SGOTM 12 - Smurkz [Archive] - Page 2 - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

CommandoBob

Mar 23, 2007, 08:36 PM

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/SmurkZsBaG2006.jpg

’YES!’

His fingers shaking with excitement he carefully worked the remote to return to the first of the newscast and then paused the replay at that point and then yelled over the counter, ‘Hey, everybody, come watch this.’

Only a few were in present in the room right now. sercer88, Cathrin and Reinhold walked over from the pool table to the bar to get a better look at the video.

‘I just saw this as I was going through the recording I made of ‘Anne of Green Gables’, said CommandoBob. Seeing the three sets of eyes staring at him he added, ‘My wife asked me to record it for her. I’ve read the books.’

‘That would be ‘Anne of Green Gables’, ‘Anne of Avonlea’, ‘Anne of the Island’ and a few more, right CommandoBob?’ said Reinhold.

‘Uh, yeah, it would be. How’d you know?’

‘That’s what I want to know, too, Reinhold. How do you know so much about the works of Lucy Maud Montgomery? Doesn’t that clash with the bodyguard image?’ asked sercer88.

‘No, I’d just rather read than do needlepoint or make lace doilies like some of the others do. Besides, the chapters were only a few pages long, at least in the first book, so I could read them rather quickly.’

‘I must meet this Anne person,’ said Cathrin, ‘Since you men seem to know so much about her and I don’t.’

‘I’ll loan you my copies, but I’ll want them back, as soon as we all watch this,’ said CommandoBob and he pushed the play button.

Across the room, the video feed was sent to a wall projector and the image was then shown on the opposite wall. The sound was fed into the sound system and the shoved out through several sets of semi-concealed speakers.

‘This late breaking news just in,’ said the news anchor. ‘We take you now live to Tenochtitlan with our correspondent Arthur G. Goodvoice. Arthur, what is going on?’

‘Geoffrey, I’m standing just outside the city of Tenochitaleeland, uh, Tenochuchukan, hmm, Tenocheeteekan. Geoffrey, I’m standing outside the city that once was the capital of the Aztec empire. I said once because now it belongs to the Smurkz!

‘Yes, earlier today Smurkz forces were able to capture this key city and make it their own as they try to become the elected leader of the world. In doing so they have destroyed the Aztecs and have become the largest nation on the planet by a good margin.’

‘Arthur, that’s great news for the Smurkz, but not so great for everybody else. Can you tell our audience what happened?’

‘Sure. While France built yet another wonder, the Knights Templar this time, Smurkz stayed focused on the Aztecs.

‘And it appears that the Aztecs had some command and control issues and population concerns of their own. General Niklas was gathering troops together to assault the city, and some of the troops were quite seriously wounded, we can now report, when a plague of some sort struck what was then the Aztec capital. They lost a lot of people and their ability to produce goods. The Elite Aztec Horsemen fled the city, not wanting to be caught up in whatever had killed the citizens and in doing so severely weakened the defenses of the city.

‘Niklas saw this and took advantage of it. Lower production and one fewer defender where major mistakes the Aztecs made, even though one did lead to the other. Niklas gathered what forces he could, loaded them into his deadly Dromons and landed them just southwest of the city. On his way to invade, his Dromons took potshots at the Horses and greatly reduced their fighting capacity, some say by as much as 60%.

‘These wounded Horses had a chance to attack the invaders but somehow could not find the invading forces and attacked some trees instead. The Aztecs did make one attempt at a counter-attack with their best unit, an Ancient Cavalry, but it died attacking some very well trained and experienced Spearmen.

‘At this, Geoffrey, the battle for the city was about to be fought. First, Niklas used the Dromons to pound and pulverize the Aztec units inside the city. Three units were damaged during the bombardment and spies determined that probably only four units were inside the city.

‘Now it was time for the ground forces to weigh in. Their first attack was repulsed, but after that it was all Smurkz. Four times in a row Niklas attacked and each time an Aztec unit died. When it was all done, the Aztecs defenders were dead and the city was captured and added to the Greater Smurkz Empire.

‘Wow, that’s amazing Arthur. What else can you tell us about this?’

‘Well, not only were the Aztecs eliminated, Smurkz also gained the Statue of Zeus, and will have access to Ancient Cavalry, just as the Aztecs did. I think that the Smurkz will make better use of them than the Aztecs, however.

‘Oh, just now I see that they are raising a flag over the Statue of Zeus. Let’s see if we can get a close up of the flag.’

‘Flag?’ said sercer88. ‘I didn’t know we had a flag. CB, did you know we had a flag?’

‘Watch.’

‘Yes, we have the flag in view now. At least, I think it’s a flag. It doesn’t look like a flag, more like a pennant or banner.’

Here CommandoBob paused the broadcast.

‘We don’t have a flag,’ he said, ‘but I think I know what it is. Here, let me check it out.’ With a few mouse clicks he had isolated the alleged flag on the screen and enlarged and enhanced it.

‘That’s definitely not a flag,’ said Reinhold. ‘And it doesn’t look like any pennant or banner I’ve ever seen at a joust, either.’

‘That’s because it is not,’ said CommandoBob. ‘Look more closely.’

‘It looks like a pair of pants,’ said Cathrin.

‘Close, except they’re not pants. That’s Niklas' old bowling shirt!’

‘Wha-?’

‘Yep, it’s his old bowling shirt. Friends, Niklas just completed a 7-10 split and picked up the spare. France, watch out, we are Smurkz and we are on the march!’

CommandoBob

Mar 24, 2007, 03:05 PM

0690 BC

City Builds

Furzt Smurkz (12) vMace in 2, shortage of 1 fpt.
Ozzy Smurkz (2) aqueduct in 45, grows in 2.
Theo the Whacka' (2) aqueduct in 46, grows in 6.
Tenochtitlan (5) library in 10, zero growth.
Kommando Zentral (4) rDromon in 20, grows in 2.

Smurkz Military

00 Workers
?? Slaves
03 Spears
04 Horses
01 Army
06 Maces (3 in the Army)
04 Dromons
Military Bookkeeping

32 Allowed
18 Actual
00 Gold per turn

Luxuries

01 Wine
01 Incense
07 Ivory
01 Dyes (Imported - Sumeria)
01 Spices (Imported - Inca)
01 Ivory (Exported - Inca)

Potential Trading Partners Currently

Inca
Sumeria
Korea
Portugal
Maya
Spain
Zululand
England
Germany
India

French Wonders

3 cpt Colossus (Flight)
6 cpt Great Library (Education)
4 cpt Oracle (Theology)
2 cpt Great Wall (Metallurgy)
2 cpt Sun Tzu's Art of War (never obsolete)
4 cpt Temple of Artemis (Education)
2 cpt Knights Templar (Steam Power)
French Wonder Culture

23 cpt

Culture Comparisons (Total/per turn)

Smurkz 344/14
France 2451/58

Thoughts
With Knights Templar and Sun Tzu's, France could easily become a military powerhouse. I think we need to move east, through Persia and company, capturing all the cities there and making them ours as we make ready for war against France. We'll kill some SCI civs I know, but there are other SCI civs still in the game. And with only 31 cities on a standard map, we shouldn't have to worry about corruption in our new conquests, so they could make units rather quickly for us to ferry across to France.

An embassy with France will cost 100 gold. It will also let us see the production gold mine that surrounds Paris.

zyxy

Mar 25, 2007, 01:57 PM

Oh, good! You're so lucky, taking the town with the last healthy unit! :D

Will Niklas be finishing this set, or will sercer88 take over from here?

I guess we need to decide on the next target. India could be good, it's close to home and seems to have good lands. Besides, they might have no elephants yet. Rome is another option, but legionaries are tough to kill at this stage.

CommandoBob

Mar 25, 2007, 07:18 PM

Will Niklas be finishing this set, or will sercer88 take over from here?

I think Niklas just wanted a short set to take out the Aztecs. That's the impression I picked up from his comments and his log. So I think sercer88 is Up.

But sercer88 may think different.

I guess we need to decide on the next target. India could be good, it's close to home and seems to have good lands. Besides, they might have no elephants yet. Rome is another option, but legionaries are tough to kill at this stage.

India should be easy to deal with, but at some point we'll have to stop France. Joan has three cities and a Wonder Addiction problem, which is good. If she's building Great things, she's not building military things. But if she decides to go a-conquering she could be making one turn swords with no problems at all. So I think she needs to be the next big target and the real question is how do we deal with France.

We at least need an embassy with France to see more of the French lands. (And perhaps other embassies also and for the same reason, though this is an expensive way to do fog-busting).

I might be overly concerned with France and I sort of hope that I am. If France is not a threat we can pretty much do as we please. (We'd pick off the AIs one by one and just stroll into the position of world leader. We'd start on one side of the world, build up our forces, pick a direction and steamroller over the AIs. And after the fighting was done the pre-selected surviving AIs would vote us in a world rulers.)

Should France really be as dangerous as I fear, then we have to be more careful and focused. If France were close we could deal with her whenever. But France is on the far side of the world from us with buffering AIs between Smurkz and France, going both east and west from Smurkz. So we just won't be able to react to France in a turn or so. We'll need a plan well in advance before we invade the shores of Normandy.

IBT Suggestion
What if we selected a few AIs and established embassies with them before proceding any further? We would establish the embassy(s), take screen shots of the capitals and then save the game while we discussed what we found.

I would select France, Persia and maybe Rome.

sercer88

Mar 25, 2007, 07:49 PM

Well, if Niklas is done, then I guess it is my turn...but I did think Niklas would be playing a full set.

Niklas

Mar 26, 2007, 06:47 AM

Sorry for my silence, I've had a very busy weekend. And the upcoming two weeks at work look non too bright either. I was asking for a few turns only, but since we decided for a swap I was actually indenting to play the rest as well. But since I'm in a bit of a vice here, it may be better to hand off after all. So sercer (hope you don't mind me dropping the numbers), take her away!

I don't think France is an immediate threat, but definitely a mid-term threat. We'll have to deal with her before she hits 20k culture, and the predicted date for that should be way earlier than we'd be comfortable with, maybe as early as 1000 AD. We should look that up.

As for the next target, I think either India or Maya/Inca. Regardless of which we choose, we should be able to play the same kind of trick as we did with the Aztecs/Japanese. Too bad they were brought up to tech parity (:hammer:@CF ;)), that will make our invasion a lot harder if we're facing pikes, and the signing of an MA might be hard too.

Anyway, we should be sure that we know what we're doing before we move on, and we should plan every move just as carefully as if we were in the middle of a burning war. In a sense we are, against the other teams. ;)

CommandoBob

Mar 26, 2007, 12:53 PM

0690 BC

French Wonders

3 cpt Colossus (Flight)
6 cpt Great Library (Education)
4 cpt Oracle (Theology)
2 cpt Great Wall (Metallurgy)
2 cpt Sun Tzu's Art of War (never obsolete)
4 cpt Temple of Artemis (Education)
2 cpt Knights Templar (Steam Power)
French Wonder Culture

23 cpt

Culture Comparisons (Total/per turn)

Smurkz 344/14
France 2451/58

I should have checked more carefully, but I just assummed that all the French wonders were in Paris. Can't check the game from work; will do so when I get home.

zyxy

Mar 26, 2007, 01:00 PM

India should be easy to deal with, but at some point we'll have to stop France. Joan has three cities and a Wonder Addiction problem, which is good. If she's building Great things, she's not building military things. But if she decides to go a-conquering she could be making one turn swords with no problems at all. So I think she needs to be the next big target and the real question is how do we deal with France.I agree with Niklas - a wonder-addicted France is far more dangerous than a saber-rattling France. We are already the largest and most powerful civ in the world, and the AI is pretty bad at conquering. There's no chance we would lose that race.

The cultural value of Paris has been like this in the recent past:

Year Turn Culture Average increase per turn
1000BC 80 1200
975BC 81 1235 35
750BC 90 1595 40
690BC 93 1727 44

This will keep increasing of course, so if we assume, say, an average of 75 cpt, then Paris has about 18000/75 = 240 turns to go.

I am not so sure about the embassies. They are not really needed yet, I think.

We'd pick off the AIs one by one and just stroll into the position of world leader...

Oh no, we won't be strolling. There are 25 AI's to conquer, so even if we count only 10 turns for each we'll be busy for the rest of the game conquering them. In this stage we cannot do one AI per 10 turns, but later on we can start attacking two at the time and can hopefully make up.

Our rivals hold some 900 tiles together, so we don't have to worry about hitting the domination limit.

Other comments:
- We can build the HE and I think we should, in FS. Takes 10 turns, or only 9 turns if we use the bg to get to 22 spt, and then mine one of the cows to get 23 spt for at least 2 turns (that means we need to get 3-4 slave workers up there soon).
- sci can go up to 100% now. Research needs to head for Education.
- India has no iron, so conquest should be relatively easy.
- We can sell ivory to India for 3 gpt. Just don't get upfront stuff, so that we can break the deal and keep our rep intact.
- Our workers are irrigating towards Theo's to increase food production there. It would be good to bring all our towns up to size 12 asap, preferably using the worker trick (build workers at size 6, and then add 6 at the time, like we did for FS). KZ would be a good place to train these workers (it has lots of spare food, and a granary.)
- Theo's citizen should switch from coast to ivory (will bring in more gold after 4 turns).

zyxy

Mar 26, 2007, 01:02 PM

dbl post

xclxcl

ControlFreak

Mar 27, 2007, 01:38 PM

Hello all!

I'm back at least in spirit and sporting a decent tan if I do say so for myself.

Sorry about the trouble I cause on my last turnset. I knew that taking Teot first and giving away all our tech advantage was a little against what the team was talking about. I do think things worked out for the best. I really think that swords against Teno without dromon bombardment would have failed miserably, even if the troops weren't kept in the town by my horse theiving. And then we would have been left with only the three cities, paying high unit costs and the Aztecs would be building in two cities instead of just one. Thanks to zyxy and Niklas, we got the same end accomplished.:worship:

I haven't checked the save yet and I need to get back into the swing of things. Will post back tomorrow at the latest.

zyxy

Mar 27, 2007, 02:43 PM

Hey, good to see you back!

sercer, I think it would be a good idea if you write a plan for your turnset. I think it would be good to focus on a naval invasion of India. Probably some 12 land units, mostly MDI/AC's with 1 or 2 pikes, and of course enough naval support to land them, and possibly bombard. How long until we have this together, and where to build it. Maybe some scouting plans as well (naval, probably).

Then, you can add plans for economy, research and workers.

Niklas

Mar 27, 2007, 03:33 PM

CommandoBob

Mar 27, 2007, 03:46 PM

ControlFreak
He's back! He's back! More posts, less spam!

Next Target
I like the idea of India as our next target. We move north and still have the ability to move east or west without a lot of back and forth movement.

Rome/India/Portugal coexist on one island. It took about 40 turns to deal with the Japan/Aztec problem (CommandoBob - 10 turns, Niklas - 10 turns, ControlFreak - 5 turns, zyxy - 10 turns, Niklas again - 3 turns). We have better resources now but more targets. I would guess-timate about 40 turns to Smurkzify the R/I/P gang.

I haven't checked the map recently but are all their cities coastal? (Do we need to consider Cats/Trebs?)

Niklas

Mar 27, 2007, 03:50 PM

Not quite true. Rome is on its own island - but India/Portugal/Maya/Inca are all on the same island, Korea as well I think off the top of my head.

ControlFreak

Mar 27, 2007, 05:40 PM

Glad to have you back CF. :)

I stand by my previous comments. I think your play was rash and not very well thought through. It is possible that you would have been right about Teno back then, but I strongly doubt it (and I intend to replay that to find out at some later point ;)). But what I really don't understand was the gifting of techs. We had discussed it already before my turnset and were in agreement then, and it has definitely put as at a disadvantage now. And for seemingly no reason other than a whim of yours. Not what I would have expected from the master of planning and MMing. I wonder if CB was right and there were foreign agents in your staff. ;)

But what's done is done, everyone makes mistakes, and your presence here is invaluable. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter at hand. :)
Niklas@ I conceed that you are a better player than I. But I don't think my actions were rash, nor do I think that they were not deliniated in my previous posts. I have been saying every chance I get that we need to gift the other civs all the techs where possible. We held back so many civs that we were still one of the tech leaders nearing the end of the Ancient Age. We self researched currency. I really wonder, if we had done a better job gifting all of the AIs to at least math if one of them could have gotten the job done before we had to research it ourself. There are precious few opportunities with weak AI's to steer them into researching the right techs at the right times so that we can each follow different paths and gain from cross trading. I'm hoping that the game will prove me right in getting a lot of the AIs to head toward invention while we research Theology and Education. I agree that France will inevitably get there first, but we don't want to keep buying from France, we want to get the other civs to research Invention also. I felt that we could get them ALL to research toward Invention while we went toward Education. Since our tech rate isn't very fast either, there will be (hopefully) a lot of civs with Invention by the time we get to Education so the cost will be cheap to buy it and some may even get to gunpowder.

I want to make sure we're doing everything to reduce the tech costs. When we had only one city, the best way to improve research was for us to conquer other civs. We still can gain from conquering more civs, but I'm not sure thats the strategy that will get the GAME to go fastest. We're coming up on building Universities in our towns. Libraries are needed in Aztec towns first and then we want to time the prebuilds with the learning of education so that we are always maxed out. I don't want to be in a situation where we're (again) building military units for conquest before building improvements that work to speed our research rate. If we really think that the Indian cities will provide more beakers than unis in our core, then I agree we build for war. But I don't want to get in the mindset that we can always chose war over improvements.

I haven't looked at the game recently so I don't really want to say if I'd rather go for war on India or an improvement frenzy (markets would also help research in gaining more gpt on the last turn of research, plus it helps happiness.

EDIT: I guess the next big thing would be to get to the point where we can build the FP so if India and it's neighbors get us there, then that probably is a good idea.

From this point, I would not be gifting everything to everyone, but I wanted to do it at a point where I felt I could steer the AI into researching a tech that we weren't.

We also need to find the best researchers with the bigger islands away from our area and get them to be conquered. The exception being France of course.

sercer88

Mar 27, 2007, 06:16 PM

Hmmm, there are definitely a few things to think about...

Well, here is my stance, sort of my pre-game strategy, if you will.

We will need to build many more units if we want to concquer anyone, next. That being said, I think we can still expand a little more (France still has more land and population than us!)

To successfully take over India (which, of course, is my vote for next conquest) we need at least:
-8 or 9 Medieval Infantry
-2 pikes (or upgrade the spears we have)
-4 Dromons

(we have 3 MI not in an army, and 4 Dromons, right now)

Since we need 4 more Dromons, I do not think we will have enough extra to scout around.
That being said: Do we know everyone??? If not, then lets find them so I can look at the First Spoiler Thread:) That would, of course, require some scouting

Since these numbers of builds are not going to be finished during my turnset, I feel that I will at least build half of that. That brings me to my next point:

Cities
Commando Zentral right now has a bunch of irrigated grasslands. I feel we should at least mine one of them, so we can get 8 spt (uncorrupted)
(as of right now, it has enough production to be at 7 spt uncorrupted)

Both Ozzy Smurkz and Theo the Wacka have jungle which needs to be cleared before I can make any clear decision on their maximum spt

Tenochtitlan (any suggestions for a new name?)
First: get it's borders to expand (it's building a Lib...should I rush it?)
After that: none of it's grasslands can be irrigated. For 1) that means it will have fairly high production (definitely greater than 10, maybe even hit 15)
, but 2) as soon as we hit our happiness limit (which could change as we go along) we would either have to jack the lux slider up, or, any 1 specialist would essentially KILL it's growth.

next: Research path: After Theo, I definitely think we should go max to Education.

Diplomacy: So, I have no idea why we should have embassies, but, if anyone wants to "educate" me in that department, go ahead:D
Also, do we want to rebuff any and all demands? For 1) we would get War Happiness, but, 2) now that our foes can all build galleys, we are at a small danger...

Micromanaging thoughts:
1st: Growth...get our # of citizens up! But don't go over 6 until we can add at least a few workers to it to speed up it's time until maxed out
2nd: Commerce...'nuff said

We need a few (veteran) workers to be able to do this...so I will build at least 3 workers.

Quick question: Furzt Smurkz is at -1 food per turn right now. Should I place a scientist on the coast as soon as I can (without decreasing science pace)?
(FS is at 43 bpt with the 3 scientists it has, but at -1 fpt. It is at 42bpt once I move one of the scientists onto the coast, but isn't starving any more.)

That's all for now!

CommandoBob

Mar 27, 2007, 06:23 PM

Not quite true. Rome is on its own island - but India/Portugal/Maya/Inca are all on the same island, Korea as well I think off the top of my head.

Well, that's what I get for trusting a map and not my own eyes!

The Land Masses in the World:

The island of Rome.
The continent of Spain, Korea, India, Maya, Portugal and Inca (SKIMPI ?).
The island of England and Sumeria.
The island of Germany and Zulu.
The continent of Egypt, Dutch, Persia, Mongol, Hittites and Babylon.
The island of the Celts.
The continent of France, Scandinavia and America.
The continent of Arabia, China, Greece, Russia, Iroquois and Carthage.

And zyxy's map of 1325 BC, a bit retouched to show who lives with who:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/Smurkz12_BC1325_WorldMapEdiited.jpg

We are the guys in white. :D

ControlFreak

Mar 27, 2007, 08:17 PM

A little review of France tells me they started their GA in 1050:
French Wonders

3 cpt Colossus (Flight) built in 3100BC
4 cpt Oracle (Theology) built in 2590BC
4 cpt Temple of Artemis (Education) built in 1625BC
6 cpt Great Library (Education) built in 1300BC
2 cpt Great Wall (Metallurgy) built in 1050BC in Orleans. This triggers their GA.
2 cpt Sun Tzu's Art of War (never obsolete) built in 925BC
2 cpt Knights Templar (Steam Power) built in 750BC

Other quick notes:
Building on what zyxy said, after science is raised to 100%, the coast with libraries are equal to scientists providing no corruption (150% of 2gpt is 3gpt, same as scientist which doesn't get the benefit of a library). We can change FS scientists to coast and stop starving the city.
We should put at least on horse on the horse hill by Teno to prevent barbs from popping up (unless we want to barb farm for the gold and elites of our Medis). Same goes for the area around Kommando Zentral except it's going to take a couple of units and they will take a while to get there. If we do want to barb farm, we need some veteran units down there to take advantage of the farm.
Watch out for the galleys near our wine colony. It's currently unprotected and needs a guard.
Rush the library in Teno. The pop will take 2 turns to replace, but we really can't get any more sheilds or gold out of the town without worker improvements. At 100% science, the 1 gold lost by losing 2 pop is easily overcome by the 3-4gold produced by the library and it's expansion brings in all the ivory in the second radius which is already roaded. The drawback is the 20 turns it takes to replace the pop, but I think it's worth it. Teno's true growth will be fed from KZ's granary popped workers.

Basic strategy:
I agree that India is a logical next target. They should be easy with their close proximity, lack of iron. We may not even need any help against them. Next would be Incan's in my mind, because they have iron. I think using the Japanese/Aztec strategy, buying in the Mayan's would be successful who would hopefully cutoff the iron. (This may need to wait until we have surplus techs again. That doesn't mean I was rash in gifting mind you.;) sorry :blush:

Some strategy alternatives, not that I'm saying not to do India, first. I just want to avoid "Group Think":

G.Lighthouse - MAing the Hittites against the Mongols in our phony war, while we're taking out the Indian continent. Then when we're ready, backstabbing the Hittites to claim their territory (path to France) and the Great Lighthouse which speeds our boats.
Hit the Incan's first to claim the continents only iron supply. This would be in the form of an all out assault on Cuzco, followed by a quick peace to deal with Mayans then Indians, or finish off the Incans and work our way back up to the others?

Of course everyone on that continent is strong compared to us so we should work on the easy ones until we can MA the others against each other.

How's that for SPAM?

ControlFreak

Mar 27, 2007, 08:48 PM

OMT

I was just reading through Alexman's corruption article (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/corruption_c3c.php) and realized that the placement of the FP is very important on this map. More so here than on normal C3C maps. The reason is because of the limited number of cities. With so few cities, the number of cities within a "disk" surrounding the palace is liable to be small enough that the rank corruption portion of the sum Cr + Cd does not necessarily swamp out the distance portion. So the cities in range of the FP may be greatly helped by lowering the Cd if Cr is not too high.

Something to think about, if we want to attempt a jump to Paris, or keep a leader to build the FP or Palace (can we do that with a military leader in C3C?).

Niklas

Mar 28, 2007, 02:21 AM

Very nice strategy post sercer, you're definitely learning. I'm sure you understand I'm going to have to pick it apart though. ;)
We will need to build many more units if we want to concquer anyone, next. That being said, I think we can still expand a little more (France still has more land and population than us!)

To successfully take over India (which, of course, is my vote for next conquest) we need at least:
-8 or 9 Medieval Infantry
-2 pikes (or upgrade the spears we have)
-4 Dromons

(we have 3 MI not in an army, and 4 Dromons, right now)

Since we need 4 more Dromons, I do not think we will have enough extra to scout around.
How did you reach those numbers? I can see that we will need MInfs alright, and that we need Dromons to ship them, but your very exact numbers suggest that you've done some more in-depth analysis. How do you intend to use the mentioned troops?

That being said: Do we know everyone??? If not, then lets find them so I can look at the First Spoiler Thread:) That would, of course, require some scoutingWe know everyone. Carthage was the last one, and once we met them we more or less disbanded all our scouting curraghs.

Cities
Commando Zentral right now has a bunch of irrigated grasslands. I feel we should at least mine one of them, so we can get 8 spt (uncorrupted)
(as of right now, it has enough production to be at 7 spt uncorrupted)I don't agree about your stated goal here. KZ can do +5fpt for 2-turn growth, so the goal should be to get it to 10 shields over two turns. At size 6 we can work

6.0->6.5: CC, Fish, 2xG(i), 2xBG(m), Ivory => 6 raw = 4 net shields
6.5->7.0(5.0): CC, Fish, 2xG(i), 2xBG(m), Ivory, Hills on growth => 9 raw = 6 net shields.

So the goal here should be to get this town to size 6 asap, and start pumping those workers out. We have all the improvements we need for that, better use the slaves elsewhere.

Both Ozzy Smurkz and Theo the Wacka have jungle which needs to be cleared before I can make any clear decision on their maximum sptTrue.

Tenochtitlan (any suggestions for a new name?)
First: get it's borders to expand (it's building a Lib...should I rush it?)
After that: none of it's grasslands can be irrigated. For 1) that means it will have fairly high production (definitely greater than 10, maybe even hit 15)
, but 2) as soon as we hit our happiness limit (which could change as we go along) we would either have to jack the lux slider up, or, any 1 specialist would essentially KILL it's growth.
You are correct in your assessment, which is why Teno's growth should, as CF says, come primarily from joining workers built at KZ. The library should definitely be rushed after building one turn on it (rushing from empty costs double, and short rushing via worker would still cost 3 instead of 2 pop). The ivory tiles are more productive so we need that border expansion fast, and as CF says the extra beakers from the library far outweigh the loss of some pop at this point, in particular since we will "regrow every two turns" through the workers from KZ.

next: Research path: After Theo, I definitely think we should go max to Education.Definitely.

Diplomacy: So, I have no idea why we should have embassies, but, if anyone wants to "educate" me in that department, go ahead:D
Embassies are useful for a number of things. First you get to see the capitol and its "large cross", which can help you plan a conquest. Second, an embassy is needed if you want to sign either RoP or MA agreements. For instance we needed the embassy with the Aztecs to sign them in against Japan. Another tidbit of information is that you will see who else that civ knows, and who they are at war with. Also having an embassy with a civ slightly increases their liking of you.

That said, I don't see the point in creating embassies right now. They are too expensive to be worth it. The only one I could possibly see us creating is in Delhi, for the insta-scouting and also possibly, if we want and can afford it, an MA vs the Mayans to draw the Indian units out.

Also, do we want to rebuff any and all demands? For 1) we would get War Happiness, but, 2) now that our foes can all build galleys, we are at a small danger...I think you should make assessments of the situation. If the Incas make demands, I would probably give in. If the Celts or Zulus do, never.

Micromanaging thoughts:
1st: Growth...get our # of citizens up! But don't go over 6 until we can add at least a few workers to it to speed up it's time until maxed out
2nd: Commerce...'nuff said

We need a few (veteran) workers to be able to do this...so I will build at least 3 workers.What was said above. Workers in KZ to handle the growth of all towns. And build workers perpetually at KZ, nothing else.

Quick question: Furzt Smurkz is at -1 food per turn right now. Should I place a scientist on the coast as soon as I can (without decreasing science pace)?
(FS is at 43 bpt with the 3 scientists it has, but at -1 fpt. It is at 42bpt once I move one of the scientists onto the coast, but isn't starving any more.)
What CF said. When science is back at 100%, there's no point in having scientists around. (Conversly, when science is not at 100% and a few scientists would gain us a beaker or two, we should not be afraid to eat of our food surplus).

I have to agree with CF in general though - the University is the most important build ahead of us, and possibly also Copernicus? Or do we want that to end up in Paris too, so we can capture a super-science city later for our FP? Speaking of which, I think Paris alone is so obscenely overpowered that there's no chance we'd be able to beat putting the FP there.

ControlFreak

Mar 28, 2007, 06:53 AM

Before I forget (again), I wanted to say great job playing zyxy and Niklas to recover for my misguided play. And also to Poet Smurkz for engraving my blunder in the permanence of history. Thank you for implying that I could not have done these things without influence from an evil power. I actually was eating soup and realized I really needed a Wooden Spoon.

Some more (not Spam:p ) comments:
According to CAII, we are 2 beakers away from getting Theology in 6 turns. I think the rushed library and growth in any of our towns within the next 5 turns should get the tech a turn early, so make sure the micromanagement of beakers ensures we get the tech in 6 turns.
Education should take us 22-24 turns depending on how much growth we can muster. So we have 28 turns to plan the uni prebuilds. Thankfully we can use colosseums as prebuilds. For the acquired cities they are going to be lucky to make much more than 7spt in the near future which means we'll need 15 or more turns. That means we can build "other stuff" for about 13 turns in the captured cities which is on the order of about 65s per town. We can build "other stuff" in FS for about 23 turns. In 23 turns, FS can put out 460s in that time so we should have plenty of production power to get to the numbers that would be needed for India. The landbridge towns are going to be working on their aqueducts for the entire time (and may even delay the Uni). KZ will be building workers the whole time. So the only help that FS is going to get is from Teno. I think Teno lacks a barracks which means it's probably best to build Dromons from there and build all the units from FS.
When we get to tech superiority again, I forgot about the little trick of gifting cash to a civ and then selling the tech back to them for the gifted cash. That way we get the AI friendliness, plus we get whatever they have to offer for the tech. (If they have nothing at all to offer, it's better to gift the tech to get the full value of the gift if we're giving the techs away.)
At some point, to help keep the Science Civs alive, moving Babylon and Persia to the Roman and Celt islands would help. That means we need to kill the Romans and Celts and gift one of the cities to Persia and Babylon before we wipe them out.

zyxy

Mar 28, 2007, 01:25 PM

Adding to what has been said already:

There are three reasons to conquer other civs: speed up science by getting more towns (especially useful near our core), get more free unit support (though this is not extremely important), and eliminate voters for the UN. We cannot really afford a lapse in war, or we will not be able to conquer all in time - but of course we should take some time out from training troops to build those half price uni's. I am hoping that by this time we'll have enough units to just keep rolling.

I think a good attack order for now would be India -> Maya -> England. This puts us at the doorstep of France. Other good targets would be Rome and Portugal, because they are reasonably close amd hence productive. I would like to keep the Inca alive for now: they have three towns and could possibly research fairly fast.

I don't think we need allies against India, because they only have spears, archers and cats. But they will get longbows and elephants soon, so we need to strike asap.
I think the 4 dromons we have should be enough, or perhaps 1 more. We can ferry troops to India in two goes, which is not ideal, but the price of another 4 dromons is really a bit high IMO. We do need to build more dromons eventually, though.
Perhaps one of our existing dromons can scout India while we build up our forces.
We can do one MDI per 2 turns in FS, and we'll get AC's from Tenoch. (Would it help to build a rax here, after the lib of course?) This suggests we can definitely be ready to strike at India in about 10 turns.

I agree that FP or Palace in Paris would be good. It can be rushed with an MGL (if we get one).

Whenever we grow a town above size 7, the ideal situation is to immediately bring it up to size 12 by joining (native, not slave) workers. The extra income from the additional citizens will hopefully offset the gold lost on unit upkeep.

ControlFreak

Mar 28, 2007, 02:59 PM

England? England? Where the hell is England?...Oh I see! Great idea zyxy!:goodjob: Way to think out of the box.:worship:

I liked your strategy and agree with everyones plans so far with the exceptions that Niklas pointed out in sercer's plan.

CommandoBob

Mar 28, 2007, 07:32 PM

‘Mrs. CB has gone on a spring cleaning spree and decided to paint all the upstairs rooms AND to sort through all the stuff and junk in the rooms. Its like a slow version of Clean Sweep on TLC. We’ve painted two rooms, moved a lot of stuff around and are waiting on CommandoBob to get started on his stuff; computer games, computer books, computer parts and old Avalon Hill games.’
Today she painted the school room/office where the computer and I live, which means I'll need to get the computer set up again after we get the furniture rearranged (I'm at church right now, Wednesday evening service ended a few minutes ago). And then go through all the old computer stuff, including the 5.25 inch floppies and old hardware, and decide whether to Keep/Sell/Toss.

The next room to tackle is our bedroom, so my evenings will be full for perhaps the next week or so, but definitely until the weekend.

So let me go ahead and announce that I'll need to be skipped for my turnset.

Methos

Mar 28, 2007, 08:34 PM

Today she painted the school room/office where the computer and I live, which means I'll need to get the computer set up again after we get the furniture rearranged (I'm at church right now, Wednesday evening service ended a few minutes ago). And then go through all the old computer stuff, including the 5.25 inch floppies and old hardware, and decide whether to Keep/Sell/Toss.

The next room to tackle is our bedroom, so my evenings will be full for perhaps the next week or so, but definitely until the weekend.

So let me go ahead and announce that I'll need to be skipped for my turnset.

I can understand. My wife is 34 weeks pregnant and is, or has, been getting the nesting instinct for a while now. We've replaced all the windows and have the exterior door on order. We plan on redoing the insulation plus a bunch of other stuff. The house is never clean enough, etc. Honestly, it's rather funny, as she has never been the cleaning type. :lol:

Great game btw, I'm still keeping up, though [c3c] stuff is confusing anymore! :D

sercer88

Mar 29, 2007, 01:59 PM

SGOTM XII: Team Smurkz, member sercer88
member turnset #2

Turn 00: 690 BC
first move: science to 100% (check for citizen hapiness: still fine) FS scientists back to coast (now has 5 excess food)
Check CAII, and: sorry CF, we are 38 beakers short of getting Theo in 6, not 2...
moving dromons back "home" to FS
move all of the injured units into Tenoch (except for a 2/4 horse, which camps on the horse hill)
switch KZ to worker (it's not at size 6, but I was told to build workers, so...)
move the just-created MI in FS to our wine colony (1 more turn)
I considered foresting or mining some of our tiles in FS, since there is massive food over-run (5,) we could get our city up to 25 spt later. However, since all it will be doing for 15 or more turns is produce MI's, 20 spt is fine, and 25 spt will do nothing for us.
Hmmm, a quick look at what people whom we can trade with will offer us shows me that the Indians are the only ones with positive gpt (they are the only ones who can offer us gpt for a lux) of course, I don't want to hold us to a 20 turn deal, so I do not finish negotiations...

IBT: Indian curragh, and Mayan galleys move around in our borders
KZ worker > worker (I let it grow in 1 turn, worker in 10: will change as soon as it grows)

Turn 01: 670 BC
Rush a library in Tenoch for 2 population
the rush makes Theo in 7, now...(it will improve, though)
2 slaves join an existing jungle chop (4 total)
MI fortifies in the Wine colony
KZ worker begins heading to Tenoch
2 injured MI on a Dromon heading towards FS
French, Indian, and Korean deals will expire...no luxes in the deals, just gpt (which we have plenty of...)

IBT: Tenoch Library > umm, shoot: I forgot what we want to build in Tenoch! Ok, so a check of the thread shows that nobody has said anything after the Lib so I select colosseum (prebuild for University?)
FS MI > MI

Turn 02: 650 BC
okay, so we went from Theo in 7 to Theo in 5, but now our economy is at 0 gpt (from the expired gpt deals)
now we have to get 12 more bpt to get Theo in 4...ain't gonna happen!
KZ is at size 4: growth in 3, worker in 3...I make it grow in 2, worker in 7 (to make it a worker factory at size 5)
-so Tenoch may finish the colosseum before we get Universities, so it's up to the person after me to switch Tenoch to something more useful (I don't know of anything...) before we get Universities
Tenoch will expand in 3 turns
all done...

IBT: well, so much for not researching alt tech governments: India begins the Hanging Gardens

Turn 03: 630 BC
Sweet: we're now average compared to the Indians!
nothing much to do this turn...
our power is at it's highest point up to now!

IBT: we get an AC...oh yeah! THAT's what we need in Tenoch! a Barracks!
FS MI > MI
the egyptians establish an embassy in FS
uhhh, the French begin the Sistine Chapel! (I wonder how many turns it will take?)

