Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[Zalson]

Looking at your screenshot of Inky, I would probably have farmed the plains tiles, grown the city, then reworked them. As is, growth onto the watermills and hill will be quite slow. Or if you could borrow one or both of the farmed flood plains tiles for a few turns, although that would heavily impact the city currently using them.

We have a bajillion workers so we should plains farm to size and then, hopefully, have state property watermills to fill in the gaps.

[Brian Shanahan]

Ok, looking at the save, Mansa has gotten Liberalism, as he's in Free Religion.

I think that ties our hands somewhat here, as we have to take the fight to him before he pulls away. My plan is to take the two turns to take Tolosa, three to raze Bagacum and take the best peace with Boudica after that. And then I wheel north to hit Mansa as hard as I can, or leave the next player in a position to hit Mansa if I'm short on units. And there's quite a few whipping opportunities out there for me too.

Question: Do scouts provide MP duty if you build them, they're the only cheap units for our new cities, otherwise it's Longbows on the borders with obsoletes falling back.


Sorry for the lateness in getting to this, was busy last night cooing over my best friend's three month old son.

[RefSteel]

Mansa doesn't have Lib. He has the SP. (The wonder that allows all religious civics - including Free Religion - like the 'mids does for Government civics.)

Scouts don't provide MP.

[shallow_thought]

Ok, looking at the save, Mansa has gotten Liberalism, as he's in Free Religion.

I think that ties our hands somewhat here, as we have to take the fight to him before he pulls away. My plan is to take the two turns to take Tolosa, three to raze Bagacum and take the best peace with Boudica after that. And then I wheel north to hit Mansa as hard as I can, or leave the next player in a position to hit Mansa if I'm short on units. And there's quite a few whipping opportunities out there for me too.

Question: Do scouts provide MP duty if you build them, they're the only cheap units for our new cities, otherwise it's Longbows on the borders with obsoletes falling back.


Sorry for the lateness in getting to this, was busy last night cooing over my best friend's three month old son.

Mansa doesn't have Lib.  He has the SP.  (The wonder that allows all religious civics - including Free Religion - like the 'mids does for Government civics.)

Scouts don't provide MP.

I think I forgot to report this, but Mansa picked up Taoism in the middle of my last turn set (sorry, have just gone back to check, and no, I didn't mention it). I'm assuming he is likely to beat us to liberalism. OTOH, that means he'll probably dump hammers into universities on the way, while we can build units.

Brian's plan still seems quite sound to me despite the fact that we don't (yet) need to panic; the only question is whether we have time / units to try to grab Bibracte and really cripple Boudicca before turning on Mansa.

EDIT: Thanks for the advice about plains. As I understand, use farms to grow faster / allow whipping, then stagnate on something more useful, assuming enough worker labour (obviously true for any food poor city with hindsight, plains are just a special case).

[Brian Shanahan]

Mansa doesn't have Lib.  He has the SP.  (The wonder that allows all religious civics - including Free Religion - like the 'mids does for Government civics.)

Scouts don't provide MP.

Oops didn't cop to that. I'll look at taking a more thorough bite out of Boudica then.

[Brian Shanahan]

Have played the save.

High points, took Tolosa, got Oromos, and they are coming off the production line, Camolodunum is almost ready for the Globe and Draft Camp status. We got a Great General who's sitting outside Bean a Sidhe.

Meh points, we're at a stage where attacking Boudica is painful and stupid, her defences are too good. My tech was I dunno.

Bad points, I lost three workers through stupid by Durnovaria. I overwhipped Rasputin and Slimer, and I managed to build a stable in Inky without even knowing it.

We can get peace with Boudica on the following terms:



I think we should take it, get Cannons (we're on Steel, the relevant tech) and go tear Mansa a new one. Even though Boudica's effectively gassed Mansa's not much stronger than her. Yes, Bagacum's a junk city, but it's crumple zone and culture protection for our southern outposts.

The last turn is half played, so look very carefully at the units and builds.

I don't know, I just feel a bit iffy about this turn set.

[taotao]

Sounds like somewhat slow, but nonetheless steady progress    

If you believe that you can hurt Mansa with what you’ve got, then taking peace now with Boudicca might be a decent idea. Bagacum as crumple zone might not be bad, but is there any other better city in the north that you could get instead??

Camulodunum seems like a nice draft location. Two things though: how long will it take for you to get Globe functional, I don’t think the city had much production or forests left? If you’re putting effort into building a draft camp, should you be beelining rifling rather than (admittedly awesome) cannons?

