TMcC01 - Narcissistic Nehru (C3C, AWM)

[barbslinger]

I agree, as per my ealier assessment. Of course future prediciments could change our defense , but, our goal sould be the same.
Meanwhile, I have seen distinct diferences in gameplay that has provided us with a winning chance. Perhaps that is the strength of this this team. We are far beyond the point I ever expected to be. It can certainly be attributed to consistent city maintanance, agressive play where need be and patience.
The riders still worry me from the south, but we can win! This would be one of the best wins ever under this variant. Let's do it! Keep the eye on everything! Go team!

 

[Yom]

Oops, I forgot Mil. Academy isn't buildable until Military Tradition. If we have the pentagon and no small wonders are available, I'm guessing we built the Heroic Epic too? Anyway, I agree with T_McC in that we shouldn't keep the army waiting around, we'll probably get another leader soon.

Btw, I think the Byzantines have Iron in their control, hidden somewhere in the fog, since I saw a pikeman or two come to pillage our wines.

 

[Greebley]

I strongly disagree on wasting our leader on a build. We have the settlers and can get the 2 towns down long before we can expect another leader - it might easily be 10 turns or more before we get another one. If need be settle within the next 2 turns and build the army.

The longer we spend only on defense, the stronger tha AI will get. I definitely don't want to be in the same position we are in now with Cavalry coming at us.

 

[T_McC]

TMcC01

1050 AD (0)
We have 18 cities. No cities in the west can be attacked this turn. There is a settler active N of 7-11, covered by an injured army. There is a decent spot for him to settle, if the American Knights would move. There are two injured armies in the west, and two elite Swords. There are three offensive units on the Peninsula. Probably enough to raze the Mayan city. In the east, the only unit that can attack this turn is a reg archer. There is a settler in Pune. Swap Indy to a catapult, and move some tiles around so Nehruvia will build MDI in 3 turns, not 4. Swap Yom's to Pike. Will need two settlers for the peninsula. I would love to burn Chalcedon and replace it with the settler in Pune. Would also be nice to get a city E of Deli, so the wines can come online.

<Return>

1060 AD (1)
Kill Chinese MDI outside Indy, make it two. Kill Egyptian Archer. [3-0]

1070 AD (2)
Win 3 vs. Byz on the IT, kill two Mayan MDI. There are way too many units in the path west, settler turns around and heads for the Peninsula. [8-0]

1080 AD (3)
Win 2, lose 1 vs. Americans at Equinia Mt. Kill American Spear. [11-1]

1090 AD (4)
Well, at least that IT helps with unit costs. Lose 3, win 1 on the IT. Lots of pRNG garbage. Kill three units in the East. Go 2 for 8 on cat shots around Equinia. Kill two potential attackers at Equinia. Next IT should be fun. [17-4]

1100 AD (5)
Win 5, at Equinia. Lose 1 somewhere else. Kill two Chinese MDI, one Mayan MDI.

Attack on Kami..., win twice and burn the city, taking a Galley with it. No one but us occupies the Peninsula.

Kill another Mayan MDI at Equinia. Attention has moved to Gas Station, where a stack of 5 Egyptian Archers are waiting to attack next turn. [28-5]

1110 AD (6)
Ignore the American beseeching me to an audience. And all the Egyptian troops run away ??? If they do that next turn, I've got a plan. Kill Mayan MDI, load Elite* sword into one of the Armies. Kill Byz archer. Begin advance on Chalcedon. [30-5]

1120 AD (7)
Watch the Egyptians attack French cities. The Egyptian troop movements make no sense to me at all. Win one and retreat two Byz horses on the IT. Have a good run of Cat shots in the west, break away from that while the pRNG is hot and begin Assault on Chalcedon: Two army wins later and the city burns. We re-capture one of our own workers?

Found (Bomb)s Aw(ay) and Take Five on the Peninsula.

