The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[bestsss]

I had a look at the save. Switching to repr/bur will mean losing 4 happy (2rax+1HR+1spice trade Monty) in smaller cities. "Deserted Hill" will have only unhappy citizens.
We will get dye from Joao for silver (need few turns to complete the mine and road). Btw, if Joao switches out of the religion I think they can trade w/ Churchill.

With the gold depleted the slider will drop significantly and can't really use oxford. Also we might need the culture slider w/ the war progressing.

I feel a bit skeptical leaving nationhood but I hope Duckweed manages it well

 

[shyuhe]

We may want to keep nationhood for another 5-10 turns until some of the earlier draft/whip anger cools off. How about just stockpiling gold for now until the anger has cooled off enough to allow bureau to be useful again? Then we can burn 100% research with bureau/Oxford online. The other alternative is to use 10% culture slider + bureau, as most of our key cities have theaters.

 

[Duckweed]

Happiness will be a problem when leaving Nat, this is only true for small cities like desert hill (+9 from drafting and some whipping anger as well -- good job -- Shyuhe ), for the top 5 or 6 cities, they are not that bad (lose 2 from barrack, but gain +3 from rep). Bureo capital will net us ~100 beakers at 100% research and shorten the research to Rifling to 2 turns. Even at 0% research, there's still 50% more cash and 50% hammers. The loss from those 3 citizens from the desert hill city and other small cities is very trivial comparing the gain from bureo, I am going to whip them before they are huger to death .

BTW, can get another silver online to trade the dye in 2 turns with the surrounding 5 workers.

 

[shyuhe]

I didn't touch the whip during my set

And thanks for pointing out that rendering desert hill useless for 10-20 turns isn't a huge loss, since it has almost no infra anyways. In that case, I'm fine with bureau with maybe a bit of culture.

 

[bestsss]

I think representation alone should be enough to shave 1 turn off rifling. Need to check the inflation but bureaucracy should be around 25-28 gold (now) more expensive than nationhood (and will rise w/ the new cities). The capital will get around 22-23 commerce outside the golden age. ~45gold or so on slider gold slider.
Hammers are a fair bonus, though. But we can draft rifles off the globe which more than compensates.

I am fine w/ the switch but I think we will have to go back to nationhood quite soon again.

 

[Duckweed]

Man, this war is hard, we really should appreciate what Willem/Churchill had done to the nuts!

Turn 182

RP + map <-> Cons + 115g with Churchill
Beg from Toku
map <-> 65 g with Monty
Switch to rep + bureo + slavery
Whip, whip, whip -- that included the capital, HE city, and of course the desert hill city
Some micro and adjustment on cities, for instance capital and Vijay should hire scientists for best return.

The result was that we gained 200+ beakers.

Turn 183

Slave revolt event in Angle, I left it alone.
DOW

Turn 184

Slave revolt event continued.
Marching


Turn 185

Found Monty SOD, we can capture Tlaxcala this turn.

However, I did not. There are many units around, and the counter attack could hurt. So I killed all the units inside the city but 1 wound LB. I assumed Monty will either move his SOD inside the city or attack. 4 cavs moved in for better defense.

Turn 186

I was wrong. AI was pretty smart this time, Some other units from Texcoo and his capital moved in the city. While Monty's SOD moved toward our Bloody Hill city. In the same time, Ragnar's SOD showed up. I captured Tlaxala. While left enough units in both the city to meet Ragnar's SOD and on the hill to defend against Monty's SOD.

Turn 187 -- Switched to OR

I was wrong again! Ragnar's SOD did not attack the city, but attacked the stack on the hill. So our stack on the hill was attacked by both Monty and Ragnar's SOD of ~20 units! The good thing is that the hill is bordered by a river against Monty' SOD and I was cautious to promote 5 Musketmans to GI and some cannons to Drill I (so don't be surprise to see some Drill cannons ), that's barely enough as I should promote more. As a result, we lost 1 cav and 2 musketmans and their SOD was gone. The ring is not bad.

Turn 188

Half SOD moved toward to Tlatelolco.


Turn 189

The other half SOD moved toward to Monty's capital


Turn 190

Marched and Bombarded.


Turn 191

Capture of Tlateloco -- not impressive defense, but still a dozen units.

Turn 192

Did I say their SOD was gone? I was wrong again!!! 16 units in Monty's capital.

Here's the winning odd of 1st battle. The loss of cannons is heavy as expected (5 or 6), but his capital is ours now.

Empire view

Some bad news -- Monty/Ragnar got RP turns ago and are very close to Rifling now. Willem/Churchill also got Rifling and enter WHEOOHRN mode.

The good news -- Joao/Toku finally chosed their target, obvious not us! Is it Willem/Churchill? I hope so.

