SGOTM 05 - Geezers

Sam_Yeager said:
However I'm rather disturbed about this idea of taking Tyre. I get the impression that this might be fairly soon which is a big :nono: as far as I'm concerned. I know we've been getting away with not too many forces against Toku but Cyrus is another matter altogether.
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As I think about this more, I don't think Tyre offers much added risk. If we don't take Tyre, I suspect Cyrus will come after Phoenician. I'd rather give him Tyre as a target so we can get the gold near Phoenician on-line.

Sam_Yeager said:
Btw I notice that the tech screen doesn't give me any clue at all what Cyrus might research. Does that mean he's even more advanced than we might think?
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If he is advanced, then all is lost already. If he is not, we need to knock him back before he gets there. In higher level domination games (where the AI's can hold their own on tech), I see the "knights vs. longbows" era as a prime time to kick AI butt. Once AI gets rifles, then I need Cavs. The good news is there is a pretty big time gap between LBs and rifles. So, once I reach knights, I really try to exploit that time period. I think we need to try our luck on Cyrus before he gets to rifles. If he has rifles already, I think the game can't be won.

markh said:
Take your time for playing. I think we are at a very crucial point in this game now.
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Yes, I agree. I'd prefer to wait until Saturday morning when I'm more rested than Fri night after work.

BTW, this scenario has been a cracking challenge, hasn't it? I usually have a pretty good idea about what to do next, but not in this game. Nothing routine about it...
 
What victory condition are we playing for?

This point in the game is a crucial balance between building the super Stack of Doom and "strike first, strike hard, no mercy sir".

I choose to remember the wise words:

"Walk on road - walk right side: safe, walk left side: safe, walk middle: sooner or later you get squished like a grape.

Here, you, karate (or Civ): same thing. Either you karate (or attack) do yes, or you karate (or building) do no. If you karate (or science) do 'guess so', then sooner or later you get squished just like a grape"

In other words, decide on a course of action and follow it through 100%.

See you next week.
 
The-Hawk said:
BTW, this scenario has been a cracking challenge, hasn't it? I usually have a pretty good idea about what to do next, but not in this game. Nothing routine about it...
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Yepp, it is. At war with all AIs from the start, so no tech trading. A hammerless start and domination as victory setting. A quite far away big continent making maintenance a big problem. In my opinion it plays much harder than monarch level.

I really wonder why Cyrus was that quiet all the time. Did he send any ground troops, yet ? I cannot remember having seen any from him and his West city towards us is very lightly defended.:mischief:
 
The-Hawk said:
As I think about this more, I don't think Tyre offers much added risk. If we don't take Tyre, I suspect Cyrus will come after Phoenician. I'd rather give him Tyre as a target so we can get the gold near Phoenician on-line.
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I can see where you're coming from and in principle I support the idea. However, I'm not convinced that we have the forces to pull it off. As I see it the idea would be to take Tyre, absorb the initial counter attack and then start moving out forces to threaten his other cities.

In practice we currently have one (wounded) cat on lush island to take down Tyre's cultural defence [hopefully we should have three cats by the end of your turnset]. If we wait for one cat to take down the defence then Cyrus will have reinforced Tyre. If we attack regardless we'll probably lose 3 or 4 units which will leave us with very few units to withstand the counter attack. Bear in mind that we have a couple of Toku's units to fight off and Phoenician to take as well.

OTOH we have a gold mine by Osaka which should be online in 9 turns. That will also give us time to get some more units. On that point I think it might be a good idea to delay settling that city south of Corinth to save losing more units to garrison it.
 
Harbourboy said:
So are we confident of pulling off a win here then?
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It all depends how the war with Cyrus will develop. I think we are now at the point of the game that will show whether we have a chance to win or not. The next 2 - 3 turnsets will be very crucial.
 
Sam_Yeager said:
I can see where you're coming from and in principle I support the idea. However, I'm not convinced that we have the forces to pull it off. As I see it the idea would be to take Tyre, absorb the initial counter attack and then start moving out forces to threaten his other cities.
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Taking Tyre will not happen in the turnset of The Hawk. Units will have to heal and we need to get some cats. Phoenician will be target no. 1 and securing Osaka will be the main task for the next set IMO. When we take Tyre we have to be prepared for the counter, so we will need cats and pikes to do that. I see taking Tyre maybe in about 20 - 30 turns. At first we have to take Phoenician and make peace with Toku. Then we can go for Tyre.

