RBP3 - [SPOILERS] - Team DIM (Mehmed of HRE)

[Ilios]

Dazed, any suggestions for a name for a new city?

[Ilios]

[SIZE="4"]Building a Horse Assembly Plant in Four Easy steps[/SIZE]

Step 1: Whip Forge



Step 2: Chop Heroic Epic



Step 3: Chop Stable



Step 4: Profit!



Obviously, I won't be able to build 1-turn Horse Archers every turn. DIM still needs to grow into those grassland forests. I'll alternate between cheap Archers for military police, and maybe a couple of spears, for maximum overflow into Horse Archers. Once DIM hits size 10-11, 1-turn units should be possible.

[Ilios]

I bring you the following screenshot, pissed off and feeling sorry for myself:



The northern city, Bordertown, was founded by the Incans last turn, and then gifted to us as a sort of deal for the multiple techs we'd given them.
On the same turn, a settler of ours founded Terminus, a nice city grabbing two food resources and stone.

I had sent a Horse Archer with the settler to serve as garrison.
Then the barb axe you can see in the middle of the screen popped in the small sliver of fogged land between DIM and Terminus.

I was about to ask Rome to move their axe next to the barb, hoping to tempt an attack, but as I was typing my email request, Sandover moved the his axe to the position you can see.
In hindsight, maybe I should have paused the game, allthough I'm not sure I would have been allowed to do that.

In any case, I had (maybe foolishly) decided I would move the Horse Archer outside of Terminus and try to take out the barb axe before it had a chance to move on the forest E of the city.

Needless to say, the Horse Archer failed miserably (it had a 77% chance of defeating the barb, with 4.5% chance of withdrawal, it failed both).
Portugal have already told me that they have no units in the area, and I doubt Rome has anything near...

This means that I will probably lose the city, as I cannot get any units there in time to take out the barb.

Just when I was feeling pretty good about our civilization, as I felt we had more than made up the settler loss in the beginning of the game, this happens!

I think next time I play one of these things I'll be voting "no barbs"...

Anyway, I'm building Parthenon in Midas, scheduled to fiinish T115. I'm actually pretty sure someone else will finish it before that date, since the required tech has been around for quite some time. I have 3 chops coming in at once on T114, worth 78 base beakers, so if/when Parthenon gets FIDL, I'll switch the build to settler to try and refound as soon as possible.

If by miracle I do land the wonder, I have DIM growing to size 10 on T114, and have it build a settler. Bureaucracy and another chop should get me settler in 2, maximum three turns.

And now, if you don't mind, I'll just go sit in a corner and feel some more sorry for myself...

[Ilios]

Parthenon should be finished next turn if all goes well. I suppose someone could finish it next turn as well, and I don't think it will be a dice roll, but that who gets the wonder depends on which order he appears at the Civ choice start screen when you connect to Pitboss 3. HRE is all the way at the bottom, so if Carthage, Maya or Portugal happen to finish Parthenon next turn as well, they will get it instead of HRE...

Everybody is nervous in the game, I think things are about to heat up...

DIM finished a LB to secure my future ex-city site. I'll be converging two chariots and a horse archer towards the site.
Those barbs won't get me a second time!!! (I hope)

I must the first player to lose a city to barbs in the current MP games...

[Ilios]

Late T125 update: (we're already at T127

First off, overview of the empire:



My core, with three mature cities. Now that I look at it, I think we should have founded both Midas and Singa closer to the capital.
I think Midas would have been better one tile NE, for a minimal overlap with the capital. But that would have required us going BW first instead of Farming-AH.
I'd have preferred Singa on the plains mine west of the small lake.
Both of these would have made a more compact empire that is easier to defend and improve.



The north. There's room for one more city between Inca and Rome, but since I'll be prioritising the east first, I probably will not get the site. As you can see I'm surrounded by Creative teams (Inca and it's dirt cheap Terrace counts as Creative to me).



The Far East. The vast steppes between the capital and the fertile river valley will probably only be claimed once I run out of other options or post-Biology.



The capital. As mentioned before, Heroic Epic built in the city for some nice multipliers (+175% when building units). Haven't whipped the city in ages, as I plan to simply grow into the remaining tiles, health/happiness allowing. I'll probably work another 2 plains mines to slow down growth until I can increase the he/ha cap. It's getting another third ring chop (24 base hammers) in a couple of turns so I can spam one turn Knights for a while.



Ah Midas, probably shouldn't have founded here first, even if it did an early boost to GNP because of the Gold tile. I finished Parthenon in here, and is currently the only other city besides the capital having a barracks. The city is spamming foot soldiers, and once it grows onto the grass hill mine, will have 15 hammers per turn (12+3)



Finishing National Epic in about 4-5 turns. I'll want to work 5 specialists, so at size 12 it would work: central tile + sheep + horse + wheat + grass farm + sugar + grassland river cottage + grassland forest (to get to 8 hammers for an extra hammer from the forge) with 1 food surplus per turn. I'd like to work the other grassland river cottage as well, since it's almost a village now I think, so I might grow the city to size 13, and delay my GP farm for a couple of turns (at 8 food surplus, shouldn't take more than 2-3 turns)



This is the second worker in a row the city is finishing. Forge + EXP means you just need to micro to multiples of two to get the extra hammer. I'll 1-pop whip the Library and then grow into new cottages for a surplus of 7 food, then grow into a pairing of plains farm and grasshill for the hammer bonus. Only 1 non river tile means levees are a must in this city. (I'm considering putting OxUn here instead of Midas, since it will be able to work more tiles eventually (Midas has 4 peaks), and isn't as exposed at the front.