Build army in Nehruvia and insert two MDI. Kill Mayan MDI and Jav, Byz Spear. Kill two Egyptian Archers with 19 HP army, then attack with Elite Sword and pop a leader. This one will be wasted on infrastructure, and runs over to hurry a Marketplace in Indy.

The Americans are breaking out the Longbows! Thats Longbow spelled L-E-A-D-E-R-F-O-D-D-E-R. [39-5]

1130 AD (8)
Miss Cleo wants to talk. Apparently she sees bad things in her own future. Like jail for fraud. I ignore her. Guess what city was attacked three times by Dromons? Win two, retreat two at the Deli. I think the next line of advance is SE, to get those wines freed up, and the Chinese back in their cage. The Egyptians are very polite with their troop movements, always ending up next to cities and never attacking. Cleo is very confused.

Indy: Market --> Cat, we need more artillery on that front. We are starting to accumulate some mobile troops in the Peninsula. Add Elite* Sword to other western Army. For the first time in a long while, I have less targets than cats in the west.

Choose not to let red-lined Jav run away, and pop another Leader. Yom's Folly will get a market next turn. Since we don't have any elite MDI, put 3rd Vet into army and send it East. Kill red-lined Byz archer. [41-5]

1140 AD (9)
Theadora hits the pipe a little hard , and founds a city right in front of my sword army. Oddly enough it didn't survive. Market rushed in Yom's Folly. The Americans and Egyptians coordinate an attack on Equinia, putting 13 units outside the city. Kill one American archer and two longbows. Kill two Egyptian archers. Kill two Chinese MDI and promote the Army to 13 HP. Kill Chinese Spear. [50-5]

1150 AD (10)
Found Bangadrum on hill behind river where Byz city used to stand. Sacrifice 3 slaves to speed wall production. Kill American Knight that had captured 7-11 because I hit end turn too quickly. Then kill an archer. Kill American Longbow and Mayan MDI. Kill Egyptian Archer and Byz Archer. Equal opportunity. [55-5]

Final Notes:

The west is still pretty wild. We are getting a terrific kill ratio, but there are loads of enemy units. I think we will start to turn that front soon, as all production in the West can go to supporting a single front rather than including the southward offensive. In the East, it certainly appears that the Byz have no iron. I saw only horses and archers over there, and the only loss was a pRNG fluke. I think the offensive should be towards the SE, to bottle up the Chinese and to free up the wines for our core.

We are starting to accumulate enough units in the west to kill all the red-lined opponents. When we hit this fully, we will have turned that front, and can think about advancing. The Byz have nothing but crap units, and should be punished. Recall we can drop 4th units into the eastern armies. I would wait until we get an Elite* sword to add to the sword army, but would probably add the first Elite MDI to the MDI army.

Pictures Follow

 

[T_McC]

Our Eastern Lands:

The three foreign cities visible in the South make nice targets. Not sure how to re-settle them though, and it may be more profitable to hit the Byz city and maybe another one farther N and E to clear out the area around the wines. We would benefit by lowering the lux tax. The Byz consistently send units to die, and the Chinese go in fits and starts. When they do show up it is usually with 3 units at once.

Our Western Lands: Look at all the pretty colors.

This is why the settler headed for the peninsula. A couple of times on my turn there were multiple stacks outside of Equinia (once 13 units, the other was 17 I believe). We won't have to use both armies on defense much longer, we are starting to accumulate units on that front. I'm not sure how many of those units pictured are repeat customers, and how many are truly representative of the AI production capacity.

There are no settlers active or in production. The science slider could be bumped up, but I was using the accumulating cash to upgrade Spears to Pikes on the western border.

Finally, the save

We are not dead yet

 

[handy900]

I'm patched up to 1.15 and @ work (yes, on Saturday).

@T_McC - I've not had time time read the turns, but will do so when I get off. I can play in the evening, so anytime you see fit place me in the order.

 

[T_McC]

Handy is up next.

Slinger is up after Handy, and then we are back to the regular order.

