TJS1 -- Going on the Pill-age

So I guess from what I've read here, I build up our military for the next person to be able to use for war?
I don't think we want to wait another 10T to start warring vs. Cathy -- that would be giving her yet more time to build 32-shield Maces (and 56-shield Knights, if she gets Chiv), and/or earn cash to upgrade her Spears to Pikes (32g per capita), etc.

In the next 4-5T turns, you should be able to get 2-3 Horses stacked up in Alesund, to move against Yaroslavl, and another 4 Horses ready to ride against Novgorod (to deprive the Russians of their Iron ASAP). We still have an RoP with Willy, so you can move troops towards Novgorod via Dutch roads (can't remember if he has an RoP with Cathy as well though -- you might want to check that!). You'll then be in a position to get the war started yourself (by making 'insulting' demands of Cathy until she's Furious, then giving her the boot order, so that she DoWs us while you still have control of the game). Before provoking her, though, make sure that you also have a couple of Horses/Archers ready to take out each of her Settler-pairs, both for the slaves, and to prevent pillaging.

Provided you don't take too many unit-losses (and/or are replacing them faster than you're losing them), those initial troops can then converge on Moscow, to deprive Cathy of her Horses as well. When you reach Moscow, you'll need to assess your troop-strength, and either (1) pillage the Horse-tile, but bypass Moscow to go after the towns on the peninsula beyond, or (2) take Moscow and then move on. The peninsula-towns were still mostly choked by Jungle at the beginning of my set, so are likely shield-poor, and hence poorly defended, but if you go after Moscow first, you may have to take some time for your units to regroup/ heal a little before proceeding further.
You want me to chop a couple forests and replant?
IIRC, Forest-tiles with Worker-pairs on them are mostly already chopping, and will be done soon. (Re)planting should only be done where needed to balance food-rich tiles/ cancel out net-positive FPT at Pop12. There are 2 Forest-tiles SE of Aarhus with a Worker-triple and -single just arrived on them -- they should just road (3*2T and 6T), because chop-shields from those tiles won't assist Aarhus with its Duct-build unless you set both Reyk and Bodo to building Wealth the turn before the chops finish (though you might want to do that, to ensure that the Duct is built before Aarhus fills its Pop6 food-box).

One Worker from Trond could be added to the pair on the cleared tile, to finish the road in 1T (the roading Worker currently needs 3T; 1T to move means that next turn 2 Workers can finish in 1T). The mining Worker has also only just been assigned to do so (6T) and can be switched off, but not reassigned on this turn; Lanz said he should be (re)planting the Forest instead (9T, but will be 8T when the road is done -- 1 ex-roadbuilder can then reduce that to 4T).
Do I need to worry much about happiness in the cities? I dont have CivAssist so I wouldnt have the alert.
No, not really; with 2 Luxes, and WH from the Arabs and Aztecs (and soon the Russians, with any luck!), no <Pop6-ers should become unhappy following growth. With current LUX%-setting (0%!), only Pop7+ (core-)cities are at risk of rioting, and of them, only Bergen is due to grow another citizen any turn soon.

Once Trond has reached Pop7 (in 2T) and Birka and Aarhus have finished their Ducts (ideally, 1T before they're due to fill their Pop6 food-boxes, without slowing their growth), Worker(s) can be joined to bring all three up to size-parity with the other core-town(s) (Bergen will likely be the largest). Ideally, all core-towns should then be brought up to Pop12 in parallel with one another, so that a minimal LUX%-rate can be used without needing to assign Specialists to prevent riots in the fastest-growing/ largest town(s). At Pop12, all our core land-tiles should be mined/ forested for a total of 24 fpt per town (i.e. net +0 fpt) and max. SPT.

For now, I'm inclined to let Trond and Bergen set the growth-pace for the rest: with their Grans and irrigation still in place, they could both grow naturally (and fast), and the other core-towns (esp. Cope) would then just need enough Worker-joins (either sourced from our current stock, or newly built out of Oslo / Yek) to keep up. That way, we wouldn't need to burn our Worker-pile faster than we're replenishing it, so could have Worker-stacks doing the needed jobs; however, core-growth will be slower, and each turn Trond (or Bergen) grew, we (you) would need to re-check all tile-assignments, do the 'balancing' Worker-joins, and then also recheck whether the LUX%-slider should be raised.

