[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[oledavy]

yawn.....

Badly done Hipster Washington

[oledavy]

Operation Music Man, SUCCESS!!!
At the conclusion of turn 95 William Shakespeare was born in Jerusalem.
More celebrations will follow if Darrell gets liberalism next turn. He is confident we will win that race.

So, in domestic news, I reconfigured my cities (they were on max commerce for Music) to the normal balance of food, hammers and commerce. My missionary reached Constantinople and spread Buddhism



In other domestic news, Hinduism has spread to Jerusalem. If I want to go the Free Religion route late game, I now have three religions to play around with.

Acre has run out of infrastructure builds (other than an aqueduct) for the time being, so I started on a warrior and will continue to pump them out until I can start work on a university, or unless I decide to go the Nationalism route (more on that in the next section).

So next turn, I will pop William Shakespeare for a golden age that will truly mark the beginning of a new era in the Templar Realms as I get the economy in gear and begin the build-up for war.

What do I have in store?

Turn 95:
Golden Age Start
Convert to Buddhism
Revolt into Bureacracy
Revolt into Caste System

During this golden age, I intend to use Caste System and the Golden Age +100% great person generation to pump great people out of Constantinople and Jericho in addition to the Jerusalem great person. Hopefully, both will turn out to be scientists, though there has been dilution in both pools (watch me get a spy thanks to the Great Wall). They will be used to build academies or bulb Education.

Turn 96:
Great Person Born in Jerusalem (70% GS, 28% GE, 2% GM)

If this great Person is a Great Scientist, I will use him to build an academy in Acre. I'm hoping the Random Number Gods smile upon me and he is a Great Engineer. If so, I will tech to philosophy and Nationalism and steal the Taj Mahal from Darrell by rush building it (I feel sure he will make an attempt at it). The other benefit to this plan would be being able to revolt into Nationhood instead of vassalage at the end of the Golden Age. Otherwise, I will go for my astronomy beeline. If its a Great Merchant, I will expend him in Darrell or Shoot's capital and use the gold to fund more research. I get the feeling I'm a little behind everyone and need to use this GA to catch up :D.

Turn 100
Golden Age Ends
Revolt Into Theocracy
Revolt Into Slavery
Revolt Into Vassalage/Nationhood (depending on the Jerusalem Great Person)

This will prepare me for my military build up that will begin as soon as I get Astronomy. Overall, I am eagerly awaiting playing the next few turns.

Now the diplomacy update:

I first appraised Shoot of Buddhism's spread:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Shoot -

Turn 94 - Buddhism has spread to one city, and is due to spread to two more next turn.

I spoke to Darrell today, and he is sure of getting liberalism :D. He wants to default on repayments to you and me until after he has gunpowder (he will have nationalism, so he can start drafting like crazy). I'm fine with the idea if you are as well.

How do you feel about trading maps around? I just sent an email to Darrell regarding the issue and suggested he propose we trade maps on his turn. I will have Rego's map at that time if he agrees. So, then if you trade your map back to Darrell, I can ask for it on my turn and we can all have a fairly complete picture of the world - other than NoSpace anyway.

Thanks again for making the Music Snag possible for me William Shakespeare was born in Jerusalem at the conclusion of my turn.

Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

Buddhist Missionaries are due to arrive in Hattin and Cairo and spread the one true faith next turn. I prioritized the high hammer coastal cities so I can begin constructing 2XP East Indiamen as soon as possible. I also hit Darrell and Shoot up for map trades. Rego agreed to my map trade, but I forgot to propose it to him until this turn. I'll talk about my chat with Darrell in which he proposed defaulting on repayments further down.

As I said in my message to Shoot, I also sent a quick email to Darrell about map trades and Hinduism's spread:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Darrell -

How do you feel about trading maps around? Unless Rego defaults on his trade, I'll have his map at the conclusion of his next turn. It would work out: you trade Shoot for his map, then you trade maps with me so we all have a fairly complete image of the world, other than NoSpace's territory.

