SGOTM 21 - Xteam

Played only to the near end of T124 because plan might benefit from some tweaking.

T122: Execute plan with the small exception of moving worker3 onto the GFor 2W1SW of the Corn, so that I could get a defender onto its tile a turn sooner to prevent a possible amphibious capture (or have to move it and stall the chop).

IBT:
Mansa completes SchPaya
W adopts Slavery (without anarchy -- how does he do that?)

T123:
Find 4 missionaries and a settler have moved to The Hague
2 triremes and a galley leave Amsterdam, and there are now 2 galleys and 2 triremes 2E of the city (there may a galley and a trireme further east in the fog)
Trade Mono to Mao for 50 gold
Spy2 spies a total of 5 Dutch workers

IBT:
The Hague's 2 HAs move out to 1S of Utrecht
Another archer shows up in Hague and another trireme in Amsterdam

T124:
Trade Drama to Louis for 190 gold
Now can only see 1 galley 2E of Amsterdam, so suspect that 1 or 2 galleys and 2 or 3 triremes are 4 tiles E of Amsterdam. Can't be certain there is not a trireme and a galley loaded with 2 HAs 5E, as they've had time to actually get 6E, so I move a HA to protect worker3 from an amphibious capture.

Have stopped to discuss changing plan of attack. Propose the following for consideration:

Attack one of the HAs 1S of Utrecht with our wounded WE in the city, but leave the other HA alone. Don't think he is a great threat and don't want to use up our healthy WE.
Anticipate that the remaining HA may move NE>E onto the deer, perhaps to continue into our territory and cause trouble or perhaps to go after our worker. Therefore, instead of moving spear11 toward Utrecht, suggest we move him 1SE, inviting the HA forward, while also being in a slightly better position to counter a potential naval invasion that W seems to be muddling with.
Also, instead of loading two wounded cats onto the galley, consider putting the healthy WE and just cat6 on instead. That would allow our 2 CR3 cats to heal (and get onboard next turn and be sailed into position to attack The Hague), and the WE would be available to attack Amsterdam amphibiously if we decide to do that next turn or it could be deposited SW of Am along with cat6. If we move the spear back a tile, then would move warrior13 toward Utrecht without upgrading him to go with GG that will be created next turn.

Save from Central:http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_AD0225_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Well, my long term plan is. Get a great prophet. Have one more golden age. Get Elizabeth out of Hinduism and friendly towards us. Hold on to York. Get great people for Isabella. A boat for Elizabeth and a military parade for Catherine.

We only have one hindu city right now. I think we can afford a never on a vote. How long do the unhappiness last?

Short term plan. Capture Amsterdam next turn. Move Horatio Nelson 1N of the Hague, but not Subtai, then capture workers working on cottage 2W. Kill HA outside of Utrecht this turn. Make truce before vote and declare war again after two turns.

We need a settler and a missionary to gift a hindu city to Isabella.

I have a hard time seeing how any other wars then vs Elizabeth and Shaka could help us.

Piscatorium should always have 2 priests. We need that great prophet.

Folket said:

We only have one hindu city right now. I think we can afford a never on a vote. How long do the unhappiness last?

Click to expand...

20 turns. The Unhappiness is not the concern. The halving of our votes is a concern, though.

We'll want to spread Hinduism in our Cities to gain control of the vote and to have multiple Cities from which to spread Hinduism to the remaining AIs.

Some resolutions could be really nasty, such as:
i. Stop Trading with Isabella (we can't gift her units if we don't have Open Borders with her). We won't get Open Borders again without running Buddhism as our State Religion and she might refuse to talk with us for quite some time
ii. Make Peace with whoever we decided to attack next if that's one of Elizabeth or Shaka (I'm not saying that we are going to do so, but we don't quite yet know what our other tasks will be, so it helps to remain flexible... maybe Isabella #2 is "Give me Elizabeth's head on a pole," for example)
iii. If Willem stays alive, give back any one of the Cities that we've captured from him

"Well, we don't have to spread Hinduism to our Cities and then we won't have to suffer the anger" isn't an option for a couple of reasons:
A) There are 4, probably 5 AIs out there who need Hinduism from us for us to win
B) We might have trouble becoming the AP Resident if we halve our votes, and if we're not the Resident, it's going to be really tough to set up an AP Victory

Also, recovering from defying is often really tough to do and it can take many Resolutions before we can find a Resolution on which we can vote Yes... a new Resolution might not even get proposed.

So, no, I do not think that it would be a good strategy to Defy a vote.

Folket said:

Move Horatio Nelson 1N of the Hague, but not Subtai, then capture workers working on cottage 2W.

Click to expand...

All hands on deck, as in, all hands should be prepared to attack Amsterdam, so no moving units away from Amsterdam until after Amsterdam falls.

When we march on The Hague, some units can move 1S to the GH For to protect units that arrive by Galley from Utrecht, but we could certainly move one or both Woodsmen III units to 1N of The Hague at some point, perhaps after first moving one or both of them 1S to guard the stack on the GH For.

