The Sinister Scheme of Dr. Fu Manchu

[FiveRings]

I've got it.

 

[FiveRings]

PPP
1. general:
1.1. keep along the tech path, switch to rocketry, get flight thru trading. Grounds: seems better to keep along the mil tech path. Our fate is to conquer the world. I have already encountered space ship being built by AIs in the first half of the 18th century, and do think that AIs are moving that way. We need war to get either Church or WK+Wash out of our way. And we need be prepared for a stab in the back. We might also get some Chinese ar Russian cities to get prepared for the war with Church or WK or both.
However, airport is a priority to be begotten thru trade, and ASAP. More income, better comms.
1.2. Keep conquering the NW. Get that FarNW city (copper might remain within its Fat Cross, the NE city might move to 1 SE from whre the Cav is now, and only a Settler there till necessary to have the city is an excellent idea). Next come the smaller islands to the West of the NW (I would have preferred to conquer the Cherokee island, but I see no army; give me back my legions, W, Cam!!!) But if I ever get the chance to conquer it...
1.3. Build, build, build... But no more Missionaries...
1.4. Diplo: be good boy. Kill Mao or/and Stalin if the opportunity comes up. But where are my legions... Well, guess who's coming next...the ones who went into those Teuton forests...So, you trusted ones, deal with it when your time, or TS, comes...
Just a joke, of course, don't tremble while the counting goes on...the chance is but 10% of losing your head....
2. Details:
Death Valley: J Temple> Conf Temple
DoH: H Missionary - off, Bank - on;
D Diamonds" Art>Art
BoBombs: grocer>harbor
I Reef: Art>Art
Bl Vassal: Forge>Art
Jute: Worker>Harbor
Taejon: Worker>LH
Kush: Settler>Settler
Kaesong: Forge>Worker
Sagwat: Forge> Worker
Sarwon: Forge>LH
Ainu: Bank>LH
Shengkai: Bank>Worker
Ligurien: Bank>LH
Siwan: Forge> Worker
Teohuacan: Forge>LH
Haeu: Forge>Worker
Chinje: Grannary>Forge
Tokch'on: culture>LH
Cheng'fu: culture>LH
Manchu: SoL>Gren
BoS::Grocer>Bank
VFrown: Grocer>Bank
Black Horse: IW> Market
Poison Clam: Saeowon>Settler
H of Pain: Art>Art
Iron Fist: Aqueduct>Gren

Seem to be queing less military units that I would like to.

So, whereever I can fit one in I'll do it.

3. RR

4. Research Rate: I don't understand why we are below what gets us some gold still. Please, help this one understand. Or I'll inch the slider up.

I'll start playing tomorrow evening. Suggestions and corrections welcome.

Please, don't get my frivolous talk too much to heart... I have to finish Martin's No 5, so I am a bit dizzy, distracted, and underslept...

 

[Cam_H]

FiveRings,

I like your thinking. I guess we need to articulate how we see our future unfolding.

I thought that we could focus on taking out Churchill with Artillery (and maybe SAMs, but finally acknowledged that SAMs weren't required), and then saw that Churchill was already at Combustion, and thought 'yikes ... abort that plan'. All of a sudden I felt that we really needed modern units just to fend off an English invasion of the Si-Fan rather than orchestrate one of our own!

'Yes' - with the acquisition of Rocketry, I'm pretty confident that Wang is planning to build a Spaceship asap. We can get him to DoW Churchill now if we want, which may slow him down a bit.

Really, we can afford to let England be and still win via domination if we settle a few more new cities, take that Barbarian spot, and kill off Korea-America. As woopdeedoo noted, in a perfect world we might have trouble avoiding the win before finishing off Korea (variant rule).

I like the idea of pressing ahead toward Flight for the reasons already discussed (Airports, Bombers). Rocketry for Gunships could be handy, but they are really vulnerable against SAMs, so good for pillage value, but need defensive support. Given that I initially pushed for Rocketry, I hope I haven't been too bamboozling in my turn-around pre-last turnset, and thinking that we'd be better off with Flight(-Radio-Industrialism)!

