The Devil is Six

[Cam_H]

In terms of a vague PPP ...

Not a great deal to add to nocho's suggestions as outlined at the tail of his report.

I think we're good to open borders with Churchill - it might net us a slightly better or two.

I am thinking that we'll be wanting to flip the Barbarian city of Cimerrian rather than risk our few precious units by attacking it (nocho said "capture" but I'm not sure if it's required). I don't know if we want to keep it given that it misses the Gold tile on the south east diagonal, but that will come much later anyway if we do try the 'flip' approach.

I'm not sure on Philosophy given that it's not a monopoly technology. Thinking Paper (Sankore?) or a quick diversion off the Liberalism path to Metal Casting (just handy - also not a monopoly, but Forges would be good and leads us to Crossbows and Maces). Your thoughts here would be good.

I am assuming that we're not concerned about leveraging a religious civic ... or are we? If so, do we seek out a trade for Monotheism, or are we thinking Pacifism per chance? No Golden Age in the foreseeable for civic swaps.

'Yes' to Sugar Plantations.

Simple thoughts on specialisation;

New York (Bureaucracy capital) > Science centre ... press on with Market > Hindu Mon
New Jersey > Production ... last Chariot > Axes and Swords
St Petersburg > Farm ... I trust it's OK to run Merchants when we can ... press on with Market
Bossanova > Production ... Axes and Swords
Surfer Rosa > Commerce ... whip Granary when do-able > Library
Come On Pilgrim > Commerce ... whip Library when do-able
Doolittle > Production ... swap to Monument?​

I'll look a bit toward the whip, but right now there's not a lot of whip opportunity. Also I'll keep a keen eye on trades, esp. in light of and excess Sugars in time.

 

[nocho]

Keep Cimmerian! Too bad about the gold, but a city is a city and with pig and horse it's quite decent as it is. Besides, if we'd resettle for gold we also get some awful desert for a bonus. Regarding this city, keep track of incoming units and keep some chariots close by. It's flat land, I think a CR1 sword should actually have decent odds. I wouldn't mind if you get a few of those close by. I think a city is worth a couple of units, so don't be too shy about a possible attack. If in doubt, consult with team.

Agree more or less with the city stuff. St Pete isn't really a GP farm, but we don't have anything better atm. We should irrigate its corn asap (missed that in my set). Same for rice at Bossanova. The capital could probably use a granary, also for health reasons. We'll want the capital as big as possible anyway, so some of the warriors could do garrisoning here if needed. May want to relocate some garrison anyway (warriors in interior, archers more on the borders).

As said, keep a close look at the red fisted AIs, especially Justinian. We should send out some chariots (or even scouts) to at least locate where all AIs live. Though if you go paper soon (fine with that) we can probably get a WM anyway.

On religious civics, pacifism wouldn't be bad if St Pete would have hindu, but it doesn't... OrgRel makes sense for the capital, but not that much for our other hindu cities (NJ, Bossanova) as those are mainly focused on military. Hence I don't know if the anarchy would be worth it. If we manage to get hindu in St Pete wouldn't mind pacifism though, some GSs will have their uses.

I'd keep on the lib path for now and hope to trade for MC, construction etc. We still have some trading power when things become available (bartering CS around for instance).

 

[Ororo]

I like the idea of running Pacifism if Hindu spreads to St. Petersburgh.

However, I don't like the fact that we've lost so much food in capital by not building capital. I would probabl switch from Market to Granary, chop the nearby forests and continue with Market once it's finished. We have 3 surplus happiness yet we're not working all of our cottages. That Granary is absolutely necessary now imo!

 

[Cam_H]

Characterised by a very quiet builder turnset. Spain declared on Arabia, and we were invited into the war by both sides. Hooking up Iron has allowed Axes, Spears, and Swords to get underway. Paper is in and we’re on Education, but if we want to bulb part of it, we should rearrange our tech’ rate. Lots of Wonders and shrines built by the AI. I put down a few Cottages. Hooking up our Rice helped our unhealthiness predicament.

Something weird has happened to my screen capture, and I can’t seem to take images at the moment.

Opening Turn | 118 | 75AD

Open Borders with Churchill
Doolittle: Swap to Monument
New York: Swap to Granary
Tech: Switch to Paper, down to 60%

Turn 1 | 119 | 100AD

Christianity is founded, The Parthenon and Statue of Zeus go up.

