SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

Here is the war simulation for Vicky's land that I mentioned.

She has the right population and (I believe buildings in each of her cities). She is in the right civics and the land we can see is simulated. The land we can't see I took a good guess at but I didn't do all the fog gazing that I could have.

I didn't get all the unit promotions right. We need more info unless it is in some prior screenshot or save.

I believe her units have the fortifications they would have. But as I mentioned she isn't in war prep mode. Nor are her trade routes simulated.

Anyways I'm imagining we can simulate at least something of what Vicky might build and simulate our potential success against her by world building in the units after x turns of her development.

Here are some promising war options.

If we are going to war, I strongly favor a York 1st plan.

I've attached a screenshot with a rough plan. There is a nice site next to 2 fish and the other iron that allows us to land everything on a hill to the north of York (cutting it off from land based support.)
With 4 catapults we can cut its fortifications down to 16% and use 1 catapult to sacrifice. Then 3 swords and an axe take out York on the turn after we land. If we get lucky have lots of war successes we could get a ceasefire from Vicky maybe in a 4 turns? If we are super lucky we can capture a worker as well to really speed up the time she would be willing to talk and take a ceasefire.

Taking York in 1 turn might be necessary because, her galleys could reinforce in 2 turns. If she does send troops with her galleys though and we take York in 1 turn, we could have 2 triremes there to hit her troops in the loaded galleys.

From York once we heal we could redeclare and land everything next to London on a hill without a river to worry about.

Giving an AI with an 11 pop capital with Moai and slavery and possibly iron for 3 turns while we walk to London is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. But we can simulate this with the war sim now

bcool said:

Here are some promising war options.

If we are going to war, I strongly favor a York 1st plan.

I've attached a screenshot with a rough plan. There is a nice site next to 2 fish and the other iron that allows us to land everything on a hill to the north of York (cutting it off from land based support.)
With 4 catapults we can cut its fortifications down to 16% and use 1 catapult to sacrifice. Then 3 swords and an axe take out York on the turn after we land. If we get lucky have lots of war successes we could get a ceasefire from Vicky maybe in a 4 turns? If we are super lucky we can capture a worker as well to really speed up the time she would be willing to talk and take a ceasefire.

Taking York in 1 turn might be necessary because, her galleys could reinforce in 2 turns. If she does send troops with her galleys though and we take York in 1 turn, we could have 2 triremes there to hit her troops in the loaded galleys.

From York once we heal we could redeclare and land everything next to London on a hill without a river to worry about.

Giving an AI with an 11 pop capital with Moai and slavery and possibly iron for 3 turns while we walk to London is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. But we can simulate this with the war sim now

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Seems reasonable. I was envisaging a city much more to the SW - actually NW of one of the ivory (3S+1SW of York) which has only one fish. That can still use a four-galley assault force, landing the cats on the forest on the DOW turn, and the axe+3swords on the hill north of York the turn after. This still cuts off York from land-based reinforcement. Settling the second iron site is moot once York is dead.

I think either approach needs to plan for an axeman to cut off the iron NE of London.

because for some reason nobody's explained some people don't want her to have Maths

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Math is a pre-req for Construction, it also boosts her chopping output. I know you said her building cats was better than axes, but I am not sure I agree with that opinion.

I actually like the look of that northern city bc, with an Iron mine and those few hill tiles, it would make a real nice Moai city eventually. Makes a great long term naval yard.

I have a concern about the cease fire play though. I have never had much luck getting an early cease fire like that, but if we can show it is doable, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

Alternatively, if we take London right away, she is really crippled going forward, especially if we also plant the northern city to take the other iron. We not only take all the metal, but virtually halt her teching also.

Ronnie1 said:

Math is a pre-req for Construction, it also boosts her chopping output. I know you said her building cats was better than axes, but I am not sure I agree with that opinion.

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OK... but if we've taken out her metals, and some other kind person gifts her Construction, how's she going to have enough time to assemble enough cats and archers faster than our reinforcements in order to actually hurt us?

Ronnie1 said:

I actually like the look of that northern city bc, with an Iron mine and those few hill tiles, it would make a real nice Moai city eventually. Makes a great long term naval yard.

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It's about as good as BF, actually - one grassland metal, a hill and a few grassland tiles. As I said a few posts ago, the only inland fresh-water lake is between London and York - as you can see from the food output in bc's latest screenshot. So one of London or York makes a better prospect...

