Gr7 - AWM vs 30 civs on a giant map

[LKendter]

IBT – We lose a mountie army to the Sumerians. It was covering a captured cat and two slaves, so they are lost.

Ouch, we really can't afford army losses. How badly was it hurt at the time? That is the weakness of MW armies. With a defense of 1, they are just to fragile.

Tracks show new AI interest in Chalcedon. We get a slave and a cat.

Well some things didn't change since my turn. That area was most of the action during my turn after I took the city.

We need some more forts as indicated. We also need to clear the marsh and jungle in front of our defenses. (yellow triangles) We are starting to get some nice killing zones.

That terrain may be the only reason the choke didn't collapse during my turns. We need to keep the AI movement slow...

 

[LKendter]

I took a look at the game. I notice ST7 is building a library. The cities starting with ST were the short-term cities that we will get rid of at some point. This build should be changed. These cities were to be military, workers or settlers only.


Mauch Chunk has the potential for 30 shields a turn. I got it at 31 shields before wastage, and that includes a hill that isn't mined. I would like to get another happy building in it so that it can use all 12 citizens. I would love to have every turn pikes.


Do we want to run taxmen or scientist? I prefer scientist by a mile, but right now we have 16 taxmen and 7 scientists. We don't have much multiplier building out there, so IMHO we should run 100% scientist. I think 3 beakers are better then 2 dollars.


I have another thought on the clearing of the jungle by the choke triangle area. Is that the best use of workers? We still have a lot of the core lacking improvements. Examples: Hill at Mauch Chunk, hill after growth in Lee's Gold.


What are our plans for scientist farms? I know how powerful they are. LK103 dropped 2 turns off of an IA tech with a big scientist push. We are starting to fall behind in tech as the AIs have monotheism and some have engineering. I ask because I notice a lot of cities that at choking growth for 1 specialist now. The goal of a city like the below is to get to size 6 ASAP to higher multiple specialist.

Our big problem is lack of labor. We have 36 natural workers and 64 free workers. We have 61 cities. If you count the free workers as a half-worker we have 68 workers for 61 cities. That is barely a one-to-one ratio. I feel it should be closer to 2 to 1.

 

[Greebley]

Agree with all your comments, Lee. I will look into it when I play.

 

[LKendter]

One more comment -
The choke point in the south is nice. Unlike my round it now feels under control. I think it shows for the fact that Sumeria is starting to suffer.
I notice a very healthy amount of MWs just waiting to hit again. All those captured catapults and workers really help us.


With the scope of this game we can't afford to ever be in stalemate mode. Even during my turns that felt somewhat stuck, there was still some progress.

 

[Greebley]

BTW, do we really need 5 armies on the southern choke? That seems a lot but then I have no idea how many units are coming at us.

I don't want to overdefend the choke either because then we slow our expansion unnecessarily as we won't have an army helping to take out cities. However, I could see us needing 5 if enough enemies are coming at us.

[Edit: I guess I am wondering what percentage of the time we needed all 5 and whether 4 armies would be equally good (needing to include time to heal the armies too).

 

[ThERat]

I had a look at the save too and I agree with LK's comments. A few more things I noticed:

KT was built 500 years ago by Babylon, are we that far behind in tech? I hope we aren't in that big a hole.

Is it useful to build courts in cities that can make 2spt? Maybe give them aqeducts and let's them expand our unit support at pop7 and they will be arty science farms?

There is a stack of units (cats and workers) at the choke not covered and could be reached by the enemy, better cover it.

 

[Matt_G]

KT was built 500 years ago by Babylon, are we that far behind in tech? I hope we aren't in that big a hole.

Frankly we should be in a huge hole to the other continent. If we're not then the Tech Rate number we agreed on was too high.
I don't think it's that bad though, which means that number is to high. Leo's hasn't even been built yet...

We will know when someone has hit Navigation and/or Magnetism.
Withing 10-20 turns we will start seeing boats out busting fog.
Once that happens, all hell is going to break loose.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Let's see if I can answer all the questions.

1. Lee - the MW army was had fallen just into yellow. That was enough for the AI to attack.

2. With pikes coming, the choke will be easier to defend, we just don't have many offensive units down there. Plus with only one barracks, it takes two turns to heal a slow moving unit. The AI will attack spears, so upgrade them or get more pikes.

3. ST7 building a library - my bad, probably got tired. We may want to think about relaxing the 10 turns played rule now.

4. On the yellow triangles I was thinking that they are providing a defensive advantage to the AI.

5. Mauch Chunk needs another happy building before you can get it to 30 spt. Unless you want to raise the lux tax.

6. Lee - I think you are right about the blue border. Try to avoid contact as long as possible. That may also be the reason we aren't seeing as many Mayans or Romans... they are warring with Germany.