Alternatively, we could pump (all) the core-towns up to Pop12 with our current stock of Workers, but that would seriously deplete our Worker-numbers, while we still need them to do the needed mining/ foresting jobs -- but we (you) would only have to set the tile-assignments and LUX%-slider once. Either way, though, we certainly want all core-towns to be at or near Pop12 when our GA starts -- likely in 10-11T ...
 
There's a lot of talk of getting towns to size 12. But, do you want to emphasize that so much or getting to a target number of shields per turn in a city first?
 
As we still have some research to do and then need to refill our bank account, I think going to size 12 fast is a good idea: most/all tiles are roaded, so we get a lot of commerce immediately, and production (getting to magic shield numbers) can be taken care of later.
 
Good point about most tiles being roaded. I was thinking that we'd want to keep the lux% low until Invention came in, but with high commerce in our core towns, it shouldn't matter too much. The real key is just making sure things are balanced to avoid riots.
 
I remembered to play some this evening. I've played 4 turns so far, but taking a break to watch some shows with my family. I may play more after, or leave till tomorrow. But here's what I've done so far.

Spoiler :

So I made sure to reread many of the posts before I started doing anything. I then looked around confirming everything. I stopped the mine at Trond as said by tjs before hitting next turn and moved a worker from Trond and set production for it on marketplace. I then put Oslo back on workers. I set research to 100% as well.

Horsman built in Bergen, I sent it north into the Dutch land to get to Novgorod eventually.

I decided down in Aarhus to chop the forests, but timing it so it is finished after the 2t Horseman is done in Reyk. So I moved 1 of the workers from the 3 stack to the other forest. I did not set a 2nd worker to chop just yet on that tile. Outside Aarhus, I sent 2 workers north to mine the grassland. I sent the other worker towards Karasjok. Outside Trond, set the worker from Trond to road to finish in 1t, and the other now free worker to forest. Aztecs dropped 2 warriors oustide Yeka. I sent the 2 horses at Copen and Trond to kill them. Both warriors died with some injuries to the 2 horsemen as well. I sent the 1hp horseman at Karasjok to Aarhus to heal faster since it has a barracks there.

2 workers on Oslo forest, I sent one to the hill, and the other down south.

At Yeka, I sent both workers west.

Turn 132:
Set 2nd worker by Trond to plant forest cutting it to 4t.

Aztecs dropped a horseman by Yeka IBT. I sent horseman up from Copen that just completed to kill it. Only 1 hp loss and promoted to elite.

Arab boat appeared down south at Tromso. I decided with the uncertainty if they have 2 units, and our weak defenses of 1 horseman, to sink the ship. So I sent both boats at it, and one of ours sunk.

Set worker up by Stavanger to road since it completed irrigation.

Moved a stack of 3 workers down south to Hareid.

I decided with the chop just west of Stockholm, to irrigate, to get some irrigation through to the west.

Turn 133

IBT Byzantines complete Hanging Gardens.

Arab Spearman appears in our territory from Kufah. I sent a horseman on it, but it retreated with 2hp. I then sent an archer from Hareid, but it died with no dent. 3rd Horseman kills it. I decide to send in the stack to Kufah to hit next turn. I also sent a worker on the forest between Hareid and Karasjok to see if I can entice an Arab spear from going after it so the one on the hill will not reinforce the city.

Horseman arrives on the mountain next to the Russian Iron.

Bergen about to grow a population, so I increase lux output to 10%. Because Bergen about to grow, I use a worker to Join Copen to pop 9 and it gets a few more GPT down on the negative research.

IBT forest chops complete by Aarhus, but sorry I forgot to micro it, and Reyk got it instead. I was under a bit of pressure to stop playing to watch something, so I hit next turn before making sure.

Turn 134
Arab spear goes into territory close to the worker as I wanted, and I sent an archer on Kufah. It wins with only 1 hp loss, and takes the city! There was only 1 spear in it.... There is now a road between Karasjok and Kufah. Sent a veteran horseman on the spearman and it kills it. There is an archer on the hill by Kufah as well and I sent a regular horseman and it kills it with no hp loss.

Sent a horseman from Copen to kill an Aztec horsemen, was successful, but the 2nd from Bergen, which was an elite, failed and only took 1hp off of the regular horseman. So I had to use another elite horseman, minus 1hp, that I had fortified at Birka from the last attack to heal its 1hp, though breaking its hp heal session.

Since Kufah was now taken, and units freed up, I then made demands at Russia till she was Furious.