We have a constant flow of units and if we upgrade some of our well promoted units I think we can pull it off. If we wait too long Cyrus might be too advanced. Our timeframe is quite narrow and if our war with Cyrus does not run well we are screwed anyway. We now have good amount of offensive units on lush island. When we go for Tyre we will need pikes and cats. I would say we will need 8 - 10 cats and several pikes to counter Cyrus' initial stack.
 
Congrats on pulling this game back guys.

I suggest the raiding parties are still the way to go with Cyrus. A Knight/pike/mace combo will let you take out his production and villages/towns. A sentry knight would be very usefull as you want to avoid heavily defended towns but you should try and soften him up before trying to take any cities.
 
Sam_Yeager said:
Bear in mind that we have a couple of Toku's units to fight off and Phoenician to take as well.
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Just to make sure we are on the same page, I would not go after Tyre until we have captured Phoenician and made peace with Togu. At that point, we need minimal units garrisoning anywhere... nobody can come through Togu's borders to attack us. I would expect almost every unit on lush island would head for Tyre, exception being those defending Corinth (which is prone to sea attack). Once our peace treaty expires, we will need to garrison our border towns with a couple of units. However, I would not be too worried about Togu, he will need some time to rebuild.

OK, so my goals seem to be: take Phoenician, make peace with Togu. Depending on how that goes (how many wounded, how long to mass troops near Tyre), I'm going to take a hard look at Tyre. If Cyrus only maintains 2 units, I might have a go at it.

IIRC, Cyrus is ahead of us on power, but not ridiculously so. I would interpret this as he is still on knights and LBs. Given AI's battle tactics, I'll bet he will leave too many units defending his other cities and will attack us piecemeal. If so, we are going to kick his arse ;).
 
markh said:
Taking Tyre will not happen in the turnset of The Hawk.
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The-Hawk said:
Just to make sure we are on the same page, I would not go after Tyre until we have captured Phoenician and made peace with Togu.
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Thanks for this. I did wonder in an earlier post whether or not I had understood the timescale clearly. Although even with the revised timetable we will need more units but I see mark covered that in his post.
 
Sam_Yeager said:
Thanks for this. I did wonder in an earlier post whether or not I had understood the timescale clearly. Although even with the revised timetable we will need more units but I see mark covered that in his post.
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Maybe The Hawk is in a bloodthirsty mood and proves me wrong.:crazyeye:
 
markh said:
I really wonder why Cyrus was that quiet all the time.
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Funny you should ask...

I'm on turn 3. Look what has showed up:

cyrus.JPG



If he is heading for Athens, I'm pretty sure we will lose the city, which would be really bad. Athens has an axe and a crossbow. I can whip the cat and then probably a pike after that. Maybe another pike while he bombards us. If we get a second pike, then there is an outside chance we can defeat his knights.

If he is heading for Corinth, we have a decent chance. Corinth currently has 2 maces, 2 xbows and an axe. I can whip a pike there.

Should we:

- Give him Kagosaki for peace (and maybe lose Osaka which will be cut off).
- Hope he is heading for Corinth and risk Athens?
- Assume he is coming to Athens and take our chances on defeating him?

I'll hold off until tomorrow to get everyone's input.

/Edit: I didn't check to see if he would take it, but maybe he would take Osaka for peace... that would reduce the sting somewhat.
 
If he takes Osaka I would say make peace giving him Osaka. We definitely do not want to lose Athens or Corinth. As he has frigates he can also build grenadiers, so I do not see any reason to continue the war with him. We have outdated units and will not be able to harm him much.
 
:eek: Interesting that he went for a naval invasion rather than a land one.

I think we need to know whether he will make peace, and what price, rather than wasting our time discussing what to do. If he'll make peace then it's a question of do we take it or take our chances. If he won't make peace then there's not really a lot to discuss.

Given where his galleons are I can't see him going for Corinth so it's either Athens or our home island.
 
I double checked. Kagosaki is the only city he is interested in.

You are right about the Grens. He has Chemistry and Gunpower, which means he is ahead and will continue to pull further ahead. I think we might be toast on this game gents.

I think we have to make peace. If he takes Athens, we are finished... game, set, match. If we make peace with him and keep after Togu, we have a chance.

One thought... Maybe there is a chance we can run Togu and Izzy off of lush island, then go after Sally and start settling off-islands. In other words, go for the dom limit across several islands.

