LotR17 Dueling Deity

[Heroes]

Originally Posted by Vol

Mark, we can't build Macemen without Machinery! Please consider the plan in light of that. I think going for Theology might be better than sticking with Civil Service. Without ~9 turns on Machinery, Civil Service only gets us Bureacracy.

Bureaucracy is also good, because you don't have other good option for legal civic.

[Heroes]

Originally Posted by regoarrarr

I'm pretty sure that if you take a city in war, it will NEVER flip back. That's one of the new features of civ4

There is an option when you start a game which enables captured city flip. Therefore, the default is no flip, -- as you see in civlepidia.

[Arathorn]

I'm pretty sure captured cities can flip. I just think they won't while you're (still) at war with that civ. I don't have proof of that, but it seems that way to me.

Why are we so intent on razing Delhi? Yes, if it culture-flipped, that would be huge, but if we can do both island cities (Delhi and Bombay), which seems quite doable, we would get the benefits of all those wonders in Delhi. It would be completely safe from culture-flipping. Keeping it military-wise? Well, we took it in the first place. Gandhi would be down to a few cities. A unit parked on the iron by Lahore would mean NO strong foot units until muskets. And I honestly don't fear muskets much.

I'm not trying to argue TOO strongly for a capture, but I think we should at least discuss it in some depth. The culture-memory thing needs a city to feed it. Yes, we would need to do both cities, but I think that's a reasonable goal for this war anyway. And it would give us a very strong position. At least consider/discuss, I plead.

I would also argue for allocating one boat for the Lahore island to pillage. A unit or two can cause a lot of suffering (and provide us with gold), but not detract overmuch from our main force. It's something to at least keep in mind, if not in the initial wave, for the back-up wave.

And I would rather see good, slow play than rushed play. I understand the "I want to play NOW feeling", but let's make sure we do this as right as we know how, not as fast as we know how. And the next 10-40 turns might prove critical, so care should be taken.

Arathorn

[Vol]

Excellent thoughts. A boat for Lahore pillaging is wise. An Elephant and a Swordsman with appropriate/diverse promotions would do well.

You know, if we're crazy enough to think we can win at Delhi, then why the hell not go all the way and keep the thing? Its not like we're can actually win this game anyway, why not go crazy and see if we can capture all those wonders? Many are not obsolete to us, yet!

If it flips back, big deal, at most Gandhi will have a few units there. We take it back and raze it that time. Not much lost for the potential learning experience.

We might find that letting the AI build all the wonders and then going in and taking them might be the "capture the Great Library for a turn when the AI is in the IA" of Civ4. What better game to try that tactic than this?

If Gandhi remains as passive as he was last war (which lasted a very long time, with his only offensive being an empty Galleon pillaging two tiles), then all we're facing is his defenses. Sufficient units and tactics can slowly overcome that. If we can get Galleons ourselves, I think we could muster enough siege units to even take Riflemen defended cities.

Lets be aggressive and see if we can't reveal any more glaring failings in the Deity AI's military techniques.

[Arathorn]

That's the spirit, Vol!

Now, is it wise? I tend to say "Yes". We are still very much learning, but all those wonders would provide a ton of benefits. Even a few turns worth, even if we had to re-raze, might well be worth the time spent.

Arathorn

[bed_head7]

Originally Posted by Arathorn

And I would rather see good, slow play than rushed play. I understand the "I want to play NOW feeling", but let's make sure we do this as right as we know how, not as fast as we know how. And the next 10-40 turns might prove critical, so care should be taken.

Yes, yes, of course. Had I played, though, I certainly would not have rushed, and I would have definitely been focusing on our overall goals. As Sirian keeps quoting (I think it is him) "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." Or maybe it isn't him, as he quotes a lot of Patton and that one belongs to some Prussian general, as I recall. In all of these plans we are making here, there are a lot of extra factors that we don't know about yet, and it is likely that even if we come to a complete consensus as a team on every particular of the campaign, little of the plan will actually work out as expected. The being part of a team in an SG only goes so far in my opinion, with a melding of general playstyles (eg deciding to make peace and then hit again as soon after making peace as we could, as opposed to staying at war or opting to take some time to work on infra) and perhaps an influx of imporant, game-specific ideas to keep in mind (eg unloading troops island to island to prevent loss of ground units to galleons). How I go about achieving a goal of a major blow to Gandhi, or even just a setup for the major blow, is something that will be determined mainly by my playstyle and in game factors (like finding out, for instance, that Delhi is now guarded by 20 units, and I end up heading a completely different direction).

