Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Modo]

Next up is a military engineer to build two useless forts for the Ballistics boost; I think it will take 5 or 6 turns for the engineer and then a couple more turns to build the forts.

Does a Roman fort count for this? Don't think you still have legions around but if it does count it would be good to know and have the forts ready ahead of time.
A real bummer on Darwin, I still don't get how they can make moves so obviously provocative with this and the settler and such without translating them into increasing security against your civs. Don't want to jinx it either but I expect England / Nubia to reject the DoF, Germany / Russia simply can't react fast enough on their own.
Congrats on the Roman income increase, I wouldn't brag about it tho otherwise Singaboy may remember some debts

[Sullla]

This was a quiet turn for me, not too much going on:



TheArchduke moved his settler back onto land this turn at the diamond resource. I'm pretty sure that he wants to go for the canal city spot, not least because he has those quadriremes hanging out in that little bay. I think it might be time to retreat the horse Singaboy and let his unit through. What do you think? I'm struggling to think of anywhere else that TheArchduke would want a city in this region.

Printing was boosted to completion this turn and my science is now at a stable 149 beakers/turn. It was higher on previous turns, but that was an artificial result of running those Campus district projects. Interestingly, TheArchduke's science was also being artificially boosted by his own district project: he dropped down to only 108 beaker/turn at the moment. Woden (101 beakers/turn) and then Singaboy (91 beakers/turn) are reasonably close, and then there's a big dropoff to Chevalier (69 beakers/turn) and EmperorK (54 beakers/turn). At least we're comfortably leading in science rate at the moment; Darwin would have been amazing and put us far ahead. One annoying thing is that Ballistics appears to be a couple beakers short of 50% research. That's super annoying - now I'll have to invest another turn's worth of research to complete it. The only way to avoid a full turn's waste of research is to wait until the boost arrives, and then finish the tech and overflow almost all of the beakers. The net effect is that Ballistics completion (and passing the boost) will be delayed by 1 turn, although it should still arrive before Turn 135.



More exploring at the northeast end of the England/Nubia continent. Singaboy and I are about to meet up over here with our ships. For what it's worth, I'll have one caravel to help out with the combat in the western ocean. Woden's cities do not have any Harbor districts (I checked and he's making zero Great Admiral points), and that's a potential big mistake. If we can gain naval dominance in the western ocean, all of these cities are toast. There will be no way to stop us from blasting away at the cities with frigates (and battleships?) and then capturing them with land forces. I still think this is our ideal game-ending win condition: raze Germany's cities on the coast of the southern ocean, then seize naval control of the western ocean and capture/raze everything there. I think that would be enough to induce a concession. Still a long, LONG way away from that happening, heh.



More exploring over in English/Nubian territory. Chevalier does not appear to have a canal city here between the eastern ocean and the far ocean, although we need more exploring to know for sure. His Venetian Arsenal city is off there in the far ocean, the place most inaccessible from our starting position. We also had new city foundings this turn: Woden planted two new cities and Chevalier added two of his own, with Lepanto up there as one of the new additions. We knew these were coming, as it was clear from score tracking that they have been building settlers in recent turns. That embarked settler that Singaboy spotted is the last one that they built, and I expect that the island city will be gifted to Chevalier as soon as it's planted. Anyway, this takes Nubia to 12 cities and England to 10 cities. (Rome has 12 cities and China has 11 at the moment; Russia has 10 cities and Germany has 8 cities.) These are more potential targets in a future war; fortunately, all of Chevalier's cities on the eastern ocean are pretty weak settlements with no fresh water and limited production.



