SGOTM 01 - Short Straw

[ungy]

I did some calculations, and there looks to be pretty good news. Ghandi has 21% of the land area with 190 land tiles, and that seems to suggest there are a little over 900 (call it 910) on the map. We own 39.22%, which translates to about 357 tiles, Roosevelt has 174, and there are 61 unclaimed on his continent (not to mention 11 more on HC's/our continents.) 357+174+61+11 = 603 tiles. At 910 tiles, the domination limit (64%) works out to 583. That's not over by a large margin, but there's always Cyrus's lands if we need just a little more. We probably do need to look at a plan for claiming all the tiles on Washington's continent though. There are some pretty big gaps between some of the cities and we'll probably need settlers to claim those lands.

Great work!! Extremely useful for endgame planning. I was just operating on the assumption that we would have plan for an attack on Cyrus but I think quicker to settler spam FDR. I think 5 or at most 6 should do it. If we shift to GA in a few spots we can fill 5 of the 6 gaps in HC's territory. I think building the settlers and focusing on FDR will be quicker than opening a second front in Persia. We can move quickly by sea to take FDR's last cities--assuming we go west to east. If we go against Cyrus, we have to take I think Arbela and at least Pasargade to get even the culture from Arbela, or Tarsus and Susa to get Pasargade and some of Tarsus. Even as weak as Cyrus is, I think it will be quicker to just keep the war machine rolling over FDR as we need most of him anyway and switch production to get the settlers out. Another advantage of the settler strategy is the 2 move and getting the fat cross in 2 turns instead of having to wait for rebellion to end. 6 settlers is much less force than we would send to Cyrus.

 

[ungy]

I like the idea of upgrading the caravels to frigates. I think we will get to a point soon where we have extra cash. As I see a general battle plan, take Damascus, Boston,Chicago, Washington, NY. At that point FDR should be pretty much in garrison mode. Plan on using the cats as suicide on NY and send frigates ahead to bombard. All other cities are coastal so can be reduced by the frigates, and use the galleons to move forces in a two pronged assault--N (and E) coast and S coast. Should be quick after Wash and NY.

As for the settlers--it will take a while for the later cities to come out of resistance so they can be built after FDR is broken. We can even fill the 3 squares on our continent by settling with units that would otherwise not reach anywhere. And MM to switch to artist spec.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Great work!! Extremely useful for endgame planning. I was just operating on the assumption that we would have plan for an attack on Cyrus but I think quicker to settler spam FDR. I think 5 or at most 6 should do it. If we shift to GA in a few spots we can fill 5 of the 6 gaps in HC's territory. I think building the settlers and focusing on FDR will be quicker than opening a second front in Persia. We can move quickly by sea to take FDR's last cities--assuming we go west to east. If we go against Cyrus, we have to take I think Arbela and at least Pasargade to get even the culture from Arbela, or Tarsus and Susa to get Pasargade and some of Tarsus. Even as weak as Cyrus is, I think it will be quicker to just keep the war machine rolling over FDR as we need most of him anyway and switch production to get the settlers out. Another advantage of the settler strategy is the 2 move and getting the fat cross in 2 turns instead of having to wait for rebellion to end. 6 settlers is much less force than we would send to Cyrus.

I see your point here, but I think if we pursue your plan, we will also want to declare on Cyrus. Near the end of the war with FDR we should have a ton of experienced, modern military sitting around and there is no reason not to start diverting them to Cyrus when we have effectively destroyed FDR (even if we haven't taken his last couple of cities). We can settler spam, too, but I think it's a mistake not to declare on Cyrus and see which puts us over the top first (settler vs. military). There is always the (small) possibility that Grogs has made a small mistake on his calculation and we need a few of Cyrus' tiles after all.

I think the biggest difference between our strategies is the assumption about the use of the military. If I understand your position properly, you believe we will need all our available military to take out FDR until his last city is destroyed. My position is that we probably will have some excess military near the end of the campaign against FDR. Probably this boils down to strategy preference (I tend to attack the strongest cities - like NY - early).

