Dave's Not Throwing Away His Shot

[Molach]

Encampments don't give trade routes.. ?

If you meant commercial D then I dunno

[Rowain]

Encampments don't give trade routes.. ?

If you meant commercial D then I dunno

If you are suzerain of Carthage the Encampments give trade routes too

[Zero_1627]

Perhaps they aren't fully counted as Yours (they're in captured cities, yes?) - so not counted as belonging to Carthage's suzerain?
Question is - would Your captured city give trade routes to conqueror then?... (as long as You're Carthage's suzerain )

[oledavy]

Welp. 

I'm going to lose thing this because Woden couldn't figure out how to research Civil Engineering/Take Defender of the Faith. 

Really disappointing, after everything I've had to overcome to reach this point. 

This will require some thought.

[oledavy]

Turn 167

Screw Woden. The rest of my game just became near impossible due to him. I do have a plan though. 

1. Found my own religion
2. Clear Alhambram's religion from my cities
3. Keep Woden alive long enough to effect #1 & #2
4. Hold off Alhambram in the interim
5. Convince Singaboy to agree to an alliance. 

Lurker Questions: 

If a DoF comes up while an alliance is running, does the alliance get cancelled? Or does it run for the full 30 turns? 
Does founding a religion in a city clear an opposing religion from it?

These is extremely important for me to figure out over the next bunch of turns. 

Alright, how do I intend to accomplish each step? 

1. I started or laid the groundwork for 8 Holy Sites this last turn. Thankfully, I have lots of workers on hand and forests ready to chop for Oxford, resources that can be redirected into getting me Holy Sites as fast as possible. I'm also going to resume running Revelation next turn. With all this, I can hopefully accelerate towards a Prophet while earning faith for an apostle in the interim. 

2. I'll need Organized Religion and Simultaneum to make this happen. I only need to clear Weedy Movement from a couple cities to be in the clear. So, all I need to not lose is one apostle and one inquisitor.

3. Thunder Mountain Railroad has a 1-tile pass between it and Alhambram. It will likely be the last city Alhambram tries to take, and it has Norse Mythology in it. I will deploy a Infantry Corps with Tortoise into the gap, a couple field cannons as backup, and a reserve infantry corps. That should ensure Woden stays alive long enough for me to effect 1 & 2. Because Woden tried to be cute with diplomacy, I currently can't sign OB with him (he denounced me). So, the only way to get in there and defend him is to declare war on him and cut off my access to luxuries and further increase my war weariness. He probably won't realize what I'm doing and will shoot me with the city.

Have I mentioned that I hate Woden right now?

Alhambram still has to eliminate him or convert him, and he's going to be running out of amenities soon. The flip side is that Alhambram is cutting off my access to traded amenities, so my situation will grow worse as time goes on...We'll just have to cross that bridge when we reach it. Zoos are awhile away. On the plus side, maybe Woden will upgrade and infantry or complete Civil Engineering in the interim and slow this slaughter.

4. Alhambram has a cossack army that is only getting bigger. Thankfully, he currently only has one narrow front on which he can assault me. I'm going to deploy all my existing forces to the Theodosia are to hold him off. This is the weakest element of my plan, as I need to hold him off with my existing forces, upgraded to infantry. The best thing I have going for me is that our frontline lessens the impact of his numerical advantage. If it wasn't obvious, I'm not continuing my attack on Alhambram. I will likely not be making peace with him anytime soon either.

5. Singaboy is not a huge threat, but he's still a threat. All the hammers that would have gone into an army to destroy him are now going to have to be allocated to build holy sites. I could hold him off with a few units, since I have tech advantage and Civil Engineering, but I need an army to defend Hattusa - and therefore a large part of my research capability. Moreover, I really don't want to deal with a two front war, not now. I need time over the next stretch of turns to stabilize things on the religious front, so that I don't lose that way.

To this end, on t175, I will offer Singaboy an alliance in exchange for Monticello/Madison. I'm sure he will jump at the prospect of a free city and me not killing him. It will allow him to think he can get back into the game. And who knows, he's likely going to play a big role going into the rest of the game. His economy is also getting stronger relative to mine, although he continues to fall behind in tech. At any rate, no guarantees he accepts a deal like this, but I can try.

Of course, none of this helps me when Alhambram gets all of Woden's cities out of occupation status and has a much stronger economy than me. At least I have my tech rate in the interim. I should leap out ahead of him. Maybe I get to nukes well before him and just reduce his lands to ash. That's a long way off though. Alright, that's the plan. Despite the desperation that has pushed me to it, I think its surprisingly doable. The big unknown factor is Singaboy, but hitting goals 1-4 should be pretty straightforward. Here we go.



Screw Woden.

Any questions?

[Tatan]

Lurker Questions

If a DoF comes up while an alliance is running, does the alliance get cancelled? Or does it run for the full 30 turns? 
Does founding a religion in a city clear an opposing religion from it?

