SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[shyuhe]

I've started playing and found Joao on T+3. He's directly south of Vicky. His capital (non-hill, I took OB) is 3 turns from iron city.

 

[shyuhe]

Ok, I had to pause the set as Ragnar declared war on us with a galley. The offending galley is now dead. We have two boats ready to set sail with 3 maces and 3 trebs. I miscalculated the overflow in gold by a bit so I had it build a treb instead and upgraded the warrior into a mace (pricey!). Everything else is going according to plan. We can sail for Amsterdam and land our troops in T+3 turns.

I can upload the save but I don't think Ragnar's war declaration matters since we have plenty of boats to fend him off right now (we basically have a spare galleon). I'm stopping here for the night. Do we want to invade Willem with just 2 boats to hit Amsterdam? Or wait for 4 boats to hit both Amsterdan and Utrecht? It'll take another 3 turns, plus an extra turn for the southern boats to sail over.

Joao:


Stupid Ragnar:


Willem's "stack":

 

[babybluepants]

I'd wait to hit them both at the same time. The date that matters is when you break their back, not when you attack, in my experience. We don't wanna give him time to spam any archers in Utrecht, since we're trying to attack with minimum troop numbers.

You sure Ragnar won't have more in the next few turns? Do we only have the spare Galleon or some triremes, as well?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Ok, I had to pause the set as Ragnar declared war on us with a galley. The offending galley is now dead.

So, you mean to say that he only attacked with one of his Galleys being visible?

Could you tell which direction it came from? If it came from his capital area, then it's unlikely that he circumnavigated his continent and thus he likely sent out a new Galley... meaning that there are 3 Galleys sailing around somewhere waiting for their chance to strike at us... let's hope that they don't try to steal one of Willem's Cities back from us.


If it looked like it came more from the north side of his continent, then it was probably one of the original 3 Galleys and perhaps the other 2 Galleys will come along shortly.

upgraded the warrior into a mace

Yaaaaa!

(pricey!)

Indeed, but it's a better return on investment than upgrading an Axeman or a Swordsman.

Do we want to invade Willem with just 2 boats to hit Amsterdam? Or wait for 4 boats to hit both Amsterdan and Utrecht? It'll take another 3 turns, plus an extra turn for the southern boats to sail over.

That's a tough call. Attacking sooner gets us one City sooner, but it also means that he'll switch back to Slavery as soon as he possibly can and will start whipping units in other Cities.

Attacking sooner MIGHT cause him to send some of Utrecht's Axemen up towards Amsterdam, or even have them board Galleys and sail out. Obviously, it would be ideal if his units boarded Galleys, as we could (land first, please) land our troops and then attack his Galleys with our empty Galleons before his Galleys could reach us.


So, those possibilities of the Axemen moving-out would in a way help, as there'd be less units in Utrecht. Of course, he'd whip more, so it may all balance out, except with him having more units in total.


It's not an easy call to make. EDIT: Cross-posted with bbp.

Stupid Ragnar:

Well, it looks like 2 AIs were Pleased with us (Cathy and, oddly enough, Willem), so those 2 AIs got a little bit angrier at Ragnar for attacking us.

It's a shame that there aren't Vassals, since Ragnar might have otherwise capitulated to us after a while. At least we can get a few Great General points from sinking his ships (that is, if we can find his other ships before they land their troops--hence keeping that western Trireme in position is probably a good idea).

Joao:

Hmm, the last bit of that last image got cut off--maybe you, too, ran out of image hosting space?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Without seeing Gem City, I predict that it will be junky. He only had 2 sources of a Gem Resource the last time that I saw the saved game, and one of those is in Utrecht. There is still a lot of Jungle around the Gem City area.

So, in the interest of "breaking Willem's back," I think that the first 3 Cities that we should plan to attack are Amsterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague.

Now... how should we get to The Hague? Walk across the land? Load troops onto Galleons and sail them around?


