Dirty Succession Game

[duke o' york]

I'm afraid that I can't play until the weekend either.
The game is put on hold for another couple of days, but as long as we're both committed to playing, it has waited so long and can wait a little longer.

[-Jrabbit]

OK, so now it's back to debeest.

[debeest]

OK, time to get my hands dirty now.

[debeest]

Man oh man, I played for hours this weekend and only got two and a half turns played. I want to finish the third turn and then I'll pass it on to the Duke; I just can't take the time to play more than that.

[-Jrabbit]

Just 3 turns???????

C'mon, debeest, hang in there! Give us 5!!

[duke o' york]

I can't play until the weekend I'm afraid, so you needn't rush your turns.
Too much RL.

[debeest]

Too much RL for me as well, so I'm posting now after finishing my third turn. If I get a chance, I'll play some more, but I'll post if I'm starting so we don't cross paths. Feel free to post and start if you get a chance. Log to follow.

[duke o' york]

I shan't download it until Friday so if you could squeeze some extra turns in between now and then feel free.

[debeest]

Dirtgame log (Russians), 1818-1822

Rule #1 is to get the worst reputation we can AND STAY THERE.

#2: We will have no Aqueducts or Sewers, ever (if we take cities with these improvements, the public works must sold off ASAP, and the cities shrunk to no more than size 8). We don’t care about pollution -- if you clean it up, we don’t want to hear about it (sissy).

#3: Our first Wonder must be the Eiffel Tower. By creating this, we will be forced to continually perform despicable acts to maintain our reputation. Once we have this wonder we can make more…BUT we must destroy all wonders so that they never get into enemy hands. (So yes, we can build Darwin’s, but plan on building it in a small city, and then disbanding the city ASAP -- same with Apollo & Manhattan. In fact, this might be a good strategy with other wonders as well; but remember, Eiffel must be the first one built.) If we come across a city with a Wonder, we can either take the city and then sell off the improvements and shrink the city to nothing, or simply raze it -- the goal is to end up with one Wonder (the Shining Silver Spire) and the remaining ones either Lost or never built.

#4: Winning condition (you have to ask?) -- building spaceship parts is for losers.

- fundy government, 80 cities, 49 techs, researching communism (essentially complete)
- 20%-50%-30% -- 2250 beakers per tech, 180 beakers per turn, so 13 turns per tech
- income 577 per turn; 4766 in the bank
- 391 shields per turn
- 12.79 million population
- war with all but Aztecs, ceasefire with them -- AI civs are strangely receptive
- supreme and atrocious
- 29 engineers, 27 freights, 41 transports, 18 dips, 181 military units; all but one city building units
- We currently control five Wonders besides the Awful Tower, but we’re working diligently to get rid of them. It’s nice that we’re getting a tech right away, because we have a number of units to upgrade before Leo’s workshop is disassembled.
- We have no tech lead on the most advanced AI civs, although others are a dozen techs behind us, and no civ has any tech we lack.

To the west, we have only the last two Chinese cities, about to fall, the last two Aztec cities, soon to be found and taken, and one (visible) Babylonian city far off the beaten path, before we eventually get to the Babylonian homeland. To the east are six French cities (four still to be located) and five Carthaginian cities before we get to the Babylonians. Counting the loner, there are 20 Babylonian cities. A total of 35 cities to take. I guess I won’t get to all of them in this turnset, but I sure ought to be able to take out a lot of them. France and Carthage are almost as far away going east as going west, and our good transportation is mostly to the west, so going through Babylon may be the quickest way there.

We’re devoting 30% of our trade to luxuries, but only about 12 of our 80 cities are celebrating. In this dirty game there is no SSC, so I see no reason to be coddling the rabble like this. In fundy, half of our science is wasted too, so I start by sliding to 80%-20%-0%.

This game is a rout. We don’t have much use for riflemen; we mostly need transportation to get our superior forces into action. I switch some cities to build engineers and transports instead. Build harbors in some small towns. The rest are building crusaders, ironclads, dips, and freights.

- Sell granary in Texcoco to facilitate shrinkage. Oops, on second thought that wasn’t necessary. I’m not used to shrinking cities.
- Rushbuy engineers in four big former Aztec cities and Nanking.
- Lots of other rushbuying, especially out at the frontiers.