That all said, I would never rush out and play immediately after the previous player posts a save in a situation such as this one. Everyone deserves a chance to give their opinion on which direction we head. What I said before was really just my way of saying "This game is lots of fun, and I look forward to playing my turns. You guys all better not wait too long though before giving suggestions, though, as I will probably end up playing tonight." I forget oftentimes that you all don't actually know who I am and don't know about my little character quirks and what not. But I also don't really feel like much of what has been covered in the last few posts will have much of an effect on how I play my turns. Discussion concerning raze/keep, for instance, is hardly going to be relevant. If it is possible to capture both with what we have there, naturally I will play for both. If they are too strongly garrisioned between the two, then razing Delhi would be the way to go. And if neither of those jewels is attainable with what we have, I'll have to look in a different direction, since killing a few Indian units at the cost of a number of our units would be no benefit, and we need to push for something now rather than later.

Anyway, I hope this all doesn't violate some SG etiquette that I am unaware of, but since we have our general goal so clearly laid out, it really seems unnecessary to go too far into the particulars of how to do it, as that is something for each player to handle. Not that extra input isn't a nice thing to have, I just don't feel as though that come time to actually play my turns it will actually make much of a difference in this particular situation. And even in the extreme case that I played my turns right after the save had been posted, I don't really see anything in the discussion that will change the general approach to achieving our goals. I also want to make clear that in an SG, I would never let something deter from thinking critically about a situation before making any decision. There is a substantial difference between rushed play and quick turnover.

[Sirian]

Originally Posted by bed_head7

Yes, yes, of course. Had I played, though, I certainly would not have rushed, and I would have definitely been focusing on our overall goals. As Sirian keeps quoting (I think it is him) "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." Or maybe it isn't him, as he quotes a lot of Patton and that one belongs to some Prussian general, as I recall.

No, that's me.

If you are thinking of somebody who runs his mouth a lot to no useful end, I won't be offended if you think of me first, even when it isn't me.


"He quotes a lot of Patton" is from a very VERY small data sample, though. This leopard tends to change (most of) his spots on a regular basis. Variant Scum(TM), don't you know. Variety-addicted. Adventurous. Or maybe just unstable.

This is the first Deity Duel on a Mirror map watter setting, that I know of. So of course it's interesting to watch! I'm rooting for you guys to be successful, but mostly I'm tuning in to see if you are having fun.


- Sirian

[bed_head7]

Originally Posted by Sirian

No, that's me.

If you are thinking of somebody who runs his mouth a lot to no useful end, I won't be offended if you think of me first, even when it isn't me.


"He quotes a lot of Patton" is from a very VERY small data sample, though. This leopard tends to change (most of) his spots on a regular basis. Variant Scum(TM), don't you know. Variety-addicted. Adventurous. Or maybe just unstable.

This is the first Deity Duel on a Mirror map watter setting, that I know of. So of course it's interesting to watch! I'm rooting for you guys to be successful, but mostly I'm tuning in to see if you are having fun.


- Sirian

Well I am enjoying myself, but I think we already covered that.

I certainly did not mean to generalize that you always quote Patton, simply that that seems to be the theme, and a Prussian whose name is not coming to mind is not Patton.

[Vol]

This game is really quite fun. The challenges are really diverse, numerous, and unique.

I mean, did anyone expect we'd be planning to steal 10 wonders from a Deity opponent who was more than an age ahead of us by using a fleet 2 movement, 2 cargo Galleys? That needs some sort of "(TM)" moniker.

I think a lot of the fantastic discussion we're having is really adding to that, though. Thats certainly the appeal of SGs to me, not just handing the save off, post a just-the-facts turnlog, handing the save off, post another plain turnlog, as was starting to happen in the late Civ3 SGs.

[bed_head7]

Originally Posted by Vol

This game is really quite fun. The challenges are really diverse, numerous, and unique.