Napoleon demands that we cancel our deals with Willem, but we opt to maintain our ‘fair’ relations with the Dutch.

Turn 2 | 120 | 125AD

Surfer Rosa pops its borders and we get cracking on that Iron Mine.

New York: Whip Granary

Turn 3 | 121 | 150AD

Spain declares war on her Hindu brothers of Arabia. As noted, Isabella invites us to join, but we’d rather win the game thank you.

Kong Miao is shrined.

Our Iron is connected.

New York: Granary > Market (resume)
New Jersey: Chariot > Swordsman
Bossanova: Wealth > Axeman

Send Chariot into Spain for a scratch around.

Turn 4 | 122 | 175AD

Drop down to 50%

Saladin: Gems <> 5/turn

Turn 5 | 123 | 200AD

Foreign Missionaries spread both Judaism (Dutch) and Hinduism (Arabian) into Surfer Rosa, which is handy if we still intend to flip Cimerrian.

Come On Pilgrim: Whip Library

Turn 6 | 124 | 225AD

Shwedagon Paya is built

New Jersey: Swordsman > Swordsman
Come On Pilgrim: Library > Market

Surfer Rosa: Whip Granary
St Petersburg: Whip Market

Turn 7 | 125 | 250AD

Saladin asks us to join the war against Spain. Sorry, no.

St Petersburg: Market > Wealth
Bossanova: Axeman > Spearman
Surfer Rosa: Granary > Library

Willem: Sugar <> 5/turn

Turn 8 | 126 | 275AD

The Great Lighthouse and Hagia Sophia go.

Paper > Education

Science back up to 60%

Turn 9 | 127 | 300AD

We are no longer Justinian&#8217;s worst enemy. That honour is now Churchill&#8217;s.

Turn 10 | 128 | 325AD

Chichen Itza goes.

New Jersey: Swordsman > Swordsman

That&#8217;s pretty well it.
______________

Just a few notes:

The Dutch Settler near Middelburg is actually moving away (going south west) from our lands.

We have some possible technology trades with Churchill and Willem for Civil Service if we&#8217;re OK to trade it away.

Isabella will give us 4/turn for our last Sugar &#8211; we&#8217;ll be advised to move a unit to New York to deal with pending unhappiness if we make the deal.

I slow-built units in New Jersey, but these can be very easily be 2-pop whipped seeing that this city is starting to work ordinary tiles.

I&#8217;d irrigate the Grasslands to the western side of Bossanova, as this city&#8217;s a bit food-poor at the moment. We&#8217;re Farming a Plains tile there for chain-irrigation purposes.

As noted, I'm going to be very time-pressed for the next couple of weeks, and might not be able to contribute too much to discussions.​

shyuhe is 'up', and rolo's 'on deck'.

 

[nocho]

Thanks for the set Cam, especially given all the time pressure you're under.

Odd that two religious zealots that share a religion are at war!

Also good we're not Justinian's WE anymore though his red fist could very well still be pointing at us. I'm curious about where he lives, if we do trade, getting a world map from someone would be nice. We have to give some cash (140) to get feud from Churchill for CS. Might be worth it. CS can then be traded to WvO for MC+mono+map probably. Seems MC+aesth is just too expensive then, because WvO also wants 130 cash now, which we won't have if we do the English deal (besides CS getting cheaper in WvO's eyes meanwhile). We can also wait a bit and hope somebody will trade something else (Nap/Just).

The culture approach might work with the barb city if we whip the lib in 2 turns in Surfer Rosa. Then it still takes some 20 turns to control it culturally. I'd still send some swords up there just in case.

 

[Ororo]

Checked the save.
I think I would go straight for Education now, we have Stone and are therefore likely to build a very fast Oxford...
We have also accumulated over 300 EPs against Sal, so we should probaly build a spy and check what we can steal (cash, tech, whatever...)
We should check Cimmerian every turn too.
Doolittle desperately needs more tile improvements.

 

[nocho]

I just PMd shyuhe to see if he can play a set. If not I'm sure rolo is eager to play a set over the weekend.

 

[shyuhe]

Sorry, meant to post a got it sooner. Will play tonight.

 

[shyuhe]

Played my set. Mostly a quiet builder set. Izzy stole the northern barb city though

I set tech to philosophy and did a fair amount of tech trading. I'll let the pics do the talking though:

First a demand:

Sent packing.

Then a trade:


More trading:


Our new tech:


And another demand:

Again sent packing.