That's why we're going to have to play this stuff out in stages, rather than writing a plan that goes all the way to T128, as a lot can change depending upon who won or lost their fights at Amsterdam and which units have movement points remaining to them.

Can you explain why you are suggesting "not Subutai"? What do you see being different about him?

Folket said:

We need a settler and a missionary to gift a hindu city to Isabella.

Click to expand...

Or, we capture the Barb City.

There's more of a rush on getting the clues from Willem, then Marble, then Stone, then such a City for Isabella.



I would start off by saying that we shouldn't worry about Willem amphibiously stealing our Workers. AIs don't do that. They land next to your Cities, but they don't steal Workers that way, so consider our Workers to be invincible.

Also, we're going to want our City 4 Military Units to be 1S of New Amsterdam as soon as we can get them there and our 5 Workers (or better, 7 Workers) in the immediate vicinity.

In the worst case, where the AP Religion vote is to Stop the War against Willem, one possible approach would be as follows:
Scenario A]
1. We invest enough EPs on Willem to be able to switch him into Confucianism
2. We capture Amsterdam on T125 or T126
2.1. On T127 and T128, our Warrior 13 from Surfin' Turf kills 1 Scout per turn, leaving our War Elephant, our Horse Archer, and our Catapults free to get into position 1S of Amsterdam with full health and full movement points available for use on T128
3. We capture The Hague on T128
4. We Ceare Fire with Willem on T128
5. If Willem is Annoyed toward us, we settle a gift City and spread Confucianism inside of that gift City. After the City has Confucianism in it but before ending the turn, we gift him that City to get +1 from Liberating a City to him, which also ensures that he has Confucianism in one of his Cities
6. If Willem is still Annoyed toward us, we use the fact that he has a Confucian City to have Spy 3 switch him into Confucianism
7. We get Open Borders with Willem on T128
8. If Willem is Cautious toward us without us having to perform either of steps 5 or 6, we spread Confucianism in New Amsterdam
9. If Willem is Cautious toward us without us having to perform step 6, we bribe Willem (with, say, Compass?) to switch to Confucianism, as he's an AI who will switch Religious at Cautious
10. We have Willem at +1 or higher thanks to him sharing our State Religion
11. We send 5 Workers into New Amsterdam and gift those 5 Workers to Willem
12. We declare war on Willem
13. We capture New Amsterdam with our Catapults, War Elephant, and Horse Archer
14. If we had to gift Willem a City, we will raze it with the Horse Archer that is being built out of Hippos... or, we resign ourselves to the fact that we'll have to declare war on Willem yet again later (further angering Elizabeth) by him being alive for 10 more turns in the game, but at least we'll have our clues


Things that can go wrong:
a) We don't capture both of Willem's 2 core Cities of Amsterdam and The Hague
b) Willem has too many units in New Amsterdam for us to be able to capture the New Amsterdam
c) We can't get Willem up to Cautious status by taking a Cease Fire, nor by Liberating him a City, and our Spy 3 has auto-died or fails in his Mission of switching Willem into Confucianism
d) We fail to get 5 Workers into position close enough to New Amsterdam to be able to enter New Amsterdam on T128

Problem c) could be mitigated with a bit of planning... on T127, we load a Spearman onto our Galley and leave our Galley in Amsterdam, then on T128 as step 6.5, we Liberate Utrecht to Willem, which we'll recapture using our Spearman to amphibiously recapture the City. This approach isn't ideal, though, as we'd lose 1 population point recapturing Utrecht and we'd have to suffer the City Revolt again, and we might lose the Buildings in Utrecht, so it's kind of a last-ditch way to save our butts and we might instead just choose to accept 10 turns of enforced Peace with Willem instead of paying this cost.

Problem d) can be mitigated with proper planning.

Problem b) can be partially mitigated by pre-Bombarding, and if Willem gets a second unit in New Amsterdam, killing that unit off prior to T128.


So, let's make sure that we aren't ad-libbing decisions... if we want to change our unit movements, let's either stop play and discuss the changes or try to discuss them in advance. A lot of things have to fall almost perfectly into place for us to pull all of this stuff off if the AP doesn't go our way.

If the AP does go our way, though, we'll probably try to implement this stuff on T129 or T130 anyway, as we don't want to drag on the war with Willem forever.



As for Willem's Horse Archers, they can do one of three things:
1. Head further eastward
2. Attack Utrecht
3. Do some of the dumb back-and-forth stuff that the AIs sometimes do and retreat back to The Hague

I'm okay with us attacking 1 Horse Archer with 1 of our War Elephants and loading the other War Elephant into our Galley. However, why not load WE 2 in our Galley... both War Elephants get about the same odds, while WE 2 is Combat I with 7.4 Health and 2 XP, while WE 6 is 8 Health with 0 XP.

If WE 6 attacks and wins, it earns 2 XP and can promote next turn.

WE 2, if he isn't needed for an amphibious assault, can land and have time to heal, meaning that we'll have a Combat I full-health War Elephant on the front lines, and another War Elephant inside of Utrecht who can promote to Combat I next turn (unless we lose the battle... bad stuff sometimes happens in war) thereby partially healing any damage done to him.

