SGOTM 01 - Short Straw

[Lmtoops]

3 words: cottages, cottages, cottages. We may be alone here with Cat who will be easy to finish off sooner or later. What we need to do is build our economy. Eventually the AI will start trading with each other and if there is a large continent we are at risk of falling way behind in tech. So I would not farm anything and get 2 more cities going with max cottages. Even the GP city I would cottage the FP--we will be size and health as well as #specs for a while. we can always irrigate later.

BTW I assume we will eventually settle on the grassland above the southern mountain so if we put city 4 out of reach of the clam(desert hill) to get the +2 health we will still work the clam.

Ungy is making alot of sense. We do need to max out on cottages. It looks like we will be on our own for many turns.

 

[Grogs]

3 words: cottages, cottages, cottages. We may be alone here with Cat who will be easy to finish off sooner or later. What we need to do is build our economy. Eventually the AI will start trading with each other and if there is a large continent we are at risk of falling way behind in tech. So I would not farm anything and get 2 more cities going with max cottages. Even the GP city I would cottage the FP--we will be size and health as well as #specs for a while. we can always irrigate later.

Well, I'm looking mainly at getting the city up and functioning as quickly as possible. It has to grow to utilize more cottages, and for that it needs farms, at least initially, and a granary. I know well the value of cottages (I've learned the hard way a couple of times.) I usually have specialized cities though, some good at production that get just farms and mines, while others are commerce cities, that get all of the cottages, libraries, banks, etc.

EDIT: When we finally get Civil Service researched, we'll probably want to run Beauracracy. It always seems to work great for me. That said, the most important place to have lots of well-developed cottages will be Thebes. One of the nice things about overlapping city radii is that other cities can work cottages and grow them, then the main city can pick up the villages/towns later when it's large enough to do so.

 

[VirusMonster]

ok i am here as of now. I will see whether it is my turn now, sorry for delay.

edit: I looked up my private message from Grog and it seems the person before me is out of town, so I have to play this turn. I would gladly do so, but first I want to catch up with the thread and what your main game plan has been. I would like to follow the consensus.

I will try to play it tonite and update by tomorrow morning.

 

[Grogs]

OK, disregard the last part of that previous message then (I deleted it to avoid confusion.) VirusMonster has it.

 

[VirusMonster]

I don't know how to include a link to the save so I'll leave that to someone else.

So where am I supposed to get the save from? I thought people upload on the forum, do they upload someowhere else too?

edit: Robert, I also used to not know how to upload a save game, but I figured it out after reading the upload guide at the forums. I think you need to upload the save file using the attachment button in advanced edit of a forum message. Or you can e-mail it to me at mesutbaran2@hotmail.com

 

[Grogs]

So where am I supposed to get the save from? I thought people upload on the forum, do they upload someowhere else too?

edit: Robert, I also used to not know how to upload a save game, but I figured it out after reading the upload guide at the forums. I think you need to upload the save file somewhere or e-mail me at mesutbaran2@hotmail.com

Get it from the progress and results page. There's a link to it from the very first post in this thread (Alan's) and you can get the save there. That page will also have a link for uploading the save once you're done.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I think I have the attachments figured out.

Here it is.

Edit: Link deleted, download from the main page

 

[VirusMonster]

Get it from the progress and results page. There's a link to it from the very first post in this thread (Alan's) and you can get the save there. That page will also have a link for uploading the save once you're done.

Thanks I am looking into it now.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I'm still learning the posting features and succession gaming so I apologize for the delay linking the save.

I wuld suggest putting the next city at the GP farm/ cottagable location. If we take St. Pete's, it can be the second production city for the war effort. With cows, copper and 2 hills it should be pumping out chariots quickly. The gems will take time since we don't have IW yet. I didn't see any plains mines and cat isn't building axes or swords so I assume she doesn't have IW either.

 

[VirusMonster]

I looked up the save, and here is what I am planning to do.

Once I have 8 warchariots around St.petersburg, I will attack the 3 archers. I don't want to risk attacking with only 7.

I will make 2 settlers(9turns each) and settle 2 new cities. I will look up the threads for the location of these new cities. If you have any (new)suggestion about the location of these 2 new cities, let me know before I play my turn.

After capturing st.petersburg, I will occupy resource squares around Moscow and will wait for further warchariots. I won't try to capture Moscow yet. Ungy can do it if he likes.

