Tupac08 - Simply Sid

[del62]

I intend to start war immediately once trade expires with China and only Delft will make a difference.

Just make sure we have enough units to cove counter attacks when we start war.

I think once we have cleared China we need to be at war with Portugese and send some armies to Portugal to basically turn there roads, rails, irrigation and mines back to nature.

 

[CKS]

It's not really a problem. I just like tidying up loose ends.

 

[tupaclives]

Definitely agree Del62. War with Portugal, we will need a good rail network up to counter any landings but apart from that, armies to pillage the crap out of them.

Any idea at what point (ie. what attack strength) our knight and cav armies become vulnerable to attack?

 

[del62]

Any idea at what point (ie. what attack strength) our knight and cav armies become vulnerable to attack?

I think our biggest worry is bombers and Armies

 

[Bowsling]

Lurker's Comment: I would land an Infantry army too. Portugal, with bombers and tanks, may start attacking your armies. Cavalry armies could go about their pillaging business and then end their turn underneath the infantry army.

Are you considering building enough hospitals to get the Battlefield Medicine? It's useful for situations like that.

 

[CKS]

I don't _know_ that tanks will attack healthy armies, but I expect they will. I definitely agree that bombers will be the real issue, though. The AI never have enough artillery in range, but bombers will kill us until we can shoot them down. A good pillaging campaign is essential.

Do we have a victory condition in mind? Domination is clearly simplest at this point, but we could do anything except 20K or diplomatic (as I expect we've razed too much to get votes).

 

[Daeron]

I don't _know_ that tanks will attack healthy armies, but I expect they will. I definitely agree that bombers will be the real issue, though. The AI never have enough artillery in range, but bombers will kill us until we can shoot them down. A good pillaging campaign is essential.

Do we have a victory condition in mind? Domination is clearly simplest at this point, but we could do anything except 20K or diplomatic (as I expect we've razed too much to get votes).

I think given the current situation even a space race would be the same as a domination victory, we'd just be limiting our territory to not win by domination. I don't like the prospect of having to evict the Babylonians from those tiny isles, so I would prefer Domination.

If we've learned refining by the time Portugal has bombers, we can take out the oil supplies before Portugal manages to build them in bulk. I'm not sure we can manage that though. Based on when they started Universal Suffrage, it doesn't look to good on us managing that.

 

[CKS]

Pillaging oil when we don't know where it is is never fun. If we pillage everywhere, though, we can at least minimize the bombers we face.

 

[Daeron]

I'll start playing this evening.

 

[plarq]

lurker's comment: Oil is only in desert and tundra I guess?

 

[Daeron]

I didn't get to start my war and I don't envy the next player.The Chinese-Mongol war had the consequence that the bulk of the Chinese units are in the south of their land, where our cities are most exposed. I did my best to prepare, putting down walls and such, gathering artillery and forming a supply line with railroads.

We learned Steampower and I managed a quick steal form the Chinese, from which we got Nationalism.

I haven't send the army to Portugal yet for razing, since we had a trade and after that it wasn't a good moment to start a war. They have a lot of troops near Tabriz which flipped back to the Mongols the moment we made peace. China has captured Tabriz from them though, so we can raze it now. and it did left them a little exposed.

Currently we make enough GPT to make a safe steal every 3 turns, if we don't rush, which I did a lot.

My advice to Tupac would be to suckerpunch the Chinese and try to take out as much cavalry on the first turn as possible. If necessary we can abandon a few towns, if we can't defend them. It's better to resettle those spots later than lose them and get War Weariness.

Spoiler :

Settle Mongol territory and make peace
Start the war with China in 5 turns when trade expires
Optimize tax farms, noticing a lot of irrigated grass lands that are not being used for lack of cities

keep the 3 size cavalry armies at that size so they can be shipped to the other continent for pillaging the portugese

Go through every city for MM'ing
Rush temple in New Delft and new Delhi
Sell a few barracks

Running 70% science to get Steam Power in 6 turns at -43 gpt.
185 left in the treasury

Send a caravel north for army ferrying, spot Mongol Galleon.

Considering the Chinese have cavalry again, troop placement will be key. New Leiden, New Middelburg, New Maastricht, New Delft, New Holwerd, New Dordrecht, New Leerdam and
Wonsan are all possible targets.

Hit enter.

Ehm. We turn out to have galleons in the north, who fight off a privateer, one promotes to elite. It's impossible for me to find all these units if they're fortified. So next time please leave them unfortified, so I know they're there,

Amsterdam university -> army
New Delft temple -> walls
New Breda temple -> barracks
New Hardlingen settler -> settler

Turn 1, 1060 AD
Sell saltpetre to the Babylonians for 28 gpt, as stated long before we wish to keep them strong against Portugal.

I don't know why our workers migrate all the way to the east every single time when we still have unfisnished tiles in our core. I'm dragging them back every time, but a week later, they're back. At least keep our own workers in the core so we can merge them when needed. If we had kept them there we would have had a maximized core ages ago.

IBT
Chinese march for Babylonian Cheju on our continent I think

Utrecht Cavalry -> Cavalry
leerdam Settler -> Settler
Arnhem Cavarly -> Cavalry
N Middelburg Settler -> Settler

Tun 2, 1070 AD
Moving troops

IBT
The Hague Cavalry -> Cavalry
Delft Library? -> Bank

Turn 3, 1080 AD
End the MA with China against Mongols
End the fur deal with Portugal, we don't need it to keep to 0% luxury

We now run + 87 gpt. Use 24 gold to buy the world map from the Babylonians. Portugese maps are worth more than 120 gold.

