[Spoilers] BOBABOD!

[Fenn]

Great read, thanks for taking the time to document your conquest.

[Old Harry]

Very nice, do you think that that's 10 turns of spear building or just a reaction to your attack?

[GermanJoey]

Very nicely done, Ichabod!

thanks for the report!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

As you said, you're really helped in this mod by getting siege at machinery. Build trebs whilst waiting for the phracts and boom! I'm guessing you'll have a couple of C3/4 phracts to threaten people with after this!

[The Black Sword]

I cancelled the deal some turns before attacking (10 turns?), as a way of signalling I ended our NAP. If Jowy caught this, he had some more turns to prepare. That seemed fair enough, even though I was still a bit of a bastard.

That's far too nice.

Good report though.

[Ichabod]

Very nice, do you think that that's 10 turns of spear building or just a reaction to your attack?

Just a reaction to the attack. From what I gathered from civstats, Jowy only seriously whipped after I moved units into his territory. Thing is, we are already in the late medieval era, so spears are very cheap for the production avaiable, and the map is very hilly. Amassing such a large number of units is not hard, which really shows how a conquest in this map is very difficult. It's worth noticing that Jowy had a similar number of cities than me, so don't have a large production advantage.

As you said, you're really helped in this mod by getting siege at machinery. Build trebs whilst waiting for the phracts and boom! I'm guessing you'll have a couple of C3/4 phracts to threaten people with after this!

Good point. It's a pity Molach is on the other side of the empire, because he'd be the logical next target. But there's a chance I'll proceed to attack Mr. Cairo next. He's been at war for a long time, so I think he's behind in tech. A pity that I haven't met him yet, so I don't have his graphs.

I cancelled the deal some turns before attacking (10 turns?), as a way of signalling I ended our NAP. If Jowy caught this, he had some more turns to prepare. That seemed fair enough, even though I was still a bit of a bastard.

That's far too nice.

Good report though.

Well, I felt bad for Jowy. He was a very good neighbour for the whole game. I think he had some shots to raze some of my coastal cities and didn't go for it. At the same time, AT was always making threatening moves and messing with me when possible. I offered the sheep for sheep deal at a time where I was hot headed and decided I'd attack AT, and it felt like bad form to go back on that while using the deal to my advantage.

To be totally fair, I knew there was a chance Jowy wouldn't even notice it. And I'm pretty sure that's what happened. I don't think I'd spell it out loud and clear for Jowy: "hey, mate, I'm terminating our NAP", even if I could. Therefore, my morality is not as honored as I'm making it up to be.

[Ichabod]

I got a GM during the GAge, and I was saving him for a second Golden Age. But my next GP would take some 30 turns, and I figured out a better use for it. Bulbing Banking:



Banking gives the Emancipation civic, which, in this iteration of RtR, seemed very good for the map and for a financial leader. Besides, I can build fast banks, and banks = beakers! Really, 100 hammers for 50% gold is pretty good, considering my slider was 100% gold.

So, I was going to revolt to emancipation without a GA, losing the anarchy turn. To make things more valuable, I was also going to revolt to Bureaucracy, since I don't need vassalage anymore. I queued a lot of wealth builds and 2-turned Civil Service. Unfortunately, changing 2 civics ended up being 2t of anarchy (I probably should have realized it earlier), so that civil service effort was mostly wasted (though I managed to irrigate the wheat in my Capital, for a +1 food bonus ).

Here's the turn where I changed civics:



And here's the effect (notice the gold per turn):



I was impressed. I didn't expect such a large jump in income. For full disclosure, I also signed OB with Dreylin, but I didn't get that much from it (TRs went from 2c to 3c, and not that many cities got them), it was mostly from emancipation.

The map is really hilly and I have lots of mines being worked, which all give 3c now, getting the FIN bonus where appropriate. Besides, I now want to grow my cities, so having 3f cottages is really nice. My cottages start as 3/0/3 tiles, even on non-irrigated grasslands. That's really nice. Perhaps a bit late to invest in cottages, but with all this bonuses, I'm going for it.

I'm building more workers to improve my workforce problem. After that, I'll grow my cities high and most of my economic woes will be over.

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Here's the war theater. I'm still undecided about just bombarding defenses or taking an extra turn to collateral the defenders. We'll see, I like checking the odds in the game before deciding.



This city will also fall shortly, which will give me access to the Wine resource to help with the WW problem.

[Ichabod]

The tentative economic plan now is going for Nationalism (for mercantilism) and Constitution (for representation). I don't think I'll get any of the first to bonus from the era (Taj Mahal, Liberalism or the economics GM), and I'm hoping AT (or some other good economy, not that many cities player) gets the better ones, not Gawdzak or Dreylin.

That's the reason why I'm teching Alphabet next, though. I want to see where everyone is technologically.

[Ichabod]

It was time to Take-Take-Minakata (heh). I debated about waiting an extra turn on the attack, to bomb all the cultural defenses, but decided to go this turn. Guess I valued speed over some extra saved hammers, but it was a lot based on the fact that I wanted a new city ASAP (this is my emotions geting the best of me, once again).



I bombarded with the treb that was already injured, than attacked with the full health CR2 one, which survived at 85%. Than, I killed the top defender (a still full health spear) with a shock crossbow, that had great odds. I attacked with the second treb and, after that, with the phracts. I had a lot of 85% battles, but didn't lose a single unit, which is great. Some phracts reached 10XP, also the crossbow.






Lots of markets survived on Jowy's cities, which is really nice (he is EXP, so cheap markets).

I'm debating about how to proceed with this southern stack. The next Jowy city is on flatland, with only 20% culture, so it's a softer target. The 10XP units will probably have very high odds attacking, so I'll probably wait for them to fully heal and start moving. I don't think I'll wait for the siege to heal, just take them to bomb the defenses. It's a pity that my medic 3 guy is with the northern stack.

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Gawdzak settled this city some turns ago. I'm finally bringing a galley down here to threaten it. It's a very exposed city, too close to my liking. I'll have 2 phracts down here in about 5 turns.

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I changed the Capital's name because I found the name of this bird to be really funny. I renamed my still Byzantium-named cities to the Psychopompus theme, but I'll leave the conquered cities with their previous name. Jowy's naming scheme fits pretty well with mine, and for some time I thought he had a similar theme (it is from a game, though).

I'll have two new happy resources in 2 turns, so I can start growing my cities again.

[Ichabod]

Question: is there a way to identify, through the tech tree, if a first to bonus was already taken? I had the impression that, for example, if the music GArtist is already gone, you wouldn't see the "first to receive a GA" sentence when you hover over the tech. Is that right?

Unfortunately, alphabet doesn't work to show the techs everyone has... So, I'm still lost on that department.

Right now, I'm thinking about going for the epics. Though I think I'll need to get my 2 man GA with GPs from cities before the NE is ready...