Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Sullla]

OK, here we go with Turn 118:



There was a message waiting from Chevalier Mal Fet, this particular deal sent back to me. It looks like they got our message on an attack in 18 turns, at least I think that's what this means. They did not accept our offer of an alliance, which was unfortunate but not unexpected. I meant to send Chevalier back a "17 for 17" gold deal but forgot on my turn. I'll have to send him a "16 for 16" offer next turn as a result. I also might see if we can get them to agree to Open Borders, which would let us do some scouting of their territory. Overall, a decent result if not everything that we were hoping to get.



Now for the military portion of the turn. I did indeed lose the caravel as expected, although it appears that it took all three shots (both crossbows and the city walls) to take out the ship. Thank you for your service brave ship, you will not be forgotten. As a result of that caravel's noble sacrifice, I was able to play out the rest of the turn exactly the way that I wanted. Without spoiling too much ahead of time, this ended up playing out quite well for us.



First I moved up the battering ram and used a full strength caravel to attack the city walls. They folded like a poker player with a 7-2 offsuit hand, immediately dropping the rest of the walls and exposing the city center tile. Note that the city's defensive strength fell from 38 points to 30 points. Now Kinchassa couldn't shoot back at any of my units and looks to be a sitting duck next turn.



The two crossbows were next. Once again Japper failed to attack my crossbow as it moved into position between turns, and I took the opportunity to have my 2 promo crossbow line up this shot. I actually ended up with a terrible damage roll here, at +19 combat strength has a damage range of 51-77 and I only rolled 53 damage. Fortunately this was one of those times where a spot of poor dice luck didn't matter, as chunking the Kongo unit down to half health was plenty to get the job done here.



This left my Battlecry musket in perfect position to clean up the damaged crossbow. With a ridiculous +34 combat strength, I had an average damage of 117 points here and probably could have gotten the kill without bothering to soften up the unit first. Better safe than sorry though, and the musket did its job perfectly while taking only 8 damage in the process. The musket victory was exactly what I'd been looking to achieve for the last few turns, providing the boost for Square Rigging tech and an envoy at Geneva. Rome is sitting at 145/150 envoy points and will earn two more envoys next turn, which I'll drop into Geneva for the 6 envoy bonus and the suzerain bonus. That's worth 15% extra beakers while we're at peace... which we're going to be next turn. Now I don't expect to hold the suzerain bonus for very long before someone else snipes it away, but even a couple of turns will be nice to have. Heck, just getting the vision from the city state's borders and units will be nice to have off there in the east.



Next up was the other crossbow. Back Chevalier did not occupy that non-forested grassland hill tile with his units, I was able to move onto it with this knight and attack the Kongo unit. I actually sat here for about 5 minutes thinking about whether to attack with this knight first or the knight next to the musket. The unit that attacked first would stay in the same tile, while the unit that attacked second would move into the tile occupied by the Kongo crossbow. Eventually I decided it was better to attack with this knight first, to keep this tile from being occupied by an English unit. You stay away from Kinchassa, Chevalier! This was one of the "worst" combat odds that I took on this turn at +13 strength difference, and it played out about as expected.



Then the other knight made the obvious followup attack to eliminate the Kongo crossbow. That was all three ranged attacks that Japper could make removed from the battlefield - no more free damage from him between turns. I moved everything else up to follow behind the knights:



And of course there was still this guy, the one Ngao Mbemba that I had essentially ignored. I actually planned on not attacking him at all, however I realized that Japper had an extremely small chance to kill my knight southeast of Kinchassa if he attacked with all three of his Ngao Mbembas. By having a knight who was essentially out of the battle for Kinchassa hit this guy, I could knock out half of his health and lower his combat strength that much further. In addition, it was just way too cool to attack a unit with the maximum possible flanking bonus, +10 strength for having a Roman unit on all six tiles surrounding the Ngao Mbemba. As if the game liked my tactical play here, I ended up with a max damage roll of 52 points. Ha! I'll take it.

I think that Kinchassa will fall to us next turn and eliminate Japper. I have two crossbow attacks to toss in for free damage, and then I can atack with a fresh full health caravel, a fresh knight (by swapping the Great Scientist knight with the one next to the city), and a 92/100 HP musket. That feels like it should be enough damage to take down the city; the musket alone has 55 strength and would do an average 82 damage by itself. If the crossbows can kick in about 20 damage apiece, the three melee attacks should be enough. Japper's best move here is to put his full strength Ngao Mbemba into Kinchassa, which will raise the defensive strength of the city. If he does that, he might be able to live for one more turn. If he keeps the current unit configuration, he's 100% dead next turn.

