The second Finnish succession game: struggle for immortality

[JSS]

Looking at the situation, we have too few workers and more than enough commerce. We can reach Construction in about 6-7 turns, but we don't have the production to launch an attack as soon as we could.

My plan at this point would be:

- Lakamha: stop working scientists (we don't need the Academy to get to Construction and HBR) -> work the PH and GL forest 1 turn -> whip worker next turn -> overflow into barracks.

- Mutal: Grow to next size (takes 1 turn), put 1 turn into a worker -> whip next turn.

- Trade Maths for Alpha, see if we can bribe someone on Stalin and/or start more conflicts on our continent.

- Start roading/pre-chopping forests with workers.

- Chop/whip an army and kill Zara.

- Build a stable or 2 only after we have killed Zara.

 

[Robert FIN]

Why are you planning to kill Zara? Why not Stalin instead. Zara is no dangeous to us, he's totally boxed in. Stalin is causes much more long term harm to us. Zara just sits down with his three cities waiting to get killed. Am I wrong again?

 

[sinimusta]

Sounds good to me. How many turns are you going to play?

@Robert: We're going to be making our attack without war elephants so I think it's a good idea to have an easier target. Ethiopias cities will add to our prod power. I think it's better to be stronger when we attack Stalin.

 

[JSS]

You're not completely wrong. In some situations it's better to attack the more aggressive AI first.

But in addition to what sinimusta said, here's a list of factors for and against attacking Zara:

- He has TGLH.
- Stalin is cautious with him so Zara can't bribe him on us. Stalin bribes at pleased (against anyone pleased or lower with him).
- Joao and Stalin are worst enemies.
- Joao can't be bribed on us because he has to be annoyed with the target civ to accept the bribe.
- Zara might bribe Suleiman on us when we declare. We don't know where he is, but because Stalin is our only neighbor besides Zara, we have enough time to build up defenses to take out his 1st wave and make peace.
- We could gift something to Suleiman to get him to pleased and beg something from him before we attack Zara.
- If we end up damaging our relations with the buddhists, it's not a big problem because after we have taken out both Zara and Stalin, which should be easy, we're unstoppable. We can maybe extort MC from Stalin because he's industrious and often teching that route (I'm not sure how that works), and then we only need Machinery and Engineering to wipe the map completely clean.
- Stalin was in missionary spam mode recently, so he should not be dangerous anyway.

Sounds good to me. How many turns are you going to play?

Is 10 turns ok?

 

[sinimusta]

Ok to me.

 

[sampsa]

You know I thought the same about the scientists, but ran them anyway as we agreed on it. Most of the will come from the chops (we don't have that many whippable cities) so I guess two more workers pay themselves back quickly. We will capture more from Zara though and it looks like that bastard has chopped his forests. Agreed with no stables for now.

 

[JSS]

Played 10 turns until 450BC

I made these trades:

Spoiler :

And this was the tech situation:

Spoiler :

Couldn't start any wars with that. Suleiman wouldn't do anything for Alpha+Maths+Meditation next turn either.

Yeah, that's a pretty late Oracle.

Spoiler :

Stalin is sending a jew missionary to Zara. Aksum already has judaism, so it's possible he'll convert to it and Stalin might get to pleased with him. That means it's possible he'll be able to bribe Stalin on us when we attack.

Spoiler :

Stalin is stacking his units here:

Spoiler :

Found where the Romans and Incans are:

Spoiler :

These 2 idiots made arrogant demands on us:

Spoiler :

I accepted both of them to make the diplo easier for everyone. JC is good to have at pleased if we can get enough techs to make him attack someone. He's easy to bribe.

Before we attack Zara, we should get Suleiman to pleased and beg something from him. That should be easy if we give him Alpha, tech Polytheism partially and ask him to give it to us.

 

[Robert FIN]

Noo!! My phone is currently unavaible to open spoilers.. Anyways, thoughts about target: So let's make it to more mathematical form. More = more . Our raise is > against Stalin's raise when we wait turns. Since Stalin is > compared to Zara in and our /Stalin's are raising after time our target is Zara first the Stalin?


 

[sinimusta]

My turnset is coming and it seems we're quite ready for war. We have 2 cats currently, but 3 are completed this turn and we can whip one more from Lakamha. So when our siege arrives I'll start the march. I think it's necessary to leave axe or two to whatch out our southern border so that Zara doesn't pillage our land. Zara's southern city down there is pure trash and should be razed when our main stack returns. Or we can leave that to him, get a good peace deal and finish him after 10 turns. I hope we could extort CoL from Zara.

War: I'll send a holkan to check the Ethiopian garrisons. Marchroute will be Addis abeba-Gondar-Aksum. If Abeba seems weak I could split the stack so that main force goes straight for Gondar. Promotions will be mostly cr with some combat for stack def and aim to get us one medic.

Workers: continue chopping and build roads to connect our future conquests. JSS, why did you ignore the iron? Now I think it's bit late to connect that and get us some swords since War Elephants are almost available. Did you think that it's better just to get us numbers fast by chopping and iron would have taken too long to connect?