So I guess my question is: how do you feel about declaring on Cyrus in the event that we do have excess military (from either finishing FDR or nearly finishing him) even if we pursue settler spam?

 

[Grogs]

There is always the (small) possibility that Grogs has made a small mistake on his calculation and we need a few of Cyrus' tiles after all.

That there is. For one thing, I based it off Ghandi, and I'm not 100% certain his borders haven't expanded. Still, I think a 20 tile margin is a big enough difference that if we picked up every tile on our / HC's / FDR's continents it should be enough. With Cy, as you have pointed out, that may be more effort than just grabbing a couple of cities.

As for settlers, how's this suggestion? Rather than building 0xp LB's in Saladin's old cities, let's set them to build settler. Once we've gotten rid of FDR's offensive troops, we should be able to send those captured workers out to chop forests to speed them along. Once we're nearing the end of FDR, we can switch back to slavery and pop-rush them. That way, we'll have settlers available on-continent when we need them and won't have to tie up our core cities or our galleons with settlers. We can also, while we're at it, pop-rush some forces on the main continent. That would be fewer troops we would have to send *back* to assault Cyrus. As long as we're well above the domination pop-limit (we are already) population has almost no bearing on this game since it's basically a footrace to either a domination or diplomatic win.

 

[mushroomshirt]

That there is. For one thing, I based it off Ghandi, and I'm not 100% certain his borders haven't expanded. Still, I think a 20 tile margin is a big enough difference that if we picked up every tile on our / HC's / FDR's continents it should be enough. With Cy, as you have pointed out, that may be more effort than just grabbing a couple of cities.

As for settlers, how's this suggestion? Rather than building 0xp LB's in Saladin's old cities, let's set them to build settler. Once we've gotten rid of FDR's offensive troops, we should be able to send those captured workers out to chop forests to speed them along. Once we're nearing the end of FDR, we can switch back to slavery and pop-rush them. That way, we'll have settlers available on-continent when we need them and won't have to tie up our core cities or our galleons with settlers. We can also, while we're at it, pop-rush some forces on the main continent. That would be fewer troops we would have to send *back* to assault Cyrus. As long as we're well above the domination pop-limit (we are already) population has almost no bearing on this game since it's basically a footrace to either a domination or diplomatic win.

This sounds like a sensible plan. That way no matter who is correct (me or ungy) we will have the means to put either plan (or a combination) into action when it counts (after dealing with FDR - who is the biggest immediate concern)

 

[Danthor]

Well, not much to report, just a boring warring turnset, the economy is all screwed up but it won't be long til we get all of Rosevelt's lands and win, so it doesn't matter


0-1502

1-1508
conquered Damasco

2-1514

3-1520

4-1523

5-1526

6-1529
conquered Bosty

7-1532

8-1535
J.Kepler is born in Washington
begin siege of Washington & Chicago

9-1538

10-1541
Chic is conquered

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Short_Straw_SG001_AD1541_01.Civ4SavedGame


Grogs
Mushroomshirt
Lmtoops
Danthor - Just Played
RobertTheBruce - Up
VirusMonster - On Deck
llib_rm
Ungy

 

[Danthor]

I see your point here, but I think if we pursue your plan, we will also want to declare on Cyrus. Near the end of the war with FDR we should have a ton of experienced, modern military sitting around and there is no reason not to start diverting them to Cyrus when we have effectively destroyed FDR (even if we haven't taken his last couple of cities). We can settler spam, too, but I think it's a mistake not to declare on Cyrus and see which puts us over the top first (settler vs. military). There is always the (small) possibility that Grogs has made a small mistake on his calculation and we need a few of Cyrus' tiles after all.

I think the biggest difference between our strategies is the assumption about the use of the military. If I understand your position properly, you believe we will need all our available military to take out FDR until his last city is destroyed. My position is that we probably will have some excess military near the end of the campaign against FDR. Probably this boils down to strategy preference (I tend to attack the strongest cities - like NY - early).

So I guess my question is: how do you feel about declaring on Cyrus in the event that we do have excess military (from either finishing FDR or nearly finishing him) even if we pursue settler spam?

