CBob01 AWM Training Day Game

[Tribute]

I am against the horses. Grabbing workers is unimportant; they'll run away into cities and stay there. That makes high attack units (which are single move) more helpful if you even wanted them. The pillaging thing is also bad if you want to advance quickly. Besides, you're capturing the cities, right? And even if you don't, the worker turns wasted when you resettle it are too large. Pillaging is probably only for resource denial and slow conquering of towns by seige. (not what you're doing)

The point? Horses should be built now if you want to upgrade them with chivalry and wait that long too.

 

[CommandoBob]

Thanks, Tribute.

I wasn't sure about the horse build. I just felt that we lacked something in our military by not having more of them. And the only real use I could see for them was grabbing workers before the workers scurried into their protecting cities. Which would also expose the horses to counterattack from heavier units, which they would probably lose, and so we've spent time and resources to gain slave labor that we will get anyway when we capture that protecting city. Which I didn't think through before I began the horse.

The idea of making horses now to upgrade to Knights doesn't sound that appealing. I think our plans are to head to Military Tradition to get our Unique Unit, the Cossack. By that time this land should be our land ('from Yakkity Yakutsk to the Yankee islands') and we should be ready to invade somebody, and have a good solid core, with a lot of cities spread all over Greater Russia.

 

[Phaedo]

When I looked at the save, we were only at 10% lux. I don't think we need to worry too much about MP duty.

The flip risk think always confuses me. The truth is, I have had flips and they irk me to no end but they are relatively rare in my games. Even when CAII says 2-3% it seems to be high risk but rarely happens. Is that really a percentage out fo 100? A 7% chance for anything isn't too high. If I understand it, it means we have a 93% chance of keeping the city with no flip. I'll take that

@Aabra: wastage? isn't the noun "waste" good eough for you? I'm just joking of course. I make horrendous gramatical and typing mistakes in all my posts

 

[Aabraxan]

When I looked at the save, we were only at 10% lux. I don't think we need to worry too much about MP duty.

The flip risk think always confuses me. The truth is, I have had flips and they irk me to no end but they are relatively rare in my games. Even when CAII says 2-3% it seems to be high risk but rarely happens. Is that really a percentage out fo 100? A 7% chance for anything isn't too high. If I understand it, it means we have a 93% chance of keeping the city with no flip. I'll take that

@Aabra: wastage? isn't the noun "waste" good eough for you? I'm just joking of course. I make horrendous gramatical and typing mistakes in all my posts

Well, that wasn't quite why I thought anyone would point and laugh at silly ol' me, but it would explain my confusion over the spelling, I guess . . .

And Phaedo, I think that a percentage is most likely "out of a hundred." But maybe it's just me.

 

[Norton II]

6 cities captured, 2 founded, and another mace army; nice! At this rate, I might not have much to do when my set rolls around. I'll look at the save a little later, but it looks like the AIs on our continent are finished. Even if the Germans can field a few muskets, our armies and cats/trebs should have no problems from here on out. It's just a matter of keeping enough pikes coming to hold what we take and free up our attackers for attacking. I really don't think we need a whole lot more maces right now; our armies are doing most of the attacking anyway, as well they should.

A few notes:
1. I just looked at the save, and it appears the Babs have reconnected their iron. We need to get a sword army down there to fix that, assuming we can get it there before we conquer them. Speaking of which, it wouldn't hurt to get a settler down south to replace Nineveh, which will be autorazed upon capture (size 1, no border expansion; it's kinda funny that the Babs, the kings of cuture, appear not to have built any temples or libraries anywhere; too busy fighting us).
2. I see we're making a settler in Hattusha; why not give H&S one of the cows and let it make settlers after the one in Hattusha completes? Hattusha's got plenty of food but low shield output, while H&S looks like a potential 4-turn pump.
3. Even with a clown, 1 citizen in Bremen will still be unhappy. We should make another geek or move a pike there from Lava Town.
4. We can sell some walls in our interior cities, including Rowdy Rostov and Hattusha, which would no longer benefit from them in any case.

Well, enough nitpicking for now. Unless everyone on the other continent is a whole age ahead of us (not likely), I think we've essentially won already. For that matter, only one medieval wonder has been built, and that was on our continent. Should we try to build Leo's? It would take 43 turns in Mosaic Moscow if we switched now, 40 if we moved 1 worker from a mined grassland to the forest. The only problem is that the Aztecs or somebody might have started it already; also, aside from our cats and trebs, I don't think we'll be doing much upgrading anyway.

