Silly Rules succession game

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Another vote here for rabid aggressiveness.

Besides, we're far from Spotless, so WTF...

We seem to have three votes for conquest and (so far) none for landing.

So ... do we turn the science rate to zero and sell any science improvements?

Who do we target ... the Zulus? the French?

What are the implications for our form of government ... should we try to play in monarchy most of the time?

RJM at Sleeper's

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

We need science still. We can't win with Cavalry vs Riflemen. We need Spies and Howies

Mucho trade... I say we go after the French.

[Old n Slow]

Well I've just opened the save & glanced around. Hmmm we're 7th in life expectancy -- they must have taken a sample from our (former) island cities.

On the other hand, we not as bad off as I though we were. (Of course I might be speaking too soon...)

[La Fayette]

Priorities:
1) Build 6+ cavalry to 'protect' our main island ( if the Zulus come to us before that, we are toast)
2) Finish building our shipchain to Spain and make good use of it (we NEED that money and those beakers)
3) Steal 'Espionage' (+ Steel, if we can)

IMO we should not dream of attacking anyone before we get spies (but the French should be easy to beat afterwards)

IMO we should not dream of stopping research before we get spies ( but it may be a very good idea afterwards: Research = Stolen techs + Beakers bonus on delivery).

[La Fayette]

One more point:
Both engineers and cavalry are 2 moves units. Therefore RR can be built along diagonals and allow instant transportation for our defense forces (provided that we don't build RR too close to the coast = would make Zulu access to our core too easy)

[Old n Slow]

Yes, I noticed that we were low on RR; Also, everything seems "too near the coast".

Since the Zulus were nice enough to take over some of our island cities, were any of those "dipped" for information? If not, it is nice to have such close by "information sources". The Zulus know a few techs (like espionage) that we don't.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
Since the Zulus were nice enough to take over some of our island cities, were any of those "dipped" for information?

None yet
Please help yourself!

[Old n Slow]

We are not as bad off as we think we are, even though we have too few cities, too few techs and our people walk funny. We have 14 cities and 54 techs to the Zulus 19 & 58 respectively, the French’s 12 & 57 and the Sioux 10 & 53. Four of the Zulu’s extra cities were ours, so some of that lead is artificial. In fact I look at those city transfers as opportunities for cheap tech acquisition. The French have five techs that we don’t and the Zulus have four.

Still need embassies with the Russians, Spanish & English.

We still have a Phalanx and two Archers as guards (!) as well as 14 other infantry & only a couple of mounted units for counter attack -- a bit too trusting when we’re in a state of war with half of the world & the rest are hostile.

Hmmm Doofus looks about to fall -- there is a marine and cav threatening our lonely rifle -- so we rush a cav. We also switch a few other items & revolt.

1891 (1) The Russians talk (Zero rifles -- the need for an embassy doesn’t seem so high) they offer to ally, give us 500g and GW to declare war with Spain. Tempting, VERY tempting. We have a dishonorable rep which won’t get significantly better any time soon…but we decline. Zulus talk (Six Rifles) but they don’t say anything of merit. Zulus attack Doofus & the rifle unit dies, Doofus is now down to size 2. A Zulu destroyer dies vs the rifle in Bullwinkle. We build some stuff, including city walls for Beeble.

From a choice of Despotism, Monarchy, Communism, Republic or Democracy, we choose Monarchy (leaving communism as the next government in order. This also leaves Republic and Democracy for the next player without sacrificing the “coupon”) Also toggle the science down -- we need the cash and the tech being researched now (Electronics) is already known by the French -- maybe we can get it there and use the beakers for some other yet to be discovered technology.

Our Brand new Doofus Cavalry unit slays not only the opposing cav but the marine in the jungle! It takes a magnifying glass to see the remaining sliver of red. We reward the unit by disbanding hi for a dip (on the off chance of buying something -- like a city perhaps?

land a truck & the Spanish want to talk (Five rifles) The dip window says that they are enraged (previously only hostile), so we knuckle under and give them their demand of…Theology. Gems to Saragosa (n) = 86 (Nobody nearby wanted these so it was a test for general value -- hmmm trucks almost break even, not a dramatic incentive for trade.) Oil to St. Pete (n) = 120.

