SGOTM 01 - Short Straw

[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.

What does SNAFU stand for? I was somewhat worried when the barbarian appeared out of nowhere and pillaged the horse, but things worked out alright in the end

 

[llib_rm]

What does SNAFU stand for?

Situation Normal, All Fracked Up

Nice going guys!

 

[Grogs]

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.

The biggest problem with Novgorod is it'll be cut off from the rest of the empire. That wouldn't be good long term, but maybe not so bad for a short break in-between wars.

Still, maybe that's something worth thinking about. If we can capture Novgorod and pillage pretty much everything around Moscow, she won't be able to do much in 10-20 turns. Actually, she'll probably focus her efforts on building settlers and workers rather than military. It would also give us time to gather a nice sizable force of WC's and axes for the final invasion of Moscow without having to worry about taking the city before War Weariness becomes an issue.

 

[mushroomshirt]

Here are the latest screens:

Maybe I missed it - but in the war discussion I didn't see any talk about Rostov. I don't like the way that Moscow and Rostov are so close. Maybe it would benefit us to take Novgorod and raze Rostov as part of the siege of Moscow.

 

[VirusMonster]

The biggest problem with Novgorod is it'll be cut off from the rest of the empire. That wouldn't be good long term, but maybe not so bad for a short break in-between wars.

Still, maybe that's something worth thinking about. If we can capture Novgorod and pillage pretty much everything around Moscow, she won't be able to do much in 10-20 turns. Actually, she'll probably focus her efforts on building settlers and workers rather than military. It would also give us time to gather a nice sizable force of WC's and axes for the final invasion of Moscow without having to worry about taking the city before War Weariness becomes an issue.

It might not be cut off, we will have coastal trade route between Novgorod and our empire. You can't see it in the save, but last turn I checked with the war chariot, Novgorod had 2 workers inside and just 2 archers. Those 2 workers can quickly hook up copper after border expansion. We can take it.

I did not discuss Rostov, because it was just founded when I located it. I also don't like the location of Rostov, but perhaps the AI had no better choice. We can't know without first discovering the land around Rostov.
We could settle the city, after razing it I mean, on the rice/jungle actually, thus get less territory overlap with Moscow. But as far as peace agreement goes, let's quick capture Novgorod, make peace, gather our assault force, and lay siege to Moscow. I was thinking Rostov can wait after Moscow, since it is such a poor city. Novgorod has the potential to be a great city.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Great play VM. I'm glad to see St. Pete finally fell after my very long siege.
We may want to produce one axe in Thebes or Memphis for home defence. We won't be able to promote the warriors and sword and axe barbarians will start appearing near the silver soon. Maybe if we take Novgorad which will eliminate the need for the copper guards we can move a fog buster back north.
I think you are right about the chariot promotions. I usually just give strength promotions to horse units. (Win battles or at least cause a lot of damage to defenders. Power 1 and Flanking 1 is kind of stuck in the grey area inbetween).

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Novgorad does look like a very inviting target for the currently massed chariots. St. Pete, Moscow, and Novgorad have a very nice arrangement on the map. No overlapping tiles, cover the gems, Novgorad has reasonable production potential, (No food )
If we take Novgorad, we control all the copper on the map. I would suggest also pillaging the mine SE of Moscow. Cat keeps moving archers over to protect it. (She had done this during my turn as well. Iron mined but not hooked up?) Also no workers in Moscow so it will take her a while to improve anything during peace. I love it when I declare peace and my enemy spends 10 turns building a worker who can help undo all the pillaging I had been doing.
I haven't played many Monarch games lately. Anyone confident if we can or cannot support a 6th city before courthouses?

 

[VirusMonster]

Novgorad does look like a very inviting target for the currently massed chariots. St. Pete, Moscow, and Novgorad have a very nice arrangement on the map. No overlapping tiles, cover the gems, Novgorad has reasonable production potential, (No food )
If we take Novgorad, we control all the copper on the map. I would suggest also pillaging the mine SE of Moscow. Cat keeps moving archers over to protect it. (She had done this during my turn as well. Iron mined but not hooked up?) Also no workers in Moscow so it will take her a while to improve anything during peace. I love it when I declare peace and my enemy spends 10 turns building a worker who can help undo all the pillaging I had been doing.
I haven't played many Monarch games lately. Anyone confident if we can or cannot support a 6th city before courthouses?

I play deity all the time Never win, but 6 cities are ok, as long as none is running on a deficit. We got 2 workers from Novgorod and will build cottages. We will be fine. Our next research target is CoL so we will build courthouses once Moscow is captured or even before.

I don't think Moscow has any iron around it, am I wrong? We did not research ironworking yet, did we? How would we know? I doubt he will produce any axeman on time tough. He is troubling to build another settler I guess.

 

[VirusMonster]

Great play VM. I'm glad to see St. Pete finally fell after my very long siege.
We may want to produce one axe in Thebes or Memphis for home defence. We won't be able to promote the warriors and sword and axe barbarians will start appearing near the silver soon. Maybe if we take Novgorad which will eliminate the need for the copper guards we can move a fog buster back north.
I think you are right about the chariot promotions. I usually just give strength promotions to horse units. (Win battles or at least cause a lot of damage to defenders. Power 1 and Flanking 1 is kind of stuck in the grey area inbetween).

We might just park 1 war chariot on the north, but then again we have fog between St.Petersburg and Thebes, so we need some good defence up.

