SGOTM 05 - Geezers

[AgedOne]

All things considered I would vote for razing Thermopylae. IMO the economic hit of owning it outweighs the benefits of the strategic location.

The city I'd most like to take and keep is Athens, but given that this looks horrendously costly until we have cats, then Corinth would be my next choice.
It was size 3 (iirc) the last time I saw it, coastal and from what we've seen so far, we would find it defended by a couple of archers. It would allow us to occupy the E end of lush continent, along with our barb allies, who have 2 cities there. On the downside, it is awfully close to Athens, and would come with a barrel-load of unhappy citizens who yearn to rejoin etc... If we could just keep a bunch of strong units there until we can take Athens, we'd have our invasion plan up and running!

 

[markh]

1) 50AD : Old Sarai : galley
Karakorum is changed to a lib

set cities to work cottages where possible

Keshik kills archer in Thermopylae and razes the city for 69 gold

BTW has anybody seen Alex' galley ?

IBT : nothing

2) 65AD : move our galley SE of Athens and spot his galley with a settler and an archer. Another worker for us.
Beshbalik grew and gets another cottage to work

IBT : Beshbalik : galley -> lib

3) 80AD : Alex built another phalanx in Athens
continue to explore his island. His copper is right beside Athens. I will land a Keshik and an axe there to pillage that.

IBT : Alex' loaded galley appears East of the island where our units are located.

4) 95AD : Scout Corínth. It is defended by a single archer. I will get two axes there.

IBT : Alex drops his settler and archer directly among our units on the northern half of the island

5) 110AD : an axe kills the archer, promoting our axe (will be CR2) and we have another worker
unload an axe and keshik on Alex' copper

IBT : Alex decides to attack the keshik and the axe. a phalanx and a chariot die

Turfan : axe -> granary

Isabella completes The Panthenon

6) 125AD : our landing party is quite hurt. The axe is promoted to Strength 2. Both units go back on their ship for healing

IBT : nothing

7) 140AD : just moving units

IBT : Ning Hsia : axe -> lib

8) 155AD : again moving units

IBT : nothing

9) 170AD : load galleys with 2 CR2 axes, a medic axe and a keshik

The pic shows the Greek lands. I would raze Corinth for some cash. I would also consider to disband our MP archers. We have axes there which will not be shipped for quite some time. The archers are just causing costs at the moment.

 

[The-Hawk]

Agree with you Sam. We are at war with anybody, so if anybody settles on that island it will not prevent us to sail through their waters. No OB required. However we could station some troops on the island and kill any arriving settler partly for some cheap workers. Later on when our economic situation is better we can settle there. It is an easy spot to get us over the dom limit.

So, are we saying we will not make peace with any AIs ? I thought we wanted peace as soon as possible due to war weariness? I think we now have to stay at war with all the AIs, at least until we capture Athens and it culture expands to make a choke point (or we re-settle this island). If we make peace and an AI settler goes to this empty island, we will have to find another route to the land of milk and honey. After the long war, I don't think they will give us OB...

Some things to discuss before my turnset...

- Are we staying at war with all AI's? Or, do we make peace to lower war weariness and take the risk of being forced to go another direction to lush island?
- Do we keep Athens and/or Corinth? I actually like Corinth as a toehold, but I think it may be hard to hold. If we are staying at war with all the AI's, everybody on lush island is going to come our way. However, maybe our barb allies provide a screen while we get established?
- But, if we don't eventually keep some cities on lush island, how will we make war there? It will be a bunch of AI's dogpiling us, I don't think our initial island will produce units fast enough to fight that many AI's.
- What about Mark's suggestion on disbanding MP's? I think this is a good idea, but risky. We should be expecting AI's from our North and Southwest any time now. Maybe we build a couple of Keshiks and depend on their mobility to defend broader expanses of beach?

I will be away tomorrow (Wed), so we have another couple of days to discuss...

