SGOTM 12 - Smurkz

[zyxy]

Interesting attack plan, but I have some problems with it:
- The Aztecs predominantly have spears, as far as we can see. Fighting a defensive war against spears doesn't sound attractive to me, as it will be a stalemate. Moreover, I like to take the initiative.
- There is no decent killing field outside Osaka. A fortress in the jungle takes a lot of time to prepare, and we then have to defend two points.
- Big stacks of enemy spears means little chance for skirmishing and mopping up. Trading spears for swords is not a good idea. We have no catapults, and they are a big investment.
- Tenoch is not big, apparently it is only size 6. As long as the Aztecs don't have Construction, it cannot get bigger. This means an attack could very well succeed. There is of course a risk that it will be full of troops, but the AI tends to put fixed numbers in its cities.
- AC's are quite dangerous.
- Culture pressure on Osaka means we need to move quickly.

Enjoy your holiday btw!

 

[Niklas]

I feel that I agree with zyxy on this one. The longer we wait, the worse it gets. I want to move fast, take the initiative, before Monte gets the chance to rebuild his offensive forces, that would really mean a threat to Osaka. Right now he has mostly spears which can be a rather big nuisance inside a town but otherwise not too much to worry about.

Btw, Teno should be making 16 spt at minimum right now (unless there's a clown or two), which means 1-turn spears or archers (or indeed horses or swords had they had the resources for it). It would be really good if we could get him Literature so that he has a wonder to occupy himself with instead. I'm really considering doing that trade for CoL right away.

I would also really like to turn on research again. We won't be losing much money over the next 10 turns in any case, and I'm rather certain that we could easily get the first tier techs of the MA with the money we already have and our freebie. There should be plenty of chances for twofers too, what with three MA techs, plus Monarchy and Republic.

Sorry CF that I'm not playing faster, but since we are in disagreement on this I feel it important not to rush it. I could play after my own head right now but I don't want to do that. Every turn counts, and we need to be really sure what we're doing.

 

[ControlFreak]

I'm OK going after Teno, but I do think we need a sizable defensive force in Osaka. If Osaka is lost, either by war or by flip, Kyoto is a sitting duck.

Go ahead and mount a strike force against Teno, but make sure we have enough troops and a way to bring reinforcements from FS to Osaka.

What do we think is the required troop level against Teno? What is the required troop level in defense at Osaka?

I'm also OK with selling literature now if need be. Get what we can for it and then gift it to everyone else. It seems that we can already out research everyone except France (which is actually bad for a quick tech game). So I see no reason to catch everyone up in tech by gifting, unless we want tech surplus to trade for luxuries or MAs. I don't think luxuries is much of an option. MAs might be needed against France, but not much else.

BTW did you notice France took a city from the Vikings? They are going to be a big problem if we don't deal with them soon. The Americans also seem to be on their continent. We may need to have Lincoln help the Vikings before France gets both Iron supplies on their continent.

I don't want to rush things. If I get an opportunity to play tomorrow or even Friday morning, I will. If not, I understand and will request a skip. If all goes the way you ans zyxy are talking I would be taking about five or so turns to finish the build up that you start and then would be initiating war. With my time being limited, I would probably just do five turns of build up and then hand off for someone else to start the war anyway.

 

[zyxy]

Concerning the free MA techs: the fact that our opponents still have limited contacts means that trading for the free techs is probably doable.
And we have Literature as an optional tech to help out.

I really like it that France is doing so well, because it means she can help us on the tech tree. The other civs seem fairly useles in that respect. The only trouble is that we need to prevent a runaway civ and a 20K victory.

Attack on Tenoch: I would estimate that 8-10 swords is enough. But it is hard to say of course. if we assume fortified veteran spear defenders, then 8 swords will beat 4 spears with 92% reliability; 10 swords will beat 4 spears with 99% reliability and 5 spears with 93%.

