Luddite/Pindicator

[luddite]

So, I still think that combustion is the key tech for winning any water based map. To that end, here's the tech path that we're considering:

monotheism -> machinery -> guilds -> paper -> alphabet -> printing press -> construction -> engineering -> gunpowder -> chemistry -> sci meth (probably a bulb) -> banking -> rep parts -> steam power -> steel -> railroad -> combustion

Basically just a mad dash to get combustion as fast as possible. A lot of those should be one turn techs, and hopefully we'll get at least one merchant along the way, plus all our pillage gold from fierce. That would give us combustion in roughly 25-30 turns. Not bad considering we're currently fighting a war with horse archers and galleys! (although it also shows how ridiculous quick speed is).

Alternatively, if our next great person is a scientist, we could bulb education. I assume liberalism is out of reach, but we could maybe win the economics merchant. Another possibility is to take literature, music for the artist and get another golden age that way.

We could also go for astronomy or rifling, if it seems necessary. As long as Mackoti and NoSpace stay at war, I don't think it is. However, it would be nice to have a bunch of frigates prebuilt and ready to upgrade into destroyers as soon as we finish combustion.

I think we should go all out on great people soon. We can get one in 8 turns from the Villain, and another roughly 8 turns after that from HappyAnniv. I'd really like to get a 3rd somewhere, which means we should start it very soon. Maybe have Stay Hungry steal pigs from Cactus Jack, and run 4 specialists there.

[luddite]

Alright I think we've agreed that we need astronomy, if only for defense while we tech to combustion. We're also going to take a stab at economics- we should get our next great person early enough to help with it. 50 50 merchant or scientist.

[pindicator]

Next turn's up, and Fierce has stocked the capital full. 11 units in all. I'm tired and it's time for bed.

[pindicator]

Hey, if you get this an i'm not around, I think we should hit prague and regroup/gather forces for aachen. I think we can take it with the 3 HA, 4 axe, and 4 impi in range. He's got 2 archers, 3 spears & a chariot.

Go ahead and play the turn if you can't reach me, I need to step out. But i'm not playing it without your input.

[luddite]

ok i'm opening it now.
edit- save played. This was a major turn!

[luddite]

So, like Pindicator said, Fierce somehow managed to fill up his capital with elite reinforcements. Not good. Especially for a 60% hill city . Fierce must have really given Sian a good beating, to have all these units left over.


At least Prague was much easier. He still didn't have any axes there! Instead, he made another archer.


Since he didn't have any axes, I was able to use an impi to damage the first archer. After losing an axe to the second archer, they then had ~70 odds to take out the spears. In the end we took the city, losing just 2 axes and 1 impi, with assistance from two horse archers. And it still has a
courthouse!


After taking Prague, we had just enough room to build a road and bring all our wounded units up to join the main stack.

Here's where things got tough. I really wanted to attack his capital this turn, before he could whip more spears. I was starting to regret going for Vienna last turn! And all his wounded units were only going to heal and fortify more. But I also wondered if we should just wait for reinforcements.

Eventually, I noticed a small flaw in his defense. Since he promoted his two healthy axemen to formation, that meant that they would actually defend ahead of spears vs. horse archers. With his axemen wounded, I could use the impis to take out that horse archer, or wounded spears. So, I decided to go for it...

The first two died well (lots of damage)...
and then...


So after that (taking out his medic spear! How great is that?) I continued the assault, with everything. We got somewhat lucky at the end too, winning a battle with our own medic spear without taking any damage. I didn't have enough units to take the city, but we should take it easily next turn. Here's the situation after all the carnage:


That'll do pig. That'll do. And since his medic is gone, and all those units were already highly promoted, he can't even heal much this turn.

Overall we lost: 2 axes, 2 impis, 5 horse archers (with 2 withdraws). We killed: 5 spears, 3 axes, 2 archers, and a chariot.

[luddite]

Now, on the domestic front. We really need to get a move on with our great people. So I started running max specialists in stay hungry and HappyAnniv. It really hurts their growth (especially stay hungry, even after giving it the pigs from Cactus Jack) but I think it's worth it in the long run.





