SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

Rotterdam and Utrecht might want to swap their build items, since Utrecht (with a Maceman planned) has a much larger City Size than Rotterdam (with a Trebuchet planned). This fact won't matter for another few turns, but we might as well prepare now so that we don't forget to swap them later when we're in the heat of Cathy errrr I mean in the heat of battle with Cathy. ;)
EDIT: As per what I said below, cancel this suggestion. What if Willem or Cathy (through Willem's lands) counter-attacks us. Better to build a Maceman instead of a Treb out of our border City (Utrecht). So, yeah, you can leave Utrecht building a Maceman and Rotterdam building a Treb.
 
:( That galleon chain is going to cost us a turn to invade Cathy with 3 boats. I don't think it's worth it given the units that we're going to be going up against... then again, St. Pete has a laughable garrison.

The mace in Hague needs to be upgraded to medic 1. Otherwise we're wasting a good opportunity to heal more. Same goes for mace 9 in Utrecht -- it should get a combat--medic upgrade.

Let's build a mace in Amsterdam and whip it and send it to the gold hill to fogbust the north. This frees up the CR2 mace for Cathy.

Also, I think it's pretty clear that we need a medic 3 more than CR3 maces right now -- we're losing unnecessary turns healing. Also, setting up the CR promos as Dhoom outlined takes an extra turn.

edit: don't forget to whip pig-fish this turn. The :mad: isn't an issue since it will just mean that the city is unhappy at size 4 in the next cycle.
 
As I've said before, I think a Medic III promotion is going to be a waste on this map. We currently have 2 stacks with a 3rd forming in our Core. That core stack will quickly break into two or more stacks itself as the war moves on. Does it make sense to have a Medic III unit when it can only help to heal 20 to 25% of our attack army? I would much rather have CR III promotions.

Before moving forward, I would like to hear what mdy and/or bbp think. So far, Dhoom and I like 5 CR III units and shyuhe likes one Medic III unit. What say you, bbp and mdy? :)

EDIT: Having one C1/Medic I unit in each stack seems much more efficient than having one super Medic III unit.

@Dhoom

How do you attach a GG to a specific unit in a stack (my experience with using GGs is quite weak since I haven't played BtS much and usually build the military academy when I do get them in BtS)? I guess I could test it out in a test game...

@ shyuhe

I was under the impression that a delay of 1 turn was worth it if we could get the GG to the west in time. If we tried to use the GG after our initial assault on Cathy, our troops would be spread out in possibly very hostile enemy lands, making it difficult to promote the exact units we want (not to mention the possible risk of losing the GG). Currently, our army is quite safe in Willem's old core, so actually using the GG on the units we want will be much easier.

Plus, these newly promoted units (especially if we go CR III) could very likely speed up our attack on Moscow/St. Pete by allowing us to attack on the first turn rather than waiting for a full turn of bombardment. I think we'll get that "lost" turn back quite quickly.
 
I don't like using the GG on CR promotions because it will take an extra turn for no reason. St. Pete will roll over regardless of what we do. And with 4 trebs going towards Moscow, I don't think it'll be much different over there either. Also, our limiting factor going forward is going to be healing time spent on our troops. Even if one stack picks up steam from it, it will more than make up for it. A GG medic cuts healing time by 1 turn for pretty much any healing cycle. This will add to many shaved turns over the course of our conquest for at least one stack.
 
I don't like using the GG on CR promotions because it will take an extra turn for no reason.

At this point, haven't we already lost that turn since our galleons in the south are out of position? Since that lost turn is a sunk cost, I don't think it should play into our decision at all...

EDIT: I'll go with the majority on this as both are good options. Both positions have been defined and discussed. We just need mdy and bbp to weigh in.
 
Also, for what it's worth, CR3 trebs are better than CR3 maces.

That's an interesting thought. If we go CR III, maybe we want to include trebs in the mix.

