SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

Oops to all of us for assuming that those units on the Galleon still had movement points remaining. Any one of us could have looked. No worries.


Don't forget, we can scout Cathy's cities while our ships sail toward Moscow (either northern route or through the canal). This will give us an excellent idea of how big our army really needs to be...
What unit do you plan to scout with?

On that note, what happened to the Warrior that was scouting Cathy's area? Did Willem kill it?
 
I still think that we should aim to Galleon-chain the Workers towards Willem's area, meaning that we need to stop their Chopping on the current turn so that they can load onto a Galleon on T +1. Even with 3 Workers and 5 turns to build the Fort, plus starting on the Fort on T + 3, that's potentially 8 turns away... not much of a difference from sailing around the north of Willem's area.

Any Workers that we find in The Hague would not affect these numbers and would therefore just be "bonus" units.


I deleted him as he ended a turn next to a Dutch axe.
Well, good choice, as that's better than giving Willem a free kill.
 
What unit do you plan to scout with?

I haven't thought that far ahead. We'd have to see where we stand after taking Willem's next two cities. A two-movement point unit would be ideal, but with Engineering it wouldn't take too many turns to walk all the way to Moscow...

We could scout St. Petersburg with a galleon, but I'd really like to see what's in Moscow too.
 
I still think that we should aim to Galleon-chain the Workers towards Willem's area, meaning that we need to stop their Chopping on the current turn so that they can load onto a Galleon on T +1. Even with 3 Workers and 5 turns to build the Fort, plus starting on the Fort on T + 3, that's potentially 8 turns away... not much of a difference from sailing around the north of Willem's area.

I've already stopped the workers actions so that I wouldn't forget to do so later if we decided on the canal approach.

Any Workers that we find in The Hague would not affect these numbers and would therefore just be "bonus" units.

Why do you say workers in The Hague would not affect these numbers? If there is a worker in The Hauge, we could build the canal in 4 turns rather than 5. If there are two workers, we could do it in 3 turns.
 
Any thoughts about the Triremes? One has already moved this turn, but should the other just stay in place? What do we expect Ragnar's Galleys to do? Sail around the western edge or the eastern edge of the Horse + Rice Island? Where should we position the Triremes so as to best lure him to come close enough to attack him, but also not be at risk of him landing ground troops on the following turn should one of our Triremes lose its battle?
 
I'm out until tomorrow morning. I can read the thread but won't have access to the save. Keep the debate up. The key agreement that we need to make is whether to set sail around the island or to wait until the canal is done.
 
Why do you say workers in The Hague would not affect these numbers? If there is a worker in The Hauge, we could build the canal in 4 turns rather than 5. If there are two workers, we could do it in 3 turns.
I say so because we can make a plan on spending 5 turns to complete the Fort as the primary plan and if we agree to that plan, then any extra Workers that we find will be a bonus to that plan.

If we are "on the fence" or still want to sail around to the north if it would take the full 5 turns to complete the Fort, then we'd need to have a different discussion than if we agreed that "5 turns to build the Fort is good enough."

So, if we can agree that 5 turns is good enough, then we can forget about sailing around to the north and can move forward with the Fort being the primary plan.

If, however, most of us decide that we'd need to see what's in The Hague and ONLY if we find additional Workers would we consider skipping the northern passage, then the plan will have to focus more on "seeing what's in The Hague, reporting on it, and only then deciding what to do with our Galleons."

That's all that I'm saying.
 
We aren't trading marble to Cathy any more - I stopped that deal during my set since we didn't need the health.
That means that we have a Marble Resource available. Joao will give us 2 Gold per Turn for it. Do you want to make that trade? It sounds like a good option to me.


Also, BtS AI will build units in its cities, but will generally only apply the whip in threatened cities--cities with units on its doorstep.
Okay, I think I see what you are trying to say about threatened--in that you are saying that an AI will be less likely to whip-spam Cities if there aren't units nearby.

Despite an AI's behaviour when feeling threatened, an AI at war WILL build more troops even if we aren't threatened. If you do not believe this fact, then why are people saying that we should "consider taking a Cease Fire with Ragnar so that he will build less troops"? Clearly, we all know that an AI will build more troops when at war, even if its Cities are not threatened (Ragnar's Cities are not threatened but we all beleive that he is building Military Units).

