UNGY-01 Another spy attempt

[Morganknight]

Well, I had already played the better part of my set when we decided to go Dom. I deliberated just starting the set over, but decided I had put a lot of thought and effort into those turns and let it go. You will find a sizable invasion force ready to go in York.

It would appear that one of the other AIs took out one of Sury's legendary cities, so that is no longer a burning priority.

First, I built Stupas in our heaviest production cities.

Also, started the Ironwerks in Hastings.

Tlateloco had our highest raw GP pts, so I built a Library and Heroic Epic there.

I set gold to max and start buying upgrades for our cities. After buying a hospital in Warwick, I go ahead and build the Red Cross there as well. Our drafted troops will all start with Medic I there.

We manage to steal Industrialism from QSH on the first try and start building Industrial Parks.

I sent spies to Ragnar to steal flight once he had it researched, but they were all discovered. We should send more I think.

Ivory is obsoleted, so we have to reorganize some of our deals.

We build the Forbidden Palace in Tenoctchitlan.

We build the Hermitage in York.

Thats pretty much it...

Who are we going to fight?

 

[shyuhe]

I think I'm up? Got it.

 

[shyuhe]

A fun 10 turns. Although I had some military losses

IT: I bribe Monty to mercantilism for some cash. I also set his research to artillery. I also gift him assembly line. I noticed that we have some CR machine guns.... WTH??

Turn 316: I steal divine right from Qin because I have nothing else better to do I also declare on Survy.

Turn 317 - I steal plastics from Qin. Qin has also conveniently decided to build TGD on our continent I think we should wait to declare on him until he completes it as it'll be a nice health boost for our cities (which all have serious health issues). I also get a GG which I settle in Hastings, the IW city. I also start to terraform the tiles around Hastings to maximize hammer output.

Turn 320 - I trigger a golden age to swap to theocracy + police state. I imagine we'll stay in these civics until the end of the game. The only issue may be mercantilism vs. state property. Sitting Bull also comes with a demand that's declined (as I want to be able to keep tabs on Ragnar's WHEOOH status):

Turn 322 - I steal flight from Ragnar. Airports have been queued in the western cities - I think they should build our airforce as they're too far from the transport drop off point right now. We can switch back to tanks/marines once we get airports up on the new continent.

Turn 323 - I steal artillery from Qin. A GProphet is born and sent to London. We have a GM + GP sleeping there now so we can get another golden age with another great person (hopefully).

325 - I capture Banteay. I've also captured Nagara...something a few turns earlier. I actually had to withdraw after my initial drop off as Survy threw LOTS of cavalry and cannons at our stack that whittled about half of it...
But on the upside, we now have the following option (he's out of troops):

The reason being:

We also get an event that I'm sure we'll complete naturally. We just need 3 carriers + 9 fighters, which we'll want in any event:

Before we capitulate Survy, I think we should consider the next the next city on the conquering list:

It's coincidentally one of Survy's "three" legendary cities. I think we should capture this one (3 GG's!!!! ) before we accept his capitulation. We can then regroup and declare on Qin to take the TGD and capitulate him as well before we move on to Ragnar (which should be an epic battle). I hope I get another crack at this game before it ends

I've also been juggling the EP around. I think we should concentrate most of it on Ragnar at this point as Qin is not teching so fast any more, SB is skipping large parts of the tech tree (no AL!), and Survy/Monty/Mansa are going to be non-factors soon. We can also bribe Ragnar against SB for electricity + cash but I'm not sure if we want to... SB doesn't have AL but has artillery so I don't think he'll put up much resistance against fighters + infantry.

 

[pigswill]

Feeling a bit less knackered and work pressure has eased off a bit so I'm ready to rejoin the roster wherever ungy wants to put me.

 

[ungy]

Feeling a bit less knackered and work pressure has eased off a bit so I'm ready to rejoin the roster wherever ungy wants to put me.

good to hear

well if you're ready pigswill go ahead and take it--if not maybe switch with Mystyfly

Roster:
Ungy
Rusten
Morganknight
Shyuhe: just played
pigswill: UP
mystyfly: on deck

 

[pigswill]

Got it.

