7 grams - DG with AI Armies

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Thanks for the support; omg it had the pyramids, now that means a lot.

Thanks for all input, I handled it the way I usually handle games, but I am unexperienced in all-out warmongering and the WW/flip handling tips were great. But, since this is a war game, why not building the pentagon? That part escapes me.

M60A3TTS, I usually play DG, but like I said I'm more prudent about wars.

Might I ask you guys to re-play the turns, anyways ?

 

[Wotan]

The Pentagon lets you load a fourth unit into an army. Normally you are just not interested in loading more than 2 (if you have access to Caravels) or 3 on a continent you intend to stay on or play a pangea. So I cannot remember ever building it in anything but 20k games and even then it is a bit low value at 1 culture.

In this game we can only load a single unit into an army. But the value of the army is increased, by how much I do not know but I am not sure it is worth it. I did not look at this issue before commenting on it thus my standard objection to build it.

I sort of understand your position on building. I used to develop every (almost) city as far as possible even building courthouses etc. in far away places. Not anymore... They usually end up producing wealth (PTW) or science/gold (C3C) through specialists. Or prebuilds for rushing units.

You can shave a lot of turns off a game by using every asset to the limit of their usefulness.

 

[grahamiam]

well, Beorn El gets the of the game sucks we lost pyramids, as population is power, especially with the C3C overpowered specialists.

and no, no one is kicking you off the team. we all make mistakes, we all have bad sets from time-to-time, none of us can anticipate everything. most important thing is to learn and move on. and NO, you may not replay the turns. we play and live with what we have (no reloads), that's the only way to get better

so, on that note: got it

Roster:
grahamiam -> UP
Kaiser Berger -> on deck
M60A3TTS
Mailman
Wotan
Beorn-eL-Feared

 

[grahamiam]

Preflight check: Switch Thebes from Pentagon to Lib (due in 1T); Machu Pichu from Harbor to temple; Memphis has a Cathedral , switch the Lib to Knight; Switch Coriwhatever to temple from harbor; Hurry the Lib in Elephantine for 32g; Switch Huamanga to temple; Byblos works a whale instead of an irrigated plain; Switch El-Armana to knight; MM Abydos off desert and onto irrigated river grass; switch Chalcedon to temple; switch Ollantaytambo to settler and hire a taxman; MM Giza and El-Amarna to shave 3T off the ‘duct build in Giza.

Seems we are not into tax starving this game. With our low culture, this could be a problem.
Switch Toledo from settler to worker, then taxstarve; Santigo gets taxstarved as well; taxstarve Murcia, switch to worker (also wake troops and get them out of there as a flip would be a disaster); taxstarve Zaragoza and switch to a temple (lose 1 shield); taxstarve Pamplona and rush the settler for 16g; taxstarve Vitoria; taxstarve Santander and switch to temple

Set sliders to 60/30, Chems in 10T, +16gpt; set to 70/20, fix 1 town (Heraclea) and we get Chems in 8T, +22gpt

AI’s are hopelessly stupid Only the Mayan have decent research atm, and it’s invested in optional techs.

Reset preferences to grahamiam friendly settings, and we’re ready for a sleepy set

Whoops, crap, notice we only have 3 galleys so switch Byblos and Nicea to galleys (from Lib and settler, respectively).

T1: 760AD Found Lisht with the Spainish settler (near the wines). Not the best thing to do, but it’s nice to have wines -> temple

Maya now up Chems (ours is due in 6T)

IBT: Spanish complete Bach’s in Seville How nice of them.

T2: 770AD Spain has Chems now. Murcia now has a low enough population to garrison and prevent a flip. Toledo only has a reg Crusader (not much of a loss if it flips)

T3: 780AD Ottomans, Mayan, and Spain up Banking; Mayan and Spain up Chems

T4: 790AD nada

IBT: Ottomans destroy the Hittites; Toledo flips to Spain, lose 1 3/3 Crusader

T5: 800AD nada

IBT: Chems; Sell Chems + 23g to Ottos for Banking -> Metal (10T, -6gpt)

T6: 810AD

T7: 820AD Edfu is founded very aggressively towards the Spanish (helps lower flip risk in Murcia)

T8: 830AD Mayan up Metal

T9: 840AD nada

T10: 850AD Asyut should be a pretty good launching spot. 8 turns till peace is done with Spain, and I think we have enough in the N to take care of them. All new knights can go to Asyut. We are up to 6 caravels, producing more. Should have a good fleet very soon.