Ronnie1 said:

I have a concern about the cease fire play though. I have never had much luck getting an early cease fire like that, but if we can show it is doable, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

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Yeah, me too... no experience.

Ronnie1 said:

Alternatively, if we take London right away, she is really crippled going forward, especially if we also plant the northern city to take the other iron. We not only take all the metal, but virtually halt her teching also.

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Taking London and planting another city gives us two fronts to defend... more reliable is just a raiding force to deny the eastern iron.

It's about as good as BF, actually - one grassland metal, a hill and a few grassland tiles.

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I think it is 2 hills + iron + 2 fish, and no need to possibly share a fish as BF needs to share with SM. I think it is a better site than BF in many respects.

Taking London and planting another city gives us two fronts to defend....

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She won't be able to assemble enough to threaten 1 of the cities let alone 2. It allows us to pinch York between us also. All of her landmass is appealing really! Elephants, wine, inland lakes, almost all better than the islands we have now. We could even consider moving our capitol possibly.

OK we had four suggested plans for GH managing when to whip a granary and then build a lighthouse. I've spreadsheet-tested them, including the Colossus effect. All plans then built poly-workboat growing onto coast tiles with no further whipping, and were compared at T200. Plans 1-3 did a 2-whip of the granary with some delay. Plan 4 did a 2-whip ASAP to get the lighthouse ASAP.

[pre]
Option 1 2 3 4
Population 7 8 7 9
Food in bin 48 52 34 45
WBs finished 2 2 2 2
Hammers in bin 18 12 21 6
Total food 440 484 422 522
Total hammers 252 246 255 240
Total commerce 670 719 654 756
[/pre]

So plan 4 is a few hammers behind, but much further ahead on food and commerce, and started decaying the whip- fastest. This finding concurs with my earlier results that, with water tiles available to work, an early cheap lighthouse is a better first build than a granary.

Ronnie1 said:

I think it is 2 hills + iron + 2 fish, and no need to possibly share a fish as BF needs to share with SM. I think it is a better site than BF in many respects.

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That site has one hill. We're building on a hill, and the hill two NW of it is not in the BFC, of course.

Yes, BF would have to share its food and that makes it not so great, which is why BF is not high on our list of possible Moai sites.

Ronnie1 said:

She won't be able to assemble enough to threaten 1 of the cities let alone 2. It allows us to pinch York between us also.

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Pinching doesn't matter - we won't have enough force to be able to afford to split a relevant second force.

The problem of the second city is more one of logistics. We have to get a settler and a defender over there, which means splitting off a galley and a trireme, which means the attack on London starts at least one turn later (shorter galley chain for the catapults) even if we don't cause any other delay by planning to be sending that settler. Of course, we could dispatch that mini-flotilla after the kickoff, but that is no longer a pre-war strategy...

OK, we can get the pillaging axe, four swords and an axe for London, and four cats on two galleys in position at the end of T184 to DOW next turn, assuming we finish Currency IBT T175-6.

This required three whips in BF (1,2,2 population) to get out two swords and two cats, two whips in PC (1, 2 population) to finish the existing sword, axe and archer and then two cats, and FH to put its overflow onto a new galley without whipping. We use all three existing galleys. Other cities can stay on peacetime building. Stevenson will have to chop and then build the workshop until a galley gets free. One sword lands on Vicky's island T172 to try to farm some XP. Other land forces land in good time for walking to where they need to be.

The attached screenshots show the movement plan for galleys in two parts, up to T177 and afterwards. Also attached is a spreadsheet and derived PDF so people can assess what I'm suggesting. Edit On PC, there's a typo of "GM" indicating working the iron mine. The actual tile production is correct.

Because we can get this done, it becomes worthwhile seeing how resilient this force will be. Can we cope with Vicky building an axe and whipping an archer or two after the DOW?

OK I used bc's war-test game, fixed the river and a few tiles, adjusted her promotions to reflect reality, DOWed, and worldbuilt the above units in. Note that our units' XP also reflect the reality of the above plan - there's no barracks in BF.

Vicky whipped out an archer during the advance and milled around uselessly with the galleys. I took the city that turn with ease, but we could lose up to two catapults. Note that the pillaging axeman can be on a road ready to reinforce London or defend the catapults on a hill when we are able to take the city this turn.

