Sgotm 01 - C F R

[Lexad]

I completely agree we need to calculate how much more land do we need (taking into account islands and Inca territory). Now we have:
- 88 tiles in Persia (+/- smth we get or lose to their culture)
- 147 in mainland with 6 more to get by settling/culture
- 100 at Inca (+9 from 1 settler between Cuzco and Machu Pichu, +2 more with another West from Tiwanaku)
- 23 for 2 islands (3 settlers)
- 4 more for Basra Island
- 7 from island East from Inca
- like 109 Arab tiles we can guarantee to us that are West from 4-tile radius of Boston and 3-tile radius of Damascus. We might need 1 settler to claim them faster (settle N from Mecca, W from Medina) and 1 more to get additional 2-3 tiles uncontroled by the US

This gives 495 tiles of own possession & from war & 8 settlers. Land is 900 tiles, so we get 55% of required 64% w/o war (does it calculate like that?). We also need to hit 51% population.

Thus, the war with America seems inevitable, while Inca war is far from being over. We're up to some longer than expected game. Thus we can put more pressure into culture pushing in Persia and get GAs production in Persepolis with NatEpic running to move it further. And we still need troops - and good mix now as our technical lead in warfare is over.

 

[Obormot]

Yes, I think it should take about 30 turns to win, but we should have the settlers ready on the spots we want to settle a little earlier, so that we don't loose time if the american war goes faster then expected. We need to get about halve of america, maybe even a bit more.

 

[akots]

I have played 4 and a half turns so far, will continue short but I’m not sure if I can play all 10 turns today.

Preturn check reveals that everything is fine. I have no idea of what some units are doing but guess that will come next turn. America has enormous numbers of mounted troops in Washington. I switch Khurasan to pikemen production and will move more workers to chop the forest there so that we can produce a few pikemen to cover our stacks while attacking America. I hire 2 more artists in Persepolis for a total of 7. I also let go of some artists in Tiwanaki and we are making + 33 gpt which is not that bad. Gordium has a very high revolt risk but there should be enough units there the hold on. The situation on the Incan front looks pretty desperate, I was thinking of taking cease fire with them but I must have forgotten we are in locked war. There is no diplo to be changed, so I just press the enter key.

Inca counterattack and their knight takes wounded mace up north near Cori with a knight. Then they kill your Elephant over there first attacking with a mace and then taking the poor beast with a longbow. That is a rather peculiar tactics. Anyhow, the fewer maces they have, the better we are.

[1] Memphis mace -> mace, Arbela cat -> cat. Declared war to Cyrus and landed a small stack of a mace and 2 cats near Bactra. If we wait too long, he’ll have more LBs there and that would be too much a distraction from taking down the monster Roosevelt. Besides, we can use some extra ships.

Near Cori mace killed wounded LB with city defense 2 (better lose this mace than let this LB return to some city and fortify there. The knight around there though is a major problem. I move more cats to Machu Picchu because the city has 2 crossbows and 2 LBs both with city defense 2 there. We might need as many cats as possible to take the city next turn hoping that Cori survives and is not recaptured by Inca. Then it might be a good idea to consider cease fire for a few turns to consolidate the units there which are pretty much scattered all over the place. Killed an Incan crossbow near Tiwanaki.

[2] Incan knight comes and kills a mace in Cuzco. This is getting pretty annoying. Considering the number of mounted troops in America, we better build some pikemen before declaring war.

Suicide 4 cats in Machu Picchu, one retreats, killed all defenders except a redlined crossbow there. Drop off a mace near Huamanga to pillage Incan horses.

[3] The knight fortunately returns to defend Machu Picchu. Alas, he is a bit later and city is captured. Also, Incan caravel sneaked out and killed one of our galleons in the ship chain. Just to get an idea of what we are facing against America. Here is troops in Atlanta.

And here is troops in New York. We are barely even in power. It seems, we need more field troops not just siege troops. Especially more pikemen to cover cats and maces.

And here is stack in Washington. Note that this is not the whole stack, there are a few more units there.

[4] Incan knight is paralyzed and did not move this turn. Must be some bug with AI behavior apparently. Finally got rid of that pesky Incan knight by sacrificing a maceman. Advancing whatever troops are available towards Ollan which is the last Incan big city left.

Settler ready in Moscow and loaded on a galleon which sails towards the southern island with furs and deer. If we land a worker there as well, we might be able to cover it with only a single city. It seems we can get a couple of workers from Persia.

