SGOTM 12 - Plastic Ducks

Moscow: yes, this is what I meant. Sorry, wasn't clear enough.

SP: Just 2 chariots? I figured we had just a bit more turns than the anger left so why not whip some more, happiness shouldn't be too much of a problem here.

Rostov needs 6 hammers this turn to finish the archer... either an Engineer or the 1F1H tile. whipping yields gold and lost hammers iIrc.
Nov and Yaro can keep their deer in this case but I'll switch tiles around to avoid working an unimproved tile later on.

Rh: Alrighty.
Tours: not sure if another close city for Confu is really necessary. I'd prefer a more distant city, like Shanghai for example. Need to take a look.

Nanjing: it can whip CH next turn and it will be worth as much (or more, I forget) gold as beakers. 1g>1b

Shanghai: okay Forge first... will be out of gold by that time.

Beijing: I thought to skip lib as well so we are agreed.

Samara~Orleans ok Forge>lib

I don't agree to put Bank behind Grocer. Bank is 4 hammers for 1% gold, Grocer is 6:1. We don't have health issues except in a few places.
Similarly, Bank over Market if the city can skip the happiness (if city can be happy at 12 pop: Bank>Market>Grocer)... otherwise Market>Bank>Grocer.

It's still a while before we can start running exclusively 100% slider, Banks will be useful in the meantime. However the later cities can skip banks as they won't have time to build them before we go full research.

Ok with the rest of the order.

Bribing techs: I will test to see what Roose can bribe Churchill with. Keep in mind we will be facing 2 AIs already so the price is not as high as it could be.

Ignoring Washington: makes sense, should save 2~3 turns. In any case, I think this will not be in the next 10 turns. Let's hope he doesn't get Engineering and build Castles everywhere!

No comments means I agree.

SP: Just 2 chariots? I figured we had just a bit more turns than the anger left so why not whip some more, happiness shouldn't be too much of a problem here.

Click to expand...

Guild will be completed in 4 turns? so 2 chariots are the most SP could produce, or no? SP will be the corporation headquarter so there's lots to be build and whipped soon. The happiness will be an issue when we switch to Representation. Let it build instead of whipping as much as possible before AL. Also no unit from SP for a while. Let Beijing takes over the job for now.

I don't agree to put Bank behind Grocer. Bank is 4 hammers for 1% gold, Grocer is 6:1. We don't have health issues except in a few places.
Similarly, Bank over Market if the city can skip the happiness (if city can be happy at 12 pop: Bank>Market>Grocer)... otherwise Market>Bank>Grocer.

Click to expand...

AL will be available soon, so I'd expect to save enough pops to whip factories. For mature cities as Ros, which are candidate cities for banks to enable WS, banks are clearly available to be build at the moment, other cities need time to grow before AL, so that factories goes ahead. The main reason that I said market and Grocer are ahead of Bank is for those cities since market and Grocer are necessary for city growth, but bank is not. Also at that stage, we will have higher science slider with building wealth, so Obs and Univ comes ahead of Bank too, Bank won't be build in many cities for a long time.

2 more issues deserve mentioning.

1. I'd like the 1st GA from Taj since it's not safely to control it, so Moscow need to switch to Taj when available.

2. Make sure that you promoted all HAs to CII and 1 maceman to shock before entering American border.

Feel free to play when you are ready.

SP: you had me confused because I had said: Chariots until Guilds after the first Archer... didn't stop to count the turns

Banks: in any case, 6 is probably all I'll be able to start. I'd propose more or less the same cities with the exception to include SP as it will the the WS site.

Taj: yes no doubt it goes in Moscow ASAP.

HAs get CII yup yup to protect against XBows and a shock Mace for Axes/Maces once he gets them. I wish I could send a WE with that stack but iIrc they're too far back.

I may start playing today but more likely it'll be tomorrow.

First hiccup: Roose acquired Compass this turn.

Once we DoW Mao, we'll take -1 hit and he drops to Annoyed I believe. Only way to go around this is to gift him money to get +1 fair trade.

Churchill is researching Paper (he wants 650 gold + Paper for Feuda).

Roose wants Paper+260 gold for Feudalism.

I've saved and will test to see what kind of gold gift is required to gain +1... but I think Paper+gold for Feuda is best.
EDIT: it's about 400 gold for +1 at turn 170... t181 is gonna be even more. I've done the Paper+260 gold trade instead.

FFS!!!!

all spies were *********** lost.

F****** bull****.

The log is too long so I won't post it.

As I already said, all our spies were caught before we had enough EP... so I built 4 more (Moscow, Smo, SP, Nov) and sent them right back.