Move a couple of boats so our trucks can land (and move west) and deliver the demanded Salt to Moscow -- many Spanish units in the way.

A Zulu ironclad dies vs Bullwinkle (that’s two -- maybe we should help that town out if passing boats are going to stop by.)

1892 (2) -- We build a few barracks and a Port Facility in Wabbit. Talk to the French (Four Rifles -- we’re “Moderate” in power, leaving one & two Rifles for the English & Sioux) & give them Theology for a cease-fire. -- Their units dance around our northern outpost for the next few turns, but nothing happens between us either way. I figure that they’ll sneak attack soon, so we should consider a “conversation” before we go ahead & steal from them as soon as we can get our agents into position.

Place a Coastal Fortress in Bullwinkle. no it is not a prize, but yes, if it is a target, then let the Zulus, continue to lose units there. The Zulus know Steel, so cruisers may be the next boats we see. Spain unloads a cannon, cavalry and explorer next to S/M & Bull.

1893 (3) -- Demanded Salt arrives in Moscow for 288 coins; next salt truck nets half (no longer demanded, natch) for 144.

1894 (4) -- Revolt.

1895 (5) -- Choose Communism (we are still in the ‘want money, may want to move units’ mode, so it doesn’t make sense to waste the coupon yet; besides this sets up the next player for some other opportunities.) A diplomat steals Steel from Gilligan’s Island (hmmm so you thought that settling these cities was a growth plan? Hah! It was a tech plan, and the Zulus fell for it! We are farming these cities for technology and the Zulu can’t stop us from learning all that they know! Check the price for Gilligan…it will cost us 413 (our treasury stands at 423)…and we make the purchase. We now get a FREE choice (not an alphabetical directed choice) of: ESP, FUN, GW, Ref1, Ref2. After all of four seconds of thinking, we choose…espionage.

Now that we have a cav in S/M, we talk to the Spanish & demand removal of their units -- to no surprise, they declare war. Our Alpine smacks their cannon & our cav smokes their other two units.

Two marines are stacked near Doofus ( and a fanatic is lurking around there as well -- no opportunity for our dip to close and do business (not that 10 coins will go very far, but another tech would be nice.)

1896 (6) -- Rush another cav in Doofus on the chance that we can get lucky twice. Wabbit starts a cruiser.

1897 (7) -- Our cav attacks the stacked marines and dies. Doofus is doomed! The Zulus take Doofus on their turn and claim their bounty of…2, count’em, 2 coins.

1898 (8) -- Use the coupon and move one of our three new spies to the waiting eastern transport. Save the game and some movement for the next player.

Notes:

1. The eastern transport has three spies & can go northeast for Jerry Lewis and Doofus for two of the four Zulu techs available (they and the French picked up Combustion; the French also started IN in 1895), or SE for other Zulu cities (and potentially more Zulu boats in the water.)

2. I’ve kept the research crawling almost on purpose -- researching Electronics doesn’t make sense when the French have it & it is only a spy or few away.

3. There is a semi boat chain towards Spain & Russia -- the final boat has four trucks (with Spice , demanded by Seville) taking a somewhat southern (and hopefully safer route) in risky waters. Hopefully the delivery will occur during a celebrating republic era AFTER we steal some techs from the French & Zulus.

4. There are four engineers RRing on the major isle; also we have a few cav there, maybe another or two, along with a few vet alpines, might help shore up our defenses. We still have a musket holding Leidan, so a vet alpine should go there.

5. Sorry, too few trucks in process; we can use the ship chain for another delivery, but will need a boat or two more in that direction for effectiveness. Also we should pop out a vet cruiser for escort safety in that part of the world as soon as practicable. A spy or two with the next shipment (we need a couple of embassies with those folks) should be added tot eh priority list.

