The Gang of Four - FRFR Redux

[Stapel]

Got it. I think I like your plan Bugsy!

We really should use those swordsmen, now that we have them. Otherwise we have them for nothing. I will make archers only from now.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Here's a snapshot for all you lurkers.

 

[Stapel]

Pre Turn; 300 AD; I MM every single city on our home island. There was quite some stuff to gain. Dang! If we declare war on the Chinese, we loose our trade with the babs! That sucks.
I know it is weird, but that will give as a rep hit!
Also, Cleo is willing to give us wines, 50gold and literature for monotheism. That wine deal also will run through Chinese waters.
Also, our horse and iron supply will disappear!

This is quite a disappointment! Our trade routes runs through the most southern point of our island .

What to do? Go for the wine deal and postpone war vs China for 20 turns? Wait 16 turns , until our dyes deal with the Babs is over? Or get the rep hit and go to war right away?

Postpone war until after astronomy (we do have a trade route via seasquare).
Also: we need berserks to attack the AI, but the Chinese are the only ones where we don't really need the berserks.
We have plenty of room to settle on our western and eastern islands.

Discuss please!

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Our rep will be precious in this game. I vote to hold off on the attack for the 16 turns. That was a very good catch Stapel, I didn't think to look.

Holding off will also give us more units to attack with. We might be able to make it the first and only Viking-Chinese war.

 

[Stapel]

Another thing: We can make a superb planning, but if the Chinese declare war on us, the rep hit will be just as hard!

 

[Gengis Khan]

Wait for 16 turns for our deal to expire, i knew the wines had the potential to get us in trouble without Astronomy which is why I didn't go for the trade on my turns. Hopefully we'll be able to ride out the next 15 turns without anything happening, and then it will turn in to a brilliant move making the trade.

If Mao decides to attack us, our wrath against him will be severe.

 

[Stapel]

I have decided to wait for our dyes deal to end (16 turns) no wines deal now. I will build up an invasion force to kick some serious Chinese butt. I will make 2 army groups. One will already go south.

Nota Bene: The next player MUST blow the chinese in one strike! We cannot afford another war and thus another no-trade period.

Report tonight!

 

[Stapel]

Pre Turn 300 AD; as written some posts up.

Turn 1; 310 AD; Rush settler in Copenhagen. Our anti China wall is not really needed: I get rid of it.
Turn 2; 320 AD; troops movement.
Turn 3; 330 AD; Rush another settler in Copenhagen. Sell republic to the Indians for literature and 69 gold.
Turn 4; 340 AD;
Turn 5; 350 AD; Bah, a riot in horsetown.
Turn 6; 360 AD; We have feudalism. Reconstruct the wakk. I see we have a tile open in the north of our island. Maybe we should consider a temple in Birka?
Turn 7; 370 AD; Hareid founded on the northwest of our island.
IT: The portuguese habe the greta lib. Many other wonders are completed.
Turn 8;
Turn 9;
Turn 10; 400 AD; Molde found, also in the northwest.

400 AD save

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Time to force Gengis out of his shell and force him to fight in six turns.

Stapel - Cruising in his 850
Gengis - Up
Bede - On Deck
Strider
Bugs

 

[Gengis Khan]

only 6?? I can do that! got it

 

[Stapel]

I am affraid, you won't be able to finish the war in 4 turns . Even if you use your 6 peace turns to make a perfect set-up of our troops, it will take longer. The southern part of our island is annoyingly long.

 

[Gengis Khan]

You doubting me Stapel??

What's your guys opinion on the raze/resettle vs capture?

Obviously since we're in Republic & already paying 40gpt in unit costs we're not going to want to build a single worker. But with Engineering coming in 15(and foresting becoming an option), we'll have alot of work to do in our tundra cities, plus we'll be terraforming each city with forests for our ideal production, not to mention every tile in our empire can be forrested & chopped a single time for 10 shields(not counting hills & such). That's a buttload of shields when you break down each tile.

I think we should burn every Chinese city(unless he throws a harbor in one), then capture cities not on our continent when we finally get Zerks.

If we do that we're gonna want to start a dotmap with which tiles have been harvested already(so we don't waste worker turns on tiles that have already been used) and pass that along as well. This will require more work, but will help out tremendously in the long run.

I'm about to start the war, but I'll wait for some feedback before finishing my turns.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

IIRC, the dot map of what has been harvested and what hasn't is exactly what Sirian and Charis did. I feel like we're following Arne Saknussemm in the Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I don't think we need to worry about flips. I say keep the cities and starve them. Also remember to pillage those &*%$#@ improved tiles. Those barbarians!! desecrating the Earth like that!

 

[Stapel]

Razing those size 2 cities won't really give us slaves. I say keep the cities, as they seem to be in perfect spots. Raze the bigger ones down south.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I'd start razing starting at the choke point. The desert cities are mostly in good positions for us. I would take some settlers along to grab those spots we want before another civ does.

Remember without roads, this campaign is going be a lot slower than we are used to. Probably want to use boats to transport reinforcements.

 

[Gengis Khan]

Did they? I havn't read their attempt cause I wanted it to be a brand new challenge to me, but I'm not surprised.

Will do guys.

 

[Bede]

As we have learned feudalism now we may want to think about a government switch.