[5] Rostov cat -> galleon, we can use some extra ships. Pasa cat -> pikeman, we need as many of these as we can afford. Gordium courthouse -> colloseum (ha-ha). I have to stop now, will continue in about an hour. Situation on Incan front looks pretty much OK. But Roosevelt is a major concern. I really don’t know how we are going to battle with him. He does not have many cats, so it seems we need to cover the flanks and advance with large stacks which have pikemen in them. Also, we should consider pillaging there as much as possible. The guy is very powerful AI indeed, quite a challenge here.

 

[Obormot]

Good work with the incas. The situation there wasn't that good, that was my fault, I have underestimated them, just thought they will fall easily with their major cities gone. But it seems that you have solved the problem succesfully.

Roosvelt has a lot of units, thats true. But no knights IIRC. And horse archers are not that dangerous, they can be killed by macemen. Elephants are worse though, but they are still equal to maces in power. Those atcks are huge though

We need lots of catapults there to take his cities and to kill his attacking stacks if he sends any. We should be carefull of course, but I won't delay the american war too much.

I don't know how civ4 AI behaves: if we declare war on him, but don't move our troops, will he send his units to invade Arabia or not? If so we may do this and try to kill those stacks in the open in our or neutral land.

 

[akots]

It seems that Roosevelt is not far from Guilds which he is obviously trying to research and also he has considerable cash. So, I bet we would have to face knights in this war and might be very soon.

We need a lot of units here and probably also we need to raze the cities. In my experience, AI often tries to retake the cities with all he has and that would be pretty much devastating. We need somehow to gas him out before moving onto the offensive. We can try to bait him with a few workers as well. And certainly we should advance with at least 2 stacks. But imho, we are far from ready for this war. It is a long way to prepare. As I told already, if we don't do it well, we may lose many Arabian cities.

 

[Obormot]

If he can get guilds soon, that is one more reason for attacking him earlier: we might be able to kill his HAs before he upgrades them. I think we should really try and declare on him. He has huge stacks, and will most propably move them out to attack, but I don't think that would pose much threat to our arabian cities, we have enough maces there at least for defending. I don't think a human can loose to AI with equal power, so I think we can declare safely and then see what he does. If he stays in his cities we may try advancing onto his territory with big defensive bonuses.

 

[akots]

Continuing from previous turn.

[6] Bactra captured and Persia destroyed. It did not improve situation with flip risk in Gordium but improved in Susa and Arbela. We also capture 3 Persian workers. Will try to ship them to Arabia to chop more pikemen. Huamanga captured from evil Inca. Then the game crashed for some reason and I have to reboot the PC.

Shifted the ship chain to be able to deliver troops to America. We have enough units to kill the Inca. Ok, here it comes. Roosevelt has guilds. I can try to trade it from him in exchange for Music plus most of our gold but I set research back on (we can afford it) and we will have guilds in 7 turns losing about 100 g per turn.

[7] More tedious ship movements and transferring troops to Arabia. It takes considerable time even with the chaining and lots of mouse-clicking. Alexandria build on southern island. It might take some time to expand its borders and we don’t want to be too late with that. Some workers and cat will be moving there in 2 turns to provide for basic defense and chop some forest. Running an artist now and set to build theater.

[8] Not much, just moving stuff and bombarding Incan cities.

[9] A few borders expanded and we are at 44% land. Vilcas finally captured. We lose 2 maces against Vilcabamba but the city will be probably captured next turn.

[10] Vilcabamba has fallen so the only Incan city standing is Ollan which can be probably captured in 1-2 turns. Settler with an escort is on its way to a northern island. There are a few troops near Boston going to Medina and there are probably some extra troops in Bactra to prevent revolt to India. But they can be moved to America pretty soon. American front consists of two groups. One smaller groups is down to the north on a hill near Najran to be reinforced with a few pikemen. There is a sort of a choke point there between the mountains so this group is primarily a defensive force. Another main group does not have enough pikemen yet but has a lot of cats and can move either towards Boston or towards Damascus depending on disposition of American troops. Both groups can be indeed slaughtered completely by America and pretty easily. Roosevelt is still managing to keep even in power with us and that means many-many troops.