@Handy: You might want to check to see how many elite units we still have. I think we have two offensive and a couple defensive elites that have not yet spawned leaders. Worth knowing so you can make a decision what to do with the next MGL. I was rushing infrastructure because I felt we weren't close to founding 3 more cities. But I now realize we are running low on elites, so our odds of popping leaders are getting slimmer. So you might want to sit on the next leader to save for a 6th army.

I don't think we can do 3 cities on your turn, but we should be able to do 1, and 2 is not out of the question. I didn't leave you with any settlers, but Indy can pop one out in 3 turns, so once you decide on a target you can replace it quickly.

 

[barbslinger]

Is Handy up or am I still after you T_McC? Did I miss someone being skipped somewhere?

Sounds as though the markets have helped us to turn the cash crunch corner with the statement that you are saving cash for upgrading pikes and the statement science can be bumped up.

 

[T_McC]

Slinger and I cross-posted, so to re-iterate Handy is up, followed by Slinger. We are then back to our normal rotation of:

T_McC
Barbslinger
Yom
Handy900
Greebley


@Slinger - We aren't out of the woods economically yet, the two markets added about 12 gpt to our income. Bumping up the science allocation would get us Engineering in 9 instead of 12 (or something like that). The next big economic event will be gaining a third luxury, which should allow us to kill the lux tax.

I was rushing markets instead of libraries because: (a) With a third lux, we get an extra happy face, (b) It is the more expensive building, and (c) Libraries might get us to better troops faster, but Markets let us better afford the troops we have. I expect to use our GA to build libraries and accumulate cash. After Mono-Chivalry, we should only need techs on the bottom part of the tree.

 

[barbslinger]

With our tight food situation it may be a good idea to put a harbor in Indy and SugarP. It would also open up MM opportunities. Also with the threat of troops being dropped off behid the lines the sooner we can get pikes into those towns the better. I might even slow the research down to get more cash for upgrades. The rivers are a problem but we seem to be dealing with it OK.

 

[handy900]

T_McC 1150 AD

Copied & pasted goals from T_McC’s write up:
Offensive should be towards the SE, to bottle up the Chinese and to free up the wines for our core.
The Byz have nothing but crap units, and should be punished.
…l we can drop 4th units into the eastern armies…wait until we get an Elite* sword to add to the sword army, but would probably add the first Elite* MDI to the MDI army.
There are no settlers active or in production. (I’ll try to get some started).
The science slider could be bumped up, ok…use … cash to upgrade Spears to Pikes on the western border.
We look a little light on Horsemen. I’ll try to build some to kill redlined units.

ITB (still 1150 AD)
Wow it’s a party @ Deerburg, and lots of folks headed to Equinia.
[4-1]. A sword redlined killing an American Knight and was finished of by an archer.
Slinger – temple – pike
T ville – pike – horse
Nehruvia – MI –MI
We look a little light on Horsemen

Turn 1 1160 AD
[8-0] kills near Gas Station , Equinia, Deerburg and Slingers. Looks like we should have wines soon.
I switched Indy to a settler.
Plans for a run to the wines This may take more than my 10 turns, but it looks like the 2 eastern armies can raze a swath around Slingers. They will be moving clockwise. The army in the north will take Nicea & head to Constantinople.
The army in the south will take Dyrrachium, Shantung, and Chinan. After that this army can take the Chinese choke point, then move in & move China offshore.

ITB
Equinina – barracks – MI
Pune – worker – settler

Turn 2 1170 Ad
Bomb & kill 2 Chinese MI near Pune
Sword kills horse @ Slingers
Starting to get some tiles irrigated in the east.
Bomb & kill 2 javelins @ Equinia
[13-0]

IBT
MI kills swords exposed near Slingers. That was my bad on that one.
Chinese horse impales itself on Slinger pike.
Indy finishes a settler to protect the wines @ Slinger –> cat (I agree with T_McC. We need some cats over here.
Sugar – MI – MI
Yom – Pike – horse
America is building Leonardo’s. They have all the good wonders.
Spear & MI land next to Bombs Away which is guarded only by a spear.
[14-1]

