Von Münchhausen II

Thanks for checking in, Grandad. At the moment we're trying to leave some English towns on the map for you to conquer. ;)

Had a look at the save.

* Gandhi and Ramesses both still have friendly status. What it says is we denounced the same leaders but we refused a request for help. The issue is of course this'll remain there as long as they are alive. They'll pay a bit less for stuff now.
* Worst problem I see in the save, we simply can't build any more units without getting a production hit. We are only 4 units away from our support limit with 3 more horses on the way.
We need to grow our towns or conquer towns.
Iron is not very useful when we are on our unit cap.
Si Sachanalai can at least grow quicker. It's set to grow in 11 turns, but there's a river-farm available to make that 4 turns. Just switch a citizen from the gold tile. We can't work both Potosi and a mountain-gold; that hampers growth way too much.
* Our towns will have to get back to constructing buildings, considering our unit cap. A temple in Sukhothai, I suppose. For the others maybe a growth building first? I'll need to check whether Si Sachanalai has a stone works yet. That first, I think.
* We have 6 horses that we can try to sell. As we are upgrading our horses to elephants we don't need them. Other civs aren't rich, but at 14 gold + 1 gpt per horse I reckon we can still sell most of them.
* Sydney yearns for a natural wonder. That's a nice one, our scout is doing a good job at the moment, we'll keep him on the payroll and he'll stumble onto something sooner or later.
* Our workers can start roads.
* Sailing > Optics I don't care much for as a path. With our unit support issues I don't think it's wise to use more units for scouting, and our present scout will not benefit from Optics until we send him all the way back first. That last thing I'm not willing to do!
I would prefer going for Education or Machinery, but I'm hoping for some team input here.
* Our front situation seems a bit hard on our elephants. I'm personally not used to fighting with just slow melee units without any ranged backup. I just saw Naresuan's are only 2-move units, so they're slow. I'm planning to keep a few horses unupgraded for picking off archers; their attack + retreat ability will still come in handy!
Apart from that, I don't know we should really ignore Canterbury. If it's an easier pick because Egypt is already battering it, it might be good for us. We can always sell it.
Because of our unit support problems any town we can get is a good town for us just now. I'm assuming puppets still help your unit support?
If a pike is garrsioned does the city get the bonus vs horses? I would have expected not.
It does not, every garrisoned just puts the city defense up by 1 point. The pike will probably not attack a healthy elephant either. The problem is if an elephant attacks the city and remains wounded it'll get picked off by the pike.
 
Can optics help us attack Hastings? Our slow elephants could embark to surround Hastings easier. (Well I just checked and it seems this will not help us much, I thought Hastings was 1 tile closer to the coast). Optics is not so vital now we found land S of Egypt but still if its a short tech we could get it.

Maybe optics, machinery, education? It depends how fast we think we can get temples in our 3 cities. It's true that with a couple of xbows we will be unstoppable.

Most vital thing really is that we take a couple of towns. I don't mind what else we do. We will get a really big boost from the Wats anyway when we decide to drop them down.
 
When is the next sp due? With out being able to look at the save I'm not sure how ready are cites are for Wats.

We should be aiming to have at least two fully staffed Wats IMO, so cites need the pop to do that and perform their other duties.

I guess I'm getting ahead of my self here as we still have a war to fight.

How long are the tech times for Education and machinery?

How does the free building sp work in relation to puppet and annexed cities? Is it just self founded cities?
 
Any puppet will help, but if we get Hastings we can sell two gems immediately. Even if they have 2 or three pikes there you can still take it with 4 NE and an archer. It's a bit shocking how much damage the NE takes when it attacks a pike or a city without a GG, but if you're careful you can do it without loosing a unit and without using an insta-heal. Cities with more open terrain will probably be easier. The GG will probably come right around the time we puppet our first city and it's a big bonus to the NE.

Liz has effectively surrounded us with city spam. I prefer the cities with unique luxuries or bonus luxuries we can sell. I think Canterbury doesn't have any luxuries. I'd come back for it later.