Overview of the Roman core. The military engineer for the Ballistics boost is due in 5 turns in Roma, and then it will take a couple turns to move and build the useless forts. To answer Modo's question, I do not have any legions left, and my understanding is that their fortifications do not count towards the Ballistics boost. I should have constructed some forts when my legions were sitting around doing nothing earlier in the game just in case though, that could have saved me some production here. Elsewhere, I have a lot of builders in production. I'm trying to line up a double civics swap in about 7 turns to get a bunch of them out and pair that with Professional Army for quadrireme upgrades. I'm finishing the last two quadriremes right now - I have 12 and these will take me to 14 total - and therefore I will finish Exploration civic next turn. Singaboy, the Exploration boost is coming to you on Turn 127. Tech research is going into Astronomy because finishing it is the boost for Colonialism civic. The double policy swap will pair together The Enlightenment and Colonialism in roughly 7 or so turns.



Here's a wide angle view of the southern ocean. My quadrireme fleet is hanging out near Venezia because that's the one place where there are enough water tiles to upgrade them all to frigates. (There are two at Pagan because I can use that one water tile to upgrade a pair of quadriremes into frigates.) The land units are slowly moving to the west and have just enough time to reach Germany territory by Turn 135. I plan to hit the canal city first and draw attention there, then split off a force to raze Kreutzburg if possible. I have two battering rams which makes operations like that possible.

I also have two settlers on the map and both are moving towards their destination sites. I'll hold off on the northern one from planting until we know for certain that Germany has a canal city. The island settler will be in place for Turn 128.



EmperorK enhanced his religion again this turn. Was that two apostles burned there? A lot of faith to waste if that's true. He picked Stupas which feel like an odd choice to me. This late in the game, I'm struggling to see how a Stupa would pay back its cost in both faith and production, not to mention the cost of the apostle needed to enhance the religion to pick the worship building itself. Shouldn't EmperorK be investing his faith into units via Theocracy instead? Well, as it turns out EmperorK isn't even in Theocracy government! Not yet anyway. For someone playing as religious Russia and making 75 faith/turn, that feels like an odd choice. Singaboy has been benefitting enormously from his faith income, and we've purchased close to 10 units already with faith. Russia should be doing the same thing. (Speaking of which, how are you planning on spending your 1000 faith bank Singaboy? I liked your suggestion from earlier to purchase a few more horses in the ex-Kongo territory where there's more open space and some crossbows for the German border where things are tight.)

The single most disappointing aspect of the turnw as Germany's treasury: after dropping to 68 gold last turn, Germany is back up to 809 gold this turn. How did that happen?! Perhaps TheArchduke harvested a seafood resource or two. It was not a gift of money from another team from what I can tell. This was annoying - the one advantage we picked up from their patronage of Darwin was spending all that gold, and now Germany is right back to being flush with cash again. Bah! At least some of my builders coming out can do the same thing with harvesting some fish and crabs for cash.

Like I said, quiet turn overall. Good luck Singaboy.

[Modo]

I researched up some more and indeed the Roman fort doesn't count as a fort for the Ballistics bonus so it wouldn't have mattered anyway...not that it is documented anywhere that this is wad or a bug but it is what it is.
Is it true though that a legion upgraded to a musket gets to keep it's charge? It can no longer build forts but can remove / repair stuff? I know that this was a thing before the expansion, was wondering if it still is with the new patch.

[rho21]

I researched up some more and indeed the Roman fort doesn't count as a fort for the Ballistics bonus so it wouldn't have mattered anyway...not that it is documented anywhere that this is wad or a bug but it is what it is.

Well the boost does say "2 forts in your territory each built with a military engineer" or something like that, so I have to assume this is the one corner case in the entire game they actually thought of in advance.

[Singaboy]

Turn 125:

As mentioned before I am greeted with this screen:
No mentioning of acceptance of DoF from England. Well, we better be prepared for some sort of attack in the east. As I mentioned, that area is better suited for cavalry, hence I will recruit a few more horsemen there.

Now, the issue here is, how to go about civics and line them up so that I can upgrade units in two batches and land serfdom as well. I am almost tempted to get a few builders out without serfdom. yes, that is two charges less, but the effort to bend myself backwards is just too ridiculous.