Alpabet will take 29 turns to research, so I am sticking to it.

 

[Lmtoops]

I looked up the save, and here is what I am planning to do.

Once I have 8 warchariots around St.petersburg, I will attack the 3 archers. I don't want to risk attacking with only 7.

I will make 2 settlers(9turns each) and settle 2 new cities. I will look up the threads for the location of these new cities. If you have any (new)suggestion about the location of these 2 new cities, let me know before I play my turn.

After capturing st.petersburg, I will occupy resource squares around Moscow and will wait for further warchariots. I won't try to capture Moscow yet. Ungy can do it if he likes.

Alpabet will take 29 turns to research, so I am sticking to it.

As for the 2nd settler, I would see how our research/cash flow is effect by an additional city. I would like to maintain our current research rate.

If you build both cities and conquer St. Pete, we will have 5 cities which is expensive. Since we are trying to get alpabet, before the war ends, reducing the science slider will make for a longer war.

 

[VirusMonster]

As for the 2nd settler, I would see how our research/cash flow is effect by an additional city. I would like to maintain our current research rate.

If you build both cities and conquer St. Pete, we will have 5 cities which is expensive. Since we are trying to get alpabet, before the war ends, reducing the science slider will make for a longer war.

I will settle on blue dot first, followed by the red dot.

What I was thinking is (was) instead of capturing St.Petersburg, heading directly to Moscow. I can always turn back to St.Petersburg to capture it later, only if I see 4-5 archers inside Moscow. AI always(usually) sacrifices the 4th archer, thus leaving 3 archers only. hmm , but I just realized moscow is on a hill +25% extra defense and has already +40% cultural defense. We are gonna need many, many war chariots to capture moscow. I would say 10 at least, maybe even 12. I will make sure I send 1 more war chariot to the copper mine inside Russia territory.

I think 5 cities will be fine for now. They will grow soon and be profitable.

Our war will last definitely more than 30 turns, because we can't let him capture that copper mine. In 30 turns, we will surely get alphabet.

War weariness won't be a problem at Thebes after 30 turns, because current happiness/unhapiness ratio is at 7/5. It might be 7-7 by then and hopefully after capturing Moscow, we can sign a peace treaty.

 

[Lmtoops]

I will settle on blue dot first, followed by the red dot.

What I was thinking is (was) instead of capturing St.Petersburg, heading directly to Moscow. I can always turn back to St.Petersburg to capture it later, only if I see 4-5 archers inside Moscow. AI always(usually) sacrifices the 4th archer, thus leaving 3 archers only. hmm , but I just realized moscow is on a hill +25% extra defense and has already +40% cultural defense. We are gonna need many, many war chariots to capture moscow. I would say 10 at least, maybe even 12. I will make sure I send 1 more war chariot to the copper mine inside Russia territory.

I think 5 cities will be fine for now. They will grow soon and be profitable.

Our war will last definitely more than 30 turns, because we can't let him capture that copper mine. In 30 turns, we will surely get alphabet.

War weariness won't be a problem at Thebes after 30 turns, because current happiness/unhapiness ratio is at 7/5. It might be 7-7 by then and hopefully after capturing Moscow, we can sign a peace treaty.

Taking moscow would be tough, you can make that call.

Sounds like you have a good plan, so run with it.

 

[llib_rm]

llib_rm is supposed to be next, but since he's still out of town until tomorrow/Friday, I'd like to pull VirusMonster up to play next.

Checking in...

Feel free to place me after VirusMonster or at the end of the rotation. I will catch up with what's happenning and give whatever comments come to mind.

 

[Grogs]

Welcome back llib_rm. You can go after VM if you feel caught up. If not, just let me know and I'll stick you at the end.

On another topic, I was reading through a write-up for another game (a fast conquest) and one of the things the author mentioned was using an unprotected worker to try and lure one of the defenders out of the city. If we moved a worker onto the copper, for example, there's a chance Cat would send an archer out to grab the worker. We might get it back (if she moved it back into St. Pete) or we might not (if she simply disbands it) but either way it would make for a much easier fight. I generally consider luring the AI with workers cheesy, but in this case, since we'd actually be risking the permanent loss of the worker, I think it's just strategic - sort of like sacrificing a pawn to capture a knight. I just wanted to throw that out there for consideration.

 

[VirusMonster]

Welcome back llib_rm. You can go after VM if you feel caught up. If not, just let me know and I'll stick you at the end.