We have a real race here at to who will live longer, Cornflakes or Japper. Can we actually eliminate Kongo before Woden and Chevalier eliminate Khmer? We'll find out this turn or next turn.



Since one war wasn't enough, I also attacked Seoul and had the indicated result with my caravel. The walls took 39 damage and now stand at 11/50 HP. Singaboy, I think your units should be able to finish off the walls without too much trouble on your turn, and then China can capture the place on Turn 118. I will move the battering ram into the water next turn to clear out more space for your units to attack; couldn't do it this turn obviously. The city state sword is doing something insanely stupid; it's actually EMBARKED in the water just to the south of this screenshot. Seriously you guys, the combat AI is incredibly dumb in this game. It's really a shame that we can't run Single Player stuff because the AI is just too freaking stupid.

Attacking Seoul naturally dropped my science rate pretty significantly, from the 130 beakers/turn you see above down to 114 beakers/turn. Losing 2 beakers in each of my eight Campuses will have that effect. However, I'll hit 6 envoys in Geneva next turn and be right back to the same bonus, while TheArchduke is about to lose the 6 envoys invested in Seoul permanently. Sucks to be him, hehe.



Territorial overview for Turn 118. Those double settlers are getting closer to completion, and Roma/Venezia are still chugging along on their universities for the Printing boost. Most of my other cities are building quadriremes or setting up quadrireme chops. Next turn I chop one out at Genova, which is working on the Commercial district that I'll be overflowing into. Genova will still need about 4 more turns to finish the Commercial district afterwards, and I'm getting a start on it now. Considering how weak the terrain is at Genova from a production standpoint, I'm really proud that I've managed to get a Campus and forthcoming Commercial district finished there. Sinena is 2 turns away from its own chopped Commercial district with quadrireme overflow. Firenze is also chopping a quadrireme, with the overflow probably going into a library. Then I need to finish the Campus district project there; Roma will also be finishing its own district project as soon as the university completes. Probably going to have both of them finish in about 8 turns, which should slingshot me up to the next Great Scientist. Darwin himself would be super useful for the tech boost, plus he'll land the long-awaited boost for The Enlightenment.

I have 4 quadriremes done right now and I'd like to have about 12 of them finished for frigate upgrades before obsoleting them by discovering Square Rigging. They will be useful if we choose to attack Germany and Russia:



Here's how I think we would do it. I think we would have China mostly try to defend along that landbridge in the north while Rome moved its current army acros the southern ocean and landed at Kreutzberg and Bandar Brunei. Since Germany has no canal cities and TheArchduke's navy appears to be in the western ocean, a force of a dozen frigates would be poised to wreck havoc down here. By the way, there are actually several RUSSIAN cities down there in the fog just to the west of the cities we can see. This is how EmperorK has been getting at least some of his faith: he has several tundra settlements where he can take advantage of the +1 faith on tundra tiles. They will be benefitting from Defender of the Faith but they might be poorly guarded. We could certainly use more information down here, which is something that little scout will hopefully provide more information on.

If we make a successful naval landing on the eastern coast of Germany, we could try to get more aggressive still:



The Roman navy could sail into this little bay south of Pagan, then escort a Roman SETTLER onto one of the two circled tiles. Instant canal city through this narrow passageway followed by pushing through the other German city at the northern end, opening up a passage for Rome's navy into the western sea. This would be a bit of a risky move, however, since it would allow Germany passage down into the southern ocean if it were to be captured. We would only look to do this if we decisively crushed the German cities in the south and then wanted to bring our ships up into the western ocean. It's something I'll keep in the back of my mind, however.

I think the perfect scenario would be building something like 12-15 quadriremes and then upgrade them into frigates, followed by claiming Darwin and using him to slingshot forward to Steel tech and battleships. Then we upgrade all the frigates to battleships and blast the living daylights out of anything within 3 tiles of the sea. I'm not sure that TheArchduke could respond to that, especially if he didn't expect to see it coming. We take down Germany first and then look to take down England/Nubia after that. There's one big caveat here: we wait about a dozen turns and then ask for a Declaration of Friendship with Woden, which will push back the possibility for hostilities between our teams another dozen turns. This will mean that England/Nubia can't backstab us halfway through this war with Russia/Germany. If they won't agree to that, then we'll call off the attack against Russia/Germany.

Anyway, it's getting late and we can discuss this more tomorrow. Looking forward to the successful end of the war with Kongo, hopefully next turn.