Turn 04: 610 BC
...so, of course, the French have Theology:
the French want 325 gold for Theology: I don't think it's worth it!
switch Tenoch to a barracks: 8 turns
Micro manage KZ (size 5) for growth in 2, worker in 1
...pretty much, France's power has increased by about 20% in the last few turns :eek: (probably since I have taken power :groucho:)

IBT: Tenoch expands
KZ worker > worker

Turn 05: 590 BC
join a worker to Tenoch: size 4, growth in 6, barracks in 7
wow, SoZ is already at least 1000 years old! (it's generating 2 gold from tourists!)
Right now in FS:
-1 reg AC
-2 vet Horsemen
-4 vet Medieval Infantry
well, 91 beakers remain 'till we discover Theology. There's no way were getting it in 1 turn (we're at 78 bpt)
so, decrease science to 60%: gaining 23gpt (soon to be 11...french deal with 12 gpt is about to expire)
-we are 18th on the score card, but 2nd (by the looks of it) in power

IBT: FS MI > MI

Turn 06: 570 BC
science down to 40%, hire 3 scientists (out of coastal citizens) in FS to get Theo in 1 (gain of 3 gpt as opposed to 0 scientists at 50% science)
-we moved up 1 slot on the score card (17th)

IBT: the Greeks ask for an audience: they want gold for Monarchy...no.
we have mastered the secret of Theology: next...our scientists think a revolutionary idea about educating our citizens would really benefit our position! It will take roughly 400 years to master this technique (21 turns)
KZ produces a worker > worker
the Greeks begin the Hanging Gardens

Turn 07: 550 BC
well, any turn, now, I'm expecting to learn that the French have finished the Sistine Chapel
we now have 801 gold and are losing it at a rate of 12 per turn
In FS:
-1 reg AC
-4 vet Horsemen
-5 vet MI
still not enough... we need a few more MI
4 civs other than France also know Theology! they are: Korea, Babylon, Germany, and Carthage!

IBT: FS MI > MI
well, I talked to Sumeria, and looked at active deals: next to dyes it said (1.) and wouldn't let me click on it, but now, my trade advisor tells me we have lost our supply!!
Thankfully, no cities fall into anarchy

Turn 08: 530 BC
join another worker to Tenoch: it is 2 happy, 1 content, 2 unhappy (42% we cannot forget your cruel oppression) it will grow in 3, so we must hire a specialist once it does grow (or raise lux, which I don't think is best)
move finished workers around
I decide we will want all the MI's we can get for the Indian invasion, so I move the MI guarding our wine colony to FS, while I take a Horseman out of FS, and into the colony.
Oh, sorry guys. Know how I said 4 civs know Theology? well, I said that because it didn't say Theology was an option for us to sell to those civs. But, obviously we can't sell them Theology if they don't even know Monotheism!! That was the case!
The Sumerians don't want to give us Dyes (we've grown "too much")
Nothing new, here...

IBT: SoZ produces another reg AC

Turn 09: 510 BC
4 slaves begin another jungle chop (12 turns)
Hmmm, Ozzy Smurkz has an unhappy citizen, who is partially unhappy because of "cruel oppression." Did we do this, or is this from the city's past Japanese oppression???
well, our power went down :( :confused: but we're up to 16th in the scorecard, probably up to 14th next turn!

IBT: KZ worker > worker
FS MI > MI

Turn 10: 490 BC
oops, almost went too far!
final notes:

1)In Furzt Smurkz:
-2 reg AC
-3 vet Horsemen
-8 vet MI
-1 dromon
the rest of the dromons are within 2 turns (I was using them for ferrying troops and workers from KZ to Tenoch)

2)Tenochtitlan will grow next turn and will become grouchy in 2 turns, unless the next person does anything about it.

3)there are 4 slaves chopping jungle above Ozzy Smurkz which I just started last turn, so if you want to change that, do it now before a bunch of turns are wasted. On a related note, the worker above Theo the Wacka was about to start a forest chop to hurry the Aqueduct along

The save is HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0490_01.SAV)

ControlFreak

Mar 29, 2007, 05:10 PM

Check CAII, and: sorry CF, we are 38 beakers short of getting Theo in 6, not

....

Turn 04: 610 BC so, of course, the French have Theology
Well that confirms it. I am a complete idiot. I can't even do simple math. And my ridiculous attempt as steering the AI to research the other path was all for nothing. I'm really sorry. (Note that France actually learned Chivalry also which is not a help.) I'm going to crawl into a hole and die.:suicide:

After my last turn set, I'm not feeling very confident about giving advice. I'll let the other players weigh in first. :blush::sad:

Niklas

Mar 30, 2007, 06:48 AM

Aww, come now CF, don't be ridiculous. No, your last turnset wasn't the best you've ever played, but gee. Your advice and discussion has always been very appreciated, even when the rest of us didn't agree. And also pick on the right things. Your trick with gifting Mono a turn later was very clever, I should have said that before (I blame being a bit upset about some other things ;)), only too bad it didn't have the wanted effect but we knew that was a possibility.

@sercer: Very good play, and excellent reporting. I really like the way you motivate your decisions. I don't agree with all of them, but enough that you'll get the :goodjob: for sure. :D

The one major thing I didn't agree with is KZ building workers :p. Well, of course it should build workers, but the idea was to grow to size 6 first and then build 2-turn workers. Running it at size 6 not only gets us workers faster, but also gives us a lot more bpt from being able to work the dumbo.

On France, she is really going to out-research us in this game, by far. So the issue doesn't seem to be, as we've previously considered it, how to get France to help us research useful things. It should be, how can we get a hold of the things that France researches. Or possibly, how can we make France's research capacity our own.

... and the game should have rolled on to CB, only he's busy painting, so CF will have to give those advice to himself. ;)

ControlFreak

Mar 30, 2007, 07:30 AM

My thoughts were similar to Niklas, so I feel a little more encouraged. Sorry for the negative attitude, but I was feeling like I really blew it when I came back from vacation and read the responses.

I do think that KZ should have been at six 6 the entire turnset. I also think that we should not be joining workers to towns (smaller food bin). Waiting until they are cities means the worker joined adds 40 food instead of 20food. There are plenty of worker improvements yet needed that affect our output of shields, food and or commerce. We could have waited a few turns before adding them to Teno. The road isn't even complete to Teno yet.

I'm thinking that we need to get an idea of a good landing spot. I'm not sure if it's worth getting an embassy with a civ that will be gone soon, but intelligence plays a big part of war planning.

I also think some pikement should accompany the first landing and will need to be build or move a spear for upgrading. I wish that had happened earlier so I wouldn't be delaying our attack now. With Chivalry out, the faster we hit India the better off we'll be.

zyxy

Mar 30, 2007, 12:33 PM

Alright, looking good.

I agree with the comments by CF and Niklas.

I think we should simply assault India now. With 4 dromons we can unload 8 units in about 3-4 turns, and another 8 units two turns later. The battle plan could look like this:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0690.jpg

The dromons can make the crossing in a single turn, and offload their cargo on a mountain tile. If I see it correctly, then there is an Indian town just NW of that tile. EDIT: no it's probably 1 further NW. Still, we could offload here and march up while the dromons fetch the second batch.

ControlFreak

Mar 30, 2007, 05:50 PM

I agree with zyxy's edit that the town is actually 1NW of the yellow dot.

Here's two options:
Use the neutral territory Mountain 2 South of Yellow Dot to stage our attack force. When ready for war, declare, and move N into indian territory. This puts us the same distance from "Dehli in the fog" as our landing site, but ensures that all of our troops arrive on the same turn.
Declare right now, and pull Portugal in to draw the troops up north. Then Restage our troops West of Teno while the India troops move toward the border of Portugal. I think our galleys can move Sea, Ocean, Ocean, Sea, Coast and end up dropping off on Yellow dot. Our presense there will draw the indian's back toward Dehli so I don't know if we have the time to drop off two waves of attackers.
My preference would be to attempt method 1. The problem will not be taking Dehli, but taking India's second town after fending off the huge counter attack.

I'm also not sure if it's worth waiting to get a couple pikes to go along with the attack force (building pike instead of Medi in FS still takes 2 turns for the small benefit of better defense). My inclination is to build at least one pike.

Another thought would be to embassy India. They are currently building the Hanging Gardens and France is building Sistines in Paris. If they are going to finish the Hanging Gardens soon, it would be worth waiting, since the continent is rather large. I would like to embassy India before we start if I can do it for less than 70g and make plans based on what I find.

I plan to build wealth for four turns in KZ as there won't be enough sheilds to even build walls in four turns and I don't want to delay workers any more than necessary.

Teno may build some pikes for cheaper than FS (no 10s overrun) and can afford one or two before it needs to prebuild for it's uni.

I've got the game, but I'm going to hold off until people weigh in on my questions. I would like to try to start tomorrow, but if not, I'll delay until Monday if that's OK with everyone.

CommandoBob

Mar 30, 2007, 09:10 PM

My preference would be to attempt method 1. The problem will not be taking Dehli, but taking India's second town after fending off the huge counter attack.

I like method 1 also. When we attack we'll attack hard and heavy and we'll have plenty of units in place to withstand India's response. Plus, we'll be on a mountain should anybody get left behind.

And with a bunch of units we'll pacify the city probably on the first turn of capture, which means we could pop rush a Pike if we needed too.

I would like to embassy India before we start if I can do it for less than 70g and make plans based on what I find.

Sounds smart and cautious to me.

I would like to try to start tomorrow, but if not, I'll delay until Monday if that's OK with everyone.
Yeah, I don't trust any of this bunch to have an honest post on Sunday, April Fools Day. (Nudge nudge, wink wink, know whatahmean, know whatahmean, say no more, say no more! ) :D

zyxy

Mar 31, 2007, 02:57 AM

Plan sounds good to me. Though an alliance with Portugal (option 2) or perhaps better the Maya (cheaper embassy, and in the path of our attack) is very tempting, as both India and Portugal would lose a lot of troops. Hopefully the Indian survivors cannot return very quickly, in which case we can still land two waves. Even if there are some Indian troops left, then a couple of pikes on a mountain should sustain a few horsemen and archer attacks.
I would probably try the alliance with Maya. We would have to pay with Theology, which is fine by me.

The Indian embassy is cheap enough, so why not. If HG is still too far in the future, then we can do things the other way around: attack Maya, with the help of India.

I would build the pikes in Teno rather than FS.

I suppose KZ on wealth is as good as anything. The alternative is to work high gold tiles (lake, coast) rather than high shield tiles, while keeping KZ at 2 turn growth. But probably the income difference is very small or even zero.

zyxy

Mar 31, 2007, 05:54 AM

OMT: Sumer will sell dyes for Theology. Some other civs will pay gold for it. I think it would be good to do this.

ControlFreak

Mar 31, 2007, 06:09 AM

The indian embassy has been established:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Dehli_Info.jpg

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Dehli_View.jpg

Hanging Gardens is 10 turns away. That's borderline on how long I'd like to wait. The problem is, if I take on the Mayan's first, it's going to be at least 5 turns before we start that war, I don't think we'll be done with them in 5 turns, which means, if India does finish the Hanging Gardens, their town will go back to building units. Plus we'd be fighting through their front lines. I'd like to prepare an overwhelming force in the next 7 turns, staging them on the Mountain (following plan 1). I think that give me time to build the first pike from Teno (and one more AC) and boat them within range of our strike force. We declare on turn 8 and move them into India, depositing the Pike and AC with them. On turn 9 we move next to Dehli on the plains tile (zyxy's yellow dot). On turn ten, they will complete the Hanging Gardens and we take the city. I don't think this is much of a slowdown, because with the Dromons in the position they are now, it would take at least 5 turns to move all our troops to India or Maya.

Since this method relies on staging troops on the Indian mainland, we can not pull MAs with any civ in any earlier. It will be up to us to fight our way through all the indian troops. I don't think it will be a big problem because they have spears and no iron. It may be worth pulling the Mayan's in on the 8th turn, not because of the indian troops but because it may pull all the Mayan troops towards the northern Indian city. Then when India dies, If we can cutoff the Mayan troops (it's a choke point) they wouldn't be able to get back home and could be eliminated by the extinction of the Mayans.

Long Term
Win by Diplomancy with as few civs remaining as possible.

Short Term
Eliminate India, obtaining the Masoleum and the Hanging Gardens.
Eliminate the Mayan.
Eliminate the English.
Start the FP.
Claim the French land for ourselves.

My Turn
Start shipping troops to the Indian continent.
Build Pikes in Teno, Medis in FS, Workers in size 6 KZ, and aqueducts>unis in the land bridge cities.
Prepare for war with India by turn 8, staging troops on indian's mountain, with Dromons ready to bombard Dehli on turn 10.
Pull the Mayans into the war on turn 8 and let their troops move towards the North. We may even want to start a war against Portugal to convince the Mayan offensive to keep going north.

EDIT: I noticed from the embassy that India is at 40% research, presumably because their unit costs and maintenance costs. I wonder if it's worth formenting war between neighbors across the world to reduce some of their unit numbers allowing for better research.

Niklas

Mar 31, 2007, 06:19 AM

Sorry for the negative attitude, but I was feeling like I really blew it when I came back from vacation and read the responses.
I'm really sorry about that. I know I came across rather harshly, more so than I have at others. I guess I figured you knew your worth anyway, you are a very good player, no doubt about that. In fact the surprise of seeing you of all people play a bad turnset probably added to the whole. It also wasn't a bad turnset per se - it was just opposite to what we had discussed, yet again surprising from one who strongly advocates discussion. So please accept my appologies, I know I was harder to you than I've been to others previously (ask CB about that ;)), it certainly wasn't my intention to make you feel like a bad player - you are not!

As to the upcoming war, I really favor an embassy in Delhi, and then an MA vs Maya. That will bring all Indian units down SW, we can take the southern town behind their backs and block their way towards the northen one. I like the plan with landing on that mountain too, but please recall that it's a three-turn walk then, since the town is not at yellow dot but NW of it. Thus I would argue for a combination of options 1 and 2, but with Maya instead of Portugal.

Wealth in KZ while emphasizing commerce sounds like a good plan, as does pikes in Teno, as does selling Theo for dyes and gpt (or lots of gold). Don't give it to everyone just because though, it can still be very useful to keep some AIs behind when we need a quick MA somewhere.

Good luck! :)

EDIT for crosspost: Is HG really worth that much delay? I'm not convinced about that.

zyxy

Mar 31, 2007, 07:32 AM

HG is not worth a lot because happiness is not really a problem for us (e.g., FS is happy enough right now, and we'll get more luxes soon). So I wouldn't wait, and attack asap. Every turn lost is a turn later finished, and we already lost some turns in the preparation of this attack by misdirecting our ships.

Drawing the Mayans in sounds good to me. Then, after the demise of India, we can draw in the Portuguese vs the Mayans - oh fun!

If you really want to wait for the HG to finish, make sure not to step on tiles that produce shields, i.e., approach Delhi from straight south.

ControlFreak

Mar 31, 2007, 09:23 AM

OK thanks for the comments. I agree that MA with at least the Mayans is a good idea. Why not both Mayans and Portugese? Nevermind, Portugal will end up pulling units near Bombay as well. Do I want to add Rome to the indian MA? I think I should have plenty of clout selling Theo for the MA.

I'm not sure we want to do the dyes deal with Sumeria yet just because we don't need it at the moment and Theo would be overkill to pay for dyes at the moment.

So Pull in the Mayans. Move our units up by Theo where we can make the trek to the yellow dot in one turn. Hopefully with the Indian units off to the SW with no roads down there? they will get stuck long enough for us to finish off Dehli at least. Other plans still hold.

ControlFreak

Apr 01, 2007, 07:33 AM

Things are OK but it may be tomorrow before I post due to plans today.

Hope that's all right.

ControlFreak

Apr 01, 2007, 07:46 PM

Save is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0290_01.SAV).

Turn 0 - 490 BC -Preflight

Embassy established as seen in previous post
Embassy with Mayans.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Mayan_View.jpg

Move Army toward Teno as better deterent to Rome and more MP ability for the ducted city
KZ adjusted to +5fpt, +1spt, +1gpt? And +10bpt. Set to build wealth.
Theo uses forest instead of coast which slows the growth but cuts build time in half. It needs to build faster to get the uni in on time. The growth will ultimately come from KZ food.
Load four Medis into available boats for transport to Teno. Load Acs into SITD for transport to Teno they will debark onto Aztecia and walk to the departure point so as not to slowdown transport of remaining units.
India has 4gpt. I trade Theo for Monarchy and 24g, then declare war. Mayans would accept straight MA with India! I add the ROP so we can take temporary advantage of it if we want, but it's guarenteed to expire when the Indians disappear.

IBT
Couple of boats on our shores are patroling.
Teno:Barracks>Pike

Turn 1 - 470 BC

Boats with Medis move to Teno and drops off Medis on mined BG.
Panther takes two Medis to the Point. SITD moves to the point, drops off Acs and picks up two more Medis
Ugh, I just noticed that France now has iron thanks to a colony between them and America. Can't do much about that now, we'll be facing pikes at a minimum (if not Muskets) plus they'll have knights.
Army continues towards Teno
Worker on Ivory Forest in Theo decides to road the tile instead of chopping. We need the shields for the uni as well.
Workers finshed chopping jungle and find a BG which they mine.
Worker south of Ozzy joins the other jungle crew for a perfect 6 turn chop (18WT left next turn when he can join them).
Growth in Teno forces a scientist to be made from a BG worker. That makes us 1spt short. The army will arrive in two turns so we can make up the lost 2s by working the BG then (gaining 7spt instead of 5)

IBT
Arabs start Hanging Gardens.
FS:Medi>Medi

Turn 2 - 450 BC

KZ grew and the new citizen was assigned to hill, I make it work the lake and we're making 12bpt here.
Move transporting to Teno

IBT
India galley moves near FS.
France builds Sistines

Turn 3 - 430 BC

Dromons bomb galley three times and sink it.
Army arrives in Teno. We could switch the scientist to work the land, but I chose to rush the pike instead. The pike is slowing our attack and rushing him shaves 4 turns on the build. After that Teno is just going to be prebuilding for it's uni anyway.
Ozzy set to 4fpt to grow in 2 instead of three. I think I can earn back the lost sheilds by working the BG for a while with the extra citizen.
Pather waits by FS for the Medi due next turn. Other three dromons are by Teno ready to load. I need to wait a few more turns if I want the pike and then the assault can begin. I move SITD to the end of the roaded tile from Teno so the pike (and the expected AC) can load immediately. The initial drop will be on the mined moutain (original zyxy landing). The first landing party will walk to yellow dot while the boats bring the second crew directly to the yellow dot. I move SITD one tile South (W,W from Teno) so it can get the Pike and AC in 2 turns instead of 3.

IBT
Mayan galley survives an Indian curaugh. Indians drop off a warrior and spear next to FS!
AC created! Teno: pike>coloseum, AC produced. Zoom in to make sure the landing didn't affect the Medi build in FS. It did not. FS: Medi>Medi.

Turn 4 - 410 BC

The landing has upset my plans for attack. I use the boat that was waiting for the Medi in FS to bomb the spear but it misses. I attack the spear with the new Medi and it redlines:eek: but wins. The horse then attacks the warrior. It redlines too! :eek: but eventually wins and promotes to elite. (2/2)
With the units in FS wounded, I need to wait two turns for them to heal. That will let FS produce another Medi which properly fills our 4 boats with 16 units in 2 turns. I figure waiting a bit more just gives the Indians more time to have moved their units down to the South.
Cool, baracks produce 5HP AC. I didn't know that. The AC and pike move to the forest to prepare to load into SITD. Since the attack is delayed, I take the opportunity to use Righteous (part of the northern shipping crew) to come to FS and sink the India galley. No leader. (3/3)
KZ is ready to be a 2-Turn worker factory starting at size 6 with no food and no sheilds. Fish, 2 Irr, 2BG and Ivory gets 5fpt,4spt with growth sheilds finishing worker.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Worker_Farm.jpg

Workers finish mining BG between Ozzy and Theo and start mining the other BG.

IBT
Peaceful boats sail by.

Turn 5 - 390 BC

Ozzy is one shield shy of building the duct in 5. I hope theres another BG under the jungle we're chopping so we can shave that turn.
FS can build the Uni in 5 turns so it has another 6 turns of unit building. That means 3 and a half Medis. I might just build four and delay the uni by one turn.
Panther moves to the western point to get a better view of indian galleys approaching. Righteous (4/5HP) returns to the northern group.
I fortify the AC and pike in the woods assuming that if they were in the boats, the Indians would view them as a threat to Dehli. We're set to load and go next turn. Landing on turn 7. Note that that's only one turn away from the plan to let Dehli finish the Hanging Gardens. Is it worth delaying 1 turn? I'm going to say yes, because at this rate, that one turn should have more of the indian forces engaging the Mayan forces.

IBT
More peaceful boats.
KZ worker>worker reset to +5f, +4s. FS Medi>Medi. Forgot to reuse the ivory tile after the landing so I fix that now.

Turn 6 - 370 BC

All troops fortify for one turn. New worker moves towards landbridge.

IBT
zzz

Turn 7 - 350 BC

Worker roading ivory forest finishes and moves North to road to Teno.
Mining workers move to Ivory to mine.
New worker moves to jungle. Clearing should end IBT and they will mine with 3WT and road with one.
Time to load up our first group. Defensive troops will be loaded first (saving Medis for last where possible).
Boats with Medis move to Teno and drops off Medis on mined BG.
Four boats sit off the landing zone shore with 2Medi, 3AC, 1Pike and 2Horses. Next turn, they unload, and the boats load the remaining 8Medi

IBT
KZ:worker>worker, reset farm. FS Medi>Medi.

Turn 8 - 330 BC

Unload units onto mountain landing zone. Boats go back for the Medis. Eight of Nine are loaded onto the Dromons.
Roading starts on the hill to connect Teno.
The cleared jungle starts 1 worker on roading, the other, plus the slaves on mining.
New worker from KZ starts towards the landbridge.
Ozzy gives up the BG to Theo who works the grass instead of the forest to grow in 2.
Teno uses BGs instead of ivory to speed the prebuild for uni.

IBT
India moves a spear, a wounded warrior and a wounded horse into Dehli. They must be taking some damage from the Mayans.
Teno makes another AC

Turn 9 - 310 BC

Dromons cross to the coast near Yellow Dot. Transported are awoken and disembarck on Yellow Dot. They are covered by the Pike and stack who were not attacked last turn.
New AC moves to join stranded Medi on departure point. A boat will need to return for them.
Worker finishes roading plains ivory near Teno and moves to help the hill road.
New worker continues N. I need to send more workers towards Teno. The forest can be cut towards the uni build and roads to the Western coast will help the AC board boats faster.

IBT
Indian horses attack fog in the South. First dies, second wins and advances to the tile. Indian Spear comes into view but will not be inposition to defend Dehli in time.
KZ:worker>worker, reset farm (with the governor set to prioritize food and commerce, you just need to move the hill citizen to the ivory. FS Medi>Medi. Next should be coloseum.
India completes Hanging Gardens! :D (still no attacks on our troops)

Turn 10 - 290 BC

Pink Panther returns to pick up Medi and AC
Three remaining Dromons go 1 for 3, so there are at least 2 spears, one 4/4 and one 3/4. :rolleyes:
ATTACK!
Medi vs Vspear Win as 2/4 (4/4)
Medi vs Vspear Leave 3/4 (4/5)
Medi vs Vspear Leave 2/4 (4/6)
Medi vs Vspear Leave 1/4 (4/7)
Medi vs 3/4! Spear Leave 1/4 (4/8)
Medi vs 3/4 Spear Win as 1/4 (5/9)
Medi vs 2/4 Spear Win as 2/4 (6/10)
Vet AC vs 1/4 Spear Leave 2/5 Spear :( (6/11)
Medi vs 2/5 Spear Leave 2/5 Spear. :( (6/12)
Medi vs 2/5 Spear Win as 4/4. (7/13)
Last Medi vs 1/4 Spear Win as 4/4. (8/14)
AC vs 2/5 Warrior Win as 2/4. (9/15)
Horse vs 1/4 Horse Win as 5/5! (10/16)

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Capture_Dehli.jpg

Dehli is set to work the spices for 7 uncorrupt beakers per turn. It could get 2spt as well with it's two citizens, but I favor gold right now. Library ordered and will be whipped when possible.
Horse vs 1/4 Horse Win as 2/4 (11/17). We find the Mayan army. {pic}

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Mayan_Spotting.jpg

AC does a little scouting and retreats within borders. We need to be a little careful with the roads all around our borders. The spear can reach many of our tiles. Also I don't want the Mayans to board our road system since we have a ROP right now. I move the wounded horse that killed the last Indian horse to prevent entry by the Mayans. Go Around!

ControlFreak

Apr 01, 2007, 07:53 PM

I hope I explained my Delay of the war in my turn set. I am loathe to go against the advice, or my planning post, but the Indian landing caught me off guard and I didn't want to be short on units. I think the delay worked out well in that we ended up getting the Hanging Gardens and had no Medi to spare. I took some harsh RNG rolls, but that may be expected when fighting a size 12 city.

Some notes toward the next player:
Coloseums are Uni prebuilds. FS should start Coloseum after next Medi.
We should probably use the healthy horse to cover the Incense NW of Dehli. But Indians have horses and could attack Dehli directly.
Try to keep the Mayans off our roads if possible, they have ROP with us.
Two boats have gone back for more units. The AC/Medi is loaded, two Medi await in FS.
Zoom in to KZ every time it builds a worker. And don't stop building workers yet, they are very needed both for forestry/improvements (mine the hill by Teno) as well as for growth when the towns hit size 7.

Niklas

Apr 02, 2007, 12:40 AM

ControlFreak

Apr 02, 2007, 09:25 AM

No worries CF, I have no complaints this time around, I perfectly understand your reasons for delaying. We should perhaps have anticipated the possibility of an Indian landing, but we didn't and you had to cope with the situation, which you did in the best way. And yes, waiting one more turn for HG was probably worth it in the longer run. So :goodjob: from me!

The lack of units in Chichén Itza is puzzling, were they at war with the Indians already?

Don't have time right now to check the save in detail, but I'll be back with comments no doubt.
Niklas@ thanks for the moral boost and your previous explanation. I feel much better.

I didn't even notice the unit load in Chichén Itza but it is interesting. They were not at war with India because the Advisor told me they declared when I brokered the MA. I just think that their starting position was severely handicapped from the other AIs. They are making 25% of the sheilds we are. Also, how is it possible that they built a cathedral but have no temple? did they sell it? Are they running a deficit and losing their buildings/units? From what I can tell, they are a very weak civ and we should roll over them quickly after the Indians. I'm also thinking pulling in Portugal against them would bring all of Portuguals forces through the indian territory making them easy to eliminate as well.

Our bigger problem is going to be taking on France now that they have iron. Any ideas? A much bigger dromon fleet seems like a good idea to build after the unis are done. I'm pretty sure that Paris is on the coast and could be bombed. Being able to dump a large attack force in one turn also seems like a necessity. We could MA the Americans and Scandinavians in to pull the French forces away, but they may be anhilated by France in short order if we can't take Paris quickly.

sercer88

Apr 02, 2007, 09:50 AM

If we want to use massive Dromon bombard, then we should build all we will need soon. I was playing a game as the Byzantines, and, as soon as I got Astronomy, I couldn't build dromons any more!!!! :mad: [pissed]

I thought you could always build your unique unit!!! even after it was obsolete!!!

-oh, wait. I guess you can always build your unique unit as long as you haven't had a golden age yet. Is this right?

Anyway, nice turns :goodjob:

Still, It's very odd that only 2 units were in Chichen: at max pop (5) it could still produce 2 turn spears and 3 turn Jav throwers!

ControlFreak

Apr 02, 2007, 11:12 AM

Yes, we will not be able to build Dromons after Astronomy so we do need to build them soon. It also begs the question of what to research after Education. Do we want to go for Astronomy or head up the lower tech tree? If we're first to Education, it makes sense to stay on the top.

With FS starting it's prebuild after the next Medi is complete, it's university will be ready the turn after Education is complete. It has a harbor and can easily make dromons every two turns. I don't think we need that many more (maybe 4-6?). The small towns will not be done building their unis until well after Education and may not be able to help with dromon production before Astronomy is learned.

zyxy

Apr 02, 2007, 01:26 PM

Alright, well done! A bloody battle for Delhi. Hopefully Bombay will go down quicker, but it is at size 12 too. Anyway, our troops need to rest a bit.

- I would keep researching the upper path. We could do banking before astro, to delay the demise of the dromons. Although I'm not convinced that dromons are a good investment, because caravels ship more troops.
- I like the idea to drag the Portuguese into the war. Perhaps first sign them vs India, and after the Indian demise sign the Maya against Portugal?
- The Portuguese territory seems worthwhile, so I am tempted to take them out before we hit the Maya.
- I am not too worried about France yet. They don't seem to be researching that fast, and we should be able to get to them with cavalry, before the age of rifles (but probably not before gunpowder). Paris culture increased by 524 from 2191 to 2715 over the last 10 turns, so we still have a lot of time (more than 300 turns at current pace).
- Mayans will pay 8 gpt for ivory, and even 11 gpt + change for a tech. Sounds like a deal to me! I haven't checked all civs, so there might be more deals out there.
- Something really obvious that I should have noticed ages ago: FS can give up the easternmost cow and instead alternately work the bg and a coastal tile. This not only brings in 1 more gold per 2 turns, but it also makes the cow available for Theo :).
- There are a lot of workers in Theo. They could either help with road construction, or do some forestry to speed up the unis. Use CA2 to check for forestable tiles.

EDIT: I was looking for the roster and it seems I'm up. I don't really have time to post a full strategy post today, and I cannot play on wednesday, so the first opportunity to play would be on thursday. If that's too slow, next player can go first - or Niklas can finish his halfset.

Anyway, the short strategy post would look like this:
- embassy Portugal and sign them in vs India if feasible.
- heal troops and then finish India. After that, prepare for Portugal, and sign in Maya.
- keep Mayans off our land.
- sell Monarchy or Theology to Maya for 11 gpt + change.
- generally sell old techs or luxes to anyone who has a decent bid.
- prebuild & build unis.
- keep KZ on workers. Use workers for forestry.
- let Theo have the cow for 5 fpt. Theo should be able to grow to size 12 and make a lot of commerce very quickly now.
- research Edu -> Astro (or Banking?)

ControlFreak

Apr 02, 2007, 02:02 PM

zyxy

Apr 02, 2007, 02:17 PM

The cow can be given to Theo and probably should. I was too intent on trying to maximize sheilds in Theo because it's behind in it's prebuild for the university. I never did a long term plan for growth verses sheilds to see which way gets the university faster. Ok. I think it doesn't matter anymore at this stage, the aqueduct will still take 5 turns if we use the cow instead of the forest.

For that matter, it may be better to build a worker out of FS at a cost of 20s, just to use the worthless food overrun. The worker could start the mining of some irrigated plains and the cow before being shipped to the other island.I like the idea to mine a tile at FS. Not sure about building the worker there, it's a waste of useful shields.

I agree with banking next. Are you proposing that we research Military Tradition, wasting the turns on the optional tech? Or just wait until someone else (France) researches it and buy it from them?Good point, I think it depends on the developments. We cannot really hope to get to France before she gets Gunpowder. If France has no salt, then we can still attack her with MDI. Otherwise, we probably need cavs, and I think self-research would be best, or they will come too close to rifles.

I was looking for tech trades and none came along. I wasn't looking as closely for gpt trades for luxuries so that's my bad. I agree with the gpt for luxuries deal. No sweat, I cannot find any others than this one, either. And it's a pain to check every turn, even for a controlfreak ;).

I would hold off selling the tech to Mayans as we may need it to MA against Portugal.We are up 2 techs. I think it's enough, but selling lux is ok too.

Remember not to add straight gold to the AI side of per-turn deals. The harbor trade routes are still too fragile at this point and we're liable to lose our rep if there's straight gold on the AI side of the bargin.Agree.

The workers in Theo just moved there on their way towards Teno. Teno has already built it's duct and is close to size 7. The workers should chop forest to help the university build, mine the horse hill and put some coastal roads down for quicker response, flexibility in loading ships. The native workers can be joined to the city after the forests are chopped. The slaves should be left too continue forestry operations as zyxy indicated.Ok, thanks for explaining the intent. The plan sounds good to me. (Though I think Theo will grow to 7 faster than Teno with the extra cow.)

I was torn about moving all units into Dehli. It's a flip risk, but has a barracks. The faster the cit are quelled, the faster we can rush the library.This turn it is safe I think. Next turn not, but maybe if we move in enough we can eliminate the flip risk.

I have no problem pulling in Portugal against India, but I'm afraid that they may overrun Bombay before we get a chance to.Good point, though I'm not very concerned about this - it's an AI against a size 12 city, after all. My concern is that Portugal will train all the defenders up to elite, and my hope is that Portugal and India kill each others spares in the field.

Niklas

Apr 02, 2007, 02:22 PM

I'm in a bit of a tight spot with a major deadline on friday, so I won't be able to play anything before that, and comments may be sparse from me. What I'm reading so far looks good though. The important things I'd like to see are India gone, and the plan for the next target (Maya?) well under way, preferably the attack itself.

ControlFreak

Apr 02, 2007, 02:50 PM

Ok. I think it doesn't matter anymore at this stage, the aqueduct will still take 5 turns if we use the cow instead of the forest.

I like the idea to mine a tile at FS. Not sure about building the worker there, it's a waste of useful shields.

I think Theo will grow to 7 faster than Teno with the extra cow.
Good point about the cow making Theo grow faster. I still want to put the workers to work on the tiles around Teno because I think it's potential is higher in the short term just because it has a higher shield output at size 12. That combined with the fact that Theo is MUCH closer to our worker farm made me want to send the existing workers up north. New workers from KZ can pause to mine all the irrigated tiles near Ozzy. We don't need growth from these towns, we need sheilds. FS can probably take the indian slaves in an exchange transport. The boat has to go down there to pick up the Medis. It can easily bring two slaves to FS while it's at it.

I'm in a bit of a tight spot with a major deadline on friday, so I won't be able to play anything before that, and comments may be sparse from me. What I'm reading so far looks good though. The important things I'd like to see are India gone, and the plan for the next target (Maya?) well under way, preferably the attack itself.

Reallife strikes again.

I think we still have some planning to do at Bombay. Our current unit level doesn't seem to be enough to attack a size 12 AI city. We should get three more units in a turn or two (AC and 2Medis) but that could be it for a while. Is that enough to take Bombay? If so, do we march them there or transport them there? There is a mountain on the way that could be a good fortress, but I don't think it's next to Bombay so we'd spend a few turns in the middle of Indias road system.

The mayan area is really weak and they can be pushed over at any time. I agree with facing Portugal if we can maintain a decent number of units in the Indian area. I also think that MAing the Mayans against Portugal is a good idea. But let's capture Bombay first and reassess.

One more thing, if we're planning on going to Cavalry, and Chivalry is already known by France, should we start making horses instead of Medi? My feeling is no because we don't have much treasury to upgrade to knights, but it does merit discussion.

sercer88

Apr 02, 2007, 02:57 PM

One more thing, if we're planning on going to Cavalry, and Chivalry is already known by France, should we start making horses instead of Medi? My feeling is no because we don't have much treasury to upgrade to knights, but it does merit discussion.

Well, hate to be against the grain, but I don't think we should waste our time on Mil Trad. Heck, remember, we need to get to Fission as quickly as we can: that should mean don't research the stuff we don't need. Now, obviously, that merits the question: well, DO we need Mil Trad. From the way I see it, I don't think so!

Niklas

Apr 02, 2007, 03:05 PM

I'm with sercer on this one. And I'd be extremely surprised if we had the chance to get cavs before France gets rifles unless we go for it full speed right after Theology.

CommandoBob

Apr 02, 2007, 03:08 PM

Well, hate to be against the grain, but I don't think we should waste our time on Mil Trad. Heck, remember, we need to get to Fission as quickly as we can: that should mean don't research the stuff we don't need. Now, obviously, that merits the question: well, DO we need Mil Trad. From the way I see it, I don't think so!
Yeah, but remember we want Military Tradition so we can attack France, or else France could win the game with a 20,000 culture point city. If France has Saltpeter, then our forces will be attacking Muskets with Maces and we will lose a lot of Maces. Even vCavalry attacking fortified Muskets in size 12 cities on a hill across a river (about the worst case scenario) means we still lose a lot of units.

If France lacks Saltpeter, we attack Pikes instead.

And if it hasn't happened already, France hits her Golden Age when a Musketeer wins a battle.

Just to conquer and subdue the world, we don't need Cavalry (3 moves are nice however); we could head for Tanks instead. But with France such a power house, we have to be able to take her down and do it quickly.

And don't worry about being against the grain or having a different viewpoint. It is actually helpful and helps the brain-storming. :D

sercer88

Apr 02, 2007, 03:11 PM

Here's an Idea:
Do we want Joan to get her golden age, so she builds a ton of units, which, under the golden age commerce she can uphold. But once she finishes her golden age, her unit support will be WAAAAY too high for her to handle! Should we somehow initiate her golden age?

Edit: well, France has probably already gotten a GA from building wonders

ControlFreak

Apr 03, 2007, 04:47 AM

Edit: well, France has probably already gotten a GA from building wonders
Yes, I posted a while back that Frances GA started when she built the Great Wall.

I don't think that we want to research Mil Tradition. And I agree with zyxy that France has slowed down to the point where we can probably deal with her before rifles if we can move through the Indian continent quickly. Sercer hit it on the head that Frances GA has allowed them to build all the city improvements and lots of units and now their research capability is hampered because they have to use taxes to support all of their builds.