I opted to continue to spread Hinduism - the 'new world' still needed infrastructure, and it's a small price to pay for knocking 25% off Granaries, Forges, etc. Also, when we take P'yongyang, it won't hurt having a bit more coin per turn. Still, if you don't want to go there, then that's OK.

Unfortunately I'm time pressed at the moment, so haven't gone through the builds, but Wall Street in Iron Fist was one thought I had.

 

[FiveRings]

Well, I am in uncharted territory: never been so big since CIV2, never gone to StateProp before, never been so much into food when paying for builds with gold. And as I am more of a builder than warmonger, although not without some basic fighting skills, modern- and post-modern-age research seems not to be among my assets, and I'm not always cold-thinking while in diplo mode (I hate it when I am pressed, surprise, surprise!), I do feel a bit lost here.

My intuition tells me we need to conquer WK letting Church live, but I can't tell when the time is ripe to start intensive war prep. And I tend to always prefer building one more, one last building to improve the economy.

So, I do need some clear vision on whether we prepare for war in the short term, or we expand the economy with a war far on the horizon. One thing I do expect though: we'll be fighting both WK and Church.

My strategy take would be: continue to build up the economy while teching the important mil techs, build the airports to get fast connection between continents (with a focus on the NW where possible), once we get the airports up, switch to available units and massively, get an upper hand in power, invade WK. We need to do the spying and diplo variant requirements at some point before that. We'll lose quite a few cities to both Wash and Church in the war, I guess, and if we lose the Cap, that will hurt. I hope we'll be able to do it before the AIs get nuke power, but most probably no.

I forgot to look closely at the site of the WS, sorry (I was sure that the Cap would be getting it, so my mind seems to push the issue onto the back burner now). I am OK with the Iron Fist. If it's one of our major gold-producing cities, it will work fine. I thought it might be safer to get a good gold-producing city in the NW host WSt, so that we have a bit of our income in a more secure place, but now that I haven't checked and can't come with specific proposals, I'd agree on Iron Fist.

 

[woopdeedoo]

I like the PPP. My thoughts, military, military and when you think you have enough troops, build some more. Let's get WK to DoW Churchill (or vice versa) and stab WK in the back. Keep an eye on his SoD (it has to be somewhere) and when it's in Britain, we swoop in and crush the lightly defended Korean cities. Keep our GAs to culture bomb the closest Korean cities we take. Those be my thoughts

 

[FiveRings]

I like the PPP. My thoughts, military, military and when you think you have enough troops, build some more. Let's get WK to DoW Churchill (or vice versa) and stab WK in the back. Keep an eye on his SoD (it has to be somewhere) and when it's in Britain, we swoop in and crush the lightly defended Korean cities. Keep our GAs to culture bomb the closest Korean cities we take. Those be my thoughts

Very tempting, indeed. Hopefully, WK will be prone to our entreats later on - when we get the airports and the units - as well. Or he'll get onto Church by himself. But I think WK will be more interested in Mao and Stalin, regrettably.

 

[Cam_H]

Just so we're all clear, this is on the table;

Spoiler :

With our map ...

Without our map...

I wasn't sure if we all were or not aware of the deal, and wanted to take or leave it.

__________________

Thanks again for the PPP, and your patience re. my response to the builds. My 2¢ ...

Death Valley: The Temple build is fine for increased happiness (we can still work the Bananas for more ), but as noted, now we have Scotland Yard we can use this pre-war time for rolling over that; 'The Shadow of Fu Manchu' variant requirement. I'd think about Spies, but don't object to a Confucian Temple to allow more growth.

Delta of Horror: The Hindu Missionary was destined for Insidious Reef. As Insidious Reef's a unit pump, it can live without the +25% on buildings that comes with Organised Religion, but I was thinking it might save us some time on 'say' an Airport build or Factory build later on.

Jute and Taejon: Now that these cities are working their good tiles, and the 'new world' would probably benefit from Settlers and perhaps arguably more so; Workers, that I'd possibly go with more of them next.

Kaesong: Needs to grow - probably a military unit in preference to stalling population growth with a Worker.

Sariwon: Personally I don't mind working 23 coastal tiles, but some 'CivFanatics' members do. The Lighthouse is a 'marginal' build, but with all of those I'd be thinking of setting up this city as a unit pump.

