It's Clobberin' Time! Raging Barbs Highlands Tokugawa on Monarch

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm down for scouting with spies.

haphazard1 makes a good point: Bureaucracy is a great tech -- but is it the best legal civics choice?

I took a look at the save:

Bureau costs us 6 upkeep over our default legal civics. It will provide us 18 raw commerce at the cap and 3 extra hammers, currently. So that's +16 gpt at 100% cash and +31 bpt, -6 gpt at 100% science. Plus there's the hammer bonus for build wealth and build research.

Vassalage (the other option at this point) costs the same amount and gives us support for 11 units. That will give us back ... 11 gpt (not sure how free units works).

So I think bureau is better, economically. But eventually we will just want nationhood.

I'm ok with scouting via spies; big issue is that they can only move one tile.

The general idea is to use Bureau to get in a good position for Nstionhood, and then draft a rifle army for war. This doesn't always work, eg a commerce poor capital, but it's a nice rule of thumb.

[haphazard1]

Bureaucracy will usually give you some kind of boost, unless your capital is much weaker than normal. But does it give enough of a boost to be worth the anarchy? And do you have other options, such as vasssalage? In this game we do not yet have Feudalism, so it is mainly about the anarchy cost.

Also, do not forget inflation. If selecting the bureaucracy civic shows as costing 6 gold/turn more than the alternate civic, check the current inflation factor. I think we were around 20% during my turnset, so likely a bit higher now. So it will really cost us 7-8 gold/turn, and slowly creeping up over time. If our cap has 36 raw commerce/turn, then it is certainly giving us a boost per turn even before thinking about hammers, library and market multipliers, etc.

But if we have to take a turn of anarchy, that is a lot of lost science/gold/culture/hammers/GPP/EP across our entire empire.

[Brian Shanahan]

On Huayna he definitely has one horse archer. He was flashing it at me during my set.

[Zalson]

How's that report coming, shallow_thought? I didn't see anything too devastating when I looked at the save. Well, other than our awesome economy! (41 number of cities maintenance! WOOO)

[shallow_thought]

T170. I pretty much follow Brian's signs. We can start thinking about moving workers to irrigate towards Golden Axe, and I'm going to try my idea of using a Spy to scout the north. If barbs can kill spies I'm going to feel very silly, but I'm pretty sure they're invulnerable in neutral lands.

We're going to struggle to hold Inca Gold culturally. I look at moving some of our core MP troops out that way, and to cover the new settler at site 'A'. I'm not fond of it, but I don't want to reach for anything too far from the cap.

We've got  a lot of quite heavyweight infrastructure - libraries at new cities and markets at older ones - on the go. Quite a few have hammers in units stacked behind them. It's all useful, but means that I don't have a lot of flexibility in my choices right now, and can't do much about getting out any spies or HAs.

T171. FM has just been whipped; once it grows (4t) I shall stagnate it running some specialists. I'd love to get a spy out to scout but Buddhist missionaries are more important on this side of the empire.

Interestingly, Cuzco only has archers in it. I'm keeping my eyes open for any Incan metal units, but I wonder what we could do with a mess of horse archers here...

Julius is left with one badly wounded Praetorian outside the walls of Gao. Mansa seems to be doing fine right now - and has picked up a GG for his trouble.

There's a note to whip Contra for a market, and another saying t171. That's a 4-pop whip. I think that this doesn't make sense and then realise this is BTS not RtR and redo the calculation. It's a big whip but nice overflow, so hit the button. I've started moving workers ready to get chops into MoM as well, so we'll see.

T172. I move my scouting chariot into the forest that still surrounds Cuzco. To my surprise, there is a barb 2 tiles from the Inca capaital. It's only a warrior, so we should be OK, but I still feel like an idiot .




Goldeneye makes another appearance as a city name in an ongoing game (OH named a city after the game in PB38). Nicely, there's a roaded forest available in our culture in it's second ring which needs only one more chop - that's half a granary straight away, nicely prepared by Brian. We also get incense this turn, so I wander around checking happy caps.

T173. Chariot survives. We also enter the Medieval Era. I pick Construction, but not many beakers will be going into it any time soon. Annoyingly, I think we're about to lose our silks at Golden Axe. The only unit there was our woody II axe, and while it has 68% odds against the incoming barb, it's too well-promoted to risk (it can get Woody III!) I've moved an archer up to ensure we don't lose the city, but I suspect we're going to lose the plantation.




The scouting Chariot takes another move into the woods, onto a hill this time. This is luckier - while there is a barb spear, it is two tiles away. We also get to meet Willem of the Dutch, founder of Judaism and in the middle of the pack. He accepts OB.