On a random note, you got a spread of Hinduism to Jerusalem, my capital.

Best Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

Rego came at me today asking for a loan of ~400 gold in the next few turns. He was offering a 20% return on the deal (500 gold). I briefly considered taking it and said I would get back to him and ask my lurkers. He obviously wants to make sure he nets liberalism, however he's not aware that Darrell is one turn away. If I was going to accept the deal, I would need before he got the save - and consequently see that Darrell founded Taoism - to lock him into a now pointless deal. However, I ultimately decided I would rather research music right away and kick off my golden age. Even if I did include a 'You don't research music' clause in the deal, I half-expect Rego would say 'screw it' when he realizes he's lost the liberalism race and tech it anyway. I suspect he's been counting on it for a fallback in this scenario. Krill is convinced Rego is sandbagging, and asked that I not complete the deal either, just to be on the safe side.

I spoke briefly with Darrell on a variety of topics, initially trying to figure out who had a Great Scientist born, and ending up talking about Operation Sledgehammer. I suggested he default repayments for a few turns to get gunpowder so he can go ahead and start cranking out units. He said he was just thinking of asking that. I support the idea and in my email to Shoot asked for his opinion on it - I think it would be a good long-term move. We started talking about the composition of the armies and what techs we each needed. Additionally we touched on the command conundrum. He also was in favor of me gifting him and Shoot all my East Indiamen. I voiced my same concerns with him: that I was not comfortable with that and would favor my own independent army. He seemed equally reluctant on the idea - but agreed to discuss the execution further. He 'appointed' if that's the word, me the planner for operation Sledgehammer. This is a diplomatic bone to me to try to please me and get me to relent on the East Indiamen question. I give him credit for conducting sound diplomacy, even if this indicates he may think me a little naive. I have no intent of relenting on this point - in order for me to contribute to this war, I want troops on the ground, period. As soon as I get maps and can get some idea of what forces NoSpace is fielding, I will start work on developing a plan - posting every step of the planning right here.

I'm a complete noob at MP warfare, and if anyone lurking this thread would like to help me create a strategy when I get the necessary information, I would welcome the assistance.

I've been trying to get in touch with Sunrise, and plan on trying to get his advice on executing this war.

As a final question to the lurkers out there - as my first MP game - how is my diplomacy? I get the feeling the other players (rightly or wrongly) see me as sorta naive at times. Am I too forthcoming and open in my dealings?

As usual, I would appreciate any thoughts or critiques on my strategy for the next few turns. If I'm pulling a move here, I would love to have someone call me out.

[oledavy]

I got a short and sweet reply back from Darrell in regards to trading world maps:

[COLOR="Yellow"]That works for me!

Darrell[/COLOR]

Last night before going to bed, I started thinking about Operation Sledghammer and how best to execute it. Here are my initial thoughts:

I do not think we have the military capability to land a knock-out blow with this campaign, for five reasons:

1. The game is on quick speed, making mounting an effective defense more viable because of the short production times.
2. NoSpace’s technological sophistication will mean we’re always fighting equal or more advanced units.
3. NoSpace benefits from the usual things that aid the defender: interior lines, visibility on all our units, walls to hide behind.
4. Finally, and this is unique to this map, the logistics of mounting an invasion and sustaining a force on another continent will make maintaining the offensive difficult.
5. NoSpace has the possibility of bringing in an ally in Rego.

For these reasons, I believe our armies will probably achieve some initial victories and then stall out as NoSpace organizes his defense – at this point, the Triple Entente will have two choices:

1. Continue to prosecute a war of attrition which will eventually result in a victory for the Triple Entente, but at the cost of possibly letting Rego run away with the game.
2. Make peace and consolidate gains, coming back later to finish the job with more advanced units. However, in this scenario, NoSpace may make a rebound and the captured cities will be choked by Indian culture.

The first option here is my preferred choice, unless circumstances on the battlefield or diplomatic situation dictate otherwise.

