SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

Sun Tzu Wu... waiting
mabraham... waiting
Tachywaxon... passing on deck?
Walter_Wolf... passing in the hole?
Kaitzilla... UP NOW
frogdude... waiting
bcool... waiting
shulec... waiting
 
amphibious requires combat II doesn't it?

How are we going to get 9 amphibious CR II macemen?

Duh! I think I took that from an STW post, but now that you say it, I am sure he must have meant Combat II amphibious. Scrap that.
 
Tests for Combat II Amph Maces after 8 airship air strikes.

The number of units required to kill the Wiz:
TESTS DONE WITH 15% FORTIFIED
11
2
2
2
7
11
10
3
8
6
5
7
5
2
6
7


Note that mabraham did use the random seed, so the two mace numbers are outliers. It really doesn't matter. We need to account the outliers on the high side, and have more units that the high end outliers to enure the Wizard's demise.

12 Combat II amphibious Maces should be enough.

... on to the next option.
 

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Tests for Combat II Amph Knights after 8 airship air strikes.

The number of units required to kill the Wiz:
TESTS DONE ON 20% FORTIFICATION
4
2
6
8
4
7
8
2
2
6
3
1
4
3
2
6
6
7


9 Combat II amphibious Knights should be enough. With a stable and settled GG, these knights will not require a specific civ to be produced in Isengard.

... on to the next option.
 

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Tests for Combat II Amph Muskets after 8 airship air strikes.

The number of units required to kill the Wiz:

7
8
9
10
3
7
3
3
9
6
9
9
7


12 Muskets will be enough. The Muskets don't do as well as the knights. They have the same attack strength against the knight (due to the Rifle's 25% bonus against Mounted units), but they have the are not as good against the Longbow when the Rifle becomes weaker than the longbows.
 

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Tests for Combat II Amph Grenadiers after 8 airship air strikes.

The number of units required to kill the Wiz:
TESTS DONE ON 15% FORTIFICATION
1
5
5
5
2
5
6
2
5
6
5
2



6 Amphib combat II Grenadiers should be able to take down the wizard.
 

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Based on the above tests, I would think that combat II Amphibious Knights have the most efficient opportunity to kill the wizard when softened by 8 Airship airstrikes.

This requires 9 knights, 3 galleons and 8 airships.

This is contingent upon the barb city not producing any units.

Five Airship air strikes are nearly as good. It is the difference between 6.0 and 5.8 LBs.
 
It's mostly the first and second airship strike that helps as they're the ones that hit the wizards. Strikes 3-5 hit the longbows, and Strikes 6-8 do a tiny bit more damage on the longbowmen.

In the combats, one of two things happen. Either we kill the wizard in the first couple of fights, or he ducks under the longbows.
If he ducks, then we start taking on the longbows. In these cases, killing the longbows is obviously handy, but it isn't a disaster if we don't kill it, as long as we bash them around sufficiently to make them put the wizard back on defence.

My general point, is that I don't expect it will make much difference to have non-full airstrike capability, it will be more important to have plenty of men.

Having said this, I realise that airships are something that cities can build to contribute to the wizard killing after the expected last of the units has moved, but I'm just reminding us that we need not necessarily focus too much on the airships if we have better things to do, such as win that war.
 
Random thoughts for next turnset

  • I agree that 8 airships are likely not necessary for the strike unless we need the wizard dead asap.
  • based on shulec's research I think knights are the way to go to kill the wizard. I would like to add that we can get 8 xp knights by building them outside of Isengard and getting xp from some fights with Asoka. So we can build trebs in Isengard and not exclusively knights. Plus I think it wouldn't be hard to get military tradition by the time we need to attack the wizard so cuirassiers are more likely than knights.
  • We have an AP resolution coming in ~4 turns. If we try the assign Boston to us and vote against it trick and flip Elizabeth to taoism she should be friendly with us. And we will be able to trade for guilds and/or banking if we choose not to steal those or are not able to trade for them before that. Hmm, I guess we would have to flip Genghis to Taoism too and get him to friendly before we could trade for any tech.
  • Estimates of UN victory vote are ~23 turns.
  • Killing the wizard --settler settles western coastal city in 10? turns building 9 knights ~10 turns moving knights over to western coast ~7 turns? Buying 3 boats (6 turns cheaply, 3 turns very expensively). Sailing to the wizard 7 turns? (could conceivably buy a barracks and buy knights in the western coastal city as well).
    I would estimate we could kill the wizard in 25 turns as well since settler and boats can be built as the knights are traveling over there. If we focused on it we could do it in about 25 turns.
  • Capturing all of Asoka's cities while sending 9 knights over to kill the wizard and saving up gold to buy 3 galleons will take significantly longer than 23 turns. So I think anything we can do to accelerate the war with Asoka is a good thing. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems like Asoka will be a tough nut to crack. After mass media (and perhaps nationalism, gunpowder, and military tradition) we can use the slider for espionage or gold to buy units for example. Or instead we can tech towards grenadiers or cannons if we think that will really accelerate the war efforts. I hope we can avoid excessive whipping in our cities to take out Asoka because we need the population for the vote. Of course a very police state whips can go a long ways.
  • chemistry unlocks frigates and privateers. We might want frigates to soften up Asoka's coastal cities and defend against his navy. We might want privateers to control the north's population so that it doesn't go above the south's. Plus the bonus to our workshops isn't bad.
 
