[BTS] SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[Mitchum]

I agree that getting a CR III mace though combat is much easier than getting a Medic III unit through combat experience. I also think that a Medic III unit in one of 4 or 5 stacks is not nearly as good as a Medic III unit in one big SOD. Doing some testing, a Medic III unit cut one turn off healing time (in only one mini stack), allowing that stack to march one turn sooner. Having more CR III at the start of the Cathy war, which is giong to be the hardest one we fight, is more important than having CR III later in the game when we're going against archers.

I don't think the decision is clear cut in favor of either approach, but I'm still leaning toward CR III as they'll be more important now than later. Possibly losing one turn due to healing in 20% to 25% of our army in one stack after each battle doesn't seem like it will win the game any sooner as what the other 75% to 80% of our army is doing will be more important.

I don't have a strong feeling, so I'll go with the majority. I would like to play through taking St Pete and Moscow today, so can we come to some kind of agreement?

[Mitchum]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

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

If we bombard city defenses to nearly 0% first, don't the odds of victory for a CR III treb and a CR III mace start to converge at 90% to 95%?

EDIT: Maybe the best approach is to have one CR III treb take the first battle and then let the CR III / CR II maces clean up the wounded units...

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

If the northern worker had roaded the forest next to Hague instead of chopping, we could have fully loaded all three boats on T+1 (from the current turn) by galleon chaining and invaded on T+2.

We still wouldn't have our 3 Trebuchet reinforcements arriving at St. Petersburg.

I see what you are saying, but no one really commented on what to do with the Workers. Even my suggestions were vague, offering multiple choices for what the Workers could do, instead of giving any concrete suggestions.

At best, we could have attacked 1 turn sooner and possibly captured Moscow one turn sooner with potentially higher troop losses (attacking with wounded units), while still not being able to take St. Petersburg any sooner.

However, no one thought of this Worker Roading idea ahead of time, so we're all to blame here.

Anyway, I much prefer being able to spend this extra turn:
1. Healing our troops
2. Distributing the Great General's promotions
3. Getting 3 more Trebs into play
4. Still being able to capture St. Petersburg on the same turn although admittedly it could have been possible to capture Moscow 1 turn sooner with a likely lost troop or two over and above what we'll lose (I don't think that the extra turn of Commerce would have made up for the lost Hammers, though)
5. Doing all of the above while having Cathy spend 1 less turn building war-based units
6. Giving Cathy 1 less turn of being able to leverage Slavery (1 less turn in the future, after she has come out of revolt--assuming that she bothers to switch Civics at all)

Originally Posted by shyuhe

In any event, the question is "what are we going to do with CR3 maces?"

I would say that we could be "bolder." For example, we'd aim to Bombard St. Petersburg and Moscow with all but 1 Treb on the first turn of movement points, then attack with 1 Treb at each City, then throw in the City Raider III Macemen.

The Cities will still have City Defences. There won't be much Collateral Damage done. However, our City Raider III Macemen will do an admirable job against attacking Cities defended by only 1 or 2 Longbowmen each--they are just the right kind of unit that we need here.

It seems kind of silly to throw in a lot of Trebs when there are only 1 or maybe 2 defenders that we really care about wounding.

On the other hand, having City Raider III Macemen is just what a situation calls for--when there aren't a lot of defending troops that really need to be softened-up by collateral damage--we just want some first-rate Macemen units to do their jobs so that less Trebs need to attack and thus more Trebs will stay healthy.

With only 1 Treb being used to attack at both Cities, our remaining Trebs will be fully-healed for attacking the second City.

The same scenario can be repeated until we find a City where Cathy has whipped a ton of Longbowmen defenders, and by that point, we should still have 2 fully-healthy Trebs in our stack that can attack.

Thus, a Medic III unit won't help us very much at all in this war.

The single Treb that gets wounded in attacking each City (assuming that it survives) can keep moving with the stack and acting as a Bombarding unit for future Cities.

Originally Posted by shyuhe

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

We have no room on any Galleon for Maceman 7 (Gold).

The key to remember here is that just about all of our units have 2 promotions, so we need not feel bad about leaving a unit with 2 promotions to act as a Military Police unit.

In this case, there is no rush to send him directly west, since he can't even board a Galleon until any sooner than T + 4 anyway.


Shrinking population points is pretty lame if it can at all be avoided, PARTICULARLY in our Cities that have not been whipping. Cities that have not been whipping do not have Whipping Unhappiness and should be able to whip multiple times. Once Willem is dead, a lot of the Unhappiness will go away, and it will be a shame not to use this City's Happiness to its fullest potential.

1 lost population point = 56 lost Hammers. That's more than half of the cost of a Maceman. I see no reason to throw away 56 Hammers when there is no need to do so.

Originally Posted by shyuhe

I am all for continuing our aggressive whipping. Working a coastal square does not improve city re-growth time since they are essentially food neutral. So a city in a 4-2 whip cycle should whip as soon as it is size 4 (assuming that it has enough hammers to do so).

Run the math for yourself. You don't actually get more units built or get them any faster to the front lines given that we don't currently have a Galleon chain or even an eastern front line to send them to yet.