Originally pegged as my HE city, it's growth has been a bit stumped because I've had to add cultural buildings before Forge and Barracks because of massive cultural pressure from the Ottomans cities. I've now gotten it expand its third ring (using Artist specialists), meaning it should be good for a while (since it is pumping 20+ culture in every tile of its BFC right now). Plan here is to 2 pop whip the Forge in a couple, then chop out a settler and grow onto every available tile while building units, after Barracks.



Designated as my Globe Theatre Draft camp. Ideal Draft Camp gets a 15 food surplus at size 6. (because then you can draft every turn) I haven't gotten any site that could produce that much food, so I'll have to make do with this one.
The plan is to build a forge, rathaus and barracks, and then wait for my empire to get the 8 theatres necessary on Huge to start on the Globe. I'll probably build units here while I wait for more theatres.



Rising from the ashes from a previously founded city of mine, NT has a lot of potential. It will become my waypoint to colonize the rest of the Eastern Wilds.



This city doesn't have a lot of food resources, but it claims Silk, which will give me another happy face. I'll probably farm the floodplains and a grassland river to get a decent food surplus, and should become a decent commerce city. Founded because it is a safe spot and doesn't need a lot of protection (yet).



Considering all the Financial and Creative teams still in the game, I'm pretty happy with a 7th place GNP. Food and production are decent as well, and will increase rapidly as I improve the newer cities. The only bad figure is Power, but that should increase as more cities can be set to unit production.



I don't have all graphs, and I'm guessing Maya, Portugal, Mali, Babylon and Carthage all have better GNP figures.



Decent, with India and Ottoman as clear leaders.



Notice the Krill spike. The only thing I can think of is that he is building Walls/Castles in all his cities with access to Stone.



Caught up to Rome in two turns!



No Grande Armée yet, but once the capital starts pumping out one-turn-Knights, I'll feel safer and start thinking about projecting power instead of hudling inside of my cities.

[Ilios]

I would like to share my short term goals with any lurkers that still check the PB3 threads. There seem to be less of them these days, which is quite understandable, with the drama that is PB2 and the easy to follow PBEM games.

But first I would like to give a little update on the current geopolitical situation. It is now T128, and as most of you know the world in PB3 has been divided into two opposing tech trading camps:

PAT:

Gandhi (SPI/PHI) of Egypt (Krill)
Suri (EXP/CRE) of England (Cyneheard)
Pacal (EXP/FIN) of Carthage (ShootTheMoon/MrNiceGuy)
Pericles (CRE/PHI) of Babylon (Kyan/Twinkeltoes/Whosit)
HuPac (IND/FIN) of Mali (SwissPaulie/Dplaisted/Broker33)
Ragnar (AGG/FIN) of Maya (ManiacMarshall/RefSteel/Cull)

CUDDLE:

Bismarck (EXP/IND) of India (Regoarrar/Darrell/Sunrise089/Soooo)
Willem (CRE/FIN) of Portugal (Dantski/Mukha)
Napoleon (CHA/ORG) of Aztec (Ruff_Hi)
Joao (EXP/IMP) of Inca (Athlete4Life/Nakor)
Zara (CRE/ORG) of Ottoman (WarriorKnight/Sockboy/Pegasus)
Hannibal (CHA/FIN) of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth/SleepingMoogle)
Kublai Khan (CRE/AGG) of Rome (Sandover)
Mehmet (EXP/ORG) of HRE (Ilios)

Even though CUDDLE has a numerical advantage, please note that PAT has a very healthy combination of FIN, CRE and PHI leaders, meaning CUDDLE has some difficulty keeping up with the tech race. Added to this, they PAT work together much better than CUDDLE (makes sense, since we're forced to cooperate, while PAT members chose to cooperate).

Maya have just discovered Liberalism, and have taken Military Tradition (which gives access to Cuirrassiers with Gunpowder) as free technology. They also have Music, Nationalism and Theocracy.

From CUDDLE’s side, India is working on Gunpowder (ETA 3 turns I believe), I’m working on Printing Press (ETA 4 turns), and Portugal is working on Liberalism, although Dantski might have switched to another tech since we got beaten by Maya. Ottomans are working on Nationalism and should get it in a couple of turns.

India and Ottoman have declared war on Carthage. In response Egypt and England have declared on India and Ottoman (sparking off a vicious PR battle over who abused the rules the most, which has turned a lot of players and lurkers off I’m sure).

Mali have declared on Inca, but it would seem it this was done only to destroy a settler/escort pair, and not a full scale invasion of Incan lands.

