Dirty Succession Game

[debeest]

Hey, losing Oily Rag didn't really happen on my watch -- there was nothing I could do to prevent it. The trireme, though -- I do feel bad about that. One of those situations where I used some of the unit's movement, then did other things, and then didn't notice or remember when I came back to it. D-oh!

I'm not so sure we won't be able to celebrate at some point. Of course, we could go representative, and then it wouldn't be too hard. But even in monarchy, if we built a lot of cities so that the majority of citizens were blackfaces, I think it would work. I'm not saying it's going to be a good idea, though. Once we get to fundy we probably won't be interested.

The thing about letting someone else build Leo's is (1) they may be far away from us, and it would be nice to upgrade before too long, and (2) we don't really want some AI civ upgrading. But it would be wise to wait until we get gunpowder and explosives. And if China is the only one building it, they're close at hand. But we don't know that....

[duke o' york]

Institutionalised......

1640 (1) - Chinese nearly complete Leo's. We discover Steam Engine, and the Eiffel Tower collects all its shields in Mudville. I meet the Babylonians on the Chinese continent, and politely refuse their demand for 1000g. They are offended to the point of declaring war.
1650 (2) - Nanking builds Leo's. That would be a good place to capture, but now or later? The Eiffel Tower is built in Mudville, and our reputation improves to Questionable. But for how long? I discover the Mongol city of Ormuz to the south east of our current Mongol holdings, and unload lots of crusaders into a fortress on Chinese territory. Lies is founded between the oil and the coal in the middle of nowhere.
1660 (3) - Lagash builds Shakespeare's Theatre (it's in Babylon ). Chinese discover Gunpowder, which suddenly makes the warriors they had by the fortress I occupied into musketeers. Damn! I lose 2 crooks and an explorer. I buy Kabul for 232g, leaving only Ormuz on it's own at the end of a peninsula, and Kabul trapping it in. Damned Lies is founded between Squalor and Raw Hide. Statistics is discovered masquerading as a hut on the edge of the known world.
1670 (4) - I have screwed up the shipchain somewhat, and am hard-pressed to put it back where it was.
1680 (5) - I buy Oily Rag back for 52g. It's got 2 legions inside, so not too bad. May well mean that barbs may start appearing again.
1690 (6) - The polar horsemen spot a yellow ship to the south. Wonder where the French are? The city of Darwin is founded just between Mudville and Slimball. Wonder what will happen in this town? (apologies for the awful joke)
1700 (7) - Roadkill founded in a nothing spot (it has a whale, but can't use it because of unhappiness) The shipchain still seems to be in a mess, but stuff goes from one end to the other all right. I'm looking at taking some Chinese cities in the next turn, but maybe not.
1710 (8) - Final turn. Not much achieved. The Babylonians send a catapult against Kabul, and we lose an archer. Tissue residue founded by Bongwater. Bab catapult made toast by Kabul legion. Otherwise, nothing achieved this turn.

Recommendations: Get the shipchain back up and running! Unfortunately, it is stillmostly triremes, which means only 2 units per turn can travel, but I made lots of cash from Silk deliveries this way, and we have a small number of crooks hiding in a fortress in the middle of China. Bear in mind that the Chinese have muskets now, and we won't be able to take any cities with the troops we have there at the moment. Beijing has the Great Wall, so that makes pretty much all of their cities untakeable for the time being. We can either send in tonnes of crooks, take Beijing and then destroy it (2 wonders), before moving on to the rest of the cities, or wait until the Wall has been made redundant. Your call. Nanking has Leo's, which would be very useful, but I don't know if we should wait until we can get tactics for the full upgrade. Then it would be a case of how many techs we could grab before the city was destroyed.
We ought to get Railroad next turn. The city of Darwin has a single shield towards Magellan, and 7 caravans outside, with another 2 looming. You know what to do there....

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even give any thought to our reputation during these turns, but instead tried to get near enough to whack China. I failed for the most part, though have built loads of useless new cities and one (and a half) wonder(s). If anyone would like to worsen our reputation, then we have a cease-fire with Mongolia, and they are willing to make peace.

*duke spots toothbrushes at 2 for 1 in Boots, and rushes off to stock up*

[Zedd]

First off, apologies to debeest. I had rushed a crux in oily rag and a trireme in one of our coastal cities to the east. (can't recall the name ) But neglected to mention it.