To achieve this end, the first attacks need to cripple NoSpace’s economy and his ability to effectively fight this war. Fighting from the sea gives us a major advantage - it will be easy to spread his defenders thin, especially with our numbers. I would like to open the war with two or three major simultaneous attacks - with each army big enough to forestall defeat in detail - so that he has to spread his defenders even thinner to contain the beachheads.

Priority Targets
- The Pyramids City
- Moai City
- Island Cities

When selecting targets, we need to keep in mind that NoSpace will have 10t of warning and will have his high-value cities stocked with defenders accordingly. He will be ready for a landing, so we can expect to find no forests or jungles along the coasts. Furthermore, he will probably position his units to hit likely landing zones around his major cities. In this case, it may be prudent to perform a Sirian Doctrine-like strike on his pyramids city and raze it rather than land and begin a siege. It would suffer heavy casualties (and may not be feasible depending on the number of defenders). I would hate to raze the pyramids, but it would be better to deny him those ~60 beakers a turn and cause a happiness crunch in his major cities – in addition to destroying a major Indian City. Additionally, this will forestall any infighting over who gets the pyramids.

I need maps of his land and estimated production, food, and commerce values on all his cities, as well as a report on all the buildings and/or wonders in each.

I need a rough estimate of the composition of NoSpace’s armed forces, additionally, knowing their location would be huge.

NoSpace is probably going to put a huge emphasis diplomatically on drawing Rego into the conflict, or breaking up the Triple Entente.

[oledavy]

Darrelll got liberalism first, the plan worked

This turn, a lot of things happened domestically as I used William Shakespeare to kick off a golden age. Before starting it, I did a few last minute whips, including whipping the Shwedagon Paya to completion in Constantinople.

Then I did my civics switch into bureaucracy (which boosted my commerce by about 40 gold immediately) and caste system in addition to converting to Buddhism.

In my Great Person micro plan I outlined in my last post, I overlooked the fact that Damascus, my Hanging Gardens City, is very close to producing a great engineer.



I delayed the Jerusalem and Constantinople Great People to allow me to net this guy - who will rush-build the Taj Mahal - extending this golden age and the great person spam for six more turns. There is no way Darrell can beat me to this unless he also has a Great Engineer on hand or has done a lot of pre-chops in anticipation of the Taj. I saved up gold to tech into philosophy this turn and will then go from that into Nationalism - enabling me to revolt into Nationhood before the end of the golden age.

Overall four cities are configured other than Damascus to accumulate GP points during this golden age: Jerusalem, Constantinople, Jericho and Acre.





Most of these will probably be Great Scientists, I briefly considered whether it would be worth it to get a GM, but decided that Great Scientists would be better for bulbing education/astronomy and throwing up academies everywhere to get my tech rate competitive again.

I spread Buddhism to Cairo and Hattin this last turn as well.

Rego did not trade maps with me. I asked him about it on gmail chat and he claimed it was a mistake, saying he would offer the trade on his turn. I spoke to Darrell, and he's interested in making resource trades, saying he'll send me a list of his duplicates. I agreed to do the same to see what we can work out. It'll be really nice to get out from under my happy cap as I begin to seriously grow out my cities. Both Rego and Darrell voiced concern on seeing me pave over a couple cottages on my outer islands, that it was not a good short term move. I continually have been relabeling tiles and now the workshop plan is not nearly as drastic as it was at first. However, I still believe mixing in workshops will be a sound long-term plan for helping production on this map.

I fired off an email to Shoot about Buddhism's spread:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot!

I just played my turn, here's the update on Buddhism's spread:

Turn 94 - 1 City
Turn 95 - 3 Cities

It will not be spreading beyond this for a few turns as the next wave of missionaries is produced.

David[/COLOR]

Economic Advisor:


Thoughts anyone?

