RBC15A - France - Sid

Well, better late than never as they say.

Napoleonic Conquest, as Napoleon, on Sid. Everything is set to the default, of course.

BIG HONKING HUGE NOTES -- READ THESE TWO!

No settlers. They're simply not an option. Can't be built. If a city is razed, it's just gone.
No culture flips. Conquering cities is a military-only risk. Overlapping cities aren't in flip danger, just extra danger from the shorter cultural borders and not seeing units coming as early.

Lots more changes, of course, but those are the two biggies, as far as I'm concerned.

Here are the starting situation and starting notes.

Arathorn

Wow! Every freakin' civ has different units. I can't keep track of who has what exactly. We generally have powerful, expensive units vs. the horde of smaller units from our foes. If/when we go to war with someone, we should find out what their units are. I right-clicked a lot to get enemy unit stats.

We can build:
Worker - 10 shields and 1 pop -- just like normal workers
Cannon - 40 shields - 0(8)/1/1 -- just like normal cannons
Imperial Cavalry - 140 shields - 8/4/2
Voltigeur - 90 shields - 6/5/1

With Advanced Tactics, we will get an 8/8/1 for 130 shields. We have some 2/4/1 musketmen still around, too.

Troop transport - 60 shields - 1/2/3 - holds 4 (full army!)
Frigate - 60 shields - 2/2/4 with defensive bombard
Privateer - 60 shields - 2/1/5 with enslave to privateer possibility

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Our starting units look impressive, as we have a fair few, but they're almost all regulars. Our navy is pathetic, comprising a few regulars and some conscripts. Britain's navy (which I saw later) is vets and elites with an extra hp. Oy! I pretty much kept them in port, except for an occasional run to the English Channel and one successful exit and sink.

We have two workers. That needs to change. Our lands are semi-improved, but we're missing out on a TON of value from not having them better improved.

We have a Nationalism monopoly. There's quite a bit of gold to be had, though, so we're going to sell, at some point.

We start with 400 gold, losing ~237 gpt at 50% science. Ummm...that needs to change. We're a Republic with max war weariness. Been there before, but it ain't fun.

We're locked in war with the powerful nation of Britain and the semi-nations of the Kingdom of Naples, Portugal, and the Netherlands. We'll see about that. We have an ally in the Baltic States.

OK, bunch of diplomacy deals need to be made. I want all the cash that exists in the world. I want allies. I don't want to abuse the system.

Selling Nationalism.
to Prussia for 13 gpt and 300 gold
to Austria for Furs and 300 gold
to Spain for 4 gpt and 300 gold
to Russia for 200 gold and worker
to Ottoman Empire for Dyes and 200 gold
to Sweden for 200 gold
to Denmark for 200 gold

That helps the cash situation and the lux tax, which I can set at 20% (as I recall) with minimal specialists needed.

Allies. Everybody vs. Britain and those that can help vs. the others....
Spain vs. Brits, Neapolitans, Portuegese (in independent deals, although I just realized it doesn't matter)
Austria vs. Neapolitans, Brits
Prussia vs. Neapolitans, Brits
Ottomans vs. Neapolitans, Brits
Russia vs. Brits
Sweden vs. Brits

No cash or anything else was accepted in these deals. Straight-up alliances only.

What else? Oh, we have a TON of libraries and universities. Are we going to research anything ourselves? Not bloody likely. There are some semi-valuable techs out there, but our method of acquisition will be steals and/or pointy stick. Sell libraries and universities all over. We don't even need the culture. Courthouse in Paris is sold, too.

Corruption? It's fairly high in some places. Two good options. Use a MGL to rush the FP in Marseilles or build it by hand somehwere. I almost waited for input on this one, but I wanted the game going. Our best benefit is early, so I went with an army from the MGL and started the FP in Orleans, due in 19 initially but that should drop a bit. We don't really have a lot of time to waste/spare. 96 turns is NOT a lot and I think we'll probably win around turn 60 or so.