I fiddle with our EP. We can't see Willem's graphs (duh), or those of Julius or Gilgamesh. We have no hope of ever seeing Gilgamesh graphs as far as I can tell. For a few turns I'm going to run 50% Willem, 50% Julius to try and get graphs on Willem while not falling too far behind the Romans.

I also whip a spy out of Streets of Rage, to try to get visibility on the north. A second builds naturally out of SMB.

T174. Because I am careless, I forgot all about the axe we had healing in the far SE. It gets double-teamed by an axe and a sword, but survives. More healing to do.

As expected, we lose the silks. Sigh. Oh, and a barb archer has turned up as well. We have an axe reinforcements on the way and I whip the archer I lined up at Golden Axe last turn. Only Sonic and FM are directly affected, an I've plenty of workers lined up to fix it, but it's annoying. I can move some of the troops I was trying to work over to the west back into Sonic for the moment.

There is a barbarian Horse Archer over by Mansa's new city of Tadmeka. I'm glad the lakes and peaks make access to Cholo difficult, but I put a turn of hammers into a spear anyway.




T175. I keep forgetting to mouse over barbs to check what's actually in the stack. We're getting swarmed at Golden Axe. The first axe dies, but the archer was actually an archer-warrior pair, and there's another axe incoming. Glad I concentrated force here. Rather than delay getting the silks fixed I hit the archer with a cover axe at 94%, then support that unit with a fresh archer and our woody II axe; they're on a mined hill, so odds will be in our favour. I'm going to be upset if I lose our very first, very special axe though. Four workers start replacing the plantation.




Mansa killed the HA - there's a wounded sword there - so I switch Cholo back to the market.

T176. DAMMIT . Our axe dies at 21% odds. No Woody III healing for us. Still, silks back on line. A couple of 95%+ battles finish off the barb axe and warrior, and I'm still able to cover our exposed, wounded axe with an archer in woodland, in case there is something else out there in the fog.

T177. Mansa makes peace with Jules. Mansa would also like us to stop trading with the Romans, but I say no. We're going to have to keep an eye on the Roman border. Construction will be up before the end of the turnset.

I follow Brian's last direction to whip Jungle Strike (for a Buddhist missionary, for culture in Goldeneye). It's double-whipped, but there's no great need to be working too many tiles there, so keeping it at size 6 makes sense.

T178. Ah. Julius wants 190 gold. While he's powerful, we're not committed elsewhere. I say no. He sulks. I then get a chance to look at the power graph. Maybe I should have said yes. We need to line up military on our southern border.




Our scouting axe manages to fight off another sword thanks to a recent promotion, but I decide to take advantage of our OB with Gilgamesh and go heal somewhere quieter. There's another sword already on the way.

T179. More barbs near GA. I kill and kill but they keep coming. I try to set up a nice double-whip into MoM at Contra for next turn, but we'll see...

T180. Julius demands we cancel our deals with the Mali. This time I say yes. 10t of peace with Rome is very much worthwhile, and Mansa is much less likely to attack (he's still more powerful than us though).

Construction is in. I pick MC, but that can be changed.

Notes for next player:
- As stated earlier, I was putting espionage into the Romans and Dutch to get graphs. It probably needs changing.
- We have two settlers on the map. I was going to claim land to the SW and grab the plains sheep to the N, but neither site is so attractive that I would complain if we went somewhere else.
- I thought we'd see fewer barbs than earlier. Oh no. They really dragged down my set, killing our very first axe and eating my attention and worker turns. The "out-of-place" axes have each made a kill in the last turn: one made a kill the previous turns as well. They are not well placed to help cover the silks now, unfortunately.
- I've tried to set up a highish-overflow whip into the MoM that needs checking this turn. Probably want to check my tile assignments there as they may have been unorthodox last turn to get the right production.
- I've been pushing Buddhism for border pops as it's the score leader's religion and I hope we can capture the holy city.
- As noted, looks like the Inca have no metal (but have HBR and horses). The terrain is not great for a pure HA rush, so I was pushing for Construction first.

Also, I was thinking it was RFS-81 next, so may have gone overboard trying to be helpful with signs.

Roster:
haphazard1
Brian Shanahan
shallow_thought (Just played)
Zalson (UP NEXT!)
RFS-81 (On deck)

[Zalson]

The signs weren't a problem.

Also: I think we took Huyana Capac's horses when we took Incan Gold

Now that I think about it, I may try to rush Cuzco just to free up Incan Gold.

[shallow_thought]

Also: I think we took Huyana Capac's horses when we took Incan Gold

Now that I think about it, I may try to rush Cuzco just to free up Incan Gold.

