Holy Warriors - Civilization 5 (BNW) Succession Game

[timmy827]

And maybe even think about Patronage.

There are also some Ideologies for units. Freedom has one for 6 free Foreign Legion melee units, Autocracy has one for double gifts from militaristic CS.

The freedom one sounds better. It takes a bit longer (a level2 policy) but assuming we are first and get the two bonus ideologies, only one more policy. The autocracy one requires being at war.

@Ichabod - each new city can only get us +5 faith/turn. There may be some chances but I doubt we have happy headroom to run wild with expansion. The piety-finisher prophet will help a bit, but I don't see any way that spending 800 faith on a prophet makes sense now.

Recovering from the shock this morning, I think this is still doable just harder. Sounds like Ichabod didn't want to change the rules, so will give it a go.

Probably not gold trade routes though. all the ones available are pretty weak (7-8 gpt), there are a few higher but all with Morrocco. I will sell marble (we don't need its happy now, and when we do - capture Marrakech - get another copy). That's enough to befriend Almaty (has the gold quest right now) and the Geneva plan I had.

[timmy827]

Pulled an Ichabod (meaning, stayed up too late finishing turns, report/recommendations next day). Celtic Crusade has drawn blood

[T-hawk]

Got a report coming soon? I can either play tonight or I'm out of pocket until Monday night.

Edit: I might have a window Saturday afternoon.

[T-hawk]

Looked at the save. I clicked end turn to investigate and confirm this suspicion: the conquered raze-in-progress city disables the build orders for Oxford and National Epic. 5 turns to raze Rabat means we might not get a shot to complete Oxford before capturing Marrakech. Might end up delaying Oxford all the way to Dynamite after all.

So we attacked Rabat with three trebs, two cannons, one musket and one cataphract. That should be enough for Marrakech too and should have a good shot at doing it with no losses. I assume we go for Marrakech during my turnset then move into position on Iroquois.

We can sell off barracks in other than Devotion to save money, I think we should.

Policy in 4 turns, guess it's time to head up for Reformation?

Himeji Castle in Divinity? What does that do? Is it for the GE points? If so then it should be running the workshop specialist.

Somebody has Banking judging by the beaker cost, so we may miss Forbidden Palace.

World Congress will come at Printing Press, any ideas what we want to do with it?

Rome has a Great Prophet in Ravenna, but no more religions can be founded. No idea what the AI does in this case. Heck, no idea what I'd do.

[timmy827]

Sorry for delay! very busy here, I’m traveling and performing a lot in July. Making up for lateness with content hopefully!

REPORT

Divinity - swap to production focus, and slot in workshop ahead of CircusMax, we don’t need the happy immediately and will still finish before any city captures.

Spy to Moscow. Russia is going to dislike us anyways with the prophet squelch, and Moscow is biggest visible city. (the more tech a city makes, the faster you steal.)

sell marble to Caesar, and buy Almaty alliance for 500 gold. Hope they send us a good unit…
Theocracy for social policy.

151: RA in, only gave a hair over 300 beakers. Renew Ivory-Sugar with Brazil. The worker closest to Rabat was clearing a marsh for some reason, resumed road. Islamic GProphet inbound! I think we will be at war in time to kill it.

152: prophet turns back. One Treb seen from morocco. Buy a cannon.
153: Cathy hits renaissance (first AI, through Banking). Work boat is stuck, Morocco will not OB for any price. Caravan set up for Prod to Devotion. Burn the writer now that GA has been 8 turns long.
Take loan from Catherine as we are about to tick her off….the prophet converts moscow, 9/13 druids and we have +36 pressure (more than the holy city!)

Almaty gives us a cataprhact (UU horseman, 15 strength, somewhat less bad than a typical horse unit at city attack, slower thought). Not great, but any units are dear to us.