I've always considered seige as throw-away units to be sacrificed so that the highly promoted CR attackers can take a city at 99% odds without taking a hit. But that was my strategy in Vanilla with cats which are much cheaper than maces. In BtS, the treb is the more expensive unit...
 
It's not a sunk cost since we can still invade St. Pete with 6 units (more than enough).

There will be at a minimum of 3 units in St Petes (archer, axe, spear). If Cathy brings units from another city, there could be more. Are you thinking to bring 3 trebs and 3 maces: bombard on T1 and then attack on T2?

BTW, the risk of attacking with the same number of city attackers as defenders is that even if every battle is an easy win, at the end there is only one defender in the newly captured city, which can lead to losing the city back. Also, if we happen to lose a battle against the odds, then we can't capture the city and risk facing new units and a promoted unit the next turn...

I guess we could have the third galleon drop off troops on T1 while the trebs bombard. Then we'll have a stack of 9 units on the turn we actually attack.
 
:( That galleon chain is going to cost us a turn to invade Cathy with 3 boats.
There are two options right now:
1. Heal our units except for a couple of minor cuts and scrapes like 1 Treb that will be short by 0.1 Health off of full Health* (which means that it could just be one of the bombarding Trebs when capturing the first City) and get all of our Galleons in place to be able to attack on T + 3
OR
2. Attack on T + 2 with several wounded units and with only 2 Galleons attacking each of Cathy's Cities--both in the north and the south


Medics will not make a sufficient difference in terms of option 2--we'd still be attacking with wounded units and with only 6 wounded units landing at each location.

Option 1 gives our units a chance to heal, gets to use the Great General for free, and allows us to attack with 3 Galleons in both of the north and the south.

Option 2, while it happens 1 turn sooner, goes in with less units to Bombard and with several wounded units. This smaller and wounded stack means that we will either take heavier losses or, more likely, will just spend an extra turn before we capture each of Cathy's initial 2 Cities. So, in the end, we'll capture her Cities on the same turn but will risk taking more casaulties due to having less Bombarded City Defences, due to having wounded units attacking, and due to attacking with City Raider II units instead of City Raider III units.

* It is easy enough to tell because there is one Treb that takes 3 turns to heal and another one that takes 2 turns to heal, while there is a 0.1 difference in Health between the two of these Trebs.


So, yes, on the surface, it appears to be frustrating that we can't just go ahead and attack on T + 2, but our troops will face considerably better odds by attacking on T + 3 and can probably take down the first two Cities on the first turn of having movement points as a result, meaning that Moscow and St. Petersburg will be captured on the same turn in either scenario, but scenario 1 also gives Cathy 1 less turn of being at war to build Walls/Castles/units in these Cities and in other Cities.

We have seen the effects of her being at Peace--having far less units than she would have while at war, so every turn of peace counts, especially if we won't capture her Cities any sooner by declaring war 1 turn sooner.



The mace in Hague needs to be upgraded to medic 1. Otherwise we're wasting a good opportunity to heal more. Same goes for mace 9 in Utrecht -- it should get a combat--medic upgrade.
Maceman 9 (Paris) in the south (inside of Utrecht) I agree with upgrading to Combat I + Medic immediately.


Without upgrading Macemen 10 (Marble) in the north (inside of The Hague) to a Medic, Trebuchets 2 (Gold) and 6 (Stone) will be at 3.9/4 Health using Option 1, above.

With upgrading Maceman 10 (Marble) to a Medic, it means taking longer for Maceman 10 to self-heal after its next battle, meaning getting to Medic III slower if we follow my above approach for the Great General.



A third alternative, which I like slightly better than the above two options, is to, on T + 0 (i.e. before ending the turn), cancel Maceman 6 (Marble)'s movement points. Right now, it is E + E of The Hague but is set to move into The Hague on T + 1. In this way, Maceman 6 (Marble) would actually replace Maceman 10 (Marble)'s upgrading in the stack of units that get upgraded by the Great General.

