GR12 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[Northern Pike]

We have remarkable freedom of action at the moment, though that may change, since we've seen very little from the Aztecs, Carthaginians, and Iroquois. Our immediate objectives should be to raze Nippur and the Bab silks city, and to raze Khurasan, which exerts a lot of cultural pressure on our new front line. After that we can think of pushing southeast to the incense near Frankfurt, or crushing the Arabs in a pincer movement.

Our need for settlers is so extreme that I've been treating most of our cities below size seven as settler sources, micromanaging for population growth and rushing settlers as soon as the towns reach size three. In some cases we have towns about to accumulate thirty shields a few turns before they reach size three; now that we have Sun Tzu, these builds can be changed to pikemen if that's what the next player wants. Our unit costs are down to 86 gpt.

The situation in Babylonia, with two resisting Wonder towns, is irritating but not serious, since we're under no pressure there. We'll probably have to put up with a few more flips, and make the most of the safe interturns to reduce resistance. Right now we're in a safe interturn (again ) in Babylon, so we've got a lot of units there, but next turn we should cut the garrison to one.

I'm inclined to stay with minimum research until the GLib becomes obsolete, though I don't have a strong opinion on the point. We have enough research capacity now that we could discover Gunpowder in 22 turns without a deficit, or in eleven by spending most of our nest egg.

We have a settler in position to found a city at site 1 in the screenshot next turn. Then we can safely build a road along the coast, and found a fill-in town at site 2.

Malice is set up as a two-turn worker pump, and I think we should let it run indefinitely. The more we expand, the more we need workers. The problem with our northern workers was more their location than their numbers.

Three of our settlers still have their movement, so the next player can send them where he sees fit. Some of our armies have movement too, but IMO they should heal where they are.

 

[Northern Pike]

The southeast:

The wine country:

Babylonia:

 

[vmxa]

I have been along in favor of letting the GLB do what it can for us and not researching till it bellies up.

Free barracks, yeah. That is huge for us. 90 second animations nice. MGL's will come, so no sweat on that one.

I think you are correct in waiting for more lux to cut the slider.

 

[ThERat]

great progress NP. Expanding rapidly is key in this game. With 40 cities we are still desperate for more. More cities = less unit support + more armies + more scientists. Babs have education already and we might be required to start research very soon. I would try and nurture the outlying cites to become nice science farms.

We need to take out that Island city of the babs since we want to eliminate them soonest to get rid of the flip risks.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

30-1 ratio , 2 luxes nested, 2 luxes spotted and around our fair share of elites with 1/16. There ain't nothing I can add.

As always, AGR Aztecs and Iroquois could be big and fearsome, so I'll look at the score charts and decide upon how careful I go expanding in their directions for the first half of my set.

Our front looks map-wide but I guess it's got to be that way for a while. I'm curious about how efficient it could be to rush straight south and separate the fronts. It's just a random silliness of mine though, I won't bother doing it unless it looks sensible to push South hard.

With this kind of treasury, I'd be inclined to keep research as it is and make more MDI/knights out of towns that are 50% corrupt and less. If the team wishes otherwise for a faster sprawl, though, very fine.

I'll check for where we could need libs (6+ beakers city) and rush them there, if this too is fine. We have a lot of gold and things go well on the borders, so I say let's use it.

I'm up and will definitely start playing tomorrow night, so this should be done and posted wednesday.

 

[Greebley]

Excellent turn NP.

My inclination would be to take out Babylon next. We might even be able to keep some more cities. Check to see how many cities they have left.

I would also keep the cash for research rather than rushing Libraries. Researching at 100% seems a more effective use of our money. I would start building Libraries in any town with 6+ beakers of course.

Also concentrate on aquaducts in corrupt towns so we can get the extra unit support and eventually will enable us to build more scientists.

Roster:
Greebley
ThERat
Northern Pike - Just Played
Beorn-eL-Feared - Up
markh - On Deck
Vxma

 

[vmxa]

It looks like it is time to go hard on research. The best I can figure is most are doing under 150 beakers a turn. I would expect at least two civs that are better than any we know of right now, so put them at 200-220 beakers.

So figure 12 -14 turn research for the best and 16-18 for the second best group and over 20 for the rest. We can get around 170 with no strain coming in the second tier.

The good news for us is we will be expanding and they will have more trouble doing that. Not sure how we stand on the 512 city limit, but that will come into play.

