SGOTM 14 - Spooks

Paul#42 · Jan 2, 2009

I got it and will not be able to post my thoughts and plans until late this evening...

So at least 12 hours for smart remarks from you guys.

edit:
For reference, the line-up (I hope I can remember "page 30")

Denyd - Up :trouble:

Più Freddo - On deck
Yilar
ControlFreak
Andronicus
Paul#42 - on base (RBI time, baby!)
Markh - skipped (lost turn at bat)

Andronicus · Jan 2, 2009

My bad missing Maya had ToA - Pentagon in Copan is wasted :smoke:

Flips are still a major issue, they distract from our campaign and thin out our numbers in our strike forces. I wonder if it is worth gifting newly captured towns to a low culture AI who are a long way away? I dont have the save open now, but it seems we could gift Shanghai (and the recently flipped Chinese town after recapturing) to Babylon then retake once we attack Boston (? turn after next). The resistors on retaking would be Babylonian and much less likely to flip. Similarly we could gift Copan and (after capturing ? this turn) Chicken Itza and Thebes. Only problem I see is not having a rop we would be asked to remove forces or declare, we could always just declare then but that would be before recapturing the Chinese city. We could always chose a different recipient the following turn. This would allow us to concentrate our attack forces together in one place, suppress resistors after retaking with little flip risk (can keep rax for quick healing, maintain pop for rushing settlers after resistance quelled)

Paul#42 · Jan 2, 2009

Andronicus said:
Flips are still a major issue, they distract from our campaign and thin out our numbers in our strike forces.

Excactly what I was thinking and about to ask here :high5:

I would take those towns right back - so gift right before declaring on someone else. So no boot order, no chance to build any forces - just a bad taste of exploiting a strange rule... :dunno:

Is resistence immediately quelled? :dubious:

It's already strong that citizens change their nationality when a town is gifted - that would make any town almost flip-proof...

No doubt this is a strong tool - but is it allowed?

Andronicus · Jan 2, 2009

Paul#42 said:
Is resistence immediately quelled?

Not immediately, but 2 factors would be in our favour for quicker quelling of queezy quakers

Firstly, AFAIK the number of resistors following capture is related to the relative cultural strenth of the 2 civs
Secondly, the rate of quelling of those resistors is also dependent on this ratio of culture
Whats more, it would be safer to remain healing in the newly retaken town quelling resistance as flip risk is proportional to both relative culture and distance from capital.

Ranking AI culture according to CA2
lower than us - Zulu and Ottomen
Sl. higher than us - Babylon and Arabia
Sig higher than us - America, Iroqois, Russia and Celts
Much higher than us - Rome, France, Aztecs, Korea and Inca
Way higher than us - Egypt, Greece, Germany, China, Japan, India, Persia, Mongols, Sumeria, Hittites, Maya

So gifting to the lower 4 seems to be best bet (next 4 only at a pinch), flip risk if capital a long way away would be low. We may want to gift only every second turn (cities taken on other turn are flip free for first turn after capture) so we dont run out of low culture AI to abuse.

Need to make sure we capture cities with movement point remaining so can exit city before gifting (also sell improvements before gifting), as we want those units at the front, not returned to our capital.

edit
I note we are running neck and neck with Team Ivan for highest post count.
C'mon, we have a tradition to uphold :whipped:

Paul#42 · Jan 3, 2009

Andronicus said:
Firstly, AFAIK the number of resistors following capture is related to the relative cultural strenth of the 2 civs
Secondly, the rate of quelling of those resistors is also dependent on this ratio of culture
Whats more, it would be safer to remain healing in the newly retaken town quelling resistance as flip risk is proportional to both relative culture and distance from capital.

That's all true.
Still it feels a bit like an exploit to me - but not much more than gifting a threatened town to another rival... So let's do it. :hammer:

Andronicus said:
Ranking AI culture according to CA2
lower than us - Zulu and Ottomen
Sl. higher than us - Babylon and Arabia
Sig higher than us - America, Iroqois, Russia and Celts
Much higher than us - Rome, France, Aztecs, Korea and Inca
Way higher than us - Egypt, Greece, Germany, China, Japan, India, Persia, Mongols, Sumeria, Hittites, Maya

So gifting to the lower 4 seems to be best bet (next 4 only at a pinch), flip risk if capital a long way away would be low. We may want to gift only every second turn (cities taken on other turn are flip free for first turn after capture) so we dont run out of low culture AI to abuse.

