[PB78] Underdogs and undercats: The Mrrshan warlords visit the world of Civ IV

[Donovan Zoi]

Ooh! Plans and reporting! Lurkers' favorite things!

Well, that and war, and there's still a fair bit of that.

Yes, I am trying to make it up to you all a bit.  Plus, I am a builder at heart, so this is an extremely fun time for.  I am looking to forward to taking a quicfk break from war, but it will be back with a vengeance soon enough I'm sure.  There are just too may good promo combos to play with to ignore for too long but I need to stay competitive.

While you are taking a very different approach I’d ask you to strongly consider at least these 2 things:

- Leave Map to SD to deal with. Now it stifles Marathon and while the same applies to the northern Magic cities, this is a very good trade. It would cost you a lot to take it and the city will be useless to you since Marathon will then stifle it. Similarly it would cost SD a lot and it’s much better that he pays the price. Also if Magic is to attack out he’d prefer to recapture Marathon first, so his units will be putting more pressure on SD than on you, and he’ll be a potential ally later.

Hey thrawn, thanks for checking in.  I'm certainly not against it, which is why I put it out there for discussion.  Taking Map would be a logistical nightmare, so I am fine agreeing to this.  This means I may just need to exploit New Tehran for its Great Library while whipping it down to fulfill some of my Missionary objectives.  I'll have to see how bad it ends up being.

- Leave the Sistine and use Reticuli for nothing but units until the end of the game. Those hammers will be doubled and can capture a city which is far more than the tiles you can possibly get via culture. If you have to, then at least build the Sistine in another city so you don't waste the 3 GGs and the Heroic epic.

Sorry, my mind is set on this as Reticuli dwarfs all other production.  We can afford to take a few turns away from military, especially when I foresee no active war for the next 29 turns.  I trust SD to keep his NAP, and Dreylin is currently in Caste.  PLus our units are locked up, so pretty much every city of ours is vulnerable.  But no one else is building units right ow so they can tech to the next level.  I feel we need to do the same.

Otherwise I'd say just build a bazillion cats and send a message to Dreylin to actively join you against SD or you'll attack him with everything thus guaranteeing he'll lose. For example fish-fish iron-iron war with SD, and then a second message just asking for all of his cities and nothing on your side. (unless there is a more standard way to communicate this)

Yeah, this kind of diplo cannot happen until T220 with a countdown.  By then we'll have better told at our disposal too, because I didn't run my economy down with troops we can't use right now.

If SD tries to bring me aboard against Drey, I'll listen.  But he would have to strike first and drew Federation troops away from me.  I still think scorching each of them on D will be quite effective once I have all of my objectives in place.

I'll have more on this later, but I'm planning on having MT (and West Point), MS, Steel and be very close to Rifling at T230.  So this is worth the wait.

[thrawn]

The reason I don’t like it is that civ games are won by military power and any infra and tech are there to ultimately give you more military power. Here you’d invest 1k hammers into taking some tiles off the others, but if you look at which specific tiles, on which turn you’ll get them, and what the foodhammer difference between them and the next best tile is, you’ll probably find that you won’t even make that 1k back before the end of the game, and 1k hammers now are more valuable than even 10k hammers in 100 turns. But if you'd enjoy having it then build it, the most important victory is to enjoy the game

[Donovan Zoi]

The reason I don’t like it is that civ games are won by military power and any infra and tech are there to ultimately give you more military power. Here you’d invest 1k hammers into taking some tiles off the others, but if you look at which specific tiles, on which turn you’ll get them, and what the foodhammer difference between them and the next best tile is, you’ll probably find that you won’t even make that 1k back before the end of the game, and 1k hammers now are more valuable than even 10k hammers in 100 turns. But if you'd enjoy having it then build it, the most important victory is to enjoy the game

My main reason for wanting it is to keep Superdeath from having it, since we're already losing the culture battle there in some key places.  Both he and Drey have specialists and religious buildings, and Drey is creeping in on us in some spaces too.

I foresee the Mrrshan having that same opportunity soon, so I feel it's worth a shot to go for it.  It will help us in former Calcutta/Lahore since we are losing food(hammers) to 3rd/1st and 4th/2nd rings respectively.

Incidentally, Dreylin just got Music this turn, which will likely prompt SD to rush it if he's building it (we can all see each other's research).

Overall, my goal for this period is to maximize domestic whimsy by whipping at small population to help us regain parity with the others, and then prioritize military for the rest of the game.  There will be a dearth of new buildings available in the early Industrial era, so once I bring most of the current ones aboard (and some Hindu missionaries to max out the AP), we'll likely never have to go into OR again.  I'm not a fan of being out of Theo for the moment but this is the right move at the right time.