Finished moving some weak horsemen around to heal. Placed a secondary unit in both Molde and Alesund so if Russia decides to declare war with that horse, it wont take the city.

Turn 135

Nothing much happening. Just arranging units and healing. Adjusted research slider so we dont go broke. I also added another citizen to Copenhagen to get extra commerce.

Oh and btw Yeka is now doing workers and due to complete one next turn and I have been moving tiles around to make sure it does it every 2 turns and grows.

Joined a worker to Trond since it was 7 pop.

IBT
Byzantines complete Statue of Zeus.

Miscalculated some happiness, so Copen and Kufah went to disorder.

Turn 36
Invention due in 2 turns. I could do it in 1t, but it would make us go broke, and I cant get it to not.

Various irrigation tasks in the plains and mines on hills.

Turn 137
Moving horsemen north through the Dutch for the eventual attack on Russia. Have plenty of men at Alesund for the attack at Yaro. Temporarily forgot I needed a stack up in the dutch there to hit Novgorod, I was stacking for that city at Stavanger.

Invention next turn.

Turn 138
I have made demands every turn at Russia now, but still no war.

Here's screenshot:
https://gyazo.com/bcfa8acf3437207fa38c2a89ec40a964

Unable to upload it as an attachment here, as I was getting an error.


Played to turn 138 (hopefully I didnt mess everything up....). I'll stop here for tonight. One reason is because, I want to discuss what to do since Russia has not declared war yet. Do we wait?

Getting an error uploading the save for you to see the game. I'll check tomorrow.
 
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Dial up Russia

"Remove your units from our territory or declare WAR!"

Cathy will declare.

For images:

In the post editor here, there's a set of four icons near the right side of the toolbar; click the one next to the smiley face (it looks like a little chart, also next to two filmstrips overlapping). It will bring up a little box; paste in your image url and it'll insert it into your post.

It might be worth joining another Worker to Reyk, too. How's it doing for happiness?
 
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Great work taking Kufah! I'm a little surprised the Arabs only had one defensive unit in it.

We look ready to fight Russia now, although I think I'd like to see the save before making the final decision. How's our military doing? How many Archers do we have that can be upgraded to Berzerks? Are we still weak compared to Russia?

Research- I see you have it at zero. That seems reasonable considering we need money more than technology right now, especially for upgrades. On the other hand, while the top half of the MA tech tree won't do us much good and Chivalry is useless unless we have Iron, researching Gunpowder might be helpful- we'll see where Saltpeter sources are and we can build better defensive units.
 
Dial up Russia

"Remove your units from our territory or declare WAR!"

Cathy will declare.

For images:

In the post editor here, there's a set of four icons near the right side of the toolbar; click the one next to the smiley face (it looks like a little chart, also next to two filmstrips overlapping). It will bring up a little box; paste in your image url and it'll insert it into your post.

It might be worth joining another Worker to Reyk, too. How's it doing for happiness?

Ah ok. I wasnt sure if I was to do that, since it was said I was supposed to put her on Furious and let her do it. I do not really understand the diplomatic modifiers because I've never really cared for them, so I wasnt sure if that was still regarded as her declaring war. I'll make sure to do that right on this turn and move in.

Yeah I know the embing part, but I was trying to attach it by uploading it here. I just tried now and it is giving me an error, and the same for the save.

Great work taking Kufah! I'm a little surprised the Arabs only had one defensive unit in it.

We look ready to fight Russia now, although I think I'd like to see the save before making the final decision. How's our military doing? How many Archers do we have that can be upgraded to Berzerks? Are we still weak compared to Russia?

Research- I see you have it at zero. That seems reasonable considering we need money more than technology right now, especially for upgrades. On the other hand, while the top half of the MA tech tree won't do us much good and Chivalry is useless unless we have Iron, researching Gunpowder might be helpful- we'll see where Saltpeter sources are and we can build better defensive units.

Just 3 archers, I lost one, and havent built any more. We have like 6 or 7 units by Yaro, and 1 horseman on the mountain next to the iron and 4 en route to Novgorod.

Yeah I left it at that since Invention just finished this turn and I remembered we didnt really plan on doing much research and we need gold for upgrades and short rushes anyway.

We are average to Russia.

Russia does have Chivalry as do others.

Because of getting errors uploading it here, I uploaded it to Mediafire:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/av8cr5h8r4sh7ad/Vikings+SG+Turn+138.SAV

I'll play the rest of my turn set a bit later so it gives some time to discuss and lanz and tjs to say something.
 
