TJS1 -- Going on the Pill-age

[Elephantium]

Have fun

 

[choxorn]

Pre-flight notes:

-We have plenty of gold, and are in a golden age. Currently at War with Russia, planning to kill them shortly, then move on to the Dutch, who we will declare war on once our deal runs out in 4 turns.
-A few Galleys and other units are tasked with dealing with landings from the Arabs and/or Aztecs.
-Workers doing whatever jobs still need to be done to get the area outside our core more productive.
-There's a Settler in the far South- I assume it's meant to be between Risor, Tromso, and Odense?
-Smolensk is building a Settler right now- if it's meant to be Settler-abandoned, where should the new city be?

 

[Lanzelot]

Smolensk: I think it's supposed to be building a settler "the slow way". It's in a perfect location: next to a river and a banana, so why disband it. Just give it a food tile so it can grow. (It is now happy without the entertainer.)

Stavanger is producing 30spt, but only needs 8 shields for finishing the Courthouse. Wasn't there any way to avoid so much ovrerun?!

Settler in the south: yes, on the coast between Tromso and Odense would be good. The forest on that tile will be harvested just in time for the Settler to found on that tile. It can slowly build Galleys.

Go, get them, choxorn!

 

[Elephantium]

Stavanger: GA, so no. It was at 42s in the bin at the beginning of my Turn 9. The GA kicked off adding 11 shields (pre-corruption), bringing us from 21 to 30 shields.

Courts take 80 shields, so a 50-shield build would have been ideal for short-rushing; unfortunately, nothing currently available has that cost.

The only possible way would have been for me to short-rush a Treb on my T8, then switch back, anticipating GA on T9. But that would have given me a 20-shield overrun if I'd waited to start the GA until my T10!

 

[Lanzelot]

Yep, the start of the GA is always messing things up...

 

[robbus]

After President Elephantium retires the grateful populace admires the mighty Viking empire.

 

[Elephantium]

robbus, thank you for taking screenshots

Choxorn, have you had any time to get started?

 

[choxorn]

Just recently got started, have played two turns and captured a few more Russian cities, including Moscow, and its Mausoleum and Library along with it.

Here's what I've done:

Turn 0 (450 AD):

MM:

-Send the clown in Smolensk back to work, he’s not needed for happiness. Same with the taxman in St. Petersburg.

-Move citizens in Copenhagen and Birka from a mined Grass to Coast to reduce shield overrun and give us extra gpt.

-Move two citizens from Plains to coast in Molde- it can’t grow anyway until it gets an Aqueduct, and it both reduces overrun and gives extra gold.

IBT:

-The Dutch and Arabs sign peace. Booooooo! Peace, what is it good for?

-The Russians retreat a bunch of their workers back into cities, and a Galley departs Smolensk.

-Reykjavik: Galley->Galley

-Birka: Berzerk->Berzerk

-Aarhus: Market->Knight

-Stavanger: Courthouse->Berzerk

-Molde: Berzerk->Aqueduct

Turn 1 (460 AD):

-Use workers to shortrush the Berzerks in Birka and Stavanger and the Knight in Aarhus.

-Reassign an irrigated sugar tile from Karasjok to Kufah- Karasjok can’t grow until it finishes its Aqueduct, but Kufah could certainly use faster growth.

@Orenburg: eKnight kills rSpear (1-0)

@Moscow: 8 Knights and 1 Horse are outside the city, with one vKnight ready to attack. It kills an rSpear. (2-0)

@Tver: vBerzerk kills rSpear, eBerzerk kills rSpear, and the city is ours. (4-0)

-Send a few Galleys with Berzerks North, in preparation for a “friendly visit” to the Dutch in a few turns.

IBT:

-A Russian rLBM forces our vKnight near Moscow to retreat.

-The Dutch unload a Horseman near Orenburg.

-Trondheim: Berzerk->Berzerk

-Bergen: Berzerk->Berzerk

-Copenhagen: Market->Pikeman

-Reykjavik: Galley->Galley

-Stockholm: Berzerk->Berzerk

-Hareid: Harbor->Aqueduct

Turn 2 (470 AD):

-eHorse kills rLBM outside Moscow (5-0)

-Inside Moscow itself: 4 vKnights kill 4 rSpears, and the city is ours, along with 3 workers and the Mausoleum of Mausollos and the Great Library! (9-0)

-vKnight kills rLBM near Novgorod (10-0)

@Orenburg: eKnight retreats to rSpear, 4/5 Knight kills rSpear, and we take the city. (11-0)




Having the Great Library will definitely give us some stuff we don't have yet, Theology and Gunpowder at the very least. It does, however, present the downside that if it gives us Education, we lose all our free Temples.

 

[tjs282]

Oh poop, when did Cathy build GLib?!? (Hope it wasn't on my set, but I have a horrible feeling...). Because if we're going to go for Domination, we really don't want to lose our Artemis-Temples. If Theology is out there already (how many AI-Civs have it?), then it's more than likely that at least 1 AI-Civ is either researching Edu, or has it already (and even if not, we'll lower the general price of Theology by getting it from the GLib, making it that much easier for the ignorant AI-Civs to research/buy it, and then start on Edu).

