ZF1 - Zed's Training Day Game

[Zed-F]

Turn 2 -- 870 AD
A whole mess of troops are built
The Persians are looking to stick a city in our rightful territory...I may start a war shortly
The Japanese stack of Archers is about to hit Tyendaga...it's a waste of space and I'll probably get yelled at...but I abandon it.
We capture Shimon and Bactra
I decide to make Peace with the Japanese...they're down to just Sapporo (extreme West).
I'm going to reconstitute our armies and prepare for the next victim.
By the way, we now have 7 luxuries
I abandon Kyoto as its indefensible and surrounded by a whole bunch of other troops.

Hmm. I don't know where Tydedaga was, what terrain it was on, what improvements it had, how much pop it had, how much competition there was for good tiles, or what was defending it, so I don't know whether abandoning it was a good call. Would it have been better to let the AI capture it and then take it back again later? Possibly. Certainly it is a valid option if you don't have the forces to keep control of the region. Another valid option if all you had there was disposable troops (i.e. Pikemen, not Riders) would be to let the AI uselessly attack a meaningless city and thereby keep their mobile forces pinned in the area for disposal by Rider reinforcements. Abandoning the city means you don't want to fight there -- but the AI's troops are still in the area and will just pick another target. If you want to encourage them to go after a more heavily defended target, and don't care about the city, then abandoning is a possible tactic, though see my point about taking the city away again later.

Abandoning Kyoto? Previous turn you said you auto-razed Kyoto? Not sure what that's about. They can't have rebuilt Kyoto and got some culture in it that fast, nor got it to size 2 unless they had a settler in position and melded a worker in...

7 lux means we probably never have to worry about war weariness again. We can almost certainly get rid of the lux tax. Why are we still researching at 10%? If you're going for the 40-turn science gambit then we should be using a single researcher in a corrupt town; otherwise if you really want Gunpowder for some reason (why, when the English are the only others to have it and they have no muskets?) then we should research faster than 10%...

[QUOITE]
The British have met the Zulu...she wants Silk, but instead I give her Education + 50 gold (don't want to lock us into anything)
[/QUOTE]

Good plan.

Our palace gets a Wing! We get a second Wing!
It has come to my attention that War with the British is predestined. I try to get her to remove her forces from our territory (i.e. her workers). She doesn't declare War.
Zed, I expect being yelled at for a lot of things during my turn, but I'm tired of British insolence...it's time for them to pay!
I give the Babylonians Education to help me fight the English. I'll let them kill off the scattered Western cities for me.

Now, why would I yell at you for something we've been pretty much planning for some time now? The only thing I would be certain of is to make sure we don't have any active agreements with her before declaring war, which it sounds like you've done. Getting Babs in on our side is ok if you think we won't be going after them in the next 20 turns, which is probably close to being accurate if we deal with England and Persia first. We will probably have a few turns where we will be consolidating and waiting for our treaty to expire though.

At this point in the game it's practically impossible to screw anything up badly enough to matter anyway.

 

[ChrTh]

Japan had a bunch of settlers roaming about, and they rebuilt Osaka in the same place where it had previously been auto-razed, so I'm guessing Kyoto was rebuilt that turn (it was the next name available, since the previous Kyoto was no more).

Tya... was in the jungle about six tiles (all jungle) from any of our cities; the point was to get the archer stack committed to attacking...and then letting the city go (there was nothing of value in the city). Of course, the thing is, I made peace the same turn I abandoned the city, so it was a wasted move.
The other abandonment was necessary, because it was undefended, and there were soldiers from 3 different nations surrounding it. I figure, why give anyone free gold?

In retrospect, the alliance with Babs was wasted, since I ended up taking almost all of the Western cities (I misjudged the ease of getting my Western troops to a majority of their cities)...I don't even know if Babylon has done anything--I suspect not.


As for starting war, that's really my $20,000 question for this turn: What is the acceptable way to start a war, with a minimum of reputation hit? And do SGs in general have their own rules of etiquette for starting a war?

BTW, my fave maneuver is with the Persia stack: it's centrally located in the heart of Persia, but technically not in Persia!

 

[Zed-F]

Well, if we don't have any active trade/diplomatic agreements with Persia, then I'd just say go ahead and declare war and move in. See my earlier post in this thread (Jun 10) where I answered Mysterious's questions about how to declare war honourably.

 

[Mystery13]

Hey guys,

I'm back tonight so I got it.

 

[Padma]

I'm back, too.

Go ahead and take it, Mystery. I won't be able to play until this weekend at the earliest. (And maybe not even then. I'm going to be spending a good chunk of Saturday replacing my water heater.)

