SGFN-05: India Stomps the World

[vmxa]

Lurker:

If you grab or destroy the GW, then all walls generated by it will go away as Overseer said. Any walls that were build by hand will still be there. I doubt the AI goes around selling those, like humans some times will.

 

[Optional]

You're right about the Babylon deal, Overseer. That should not be extended. No 20-turn deals with Hammurabi anymore.

Concerning grabbing German towns: the German towns closest to us are at size 1 and have no culture, so they will autoraze. We must bring settlers along if we go after them. Especially in the case of Munich; if we don't put a new town there immediately, probably Iroquois will, and then they've got the Iron and we miss out.
BTW, towns like Konigsberg and Munich have stayed at pop 1 for ages now; Germany must be pop rushing defenders. There will be whip unhappiness in those towns, so we don't want those towns the way they are anyway. Let them autoraze, that's fine.
Berlin is for keeps, of course.

 

[Jorgo_Mono]

I'm here, just been pretty busy.

I'll try to get my turnset done by the end of today or tomorrow.

Or...maybe I won't. Sorry guys, RL has a nasty habit of getting involved in my gaming. I barely have enough time to get a turn in in my PBEM.

If you guys are willing to wait 2-3 days I will have some time to do my turnset. If not, feel more than welcome to give me a skip.

 

[anaxagoras]

How about a swap instead of a skip? I have writer's block in my Succession Story game, so perhaps I can crank out a set in this game, and maybe it will jar something loose over there. Everyone OK with that?

 

[TheOverseer714]

I think it works fine, as far as I'm concerned, swap away. If it's fine with the 2 that are swapping, then go for it.

 

[Northen Wolf]

I'll be in hospital for 4-6 days more, please skip me. I can't play at home, they allow me to stay here for one night and one day, then have to go back.

Sorry!

 

[Jorgo_Mono]

How about a swap instead of a skip? I have writer's block in my Succession Story game, so perhaps I can crank out a set in this game, and maybe it will jar something loose over there. Everyone OK with that?

No objections here. Go for it.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Hope everything goes well, Northen and you get out as soon as you can. I've spent a few times in the hospital, and it has always sucked.

 

[anaxagoras]

I'll be playing tonight. Any other strategy suggestions?

 

[Jorgo_Mono]

Guys, I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop out of this. The time during which I have access to play Civ three is too chaotic and unpredictable. ( Example: I lose access to Civ 3 this monday, um, well I guess todays sunday, so tomorrow. I lose access tomorrow, and have no idea when I will get it back.) I simply feel that my continued participation in this will only serve to stall the game and waste your time. Sorry.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I'm getting worried, our team keeps shrinking. Jorgo, if you post when you could play, we would all be willing to swap to allow you to continue. If that isn't possible, please stay involved, we'd hate to lose you completely.

 

[anaxagoras]

OK, I finally finished the set. Considering how long this took, there really isn't that much to report. A few minor skirmishes, but the main battles will go to the next player.

Turn log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight:

Even though we have 14 towns, I'm going to go through each one to get re-acquainted:

Delhi(5) settler in 1, growth in 1
Look, Ma! Pyramids! I forgot we had those.
Bombay(7) horseman in 2, growth in 14
Bengal)2) catapult in 2, growth in 4
Madras(6) horseman in 2, no growth
Bangalore(8) horseman in 3, no growth
Calcutta(5) FP in 37, growth in 4
Lahore(5) horseman in 4, growth in 2
Karachi(4) galley in 1, growth in 2
Kolhapur(5) catapult in 4, growth in 4
Jaipur(3) temple in 14, growth in 9
Hyderabad(2) temple in 16, growth in 1 - unconnected
Chittagong(1) catapult in 12, growth in 2 - unconnected
Punjab(1) harbor in 58, growth in 8 - unconnected
Dacca(1) catapult in 20, growth in 10 - unconnected

Dies near Dacca need to be hooked.

Research slider at 80%, lux at 20%, Feudalism in 14 at -7gpt.

We have considerable military, but it seems to be pretty dispersed. Also, we have some unused growth potential and an open, productive area sitting between us, Germany, and the Aztecs. Let's peel off a non-combat unit or two. Also, not sure what the temples are for.

Change Bangalore to worker(1)
Change Bombay to settler(2)
Change Jaipur to library(64)
Change Hyderabad to catapult(6)

We have jungle/wetlands between us and Germany's walls; i.e. no catapults without roads. Need to settle a jungle town 2SE of Kolhapur and bring up a hoard of workers to cut through the intervening tile. We know within a square or two where Berlin is, and that's the shortest way.