Ainu: As per above. My apologies for the Lighthouse build for a turn - it was an accident that I didn't pick up until the following turn. Again, I don't object to seeing this Lighthouse build out after the Bank, but as a commerce site, maybe a Market or a Grocer?

Chong'fu: I'd suggest Granary and Forge prior to the Lighthouse.

Manchu's Snarl: I'd steal the Plains Watermill off Black Horse next turn for extra here, and we can afford to lose the two farms; 1 tile South and 1 tile East of the city centre to be replaced with Workshops or Workshop/Watermill for a while. I'd like to give Black Horse every available, but given that Manchu's Snarl is going for a World Wonder, my preference would be to get the there until it's built.

Bay of Storms: Please note that the City Governor has a 'stop growth' on this city, that you might want to unclick at your discretion.

Black Horse and to a lesser extent V Frown: Military units would be the focus here. With Heroic Epic + Ironworks (pending), Black Horse has a very defined role. Given the overlap in this area between several cities, you might need to juggle around tile use to get the best mix, but Black Horse should generally get preference on good tiles given its two National Wonders.

Iron Fist: As previously suggested, getting Wall Street here could be a strong play. If we were to capture P'yongyang, Wall Street could go there to multiply the Shrine income, but there's a case to start leveraging Wall Street sooner in one of our established commerce cities rather than wait until we finally capture P'yongyang and miss out on the extra it will deliver during our 'build up' stage. Anyway - it seems that you agree that Iron Fist is the best path.​

__________________

On the / slider, I left quite a bit of in the reserve for deals and any priority rush-buys, but if you'd prefer to use it for 'upping' research instead, that's more than fine by me.

Best of luck.

 

[FiveRings]

Below is the save and thumbnails (three to come up in a second installment, I hope) that might help to get a quick look at the situation as of 1790.

Cam, thanks a lot, but I was already half through the TS, so some of your ideas were implemented somewhat late, others - not at all, some were implemented on a second thought.

Overall, we seem to have moved ahead:
We are already 2nd in power (from 3rd) and #1 elsewhere
We are 3 turns from Flight (having acquired combustion) at 70% research and a meagre +gpt, but still a +one
We have sttled the better part of the NW (keeping a settler ready at the NE end of it, but 1SE of the settlement place - so that all the nook there can be seen and there come no surprises from the AIs)
We are 1 turn from IW, and almost half way through to WSt

On the side of the bad news: we got a 3rd Great Artist - a Shakespeare, so we couldn't start a GA (all three of these stay put for the next attempt and potential cultural bombing during the upcoming war)
Roose snatched away our Statue in the first half of my TS
Church and WK lowered somewhat their regard for us (but Church still hasn't got his hands full), for unknown reasons, and Mao and Stalin don't want to talk to us.
Church has got Assembly line on my last turn (1790 AM), and WK might very well be further down the line from Rocketry
I let one red face appear in Shagian (sometimes I have the feeling that Sid cheats when I go through the cities), and I have sent a few galleons with units to the Cherokee Island for obvious reasons. I have returned them as I added up our and WK's territory and reluctantly admitted that we better not conquer that nice piece. I still have a galleon with 3 Hs coming back to the Reef, IIRC
I didn't find the time to build spies as I thought there is still some time (we better conquer WK before risking war with somebody else, I think) and cranked up an artillery instead

I might have made several arbitrary decisions regarding builds - I guess, there were more gold-getting facilities than L would like to see, including some harbours, but that seemed a good way to get some health with increased income.
I sent the missionaries to the NW, so a Hindu should be built and sent to the Reef before going over to an airport there. Bad decision on my part, although at the time it seemed quite reasonable - I didn't expect to get to Flight that fast.

I also geared V Frown more to gold-producing tiles (switching those from Black Horse)and put a bank there to have some income beside the units.

If the team would want to have a detailed record turn-by-turn, I would provide it, but don't see a particular need for this, as it was a quite dull builder's TS.