 

[TimBentley]

The flip risk think always confuses me. The truth is, I have had flips and they irk me to no end but they are relatively rare in my games. Even when CAII says 2-3% it seems to be high risk but rarely happens. Is that really a percentage out fo 100? A 7% chance for anything isn't too high. If I understand it, it means we have a 93% chance of keeping the city with no flip. I'll take that

lurker's comment: The flip chance is for each turn, so for example, a city with a 3% flip chance has about a 14% chance of flipping within 5 turns (of course, that's assuming the flip chance doesn't decrease).

 

[CommandoBob]

A few notes:
1. I just looked at the save, and it appears the Babs have reconnected their iron. We need to get a sword army down there to fix that, assuming we can get it there before we conquer them. Speaking of which, it wouldn't hurt to get a settler down south to replace Nineveh, which will be autorazed upon capture (size 1, no border expansion; it's kinda funny that the Babs, the kings of cuture, appear not to have built any temples or libraries anywhere; too busy fighting us).

We have the Second Mace Army just outside of Ellipi, which can pillage that resource just fine, as soon as we get some more Maces headed south.

2. I see we're making a settler in Hattusha; why not give H&S one of the cows and let it make settlers after the one in Hattusha completes? Hattusha's got plenty of food but low shield output, while H&S looks like a potential 4-turn pump.

Sounds good.

3. Even with a clown, 1 citizen in Bremen will still be unhappy. We should make another geek or move a pike there from Lava Town.

Well, Bremen is not connected to any of our luxuries right now. It has roads to Lava Town, but we have no road to Lava Town (it finishes this IBT). Once it is connected I think it will settle down.

4. We can sell some walls in our interior cities, including Rowdy Rostov and Hattusha, which would no longer benefit from them in any case.

Yes, lets do that. And re-examine the current builds for walls. Those were just meant to be pre-builds to something better anyway.

Should we try to build Leo's?

Could I have built Leonardo's Workshop instead of an Army?



Yep, we learned Invention in 990 AD and got MGL Zukhov in 1030 AD.



Wait, this is C3C, not PTW or Vanilla.

Whew.

Uh, now that my panic is over (I keep forgetting that MGL cannot rush a Great Wonder in C3C!), I think we need somehing to cascade to should we decide to build Leo's. In AW, I don't know if our advisors would know when someone has begun a great work, especially if we have no contact with them.

I like the idea since it would help us out (and keep it out of anyone else's hands). Now as for when and where...Rowdy Rostov or Iron Hill might be faster builds than Mosiac Moscow.

 

[Norton II]

We have the Second Mace Army just outside of Ellipi, which can pillage that resource just fine, as soon as we get some more Maces headed south.

Yeah, now that I look at it, our sword army is a little far away. Ordinarily, I'd rather wait to bring it down, but the Babs could build a good number of pikes and maces in the meantime.

Well, Bremen is not connected to any of our luxuries right now. It has roads to Lava Town, but we have no road to Lava Town (it finishes this IBT). Once it is connected I think it will settle down.

Forgot about that. Sorry.

Uh, now that my panic is over (I keep forgetting that MGL cannot rush a Great Wonder in C3C!), I think we need somehing to cascade to should we decide to build Leo's. In AW, I don't know if our advisors would know when someone has begun a great work, especially if we have no contact with them.

I like the idea since it would help us out (and keep it out of anyone else's hands). Now as for when and where...Rowdy Rostov or Iron Hill might be faster builds than Mosiac Moscow.

The next available great wonder will probably be the Sistine Chapel, unfortunately. Theology's a little ways off yet, and we have little use for it anyway since I'm assuming we don't plan to build any cathedrals. The next wonder we might actually want to build is Copernicus' Observatory, which is even farther off. Also, Mosaic Moscow has the higest shield output at the moment, and appears to have the highest potential shield output as well. So if we do want to build Leo's, keeping in mind that we have nothing to fall back on except for the HE or the Pentagon (and that Cossacks are 46 turns away at our current rate of research, so no GA anytime soon), Mosaic Moscow is the place to build it.
That being said, I think we should go for it immediately. We have plenty of units and plenty of other cities that can build units, we've built the necessary improvements in MM, and the Pentagon would be useful if somebody beats us to Leo's.

Also, you mentioned keeping saltpeter unconnected until we discover MT. I agree; pikes are much more cost-effective than muskets, and we don't even need defenders that badly anymore.

 

[CommandoBob]

and that Cossacks are 46 turns away at our current rate of research

Food for Thought
For right now, let's assume that we are 50 turns away from learning Military Tradition.

What do we plan to do in the meantime?

What do we need to get the best use of our Cossacks?

