It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[haphazard1]

I do wonder what caused Shaka to come after us. He is aggressive, but we are not a particularly weak target. Nor do have a different religion; we have none, compared to everyone else having a different faith than Shaka's Confucianism. And we do not have close borders. Other possible targets would seem more likely.

[Zalson]

T224
Attacked with the knight and flanked 6 catapults while killing the impi. Now the problem is that he has more than enough catapults to break me. Just hope he bombards to 0 first.



T225
Thank goodness for the AI.



I did lose a horse archer trying to flank some catapults. I think I have enough units to hold the city through next turn.



T226
Just barely enough units.



The horse archer immunity to first strikes allows us to lose a samurai at 80% odds. But to be honest, I should have tried the fight.

To celebrate: PaperBoy



Don’t worry, I’m not going to take the corn away from SMB. We’ll grow slowly on the wines until I can get a farm up.

Goodbye sweet prince.



Don’t worry, I’m just not showing the barb situation. It’s lots of things like this.



T227
The worker is gone. And Rome takes Gao.

Mansa may be folding but I don’t think we can take a 60% Defense Holy City on a Hill without trebuchets. I think that Mansa is gassed, though.



T228
Let’s have a golden age.



Convert to buddhism and organized religion. Don’t worry, I aim to be ready when JC comes back. We need to have a secure flank with Gilgamesh, at least. (our big stack is sitting by Flindo's Quest).

And if he’s friendly, maybe we use him to take Rome down a peg.

T229
Mansa asks for guilds. He is dying so I say: “OK”

T230
And with that, the turnset is over.

Shaka is extremely weak but won’t talk because he’s Shaka. Meanwhile, JC has gunpowder and continues to scream ahead with his large, well-developed core.

I’ve got 2 settlers out and headed up toward the north. That should be our primary avenue of expansion for a while.

My, isn’t a golden age nice? It's nice to be able to research instead of spending all my gold desperately upgrading troops on the frontline.



Power levels.



We have 4 cities without buddhism; we should make sure we spread it AND the AP religion everywhere.

Other than that, cities should try to put out knights, catapults, and samurai to take down Julius Caesar when he comes for us. because he is coming for us.



Don’t neglect defenses in the west though. Willem doesn’t like us and we are technically at war with Shaka.

We also may want to try to steal our way back through JC. We make a lot of EP a turn.

[haphazard1]

Considering how this game has developed, maybe we should have just played Always War after all?

Looks like a lot of good work is getting done, Zalson.

Who is up at this point? Between people unavailable and such, I am unclear. Is it around to me again? (I was listed as on deck after the previous set, but RFS-81's status was unclear.)

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm back (well in about seven hours after work & driving home) today, so if I can take the save if it makes it easier.

From looking at the report, I think our next target has to be Iulius.

[haphazard1]

Brian, if you could take the save that would be appreciated. I have a busy couple of days ahead, but should have time in the first half of next week.

[RFS-81]

I have this evening, and tomorrow, so I think I'll be able to finish my turnset before leaving on Sunday.

I've got questions:
1) What's the conqueror's plateau for city maintenance?
2) What's WHEOUHRN?

Also, I need to get more familiar with the espionage system I guess. Any tips?

EDIT: Forgot to refresh before posting. I'd like to get in a turn set before I'm away.

[haphazard1]

It sounded like Brian was still some hours from being home and able to play. So if RFS-81 is able to grab the set, that is OK by me. Brian might have some thoughts.

AAnswers to questions:

1) The conqueror's plateau is a result of how city maintenance costs work. There are two main components: number of cities cost and distance cost. You can see the values if you hover over the maintenance cost in the city screen, and there is also a breakdown for them in the financial advisor screen. (There are some additional categories of city maintenance that only happen with certain options on, like overseas colony costs, or with corporations which come in the late game.)

Number of cities cost is driven by (obviously enough ) how many cities you have. This factor means that maintenance costs go up in your existing cities as you found new cities; not only do you add the maintenance cost of the new city itself but costs go up in all your existing cities as well. This is why it can be very easy to crash your economy by founding cities. But there is a maximum cap for number of cities, which I belive depends on the map size and difficulty level, and maybe also on game speed? Not sure on that last one. But once you hit the cap, new cities no longer increase maintenance in your existing cities and only add their own cost. This is referred to as the conqueror's plateau as you usually reach it by conquering lots of cities. Highlands is one of the map scripts with so much land that you can hit the plateau just by founding cities peacefully.

Once you reach the plateau, adding more cities does not scale your costs as quickly, making it easier to continue expanding. We have reached it at this point. The way to check is to look at some of your larger cities (small cities do not cost as much and may not show the effect until they grow bigger) and see if the 'number of cities' component is always the same round number. In our case you will see that this component is 6.00 for all our larger cities, so they have hit the plateau.

2) The dreaded WHEOOHRN is an acromym for "We have enough on our hands right now" which you may have seen AI leaders give as the their reason for not wanting to declare war on someone in the diplomacy screen. This means that they have already decided to go to war with someone; this is why they refuse to even consider starting a new war. It is a way to check their intentions and get early warning that a declaration is coming. Note that you have to know at least one other AI that the leader you want to check also knows, so you can hover over the other leader's name on the diplo screen in the section for "declare war on X."

WHEOOHRN does not tell you who the leader is planning to declare on, although it is often possible to guess from their diplo status with other leaders. It could be they are planning to attack someone you have not met, but that they are in contact with. Also, AIs can stay in WHEOOHRN mode for a very long time without actually declaring, and it is possible for them to change their minds. Rare, but possible.

For espionage tips, hopefully someone else can offer some info. I know some basics, but there are a ton of factors that affect espionage odds and costs. It is possible to do a lot with spies, everything from forcing civic swaps to stealing money and tech to adding culture to cities. One common use is also to cause city revolts to eliminate the city defense bonus before attacking, so you can move fast and attack without needing siege units.

Most games I prefer not to invest in the espionage slider and rarely have enough EP to do a lot of active spying. but if you build the Great Wall you will often generate some great spies and then a whole bunch of fun things can be done without spending lots of commerce that could have gone into research instead.

[shallow_thought]

Espionage can be considered a bit cheesy, but one active spy mission can do is put an enemy city into revolt. Amongst other things, this drops the cultural defense to zero. So, if we did want to hit Mansa's holy city, that's an option we could consider.

I have a feeling that is exactly what Brian, Zalson and I did against Mansa in our last SG...

[RFS-81]

Thanks for explaining! What about tech stealing? I think Zalson was suggesting that against Julius.

[Zalson]

Roster

Zalson (just played)
RFS-81 (UP)
haphazard1
Brian Shanahan
shallow_thought


RFS-81, did you want to switch with Brian?

Tech stealing: a little bit like Master of Orion but with additional tactical elements.

Basically, you can spend espionage points against an opponent (all game long). If you have a spy unit in a city (pick one close to you with the same religion etc), you can take actions against the city, including stealing technology.