[BTS] SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[The-Hawk]

Originally Posted by leif erikson

@Hawk - if you are still on the road and unable to plan time to play, please let me know and I'll swap you.

Yes, I will be traveling Mon-Fri for the foreseeable future (I have booked hotel through June). Hard to see how I can play a turnset in these conditions. Best I can do is offer advice. I'll try to use the weekends to look at saves to get a better feel for the game.

Once I get established in my new job and have more time in the evenings, I might get myself a laptop so I can Civ on the road. Not allowed to install it on my company laptop. Unlikely I will do so on this SGOTM, but maybe it will get me back in the saddle for the next one.

[Cactus Pete]

Hope your really enjoy travel, Hawk. Otherwise, tough lifestyle . . . especially for a geezer. (Would much prefer Z's.)

In any event, stay involved. Your advice is valued.

[leif erikson]

Originally Posted by The-Hawk

Yes, I will be traveling Mon-Fri for the foreseeable future (I have booked hotel through June). Hard to see how I can play a turnset in these conditions. Best I can do is offer advice. I'll try to use the weekends to look at saves to get a better feel for the game.

Once I get established in my new job and have more time in the evenings, I might get myself a laptop so I can Civ on the road. Not allowed to install it on my company laptop. Unlikely I will do so on this SGOTM, but maybe it will get me back in the saddle for the next one.

Advice would be great!

Updated Roster:
Mad Professor - UP
Htadus - On Deck
Cactus Pete
zamint3
leif
Undecided
The-Hawk - traveling

Originally Posted by Cactus Pete

Hope your really enjoy travel, Hawk. Otherwise, tough lifestyle . . . especially for a geezer. (Would much prefer Z's.)

In any event, stay involved. Your advice is valued.

Agree, along with best wishes for safe travel. Your views and advice are always welcome.

[Mad Professor]

I’ve been gazing at the save.

First of all, thinking about victory possibilities – I’d like to at least briefly open that discussion.
Space requires high science %, and we’re having trouble at zero. Not good.
Culture requires high culture % and we’re having trouble at zero. Not good.
Religious – the AP is Buddhist – we’ve got little chance without a long hard military road capturing a lot of Buddhist cities.
Diplomatic – requires teching to mass media. Not sure how we’d do that. Might get there eventually with a specialist economy builbing with GP’s but it will take a while.
Military – we’ve got an army and we can quickly rebuild our siege arsenal, so OK – problem though is the tech pace of the tech leaders. By the time we get to them we might be attacking rifles with our crossbows and trebuchets…? In addition there's no city razing so our economy is going to be going to hell in a bucket long before we get there.

Comments?

We can’t redeclare on Hatty for 9 turns. Do we use those 9 turns to rebuild and put some bandaids on the economy before redeclaring, or do we pick another target. Related question: who is the intended target of those civs preparing for war that are not already dogpiling on Tokugawa (even though they don’t have open borders with us so they can’t reach Tokugawa (yawn))?

We might be able to use the 9 turns – now with currency, markets can help us a lot for example… Is it worth it? If we take this route, my turnset might be a breather in the war while we put bandaids on the gushing wound that is posing as our economy. On the other hand, our unit cost is 41 gpt at the moment. Those nine turns will cost us therefore 369 gold just to keep our units sitting - should we attack someone else while we're waiting then? Comments?

A detailed plan coming soon depending on the feedback I get on this post.

[leif erikson]

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

I’ve been gazing at the save.

Bleary-eyed no doubt.

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

First of all, thinking about victory possibilities – I’d like to at least briefly open that discussion.
Space requires high science %, and we’re having trouble at zero. Not good.
Culture requires high culture % and we’re having trouble at zero. Not good.
Religious – the AP is Buddhist – we’ve got little chance without a long hard military road capturing a lot of Buddhist cities.
Diplomatic – requires teching to mass media. Not sure how we’d do that. Might get there eventually with a specialist economy builbing with GP’s but it will take a while.
Military – we’ve got an army and we can quickly rebuild our siege arsenal, so OK – problem though is the tech pace of the tech leaders. By the time we get to them we might be attacking rifles with our crossbows and trebuchets…? In addition there's no city razing so our economy is going to be going to hell in a bucket long before we get there.

Comments?

Yeah, pretty well describes our position. The big problem with culture is that we are late to start and it is doubtful things will be peaceful enough to actually try to achieve it.

Diplo. Given religious animosity and the Toku clones, not likely without playing domination anyway?

Agree that domination will be tough, but it looks like the best choice.