If we have an extra Galleon and we made an extra Mace (or an extra Treb, however you want to look at it), can we consider sending additional troops to Willem (even if it is just 1 more unit that gets Galleon-chained to the front lines)?

Striking "in force" is good and, as bbp suggests, means less AI-whipped units.

 

[shyuhe]

Willem is happily in caste and can't whip. Since the second batch of boats will still beat the engineering date, I'm inclined to wait for a simultaneous attack as well.

The boat came from west side of the penninsula near the trireme. I imagine the other two galleys will follow shortly. We have a spare galleon that we can use to poach his ships. Our western front has two triremes (one injured) and we have an extra galleon en route.

After we capture Utrecht, we can move ships into the lake to hit Hague without having to cross the island.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Willem is happily in caste and can't whip. Since the second batch of boats will still beat the engineering date, I'm inclined to wait for a simultaneous attack as well.

Okay, let's do so.

The boat came from west side of the penninsula near the trireme. I imagine the other two galleys will follow shortly. We have a spare galleon that we can use to poach his ships. Our western front has two triremes (one injured) and we have an extra galleon en route.

Well, if we have a fully-healthy Trireme, I would prefer to fight with it than to fight with a Galleon.

The odds will be highly in our favour either way, but the loss of Hammers from a bad random-number-generation roll will hurt far less by losing a Trireme than by losing a Galleon.

Obviously, attacking with a Galleon is preferable to attacking with a wounded Trireme.

After we capture Utrecht, we can move ships into the lake to hit Hague without having to cross the island.

Ohhhh, sweet! Nice idea! Even troops from capturing Amsterdam could head SW out of Amsterdam, followed by loading-up into Galleons.


ACTUALLY, depending upon where your Galleons are now, it might make sense to hit Utrecht with everything that we'd got. Bombard quickly and capture the City quickly. From there, units can move into the City and, with a bit of manual work, can load onto Galleons that enter Utrecht on the same turn. To be "safe," we would not end a turn with a Galleon inside of Utrecht, since if the City were recaptured, all units that exist inside of a Galleon WOULD NOT defend and would simply die, along with the Galleons. But, nothing stops the loaded or partially-loaded Galleons from moving into the Lake to the north of Utretcht with their 0-movement-point land-based units... and the land-based units could then land immediately adjacent to either Amsterdam or The Hague on the following turn. We'd be able to decide exactly how many troops would need to go to each of these Cities, with the flexibility to change our minds up until the last minute, should Willem reinforce one of said Cities.


Of course, if you already have 2 Galleons headed for Amsterdam and if the garrison there is light enough, then we could still hit both Cities at once... but at least we know that the 5th Galleon will be best going to Utrecht, both because that City has a lot of defending troops that we might need to support by unloading the 5th Galleon and because we might not need to unload the 5th Galleon there and might just be able to unload it directly next to The Hague, assuming that we don't get too bad of luck from the random number generator.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Horse archers are rubbish at stack defence. There 50% bonus against catapults only applies when you attack.

Hmmm, well, that's good to know.

Still, they are useful counter-attacking units and good stack-finishing units, although without the defensive bonus against Cats that I thought that they had, they certainly will have less of a role if we're waging most of our wars by dropping troops next to AI Cities.

I've started playing and found Joao on T+3. He's directly south of Vicky. His capital (non-hill, I took OB) is 3 turns from iron city.

Should we think about sending a land-based unit to scout out his lands?

 

[mdy]

I still think we should attack Amsterdam and Utrecht on the same turn. By my estimate attacking Utrecht with everything would only speed up it's capture by 2T, but the delay in capturing his capital would be longer than this, in addition to the other disadvantages.

After we capture Utrecht, we can move ships into the lake to hit Hague without having to cross the island.

Great idea.

