SGOTM 01 - Fifth Element

[Groin_Apologist]

Yeah, the whole hebrews-in-bondage, "let my people go" thing was kind of where I was going. Isn't Moses already one of the great prophets though?

 

[Merum]

Mother Russia wept as the blood of her sons stained the soil around St. Petersburg. The Egyptians have declared war and enslaved one of her precious laborers! The peace is shattered!

The peasants in the cities huddle in fear as the Egyptian chariots slowly take up position around her cities. They seem to toy with the brave Russian archers, almost daring them to come out of their fortifications and attack.

Some miners have even reported chariots appearing just outside Moscow! What will become of the Rodina? Time will tell...

My turn notes:

Spoiler :

Turn 1 1450BCE

• Move Mother Tefnut 1NE to resume fogbusting duty. She's not much help at the front, more value in this role.
• We have no unlit squares around Memphis. Since we're cool on happiness, I'll defer moving a warrior in there until right before growth.
• Ben Hur C1 moves to the pasture to attempt to lure an archer out. I want to pillage it, but I'll hold off a turn. Horus Aha stays behind in reserve for now.
• Combat odds at St. Pete are 21.7%. We're going to need a metric assload of chariots.
• Notice Leonardo is not tasked, just standing there scratching his butt... He's going to go to work on the victory road.
• Aaron moves N to start building the road from his side.

Turn 2 1420BCE

• Catherine doesn't fall for the bait, instead sending 2 archers out 1NW of St. Pete. Reinforcements must have arrived from Moscow, since it's still garrisoned with 3 archers, a Galley, and a Settler.
• Horus Aha has 96.2% odds vs the archers outside. I take one out, and Horus gains a promotion without losing any health.
• Ben Hur goes for the other one, with a slightly less spectacular result. He's down to 2.2, and goes up under Horus for protection. He's also now at 6/5.

Turn 3 1390BCE

• I heal Ben Hur by giving him Combat 2. 3.6 health, Move to neutral territory, Fortify til healed, 3 turns.
• Horus takes his turn on the cows. I give him C1 to go with his F1. F1 does him no good on defense.
• St. Pete only has 2 archers now. Pulling forces back to the capitol already?
• We have a new Chariot, Tiu! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pharaohs) He heads on down toward Russia.
• I bite the bullet and start Shu toward Memphis. I want that chariot on the front.

Turn 4 1360BCE

• Positioning troops, Move Ben-Hur to hill W of SP to gain visibility. Horus Djer takes his turn on the cows of death.

Turn 4 1330BCE

• Thesh is born in Memphis, and immediately heads to the front, unpromoted.
• Very tempted to push Horus Aha further into Russia to pillage that road. I'll wait for reinforcements.
• Apprentice heads to Memphis to cottage the worked square.
• Our treasury is at 18 with -5gpt. Our money is going fast. We may have to drop research until we pillage St. Pete. When it's really dire, I'm going to pillage the cows. Catherine doesn't seem to like the bait.

Turn 5 1300BCE

• Hsekiu born in Thebes. To the front!
• Memphis is unhealthy. Hate to have to pause war production to build a granary. This is where the whip might come in handy...
• Move the newly minted citizen to the N Mine for hammers. Growth in 41, 11 hammers/turn.

Turn 6 1270BCE

• Catherine has put up zero resistance so far. She just keeps apparently bouncing archers between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
• I can't stand it anymore, and we're almost broke. I pillage the cows (6g, another turn of 100%) so I can move around back of St. Pete with two units.
• Tiu C1 and Ben Hur C2 take up position N of SP.
• When the force ratio at St. Pete is 3:1, I think it's time to take it down.

Turn 7 1240BCE

• A C2 chariot has 25.9% odds. C1F1 gives 21.7%, same as C1. I'm not a huge fan of flanking, to be honest.
• I'm leaving units unpromoted until they reach the jumping-off point into Russia.
• There are now 4 archers in SP. Need to block the road.