The fact is that she WILL build more troops, Walls, Castles, etc when in war than when not in war. There might be a GREATER tendency to whip when we have troops nearby, but there is still a greater tendency to build troops + defensive Buildings in other Cities that aren't threatened compared to when a war is not ongoing.



An additional 41 gpt translates into about a 40-50% culture sider for us (rough math). So 2 extra whips per city over the 20% we can reach now, which equates to 12 units (20 if you include the 8 from Willem's cities).
The point is that whatever the whipping gains we can obtain from the extra Trade Routes are, we can only gain them ONCE.

Whether we gain them 5 turns earlier or 5 turns later won't really matter... and "5 turns earlier" won't even happen if our Cities haven't regrown from previous whipping that was Happiness-sustainable.

The point is that we will not get EXTRA whipping by capturing The Great Lighthouse sooner. We will get a fixed, roughly 1-whip-per-City gain from running a higher Cultural Slider, and that's because we must MAINTAIN that higher Cultural Slider and because whipping Unhappiness takes 15 turns to wear off.

We can get those troops out a bit FASTER by taking The Great Lighthouse sooner, BUT, and here's the key: if we end up having to use up more troops in the war, then overall, we've had to expend more production fighting Cathy. Getting a few troops sooner (that won't arrive soon enough to help in the war against Cathy unless we have some massive Galleon-chaining going on) will not help us overall if it costs us MORE troops to take Cathy's Cities.

Overall, we would end up with LESS units in total for our next war. That's the variable in the equation that's the most important--the total amount of troops that we can have.


Cathy will start on castles pretty soon after she finishes engineering regardless of whether we declare war or not. Those extra trade routes from castles entice the AI quite a bit, unfortunately.
Well we know for certain that a Cathy does not have access to Stone. A Castle will cost her 150 Hammers. That's more Hammers than a Library and more Hammers than a Colosseum.

There are two perspectives that we can take here:
1. Rush her capital ASAP. However, she has high production in Moscow. If she learns Engineering in a couple of turns and chooses to spend the high production available in that City on a Castle immediately, we will be unable to attack her before that Castle gets manually built. So, we're going to face a Castle in Moscow IF she will manually build one

2. Hope that she will not manually build a Castle and that she'll only start to build one when threatened. In that case, she would not be able to manually complete one within a short period of time but would be able to whip one... but would only be able to whip it after revolting into Slavery. So, if we land our troops then attack on the same turn (possibly bombaring some--we should consider promoting a couple of Trebuchets to City Bombard +10% promotion if we get 4 Experience Points on some Trebs), then, as long as she has not peacefully-built a Castle, we can attack before a Castle goes up


In scenario 2, we can hit both Moscow and St. Petersburg on the turn before she is able to whip ANY population points, meaning that we'll get to whip the maximum amount of population points in both Cities. Both Cities are the only Cities of hers that we can currently see a City Wall in. Those 2 Cities are also the largest of her Cities that we can see (the ones most likely to successfully be able to whip a Castle each).

Other Cities will have to spend either:
1 turn revolting to Slavery
1 turn pre-building a Wall
1 turn and 2 population points whipping a Wall (75 Hammers)
1 turn pre-building a Castle
1 turn whipping a Castle and at least 2 population points to whip the Castle

Let's run some math here...
Let's say that she does the above and has a Forge in her Cities. She's not running Organized Religion, so no bonus to production there.

45 Hammers * 1.25 = 56 Hammers. She'd need to make 75 - 56 = 19 Hammers per turn in order to make the Wall a 1-pop-whip, which doesn't look possible in her Cities that don't already have a Wall (Moscow can make about 20 Hammers per turn but it already has a Wall).

Her 2 other Cities can make around 12 Hammers per turn at max, so we'll say that they make this much, meaning 15 Hammers with a Forge. Is there any way that you can see which Cities have a Forge? I use the Low Graphics Setting, which does show City Walls and Aqueducts, but I'm not sure how to see most other buildings--will High Graphics Settings tell us if there are Forges in her other Cities?

