UNGY-04 Who do they think they are?

[ungy]

Silverbullet--
very nicely done!

We certainly learn something new every day--I just wouldn't have thought he could have been in war mode for 13 turns w/o attacking-then 10 peace turns. That's 23 friendly turns before a war!

Great job getting the tiles covered in the 3 turns available.

I don't think we should try and take Shaka out here. He's got the SOZ, and w/o a good tech advantage (which we will have soon enough) I don't see it's worth it to take him on. I would say build what we need to defend and then let him have it when we're ready--he won't be anyone's friend I don't think.

He should land his SOD and crash it I think but we could build some galleons.
I'm not a big fan of cats--I'd rather stack LB here.

As for strategic plan--good question.

I find the communism-kremlin option interesting as I never play that way.

However, if we can take out Shaka game is won I think. We should be able to hit him with cannon/frigate/grennie(rifle) I think long before he gets good units. He shouldn't be trading with anyone. That would probably be a more traditional path.

I'd lean towards going after Shaka--lots of land, synergy with the island, and he could easily backstab us if we're going after someone else. And he should be forever backwards from here on out. Downside: SOZ.

 

[Dresden]

BTW, I had a very quick poke around and it looks like Shaka started plotting this war a loooooong time ago: somewhere during the AD325-AD660 set. I don't much understand the DOW and war planning mechanics though; if DanF lurks this thread he might be able to shed some light on it since he seems to know that area pretty well.

 

[silverbullet]

Thanks Ungy.
Yes. The AI can be in war mode for a long time, probably more when they need to invade. I don't think he had 6 galleys 6 turns ago.

I agree with going after Shaka, but we can still do it later rather than sooner.
We have to see the situation after he makes peace with us - if he is back to friendly, there is no rush. I think settling the island should be a top priority since WK already has our map and he has astronomy. The island looks great and there are some huts there, we might get free techs.

Unfortunately Napoleon and Charlie will not trade gunpowder, so it makes getting steel from liberalism a long shot, but at least we could get chemistry.

My suggestion for how to continue:
1) Build minimal army to protect Uxtmal. With a castle Shaka will bombard for quite a few turns, so we will have time to respond to what he throws at us.
Also, don't spend the cash we have on upgrades. We might not need it and could use it for deficit research.

2) Build at least 1 more galleon and settle at least 1 more city on the island. If shaka doesn't fight effectively (quite likely), we should have room to send more than that. The barbarians still have archers only I think, so maces should be enough to wipe them out.

3) After the colonization project is done, I think we should focus on universities and oxford. Where do we want the oxford city? Mutal? or maybe our inland city? We will soon switch to free speech so it's not crucial to have it in the capital.

4) Tech path: I am still not sure which option is best - steel or communism
If we go for communism we will probably not go to war before democracy, but I don't believe shaka will surge ahead in tech, so we can wait. With democracy and kremlin and a new island to settle we will be able to buy ourselves a nice modern army.
On the other hand there is nothing wrong with taking him earlier and forgetting about the Kremlin.

 

[Rusten]

Okay, it seems I better listen to the Montezuma in me more often--he was right. I'll throw my sanity out the window in favour of paranoia.

Nicely done silverbullet and a special thanks to Dresden -- you're a very useful/helpful lurker.

Didn't have a chance for additional begging.

I think you can stack peace treaties so you could've tried begging 1 turn before the previous runs out. You'll have 2 peace treaties listed in the "active" screen IIRC so I'd assume it's valid.

We certainly learn something new every day--I just wouldn't have thought he could have been in war mode for 13 turns w/o attacking-then 10 peace turns. That's 23 friendly turns before a war!

Those 10 turns of peace don't matter though -- once an AI has decided to go to war friendly status won't help you. The only way to stop a DoW is to bribe someone else on that AI.

I kinda like the communism approach as I never go for it. There's also a very nice match with our situation (tech path/variant/situation). However, if some people find it really boring we could do the more traditional Shaka mop-up. I wouldn't know whether it's boring as I haven't done that more than 2-3 times and that's ages ago.

 

[Rusten]

Those 10 turns of peace don't matter though -- once an AI has decided to go to war friendly status won't help you. The only way to stop a DoW is to bribe someone else on that AI.

Come to think of it I'm not sure this works either. I haven't been in a situation like that in a while. I know the AI won't plan a 2nd war if they're already engaged in one, but if they've already decided to attack I'm not fully sure. Anybody know?

 

[mystyfly]

Great job bouncing shaka units out silverbullet

I would merely build up for big war and take peace with shaka immediately. I don't see why he shouldn't be friendly again afterwards.

As for steel vs communism; I think that depends on WK. If we are able to tech scimeth before he gets to lib I'm for it but if we see we won't make it i prefer to take some tech along the steel route. We can decide that once we're one turn from lib tough.

Are we agreed to attack the heatens joao, charly and [insert non-conf, non-hindu AI here]?