 

[ControlFreak]

Can we afford to delay long enough to get 12 swords (6 dromons) and have at least five defenders (probably three swords and two spears?) in reserve in Osaka? Once we take Teno, our work is not done. We have to fight through the mass of Spears to take their other town. And we won't have the advantage of luring their spears elsewhere at that point. Plus we will have greatly increased the flip chance of Osaka by moving the Aztec capitol right next to Osaka. It seems it would be worth delaying until we have enough swords, or even until we get Medis (and they don't get pikes because they lack iron).

I agree that a strong France, and other strong civs for that matter are what we need. But at the rate France is building wonders, they are going to 20K easily before Fission. They must die before that happens.

 

[zyxy]

We can of course pop 2 regular spears in Osaka, to help with defense.

Another option would be to attack Teo first. We can bomb it from the sea which is a nice bonus.

I guess it depends on where the spears go...

 

[CommandoBob]

Another option would be to attack Teo first. We can bomb it from the sea which is a nice bonus.

Taking Teo first also relieves the cultural pressure on Osaka.

However, it leaves the Statue of Zeus producing ACs for the Aztecs.

Taking Tenochtitlan first will give us the SoZ and the larger of the two cities. (We won't be able to use the SoZ at first, unless FS has a harbor by then; the ivories are outside the inital nine tiles Teno.) Most Aztec units are down south and if we DoW soon (next turn?) they would stay down south to battle around Osaka. If our forces in Osaka are strong enough, they could weather a turn or so of Aztec attacks until we invaded the north land. We can determine rather well the composition of the Aztecs forces, since so many are outside the city. We want to keep them walking around.

Once we took Tenochtitlan, and if we left it without internal defenders (but plenty of nearby vSwords), would enough units head north to make the capture of Teo fairly easy? The Aztecs lack Horses and have only the ACs for fast movers, so blocking off Teno should be rather easy. One AC is down south, the other just created, with one more in the pipeline.

Obviously, I favor a strong strike on Tenochtitlan, and then some fancy footwork to get Aztec units out of Teo. I don't really want a war of attrition, but if we do have to have that kind of war, Teo at size 2 or 3 is better for us than Teno at size 6.

Can we make peace with Rome and Korea? I don't want them to sneak into FS while we are busy destroying the Aztecs.

 

[Niklas]

I think waiting for the kind of troops CF proposes will take far too long. I also favor a fast strike vs Tenochtitlan while the units are lured down south. Teno can build 1-turn spears or achers, even after they leave their GA (cost is only 12), while Teo is vastly less productive.

Dromons will be of good use in the war of attrition around Teotihuacan, bombarding the stacks. We also need to be careful with those Aztec galleys, we don't want them to ship a few ACs down to KZ. Greek fire will come in handy.

 

[ControlFreak]

I'm just afraid that we don't have enough troops to mount an assault AND defend Osaka. If we lose Osaka, then we lose the tournament because we will be in debt with unit costs and we are likely to lose Kyoto becase the roads let the ACs get there from Osaka in 2 turns.

Aztecs do have horses I think. We don't want to get peace from Rome or Korea because we're still getting war happiness. War happiness means we can live with only 2MPs in FS so our Sword is free to join the troops.

If we're doing this right away, definite stage the dromons on the north point of FS so it's only a single turn to drop off swords in the forest. We're going to need to declare with plenty of advanced noticed to get the troops to move towards Osaka.

Definitely bag the harbor in FS for now as we need as many as possible units. We need 5 dromons for dropping off 10swords. We need at a minimum three defenders in Osaka with walls and a barracks. The walls could be popped, but I think it would be better to just build them because Osaka is already very unhappy. The slaves should immediately move to mine Osaka's two land tiles so we have a prayer of keeping the builds short.

The Swords can move from Kyoto right after resistance is cured. If science is going back on, it could support a couple scientists to stay happy until we build a few warrior MPs there. A library popped will help with the defense as the borders will be farther from the city.

I'm wary of trying this, but you guys know better than me and I'll be offline anyway. Good luck!