Press Enter.

1818: Communism. Faced with a choice of studying electricity, fundamentalism, or gravity. None are appealing choices, but at this point I don’t think it much matters what we study next or even whether we ever learn any more techs. Gravity has no value at this point because we can’t build Isaac Newton. Fundy is a dead end although we won’t have the Statue for long (what happens if we’re in fundy but we lose the Statue and don’t have the fundy tech? I want to see that). Electricity could turn out the lights on the GL before we burn it to the ground, but right now no one has any techs we don’t have anyway, and it would be nice to have fast-moving far-seeing destroyers, and I think there is little vet status to lose if Leo upgrades our paltry few clads.

I choose electricity.

I’m puzzled by where I find some of the units. Lots of crux fortified in out-of-the-way places. Let’s get ‘em into action and pound some head! Freight fortified outside Nishapur. Four settlers, irrigating in the wilderness at the northern end of Fetid Island. Are they preparing for an impending settlement? It doesn’t seem to me that we need new cities at this point except for strategic purposes. But what the heck -- I send one of them out to build Disingenuous on the northern point.
Once again I am stunned at how bad the GoTo function is in MGE. Has anyone else noticed that it’s dramatically more stupid than in 2.4.2?
I settle Smegma to provide a better western port, and Pusillanimous for the same reason.
Oh, goodie! I get to break the ceasefire with the Aztecs! And find Calixtlahuaca.
Hmmmmmm. Crusader versus rifleman behind walls in Tsingtao doesn’t work very well. Maybe I’ll go get some dips first. No, never mind, there’s one there already. For 1608 we get 163 back, plus five riflemen who could have withstood quite a lot of crusader attacks.
Teeny little Smarmy sends an unwanted oil freight to Shanghai for 172g. Teeny Bongwater sends unwanted beads to Shanghai and earns 126. Little Bird Poo sends unwanted silk to Shanghai for 106. Teeny Vermin sends them more oil, glutting the market for 168. Karakorum craftily finds the demand for silk in Hangchow, getting 128. Rubbish Tip to Shanghai gets 168. Oil Bathtub Ring to Shanghai 212. Dye (demanded!!) from Dung City to Shanghai 288. Nishapur to Shanghai 134.
Seven dips bring down the walls in Shanghai (and practically everything else, too -- darned perfectionists!).
Why are there food caravans from Nobath and Muddville (!!) in China?
Last part of my first turn: I don’t know what to do with the eight transports in the Carthage-France area. They’re too far east for a shipchain back to Murky Waters to be appealing. They’re west of Babylon, so they can’t pick up anything from our western shipchain for a long time. And there’s not much intercontinental activity and no excess units in the area they’re in. I guess I’ll set up a shipchain just back to Morethangore.

Income and science with my current adjustments, no more celebrations, and a couple of captured cities, are now $1017 and 89 beakers.

Note to self: resupport lots of units from the Wonder cities before they implode.

OMG that first turn took forever!!!

1820: Silk, demanded, Foul Play to Calixtlahuaca 252. Silk, demanded, Bathtub Ring to Shanghai 198. Many vet crux die attacking fortified vet musketeers before Shanghai falls and takes the Chinese civilization with it. Bribe Calixtlahuaca 348-55. Another freight for maybe 216, I forget. Lots and lots of shipchaining and railroad travel and railroad building. Lots of partial and full rushbuying.

1822: Learn electricity. Choice among electronics, espionage, genetic engineering, leadership, refining, or theory of gravity. Leadership and espionage seem like the obvious preferred choices in this situation, and the losses of vet crusaders against fortified musketeers convince me to go with leadership.
Village at 138,36, between Carthage and Babylon, gives six barb knights, but our explorer escapes aboard a troop ship.
Build Vagabond so Guttersnipe can have port access.
Gold (demanded) Stinking Pipe to Xochicalco 390.
Village 258,42 south of Nanking gives four barb knights. Bribe two that kill the other two.
Bribe Avignon 860-38; bribe Xochicalco 275-47 and destroy Aztecs.
Railroad shipchain railroad shipchain railroad shipchain railroad shipchain railroad shipchain

Wow! That sure was a lot of activity in three turns.