154: Cathy asks us to stop spreading, I say yes. (They got their religion very late, so I don’t think they will get another prophet soon.) She also builds Angkor. I setup units like this. Not 100%sure what I’m doing, I don’t think we have enough to attack yet. Trying not to clog road too much, hoping Caesar will send some guys through and bloody Morocco’s army

155:
Nothing visible from Morocco. Sitting tight a few turns, waiting for more units, and hoping Rome will cause a ruckus (hurt Morocco's army but not capture city) Win Geneva’s faith quest. GS born, hold on to him a bit (going to bulb, but wait until a few more turns of Piety’s uni being staffed, no critical techs in next few turns)

156: Something of rome’s got wrecked near Marrakech (missed pic but saw a -93…)

157: Brazil steals Geneva. Trireme of Morocco near divinity.
Finished a road here:

May have been a bit weedy taking damage, especially since a treb couldn’t actually fire from this spot.

158: Argh, one work boat pillaged, and it’s just enough to keep the stupid trireme alive again.

AI is actually good/annoying, it keeps it close enough to block some fish tiles rest of the set.
Portugal Renaissance (via Astronomy). Rome’s units appear to all be heading towards their border cities with Morocco and/or Marrakech, so I give up on idea of having roman suckers allies draw fire from Rabat.

159: Time to roll. Sucks for Morocco they don’t have all their second ring tiles

What? Oh right, I don’t remember a lot of rules about visibility. Fortunately that can be fixed

Boom! That’s not even the new cannon with Volley (+50% more vs cities, 2nd promotion since Devotion got Armory)

160: Oh that civ5 AI - Morocco’s “army” finally shows itself

Neither of these units attacked. I pounded but didn’t kill them, and took Rabat (started razing).


SUGGESTIONS

Tactics: musket needs a few turns to heal before moving on Marrakech. (I think we do get ‘our territory faster heal’ while the city burns). Remember that even if cannons blast a city down to 0 HP, musket or other nonsiege still has to attack to capture and takes a good bit of damage doing so.
While that is going on, move some of the siege into rome east of marrakech. Ideally we could get all 5 to advance/fire together…
Marrakech is a lot stronger, and no 2nd ring tiles open to (road move-set up-fire) all in one turn, won’t be so easy. The workboat only died this turn ( was moving it in/out of Moroccan waters to scount) and saw no other units besides that archer, catapult, and the boat that killed it so I think this rough kind of motion is safe. If we can get 4 or all 5 siege to advance together I think it falls easily.


Also Morocco has a Great Engineer. Can you capture them? If not I think let him build a manufactory we will capture shortly.

Still think Iroquois is next, next player will probably not quite get to the DOW I think.

Units: We have 3 trebs, 2 cannon, 1 musket, 1 cataphract. That may have been overkill on siege, hard to get all 5 in play. And Rabat kept firing at the musket rather than our cannon. I’d almost think it worthwhile to buy a Trireme to support the attack on Marrakech (cheap, would get there faster, too weak to damage city but could take it once siege knock it down to 0). But we can’t. Apparently faith can’t be used on boats. so another musket.

New city state quests: Kiev wans Himeji Castle. Started Divinity on that.
Ragusa wants a road. Decided to move a worker that way. (only one with army, I don’t see much opportunity for more combat roading at 3turns per...maybe he could start the Iroquois segment? Was trying to move another back but kept getting stuck at Neapolis. I still don’t understand why you can move army units *through* another civs with OB, but can’t with workers/noncombat)...Other worker notes: I replaced one farm with mine because Chemistry and hammers->food, but forgot that (unlike civ4) you lose the farm right away, not when the mine finishes 6 turns later). May not be worth doing much.

So many CS want that barb camp south of Vilnius..(might have Icha’s missionary too?).maybe worth parking the scout there after meeting that southern island CS in hopes we can swipe with an AI doing the work?

Still waiting for Godot, I mean Cocoa.

I resold our horses shortsightedly, which will weaken our Cataphract when Almaty de-allies in a few turns...could buy Almaty again, or Geneva. Unclear if they will give us anything better in terms of units.