One other thought... I think we need to go ahead and settle out our initial island and cottage the crap out of it. If we are going to win this game, we need to stay with the other AIs in tech.
 
The-Hawk said:
I double checked. Kagosaki is the only city he is interested in.
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:( I wish I knew what was so special about it. Well realistically I don't think we can gamble on holding Athens which means we'll have to give up Kagosaki. Does anyone know what happens to the units there? Do they get bumped out of the city or is it the same as a city wishing to join your civ where some of the units are trasferred to you? Perhaps safer to move our units out of there if we can.

The only worry I have is that Cyrus might take the peace and redeclare after the ten turns. I suppose all we can do is fortify Athens & Corinth with more units.

The-Hawk said:
One thought... Maybe there is a chance we can run Togu and Izzy off of lush island, then go after Sally and start settling off-islands. In other words, go for the dom limit across several islands.

One other thought... I think we need to go ahead and settle out our initial island and cottage the crap out of it. If we are going to win this game, we need to stay with the other AIs in tech.
Click to expand...

This sounds like a good working plan. Don't forget we also have Qin lurking in the north. He's another one who's been very quiet recently. :hmm:

EDIT: Perhaps worth pillaging the plantation by Kagosaki for some :gold:? I was tempted to suggest whipping a cat there as well but Cyrus might say no to peace if we did.
 
Summary

The-Hawk, upon hearing a vague rumor that Alex survives on a small out island, loads all forces onto galleys and sends them in search. Cyrus and Asoka land on our home island and capture all the empty cities...

OK, not really.

We have peace with Cyrus at the cost of Kagoshima. Cyrus is now a trading partner. We repel two Qin landings on silver island. Samarqand is founded. Phoenician is captured. One Togu counterattack at Osaka is repelled. A second Togu counter attack is heading vaguely towards Corinth, where a nasty surprise awaits it. Several units built, several units upgraded, only three units lost during the whole turnset. As a result, we are now #2 in power! :)

(When I was capturing notes, it looks like I called two turns "turn 7". So, I ended up taking 11.)

Turn 0:

  • MM New Sarai to build its mace sooner.
  • Set research to zero to allow some promotion.
  • Find a worker asleep in Osaka, move him to Kagoshima to work cows.
  • Move the sword fortified on a hill near Corinth to the new city site near wine.
  • Move a worker building a road near Corinth to road the cows near the new city site.
  • Promote a L4 Axe to Mace to help deal with the nearby Togu 'phant. Concerned he will want to disconnect our spice.

IBT

  • Qin galleon with Settler and two well promoted LBs heading towards silver island.

Turn 1 (1613)

  • Old Sarai: Cat -> Knight
  • Corinth: Settler -> Pike
  • Move settler towards hill east of wine. I decide not to settle on the fish side of the wines since the AI's keep unhooking our sea resources. Decide not to settle on the wine so we don't lose the extra gold from the winery.
  • Kill Togu 'phant near Kagoshima with spear from Osaka.
  • Kill Togu cat with keshik.
  • Sword near Osaka can be promoted, decide to make it a medic. We do not have enough to support our various forces.
  • Decide to leave the knight on silver island there to deal with Qin.
  • Units in Old Sarai are stuck due to Qin galleon in area.
  • Collecting units in Kagoshima to attack Phoenician.

IBT

  • Qin moving towards silver island.

Turn 2 (1616)

  • Settle Samarqand east of wine.
  • 1 knight, 4 maces, 2 cats head towards Phoenician. More will follow, but want a head start on bombarding. This is enough to handle the LB and spear there anyhow.
  • Decide to leave the mace that just arrived from Athens in Corinth for a bit. Nervous about Qin or Cyrus attacks.
  • Whip mace in New Sarai to deal with Qin settlers. We want to kill those two LB's with City Garrison 1 and 2 before he establishes a city.

IBT

  • Qin lands on silver island with 2 LBs and 1 settler.
  • Cyrus shows up with a large invasion force N of Athens.

Turn 3 (1619)

  • Give Cyrus Kagoshima for peace. (I can not think of the last time I gave a city for peace :( ).
  • On silver island: Knight kills LB, Mace loses to LB, chariot kills LB, we have a new worker. Send him on his way towards Athens with the knight.
  • Stack near Phoenician reaches a hill. Oops, Togu added two 'phants to its defense. Guess we'll need some new units after all.
  • Promote a L5 Keshik to Knight.
  • Trade world map to Cyrus for 130 gold, Saladin for 70 gold, Issy for 80 gold.