I think the key will be to do the same as we have done so far in this game. Pull America in against France, wait several turns for the French army to leave and then surprize her from behind to take Paris. Once Paris falls, France is a dead civ. If that means we need to land 25 Medi next to paris, then we should plan to build 25 Medi and enough caravells to transport them. That's almost 50 turns of builds so we need to plan for that now.

France is the worlds only superpower. If we can kill her, even if we lose a lot of units, it's not a problem because we won't need those kind of units anywhere else.

Speaking of units, is it worth MA ing the Eastern Continent civs against the Mongols so they can start using up their spare units? Maybe not all of them, but perhaps the Hittites? Or Persia. Or both of them. That would start to give persian an upper hand I think.

sercer88

Apr 03, 2007, 08:53 AM

If we can, I'm all for starting wars. We can be generous to the scientific civs, and they will get rid of a bunch of their units.

@CF: so, you're saying that once Paris falls, we should just do everything we can to keep it? In other words, when we fight France, just take Paris? or am I reading your post wrong?

Niklas

Apr 03, 2007, 08:58 AM

If we were to just take Paris, no way we could keep it. With all the culture therein, the flip risk would be near 100%. We need to take all of France when we go at her.

sercer88

Apr 03, 2007, 09:37 AM

I was thinking the same thing. So, it wouldn't be good if we lost our whole army trying to take Paris (unlike )....

...wait, never mind :rolleyes:

I DID read CF's post wrong :blush:

Anyway, as Commando Bob mentioned, I, too, think we should head for tanks. It would mean no clear-cut blow-outs of the civs we do try to attack in the IA until we get them, but, still: researching MT will slow us down even more.

It may be far away (I don't remember) but once we get the the end of the MA, are we going to bring some civs up to parity, again?

ControlFreak

Apr 03, 2007, 10:58 AM

Yes, Taking Paris means, taking it, and retaking it and retaking it until France dies.

However, I was thinking that the flip chance for a city depends on the Number of foreigners and the number of tiles out of its 21 that are in someone elses borders. The formula only checks if the flippees culture is less than the flippers culture, but not by how much. It makes no difference that Paris as a ton of culture, or just more than us. We can still drop the flip chances down by starvation/worker building/rushing. As well as claiming the 21 tiles. That should be easy to do with the spread out French towns.

As far as formenting war, there's three drawbacks:
[list=1] Cost to embassy
Rep hit to declare war (each declaration is negative points towards the AI attitude. With 30 civs, we are going to rack up a lot of negative points if we declare war on each just once)
potential to drag a scientific civ into oblivion.
Costs at least a tech to pull them in.
[\list]

I would recommend starting with the eastern neighbors because the Mongols already have declared on us, so that saves point 1. Pulling in Egypt would be easy because we already have an embassy with them (save point 3). Pulling in the Hittites would be beneficial because they share a border. The Dutch may also be a good choice. I would leave Persia and Babylon out of it because if the war starts going the wrong way, we won't be in a position to help them out.

I would stay away from Germany/Zulu, because the Zulus have much better land.

I would stay away from England/Sumeria because England has better land and we're going to be hitting England sooner rather than later.

If we are going to go to war with Portugal, Korean and Spain could come in against them for that war.

The Greek/Russian continent is a big question. I know that China and Carthage had already been at war. China is nearing riders so they could easily take over that continent. If we could move Greeks and Russians to their own island (Ex Rome and Ex Celts?) then China might be a good "big meany" to have at the end as our diplomatic opponent.

ControlFreak

Apr 04, 2007, 07:49 AM

Since Niklas is fighting the deadline monster, I'll don the captains arm band and review the roster:

Recent Players:

ControlFreak (play influenced by evil spy)
zyxy (brilliant military war of attrition with spear-killing army)
Niklas (Triumphant save of CF's butt by taking Teno and eliminating Aztecs)
sercer (wonderful strategy post with only minor nitpicks followed by similarly successful play except for keeping KZ at size 4)
CB SKIPPED
ControlFreak (Capture of Dehli)

Looking at the list of recent players, and assuming that McLMan is gone, I would think that zyxy is next up. (Spring Break is over.) In the interest of staggering our best players, and assuming that CB will be available again sometime this weekend, I would propose the following roster going forward:

Roster:

zyxy - UP!
Commando Bob - Ondeck
Niklas - Warming Up
sercer88 - Resting
ControlFreak - Just Played
McLMan - Ghosting

Of course if CB (who hasn't played in the last round) wants it, he should get first pick. I would say whoever posts first to "get it" between zyxy and CB can have it.

(Updating the roster link in my first page post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5082028&postcount=4). The last roster was on page 7 Niklas!:whipped: )

CommandoBob

Apr 04, 2007, 01:01 PM

Of course if CB (who hasn't played in the last round) wants it, he should get first pick. I would say whoever posts first to "get it" between zyxy and CB can have it.
I won't be able to take the game anytime soon. My mother-in-law had a light heart attack last week so painting/sorting/tossing got delayed. And we have plans for the various famalies to be here off and on over the weekend.

If I lucky I'll get to play some solo Civ...and feed my addiction with the lesser quality stuff. No way I'll be able to do justice to this game this weekend.

zyxy

Apr 04, 2007, 02:37 PM

zyxy (brilliant military war of attrition with spear-killing army)

Well, I didn't fee so brilliant at the time, losing an entire army and not taking the town.

But anyway, I've got it. I can play thursday eve, or friday during the day, or saturday day or evening, depending on how long we need to make plans. What I'm hearing so far points in the direction of:

try to take France without cavs, but before the industrial age. This means we need to focus on this. I would suggest to attack and eliminate India, Maya, England in that order, and leave Portugal for later. This puts us at France's doorstep, and possibly before she has the chance to get a load of musketeers. The Maya should be easy to kill, so we're looking at 30-40 turns or so for the three of them. Disadvantage is that we'll get a lot of neighbors.
foment a war on the Mongol island. I feel uncomfortable to sign up more than two opponents against the Mongols, because it might kill them. Possibly foment wars on the Greek/Chinese island, and on the French/American island. Not sure about this, we certainly do not want France to take over America.
build/chop unis, after that return to troops.
research edu -> banking -> astro, or edu -> astro -> banking. Not sure about this, my choice would be to get astro first, because I don't think the dromon bombardments are that helpful. But I am not very certain, and will go with strong opinions from the team.

ControlFreak

Apr 04, 2007, 03:03 PM

I agree with caravells over dromons for France. I've got some pics for planning against France but don't have time to post them now. Probably tomorrow morning. I'd like to see a strategy of taking Bombay first before zyxy starts.

zyxy

Apr 04, 2007, 03:23 PM

The Indian War:

We have 2 horse, 2 AC and 5 MDI on the Indian continent, with 1 AC and 3 MDI, and optionally 1 horse underway or in reserve. We will get another MDI on turn 2, another AC on turn 4, and that's all for the near future. Total: 2 (or 3) horse, 4 AC, 9 MDI.
We needed 10 MDI, 2 AC and 1 horse to take Delhi, defended by 4 veteran spears, a warrior and a horse. So our troops numbers are similar and could be sufficient. I would risk the attack, especially because we will not get a lot more units soon.
I would like to move the elite spear from Teno towards Delhi for defense, so that the pike can defend our attack stack. Should we upgrade the spear first? I would. We could also add the horse from FS, but that leaves the town undefended, so I am not sure. It is probably safe, because India will not really have a navy (or we can see it).

Using a 2-ship chain from Teno to Delhi (for the AC) we could launch an attack on Bombay on turn 6, from the mountain just south of it. Foot units need to enter Indian territory on turn 4, mounted units on turn 5.
This means Delhi will be undefended (except perhaps for a spear or pike) for 1 turn, namely the interturn between turns 5 and 6.
It also means we have 3 turns to heal foot units and 4 turns to heal mounties, which is enough.

Shipping:
PP drops off S-E of Delhi (turn 1), moves to W-SW of Tenoch (turn 3), picks up AC and spear/pike and moves to W-W-N of Tenoch (turn 4) and E-E-S of Delhi (turn 5).
RF picks up two MDI from FS (turn 1), drops off S-E of Delhi (turn 2), picks up MDI and possibly horse from FS (turn 3), and unloads in Delhi (turn 5).
ASitD moves to E-E-S of Delhi (turn 1), picks up cargo from PP on turn 5 and offloads in Delhi on the same turn.
DF is free.

In order to speed this up by 1 turn we would have to establish a 4-ship chain from Theo to Delhi (for the AC), but then I don't see how we can get all troops across in time.

Niklas

Apr 04, 2007, 03:40 PM

We could also speed up the attack by 2 (3?) turns by not waiting for that AC. Would that still be enough for our troops to heal? If so then I'd go for it.

ControlFreak

Apr 05, 2007, 06:55 AM

Despite zyxy's last experience of being a unit short at Teno, how could you ask him to go without that last unit! ;)

In retrospect, I wish I had covered the Northern Ivory. I expect the spear to move there for pillaging purposes. It will potentially be joined by any available Indian offensive unit. I don't think any unit except the horse in Dehli can cover that tile and I'm not sure it's worth covering, but it's definitely a weak point. We could potentially lose a lot of our army just trying to keep Dehli.

Also looking at the logistics, I don't think that the AC is the real problem. The problem is the Medis in FS that will have to walk. The first two Medis can make it to Indian territory by turn 3, but the 3rd can't so the question is, speed up by 1 turn, leaving out the AC and Medi, or wait for both. I would wait for both.

I'm in favor of leaving the horse in FS. The Indian's are not a problem but Rom could be. If they drop off 2 legionaries, the one horse on FS island would be toast. I'm not sure 2 horses would be any better, but regardless they might delay long enough for us to get units there.

If we truly have one dromon to spare, I would like it to be in the channel so we can shift troops back and forth between our two primary islands.

Pulling in Portugal soon against india is also probably a good idea. As far as priorites go I would be happy if Mayan or Portugal took Bombay, just so long as the indians die and Dehli stops being a flip risk. Mayan and Portugual are on the short list to die, so there's no problem letting them have Bombay temporarily.

ControlFreak

Apr 05, 2007, 09:55 AM

A couple more thoughts on the taking of Bombay.

I would definitely pull Portugal in against them. That's going to occupy all of India's offensive usings (if they have any left, the Mayans are advancing quickly which means India is probably gassed. With only one town left, they are probably only building spears as experienced in SGOTM9.)

Since I don't expect offensive units, on the inherited turn, I would actually use the elite horse in Dehli to cover our incense from the visible indian spear. That way we can chose to ignore the spear even if it moves elsewhere in Dehli's territory.

I would wake the slaves and send them towards the shores so at least two of the could ride a boat back to FS for the mines.

On the first turn, I would use the Pike and healthy AC/horses, to occupy the approach tiles towards Bombay. With Portugal and Mayans both trying to get to Bombay, we don't want to lose our shot at getting to the city ourselves. The ACs should be safe on the mountain and will provide great battlefield recon.

I would also move all healthy units towards Bombay as soon as they are ready. If portugual gets lucky, they may reduce Bombay defenders down to some manageable level. We want to know if that happens (hence the battlefield recon) and be able to take advantage when india looks to only have a few wounded defenders left in Bombay.

IIRC, India seemed like they are almost always the first units to move. That means, their turn is over before portugal attacks. That's significant for us because it means any barrack in Bombay will not heal damage from Portugal before we get to attack, but it will heal our damage before Portugal attacks! We need as many offensive troops on the mountain as soon as possible. We may be able to take the city with only 4-6 Medi if Portugal reduced the defenders to a few wounded spears.

So do whatever shipping is necessary, to get all the troops to India, but also get our troops healed and on the mountain before that just in case. Upgrading the pike in Teno and bringing him towards Bombay should allow us to declare on the Mayans as soon as our troops get in position. Don't forget that the ROP expires with India so the Mayan's won't be able to use our road ways to return home. Our troops should beat them to the land bridge and cut them off. Then we can quickly advance on and capture the Mayan cities.

Niklas

Apr 05, 2007, 11:14 AM

:thumbsup: Good thinking CF, I really like that daring plan. Anything that gives us a chance to save a turn should be invoked.

zyxy

Apr 06, 2007, 04:07 AM

Turn 0, 290BC: embassy Portugal for 47 gold:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_embassyPortugal.jpg
Apart from the visible buildings there's a harbor. It doesn't look like they will be a big help vs India, but still:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_MA_Portugal.jpg
At Delhi we'll just have to pray there's no counter attack. We could lose a bunch of horses...
Make a deal with the Maya:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_Maya.jpg
I cannot MA Egypt vs Mongols, because they do not know each other :lol:. Embassy Hittites for 42 gold:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_embassyHittites.jpg
Apart from the visible stuff, there's a colosseum, harbor and GLight.
Embassy Persia for 48 gold:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_embassyPersia.jpg
Apart from the visible stuff, there's a cathedral, colosseum and harbor.
Time to stir the pot:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_MA_Hittites.jpg
Mursilis considers our offer gracious! :lol:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_MA_Persia.jpg
I have sold Theology rather than Monarchy because France has Theology but not Monarchy.
Rename Teno to Smurkz the Fair and Delhi to Smurkz the Wicked.
Starve StW, give cow to Theo, stop the three workers near StW, upgrade spear in StF.

IT: Indian spear attacks our wounded horse, we win and promo to elite [1-0]. Another Indian spear moves onto the spices. We lost our spice supply from Inca, but I renegotiate a deal:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0290_inca.jpg
We don't really need the spices atm, but Theology is no longer a monopoly anyway. Quel one resister in StW. Ozzy aque -> coloss.

Turn 1, 270BC: move a bunch of wounded troops into StW. I'll take a small gamble and try to starve it down. Move some healthy units (two AC's, 1 horse, 2 MDI, 1 pike) towards Bombay. There's a stack of Portuguese: 1 archer, 3 horse, 2 spears, 1 warrior.
Sell ivory to Hittites for 3 gpt, to Maya for 2 gpt.

IT: there are three defenders in Bombay. Portuguese manage to wound them all but kill none. KZ worker -> worker. FS MDI -> Colosseum.

Turn 2, 250BC: best defender showing in Bombay is a 2hp spear. I chance an attack, but our 5hp AC is killed by the spear, causing only 1hp damage. I don't have enough troops to take Bombay now, so I hold off further attacks, and move more units up [1-1].

IT: Portugal manages to kill 1 defender, but there's still a healthy one showing.

Turn 3, 230BC: keep moving troops to Bombay.

IT: Portuguese attacks on Bombay become pathetic. They won't be much help anymore.
We get an AC. KZ worker -> worker.

Turn 4, 210BC: switch StW to worker. sci 40%.

IT: The portuguese only destroy tiles, they have no offensive troops left. The Maya move towards Bombay, hindered by Portuguese spears.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0210_Edu.jpg
France has it too btw. Use TBG to switch Aqueduct in Theo to Uni. StW worker -> worker, Theo uni -> aque.

Turn 5, 190BC: sci 100%, Astro in 20 turns. Switch the Colosseum builds to unis. We are ready to attack next turn, the Maya will be ready the turn after that. So I'll maybe wait another turn.

IT: Indian archer sallies forth from Bombay and kills a Mayan horse. Maya kill the archer, losing a jav thrower. KZ worker -> worker.

Turn 6, 170BC: I am going to increase my chances by letting the three jav throwers attack first. We have 9 MDI, 3 AC and 3 horse.

IT: Mayans redline 1 spear, and then give up :(. FS Uni -> Epic.

Turn 7, 150BC: attack on Bombay:
4 hp AC - 5 hp spear: AC hit by archer, kills spear [2-1], promotes.
4 hp AC - 4 hp spear: AC kills spear [3-1].
5 hp horse - 4 hp archer: horse kills archer [4-1].
5 hp horse - 1 hp spear: horse kills spear [5-1], and:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_BC0150_Bombay.jpg

The 9 MDI look rather bored...
That went easy! I guess this was my lucky streak!
I am going to pause for a while, so that we can decide on the next move. We could either fight against Portugal or Maya. In either case we can ally with the other one.

Maya:

Mayaland is on the path to France (+).
their army can probably be locked up north (+).
there's probably a road connection (+).
Mayan lands are close to us and hopefully not very corrupt (+).
Mayan lands are bad, lots of plains, and no fresh water that we can see (-).
Maya are paying 13 gpt. (But the deal can be broken without rep damage) (-).

Portugal

is gassed, seems to have only spears left (+).
has good land, can support a lot of scientists (+).
there are no active deals (+).
is far from our core, hence corrupt (-).
is not on the path to France (-).
there is no road from India to Portugal (-).
we cannot prevent the Portuguese spears from returning home (-).

I would probably choose to attack Maya, but I don't have a strong opinion on this. If we DoW Portugal, then I think it is best to do so right away, and let the Maya take care of the Portuguese spears.

The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0150_01.SAV), in case you want to look. I'll continue after some discussion, probably tomorrow.

ControlFreak

Apr 06, 2007, 05:46 AM

Yay! Another civ in the annals of history. I'm glad you had it easier this time round.

With India gone, we can stop starving Dehli and take advantage of the low corruption. We need libraries ASAP and can whip them. We also need Unis ASAP but probably can't whip those. Unfortunately Bombay will be a flip risk to portugual until Lisbon is ours. Add that to the plus column for Portugal.

France: Based on borders Here's where Paris is with the most convient approach and landing cities.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_France001.jpg

With dromons we must take the southern route through Maya, but with Caravells we can take the northern route through India or Portugual.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_France002.jpg

The problem is getting the boats to that side of the continent. Someone will have to look at the game to see how to do that.

If the boats can get on that side of the continent and still be able to upgrade, my vote is Portugual (less wasted troop movement, and the pillagers from Mayan move on them instead of on us) The northern route may even be accomplished in two caravell legs if the portugese land reaches close enough to Spain.

If not, then I guess I favor Mayan because of lower corruption.

zyxy

Apr 07, 2007, 08:34 AM

Good thoughts! And the passage to France is well spotted :cool:.

Upgrading can be done in Oporto (Portugal), once we capture it. From there it's four turns sailing to France. There are no Mayan towns on the west coast, so I think the balance is tipping in favor of attacking Portugal.

The boats will have to sail round the Incan lands in the south, which takes about 15 turns. There are no canal cities.

Plans:
- DoW Portugal right away. Get the Maya involved.
- Sail two dromons and any other that we build to the Mayan west coast. Keep two dromons back home for transport and protection.
- Whip/build libs, unis and courts in StW and Bombay. StW also needs a harbor.
- Do we want to sell the markets in StW and Bombay? They cost 1 gpt each and bring no value at 100% science. I would do this.
- Move some workers to Bombay to reconnect it.
- Start building dromons and a few pikes in StF, after the uni.

Niklas

Apr 07, 2007, 08:57 AM

Oops, I missed this somehow. Very well done zyxy, one more AI down! :goodjob:

I'd like to go after both Portugal and Maya in rapid succession, but that's just my bloodthirsty side speaking. ;) More comments later.

EDIT: Plans for the remainder of the turnset look good, and yes I would sell those markets.

zyxy

Apr 07, 2007, 01:03 PM

Ok, should I wait for your comments?

I can play tomorrow morning, but after that not before Monday evening.

Niklas

Apr 07, 2007, 01:08 PM

Nah, play on with the remaining turns, I'll chip in with comments after your handoff. :)

zyxy

Apr 08, 2007, 03:39 AM

Turn 7, 150BC (cont): rename Bombay to Gloriouz Battlez. Move a horse and pike into StW, and the other troops into GB. The Portuguese have no less than 9 spears and 1 archer in view of GB. I don't really think the Maya will be able to kill them, so let's hope the spears move south and not north. Anyway:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/smurkz12_BC0150_DoW_Portugal.jpg
Henry would have payed 32 gold + 4 gpt for a peace treaty! Mayans are really nice too:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/smurkz12_BC0150_MA_Maya.jpg
I cannot prevent starvation of GB, so I set it to all scientists. Sell the markets in GB and StW for 25 gold each. I am tempted to sell GB's granary as well, but will wait a bit with that. Deadly Flamez and A Shot In The Dark start the long journey round the Inca continent.

IT: Mayans and Portuguese kill each other :). Mayans move first.
StF Uni -> pike. KZ worker -> worker.

Turn 8, 130BC: StW whips a lib. GB whips a court (I need to reduce pop fast because of starvation, so I start with the expensive stuff.) Kill a redlined horse [1-0].
Make a nice deal with France:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/smurkz12_BC0130_France.jpg
(This is the full price for Monarchy, because France has more gpt than this.)

IT: more Portuguese - Maya killing. Becaue of the Portuguese troops movements we lose another pop in GB due to starvation. Portuguese ships are heading south.

Turn 9, 110BC: Russia now has Chivalry, and we could acquire it for Theology. I am not sure that we want it, knights are so expensive. So I will not make the trade.

IT: AC kills an archer on defense but is then killed [2-1]. The Mayans are losing the battle. Portugal uses her spears as attackers.

Turn 10, 90BC: kill archer and spear in the open before the rejoin Lisbon [3-1]. Whip a lib in GB. Town is completely unhappy now, so I hire all scientists. I'll play one turn extra.

IT: Maya retreat. I lose a horse [3-2]. Portuguese ships turn back. StF pike -> pike. GB lib -> uni and keeps starving.

Turn 11, 70BC: Persia also knows Chivalry now. attack on Lisbon: 4 vet MDI kill 3 spears and 1 archer at no losses:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/smurkz12_BC0070_Lisbon.jpg
we capture 4 slaves :). Sell the market for 25 gold, and kill an archer [8-2]. Move three of the workers back towards GB to make a road connection. partially whip the aque in Theo.

Notes:

there are some unmoved units near Lisbon. They can either head for Oporto or enter Lisbon to quel resistance. Possibly kill the visible archer, but I would not bother with the spears. Another option is to send some back to GB for MP duty, but I don't think it's worth it.
There is an umoved pike in StF.
I have started some forestry operations. In particular, a forest will grow SW of Theo on the next IT. So do not use this square, or the town will not grow. The aqueduct should be finished in 3 turns.
We have some workers in the war zone: west of GB, and 3 tiles SW of StW.
The two Portuguese galleys headed south on turn 9, but north on turn 10. I don't know if they are loaded.
We could renegotiate some peace deals for gold/gpt. But it is not good for our relations I think, so perhaps not worth it.
I regularly checked for ivory for gpt deals, but no luck.

The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0070_01.SAV).

Roster:
CB - Up!
Niklas - On deck
sercer88
CF
zyxy - just played

McLMan - lurking

Niklas

Apr 08, 2007, 03:56 AM

Veeeery nice zyxy, I hadn't checked in detail so I didn't think you'd be able to get to Lisbon that fast. Way to go! :goodjob:

Will check the save and comment later.

ControlFreak

Apr 08, 2007, 03:18 PM

No comments from me until tomorrow, but nice job zyxy!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it.

ControlFreak

Apr 09, 2007, 07:18 AM

I won't be able to take the game anytime soon. My mother-in-law had a light heart attack last week so painting/sorting/tossing got delayed. And we have plans for the various famalies to be here off and on over the weekend.

If I lucky I'll get to play some solo Civ...and feed my addiction with the lesser quality stuff. No way I'll be able to do justice to this game this weekend.

CB, Sorry I missed this before. I hope your Mother-in-law is doing OK! It's kind of amazing how much higher the survival rate for heart attack victims has gotten in recent years.

Did you get to play some solo games? Are you going to be able to take this game, or do you need a skip/swap?

CommandoBob

Apr 09, 2007, 11:10 AM

CB, Sorry I missed this before. I hope your Mother-in-law is doing OK! It's kind of amazing how much higher the survival rate for heart attack victims has gotten in recent years.

Did you get to play some solo games? Are you going to be able to take this game, or do you need a skip/swap?
Short Answer
Real life forces a skip.

Detailed Answer
Grandma is doing OK, back to normal (cranky, irritable and forgetful).

I would love to jump in now, lots of fighting and fun stuff :drool: but I really think it would be better to declare a skip. We're still in the midst of painting and such.

Part of the 'such' is creating a hutch and a computer desk from scratch. My wife drew up the plans, now I have to put it together. This is my first wood working project, and, well, seems like a Diety level project at the moment!

Today we have my niece and her family coming in from California (planned a couple of months ago), so that means a get together with our three (CommandoBob, Mrs. CommandoBob and Grandma), the California four, her sister and family (who live in Dallas), my wife's sister and husband and perhaps my nephew and maybe even the my wife's brother from East Texas. That means four of Grandma's nine great-grandchildren and at least nine adults . So I took the day off work just to be an if-needed helper.

I safely stashed the C3C disks in a clothing drawer and haven't even opened a game, solo or SG, in over a week. If these two projects go as planned, I hope to be playing again this weekend. (The almighty wife-unit, that is not included with all games, but when present, exerts such a mighty force upon the game! :crazyeye: :love:)

Niklas

Apr 09, 2007, 11:10 AM

I will assume that CB won't take it, so here's my got it, CB if you want it then just say so and it's yours. EDIT: Crosspost with CB, so got it for real!

The march for Oporto seems a given, and shouldn't be too hard what with all the fully healed troops we still have near Lisbon. Getting ships around to the other side seems the big problem for the future I would like to see us take care of the Mayans while we're at it, Astronomy is still 9 turns away so we need something to occupy ourselves with in the mean time. I'd like some help and advise on this before I comment further.

CommandoBob

Apr 09, 2007, 11:15 AM

I will assume that CB won't take it, so here's my got it, CB if you want it then just say so and it's yours.

Cross post with Niklas.

You've got it; I've asked for a skip.

ControlFreak

Apr 09, 2007, 12:26 PM

Roster:

Niklas - UP!
sercer88 - Ondeck
ControlFreak - Warming Up
Commando Bob - Skipped until at least the weekend
zyxy - Just Played
McLMan - Ghosting

ControlFreak

Apr 09, 2007, 01:32 PM

The march for Oporto seems a given, and shouldn't be too hard what with all the fully healed troops we still have near Lisbon. Getting ships around to the other side seems the big problem for the future I would like to see us take care of the Mayans while we're at it, Astronomy is still 9 turns away so we need something to occupy ourselves with in the mean time. I'd like some help and advise on this before I comment further.
In the vein of thinking outside the box, what if we pushed forward and take on Spain after Portugal. Here's my approach/rational:
Spain is a better launching area for our boats. It takes 11-12 turns to get there from FS, versus 15 turns to get to Oporto. And it's still three turns from Paris.
Our troops are already near that end of the continent.
Lisbon is fairly corrupt so it would be better to rush Boats from here than universities. Boats rushed here, would never make the trip around the Incan islands and would have to travel an extra 3-5 turns (guess from memory) to get to Oporto, than if they could stop at Spain.
Getting rid of spain would get Korean to be by itself and "safe".
We could pull the Mayan's in against Spain and have their troops even farther from the border.
We could pull Korea against Spain and let Korea absorb the initial wave while our troops get in position.
Returning the troops from Opporto means backpedaling for at least 5 turns. Continuing through Spain means moving forward with conquering.
Mayans are weak and can easily be taken out by new troops coming from FS/StW/StF.
Spanish land has good food and can support scientists (offsetting the better corruption at Mayan land).

I'm not seeing any negatives to taking on Spain next.

I'm wishing we had five more Maces instead of the HE, but if we get a leader for the FP, then I guess that would dispell that thought.

After the HE, FS can go back to Maces, or now that it's at 23s without the cow, it can do Knights in 3 turns as long as it keeps the cow for at least on turn in every three. So would we rather have 2 Knights or 3 Maces every six turns? Or better yet, 1 Knight and two Maces every 7 turns. The nice thing about knights is that they are the defensive equivalent to pikes so we don't need to make more pikes. That lets FtW make Maces instead and it reduces the sheild wasted in FS.

StF could make units for the conquering of Mayan or Boats for the French attack. GB is locked into units for Mayan being off the shore. But it may have trouble keeping up with it's infrastructure builds for a while.

zyxy

Apr 09, 2007, 01:54 PM

Sorry to hear that CB.

Some loose ideas, mainly to get discussion started. I haven't thoroughly studied the map, this is from memory and screenshots only.

It takes about 15 turns for a Dromon to travel from FS to Oporto, IIRC. After Astro, it's probably less, because we can safely end at sea tiles. Caravels have an extra movement point, so they may need even less.

The reason for going to Oporto is that it is the only port available on that side for upgrading (apart from Inca towns, English towns, etc, that we don't plan on capturing soon). Otherwise we don't even need to go there, and we can simply pick up troops from Mayaland.

There will be a moment where it is more efficient to upgrade dromons before they leave FS (or KZ), and not send them to Oporto at all.

Paris is coastal, so we could consider leeping the dromons and don't do upgrades.

To get our units to Mayaland we can use RoP or conquest. This second option will take a bit longer (although the Maya are totally gassed), the first is more awkward because Mayan units can disturb our supply lines.

I would like some MA's vs France some 10 turns before we attack, to destroy or least occupy her field army. Problem is that only America and the weak Vikings can reach France by land. We could also drag in the Celts (IIRC France and Celts can reach each other over sea).

Theo could build some dromons, while StF (with rax) trains land units. Some pikes at least, to defend what we have, and to defend attack stacks in France.

ControlFreak

Apr 09, 2007, 03:05 PM

Paris is coastal, but it takes two turns longer to get to the bombard spot than it does to get to the drop off spot. So I'm not sure how much help the dromon bombard will be. Especially now that they are facing pikes in a size 12 city. The success rate will have dropped from previous bombardments. At this point, we're going to need to build more units as well as boats, so I'd rather have to build fewer boats (caravels hold 50% more units) and more units.

If we continue for Spain, then we can make the upgrades there and there is no need to hold dromons in FS for upgrading. The bigger question is how long does it take Maces to walk from StF to Oporto, or Spain? The roads are not complete, but can be built quickly with the slaves from Portugual. If it takes a long time to walk the units, then maybe Mayan is the best departure point. The other thing to do is do both. The existing boats and the new boats from Lisbon would travel the route to Spain. The existing troops takeover spain (with Korean help). The new troops and new boats from FS take over Mayan. The we have a two fold launch at France from both Mayan and Spainish shores. Is that doable? The problem would be the Mayan boats could not upgrade.

The other option which zyxy originally proposed was to hit Mayan and then England, MA Sumeria to get the troop levels down to reaonable. That's still not a bad plan as the boats can get there much faster than to Oporto and should be able to upgrade.

I think we should spend some time discussing strats at this point as there are a lot of options.

CommandoBob

Apr 09, 2007, 04:09 PM

Just to be sure
On the sea movements that both ControlFreak and zyxy have discussed, are these with regular differential naval movement or do they include our bonus for seafaring?

I ask because I've forgotten to include that extra movement point before. :blush:

ControlFreak

Apr 09, 2007, 07:35 PM

My maps and references include the seafaring point (caravels move 8, dromons 7).

Niklas

Apr 10, 2007, 08:50 AM

Alright, I agree with CF that we should discuss this a lot so that we don't rush into anything.

The first goal is obviously Oporto. Checking the save, we now have 4 unmoved MInfs and 2 ACs that could move on right this turn, and 4 moved MInfs with at most 1 hp taken. If there are 4 vSpears in Oporto the odds are ~53% to take it with only the unmoved ones, and ~97% if the rest are brought along as well, unhealed (numbers from Offa's simulator). I would propose waiting one turn (use MPs to quell resistors), then move in to capture Oporto on turn 4. Should I play those 4 turns and report back in, so we can discuss future directions after that? Not much else will happen during those turns regardless, as long as we know what to do in all the towns.

CommandoBob

Apr 10, 2007, 08:54 AM

What about boat movements?

Niklas

Apr 10, 2007, 09:10 AM

For those four turns (or even three, I won't even need to move the boats on the fourth turn before coming back), boats should be busy moving around Incaland. Or are we keeping two of them back? I would prefer to build new ones and sending all the current ones over to the "other side".

Looking at the towns, for the next four turns it seems obvious what FS, KZ, Ozzy and Theo should be doing. (Ozzy could trade a mined grass for a coast for an extra beaker, since it will grow and lose the last shield to corruption.) StF I'm a bit less certain about, and the Indo-Porto towns I don't really know about at all. And I tried hard to locate the town that CF referred to as FtW, but I guess I'll have to give up on that one. ;)

zyxy

Apr 10, 2007, 10:22 AM

Playing 4 turns sounds good to me.

ControlFreak

Apr 10, 2007, 10:59 AM

I looked at the march from Smurkz the Wicked (Dehli) to Spain vs to Mayanland. The Spainish march will take 8 turns at best case (roads complete). The Mayan march will take about 4 to get to the load point. Without upgrading the Dromons, we'd be able to carry 8 units over if we moved the existing Dromons to Mayan land, but the units would have to march back from Portugal to conquer Mayans first. (Based on the indian blockade of the last game, I suspect that the Mayans will have a unit on the fortress choke point.)

There is no good way to do this.

The only way to shorten the distance (by boat) from us to France is to take Ta-Tu from the Mongols which is a canal city through the eastern continent. The mongols should be a pushover with three civs attacking them. But even that is flawed because the boats must still sail around France to drop off their units right next to Paris. The alternative is to drop off on the coast a tile or two away from Paris and march them through french land. That could get ugly.

Without any answers, I propose the following options and we can weigh the pros and cons:

Advance on Spain. The existing boats will upgrade in Spain and be able to bring 12 units across. Reinforcements are at least 12 turns away in FS. New boats should be built from lisbon and rushed in Spain.
Take out Mayans. The existing boats will upgrade in Oporto and be able to bring 12 units across. Reinforcements are about 6 turns away in FS. Boats should be built in KZ and Ozzy to shorten the trip around the Incan land. Build Maces in FS until Astronomy, the two dromons in the North should sink the two portugal ships and then move to FS to transport the new troops to India for a consolodated march on the Mayans.
Advance on Spain and take Mayan with Reinforcements from FS. The two northern boats will upgrade in Spain. The two southern boats would not upgrade and we would be able to transport 10 units, plus the reinforcement boats from FS/Theo.
Advance on Maya then English (start a war, MA the Sumerians for a few turns to reduce unit numbers). Existing boats will transport 8units at a time from Maya to England. Upgrade in England and be able to bring 12 units across to France.
Advance on Mongols. The existing Boats will travel through Ta-Tu, upgrading there. Reeinforcements are about 4 turns from Ta-Tu and 3 turns from dropping on the West of Paris (with a short march to Paris), or 6 turns from dropping next to Paris from the East.

The Travel time looks best to go through the Mongols. Plus that positions us well for taking the Great Lighthouse from the Hittites if desired.

Taking out the Spanish with the Mayans seems like the best in terms of eliminated civs as quickly as possible. I think the English gambit is going to be a delay rather than a help.

zyxy

Apr 10, 2007, 11:22 AM

We might have a chance to catch the French before gunpowder, and I would really like to try. That means moving as fast as possible.
- If we want to attack Spain, then we'll have to walk there through Korea.
- I don't really like the long supply lines of option A. Also it will take long to get the initial strike force over there, and it will leave us with very fragmented lands.
- In option B our ships have to travel very far, to Oporto, for upgrades.
- I am not certain we can fight a two front war like in option C.
- I agree that England would take too long. Although London provides a harbor in a convenient location.
- Well spotted that Ta-Tu is a canal city! Option E requires a march through France. While a few pikes would help, there is a big risk we'll lose some attackers underway. And if we take out the Mongols, or even just take Ta-Tu, then we'll lose the WH.
- Of the listed options, option B seems the best to me. But I don't really like any of them.

Another option, even better maybe, is to whip dromons/caravels from Oporto. I am not sure to what extent the (S)GOTM rules allow joining workers to Oporto for this purpose, but even if Oporto is size 6 when we take it we can whip two caravels without worker joins.

In any case, I don't think 12 units is enough to take Paris. Double that number should be (more than?) sufficient though.

Niklas

Apr 10, 2007, 01:36 PM

Another option, even better maybe, is to whip dromons/caravels from Oporto. I am not sure to what extent the (S)GOTM rules allow joining workers to Oporto for this purpose, but even if Oporto is size 6 when we take it we can whip two caravels without worker joins.
Not allowed, the rules are clear on this. But I still think it's a great idea, in particular since it's their last town and thus there will be no resistance.

I don't think going for the Mongols is the best way, we're counting on an MA with America against France which means all French units will be out in the west, so and attack should come from the east.

For the record, I like option C best, as I'm quite certain we would roll over the Mayans like nothing at all. It would also include the whipping of Caravels from Oporto, so we would not be dependent on upgrades. We should settle this before i play the next four turns too, as it affects what to do with those Dromons.

I would still like to see some comments on what to build in StF in particular. I don't like Pikes in general, I realize we may need a few but the offensive capacity is more important IMO. If we bring along 20 MInfs, and 5 are killed by counter attacks, we still have 15 attackers. If we bring 15 MInfs and 5 Pikes, and all the Pikes win on the defensive, we still only have 15 attackers. :mischief:

Speaking of which, we can't let down our guard after assembling the Parisian strike force. We must be able to counter any retaliations, and we must take Orleans and Bergen too, for the immense flip risks. Thus we should keep pumping out units even while our first army is on its way.

I'm intrigued by CF's proposal to trade for Chivalry and build Knights staggered in FS though, they could come in very handy. We don't need to trade until the HE is complete though, so that's not a decision I need to take now, if I only play 4 turns first.

ControlFreak

Apr 10, 2007, 01:40 PM

Yes I think whipping caravells in Opporto is a good idea. Do that plus B. (Or C if we think we can take Spain and not delay the conquest of Maya/France.)