 

[Mystery13]

Ok, that was a heckuva turn. Lot's of death on all sides. English are down to two core cities...most of their remaining cities were on hills and their pikemen inflicted a lot of casualties. Persia is down to one city in the Southern jungle. Padma will clean that up quickly with what is on the way. Deals with Japan and Babylon over in 2 and 6 turns respectively so the main continent will soon be ours. I'll get the report in tomorrow...the turns took about two hours tonight and I've got a few other things to do.

 

[Mystery13]

Ok, looking around preturn...lots of stuff has happened.
Bad stuff. This continent will be ours very soon. This reign
won't be very Mysterious. Just kick butt.

Ok, I can finish Gunpowder in 2 so I do so. I starve a few
English cities to hold off any flipping possibilities. I will
have to take a few turns off to heal the forces it looks like.
Finally, I change some of our newly captured cities from
military to workers and granaries and temples.

Preturn
The English take out one of our Riders...it won't be the last
one I lose during these turns.
Babs wants to trade world maps. Why not?

960AD
Wow! Lot's of movement going on. Lot's of stuff on goto orders.
I cleaned up some random English troops and moved a bunch of
stuff toward Persia.

IT
We get gunpowder. Set science back to zero.

970AD
Getting a touch of war weariness so it might be good to end the
war with England (by destroying them of course).
Oops, forgot to say that we got a great leader last turn...made
an army since there is not much else to make (I don't want to
use him for a 60 shield temple do I?)
Tried Nottingham. It's on a hill and repelled my attack. I'll
regroup with a bigger force.
Ahhhh!!! There is an active deal with Persia that lasts five
more turns. Oh well.

IT
Heroic Epic is built.

980AD
London goes down! Another GL.
I raze London due to the high culture. We also take Oxford and
the Great Lighthouse.

IT
Dammit! York reverted back to the English. One Rider was resting
there.

990AD
York is ours again.

1000AD
Persians are constantly in our territory so I ask them to leave
or declare war. They choose unwisely.

1010AD
Persians about done already...four cities left.
England down to five cities.

1020AD
We have catapults firing into Nottingham! 2 of 3 hit. Holy Toledo.
Terrible luck at all locations this turn. The dice were not kind.

1030AD
Persia down to one city in the Southern hills.
England is holding tough as its cities were built on hills mostly.

1040AD
Down goes Nottingham! Lots of dead soldiers around this city.

1050AD
England down to two core cities and three jungle cities. There
is another Great Leader born. I was trying to get him to the
homeland to build the Pentagon.

Lots of troops heading for the jungle cities. Persia, Japan and
England all ready to be eliminated during Padma's turns.
Alliance with Babylon over in 6 (and they have been fighting for
us).
I started with 46 Riders and ended with 47. Must have lost at least
10. But they inflicted far greater damage on the enemy.

 

[Mystery13]

 

[Zed-F]

Game over, man. The Babs and Japs could both easily wind up toast if Padme plays his cards right and vectors our troops appropriately.

Here's a hint. We have a juggernaught economy and over 4K gold in the bank. What do we need 4K gold for right now? Probably nothing. So, insta-rush an army over in the SW to take out the English/Persians/Japs, and, subsequently, the Babs. At 300 gold or less per Rider (depends on how you do it,) you can easily rush at least a dozen of them in the SW. Those troops plus those in Persia ought to be enough to do the job in short order. Do save some gold for rushing temples though, since we'll need to in order to get the domination victory.

If you wanted to get really sneaky and maybe a bit exploitative you could even disconnect our iron long enough to rush a bunch of horses, and then use Leo's to upgrade them on the cheap. I'd vote for not doing it though, since I don't much care for exploits and this game is in the bag anyway even without it.

 

[Padma]

Okay! I should be able to play Tuesday or Wednesday evening.

Let's see, English will be gone, Japanese will be gone, and the Babs, if not gone, will be so close to gone as to hardly make a difference.

I'll also see about temples: expand our borders and head for domination victory!

 

[Mystery13]

Hey Padma, I'm hoping for a great report from you tonight or tomorrow. I don't want anymore of those awful colors screwing up our rightful lands!

 

[Padma]

I played about half my turn last night - will finish tonight and post. Here's a teaser:

The two English cities to the Northeast are ours. A massive force of riders is moving through the jungle and mountains westward to finish off the dastardly Persians, the English and the Japanese. (Note, we are not currently at war with Japan.)