I am going to get a civic swap on T117 when exploration comes in from Rome. That turn, I will enable professional army and serfdom. I am going to chop the walls at Quanzhou for the commercial district. I will also use it to have Acre finish its walls with some overflow into the builder. With luck, even Balkh might be able to finish the walls, even without a chop. The coastal cities can always crank out chop bonuses via Maritime Industries or Press Gangs.

Printing came in as well and it is time to finish military science. I am still running Enlightenment for 2 turns to swap on T117 to mercantilism and start the run for civil engineering. During the first civic swap, I will upgrade some galleys and a batch of archers. I have to keep in mind the upgrading cost of mt quadriremes which might be crucial at the western coast. there are currently two, but more will come in I hope. Of course, the other issue is that more military will mean more maintenance and less income. Quite a balancing act. I am glad that Rome is making a lot of gpt too now.



The barbarian game continues in the east. I upgrade the knight giving is higher defense against ranged attacks. As we will play this defensively initially, I am going for defensive promotions first. The horseman just finished the attack short of destroying the camp and is now 5 xp short of a promotion. I am hoping to gain exactly that with the last attack. That would be perfect with three units getting a promotion. Now, if only barbarian camps would scale with time for the rewards as well.

The only real action happened at Pagan with the previously mentioned chop. At 208 hammers it is around 200 hammers into the lighthouse which already has 12/120 hammers invested in it. It will finish next turn and I am hoping that this will line up the next quadrireme at 2 turns, so that I can let the overflow go into that quadrireme and then harvest the stone on T118 into the Great Lighthouse for instant completion. Next turn, I am going to buy the tile W of the harbor for 140 gold to accommodate for the wonder. I am purposely trying to delay placing the wonder to prevent anyone else from knowing what I am intending to do.

The final overview shows military science ready in 4 turns (in fact the horseman in Kashgar needs 4 turns too and I might delay military science a turn). Tianjin is 2 turns short of its quadrireme and will pause it for a turn to wait for the builder to harvest the stone in two turns. That will hopefully complete the encampment for maximum defense between Kashgar and Tianjin. Ideally, with Rome attacking Germany from the east, Archduke will be forced to pull some naval units over to the east leaving me enough power to defend the western coast.
Sulla, you were asking how I intend to spend my faith? I purchased yet another horseman at Acre. I am planning to draft two crossbowmen at Tianjin and Kashgar before the war starts. This will bring the number of crossbows to 5. I might want a third crossbow for a total of 900 faith. I should have sufficient faith to do that. Quanzhou is producing another crossbow which would give me 7 crossbows in the west. That together with caravels and frigates (as well as potentially some cavalry) should hopefully be enough to defend. What do you think?

[Sullla]

Singaboy, that's disappointing but not unexpected that England/Nubia don't want to renew the Declaration of Friendship. We are currently winning the game and they likely see their best chance as uniting together with Russia/Germany to defeat us. I can't say that I blame them even if it's annoying for us. Just to refresh everyone's memory, our Declaration of Friendship with Russia/Germany wears off on Turn 135 and our Declaration of Friendship with England/Nubia wears off on Turn 146. Those 11 turns might decide the fate of this game - we're going to have to deal major, smashing damage to Germany in that period of time. I think it's possible, but it won't be easy.

There's on silver lining for us: I believe that we can make it to Steel tech by Turn 146. Steel is the technology that grants all of your cities free defenses with 200 HP, like having quadruple strength city walls in place. Once a team discovers Steel tech, you either need artillery units or a huge edge in military forces to capture a city. I'm going to try to chop out an Encampment at Parma, and if we have Steel to grant the city and its Encampment 200 HP defenses, that will be a tough nut for them to crack. If we could somehow get a missionary charge over to the city to convert it to Marco Polo, any Chinese units there would also get the Crusade bonus too. With 20 turns to prepare, I'm hoping that we'll be ready. If our navy manages to win against German and we're pressuring the Nubian cities on the western ocean, that will give them something else to think about.