My thoughts are in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

In 50 turns:

• Destroy Germany (20-30 turns; 12 cities)
• Destroy Babylon (30-40 turns; 10 cities)
• Resettle Greater Russia (50 turns)
• Build 20 more cities (currently we have 31 cities)
• Aiming for 75 cities on this continent (31 + 20 + 12 + 10 = 73)
• 75 cities, if all at size 6, allows for a total military of around 200
• 75 cities allows 18 armies (18 x 4 = 72).
• Discover our next victim(s)
• Build about 20 boats to get us across the waters and pack a wallop when we land.

To get the most out of our Cossacks:

• Build Leonardo's Workshop.
• Build a bunch of Horses
• - to upgrade to Cossack.
• Build a bunch of Pikes
• - to upgrade to Muskets/Riflemen,
• - to protect our Cossacks.
• Capture the Great Library
• - after having set our research to zero,
• - so we don't learn Education.
• Don't connect Saltpeter for many, many turns.
• Build the Military Academy.
• Build the Pentagon.

 

[Bucephalus]

lurker's comment: The flip chance is for each turn, so for example, a city with a 3% flip chance has about a 14% chance of flipping within 5 turns (of course, that's assuming the flip chance doesn't decrease).

lurker's comment:

I'm not sure that is right, Tim. If you follow your logic to it's conclusion, you would be more likely to flip with each subsequent turn, finally guarenteeing to do so after 33 turns (100%).

As I understand it, you will have a flip risk of three percent each turn, meaning that statistically it should flip within 33 turns, but it is no more likely to do so on turn 32 than it would be on turn 1.

It's like flipping a coin; if you get 50 heads in a row, it's still only 50% that the next toss will be tails.

 

[Norton II]

@CommandoBob: The Great Library's on the other continent, so unless there's a safe passage between the continents for galleys, we'd pretty much have to research education (prereq for astronomy) to be able to capture it, thus defeating the purpose. Also, we might not be that far behind in tech; after all, nobody on the other continent has built any medieval wonders yet.
As for cossacks, we probably could conquer our continent before we get them. Do we want to, though? Maybe we could leave one enemy city intact, finish research on MT, build a few cossacks, and kick off our GA then. As long as nobody from the other continent shows up, we'll be able to catch up on infrastructure and beeline to either ToG or magnetism, possibly building one of the science wonders along the way.

 

[Salarakas]

lurker's comment: I'm not sure that is right, Tim.

lurker's comment: Actually, Tim was right on that.

The city has a flip probability of 3% every turn. Or, to put it in another way, a 97% probability of not flipping each turn. After 5 turns the probability of not having flipped is 0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97=85.87%. This translates to a roughly 14% probability of having flipped, just like Tim said.

Of course, the number won't be 3% for long when you starve the town to size 1 etc.

 

[Bucephalus]

lurker's comment: Actually, Tim was right on that.

The city has a flip probability of 3% every turn. Or, to put it in another way, a 97% probability of not flipping each turn. After 5 turns the probability of not having flipped is 0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97=85.87%. This translates to a roughly 14% probability of having flipped, just like Tim said.

Of course, the number won't be 3% for long when you starve the town to size 1 etc.

lurker's comment: Maths isn't my strong point, so I can't give a cohesive counter-arguement to that, and I'll take it on faith that you're both right; it just feels wrong to me.

Edit: On further reflection, I think my dull old brain understands it now. Thanks.

 

[Aabraxan]

First things first. I say finish capturing our continent first. Then go make contact. Then we'll know where we are in the tech race. Owning our entire continent would sure be nice before having to declare war again.

Also, I don't much care if we get the Great Library in time for it to be useful to us. Sure, we can ship cossacks over to the other continent in galleys, two at a time, but even caravels would make for a much faster, and safer, invasion.

 

[CivActuary]

lurker's comment: Actually, Tim was right on that.

The city has a flip probability of 3% every turn. Or, to put it in another way, a 97% probability of not flipping each turn. After 5 turns the probability of not having flipped is 0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97=85.87%. This translates to a roughly 14% probability of having flipped, just like Tim said.

Of course, the number won't be 3% for long when you starve the town to size 1 etc.

You and Tim make an old actuary proud, Salarakas!


I would agree with keeping saltpeter unhooked after we find it (or UNhooking it, if we somehow already have it). Pikes are cheaper for the crowd control we will end up using them for - until we have to defend an invasion force and need better defenders.

An interesting idea - to trigger our GA just as we are done clearing the continent, so we can use the 20 turns to get our infrastructure up to speed. My typical MO is to use the GA to churn out massive amounts of units to further my domination, but if we have no one to fight?