Won't be able to play until Tuesday so if Mystyfly wants to take it first that's fine (as long as he posts a got it so we know where we are).

 

[mystyfly]

I'll play monday if that is fine. I think we don't really need more discussion, from now on it's only fun the poor AIs
:gotit: (one of the smilies we really need here )

 

[shyuhe]

well since nobody else has posted discussion...

We should capitulate Survy ASAP. After that, regroup and heal before we declare on Qin (and to give him time to complete TGD). If we can get Beijing, it'll be awesome as it has the Pentagon. Otherwise, we should just capitulate him ASAP and send our troops east to prepare for the showdown with Ragnar.

If Sitting Bull gets AL any time soon, we can consider bribing Ragnar vs. Sitting Bull to keep them occupied while we finish up the west.

And there's a GM + GP sleeping in London.

 

[Rusten]

Don't capitulate Suryavarman until you've taken at least 1 of his cities with legendary culture, the 3rd one with 15k has hermitage and everything.

 

[shyuhe]

oh sorry, I meant capitulating him after capturing Hari...

 

[mystyfly]

Played 10, 1905AD - 1915AD

Inherited turn
Leave everything as it is.

(1) 1906AD
Get a GG for killing some malinese units. GG builds Mil academy @ York (rally point for units produced on our continent).

IBT
Pop gold near Alemanni.

(2) 1907AD
Get a RE @ York, giving me a Mil aca for 460g , yeah, in the city I just built one...

Revolt Hari (I know I can't take the city in 1 turn..) and kill all but 4 units (Blitz is a wonderful promotion. Too bad Hari is on a hill...).

(3) 1908AD
Hari falls (it has: Academy, Mil academy, AP (hehe), Hagia Sophia, 3 settled MI, 1 settled scientist).

IBT
SB + QSH cancel some deals (deleted SS as they're not needed and I already have too many...)

(4) 1909AD
Raze Yasodharapura (just to be safe).

Capitulate Sury (didn't take the city).

(5) 1910AD
Steal Rocketry from QSH (from where he builds T3GD, it still lacks the sec buerau)

Raze Gao (MM had this city left. I sent four tanks there just for fun). Now MM's no more.

(6) 1911AD
AP vote comes up. I pick none.

IBT
QSH finishes T3GD for us. This guy works perfectly into our scedule.

(7) 1912AD
DOW QSH.
Capture Shanghai. I used some Infantry (they're no use anyway) and lots of them died, but who cares?

Revolt & capture Tianjin (the 'other' chinese city on our continent.

Tell Sury to attack Guangzhou, a city that is 3 squares away from some khmer city. Still didn't find any khmer units attacking it...

(8) 1913AD
Revolt & capture Hangzhou aka T3GD aka gems-fish-sugar

Capture Chengdu

IBT
SB cancels deal

(9) 1914AD
zzz (wow, a silent turn...)

(10) 1915AD
Get a GG while capturing Xian, one of the core-cities.

---

QSH should be capitulating next turn, this turn he's still refusing to talk but losing Xian will change things. Also he's down to 3 or 4 cities.

We have 4 GPs (GM, GSpy, GA, GP) waiting in the capital. 3 are needed for another GA and switch to SP. We could use the GP for a shrine, to increase the normalized score

We could build some more carriers to carry the fighters (I really like them) and upgrade some inf to SAM (or build some) as Rag has quite some fighters himself.

Military overview

VC (note: from 34,41 to 43,10 % land in 10 turns!)

Power (how the hell keeps Rag pace with us?? We nearly have twice his lands (43 vs 23 %)

BTW I spent nearly 2hrs playing 10 turns. That's civ

Save:
View attachment ungy-01 AD-1915.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Rusten]

Nicely done!

 

[shyuhe]

We could just exterminate QSH at this point. I imagine it won't take more than ~5 turns or so given the number of tanks (and spies!) that we have. After that, do we go for the big showdown? We should be able to give Ragnar lots of WW by fighting in Survy's territory

Ragnar will get industrialism soon so we may want to toss in a few anti-tanks into our stack as well.