I mean, did anyone expect we'd be planning to steal 10 wonders from a Deity opponent who was more than an age ahead of us by using a fleet 2 movement, 2 cargo Galleys? That needs some sort of "(TM)" moniker.

I think a lot of the fantastic discussion we're having is really adding to that, though. Thats certainly the appeal of SGs to me, not just handing the save off, post a just-the-facts turnlog, handing the save off, post another plain turnlog, as was starting to happen in the late Civ3 SGs.

The discussion is great, although my contribution has generally been minimal. But discussing what ifs can become rather detailed, and things rarely work out as expected. Which was very true of my turns. The plan has been forcibly tweaked a bit due to circumstances, as you'll see.




1500 AD (0) - Having now opened up the save, it looks as though I won't be seeing much action anyway. Turn growth back on in New York, since it has a surplus happy face. Everything else looks good though, and go ahead and hit enter.

1505 AD (1) - Put Bangalore on Forbidden Palace, as that seems like a good spot and we could definitely use the help with the economy. Most other builds also go back to infrastructure so that our economy is in better shape (hopefully) by the end of my turns. No use slowing down Gandhi if we don't do something with our own empire.

The convoy, or whatever:



1510-1520 AD (2-4) - Moving ships. Yep.

1525 AD (5) - War Elephant in Washington completes, start an aqueduct since health is becoming a bit of an issue for our capital. Unit supply costs as our units leave our territory has also forced me to lower science to 40%.

1530-1535 AD (6-7) - More ship moving. Yep.

1540 AD (8) - Declare on Gandhi. Though the ships aren't all nicely laid out as Vol described, that idea seemed rather impractical to implement without open borders. A turn or two more to get all the ships in place, and we are still at risk of being sunk by caravels for a turn with units aboard the galleys.



1545 AD (9) - Machinery learned. Take Compass next to head for Optics, but there were a lot of good choices on where to go and I was somewhat tempted to go for banking instead, or even Guilds for Knights.

Upon discovery that all tiles around Delhi that we could land on are blocked by fortified units (and five turns fortified at that, since I saw +25% from fortify),



I decide to land at Bombay instead. Unfortunately no cats are part of the first landing, so softening by bombardment will commence a turn late. I used that one for "scouting" out a landing spot. You'll notice in the stack that two units were promoted with shock. This should ensure the odds are on our side should the Indians decide to use their Macemen or Pikemen to attack.



1550 AD (10) - The promotion paid off! Our elephant survives, just barely.



At this point, I realize we forgot to bring any spearsmen. Gandhi's War Elephant will have no problem killing one of our units next turn.

The rest of the units are nearly to Bombay, and the bombardment should begin next turn.



Unfortunately, it seems WW does not completely dissapate in such a short period of time, as New York has an unhappy citizen now. Oh well. Macemen are in production in a couple of places, but there is only one galley in production at New York. Perhaps another one is due. Of course, a few from India should probably be shuttled back for units as well, but that will be most of a turnset to get home and then most of another to get back. They will really come in handy over there, though, as now India has a few War Elephants and quite a few pikes, both which macemen match up with well. Or at least better than our current units.

[Vol]

Yeah, I wouldn't have let New York grow just because it had spare happiness in peace time, since we knew what was coming.

I would have like to have seen what the odds were and a consideration of an amphibious attack of the populated landing tiles, even with the 25% penalty. We also had an Elephant that could promote to Amphibious last I looked.

There's a reason we didn't bring Spearmen (4 strength, +100% vs. mounted = 8 strength), since they are inferior to War Elephants (8 strength, +50% vs. mounted = 12 strength). Hence the request to build 2 more Elephants to have a total of 4.

Not sure I would have gone back to infrastructure so quickly, as we need pillaging forces, defending forces, and replacement forces. Not being Spiritual, when we're in our unit-building civics, we should build units.

[bed_head7]

I didn't know instant WW of two unhappies was coming. I was not told about that. I remember reading a suggestion from Arathorn, I think, that WW would go back to 0 after ten turns.

I did check the odds on an Amphibious Attack. I can go back and check the autosave if you like, but without the 25% it was something like 8 vs. 14ish. 25% wouldn't have done a thing. Not to mention that there were more than one per tile.

