aCK-3 The Cat with the Hat

[IamJohn]

Couple things from looking at the save:

-- We have a CR2 Axe sitting in the backlines in Berlin! If we want to invade he definitely should be in the main stack.

-- Just because Berlin can run specialists doesn't mean it should- both the scientists could be putting out a lot more if they were working the land, especially if we're focusing on hammers to build troops.

--I really think you guys are obsessing way too much over gold. We have 150 gold in the bank, that should either be helping us deficit research, or be sitting there to be used to upgrade troops once we have enough. Also I think we should cancel the wines for 2gp deal with HC, 2gp is definitely not enough compensation for giving the wines to HC, he's getting to grow his cities an extra pop bigger, while we're getting a measly 2gp a turn, yes, we definitely need cash, but 2gp doesn't seem like much too me.

--Now is not the right time to invade imo. Shaka is about to get maces, which will totally crush much of what we have if he has the right mixture of troops. If we can trade things correctly (and have decent luck stealing techs) we really aren't in all that deep of a hole, we just can't let it get deeper. (which is why pushing research levels down doesn't make much sense to me)

--Shaka has a combat 2 sword fortified in just out side our lands on that peninsula, we need to detail a couple axes to take it down once we're ready to declare war.

--We have very little back civ defense, generally just warriors and random chariots, if Shaka decides to boat us we're screwed (particularly once he gets maces).

--I really don't get why we settled antioch where it is instead of the far better site by the capital, not only does it have more long term potential, get us more resources then we already have, it get's less corruption charges since it's closer to the capital.

--I've been running some test games, and I really think stealing tech could work well. From what I've seen we get ~4k ep points against Shaka once we settle the Great Spy in Shaka's city, with each tech cost anywhere between 1k and 2k, and we have a 75% chance or so for a successful tech steal. This could really help if the pRNG is with us.

--We've hit the WFYBTA limit or are about too, let's not overuse our tech trading, or at least save it for people we can hit friendly with (I think that removes the limit with some leaders, correct?). This also is an incentive to declare war too though since peace won't yield as much with out being able to use trade bait.

--Shaka is pleased atm, if we declare he's going to have it out for us for the remainder of his life. We really don't want to declare until we're really ready, and I don't think we really are atm.

--We drowning in costs and you want to build more cities, and declare war? We already have iron, Are you sure we'll be able to make it with out striking?

--I guess I understand if we're trying to mass upgrade troops (but is that all that cost effective compaired with using the money for research?), otherwise I think we really need the push the research up as much as possible. Falling behind isn't a good thing at all imo...




In the end though I think as long as we commit to a path like we did when hitting Germany the first time we'll be okay. Our cities are doing well, as long as we can keep up, either through conquest or research I think we'll do great.

I'll probably play Monday or Tuesday night depending on comments here and RL.

 

[pholtz]

If you decide not to invade now, then we can't invade later without a troop upgrade, and for that we'll need money. If you go this path, you might want to stop making troops except for a couple more cats, as the other troops you make will just have to be upgraded. We'll need lots of cash.

I just did a little tech stealing in a game I'm playing and one thing that might not be apparent, is you can only steal one tech from any one city. So you need to make spies and park them in enemy cities for 5 turns to get the maximum discount. Don't sleep them, it seems that if you sleep them they get discovered easier (anyone know if this is true?).

 

[The Simple Mind]

What exactly do we want Calender for?

We don't need calendar as none of our cities have any hapiness issues. Calendar tended to be the only tech the other civs were willing to trade. I was just checking to see what they wanted. They all wanted tech + gold so the deals were never going to happen.

We have a CR2 Axe sitting in the backlines in Berlin! If we want to invade he definitely should be in the main stack

Ooops on my part.

Just because Berlin can run specialists doesn't mean it should- both the scientists could be putting out a lot more if they were working the land, especially if we're focusing on hammers to build troops.

Was trying to get a great scientist. Unfortunately, a GSpy popped on the final turn. I never fired the scientists.

We have very little back civ defense, generally just warriors and random chariots, if Shaka decides to boat us we're screwed (particularly once he gets maces).

I know they say the computer is more likely to use the navy more with 3.19 but I have not experienced this happening. Have either of you?

I really don't get why we settled antioch where it is instead of the far better site by the capital, not only does it have more long term potential, get us more resources then we already have, it get's less corruption charges since it's closer to the capital.

I said a few time about settling pig / iron location and not being sure where to settle the location south east of the capital. Nobody said they wanted SE of capital settled first.

We drowning in costs and you want to build more cities, and declare war? We already have iron, Are you sure we'll be able to make it with out striking?

