Clive1 - Monarch (Training ?) game

[scoutsout]

And what? I don't get a classification?

I'm workin' on it. EOC2 was a blast... didn't meant to slight you at all... I just have a "slightly" better feel for Bede's play than yours at this point.

Aside from comparing notes on a couple of GsOTM, a few more SGs than you and I have finished together - I followed Bede in Bede1. I got to see the results of his city-management first hand. I remember one turnset that I did a lot of MMing (a few turns AFTER Bede had handed it off). We were trying to get a bunch of courts an police stations built before going commie (and also trying to finish Hoover, Sufferage, and fight a war... )

When I got that game back we were in Communism, and the cities were a sight to see. That empire was fine-tuned like you would not believe. It was profound. Cities were producing exactly the number of shields needed to produce the units in the queue in the optimal number of turns...very little waste. Probably one of the biggest factors in setting us up to smack the AI around like you would not believe. If you thought "losing Hannibal's capitol" in EOC2 was amazing/amusing... don't read the endgame in Bede1.

Here's one example of just how outrageous it got: I sacked Thebes in pre-flight on my last turnset.

 

[Sir Clive]

Amended roster -

mtgfreak - Up next
Sir Clive - In the wings
Bede -
Viper275 -
MSTK -
Admiral Kutzov - Just played

Nice to see we seem to be sitting within the 24hr gotit / 48 hr play schedule comfortably . No doubt it will get a little more difficult once we go to war !

 

[MSTK]

Looks like good ol' mtg is next. We finally made our first loop!

EDIT: It looks like 15 turns worth of 3MC should be able to take out India pretty easily.

 

[scoutsout]

Sorry for the double post, but I noted that somebody posted a turnlog while I was reminiscing past conquests with Bede and Sesn...

Thoughts: looking at the log and the screenie, I suspect one or two more tile improvements are needed at Hattusas to get the settler pump working on auto-pilot.

Are you guys familiar with the mechanics of micromanaging cities, or do you want me to post a link to that block of instruction from GK2?

@Admiral: Good call on the Rax in Aleppo, and sending a settler pair for a grab at the wines was a good call. I follow the logic of spears over warriors, but don't overlook the value of Archers. The defensive bombard of an archer is powerful in conquests, and gives you something to counter with.

I like spears a little more than temples... but not much. I'll let Sesn tell you how much I like temples. He and I have ... discussed... that with someone in another SG we're in together.

Something to consider: If you guys have iron, upgrade a few warriors and send 'em barb hunting for gold and promotion. (Yes, even the conscript). Take a vet and send him to that city up there by India.

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Thoughts: looking at the log and the screenie, I suspect one or two more tile improvements are needed at Hattusas to get the settler pump working on auto-pilot.

I'm not sure that's accurate. The pump was working, but it qwas interrupted by a spear build or something. I think it just needs to be synchronized and then it can keep pumping.

 

[MSTK]

I think 15 turns worth of 3MC is able to wipe out India...but I'm not a good warmongerer, so I'm not exactly sure.
India seems to only have a few cities, and from what we've seen, they're not defended by more than 2 spearmen. A force of about 7-10 3MC and one or two artillery should be able to take them off the map...and eliminate culture flipping risk on Ugarit.

??? What do you think?

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

@sesn - poly was 26 turns - everything else was less (i think).

@sir clive - I only have time for a single game at a time, but I'd also like to play in the next

@scout - agree on archers, but i was scared to build in case a stack of 10 Japanese swords appeared on the horizon. always like to upgrade warriors to swords!

 

[mtgfreak]

im rather busy today, so if clive wants to go now, or just wait until tomorrow

 

[Sir Clive]

It's 19-00 UK time , I'm just watching the end of the 3rd round of The Open golf and then I'm out for the evening so I'll probably be too late / drunk to play tonight

So mtgfreak - you go ahead whenever you are ready . I'll play whenever you are done .

 

[MSTK]

Nobody listens to me

 

[Bede]

Nicely done, Admiral.

Re Optimal City Number (OCN):
It goes up 15% from Standard to Large for Non-commercial civs and ~50% for Commercial.

 

[scoutsout]

@MSTK: I'm not sure quite what you mean by 15 turns of 3MC's. India as a potential target makes sense, but you'll need to take a good look at the terrain. Those marshes will be impenetrable to 3MCs. If Ghandi is good enough to build some roads through the marshes, you may be able to launch from Ugarit and sweep SE through India. Towards Japan, you've got some hills and mountains to contend with, though it looks like there are some gaps you could work through. Key to warmongering is putting the pieces in place and in motion long before you actually engage the enemy.

Waht have you got in mind for a scheme of maneuver?

 

[Bede]

@MSTK,
Patience, grasshopper. It looks like you got caught in the post crossfire.