[Singaboy]

Turn 118 is more uplifting than the previous glum turns. Thanks to terrific work by Rome on the battlefield and providing Eurekas and Inspirations. This time its humanism and with its inspiration, the civic is done and I can finally stop wasting culture. Just the right timing too as a monument is done and more culture will be incoming.

When opening the save, I am shocked to see Khmer still alive. What on earth is Woden doing? Also, you can see that England has given up on snatching Kinchassa from Rome. That caravel move was brilliant.

Germany and Russia must be starting to feel the pressure as Archduke wants to renew the DoF. Not gonna happen this time and they better be prepared. I think Archduke's Germany is doing great, but Russia seem to fall behind badly. They got no military too.



I start by attacking Seoul and with three easy attacks, the city defenses are more or less gone. The city is under siege. I am not sure whether a Roman caravel attack might be enough but it should be done for experience sake. Likewise I will have the bombard and archer attack the city simply to gain experience. The musket will then end this to gain the Eureka as well as most of the experience. Overall this attack was put together flawlessly. A real team effort




In the east, my knight uses the chance to enter Khmer territory as the capture will kick me out unless they sign Open borders later on. The city is on the brink of defeat, well done cornflakes to stay alive that long. If I had an additional turn here, I could take the city from under Nubia's siege. If only Khmer would take out that Nubian knight + Nubia having no melee or knight nearby. I am  allowed to dream here.

In the west, there is little action but some interesting stuff going on. I am going to try and insert my horseman between the German units to ensure that there is no settler coming to found another canal city. I am not sure whether it will be possible to land and squeeze the horseman in there. If the crossbow attempts to block my horseman, I could try and get the northern chariot in between the units (3 movement when it starts from a flat tile). If Germany then tries to block the northern chariot, the southern chariot can land and effectively block a settler. By the way, Pagan is finishing a galley before starting a quadrireme here for chopping purposes. I am getting close to 5 galleys and will swap to quadriremes here. They should provide the bonus for harvesting the stone for the Great Lighthouse. 

This turn, I earned 2 envoys through normal government accumulation. As mentioned, 2/3 available envoys are sunk into Geneva. the situation there is crazy. Have we ever seen so many envoys sunk into a single city state? Rome will take the lead there next turn and with peace at hand, enjoy a nice suzerain bonus. Not insignificant. Let's hope England can't counter that.

The extra beakers from Geneva are boosting my science output. I am now getting close to 80 beakers. The campus at Quanzhou is delayed again by a turn as city growth has put all but 2 cities on happy status down from ecstatic. Hangzhou has finished the theatre via a chop and follows up with an immediate trader. The missionary will reach its target next round too for additional income. The will help to offset the additional galleys that come online soon.

Shangdu is soon done with its industrial zone and Beijing is 2 turns away from getting its campus partially chopped. I will use the next civic swap to disable Limes and then use the wild card for the nice +4 gold and 1 faith per trader card. Alternatively, I could use meritocracy to boost culture by more than 10 culture a turn.

Tianjin's borders will grow soon to lock the encampment which would be finished via a stone harvest. The builder from Shangdu is on its way to Shanghai though, where a forest hill is being added next turn. This will be used to chop a second harbor.

Overall, things do look better again and the conclusion of the war against Kongo will boost our numbers. Especially Rome will benefit from both Kongo's capital as well as Seoul. As long as that doesn't trigger another round of gold extortion, I am happy. By the way, where are the truffles and cocoa? Rome is a pretty unreliable trading partner here.

[Modo]

Attacking Seoul naturally dropped my science rate pretty significantly, from the 130 beakers/turn you see above down to 114 beakers/turn. Losing 2 beakers in each of my eight Campuses will have that effect.

So if one member of a team can attack without the other teammate losing the bonuses it would have been better for China to carry the attack alone? I realize that might have prolonged the capture and the bonus for Rome is lost anyway once Seoul is captured but it would have meant squeezing the last drop out of them too.

As long as that doesn't trigger another round of gold extortion, I am happy. By the way, where are the truffles and cocoa? Rome is a pretty unreliable trading partner here.

The cake is a lie.

[Singaboy]

@Modo,
I lost my Seoul bonus too. It's not as if only one of us suffers...

[Modo]

I agree but if only one could suffer...