Turn 3 1180 AD
Spear near Bombs away beats Mi attack.
Bomb & kill archer near Equinia
Bomb and kill spear trying to pillage Indy
Deerburg is surrounded.
Bomb & kill archer near Deerburg, then fire all cats. MI arrive next turn
Egypt’s capital is now disconnected.
Kill 3 spears @ Dyrrachium. There is an archer left.
[20-1]

IBT
We win 4 battles. 2 @ Deerburg & 2 @ slingers delhi.
[21-1] RNG is being nice to me today.
Nehruvia- MI – MI
Gas Station – pike – pike
Dirty Dozen – horse – horse. I see a knight army in our future.
Hail Vishnu – Temple – MI

Turn 4 1190 AD
Kill 3 archers between 7-11 & Equinia
4 worker stack near Nehruvia is an irrigation machine.
Dyrrachium gets razed
dial slider back engineering in 1.
Kill pike S of Deerburg
[26-1] I think, or close to it. Perhaps we lost 2 units. Anyway it’s the 10 to 1 we are looking for.

IBT
Crusader kills pike near Deerburg [26-2]
Maya want to talk. No thanks
We learn engineering – set to invention (due in 27)
Greebley – pike – pike
Iron town – pike – pike
Bangadrum – walls – barracks

Turn 5 1200 AD
Yom’s revolts. Hire tax man.
Switch temple @ 7-11 to market
Kill spear near Pune
Kill archer near Equinia
Raze Nicea Hey Theodora – Daddy’s on his way to your palace!
[28-2]

IBT
Indy – Treb – settler
Sugar – horse – library (need 2 core cities on infrastructure I think)
Deerburg – temple – MI (this temple will help a lot. We need to clear that forest though).
Ganges – worker – worker

Turn 6 1210 AD
Kill spear near Dirty dozed (left over from a boat drop off)
Deerburg: kill archer; kill pike
Equinia – kill MI
Nehruvia – switch to Library
Gas Station: kill Mi
[33-2]

IBT
Pike defends against Mi @ Deerburg
Yom – horse – settler
America has sent a stack towards the 7-11 / Equinia area of 3 pikes, 4 longbows, 2 knights and 1 crusader.

Turn 7 1220 AD
Kill 3 MI @ Gas Station
Kill spear near Slinger’s
Armies are healing
Kill last spear lurking near dirty dozen
Kill crusader near 7-11
Kill crusader near Deerburg (I hope they never send a stack of those)
Chine will settle IBT near the ruins of Dyrrachium with only a spear as protection. Still, it’s going to waste turns razing it again.
Switch pure to pike.
[41-3]

IBT
RNG revenge – 2 fortified pikes behind walls @ Deerburg lose to MI
Buffalo Wings – walls – worker
Pure – pike – pike (need to chop here. Low corruption city)
Stack of 4 MI from China moves towards Pure.
America’s stack draws closer, hard to tell if 7-11 or Equinia is the target. I’m guessing they are after the horses.
[41-5]

Turn 8 1230 AD
Byz have pikes in Constantinople. Either they traded for Iron, or it’s in the fog. There is none hooked up now, so I guess it was a trade our pillaging broke.
Found Karachi and sacrifice a couple of Byz workers to kick start the walls.
Worker arrives on the wines. Chop begins next turn.
Deerburg; kill archer
Horse dies attacking redlined Javelin near Deerburg
Next horse kills the jav
Kill MI near Deerburg
Gas Station: kill three MI
Army heads toward Pure / Indy area to play defense against the 4 Chinese MI.
[47-6]

IBT
American knight attacks kills a pike @ Deerburg. RNG is killing us in Deerburg. Down to 1 pike there.
Yellow archer attacks our redlined MI in a forest and we lose. I left him uncovered, did not think AI would attack. My bad.
Indy – settler – Treb.
Equinia – MI – MI
T ville – horse – pike
[47-8] kill ratio is turning sour.

