LK149 - WM, Indonesia

[Greebley]

Started playing and on the first IBT, Samarinda flipped to China. We needed to have rushed a temple there to keep it - six squares was too much. I decided to rush temples elsewhere but we have a forced 3 tile overlap with Samarinda.

I don't have time to make a picture, but I was thinking of shifting the Australian invasion so we are landing on a Mountain. We would have to capture a hills town but then will have the hills for defense. We can make it from the sea near us to the mountain landing in one turn with Caravel.

The invasion would be launched from our home island.

Opinions on this? I like defending with Muskets on mountains if the AI will attack (we might have to move off the army).

 

[Northern Pike]

Oh well, Samarinda was a marginal outlying town and losing it doesn't mean much in win/lose terms. We wouldn't have taken it (then Indian Jaipur) if we'd known our Indian offensive would end there, but we weren't aware at the time that we'd be forestalled by China.

It's a close call, but I agree with switching our Australian landing to the mountains around Derby, in part for the more convenient approach by sea. I don't share your logic about inviting attacks on the mountains, though. The Australians are an island civ with an unusually big island, and they'll have ungodly numbers of units. If they attack us at all, except under conditions we control completely, we'll be overwhelmed. I think our first goal will be to hold the four tiles from A to B on the screenshot strongly enough that they won't attack us, so protecting the city with which we'll replace Derby. Our army can cover the grassland tile, and we can hope that they won't attack musketmen on mountains. That leaves the hill tile, on which we'll need to build a fortress ASAP so that they won't attack musketmen there either. That's a long job, I believe sixteen turns, so whatever the inconvenience our invasion fleet should include at least four native workers. Once established on that line, we can employ AW tactics for a while, wearing the Australians down from a position of safely and ideally generating more armies.

 

[Northern Pike]

The issue:

 

[LKendter]

I think a mountain landing is better. If it gives us a quicker path to our main islands for reinforcements that will be a major plus for us.
We also have to plan to clear all the Austrian junk by our one island city, and then quickly bring those troops to Austrlia. The island closests to Australia should keep at least a couple spare troops to discrourage landings.

The number one challange to weaken Austrian production. Hopefully from that spot it won't take to long to raze Adelaide and Freemantle. The only way will will survive vs. a diety AI with almost all troops still alive to to slowly chew those units.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: There are civs that if they declared war would block the trade route to Argentina. I am not going to risk our rep any more. I thought us sending gpt only and them a Luxury was safe, but we lost our rep somehow so I am no long sure. I don't think anyone would have traded a non-per-turn item like gold for a luxury.
I do the other deals (france and america) and make the adjustments listed.
IBT: More bad luck with flips. Samarinda go over to the Chinese. I don't think they had citizens, but did own a lot of our 20 workable squares. We had 4 units there including a Musket.
910 AD: Rushed temple in Banjarmasin so we don't get a cascade of flips. We already don't control 3 squares. We don't want any more.
Our culture is very poor. Sioux have about 17 time our culture. Another town has 4 square overlap with China and also needs a Temple to bring that down to 1.
IBT: Sioux is pulling everyone into the war against France.
Persia completes Smiths.
920 AD: Spend our money again with the rushed Temple in Tasikmalaya.
930 AD: I am adding some units to the North.
940 AD: Starting moving units to the decided on attack point. Also building more Caravels.
950 AD: Sioux are pulling everyone into war with India too.
960 AD: Rushed library in Banjarmasin. If we don't keep ahead in tech we will lose squares to China.
IBT: Sioux demand 20 gold and TM from us. I give the obvious answer to Mr. 'I'll pull everyone into war with you too'.
Indians are gone. That is too bad. They were a potential trade partner when we get our money back.
970 AD: We got back a good bit of cash. We seem to have a bad rep with pretty much everyone now.
Lower Lux to 0% and trade 230 gpt + 170 gold for Physics via negotiate peace with the Aztects.
Have to negotiate peace with Germany. However they will give us metallurgy and 30 gpt for Physics (physics for metallurgy was 'close' without peace).
Babylon will then give us World Map, Navigation, and 33 gpt + gold for Physics and Metalurgy.
Get more gpt and Spices from civs without Physics.
World map shows us pretty much all land but not much sea.
IBT: Give into the Mongols demand of 37 gold.
980 AD: built a town, Serang to the north. There are squares we aren't working. With limited space we should be working them all.
990 AD: There is also 4 unused squares on our own continent, whale and other coastal tiles that also seems worth a town. Move the settler to grab those squares as well.
IBT: Lose Wines and Ivory.
1000 AD: All our units are in place now.