I don't want to settle another city, just trying to find out if either of you favoured going for a 7th city and where to locate it.

I don't think we can research our way out of this. We need to steal some techs NOW

I really think stealing tech could work well.

Totally agree. We need to become theives. I think it is just a question of who we steal from. Sury is the tech leader and tends to tech well imo. Shaka has a couple of good military techs that we need, MC + machinery. He will also be getting engineering soon. I'd be tempted to use both spies and get military techs from Shaka and other techs from Sury. How viable this is I'm not sure.

I just did a little tech stealing in a game I'm playing and one thing that might not be apparent, is you can only steal one tech from any one city

I don't think this is correct. I'm sure you can steal as many techs as you can afford from one city. The main drawback from stealing from one city is that the cost of future steals goes up.

 

[IamJohn]

I just did a little tech stealing in a game I'm playing and one thing that might not be apparent, is you can only steal one tech from any one city. So you need to make spies and park them in enemy cities for 5 turns to get the maximum discount. Don't sleep them, it seems that if you sleep them they get discovered easier (anyone know if this is true?).

I'm 99% sure this isn't correct. When I was doing some tests it didn't matter which city you stole from compaired to the last city. Remember though you can only steal one tech at a time, so the spy will need to run from the capital and back to one of shaka's cities to steal the next tech.

 

[The Simple Mind]

We should aim to have 3 or 4 spies in a city at a time so that we have backup spies in case they are discovered and/or mission fails. I'm sure I've gotten two or more techs in a turn from the one city in solo games before but as always I could be mistaken.

Is the mission cost distance element calculated from our borders or from our capital?

If borders, then Shaka spies should try stealing from Nongoma & Bulawayo.
If capital, spies should steal from Nongoma & uMg-unpronouncable.

 

[IamJohn]

I'll run some tests before I start doing anything.

Do we need to build multiple spies? It's not like the points are going to expire once we settle the Great Spy in Zululand. If we can get away with only using 1 spy that'd save us a bunch of turns and hammers.

 

[pholtz]

I think we need multiple spies. We need to catch up pretty quickly I think, and just one spy could be caught, then we would need to wait until a new spy is built. Also to steal the most techs we need to have the spies sit for five turns. One spy would take a very LONG time to steal a tech in this way, then run back to steal another, assuming that he succeeds. If he fails, then we need to build another.

Couple more points:

- I like to keep some gold to be able to respond to events. If you have no gold, then you get no choice in some events.

- Just a final point before you decide to upgrade before attack. You mentioned maces. The idea of attacking now, is to take Shaka's iron city. Once we have that he won't be able to make maces.

 

[The Simple Mind]

I too think we should use multiple spies.

By the time we're ready to begin stealing (prodution + travel + 5 turn wait) we should have civil service (15 turns). Will we be able to steal machinery if we don't have metal casting? The sooner we can get macemen the better.

If money is a problem, there is an option to steal a civ's treasury. I've never used this before so I don't know if it is worthwhile.

Are we just going to use the GSpy against Shaka at the moment?

 

[IamJohn]

I think we need multiple spies. We need to catch up pretty quickly I think, and just one spy could be caught, then we would need to wait until a new spy is built. Also to steal the most techs we need to have the spies sit for five turns. One spy would take a very LONG time to steal a tech in this way, then run back to steal another, assuming that he succeeds. If he fails, then we need to build another.

What do you mean needs to sit there for five turns? Are you talking about the bonus for sitting there for x turns without doing anything? I just tested it, and all the spy needs is not to have moved for it's current turn, other then that it doesn't matter.

- I like to keep some gold to be able to respond to events. If you have no gold, then you get no choice in some events.

Okay, fine with me. You want me to keep at 100? 150?

- Just a final point before you decide to upgrade before attack. You mentioned maces. The idea of attacking now, is to take Shaka's iron city. Once we have that he won't be able to make maces.

That is a good point, and influences me a lot more in favor of going to war. One thing we would want to do though is make sure he can't trade for it from someone else. We definitely need more catapults though before going to war.

 

[pholtz]

What do you mean needs to sit there for five turns? Are you talking about the bonus for sitting there for x turns without doing anything? I just tested it, and all the spy needs is not to have moved for it's current turn, other then that it doesn't matter.

Yes, it costs less in spy points if you wait 5 turns. That means you will, eventually, be able to steal more techs for the same amount of points. We should probably drop a spy on Shaka as it may also help in our war and he has enough techs that we don't. A second spy, if we do so should be dropped on Sury.