 

[FiveRings]

Three more thumbnails:

 

[woopdeedoo]

Had a *really* quick look. My thoughts are that we need to consider setting the slider to 0. Get . Consider switching back to slavery, get our outdated military upgraded and get ready to attack. My only real concern is Chicago. It has a respectable amount of (modern-ish) units in it and if it attacks any of our neighboring cities, we could likely lose it. I also highly doubt we will be able to completely conquer WK without triggering victory.

 

[lymond]

Hey Folks - sorry I kinda missed the last set or two. I've looked at the save and have a few observations:

1) First of all, even though the game is a bit late, we are totally dominating this game. Don't worry, we can crush anyone right now.

2) Too much slow building basic infra and not enough rush buying. We could have had all the buildings we really needed by now and then started focusing on units everywhere.

3) Have no clue why we stopped trading with Mao. No reason for it. I guess Wang asked us to, but Wang would not have been a threat if we declined his request. We're Hindu brothers for godsakes - a backstabbing Hindu brother, but one nonetheless. Closing of contact with Mao limits our options and our trade routes. This was not a good decision.

4) We've done a good job filling in the New World. Still a few spots to pick off and I would do so asap. I envisioned cottages some more of those spots than going for other improvements. Also, keep an eye on tiles these cities are working. I see a lot of odd tiles being worked. There is a rice tile in the middle near Suwon not being use at all while building a worker (which we could have rush bought by the way). Another example is Taejon and Chinje. Have Chinje steal a farm from Taejon so that it can grow faster to work all the cottages that should be built on all that riverside (not the current farm being built). Taejon should fire that Engineer and work the juicy Uranium mine. Grow Grow Grow...then you have options

5) Woop and FR - This is a more advanced concept, but we need to get yall in the habit of running binary. Run 0% for a turn or 3 and then run the slider at 100% to finish out Flight or whatever. Basically at this point, we should focus mainly on generating gobs of cash. Do some rush buying, then finishing out a tech. Honestly, after Flight we don't need much else. Just go 100% tax and start rushing buying armies and end the game.

6) Man, we've been unlucky with GP pops. 3 Great Artists....arrgh.

7) I usually don't like Ironworks in the HE city. I consider an "all eggs in one basket" deal. Snarl or another high prod city would have been better. Cam doesn't agree with this -I think - but that's my stance. What's done is done - unless we want fail gold. (really irrelevant now though since we will win the game shortly)

8) Trade resources

Woop...slavery is definitely a no go at this point. We have unlimited rush buy potential - at a discount too (Kremlin) - so production is no concern. Dropping Emanc would incur crippling unhappiness too. We have gobs of production and as mentioned, teching is not a big concern at this point. Finish flight and go out and conquer. (We can generate 1255 gpt at the moment and that is just going to get better)

edit: Iron Fist can steal that stone tile for a bit to help out with Wall. Maybe put one of the artists on the stone. Do whatever to max hammers in the city - not worried about culture against America which will we take soon anyway. Wall is probably worth a rush buy in a few turns. Then extra citizens should run merchants and windmill that mine.

edit 2: Woop...I would only upgrade units worth upgrading. In fact we may want to delete some outdated units. We can get up a fine army asap. Good point though on hitting Dom before wiping Wang. I lose track of the variant sometimes. However, one way to tackle this is to setup an attack to hit multiple cities at one. We might buy a navy and units in the New World to setup amphibious like attacks on all is coastal cities will sending multiple armies in from the Old World.

 

[Cam_H]

FiveRings,

Thanks for the turnset. I guess it's a shame that we didn't explore that; 'Wang DoW on Churchill' deal, but it could possibly have backfired on us anyway.

lymond,

On commerce;

Once again, it's hard not to tone down the pace of our technology pursuits and rush-buy everything at the same time. I think that we have in the past needed to be pretty selective about what was worth rush-buying, such as Banks in -poor sites (Iron Fist, Bay of Bombs, etc.), but if we're going to stop researching at Flight, then that opens up all kinds of options. I was however under the impression that the roster saw our future in Bombers and Tanks.​

On China;

