MB4 - GOTM24 Redux [civ3] Roster A

[smackster]

Had a little look now.

I really would like some settlers in the front line, helps to reduce that culture expansion and allows us to get our troops to their cities quicker. Probably not enough time to help in these 10 turns, but in future turns lets get settlers moving to the front, as the troops want to move on a city, the settler can settle in their territory, and suddenly we can use their roads.

I'm do a little repositioning of our defensive troops, basically trying to use everything I can find, without exposing us. For example sending a Samurai from Azuchi to the front, and sending the Yakkachi troops all over as there are lots of them.

I might start to surround the Koruda troops as I'm concerned they will sneak attack us. I might sneak attack them before the end of 10 turns.

Smackster

Now to the game.

 

[AlanH]

I haven't used settlers as an instrument of war before. I've seen Moonsinger's strategy thread, linking it to artillery if I recall, but I've not tried it. I'll be interested to see that in action.

I notice that, now MB has updated the score chart, Team B seem to be closing the gap quite substantially. I guess we have slowed down our growth rate since we focused on the war effort. An early finish to the game will get us the best Jason score, of course, but if finish dates are close then our Firaxis number will be important.

I think Team B went after Kuroda first, then Tokugawa, so it will be interesting to see whether they slow down when they hit Takeda and the samurai.

 

[smackster]

450 AD
Trade silks to Chosu for 9GPT.

T1 460AD
I'm not going through everything that is built now, too much time to writeup OK? Only tell you about kills, killed, upgrades and retreats.

horse attacks FF in Ohara, retreats
horse dies against FF in Ohara
elite horse kills FF in Ohara
elite Oda kills FF in Ohara
Ohara taken 1 happy 3 resistors, captured 1 catapult, 1 worker. Set to build Samurai.

Decide to look at Wakayama, and that Musket they show is the only one, with two spear, we could probably take that. Now I realise that Sun Tzu's is in Bisen. Well we could probably take that too later. Damn.

Changed Nagoya to Samurai, rushed another, decided that I needed these two for my conquest of Koruda.

IBT We leave a Samurai in the open in range of Tateyama and their Samurai attacks (whoops), but we win

T2 470AD
Stacks of Samurai built this turn

We have four catapults now (I think all captured) three are in range of Yokosuka. So much for that, find that we have two Samurai in range and Yokusuka is taken.

Decide now that we can ROP rape Koruda to take Sun Tzu and their capital. Which would put the palace in the top right corner in Gifu. That is my plan anyway. Stick herding their stack of three archers (4).

Samurai dies attacking Tateyama (2/4)
Now we see a Samurai Spearman who is 1.3.1, I wonder why we can't build them?
Samurai dies attacking Tateyama SS (3/4)
Samurai dies attacking Tateyama SS (2/5) damn it
Samurai dies attacking Tateyama Samurai (2/5) great
Samurai dies attacking Tateyama Samurai (1/5) Can I play this turn again
Samuria kills SS attacking Tateyama (upgrades to elite) One more
Samurai kills Samurai attacking Tateyama (upgrades to veteran)
Tateyama is taken
With Aquaduct, 2 restitors, one happy, 2 more Catapult. Takeda Samurai in range to take it back, we'll see.

Capital move to Fujisawa kind of in the middle of their territory, but too close to us, I'd really like peace now, or soon, ok now. We see another Samurai in Kawasaki. After losing 5 of ours in one attack, I'm no soo confident anymore.

We build new Koroma, near their two workers finish a road, where to send them next? As I'm in milititary mode they are going to the front line too. Workers seem to be really great counter attack bait. So when we try to take a city their counter attack will go for our worker (who I place in the open) and we'll take him back later after killing his now exposed troop.

Peace with Takeda, we get Gunpowder, and maps and 2Gold. Gundpowder in Takeda land is miles from anywhere. There is no Gunpowder in Koruda land.

We note now that Chemistry is available. Nobody will give it to us of course, well not until later anyway.

T3 480AD
Get alliance with Krouda against Mori for Iron. There are some Mori troops chasing our troops, in Koruda, so they will fight. Koruda will not have iron for long.

Rest of turn just moving around. Positioning, 6 at the door of Waka, 4 at Bijen. Not enough need more.

IBT Everyone is at war with Gogureyo, but Han wipes them out. Han has more than half that continent now. We'll just have to face them when we get there. All the Koruda troops start to head back to home to fight Mori.