Spearman 6 can promote to Combat II.

Spearman 11 can promote to Combat I and move to the G Riv Cottage that is 1E of Utrecht, to force the remaining Horse Archer (or the remaining 2 Horse Archers if we lose the fight), if the Horse Archer chooses to head eastward, to have to march through Forest or else to attack our Combat I Spearman from across of a River.

But, we should take the time to write down all of the moves somewhere, so that we don't miss anything. If we're going to grab the clue about Catherine's whereabouts on the map, we'll need 7 of our 8 Workers near New Amsterdam, so that'll take a bit of planning.


RE: Slavery
I don't see evidence in the Event Log of Willem having launched a Golden Age and he's not Spiritual, so I'm not sure about the answer to your question. What is the evidence that Willem didn't have 1 turn of Anarchy? Maybe there's a way to explain away the evidence?


RE: Worker 3 Chop
Ignore Willem's units on boats. It doesn't really matter which Chop we got, so no problem there.


RE: "Can't be certain there is not a trireme and a galley loaded with 2 HAs 5E, as they've had time to actually get 6E"
In that case, we can be certain that Willem doens't have boats 5E. AIs are not "cunning enough" to partially move a boat just to hide in the fog of war. They MUST move their boats their full amount of movement. So, if a boat could have moved 6E, it WOULD have and thus there is no boat 5E.

But, as I said, don't worry about protecting our Workers as the AIs don't target Workers and they only target Cities with their amphibious landings.

Folket said:

Piscatorium should always have 2 priests. We need that great prophet.

Click to expand...

While I don't disagree with you about wanting that Great Prophet, I believe that a better approach is to focus on getting Moai Statues, which also gives us Great Prophet GPP each turn.

We then use the extra Hammers to get us a Hindu Temple and a Christian Temple a bit later, allowing us to make:
2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 14 base GPP
28 GPPs per turn without a Golden Age gives us a Great Prophet after:
( 600 - 126 ) / 28 = 16.9 aka 17 turns

Add 4 more turns for the 700 GPP Great Person or 8 more turns for the 800 GPP Great Person.

What we may find is that we'll want to generate the 800-GPP Great Person here, assuming that we don't get the Great Scientist from Physics, as that Great Prophet should be easier for us to get than either a Great Artist (only 4 Artist Specialists with no head start doesn't beat out this City) or a Great Scientist (only 3 Scientist Specialists with no head start).


If we can settle Marble peacefully, we can ignore a war on Louis, otherwise such a war is totally in the cards for us to earn The Taj Mahal.


I'm seeing no gain from an early war against Shaka, although one that gets fought later after we have Airships and other more advanced units to streamline the war can make sense.

Shaka is an AI who will gladly whip his own Cities down to City Size 1, and his Impis are nasty against our primarily-War-Elephant army. He has no (visible) Resources that we lack. If it turns out that he has the only source of Oil on the map, then we can plan to attack him later. Out of all of the AIs on the map that we can see, Shaka has the most terrible land, and earning that land with a bunch of Size 1 Cities for the cost of dozens of Catapults and War Elephants does not sound appealing to me.


A war against Catherine does stand to gain us turns on our finishing date, especially if she is backward and isolated from other AIs.


A war against Elizabeth would probably be easier later, as she already has tech parity with us now by having access to build Macemen, Crossbowmen, Horse Archers, and Catapults, and Mansa might trade her Ivory at any time (Mansa is already trading Horse to Elizabeth).

Soon, Elizabeth could also add Pikemen, Castles, Longbowmen, Knights, etc.

So, it would seem better to go after her with Cuirassiers (preferably using upgraded War Elephants who promoted in a war against an AI who does not have Impis) and Airships.

But, if Shaka is making headway against Elizabeth (watch for Elizabeth's City count in the Scoreboard to go down from 6 to a lower number on each turn), we could potentially have an opportunity to strike against Elizabeth, but with our army already probably skipping Bombarding at Willem, I don't foresee us having enough forces remaining to go after Elizabeth in time to capitalize on such an opportunity.

Worker Plan
We might as well plan for redundancy and have all 8 Workers be within range of New Amsterdam at the end of T127, even though we only need 7 Workers if we want the last 3 clues plus info on Catherine's whereabouts, or 5 Workers if we're just going to guess where Catherine lives.

