SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

Radar towers are disabled.

@WD: Any news for us?

I'll be finishing today. Despite there not being a whole lot to do, it's still a bit slow going. I guess it's just the fact that it requires a bit more thought than the usual game.

Or maybe I'm just slow

EDIT: I just rushed the FP in Chicago and it will finish next turn. Declared war on America and took St. Louis and Thunderfall, moving their capital to Alcatraz. And I have a Great Leader!
What do we want to do with him? I think I'll finish this turn (turn 5) and then pass it on. Tadpole will probably require some in depth micro management when the FP completes and that is my weakness (well, one of them).

Army maybe?

I think army is the way to go. I have 2 more elites that can attack this turn. I wish I had seen the 3 elite tanks on M-O island. I should have used those on America.

Absolutely make an army! Start building the Military Academy. Once we can make armys, we can cover any tile we want without fear of India attacking. They will (almost) NEVER attack an Army.

Fill them with defensive units (MI) and plant our first one in Mehrangarh which should prevent pesky attacks from India. Eventually, we'd want armies on all three tiles within the limits of Mehrangarh to prevent the Indian's from entering our territory to pillage and incurring WW by standing on our soil.

This will go for the tiles near Canal and Hold'em which remain within our borders. As we get the armies filled with MI, we can just about abandon all of the remaining units except for enough MA to repell coastal incursions.

I agree, we definitely want armies. Make sure you can win with it somewhere - possibly use it against the Celts when they are due?

The Save

All right, I've played to 1480 AD and I'll pass it on as soon as I straighten things up a bit. Don't want to leave too much of a mess for the next player. It's mostly those ships... they're all over the place. And I want to do a little MM over on Tadpole though I'm far from expert at it.

I accomplished our main goals. The FP is in Chicago. We have an army. Mehrangahr is in place. India's empire is growing steadily. Some solar plants are done and 5 hospital prebuilds are under way, along with a Battlefield Medicine prebuild... although I started that late

Here's my log, though I may edit the end before I hand it off. Save is NOT uploaded yet... just need to finish up.


Turnlog for 1450 AD to 1480 AD:

Turn 0) 1450 AD:Smurkz on Ice switches to settler and rushes for 240 gold. Upgrade 2 tanks on Tadpole. Move transfer 2 out (I missed the location of the other chain transports). Alcatraz ferry moves to Smalltown America. Load 4 MA in transfer 1. Move it out in prep for american invasion. Give 4000 gold to Celts.

IBT: Trade embargo agianst us between Spain and Celts ends. Same for embargo between Spain and America. Otto and Celts sign MPP. Otto and Celts ally vs. India. Nansmurkzet and New Smurkzheim taken by India. Galley leaves Carthage.

Adelphia: police station-->?
Hold 'Em:Uni-->rax
Bursa: harbor--> market
HotB, Alba, 'Am zee: bomber-->bomber
'Food: MA-->MA
Victoria: airport-->MA
Cape: Uni-->SE
'Land: rax-->civil d
Kalmurkz: lab-->SE
Science Squeeze: bank-->SE
Upstate: aque-->market
Smurkz On Ice: settler-->wealth
Missi: airport-->bomber?

Turn 1) 1455 AD:Looks like Celts bought tech from Carthage. Steam and Medicine. Nothing very expensive to "throw a shoe" into in any of India's cities. Switch a bunch of towns to Solar plants. Disband some bombers on Tadpole. Mehrangahr founded. Rushes walls for 80 gold. Trade Ecology to Carthage for map +1918 gold. Pillage oil and rubber at Mehrangahr and build fort on horses. Gift America Alcatraz and 100 gold. Wake M-O island ferry and move out (didn't see the elite tanks there... wish I had loaded them). Move units out of Gergovia territory.

Smurkzadelphia and Oy Deer are undefended and a path opened to them.

Unload 4 MA on Tadpole and move them to Smalltown America. Load them onto Alcatraz ferry and send it out. Privateers move towards Carthaginian galley but fall one tile short.

IBT: Otto and Spain sign MPP. Carthage and India sign trade embargo against us. Carthage and India sign alliance vs. Spain?! Wacky.