Ship chain is set up but it needs one more ship near Heliopolis (the main boarding harbor) which is being built in Rostov and will be ready in 1 turn but it will need another 1.5 turns to sail to Heliopolis. The chain is ending in Kufah to avoid exposing loaded ships to possible attacks from Roosevelt. It would be nice to have a few galleons here and there for a backup. There is a forest near Rostov which is being chopped and it can be used for another galleon there.

It makes sense to build a few war chariots in the Incan lands for military police and move all remaining maces and cats to the American front as well.

There is a gap in our holdings to the south in between Cuzco and Machu Picchu. It might be a good idea to build a settler somewhere (we have only one scheduled currently in Novgorod) to cover that. Otherwise, the Incan lands are pretty much ours.

Guilds will be ready in 2 turns and on a hind site, we should have researched that before going to war with Inca. There is enough plunder money for now and we can make the budget even without much effort and we have about 1500 gold in treasury. It is quite possible that we gain the Domination limit faster if we crank the luxury slider to accumulate even more culture. I’m not sure how many knights we can build but every one would be of great help in fight against America.

I think we can declare war now more or less safely but it is up to the next player to decide when and how.

Here is our initial assault/defense group in Medina.

And small defensive group near Najran.

Lexad is UP

It is more or less clear what to do but lets discuss for some time.

 

[Lexad]

I like how the things are going.

Still I think we need nore backup. Every attacking stack should contain:
- an xbow against maces
- a pike against elephants and horses
- an elephant against horses and basicly everything else
- 2-4 suicide catas (check)
- 1-2 siege catas with accuracy (check)
- city raider maces (check+)
- healer of any sort

We need to produce and bring remaining units from mainland or locally.

The enemy will surely retaliate. Current borders allow to attack swiftly Medina, Najran, Kufah; less, but still vulnerable - Mecca and Sarmatian. We need a strong defence in Medina (I suggest 3 longbows, 2-3 pikes at the very least) and 2 strong destructing stacks waiting in North and South to attack arriving invaders (mostly suicide catas, maces, elephants and pikes)...

That's all about for now about defence as Sweden-Paraguay starts. About offense - later. One idea is to declare and not move - make enemy attack first and spend his troops on our protected city (I suggest fast walls) rather than trying to get them out of their cities or be attacked on the march - most US cities have/had forests nearby, but none save San Francisco - near the sea which makes landing dangerous.

Some micro - I'd set an artist in Arbela and maybe Susa and Kufah.

 

[Lexad]

After halftime a I have a sneaky plan.

We're far enough from enemy main cities so that he cannot bring infantry or catas on the 1st move - only cavalry. Put couple of longbows |(if any) and couple of pikes in Medina and put a great stack of city raider maces, pikes and catas on the forest hill N from Medina where it is invulnerable to US attacks. Enemy loses great deal of horses on pikes, Medina finally falls. Horses have no boni from cities. Maces receive grea boni against city defenders - much better than fighting in open field. Captured city provides no defense even if enemy brings city defenders - highly unlikely. Might have some pikes 2 tiles from Medina - US can't see and they can attack horses. Thus we get the best deal possible against enemy cavalry and recapture the city (unless it is raised and it won't - Holy City of Roosevelt's state religion) destroying loads of enemy horses in the very beginning.

This worked for me couple of times. Your thoughts on the proposal?

 

[Lexad]

Still, in any case, walls are a must in Medina. Luckily, we have double buildspeed with stone.

 

[akots]

Medina already has 20% defence cultural bonus. Why would you need walls there? If you plan the city to be captured, the walls would only be a disadvantage for us.

Never mind, just proceed somehow, better to do something. But make sure the Americans do not get through Medina to other Arabian cities.

With ship chaining set, it is possible to deliver reinforcements (3 units every turn) and some units can be also delivered from the Incan land. It is not that bad and quite possilbe to defend if Roosevelt should decide to attack.

I'm still thiking that that horrendous number of troops had been accumulated by him because of some early war with Arabia and subsequent trading with us. I've never seen an AI that powerful on Monarch even with a very nice map. We have obviously done something wrong in politics against him. May be it is the consequence of him trading actively with Gandhi and us.

Also, do not hesitate to use the luxury slider, we can afford it. There is some cash around still and we can get more by hiring more merchants. Some cities can be actually set to produce culture as well to help with border extension. As a final measure, we can build a few chariots, move them to the front and upgrade there to knights for a shor term boost in power. The budget should allow to make 4-5 and may be even 6 knights via upgrade.

