SGOTM 01 - Fifth Element

BrianS · Aug 5, 2006

OK, the final save has been uploaded and here's the story on the final turnset. I'm sorry I didn't finish in the 6 turn challenge laid by Perugia, but I was more than happy to get the Victory screen on turn 16.

I had 3 key goals for this turnset:
1. Conquer Incaland as quickly as possible
2. Grow population in our existing lands as quickly as possible (through MM of existing cities and settling new ones)
3. Keep FDR voting for us. This one had me very worried.

Inherited Turn (1766):
Start moving workboats to Vilcas so they can go to work as soon as it comes out of revolt.
Using Galleon chain, move Riflemen towards eastern front. Drop catapult off in Vilcabamba for training in Cannonry.
Reposition troops in central Incaland: some go for medic treatment, others are shipped to the front.
Send Galleon back to Giza for reinforcements and to pick up settler due in Thebes next turn.

The Battle of Cuzco:
Lost 2 cannon and 2 catapult weakening Cuzco's 5 defenders. City was taken without further loss by our ground forces:
Grenadier defeats rifleman
Rifleman defeats rifleman
Knight takes pike
Cavalry takes longbow
Rifleman takes cannon
Cuzco is ours.

We've finally taken the score lead, not that it means anything

Finally, revolt to Free Religion

Turn 1 (1768):
Susa revolts to Indian empire. AAaagghh. Nothing could have been done as we had no troops available to move into Susa last turn.
Upgrade Knight in Cuzco to Calvary
Using ship chain, bring 2 rifleman and settler to just outside Cuzco

IBT Gandhi offers Hit Musicals for Rice, decline

Turn 2 (1770):
Continue moving troops into position to take Olley
Status of FDR Relationship:
FDR to Gandhi: +7
FDR to Fifth Element: +13
MM for growth

IBT: FDR makes peace with HC

Turn 3 (1772):
UN Vote, I'm sure we don't have the votes, so request vote on Free Speech per Perugia's suggestion as Saladin is running Vassalage.
Avaris is settled on the Inca peninsula
Lisht is settled between Heliopolis and Elaphantine
FDR agrees to war again with HC for 490 Gold
Ask FDR to attack Machu Pichu (which he never does)

Turn 3 (1774):

Continue bombardment of Olley
Continue positioning of troops for Olly
Continue MM of cities for growth and managing new citizens

Turn 4 (1776):
Continue positioning of troops for Olly - will attack next turn

Turn 5 (1778):
Battle of Olly
Frigates have bombarded down to 6%
Cannon attacks, survives and destroys a Rifleman.
Rifleman attacks, and Olley is taken. Capture a worker who goes to work tiles around Avaris on the peninsula.
Start positioning troops to take remaining Incan cities

Turn 6 (1780):
UN vote: Request diplo victory
Incredibly, HC sends his sole cannon in Machu Picchu out towards Cuzco. Our cavalry takes it without a scratch. Thank you HC.
FDR spotted with a transport heading towards Inca land with settlers and infantry.
Cuzco is out of revolt -> Theatre
Settler started in Memphis
We have 1694 gold with no immediate need for upgrading, so will now spend this to get Communism. Kicking research up to 40% will complete Commuism in 8 turns at a cost of 205 GPT. I'm looking for a PA with FDR.

Turn 7 (1782):
UN Election Diplo Victory. We're getting closer to overall victory, we have 430 of 445 needed votes.
Gandhi: 178
Fifth Element: 430
FDR: 136
HC: 25
Saladin: 85
More troop positioning

Turn 8 (1784):
We need to speed up the conquest of the Incas. We'll take a chance or 2 in battles. We may lose some units, but we need to get this done.

Battle of Vitcos:
Frigates have reduced city defense to 8%
Grenadier takes out Rifleman
Cavalry attacks Rifleman, As feared, we lose the Cav, but Rifleman is weakened to 3.9
Rifleman defeats wounded Riflemen.
We capture Vitcos and 2 workers
Reosition troops for next victim.

Turn 9 (1786):
Battle of Machu Picchu:
Frigates have reduced defenses to 0%
I've brought in a couple of new cannon by sea. We need them to take out this hill town. And the battle commences
Cannon 1 loses against Rifleman, but causes collateral damage.
Cannon 2 also loses, but again we were after the collateral damage.
The 3 defending riflemen are now at 9.0, 12.6 and 11.2. Let's bring in the troops.
CR2 Grenadier attacks and defeats first riflemen. Grenadiers just great for taking out cities defended by Riflemen.
Riflemen goes in and loses at something like 65% odds. Rats.
Another rifleman goes in at 55% odds and wins. That's better.
Another Rifleman attacks, and Machu Picchu is ours.

Next victim: Corey. Unfortunately, it has lots of Riflemen and will require some cannon to allow us to take it. We have no cannon left in decent health. I've been building cannon back in Egypt and will bring them over as soon as I can. At least the Galleon chain makes the trip quick.

BrianS · Aug 5, 2006

Turn 10 (1788):
Vote for Secretary General is up.
Continue re-positioning of troops.
Micromanagement for growth.

Turn 11 (1790):
Fifth Element wins Secretary General election with 539 votes.
Fifth Element: 315 votes
Gandhi: 182 votes
FDR: 141 votes
Saladin: 83 votes
HC: 10 votes
Buto settled N of Moscow
A healed cannon is moved out of Olley towards Corey.