I haven’t run through the cities to rushbuild, titrate shields, etc.

I did manage to reassign all the units from the Aztec cities undergoing demolition. However, some of them are building engineers, and those engineers need to be reassigned or build as soon as they’re completed, or they may be lost to food deficit. Nanking has two engineers that need reassignment next turn.

The railroad to the west end of the Chinese island is nearly complete. I was going to build new port cities out there; that would probably be a perfect use for the engineers from Nanking, if you’re judicious. This turn I began to relocate the entire shipchain from across the north side of that island, half of them to the new western frontier and half of them to enhance the chain from Mongol Land to China.

I’ve got hordes headed west toward the south side of Babylon. I hope they don’t encounter trouble before they get to land. And hordes in Samarkand ready to ship out on a newly built transport or two.

Out east, the vet musketeers in walled cities in Carthage and France are tough enough to fend off quite a few crusaders. I decided to wait for leadership and reinforcements before making a push, although the cannon posted outside Utica might get lucky if you want to try them.

I probably built too many harbors and not enough freights. I’m used to fundy generating cash faster than I can spend it, but with these little towns and no wonders, the freights don’t yield as much cash, so the treasury is down to 1800.

I wish I could have played more, but I had fun and got a lot done, and RL calls. Have fun, Duke!

[duke o' york]

I've now got the game, and will try to get as many turns as possible in over the weekend.
Just in case, can someone with Civ on their computer download the save and check that it opens properly.
For some strange reason, I'm not allowed to install MGE on my work PC.

[Bloody Monk]

duke,

Save opens showing 29 cities to go. Have a fun weekend!!

Well done, debeest!!

Monk

[duke o' york]

Er, there are still quite a few of those cities remaining.
I'm sorry that the log is so rubbish, but most of my turns were spent constructing continent-wide railroads and shipchains (which still need some work), so that we can get troops from one end of our empire to the other in a single turn. We still need the chain extended to the old Aztec island, and the railroad completed to a port city at the other side, nearest the Babylonians. It's all set for Rusucurru to be taken with a horde of crooks next turn, and then we can start eating away at the Bab heartland. I didn't record any freight deliveries I'm afraid, as there were just too many. It was a nothing turn really, just setting up the huge invasion to come.

1822AD - Spend a minute or so remembering what is going on, and laughing at some of the city names.
Press Return
1824AD - Samarra builds Women's Suffrage. Bab clad sinks one of our transports (empty). French government overthrown to Monarchy. All ironclad builds are upgraded to Destroyers. Not that good news really, but inevitable. Loads of things, of which the most important being the capture of Utica (128). The huge cross-continent railways are coming along nicely, meaning greatly-reduced shipchains are an option.
1826AD - Quite a few new cities go down, mostly just as ports to link our railways to our ship chains. Nineveh is spotted to the southwest of where the Aztecs used to be, and Carthage looks doomed.
1828AD - Marseilles captured.
1830AD - Despite losing lots of dips, I can't remove the city walls in Carthage. Fortunately, loads of destroyers are on the way to blast the defenders to shreds. I almost give myself RSI by moving zillions of units across the old Chinese continent, but the troops are circling to get the Babylonian homeland, France is a nothing, and Carthage shouldn't last too long.

[-Jrabbit]

Laying the infrastructure -- an necessary evil, especially on this map.
Sweet.

[Bloody Monk]

Well done, good duke!! Consolidating, railing, and rearming is a very necessary process.

I notice that the Babs have discovered Fundy. Taking a city or stealing it, if done soon, will give a last round of Leo upgrades. Soon five wonders will bite the dust.


Monk

[duke o' york]

That was what I was worrying about. Our science isn't doing anything at the moment, but I don't think that we'll need more units. Leadership would be nice, but Rusucurru will fall because it hasn't got city walls. Thinking about this, I feel that sending two transports full of units there was going a little too far, but as long as we remember to put the freights in before capturing the city then we'll be fine.
The Babs do have a lot of cities though, so it may take longer than we think, but at least we know where their home continent is. I hope that we don't need Apollo to find their few remaining cities, but since we've got Destroyers to explore for us then it shouldn't be necessary.