Where to will Singaboy steer the Teutonic power?

[Singaboy]

T151:
No images as nothing really happened. Archduke still holds his two cities and all defenses in place. I would assume, both his opponents are healing/moving troops into position for better attacks.

My builder repaired the stone for some added production, amenities improved again thanks to war weariness reduction. Mainz is on even amenities now. With the entertainment district as well as the Great Engineer, it will get +2 amenities soon. It is the ideal city to produce additional settlers, if not for the abysmal production it has. Can't wait for civil service. The option to get +1 culture per district sounds pretty good. I wonder if pillaged districts count as well.

I will have 5 Hansa (2 pillaged), 4 CH, 2 Campuses (1 pillaged), 1 Entertainment district, 1 aqueduct, 1 encampment. I am not sure about what exactly counts towards meritocracy here, but it should at least amount to 12 culture/turn, which would be quite significant.

Upon reading on the net again, I recon that an aqueduct doesn't count as a specialty district, but the encampment does. Means, the culture output should go up either by 13 or 10, depending on pillaged district counting. For the additional housing, Aachen's Hansa counts, if i am correct, unless the palace is taken into consideration here.

[Singaboy]

T152:
In the northeast, Koblenz finished the trader and starts a market. In order to get a better idea of Hattusa, I send a trade route from Koblenz. It gives gold and research,so we don't mind that much.

You can also spot those pests from a camp harassing Preslav. I might need to divert a few units there to deal with it. A musket is on the way.



In the southwest, we can see a few of oledavy's muskets, but not too threatening. Either his main force is resting or attacking from another angle.



I will switch technology next turn as we have reached the threshold. As it is, it will take another 7 turns for the second bombard. Civil service done in 2 to get a lot more culture.

[Singaboy]

T153:

I mine a hill at Frankfurt and Hansa is now down to 10 turns. In other news, I shift more troops north and a musket and knight to fight off the barbarians. I do not wish them to pillage my land.

At Hattusa, oledavy seems to use scouts to block the city off. When pressing 'end turn' the moving trader reveals a second scout. If that would be the case, I can't really attack the city as it takes a mere 3 units to block Hattusa. Smart move on his side



In the south, Archduke still holds on to his cities. Dorium shows a wounded crossbow but other than that I can't really tell what is going on in the fog. I will try and get a city wall in Frankfurt after its Hansa. The city will grow to 3 soon and with the Hansa, have a decent production base. I will harvest the stones too to speed up both Hansa and city walls.

Scanning over Alhambra's land, it looks like he got civil engineering as all his cities now have walls with 200 strength. He will be a hard nut to crack for the other two.

Next turn, I should be getting my first Great Person. Let's see whether anyone is willing to spend heaps of gold or faith for the Great Engineer. I doubt it very much.

[Singaboy]

T154:

Quite an eventful turn. First thing is, that I finally get the Great Engineer. He moves right away to Ulm to add to its 8/8 housing. Now, strangely, I can't see a change in amenities (currently +1) and housing. I do hope this GE is not bugged. We shall see from the display next turn.



The next thing is, that we get to choose new civics now with civil service done. As previously discussed, I choose Meritocracy here.



The result is really nice as even pillaged tiles count. I gain 13 culture, which in my situation is a 33% increase. With this, the next civic guilds drops from 11 turns to 8 turns. With Koblenz building a market, it will drop to 4 turns, which is really nice. In 4 turns, I will get 100% adjacency bonus for my Hansas which will add quite a bit in production for most cities.

In the northeast, the barbarian cause really trouble and I can only hope that this irritating musket doesn't pillage my just built campus. Bremen locks a Hansa but starts a library first. As you can see, Hattusa is now protected by oledavy's scouts (at the end of the turn, when my trader moves, the third scout is revealed). That sneaky fella. Well, if he attacks me later on, I might still get a chance to rip him off that city.




In the west, the situation for Archduke looks grim, the city defenses of Dorium have been taken out. oledavy's military strength dropped a little, but he does had field cannons, which is not good. However, I hope to get those within the DoF time as well. With the war from Alhabram and oledavy versus Archduke coming close to an end, it remains to be seen what both of them do with regards to me. I can now form alliances. I am curious whether any of them will approach me for that. I can still wait for that for a while, we are only in to the DoF for a few turns now.



With careful planning and saving gold, I should be able to get to cavalry and field cannons within the 30 turns DoF. I still need to build some horsemen though in order to prepare for upgrades.

[Singaboy]

T155:

Sometimes in this game, I get lucky. The barbarians attacked me instead of pillaging the campus. My knight takes out the wounded musket. I hope Preslav will eliminate the crossbow, so it can't counterattack.



The display in Ulm now shows the correct housing and amenities. The GE is shifted to Mainz to activate next turn. Mainz finished its entertainment hub and starts a settler (7 turns). The rest is still on their builds.

Alhambram made peace with Archduke, but Archduke is down to 1 city. Dorium is in the hands of oledavy now. Alhambram offers 5 gpt in return for cotton and an alliance. Unfortunately, I do not know when and in which combination the WW will break out, I can't afford a war right now. I really need cavalry and field cannons. And I need to be able to judge the situation better in order not to get trounced by oledavy right away. His military strength is down, but I can't really judge how many units he has lost. There will be another problem that I have to guess whether he will attack in the north or south. Shifting units around won't be so easy.

Anyway, I offer cotton for 4gpt to him and try get a trade with Woden (cotton for jade).

