ETW succession game - interested?

[GeneralHankerchief]

You're on the list, Ignoramus.

[seireikhaan]

Out curiosity, who was the fight over St. Augustine with? Cherokee? Brits?

[GeneralHankerchief]

Cherokee, thank God.

[Zim]

I don't know, they can be tougher than the European factions.

Cherokee, thank God.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Got a few more turns in today. I'm going to make a push to finish my turn by the time I head back to school on Sunday but can't make any promises.

Anyway, I'll provide a more thorough update later, but for now, let's just say that St. Augustine is turning into a small-scale Verdun. So far this PBM has been somewhat challenging but quite enjoyable. Right now I'm just trying to make it easier for you later guys.

[TinCow]

There's no rush from my perspective. My wife and I are in the middle of redoing the kitchen lighting. This involves lots of drywall repair and painting the entire ceiling. It's a lot of work and drains all will to do anything except sit on the couch when we're done in the evning. We are aiming to be done by Sunday night, but I wouldn't be able to get started on my round until Monday evening at the earliest.

[seireikhaan]

Progress?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Yes, I'm pestering, I know, but its Spring break for me and I'm bored...

[GeneralHankerchief]

Will most likely be finished tomorrow. I've spent most of my time improving the situation in the New World as well as trying to eradicate the Dutch. Portugal's been good so far, but the next player is going to have to seriously work on schools. Despite our starting territories, the game gave me barely any to start with.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, my turn is up, but does anybody know where the "saves" folder is in the ETW files? I've been looking for it without success.

-edit- Never mind, found it on the forum. For future reference:

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\Empire\save_games
Vista: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\save_games

Uploading savegame, stand by.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, savegame is up:

http://rapidshare.com/files/21088559..._1710.zip.html

A few highlights for TinCow:

- Currently the workers in Gibraltar are on strike, they will probably riot next turn. I've exempted Flanders and the Netherlands from taxes, but there's an army in the area that can easily put down any rebellions that do pop up.
- One of my two schools just finished researching canister shot and they just started researching improved explosive grenades, so feel free to change that up if you wish.
- You'll see the map of the New World, especially Spain's holdings, quite different from the start of the game. Namely, I had to bail New Spain out and capture Mexico for myself. An army is currently en route from Mexico to deal with Pueblo raiders. Its ultimate destination is Texas.
- Also in the New World, I'm massing a small force in French Guyana to take Dutch Guyana, but they're not ready to do so quite yet.
- Finally, in an interesting situation, we're not allied with France because Louisiana declared war on me. France stayed out, breaking its alliance with me, but they eventually absorbed Louisiana. I tried to ask Louis for a reestablishment of the alliance but he said "no".

Ultimately, I consider my term moderately successful. Thanks to the capture of some key territories, including Morocco, Amsterdam, and Mexico, our net income is anywhere from 6,000-12,000 per turn depending on exemptions and raided territory. I sold all of our territories in Italy, minus Sardinia, in order to make some investiments which I believe have paid off. I haven't done much in the naval field (one trade ship is in Brazil, BTW) or preparing for an invasion of Austria, but I do believe that I've laid a solid foundation for you guys to build on. Finally, I leave you with a screenshot of the current Presige situation, which, considering what we had to work with at the start, I consider respectable.



I'll start working on the writeup now. Good luck to everybody else.

[TinCow]

I was intending to start play tonight, but it turns out I have to go over to the in-laws' place for dinner. I will thus start play on Friday, but don't expect to get very far since it's also the 2 hour finale of Battlestar Galactica, which I absolutely must watch. So, I expect to mainly get in to it over the weekend.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Let's hope that it makes up for the rest of the sub-par half-season so far.

[TinCow]

Let's hope that it makes up for the rest of the sub-par half-season so far.

I admit I haven't been happy with who turned out to be the final 5. I still find it implausible and nonsensical a full season later. That said, the mutiny storyline was great.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I agree with you on the mutiny bit. Afterwords, though, it felt like the writers were adrift. They could have condensed a couple of episodes somewhere on the line and used the extra time to properly set up what's going on now. I don't find myself as emotionally invested in this final mission as I should be.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I have about two more posts to do of my write-up which should take a couple of days. TC, should I bother putting in placeholders?

[TinCow]

No need. I'm about halfway done with my turn but probably won't finish up until Tuesday or Wednesday. I definitely will not be posting anything before Thursday and likely later.

The pirates faction is driving me bonkers.

[TinCow]

http://rapidshare.com/files/21355717..._1720.zip.html

Finally done.

Quick summary:

Carlos II is still alive and as raving mad as ever.

War has been focused exclusively on North Africa and the Americas. In North Africa, we have captured the Barbary Pirates provinces as far as Tunisia. They only have one left before they are finished. They are not much of a threat anymore. In North America, attacks by the natives stopped after Texas was taken. Attention was then diverted to the Pirates. This required a large naval build-up, because I couldn't get near their island cities without getting ambushed by a massive fleet. I eventually defeated this fleet and took the two southernmost islands (C-something and Trinidad). This was also the mission objective for union with New Spain, which has also occurred, so that part of Objective 1 is now complete. I have largely neglected development of new armies because I needed the money for economic development. The only significant armies are currently on Trinidad (with a large fleet which has just repaired) and near Tunis. The rest of the Empire is lightly defended, though it is also unthreatened. It shouldn't be hard to recruit forces quickly if they are needed.