Good list.
I'll try to coordinate this. (along with all that other stuff...)

Andronicus said:
Need to make sure we capture cities with movement point remaining so can exit city before gifting (also sell improvements before gifting), as we want those units at the front, not returned to our capital.

Which is a banned exploit anyway. :nono:

Andronicus said:
edit
I note we are running neck and neck with Team Ivan for highest post count.
C'mon, we have a tradition to uphold

Paul#42 · Jan 3, 2009

Played 1.5 turns so far.
This is really time consuming...
I plan to play on 18 hours from now.

Andronicus · Jan 3, 2009

Paul#42 said:
Played 1.5 turns so far.
This is really time consuming...

that was my thought exactly, but I found it immensely fun.

CA2 showed me playing 10 turns in 16 hours (and I didnt leave the game running when I wasn't there). I guess 5 turns is always an option, but I found it hard just stopping at 10 (would have liked to play till the end :mischief:

)

Paul#42 · Jan 5, 2009

Wow, what a game. :smoke:

Played 5 turns in almost as many days...

here's the save

here's the log:

Spoiler :

I'll play on tomorrow if no big discussion comes up here.

My plans:
Tikal and Palenque need to be gifted to Zulu, retake, quell resistence.
Egypt has to be gifted a new home :blush:

China is due to a backstab. Beijing had 4 (reg) spears when I had inspected it.
Forces from India should be shipped to China in two turns.
I wonder if India can keep his forces with only one town... :dubious:

Any comments?
It's late... I... must... :sleep:

ControlFreak · Jan 5, 2009

Sounding good! :goodjob:

Probably can post the game to GOTM even though you're playing on. klarius has a data point every 5 turns from now on, so we can too.

I've come down with some really nasty illness/infection of some sort (chest x-rays and sinus CAT scan today). I won't be much help to discussion. Good luck. :hammer:

Yilar · Jan 5, 2009

This is gonna be right down to the wire it seems. We have 19 turns left to capture roughly 600 tiles.

I'm a bit worried about our boats. The forces near Egygt are stuck atm, we need to be going forward as fast as possible. We've got 20 units there. Might not be blitzkrieg warfare against the enemy, but at least we get started.

Btw, we should start building a galley in Salamanca. We can invade that mongol island city (hovd) on the finale turn for an additional 9 tiles

Più Freddo · Jan 7, 2009

Hi there, I'm back from the holidays. I've browsed through the messages, all very well played! Sorry for my mistakes, I'm sure you have repaired them. That's the beauty of these succession games.

Overall, we are making a very high Firaxis score, but it will get tight reaching the domination limit before klarius. But we can do it! I hope I can have a look at the save later today.

Paul#42 · Jan 7, 2009

Welcome back, Più and best wishes, CF. :wavey:

Don't spend to much time analysing the save, I played another two turns yesterday and will play my last three tonight, 8 hours from now. :bounce:

Egypt and India are taken, China about to start and forces are about to land in Sumeria in turn 7 and 8 - some 20 knights. :hammer:

Domestic units are kept busy resettling everybody so they don't develop funny ideas... :splat:

Paul#42 · Jan 7, 2009

I finally finished my set...

here is the save

turnlog:

Spoiler :

After flight check
I leave the Sumerian forces ready to go. I just moved some forces to uncover some land.
Quite some Iron Armors running around there... :shifty:

China hosts 28 mostly injured knights and some more plus reinforcements from India for the Hittites campaign.
Most of them can heal while our fleet shifts to east.
I think we can stop building units in our core soon.
If ship chained they need like 3-5 turns to the front - unless we decide to go after Persia... :hammer:

(There are kinda "ship chains" to Egypt and to India)

Still we might use some domestic forces (horses?) to quell severe resistance in former Mayan land.

Diplomacy
We should gift Brennus Home to Sumeria.
Joan's Jail is also available.
Russia needs a new home, too.
I'd like one downsouth to keep pressure low for our huge russian sites...

Micro Management
In those two 8-spt-towns I built 2-turn-horses by short-rushing to spear after one turn and disbanding a slave to 22 shields.
I also built rather 2-turn-horses than 4-turn knights.

Looking at the territory graph, this is a close call... :shifty:

From culture graph one could derive team Klarius had filled their gaps earlier. :hmm:

But maybe by getting ToA on the main continent :dunno:

They also knew theer was no need for gap filling earlier than 5 turns before the end...

markh · Jan 8, 2009

Happy New Year ! I will need a skip this round. I will not be able to play for at least a week.