So, assuming that she has a Forge, she'll have 15 + 2 * 56 + 15 = 142 Hammers going into the Wall, and 142 - 75 = 67. On the next turn, she would add 67 + 15 = 83 Hammers to a Castle, giving her 150 - 83 = 67 Hammers required, which would mean another 2-pop-whip.

Her north-eastern City only has 5 population points, so it's not at immediate risk for a Castle appearing, but one could appear over time.

Her north-western City does have 7 population points, so it could whip a Castle that would appear on the 6th turn of war.


Building a Fort does give us flexibility on her northern Coast, since she does have 3 Cities up there.


As a total aside, vassalge is probably the civic we want the most right now given the number of units we have running aruond. I'm assuming we don't want to adopt bureaucracy at this point?
Well, Feudalism is the last tech that we want to take, because taking it means that other AIs will get Longbowmen faster. If EVERY AI has Feudalism, then we can take it. At that point in the game, we'll probably WELCOME some turns of Anarchy, as our Core Cities will have been whipped-out and we might prefer a turn of Anarchy to ship our units around without having to worry about how much Gold we are paying to a Cultural Slider for a turn.

As for Bureaucracy... it could still be worth it, particularly during the time period where Willem's Cities are in revolt, since these Cities will still lose 1 turn of revolt time when we switch Civics (I just confirmed this fact in a test game).

We still have a good 5 whips ahead of us from Paris, given its +2 Happiness plus Gem (+2) plus Dye (+1) and 6 whips if we also grab Ivory (+1).

Each 2-pop-whip is worth an extra 45 * 2 * 0.5 = 45 Hammers. According to the F3 screen, Bureaucracy will cost us 2 Gold per Turn, but I'm not sure how accurate those numbers are. Still, with a worst-case 50% Cultural Slider, our capital can make:
8 Commerce from a Palace, 1 from the City Centre, 2 from each Clam times 2 = 8 + 1 + 2 * 2 = 9 + 4 = 13 base Commerce * 0.5 = 6 Commerce from Bureaucracy minus 50% for a Cultural Slider at 50%, meaning that we'll make 3 Gold per Turn from Bureaucracy.

Actually, that's not a lot of Gold, so eventually, it probably will pay to switch into Vassalage, but for the next little while, we'll have to decide whether getting 5 whips (6 with Ivory) of 45 Hammers each: 5 * 45 = 225 Hammers beats 1 turn of missing out on Food and Hammers and Commerce within our empire.

Of course, upon closer inspection, 2 of those whips come from us having a 20% Cultural Slider already, but with us at a 20% Cultural Slider, we appear to be breaking even, meaning that we don't really care about losing Commerce for a turn since we aren't making Gold.

So, it's whether we will care about the lost Food and Hammers, and we'll just roughly say something like the Food equals twice as many Hammers, even though that's not purely accurate.


BY THE WAY, IT LOOKS LIKE WE CAN SAFELY RUN a 10% CULTURAL SLIDER without any Unhappiness on the current turn, so we should probably do so... and then watch the F1 screen religiously each turn.

Here's what we're making right now:
Paris = 7 Food, 15 final Hammers,
Gold = 10 Food, 5 final Hammers (when you play with the Cultural Slider, this City seems to like to hire a Scientist, so every turn we really do need to look at what each City is working with their citizens and if the Cultural Slider gets altered, we'll have to look a second time)
Marble = 8 Food, 2 final Hammers
Stone = 4 Food, 12 final Hammers (if we remember to switch the DesH Mine to a Coast)
Pig = 10 Food, 1 final Hammer
Iron = 5 Food, 12 final Hammers
Other Cities are in revolt, so they don't count

Total = 7 + 10 + 8 + 4 + 10 + 5 = 44 Food, 15 + 5 + 2 + 12 + 1 + 12 = 47 final Hammers
Doubling the Food gives us 44 * 2 = 88 Hammers, for a grand total of 88 + 47 = 135 Hammers

So, yes, if we count the 2 whips in Paris from running a 20% Cultural Slider, we'll make 225 Hammers, which is more than the lost 135 Hammers of production from a single turn of Anarchy.