Contacts:
1. Germany - Permanent War, 5 towns, no iron or horses hooked, still AA
2. Babylon - Peace, Alliance v. Greece(11), 5 towns, iron, no horses, still AA
3. Greece - War, 10 towns, iron, no horses, still AA
4. Aztecs - Peace, 11 towns, horses, no iron, tech parity
5. Portugal - Peace(4), Alliance v. Germany(19), 4 towns, no resources, tech parity
6. Iroquois - Peace, Alliance v. Germany(11)(3gpt), 10 towns, no resources, tech parity
7. Scandanavia - Peace, 9 towns, iron, no horses, tech parity

Initial moves/combats:
Near Kohlapur, vArcher def. damaged German rSpear, 1 dmg. (1-0)
Near Bangalore, vHorse from Calcutta def. Greek vArcher flawlessly (2-0)
Near Bangalore, rArcher def. Greek rARcher, 1 dmg., promotes (3-0)

Hit return...

IBT:
Babylonian sword defeats something in fog, promotes.
Iroquois and Germany sign peace treaty.
Germans request an audience. Nah.
3 barb horses to east, 3 more to south.
Delhi settler -> settler(5) (double-check factory: settler really in 4)
Bangalore worker -> horseman(3)
Karachi galley -> galley(15)

T1 - 550BC:
Settler toward 2SE of Kolhapur
Set up defense, begin to consolidate military.
Send galley CCW.

IBT:
Henry complains about our curragh. We apologize, but will keep moving through.
Barbs close in as expected east and south.
Bombay settler -> horseman(5)
Bengal catapult -> courthouse(40)
Madras horseman -> horseman(5)
Bleah. Hyderabad riots. Hire a geek.

T2 - 530BC:
Bombard barbarians outside Banaglore - miss.
Kill all six barbs with horses. Two redlines, but no losses.

IBT:
OK, I hate not having CivAssist. Chittgong riots. :angry: Hire a geek.
Hyderabad calms down.
SoZ produces an AC.

T3 - 510BC:
MM Delhi settler pump. Settler in 2, growth in 2.
Send out horse as eastern picket.
Change Karachi from galley(8) to courthouse(25).

IBT:
barb galley suicides on CCW explorer.
Henry asks for an audience. He wants ROP and alliace v. Aztecs. Um, no. He also has Monarchy, but won't trade it.
Bangalore horseman -> horseman(3)
Lahore horseman -> horseman(5)
Kolhapur catapult ->
Order restored in Chittagong.
Vikings and Iroquois begin ToA.

T4 - 490BC:
Workers begin clearing jungle SE of Kolhapur - finish in 8.
ArcherTomatoJuice...make that ArcherV08 clears barb camp.

IBT:
Portugal and Greece ally against Babylon.
Greece signs peace treaty with Babylon. (!)
Delhi settler -> settler(5) (really 4)
Dammit. Calcutta riots this time. :suicide: Hire clown.
Axtecs begin ToA.

T5 - 470BC:
Found Everglade City 2SE of Kolhapur. Begin catapult(20).
Advance horse scout sees German archer outside Munich, moves out of range.
Now have stack of 5 horses, 2 AC SE of Everglade City. Will use as raiders until catapults can make it through.
Confirm we no longer have alliance against Greece, and that we no longer are getting War Happiness. Check deals. We can get 10 gold plus 5 gpt for peace. We take it.
Note that Greece and Aztecs know Monarchy and Engineering. Many others know Monarchy, but the deals are not favorable.

IBT:
Aztec Jaguar kills Portugese archer outside . Jaguar is forced to retreat by counterattack.
Barb galley suicides on our curragh.
Bombay horseman -> horseman(4)
Order restored in Calcutta. FP in 43.

T6 - 450BC:
2 German archers on hill N of Munich. Not much else.

IBT:
Aztec archer defeats Portugese archer.
German archers head for AC/settler pair.
Madras horseman -> horseman(5)
Bangalore horseman -> horseman(3)
Hyderabad catapult -> worker(10)
Iroquois begin Hanging Gardens.

T7 - 430 BC:
vAC attacks German archer, one dmg, but promotes. (4-0)
Found Lakeview, and fortify AC. Spot another archer. Begin catapult(20).
Maneuver a bit on defense.

IBT:
Babylon requests an audience. They want ROP and an alliance against Portugal. They really have nothing else to offer, so no thanks.
Hiawatha complains about our galley. We apologize.
vArcher on hill redlines, but survives attack by German archer. (5-0)
SoZ produces AC.
Lahore horseman -> settler(4)
Kolhapur catapult -> library(14)
Aztecs begin Hanging Gardens.
Babylonians begin Great Library.

T8 - 410BC:
MM Delhi to make settler factory work. A turn late, but I got there in time.

