Brick by Brick (Spoiler Alert!)

[TheHumanHydra]

Okay, time for that belated t110 update:

STATE OF THE EMPIRE, 1000 Anno Confucii*

* Confucianism was founded in 1AD in this game.

First, the front:



As I said above, Serdoa did not attack me on his turn. He left a warrior 1E of Zz'gash, which I killed with a knight after some debate (moves I don't understand make me suspect a trick). In the end I figured it's one more XP and GG point for me, and one less unit to upgrade to a spear for him. This brings our tally to:

THH -
Serdoa - 1 catapult, 1 warrior (43 hammers total), city of Thessalonica

As you can see, Serdoa left 10 of his 25+ horse archers in Zz'gash. I don't understand why he divided his troops this way (he's not disguising their numbers any), so again I suspect a trick. He's up to seven catapults on-site; I am honestly afraid of him hitting me with so much collateral and so many horse archers at some point that he overwhelms my stack, strong as it is. It remains to be seen whether he will abandon this city like the last and continue to build up for such a battle, or if he values the city too much not to stand and fight.

An overview of my empire:





My cities:



I thought it important to build a bank in my Bureaucracy capital, such as it is. I am chopping that plains forest into it, then I will whip it.



This city sucks. I've found it doesn't have the food surplus to do much.



This city, on the other hand, is one of the best in the world, and will be more so when I finally get around to building a lighthouse and some more commerce buildings for it. For now, three-turn knights till I know Serdoa's done for, though.



This city just built its lighthouse, and would you look at that food surplus. I set it back to knights even though it builds them slowly because I'm basically going to be obligated to whip here repeatedly. I should probably have set it to a market instead for more happiness and specialist slots to absorb that surplus. Or I could build a settler and settle that site I have marked out north of here, and steal the sheep, but I'm not sure I want to strain my economy anymore, and I may be taking cities from Serdoa fairly soon.



Again, three-turn knights.



More three-turn knights.



Moar three-turn knights, growin' dem cottages. Farming over to the corn and rice for irrigation; don't know why I didn't think of that sooner.



Two-turn catapults, also growin' dem cottages.



Cottage-growing here too; growing up a bit before working those hammer-tiles again.

That's all my cities! Old Harry has three more, Azza two. I'd settle some more, but I'd rather take some of Serdoa's, and my economy's hurting as it is, though somehow maintaining a steady research-rate nonetheless. Speaking of which:











Apparently I didn't take one of those for after end-of-turn as well like I usually do. Oh well. Obviously Azza's the one to watch out for, though Old Harry and Serdoa are by no means out of this yet (assuming the latter survives this war). Note Azza's kept building military despite his treaty with Serdoa; I wonder who he intends to use it on, if anyone (he was rather light on defences before his recent wars). Last I knew he was researching Machinery (keeping tabs has gotten harder now everyone's built courthouses); a good diversion from the Liberalism path I'm also pursuing - but also the path to knights. About that:



Everything before.



You can see the research time on Liberalism has remained steady despite the massive war-costs I'm now incurring, which necessitated me bumping the slider down 20%. I think that bodes well. Also, at end of turn I became first to Philosophy; that might be a deterrent for anyone also heading down the Liberalism path.

Said finances:



Military after end of turn:



Religions, now another's been founded:



Cuzco's the one east of the iron.

And just for good measure, those joyous end-of-turn events:



I was glad to get that scientist at ~40% over the majority-odds merchant. Still deciding what to do with him: typically I use them for academies in all my best science-cities, but I am gunning for Liberalism, so a bulb may be in order. But that would require researching Alphabet first due to bulbing preferences, and that would take almost as long as Paper, and reveal all my techs to everyone else for little benefit. I'm thinking about a Golden Age: it would help both research and the war effort, but scientists are going to be harder to come by than merchants in my empire, I think, so I'm not sure I want to "waste" this more valuable type of Great Person on something another can do. We'll see.

Anything anyone would like to know?

[TheHumanHydra]

Muhahaha I play with your mind...

Oh no, he's a Zerg agent; guards, quick, burn him with fire!

[TheHumanHydra]

Correction: it appears Education is higher on the Great Scientist bulb preference list than Alphabet, so I'd be clear to bulb it after researching Paper. I think I'd be able to one-turn Education that way. Very tempting ...

It'd be nice to know whether Serdoa's defeated by then so I could go straight to universities everywhere, but that's only four or five turns away. Maybe if he sticks around in Zz'gash ...

[TheHumanHydra]

Turn 111:

This:



Led to this:



And this:



To this:



With this for comparison:



THH -
Serdoa - 1 catapult, 1 warrior, 1 scout (53 hammers total), cities of Thessalonica, Zz'gash

[TheHumanHydra]

Lost my first unit this turn - a quechua; I deliberately sacrificed it to gain intelligence.

THH - 1 quechua (10 hammers total)
Serdoa - 1 catapult, 1 warrior, 1 scout (53 hammers total), cities of Thessalonica, Zz'gash

The front:



I expected Char to be 1W of there. This is good; it means one less turn of exposed approach and no hill bonus. Next turn I plan to move to the tile marked t113, behind the river; the turn after will see some possibly decisive tactical decisions made, and then, I predict, a great battle. I predict Serdoa will stand and fight here: it's his capital, his army is enormous, and past Char, the front widens such that one stack may not be enough to defend it. If he does, he will certainly suicide all his catapults; he may well attack out behind them since his horse archers don't get defensive bonuses anyway. I am concerned that such an attack might actually succeed.