[bato]

Are you leaving riverside cottages or turning those into workshops as well?
And keep up the great updates I really enjoy reading them

[oledavy]

All riverside cottages are being kept. Here is my general rubrick for improvements in this game:

Riverside Grassland/Plains: Cottage
Grassland: Workshop, leave existing cottaged grassland tiles alone (with the exception of those around my production poor island cities and Hattin, which Rego saw me pave over)
Plains: Cottage

@Bato, thanks for the encouragement I really appreciate the compliment.

[SevenSpirits]

Riverside Grassland/Plains: Cottage
Grassland: Workshop, leave existing cottaged grassland tiles alone (with the exception of those around my production poor island cities and Hattin, which Rego saw me pave over)
Plains: Cottage

@Bato, thanks for the encouragement I really appreciate the compliment.

Why do you prefer river cottages and non-river workshops?

[oledavy]

Since we're financial, cottaging riverside tiles is the best way to leverage that ability early on for an instant +1 gold. I go this route almost every game - even if I'm not financial - so as to acquire a 2/0/2 tile early on rather than a 2/0/1 tile.

Notable Exceptions
- A city without food bonus, or with weak ones
- Riverside plains in a city with weak food bonuses
- My great person farm
- My globe drafting city
- I go the specialist economy route
- I decide to go the watermill route

With riverside tiles all reserved for cottages or farms, I'm left with dry plains and grassland for workshops. I have only gone the workshop route a few times in Single Player. However, when I do, I usually lay down workshops on grassland.

I prefer to have improvements on food neutral tiles if possible - and improve them to be food neutral if I can. Until State Property, workshops are going to be creating -1 food on whatever tile they work. I would prefer a 1/2/0 tile to a 0/3/0 tile, in most cases because a tile that is capable of supporting itself (or until SP, partially supporting itself) allows more flexibility with other citizens by not tying down another to produce food to work the tile.

I hope that answers your question

[oledavy]

I sat on this save for awhile, because I wanted a chance to really look over each city - to develop my specialization plan for it and refine my tile improvement plan a bit. I'll upload screenshots of each city and an explanation of each with my turn 100 update.

The Shwedagon Paya completed in Constantinople this turn; and I began work on a courthouse.



NoSpace noticed that I had switched my EPs over to them and started spending some on me accordingly. I switched mine over to Rego so they don't become more suspicious than they already are. After Darrell responds to my to my message (next post) - I'll see about getting their world map from them.

Additionally, NoSpace got alphabet last turn, so I worked on figuring out just what techs they have and how far behind we are



Yeah...4,000 beakers behind

At the conclusion of my turn, Hinduism spread to Tyre (boy is Darrell getting lucky) and Henry Ford was born in Damascus.

My Golden Age boosted demographics for anyone who is interested



This is where I wish I actually was skilled at C&D work

The debate I'm having with myself right now is whether to switch back to slavery at the conclusion of the golden age. In order for me to capitalize on the dike to its fullest when it comes around, I need large populations in all my cities to work all those coastal tiles. Furthermore, I noticed in the demographics screen that I'm running last in population.

If I continue running caste system, I will get +1 hammers on my twenty-something workshops, as well as the ability to quickly pump out great people. However I lose the powerful ability to convert food into hammers on this production poor map, which will slow down my mobilization for Operation Sledgehammer. Furthermore, I will lose the ability to emergency whip - though, this is not as bad because I will be able to draft by the end of this golden age if I need to mobilize units to defend a city quickly.

So, to anyone reading this. Should I switch back to slavery at the end of the golden age? Or stay in Caste System?

[oledavy]

Shoot's replies to my emails regarding Buddhism's spread and Ep spending:

[COLOR="Green"]I'm putting mine on Rego myself. I figure a little misdirection isn't a bad thing, and with my EP production from a couple of courthouses I can likely get Nospace's research visibility during the cooldown period on the NAP. Oh, I don't think I mentioned it, but that NAP wound up as a 7t cooldown, so that's a bit of good news.

Shoot[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Green"]First off, remember to ask for the gold per turn deals for your spreading Buddhism...I'm relying on you do to that for you to get your payment as per our agreement.

