Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[shallow_thought]

Just to be different, this isn't going to be a turn by turn report. After a bloody first turn, I made peace with Boudicca and it's been pretty quiet...

1) The Celtic war
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I pop a look at Bagacum with a knight, but decide there's too much there to want to sit our siege there in the open this turn with only medieval cover; the escorting Oromos have no moves, so everyone stays in the forest.

I decided to gamble and take Bibracte before eot 190. It costs us two knights, but I get lucky and don't lose any macemen. That's a turn of capital production Boudicca wont get.
The lack of culture means I can move a mace from Tolosa to help cover injured macemen and the siege, while the lightly injured pike and knights (one uninjured) move into the city.

At the interturn, Boudicca boldy moves her stack out of Bagacum and hit the siege / wounded outside Bibracte. The covering uninjured mace is not enough, and we lose 2 maces, 2 trebs, 2 cats. Ugh. I hadn't thought she'd do that with our stack hovering at Bagacum.

On the other hand, Bagacum is now defended by one cat. A knight takes that out, and now my other two-movers from the border can hit her stack in the open - it's now just a big pile of free XP; I throw the pike from Bibracte in first to kill the top wellie and then hit it with everything I had available. Boudicca is left with two <1 health units - an HA and a GW.

War weariness has ticked up noticeably; and Boudicca goes Hindu. She's now offering gold and Isca for peace. I decide to take it; I doubt Isca is worth anything, but we can always liberate it back for approval...



I decided to keep Bagacum as well as Bibracte; the location is mediocre but we do want a city in that vicinity and none are really much better. Isca is SW of Bibracte, if anyone is interested.



2) Foreign news
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Big news of the set is Qin declaring on Charlie. I have to say, Boudicca has been a pain but there has been a lot of good luck to offset the bad in the global picture. Our two main rivals outside Mansa are now hammering at each other in a hot war. Qin seems to have a small edge so far, capturing a couple of former Aztec cities. but I doubt he'll make an impression on the HRE core.

Boudicca was straight up to cautious before the end of the peace. I ummed and ahed about keeping Isca as it did get us another silks source and shielded Camuldodum, but the maintenance was too much, so I liberated it. I also signed her up for OB and wine-for-gold. She's still cautious, but I hope that this plus our continually increasing power rating will keep her out of our hair.

I make a gems-spices deal with Charlie. We don't actually rely on Mansa for any happiness, which is a good thing - he's selling us sugar for sheep, but we have our own source now in former celtic lands.

Mansa techs away: Edu, Nat, Econ (observed trade mission off to the far east), 5t to Constitution. He's probably building Taj somewhere. Note that he has avoided Lib for some reason . He can research Gunpowder and Mil Trad though, so we need to hit him hard and fast.

AP vote comes up start of turn 200 - it's us against Izzy (I voted for us, duh). If we get lucky and win, it offers additional security against Boudicca (with a "stop the war vote" if she does declare) or we may be able to cut Mansa's trade.

3) Operation "let's take all of Mansa's stuff" - preparation
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Yep, Mansa keeps making himself a juicier target. UoS and SM - both in Timbuktu! -  would be very nice "presents" for us...

After peace with Boudicca, I looked at trying to speed up Steel. I just couldn't see how to do it much faster. Our tech rate remained poor (we're breaking even at 30%); it's picking up a little as and when courthouses come on line, but we're far below Mansa. Before starting, I switched research to 1t Alphabet at 0% science; I then went back to Steel but ran 0% science throughout. We should now be able to get Steel in 6-8t, depending on when we declare on Mansa and how badly trade route loss hits us.

I switched all our espionage to Mansa and left it there all turnset. This means that we have city visibility and a stash of EP; I have a couple of spies hanging around in Brocken and CP, ready to go on missions if required.

Mansa has at least some sort of army in Timbuktu (details to follow). Along with the need to secure the Celtic border, I decided to focus on producing more Oromos / knights / trebs from our mature cities, and get on with infrastructure elsewhere. I did take the chance to slip the odd stable in (at Moai city) and occasional barracks. Mansa does have knights so I've thrown in a couple of pikes as well. EDIT: this was probably not necessary as I've just noticed that Oromos can promote straight to formation from drill II .

I decided to stage on RefSteel's southern suggestion; the route via the iron is just too far from reinforcements. Unfortunately we lost cultural control of the staging tile on t200 . We can either go back to my original "northern strike" plan, strike just west of Gao or simply run everything up through Gao. I'd probably recommend one of the latter two options.

This is a (slightly confusing?) look at the forces available.



