SGOTM 03 - Short Straw

[RobertTheBruce]

Great job ungy

There is a personality factor to capitulation. J.C. is really hard to capitulate we will probably have to take Ravenna and Antium. You have knocked his power in half so hopefully he won't last long. Starting a conquest is the hardest part and we should really start rolling now. Ghandi should be much easier to capitulate next.

I think it is worth spending some of our money on upgrades. As mushroomshirt said we are only 35 turns from finishing research. I would upgrade a couple of triremes to frigates to eliminate J.C.'s boats and the CR3 maces. We don't want J.C. pillaging nets after we capitulate him so its worthwhile to eliminate the galleons.

Beijing is another choice for the U.N. It has a forge and market already plus reasonable production. We can't whip building in Shanghai and grow the population in the next 40 turns. Beijing can build some more infrastructure without whipping and be close to building the U.N. in one turn after Mass Media. We can switch the corn from Shanghai to Beijing to grow it faster.

 

[ungy]

I found it difficult to keep focused on city development during war--my guess is that as the warring gets more complicated and the empire larger this will be a bigger problem going forward (if others have it as well).

 

[Lmtoops]

I'm all for doing the upgrades.

I also think we can prepare for opening another front, and get this victory party rolling.

Agreed Ungy, city maintenance suffers as the empire get's larger, and with war(s) even more so. If we were competing based on our score, then we would suffer. Since we just want to be the fastest, it's not that big of a problem.

I think the next turn set it pretty well laid out. Whoever is next can probably go. I think the only question is regarding upgrades. Do we shut down research for a few turns, to get the upgrades?

 

[ungy]

I think it is worth spending some of our money on upgrades. As mushroomshirt said we are only 35 turns from finishing research. I would upgrade a couple of triremes to frigates to eliminate J.C.'s boats and the CR3 maces. We don't want J.C. pillaging nets after we capitulate him so its worthwhile to eliminate the galleons.

I think this is a good idea. I think we should build several frigates in any case. Although they bombard at only 10%, they don't need transport, can move and bombard, scout, and provide naval superiority. I think we should scrap any triremes that don't get upgraded to save $. I think I'll upgrade 2 or 3--200g for 135h seems reasonable in any case.

Beijing is another choice for the U.N. It has a forge and market already plus reasonable production. We can't whip building in Shanghai and grow the population in the next 40 turns. Beijing can build some more infrastructure without whipping and be close to building the U.N. in one turn after Mass Media. We can switch the corn from Shanghai to Beijing to grow it faster.

Shanghai is not currently working the corn--with the corn it can have a base of +18f. The only critical infra is the forge which we need for happy (we should pick up gold and silver from Vic). Shanghai also can get the forest chop and we can put down a bunch of workshops at the end. Shanghai has the China problem as does Beijing but Shanghai along with Athens have no fresh water. In retrospect it was really dumb to whip that gren there--should have done an aquaduct. Another drawback to Shanghai is due to whipping we'll have some happy problems if we whip more and we need at least one and likely 2 for infra.

Beijing has the advantage of not needing any whipping to build infra, and we can boost food by windmilling the hills and farming. There is also a forest that should chop to Beijing. We can easily boost the base food to +12 or so.

Athens is better for happy and can pick up a couple of farms to boost the base food to +13 --needs more infra but starts at higher pop so can whip market say next turn.

I think when we get the gold an silver that will solve a lot of our happiness issues--add a theatre and col in beijing I think that gets my vote.

I can move forward with infra for all 3 on the next bit so we don't close any doors.

 

[ungy]

I built harbors and CH on the theory that having made the chem detour we'd get the conquest we needed--now I'm not sure. That makes me want to err on the side of upgrading.

I think we'll want another super healer with our next GG--that is pretty useful.
I'll build a knight in preparation.

I think we should move pretty quick with the gren--esp the CR3 upgrades. We definately want to be moving against multiple cities simultaneously vs. Gandhi and I think after that we should be able to take 2 civs at once.