7. Keep pressing Sumeria. They have a lot of culture so don't keep anything. They are starting to be gassed a bit. Same thing with the Egyptians.

8. I would at least build the forts at the choke. The extra defense will help immensely. When we get the units, occuping the iron hill will help a lot as well.

 

[LKendter]

7. Keep pressing Sumeria. They have a lot of culture so don't keep anything. They are starting to be gassed a bit. Same thing with the Egyptians.

This is the key. Toward the end of my turns I started to move MW that way. The MW stacks are getting impresive over there. With our worker force I would agree with a bunch of razes that give us 2 or 3 more workers. We need all the help we can get. The core still has stray spots needed work, and we aren't even close to irrigating all of the scienctist cities.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, at this point play 5 or 10 as your choice.

 

[Greebley]

I played to 1080 AD so far. Got two leaders which became a pike army for the souther border and a MW army for the North. We are researching Monotheism (in 10 turns at -15 gold) to get knights so we can build non-fragile armies.

Sumeria isn't resisting, so I am going to push forward. I will probably keep cities.

Started building libraries for culture and for Research.

[Edit: I will be away Fri and Sat. Expect the next update on Sunday.

 

[LKendter]

Sumeria isn't resisting, so I am going to push forward. I will probably keep cities.

Well I won't argue with some small cities. I would prefer to avoid capturing size 7+ cities.

 

[ThERat]

Greebley, you could also post the save and I could slot in my turns on the weekend, but that's entirely up to you.

 

[Greebley]

Well I won't argue with some small cities. I would prefer to avoid capturing size 7+ cities.

Agreed, though sometimes getting the free aquaduct can be nice so I may keep cities right around size 7 (or bombard them down). I will probably keep wonders too if Sumeria has them.

 

[Greebley]

I will probably be too rushed to get the save posted unfortunately.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Look at the game. We have 6 enemies. For units we have 9 Armies, 72 MW, 57 Catapults, 46 Spear, 6 Pike, 16 sword, 2 MDI, 36 workers and other misc units.

We have few Libraries. I decide i am going to to work on increasing the number we have for culture and to get better science rate. I switch towns (courthouses, Markets, and Aquaducts all have higher priority though).

IBT: A stack of about 10 workers and 2-4 Catapults is captured near our front lines. Probably one of the ones building a fort. It wasn't covered with any units.

Order of 4 Largest Nations:
Iroquois
Babylon
Inca
Germans

1060 AD: Actually, it was 17 workers - at least that retreated. They could have destroyed some though I don't think they did. Also 3 Cats.
Capture the 17 workers back. Kill several units along the divide. We generate a Leader - Decide what I really want on the southern choke is a Pike army. I build one. I will probably switch another army back North. Lose 2 MW on attack.

IBT: Lose 2 MW and kill several enemy units.

1070 AD: Get Another leader to the North
So many battles it is hard not to lose a few. For example, a Vet MW vs a 1 hp Sword.

1080 AD: Destroy a Portuguese town just S of the choke. Capture Tatub and Agade.

IBT: A Spear (on a mountain) and a Pike are killed.

1090 AD: Capture Susa

1100 AD: Build Onnontare. Capture Kuarre, Marad.

Notes:
Sumeria is narrowing down. Not sure if there is a Choke or the end of the continent.
I took only 5 turns this time as I have been busy.

The Save

 

[LKendter]

Signed up:
Greebley
ThERat (currently playing)
LKendter (on deck)
Matt_G
Markh
Sir Bugsy

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Here is the Sumerian front:

Looks like this front may roll up quickly now. Keep filling with settlers as you can.

 

[LKendter]

Looks like this front may roll up quickly now. Keep filling with settlers as you can.

It isn't simply a matter of filling in with settlers. One of the other headaches of capturing AI cities is trying to work them into a good 3 apart spacing.

 

[ThERat]

looking at the screenie and turnlog a few things come to my mind:

do we really want to build courts in those 2spt towns? I rather have them build aqueducts and then settlers (could even be rushed). I don't think those towns will get useful soon (unless we ever switch to communism).

A 3 tile city placement is almost impossible at the moment, but I will try and fill some. I even spot a lone settler that could be reached by the AI, dangerous. The space up north will be very useful once we finally hit the city limit. For every town razed in the south, we could settle a new one in the north.

I can see the flip risk for some towns is very high, I rather raze towns and settle later (see above). We don't want to commit too many units with far spacing and neglecting the south.

according to mapstat the city count is:

Iro 68
Sumer 13
Egypt 18
Portugal 24
Netherlands 21 (the culture kings, but we make currently more than 50% cpt)
Rome 14
Maya 12

got it, of course