On another topic, I was reading through a write-up for another game (a fast conquest) and one of the things the author mentioned was using an unprotected worker to try and lure one of the defenders out of the city. If we moved a worker onto the copper, for example, there's a chance Cat would send an archer out to grab the worker. We might get it back (if she moved it back into St. Pete) or we might not (if she simply disbands it) but either way it would make for a much easier fight. I generally consider luring the AI with workers cheesy, but in this case, since we'd actually be risking the permanent loss of the worker, I think it's just strategic - sort of like sacrificing a pawn to capture a knight. I just wanted to throw that out there for consideration.

It could theoretically work, but I would not suggest an unexperienced player who never tried it before to try it here first time and lose important units.
Stationing your units around the jungles/forests of the target city lures sufficient defenders out anyway

 

[VirusMonster]

Here we go:

For those who don't want to read the details, here is the end story:
We are almost done with alphabet, but run out of gold. We are in a good position to capture Novgorod as the 6th city and offer peace to get some techs. During this peace time, we can finish up perfecting our army for our final assault on Moscow. Both Thebes and Memphis have barracks ready and produce war chariots in 3 turns.

1000BC: I took over. You know my game plan from my post #152. I will wait for 8 war chariots to attack 3 archers.

985BC: HAHAHA, poor archer attacks my warchariot in the jungle and dies before doing any damage. Change of plans, I am taking St.Petersburg this turn, since I have 6 warchariots fighting vs 2 archers. I let the warchariots with flanking attack first, but none survive. Btw, in my honest opinion, getting flanking I and II would be a better choice over any other combination of promotions. None of the war chariots had flanking II, they had strength I and flanking I. I would either go for strength I&II or get flanking I&II.

I lose 3 warchariots, but capture the city.

I am sending 2 of the war chariots next to the other one to guard the copper resource. I hope, along the way, he will gather intelligence about the military status of Moscow.

970BC: On 2 squares SW(southwest) and 2 S(south) of St. Petersburg, I locate Rostov with +20%cultural defence founded on a hill. 2 Archers are guarding it. I also move the warchariot guarding the copper mine to the rice to pillage it.

955BC: A barbarian appeared out of nowhere and pillaged our horse resource. Most likely, I missed it the turn before, but I don't recall seeing any alarm on. We won't be able to produce war chariots for a while, so I switch production to a settler(11 turns). The other settler will take 6 turns to produce. The recently produced war chariot #10 kills the invading barbarian easily.

I pillage Moscow's rice and return back to copper.

940BC: I am moving 4 war chariots to guard the copper They are all in the forests next to Moscow. Moscow has 4 unpromoted archers. St.Petersburg started to produce a barracks.

925BC: I send 2 of the war chariots around Moscow to pillage the cow. The remaining one goes to copper. The idea is to have 2 warchariots at copper and 2 at cow.

Rice is connected to Thebes. 1 of the workers go to St. Petersburg to build a mine at the copper. The other one goes to build a farm for one of our new cities(red dot city). Pasture is building again at Memphis.

910BC: 2 warchariots at Moscow's cow. A Russian archear appeared on the mine south of the cow.

895BC: Archer on the mine moved to wide open and becomes an easy target for the warchariots. War Chariot defeats the archer and pulls back to cow. The other war chariot pillages the cow.

870BC: 2 archers and 1 settler appeared on the rice. The war chariots on the copper attack the 2 archers on Moscow's rice. One of the chariots is slightly wounded, but the odds are still at > %89. I kill both archers and capture the settler as a worker(I really wished that capturing settlers would give a real settler unit, not just a fake worker).

The 2nd warchariot is severely wounded, thus I am sending one of the cow chariots to block the path between rice and Moscow. The idea is to stop the remaining archers in Moscow from attacking the wounded war chariot, until it pulls back to copper and heals.

865BC. Settler from Thebes ready. I am moving it to 4 squares East of Memphis (red dot on Grog's map.)

Since Memhpis is producing the 2nd settler, I have to decide to switch production
a) to a granary (5 turns, population growth appears in 7 turns with most citizens working on farms),
b) barracks (7 turns, but at a reduced population growth rate, since I am moving one citizen to work on a 3 hammer mine.)

