AG8 - Let's try Sid

[anarres]

All the turns look good, but my only problem is with the huge numbers of units we have in our core, away from all borders. Everyone else here seems to like it so I won't change anything in my turns.

Something we should at least be considering now we have multiple armies is moving our Palace a little with a leader to reduce overall corruption and to make some more cities productive. This could even be done by hand if needed.

 

[Aggie]

I agree with moving the palace, but I can;t suggest another site, since I'm busy with AG3. Regarding troops in our core: I think we are all afraid of a sneak attack of Sumeria and having a unit in every city should prevent it.

 

[LKendter]

I think we are all afraid of a sneak attack of Sumeria and having a unit in every city should prevent it.
I don't blame you at all. I still remeber a game the turn I left one city empty, and that turn came the demands. Empty a city, and my ally walking through my territory turned on me. I reload out of curiosity, and I kept units in that city - no war. I continued on with the game in war mode, but it tought me alot.

 

[anarres]

I am sure you can understand why anecdotal evidence isn't totally convincing. The fact no-one has ever proven this theory with tests is why I am still skeptical.

One piece of anecdotal evidence: A couple of years ago when Civ3 had only recently come out I had a flip in a city with over 40 units in it. I reloaded the turn before and took all the units out, and the city didn't flip. This mistakenly made me believe (for some time) that moving units out a city made the flip less likely, when in actual fact I had done something else to change the RNG.

I'm not saying you are all wrong, just that I have seen nothing yet to convince me that a unit in every city stops or even reduces the chance of sneak attacks.

 

[anarres]

Here is the map from turn 1, it is pretty scary! The Byzantines have some serious numbers of units around...

 

[Aggie]

True, but we have the advantage of 5 armies that won't be attacked by the AI

 

[Greebley]

I don't personally think Sumeria will spend 5-6 turns marching units to the center of our empire for a lone empty city when they have a war with the nearby Byz to deal with, but thats me. Leaving a border city empty on the other hand would be not smart.

I guess I am saying it is worth using those units and leaving empty cities if it means we don't lose bangalore. I was cities empty on the short term.

 

[anarres]

Preturn: I turn lux down to 30% and only need a couple more entertainers.

AI: Rome comes begging for peace...

We lose a Knight and 2 undefended Trebuchets to the Byzantines near Bangalore. I can only assume the Trubuchets were bait, as I had no chance to protect them from the injured Byzantine Spear.

The Byzantines also build a new city (Amorium) just NE of Constantinople.


Turn 1 (810AD): I use the Trebuchets in Bangalore to take 2HP from the Pike/Longbow combo threatening our 5 workers. Now I use a Knight to take the 1HP Spear just S of Bangalore.

Amorium is a concern now - I send the elite Knight from New Allegheny to take it back, but it is defended by 2 spears. I send in a 5HP army from Constantinople and take the last spear. It gets auto-razed, which is extremely annoying now roads get pillaged when you raze cities.

I redline the units around New Grand River with the Trebuchets and Cats, then finish them off with Knights, and even a Musket. There is just a 2HP Pike left on the mountian now. Next turn we will have over 10 units on the mountain to deal with.

[hmm] I'm not sure when it happened, but lots of our fully corrupt cities have mines instead of irrigation. I can understand core cities needing their share of mined grass, but cities with 80%+ corruption have no need for it at all, apart from when they are huge and can then get 2 or 3 spt with mined grass. This is serious weed IMO, I can see no need for the mines at all. This is not the kind of thing you can normally get away with on Sid...

Constantinople is a tough one - I feel we have stretched a little too far too fast, and most of my first turns will have to be very defensive. I move the Trebuchet out and attack, then I move the army in to the city before attacking (to avoid attacking over the river). The army manages 3 wins, getting a promotion and losing 1 HP.

Mauch Chuck changes from Cathedral to Harbour. I have strong feelings about Cathedrals being useless unless you are either religous, or your cities are going to grow past size 12 (which ours are not). The most important thing to remember is that it can throw your lux balancing right out unless all cities at a similar corruption and size also get them, which is simple not feasable in wartime.


AI: ****. The peace with the Incas is due for renewal and I wasn't ready for it. I have to take a straigt peace, nothing extra for us.


These turns are taking much longer than I expected - our forces are spread very thin and are not able to attack in numbers anywhere. Every unit has tough choices to make, like whether to recapture a trebuchet or defend against an oncoming longbow.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I wasn't playing in top form yesterday and was probably too quick on the attack on Constantanople. The 3 armies used up a good portion of our forces. When they headed south to take out the city, the Byzantines turned up with a whole bunch of troops. I have noticed the AI does this. They will target weak spots. When our cities were stronger than the Sumerian ones, they targetted Sumeria. When they became weaker, suddenly there were lots of units.

