SGOTM 23 - Phoenix Rising

[Rusten]

When are we planning to take out Portugal? Joao might have a few workers for us as he's been peacefully boxed in. Did we scout his territory recently for information?

Is he the target right after England or are the new maces going east? I prefer the former and wiping out Joao, unless the units' sole purpose is to capture the GLH (which is still the #1 issue/goal).

 

[Gumbolt]

Well there was some debate about going for JoaoII before English. Lisbon would be a great GP farm. I think others want SH from English. Happiness boost to many cities. We defaulted to English. Not sure what workers Churchill has. Would be easy to worker steal from English with galleys.

We have not scouted JoaoII out in a while. Guessing his workers are sat in his cities doing very little.

 

[Rusten]

If we are going caste system (full time or in 5-turn bursts) then the SH isn't that big of a deal. I would've thought the main reason for taking out England was the domestic trade routes in mercantilism. That I'd agree with -- England is more important than Portugal because of the trade routes.

 

[elitetroops]

I ran the numbers for Thebes as well. No whip looks better. On t108 it's +15 -24 (base hammers). Delaying Colossus one turn costs 18, but much of this is made up by the 12 we get from running Engineer (and one turn citizen) in Thebes when whip is skipped. Also, 9GPP more in Thebes without the whip.

The only argument for whipping would be if we are in a hurry to build something else after Colossus. Thebes could for example complete Courthouse T108 if forge is whipped. Or build missionary T107. Actually, every build from now until end of game should be completed one turn earlier or more...

I agree about farming Wheatos. It will be a good city, eventually.

We really do need workers. If we take a cease fire, we should aim to capture as many as possible when we redeclare. Maybe we could 5-3 whip one in Jerusalem soon?

Petersburg might not be in such an urgent need to whip after all. They should be happy immediately when out of revolt, unless there's >5 unhappy from motherland crap.

Moai asap is probably good. Athens still needs forge before that, I think.

Edit: Galley saw Lisbon 3 turns ago. 3 archers, one spear and one settler (still the same settler we were hoping would move out). Barracks, library, harbor and 40% culture. All units have one promotion.

 

[Gumbolt]

I doubt we would capture many Russian workers. Stalin's culture would most likely stop most of this. Pends where they are hiding out. The Norway area seems likely. That or hiding out in his capital. We really need scouts below his key cities. With Mongol KK roaming the chances are these will steal his workers anyway?

I am out tomorrow night. Don't wait for me. I think once we have an idea on how to squeeze in workers and other builds we can plan out remaining turns of Russian war. We should be careful of chariots and spears here. With so many undefended cities the Russians will feel very bold.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Portuguese vs English :
Anyway we look at it, we want to invade those two targets in the closest succession as possible.
If we go English first, we likely reinforce our English army with 2-4 troops and then start producing a force to tackle the Portuguese (simultaneous wars).

We chose to target the English first simply because splitting the xp from a GG between 4 Maces allowed it.
But maybe we approached the question in a wrong way. (My argument has been "unpromoted maces -> Portugal ; highly promoted maces -> England.)


Units in England would be locked in the North for a long time. (Large, forested territory.)
Comparatively, the invasion of Portugal goes much faster. It could allow some overlap : troops used against Portugal could be used against England. The reverse doesn't hold true.
More specifically : having our CR3 maces locked in England for 15 turns isn't necessarily something we should look to be doing. If we have more troops, they could bust London and then head SE towards, say, Istanbul. Going Portugal first would allow to do just that.

There's also the Spice Island Fact. Capturing Opporto unlocks an offshore city for us.
We already are running internal trade routes worth 1.
Attacking England would cut us off some offshore trade routes. The quickest way to offshore trade routes probably goes through Spice Island.


-->
A/ speed
B/ spice island


ps : we'll need a Medic to the west. We don't need a Great Medic but a 4xp one, that we need.

 

[Rusten]

Spice Island gives 1 trade route faster, but we need 2 per city. At what point does Paris start giving 2 in trade routes to domestic mainland cities? Which size does it need to be? Is it size 16?
It will happen at some point if it continues growing IIRC. Correct me if I'm wrong on the Paris thing, but if that's the case then going Portugal (and spice island) first makes a lot of sense. Seeing as China constructed the GLH the English cities are not as urgent (and Stonehenge's value is greatly diminished if we'll be in caste system every now and then). We would only need the English cities' trade routes for when we capture the GLH.

 

[elitetroops]

Spice island also gives +1 happy, like Stonehenge. Unless we have already traded for spices by then.

Maces 15 turns in England is a bit of an exaggeration though. He has what, 3-4 cities? Galleys can be used to ship maces around those forests. Though hard to tell how long that war will last without knowing anything about his defenses.