So the whole world is going to be at war!

NOTE: Bestsss, I left the units around Tlateloco unmoved, so you need to decide how to move them and also clean the surrounding units. One viking musketman moved toward Vijay this turn, just be aware.

Edit: Forgot to revolt to Confu, the ring for spreading Confu was really bad, failed twice or 3 times.

 

[shyuhe]

Nice set Duckweed!

I'm praying for Joao/Toku to go after Willem/Churchill, as that would really increase our odds in this game. Even if they go after Monty/Ragnar, we should be able to take a majority of their cities before they capitulate to anyone else due to war success. I just hope Churchill/Willem aren't after us, as that'd be one bad RNG roll and also the end of our game -_-

As long as the nuts can't field cavalry, I'm not too worried. We're beating them up mostly with cannons anyways, so rifles are only marginally better than grenadiers on defense (although upgraded LB will be bad).

I see Delhi has a settler in the queue - where is it for? Also, I think we need to build a few more cannons to replace our earlier losses. I'd hate for our offense to slow for lacking siege.

 

[bestsss]

Hmm, seeing the mausoleum in the draft city makes me think duckweed thinks about heavy espionage. Is that correct?
If so, who is the target? Joao/Toku has so much passive EP that our spies will die too much.

The settler should be settled over the plains hill w/ access to the flood plains and the rest of the hills turned into windmills. Next to the river I guess or the other (south/west) plains hill?

I think war mode targets are like that: (over 98%sure): Joao/Toku goes for Willem/Churchill, that would be interesting (w/ infantry from Joao/Toku). I don't think Churchill has enough power to suppress that.
We can possibly stop the war if we get elected pope.

And Churchill goes for Ragnar (dogpiles and enough tiles/attitude).
The common border and attitude should be enough to tell.

Soon we are going to need pinch rifles for stack defense.

Plan:
Take the gift (city) back to us, heal and head for the holy Hinduism city (but it doesn't have shrine as far as I see). I don't think I can grab Ragnar's hill city on our west before he upgrades all the longbows there (and possibly send the on marauder missions)

Anyways I plan to take Ragnar's pig city as well.
After the steam power I think we will be out of cash and the war weariness is going to very high. I might have to switch to nationhood, also to help defend vs Ragnar rifles.

I suppose NE goes to the 'wonder' city, so not building in the capital.

Opps forgot: steam power->corporation->assembly line?

---
I am having a free day, so possibly I can play (or play even more turns to push ahead).

 

[Duckweed]

Regarding espionage, we can use them for something good besides stealing techs -- changing civics, that is cheap. BTW, Toku is in environmentalism now.

You're right about the settler, nearby farm on FP is ready.

Techwise, there's a possibility that Willem/Churchill is researching SP right now. So we can consider partially research SM and trade it with MS and head to Communism to trade for SP.

I doubt WW will severely harm our empire before we end the war. Delhi still has 3 happiness surplus atm, there are also 2 more happiness building available, switch to Nat really hurt the economy as I said before. Furthermore, we still have 60+ offensive units (although those include some swordmans and axeman, they did the same job as riflemans). For stack defense, you can just produce a couple rifleman from either capital or HE city and that should be enough. Monty's counter attacking capability should be gone, I think I made a kill of ~60 of his units in my set.

Regarding the war plan, I'd like to see the elimination of Monty and the fall of Upplasa(Shrine city) in your set. Texcoco->Teotihuacan->Upplasa. Our forces are far away from the pig city, I wonder if we can ask it for peace.

 

[shyuhe]

We can try to capture the pig city with a secondary wave of units.

 

[bestsss]

Played it till 1460, will post report later:
* 22 cities and number 1 in land charts.

* Got 3 cities from Monty, he has one left. It's a very important city, though: since we don't have coal but there is a source nearby.
* Ragnar: Got the statue of Zeus (the war unhappiness in the capital is 15, iirc ++ some more from emancipation), took the pig city as well. Actually Churchill almost took Uppsala w/ his stack of redcoats. I just had to just say hello to the inhabitants (yes, they dogpilled the nuts)

* We have communism and steam power and around 1k6 gold in the bank.
* roland is the pope. But Churchill converted himself and has quite a lot of votes.

* Toku has monster culture at the border... plus pretty big stack of infantry troops.
* Running out of sensible infrastructure to build... which is not so bad.

Notes: Joao didn't want to help us. So don't ask him any more. Joao has not declared, yet.

 

[shyuhe]

Can we try asking for help from Toku? When was the last time we begged from him? Looking forward to the report

 

[bestsss]

Should have attached the save,
here it is.