In the capital, I think you made a mistake when you calculated the hammers. The bureaucracy hammer bonus is just a regular multiplier- it doesn't change the base value the way the commerce bonus does. Since there's no way we can get it next turn, I took away some hill mines and gave it more grass cottages. Overall, all of our cities need to grow more, so i did a little tile shuffling to boost food.

I researched monotheism at 0%. Next turn we can convert. I'm thinking we switch to buddhism. The reason is that it's already in two good places (HappyAnniv and Aachen), so it'll help in setting up our new cities with courthouses. And, since yuris has the Buddhist shrine, it'll help him with shrine gold. Since he's on the opposite side from us, and borders NoSpace, I think he'll be a good long-term ally and we should try to help him.

Speaking of Yuris... he got a merchant this turn. I wonder if that was the economics merchant? Since we can't research economics, and neither of us has alphabet yet, there's no way to tell.

Other news.. let's see. I started building a fort canal in the northwest. I whipped a forge in T3. NoSpace built the great wall. No news yet from their war- I wonder how Mackoti is doing up there? Oh, and they built a pike in that undefended city, so no luck there.

Demos!


and even though it's not in the demos yet, we're now the leaders in pop and land!

[pindicator]

In the capital, I think you made a mistake when you calculated the hammers. The bureaucracy hammer bonus is just a regular multiplier- it doesn't change the base value the way the commerce bonus does.

Yeah, that was what I was banking on. Well that sucks, but we should still nab the wonder, just a turn later. If we lose it by a turn...


But awesome job with the war! I won't do any I-told-you-sos about skipping Vienna, because it looks like we should be able to take the capital next turn anyway. After that it's all mop up. So once again the hammer value worked out fairly even. We lost 257 hammers of troops (nice to see some good luck with two withdrawls, too!) and killed 237 hammers worth of units. So just a little south of breaking even, but that is still really considering we have zero siege.


I'm wait until after parthenon comes in and then calculate when we can expect our next 3 great people. Which town do you want to establish as the long-term great person farm? I'm thinking it should be HappyAnniv - or possibly Vienna.

[luddite]

But awesome job with the war! I won't do any I-told-you-sos about skipping Vienna, because it looks like we should be able to take the capital next turn anyway. After that it's all mop up. So once again the hammer value worked out fairly even. We lost 257 hammers of troops (nice to see some good luck with two withdrawls, too!) and killed 237 hammers worth of units. So just a little south of breaking even, but that is still really considering we have zero siege.

thanks

I'm wait until after parthenon comes in and then calculate when we can expect our next 3 great people. Which town do you want to establish as the long-term great person farm? I'm thinking it should be HappyAnniv - or possibly Vienna.

Since we've had so few great people so far (just 2) and our only gpp bonus for a while will be the parthenon, I don't think we should have a single great person farm. I'd like to run specialists in HappyAnniv, Vienna, StayHungry, and The Villian.

The question is, when should we research literature? And should we try for music? If we do research lit then I'd probably build the national epic in HappyAnniv, since it has such a monstrous food surplus.

[luddite]

I've been thinking a lot about how we can fight NS7 when the inevitable conflict goes down. Naval units will dominate, of course. Unfortunately, they're now getting iron from somewhere- probably one of their islands. That means that it won't be too long before they can start building frigates.

The situation up north is particularly difficult. If they build a fort on that oasis, they could stash a fleet of galleons there, and all four of our northern cities would be in range of an amphibious strike (although cactus jack would require a navigation promo to reach it).


If we can find where they're getting iron from, there's a small possibility we could raze it or blockade it. But that's probably not gonna happen. Assuming we can't, we'll want to destroy charon as quickly as possible- that city is way too close to us. If we can't do either one, there's no way we can defend all four of our northern cities. We'd have to abandon Scavenger Hunt, at the very least.

One other, riskier, possibility would be to try a ruse. We could keep our fleet hidden-say, in Hercules- then try and bait them into attacking Red Sonja. we could sail out through a canal and destroy all their transports, wounded units, and escort ships. That would be worth losing a minor city, I think.

But this is all just idle speculation while I'm waiting for the save.