I gave Vicky an extra axeman and gave it a few turns' fortification. Despite the DOW and the catapults next to London, she moved the spearman towards York. Next turn as my real attack units arrived, she brought the spearman back as she whipped the archer. I still took the city, but if I lost a single fight, it would be delayed.

Then I gave her the same axeman, another fresh axeman, and a CG2 archer (to simulate fortification). I still took the city over two turns losing two cats and a sword. I could have lost another two swords at 80-85% if life had been really rough. If so, taking London would have been dicey, and the incoming axeman very necessary.

At no time did any units leave York. After London had been beaten up badly, she'd try to send a relief archer from Nottingham... Clearly she values York highly enough that she won't leave it with fewer than two archers.

In a nice world, our opening swordsman would have both CR1 and CR2 from some barb archer we find wandering around.

Vicky's been in war-prep mode for a while now. We've seen no worker or settler while touring her lands (Unless Griff saw one? Check your autosaves, please!). She's got three galleys... maybe that's all she's been building. Whoever the target is, she needed to build a navy... There's no telling whether she thinks she has enough navy yet. We'll get plenty of intelligence from Magellan, and the pillaging axe walking through, and the navy walking through, and the other units wandering around.

So, I think this establishes that London can be taken with a high degree of confidence by a force assembled by the foregoing plan. Depending how things go, we might be healed up and ready to move on York in just a turn or two, or might have to bunker down and reinforce.

Note that the above plan leaves two galleys near PC. One can land a worker and archer on Vicky's land wherever reasonable. The other will go and sort out Stevenson near CC, and deal with any new settler we've Duckweeded. BF's T181 trireme can defend wherever needed.

Also, the new spreadsheet version can handle Golden Ages (I believe) and a much wider range of military units.

Ok I'm on board with the goal of taking London first.

Vicky just isn't very smart. I advanced the game 15 turns before my war testing, but the simulation isn't a very good one I don't think. She did whip an archer and build an axe in the 3 turns I was walking towards her. But that wasn't enough to stop 4 catapults 4 swords an axe and a backup axe.

She did build a spear and swordsmen in York in the 15 turns, but didn't use them to reinforce London. She was building the oracle in the test game which isn't very accurate, but based on my and mabraham's testing I think I was wrong about how difficult it will be.

She will have iron though. In 15 turns I think she will build that 2nd iron mine. I'm not sure if we want to add one more unit to cut off the iron. I would expect this would delay the attack, but cutting off that iron would be nice for the war after London. She might have a decent force in York that she could eventually build up and counter attack if we are significantly weakened.

Another option, With spying by magellan we will be able to assess this situation. We might want to send the axe to the Eastern Iron instead of the NE iron. If we destroy the Eastern Iron then when London falls she will be without iron and so she will likely not be able to mount a significant counterattack.

How to get construction by T176-7 is the question now I guess.

I am definitely on board with hitting London ASAP.

Is there any way to avoid the 1 pop whips, they are really inefficient if we can 2 pop whip.

How to get construction by T176-7 is the question now I guess.

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We can get gold for Priesthood. We can get all remaining gold from Literature except Vickys.

The PH gold + what we have gets us 2 turns at 100%.

I think maybe we should delay the Literature trades until they have a bit more gold available.

Just the PH gold should let us finish Construction in 7 turns, maybe 6.

Can I assume the 4 way test was with Golden Hills, not MC as stated in the post?

That site has one hill. We're building on a hill, and the hill two NW of it is not in the BFC, of course.

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You are right...I thought there was another hill under the sign. The sites are basically equivalent with the exception of sharing the food.

What do people think about putting Moai in Marbled Clams? I think it is a reasonable site and it can get started on it immediately. We have 2 forests to chop that are just outside the BFC to speed it up and make it useful sooner.

@ Griff
Are you going to get a chance to advance the test game soon?

Ronnie1 said:

Can I assume the 4 way test was with Golden Hills, not MC as stated in the post?

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Sorry, yes, the test was with Golden Hills

So are we getting a full PPP now that the war plans for London are roughly agreed upon?

Looks like Griff is MIA. I can look into updating the test game. I'll start working on that unless someone else stops me.

bcool said:

So are we getting a full PPP now that the war plans for London are roughly agreed upon?

Looks like Griff is MIA. I can look into updating the test game. I'll start working on that unless someone else stops me.

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Yeah PPP is nearly done - will be ready in another hour I think.