Techpath: finish hbr, (poly/sail for diplo), then what? We could partially tech monarchy to get math monarchy trade with Rome but I fear Rome will get math soon. Monarchy could soon be traded with Joao but I don't want to give away contruction. Currency would do good for our economy so I think I would go for that. Huana has it but I doubt he's going to trade it to us soon.

Diplo: I could do the trick JSS suggested to avoid getting Sully against us. We could also gift him math which is cheaper than alpha (but leads to constr) and beg for sailing (we need that for GLH-trade routes?). I don't see anyone else that could be bribed against us and wehave the peace treaties with joao and caesar which can be canceled in 8 turns and I'd start the war in 6-7 turns. I'll also trade fur to huana for 2 gpt.

I'll play until Gondar is fallen unless something goes wrong. Should be about 10 turns.

 

[JSS]

Marchroute will be Addis abeba-Gondar-Aksum. If Abeba seems weak I could split the stack so that main force goes straight for Gondar.

We get to Aksum faster if we attack the fish city first. The northern crap city can be taken out with a couple of catapults + elephants/whatever after our main stack is heading to the capital.

JSS, why did you ignore the iron? Now I think it's bit late to connect that and get us some swords since War Elephants are almost available. Did you think that it's better just to get us numbers fast by chopping and iron would have taken too long to connect?

When we got IW, we already had more than enough axes/spears and we were going to start building catapults. With early catapults, the unit doing the final blow doesn't really matter. We should get 90%+ odds with any units after a couple of catapult hits. Improving and connecting a desert iron takes 8 turns that could be used otherwise, and it's not a tile worth working.

Techpath: finish hbr, (poly/sail for diplo), then what? We could partially tech monarchy to get math monarchy trade with Rome but I fear Rome will get math soon. Monarchy could soon be traded with Joao but I don't want to give away contruction. Currency would do good for our economy so I think I would go for that. Huana has it but I doubt he's going to trade it to us soon.

I vote for Currency. We're not in a rush to get Monarchy. We can probably get it through a peace deal, or trade Currency for it.

Diplo: I could do the trick JSS suggested to avoid getting Sully against us. We could also gift him math which is cheaper than alpha (but leads to constr) and beg for sailing (we need that for GLH-trade routes?).

I agree with this. Although it's not certain he'll get to pleased with Math (or Alpha) if he's teching them. In that case we should just gift him both.

I'll play until Gondar is fallen unless something goes wrong. Should be about 10 turns.

Sounds good. Try not to lose too many catapults, i.e. take your time bombarding defenses down before you suicide any. We need to start building Elephants when we get to HBR.

 

[sinimusta]

Waiting for criticism on ppp/green light.

 

[Robert FIN]

Waiting for criticism on ppp/green light.

Green Light!

 

[sampsa]

Watch for trades. Soon everyone has alpha+math so we still might get something from those two.

Green.

 

[sinimusta]

Played until T104 and Gondar has fallen. We lost 1 cat at about 80% odds, killed arch, 2 swords and axe. Pretty good k/d ratio . Also got a chance to steal one worker. Also we have peace treaty with Sully. Zara is currently willing to give Poly but as he will keep losing cities I hope that we'll get a big tech from him in a peace treaty.

Other good news: Stalin has forced his gulag prisoners to build the Pyramids in Moscow. The wonder distribution in this game has been favourable to us: first GLH and then the mids are built by our neighbours.

edit: The frontline

Spoiler :

 

[JSS]

Looking good.

Who's up next? Here's a couple of suggestions:

- Gather up a secondary stack that marches along the southern coast and takes the 2 cities while the main stack goes to Aksum. Leave a couple of catapults + axes to take the stone city as well. There are 13 catapults near our main stack in the north, and that's way overkill. 5-6 per stack is enough now that Zara doesn't have units to speak of.

- Build a road between the beaver city and the corn. The units coming from there are losing a turn of travel time.

- Burn Debre Berhan to the ground. Zara settled it like an idiot and killed the fish. We'll have to resettle the city on the tundra hill.

- Take all other cities except Yeha (and DB which we raze) and take peace. We should get all of his techs.

- Generate a GS in Mutal. We'll see if we settle it in Aksum or Lakamha. Keep the slider down until we have it. We need to get to Engineering sooner rather than later. Once we get there's, we're set to clean the continent.

 

[Robert FIN]

I'm up next (You and JSS skipped me since I couldn't play at weekend)! I can play tomorrow and I follow Sinimusta's plan unless someone wants to make it more accurate ot change it. Nothing to add. Sorry for being kinda non-active in these days, this is the 2/2 of our massive school test weeks.. I'm more active next week.

 

[Robert FIN]

OK, cannot play yet.. If you say nothing its= RED LIGHT!

 

[sinimusta]

I think JSS:s post is ok guide for your turnset so don't ignore it. Just get us some WEs since we have strong siege. Green!

 

[JSS]

Green from me too if you follow the advice I posted. If you run into something you're not sure how to proceed, stop and ask here.

 

[Robert FIN]

25BC

Spoiler :

First city which falls is the DB. Burnt to the grond!


Here's the second target:


And capital here:


And the last city was Addis Abeba. (no sceenshot)

Trades: