SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

CommandoBob said:

Can't play tonight, plan to play tomorrow.

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Then I'll take the game now and play a few turns before you grab it.

>>The Save<<

I played 12 turns, went pretty fast since I didn't bother to write a detailed spoiler. The turns follow the same structure all the time:

• Bombard Indian Ironclads. Don't leave destroyers too close to Indian towns, since if an ironclad can reach it it will attack. Did that a few times, hence the low number of ironclads left.
  I've been redlining them - there's no chance to keep Indian WW low anyway, in Communism it won't matter, and it will put the clads out of order for a longer period of time.
• Clear pollution. At home it's not a problem, but in India it might be. There are numerous worker crews all around India just waiting for some pollution to appear. You should be able to find most of them just fine - but don't miss the ones in the inner sea and next to Mehrangahr. There are a few MAs lying in wait as well, to cover.
• Move the gatekeepers. I missed this on Ostrich on turn 10, which is why I played two extra turns to clean up the mess. It was really no problem, if it happens just let the moat be open for two turns in the other direction. There will be a few units ahead of the crowd, but those can easily be bombarded and/or killed if need be.

Some notes from my turns:

• Still no SS parts. Delhi is building BM and will finish in 5. Let's hope Gandhi will continue with something spacey after that. He's also building Internet in Mo at 20 spt, 100 shields down and 800 to go (10% discount). We could possibly use our leader to rush Internet when Mo has accumulated a good number of shields, hoping they will switch to a SS part. The Engine is at 640 shields, which means 576 at a discount, and needs only Alu. Nothing else he could build is that expensive, so it could work. That's 24 turns from now though, so we don't need to decide right now.
  EDIT: Of course I realize we can't keep it, we'd go over 100k in no time. That's why we should use the leader to rush it in a small remote town that we can raze right after.
• We're still strong to India. I've changed all the MA and MInfs on the outer islands to paras, but we still have a bunch of MAs lying around (19), most of them tied up in armies. But I think the real showstopper here is our 53 destroyers. Do we really need that many? In particular, do we really need to keep up the wall? I think not.
  My suggestion would be to keep 5 destroyers on each side of India, three more to cover the southern coast, one each for Spain, America, Ottos and Carthage, total 17. Disband the rest, including the inner and outer walls.
• I settled Neo-Carthage in a better location than the old one, and also raze-replaced Zilks to not steal the tiles from NC. So far I've only built walls there, it will need at least barracks and c.defense, then possibly airport, harbor and SAM.
• Research of AW is complete, I let research continue on FT1 just for fun, we can spare the 1gpt....

Go go! ..... go CB go, go!

@CB: What news? I guess you didn't play any yesterday, will you play today then?

Niklas said:

@CB: What news? I guess you didn't play any yesterday, will you play today then?

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I spent most of my free time researching hotel reservations, which took a lot longer than I expected. I plan to play tonight.

Rats. Didn't get to play after all.

Won't be able to play until next week; High School Reunion this weekend.

Alright, zyxy you still in here? Time to play some!

For the record, I won't be able to play again until monday.

Btw, CF should be back by now. I hope a little vacation didn't cure his civ addiction... nah, not likely.

Niklas said:

I hope a little vacation didn't cure his civ addiction... nah, not likely.

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Actually, it did go a long way to curing me. So did coming back to work after missing a week. I've been swamped.

Hopefully I can play a bit next week. I'm starting to get the feeling though that nothing we do short of selling the farm will make India build the SS.

Does he need all SS resources before pursuing it?

ControlFreak said:

Actually, it did go a long way to curing me. So did coming back to work after missing a week. I've been swamped.

Hopefully I can play a bit next week. I'm starting to get the feeling though that nothing we do short of selling the farm will make India build the SS.

Does he need all SS resources before pursuing it?

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Welcome back CF!

I think even selling the farm will not help.

I don't know if I have time to play this weekend. Even if I have time, I am not sure I will play - it feels more like a chore by now...

Btw, AlanH announced that SGOTM10 is nearly ready to start .

zyxy said:

I don't know if I have time to play this weekend. Even if I have time, I am not sure I will play - it feels more like a chore by now...

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I'm willing to throw in the towel if everyone else wants to.

If you still have some kick in you, why don't we jump our palace to Washington, give up all of Ostrich and Smurkz and just use our production/commerce to beat down any Manhattan project attempts?

Welcome back CF!

I still have some kick in me, though I admit it's fading quickly. But that's just because I really want to know how we fared against the other teams, and as long as we're playing I can't go read the other threads.


