This is my boomstick!!!!

[Cam_H]

woop',

Thanks for the turnset - good to see Nagoya in tact.

I'm not sure what's happened with those Great Generals either. Maybe we'll have to 'WorldBuilder' our way out of it??? You didn't 'add' the Great General to the units while they were in the middle of a stack did you? (The XPs get divided among the units in the stack). Also, it's often good to build super-medics on units that are very unlikely to defend in a stack (e.g. Scouts with 2 and very unlikely to ever have to defend in a stack) so they have a high chance of survival. If using Horseback units instead as a super-medic capable of doing the mop-up at the end of an invasion for easy XPs, then they should come out of a city with Barracks and Stables for higher initial XPs so that they can more quickly get other promotions beyond Combat 1 / Medic 3 such as Morale, and then maybe Mobility or Tactics.

I'm also mindful of:

3) If we haven't got nationalism after we research rifling, then we have to tech it asap to start drafting.

It seems that (a.) we've already broken our variant by putting research into Drama rather than Philosophy, and (b.) Cree's suggestion (which I admittedly also thought we should also do) about stalling on Nationalism is not legit' either, as we have to "tech it asap".

I'm also wondering how to define "conquer" ... does it mean that we can take vassals, or do we actually have to take every city on the continent for ourselves?

 

[CreeDakota]

No prohibition in the rules about vassals...although we are proscribed to win by Domination so we cant have too many vassals.

 

[Killroyan]

Nice turnset woop. Too bad about drama. Oh well it happens. This game needs a little drama Overall we are doing fine against Roosevelt who is down to 1,3 of our power so we will be rolling over him soon. Hatty is free of Roosie and we can negotiate with her. She might be willing to trade some of those marvellous stuff she has for replacable parts. Now she is free she is nothing to be afraid of. It will boost our research enormously if we can get the money too. Too bad about Kagoshima but we will get that one later. Just make freaking sure we get Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. These 3 have wonderfull wonders that we really want (like parthenon, UoS, Hagia Sophia, etc...).

About the research, tech drama and then switch to nationalism asap. Get the game back online. As Cam said we need to tech it asap so we can start drafting. I want the whole continent and I want it quick. I would even propose that the spy in Osaka steals philosophy asap so we can get to nationalism even faster.

About the vasals, I did not mention it in the rules but I had in mind that when I said we had to conquer the whole island that it would mean conquer everything. So that means all cities and no vasals. The other continent is another ball game. I would like to propose that we have to conquer all cities on our island.

Made a check of the game. Are monasteries still valuable enough to build? The 2H bonus is brilliant. I only forgot if the monasteries keep their bonusses after scientific method. So if we conquer the spiral minaret and the UoS do we keep getting the money and science bonus? If yes then build these things asap.

I like the way all cities do have maximum GP but the next player should check if we are not about to loose population. Our capital is starving for instance and a lot of cities more. But our capital should focus on infra asap. We can still build the monastery there, a market and a grocer and a courthouse. It needs it all.

Overall I say we do look good. We should stay in warmode and just conquer everything. After we teched nationalism we can finally decide what we really need. Make sure to switch back to representation and merc if you ask me before the golden age ends (in 2 turns!). We need the happies and the extra production of units is not that necessary since we will be drafting soon. Our do those bonusses add up?

Roster:
Killroy (up)
Cam_H (on deck)
Cree
Woop (just played)

I will not be able to play this week because of my work. If somebody wants to take over my turn, that is fine by me.

 

[woopdeedoo]

There are a large number of starving cities but they have been set to starve on purpose to starve some of the angry citizens away. Drama hasn't been completed so I guess diverting before it is researched could salvage my little snafu. Just one turn of "disobedience".

 

[Killroyan]

Nono woop, we do not mind the angries. We need our cities as big as possible (see the rules of this variant) as we are going to draft like mad. We need population. I thought it was actually a good play to get as many GP points during the golden age.

About drama, just tech it anyway. We are so close now that I do not have any problems with it. And that kind of stuff happens.

 

[Cam_H]

I notice that I'm 'On Deck', but like Killroy', I'm also very tied up with work. I have a few hours free later today, but not really enough for a turnset. Sorry, the timing's terrible for me until the weekend as well.

I don't mind if Cree wants to forge on, or whether the game 'freezes' for four days.

In terms of the next turnset, whoever takes it, I think that we should see out Drama if it's allowed.

Technically - in terms of meeting the variant requirement - we should do as Killroyan proposes, and steal Philosophy, or even see if we can settle peace with it thrown in if the Spy fails. I'm also wondering if we shouldn't use this tail of the Golden Age to swap into Representation, which would assist us getting to Nationalism "asap".

The issue of drafting 15 Redcoats should not be a concern for us, and meeting this variant I would think is the least of our worries.

