SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

I'd prepare 2-3 more boats for Joao from the core (after declaring, of course). After that, any troops coming out of the core should head towards Ragnar. I'm pretty sure we'll actually see some "stacks" when we fight him, since he was in war mode for quite some time.
 
I'd prepare 2-3 more boats for Joao from the core (after declaring, of course).
Sounds reasonable. Joao has an incredibly low Power rating but that fact won't necessarily prevent him from whipping a lot of troops. Better to be prepared and send too many than to be underprepared and send too few troops to him, what with him being farther away from our Cities.

I aim to get started very shortly.
 
Okay, so far, so good. We took down Isabella's two Cities and kept them.



We have also captured and kept Novgorod (it kept its Lighthouse).



Willem is not far off from learning Horseback Riding--while he doesn't have a Horse Resource of his own, he may trade the tech to someone who does.


I have positioned the Galleons to recover our troops at Isabella and Cathy.


The troops at Vicky have been sent to the north, giving them 1 turn of healing on Galleons with the help of a Medic I. We also have 1 Treb and the western 3 units planned to be used against her SE City, with another Mace guarding London.


I whipped an Archer in Moscow and next turn we should be able to whip a Maceman in each of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The Gold per Turn value being lost did not even change after having captured Novgorod.
 
A Great General was born in Paris. I'm guessing that we'll just use it against Joao? Do we have any sort of preference (another Medic III unit? multiple Amphibious Assault Maces?) for what to do with it?


My computer is also flaking out on me, with some extreme lag going on and programs are being forced into being force-closed, so I may just reboot before playing any further. I have yet to end the turn but will play on shortly as soon as my computer either stops lagging or it recovers from a reboot.
 
Okay, I got my computer issue under control and didn't need to reboot. I guess that I just ended the right offending process.

Anyway, we advanced the turn and had our Water Supply Poisoned in Novgorod. That fact is quite laughable, as the City will continue to be in Revolt for most of the duration of this situation.


Isabella is already willing to talk to us, haha! Of course you are not going to get Peace, my dear!
 
I say we use the GG for some kind of offensive promotion. Our turn of healing are numbered. We need to be in all out attack mode so that we can wrap this up as quickly as possible.

My $0.02.
 
The GG is temporarily land-locked so I don't need to decide yet, but your suggestion makes sense.

I know that I said that our 3 Galleons would hit Joao's capital, but we're within striking distance of his westernmost City but are not within striking distance of his capital. So, I think that I'll land up to 6 troops by his westernmost City of Lagos, and if it is weakly defended, then the southernmost Galleon will drop troops off at a SW City of his.


After razing Lagos, we can head to his capital, which is the next City to the east of Lagos (Lisbon).

I aim to raze all of Joao's Cities except for possible exceptions given mdy's criteria. Note that Lagos DOES have access to a Silk Resource (a Happiness Resource, which does meet one of mdy's criteria), but it is within the City's fat cross, while the City itself has hardly any Commerce (meaning that Cultural Borders will take forever to expand) so I figure that we won't get access to that Silk anyway. So, Lagos will get RAZED.



Things at Cathy are looking up, in that I was able to get our troops back onto Galleons and the Galleons are now in position to drop hordes of troops on her shores on the following turn. Since she has yet to switch Civics, Cathy should hopefully die in 2 turns, barring her settling elsewhere with that missing Settler of hers.



It didn't make sense to send the new troops from Willem's area to Cathy, since these Galleons that came from Novgorod were a lot closer. However, I did send that Galleon of troops towards Isabella, which will help since we were Treb-heavy and other-unit-low at Isabella.
 
No Apostolic Palace yet, but Buddhism was manually spread to Ragnar's Ivory City. Could he really have gone into Missionary Spam Mode? Maybe... or more likely it was Isabella's Missionary that was already on his continent.
 
The Corn that the Barbs Pillaged has been refarmed and is being put to use again in Amsterdam.

I still don't know if I am supposed to ROAD or FORT the Horse first, or if the order even matters. I'll need to decide in a few turns from now.

At Joao, I landed at Lagos before seeing Opporto and was disappointed to see 2 Silk Resources... I was afraid that my previous suggestion of razing Lagos wouldn't work, since Joao only had 2 Silk Resources earlier.

Well, we're in luck, since Opporto seems to have City within its 9-square-radius and has a Lake that may or may not be a canal, so I think that I'll keep Opporto but still raze Lagos.