It was my call, and I said at the time I was reluctant about it. Mao was Churchill's worst enemy and Wang's worst enemy, so it certainly didn't do us any harm from a diplomatic perspective. Consequent to agreeing to this, which was indeed demanded by Wang, it got him to 'Friendly', which opened up the option of the 'Wang DoW on Churchill' possible deal. Finally there was no loss of as Mao was and still is in Mercantilism, and he has not had much cash either to sell off cheap and old technologies.​

On the new world;

I am mindful of that spot west of Kaesong being settled by the AI, and would think about a city there, or at least a sleeping Settler party in case the AI does try to pinch it. It'll make the 'tripping Domination' problem a little worse, but we could contain it by not building Culture and keeping the workable area confined to the first ring (natural Hinduism spread aside).​

On navy;

I can certainly see the value in rushing out a SoD of Destroyers. It'll be expensive, but sure do-able. These en masse can be great at bombing down city defences so that our Artillery can go head-to-head in attacks on coastal cities.​

On Heroic Epic - Ironworks combo;

I posted a PPP, you didn't object, take the hit and suck it up big fella! ​

On the overall plan;

So what I sense is being proposed is that we complete Flight, and build Airports pretty well everywhere.

After that, we pull together a SoD of Destroyers which will largely involve being cash-rushed (one turn of building, then payout, rinse-and-repeat). Inland cities to build mostly Artillery with a smattering of Machine Guns to act as covers. We can leverage the 'Protective' Grenadier > Machine Gun upgrade pathway if we want to give our Machine Guns free Drill and City Garrison promotions before applying Barracks-provided XPs.

There's opportunity to convert some 'new world' cities from mini-production hubs into commerce sites 'if' we want, the theory being that with Emancipation it shouldn't take too long to get their Cottages up to the more developed levels (although I'm still a bit 'lukewarm' on this in a lot of cases - still, 'the pendulum' could go that way for cities with undefined roles at the moment).​

woopdeedoo,

Not a bad suggestion on going back to Slavery in my view given that we're the only ones in Emancipation, but it's the turns of Anarchy (one to go into Slavery, another to get back into Emancipation) that worry me. If we were Spiritual, I'd probably feel differently.

I wouldn't ignore Theocracy or Free Religion or Confucianism as possibilities after we get up a lot of the Airports however.

Provided we don't do anything too dumb, I think that tripping Domination before we take all of Korea is quite avoidable. Cities will be in revolt for a lot of turns, and then many will need to spend a few turns to pop their first borders. Therefore the land we'll cover won't be quite as much as Wang-Roosevelt already have for a while. I agree with lymond though, that a speedy rather than drawn out war will help. We can also raze cities (other than P'yongyang, Seoul, and Wonsan, which I think are all 'keepers'). Once again, we'll need to remember to take P'yongsong in the northern ice.

Anyway - looking forward to seeing what you make of all this!

 

[lymond]

I'd throw in that I would mainly focus Airports in the new world, with maybe a couple in major cities in the Old like Death Valley as trade routes boost Ox. Reasoning is that you don't need an airport in the "destination" city. So, if we are rush buying units in the new world we can ferry them via air over to the Old world, although I think it is only 1 per city per turn.

Rush buying basic infra in the new cities is very cheap and makes them contribute faster and thus makes rush buying of other things rather cheap. Also, it puts as into a position faster to not worry about infra in new cities and start the all important task of rush buying units instead to get this beat down start.

 

[woopdeedoo]

This is a "got it", I guess. Will have a deeper look and post PPP today. My trigger finger is really, really itchy right about now!

 

[FiveRings]

It seemed to me that we have given up war in the close future with both Churchill and Wang getting artillery and, even before us, rocketry and combustion (raising the risk of having the communications between the NW and the OW cut down). BTW, there were a couple of Brittish destroyers around the NW ports already at the mid of my TS.

That was the one reason to strive to get airports fast, although, arguably the sooner we build them, the greater will be our advantage as the biggest economy that we'd get from the additional trade route. I still think that what was lost on infrastructure building will be more than compensated by the early boost we get from them through faster research. Adding some modern-era military units to our arsenal is the third and quite juicy point in getting Flight.