The only case where it can get you units faster to the front lines is for the very last round of whipping, when we're ready to set sail.

So, all that we would be accomplishing is throwing away some otherwise free Commerce.

Sure, when we're at the final round of whipping, we can be a bit more aggressive, but there is no gain (and is a bit of loss) in doing that early whipping prior to the time when we are going to launch our fleet.

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Gold is the one exception, as it has 4 good tiles. However, only three of them merit working right now given our whipping needs -- the seafood. So a 5-3 cycle may be the best.

I prefer a 6-4 cycle but would be okay with a 5-3 cycle if that's all that our Happiness levels would support (i.e. if Gold City growing to Size 6 were the only City that would require us to increase the Cultural Slider for +10% for). Being at Size 2 is just painful, since we're losing a lot of potential Hammers that way.

Hammers are still our bottleneck though, so I'd rather not shrink it down below Size 3 again, even if it means having to raise the Cultural Slider. If we're really that tight, then we should seriously consider building a Theatre there now.

A Theatre = +1 Happiness from the Dye Resource and +1 extra Happiness per Cultural Slider level.

[shyuhe]

Proposed troop logistic:

South:
T+0: Amsterdam heads towards Hague. Galleon 5 moves into lake 1W of pigs. Galleon 2 moves to Utrecht.

T+1: 3 trebs near Rotterdam board galleon 5 in the lake, galleon heads towards St. Pete at full speed (arrives t+2). Mace 8 (promote to combat 1) and medic mace board boat in Utrecht, head towards St. Pete at full speed (arrives t+2). Galleon 2 grabs last two maces and heads towards St. Pete

T+2: Invade St. Pete.

T+3: Trebs bombard a full turn while maces heal.

T+4: Conquer St. Pete.

North:
T+0: Promote one mace to medic. Amsterdam heads towards Hague. Amsterdam swaps to mace.
T+1: Galleons 0 and 4 grab 5 trebs + 1 combat 2 mace (or 4 trebs and 2 maces if you feel this is unsafe).
T+2: declare and land next to Moscow. 2 galleons grab remaining maces. Amsterdam whips mace.
T+3: Trebs bombard, land more maces.
T+4: Conquer Moscow.

[Mitchum]

Regarding whipping in Gold, it is the only city that ever grew into unhappiness at 0% slider. Had I raised the slider to 10%, that angry citizen in Gold would have gone away but our total gpt, even if that angry citizen worked the gold resource, would have gone down. It makes no sense to raise the culture slider for 1 city, right? As painful as it appears, I think whipping the angry citizen was the right thing to do in this case.

So, I decided to whip 4 -> 2 to get rid of this angry citizen. We'll likely have to raise the slider to help with Willem's cities as they come out of revolt, so using the culture slider will start to make more sense in the next sveral turns.

[shyuhe]

Originally Posted by Dhoomstriker

A Theatre = +1 Happiness from the Dye Resource and +1 extra Happiness per Cultural Slider level.

We should start the eastern front before we worry about . Our cities need to go through 2 more whip cycles to finish the units over there. The goal is not the most efficient whip cycle, but the fastest whip cycle.

[Mitchum]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

We should start the eastern front before we worry about . Our cities need to go through 2 more whip cycles to finish the units over there.

Agreed. The sooner we open the eastern front the sooner we win the game.

EDIT: Wait, did I just agree with shyuhe? Let me take that back...

[Dhoomstriker]

We have 11 units at The Hague and will have 8 at Utrecht if we count the 3 Trebs.

We could easily make that 10 and 9, taking 9 and 9 with us. Maceman 7 (Gold), the City Raider II unit near Amsterdam, has no boat to load onto. Maceman 7 can do no extra good in the west, but can save us 56 Hammers by staying in the east by Amsterdam.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

We should start the eastern front before we worry about . Our cities need to go through 2 more whip cycles to finish the units over there. The goal is not the most efficient whip cycle, but the fastest whip cycle.

The fastest whip cycle comes from when we can grow the most Food in the littlest amount of time, meaning keeping Gold City at Size 3 or greater as much as possible.

As I said, we could afford to do a 5->3 whip but I'd prefer to avoid continuing to do 4->2 whips.


EDIT: Just to be clear: I recognize the reason WHY we are at Size 2 in Gold City and it was something that shyuhe had already suggested. I'm not disagreeing with nor complaining about the fact that we are at Size 2 now. All that I am asking is that we get back to Size 3 and try our very best not to go below there, other than for a potentially last-round whip just before we start our launch of the eastern front.

[shyuhe]

The galleons can go back to Hague on T+2 to pick up more troops. I fully expect to lose at least a treb and a mace vs. Moscow.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by Mitchum

It makes no sense to raise the culture slider for 1 city, right?

For 1 Unhappy citizen that will not cause the City to shrink, no, since in most cases, that just means a loss of one turn of not working a Coast for 2 Food and 2 Commerce.

For avoiding a loss of 1 population point (like we'll probably have to raise the Cultural Slider for in Amsterdam), then yes, since that's a loss of 56 Hammers.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

We should start the eastern front before we worry about .