Do you know how far Darrell is from GP? If it is only one tech I'm fine if he defaults. If it is two or more I'd probably prefer for him to start paying while I finish GP myself and then allow him to default on the remainder after I finish GP so that he could finish it up himself first.

I'm happy with trading maps around. I'll wait for Darrell to get yours and Rego's before asking then? I'm a bit confused on the order, but just let me know what turn to trade with Darrell and I'll do so.

I'm glad you got the Artist. I hope your people enjoy their golden age so much you can change civics without them even noticing

Shoot[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot!

Got a lot to discuss, so without any further ado:

Buddhism

I'm sorry, it didn't even occur to me to request the deal myself, lol. However, I found on your turn that you were at full research and I couldn't make a deal for GPT. I requested 7 gold from you to cover the last three turns (t94:1, t95:3, t96:3). Would you prefer to switch over to a using GPT? Or would you like me to keep a running total and request gold this way? It occurred to me not charging GPT until after the expansion phase would make it easier for you to run full research or max gold.

It's great to hear you managed to get a 7t cool-down, I just wish we all could have. Since it's only you, we can't leverage it into any kind of advantage unfortunately .

Darrell is one tech and three turns away from gunpowder, coming in on t98 I think. You may need to double check this number with him just to be sure.

Map Trades Work As Follows:

t96
I offer map trades with Rego and Darrell
Rego accepts
Darrell accepts
Darrell offers a map trade with you

t97
You accept the map trade with Darrell

t98
Darrell gives me the map

Sorry if I was really confusing regarding it in my last email. This way, it works out that we all have maps of each other's territory and Rego's map. Furthermore, I'm going to try to butter NoSpace up with possible resource trades and see if I can get their world map from them.

Good point regarding research visibility and EPs. NoSpace noticed my spending and switched some EPs over to me last turn. I've switched all mine over to Rego in preparation for trying to extract NoSpace's world map. This means that Darrell, me and you are all spending our EPs on Rego, we'll have to wait see where this bit of misdirection leads and how Rego reacts. I'm concerned if he reads too much into this, it will push him into NoSpace's camp.

Finally, NoSpace got alphabet last turn, so I tried to figure out what techs they have. I would appreciate it if you would check this turn and make sure my estimation of NoSpace's techs is correct.

Best Regards,
Dave[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"] Greetings Honorable Darrell of the Egyptians!!!

We have a lot to discuss, so without further ado, here is my list of resources not currently being traded:

1 copper
1 horse
1 iron
1 stone
4 clams
2 corn
2 crabs
4 fish
2 pigs
3 rice
2 gems
1 gold
1 wine

(Pending)
1 spice
1 sugar
2 silks


Additionally, I'm trading Shoot clams and rice for deer and wheat, as well as gifting him iron.

Do any trades leap out at you? Like I said, I'm especially interested in dyes if you have a surplus source of it.

I offered a trade of world maps with you in game on my last turn. Rego should have accepted on his turn, so when you accept you will get both mine and his maps. Could you please go ahead and trade this map with Shoot on your turn, then give me your map again after he accepts?. This way, all three of us will have the same map that covers the territory of each of us and Rego's.

I'm going to try to butter NoSpace up by throwing out possible resource trades and offer to exchange maps with them. Do you have any objection to me trading your map to them if it means our alliance gets theirs?

Here is my excel spreadsheet of the tech situation. I would appreciate it if you would check this on your turn to make sure my estimation of NoSpace's techs is correct.

Finally, the other night I couldn't sleep and started writing down my thoughts on Operation Sledgehammer. Please forward this document to Krill so I can get his opinion on my plan so far. I would appreciate your thoughts on it as well.

Best Regards,
Dave

P.S. You got another Hinduism spread to my city of Tyre :P
[/COLOR]

I sent both Darrell and Shoot my NoSpace tech estimate and spread sheet (deleting my tech progress). I additionally sent Darrell my initial thoughts on Operation Sledgehammer (posted here a couple updates ago) and asked him to give me his opionion on it - as well as send it to Krill and get his thoughts.