SGOTM 23 - Phoenix Rising

Stalin has a chariot and archer near Istanbul. Not to mention the sword and axe roaming.

Were playing a high risk game with Jerusalem and other cities undefended. Chariots could take a city if hidden away.

The follow up HA can reach cologne in time. We have 3 HA for his axe and sword. Would be nice to kill these roaming units. Leaves us 7HA for Novograd. We would need to leave Moscow defended due to chariots. Can we really take Novograd?

I tend to find making peace deals between Ai only causes us more grief.
1. China will start to expand again.
2. Mehmed can at least reach China albeit his units are heading the wrong way.
3. Mehmed may just decide to attack us? You would think he would pick a lower power Ai first? Albeit close borders won't help us.
4. Unless we can bribe him on Russians?

Russians power rating is growing again. we have not really crippled Stalin yet.

Nearly 300 jump in score. Very nice. Likely due to culture from captured cities, HG wonder and techs.

70 gold from Persians! Beg? Or trade for it?

Archer by Istanbul has been killed by Horse Archer. HA didn't take any damage, now loaded in Galley. I think there's only a Russian Chariot in the area and we can land our HA right by it.

Sword and Axe by Rostov are under control : they wouldn't attack 3 HAs stack together.
We should try to pick them on flatland.

Chariots, however, are a danger, yes. They can come out of the fog and snipe.


I'm not convinced either that we need to make peace (e.g. would Mao's stack get back to his capital if we stopped the war ?).
Also, yes, the primary reason to bribe Mehmed was to avoid a DoW on us.

x-post:
I too worry about what Mehmed will do if we force a peace treaty. What if his units which are already in the middle of our territory decide to "dagger" us (attack with no warning). We don't even have garrisons.

Been years since I read about AI DoW mechanics, so if you know better and this is impossible I will trust you.

Gold: Agree that we should get 70 gold from Darius. Either by begging or selling mono.

We dont have peace treaty with KK. I guess this means we didn't beg for 30g earlier?
Perhaps beg for 20 now.

I think we should sell something to Churchill for 40g. He's dead soon anyway, it doesn't matter if he gets some extra techs (that won't help him defend). For the same reason we should start selling things to Joao, but Mono for 10g might be pushing it. We can wait a turn or two I suppose.

edit: Thoughts on Forbidden Palace? Do we want to construct it somewhere soon?

You may have killed a Russian archer but there remains a Russian archer and Chariot 1W of Istanbul. The axe and sword will most likely head to the undefended cities.

FP requires 5 more court houses. Big ask right now? Albeit 60 hammers per CH. That is 60H not in a worker or unit. Hmmmm. In theory we could whip 5 CH's before the golden age? Not sure on this. Costs in Thebes and Alexandria are spiralling. CH in both long term would be good. Albeit Thebes is tied to collossus for next 3-4 turns.

Quite a few Ai have monarchy now.

Cal to Churchill. Just in case he has any resources.

When we get the 4 mace. don't give them the promo's till needed. If odds are 95-99% we may not need cr3. Great way to heal a unit using spare promo.

HA on galley could land on deer anyway next turn. So Cologne should be safe.

I need to head to bed. 2am here and got to be up at 7am.

We need some city management here.
Alexandria is running only 1 scientist.
Paris is running specialists but is not running all the best cottages? Are we slowing growth here for happiness?
I assume Athens is not building a workboat too? Do we need 3 more? Forge or CH next?
Memphis at size 4 could whip a court house or grow to specialists?

So where would we honestly build 5 CH?
Thebes? Alexandria? Whipped in Moscow or St Peters?
Chopped in yarl or Rostov??
All these cities have 9-10+ costs a turn. Even with org bonus.
Then the question of where to build teh FP? Right now I am not sure. Somewhere central? Whichever city does build it will need a forge first. Could be a 6-7 turn build. If it reduces overall costs then it will be worth it. Court houses easily repay 60H. FP would need to recover 133 gold over 30 turns.

The big question is can we afford the cities to build CH's and the actual wonder which has no production bonuses.

So Novograd attack. If we attack covering all 3 roads to Moscow we could send up to 9 units to take out the city. There is a danger a chariot just outside Smolensk could take Moscow.

Our 2 back up HA are a long way off. 2-3 turns? We will also have Berlin HA in 2 or so turns.

4 roaming Russian units to consider. If the axe moves near Rostov we should be able to take it out. The sword too pending if the AI does something logical.

The question is then what odds would Novograd have and would we be willing to dash to the city risking a river assault?? Not so sure.

The HA on the galley can defend against the chariot/archer from istanbul if needed?

So the power rating numbers.
So 10k from buildings? Barracks and 2xwalls.
50k from techs.
13k from pop? est.