T125
W1: Move 1NW to the GH that is 1W of City
W2: Move NE + N to the G that is NW + N of Surfin' Turf (1N of the Fort) and Road
W3: Chop into City 4's Settler
W4: Move 1SE G (2N of Hippos), partial Farm, and STOP!
W5: Move 1NW to the GH that is 1W of City
W6: Move NE + N to the G that is NW + N of Surfin' Turf (1N of the Fort) and complete the Road
W7: Don't forget to STOP, since we might not give this order next turn as he's already doing it: Build a partial Windmill on the GH that is 1SW of Gems and STOP!
W8: Move 1NE G (2E of the G Deer) and complete the Road

T126
W1: Road the GH that is 1W of City 4
W2: Move 2N to the G Riv (SW + SW of the G Corn) and Road
W3: Move 1SE G Riv (SW + SW of the G Corn) and complete the Road
W4: Move to the G Riv Farm that is 2N of Surfin' Turf without performing a Worker action
W5: Complete the Road on the GH that is 1W of City 4
W6: Move to the GH Riv Mine Road that is 2S of City 4 and partial Windmill and STOP!
W7: Move to the GH Riv Mine Road that is 2S of City 4 and partial Windmill and STOP!
W8: Wait for Workers 2 and 3 to complete the Road, then move to the G Riv now-Roaded square that is SW + SW of the G Corn and partial Farm and STOP!

T127
W1: Move 2E to the G Riv Farm that is 1E of City 4 and complete the Road
W2: Move to the GH (now-Roaded) square that is 1W of City 4 and Mine
W3: Move to the GH (now-Roaded) square that is 1W of City 4 and Mine
W4: Move to the GH Riv Mine Road that is 1S of City 4 and partial Windmill and STOP!
W5: Mine the GH (now-Roaded) square that is 1W of City 4
W6: Move 1N to the GH Riv Mine Road that is 1S of City 4 and partial Windmill and STOP!
W7: Move 1N to the GH Riv Mine Road that is 1S of City 4 and partial Windmill and STOP!
W8: Move to the GH (now-Roaded) square that is 1W of City 4 and complete the Mine

Each Worker will then be within range of being able to end its turn in New Amsterdam after we've gotten Open Borders with Willem and have confirmed that we're actually able to get him up to +1 Attitude so as to be able to gift him our Workers.


Suggested PPP

The rest of T124, 225 AD
Athens: Steal the Fur from X-ops so that Athens is working Crab, Fur, and Cottage

X-ops: Confirm that we are working a Cottage in place of the Fur


Gems: Build queue should show Confucian Missionary -> Odeon


Wake Cat 10 (in City 4) and attack a Scout

Wake Warrior 13 (in Surfin' Turf) and move him E, NE (he'll be the dude to kill the 2 Scouts... 1 on T127, and 1 on T128)... he can also be the dude who joins with our 3rd Great General

Wake War WE 6 (no Promotions) and attack 1S against the stack of 2 Horse Archers

If WE 6 survives, WE 6 loads onto the Queen Elizabeth Galley in place of WE 2
If WE 6 dies, load WE 2 (Combat I and wounded) onto the Queen Elizabeth Galley

Load Cat 6 onto the Queen Elizabeth Galley


Spearman 6 (in Utrecht) promotes to Combat II

Spearman 11 (3E of Utrecht) promotes to Combat I and moves 2W to the G Riv Cot that is 1E of Utrecht

The Great General that you said we will get should just be kept safe for now... we won't need him until after the war with Willem.


T125, 250 AD
If Spy 2 is still alive inside of The Hage, set EP Slider to 100% (on Willem)

It's hard to say for sure, but I imagine that we'll do something like:
Cat 2 (Drill III) suicides on Amsterdam
Cat 1 (Drill II + Medic) suicides on Amsterdam
If WE 5 has greater than 90% odds of winning, Cat 3 Bombards; otherwise, Cat 3 suicides on Amsterdam
WE 5 attacks (will be at full health and has the lowest XP)

Probably the remaining War Elephants attack, then probably our Spearman, then probably our Maces, but the odds may alter the order of our attacks

Feel free to stop partway through the fighting, too, for consultation, as these battles really matter


We could move our Workers, but I'd suggest possibly stopping play before the attack, but definitely stopping play before moving any units not involved in the attack

For example, what we do with the units on our Queen Elizabeth Galley relative to the units that didn't attack at Amsterdam isn't something that we can plan in advance

Similarly, we don't know what's going to happen with the 2 Horse Archers that are 1S of Utrecht, so we can't plan our unit movements in advance

As well, T125 is the last turn where we can march units out of Utrecht by land and have them be able to attack The Hague on T128, so we'll want to assess the situation there before moving the relevant units

Other units that we could move:
Warrior 13 heads toward City 4

Warrior 15 moves to the GH Road that is 2W of the G Corn

Warrior 10 moves toward the GH Road that is 2W of the G Corn

WE 7 heads to 1S of New Amsterdam

HA 1 heads to 1S of New Amsterdam

Cat 8 heads to 1S of New Amsterdam

Cat 7 moves into City 4 and attacks a Scout

Cat 10 attacks a Scout

Cat 9 moves into City 4

Spy 4 moves toward the GH Road that is 2W of the G Corn

Confucian Missionary from Gems heads to City 4

Whipped Mace from X-ops heads to... I don't know? 2NW for now... does anyone have any thoughts on where he should go?

Galley 2... should it move 1W of New Amsterdam?