Turn 8 1210BCE

• Catherine may have loaded an archer onto the galley. We need to watch our coasts. She may also be looking to settle elsewhere, the settler might be loaded there too.
• The North road is going to really help with troop movement.
• We reach the end of our money, and I have to back research to 70%. We can do this for 2 more turns, then we have to back off to 60%. Time to go a-pillaging... IW due in 7, was 5 at 100%. :/
  [*]I pillage the road S of SP, then head for the gem mine with our southern army to pillage it.
• Damn I forgot to do this. Move a chariot to break the road, albeit in a different place, now 2N of Moscow. Sorry, guys.

Turn 9 1180BCE

• Just as I thought, the Galley goes E from SP with Archer and Settler. Next Set of chariots out of the cities should follow it. We might end up with a free city closer to home...
• I send Thesh to spy on the galley.
  [*]Horus Djer catches a lone archer 2N of Moscow and takes it out, gaining his 2nd promotion. He's banged up pretty bad, so I pull him back to wait for his promo and probably to heal. He's out of reach of Moscow there, so I move Aha S toward the mine.
• Chariots find a lone archer in the Forest 1NW of Moscow. Looks to be headed for the gem mine I intend to pillage.

Turn 10 1150BCE

• The game crashes. My heart sinks as I realize my autosave is set to 4 turns, and only 1240 BC is available. I'll try to duplicate everything exactly.
• Able to duplicate everything except for the result shown above.
• The Archer in the woods disappears again. Don't know where he went. I move onto the gems and pillage, giving us 7g.
• Catherine landed a settler/Archer pair as shown in the first screenshot. I send another chariot that way. It would probably pay better to let it settle, then raze it.
• Notice Thebes is unhappy. Did I screw something up? Damn. Unhealthy, too. Need to hook up the rice. The north road is almost done.

Overall, I think our war effort goes very well.

Sorry about the cities, guys. I'm not all that good in that department, I guess.

Also sorry about the crash. I'll go look up how to change the autosave. *looks sheepish*

Notes for the next player and the team
Hsekiu (1N of SP) has an unused promotion. Please promote him before he gets attacked.
The rice needs to be hooked up.
Money's at a premium now, I think unit costs are beginning to get to us.
Catherine seems to be pretty peurile. War looks good right now.
Need to back off to 60% on research.
I sort of regressed on the pharoah names, but I suspect we're going to need a lot of them

My posts are pretty long-winded, but you can see everything I'm thinking, anyway.

Turn Detail:

Spoiler :

Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Horus Aha F1 (War Chariot) (5.00) vs Catherine's Archer (3.00)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Combat Odds: 96.2%
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Horus Aha F1 (War Chariot) has defeated Catherine's Archer!
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) (5.50) vs Catherine's Archer (3.00)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Combat Odds: 98.7%
Turn 86, 1420 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) is hit for 14 (86/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) is hit for 14 (72/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) is hit for 14 (58/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 26 (74/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) is hit for 14 (44/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 26 (48/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 26 (22/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Catherine's Archer is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 86, 1420 BC: Fifth Element's Ben-Hur C1 (War Chariot) has defeated Catherine's Archer!
Turn 86, 1420 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Thebes. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.

Turn 88, 1360 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Memphis. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.

Turn 89, 1330 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Thebes. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.

Turn 92, 1240 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Thebes. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.
Turn 92, 1240 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Memphis. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.

Turn 94, 1180 BC: You have trained a War Chariot in Thebes. Work has now begun on a War Chariot.

Turn 95, 1150 BC: You have plundered 74 from the Mine!

AlanH/Mods/Team: Note the last line of my turnlog ^^^^^^^ from the submission page. I got 7 gold for this pillage. Something broked?

 

[Perugia]

Notice Thebes is unhappy. Did I screw something up? Damn. Unhealthy, too. Need to hook up the rice. The north road is almost done.

Maybe the unhappiness is WW unless the city grew to size unoticed. Agree on the rice hookup.

Note to the next player on the rice hookup: the road on the hill south of moscow has been part built (may have been completed not sure as no access to game at present).