Leaves 115k for units.
4 roaming units 3+4+6+6=19k
Smolensk 2xarcher and axe=12k
Chariot in Norway waiting for settler 4k.
35k accounted for?

6 other cities share 80k. His new cities seem to mainly have metal units now. 12x6=72. With 2-3 more units in his capital and other cities? Or roaming map?

So could Novograd only have 2-3 defenders? Especially if his troops have left the cities to go for our unguarded cities?? Hmmm. Makes a Novograd attack possible?

Over to Elite to confound my numbers. If another city had a city wall or barracks that would reduce these numbers. I really doubt the Russians have more than 2-3 defenders per city.

elitetroops said:

=Athens Forge->Moai. Now it's a crappy situation with workboats. Need 2 turns of travel to get to Athens from Cologne. New Gemmy workboat could get to Athens faster than that, but then it's long travel from Cologne to Gemmy.

Click to expand...

Yes, you're right. Once again, I didn't consider the HG growth. Workboat from Gemmy should have gone to Athens.

Gumbolt said:

Stalin has a chariot and archer near Istanbul. Not to mention the sword and axe roaming.

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Indeed, I had not noticed the Archer below the Chariot. Now it's awkward to unload the HA by those units, isn't it ? On deer looks safest, indeed.

Gumbolt said:

70 gold from Persians! Beg? Or trade for it?

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Sure thing : Monotheism for gold.

Rusten said:

We dont have peace treaty with KK. I guess this means we didn't beg for 30g earlier?

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I don't think we've begged much from anyone. We've been selling techs, that is.
Now that most of the cheap techs are gone, yes, we should probably start begging.

Rusten said:

Thoughts on Forbidden Palace? Do we want to construct it somewhere soon?

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It would be nice over in Russia. Maybe Rostov is the place ? It's got a nice, central position.

Gumbolt said:

Cal to Churchill. Just in case he has any resources.

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Yes, why not ? It's a tech that doesn't hurt anyway.

Gumbolt said:

Paris is running specialists but is not running all the best cottages? Are we slowing growth here for happiness?

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We're whipping 6pop in the vicinity : Paris will have tiles to work.

Gumbolt said:

So could Novograd only have 2-3 defenders?

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Very likely, indeed. Of course, he could whip / reinforce by the time we get there.


Adjustments :
Worboats :
- From Gemmy improves Athens ;
- From Cologne improves Gemmy.

Jerusalem switches to Worker. Whips next turn.
Rostov switches to Worker. Whips next turn. Or would we rather have a military unit ? X-Bow. If we're still healing up HAs this turn, I think the situation is under control.

Alexandria :

Whipping SH gives it the Representation bonus.
Archer from Jerusalem can garrison the city on t105.
It will be unhappy on t104, unless we hit "Avoid Growth" in SH. In this case, we can have SH grow to 34/34.

Alexandria is size 8 : can work 5 tiles and hire 2 specs.
If we whip it : no Rep bonus (SH keeps a higher size).
Do we bite the bullet ? Work coast waiting for the garrison unit ?

Alexandria has 2 anger from war weariness. Taking a cease-fire would make it happy instantly. Then we could 1pop whip the Courthouse.

We could also spread Christianity on t104 but that missionary is likely better used if we follow the plan : spread to Thebes.

It's probable that Jerusalem should train at least 1 other Archer short term. Could garrison either itself or Thebes.

The easiest way around Alexandria's anger probably is hitting "No Growth" in SH for a turn.

Paris is also going to grow into unhappiness next pop. I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't want to whip the market, especially before a GA. If we want to capture Novgorod before cease fire then we will have 1-2 turns of unhappiness. Could just bite the bullet I suppose. Unless we have incoming luxury I'm not aware of? Gold+incense isn't ready yet.

Paris will grow in 2T if we give it another tile instead of specialist. Whip anger goes away in 4. If there's no way around the unhappiness then we should keep running specialists (and give it the more profitable cottages for bureacracy bonus).

It would've been nice to use whip overflow in SH to recruit a christian missionary for Paris, but I'm not sure how much this effects our war plans/whip setup. Christianity in Paris has several benefits. Faster market and monasteries, one additional monastery available, +1 happy. Can we fit in this missionary?

Does it hurt to grow Paris into unhappiness? Whip anger will wear off. We have mish and resources on way too. Ceasefire with Russia will also help.

Well spotted.
Yes, SH could whip Mace into Missionary (1 turn build) and then complete its HA. We can't delay the HA for too long, otherwise we'll lose hammers.
It's probably the way. Missionary from Munich is best sent East.
(Otherwise, yes, agree with Gumbolt : 1 angry for a turn isn't a big deal.)