Caravel 1... probably head straight north-west, to maximize our progress both toward Toku (northward) and Mao (westward)

X-ops: Build Oxford
X-ops: Work 2 Mines in places of 2 Cottages

Gems: Build a Catapult

Surfin' Turf: Build a Harbour
Surfin' Turf: Farms instead of Mines

City 4: Build a Settler
City 4: Corn + Gems + 2 Mines + 1 G Riv Farm

Hippos: We need to make a decision here...
If we need to gift a City to Willem, we could gift it SW + W of the G Corn (non coastal), in which case the Horse Archer from this City can attack the gifted City to raze it
OR, we need to whip Hippos' Horse Archer this turn


We'll definitely want to examine the situation at Utrecht and Amsterdam before finishing off the unit movements there

Won't have time to look over plan and play for about 6 hours.

Please clarify what happens when there is an AP resolution. Is it the case, for instance, that we are asked to vote at the beginning or end of a turn? Will we have T128 to finish capturing cities and declare a cease fire or must this be done on T127?

Look at the F8 -> MEMBERS page.
When the Turns until next Vote value is 0 (which will happen on T127), at the start of the next turn (at the very start of T128), we will have to cast our vote.

For your reference, as of T124, that page says "Turns until next Vote: 3."

We have until the end of T128 to ignore the implementation of the voted-upon resolution.

At the very start of T129, the results of the vote will be implemented. That means that if Stop the War against Willem was the resolution and the vote passed, we'll be locked into 10 turns of Peace with Willem. Before those 10 turns are up, a resolution can be proposed to, say, "Give Amsterdam back to Willem," which would not be very nice.

So, we have a 1-turn buffer window on T128 to do things such as remain at war with Willem, as well as to Cease Fire with him and redeclare war.

If the vote is for something other than Stop the War against Willem, we would have T129 and T130 for additional turns of fighting and setting things up, but we really shouldn't be pushing the Willem stuff any later than that, and we can't rely on getting these extra turns.

Whatever the resolution is, we shouldn't vote "Never (Defy)," as doing so creates even more headaches for us in terms of trying to become the AP Resident, which we'll have to do if we want to reliably win by an AP Victory.

I'd imagine that we would vote "No" to whatever proposal came up (there should be 4 options of Yes, No, Never (Defy), and an Abstain option), since it's likely going to be a "Stop the War against somebody" resolution, or a "Stop trading with an AI who has no Hindu Cities" resolution.

I have not figured out what an Abstain option does, but I'm pretty sure that an AI is unable to pick that choice and it probably just means that our votes are excluded from both the numerator and the denominator. No AI can hate us for "voting against us" in an election, so, to me, it's pointless to pick that option (except for maybe in multiplayer, if you don't want to piss off the human players by picking sides).

Elizabeth is the current AP Resident.


EDIT: If we're going to settle on Mao's continent, it probably makes sense for someone else (probably Toku) to get the Jewish Missionary in his capital.

EDIT 2: We'd then later give Confucianism to Mao so that we have Cities on the same continent as someone who likes us instead of someone who dislikes us.

It's going to be interesting to see how the world's Religions may get auto-distributed once we unlock Astronomy and own each of the Confucian, Hindu, and Christian Holy Cities. We may end up having to build more Missionaries than we'd otherwise like, just to keep AIs out of Hinduism.

Info on AP much appreciated.

Looked over plan, and only have one question:

What's the downside of my plan? "Anticipate that the remaining HA may move NE>E onto the deer, perhaps to continue into our territory and cause trouble or perhaps to go after our worker. Therefore, instead of moving spear11 toward Utrecht, suggest we move him 1SE, inviting the HA forward, while also being in a slightly better position to counter a potential naval invasion that W seems to be muddling with."

Assuming our unwounded WE kills a HA south of Utrecht, not clear why you reject inviting the 2nd HA to move east so that Spear 11 can dispense with him. If we do this -- "Spearman 11 (3E of Utrecht) promotes to Combat I and moves 2W to the G Riv Cot that is 1E of Utrecht" -- then would expect that HA to retreat to Hague.

Will be able to play rest of T124 and beginning of T125 in about 3 hours.

Cactus Pete said:

What's the downside of my plan? "Anticipate that the remaining HA may move NE>E onto the deer

Click to expand...

The downside of moving our Spearman away from Utrecht is us having 1 less unit that could march over land from Utrecht toward The Hague next turn.

Next turn, T125, is the last turn where a 1-movement-point unit could leave The Hague via land and arrive in time to attack The Hague on T128.

The idea being that this Spearman can probably move to defend Utrecht on T125, which could allow +1 unit to leave Utrecht in the march toward The Hague.

We only can drop off these units via Galley:
T125 WE + Cat
T126 2 more Cats
T127 2 more units

After that, it's too late for any units sent by boat to be able to help with the attack (unloading additional units on T128 is too late).

Thus, in addition to those units, we may, say, want to march a Spearman and a Chariot via land toward The Hague, with the intention of having the Chariot be in position to help with the attack, or if he is not needed, to capture a Worker when Willem's Culture disappears after capturing The Hague.

If our Spearman moves toward Utrecht, it can defend Utrecht, allowing a different Spearman to march toward The Hague.