Metal in 4T, will have to MM the lux slider in 2 or 3T though as we have 130g but research @ -38gpt

Mass amount of workers near the Spanish border, chopping temples and such to reduce flip risks. Santigo and Edifu need the temples, Murcia and Lisht have enough garrison to ensure 0% flip chance.

Roster:
grahamiam
Kaiser Berger -> UP
M60A3TTS -> on deck
Mailman
Wotan
Beorn-eL-Feared

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Thanks for the point-out'ing of flaws and such, though you should be less nice with the noob or the noob will start having a hint of a thought that he didn't do completely utterly bad - which he must not

About taxstarving and garrissonning: I know population ratio counts against us in flip risks, and garrison for us. However, the way I always heard of it, "MP" in flip-risking cities never seemed to do much. Do they do better when the lesser the population? And I take it the actual population count interferes with the flip chance, not just resistance and population proportions, is that right?

Thanks again and again.

 

[grahamiam]

number of foreign citizens is directly related to flip chance. i will try to post a link to anarres flip calc so you can get an idea of the chance for, say 7 foreign citizens vs 1. other major factors for flip percentage are: ratio of the distance from enemy capital vs your capitol, number of MP's, if tiles worked would be under enemy control with border expansion, etc. number one thing I do with high flip cities is to decide to keep or raze. if I keep, then I taxstarve (or sci starve) to pop 1. If the pop is very high, you can also rush workers or settlers once the town is quelled.

Also, the other advantage of tax starving is gold. the extra gpt allowed me to run very high research (70%) for chems while still making money. this helped later in the set when I had to deficit research metal. we should still get metal in 4T if the next player MM's at turn 2 or 3, then on to MT and our might cav's

look for the link in a couple of minutes

edit: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=53157

 

[M60A3TTS]

About taxstarving and garrissonning: I know population ratio counts against us in flip risks, and garrison for us. However, the way I always heard of it, "MP" in flip-risking cities never seemed to do much. Do they do better when the lesser the population? And I take it the actual population count interferes with the flip chance, not just resistance and population proportions, is that right?

It's a combination of factors, but suffice to say the smaller the population, the lesser the garrison required. Flips are harder to control when you start capturing metropolises. That's one of the beauties of communism. If you break the resistance on the first turn where the metropolis cannot flip, in the following turn(s) you rush buy some very expensive improvement(s) which kills off a lot of the population. Or if you aren't communist after all defenders are redlined if you have artillery, just shell the population down to size.

I think we should send a couple advance recon caravels out to get a better look at the area we'll be landing at. Mongols look to be one a one-tiler. So who are we taking on after Spain: Maya or Ottomans? It appears we won't stop Osman from getting some of his uber-cav in the field.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

So, best bet to fight against flip likeliness is Beaker-starve to 1, getting the income and increasing garrisson effect that way. Crystal clear. Thanks.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Looks good. Got it.

 

[MailMan]

Also, the other advantage of tax starving is gold. the extra gpt allowed me to run very high research (70%) for chems while still making money.

It is usually better to use scientists on C3C (3 beakers) than taxmen (2 gold) when doing reaserch

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

My message is basically in my sig; I will keep lurking, might play a set or two through the forced break. Keep me posted about the stuff you assume I might be ignorant about, I appreciate that a lot.

Not like a bye-bye, but something close anyways.

 

[grahamiam]

KB is past his 72hrs. let's give him till sunday, then M60 can play it.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

I knew I was running abit long on this. Sorry for that. Playing it now.

 

[Kaiser_Berger]

Preturn- We look good.

IT- zzz

T1 860

Not much. Explore a bit and worker actions.

IT- zzz

T2 870

Much of same. Lowering science saves our treasury and loses no time on research.