That is a good point, and influences me a lot more in favor of going to war. One thing we would want to do though is make sure he can't trade for it from someone else. We definitely need more catapults though before going to war.

I am thinking it would be more "efficient" go to to war now. We have an army, and we will lose some of them, which means we will not have to pay for upgrading them. After a "war" some will have been promoted, those will be the first to be upgraded. If you do decide to go to war, we probably have enough cats to take the iron city, and I'm not sure we should do more. We should be able to take down the culture defense on one turn, and attack on the same or the next turn. Cats used to take down the culture defense should have Barrage I - Accuracy promotions. We only need three of these to take down the defenses of the Iron city. These can then help defend if a stack approaches. If Shaka comes at us with a large stack, it would probably be best NOT to defend from the city, but from the adjacent hill. We would get better defensive bonus there until we keep the city long enough for it to get it's own culture defense. But the objective would be to attack any stack before it attacked us. We would need more cats in the pipeline to replace losses. We should probably have 2 spies, a cat, a spear and an axe being made at first. Spears may become important if he makes elephants or other mounted. If we hold onto the city and manage a defense, then he will run out of anything requiring iron or copper.

I don't think we would need to worry much about an amphibious assault. We will see it coming as he must follow the coast. The front two towns should have at least 2 units each, with some small mobile defense force ready to respond if necessary. On the south side, we'll have two galleys which would help defend against any attack.

Here is a picture of a plan of attack.

The red line is the main attack. The hill for defense marked by the red dot. We should probably make an archer also. The blue attack is one that a reinforcement army might be able to make if things are going well. The green dot at the bottom, the location of the Ivory, which we might be able to pillage later, if things are going well. The thing to remember on defense is that we should have multiple types of units so that we can either take a hit at good odds or attack at good odds if he brings up a few units at a time. If he brings a stack, we have our Barrage I cats attack to decimate the stack.

If we attack now, we need to do it quickly, before he can make more iron units. I don't think we need to worry about another civ trading him iron.

Edit: hmm, just thought that we might want to raze the city. Eventually building another on the red dot.

 

[IamJohn]

The concern if we raise the city is that if we go for a "kill a city or two then make peace" approach is that he'll simply rebuild the cities and we'll be right back where we started from. Do we have the finances/military might to resettle as soon as we're willing to make peace? Also where will ulundi's borders go to once iron city is razed?

 

[pholtz]

Good questions. I think the first goal has to be to deny Shaka of iron. If we are successful in that, we will eventually out power him and will be able to take him down. I am not saying not to continue the attack... but we may need to pause to absorb his counter attack. Then based on our success, try to continue. Hopefully by then we will have stole a few techs and be able to upgrade our troops.

And yes, we cannot make a peace where he can get his iron back. So it might be better to keep his city, or immediately rebuild a city on the hill, so we have our presence after the peace.

Now all of this supposes we attack now. I am not sure this is the best plan, but the window to attack with the current type of troops is closing, if we are going to attack, we need to attack soon, or wait until middle age troops rule, both us and him.

 

[IamJohn]

Shaka's the type of AI that likes to build more and more and more (and more) troops if you give him enough time, so I'm leaning towards hitting him now, particularly if there's a possibility of getting AI to attack.

 

[pholtz]

If you do decide to attack John, and I recommend it, it has to be quick. I would think about 4-5 turns at most before war is declared. So you have to look at what you have, move troops to the front and get started. Any more delay means Shaka will have more. It won't be perfect, but it will have to do.

 

[IamJohn]

Okay sounds good. I'll play and report by around tomorrow night.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Well it looks like we are going to war. Are you planning on settling a spy in Bulawayo to bring down the defenses?

Re culture in Ulundi - remember it has the mids and ToA so it's culture will be at least to the red dot. We need to keep Bulawayo to stop Shaka having iron.

Is it possible to use aesthetics to bribe another civ to attack Shaka 1st? It would help our attack if he had his forces at the other side of his empire.

 

[pholtz]

No need to use a spy, we can bring down the culture in one turn easily with cats. Save the spy points for techs

I don't think we can bribe someone to attack Shaka at the moment, I saw lots of we don't like you enough as excuses.

 

[IamJohn]

Turn 1
If it's war we want, it's war we're getting! I start moving the troops into position, throw a spy into production, and just generally get things moving towards building troops.

Turn 2
Just running around, getting things in order.

