Geezers WOTM03

[markh]

I go with your objection whipping the forge, but I still disagree. This city is a fast grower and it cries for occasional whipping. It is at pop 6. Whipping takes 2 pop away, giving us one pop back in the interturn. We could easily mm this city for less food growing it back during the unhappy times. Well, we could speed it up as we are about to get the gems online at Arbela + the whipped forge we could easily grow it in a few turns working cottages and mines.

Anyhow here it goes :

mm to work more cottages and grow Vienne and Tolosa faster, construction down to 18 turns

Trade MC to Cyrus for currency and 70 gold ; construction goes down to 15 turns
Trade MC to Izzy for calendar and 200 gold
Trade Monarchy to Shaka for 250 gold and fish for rice

move units into position to dow Cyrus next turn

IBT : nothing

1) 50AD : change Bibactre to a gallic

dow Cyrus

spear kills the immortal on the copper mine at 90%
1st gallic loses to archer in arbela at 75%
2nd gallic kills archer in arbela at 75%
3rd gallic takes the city and 124 gold with it

our second attack forces approach Pasargadae defended by an axe, spear and archer

IBT : lose the scouting warrior in the East to a Persian archer

Cyrus is so kind to move out the archer from Pasargadae, so the city is defended by an axe and spear, but city defense goes up to 50% as he whipped some walls

2) 65AD : Attacking odds for the first attacker are 1.1%, decide to move in more units

IBT : As there are no cultural boundaries around Arbela the barbs decide to settle a city at the ivory East of it

3) 80AD : Decide to attack now

1st gallic dies, but takes the defending axe down to 2.9 HP
2nd gallic dies attacking the spear at 27% odds
axe dies attacking the axe at 58% odds
3rd gallic dies at 85% odds against the axe
4th gallic kills the spear at 97%
axe kills the defending axe and takes the city for 121 gold

we have a spear, axe and archer as defense in Pasargadae. Hope the counter is not too bad

Cyrus is now lacking metals, so all he can build are archers and immortals. Persepolis is built on a hill and has walls, so it will take a lot of units to take that city. I do not see that happening without cats.

IBT : just the Persian archer that killed our scouting warrior appears at Arbela

Ramesses completes The Great Library in Thebes

4) 95AD : Thank you RNG. a gallic dies attacking that archer at 86% odds
A spear kills it finally

war weariness sets in, but the gems at Arbela will get online next IBT

IBT : gems and copper online

5) 110AD : just moving units

IBT : Ramesses demands we cancel our deals with Ragnar, but we decline

Vienne : gallic -> axe
Bibactre : gallic -> continues forge

6) 125AD : more troops movement

IBT : nothing

7) 140AD : not much

IBT : Bibactre : forge -> gallic

8) 155AD : gallic kills archer in Gordium at 75%
axe kills the spear in Godium and we raze the city for 60 gold

IBT : nothing

9) 170AD : move two gallics towards the barb city founded on the ivory East of Arbela

whip a dun at Pasargadae as it became unhappy and starving
start a worker in Bibactre as it is at the happy limit and we badly need workers

IBT : Pasargadae : dun -> barracks

still no sign of a Persian counter

10) 185AD : nothing

I left the gallics at the barb city active, so the next player can decide whether to attack or not. Odds are at 75%

Construction comes in next IBT, but almost all AIs have it already, so it has limited trade value.

Cyrus would give us monotheism for peace. I would consider it and build an army and go for Ramesses as I do not see us taking Persepolis without cats. He is heading away and needs some whacking.

We should take the barb city to get ivory online. With construction next turn we can immediately build phants after the city is connected.

We desperately need workers. We have just one on the mainland. That is much too few.

After construction COL should be an immediate goal to be able to expand and keep our economy going. We still have some cash, but this will go down quickly if we do not pay attention.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

but city defense goes up to 50% as he whipped some walls

Just our luck.

I thought the idea was to keep Arbela and raze Pasargadae? Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

 

[The-Hawk]

I will be tied up until the weekend. Harbourboy, you wanna go next? Maybe we can swap spots?

 

[markh]

I thought the idea was to keep Arbela and raze Pasargadae? Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.