 

[pigswill]

Got it.

Tried doing alt-tab to check on status of quests (specifically 3 carriers) and I ain't running BUG so I can't check myself!

Beijing is a must-have addition to our empire. Once we've got that we could simply continue until capitulation. There's no obvious value in annihilating Qin that I can see.

 

[mystyfly]

I don't see the point in keeping up the war vs QSH longer than needed. Our goals in this war were the 3GD and his capitulation/land. If we want to finish it ASAP we should take the capitulation IMO. Also the earlier we strike, the less likely rag is to reach tanks.
We should get some (2-4 stacks of units that all strike amphibiously on the first turn of the DOW and go further inlands. I started sending spies to his inland cities, coastal cities' defences can be reduced by destroyers/battleships/fighters.

We now have 2 carriers I think so 1 (?) more

 

[shyuhe]

Beijing has the Pentagon. That's really the only reason to continue the war at this point (assuming he'll capitulate next turn).

 

[mystyfly]

As I see it it's merely a question of when we win while the earlier the better. We don't need the pentagon as we don't need more units (that probabely won't be seeing any battles). So to me it looks simply to win as fast as possible - we have the techs and the units to finish it off. QSH is the only one with techs but nearly without units, while rag (and SB) have units but lack the important military techs.

 

[pigswill]

Played 10 turns up to 1925. Took a couple of turns to work out where everything was and what I was meant to be doing but then it kind of played itself.

1915. GG becomes MI in Hastings.

1916. zzz
Rag builds Apollo.

1917. Get third carrier and complete a quest:

Pick option one which gives free combat 1 to all new planes and boats.

Decided against attacking Beijing as all of our spies had pushed off to visit Ragnar. Qin has had enough anyway:

1918.
Bit of spy stuff: sabotage Rag's oil. Run counter-espionage then declare:

1919.
Meet Ragnar's main stack: 20 cav, 6 inf, 4 cannon. Annihilated for loss of 5 tanks.

1920.zzz (healing up).
Rag captures Pre Rup from Sury (he's got oil again).

1921.
Capture Isavapura.
Capture Pre Rup. Gift to Sury. Sury's culture reclaims the oil field. Sabotage Rag's other oil.

1922.zzz (more healing).

1923.
Sitting Bull builds Apollo.
Capture Timbuktu (chichen izza and statue of zeus).

1924.
Capture Haithabu (overwhelm doctrine of combined navy, air, artillery and marines).
Tanks beat up Rag's arty stack.

1925 zzzzzz

Got some tanks in Invapura.
Got some tanks in Timbuktu.
Got an amphib force near Nidaros (some tanks in Haithabu not shown):

Got an amphib force down south:

Been building a mixture of units: marines, arty, tanx and fighters.

Power graph is improving:

Espionage is getting ridiculous (brought culture up to 40%):

Ragnar is talking but not yet ready to capitulate:

Victory is getting closer:

Rags is one turn from Radio. Maybe pinch it, use GE to help rush Redontor and other 3 GPs for a GA. Its icing, but why not. Could also build some bombers.

 

[ungy]

OK--nice going pigswill. We're in the home stretch. I can't play for a couple of days so if you want to take it Rusten go right ahead.

 

[shyuhe]

Looks like this game's gonna be done in another 2-3 sets. I wonder if I'll get another crack...

On a slightly off topic note, I tried running an EE immortal offline. It was very powerful and quite easy to leverage. The two requirements that I see are 1) a neighbor who techs well and 2) land to expand into via war in the midgame. I ran my EE with Gandhi - got the GW early and then just rexed while teching to alphabet. My first GSpy got me tech parity and after that, I just leeched off of my nearest neighbor. The discount that the GSpy infiltration gives is huge (about 30%) - and as long as your espionage slider stays up, the discount will remain for the rest of the game. I didn't restrict my tech trading though.

The weakness that I see in high level EE games is that you have to have an aggressive land grab either in the early game (settlers) or midgame (rifles). Without a margin in production and # of cities, you may run into issues in the late game generating enough EP.