Thinking on it we also have too many towns to defend effectively as well. It may be worth it to abandon some, though we don't want to lose our dyes doing so as we have a trade for Dyes (actually rushing a harbor in New Allegheny is probably a very good idea and something I should have done right away - that way if we lose the road we still keep the dyes)

So sorry about leaving you such a thin defense. You can bring the armies back around when they heal, but the first few turns might be a bit dicey.

I agree on the irrigation of corrupt cities. A good bit might be unchanged from whatever India laid out. We certainly have enough workers for doing so. I was more concentrating on getting rid of the that jungle (the workers though probably also attracted the Byzantines).

 

[Nad]

I started a lot of the mining in the corrupt areas...even 3rd ring cities can get 2 or 3spt at sizes 7+, so I think it was worth doing to get stuff built quicker. Also, if we move our palace that area will become much more useful.

I also think we should build cathedrals in our core...we're going to be at war for most of the rest of the game so we may as well invest in the happiness buildings now to get the most benefit out of them. Unless we plan on lux rates around 50% (which will happen when we get max war weariness, as in AG1) then cathedrals are needed.

 

[anarres]

Well, I would prefer to work out why we are hitting level 4 WW instead of building Cathedrals that cost 2gpt each.

This should not be what we accept as normal - it really isn't necessary in any game, unless it's an AW game.

Regarding the mining of corrupt cities - if they can get 2 spt at size 7 then we need to get to size 7 first. Several cities are size 3/4 and get 2 food surplus and 1 spt and they are fully mined...

 

[anarres]

Turn 2 (820AD): New Grand River's stack of Trebuchets makes easy work of a stack 2, taking all 3 defenders to 1HP and allowing the MW army (now on 12HP) to take 3 longbows out.

Rush a barracks in New Allegheny, and a couple of settlers in high food corrupt cities.


AI: Nada.


Turn 3 (830AD): Constantinople is easy to hold at the moment since the armies outside are not getting attacked, and we can pick off the slow units moving in to take it back, but it is holding up 3 of our armies, and we really can't afford that. Also we are not anywhere close to being able to send in lots of units to quell resistance.

I sell all improvements in Constantinople and gift it to the Incas, since we will eventually want it and the wonders it holds.

As usual I deal with minor infringements on our Byzantine border.


AI: Oh well. I saw Incan ships off the coast and figured they would land in Constantinople, but in true AI fashion they land NEXT to the city instead, allowing the Byzantines to take it back.


Turn 4 (840AD): I build New Cattaraugus just NE of Constantinople and disband a worker there so I can rush a barracks this turn.

(see first pic)

As you can see, we have a good front we can defend here, and with a little skill and cunning we can make good headway against Byzantium.

The Trebuchet stack is doing an amazing job - bombard units really excel at defense against slow units. The Byzantine stack you can see near New Grand River gets almost completely annihilated.

New Allegheny gets a Harbour, and several cities with corruption in the 50 to 80% range get courthouses.


AI: Rome lands 6 units next to Bangalore. Inca start JS Bachs. Sumerians start Shakespeare's.


Turn 5 (850AD): The armies are fully healed and our units are grouped again. It only took me 5 turns.

(see second pic)

I take Nicomedia, in the end for no loss at all.

This is where I am ending it for the day. It has been extremely tough (one of the toughest wars I have ever fought), because our units are spread extremely thin, and because we went for Constantinople far too early.

The other issues I see in this game are the wasteful use of workers and wasteful builds. This is much more "lax" than I would ever play in one of my games, and I am very thankful that the AI seem to be pretty useless in their application of their shield bonus.

I'm not saying I wouldn't have units on the coast, but I certainly wouldn't normally have units in non-border cities.

I certainly wouldn't ever build Cathedrals if my cities are not going over size 12 (even then I would only build if lux's were impossible to find). The issue with WW is crazy in my mind. This is the second SG I've been in recently where we have level 4 WW in Republic after just 20 turns or so of fighting. I can't show where the WW we got was unecessary (since I didn't play the turns), but I've played quite a few games in my time and have never hit level 4 WW. I just can't see how it can happen if you are careful.

Sorry if this seems like a bit of a rant, but after spending an hour looking at the save when I got it I was very suprised by how badly we have managed certain aspects of our empire (and this isn't just about the last 10 turns). Maybe it's just the amount of time I spend on each turn, but at Sid level I think we owe it to the game to spend at least 30 mins a turn (I spend at least an hour a turn, often much more). Am I expecting too much? I certainly know from reading about all of you that everyone in this SG is very capable at this level of the game, so I don't think it is unreasonable we play to our abilities for a Sid level game.

 

[anarres]

Sutpid damn upload only shows 1 pic - here is 850AD...

