GR12 - AWM vs 30 civs, Pangea

[vmxa]

I would agree with that sort of an example, where you have no gold on hand and are running dead even. Getting there sooner is better.

What happens when you have gold to use for either upgrading or shaving 1 or even 2 turns off the breakthrough? Do you see having the tech 2 turns sooner as being worth not having any cavs on the following turn?

Do you see having gotten there 2 turns later, but having scores of cavs immediately after worth the wait? I was trying to see if having the abiltiy to use scores of cav immediately as a big enough offset to delay.

I am not sure, but I had suspected the cavs could make a difference, but maybe not worth the delay. Possibly going hard will end up a better deal, I am not sure how to quantify it.

If it is an exact wash, then I would wonder if not pressing would be best, just because you have a few more knights, where as the cavs would take longer.

The thing that was making it seem that the abiliy to get some upgrades immediately was that the extra move and attack, could change some battles and a few places where you would be able to take action otherwise too risky.

Any one have some thoughts on those aspects?

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

You seem to think about it as a matter of a very few turns, say 3-4, vmxa. I believe it will make a difference more along the lines of 10+ turns all in all, since TGL went off.

Let's be more conservative and say 8 turns: 8 turns of produced cavalries are worth whatever means of upgrades we have IMHO. Either way we won't be able to upgrade all of them at all, or most of them in a desireable timeframe. But we will get some cavalries sooner. That might mean an earlier 12-6-4 16HP blitzer - 10 turns earlier. That's all I need to be happy with that call.

 

[vmxa]

I must be dense because I do not see how 10 turns down the road it matters at all. Either way you elect to go you are in the same spot 10 turns down the road (after MT learned that is).

We had a bit over 2K, if that was conserved we could have updated all 60+ knights we had. The knights built beyond that would be upgraded the next turn. So your cav army would be up as soon as possible.

If you burn the cash and get the tech 2 turns sooner, you need about 5 turns to raise the cash.

So in both scenarios, you have the units as cavs in less than 10 turns?

I am thinking in terms of a few turns, becasue either route will be a few turns one way or the other. So I am asking is it better to have 60 cavs at say
1528AD or the ability to make cavs in 1526AD, but no cavs.

I think that is the choice we are making, is it not? Again I could be having another brain fart, so feel free to enlighten me. I can always take that bucket of cold water to get back on track, so to speak.

IOW I am not saying I am right, I am saying if I am missing something, I want to know what, so I can stop being dense. (Ok that is probably to much to ask, I will still be dense from time to time) Anyway I like to get others perspectives.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

A good deal of the fast research argument comes from the 2 good old concepts of
- getting a tech ASAP, to get a new ressource or unit type faster or, in normal games, to trade it for more
- all units but swords-maces and knights-cavs (edit: and upgrades to MI and MA, eventually) aren't worth the upgrading gold when you are going to keep research and production up

Which do not exactly apply to our AW, knight->cavs situation, mind you. But OTOH we cannot afford to lose an empire-wide turn of combat with our mounties. One way or another the upgrading phase will last 5-10 turns, wether we have the gold or not to do it instantly.

The cookie-cutter fast research argument is thus really weaker given the situation, but it still has some pros. Among which the unshakable faster army

 

[Greebley]

The difference is not with upgrading - you can upgrade the same number.

The difference is that your towns start building Cavalry 5 turns earlier because you have the tech earlier.

I see no advantage of keeping the money. In fact we get a Cavalry Army faster if we maximize research because we get the tech earlier and can upgrade 4 Cavalry several turns earlier than we can upgrade them all.

 

[vmxa]

But OTOH we cannot afford to lose an empire-wide turn of combat with our mounties. One way or another the upgrading phase will last 5-10 turns, wether we have the gold or not to do it instantly.

The cookie-cutter fast research argument is thus really weaker given the situation, but it still has some pros. Among which the unshakable faster army

Of course there would not really be an immediate mass upgrade as units will not even be in town. There will be many, maybe a dozens that will be damaged and could be instant heals with the upgrade, so no combat turns would be lost. A few more that are on defense and gain from instant upgrades.

You are correct that you would not be able to have them all done at once, but a large portion could be done in 3 or 4 turns.