Yet another AI sent packing:


We have a GS and can bulb most of education with it. I haven't traded for machinery yet because we can still build some axes and swords. We might even want to consider declaring on Izzy if we can get engineering soon since she's quite weak and will provide us with many workers if we conquer her lands.

Also, Justinian is now at war with Churchill.

 

[nocho]

Thanks shyuhe.

rolo is up!

Too bad about the barb city. Definitely get axes and final sword out before machinery, hopefully trade will still be available. Guess we should concentrate on the universities, though if war with Izzy really is feasible, the window mightn't be too large either.

 

[Ororo]

We can make her even weaker:

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm up? Ok, got it ...

Not sure of when I'll be able to play, though ...

 

[shyuhe]

Churchill is getting his butt kicked by Justinian. We don't want to bribe another AI to war with him as it will increase the chances of him capitulating to Justin (bad).

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, I gave the save a look ...

First , I assume that the GS in hand is to bulb Edu ... or am I mistaken ? And after that ... straight to lib or we detour on something ? Construction or Engineering ( after enough spears, that is ) ?

We should trade on machinery as soon as we have made our axes ( still 3 to go, discounting the one in queue ). besides that I do not think we have much to do besides going univs ...

Should I take Ororo sugestion above ? I can see pros and cons ...

P.S. To our fearless SG leader : great persons are counted as built in the Statistics screen. That means we can't get more than 6 GS or we will lose the game ?

 

[shyuhe]

I left the GS as an education bulb.

 

[nocho]

P.S. To our fearless SG leader : great persons are counted as built in the Statistics screen. That means we can't get more than 6 GS or we will lose the game ?

The OP specifically exempted great people from this rule.

Churchill doesn't seem to like us much so I can see a case for the war bribe. If we choose to do that, then I'd rather use CS+55g than MC+paper though.

It'd probably be nice to get construction and engineering soon if we want to get to war with Izzy thereafter, but we need to build those axes and spears first probably. Otherwise straight to lib is an option. Getting unis out is always good of course.

 

[r_rolo1]

The point on the war of Izzy vs the bulldog is that the bulldog is already in war with Justinian and i don't him having a chance of winning even without Izzy butting around. We definitely want her out of our way, but that means that we are throwing churchill to the wolves and I really am not sure if we want a stronger Justinian or a stronger Izzy ...

 

[nocho]

Well, Churchill might be safe-ish with his protective longbows. Though TBH I'm not sure if the bribe helps, especially if that'd make Izzy just spam units and go feudalism asap.

On another note, maybe we should unqueue the library from doolittle. It's marked as comm, but I think it must be production oriented. We obviously can only build six and we might need some culture building in cities we capture (Madrid, Barcelona )... No theatres available yet. Then again, if we want Oxford asap we obviously need 6 libs asap. Maybe we should get drama/music soon when going on a war path.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm fine doing whatever with doolittle. It's a bit of a hybrid city as it is. I don't think it should get a granary though (and probably can't any more) since it's not a very strong city.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, first thing I did was to get izzy into war with the bulldog. Lots of pros and cons, but in the end i think the pros win ...

Spoiler :

I dutifully bulbed Edu and finished it in the same turn ... research set on Liberalism ( 12 turns at lowest green )

Spoiler :

As I expected, Churchill LBs would not make the day ...

Spoiler :

I made some trades to get us more units to build

Spoiler :

Note that I was careful enough to make the required axes before this

AP vote for leadership came ... voted for Sal and he won. BTW he is friendly with us due to that :

Spoiler :

Then Izzy started a stream of demands ...

Spoiler :

Spaniards are always like that , demands, demands and more demands ...

I told her to eat grass on MC, but complied with the last two ... not that Churchill is winning or that he likes us ... and so we are in war with the bulldog, most likely via exchange of pigeon delivered insults

I ended the set 1 turn before finishing lib ( still on queue ). End of set screens :

Spoiler :

Reminders:

Well I think the main issues to discuss is where to put univs ( and libs, since I unqueued the library of Doolittle ). I think the 2 two I started are in consensual places ...

Other thing to discuss is when to finish lib and what is our target to it. I think lib is quite secure and that we can confortably research one more tech before it is in danger. So, what do we want from it ?

Besides that ... just make more spears. As you can see we can trade easily for Engineering as soon as we decide to plug lib out, but we have not enough spears to finish our count. We should also think on getting some x-bows out sooner than later ...

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