SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

klarius said:

We get at least 3 beakers. 2 from automatic barb research and 1 from barb research because they have a city. Okay, thanks. I stand corrrected.

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If that's all you found wrong with my post above, I feel pretty good about it...

LC - I agree with your proposal to jesusin with one exception: why Toku? Why not accept everlasting war with him? He's much more dangerous than Asoka, and the barbarians will slow him down a bit.

We went for BW in order for the barbs to do damage, and they have. If we get peace with Asoka, which is the main contributor, we can live with Tokugawa WW me thinks.

I spoke to the-ever-absent-Gnejs today. He questioned why we plan to retake the gift city. Instead we should hope for the AI to build a worker which we can steal later. And the city costs maintenance (how much?) and be a general burden to the AI.

LowtherCastle said:

...
Additional turnset maneuvers:

• Beware of population growing too big in our cities
• After DoP with Toku, revise your thinking on how big cities can grow, in particular, whether we can poprush from pop4>pop2 for 90
• Build 2 more settlers asap
• Build galley in MW to transport settler to W (land route blocked by 1E-Bananas City) - And build a galley in Drojf
• You can time 2nd MW settler poprush so overflow + chop builds a galley following turn.
• Each turn make sure copper, horse, banana, pigs tiles are in use. - and cottage
• MW worker pasture pigs (?)--we need at least 3 more settlers... - 3 more? why not 2 more? Apart from the one we're building
• Build (settler?), barracks, axes in EK after obelisk - skip settler in EK, build one unit, then barracks, then more units in EK
• Build galley (or granary?) in GC after obelisk - I suggest that we pop-rush the granary when we need it. Stick to galleys.
• Poprush EK back to pop2 when the granary has 31+:food (or 33+ if building a settler)

Note: @jesusin, I understand you probably do this MM stuff better than I do, but these are my best thoughts anyway (since you've been off donig your Gauntlets... ).

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If we build galleys in Drojf, we don't need a barracks there. We should then build barracks in MW when we're going to war. We don't need barracks for pillage units in Saladin land.

Summary of short term non-military strategy:
Gift city to AI (Toku or Asoka)
If necessary and agreed upon, gift another city to the other AI
Settle QinGate (build settler and galley)

Possible long term non-military strategy
Build one other cultural bridge city, either to the west, or to the south east.

Ideas for early military campaign:
Build two units + galley and send to Saladin land for pillaging.
Build barracks in MW and EK. Dedicate Drojf to build galleys. Send main army to Qin or Alex or Isa.

Erkon said:

I spoke to the-ever-absent-Gnejs today. He questioned why we plan to retake the gift city. Instead we should hope for the AI to build a worker which we can steal later. And the city costs maintenance (how much?) and be a general burden to the AI.

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The AI build sequence will be archer-worker.
But at the intended city location that will take pretty long .
Maintenance should be around 7g for Asoka (more for Toku), while the city gets 1 or 3 g.
But that's not so important with him, IMO, as he is behind in development anyway and his capital wasn't that hot to start with.

klarius said:

The AI build sequence will be archer-worker.
But at the intended city location that will take pretty long .
Maintenance should be around 7g for Asoka (more for Toku), while the city gets 1 or 3 g.
But that's not so important with him (him = Asoka or him = Toku? I presume Asoka), IMO, as he is behind in development anyway and his capital wasn't that hot to start with.

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Archer = 37 turns - bonus => 30-34 turns? Then worker another ~20 turns. Completed in about 50 turns (250 BC).

Erkon said:

LowtherCastle said:

Additional turnset maneuvers:

• MW worker pasture pigs (?)--we need at least 3 more settlers...- 3 more? why not 2 more? Apart from the one we're building S1 - Toku; S2 - Asoka; S3 - Bridge W or SE; S4 - QinGate, not necessarily in that order.
• Build (settler?), barracks, axes in EK after obelisk - skip settler in EK, build one unit, then barracks, then more units in EK Barracks are 1/2-priced, isn't it better to just build it first?

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If we build galleys in Drojf, we don't need a barracks there. We should then build barracks in MW when we're going to war. We don't need barracks for pillage units in Saladin land. I agree, except that I think we want to War asap and that may mean 2-3 galleys in MW before baracks. And first 5-6 swords from EK. (We get IW in 22t!!!)

Summary of short term non-military strategy:
Gift city to AI (Toku or Asoka)
If necessary and agreed upon, gift another city to the other AI
Settle QinGate (build settler and galley) I'm thinking with all this WW, maybe Bridge West is higher priority than Qin. By the time we make it, that city will be developable (IW).

Possible long term non-military strategy
Build one other cultural bridge city, either to the west, or to the south east. Bridge W is a functional city and closer to MW. From Bridge W, Asoka is 15t. From Bridge SE, Toku is 15t to nearest city, 18t to capital.

Ideas for early military campaign:
Build two units + galley and send to Saladin land for pillaging. Yes.
Build barracks in MW and EK. Dedicate Drojf to build galleys. Too slow, not enough galleys, methinks. Send main army to Qin or Alex or Isa.

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I think our warring now has a new complexion.

Our priorities seem to be a balance of

1. Addressing WW (=Asoka, Toku, Isa,...,Qin (the least))
2. Selecting a kiil sequence for The Continent
3. Pillaging Sal and Qin in the meantime

Erkon said:

Archer = 37 turns - bonus => 30-34 turns? Then worker another ~20 turns. Completed in about 50 turns (250 BC).

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Archer should be 33 turns, but worker at only +1 food +1 hammer @ size 2, would be 41 turns.