Notes:
The units are all in place but I didn't adjust our cities' happiness yet. Towns will riot if you hit enter.
We could ask Australia to leave and get war happiness, or there are 3 resources out there we could trade for gpt. Additionally, I think one civ - Persia?? has Military Tradition. We probably don't have enough gpt yet to get it though.
So before the next player ends we have to decide if we want to declare war now - this means killing the stack on the island next to our town (I am assuming Australia will declare war - if not we have to go with 2 lux or higher lux %)
Also there is the possibility our stack might get attacked. I have rarely seen this - I think it was a case where a civ owned everything else like Australia does. We have enough muskets that we should be able to survive a round on the mountain (and likely a hill) and can reload onto boats if needed.
Trebs cannot land on a mountain. Yet we want them to take out the town. Would a hill be better? We might want the hill next to the town instead. I don't think enough units can attack us the first round that we will get killed even if attacked.

I didn't mention it yet and its hardly surprising, but China is putting down rails.

 

[Greebley]

So my vote for landing spot is the Hill next to Derby so we can also land the trebs. I think having Treb attack back will make up for the lack of mountain and we can bombard the city and take it.

Important question:
Do we merge in the last Knight into the Army after landing? I would say yes because we are close enough to galleons to get it off Australia before the next war. I would do that if our stack isn't attacked. If it is attacked then we need to be able to retreat.

The other question is whether we have enough troops. I think we do have enough to take out Derby and keep a beach head. We do have enough ships to retreat everything if it comes to that as well.

 

[LKendter]

ROSTER:
LKendter (on deck)
Northern Pike
Greebley (just played)
Elephantium (up)

 

[Northern Pike]

I appreciate your work in putting together the invasion fleet, which doesn't make for a very fascinating round. But when we set aside workers, settlers, and trebs, there are only thirteen combat units and a two-unit army in the landing force. I don't think a force that small has a chance against the numbers of units we can expect to see in Australia, and I'd say that we need to spend the whole of the next round in more buildup for the invasion, slow and frustrating though the process is with our weak productive base. We should be able to add about a dozen units in that time. Towns building cannon although they have barracks--Bandung and Bekasi--should switch to combat units before we hit Enter. Bombardment units aren't our principal need right now.

A delay would also let us upgrade our trebs to cannon, and if things break right, possibly even our knights to cav.

I agree completely with putting a third unit into our army once it's ashore, for the reason you (Greebley) give and also just because it would be hopelessly vulnerable and soon lost fighting with only two.

The Australian campaign will be a real and a bloody war, not a phony one. So we can't count on the war happiness from it to last any time at all, and we have to restore our happiness in the usual way with luxuries even if we are going to attack Aus immediately.

The argument for landing on the hill so that we can bring our bombardment units is strong. I'm concerned, though, that if the Australians move units onto the two mountains we project as part of our line in their response to our landing, we may never move them off. In the ideal case, we'd land our main stack on the hill and at least three musketmen on each of the mountains. That's another argument for more buildup.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, the point about landing on the mountains and hills is well taken. I am certainly fine with getting more units - in fact vital to land in more than one place.

Since losing our foot would be a real problem, I think attacking during Lee's turn if he feels we have enough or even NP's turn would be fine.

I think the city on our island with the Australian stack next to it (forget the name) could use a bit more force as well. I thought I moved a Treb there but didn't see it when my turn ended, so I think it didn't disembark. Knocking some hp off that Knight before attacking seems a worthy goal.

I would not upgrade the Trebs. It is not worth the cost. Instead build some more Cannon. I once did the calculations and it costs hundreds to get a single extra hp damage. To see this 14 trebs vs defense 6 will hit 1/2 the time. 14 cannon hit 8/14 of the time. So the 14 treb do 7 hp and the 14 cannon do 8 hp on average. The net result is that you need 14 upgrades to do that single hp.

 

[Northern Pike]

I remember your demonstration that catapult --> treb upgrades are bad economics, but I didn't know that you'd extended the principle to treb --> cannon. Not upgrading the trebs is fine, then.

 

[Elephantium]

I've got it.

 

[Elephantium]

Pre-turn:

Extensive MM. Buy Silks from Babylon for 29 gpt.