For research, I don't see anything more appealing than Education. I think you can get the embarkation promotion by entering any "friendly" civs land that you have an OB agreement with. I don't think it's worth making a priority on a Pangaea map though.

I agree we need to build growth buildings (like that horrible water mill;)) and temples for the free Wats. The number of "useful" units we have concerns me though.
 
How long are the tech times for Education and machinery?

How does the free building sp work in relation to puppet and annexed cities? Is it just self founded cities?

It only works for our core cities. So, if we annex a city after it builds a temple, it would get a Wat.

Our tech time is going to be a little slower because we skipped NC for The Oracle. If we get the NC it shaves about 7 turns off those last techs in the Medieval Era.
 
We should be aiming to have at least two fully staffed Wats IMO, so cites need the pop to do that and perform their other duties.
Yes, that's not being forgotten. At least temples have been started nowhere yet, libraries might be halfway or so. A growth building first might be useful to speed up things a bit. We don't have happiness problems just now.
How long are the tech times for Education and machinery?
Education is only 2 techs away, Machinery is longer. Probably we should aim for Education first.
How does the free building sp work in relation to puppet and annexed cities? Is it just self founded cities?
I'm not entirely sure, but I believe not self-governed towns are out of the picture; don't get a free building.
EDIT: crosspost with NotSure.
 
Any puppet will help, but if we get Hastings we can sell two gems immediately.
That's why I suggested going after Hastings, but our units are all on the other side of the map. As that's the situation, I'll see what I can do there. The lack of ranged units is a concern for me, our military is a bit one-sided. Fighting without being able to soften up targets means we'll lose units; a pike will still make mince meat out a wounded Naresuan.
 
You could always build a road there as you whittle down the pikes (I'll bet they have at least two there) and retreat to heal.

I'd also consider throwing our warriors at the pikes as the NE approach. They aren't doing us much good otherwise. We can't even use them for garrison culture/happiness 'cause we went with Piety. If/when we loose the warriors we can replace them with more horses/NE, archers, pikes... whatever.
 
Education is my choice also. It will speed everything up that comes after.

I have to say I like Watermills. The food means you can work a hill or run a spec and you get a hammer too. Win win. I guess there can be an opportunity cost in building it but....
 
No objections here, make something of the war then build some growth/production buildings. We can also slot in a market here and there, when that's taken care of.

Forget about my scout, the existing one might be able to see what's going on from the other side.

Btw, I think we're are getting GS in 21 turns or so, we could use him for Machinery? Strange really, no NC even on the chart yet but this is a different game, i suppose. :)
 
I played my set. It didn't go as well as hoped, the English front at their core looked too tough. After sacrificing a warrior to kill a pike it was still an English wall of units.
I retreated. We need to attack their stray towns first. Read my turnlog to see if you agree:

625BC, turn 90, inherited turn; Move a citizen in Si Satch. We can get a citizen there in 3 turns instead of 11. It's set on 'default focus' which means any new citizen won't go to either Potosi or the gold tile, where we want the new citizen to go.
I hope we know, upon growth, first the food gets counted, then the new citizen gets born, only then gold and production gets counted. So if a new citizen gets put on a foody tile, which is what normally happens with 'default focus', then this food is lost. A newly born citizen can only help for gold and production. So it's best to put your older citizens on the foody tiles and let your new ones always take a gold or production tile.
Production is still horribly low in Si Satch, it lacks a stone works, but I'll continue with the horse it's working on.

Sukhothai I'm switching to the water mill, as it had already hammers invested in that.

Deals:
3 horses to Oda, at 14 gold + 1 gpt each,
1 to Washington, 14 gold + 1 gpt,
2 to Gandhi, 39 gold each.
That means selling 6 of our 8 horses. We can still build horses if we upgrade our 2 remaining ones to elephants.

I set research to Theology, which leads to Education.
Move units to the front.