Carthage: MA-->MA
Mehrangahr: walls-->rax
San Ansmurkzio: airport-->solar
Canal: civil d-->solar
Cabana: MA-->solar
Houston: worker(hmmm...)-->aque
Highway: bank-->factory

Sing Sing flips!! we accept it. Lincoln asks us to remove our troops from Alcatraz. We agree. Pollution at Sages and Vladivo.

India moves 2 guerillas next to Smurkzadelphia. 2 guerillas and 2 archers are 2 tiles away from Oy Deer.

Turn 2) 1460 AD: Rush a settler in Sing Sing for 240. Forget to set it to zero growth though so abandon is delayed.

Disband the unit in on Alcatraz that Lincoln asked us to move. Landing party is ready for St. Louis. M-O ferry picks up 3 MA and one MI in Olive. Moves out for Thunderfall.

Clear some pollution. Disband some bombers on Tadpole. Bored workers are excited to have some work to do around Sing Sing. They irrigate and rail and such. Prison guards from Sing Sing find new jobs in Mehrangahr. Rush barracks in Mehrangahr for 160 gold. Drop science a bit. SW in 2 at +526 gpt. Give Celts 3000 gold.

IBT: India takes Smurkzadelphia. Indian guerillas pillage roads and rails near Oy Deer?! Take the town, silly!

Mehragahr: barracks-->civil d
Hold 'Em: rax-->civil d
Deer riots! They are cut off from our network now and I didn't realize it. They get 5 entertainers.
Arismurkz:MA--> solar
Ol Smurkz River: MA-->bomber
Spicy: Cathedral-->solar
Albasmurkze: bomber-->bomber

Pollution at Stein

Turn 3) 1465 AD: Celts bought Indust from Carthage. Curiosity gets the better of me and I investigate Smurkzgrad.

Realize that I haven't installed a screen capture utility on this new computer. Anyway, they are building a rifleman. Citizenry: 1 happy, 3 content, 1 unhappy, 1 resisting, 2 entertainers. City has rax, market, court, bank, factory, police, stock, and of course the GL. Clear some pollution in the mountains by Indianaposmurkz. It will soon be Indian territory and
we want it to be nice for them. Science to 30% and SW in 1 at +971. Set Sing Sing to zero growth.

Open a path to Smurkzacapulco and House of the Beard.

Airlift some old infantry to Tadpole for disbanding. Disband 1 old infantry in Mehrangahr and then cash rush civil d for 152.

IBT: Americans and Otto ally vs India. Emabrgo against us ends between America and India. SW is complete and start on Sanitation. Indian guerilla moves next to HotB.

Washington: market-->bank
Mehrangahr: civil d-->SAM
Olive: SE-->wealth
'Capulco: SE-->explorer?
'Zala: MA-->MA
Cosa Nostra: market--> aqueduct
IA (interesting name):market-->aque

Sing Sing abandoned


Turn 4) 1470 AD: Disband some units on Tadpole. Disband old infantry in Mehr and cash rush SAM for 72. Declare war on America. Bomb Thunderfall and St. Louis with jets. I've never bombed spears with jet fighters before. At least 3 spears in St. Louis. Land 4 MA at St. Louis and 3 +1 MI at Thunderfall.

Pump science to 70% because I'm not sure how much of an effect losing the FP will have.

Zala switches to cavalry. Crazy, I know. But it's the weakest unit we can build to bait any elephants that might appear.
Canal switches to Police Station.
Atroid switches to solar.
Now I realize I should have started a prebuild for Battlefield Medicine earlier. At least with Mehrangahr it's not as important to us. Anyway, I rush some solar plants to get towns started on hospital prebuilds. Missi rushes solar for 488. Zentral for 512. Sages for 440. Vladivo for 640. Ismurkz for 480. Acabana for 912.

Damn. I disbanded something in Chicago and can't switch to FP. Someone warned against that too. Rush bank for 300 gold.

Give Celts 2000 gold.