IBT: Sioux buy Russia, Persia, and China into a war on Babylon. So much for our Silk deal...
And...boom. Jakarta riots. We just lost TWO luxuries.
Scroll ahead to prevent further riots.
Sioux are building US

1010 AD - buy Wines from Germany and Gems from Argentina. Hopefully those two should be safe trading partners for the present!

1020 AD - Persia has Democracy, Magnetism, and MT while Germany only has Democracy and MT. We still can't afford any of them.

IBT - China declares war on us! This could be game.
We lose workers by Bogor
They lose a Rider to our sword at Indus
Cav retreats at Bekasi

1030 AD - Bombardment fails
rSword kills MDI at Bogor, promotes (3/4)

IBT - bombardments on our homeland
Cav kills Musket at Bekasi
Cav retreats
Cav kills MDI at Bekasi
Cav dies
Whew!

1040 AD - MDI kills Cav

IBT - around a dozen Chinese Frigates bombard us.
Cav kills MDI at Bekasi
Cav kills Knight at Bekasi
Cav dies
Cav kills MDI at Bekasi
Cav kills Musket at Banjarmasin
Cav kills Sword at Bekasi

Oddly, China doesn't TAKE Bekasi. They do send a scary amount of troops past it though.

1050 AD - MDI kills Cav
Knight dies

...and I'm not sure we can hold anymore. Pausing for comment.

 

[LKendter]

WOW - can we get any ally vs. China.

Loss of the foothold in Asia will be the kiss of death for us. There is no way we can get any type of win, yet alone our standard domination target, without that...

 

[Greebley]

Maybe we should ally the Sioux vs China then? See if they pull in more.

While losing our foothold in Asia lessens our chances, its not a certainty that we have lost even with that. Human advantage at the time of rails is big enough. Also Australia provides a big enough base if we can get it.

It may require that there is no single run-away AI, and getting around the diplomatic victory, but I have had games that have come down to stopping an AI launch that have succeeded. It is to our advantage that there are 2 strong civs in the Americas. Most losses I have had involved a single civ with over 2x the tech of everyone else.

Did we move the boats toward the fighting or stay where we are or land the troops?

 

[LKendter]

Human advantage at the time of rails is big enough.

The human advantage IMO with rails is small distance traveling. With a bunch of small islands rails isn't that great for us. We get a production boast, but we are starting from an awful small production base.

If we can pull it off, I like the idea of bring the Sioux in. Maybe then can start WW III with China getting hit hard.

 

[Greebley]

I will be able to look at the save this evening and will try to comment more.

 

[Elephantium]

I landed our troops near the front, but I still fear they will be overwhelmed.

 

[Greebley]

Establish an embassy with Mongols. I believe that shows the Mongols are already at war with China. This means the Chinese stacks should go for the Mongols if our defense is better than theirs.

For the Sioux, I noticed that an MMP might work. The civs that can reach them are less of a danger for us. We would have a good chance of ending up at war with Argentine. If Songhai somehow dropped units in Sioux territory it would but us with war but I think that risk is small.

For the Peninsula there is a square we could block with two Muskets on the hill. I think that may be sufficient - certainly 3 should be. That could keep the two towns on there. We may be able to upgrade the spear. Possibly rush a musket.

For the main lands I think we can keep the town near the army by putting enough troops in it next turn. they can't get to us this turn. Those 3 cities seem savable, the rest are not very hopeful. We can just defend with what we have to slow them a bit.

Well defended towns might even let us advance if we can get the Cavalry to go elsewhere.

Not sure if the MMP with Sioux is worthwhile. It likely isn't if we are going for peace. If we want to battle it out, then the MMP to pull in other civs becomes more useful. That would mean not going for peace.

I think we may be able to advance but am not sure. It would be rough that is sure. Try to block the Chinese from those 3 towns and see what the Chinese do and see if we can defend with Muskets and advance with knights.

Edit: Definitely build the embassy with the Mongols as I think that will tell us when Mongols stop the war.

 

[Elephantium]

I'm not so confident that they can't take that town this turn. If they take Bekasi, their other cavs will be moving from Chinese territory on roads -- giving them 1-2 extra squares of range from their current positions.

 

[Northern Pike]

This whole disaster probably came about because the little Chinese stack marooned outside Indus wanted something to do--AI strategy.

I'll have comments in a few hours.