The Immortal Challenge 4: Flight of the Phoenix

[InvisibleStalke]

With Khan split I would attack West if his stack is in the East. You will need more Grenades - can you sell any techs to raise cash for upgrades? His Western cities should fall easily if his forces are split like this.

Unfortunately you have a long border to defend in the East. If you can keep a big stack of cannon in reserve and hit his stack with it rather than letting him hit you then you should be OK.

I would rush printing press only if you think you can get good trades for it - which I doubt. So may as well proceed with Steel, stop research to raise cash for upgrades and then hit Khan with cannon. Lots of cannon. If your economy dies in the process, you can cottage the continent once its yours and catchup.

 

[Neato]

Will respond soon. I've just been very busy at work!

 

[mystyfly]

I just checked the save. Khan doesn't seem to have horses within his borders anymore, but that might not stop the AI, since it is likely to trade for it. We can hope, though...

Abt horses: If he has lots of surplus resources he's likely to trade for them but if he hasn't (which is more likely, no glance at the save by me, no warlords...) he doesn't trade. I've never seen AI-AI trades involving ressources one of the AIs only has once.

 

[Neato]

With Khan split I would attack West if his stack is in the East. You will need more Grenades - can you sell any techs to raise cash for upgrades? His Western cities should fall easily if his forces are split like this.

Unfortunately you have a long border to defend in the East. If you can keep a big stack of cannon in reserve and hit his stack with it rather than letting him hit you then you should be OK.

I would rush printing press only if you think you can get good trades for it - which I doubt. So may as well proceed with Steel, stop research to raise cash for upgrades and then hit Khan with cannon. Lots of cannon. If your economy dies in the process, you can cottage the continent once its yours and catchup.

I wish I would see more of the map, but since I'm not playing Warlords, that's not going to happen. In general though, I agree with Invisible in that it looks like with more troops, grenades and cannons, we can take down those western cities in one push (I wasn't sure what you meant about the shape of the continent making that difficult). No matter what, Khan will attack you with his SoD, so you're going to need a beefy defence along the eastern border including the recently conquered cities. Cannons will help out big, big time. Without those cities in the west, and with his SoD gone, Khan should become a pushover for later.

I don't know what to do with the scientist though. PP doesn't seem worth it right now, but what do we gain if we save him for later? Would a Golden Age be worth the hammer/gold boost - making our production even higher and giving us some gold to float on?

 

[aelf]

I wish I would see more of the map, but since I'm not playing Warlords, that's not going to happen. In general though, I agree with Invisible in that it looks like with more troops, grenades and cannons, we can take down those western cities in one push (I wasn't sure what you meant about the shape of the continent making that difficult). No matter what, Khan will attack you with his SoD, so you're going to need a beefy defence along the eastern border including the recently conquered cities. Cannons will help out big, big time. Without those cities in the west, and with his SoD gone, Khan should become a pushover for later.

Sorry, typo. I meant that the eastern side is difficult, not the western side.

I don't know what to do with the scientist though. PP doesn't seem worth it right now, but what do we gain if we save him for later? Would a Golden Age be worth the hammer/gold boost - making our production even higher and giving us some gold to float on?

No GA with single GP in Warlords, unfortunately.

 

[Neato]

Sorry, typo. I meant that the eastern side is difficult, not the western side.

I thought you meant that, just wasn't sure. Western Mongolia should definitely go down though. Just need some serious garrison support in those four cities bordering the eastern front. At least it's only four though - could've been a lot worse.

No GA with single GP in Warlords, unfortunately.

I'm continuously surprised when reminded at how different Warlords and BtS really are. That poor GS has me for a loss as to what to do then. While PP really doesn't seem like it will change much until we get a serious CE-thing going on, does it make sense to have him around doing nothing? Would any of those cities benefit from an Academy and produce real results? Unless we get PP on our own or from trading, his lightbulb won't do anything else, and I'm weary of having to use two GP's for a GA (though that's not the worst of ideas, depending on the GP). About how long until our next GP, actually?

