack. By the way he now has Artillery.

T187.

The cherry on top:



This puts us at tech parity with Giggles and otherwise ahead of everyone. Steam Power revealed coal but I only thought about mining it 2T later. Small mistake.

Mighty Wang accepts peace.



Thought he had given us gold. Apparently it was the contrary. Not a huge deal I guess

Asoka won't accept peace anymore, even for 1000+ gold he must not be realizing that Delhi & Vara will fall in the next 2 turns? Stupid AI..

T188.

Mighty Wang opens borders with us, he's now cautious and will trade techs (no WFYABTA because we're both in the lower half of the scoreboard)

Varanasi falls:



You can see that I accidentally didn't move the stack on the hill to attack Delhi. That mistake could've come at a high cost, had Asoka been stronger. Didn't even hit me with Artillery (only has one in Delhi, but still..).

Meanwhile, looks like Gilgamesh isn't letting Asoka step on his toes:



Asoka has Biology. If Pericles switches out of WFYABTA we'll be able to get it from him.

T189.



Delhi. Check.

Gilgamesh now has RR, so the days of worrying that Asoka will kill him are over. We'll need Biology pretty soon to bribe him off (maybe as soon as he takes Larsa back)

Now time for one of the most satisfying moves of this turnset

After capturing Delhi, I moved every single unit in reach to this tile:



Now. Cower before the might of Asoka's Cavalry:



Uuh I mean.. ceasefire. And now...



Not only does this save a turn of movement for most units, but it does also save a turn of healing troops (the ones that were at Vara's gate), as those cannot heal after moving -- this simple trick virtually gains two turns to the war. The big stack will probably split to take Vijay & Patali, why another (future) stack will raid weakly-defended coastal cities, using Galleon movement.


Now let's be friends again, shall we?



Btw I didn't take the copper for 11gpt trade yet (didn't finish the turn), anyone who plays next should most likely take it.

This guy became the second SuperMedic:



1 movement is not great but he'll be spending most of his time in Galleons anyway. And he'll get the +1mov promotion on the first free fight. Better than wasting 40 on an Explorer.


Overall I went a bit harder on the draft button this turnset (every city but Ox has 6 from drafting), but I think it was well worth it. This unit burst is much more valuable right now than it'll be in 10 turns.

Anyway, who wants to play next? Many lurkers here -- Sampsa, Anysense, Unas? Not sure if Dutchfire is still on a break? The upcoming turnset is fairly easy (and fun ) -- the only really tough one was Lain's DoW turnset. Might be your only chance to play a role in the Great Indian War, which probably won't last for very long anymore

 

[Lain]

Awesome, great progress and many options now. Capturing Lahore with new troops would be nice to remove all the nasty culture, even though it's on a hill.

Agree on capitulation and pursuing Domination. Concrete war-plan wouldn't hurt though, how much stack splitting can be afforded? I might be too cautious, for example. But we are a little light on cannons right now, so I'd keep them together if possible.

Main stack targets Vija (better shrine than the one we already have!!!), then Pataliputra? How is Asoka's big nasty army of 15 Cavs doing? Any of them still alive? Basically, do we have anything to fear if Asoka/Giggles agree peace next turn?

Can Gilgamesh capture Calcutta before we reach Biology?

I'd whip 1-2 more Frigates maybe

 

[Pedro78]

Yeah, have to be careful as he has Artillery. But Spy showed that he only has 4-5 units in both Vijay & Patali, that's why I don't think splitting the main stack is too dangerous. Last news he's still got a bunch of units in Larsa & Zimbir, so if they make peace now we might get 15-20 Rifles/Cavs + some Artillery heading our way -- not yet time to make peace.

Btw we should think of reassigning spy points -- spying on Asoka is useless now, especially as he's putting all his points on us and we can't even see his power rating.

Gilga will probably recapture Larsa before we reach Biology. Maybe Zimbir. No way he gets Calcutta though, it's too far away & we'll reach Biology in ~6T.

Yup we lost one Frigate so getting 1-2 more is a good idea. But number one priority is Cannons. Btw I saw you build/whip a Rifleman in Calakmul. Imo that's a big no-no when you already get a lot of them from drafting and don't have enough siege.

Edit - instead of Lahore, I was thinking of Harappan first, then Agra. They're both on flatland and will be very easy captures. Another thing is they will gain a turn wen moving the main stack from Vijay to the ocean for the final push on Calcutta/Lahore.