New Succession Game

[Optional]

A pike fortified in a flatland city above size 7 has an effective defense of
3 base defense+.75 for fortification+1.5 for being in a city+.3 for the flatland bonus=5.55

Thanks for that. You can prove anything by looking at Hall of Fame games; I'm sure Tone will have had a few quick conquest games with Egypt where he sliced through pikes with war chariots, but that doesn't tell us what to expect in the average game.
So if the modified defense of a pike is already 5.55, what about a twice as strong defender as the rifle; would that be 11.10? I think so, because it all seems to be about percentages. In that case, it would back up this statement:

Call me chicken, but I want Artillery and Infantry to take down the Dutch.

We'll have Replaceable Parts within 10 turns. It would mean a somewhat delayed start to the war, but proper artillery will shave off a lot of turns of war compared to cannons once going.

Frigate bombardments are the most annoying thing in Civ 3 by far, but at least it means not every Persian unit is going to Rome right now.

Just my thinking. Let Persia waste their resources on fighting us, it'll keep them from taking over their own continent.

A few notes for the next player:

* We'll need to build settlers again; I more or less forgot about this.
* Workers are reasonably well grouped; 4 domestic workers can rail a tile in 1 turn, and it takes 3 slaves to do the same task as a worker. Most worker groups on the map are 4 domestic workers or the equivalent of it. We still need a few more rails against the Dutch border.
* I've done all the workers for 850AD, but no units. I woke up most units so next player will spot them.

Roster:
TheOverseer 714; up
Salarakas
Daeron
Own
Thinktank
Optional

I'd say let's wait for some input from Salarakas and Thinktank, as they haven't had a chance to look at the save yet, but maybe you can post whether you're ready to take a set now, Overseer.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I am wrapping up my Rat37 turnset, so I can probably get this done over the weekend. Saturday might be an off day, as my sweetie is coming over to watch movies. Civ takes the backseat on those days Anyway, Sunday is clear and tonight may be, so I can get started soon. Got the save, will try to finish over the weekend.

 

[ThinkTank]

It depends on the matchups. 3 cavalry armies can easily pulverize a city of muskets fast, as can 4 cavalry armies vs. a city of rifles. Veteran and elite cavalry can pulverize a city of pikes fairly fast. I can point you to examples from my games, but perhaps it's more useful to consider this:
a pike fortified in a flatland city above size 7 has an effective defense of
3 base defense+.75 for fortification+1.5 for being in a city+.3 for the flatland bonus=5.55

I was talking about cavs, not cav armies. And about speed of the conquest. Anyway, a 3 cav army (without the academy) has attack 9, which means while attacking a city with 3 to 5 units of 5.5 defense it is going to loose a fair amount of hp. So it will need to rest and will sometime even become vulnerable to attack. With only 3 or 4 armies, there goes your speed.

Of course, give us 50 4-cav armies, and even infantry will die at a fast pace, as Moonsiger showed in one of her big Sid games. We only have 3 armies right now.

 

[ThinkTank]

We start on Medicine, as we've now got Electricity. I thought we could start on Replaceable Parts, but Medicine is a prerequisite for that, so Medicine it is. 90% science, 7 turns, running +2 gold.

How can that be? In the 850 AD save we are still researching electricty due in 2 turns. In my final save of 750 AD we were already researching electricity, due in 7, with some 1000 beakers invested in it, what happened?

Moreover Medicine is not a prerequisite for Replaceable Parts. Prerequisites for RP are steam and electricty; prerequisites for Sci Meth are medicine, steam and electricty. This is why I choose to research electricity first after steam, as it is needed for both RP and SM, does not force the decision of which one these 2 to research first, and left open the possibility that in the meantime the AI researched medicine for us.

 

[Optional]

How can that be? In the 850 AD save we are still researching electricty due in 2 turns. In my final save of 750 AD we were already researching electricity, due in 7, with some 1000 beakers invested in it, what happened?