So, in terms of the Great General plan, we'd instead send Maceman 6 (Marble) to the south on T + 1. We won't be able to do so if Maceman 6 (Marble) completes its auto-moving, so as long as we remember to cancel his auto-movement before ending the current turn, then we'll be fine. After cancelling Maceman 6 (Marble)'s planned auto-movement, we can do as shyuhe suggested and upgrade Maceman 10 (Marble) to a Medic I.


So, we'll have two Medic units--Maceman 9 (Paris) in Utrecht and Maceman 10 (Marble) in The Hague--and will have one additional unit that will have the chance to become a future Medic III unit but will not actually take any Medic promotions yet--Maceman 6 (Marble)--he doesn't even need to take Combat I yet, even.


Let's build a mace in Amsterdam and whip it and send it to the gold hill to fogbust the north. This frees up the CR2 mace for Cathy.
I'm not very worried about Barb Units spawning next to a City that has a Military Police unit defender.

However, I don't see how emptying Amsterdam of a planned-Military-Police unit will avoid the City shrinking--the Unhappiness level on the F1 screen is really high right now and probably the only (economical) option for getting this Unhappiness down sufficiently to avoid City shrinkage while staying at war with Willem is to have a Military Police unit and a modest rise in the Cultural Slider.

The City Raider II unit that you are talking about is Maceman 7 (Gold). It can stay where it has ended its turn for T + 0, but will need to act as a Military Police unit in Amsterdam on T + 1.

I don't mind replacing a City Raider II meant-to-be Military Police unit with a new Military Police unit (be it a Treb or a Maceman) that gets created, but we'll still need a Military Police unit next turn. The only other units within range ALSO have 2 promotions or at least 4 Experience points.

The only low-Experience unit that we have is Maceman 8 (Pig Mmm Fish), but since it only have 0.3/1 movement points remaining and is in Utrecht, it can't replace Maceman 7 (Gold) as the Military Police unit for Amsterdam on T + 1. On T + 2, therefore, Maceman 7 (Gold) would not be in position to board any of our Galleons. Therefore, Maceman 7 (Gold) will just have to wait for a future round of Galleons, while Maceman 8 (Pig Mmm Fish)--who can probably just be a City garrison unit for St. Petersburg, what with it having 2 Experience Points for Combat I--and thus Maceman 8 (Pig Mmm Fish) should plan to board the initial southern Galleon fleet. I see no reason not to completely empty Utrecht of land-based units, since doing so means brining more units to bear on Cathy.


So, yes, certainly, we could plan to send Maceman 7 (Gold), the eastern City Raider II unit to the front lines, but he won't be going in the initial attack. In fact, he probably won't be going shortly after the initial attack, either, as we're shortly going to need 3 Military Police units (one for Rotterdam and one for Utrecht) and he will probably end up being the one for Utrecht (which puts him closer to the front lines but not yet being part of the fighting). I don't see us being able to create 3 Military Police units out of Amsterdam in time, so for a little while, Maceman 7 (Gold) will be needed on "homeland security" duty, at least until we have created 3 new Military Police units.

Even those Military Police units will be temporary and will themselves aim to eventually leave, with Archers replacing them.

On that note, we might even plan to build a Galleon or two out of Utrecht, after building the initial Trebuchet there (as per my above suggestion to swap Utrecht's and Rotterdam's Macemen and Trebuchet build items--unless we have a good reason for the Maceman in Utrecht--I suppose that if Willem counter-attacks us, a Maceman is better than a Treb, so yeah, we could stick with the current unit build queues in these two Cities afterall), so that we'd be able to have a mini-Galleon chain to bring new forces to whichever AI gets attacked next using our western troops (I am assuming that it will either be Isabella or else Willem + Ragnar's Ivory City followed by Isabella).


Also, I think it's pretty clear that we need a medic 3 more than CR3 maces right now -- we're losing unnecessary turns healing.
I have not counted turns, but of our northern Galleons, one is lagging behind the other two, so given the timing of the arrival of the 3rd Galleon, we aren't losing any turns healing here at all.

I'm not saying that we don't need a Medic III, but I am saying that in this case, one would not have helped us--having two might have helped us, but not one.