 

[ungy]

I'll plan on finishing up tonight--I'll take cap from JC when its offered--move on Ravenna then Antium. Surely that will do it. Concentrate the galleons to block JC's navy. Bring more workers over to Beijing to prepare more food.

Trading--not sure if I should take banking from vic for edu. We could then get FM from MM, but we are 2 turns for rev--don't think worth it as the extra trade will all be internal. Any thoughts? We also might get banking from JC as well. I'm inclined to skip it for now.

As for the eng specs--we can whip for 3 pop now and build workshops--let me MM that a bit--seems like that should be better than a 2h,0f spec. Agree about not building any more cottages. I'll put some time in on the workers--I had trouble with that during the war but that's why a break is good.

 

[Grogs]

Good point about Beijing. It already has the market, harbor, forge, and granary. It may need a temple/theater and possibly an aqueduct, but it has a lot of production so it can finish the UN by hand quickly if we don't quite make it to 22. I think we'll want to eliminate the source of the homeland penalty by taking out Mao at some point (maybe the start of our 2nd invasion force?) He has the weakest military in the world so it shouldn't be a big problem.

For trades, it looks like we can pick up about 1500g (~10 gren upgrades) by trading philosophy and printing press around. You can pick up banking from Vic with a trade for printing press. I'd also see if you can't pick up divine right as a freebie while trading around just to use it later for getting gold from the bottom teir civs. I'd like to get Nationalism out of Mansa, but I think he wants too much for it atm. That will give us ~4k gold, plus what we get in plunder, so I don't see a need to stop research.

We may want to drop the research rate to say 80% though. We only lose about 20% of our science per turn, but it cuts our defecit in half. I just don't think we can maintain -200gpt for long and since we have a lot of universities and no banks, binary research doesn't make sense.

For the upgrades, other than in an emergency I think we should build frigates, not upgrade to them. It's a more expensive upgrade than the grenadier and unlike grenadiers, a hand built frigate is just as good as an upgraded one.

Speaking of upgrades, is there any reason we haven't upgraded Arminius? It's a free upgrade and we don't lose any xp.

 

[Grogs]

BTW, mushroomshirts is up after ungy. Are you going to be able to play this week ms?

 

[ungy]

Speaking of upgrades, is there any reason we haven't upgraded Arminius? It's a free upgrade and we don't lose any xp.

I think we should wait until we get some gren in the stack--don't want him to be the top defensive unit.

 

[ungy]

OK finishing Caesar off.
1262 cont'd upgrade 2 tri to frig--disband the others. Change build in Beijing to theatre. Sell phil around for about 350g. Caravel scouts London 7 units no knights.
IBT Electricity in. Change Moscow to frig.

1268 St. Pt. Uni-frig. Roman ships retreat to Ravenna. Whip gren in Hastings.
IBT MM-rep. JC has nat. Trade PP to Vic for banking +150.

1274 bombard Rav, Ant has 7 units and fleet.

1280 take Ravenna--lose mace no cap. Madras 7 units no knight.

1286 take Antium no losses Roman fleet dies in port. JC caps but no tech.
OB with JC.

Seems like a good place to stop and let someone else kick ass for a bit.

Save is here: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3//Short_Straw_SG003_AD1286_01.CivWarlordsSave

 

[mushroomshirt]

BTW, mushroomshirts is up after ungy. Are you going to be able to play this week ms?

I'll be around. Looks like ungy has just finished. I'll try to study the save tonight and post my thoughts tonight, too. If we have consensus I can try to play the first 1/2 of my set this weekend.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Here's some initial thoughts from looking at the save:

1) I think Vic is a good next target followed by Gandhi followed by Toku. I'm mainly thinking this for geographical reasons.
2) We have an army of 20+ units (cats, trebs, macemen and grenadiers). This can be carried around by 8 galleons & escorted by 2 or so frigates. I think this is about all the army we will need to take out the west side of the map.
3) Future grenadier, frigate and galleon builds will go towards building up an army for the east. We'll need some trebs or cats, too. Anyone have a preference for which one?
4) I think the eastern army once it gets established should start small (4 gren, 4 cats/trebs I think is enough to start) and take out Mao first then Cyrus and Frederick before moving on to HC.
5) I think finish infrastructure builds but switch to almost all military everywhere except in beijing where we want to grow pop, health and happy buildings so we can put UN there. I'll ferry the engineer over if I get the chance.
6) workers will build workshops instead of cottages where possible.
7) I will try to get the knight from moscow ready to get the medic 3 promotion from a great general.
8) I'll continue to upgrade the city raider macemen to grenadiers as necessary while researching as fast as possible.
9) Hatty will trade divine right for education - I think this is good to get and then to shop around also monte will take printing press for 250 gold.

EDIT: Accidentally made this deal (divine right, world map and all of hatty's gold for edu) while looking at the save (I guess the space bar is the same as enter!). I think that means I can't go back - sorry if this was a big mistake.

Any other thoughts / objections / comments?

 

[Lmtoops]

The space bar is equivalent to a left mouse click. Whatever is highlighted by your cursor will be activiated with the spacebar. I wonder if you can disable this?

As for the trade, I think it's a push...no real harm.

Ghandi has 750g...I don't know if it's worth trading for it?

 

[Grogs]

Sounds like a pretty good plan ms. I like your idea for the eastern army, save for possibly Frederick. He just seems too small to mess with. I definitely think Liz/Ghandi->Toku is the way to go in the west. We've got 3-4 choices on where to go from there. One thing with the really small civs (like Victoria) is it seems like the options are either capitulate and leave with 1-2 garbage iceball cities, waste time actually taking said iceball cities, or just sign a peace treaty.

As for trebs vs. cats, no real preferences. Both seem to have their uses. Trebs do better attacking cities, especially against medium strength defenders like LB's. They also have better bombard strength. All of that comes at a price though since 1 treb = 2 cats. I guess the best way to for the new army is probably to build several accuracy cats at first (for bombarding) and then add on some CR2 trebs as you get time.

 

[ungy]

As for trebs vs. cats, no real preferences. Both seem to have their uses. Trebs do better attacking cities, especially against medium strength defenders like LB's. They also have better bombard strength. All of that comes at a price though since 1 treb = 2 cats. I guess the best way to for the new army is probably to build several accuracy cats at first (for bombarding) and then add on some CR2 trebs as you get time.

Not sure if this makes sense or not but thought I'd get it out for discussion.

Most of the cities we're reducing have walls/castle so cats/trebs have reduced effectiveness. We could operate with a bunch of frigates to bombard and gren to attack. While the bombard is lower, they don't suffer the walls penalty and don't have to unload/move and don't require transport. My guess is that with the cats/trebs we will spend 1-2 turns moving (load/unload) depending on whether we do quick or slow reducing. Frigates can bombard every turn. So a pack of 5 frigs takes down the defenses in 2 turns. Army lands, bombard. Next turn bombard again--reduced and army attacks. If we built 4 trebs and a gal for transport we would have more attacking capability but actually less effective bombardment if you add in moving around time and walls.

Of course this also solves the control of the seas issues.

 

[ungy]

5) I think finish infrastructure builds but switch to almost all military everywhere except in beijing where we want to grow pop, health and happy buildings so we can put UN there. I'll ferry the engineer over if I get the chance.

I agree. I think I built too much infra--my thinking was we could convert $ to units by upgrading if necessary but I think I would have skipped the CH's with hindsight. I'm not even sure we need the barracks for building gren but I would get a gran everywhere--at half price that is a winner.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

ungy -
I had a rude surprise in a recent game. I think its a bug in the 2.08 coding but Frigates are useless against castles. I haven't tried looking at Destroyers or Battleships but I think the wall and castle bonus applies against all ships. I was trying to bombard walls and citadels with a stack of 10+ frigates and was barely scratching the defences.