Crossposted. I think Niklas and I both favor C along with some whipping of caravells in Oporto as suggested by zyxy. If we take Spain, then the dromons in the north should be travelling counterclockwise. FS will need to build a dromon for transport and then build Maces/Knights in that order (the Knights can catch up to the front).

StF should probably build something with more than 30shields because the forest chop is due in four turns. It could build another Mace as we need plenty. After the first build, I think we could build some horses here. The horses will take over the MP/Defense from KZ/Ozzy and Theo so the spears can be upgraded and moved as pikes towards Maya to eventually join the French strike force. It would be nice if they were veterans, but beggars can't be chosers.

I haven't looked at the worker situation, but it would be really nice to get KZ off of worker duty soon too.

zyxy

Apr 10, 2007, 03:06 PM

Indeed, the rules forbid adding workers for poprushing. I guess it is still allowed to poprush Oporto down to size 1, but we have to grow the citizens organically.

I still think that if we want to hit France quickly we should not get distracted by a war in Spain. It will take time and resources. However, our reinforcements could hit the Maya on the way to France - they'll have to wait a bit for transport anyway.

We might be ready to hit France in about 20 turns from now, if all goes well. If we assume that we capture Oporto at size 6 in 4 turns, and that we can grow another citizen in 10 turns, then we can whip 3 caravels, add 2 upgraded dromons (the southern ones need about 12-13 turns to get to Oporto) and ship 15 units to France. Not a lot, but it will do, hopefully - and btw, it is about our entire army atm. If Oporto grows faster, than we might be able to whip another boat. It could be worthwhile to ship some workers over so that we can irrigate the grass if needed.

I generally don't like to build defenders either, but pikes are cheaper than MDI and can be left behind as MP/defender. They do make a difference if we have to survive one or more IT's in the open: MDI will quickly succumb to horses and archers, while pikes put up a decent defense and make the AI think twice, especially if there's a softer target nearby. (5 pikes in a stack of 20 is a bit much though, I would think 2-3 is enough).

The forest chop at StF will be due sooner because there's another worker there that can help.

Knights are nice but horribly expensive...

FS is building the Epic, so is unavailable for the moment.

Niklas

Apr 10, 2007, 03:41 PM

Knights are nice but horribly expensive...
In FS, Knights "cost" 3 turns while MInfs "cost" 2 turns, not so horrible. I like the staggered build order that CF suggested, with Knight-MInf-MInf in 7 turns.

I won't be playing tonight in any case, so feel free to give more comments and plans. Will probably play those four turns tomorrow.

ControlFreak

Apr 10, 2007, 06:42 PM

I still think that if we want to hit France quickly we should not get distracted by a war in Spain. It will take time and resources. However, our reinforcements could hit the Maya on the way to France - they'll have to wait a bit for transport anyway.

We might be ready to hit France in about 20 turns from now, if all goes well. If we assume that we capture Oporto at size 6 in 4 turns, and that we can grow another citizen in 10 turns, then we can whip 3 caravels, add 2 upgraded dromons (the southern ones need about 12-13 turns to get to Oporto) and ship 15 units to France. Not a lot, but it will do, hopefully - and btw, it is about our entire army atm. If Oporto grows faster, than we might be able to whip another boat. It could be worthwhile to ship some workers over so that we can irrigate the grass if needed.
I'm starting to agree with skipping Spain at the moment. We don't really have a large army. If we send all our forces to Spain, we could lose half of them and we'd have nothing left to attack France with. The troops will not exactly be doing nothing in Portugal, there are a lot of resistors to quell. Plus we're going to need some units to fend off the Mayan stragglers when that war starts.

To offset the delay on Spain, perhaps we pull Spain in against the Mayan to get their army to march away from home. Then we can cutoff the choke point to prevent them from going home until we have time to attack them. Or even better, we pull Korea in against them who should have no problem taking their towns when the spanish army is away.

I generally don't like to build defenders either, but pikes are cheaper than MDI and can be left behind as MP/defender. They do make a difference if we have to survive one or more IT's in the open: MDI will quickly succumb to horses and archers, while pikes put up a decent defense and make the AI think twice, especially if there's a softer target nearby. (5 pikes in a stack of 20 is a bit much though, I would think 2-3 is enough).

The forest chop at StF will be due sooner because there's another worker there that can help.

Knights are nice but horribly expensive...

FS is building the Epic, so is unavailable for the moment.
I made my arguement for Knights before. With 23.4spt in FS, we can make Knights in 3 turns. It takes 4 turns to make a Mace and a Pike so unless we build ALL the pikes somewhere else, it makes sense to use Knights as our +3 defenders. StF can't build Pikes faster than 5 turns and that wastes a shield per turn. It should be able to build faster, as the workers finish their improvements and join to the city, but in the next 20 turns, It's not going to make many units. On top of that, pikes built late in the 20 turn window will not have time to cover the land tiles needed to catch up to the offense. Knights can cover it twice as fast.

I would consider building a couple Maces and then a Knight (at 7spt that's a no waste build in StF) in both FS and Stf. The Maces board the Dromons immediately and head toward Mayaland. The Knights catch a ride together from a new boat built in Theo and run to catch up to the rest of the troops in Mayaland. Upgrade the spears to bring a few pikes in the first wave and replace them with units later, perhaps moving one or both of the horses from FS to Ozzy to be our cardboard defense in the south since FS will be building units every other turn or every third turn after HE finishes.

I'm sure Niklas will put together a more detailed plan of build dates/ship dates to get a coherent force at the Mayan border within 10-15 turns, but that's my rough stab at it for now. (That leaves 3 turns to mop up the Mayans and 2 turns to ship everyone to France following zyxy's 20turn timeline. I'm thinking we're probably closer to 25 turns.) Don't forget that we want to pull America and Vikings in to a war against France about ten turns before we plan to set foot on their land.

Niklas

Apr 11, 2007, 10:44 AM

70 BC (0):
MMing:
Ozzy switches mGrass for Coast, gains one beaker at no loss of shields due to imminent growth.
StW set to +5f, thus losing one shield, emphasize on commerce for two extra beakers.
StF switches to MInf, expected in 4 with the chop.

Lisbon area:
vAC attacks vArcher on hills, wins at 3/5.
Other AC and unmoved MInfs into Lisbon to quell resistance.
Move slave from Lisbon to incense hill on the north coast for scouting and road prospecting.

IBT:
Watch the Mayans have some good luck against Portuguese spears.
Portuguese galleys move towards the north, I'm not going to chase them, they'll die along with their civilization soon enough.

Incas want us to leave their territory, aye we will.

StW expands its borders.
4 resistors quelled in Lisbon, hire more scientists.

KZ worker->worker
GB starves to size 1.

Inca, Korea and Iroquois are all building Leo's. :eek:

50 BC (1):
A quick check with CAII shows that out of 26 civs, 15 have Invention and 11 don't. Talk about simultaneous research. Checking around, the best deal would be given by Russia, who would give both Chivalry and Invention for Theology.

I'm not sure we need to do that trade yet, but I'll let you all chime in, I'll keep playing in a few hours (game is still running).

sercer88

Apr 11, 2007, 11:40 AM

Hmmm, as far as I would go: I would say do it.

Plus, they're scientific, so this trade may be beneficial in that aspect (for later on)

zyxy

Apr 11, 2007, 11:42 AM

A quick check with CAII shows that out of 26 civs, 15 have Invention and 11 don't. Talk about simultaneous research. Checking around, the best deal would be given by Russia, who would give both Chivalry and Invention for Theology.

And 6 gold too :). I would make the deal, we trade a non-monopoly tech to a weak civ for two techs we would like to have. Why not?

Niklas

Apr 11, 2007, 11:52 AM

Why not?
The only reason(s) we would not do it, is that we're losing our ability to build horses (and archers, though that may be less bothersome).

ControlFreak

Apr 11, 2007, 02:20 PM

I'm OK with trading now. That's great news about all those civs learning Invention. That means that my misguided turnset actually did help steer many of the civs towards learning what we wanted them to learn (Invention). For the civs that know invention, I'm thinking we want to them to also know Chivalry so that they don't waste beakers researching that instead of Gunpowder. At this point, many of them may follow us to Education, but hopefully enough will go for Gunpowder that we can buy that one also for cheap. So sell/gift Chivalry to the civs that know invention.

I'm assuming France already learned Invention or bought it (haven't checked), but if not then they are definitely outliving their usefulness. If they are not useful, there's good reason to get rid of them immediately and start our FP.

BTW, how many new cities do we need to capture before we can build the FP in France? If we get a new leader, are we going to save him for the FP. I say yes. That's much better than an army at this point.

Niklas

Apr 11, 2007, 02:25 PM

Started playing again, made the deal with Russia. Checked around for other deals to be made in the wake of this, and I guess I found the one who traded Invention to France:

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/796/dutchdealll8.png

The question is, do we want to do this deal? It gets us a lot of money to be sure, but might cost us a very competent researcher partner. What sayeth the Smurkzies? I probably won't play on more tonight, will play the remainder of the 4 tomorrow morning.

There's some MMing to be done with the forestry operations too that I'm too tired to wrap my head around tonight. It seems possible we could get that Uni in Ozzy in 3, but please someone double check this:
Send three workers from the newly planted forest at Theo to the planting site NE of Ozzy, making the forest grow in two turns. Make 7 spt in town.
Forest will be grown on the IBT after this turn. Make 7 spt in town.
Forest is complete, use all four workers to chop it right away. Make 6 spt in town and we're home.
As for the remaining two workers outside Theo, I guess I'll use one to chop, but not both since we want the aqueduct to finish first. Send the final one north towards StF?

Btw, with Invention in the hands of France, I sincerely doubt it will take long before they have GP.

ControlFreak

Apr 12, 2007, 09:26 AM

I would sell. We're not really disabling the dutch research capacity because they already managed to get Invention on their own. The gpt we're getting from them is France's gpt IMO.

Education would also be good for all the scientific civs to have, and really everyone that's a researcher. I would urge selling Chivlary to all those that know Invention and gifting Education to them. Do the selling and gifting separately so we get the gift benefit of happy AIs. I'm saying to sell Chivalry also because I don't want them wasting beakers researching it themselves. My hope is that they will all head for Gunpowder, build universities and simultaneously show up with GP the turn after we finish Banking and eliminate France.:please:

zyxy

Apr 12, 2007, 10:37 AM

Not sure about the Dutch deal. What can we do with the money? OTOH, we don't want Gunpowder to arrive too soon.

It seems possible we could get that Uni in Ozzy in 3, but please someone double check this:
Send three workers from the newly planted forest at Theo to the planting site NE of Ozzy, making the forest grow in two turns. Make 7 spt in town.
Forest will be grown on the IBT after this turn. Make 7 spt in town.
Forest is complete, use all four workers to chop it right away. Make 6 spt in town and we're home.

Not sure how you get to 7,7,6 shields. What you could do is 6,7,7 shields, by working the bg and 3 g's on turn 1, and the bg, 2 g's and the hill on turns 2,3.

As for the remaining two workers outside Theo, I guess I'll use one to chop, but not both since we want the aqueduct to finish first. Send the final one north towards StF?

Btw, with Invention in the hands of France, I sincerely doubt it will take long before they have GP.

I would probably send both north, and another one asap. StF needs 5 workers to join in, and there are currently 2 near it.

I share your fears about France. But perhaps she has no salt...

ControlFreak

Apr 12, 2007, 04:01 PM

Not sure about the Dutch deal. What can we do with the money? OTOH, we don't want Gunpowder to arrive too soon.
I disagree, we want Gunpowder to arrive before we finish the upper half. The goal of this competition is to get to Fission as fast as possible. To beat other teams, we need to get the AI to help us. Invention took over twenty turns for the AI to research and that was because they didn't detour anywhere else after learning (being gifted) Engineering and Feudalism. I'm afraid at that rate that we will finish Astronomy and Banking before they get Gunpowder unless we give them Chivalry (they like that tech) and Education (allowing them to build Universities quickly). Please consider selling Education. If you're afraid of stunting the Dutch with the big gpt, then just grab the cash, or give it to them.

zyxy

Apr 13, 2007, 02:18 PM

We don't want France to get Gunpowder before we strike... if the Dutch research it too quick with the aid of the gpt, she might be able to buy/extort it.

CommandoBob

Apr 13, 2007, 03:21 PM

Since France has already had her Golden Age will Joan be able to build Musketeers or Muskets?

Probably won't matter; the difference is that the Musketeer attacks with 3 instead of 2. Both defend with 4.

sercer88

Apr 13, 2007, 03:39 PM

They will still build musketeers because they cannot build muskets, but, once riflemen (or infantry) come around, they will not be able to build their obsolete UU anymore.

...but, yes. It will not matter because they both have defense of 4.

Niklas

Apr 13, 2007, 04:18 PM

Sorry for the delay, I've been a tad busy. Images will be added tomorrow. EDIT: Images added.

50 BC (1 continued):
Trading:
Sell Education to William for the full shebang. After some thinking, my motivation is that he might use that money to buy the next tech France comes up with, which puts the money back in the hands of France instead, and we don't want that. Per CF's suggestion, also sell/gift Chivalry and Education to those who have proven themselves as researchers. Also sell everything to America and Scandinavia, hoping they will build up some forces to keep France occupied.

Lisbon area:
Move in MInfs towards Oporto. Leave one wounded MInfs, an eHorse and two ACs in Lisbon for riot supression. There's a portuguese spear just S of Lisbon. Slave back into Lisbon until that spear is gone. Move last AC to the three-slave stack roading towards GB.
Lisbon hires 6 scientists.

Home area, MMing:
Set Ozzy to 7 spt. Three workers join the one NE of Ozzy in planting forest, ETA 2 turns. The other two workers from Theo move northwards to be joined to StF.
Reset worker pump in KZ.

IBT:
vArcher from Oporto attacks our MInf stack, loses 0-4.
Spears mill around with no discernable purpose.

Lisbon starves to 8 pop, one more resistor quelled.

France and a bunch of others start building Leo's. I guess the rest of the pack won't stand a chance.

30 BC (2):
Some scouting of the land bridge:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8520/landbridgemq2.png

Lisbon area:
Troops are in position. If I wait one turn longer I'll get two Javelin Throwers to act as cannon fodder, but it just doesn't seem worth it. Lisbon hires 6 scientists.

At StW, move out units to keep the wandering spear off high-commerce tiles.

MMing:
Nothing new.

IBT:
The portuguese galley unloads and archer and a spear next to Lisbon, too late guys.
vArcher from Oporto kills a Javelin Thrower 4-1.

StF builds an AC.
KZ worker-> worker
GB borders expand.
Theo aqueduct->dromon

10 BC (3):
Battle for Oporto:
vMInf vs vSpear, archer misses, loses 2-4.
vMInf vs vSpear, archer hits, loses 0-3. :(
vMInf vs vSpear, wins 4-2.
vMInf vs rSpear, wins 3-2.
vMInf vs 2/4 spear, wins 2-2.
3/4 vMInf vs vArcher, wins 4-1.
eHorse vs 3/4 archer, wins 3-2 and captures, no leader.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8926/oportocapturedvj3.png

Portugal is gone!
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1452/portugalgoneps3.png

Niklas

Apr 14, 2007, 04:40 AM

We seem to have a bit of a problem. Oporto lost its harbor in the battle. Should we whip a new one, at the expense of one Caravel, or whip two Caravels and keep the two Dromons as they are?

zyxy

Apr 14, 2007, 07:05 AM

We seem to have a bit of a problem. Oporto lost its harbor in the battle. Should we whip a new one, at the expense of one Caravel, or whip two Caravels and keep the two Dromons as they are?

Another fine mess you've got us into :shake:...

No really, well done! ;)
I would definitely whip the harbor, and two (or three) boats. Some considerations:

we cannot whip caravels yet, so if we whip boats now, it will be dromons. Meaning we would either have to wait 6 turns with the whip, or we'll need an upgrade option.
Oporto can do 5 fpt at size 3, but not at size 2 or 4 (or any other size). With a harbor it can also do 5 fpt at size 4 and 5! By regrowing Oporto we can get more boats I think.
We can do the following:

Turn 0 (now): move two more MP's into Oporto so that we can use all citizens but one as tile workers. We make 0 fpt, and 1 spt. Move the three workers from GB towards the forest N-NE of Oporto.
Turn 1: whip harbor for two pop. Start chopping the forest. Oporto is now size 5, with +1 fpt (0 total), if we hire two scientists.
Turn 2: set Oporto to dromon. Fire the scientists, then with the harbor Oporto now makes +5 fpt (1 total).
Turn 3: whip 1 pop towards dromon. The chop will finish it on the IT. Oporto is now size 4, with +5 fpt (6 total).
Turn 4: set Oporto to another dromon. Making +5 fpt (11 total).
Turn 5: Astro has been learned, whip a caravel. Oporto drops to size 2, +4 fpt (16 total). It will grow next turn.

If we want, we can whip another ship on turn 7, but that will drop Oporto to size 1 and limit its growth. Or we can start a cycle with a double whip every 8 turns.
It doesn't seem possible to use another chop to speed up caravel/dromon production. But I could be wrong...
Another option is to whip a lib in Oporto, then we can get Oporto up to +7 fpt at size 5 and 6, for a double whip every 6 turns.
On another note: stop starving Lisbon, and whip the lib on turn 1. We'll have culture expansion on turn 5 (?).
Yet another note: it looks like a Maya-Spanish war might be good. It doesn't need our active involvement for now, it's just to wear them down.

Niklas

Apr 14, 2007, 07:51 AM

Looks like a nice plan zyxy! :thumbsup:

I've never played this heavily with the whip before, and I would have thought it rather hard to keep the town productive even at size 3 with all the generated unhappiness. But assuming it works, we'll have 3 caravels (two upgraded) out in 5 turns, and the two traveling around Incaland will arrive in respectively 8 and 9 turns from now. Time to get serious with the unit builds then.

Regarding Lisbon, it's been my intention to stop starving it, but it was simply too unhappy while the war was running. I could have let it riot, sure, but I didn't want to increase the flip risk.

ControlFreak

Apr 14, 2007, 08:03 AM

Good job Niklas, and good advice zyxy.

I too think it will be tough to keep three productive citizens after that much whipping, but I've never really done that much whipping before.

I agree that the Spanish and Mayans should be pulled in against each other. That would mean we need to be at war with the Mayan's right? We should get in position for this war as soon as possible. Once the Mayans are eliminated, we might want to backstab the Spanish, and pullin Korea against them. The spanish army should be down by the Mayan area by then and the Koreans should be able to roll over Spain, making them a better researcher.

Keep in mind the goal here is fast research and the elimination of France.

zyxy

Apr 14, 2007, 08:54 AM

Good point, I never considered happiness.

Once we build the harbor, we have 5 luxes available. With 3 MP's and 1 default content citizen, that means 9 content faces.
Currently there's one unhappy face for whipping (by Portugal). I'll assume it doesn't wear off in the coming 5 turns. We whip 2 + 1 + 2 = 5 pop for the harbor and the first two ships. That means we'll have 9-1-5 = 3 content faces, just enough to sustain the town at size 3. However, when it grows to size 4 it will become unhappy, so perhaps it is better to whip it down to size 1 at this point to get the third ship.

For the Mayan War, I would prefer to DoW the Spanish, fight a phoney war, and MA with the Mayans. There are too many Mayan troops in our lands to DoW on Mayans IMO. We probably don't even have to defend much against Spain, the Mayans are near enough to the Spanish lands to do that for us. It looks like we can send our forces to France in about 9 turns, so let's not tie them down elsewhere.

Niklas

Apr 14, 2007, 09:50 AM

The problem of MAing with the Mayans would of course be that if we attack them we will blow our reputation. Definitely not worth it IMO. :hmm:

ControlFreak

Apr 14, 2007, 10:55 AM

I think zyxy is proposing not going up against the Mayans, but rather using them to occupy the Spanish troops while we head straight for France. He (and we) are still trying to get to France before Gunpowder shows up. Skipping the Mayans gains us a few turns because we don't have to back track towards Maya, and we don't have to heal after our battles. I think it's a good plan.

That means, we declare against Spain and MA the Mayans in. Their troops are all going to end up near our portugal cities, but I think it should be pretty close to a stalemate. We will need to keep a few troops to fend off Spanish advances, and we really need to watch out for Conquistadors when Astronomy comes in. Hopefully, we can deal with france and then ship the troops to the backlines in Spain. With all their units occupying the Mayans, we should be able to eliminate Spain which will cancel the MA and we'll be set to invade Mayan any time we want.

I haven't checked the save. How are the status of the boats? Will we be able to load troops in them to head toward france? Don't forget that when we know astronomy we can end on sea tiles. That means up to 8 movement points using 7 ocean and ending on the sea.

Niklas

Apr 14, 2007, 11:32 AM

The status on boats are as i said before - 3 (or 4) from Oporto over the next 5 (or 7) turns, and two boats sailing from Incaland arriving at Oporto in respectively 8 and 9 turns. That means that 10 turns from now we could have 18 free seats for units to leave Oporto headed for France.

Should we bring in the Koreans against Spain as well? I fear that the Spanish will send galleys to disrupt our plans for shipping, even one of our boats down would be a serious setback.

zyxy

Apr 14, 2007, 04:48 PM

Bringing Korea as well sounds good! Not only will they help against the Spanish navy, but it practically ensures that no Spanish unit will ever reach our Portuguese province.

I concur with CF's explanation of what I was thinking :D. We need another 10 turns to prepare the French assault, and then we won't be ready to attack the Mayans for at least another 10 turns. So if we sign the MA now, it would be fine.

Of course in the second 10 turns we can pile up reinforcements near the Maya border, either to send over to France, or to prepare for an attack on the Maya.

Btw, in C3C, Musketeers have defense 5 IIRC. So we really don't want to fight these guys :eek:.

CommandoBob

Apr 14, 2007, 09:48 PM

Btw, in C3C, Musketeers have defense 5 IIRC. So we really don't want to fight these guys :eek:.
5 ?!

Yeah, buddy, we want to avoid those thingees.

(My game is still stashed in with my clothing, so I just checked the AI data here at the forum. Can we blame that on Thunderfall?)

ControlFreak

Apr 15, 2007, 05:58 AM

I have some reservations about bringing Korea into the battle. I don't want Spain to overrun them. It looks like Spain's land is better than the tundra Korea is stuck in. If things go badly for Korea we could potentially lose another scientific civ. But I guess that would take a while based on how long it takes to whittle down diety units so I guess I'm OK with it.

Will we have 18 units to send to France?
If we're really 10 turns from shipping, we need to declare now and pull in America and Scandinavia and possibly the Celts. (The Celts may have a negative effect of keeping units in the North, but it would be a good diversionary target for whatever navy France has.)

sercer88

Apr 15, 2007, 09:38 AM

We shouldn't DOW 10 turns before we attack. Wait 'till, maybe 5-6 turns.

I agree with you on the Korean aspect, but after a few turns of war, hopefully spain's offensive units will be gone, and Korea's units will prevail.

I didn't believe it at first (shame on me) but, after a little bit of research (just starting a game and looking in the civilopedia) I must agree that musketeers have a defense of 5!! (wow, France must have been un-toucheable in the early ages of gunpowder!!) so, yes: I really hope we don't see any of those buggers!

ControlFreak

Apr 15, 2007, 05:31 PM

Why not declare 10 turns before?

The advantages are there's more time to get the French units towards the south. Also, their only iron is a colony between Scandinavia and America. Those two should be able to cut the supply line at a minimum, leaving no more iron for France. The longer that lasts for, the more we're likely to face Longbows and horsemen rather than Knights and Maces.

The only disadvantage I can tell is if France gets lucky with their caravells. But those still only have an attack strength of one. Leaving one of our dromons (the elite?) as a dromon would be a good defense for our stack as we get the free shot against attacking boats.

Did you have other disadvantages in mind?

As far as the musketeer, I didn't realize the defensive bonus was 5. It's good we're attacking as quickly as possible. Hopefully they won't have saltpeter, but knowing Gyathaar it must be available. (Did you notice that Paris is exactly 25 tiles from FS in either West or East direction? and that all of the islands have their bulk on the shortest path to Paris? And no AI have canals to cut through?) The terrain in their homeland doesn't support it thou, so there's a small chance. We should plan to take as many of the hill tiles in france as possible, quickly, just incase we're facing flips when GP comes out.

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 02:49 AM

One problem is that we don't have anything to offer the Vikings and Americans for an MA, so we might want to end for Astro (5 turns) before declaring. We might be able to pay them in cash or gpt, but we can't know what deal they would accept until after we've declared on France, that seems a bit risky. I'd be pretty sure they would accept it for Astro though.

I'll be working on a detailed turn-by-turn plan to get units to the boats in time for the launch. I'll post it later today, might play tonight if there's still time, otherwise tomorrow.

ControlFreak

Apr 16, 2007, 04:33 AM

Good Point about buying the MA. OK, so we wait until Astronomy and hope they don't get that before we do (doubtful).

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 07:27 AM

Btw, we have an obscene amount of money, and an embassy in Paris would cost 84 gp. I see no real reason not to. We'd get to see the surrounding land, for instance if it's on a hill we might want to reconsider, and we'll also see what kind of troop numbers we're up against. Granted, some of those would presumably be moving towards America/Scandinavia once we declare, but it will give us a rough idea anyway.

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 08:06 AM

I messed up with the boat counts of course, we're only getting three caravels from Oporto which means 5 total, or 15 seats. We can easily fill that 10 turns from now.

First, ships at home. If we want to upgrade the home dromons to caravels, they would be able to set out 6 turns from now, and thus unload troops S-SE of Lisbon 9 turns from now, then two turns walk means arriving on turn 11, a one turn delay. The trip up the Indian coast takes just as long with dromons, and they could strike out earlier, but they would then have fewer seats. We could of course unload two units near StW already two turns from now, and still be able to make the trip up the coast three turns later.

Second, troops:
We have 7 MInfs near Oporto already, which should definitely be in the attack force.
We have 3 horsemen and loads of gold, so I would like to upgrade those three to knights, despite two of them being elite. One of the horses are at home and needs to be shipped.
We have 4 ACs, two reg and two vet, one of these are at home and needs shipping. These are our weakest attackers and I would like to use them sparingly, rather keep them for home defense and as attack force against the Mayans.
We have 3 pikes, one of these are at home and would need shipping, though I don't see us bringing three pikes at any rate, especially not when we have three knights to bring.

Looking at the above, there are 9 units around ex-Portugal that will definitely go in the strike force, the 7 MInfs and 2 horses/knights. That leaves 6 seats for other units. If we want to bring along any pikes and/or ACs to fill two of those seats, we don't need to upgrade our home dromons just yet, or build the new one, or do an extra shipping round. We still could though, it would cost us little.

So, what could go in those final 6 seats. FS will complete the HE in 2 turns, and could then build a knight in 3, or two MInfs in 4. StF will complete a MInf in one turn, and could complete another in 3 or 4 after that depending on if we chop the forest or not (not necessary, we're still inside the time bounds). That means either a knight and two MInfs, or four MInfs. There's also the horse guarding the wines, which makes an extra knight.

If it were up to me, I would make the attack force consist of:
11 MInfs: 7 existing, and 4 new from home.
3 Knights: all upgraded from horses, one of them at home.
1 Pike: can be taken from GB.

This attack force would, unless attacked on the turn when they are vulnerable, have the following approximate odds against Paris (assuming flat land):
5 pikes: 94%
6 pikes: 76%
7 pikes: 49%
8 pikes: 23%
Bringing 3 ACs in a 6th caravel (not caring if that's even possible) would up the numbers to 99%, 95%, 82%, 60%. And just to be clear, if there are musketeers as defenders instead, the numbers would for the extended attack force be 61%, 31%, ... . If the town is on a hill, the odds are approximately the same as if one more unit was defending, e.g. 77% against 6 pikes with the smaller attack force.

These numbers are not really overwhelming, and we also need to consider that we need to survive after the fact as well. Are we overextending ourselves here?

zyxy

Apr 16, 2007, 11:59 AM

Hm, did someone gift all our techs away again? :D

The plan sounds rather risky, although 5 pikes is already quite a lot. Are you assuming fortified vets, btw?

Is there no way we can get an extra caravel? Maybe send some workers to Oporto (from the homeland, and perhaps the one near Lisbon) to plant and chop? Or disband an AC? They are probably 40 shields, so this might work.

Of course it would be better to fill the extra caravel with MDIs/knights rather than ACs, if possible.

We could delay Astro by 2 turns, and then chop for a second Dromon in Oporto. But delaying research is maybe not the best idea...

ControlFreak

Apr 16, 2007, 12:07 PM

Based on your last few posts, I would investigate Paris. That will tell us the number of pikes in Paris as well as give us an idea of the odds that Paris has no saltpeter.

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 12:25 PM

Hm, did someone gift all our techs away again? :D
Indeed... :blush: but in my defense it was only to them, and only because I didn't expect this to happen so fast.

Alright, Paris revealed. Brace yourselves, it isn't pretty:
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/4113/parisbq1.png
At least it's not on a hill...

EDIT: Just for the record, there's also a colloseum, a uni and a harbor, plus of course all the wonders that we know and love.

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 12:33 PM

Adding another interesting screenshot into the mix:

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/9853/frenchconnectionstl6.png

So, France is at war already, which means that the chances that any of those pikes would vacate is pretty low. Back to the drawing board? :rolleyes:

CommandoBob

Apr 16, 2007, 01:07 PM

Just in case the shock was too much, Paris has 10 vPikes and 2 Trebuchets, produces 30 shields per turn, 29 food per turn and 109 commerce per turn.

:eek: and :eek: :eek: !

Paris is not on a hill (Gyathaar has mercy, after all).

There are two hills near Paris. The one that is coastal is not adjacent to Paris. The hill that is adjacent to Paris is not coastal. It is one tile from the coasts, both east and west.

Hmm.

Look like we need a way to get another AI to attack Paris with us. Or perhaps we attack Orleans (it should be weaker) and let our Allies pound on Orleans. If they capture it (not likely) they become our next victim. If not, they can spoil the land, kill a pike or two each turn and suffer war weariness for us. Paris could still produce a Pike every turn, most likely. A Musketeer would take two turns, unless Paris did some whipping.

Upgrading Pikes to Musketeers doesn't look likely, since France has only 29 gold.

To really see the French economy, we need to examine Orleans, the third French city and maybe an American city also (to spot French units in the open). This would let us see how serious the Franco-Americian war really is (and whether or not we need to prop up Abe).

Do embassies show trade details between AIs? I've never tried to find out before.

France is only at war with the Yanks?

Paris has 1 wine and 5 silks, but I don't see any on the map. We might be able to cut her trade routes.

zyxy

Apr 16, 2007, 01:11 PM

:eek:

Of course it could be that this war just started, but the total absence of offensive forces suggests otherwise.
Looks like we'll need double the troops...

One thing we could do is transport our units in two waves - first wave is parked in Viking lands or on the island between France and Celtica, and then we pick up a second wave. Ideally there will be just a single turn between landing the waves.

I have been thinking a bit about it, but it doesn't seem possible to get more ships out of Oporto, unless we are prepared to sacrifice (disband) troops for it, which defeats the purpose. It takes 6 turns or so to get some more workers here, so that's too long probably.
In any case, we would need 5 more ships to transport double the troops.

So I would probably go ahead with the whipping scheme suggested earlier, and then get some workers over for planting/chopping one more ship for wave 2.

EDIT: CB's idea of pillaging Paris is not bad I think. Except we could do it ourselves instead of relying on some stupid AI. Pillaging and occupying the tiles means Paris will starve and will not be able to sustain a lot of troops. Also we would hopefully disconnect any saltpeter. So we would ship some pikes/knights (and AC's?) over, pillage everything, and then bring MDI to finish it off. Problem is the trebs, they will continuously redline our units...

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 01:24 PM

I would not be fooled by the lack of offensive units, they are bound to exist, only they are down towards America. If we were to land and start pillaging, I'm sure we'd have them back at us in no time. Also don't forget the Knights Templar, which will give the odd offensive unit despite Paris building a wonder.

Just to throw the question out: should we scrap our plans for now, concentrate on some other AIs in the mean time, build up our forces and navy and only strike when we're ready? Maybe we could even conquer America and/or Scandinavia to use as staging areas. Not sure I like it, but it needs to be said.

EDIT: Just for fun and perspective, to have >90% odds vs 10 pikes would take 30 MInfs.

ControlFreak

Apr 16, 2007, 02:03 PM

Ugh!

How many cavalry are required to beat 10 musketeers (just so we know what our options are).

At this point, I don't see any way to get a 1 turn second wave like we did against India. So whatever troops we drop off initially must be able to hold their own in the field, or take Paris on their own.

It seems like pillaging Paris back to the stone age is the best option at the moment. This should have several positive effects: the French offense will retreat towards Paris which allows America to advance up the choke point, access to saltpeter can be reduced, happiness and therefore production/research/gold can be reduced, size can be reduced. (This doesn't help much because Paris has the Great Wall.)

I think we need to go to war against Paris to remove their salt peter potential. We don't actually need to attack them until we're totally ready. So maybe focus on cheap pikes for now and use the boats to get them across. The build up our forces, probably continuing real wars with Mayan and possible England before attacking France.

Are the Vikings involved in the FrancoAmerican war? If not, we should pull them in too. Also consider the Celts as an Ally, does their coastal/sea tiles break trade routes for France?

sercer88

Apr 16, 2007, 03:39 PM

Do we KNOW France has saltpeter? or will they have to trade for it?(sorry if that's a dumb question)

Niklas

Apr 16, 2007, 03:58 PM

That was a dumb question. ;) But if you can't ask the stupid questions too, how could you ever improve?

So, no, we don't know, we don't have Gunpowder yet so there's no way we could know who has it or where. We're just conjecturing based on what we know about Gyathaar. ;)

sercer88

Apr 16, 2007, 04:10 PM

Oh, with all of this talk I guess I forgot that WE don't even have gunpowder, yet! silly me!

ControlFreak

Apr 17, 2007, 10:44 AM

Regarding Musketeers:
We don't want to face them, that's known. There are two things preventing musketeers: resource and tech.

Resource
Saltpeter is only available on desert, hills and mountains. From what I can tell from Niklas' screenshot, Paris has two hills. We can drop a pillager directly onto one of them, but the other will require a 1-tile walk. In both cases, we'll need enough units in a stack to survive to pillage the next turn. From what I remember, dromons seemed more adept at bombing units than pillaging land improvements so we don't want to rely on one dromon being able to bomb the hill.

Investigating Orleans may help map other saltpeter potential tiles. Investigating the captured Viking town will also help. I think the Viking town has the most potential for saltpeter and we need our allies to take that town soon. Pulling in the Vikings may help. They should now be able to build berserks an will be kicking off their GA. Between America and Scandinavia, I'd be surprized if they couldn't recapture Birka. Being able to drop a stack of defensive units on the land bridge to prevent French reinforcements would also help our allies take the town.

Tech
In 1125BC, I gifted everyone up to have Feudalism and Engineering. In 50BC the first civs came up with Invention (which is 200beakers cheaper than Gunpowder). That's 50 turns. Along the way, some of these civs picked up Monarchy and Monotheism and Theology. (Without having the 50BC file, it's tough to compare how many techs they bought and how much we gifted.)

I think they probably bought one or two techs so we're looking at somewhere between a 15 to 20 turn rate per tech? Republic is still not researched so there is the potential for civs to research Republic or Education instead of Gunpowder. Since GP give France her UU, I think they will probably be researching GP now. They have finished their GA. So my guess is that we have about 15-20turns from 50bc (250AD-300AD) before France learns GP. We need to have pillaged/captured every French hill/mountain/desert by then or we're facing Musketeers.

Strategy
I think the best strategy is to rush pikes instead of boats and use our existing boats to send pikes/ACs over as pairs or quads. The pikes can cover the AC. The AC can pillage and move with it's two turns. We can start with the saltpeter potential tiles, and then move to cut the roads between Paris and the other towns. That should slow reinforcements, cause unhappiness and maybe allow America/Vikings to get the upperhand in Birka.

The pillaging campaign is going to take a while. We can start building boats in Theo/KZ/Osaka for a followup wave of 20-30 Maces. At this point we want quantity of attackers rather than the benefits that knights bring. I haven't checked the sheild output, but we should closely match the building of caravells with the ability of the other towns to fill it with Maces (and a few pikes) Having one without the other (boats/units) does us no good.

Niklas

Apr 17, 2007, 11:04 AM

I really, really don't want to get into a war of pillaging, in particular not at this kind of distance. In all my civ career, it's been a rare event when a pillaging campaign has ever payed off. Do we really really want to take France down that badly, at this point in time? And can we really see no alternatives? What are our ulterior motives for going after France at this point in time?

I would very much want to look at some alternatives before we decide on such a course of action.

ControlFreak

Apr 17, 2007, 01:09 PM

Alternative is to use France for their potential research/production (wonderhog) until they are about to hit 20K Culture and then take them over. We obviously can't let them win by 20K. Delaying their conquest would mean waiting until cavalry (facing musketeers) or tanks (facing infantry). Of couse at that point, we could have taken over America and be able to launch a land based attack, preferably with the artillery advantage. We need to get a handle on their project 20K win date (assuming they claim every wonder four turns after the tech is available) and compare that with the date cavs and or tanks come in.

I'm not saying that we're going to fight a complete pillaging war, I'm just saying that it starts that way with the intent to make sure they never get saltpeter even if they do learn GP. Our issue is that we know it's going to take more troops to take Paris than we can make before GP is expected. Pillaging buys us more time to be able to buildup enough strength to take them out, or at least help America and Vikings to take back the captured viking town.