By the way, I really love the strategic challenge of this scenario. There are no obvious answers to the economic challenge... you either depend on a small number of cities on a crappy island, or you grab cities and deal with big maintenance headaches. I suspect the winner of this contest will be a team that really pushes the envelope on their economy... i.e. runs a deficit economy and depends on a steady stream of city captures to stay solvent. I did this successfully once in a deity game, but it is a very dicey proposition. If you fall behind on capturing cities, you start losing units in a hurry.

 

[Harbourboy]

This is a challenging situation.

I think peace brings two advantages:
1) Less war weariness. That is crippling.
2) Less chance of being invaded up the backdoor, allowing more focus on the targets who are actually in our sights.

Maintaining "all war" can only get worse as the AI gets more advanced naval capability and would require extensive and expensive defensive measures.

 

[markh]

I checked and nobody will make peace except Alex and I do not think we will ever be able to make peace with any AI unless we hurt them badly, so I saw no reason to not raze Thermopylae. IIRC it was not a good city anyway.

Athens looks quite good. Capitols usually are in good spots, so I think we should keep it. Corinth also is not too bad.

We urgently need COL for courthouses and IW to clear the jungle and build more cottages on our mainland. IMO we delay this too long. Should we change our current research to IW ? The barbs will continue to research construction, so at least some beakers will still go into that. Turfan and Ning Hsia could have had more commerce for long now with more cottages.

In the cities where we have archers as MP we now have axes that cannot be shipped soon as our galleys have to ship all the other troops. We have another two axes and two chariots in Beshbalik and I placed a Keshik between Turfan and Karakorum for safety, should a landing happen. I also sent a galley North to see whether Qin has a way to get to us. A landing from him seems to be still future business.

For Alex we have more than enough units. Once we have cats he will be gone in a second. I would consider to ship over 2 Keshiks and 2 axes to the big island and use them as a pillaging party. This will give us some money and will cripple the AI.

I do not like to say this, but maybe we should disband the two captured workers. Normally this is a "No Way" for me as I love workers, but they cannot do anything at the moment and just cost us money we do not have. Our workers on the mainland are already getting out of business as we do not have IW to clear the jungle and there are no more tiles to improve. Did I mention we need IW ????

 

[drhirsch]

Disbanding the workers is ok for me. I would have proposed this too. And I would disband some MP too.

I think razing Thermopylae was right, but we should resettle the island to hook up the fish and the silver. Somebody should start a settler somewhere

We won't be able to pay our deficit with city razing for long, sooner or later feudalism will be discovered. But it is of course good to do as much damage as possible, maybe we get a peace treaty.

 

[Pariah]

OK Markh - deal me in please.

 

[markh]

Sam
drhirsch
Harbourboy
AgedOne
markh - just played
The-Hawk - UP
Pariah - on deck

Pariah, I guess you are familiar with all the rules for SGOTMs. If not please check before you start playing.

 

[Pariah]

Just read the rules, if you mean this thread. So I can expect The-Hawk to finish his turnset by Saturday evening?

 

[markh]

Yes, these are the basic rules. Our team has a tradition to be friendly with each other, so no shouting or flaming please. Criticism is always welcome, but it should be done in a "civilized" way. We are here to learn from each other and have fun (except for Harbourboy, who does not seem to do anything else than working CIV lately ).

 

[Pariah]

I'm not into flaming, don't worry.

Regarding the rules: that one about no reloads from previous saves or autosaves seems a bit harsh. What's the point of having the autosave function, except to restart? If my PC crashes and I have to continue from the last autosave, does that show up on my future save files and look like cheating?

 

[markh]

Yes, it does and you will get a warning from the admins. A second time and the team might be disqualified. If a crash occurs please also mention it in the log you give after playing your set.
Please set your autosave to save each turn. It will not affect your game, but will prevent you from trouble. If it crashes you do not have to replay several turns which could give you a totally different result than before. If you made a mistake before crashing you will have to do the mistake again.

Please keep in mind that you just have to play 10 turns per set, so it is not that time cosuming and could be played more carefully than you might do in single player games. The team will inevitably have to go with the decisions the turnplayer makes. In case you are not sure what to do you can save the game at any time and come here asking for advice. This will not affect your playtime and your team mates will appreciate this.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

So, are we saying we will not make peace with any AIs ? I thought we wanted peace as soon as possible due to war weariness? I think we now have to stay at war with all the AIs, at least until we capture Athens and it culture expands to make a choke point (or we re-settle this island). If we make peace and an AI settler goes to this empty island, we will have to find another route to the land of milk and honey. After the long war, I don't think they will give us OB...

I don't think it's quite as bad as it looks. Alex doesn't like any of the rest of lush island and they don't like him so it's reasonably unlikely that he would give them an OB anyway. Neither Alex or Toku was likely to give peace given that we razed cities of theirs. I think the only AI we need to worry about is Sally. Since the consensus was that we need cats, my view was certainly that we need to get it asap. Hanging onto Thermopylae would have made that much slower.

Some things to discuss before my turnset...

- Are we staying at war with all AI's? Or, do we make peace to lower war weariness and take the risk of being forced to go another direction to lush island?

See my comments above. Since mark states that nobody was willing to make peace except Alex the question is probably moot.

- Do we keep Athens and/or Corinth? I actually like Corinth as a toehold, but I think it may be hard to hold. If we are staying at war with all the AI's, everybody on lush island is going to come our way. However, maybe our barb allies provide a screen while we get established?
- But, if we don't eventually keep some cities on lush island, how will we make war there? It will be a bunch of AI's dogpiling us, I don't think our initial island will produce units fast enough to fight that many AI's.

I think we should certainly keep Athens for Stonehenge. I'm less certain about Corinth. Taking it will save us a settler. However we'll suffer more unhappiness from it's citizens. Equally we are more likely to be attacked by the other AI. If we keep it then we need a decent garrison except that we may want them for the attack on Athens. On balance we may well be better razing, and then settling later, to help maintain research in Construction. It'll give our cities something to build in any case.

- What about Mark's suggestion on disbanding MP's? I think this is a good idea, but risky. We should be expecting AI's from our North and Southwest any time now. Maybe we build a couple of Keshiks and depend on their mobility to defend broader expanses of beach?

The idea sounds good but Sally has already settled in the west. Given that we probably need to stay at war with him I think we should keep the existing MPs. Karakorum may be an exception with that warrior. I think the keshik should be in there. Alex is unlikely to reach us but Sally can send a galley round. It doesn't look like Qin will come from the N in the near future. He's more likely to come via Alex's sea link.

Did I mention we need IW ????

Can't remember you mentioning it before. The barbs are gradually accumulating beakers towards IW for us. I really want to get Alex out of the way soonest so I would vote for continuing the research into Construction. I agree that IW should be next however.

EDIT: Welcome to the team Pariah.

EDIT 2: I think there's a lot to be said for landing 4 axes on Alex's copper and pillaging it. Mark tried it with two and had problems but four should be ok. We don't want him building loads of phalanxes. After pillaging the copper the axes should fortify and stay there. With luck Alex will just keep attacking the axes and hopefully lose his troops. Meanwhile the keshiks can go and take/raze Corinth.

 

[AgedOne]

Pariah - welcome in. You only seem to have missed one of your turnsets! OK, it was the longer one we all have at the start, but you're not that far adrift of the rest of us.


Well. We seem to have quite a bit happened since I was last on here.

Tech.
On the research debate, I guess as long as we get both Construction and Iron Working fairly soon, it doesn't matter which order they arrive in. Both are about 300 beakers from completion, and will take about 10 turns (although that might be how long for us alone to research without barb-aid) I'd say we continue as we are with Construction, but get Iron immediately after. Then we get Code of Laws and try to sort that economy out.

