UNGY-04 Who do they think they are?

[ungy]

I don't think railroad is the way to go here. We need war technologies now.
As for upgrades, in which city did you think about upgrading? Uxtmal doesn't need upgrades yet because longbows on hills are still pretty difficult to shaka's cuirassiers, so he will not attack amphibiously, giving us at least 1 turn to respond once he lands.
Our southern coastal cities need at least 1 additional units each because there is a danger he will attack amphibiously from his 2 galleons. I would send our new riflemen to those cities. Luckily he limits his galleons to 3 moves per turn because they are accompanied by caravels, so this gives us more time.

I think it's reasonable to upgrade the lone holkan defenders there, but I wouldn't do mass upgrades yet.

Also, there is a riflemen in the queue of each of the southern coastal cities. We can whip it for 3 or 4 population if he lands there.

I think it's reasonable to cut research to 0 this turn and build a little cash in case we need to do upgrades.
No reason to upgrade until we are at risk of an amphibious landing.

I like the arty tech path. It looks like we'll have difficulty here with Shaka having chem so I don't think we have any time to waste.

I think pigswill is up followed by mystyfly.

 

[silverbullet]

I like the artillery path too.
1) Shaka has no counter to them anytime soon.
2) Shaka is far away from Rifling, so rifles would be enough to clean up what's left after artillery damage.
3) If we avoid infantry for now, we can still build some mace - Shaka's land will be their target practise to get CR3 so we can upgrage to CR3 infantry later. Those will be useful to fight the more advanced civs later.

Let's fight off this invasion and then get ourself that nice Shaka shrine for a wall street city.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm also for artillery for reasons pointed out by silverbullet and earlier.

Looks like this game won't be just as much a walk in the park as the first two ungy games I like it

I think pigswill is up followed by mystyfly.

AFAIK that's correct.

 

[pigswill]

I knoqw I'm UP but I won't be able to play until Saturday which leaves either time for plenty of discussion or time for mystyfly to swop.

 

[mystyfly]

I'd rather you play first.

I have to work on my timing, up in 2 SGs (not counting this) + SGOTM...

 

[pigswill]

Got it.

Got caught up with other stuff today.

Will play tomorrow.

Looks like we have enough cities on the island now.

One turn of cash for emergency upgrades then steam>physics>arty.

 

[pigswill]

Sorry for the delay. I blame Sulla for advertising RFC to a wider audience (including me ).

Played ten turns.

Spent first two turns amassing cash. I thought either Shaka will declare (in which case we'll have cash for emergency upgrades) or he won't (in which case we'll have cash for rushing buildings/wonders or running deficit research).

In the event he didn't. His flotilla sailed along our southern coast (shadowed by a small stack) and then disappeared. In 1620 he declared on Charlie.

Wang researched radio followed by mass media. He switched civics to free speech and free markets. He built SoL. He's currently researching artillery so he's either going cultural or space, probably cultural with a beefed up defence.

Meanwhile Lakimha built units while Mutal built ships (after finishing its bank). Units are mainly in Uxmal. Our navy's just to the north. Our northern island is developing slowly. We've got three sources of coal (Mutal is built on a coal mine).

Techwise it went steam>physics>artillery ( 3 turns left).

Edit: Coco Chanel turned up. He ain't so special, not any more he ain't.

 

[Rusten]

Sorry for the delay. I blame Sulla for advertising RFC to a wider audience (including me ).

That explains why there aren't as many funny punch lines in your report as the norm. Your turnset reports are usually ace.

(Didn't look at the save yet).

 

[mystyfly]

Haven't looked at it either, but GOT IT.

Looks like we're going great. Shaka distracting our target, main tech competitor probabely going culture - just nice

I suggest using the GM for a GA

 

[silverbullet]

Haven't looked at it either, but GOT IT.

Looks like we're going great. Shaka distracting our target, main tech competitor probabely going culture - just nice

I suggest using the GM for a GA

I think Shaka should be our first target. He is a much easier target without rifling (and not protective), and he has a nice shrine for us. Charlemagne is pleased and he doesn't attack at pleased. He is also quite small so we can always leave him for domination mop-up.
Getting Shaka's cities will give us enough land to even to seal the victory.

Sorry for the delay. I blame Sulla for advertising RFC to a wider audience (including me ).

I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[mystyfly]

Attacking charly gives us a foothold on the other conti (we can continue with joao and toku). Tough shaka sailing his SOD out is a great chance to backstab him, with the risk that he'll just turn around his fleet. If we want to attack him we should wait until he dropps in power and strike them (tough I'd still rather attack charly ).

 

[pigswill]

It maybe that Shaka sent a proper fleet from the other side of his territory but all I saw was a couple of galleons and some caravels. He still has a bunch of galleons in the city near Uxmal. That doesn't mean we shouldn't attack him. It just means that most of his army is still at home.