I almost landed to the south of Opporto but instead just decided to use up the southernmost Galleon's movement points checking out more of the Coast. I'm glad that I did, as doing so allowed me to land troops from the "middle boat" at 2 locations, allowing for 4 and 5 units each, instead of 6 and 3--meaning that with any luck, both Cities should fall next turn.


Things went well at Vicky, as I saw a Swordsman and an Archer defender. I decided to try out our newly-minted Amphibious Assault Maces and they both won, so Vicky's NE City was razed.

Unfortunately, she has a 3rd unit in her SE City and there is also that unaccounted-for Axeman that is wandering to the SW of that City. I landed 1 Mace and 1 Treb where I did in hopes of blocking that Axeman's path to the City.

Unlike before, when we were hoping that Cathy's wandering units would reinforce her City, since this City is Vicky's last one, we'd rather only have to fight the units that are already in the City, as other units should automatically die when teh City is captured (unless we have the "complete kills" option enabled, which will make this game a little bit more interesting, for certain).



A bit of bad luck struck in trying to take down Cordoba--I decided to attack without waiting for additional Trebs to land and the price of a Maceman was paid. Oh well, we should be able to take the City next turn, barring a whipped defender.



Isabella's other Cities are under siege by 4 and 5 units each, respectively. I aim to keep Toledo, as it will form a Canal about halfway through Isabella's continent and will help to "unblock" the Galleons that sailed into the Lake there.



After the Cordoba Incident, I have decided to go after Willem using 3 Galleons, so that I can drop off 4 and 5 units respectively, no longer leaving things to chance with just 3 units per City.
 
Toledo did not fall, but one of the three Archers died. I decided not to attack the second Archer with our wounded Maceman Medic... he can clean up the second Archer next round, after the City Raider III unit makes a second kill.



I did kill 2 Archers in Santiago, but a Catapult has prevented the City from dying. Still, with multiple Trebs and Maces there, the City will almost certainly fall next turn.



The south-east City was razed and I dropped off two Trebs by Seville, so that they can start Bombarding. I suppose that there is a risk of a unit being whipped in Seville and damaging them, but they were being butt-naked-useless sitting on a Galleon, so there you have it. I think that I'll take the Pike out of Madrid on this turn and send it into the southern Galleon. Yeah, it's a bit of a risk, but if a Horse Archer is whipped in either Santiago or Seville, the Horse Archer will attack the nearby units, not Madrid. Right? Anyway, if I don't do so, then Seville will take a while to die, with only 1 Maceman being able to attack the City 2 turns from now (other than Trebs attacking, which can't actually kill an AI unit).



Cathy has been elimated! The troops from these boats are prepared to go after Joao's south-eastern flank next. Isabella's western flank next.



As you can see, not a single AI has researched Feudalism... well, not an AI that is alive, anyway. :mischief:



I plan to capture York. The Lake to the NW has 3-Food squares while the water to the SE has 2-Food squares, so it's obviously connected. That'll save us a few turns in getting +3 units out of there to go after Joao. These boats can go after Joao's north-eastern flank.



Opporto did not die, thanks to a Catapult being there, but we should be able to capture it next turn. The NW City did die and was razed.
 
I have sent the Great General to Pig City + Stone City Island. There, it will meet up with a couple of Macemen who will divide-up the Experience Points amongst them.

I'll try to make it 3 Maces but it might only be 2 Maces or else 2 Maces with 3 XP and 1 Mace with 0 XP. Those units, too, will set sail for Joao.

We'll soon have 3 full Galleons ready to take on Willem. Cathy's Cities should help to supply additional troops to take on Ragnar.
 
As you can see, things at Isabella are under control. I played "swippity swappity" with the Barcelona and Madrid defenders... the Madrid defender (the Pike) boarded the Galleon while the Barcelona defender went to Madrid. Most of Isabella's Cities are in the south, so I took a calculated risk.

In so doing, we should be able to attack Seville next turn with 1 Bombardment, 1 Treb attack, 1 Pike attack, and 1 Amphibious Mace attack. If that Catapult goes to reinforce the City, then it will be 2 Amphibious Mace attacks. We might lose a battle, but we should still have enough units to finish off Sevill and then Murcia. Note that Murcia is only defended with 1 Archer. So, that's the southern front taken care of.



Other units will board the Galleons and sail through Toledo, to hit up Isabella's 2 northern Cities, which we have revealed.

The troops that we have in the south should be more than sufficient and therefore, we're not going to send any of the troops that were at Cathy to this area.



We captured and kept Opporto from Joao. Perhaps this City will lure some of his units to attack us. Anyway, I had no room on the southern Galleon for another Maceman, so whatever, we kept the City.