Then let's not be afraid about deficit spending. That's what our Gold reserve is there for: to allow us to raise the Cultural Slider so that we can delay Theatres in favour of focusing on spamming out more troops in the short run.

[shyuhe]

Originally Posted by Dhoomstriker

As I said, we could afford to do a 5->3 whip but I'd prefer to avoid continuing to do 4->2 whips.

We will have to use 10% culture after the upcoming whip cycle. That will let gold grow to size 3 with no (after the upcoming whip), and will get a at 4. So the 5-3 whip cycle will be slower and more inefficient (until Utrecht's borders pop). Gold has some residual whip anger from the infra whips we did that the other cities are not suffering from I think.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

The galleons can go back to Hague on T+2 to pick up more troops. I fully expect to lose at least a treb and a mace vs. Moscow.

Well, given the logistics of a T + 2 attack, we'll be capturing Moscow and St. Petersburg on the same time as a T + 3 attack.

The main differences are:
T + 3 = more troops are healed
T + 3 = we get to use our Great General, meaning that we'll have multiple fully-healthy City Raider III units, giving us a greater chance to take fewer troop losses
T + 3 = Cathy has 1 less turn of building Walls/Castles/Military Units
T + 3 = Cathy gets into Slavery 1 turn later
T + 2 = feels cooler because we declare war one turn sooner
T + 2 = Gives Willem and Ragnar + 1/10th of a positive Diplo modifier with each other, which may lead to Cathy getting Ivory 1 turn sooner than she otherwise might

[shyuhe]

The difference is that we can do 2 full turns of bombarding on a T+2 plan. Or we can attack on T+3 if Cathy's garrisons are weak. The troops heal almost the same amount between the two plans, as I understand them. The GG will get used -- it'll just get used later (after we conquer St. Pete).

Can you post a T+3 PPP so that we can compare?

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

We will have to use 10% culture after the upcoming whip cycle. That will let gold grow to size 3 with no (after the upcoming whip), and will get a at 4. So the 5-3 whip cycle will be slower and more inefficient (until Utrecht's borders pop).

Will it be more inefficient? Really?

What we're saying is that with 1 Unhappy person, we'd be "working" a Clam plus an Unhappy person. That's still a net gain in Food, since the Clam is valued at 5 Food.

The alternative, at Size 2, is to be working neither.

5 Food - 2 Food for an Unhappy person = 3 Food, which is still better (as it means growing faster) than not working such a square.

It's like being able to work 1 more Grassland Farm square--you will grow a bit faster, so if you have the choice to work a Grassland Farm square in the intervening times between now and your last whipping action, you'd rather be working that Grassland Farm than not be working it.

Working that Grassland Farm will give you more gains than you will lose from having a slightly higher Foodbox requirement.

The Clam with an Unhappy person = +1 Grassland Farm, so the same logic that works for a Grassland Farm applies here.

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Gold has some residual whip anger from the infra whips we did that the other cities are not suffering from I think.

Also being able to work the Gold Resource will help in this regard, giving us more Hammers from squares than from whipping, but like I said, I'd be okay with a 5->3 whip cycle, too, even though a 6->4 one is actually better if our Cultural Slider's needs for other Cities and/or our new Happiness Resources will allow for such a high City population size.

[shyuhe]

Mmm, on further thought, why don't we send the Amsterdam mace to Utrecht -- it fits on the boats there. This will give us lots of healthy maces for Moscow on T+2, and 1 full health and 2 mostly healthy maces for St. Pete on T+2.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Can you post a T+3 PPP so that we can compare?

I pretty much did already, without actually stating which units would load onto the Galleons.

Also, since you guys want a City Raider III Treb, we'd promote the City Raider I Treb in The Hague to City Raider II on T + 0 and then send it to the GH Gem Mine on T + 1 in place of one of the Macemen from The Hague.

The only other alteration would be that I'd for certain send one of the Macemen from The Hague that got promoted by the Great General to St. Petersburg, so that we could take 9 and 9 units on the Galleons.

That fact would mean "all of the units" in and around Utrecht would get onto the Galleons, while "all but 1" of the units in and around The Hague would get into the Galleons. I trust that Mitchum can pick appropriately for which single unit gets left behind.


Every other detail I have already laid out. If Mitchum really needs me to do so, I could collect that info, but I have other commitments today that will prevent me from doing so. It's really just a matter of collecting the info together, but if he needs my help to do so, then I can offer it... but probably not until about 9 hours from now, which I think will be too late for him to play today.

[shyuhe]

Originally Posted by Dhoomstriker

Will it be more inefficient? Really?

Yes. While you can work the clam at size 3, you have to grow through size 4 with 1 . If you cycle 4-2, you will never have a in gold.

Given the amount of overflow hammers currently in gold, working the gold actually makes 2 pop whipping MORE difficult. If we work the gold, I'm the galleon will become a 1 pop whip before we hit size 5.

[Dhoomstriker]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Food for thought:

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

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

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

I wonder what the numbers will change to if we are using wounded units... care to predict the exact Health values of our attacking wounded units and then run the numbers for them?