Training game emphasizing trading - Emperor

[Rik Meleet]

630 Osaka is razed. War Weariness is out of control. Also, I am bad at keeping track of this --
we lost somewhere our sea route to Spain so she will now be pissed about a broken trade.

- In my trade we wouldn't have any active deals with Spain and have an extra luxury in our hand.
The broken searoute is another reason to have picked Greece. It is very strange we are able to trade resources with Spain in the first place; all coastal tiles go through Japanese lands. That means someone must be able to trade over the sea (Astronomy) and that can only be Greece as they have had Ed for a longer time. In fact, the Wonders screen tells us that greece is building Copernicus; thus 100% proof they have Astronomy.

 

[peacemonger]

The reason I chose Spain as a partner rather than Greece is that our game plan is to start war with Greece as soon as we are done with Japan and I didn't want us to be caught breaking a deal. However, it may have been worth delaying a Greek war 20 turns to get the lux and better price.

On cash vs gpt -- I always get a little nervous with gpt during the last half of a GA (although I think in this case there was little risk getting stuck). Also, as I understand it gpt will crank up the tech pace, and while we want Russia to speed up, we definitely would want Greece to slow down. Spain a tougher call but perhaps gpt there would have made sense -- knght upgrades are pretty expensive.

 

[dl123654]

Got it

 

[Rik Meleet]

@ Peacemonger; I didn't know we would declare on Greece soon. In that case the in-game strategy made your deal better.

But then again; I am to judge trades; not politics

 

[dl123654]

The Save

Post Steal/Pre Trade

Preturn 650AD:
Japan:War, Up Lit,6gold, will give Lit and almost a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 172gold, Dyes, down Incense, Ivory
Russia:Up Lit, 22gold
Spain:Up Lit, 11gold
Korea:Up Lit, 3gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 12gold

Turn 1 660AD:
Japan:War, Up Lit,6gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 189gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, 8gold
Spain:Up Lit, 4gold
Korea:Up Lit, 4gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 14gold

IBT:
Spain offers Lit for 130gold

Turn 2 670AD:
Japan:War, Up Lit,0gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 152gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, 27gold
Spain:Up Lit, 23gold
Korea:Up Lit, 4gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 1gold

Turn 3 680AD:
Rdy for attack on Kyoto next turn, start to send units to be rdy to attack Greece
Japan:War, Up Lit,3gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 31gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, 46gold
Spain:Up Lit, 72gold
Korea:Up Lit, 4gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 12gold

Turn 4 690AD:
Greeks are building Smith
Get Leader
Take Kyoto, has Pymarids, want to keep but I raze it
Build army
Look at Japans situation, going to raze Satsuma also because of their saltpeter (the only the island) and incense.
Japan:War, Up Lit,2gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 301gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, Astr, 0gold (Won't accept any offers for buying it)
Spain:Up Lit, Astr 2gold
Korea:Up Lit, 0gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 19gold

Turn 5 700AD:
Japan:War, Up Lit,3gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 305gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, Astr, 2gold (Won't accept any offers for buying it)
Spain:Up Lit, Astr 3gold
Korea:Up Lit, 1gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 24gold

Turn 6 710AD:
Golden Age ends , rioting starts , lux to 50% to deal with it until war is over
Japan:War, Up Lit,4gold, will give Lit and a small city for peace
Greece:Up Lit, Bank, Astr, 51gold, Dyes
Russia:Up Lit, Astr, 4gold
Spain:Up Lit, Astr 4gold
Korea:Up Lit, 2gold
Dutch:Up Lit, 35gold

Turn 7 720AD:
Raze Satsuma
Make peace with Japan for Lit, Shimonoseki and 6gold
Lux down to 10%
Attempt to steal a tech from Greece, we get Banking
Rdy to trade, Russia and Spain both don't have Banking and have Astr, we can't use per turn gold or luxeries. Spain is selling cheaper but our 130 gold isn't enough. The only person with money is Greece so I sell our WM for TM and 32gold. Talk to Spain again trade Banking&139gold for Astr.
Declare on Greece
Knight army razes Thessalonica
Talk to Korea first, get Alliance for free
Talk to Spain next, get Alliance for 10gpt&16gold
Talk to Dutch next, get Alliance for 4gpt
Talk to Russia next, get Alliance for 7gpt
Trade Russia Ivory&6gold for 7gpt
Trade Spain Incense&25gpt for Wines
Trade Dutch incense&1gold for 8gpt
Japan:Behind forever (won't include them anymore)
Greece:War, (before declaring), up Nav,Eco,154gold
Russia:8gold, down Banking
Spain:Up silks, 162gold
Korea:4gold, down Banking, Astr
Dutch:7gold, down Banking, Astr