[Sullla]

I'm also happy to see how well China is coming along, with a science rate nearly equal to Woden right now, and far above Chevalier and EmperorK. With China also getting the 60% boost discount as opposed to 50% like everyone else, Singaboy's true research capacity is almost as high anyone else in the game right now. And yay, the long slog through Humanism civic is finally done for both of us! Did you swap China back to Meritocracy policy now that you don't have to worry about wasting culture (?) That's one of the few policies that seems almost mandatory to have running at all times.

Definitely the right call to decline the Declaration of Friendship with TheArchduke. As soon as we signed the Declaration of Friendship with England/Nubia, we pretty much committed ourselves to war with Russia/Germany. I think that's the better move anyway, since Russia/Germany are the stronger longterm team in every respect other than the Venetian Arsenal. If nothing else, threatening Russia/Germany with an attack with force them to start spending resources on their military instead of coasting along in pure economy mode. EmperorK's 200 power rating is embarassing for this stage of the game. Forcing him to start building some units will benefit us regardless. And if Russia doesn't upgrade/update its military in time, then we simply start capturing cities from their team. Russia/Germany spent about 500 gold last turn on something (unit upgrades?) and they're back to saving money again just like us.

I'm completely shocked that Cornflakes is still in the game. What is Woden doing? The Khmer power actually went up last turn, from 90 to about 130. Perhaps Woden doesn't have a melee unit in position to do the actual city capturing (?) I'm kicking myself for not sending more units over to investigate like Singaboy did with his knight. I had some knights in the back of my lines that can't get into the battle with Japper for lack of space, and they could easily be poking around at the Khmer capital. Well, I'll try to fix that next turn. At first we didn't have a Declaration of Friendship with England/Nubia, and after that I repeatedly assumed the Khmer would be dead on the next turn. Since we've closed off any chance for them to vulture away one of our cities captures, now it's time for us to try to steal one of their cities. It would be incredibly sweet if we could pull that off (although it might be making a gamelong enemy of England/Nubia - not sure if we would care though).

I don't have anything to add to what Singaboy wrote about the Seoul operation. Great teamwork, great execution.

Geneva has... a lot of envoys, heh. That city state might be tricky to capture even against the general incompetence of the AI. A bunch of those envoys will disappear when Kongo and Khmer die though; does anyone know if that will affect the defensive strength of the city? England/Nubia should definitely try to capture Geneva since we will be benefitting from the city state's science more than anyone else. Hopefully they'll just try to fight us for envoys there.

By the way, I actually do have truffles on the way in a few turns. There's a Roman builder near Siena who will be moving onto a forested hill, chopping/mining the tile, and then using its last charge to connect truffles on the next tile. It's going to take a couple turns for those actions, but the truffles are heading your way. Cocoa will take a little longer, whenever the next round of builders comes out in roughly 10-15 turns. And on the gold extortion... well, I make no promises. More seriously though, improving Rome's income is going to be a major goal. As soon as Mercantilism civic is done, I'll be adopting Triangular Trade and that will be worth almost 30 gold/turn. And future trade routes will be routed for gold income, most likely to the Lisbon city state. I'll never match China's income but I can and will do better than the current pathetic 25 gold/turn rate.

One last note I've kept forgetting to post about: Woden has finished two settlers in recent turns. When he takes the last Khmer city to get his captures out of resistance and founds those two new cities, his numbers are going to jump up a good bit. Just an early warning to expect this coming down the pipeline - if he ever finishes off Cornflakes, that is.

[Sullla]

Turn 119: The End of the Campaign



I opened the turn to find that Japper had attacked with his two northern Ngao Mbembas and promoted his southern unique unit on the hill. I'm glad that I took the opportunity to attack the southern Ngao Mbemba last turn, as otherwise it might have been strong enough to kill my knight southeast of Kinchassa's center tile. Unlikely but possible with really good dice rolls. Instead, all my units were still in good shape and the city defenses in Kinchassa were down to 28 strength. That meant that this would be the final turn of the game for Japper, no doubt about it.



First the two crossbows fired for some chip damage, although 57 combined damage was probably a bit more than chip damage. The crossbows were a big help throughout the campaign, adding extra damage at several critical moments in time. The crossbows were particularly effective at rolling up the western side of the Kongo formation during the final push towards Kinchassa. I honestly think it was a bit of textbook demonstration of advancing with melee and heavy cavalry in the front, backed by ranged support in the second row.



