The Sticky Mouse Senate - Succession Game

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

@ Monk

Good point. I think Julius (next in line) is busy with another game, for now anyway... so if anyone wants to jump in before El Civ, they can. Just post to let everyone know if you are playing, and then be sure to post your results before Sunday evening.

Fair?

STYOM

[Messer Niccolò]

Check my signature!

Cool Senators!
May I have your attention?

... heemmm... (cough cough cough)
Just to say that I won't be able to access a pc in the next two weeks, I'll suffer from the same illness of the Gits .
No work, lot of sunbathing , swimming and other with my .
Relly sorry to skip for the next 16 days but sure that the growling AIs will be kicked... as usual!


Leaving my swamps for the sweet Croatia...

[Bloody Monk]

Re: Check my signature!

Originally posted by Messer Niccolò
Cool Senators!

Leaving my swamps for the sweet Croatia...

Have fun, be safe; we'll try to manage without you and the Gits

[Julius Brenzaida]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
I think Julius (next in line) is busy with another game, for now anyway... STYOM

Well, I am actually leaving tomorrow for holidays. It's spreading like a disease
I will try to play a few turns this evening if I can manage to have my luggage ready early
Anyway, I promise to keep you informed

[Julius Brenzaida]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Kudos to Julius for the Red cities... the strategy is paying off now, as every 2-3 turns a barb Knight appears, which is then bribed and turns into Cavalry a few turns later. We have 10 of those mercenaries in Egyptian territory, and could probably conquer Egypt with those alone (poor Egyptians are still working on Gunpowder )

Thanks, I knew my "red design" was great and that it would just take a few billion years to really understand it.
Maybe I will give some more cities to the barbs

[Julius Brenzaida]

Essayé pas pu !

Terribly sorry, I can't play tonight and I am leaving for 11 days of holiday. Keep going and I'll catch up when I come back
My tip : give cities to the barbs

[El Civ]

I have the game and, Lord willing, will play my turn later tonight. We toured Amish country yesterday. The Amish do not use electricity, hence no computers and, ergo, no Civ.
I could never be Amish.

[El Civ]

Due to nearly every more qualified and able leader being on holiday, El Civ is tapped to lead the Republic. Many remark that this is folly, but one among the crowd is heard to say, "How bad could he mess up such a thriving nation?" That one's answer comes from another voice amongst the Senate, who responds with, "I'll let you know in 1800!"

1780 Egyptians and Carths sign a peace treaty and eat Robin's minstrels. Madras is captured (8g). Cleopatra sends a nearly topless temptress with an angry message demanding gunpowder. She is rebuffed and she requests a cease fire. I tell her to get stuffed and the Senate agrees.

1782 Copper>Rheims, 364g. Sticky Mouse begins Suffrage, which I choose in the hopes it will make more of our minions happy and increase our city and population sizes. Machine Tools is discovered. Hmm, Amphibious Warfare or Combustion? I choose Combustion.

1784 Barb knight bribed into the NONE brigade. Explorer tips hut and Wasteland is founded on the island east of the Egyptian land mass. Babylonians steal tech from us at Babylonian Wall (because I stupidly put our spy on fortify instead of sleep and forgot the Bab dip was there as I stink at managing so many cities). Sigh. I could call for war to redeem my flagging esteem, but decide to flog myself instead. I make diplomatic contact with the Babs and the Senate forces peace down our collective throats. Bah! During battle with Egyptians Asyut (size 10) is revealed on the map (along coast, south of Madras).

1786 Spy disables harbor (sigh) at Asyut and cavalry converge. Explorer tips hut by Wasteland and finds 4 barb knights. Alpine defenders at Wasteland rushed.

1788 Sticky Mouse builds Women's Suffrage (which I believe I renamed "Women Drivers" in the Whimsical Game). Babs abandon it and the French and Egyptians switch to SoL. Further combat with Egyptians reveals Abydos (size 5) on the map west of Alexandria.

1790 French develop Magnetism. Barbs land at SilkAbby and plunder it after a defender is wasted. That's twice I've lost our cities to barbs! Scoundrels. I had first refused their demand of 1,200g and they ended up taking 12g in plunder. Spy stops cathedral production in Asyut (already in revolt) and finds the city is protected by only 3 archers. Barb knight bribed and the NONE brigade grows.

1792 French steal Leadership from us at Madras. I again decline war. Our eggheads discover Combustion and begin research into Miniaturization (can you tell I'm leaning toward a spaceship win?). Pollution near Sticky Mouse! Asyut is ours (36g).

