Try1 - The Newbies!

[LordKoros]

Got the save. It's midnight local time so I'm off to bed. Will probably not get around to playing for about 12-18 hours, so that's how much time you have to decide on what my game plan should be. Quick glance at the save leads me towards continuing our military buildup with a few spearmen and some more axes for a possible sortie into Cyrus's territory. I also want a few defenders against barbs in our southern cities and maybe in Orleans as well. If no barbs show up I will send out a short range recon patrol to expand our view of the world. I'll stick with IW for tech so we can find some iron.

What else am I missing?

 

[Rince]

Very well done, congrats!

With Ragnar gone our next target should definitely be Cyrus. But we have to be careful with our economy. We already have 5 cities. If we keep Cyrus' cities, maintenance will be quite heavy.

Rince

 

[Rince]

We already have alphabet, right? In that case we could send a spy into Cyrus' territory in order to find out how many cities he has and how well they are defended.

Rince

 

[Trynthlas]

Holy crap, awesome set Mitchifer!

As far as running a deficit because of captured cities, I say don't worry about it - in the end it will pay off. (though we to start building a cottage economy asap)

PS - now you guys see why I wanted the great wall? Yeah the barbs aren't really *dangerous* or *raging* but there's still a lot of em and they're hella annoying. Also, great spy points! ah well

We don't have alphabet yet, but we should get it asap to use spies to scout out Cyrus' territory. I would advocate we use the next round (that's you Koros! ) to finish securing our new territory, build a few axemen fog-busters for our northern and eastern borders (to help stem the tide of barbs and kill the ones that show up). We should also begin building an attack force of something like: 4 axes, 3 spears, 3 chariots. Give the axes city raider (in leiu of swordsmen) or combat I; give the spears combat I; give the chariots flanking. When we go after Cyrus, we kill any axemen has with the chariots, spears defend against the immortals, and CR axes clear out the city (along with the chariots) and the Com-I troops finish the job and take the city.

Obviously that force will just be for taking Susa and then defending it (and the rest of our territory) against the counter-attack. Once we deal with the troops Cyrus sends out we send more troops (that we've continued building) in to burn down the rest of his cities, except the capitol, which we will keep. That will put us at 7 cities, which is plenty until we stabilize things out - we can then settle out (or capture, if someone's dumb enough to settle right next to us and the city is actually a good spot) the rest of the area in our immediate surroundings. We will definitely need to backfill the area between Nidaros/Uppsala and Paris/Lyons.


I agree that Nidaros will make a good GP farm, with as many food resources as it has - it will also have a decent amount of production, so it will be a very good city for us in the future.

We have some tech trades available (which I screenied without playing any turns):

Spoiler :

I think we should make both of those trades, as they're fairly even and will give us some "catch-up" techs. With alphabet, we can then shop techs around to the other civs that don't have it yet and see what else we can get (like Meditation).

More later maybe, but I think that's a good first post on what's next

 

[endymion]

that was a very nice turnset.

what are we gonna do now i thinkwe should build up our empire a bit before we go after the next target see if there is room for some more setlers, and we can try for a few more wonders, but then again im a peacemonger most of the time.

 

[LordKoros]

Well it was finally my turn to take command of the Noob empire! Seeing how well everything went for the previous leaders, my first and foremost thoughts were to "Make Sure You Dont F*ck Up!" So with that in mind, I decided to see exactly what the state of the empire was and how to improve it. My first order was to our technology advisor: "Go forth to the foreign lands and return with new ideas/knowledge" Here is what he brought back:

Spoiler :

Status Quo on turn 135

Our first trade:

Our second trade:

And armed with our own Alphabet tech we see the new advisor screen:

So we send the advisor off on another mission:

Which brings us this discovery:

While our technical/foreign advisor was off on his trading mission, back home we notice a stranger who has wondered into our realm. I send out a formal delegation to find out this wanderer's intentions.

Spoiler :

He says he wants to bring enlightenment to our people. Being the open-minded leader that I profess to be, I sit down and listen to this man's words. While his words don't impress me completely, I weigh that against the fact that allowing him to preach to our citizens will show other foreign leaders that our empire is willing to listen to new ideas. This should improve our future dealings with like minded people - so I allow the missionary to entire the city of Orleans on a trial basis.

Things have gone very smoothly for the first two turns, but that was about to change. In our newly conquered corner of the Noob empire we are still dealing with the remnants of Ragnar's army. With no leader to organize them, this rabble has turn into small groups of barbarian pillagers. After dealing with a couple of pesky barbs, I send out a small sortie patrol to finish them off and this is what they discovered:

Spoiler :

Looks very nice future city site - once we have eliminated the barb city.