I am not sure what the cookie cutter is as both way could be said to be cookie cutter or neither one.

 

[vmxa]

Greebley
"The difference is that your towns start building Cavalry 5 turns earlier because you have the tech earlier."

This is the idea that I have been trying to grasp. I am just not sure if that is a real bonus. I say that because if you get the tech 4 turns earlier and I would opposse hording the cash if it was longer, you do not get a single cav out right now. We are not producing enough shields to make cavs in 4 turns.You get the tech 3 or 4 turns later and you have gotten out a few more knights that become cavs right away. The rest switch or wait to finsih.

"I see no advantage of keeping the money. In fact we get a Cavalry Army faster if we maximize research because we get the tech earlier and can upgrade 4 Cavalry several turns earlier than we can upgrade them all."

This is the only one I can totally agree with and itis enough all by itself. Anyway thanks for letting bounce the concepts around a bit.

 

[ThERat]

save

Pre-Turn
we are employing only 11 scientists
I think we should be more aggressive there
we also only have 6 settlers, I think we would want more of them
army support is down to 53gpt, not too bad

MM and we have 33 scientists, decrease science to 70%, metal still in 3

IT we go 2:1 losing a pike on a hill

1.1505ADBC
defeat 7 units and clear the area around Babylon
settle Fiorentina and Siena near Chianti

defeat 14 units in the south netting us 1 treb, losing 1 knight

[22-2]

IT go 1:2 including the loss of Evora, it was not to avoid

2. 1510AD
raze Braga, found Iron Creek
reduce science to 50%
go 27:1 [50-5]

IT can spot the Dutch fighting the Japanese, good for us
we get metal, MT in 8 at big deficit

3. 1515AD
well, we got a new foe, Scandinavia, but they are a little backwards and have 6 cities only
declare war of course
raze Seville (Japanese), raze Osaka for 6 slaves and a cat
raze Matsuyama and Toyama for 5 slaves and 1 cat
raze Teayo (Aztec)
32 units defeated
get a MGL in the process, another knight army is born

[82-5]

IT go 1:0 on defense, the Egyptians are now getting serious with knights and chariots showing up

4. 1520AD
found Bath, finallay manage to raze Nineveh

30 units defeated

[113-5]

IT 4:2 on defense, now the Mongols show up

5. 1525AD
nothing special here
23:2 [140-9]

IT 0:1, with more Sumerians showing up, has a war just ended?

6. 1530AD
raze Kagoshima for 5 slaves
get another leader for an army, decide to keep army for Cavs
Found Nothern Extension so that we have 80 cities and can form another army
Shimoniseki is burned to the ground
26:0 [166-10]

IT 1:1 with us losing the galley that checked out Babs Island

7. 1535AD
raze Eridu to get us some space in the north
meet Greece in the west and it's another war
found Suburbian Dye and Lake Taho

28 kills [194-11]

IT 1:0 and Mongols run nicely into our killing zone in the east

8. 1540AD
found Incensify to give us the 5th lux, found Blue Moutain, now we have room for another army
found Hill defense and then raze Satsuma
25-2 kills [220-13]

IT we go 3:0 on defense including getting a MGL from a redlined pike

9. 1545AD
we say hello to Maya and Inca and have another 2 foes . Ottomans have MT now as well, their UU

will be scary
raze Tokyo and Japan has only 3 cities left
found Gap Filler and Cornerstone

16:2 [239-15]

IT immediately meet India, war it is, go 0:2 on defense

10. 1550AD
nothing special

33-2, thus final tally [272-19]

situation:
met quite a few new foes, all coming from the east or maybe via contacts (through PP)
thus we can expect some stack coming from the east
we do have 2 empty armies that we can fill with Cavs, next turn we get MT

we have 9 settlers, which we need to continue to preoduce to fill the empty land created
with cavalry next turn, I think we should be able to take out cities much easier
and we will have money for upgrades (1000+ gold), since we founded many cities, unit support has gone down to 27gpt at the moment and should be further reduced once we get more cities up

we do have 87 cities now

the northwest, pushed back the enemy

the southeast, Japan is almost gone

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

2 cav armies

I'll try and play 5 this week-end, can't promise - still got some work to do before my week off... Nevermind, I'm not even up. Cya the other week.