IT- zzz

T3 880

Lower research to 10%. Not much else.

IT- We learn Metal, go for Military Tradition in 10 turns.

T4 890

Same stuff.

IT- zzz

T5 900

Nothing new.

IT- zzz

T6 910

Nothing.

IT- zzz

T7 920

Peace treaty with Spain cancled. We move in and take Toledo and Asturias.

IT- Spain counters with two longbows that we fend off. We still have WW built up from the last war and suffer a couple riots.

T8 930

Stupid Spain has muskets in Seville, one of the armies bites it attacking. I decide to let our forces converge before attacking again. I also land a settler and two knights on the other continent to form an invasion beachhead.

IT- Asturias flips back.

T9 940

We retake Asturias. Seville eats damn near every knight we have available, and we capture it with the last hp left on our last knight army. Harrowing stuff. Muskets on hills suck. At least we have Bachs as a prize now.

Foreign Shore is founded to be our beachhead.

IT- zzz

T10 950

Our troops heal up.



Summary

Our troops are healing up after the vicious battle at Seville. Once they are healed, hopefully we can quickly finish Spain off. We have a good deal of knights loaded up, but with MT due in 4 turns we'll want to shut off research and upgrade them all before we head across the ocean.

 

[M60A3TTS]

I've got it. Just in a couple turns and will finish tonight. Spain is out and Osman feels it would be better if we were off the planet. So now we have some positive WW.

 

[M60A3TTS]

The save at 1050AD

Pre-turn- Our infrastructure is severely lacking and this is going to be a concern before too long. We need some of the basic stuff, even in the core, so I decide to change over some military builds. We have 12 caravels and 10 more in production, probably overkill in that area.

Change Thebes from knight to Heroic Epic.
Rename Corihuayrachina- Cori.
Rename Ollantaytambo- Olla
Sell the raxes in Huamanga, Cori and Santiago for 10 gold. They’re 90% corrupt and I doubt we’ll complete a military unit in those towns in the near future.

Santiago harbor>worker. Totally corrupt. I mentioned it before, the place is next to a volcano. Don’t waste shields for improvements on a town that could be burned out at any time.

7 workers are improving tiles that are not being worked in Asyut. They’ll be done soon, but we should be irrigating anything near totally corrupt towns. The town is not growing either. Totally corrupt, building another rax. Change to settler.


Hieraconpolis, Byblios, Vilcabamba caravel>aqueduct.
Pi-Ramses knight>aqueduct
Giza, Adrianople, Caesarea, El Amarna knight>market
Elephantine, Nicea caravel>market
Heraclea knight>courthouse
Heliopolis musket>aqueduct
Abydos, Memphis knight>bank
Tiwanaku knight>granary
Zaragosa, Murcia, Olla caravel>granary
Constantinople wealth>aqueduct

Empty all the loaded caravels, send the knights to Heraclea which has a rax for upgrade in 4.

IBT- Osman wants us out. Ok. And then he immediately declares on us. Lose the two knights to 2 ancient cav and we lose our toehold on the other continent with 2 gold. Get positive war weariness. Vitcos starts aqueduct. Maya starts Shakes.

Turn 1 (960AD)- Get embassy with Maya. Why should we have all the fun with Osman? Furs to Maya for military alliance. Smoke is now polite and wants to go to a ball game.

Elite knight attacks vet musket at Valencia and we get MGL. Attack with 4 other knights, we take no losses and capture the town and 17 gold. Create another army, but leave it empty to put in a cav. Drop lux tax to 20%.

Turn 2 (970AD)- Attack Salamanca with our knights defended by some muskets and capture it. The Spanish are eliminated. Salamanca is pop 9, it will have to starve to 8 before there is enough food to go around. Start a temple. Move troops into a couple towns to squash the remaining resistance. I can bring lux to zero by adding a taxman in Adrianople. That puts us at 81 gpt. MT in 2.

IBT- Have a galley in Mayan waters, he wants us out, I agree to RoP.

Turn 3 (980AD) Sell off our one cat. Worker actions.

IBT- MT>physics in 10. Add a couple taxment to the rolls to put us at 91 gpt. Get Mil Academy notice. Buto temple>harbor.