I don't see why we need settlers at all. We are less than 1% below the Domination's population goal and there are several of Rosevelt's big cities yet to conquer.
As for the military, we already have excess units so I stopped training more in several (but not all) of our major cities.

 

[Grogs]

I don't see why we need settlers at all. We are less than 1% below the Domination's population goal and there are several of Rosevelt's big cities yet to conquer.
As for the military, we already have excess units so I stopped training more in several (but not all) of our major cities.

D, I'm not sure what you're saying here. It sounds like you're misunderstand the domination limits. The population and land areas aren't either/or -- we have to have 47% of the world's population *AND* 64% of the land area. The land area is always the hard part, and in order to get there, we need to capture every one of Roosevelt's cities, but those will take time to expand their borders. The settlers aren't for extra population, they're to claim tiles on Roosevelt's continent.

Good tactical work attacking Roosevelt though.

At this point, I don't think we get any benefit from markets and the like. This game is going to be won by our military. As long as we don't go bankrupt and start having units go on strike at 0% science, we're fine. AND, we're under the gun now, in several ways. Not only are we shooting for a fast finish, we're also running up our WW counter, and the 'We demand emancipation!' thing is starting to bite us in the butt. Come hell or high water, we need to wipe Roosevelt off the map as soon as possible, and hit the domination quickly as well. I checked the sliders, and 10% is as high as we can raise the culture slider before we start losing money.

Along those lines, first thing I see that needs doing is some serious MM in our cities. We have scientists working, even though we're not researching anything, and artists in some cities that don't need them. Also, I think our cities should be building one of 4 things: wealth, culture, a military unit, or a settler. I can't see how anything else helps us win the game faster.

 

[ungy]

I see your point here, but I think if we pursue your plan, we will also want to declare on Cyrus. Near the end of the war with FDR we should have a ton of experienced, modern military sitting around and there is no reason not to start diverting them to Cyrus when we have effectively destroyed FDR (even if we haven't taken his last couple of cities). We can settler spam, too, but I think it's a mistake not to declare on Cyrus and see which puts us over the top first (settler vs. military). There is always the (small) possibility that Grogs has made a small mistake on his calculation and we need a few of Cyrus' tiles after all.

I think the biggest difference between our strategies is the assumption about the use of the military. If I understand your position properly, you believe we will need all our available military to take out FDR until his last city is destroyed. My position is that we probably will have some excess military near the end of the campaign against FDR. Probably this boils down to strategy preference (I tend to attack the strongest cities - like NY - early).

So I guess my question is: how do you feel about declaring on Cyrus in the event that we do have excess military (from either finishing FDR or nearly finishing him) even if we pursue settler spam?

I think maybe we're splitting hairs here--I agree with taking the strong first but I was just figuring that the "extra" forces could speed things up a bit--remember that all the cities after Washington will be coastal and I'd rather use the forces to leapfrog ahead by sea. Not a big deal--just think it might save a few turns.

 

[ungy]

After looking at the save, I think we need to rethink our builds. Seems like there was some confusion on where we needed to get to. I think FDR goes down in something like 15-20 turns--tack on another 10 for all to get out of resistance and we are looking at 25-30 turns to win. We have time but we need to get on the settlers. I would shift to all settlers--we don't need any of the other buildings and I'm not sure how many reinforcements will actually reach the front in time. Our economy will hold up fine--we have a good cash reserve and we only need the spammed cities for a few turns--enough to get them to the fat cross. Not sure exactly how many we need but better over than under--at least 5 and maybe more. Probably worth building 3 more later to fill the gaps on our continent--nothing else we build will play and it could matter.

We should also shift many of the specs in the conquered cities to artists

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Great work lmtoops and danthor!

Looks like I get to clean up some of FDR's bigger cities. With Boston and Chicago captured, FDR only has barracks in Washington (soon to fall), Atlanta and Philly (low production).

We have a huge number of grenadiers and 8 cats in position so I'm going to move the taxis back to Egypt to prepare for an invasion of Persia.