Thus, yes, assuming that the F3 numbers for switching Civics portray an accurate picture, then it makes sense to:
a) Revolt to Bureaucracy before we whip again in Paris
AND
b) Probably wait to revolt to Bureaucracy until after we're done any other whips from our Core Cities that we wanted to use in the war against Cathy
BUT
c) Whip before Willem's Cities come out of revolt, so that we won't lose a turn of production from those Cities, too



Also, if we are concerned about unit spam, one solution is to take Moscow + St. Pete and then take peace with Cathy while we go after someone else, and leave the rest of her cities for last. This will let us take the GLH while minimizing her "war mode."
Her northern Cities really are "out of the way," so there's a cost with sending our Galleons there twice.

Her Cities are not so close to each other as to prevent us from working too many squares in these Cities.

However, the real point is that Cathy probably will not be WILLING to accept a Cease Fire for a good number of turns. So, we can either spend those turns continuing to fight or we can let her build up for those turns. Given those options as being our only realistic choices, I'd suggest that we continue to fight.


The difference with Ragnar is that we can capture his Ivory City and then IMMEDIATELY take a Cease Fire, even if he has troops in position to counter-attack his captured Cities. It's a great tactical flexibility to be able to take such a Cease Fire at an opportune time--an option that we won't have with Cathy.
 
we can build (whip) theaters in any cities that have too much :mad:
Could we use whip overflow in some Cities (like Paris) to build a Theatre? Paris, in particular, if we use Bureaucracy, would want to do so, since whips there would count as 90 Hammers each and thus we'd need more than 90 Hammers needed for a build item in order for it to remain a 2-pop-whip item. A Theatre costs 75 Hammers (making a 2-pop-whip in post-Bureaucratic Paris impossible), a Maceman costs 105 Hammers, and a Trebuchet costs 120 Hammers, for your reference.

Stone City does will not whip enough to benefit from a Theatre, so a Theatre is not necessarily going to pay off in every City, but most other Cities probalby would benefit from one.

To me, though, it's a balance between putting more Hammers into Military Units for as long as possible versus getting a Theatre "in time" to avoid having too many Unhappy citizens.



We should put all of the trebs next to Utrecht onto the boats and dump them on T+1 next to Hague. Hague has at least 40% culture so the extra injured trebs can bombard and the full health trebs attack on T+2. I'd consider taking a third mace towards the Hague, to make sure we capture it on T+2. The sooner we capture it, the sooner it comes out of revolt.
Again, we're basically waiting on the "Fort the Pig" versus "sail to the north" decision before we can move forward here. However, if we go with the "Fort the Pig" choice, I'd say load both Maces and all 3 Trebs onto Galleons and put them on the same square as the first Galleon. At worst case, it's overkill to have that 2nd Mace, at best it allows us to capture The Hague one turn sooner.


For Rotterdam, I'd bombard with the wounded treb and attack with the other treb followed by maces. The maces are cheaper and we need to save those trebs for Moscow. I think we can capture the last Dutch city while we gather the other troops in Amsterdam (or Utrecht/Hague) to heal.
I'm indifferent as to what we do at Rotterdam. We could even spend 1 whole extra turn Bombarding with both Trebs, then attacking on the next turn with either 1 more Bombardment and 1 Treb attack or with 2 Treb attacks.

We won't see a whipped Longbowman, and while we might have Willem whip one less time, we also might improve our odds of not even losing any units by waiting 1 extra turn to attack. So, it's a risk either way... we could end up with no battle losses, in which case attacking earlier is better, but if we lose even 1 unit, then we're pretty much forced to use the population that Willem may or may not have whipped to replace that unit, but that unit won't come into play for a while, meaning that we might not see it in the war against Cathy.

Thus, I'd prefer not to attack with the wounded Treb, but would be "okay" with us doing it if the Active Player really wanted to do so (hence my relative indifference on the matter).


As I mentioned, I'd like to start the western front with 4 galleons (5 trebs and 7 maces, or 4/8). We have one extra galleon from the west that we can send over so we need to build 3 boats and 12 units, for 15 total units spread across 6 cities. So we can build the necessary troops in 3 whip cycles.
I got lost on this point, as I'm not sure where the "western front" is supposed to occur. Against Isabella? Against Cathy?


Two questions: (1) does anybody know if the GLH applies while a city is in revolt?
The owner of The Great Lighthouse will get +2 Trade Routes in every Coastal City that is not in revolt. It does not matter whether or not the City that contains The Great Lighthouse is in revolt.