A virtual sea of temples has started appearing in our border towns. (I rushed a bunch of them, too, after Riders. What the heck, we have lots of cash, may as well use it.) We are currently 416 tiles from Domination Victory. Just wait till our cultural borders expand from those temples!

Edit: Oh, BTW, I just built the Pentagon in Tientsin, with that leader you left me.

 

[Padma]

Preturn: Rushed a dozen Riders in the West/Southwest. Highest price paid was about 260. We still have 1275 left, and making 548 gpt.
Persians took back Caughnawaga and razed it to the ground! They shall pay dearly for this!

1) 1060 AD: We take Warwick! Brighton still eludes us. Much Movement of Riders (MMOR).

I) Several (3 - 4) of our recent acquisitions riot: seems to be war weariness. I assign some specialists for now.

2) 1070 AD: Brighton is ours! New English capitol is in Bristol, on the far western tip of the continent. MMOR.

3) 1080 AD: I start Wall Street in Beijing. I rush a bunch of temples on our new borders. MMOR.

4) 1090 AD: MMOR. Use GL to hurry the Pentagon in Tientsin, our FP city.

5) 1100 AD: MMOR. Pentagon completed! Hmm, I didn't realize that Coventry and Canterbury still had resistors. I will crush them!

I) Resistance has ended! We are the Borg! Oh, wait, wrong story. Babylon completes the Sistine Chapel. Were we building that? Yeah, in Dockonda Bay. OK, I switch to Palace as a placeholder for Copernicus. What the heck, otherwise it would be a real expensive University - wasting nearly 300 shields.

6) 1110 AD: MMOR. I rush a couple more temples.

7) 1120 AD: MMOR. We Destroy the Persians! [dance] MMOR. More temples.

I) Lots of cultural borders expanding.

8) 1130 AD: MMOR. Approaching the far west English cities.

9) 1140 AD: MMOR.

10) 1150 AD: MMOR. We destroy London (no culture).

Summary: Persia is destroyed. England has 3 cities left. 2 in the west and one on the island to our south. Japan has two cities left, but we are not currently at war. Our Riders are slogging through the jungles and mountains to reach the English cities. Two of our armies are in the upper west, positioning for the upcoming strike on Babylon. The catapults are waiting in Bactra for the same thing. Dockonda Bay is building a palace as a placeholder. We are now 237 tiles from domination victory.

The save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/ZF1-China-1150_AD.zip

 

[Padma]

Here is what the west end of our continent looks like: (All that jungle and those mountains really slow down an offensive!)

 

[ChrTh]

Are we at war with Babylon yet? If not, then I'll do the following: Conquer Japan and Britain in the West, then pincer Babylon...and somehow conquer that one goofy English city on our island.

I'll wait for commentary from Zed-F before playing. I'll be playing tomorrow night (Friday night in US).

 

[LKendter]

Hmmm.....
Looking at the mini-map, I suspect this one is almost over.
It looks like your biggest challenge is to get enough culture in place

 

[Zed-F]

Regarding the southwestern English & Japanese cities, there's too much jungle and not enough roads to make slogging through the jungle to get there with a major force worthwhile. (It might have been better to try to get some there by sea by rushing some caravels.) Most of our Riders should be heading for Babylon, not those south-western English and Japanese cities, anyway. Conquering Babylon would get us the needed territory for Domination much more quickly because of the clear terrain and roads in the area, and because Babylon represents a larger land area. Since those southwestern cities don't represent a threat, we can mop them up at our leisure; don't wait to go to war with the Babs until they are gone!

Specialists to combat weariness in far-flung colonies -- ok, since they are too far away to be valuable producers anyway, that seems ok. If it were in a core city, I'd say lux tax instead (or ending the war. )

Incidentally, why were we building Sistine? We don't need it for anything. It doesn't really matter since the game is over anyway, but the principle remains that more Riders might have helped speed up conquests a bit. Or some boats to bypass all that jungle with at least some of our Riders (though those can be rushed wherever.)

 

[Padma]

Caravels! D'oh! (Smacks hand into forehead.)

I was thinking of ferrying a couple riders down to our island to take care of that English city, but it never occurred to me to ferry them to western England!

And yes, the only reason I went for specialists was because they were in distant, forever-corrupt cities. If they had been closer to "home" I would've raised the lux tax.

 

[ChrTh]

See, if we'd invaded Zulu like I wanted, using boats would've been second nature by now

 

[Padma]

You've got a point, ChrTh.

BTW, we are NOT at war with Japan or Babylon at this point. We have a current Alliance with Babylon against the English, but I believe it is over 20 turns old, and can be cancelled at our convenience.