 

[Greebley]

I find cathedrals useful as well. I really don't think avoiding level 4 WW is possible. Certainly you can't make alliances, your wars would have to be very short.

I think in a certain sense we have a conflict in playing styles. I would have continued the attack with the armies probably taken out some more cities; especially if you are not going to try to hold constantanople. The more cities we can take out before rifles the better, IMHO. Instead we spent our 10 turns retreating back to where were several turns ago. Not how I would have played it myself - though I see the reason behind it - Certainly a slow steady advance with a solid front line is a winning strategy, but the so is the pillage and destroy - The 3 armies really didn't need any backup to do a lot of damage to Byzantium.

 

[Nad]

Well played so far, annares .

To address some points: I agree we should not have small cities running full mines, it was mostly larger cities that I was beginning to mine for.

I'm not sure what you mean though, when you say we should not be building cathedrals costing 2gpt each? Surely that is excellent value for 3 content faces? Cathedrals are far better than lux rates at this stage of the game, since one shift in the lux rate can mean the equivalent of 50-60gpt loss of revenue, due to extra happiness where not needed and the effect of multipying buildings on the tax rate.

Greebley: with regards to the attack, there are many ways to play this. I would have played it like annares has played it, concentrating on avoiding losses, securing supply lines, ensuring defence is in place before pushing forward. In my 10 turns of war I only razed one city; for sure I could have pushed for more, but that would have left us stretched, struggling to keep what we had. In your turn we were much more succesful in taking cities, which is great, but that means we then have to spend some turns consolidating, which annares has done. For example, I am very relieved that we gave Constantinople away, even if the Byzantines recaptured it. I think that was a push too far, because the only way we had to defend it properly was to pile unikts into the city and defend, but that is a big risk due to the flip chance...ideally we want to take Constantinople when we are in a position to push past it immediately, so it does not remain part of the front line, instead it can be left empty and starved down.

In the next 10 turns I think if we just hold what we have we'll be doing fine. Sure, rifles are a pain, but without rails (no iron) and cavalry (no saltpeter), the Byzantines are doomed to lose. On the face of it, we may think that we will have lower casualties before the Byzantines get rifles, but if we push topo far and have to fight attritional battles just to keep cities that may lead to higher casulaties than advancing slowly and facing rifles.

 

[Greebley]

Agreed there are many ways to play. I was mostly trying to explain the logic behind the state of the empire when I ended my turn. I am not always good at explanations.

For constantanople, my original plan was to raze it rather than keep it. It is only when I captured it I realized it had a wonder we really didn't want to raze (Leo). I did like Annares solution to the problem of what to do about this. If I had more foresight I would have realized it was likely to have wonders and checked which ones first.

In a nutshell, I was aiming for 3 armies razing Byzantine cities, with 2 armies and most of our units holding back the Byantines. Part of the problem was that making 3 armies took away a good number of knights and left our defense thinner than we would like.

Maybe once we shore up our defense we can send the armies out again. I figure that 2 armies can take out a major town every 4 turns, so 4 armies could destroy a core city every other turn until rifles appear.

 

[Aggie]

Some good remarks here I agree with everyone that Greebley pushed things a bit far in the war. But otoh it's a major blow for the Byzantines to lose their capital and valuable wonders.

I tend to agree that cathedrals are very useful. I haven't had wars in Sid before, but I wonder why it is poor play when our War Wearniss is level 3 or 4. I assume that we are going to fight the Byzantines until they are gone? Which adds up?

 

[Greebley]

The thing that annoys me about WW is the fact that you get a point toward WW whenever you defend irreguardless of whether you win or lose. That is one thing that makes it very difficult to avoid WW (the other annoying part being the 15 points you get when cities flip, but at least that makes sense)

What I don't understand is how we got to OVER 100% WW (level 5?). That means we got WW from someone other than the Byzantines (since WW adds). How? We haven't really been attacked by Rome or Portugal?

 

[Aggie]

@anarres, this is not to try to speed things up, but are you going to play before Tuesday night or after? I'd appreciate a turnlog and save at Tuesday night at the latest, because I then will be able to play it, giving it the time it deserves. But I will have to be skipped once or twice anyway, so it's no big deal.

PS. I will lurk and comment, but I will have internet access only every other day. I may even be able to look at the sves, because I'm taking my laptop with me.

 

[Nad]

What I don't understand is how we got to OVER 100% WW (level 5?). That means we got WW from someone other than the Byzantines (since WW adds). How? We haven't really been attacked by Rome or Portugal?

I had to defend against 2 Portuguese units. First, the ancient cavalry that started the war with a sneak attack (we had a spear defedning and lost that combat), and secondly, one knight that was dropped off, which attacked a musket and retreated, and we killed it the next turn. I don't know exactly how war weariness is calculated, but that shouldn't be too significant, surely?