Cities.
Yes, I'd agree we want to keep Athens and Stonehenge. Corinth is more of a puzzle. It's not a great location, with just the fish & crabs, but it is coastal, and would serve as a sea port to launch our invasion. On the other hand, we could use the barbarian city - Magyar - as our sea port (if it survives).

The best locations for cities at the eastern end of lushland seem to be around the gold, and making use of the food resources nearby. But these are not coastal, and nobody has made use of these locations yet. We are certainly not going to be settling our own cities here, are we? I can only see that working a bit further down the line, if we have a new capital here, and a FP back in the old homeland.

Is it worth considering this as a medium-term plan:
Take and raze Corinth.
Take Athens with cats (and keep).
Land forces at Magyar.
When we have CoL, build courthouses.
Settle by the gold, cattle and forest/hills and make this our new capital.

Or is this all going to take too long?

 

[Sam_Yeager]

The best locations for cities at the eastern western end of lushland seem to be around the gold, and making use of the food resources nearby.

Your ideas on tech order follow my line of thinking. Your thoughts on Maygar and other cities are interesting. One possible problem I can see with the idea is that somebody like Cyrus starts building cities down on the coast. However I would thought he's more likely to head for the gold initially. I'll have to think further about that.

 

[Harbourboy]

The whole issue of autosaving shouldn't be a big deal for anyone. How often will your game crash in the space of playing only 10 turns? My game has never ever crashed, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

Are we planning on having a Great Person farm anywhere?

 

[The-Hawk]

OK, this is my "got it". I'll play in about 24 hours, so feel free to post any last minute advice.

I have not looked at the save (I get nervous about opening the save when it is my turnset unless I'm going to actually play. I'm not sure if it is allowed under the SGOTM rules). However, summing up what I think is consensus...

- Finish Construction so we can get some cats going. IW comes next.
- I will attempt to raze Corinth.
- Maybe I will stash our survivors from razing Corinth at Magyar for the time being. We can help defend it. I wonder if we will avoid supply costs if the troops are in barb land?
- I will attempt to disconnect Alex's copper so he can't build more of those pesky Phalanx.
- I'm not getting a consensus on the archer MP's... I'll take a look when I get the save, but I'm leaning towards keeping them. Especially if Sally is in the neighborhood. I'd rather use the axemen for offense and leave the archers on defense.
- If we get a chance for peace with any AIs that don't have OB with Alex, I'll take it.

Did someone say Sally was on our island? Do we need to take him out?

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I have not looked at the save (I get nervous about opening the save when it is my turnset unless I'm going to actually play. I'm not sure if it is allowed under the SGOTM rules).

If it isn't then I've been in trouble for the last four games.

- If we get a chance for peace with any AIs that don't have OB with Alex, I'll take it.

Sally is the most likely AI to settle Alex's former island so we should stay at war with him for the time being.

Did someone say Sally was on our island? Do we need to take him out?

Sally's in the far west enjoying the delights of the jungle. I would be inclined to leave him alone there until after we get IW.

 

[drhirsch]

Yes, we should let him improve the lands around this city, we can't afford it anywat at the moment.
When the time comes, we may raze and rebuild it, or simply keep it, depending on the situation.

- Tech: Finish construction, CoL next, IW after. We need to expand sooner or later, and therefore CoL and IW have a high priority. But we need to build the courthouses first, we badly need the money. Without additional luxuries we can't make much use of cottages at cleared jungle anyway, our pop limit is simply to low.

- Foreign affairs: I still doubt that making peace with a single civ will do much for our WW. Toku maybe, because at his cities a lot of our brethen suicided. For saladins city, we should give him a chance to improve it, before we kill it. Alex: Ceterum censeo Corinthum esse delendam

- Expansion: Did I mention I would like to resettle the silver Island mid-term? So with CoL coming in soon, we could already start a Settler

 

[markh]

- Expansion: Did I mention I would like to resettle the silver Island mid-term? So with CoL coming in soon, we could already start a Settler

IIRC Karakorum will finish it's lib in a few turns and does not have anything useful to build afterwards, so we could start a settler there.