UNGY-04 Who do they think they are?

[ungy]

Happy you didn't settle that city though because IMO it's far better 1E. It will gain a 2H center (lacks food so working horses isn't good) and gains 2 more grassland tiles which we could cottage.

We can get Shaka to friendly now by giving him optics (or calendar if we're lucky--but not sure about that one). We won't have much left to trade but at least he won't declare on us.

The next set will be meeting new AIs so we have to decide whether to use the trick for +4 fair trade when meeting (gifting 20 gold). I don't like it that much, it feels a bit like an exploit. If not before then at least now in 3.17 as you can see that person X is the worst enemy of person Y even before meeting Y.

I don't think pigswill can play yet--so that would make ungy up next.

OK-I'll play tomorrow.

Agree about the new city--I'll put it 1E.

I'm inclined to gift Shaka calender. I don't think he's coming for us--I haven't seen the AI land units like that then declare--I think he's headed for what used to be the barb city. I'm thinking we pick up archery just in case, and build a few XB.

I don't like the gift 20G upon meeting AI--that always felt exploitive to me. I think OK to trade them a tech (which will also get the +4--but that risks getting the immediate -4 with others yet unmet).

What do you guys make of this odd game--Shaka the wonderspammer? Seems like the rest of the world must be oddly backwards--we (and Shaka) have seen no caravels and it also looks like nobody researched aesthetics.

Tech astro after archery. As for tech trading, hold off on that until I get a bit of a lay of the land. The +4 bonus is not worth the -4 hit if I trade with the wrong AI.

Some MM--spread the faith. One MM nit--I would not have cottaged the spice. IMHO it's just not worth the extra coin and it's better to work (and grow) plain grass cottages rather than one that will be plantationed.

 

[mystyfly]

20 gold for +4 relations does sound a good bargain and borderline exploit so in principle we should avoid it (coz its really embarassing to use exploits and still lose).

Losing is no option
It just doesn't go well with the spirit imo: we make the game harder with variant rules but use exploits...

Shaka (and every other civ) can only have 1 worst enemy.
Also, after Astronomy is available we don't really need him, and may be able to take him in war (our research with GLH+Astronomy+ a lot of trading should enable us to get rifling or some other war tech).

I believe to remember someone mention keeping shaka friendly post-astro/rifling. Thing is, if we get rid of a state religion shaka is likely to turn on us and we won't have that good friends in the new world most likely. The only military target would be shaka. I personally prefer to remain in confucianism and theocracy and attack those civs out there while keeping shaka happy. But this decision most likely will have to be put off until we get a picture of the situation there...

 

[mystyfly]

Some MM--spread the faith. One MM nit--I would not have cottaged the spice. IMHO it's just not worth the extra coin and it's better to work (and grow) plain grass cottages rather than one that will be plantationed.

Don't know who did that.

Agree with your summary, ungy, and archery also sounds ok, better be safe than sorry. Also spreading conf to our last other cities is good, seems like I forgot to mention that, had it only on my notes...

 

[SnowlyWhite]

you get +4 diplo, but on the other hand won't last; didn't understand the mechanic either, but it balances - high modifier but for a very short time

actually: without verifying the code, I think it could go something like:

(<what you gave us> - <what we gave you>)/turns we know each other. Since turns is 1...

 

[ungy]

OK- let's see what this world looks like:

IT I disband our workboat in Zulu lands. Don't think it's worth the upkeep.
BTW I can't untoggle the food/prod--any ideas there?

I switch temples to missionaries to spread the word.
whip gran in Xukpi

880 calender-archery.

We get our first contact:



Nappy is about our score. I decide to hold off on trading to see who all is out there.

We sell calender to Shaka for 70g and get him to friendly.

900 We meet Wang Kon who is the AP head


he's about Shaka's score and has several wonders. He's also got paper.