The point of moving our Spearman 2W to be 1E of Utrecht was to block the Horse Archer from your predicted attack vector, forcing the Horse Archer to either attack our Spearman across of a River or else forcing the Horse Archer to make much slower progress (if the Horse Archer arrives on the Roaded Deer, he can travel far on the next turn, but otherwise, the Horse Archer gets stuck travelling slowly and can't threaten our core Cities in time to do any damage).

Cactus Pete said:

not clear why you reject inviting the 2nd HA to move east so that Spear 11 can dispense with him

Click to expand...

We are inviting the Horse Archer... to attack our Spearman... our Spearman will be on flat terrain, so he seems like a more tempting target, but we'll also get the River Defence bonus.

Inviting the Horse Archer to move onto the Deer means that our Spearman must deal with the Horse Archer, which means that our Spearman can't move to defend Utrecht.

If the Horse Archer chooses to move to the G Riv For that is 1SE of Utrecht, then we can decide between our Spearman attacking him NOT across of a River or ignoring the Horse Archer due to its progress toward our core Cities having been slowed.

Cactus Pete said:

counter a potential naval invasion

Click to expand...

If he's going to land units, it'll be next to a City, such as City 4, or next to Utrecht.

Having Spearman 11 move toward Utrecht helps with a possible Utrecht attack vector.

Sending our Military Units (HA, WE, and Cats) to 1S of New Amsterdam already puts our units close to City 4 should Willem be coming in time to attack City 4, and by the time that our Military Units are just about in place on the square 1S of New Amsterdam, it will already be too late for Willem to do anything about City 4.

Thinking about it some more, we should probably do the following:
Wake War WE 6 (no Promotions) and attack 1S against the stack of 2 Horse Archers

If WE 6 survives, WE 6 loads onto the Queen Elizabeth Galley

That way, a unit which had 0 movement points (WE 6) will load into the Galley, which gives that unit +1 total turns of healing (he'll be healing for +1 turn in Willem's territory).

It also means that WE 2 can heal to full health and will act as the City defender, which will either be an easy victory against the remaining Horse Archer or will mean that we have a full-health WE 2 who would potentially be used instead of a Spearman to march across land, later dropping off a Spearman on T127 instead of this War Elephant.

Okay, plan adjusted. Playing now, probably pausing early in T125 as suggested.

Save from Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_AD0250_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

T124: Executed plan as discussed (except realized too late that I forgot and failed to load a WE in the galley).

IBT:
HA suicides against WE in Utrecht. (Good call on advancing spear.)
W now has Feudalism and already a longbow in the Hague. (Thought there had to be a turn before he could do that.)

T125:
Given that W now has Feudalism, there is no choice but to attack Amsterdam this turn, so attack with 2 best cats (losing the medic one) and followed by a WE, then save the game.

For discussion:
Amsterdam will be ours, it's just a question of what units we use and what units we reserve in taking it.

Horatio should probably kill one unit, because he can then get a 2-movement promotion.

Spear1 might be best to kill the last unit and remain in the city, as he would be of least use against Hague.

There could be a unit guarding the Horses, but there was not when our spy was unloaded there.

Note that the galley, now NEE of Amsterdam, may well have 2 HAs in it, as 2 left the city several turns ago, probably in a galley, so we must leave some protection in Amsterdam, and one way to do that is to load Spear11 in our galley and unload him in the city, then dropping Cat6 on the forest NE of The Hague, and returning to the coast 1NW of Utrecht to pick up the two CR3 cats.

Fear of 2 HAs disembarking from the galley north of Hague suggests moving units onto both the forest and the hill N of Hague to possibly discourage that behavior and perhaps put us in better position to deal with them and/or capture workers. (But how would the workers move if we do that?)

Most of our remaining units in Utrecht could head toward Hague by land this turn.

Can we realistically capture the Hague if the 3 archers already there (and perhaps more to come) are all upgrade to LBs?

[I have not moved other units or managed cities.]

Cactus Pete said:

(except realized too late that I forgot and failed to load a WE in the galley).

Click to expand...

Not a problem... we'll just march more units across land. Hopefully, we've loaded at least 1 Cat into the Galley, although whether we can unload it depends upon who from the Amsterdam stack will be available to defend that Cat when it unloads.

Cactus Pete said:

HA suicides against WE in Utrecht. (Good call on advancing spear.)

Click to expand...

I was expecting the Spearman to take the hit, but oh well, it worked out.

Cactus Pete said:

W now has Feudalism and already a longbow in the Hague. (Thought there had to be a turn before he could do that.)

Click to expand...

Crap on Feudalism, and I thought that an AI couldn't do that, but I guess that AI research works differently from human player research. Live and learn.

Cactus Pete said:

so attack with 2 best cats (losing the medic one) and followed by a WE,

Click to expand...

Does that mean that:
i. 1 Cat survived
AND
ii. Our WE beat the Longbowman
AND
iii. We have yet to Bombard with our 3rd Cat

Depending upon the make up of the remaining defenders, we might not even want to Bombard or suicide attack with the 3rd Cat and just advance him toward The Hague, to get in +1 turn of Bombarding and to have a healthy Cat for the attack on The Hague, which is going to be tougher once Willem can't build Horse Archers.