CommandoBob

Apr 17, 2007, 01:10 PM

I see urgency to take down France due to defenders. After the Musketeer comes Rifles and Infantry. Yes, we can handle them, but that means we have to upgrade our attackers also and ship them overseas. Focusing on France now means we use units we have already built, which can defeat the current French defensive tech. Not pretty, but doable, Great Wall and all.

Pillaging also does not appeal to me, but I don't see how else to stop France from having access to Saltpeter. We don't need that resource for defense, but it could help when we attack (I'm thinking of Cavalry, which is rather far away.)

(Uh, since France has already had her Golden Age, can she build her UU? I seen some posts that lead me to believe she cannot, but can't put my finger on the reasoning.)

So instead of being Frances Foes, let's be Joan's New Best Friend. What if we MA with her against the Yanks / Vikings? That might be enough to draw the Pikes out of Paris. We'd have an excuse to have Smurkz units next to the French units and cities. We might even get France to pay for the MA, a further drain on her economy. We could try to 'defend' the French Saltpeter, which might get France mad enough to declare on us later. We could send a token invasion force (maybe) and be able to freely build up our second wave, which will come for Paris.

This gets us over to France without a great deal of War Weariness, but it doesn't prevent France from building/upgrading to Musketeers.

sercer88

Apr 17, 2007, 01:50 PM

I guess we could wait for tanks to take out france.

France can build Musketeers because they are unable to build musketmen, only musketeers. Those musketeers don't upgrade to riflemen, but after Nationalism is discovered by France, they cannot build their UU any more since they have already had their golden age.

zyxy

Apr 17, 2007, 02:34 PM

I don't like pillaging either, but I see little alternative. First let's get some time frames:

Culture of Paris is currently at 3589, with 65 cpt. (France is apparently producing another 50 cpt or so from the other two towns.) Most buildings will have had their culture doublings, with the exception of Uni, Cathedral, Colosseum, SC, KT, ST.

culture for each:
Palace*2: 2
Temple*2: 4
Lib*2: 6
Colosseum: 2
Cathedral: 3
Uni: 4
Colossus*2: 6
GLib*2: 12
Oracle*2: 8
GW*2: 4
Artemis*2: 8
ST: 2
SC: 6
KT: 2

Total: 69 cpt :confused:. Apparently I am doing something wrong, but I'll use this number anyway...
Anyway, if we assume that the buildings that are currently present all have their culture doubling, then this adds another 19 cpt.
There are not many culture buildings in the IA, but the MA still has the following wonders:
Leo's: 2
Cop: 4
Bach's: 6
Newton: 6
Shake's: 8
Magellan's: 3
Smiths: 3
If we assume that Paris gets those too, then this adds another 32 cpt (before doubling, but that seems reasonable). Total: 69+19+32 = 120 cpt. At that rate, Paris needs another (20000-3589)/120 = 137 turns to reach 20K. At the current rate of 69 cpt, it needs (20000-3589)/69 = 238 turns. Reality is probably somewhere in between, and I fear closer to the lower number.

We need at least another 60 turns or so to leave the MA (assuming the AI's research GP and Metallurgy for us, and something like 13 turns/tech for us). Tanks are 10 IA techs away, which will take considerable time (>> 100 turns), probably with little help from the AI. Meaning that we cannot count on reaching tanks in time.

Cavs vs Musketeers is worse than MDI vs Pikes.

The editor only allows 1 resource per tile. So the hill N of Paris doesn't need to be pillaged - it has Wool. If we also pillage the French iron colony and their horses (wherever they are), then France is reduced to longbows and spears for the duration of the MA. If we pillage the rest as well, then her production and research/maintenance power go down dramatically. We may have some 60 turns until rifles as time window for a real attack, or more if ew can take France's research power down.

We could combine pillaging with an assault on Orleans and/or Bergen. The latter is hard to take because it's on a hill... In either case, we would probably have to abandon the town because of the culture pressure, so the only purpose would be to further sap France's strength. There could be saltpeter right under Bergen, so we will have to sever road and sea connections to Paris.

Like CF said, the Great Wall means that the defense rating of Paris cannot drop. But perhaps the AI is stupid enough to lower the number of defenders when Paris becomes a town? Or we can try to reduce French income so much that she cannot sustain all her troops - there's 70% going to the treasury already.

Btw, the research cost of GP is 1152 beakers for France. Paris does 40 bpt, if we assume that Orleans and Bergen together can do the same for 80 bpt empire-wide, then she needs only 15 turns for GP. Not bad at 30% sci...

Niklas

Apr 18, 2007, 01:31 AM

Very nice breakdown zyxy! That's the perspective we needed. :thumbsup:
Btw, the error is that the Great Wall is actually in Orleans, adding further incentive to capturing that town.

So, it seems we cannot wait for too long to attack, and despite the really hard time we would have capturing Paris now, it will only get harder the longer we wait. So, we need to ensure that Joan won't have musketeers. Some pillaging seems to be in order then, but in particular a huge buildup of offensive units. I would not want to whip pikes instead of boats at Oporto, we'll be hard pressed to get more boats from anywhere else, and we will need them. I'll see if I can come up with a multi-wave scheme for sending units that doesn't sacrifice our potential to hit hard.

EDIT: Investigating Bergen costs 81 gold, Orleans 170 gold. Embassy in America would come at 59 gold. I'd probably go ahead with the two cheaper ones to get a grip on the situation. Thoughts?

Btw, I've been holding the game for quite some time now, but I hope you all appreciate the need to not haste into this. It's make or break here. I will play once we're decided on what to do.

@CB: What you're thinking of is that a nation cannot continue building its UU after its GA if the UU has become obsolete. Or put the other way around, a nation could continue building its UU even if it had become obsolete if it had not yet had its GA. But a non-obsolete unit can always be built, GA or not.

ControlFreak

Apr 18, 2007, 04:52 AM

Capturing Orleans would help our allies get to Bergen to since France loses the Great Wall. The problem with capturing Orleans is it's a huge flip risk. We can't expect to keep our troops in there on defense.

But the advantage is it would remove the great wall, remove a harbor, remove another decent unit producer, confuse france who will alternate sending units to Orleans and units to Bergen. I would go ahead with investigating all three towns. If Orleans has an acceptable number of pikes, lets figureout a capturing force and take it, Simultaneously a dromon should drop a couple of units (Pike and AC?) onto the hill we need pillaged. The dromon should block the Paris Harbor. If the units survive their night on the hill, pillage and then move towards the choke. We only need to sever one of the choke tiles to cutoff Bergen and then there's no chance that France will get saltpeter.

If France has been at war for a while, there offense is being chewed up by America, so Orleans should not have a massive stack attack it. I don't remember what the geography is around Orleans, but if there's a place that we can sit and not be attacked but be able to counter attack, we should be safe.

Thanks for the synopsis zyxy!

EDIT: A thought for why the pikes are still in Paris. The pikes main job in going to war is to pillage. If they can't get to what they need to pillage because the path is blocked by American or Viking troops, they may not move at all. Taking Orleans, may pull the pikes out of Paris to come pillage Orleans.

ControlFreak

Apr 18, 2007, 11:43 AM

Briefly looking at the save again, some rambling notes...

French Diplomacy
The French are currently trading with the hittites, probably for thier source of wine. Their wool and silks are native, although the silks are in Bergen.
The vikings are not at war with France and we have no embassy with them. Cost = 50g
America is at war with France and we have no embassy with them. Cost = 59g. We can only see one American city, but they have two.
Celts are not at war with France and we have no embassy with them. Cost = 83g.
France's trade route is using sea tiles to the Hittites thanks to the Great Lighthouse. If we can pull the Vikings in against France and put a boat on one of the sea tiles just north of the viking border, we can cut the trade route. It would take a new dromon from StF 8 turns to get to that point. Probably not worth it, unless it was part of a task force heading to Orleans.

Phase 1 - Pillaging
The Dromons at the Cape of Inca will reach the prominance of Oporto in 7 turns, using ocean tiles after we learn Astronomy.
Lisbon is over 80% corrupt at the moment so the library only helps with expanding the border. I think we should whip spears in Lisbon since it has a barracks.
Getting Iron to Lisbon for upgrades: A harbor in Lisbon won't help because the coast is cutoff by Roman territory. Changing StW (Dehli) to harbor would get Iron to Lisbon when the road near GB is finished. There are three slaves covered by a pike that can finish the road in 2 turns so the gating factor is finishing the harbor in StW in time.
StW can make upto 5spt if it's starving. It can grow in one turn and then do 5spt at 0fpt. We can sacrifice growth for a few turn to get the harbor to come in by turn 6 allowing the spears in Lisbon to upgrade and then march towards Oporto. I think we can whip 3 total by the time the harbor is built, assuming the resistance ends next turn. Just don't whip a spear the turn the harbor is due in 1 or the harbor may finish before the spear and the spear build could change to a 20/30s pike.
Oporto can whip boats as we discussed before. So we should end up with about 4 dromons (assuming we don't upgrade for the first round) and a caravell at Oporto in 8 turns. That would mean we could take the 3 ACs, 2 Upgraded Knights, the 2 existing pikes and the three or four upgraded spear/pikes as our first pillaging force.
Paris' and Orleans' harbors can be blocked by a single boat. So can Bergen's assuming that Bergen is not a canal city. So the pillagers would be best suited to dropoff in one group on the Hill SW of Paris. Two boats could block Paris and Bergen, a third if desired could block Orleans, sending the rest back to prepare for phase two. The pillagers would disconnect Paris' Hill(ton) :D and then splitup to cut all Paris roads to Orleans and the Choke point to Bergen.

Phase 2 - Attack France
FS Makes a Mace every other turn. StF will soon make Maces every 4 turns. Theo can make Dromons every 4 turns. But will take 5 turns for Caravels. So it seems like we can get approximately one boat and 3 maces every 4 turns.
The tile directly north of Orleans will be safe from Knight attacks, so we could sit there and counter attack. Of course this means we still need enough defenders to protect the town.
If we want to bring 30 Maces to France, that's 40 turns of production. After prodution, it's at least 12 turns to get to France so we're looking at invading about 50 turns from now.

What to do in those 50 turns
So as not to squander the troops we're accumulating, I think we could do some conquest of the other civs along the way. Reviewing some previous options we discarded earlier, what about going through the Mongols? If we take TaTu, caravells take 5 turns to go from Theo to Orleans. That compared to 8 turns without taking Ta Tu. Plus, after the initial wave, we could have a 5 boat ship chain bringing units over every other turn from Theo. It would be unreasonable to make an 8 boat chain.
If the Mongols are a pushover, we could also claim the Hittite land which would make our caravells travel at 9 movepoints instead of 8 with the Great Lighthouse. Pulling Persia into that fight would make it a cakewalk.

Niklas

Apr 18, 2007, 01:48 PM

Briefly looking at the save, yeah right... ;)

http://xs414.xs.to/xs414/07163/Orleans1.png
http://xs414.xs.to/xs414/07163/Bergen.png
http://xs414.xs.to/xs414/07163/Washington.png
http://xs414.xs.to/xs414/07163/trondheim.png

Niklas

Apr 18, 2007, 01:55 PM

Some loose unstructured comments of mine:

First of all, I'd say 50 turns is too long to plan for a war. If that's the kind of numbers we're looking at, we either need to do something else, or rethink. As CF suggests we could attack others along the way, to pass time, but I'm not so sure as we'd most certainly lose troops that will need to be replaced.

Going after the Mongols kills our war happiness, which we've come to rely on. I'm not sure that's worth it, unless someone else were to declare on us first, and that seems unlikely at this stage.

It is true that 30 Maces would take ~40 turns to build, but we already have quite a few. There are 7 in Portugal already, and add in our three knights which are as good attackers that means 10 attackers already. Building 20 Maces would take ~27 turns. And we could whip a few more from Lisbon instead of the pikes.

I also don't think that it would really take 12 turns to get to France. We could have a ship chain for boats built from Theo up along the coast of India, so we should be able to get Maces from home to Portugal in 2 turns, and to Oporto for boarding in 4. From Oporto it's a 3-turn route to Paris, so that's 7 turns all in all.

Do we really need 30 attackers? That's what it would take to take on 10 pikes, but hopefully we'll be able to draw some out or disband them by being clever, taking Orleans and Bergen, pillaging Paris etc. Orleans in particular seems easy to take with our original planned strike force.

It seems there are not many offensive units left in France, but they could all be down in America of course. We are average to the French in terms of military, does anyone know how those numbers are calculated? We might be able to get an idea of how many more units they have that we can't see.

sercer88

Apr 18, 2007, 04:33 PM

military power is calculated something like (1*defense*hp)+(1.5*offense*hp)+(0.5*bombard)...or something like that: ie. in order of best to worst: offense, then defense, then bombard.

:eek: :eek: Are my eyes decieving me, or is the AI (Americans) actually using the lux slider!! :eek: :eek: unbelievable!!

ok, back to on-topic: well, to attack those 11 pikes in Paris, we will need quite a few...30 doesn't sound unreasonable, but we don't need to get them all there at once, because I'm sure we don't need 30 to take Paris alone.
There are only 2 injured crusaders in Bergen meaning they probably don't have too many of those. And besides those crusaders, I didn't see any other offense unit in any of France's cities. wow, I guess that's kind of good news, huh.

CommandoBob

Apr 18, 2007, 05:57 PM

It seems there are not many offensive units left in France, but they could all be down in America of course.
Could we investigate the other American cities? It seems hard to grasp that France has only two offensive units in sight and both of those are wounded.

If all they have are defensive units, that is good for us and others, right?

Niklas

Apr 19, 2007, 12:18 AM

No, we cannot :confused:. I guess it has to do with the fact that we cannot see that city on the map. I've never been in such a situation before, in PtW you normally get the TM earlier than you want to spy.

ControlFreak

Apr 19, 2007, 05:01 AM

Yes, Niklas is right. You need to see a city on the map to investigate it. Thats why you need to explore every inch of coastline in C3C even if it means slowing your curaughs down.

My guess is that the big battles are taking place in the mountains near Bergen. The fact that Bergen chose to build a uni is telling that France has a decent number of units in the field still. The fact that Orleans, Washington and Trondheim are all building offensive units tells me that they have more defenders than offensive units.

Military power involves the total number of cities, the total number of units (including workers) and the total number of population in addition to what sercer said. I never put much stock in the Military advisor because I often have many workers and no units, but are considered "Strong". Since we have many more towns than France, which is a big influence on strength, But they are still average to us, I think they have a lot of units remaining.

Niklas

Apr 19, 2007, 06:11 AM

Some more ramblings, don't quite feel ready to make a full-fledged plan yet:

There are no tiles at Orleans that could possibly hold salpeter, which means we have only two tiles that are crucial to pillage. The hills SW of Paris, and the plains S of that (SW would do as well). This, together with the fact that France seems to be low on offensive units, suggests that a pillaging force doesn't need to be all that large.

The fact that France is already at war means we don't need to declare in advance, in order to draw anyone in. It is possible we might want to do it anyway though, to keep them in the war.

France has obvious happiness problems. If we could get the Hittites to declare we would amplify those problems, Orleans in particular would be starving even more. Unless Joan learns to use the lux slider too. ;)

Neither America nor Scandinavia are likely to have any means to capture Bergen with their measly forces. If we want it taken, we will have to do it ourselves.

America has no iron, despite it being clearly visible in our map of their lands. That tile must have been pillaged, which suggests the French forces are closing in on the kill.

Also, this article (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/military_advisor.php) in the War Academy supports what sercer88 said. CF, are you sure about workers and towns?

ControlFreak

Apr 19, 2007, 09:43 AM

I am sure about nothing in Civ and even less in C3C.:p

So it is entirely possible that I'm still harboring some preconceived notion from back in the early days when it was a pure unit count that determined relative strength.

But nothing I read in the reference articles discusses the impact of towns or workers. My understanding of the testing environment was that they adjusted the number of starting units and did their evaluation on the first turn. I didn't see research regarding number of settlers, worker or towns. Maybe I missed it.

In my experience, I have been "strong" relative to an opponent, and had a couple of warriors and a slew of workers and they had all these spears running around my land. It's more of a feeling than science. I defer to those who have done the research.

I definitely think that breaking the trade route between France and the Hittites is a good thing. It can be accomplished in several ways, all of which require us to be at war with France. MA the Hittites seems the fastest. We can also blockade Orleans and Paris harbors. We may need to pull the Vikings into the war for that to work if France can trade through the Viking harbor. We can also cut the sea path North of Trondheim if the Vikings are at war with France.

I'm not that afraid of Frances offense in terms of our pillaging force, but we are expecting the pillagers to survive for enough turns to prevent the reconnection of the pillaged tiles. France is industrious and it won't take a long absence of our units to allow them to reconnect. Maybe sending small forces over in waves would allow us to keep the workers holed up in the cities. ACs seem like a good use weapon for this. If they can survive the initial attack (even with a retreat) they can pillage tiles on the next turn as well as scare workers out of completing tasks.

It is possible that the French offense is past Bergen and heading toward the American cities. Pulling in the Vikings might confuse the french enough to vacillate back and forth, never gaining much ground. I think I would opt for pulling them in and the hittites as well as soon as possible. The only advantage for not being at war with France at the moment is that we can investigate their cities.

Another plus with being at war is that France may MA someone against us giving us more War Happiness and allowing us to remove the Mongols.

EDIT: BTW, I've said this before but it bears repeating. The tech cost goes down as the number of civs in the game goes down. The best way to speed research at this point is to eliminate as many civs as possible. For continents where there are weak civs and strong civs, we should foment war and gang everyone up on the weakling. The sooner the weak civs leave the game, the sooner the tech costs go down for everyone. The QSC data was disturbing in that 3 or 4 teams had Theology or Invention and we had neither. We're behind and we need to do everything we can to catch up.

EDIT: CB's revision of zyxy's map to help discuss where wars should be started. My first thought would be to work on eliminating the Dutch and China or Iroquois.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/Smurkz12_BC1325_WorldMapEdiited.jpg

zyxy

Apr 20, 2007, 04:19 PM

Good ideas!

Some loose thoughts:
- The worker in Bergen suggests that the front is pretty close to Bergen, or he would be chopping jungle I think - but I'm not certain when the AI tells its workers to flee.
- The size of the French and American towns and the number of defenders indeed suggest that France is winning. We may need to move fast.
- Good idea to draw in the Hittites for happiness trouble. We probably need to draw in the Vikes and Celts as well, if only to save America.
- Attacking Orleans seems a good plan, however, we cannot hope to keep it while Paris is still around. It would be a shame to raze it. Perhaps gift it to the Vikes or Celts? With an RoP we would still have the advantage of movement without the disadvantage of having to defend the town. Then keep some offensive guys (AC's would be good, also for skirmishing) nearby to retake it if needed.
- Pillaging for resource denial and starvation still seems the best idea at Paris, especially if we can keep the GWall away from France.
- We should really disconnect the French iron, either by destroying the colony or its connection to Bergen, or by disconnecting Bergen from Paris and blocking the harbor of Paris or Bergen. We can then at least whittle down the French pike force, and when Orleans flips back it will only have spears :).
- Unfortunately we probably cannot get a pillaging force to France in time to slow down the wonder build in Paris sufficiently. Ideally we would want Paris to finish the wonder just when we're ready to attack her.
- In order to preserve the lives of our pillaging force we could leave a single caravel in the area to ferry them back and forth between France and neutral/friendly territory. OTOH, if France really has mostly pikes than a force of pikes and a few AC's would do rather well.

Is it really true that tech cost goes down when the nr of civs goes down? I thought that the monopoly cost is the same.

I did a quick test but cannot find an effect of workers or pop on military power. But perhaps it's very small?

ControlFreak

Apr 21, 2007, 06:58 AM

Is it really true that tech cost goes down when the nr of civs goes down? I thought that the monopoly cost is the same.
The article I remember is mydisease's tech cost (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=423254&postcount=1) calculation:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Rcf2.jpg
There is only one part of the formula that varies during the game: (1 - N/[CL*1.75]). There are two ways in which you can increase it to lower tech cost:
1. Increase N by exploring and buying comms to add civs to your diplomacy screen.
2. Decrease CL by killing civs.

Since we're the tech leader, all we can do is #2.

I would be fine declaring immediately on France, MA Viking/Celts/Hittites. Plan to pillage first and take Orleans second. If we gift it to someone, gift it to Spain. France will leave it alone and we can take it when we take out Spain.

CommandoBob

Apr 23, 2007, 12:27 AM

I will not be able to play until the first of May. I will be paying attention to the game, especially the current planning on how to take out France, but don't see a way to play any turns until then. :(

Painting has taken longer than expected and my wife wants to have it all done before our son flies in from college in Kentucky on Wednesday. His room has been painted, but our bedroom has not and we still need to purge things. He will in for only a few days and plans to teach us how to play Cities and Knights of Catan while he is here. Then he will go back to Kentucky, finish the semester and come home for the summer. This quick trip is for job-hunting for the summer.

After he goes back I need to work on an update newsletter for my high school class. This is self-imposed. I had planned to have it done by the middle of April, but, well, that didn't happen.

I'm still here, but have no time to play.

ControlFreak

Apr 23, 2007, 12:59 PM

Any update Niklas?

Niklas

Apr 23, 2007, 01:01 PM

Weekend's been really full for me, sorry :blush:. I'll see if I can wrap up the discussion with a good turn plan, and then play tomorrow.

Niklas

Apr 23, 2007, 03:01 PM

Long term plan
Be elected world leader.
Research to Fission as fast as possible. Have only two other AIs alive at that point, one who will vote for us and one who will be a big bad bully.

Mid term plan
Take France out, or at least take Paris, before they hit 20k culture. Do this in three steps:
Pillaging force: send a few pikes and ACs to make sure that France cannot have salpeter in Paris for Musketeers.
Orleans strike force: Send the equivalent of the force discussed earlier to capture Orleans with the Great Wall.
Full assault: Keep sending troops, either in batches or trickles, until we have enough to take Paris itself.
Once Paris is secured as ours for good, build FP there, hopefully using a MGL.

My turnset:
Research Astronomy in 5 turns, continue on Banking.
Declare on France right away, bring in the Vikings, Hittites and Celts.
Cities:
Oporto whips ships as per zyxy's suggestion.
Lisbon whips a library, then runs as a scientist farm. The two extra MInfs we could get from here are just not worth it in the long run when we're not scrambling to attack Paris.
FS finishes HE, then builds MInfs every two turns.
StF builds 4-turn MInfs.
Theo builds Dromons/Caravels.
KZ keeps building workers for some time to come.
StW and GB will be scientist farms to the best of their abilities.
Since I will hand off just at the point when the first caravels are ready, I won't give any details for units sent. I will amass our forces at Oporto so that all options are open. Horses will be upgraded to knights first.

Comments?

zyxy

Apr 23, 2007, 03:31 PM

What will you use to buy the alliances? Gpt?

If at all possible, I would also like to knock out the French iron colony. And if we can (but probably after the assault on Orleans), pillage the countryside around Paris to starve it down.

You could consider sending some workers from our mainland/Japanese lands towards Oporto for forestry operations (more caravels). This will not help with the initial wave, but it will add to the next one(s). Obviously, this has to be weighed against adding workers to Theo, StF and Ozzy.

@CF: your formula shows that the monopoly cost of research does not go down when the number of civs decreases (because N=0). However, second-civ price will drop.

Niklas

Apr 23, 2007, 03:52 PM

What will you use to buy the alliances? Gpt?Only America was gifted all techs, and they are already in the war, so I plan to use techs for the others.

If at all possible, I would also like to knock out the French iron colony. And if we can (but probably after the assault on Orleans), pillage the countryside around Paris to starve it down.Not bad ideas, but after my turnset.

You could consider sending some workers from our mainland/Japanese lands towards Oporto for forestry operations (more caravels). This will not help with the initial wave, but it will add to the next one(s). Obviously, this has to be weighed against adding workers to Theo, StF and Ozzy.I think getting our core towns up to 12 is more important at this point. KZ can keep building workers for a while that can be sent yonder.

ControlFreak

Apr 24, 2007, 05:01 AM

@CF: your formula shows that the monopoly cost of research does not go down when the number of civs decreases (because N=0). However, second-civ price will drop.
:blush: I guess I never really looked at the formula and was just going by the discussion below it. You are quite right that reducing the number of civs will not lower initial research cost. My apologies and thanks for clarifying that.

I second the motion to pillage all French resources to the south. But that will be part of my turnset, not Niklas'.

I think I agree with your plan, Niklas. Good Luck! :hammer:

zyxy

Apr 24, 2007, 11:00 AM

Only America was gifted all techs, and they are already in the war, so I plan to use techs for the others.

Hm, maybe I should look at the save next time I ask a question... :rolleyes:

Good luck!

ControlFreak

Apr 25, 2007, 10:32 AM

Things have been so slow here, and the COTM35 was so quick and so much fun that I actually finished it and submitted today! It's my first GOTM submission in over a year.

Thanks for the time Niklas. ;)

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 04:54 AM

:whipped:

Niklas, please post something to let us know you're all right and will still be playing your turnset. If you want me to take it, I can play today based on your strategy post.

Niklas

Apr 26, 2007, 05:11 AM

I'm sorry for my unresponsiveness. In fact I have not been alright, and I don't even want to think about the consequences, which I guess is part of the reason why I haven't posted.

My shoulders have started giving me problems lately of the kind that some weird people (i.e. doctor, naprapath, physiotherapist) think I should not be at the computer more than absolutely necessary. :cry: I don't even know how to do that! But at least I figure I should try to limit my computer time somewhat for the time being. So yes, please do pick up the game and play. I'll be back soon, I hope. :sad:

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 08:36 AM

That is not good news.:sad:

Our prayers will be with you. Hit your rehab hard and lift weights when you can. Staying fit helps in so many ways!

Maybe you could invest in a voice typer so you can at least post here. I don't know how voice activated commands would work with Civ though.

I've got it but it's been a long time since I've looked at the game. Based on your last post and my limited memory my directions are:

Long Term
Eliminate all but the scientific civs and one big, bad, bully. Win by diplomatic victory.

Short Term
Elimination of France
Next Targets include Maya, Spain, Hittites, England ... (possibly multiple attacks at once)
Build FP in Paris.

This Turn

Opporto rushes boats.
FS builds Epic and then Medi's every 2 turns.
SmurkzTheFair builds Medi's every 4 turns (or faster if possible)
Theo builds boats.
KZ builds workers.
Ozzy builds what is needed more, units or boats (unless research buildings are needed).
SmurkzTheWicked is not that corrupt and should be more than a science farm, it will support unit building if research buildings are complete.
GloriousBattlez is corrupt and will be a science farm.
Lisbon, I disagree with building a library here as I think it's corrupt also. Unless we need border expansion here, I would lean toward not whipping anything, or whipping some units. You can discuss this while I look at the game.
Declare immediately on France and MA Celts/Vikings/Hittites with tech.
Boats and units will amass for wave one which is the pillagers. Their goal is to pillage the hill SW of Paris and the connection to Bergen. After that, some of the force will carry on to Bergen to pillage the iron supplies and most of the tiles around Bergen as almost all of them can hold saltpeter.
Prepare the strikeforce to take Orleans. They will not be attacking anyone before hitting Orleans.
Prepare the reinforcements to take Paris from Orleans.
We've already started one war against the Mongols. I'd like to start another on the Chinese. Carthage has already had their Golden Age. Greece may or may not have. I'd like to get rid of China to make room for the two scientific civs on that island. To do that, I'd like to pull in all the civs on that island against them. However, that's a lot of gold in embassy construction, so I'll holdoff until others say yes or no. (I'm not going to give all our techs away again without team concensus.)

zyxy

Apr 26, 2007, 11:12 AM

That's sad to hear Niklas. But don't ruin your health over a game :).

On the game:
I think most of the plan was agreed upon before. The lib in Lisbon was indeed meant for border expansion, partly also for Oporto. I don't have the game open now, not sure whether we need the lib. Maybe corruption will be ok-ish with lib+court? Please remember that maintenance cost is not really a problem, so every beaker counts.

I'm fine with embassies, we have lots of gold and nothing to use it for. We could even consider some iron disconnection strategy (and then build horses and upgrade to knights), but it will probably be too much hassle...

Can't really comment on the Chinese plan before seeing the save. But don't let that stop you.

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 12:49 PM

Niklas

Apr 26, 2007, 01:05 PM

Here you go (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0010_01.SAV) :)

CommandoBob

Apr 26, 2007, 01:12 PM

Maybe you could invest in a voice typer so you can at least post here. I don't know how voice activated commands would work with Civ though.

I would suggest an adjustable bed with big, thick pillows and a large (52') LCD TV/Monitor that could be easily seen from the bed without having to sit up and away from the bed (that's why the bed is adjustable) and a tray that would go over the bed for the keyboard and mouse.

:D

Just like what my son wished he had when he was in the hospital. :lol:

I've just learned not to lean into the monitor (most of the time).

(Could it be that your shoulders are sore from carrying the weight of TWO Smurkz teams on those shoulders? :eek: )

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 01:28 PM

Oh wait...

Technically I don't "Got It" because Niklas has bought several embassies, but not reposted the save, just screen shots. I think I need him to post the save rather than plow through four pages of posts and potentially miss something that he did to the game that I wouldn't. Hopefully Niklas can get this and post the save soon.

Here you go (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_BC0010_01.SAV) :)

Elapsed Time 6 minutes...Hmmm

Following Doctors orders I see.:rolleyes:

Seriously, feel better and don't hurt yourself any worse.

I GOT IT!

zyxy

Apr 26, 2007, 03:02 PM

CA2 says that Gloriouz is 35% corrupt which is not so bad. It does of course need a lot of tile improvements.

Lisbon is 83% corrupt, probably mostly due to distance so a lib+court would make a lot of sense here. Oporto at 75% corrupt is even better.

China has chivalry, horses and iron, so riders are available. We can easily pull in Carthage, Iro, Greece and Arabia for tech. Russia cannot do much and can wait until we have some tech to offer. Chinese and Arabs seem to have good lands, and we could try to remove both. Question is of course whether their cities will be razed or not, and whether they will fall to the scientific civs.

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 03:04 PM

Some preflight check questions:
Opporto can not be made happy without starving it. Letting it starve means losing 20s in poprush. Letting it riot means delaying the pop rush. To get it more food we'd need the Lisbon Library pop rushed, and then let the culture expansion provide an irrigated grassland. Lisbon is still revolting so the earliest I can make it happy and not starving is five turns from now. Letting it starve would make us stable at size 6 and could make as many as 3spt. I'm going to let it starve, and let it sheild build to 10s before rushing the boat. Was that the plan for the first boat? After that there's a one turn delay before we build caravells instead of dromons so we would kill two citizens for each rush. Right?
France would offer us all their gold and all their 11 gpt to join them in their crusade against the evil americans.:p I'm going to ignore that and declare on her right away, bringing the Vikings, Celts and Hittites along for the ride. I will be adding ROPs to all of these deals so we can use the Viking and Celtic waters as needed. I will also MA with the Americans and add a ROP to that as well.
The two dromons near FS do not need to both be there. I would like to send one of them (the Elite) to France with Units already aboard. The question is to hold him for 6 turns, upgrade him locally and put three units on board, or put two units on right now and send him right away. Without Astronomy, it takes 16 turn if he moves to pick up units from StF and leaves straight away. It also takes 16 turns to get to Opporto. With astronomy I think it takes far fewer turns. I will count tile, but I think I will send him to StF or Ozzy (Which ever is closer using Astronomy) and upgrade him, load with pikes/AC and send him directly towards france to meet up with the Opporto crowd.
There is a long continuous string of Mayan units along the Eastern shore of Indialand. There's no way to cut them off. We could hold a semifake war with Spain and pull them in just to prevent all those javelins from returning to Mayan land. With a ROP, the Mayan troops should reach the chokepoint before the Spanish can. Do we want to risk this or just let the Mayan's return home? We could always get the Incan and Mayans in a war to deplete both units and use Korea to take down Spain.
Ozzy has 1 more turn for it's university (counting the forest chop) and has no barracks. The barrack will take a while, even if all workers finish the forest plant and chop. So unit building in Ozzy is a handful of turns away.
China is situated between Arabs, Greece, Carthage and Iroquois. Russia is on the same island but must pass through the Iroquois to get to China. I would pull in the Arabs, Carthage and the Iroquois for sure. Greece would benefit from a land grab but it might be better to call them in a little later after the other three have had time to whittle down the troop levels. I plan to pull in the three immediately. Carthage's embassy is only 40. they are pretty small and pitiful. After our treatys expire, pulling in Russia against the Iroquois should give her the upper hand and might be able to take over the Iroquois nation.

I may start playing tonight, but definitely by tomorrow.

EDIT: cross posted with zyxy, but his comments make sense with mine. I will pull in Greece but not right away. I will spare the whip in lisbon except for the library which is needed primarily to put food on the table in Opporto. Opporto will still need to be whipped to get enough boats.

Niklas

Apr 26, 2007, 03:28 PM

Oporto can be made happy with some more MPs, no? Can't remember. And no, I can't stay away completely, but I'll limit my typing. But the 6 mins was a fluke. ;)

zyxy

Apr 26, 2007, 03:39 PM

Indeed, two MP's (and 1 scientist IIRC) will make Oporto happy enough, and not losing any food. After you whip the harbor it will also profit from luxes. I detailed the Oporto procedure sometime back (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5324938&postcount=370), and dealt with happiness a few posts later (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5325197&postcount=373), hopefully all without mistakes.

I thought we planned to attack Spain and draw in both the Maya and the Koreans? Still looks like a good idea to me.

I would be tempted to whip a court in Lisbon as well. Between size 3 and 7 it will regrow quickly.

When you bribe the iro, do we want to give them chivalry or not? Knights survive better but MW's are a lot cheaper...

ControlFreak

Apr 26, 2007, 05:10 PM

OK, right. How silly of me to miss a post from 10 days ago directed at a different person who was to be playing.:crazyeye:

Actually, I remember reading it now, but didn't remember.

I'll follow the plan, except I think I will wake the irrigating slave in lisbon as the third worker so we can start on the road between GB and StW with one of the three moveable slaves under the pike.

Fake war on Spain will pull the Mayans north. Got it and playing soon.

ControlFreak

Apr 27, 2007, 05:17 PM

The "fake" war with the Spanish turned out not to be so fake. We've lost 3 units to them (in killing 8) so really bad RNG luck, but I think the worst is over and our Mayan allies should take over now.

Other than that, things are going well according to plan. I will continue playing for my ten turns and maybe even up the year a little. Hope you don't mind if I keep the game a day or two longer.

Niklas

Apr 27, 2007, 05:29 PM

Of course not, we need to go further. Hope you didn't lose any ships to Spain.

ControlFreak

Apr 27, 2007, 06:20 PM

Ships are safe. Three caravels filled (one empty seat) with pillagers are steaming towards France with two more ships arriving in Oporto for upgrades. I will have trouble putting units in all of them at this rate.

zyxy

Apr 28, 2007, 01:37 AM

Sounds good! Good luck!

ControlFreak

Apr 29, 2007, 06:21 AM

Turn 0 - 10 BC -Preflight

Ozzy: Map out the boat routes from Ozzy and StF to Paris. Eastern route via Ozzy to the south is faster by one turn.:rolleye: Send Righteous to Ozzy. Wake and move AC and Pike in StF and send them to Ozzy to buy ferry ticket. Wake Spear from Theo and send also. He can upgrade if Ozzy barrack built.
Oporto: Wake slave by Lisbon and send to the forest N,NE of Oporto. Send 2 of the GB slaves also, the third goes to road to StW. Two Maces enter Oporto for MP who hires scientist and change to harbor. The GB Pike heads towards Oporto.
Lisbon: works as much food tiles as possible, two AC move in for MP but doesn't change the happiness level. Entertainer is required.
StF hill mine finishes this turn. I switch one BG to the hill for the extra gold. Worker moves to forest (CAII says sheilds still available).
Pink Panther moves towards StF for pickup in a couple of turns.
Advance boats near Inca towards Oporto.
New worker in KZ moves towards Ozzy for forestry. Workers in Ozzy chop 10s towards the Uni, now due in 1. Unmoved worker joins the planting SW.
StW: Pike moves towards Oporto. Horse moves towards Lisbon to upgrade. AC into StW for MP.
Workers start roading towards Mayan.
Declare on Spain and pull in the Mayans. They pay us 7g for ROP and MA.:D I can't pull Korea in without excessive gpt, so I wait for now. We can pull them in with Astronomy later if desired.
94g buys Arabian Embassy. Cathedral, colosseum, harbor and Pyramids are offscreen.
40g buys Carthage Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen.
88g buys Iroquois Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen. They don't have iron.
46g buys Chinese Embassy (it was cheap intel).
96g buys Greek Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen.
Declare on China. Carthage pays us 6g for ROP and MA. Theology buys the Arab ROP and MA. Iroquois take MA and ROP straightup. I decide to buy in Greece now just incase China would try to MA them against someone else. Invention buys ROP and MA.
Declare on France. Vikings pay us 5g and 1gpt for ROP and MA (It's the ROP they're paying for). I didn't realize before but they are at war with America also. That's a big bummer. Get ROP and MA with America against French for free.
86g buys Celt Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen. Theology buys ROP and MA. Hittites give 6g, ROP and MA for Monarchy.

IBT

Mayan unit near Oporto moves away from Spain.:( Others move north by StW.
StF Medi>Medi. Ozzy uni>barracks.