We'd want some galleys for Portugal as well. The Mediterranean galley is badly out of position now.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

re : Portuguese vs English :
True, we should use Galleys to help troops in England going North.

Another thing on England first :
We wouldn't necessarily need to send our CR3 Maces all the way north.
We could use them to bust London, then use reinforcements (Tres/Maces) to capture the lesser cities.
This would free up the CR3 Maces to head against Portugal, from which point they'd likely go to Istanbul.

So, if we look at the CR3 Maces movement, we have :
A/ Lisbon -> Opporto -> London -> Optional -> Istanbul
B/ London -> Optional -> Lisbon -> Opporto -> Istanbul

Is it equivalent or does option B/ get there faster ?

 

[elitetroops]

I looked into trade routes with capital. The equation picks the smaller value of distance/target size when determining the base value. Our cities at minimum distance 16 to capital will have base value 1.6 trade routes with capital once Paris reaches pop 16. There's an automatic +25% modifier for connection to capital, which turns this into a 2 trade route. These cities are Thebes, Jerusalem, Memphis, Rostov and anything beyond those. Yaroslavl and Goldcoast are at distance 15.

With Paris at pop 16, the cities closer than 16 tiles will have the base value based on distance, not size of Paris, so they need more modifiers to reach 2 trade routes. The only modifiers we could get come from city size of the city itself, +5% for each pop above 10. GoldCoast and Rostov need to be pop 12 for 2 trade route, Alexandria would need to be pop 16. Not going to happen before we have English cities online.

 

[Rusten]

Looking over the city overview again. I agree with most of it so only mentioning what I'd change/improve. Trying not to repeat what I said in the previous post.

Gemmy: Should probably chop that forest 2W even before culture pop as getting a wb/LH earlier will win back the lost hammers. One of the Athens workers could do this after the HG.

Jerusalem: As mentioned I'd like to get a forge instead of more missionaries. Building military there is an option. A second option is to whip workers. (Or do both)

Munich: Napolean is on his way to mine its iron tile, right? This city has so many good tiles. I think we should quickly find some other nearby city to whip missionaries as we're really wasting potential here. We've already invested into a library too. This city needs to grow. Maybe chop the forge and then grow while putting hammers into Notre Dame (fail gold). Farm the river grassland.
edit: Only the first ones should be farmed. We will want caste workshops on those river tiles once the city has grown I think. When we stop farming as opposed to getting workshops depends on available worker turns.

Yaroslavl: Perhaps spread religion to this city and whip missionaries here instead? It doesn't have that many good tiles and could 4 --> 2 whip missionaries for a long time. It already has a granary. It can whip workers too when we find the time.

 

[elitetroops]

Are there any unclear decisions for the next few turns regarding builds and workers? Most of our workers are tied up with MoM at the moment, all cities seems to have build for this turn under control. I think we can advance the game a bit while keeping up the long term discussion.

Only military plans need do be worked out. For that I'd still like to have a peak at the unknown city with super medic this turn. He cannot do any useful healing this turn in any case.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Portugal vs England (part III) :
Let's try to solve it.

1st thing, once captured,
England develops as an autonomous entity ;
Portugal gives us 3 workers (or more) that can be sent to France and Eastern.

2nd thing, GPs :
London has produced a Great Prophet on t50
Lisbon has built its Library on tXX... slightly before our Egyptian conquest. It's got an Academy incoming very soon, right ? We could capture that.

3rd thing, heading back to Istanbul :
Given we have Engineering, maces move 3 tiles over our territory.
--> Our top units likely get there faster going Portugal -> London -> Istanbul.

4th, army movement :
A/ We attack England.
Screen for convenience :

Spoiler :

t103 : Engineering.
t104 : 3 maces are produced and within Paris. Axeman reaches Paris too. All 4 units get promoted (no MP left). Axe is upgraded to a Mace.
Galley N is 3N2E of Paris with 1MP left : in position.
Galley S is 3N2W of Paris with 0MP left : roading the cows would allow to board on t105.
t105 : board on galleys
t106 : DoW, unload. SH produces Trebuchet (earliest).
t107 : attack London
Note : Galley 3N2W of Paris teleports West if we close borders.

--> Logistics work out rather well.
What odds do our CR3 Maces get against Churchill's Archers ?
CR3 Mace has 69,51% odds against a fully fortified CG2, Drill1 archer in London. Would we lose some ? Yes, we would (probably, right ?). xp gain in victory ? 2xp.

You know... No siege.