 

[silverbullet]

I worry that with WK's culture speed he will have to be our 2nd target, so I prefer to eliminate Shaka and then go for WK.
Charlie may still trade some useful techs with us so we should keep him around.

I think we are in a good position that we would win either way, but I think it will be easier to go for Shaka, and it's revenge time.
Shaka's fleet is not scary, we can probably drown all of it while it is docking in port.

 

[DanF5771]

Thank you guys for showing mercy to a stray + paranoid soul. More fun with the game, I very much enjoy lurking here.

Silverbullet: I finally found some time to investigate AI behaviour a bit more.

Spoiler :

Case A) You have 1 or more cities in one of the AI's primary areas (= a landmass with the AI's capital city or more than 2 other cities):
If the AI is currently preparing for a Total War it performs checks after 10|13|16 turns of preparation (normal|epic|marathon) if all respective areas are prepared enough to switch out of the preparation phase. The test is passed if the AI has a minimum of offensive units depending on the number and size of its cities in this area, without considering the number and strengths of the opponent's units in the area or elsewhere at all! If the requirements are not met within 20|26|33 total turns of preparation, the AI will call off its war plans again and switch out of WHEOOHRN (see Sisiutil's ALC#24).
If the AI is currently preparing for a Limited War, it automatically switches out of the preparation phase after 5|6|8 turns without performing any tests.

Case B) All of the AI's primary areas are "unthreatened" = you have no cities there:
The AI automatically switches out of the preparation phase after 5|6|8 / 10|13|16 turns of preparation (Limited / Total War) without performing any tests.

[Daggers always skip the preparation.] When it is in Total or Limited War mode then, the AI will command its SoD to move to and attack the chosen city with the best AI_targetCityValue (high pop, own city culture present, damaged cultural defense, isCoastal, has wonders, isHolyCity, isEverOwned, has lots of bonuses, near borders, ...).
The time it needs to have a SoD cross your borders (= Moment of DoW) is very variable (SoD ready and waiting at your borders; need of transport over sea; "unexpected" obstacles like impassable mountain tiles blocking the path ...), but the DoW should happen eventually in most cases. The DoW can be postponed (not prevented) by one-sided trades (give help, pay tribute) that come with a 10 turns peace treaty, but only another DoW from another player will make the AI drop its plans vs. you.

 

[silverbullet]

DanF:

Spoiler :

Thanks for the explanation. A clarification:
When you say "the AI switches out of the preparation phase", do you mean "the AI declares war", or "the AI cancels war plans"?
If the AI automatically declares after 10 turns in an intercontinental invasion it can explain why the AI is doing so poorly in this kind of wars.

This makes me think of another potential use of espionage to prevent a war on the same landmass (although quite unlikely and probably impractical) - sabotage the AIs building of offensive units with spies to delay their amassing of units to more than 20 turns so they have to switch out of WHEOOHRN.

 

[DanF5771]

Silverbullet:

Spoiler :

By finishing war preparations I mean the AI's switch of its warplan for another player from WARPLAN_PREPARING_LIMITED/ WARPLAN_PREPARING_TOTAL to WARPLAN_LIMITED, WARPLAN_TOTAL. There is no legal way to notice this change in a normal game (AI is still in WHEOOHRN but has not DoWed yet), but this is where Chipotle helps . Going back to NO_WARPLAN is only possible from WARPLAN_PREPARING_TOTAL if primary areas are threatened and not enough offensive units built to pass the test. Your trick might cost a lot of but could really work. You might also consider gifting the AI happy and health resources to let its cities grow bigger, so that even more units are required or do the extreme and gift a whole city .

 

[silverbullet]

Are we still playing this game? Where is everyone? Playing colonization?

 

[pigswill]

Mystyfly posted his got-it on the 28th. Not heard much since (though I saw in another thread that he had quite a few non-civ commitments and quite a few civ commitments as well).

I guess its up to Ungy to make the executive decisions.

 

[Rusten]

Are we still playing this game? Where is everyone? Playing colonization?

Why play colonization when you can play BtS.

I'm still following the game, just been too lazy to start a discussion.

 

[ungy]

sorry guys RL has been very busy these last few weeks.

I think we have a few options.

1) get arty and start rushbuying and hurry and get after Shaka. Upside--no rifles means we'll go through him like butter with virtually no losses. Downside, he has a pretty good navy so we'll have to build a lot of soon to be obsolete ships and rate to have pretty good naval losses.

2) get arty and start buildup while researching to combustion then rush a few destroyers and go for Shaka. Upside--we have total naval superiority.
Downside--we delay 12 turns or so--that could easily mean rifles.

3) skip Shaka and go for Charlie. For this we wait and build inf/arty/destroyers.

I can't play this weekend but Mystyfly is way late on this so let's skip him.

Let's get this going again, as I think this is a pretty interesting game.

Roster:
Mystyfly--skipped
Ungy--up (or swap)
Rusten
Silverbullet
Pigswill