The Average Joes

[Simple Simon]

About Willi: In my experience he is usually a huge pain in the ass. He techs away like crazy and always has top defenders, making a quick raze of several cities (my favorite method to stop a tech leader) quite hard to pull off.

Which gets me thinking: what does his coast look like? Maybe we can land three of four pillaging teams and hurt him? I'll have a look when I get back home and have CIV available.

 

[colony]

I have a similar experience, he can run away with techs with only 5-8 cities, even more so than Mansa, presumably because he'll trade anything to anyone in a similar way. His units might be advanced, but the size of his army's normally a bit lacking.

Here's a picture of the other continent, as you can see there aren't many big coastal cities to go for, they're all a few squares inland, so it would take a real invasion to capture the main ones.

Spoiler :

 

[Simple Simon]

thanks for the screenshot. Let's see:

just musing - this is not something I even think of 'might happen in the middle future'!



no isthmus to block&pillage
no way to cut off copper without taking a town
no cutting off stone without taking a town, either

we can, though, cut the pig, banana, cows and clams
simultaneously


aside from that there should be a bunch of huts near Utrecht, R... and Amsterdam.

Oh, btw, there must be a town directly south of the rice, too!


So IF we decide to attack, and then lack the ability to take towns, then a pillaging campaign can seriously hurt Willi. (and if we land and the town is weakly defended, well, who's to say we have to stick to the plan)...

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Sorry guys couldn't get to it last, I'll do it tonight.

We have a pretty good amphibious unit but we'd have to act quickly for us to make the most of it. If we can pull it off I'd be in favour of burning down the crappiest coastal cities. Some might have wonders anyway which is a compulsory razing.

 

[Simple Simon]

Some might have wonders anyway which is a compulsory razing.

which, actually, makes them prime targets! If we can't have them, why should Willi profit from them, hu?

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Pull a couple of chariots off fog busting duty and put them as MPs instead

Turn 181
we get the harbormaster quest, which I think we should go for
Meet Monty and Suryavarman both are pretty pissed at us trading with Fred and Willem, they'd make the better trading partners right now as they're further behind but there's no sense in having trading with worst enemy malus with two groups
Almost finished the colossus, oops. I take it out of the queue as we'll still get the cash back for it.

Turn 183
Sury demands compass which I give to improve relations without getting bad diplo with anyone else, still won't trade though.

Turn 184
we get the previous turns circum nav bonus, as an interesting side effect it also centres the map.

Turn 186
Gift Charlmagne Aphabet, pretty useless tech when you only know other other civ , he goes to cautious

Turn 189
Fred completes the colossus just iun time too

Turn 191
make a trade with Sury, CS for Construction and Calendar, Fred and Willem don't get angry.

IBT
Charlie demands Phil but I turn him away, he remains catious.

Turn 192
Education comes in, trade that and Philosophy to everyone to make the Liberalism race a bit more interesting.
Trade compass for mono and 100 gold, might as well make the most of WFYABTA immunity from Charlie, plus we need the gold.


Played 15 turns
To summarize I mostly built chariots and beserkers for MPs and our eventual conquest of the earth, I held off on building any navy other than another caravel(for the quest of which we still need 1 more) MP units are more useful at this stage. I traded for Mono and was thinking about OR but we should probably try and get Theology for the added XP for our soldiers.
The Great General we have idle would make a good Medic 3 galleon maybe, just putting the thought out there, would make our amphibious fleet more mobile, though a medic 3 chariot would be better in the long term though it would take up an cargo space.
I founded the fish wines city, got a work boat out of Uppsala for it and it now has a granary, probably just needs to whip out a bit more infra then it can start on military, it's a pretty good hybrid.
The pigs horses city I founded out of reach of the Whales, we could do with the happiness but I went for a better long term city which got more land tiles and no ocean. Should just pump cultural buildings to get its second expansion.
Nijmegan might make a good beachead, we could just cut the road there using 2 chariots.
Fred would make the best target, he's weaker and seems more advanced than Willem, but Willem has gone down a different path than him. Of course Fred is further away.
There's one more city I think is worth settling, up in the desert with 2 options.


my vote is for red.