600BC, turn 91; Kill an English archer with a warrior, after a ping with our scout-archer.
Move all our Naresuan's further up field, going 1 tile per turn, as it's all hill, swamp or jungle.

575BC, turn 92; Grab an English worker with a warrior near Hastings.
Moving units further to the front. Takes ages.
Deal: sell marble to Washington, 114 gold + 4 gpt.
Next turn our Ivory deal with Gandhi ends, so happiness stays the same.

550BC, turn 93; Muang Saluang; horse > library
This library was already under construction and can be finished now in 3 turns.
I like to keep the horse as a horse, it's got move 4, compared to an elephant's 2, double as quick, can still be useful for picking off archers.
Sukhothai; water mill > Naresuan, Naresuan already had hammers invested.
Both Muang Saluang and Si Satch grew this turn.
At our front I moved units further forward, one warrior so far that we'll probably lose him, I hadn't seen the pike before the move, but it was a calculated risk. If the pike kills the warrior we'll kill the pike, and we need to get rid of them if we are to stand a chance here.
Spoiler :

525BC; turn 94; Yes, the pike attacks, we lose the warrior.
But we have the scout-archer to give a shot back and 2 Naresuan's kill the pike. Regretfully, this reveals yet another pike, backed up by a line of archers. Ahum, this looks like mission impossible.
We do have a Naresuan ready to provide cover against at least one of the pikes, so our Naresuan that made the kill could survive.
Spoiler :

We meet Bucharest accidentally, that's where our scout now is.
They are cultural and irrational, have silver and 6 iron and are allies of an unmet player. That must be the only player we haven't met yet.

Gandhi and Ramesses are now both guarded towards us. Gandhi calls us warmongers and thinks we are trying to win the game in the same way as him. Also Ramesses thinks we are trying to win the game and blah blah blah...
I wonder which brilliant strategy can help against those type of accusations?
At least everybody else is still friendly.

500BC, turn 95; Gandhi has completed Stonehenge. That can't have been exactly a beeline at turn 95.

Elizabeth is a coward. She doesn't attack a Naresuan with a pike, even after it got 3 archer shots and a shot from Canterbury.
All our units survive, but nevertheless our front looks a no chancer:
Spoiler :

This is looking like a retreat. I cannot attack further without sacrificing Naresuan's.
The problem is also, London is so nearby. For every unit she loses Elizabeth will immediately put a new one down straight from London. This is probably what she's been doing since Egypt started attacking.
We should have gone for her isolated towns first. They don't have help from London and we can surround those towns. York we cannot surround, those archers at the back are a problem, at Hastings we won't have that.
I have a Naresuan pillaging a farm for 21 gold, but apart from that it's time for retreat.

475BC, turn 96; Maung Saluang; library > temple
I was considering a water mill for this town, but growth is at 8.75 per turn, that's excellent, no water mill needed. A temple we need for Wats. A circus would also have been an option, but so I went for the temple first.
Sukhothai; Naresuan > National College
Units on retreat from the English core.

450BC, turn 97; Cape Town is being attacked by America.
Maybe they were no friends of liberty?
If we are able to kill at least 5 enemy units Cape Town will be indebted to us. I need to throw it in the team first, check the enthousiasm for this wonderful quest. :p
America is looking big and aggressive. Here's a mini pic with the square around Cape Town:



Egypt is having a pike and a war chariot outside Coventry, they're still at war with England, but not doing an awful lot. They might sign peace soon.
Si Satchanalai is now connected to our capital.

425BC, turn 98; Si Satch; horse > stone works
I was considering a temple, but we can still squeeze in a stone works before that.
Production is still awful here. I'm switching a citizen from Potosi to the gold, to get production from 6.3 to 9.45 per turn. That could be needed to get both a stone works and temple in time. I'm not sure, the next policy is only in a couple of turns, it's the policy after that that could be the Wats policy, I'm not aware of the exact amount of turns until then.
We have 767 gold on the bank and I'm not so sure what to do with it, we don't need to work Potosi every turn.