At an earlier stage I would have considered to raze it, but we had no settler ready to put it elsewhere and it is in a very good defensive position. Anybody from the South has to go that way or the long way around the mountains. It had two buildings in it. I also whipped a dun and the barracks will finish soon, too, so it will be a good production city. Settling a new city and growing it would have taken quite long. This city is already online and we can build units there already in the next turnset.

BTW I forgot to hire an engineer in Bibactre now that we have a forge there. The next player should change that.

 

[markh]

Cyrus is not metalless. Just saw that he has another resource E of Persepolis.

 

[Harbourboy]

I think we need to stop again for more discussion here. We have made some interesting progress but it could all unravel if we don't have a good plan for what to do next.

 

[erikthecelt]

2 workers, build cats and spears, take Thebes

 

[Sam_Yeager]

2 workers, build cats and spears, take Thebes

Wars on two fronts rule.

Seriously though I don't think this is realistic with our current infrastructure. I'll have a look at the save and post my thoughts/queries later.

 

[erikthecelt]

Wars on two fronts rule.

Seriously though I don't think this is realistic with our current infrastructure. I'll have a look at the save and post my thoughts/queries later.

Cyrus will give us peace and Mono. The 2 workers can throw up plantations to fix the econony and we really do need to whack the Leader!

We have a pot of gold from markh's turn.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Cyrus will give us peace and Mono. The 2 workers can throw up plantations to fix the econony and we really do need to whack the Leader!

We have a pot of gold from markh's turn.

Given that Cyrus is pleased with Ramesses what's the chance that Cyrus will try and backstab us? How much of our current force will we need to leave behind to protect our cities? Ramesses has Feudalism so we'll be facing LBs. In fact Pi-Ramesses already has a LB. Speaking of which do we bypass Pi and leave a force to deal with pillagers or take/raze Pi and then move on to Thebes? I'm not necessarily against the idea of attacking Ramesses next but I would have preferred to weaken Cyrus rather more than we have so far. The GLH in Persepolis would be nice to have as well.

By infrastructure I mostly meant the number of productive cities we have to pump out military. Cats are 60 and even in Bibracte they will take 4 turns to build whilst Vienne will take 6 turns.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I've had a look at the save and I've been thinking a bit more about erik's suggestion of attacking Thebes.

Assuming no whipping I estimate that to build 4 cats and 2 more gallics will take around 12 turns. By the time we get them to the front we're getting on for 15 - 17 turns. As a result we might as well take peace with Cyrus for the time being.

Going into the war with Cyrus the aim was to take Arbela and Persepolis which would significantly weaken Cyrus. We've taken Arbela and as it happens Pasargadae as well. However since we haven't taken Persepolis I don't think we've particularly weakened Cyrus. He's lost a bit of a happiness and we've probably cut his maintenance costs but that's it. He still has the GL and his capital.

Erik has suggested taking Thebes. It's a nice idea and we would get the Glib, Oracle and ToA. It would significantly weaken Ramesses and help us. Downsides as I see it are:

• Because Cyrus is pleased with Ramesses we'll have to leave a decent military behind in case Cyrus decides to backstab us.
• I think we'll need between 25 - 30 turns, quite possibly more, to build the necessary military and get to Thebes.
• Ramesses will have plenty of warning that we're coming after Thebes so the defence will be beefier.
• We're taking on another opponent before we've weakened the first.

As it stands I'm against the idea of attacking Thebes until we achieve our initial objective of significantly weakening Cyrus. The other point is that Persepolis will give us another productive city with which to build military. Unless Pasargadae gets religion or builds a library it won't be able to work the fish so it won't be able to grow too much.

The other unresolved question is what to do with Olmec. Do we want to take it for the elephants or just raze it? If we keep Olmec it is likely to be under cultural pressure from Hannibal. It will certainly take a while to run a road towards it whilst adding to our maintenance costs. I must admit that i'm not that keen on keeping it although I can see the benefit of having the grey beasts.

EDIT: I suspect we would probably find it useful to take Susa as well.