Bottom line seems that I thought we have agreed to get that Flight ASAP and start building airports - also in the OW, I think, as third trade routes will be more profitable here almost in every town, and they would help avoid the risk - arguably very small - of Wang, Roose, and Church dividing war tasks among them by area. Faster moves of units from OW cities into conquered cities is a great plus I wouldn't overlook, too.

My preferences are for a war with Wang+Roose first, although Church is a much easier target. In the case of a war with Church, we'll need to raze a lot of his cities. The only - but important - advantage I see in this war is to clear the threat of a backstab. And getting Wang in this war - on his own or on our bidding - might turn into Church becoming his vasal, too. I see AIs do this quite easily when threatened by the army of the Human player. That would leave intact the threat of armies coming from the Southwest of the OW, actually, it would turn it into a certainty.

I have my preferences for beelining to tanks on max research rate after having built the airports - presumably, with going to a zero-rate during this is accomplished - but after Flight is in - then dropping back again to 0-rate and winning the game by killing Wang (with all the spying requirements met meanwhile). Actually, we might grant some of his farther cities to Church while continuing the war, if it need be.

However, if Cam and Lymond agree on a different, but common plan, I'd defer gladly.

Bon voyage, W! I'd prefer to read your thoughts about all this before that, but am also keen on getting an August TS, too, which might happen if you and L keep within three-four days each!!

 

[lymond]

Wang focus basically ends the game. Are there any other variants I"m missing?

Planes will add to our war dominance besides numbers. The lack of a better navy is concerning but airports and a good plan will render that more of a non-issue. We can focus back on combustion afterwards, but really on gold at the moment.

I guess for woop the focus would be to get up those airports and start war prep.

 

[Cam_H]

I agree with lymond ... we take out Wang and it's essentially done.

If we were to swap to Free Religion or Confucianism, we'll probably put our 'Churchill worries' behind us - he won't declare at 'Pleased', as our major problem with him is the -3 penalty for being a heathen. Again - just a thought.

I feel (right now, until I change my mind) that Destroyers + Artillery + Machine Guns will be sufficient given our 'weight of numbers', but if everyone's 'pants-wettingly-nervous' about not having Tanks and Marines, then 'what can I say'?

Are there any other variants I"m missing?

Spy missions.

 

[FiveRings]

Switch to Confu looks fine after having built those airports using the 25% discount.

I agree with L that we better produce MGs and Arts than destroyers, but this might need some more brooding over the map and unit cost. To me, destroyers might make sense only if the attack is two- or three-pronged. Which makes sense if we can muster the army to take on both WK and Roose simultaneously.

 

[woopdeedoo]

Today was a little busy so I didn't really have that much time to dig in to the game but from the looks and sounds of things, it seems the general consensus is to get flight in, built airports in the NW. Meanwhile, keep getting units out for the war. I suppose we can blow up most of our boats? Or should (can) we upgrade them to something better? We have run into problems in almost every city. I think getting medicine sometime soon is a good idea... That said, not exactly sure when... With regards to detailed city builds, i plan on doing nothing more than artillery, airports and possibly some machine guns for city garrison so details aren't really that important. Also, on that note, we have A LOT of old school units. Delete or upgrade? Esp LBs. We have *a lot* of them.

I note that WK is not willing to war with Church (or vice versa). This makes me a sad panda. Maybe switch into FR and chum up to Churchill and somehow get him to like us better than WK?

 

[Cam_H]

I would like to put 'The Shadow of Fu Manchu' variant requirement behind us sooner rather than later, so if you could get some Spies out also and do the 'steal plans' mission in two of; London, Moscow, or Washington, that would be good imho.

I'm not terribly concerned with problems at this point as a general rule, but if there's some city that would be 'particularly' disadvantaged from each additional citizen eating 3 instead of 2 and it doesn't already have a Grocer and Harbor as appropriate, then certainly weigh up the value of an Aqueduct versus our other priorities. Unhealthiness is rarely an especially punishing issue under normal circumstances and can be disregarded a lot of the time. If a city's losing population or stagnating due to unhealthiness, and is clearly suffering in its commerce or production yields as a consequence, then action may be required - but a '' symbol is typically no need to drop everything and panic. It's a bit 'situation dependant', but often not a problem.