RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Mali

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Since shadyforce made peace with regoarrarr, this freed up his army, and he was able to use it to capture Sicca. His army is now moving towards Kerkouane. Meanwhile, my fleet of 3 galleys (and caravels to guard them) moved through the channel between Elkad and me. They could have dropped their contents off 1NE of Carthage (Elkad's capital), but Elkad had sufficient defenses by then so they continued around to the south of Carthage. They are meeting up with 2 galleys that came around the south of the Naya penninsula.

I started research on Steel on turn 146. There was some debate on whether we should head for Rifles or Cannons first. I kind of made the decision for us by sticking to Steel research. I'm not sure if it was the correct choice, but I don't think it was too detrimental. Getting Rifling is really great because you can draft Rifles for one population. On the other hand Cannons are really great because of all the collateral damage they do. I went with Cannons because we could get there quicker (we just needed to research Steel, as opposed to Replaceable parts and Rifling).

During turn 149, shadyforce sent the following email to our alliance:

Hi guys,

Myself and Rego have been chatting and we've come up with a suggested plan. We are both concerned about Elkad's continued golden age feulled research and him (and thus the other alliance) getting Rifling only a few turns after we get it ourselves. We reckon that we have a window of about 20 turns to either seriously cripple or preferably kill Elkad off. And this needs to be done without Rifles.

This plan is independent of Rego's war with Exploit, of Kodii's plans to retaliate against and capture a few cities of Munro's and also of mine and Daniel's existing plan to try and sneak a raze of a Carthiginian city. Please continue with these plans also.

Since Daniel has about 6 turns left of Steel, we reckon that with a bit of preperation we can have a sizeable army of Cannons 2 turns after we research steel, giving us the next 10 turns to try and finish off Elkad with that army. The plan is thus:

- Kodii, finish Nationalism but then hold off researching Military Tradition. Instead save as much gold as possible along with myself and Sunrise.
- Myself, Daniel and Rego plan to have about 5 Cannons each by T+2 after steel. To do this:
--- Pre-build Trebuchets to upgrade using the saved gold (it is only 80g vs 170g for Cats)
--- Have part-built Trebs in build queues ready to be auto-upgraded.
--- Whip lots of stuff in the 2 turns after Steel comes in.

We can combine these Cannons with my existing stack and a few drafted muskets. Load some onto boats and land them along with some guerrilla muskets on that hill near Utica. Etc.

Thoughts/comments?

Regoarrarr replied:

I will have my 5 cannons, at least.

I think this is key. As I was talking with Brian - the main problem with Elkad getting rifles is not that Elkad gets rifles, it's that EVERYONE gets rifles. We really don't want to deal with Yaz, Munro, Imhotep, etc drafting rifles. BTW I checked and on this map, Nationhood lets you draft *5* rifles per turn.

Sunrise, when you get back to your Civ computer next week, we'll want you to work with us to draft up a detailed campaign plan

I thought it was a great plan. I worked out a plan where (assuming I can finish Steel on turn 155) I can unload 5 cannons next to Carthage on turn 157. On turn 156 I'll drop 4 Maces, 2 Knights, 2 Elephants, and 2 Catapults next to Carthage, and follow up on turn 157 with 5 cannons and an assortment of weaker, outdated troops. I think this has a good chance of capturing Carthage, especially combined with simultaneous attack in the North from regoarrarr and shadyforce. It will be interesting to see how this goes and whether we can prevent Elkad from finishing Rifling and gifting it to the other members of his alliance.

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Turn 150/800 AD - Stable finished in Isengard, start Trebuchet (due in 1 turn). Library finished in Bant, put overflow into University. Double-whip Trebuchet in Strong Badia. Whip Harbor in Jund. Workers start quicker road path from Sullla to Naya, which will let the Cannons all arrive on time. Wolf 359 will be my Globe Theatre city, so Chopin starts building a farm there. Switch Root Canal to Knight. Switch Albuquerque to Trebuchet. It will be double-whipped on turn 152. Triple-whip University in CBP. Whip Theatre in Zendikar, so when Wolf 359 finishes its Theatre next turn it can immediately start the Globe Theatre. Modify tiles various cities are working so that ETA for Steel stays at turn 155. Blockade Carthage.

I sent the following message to our alliance:

I need 35 gold to continue researching at 100% this turn. I've requested the money from both rego and kodii, one of you needs to accept before the turn is up.