T4 490AD

Defeated me for the night, will play tomorrow. Gathering forces to attack both Takeda and Koruda

Part 2 Only 40 minutes of play time before I have to leave. Its still snowing.

Just shuffled troops into position for double ROP rape attack on Takeda and Koruda.

IBT Shimazu peace with Mori, then declare war with up. We sign ROP with Takeda, thought we already had one, can't ROP rape if you don't have a ROP

T5 500AD

One more look at Wakayama, see they have still one Musket but build a Samurai in one. We attack.

Wakayama attacks
Samurai kills Musket
Oda kills footman
Oda kills footman
Elite horse retreats from archer
Oda kills archer
Oda kills warrior upgrades to elite
Samurai kills archer upgrades to vet
Wakayama is taken, 5 restitors, 4 unhappy, has a barracks. Capital moves to the next city, must have just grown.

Samurai attack Himeji retreats
Samurai attacks Himeji kills footman
Himeji is taken

Bisen attacks
Samurai attack Musket retreats (3/4)
Samurai killed by Musket (1/4) footman now shows
Samurai kills Footman
Oda kills Musket
Bisen is taken, we now have Sun Tzu

Oda kills s archer in open upgrades to elite
Oda kills archer in open
Samurai kills s archer in open captures settler
Oda kills s archer in open
Oda kills s archer in open upgrades to elite
Oda kills s archer in open upgrades to elite
Oda kills footman in open captures settler
Oda kills footman in open captures settler

Now to Takeda

Fujisawa attacks (capital)
Oda kills footman
Elite Samurai kills footman
Fujisawa is taken

Now for the tough one, Kawasaki with Samurai defence
Samurai kills Samurai (no loss)
Samurai kills footman
Kawasaki is taken

Samurai moves onto hill over looking Hitachi (new capital), see S archer next to him, has to attack, kills him, now sees two more.

That is all the moves for this turn, run out of time, still to do sell barracks, see if we can get some more alliances, although that might not be so easy now.

Part 3
Lots of manipulation to stop cities revolting

IBT Takeda s-archer attacks our Samurai, but dies and Samurai is upgrade to elite. Notice some Mori attacks on Karuda so they are still keeping them busy good.

T6 510AD

Our Junk destroyed by Karuda junk.
Decide to hold off one turn before attacking Otsu, to get more troops in range.

3 Samurai attack Mito, one retreat, one upgrade to elite and Mito is taken

Declare peace with Mori, why not we seem to be at war with enough others now.

IBT Takeda s-archer can't resist taking back their worker, leaving him in the open for us to kill him

T7 520AD

A Samurai and and Oda kill footmen and Ako is taken

Attack on Otsu (Koruda capital)
Samurai kills Musket
Samurai killed by footman
Samurai kills footman
Otsu is taken

Adachi Ku taken by 2 Samurai
Takeda down to four cities now

That is all I can do again tonight. I'm rushing the moves and they are taking too long for me right now. Sorry all I can do is offer the save to somebody, or be patient I'll be sure to finish tomorrow.
Current score 1285

 

[smackster]

I learned the settler trick from that same article, but find that it works to a certain extent in any age, especially where there is 3 squares of culture, you can settle in your own land next to theirs and take one of those squares back, then same turn you troops effectively get an extra move (assuming there are roads).

The Steppe Settler, allowed you to move into enemy territory and settle, which is probably what Cracker built them for, I found them too expensive.

10PM Boston Time. Still snowing. I'm all right, I bought a shovel.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Karasu is due back tomorrow. If teknoice doesn't show up, let's let Karasu have a shot. I'll be ready whenever needed.

So we are at war with Kuroda and Takeda. Takeda must be gassed by now.

Rep, we don't need no steenking rep!

 

[AlanH]

Smackster, I handed off in the afternoon of 6th, so you still have time left. I know how long those turns are getting, and you've previously kept the game going superbly, so if you want to finish your remaining turns today I'm sure we can cut you a little slack. If someone else did pick up then they would either need to play 3 or 13 to get back on track. Three is really a bit short to get anything going relative to the amount of time it takes to understand the situation, and 13 would be a very heavy session as we've all seen.

Meanwhile I'll PM Karasu and see when he will be available.

Until I hear from you, or someone else throws a fit at what I've just written, I'll assume you are still UP.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I agree, with the amount of snow Boston got, life will be a bit harder for the smackster.