IBT: American units south of Houston move in. Pollution at Sages. HotB is taken by India.
Carthage: MA-->solar
Mehrangahr: SAM-->temple (bad idea, as I soon see)
Ismurkz: solar-->nuclear plant (prebuild for hospital)
Smurkzfood: MA-->wealth
Chicago: bank-->FP
Verulamium: market-->bank
Missi: solar-->external casing (gotcha! prebuild for battlefield medicine)
zentral: solar-->life support module (prebuild for hosp)
Sages: solar-->carrier (prebuild for hosp)
Vladivo: solar-->nuke plant (hospital)
Cabana: solar-->nuke plant (hospital)

Turn 5) 1475 AD: Rush FP in Chicago

Battle for St. Louis (can't really call it a battle, more a crushing)
v.MA vs r.spear: crushed, MA 5/5
5/5 MA vs r.spear: crushed, MA 4/5
4/5 vs r.spear: crushed, MA 3/5
On to the next tank... v.MA vs r.spear: flawless.
rolls again vs r.spear and wins, 5/5
once more vs r.spear and wins.
Next tank: v.MA vs 2/3 spear, wins 3/4
3/4 MA vs r.longbow wins and we raze the town.

Battle for Thunderfall
v.MA vs r. spear, wins now 4/5. Raze the town.
Tank gunner to driver: "Hey, I think you ran over something."
Driver: "Really? Let me back up and see."

Skirmish south of Houston (Where I live, by the way)
e.tank vs r spear, wins now 4/5
4/5 tank vs r.spear, wins and we have a great leader, "Hubba"! What a name. Hubba makes an army.
e.infantry kills v.archer flawlessly.

Move bunch of old infantry and one settler to Tadpole on the ship chain. Disband old infantry in various towns. Load a bunch of workers from Ostrich to move to Tadpole. May need them to tweak terrain improvements. Load settlers from island East of old St. Louis on Alcatraz ferry to move to Tadpole.

Disband 1 old infantry in Mehrangahr and rush temple for 162. I may well regret that.

Olive switches to wealth and units retreat. Cash rush 3 markets on Tadpole for 88 total gold.

IBT: archers pillage by Houston

Mehrangahr: temple-->airport?
New York: market-->aque
Ol'Smurkz River: bomber-->cavalry?
Chicago: FP-->factory. go from +648gpt to +1010gpt
'Zala: cav-->cav
Smurknes: market-->factory
Golden: market-->factory

Pollution at River and 'Capulco
Indian archer moves next to Oy Deer
Celtic galleon leaves Gergovia
Cultural border expands at Mehrangahr! I didn't think it would happen so quickly! Well, hopefully Ghandi will build a couple cheap temples. On the other hand, we REALLY don't have to worry about Ghandi having oil, horses, or rubber for a while longer.

Turn 6) 1480 AD: Unload workers from Ostrich in Verulamium. e.infantry kills 1/3 spear south of houston flawlessly

EDIT: finishing up: Move units on Ostrich to block landing spots from Celts.

Clear pollution by Indianaposmurkz. Another pollution spot on a mountain down there... workers can almost clear it but not quite.

Load MI into army and kill an American archer with it. Load the army onto transport to send him back to home continent.

Zala switches to solar plant. CAvalry renamed Jumbo Bait.

Boy that was ups and downs . Looks good in general goodjob: for that), but there are a few things...

• You will certainly live to regret the temple in Mehrangahr, whatever possessed you to do that?? I'm actually thinking that maybe it would be best to abandon the town and rebuild it, to give India back those tiles you stole . Or can we count on India building something cultural fast enough? In any case the temple must be sold, now.
• The rushing of solar plants, hmm... sure we have money, but that's over 3.5k! Ok, you were tasked with pre-building BM, and in that light you probably did the right thing. But in hindsight I would have said better to delay BM for a while. (BTW, CF tried to do something similar for Wall Street and rush a bunch of SEs for it, luckily we stopped him )
• You need to learn how to short-rush. If you have an empty bin and you desperately need to rush something, always rush a worker first, switch and rush the remainder. Rushing a build from an empty bin costs 8 * shields, rushing with at least one shield in the bin costs 4 * remaining shields. So rushing a settler in Ice for 240 gp means you paid 8 gp/shield. Had you first rushed a worker, that would have been 8 * 10 = 80 for the worker and another 4 * 20 = 80 for the remaining 20 shields for the settler. Clearly this is not a very serious objection, we lost <200 gp on this during your turns so no big deal. But it's a very useful technique, in particular in the early game where every gp counts.

I think Mehrangahr should be rebuilt. The temple seemed like a good idea but as soon as the border expanded on the very next turn I knew that it was a mistake.