Turn 1 - 10 AD

StF: workers set to chop due in 1. Join one worker for 10spt. Slaves tag team the mining now due in 2. Join worker to StF to get to 10spt. Remaining worker starts planting forest.
Oporto: Rush harbor, change specialist to Sci. Pike climbs Incense hill to the west to look out for Spanish troops.
Lisbon: Rush Library.
Pink Panther gets Medi from StF and moves toward India. Advance Shot and Deadly towards Oporto.
Two workers join the planting effort in Ozzy, due in 1. Other three mine the deforested grass.
StW adjusted to grow in 3 instead, sacrificing the sheild count.

IBT

Lisbon: Library>spear (for now). KZ: worker>worker. FS: Epic>Medi. Mayan unit turns around and heads for Spain.

Turn 2 - 30 AD

Pink returns to the Point by FS after dropping off Medi. Other boats move towards Oporto,
Pike ventures farther to see Korean shore. Dromons are due in Oporto in 5 turns, Astronomy due in 3. With the rushed dromon in Oporto we will have three caravels after upgrades (if I can afford upgrades, our treasure is down under 200 after upgrading the Knights.) We will need more pikes to fill all three caravels in Oporto so rushing the spear in Lisbon and upgrading makes sense. I won't be able to do that again though now that the harbor is connecting our iron. I switch StW to spear also for this purpose.
The pike coming from StW will be blocked by the Mayan next turn so I send an AC to hold the road tile for him. Spend 240g to upgrade 2 knights.
Ozzy workers chop forest for the Barracks. Citizen assigned to the grass that will be mined on the IBT should be enough to have the barracks finish on the turn Astronomy comes in which would delay departure waiting for the upgraded spear.

IBT

A hoard of Spanish horsemen run through the Korean area visible by us.

Turn 3 - 50 AD

Workers mine chopped BG in Ozzy for Barracks due in 2. Other two start planting.
Rush walls and switch to dromon in Oporto, forest will finish it as zyxy said. Rush spear in Lisbon.
GB uses mined spices (forgot to fire the scientist last turn) for more science.
Slaves join to mine the chopped grassland at StF.
Pike is past the Mayans now and the AC clears the way for them to use our roads. The Spanish horses will still beat the Mayans to Oporto. Korean MA still would cost Ivory and 12gpt and I don't think there's a viable trade route to Korea once they declare on Spain. I won't jeopardize our rep. The Medi are going to have to do some horse killing.
I notice that Persia has taken TaTu so if we want to go through Ta-Tu we can do that without losing our War Happiness from the Mongols (if they survive).
Carthage owns Beijing.

IBT

The iroquois destroy the Chinese! That was quick. Carthage took Beijing first and the Iroquois took Shanghai. Greece got nothing. I think the Iroquois are the next target on that contient but I can't afford to Embassy Russia right now.
5 Horses move into the fog NW of the Korean colony. 7 Horses come from there onto the landbridge. Mayans move onto our roads. Inca have lots of knights and Medi. They will stomp on Mayan if war breaks out.
Lisbon spear>court. KZ Worker>Worker. FS Medi>Medi. Oporto Dromon>Dromon. Theo Dromon>Dromon.

Turn 4 - 70 AD

Upgrade pike in Lisbon. Move all mounted units towards Oporto in preparation for the Spanish wave. All Medis and the three slaves move to the tundra 2N of Oporto. We will be able to attack the Spanish horses no matter which tile they choose to move to. Pike that was on lookout duty moves E to Tundra to be able to cover one of the attack tiles once we win.
Workers SW of Ozzy join the planting effort until it's due in one. Remaining worker moves towards Theo.
Slave/Worker combo moves to roaded grass to mine in StF.
GB uses irrgated grass, science not needed on last turn of Astronomy. Slider down to 70%
Medi from StF travels the roads south towards Theo.
Russia and Greece are equal in tech at the moment so I can't buy them into a war with the Iroquois. The Iroquois lack Theology and will pay 17gpt + 8g. I make the deal because I can still declare war without breaking my rep. Arabs also have 8gpt+40g for Education, but I want to use the tech to MA them against the Iroquois later.

IBT

Spain heads to the forests as expected. What is unexpected is something in the fog retreats a Spanish horse from the forest. I think it's a lone Mayan unit
Hittites Destroy the Mongols so I'll have to check for happiness.
Astronomy>Banking, big picture to check happiness. FS is the only unhappy town. I zoom in and make a coastal worker into a scientist for now.
AC produced. Ozzy Barracks>Medi.

Turn 5 - 90 AD

Medi-Horse battle. Win, Lose or Retreat (Hit points of winner) W(4),L(1),R(4), L(1),W(4),W(4),AC kills 1hp horse.W(4) finishes last horse in the forest. That could have gone better. Wasn't expecting 2 Medi loses. There's one 1hp retreated horse left on the tundra next to the fresh stack of 5horses. I don't want to put a Knight on flat ground next to the horse stack, so I leave him. The Knights cover the units in the forests. The pike covers the AC on the Tundra SW of the forests. The second pike covers our used Medis and the slaves start a road there due in 2. All our troops are within range of the next horse assault but all tiles have a 3d defender and are mostly in the forest.
Astronomy opens up trade opportunites. Egypt give gems for ROP, Incense and Ivory. This deal relies on Persian water rights. America gives silks for Ivory and 1gpt. This trade relieson Persia and Babylon water rights. The vikings don't have a harbor so we can't help them.
Dutch give 6gpt for Ivory. Babylon 5gpt for Ivory. Arabs give furs for Ivory + 3gpt. This is more to help them research faster than it is for us.
Forestry continues around Ozzy with the last two tiles starting to plant. Worker stack cuts wood in one turn leaving a bare grass in need of mining.
Troops from StF moving towards Ozzy. The AC will make it in time. The Medi will have to hop on the boat while it's sailing by. The Dromons are all upgraded to caravel for 120g. (2 in transit to Oporto still). Spear also upgrades.

IBT

Tundra pike kills two horses flawless and redlines a third before dying. Remaining two Spanish horses attack Knight in forest and both die promoting Knight to 5/5. Mayans head south since we're blocking all the tiles to Spain. I'll fix that this turn.
KZ: Worker>Worker. FS Medi>Medi.
We lost our Incan spices. Good thing I bought the extra furs.

Turn 6 - 110 AD

Don’t Renew the Incan Spices because we'll have native spices from StW when the worker finishes the road on the IBT. Sell them Ivory for 7gpt.
2AC and 1Medi (leaping from the shore) jump into Righteous who had to make a 1 tile detour to let the Medi make the leap. "Pillager 1" has 2 pikes and sets out in a different direction but should end up close to the other.
Slaves in StF join worker planting, now due in 1.
Decide that it's better to forest the tile N of Ozzy. Don't chop it as the shields are already grabbed, but we can use a 1fpt 2spt tile here.
With most of the threat averted and only 4 1HP horses left in the North, I withdraw our units in favor of letting the Mayans slog through the rest of the Spanish troops. I have two fast moving elites that can leader fish and then withdraw. Neither produces a leader.
Adjust StW to grow and make spear in 1 turn. I'm thinking that the road will complete first though and the spear will turn into a pike. StF uses coast instead of BGs to reduce shield overrun.

IBT

America and Vikings settle for peace.:goodjob:
Road finishes to StW which makes it very happy, but keeps the build as spear which finishes>court.

Turn 7 - 130 AD

StF gets another worker added. 4 slaves start chopping the forest. The other two join the workers making a road to the NW.
Pillager 2 from Oporto takes 2 pikes and a Knight and heads towards Paris. Shot will leave next turn with 2AC and Knight.
Two Medis disembark near the Indian spices. Pink Panther should be in Rhythm to pick up one medi from StF, 2 from FS and drop near India.

IBT

Mayans advance towards Spain.

Turn 8 - 150 AD

Ships advance.
Forestry continues. Join 1 worker to Ozzy. And use the new forest to get Medi in 1.
Shortrush via pike then knight from 10s to 70s then switch oporto back to court.

IBT

Mayan Javlins fend off two horses. Spanish move 5 archers, 4pike,3spears,2 turtledoves and a Partridge just outside the set of trees.
France completes Leo's. Can't wait to capture that city!

Turn 9 - 170 AD

Workers continue forestry in Ozzy, nearly done.
Spear upgrades in Lisbon. Caravel in Oporto must wait for more units so it heads to Spanish shores to do some scouting.
Shortrush (pike,knight) to 70/80s for court in Lisbon and in StW.
Jungle is cleared near FS. Three slave road, fourth starts mine.

IBT

Babylon declared war on the Hittites.
Mayan loses 3 units to one spanish. :( Another stack of Spanish appears.

Turn 10 - 190 AD

I think it's time to get some more MA's. Korea against Spain for Astronomy gives us all their 27g plus ROP/MA.
Declare war on the Iroquois. Arabs give all 69g and ROP/MA against them for Education. Carthage gives all 41g and ROP/MA for Theology. Greece gives all 6g and ROP/MA for Astronomy. 74g buys Russian Embassy. They have colosseum and harbor also. Russia give all 9g and ROP/MA for Astronomy.
The first boat (pillager 2) arrives at the French border with 1mp left. I opt to stay out of her territory. The french have taken the American city in the fog. America now lacks iron as well. :(
The numbers of units are as follows:
Us:8 Medis, 1AC, 1Pike. Mayan: 4 Javelin, 1LB (a second coming) so combined allied offense is 10. Spain: 5Pikes, 5Spears, 6Archers. Their defense outweighs our offense. Hopefully half will turn back to Korea.
Adjust StW to 0f 6spt for court in 1. Adjust Lisbon to +5fpt to grow in 4. Adjust GB to grow in 2.
Caravel is loaded with Medis from FS and moves to drop off near GB. Three units will be available near StF next turn and the Caravel will head there next.
Forest planted in Ozzy is making it starve. I joined a worker to Ozzy, but realize I need him to chop the forest next turn or the sheilds will be wasted, so I wake a worker from the planting operations losing 2WT there. Oops. He moves to be able to finish the chop next turn. SW of Ozzy.
Slaves are mining an extra tile near StF while they wait for the forestable tile to be roaded.
Sell Babylon Spices for 4gpt. Nobody else has gpt and I don't want to risk our rep with the fragile water trade routes.

IBT

Half the Spanish army turns around. Archers go 2 for 3 against Javelins and capture a slave. A pike moves alone onto the neutral road tile. Javelins and Longbow go 2 for 3 and take the slave back killing a spear and archer. Spanish land a pike and a medi next to our new units by StW. I almost thought they were mayan.:(
Hittites want us to join their war against Babylon. No Thanks.
Forest Chop finishes the Lisbon courthouse.
StF Medi>Medi. Lisbon Court>Medi. The uni will build when the town is bigger. The landing shorted the StW court by 1 sheilds since they landed on the BG.:(
Greeks start Copernicus' but France should win that also if they learn Astronomy.

Turn 10 - 210 AD

The Spanish and Mayan units are the same color so I really have to be careful. There is only one pike in the North that can reach our territory and nothing is severly in jeopardy. So I leave the Spanish to the withering Mayans. The landing party on the other hand is a problem. The 2 Medis that landed last turn attack. First one dies making the pike 2/3. Second redlines but kills the Medi. Pink Panther sails into StW so the Medi on board can attack. We kill the pike and the danger is averted. Pink Panther will be a turn behind picking up units from StF.
StW set to max food/commerce.
Deadly flames moves a tile in the wrong direction so that the units can jump on board this turn. 1AC, 1Pike and 1Medi load up and sail towards France.
Slave near Theo joins planting for due in 1. I realize I miss counted again. I don't need the worker to help the chop, but after the chop, the two shields from the forest tile will not be there. Ozzy will be two sheilds short. With the planting and mining both due in Theo, that build will overrun by one sheild. Decide to shift the mining tile to Ozzy to complete the Medi exactly, and complete the Theo boat in 2 turns instead of 1. Plus the planting tile will make Theo miss it's growth by 1f if it was used. Worker that was sent to Ozzy to help with the unnecessary extra chop joins to Ozzy.
Zecond Wave caravel clears fog as it heads toward the Incan Borders for passage to Oporto.
Slaves work to finish mining FS grass.
Pillager 2 scouts the landing site and theres a worker on the hill, but all the work is done. Since Shot is a turn behind, we retreat out of French waters and will land together next turn.
Pillager 1 and Righteous round the cape of America but can't see any action from their limited view.
Planting begins on a forestable tile in StF. Mining due in 1 between Ozzy and Theo choose to keep the sheild in Theo to finish the Caravel first.

IBT

France asks for peace. No thanks.
Spanish pike kills redlined Mayan LB.
Mayan LB kills redlined pike that beat its comrade.
StW Court>Uni. KZ: worker>worker. FS Medi>Medi. Ozzy Medi>Medi. Russian and Greek start Cops.

Turn 11 - 230 AD

Pink returns and gets 2Medi and 1AC from StW.
Stack of troops disembarks on target hill SW of Paris.
Pillager 1 spies Pike on French iron colony, but the colony is connected only with an unprotected road on a coastal hill. Pikes will land there next turn.

IBT

French LB retreats our elite Knight from the target hill stack. Second LB moves near but not to the redline knight.
Theo caravel>caravel.
French start Cop's. We actually want them to get this in Paris.

Turn 12 - 250 AD

Move and disembark three units NE of Paris with the mission of cutting the road from Orleans. In retrospect, this was probably not the right thing to do with this boat, but we had talked about "starving" down Paris. With all the wool, there is no way to starve down Paris unless we had 13 units parked on its tiles. Even then, the units would get picked off and their stored food would handle the fluxuations in food. I think that we are just going to bite the bullet and put 30+ Medi in Orleans after we take it. At this point, Paris is wonderbuilding again, so there shouldn't be a steady stream of unit from it for a while. Plus we want them to succeed in getting Cops because it's going to end up being our super science city. If this small stack survive, they should pillage the road tiles between Orleans and Paris to prevent getting any resources from Orlean's harbor.
Healthy Knight disbatches healthy French LB, Redline Knight moves there and cuts road taking French Horses. Elite cavalry kills 2/4 LB and retreats to Knight Stack. Regular AC pillages hill and moves to Knights. Two pikes join them.
Righteous ship chains it's offensive cargo to the Knight stack via Pillager 2 who then blocks Paris' harbor. Shot in the Dark blocks Bergen's harbor.
Pillager 1 unloads 2 pikes on the road to the french colony, then heads for Oporto. Plan from here is to move all the boats back to Oporto where the new offensive is amassing for transport to France.
Pink Pather brings its load as far north as it can and unloads them. He will need to go to FS for 2, then StF for 1 Medi and return them to Indian area.
The forests around Ozzy and Theo are only for 2s tiles in food rich areas. All the chopping is complete for these two towns so DON’T CHOP THE FORESTS. There is one more being planted on the ivory by Theo that will give it the ability to run max shields,0fpt. Ozzy is already there. The workers planting should probably join to cities when they're finished as happiness allows.
KZ and FS can benefit from forestry, but not now with their current build orders and shield counts.
Lisbon is setup to to get both forest chops and hand build 10s three turns from now. It can switch to pike to finish that, keep on Medi due in 8 turns, or switch to University now. With all the whipping in Lisbon and Oporto, they will not grow much above size 4 or 5 I'm afraid. Sending some of the Medis there will help it temporarily, but when they leave, I don't want to end up starving it to keep it happy.
The Spanish units are frequently blocking our only road to GB, so the workers should probably build them their own road on the west side of the mountain. At least the BG tile should be roaded.
I left one unmoved boat in Theo (just built) because I'm not sure the best direction to send him. I think he should just head to Oporto. However, he could go straight to Orleans in an attempt to block the Harbor there. That's a 7 turn trip. It's 9 to Oporto.

Save is on the gotm server (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_AD0250_01.SAV). I will add some pictures late tomorrow when I have more time.

I was manning our garage sale and watching kids so I could only play a turn or two at a time. Sorry for the big reload count.

zyxy

Apr 29, 2007, 02:00 PM

Looking very good!

Concerning the French war, I think it would be very useful to pillage the countryside around Paris, to slow down production and to starve it down to town size. Perhaps we can compute this such that Copernicus will finish just on the turn before we take Paris, that would be ideal!
You are right we'll have to occupy the tiles to starve Paris. (We could use some more pikes for this, maybe Lisbon and Japanese island can build a few.) Probably Paris is still defended by pikes and trebs only (Paris may have trained a few troops, but I guess most of them went to the front), so we are unlikely to lose a lot of troops.
Starvation will be rapid: The full foodbox of Paris only helps to delay the first starving citizen, but after that it's one citizen per turn (the granary doesn't help when starving). If we block all land tiles and one coast then Paris will produce 6 fpt and eat 24 fpt, so the foodbox (24 food on Deity) will empty in 2 turns, and Paris will starve down all the way to size 3. Of course, this could be faster with lux shortage.

The two pikes down south near the French iron colony should probably just keep destroying the road net (and maybe disconnect silks). This will hopefully help America to reclaim her town.

While the forces in France pillage, we can send most caravels back to Portugal/Mayaland to refill. This time we bring a load of MDI to attack Orleans. One caravel will stay behind to block the Paris harbor, and it might be useful to send another caravel to the bay between Paris/Orleans and Trondheim. It can extract wounded units from France, send them to Scandinavia to heal, and ferry them back to France.

Seems our treasury went down quite a bit :). Babylon will pay 4 gpt for spice. Russia will pay 4 gpt for ivory. Carthage and Arabia will pay 1 and 2 gpt for a lux, resp. I would make the first two deals, but perhaps not the other two, unless we want to help these civs.

You mentioned it in your log, but this really deserves some emphasis:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM12_AD0250_colors.jpg
Be careful who is who there!
Btw, is the Spanish galley E of Lisbon empty?

The roster is a nit of a mess. It seems sercer was up before CF, and was unjustly skipped. Sorry about that sercer, we should have paid better attention to the roster.
I think we're down to 4 players: CF, sercer, CB and zyxy. So I'll just make this up, roughly based on who played last:

sercer88 - Up!
CommandoBob - On deck
zyxy
CF - just played

McLMan - lurking
Niklas - on sick leave

ControlFreak

Apr 29, 2007, 05:33 PM

Quick reply:

Luxuries are probably not a problem for France at the moment because of all the war happiness we gave them in buying MAs.

No need to pillage tiles if we're going to sit on them, so I would not pillage. After all, Paris will eventually be ours!

The Spanish galley dropped two units off before heading north past Lisbon so it is empty and should be heading north. There is also a Mayan galley of unknown content or intent that just came south from Korean waters.

The pikes next to the French iron colony served two purposes, they should pillage the road to the iron, and they scared away some french workers that were trying to make another road. That tells me that there are no American or Viking units nearby.

I think it would be benefitial to take Bergen soon if America or Vikings can't manage it. I also think that Orleans will fall easily. Paris is not helping with units as it's always wonderbuiding.

ControlFreak

Apr 29, 2007, 06:26 PM

:blush: sercer, I'm SOOO sorry I stole the game from you. I don't know why I thought I was next up, but I'm really very sorry. Thank you for letting me play these turns as they were a lot of MM and build up which is what I like to do. Hopefully you will get to see some action in your turnsets.

sercer88

Apr 29, 2007, 07:30 PM

d'OH :lol:

Oh well, I didn't know it was my turn!!

This is my "got it."

Just a quick comment to clarify something zyxy said, but I don't think that it is right. If Paris has a granary, then it will have half of the food box full when it starves down a size (or two, just like if you built a settler.) so Paris will not starve down too quickly...but since it is diety, and the food boxes are smaller => faster growth, but faster starving, too :smug:

Niklas

Apr 29, 2007, 11:53 PM

Just a quick comment to clarify something zyxy said, but I don't think that it is right. If Paris has a granary, then it will have half of the food box full when it starves down a size (or two, just like if you built a settler.) so Paris will not starve down too quickly...but since it is diety, and the food boxes are smaller => faster growth, but faster starving, too :smug:
You're right about the deity food box size, very clever, I didn't consider that. But you're wrong about the granary, it only works on growth. ;)

Nice play CF! :goodjob:

ControlFreak

Apr 30, 2007, 08:19 AM

I concur with Niklas and zyxy about the food box depleting. You don't actually starve the town until the granary part of the food box is empty. Once it's empty, no food gets added back into it when you lose the pop point.

However, that's a great catch about the diety sized foodbox. It will be easier to starve a diety city because its not as big to begin with.

When the embassy was established, Paris had three entertainers and was still at +5fpt. They also had two unused wool (+3fpt tiles). So to starve it, we would need to take away at least 8 wool tiles making them -1fpt. The situation will probably be easier than that because we can take away two of their luxuries which means they have to hire two more entertainers which would already put them at -1fpt.

But in terms of priorities, I'd rather get the offensive troops on French lands to take Orleans and Bergen.

There are five caravels in French water. A sixth is coming around the Incan cape. They can all reach Oporto in 4 turns if they head there right away. That's space for 18 units which would be more than enough to take Orleans. The newly built boat in Theo could probably aid Pink Panther in transporting troops. Having a two boat ship chain would let the slow units get to opporto faster. Assuming we call the new boat "Return of the Pink Panther" we could do something like:
Return (starting near StF) gets StF units, moves to point north of FS and gets those units, Pink moves to the designated transfer point within range of Return's next move.
Return brings it's units to the handoff point and transfers them to Pink, Pink brings them forward as far as it can.
Return moves back to starting point near StF. Pink uses half of it's move to advance, drops the units off and then returns to within range of the transfer point. Repeat step 1.

With the primary mission fulfilled of pillaging the hill SW of Paris and cutting the roads to Bergen complete, I think that taskforce should take over the fortresses on the landbridge. They should have enough units to overcome the spear(s) there. This will cutoff Bergen from any reinforcements and provide some better defensive position. They won't be able to heal here, but I think they can last until the boats can come back. Holding at least one of the fortresses prevents reinforcements from Orleans and Paris from Reaching Bergen. I think the Vikings and Americans should be able to push back the french and may even take Bergen. If not, it will still give us a defensible area to attack from once Paris is ours and only Bergen remains in French hands.

ControlFreak

May 02, 2007, 05:08 AM

Sorry I've been really busy at work and at home. I haven't had a chance to post the embassy screen shots or any others I took. I hope that's not holding you up sercer.

What's your plan?

Some offhand comments. After dropping off the Medi, Pike, AC near Paris, I noticed a problem. Since the pike is only 3HP, the AC ended up being the primary defender. I think the Medi would also be the next primary defender, so the pike isn't doing the stack any good. If they survive, it would be better to pick that whole group up again and redeploy them somewhere where they have more support. Our strength is currently on the land bridge but the troops will be in a bad position between two strong French unit producers. Perhaps we would be better served to pickup all the units and move them to join the pikes by Bergen. We can ensure that the workers don't connect any saltpeter potential tiles (we need to disconnect the mountian road S of Bergen). Then as the American, viking and hittites make progress, we can help take the city. The two of the ships would stay as support enabling the units to heal out in neutral waters or evacuate if the French numbers become too great. The remaining three boats would join the one from Inca land at Oporto. We will have 12 healthy Medis there by the time the boats return to Oporto. This 12 Medi force should be enough to take Orleans and could be helped by the boats pulling any offensive forces left by Bergen and transporting them to Orleans as well.

EDIT:
The new Caravel in Theo can head up the Eastern seaboard and be packed with units in one turn if Pink helps transfer Medis from FS to StF. Then it can head straight for Orleans via the Celtic waters and should end up there about the same time as the 12 Medi from Oporto.

After that, Theo's next caravel can do the 2 boat ship chain to Oporto. With about 5 units every four turns (2Medi from FS, 1 from Ozzy, 1 from StF and an AC) we should be able to build a second wave by the time the boats return from Orleans the second time. If there's enough units left from the first wave, we should have nearly enough to take Paris.

sercer88

May 02, 2007, 08:21 AM

Hey, guys...I'm gonna have to ask for a swap: I have finals until next Tuesday, so it will be hard-core studying for me (well, maybe a tiny bit of playing) and definitely no extremely important/time-consuming SGOTM playing for me until the finals are done.

Sorry for holding this up: I thought I could play this Yesterday...but, well, that didn't work out :blush:

ControlFreak

May 02, 2007, 08:44 AM

Thanks for the post sercer. Good luck on finals!

CB, the roster has you up next. Can you take it?

CommandoBob

May 02, 2007, 12:29 PM

Thanks for the post sercer. Good luck on finals!

CB, the roster has you up next. Can you take it?
I'll look at the game tonight and try to post some intelligent questions/observations.

I'd expect to play this in two sets of five turns each.

ControlFreak

May 02, 2007, 01:28 PM

I'll look at the game tonight and try to post some intelligent questions/observations.

I'd expect to play this in two sets of five turns each.

Sounds like a good plan.

My advice:
First 5: Get 4 boats and 12 Medis to Oporto. Keep first wave alive (move to Bergen area and/or hide in American or Viking land?) and pillage French iron and Bergen mountains.

Second 5: move all units to Orleans and take the town. Accumulate more units in Opporto, or even possibly advance them to/through Spain.

Throughout, we need to get a leader and then save him to build the FP. We need to take one more town to enable the FP build. The leader will probably be generated on French soil, which is all the more reason to have a ship or two in support of the troops over there. We'd hate to get a leader and then lose him under French onslaught.

We also need to improve on our research time. Banking was something like 9 or 10 turns at 100% when I started it. That's not going to win the laurels for this game. With the courts built in India/Portugal towns, I'd been trying to grow them so they can contribute more beakers. They also need universities relatively soon but I was thinking to grow them bigger first, and do some partial whipping.

The slaves are nearly finished with StF. The two tiles having forests planted are the last forestable tiles left. Ozzy and Theo are entirely forested out and have forests planted to provide higher sheild count for the primarily grassland/coastal area. KZ is relatively unforested but is continuing to build workers and does not need forestry yet. New workers can help clear the last of the wetlands so forests can be planted. There are a few more workers to be joined to get our towns up to size 12, but be careful about happiness. Future ACs should probably MP the towns on Japanese island to get us to size 12. Your plan should include how many workers we need to build before KZ gets to start other building (Barrack, Units, or Market).

At somepoint, markets would help out a ton, but they are not the priority right now. Having the jungle cleared in FS and mining the Eastern Cow that Theo is sharing would let FS get to 25spt which is great for market building. We're going to need markets to deal with War Weariness as the French war lags on.

Hmm...that might make it better to pull our troops completely out of French land once the Bergen area is pillaged so we don't get weariness from squatting on French soil. Keeping the two support boats near to the Paris hill and Bergen would let us know if a worker is trying to reconnect the potential saltpeter sites.

Have fun planning this one!

CommandoBob

May 02, 2007, 11:22 PM

Didn't get a chance to open the game; tried to get caught up on the current situation. Bad weather, power outages and other committments took my time away.

Looked at the game with MapStat and CAII.

Per MapStat, we have no cities with any chance of flipping. This seems odd, given our rather low culture and diverse city locations. But that tab is just blank. At other times I've seen it show the flip chance as '0.000 to 0.000%' when the city was heavily garrisoned. Right now, though, every cell is empty.

Is MapStat saying our cities cannot flip? (That could be real good new, if true!).

Per CAII we have many ROP and MAs that end in 7 turns.

We also have a 'free' (no MAs involved) war with Rome. Do we have someone for Rome to attack?

ControlFreak

May 03, 2007, 04:55 AM

Since we've been thourough in eliminating all of our opponents, there is no flip risk from foreign citizens. The only other flip chance is overlapping borders and with no settler builds allowed, the city spacing isn't close enough to generate overlapping borders, so yes, no flip chance. (That will change when we take Orleans but haven't eliminated France. I expect Orleans to flip many times. I hope the pop stays high enough for us to still capture it instead of razing. I think if we join a slave of non-French, non-Byzantine nationality, that should keep the city captureable, but I'm not sure about that.)

The ROP's are easy to renew, but I've been adding them to MA's so we have control over when they end. When attached to an MA, the death of our common enemy ends the MA which ends the ROP. Then we are free to backstab our ally (e.g. Vikings or Americans) immediately. As long as you keep the "Always Renegotiate Deals" turned off, the MA should be enough to keep those deals going forever. We have the strongest army and as long as our ally doesn't sell out for peace, they would rather have us in the fight than not.

Rome is not strong enough to send any units to us let alone anyone else. I thought about MA's against them, but it's just really not worth anything to us. They are still in the ancient age and have no plans of getting out of it anytime soon. We can claim their land when our troops have nothing else to do.

Have your time problems been resolved or do you need to swap? We really need to get this game moving again.

zyxy

May 03, 2007, 10:10 AM

CF is right, we need to get this moving again. For some reason both Smurkz games are at snail pace.

Also we know from experience that when the turns are not played, some of us will start to make long posts full of endless drivel that take forever to read.
(No that's not a threat :D)

ControlFreak

May 03, 2007, 10:56 AM

Read between the line:

CF ... will start to make long posts full of endless drivel that take forever to read.

:drool: :drool: :drool:

{drivel, drivel, drivel}

I think we should start enforcing 24hr got it, 24hr strategy post, 72hr play. That will at least double our turn production.:rolleyes:

CommandoBob

May 03, 2007, 12:58 PM

I would be helped greatly if certain other persons were not so quick in playing their turn in MTDG 2! :D

I will do my strategy post before I serve as Turn Player Elect for Team FREE tonight.

CommandoBob

May 03, 2007, 09:08 PM

Turnset ?? 250 AD
310 gold -6 gpt
Banking 3 turns

City Builds

Furzt Smurkz (12) vMace 1 turn, zero growth.
Gloriouz Battlez (2) university in 84, grows in 3.
Oporto (3) courthouse in 1, grows in 5.
Ozzy Smurkz (10) vMace in 3, zero growth.
Theo the Whacka' (8) vCaravel in 6, grows in 9.
Smurkz the Wicked (4) university in 99, grows in 1 (work the mined grass; still grow in 1, uni in 33)
Smurkz the Fair (11) vMace in 2, zero growth.
Lisbon (3) vMace in 18, grows in 1.
Kommando Zentral (6) worker in 1, grows in 1.

Smurkz Military

11 Workers
?? Slaves
01 Spears
01 Horses
05 Pikes
02 Knights
08 Caravel
01 Army
18 Maces
06 Ancient Cavalry
Army Upkeep

43 Allowed Units
53 Actual Units
30 gpt support cost

We are at war with

France (we are average)
Rome (we are average)
Spain (we are strong)
Iroquois (we are strong)

Local Resources
02 Horse
01 Iron

Luxuries
01 Wines
01 Incense
06 Ivory
01 Furs (Imported)
01 Dyes (Imported)
01 Silks (Imported)
01 Gems (Imported)
01 Incense(Exported)
08 Ivory (Exported)

Military Deployment
NE of French Iron Colony
1 vPike and 1 rPike.

E of Bergen
Caravel (A Shot in the Dark) empty, 3 moves left.

2 SE of Paris
1 eAncientCavalry
2 vAncientCavalry
1 rAncientCavalry
1 eKnight
1 vKnight (3/4, unmoved)
1 vMace
2 vPike

S of Paris
Caravel (Pillager2) empty, 3 moves left.

3S of Paris
Caravel (Righteous Flamez) empty.

2NE of Paris
1 vAncientCavalry
1 vMace
1 rPike

3NE of Paris
Caravel (Deadly Flamez) empty.

3S, 3SE of Paris
Caravel (Pillager1) empty.

Long Term Strategy
Build United Nations and become Smurzk the Furzt.

Mid Term Strategy
Kill France.

Short Term Strategy
Capture Orleans.
Prepare to capture Paris, starving the city in the process.
Deny Saltpeter to France by pillaging suspected Saltpeter locations.
Learn Banking and then...? (I missed that discussion).
Keep the MAs active against France, using techs and gold when needed.
Need to clear the wetlands around Kommado Zentral and plant forests.
Build harbor (?) in Oporto after courthouse.
Other builds stay the same.

France 250 AD
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/250AD_France.jpg

French Foes 250 AD
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/250AD_FrenchFoes.jpg

Movement Thoughts and Plans
Caravels hold 3 units.
Deadly Flamez can make it to Oporto in 3 turns, but may need to let the AC, Mace and Pike onboard and move to Bergen.
Zecond Wave, between the Incas and Sumer, could make it to Oporto in 4 turns.
Pillager1 can be in Oporto in 4 turns.
A Shot in the Dark would need 5 turns to get to Oporto.
Righteous Flamez probably just 4 turns.
Pillager2 is blockading Paris. I was going to leave it in place.
'In Oporto' is defined as the coastal tile 2S of Oporto.

Eleven Maces are already overseas and can quickly walk to Oporto, the longest walk is three turns (if the Maya stay out of the way).
We have a vAncientCavalry over there also, making 12 military units in New Smurkz.
Load them all?

Operation Torch Possible Routes 250 AD
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/250AD_OperationTorchRoutes.jpg

Taking the northern route we can arrive at Orleans in 3 turns, but we spend two turns close to Spanish cities.
The southern route gets to Orleans a turn later, but we stay far away from Spanish waters.

Do we fear the Spanish navy?

The new Caravel in Theo can head up the Eastern seaboard and be packed with units in one turn if Pink helps transfer Medis from FS to StF. Then it can head straight for Orleans via the Celtic waters and should end up there about the same time as the 12 Medi from Oporto.

Lets map this out.
Turn 0:
Pink Panther just unloaded an AC and 2 Maces in New Smurkz. It has no moves left.
New Caravel (in Theo the Whacka') E, NE, NE and NE (9+ MPs) into the coastal tile 3SE and 1S of Smurzk the Fair.
Turn 1:
Pink Panther moves and ends up 2N and 1NW of Furzt Smurkz (9+ MPs).
New Caravel E, NE, N and N (9 MPs) into the sea tile 3E of StF.
Turn 2:
Pink Panther moves E, loads the 2 Maces from FS, then NE, N and E (9+ MPs), now NW and W of StF, on the coast.
New Caravel, 2NW (3 MPs) and stops, on the coast, 2NE and E of StF.
Turn 3:
Pink Panther unloads the 2 Maces E, on the mined BG 1NW of StF, and then gets a ship chain set up to New Smurkz.
New Caravel sits.
Turn 4:
Maces move E, NE and E and board New Caravel.
New Caravel sails east to Orleans.

Right?

ControlFreak

May 04, 2007, 07:15 AM

City Builds

...
Gloriouz Battlez (2) university in 84, grows in 3.
...
Smurkz the Wicked (4) university in 99, grows in 1 (work the mined grass; still grow in 1, uni in 33)
...
Smurkz the Fair (11) vMace in 2, zero growth.

GB should be MM so that it has two turns at 3fpt using the mined BG or Spices, and 1 turn at 4fpt using two irrigated grass so it grows every 3 turns.
StW is also to maximize growth and commerce.
Smurkz the Fair is working a mined BG where a forest will grow. Make sure when the forest is planted that the town doesn't start starving.

We are at war with

France (we are average)
Rome (we are average)
Spain (we are strong)
Iroquois (we are strong)

Rome, Iroquois, and now Spain are all fake wars. French is a very real war and we will start getting war weariness from it soon because we are in their territory. It will get worse if we lose units.

Luxuries
(Imported)

Some of these deals expire soon and should be renegotiated. It bears repeating that we should only sell per turn stuff for per turn stuff. If anything is paid upfront on the AI side of the deal (gold, workers, tech) it hurts our rep if the trade route is cut by enemy boats.

Short Term Strategy
Learn Banking and then...? (I missed that discussion).
...
Build harbor (?) in Oporto after courthouse.

I think Gunpowder is the only required tech we can learn next so GP is my vote. Oporto already has a harbor and should start caravels, market or university. My preference would be caravel.

Movement Thoughts and Plans
Deadly Flamez can make it to Oporto in 3 turns, but may need to let the AC, Mace and Pike onboard and move to Bergen.
...
A Shot in the Dark would need 5 turns to get to Oporto.
...
'In Oporto' is defined as the coastal tile 2S of Oporto.

Eleven Maces are already overseas and can quickly walk to Oporto, the longest walk is three turns (if the Maya stay out of the way).
We have a vAncientCavalry over there also, making 12 military units in New Smurkz.
Load them all?

I think I made a mistake in setting the troops down in three places. The French still have a ton of units and are making progress against America and Probably the Vikings too. We need to consolodate the units in one spot so they can protect each other. With a big enough stack, the wounded can retreat to a boat and heal while the others hold their ground. From where they are now, I don't think they can outlast the French onslaught long enough for units to help offshore.

I see two options:
Try to pillage towards the North with the intent of cutting off Paris and joining the Orleans assault.
Boating the stack towards Bergen and using them for guerilla warfare to give America a leg up and keep Bergen from being a French asset (pillage the mountain).

I favor moving them to Bergen for two reasons. Marching them inland near Paris takes away the ability to heal on boats. Keeping them near Paris/Orleans, draws all the French units to that area. We want our second wave to blindside the French with our arrival at Orleans.

Since Deadly needs to bring the units from Paris to Bergen, and Shot is already a turn behind, I propose that those two boats stay in support of the units and ship them to Bergen or america (depending on how well they fare on their overnight stay in French Territory). That leaves four boats to head for Oporto arriving on turn four. All the Medis will need to be loaded, but reinforcements will be coming from FS every two or three turns. Together with the New Caravel coming around the Celtic island (busting fog North of Celts will probably be the shortest route to Orleans anyway) we should have 5 fully loaded ships capable of dropping off 15 units (all Maces except 1 AC) by Orleans on turn 8 or 9 depending on how fast all the Medi arrive at Oporto.