In any event we can no longer afford to have 50 turn research.

Libs I would think make sense in any net 15 commerce town. Under 10 net is shaky. The problem for us right now is we do not have many canidates.

We have Ankuwo making one and that is about the only one that is worth it. We have Northern Star making one, but that does not look real promising to me, maybe a harbor instead.

Ivory Coast is making one, but that is probably not a good investment right now.

Court Houses is another issue. Katna is making one right now, but maybe I am missing something as I do not see how it will be worth having. I confess I am not one of those that love CH's. I tend to see them as an expense that is not going to pay off in most towns. Those that can get their money back, I prefer to build the CH when it can be done in a lot less than 80 turns.

I would rather have wealth, if that is all the faster I can get it out. So maybe someone can show me the error of my ways.

One other thing is the landings in the rear. I was able to send all galleys back with no landings by pinging them with trebs. Keeping 4-6 trebs in the area is going to pay off. We were very thin at the time and if any troops win a combat, it would be dangerous.

Also any knight landings could allow pillaging. Later they will be sending caravels and then will need even more troops to cover landings. I guess the galley coming back was disbanded or sunk.

It may be useful to have 2 galleys to sink some of those redlined ships. Without rails a bad rng could really be painful combined with even two galleys unloading.

I would bet money that at least one of the civs out there with Education jumped on Astro, so it won't be much longer before we find new friends.

I am not sure what the AI will do once one fo them comes up with PP. Will they trade contacts and bring us more grief?

 

[vmxa]

Also concentrate on aquaducts in corrupt towns so we can get the extra unit support and eventually will enable us to build more scientists.

Let me pose this and then someone can shoot it down and I will learn something.

It is turn 258 currently. A town that nets 1 shield will not finish an aqua until turn 358, plus how many more turns go by before it starts it.

It finishes and we gain +2 unit support and pay 1 for maint. Now at least it can grow again and make specialist and we can get a pay back. Fine, we need about 50 turns of +2 to recover the 100 gold we did not get for being on wealth and that does not count the maint for the aqua, but that will be offset by increase pop.

So we are somewhere around turn 408 to start going totally on the plus side. Will the game last that long? Note this is only for towns startign aqua now, not those that we will not start till much later. I am all for rushing aquas along with leaders that we cannot use at the time, but that will not be all that common.

We may even be able to disband units from time to time, but probably not until we get 5 or 6 luxs online.

Now once we look at non totally corrupt towns we have a better deal. Frankly I am not one who even likes to let new 100% towns even grow at all, until I get rails. I just flip the lone pop to scientist or taxmen and let them sit on their butts till then.

Once I have rails, then IF I have workers to spare, I will irrigate tiles and let it grow. I guess it comes down to +2 or not. If they have +3 or better let grow, else to heck with it. It takes 12 food to get the 6 pop, that takes a long time at +1 or even +2.

Again this is just my perspective and I am willing to listen to reason. BTW I would expect railing to be almost all consuming and to not have workers to flit around and irrigate and rail tiles in many places. Spare workers will be better used to rail mines in core cities.

 

[Northern Pike]

That's a lot of thoughtful analysis. Some responses:

In much of this discussion--when you talk about Katna, Ivory Coast, aqueducts--you seem to be assuming that we're dealing with completely corrupt, 1-spt cities. That's not the case at all, on this huge map. Katna is right next to Yalburt (sounds like a poorly conceived cartoon character ), and look what a good city that is. So normal ideas of city development--a courthouse for moderately corrupt Katna, a library to give Ivory Coast access to its whales--apply well enough.

In fact, our zone of total corruption doesn't exist yet, given the size of the map.

I'm not instinctively a courthouse builder either, but there's no question (in Conquests) that the math is in their favour in semi-corrupt towns.

Ridiculous though it is, a lot of the naval movement along our coasts at the moment has to do with the Bab-Port war, and doesn't produce landings against us. You're right that landings will become a greater problem, of course. We may have to assign an army to homeland defense.

Your point about leaving fully corrupt towns at a population of just one specialist before rails, if that's all they can support anyway, is very interesting. The obvious objection is that a +2 food town at size one when rails become available will take a long time after that to support, say, three specialists, whereas a town which has been allowed to reach size six pre-rails will achieve the three-specialist level as soon as the workers can build the improvements. So your way is a short-term strategy, but in a front-loaded game that's not necessarily bad. Has anyone posted an analysis of this with hard numbers?