The patrol was recalled from exploring when I was informed that there were several enemy units seen skulking through our southern forests.

After taking care of the recent barbarian uprising. We are contacted by emissaries from two new foreign lands.

Spoiler :

In case you were wondering - I have not neglected the fact that our military advisors were recommending we begin preparations to deal with Cyrus.

Spoiler :

Upon learning Alphabet tech, I whipped the forge in our capital city and began to train a spy. I sent the secret agent into Cyrus' land to scout out his military strength. Unfortunately, he was discovered shortly after reaching the outer walls of Cyrus' capital city.

Thankfully he was able to send out a map which detailed the enemy positions as of turn 149.

I have incorporated that info into my war plan diagram. (see below)

I spent most of turns - building new reinforcements and improving city resources. Due to the amount of barbarian activity, I found myself a few turns shy of being able to attempt an assault on the city of Susa. I have assembled troops upon Cyrus' border with a few more soldiers still enroute. I'll leave the actual battle to my successors. Cyrus did settle a brand new city on our borders in turn 148, it is only defended by a solitary immortal and I have spearmen ready to take it.

In hindsight, my one regret is that I may have selected the wrong tech path. After I was able to trade for IW in my very first turn, I chose to research CoL. I wanted both the courthouses and to try and raise our happiness limits by getting a religion. However, when Judaism reached us (about four turns later) I think I should have switched from CoL to either construction or currency. We'll want all three of these so it probably isnt too big of a mistake but I just forgot to keep an eye on it when those pesky barbs started to show up.

Here is an overview of our current empire:

Spoiler :

Note - There are barbs down around the city of Lyons. There is an axeman who just finished off an archer to the east of the city, and I have a single spearman who is fortified ontop of a hill trying to protect the mine from a couple of more barbs. (just south of the city). Don't know if we should reinforce him with the chariot or not.

 

[LordKoros]

Here is a view of our current offensive forces on the border of Cyrus' lands.

Spoiler :

 

[Darth Meanie]

GG!
I guess we should have a little more build-up before invasion. Thank goodness his cities are so close, and ripe for the picking. We should probably raze Gordium, but keep his other cities. After that we need to drastically improve the economy. Susa should be our first target: two archers won't be too dificult to fight, and it will remove his access to copper. We could, with careful and effective blitzkrieg take him out before it hits AD.

I cant access the save now, and I would like a full run-down of our military, your second post is a little dificult to understand number-wise. Could you clarify.


Persepolis will be a tough cookie to crack: better bring a varied army. We may need construction to take them on.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment:

Persepolis will be a tough cookie to crack: better bring a varied army. We may need construction to take them on.

don't neglect the spies and maybe you don't need the cats...

Nice job on the ragnar whackage.

 

[LordKoros]

The reason there is not a larger invasion force is that I had to keep too many soldiers on barb patrol. We have resting next to the copper mine a group of four (1 sword, 3 axes) all have CR1 or CR2 promos. There is a second force consisting of a chariot and spear between Susa and Gordium. Both of these groups have a spearman in route one square away. The last reinforcement currently in route is a CR2 axeman from Ragnar's capital who is just east of Paris and headed for the larger group outside Susa's mine. I have a swordman being built in Paris (due in one/two turns) and Orleans is also building another unit (though it might be a chariot not a swordsman).

There are also at least three units in/around Lyons which can be diverted northward once they have taken care of the barbarians.

I left most of the forces in the SE around Nidaros because of the barbs roaming around those cities. Once there is a few more units availble we should send them out to scout that barb city.

 

[Mitchifer]

Hey y'all,

I'm going to headed out to work tomorrow, so I won't be back until Friday afternoon, so I won't be able to see what's going on til then. A few thoughts before I go:

1. Attacking Cyrus is probably still a good idea since we're still in the early years of the game. Unfortunately, we're going to take another negative hit from everybody since he's "friendly" with all the other leaders. Also be aware that since we now share the same religion, we might build up more unhappiness for fighting those of the same faith.
2. For our next city, I would suggest building in the space between Paris in Nidaros. There's also quite a good number of good resources across the lake from Nidaros that would also make a good spot.
3. If we want to expand further east-ward, that barbarian city near Uppsala might be easy pickings, so we don't have to build a settler ourselves.
4. I think either spies or catapults will get the job done...but I can't decide which would be easier at the moment. Probably catapults, but that's just my opinion.

No matter what you all decide, I'm sure you'll have the Persians and their gold curtain rods running for the hills in no time.

