Civ 5 We Hardly Knew Ye [Spoilers]

[Ichabod]

Got another CS alliance through a science quest. It only brings some more culture, since I already have the happy resource. It's nice, anyway.

I also had a quest to bully Mombasa for Almaty. Since I moved my boats close to Mombasa, in preparation for the attack on Yuris (which will likely start next turn), I was able to do it.



Gold and free influence, that's really nice.



That boosted Almaty to alliance levels and got me Ivory, a resource I didn't already have. Next turn, I'll fulfill another sceicen quest, which will secure an alliance for a long time.



That brings my total alliances to 6 (since Kiev, not pictured, is also an ally, albeit just for one more turn). I'm thinking of giving 500 gold to the other Mercantile CS,to secure even more happiness. I need surplus happiness for the war, since I don't want to lose my Rationalism bonus from the happy empire and there's always a happy hit whe razing cities.

I have no idea how efective my boats will be against cities, but I think 3 frigates and a Privateer will be enough to capture Kukla. After that, I have Caravels, another frigate and another privateer reaching Yuris. I don't think he has Astronomy yet, so I don't see how he can handle it. Next turn will be an eventful one.

[Ichabod]

I was thinking of sendind a TR do Ife already, to spread my religion, and now it'll give me a long time alliance to boot. Nice!



Decided to pull the trigger this turn. I started the Golden Age, but despite the interface, I don't think the bonus were applied this turn. I'm sure about the movement one, but even the +10% attack I think wasn't there.



Perhaps not as much damage as I would have hoped, but it's still good. After I attacked with my 3 avaiable frigates, it was obvious I wouldn't be able to take the city this turn. Even so, I attacked with the Privateer. I take very little damage, get some useful XP and some gold to boot, from the Privateer starting promotion. It amounted to 18 gold. Far from meaningful, but useful nonetheless.



Situation at end of turn. My caravel to the north scouted Yuris coast and there are no boats or units nearby. Next turn, I have 4 Frigates that can shoot against Kukla or Taghaza. I expect to take and keep Kukla next turn and start razing Taghaza the turn after. After that, I'll have another Privateer and some Caravels around, and I'll see what I'll do. Likely go around the coast razing everything. Sounds good enough for me.

I also messed up Yuris economy, since he had a TR going to one of my cities (and there's another Cargo Ship going between Taghaza and Kukla). Meanwhile, my economy is incredibly powerful.

[Rowain]

Beware the Persilian (or is it Brazian?) Pirates

[chumchu]

The movement is not applied that turn. It counts as you have already moved one of your moves.

[T-hawk]

More specifically, what really happens is starting the Golden Age increases the maximum movement of each unit but not its current movement points.  This is intentional to stop some abuses: one example would be to disembark a unit and then start a GA to give it a movement point back.

I don't know any reason Persia's attack bonus wouldn't immediately appear, though. Unless it doesn't apply to ranged ship attacks for some reason.

[Ichabod]

Beware the Persilian (or is it Brazian?) Pirates

The movement is not applied that turn. It counts as you have already moved one of your moves.

More specifically, what really happens is starting the Golden Age increases the maximum movement of each unit but not its current movement points.  This is intentional to stop some abuses: one example would be to disembark a unit and then start a GA to give it a movement point back.

I don't know any reason Persia's attack bonus wouldn't immediately appear, though.  Unless it doesn't apply to ranged ship attacks for some reason.

Interestingly enough, you still get the +1 movement on the turn after which your GA ended (not sure about the 10%). On the case of my Frigates, the move points will appear as 7/6.

[Ichabod]

Here's the situation at the start of the turn. Yuris finished a cannon in the city and double attacked my privateer. Cannons are pretty meh units, so I'm guessing Yuris was pre-building them to upgrade into artilleries and finish of Nicolae. If that's true, good thing I attacked, because Nicolae wouldn't resist against artillery without some of his own. Nicolae and Yuris also settled for peace in the interturn, so Nicolae has to be the one that proposed it (or perhaps Yuris proposed on the turn before my attack).

I used the privateer promotion on a heal, because I think speed right now is better than more firepower later. The objective of the campaign is to hinder Yuris ability to get a navy, not to face his navy in the long run.

Then, I attacked with a Frigate to soften the city and finished with a privateer.



I puppeted the city, to serve as a base where my units can heal. This put me into negative unhapiness, so I spent 500 gold to buy an alliance with Antwerp (mercantile CS). It'll last for a bit more than 10 turns, but once it's over, I can buy some more time and I'll have other sources of happiness, like the Forbidden Palace (due in 1 turn, after this one).



Situation in the end of turn. I focused the attacks on the city, rather than the cannon, because I need to raze it quickly. The big disadvantage of Naval raids is that I can't effectively protect the cities I capture, so razing them is not so easy (the time you need to wait before a city actually razes is a counter to the Sirian Doctrine and other razing strategies and a change I think is good, from Civ 4 to 5). You have to keep in mind that, to capture a city, I need a melee boat and the boat will always end the turn inside the capture city, which means that a counter attack that retakes the city will kill that boat. That's pretty wasteful for me. 

To counter that, I moved my Caravel close and I'll take the city with it next turn. Losing a Caravel is not that bad compared to losing Privateer. If Yuris can't retake it next turn, I'll withdraw the melee units and pester him with the ranged ones as much as possible, with the objective to secure the city until it's razed.

All things considered, Taghaza may be the last city I can really secure until it's razed, because Yuris main army is certainly on the move. After that, I'll try and use my boats superior mobility (1UPT makes moving even through your own lands pretty messy sometimes, especially since the roads costing gold discourages you to place roads for logistic sake) to do as much harm as I can, including city captures as a hit to Yuris' morale and to "pillage" his cities.

Anyway, in other news, I keep exploring ruins, which gave me 75 gold and a promotion from Composite Bow to Crossbow.

Ah, and I've killed Yuris' scout that was roaming my lands, making use of the extra movement from my UA to get the second needed C. Bow shot.

[T-hawk]

The objective of the campaign is to hinder Yuris ability to get a navy, not to face his navy in the long run.

"Seek to destroy not the enemy, but the enemy's ability to wage war." Sun Tzu would be proud.

[Rowain]

Congrats Ichabod 

[Ichabod]

Thanks, Rowain. And thanks T-Hawk and chumchu, for keeping interest in the game, despite the lack of reporting and turn pace.

I didn't report the last few turns, but there wasn't much happening. I razed one of Yuris coastal cities, captured another one (that got recaptured). From Yuris initial 5 coastal cities, he was down to 3, one of them being size 2. I could easily capture one of the others to.

I was making 450 science perturn without focusing in specialists. Capital alone was doing +130 science per turn and had a surplus of 30 food, after I finally sent 2 food TRs there.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the game, lurkers and players. A pity that the dropbox change erased the early pictures from my reports.

I might write some end game thoughts later.