I decide to trade with him:





We see a jewish Portugal, buddhist Charlemagne, and Toku who is taking a piece of Portugal. Wang>Joao but not sure about Toku.


We then trade with his Hindu buddy Nappy:





We start a few CH.
Since we have the map, we pull a caravel back for defense/antibarb.

920...

940..I weedily forgot to trade with Nappy last turn oh well.: luckily it's still there:



I switch to poly-mono to make the civic switch to OR and bureau.

we circumnavigate.

960 we'll get a few contacts this turn--I try Toku first as I know we won't trade with him:




He's worst enemy of Wang--that's good. And backwards

I meet Charlie. To boost relations I trade with him. He has 30g. I can take mono, HBR, or nothing with his 30g for currency. Hmm. I choose HBR even though we won't need it for a while.




980 mono in--we make a civic change:



Shaka's fleet:



the techscreen:





We meet Joao who is worst enemy of Nappy, Toku.
he won't trade any tech with us so I do nothing.

I decide to stop at 1000 as it's a nice round number.

Looking pretty good (or the AI are looking really weak) I think.

We have 3 overseas trading partners and an optics monopoly while keeping the religion to keep Shaka friendly.

 

[ungy]

save is here:

 

[SnowlyWhite]

sheesh, they're all so backward

 

[silverbullet]

sheesh, they're all so backward

I agree. With Astronomy and GLH we will dominate the technology for a while, even though WK will win liberalism.

 

[ungy]

sheesh, they're all so backward

yes not a total surprise as Shaka built the aesthetic wonders in 700 so this was obviously not a normal game.

We don't have to decide this right away but we should start formulating a longer term game plan. Probably we can hurry to rifling and take someone out pretty easily then either keep going for dom or sit and cruise to space.

 

[pigswill]

We´re going to need some kind of navy on this map so maybe head for chemistry-milsci-steel.

Re trading with worst enemy. I´m aware Shaka will only have one worst enemy at a time. What concerns me is that Shaka may decide each civ he meets (in whichever order) will become his new worst enemy until he meets the next one. Is trading with worst enemy retrospective (i.e. you have traded)?

On the other hand if we gain naval supremacy we don´t have to worry too much about Shaka.

 

[mystyfly]

I already gave my view regarding victory condition. I favour attacking charly, zara, toku (in this order) while we keep trading with our hindu buddies. Seems like charlie is the odd man out and will function as a bootcamp for our troops while we build up to take down (even more backwards) joao and madman toku. After that it's just a matter of declaring on the remaining civs until we win.

Diplo hardly could look better imo. Let's just hope neither wang nor nappy go FR anytime soon.

Good turns and trading ungy. I'm relieved to see how good we're doing (tough it wasn't unexpected).

Techwise I say astro > steel/milsci. Rifilng and drafting won't work with the land we have. Better get the big balls and/or grens. By the looks of it we'll have the luxury to delay warring until we get both steel and milsci.

 

[Rusten]

Okay--this is looking great! I expected the others being slow given what Shaka pulled, but this was even better than expected (exception being WK--he has trade routes with the other continent). I've got the save but won't play until at least tomorrow.

We could consider going for communism/Kremlin and rush-buy as representation will suck (no GPP) and financial boosts cottages. It's something I almost never do, so for me it would be interesting (especially for warfare). The problem is that you need liberalism for communism and chances are WK is getting it. Still, I'd assume that we'll get a pretty killer tech rate once astronomy is in so we should grab it soon-ish anyway. We'll also want SP if we're to grab cities on other landmasses.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

tech trade on the other hand will be crappy; only 10s and 5s

but frankly, given how they're all so cranky, wouldn't wonder if they actually hit each other's wfybta too

 

[ungy]

We could consider going for communism/Kremlin and rush-buy as representation will suck (no GPP) and financial boosts cottages. It's something I almost never do, so for me it would be interesting (especially for warfare). The problem is that you need liberalism for communism and chances are WK is getting it. Still, I'd assume that we'll get a pretty killer tech rate once astronomy is in so we should grab it soon-ish anyway. We'll also want SP if we're to grab cities on other landmasses.

it's also something I never do so would be interesting.

checking the map it looks like the only happy resources we get with astro are silk from Wang and wine from Nappy unless I've missed something.

