For religion, I could have my builder go and chop the stone to speed up the settler and then start a holy site. I think this is a large map, so should be 6 religions, right? I think large maps are set-up for 10 players, so 50% plus 1 would be 6. Might be the right play. I do what some holy sites to make use of my unique building, so I can get started some.
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[SPOILERS] Woden and ljubljana like boats
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That sounds good with respect to city sites and tech path. I'm not sure how or if I'll manage to boost Math - my guess is I won't be able to boost it, but at least I can research up to the boost level and then stall for time with the other HBR prereqs.
For religion, yeah, it's a good question - I'm not really sure how much else we get out of going for one other than Crusade denial (which is pretty compelling if someone takes Crusade and we're the only ones without a religion, to be fair). Do you have beliefs in mind? I'm not sure I'm sold on the Norweigan UB in a military game, since going all the way to a temple is 200 hammers for at most a couple hammers/turn from sea resources and a better holy site adjacency bonus. It could be pretty strong in conjunction with Work Ethic, but there's pretty much no chance we'll be able to land that IMO. Maybe it's still a good play to go for one or two holy sites and then run projects if someone takes Crusade? I'm not sure though, and could go either way on this.
February 5th, 2021, 20:24
(This post was last modified: February 5th, 2021, 20:25 by ljubljana.)
Turn 53 - Phoenicia
 The Biremes are getting pretty close to Akkad now. I think we might be in a race against time here, with several of the other CSs starting to show spikes in their defensive strength, but luckily Akkad has not displayed this quite yet. Linear A finishes its Cothon, which shaves a turn off its Bireme. After that, I was planning to make a settler, but could be swayed into another Bireme by TheArchduke's continuing ship builds. I could also build the settler in Linear A and make a ship in Cuneiform after its settler, but the capital has several other things to do too, namely the GP, AH, and perhaps the lighthouse (interleaved with more settlers, of course). We're also going to need another wave of builders fairly soon - I think after PoliPhil I'll make a pit stop at Craftsmanship to facilitate that.  The slightly more defensible version of the dense dotmap. I think city 4 is the best choice for the settler under production in Cuneiform - we can buy the sheep and improve it with the last builder charge, then use the culture from that to grab the jade for the equivalent of a free monument with very little investment, plus a free beaker from the mercury plant. I'm definitely open to being overruled on that call, though.  With the second Cothon finishing in Linear A, we boost Cartography - here it is. Looks like it's going to be a long time before we can get that online.
Turn 52-Vikings
Get the boost to the Wheel (thanks partner) and an envoy into one of the cultural ones (don't remember which one at the moment). My longboat up by suboptimal sees that the city state is locked in by ice... So is the northern passage. I do find one of suboptimal's cities and it can be attacked by the sea. Finally got around to remembering to rename my cities, I am going with Norse gods, starting with Odin as my capital and Frigg as my second city. Astrology finishes next turn and I will see about getting a holy site built in Frigg. (February 5th, 2021, 13:22)ljubljana Wrote: For religion, yeah, it's a good question - I'm not really sure how much else we get out of going for one other than Crusade denial (which is pretty compelling if someone takes Crusade and we're the only ones without a religion, to be fair). Do you have beliefs in mind? I'm not sure I'm sold on the Norweigan UB in a military game, since going all the way to a temple is 200 hammers for at most a couple hammers/turn from sea resources and a better holy site adjacency bonus. It could be pretty strong in conjunction with Work Ethic, but there's pretty much no chance we'll be able to land that IMO. Maybe it's still a good play to go for one or two holy sites and then run projects if someone takes Crusade? I'm not sure though, and could go either way on this. No beliefs in mind at the moment, will really need to see what is left when we get a GP. I will build at least one of my UB for the era points. With the natural wonder on the southern tip of our island, I think I can get a good faith economy going. I tend to think players typically underestimate the power of a good faith economy. Faith has a 2-to-1 production ratio, where gold is 4-to-1. I think if I can get some decent faith generation, might be useful to take Monumentality during the Medieval Era if I can get a Golden Age to boost expansion and then build the Grand Master's Chapel to buy units. (February 6th, 2021, 13:48)Alhambram Wrote:(February 6th, 2021, 13:06)Woden Wrote: Finally got around to remembering to rename my cities, I am going with Norse gods, starting with Odin as my capital and Frigg as my second city. As I understand it, Woden is the Anglo-Saxon name for Odin and since I am the Vikings, I figured I would go with the more traditional name. Maybe I will change it to (W)Odin.
February 6th, 2021, 17:51
(This post was last modified: February 6th, 2021, 20:49 by ljubljana.)