My NAP with England, my closest PAT neighbour to the south, runs out next turn. I’m sure our cooperation in eradicating France counts for something, but still, there’s a possibility Cyneheard will attack. He’ll have a hard time if he attacks alone though, since the closest HRE cities he can reach already have 40% defense and hold most of my growing army.

I’ll try to add a screenshot of the world map later today, I guess using the F5 (Military Advisor) is the best map I can use.

[BobRoberts]

That was an awesome post.

Not been reading PB3 for a while now.

Have been reading through the threads here on a really slow hot work day, trying to figure out what was going on... suddenly 'whamp!' - a nice clear post explaining the situation.

Cheers.

[Ilios]

Glad to be of service Bob!

I haven’t had the time yet to prepare a screenshot of the world, with the different nations, I’ll do that tonight, with some more info on current affairs.

So I’d like to talk about my short term plans.

With the scorching tech pace (we’re at nationalism/gunpowder/printing press at T129), the build options in my cities keep getting bigger. In an empire that can already build banks, universities and grocers, I have exactly 3 libraries and 1 market built so far (with a 4th library under construction)
My cities are finally getting enough hammers, and I’ve come up with a plan to catch up on infrastructure.

The way I see it, Organized Religion would be perfect to do this. I can even run it at 50% costs because I’m… Organized…

The only problem is I haven’t gotten a state religion yet, because there hasn’t been a lot of spread yet. Krill has stolen Confucianism from right under my nose, so I haven’t really gotten to spreading any as of yet. Right now, I’ve got a Buddhist city (thanks to a Ruff missionary), a Christian and a Taoist one. I briefly considered switching to Taoism, because it is England’s state religion, and Cyneheard would get a 3 happy penalty should he attack me. But I’ve just seen Krill moving another Great Prophet (remember, philosophical) towards England’s holy city. I’ll be darned if I’m going to make a player on an opposing team rich!

So I will spread around Buddhism, giving Ruff/Aztec more cash to spread to us researchers. I’ve got two missionaries planned in Elgin’s, which I will then use to convert the heathens in Singa Mati (I’m making two of them because I’m not sure the Taoist heathens there will allow the Buddhists to spread…
I’ll then chop out a Monastery in Singa and start spamming missionaries, aided by the occasional third ring forest chop.

The problem with all of this is that I’ll lose a turn in Anarchy to switch to Buddhism, and another turn to switch to Organised religion. Don’t really feel like losing turns to anarchy, so I plan on using a great person to start a golden age.

As you can see one of the previous screenshots, I’m close to finishing the National Epic in Singa Mati, my highest food city (it has two 5 food resources, and one 4 food resource, which tells you a lot about the food abundance in my corner of the world). I built the Parthenon earlier, so I will be getting a 150% increase to all GP production. I plan to work five specialists, which will give me a healthy 40 GPP/turn (15 (specialists) + 1 (NE) = 16 x 150%). I already popped a Great Merchant earlier, so I will need 200 GPP to get another Great Person. So it will take maximum 5 turns to get the next GP (I can’t remember if I have 40 GPP already in the city).


As soon as I get the GP, I will use it for a golden age (although using a GE for a golden age will just seems wrong). Switching to Nationhood and Pacifism (and maybe Serfdom), Singa Mati will then get a 350% increase to all GP production:

National Epic +100%
Pacifism +100%
Golden Age +100%
Parthenon +50%

This will bring Singa’s GP production to 72 GPP/turn, and should get me another GP four turns after.

Timeframe:

Current turn: T129
Finish NE: T130
First GP: T135 (start golden age - switch to Pacifism - Nationhood)
Second GP: T139
T140-143 (switch back to Organised Religion - Bureacracy)

I’ve considered switching to Mercantilism as well, but without Representation, it probably isn’t worth the loss of foreign income (I’m getting close to 40 commerce/turn). I’d have to switch to Caste as well, or my newest cities would be getting a free Artist, or worse, one of those 1 hammer dudes (can’t remember their name right now…

Should I switch to Nationhood? I’d like to use the newest cities to draft muskets, but I’m not sure I’ll get them to size 6 in time. Don’t want to draft my NE city for obvious reasons, and with the HE in my capital, I’m not sure if turning a pop into a Musket is the way to go, since it can probably build one in 2 turns. I can draft 5 units per turn on a Huge map.

Before the golden age ends I plan to switch back to Bureaucracy, and more importantly, Organised Religion, by which time I hope to have spread Buddhism to the bulk of the empire.

Most of my cities are currently switched away from non-essential buildings, making workers/settlers/units instead, so I can take advantage of the 25% hammer bonus once I switch to OR.

[Ilios]

Here's the world map T129:



The nations in white are part of PAT, the nations in black form CUDDLE.

Please note that the map is toroidal, meaning the east-west and north-south sides are connected.

Anything else that would clarify the game?

[Ilios]

Long chat with Cyneheard of England. We both agreed that even if we're on opposing sides, warring on each other would be counter productive if we want any chance to win this game. So even if we don't have an official NAP, let's say we have a tacid agreement to not cross the DMZ zone if we can help it...