War Elephants get bonuses against other War Elephants? Anyway, that would cancel out, and at least a spearman is a smaller loss than an elephant, and as far as I can tell Elephant vs. Elephant and Elephant vs. Spear would be even odds. As for building two more, the idea of waiting for those to get all the way to India seems rather ludicrous to me. Those units were six-seven turns away upon declaration. I don't think waiting any longer for two extra elephants and two extra catapults would have had any real benefit. Sure, once they get over there they can pillage, but that is no reason to delay the main attack. And with regard to the main attack, we have more than enough there to take Bombay with the first wave, and then with the catapult replenish galley and smart, conservative attacks, we should be able to then move to Delhi, provided they don't build a prohibitive number of units to that end in the next ten-fifteen turns.

As I recall, four cities were on military (New York and Washington for sure, and then I think Boston or Chicago and maybe Karachi). Even in a wartime gov, it is absolutely necessary to combat the rising unit costs with matching money saving infrastructure builds, or our economy has come to a screeching halt. I have no disagreement on focusing on military, but we can only go so far with that. That said, a few of the smaller cities would probably benefit from the use of the whip to get them back to military more quickly. They can better handle WW, and I completely neglected that since pop rushing has never been something I consider on a regular basis.

I really hope that Vol's feelings are not representative of the team as a whole, because I would definitely feel then that I did rush into playing against the team's wishes, which is completely unacceptable as a player.

[Arathorn]

Roster:
Arathorn - on deck
Mark1031
Vol
bed_head7
grahamiam - Up now!

Well, that was a bit disappointing. Not your fault, of course, bed_head. Unless you opened the world builder and dropped all those Indian units there or something! It would've been nice, but probably too much to ask, for Gandhi to not have been building units during our build-up phase. Just adds to the challenge, I guess. We need to get some organized reinforcement plan going. I'd put a galley (or two) behind Bangalore island to move from our big producers to the semi-front, and then some more either to move all the way to their main island or use Madras-island as a halfway point, where the units walk across the land to another set of galleys.

As to the question of discussion, I find the discussion of plans, even ones that I KNOW won't survive contact with the enemy, to be fun. It's a learning experience and maybe those plans will work at some other time/date. I certainly never expect any other SG player to exactly follow any plan set up, primarily because the plans are devised with incomplete information. Plus, we're a collection of individuals, not a set of robots following one person's master plan.

Planning should never be interpreted as a slight on the abilities of any individual up or to play next. They're a sharing of ideas. And a sharing of information (sometimes wrong, like my war weariness stuff), to try to get the best collection of turn sets possible.

Arathorn

[grahamiam]

we should rename ourselves the "forgetful duelists"

bedhead, please post the save

[bed_head7]

Oops. Sorry about that.

[Sirian]

Originally Posted by Arathorn

I'm pretty sure captured cities can flip.

Not back to the original civ (unless you check the game option on launch to enable flip-backs).

Can flip to a third party, though.


Disabling flip-backs by default is what saved the city flip feature itself. (If flip backs are the most common form of flip, when the INTENT of the feature is to cause flips along natural borders, in peaceful times, then something is wrong and something had to be done! Disabling the flip backs stopped this side effect.)

There is both an option to enable flip backs (Civ3 style flips) and an option to turn flip backs off altogether.


By the way, piling garrison in to a city does help resist flipping -- along a border, or to a third party after capture. So does having your state religion in the city, so you might want to bring some Missionaries along (when not playing a "dueling deity" game, of course)!


- Sirian

[grahamiam]

got it..........................

[grahamiam]

Let me first state that I intended (and did type) a lot of thoughts on this, but it seems that I still need more time to figure out this autologger as it's not keeping my notes, even though I'm using Alt+E. It appears that I may have to exit Civ4 entirely to get all the notes entered, but not sure.

--------------Start of new log entries--------------
Axeman promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Drill I
Swordsman loses to: Indian War Elephant.
Galley loses to: Indian Caravel.

Sorry, looks like a lot of my notes failed to be added again. I don't understand as it seemed to be working ok earlier Crap.

Turn 221 (1555 AD)
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Accuracy
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: Accuracy
Start wittling away the Dehli defenses, getting it down to 30% or so.
Galley loses to: Indian Caravel.
Galley defeats: Indian Caravel.
Galley loses to: Indian Caravel.

