GR2 - Sherman's War (C3C AW).

[Greebley]

My thoughts on where we would want to settle agree with yours, TMcC.

The settler already built is the Result of Calix... which we moved off the cow and is on the spot I thought we should settle. I was initially thinking of SE of the cow on the point, but decided this was bad in AW as it is distance 4 from the nearest city.

 

[handy900]

I will get it & play tonight. Keep posting your ideas. I'll read & make a to do list before I play.

 

[barbslinger]

1 tile between cities? Is the plan to set a bait city? If that is the strategy why not just put a few slaves just out of reach? As long as they are 3 squares from any enemy horse they stop, worker sticks his tongue out during interturn and we kill them and let slave watch.

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by barbslinger
1 tile between cities? Is the plan to set a bait city? If that is the strategy why not just put a few slaves just out of reach?

Not a bait city. The point was to found a city that could link the defense of Georgia and Bedford Forrest together. The eastern red dot is within three tiles of each, and there is no square that can do that and also avoid 1st ring overlap with some existing city.

On second look, I now like the western red dot better. Bedford is linked to Augusta, and the new city would link to Georgia and Paducah, effectively replacing Paducah on the front line. I think the new city would only be attacked by the Americans, so should be fairly safe.

A second reason I now prefer the western dot is because a patch has been announced for next week that fixes the FP. I think our FP will go in Georgia, so we don't want to crowd that area too much, and the western dot crowds less than the eastern dot.

 

[handy900]

It’s late. Here is an report I have not proofed. I look & edit in the AM.

Pre Turn
Switch LSU to Sun Tzu (due in 9). I just love wonders that place a building in every city.
Otto is also building Sun Tzu
Switch 1 citizen in Georgia to a scientist from clowns. Switch the rest to tax men. Engineering now due in 47.
See ancient cavalry + mounted warriors. We are going to need some horsemen to deal with these guys.
Move workers costing 5 GPT to a productive city.
Found cow city next turn.
Make a note top remember to starve the cities. We have no gold now, but for future reference can we rush buy workers out of captured towns in the future, or do we have to starve them to death? Rushing workers with cash is very cheap.
From my turns America seems to be a little weak. I’ll send the ARMY toward the Iroquois horses and Otto horses I see on the map.
Priority will be placed on chopping the forest near Bedford.
I notice several workers dispersed. I usually stack my workers to finish jobs quicker. Is this a worse strategy than stacking? I’m going to stack & chop this round. If it’s not a good idea, please let me know for future reference. Thanks.
Look like we are pretty heavy into infrastructure build. I’ll only switch if we suffer a few losses & need replacements.
I’ll try to sneak a stack of swords around the left flank to raze some Aztec cities.

IBT
Lots of troops move our way
V Ancient Cavalry (“AC”) kills elite jav in Georgia (walls were not done yet)
Georgia –> walls –> horse.

Turn 1 250 AD
Move units next to Georgia into Georgia
I count 14 AI units on the way. A couple are behind our lines probably going for workers.
I don’t really see a great bait city.
Attack horse behind lines with sword, & the horse retreats.
V horse kills the horse that retreated
E horse avenges death of the jav
V jav kills wounded archer & gets a slave
There is a stack of two horses next to Georgia. I’ll get one now & 1 next turn when he tries to cross the river
E sword kills horse
V sword kills archer near Georgia
Found Grant
Join worker to Missionary Ridge
Send workers toward Bull Run & Tecumseh to join

IBT
V AC comes out of fog & kills V sword in the forest. The V AC are going to be a problem. Doesn’t look like I’ll be on offense this set of turns.
Lancaster -> cat -> cat