Nearly every other city is set on military...some to be revisited when the time is appropriate (e.g. next player's turn?). The exception is Limoges, which is designated a two-turn worker factory. Its location should get workers to needed locations in acceptable time and it has the food and semi-appropriate shields. It needs watching to get enough food, but it should be able to provide the necessary workers for the nation.

OK, I'm getting close to ready to move units. We're up to 2730 gold and 151 gpt now, so things are looking a bit better than the initial starting situation. Time to look at units and move them.

General plan:
- Form a 3 ICav army in the north (with Napoleon in Paris) and take Amsterdam with little support.
- Everybody else goes south to deal with Naples and maybe Portugal.
- Navy will cower until cannon support arrives.
- Southern army will be filled with volts. I would like a second ICav army, but I think getting a second army out in the field ASAP is more important.

OK, I follow that idea. Napoleon's army gets loaded with 2 regular ICav. A third is rushed for ridiculous amounts of gold to join in turn one. It's January of 1800 and the world is about to feel the force of the French army.

In the interturn, a Dutch cav (5/2/2) rides out and dies to a volt. We enter our GA! Whoa. That was fast. A frigate I'd sent to the English Channel meets Davy Jones, courtesy of a Brit privateer.

That was a LONG zeroth turn.

Turn 1 in March of 1800 sees the first French attack, but it's not in the north. We had a few cannons and some volts in the south and Milan is just so close. An ICav only takes 2 hps from a musket (3/4) before dying. Volt army loses 4 hps to kill a musket. Volt dies to 2/3 musket, doing 1 damage. Volt dies to 1/3 musket, promoting it to 2/4. Volt dies to 2/4 musket, making it 3/5 (Bad PRNG...BAD!). Volt kills 3/5 musket. Volt kills 1/4 musket and we capture Milan, the first of many cities, I hope.

Our ICav army in the north kills a musket in Amsterdam and is out of movement.

Our gpt is up to 250. A 500 gpt increase is pretty nice! OK, OK, so I removed science spending, but at least our citizens are out working the fields instead of trying to entertain themselves.

By May of 1800, our ICav army is rested and ready to go again. It drops to 4 hps killing the last of the three muskets in Amsterdam, but we gain 87 gold as we capture the Dutch city. That means....

The next few turns are a slow slog in the south and some troop rearrangement in the north. Our worker pump gets up and running, although it's wasting a fairly ridiculous number of shields in our GA. That will change once the GA ends.

The diplomatic offerings are rather annoying. In July (turn 3) Austria offers a MPP and a RoP, hardly unusual, except they want us to pay 175 gpt for it. No thanks.

Sept. sees me sign a RoP with the Spanish, as it appears we're still doing OK and I want to eliminate Portugal, too, as well as the British abomination at Gibralter. The ICav army will be sent that way.

Russia calling for 100 gold and a TM. That seems steep to me (I should've known better) and I turn them down. They declare. It costs me 405 gold (in November) to get Prussia to fight Russia for me. YOUCH! Why so high? Would've been a lot cheaper to just pay off Russia. Austria or Ottomans would've been MUCH more expensive, too. Go figure.

In November, we're in position to assault Florence with some cannon support. Volt army kills two and another volt kills another musket and Florence (with 24 gold) is OURS. The Kingdom of Naples is crumbling slowly.

In the IT, things get even more interesting. The Brits land 4 Household Cavalry (7/4/2) by Caen. Guess I maybe sent a few too many troops south....

I can kill one HCav in January of 1801 and a second retreats. But I lose two volts in the interturn to the darn Brits. The mess is cleaned up in March of 1801. The siege of Rome starts in May, with three musket infantry (3/5/1) dying, one each to the volt army and two ICav.

I have troops nearing Portugal (three volts and the ICav army, but see notes in the next post). Rome is a VP location, so it might not fall even next turn. Beyond Rome are Naples and one more city and then KoN is gone. That actually narrows our fronts, so I think it's a good thing to finish them off, too.