Regarding research: first priority should now be to upgrade the Archers and use cash to shortrush necessary things everywhere. Then whenever we have some surplus cash, we can fire up research for one turn or so. Gunpowder would be useful, but Chivalry would be useful as well, if we expect to get the Russian iron anytime soon.

Does Reykjavik have a Marketplace already? If not, I would suggest to switch to it now, before the Barracks complete. (And perhaps Reyk doesn't need barracks for some time to come?! We will need some ships to sail beyond Kufah, which can then be loaded with Berzerks and hit the Russian coastal towns. How many ships and how many Archers do we currently have?)
 
Russia does have Chivalry as do others.
In that case we of course don't need to research it ourselves. Can we buy it for gpt from Russia, before Cathy declares? Then we could get it "for free", while Russia takes the reputation hit... :devil:

Edit: yes, it works:

deal.png


Make that deal and directly afterwards ask her "to leave or declare". Then we'll have Chivaly for free and without any damage to our reputation! (They are the ones who broke the deal...)

And we could sell Invention to Byzanz for 243 gold plus 30gpt. I think we should do that: it means we can upgrade two Horses to Knights immediately, and then one Knight every turn! (Or rather as soon as we have iron... Ah: we can get iron and gems from Carthage, if we sell them Invention before we sell it to Byzanz!)
And from Carthage we could get gems and some gold for Invention. Not sure, if we want that, but I think, if we make the Byzanz deal, Carthage will trade their Theology with Byzanz and get Invention anyway, so we may as well get the gems for it.

And we can sign up the Dutch against Russia for Engineering. Should be quite helpful, both for our war against Russia and then later for our war against the Dutch...
 
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As I said, 3 archers.

We have about 3 boats I think (2 fortified on the east to block the Aztecs). One is injured down south. I left it there to block that particular position from the Arabs crossing.

Reyk does not have a marketplace.
 
As I said, 3 archers
Crosspost... :)

Also see the edit to my previous post. We have some excellent trade opportunities.

Ok, as it got a bit confusing now with crossposts and edits, etc. here again the optimal sequence of trades that I suggest:
  1. Invention to Carthage for iron, gems and their gold.
  2. Invention to Byzanz for 243g + 18gpt
  3. Chivalry from Russia for 49gpt
  4. Now we can immediately tell Russia "leave or declare", they will declare and thus cancel our gpt payment to them... Or we could wait for one turn meaning we pay 49g once, but get two advantages for that: we can already attack with 3 Knights on the first turn of war, and we can now safely move our Horse onto their iron hill this turn and then pillage next turn without the risk of having our Horse killed before it can pillage.
  5. Then, depending on 4. either this turn or next we sell the Netherlands Engineering for MA against Russia.
With the gems, we can reduce lux to 10%, and with the Russian war happiness we should then be able to go 0%.

Definitely Marketplace in Reykjavik, and perhaps Odense can build a Galley instead of Settler this turn?
 
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Hmm...I don't care about Chivalry or Gunpowder. We're Vikings! Our army needs strong Berserk warriors, not more prancing ponies. I say skip the techs and spend the gold short-rushing more zerks!
 
Okay here's the rest:

Changed Reyk to Marketplace and Odense to Galley as suggested by Lanz. I then joined a worker to Reyk.

Moved horseman onto the Russian Iron.

Positioned Units for the attack on Russia.

Turn 139

Acquired Chivalry from Russia for 49 gold per turn. I then said for the forces to leave and they declared war. Pillaging of iron and attack on Yaro then started. Yaro was taken with 3 horsemen, though there was only 1 spear in the city (2 retreated).

Checked out Yakutsk, there's a pikeman in there.

Killed Russian Spearman in the east to get 2 workers from their settler.

Did the trades Lanz asked for with Carthage and Byzantines. Then upgraded 2 weak 1hp horseman.

Reduced Lux output to 10%.

Moved stack of 3 horsemen onto hill northwest of Yakutsk to ride to Novgorod and meet up with the pillager horseman if possible, or take Yakutsk.

IBT lost supply of Gems and Iron somehow.

Turn 140

There's also a med inf at Yakutsk.

Sent Pillager horseman on Novgorod and killed a spear. I then sent the other 3 horseman right near Novgorod. There's a Russian horseman just 1 tile north the now 1hp pillager horseman, so I left it fortified so it may hit that, instead of going for the 3 stack, but it does have a move left if you want it to retreat.