Since unhappy, swapped a lot of food-> hammer tiles and engineers. May want to revise when happy again…We are losing gold, but I don’t think it’s a big deal. Will capture two Ivories with Marrakech, selling one should get us close to buy the courthouse?

ProphetBlockading (™): Rome has a great prophet near Ravenna, I think they captured the morocco one.


It stays Islamic, but I don’t know what the AI will do with it. I moved the pending GS towards Divinity, he can help blockade before we bulb him.

Suggested city builds: I started National Epic in Devotion (but no hammers invested yet, I know Thawk thinks it can be marginal). Devotion should build the artist’s guild maybe? (Great artists are not very valuable, just for the culture). I don’t think it’s worth replacing the workboats at Divinity anytime soon. Think capital can progress to the Printing Press wonders soon. Zoo’s aren’t great but happy is going to be an issue as we conquer.

Maybe have cap swap off oxford. National wonders might briefly be cheaper to finish (the razing city doesn’t count for ‘must have a university/monument in all cities to build oxford/National Epic’, but does add 30 hammers to their costs). Cap can do Ironworks now. Marrakech had a workshop (spy saw it before I moved him), so we may be able to capture one? haven’t found a reference but think it there is a chance of keeping it on capture.

Other tech thoughts: As per Thawks siege>rifles, I think Dynamite not Rifling (and not SciTheory, nor Industrialization) is our goal. Our spy is positioned to steal Banking in ~10 turns. (not on the path, but a decent cost tech we need after Dynamite. ) I don’t think Compass is worth slotting in beforehand. Great Scientist still unused, I don’t see any immediately crucial tech so I think holding for a slightly later bulb makes sense. (it’s already a 100 turn payback for academy. I really, really don’t think that is worth it)

Note we probably do need to finish Oxford before taking Marakech. I guess Fertilizer is the best target, as I noted it makes our units costlier but has to happen eventually anyways. And there are significant age benefits (city state bonus, Fertilizer food itself, trade routes get a little stronger). Probably worth delaying a bit, buying one more musket in 3 turns before unit costs go up.

Also, maybe the spy should come home after the tech steal? We had Theology pilfered. I remember from another game that the AI’s all get spies when the player does - and since the tech stealing rate is based on research rate, if the player is ahead they will all come to our captial.

On that note, you can do this:

Keep doing this while the city burns down.


Diplo/religion: Russia still Friendly for now despite the prophet maneuver. Unfortunately our prophet is our longterm undoing. Didn’t realize until the end, but they now get a lot of Faith from *our* +2 per wonder belief - remember they’ve built a ton. So they will undo our religion in not that long, maybe 15-20 turns. Too bad, but at that point the +6 faith from their cities is not crucial. Apparently all three options (raze/puppet/annex) give a MAJOR warmonger penalty (both Rabat and Marrakech are MAJOR). Since the capture happened this turn it may be too early for the AI’s to react? Finally, saw this halfway through

Sigh, we haven’t planted a city for 80 turns…
Saw the suggestion to ‘butter up’ Sweden, but I don’t really know how to do that, unclear how much you get from gold gifts.

QUESTIONS:
-I don’t know if the ‘puppet in resistance then annex’ still works. Key for Marrekech.

EDIT - apparently you still can. Here's BNW discussion

ROSTER:
Sorry to delay report past Thawk’s availabilty. So I think yuris would be up for this weekend?
I’m OOP for most of the weekend too. You all have more than enough of my thoughts

[Ichabod]

So, Yuris, do you want to play the turnset this weekend? If you want, I think you can skip T-Hawk. Otherwise, we just wait for him to be back.

Answers bolded:

So we attacked Rabat with three trebs, two cannons, one musket and one cataphract. That should be enough for Marrakech too and should have a good shot at doing it with no losses. I assume we go for Marrakech during my turnset then move into position on Iroquois.