Working from memory here but yes, a majority of citizens in every city with a holy shrine should convert to a new religion when you found it.

As for the other question, I believe an alliance supersedes (and precludes?) a DoF but I'd have to double check in game.

[Cornflakes]

Could you post an overview shot in strategic view? I'm curious how you laid out the districts in your core but I have a terrible time deciphering the graphics in the normal view.

[Mardoc]

Any questions?

How much easier would it have been to found your own religion a while back instead of at crash-program pace?  Would you have had to give up something else vital - would it have made your military stagnate enough that you couldn't kill Archduke profitably, for example?  I guess I'm looking for the general lesson: should people usually try to get a religion, or is this a special case?

Speaking of religion, what beliefs will you be taking, and what effects will they have?  Can you get anything useful from the religion aside from 'not immediately losing the game'?

Can you put a timeline on any of this?  Any idea when your various milestones will have to be reached?  Or is it simply ASAP, you win or you die?

[oledavy]

Alrighty, so I came up with like 20 new plans over the course of the morning. Here are details on the previously elaborated ideas and some changes. 

Holy Sites

I've decided 8 really aren't necessary. We're going to go with 6. 

Lafayette Holy Site - 3 Chops on hand. Shrine (Buy?) - > Temple (Buy) -> District Project
Schuyler Holy Site - 1 Chop on hand. Ditto
Weehawken Holy Site - 1.5 Chops on hand. Ditto

District projects will be the name of the game. Hopefully I can funnel chops into the districts themselves and the district projects, and use gold (discounted by Merchant Republic) to buy most of my buildings

Elizabeth Holy Site - Slow Build after Campus
New York Holy Site - Slow Build after Ampitheater
Angelica Holy Site - Slow build after Harbor

When these sites are complete, I can buy buildings into them, their faith output doubled by Simultaneum. 

6 Temples, 6 Shrines, 11 Triangular Trade TRs, Simultaneum, that's 83 FPT. It will take a little while to get up there though, but that should be enough to support religious expansion. Remember, initially, I just need 1 Apostle and 1 Inquisitor to stabilize things. 

Religion Beliefs

Zen Meditation - 1 Amenities in each city with 2 districts (That would help my amenities issue)
Wats - 3 Faith, 2 Science. I don't think I'll be building many of these though. 

Worker Actions

I have 19 worker actions I need to do in the next few turns, mostly chops, and harvests. Foremost among these is going to be an effort to harvest 2 copper and 3 crabs. I need the gold for buying buildings and unit upgrades, which I will get into later. I have 29 Builder actions available, so I should be covered on this front. The trick is going to be pathing them the most efficiently. 

Fighting Alhambram

I've decided I need to push against Alhambram while he's eating Woden. To that end, I'll combining my existing forces into 4 musket corps, and 3 field cannon corps. I'm going to upgrade the muskets into infantry corps (80 str. each), and push on Helicegrad. Provided he hasn't shifted the majority of his forces over here, I should be able to make quick work of the city with my infantry. Taking Helicegrad saves me from having to declare on Woden and march through his territory, as the city controls the southern approach to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I should have all my units to begin the assault in about 4 turns, I just need the gold to upgrade infantry. Taking Helicegrad also significantly narrows my front against the Russians, and leaves Abydos to wither on the vine. 

Making a Deal with Singaboy

He has close to 700 gold saved enough, undoubtedly to upgrade units to fight me. He's about to get the biggest break he's had this game. Next turn (t168), I'm going to offer him some combination of Madison and Mt. Vernon for an alliance and that gold. Losing those cities (especially Mt. Vernon), will really sting, especially as Mt. Vernon will be a pain in the ass to take back down the road. But, it will do several important things: 

1. It will buy me 18 more turns of not having to worry about Singaboy. 
2. It will buy me 18 more turns of Hattusa's science. 
3. It will give me enough gold to accelerate buying buildings, and upgrading infantry. 

I'll start with a high offer, he'll probably reply with a low offer, and we'll broker a deal the first Shrine completes so I can immedietly buy a temple and a shrine. I may not have to run Revelation after all if I can simply chop out projects, which would be fantastic as the card is horrendously inefficient at this point.

[oledavy]

Lurker Questions

If a DoF comes up while an alliance is running, does the alliance get cancelled? Or does it run for the full 30 turns? 
Does founding a religion in a city clear an opposing religion from it?

Working from memory here but yes, a majority of citizens in every city with a holy shrine should convert to a new religion when you found it.

As for the other question, I believe an alliance supersedes (and precludes?) a DoF but I'd have to double check in game.

Everything I can find online would seem to indicate an alliance would gurantee peace between me and Singaboy for 30 turns, but, if that's not the case, I could be in a lot of trouble. We're going to go with it though. 

If a city has a shrine, do the citizens automatically convert to the new religion?