Operation Torch Possible Routes 250 AD

Taking the northern route we can arrive at Orleans in 3 turns, but we spend two turns close to Spanish cities.
The southern route gets to Orleans a turn later, but we stay far away from Spanish waters.

Do we fear the Spanish navy?

I don't think the Spanish navy is anything to worry about with the exception of units being dropped off near StW. With our steady flow of Medi's through StW, we should be about to kill any landing parties. And unless Spain knows Astronomy, they won't attack our boats on the sea I think.

[/quote]
Lets map this out.
Turn 0:
Pink Panther just unloaded an AC and 2 Maces in New Smurkz. It has no moves left.
New Caravel (in Theo the Whacka') E, NE, NE and NE (9+ MPs) into the coastal tile 3SE and 1S of Smurzk the Fair.
Turn 1:
Pink Panther moves and ends up 2N and 1NW of Furzt Smurkz (9+ MPs).
New Caravel E, NE, N and N (9 MPs) into the sea tile 3E of StF.
Turn 2:
Pink Panther moves E, loads the 2 Maces from FS, then NE, N and E (9+ MPs), now NW and W of StF, on the coast.
New Caravel, 2NW (3 MPs) and stops, on the coast, 2NE and E of StF.
Turn 3:
Pink Panther unloads the 2 Maces E, on the mined BG 1NW of StF, and then gets a ship chain set up to New Smurkz.
New Caravel sits.
Turn 4:
Maces move E, NE and E and board New Caravel.
New Caravel sails east to Orleans.

Right?[/QUOTE]
I'm wondering if New Caravel can be loaded with Medis from Ozzy and StF, and an AC due soon. That way we can keep our flow of FS Medis through StW just in case the Spanish land more troops there. Either way, you are right that the boat moves up the coast and waits for a turn while units arrive. It can probably afford to wait two turns and still catch up with the Oporto crowd. The fleet should join up on the Spanish coast and move as one unit into french territory. The best tile to land on is the one directly North of Orleans because it will be out of Knight reach when Orleans is captured. I think the caravels can reach that tile from the Green dot on the last leg. The last pink leg should be W(1ocean), W(2ocean), NW(3ocean),W(5sea), W(8coast), W(9+coast). Dropoff is SW from the boats. South is still an option if the SW tile is occupied.

zyxy

May 04, 2007, 02:01 PM

Just nods and small additions after CF's highly detailed comments:

We don't need to keep our alliances alive. As long as the wars keep raging, I would not renew the MA's.
I agree with Gunpowder after Banking. But, if we can trade for Gunpowder, then of course we do that, and research Chemistry.
Oporto should do a lib or caravel IMO. Both could be useful, I didn't look into the logistics and cannot really judge how many ships we need atm. Forest chops could help. Of course Oporto can be MM-ed for +5 fpt when the foodbox reaches 15 food.
Comment on CF's comment: we certainly do not need markets anywhere, with 100% research rate. Even if happiness becomes a temporary problem, because this will certainly be solved after we kill France.
I listed some possible lux deals a while ago. Apart from that, Incans would pay a bit for Edu and Maya for Monarchy. Not much, but they are old techs, so we could consider.
Ozzy can switch from unmined grass to coast for +2 gold.
StF can switch from the bg with forestry to another bg, or to a mined grass even.
If you set GB on 4 fpt now and +3 fpt next turn, then it will make an extra shield on growth I think. It could use one more irrigated tile for growth every 2 turns.
We need more workers on Indian Island. A lot can be gained here in beaker output with some forestry.
Wetlands at KZ are not a priority IMO. Last on my list after improving Indian Island and joining workers to cities (Theo, StF).
I do not fear the Spanish navy. Caravels defend better than they attack.
What to do with our troops in France?

They will not be able to do much good around Bergen. The town is heavily fortified, and we already have two pikes there for pillaging the roads. The pikes would be able to hold up any French troops returning from the war front for quite a while, as long as we keep them on good terrain (hills and mountains, maybe jungle to pillage more).
We are of course not attacking the forts.
Paris was doing 30 spt just a few turns back, so it will need 8 turns for Cops. Can we attack Paris in 8? If not, then pillaging and occupying tiles around Paris to slow it down would be good - ideally Cops finishes just the turn before we attack. Note that there are only three wool adjacent to Paris, so after we have pillaged all roads, most of our troops could stay 2 tiles away from Paris and be rather safe. And pillaging alone would already take away 10 spt.
We do need to be able to ship our units out for healing. We could use Deadly to shuttle between Trondheim and Paris/Orleans, and Shot in the Dark can perhaps do the same on the south shore (and alternatively block Paris harbor).

Pic for the French theatre:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM12_AD0250_france.jpg

I would pillage at least all the marked tiles.

ControlFreak

May 04, 2007, 06:01 PM

Since we're using New Caravel to bring troops to Orleans, the workers are last to get a ticket to India. Why not have them clear while the wait for Theo to build a second class passenger vessel.

The ferry routes to vikings are at least 5 or 6 turns away and are not a realistic solution for keeping the exising troops in France healthy. Maybe for the longer term after boats return to Orleans, they can set something up then.

I think it's worth attempting to bring the slow units (pikes/medi) along the northern blue dots. Bring the knights and ACs in another stack along the southern blue dots. They will pillage every turn and make it back to the Eastern coast about when the boats return with the Orleans strike force.

Ozzy's grass will be mined.

zyxy

May 05, 2007, 02:41 AM

I didn't consider logistics at all. Of course, if there are no seats for workers, then they cannot go to India Island and have to do something else. In that case I would join them to the former Japanese/Aztec towns where possible to bring up our beaker production. The marsh can be cleared by slaves.

We have 10 native workers on Japanese Island, and need 7 to bring the towns on this island other than KZ up to size 12. I would do that asap, also because we're paying significantly in army upkeep. As soon as a town goes over size 6, it should be brought to size 12 immediately, we've been slack on that.

This leaves 3 native workers. KZ is too good a town to keep building workers IMO. I would build 2 more workers out of KZ, bringing the total to 5 (or maybe a few more if we want some to speed up forestry and mining). Then start a university, let KZ grow to size 7, and join 5 workers. Any idle workers should plant forests and mine around KZ. It has 12 workable tiles including the fish and the lake, so there's no urge to clear the marsh yet.

On India Island, I think we can turn GB into a worker farm. It is further from FS than KZ and hence less interesting as a science town. Also, the workers would not need transport. GB has a granary, and with all those bg's it can probably do enough shields to become a 2-turner or at worst a 3-turner (for a proper 2-turner we may have to mine the mountain which of course will take a lot of time). Obviously we cannot wait for the uni to finish, so I would switch a pike. We will need some worker activity over here to get it up to speed.

It seems Deadly can pick up the first ferry load to Scandinavia in 4 turns. Perhaps I am underestimating the French, but with Bergen under some threat from the Vikings and Hittites, and Paris building wonders, I hope that a significant portion of our units will survive. Moreover, it seems that France is training slow movers (they have no horses maybe?), so after we pillage some roads we should be reasonably safe from longbow/MDI attack. Depending on how things develop, we could even divide our stacks so that we can pillage faster (and perhaps let the cheap pikes face the counters).

It's true that Ozzy's grass will be mined but it doesn't need the extra shield, does it?

The cow in use by Theo can be mined IMO.

ControlFreak

May 05, 2007, 06:28 AM

OK, I like zyxy's ideas with some corrections.

The worker in Theo should move to become StF's 12th pop. The workers planting near Theo will bring Theo to size 12 and add one to Ozzy. So one of the workers mining Ozzy will bring Ozzy to 12. The others will become part of KZ's staff. KZ has a lot of forestry to perform and a lot of mining to perform. The forest must be done before the mining so it doesn't have to be redone. Also, KZ is going to need 6 free workers to get to size 7 the moment that it is done building workers.

I don't think we've been lax in getting cities up to the right size, I just think that we've had more worker turns to do and not enough spare workers to join to the cities. Maybe what we did do wrong is add some to one town and some to another instead of all of them to one size 12?

Anyway, the slaves are about 8 turns from making it down to KZ (4 work turns planting and chopping the two forestable tiles, 4 turns walking). So I think that KZ keeps building workers for at least 4 more. That will give us 7 native worker, six of which can be be joined to KZ the moment that the slaves arrive. Making more workers (get to a total of 12) will mean that we can get the university built faster by getting more forests planted for the slaves to chop (as a stack they can chop one forest per turn, 9 workers plant in one, three workers mine every other.) But forestry chopping can't start until we're building the uni, or split the slaves up to chop 4 forests at a time due the same turn.

A worker farm in GB is a great idea, I'm sorry I missed it. Irrigating the spices within range of GB has priority after the small worker force finishes their current jobs.

I honestly haven't seen enough French troops to know if they are strong or not. I suspect that they have Knights because we just pillaged their horses and have had access to iron for quite a while. I also suspect that all their offense is at Viking/America since I can't see any of those units around Bergen. With that said, we can make three stacks of units that can pillage one tile per turn. Get the 1hp knight out on a boat to heal, we'll need him later. Each pike should travel with an AC so it can move and pillage. The 3/4Knight can take the rest of the ACs with it and move/pillage also. Pick a good path for each so they aren't doubling up often and isolate Paris as quickly as possible.

Both Ozzy and/or Theo are one shield short with mining the cow and the grassland the BG can be passed back and forth every other turn for a total of 20s/2turns.

CommandoBob

May 05, 2007, 11:57 PM

Return of the Pink Panther (new Caravel in Theo) E, NE, NE and NE (9+ MPs)
Gloriouz Battlez (GB) university -> rPike, 14 turns.

Wake A Shot in the Dark (Shot-Dark) with 3 MPs left, remove '(Dromon)' from the name, move E, to tend to the wounded 1/5 eKnight ashore.
Wake Pillager2 with 3 MPs left, move 1S, to be a hospital ship on the east coast of France.

Hit Enter.

French Longbow takes out the Ancient Cavalry NE of Paris (0 of 1).
French lose a Crusader to the Vikings (1 of 2).
Spain and Maya struggle NE of Oporto, Spain kills 1 and retreats (?) Maya attack and kill 2, losing 1 and claim the tile.
Spainish galley disappears to the North.
Maya units in Old India head NE, getting out of our way.

Kommando Zentral (KZ) worker -> worker, 2 turns.
Furzt Smurkz vMace -> vMace, 2 turns.
Oporto courthouse -> caravel, 14 turns.

Russians are building Copernicus' Observatory.
So are the French (?). Change of cities? No, it is Paris (again?)

[I]01 260 AD

France
Mace and Pike NE of Paris:
Attack the redlined Longbow on the hill and pillage next turn or pillage in place? Consider killing the Longbow, but Paris can produce a Longbow in 1 turn (40 shields normal cost). I think this is what Paris did; changed Copernicus to a Longbow and started on Copernicus again. If we kill the Longbow, Paris makes another one (and doesn't build Copernicus). So we pillage with the Mace and fortify the Pike (1 of 2; 1 tile pillaged).

Stack 2SW of Paris:
1/5 eKnight SE and S into Shot-Dark.
Pike, Knight, 2 AC NE onto hill, which has no improvments.
Pike, Mace, 2 AC N to irrigated plains, which is pillaged (1 of 2; 2 tiles pillaged).

This stack has pillaged the French horse supply, that is why no one saw it.

Stack NE of France's Iron Colony:
vMace fortifies, rMaces pillages (1 of 2; 3 tiles pillaged).

Pillager 1 heads to Oporto.
Righteouz Flamez heads to Oporto.
Pillager 2, a Hospital ship, moves S and 3E, heading to the East coast of France.
Dark-Shot, with wounded Knight, moves to international waters, joining Pillager 2 in the same sea tile.

Old India
Maces in GB head to Oporto.
Slave 2NW of Smurkz the Wicked (StW) irrigates spices, it's current tile, 8 turns.
Ancient Cav and 2 Maces from the Pink Panther head to Oporto.
Pink Panther moves to be 3N of FS.

Old Japan
Forest planted N, NW of Smurkz the Fair (StF).
6 slaves in that tile, 4 chop (due in 2, Mace in StF builds in 1).
2 remaining slaves SW to help plant, now due in 4, down from 7.

New worker in Theo heads north to StF to make it size 12, arriving next turn.

4 workers SW of Ozzy finish the mine, need 4 forsests near KZ, so move 2W to an unworked irrigated grassland and plant a forest (9 WT) with three of the workers, due in 3 turns. Fourth worker moves W, W and SW to another unworked irrigated grassland.
New worker in KZ moves 2NW (same tile as the 4th worker) and begins a forest, due in 9.

Lonely Mace north of Theo moves into StF.

Return of the Pink Panther (ReturnOTPP) E, NE, N and N (9 MPs), now 3E of StF.

Smurkz
2 Maces in FS move NE and N to board the Pink Panther next turn.
4 slaves S of FS move SW onto Jungle, to clear. This is the last unimproved tile around FS.

Elsewhere
Zecond Wave, between Inca and Sumer, heads to Oporto.

French Longbow kills our Pike NE of Paris (1 of 3; 3 tiles pillaged).
Crusader dies to our Mace (2 of 4; 3 tiles pillaged).
Redlined Longbow from last turn dies promoting our Mace to Elite (3 of 5; 3 tiles pillaged).

French Longbow dies to our Pikes near the Iron Colony (4 of 6; 3 tiles pillaged).

Hittites want to talk.
They want an MA against the Babylonians. Babs are SCI, so we say No.

SoZ in StF makes Ancient Cavalry.
StF vMace -> vMace, 4 turns.

French are building Copernicus' Observatory (again). In Paris (again).

[I]02 270 AD

France
Knight, Pike and 2AC move NE, hill to plains, and pillage. Accidently let the Knight attack. One Trebuchet fired but our wounded Knight took out a Pike. This Knight is now at 2/4 (5 of 7; 4 tiles pillaged).
Mace, Pike and 2AC move N, plains to wooly plains, and pillage (5 of 7; 5 tiles pillaged).
Wounded eMace loads into Pillager2.

Iron Colony is undefended. Pike moved N towards Bergen and a Crusader has appeared out of the fog to the south. Check with MapStat; America has only one city, France has four, so New York must now be French. It must be 4NW and 1N of Washington.
Which means that the Iron Colony is 3 tiles from New York and thus safe from cultural expansion.
But not from workers and reconnecting.
Move both Pikes onto the Iron Colony and destroy it.

Due South of our Pikes, now fairly safe in a mountain, is a vCrusader.
1S and 1SW of our Pikes is the French Expeditionary Force: 2 vCrusaders, 1 eMace and 4 vPikes (2 wounded).

270 AD New York Located
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/270AD_IronColonyAndNewYork.jpg

Pillager1 heads to Oporto.
Righteous Flamez heads to Oporto.
Pillager2 moves to retrive our wounded eMace.
Deadly Flamez heads to Oporto.
Dark-Shot sails around the east coast of France, ending 5 NE of Paris, staying in international waters the whole time.

Old India
Needed to MM GB last turn and didn't, so it grows a turn late.
Wounded and healthy Mace arrive in Oporto, along with AC.

2 slaves finish a tundra road NW of Lisbon. Just NW of them, another slave finishes a chop next turn, adding 10 to the Mace being built. Move these two to the forest South of Lisbon. That chop will add to the next Mace.
2 Maces in GB head to Oporto, two turns away.

Old Japan
Worker to StF, joins city, now at size 12 and zero growth.
Forest replanted north of Theo.
Those 5 workers head to KZ.
Worker 2NW of KZ joins in forest planting, 4 turns.

ReturnOTPP W to coast and waits (3 MP of 9).

New AC in StF, E and E into ReturnOTPP.
The two Maces join (one new, one the lonely Mace).

ReturnOTPP, now fully loaded, sails due East, ending 2NW of Tarsus (Hittites).

Ozzy and Theo swap the mined BG.

Smurkz
4 slaves clear jungle, 12 turns.

Pink Panther moves SE and waits (3MP).

2 Maces board the Pink Panther.

FS will build a Mace next turn. It can load next turn but not unload.
So Pink Panther sails to Old India with these two Maces, which it can unload next turn and head back.
Sails NW, N, N, NW and W.

Elsewhere
Zecond Wave heads to Oporto.

Drop science slider to 30%, Banking in 1, +72 gpt.

Each of our French pillaging stacks lose their Pikes, one to a Knight, the other to a Longbow (5 of 9; 5 tiles pillaged).
The Pikes on the Iron kill one Crusader (6 of 10; 5 tiles pillaged).

We learn Banking. Begin Gunpowder, 29 turns at 30%.

KZ worker -> worker, 2 turns.
FS vMace -> vMace, 2 turns.
Ozzy vMace -> vMace, 5 turns.

And once again, the French are building Copernicus' Observatory. And once again, in Paris.

[I]03 280 AD

France
With their best defenders gone, the pillaging stacks are in a world of hurt. Now the best defenders are the ACs. Have one foot unit, a vMace, and five fast units.
Stack of Knight and 2 ACs SW of Paris move E and E, onto a tile we want to pillage. There is no wooly tile nearby to pillage. If they survive the French attacks they can load into our caravels offshore.
Stack of Mace and 2 ACs W and NW of Paris have a longer route to the east coast. Move all three NE to a wooly tile and ignore the French Knight (which is not wounded from killing our Pike). Tile is pillaged (6 of 10; 6 tiles pillaged).

On the former Iron Colony, both of our Pikes fortify in the mountain. The rPike is unharmed, the vPike is 1/4. Retreating northwards puts them in French territory, with no chance to heal.

Pillager2, with wounded Mace, moves E into international waters.
Dark-Shot moves to the same tile as Pillager2.
Both then move 2S, with only one coastal tile to enter to pick up survivors (think Dunkirk).

Old India
Pink Panther moves NW and NW (5 MP) and unloads two Maces, then moves SE and SE.

Slave NW of Smurkz the Wicked moves NW to help with spice irrigation, now due in 3 turns.
Worker NW of StW moves N to irrigate and road this spice.

Two slaves S of Lisbon begin forest chop (4 turns).
Slave 2NW of Lisbon moves SW, planning to head to Oporto to chop a tundra forest.

Two more Maces arrive in Oporto.

Deadly Flamez arrives 2S of Oporto (6MP) and stops.
Load in AC and 2 Maces.
Wake other Maces around Oporto and move to 1S of the city.

Pillager1 arrives 2S of Oporto.
Load 2 Mace into Pillager1.

Righteouz Flamez moves to Oporto, arrives next turn.

Old Japan
Forest harvested NW-N of StF, 4 slaves begin to mine (3 turns).

New Mace in Ozzy heads to Theo for transport.
Workers head to KZ.
New worker in KZ moves SW to another unworked irrigated grassland and plants trees (9 turns).

Smurkz

Elsewhere
ReturnOTPP, 2NW of Tarsus, moves to 4 NW of Karakorum, outside Hittite waters.
Zecond Wave heads to Oporto, ending in the same sea tile as Righteouz Flamez.

Raise science to 100%; Gunpowder in 9, -13 gpt, 378 gold.

In the Mace and 2AC stack, an AC is retreated, then killed (6 of 12; 6 tiles pillaged).
Both Pikes on the former Iron Colony are killed, not really harming their attackers (6 of 14; 6 tiles pillaged).

Spain wants to talk. We talk just to be nosey. Offers straight up peace. We say no. We have 14 turns MAs to keep.

????
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/280AD_FranceWonderAgain.jpg

And true to form, France is building Copernicus' Observatory. In Paris.

[I]04 290 AD

France
vMace and eAC are 2NW of Paris. Yellowed Longbow to the north on a mined BG. To the east is a wooly hill. If we kill the Longbow we can pillage the BG, which will affect Orleans not Paris. If we move east, we have to survive a counter attack before we can pillage the hill. Expect to face the still undamaged Knight and a healed Longbow. Attacking sounds better.
vMace vs vLongbow 2/4, Mace wins, now at 3/4 (7 of 15; 6 tiles pillaged).
vAC moves N with vMace and pillages this mined BG (7 of 15; 7 tiles pillaged).

Pillager2 moves W, into French costal waters and waits.
rAC pillages the wooly plain 2SE of Paris (7 of 15; 8 tiles pillaged).
Load the rAC into Pillage2.
Load the 2/4 vKnight into Pillage2.
Pillager2 moves E (5 MPs).
Shot-Dark moves W, into French coastal waters.
vAC boards Shot-Dark.
Shot-Dark moves E (5 MPs).
Both Caravels move 2N (9 MPs) into international waters.

290 AD Extent of French Pillaging
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/290AD_FrancePillaged.jpg

Old India
Unloaded Maces move to Oporto.
Worker 2SE of GB irrigates some spices (4 turns).
Slave NW, W of Lisbon moves to the forest north of Oporto, will begin to chop next turn.
Load a third Mace into Pillager1.
Zecond Wave arrives 2S of Oporto.
So does Righteouz Flamez.
Both are loaded with vMaces.

Fortified all 4 Caravels.

Old Japan
Forest completed N-NW of KZ.
Two workers move SW to help plant that forest, which now completes next turn.
Third worker moves 2S to help with the third forest, now due in 4 turns.
Stack of 5 workers, SW of Ozzy, move W and S, onto a just now unworked irrigated grassland.
All 5 make forest, due in 2 turns.

Ozzy and Theo sway the mined BG.
Mace from Ozzy stops in Theo, will load into new Caravel next turn.

Smurkz
Pink Panther moves to be 2N and 1NE of Furzt Smurkz.

Elsewhere
ReturnOTPP, 4 NW of Karakorum, moves to 4 NE of Karakorum, outside Hittite waters.

[IBT]
And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_AD0290_01.SAV).

Stopped after 4 turns.
Posted for review.
Plan to finish this turnset.

Summation:

Four caravels 2S of Oporto are fully loaded with 11 Maces and 1 AC.
They are fortified (to prevent accidental movement.)

Two have full movement, two have only 3 MPs left.

Prefer to move all at one time.

Pillaging has been bloodier than I expected. We have only two units left inside of France. We have five units in boats of the east coast of France.

New York has been captured by France and we know its location, but not it's terrain. It is isolated.

The survivors of the New York assualt were 2 vCrusaders, 1 eMace and 4 vPikes.
On the 280 AD IBT they moved to the old French Iron Colony south of Bergen.
On this IBT they will move 1 N onto another mountain, which is not roaded.
On 300 AD IBT they'll move north again, onto a roaded mountain.
On 310 AD IBT they'll move through Bergen to the eastern fort.
On 320 AD IBT they'll move to the hill 2SW of Paris.
On 330 AD IBT they'll move to the roaded plains NW of Paris.
On 340 AD IBT they'll be able to move into Paris and beyond.
I don't think they will be a factor when we attack Orleans. Paris, yes; Orleans no.

zyxy

May 06, 2007, 07:40 AM

Bloody indeed! But you handled it well, I think. At least part of our troops is safe on the ships. Too bad that our mountain pikes lost, that was really bad luck. The repeated messages on Cops mean that Paris was doing 1 turn longbows or other units and switching back to Cops everytime. Where were the French units near Paris coming from?

Will our troops on board the ships E of Paris heal? I think they will, but I am not completely certain.

The other ships should start for France asap! Perhaps should have started sooner, sometimes ship chains help... (Don't know if that's the case here, I'm leaving logistics to you and CF to handle :D).

New York was already captured on CF's set, I think.

Please look into trades. Maya have a whopping 9 gpt available, that doesn't happen often. Babylon has 54 gold and 3 gpt, maybe sell a tech? Or we can take an embassy with them and MA vs France?
I didn't check the other civs. In any case we can easily stop the bleeding of our treasury.

And why did you not join any workers to Theo or Ozzy? Also, StF and Theo can switch from mine to coast (Theo can in fact can do this for both mines on this turn, then the caravel still finishes in 1. Of course, switch back on the next turn for more shields).

I would have let the workers at FS mine the cow instead of chop the jungle. I fact, I would probably stop them now and switch to the cow.

KZ seems out of whack too. And if you remove all irrigation at once then the worker pump cannot run anymore. In fact, the worker pump is killed after the current worker. We would have to stop two of the worker crews to prevent this...

StW needs MM. Oporto should have been MM-ed for food last turn. But too late now...

I think there's enough irrigation around StW already. I would irrigate one of the spices for GB, and stop the worker on the other one. We need mines here.

In short: sorry if this all sounds harsh, but our empire is still fairly small. So MM every turn is not too difficult and still pays off...

ControlFreak

May 06, 2007, 09:37 AM

Groan. I second all of zyxy's comments and add that in four turns, we should have been able to pillage 8 tiles at a minimum with two stacks.

Please take this as a joke, but I know where that evil spy has been hinding.;)

CommandoBob

May 06, 2007, 02:49 PM

[After feedback]
Missed the note on the 5 workers near Ozzy. They need to be added to Ozzy and Theo.
Stop their tree making.

Continue with irrigation of spices between GB and StW, per ControlFreak in Post #464.

GB works the irrigated grass for one turn. It needs 7 extra food to grow; after this turn just three. Will switch work the roaded BG instead of the this tile next turn. Gives even growth (no lost surplus) and some shields towards an rPike.

Stop the treeplants SW of KZ (was due in 4).
One worker still have moves left. Still active.
How many forests do we want near KZ? I thought it was 4. I've not done planting/harvesting like this. Could planting a forest on a BG and then chopping it, change the BG to a regular grassland?

KZ works the irrigated-grass-that-was-almost-forest instead of the lake; worker still in 1, 4 extra food, commerce still at 10.

StW works the mined hill instead of irrigated grass; grows with no overflow.

Oporto works the coast instead of the irrigated grass; grows with no overflow; commerce of 7 instead of 6.

Theo converts two miners into fishers; caravel completes in 1, still grows in 8, commerce is 38 instead of 34.

StF converts two 1 shield miners into fishers; vMace in 1, still zero growth, commerce is 69 instead of 66.

Stops the jungle clearing slaves near FS; all move NE; they will mine the cow to the NE of the city.

Luxuries:
01 Furs (Imported from Arabia; 13 turns left)
01 Dyes (Imported from Sumeria; 1 turn left)
01 Silks (Imported from America; 8 turns left)
01 Gems (Imported from Egypt; 8 turns left)

The Trading Table
America
MA vs. France and ROP ends in 3 turns.
Silks for Ivory and 1 gpt (from us) ends in 8 turns.
will pay 32 gold for Astronomy.
Arabia
Furs for Ivory and 3 gpt (from us) ends in 8 turns.
MA vs. Iroquois and ROP end in 13 turns.
will pay 23 gold and 15 gpt for Astronomy.
OR
will pay 23 gold and 4 gpt for Spices.
Babylon
pays 5 gpt for Ivory; ends in 8 turns.
will pay 54 gold and 3 gpt for Astronomy.
Carthage
pays 1 gpt for something
MA vs. Iroquios and ROP end in 13 turns.
will pay 31 gold and 3 gpt for Monarchy
Celts
MA vs. France and ROP end in 3 turns.
will pay 6 gold for Chivalry.
England
cannot trade
Egypt
ROP and Gems for ROP and Ivory and Incense (from us) ends in 8 turns.
France
(at war)
Germany
will pay 1 gold for Monarchy.
Greece
MA vs Iroquois and ROP end in 13 turns.
will pay 20 gold and 4 gpt for Ivory.
OR
will pay 6 gpt for Ivory (no lump sum).
Hittites
buys Ivory 3 gpt
MA vs France and ROP end in 3 turns
will pay 15 gold for Astronomy
Inca
pays 7 gpt for Ivory; end in 9 turns.
will pay 8 gold for Education.
Iroquois
(at war)
Korea
MA vs. Spain and ROP end in 13 turns.
Maya
pays 2 gpt for Ivory (no end date)
will buy Monarchy for 9 gpt
MA vs Spain and ROP end in 3 turns
Netherlands
pays 35 gpt for something, this is the last turn.
pays 6 gpt for Ivory; ends in 8 turns.
Persia
will pay 6 gold for Astronomy
Rome
(at war)
Russia
MA vs. Iroquois and ROP end in 13 turns.
will pay 10 gold (no gpt) for Ivory
Scandinavia
pays 3 gpt for something (peace?); last turn of that.
MA vs. France and ROP and 1 gpt end in 3 turns.
will pay 11 gold for Monarchy
Spain
(at war)
Sumeria
trade for Dyes ends next turn.
will pay 3 gold for Education
Zululand
will pay 6 gold for Monarchy

After this turn we lose 35 gpt from the Netherlands and 3 gpt from Scandinavia; total of 38 gpt. Our economy is currently at -4 gpt.
We can sell Astronomy to the Arabs for 23 gold and 15 gpt (15 of 38).
We can sell Astronomy to Babylon for 54 gold and 3 gpt (18 of 38).
We can sell Monarchy to Carthage for 31 gold and 3 gpt (21 of 38).
We can sell Ivory to Greece for 6 gpt (27 of 38).
We can sell Monarchy to Maya for 9 gpt (36 of 38).

On our next turn we can sell Spice to the Netherlands, aiming for at least 2 gpt, which will bring our economy back to -4 gpt.

We could sell Monarchy around for whatever we can get out of it, mostly change. I don't think this is a good idea but I can't really say why I think that.

We will probably have to trade Education to get Dyes from Sumeria. Would rather trade a tech than gpt.

On our imported luxuries, is there a way to import two of the same luxury? Or must we wait until a deal with a luxury ends before we can try to buy more?
In my own games, it seems like I lose an imported resource on the IBT and everyone riots because of it, before I have a chance to buy it back.

MAs ending dates:
3 turns
America vs. France, renew with Astronomy.
Celts vs. France, renew with Chivalry.
Hittites vs. France, renew with Astronomy.
Maya vs. Spain, renew with a Chivalry or Education.
Scandinavia vs. France, renew with Monarchy.

America and Scandinavia will probably beg for our help. The Celts and Hittites may need more convincing.
Maya and Spain may continue on its own; want to be sure it does continue.

13 turns
Arabia vs. Iroquois
Carthage vs. Iroquois
Greece vs. Iroquois
Korea vs. Spain
Russia vs. Iroquois

And this modified save (no trades done yet) for 290 AD is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_AD0290_02.SAV).

****

...but I know where that evil spy has been hinding.;)

No spy; just paint fumes! :lol:

ControlFreak

May 06, 2007, 05:44 PM

No time for detailed comments right now, but will be on tomorrow morning.

However:
[After feedback]
will pay 20 gold and 4 gpt for Ivory.

No! We don't want the 20g on their side. it will cost us our rep if the trading route is blocked. revise all these evaluations to only put gpt on the AI side of the per turn deals.

The MA's don't need to be renewed unless the civ declares peace.

Monarchy is great to trade around. It provides no major advantage and it prevents the 50 turn useless research the weak AI's are prone to do.

ControlFreak

May 07, 2007, 11:48 AM

Long past due screen shots of the embassy views established on my turnset.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Salamanca.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Moscow.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Mecca.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Entremont.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Carthage.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Beijing.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Athens.jpg

zyxy

May 07, 2007, 12:03 PM

OK, we should have discussed forestry more. A forest counts as a resource (like cow) and doesn't destroy the bg. It does hide the effects of the bonus while the forest is there - a forest always produces 1 food and 2 shields.

The purpose of forestry is twofold:
First, we get 10sh each time we chop one, so we want to plant/chop each tile once.
Second, a forest is a good way to balance food in cities that have reached maximum size and get a few more shields. When all grass tiles are mined, KZ can produce 3 surplus food (2 from city center, 1 from fish). Working the mined hill will use up one of the surplus, so that leaves two, meaning we can plant two forests of grass tiles. The forests produce 1 food less than a mined grass, but 1 shield more (if it's not a bg). So this trades the two surplus food (that are simply wasted in a town that is at max size) for two extra shields.

Now for the details:

Of the five workers N-NE of KZ, I would join 4 to Theo and 1 to Ozzy.

The remaining workers can clear marsh I think, until the moment we want to stop the worker pump. Marsh clearing takes 16 worker turns. For example, the worker that can move can clear the marsh next to him, joined next turn by the other one and the new worker from KZ. The stack of four that's foresting will finish next turn and can move to the other marsh in KZ's radius.

I guess we'll want to do 2-3 more workers from KZ. At that point, start a uni, join workers (after KZ has grown to size 7) and let the remaining workers plant/chop forests around KZ. Eventually we remove all irrigation to balance food and probably keep some forests around, on non-bg's.

KZ can work the Elephant this turn instead of one of the bg's for two more beakers.

If CF said we should irrigate both spices at GB, then I don't agree with him :D. We only need one irrigated tile more for GB, and none for StW. In fact, both towns need a lot of mines to get some production going.

StF can in fact change another miner to fisher to bring beaker output to 60!

Good overview of the trades! And good catch that we will lose the Dutch trade! I agree with CF that we should not sell per turn goods for upfront payments - it's too risky before ocean trading. The other way around (we pay upfront for per-turn goods) is ok.

I would:
- sell Astro to Arabia for all their gold+gpt.
- sell Astro to Babylon for all their gold + gpt.
- sell Monarchy to Maya for all their gpt.
- sell Monarchy to Carthage for all their gold + gpt.
- sell ivory to Greece for 6 gpt. Then, sell them spices for as much gpt as they will give. They have 12 gpt now.
- when trades end, try to renew them, especially lux deals.

Of course we'll be selling below market price, but these guys will be left behind anyway. (And Babylon needs to get a free tech for us.)
On the next turn, check for deals with the Dutch! If a lux doesn't get all their gpt, or if they have a lot of gold, I would sell Astro.

Good luck!

ControlFreak

May 07, 2007, 12:51 PM

Per zyxy's request, the details of shipchaining the 12 units from Oporto:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_Orleans_Strike.jpg

Following the rainbow:
On current turn (290AD - Turn 4) wake the boats. The partially moved boats, Righteous Flamez and Zecond Wave, move one tile south to red dot and ignore their last move point. The unmoved boats Deadly Flamez and Pillager 1 move to Orange Dot.
Next turn (300AD - Turn 5) Righteous and Zecond move to yellow dot. Deadly and Pill1 move to green dot. Shot in the Dark and Pillager 2 (off the coast of France) move to green dot also. These two boats are going to extend Righteous and Zecond's range next turn.
Next turn (310AD - Turn 6) Righteous and Zecondmove to green/blue dot. Transfer the units back and forth between Shot/Pill2 and Righteous/Zecond. To do this, wake unit from a full boat and load, it will automatically go onto the boat with the empty slot. The boat that you selected the unit from will now have an empty slot. In the begining, Shot in the Dark will have an empty slot. Zecond wave will have a Medi that belongs on Shot in the Dark. Wake the Medi from Zecond wave, hit load and the Medi will be on Shot in the Dark. Zecond now has an empty slot. Zecond is stuck with low Move Points, so next wake a wounded unit from Shot in the Dark and load it into Zecond. Repeat until Dark has all healthy units headed for Orleans. Zecond should now have 2 wounded units. Make a hole on Pillager 2 by moving one of it's units to Zecond. Now start moving units from Righteous to Pillager 2. When finished the units that are "resting should be in Zecond and Righteous. The units that are heading to Orleans should be in Shot in the Dark and Pillager 2. Note: if the Knight is fully healed, it should be swapped to Deadly by waking the AC from Deadly, loading it into Zecond or Righteous, and replacing it with the Knight.
Same turn (310 -Turn 6)Deadly, Pillager 1, Shot in the Dark and Pillager 2 Move to the Purple dot. Wake all 12 units and unload them to the tile N of Orleans. If we take the city next turn, the wounded attackers will be safe from counter attack on this tile.

The worker SW of KZ should join the 5 moved workers so that the six units can move towards Ozzy/Theo next turn. They will bring both towns to max pop.

KZ needs to be set to 5fpt, 3spt. That will return it to the worker cycle. I think we can build workers for the next 6 turns (3 more) which will give us eight total. After the third is built, we switch to university and let it grow in 2 turns, the workers will finish their actions, and five of them will join to the town to make it size 12. The remaining three workers are used to remine the chopped area and then slowly clear the marsh for further forestry. In the 6 turns we're still building workers we use the next five turns to plant three more forests. (Pink dots on the screenshot. The first is due in one, the others can be done in 2 turns each using the five existing workers. New workers move to the unroaded marsh to road it.) The sixth turn we split up the workers into four stacks of two and chop them so they finish the first turn we're building the university.

NOTE: This is the tiles to run the worker factory. But we need to use a lake instead of one of the BG's for 3spt over the next two turns to minimize overrun and add beakers.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_SG12_KZ_forestry.jpg

No more time for more advice. Sorry. I think the MM issue is extremely important and zyxy was just being nice. I also think moving units in Paris' territory is shifting it's worker allocations and triggering it to build LBs. If we stay out of Paris for a few turns, it should build up enough shields that it won't want to switch builds anymore.

CommandoBob

May 07, 2007, 01:08 PM

I agree with CF that we should not sell per turn goods for upfront payments - it's too risky before ocean trading. The other way around (we pay upfront for per-turn goods) is ok.

Trading
So for now (until we have ocean trading) this is how our trading breaks down:

When we buy:
We buy tech for gpt: OK
We buy tech for lump sum: OK
We buy tech for lump sum and gpt: OK

We buy lux for gpt: OK
We buy lux for lump sum: OK
We buy lux for lump sum and gpt: OK

When we sell:
We sell tech for gpt: OK
We sell tech for lump sum: OK
We sell tech for lump sum and gpt: OK

We sell lux for gpt: OK
We sell lux for lump sum: not OK
We sell lux for lump sum and gpt: not OK

Hospital Ships
Our wounded units have healed offshore in our Caravels. We can move through French waters and still heal on that turn, as long as we don't end the turn in French waters. IIRC, all three wounded units will be a full strength in two more turns. We have 5 units on these two ships.