Turn 2 270 AD
Move 3 cats in Lancaster toward Georgia
E horse kills wounded AV after bombardment. We get a leader & created the Army of the Cumberland. Based on T_McC’s comments about the FP not working in conquests, as well as the “build armies and pillage” theme of the game I built an ARMY. If we miss Sun Tzu (due in 7), you can all paddle me. Loaded two swords and a spear in the ARMY & sent him off the them North (after killing horse in forest that threatens our workers.
There is a gap in our borders between Georgia & Lancaster where there are roads in neutral territory. Enemy horsemen you think are out of move range of Lancaster are not. Please watch this closely. Same thing between Bedford and Augusta. This burned me once in a solo game.
I notice there is no * next to the sword that created the leader. In C3C can the same unit create more than one leader?
Horse near Georgia kills wounded horse
Bomb to redline IMW (Iroquois Mounted Warrior) near Augusta
Bomb and use sword to kill warrior in forest N of Augusta. Move pike + 2 cats to cover sword and send first workers to the chop. More will arrive soon after they finish their mines.
Sherman hires tax-babe so it won’t riot.
Army moves off hill, pillages, moves back onto hill. This move + pillage rocks! I can hear the groans from the American workers about having to road & mine all over again.

IBT
IMW kills spear (behind walls) in Georgia despite losing a point to bombardment.
I see lots of horse type units heading our way. We need sun Tzu to come in ASAP to upgrade some spears in Augusta & Georgia (all attacks are coming to these two cities)
Sherman – Horse – Horse
Palace gets a second story – despite all of our recent unit losses.

Turn 3 280 AD
Horse kills wounded IMW near Georgia
Americans are advancing archers towards Paducah (our silks). I’ll move a spear and sword over there.
We need LSU & Tecumseh to finish their builds to get us some units.
E horse from Bedford kills wounded IMW
Move 2 more cats under Pike in forest near Bedford
Join worker to Bull Run

IBT
Inca want to talk. No thanks
Missionary Ridge -> Pike -> Pike


Turn 4 290 AD
Extra cats arrive at Georgia
Horse + 2 archer next to Paducah. Another horse + archer 1 turn away.
Send jav from Lancaster to Paducah
Paducah – Sword attacks horse. Horse retreats. Sorry stupid play. Should have gone horse to horse, but then sword would have been exposed. Either way I guess I can only kill 1 unit.
Horse kills archer near Paducah. I think we will hold Paducah.
Jav kills archer after 2 for 8 bombard in Augusta. We get another slave.
Sword army attacks & kills a spear in an Aztec town that starts with an X near bananas. Army is yellow lined.
2 horses kill 2 archers near Georgia
2 horses kill 2 American horses near Georgia
Join 2 workers to LSU

IBT
Ottomans complete Sun Tzu
First Bedford chop is done. Next should go faster now that there is a stack in place
Chattanooga -> Temple –> Horse.
Lancaster Riots. My fault I borrowed a spear & should have seen it coming. Send horse from Paducah over.
Palace gate a third floor party lounge F11 reveals we are #1 in population & GNP. #2 in manufactured goods.

Turn 5 300 AD
American assault on Paducah has failed. They are retreating. Maybe I can pick off a couple of slaves.
MI kills wounded spear near Bedford
Jav kills archer
Workers move to next chop
Army of the North is 1 turn away from Iroquois horses

IBT
Manassas – aqueduct -> horse
Lincoln -> settler -> settler (going to T_McC red dot) This will fix a portion of our neutral land border problem

Turn 6 310 AD
Horse kills archer near Paducah
Horse kills AC that had attacked Georgia & retreated IBT
ARMY of Cumberland (wounded) reveals a huge patch of Iroquois Jungle. Sure to be rubber and coal in there somewhere.
Army kills archer on top of the Iroquois horses
Second forest cleared. We have a 1-turn stack now.

IBT
American Spear I could not kill last turn (horses were healing) pillages silks near Paducah (We have another silk hooked up). We can hold Paducah, but are short of counter attack units. I switched all the pike builds to horses.