Upgraded 1 Archer to Berserk.

I left some horsemen and knights unordered in this save by Yaro, so that we can decide what we want to do as well as one at Bergen. Like send them to Novgorod, or the Russian city just north.

Funny how drag-and-drop works on uploads, but cant manually hit upload. So here's the save uploaded attached.

I suggest for the next person to check on the cities to see if they are okay on happiness before hitting next turn and change build order of walls at Kufah or Yaro if you want. I wasnt really sure what we would want there. Yaro probably doesnt need walls, but Kufah may, since we dont plan on killing the Arabs just yet, but they havent sent any units at me since I've taken the city.

You can kill the other Russian spear at our northwest border for 2 more workers if you want, but I thought it may of been best to leave that and go ride on to the next city and send another unit at it, maybe the Berserk.

You can now join workers to Stockholm and soon Aarhus and Birka. There are workers nearby for this.
 

Attachments

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Good work on 'starting' ;) the war and making the trades :thumbsup:, bad luck on losing the Iron+Gems :sad: I guess a hostile ship interrupted a previously clear coastal-passage -- or one of Abu/Cathy's coastal towns popped its borders (sucks, but at least we didn't lose our trading reputation, 'only' some of our tech-advantage...)
Moved horseman onto the Russian Iron.
Acquired Chivalry from Russia for 49 gold per turn. I then said for the forces to leave and they declared war. Pillaging of iron and attack on Yaro then started. Yaro was taken with 3 horsemen, though there was only 1 spear in the city (2 retreated).
Will doing this (i.e. occupying the Russian Iron-tile before forcing the DoW) have busted our RoP-reputation? Not that we should need it from now on in this game, but it's still something to be wary of in general. Though I do think it would have been preferable to leave that Iron connected and just take Novgorod directly. If you were happy to park 1 Horse on the Iron-Mountain -- which overlooked the town directly, IIRC -- then why not park 4 of them? Yaro could have been assaulted directly from our side of the border using just Archers; even the Russian Horses wouldn't have been able to get to it for several turns...
I suggest for the next person to check on the cities to see if they are okay on happiness before hitting next turn and change build order of walls at Kufah or Yaro if you want. I wasnt really sure what we would want there.
I don't want anything in Yaro -- I want it gone. So (if it was up to me) I'd build Workers(Russian), i.e. Slaves, down to Pop1, and then Settler-disband it.
Yaro probably doesnt need walls, but Kufah may, since we dont plan on killing the Arabs just yet, but they havent sent any units at me since I've taken the city.
If we can now build Zerks/upgrade Archers, I don't see any reason to hold back on the Arabs. IIRC, Abu has no Iron, and no Horses, so the best units he can build will be Archers and Spears; 2-3 Galley-fulls of Zerks should therefore be able to leapfrog round the Arab peninsula and take all Abu's coastal towns (including Aden) in 6-8T or so. If we can assemble 4 boatloads, then with Kufah under our control, 2 Galleys could go clockwise, and 2 anticlockwise.

Our first successful Zerk-attack will set off our GA (I assume that upgraded e*Archer is nearer to Russia than Arabia, so I'd use him to do the deed), so we should have the shields to put such a doom-stack together quickly. And once those Zerks are built, we can then also use them for assaulting Russia and later Holland. (Which is not to say that we shouldn't keep on building more Zerks, but it might not be a bad idea to also have at least 1 decently productive town doing Horses for homeland shore-patrols/ inland-assaults -- and/or disconnect-reconnect upgrades to Knights?).

Is Willy at peace with Abu yet? If so, we wouldn't even need to try and hold captured Arab towns. Instead, since the Dutch are our next target anyway, we could start putting the 'city-gifting' tactic into practice: loan the captured towns temporarily to Willy until we're ready to DoW him (not necessarily immediately, no reason why our ToA-Temples shouldn't give those towns a little Norse Culture first -- but certainly whenever an Arab attack-unit arrives outside them). We will probably need some fast units (Knights?) to take out Mecca and any other inland Arab towns, though...
 
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IBT lost supply of Gems and Iron somehow.