We have our "slow" stack, with a big pile of trebs and a few cats in case we come across a stack in the open; it actually seems a little short on hitters to me - I may have overproduced seige. The second stack is primarily knights, with a small follow-up garrison. You'll notice that we have two medic IIIs now, as I was planning to support both strike forces; arguably I could have left that decision for later. There are also workers available as combat engineers.

Mansa's main army is in Timbuktu, as shown. I've also listed the Gao garrison; all his other cities have garrisons comparable to this (3 units or so each). I hope that I've left enough here that the next player is comfortable kicking things off in the next few turns. Otherwise, we risk facing Cuirs...

EDIT: I have not been whipping our core cities (focused on trying to get gold for Steel along with building military); hindsight suggests that a couple of rounds a few turns ago, giving us an extra few knights now might have been smart. However, at the least the next player has plenty of pop / happiness to whip away if they want.

4) Demos and graphs
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We remain top by a margin in Mfg and crops; we're also a clear number one in soldiers. In GNP, we're 3rd at break even, and Mansa is a long way ahead now.



The graph suggests it's even worse than this (is our rank in the demos flattering us due to culture)?



Other graphs are much more respectable.





5) Kill Mansa
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We have no choice, and a narrower window than I would like. No pressure on next player at all !

[haphazard1]

Wow, Mansa really is doing his patented super-charged economy thing this game. I suspect the UoS and SM are giving him a very significant boost -- if you invest in religious buildings across an empire they can provide a suprisingly large benefit.

Of course, this makes him an even juicier target. As long as you can hit him solidly before he jumps a generation of military tech you should be able to take him apart; and if you get cannons in the field not much can stand against them at this point in the game. But he is definitely a threat to run away if he is not stopped soon.

Qin and Charlemagne fighting is certainly a nice break. You may face some diplomatic pressure to intervene, or even an AP resolution to stop the fighting or cut off one side. Of course, if you manage to take control of the AP then you could prevent such resolutions and help keep the fighting going.

Interesting that Boudica counter-attacked your stack like that, leaving her city so weakly defended. She did infliect losses on you, but a human would probably not have made that trade.

[Brian Shanahan]

Human would have abandoned Bagacum, or better yet, not founded it at all immediately after Gergovia fell.

From what I can see those were good turns Shallow_Thought, I'm on my phone while watching Ireland lose to an easily beatable Scotland.

I think the next goal is just hit Mansa hard and fast. Get him on the war footing and he'll not tech high enough to stop our push

[shallow_thought]

Human would have abandoned Bagacum, or better yet, not founded it at all immediately after Gergovia fell.

From what I can see those were good turns Shallow_Thought, I'm on my phone while watching Ireland lose to an easily beatable Scotland.

I think the next goal is just hit Mansa hard and fast. Get him on the war footing and he'll not tech high enough to stop our push

Cheer up. 22-21 to Ireland just now . Great game so far. EDIT Oh well ; still a great game for the neutral!

The fact that Mansa is teching Constitution gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Some direct play and some luck and liberalism and even the Taj might be back on the table, fueled by those nice buildings he's built for us...

[Brian Shanahan]

Zalson's turns isn't it?

[shallow_thought]

Zalson's turns isn't it?

Yes, if life allows, although he'll need the save that I forgot to attach to the report .

So here it is. There's no rush to play; I'd rather try and keep the three of us going in fairly even rotation than to worry too much about scheduling.

[Zalson]

G-g-g-got it.

We probably shouldn't have given that city back to Boudica. Maintenance was not too much -- it was only in your mind grapes! We also lost tiles at Camuolodunum and gave Boudica some new units.

About the GNP graph: don't worry about it too much. We're researching steel and running 0% science. Once we get the UoS and SM and courthouses, we will not be in that position.

My goals:

1. 1. Found this city. Plus there are 3 more that we'll want in Mansa's territory.

1. 2. Crush Mansa Musa.

Some Nitpicks going in:

Why do we have windmills at ancient mariner? W'ere never going to work those tiles. Better that they're mines, i think? Also, we should probably be working the cottages, yeah? After the fact, I reconfigured to give the sheep to Flying Dutchman.


Zar doesn't have a: hindu temple, hindu monastery We want those two items before even a forge and a courthouse in all cities (before the forge so it builds the forge faster and before the court house so the courthouse gets built faster). Ideally, we can 2x whip the monastery into the temple. My reasoning is: we spend 140 hammers to get 4 hpt (repay in 25 turns (less if building buildings). We can easily get to size 2/4 quickly enough to whip out the monastery and the temple. Then overflow into the ... courthouse, then the forge.

The following cities have no (correct) religion: Camolodunum, Tolosa, Bagacum, Bibracte. Obvi, recent conquests but still. I should be able to get missionaries there by the end of my turnset.