Turn 8 730AD:
Greece building Bach (has Music Theory now)
Greece:War
Russia:0gold
Spain:Up silks, 7gold
Korea:0gold, Astr
Dutch:3gold, down Banking, Astr

IBT:
Japan builds city to take Ivory back

Turn 9 740AD:
Russia:39gold
Spain:101gold
Korea:1gold, down Astr
Dutch:4gold, down Banking, Astr

Turn 10 750AD:
Russia finishes Sistine Chapel

Notes:
No AI cities were taken on either side in the war with the Greeks
Two settlers are going towards the saltpeter area in former Japan, settle the way you like
Tech wise were doing good, Greece just got Music Theory a few turns back and therefore have no techs we need to get to the next age
Our military is rated strong vs everybody, we should consider attacking Greece

 

[Rik Meleet]

You razed Kyoto; which held the Pyramids ??

 

[Rik Meleet]

Rdy to trade, Russia and Spain both don't have Banking and have Astr, we can't use per turn gold or luxeries. Spain is selling cheaper but our 130 gold isn't enough. The only person with money is Greece so I sell our WM for TM and 32gold. Talk to Spain again trade Banking&139gold for Astr.

1: What do we want ?
Techs !! And cheap !! We got them, so

2: dl123654s trade.
Nicely performed. Noticing that we just had not enough gold to get it from Spain and making sure afterwards that he did have sufficient is well done. You didn't miss any trades and performed this 1 well.

3: The Timing.
Was it the right moment to trade? Yes, immediately after we got Banking is the right moment. So I rephrase to: was it the right moment to steal ? I think it is. If the steal fails Greece could declare war on us, just what we wanted. Sometimes it is so easy!

4: The trading partner.
Well chosen.

Rik's conclusion
You have taken revanche for your first exam; a spotlessly performed trade.

I am just glad that I only have to judge trades and not the razing of the Pyramids. Keeping it would have dropped the cost for granary-upkeep and some revenue from selling granaries all over the land. Of course; there is a flip-risk, but that can be overcome with sufficient units and starving...

 

[peacemonger]

really nice dl!

 

[Bede]

Well done dl. Good call on the steal.

After the lesson on theft it looks like we are coming up on some lessons in extortion

oopsy poopsy - up
plarq - on deck
bede
trikos

It's also time for another little exercise:

The Carthaginian Republic is losing 50% of the gpt value of another tech purchase. How is that possible and what can be done about it?

 

[plarq]

I will be on autoskip

 

[oopsy poopsy]

skip me please. I just finished working right now (11:15pm on a sunday ) and my project still has another 48 of hell to go. I was overly optimistic when I thought I'd be done for this weekend. Good luck, I'm sure I'll be back up for the next time around and sorry I didn't check this earlier so you'd know to skip me

 

[Bede]

So it's back to the TGOMTG.

Thanks for the notice.

@o-p, hope things square away for you at the Salt mine.

 

[peacemonger]

anyone heard from trikos? hope all is okay....

 

[Rik Meleet]

Trikos hasn't been only since he posted this message nearly 10 days ago ...

 

[Bede]

Plans for the next century:

Increase income by building new towns in the gaps left.

Increase income by reassigning citizens in the corrupt towns in the north and building courthouses at least up to the jungles.

Get acqueducts and markets and banks in the core cities and push growth to twelve.

Build boats.

Try to find an objective on the Greek island for our military.

How to deal with corruption in the north:

We are way past the Optimal City Number and corruption in the northern towns is 90%. Adding courthouses will help but any other improvement is just a sunk cost. Letting the towns grow past 6 is also a problem until we get to rails so even acqueducts are expensive as the added population is merely unhappy unless we build happy gas buildings.

The method I use to deal with this problem is water everything that is flat (additional shields tend to disappear to waste), cram the towns in as tight as I can for the unit support money, then make up to half the population in each town a tax collector. In a Republican government you need no more than 4 grass tiles irrigated to support six citizens and of those six at least two can be blood sucking revenuers (more if there is a food binus like banana groves available). I don't build any improvement other than a harbor in coastal towns. The only other thing I build in these towns are boats (one shield at a time)which can be cash rushed later when needed.