IBT:
Iroquois are moving by galley up the coast.
Delhi settler -> settler(5)

T9 - 390BC:
eAC attacks German vArcher on hill N of Munich, win, 3 dmg. (6-0)
vAC attacks German rArcher on hill S of Munich, wins flawlessly. (7-0)
Check deals. Germany now has Monotheism as a monopoly tech. Hopefully, Bismark will trade it around.
Ragnar will trade Monarchy for Republic. Since most everyone has Republic, and I'm worried a delay will cost us, we make the deal.

IBT:
Barb galley sinks our curragh. Rats.
Bombay horseman -> horseman(3)
Bangalore horseman -> horseman(3)

T10 - 370BC:
Nothing significant.

Detail view near Germany:

Spoiler :

Full overview:

Spoiler :

And a few notes for the next player and the team:
Both jungles near Kolhapur will clear next interturn, opening the way for the catapult stack. However, it will take the cats a full ten turns to make it to Berlin. I'm not sure we want to wait that long, but I'm not sure our 5 vHorseman and 2 vACs are enough to do the job, either. The team should weigh in.
The settler SE of Everglade City should settle just S of the horses, IMO. That's in the middle of the grasslands, well-spaced with Munich, and well-spaced with the swamp 3 tiles N, which should be cleared and settled later. A "combat settler" is between Kolhapur and Everglade City, and two more settlers are due in the next four turns.
Chittagong still needs to be connected.
We may want to peel off another worker or two from the larger towns.
Please check the towns for riot potential before moving on. I haven't done that, yet.

And, of course, the save is attached.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Good turn-set, Anax. I'd say send some more horses along with catapults, though catapults might destroy the Great Wall(glitch), or just be practically useless. Send horses, expect losses, then use the ACs to finish Berlin. Once the GW is ours, Germany should be an easy takedown. Settling the Iron will be a nice prize. Time for a revised roster:

1: TheOverseer714=> on deck
2: Optional=> waiting
3: Anaxagoras=> just played
4: Northen Wolf=> warming up
5: Rodent=> up
6: ThinkTank=> Honored lurker (Always welcome to take a set)
7: Jorgo Mono=> Honored lurker (Always welcome to take a set)

 

[anaxagoras]

Ooooo, I forgot about the Great Wall bug. Maybe best to hit Berlin without the cats, considering the travel time. If we take a couple of the horses from the Kolhapur region, we can get the stack up to ten. If we pillage first to prevent reinforcement, that should be enough units.

 

[Northen Wolf]

I know cats can destroy wonders or wonder given improvements but would you explain that glitch to me? Thanks, I hope I'll be back at home computer, in ~2 days from now.

 

[Rodent]

Up in Rod01 As well, Ack!

A Swap Is Desired if anyone is willing, otherwise I will play on Saturday

 

[Optional]

I've been away for a few days; finally some sunshine here in Scotland so I went for some hillwalking, something that I'm doing far too little these days!

I quickly caught up with our Gandhi proceedings. Anaxagoras had a good turnset, I saw.

Just some thoughts that I had when I read the turnset: Anax, you shouldn't have too high expectations of CivAssist when it comes to helping prevent riots; it's not like it gives pop up warnings or so; you still have to browse through lots of lines of information to find the names of towns about to riot. I would really have preferred a pop up system that you couldn't ignore. We all let towns riot, not because we want to, but because it escapes our attention. The game designers could have helped the player more.
What I do to prevent riots is to check the Domestic Advisor screen carefully. However you do it, it remains a tedious chore.

Still, if you're used to CivAssist, you don't want to do without. The most useful aspect of it I find is being able to see which civ knows which tech in one glance.
I use it for other things as well, like letting it display the map to be sure about how rivers are running. In this case, I saw we can attack Berlin from the side of the oasis without having to cross the river. I would not have been sure without CivAssist.
I believe MapStat does a good job as well, but I'm not familiar with that. I don't think any of those run on a Mac, which is bit of a pain.

On the Catapults issue: I find Catapults very useful for defense, to redline stray enemy units with. I find them less usefull for attacking towns/cities, but for attacking towns with walls their strike rate is so low that I wouldn't hesitate to call them useless. Maybe Trebuchets are a bit better, I'm not sure, but Catapults are really not worth the effort of taking along when attacking towns with walls. Once Berlin is ours I would take them along when sieging other German towns, especially the ones close to us, but taking them to Berlin is not worth it. I don't have any knowledge about the chance to destroy a wonder, but I'm trusting Overseer on that.
We probably have enough Catapults now, also considering we're over our unit support.
I simply think we need a big stack of Horses for Berlin. They won't win often against fully healthy fortified Spearmen, but with some luck you'll get a lot of retreaters amongst the first lot that attacks. Retreaters do not promote their target, but will nibble off the odd hitpoint, making it easier for the ones that follow. As we're not at war with Greece anymore, we should be able to free up some Horses from that front. We've got 19 Horses, 4 Ancient Cavalries, and we're still building more. I think we need to get them to Berlin as soon as possible, as Germany is now able to build up again, being at peace with the Iroquois. The less time we give them to build up, the better.