Turn 7 320 AD
Paducah
Attack horse with sword – he retreats
Kill archer with horse from Georgia
Jav kills archer
Elite sword kills pillaging spear. We get a leader. Build Army (perhaps this one should block the Americans choke point 1 tile S of Boston & force them to make sea landings.
Bomb & kill spear next to Bedford
Paducah trades spear for horse with Lancaster
Army pillages Iroquois horses. F4 reveals he now has no horses.
The army is next to Iroquois capital. I plan to pillage all surrounding square to cut off all their deals with other civs.
Allegheny to the N in the jungle has silks.

IBT
We can now build the Pentagon
Just kidding about Sun Tzu. It’s in LSU
LSU – Sun Tzu – Market
Sherman – Horse – Horse
Lancaster –> Cat -> Cat
Iroquois swords are coming into view

Turn 8 330 AD
Bomb horses next to Georgia. Get 3rd leader
Build pentagon in Lancaster
Horse kills spear near Bedford
Last chop at Bedford done. Now I’ll build roads.
Switch Sherman & Missionary Ridge to Pikes for our empty army.
Upgrade some spears to Pikes in front line and coastal cities. I’ll swap Pikes for javs in the front lines ASAP.

IBT
Spot Iroquois gems. I’ll head our army of the Cumberland that way to pillage them. The northern army is headed for the Ottoman horses.
Chattanooga -> horse -> pike
Montgomery – harbor – market
In the next 4 turns you get a pike from Missionary ridge, Chattanooga and Sherman. Use them for the empty Army replace Pikes

Turn 9 340 AD
Sword kills spear near Paducah after 0 for 2 bombard.
Bombard sword to red near Bedford. He still kills a horse (RNG payback for 3 leaders)
Bedford is out of horses. Can’t attack because I don’t know if there are horses in the fog.
Found Jonesboro
Jav kills archer near Georgia

IBT
Americans want to talk. No thanks
Heroic Epic completes

Turn 10 350 AD
Set Tecumseh to pike for the army
Sherman riots – hire clown. Sorry it’s late. Suggest we go to 5 turns next round
Lancaster -> Pentagon -> horse
Bomb spear to redlined near Bedford and he still kills a horse (RNG payback is a b**ch!)
MI takes out spear with 1 swing.
Empty army fortifies in Georgia
Workers move to last bit of forest near Georgia. Chop next turn.
All Jonesboro has is a horse + jav + cat. It needs a pike. Don’t see an extra anywhere.
Handy notices he just irrigated a tile in neutral territory. Long term planning.
Shuffles
Send pike from Lancaster to Georgia in exchange for a horse.
Paducah sends a jav to Lancaster. Lancaster sends anther pike to Georgia.
Bedford trades sword for Pike with Augusta.
Paducah sends horse to Greebleyville for spear. Upgrade spear next turn, then swap horse for sword in Paducah.
After arrivals & upgrades next turn, Paducah, Georgia & Bedford will have 2 pikes each. Jonesboro is under defended. I upgraded spears to pikes in Shiloh for you to shuffle to Jonesboro. It will take 2 turns using Augusta as the way point.
Wounded sword army should heal on a mountain in neutral territoty after it reveals all the darkness.

Zip save 350 AD

not zipped save 350 AD

 

[handy900]

350 AD

 

[T_McC]

Well, now I know where all our leaders were: They were just hangin' out , waiting for Handy!

The AC seem to be a real pain, so I propose to take one of the armies and find Iznik (or maybe it's Izmit?), and kill every one that gets produced. Or take both armies and burn the city to the ground, to solve the problem once and for all.

 

[Speaker]

You can also disconnect the Ivory, which might be easier at this point. Just this lurker's $0.02.

Actually, do AC require Ivory to be built or does just the Statue?

 

[barbslinger]

Originally posted by handy900

IBT
Ottomans complete Sun Tzu

IBT
We can now build the Pentagon
Just kidding about Sun Tzu. It’s in LSU
LSU – Sun Tzu – Market

My god you had me going! I was thinking wow, a continent full of barracks vs a yellowlined sword army, nice trade-off. I t took 30 seconds to stop laughing when I read the good news. Nice one!