A test game has confirmed that we will get our 4 Trade Routes on the turn that we capture The Great Lighthouse.


And (2) do horse archers do flanking damage on trebs?
Yes, Horse Archers will do flanking damange to both Catapults and Trebuchets, as long as the Horse Archer is the attacker and survives the battle by either winning or withdrawing. The Cats or Trebs must be "in the open"--i.e. the flanking damage will not apply if the Cats/Trebs are inside of a City, nor will the flanking damage apply to Cats/Trebs inside of a Fort within your own territory. I don't know about Forts in neutral territory, but I'd assume that the flanking damage would not apply there, either. Forts in enemy territory do not "count" as Forts for you, so you'd get no protection from them, should the AIs have spent the time to build any.
 
Promotions go:
2, 4, 8, 13, and 20.

Medic III requires:
Combat I, Medic I, and Medic II.

A unit that starts with 4 Experience Points (a Combat I, Medic I Maceman) could get the Great General and then we'd only need to use 9 of the Experience Points.

Well, you can only split Experience Points equally across units, so we'd have to give it 10 Experience Points, but could have a second unit on the same square that could gain 10 Experience Points, giving a 0-Experience-Points unit instant City Raider III.


However, I still would prefer to create FIVE City Raider III units by spreading-out 4 Experience Points per unit to a stack of 5 units that already have 4 or more Experience Points. Of course, we have to be careful not to do so when a Galleon is on the same square, or else we'll actually give 3 Experience Points to most units in that stack, including the Galleon.


I just don't see us being able to gain sufficiently from Medic III on this map to make it better than multiple City Raider III Macemen.

As long as Cathy predictably revolts into Slavery on the first turn of war and hasn't manually-built a Castle by then, then we can attack her first two Cities on the turn after we land and she won't be able to complete a Castle in them. Attacking like thus requires us to have some good attacking units. Our units will have healed before the fight with her with or without Medic III, but they will stand a much better chance of taking her Cities immediately if we have some City Raider III units in our stacks.

Of course, if we are lucky, she will switch into 2 different Civics at once, which should cost her 2 turns of Anarchy (unless the AI gets a bonus that we don't know about)--if that situation happened, we'd check it out in a test game first before relying on her having 2 turns' worth of Anarchy, but if she did get 2 turns' worth, we'd almost certainly use that extra turn to Bombard some more. Still, we can't rely on that extra turn, so hitting hard and heavy is imperative, and having a couple of Trebs promoted with the Accuracy Promotion would help (which is a promotion that actually says +8% Bombard Damage in the game but it does have a sizeable, although not straight-up 8%, effect on Bombarding--enough of an effect to want some of these units in our stacks).

For a City with either 40% or 60% Cultural Defenses and a City Wall, a Treb without the Accuracy promotion will Bombard away 8 off of the City Defences while a Treb with the Accuracy promotion will Bombard away 12 off of the City Defences... not quite the number promised on the promotion, but that could be due to the way that Bombarding gets split across Walls and Culture.


Without City Walls, a Treb without Accuracy will Bombard away 16 off of the City Defences, while a Treb with Accuracy will Bombard away 24 off of the City Defences, again regardless of how much Culture the City has to start with. That's where you see the actual "+8%" value from the Accuracy promotion working as advertised--when no City Walls exist.


If we throw in a Castle into the mix, then a Treb without Accuracy will Bombard away 4 off of the City Defences, while a Treb with Accuracy will Bombard away 6 off of the City Defences, again reagardless of how much Culture the City has to start with.


So, the Accuracy promo makes Bombarding 50% more effective.

A City Wall really sucks compared to there not being a City Wall, since it halves the effectiveness of Bombarding... even for any Cultural Defence that is ABOVE AND BEYOND the Wall's 50% bonus. So, a City with a 60% Cultural Defence and a City Wall is equivalent to there being a City Wall that is "worth" 60% Cultural Defence.

Since we're unlikely to see Cities with greater than 100% Cultural Defence, a Castle is "as bad as it can get."