At the same time I will stop having workers improve tiles in Arabia and start chopping settlers. (I will finish the winery if it adds a happy, I can't remember if we have wine.) I see a need for 4 or 5 settlers to quickly cover most of the continent. Baghdad and Medina will work 2 artists to quickly expand and cover the western coast (150 culture expansion). Najran will chop a settler which will fill the Najran/Khazak gap. Mecca will produce a settler for the mountains between Mecca and Chicago. Additional settlers will be needed east of Washington near the mountains after NY is taken and SE of Kufah to fill the north coast. Most of the other tiles will be covered during the 15 culture border expansions and it will be hard to fit any other cities on the continent because of current city placement. Another settler could grab the chunk of rock off the west coast but this is a bit of a waste. I don't plan on garrisoning any of these new cities.

I will try to scout Persia quickly and switch all Russian cities to building cats and Egyptian mace/grenadier for a sneak attack. As far as culture is concerned I see two possible plans. 1: Throw everything at Arbela, try to take it in 2 turns (declare, land; bombard, attack) and sign a ceasefire. There aren't many cities near it so it won't feel much cultural pressure and can grab 8 or 9 tiles with expansion. 2: Take the two ice ball cities, again away from main cities to grab a few tiles for a push over the limit and cease fire. We can move more troops over and try to redeclare and grab a couple of high culture cities if we need to. I don't think I can build a serious enough force for a direct invasion of Cyrus's main cities.

I don't know what to do with the Incan cities. I will build one settler and found copper town to grab the last two tiles on the continent. Otherwise, I will produce reserve units and wealth. I don't think there are enough turns left in the game for courthouses or markets to be worthwhile.

Attack plans:
After Washington all cities are coastal so cats become purely collateral damage units. I will use 1-2 against the longbows in Washington, 2-3 against NY, leaving 3-4 for Philly (on a hill). I don't think any other cities will need cats.
The main stack with cats will push through Washington and head to NY for an assault. The southern grenadiers will take Seattle and LA without cat support. (We can afford a lot of grenadier losses at this point. There are a number of grenadiers in galleons above the northern coast. I will move the frigates near atlanta to block the American navy in NY and land a northern raiding force at Atlanta. After taking Atlanta, I will move 4 or 5 grenadiers to harass NY before the main force arrives. I will position some on the hill and pillage the horses to try and draw a cat counterattack before the main stack arrives. The galleons that dropped off the raiders will then follow the coast to move the southern attack force from LA to SF.

 

[Grogs]

RTB. I think your FDR attack plan sounds pretty good. About the only thing I see is I wouldn't really worry about saving cats for Philly. It only has 1 LB, and it's unpromoted. Otherwise, it's mostly catapults there, and grenadiers will crush them.

As for Cyrus, for the amount of extra time we have to spend reaching the ice cities, we don't get much out of them. In fact, one looks like it will be completely swallowed by Ghandi's culture, and may well flip. I think our best bet is to start with Arbella and move from there. Last I remember, Cyrus had something like 2 LB's and a pike there, so it should be easy pickings. Once you've done a little scouting, we'll have some more definite answers on the best course of attack.

 

[mushroomshirt]

I think maybe we're splitting hairs here--I agree with taking the strong first but I was just figuring that the "extra" forces could speed things up a bit--remember that all the cities after Washington will be coastal and I'd rather use the forces to leapfrog ahead by sea. Not a big deal--just think it might save a few turns.

Yeah, I agree we are basically saying the same (or a very similar) thing. The important thing is fastest finish however we achieve that. We can achieve this by a combination of settlers and military.

EDIT: RTB sounds like your strategy is well thought out & gives us the best shot for a rapid victory. I hope Ungy is being a bit pessimistic with the estimates for the time it will take to destroy FDR, we don't have many turns yet to beat 1610 (I think ~23 are left). I don't hold out too much hope that <1610 will hold up, though - just check out team CFR on the score graph.

 

[Lmtoops]

We need to really start taking changes to speed up our victory. Maybe we are already doing that...I haven't looked that close. We can split up our forces vs FDR forces to take the smaller cities. We can start diverting ships to Cyrus to take his cities.