Short rushing... I like it. Wish I had tried it. The fat treasury encouraged me to be too frivolous. Am I blaming the treasury for my mistake now?! No, no. I was too free and easy with the money.

(Niklas beat me to the )
I second all of Niklas comments (and would have firsted Niklas comments but I don't get up that early my time).

Mehrangahr
We didn't want ANY culture in Mehrangahr because we're trying to maintain as small a footprint as possible in the midsts of Indian territory. India is unlikely to build Culture anytime soon. What I don't know is how much we're actually stealing from him. With his current state of unhappiness/resistance it seem's he can only work about 5-6 tiles. We need to evaluate if any of the tiles we've stolen are hurting the cities around them.

If they are then we should abandon and start over. Make sure we get the settler there before disbanding so we don't leave our troops in indian territory.

If the stolen tiles aren't hurting the Indian's then just leave it. Sell the Temple.

Regardless, we should have built an Airport after the barracks and definitely before the SAM.

Rushing
Yes we have a lot of cash, but you never know where we might need that later. It doesn't hurt us to be frugal. Never full rush something with an empty bin. You did well to disband units in Mehrangahr before rushing, but there were at least two settlers that you rushed without short rushing and without disbanding.

Also, since we do have decent sheild outputs, where possible, rush a unit with a cheaper price and then switch to what you actually want, letting the city's production finish it. e.g. if you have a northern town making 10spt, you could rush an explorer and then switch to settler and it will still be due in 1. (Of course you could disband an infantry and the settler would still be in 1.) Just watch for the situation where {Desired unit cost} - {City spt} <= {Cheaper unit cost}. Rush the Cheaper unit then switch to Desired unit.

Battlefield Med
This is not a priority with the Mehrangahr strategy. You could have let the Solar plants finish or even finished the hospitals first and then built the Solar plants. Again, it's not a crisis since we do have a lot of gold, but we don't have so much gold that we can continue at this pace. We are supposed to be giving India cash with each city which will eat through our treasury quickly via proxy.

Questions
Where's our research? We were supposed to build Star Wars but I didn't see any mention of it.

Where's our army? goodjob: getting another leader BTW) We were supposed to make a successful attack on the Americans with it. We were supposed to start the Military Academy.

With all the MP treaties out there, will we still be able to keep someone with an intact rep to trade uranium to India?

IIRC

• Aluminum Carthage - ACTIVE. They are trading aluminum, silks until all but the Fuel Cell is built.
• Rubber Smurkz - Will Connect When External Casing is the only Aluminum SS part left. (Really have to loose the culture war down there before that). After the External Casing is complete, we can disconnect it again.
• Uranium America - Will gift them Uranium 1 and 2 when only the Fuel Cells remain. After expertly being pushed to Alcatraz goodjob: WD) they are in position to be the Uranium Trader. We must remove Carthages' aluminum supply to prevent Nukes.
• City Proxy Celts - ACTIVE. When they make peace, kill them to prevent any WW, flipping for India.
• Other Lacky Spain - Either keep as backup City Proxy when Celts die or eliminate them. The situation depends on how manageable the worlds MP treaties remain. It would be better to eliminate Spain than have Carthage or America get drawn into attacking India and blowing our chances at india getting resources from them.

Re: Star Wars... I thought we were going for Sanitation next. I must have misread something.

Re: armies... there are a couple places that could switch from solar plants to Heroic Epic and Military Academy right away.

ControlFreak said:

[*]Uranium America - Will gift them Uranium 1 and 2 when only the Fuel Cells remain. After expertly being pushed to Alcatraz goodjob: WD)

Click to expand...

That makes me feel a little better, but it certainly wasn't expertly

The Save


Added link to the save at beginning of log and put it here as well in case you miss it.

So... the game can use some "cleaning" as usual. Messy Wardance.

Things to watch out for: Celtic galleon in the strait. I blocked nearby landing spots on Ostrich but not on Tadpole. A couple of nearby privateers are moving in but can't get close to him yet. If he leaves the strait to the east they can get him.

I didn't get to the MM on Tadpole. I'd better leave that to an expert. There are lots and lots of workers there now that can adjust terrain improvements.