I decide on a barracks based on the following thought:
Pasture will be ready again in 2 turns, and my goal is to mass war chariots for Moscow from 2 cities, so I decide to go for the barracks in 7 turns. We might soon get war weariness and 7/5 happiness ratio might become 7/7 after a quick population growth; therefore, I decide for a slow growth(13 turns) and put one citizen to work on the mine. To capture Moscow, we will need approximately 8 more war chariots. A total of 12 warchariots should take down 3 promoted archers on a hill with +40% cultural defence). Moscow usually has 4 archers at all times, but when settler escorting it had 3 defending. I hope we will catch Moscow with only 3 defenders.

I moved warcharoits guarding the copper outside Moscow's cultural borders so they can heal faster. With copper unguarded, Novgorod has started to work on the copper again, but I will be back on the copper in 3 turns.

850BC:
Wandering around the Moscow jungles, captured worker is carefully on the way back to St. Petersburg.

835BC:

Many important news this turn:
-Pasture finally ready again.
-St.Petersburg's borders have expanded, thus we can build a mine on the copper.
-I have founded our 3rd city, Heliopolis, thus we control 4 cities now. Thanks to our huge gold sum, we are still running at %100 research, but if we did not want to run a deficit, we would have to set our science rate around %50. We will almost finish researching alphabet before running out of gold. We have 122 gold atm, and -12 gold goes for research each turn. We need 13 turns to research alphabet. 12x13=156, but we will get some extra commerce from our new city hopefully soon.
-Also, just as I found our 3th city at red dot, we finished a farm and thus the new city can start growing with 4 food immediately.
-Hmm, one bad news, or out of plan news is that I forgot to switch production to a barracks at Thebes 2 turns ago, thus we have been producing a granary so far I realize now producing granary might have been the better choice anyway Only 2 turns left, so we might as well finish it before the barracks does. I stick with granary production at this stage.

820BC: I started building a cottage for Heliopolis. Captured worker reaches St.Peterburg's cultural borders, thus total units outside cultural borders is back to 4 and we pay no upkeep for units outside our cultural borders(4 war chariots only). Warchariots near copper, but outside Moscow's cultural borders, almost healed fully.

805BC: Granary ready at Thebes. Settler ready at Memphis. I dislike producing unpromoted troops, they have a high chance of dealing 0 damage to fortified archers, thus will build a barracks at Thebes next. In the meanwhile, Memphis finally reinitiates war chariot production.

1 War chariot near copper fully healed and returns to guardin the copper.

790BC: Nothing important happens.

775BC: I found our 4th city, Elephantine. Research rate without deficit is at %60, although I am still running it on %100. New city produces a granary first, because it is not near to fresh water.

I check novgorod and see 2 archers and 2 workers still waiting inside. Moscow produces a 5th archer. Moscow might try another settler with 2 archer escort, but war chariots are too strong now.

760BC: Copper connected to trade network War Chariot #11 ready, heading to St. Petersburg. I will wait 8 war chariots to mass at St.Petersburg first, thus we don't have to pay extra outside cultural borders upkeep. Only pay it if we are absolutely sure,3:1 war chariot to archer ratio, that we will capture Moscow.

I am building a mine and a cottage near St. Petersburg. 2 workers are heading to build a farm near Elephantine.

745BC: Not much.

730BC: Moscow has 7 archers, not good. They will suicide themselves if I stay too near, but I am protecting the resources for now.

715BC: Moscow offers peace, I reject.

700BC: Barracks ready at Thebes, starting war chariot production now. Cottage ready near Heliopolis.

AHA, WATCH OUT!! I repeat, WATCH OUT!! Another barbarian appeared north of Memphis. Don't let him pillage our pasture again. Use war chariot #10 to finish him off.

Don't get mad at me, but I also depleted our gold supply. Alphabet almost finished tough.

So whoever plays next, my advice would be: Consider capturing Novgorod with 4 war chariots instead of wasting a huge army at Moscow. Delay capturing of Moscow until more war chariots have arrived. I would capture Novgorod first, then sign a peace treaty for some techs. In the meantime, I would gather a huge war chariot army to declare war again in 10 turns. You can get 2 war chariots in 3 turns, 1 from Memhpis and 1 from Thebes. You would need 8-10 new Warchariots, 12-15 turns, which works out alright.

I would also upgrade flanking I and II instead of the strength upgrade. %50 retreat is a big deal if played right. I would not produce any axeman yet, because they arrive so slow compared to and have same strength as war chariots.