Arathorn

Roster:
Arathorn
Romeothemonk -- UP NOW
T-Hawk -- ON DECK
Speaker

I took 8 turns. I think that's a good number. In theory, that would give everybody 3 plays (4*8*3 = 96), but in reality it means we might well make it through the roster twice, since the game will probably end around turn 60. If we played 10, we'd surely have people only play once. I feel playing 5 (or 6, which is one year) just doesn't get people into the flow enough and causes horrible delays between turns. So I decided on 8. I made a LOT of executive decisions. Hope y'all don't mind too much.

Would everybody please check in.

Suggestions:
- Build more cannons. I built a few but not enough.
- Seriously consider pulling back out of Spain en route to Portugal until our fronts are a bit better shored up.
- Do keep the worker farm going (zoom after production and reset for high food and it's not hard).
- Finish off KoN. Expect heavy resistance in both Rome and Naples. Austrian cavs can possibly be used to weaken the cities, but they'll have lots of units. Be warned. If romeothemonk can get both cities, I think that's very good progress.
- Keep some zone defense near the English Channel. You might try coalescing our boats into one city but be warned the British ships can FLY (move like 6 or 7 or something ridiculous) and you can't always see them. On water, we want to attack, not defend, but we'd like cannons to ping the ships first.
- Paris can do 3-turn volts during the GA. I'd keep it on that duty as long as possible.
- Don't draft unless absolutely necessary, until we get Advanced Tactics. I'll draft 8/8/1 conscripts fairly happily, but I'd rather not draft 6/5/1's unless we REALLY need them.
- City MM probably needs to be done again. It's been a while since I checked things carefully. Be wary of growth, as under max war weariness, growth can be quite painful.
- Generally, shore up the fronts. I pushed hard to get the max value from our strong starting army, but most of the game will be playing defense (by offense), I would imagine. We're not ready to do that.
- FP should finish in your turns. That should help some.
- My biggest concern is Spain turning on us, as we can't really hire anybody to fight them. I would keep a fairly healthy treasury, for emergency rushes and/or alliances. It's this fear that is making me think that maybe the Portuegese team should be recalled to strengthen the border and/or to help with KoN.

Arathorn

Checking in. Nice start Arathorn. I will have internet access for the next two days and then will be up in the air for a few days. I will keep you updated of my status, but if Romeofthemonk plays today, perhaps T-Hawk would swap positions with me so I can play without holding up the game.

This is completely different then any France Game I have started. I have, in the past made quick and good use of the armies to have 2 I cav armies in Britain in 4 turns. The Entire British army/empire falls in 12 more turns.
That is ok, I have never followed Arathorn, and I believe he is much better than I at this game. I like the early city grabs, and then I will try to adjust the rules that I know.
In my games I do not build any war units but I/cav. I usually never fight anything with Defense greater than 4, so cannons are not needed. The extra D and added HP do not make up for the added cost and slower speed. I have never been able to draft the 8/8, I think we only can draft volts.
We can mobolize, and I believe that I will in my turnset. I will also try to sapm out a few workers to get the city next to Paris to the East more productive, then switch that to the MA. With our income and the ability to cash rush armies, coupled with their power makes it a relative no brainer. I usually use a palace prebuild for an FP, so whenever we knock someone off, I waste a few shields but get the FP in a hurry.
Naples has Silks, and thus we must make sure that we are the only ones to get to the silks. I think Arathorn is taking care of that, but I usually leave the KoN unitll last and have to dance around a Russian horde of Units. We own Milan, which is a very nice worker farm. I would let Spain take care of Gibralter, as it will keep both sides busy for quite some time. I usually let Spain and Austria get Portugal too, but Arathorn obviously deems them important. IIRC there are spices down there.
This is second in the Q tonight and I will try to play 4-6 turns.
Please hit me with any comments/questions.

Hmm Cross post. Take it Speaker. I'll follow you or T-Hawk. Either way I can't lose.

I just checked, and there is no upgrade path for Volts. They are as grown up as they get. We probably do not want to build more of them.

