GeneralKilCavalry and thestick talk it out

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Update from last turn:

There's clearly something on the other side (look at the color change) and therefore a good opening to make this game really go for the better - start settling islands out there. Hopefully, there's more than one.




This city is next. It will be pretty productive, I'd put some workshops here?


Our next power spike.


We can't let Rask get away with getting all the wonders, superdeath getting all the land, and Cairo doing Cairo shit.


Proud of ya, TBW.


1 clear leader.


Clear leader, with us as leader of the remaining pack. We need a few more cities in jungle.


Not sure how to interpret this. Cairo got scared and built a bunch of units?

Not much of a tech difference, but I'm not sure if the other alliance did any trades. It looks like we'll be a round or so of techs behind them...

[thestick]

T109 Report

The Roman empire is slowly sliding into irrelevance, frankly. Due to our Cairo war scare, we've been cranking units like crazy, and the effects of the whipping are becoming apparent:

   

   

   

Raskol has jumped into a clear second place, with his pile of wonders, the Hanging Gardens, and a skeleton military. Meanwhile, our food is flat, and we're sliding into 4th place behind TBW.

   

We're going to land the Great Lighthouse in two turns, which will help some, but I doubt that we'll be able to get a large enough tech edge (knights) to conquer someone.

I suspect some of this can be chalked up to the boring missionary/WB micro. Here's Rome, which has crabs second ring, but we built a Barracks instead of a Missionary.

   

Techwise, we're in a good spot, at least.

   

So what can we do, besides the standard Civil Service beeline? Jungle settling and growth, plus a bunch of Missionary/Forge/Lighthouse whips? Try to get Cairo on our side so we can all team up against the runaways of SD and Raskol? I don't know.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

I think it might be possible to hit Cairo if Cairo does not attack us. We have two settlers on the move. We can send one to plant in Cairo’s face and attack. Although, attacking with single-movers against HA’s might be very stupid. Cairo is stupidly dragging himself down along with us. He has 11 horchers according to TBW this turn - so I think we are safe and can build something other than military after we use this whip overflow.

Cairo does lack construction, and a few cats and war elephants, along with the usual praets could be disastrous to someone with a bunch of unpromoted horse archers.

This map was just too big for an easy praet rush, and being the one in the alliance surrounded by enemies hurts us.

We’re also getting our academy in two turns. This should let us blaze thru feudalism.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Great lighthouse next turn for about 20-25 extra commerce.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

We landed it!

About 20~ extra commerce there, low end of what I expected, but we don't have OB with Cairo - otherwise we'd be rolling in cash (speaking of which, someone is -80 on imports, yikes!)



Demos at 0% and 100%. 100% is a better comparison since SD is also currently researching tech, and we are ahead. I think after dry-finishing priesthood, we can rush thru to bureaucracy, and get a boost out of that, and get machinery from TBW, or even research it ourselves if need be (T130 for next set of trades, we probably will need that long to get COL + feud + bureaucracy).


I plan to line up a series of luxury deals with TBW and gavagai, i offered TBW wine + spices for silver, and hopefully gav connects another silk in exchange for our 3rd wines. This will net us up to +4!!! extra happiness in certain cities with both forums and forges.

We still have a lot of happy cap to grow into, especially at Arcole, so I expect our CY to get much more competitive as our three island city, and the recently founded peninsula and banana cities grow out - we're a bit slower on the final, peripheral stage of expansion than SD, but I think we're going to shoot up in CY soon...

I am not happy with our soldier count, but a few whips and pretty much incessant military production from lodi (after this work boat) will remedy that.

Finally,

Our academy is coming in soon. Our capital makes 40 commerce a turn, so that'll now be 70 beakers with library + academy - I think that's pretty decent. Without alphabet, we can't really get a decent bulb out of the GS, but I think our capital is so commerce-oriented and hammer-poor that we've no choice but to academy.

I think building a forum in Abukir next may be the right choice  - we need a golden age, and this will speed getting one by ~ 8 turns + give us a bit of happy cap and commerce, it will also take probaby as long to build it. Also gives us a merchant slot, so it will actually give more speed than that, it'll double the growth. (9*1.35~12 GPT vs 6 currently). We should use our UB for this benefit, whatever that's worth. It'll take 7-8 turns to build, with the chop coming in less.


Once again, Cairo has 12 HA's near our border. Apparently, unpromoted - our elephant can probably take on 3 of them on its own with normal odds.

[thestick]

T111 Report Extended

How much GPP are we getting in Lodi off of the Colossus/Great Lighthouse? After some military, we could build a Forum and force a Merchant to get a GM.

I think that for Abukir, we should build that Forum, but then backfill Meditation, build a Temple, and force a Priest instead of a Merchant. We can get a Great Merchant out of Lodi, but we'll be hard pressed for Great Prophet points for our shrine. Unless we want to go monk economy or something and build the AP, but frankly that will have to wait until post CS.

Looks like we'll run Abukir as our National Epic city. Friedland will take too long to get up to speed. There's tons of grassland, and if we farm over one of Toulon's cottages, we can spread irrigation post CS.