Turn 4 (990AD) Upgrade some knights to cav.

IBT- Heraclea court>market

Turn 5 (1000AD) Load 2 caravels with cav.

IBT- Tiwanaku granary>bank. Caesarea market>bank . Smyrna settler>aqueduct. Edfu temple>library.

Turn 6 (1010AD) Bring the 2 caravels across the pond, load a third.

IBT- Thebes HE>university. Adrianople market>bank. Byblios aqueduct>granary. El Amarna market> aqueduct. Andahuyalas market>temple.

Turn 7 (1020AD) Load up a couple armies onto caravels. Unload 6 cav at the Mayan town of Karhuyuk.

IBT- Mayans capture Foreign Shores from Ottomans. Cuzco court>library. Giza market>granary.

Turn 8(1030AD) Attack Hubishna with 3 cav, lose 1 and defeat pike and spear. We take the town with a cat. Move 5 cav into the town. A check of the power graph shows the Ottomans are getting trounced.

IBT- Memphis bank> granary. Vilcabamba aqueduct>granary. Abydos bank>university.

Turn 9 (1040AD) Lux rate up to 10%.

IBT- Pi Ramses aqueduct>bank. Four Mayan caravels passing by Buto.

Turn 10 (1050AD) Bring some of our remaining cav south. Not sure if the Mayans are going to move against us. Four of our cav attack a pike defended Harran and capture it with a catapult. Move up the troops, land another army by Karhuyuk. Have a settler in a galley that can land next turn.

Post-turn- I left one army loaded in a caravel by Asyut in case the Mayans try to attack us. I pretty much stuck to infrastructure building throughout to get things improved from a cash and growth standpoint. We have 4 cav in Hubishna, not sure if they should be moved out of the town in case of flip. Next up can make the call on that.

 

[MailMan]

I got it...

 

[MailMan]

preturn:
things look OK.
switch granery to cav in Memphis (size 10 with almost no place to grow_
switch humanga from library to settler

1. 1060AD
kill 4 ottman's unit [4-0]
upgrade 5 knights

IBT - ottoman galley sunk [5-0]

2. 1070AD
capture Dzibil... and kill some stray units [10-0]
lower research since Physics next turn.
setup to take 2 cities next turn.
upgrade one more knight

IBT - Inca complete Magellan's

3. 1080AD
take Ugarit and Aleppo [16-0] got a MGL in the process.
turn the MGL to a army and joind the victorious unit.
kill few more units [18-0]
bought maps for our maps and 160g.

IBT - mongols want education. I say - no way, they say OK.
bab carvel took 2hp from galley and sunk [19-0].

4. 1090AD
capture Emat + treb [22-0]
capture Tarsus + 3 slaves [25-0]. got silks
capture Ankuwa [27-0]

capture 2 slaves.

IBT - ottoman land a knight on the south island.

5. 1100AD
took the rude kgnight [28-0]
capture Kadesh [33-0]
capture Hattusha [36-0]
took stray ottoman knight [37-0]

the Maya are now in anarchy. (The ottomans are still in republic)

6 1110AD
maya are now monarchy
rush temple in Harran.

7 1120AD
the maya block my wayto the ottomans core.

8 1030AD
found Busiris

9 1040AD
maya now has cavs
found Kahun
rush temple in Dzi...

IBT - ottomans bow and knight failed to kill our cavs [39-0]
Learn magnetism which connect our silks.

10 1150AD
raze Izmit. [42-0] gain 4 workers + 2 trebs.

Sumery:
caputure 8 cities and razed one.
the maya are rolling all over the ottomans.
The RNG was on my side.

note to next player:
Some of the units did not move this turn.
Our RoP with the maya is about to expire in 2 turns. I suggest rearrange to war against them ASAP.
I suggest stop researching after railroads (2 techs from now).

The SAVE

Our new holdings:

 

[Wotan]

OK, got it. Will try to play tonight. Might take a couple of sessions though since our position is quite large ATM so I may have to wait until tomorrow to finish it.

 

[grahamiam]

no rush wotan, i'm up in another tonight