Nidaros Should get all it's forest chopped and cottaged, I think we should put them into a wonder when we get stone online, either Angkor Wat or Uni of Sankore, it will give us quite a bit of dosh. Or we could put it into units.
We could try our hand at leaving lib 1 turn from completion or just take Astro(best option I think), it's sustainable at 5 turns -27gpt
Roskilde could benefit from one more farm.
Oops totally didn't realize there's 2 axes and a sword available for MP duty.

I guess you can play either 10-15 turns in peace time, not much is happening.

 

[Simple Simon]

got it! I may be able to play within 24 hours, 48 is a definitive go!

 

[Simple Simon]

looking at the save I notice the following:


green vs. red: red, as the tiles lost can be used by Bjorgvin. The gained ones are not really exciting, but may contain oil or whatever.

Willi or Freddy: I would not pick on the weaker candidate first, as this can lead to the stronger guy growing even stronger! Just imagine Willi jumps in on 'our' side and grabs a few towns from Freddy. Or, worse, they ally against us. Going for the leader of the island usually gives you a decent chance that the weaker civs will not meddle with your affairs, in my experience.

Nijmegen: not necessarily a good place to land an invasion force, if we mean to capture the island. It is a holy city, which may mean a shrine, which would mean razing. Let's see if we can find out first (spy), before we attack. Or does anyone remember a message about the Church of the Nativity?

Chopping Nidaros: I'd leave one forest, for the health. We can always chop it later if we find we do not need the


Stupid questions:
Doesn't a Great General count as 'special'?
What about quests? They are special, too, I'd say, so if we have to go out of our normal ways to fulfill them, they should be ignored.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Church of nativity can be found using the Top 5 cities/wonders screen.
Maybe the best way to take him on is to watch out for his invasion fleet(if he sends one) and sink it otherwise amphibiously destroying it which would make holding a beachhead easier.
We're still a ways off from invading yet anyway, I think Chemistry for Frigates to bombard defences should be grabbed first.

Chopping Nidaros: 1 forest equals 0.5 health so we'd nee to leave 2 forests. But I'm not sure we ned to worry too much about health especially as most of our cities are coastal, and our cities won't need to go past size 20 as we'll then have to employ citizens.

Regarding Great Generals, yes I guess they are too special for our nation. Destroy him.
Quests are a in a little bit of a grey area, depends what the mission and the reward are I guess.

 

[Simple Simon]

Maybe the best way to take him on is to watch out for his invasion fleet(if he sends one) and sink it otherwise amphibiously destroying it which would make holding a beachhead easier.
We're still a ways off from invading yet anyway, I think Chemistry for Frigates to bombard defences should be grabbed first.

That's two good ideas in a row, I'd say

Quests are a in a little bit of a grey area, depends what the mission and the reward are I guess.

That's what I meant - the harbourmaster one happens to fit our planned development somewhat, so we should not avoid it, but we should also not make a special effort to complete it.

 

[Simple Simon]

Boring turns - I hope I didn't produce too much !

Let me say this first: Willi is a prime target right now! His fleet? What fleet? His amphibious troops? What troops?

Spoiler :

Two Galleons per city, only 'Zerks (so 6 per city), 3 cities simultaneously - that's a hit he won't recover from for a while! We do not have to kill him outright, just weaken him seriously. Same for Freddy - if his cities are as weakly defended we can keep him from ever becoming a serious threat simply by giving him a quick going-over soon. Attack and raze now, come back later with Cavs and conquer.

We CAN easily ship over 18 'zerks and position the ships for a simultaneous attack before Willi gets better defenders, so let's do it!

________________________________________________________________

I pre-cottaged the forests around Nidaros, and I d by letting it start Angkor Wat. So be careful, once stone is connected (border expansion in 1, workers are close by), not to chop it to completion!

I rushed a few buildings, but generally went light on the whip.

Two Galleons are on order.
I started universities, but since Astro is in (a no-brainer: when lib came round it was by far the most expensive tech!), we should prefer Observatories as the first build, since we do not need the culture.

I ordered the construction of a Military Academy, but the great General Montgomery, into whose hands I put the task, saluted so smartly that he cracked his skull with his own hand and died soon thereafter. So the Academy remained unbuilt

I did a few trades, to get some income for speedy research. I know this speeds AI research, but I traded only those techs that the AIs would easily get by round trades or won research, and I wanted to make sure that we have time to use our Astro advantage without going totally broke during a war.