I am thinking of continuing my GOTM tonight and waiting for others to chime in on thoughts prior to going at it.
I know one thing: finding horse and iron to pillage is top priority. On the American choke at Boston. Isn't Boston the 3rd or 4th city on the list? If so then Washington and N.Y. and Philly? the only thing we'd be blocking. They obviously are not sending much of an SOD our way so I think having an Army patrolling Otto and his AC resources would be the better option. Thos ehave to shut down now! I would make a bee-line for horses. Forget the gems, roads. Get those horses, uncover the fog and then possibly park it on horses.
Another Army can go back and forth making sure Iroqois keep disconnected.

 

[T_McC]

Just to clean up a few topics:

- Ancient Cavalry do not require any resources, so the only way to stop their production is to capture/raze the city. At 1 for every 5 turns, these are only an annoyance instead of a real threat.

- Just a reminder (since it seemed implied in a couple of posts), Military Great Leaders cannot rush Great Wonders. They can rush small wonders, hence we could rush The Pentagon but we could not have rushed Sun Tzu's

- Since we do have the Pentagon, the empty army can have 4 units placed in it. It seems premature to fill it now, but if we wanted to fill it before knights a mix of 2 pikes/2 MDI would seem a nice general purpose group.

- I think that we should go to a 5/10 rule for the next round (when we get back to Greebley). 5 turns expected, but if time permits (or we're primarily building infra and no one is attacking us) players may feel free to take 10 turns.

The tech pace in this game is extremely slow. If I recall what I saw correctly, we and the Ottos are (still) the only ones with Feudalism. We may have to consider building some libraries and self-researching even though we have the G.Lib. It may take until the 15th century for these clowns to discover Chivalry for us.

@Slinger - Wake up Dinky. He's fortified on the western peninsula.

 

[barbslinger]

Quote from Handy "F11 reveals we are #1 in population & GNP. #2 in manufactured goods."

If we can convert this into science we can really get moving on killing some cities. As soon as we can get to knights we should roll these clowns, provided we keep horses disconnected.

I'll look at having a few libs built during my turns and get those horsies/iron. BTW don't cats damage the ground in C3C so that the AI has to first repair and then road? Craters? Perhaps a cat in tow with army? then we would have more turns until they can get it reconnected, to go back and forth between civ cities keeping the pillage going.

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by barbslinger
BTW don't cats damage the ground in C3C so that the AI has to first repair and then road? Craters? Perhaps a cat in tow with army? then we would have more turns until they can get it reconnected, to go back and forth between civ cities keeping the pillage going.

I'm not sure whether cats can do that, or only the explosive projectile units can. I would lean against dragging a cat along with the army, as it would really slow the army down. If you fire the cat, the army has to end the turn in the same square it started in. Maybe more importantly on this map, cats cannot enter a jungle/marsh/mountain square that doesn't have a road built on it, and I think it would restrict the movement of the army too much.

 

[handy900]

A few things I thought of this morning:
Check & switch any cities still building barracks to another build. Perhaps 3c3 does this automatically, but next player should check.

Definitely advise against dragging a cat with the army. They slow you down, miss about 50% of the time, and can’t go through mountains or jungles without a road.

Americans sent only archers & horses. If you have a save, check to see if they have IRON. If not, we should focus on Iroquois & Ottoman pillaging, and save America for later.

Sorry I missed fortifies dinky. I assumed he sunk. I should have checked F3 more closely.

Army of the Cumberland (yellow swords) needs to heal a little, then pillage all tiles around Iroquois capital to kill any deals they have. After that can go for the gems, then check back on the horses to make sure they are not hooked back up.

Once we have pikes behind walls in our front, the Ancient Cavalry will not be near as much trouble. They only come every 5 turns.

On a few turns I forgot to set a scientist to research. Also, I think chivalry should be the goal over invention at this point.