Next I swapped out my damaged caravel for a fresh one and lined up an attack against the city center tile at +25 strength rating. I rolled high on the damage at a time when there was no particular need for it and dealt 91 damage here, nice. Then I had the knight southeast of the city center attack it to earn enough XP for a promotion, and that guy almost took the city himself. I think I came up about 3 HP short. That was fine with me, and I didn't really want to take the city with the knight so that I could capture it with my musket. That unit, the one that picked up the Square Rigging boost last turn, delivered the final blow:



Worth 11 XP and a second promotion, nice! Battlecry and Tortoise, here we come. I have two of those units now, they'll be deadly foes against our next opponent. Anyway, that was the end of the campaign, Kinchassa captured and Kongo defeated:



Good game, Japper. I'm sorry that we couldn't work together on better terms in this game, you were an excellent neighbor and you deserved a better fate. We were complete bullies towards your team throughout the whole game: settling up on your borders, attacking your team twice, stealing your cities, etc. All I can say is that we were trying to win in a competitive game. It was a blast having you take part in this game, and I'm wishing you luck in your two new PBEM endeavors.



At Seoul, I moved the battering ram into the water to clear out space for Singaboy's units, but I held off on attacking the city with my caravel. There's no need for the additional damage, not with Singaboy having the city covered so well, and I want the caravel to heal faster so that I can send it out to the deep south on a scouting mission. And I wanted to be absolutely sure to cover this coastal tile just so that Chevalier doesn't try anything funny with his 2 promotion caravel. (Seriously, what has he been doing with that unit? Must be a galley from very early in the game.) Yeah we have a Decalaration of Friendship and all, but I don't trust him. Now here's where I'm a jerk again: Singaboy, after doing 90% of the work to capture Seoul, can you remember to gift the city over to me on your turn? At least I did provide the battering ram, that counts for something, right? Thanks man.



More seriously, the idea behind funneling Seoul over to Rome is so that we can put another Campus + library combo to work for us while Rome blazes the trail on technology research. The second half of that plan went into effect this turn as I gained 2 envoys and dropped them both into Geneva, becoming the suzerain of the city state. I did not pick up the 15% science boost because we are still at war with Khmer. However, we did get some new vision over here, especially of the captured Khmer city of Hariharalaya. Geneva's craggy location will make it a difficult, albeit not impossible, location for anyone to attack. We might be able to roll up this area from the south in a potential future war with England/Nubia. Always useful to have more map knowledge.



Here's the new front lines at the final Khmer city. Yes, Cornflakes continues to defy all odds and survive against Woden's military. It looks like part of the reason for Woden's slow attack comes in the form of that Khmer Encampment district, which inexplicably remains at full health. Woden seems to have contorted himself into knots to avoid attacking where that district is located, and there's a Khmer crossbow in the area too. Singaboy, I would be careful of moving your knight into a position where you can be shot by the Khmer crossbow and Encampment. I'll keep bringing some more of my knights into the area and see if we can do anything. For the moment though, I don't think you can take the city with a knight attack. Who knows though, never hurts to be in position in case Woden screws it up.

I do remember from the PBEM4 game that Woden wasn't the best player at tactical combat. Given double Great Generals and his huge size advantage, he definitely should have finished off this war with Cornflakes by now. Something to remember for the future, perhaps.



Economically, the biggest action of the turn was chopping this forest (with quadrireme + Maritime Industries overflow) for most of a Commercial district at Genova. This is a sad, sad city from a production standpoint; I'm going to slowly build a library next so that I can run a Scientist specialist instead of working more of those awful 1/0/1 coastal tiles. But there's a Campus finished here and the Commercial district isn't too far off, and that's worth +4 beakers and soon to be +8 gold/turn, plus another trade route to run for more income. Gotta make use of every part of the terrain.



Overview time. Double universities for the Printing boost and double settlers are starting to get close to completion. Siena is doing its own quadrireme overflow chop into a Commercial district next turn, and Firenze up in the north is also doing yet another quadrireme chop too. I think I'm going to use the overflow from that to knock out a trader and then go back and finish the Campus district project. I'm looking at 7 total turns to finish the double district projects and claim the next Great Scientist, which I think is fairly safe since no one is with 200 points of Darwin just yet. It's a very useful Great Scientist though, and I don't want to get too cocky. Most of my coastal cities are frantically cranking out quadriremes right now, and I'm happy to let them continue doing that. I don't think it's possible to build too many of them for future frigate (and maybe battleship?) upgrades.

Mercantilism civic finishes in 4 turns and I'll have both of my settlers done in 4 turns - well, 5 turns because the cost of the one at Ostia will scale up. I'll finish the settlers and then replace Colonization with Triangular Trade policy, which should be worth about +30 gold/turn. Slowly repairing the economy!