I researched Printing Press fort the extra productivity of our many towns - a detour from a purely military path, but a worthy one, I deemed.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Sounds like good turns.
If we're going to settle on Little Willi and Freds Continent we might want to head towards Communism for State Property (and executing the free Great Spy) otherwise we're going to drown in colonial expenses.
When Chemistry comes in we should send a few Privateers about harassing the other AIs plus earning us some money.

I like your idea of the simultaneous attack on Willem although think we're going to need a sizeable force of frigates to get the defenses down in one turn for each of those cities, I think they can do 4% per turn or there abouts. Perhaps a couple of attack groups would work better, we'd still have the element of surprise and we'd still be able to move quite fast as the frigates can move ahead of the galleons and bring defenses down.

 

[Simple Simon]

I like your idea of the simultaneous attack on Willem although think we're going to need a sizeable force of frigates to get the defenses down in one turn for each of those cities, I think they can do 4% per turn or there abouts. Perhaps a couple of attack groups would work better, we'd still have the element of surprise and we'd still be able to move quite fast as the frigates can move ahead of the galleons and bring defenses down.

The way I see it, a Raider two Zerk has over 50% odds for those towns as they are....

 

[colony]

It sounds like a good plan, I wouldn't be too worried about cultural defence, Berserkers should have good odds even without bombarding them down. What is the reward for the Harbourmaster quest anyway?

I'll probably switch to Theocracy too, the extra promotion will be useful. I think you might have attached the wrong save though, that's a very old one

 

[Simple Simon]

oops, lemme check....

yep, for some reason I had the files sorted the wrong way when I attached the save. Here's the 'youngest' I have now.

 

[colony]

Got it, should play either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. I guess 15 turns or so is ok right?

 

[50_dollar_bag]

15 turns ok

 

[colony]

Well we aren't quite ready to atack Willem yet, we have the units, but we'd also lose a lot of happiness, so a few defenders could be useful. I did make one deal, Clams for Silver with Charlemagne, not sure how long that'll last though, he just demanded tribute (Education) and is annoyed with us now. Once Rifling's finished I'd definitely agree with Chemistry, I would've gone straight to it, but when I saw Rifling was so close I just couldn't help myself. Sorry about that, I was a bit distracted and ended up not really thinking things through properly, some really bad SG form there.

The 6 Galleons are built and I started stockpiling units in Utica. One thing to consider is that we'll have Rifling in 4 turns, so if we attack ASAP then we can upgrade some of the more experienced older units to CR2/3 Rifles, once the initial attack runs out of steam and then walk all over everyone for a while. The moron governor in charge of Nidaros keeps making the citizens into Engineers because it's over size 20, if you don't feel like the hassle of constantly taking them off then it might be worth starving it down or whipping 2 pop away. The 4 Caravels were keeping an eye on Willem's cities in case he does something silly like build some units.


0 - 1500AD - Take off 2 Berserkers, get rid of specialists
2 - 1510AD - Replaceable Parts, Galleon in Haithabu
4 - 1520AD - Islam founded in Nijmegan, switch to Theocracy
5 - 1525AD - Angkor Wat built in Yasodharapura, Monty starts a GA
6 - 1530AD - Courthouse -> Forge in Tonsberg, Galleon -> Berserker in Birka
7 - 1535AD - Berserker -> Berserker in Carthage, Berserker -> Galleon in Nidaros
8 - 1540AD - Galleon -> Galleon (6 in one being built) in Nidaros, Observatory -> Aqueduct in Uppsala, Galleon -> Observatory in Haithabu, Clam for Silver with Charlemagne
10 - 1550AD - Rep Parts -> Rifling, Galleon -> Observatory in Jelling, Berserker -> Observatory in Carthage
11 - 1555AD - Granary -> Courthouse in Lodose, Grocer -> Observatory in Bjorgvin
12 - 1560AD - Berserker -> Forge in Birka
14 - 1570AD - Charlemagne demands Education
15 - 1575AD - Grocer -> Bank in Nidaros, Observatory -> Berserker in Carthage

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Rifling is not such a bad idea, delays our conquest a little but amphibious CR rifles upgraded from berserkers will come in pretty handy.
I'm sitting at work at the moment so can't open the save, how soon do you think we can attack?

I'll try and play tonight

 

[Simple Simon]

get rid of specialists

each and every turn - and it SUCKS!


good call about rifling - depending on our research rate (money, money, money) we may be able to attack&keep, not hit&run!