Turn 9 1240 AD
Kill knight with horse near Deerburg. No leaders despite lots of elite wins.
Sword kills archer near Deerburg
Kill 2 MI near Pure
2 archers get of 2 different boats near Bombs Away
We’ll have wines again in 3 turns.
Settler has his eye on a river / coast tile NE of Shantung
Army kills 2 pikes @ Constantinople, bit will have to leave enemy territory to heal before returning.
American SOD appears headed towards 7-11 or Deerburg. I put the army on a forest since I don’t want to have to kill pikes fortified in a forest. I think we can hold them off with the cats, MI, army unless they hunker down in a forest & cats miss.
Bombs Away may fall next turn. Walls are not done yet and 2 archers will attack.
[52-8]

IBT
Very Interesting! The spear in Bombs away withstands 2 archer attacks and promotes. (he’s redlined).
Then a veteran Pike in Karachi loses to a regular archer!
The American SOD moves to a grass tile due W of 7-11. The RNG throws a bone and an American knight loses to our horse.
[54-9]
Nehruvia – library – pike
Yom – settler – library

Turn 10 1250 AD
Cats go 4 for 6 on American SOD
Army kills MI near Gas Station
Settler fortifies in Slinger’s until he can get Pike escort – or China’s cities are razed.
Kill MI near Pure
Army kills MI and is in striking distance of the Chinese city of Chinan.
Army in forest near Deerburg kills crusader and pike.
Hire tax-man to quell riot in dirty dozen.
[59-9]
While working on the picture I noticed a re jav near Irontown. I killed him and he had a settler under him. Kill the salves in Irontown next turn.
[60-9]


Notes:
I think 7-11 will hold. We have a couple of settlers to use when we can spare the pikes. North of Irontown is a nice spot to slip the continent. Our front is so wide, we are really spread out.

The American stack has 2 wounded pikes (the army will kill them next turn) and 3 longbows. If we are unlucky, we’ll lose 3 pikes to the longbows, and then be able to kill them with 1 sword and 3 horses in 7-11. There is a pike under the army you can also kill the longbows with.

We are a little thin, and there are many 1’s and 2’s near 7-11 / Equinia / Gas Station. It will be hard to cover all these cities if we can’t kill all Ai units. The AI will retreat, heal, pair up with a buddy and come back. Horses will help some on the tiles with no forest.

Good Luck Barbslinger!

Here’s the save with pics to follow:

1250 AD save

 

[handy900]

1250 AD

 

[handy900]

Here is an intel report:

China – up Monotheism and Republic. Have Iron + horses
France – up Monotheism and Republic. Have Iron, but no horses
Aztecs - up Monotheism and Republic, down engineering. Have neither Iron nor horses
Egypt – up Monotheism and Republic. No Iron and no horses (at least not hooked up)
America – up Invention, Monotheism and Republic. Have both Iron + horses
Theodora - up Monotheism and Republic. Have no Iron, but have horses. I think she had surgery, she looks ALOT better.
Mayans - up Monotheism and Republic. Have Iron + horses.

 

[barbslinger]

Originally posted by T_McC
After Mono-Chivalry, we should only need techs on the bottom part of the tree.

Why the invention? You even said "I see a knight army in our future." Should we switch to mono now? I think knights would really help. Nice work on trimming Theadora's skirt.
"got it". will play tomorrow night. I'm at work now, having some drinks with my honey later and tomorrow I have honey-do's in the AM work in the afternoon.
Looks like riders coming my way next set too with China having mono. Better get some pikes ASAP.

 

[T_McC]

@Slinger - Correct call on Monotheism. Invention is not useful to us unless we are planning a Longbow rush. And we're not. Dump the 5 turns into Invention and get us switched back towards Jumbos.

Also, don't be shy about accepting a stalemate in the east and pushing all of your early turn production to the western front. We have to get that under control. We will have it under control once we get to Jumbos, but we need that at least stable until then. Progress in the east is of no use if we are giving up ground in the west.