 

[Obormot]

I don't think we need that many units for cover. I guess the pikes that akots has built should already be enough. You can add some more elephants if you want to, but I don't think we need that much. We should be attacking their stacks with cats and finishing off with maces, not defending. Also I think we don't need walls in Medina. Just occupy those forested hills with pikes to make sure they stay on terrain with less defense bonus (if they send non-hirse units too). And keep a few more in the city itself to protect against knights. He shouldn't have that many knights, even AI with their discounts cannot upgrade all those monster stcks immidiately, so we should still be facing mostly horse archers. I guess 3-4 pikes inside the city and 1 on each forested hill should be enough, because he is not likely to attack pikes with horse archers, and if he is - good for us

What we really need to build is a huge amount of cats. The time by which we conquer those cities is actually only restricted by the number of catapults we have. The more cats we build, the faster we win. With lots of cats we can take the cities faster and we can destroy their stacks faster. So don't distract yourself from building cats that much

Be carefull of course and calculate all the distances carefully to make sure that he cannot reach us with the big horse stacks in one turn (except for fortified pikes ). Maybe it is worth to send workers into his territory for exploration again, to see how many units he has and where.

 

[Lexad]

50% defense with walls is better than 20%, they cost **** with stone and are always destroyed when city is captured.

Defending cities or terrain with pure pikes is invitation for maces the very second turn, I fear. US has maces. Kicking mace from forested hill is hell of a pain.

We still need rather versatile cover for our units, because when we advance to his territory, Roosevelt will be attacking our stacks, not vice versa. His catas are promoted for Barrage (mass damage), his maces and xbows I see - for combat and antimelee, ours - for almost only City Raider. In open field and while defending the city even w/o cata fire City Raider III is worse than Combat I. If Roosevelt has any skill at all, our melee-cata stack will be demolished the second turn they enter his territory (the distances are too long for the first.

Computer rarely occupies forested hills to siege cities, if he does it with horses we kill them with pikes. Not sure whether we should guard terrain.

The reason I propose leaving the city as a bait is that it gives us in the initial clash the best setting ever: killing great deal of his units defending and attacking zero defense city from protected position with City Raiders. I propose mixing in some longbows in case he wishes to bring some infantry and attacks the second turn.

If the team doesn't like the plan - fine, there's plenty of others. But I'd rather not send pure melee-cata mix on a long marh into enemy territory stuffed with units. We need to get him attack and then sea desant would help us. But I feel he would attack Kufah (just 2 horse marches) and we have no logistics or units enough to protect both cities.

 

[Lexad]

Off to work, so if any ideas before evening, please share them at CFR.

 

[Lexad]

Wil play tomorrow evening, sorry for delay.

 

[akots]

Well, it took me iirc about 5 hours total time to play my 10 turns. So, if that is too much for you, which is quite understandable, just play as much as you can. But please do not hurry, lets do it well and do a good job here. I went through most of the cities every turn and spent some time think about what to do where. Also, moving units around and just lloking at probablities in case of attack and possible threats for exposed units takes considerable time as well. Running ship chaining is also lots and lots of clicking especially when you need to reset it to another location both at start and at the end.

Please, do not rush with things. We might spend a few extra turns preparing for American war but it might be very well worth it since we will be able to cut down the losses there and it would pay off several fold towards the victory.

 

[Lexad]

Well, I've done it! Thanx for your waiting.

I put Persian borders near Indian cities to culture/artists. This allowed to push back Indians from Arbela and would give us horse tile soon.

Finished Incas losing 1 cata. Started moving units from Incan to Kufar. All cities to units production. Moved Gordium garrison to mainland and furthewr to loadng point.

Traded Astronomy for Guilds (like 200 coins saved), Paper, Philo, map and 30 coins. He had all prerequisites and valued it high, while we have settler on all islands save 1 (is on the way) and on a spare place between Cuzco and Machu Pichu. Need one more for south of Mainland (getting ready in Novgorod).

Started preparing war with US. I fear I overproduced longbows a little expecting US attack, we need more pikes for replacing.

Scoting US cities gave the following results - little defence in South and North coastal cities, most in Damascus and Washington and New York. They start upgrading to knights. Abandon my plan of getting their horses out soon - being far from us they will attack with mixed stacks. Chopped walls in Medina.