I've not played this before, so I was going for the path of least resistance. I see KoN, Brits, Dutch, and Portugal as all foes that need to go. KoN was in a good position to fall, had the potential to be semi-productive, and was a major threat to go on the offense.

Going right after the Brits is probably a good plan, too (better? Quite possibly), but that's not the route we're going here. I would be very happy if Spain finished off Portugal and Gibralter, but I wasn't seeing any indication of progress during my turns. I trust the AI to do nothing.

Mobilization is so limiting I rarely do it. In this case, though, it's probably a good idea. There's just very little to no infra to build. I would finish the FP first, though.

I don't know how you never fight anything with defense no greater than 4. The Brits can get Redcoats (5/6/1) very early. KoN had defense 5 units on turn 5 already, so they exist. Put them in a city fortified and it's an effective defense of 8.75, already greater than our ICav offense. We can't come close to affording 1:1 loss ratio and it would be that bad or worse fighting with ICavs without support.

I don't know about the 8/8 being draftable. Since it appeared to be the upgrade to the volt (it's not, really? Wow!), I just assumed it was, and that's a BIG mistake. That should be checked. If it's not draftable, I doubt we'll build too many of them. Extra hp is VERY nice, though, and if we're playing defense by offense, a few 8/8s will be quite convenient (upgrade or build is the question, though).

MA in Paris is a good question. It's at 30 spt right now (more if we mobilize, but I'd at least wait for the FP to complete first, personally). MORE units is my concern but the MA is quite valuable. Group should discuss this. I wouldn't/didn't, but I could easily be pursuaded otherwise.

On volt vs. ICav...6 attack for 90 shields or 8 attack for 130 shields? Volts give slightly more attack/shield, but more powerful units die less. Volts play the double role of attack/defense. ICav are faster and can retreat. I don't think there's a clear decision here. Cannons, though, I see as a definite need.

Roster:
Arathorn -- just played
Speaker -- UP NOW
romeothemonk -- on deck
T-hawk

We'll just change the roster around to make things easier on everybody. No problem. I was just winging it anyway.

Arathorn

Arathorn said:

I don't know how you never fight anything with defense no greater than 4. The Brits can get Redcoats (5/6/1) very early. KoN had defense 5 units on turn 5 already, so they exist. Put them in a city fortified and it's an effective defense of 8.75, already greater than our ICav offense. We can't come close to affording 1:1 loss ratio and it would be that bad or worse fighting with ICavs without support.

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As I said I usually hit Britain right away. I also do not sell Nationalism. This slows their tech speed. British redcoats need saltpeter, and the Armies can quickly disconnect it. I forgot about the KoN guys, but usually I take Milan first or second turn, then let others attack and then steal a silks city at the right moment for no real fighting. I then attack Prussia, then Austria. Neither of them has a defense greater than 4. I usually do not attack spain as they have more Cavs than I can shake a stick at.

Arathorn said:

I don't know about the 8/8 being draftable. Since it appeared to be the upgrade to the volt (it's not, really? Wow!), I just assumed it was, and that's a BIG mistake. That should be checked. If it's not draftable, I doubt we'll build too many of them. Extra hp is VERY nice, though, and if we're playing defense by offense, a few 8/8s will be quite convenient (upgrade or build is the question, though).

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To me the extra 20 shields for the Imperial Guard is easily the deciding factor, but I am an engineer and cost benefit analysis is what I do for a living.

Arathorn said:

MA in Paris is a good question. It's at 30 spt right now (more if we mobilize, but I'd at least wait for the FP to complete first, personally). MORE units is my concern but the MA is quite valuable. Group should discuss this. I wouldn't/didn't, but I could easily be pursuaded otherwise.

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Not in Paris but next to it. I believe that it is Nancy? The army bonus just pumps up our 2 armies that much more already. On the FP, I would just switch it to the palace, then when we dust someone, we have a near instant FP, and our other 10 cities build units that much quicker.