Cactus Pete said:

Horatio should probably kill one unit, because he can then get a 2-movement promotion.

Click to expand...

One option is a Combat I Promotion, so that he can become our Super Healer.

But, the +1 movement Promo could mean earning +1 stolen Worker, and a free Worker could be worth the investment of that Promo. We'll have to look at the map to see if it's potentially feasible to steal Workers prior to attacking The Hague.

If it is possible, then we might actually not want to earn that Promotion now so that our Maces can get into position to steal Workers and still be in position to attack The Hague on T128.

Cactus Pete said:

Spear1 might be best to kill the last unit and remain in the city, as he would be of least use against Hague.

Click to expand...

Sounds wise.

Cactus Pete said:

There could be a unit guarding the Horses, but there was not when our spy was unloaded there.

Click to expand...

On that note... it's possible for us to load a WE into our Galley this turn and unload the WE into Amsterdam (after capturing Amsterdam, obviously), if we want that option.

I.e. You can't "walk off" of a Galley with 0 movement points to an adjacent land square, but if a Galley sails into a City, a unit on that Galley can unload even with only 0 movement points available to it.

That said, if there are any boats within range of our Galley when it ends its turn, say, 1NW of Utrecht, we won't have this option available to us.

Cactus Pete said:

one way to do that is to load Spear11 in our galley and unload him in the city,

Click to expand...

It seems that you thought of the idea, but with a Spearman instead, which is probably better, so that we have War Elephant marching across land.

Cactus Pete said:

Fear of 2 HAs disembarking from the galley

Click to expand...

That's what makes BtS so fun... fear of (likely empty) Galleys causing us to do all sorts of crazy things.

Cactus Pete said:

and the hill N of Hague

Click to expand...

Potentially one or both of our Maces would be able to steal a Worker by moving here... I'll have to look at the current situation before I can say for sure.

Cactus Pete said:

Most of our remaining units in Utrecht could head toward Hague by land this turn.

Click to expand...

We should document which units will move, so that we're clear about it. Having Utrecht get captured would be pretty devastating.

Cactus Pete said:

Can we realistically capture the Hague if the 3 archers already there (and perhaps more to come) are all upgrade to LBs?

Click to expand...

Well, if the Spy survives, and we delay our Research for 2 or 3 turns, we'll have a chance for the Spy to reduce City Defences to 0, which would help.

Having one of the two Catapults that attacked Amsterdam surviving will help.

It's probably all going to be really tight and we may lose several units taking the City, but the cost will be worth it if we can capture that City and hold onto our other Cities.


If Horse Archers don't unload next turn, then we could move 1 of the Spears out of Amsterdam.


If Willem has any Horse Archers in The Hague, we'll want to be careful about emptying Utrecht of too many units.


I can give better feedback later once I have Civ IV access.

"Does that mean that:
i. 1 Cat survived Yes
AND
ii. Our WE beat the Longbowman No, an archer. The LB is awaiting in The Hague.
AND
iii. We have yet to Bombard with our 3rd Cat Yes, and as you suggest:

"we might not even want to Bombard or suicide attack with the 3rd Cat and just advance him toward The Hague, to get in +1 turn of Bombarding and to have a healthy Cat for the attack on The Hague, which is going to be tougher once Willem can't build Horse Archers."

"If Willem has any Horse Archers in The Hague, we'll want to be careful about emptying Utrecht of too many units." He has no visible HAs now. Any that he has are intentionally hidden or on the galley.

We seem to be on the same page. I can play the turn out in about 3 hours, if agreed.

Sure, you playing out the turn soon sound good.

No Bombarding or suicide attacking with Cat 3... there's no point and he'd be better off used moving southward so that he can Bombard at The Hague.

Willem has 3 Units in Amsterdam and we 99% odds with either WE 3 or WE 4, so we simply attack with something like:
WE 4
WE 3
Spearman (he shows 97% odds against the Archer as the Horse Archers won't defend against him)

If we lose a battle against a Horse Archer, our 3rd attacker could be Horatio, so that the Spearman still tries to capture the City. If we lose our Spearman instead, I suppose that Horatio could go into the City.

After Amsterdam is ours:
Sabutai could move to 1N of The Hague

Horatio should move to 1N of The Hague if Horatio wasn't needed in the attack on Amsterdam, to potentially steal a Worker next turn

Chariot 3 shouldn't move to 1N of The Hague and thus we could move the Chariot inside of Amsterdam to act as a second defender in case of trouble from Willem's boats.

By the way, it looks like you DID load both Cat 6 and WE 6 into our Galley, which is great news!

Promote WE 6 to Combat I, which will help to heal him

So, WE 6 and Cat 6 unload at 1NE of The Hague

WE 1 would probably be best moving to 1N of The Hague, to benefit from healing there, as would any units that are wounded which we move southward next turn


With these Bombardments:
T126 Cat 3 + Cat 6
T127 4 Cats

We should be able to take off all of The Hague's City Defences, so we could go back to 100% Research this turn.