Started war at 6th turn (1298) from 3 directions - desant at North, land attack at South and Centre. Killed 2 HA, moved to plains by central stack. There it was attacked by enemy units - first catas and then knights, elephants and HA. Defeated 2 catas, Knight, Elephant, 4 HA, lost 2 maces and a pike. Attacked wounded enemies on wood (mace and xbow), left 1 cata behind, rest moved to wood near Damascus.

Sneak attack of 2 WE and 1 knight and xbow guarding iron were destroyed by pikes and WE - lost 1 pike accidentally and 1 LB bringing enemy xbow low enough.

North and South stacks successfully bombarded and captured Boston (lost 1 cata) and Chicago (lost none) at turn 8 (1310 AD). Troops moved to ships (North) to New York - but have not enough defence for catas, sorry - and
by land to Damascus to help central stack which took all the beating (lost knight and pike and mace severely beaten, killed 2 catas and knight). Killed 1 cata on the way. Damascus brought to 0 defence, but have not enough army to bring it down, until we bring southern stack. This should be our primary main objective with Washington coming soon.

NB - the same turn I started war Gandhi discovered Liberalism. Selling Astronomy seems to have been a good move.

Main warning - Roosevelt has gotten Astronomy and has upgraded galley to galleon in New York last turn. They have an attack stack there moving to NY. We should devote several galleons to killing off enemy sneak galleon attacks and destroy the whole stacks in the sea. Leave some units to defend Incan.

Second important note - 2 settlers are placed in due places (island and between Machu and Cuzco), third is on its way to remaining island, 1 is produced to place at South of mainland. We've beaten pop requirement fr domination, 54+% of territory (w/o newly built and conquered cities).

Third note - 1 Galleon in chain is misplaced (nearest to Arabia), do not overmove it.

I'm not posting screens as it would be better to view the whole situation yourselves. It was hard, but I think we're at least half way through it.

 

[akots]

Looks like a great progress had been made during your turns!

It seems that the game can be very well finished within the next 10 turns or shortly after that. We can probably take Damascus within next 2 turns by advancing with all nearby units towards it and then sacrificing anough cats. Then, the road can be opened towards Washington and we might be able to take it as well within 6-7 turns unless there is a major counterattack on Damascus. The artist in Persepolis should be ready by then and this land may be enough for Domination all together if we use the artist in Washington. Meanwhile, preparing one more settler for somewhere around the area of San Francisco can be probably good as well. If we ever take that city and raze, we would be willing to rebuild on its ruins.

It might be worth trying to build 2 cities to cover the mountain range in America. One city may be in between Chicago and Damascus and another city may be built north-east of Najran on a plains farm.

Boston is somewhat vulnerable because America can easily attack it, so it might be a good idea to have defences (one or two pikemen and a mace) in place there. We can also afford to build a few chariots for upgrade, there is enough cash to last to the end and we can switch to Mercantilism to get even more cash from merchants.

There is also an island south-east of Vilcabamba and we can try to settler there. It has 9 tiles, so worth the effort imho.

Cat Behemoth is UP. Go and try to finish 'em!

 

[Dynamic]

Very nice! If we will capture Damascus and don't lose any cities, GA from Persepolis will be in Damascus after 10 turns (we must turn back Galleon from south of Russia). So, we will win in this case after 11 turns. If our war campain will be well we can reach Domination earlier...

 

[Lexad]

Thanx guys!

I forgot to mention couple of deals like breaking deal with Gandhi when he gave us pigs (have 3 of our own) or trading with US paper and music for banking, map and petty gold.

We can probably take Damascus within next 2 turns by advancing with all nearby units towards it and then sacrificing anough cats. Then, the road can be opened towards Washington and we might be able to take it as well within 6-7 turns unless there is a major counterattack on Damascus.

I had the same idea. The counterattack is highly unlikely as most army is either in damascus itself or proceeding towards northern shore to galeons.

It might be worth trying to build 2 cities to cover the mountain range in America

As far as I remember Mounts and lakes don't come into tile count. Do I remember it right?

Boston is somewhat vulnerable because America can easily attack it, so it might be a good idea to have defences (one or two pikemen and a mace)

Yep, we can also spare a longbowman as I've produced them in some excess.

There is also an island south-east of Vilcabamba and we can try to settler there. It has 9 tiles, so worth the effort imho.

Yes, sir! Galeon with settler on their way, sir! (west from Bactra).