 

[Bede]

All set to post and somehow I managed to disappear the log and all, and I do mean all, the saves from the game.

Will replay tonight and hope I can reconstruct.

 

[Bede]

Greeks move Smith's to Corinth and Bach's to Delphi. Spanish finish Copernicus. Dutch finish Leo's.

Catherine comes calling and wants to renegotiate the Peace Treaty, because the earlier settlement involved gold per turn. Removes some handy leverage against her for the next 20 turns.

No change in trade situation.

In 760 Furs and Incense deal with Russia is up for renegotiation and Leptis Magna is on the verge of riots. Re-up Russia's furs for our Incense +29gpt. Cost of a lux tax increase just to keep Leptis happy is 66gpt.

She offered Furs for Incense and cash but I wanted to feed gpt into her research budget if I could and the incense will help that as well as it keeps her people happy.

In 760 Greeks finish Smith's in Corinth and start Magellan's in Pharsalos.

In 770 Korea learns Astronomy

In 780 Greeks finish Bach's in Delphi.

In 790 Willie learns Banking.

In 800 Alex will talk to us. He has knowledge of Printing Press, Music Theory, Economics, and Navigation.

Japan has learned Invention.

In 830 Willie learns Chemistry and sells it to Isabel.

In 840 an opportunity presents itself:

Russia has Navigation but lacks Chemistry. Navigation has value to us because it will allow us to broker maps around and can be stolen from either the Spanish or the Dutch for 846 versus a purchase cost of 1406 cold hard cash from Willie or 1364 from Isabel plus our Workd Map; or the extortion alternative of threatening war if they won't accept our credit and getting it for somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-85gpt.

The other alternative is to simply broker maps among the three that have Navigation but it shuts us out of any deals with Korea for maps.

After thinking on it for awhile decide we don't really need Navigation to broker maps to the big guys, so bulk up the treasury a little by first trading with Russia (the smallest) giving our WM for hers and 1gpt. Then swapping maps with Will, giving our TM for his WM and 26g. Then on to Isabella and get her WM and 52g for our TM. Then swing back to Catherine and get another 2gpt for our enhanced World Map, then back to Will for another chunk o' change for our WM (57g), and the back to Isabella for her WM and another 45g for our WM.

And Greece finishes Magellan's Voyage in Pharsalos.

In 850 the first Greek ExFor leaves Tingis and lands at Argos. The objective is capture and raze Argos then a little pillaging campaign to cut Athens off from the rest of the world and cripple Alex's trading potential for a while. Wiping out his workforce if we can find them would also be nice.

With cash in hand upgrade horsemen to knights and veteran NuMercs to muskets.

Spain and Netherlands between them now share the position that Greece once enjoyed as leaders in technological advancement though the Greeks have built some powerful buildings (Smith's and Bach's and Magellan's) whiile Spain grabbed the Observatory.

The deals for Naivgation and Chemistry are still on the table. We are better off skipping Navigation entirely now that I think on it. Buying or stealing Chemistry is a good choice, then buying or stealing, depending on how it was handled for Chem, for any tech that shows next.

Is everybody familiar with the use of extortion to get favorable per turn deals when there is a reputation problem? Our military is strong relative to everybody in the world so we should be abble to use it effectively. It is not a good tactic to use however if we are hoping for a diplomatic win....

Net income has grown from less than 160 per turn to over 300 pt with banks and markets online, the use of tax farming in the corrupt north and the founding of three towns. I put a granary in Rusuccurcu. You should be able to rush a settler every four or five turns and still keep the population up to four.

There are seven turns to go on the peace treaty with Toku unless we want to provoke him into declaring (he keeps dropping galleys across our borders). I wouldn't be shy about removing him from the planet when the time comes. He's buying iron from Spain it looks like so he will have Samurai.

Roster check:
Trikos - up
Oopsy Poopsy - if schedule permits on deck or up if trikos doesn't claim in 24
Peacemonger -
dl123654
Bede
Plarq - skipped 'til further notice

 

[plarq]

I got it.Back to game again.

Edit:Not at all.Game cannot be loaded.

 

[Bede]

@plarq,

Just dl'd the attachment and reloaded fine for me

 

[Mistfit]

lurker's comment:

Is everybody familiar with the use of extortion to get favorable per turn deals when there is a reputation problem? Our military is strong relative to everybody in the world so we should be abble to use it effectively. It is not a good tactic to use however if we are hoping for a diplomatic win....

No please explain