B/ We attack Portugal first.
Screen for convenience :

Spoiler :

t103 : Engineering
t104 : 3 maces are produced and reach Wheatos. Axeman is also in Wheatos, no MP left to upgrade to Mace (1 turn late compared with other units).
t105 : DoW Portugal
t106 : SH produces Trebuchet (earliest)
t107 : attack Lisbon

Against 50% defences and fully fortified CG Archer, what are our odds ?
CR3 Mace has 88,94% victory odds
CR2 Mace has 73,58%
CR1 Mace has 66,92%


Funny, eh ? Our CR3 dudes have about 20% better odds against Lisbon than they have against London.
Whether we go London or Lisbon first, we're getting Trebuchets for the 2nd city. Given that, maybe we should go for the easiest pick first and use a couple of Trebuchets against the tougher nut.

Going Portugal first, factoring movement, we'd probably have time to bombard London if, say, we unload units by pairs of Treb + Mace (at least the first two pairs).


I'd be fine with invading Portugal first.
Splitting xp between 4 CR3 maces, I don't know. That seemed like a waste to me earlier, but now it looks like it's worth it.


5th, Great General :
One thing we could do is promote 3 maces to CR3 and the other to +100%xp, 30% retreat and then towards Combat 3, so as to unlock the March promotion.
It would be a sort of mop up unit at its lower levels but it could move towards the frontlines without ever wasting turns on healing.
Not sure if it's great on a Mace. It is surely is for OCC Infantries.


Edits in blue.

 

[elitetroops]

Good thoughts! So the decision has to be made t104? Can we have vision on London before that?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Elite :
What do we expect to reveal with the medic scout ?
The city defences ? Would we attack it if it was weak ? That would weaken our for force yet again, wouldn't it ? I don't know if it's worth it.

Scout could just as well go 3N2W to heal HAs 9 and 24.
What's our priority, here ?

e.g. : would we give more time to Stalin to train Spearmen, if we attacked Junker first ?
e.g. : are we hoping for worker captures ? The only move I can see that would make it happen is move HAs 19 and 13 from 2S of Moscow to 2E. That would allow them to reach the tile 2E1N of Junker (or any other tile 2E of it).

I can see capturing workers being (far) superior to capturing Novgorod.
I have a hard time seeing capturing Junker being superior to capturing Novgorod before it pumps more units.


Otherwise, you're right, we've been slacking these last few days and should try to resume play.
Before we solve the English vs Portuguese dilema, we can play as far as t104.

Good thoughts! So the decision has to be made t104? Can we have vision on London before that?

^^
X-Post. Exactly t104 ! Galley North also gets vision over London on that turn

 

[elitetroops]

Not looking at game now, but if I recall correctly, 9 and 24 wouldn't heal to full strength and are better off moving to Moscow this turn, healing the next. Seeing the new city can tell if we should fear a counter attack from there and also maybe we would want to attack it next turn. We have 2 full strength HAs next turn that can't do anything else. City is flatland without cultural defenses.

 

[Rusten]

I agree with ET I think. The junker could be a total freebie. Worth having a look.

But do we know when it was settled? If its just going to get razed upon capture then it's a waste of time.

edit: Warrior (Rusten) could move 2S of Wheatos and take a look at Oporto could he not? City won't become unhappy if he gets back soonish. Not a big deal but it's more information on Eng vs Por for free.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Ok, I could try to play on to t104 (chances are I'd stop earlier) in about 1/2 hour.
Scout & warrior moves are fine.


A few build order questions :

Jerusalem : next build ? Grow on Forge, says Rusten ?
That's fine with me as a hammer storage, waiting for a whip. (Again : no whips once we switch to Caste.)

Munich : it would grow during the GA under Caste. I understand that, all other things equal, it's better to start a GA with larger cities.
I think we need the production right now. But I can understand if we say Missionaries aren't great builds. (A Missionary saves 30H over a Forge... instant pay back.)
The missionaries from Munich are not meant to be countless, they're meant to spread to France.

Yaroslav :
Rusten prefers spreading X-tian there, rather than St Pet.
I think the reason behind the St Pet spread is that we want infrastructure over there. We don't need X-tian everywhere but it's preferable to get it where we build infra. St Pet could easily spread to Moscow.
Yaroslav, otoh, doesn't need much infra (or does it ?) and could be better used going straight into units.

We've lost 5 HAs just this turn, so prioritizing infra/missionaries and even workers over military does incur a real delay.
I think the workers are the top builds, to the extent that they can speed up every other item (improve, farm, chop, boom !).

 

[elitetroops]

St Pete has only one fish in first ring. 2 more and wheat in 2nd. We want to whip a library there asap, with OR bonus.

 

[Rusten]

Perhaps Yaroslavl is better off simply getting workers the next few centuries. Then it won't need a barracks either and not having religion makes 0 difference (no OR boost for workers). Im fine with spreading to St. Pete.