Let’s build a couple of suicide galleys & look for the next continent. If we build up some gold, we can trade whoever we meet on the other continent for more contacts. It’s very possible the other civs are ahead in tech and have chivalry already. If we can get chivalry from across the sea well before the AI on our continent, we can roll them a lot quicker.

AI sent a lot of units that we killed. OTOH, we did not build a lot of units. I guess we need to decide if we want to go on offense now (if so build swords) or later (if so build horses for knight upgrade). Any cities we get now are going to be corrupt, so we are mostly after luxuries & leaders. I lean pretty heavily towards horses for a knight upgrade. I favor the knight’s retreat ability and extra attack power of 4. While we are waiting for chivalry we can pillage, kill AI units and leader fish using cats & horses from our front line cities. A couple of Knight armies would go a long way towards taking the continent.

 

[T_McC]

Concur on Chivalry before Invention, then after Chivalry run the bottom branch of the tech tree to wipe out our continent. When we get to that point, we'll have to have a discussion about how many of our opponents are allowed to survive.

The Americans don't have Iron. The last time I checked (before Greebley's turn) the only civs with Iron were us and the Iroquois.

We shouldn't anticipate doing a mass upgrade from Horses to Knights, as in Conquests that upgrade will cost 120 gold per unit. At our current income level, we could only upgrade a unit every other turn. So my thought would be to research Monotheism --> Chivalry --> Engineering --> cash. The time spent researching Engineering can be used to build some knights from scratch, and the cash period to upgrade horses. (I figure ~16 horses for upgrade will occupy our income for a good period of time). We are currently researching Engineering, but the beakers we have put in shouldn't even amount to 1 turn of serious research, so we won't lose anything by switching targets.

I think we have another period of defense ahead of us, so I would preferentially build Pikes, so we can get our Swords/MDI/Javs off of defensive duty. We seem OK on catapults. If we did want to go on offense soon, a 4-MDI army would kick all kinds of ass. LSU pulls 20 spt, so an MDI every other turn. If I understand the rule of armies correctly, a 4-MDI group attacks at 6 and defends at 3 (with truncation, without it would be 6.75 and 3.33). So it would be a 16 HP cav with blitz ability. :devil2: And boy, is our first knight army going to be sweet.


From Handy:
Let’s build a couple of suicide galleys & look for the next continent. If we build up some gold, we can trade whoever we meet on the other continent for more contacts. It’s very possible the other civs are ahead in tech and have chivalry already. If we can get chivalry from across the sea well before the AI on our continent, we can roll them a lot quicker.

Remember, we are tactless. No trading at all. I also believe it is highly unlikely the other 2 civs (Rome and Carthage) are ahead of us technologically. If they were ahead of us in technology, they would have taken at least one Wonder during the late Ancient Age cascade. My guess is that this is a weird map, and I wouldn't be surprised to find them on separate islands, or together but fighting. I was alluding to this earlier in this post, but I fully expect them to be backwards when we find them. By keeping some crippled civs alive on our continent (particularly those whose last city is non-coastal ) we can keep the Romans and Carthage backwards.

I actually think it is to our disadvantage to go looking for them now. My thoughts are to rule our continent, then run the education branch to Magnetism. When we go searching for the other civs, we lead with a galleon with an army on board. Sort of a nice "how-do-you-do" for Caesar and Hanni. (This would mean not putting a 4th unit in the Jav or Sword armies).

I also wouldn't worry about anyone on our continent getting Chivalry. We and the Iro are the only ones who can use it, and we aren't going to let the Iro keep resources connected to build knights.

 

[handy900]

T_McC,

I like your plan. I had no idea the knight upgrade was so expensive in C3C. Let’s build a 4 unit MI army and start razing cities. We may want to bring a couple of pikes and any extra swords we have along also. The pikes can protect the army while it heals after battle. I’ve had red-lined wounded armies attacked by an AI in the past (never in ancient age, only later ages, but then again I usually don’t attack with armies in ancient age – just pillage).