 

[silverbullet]

Rusten: I tried begging on the last turn of the peace treaty, he wouldn't even give 10 gold or world map.

Mystyfly - I don't think there is a huge difference between gunpoder->chemistry to printing press->sci method research times.
The advantage of printing press is the extra commerce we will get in our many mature villages.
Also, we might be able to trade printing press for gunpowder and guilds.

I am also in favour of the communism route for the novelty.

Settling the new island has a great synergy with the great lighthouse and also favours state property.

Mystyfly: I think we should focus on expanding to the island and peacefully teching and building infrastructure. We should have more land than anyone in modern times and decide who to attack then. I think there will be enough backwards civs on this map to take.

 

[pigswill]

Got It.

As long as Shaka focusses on Uxtmal we should be ok.

to Silverbullet for getting a lot done in the last three turns.

to Dresden for useful insights.

Thoughts on techs:
We'll need democracy (or pyramids) for US to benefit from Kremlin.
PP would be a nice boost to a cottage economy.
We currently have a monopoly on education which helps with lib race.
Maybe go for lib-1, PP, gunpowder,chemistry.

I'll probably play tomorrow evening (c.20 hours from now) unless we get major disagreements about our path.

Strategy wise it seems like there's a general consensus on a military victory and we're essentially arguing about the target list.

 

[silverbullet]

In my opinion
If we go for printing press, we might as well go for scientific method (1 tech away from communism).
We could decide to switch to chemistry IF we can trade for gunpowder. Self researching both pp and gunpowder is a waste (WK will get lib soon enough).
So I see only 3 options (assuming we are not forced to rush lib):
1) Printing press->sci.method->lib->communism
2) Printing press->trade for gunpowder->chemistry->steel
3) gunpowder->chemistry->steel.

I think doing a full self research of pp->gunpowder->chem->steel is a waste. the extra 6~8 turns of pp will risk losing liberalism.

Note that WK should start a golden age soon (he has nationalism), so he will tech really fast.

 

[ungy]

Pigswill:
why don't you break your set in the middle before lib?
that'll let us plan our tech a little better. and also give us a better handle on the war.

Again, a lot of my motivation for the communism route is that I haven't done it before--it's also good synergy with our variant and potential overseas warring.

I think getting communism from lib is likely a stretch--but sci method is pretty likely--that's almost as good.

I definately wouldn't upgrade units at this point--only if we get a surprise.

 

[DanF5771]

BTW, I had a very quick poke around and it looks like Shaka started plotting this war a loooooong time ago: somewhere during the AD325-AD660 set. I don't much understand the DOW and war planning mechanics though; if DanF lurks this thread he might be able to shed some light on it since he seems to know that area pretty well.

Dresden is right. Shaka changed his war plans for ungy-04 from NO_WARPLAN to WARPLAN_TOTAL on turn 140, skipping the revocable preparation phase due to self-closeness induced Dagger strategy...
What took him so long to declare? I'm not sure now, I could dig through some code again...

 

[pigswill]

Played 4 turns. Liberalism due next turn:

1210 (T0) Build a city:


1220 (T1).
Mutal cat>LB.
Mayapan mace>cat.
Jo and Chuck are at peace.
Jo gets a prophet.

1230 (T2).
Nap makes a demand:

Thoughts: we've got OB with Nap, not with Jo. Nap has enough on his hands but won't go to war against anyone. Cave in and agree. Lose deal with Jo (fur for 8gpt).
Jo builds Temple of Solomon.
Oxhaitzu ballcourt>rax.
Shaka lands a (very small) stack outside Uxmal. Mace and 3 trebs. Cat weakens mace but dies, mace kills mace (just), mace kills treb, axe kills treb, axe kills treb. End of stack.
Wang const>democracy (5 turns).


1240 (T3).
Wang builds Taj, has golden age, democracy in 3 turns.
Load LB and 2 workers on a galleon (with caravel escort). Set off. Oops, in striking range of 2 zulu caravels. Hmm. The RNG usually hates me.
Wang gets a great artist.
Nap gets a great spy.
We're one turn from lib.


Looks like wang has astronomy and chuck has education (and is willing to trade gunpowder)...

 

[silverbullet]

Charlie seems to be aiming for liberalism.
We don't have EP on him, so I wouldn't delay liberalism.
We could either pick chemistry by trading astronomy to charlie, or pick scientific method by trading priniting press with WK for education.
We could afford a slight risk by trading printing press for education to WK, and then getting gunpowder for printing press. This brokering will take us an extra turn, but will allow us to trade a potentially better than gunpowder tech for astronomy, I am not sure it's worth it.

 

[pigswill]

I haven't actually experimented with this as yet but a scenario would be to trade education to wang for PP and astronomy to chuck for guilds and gunpowder.
I'd like to pick up chemistry for frigates because having a galleon as the strongest unit in a naval stack is not fun.

Edit: I won't play any more tonight to give the rest of the team time to post their thoughts.