Now, if we reject my idea of attacking Cathy's Cities on the turn after we land (with some possible Bombarding before attacking on the same turn), then it is still helpful to get Accuracy promotions, because if we wait to attack until after a Castle is whipped, then we can actually do some 50% stronger Bombarding "when it counts for more"--i.e. before a Castle appears.

How does that help if a Castle is worth 100% Defence? Well, the game is relatively fair to the Bombarder here:
Let's say that a City has a City Wall and 50% Defence, meaning that its Cultural Defence is not greater than 40% (i.e. 0%, 20%, or 40% Cultural Defence).

If we Bombard with 3 regular Trebuchets, we'll take off 3 * 8 = 24 from the City Defences. Similarly, if we Bombard with 2 Accuracy-promoted Trebuchets, which essentially frees up the 3rd Trebuchet to attack, we'll take off an identical 2 * 12 = 24 from the City Defences, leaving 26/50.

If a Castle is built the next turn, the City Defences are only at 52, i.e. 52/100. It should not be too hard to see what's going on with the math there... 26 * 2 = 52.

So, Bombarding takes away a proportion of the total, but BEFORE the Walls exist and BEFORE the Castle exists, we can take off a higher proportion per Bombardment.

The way that the math works out, Bombarding with 1 Accuracy Trebuchet on the turn before a Castle appears (valued at 12) is equivalent to Bombarding with THREE non-Accuracy Trebuchets on the turn after the Castle appears (valued at 3 Trebs * 4 = 12).

Therefore, if you are attacked by an AI that has already bombarded your defences, you will still benefit from building a Wall and/or a Castle, but you will benefit considerably less than if you'd completed these build items before the AI started Bombarding.

Since we're the ones doing the Bombarding here, this mechanic works in our favour. That's another reason to attack when Cathy's pants are down--our initial round of Bombarding will have far greater impact even if she does get a Castle up afterwards--our initial round of Bombarding will have a DOUBLE EFFECT compared to if we wait to Bombard until after she has whipped out a Castle.

So, how's that for a reason to simultanously attack her Cities?
 
Damn, I just can't keep up with this thread. :(

I'd fort the pig in this case. We can always re-pasture it (perhaps even before the city's out of revolt).

I know I said CF > peace, but if we weren't planning to attack Ragnar for 10t anyway, 40g + 1 gpt is still something. I'd say we take that. It also resets whatever little WW we've accumulated so far, especially if we were to sink his ships.
 
Sorry I've had some things come up and won't have time to do testing of the 4-2 vs. 6-4 whip cycle until later this week. So feel free to proceed on a 6-4 cycle since that's what everyone else favors anyways.

@Dhoom: I'm not adverse to the idea of simultaneously attacking Moscow + St. Pete, but I want to minimize the delay of attacking Moscow.

Question: Can we build forts outside of our cultural borders? I believe the answer is yes but I'd like confirmation before we commit to a canal fort plan. We can get the 2 chopping workers + the Dutch worker in place by T+3. Add 5 turns to chop and we're at T+8. So we can hit Moscow on T+10 (I think -- doing this from memory).

If we decide to sail around Moscow, it takes 4 turns from the spot north of Amsterdam. It will take 3 turns to get the ships in that spot, so we can hit Moscow on T+7.

So I'd like to propose a combination (of sorts) of the two. We send one galleon with a mace around the north end of the Dutch peninsula. We can land him on about T+5 or T+6 to see the defenses in Moscow. He will bounce back to the Hague when we declare war and can jump on a ship at that point. Since we will want to bombard Moscow for a full turn before attacking (I think), this shouldn't slow down our offense at all.

The other boats do their thing on the southern part of the island eliminating Willem (2 turns + 1 turn movement). Add in the 3 turns from eliminating Willem's northern cities and 3 turns of healing before starting our Russian war and that's 3 + 3 + 3 turns for 9 turns (out of 10). This plan also lets Amsterdam provide 2 whipped troops (overflow into archer garrisons please), and the other cities should be coming out of revolt around that time to allow for quick reinforcements.

The obvious downside is that it hits Moscow 3 turns later, but the 10 turn strategy has much more flexibility and hits St. Pete a lot harder (we can probably do a 3-3 galleon split). With the T+7 sail around plan, we have to commit troops as soon as we finish off Willem's northern cities and we won't be able to exterminate Willem.