 

[Phaedo]

lurker's comment: Actually, Tim was right on that.

The city has a flip probability of 3% every turn. Or, to put it in another way, a 97% probability of not flipping each turn. After 5 turns the probability of not having flipped is 0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97*0.97=85.87%. This translates to a roughly 14% probability of having flipped, just like Tim said.

Of course, the number won't be 3% for long when you starve the town to size 1 etc.

You and Tim make an old actuary proud, Salarakas!

Really!?! Granted I did probablity over 15 years ago and my math skills are so weak now it's laughable but if it was pure probablitily wouldn't the 3% stay the same each turn as Buce said? If your reasoning is right, then casinos would always lose money at no limit roulette table wouldn't they? If you could explain the reasoning behind it to me in a PM I'd greatly appreciate it.

I would agree with keeping saltpeter unhooked after we find it (or UNhooking it, if we somehow already have it). Pikes are cheaper for the crowd control we will end up using them for - until we have to defend an invasion force and need better defenders.

I like this idea. I also like connecting SP on demand to upgrade the trebs when we have some coin and disconnecting it after. We may not even need cannon after we get cossacks of course. But to be truthful, I'm considering disconnecting a city to build warriors for MP duty. 10 MPs in a set is more cost effective than pikes and we souldn't have to worry about the Sp issue at all.

An interesting idea - to trigger our GA just as we are done clearing the continent, so we can use the 20 turns to get our infrastructure up to speed. My typical MO is to use the GA to churn out massive amounts of units to further my domination, but if we have no one to fight?

This idea I like A LOT!!!!! 20 turns of super production will go a long way to improve our infrastructure and get us ahead in the tech race. I've almost given up on going Commie (much to my great disappointment) but we might have a shot at it with a productive GA. I just want to see how it works. The GA is great for unit production too but using it for infrastructure and research gives longer benefit. I think we should leave the Babs with the 1CC if we are going to do it.

On a different note, I'm in favour of more razing and replacing. We are still struggling with unit support and we need a ton more workers. Slaves are great. It means more settlre builds but that doesn't bother me. I should get to the set tomorrow.

I do plan to change all the wall builds and I don't expect to build many more defensive units.

A point on the pentagon: we couldn't transport 4 unit armies until we get transports. It doesn't mean it wouldn't be worthwhile but lets just remember that if we end up building it. A stranded 4-unit cossack army is just a waste except for the shields we could get for disbanding it in a city. On that note, can we disband one of the sword armies after we don't need them to help build a great wonder?

And Phaedo, I think that a percentage is most likely "out of a hundred." But maybe it's just me.

Consider me well put in my place

 

[CivActuary]

On that note, can we disband one of the sword armies after we don't need them to help build a great wonder?

IIRC I don't think you can use shields from either disbanded units or forest chops toward great wonders, but I could be wrong.

 

[Aabraxan]

No, you're correct, CivActuary. You can't use shields from disbanded units or chops towards GWs. We could, however, use the shields towards a marketplace or other large build, if we needed one. An army returns 100 shields on disbanding, IIRC.

That said, I don't like disbanding armies. Even a sword army could make a great stand-alone pillager on the other continent.

And Phaedo's right about transports & the Pentagon. We could mount an invasion that way, but it would require: (a) get or build an army; (b) build the units for the army; (c) ship the army and the units to the other continent; and then (d) load up the army. It can be done, but even galleons would go a long way towards making a faster, easier invasion. Granted that'd mean skipping out on the Great Library, but we may be OK with that, depending on what contact with the other continent reveals.

 

[Norton II]

IIRC I don't think you can use shields from either disbanded units or forest chops toward great wonders, but I could be wrong.

You're right; chops and disbanding only count toward units or improvements, and if you chop a forest or disband a unit to speed up production, you can't switch whatever you're building to a wonder.

A point on the pentagon: we couldn't transport 4 unit armies until we get transports. It doesn't mean it wouldn't be worthwhile but lets just remember that if we end up building it. A stranded 4-unit cossack army is just a waste except for the shields we could get for disbanding it in a city. On that note, can we disband one of the sword armies after we don't need them to help build a great wonder?

True, but what we could do is transport a 3-unit army in a galleon, then add a fourth unit once we land.

Edit: Looks like Aabraxan beat me to it on most of that.

 

[Aabraxan]

True, but what we could do is transport a 3-unit army in a galleon, then add a fourth unit once we land.

Not if we want to get any use out of the GLib. Galleons come after Education.