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

We can’t redeclare on Hatty for 9 turns. Do we use those 9 turns to rebuild and put some bandaids on the economy before redeclaring, or do we pick another target. Related question: who is the intended target of those civs preparing for war that are not already dogpiling on Tokugawa (even though they don’t have open borders with us so they can’t reach Tokugawa (yawn))?

Need to be ready for whatever comes, but we cannot climb into a shell and turtle. Going to have to

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

We might be able to use the 9 turns – now with currency, markets can help us a lot for example… Is it worth it? If we take this route, my turnset might be a breather in the war while we put bandaids on the gushing wound that is posing as our economy. On the other hand, our unit cost is 41 gpt at the moment. Those nine turns will cost us therefore 369 gold just to keep our units sitting - should we attack someone else while we're waiting then? Comments?

Looks to me as though it is Hammy's turn for some

Pointy stick research and pillage gold to feed our addiction?

And a lot of midnight, beach haka's...

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

A detailed plan coming soon depending on the feedback I get on this post.

This will be difficult to produce, may also want to do this in phases.

Better sharpen you Sword, polish your helmet and collect those big stones for the Trebs because we're going to need them.

[Mad Professor]

Originally Posted by leif erikson

Pointy stick research and pillage gold to feed our addiction?

I thought you might say that. Sounds good to me. l'll be interested in what other wisdom is out there...

[leif erikson]

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

I thought you might say that. Sounds good to me. l'll be interested in what other wisdom is out there...

And to think I used to be a nice, peaceful kind of guy just tryin' to get along in the civ world. Now, ...

[zamint3]

Living as a ski bum is hard for an old man like me....

I need a rest before having a look at the save.

[Cactus Pete]

Just opened save and was confronted by windows asking what to build in several cities. Couldn't get out of it without choosing something for each city, then exited game, went back to central to get another copy of save, but same thing happened. Is everyone being confronted with this? What is the explanation?

[Htadus]

Yes, I too ran into that. No big deal. undecided seem to have uploaded an auto "save at end of turn" file. Since the end of turn is executed on those outo saves, you get the pop ups. Since the next turn is not execute (enter button) any selection is binding. Next player can manage the real action.

[Mad Professor]

I don't think the selections are "unreversible" by BUFFY's definition but when I was confronted by that I made arbitrary selections then saved the file in case BUFFY didn't like it. The resulting save is below. The only difference between the save at central and this save is that I have selected market in Delhi and treb in Kyoto (I think it was Kyoto that was the other one?) These selections are only like place holders though as they can be changed before the end of the turn without hammer investment. This save however allows anyone to look around without making any selections.

Gandhi AD-0800.CivBeyondSwordSave

[Cactus Pete]

Thanks, MP. RL intervened tonight. I'll try to look at your new save tomorrow and comment.

[Cactus Pete]

Examined save . . . some thoughts:

Where are the resources that make Calendar worth having? (We need it anyway to get Optics and Astro.)

Don't see much choice other than to pursue aggression, and probably best to open a western front as well as continue against Egypt (and let's go after Elephantine first to get ivory and reduce WE problem).

Reiterate that the forests SW of Osaka and Satsuma need to be chopped ASAP before we lose that option. And we generally need roads, chops, and mines more than farms, since we are going to continue to be whipping units.

A market in Delhi is not as valuable as units right now.

Treb4 can't get to Egypt in 9 turns, so better used against Babs. Other four trebs can continue east, and that should be enough. Would prefer we build cheaper cats near the front for a while.

Little need for OR at the moment, as we are not building much and won't be for a while. Suggest whipping the missionary in Tokyo into an inexperienced cat this turn (and revolting next turn), which would be out in time to join the attack in 9 turns.

Suggest you list tentative city builds for discussion.

[The-Hawk]

I can't see the tactical situation, but I agree with the general sentiment. At this point, the best way to avoid bankruptcy is to put those units to work and claim gold from captured cities

I also agree with the idea of a second front. Building sufficient units might be a balancing act with our economy, but I think we need to run on the ragged edge. Waiting probably means we lose the SGOTM to teams that are more aggressive.

Originally Posted by MP

should we attack someone else while we're waiting then? Comments?

Hard to imagine we can reposition all our units to Hammy within 9 turns. I would leave them in Hatties neighborhood and go right back after her. Having units traverse back and forth across the continent is not very efficient.

Originally Posted by CP

A market in Delhi is not as valuable as units right now.

Agreed... we need to prioritize units while they are still effective.

Originally Posted by CP

Would prefer we build cheaper cats near the front for a while.

Given our economic situation, we might be better served with fewer expensive units, vs. more cheap units. I think I would stick with Trebs.

[Htadus]

I agree that we look to the west. the trebs near by should stay in west and build new units for east in atimely manner.