 

[erikthecelt]

Cyrus would give us monotheism for peace. I would consider it and build an army and go for Ramesses as I do not see us taking Persepolis without cats. He is heading away and needs some whacking.
We desperately need workers. We have just one on the mainland. That is much too few.

Not my idea Sam, it belongs to markh.

 

[The-Hawk]

Took a quick look. My comments:

- Nice progress on Cyrus.
- I think the timing is wrong for Ramasses. I think his LB's are too much... better to wait for maces and cats.
- I am a big proponent of following through on initial military success. Cyrus' power curve is equal to ours. If we make peace with him now, he simply rebuilds. Let's press on and knock him back to the dark ages. One turn from cats, let's build a couple and go get Persepolis and Susa. I think both are good cities to keep. After capturing both, then Cyrus is forever a non-factor. That's the time for peace.
- Might want to send several gallics down to Persepolis while the cats are being built. We can plant them on Persepolis' mine tiles and stunt his ability to build defense. Fortify two gallics per mine, might as well take advantage of their hills defense. Maybe Cyrus will throw some units away trying to dislodge them.
-I would not build a barracks in Pasargadea. Next build can be an archer (while constr finishes). We can use the archer to squat in one of our soon-to-be captured cities. Following turn, when construction comes in, Pasargadae can spam some cats (maybe forever, let it be a cat specialist city). As we will use them for bombardment and maybe the odd suicide, we don't need barracks before we build them. We want to attack Persepolis asap, speed is way more important than a promotion on the cats.
- Come to think of it, same for Arbela. I'm not a fan of a dun in Arbela, although I have to admit I've never built walls (or a castle) in my life so maybe I'm missing something. Arbela could take a mine tile from Bibracte (which has one to spare) and also build unpromoted cats.
- The barbie city is tempting, but I would leave it for now. It gives us phants, but otherwise is not a great city with all the jungle. I'd rather have Persepolis and Susa, a third city may be too much for our economy.
- I'd follow constr with CoL. Gets us courthouses to fuel our military ambitions. Also is directly on the path to maces. We already have MC, so maces are not too far in the future. With maces/cats and two more good cities, I think we might not need to worry too much about research. Spam military, kill AIs...

/edit: one other thought... the worker build in Bibracte is a good idea, we definitely need a couple more. However, I would stop after this one and go back to military for a bit. I'll bet we will capture a worker or three in Persepolis. If not, then we will need to build some more.

 

[Harbourboy]

The arguments for further action on Cyrus seem more compelling to me than the arguments for going after Ramesses now. So long as we have a clear deadline on when to turn our mighty attention to the Egyptian as we do not want to be facing riflemen or something equally nasty by the time we get around to him.

 

[markh]

I'm fine with continuing on Cyrus.

I would not change Pasargadae to an archer now. After construction comes in I would change it to a cat, so the overflow from the whip goes into that unit. An archer can be built after that.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Not my idea Sam, it belongs to markh.

Whoops. Sorry erik, somehow I managed to miss that bit in mark's report.

 

[erikthecelt]

Taking Susa and Persopolis will not be enough, Persopolis will have culture trouble with whatever city become the new capital. I think we should finish him off. The 2 gallics by Olmec + the extra troops in Pasagarde should be able to take Susa while we are waiting for the cats.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

The 2 gallics by Olmec + the extra troops in Pasagarde should be able to take Susa while we are waiting for the cats.

As long as it doesn't delay the attack on Persepolis. Of course it also means we would have to stay at war with Cyrus rather than making peace.

Btw I shall be Civless from about mid-Sunday until Friday evening next week so I may need to skip depending on when The-Hawk plays his turn.

 

[Harbourboy]

I see a signup thread for the next SGOTM will be up soon. Are we up for that? What will do with this practice game in the meantime? I guess the real one won't start for a while anyway.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I see a signup thread for the next SGOTM will be up soon. Are we up for that? What will do with this practice game in the meantime? I guess the real one won't start for a while anyway.

I'm certainly up for the next SGOTM. Although AlanH was nagged into starting the signup thread I notice that he carefully didn't commit to any sort of timescale for when the game will start. I don't expect the SGOTM to start for at least another two weeks, if not longer, so that leaves plenty of time to progress this practice game.