400BC, turn 99; Elizabeth offers a white peace. Never.
Hastings has 2 archers and a pike at the moment. Had we gone for Hastings and killed a pike here it would have made a much bigger difference:



I was trying to snap an archer here with the horse, but Elizabeth was so wise to retreat it.
I'm tempted to disband a worker near Sukhohai, but I'll just start it on a useless mine.
Maybe others have better ideas what to do with 5 workers...

375BC, turn 100; Kill an English warrior with a Naresuan.
Elizabeth's units are now coming towards us, which makes it much easier to make kills. I'm not sure we should do that, we need an English town. It's going to be a bit of a juggle for the next player.
Sukhothai and Maung Saluang both grow. Maung Saluang grew twice in my set, see, we don't need growth buildings here.
Theology is in, I leave it for the next player what to pick next. Education is logical, but Optics could still be interesting when wanting to attack Hastings from all sides.

This also came turn 100:



It looks like we're awfully strong, but those Naresuans suffer penalty's against both towns and pikes, so it's not as good as it looks.
 
Nice set Optional.

I'm home now so can look at saves etc. Would anyone mind if I jumped in as the next player in the roster?

I think its all about concentrating on Hastings now. It fits our empire with resources to sell and is easiest to reach with our forces from our core.

I'll look at the save before i commit to any real comments as I feel out the loop even though I've read the thread.
 
Welcome back Grandad. I have no problems with you jumping in next. Yes Hastings and possibly Coventry would be nice. Maybe Liz has Longbows before we are able to do much more, so we can use our Wats to outtech and then dominate. I also need to see the save though. England is quite strong in this game so it seems (and NE are weaker than I thought with the 2 moves, I guess their defence and not costing horses is where they shine).
 
Next up: Grandad. :)
England is quite strong in this game so it seems (and NE are weaker than I thought with the 2 moves, I guess their defence and not costing horses is where they shine).
Naresuans are strong, but Elizabeth was perfectly trenched in, pikes at the front, archers at the back, town bombardment, exactly what Naresuans can't deal with.
I had an ordinary horse completely redlined after a double shot from an archer + Canterbury, while a Naresuan took 4 shots in total and was only yellow, with Elizabeth still not fancying attacking it with a pike. Any other unit would have been dead!
But we can't do much anymore with a yellow lined unit in a crossfire situation, no matter how strong it is. Each unit has only 10 hitpoints. This will change with the expansion, when every unit gets 100 hitpoints. Then I guess you can just charge into that line of archers and survive the counter hits. But not with just 10 hitpoints, that's suicide.

But Elizabeth is now coming towards us with her units, leaving her trenches. Anywhere outside her core it's us who will rule, I have no doubt about that.
 
Of course, in hindsight Lizzy would be stocking up on units....3 wars!

And of course we should have gone for Hastings! Damnit. What kept me from it was all the hills and 1-turn moving phants are usually dead phants, but if all 4-5-6 was there at one moment, we would've won that town...just losing a phant or two.

Anyways, what about our coming GS, in 11 turns? Can we make arrangements so we get Machinery with that?

We can still flank York, move archers up there and NE's going to the east. OF York! I think they are protecting Canterbury, as we're not a threat anymore...so they say! :) What I'm trying to say, attack from <- this side with phants and 1 horse. Attack N with archers and another horse, that should make a mess of them.

Not very good with geography....
 
Maybe Grandad could go after you if you already did some work on it?
 
Ya, I'm pretty much done. This would work best for me because my weekends are busy too. Like I said though, it's no biggie. If he wants to play now I'll scrap my playset and pick it up on Monday.
 
I'm going to finish my turns, just in case we go with that plan. I have one question though. Does anybody want the Hagia Sophia, Porcelain Tower combo? We went with Piety, so if we pass on this our RA will be a little weaker. We could always play it with no RA & there's always the possibility we can grab it from Ramesses. A third option would be HS, Notre Dame. I'll wait an hour or so to get at least two opinions on this. If there's no opinion, I'll skip it.
 
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