Darn, the trade route broke down. That is really bad luck :(

Now the route is open again, but we have nothing to trade... So prio 1 is to capture and connect the Novgorod iron (rush a Worker in Novgord and build a colony). And once we have captured Moscow, we could trade horses for gems?! But don't attack Novgorod with only three Horses, thats too risky. We need to have enough reserves to make sure we really take the town, otherwise the risk is high that we lose 2-3 Horses for nothing, while the Russian survivors heal again until our next units get there, and the process repeats. :( Always attack with superior numbers. On Emperor I count on two Spears per enemy town, so I always prepare 6 Horses: 2 to take some hitpoints off the defenders (and hopefully retreat), 2 more to defeat the defenders, and 2 more to be on the safe side in case the RNG gods are against me... If the town is on a hill: bring some more Horses. If it's a city: bring even more, and if there's a Pike: bring another few Horses... :)

Some notes for the pre-flight (and the following turnset):
  1. There are still 6 unmoved workers in our core. Wake them up and let them start mining the last irrigations around Trondheim. (Or even better: let two of them irrigate the BG for Birka, see below.)
  2. Yekaterinburg is currently building Workers at size 4. Let it grow to size 5 (e.g. rush a Galley on turn 2!?), then it no longer needs the irrigated BG and we can give that to Birka for faster growth! At the moment, Birka would still need 13 turns to reach size 7. If we give it Yeka's iBG now and have another iBG ready in two turns, it can reach size 7 in 7 turns!!
  3. Strange way, how Stavanger grows?! Why first mine a hill instead of irrigating the BG? It's currently doing +3fpt (growth every 7 turns), but could instead be making +5fpt (growth every 4 turns)!! This is our Forbidden Palace, we need to make it grow asap!
  4. Kufah: Galley, of course. That's right the point where we need them, if we want to raid the Russians and later the Byzantines. One Galley is already there, and there is another 2/5 Galley in the tundra, that needs to go to a Harbor for healing. Another one is already on its way, so that would be a total of 4 ships soon to be assembled at Kufah. We upgrade our two remaining Archers, build 5 more Berzerks and then our fleet can set sails! (We could also take Basra first, before going on the voyage north.) This fleet with 8 Berzerks is probably enough to take the entire Russian coast via Bryansk, Vladivostok, Smolensk, Orenburg. Then board some reinforcements (e.g. in Smolensk) and then set sail to Konstantinopel... (A second fleet could be constructed and equipped in our core and then set sail to Amsterdam and on towards Aztecia.)
  5. One Knight with 2-3 more Horses should reinforce that Novgorod force, take that city and then move towards Yakutsk. The other Knight waits for 5-6 more Horsemen and then moves on Moscow. Krasnoyarsk can be ignored, it would only auto-raze anyway. Perhaps it'll be size 2 by the time our fleet sails by, then we can take it on the way.
  6. Yaroslavl: settler-disband once we have Moscow, and then resettle by the silks. (I think it's too crowded in that area.)
  7. The two Workers 2N of Yaroslavl can be taken by a Horseman, which can immediately retreat into safety afterwards. But in general don't risk isolated units being left within reach of a counter-attack. A Medieval Inf may appear out of the fog and kill it... (E.g. after capturing the other Worker on the swamp tile, our unit would be left behind vulnerable on that swamp!) No need to rush and take risks: the Russians are currently building 3 Wonders, and most of their remaining towns are size 1, so there is not much resistance to be expected from them, once we have safely dealt with their current stock of units... :hammer:
  8. Don't use Berzerks too early. We still need to bring T'heim, Bergen, Stavanger, Reykjavik, Birka, Aarhus, Stockholm and maybe Oslo to size 12, before we kick off our GA.

I'll be on vacation next week. Maybe I'll have internet access, though probably not regularly. But I'll try to stop by once in a while and contribute. Good luck to the next player!
 
If you were happy to park 1 Horse on the Iron-Mountain -- which overlooked the town directly, IIRC -- then why not park 4 of them?
We did not yet have that many Horses ready and close enough at the time that "pillager" started its journey to Novgorod. So sending one for pillaging was the right thing to do. The alternative would have been to delay the war by at least 5 turns, meaning more time for them to build and upgrade Pikes...

We did not lose our RoP reputation, because a) we didn't have a RoP with Russia, and b) Russia declared war on us, remember...? ;)

I don't want anything in Yaro -- I want it gone. So (if it was up to me) I'd build Workers(Russian), i.e. Slaves, down to Pop1, and then Settler-disband it.
I guess we think alike... Except: Yaro is already pop1, so no slaves possible.
 