Obviously, load Cats 4 and 5 onto our Galley while our Galley is inside of Utrecht (we don't want to lure Willem's boats to come near to us)

That leaves us the ability to send 2 units by boat on the following turn, so which units should stay inside of Utrecht?

I'd say that WE 2 and Spearman 6 could march westward, leaving Spear 3, Spear 11, and Chariot 1 to defend the City (the Cats would be aboard our Galley inside of the City and thus wouldn't be City Defenders)

We could either later send the Chariot to catch up to the stack or could ship up to 2 of those 3 units over to The Hague by Galley.


I think that's it, but let me know if I missed something.

Are you sure you don't want Horatio to be one of the attackers and thereby get a promotion? We really don't want him to be an initial attacker of Hague (instead of a WE) and risk loss do we?

Leave both spears and a chariot in Utrecht when no HAs are visible? That's pretty risk averse. Seems inconsistent to not attack with Horatio (presumably to catch workers), and yet not get the medic chariot in position to do so after we take the city.

Cactus Pete said:

Are you sure you don't want Horatio to be one of the attackers and thereby get a promotion?

Click to expand...

If it's just +1 movement, it's not a Promotion that will help us, is it?

If we instead say, take, 30% Retreat odds (Tactics), it could be worth it to gain that Promotion.

He'd probably have to attack the Archer, though, as I don't foresee him getting good enough odds against a Horse Archer compared to a War Elephant (although I don't have the game open now to check).

Cactus Pete said:

Leave both spears and a chariot in Utrecht when no HAs are visible?

Click to expand...

You said that there might be Horse Archers on a Galley, which may want to try to land near Utrecht, if that City was Willem's original target.

If we send drop off 2 Cats on T126, then we can drop off 2 of those 3 units on T127 using our Galley, so the units aren't really being left out of the attack.

Or, next turn, we send the Chariot ahead to catch up with the stack (since it can move 2 squares next turn) and ship over 1 Spearman via the Galley.


Basically, we're leaving behind a minimal guard consisting of units that can make it to The Hague on time.

Dhoomstriker said:

If it's just +1 movement, it's not a Promotion that will help us, is it? From the hill 1N of Hague, after city capture, extra movement would probably mean capturing another worker, assuming we don't have to use him to take the city (which is admittedly quite problematic).

If we instead say, take, 30% Retreat odds (Tactics), it could be worth it to gain that Promotion. Well, that can be decided after this turn.

He'd probably have to attack the Archer, though, as I don't foresee him getting good enough odds against a Horse Archer compared to a War Elephant (although I don't have the game open now to check). Against the second HA, which has no promotion, the odds should be over 95%. I'm going to risk that because I think those are as good or better survival odds than he is likely to get attacking wounded LBs in the Hague, plus the WEs (with 3/5 experience at 99%) will not get a promotion to heal more quickly. If we were to instead use a second WEs against Amsterdam, then it would have one less turn to heal. and probably be more badly wounded (though at 99% that's not certain). Rather take the higher risk of losing a WE than Horatio in our first attacks on the Hague, and we should have 4 strong WE's to attack with this way.

You said that there might be Horse Archers on a Galley, which may want to try to land near Utrecht, if that City was Willem's original target. The galley is NW of Am, so couldn't land near Utrecht but could land HAs within 1 turn's striking distance, so will keep chariot and 2 spears in Utrecht this turn.

If we send drop off 2 Cats on T126, then we can drop off 2 of those 3 units on T127 using our Galley, so the units aren't really being left out of the attack.

Or, next turn, we send the Chariot ahead to catch up with the stack (since it can move 2 squares next turn) and ship over 1 Spearman via the Galley.

Basically, we're leaving behind a minimal guard consisting of units that can make it to The Hague on time.

Click to expand...

Follow that.

Playing soon.

Played most of rest of T125

Amsterdam is ours without further losses, but the spear that took out the final archer is barely alive, and that presents an issue regarding defending that city IBT from a possible amphibious HA attack.

Next turn, after dropping off the cats, we could pick up the spear in Utrecht and unload him there, but the question is whether we should move WE3 into Amsterdam now or take a risk and move him toward The Hague.

Also:
Traded Drama to Isa for 50 gold.
Might want to put the new mace onto the galleon that takes a settler to the marble.
Galley 2 moved to be in position to pick up WE and HA to get them to NewAm a turn earlier if needed.
Did not whip the HA in Hippos, but could still be done.
Failed to alter actions of workers 4 and 8, so they may be late for the party.
Moved the GG to 2NE of Utrecht to find out where W's naval units were, and realized that the galley lurking beneath the trireme ENE of Am might have units on board that could capture him, so had to move a spear out of Utrecht to guard him.
Did not yet move spy out of the Hague but intend to do so, unless advised otherwise.

Sorry to post so late. RL intervened.

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_AD0250_02.CivBeyondSwordSave