I think we should take selective Cyrus cities ASAP. Cities that won't be run over with cultural borders, that can expand to the full (or near full) fat X. We may not need these cities, but just in case. When FDR is eliminated, we should have these cities already secure. Let's not wait!!

It's been said before, but build settlers in FDR to fill up the area. I don't know the rule of how close cities can be. If some one knows, please post...this will help locate where to settle.

Our goal must be that when the last FDR city expands to the fat X....this is the turn we win. To do this: 1) selective Cyrus cities must be caputed and culturally expanded, 2) Fill in cities must be founded and fully developed. 3) I don't know 3, but there is always a 3

 

[Lmtoops]

I don't hold out too much hope that <1610 will hold up, though - just check out team CFR on the score graph.

If we beat 1610, I will count it as a victory.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Well, we now control the American continent. The last American city will be out of anarchy in 4 turns, 5 turns for the fat cross with artists. Hopefully that will be enough to push us over the domination limit. I prepared a force to invade Persia. Unfortunately, there was a huge stack in Arbela and a couple of large stacks with cats, knights, and maces ready for a counter attack in the main land so I didn't want to launch an attack without a sizeable number of grenadiers.

Turn 0 1541: MM, switch Arabian cities to settlers.
divert galleons back to mainland.
American knight from LA attacks Chicago and loses
American pike defeats knight SE of Chicago
There is now only a LB and cat in LA

Turn 1 1544: Attack Seattle, healthy elements of southern attack group travel through neutral territory towards LA (2 more turns to reach)

Attack Washington: 2 cats bombard, lose 1 attacking none other close and I have so many grenadiers I don't want to wait. Lose only 1 grenadier + the collateral cat. 2 healthy grenadiers and a mace lead charge toward Washington. Followed by grenadiers from Chicago.

One grenadier from Chicago kills the pike which was exposed when Washington's borders disappeared.

Northern grenadiers all in 3 boats and heading to Atlanta.

Building cats, grenades, and maces for the Persian attack force. Send chariot from Novgorod on galleon to scout. Huge stack in Arbela, so much for my quick suprise attack. 4 cats, 7 maces, 4LB, 2Pike, 2xbow, 2 knight, HA

Building one settler for New Yaroslavl otherwise all main island cities are producing units. One settler in Incan territory for copper city. Slide up culture to 20% to keep Memphis happy (-20gpt)

Turn 2 1547: First American counter attack, cat and knight in hills near Washington. Lose one grenadier killing them.
Destroy a caravel near LA.
Land 6 grenadiers SE of Atlanta.
Knight joins lead group (2 grenadiers + mace) SE of NY
All units with power >7 are following, no more time for healing.

Turn 3 1550: Attack Atlanta (2LB + Mace) no casualties. Last boat with 3 more grenadiers arrives in Atlanta to reinforce.
Destroy war elephant and cat N of Washington. Lead group arrives at gates of NY, bulk of forces will arrive next turn.

Persepolis: 2xKnight, HA, 2xMace,2xCrossbow, 2LB, 2Pike, 8Cats. WTH you haven't fought a war all game, why are you building such a large army!
Gordium: 2LB, Pike
Bactra, 5xLB, Knight, Pike

We are going to have to land a force which can withstand a big counterattack from Persepolis and Arbela.

After end of turn, Washington attacks lead group. He loses a cat, 2 knights, and a mace; we lose a mace to an American musket.

Turn 4 1553: Culture 30% WW + emancipation is causing problems. (-100gpt)

Main attack force arrives at NY. FDR has already wasted most of his counterattack units so I load 6 grenadiers from Atlanta back on boats and send them to Phily.

Attack LA: lose one grenadier, 3 grenadiers continue toward SF rest toward NY.

Turn 5 1556: Attack NY, 4 of 6 cats withdraw and we slaughter the defenders (2 cats and 1 grenadier lost) I think we now outnumber American defenders about 6 to 1.
Start sending frigates and a first galleon with grenadiers to Indian lands.

Land grenadier party near Phily

Turn 6 1559
Attack Phily (LB, Pike, Knight, 3 Cats) No losses. one galleon heads toward Atlanta to pick up grenadiers for India, one past SF to pick up southern force.