 

[Niklas]

I'm not completely sure yet what to do on the trade front. Here's what I'm thinking:

• AIs that are up to par in tech will research something that we don't have already.
• AIs that have Literature can build libraries to research even faster.
• AIs that are far behind us in tech will be easier to conquer.
• AIs that haven't been very good at research thus far are unlikely to provide us with any help in the future either.
• If not everyone knows CoL and/or Literature, they may still be considered monopolies for us in some areas of the world.

So who should we trade to, who should we gift to, what techs should we keep back? With the above in mind, I'm thinking the following:

• Sell Literature to Aztecs for CoL. We want CoL, and we want the Aztecs to have a wonder to spend their production on.
• Sell techs, excluding CoL and Literature, to everyone who has anything reasonable to offer for them.
• Gift all techs including Literature but excluding CoL to those who we think will be reasonable researchers and who can give us help.
• Keep the hopeless ones hopeless for easier conquering later on.

One specific thing I was also considering was to not gift anything to the Incas and Mayas, but give everything to the Ottomans. That way they can possibly buy their way out of trouble until they've had time to settle their second town.

Comments? I'll play in not too long regardless, and will follow the above scheme if no one says anything.

 

[CommandoBob]

Not only keep the Mayas and Incas ignorant, consider the same for Persia, Dutch, Hittites, Egypt and Babylon.

After the Aztecs are done, we will have to tackle France, even if in Military Alliances. We will probably conquer France; I don't think the AIs will. Going west we run into Maya-Inca-Ottoman Island; going east is the Persia-Dutch-Hittitie-Egypt-Babylon land mass. Right now I favor heading east because that landmass has more cities and could produce more units closer to France than the M-I-O island. zyxy's map of the world shows this better than I can describe.

But the point is just this: going east or west, our next victims don't need to be too strong or too smart.

 

[ControlFreak]

Comments? I'll play in not too long regardless, and will follow the above scheme if no one says anything.

I agree with the tech trades as you outlined.

Not only keep the Mayas and Incas ignorant, consider the same for Persia, Dutch, Hittites, Egypt and Babylon.

After the Aztecs are done, we will have to tackle France, even if in Military Alliances. We will probably conquer France; I don't think the AIs will. Going west we run into Maya-Inca-Ottoman Island; going east is the Persia-Dutch-Hittitie-Egypt-Babylon land mass. Right now I favor heading east because that landmass has more cities and could produce more units closer to France than the M-I-O island. zyxy's map of the world shows this better than I can describe.

But the point is just this: going east or west, our next victims don't need to be too strong or too smart.

I agree that we should be conquering towards France. However, for the big picture we need to remember that:

• Persia and Babylon are scientific.
• We want as many science civs around as possible, preferably bigger so they can research faster.
• We can't have the civs that are left in the game angry at us except the one biggest one. Persia is a good candidate for being the big bully that no one likes. They can easily over run their neighbors with Immortals. We just need to make sure that Babylon doesn't get eaten too.

That means we would be better served to help Persia and Babylon take over their neighbors than we would to take them all out ourselves.

But lets plan the Aztec war first. We have three turns of GA production left, 1325, 1300 and 1275. In 1250, the GA ends and production reverts to 20spt on the IBT. So we can build 3 30s builds. I think we want 2 dromon and 1 sword. That would bring us up to 5boats and 11 swords. That's enough for our strike force. Then we need to build up enough of a defense for Osaka and an offensive homeland defense to protect FS from landings. I think we can build three spears in a row from FS in 1250, 1225 and 1200. Move all the swords to the northern point above FS in preparation for launching via boats to the forest W of Teno. Use two of the dromons to move the new spears over to Osaka and then declare war. The dromons that ferried units to Osaka will be spying troop movement on their way back North, hopefully bombing any vacant roaded tiles along the way. When they get back to the north, if we feel the Teno troops are heading south, the swords can board the boats for the short trip to Aztecia. The boats themselves must then return south to continue bombardments and shuttling spears from FS to Osaka. We may want to use archers as offensive units also since they are 20s builds. Either that or hire some scientists and set FS to 15spt building swords.