Turn 3
Troops are in position. I checked the diplomatic scene and it looks like the only one I could possible get to stop trading was Toku for aesthetics and some money. I thought about it for awhile, and balanced the thought of breaking a monopoly tech against making much more sure that Toku wouldn't declare on us on Shaka's prompting. Remember also that we've hit the WFYBTA stage, so tech trading isn't going to exactly be a big thing for us. In the end after considering it for awhile I decide to take it. Opinions? Was this the right choice do you think?(no one would declare, even HC, who Shaka declared on not that long ago! Some how they're pleased with each other...). Shaka even apparently gave Sury a city, so we have a regular love fest going on, that is, until we decided to throw a spanner into the works,,,,


Turn 4
Shaka tosses a cat at us, does little damage, retreats a cat which we promptly kill, and move our troops next to Nongomo, the southern city next to us.


Turn 5
Shaka moves an impi and two cats next to us, I hit it with a cat which retreats. I hit promote two cats to accuracy, remove defenses, then hit Nongoma with two cats that both retreat (yay for city attack 2!). I hit Nongoma with an axeman who kills the axeman then get free xp for the medic (it was 99.8% odds if I remember right), as it's only a couple xp from it's next level, and then raze Dustball Nongoma.

Turn 6
IBT: Shaka throws a cat at us, it retreats with fairly small damage (but good damage against us), throws an impi at us (which dies), then in interesting logic, throws the second cat at us (which dies). Once we get control we easily kill the surviving cat, and move the troops towards Shaka's iron city, and get reinforced by two more cats.

Turn 7
IBT- Shaka kills a galley, gets a great general. HC is decent enough to start putting Buddhism missionaries in our territory. Of course he starts doing it as soon as we don't care about our relations with Shaka...

We kill shaka's almost dead boat, then kill the random floating sword Shaka had with a horseman on its way to the front. Army moves closer to Iron city.


Turn 8
IBT: Shaka's having fun with spies...

Shaka has stopped moving more troops into iron city, even if we targeted it first it wouldn't have mattered, they'd have gotten there in time.

Our troops move next to Iron city, more troops coming to the front.

Turn 9
Remove defenses from iron city. Great Spy reveals that Shaka has an elephan coming to the front in a small stack.

Turn 10
We get Buddhism in Constantinople.

I infiltrate Iron City with the Great spy:

Decide to go for MC first:

And.... Success! We grab MC and get away cleanly!

And the battle for iron city begins!

-We retreat a CR2 cat at 62% odds, damage 6 units, sacrifice a CR1 cat, damage 5 units. I attack with a CR1 sword, kill a horseman at 86% odds. I attack and retreat with a CR1 cat, then attack with two more CR1 Swords, kill and archer and a horseman. I attack with 2 more axes, and a chariot, killing all but the last unit, which I slay on the field of battle with a horseman!

I am really conflicted over whether or not to keep the city. Shaka currently has his 5 unit stack and a random combat 2 sword that could either punch towards our cities (where it will meet a stack of units I put together), or it could attack our newly captured iron city (renamed from Zulu incomprehensibility to "Iron Will". After considering it for awhile I decide to keep the city. a) we really need to make sure Shaka doesn't get the site from Ulundi's culture, which would happen pretty fast if we razed Iron Will, if we need to recapture, we need to recapture. b) he has a single catapult in his stack, and I stuck two spearman in the city, and the catapult won't be able to reach the city next turn. Since other then an Impi, all the other units are horse type units, this will hopefully discourage him from attacking, since he won't be able to do collateral damage and thereby get a good chance to attack. For better or worse I decide to keep the city.

I leave the city with 2 spearman, two horse, a cat and axeman, which should prevent him from being able to capture the city if he tries next turn. How true that is we'll have to see.

Situation at the end of the turn:

Turn 11
And Shaka decides not to make a play for his iron resource! He really did have a good chance since many of my units in my attacking stack had low health.

I promote 2 cats to barrage I, suicide, bringing down the elphant to 2.1 health. I attack with a C1 Horse Archer, lose at 49%, withdraw at ~50% with another, lose a swordsman at 70% odds, kills his elephant at 92%, get a William the Conquerer (Great General), which I move to Andrenople, since it seems to be pretty hammer heavy.

Turn 12
IBT: Shaka's spy is caught.

Main attacking stack is healing atm, I'm healing and then going to move to merge with the attacking stack as they move to attack Ulundi if it looks like they'll have a chance.

Turn 13
Moving more troops to the front, healing others, etc.


Turn 14
IBT:

I pillage some of Shaka's Fish (no more sushi for you! )

I settle William the Conqueror in Adrianople. (I would have just waited if I saw any other real possibility, but as far as I could tell it was the choice that made the most sense, it was the most hammer heavy city, that was focused on building units. Feel free to tell me if you would have had a better idea. )

Turn 15
IBT: Islam FIDAL

Troops start merging to attack Ulundi.