[Singaboy]

T156:

The highlight of the turn being Archduke out of the game. Well, can't say I am surprised that in the end, his oscillating wars that lead nowhere got him kicked out of the game. Maybe a smarter way would have been to seek an alliance with either myself or oledavy. That should have been sufficient to kick out the third party for sure.

My production and research is humming along. Mainz gets more housing (11) and more amenities. Two trades got accepted and I have more gpt and more luxuries (from Woden)

[Singaboy]

T157:

This turn is far more eventful than a few of the previous turns. For a start, Koblenz finishes the market and guilds get their Eureka just in time. More gpt as well due to that. Koblenz now starts a crossbow as war preparation. All cities can go for muskets and crossbows, but only my capital for horsemen.



The builder at Frankfurt is going to harvest the stone and this gives a massive 103 hammers. Not only does this harvest finish the Hansa, it also almost completes the walls (2 turns left). I will feel a little safer with walls in Frankfurt. I also put down an encampment in Seoul, but not between Hattusa and Seoul, but between Ulm and Seoul to be able to defend that corridor, when oledavy invades the land. As I have two charges for forts. I will put down one fort there as well.

In the northeast, I move forward with a musket to take out the barbarian camp for a little extra cash.

[Singaboy]

T158:

The turn starts with guilds being done triggering another Eureka. In this image you can also see that Frankfurt grew to pop 3 and almost has its walls done. Aachen finished a bombard that moves towards Seoul. It starts a military engineer.



In the northeast, my musket takes out a barbarian scout almost without a scratch. This triggers yet another Eureka. The musket will reach the barbarian camp protected by a spearman, next turn.



Now, the more exciting stuff. With guilds done, I enable a new civic in exchange for 5 builder charges (no builder being produced right now). Craftsmen it is, a beautiful 100% bonus to Hansas.




The effect is massive for me. Aachen's production shoots up to 44 hammers a turn. This means 2 turn horsemen once the military engineer is done (4 turns). Koblenz' Hansa produces now a massive 14 hammers a turn. All cities except for Bremen, which is finishing its library before starting a Hansa are profiting form this. I hope this will give me additional boost to produce the military needed to sting oledavy properly.




In other news, Alhambram is about to finish the 4th Great General of the game. Whoever attacks him will have a hard time with his cossacks and Great General. I am curious to see what happenes between now and my expiry of the DoF with oledavy. I am hoping to see some real carnage for me to be opportunistic. I don't even mind to attack oledavy razing/pillaging as many cities as possible in the process. There is nothing at all for me to lose at this moment anyway.

[Singaboy]

Planning ahead a little:

With 10 turns into the DoF, there are a maximum of 20 turns left for me to get ready to either defend against oledavy or in turn start an offense maybe at Hattusa and from there deciding whether to attack oledavy's core or defend:

The technology and civic road map:

T159 automatically finish siege tactics (due to Eureka trigger)
T159 switch to military science (9 turns), done on T168
T168 switch back to ballistics (4 turns) done on T172

Hence, in terms of technology, there isn't any issue to finish both before T178. I might actually delay both of them in order to be able to produce more crossbows and horsemen.

The civic tree is a lot more complicated as I am running out of Eurekas. There is no way, I can earn those Great People required for humanism and mercantilism. My aim would be civil engineering for those huge wall defenses, but that might just be a pipe dream. Unless I can get a harbor and maybe a theatre, I can't even net the Eureka for civil engineering.

Anyway, let's look at my military:

Current forces (clearly not enough at all)
5 muskets
3 crossbows
1 knight
1 spear
1 bombard

Estimated forces at T178:

In order to get Aachen the bonus for horsemen, I will insert a 1 turn civic 1 turn before Mainz' settler is done. I will swap Colonization for Maneuver (100% cavalry bonus). Aachen will start with horseman production on T163, producing 1 horseman a turn. I could produce around 10 horsemen (not having the gold to upgrade them all). It could then produce another crossbow.

Ulm is currently making a second bombard, before swapping to crossbows. The city could make a crossbow every 4 turns. It might need to insert a market to sustain the army). Let's say Ulm can produce 4 crossbows. Frankfurt will go for CH (the tile will be claimed automatically in 4 turns) and maybe an encampment. So, not many units from there. Seoul is producing the encampment and then horsemen. It might be able to produce around 4 horsemen. Koblenz could add 3 muskets to the mix, while Bremen and Mainz can still produce other things to sustain my empire (builders and settlers)

6 muskets
8 crossbows -> upgrade to field cannons
1 knight
1 spear
2 bombards
14 horsemen -> upgrade to cavalry

I have no idea whether this sort of army is way too little or sufficient. I will have to calculate this again tonight rather than estimating this right now.

[Singaboy]

T159:

Siege Tactics are in and I soon realize my major brain fart  



Forget about cavalry for the time being as I still need to research printing. Without a Eureka, which I surely do not get (2 universities), it takes 11 turns. I decide to research ballistics to their threshold first before heading the ling 20 turns to cavalry. This will mean more field cannons, which is fine too.

In the northeast, I earn some extra gold by defeating the barb camp. That was easy.




T160:

I get a repeated request from Alhambram about an alliance. I wouldn't mind doing that, but it is simply too early. I am not ready yet to sting oledavy. I send Alhambram a trade for 15 gold each to signal to him, in 15 turns, I am ready for an alliance. I am not quite sure whether he will get the message though.

My plan now is to build a second settler in Mainz and use it to replace Hattusa. This will ensure maximum hurt for oledavy. If I take the city, it would be just retaken by oledavy not long after I guess. Raze and replace seems the order of the day.



I am not quite sure what is happening on the international front, but slowly, while being friends with me, they start to hate each other.