I'm not convinced that the draft/rifle rush isn't possible here--we don't have a killer globe site but even a mediocre globe can get a pretty good force together combined with regular drafting.

Seems like we're just building now but maybe we should stop at astro and make a longer term plan.

 

[mystyfly]

I don't like rushbuying that much tbh. I'd prefer to stay in HR and don't need to use the slider eventually to keep teching/making money (for upgrades). Also HR gives us a bonus with joao (no big deal) but is also pacal's fav civic and fits the theme

I'd avoid liberalism altogether and tech directly towards astro now, followed by our choice of military tech.

 

[pigswill]

I should be able to play after Rusten if that fits the roster. Otherwise I´ll wait my turn.

Maybe consider nationalism after astronomy, partly for Taj and partly for trade bait coz we´re still missing quite a few techs.

 

[mystyfly]

We don't need a trade bait as expensive as nationalism at the time. Our resources should be directed mainly towards taking out those AIs. GA would be nice OFC but I doubt we really need it.

 

[Rusten]

Played 10 turns to 1100 AD. A very relaxing round--not much to do at all.
Managed to get Astronomy before handing it off after some slider MM.

1000 AD - 1020 AD - nothing of interest except for WK completing optics right after I end the first turn.

1030 AD: Joao asks us to declare on Tokugawa. I was very tempted to go for it seeing as we won't get trade routes from Tokugawa anyway, but the -1 modifier with Napoleon made me turn him down.

1040 AD - nothing important.

1050 AD - WK gets the Christian shrine.

1060 -1070 AD - nothing of interest.

1080 AD - Toku asks us to declare on Joao--I refuse. Once I start my turn Charlemagne declares on Joao (probably bribed).

1100 AD - Shaka demands optics--I give it to him. That was a bit of a bummer seeing as he's willing to trade engineering (could use paper), but we'll just have to find someone else.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Scouted some more of the north-western island. We might want to get some cities there before the others do. There's seafood, flood plains + riverside gold and still much left to explore.



I signed OB with everyone I could the turn before astronomy and as expected our economy got a big boost. Paper seems to be a good pick for our next tech. We can use it to tech broker and to sell our world map for a lot of gold (still just WK with paper).

The only exciting part of my set happened at the very end. I think Shaka just put his units into these galleys. At what time did we get him to friendly? It would be a little sad if he is to attack us now. Either way, we have at least 10 turns before he makes a move (requested optics) so it might be a good idea to reinforce Uxmal with some Maces/X-bows just in case. It's annoying that we can't see whether he has enough on his hands, but as things stand I guess there is a slight possibility that he went into the mentioned mode while we were at pleased (still unlikely, but rather a couple of more units than the game).




There is an extra confucian missionary sleeping in Mutal as religion spread automatically to the last city while I was headed there--just save him for the cities on that north-eastern island.

I took espionage off Shaka as he was putting so much on us that we can't see his graph anyway. I arranged them onto WK instead as his research is the most interesting right now.

After some more thought I think I'm just being paranoid about Shaka (must be the Montezuma in me ). I can't remember seeing any units in that city and I checked it regularly (at least every 2 turns) so the galleys might be empty. Looking at ungy's screenshot from the former set also adds to them being empty as there was nothing in the city then either.

 

[mystyfly]

Looking great. I'm confident we can get liberalism as the AI really neleglected that path.

That island really looks like it holds some treasures. I'd certainly send an expedition force up there followed by some settlers.

Also, during my set, shaka was still only pleased.

Who's playing?

 

[Rusten]

Who's playing?

silverbullet or pigswill--whoever "gets it" first.