Also a warning from my shadow game: Is there any risk of an apostolic palace resolution giving Camu back to the Celts? Personally I managed to survive that resolution with like 10 votes to spare when I had just attacked Mansa and didn’t have the happy to defy it…

Speaking of which, if anyone’s interested in alternate realities I’ve done a small report on how I’ve approached the game:

This was t165.
 
All cities were settled by myself apart from Bagacum and Gergovia. Boudicca had declared with Gallics just as I built tGLh and was about to get maces and I figured those two cities would have a reasonable payback without causing negative diplo.

Tech wise I was 1t from Nationalism (for Taj mainly). After I had built MoM (somewhat late) I set off my 1GP-GA to switch into Bureau, had a short break (in which I took the celtic cities) before starting the second GA and then followed up with Taj and 3GP-GA for good measure.

After Nationalism my tech path was: HBR (for stables), Liberalism->MilTrad, archery (to pre-build ha’s), ->Gunpowder, Engineering, -> Rifling.

T180 I attacked Mansa with about 10 cuirs in the first wave and lots more to come. Got Timbuktu t181, but then stalled while pushing back several stacks of phants, maces and assorted trash. Only last turn (t189) I managed to get Djenne. I’m about 4-5t from Cavs and I reckon that that’s about the only tech I’ll need to finish this game off though it’ll still take a while before I really start to pick up momentum.

One fun thing I’ll be using is to attach GGs to trebs to make them take Morale (+accuracy). Perhaps a  bit overkill when opponents haven’t gotten muskets yet, but might speed up some captures if I can use slightly injured units.

Update: I believe morale-accuracy trebs can be quite good in MP. Here they were helpful, but not all that amazing due to the AIs flavour of building lots of castles...

In the end Mansa was the only one to really give me a fight. Boudicca rolled over easily and the same could be said of Charlemagne (didn't finish him off completely, but got the cap in one of the last turns). Monty (that had taken 3 of Isabellas core cities) and Qin had somewhat more troops, but as neither got to anything better than knights they weren't all that much of a problem either.
Managed a domination win on t211.

[haphazard1]

Interesting stuff, TaoTao, thanks for posting about your take on this game. I don't think I have ever attached a general to a siege unit -- might have to think about that.

On the main game, it is an interesting choice: peace with Boudica so you can hit Mansa sooner, or finish off the troublesome Celts while they are down and their available forces are depleted? Mansa is certainly the more dangerous threat overall, but leaving Boudica alive to perhaps cause still more trouble later just does not sit well with me. (I tend to be vengeful about being declared on, though. ) You are working on Steel and cannon will make a huge difference in your ability to attack, so even though progress against Boudica is difficult right now that should change. How quickly can you get a significant number of cannon into the field? Powerful as they are, it takes decent numbers of them to really tip the balance. And they are not cheap to build.

Taotao's warning about the AP is a good point to keep in mind, especially if attacking Mansa shifts the vote balance against you. What do the current diplo situation and vote totals look like?

[Brian Shanahan]

Interesting stuff, TaoTao, thanks for posting about your take on this game. I don't think I have ever attached a general to a siege unit -- might have to think about that.

On the main game, it is an interesting choice: peace with Boudica so you can hit Mansa sooner, or finish off the troublesome Celts while they are down and their available forces are depleted? Mansa is certainly the more dangerous threat overall, but leaving Boudica alive to perhaps cause still more trouble later just does not sit well with me. (I tend to be vengeful about being declared on, though. ) You are working on Steel and cannon will make a huge difference in your ability to attack, so even though progress against Boudica is difficult right now that should change. How quickly can you get a significant number of cannon into the field? Powerful as they are, it takes decent numbers of them to really tip the balance. And they are not cheap to build.

Taotao's warning about the AP is a good point to keep in mind, especially if attacking Mansa shifts the vote balance against you. What do the current diplo situation and vote totals look like?

Mansa's in Free Religion, so he's got half votes, Boudica's still in Jewism, so I don't think anybody'll propose cities back to her (especially as she's something like 6 votes). There were no votes called for in my set at all, so I can't give the current numbers (well not without booting the game up in BUG mode anyway). I reckon we'll probably have the highest tally, simply because we're pushing food heavily everywhere, and all our cities are Hindu, thanks to spreads and good work by Shallow_Thought and Zalson on conversions.