[leif erikson]

Some random thoughts:

Agree that we can get out of OR, unless we need to build Buddhists, but do not see the priority to use hammers for this.

Cats versus Trebs - thinking we need to rebuild a credible cat force to reduce stacks with superior weapons in order to defeat them. Trebs for city attack and Cats for protection, bombardment and attacking enemy stacks.

We are at pop limit in Delhi, we could hire a Scientist or two?

When we find a bit of time and excess hammers, could use a Library in Kyoto to fend off some of the cultural pressure.

Hammy has Calendar, if we can wait and our attack is successful. Our power ratings are about the same and two of his cities are on the island.
Babylon contains The Great Library, The Great Lighthouse and The Great Wall.

Should use the great Scientist to bulb Optics, less maintenance.

edit - should we consider a Spy for Hammy's territory?

[Mad Professor]

Some helpful comments. I'll answer with my own thoughts and propose a draft plan over the next few hours. For those of you in North America that probably means it will be up when you get up in the morning...

[Mad Professor]

Some comments on unit movement. Basically everything east of Tokyo might as well stay put and wait for redeclaration on Hatty as they will take so long to reach Hammy’s border that they won’t get there much before we could declare on Hatty anyway.

We currently have 6 cats, 3 xbows, 2 axes and 2 spears right on Hammy’s border right now though. Is this enough to declare on him? I’m not so sure of that! If it is enough that can be done immediately and the army can move right in. I’m a bit nervours about thought, so a delay might be handy - if we delayed the declaration three turns we could include four more trebs in the force, including three which are currently on the road eastwards, and another xbow would just be one turn behind them. Everything east of Osaka could just keep heading east and get ready to redeclare on Hatty. That way we might have enough to make a mess of Hammy (as long as new builds went west) and still have an army in the east to redeclare on Hatty in nine turns?

Comments?

GPersons – I’ve read a suggestion to bulb optics with the GS. What about the GProphet? Does he just continue to eat 1 gpt?

Plan for workers and builds later.

[zamint3]

Tough call on opening a second front.

Given the units in Opis, I would wait.

It looks like Bab is connected to Hatty by land NE of Elephantine, so we could take Hammu on two fronts after Hatty.

Let the one Spy do some intel in that direction.

I see that we have some workers hoping to strike a silver mine, maybe they should go chopping first.

[Cactus Pete]

Originally Posted by Mad Professor

Some comments on unit movement. Basically everything east of Tokyo might as well stay put and wait for redeclaration on Hatty as they will take so long to reach Hammy’s border that they won’t get there much before we could declare on Hatty anyway. Concur, but think we should move all trebs, except #4, east as well. There are at least 3 Egyptian cities that we will want to capture before another peace, and we will need all the additional seige weapons we can muster to do this, while we already have a number of cats in the west and shouldn't need more than one or possibly two trebs to take Opis. (After Opis, we should have time to build more trebs as needed in our relatively nearby production cities.

We currently have 6 cats, 3 xbows, 2 axes and 2 spears right on Hammy’s border right now though. Is this enough to declare on him? No. We have no hope of taking Opis without more non-siege units, and crossbows would seem optimal. so a delay might be handy Concur. - if we delayed the declaration three turns we could include four more trebs in the force, including three which are currently on the road eastwards, and another xbow would just be one turn behind them. Siege units are not the problem. The delay needs to be until we have enough non-seige units -- preferably at least 3 more crossbows and whatever else looks right, depending on what additional Bab units become visible.
Comments? One approach to taking Opis would be to declare and move only a spear and an axe forward, then wait and see what comes out of the city towards them. We might be able to sacrifice those two units to create a killing field, utilizing our cats and crosses against all those maces.

GPersons – I’ve read a suggestion to bulb optics with the GS. Don't think we can do this until we have Calendar, but certainly then. What about the GProphet? Does he just continue to eat 1 gpt? Yes, for every additional AI citizen we capture (which is what we need to do anyway) before a GA, we should gain 1+ gold/hammers for ten turns.

Plan for workers and builds later.

This is critical. Regarding builds: Still don't think scholarly pursuits business start ups are appropriate. Almost every city should be 2-pop whipped for a unit as soon as possible after it shucks off the unhappiness from the previous whipping. This will hurt economy, but see no alternative but to take AI cities quickly to gain gold, tech, and territory. Normally, it's optimal to wait until there is one overpopulation/unhappy citizen in the city before whipping 2-pop, but that would already be true in many case if we were at war with Egypt (and suffering war-weariness unhappiness), and we are going to re-declare well before the whip unhappiness will wears off, so go ahead and plan to whip 2 happy citizens.