After end of turn, American cat from SF defeats the grenadier (5.7/12 + hill + power II) in Phily (attackers can't lose today). LB moves from SF to Phily.

Barb city appears near Seattle.

Ghandi founds copper town before our settler is ready.

Turn 7 1562: Attack phily again lose one grenadier, 2 grenadiers and a knight move toward SF (one pike, one musket). Unload 3 grenadiers beside SF.

Start spamming cities in America

Turn 8 1565: Kill LB (1/3) in Khoisan (barb city)
Attack SF lose knight. The Americans have been destroyed. The last holdouts, a group of pikes barracaded in a mine north of Atlanta lay down there arms in an amnesty for American rebels.

Turn 9 1568: Destroy Khoisan. Troops from American land are nearing Indian coast and new forces are starting to build up off Pasagardae (use hill to withstand counterattack). Prepare for war check diplomatic screens.

Cyrus has a defensive pact with Ghandi!
I'm not sure if I can declare and start a backdoor war with Ghandi. I sign a defensive alliance to try and split them but neither will slight the other through diplomacy. I think we will cross the domination threshold when the American cities come out of anarchy.

Turn 10 1571:
Start landing forces in India to attack Cyrus.

Galleons offshort ready to attack Pasagardae.


I'm not sure if we need to PM the moderator before launching an attack. Declaring war on Cyrus will cancel our defensive pact with India, India should declare war against us in defence of Persia. I don't know if this is okay or is a backdoor violation of the rules of the game. American cities will soon be out of anarchy. We will probably cross the threshold in 6 or 7 turns regardless of what happens in Persia.


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Short_Straw_SG001_AD1571_01.Civ4SavedGame

 

[RobertTheBruce]

We are at 58.3% land and spamming the last couple of settlers plus border expansions should fill the american lands. I looked at a few of the cities after I submitted the save and Boston and Chicago will expand again in 5 turns if they are filled with artists. Botu has a scientist not an artist which should be switched. In general, all the cities should be checked again.

Ghandi has 21% of the land and Cyrus about 12% from the demographic ratios. We should be able to squeek out a domination by filling the third big island.

Unfortunately, losing Phily for a turn looks like it will cost us a turn in our finish time (With 6 defenders there was no way for me to move a second unit into the city after the battle.) We should still be able to beat 1610 which seems pretty good to me.

I think team CFR has us easily beat unless something weird happens. Still a very good game.

 

[AlanH]

I'm not sure if we need to PM the moderator before launching an attack. Declaring war on Cyrus will cancel our defensive pact with India, India should declare war against us in defence of Persia. I don't know if this is okay or is a backdoor violation of the rules of the game. American cities will soon be out of anarchy. We will probably cross the threshold in 6 or 7 turns regardless of what happens in Persia.

I've replied to your PM. You can do anything the game allows within the SGOTM rules. If that results in a defensive pact triggering war with India then that would override an initial permanent peace setting we made in the game, but permanent peace is not a condition you have to adhere to, specially since you canot predict, and have no control over, India's possible reactions. Your choice, your risk

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Well, I would recommend war with Cyrus.

1> We've got an army ready to go

2> I want to see what happens with Ghandi

The counter argument, India has rifles and infantry is just around the corner. If we don't win quickly, war with India will be very ugly. Probably wait a couple of turns to mass forces before declaring.

Please focus on filling the culture gaps in America. The game will be won in America not Persia.

Grogs
Mushroomshirt
Lmtoops
Danthor
RobertTheBruce - Just Played
VirusMonster - Up
llib_rm - On Deck
Ungy

 

[Lmtoops]

Wonderful turns RTB.
You did exactly what was needed.

I agree we need declare war on Cyrus, and fill in American lands. We may not need the Cyrus lands, but just in case....let war.

I'm not sure how the Cyrus/Ghandi DP and the ShortStraw/Ghandi PermPeace will work out when we declare war. I suppose someone could set up a test game, but I do not have the knowledge or the ambition. I say just do it...and see what happens.

Leo