This is a strange map. With so many civs on a continent, the other two may indeed each be on islands.

I’d keep building cats out of at least 1 city. AI stacks get larger as the game goes on, and cats keep the kill ratio where we want it. Also, I just have a soft spot for bombard units. They are (I think) the only unit that can:
1. Damage land and sea units,
2. destroy tile improvements,
3. can’t be “killed” in battle,
4. upgrade all game long.

 

[Greebley]

I think it might not be a bad idea of holding off on the Pentagon. If we put in a 4th unit, they will become useless for pillaging the other continent until combustion and transports. I want to be able to ship them across when we find magnetism.

One thing that pillaging will do is really slow down the tech pace of the AI. In fact it is probably the most effective strategy for doing so. Setting up self research is not a bad idea. I think we should go for knights and then straight for Cav. The other possibility would be to go for Magnetism so we can send our armies across the seas and pillage there.

Do people prefer going to 5 turns each as a rule, or would people like to be able to choose between 5 and 10? I find 5 hard in that you don't have enough time to carry out your plans. On the other hand 10 can be very long. If you get a choice, then you can decide to continue for whatever reason if you so choose...or go short if time is limited or it is getting late.

I like the choice option, but what do the rest of you feel about this?

On your Sun Tzu prank you forgot to say that the computer switched LSU to build a spear. I was looking for that comment and ran across your next comment. You got me for a second there though

Rushing workers is completely valid way to reach size 1.

 

[barbslinger]

Ideas pulled from posts that I'll be doing. Please chime in if there are more.

-Sell barracks, change barracks builds.
-Wake up dinky to come home.
-Only 3 pikes in Army. Sending him to pillage.
-Build pikes, cats and libraries, markets.

On the tech path, I would like to get to Eng. Those bridges will really help getting units to the front. We seem to be ahead of everyone one and with the other continent most likely behind us we can wait a while for Chiv.I would like to push the sci-sli on eng in fact. We're gonna be the only ones that will have knights anyhow with the pillaging we're doing.
Once we have armies knocking out Otto, Iro resources and mines the units coming at us will slow down immensely. We can then go on offense. 20 turns maybe sooner. With out horses, iron we'll have to defend against archers and spears and whose afraid of that? I'll get two armies patrolling Otto and one to patrol Iro.
They're dead, all dead.

 

[T_McC]

Alright, I guess we will have one more pillaging army (3 pikes). But I think the next leader should go to an offensive army, to kick start the conquest of our continent.

Starting self-research now would be fine. I'm torn between getting Chivalry before Engineering, or vice-versa. I can't make a compelling argument to get Chivalry first, and actually think we have an outside chance of Monotheism popping from the GL. The non-Ottoman civs have to be researching something, and the AI does tend to ignore Engineering. My fear here is that since Feudalism is now a gov't tech, that all the AI will prefer this, much the same as every AI goes for Nationalism first in the Industrial Age.

Besides river-crossing, Engineering does give us the three-bucket ... err... trim butcher ... err ... Trebuchet!

 

[handy900]

Greebley, I already rushed the Pentagon in Lancaster with the 3rd leader. Perhaps I shuld have made another army, but we already had one empty army, so I rushed it. I don't much like how C3C has limited the ability to rush with military leaders.

I agree it's a good idea to only put three units into an army so we can ship it overseas later.

I'm not sure we need to turn up the research slider. I like to hoard cash for upgrades during the GL period. I need more convincing.

 

[barbslinger]

I didn't think of that earlier but of course Otto and Iro are going to have Mono for us! That pretty much solidifies the Eng / Mono debate. River crossing, and throwbuckets of fire it is. For that matter we should let the AI pop chivalry for us too and continue to Invention > Gunpowder. I doubt we'll even get Eng on my watch tonight but we should discuss. I guess a lot depends when Rome, Carth comes calling. Speaking of which, a few more boats would help to get the army over there.