The right use of the wealth setting is one of the deep questions in the game, and I'm not saying that you're wrong in general. But in this game, we'll have almost permanent need for settlers and pikemen (all of which will be veteran thanks to Sun Tzu); and every time we set a corrupt town to wealth, we'll effectively be selling a settler or pikeman for 30 gold, which isn't a good deal.

 

[vmxa]

Well I put it out there to see if I could get some better perspectives. I think what you said has much merit. The only thing I would say in my defense is that I was not against those builds, only those builds at this time in those towns.

I know that the corruption will probably not be an issue in say Northern Star, it is just that the lib will be a long time coming and that town is without much land, so a harbor could maybe come first and then the lib.

That may be totally wrong though. The courthouse in Katna, I was not seeing much corruption there, so I was unsure of what it would accomplish, at this time.

The aqua issue, I was not really speaking to those town, I was speaking to any town that needs 100 turns or maybe even above 70. We may not have any of those towns at this point. To tell you the truth I did not check on places that will not grow without one and how long it would be for those specific towns to build one. For sure, if they can get up much faster, that is worth doing, presuming they have plenty of food.

On this issue I was merely trying to raise my hand to say we may want to consider carefully when and where an aqua makes sense, even more so as the game gets later and later.

I know everone here is very experienced, so I am only seeing if my thinking is making any sense, before I stumble. I appreciate the chance to bounce some of this stuff off of everyone. It helps me learn. A map this size is not one you get to see very often.

So thanks for the feedback and go get them Beorn.

 

[vmxa]

Your point about leaving fully corrupt towns at a population of just one specialist before rails, if that's all they can support anyway, is very interesting. The obvious objection is that a +2 food town at size one when rails become available will take a long time after that to support, say, three specialists, whereas a town which has been allowed to reach size six pre-rails will achieve the three-specialist level as soon as the workers can build the improvements. So your way is a short-term strategy, but in a front-loaded game that's not necessarily bad. Has anyone posted an analysis of this with hard numbers?

Here is what I am think on this one.
In place where you raze and build a new town and no food bonus is available. You have center for 2 food and once it gets to size 6 you have 12 food with 5 pop working. No improvements done, except maybe a road. That yields one specialist. I don't even get this guy till I have grow to size 6 and that will take some time.

If I pop the original citizen to a specialist, I get it day 1. So the entire time needed to get to size 6, I am getting those 3 beakers or whatever. Not to mention I can be on wealth all that time.

At some point, if I have workers to spare and they are not going to be at risk, then I can irrigate. I am probably not going to get rails on those tile, unless they are coastal for a very long time, so I do not get the real boost of extra food and more specialist.

Not only that, but I do not even have to be looking at this place, it is self contained and self managed.

If the town has lots of hills and mountains, then I may not even get it to size 6 with a free pop. So I just look at how much will it cost me to get how many specialist up and then choose.

If I am close to getting rails and certainly if I am at the stage where I am grabbing land from the AI that already has irrigation and rails, that is another story.

Probably a hole in that logic someplace. Sometime we fall in love with an idea and it clouds our vision. Well in my case, I just blame it on being old.

 

[ThERat]

yes, it's true that we have not reached our corruption limit. Look at the last game we played on this map size and the cities that were productive was amazing. Do not forget that we can later build police stations and employ policemen as well. Also, we might employ engineers to speed up aqueducts etc. At the moment, what we need is settlers, so it's a bad idea to stop growth at pop 1/2. Of course, the irrigated plains aren't that great. Floodplains and irrigated grass will help a lot more. Former Babylon will be smei productive anyway.

As for the enemy landings, we can play them out by creating a landing zone. They will usually go for undefended cities, so we might want to create such a zone somewhere in our hinterland.

as for now, go for Babylon and take them out. We must eliminate all flip risks. And start research, with 1 AI having education, it's safe to assume we don't get gunpowder from the GL. We need a head start here also to get us to Mil Trad.

 

[Northern Pike]

If I pop the original citizen to a specialist, I get it day 1. So the entire time needed to get to size 6, I am getting those 3 beakers or whatever.

Sure, I take the point; this is why it's a strong idea. It's easy to see that in some cases, the break-even point at which traditional methods would produce more beakers than your approach would be more than seventy turns in the future. In a real game, surely most towns would be mixed cases--that is, they'd be somewhere between one and six pop points, conventionally managed, when rails became available. I suspect considerable work with a spreadsheet would be needed to get to the truth of all this.