6. This is the turn to revolt and the onus is to opt for Republic. This also means that the following government is Democracy, so we may want to opt for some lovin’ to bring Beeble back up to reasonable status.

If we somehow get fundy (or SoL) then we can toggle the players to a commy/fundy combat round and a republic/democrat trading round, where one coupon is used to revolt not to despotism, but skipped to commy and the other coupon is freed up. Or , if we use a longer viewed horizon, we can break it into three parts -- coupon to avoid despo/mon but jump to commy/fundy, switch to repulic & coupon to stay there for eight turns, switch to democracy & coupon to stay there for eight turns, repeat -- this may give us the least disruption due to gov’t switching.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Er, am I up?

edit: Never mind, even if I'm not up, I'm playing

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Some silly moves, no doubt.

STYOM becomes GenSec of the silly Commies.

I'm spending a long time looking at the notes. We have spies now! We can steal techs over and over again On the other hand, looking at the defenders we have makes me feel a little ill... as in, no defenders in Monty Python... and poor Beeblebrox is size 3! All the defenders we have on the islands will make Republic and Demo tricky. Nonetheless, we have to try those governments for growth and for science...

OK. I agree with La Fayette's idea to stop 'researching' once we get Espionage. We have Espionage. I plan on stealing some techs and using trade to get the beakers we can't steal. Right now, we need to defend the cities we have, and hopefully put some infrastructure in place to let us grow. Accordingly, I'm going to focus on a high luxuries and high tax approach during my turns.

1898: REVOLUTION.

French threaten Verdun.

1899: Choose Republic (in order). Looking at the sliders, 40% lux will get a lot of cities celebrating with no unrest, and no entertainers needed However, none but Beeb can grow without Aqueducts, and those aren't a huge screaming priority now - I can't rushbuild them yet. So 30% lux is chosen, for now. Let's build up some defenses & some infrastructure before we really grow.

Spice SillyWalks>Seville (driving west, naturally) 708 g. Spice is repeating in Seville! Spice Wabbit>Seville 462 g. Spice>FrightWig>Seville 492 g. That's more like it! Yes, we have overresearched Electronics, I know. However, I didn't want to risk losing the Freights to Spanish attack. We are at war with them, after all. Rather than risk losing the Gold Freight on the way to Bilbao, we deliver it to Madrid (southwest!) for 154 g.

As we now have p1sspots full of money, nearly everything that's already in production is rushed. (Except for the Palace! ) We're left with about 1200 g. We could boost science to 50%, which would give us techs in 9 turns... but let's do that after we finish stealing things, and after we have some kind of defence in place, and let's make sure we have enough cash to rush some aqueducts and rush some Freight, too.

French revolt. Uh oh...
Oddly, the ceasefire holds.

1900: We celebrate the last century of the millenium by learning Electronics. Happily, Fundamentalism is first alphabetically (others:Genetic Engineering, Guerrilla Warfare, Refining and Refrigeration) and we comply with the rules and choose Fundamentalism next.

After some thought, we rehome the Gilligan Engineer to Fright Wig. FW has the support to spare, and Gilligan is a bit vulnerable - we don't want to lose the Engineer if the city falls.

The Cruiser built in Wabbit is kept there, for defense of the mainland.

French are nearly finished Isaac Newton.
French develop Flight Colossus collapses into ocean near Beeblebrox.
French form Democracy. Hurrah, peace in our time

1901: Ratchet luxuries up a notch, since some Aqueducts will come on line (Fright Wig, Wabbit) and a Harbour in Bozo to let the city grow. 4 Freight incrementally rushed (>0 shield>Spy>Riflemen>Freight). Most of the money from the last time out is gone, but now we have some decent defenses in place.