The score screen looks weird now that Japper has been eliminated. Poor Cornflakes doesn't get counted as part of a team at all, it's just his name all alone at the bottom of the scoreboard. I feel... not that sorry for him. We've retaken the lead on the scoreboard and are now starting to pull back into a comfy lead again. Rome's science rate is back up to 120 beakers/turn and should climb higher with the capture of Seoul on China's turn. Germany is right there at the same point with 123 beakers/turn, except that TheArchduke's science is going to plummet when Seoul gets captured. I think he'll lose about 20-25 beakers/turn, while Rome will gain almost 10 beakers/turn from the city capture. Just as we predicted about 10 turns ago, we're about to retake a decisive lead in science.



The excess sugar trade with China wore off and has to be renewed for another 30 turns. I requested the resource from Singaboy. By the way, note that all my war weariness is concentrated in Napoli (former Heart of Darkness) and Savoia (former The Jungle Book). It's no surprise that the captured cities are the ones that are most unhappy. Will that go away now that Japper has been eliminated, or will we have to wait for the war with Khmer to end? The occupation penalty is gone, for what it's worth. I'll check next turn and find out.



And one more message to Chevalier as we count down the remaining turns on our Declaration of Friendship with Germany. I've already started moving units towards the west coast in preparation for moving them across the southern ocean. It's a long way to go, but we might as well start getting ready for the next campaign.

Have fun Singaboy! I never would have imagined that we would eliminate Kongo before England/Nubia managed to eliminate Khmer back on Turn 101, but the whole sequence has worked out just about perfectly for us.

[Sullla]

OK, apparently Woden finished off Cornflakes on his turn. Fitting timing there on the eliminations. But we still managed to defeat our opponent first.

[Athmos]

I didn't catch up with the complete thread yet, (I'm at the Venetian Arsenal surprise), but I was thinking about the issue of Nan Madol, IE being locked by peace with England and thus unable to deny the huge benefit they're getting from Nan Madol by razing the city. Theoretically, you could still do it. You would need to gain or contest suzerainship of it for a turn; that would expel the English units from the city states border, and you could use that turn to position your unit to take it, or even possibly do it in a single turn.

You automatically lose invested envoys when you declare war on a city state, but it might prove to be a more beneficial use of envoys than actually positively investing them elsewhere, even if you were to raze the city.

[Singaboy]

Turn 119:

With another different district, I get the Inspiration for civil engineering, which I can research right after mercantilism. Both Khmer and Kongo are out of the game. I think they were doomed right from the get go with that weird choice of civilizations. Printing research has reached its threshold and I swap to cartography as I will have 5 galleys next turn. Time to be able to travel the sea to be able to get some intel in the west along the German coast.

Germany is smelling a rat and is trying to block my units from occupying that tile for his potential settler. At least, we know that he is planning to get a canal city. 



In the core, many builds are still underway. Beijing is about to get a second wall chop with the medieval walls about to be done next turn with a nice overflow of around 200 hammers. That will get the campus done pretty quickly too, even though the cost is 266 hammers. This together with Quanzhou's library will further boost our science output. Shangdu starts another builder with the industrial zone done.

The trader from Tianjin is up for renewal and I send it to Roma instead boosting our income. Together with a new religious conversion, income increases to 113gpt, this looks better again. The 5th, new trader is sent to Pisa and could potentially be sent to Nan Madol for a free envoy finishing the task there.

Now, Woden is offering an exchange of amenities. However, I can't do that as the sugar has been traded with Rome. I suggest for Rome to strike a deal with Nubia during their turn. Woden obviously has extra amenities.

After all that empire management stuff, it is time for the 'meaty' items, basically, taking Seoul. I use the archer and bombard to gain some experience and then use the musket for 11xp points and another Eureka. With the city in China's hands, research shoots up to 87.9, hurray....well, if it would remain in our hands.

Rome is a greedy partner and wants the nice city for themselves. Ok, what can I do. I hope it'll boost Rome to new heights. I can't tell how low Germany's science output has dropped. Sulla, you should be able to tell. there is a piece of bad news though, England has 7 envoys in Geneva and will enjoy the suzerain bonus.

By the way, if we are serious about an attack on Germany, I should start to draft horsemen again in the west. It is good to accumulate a lot of faith currently for several options such as a wat, an apostle and even an investment for an opportunistic Great People strike. We need to make sure though, that our units can hold off Germany via land. That's why I also need to gold to be able to upgrade not only my horsemen, but also the remaining archers and galleys as well as the quadriremes I am trying to build.