Anyway I think it is better someone else plays the next important turns. I am not really back into normal civ 3 games and I do not want to spoil this close game for you guys.

Paul#42 · Jan 8, 2009

Happy new year, Mark.

I respect that decision :salute:

Next up is Denyd :hammer:

Denyd - Up
Più Freddo - On deck
Yilar
ControlFreak
Andronicus
Paul#42 - just played
Markh - skipped

No need to hurry, we are well ahead (in turns) of our two contenders. :coffee:

Più Freddo · Jan 8, 2009

We appear to be about one turn before klarius at this point, and going slower than they, of course. We have to gain 398 tiles in 13 turns, that's 31 tiles per turn.

We also have to gain population, about 49 citizens are missing at this point. I'd say we need to fill up with about 100, since we also lose some and the opposition also gains. So the 60+ Workers and Slaves are not enough, even if we would be able to join all of them. My suggestion is to set Tax Collectors back to working the land in cities with any growth potential within 13 turns at all. Irrigation is as important as ever. Of course, captured cities have population. Perhaps that will be enough anyway.

Approximately 100+ tiles can be won by settling 20- cities in already captured lands, if we use settlers rather than temples. Sumeria is 80+, Hittites (Troops from Sumeria? That's a SOD if ever I saw one. Overkill?) 150-. That's 330. The remaining 70 could come from invading Germany with the troops presently in China? Where else could we go in 13 turns?

What are those two lonely units doing in Aztec lands? We could move our new troops there, it's not that far from the core.

Paul#42 · Jan 8, 2009

Aztecs was my final victim after Sumeria and Hittites.
I just signed rop and thought it would be nice to secure Iron early because I had trouble to land and move in Sumeria. :rolleyes:

Sumeria has lots of Pikes and MDI so I thought an apropriate SoD was in order :blush:

Nevertheless we should get it quickly if we spread our troops wisely. Maybe we should inspect a couple of towns?

We still might chose another victim, Mongols or Germany are close by, but Rome is also not ruled out imo. :trouble:

This ship movement causes me trouble in some shallow areas. I still fail to adopt my naval instincts to that feature... :blush:

Some tiles we might gain in the last ten turns by relocating residents. We'll have to make sure however that nobody gets into his "old" home and finds some ancient culture... :crazyeye:

Più Freddo · Jan 8, 2009

Paul#42 said:
Aztecs was my final victim after Sumeria and Hittites.
I just signed rop

Sounds fine.

Nevertheless we should get [Sumeria] quickly if we spread our troops wisely. Maybe we should inspect a couple of towns?

Also seems reasonable. It is absolutely necessary to take all Sumerian and Hittite land in the next thirteen turns using those troops. We cannot consider one at a time, it must be one movement.

Yilar · Jan 8, 2009

I don't think pop will be an issue, we can join our slave army on turn 183, that should easily get us over the cap, if you add in the captured cities. What is crucial is that we capture and start landing the enemy as quickly as possible. We don't need to have SoD to 1 turn RoP the enemy, once you take a city from the enemy they will send all their units to try and retake it and you can pick them off from within the city rather easily.

I would take Ur this turn. I reckon we've only got enough to take that city. If we also have to take out the MDI stacks near Ur. Though investigating Sumer would maybe a good idea, since there are no counter attacks nearby.

ControlFreak · Jan 8, 2009

Not having looked at the save, is it possible to ship settlers to Greece, Mongol, Germany, then declare war at the time of domination and settle their unoccupied tiles? Unless the have horses/knights nearby, the town could withstand the IBT and add 9 or so tiles to our favor. Not sure if it's worth using galleys for that, nor if we have any capable of making settlers anymore considering we also have a population hurdle to overcome.

A milder version of this would be to settle the mogol tiles that are in Germany and the German tiles that are in Greece and then settling for peace before they can be invaded. Flip risks all, though.

I also wonder if cancelling our luxury deals now, will result in a starvation in other lands, helping on the population front. OR do we need the cash income?

I agree that Sumeria was the next target. Don't forget to see if you can win the island cities in a Peace Treaty (and gunpowder while your at it). Hittites followed by Aztecs makes sense too. Aztecs were in despotism on your last save, so gift them a gov before invading. Poor guys never even met the Hittites.

SGOTM 14 - Spooks

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