IBT

  • Qin galleon is heading west. I'll bet it will swing down and pillage our nets by New Sarai.


Turn 4 (1622)

  • Athens: Cat -> Pike
  • Our unit supply chain from the home island is still on hold because of galleon. Not a big deal since we want the next few knights to hang on for homeland defense.
  • Moving stack to Phoenician.
  • Promote an Axe to Mace.

IBT

  • Yep, Qin pillages nets near New Sarai, but is moving off to the west.
  • Asoka caravel with a missionary appears near western part of home island.

Turn 5 (1625)

  • Karakorum: Settler -> knight
  • Turfan: knight -> knight
  • Yokohama: barracks -> cat
  • Ning finishes a knight and continues a Mace that was in queue.
  • I notice the 'phants left Phoenician, now there is a Sami, a LB, and a Spear. I wonder where the 'phants went?
  • The bombardment of Phoenician begins.
  • Decide to reward our spear in Osaka that killed the 'phant with a promotion to Pike. Who knows where those two missing 'phants are heading...
  • Settler on homeland is heading west.
  • Two knights on homeland are moved to a central spot and put to sleep. From here, they can almost cover all of our cities in one move.

IBT

  • Two 'phants show up near Phoenician and now the Sami is gone. Are these the same 2 'phants, or two new ones? Why would they be circling? If they are new, did the sami join a parade of units heading towards Corinth? Just how many units are in the area? :confused:

Turn 6 (1628)

  • I decide 1 LB and 1 spear in Phoenician is too good an opportunity. Decide to take the risk on not knowing how many 'phants and sami's might be in the fog of war. Bombard Phoenician down to 20% and attack right away. Knight kills LB (30%), Mace slaughters the spear. Phoenician is ours at no loss. And... it has a granary, forge, and courthouse! :D
  • Once we move into Phoenician, I see the (or another) sami to the east on open ground. Decide we should kill him while he is on poor defensive terrain. Send a knight at 75% odds... and lose. The RNG evened out.
  • Kill wounded Sami with a second knight.
  • Send several maces into Phoenician to cover the expected 'phant counter attack. Leave a couple of maces on the cats.
  • Qin is gone, so I start moving cats from homeland towards silver.
  • Promote an axe in Yokohama to mace. Queue a LB after the cat being built so this new mace (with city raider 1,2,3) can go raid some cities.
  • Decide this is enough promotions for now, so research is back to 30%

IBT

  • Islam spreads to our lands.
  • We learn Philo. Funny how our barbs are doing all the research, and we are doing all the conquering. :lol:
  • 'Phants near Phoenician do not counterattack. They disappear again, where to now?

Turn 7 (1631)

  • All units are now in Phoenician resting.
  • Decide to whip the cat in Yokohama. With those 'phants missing, I want to get the LB in queue going. Besides, Yoko is still somewhat undeveloped, so a citizen was on an unimproved tile.

IBT

  • Urgh... another Qin Galleon heading towards silver island. Good news is there is only one LB (settler and worker). Kind of wish I had left the knight on silver island though.

Phantom turn 7 (1634)

  • Whip pikeman on silver island to help deal with LB.
  • Settler on homeland is in place, but I do not settle him. I think we should wait until the workers clear some jungle so we do not lose too much commerce.
  • Decide to leave our "in transit" cats on silver island. Not confident about our pike versus the LB, especially if the LB lands on defensive terrain.

IBT

  • Our new buddy Cyrus offers gems for gold. You got it bub... and we no longer have any unhappy citizens in any cities.
  • Togu's 2 'phants appear NE of Corinth (at this point, I think its been the same two all along, not sure why they keep circling).

Turn 9 (1637)

  • Ning-Tsai: Mace -> LB (I think our new city to the west might attract Asoka's attention since he is on the island west of that. I believe we will need to keep some decent defense there. This LB should head west when complete.)
  • Corinth: Pike -> pike. (I am not a big fan of defensive units, especially since our "hunker down in Tyre" plan fell through. However, those two 'phants are begging for a couple of pikes.)
  • New Sarai: Pike -> knight.
  • Osaka comes on-line, is very unhappy, and is starving badly. I start a courthouse and whip it for 5 units. Still starving.
  • I move our silver island "stack" to the tree tile so Qin can't land there.
  • Our marble near Yokohama is on-line.