 

[Northern Pike]

That's a lot of new enemies...but crushing the Japanese in a way which shortens our front is a huge step forward.

I still need a skip.

 

[vmxa]

Great, with the ocean in sight a huge area will not be under much pressure soon. Any civ in the Ind Age? How long till we face rifles in some of these civs?

Maybe the Ottoman are not going to be able to muster lots of Siphs, we can always hope. Some of the civs I am sure have had MT for a long time, but lack horses. Rome is one of those I was pretty sure.

We can always hope some of them do not have salt. I see that 7 know MT and no Cavs have shown up. Celts know Metal and can't be far from MT.

 

[vmxa]

Best I can see from the Hist is we have not met China and Persia. We know America and Spain, Arabia are gone. We have 21 civs ar war. We know Russia was killed so that accounts for all but Byz and Zulu.

Anyone heard of them being killed or do we yet have them to met? With only China and Perisa contacts available, we can hope those 2 are gone.

The Hist will not list any score for a civ if we never met it and it was eliminated. It looks like Maya and Vikes are pretty weak as they have very low scores.

 

[ThERat]

we can always hope for lack of resources.

we should try and claim that open area fast. It will narrow our front a lot. Now, with cav armies, we can even crack down rifle cities, though harder. We can now build the Mil Academy to further strengthen our armies as well.

I think soon we will be able to break down those weaker civs and get us more room for expansion. By the way, do we try to get Adam Smith, this would require a small detour to economics after banking. I think the benefit is again not to shabby but we might want to prefer to get rails asap.

btw due to the recent posts, markh is up

 

[vmxa]

I am so use to not having Smith, I forget what it pays for now. I know it is banks, but we probably won't have any. Is it also harbors? Anyway I would think if we see the game going to the next age, Steam is better than Smiths.

We can then defend any place. It also pays for Exchanges, but that is worthless.

 

[Greebley]

Enough ppl are going away - Lets try the following turn order

markh
vmxa
NP will play when he gets back (after vmxa) on the 7th
Beorn will play when he gets back (after NP) on the 10th.

At that point I will be up again and we will play in the normal order. That way noone is skipped. The game is getting close to the fun part where we start breaking out (after the new civs initial stacks come at us I am guessing) and making real progress (or at least I find it fun to do so - lots of combat but long turns.

Feel free to play only 5 if you wish. Turns may be getting long.

PS - I will be away until the 5th. If the above plan doesn't work then feel free to change it as needed.

 

[markh]

I got it. Will play tonight or tomorrow evening.

 

[markh]

Sorry, I managed to play only two turns today (took me more than 2 hours) and I will not be able to get to it before Wednesday evening, so if anybody wants to grab it now to play still today or tomorrow I have attached the save hereto, otherwise I would finish my set on Wednesday evening (European time).

That is what happened so far :

0) 1550AD : looks fine, hit enter

IBT 4 knights of different nationalities suicide (4-0)
MT comes in -> banking

1) 1555AD : we kill 1 Mongol horse
1 Japanese pike, 1 MDI
1 Aztec spear
1 Mongol MDI, 1 pike
1 Egyptian sword, 1 MDI
1 German knight
1 Sumerian knight, 1 MDI, 1 EW

lose 2 knights (16-4)

get 1 leader, but we do not have enough cities to form another army

raze Tenochtitlan

IBT : 2 foreign knights suicide (18-4)

2) 1560AD : rush Military Academy in Wonder City with the leader we got
kill 2 Mongol horses, 3 MDIs
2 Korean MDIs, 1 pike
1 Portuguese longbow, 1 spear, 1 MDI
1 Iroquois pike
2 NumMercs
4 Egyptian pikes, 2 spears, 2 swords, 1 MDI, 1 knight
4 French knights

lose 2 cavs (46-6)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/GR12-AD1560.SAV

 

[vmxa]

Mark do you want me to play or leave it for you?

 

[markh]

You can take it if you like. Maybe I can take it after you again to play 3 or 8 turns to even out my 2 turns. Today I will not manage for sure and I do not want to delay the game.

 

[vmxa]

Well I don't think it will be an issue to wait you have 4 days anyway. I forgot it was the 4th. So the boss lady will make playing hard for me anyway. So I will back off till you finish.