I wasn't able to spread Confu as much as I'd have liked to (needed a spy) and because the spread failed in Rheims

The RNG was not very kind, I lost several 90+% battles but progress is being made.

FB and Moai have been completed.

I did 2 silly micro mistakes. One was assign Vlad to a Grocer instead of a Bank as the 6th city. I dunno why but I had Yaro build a Bank instead crazyeye.

The other was the new city... I forgot to chop the bloody forests and just now noticed =\

I hope you do not mind, I extended the set by 2 turns... it allowed me to steal Nationalism in the end.

Churchill has Guilds but no horses.

Roosevelt has Knights... I saw 2. He appears to only have 1 source of horses and it's on the way to Boston.

Most Roosevelt troops are in New York, about 12~15.

T180


T181


T182


T183


T184


T185
GS born in Moscow.
Lose spy.

T186
More stuff pillaged...
Last spy lost, build 4 more.

T187
Bombard Chengdu. Finish Moai this turn iIrc. I research Economics as I can't put research on Constitution yet.

T188


T189 Research at 0% on Liberalism.
I forget to check for bumped Roosevelt units and we lose 1 worker... kill offending unit with nearby WE.

T190


T191


T192 Research at 0% on Constitution


Status of "Boston Tea Party"


Techs


I can play to the conquest of Boston but if you want to pick it up, feel free to. I'm sure you can't get worse RNG than me

Do go ahead for the next set, I need a few more days to finish WOTM32, where I took about a dozen of cities from a protective AI in 10 turns with a mere loss of 9 cavalries. So yes I got a better RNG than you. Just kidding, however I won't complain about any loss of battle < 99%, we have suffered few loss in the previous battles, now it's the time to give back to make the probability balanced.

On the other side, I guess that you were not aware of my suggestions about the spy move in post #700, and the war plan on post #697. Your loss of spies reminds me a well-know deity walk-through, in which someone used 1 spy for each city to revolt. Anyway, as long as our grand strategy gets going, these are no big deal.

Will take a look at the save later tonight after I take a break from WOTM32.

No, I do not recall the comment about the spies... shame on me.

Hitting New York isn't very realistic with the amount of units in there. We will need a lot of catapults to collateral it down do to good odds.

Finally, I did not attack Roosevelt right away as the so called main stack had only 3 Catapults. That's just not enough to do the job, I don't want that stack to be stuck in Boston without Catapults waiting for reinforcements. It should be able to hit 1~2 more cities after taking Boston.

I agree to skip New York at that time, but you took Chengdu and Seattle.

Overall, situation looks pretty good, will take a carefully look tomorrow. Waiting for your plan.

BTW, my thought is to gift another city to DG and retake the city near capital for Mao.

Seattle was taken by the Xian stack.
Chendgu: I had the Boston stack bombard it but it was taken by the Xian stack. The Boston stack was severely wounded and still is, so I took the opportunity to heal 1 turn in neutral territory before attacking Roosevelt. The only lost units from Boston stack occured when attacking the first Mao city. That's a 1 turn delay iIrc, but we'll have to heal at some point regardless... maybe it would have been best to heal in Beijing 1 more turn. Anyway, too late for that now.

Trojan city: most assuredly, I agree, but we have to wait until it hits size 2. I guess I should have given the other city to DG directly :S

All cities get Factory+Coal Plant when AL is done, but this is not in this set.

Moscow (alternate Taj with CMs but Taj so be able to complete the turn after capturing Boston)
SP (whip Bank, Grocer, CH)
Nov (Grocer, ?CMona?, wealth to grow) .. CMona can probably be skipped.
Ros (Bank, grocer, grow)
Yaro (Bank, grocer, Uni, grow)
Yek (Bank, grocer, happy when necessary, grow)
Yak (grocer, happy, grow)
Vlad (Bank, worker whip in Bank, uni, happy, grow) ... keeps 2nd Fish for a few turns to fast grow
Smo (Market, Grocer, uni, LH)
Ore (Bank, settler for DG, grocer, happy, grow)
Kras (Market, grocer, uni, happy, grow, Caravel if we get Optics)
Rh (Market, lib, grocer, uni)
Kha (Market, grocer, uni)
Bry (Market, grocer, uni)
Tv (grocer, uni)
Tours (market, grocer, LH, uni)
Novos (grocer, bank, uni, happy)
Mag (market, worker, grocer)
Xian (market, CMona, CMs) it has no religion so hopefully I can spread a few more here.
Mur (settler, wb, Market, grocer)
Nanjing (market, grocer, uni)
Irk (market, grocer, uni)
Chita (market, grocer, uni)
Shanghai (Forge, barracks, catapults)
Beijing ( a few more catapults, market, grocer, uni, happy)
Samara (Forge, LH, lib, Market, grocer)
Lyons (Forge, Market, Grocer)
Paris (CH, ?barracks, catapults? or lib, market, grocer)
Chey (CH, Forge, lib, Market, grocer)
Tobol (CH, Forge, lib, LH, market)
Volo (LH, CH, Forge, lib)
Orleans (CH, Forge, lib, market, grocer)
Astra (chop &^$&^ forests for granary and LH, CH, Forge, lib, market, grocer)
Guangzhou (granary, LH, CH, Forge) we need some workers over here to windmill the hills
Chendgu (Forge, lib, market, grocer)
Seattle (culture, CH, lib, market, grocer)