Look who's coming to dinner:

Turn 12 (1792):
Edfu settled (you can also see the new city of Buto in this screenshot)

Still positioning troops. 3 cannon were landed in Olley this turn and will now be making way north.

Turn 13 (1794):

More troop positioning and micromanagement

Turn 14 (1796):

Communism comes in
UN Election, select Diplomatic Victory
Revolt to State Property
Research Assembly Line (in case we have to take out Saladin)
Attempt to trade Communism to FDR, but he will not trade it. However, he will agree to a PA, which is far better. We get all his techs, we can coordinate research and his vote on UN elections is now guaranteed.

We now have FDR's Assembly Line and Combustion, research switched to Fascism.

Turn 15: 1798

WE WIN!

The world is our Oyster

And we have secured an august place in history

Guys, this has been fun. I look forward to the next one!

Session Turn Log

Spoiler :

Merum · Aug 6, 2006

Well done, Brian!

I'm certain we didn't win this one, but I'm also certain we didn't finish last, so that's a good thing! I've enjoyed this game quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the next one.

I think we should put our warmongering hats on now and really try to win this next one.

Perugia · Aug 6, 2006

BrianS said:
Turn 14 (1796):

Communism comes in
UN Election, select Diplomatic Victory
Revolt to State Property
Research Assembly Line (in case we have to take out Saladin)
Attempt to trade Communism to FDR, but he will not trade it. However, he will agree to a PA, which is far better. We get all his techs, we can coordinate research and his vote on UN elections is now guaranteed.

We now have FDR's Assembly Line and Combustion, research switched to Fascism.

Lessons Learned

Well this game was really enjoyable and I would say the most important lesson of SGOTM 01 for me by a long way is how powerful a Permanent Alliance is. I knew Communism was good for the economy with State Property and gave a nice hammer bonus but I never really new what a Permanent Alliance could do.

Learning all your friend's techs and coordinating research is really really wicked. I imagine you share resources as well.

From the number of UN votes held we obviously completed the UN rather earlier than necessary as we were way short of the 2/3 pop needed and should have been using more of our endeavors elsewhere.

With another big dose of hindsight, it's a shame we didn't really benefit from Permanent Alliance in SGOTM 01 by researching Communism much sooner, certainly once we could and knew FDR was a good friend. It might even have made the war on Persia rather pointless as we could have gotten Cyrus to Ally with us as well. It appears we could have won a lot sooner that way.

@Merum. You are right, we won't win as there are some really experienced teams out there but not coming last is a good thing.

@Doom Train. Will you complete the final spoiler please?

Doom Train · Aug 6, 2006

Good job BrainS. I ve learned lot about Civ4 thanks to you all.

@Perugia
I ll start final spoiler soon as i got time. But once start it ll be finished in maximum 2 days...

gskur · Aug 6, 2006

Great job, guys! It was an impressive show of ingenuity and teamwork.

Hope to be able to play SGOTM2 with you—not sure yet whether I will have time for it…

BrianS · Aug 6, 2006

I agree with Perugia about the lesson learned on Permanent Alliances. I wonder if we should have cultivated one with Gandhi earlier? We were locked in peace with him, which makes him a good choice. Plus, we could have given him all of the Persian lands to deal with.

Curiously, we never had a defensive pact with FDR, yet he was willing to jump right into a PA. Of course, we had a superb relationship with FDR, probably the highest I've ever had with an AI.

I learned a heck of a lot on this SG and really feel I stepped up my game. Thanks to all!

I hope you can join us gskur. It was great to have you on the team.

Merum · Aug 6, 2006

FDR was willing to enter the PA with us because of our many years of allied warfare vs HC, according to the article Doom Train supplied.

Interestingly enough (sure it's easy for me to say this now) I had thought of PA'ing with Ghandi quite some time ago, but I've never really considered a victory gained through a PA to be a "pure" victory. This is actually quite silly, because a PA is gained by one's gameplay just as in an individual victory.

If we had cultivated Ghandi's friendship instead of trying to strangle him, a PA between us could have been quite formidable.

However, we have seen the power, and probably could have won long ago by employing this strategy. Something new to toss into the bag of tricks.

I'm now exploring the new vassal state option from Warlords. We'll see if that has any go-juice in it for future reference.

Perugia · Aug 6, 2006

gskur said:
Great job, guys! It was an impressive show of ingenuity and teamwork.

Hope to be able to play SGOTM2 with younot sure yet whether I will have time for it

You need to post this in the SGOTM2 - Signon thread. It might already be too late...........

Dolphan · Aug 6, 2006

Well done guys, a victory on this level is still a victory, though I doubt we'll get anything laurels-wise, as the first team to finish were in 1610. We still did it pre-1800 though! Its been good fun, and my game has improved immensely - I jumped to 60th on GOTM7 with my first prince win, and I think a lot of that is down to you lot! I'll be rooting for you in SGOTM2 - go get 'em!

EDIT - I can go read all the other team threads now, right? Time to get comparing!

SGOTM 01 - Fifth Element

BrianS

Prince

BrianS

Prince

Merum

Permanent Jet Lag

Perugia

Prince

Doom Train

Warlord

gskur

Chieftain

BrianS

Prince

Merum

Permanent Jet Lag

Perugia

Prince

Dolphan

Warlord

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