As you might imagine, we should probably have some discussion on this one:
 TheArchduke declares on Akkad and takes a potshot, but the city builds a galley on the interturn! Presumably TAD has one galley to the SW of the city center and another within range, with plans to move both east into adjacency with the city next turn. The question then becomes, how many other galleys does he have in the area? He had a fairly recent power spike, so I'd be surprised if he has more galleys around than we have Biremes. We might be in a very strong position to deny this conquest or even heavily damage the English navy, with the ability to swing our bireme around the west side of Akkad while bringing Linear A's bireme down from the east. That could also be a dangerous move, though, if there are three or four galleys to the west of Akkad and the English catch us moving down to trap them with just two Biremes. That said, our Biremes outspeed the English galleys, so we should be able to get out of a tight spot unless we manage to get trapped ourselves. My instincts in this situation are to move the northern Bireme SE of the one-tile island, move the southern Bireme to the fish 3W of Akkad, or 1 NE of that tile, to try to cut off any English galleys, and move the Linear A Bireme SW while starting another (3t) Bireme in Linear A. Maybe I should also think about delaying the settler to start one in Cuneiform as well. I don't think I want to declare on TAD this turn, since that would give them the DT eureka, but failing to do on a subsequent turn could let English ships escape if conflict becomes inevitable. What do you think about that? Do you think the proposed positioning leaves my ships too exposed to English counterattacks? Do you think I should be more cautious than this to avoid war with England? Do you think delaying the settler in Cuneiform for another Bireme (which will take 2t, and which I'm leaning towards doing as of right now) is a good call? I wonder if I should change researches to Military Tradition, given that the DT boost could be possible now and because we don't have support bonuses online currently. Probably not worth it, but either way could be a reasonable call. edit: We could also be more conservative by moving the southern Bireme to 1SW of the northern Bireme's proposed position, which would prevent either ship from being trapped if there are multiple TAD ships out in the fog while still being aggressive enough to keep the TAD ship next to Akkad from escaping. That seems like probably the best choice to me, and it even has some chance of not being scouted, which could cause TAD to make more attacks against the city center or galley and weaken their own ships for us. I'll move the southern bireme first if we go with that to see if this brings any TAD ships into view, which could cause me to reconsider. edit2: hmm, or....or we could just hold the Biremes back this turn to give a great chance of not being scouted, then close the trap next turn or in a couple of turns...that would give TAD more time to commit ships to this area, but it also has the best chance of lulling them into throwing more attacks at the city center. That might just let them get away, though, if there are more approaches to the city from the west than the one we can see.
I saw that when I played. I think the best move here is see if you can see any other ships coming over but hang back a little bit. Let him work on the city for a little bit...with the galley in there, he won't make much progress. If he gets close to taking the city, attack and kill his galley. I did send my longboat that way around the southern shore but it will be a while before it gets over there. I will send the next one around the northern shore (I think it is quicker). I might also send I might have my 3rd city build one right away and it will probably be ready by the time the others are there. Worst case, he takes the city and we take it from him.
February 6th, 2021, 22:26
(This post was last modified: February 7th, 2021, 00:43 by ljubljana.)
Turn 54 - Phoenicia
 Here's the bireme deployment I end up going with at Akkad. Simple and to the point, but can't be scouted either by a galley next to the Akkad city center or a galley moving towards Akkad by the one route we have defogged. Depending on the city's health next turn, I'll either leave this deploy in place or swoop down to the SW with two of the biremes to cut off the escape of any ships as we move in for an attack. I moved the westernmost bireme 2W - 2E to scout for more TAD ships, and didn't find any...but that's not to say there aren't any coming, or even already in place. TAD's core is probably quite close to this area if they're going for Akkad as their first CS conquest, and there's no way they'd try that with just two galleys having seen Phoenician ships in the area. Domestically, it's a very close call, but I do slot in biremes at both cities, delaying the third city by two turns. I do not want to lose Akkad due to undercommitment here, and since I think the next two builds at the capital should be settler/bireme in some order, it seems like delaying the bireme could have a bigger cost in terms of being able to contest TAD's conquest than delaying the settler will have on the growth curve. I probably won't make more boats after that one in Cuneiform, though, as it needs to get the GP up in time to start the AH soon after PoliPhil comes in. Linear A might make another boat, though, especially if that would push city 4 to just after the AH. If that's the west coast city, which it probably will be, it could really use the builder for double plains hill mines to speed it towards what's looking like an initial monument build. The builder hooks up the marble to reach the first "happy" amenities threshold for a small boost to culture and science, which apparently actually shaves a turn off the DT research, now due in 2. I plan to save its last charge to hook up the sheep at what I expect will be the third city on the eastern mercury. I just noticed this, but the only tile I'm working that doesn't provide bonus culture or science is the Cuneiform city center...and it'll probably stay that way for a while with the planned third city site. That explains my tenuous economic lead, I guess  .Also in the "uh oh" department...  CMF gets the perfect abusive Russia religion, with Work Ethic + Tithe + Dance of the Aurora. PBEM19 me is so jealous . I guess we know broadly where they are, then - on the same continent as Australia, but probably well to the south towards what I imagine is a fairly expansive tundra region, if the amount of tundra in the north is any indication. Could be big trouble down the road.
Turn 53-Vikings
Astrology is in and I start Wheel to finish next turn. I know I said it would be better to wait to finish techs until after the era change to get as much out of the discount as possible but I think I need to get to Shipbuilding ASAP. I can enter the ocean at Shipbuilding and that will make me dangerous. I can attack from ocean tiles and nobody can counterattack until Cartography. Not much else happened during my turn. My southern longboat came across a wandering city state galley... Hattusa, and looks to be close to Japan (white border close to the city state; dot just east of the vision window in the minimap) and east of my current position. They want me to boost Bronze Working. Maybe we do have you finish it to get me more science? As Ijubljana has stated, TheArchduke/Kaiser has declared war on Akkad. With the galley in the city center, I don't think he will be able to take the city with just boats. And I don't think we can either. You need to do more than 20 points of damage each turn because that is what it heals back. With two attacks, it will still take 3 or 4 rounds of attacks, so you need at least 4 boats, as the city will do just as much damage to you as it will take. I say keep an eye on the situation and maybe bring one your boats down to see TAD galley. You may find out that he has abandoned the attack now that the city state has a galley in it, or at least he will retreat to draw teh galley out. |