Techs:
I would like to extort Constitution from Roosevelt. However this means we'll have to put some research in it because the cost is pretty high. At least 1 turn of 100% research and some 0%.

Engineering: we need badly for Chemistry but I think we won't be able to trade for it. Getting it in peace from Roose is not an option, it's too late. So research it this turn 100% R then GP>Chemistry>SP>1 turn on Constitution and 0% on Constitution until we take Boston. We will leave Corporation to the last minute to keep GLH alive as long as possible. Preferably after we have revolted to FM to make up for the lost TR.

Military
Boston stack keeps moving ahead, pillage cottages on the way (replace with farms/workshops) and roads on non-fallout/forest tiles to slow down Roose's movement. Send 1 sacrificial HA to pillage horses. Take Boston as soon as it makes sense (don't waste Macemen for nothing).. heal up a bit if necessary.

Seattle stack: heal and wait for 4~5 more catapults before moving on to New York. Preferably, Roose would move stack in the open so we can kill it with less collateral.

Workers keep the same preference of improvement: river corner farm>watermill>farm>windmill>workshop

Specifics:
Not mentioned will stay in their current area.
Tobol workers: to Rostov watermills after done with windmill
Lyons workers: 2 head towards Tours, needs few more farms, 1 heads to Xian/Nanjing
Shanghai: to Beijing and watermill, then to Guangzhou
Moscow: keep farms until size 20 the change them

Do we want UoS? My feeling is no at the moment, we can still capture it from Roose/Churchill and the rewards at this moment is pretty poor as we have very few Confu buildings and SM is just around the corner to obsolete Monasteries.

kossin said:

Seattle was taken by the Xian stack.
Chendgu: I had the Boston stack bombard it but it was taken by the Xian stack. The Boston stack was severely wounded and still is, so I took the opportunity to heal 1 turn in neutral territory before attacking Roosevelt. The only lost units from Boston stack occured when attacking the first Mao city. That's a 1 turn delay iIrc, but we'll have to heal at some point regardless... maybe it would have been best to heal in Beijing 1 more turn. Anyway, too late for that now.

Click to expand...

What if we amass all the units including the reinforcements from Xian and hit New york after taking Guangzhou? NY has HS to speed up improvement and the units there become a dangerous factor for surrounding cities.

Roosevelt has Guild now, which makes the SOD toward Boston very vulnerable. Once hit, our GG will be a dead meat.

Suggestions for the plan

Buy map from Gandhi, if he starts to explore west, buy his map every 1 or 2 turns.

Other than growing to unhappiness or working on unimproved tile, no whip of infra before OR and religion spread

Moscow -- 1 Eng, Taj this turn, 2 CMs next 2 turns, try to schedule the completion of Taj with the capture of Boston, which I expected to be 8~10 turns if our GG survives. Use 1 CM on the galley to spread to Tv. Can use galley chain to speed up the transport. No CMonastery in other cities as OR is close.

SP -- takes hill from Smo and works on hills, don't worry about faster growth.

Oren -- spear and then bank, so delay Engineering by 1 turn.

Vla -- worker

The new city -- on city ruin is better

Beijing -- 2F3C to hill

Guangzhou -- cottage to hill this or next turn, can whip gran 1 turn earlier

Forget about UoS, we have only 1 religious building.

Hmmm, taking New York is a possibility but it will be VERY costly, perhaps pushing back the capture of Boston around 3~7 turns. That could be a long time =\
My estimations:
t195 Troops meet at New York, but the Seattle stack is severely wounded
t196 somehow capture ?New York?
t196-t197 start moving to Boston
t202~204 get to Boston (depends when we leave and from where we leave... there's a river behind New York so we have to go 1 tile further)
t203~205 bombard
t203~206 capture Boston

Best case scenario: 12 turns, worst case: at least 15 turns.
Compared to now: 7~8 turns to t199~200.

It also means Roose has 4~6 turns more to produce Knights.
However it is the safer approach and will allow us to send along at least 1 WE with the Boston stack.
HS should not be weighted heavily in the equation, we will be acquiring SP very soon and it will be obsolete at that time.