Agreed.

We can sell off barracks in other than Devotion to save money, I think we should.

Agreed, very good idea.

Policy in 4 turns, guess it's time to head up for Reformation?

We'll need the reformation SP to buy Artillery, so I think it's about time we head for it.

World Congress will come at Printing Press, any ideas what we want to do with it?

I have no idea about what we can do with it...

Rome has a Great Prophet in Ravenna, but no more religions can be founded. No idea what the AI does in this case. Heck, no idea what I'd do.

[T-hawk]

I've had a change of weekend plans thanks to a broken water pipe flooding my apartment. I may have a window to play Saturday afternoon, don't skip me just yet.

Remember that even if cannons blast a city down to 0 HP, musket or other nonsiege still has to attack to capture and takes a good bit of damage doing so.
While that is going on, move some of the siege into rome east of marrakech. Ideally we could get all 5 to advance/fire together…

Yup, I know how to handle Civ 5 warfare like this. Keep everything out of city firing range until it all advances together, which will be into those 5 tiles you marked.

Can't capture Great People other than prophets, it just dies. So yes let's hope the engineer plants a Manufactory for us.

5 siege is not overkill, it's about right. 3 or 4 can take a mature city but will be slow enough to incur a loss or two. 5 have a decent chance at coming away all intact. Marrakech likely has at least walls and maybe a castle (it should be possible although I'm not sure exactly how, to figure this from graphics / displayed strength / damage values.)

Converting farms to mines is reasonable now. When food costs 200+ for a new citizen, plus some happiness source, hammers are worth more. Don't worry about 6 lost turns on the tile, that's peanuts.

I think we will need Zoos. Also want to get to Acoustics sometime for our UB (200 hammers 3 happy), might that be worth a diversion before Dynamite?

(the razing city doesn’t count for ‘must have a university/monument in all cities to build oxford/National Epic’)

It does. The Oxford build order is now illegal - notice if you change away from it, you can't change back. It will be forcibly changed at EOT (and lose out on the turn's production). Cap can't do Ironworks either at the moment thanks to Rabat, so let's hope we do capture Marrakech's.

Great Scientist still unused, I don’t see any immediately crucial tech so I think holding for a slightly later bulb makes sense. (it’s already a 100 turn payback for academy. I really, really don’t think that is worth it)

Agreed. It's pretty much always true that the first GS is worth settling then the second never is. Partly due to the first GS increasing the bulb value of the second.

Also, maybe the spy should come home after the tech steal? We had Theology pilfered. I remember from another game that the AI’s all get spies when the player does - and since the tech stealing rate is based on research rate, if the player is ahead they will all come to our captial.

Don't bother playing defense. Keep stealing. A blocked steal puts us up one tech relative to one AI. A successful steal of our own puts us up one tech relative to all AIs.

Sigh, we haven’t planted a city for 80 turns…

It's completely normal to never plant any more cities past 1 AD. The penalties for expansion are just too severe for any city starting that late.

[timmy827]

I've had a change of weekend plans thanks to a broken water pipe flooding my apartment. I may have a window to play Saturday afternoon, don't skip me just yet.

Sorry to hear that, hope it's not too bad..

Marrakech likely has at least walls and maybe a castle (it should be possible although I'm not sure exactly how, to figure this from graphics / displayed strength / damage values.)

It had walls but no castle in the T150 save (the spy was there at the start). Moscow has a castle but I'm not sure if there is a visual indication. Marrakech - I see the two wonders on the graphics, a sunken colosseum, and walls, and not much else, don't know if all buildings show up. Moscow has a strength of 41 so probably Marrakesh still lacks castle. Also you can select a cannon/treb and mouseover a city (even if you're 7 tiles away) to get an idea of damage per shot.

I think we will need Zoos. Also want to get to Acoustics sometime for our UB (200 hammers 3 happy), might that be worth a diversion before Dynamite?