EDIT: Looking at zyxy's map it seems that the Indian/Portugese island and the French/American/Viking island are the only non-scientific islands. With Paris's apparent building power, maybe we should think about building a FP there, or in Osaka and jumping to Paris. We'd need to capture enough cities to activate the FP, but I think we would be a research monster having two cores, with one of them in Paris.

 

[Niklas]

We can't have two cores in C3C unfortunately, the FP only gives us a single town more or less. In general, building it close to our capitol is the most beneficial, unless we find a killer spot. And if Paris is not a killer spot, I don't know what is.

I think the war plans make sense, though I would specifically like to point out that at least one dromon should go to the far coast to make sure the Aztecs don't ship any units past us and on to KZ.

 

[Niklas]

1325 BC (6 continued):

Explorers

Wave Ridez 3N, still in Chinese waters.​

Trades

Time to become rich.



Sell Literature to Aztecs for CoL and 21 gp.
Sell off all techs except CoL to all who are deemed worthy. The list of left-behinds are Inca, Korea, Maya, Celts, Spain, China, Zulu, Mongols, Rome, Iroquois, Carthage. Everyone else lacks at most CoL, those who have it are India, Aztec and of course France. We now have 624 gp in our coffers.
​

Production

Ozzy Smurkz (f k a Osaka) switches to Walls. Slave starts mining the BG tile south of him.
FS switches to Dromon.
​

War preparations

AAs congregate on the northernmost spot. Dromons head towards Ozzy to be able to ship swords back to our home island for transit. Two swords loaded up.​

Research

Set research to 100%, specialist in Ozzy to scientist, Currency due in 11 at -2 gpt.
​

IBT:

Aztecs move northwards, big stack into Teo.

Very bad news:



At least they didn't raze Istanbul. We can handle the loss of a scientific civ, but there'll be one town less on the map. Shouldn't make an immense difference, but still.

KZ: Worker -> Library
FS: Dromon (Deadly Flamez) -> Dromon

Everyone is building the Great Library, most importantly the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan as we were hoping for.​

1300 BC (7):

Explorers

Wave Riderz 2NW-N into Carthaginian waters. With the dropping of KZ down to size 6 we can now support 22 units so he'll live a while longer.
​

Production

KZ: Hire two scientists and send two of the MP swords out to catch a boat. Will whip library next turn. Currency now reported at 9 turns, will of course be more after the GA runs out.
​

War preparations

Two swords unloaded makes for five on our home island, two more on their way by boat.
​

IBT:

Aztec troops mill around with no discernable single goal. Two spears went into Teno though. A galley is exploring towards the south and KZ, hope it's empty.

FS Dromon (Righteouz Flamez) -> Sword



Gah, only two turns of production lost. Hope that Monte at least has the good sense to go for a library now.​

1275 BC (8):

Trades

Arabia and Greece have both learnt Construction. They are neighbors, so no monopoly for them, still they want 200 gp over CoL. I'll pass for now.
​

War preparations

7 Swords waiting now, 5 Dromons at the ready.
​

Production

Whip library in KZ, hire two scientists to keep the town at 0fpt, 11bpt.​

IBT:

Aztecs keep milling around, one more spear seems to be headed towards Teno. A second galley comes down from the north along the inner coast.

KZ: library -> spear (at 6 spt)
FS: Sword (AA 4) -> Spear

French are building the Great Wall.
​

1250 BC (9):

Explorers

Wave Riderz has rounded Carthage, he may survive for a few turns more.​

War preparations

Put up a Dromon block to keep the Aztec galley away.
10 swords on our home continent now, the 11th is left in KZ for now.
​

IBT:

Aztec galley moves S-N when it sees the block. One more spear into Teno, other troops move more southish.