Our towns are small with little prospect of growth. Lots of 2f1s or 1f2s terrain. The unit support costs in Feudalism are well suited to our layout, especially since we only have gold coming from the sea or the trade goods terrain.

IIRC the corruption levels in Feudalism are also favorable to a small town/low growth/low shield economy.

On the capture/raze/resettle discussion:
We need the Chinese for access to trade goods and to control the coast. I would follow Bugs's plan. Keep the north, raze and resettle to control trade goods fishing grounds elsewhere

Bede's tuppence.

Waiting eagerly for the handoff.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

*Bugsy reads Bede's post*

*light bulb turns on above Bugsy's Head*

*Bugsy slaps forehead*

Of course! I had completely forgotten about Feudalism as a government! Bede it is great having you around! You are absolutely right! Feudalism is perfect for us. We will have small towns for quite a while.

It will also be nice to give the new government a test drive.

 

[Gengis Khan]

Flight Check: Looking good(well as good as a nation without any improvements can look). All cities MMed well.

Military Report: 1 settler, 5 warriors, 13 archers, 8 swords, 2 cats, & 4 gallys. Strong compared to China.

We’re currently getting raped by our Unit costs(38gpt), so 6 turns can’t come quick enough.

I’m assuming Reykjav is prebuilding for Leo’s? I’d also put Bach’s on the list of must get wonders in the near future, those 2 extra contents per city would go along way.

Switch Odense from barracks to cat.
Send 3 swords back for upgrade while we still have iron going to our mainland.

IT- RoP with Persia ends.
Trongdheim: archer>pike

1- Hangchow’s culture expands & suddenly we’ve got 15 troops in Mao’s land.
MM a bit.

IT- Birka: archer>cat

2- Upgrade Sw to Med Inf for 30g.
Found Alesund, which starts on a harbor
Hammi hits the MA.

IT- I hate Stalkholm waaaaaaaaaay down there. I don’t pay attention to it & it riots.

3-

4-

IT- Bergen: archer>pike

5- Upgrade 4 Sw to Med Infs for 30g each. Last turn of peace for Mao.

6- We lose our supply of dyes. Entertainment goes up to 20%, still have to use clowns & taxmen in some cities.
Declare war on Mao. Move in troops.

IT- Trondheim: pike>market (this may be changed to a arch or spear depending on how the war goes. We don’t have iron anymore though.)
Birka: cat>spear
Stavanger: archer>archer

7- Vet Med Inf flawlessly kills spear in Tienstein, promotes to elite.
Vt archer is killed by spear, -3hp but promotes.
Vt archer kills spear, -1hp.
Vt archer kills sword, -1hp.
Vt archer kills wounded spear, -1hp.
Elite warrior kills war, -3hp & takes the city. It comes with 1 resistor & 4 slaves. I hope every city isn’t that fortified otherwise we’re in trouble. Tientsin starts on harbor.
I switch Birka to a cat.
Both cats injure spears in Hangchow, reveals a fresh Sw underneath.
Elite archer kills Sw, -1hp.
Wounded Sp kills Vt archer flawlessly & promotes.
Vt Sw kills newly promoted Sp, -2hp.
Wounded Sp kills Vt archer flawlessly.
Vt archer kills Sp flawlessly, takes the city. Hangchow starts on harbor.

Stick one of our new Med Infs in a galley and send it down to pillage their iron, I don’t want to face any more swords then I have to. Good thing Mao’s down and doesn’t have Fuedalsim.
Pillage a couple of tiles with random troops I have left.

I move our workers out of Tientsin then end their turn on the first tile as to not take advantage of the roads.

IT- Oslo: cat>cat
Danish Royal Stud: warrior>temple Huh?

8- Pillage some more, not much else.

IT- Xerxes demands Feudalism from us. I tell him to piss off & he whimpers away.
Resistance in Teintsin ends.

9- Healing, pillaging & moving troops.

10- Move troops into position to attack Tsingtao & Chagdu next turn. Unload our Med Inf onto their horse tile(happens to be 3 away from Iron as well traveling by hills.)

**End o turn Report**
*We’re still up Mono on a lot of people, Mao is hopelessly backwards(doesn’t even have horseback riding), we have a monopoly on Fuedalism.
*War is going well…….. slow but well, I’d produce a couple more cats. The full strength units are able to get to cities faster then the cats/healing units so I’ve been using those to pillage while I was waiting. Hence all the pillaging at Hangchow & Chingdu but Tientsin still has a bunch of worked tiles around it.
*I have the workers headed to Reykjavik, they need to forest some tiles up there(but DON’T chop). We have 123 turns till “Leo’s”, so it needs to be improved with some forests.
*If all continues going well with the war I’d drop some markets/libraries into your builds in the rich/uncorrupt cities.

Good luck!
save

-- Also, I totally agree with Bede! I would have never thought of Fuadalism, but it's absolutly perfect for us. I'm vanilla trained what can I say.

Even after I killed off some of our units we're still burning 40gpt in unit support, the double commerce of Republic is nice but it doesn't make up for this. Without capturing anymore towns we'd be able to support 52 units right now, we only have 36. Not to mention we'll get to use the whip. I'd switch once WW kicks in, because all our towns will riot already(Fuedalism has low WW as well.)

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Our favorite Irish Monk steps into the spotlight.

Stapel
Gengis - Preparing for the Duke-NC game tonight
Bede - Up
Strider - On Deck
Bugs