I am not generally a fogbuster so I suggest having those warriors outside our borders could be costing us in supply.

I don't think we can afford or need another worker at the moment so the Russian settler should be left alone to settle the best spot in the area. That means withdrawing the warrior directly N of it. If the settler founds in a good spot we leave the city to grow to size 2 than capture it. If the settler founds in a bad spot we should attack and auto-raze while there is only 1 defender and before the culture grows.

I don't know why the odds are so low (21.7%)

Combat odds calculation:
+50% archer city defense
+25% archer hills defence
+25% archer entrenched
+20% St Petersburg culture
+25% hills terrain
total +145%

3*2.45=7.35

5.5/(5.5+7.35)= 42.8%

 

[Dolphan]

@Perugia #183

Its around what I usually get using combat 1/city raider 1 axes against archers on hills. Overkill is the way to go. Anyone fancy hitting Moscow 1st, what are its defences? I doubt 3:1 is absolutely necessary, more like 2:1 +1, maybe a warrior as well.

 

[BrianS]

Should DoomTrain go ahead and play? If he can play today, we can keep the momentum. Otherwise, I don't think we get GoodEnuf back until tomorrow.

 

[Gyathaar]

Turn 95, 1150 BC: You have plundered 74 from the Mine!

AlanH/Mods/Team: Note the last line of my turnlog ^^^^^^^ from the submission page. I got 7 gold for this pillage. Something broked?

Hmm.. I guess the number 4 is the symbol for gold.. guessing we need to extract the symbols for gold, culture, hammers and such from the texts

 

[Doom Train]

@ BrainS #185

I can play my turns today. So if GoodEnuf checks in tommorow he ll be next otherwise you ll play after me.

 

[Merum]

Grabbing Moscow is OK with me, as long as it's not ridiculously defended. With the development we see around St. Pete, it's not a threat to us on its own, and the loss of Moscow would cripple Catherine for sure. I'd allow the settler near our territory to settle first though, I think.

Whatever we do, we need to take a city soon. We need the plunder money for research.

Also, I just found out I'll be headed to Asia, possibly as soon as next week. I doubt my laptop can handle civ4, but I'll give it a try just to check.

 

[Doom Train]

Friend of mine just reminded me about important homework so i can't play today

 

[BrianS]

@Perugia: Your call on how we proceed. I can play tonight (US Pacific time) if Goodenuf doesn't check in by then, but we're starting to get quite a bit out of order.

 

[Perugia]

#183, #188 Attacking Moscow is fine but it will be slightly tougher due to the culture level 3 (+40% I think cf to +20% at StP).

I want us to wait 24Hrs for Goodenuf. Mostly so we can all load up the save and catch up. We don't want any mistakes at the moment as its getting to the critical phase of the war ie once Cathy's cities start to tumble.

Addition - editted

Order is not set hard and fast as long as we each get a turn each "round". If someone is out for a while then I'll give them extra turns when they return or bump them up the order later.

I'm looking for someone to deputise while I'm away next week. I'm sure all you regular posters would be happy. Merum has had some SG experience post #7 and would be first choice except for the Asia thing. If your ar home Merum the jobs yours otherwise any volunteers?

 

[Merum]

I'm looking for someone to deputise while I'm away next week. I'm sure all you regular posters would be happy. Merum has had some SG experience post #7 and would be first choice except for the Asia thing. If your ar home Merum the jobs yours otherwise any volunteers?

I'll do it. I fully intend to participate in the game from China, I just won't be able to play any actual turns.

 

[Perugia]

I'll do it. I fully intend to participate in the game from China, I just won't be able to play any actual turns.

Great. I'll pm to let you know when your in charge.

Important

I have been looking at the logs and Merum and BrianS are playing one turn too few.