With promotions you have to make a choice: a) you fight until death, then go for Combat I&II, b) you do some damage and hope to survive, then go Flanking I&II for %50 withdrawal chance. Both are fine with me, I just dont like the gray area like you pointed out. Gl, I just spend so much time rewriting my quechua rush article on strategy forum. I am gonna take a 3-4 day civ4 break

 

[Danthor]

Can the current player scout beyond Rostov so we can a better idea of Russia's territory please?

 

[RobertTheBruce]

I don't think Moscow has any iron around it, am I wrong? We did not research ironworking yet, did we? How would we know? I doubt he will produce any axeman on time tough. He is troubling to build another settler I guess.

This is just a guess. A mine on plains or grassland with no copper or gems would be an obvious iron source (there has to be a resource there). I'm just suprised Cat has ignored her other mines but keeps occassionally parking an archer on that one hill mine.

 

[llib_rm]

Can the current player scout beyond Rostov so we can a better idea of Russia's territory please?

Am I up???

 

[Grogs]

Am I up???

Yeah. Knock yourself out.

 

[ungy]

Nicely done VM--our campaign is proceeding smoothly.

I would like to propose rethinking our overall strategy here. I think we should give our war a pause and focus on economy--here's why:

We have gimped Cat sufficiently that we can take her out later.

We have not found any other civs within galley range so it is very possible we will need astronomy for further military campaigns--even if we find another civ (or the rest of them) we will not overrun them with WC. By now it is possible another civ in galley range would have showed up.

We are at risk of falling behind in the tech race--we must stay up so we can trade for missing techs when we get contact with the rest.

There is nothing worth getting from Cat that can be gotten easily. Rostov is in the Moscow culture and would likely flip eventually and could not work gems anyway. Novgorod has no commerce and is cut off.

THESE CITIES ARE VERY EXPENSIVE BECAUSE OF THE DISTANCE TO THEBES AND HAVE LITTLE TO GAIN.

Capturing Moscow would break Cat--however I argue the following:

1. Cat is unlikely to go below 4 archers therefore we probably need around 10 or so WC to attack. We still need to get her to move 3 archers out--that will require more WC so we really are talking about I think 12 or so AND we need her cooperation. So we take the risk that we overbuild the military and pay $ as we need all those WC camped near Moscow to wait for our opportunity.
We are already paying 2g/turn in upkeep--I think we will crash our research with such a large force waiting in enemy territory. Our current economy is 32 with expenses of 14 for net 18. so building a few more chariots and sending all to enemy territory could reduce us to NO RESEARCH AT ALL!

2.We may not be successful--we are depending on essentially AI blundering. We could blow many turns waiting for that blunder during which we could get hit with war weariness as well as slipping behind the rest of the world

3. Really the way to take a city like Moscow is with a stack of cats--you don't need to hope for the AI to move out. Just build about 7 cats--turn 1 no defense bonus then attack with them turn 2 and you lose probably 5 cats or so to take out the kind of stack Cathy will have there (probably an axe, spear and 4-5 archers). So I say--why hurry we will have plenty of time later and likely nothing to do militarily anyway for quite a while. It is also possible we will get normal relations with Cathy and can trade tech.


I would shift production to libraries--especially Thebes with the palace bonus.
We have enough production and units what we really need now is economy.

I would also consider settling up north by the silver --it can pay for itself and build granary and lighthouse while working silver and get us +happy.

Scouting south of Rostov prior to peace would be a priority as well as preserving the 10exp chariot. We should research literature in time for our GE in 49 turns so we might also want to start heroic epic then as well.

--ungy

 

[ungy]

I think I on deck now. I can't play this weekend but can play Monday. If that's OK then leave me in my slot, if we want to go quicker then maybe push me back a slot --ungy

 

[Danthor]

3. Really the way to take a city like Moscow is with a stack of cats--you don't need to hope for the AI to move out. Just build about 7 cats--turn 1 no defense bonus then attack with them turn 2 and you lose probably 5 cats or so to take out the kind of stack Cathy will have there (probably an axe, spear and 4-5 archers). So I say--why hurry we will have plenty of time later and likely nothing to do militarily anyway for quite a while. It is also possible we will get normal relations with Cathy and can trade tech.

What is a stack of cats? What are cats?!?

Anyways, I agree on not wasting precious time sieging Moscow. BUT, before making peace we should:

1.- Scout beyond rostov.
2.- Raze Rostov.
3.- Raze Novogorod.
4.- Pillage Moscow's countryside.

 

[ungy]

What is a stack of cats? What are cats?!?



.

cats=catapults with collateral damage upgrade will damage whole stack

 

[ungy]

Anyways, I agree on not wasting precious time sieging Moscow. BUT, before making peace we should:

1.- Scout beyond rostov.
2.- Raze Rostov.
3.- Raze Novogorod.
4.- Pillage Moscow's countryside.

strongly disagree with razing. too expensive to capture the cities especially the hill and also reduces our chance of getting normal relations with Cathy.
while it would set her back a bit I don't see any significant problem with a war later and we would capture better cities.

 

[ungy]

Peace w/Cathy--I'd be inclined to accept after we get scouting we need--maybe after fishing if she'll give us a bunch of tech --ungy

 

[Lmtoops]

I gone for the weekend. My turn is not up, so it's no problem.

I think we should make peace soon, and put Cathy on the back burner. Our biggest problem right now is, we are alone. If must move our priorities to finding the others, and improving our science.

We could probably still have good trading relations with Cathy, as long as we don't raze any cities.

I think we should scout the area, and pillage freely to generate income.

Our cities can build infrastructure to promote income, and science.