IBT

  • The march of the 'phants towards Corinth continues.
  • Qin lands on silver island onto a plain tile (no defense). His Galleon turns towards Athens.
  • Asoka first to liberalism.

Turn 10 (1640)

  • Osaka CH -> Barracks. Whip the barracks for 2. Starvation is now over.
  • All galleys and caravels to port until Qin galleon leaves.
  • Silver island: Pike dies attacking LB. Chariot kills LB. We have 2 new workers.
  • Cats are stuck on silver island for now (Qin galleon).
  • Send knight, 2 maces, and the pike out of Corinth towards 'phants so they can't pillage.
  • Sending galley from home island to pick up the two workers on silver island. They are needed on home island for jungle cleanup.
  • Send stack out of Phoenician towards Edo.

IBT

  • Togu sends a stack towards Osaka. (OK, it is a stack of 1 crossbowman). I guess he wants to pillage our gold. (I'll bet The-Hawk won't let him :mischief: .)
  • Qin galleon is N of Athens and departing the area.
  • The 'phant attack is veering off away from the Corinth force. Seem to be heading towards Samarqand or Yokohama.

Turn 11 (sorry) (1643)

  • Athens: Pike -> cat. Fortify Pike in Athens (a lesson thanks to Cyrus).
  • Osaka: Barracks -> LB (so we can move the offensive units out and get after Togu).
  • Kill Togu xbow near Osaka with a knight.
  • Stack now can see Edo. Togu has 1 Sami, 1 'phant, 1 LB, 3 cats. Our stack is 2 knights, 4 maces, 3 cats, 1 axe (medic).
  • Moving our Corinth anti-'phant force to cut off 'phants.
  • Whip the pike in Corinth. While the anti-'phant force is sufficient to defeat the 'phants, we will probably lose a mace doing so. I would rather take them both with pikes and save the mace.

Some thoughts on next turn:

  • 2 workers from silver island should go home and work jungles.
  • Cats on silver island are ready to be picked up when Qin's galleon is gone.
  • When Phoenician comes out of revolt, it will probably be starving. I would whip a pike there in case the 'phants come back this way. There are three maces there, but a pike would be better.
  • It looks like Qin is bound and determined to settle silver island. We need to get a couple of better units there. New Sarai is working a knight, but it will take forever. We might want to bring a knight over from homeland and leave it here. Maybe promote the chariot, although that would be expensive.

/EDIT: Sam, great idea about pillaging the plantation before surrendering Kagoshima... unfortunately, I didn't have a unit that could reach it and pillage in one turn. Unroaded tile...
 
Quite an eventful turnset The-Hawk. :goodjob:

I must say the tech screen makes somewhat grim reading. Just about everybody (including Toku) has gunpowder whilst we're still 16 turns away. :(

I notice that Qin is running Vassalage as is Toku. Toku is understandable but Qin running it gives me the distinct impression that he will be coming for us soon.
 
Looks like we'll need more military wherever we attack. However the interesting question is which city should we attack? Kyoto is the hindu holy city, has a shrine and also has the Great Library. Edo is stifling Phoenician with it's culture. I must admit that I'm inclined towards Kyoto as we could do with some help on the science front. It'll also help split Toku's forces. Thoughts?

EDIT: Just realised that what I thought was a scouting knight is an attack force presumably heading for Edo. :blush:
 
I think Edo can be had with the force on its way there (there is another mace coming up from the SW of Edo as well). I would park the stack next to Edo and start to bombard. If Togu is nice enough to suicide his cats, then we have plenty of units to take the remaining defenders. Our medic axe will heal the units damaged by his cats while we bombard.

Once we have Edo, we can either go directly to Kyoto or else swing by Tokyo on the way. I suspect Kyoto will be heavily defended, but at that point we can bring units from Osaka to bear as well. Bottom line though... you are right. We need to keep building military.

I am worried about Qin going after Corinth or Athens. Also about Asoka coming to home island from the west. Heck, one of these days Sally is going to sally forth from the South. Oh well, if any of the above happen, we are going to be in trouble. We simply can not be strong everywhere.

I am also worried about Cyrus. Kagoshima will be cut off, he will be upset over our close borders. If buddhism spreads to our lands, I vote we switch immediately. Cyrus, Asoka, and Qin are all buddhist... the three AI's we need peace with.
 
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