Edit: I checked with a 2.08 world builder giving a 40% cultural defence city a wall and castle and myself a frigate, destroyer and battleship. When the destroyer and battleship engage the city, it shows 40% defence and they reduce it to 34 or 32% as expected. When the frigate is selected, the city has 100% defence and is reduced to 95%. I don't know if this was an attempt to extend the lifetime of castles but it takes a lot of frigates to reduce a castle's defences. The WB test file is based on mushroomshirt's Ghandi always war test game if you don't want that spoiled.

I think the plan looks good and the trade is fine. Vicky and Ghandi have lower power than JC and should be much easier fights. I would focus on bigger civs now. Fred just doesn't have enough population to be worth chasing. We need to get to 40% pop (including vassals) before the UN is built to make sure we win the SG election.

I would definitely trade for Ghandi's money and either trade or demand Vicky's before attacking.

 

[ungy]

EDIT: Accidentally made this deal (divine right, world map and all of hatty's gold for edu) while looking at the save (I guess the space bar is the same as enter!). I think that means I can't go back - sorry if this was a big mistake.

I think it was good--I was thinking about the trade but I just figured I'd let the next up make it. My feeling is that we have really little to lose from trading things like PP for gold. Sci Meth is another thing we can trade--we might get someone to research bio for us so I think we should trade that away as well. So I'd trade that to MM --you should be able to get something for it and also to Gandhi for $.

I just wouldn't trade away any military techs.

 

[mushroomshirt]

ungy -
Vicky and Ghandi have lower power than JC and should be much easier fights. I would focus on bigger civs now. Fred just doesn't have enough population to be worth chasing. We need to get to 40% pop (including vassals) before the UN is built to make sure we win the SG election.

I was thinking that even after Mao our army might not be up to where I would like it to be to take on HC (I think we want a similar stack as we have in the west). While we are building our bigger army we can take a few cities & capitulate the weaker civs nearby (cyrus / frederick) they both have one or two good cities at least. I agree HC & hatty are the real prizes, so as soon as I can mount a decent army we'll be able to take them on. Sound OK?

Updated list:
1) I think Vic is a good next target followed by Gandhi followed by Toku. I'm mainly thinking this for geographical reasons.
2) We have an army of 20+ units (cats, trebs, macemen and grenadiers). This can be carried around by 8 galleons & escorted by 2 or so frigates. I think this is about all the army we will need to take out the west side of the map.
3) Future grenadier, frigate and galleon builds will go towards building up an army for the east. We'll need some trebs or cats, too. Anyone have a preference for which one?
4) I think the eastern army once it gets established should start small (4 gren, 4 cats/trebs I think is enough to start) and take out Mao first then Cyrus and Frederick before moving on to HC.
5) I think finish infrastructure builds but switch to almost all military everywhere except in beijing where we want to grow pop, health and happy buildings so we can put UN there. I'll ferry the engineer over if I get the chance.
6) workers will build workshops instead of cottages where possible.
7) I will try to get the knight from moscow ready to get the medic 3 promotion from a great general.
8) I'll continue to upgrade the city raider macemen to grenadiers as necessary while researching as fast as possible.
9) Hatty will trade divine right for education - I think this is good to get and then to shop around also monte will take printing press for 250 gold.
10) make trades for PP, sci method for gold & techs. Extort / trade for all gold before DOWs on Vic, Gandhi.
11) prioritize accuracy cats & some frigates (I like ungy's thoughts on mobility and I think we would build all frigates if not for the bug RTB pointed out). After we have enough bombard cats, start building CR2 trebs for attacking.

 

[ungy]

Tech wise we are moving faster than I would have guessed. Between loot and selling tech it seems we are bringing in enough to cover our deficit.

I think we can get to MM in around 22-25 turns depending on how much upgrading we do. Call it 30 with the Sec gen vote and building the UN (2 turns at least).

I think we're going to be well behind on our conquest. I think we should consider another tech detour or building mace and upgrading. If we are going to tech detour sooner is better than later so we can use the tech. Steel is a possibility as is bio. Not sure how much we really gain from cannon as our armies are pretty strong anyway--I think it's more a matter of quantity and getting them around. Might be better to build CR2 mace and upgrade--that's a slightly better unit anyway. There's another tri that can be upgraded as well as the caravel.