As for our current set of turns it looks like we would be best off trying to bribe Nanking after some sabotage. We may want to switch to tax + diplos for a few turns.

[duke o' york]

Oh, we've got loads of cash still, but don't know where Nanking is.

[La Fayette]

Use the 'find city' command

[duke o' york]

Use hutfinder.

[Scouse Gits]

Now, now

[Scouse Gits]

Play Order

1) Old n Slow
2) JRabbit
3) STYOM
4) Lafayette
5) SG1
6) Zedd
7) debeest
8) Duke of York

[Old n Slow]

I must have blinked -- I'm usually faster on the draw than this.

Will get to this tonight.

[Old n Slow]

Saved game for now, log later.

Teaser: Two wonders are now gone forever.

[-Jrabbit]

downloaded

will wait for log before proceeding...

[Old n Slow]

1710 -- Check the important stuff -- we have a questionable reputation -- but try as we might, no one will talk to us -- Some comment about our chattering. Tickle a few cities to even out production & we’re off.

1720 -- Barbs near Mendacity (so we rush a dip.) Discover RR. Opt for Industrialization. Push a lot of camels & a few left over coins into a tiny village…

1730 -- Darwin’s is built. Discover Industrialization and Democracy. Opt for Magnetism over Chem, Comm, Eco. See Tientsin in an uproar…ask for a price…hmmm for 327 coins (less 28 for discount shoppers), it and Gunpowder are ours. Also collect 200 coins as many barracks disappear.

1740 -- Babs start ME. Pop = 4M Pop a hut for 100g (pop a couple of other huts over the next few years, getting a couple of muskets, but one later disappears. Oh no! our rep is now Questionable… we must do something about this. Also note that rather than disbanding a tiny village now, we can wait and get a twofer…

1750 -- Deliver a camel for 75 coins (actually we’ve delivered a couple of camels, but the payoffs have been in a similar range -- too small to be noteworthy.)

1752 -- A Statue of Liberty is constructed. We . Agree to peace with the Mongols. Hmmm look on the horizon -- a wandering explorer on the shore -- oops, our boat runs aground and crushes him. The Mongols declare war (yawn) and we now smile with our poor reputation. Espy a yellow town to the west of China.

1754 -- Become Fundy. What’s this??? The Chinese walls are down! (All except for Bejing.) Take Canton (-2 crux, + a few coins & Chem, their last tech (oh yeah, we’re #1 in science.)) Chinese change their wonder efforts from KRC to ME.

1756 -- A small village pops out a settler and two wonders enter the red zone.

1758 -- We see a Chinese camel nearing the Mongol environs (they still won’t talk, so we smack it out of spite.) Chinese shift down to Monarchy.

1760 -- Chengdu is in an uproar. Out of curiousity, we ask for a price -- a steal at 864 coins (spent out of our 2320 treasury) recover 47 more coins and an additional 80 for selling off an ugly aqueduct. Start a settler in this over sized city. Try talking to Mongols (nope) so we finally buy Ormuz for 464 (recover 104) coins -- Mongols are gone.

Notes -- some cities are producing inferior goods -- should be upgraded to muskets one way or the other. Bejing still has walls. It also has two useless wonders (HG, GW, both defunct at this time) Need dips & crucs -- smack it to dust. Tientsin & Canton (and within 3 settlers, Chengdu) have barracks and the responsibility for finding (using) and destroying Nanking & Leo’s. After taking Nanking, we may want to visit Tlax (someone has Metal -- and maybe soon after Conscription?) and finish delivering the many camels in production (for Mag) -- we might get a couple of upgrades as we quickly take the yet to find Nanking down to dust.

We’ll need to time the camels & celebrations accordingly.

[-Jrabbit]

OK, took a quick look last night -- about 50 cities, spread all over creation, and a huge map still to be destroyexplored. Will probably try to continue our eastbound pillaging and begin some westbound exploration.

Query: If a WoW has expired, do we still have to raze the city and destroy it? (Don't care which way this goes; just want a ruling before the Battle of Beijing.)

[duke o' york]

I wouldn't have thought so, but a ruling would be nice.

[Old n Slow]

The city must disappear and a click of F7 should show a trail of red with a single white -- the awe inspiring reminder to...

Make it go away (you can take the city & sell off the stuff, I don't care -- but dust it.)