There was no pasture when we took it, but that could be the barbs before they captured it. Whipping out a mass of troops and taking the Buddhist holy city would make a lot of sense if it can be done. That's part of the reason I caved in to Julius demand - might free us up to take action.

[haphazard1]

And meeting Willem gets barely a mention. Poor guy.

I don't think the flow of barbs will slow down until there just is not any place for them to spawn. (If that ever happens....) I think spawning is determined on a map-wise basis, and then the where gets determined by what is possible (not visible to a civ, not within certain distance of a non-barb unit, etc.). I may be remembering this incorrectly, though. It has been a while since I looked up the details of barb spawning.

[Zalson]

You get a benefit for giving into a tribute demand of a 10t peace treaty. You don't get a benefit for cancelling deals.

[Zalson]

So I pulled some screenshots at the start of the turn of our cities to plan out our turns. This is an enjoyable exercise for me and helps me not react to changes but to anticipate them.

ALSO: Turn 180 overview!

GoldenEye
Did we whip this city? We shouldn't whip down to size 1, if we did (if we didn't that's A ok).



Going to borrow the sheep from Cholo to grow to size 2 right away. It'll farm the river grassland for now and I'll chop into a double-whip for the courthouse. Then it'll start a library after growing to size. Once it's size 6 or so, I'll replace all the riverside farms with cottages.

Gauntlet


This is another bad habit we have: too many improved tiles unused. A lot of the problems for this city are caused by the pressure from Cuzco. I'm going to farm the tile marked Farm 4t, then will chop into the granary on T4 of my set. Most of the workers will go south to fix up that city.

This will chop the granary, into a barracks and then build catapults while growing to size 4 for a 2x pop cat whip on T192 or something.

Inca Gold

I know we whipped this one to size 1. We shouldn't do that, in general (to hold the city or something is very much a good idea). What was the justification? Switching off a monastery and into a barracks, which I'll chop out via the spices after finishing the farm.

Then spices and chopping out catapults, into a library.

Golden Axe

This city probably should have been founded on the silk. It just doesn't have enough food otherwise (we could then chain irrigation to the three grassland tiles). Oh well, no crying over spilt milk.

Since it is so food poor, we should not whip it any more. Just slow build + chop out the library and then build wealth after that. Once we get biology and a city to the west, it will be better. It'll replace that cottage with a farm.

Streets of Rage

Now is where we start to get pretty good. Streets of rage probably should have built a library before a courthouse and market but, eh, NBD (because a library is cheaper is why).

It's going to give up the grass farm to Golden Axe. Going to grow to size 7 and stagnate for a bit. I'll chop out the market, overflow into a barracks and chop out a catapult. Then it can build wealth and think about what it has done. No library for now. Cats will be more useful.

Contra

We're building MoM here, which would have been great to know about before our turnset. I will whip the H.A. into it ...

No I won't: here's what we do:
1. get MP from the cap over here.
2. switch to stable, whip the stable on T185, overflow MoM (see if someone has marble for trade)
3. 2x whip teh horse archer on T187, overflow mom. start a forge.

Depending on when I can get forges up and running, I may delay the play to whip these things into a forge (then whip the forge into MoM)

Cholo

Ditch the sheep for a grassland farm. once the market finishes, horse archers and/or wealth (edit: a forge). Will replace the cottage with a farm at the end of the turnset.

Secondary goal for the turnset: get more foreign trade routes. Closing borders with Mansa hurt.

JungleStrike

Just going to grow here. Going to try to chop into the market at some point to make it a 2 pop whip. Then it'll just preserve the minimal overflow until forges.


Landstalker

We shouldn't build a hindu monastery for science purposes (we don't want hinduism at this point, I don't think?)

I'll grow us to about 30ish food in the box and then whip to overflow into a forge.

Football manager

What an excellent city. It'll pop out 2 buddhist missionaries before getting started on forge. It'll give up an archer for Contra

Sonic

Another fantastic city. Need an extra MP by T185, which i'm pretty sure Flindo's can provide. It'll switch to a forge when they come available and will whip the forge into the courthouse (for max overflow, of course)

Flindo's

By contrast, a terrible city that saved our game. We shouldn't whip it below size 5 unless we need to; it grows too slowly. The spear will go up to Sonic for some extra happy. Then a stable. Then horse archers

SMB

Let's not whip this one again unless we have to. We need to chop that tundra forest into the forge so that the city can stagnate at size 12 while sharing the deer with Contra. Once we get machinery, we replace the two riverside mines with windmills and grow an extra size to work that plains hill mine.

I'll finish the horse archer once i get into bureaucracy, then I'll get the forge out and build a settler for my incense/wines spot. Or maybe more horse archers. Not sure.