Regarding switching focus from Boudica, I'm not that worried about vengeance, and she cannot bother us in her current situation, provided we leave a decent corps of defenders on the border cities. Swallowing Mansa will give a lot of useful wonders (he planted the Spiral Minaret during my set) and the world religion's shrine. Strategically if we're going for domination or conquest, he is the domino that gives us the winning position. Then we can wreck vengeance on the Sassenach.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for the delay in the full report, medieval war always depresses me no end.

Inherited turn:

Did a lot of whipping, queued up a few theatres (actually have gone over the limit on these, but as they are half price, they are a cheap source of happy).
Whipped the settler in Moura Encatada.

Turn 181
More whipping, including a longbow I queued in last turn in Inky, for defence (I slowly moved him to the Celtic front over the next few turns, rotating units back from more front line cities).
Put a market in Ioi, as it's more of a commerce location than anything else.
Durnovaria's temple was whipped last turn, I put it on the Monastery this turn (I'll later whip that into the forge).
Founded Casper, wasn't too sure on where to put it, so stuck it in the Needs CS location with most work done so far:

The merchant we had (which I didn't cop til now) arrived in Aachen. Looking at the results I decided the gold from trade mission was best, using it to fuel research for my set.

Turn 182

Go all in on Tolosa, both my catapults strip defences (which I was doing last turn too) and after my C2 knight wins on 68% odds there's no hairy battle left. Though a CR2 Axe loses to a catapult at 89.2%.
City comes with Granary and Aquaduct, so I queue a theatre for more culture and happy down the line.

Turn 183

My biggest Derp moment, I lose two workers to a HA from the fog by Durnovaria, didn't cover them. If I'd even stuck the pike on them they'd be still here. The pike revenged them, without a scratch, but that was locking the stable gate after the horse bolting.
A stack composed of War Elephants, Axes and Catas appeared outside Camolodunum, I took a chance and attacked out on a War Elephant with our Knight there, winning at 30% odds or thereabouts. I decided not to attack further, and whipped a Longbow in the city from scratch.
I moved a ministack up against Bibracte, which later distracted this stack into the city.

Turn 184

This turn started with Diplomacy when Qin very cheekily asked us for a donation:

I naturally told him that we're still on the barter system.
Then Izzy came calling:

Despite the highlight, I said yes to that and furthermore I asked her "how much will you give me for my little fishies?" and this deal ensued:

Somehow I managed to queue a stable in Inky, which completes now.
Trebs begin rolling off the lines in the higher production cities. I think I build close to ten during the set, with a few more to complete shortly after

Turn 185
Gunpowder comes in, I chose Chemistry (for Steel). Look at my production cities and start queueing Oromos.
At this stage I overwhip Rasputin, through a weedy misclick
Mansa gets the Spiral Minaret.
At this stage I pulled ministack back from Bagacum to the forest two tiles from the city. With my defensive units fortified, I pop out one of the knights every turn to watch Boudica's stack in the city. It doesn't budge.

Turns 186 to 190
The last four turns were mostly either moving units to Bibracte then bombing down the walls (I got two turns in 100% to 76%), building units and buildings, whipping where judicial slow building where not, investigating Bagacum.
On turn 187 I get a Great General (Pachauti) in Caleuche from killing a stranded elephant with a pike near Bibracte. He's resting near Bean a Sidhe.
In terms of units I've built five Oromos. I'd suggest building a whole round of Oromos from anything with production, and then using our main hammer cities to pull out Oromos, with intermediate cities going Trebs for now.
Chemistry came in on turn 190, but we've only 76 gold at the moment. 0% research with as much cash as possible for a few turns before getting Steel.

Post game screenshots
Power values

As I said, Mansa's not much better than a gassed Boudica (If only we could get someone to back stab her, but that's not happening).
Demographics:

Outside of Gold, we're in very strong shape here. Our food and hammer situations are way better than anybody elses.
And finally the victory screen:

I'd say Mansa'll go culture if we don't stop him.

After stepping away from the game overnight, and looking back in today for the last few screenies, I'm actually fairly happy with the results. The stack in Bagacum probably should have bypassed the city for Bibracte a few turns back, as it has the siege our main stack needs for penetration. But aside from that our war with Boudica is shaping out well, and my thinking on peace is that we don't want it quite yet, especially if we can get some more siege to Bagacum in the next set.
Mansa is a worry still, but I actually think we'll run him over fairly quickly once we have sufficient gunpowder and cannon units. He really does have a glass jaw this game.