It might be possible to hit Moscow + St. Pete on T+9 using the canal plan but I'd need to count tiles to calculate travel distances to be sure...
 
In a test game, I just found out that that a naval unit can NOT enter a fort in unclaimed territory. This is strange because I vaguely recall doing this in SGOTM-11 to get our 4 great people to the fur tile near the end of the game. I guess it's possible that said tile was within our borders... checking... the tile was within our borders. So I guess the pig canal is not possible unless I'm doing something wrong.

@ shyuhe - If the canal is possible, I don't think we can do the combination of sorts because the galleons will need to be used to galleon chain the workers to The Hague and cannot set sail right away around the north end of the continent.
 
Unless my testing was flawed, I'll go with the assumption that we need to sail around the north end of the continent. I plan to send 3 galleons around the north. They will be empty (in case they run into barbs) and can pick up troops north on The Hague. If we need more troops to take Moscow, one or more of the galleons can pick up troops on the next turn while we bombard the city's cultural defenses. I'll also use three galleons for the hit on St. Petes. These three could also be used to raze Willem's last city (20% defense?) if it is still poorly defended (1 axe). I will leave 2 galleons for our eastern war front.

Is that a good split or do we really want to commit 4 galleons to sail to Moscow?

EDIT: Now back to read Dhoomstriker's mini novels above... :D
 
Is that a good split or do we really want to commit 4 galleons to sail to Moscow?

Three galleons should be more than enough given that we will want to bombard for at least a turn before attacking. If we find ourselves short of galleons in your plan I reckon we could make do with 2.

However, I still would prefer to create FIVE City Raider III units by spreading-out 4 Experience Points per unit to a stack of 5 units that already have 4 or more Experience Points. Of course, we have to be careful not to do so when a Galleon is on the same square, or else we'll actually give 3 Experience Points to most units in that stack, including the Galleon.

More CR3 units would reduce our losses, but medic 3 would allow our advance to proceed quicker as units would spend less time healing. Given that almost all of our attacks against non hill cities will be fought at extremely good odds I think the extra healing will more than make up for the delay incurred by waiting for an extra unit to be built.
 
Gotta run, here is what I have so far. I have not pre-viewed for typos, errors, etc., so take it as it is. I just want to get this PPP discussed/approved while I'm away.

I propose that I play a mini two or three turn turnset, which should find us just about done with William.

Things that still need to be agreed (note: I created this list after writing my PPP below):

  1. Take William's last city or leave it be?
  2. Leave Ragnar for last (after sinking his fleet) or attack him sooner?
I think most of you have expressed your opinions on these items, so I’ll re-read the thread in a minute.

Proposed whip cycles per city:

Paris: 6 -> 4, always working 2 clams, corn and 1 Grass Hill
Gold: 6 -> 4, always working fish, 2 clams and gold
Marble: 4 -> 2, always working 2 clams
Stone: 4 -> 2, always working fish and stone
Pig: 4 -> 2, always working fish and pig
Iron: 5 -> 3, always working 2 clam and iron

In Paris under Bureaucracy:
a) 14 Hammers invested in a Maceman in Paris (91 Hammers needed to complete it) = 2-pop-whip
b) 16 Hammers invested in a Maceman in Paris (89 Hammers needed to complete it) = 1-pop-whip

In a city with no forge, a whip = 56 hammers.
In a city with a forge, a whip= 67 hammers.​
William Campaign
T0: Move 3 trebs and 2 maces south of Utrecht onto galleons.
T+1: Drop off 4 maces + 4 trebs on The Hague’s pig resource.
I prefer to attack Rotterdam this turn, but since the war with Willem won’t be done until The Hague is taken at the soonest, I’ll use both trebs (neither of which are wounded even though it has been said multiple times) to bombard this turn and just hope that Willem doesn’t whip a pop or 2 away.
T+2Attack Rotterdam (C1 axe + 2 archers) -> Give final mace C1 promotion with the plan of giving him a medic promotion next.
Start bombarding The Hague. Adapt based on what units are defending the city. Ensure that maces face 90%+ battles, else continue bombarding.