I haven't paid attention to Berlin, yet.
Need to check what the ETA for the MoM is, now.
City starts at size 5 with 27F/30, 26H into the MoM and 32 overflow H. (For my reference.)

At present a ceasefire is at least 2-4 turns away. 1-2 turns to heal. 1 turn t head to Novograd. A further turn to attack if we cross the river to attack. Otherwise 5 turns?

I favour using units that have 80-90%+ combat odds.

Really not sure about Alexandria. Whipping now for 1 pop does not really fix the issue as it just adds 1 more unhappiness. Better to switch top 5 cities around. Whipping SH seems ideal for this.

Sal is about to settle next to the 2xdye.

I have not tested Berlin. How far from last plan are we?

Rostov could be ideal for FP. Just need CH's first. Long term plan maybe.

Are we planning to whip forge in Athens or slow build it? 7 turns is a long time. Then turns for MS. Hmmm. Actually if we grow on final crab could be 5-6 turn build with more mines. Whipping before GA would be a bad thing.

No growth in SH seems cute. I like it.

Rostov: I still don't feel like I have good enough grasp on the war with Russia to make suggestions, but in general the worker is much more needed than the crossbow. Depends on how much you need this xbow/how many units this frees up to attack Novgorod.

I will again emphasize the need for workers. Once we go caste we can't whip so we really need them not only to chop and improve new territory, but also to put workshops for our production cities (sometimes overriding improvements). Whipping is much worse once we start growing our cities too (which should be now). There's also the need to put windmills on our hills.

Alexandria: I didn't look into it so I'm not sure what the correct play is. I've been leaving these (micro) plans that were made while I was gone to you (Berlin MoM, Alexandria GP, etc), but if you really need the input I can try to look into them.

Are we planning on playing more turns tonight? I might go afk soon, but I'll be back in 1h or 1.5 hours and available until late into the night.

A xbow would enable all units to move on Novograd. At present any spear or chariot could present a risk to the city. Moscow is certainly at risk. Xbow stops spears, melee and chariots quite well. However would the xbow reach Moscow in time? It could be used to fight the axe and sword. Hmmm.

There is no plan as such for novograd. No one has really presented one. Maybe we see how our combats go with his 4 units and decide what units we may need when we are ready to head to Novograd.

Maybe the worker is more important? We may never take Novograd with 7-8 HA. It's a risk.

I am around if Bic is able to play.

So we have 10 HA in and around Moscow. 2 maybe needed for axe and sword. 3 if unlucky. It may be that the axe just sits on the forest?

1 figure 1 to defend Moscow. We could whip St peters in 3 turns for a xbow?

Our follow up HA may arrive in 2-3 turns. They still have 2MP this turn.

So maybe answer is to wait for these units whilst we heal and take out sword/axe. Then move on Novograd with around 9-10HA pending on combat RNG. The HA on boat may have to defend cologne.

We could whip cologne workboat into an archer??

HA 30 needs to be promoted this turn before healing.

We could send HA 23 or HA 9 2NE, then we can get vision on Novgorod next turn before moving out stack. There doesn't appear to be a road connection for him to attack with a spear from Novgorod.

I don't understand the movement of his axe at all. If he is heading for Rostov, why didn't he move next to it last turn? Is he targeting some other city? Maybe axe and sword are heading for Yaroslavl? The AI could have made the decision to attack that city several turns ago when it was our only undefended city, and now the units still have the same target even with other free cities closer.

If he goes for Yarl that is good news as the 2 new HA will be there soon. The Ai does not always do what you expect.

Gonna call it a night. I suspect Bic is probably busy tonight anyway. Plus I am super tired here. Don't wait for me if you play on.

Yes, guys, busy days for me at the moment. Sorry.
If one of you wants to take on the play, go ahead !

Mausoleum of Mausoles :
I ran a simulation : timing isn't disturbed : t108 golden age.

t103 : 27F/30 +10 ; 26H/450 +64
t104 : 22F/32 +9 ; 90H/450 +21
t105 : 31F/32 +9 ; 111H/450 +21
t106 : 24F/34 WHIP HA 24F/30 ; 86H/50 +11 --> 37H overflow
t107 : 19F/32 +9 ; 132H/450 +76
--> >201H/450 at t107, eot : in range for 6 chops completion.

We lost a little H because of the HG completion
But my tests hadn't factored the extra grassland mine, up to this point.

It's fine

Do you fancy a few turns rusten? Otherwise I will do a plan later. My weekend will involve some strange sleeping patterns.

I'd rather wait a bit before I play. If you're up for it then go ahead.

I can play but I am out tonight and tomorrow I am going to be doing some very weird hours. Likely sleeping a lot during day light hours.

I am not 100% up to date with all the plans.