Now for a little philosophy:
Quoth scout:
"Key to warmongering is putting the pieces in place and in motion long before you actually engage the enemy."

That is definitely the key to warfare, but you also need the lock: What is the objective?

Right now we control resources and luxuries sufficient unto our needs. We also have useful trading partners. We have the cash to do research. There is lots of productive land to settle. scout can probably find the appropriate quotation from the Chinese Master that addresses the issue (he the man), but let me put it this way:

Bede says "He that knows his purpose in war has already won the first battle"

 

[Sir Clive]

If we are going to war with Japan , would it make sense to settle on one of the grassland tiles 3-4 east of Osaka before going to war ? Silk Forests / OK Corral don't seem to have enough natural protection and it would be nice if we could arrange troops so that we could funnell all potential attackers away from our core. If we took the square 2E, 1S, 1E from Osaka we have a single grassland square to the west which our 3MCs could pass through. We should be able to park a few untis on the mountains around that area which will get the 100% defensive bonus from the terrain.
Whatever we do I think we still need to build some more military before we consider war with Japan.

Are we going to declare on them , or do we have any way of forcing them to declare on us ? At the moment they don't have any troops in our territory as far as I can see so we can't try to provoke them into delaring by asking them to leave our territory.

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Since you're still in despotism, there's really no need to make them declare on you. Declaringon them is fine, just so long as it is done honorably.

I think the first thing that must be done is to reach a consensus on who you are going to attack. After that, the specific logistics can be hammered out.

Bede - what is the goal, you ask? To have one less rival, of course!

 

[MSTK]

This is a simple war plan. Is it okay?

EDIT: Tactical Analysis
The first thing I tought of was to go Calcuttta -> Madras -> Delhi -> Bombay in a linear fashion with 3-Man Chariots. However, Madras is in a sticky situation. There is absolutely no way to get there unless you buld a road, and by then, India would have expanded too much for an easy conquest.
And so, because we have one of the only sources of Iron, we should build up an efficient army of Swordsmen, as well. The Swordsmen could go with the Chariots in the Bombay -> Delhi chain, and then go ahead while the 3MC stop. However, that is very inneficient, requiring way too many individual steps. So, I thought, "What if we split them up, and move in from both ends?"
So, the Swordsmen would go Calcuttta -> Madras -> Delhi -> Bombay while the 3MC go Bombay -> Delhi -> Madras -> Calcutta. Since the 3MC can't go beyond Delhi, they would wait until the Swordsmen come to Delhi, and then attack together for better chances of victory.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

No GA in Despotism. Never.
My 5c.

 

[MSTK]

No GA in Despotism. Never.
My 5c.

Oh yeah. Good point.

But it's the risk you take when you are getting such an early UU.

 

[Bede]

The war plan is sound, IMHO (but scout, DocT and Sesn are better judges than I) but let's look at the economics and the time to market.

I know swords cost 30 shields, or 60 gold pieces per to upgrade warriors, What's the cost of the Chariot?

Just for dissussion's sake call it 30, then we are looking at 360 shields worth of production, or 240 shields and 360g, or some combination of that. Our top three producers are now making about 12 shields per turn distributed 5, 4, 3. So we have 30 turns of production and that would require taking Hattusas and Tarsus off-line from settler/worker production. In that time frame the two towns could build ~7 settlers and 15 workers.

What I'm getting at here is that the gain from taking out India could be less than the cost in terms of lost production, future towns, and workers. Right now India has four cities we can see, and by the time we are ready to go to war with them willl have a few more, but not as many as we could produce and make productive in the same time frame.

So war with India, definitely, and Japan as well. But of the three closest I have a greater concern with Russia. They are scientific and expansionist, IIRC, and therefore represent a greater long term threat than either India or Japan.

My conclusion: prepare for war but concentrate now on having more, and more productive, towns than the neighbors. Then when you do go to war it will be short, sharp and decisive.

A detail: towns with barracks but no connection to the iron should build warriors rather than spear. You can build warriors in a 2:1 ratio to spears, they upgrade to swordsmen, and two warriors in a garrison is better than a single spear. And at this stage with lots of land available yet, the AI won't attack a defended town with a settler escort of a single spear. When they start escorting them with two swordsmen you can start worrying.

 

[scoutsout]

@Bede: The issues and concerns you raise are excellent. MSTK was answering a question that I asked regarding scheme of maneuver, accounting for the fact that you can't use the 3MCs in marshland. I think he did pretty good in that little exercise.

@Team: Bede is right, it's a little early to seriously prepare for war. When the time (and the opponent) is more clear, it will be time for seriously planning. I suspect that the direction and magnitude in which Russia and/or India and/or Japan expand will have a lot to do with who you guys target first.