 

[Melon Head]

I'd definitely save the GS for a GA in case you pop a Great Artist next, or use him for an Academy if you have a non-academied city producing >75-100-ish beakers. At this point in the game bulbing declines sharply in worth, and settling him is really terrible when techs cost thousands of beakers.

As far as the war goes, I forgot you were playing Warlords, too. Cannon! Lots of cannons! They'll slaughter his counter-offensive stack, because they can still kill units. Man, I completely forgot how powerful that is. And cavalry no longer gets flanking against siege, too! Steel is tremendous. PP less so, given that the benefit to your economy from conquering Khan will outweigh the delayed increase in cottage commerce.

 

[Neato]

As far as the war goes, I forgot you were playing Warlords, too. Cannon! Lots of cannons! They'll slaughter his counter-offensive stack, because they can still kill units. Man, I completely forgot how powerful that is. And cavalry no longer gets flanking against siege, too! Steel is tremendous. PP less so, given that the benefit to your economy from conquering Khan will outweigh the delayed increase in cottage commerce.

Holy crap, I forgot all about that! Oh man, Warlords, where siege units could go ballistic and where bigger is better. Rifles or cannons? Little bullets or big balls? Let's get some big balls and blow his riflemen and any accompanying horsies to hell.

 

[Sisiutil]

Little bullets or big balls? Let's get some big balls...

SOOOOOOO many potential responses to this, SOOOOOO many...

 

[hellwitch]

Just one question: What kind of victory you are after?
If you don't know yet it is time to decide!

 

[aelf]

I've finished playing the round. I'll try to post at least half of the update tomorrow.

 

[aelf]

As if we needed more delays, my hard drive is failing. My laptop still works for now, but I don't know how quickly it will degenerate and how quickly I can send it to be fixed (which means no laptop for me for some time). If I'm not going to do it too soon then I might post the next update before I'm out of action.

Sigh. Life is short... but a computer's life is shorter.

 

[dutchfire]

Good luck with your computer problems!

 

[IagoAlberto]

I feel for your problems. I had similar problems with my hard drive last year and I was in civ withdrawal for a month. . . not good! Don't push it too much, I just kept playing civ and eventually my hardrive was unsalvagable. . . but I still love civ!

 

[Neato]

Sigh. Life is short... but a computer's life is shorter.

Hear, hear.

Good luck with that. I'm waiting for the day my lappy finally craps out. Hopefully I'll have saved enough for a desktop by then (I've been lusting over new parts and pieces for months, but without a reasonable amount of discretionary income, it's not going to happen. Can it be second job tiem now pls?). Doesn't sound like you're looking for a new machine though, so I hope your current one pulls through like a champ.

In the meantime, I'm excited to see where this game is going. As far victory conditions go, I kind of had it in my mind that we were going to take the continent, expropriate its resources, and build ourselves a fancy spaceship. That is, of course, if we didn't find ourselves at some sort of militaristic advantage, which I doubt will be the case. Still curious about the GP question - considering that GA.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

A technological disadvantage against a warlike leader doesn't sound good. They are already known for their sheer number of units. I'm surprised you kept all those cities rather than razing though. If you razed you might have had enough units to raze another couple of cities, because then you didn't have to hold back units as defenders.

 

[Neato]

A technological disadvantage against a warlike leader doesn't sound good. They are already known for their sheer number of units. I'm surprised you kept all those cities rather than razing though. If you razed you might have had enough units to raze another couple of cities, because then you didn't have to hold back units as defenders.

But the two cities we took were a holy city and a former capital - pretty valuable to keep. Plus, they now firmly split Khan in two. Obviously, razing a few cities, especially on the east side, would make sense.

We may be technologically disadvantaged from one perspective, but with cannons and grenades (and even a few jannisaries for his remaining archers and whatnot) we look pretty good from another.

 

[Neato]

aelf, how is everything with your machine?

Hope it's coming together and that the game is going well.

 

[Neato]

Any word, anybody?

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I think Aelf is going for the most immortal (ie never ending) game record.