I'm reposting this picture from a week ago to display the path to Steel tech. Ballistics is essentially done right now and awaiting only the military forts for the boost. We also have Rifling tech boosted and it's fairly inexpensive. Next we'll want to go for Industrialization and Steam Power because they serve as the boost for Steel, plus they have lots of useful stuff of their own (coal, ironclads, the passive +1 mining boost, etc.) And.. that's it, there are no other techs that are mandatory to get to Steel. I think it's very doable in the next 20 turns even without Darwin appearing. Then we go for tanks at Combustion as a final step after building a round of knights to upgrade into them. It helps that our research is running significantly ahead of everyone else right now - we hit all the key techs earlier than they do.



Anyway, we made it through two turns today and the second one was super quiet for me. TheArchduke does indeed appear about to settle the canal spot with this settler, excellent. I'm hoping he moves another tile northeast both because that spot is easier to attack and because it will delay the founding of the city by another turn. This will be target #1 for Rome when war breaks out, maybe even capturable on the first turn of the war if we're lucky. TheArchduke has not been scouting in the southern ocean very aggressively, and hopefully he'll continue to hold his fleet in place near Talinn. (He really should be fogbusting with those units to warn of incoming danger. Everyone is locked into peace with each other right now, there's literally no risk. Sitting in place doing nothing doesn't help him.)



And... yeah, that was pretty much it for this turn. My units slowly moved a little closer to Germany and my settlers took another step closer to their destinations. I have one more quadrireme finishing to give me 14 total at the end of this turn, and therefore I queued up Exploration civic to pass the boost over to Singaboy as requested. This will get me into Merchant Republic government for more trade routes, yay! Each trade route is worth about 14 gold/turn with Triangular Trade active, so the four additional trade routes opened up will boost my overall income by roughly 50-60 gold/turn. This will comensate for the extra cost of turning all those quadriremes into frigates and hopefully I'll still be making about 120 gold/turn afterwards. Gold and production have essentially become the most important things in the game now; I have enough science and culture for the moment, though of course I'll keep running Meritocracy and Rationalism (when it unlocks). If we can tech to battleships and have enough gold on hand to upgrade into them, we probably win the game as a result.



Just a little more scouting around Parma. England's unit continue to sit here in not-suspicious-at-all fashion. I'm looking forward to harvesting the stone here and chopping a bunch of the forests. There should be enough production in those resources for two districts at the very least. I would love a brief spell of Limes to take advantage of chopping at my new cities, but I don't know if I'll have the policy slot available. We'll see. Maybe for just a few turns of chopping.

No significant score changes to mention right now. TheArchduke has slowly started to build some more military, his power rising from 771 to 891 over the last two turns. Russia also transferred all of its money over to Germany, which means that TheArchduke has 1500 gold in his pocket at the moment. We'll see how he chooses to spend that on upgrades over the upcoming turns. Russia is still a non-entity with no power and for the moment no gold. If we can knock Germany out of this war, it will effectively be a game over moment for their team.

I think that's all for now. Good luck Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

@Sulla, I updated my post with my turn, do have a look before I play the next turn

Ok, some rough calculations til T135. By the way, in this war, it might be crucial to have the first strike. Do you know whether you can hit Germany on T135 or will it be them? This is essential for our troops to be deployed offensively or defensively.

Anyway, I am going to have around 2300 gold and 2200 faith until T135. Now, 140 gold will be wasted to purchase that tile for the Great Lighthouse. So, what will I use 2150 gold for?
2 archers + 1 slinger -> crossbow 300 gold
4 galleys -> caravels 550 gold
7 quads -> frigates 950 gold

That's 1800 gold for those units. I could upgrade a horseman into a cavalry for higher strength and maybe those chariots to knights too. The next 10 turns I would have to save gold to upgrade my knights in the east to cavalry to fend off Nubia and England. There are two additional archers in the east to defend as well.

How about faith. I am planning to get 3 crossbows for 900 faith, an apostle for close to 400 faith. This leaves me with 900 faith to purchase more crossbows and maybe a few more horsemen. There is no point to purchase a lot more units that need upgrading as I simply lack the gold to do that. Any thoughts on this, Sulla?