I hope to give Serdoa some difficult decisions as well, though:



Six knights on the plains hill between the silver and the gold next turn; if all goes well, his city the turn after.

Oh, and I discovered Paper at end of turn; next up, an Education bulb!

[TheHumanHydra]

Fun story: I must be thinking about this game too much, 'cause last night I had a dream about it. Something must have happened to Serdoa's horse supply, because he was invading Azza to secure his, and I was intervening to stop him! I was chuckling, though, because I had knights but Serdoa, obviously, didn't, and they're his unique unit! Who knows, maybe something like this will happen in-game? I doubt it, though.

Was just looking through my thread and found this gem I forgot about. Feels like forever ago ...

[TheHumanHydra]

After conducting a number of sims of Serdoa attacking my stack, I moved my units here (as planned) and promoted them all to Combat I (as suggested by the sims):



The balance of forces is presently:

Serdoa - 36 horse archers, 10 catapults, 6 spearmen, 2 axemen, 1 archer
THH - 24 knights, 7 crossbowmen, 4 spearmen, 3 axemen, 1 longbowman

The sims suggest that any attack by Serdoa will be exceptionally bloody, leaving him reliably with 15 horse archers and me with most of my units, though roughly handled, and winning him two Great Generals! It is uncertain whether I could actually take Char following such an attack; I might have to pause to heal, but the battle would at least generate approximate numerical parity, barring abnormal results. This leaves me somewhat reassured over previously.

Old Harry began marching his army, long idle - I wonder where to?



I opened my second, smaller front:



Hopefully these forces will be able to cut Serdoa's whipping base from under him, even if I do have to draw back and heal at Char.

By use of a Great Scientist bulb and much tile reassignment, I was able to one-turn Education - without even delaying my knight builds! Look at that GNP spike:





That tech rate's not sustainable without multiple city capture windfalls - which may or may not be coming in presently.

If I'm first to Liberalism, I think I will take Nationalism after all, and tech Economics while building Taj, revolting while in Golden Age and using the Great Merchant to either double it or bulb. I hope to be able to switch my cities to universities after this round of knights (finishing end of next turn), build infrastructure and cats while teching to Military Tradition, then Rifling, and hit Azza with cuirassiers and any remaining knights, followed by cavalry and drafted rifles, if necessary. Hopefully that'll be good game - if I can pull it off.

This, of course, assuming I beat Serdoa first!

Des questions?

Edit: So rough tech path if all goes well is Liberalism - Nationalism (free) - Economics - Aesthetics (cheap) - Literature (cheap) - Music - Gunpowder - Military Tradition - Printing Press - Replaceable Parts - Rifling.

[Qgqqqqq]

Where're the others at tech-wise?

Sorry to have to ask this, but this thread is gettting untenable to view at normal post per page...do you think you could start spoiling the images?
Or at least screenshotting them.


Music artist gone?

[NobleHelium]

No spoiler tags for images, please.

[TheHumanHydra]

Where're the others at tech-wise?

Hard to say. I've avoided Alphabet since it's otherwise useless and I haven't wanted the others to see my techs (I'll see after the game, but my gut tells me Serdoa had no idea it was possible for me to attack with knights at least till I revolted to Mercantilism, which was right before I attacked).

Espionage tells me Serdoa's been running 0% on Aesthetics while saving gold. As far as I can tell, he has Monarchy but not Feudalism; Civil Service but no farther; no Machinery; Calendar and Construction but no Engineering. No one has Theology.

Last I knew Azza was researching Machinery; he'll be on to something else by now: I predict either Engineering for pikes, Feudalism - Guilds for knights, or Philosophy/Paper for Liberalism.

I haven't bothered to put any EP into Old Harry for a long time, so I'm not sure, but I don't think he can be any further along than Serdoa, give or take.

My gut tells me until a couple turns ago (when I researched Philosophy), my "maximum tech" was no higher than anyone else's (Civil Service), but I had pursued two "branches" of the tree (Civil Service and Guilds - Banking) where others had pursued only one. I get the impression Azza's teching well, though, and isn't far behind.

Sorry to have to ask this, but this thread is gettting untenable to view at normal post per page...do you think you could start spoiling the images?
Or at least screenshotting them.

No problem; I had been wondering about that. Echoing NobleHelium, I'm not sure I want to put them in spoilers; what is this "screenshotting" you speak of?

(On an ironic note, before I was told I had too few images; now I'm told I have too many! )

Another solution would be for lurkers to start spamming my thread, which would lower the proportion of images per page [hint, hint, hint]. Seriously, though, I really do appreciate questions like the ones you asked, though I realize there aren't always many to ask.

Music artist gone?

I've been meaning to double-check that; I don't think so. None of the Aesthetics wonders have fallen, let alone the Great Library or Sistine Chapel. I don't think anyone's pursued that path at all. I'm hoping the Artist will still be there when I head up that way short-ish-ly, but I'm not fussed. It'd be nice to nab those marble wonders, too (save the Chapel; I don't need that), and to finally build my Epics. One of my +11 food cities would probably make a great Globe Theatre "recruitment centre" too.

When I consider the above, plus all the Renaissance economic techs that'll (hopefully) soon be open to me, plus all the buildings I've skipped to train knights, I realize how much my civ screams for just a massive build-fest in the next couple-dozen turns: but how the game-state screams for a quick tech up to cuirs and another all-out war-push to take down Azza and anyone who's left [why is there no crying smiley? I must mourn for the economy that will never be. So juicy, so unnecessary].

Next post puts us onto a fresh, image-less page, by the way.