Yikes, the French almost shield-starved Old Chuckles 'accidentally-on-purpose' This little city could be in trouble. Because there are no grass tiles around it and the French are denying all irrigated tiles we disband the Spy there and rush a Harbour.

Zulus land near Fright Wig. We rebuff their demands. There's a Marine unit on the Forest and 2 Engineers on the SW corner of the island; lets see how our new defenders do
French build Newton.
Spanish lose a DD attacking Sticky Moose.

1902: Cruiser out of Wabbit sinks Zulu transport and destroys one Engineer Veteran Cavalry out of Fright Wig barely defeats Marines. Second Cavalry based in FW defeats another Engineer as well as a unit stacked with it.

Refining stolen from Jerry Lewis. Spy captured
The option to bribe Jerry Lewis for 288 g presents itself. The city is size 2, no improvements, supporting 5 units, 2 of which we will obtain by bribing (Alpine, Marine). Doofus might be cheaper, but JL is situated better - it could be a refuge for ships attempting the northward passage, it has better terrain, when we steal from Doofus the Spy could escape here, thus letting us take a crack at Doofus again in the coming turns. We bribe the city; Spy escapes to Bob Hope.
Jerry Lewis bribed from Zulus; 61 g, Combustion, and the aforementioned 2 units.

Do we want to revolt now? Corruption isn't too terrible here in Republic. Still, it'd be nice to pick up those extra arrows, especially with 4 Freights in play and more coming. We don't have many units at sea, so unrest isn't an issue. What is an issue, though, is the risk of having cities bribed. Consequently, we revolt and save the coupon for later.
REVOLUTION.

Zulus develop Automobile!
Zulus and Sioux sign peace treaty.
Spanish lose a Frigate attacking Sticky Moose.

1903: Democracy formed. 's all around... the tax/sci/lux settings don't need to change, and Bullwinkle celebrates, to boot!

Increment some Freight. Cash is low, just because we didn't collect any taxes last turn.

Automobile stolen from Doofus. The city would have cost 286 g, which we didn't have. Our Spy escapes back to Jerry Lewis

Oil SillyWalks>St Petersburg (Spanish) 156 g. Increment some Spice Freights.

Sioux and Zulus declare war on each other

French develop Radio.

1904: Refrigeration stolen from Doofus (2nd tech); Spy captured.
Finish mining Silk near Bob Hope
Rush City Walls in Old Chuckles... too many French units around for comfort.

Zulus lose a Cruiser attacking Bullwinkle and land an overwhelming force (2) of Cavalry at Bullwinkle. Faced with the prospect of losing the city, we decline to declare war on the Sioux, and gift Electronics to them in exchange for a cease fire. Peace is not accepted.

1905: Frankly, I'm not sure what to do about Bullwinkle. The city has a coastal fortress, but no walls. Defending the city is 1 vet Rifleman and 1 Spy. If the Zulus break the ceasefire next turn, rushing a defender or walls would be a waste of coin. Accordingly, we adopt a wait and see approach; Spy is withdrawn to Sticky Moose and rehomed there; if the Zulus do take the city, we'll bribe it back and hopefully get some units and cash... and a tech.

Feels like a bit of a waste, but I break Straybow's rule and buy a Temple in Beeblebrox to keep the celebration going.

Embassy with Spanish: 16 cities, they know Fundy and Guerrilla, researching Combustion. Our Spy has just enough movement to get to the Russians, establish an embassy and try to steal a tech - but if the Russians have no new techs, then the Spy can't reach a Spanish city in time and will be hung out to dry. We chance it, and of course the Russians (3 cities) have no techs to steal... so our Spy tries to lie low near the Russians and away from the Spanish. We do discover that the Russians are a Republic and the Spanish are in Fundy, so we deliver the 3 Freights to Odessa:

Coal Beeblebrox>Odessa 345 g. Oil Monty Python>Odessa 168 g. Gold Goodie>Odessa 132 g.

Rush another Freight, leaving enough gold to hopefully buy back Bullwinkle next turn if necessary.