FS: Spear (Dauntless Defender 1) -> Spear
​

1225 BC (10):

Trades and research

France have entered the MA by researching Currency. Our own Currency is reported at 10 turns, I'd really like to see a library after the current spear.​

>>The Save<<

 

[ControlFreak]

Quite anticlimactic after all that talk about war.

Bad news about the Ottomans and the Great Library. I guess we'll have to have updates on all the other scientific civs every turnset. The advantage should shift to scientific civs at the turn of the new age.

Having france show up with currency isn't at all surprising and it wouldn't have helped us keeping literature as a psuedo monopoly since they already have it. Lets hope someone else is close to it as well.

I've been thinking about this war with the Aztecs a bit more and I'm still wondering if it would be better to try to take Teo first. I firmly believe that the Aztecs would only keep 2 or three spears in Teo if we declare war on them. We could declare, let the spears move towards Osaka and then land 6 swords near Teo and take it. Then the spears that were destined for Osaka, can takeup defense in Teo instead. We'd need to get walls built to get the same defense level, but we'd have the extra town and a better galley crossing point to affect the assault on Teno.

Let me know what you guys think. I still plan to try to play at least five turns tomorrow and I will be declaring war within those five turns.

LongTerm
Keep the remaining science civs in the game. One of them can be mad at us as long as they are much bigger than the other civs and at war with the other civs. The rest should stay small and be friends with us. We want to win the Diplomatic Victory as fast as possible, so research needs to keep us and the AI learning as fast as possible toward Fission.

ShortTerm
Conquer the Aztecs. Trade to the MidAge and get all the first tier freebies in trade.

Turnset (probably only 5 turns)
Position troops/boats to: protect Osaka
Build FS Library.
Start a war with Aztecs.
Watch spear movements. If doable, take Teo and then move defense there. If not, prepare a strike at Teno with at least 10 swords.
Consider trading for French Currency to get construction. If we can afford it in straight Gold, we can get the gold back by selling a MidAge First Tier tech. If I can, trade with all sci civs to get them to the MidAge and get all the freebies. Give all the freebies to France because we want them working on second tier techs.
Identify the second fastest researcher (India or Korea?) and try to bolster them.

 

[CommandoBob]

I've been thinking about this war with the Aztecs a bit more and I'm still wondering if it would be better to try to take Teo first. I firmly believe that the Aztecs would only keep 2 or three spears in Teo if we declare war on them. We could declare, let the spears move towards Osaka and then land 6 swords near Teo and take it. Then the spears that were destined for Osaka, can takeup defense in Teo instead. We'd need to get walls built to get the same defense level, but we'd have the extra town and a better galley crossing point to affect the assault on Teno.

The biggest thing I don't like about Teo is the foliage to the north of it. We have no way to get our attackers out into open ground.

However, with limited roads between Teo and Teno, it will take three turns for units in Teno to attack Teo, including the three or four ACs. With proper timing, and some luck, we could possibly empty Teno as the Aztecs try to attack Teo.

We need to pillage the road SW of Teno with our Dromonds. That makes the shortest route to Teo four turns for ACs and horses and five turns for ground pounders. And if we focus our bombardments on the ACs, they may not be an issue at all.

In this scheme, we would land our units on the forest W of Teno on the turn the ACs/horses are adjacent to Teo, which would leave the slow units on the hill 2N of Teo. The ACs may attack Teo or try to defend Teno. Four ACs max, since the fifth comes on turn 5 of the turnset. The ground units can move next to our units but cannot attack. Any units in Teno that attack us on the IBT will find us hiding behind the trees.

I'm sure this can be improved or taken apart. Dromon movement would be the key to pulling off this little hat trick.

 

[zyxy]

Let me know what you guys think. I still plan to try to play at least five turns tomorrow and I will be declaring war within those five turns.

Not sure about the attack plan, I guess it depends on the situation. I would prefer to go for Tenoch first.
Anyway, you're a good player and you know what you do, so my only advice is: don't rush it, take your time. And good luck .