Turn 222 (1560 AD)
Bombarded the defenses down to 0, then suicided the cats

Catapult loses to: Indian Cavalry.
Catapult loses to: Indian Longbowman.
Catapult loses to: Indian Longbowman.
Catapult loses to: Indian Cavalry.
Catapult defeats: Indian Longbowman.
Catapult defeats: Indian Longbowman.
and after the suicide galleys have finished:

Swordsman promoted: City Raider III
Swordsman defeats: Indian Cavalry.
Swordsman promoted: City Raider III
Swordsman defeats: Indian Longbowman.
Swordsman promoted: City Raider I
Swordsman promoted: City Raider II
Swordsman defeats: Indian Longbowman.
Axeman promoted: City Raider III
Axeman defeats: Indian Pikeman.




Judaism has spread: Bombay
Buddhism has spread: Bombay
Judaism has spread: Bombay
Buddhism has spread: Bombay
Swordsman promoted: Combat I
Swordsman promoted: Combat I
Swordsman promoted: Combat II

IBT:
New York finishes: Galley
Philadelphia finishes: Library
Silks 'n' Stone finishes: Courthouse
War Elephant defeats: Indian Cavalry.
Axeman defeats: Indian Maceman.

Turn 223 (1565 AD)
New York begins: Market
Philadelphia begins: Granary
Silks 'n' Stone begins: Barracks
War Elephant promoted: Pinch
Catapult promoted: Barrage I
Galley promoted: Drill I
Catapult promoted: Accuracy
Washington finishes: War Elephant
Boston finishes: Maceman
Caravel with 2 LB's and settler appears near Bangalore. Poprush a Maceman in Boston just in case.

IBT
War Elephant loses to: Indian Cavalry. -> this was the medic WE

Turn 224 (1570 AD)
Washington begins: War Elephant
Boston begins: Maceman

Turn 225 (1575 AD)
Tech learned: Compass

Turn 226 (1580 AD)
Research begun: Engineering
Something is wrong with the save, as I can't distinquish from items that need to be researched or not. I'm going to hand it off here to make sure it's not just me.
Caravel is heading to our S, landing it's cargo near the sheep.

[Arathorn]

I see it. I'll get to it tomorrow night. Watching the Chiefs tonight (Good game so far! -- just scored another touchdown as I type this) and I'm too tired to give this game justice tonight.

I have to say I do NOT like the log-style SG reporting. SGs had their origins in story-telling, and even though we all lag occasionally, reading a log like grahamiam's tells me nothing. It gives me no feel for the game. It has no spirit, no soul, no personality. I don't care how people keep notes, but please don't just post a log (and/or pictures).

On the combat, were *6* suicide catapults really necessary? I've never seen the need to use more than about 4 myself. Especially with all the galley losses we took, resupply is going to be very tough. Did those last few really do much collateral damage? I would tend to guess not, since all the units were completely "red-lined" when combat started (in that a catapult could not do any more collateral damage). So, it seems that a few catapults were suicided unnecessarily.

Secondly, with all those promotions, we couldn't spare even one for Medic I to help the whole stack heal? ???? That kind of thing is absolutely critical. A promotion to combat II? Is that really necessary?

I also see no note that we were facing cavalry. That's Military Tradition and Gunpowder. That's a LOT of techs we're down. Catching them techwise is essentially impossible. And it's likely rifles will be appearing very soon. Getting Delhi ASAP and not stopping are reasonably important, I think. I'll not be signing peace on my turns (unless they make a wonderful deal -- like all the techs they can give us).

Caravel with 2 LB's and settler appears near Bangalore.

That's completely impossible. Caravels can only carry a "single unit" troop, like a missionary or a great person. They can't carry troops. Must be a galleon, which is dangerous enough. I wonder where they're looking for a new city-site, because that's a city trio in the AI's mind.

Can we tell where India is getting its horses from? Those would be nice to (re)pillage those, so we don't have to worry about endless cavalry. That 15 strength is pretty high. It's tough to deal with. I'll see what (if anything) I can do about that, too.

Arathorn

[Vol]

Definitely too many suicide Catapults, as you can see from the string of victories. I'd rather lose a unit attacking than sacrifice so many Catapults.

Concur wholeheartedly with all of Arathorn's comments.