Sioux develop Theory of Gravity.
Russians expel our Spy, which is about as good as we could expect.

1906: Celebrations end in Bullwinkle... perhaps the large camp of horsemen polishing their sabres outside had something to do with that

So... the net result is:

1. We picked up a few techs (Electronics, Refining, Combustion, Automobile, Refrigeration) and had I chosen to, we could have stolen Fundy or Guerrilla from the Spanish. The French are the ones with the interesting techs, though: Flight, Genetic Engineering, Radio, Theory of Gravity (researching Amphibious). Techwise, we're not bad... we're 6 techs away from Howitzers!

2. We grew back to 5 million silly souls. Most of our mainland cities have aqueducts now, and walls, and modern defenders.

3. We have a better capacity to defend ourselves - not just better units, but walls, and an almost-finished rail network.

So there's work to be done still... but it's not as bad as I feared.

Recommendations: Unless you want to stay in Demo and break the rule, choose revolution. I didn't make that call. Also, I left about 600 g for rushing if you see fit. There's a shipchain of sorts starting at Beeblebrox, heading west - Spies and Freights, 4 at a time. The Spanish have techs worth stealing. There's also a loaded Galleon heading north towards the French lands... and a Transport N of Gilligan that could rendesvous with it.

Staying in Demo could probably get most of our core cities up to size 10-12... but I would suggest Communism, and then send 2 spies west to the Spanish to steal Fundy before we learn it, and then revolt to Fundy in 1910.

I wasn't sure if the right move might have been staying in Republic with the coupon, and then my successor could have stayed in Demo for 8 turns with his coupon. However, as I think about it, that's a long time to stay at peace. The French and the Zulus are all over us. If a switch out of Demo became necessary in 1910, it would screw up the progression... (?)

Note that we can now build Superhighways. They are great for trade. If you're going to trade while in Fundy/Commie, try to build SH in the big cities, celebrate them, and then deliver Freight from those cities for huge bonuses. I started a SH and a Factory in 2 of our cities, but didn't have the cash to finish them

[rjmatsleepers]

A good set of turns STYOM

How did you get the demand for spice to repeat? Was it just luck or is there a trick to it?

RJM at Sleeper's

[La Fayette]

Look, I told you we haven't lost yet
STYOM just did much better than defend our main island, and that pleases me mightily

[-Jrabbit]

Awesome turnset, STYOM!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers

How did you get the demand for spice to repeat? Was it just luck or is there a trick to it?

RJM at Sleeper's

Sheer luck. Of course, the demand vanished the turn after I completed another bunch of Spice Freight

When I have multiple Freights of the same product, I always deliver the one from the most arrow-rich city first and then cross my fingers

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Thanks for the kudos... BUT

There's a few things that worry me now. Essentially, my turns were pretty peaceful, just because nobody threw anything at me that couldn't be handled. Adding defenders helped... but there are some contingencies that are sure to come up in the near future that the new defenders won't be able to handle:

1. Battleships. The Zulus can build them since 1902; at 4 moves/turn, the only reason I didn't see one is because they're slow. I'm not suggesting we build them; I am suggesting that Coastal Forts are about the only thing that slows them down. There's nothing more frustrating than an AI dreadnought showing up and killing 3 riflemen in your capital

2. Bombers. I really feel we should steal Flight from the French ASAP, or be prepared to do so. I'm very surprised the French didn't attack us during my turns... we shouldn't expect that to last. The French have Fighters... I haven't seen any yet, but they would do a number on any Transports within range. And the French are 2 techs away from having Bombers... we had better be ready for them, or all the walls and lovely defenders in Verdun and Old Chuckles won't mean much!

3. Armour. Mobile Warfare is just around the corner, too, and our Cavalry won't be able to reliably knock out tanks if the AI lands some.

Hint to my successor - the Palace under construction could become a Coastal Fortress or Walls... there's quite a few shields in place there now.

Good luck!