Economic development was a major priority, and I invested a lot of money in improving our income, particularly in the Americas. I've built and upgraded many plantations and mines there. We're currently raking in about 12-14k per turn, though it was at 18-22k a couple turns ago and I don't know why it dropped so quickly. In any case, it's enough to meet all immediate needs each turn, with extra left over for further development. Oh, there's also a pirate fleet that's raiding a trade route in the Americas. Should be easy to crush with the Trinidad fleet.

I focused efforts on research where I could, particularly emphasizing work towards Fire By Rank. I actually finally got that on the very last turn of my game, so it's finally ready. We currently have 3 relatively upgraded colleges and there's also a fourth town that's been tasked to become a college town in Cuba, but which is still building.

Diplomatic relations are horrible. I was never able to make an alliance or get a new trade route with anyone, despite offering tech for them to pretty much everyone. France keeps asking for Texas, but that's about the only diplomacy we see. We... uh... are also at war with Denmark, Russia, Courland, and Saxony. They attacked New Spain the turn before I absorbed it and I told them where they could go stuff it. This is so far a sitzkrieg, as they don't have any naval forces remotely near us and we don't share any land borders with them.

I'm personally a big fan of naval warfare, so I've built up two ports near Gibralter as ship-building centers. I've relied exclusively on Galleons for my navies so far, but we should be able to start building proper warships now and send the galleons off to trade duty.

I think the Empire is well-primed now for a proper European war. The next player should have a decent shot at invading Austria or Britain if they wanted to, though Britain would require a massive naval build up.

Screenies, check out Russia's prestige level in comparison to GH's previous post:

[Zim]

TheFlax asked me to go ahead of him. Would that be ok?

[TinCow]

Doesn't matter to me, I just sent him a PM notifying him that I was done.

[GeneralHankerchief]

I have no problem with this.

[Zim]

Ok, I'll look at the save tonight and get started tomorrow.

[Zim]

Alright, should be done by the weekend.

[Zim]

Sorry for the delay. Things have been busy (and iffy internet access made it hard to get the save on my gaming comp until recently). They're about to get busier after tomorrow...

Save will be up tomorrow night for TheFlax.

[TheFlax]

Sorry for the delay. Things have been busy (and iffy internet access made it hard to get the save on my gaming comp until recently). They're about to get busier after tomorrow...

Save will be up tomorrow night for TheFlax.

Ya about that, I'm very sorry to say I think I should drop out. I barely know Empire's mechanics (something I thought I would figure before my turn came along) and I've committed myself to too many things.

Best of luck with the game.

[Zim]

Done.

http://rapidshare.com/files/21611002..._1730.zip.html

Carlos is still in good health and still crazy.

Like TinCow I focused on Spain's economy, although in a different way. The drop in income he experienced was likely the result of blockades against France by one of their enemies (possibly Savoy). At any rate I noted we were making some 2400 less than we should due to blocked trade...

Within a couple turns I secured trade rights with the Ottomans and Maratha Confederacy, giving us a healthy boost in income. I also signed an alliance with Prussia.

I was a little surprised to find I couldn't open any more trade routes when I noticed we only had a single trading port in our home region. I destroyed one of our many dockyards to build another trading port. We also gained a few through conquest. I obtained new trade routes whenever possible. I built churches all across North Africa to quell religious unrest and upgraded our farms to encourage village growth. We had a lot of new ports over my reign, some of which I turned into trading ports (like Casablanca) and many I turned into fisheries if the regions they popped up in had more potential villages.

Research is going at a good clip, although I haven't emphasized enlightenment techs much. However, we are researching division of labor right now since it's prerequisite for larger trading ports...

A unique palace is being built in Madrid.

Our armies are significantly larger as I spent a bit of my term at war, and wanted to set up in case the next player wished to attack Austria (who happen to be at war with our allies Prussia). I took out the Barbary Pirates, although I didn't have the heart to wipe out the Caribbean ones (something I'd regret towards the end of the turn). Spain also conquered Naples (couldn't let a minor faction keep what was a starting province of ours ), Rome and, since we were at war with them anyway, Venice. There are two heavily experienced armies in/near Venice ready to strike at Austria if need be.

Diplomatic relations are mostly friendly with our many new trading partners.

Trinidad's port has one of our trading fleets, it was forced to retreat there by a large pirate fleet.

We have 5 schools now.

Trade makes up a big chunk of our income now.




Our trading partners.



We're third in the prestige race. Worst category for us is enlightenment techs, but it'll be tough to research them while we have such an....er, "eccentric" king.

[TinCow]

GH, you might want to put down whatever placeholder posts you need for the write-up thread so that I can post my... er... placeholder posts.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Gotcha.

[seireikhaan]

Er... Buehler... Buehler...?

[Cecil XIX]

Sorry for the delay, things have been a bit busier IRL than I thought they'd be. Will post more tonight, if Zim would be so kind as to post whatever placeholders he thinks necessary.

[Chaotix]

If everyone's okay with it it, I would be happy to join this pbm at the end of the line.

I'm... decent at the game, although I haven't played on hard before, but I should be able to adapt easily enough.

If I were to join, how long would I have to play my turn once it comes around?