Without seeing Gem City, I predict that it will be junky. He only had 2 sources of a Gem Resource the last time that I saw the saved game, and one of those is in Utrecht. There is still a lot of Jungle around the Gem City area.

Agreed, however it looks like he might have 2 cities hiding somewhere in that fog, and the second one might be worth more, but we should be able to scout this with our first galleon before the others are ready.

Are we planning on teching drama soon?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I still think we should attack Amsterdam and Utrecht on the same turn. By my estimate attacking Utrecht with everything would only speed up it's capture by 2T, but the delay in capturing his capital would be longer than this

Okay, that's fine. Hit both at once, with the 5th Galleon going to Utrecht.

Keep open the possibility of that 5th Galleon's units being Galleon-chained by immediately sending back the first 2 Galleons at Utrecht after they drop off their initial payload--that is, depending upon how much slower that 5th Galleon will arrive. With us having found Joao, it may even be possible to use our upgraded Galley to help with Galleon-chaining from within our empire.

 

[shyuhe]

Ok, sounds like a plan. I'll continue the build-up tonight and pause if Ragnar shows up with something more than a galley or two. Otherwise I'll stop at the end of the troop build-up, which should coincide with our war declaration.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Do we need to be worried about Willem bribing any other AIs to go to war with us? I suppose that Ragnar could try to do so, too, but he doesn't have much of a tech advantage... perhaps Construction or another tech that he may have learned in the last few turns... but it's really Willem with the tech advantage that might be able to do so.

Cathy would accept a bribe of any player that she is Friendly towards and could be bribed against any other player.

Isabella and Vicky would accept a bribe of any player that they are Pleased towards and could be bribed against any player that they are not Friendly towards.

Joao is already planning a war, so he can't be bribed.


So, basically:
Is Cathy Friendly towards Willem?
Is Isabella Pleased towards Willem?
Is Vicky Pleased towards Willem?

If "yes" to any of those, then a bribe by Willem against us would be possible.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think it can happen - we're near tops in power already and will be at the top when we declare. None of the AI on this map are crazy like Monty (who will declare on a civ that has 1.5 times his power).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Do you think that you will be the player on our team to start the war? If not, then I guess that we will soon need to figure out who will play next.

 

[Mitchum]

I can play, but not until Monday...

EDIT: If someone can pick it up right away, that's fine as well. Or Shyuhe can continue to play forward a bit more.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

By the way, have we sent our Workers anywhere yet? If so, where did they go?

 

[shyuhe]

No, there was no boat available to move them. We can move them once the galleon that found Joao comes back.

I can play forward a bit more -- probably play 2-3 turns a day over the weekend since it'll just be warring logistics.

 

[mdy]

I can play forward a bit more -- probably play 2-3 turns a day over the weekend since it'll just be warring logistics.

Please do, we need to get a move on.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Have we given any thought to building Barracks in captured Cities?

I'd prefer to simply build units in these Cities... even Theatres will be questionable build items since we'll have Confucianism in at least all 3 of Willem's currently-visible Cities to expand our Cultural Borders there. I'd only consider Theatres once we have nearly exhausted our Whipping Unhappiness quota, meaning more units sooner.


Also, what about Cathy? Are we going to abandon the land troops at Willem? Since we have access to that Lake to the north of Utrecht, it seems wise to keep at least some Galleons around, so that we can attack Cathy from both land and sea... or even just attack from two sea-based locations at once and only following-up later with additional troops sent via land (or Galleon chains directly to the front lines).

 

[mdy]

Also, what about Cathy? Are we going to abandon the land troops at Willem? Since we have access to that Lake to the north of Utrecht, it seems wise to keep at least some Galleons around, so that we can attack Cathy from both land and sea... or even just attack from two sea-based locations at once and only following-up later with additional troops sent via land (or Galleon chains directly to the front lines).

I think we should keep a couple in the area to allow us to assault Cathys capital directly-but we shouldn't need more than 2-3 for that, the rest can be used to support our next war.