Operation Torch
We have two fully loaded Caravels south of Oporto that can move this turn. Both have their full movement available to use. We have two more that have only 3MP left, which means they could move into a sea tile from the coastal tile they are in right now.

I would prefer to move them all together next turn, so that they arrive at one time. They would land all at one time and only have to suffer through one round of counter attacks from the French. The French have no horses (for now) but they have one Knight, which came from Orleans. They can and do make Longbows in Paris. By landing E/NE of Orleans the Paris LBs cannot attack us on the turn we land. They can move next to us but cannot attack. They cannot reach Orleans either (in one turn).

Which would let us deal with Orleans in relative safety.

EDIT:
Cross posted with ControlFreak.

ControlFreak

May 07, 2007, 02:42 PM

BTW, moving Return of the Pink Panther very carefully through the ocean tiles should clear enough fog to maximize (9 full tiles movement) it's range. We should be really close to dropping off the same turn as the rest of Operation Torch. If we can't drop off on the same tile as the other troops, at a minimum, we should be able to hit the coast and drop off the three units directly W of Orleans.

CommandoBob

May 07, 2007, 03:01 PM

We still have two units in France, an AC and a Mace. If we use the hospital ships to help invade (which is a good idea), then these two units will probably die in France.

Pillage the wool around Orleans?

zyxy

May 07, 2007, 03:08 PM

CB, you're right on the trading. Also allowed is selling tech for any combination of lump sum, gpt, lux and tech. (Just treat tech as being in the same class as lump sum.)

Thanks CF for the explanation of the logistics. Looks good to me! Most important to remember about the shuffle in step 3 is that we want the best units (fully healed units only, then select highest attack, then select highest defense) on the boats with movement points, and we want these boats to be full. Also good thinking about the drop off point.

EDIT: Yes, if the tile W-SW-SW-SW of Entremont is sea, then The Return of the Panther can move there next turn and drop off directly north of Orleans on the turn after. Obviously we have to move very carefully through the ocean, so that the ship is not lost.

Question: do we want to keep Orleans ourselves, or gift it to, say, the Vikings? The latter option means we don't have to defend it, just park some units next to it, and we're not hurt in case it flips back. Drawback is of course that we may have to take it back from the Vikes later.

I think I have a better solution for KZ. We can set it to +5spt, +5 fpt by working the fish, two irrigated grass and 3 mined bg's. Next turn the worker has been built and KZ will have dropped to size 5. Then we can do +5 fpt and +5 spt (counting the shields gained on growth from the mine) working the fish, 2 irrigated grass, a mined bg and the ivory. It should be possible to keep it going like that without losing any turns.
EDIT: we don't need the tile NW-NW of KZ that CF shielded in his pic. So you can safely plant a forest there.

CF's comments on Paris and wonder builds are probably spot on, so I was wrong to say we should stay there and pillage. Sorry... :blush:

EDIT: @CB: the two units are probably lost. You could move them into the forest, fortify and hope for the best...

On another note:
Interesting embassy shots.

Notice how all the AI are at 60% tax and 40% science. Also notice that many of them lack basic buildings in their capital (like granary or library) but do have more expensive ones, like colosseum. This suggests that 40% is the minimum science rate at Deity level (IIRC it was 30% in our Ghandi-to-the-stars game, and that was Emperor), but that the AI's cannot balance the budget at this rate and have been losing buildings...

zyxy

May 07, 2007, 03:49 PM

Here's an alternative to CF's logistics:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM12_AD0290_boats.jpg

Using the same color coding as as CF, the blue move, and the green move of the hospital ships have changed. This puts the 5 reserve units closer to the front, but still in international waters for healing.

Another alternative is to use cyan instead of blue, and move the hospital ships according to green-pink instead of green-purple. This splits our stack and lands part of it in a spot that will be vulnerable after taking Orleans, but it allows to land all units at once.

The return of the Panther could do this if the red dotted tile is sea, and the other red tiles are ocean:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/SGOTM12_AD0290_boat2.jpg

CommandoBob

May 08, 2007, 12:05 AM

[After more feedback]
MM
In KZ, work the fish, two irrigated grasslands and three mined BGs; +5 fpt and 5 spt. Grow in 2, worker in 1.
Worker goes back to planting trees SW of KZ (9 turns).

StF, miner to fisher, commerce at 71 (+2), beakers at 60 (+2).

GB, wake the worker 2SE and stop irrigating, will begin mining the spice next turn. Irrigating just started, so only one turn lost.

Operation Torch
Righteous Flamez and Zecond Wave move 1S, to sea tile and stop.
Deadly Flamez and Pillager1: SW, S, 3SW, W and SW (9+ MPs), now 2S of the east tip of Spain.

Trading
(attempting to replace the 35 gpt we lose next turn from the Netherlands).
Sell Astronomy to the Arabs for 23 of 23 gold and 15 gpt (15 of 35).
Sell Astronomy to Babylon for 54 of 54 gold and 3 gpt (18 of 35).
Sell Monarchy to Maya for 0 of 0 and 9 gpt (27 of 35).
Sell Monarchy to Carthage for 31 of 31 gold and 3 gpt (30 of 35).
Sell Ivory to Greece for 0 of 21 gold and 6 gpt (36 of 35).
Sell Spices to Greece for 0 of 21 gold and 5 gpt (41 of 35).

Hit Enter.

French vKnight attacks the vAC and dies, promoting the vAC to eAC 3/5 (8 of 16)
Healthly Longbow kills the wounded eAC (9 of 17).

Mayans head southwards from Korea in Old India.

Smurkz the Fair vMace -> vMace, 5 turns.
(Forest completes, work a mined BG instead of that tile; back to zero growth. Two fishers become two miners to get vMace in 4; 68 commerce, 58 beakers).
Lisbon vMace -> vMace, 10 turns.
Kommando Zentral worker -> worker, 4 turns.
(Work the fish, 2 irrigated grasslands, 1 mined BG and ivory; +5 fpt, +3 spt; grows in 1.)
Furzt Smurkz vMace -> vMace, 2 turns.
Theo the Whacka' vCaravel (Pink Panther Strikes Again) -> vCaravel, 8 turns.
(2 fishers become miners, caravel in 5).

Koreans (not France!) are building Copernicus' Observatory.
So are the Babylonians.
And the Arabs.
And the French (once again, one more time).

We lost our supply of Dyes (Sumeria).

05 300 AD

Trading
Sumeria has the only dyes available to trade.
Wants Ivory and Spice for Dyes.
OR
Education for Dyes.
Sumeria is SCI.
Trade Education for Dyes.

Netherlands has 0 gold and will not trade for Astronomy or Spices.

Domestic
Oporto and StF both have 1 too many unhappy people.
Raise luxuries to 20% for one turn, until the Dyes come in again.

Oporto still had 1 unhappy citizen at 10%; StF was fine at 10%.

France
vMace 3/4, SW and S of Orleans moves W into the forest. The longbow that killed the AC is defended by a fortifie vPike.
Pillager2 and Shot-Dark move to zyxy's purple dot 2E, 2NE of Orleans.

Old India
Worker 2SE of GB begins a mine (6 turns).
Maces towards Oporto.
Slave N of Oporto begins chop (8 turns).
MM Oporto (work hill instead of grass) to make Caravel in 6, not 10, which would waste part of the chop.

Righteous Flamez and Zecond Wave move to ControlFreak's Yellow Dot.
Deadly Flamez and Pillager1 arrive at ControlFreak's Green Dot.

Old Japan
Forest 2NW of KZ completed.
There are 6 workers around KZ, four in this stack and two SW of KZ. Of those 2, one is already making a forest.
KZ is a two-turn worker pump (I think).
Having all six workers plant a forest will take just as long as 5 workers (2 turns) and it prevents me from trying to build a road in a marsh while we need workers to chop forests for KZ's university.
Worker stack of 4 join the two workers SW of KZ to plant trees (2 turns).
Argh! New worker in KZ makes me look like an idiot!
Have him join the tree planting party, too.

Stack of 5 workers NE of KZ head NE and arrive in Ozzy.

4 slaves chop the forest they just planted (2 turns), NW of StF.

Mace in Theo loads into Pink Panther Strikes Again (PPSA).
PPSA 3NW, all coastal.

New Mace in StF 2E into Pink Panther (moved earlier and described below).
Pink Panther has 3 Mace aboard.

Pink Panther (5 MPs used) moves W (7 MP), NW (8 MP) and W again (9+ MP)

Smurkz
4 slaves move onto cow; replace irrigation with a mine (3 turns).

2 Maces in FS NE, N and N and load into Pink Panther.

Pink Panther sails 2NE (5 MPs), now 2E of StF and waits.

Elsewhere
ReturnOTPP, 4 NW of Karakorum, sails NE (1 MP), E (2 MP), SE (3 MP), S (4 MP), S (5 MP), S (6 MP), SE (7 MP), SE (8 MP) and E into a sea tile (9+ MP).
The tile W-3SW of Entremont is an ocean tile.
ReturnOTPP is currently W-2SW of Entremont.
Won't able to land units next turn.

We are at -14 gpt, paying 39 gpt in unit costs (up from 30 in 250 AD).

Stopped here.

Need to sell Monarchy around to help offset our cash shortfall.

Plan to play two more turns, hopefully capturing Orleans, and then pass the game on.

And thes save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_AD0300_01.SAV).

ControlFreak

May 08, 2007, 05:08 AM

Return of the Pink Panther can S(sea),S(ocean),S(ocean),SE(ocean),E(sea),E(coast) and dropoff directly W of Orleans to join the attack.

I really like you're use of the hospital ships to land their troops as well, zyxy. So your directions are clear...hospital moves to blue while Righteous and Zecond move to Yellow. Next turn, Righteous and Zecond move to Cyan. Then hospital ships move SW, unload their healing troops, move East to Cyan and pickup the troops in Right and Znd and return W to drop them off as well. Brilliant.

CB, you workers are still messed up. You were supposed to send the unmoved worker in 290AD with the other 5 to fill Ozzy and Theo. They need 4+2=6. You're one short. You were also supposed to finish the forest IBT 290 and 300. In 300 the four foresters would be joined by the new worker to make 5 which is as close as you can hope for to plant (9WT) in 2 turns. The next new worker was going to start the road in the Marsh. For now, carry on, but be careful about not only what you have available but when new things are going to be available as well.

Good luck and Godspeed in Orleans. I wouldn't gift it unless a huge stack shows up.

CommandoBob

May 08, 2007, 06:25 AM

CB, you workers are still messed up. You were supposed to send the unmoved worker in 290AD with the other 5 to fill Ozzy and Theo. They need 4+2=6. You're one short. You were also supposed to finish the forest IBT 290 and 300. In 300 the four foresters would be joined by the new worker to make 5 which is as close as you can hope for to plant (9WT) in 2 turns. The next new worker was going to start the road in the Marsh. For now, carry on, but be careful about not only what you have available but when new things are going to be available as well.
Ah, so that's where I messed up! I thought all those workers (the four that finished the forest 2NW of KZ and the two SW of KZ) were supposed to make forests. And for some reason I have this idea we plan to make 4 forests around KZ, of which two are now complete (2NW and N-NW of KZ). I was too focused on KZ.

We will build three more workers from KZ. Counting the seven outside the city, this makes 10. But we only need 8 to do the mass forest chop that will get the university started (2 workers per forest), so one of the current workers goes to Ozzy and the another one starts to road the marsh (16 turns). Once the mass forest chop is done, five workers join the city and the other three begin to mine the BGs again.

But no matter what, it appears that the next two workers we build can do little but help plant trees around KZ. And that really bugs me, because I can't grasp the idea of workers being idle like that.

EDIT:

What's even more mind boggling is that ControlFreak appears to be OK with that idea. :crazyeye: Which means I must have missed something. :help:

ControlFreak

May 08, 2007, 08:37 AM

Nobody said I was OK with wasting 2 workers for 2 turns. I just haven't had a chance to look and if you were going to play, I believed that you have the right "to do" list, just maybe not the most efficient way to get the list accomplished. (Oh, crap, I sound like my wife.)

I'll look at it and see if I can " :help: ".

CommandoBob

May 08, 2007, 08:58 AM

I was planning to wake 2 workers this turn. One makes a marsh road and one goes to Ozzy. The remaining five keep planting the forest, due in 2 turns.

In two turns the third forest completes and we build another worker.

The five can make a fourth forest and the sixth can...?

Hmm.
Or maybe once we have all four forests planted, we let 1 worker per forest chop and send everyone else to help with the marsh road?

zyxy

May 08, 2007, 12:01 PM

CommandoBob

May 08, 2007, 01:11 PM

What happened at KZ was just this: I got confused. I have gotten into the habit off trying to determine the best use of a worker within the worker's walking distance. So six workers around KZ must have something to do around KZ. It did not occur to me to send one to Ozzy.

Gee, I was confused enough to think that Gandalf ControlFreak had made a mistake in counting workers. :blush: :D

ControlFreak

May 08, 2007, 01:39 PM

The reason that our towns are unhappy is not that we lost a lux - you renewed the deal, so the dyes are still being delivered. The reason is War Weariness.

I don't think that Lisbon and Oporto are worth a 10% increase in lux tax, so I would reduce the lux rate to 10%, and hire a scientist in Oporto and Lisbon for one turn. Next turn, an MDI can serve as MP there and they'll be fine.

I don't understand how come we're suddenly losing a lot of money again, but there's not much to do about it. Selling tech or lux won't help much as there's not much cash or gpt around, but perhaps a good deal will show up in a turn or 2.

I don't understand what you are trying to do with the workers around KZ. But maybe you didn't know that if you cancel a worker job, then the turns that that worker invested are lost?
Planting a forest takes 9 worker turns. So if you let 7 workers do the job, it will take 2 turns. If you let 5 workers do it, it will take 2 turns. Meaning that currently at least 2 workers are wasting their time...
I agree that war weariness is going to start becoming an issue. we are losing lots of units to France and will continue for the near future. Lisbon and Oporto can an should hire scientists at this point, especially if we're pursuing the Worker farm in GB, keep the unhappy towns to low growth rate and then add workers quickly after france is eliminated. For now the lux tax should be at 10% because without it, FS and StF are unhappy and that does justify lux.

Troops waiting for a ride to France can MP while their waiting but they should not be considered "locked into babysitting".

I think we got some decent gpt payments when France was strong and buying things from the other AI's who in turn paid us for old techs. But now France is past their GA and suffering under the load of their large army. I also think that things get bad quickly because we're over the allowed limit and making 2 or 3 new units every turn. I don't see a way around this until France is eliminated so just keep checking for per turn deals. By the way, if a civ has gpt, I would rather sell them luxuries than techs. Selling luxuries to our allies makes them happy which makes them research faster and earn more gpt. Giving them luxuries ruins our rep if the trade route is broken so don't give luxuries away, but rather, sell them for cut rate gpt deals.

I agree that you have been waking a lot of workers, some perhaps unnecessarily (why can't GB have finished the irrigation on the spices?). You have admittedly not moved the workers as I would have. But sometimes it's better to reassess how you can continue on, rather than "undoing" mistakes. In the case of the KZ workers. You should have moved one of them to Ozzy. You didn't and started a forest. Once the forest was started, the next turn there were 8 turns left so you only needed to join 3 workers to the 1 worker and it would have been perfectly completed in 2 turn. You didn't and joined 6. That means there is exactly one worker turn left. If KZ's worker was due in one turn, it could move to the tile, finish planting the forest and free all 7 workers to do something else. If we don't want to sacrifice KZ's growth even further, then the next best thing is to wake the THREE extra workers so they can do something productive next turn.

What happened at KZ was just this: I got confused. I have gotten into the habit off trying to determine the best use of a worker within the worker's walking distance. So six workers around KZ must have something to do around KZ. It did not occur to me to send one to Ozzy.

Gee, I was confused enough to think that Gandalf ControlFreak had made a mistake in counting workers. :blush: :D
I make plenty of worker counting mistakes.

CommandoBob

May 09, 2007, 12:19 AM

[After even more feedback, all of which was useful]
Raise science to 90%, luxuries at 10%.
StF is fine, Oporto still cranky.
Hire a geek in Oporto. zero growth.

Didn't think about Lisbon hiring a geek. Do so now.

KZ's worker due in 2.
SW of KZ, wake a worker than can move and send him towards Ozzy.
Wake two more, one to road the marsh, the other to begin to forest the mined BG NW of KZ.

Hit Enter.

Longbow kills our Mace in France (9 of 18).
French galley moves to zyxy's blue dot.

Iroquois want to talk. We do not.

Bad News
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/300AD_IBT_PeaceTrimmed.jpg

Spain and Maya make peace.

[I]06 310 AD

Operation Torch
The French galley actually works to our advantage by occupying zyxy's Blue Dot.
Zecond Wave and Righteouz Flamez can end their moves 1NW of the galley, which means their units will unload not due E of Orleans but 1NE of it, and out of range of first turn attacks from Paris by Longbows.
These two ships move SW (ocean/1 MP), W (ocean/2 MP), W (sea/4 MP), W (ocean/5 MP), W (ocean/6 MP), W (ocean/7 MP), NW (ocean/8 MP) and W (sea/9+ MP), ending 2E and 1NE of Orleans.

Pillager1 and Deadly Flamez move W (ocean/1 MP), W (ocean/2 MP), W (sea/4 MP), W (coast/7 MP) and W (coast/9+ MP)

Pillager2 and Shot-Dark move E (coast/3 MP) and SE (coast/6 MP).

ReturnOTPP sails S (sea/2 MP), S (ocean/3 MP), S (ocean/4 MP), SE (ocean/5 MP), E (sea/7 MP) and E (coast/9+ MP), 2 W of Orleans.

Pillager2 and Shot-Dark unload 5 units (2 AC, 2 Knights and a Mace).
Both sail E (sea/8 MP) and pick up 3 Maces each.
Both sail W (coast/9+ MP) and unload 6 Maces.

Deadly Flamez and Pillager1 unload their units, 1 AC and 5 Maces.
???
One of the Maces loaded into these boats was redlined from Old India. I thought it would heal on the trip overseas, but both turns ended in Spanish waters, which I overlooked, and so it did not heal. Let's hope we don't need that Mace. :mad:

ReturnOTPP unloads its three units, an AC and 2 Mace. A Longbow and Pike are in the forest to the SW.

So NE of Orleans are 17 units; W of Orleans are 3 units.

France

Old India
Spice irrigation completes.
GB works that spice.
Those two slaves move W onto a BG, to mine and road.

Old Japan
Name on active worker Marshwiggle; he goes to make a marsh road (W and N).
Name the other active worker Johny Appleseed; he moves N to start a forest.
Move a worker (Ozzy Pop 12) into Ozzy, join next turn.

Add a worker to Ozzy, now at size 11.
Move 4 workers to Theo, will enter and join next turn.

Four slaves NW of StF head to KZ, several turns to get there.

Smurkz
Hit the space bar by accident and Pink Panther stays at sea for an extra turn; has 3 Maces headed to Old India.
PPSA sails N (coast/3 MP) and NW (coast/3 MP), in place to pick up the Mace in FS next turn.

Trading
Get the Mayas to another MA vs. Spain for no cost.
Maya declare war on Spain (again).

Sell Monarchy to Zulu for 3 of 3 gold.
Almost sell Monarchy to Vikings for 2 gpt, until I see that we have no trade routes with the Vikiings.
Our MA expires this IBT, so we'll keep Monarchy back for one turn, in case we need bait for the MA.
Now I regret selling Monarchy to Zulu; it makes it that much easier for the Vikings to learn it.
Won't sell anymore this turn.

The Orleans Battlegrounds 310 AD
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/310AD_OrleansTrimmed.jpg

On the west side of Orleans, we lose our AC to that pesky Longbow (9 of 19).
On the east side of Orleans, some Crusaders show up. A Longbow dies to our Knight (10 of 20).

Kommando Zentral worker -> worker, 2 turns.
Furzt Smurkz vMace -> vMace, 2 turns.
Ozzy Smurkz vMace -> vMace, 5 turns.

[I]07 320 AD

France

Old India
Two slaves begin mine on BG SW and S of GB (6 turns).

Two slaves begin to road the grassland S of Lisbon (3 turns).

Old Japan
Add Ozzy Pop 12 (worker) to Ozzy, now at size 12.
New Mace in Ozzy moves northward.

Add four workers to Theo, now at size 12.

Marshwiggle begins marsh road, only 6 turns.

Forest did not complete SW of KZ. Four workers still there.
New worker from KZ move SW to add to and hopefully complete the forest. And he does.

PPSA, with one Mace already aboard, moves NE (sea/2 MP) and NE (coast/5MP) and waits.
New vAC in StF loads.

Forest chopping slaves begin mine 2NW of StF (3 turns).

Smurkz
New Mace tries to boards PPSA, but my finger slipped.

Elsewhere
Pink Panther N (sea 2/MP), N (ocean/3 MP), NW (sea/5 MP) and W (coast/8 MP) and unloads 3 Maces.
Moves E (sea/9+ MP).

Battle of Orleans
vMace vs. vPike, Pike wins (10 of 21).
vMace vs. vPike, Pike wins (10 of 22).
vMace vs. vPike, Mace wins (11 of 23).
vMace vs. vPike, Mace wins (12 of 24).
vMace vs. vPike 3/4, Mace wins (13 of 25).
vMace vs. vSpear, Mace wins (14 of 26).
eMace vs. vPike 2/4, Mace wins but does not promote (15 of 27).

Good News
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a358/Box180295/SGOTM12-Smurkz/320AD_OrleansTrimmed.jpg

And Orleans is ours!
Orleans has 10 resisters (no surprise).
Change the clown to a geek.
We liberate 1 Viking slave.
Orleans lacks a barracks, but has a harbor and market.

[IBT]
The turn is not finished, but it is too late for me to continue, so I'll pass it on at this point. Two fumbel finger mistakes and a bunch of typos convince me to end this turnset and go to bed. :D

Some units and workers can still be moved.

There is a Crusader SE of Orleans protected by a Pike. I think it is a new arrival from Paris and not part of the New York wrecking crew.
We have two slaves to capture just S of Orleans.
No Knights or Horseman attacked us after we invaded, so the Horses are still unconnected. Or Paris is still building Copernicus' Observatory, which is just as good.

Only Pink Panther has used all its movement. PPSA has some left; the other caravels have not moved yet.

We have six caravels off the east coast of France and in theory we could ship chain 6 units at a time. We just need to have 6 units ready to ship.

I don't see a way to ship chain from Smurkz and Old Japan to Old India. This route has three end points: Smurkz for FS, Old Japan for StF and Ozzy and Old India to unload. This may work better as a loop (Smurkz -> Old Japan -> Old India) than a straight line ship chain, which has only two end points.

And the save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Smurkz_SG012_AD0320_01.SAV).

Niklas

May 09, 2007, 12:59 AM

Nice going, not a single lost unit in the battle for Orleans! :goodjob:

And nice going team, to keep up the discussion and play in my semi-absence. Unfortunately I don't seem me coming back any time soon. I'm officially on sick leave now, and I really can't risk anything in my recovery. :sad: But keep up the great play! :whipped: :D

ControlFreak

May 09, 2007, 08:25 AM

The tavern was quiet, only the sound of scribbling pencil murmured softly in the background. ControlFreak was once again busily writing "to do" lists and then promptly crumpling them up, throwing them on the floor and starting another as if he knew no one would be reading them, but he couldn't help writing them.

zyxy was leaning back in the chair looking pensively at the ceiling and Niklas was staring at the table, his arm in a sling that made him look mortally wounded. His injury was not life threatening but it had kept him away from the group for a long while and did not seem to be healing as fast as anyone would have wished. sercer and the rest of the locals had been busy for a few weeks and had not stepped into the bar in quite a while. Something about studying or testing or something like that. So it was just the three amigos for the moment.

Abruptly the silence was broken as CB crashed through the swinging doors. His face bore a huge grin that was at once elated and at the same time exhausted. His left arm was raised, fist clenched, in a pose of victory that you could smell from across the room. The team knew the pose was one of success, but also wished the arm would be lowered soon so as not to replace the bar comfortable musty, meady smell with the putrid body odor eminating from CB's exposed pit.

Under the other arm, clenched in a tight lock, was a small, bald head. A slight body trailed behind it, bent over at the waist, and following CB's seemingly random path. The man was so small and frail, he could not be the culpit of CB's staggering. No less than 5 chairs a table were overturned in CB's drunken walk from the door to the teams table. Finally, his arrival at the teams table resulted in a collision that sent the teams tankards to the floor, a loud crack emmenating from the seat CB dumped himself into, and several muttered cusses from the team.

"What' have you been drinking, who the heck is that and what's with the goofy smile?", barked zyxy, wiping beer from his lap.

"I have not been drinking!" shouted CB in a loud, boisterous, obviously intoxicated voice. CB raised his right arm to release his prisoner who arose, gagging for air and looking for a place to either run to or pass out in.

"Don't you remember our "friend" Ghandi? I found him in the back room of the post office. He has apparently gotten bored with nothing to do after his people who wanted him to build their spaceship off their stinking island held a coup and exiled him. Angry at our success and his failure, he's come to our neck of the woods to stir up some trouble. He's been reading our mail, forging new orders to troops and governors, even to the work teams. Evil spy indeed!"

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" asked zyxy.

Ghandi opened his mouth as if to reply, but as the team paused for his answer, he took off like a deer through the forest. CB, being the closest to the door tried to pursue. The first fallen chair knocked him off balance, the second splintered as he put all of his weight on it, and the third held his right foot that he had inadvertently placed through the slats of it's back. With his lower body held fast, his already uncontrolled upper body began a slow motion decent that ended with a loud thud has his head hit the edge of the overturned table.

He awoke to the faces of his team mates. He had a lump on his head the size of a grapefruit and a splitting headache. "Did you catch him?"

"Heck no, we were too worried about you." said Niklas wincing as he helped CB up, forgetting about his bad shoulder.

"Oh well, no biggy." slurred CB flippantly. He was still quite loaded from what the team members could tell. He turned and staggered his way back out the door to the disbelief of the others.

"Hey! If Ghandi wasn't your big triumph, why were you poluting the air with you upraised arm when you came in?" called ControlFreak.

"Oh, yeah. We took Orleans from the French ... with no losses!" replied CB and he turned to go again.

"That's terrific. Where are you going, we should have a drink to that." zyxy instantly regretted his words as one more drink may put CB's stomach in reverse based on his behaviour.

"No, thanks. I've got to get back to Katherine's place to finish painting her bedroom. She asked me to help her and there's no way I'd pass up that opportunity. I just wish the paint fumes weren't so bad. I had to take a breather and went to get the mail. That's how I found out about Orleans as well as that little bald gremlin. Anyway, carry on without me and good luck taking Paris!"

CommandoBob

May 09, 2007, 08:41 AM

Nice going, not a single lost unit in the battle for Orleans! :goodjob:

:( We lost two Maces to Pikes in the first two rounds of fighting. But after that it was all Smurkz.

@ControlFreak: Great Story!
:high5:

Niklas

May 09, 2007, 12:07 PM

Doh, I just saw the endless list of "wins", didn't stop to look at who that was aimed at. :crazyeye: Oh well, no big deal, it was still a great outcome, and of course no shadow on you. You don't control the RNG after all. ;)

zyxy

May 09, 2007, 12:19 PM

Alright, well done! One city down, four to go!

Fun story, CF :).

Who's up now?

ControlFreak

May 09, 2007, 02:57 PM

sercer said he was taking finals Tuesday and had asked for a "Swap" so I think that means he's up now.

Roster:sercer88 - Up!
zyxy - On deck
ControlFreak -Warming Up
CommandoBob - Just Played

McLMan - lurking
Niklas - on sick leave

We are still in very important phase and should have a fairly detailed plan to move forward. Our next objective is to wilt Paris and take it, followed very closely by the other french towns. I also think we need to let Paris focus on Cop's for at least three turns so it can lock in as the build. If they continue to build LBs, the we need to forget about Cops and just take the town ASAP. Orleans is a big flip risk so we need to reduce the number of troops at risk in there. We will need to cut the roads south of Orleans so that mounted units can't attack Orleans since we're going to have few defenders there. And if it flips back, we don't want them to be able to move a bunch of defenders on top of their free spear. Orleans should sell it's harbor if it has one to help reduce the resources available if it flips.

ControlFreak

May 10, 2007, 04:48 AM

I'd like to keep the game moving and Sercer's 24hrs to "got it" are past. zyxy, if you can "Got It" before sercer, it's yours. I know that we unfairly skipped sercer last turn, but I think it's better for the team to keep moving. Plus zyxy usually plays quickly and it can go back to sercer after that.

:whipped:

sercer88

May 10, 2007, 07:46 AM

sorry guys. (jeez, it seems there's always something to say...) when I joined this SGOTM, I thought it wouldn't last until the summer. The reason I say this, is because I will not have regular internet access over the summer, as I will be going home to my parent's house (which does not have internet.) That means my "life" here at CFC will officially be gone on Saturday, May 12.
I'm really sorry for any and all of the trouble/problems I have caused, and will cause by not being able to finish this with you guys, but (as I said) I did not think it would come to this.
That being said: I don't think I should play this next set because I will not have enough time to get all of the info as to what I should be doing for the set in time before I leave. So, zyxy: it's yours.

zyxy

May 10, 2007, 11:15 AM

Hi Sercer, sorry to hear that you'll be leaving us. But: enjoy your summer holiday :), and maybe we'll see you again after summer?

(Oh, and you didn't cause a lot of trouble. Not that I know of, anyway.)

Got it. Will check the game and hopefully have time to post a plan tonight, and play tomorrow or the day after.

ControlFreak

May 10, 2007, 12:55 PM

Thanks for the update sercer. Tell you parents they need to get with the program!;)

How did finals go?

Looking at the save, I think we can get Orleans defensible right away. The key to defense is to A) make sure no offensive units are next to Orleans and B) make sure no offensive units can attack Orleans.

To do that, we need to:
(Red Dot) take the slaves with the 1HP Medi who's not good for anything else at the moment.
(Yellow (EDIT: looks orange) Dot) kill the crusader (and his escort) with Maces.
(Blue Dot) kill the pike holding a road into Orleans with Maces.
(Green and Blue Dots) pillage the roads leading to Orleans with ACs/Knights.
In rainbow order of priority, Green comes before Blue, but because of a potential shortage of units, I wouldn't do Green until we've done Yellow and Blue. Yellow and Blue should be accomplished by units in the following order: Maces from West of Orleans, Maces in the Stack, 3/4 Knight in the stack, ACs.
If all goes well, Red, Yellow and Blue will be accomplished by Maces, leaving a Mace on the Blue dot with his moves exhausted. Then the three ACs move to the three SE green dots and pillage this turn. The 3/4 Knight moves to the Western Green Dot and the 2/4 Knight moves to Blue dot. Both pillage this turn. The reason for moving and pillaging this turn is two fold. A) if the units die IBT, the road is cut anyway. B) if the French galleys land, units near Orleans, the Mounted units can reenter our land and still attack this is true of Orleans flipping as well. So it's important to save the 5 mounted units for pillaging the 5 roads unless absolutely necessary for killing Yellow or Blue dots.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/CFCs_ControlFreak/SGOTM12/CF_Smurkz_SG12_defend_Orleans.jpg

The six ships should form a two boat ship chain over the next three turns, with 3 units ready to load the first turn the ships arrive near Oporto, and three more the turn after. This means that boats will be sitting in spanish waters which will lead to war weariness. Perhaps two boats of units should divert to Barcelona to take that city, but I'm afraid that the French legion will be returning from the Viking/American front and will have a lot of units. We need to get some reinforcements there first above all else.

KZ is STILL messed up having worked the hill for the last turn instead of a BG. Now that the forests are planted there is no way to recover.:mad: We might as well switch to 3fpt/3spt and plan to build the worker on growth, keeping it at size five a turn longer. One of the workers can be joined back in when the fourth forest is planted (there will be five workers and only 4 forests to chop).

I think Theo should start building things besides Caravels. We have enough transports and need more units, so maybe a barracks next? The only reason to continue building Caravels would be to create a second fleet to attack the eastern continent. BTW, Babylon is a French ally against the Hittites and now owns Tarsus. They may soon be a useful research partner. :D

The innersea transport should be run as a four turn cycle since that's how often units are produced.

Pickup Caravel move to the load tile of StF, StF new unit gets on board. Dropoff Caravel moves to transfer point, forfeiting extra MovePts.
Pickup move to transfer point, transfer unit (or units if AC produced too) Dropoff moves into StW and units move towards Oporto.
Pickup Caravel move to the load tile of FS, FS new units get on board. Dropoff Caravel moves to transfer point, forfeiting extra MovePts.
Pickup Caravel move to transfer point, transfer units, Dropoff moves into StW and units move towards Oporto.

That was the best I could come up with. Trying to move farther up the northern coast requires us to end in Roman territory which would eat into our warhappiness.

We might want to reup the MA with America for the sole purpose of giving them horses and luxuries. They need help to fight france. I don't want to gift the resources because it might get broken by elimination or trade routes. They don't have any gpt to offer so the ROP/MA is the best per turn thing to put on the table.

Hitites, Greece and Carthage have some gpt that we could get with luxuries. Beware that the wool is not truly ours yet since we run the risk of a flip in Orleans.

sercer88

May 10, 2007, 01:33 PM

Oh, finals....................yeah. Um, I think I did alright. I don't know for sure, yet, but I feel like I did alright (no bombed finals, that is :rolleyes:) I probably won't know for sure for another couple of weeks.

ControlFreak

May 10, 2007, 02:29 PM

sercer@ Feeling alright usually means doing OK. Good luck with the results and enjoy your summer! Hopefully you can get online occationally to check in. You have friends near home living in this century right?;)

So this isn't spam...
Roster:
zyxy - Up!
ControlFreak -Ondeck
CommandoBob - Just Played

sercer88 - Getting a tan for the summer.
McLMan - lurking
Niklas - on sick leave

zyxy

May 10, 2007, 02:48 PM

Strategy

Long term: Hm, what was it again? Send Ghandi to t.. no. Become the leader of the free world and win the UN elections.

Mid term: liberate the unfree world, leaving only two civs alive: the opponent, and the supporter. Keep scientific civs alive until near the end.

Short term (this set and somewhat beyond):

Trade
Ai's will probably be little help researchwise. I think it's wise to gift a few up to Chemistry, in the hope they will do Metallurgy (but this won't happen on my set).
We can sell spices to Babylon for 6 gpt, to Hittites for 3 gpt, and ivory to Carthage for 2 gpt. I would make these deals.
I will not sell Wool, it is too dangerous because Orleans (the location of our Wool supply) can flip anytime.

Research
Gunpowder -> Chemistry, full speed.

Economy
If we get one more MP in FS, Ozzy and Theo then we can lower lux tax to 0. In fact we can do that now, if we hire some scientists. Scientists in other cities can be fired now that we have wool. This means that there's some risk of riots if Orleans flips, but I'll do it anyway.

KZ builds one more worker, then go to uni, using chops and worker merges to speed it up.
GB is groomed for a worker factory.
I am not certain we need more ships from Theo, perhaps one. Oporto is probably better off doing a lib.

If we get a GL, he'll be saved for an FP in Paris.

Orleans will sell its harbor. I would sell the market as well, it just costs money.

Battle for France
France will be eliminated. We currently have 17 units in France. I think we need a few more to safely take Paris. The quickest reinforcement I can see will land 8 more units next to Paris on turn 5 (current turn is turn 0), with an attack on turn 6, as follows:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b293/zyxy/Smurkz12_AD0320_logistics.png
The picture uses CF's color coding: red = turn 0, orange = turn 1, etc.
There are 3 MDI near Oporto that are picked up by one caravel on turn 2. Pink Panther Strikes Again can unload 1 MDI and 1 AC in StW on turn 1, and together with the 3 MDI already present they can march to the bg NW of the horse tile on turn 1, and board ship on turn 2. Picking up on more unit will delay by 1 or 2 turns, so that isn't worth it IMO.

The remaining 4 ships near France can pick up the 12 slow units present and drop them at Paris on the same turn. The fast units can march over land to the Wool Hill 1 turn before the attack, and charge from there.

The Paris attack will consist of 25 units (if all units near Orleans survive). After Paris, we'll charge Bergen, using ships to bypass the forts if needed, and that's it for my turnset.

France seems to have iron. It must be import (from Zulu maybe?), so I'll send one (loaded) ship to block the harbor of Paris (this takes 3 turns).

I would like to attack the French units we can see. I don't want those pikes to turn back to Paris, and I don't want a crusader attacking me. I'll put soem troops into Orleans for 1 turn, to try to suppress the red faces. But not longer than one turn, because of the flip risk.

Other targets
I think that one group of reinforcements should be enough to take Paris and the rest of France. That means we can start to think about other targets. Now that we're allied to Maya for another 19 turns, we could go for Spain, Egypt or Inca. The latter has my preference: they are closest to home, so their land should be productive. Inca have iron, but should be weak none the less. We have a deal for 6 more turns. Egypt is a decent second choice - they are selling us a lux (deal ends in 5). Either way, I will not attack on my set I think (at least not without express consent), but would like to know which one to prepare for.

(x-posted with the last three posts.)
I took a different take on caravel use.
Concerning the pillaging operation, it would indeed make Orleans safe from horsebased attack, and hence is probably needed. Though France has no horses, she could have some knights left over.
If we really with America, gifting her horses, then what happens if the trade route is broken? Don't we get a rep hit for breaking an alliance? Besides, do they need horses? AI's don't really know how to use fast movers...