Two Trebs and 1 Mace will go up against Evora, which, by nature of us only having 1 Mace there, will take a bit of time to raze, but not too long.



Lisbon seems to be where a "mini-stack" (for a Noble level AI, not an Emperor level one) is located. 5 units will face off against Lisbon and will raze that bugger, hahahaha.



As you can see, we have 3 Galleons ready for the assault on Willem. I have carefully prepared defences for our ex-Cathy-core Cities to counter 3 Willem's units there. His units should die before they even get a chance to attack, but I'm prepared in case he does find a sneaky way to hit those Cities of ours. So, Willem SHOULD die in 2 turns, but 3 at worst with a bit of bad luck.



York is down to two units. I'll build a Galleon in London to bring the remaining troops, which is another reason for keeping York.



Thanks to some really aggressive whipping (including 1-pop-whipping), we will have three 3-XP Maces that can connect-up with the Great General, giving us 3 "smack your face" powered-up Macemen with 3 + 7 or 3 + 6 XP each aka 3 Amphibious Assault Dudes.

They will head off towards Joao.

Another Galleon will send 2 Trebs and a Pike towards Ragnar, since Ragnar will soon be the biggest threat remaining to us.


I forget if I mentioned it already or not, but the units that were at Cathy are not going to Isabella--a stack of 6 land units will go to Joao and will heal on their way there, thanks to the Medic III. Two other land units and a 4th Galleon will head towards Ragnar, to be able to launch an attack on Ragnar just after Willem is eliminated.


I still plan to keep the Ivory City, both to block Ragnar from expanding while we finish him off and to hopefully allow Ragnar to "let off some steam" by counter-attacking that City instead of guarding his other 3 Cities with large stacks of troops.


Joao is the only AI that still doesn't have Horseback Riding. Some Horsemaster he turned out to be! :D
 
Can you post the save?
Sure. Do you want me to stop play for the nigiht?

I think we need to start preparing/assaulting Ragnar too.
I agree. I have re-diverted the Medic III 6-land-unit group from Cathy's area back towards Ragnar, as we should be able to handle Joao with a 3-Galleon-chaining of 3 Amphibious Maces that I just finished building.

I'm also sending a Galleon from Isabella's area towards Ragnar.

I'll upload the saved game and then give a report on the current turn that has already been played.
 
York is a raze since we can't sail through that lake (doh!). Let's send the fleet south of Spain to attack the southern side of Ragnar. I think after we get one or two boats from the core, we can declare since it should time well with the Dutch and Spanish fleets arriving at the shores of Ragnar.

I'm having trouble guessing where Joao's cities are. We see 3, and a fourth is probably further along the east coast. The question is whether city #5 is in the middle of his continent or to the south of his western shore. It looks like a pretty large landmass and I think there's enough room for a city to be there. Maybe sail a galleon into the lake in the south and unload troops over there to look for #5? Let's send a galleon to explore the western shore NOW, so that we're not wasting turns hunting it down. It will break the galleon chain but I think finding his 5th city is more important. The same is true for Ragnar's fourth city, although I'm pretty sure it's just to the SW of Nidaros.

It may also help to make more boats to allow for faster troop shuttling. Otherwise everything looks good.
 
We have killed a Barb Galley that came from the north of Iron Island using our eastern Trireme.


Here's what the assault on Willem looks like: 4 Maces + 1 Treb against his 2 Archers.



3 Maces + 1 Treb against his 1 Axeman.



His Axeman and Spearman cannnot attack Novgorod and Novgorod has a freshly-built Mace from Moscow defending it from Willem's Archer. His Axeman and Spearman (and his Trireme) should all disappear due to him dying before he can do any damage with them.



We raze one of the two southern Cities of Isabella's, thanks to the Catapult having gone to Murcia.



We will begin the assault on Murcia shortly. The 3 units that were in "Lake Barcelona" to the north have boarded a Galleon and are sailing east to go after Ragnar. Once these troops in the south kill off Murcia, they will do the same and head towards Ragnar, too.



Valencia is weakly defended and will fall soon. The City to the north will soon have a partner, as I noticed that Isabella was about to settle a City with a Settler and 2 Archers on the Grassland Hills Jungle square at the north end of this continent as a Galleon headed for Ragnar sailed by up there. I will probably temporarily drop off some of the 6-unit-stack with the Medic III from Cathy's area up there to finish off that City, before heading towards Ragnar.



Here you can see that I was able to sneak in 4 Maces to get Experience Points, such that 3 of them will be Amphibiously-promoted Maces and will be sent via Galleon chain to the southern end of Joao's continent. I don't yet know if his Cities down there are land-based or Coastal-based, but whatever... I already took the promos so that I didn't forget to take them later--yeah, it was wrong to take the promos right away, but we'll survive.