And sure the unimportant was meant to be Asoka. I sure would like to hamper Toku.

Speaking for the Spirit of Gnejs:

Using MW and EK as they are now (without considering WW benefits from DoP with Toku or Asoka), we have the capacity to build and send an assault force to Asoka in about D-Day = 65 turns (including Bridge and transport). That means:

• 8 units (5 swords, 2 axes, 1 spear) on 4 galleys.

This could be accomplished from now, if we didn't have to burn settlers on Toku and Asoka (but we do obviously).

We do need to pillage both Sal and Qin, but we might want such an assault force operating on the continent to come first.

Possible long term non-military strategy
Build one other cultural bridge city, either to the west, or to the south east. Bridge W is a functional city and closer to MW. From Bridge W, Asoka is 15t. From Bridge SE, Toku is 15t to nearest city, 18t to capital.

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I don't see the connection from bridge SE up to now. And it probably means we have to war Alex first as we will not get OB with him.

Asoka and/or Toku

I solidly agree with klarius on this. Due to spiraling WW, we need to suck it in and DoP both of them. Toku's REX will be a problem later, especially when he settles California Gold Rush. Maybe we should target him first?

Plus, don't forget that klarius' Plan is about zeroing the current battle balance sheet with these AIs. We can DoW again later--the Barbs will still be there.

LC - you got the -post! I envy you...

I've done some screenshots for us to use when we discuss the great military campaign. First batch:

Second batch:

Erkon said:

jesusin, you are up next. Please take your time digesting this thread

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I think, I read somewhere on these forums that jesusin would be away in August.

klarius said:

I think, I read somewhere on these forums that jesusin would be away in August.

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Yes...and...no!

jesusin said:

But I am already weeping for other reason. In August! I will be away from my computer the whole month! Life is so xxxxxx sometimes!

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jesusin said:

By the way, I am back! I got a laptop that I can play the game in. As soon as I finish GOTM21, I'll be playing that 3GS, 11-artists-GPfarm game that will take me under 1000AD... probably only to discover that 3GS is a bit of overdoing things and 2GS is optimum

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jesusin said:

22. It was that 1450AD game I farmed everything. Great Plains map, lots of corn-on-a-FP.

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This last one was posted...today...

How long will take in that moment for us to research Monarchy ?

This could be a possible solution for WW - no ?

Okay, here we can see that the W Bridge has decent access to both Asoka and Isa, in addition to being a good production city. The one drawback is that it is far away from California God Rush and we don't want Toku to research Feudalism.

Ok, I'm going to throw out a couple of candidates for our military campaign. We can then discuss pros and cons, and hopefully come up with a priority.

Basic alternatives:

A1) Send pillage force to Saladin
A2) Send assault force to Saladin

B1) Send pillage force to Qin
B2) Send assault force to Qin

C1) Send pillage force to east
C2) Send assault force to east

D1) Send pillage force to west
D2) Send assault force to west

Individual pros and cons

A1) Send pillage force to Saladin
A2) Send assault force to Saladin

B1) Send pillage force to Qin
B2) Send assault force to Qin

C1) Send pillage force to east
C2) Send assault force to east

D1) Send pillage force to west
D2) Send assault force to west

Other notes: a pillage force may work together with spawning barbarians in two ways: (a) take advantage of damaged defenders => raze cities and (b) pillage resources to stop AI from building counter units (axes, mounted units)

Have you noticed the coastline west of Persepolis across the water? Waves can be seen, so there is an island between Qin-land and the continent.

LowtherCastle said:

Okay, here we can see that the W Bridge has decent access to both Asoka and Isa, in addition to being a good production city. The one drawback is that it is far away from California God Rush and we don't want Toku to research Feudalism.

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There should be room for more barbarian cities on that continent. With some luck, they will settle next to the gold before Toku gets there.

A2. pro: 42 bucketloads of forests to chop for Pyramids or whatever else (Medina has 4 chops in inner city, if still available); get free wkrs quickly for road-building unit on COntinent or work at home.

B1/2. pro:1) QinGate is very close to MW and should be a good producer of galleys or units. cons: 2) It may turn out that QinGate is not needed. 3) Qin is not particularly close even after QinGate (8t). 4) Warring w/Qin will give our cities a WW kick in the gut until we finish him off.

C1/2. pros: Alex relatively close target (5-7t) and is halfway to Toku and Gold Rush. Swords can sharpen their blades on Alex. Silver could also be accessed along that path! Warring w/Alex shouldn't incur serious WW. cons: We don't know for certain this route needs only 1 bridge. Not a good bridge for Asoka/Cyrus.

D1. pros: Can also include pillagers for Toku, maybe a key long-term addition. Good bridge for N and S continent.

Weighted settler priorities:

1. Trojan Toku
2. Trojan Asoka (but where? KK? QinGate?)
3. Bridge1
EDIT: 4. Assault force followed by pillagers or vice versa, maybe.
5. Qin
6. Bridge2

I think Bridge1 = E is wiser in terms of our long-term Conquest.

Bridge1 = W is better use of our production capabilities and if we send pillagers to Toku may prevent Toku from getting LBMs.

Additional possibility: How about if our pillagers also included a road-building unit? (see 3rd, 4th and 5th pictures below)

EDIT: THe last three pictures show the clear benefit using the W Bridge (D1/2) and building roads.

DOes pillaging affect an AI's willingness to DoP?

Let's not forget that Sal could build a galley and send a settler or an assault force. We don't want GC to get caught with its pants down.