Bear in mind that the variant also requires that we're in (or switch to) Theocracy when we adopt Nationalism.

While we remain in the Caste System, there's no need to build Culture buildings (e.g. Monument queued in Nagoya) to get the initial border pop, as we can run an Artist for a few turns. In terms of builds, we've dialed up Redcoats in most cities, and I think that's the right approach. Warwick's Library, and even Dover's 'Library in waiting' could be dropped i.m.h.o..

In terms of Great People, I think that we're fine. We should be able to acquire Philosophy well before Coventry pops its next Great Person, and therefore the matter of bulbing Philosophy with a Great Scientist should be a moot question.

 

[Killroyan]

I am able to play again on thursday night. So if everybody can wait for 2 more days, then everything is fine.

About the culture buildings: Switch to representation and mercantalism while staying in caste solves all our problems. Every new city can run an artist then. About the libraries, hindu monasteries are far more important then the libraries to be honest. If we are going to build any culture building it should be that one. Especially with the upcoming UoS, SC and SM

 

[CreeDakota]

weve made good pace these few weeks. i prefer we wait til Kill and Cam may have thier turns.

 

[woopdeedoo]

weve made good pace these few weeks. i prefer we wait til Kill and Cam may have thier turns.

I agree! Maybe he can make a little video TS again

 

[Cam_H]

I'll aim to do my turnset on Saturday morning (Friday evening for many of you) if possible.

I'll take it if Roy hasn't played beforehand, and assume #246 is the basis of the PPP.

If Roy plays on Thursday, then I'll do what I can to do a PPP after that, and play Saturday or Sunday depending upon how things pan out.

 

[Killroyan]

Well guys,

What can I say? Are you ready to RUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This another episode that has it all. We have bloodshed, castles crumbling, big armies moving, james bond stuff and a lot more. Where to start?

Oh yeah that is right, we have a golden age going. 2 more turns. How to use them best? Hmmm. I see I can build a lot of hindu monasteries in 2 or 3 turns. And since we are conquering the Japanese Americans right now and they have a lot of nice wonders these monasteries will repay themselves.

That is the hanging garden in Tokyo. In Osaka we have the Notre Dame and the Sixtine Chapel. I love those and Kyoto has the Taj Mahal, the Hagia Sophia and UoS. Happies, knowledge and culture. Do we want them? YES WE DO! Can we do it? YES WE CAN (I hope).

I set our 2 armies up towards Tokyo and Osaka. All reinforcements are redirected to both cities. The spy in Osaka has 50% discount on the steal on philo. I press the button and voila we have philo but we loose the spy I let drama slip by and just research it. What the heck. I let Woop of the hook and just do it

Next turn Nationalism is picked. We will have it in 7 turns. Our armies are approaching the gates. This is our stack at the gates of Osaka:

This solves our GG problem. You can see 2 knights in there with GG's attached to them but almost 0 exp. 1 knight with a gg has 3 exp. What went wrong? Dunno. It looks like the GG got attached properly but they did not receive any exp. Strange. Well nothing to do about that. The drama research is a bit of a refund on that glitch.

Osaka is however heavily defended. Roosevelt is creating his SoD there. But we have more then enough troops on a hill there to defend. Roosie sacrifices each turn 1 cat on our stack. Lol, thx for the exp Roosie.

Our other stack is at Tokyo's gate and is looking powerfull. Tokyo is less defended but it still takes 3-4 turns to get the defense down.

Both cities get blasted by trebs and cats. The walls crumble. Tokyo's walls fall first. We send in our mighty siege machine. We loose 2 trebs and 4 cats but kill every unit inside and look and behold. TOKYO IS OURS!!! MWUHAHAHAHA.

This is a very nice city. A GG and a GE and an acadamy. Do we like it? YES WE DO In the meanwhile our war machines is grinding like mad. I am building units all over the cities while teching nationalism. Only the capital is working on a grocer/market. I left some of the redcoats in our border cities near Mehmeds borders. We will be drafting and declaring soon so we better get more units going. Mehmed is at 0,8 of our power. Say what??? Even with our mighty war machine going? MMMMM, will this go ok?

Defenses in Osaka are down to 20% but the unit count has gone up.

Nationalism is in and I end my turn leaving the rest of the bloodshed to Cam. Osaka is ripe for the picking. Our troops in Tokyo are healing like mad. Reinforcements are on the way. About 5 more redcoats and a treb is on its way to Canterbury. Another 4 red coats are 1 turn from finishing but we have to switch to Nationalism. So drafting here we come. We may have to draft more then the 5 turns I proposed to offset the power ratings in our favor. I propose to draft the border cities last so we can get the reinforcements to those cities from our core cities.