 

[Darth Meanie]

actually, spies should be very effective, and we DO NOT have construction yet spies should be the way to go: we will have to put more EP on Cyrus though, and send them ahead to lower costs and keep an eye on him. That would delay our war effort though, so we should only have to do that for persepolis.

And does he have another city? Wheres parsagrade

Edit: @ Mitch: You're working on Thanksgiving? sorry

 

[Trynthlas]

Just as a fyi...

Roster:
----------
Trynthlas - my turn again
endymion - up next
Darth Meanie
Rince
Mitchifer -
Carneios - (will be inserted whenever he's able to play)
LordKoros - just played
-------------------------------------------------------------

Now, on to "the plan".

Research:
Code of Laws is good - will just barely finish in my round, but Nidaros and Uppsala really need courthouses asap, as they're the main maintenance hogs right now. After that I want to jump on Aesthetics - having played a few games on Prince, I can say with absolute certainty that adding 100% war weariness (statue of zeus) is killer if you have it, and death if you're up against it.

Expansion/War front:
Alright, I think we can say with relative certainty that Cyrus is boxed in on his own little peninsula, and we also have another natural barrier between the lake and another body of water (east of uppsala). I want to close off our part of the continent (which means closing borders if necessary) and then backfill in cities as our economy allows.

Yes, we'll take a hit for DoW'ing Cyrus...for now. In the end it won't matter. As for the closing off of our lands, I submit the following location:

Spoiler :

On the war with Cyrus, my plan is to raze ALL of his cities except the capitol, and then build our own where we choose, later on. We don't want to have to sit at 20% research because we have too many cities. I know Susa looks like a good spot, but if you look at the scouted area a bit more closely, if we move the city site down (south) one tile, we will still have the copper and corn, as well as gain two silk resources!

The barbarian city isn't much of a concern, I will be sure to get some fog-buster axemen posted on forested hills nearby to catch any troops they send out. We will deal with the rebels soon enough.

The rest:
Cottages! Lots and lots of cottages for Paris and Orleans! I will begin working on various ways to bolster our economy, to ensure we don't become completely backwards due to our early expansion. Note that whoever gets the reins after the Persian campaign is done will need to build more workers to speed that process up - for now the focus remains on the military though.


Thoughts? Disagreements?

 

[Trynthlas]

actually, spies should be very effective, and we DO NOT have construction yet spies should be the way to go: we will have to put more EP on Cyrus though, and send them ahead to lower costs and keep an eye on him. That would delay our war effort though, so we should only have to do that for persepolis.

And does he have another city? Wheres parsagrade

Edit: @ Mitch: You're working on Thanksgiving? sorry

I estimate Cyrus to have at least 4, possibly 5 cities. Not very well-defended, and with the exception of the capitol should be easy pickings. All our EP is currently going towards Cyrus (I loaded the save to check that) and by the time we reach the capitol with our no0b SoD we should be ready to incite a revolt and remove any chance of an organized resitance (ie: defensive bonus).

 

[Darth Meanie]

Hmm... use your best judgement as to whether we can hold a city or not. We are in the middle of researching CoL, so that should help, but play conservatively. Remember our opponents will pay us through the pillaging.

cant we find his number of cities through the diplomatic screen??

 

[Mitchifer]

Edit: @ Mitch: You're working on Thanksgiving? sorry

Ah, it's no big deal. At least I'm getting Christmas off .

And on that note, happy early Thanksgiving everyone.

 

[Trynthlas]

Since there are actually very few decisions to be made on the course of action (we all already seem to be in agreement to kick Cyrus' arse as soon as convenient), I'm going to go ahead and play my round, rather than delay it about 18 hours because of sleep/work

Will post a report when it's all said and done.

 

[endymion]

nice round with a good buildup.

1. i agree with u that we shouldnt keep al of syrius city's it will cripple or research for a long time

2. when the war starts search for his horses en destroy em together with other strategic resources it would be to bad if he would wip some good defenders. maybe u can use a spy for this but i dont now how many points it wil cost.

3. im probartly too late with the comments but good luck with the turn set im inpressed with how fast its my turn again

 

[Rince]

I would opt for keeping Susa, razing Gordium and building a new city later, 1 west of Gordium.

Rince

 

[Trynthlas]

I would opt for keeping Susa, razing Gordium and building a new city later, 1 west of Gordium.

Rince

Unfortunately I had to knock our tech slider down to 40% just to support our troops in the field - we would have gone broke far too quick if I kept Susa...report incoming, once I get it assembled