Is anyone already building CopsObs (Astro) or JSBachs (MusicTheory; unlikely, since the AI tends to go for Astro first)? If the second, at least one Civ definitely has Edu already; if the first, it's likely that more than one Civ has it. So basically, if either of those Wonders are being built, that means that even if Edu's not yet in general circulation, it probably will be soon. And if that's the case, then (please please please) before you hit enter for the IBT, could you gift Moscow away to someone harmless (Ozzie?)

 

[Lanzelot]

Some AIs have been researching really well in this game, so considering the fact, that most of them have Gunpowder by now, it is very likely that two or more already have Education! I think we need to raze Moscow immediately, before entering the next turn...
(Unless we decide to go for Conquest. But I think that Domination will be much faster and easier in this case here.)

Edit: well, not only for the free culture, also for the free happiness losing Artemis would be disastrous for us at this point. We would need 10-20% more lux rate, which during Golden Age would mean a substantial loss of income!

 

[choxorn]

Everyone has Theology, but I don't think anybody's started on any of the wonders that would require Education.

 

[Elephantium]

Thanks for the update, choxorn!

I'd actually prefer Conquest. Yes, it's a bit slower. Yes, it requires an extra turnset of attacks. I enjoy that part of the game

I don't think anyone else has weighed in on that question.

 

[robbus]

My first victory on monarch was domination because the americans had colonized a one tile island requiring a berserker or ?marine amphibious assault. This would have delayed my attack due to me not knowing tech for marines.

I am OK with domination. At this point I am along for the ride though. I am closely watching this thread to observe MM moves.

My turnset involved MM mistakes at yekta and elsewhere and some bad troop/galley deployments.

 

[Elephantium]

My first victory on monarch was domination because the americans had colonized a one tile island requiring a berserker or ?marine amphibious assault. This would have delayed my attack due to me not knowing tech for marines.

I am OK with domination. At this point I am along for the ride though. I am closely watching this thread to observe MM moves.

My turnset involved MM mistakes at yekta and elsewhere and some bad troop/galley deployments.

Ha! So did mine, according to Lanz

By this point, we're all set for the game -- it's just a matter of doing the fighting (and not letting our Galleys get sunk with Berserks aboard).

 

[choxorn]

So, what should we do, gents? Do we use the Great Library to get some free research at the expense of maybe losing our temples and go for Conquest victory and have to spend a bit more money, or are we trying to Dominate the world and spread the good word of Artemis, and we don't need none of that book-learnin' nonsense?

 

[Nathiri]

So, what should we do, gents? Do we use the Great Library to get some free research at the expense of maybe losing our temples and go for Conquest victory and have to spend a bit more money, or are we trying to Dominate the world and spread the good word of Artemis, and we don't need none of that book-learnin' nonsense?

I think its better to not have the tgl. It seems we can dominate the world fairly easy with our berserks. It's been rather easy so far.

 

[tjs282]

I'd rather forego GLib as well, but would prefer to do that by gifting it away, rather than razing Moscow (it's pretty well placed for our purposes, so why waste a Settler/turns rebuilding/repopulating it?). If we gifted it to e.g. Osman or Hannibal, it will be pretty much useless to them, being landlocked and surrounded by our ToA-Culture. I suppose there's a risk it might flip to us, but I've long since abandoned any expectation of getting flips in my favour, not at Emp...

With the Byzzies on our continent (has anyone found the landbridge yet? I'm guessing it goes through Arabia), that means 5/8 Civs' worth of land that can benefit from ToA. So 5T after we finish conquering just our continent, every captured town will have popped at least once, and then we can take Moscow back from whoever we lent it to, get a bigger tech-boost, and then take on some/all of the remaining 3 AI-Civs at our leisure.

And if everyone's all gung-ho for Conquest at that point, then we can just raze everything else...

 

[Lanzelot]

So 5T after we finish conquering just our continent, every captured town will have popped, and then we can take Moscow back from whoever we lent it to, get a bigger tech-boost, and then take on the other 3 AI-Civs at our leisure.

Sounds like an excellent plan! I guess we can do that independently of whether we go for Conquest or Domination. The extra money and extra culture will be useful in any case.

I suppose there's a risk it might flip to us,

One can always say "No thanks", when a town tries to flip to us. Just had to do this a couple of times in my recent COTM131 game: one of the scientific tribes was on its last legs and I wanted to keep it alive so I could "harvest" their free techs when entering the Industrial and Modern Ages. So I gifted them one of my tundra towns and surrounded it with my units, so that their enemies could not get them. However, then it turned out their enemies were not capable of taking their capital for many centuries, and during all that time that tundra town kept attempting to flip back to me like every 10 turns... So I had to say "no thanks" several times, as the risk that someone else would finally manage to take their capital (which was their last town besides the tundra town) was just too high.

Edit: so I guess Osmania would be a good choice as our Keeper of the Great Library? They are pretty far down in our list of targets and not on our continent.

 

[tjs282]

One can always say "No thanks", when a town tries to flip to us.

Well that just shows how long it's been, since I got a flip in my favour -- I'd totally forgotten that...

So yeah, let's just keep "Rebuff[ing all] the [Moscow] rebels" until we're ready to keep the town.

We'd even get "goody 2-shoes" points (with any remaining friendly civs) every time we needed to do that, wouldn't we? (How badly they misunderstand us... )

 

[choxorn]

I like that plan, too.

We are not so savage that we don't need none of that book learnin and we'll burn it all to the ground, but we don't want it getting in the way of spreading the Good Word of Artemis across the continent.