Darn, the trade route broke down. That is really bad luck :(

Now the route is open again, but we have nothing to trade... So prio 1 is to capture and connect the Novgorod iron (rush a Worker in Novgord and build a colony). And once we have captured Moscow, we could trade horses for gems?! But don't attack Novgorod with only three Horses, thats too risky. We need to have enough reserves to make sure we really take the town, otherwise the risk is high that we lose 2-3 Horses for nothing, while the Russian survivors heal again until our next units get there, and the process repeats. :( Always attack with superior numbers. On Emperor I count on two Spears per enemy town, so I always prepare 6 Horses: 2 to take some hitpoints off the defenders (and hopefully retreat), 2 more to defeat the defenders, and 2 more to be on the safe side in case the RNG gods are against me... If the town is on a hill: bring some more Horses. If it's a city: bring even more, and if there's a Pike: bring another few Horses... :)

Some notes for the pre-flight (and the following turnset):
  1. There are still 6 unmoved workers in our core. Wake them up and let them start mining the last irrigations around Trondheim. (Or even better: let two of them irrigate the BG for Birka, see below.)
  2. Yekaterinburg is currently building Workers at size 4. Let it grow to size 5 (e.g. rush a Galley on turn 2!?), then it no longer needs the irrigated BG and we can give that to Birka for faster growth! At the moment, Birka would still need 13 turns to reach size 7. If we give it Yeka's iBG now and have another iBG ready in two turns, it can reach size 7 in 7 turns!!
  3. Strange way, how Stavanger grows?! Why first mine a hill instead of irrigating the BG? It's currently doing +3fpt (growth every 7 turns), but could instead be making +5fpt (growth every 4 turns)!! This is our Forbidden Palace, we need to make it grow asap!
  4. Kufah: Galley, of course. That's right the point where we need them, if we want to raid the Russians and later the Byzantines. One Galley is already there, and there is another 2/5 Galley in the tundra, that needs to go to a Harbor for healing. Another one is already on its way, so that would be a total of 4 ships soon to be assembled at Kufah. We upgrade our two remaining Archers, build 5 more Berzerks and then our fleet can set sails! (We could also take Basra first, before going on the voyage north.) This fleet with 8 Berzerks is probably enough to take the entire Russian coast via Bryansk, Vladivostok, Smolensk, Orenburg. Then board some reinforcements (e.g. in Smolensk) and then set sail to Konstantinopel... (A second fleet could be constructed and equipped in our core and then set sail to Amsterdam and on towards Aztecia.)
  5. One Knight with 2-3 more Horses should reinforce that Novgorod force, take that city and then move towards Yakutsk. The other Knight waits for 5-6 more Horsemen and then moves on Moscow. Krasnoyarsk can be ignored, it would only auto-raze anyway. Perhaps it'll be size 2 by the time our fleet sails by, then we can take it on the way.
  6. Yaroslavl: settler-disband once we have Moscow, and then resettle by the silks. (I think it's too crowded in that area.)
  7. The two Workers 2N of Yaroslavl can be taken by a Horseman, which can immediately retreat into safety afterwards. But in general don't risk isolated units being left within reach of a counter-attack. A Medieval Inf may appear out of the fog and kill it... (E.g. after capturing the other Worker on the swamp tile, our unit would be left behind vulnerable on that swamp!) No need to rush and take risks: the Russians are currently building 3 Wonders, and most of their remaining towns are size 1, so there is not much resistance to be expected from them, once we have safely dealt with their current stock of units... :hammer:
  8. Don't use Berzerks too early. We still need to bring T'heim, Bergen, Stavanger, Reykjavik, Birka, Aarhus, Stockholm and maybe Oslo to size 12, before we kick off our GA.

I'll be on vacation next week. Maybe I'll have internet access, though probably not regularly. But I'll try to stop by once in a while and contribute. Good luck to the next player!

Yes I always send superior numbers as well. In fact, I rarely hit with 4 horsemen. I like to have at least 8 units to hit. But in this game we seem to send few troops and they so far have been very weak cities.

I didnt go and irrigate the grassland at the time, because it was so close to the Russian border and if war happened without me taking the lead, then they could of taken the worker.
 
Hmm...I don't care about Chivalry or Gunpowder. We're Vikings! Our army needs strong Berserk warriors, not more prancing ponies. I say skip the techs and spend the gold short-rushing more zerks!

In principle I agree, but in this case we got Chivalry for free, so why not take it... :D And a few Knights for taking inland cities are really useful.
 
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