Unfortunately, Great General #2 is a long way off--we probably won't get him in time to be of much use before the game ends unless we have a Galleon chain that happens to be set up from a City near to where he gets spawned.


edit: don't forget to whip pig-fish this turn. The :mad: isn't an issue since it will just mean that the city is unhappy at size 4 in the next cycle.
Pig Mmm Fish will grow in 2 turns. I thought that we were aiming to whip when Cities were 1 turn away from growth, in order to maximize the value out of each of our Cities.

I don't really see us being at a point where we are whipping the very last unit for our eastern front, so I'm not sure what we benefit by whipping a turn prematurely.


I'd also like to see Gold City going back to a 6 -> 4 whip--it is painful to be at Size 2 and only working 2 of our Seafood Resources there. We should soon get the Gem and Dye Resources online, and in the intervening 6 to 7 turns can use the Cultural Slider to help carry us through.
 
One thing that I forgot to mention: Option 2 also means only have 1 Trebuchet at St. Petersburg. We'll need to wait for the 3 reinforcement Trebuchets for an extra turn (their arrival coincides with the timing of Option 1's attack).

So, really, launching an attack 1 turn early means having only 1 wounded Trebuchet at St. Petersburg. In that case, I WOULD fear Cathy building a Castle.
 
BTW, if I remember correctly, the units slated for the Medic I promotion and the units that need to be healed just got to The Hague/Utrecht at the end of last turn or the start of this turn, so I don't think we lost many unit turns (if any) healing with a Medic I unit present.

Also, I didn't want to give any promotions to units on this turn until everyone has had a chance to agree on what to do with the GG. I've tried to leave things as flexible as possible without sacrificing our troop healing...
 
We COULD upgrade Trebs, but there are a couple of issues:
1. We don't have enough healthy Trebs to do so in order to bring fully-healthy City Raider III Trebs to bear against Cathy
2. Our three full-health Trebs only have 3 Experience Points each

I only see 1 Trebuchet that could probably get the City Raider III promotion and still be able to be healed on time. That's Trebuchet 3 (Paris), which is located in The Hague. It could take a City Raider II promo immediately and, with that promo, be able to heal in one turn, allowing it to move on the following turn.


So, I have no issue with replacing one of the 4 Macemen that were going to come from the north with Trebuchet 3 (Paris).
 
Regarding the CRII mace near Amsterdam, he was the last unit I moved that turn. Unfortunately, the other units were already on their way west. When my galleons saw a barb warror (and later a barb sword) as shown on the map, I began to fear a barb walking on a road and capturing an undefended city, which is why the CRII mace is in limbo. It was a mistake on my part not sending the proper units west and not anticipating potential barb issues... :blush:
 
I guess we could have the third galleon drop off troops on T1 while the trebs bombard. Then we'll have a stack of 9 units on the turn we actually attack.
Seeing as how our 3 Treb reinforcements can't arrive as part of the initial stack, I don't see how attacking 1 turn earlier will help us. 1 Treb can Bombard for 1 turn extra while Cathy gets 1 more turn empire-wide of being in war mode. That tradeoff does not sound agreeable to me.


EDIT:
which is why the CRII mace is in limbo.
Every veteran troop could use a break by being on "easy duty" for a while. Anyway, I only see 1 Maceman that could have possibly replaced him--and we're probably better off having that 2 Experience Point unit with us so that we can use it to garrison St. Petersburg--we just have too many units with 4+ Experience Points for the positioning of a City Raider II unit to really even matter, and in this case, I think that it will work out for the better, since we'll need a Military Police unit for St. Petersburg and I'd rather use a troop that can get Combat I than use a troop that has City Raider II.
 
If the northern worker had roaded the forest next to Hague instead of chopping, we could have fully loaded all three boats on T+1 (from the current turn) by galleon chaining and invaded on T+2. As it is, we can't load the northern boats there until T+2. So I stand corrected - we might as well hold off and use our GG so that we load the boats on T+2 and invade on T+3.