Make peace with the Mongols, but they still want around 290 gpt for Nationalism, stealing is cheaper. They turn out to know almost the whole world, so we get a lot of value by their worldmap.

IBT
Henry wants an alliance vs the mongols, we're not stupid however.
Babylon and china sign a peace... man, china didn't even manage to get Cheju, that's terrible

Breda Marketplace -> Bank

Henry tried to plant a spy in our capitol.

Turn 4, 1090 AD
I have a feeling China is looking to attack us before we attack them.
I really don't see the point of us having kept Tabriz, please tell me why, because I just don't see any point to keeping that ridiculous flip risk.

I've divided our forces to the best of my ability.

IBT
China doesn't attack, but I don't understand their movement. They're moving the bulk of their forces to the south.

New Holwerd walls -> settler
New The Hague Settler -> Settler
Wonsan Walls -> Settler
New Maastricht Barracks -> Walls

Tabriz flips

New Delft Walls -> Settler
Maastricht Cavalry -> Cavalry
New Leiden Walls -> Settler
New Dordrecht Walls -> Settler
New Leerdam Walls -> Settler
The Hague 2 -> Settler

Turn 5, 1100 AD
With a little luck the Mongols will get sucked in an MA against us and we can raze Tabriz.
Prep MDI army for shipping to Portugal, gonna wait for a safe steal attempt though

IBT
Portugese units more for Tabriz
We learn Steam Power

Groningen Cavalry -> Cavalry
Eindhoven Cavalry -> Cavalry
Haarlem Cavalry -> Cavalry
Holwerd Cavalry -> Cavalry

Turn 6, 110 AD
We have 2 sources of coal, one in our core near Delft

Switch farms to Taxmen, we now make +716 gpt

I still dont have my artillery in place so I don't think I get to start this off.

IBT
Roosendaal Settler -> Settler
The Hague 2 Temple -> Settler

Turn 7, 1120 AD
Start putting down railroads

IBT
Henry wishes to stop our trade deal, since he was paying for a reasource he already had. We stand to lose a lot of resources though. Ehh, actually for some reason he still lacks saltpetre. Since we'll be stealing I'll take the trade, he can always declareo n us later if we fail so we geto ut of the trade, but I dont include saltpetre this time.

Screen turns white during ibt so no idea hwat happened

Utrecht 2 Temple -> settler
The Hague Cavalry -> Cavalry
Utrecht Cavalry -> Cavalry
Middelburg Cavalry -> Cavalry
Tilburg Marketplace -> Bank

Turn 8, 1130 AD
Not much, though I'm forced to move and rush some artillery for Tabriz to deal with the Portugese units.

IBT
Mongols and Portugese sign peace
Trade WM with China, get 3 coins out of it

Holwerd 2 Cannon -> Settler
Zwolle Cannon -> Cannon
Arnhem 2 Cannon -> Settler
Haarlem 2 Cannon -> Settler
Den Helder 2 Cannon -> Settler
Lauwersgood 2 Cannon -> Settler

Turn 9, 1140 AD
Decide to attempt a quick steal from the Chinese, if they declare, we're in a war we want to be in anyway. I actually succeed and we gain Nationalism.


IBT
the Chinese take Tabriz, so now we can raze it as we declare.

Arnhem Cavalry -> Cavalry
Breda 2 Settler -> Settler

Turn 10, 1150 AD
Oke, I'll stop here, honestly not sure how to start this war with the Chinese

 

[del62]

I really don't see the point of us having kept Tabriz, please tell me why, because I just don't see any point to keeping that ridiculous flip risk.

My plan was to keep it till we had settlers in place to fill land and stop others trying to settle there, I should have made this clear though

 

[Daeron]

My plan was to keep it till we had settlers in place to fill land and stop others trying to settle there, I should have made this clear though

Ohh.

Yeah, I should have abandoned it. Ohh well, things turned out all right, the Chinese have it now.

 

[tupaclives]

I'm going to have to skip guys. I'm right in the middle of exam block atm and can't afford the distraction

CKS - you're up!

 

[del62]

Is it worth upgrading some mercs to rifles and putting them in towns prone to Chinese counter attacks before war? Perhaps any within cavalry range could have 2/3 rifles

 

[CKS]

OK, I've got it. I'll work on war with the Chinese and pillaging the Portuguese.

 

[del62]

OK, I've got it. I'll work on war with the Chinese and pillaging the Portuguese.

Take your time over your turns, there is no rush.

 

[Daeron]

del62's point about upgrading the mercs is a good idea, we're short on defenders anyway. There should be walls in most places, but you might want to consider settler-abandoning a few towns. Just so you can work from only a few strongholds.

 

[CKS]

I'm building some rifles and upgrading some of the swiss mercs. I think we'll be able to get all of the Chinese offensive forces in old Korea/Mongol lands on the first turn, leaving only the northern cities vulnerable to counter attacks. A couple of turns on railing and rifles should put us in good shape.

 

[CKS]

I'm part way through the first war turn with China, 1180. All the southern cities fell easily and I've killed 19 offensive units, mostly cavalry, either in the cities or in the open around them. A lot of defenders remain in the open; I hope to avoid dealing with them by making them wander until I kill all the cities.

I did some short rushing of rifles and cavs to prepare for this. Once I've got enough cash for stealing and some units free to deal with the Portuguese on our lands, I'll start stealing from the Portuguese, hoping to get us some techs and/or a war with them.