 

[ungy]

Charlie seems to be aiming for liberalism.
We don't have EP on him, so I wouldn't delay liberalism.
We could either pick chemistry by trading astronomy to charlie, or pick scientific method by trading priniting press with WK for education.
We could afford a slight risk by trading printing press for education to WK, and then getting gunpowder for printing press. This brokering will take us an extra turn, but will allow us to trade a potentially better than gunpowder tech for astronomy, I am not sure it's worth it.

I think chem is the one we want.
unfortunately Wang will only give us PP for edu, 370g, map.
I'd lean towards keeping astro out of Charlie's hands--he's kind of a backstabber and he's surely going for either econ or lib. It could be a while before he gets astro.
If we give up the gold+edu to Wang I think our chances are pretty good we get gunpowder for pp from Charlie.

I really hate to cash up our main competitor like that but I'm worried Wang makes a trade for edu--or does Charlie hold off on that one as it leads to merchant/tech?

War goals--(apart from our galleon getting lucky!) we should have pretty good chances to get a HE unit--remember no GG!
If we can get chem we can obliterate Shaka's navy.

Long term I have to confess I think our best chance to win is the simple rifle/cannon play. We can still draft w/o the globe. Much more interesting would be to run to communism and do a bunch of rush buying with the Kremlin. Problem there is that we have a tech opportunity now with Shaka--but rush buying is really a later thing. Seems like we need demo--and communism/demo is about the same as rifling/steel--and we still need the military techs.

 

[mystyfly]

I sorted out my pc issues and can slot in whenever comfortable tough I prefer to wait a while as RL is quite busy atm.

As much as I hate buying techs I'd trade edu + $$ for PP. We should keep charly away from galleons and intercontinal trade routes. BTW we might trade for theo from nappy/shaka and sell it to charly. I don't see delaying lib as an option.

 

[pigswill]

Lookingthrough it seems that Chuck didn't get education until 1240 so even if he's going for liberalism (and with guilds and poss banking he might be heading towards economix) we should be ok delaying lib a turn to try the PP/gunpowder trade.

I'll play in a couple of hours unless something interesting turns up (like England beating Croatia).

 

[pigswill]

1250 (T5) continued...
Trade Educ +390g (inflation) for printing press (forgot the screeshot).
To avoid get lib next turn have to put research on 0, which coincidentally gives us +391g .

1260 (T6)
War at sea. Despite being weaker the caravel defends before the galley, it got sunk but it was very heroic. Galleon sinks attacking caravel, runs away and finds another caravel escort.
Make a trade:

95g on top! Death is too good for this chiseller.
Sell map to Tok for 60g.
Shaka lands a mace and a pike. Suicide cat clears victory for mace and axe.

1270 (T7).
Napoleon demands a pig. ("Not tonight Joesphine" (grunt, squeal)). Ok, you pervert.
Shaka lands a mace and a cat, suicide 2 axes, finish off with HA and mace.
Shaka's got two caravels down south, no doubt landing some feelthy spies.
Lib>chem>steel (8 turns).
Upgrade 2 caravels to frigates.
A lunatic turns up claiming he'll drive the moors from Spain. WTF? Lock him up.


1280 (T8).
Chuck says cancel deals with Japan (dye for 9gpt). Up yours, you chiseller!
Napoleon builds spiral minaret.
Increase research to 80%, -40gpt, steel in 6, 600g in bank.
Trade spices to Wang for silk.

1290 (T9).
Napoleon declares war on Joao.
Frigates sink 2 caravels.
Izaricananc whips granary.

1300 (T10).
Blockade Ndondakusuka.
Capture barb worker.
Mutal uni>galleon.
Chich mace>uni.
Uxmal obs>uni.
Izancarinanc starts harbour.

Techs:


Why doesn't anyone like us?

 

[silverbullet]

Looks very nice!
I forgot we are supposed to kill great generals too. Is it good to trade world map with Japan? Aren't they worst enemy of WK?

Since we are planning to go kill Shaka anyway, why not switch to free religion for better diplomacy with everyone? Depending on how many towns we have outside the capital, we might also want free speech.

Question/thoughts about the war with Shaka:
It seems that Shaka will need guilds->gunpowder->military tradition in order to make our life difficult, and he can trade nationalism to Charlie for at least 1 of those techs. Since we don't have a farm based food rich economy, so I don't believe we can whip or build a reasonable army of muskets/cannons before he has curassiers (assuming that's where he is going).
This means that we will need rifles.
Do we want to beeline rifles after steel, or go for Kremlin first?

 

[Rusten]

I'm also for FR as we won't be friendly with Shaka any time soon. It's a little sad to miss out on theocracy, but we should really do something about our relations.

I'd go for rifling or military science next. It's normal speed making military build-ups more difficult so it's probably better to start working on units as soon as possible (we'll also need less siege if we bombard the coastal cities with frigates). You're very right about the whip, we'll need to apply it with extreme caution given the lack of food.