Urm.. I didn't realise it at the time, but I must have made a horrible miss-click on the science screen by checking what was a pre-requisite for what.
We should almost have had Replaceable Parts in now. Shall I play my turns again?

 

[Spoonwood]

I was talking about cavs, not cav armies. And about speed of the conquest. Anyway, a 3 cav army (without the academy) has attack 9, which means while attacking a city with 3 to 5 units of 5.5 defense it is going to loose a fair amount of hp. So it will need to rest and will sometime even become vulnerable to attack. With only 3 or 4 armies, there goes your speed.

Since veteran and elite cavs. can usually win vs. pikes, a stack of 6-8 cavs. should on average take out a city of 3 or 4 pikes. With an army of 20 or so cavs. and more coming via replacements, that's a few cities a turn (once positioned), which sounds like a pretty fast war to me (20 turns or so, if that even). That's my experience with such situations also.

I can believe quickly conquering a Deity AI if they have just pikes and spears... and in fact I wouldn't believe such had a load of improbable wins. Of course, that's not strictly relevant for your guys's game, since the Dutch have Swiss Mercs, instead of pikes.

 

[Optional]

Of course, that's not strictly relevant for your guys's game, since the Dutch have Swiss Mercs, instead of pikes.

Actually, the discussion concerned Greece. We had gifted them into the IA, then I said I wouldn't have done that, because I rather would have been fighting a completely backward Greece (pikes/hoplites) than an advanced Greece. Then the discussion started about which military is needed to fight pikes/hoplites.

 

[ThinkTank]

Urm.. I didn't realise it at the time, but I must have made a horrible miss-click on the science screen by checking what was a pre-requisite for what.
We should almost have had Replaceable Parts in now. Shall I play my turns again?

Nah, we all make mistakes, it's a pity but never mind.

What is more important now that the team makes up it's mind if after electricty we go RP first, or else go for SM first possibly even detouring via industrialization before SM as Own suggested.

I have stated my vote before but I'll do it again: I think RP is the way to go, because we agreed to win this game by military. I think it is in fact the only tech we reallyneed. If we go all out for war with the Dutch after that, possibly instigating wars on the other continents to slow done the tech pace and the tech trading there, this is all we need. We do not need Hoover or ToE to win. Investing a lot of our economy in this, both for getting the techs and the shields for the wonders, instead of using our economy for building/rushing/upgrading cavs, armies and artillery, will slow down our victoy in my view. I also think that the Military Academy soon is more important than Hoover, so I suggest we cancel the prebuild for Hoover in favour of finishing the Academy soon.

 

[Optional]

I have stated my vote before but I'll do it again: I think RP is the way to go, because we agreed to win this game by military. I think it is in fact the only tech we really need.

Then I'll say again that I did and do still agree with this for the full 100%. It's only by complete mishap that I f**ked up your decent research path.
I find the tech tree very difficult to interpret. I need to click on a tech to see which techs are the prerequisite ones. But then I need to reload the game if the original research path got wiped. Obviously, I forgot to do that. Stupid, but it's easily done. I really was completely oblivious to my mistake until you asked your question. It's a big Simpsons type duh! But yeah, it's just a game, so if we just want to move on, we move on.

 

[ThinkTank]

I find the tech tree very difficult to interpret. I need to click on a tech to see which techs are the prerequisite ones. But then I need to reload the game if the original research path got wiped. Obviously, I forgot to do that.

As long as you are in the tech tree (screen F6), cou can click around without any effect, but you do need to select back the tech you were researching before you leave the screen, or else you wlll have lost the beakers. This is probably what happened: we were researching electricity, you clicked on Scientific Method to see the prerequisites, and even though both electricty and medicine are prereqs, then medicine was selected (green, as 1), and electricty selected (green, as 2) and then you left the tech tree, making the chance for electricity to medicine final. I checked this in the 750 AD save and it indeed works like that, stupid advisors!