Maybe. remember it's only 200h/3happy in the capital, rest of cities need to build a 100h amphitheater first.

Wonders: FWIW forbidden palace is functionally 500 hammers for ~7 happy, useful but not crucial. only Russia has banking so far and Moscow isn't building it. Since capital can't do the national wonders, maybe we should burn the GS now so it can start a Printing Press wonder or Zoo?

(the razing city doesn’t count for ‘must have a university/monument in all cities to build oxford/National Epic’)

It does. The Oxford build order is now illegal - notice if you change away from it, you can't change back. It will be forcibly changed at EOT (and lose out on the turn's production). Cap can't do Ironworks either at the moment thanks to Rabat, so let's hope we do capture Marrakech's.

Sorry, maybe I should have waited on Rabat to finish it then. I'd strongly recommend waiting a few extra turns to finish it before Marrakesh. Dynamite is 1000 more beakers than Fertilzier, but we get a bit of that back now (oxford will give the cap +5.5 beakers/turn), and I fear the conquest machine will keep rolling and it will take even more conquer-delay-later to pause and build for Dynamite.

Don't bother playing defense. Keep stealing. A blocked steal puts us up one tech relative to one AI. A successful steal of our own puts us up one tech relative to all AIs.

That's fair if 1 block = 1 steal. In my (rough, not too much expierence) you can block several steals in the time it takes to finsih one yourself. OTOH, we can probably steal more costly techs than the AI gets from us.

Sigh, we haven’t planted a city for 80 turns…

It's completely normal to never plant any more cities past 1 AD. The penalties for expansion are just too severe for any city starting that late.

I was critizing AI diplo logic (them complaining about our nonexistent 'expansion'), understand the gameplay reasons completely

Policy in 4 turns, guess it's time to head up for Reformation?

We'll need the reformation SP to buy Artillery, so I think it's about time we head for it.

Agree. I'm now having serious buyer's remorse on all Piety - I think we finish it too late for the prophet to be of much use. Doing it over again think it would have been better to only do Reformation from Piety, and use the other two policies for starting Rationalism (no longer mutually exclusive in BNW) or Patronage. But for where we are now, Reformation path.

World Congress will come at Printing Press, any ideas what we want to do with it?

I have no idea about what we can do with it..

I've only done one BNW game. It seemed very noisy (AI's proposoing and voting for all sorts of stuff, even with Forbidden Palace votes limited ability to shape decisions). Also IIRC getting Printing Press only starts a 20 turn timer before the first meeting, so no decisions needed soon.

[T-hawk]

Sorry to hear that, hope it's not too bad..

It's not for me, no real damage besides wet carpet. But I was told the apartment below me was destroyed.

Since capital can't do the national wonders, maybe we should burn the GS now so it can start a Printing Press wonder or Zoo?

I like this idea. I don't see the GS bulb value escalating much in the near future, we've plateaued on research with universities. Probably Zoo first then Pisa Tower, we don't need Globe Theater for anything.

Agree. I'm now having serious buyer's remorse on all Piety - I think we finish it too late for the prophet to be of much use. Doing it over again think it would have been better to only do Reformation from Piety, and use the other two policies for starting Rationalism (no longer mutually exclusive in BNW) or Patronage. But for where we are now, Reformation path.

You always need another prophet or two late game to undo AI prophetting to you. The Rationalism opener only works when you're happy, which we'll be spending a lot of time not being. We'd need the Rationalism specialist enhancer too to mean anything there. I don't think we went wrong on Piety.

[timmy827]

One more thing re: national wonders

Don't need to delay taking Marrakech. The period of "puppet while in resistance" doesn't apply to the "X building in every city " requirements.
I kept a save from earlier on the turn (before capturing Rabat) and tested, could swap capital off of Oxford and back onto it. (Ironworks still needed the workshop in Piety that is 1t away from done).

So in about 5-6 turns there should be a window for Oxford (marrakech puppetted, Rabat has burned down).