[Sullla]

The final overview shows military science ready in 4 turns (in fact the horseman in Kashgar needs 4 turns too and I might delay military science a turn). Tianjin is 2 turns short of its quadrireme and will pause it for a turn to wait for the builder to harvest the stone in two turns. That will hopefully complete the encampment for maximum defense between Kashgar and Tianjin. Ideally, with Rome attacking Germany from the east, Archduke will be forced to pull some naval units over to the east leaving me enough power to defend the western coast.
Sulla, you were asking how I intend to spend my faith? I purchased yet another horseman at Acre. I am planning to draft two crossbowmen at Tianjin and Kashgar before the war starts. This will bring the number of crossbows to 5. I might want a third crossbow for a total of 900 faith. I should have sufficient faith to do that. Quanzhou is producing another crossbow which would give me 7 crossbows in the west. That together with caravels and frigates (as well as potentially some cavalry) should hopefully be enough to defend. What do you think?

This was in the edited post from earlier today, I'm pulling it down here to make the discussion clearer. Long story short, I agree with your thinking here. I think we have enough units over in ex-Kongo lands for the moment, and we can always add more later. That's a problem we can worry about when the Declaration of Friendship with England and Nubia gets closer to running out - we have another 20 turns to go there. As for the German front, having 7 crossbows sounds pretty solid. The land is narrow enough over there that we'll be running out of tiles to put the units on. (We could really use corps/fleets, too bad they are bugged.)

As far as spending gold goes, my one suggestion would be to allocate some more money for turning crossbows into field guns. We're going to have field guns available by the time that the war starts, and that upgrade isn't all that expensive from crossbows. I think it's 115 gold per crossbow into field gun upgrade. What if you held off on upgrading the slinger and maybe one archer and instead upgraded all of the crossbows into field guns. I think that would get you something like 5 or 6 field guns, right? Basically, I think it would be more useful to have 5 field guns as opposed to 7 crossbows, something along those lines. And yes, we definitely want at least one horseman upgraded into a cavalry for the defensive bonus. I might leave the chariots alone for the moment since knights aren't that great and concentrate instead on upgrading into field guns, cavalry, and then all of the naval units. We can always upgrade leftover units later on as we continue to accumulate more gold.

Based on how past Declarations of Friendship have worked, I believe that we will be able to attack on Turn 135 since we signed our Declaration of Friendship on Turn 104. Here's the screenshot:



I accepted this request, which meant that the Declaration of Friendship went into effect on Turn 104. They last for 30 turns, including the "30th turn" or Turn 134, and then it should expire at the start of Turn 135. We are very lucky because we both play before TheArchduke in turn order, and therefore both of us should get a chance to move and attack before he gets a chance. To be fair, EmperorK does get to play before either of us but he doesn't appear to be a factor. As a quick review of how our last Declaration of Friendship worked, we proposed it on Turn 58 and Japper accepted it on Turn 59:



There it was going into effect on Turn 59. I was *NOT* able to declare war on Turn 89, but I was able to declare war on Turn 90. This was Turn 89:



And this was Turn 90:



Assuming the Declaration of Friendship works the same way again, it will expire at the start of Turn 135 and both sides will be free to attack one another. Sometimes it's convenient that I take an obsessive amount of notes and screenshots.

[Ituralde]

A bit late for the party, but now that you missed out on Darwin I can finally ask it.

Do you know for sure, whether Darwin gets the boost from all 4 Pantanal tiles? The ability says adjacent Natural Wonder tiles. You can't be adjacent to all four Pantanal tiles, because of the way it is layed out on the map, so I'm assuming you were going to be standing on one tile of the Natural Wonder and be adjacent to three of them? So standing on a Natural Wonder tile counts as being adjacent then?

Just some Darwin edge case I wasn't aware of. I always assumed that three adjacent Natural Wonder tiles was the most you could ever get with him.

That question aside feel free to return to your war planning. I look forward to the fireworks!