I need a total of about 185 gold per turn to finish Steel on turn 155. This is a total of 740 gold through turn 154. On turn 155, I will need 320 gold to upgrade 4 Trebuchets to Cannons. I imagine shadyforce and rego will also need a significant amount of gold to do their upgrades. I think Kodii will finish Nationalism at the end of this turn, after which he can go 100% gold along with shadyforce and sunrise.

Will we have enough gold? Can each of you estimate your expenses through turn 156 or so as well as how much gold you will need or be able to generate per turn?

My attack plan is to unload a batch of units 1W of Carthage on turn 156, and follow up with another batch (including 5 Cannons) on turn 157. The first batch of units will include 4 Maces, 2 Knights, 2 Elephants, and 2 Catapults. The second batch of units will include 5 Cannons, 1 Knight, 1 Horse Archer, 1 Axe, 1 Spear, and 1 Catapult.

What is the ETA for your attacks? It may be important that they come at the same time, otherwise Elkad may be able to deal with my attack first and then move defenders to the North to defend against shadyforce and regoarrarr.

Daniel

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It's turn 150, let's do an overview of my empire!

This is Sullla, my capital city. It's sort of a hybrid city right now, fueled by the Bureaucracy bonuses. I stopped whipping it a while back and hired two scientists instead, which will result in a Great Scientist on turn 155. When I switch out of Bureaucracy, this won't be such a great science city, so instead of building an Academy with the scientist, I'm planning to start a Golden Age and switch to Nationhood and Free Market. I'll fire the scientists and start focusing more on production in this city.

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This is Isengard. It was my second city, and was founded on turn 39. It has a single flood plains tile and no other food resources. However, it had a lot of forests around it which I was able to chop in order to get The Great Lighthouse on turn 59. The extra trade routes from the Great Lighthouse have really helped my economy. I think they've fueled most of my research, and new coastal cities that I found will pay their upkeep immediately due to the extra trade routes.

I've been using Isengard as my military pump, and completed the Heroic Epic there a few turns ago.

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My third city was ChironBetaPrime (often abbreviated as CBP in my turnlogs). It was founded on turn 63. Originally I was planning to settle much more aggressively towards m_h/kodii. The site I was planning would have been coastal and grabbed some more land, but it wouldn't seal off my borders like ChironBetaPrime did, so I realized that this location was more prudent. It was fortunate that I did, because soon after that the Threesome of shadyforce, m_h/kodii, and me was formed, which might not have happened if I had antagonized m_h/kodii by settling so close to them.

In this city, I've mostly been whipping Settlers or Workers every 10 turns, and building Confucian Missionaries in between. Since it doesn't have a huge surplus of food, this has kept the city fairly small (I just whipped it down from size 6 to size 3 this turn). It is the only non-coastal city I have besides my capital, and I think now I need to convert it into my top science city by building a bunch of cottages, letting the city grow, and building Oxford University in it.

ChironBetaPrime is also the holy city for Confucianism, but I don't think I'll be able to get a great prophet to build the shrine.

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Albuquerque was my fourth city, and was founded on turn 76. It has the Moai Statues, as well as two food resources and a copper resource, so it has been able to grow even though I whip it every ten turns.

ZPV founded Leptis across the water to the northwest, and due to Albuquerque's culture I was able to see what his defenses were and raze it. Later Elkad founded a city on the same site, which shadyforce recently captured.

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Wolf 359 was founded on turn 89. It was an aggressive settlement near Ruff's Borg civilization, but shortly after it was founded the UTA/NUTA alliance lines were formed and he converted his civilization into the less threatening Dullards.

I grew this city to size 2, then gifted it to Kodii so he could chop/whip out a cheap Forge/Mint for me. Then when I got the city back I built the Colossus in it, which has certainly helped my research.

Since I broke off from the NUTA, Wolf 359 is once again possibly in the line of attack from Munro and Imhotep. I'm planning to build the Globe Theatre here, and in support of that build a few more farms. Right now my defense here is pretty thin, but Munro has very little army, and Imhotep doesn't seem very invested in the game so I don't *think* I will have to worry about an attack in the near future.

[Swiss Pauli]

Thanks for the overview

[dsplaisted]

Thanks for the overview

I've still got 10 more cities to cover

Thanks for the comment, keep the lurker feedback coming and hopefully it will help motivate me to keep my thread reasonably updated.

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Root Canal was founded on turn 95. I thought that it might be important to have a canal to connect the two bodies of water, but so far it hasn't been. Still, it's a good city location. I gifted it to m_h/kodii and had them chop out a cheap Mint for it.

It's located across from shadyforce's capital, which is the reason I built so many culture producing buildings in it. Its infrastructure is pretty much complete for now, so my plan is to pump out military units from it, whipping it every 10 turns.