Turn 16
We're in pretty severe financial trouble again, I sell literature for cash to those who'll take it. Out of curiosity I checked and Shaka's only willing to give up 70g for peace, won't give us techs.

Turn 17
IBT: Shaka hits us with two catapults, we kill the one in his city, the one he moved out of Ulundi then attacked us with retreats, we promptly kill it, and level half Ulundi's defense.

Turn 18
Battle of Ulundi:

I debated waiting a turn for the catapults that had to finish off the defense to be able to attack again, but I didn't want the elephant that's outside Ulundi to get inside, Shaka already has one inside, true, but I felt that the trade off was worth it, and I was concerned that Shaka was going to switch Ulundi's build to another cat or elephant.

And the Battle (despite Shaka managing to crash my computer midway through ) :

Sweet Success!

I keep the city (while really wincing at the issues we're going to have with money when it comes out of revolt...). It does come with a forge and lighthouse, as well as Pyramids and Temple of Artemis, and a great instructor and great priest.

I'm going to end the turn here. If we want to the next person can have some fun killing Shaka, or make peace. We are having real money issues atm, and it's only going to get worse until Shaka's cities start coming online. I considered building settlers to make more cities, but we simply don't have the money in the budget. I was worried we wouldn't have enough units to get through to Shaka, so that was my big emphsis this turn. If we want to we can kill more of Shaka's cities, we probably at least want to hit the city to the east of Ulundi where Shaka's ivory is sitting. We've killed most of his military, so in his cities he generally only has 3 units or so, and only 1 elephant at last look.

Shaka's Current Terms for Peace:

In two turns we'll hopefully get machinery from Shaka via spy, which means this deal actually could make sense once we get the cities we want.

I do have units on auto-move, but they are either military units moving to the mountain range, or workers moving from areas where there's no work to be to the newly conquered Shaka area (ie workers moving to help chop out a courthouse at Iron Will).

Our Empire hasn't changed terribly except for some minor cultural boundary expansion and the addition of former zulu lands:

Current Zulu Lands:

The Situation at Ulundi:

Our Financial Situation (did I mention we're having money issues?)

Tech Situation (will should get quite a bit better if everything pans out...):

-Despite the loss of iron, Shaka has managed to get copper through trade, but it's at the loss of his (only) ivory....

-In retrospect it looks like it would have been better to raze Shaka's Iron city, but I did not expect that we would get ulundi so easily (and it looks like we should be good to raze/capture others of Shaka's cities as well...)

-Tokugawa is getting way too powerful, if we let him run away with the game we're going to be in serious trouble, and the problem is that all the AI's love each other...

Thoughts? Concerns? What could I have done better?

 

[The Simple Mind]

Fantastic news IamJohn. Looks like some good fighting .

Aesthetics was no longer a monopoly tech as HC had it, so the Toku deal was good.

Shaka trading ivory isn't that bad. I'm happy knowing that he wont be building elephants and once we capture uMg.......? he'll no longer be able to produce metal units. We should push to get this city next.

The good thing about Shaka's cities is they are all on flat land. I think we should push to get uMg.....? and Nobamba before agreeing peace. Will we be able to sustain the war machine until then? Or do you think we could grab more cities?

Obviously, science needed to be sacrificed to finance the war. If we steal machinery in two turns, how long before we get civil service and macemen? They would be a real boost to our war efforts.

Re keeping Iron Will - we weren't to know that we'd get Ulundi so easily. Shaka seems to have been a builder this game instead of the war monger that that he normally is. The good news is that once this city is on line and it's borders have popped we get the gold for commerce & happy cap.

I'll look at the save tonight and let you know any other thoughts.

 

[The Simple Mind]

Some more thoughts (still not looked at the save):

We have 178 gold plus hopefully some more war booty to come. Losing only 6 gold / turn at 40% during war is not a worry. When the war is over, a couple of cities can build wealth until our new cities are up to speed.

All the other civs have fuedalism. Is it likely that that Shaka will become somebody's vassal when we agree peace? If so, we want to weaken him as much as possible. As I said in the previous post, getting uMg.....? and Nobamba would be great, but looking at the screenshots again, the gem city kwaD...? would be an absolutely fanatastic commerce city to have. Nearly every tile is riverside.

Getting the 'Mids is good news. Looking at the diplo screen with HC we don't a +ve for civic choice. I take it he's no longer in HR? If so, we could swap to police state to help with our continued war effort. Will need to check what this will cost us.

TSM