Updated the gpp spreadsheet

Recommendations
run 11 scientists in GPFarm this turn T163
Then 11 scientists in GPFarm for T164
Then 9 scientists T165, (bringin you down to 0 food in the bin) (this also allows the next great person to have very little great scientist contamination)
Then 8 merchants T166,
Then 9 merchants T167 (bringing you down to 0 food in the bin again)
Then 17 merchants on T168 starving 1 pop (last turn of pacifism) (so GPFarm at 16 pop next turn)
Then 9 merchants on T169 last turn of GA (and switch to theocracy but stay in caste and perhaps representation)
Then 9 merchants T170-T174
Then 8 merchants T175 to just finish the 1400 gp great person
Then T176 0 specialists

This lets us trigger a 2nd GA on T176 with 2 great people a great scientist and a great merchant. For switch to whatever civics is best for the war effort. A dip into police state and slavery, then end the GA with Universal Sufferage and caste perhaps.

I think this second GA is the best for the war effort and gets us back to universal suffrage when we need it for the wizard boat building.


I now think we should get the free merchant from teching economics after trading or stealing guilds and banking. This lets us keep the GA going uninterrupted. So the 1400 great person from GPFarm could be a scientist to bulb chemistry or it could be a great merchant if you free the gold is more valuable.

The specialists in other cities don't really matter unless the game goes longer than 30 turns or so. Let's hope it doesn't. Might be able to stretch and get a late Great person from Gems on T182 by running mostly 7 specialists or T189 if you just run 4 or 5 specialist there the rest of the game in a GA. If you want this then I recommend 7 merchants until the proposed next golden age, then 4 specialists (spy, engineer, 2 scientists) during non-caste time suggested, then back to 7 specialists with switch back to caste.
 

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Random thoughts for next turnset

[*]I agree that 8 airships are likely not necessary for the strike unless we need the wizard dead asap.

Yup.

[*] based on shulec's research I think knights are the way to go to kill the wizard. I would like to add that we can get 8 xp knights by building them outside of Isengard and getting xp from some fights with Asoka. So we can build trebs in Isengard and not exclusively knights. Plus I think it wouldn't be hard to get military tradition by the time we need to attack the wizard so cuirassiers are more likely than knights.

Seems most flexible.

[*] We have an AP resolution coming in ~4 turns. If we try the assign Boston to us and vote against it trick and flip Elizabeth to taoism she should be friendly with us. And we will be able to trade for guilds and/or banking if we choose not to steal those or are not able to trade for them before that. Hmm, I guess we would have to flip Genghis to Taoism too and get him to friendly before we could trade for any tech.

We can do espionage on Genghis in Bactrian. If we flip him to Taoism before we send him missionaries then the flip will be cheap. The spy building in Stone city could probably do this before we run into the 3-missionary cap, so I think we have a chance to flip him before impingeing on the missionary production. bc thinks AIs won't switch away from the AP religion during wars (I can check that in the code if necessary).

[*]Estimates of UN victory vote are ~23 turns.
[*]Killing the wizard --settler settles western coastal city in 10? turns building 9 knights ~10 turns moving knights over to western coast ~7 turns? Buying 3 boats (6 turns cheaply, 3 turns very expensively). Sailing to the wizard 5 turns? (could conceivably buy a barracks and buy knights in the western coastal city as well).
I would estimate we could kill the wizard in 23 turns as well since settler and boats can be built as the knights are traveling over there. If we focused on it we could do it in about 23 turns.
[*]Capturing all of Asoka's cities while sending 9 knights over to kill the wizard and saving up gold to buy 3 galleons will take significantly longer than 23 turns. So I think anything we can do to accelerate the war with Asoka is a good thing. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems like Asoka will be a tough nut to crack. After mass media (and perhaps nationalism, gunpowder, and military tradition) we can use the slider for espionage or gold to buy units for example. Or instead we can tech towards grenadiers or cannons if we think that will really accelerate the war efforts. I hope we can avoid excessive whipping in our cities to take out Asoka because we need the population for the vote. Of course a very police state whips can go a long ways.
[*] chemistry unlocks frigates and privateers. We might want frigates to soften up Asoka's coastal cities and defend against his navy. We might want privateers to control the north's population so that it doesn't go above the south's. Plus the bonus to our workshops isn't bad.