1794 20 million citizens now, and no two agree on anything. More pollution near Sticky Mouse. Engineers are dispatched. SilkAbby bribed for 65g (along with barb crusader, who our spy had to get past).
Spice>Orleans, 140g.

1796 French (Marseilles) build SoL. More barbs land at SilkAbby. Rifleman rushed.

1798 Postcard arrives from vacationing Scouse Gits. It reads, "Sorry we're not with you lads to share in all the fun. Make us proud." The card is signed, "The SGs, nicked for indecent exposure after our 8th bottle".
Silk>Marseilles, 912g
Taxes set to 1-5-4. Chinese ask for Physics and, since I'm feeling gracious, I agree. They ask for peace and I give it to them. Probably a mistake. We discover Miniaturization and begin research into Automobile.

1800 Dye>Orleans, 292g. Gold>Delhi, 324g. Gems>Rheims, 624g. ABydos is ours (18g).
El Civ is told his time is up. He watches as engravers chisel his achievements into granite and wonders if the cute redheads in the nation find him attractive. Alas, his wife shows up, kids in tow, looking harried and all thoughts of redheads leave him.

Throughout my turns a great number of our cities kept celebrating. Sticky Mouse is now, I believe, size 27 and I got tired of seeing a new freight built there on every other turn so I'm building a colosseum there for grins and to see what the commoners will have to say about it. There are food freights stored up in cities all around the capital and two parked outside it for the next wonder. I also picked several cities to rush build supermarkets in (we have the gold). I also rushed a couple sewer systems and such while I was at it.

Sorry but I had the ship chain almost straight and then made it a big mess. There are freights floating around and for my successor I leave you this:
Dye to Paris or Orleans, Silk to Babylon (the other freight in Bab-land is to go to Ur), and Wool to Lyons or Tours. I cannot remember which of the above has already been delivered. I should think that the next 2 wonders will be easily rushed by food-bearing trucks and we can begin building up a large military and go a-conquering.

Please tell me where I could have done better so I can learn from it. I only had one beer during my turns so you can know I took it seriously

[El Civ]

And the save....

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Nice play, El Civ Keep those Egyptians on the run

Lafayette is up and then The Monk (Julius, Gits, MN and STYOM are all on vacation at least nominally)

Here's feedback - you did ask

Originally posted by El Civ
Sticky Mouse begins Suffrage, which I choose in the hopes it will make more of our minions happy and increase our city and population sizes.

Suffrage doesn't make anyone happy, it just stops citizens from being unhappy when military units are abroad. Since we don't have much of an overseas army, the effect will be small... but it won't hurt anyway.

1790 French develop Magnetism. Barbs land at SilkAbby and plunder it after a defender is wasted. That's twice I've lost our cities to barbs! Scoundrels. I had first refused their demand of 1,200g and they ended up taking 12g in plunder.

Annoying aren't they? At least all those partisans you
got should have been NON-partisans, and those are handy for our overseas wars. Not as handy as the non-Knights>Cavalry, but still...

Anyway, you did right. If it's a non-essential city at this stage of the game, let the barbs take it, then we get a lot of NON units and can bribe the city back for much less than the demand would have been, as you saw.

Throughout my turns a great number of our cities kept celebrating. Sticky Mouse is now, I believe, size 27 and I got tired of seeing a new freight built there on every other turn

That should be a freight every turn - I worked to get StickyMouse up to 50 production for the freight production - which would keep the ship chain flowing very nicely. The other thing to consider is to get as many cities producing 40+ shields as we can, if we're going to AC.

[Bloody Monk]

El Civ,

There is no harm done as the build order has not commenced, but Sticky Mouse has already built Shake's. In this case you can rely on the civilopedia...all unhappies are made content; and therefore, a colosseum is redundant.

[El Civ]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Suffrage doesn't make anyone happy, it just stops citizens from being unhappy when military units are abroad. Since we don't have much of an overseas army, the effect will be small... but it won't hurt anyway.

I knew that and just conveyed it in a silly way. I was looking to maintain happiness in case we get involved in some time-consuming wars overseas.

That should be a freight every turn - I worked to get StickyMouse up to 50 production for the freight production - which would keep the ship chain flowing very nicely. The other thing to consider is to get as many cities producing 40+ shields as we can, if we're going to AC.

I believe it is freight every turn. At least I know in the last few turns it was. I said every other. Sorry. I was tired.