 

[barbslinger]

Is it from the island? If so, I think I'll take the China Army for a spin to disconnect horses and then try to knock off a few core cities. The Byz lands look ripe for settling to get 24 cities. Perhaps another army. Leaders pre-24 cities, if any I would think to markets, libraries. Have to stabilize western front. It looks like a bit further west the continent narrows a bit. If we can, over the next 20-30 turns, move the front that way we could perhaps close the front down to a 3 city wall. With that in place we could thenproceed to annex Byz completely.

 

[T_McC]

@Slinger - When you get the game, take a look at the MM around Nehruvia, Indy, and Pune. Indy should always take precedence over the throw-away of city of Pune for tiles. Nehuruvia can build 2-turn pikes if you so choose.

Since Pune doesn't have Barracks, it should only build artillery, not other units. It should really be used to get our worker count up.

We have two settlers active, so if you can use both of those to found cities we can support a 6th army. Maybe pikes to go pillaging in the west? One terrific spot would be three tiles NE of Bangadrum (again on a hill, across a river). The ruins are a cattle tile. so the city would start at +4 food.

China's Iron comes from the Island.

[No pressure, but I took about 4 shadow turns and founded two cities and had a kill ratio of around 25-1]

 

[barbslinger]

Originally posted by T_McC
[B
[No pressure, but I took about 4 shadow turns and founded two cities and had a kill ratio of around 25-1] [/B]

A.K.A the gauntlet has been thrown. I'll start looking for those 25. Thanks. I had a hearty laugh reading that. This is so much fun.

Moving on to settler placement. I'm thinking of one settler to get the choke in China and perhaps one to expand western front to draw fire from Equina and Deerburg.

 

[Greebley]

One thing I noticed when looking at the save was that there is another Lux on our borders. I would look into settling a town in the far N and grabbing the spices (near Heraclea). It may be too far out of line at the moment, but a town with sufficient defenders, it would be simply ignored. It might be best to simply settle right on the spices to keep the enemy from pillaging it like those annoying wines which I see are being reconnected again....

With the wines and an MP in our capitol we will be able to go with 0% Lux. The spices would also allow us to grow to size 10 or 11 at 0 lux.

 

[T_McC]

A fistful of dotmaps!

The North

The western-most red dot is on the spices. This is a fairly safe location, as it would only be the primary target of the Aztecs (who are still playing, right? ) and the Byz, who have much bigger problems. Would be a little touch-and-go with keeping a road connected, but by the time we need the spices that should have cleared up. There really isn't an alternative site to grab the spices anyway. The southern red dot is on a hill, behind a river. The ruins cover a cow, and the city would pull a second with a border expansion. Once this area is secured that city could provide settlers to fill up the rest of ex-Byz land. The central red dot fills in the gap nicely, after the Byz city is razed, again getting a defensive bonus from the river.

The South

There is no one-tile choke on this peninsula, but there are some two-tile chokes. The southern-most dot is one south of the Chinese city to pull in one fish immediately, and a second (uncontested) fish on border expansion. The western blue dot is the lower-maintenance site, as the two hills it can possibly work are already mined. The red dot has a larger growth potential, as after rails it can possibly work five hills, where the blue dot can only work three. This area could also support two cities, each fishing villages working two hills, if we think we are going to be flush with settlers.

The NE blue dot is to get a free aqueduct, and the SE blue dot is a best-fill-in site that would require a bunch of labor. I think we want to disband Pune with a settler and move it once the front has safely moved away, and once we start to get ahead of our armies on city count.

The West

The red dots are the best actual city sites, but would require some offensive action that we probably aren't ready for. The purple squares would work well to relieve pressure from our second ring. The eastern box should remove all pressure from 7-11, and attract most of the attention from Equinia. Both armies may have to start out stationed there, as in this screenshot there are 23 enemy units on our western border. If a new city got all that attention, we would be unlikely to hold it. I think the new city would just take the place of Equinia, and split attackers with Deerburg.

The western box could take the pressure off of Deerburg. I don't think we will get to that spot until Chivalry, as it would benefit greatly from a supporting offensive operation.