Mehrangahr is currently set to worker. I was thinking we could abandon Mehrangahr by rushing a settler and use him to rebuild. **kicking self** Or we can rush a settler up north again to bring him down there. I didn't sell any of the improvements I wasted money on so we'd better do that before we abandon. Gert a couple coins back anyway.

Army with one MI ready to move home and on to Mehrangahr. How many units can you put in an army and still load into a transport?

Lots of places can build the HE in 1 turn or Military Academy in 5 or 6. I'm surprised we haven't built the Military Academy already.

EDIT: about war elephants and India's golden age... I think we may never see any elephants. India will probably build units with the best attack rating it can which right now is guerillas. They might just build guerillas and rifles til the end.

Another EDIT: the tanks I used on America are still on the old American islands to block any AI from settling. I think if we put a bunch more privateers in the water we won't need to worry about that anymore. I loaded the 2 settlers from the old island east of St. Louis on a transport to move to Tadpole. Maybe they can move up to Ostrich and settle there now that we've backed off the domination limit some.

We haven't built the Academy before since it requires a victorious army. Now we have one, good job with that!

Roster:

• WarDance - Just Played
• zyxy - UP!
• Niklas - skip until March 21st
• CommandoBob - On Deck!
• ControlFreak
• Methos - ghosting

And no, I don't want to switch with zyxy, I have too much to do before we leave for Malaysia.
Since CF has passed even me in the posting, it's only fair that he does some duty too . I'll leave him in charge of keeping the game moving forward in my absence.

I backtracked and found where I got confused with the research.

ControlFreak said:

Techs
I like the idea of Hospitals as I said before. I also agree that Battlefield Med would be a good wonder. However, since my mission was StarWars, I think we might as well finish that first. I think we already have or will soon have enough SAM's to enable SDI. A prebuild should be started for SDI so that it can finish close to the learning Integrated Defense. In the meantime, start planning prebuilds for hospitals/Battlefied Med for 9 turns from now so that the minute Sanitation comes in, we have >5 Hospital built and can build Battlefield Med the next turn.

Click to expand...

For some reason when I was cutting and pasting stuff into my notes/ checklist I only cut out the latter part of this with the hospitals
Even though it's a complete and utter mistake... no one will be able to make ICBM's for a while. But the wording also says "start planning prebuildsfor hospitals... for 9 turns from now". That's where I got confused. To me 9 turns from now meant finish current research in 5 and then Sanitation in 4 for hospitals. Even so, I messed that up too because I didn't start a prebuild for Battlefield Med. Does every team have a gimp? I hope so. I'd hate to be alone with that honor!

WarDance said:

For some reason when I was cutting and pasting stuff into my notes/ checklist I only cut out the latter part of this with the hospitals

Click to expand...

Ouch!

What I used to do was print out any post I thought I needed for my turns. The pages looked good, with lots of white space, but took too long to print. Now I just copy the entire post into Word and print out the Word document. Not as pretty, but it works.

WarDance said:

I backtracked and found where I got confused with the research.

Click to expand...

You're forgiven. I don't remember everything I post either.

Neither Battlefield Med nor SDI are an emergency, I just like to stay focused enough to improve efficiency. No harm done.

Temple on the other hand...well, we'll take it out of your paycheck.

I think transports can convey an army of any size. The space constraints on Galleons are because the leader counts as a unit of the army. An army with three units in it is actually size 4 with the leader counted. I think galley's can convey a one-unit army. I don't use leaders for armies that often so I don't really know.

Have a fun time Niklas. I'll be watching the store.

EDIT:

I took a quick look at the save and there are some things that need to be addressed:

• Spain, Celts and the Ottomans all have MP with each other. Attacking any of them will get the others to attack us. So when we go to eliminate the Celts, we could also eliminate the Ottomans and Spain. Spain in particular is worrying me because they are also at war with Carthage. Should they escape our notice and get in the way of the shipping lanes, they could cutoff Indian's supply of aluminum. I would like to have units in position near Spain to take her out the same turn we attack the Celts. We can't do the "Our MP beats your MP" trick to break treaties because we don't want MP's. They will make our ally declare on india. As it is, Carthage is the only one NOT at war with India. Eliminating the Ottomans and Spain would help India.
• We have a lot of workers fortified on Tad, but have pollution on Smurkz. There are also a lot of mines to make on Tad. We could possibly use more workers, but there's not a whole lot that we need right now so maybe just make do with what we have?
• We have a lot of fortified fighters and at least one fortified transport near Thunderfall. Make sure you wake them. The more eyes we have the better prepared we are. Privateers only move 6 tiles so they can't catchup to a galleon or transport.
• The ship chains are a mess. They would have enabled you to move workers from Tad to Smurkz to deal with the pollution if you had maintained their positions. (Return the Vera transports to Vera, Transfer transports to the Destroyer at Transfer and Point transports to Point).