 

[vmxa]

I think one of my concern is my tendency to be too cautious and expand too slowly. That is why I wanted to see this type of game at this stage and beyond up close. Try to get a better feel for the overall builds and keeping the settlers a coming.

In theory I know that one big issue is not having a settler when and where you need one. More of an issue than workers, I suspect. If you fail to get all the workers you can use, well some tiles are not improved in a timely fashion, but will all the tiles you will have, that is not critical.

Not being able to get enough towns down for another army or to keep units moving smoothly could be. So I am here to learn and observe. Thanks for having me.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Also, we might employ engineers to speed up aqueducts etc. At the moment, what we need is settlers, so it's a bad idea to stop growth at pop 1/2

This is also my view. We will have policemen and engineers thriving in these cities before long; even at this pace, we will have them on a timeframe that allows us to grow population now and go big in a few dozen turns. We could afford self-research now (it wouldn't come cheap but we would have it on a reasonable timeframe), whereas when we need the extra help from specialists entering the IA, they will be up and ready.

At this stage, massing settlers is also important for the fact that they will be given time to grow and they will give us 3-9 beakers a turn each by early-mid IA. And I am glad to hear we can still push ~3 spt in border towns: along with Sun Tzu, it makes the war effort considerably easier to be able to rely on these shields for pikes and maces. One every 10 turns in 10 towns is one a turn. That's big.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

I have played 2 turns, so far:

Pre-Turn:
Move the settlers, leave stuff heal. It all looks creepily silent

IT
Azzies boatdrop a spear by Babylon, Sums send swords from E-NE, Germans send ducks for sitting duties.
Quiet IT, 15 minutes.

T1.
On the very first fight:



Turn ends smoothly, with armies pushing Arabia and Babylon Southwards [12-2] at the cost of a ctrl-X misclick of 2 MDI's on an Iro stack.
We also get another MGL, but we have 45 towns and 11 armies..

Babs have a 4/5 spear defending Nineveh, so they are definitely at war with the azzies. I decide to stay back and enjoy the show for now.

IT
[15-3] IBT, lose a pike to a sword.

A Korean Caravel pops from up North. Doesn't look good to me
We only learn Education from them, not Gunpowder.
Research set forth on gunpowder at minimal deficit: -29gpt, 227 beakers, 15 turns.

2 dozen aztecs show up and they are headed our way.

First enemy knight in sight for me, he is Iroquois.

Arabs and spanishs are at war, and it's Arabia's MDI/LB against Bella's archer/horse. She's lucky to have us

T2.
Embassy Seoul and declare war.
They are up Gun, Bank and Astro.



Pillage Babylon on my way back and prepare to receive the Aztecs [26-3]

I am tempted to upgrade catapults, 17 of them for 510g (¼ treasury) sounds like a good plan. We will have to upgrade them to cannons as well shortly, so it sounds like an investment to me.

I also would like opinions on Longbows. I'm a fan, they are much cheaper than knights, have defensive bombard and we can make them in corrupt towns in between settlers so that they grow. The defense point versus MDI's is negligible since we cover them more often than not. The question is, however: do we stack up knights or do we build infantry units still? I'd certainly understand the all knights point of view.

Will continue tomorrow most likely, I'm getting tired and have a hard time to focus. Unless it is pointed as a bad idea, I'll go for silks with knights and a Mace army, for Arabia with 2 knight armies and I'll keep the disruptive presence in Germany and Japan whenever I can spare an army there.

 

[Ansar]

lurker's comment: about how long would you say a turn takes?

 

[ThERat]

I for one would not waste money for upgrading cats. We can build cannons in corrupt towns ourselves. And take treabs and cats from the enemy.
We need all money we have for deficit research.

As for LB's, since we have cats and trebs, I doubt we will ever need to defensive bombardment. What we need is cavalry for it's speed and deadly armies. Plenty of them

 

[Northern Pike]

If it were just a question of a static comparison between knights and longbowmen, you (Beorn) would have a good point. But as Rat points out, the knight --> cav upgrade is cheap and devastating, so I'd stick to knights.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Sounds good, I have never played with those demesurate numbers so I'll stick to massing knights and using the artillery we have. Might disband a few on quiet frontlines, like the SW arabian one.

@Ansar: download the save and play one