Arathorn said:

On volt vs. ICav...6 attack for 90 shields or 8 attack for 130 shields? Volts give slightly more attack/shield, but more powerful units die less. Volts play the double role of attack/defense. ICav are faster and can retreat. I don't think there's a clear decision here. Cannons, though, I see as a definite need.

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One of the very first lessons I learned on Civfanatics was that Speed is the best attribute a unit can have. That is why horses are so much better than archers (plus the upgrade path). I see a clear case of Horsemen vs archer here, with the archer having an attack of only 1.5. Since we don't need MP we can disband or upgrade a portion of our muskets. They only go to Volts. I agree on the cannons, but I would build them in the coastal cities, and in the very corrupt south.

Checking in, although I haven't had time to look at the game and don't really have much to contribute right now. On the question of what units to build, the more expensive fast unit is almost invariably better than a cheaper slow unit. Compare horsemen vs archers, knights vs MDI, or even jaguars vs warriors in the standard game. We can build a few volts for defense and garrison, but the I-Cavs will be our main force.

We're in no danger of actually losing significant ground right now, are we? If that's true, then go-go-go on both the FP and Military Academy. We'll need all the long-term advantage we can get to overcome Sid production.

We're in no danger of actually losing significant ground right now, are we?

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It's hard to say. If Spain turned on us, we could lose 2 cities in 4 turns, easily. If Prussia hit us, depending on their production, we could lose 4-6 cities almost immediately (8 cities * 8 turns is 64 cav which could potentially hit us on the very first interturn). Seeing the number of Arabian cavalry starting to flow into Italy is giving me pause.

On the question of what units to build, the more expensive fast unit is almost invariably better than a cheaper slow unit.

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Except in the case where you're fighting a massive defensive war on a narrow front, which is what we might be facing soon (like in 10-15 turns). I'd rather have 7 MDI than 4 knights when the opponent shows up with a stack of 10 longbows. In AW games, the slower, cheaper units play a major role, as pure number of units becomes very important. ALL our units are expensive and relatively powerful vs. other civs, but we will be at a stark numerical disadvantage ALL the time. I'd rather keep that disadvantage minimal.

Maybe I'm overly biased by my SAW game, but knights were relatively low-value, especially compared to longbows and MDI. Cheap and plentiful was MUCH more important than speed or a small change in power (except in armies, of course). I expect us to be facing stacks of 50+ units from at least three different civs before this game is over (maybe I'm paranoid). I'd rather have 13 volts to help deal with that, as opposed to 9 ICav. I can kill 13 unts instead of 9. AND I have better defense for the inevitable counterattack. [Or 39 volts vs. 27 ICav. A mix is best, of course, so that the final attacker can retreat, if necessary.]

In terms of archer vs. horses, if I'm facing 30 archers next to a core city (which is about what we'd face here...we have little to no warning of attacks), I'd rather have 30 archers to defend/counterattack, as opposed to 20 horsies. If 2 attack were to always beat 1 defense (a gross exaggeration), my 30 archers would win with no casualties and the 20 horses kill 20, lose 10 on the counterattack, and then kill the remaining 10...flush 300 shields vs. 0 shields.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for numbers over speed in all cases (or even in most cases). Would I have the 30 archers positioned? 20 horses cover more squares, that's for sure. But on a narrow, well-defined front, I want numbers of troops, not fast ones. I'm just gonna stay in the city anyway.