BTW, do you (and B.Monk) ever use Capitalization in your games? I never have, save for one game when my science city had nothing at all to build for many turns between wonders and I used it to avoid micromanaging the one city.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by El Civ

BTW, do you (and B.Monk) ever use Capitalization in your games? I never have, save for one game when my science city had nothing at all to build for many turns between wonders and I used it to avoid micromanaging the one city.

No worries re: 50 net shields in StickyMouse... it just saves us the hassle of having to rush a Spy every turn and then convert to Freight and rush in order to have a Freight every turn.

I do use Capitalization sometimes, and I'll probably catch it here for admitting that The only times I use it are those games where I have an ungodly amount of cities and I can't be bothered running Freights to and fro (x 50 cities = 2 hour turns).

STYOM notes the laziness theme throughout all his posts

Anyway, bottom line is, you are much, much better off building freights than building Capitalization. If the Freight would give you a payoff of at least 25 g, then it's better than Capitalization:

50 shields in Capitalization=50 g.
Freight costs 50 shields, so if it pays at least 25g (and the implied 25 beakers), you break even. The ongoing trade bonus makes the Freight an even better deal.

So... I only build Capitalization when I'm so far ahead, all I want to do is cut down on the management time for my Civ and I can live with the decreased efficiency.

**STYOM prepares to be lambasted over this issue**

[Bloody Monk]

Re: Capitalization

Adding to the points STYOM made...eventually, if we get to the build spaceship stage, we will need lots of freights. So, to quote a phrase from long, long ago, "if you have nothing else to build, build freights." This means food vans as well--the payoff is later. Stockpiling food freights for the launch is akin to irrigating to prepare for growth after ducts and sewers.

Capitalization is good for killing time after the launch--after all defense needs are taken care of, and when nothing needed can be finished before arrival.

Otherwise, build more lorries...rinse and repeat.

In other words, IMHO, if there is time to finish, there is always a better build order than Capitalization.

[La Fayette]

el civ
IIRC we said that all remarks permitting anyone to improve one's gameplay are welcome.
Here are my remarks about your savegame:

1) General

1-1 Luxury rate
The rate is 40% and only 4 cities (out of 36) are celebrating AND growing. I set it at 20% and our rate of discovery goes up from 1 tech/5 turns to 1 tech/3 turns.
Lesson: Under Rep and Dem, celebrating allows the city to grow IF THERE IS FOOD IN EXCESS. You must check that now and then (in fact preferably each turn ), because celebrating without excess food is a waste.

1-2 Irrigation
There are a number of squares irrigated to farmland around cities which have no Super Market (and you are building several SM in cities which have no engineers busy irrigating around them).
Lesson: Be careful with irrigation after the discovery of Refrigeration. The game doesn't stop your engineer after one step of irrigation. My proposal: improve one city (=build SM AND double-irrigate with a big team of engineers), then switch to next city.

1-3 Fighting the Egyptians
You have a nice team of those wonderful NONE Cavalry units given to us by 'Julius Red Empire' , but you have walled cities in front of you (several built on rivered squares, with musketeers inside). If you don't destroy the walls, you will suffer huge losses.
Lesson: If you don't choose the 'slow method' (musketeers + cannons + instant fortresses), it is wise to have a number spies ready to destroy the walls before you attack with your mighty cavalry.

2) Micromanagement
I would like to sum up micromanagement as follows: 'look at every city every turn and, when looking at a city, ask yourself 'what is going wrong? what may I improve?'
Here are my remarks when looking at your first 10 cities, starting from Sticky Mouse:
2-1 SM: why build Colosseum, since we have ST inside?
2-2 The Inst: 26 shields lost (you should move some workers and get more trade arrows).
2-3 Tyrus: Whale? (why not use it?)
2-4 City of W: Whale?
2-5 Abydos: Mines (why not use them?)
2-6 Asyut: Temple? (hunger = 5)
2-7 BabWall: Courthouse? (corruption = 13)
2-8 BFarm: Trade arrows (improve)
2-9 CPalace: Harbour? (+ 5 shields lost)
2-10 CFerry: Rehome engineer

(if you will, you have a look at all the other cities and send me your proposed actions; might be a fine training
).

Anyone is allowed to think that micromanagement is boring. I say that, once you are accustomed to it, you don't even notice that you are micromanaging (and it makes the game shorter since you win sooner )

STYOM
Capitalization is a gimmick for lazy bones willing to win as late as possible