I mean, he hasn't hit the SoD yet while he had the chance... what would make his mind change?
You have way more experience than me with warfare so I will deter to your better judgement in this situation.

City-wise
Moscow - sounds fine.
SP - good.
Ore - Ugh, we have 1 Iron too many otherwise I'd gift them and build another Chariot. Other option is to pillage 1 iron for 1 turn... stick with Spear I guess.
Vla - yes, worker is really needed.
new city - well I guess it's a little closer. I had in mind to work the fish earlier but either is fine. Will reassign workers.
Beijing - yea, I've been consistently moving away coastal tiles to other tiles. Stupid game keeps assigning them when we grow.
Guang - yes. You know, the worst part about this city is that it came with a granary. Mao sabotaged it however =\

UoS - yea, what I said.

Nah, I won't recommend of turning back the SOD toward Boston, what I said was that New york should be taken right after Guangzhou and ignore Chengdu and Seattle. My main worry about that stack is that the GG is the strongest unit in that stack and will be picked once American knight attacks. Let me take a further look at the save tonight and see how to advance the war.

There's at least 1 unit that has full health that can grab Combat 2 promotion... better than nothing.

Yes, promote that maceman to CII.

Here's my thought of the war plan by sacrificing Chengdu, I hate to do this, but to make the war easier, we have to pay something, even that's painful.

IBT -- R 100% on Engineering, forget about the spear in Oren. Send WE1 to Seattle, except the GG and wounded units, move other full health units back to culture border. Promote the chariot in Guangzhou to MedicI and move it to the stack. Chengdu builds wealth. All other units move to 1W of Guangzhou.

IBT + 1 -- Move the SOD to 1W of Guangzhou and heal for a couple turns. Move the mace in Chengdu out to the same spot. SOD near Washington moves toward the Horse tile in Boston, no pillage on the way except the horse tile. This turn is the most dangerous time since it's in the 1st ring of Washington and AI will attack with siege and mount units. Pray for good luck, hope your bad luck has gone now.

IBT + 2 -- If there's any knight in New York, Chengdu will be gone now, but that will save the SOD toward Boston. Don't attack it now, let American reinforcements come and either kill them in the open field or in the city, but don't take Chengdu. Once all but 1 units in Chengdu and SOD is healed, send everything to New York.

Once the SOD toward Boston arrives the horse tile, heal for 2~3 turns until the CIII macemans recover and then move it to the hill tile outside of Boston.

BTW, regarding the improvement, Windmill > non riverside farm. Workers near wine city need to start improve Ros (watermills + lumber mill + workshops), which is our IW city, don't hesitate take the Deer from Nov once it grow further. The watermill on riverside plain tile and workshops on grass land in Moscow get higher priority than the desert tile.

Since you have not responded to this:

Duckweed said:

Other than growing to unhappiness or working on unimproved tile, no whip of infra before OR and religion spread

Click to expand...

The other exception is Growth buildings -- Granary and LH.

Edit: Moscow should be able to produce more than 5 CMs before finishing Taj, the order of spreading is 1 current CM to Tv, 1 current CM to Yaro, 3rd CM to galley and then to Yek through galley chain, 4th CM to Kha, 5th~7th CM to Rh and Tours or to when galley when available. Also remember to retreat all the spies, 1 to Mosocw, 1 to Copper, 1 to silk or Iron.

Agreed about skipping the Spear, it's only 15 hammers.

Sacrificing Chendgu: well it's a bad city anyway as long as it gets no food! I agree with the plan this should work well. I'll make sure to understand it very well and then print it before playing!

Windmills: 2H+1C>1F got it.

Nov as IW city: what a refreshing idea, I wouldn't have thought of that.

No whipping unless food/unhappy: yes of course. However I think we could add CH to that list, what do you think?

If my memory serves, Yaro already has Confu (natural spread).

Spies: yes most certainly. Sick about re-improving the copper. In any case, DG is low on EP so there's little risk there. Plus he'll lose that city possibly in the next 10 turns. (required 17 food to grow 1 pop, he's working a 1F tile).

If my memory serves, Yaro already has Confu (natural spread).

Click to expand...

Typo error, should be Yaku.

No whipping unless food/unhappy: yes of course. However I think we could add CH to that list, what do you think?

Click to expand...

OK.

Move on when you are ready. I'm also ready to take the next set. With the strong position before 500AD, I rushed WOTM32 with tons of mistakes.

Okies, will play tomorrow evening.

Also watch for Churchill carefully, if he enters WHEOOHRN again, stop and we need to revise plan. We might need to gift him Banking to bring him back to cautious.