 

[TheOverseer714]

We are almost there, don't panic. I've accidentally clicked on a tech and erased accumulated beakers before. I will research RP, then SM. I think we need to research all the way to Combustion just so we can have Transports, 4 unit capacity, 4 movement Galleons are an impediment to speedy IA warfare. Fleets of Galleons guarded by Frigates totally suck when the enemy has a large navy. Prepare to lose a bunch of ships. Hopefully I can play this tomorrow.

 

[Optional]

This is probably what happened: we were researching electricity, you clicked on Scientific Method to see the prerequisites, and even though both electricty and medicine are prereqs, then medicine was selected (green, as 1), and electricty selected (green, as 2) and then you left the tech tree, making the chance for electricity to medicine final.

That's basically it. I was trying to get the maths right with regards to prebuilds, I will also have clicked on Electronics for Hoover's, I was trying to be thorough with my calculations, but as I was taking over a save from someone else, I was actually not very aware we were researching Electronics at the time.
An unintentional blip, but quite easy to make, I'm afraid. I think the game should have had seperate buttons next to the tech that lit up to show the research path without interfering with the present research.

 

[Salarakas]

I just came home and took a quick look at the save. We should build walls in some of the towns that are next to the Dutch borders to help keep down our losses and delay the war weariness. Remember, they can build cavalry again and can attack almost all the border towns in one turn. Many of the towns were on wealth I think. If we have any obsolete units left (I think there were some longbows or are they elite?), they can be disbanded to speed up the builds.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I would upgrade a few muskets and build some infantry before starting the war. As to Walls, only in towns, they are useless for cities. Besides, we will be attacking more than defending. I'll build some, but I doubt they will help much.

 

[Salarakas]

Well, if we do indeed wait until we have infantry and artillery then no, the walls are not needed. However, I think we have wasted way too much time in this game just waiting for something. Enemy cavalry will cause us some losses if we only have muskets defending. Walls would help with that.

 

[TheOverseer714]

True enough, waiting for certain events before going to war can slow things down. Speaking of wars, I want to ask the team about ending the Persian war. We can get Industrialization and 55 gpt for Electricity from them. We will lose a little WH but not much. What do you guys think?

 

[ThinkTank]

True enough, waiting for certain events before going to war can slow things down.

We still have a 47 gpt deal with the Dutch I think, that does help us fast research RP, so I would wait with going to war with the Dutch until RP.

Speaking of wars, I want to ask the team about ending the Persian war. We can get Industrialization and 55 gpt for Electricity from them. We will lose a little WH but not much. What do you guys think?

That deal looks fine. Beware that they may declare again before this deal ends, as they did last time, when they were still paying us like 30 gpt.

 

[Optional]

I would upgrade a few muskets and build some infantry before starting the war.

Then perhaps switch some cavalry-builds to musket-builds now, so that we have our required amount of infantry as soon as we have Replaceable Parts.

Persia.. We can get Industrialization and 55 gpt for Electricity from them

I'm not enthousiastic about it, nor am I completely against it. At the end of my set we still had war happiness from the Persians, which saved us some 50 gpt, we would lose that. On the other hand, if the Persians ally with the Arabs, we lose our 2 Arabian lux, and that'll cost us.
There are other considerations as well, but you just make the decision you think is best.

 

[Daeron]

Funny thing, last weekend I started my first demi-god game of my own and got eliminated by the Greeks after like 20 turns. No barbs and all my troops were busting fog when they parked a stack of 5 warriors and a hoplite right next to my capitol. Ridiculous, their nearest town was miles away...

 

[Salarakas]

The games on emperor and above can indeed be ended really quickly if you get unlucky no matter how good you are. The bonuses that the AI gets on the higher levels are really something. But if you do survive the beginning, then beating even the sid level is possible as proven by countless games here. It can be daunting at first but just hang in there!