I'm not sure about giving up the farm either. It would simply mean a higher free support level for Gandhi so he can build even more troops. But I realize that if nothing happens on the SS part, we'll have to do something drastic.

What do you mean about beating down MP attempts? Sabotage?
Hmm, what happens if MP is built and then razed, can you still build ICBMs then? If not, we could rush it with our leader and then raze that town. But I doubt that's the case...
I'd like to wait until Delhi has finished BM at least (5 turns), since there are no more wonders for him to build then maybe, just maybe, he'll start a SS part. And as I noted earlier there's also the Internet build in Mo that we could interrupt and see what happens.

I know I'll be able to play Monday, and more that week as well. I could put down 20 turns to see if any of the tricks work, each turn is actually fairly quick at this stage. Anyone against that plan? (Of course if anyone else wants to play today or tomorrow then go for it!).

If no one else has the spirit to play, I could pick the game up now and play it to the (hopefully not) bitter end. But that wouldn't feel right, we've gotten this far as a team (and doing great at it!) and at the very least I would like your input on various matters.

Go for 20 turns (or more). I'll keep posting during the week and may be through my work crisis by Wednesday or Thursday.

Yes I was thinking sabotage of the Manhattan projects, but that might mean we keep killing their only non-unit build. I've never razed Manhattan project so I don't know if ICBMs are out at that point.

Alright, "got it", and I will try to play 20 turns today. I might do it in several rounds though, and post intermediate reports (if nothing else it will help me catch up to CF in posts ).

Sure, go ahead Niklas!

I doubt I will play anymore turns in this one.

On another note, signups for SGOTM 10 have started.

Alright, no intermediate reports but a single rather lengthy session. I played up to 1908 AD, i.e. 27 turns. I'm going to do the CF thingy, let you guess at the outcome. Answer (and save) will be posted tomorrow morning.

Here we go then:

• India has finally stopped building so awfully many units. No SS parts however, but at least now they're building improvements, and there's a finite number of those...
• Delhi followed up the BM with airport, civil defense, barracks and then - SS Docking Bay!
• India now has three SS builds running - Delhi, Mo and Hold'em, the last after first building Iron Works!
• We built the Internet, at which point Mo switched to (and built) SS Engine as we hoped!

Actually, looking at the list I see only positive outcomes one way or another. So you can assume I have some good news at least...

Niklas said:

Here we go then:

• India has finally stopped building so awfully many units. No SS parts however, but at least now they're building improvements, and there's a finite number of those...
• Delhi followed up the BM with airport, civil defense, barracks and then - SS Docking Bay!
• India now has three SS builds running - Delhi, Mo and Hold'em, the last after first building Iron Works!
• We built the Internet, at which point Mo switched to (and built) SS Engine as we hoped!

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Option "A" would be what we would do, so of course India would not do that.
Option "C" seems to be wishful thinking.
Option "D" could really get us to either the Dominaition or Culture Limit quickly, but since we cannot win that way, I don't think that is what happened.
So I vote for Option "B". If India was perverse enough to build Battlefield Medicine when most of her land based units are inside India (and not on foreign soil) then building an airport and such seems irrationally logical.

I'm going to guess A.

And the answer is:

I've would upload the save to the server, but it seems to be down atm. I'll upload when it comes back up again. I'll also post some thoughts and ideas on continuing the game from here.

My guess was D because it was the only way I could see us forcing Ghandi to build a spaceship part.

Checking spoiler....

OK, I guessed right. Now if there was only a bunch of wonders left for india to try for....

So is the game worth pursuing or is it pretty much over?

If no one else wants to play, then I will pursue the game to the end. It's 121 turns left, I can play those. Not much hope of getting Gandhi to space, but at this point I would find any one SS part a success. They have the engine down, and I could let them try for Manhattan at a later point for one more. Who knows, many of the other teams seem to have played close (or even up to?) 2050, maybe no one got Gandhi to space? Not unreasonable seeing the way Gandhi plays in our game. If that's the case, then the team with the most SS parts will at least have bragging rights.
Though I doubt 2 will be enough. So what it really takes is for Gandhi to start building SS parts on his own. I see no better alternative than to wait and pray (plus, any other strategy would take too much RL time).

Anyone wants a go at it, or should a play another set?

EDIT: The server is back up, so here is >>The Save<<

I know Niklas has already noticed, but not sure about the rest of you. CivIV SGOTM1 sign-up thread is open. It would be really interesting to get Team Smurkz a go at .

Both Niklas and myself have already signed up.

Team Smurkz, let's take !