We have tiles without roads and fortified workers. I've added signs all through our lands with the tiles that need to be in an alternative configuration. There are LOTS in celtic lands. These are not things I would get ordinarily while playing -- but having inherited the save... Well, I marked up and switched around a lot of tiles. I'm on paternity leave. i've got time.

My plan of attack:



Take Gao on Turn 2 (use our 2 spies to revolt on T2). Move the stack to take Timbuktu on Turn 5. After taking Timbuktu, split the stack and clean it up. Then, ideally, midway through Brian's turn, he can attack and kill Boudica. Then it is probably Spain to take the AP.

[shallow_thought]

Overall plan sounds good. I'm sure most of the nitpicks are justified - you could play a little mini game in former Celtic lands called "AI or ST?" over every tile ... I'll be interested in seeing what your signs say.

It's worth bearing in mind that every major action I took (such as giving back Isca) was made on the basis of whether it would help or hinder the attack on Mansa. I think that once Mansa is dead and his wonders assimilated then we're just crisping the batter on the meal. Having to fight him if gets cuirs and we're spending resource simultaneously fending off Boudicca doesn't seem fun (although winnable, as we'd get cannon about the same time worst case*). So buttering up Boudicca and getting enough military mattered to me more than making our winning position even stronger in the event of a successful attack. 

That said, giving back Isca could well have been a mistake. I over-estimated the diplomatic effect, underestimated how many tiles we'd lose back around Camulodunum and forgot about the free units (all of which I could have got right with some research or actual counting). I do think that the current border is more defensible, with the new Celtic cap being more than three tiles from any of our cities, but that and the diplo gain probably don't balance the loss of the city and the silk tiles.

I'm still not convinced about the religious buildings ahead of courthouses (before the forge I can agree with - I was lazy about changing inherited builds last turnset and didn't spot the lack at Zar before I whipped the forge). 4-6gpt saved (depends on the city) is roughly similar in value to 4hpt, and we can build a courthouse faster than a temple and a monastery pair, so globally we're better off building the courthouse first (ignoring cultural, science and happiness benefits). There may be specific local benefits (for example, if we had Hinduism in our new border cities I would have prioritised them for the culture), but I didn't feel these applied to Zar (and anywhere else I could have built them but didn't).

Windmills were definitely me. As you say, we're not working those tiles currently, and the only way we can hope to do so is to get at least some food in. The mills are 1/1/1 tiles, compared to 0/3/0 for mines, which doesn't seem a bad trade off to me, with replaceable parts making them 1/2/1 soonish. If we're never going to work them, then what difference does it make? A small chance to get a resource each turn, I suppose? Or just the ability to switch to truly high production for a burst if wanted in a post-whip world? Genuinely interested in the reasoning here.

The lack of missionaries is sad, but my focus was on getting in to a position to kill Mansa before he gets any more military techs. Once he's dead or crippled, our existing Mfg edge is so overwhelming that even a hundred or so missed hammers, or lost turns in revolt at Celtic cities won't seriously affect our game . Delaying taking Timbuktu would matter more (in my mind); I may have over-compensated, but I would have felt much worse if the nitpick had been "not enough units - will have to delay attack"!

*Of course, Mansa ended up going for Constitution instead, so this worry was moot. This game is a great example of why I (who will probably never get beyond mediocre by RB standards - I just don't have the focus) still need to start playing humans instead of the AI:
- He's teching peaceful tech after tech while we sit an army 6 tiles from his cap
- He's built UoS, SM and Sistine and is in free religion. Correct, me if I'm wrong, but he gets no per-building benefits while he has no state religion, does he?
Against that, he's ignored Lib and has slow-teched Nat (and now Con) which would be really smart if he were saving it for next-tier tech safe in the knowledge that we are too far behind to catch up. If it wasn't for the fact that we're going to kill him first.

[haphazard1]

Some good points about AI Mansa's choices, compared to a human player in his position. The AI does some very odd things at times, and ignores things that to a human player are just screamingly obvious.

I am curious about the intent behind the city mentioned in goal #1. What is it intended to do? It does not look like it has much food, even if some CS farms get built. It does have the incense tiles, but will never have food to actually work them without stagnating/starving.

Windmills on tiles that will otherwise never be worked can be helpful, although tundra hills are pretty crummy even once Rep Parts boosts the hammer output. Unless you have workers just sitting around twiddling their thumbs for lack of things to do, they could probably wait. But you may have such workers, from what was mentioned; not sure.

It will be interesting to see how things work out with the attack on Mansa.

[Zalson]

Goal 1 city gets 2 unclaimed grassland tiles and a cow, plus a few hills and the incense. Size 8 city with decent production. (It should be able to work 1 incense tile, I think).

Other thoughts will require more writing. Stand by.