Leave last city alone for now. Or we can consider taking it with the troops/galleons that are sitting idle waiting for the attack on Moscow? This decision can be made after we’ve taken Willem’s next two cities.​
Ragnar Campaign
Leave Ragnar for last. He is weak and very close to our capital, so he can be taken out near the end of the game. Sink his two galleys once they are within range of our two triremes with galleon backup should we lose a battle. Sign cease fire with Ragnar. Consider Peace Treaty if it makes sense. To be decided after this short turnset.
If possible, we can consider taking Ragnar’s ivory city if we have available troops/galleons to do so (try to sneak a peek into his city with galleon and/or trireme for Dhoom’s sake). This decision can be made after we’ve taken Willem’s next two cities.​
Cathy Campaign
The goal is to hit Moscow and St. Petes on the initial attack. Galleons 1 (Paris) renamed Galleon 0, Galleon 4 and Galleon 3 will sail around the northern end of the continent toward Moscow. They will be empty and can pick up troops just before the attack. Galleon 1 (Pig), Galleon 2 and Galleon 5, which are being used in our assault of The Hague, will be used for our attack on St. Petersburg.​

Victoria/Joao
The goal for our assault force is to have 4 galleons, 5 trebs and 7 maces. These units will be built/whipped from our core cities. We already have one galleon (Galleon 6) and 1 treb.​

Other
Decide what to do with GG after we have him, but I’m leaning toward promoting 5 maces built in our core to CRIII for our eastern war front.
Revolt to Bureaucracy before we whip again in Paris (likely T+1)
Switch from desert hill mine to coast in Stone.
Philosophy <-> Horseback Riding + Literature + 60 Gold from Vicky.
Marble to Joao for 2 gpt.
Culture slider at 10%. Check slider and citizen assignment every turn.​
 
The eastern front is going to go up against mostly archers so the CR3 will be a bit overkill. I'd rather have a medic 3 in the west.

I think we should raze Willem's last city with the stack that will attack St. Pete. They will have 2-3 turns to burn.

Check Paris's current build to make sure bureaucracy doesn't turn it into a 1 pop whip. If it becomes one, then 2 pop whip a mace and overflow into the treb.

If Willem whips a new defender on T+1 in Rotterdam, we should go ahead and attack on that turn since it's very likely that he'll add another defender on T+2 (by whip or overflow).

Otherwise looks good for sure on the first 3 turns (to take Willem's core).

I think we should leave Ragnar for last, unless he starts teching towards feudalism. We can reconsider if that happens.
 
The eastern front is going to go up against mostly archers so the CR3 will be a bit overkill. I'd rather have a medic 3 in the west.

Since this isn't a typical map, I assume that we'll have 3 to 5 mini stacks as opposed to one big SOD. Therefore, it seems that a medic 3 unit will have a much smaller value than in a typical game. Having CRIII maces on the eastern front could very well allow us to attack without needing to attack with tebs first. The trebs knock down cultural defenses and then the CRIII maces attack that same turn. This could greatly speed up our conquest. This is outside the current turnset, but let's keep this debate going.

I think we should raze Willem's last city with the stack that will attack St. Pete. They will have 2-3 turns to burn.

I agree, but let's make a final call once we see how the next two cities fall, how many units are healthy, and how many defenders he has in that last city.

Check Paris's current build to make sure bureaucracy doesn't turn it into a 1 pop whip. If it becomes one, then 2 pop whip a mace and overflow into the treb.

If we're going to revolt to Bureaucracy, I'd rather that ALL future Paris whips get the bonus. If the current build turns into a 1 pop whip, which is very likely, even if I revolt on T0, I'd rather switch the build to a mace, 2 pop whip it, and then overflow into the partially completed treb.

If Willem whips a new defender on T+1 in Rotterdam, we should go ahead and attack on that turn since it's very likely that he'll add another defender on T+2 (by whip or overflow).

I plan to attack Rotterdam on T+1 no matter what Willem does.

I think we should leave Ragnar for last, unless he starts teching towards feudalism. We can reconsider if that happens.

If I'm able to get a peek inside his ivory city, it may make sense (depending on how heavily guarded it is) to take this one city with the troops sitting idle waiting for the eastern front to open and then declare peace/CF. Having the :) from the ivory can only help and if we can capture this city easily, right? Again, let's hold off on this until we get our peek.
 
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