Good to see the gang's all here.
Arathorn

I see where you are coming from. With our income, my usual plan is to keep everyone always MA against someone. I usually keep everyone on the English alliance till the end of time/them. Then an alliance against Sweden, so everyones troops are all messed up. Then we hit Prussia, I usually hit with 30 I cavs or so. Prussia rolls over in 5 turns give or take, as all of their units are out of position and then Russia can eat them alive in a reverse ROP.
Next, an alliance against the Otto's, waiting until the Austrians duck out. I try to give them cash on the barrelhead or a tech so they quickly bail, and then bang, a quick strike. By the time Austria is 50% gone, I am at 60k. One benefit to leaving Britain to the end is that everyone else builds huge/ really worthless navies, as navies have no bombard. This is even better than anything we could hope for, as we can use 2 transports to eliminate britain, regardless of the size of their navy.
I think Arathorn is being slightly paranoid about the size stacks we will face, as no one has close to our infrastructure. If someone signs peace, get the war going again. I find that mass mobilization, combined with mass improvements and GA helps to make up for the Sid bonus. Spain and Prussia cannot get a GA. Spain can be attacked if we have a few Imp Guards handy to take 12 cav assualts.
Another Trick I have used may be exploitive, but I call it closing the door. We can shut spain off, by fortifying 9 troops in the Pyrennees. Spain will do nothing the rest of the game, while our troops can freely move. Defense 8 units fortified in the mountains..... and sometimes I only use volts for this. We can use simple muskets, rather than disbanding. Is this an exploit, or just sound play?
I noticed that due to the high cost of the units, the AI usually takes 2-3 turns to build a unit, and I can get 2 cities doing 4 turn I cavs, 4 cities doing 5 turn I cavs, a handful at 6 or 7 and 1 city doing armies, and I usually remain strong to everyone but Russia.

Good dicussion thus far. I got it, but will hold off playing until tomorrow afternoon so we can talk a little more.

Re: ICav vs. Volts
I will let our current/future MM configuration determine which city builds which. I feel that on Sid we must be as close to 100% efficiency as possible, so cities better set up for 90 shields will get Volts and those set up for 130 shields (is that the right number?) will get ICav until we can eventually get all/most cities to ICav production.

Re: FP and MA
Will definitely attempt to finish the FP in my turns or get it as close as possible. MA is more touch and go and I'd like to get 8 more turns of units out of Paris first. Can the MA be built when moblized? If so, perhaps we wait until the FP is done and then mobilize.

Re: Blocking the Pyranees
I don't see that as an exploit, as long as the units are in our territory. If we sign a RoP and then blockade Spanish territory, I think we are exploiting. I'll see how well I can advance here.

Thoughts?

Re: FP and MA
Will definitely attempt to finish the FP in my turns or get it as close as possible. MA is more touch and go and I'd like to get 8 more turns of units out of Paris first. Can the MA be built when moblized? If so, perhaps we wait until the FP is done and then mobilize.

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lurker's comment:
MA is allowed during Mobolization in the Russia game. It seems all small wonders are allowed. So FP should be allowed too, although I am not 100% sure.

FP is not allowed. Doesn't matter if Small Wonder or not, only if something is flagged as MIL - and the FP is the only SW here without.

As far as I remember, you don't have to change your building order during mobilisation, only when a city finishes something, you only have choice for the new order between military unit, military building (ic. harbor), worker or wealth.

If a city was building the FP before you mobilise, it will continue (without bonus).

Jabah

Jabah said:

If a city was building the FP before you mobilise, it will continue (without bonus).

Click to expand...

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it will automatically switch to military.

microbe said:

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it will automatically switch to military.

Click to expand...

Well, except if they changed it during the last year or so (C3C vs Civ3/PTW), the last time I used the mobilisation, I was looking carefully before to set the cities that needed aqueduct, market, etc to that order before mobilising.

We probably could check that in our russian game, (but not from the thread, I didn't find any info), I set most of the cities in the south to courthouse before passing the game. The mobilisation happened 5t later so I don't know if the build order were changed, but that was what I had in my mind at this time.

(I will check that since I might use it again)

Jabah

It was changed with C3C.

Mobilization rules now:
All builds are immediately (that is, in the interturn!) switched to units/ MIL improvements.
Only units with the following flags recieve the production bonus:
Offense/Defense/Air Defense/Naval Power (I don't know what happens to Carriers/Rockets, though).
That means: Artilleries, Bombers, any kind of Transports, and Settlers/Scouts/Workers do not get the bonus!
So, if you want to build one of those, switch to a 'real' unit, accumulate shields, and switch back.