Hey, maybe we could negotiate with Gavagai to get into a phony war to farm EXP for the Heroic Epic in Lodi? It would wreck trade routes, but we already have 3 island cities for that. We have a 7 XP Praet from our campaign against the barb city.
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We've hit the natural limits of our expansion, barring some island cities. First Cumae in the south:
   

And Neapolis in the north:
   

Gavagai's borders are to the north and east of the city, so it looks like our landgrab is over for the moment. We are now tied with SD's for most cities (though his are obviously better developed), so if we can defend our borders and grow for a bit we should be able to climb back up in the rankings.

SD got Machinery and traded it around:
   

Crossbows require Construction which SD and Cairo lack, but they can research that pretty easily. Still, massed jumbos/cats/HAs will defend against anything this side of pikes. I think. Has that changed in the mod? Well, if things get really dicey, Feudalism is always an option.

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Long term, things are going to be tense with the landgrab over and enemies on two sides, but short-medium term, things are looking up, being tied for SD with the most cities and (apparently) a good economy.

Still think attacking against Cairo right now is a bad move, since a. we don't have a tech advantage and b. his HAs can cause havoc in our backlines. I remember nauf vs. SD back in... 45, was it? Where SD's HAs made nauf's Samurai war a pyrrhic victory.

I'm unfamiliar with this mod, what's a good tech advantage for conquest? Knights? Rifles? Plus we'll always have the shadow of a drafted musketeer/Cuirssair war in the Renaissance to worry about... those things are ugly, speaking from PBEM 48 experience. But that's a problem for another time.

[thestick]

And wow, Jena, our island future Moai city, is tied with Marengo for second-best commerce city. I guess that's the GL and Colossus coast.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

T130 trades will look something like us getting machinery for CS. We should be able to easily plow thru CoL and feud next, going on to CS - no contact from gavagai for over 40 turns. Silver for wines/spice deal is pushing our happy cap up nicely.

[thestick]

T116 Report

If we haven't had contact with Gav in a while, maybe we should trade with SD? I honestly have no idea what Gav's doing. He's near the bottom of Food/MFG/GNP.

Anyway, here's the slightly belated 1 AD overview.
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On the tech front, we've just finished CoL and are about to go Feudalism -> CS, which should finish ~T125-T130. Then we'll probably trade something to TBW for Machinery. Hopefully we can somehow get Aesthetics/Literature too, for the National Epic. Great Scientists for the Liberalism beeline would be very handy.

We're currently informally racing SD to be the first to CS. Our economy seems to be pretty good now.

The next Great Scientist for the HR/CS swap comes in in 24 turns at the moment, but GKC is right, we should probably force a Merchant in Abukir to get it faster, so the Golden Age comes around the time Bureaucracy comes.

MoM? Probably not worth it, our hammer cities are busy with infra and soldiers. Temple of Artemis for a Great Prophet/shrine?

   

   

Domestically, the health cap has been pushed up nicely. That happy cap can be pushed up if we get around to roading our Corn.

   

We seem to have risen back up to 3rd place, behind SD and Raskol, but above TBW, Gavagai, and Cairo.

   

   

   
I cheated on the GNP, we're 4th at 0%.

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Moving forward, Mercantilism probably isn't worth it due to our Great Lighthouse trade routes... then again, we have the full set of 3 islands. We definitely need to get to exploring the islands to the west. Hopefully when Rome's borders pop we can see more land out there.

Long-term, I'm not sure how we win this. Due to tech trading, it'll be hard for anyone to get a tech edge to conquer. SD is too powerful to partition with Gavagai, and frankly Gavagai is giving us the cold shoulder.

Our best expansion prospects are through Cairo. He definitely seems to be near last place, with near bottom Food and MFG. However, he probably can't be productively conquered in the medieval era (he's one tech from Feudalism) or in the Renaissance (musketeers). If we can make an economic miracle happen, maybe involving the GA and Liberalism, we can get cuirs vs. longbows? Unlikely, but one can dream.

If we hit Knights ~T140, we could always whip out a bunch of them and try to burn his front-line cities to knock him down a peg and get another line of cities to the east, then build up and come back for a full-on war of conquest with rifles/cavs, hoping that we get the 2v1 MFG advantage needed for conquest... we'd have to play the diplo game well to make sure SD doesn't intervene, though.

Turning on Gavagai is a 'shake things up' option since he still lacks Monarchy and thus can't research Feudalism, but a. it would require an alliance of convenience with SD, whom we don't really trust b. it would probably unsettle TBW, who has been our one good ally/trading partner in this game. His tip-off about Cairo's HA stack was well-timed and extremely helpful. So that will probably just have to remain a theoretical war plan in the back room for the moment.

So that seems to leave us with boring 'out-build,' which is a crapshoot. SD is playing well here, and he has the edge on us. Raskol is an unknown quantity, but he only has enemies on one side (TBW) since he seems to have an alliance (or at least tech trading partnership) with Cairo. Guess we just have to build, wait, and try to make a window of opportunity open when we hit the next level of military techs in maces/knights.

[thestick]

City pic dump Part 1, since apparently I can only attach 10 pictures per post. Too lazy to make them all inline.