I Need to get out now but a few screenshots before. Not very good report but promised the girlfriend to take her out.
---

I followed duckweed's proposal to tech scientific method and trade military science for the rest.

Our glorious archer defeated the Viking musket:

Spoiler :

Ragnar proved to be annoyance

Spoiler :

I took back the 'Gift'

Spoiler :

Traded communism for steam power and some gold (doh, no screenshot), switched to communism. Churchill dogpilled as expected

Spoiler :

Voted for pope (us)

Spoiler :

We won the election!
Meanwhile took the hilly Monty's city w/ some cannon casualties. The yummy workers escaped before the blow.

Joao finished the Pentagon. Doh he is worse the Louis now.

Spoiler :

And the fabled redcoats... which failed to take the city.

Spoiler :

+3 pop even in Gift... Whipped forge w/ them, almost feel bad about it.

Spoiler :

And the fall of the pig (bay).

Spoiler :

...and Uppsala. Thank you Churchill (he is friendly w/ us now . The help is much appreciated).

Spoiler :

Current tech. situation:

Spoiler :

---
I had significant happiness issues but now they are gone w/ the capturing of the dread statues of Zeus.
Toku's culture steals some tiles, including a coal mine. We have to capture the last Aztec city (there are few troops marching already). The main stack is healthy and can continue advancing in the viking territory. Ragnar is even willing to give a city to leave him alone.

Joao has not declared as mentioned and we can't ask anyone for minor gold. Duckweed already asked Toku.

 

[Silu]

+3 pop even in Gift... Whipped forge w/ them, almost feel bad about it.

That cracks me up every time. It's even funnier if you proceed to draft them immediately. "Hey go mine some gold in [x], the government supplies you with tools and a ticket!" "Okay I'm here, where's my tools?" "Well here's a rifle and here's a sleeping bag, you're off to fight the Vikings" "¤%%#£%&#"

 

[Duckweed]

Good going, the diplomacy is much easier now.

There are some tricks for the cannon war. Especially when opponent's SOD has gone.

1. The 1st job of cannons are bombardment, so wound cannons can do the same work, hence can be sent 1st and some healthy cannons follow, in this way, you can shave one turn for a city.

2. Divide your stack, this should be done after you captured Teotihuacan, send 3 cannons to last Monty's at that time, Monty should be gone now.

 

[shyuhe]

Guess I'm up. I'll try to mop up Monty and as much of Ragnar as we can grab.

What do we want to tech? AL followed by a massive overhaul of our land would be my suggestion, although we'll need many more workers for that.

Also, if Joao/Toku declare on Willem/Churchill, do we want to consider dogpiling? Obviously we'll have to wait until our army is in place but just a thought.

 

[Duckweed]

Willem/Churchill is either after AL or Combustion line now, hence AL now is definitely not a way to. We need Fighters/Bombers for the next war, hence Radio is necessary. There're 2 choices for you to start now, Biology or Physics, you can use it to trade either AL or RR from Willem/Churchill.

I did some watermill turns on the FP around Delhi, Worker's job next should mainly focus on watermills. Delhi has more infras to build, temple 1st and I think IW in it is best.

After we capture the last Monty's city, we can call for peace to give us a break, the rest Viking cities are not very good. Of course you can call an AP vote to save Viking' butt next.

Actually I am thinking about backstabbing Joao/Toku next. They are useless now but eating our city working tiles. Of course that's not an issue in the near future.

 

[shyuhe]

Ok, I'll go biology then. Ragnar will vassal to Churchill/Willem once we kill Monty but I guess that's ok - we just need to make sure Uppsala doesn't become useless from frequent revolts.

 

[bestsss]

Well, I consider myself damn lucky to have captured Jewish holy city.

There was no way to send anything bombarding ahead b/c there were no healthy troops to escort (and no healthy cannons either).

Actually diplomacy will get screwed in few turns w/ the upcoming war between Churchill/Joao. Most likely Ragnar will pay (w/ divine right) to be left alone and we can take every city left w/o any trouble. He can't possibly become vassal to Churchill.

My opinion is that assembly line is the way to go since we won't be safely trade from this point any longer.

 

[Duckweed]

Point #1 referred to your 2nd turns, I don't know whether you had sent the 5 cannons south of Monty's capital right way to Texcoco.

Point #2 is that you can send 3 cannons to Monty's last city at the same time the major stack march to Uppsala

My opinion is that assembly line is the way to go since we won't be safely trade from this point any longer.

If I understand you right, you're afraid of annoying Joao/Toku with trading with Willem/Churchill. I don't think that's an issue, they will be our target next. By the time they are free from the war with Willem/Churchill, we are almost ready to invade them. Furthermore, we can switch civic to make Joao pleased and beg for 10 more forced peace if they come too quick.