Technologically, research fishing first to hook up fish and clam, followed by Code of Laws to start Courthouse production. There is no way we can sustain this warmongering without courthouses. Buddhism--> Priesthood--> Code of Laws.

Here is the 700BC save. Good luck
View attachment 127205

 

[Grogs]

Nicely done VM. That little SNAFU with the horses seems to have worked out pretty well. I think it probably works out the same either building 2 settlers in Thebes or 1 in Memphis. One thing I do see that's rather depressing is that there's no land beyond that mountain range to the east. So fishing probably needs to be our next tech so we can circle around the island and see if there's any place we can cross over or build a culture bridge. It's a quick tech, so after that we can do CoL.

Once we've got the barracks up and running in St. Pete, I think it would be worthwhile to build a couple of axes there. They can set up in the forest beside Moscow and draw out archers. A combat 1 axe will be strength 8 in the forest, so they can probably survive 2 archers attacking on the same turn. If they win 1 battle, they can take the cover promotion and have a strength of 9.25. They can also pillage some of those mines around Moscow in relative safety. Part of the reason she can pile on archers so quickly is because she's still got a lot of production in Moscow, even without the cows. If we can reduce her to just forests to work, it will slow new military units considerably. One thing I think we definitely *don't* want to do is capture either Novgorod or Rostov without capturing Moscow. They'd either be smothered in her culture or be completely cut off from the rest of our civ. Razing them would be fine though.

A note on the saves: Unlike normal SG's, we probably don't want to be posting them in this thread. That's because, among other things, the server checks how many times the game was reloaded. Too many reloads and it flags it. It also opens the possibility that another team could sneak in and grab our save, unlike the status page, which only allows members of our team to download the save.

 

[VirusMonster]

Nicely done VM. That little SNAFU with the horses seems to have worked out pretty well. I think it probably works out the same either building 2 settlers in Thebes or 1 in Memphis. One thing I do see that's rather depressing is that there's no land beyond that mountain range to the east. So fishing probably needs to be our next tech so we can circle around the island and see if there's any place we can cross over or build a culture bridge. It's a quick tech, so after that we can do CoL.

Once we've got the barracks up and running in St. Pete, I think it would be worthwhile to build a couple of axes there. They can set up in the forest beside Moscow and draw out archers. A combat 1 axe will be strength 8 in the forest, so they can probably survive 2 archers attacking on the same turn. If they win 1 battle, they can take the cover promotion and have a strength of 9.25. They can also pillage some of those mines around Moscow in relative safety. Part of the reason she can pile on archers so quickly is because she's still got a lot of production in Moscow, even without the cows. If we can reduce her to just forests to work, it will slow new military units considerably. One thing I think we definitely *don't* want to do is capture either Novgorod or Rostov without capturing Moscow. They'd either be smothered in her culture or be completely cut off from the rest of our civ. Razing them would be fine though.

A note on the saves: Unlike normal SG's, we probably don't want to be posting them in this thread. That's because, among other things, the server checks how many times the game was reloaded. Too many reloads and it flags it. It also opens the possibility that another team could sneak in and grab our save, unlike the status page, which only allows members of our team to download the save.

I am fine with 2-3 axes from St.Petersburg, just don't let our mainforce consist of axes please. War chariot is great with %50 retreat chance.

Capturing Novgorod seems to easy to be true, it still has 2 archers defending it, so we might as well go for it. Keep in mind we will also capture 2 workers and thus can improve the land very quickly after a quick peace treat. Egypt is creative itself, our cultural borders will be fine. Novgorod isn't close to Moscow anyway. There is no tiles shared between the 2 cities. Overall, we will sooner or later have to capture Novgorod. Why not now when it is very weak? Capture Novgorod and sign peace treaty to gather a huge invasion force.

Even if we were to surround Moscow with 6-7 stacks of units, still Moscow is a size-6 production monster and a cultural city, thus it will have no problems getting archers out. Archer vs Warchariot is %89 on our favor anyway. We can park the chariots on the Moscow forests with no problems. Overall, warchariot>>axeman. Spearman >> warchariot but Russia has no copper yet

I strongly support capturing Novgorod. It will be a great city with those 2 new workers. The problem is to reach at Novgorod with 4 war chariots before the 3rd archer is produced. Perhaps, we are late already.

 

[VirusMonster]

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