How to conquer fast?
The two things that slow conquest down are the need to siege and the need to move units overland. The major two ways to overcome that at this stage of the game are
  • to use galleons to coast-hop and frigates to bomb defenses in advance
  • to use mass mounted units to avoid longbow first strikes

The former requires Chemistry to really get going - that comes with a buff to workshops also, but perhaps we don't have time for this to really kick in. This does lead to MilSci for more speed, of course. The latter could start with knights and move on to cuirassiers with MilTrad, and is a lot stronger if we can take out their iron.

I don't think we'll have the ability to leverage privateers soon enough. We have to be able to afford to build them, send them across the map and then wait for them to hack off enough seafood.
 
Better city for wizard killing?

I think I found a better site for the western coastal site intended to allow us to buy boats and upgrade units to kill the wizard.

See attached screen shot.
The site near the Oil on a plains hill would let us get to the wizard by galleon 1 turn faster than the site near fish and iron. Plus it is closer to us, plus it likely won't trigger close border tensions with the western witches.
 

Attachments

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    wizard coastal city site.jpg
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Updated the gpp spreadsheet

Recommendations
run 11 scientists in GPFarm this turn T163
Then 11 scientists in GPFarm for T164
Then 9 scientists T165, (bringin you down to 0 food in the bin) (this also allows the next great person to have very little great scientist contamination)
Then 8 merchants T166,
Then 9 merchants T167 (bringing you down to 0 food in the bin again)
Then 17 merchants on T168 starving 1 pop (last turn of pacifism) (so GPFarm at 16 pop next turn)
Then 9 merchants on T169 last turn of GA (and switch to theocracy but stay in caste and perhaps representation)
Then 9 merchants T170-T174
Then 8 merchants T175 to just finish the 1400 gp great person
Then T176 0 specialists

This lets us trigger a 2nd GA on T176 with 2 great people a great scientist and a great merchant. For switch to whatever civics is best for the war effort. A dip into police state and slavery, then end the GA with Universal Sufferage and caste perhaps.

I think this second GA is the best for the war effort and gets us back to universal suffrage when we need it for the wizard boat building.

The specialists in other cities don't really matter unless the game goes longer than 30 turns or so. Let's hope it doesn't. Might be able to stretch and get a late Great person from Gems on T182. If you want this then I recommend 7 merchants until the proposed next golden age, then 4 specialists (spy, engineer, 2 scientists) during non-caste time suggested, then back to 7 specialists with switch back to caste.


Very nice :D I was just thinking how we could get our hands on a 2nd golden age, and there it is.
 
Better city for wizard killing?

I think I found a better site for the western coastal site intended to allow us to buy boats and upgrade units to kill the wizard.

See attached screen shot.
The site near the Oil on a plains hill would let us get to the wizard by galleon 1 turn faster than the site near fish and iron. Plus it is closer to us, plus it likely won't trigger close border tensions with the western witches.

Sure. That was the backup site I had mentioned, but it now looks superior. We have an axe and horse archer out there to see what is going on as we approach.
 
Very nice :D I was just thinking how we could get our hands on a 2nd golden age, and there it is.

The other ways are worth investigating...

1) Build the Taj Mahal somehow and use the great scientist to bulb chemistry (after getting gunpowder) and then use the great merchant for a trade mission.

Taj Mahal is 700 hammers... That is 11+ turns of washington in bureacracy. We would sacrifice drafting and get the GA ~T180 instead.
Edit: Stone could build Taj in 10 turns, mabraham points out.

Doesn't seem good to me.

2) trade or steal guilds and banking and research economics (2184) That is about 4 turns of post GA-post bureacracy teching. So the GA would be triggered as early as T172 but obviously teching economics would slow down teching mass media.
Edit: Of course we could probably tech economics before starting mass media and never interrupt the GA.
Trigger GA with GS from GPFarm and the merchant from economics on T172 and slow down Mass Media research.

This would give us the Great Person from GPFarm to play with (a great merchant to run a trade mission, or a great scientist to bulb chemistry)

I think we might be able to afford to delay mass media by 4 more turns to get economics and the earlier 2nd GA, and the Great person from GPFarm can be a scientist to help us get chemistry. The earlier 2nd GA would help us tech Mass Media too. So might be able to shave off the delay economics imposed by 1 turn or so.

Since we anticipate that the UN can be built and ready before we are ready for it. I think teching nationalism before the end of the GA (so we can switch to nationhood), and then teching economics for an earlier 2nd GA, then use the great person after next in GPFarm to bulb Chemistry (stealing gunpowder along the way).
Tech nationalism after economics so we can run GA continuously. In 2nd GA start the Taj Mahal for the 3rd GA.
 
Spies can sabotage plots. If we take out the iron near our invasion stack, and move our spy down to the desert iron (mission cost <100EP without stationary bonus), we can put a hole in Asoka's production of pikes or knights. This also stops upgrades of horse archers to knights (just tested). We'll need follow-up spies, of course. Killing the ivory for phants should be easy too.
 
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