I'm actually happy with hospitals first. Like WD said, ICBMs are a long way off still, because we are the only ones with uranium right now. And you never know when you need a medic .

I'll check out the save and post a plan later tonight. I intend to play tomorrow evening, and probably on Sunday as well, as the turns are taking long.

zyxy said:

I'm actually happy with hospitals first.

Click to expand...

You should have said so before my turn and we would have them by now.

My posting on the weekend is usually short if at all. Please post the roster order when your done.

Long term plan

• Wait for India to bow to the God Of Light And Music. Tom-die-dom-die-dom... is there anyway to give them an incentive? Niklas claimed we only need to spy on a town if it would cost over 2200 gold to do so. Notify Gamemaster when the eagle has landed .
• Make sure India keeps access to Aluminum. In particular, keep the sealanes Theveste - kastle and Theveste - Gift Aluminum <n> open.
• Gift all southern cities up to but not including Hold'em and Smuez Canal to India by proxy (Celts). After that, kill the proxy. I don't really mind either way, but I would prefer not to kill any of the Celts' MPP partners unless we have to. We can just maintain a state of war, shoot their ships out of the water, and India will never be bothered. The main risk would be that Carthage is drawn in the fight and India loses the Aluminum.
• When Apollo is done, wait for India to at least start on all spaceship parts except Exterior Casing and Fuel Cells - F10 will tell. Then let them have Uranium in a trade deal similar to the Alu one, and Rubber (we would probably have to abandone Merengue or whatever that fortress is called , and just occupy the Oil source). Make sure SDI is finished by now to have some protection vs nukes.
• Do not build all 10 spaceship parts ourselves! We would be forced to launch...

Short term plan

• Execute any parts of the long term plan as possible. In particular, Oy needs to be gifted now, and blockades of our other southern cities need to be removed. The gifting has to speed up a bit, or Celts and Indians will sign peace before we're ready.
• Research: Sanitation - Smart Weapons. After that we don't seem to need anything, so shut off research maybe? Or slowly research some modern techs if we feel like it.
• Money: gift small bits to India by proxy. Any suggestions for other uses? I could see us rushing some armies with it, but that's all.
• Wonders: Academy in Missi (best shields city now, and best potential with Hospital I think), Epic in Zentral, BattleMed and SDI wherever convenient. Cities with nothing better to do can build some spaceship parts to make the AI's nervous. Tromsmurkz, Hold'em, Richborough and Entremont can do Ironworks once we lose Albu, and Entre looks best. Will groom it, perhaps even cashrush a bit.
• Workers: I think we have plenty, but they may need some redistribution.
• Tadpole: will look into MM.
• Re-establish ship chains, unfortify fighters and transports as necessary. Our sole surviving MDI goes to Smurkz as Elephant bait - perhaps in vain, but you never know. I would prefer to cover the pirates with destroyers or carriers, but perhaps we do not have enough ships yet.
• Found some cities on the rubble islands near Popsicle and on Ostrich, as far as domination limit allows.
• Mehrangarh fortress: has 2 culture points. Do we need to abandon-resettle? Or can we just sell the temple and wait for India to build some temples as well? In any case, army will move here (loaded with MI), and horses will be pillaged.

Did I miss any?

WarDance said:

Does every team have a gimp? I hope so. I'd hate to be alone with that honor!

Click to expand...

Gee, don't call yourself that!
We all learn by mistakes, and it's always better to learn by someone else's . Just think that you're doing all our newbie lurkers a big favor!

But honestly, you've done a few rash things but really nothing show-stopping. My impression is that you are certainly not a bad player. All the stuff we're discussing you are more than capable to handle, and your comments in our general discussion are always good ones. It's just that sometimes when you play you seem to act a bit too fast, without enough thought...