[Singaboy]

Turn 126:

Ha, England beat us yet again, this time to the Great Lighthouse. I am glad I didn't invest anything into it yet again. However, England's navy sure will be powerful with extra movements, Arsenal and GAs. We better watch out and beat them through technology. We need to have superior forces such as ironclads and battleships to beat them into submission before they get the better of us.
There is of course, the Colossus left as a wonder but I will discuss this later in the post.

This is still a quiet turn before things get very busy with civic swaps, chops etc next turn. I stay on course of military science and enlightenment. I will have three civics that are ready for the taking from next turn onward. Nothing much that can be done about it. However, next turn is a lot better than too early or later. 



I continue to ship units towards the west while moving the missionary in slow motion to the east. There is a real traffic jam here and I am actually running into Roman units and they surely have an issue with mine. We still have a few turns to sort this out. One of my knights is actually using one of the Islands to cross and get out of Roman's way.



I finally take the barbarian camp, but forgot that my horseman is 8 exp short of a promotion. Well, with the next attack or defense it will be ready for promotion. I get an important 50 gold for the effort, something that could make the difference of an additional promotion.

In the west, England is clearly trying to prevent me from getting into the Ocean. Silly games here. Well, there must be the Arsenal hidden there, otherwise, there would be no reason for England to be so aggressively blocking my knight. Well, I will continue to move south but expect to be forced east.

Now for the issues to be discussed. At first, I got really annoyed by missing out on the Great Lighthouse. However, there is a way out and that way will provide us with more gpt. First of all, the overflow is perfect. The quadrireme takes exactly 2 turns to completion, letting us use all the additional overflow. I can then harvest the stone in 2 turns into

a. The Colossus for 3gpt, 4 faith and an additional trade route worth 8 gpt. However, the wonder costs 400 hammers and would require additional estimated 100 hammers investment. It would also require a tile to be purchased for 140 gold.

b. A commercial hub for an adjacency bonus of 3 gpt and 8gpt from Lisbon. It has the potential of another 4/8 gpt if I manage to invest more envoys into Bandar Brunei. On top of 11 gpt, it would be completed immediately with the harvest and would save me 140 gold for tile purchase.

Option b gives an immediate bonus that is the same as Colossus minus 4 faith and saves me 140 gold tile purchase. I personally favor this option. It would add another 1 culture a turn too if I choose meritocracy. Sulla, what do you think?

Since I am getting our of Limes for good after next turn's swap of civics, I am finishing the walls in Balkh and Acre without a chop bonus. Better to have city walls for defense. Balkh can always use Press Gangs for chop bonuses, if we get that far for the city.

Tianjin and Quanzhou are ready for chops next turn and I am aiming to have yet another commercial district in Quanzhou with that. It doesn't create any adjacency bonus but will generate gpt through Lisbon and the trade route. Shangdu is adding another trader to the mix next turn and I am going to send it from there to either Lisbon or Rome. The other issue I have is the serfdom swap. As Hangzhou isn't ready yet just like Acre, I might postpone the serfdom swap. Instead I will use Professional army for a turn to upgrade some units. With the finishing of mercantilism a turn later, I will then finally adopt meritocracy again to strongly boost culture.

In order to get some additional income and prepare for the next Great merchant race, I will continue the commercial project in Beijing. Gold is most important for us to overwhelm Germany on T135. I am glad that the game is finally coming to a real fight. Whether we will emerge as the winners remains to be seen. I would rather fight Woden than Archduke. Archdule can be ruthless while Woden isn't a warmonger at heart.

Edit: Looking at the lining up of civics, it seems that
T127 exploration, T128 mercantilism T129 enlightenment are finished.
With this I will use T127 to enable meritocracy in exchange for Limes after the chop. T128 I will quickly insert serfdom and professional army for a turn and complete builders at Pagan and Hangzhou. T129 I will switch to meritocracy and rationalism for doubling of library and university bonuses. With the current 3 libraries I have that translates into 6 science, but will only get higher with more libraries and universities though it will take time.