 

[Niklas]

I don't like it to be honest. A major reason for going after Teno first is its quite high production capacity. The AIs build spears at 12 shields a piece, so Teno can easily build 1-turn spears or archers, and possibly even 1-turn horses (18 shields) while he's in his GA. Teo can do nothing in comparison.

Another major reason to not go for Teo is its geographic situation. The Aztecs are milling around there like ants and finding a spot to land in would be hard to say the least. Also it seems Monte likes to keep his units in that area, so reinforcements won't be far away.

A third reason is that if we can bombard the road on the ivory 2SW of Teno, any units south of there will not be able to attack Teno once we've grabbed it (they might be able to attack our wounded victorious units on the forest though), which means we could even mostly evacuate it to avoid losing troops to a flip.

I would very much prefer the original plan where we go for Teno first. Taking it will mean that Monte will send his troops north, in particular if we don't defend it overly much and we have spears behind a wall in OS. We can turn the road north into a trail of fire with the dromons, reducing his retaliatory capacity significantly.


I will back from my previous cry for a fast library though. Since France has Currency now and would sell it to us for 12 gpt + 600 gp, it should be only a few turns before she will accept gp alone. At that point we do the gift-grabbing all around, hoping to get all first-tier MA techs. I think we should build at least two more spears as was CF's plan originally, possibly three, use the first to reinforce OS along with the one already built and ship the one (two) after that to protect our stack at Teno (unloaded the turn after the swords).

The way I would envision it, in numbers (turn 0 being the one at the handoff):

Turn 1
Spear DD 2 built, DD1 and 2 board southern Dromon. Sword from KZ leaves and moves towards OS.

Turn 2
Spear DD 3 built, DD1 and 2 along with sword and horse fortified in OS. Declare, bombard the AC if he can still reach OS by then. Bombard the road(s) SW of Teno.

Turn 3
Spear DD 4 built, Walls in OS. 8 swords loaded up in northern Dromons. Bombard as possible.

Turn 4
8 swords unloaded on forest W of Teno, load up DD3 and 4 and the two remaining swords. Bombard.

Turn 5
Capture Teno. Unload spears and swords on the stack of wounded victorious swords. Send as many units into Teno as possible (no flip on the first turn). Use Dromons to bombard units heading north.

If we see that all Aztec units are down south and the road is cut already on turn two, we could load up the swords then, to offload and attack one turn earlier. That would mean we get only one spear offloaded on the turn after, but that should be sufficient with those premises.

There are of course things that could go wrong. The road 2SW of Teno really needs to be cut, and we must be certain that no galleys with units can move past OS to threaten KZ. But the latter should be easy to ascertain, and the former, well, the road should be bombarded by four dromons for two turns if need be. And in the worst case we could delay loading up for another turn.

 

[ControlFreak]

Not sure about the attack plan, I guess it depends on the situation. I would prefer to go for Tenoch first.
Anyway, you're a good player and you know what you do, so my only advice is: don't rush it, take your time. And good luck .

Many thanks for the vote of confidence.

With that said, I'm a team player, and unless I see an undeniable opportunity, I'm going to carry out Niklas' plan since we were all somewhat in agreement.

If we can take Teno, I agree that taking Teot should be easy as long as all the spears don't hole up in the city. What do we do if that happens? What if we fail to take Teno with 8 swords?

Can I delay the plan by 2 turns and build the library first?

 

[Niklas]

If we can take Teno, I agree that taking Teot should be easy as long as all the spears don't hole up in the city. What do we do if that happens?

We lure them out by leaving Teno open, bombard them with our dromons, and kill them off with units lying in wait. Killing fields.

What if we fail to take Teno with 8 swords?

I refuse to believe that an option. Just make sure the spears head south first.

Can I delay the plan by 2 turns and build the library first?

I would prefer if you don't, 2 more turns possibly means 2 more spears in Teno. Sure they should leave with the rest, but still. But do as you see fit.