 

[smackster]

Shnow blow, we are used to it. Can be a bit of a problem while its actually snowing, but they clear the roads round here in no time. My main problem yesterday was that I went to see the NE patriots play and it basically took us all day to get there and back, and Saturday I hadn't accounted for the amount of time the turns would take, and as I had to get up for the American Football on Sunday couldn't pull in an extended Civ session.

State of the game is that Takeda have four cities left, but with no roads so its will be easy to defeat them but may take a few turns. Then our Samurai have a long march back to the eastern front.
Koruda appears to be a spent force already, we took 3 of their best cities and I think Mori had warn them down already, they have mounted no coutner attacks, even with some worker bait left out for them.

Han is a little concern as they are too big now, and no way to stop them growing more. We will clearly need MT to get Cavalry so will have to start extorting more techs or actually research something ourselves. I think we will be ok to take our continent as is, but the other Continent maybe not.

Smackster

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Thinking about 20 turns down the road here. We are going to need about 5-7 junks to ferry units across the small straits separating our continent from the other Japanese islands. We may want to start building them in some corrupt coastal cities (1 spt). We can then rush them for a smaller amount of gold when we need them.

I made this mistake in tourny game 6-4 and had to wait about 10 turns to build up my fleet.

Bugs

 

[AlanH]

I agree on the junks. Preferably in Kuroda, or Mori near to where we want them, as they'd take a while to reach Chosogabe or Shimazu from the ex Takedan lands.

BTW, I menat to comment on an earlier comment. We already have a Forbidden Palace, so next leader we get we want a Palace, somewhere really nice and productive with cities placed at four or more tiles away so that it doesn't impact corruption in our existing core too much.

I have heard nothing from either Teknoice or Karasu yet. Karasu is excused as he may not be back in harness yet, but I think we are going to have to drop Teknoice.

What's your schedule, Smackster? Will you be able to complete your last three moves soon?

 

[smackster]

I'll do it tonight, but you should be asleep before I do it.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Should we give it a day for Karasu to show up off of holiday?

 

[AlanH]

Should we give it a day for Karasu to show up off of holiday?
That was my plan. I've sent him a PM asking if he wants to pick up straight away, or if he'd rather skip this time around to have time to catch up with the game. I suggest we wait until 24 hours after Smackster completes. If we haven't heard from Karasu (or Teknoice ) by then I think the baton passes to you. That would be on Wednesday AM, GMT.

 

[smackster]

New post for the final turns

T7 ends

IBT Koruda mount their first attack and their Samurai against ours with not loss to us. Mori kills another Koruda Samurai. They are going to fall very fast now.

T8 530AD
Samurai attacks Hitachi and dies, Oda the same and upgrades to elite. Hitachi is taken, Takeda capital moves again.
Elite Samurai kills Takeda S Archer in open

Changed the east coast builds to junk status, should be able to rush some of these.

In the east our Samurai scout see only footmen in Tanabe, but trips on the way in and retreats for no defensive loss. This attack only took place as I built a town to push back their culture. Attack now forms on Kashihara a little to the south that is showing elite Musket (was attacked my Mori)

Samurai retreats from Musket (3/5)
Vet Samuria kills Musket upgrades to elite
Samurai retreast from Musket (3/5)
nobdoy else in range.

Realise that we have been researching the wrong tech for the last few turns Sun Bud, we don't need it. Damn again, turns taking too long can't spend enough time on the basics. Don't know what to do we have wasted about 5 turns of one scientist on it, can get it from Korea with peace for 240 Gold. Take it as its only a couple of turns gold, at least we get it now back to Chemistry, in 11.

IBT What must be Takedas last Samurai attacks and kills one of ours

T9 540AD

Samurais attack elite Musket again in Kashihara
First damages musket and retreats. 2 Die damaging musket to one, Samurai kills footman. Oda dies on Musket, 3 point elite Samurai dies on Musket. Nothing left to attack.

IBT Takeda Samurai can't resist our worker and leaves himself in the open

T10 550AD

Back to Kashihara
Samari retreats, Samurai dies, Oda dies, elite Oda wins, Kashihara is taken

With S Archer approaching do we risk the attack on Tanebe, yea why not. Oda dies on footman, but weakened Samurai kills the footman and Tanabe is taken
S Archer is killed by our Oda in open
Another S Archer is killed by Oda in open, he was attacking Mori and Mori is our friend, well is until we attack them again.