[Donovan Zoi]

Highlights of the Turn Decade (202-210)


202 - Advance on New Tehran

My defense recovery against Magic’s Cats was a success.  On Turn 202, I left all units to heal while 5 of my Cats shaved a whopping 10% from New Tehran’s defenses.  Next turn, all but six of our units were fully healed and I would have 7 Cats ready to shell the 19 Iranian units defending.




For comparison, I also had 7 Cats at Goodneighbor against practically half the units.  But here, I had 53 other units for cleanup instead of 10.

The opening salvo produced a nearly flawless 41 hits of collateral, distributing an average of 2 hits per unit.  My remaining units would also get at least 2 cracks at the severely compromised stack.  In fact, we fought each subsequent battle at 60+% odds, losing only 3 Maces and 3 Knights to a bad roll.  A 20-6 run!




We got two workers from the capture, but our Mrrshan PR team is trying to run damage control in regards to the disappearance of a renowned specialist, as well as two missionaries of different faiths.


203 - SD & Drey Out of Iran

It was also this turn that I noticed Drey and SD no longer at war with Iran.  I was surprised to see that SD allowed his units to stay locked under Map’s cultural hold.  He must have an NAP with Dreylin as well.








206 - Saurak Joins the Economy!

After 11 turns, Gavagai’s last holdout finally emerged from revolt and officially became part of Mrrshan.  Enduring a loss of 1 pop on its arrival, I had the base hammers next turn to 7-whip the Hindu Mandir here from pop 15.  To prepare, I had to rush two Hindu Temples in Mentar and Reticuli to unlock it, as well as rush a Confucian Missionary to the island to add the OR bonus.




Mandir-fueled Artists took Saurak to 28 cpt.  We’re gonna be at 40% culture here in a matter of turns, with 60% not that far behind. And on T211, we’re poised to recover the 4f coast and one other tile for starters.


208 - The Ever-Expanding "Map"

I was beginning to work some of the razed land in my new “holdings,” a term I use loosely after the latest development.  Just as I was trying to coax culture into the region via Theatres, the island city of Map blew up everything with a 60% culture pop.




I was going to let things slide awhile at 40%, but this is a bit much.  While this status will remain unchanged for a few turns, I’ve begun work on a couple Galleons and a canal to gain access to the body of water where the final Iranian boss resides. I’m hoping to make it a quick affair, so I’m not vulnerable for too long.


210 - Reticuli, the Final Insult?

Before you all see the screenshot that goes with this title, I feel I should lead with some good news: we successfully built the Sistine Chapel! 

I know this selection was not without its controversy, but after seeing the results of the first turn under this wonder I’m pretty confident that I’m gonna pick up 5 of 7 coveted food tiles that will allow us to ramp up more quickly with a move to Serfdom coming.  It will also give us a leg up in the culture war post-Map, where with the support of Sistine we can best SD near Marathon while growing 4 new cities to potential.

But back to Reticuli.  To get Sistine this turn, we had to make the following moves:

Whipped from 14 to 13 for Knight (30g overflow)
…to 12 for necessary Hindu Temple
…to 10 for a Library. (best whip overflow)
…to chopping a long standing forest

  ...to 5????? 




I await my tar and feathers, but let me explain.  On this turn, Superdeath played a wraparound turn with a 6-whip on 208 and a 4-whip in 209.  I was already counting my failgold when I logged in to see that Sustine hadn’t been pinched yet.  Knowing that an SD wonder bid could still be in play, I had made the decision earlier that I would take this measure if I saw him making a play for it.

But next turn, Sumeria actually finished Angkor Wat while I celebrated my coveted Sinstine.  I left the title above open-ended because my next moves here are to:

Use an extra specialist to finish a GP here in 2 turns for the GA.
1-turn a Hindu Missionary to begin the AP hammer cascade.

The good news about that last bit is that I’m trying to get as many cities to Hinduism before our GA starts and I lose the free spread of religion.  Because in about 7 turns, I’m planning to return to Theo as part of the GA celebration.  And Reticuli’s recovery is going to be insane as I test out a Serfdom economy for the first time.


Demos

A quick look while we’re down here.  Things have been looking dire lately with SD & Dreylin both in Representation now.  I’m counting on the Serfdom GA to get me back into the tech hunt before things get out of hand.

I’ll be taking the Serfdom risk (no whips for at least 5 turns) because of the 20 turns remaining in my NAP with SD and the fact that Dreylin is currently in Caste and we have a loose Fish/Fish recently re-negotiated.