Tech screen:

Now this is interesting. Mehmed has a lot to trade and a sh..load of money. Money that we could use well to upgrade our highly promoted musketmen. Or some city raider swordsmen/axemen. Mehmed is willing to do the following trade:

I do not see any problems with that trade to be honest. 2 peacefull techs and an economy tech for a good tech (Chemistry) and a lot of money. We could also just trade education for compass, WM and all his money.

What can I say more? Good luck Cam. War wariness is increasing so might want to switch back to police state also. Right now we have to focus on building siege and units and conquering all. Liberalism is just a place holder. We can research anything we want. Constitution would be good for the jails. Helps with the war wariness.

Ps adjusted the screenshots but let me know if they are too big

 

[woopdeedoo]

I like the deal in the screenshot. Let's do that and upgrade a few of our troops.

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for the turnset Killroyan.

'Got it!'

I'm OK with the proposed trade too. The big tech' there is Chemistry, and I think that we'd be well served by heading to Steel afterward.

I'd just like to seek clarification on the variant: When can we make peace with Roosevelt and/or Hatshepsut? The variant suggests that we need to DoW everyone on the continent five turns after adopting Nationalism, but we're already at war with two of the three of them. Presumably this means that we don't need to make a DoW against Roosevelt and/or Hatshepsut, but is there any restriction on when we can make peace?

My general thinking is to;

(a.) tell Mehmed to attack Djenne - therefore getting his stack to go to a far-flung part of the continent for a few turns before we DoW him, and
(b.) do our level best to take Satsuma, Kyoto, and Osaka, and then agree to peace, so if we have units left, we can deploy them in preparation for war with Mehmed.

I would aim for a Great Scientist out of Liverpool for the much sought London Academy. A Great Engineer doesn't look like rushing any World Wonders for a while, so settling him in London might be his best use - although we could save him for a hurry on Ironworks. If we were to pop a Great Spy, would the preference be to infiltrate Mehmed's empire seeing that Roosevelt is unlikely to be too powerful for too much longer? I'd save a Great Prophet for eventually shrining the Kashi Vishwanath.

I'm happy to stick with Representation, but we could go for most Government civics in light of our envisaged stretch of continental conflict. Adopting a second civic (beyond Bureaucracy > Nationhood) will add another turn of anarchy, but Hereditary Rule could offset a lot of draft unhappiness and war weariness, while Police State will also deal with some of the war weariness in addition to the faster unit builds. Even Universal Suffrage has a degree of attraction.

Input welcome.

 

[Killroyan]

Ok, good analysis and questions Cam.

1) Tech trade: Lets go for it. Since we will be taking them over anyway there is no harm in this trade and then try to head towards steel.
2) DOW. My idea was that if we are not at war with an AI then we have to declare on them after after the 5 turns of drafting (and I would go on drafting for a long time after that).
3) My thoughts about the war declaration was to stay in war untill we conquer the whole continent, but......... I did not mention that properly so we can work around that. So we can make peace with Roosie and Hatse and just backstab Mehmed hard, but we do have to be at war with all 3 AI's after 5 turns of drafting. There is no way around that.
4) Remember we have to conquer the whole continent so no vassals on this one. On the other continent it is allowed.
5) GS for acadamy? Yes pls. If we get a great engineer I would maybe even save him for something like the SoL or something. GSpy to Mehmed so we can get spies to incite revolts while we take his cities. Do remember to strengthen our border cities. Mehmed is more powerfull then we are.
6) Focus on siege in the meanwhile while drafting. We are severely lacking siege. Steel would be so welcome.
7) Switch to nationhood only if you ask me now when I think of it. Rep is keeping our capital big. If we switch that, our capital will have 3 more angries. If we can get a settler to the fur site, that would be great. We need the extra happies. Bring on the Notre dame too pls

Good luck Cam.

 

[CreeDakota]

go get em!

 

[Cam_H]

Osaka is ripe for the picking.

Not wishing to be the voice of dissension, however ...

I have looked at this potential battle, and honestly can't see us winning it. We've got practically no siege, it's on a Hill, and very well defended. I think that we'd be better off going for the cap' and hoping that he brings his units out of the city and into the field.

I'll play in a few hours.

 

[Killroyan]

True about that. It was more that the walls are finally down and we have reinforcements in Tokyo healing up. There is a lot more siege there. You could get that army there in about 5 turns. Good luck with the turnset.

 

[Cam_H]

I'm not sure how many turns that I played, but I think seven.

Happy to hand it over here, as we're at a bit of a crossroads point.

The Mehmed deal went ahead as proposed, we swapped into Nationhood to comply with the Drafting variant, and used a fair chunk of for upgrading almost exclusively Muskets to Redcoats. I decided to go after Kyoto and leave Osaka, allowing for a second party of our troops to join up. We took Kyoto, and sent a contingent off to Satsuma that happened to be fairly poorly defended with a few Longbows and Catapults. Roosevelt did end up bringing number of his units out into the field, where we were pretty successful in picking them off. The stack headed back to Osaka, and with much fewer troops than at the start of the turnset, and we were able to take it. A ton of unhappiness in our cities became burdensome, with war weariness, Emancipation unhappiness, and draft unhappiness all taking a toll.