Just one question, Anaxagoras: How were you able to see we were not getting war happiness from Greece anymore? I don't know anything better than just to make a guess.

I remember an idea I was having in my turnset that I haven't mentioned yet: I was quite friendly towards Henry. They have Furs, and are struggling in the game. It seemed likely that at some stage we would be able to make a deal for their Furs. I would say let's try and keep an eye open for that.

I would find it a loss for our game if Jorgo would call it quits for good. Maybe if Jorgo can find any time on a computer again, he can give us a shout?

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

Optional if you have the flag on in CAII you will get a line in red of any towns going into riot. Click on the name and it takes to the area. No tool will tell you about riots that occur due to loss of lux or income or war happiness or the likes that occur on the IT.

 

[anaxagoras]

I don't have any knowledge about the chance to destroy a wonder, but I'm trusting Overseer on that.

Random things, including Wonders, can get destroyed when the Great Wall is attacked by a bombarding unit. If we aren't using the cats down there, anyway, then it shouldn't really matter.

I simply think we need a big stack of Horses for Berlin. ... We've got 19 Horses, 4 Ancient Cavalries, and we're still building more. I think we need to get them to Berlin as soon as possible, as Germany is now able to build up again, being at peace with the Iroquois. The less time we give them to build up, the better.

Yes, I agree with this, although I don't think we should denude everything. Our horse picket can be recalled, as can one or two units from the Calcutta area. We should be able to send most of the units from the line SE of Kolhapur toward Berlin. I knew I wouldn't be able to assemble sufficient force in my set, anyway, so I was intentionally cautious about maintaining guard forces. I think it is time to be a bit less cautious and go right after Berlin.

One thing: I may have accidently fortified a unit on the worker stack. That should be undone, so we don't get disease. I forgot, sorry.

Just one question, Anaxagoras: How were you able to see we were not getting war happiness from Greece anymore? I don't know anything better than just to make a guess.

The only way I know is to pick a town of sufficient size and count happy/content points. In this case, I looked at Madras. Running from memory, I think I counted one automatic content face, two content faces from MPs, then two luxes made two of those happy, then two happies from the slider made one more happy, and moved one unhappy citizen to content. There were no unaccounted-for content or happy faces, therefore, no war happiness. Nothing changed when we made peace, so my count was accurate, apparently.

I remember an idea I was having in my turnset that I haven't mentioned yet: I was quite friendly towards Henry. They have Furs, and are struggling in the game. It seemed likely that at some stage we would be able to make a deal for their Furs. I would say let's try and keep an eye open for that.

I was thinking more aggressively than that. I was thinking we should probably just take the furs once Germany is dispatched. We will need to move military south to north at that point, and the furs town isn't all that far off the beaten path to take the city during the transition.

This may be moot, though. On the way by, our curragh noted that the Aztecs are pretty thoroughly trashing Henry and Co. It may well be that the furs are Aztec by the time we get to that point.

So, Overseer, I'm confused. Who's swapping with whom, or are we skipping someone in there? I think another roster update would be good.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I put Rod as up, but not available til saturday. Northen will possibly be available Thursday, so I may undo the swap if he wants the save then. I will update the roster then, unless someone else wants the turn first. Housekeeping finished. Now to the good stuff. Destroying wonders with bombardment is a known bug, but I didn't know about it at the time. Imagine my shock when I got this message:

Spoiler :

I picked my jaw up and continued playing.

On catapults, I agree with Optional, cats are better for defense than offense, as they seem to miss a lot when shot at a city. They actually seem to miss most high defense units, walled cities, or any units on mountains or hills. The catapults are best against offensive units on flat ground, they are excellent defenders, taking away hitpoints without risking attack. They can be left in our south towns for emergency defense.

For our capital assualt, we can put possibly 10-15 horse units at Berlin, and that will probably be enough with average RnG. At 3 attack and an extra hp, the ACavs will be the clincher. Sword attack strength with extra hp is worth a paltry 200 shields. That's about 7 horses, and the SoZ lasts until the late middle ages, so could produce 25-30 units. Not bad.

The war happiness thing, I trust Anax's calculations. And since we have 3 luxes, any war happiness might come with a high price anyway, since the Greeks might have had an SOD on the way. I'll have to study war happiness some more, I don't understand it fully, but I'm glad we have peace with the Greeks either way.

Before I finish, I will stir the pot with another thing to think about: Government. Republic or Monarchy? When do we revolt?