Paris 1-pop-whipped a Galleon that will pick up that Mace and other units that will head towards Ragnar. All Roads lead to Ragnar. ;)



Vicky just does not want to die! She whipped an emergency Archer. Fortunately, my southern Mace is positioned to block that Axeman, but I was only able to kill 1 Archer and a Spearman in York this turn. We do have a 3rd Mace, but attacking gives odds less than 10%, so I decided to just be patient and wait 1 more turn. The land-based units wouldn't have been able to board the Galleon this turn ANYWAY, so no rush to suicide our Maceman, right?
 
York is a raze since we can't sail through that lake (doh!).
Hmmm, yes, you are right. The southern Galleon has revealed the fact that it's just a Lake that is too large to get 2 Food per square. :(

Oh well, the troops at Vicky have served their purpose. I can still send the Galleon there to the north and then to either east or west, whichever gives us the fastest route out and then land-march the units there towards the Galleon, but since there isn't a Lake next to York, I'm afraid that the troops at Vicky won't be of use to us after Vicky is dead.

I'll still prepare them for usage, but I doubt that they will see further action.


Let's send the fleet south of Spain to attack the southern side of Ragnar.
Once that south-western City of Isabella's, Mucia, is dead, I'll do exaclty that.


I'm having trouble guessing where Joao's cities are. We see 3, and a fourth is probably further along the east coast. The question is whether city #5 is in the middle of his continent or to the south of his western shore.
I admit that it's hard to tell.


It looks like a pretty large landmass and I think there's enough room for a city to be there. Maybe sail a galleon into the lake in the south and unload troops over there to look for #5?
Do you mean the Lake via Opporto? I could do that. However, first I'd like to Amphibiously capture Evora and then I could keep Evora and check out its Lake.

What should happen is that next turn, the Amphibious Maces should arrive at the gates of Evora but won't have any movement points remaining. The Trebs at Evora will Bombard the Citiy Defences down to 0 and then on the following turn, a Treb can attack, along with an Amphibious Mace (attacking first, so that it stays on the Galleon) followed by the Mace next to the City capturing and keeping the City. Our Galleon should then be able to sail into that Lake to check things out.



Let's send a galleon to explore the western shore NOW, so that we're not wasting turns hunting it down. It will break the galleon chain but I think finding his 5th city is more important.
I see what you're saying but that SW Galleon only has 1 movement point remaining. We might as well just stick to the Galleon chain plan and aim to keep Evora and sail into its Lake right after we capture it.

What I CAN do is ambandon the troops at Lisbon (Joao's capital) and sail the Galleon there to the east. We'll soon have empty Galleons at the end of the Galleon-chain that can pick up these abandoned units. These units will need a bit of time to Bombard Lisbon's defences anyway, so sure, I can do that... but we'll explore along the eastern Coast, using a process of elimination: "if it's not on the eastern Coast, then there are less places that his last City can be located."


The same is true for Ragnar's fourth city, although I'm pretty sure it's just to the SW of Nidaros.
We do have a Galleon from Isabella heading there now. I don't really want to use one of the northern Galleons (i.e. the Galleons that have already mostly moved anyway when they dropped off troops at Willem), as those Galleons will soon pick up the troops and immediately drop them off again at Ragnar's Cities. I'd rather put troops on Ragnar's doorstep than delay the attacking time in favour of a bit more scouting.

If I can sneak out a new Galleon to replace one of those soon enough (like maybe out of St. Petersburg), then I'll send one of those Galleons... I guess around the south-west side of Ragnar?


It may also help to make more boats to allow for faster troop shuttling. Otherwise everything looks good.
Okay, I'll see about doing so.
 
Okay, I sent the Galleon at Lisbon to the east and then it can continue around the Coast to the SE to look for other Cities of Joao's.

Not being able to use the troops at York is a disappointment, so we might actually just want to split up the 6-land-unit pile of units that were at Cathy, using 3 on Isabella's soon-to-be-founded northern City and the other one heading towards Joao, to replace the troops that I THOUGHT that we would have coming out of York.


I don't really see a Galleon that makes sense to explore around Ragnar's area that can beat the Galleon that is coming from Isabella's area to the SE of Ragnar. I strongly suspect that Ragnar has an insland City for his 4th City, since it looks like we previously explored all the way around Ragnar's island. Oh well, the Galleon from Isabella will land troops and they will just start marching and looking.
 
Top Bottom