We did our five turns of Drafting and DoWed Mehmed. With the capture of Osaka, Satsuma, and Kyoto, and having complied with the variant requirement to be concurrently at war with everyone on the continent for a turn, we eventually agreed to peace with Roosevelt (for Constitution) and Hatshepsut (110). Interestingly Mehmed was (and still is) quite willing to talk peace after only a couple of turns. We took a junk coastal city of Mehmed's; Laodicea, which I nearly razed except it came with a Lighthouse and Courthouse, being just enough to keep it.

We're still in the same civics of; Representation-Nationhood-Caste-Mercantilism-Theocracy that we adopted at the start of the turnset. We picked up a Great General (Montgomery) who was attached to a Knight out of Hastings for super-medic status, and we popped a Great Engineer (Roebling) who's sleeping in London - I'd seriously consider using him to hurry Ironworks in Canterbury when we acquire Steel. We've nearly built the Heroic Epic in Hastings. Kyoto and Nagasaki are missing Hinduism, but I focused on Trebuchets instead of Hindu Missionaries. New cities have Barracks builds queued, but these can be changed to 'Build Culture' or some other build as seen fit. I've left a couple of Redcoats on auto-move to Satsuma and Nagoya by accident - these orders can be cancelled.

Our stack used to tackle Roosevelt is still in the north, but please note that Mehmed has a very large stack sitting in Kagoshima that hasn't moved. There's a mini-stack in the south ready for Mehmed's rather poorly defended cities down there. I'm using Liverpool as a bit of a rally point. I've kept AI-like defenses of two to four Redcoats along the border cities, as I was unsure where Mehmed might appear. Mehmed remains at war with Hatshepsut. We just opened borders with her.

I video-ed the turnset, which I'm uploading to YouTube - but be warned that I was concentrating on the game and the commentary is hardly entertaining when there's commentary at all! [Edit] ... Actually no commentary ... there was obviously a problem with my set-up ... I'll make a new video as an end of turnset overview instead. [/Edit]

End of turn screenshots:

Spoiler :

The three former Roosevelt-owned cities taken this turnset;

Junk city to the south east - the first city of our war with Mehmed;

Power Chart vs. Byzantines;

Tech' comparison;

 

[Killroyan]

Very nice turnset Cam. I am a bit worried about our economy now but other then that we are doing fine. Good thing we got constitution. I think after steel we might want to pursue democracy to get the emancipation unhappiness gone. Also in 9 turns (pffffff) when Osaka comes out of revolt we will get another 2 happiness.

Good thinking with the detour. Roosie is now officially completely gone. He has 4 cities or so left if I am not mistaken. We could redeclare and offer peace again when we get another 2 cities but our main focus should be on Mehmed now. He is the one to watch so I agree with moving our army towards him. If we can get that stack to go down in Kagoshima we will have crippled him.

If Hatty wants to trade RP for something like liberalism/optics and a good chunk of money then we might want to opt that too so we have some wartime money. After the initial drafting round it would be wise then to switch to emancipation and free speech so we get the economy back online.

The thing that surprises me about this game again is how we are in a sort of economical sinkhole. Normally around this point in the game I am pushing out 700-1000 beakers per turn and running positive at 70-80% or so. Right now we are leaking money at 0% lol.

What also surprises me is that there is no intercontinental contact yet. That makes navigation also interesting as an economical tech for the international trade routes. As long as we do not finish all AI on our continent we can postpone the war with the others so this might be very interesting. We could leave Roosie intact with 1 city for instance and spy him to death while building up enough force to take the other island. We should consider redirecting spy points to him or Hatse. I am in favor of Hatse. That way we can eliminate Roosie fast and limit the WW. Last but not least, Hatse is leading techwise. How is she doing it? She has the most craptacular land and is at least 8 techs ahead of us lol.

 

[Cam_H]

The economy will recover, although State Property would be nice to have about now. Lots of attractive tech' options after we get Steel.

We're already getting the benefit from the WoWs in Osaka.

I think that an Academy would be of help in London, but with a low rate and not a ton of Scientists, it won't admittedly be a lot of short-term value.

I'm not sure that espionage is going to have a huge role from here unless we pop another Great Spy. I can't envisage that we'll self-create enough to steal too many more tech's in the short to medium term, but maybe we can cause a city revolt or something like that at some point. Kyoto's well set up for generating nonetheless when it gets out of resistance.

I've done a summary of the turnset with sound (!) if anyone's interested.