To the west, we attack the Takeda Samurai in the open but Oda dies. Elite Samurai attacks and kills him. To the east Samurai attacks the new Takeda capital Hino kills footman, still one left.

Ask Chosog to move their troops they declare war and give us a couple of settlers after we kill their footmen. We are not liked and its easy for them to declare on us now.

Samurai attack Utsonayai to the deep south west, two wins and Utsonayai is taken. Two left for Takeda, three for Koruda.
Koruda will offer us Chemistry for peace and a very large GPT which is strange as we will declare war straight away. I wont do the deal but whoever is next should take this. I did research chemistry for a few turns but looks like that was a waste.

Left to the next, my advise is to wage more war, and then more war. Try to research a little better than I. And not waste our cash.
I did not sell the barracks yet.

.Sav next message

 

[smackster]

.zip

Score at 550AD 1354

 

[AlanH]

Thanks Smackster.

Research: My fault. We were already researching Son Buddhism when I took it, so we've been on that track for 20 turns. I commented on it in my timeline, but as we were researching so slowly I thought it was academic and didn't change it. Remember that one scientist rate is 50 turns in this game, so it's doubtful we'll reach any goal at that rate.

I'll have a look at the save and see if I can add any suggestions. Meanwhile ....

Posted by Karasu in the out of pocket thread

I will be on holiday from 15th Nov to 8th of December, and I will probably need a couple of days to recover from it...

So he probably won't be available this time around. I've heard nothing from Teknoice, so I propose we move right along.

Sir Bugsy. You are UP.

Roster:

Karasu (Returns 8th December)
Sir Bugsy UP
AlanH ON DECK
Smackster
Teknoice SKIPPED TWICE

 

[smackster]

Alan,

If you started SB then that's ok, thought I'd done it. I actually bought it in the end of course to get Chemistry and remember Sir Bugsy that we can buy Chemistry for peace with Koruda, take a turn rest and then attack them again. Koruda have a few cities on the islands to the south so may take a few turns to actually wipe them out, although they should be gone from the main land soon. We have just built our first junk.

Takeda have just two cities left, and they are close enough and we have a forces that they should be gone in a couple of turns. I was continuing to starve out Takeda cities becuase of the flip chance, there really are very few of them left now.

In general I'm not sure what half our cities are building, so would be good if you could start by having a look. You might even find some still building barracks which we don't need now. I was varying the totally currupt cities between temple, and settler. I don't know what else we should build, 70 turns for Samurai seems like a waste.

Smackster

 

[smackster]

I'm going on a business trip (Bangkok) for a week, so although I will be on email I don't know how this would effect my play time. I should have enough time to skip if I don't get anytime to play, hopefully I'll be able to play as normal.

Smackster

 

[Sir Bugsy]

OK, I've got it.... again. This game comes around pretty quick with only three of us. I suppose we could put Karasu in smackster's slot when he comes back, and maybe smackster can follow him. The idea would be to get Karasu back into it as soon as possible.

Believe it or not, I started the Son Buddism research. It sounds like we haven't been spending a lot of energy on research, so not a lot is lost.

I will try and play some starting today. It sounds like the turn length hasn't diminished at all.

Bugsy

 

[AlanH]

@ Sir Bugsy: Take some time if you like. As you say the roster's coming around a bit fast, and the turns themselves are time-consuming. With ten turns taking anything up to an hour each, it's getting to be quite labour-intensive, so Karasu's return will be very welcome.

If I get a chance tonight I can have a look at the save and we can spend a day just discussing the options and the way forward before you wade in again. Then if Karasu arrives back on the scene we'll have a plan he can add to/comment on/work to when he slots back in. At the moment I think we are OK, but there hasn't been a lot of "where next" discussion, and he'd have a hard time working out what's going on on his own.

@Smackster: I'm going on a business trip (Bangkok) for a week

Tough luck! It's a hard life . Thanks for the updates on where we stand. `It does sound like we have broken the back of our home island. We just have the Mori to deal with and then we are off to foreign shores. Although the Han are getting big, our homeland should be insulated from them by the AI's inability to wage intercontinental war effectively, so we just have to get a big enough force together to take them down.

If you have any further thoughts on strategy, please drop them into the debate if you get the chance. I'm hoping Karasu will be back in the loop before your next set. If so there should be a week or so before you are up again at the current rate of two or three days per player.