Spoiler :

Turns played to 1150BC

Perugia 20 + 8 (deliberate)
Merum 10 + 9 (supposed to be 11 and 10)
DoomTrain 10
BrianS 9 (supposed to be 10)
Dolphan 10
gskur 10
Groin_Apologist 9 (deliberate)
Goodenuf 0

1) The turn you upload the save does not count as your own turn even if the player before leaves you some units to move. Read their report for details of what has happened that turn. You should personally check the state of the game, research rate, build queues and whether any units have movement points left or should be promoted, also check for units that might have been left automated, fortified etc etc plus later on check if any deals can be made/cancelled with the AI. Don't forget to set the city govenors the way you like 'em and with automated governors off. Also check citizens are working the tiles you want.

2) Press enter the first time. The next turn is your first.

3) Now play the rest of your turns (usually 10). In terms of turn counting that simply means press enter 10 times in total. When you have pressed enter 10 times you enter the last turn and can do as much or as little as you wish. Give details of what was done in the normal way and pass some comment on what remains to your successor.

 

[Perugia]

The odd odds
I just loaded the save and indeed the combat factors are 5.5 to 7.35 giving 21.7%. The 21.7% must be the odds of winning the battle whereas the 42.8% is the odds we hit the archer each round (57.2% odds he hits us). This must take into account the damage and HPs.

Finance
Units are costing us 7gpt, maintenance just 2g

We have 16 units (3 workers, 4 warriors, 9 chariots) less free/handicap support for 12 costing us 4gpt.

We have 10 units outside our borders less free support for 4 costing us 0.5*6=3gpt.

This can only get worse. We may as well capture a city to increase free support which will offset the increased maintenance cost.

The 9 chariots plus 2 warriors outside our borders should amass and take out Russia.

Thebes
The problem there is we should have stopped working the rice and worked the second mine leaving it at size 5 and increasing hammers from 13 to 16. Now at size 6 we have a problem. We can work as planned but will starve and lose 45 food. We could alternatively now connect the rice and cottage a second FP instead. We could wait a turn or two and then pop rush the one factor of excess population converting the 45 food to 30 hammers.

 

[gskur]

Thebes: just pop-rush to bring the population in line and, as has been discussed before, work the second mine not rice.

I think we have barely enough, if we do, to raze St. Pete--Moscow must be beyond our reach so far...

I'd hate to see the third city, even if captured from the Russians now, before we have Moscow.

 

[BrianS]

We now have enough chariots to take St. Pete, we just need to get them in position. If We plan our attack to occur in 5 (or 6 turns), we can have 8 (or 9) chariots ready to strike. It will take 5 turns for the new chariot at Thebes to travel to 1N of SP. We have 3 chariots already at its doors. We have 3 more chariots to the north which will take 4 turns for the longest to get to SP. The 2 chariots near Moscow can be at SP's door in 4 turns. So we can start the attack in 5 turns with 8 chariots or 6 turns with 9 chariots.

We should also consider moving Tefnut and Geb back inside our boundaries to reduce their costs. Unless we think they'll be helpful in the war, they might be better off in Thebes.

 

[Merum]

FWIW, I think we should bypass St. Petersburg and move on Moscow, then wheel back and raze it. But I'm crazy that way.

 

[Dolphan]

If Moscow has walls/lots of archers, hit St. Petes first, but otherwise it'll probably be more effective to capture Moscow - St. Pete is weak on its own.

 

[Groin_Apologist]

How come we're planning on razing St. Pete's? Would capturing it reduce our unit support cost, as suggested above? Besides which, don't we want to mines those 2 gems ASAP?
Is anyone else in support of capturing St. Pete's, promoting and healing our war chariots (perhaps building a couple more) and then marching on Moscow? Moscow is on a hill as well, but it has a higher culture/defense rating, and could potentially have walls as well. Do you think we're strong enough to take on Moscow yet?
Just throwing it out for discussion...

Edit: I was thinking St. petes is pretty well-placed, but is it more important to have a canal city (or to the have the $ from razing it, I guess?)

 

[gskur]

St. Pete should be razed or it will be a big pain and a heavy burden untill Moscow falls. Keeping it will slow us down too much.

Please make sure to take St. Pete in one move. If we do not have enough chariots for that and let the surviving archers heal AND GET PROMOTED--we will be in a very deep doo-doo.

Keep building chariots.