In any event, the question is "what are we going to do with CR3 maces?" Is the hope that they will follow trebs and not take any hits? Or are we going to send them in first to crack the tougher defenders? If it's the former, a medic3 is a safer bet. If it's the latter, the CR3 maces are going to have very long heal times without a GG medic.

@Dhoom - there is at least a barb sword and warrior north of Amsterdam. We should move the 4XP mace to the front and start a mace in Amsterdam. It'll shrink a pop, and then we'll whip it the very next turn. I'd rather have the extra mace on our Russian front at a cost of a pop in Amsterdam.

I am all for continuing our aggressive whipping. Working a coastal square does not improve city re-growth time since they are essentially food neutral. So a city in a 4-2 whip cycle should whip as soon as it is size 4 (assuming that it has enough hammers to do so). Gold is the one exception, as it has 4 good tiles. However, only three of them merit working right now given our whipping needs -- the seafood. So a 5-3 cycle may be the best.
 
@Dhoom

How do you attach a GG to a specific unit in a stack (my experience with using GGs is quite weak since I haven't played BtS much and usually build the military academy when I do get them in BtS)? I guess I could test it out in a test game...
Test it out. Great People are at the bottom of the list of units that you can give to yourself in the World Builder. Scroll down to the bottom and you'll find the Great General unit.

What I do is click on (aka select) the Great General unit like I would select any other unit. One of his action icons looks like a Great General unit and is labelled "Lead Troops as a Warlord." Click on that icon. You will get a pop-up menu at the top-right of your screen that looks very similar to the pop-up window that you will get when you attempt to load a land-based unit into a Galley/Galleon/Transport when there are multiple boats on the same square as each other--i.e. the game asks you to decide which boat to load. For the Great General, the game asks you to which unit to attach the Great General.

In this case, you will select Maceman 6 (Marble) from the list. That's all that there is to it. The assignment of Experience Points to the units in the stack will be automatic.

However, you have to first stack the 6 units on the square and THEN attach the Great General--which is why I suggest moving the Great General as the 7th unit to the stack, so that you don't forget this minor but important detail.
 
As I've said before, I think a Medic III promotion is going to be a waste on this map. We currently have 2 stacks with a 3rd forming in our Core. That core stack will quickly break into two or more stacks itself as the war moves on. Does it make sense to have a Medic III unit when it can only help to heal 20 to 25% of our attack army? I would much rather have CR III promotions.

Before moving forward, I would like to hear what mdy and/or bbp think. So far, Dhoom and I like 5 CR III units and shyuhe likes one Medic III unit. What say you, bbp and mdy?

The problem with CR3 maces is that we are going to attack any city which is even slightly difficult to take with trebs first, and once we have thrown several trebs against a city it won't make much difference whether we have CR2 or CR3 maces. If we did go down the CR route I think they would be better used on trebs.

One point in favour of the medic 3 is that we will soon have several CR3 maces anyway (which in itself makes the CR3 maces from the GG less valuable), but we will never get a medic 3 unless we use a GG on it.

I certainly don't thin it is worth delaying our attack on Cathy just to get a GG in position.

On balance I am still leaning towards medic 3.

EDIT: Having one C1/Medic I unit in each stack seems much more efficient than having one super Medic III unit.

and a medic 3 in 1 stack with a medic 1 in every other stack is more efficient than either.

 
Food for thought:

Against a flatland 60% city with a CG1 LB:
CR3 treb: 55%
CR3 mace: 23.45%
CR2 treb: 28.08%
CR2 mace: 9.30%
CR1 treb: 5.24%
CR1 mace: 3.12%

Against a flatland 40% city with a CG1 LB:
CR3 treb: 74.39%
CR3 mace: 30.84%
CR2 treb: 36.88%
CR2 mace: 20.32%
CR1 treb: 25.78%
CR1 mace: 8.62%

So we are going to basically have to suicide a treb city, 2 if we're unlucky before our maces will have decent odds.
 
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