SGOTM 01 - Xteam

[Bede]

It's war with Persia, again



A peek inside Pesepoilis - not much to worry about there



A look at Susa - again thin very thin




The General's view of the front



The plan is to attack across the plains to Susa, which will relieve some of hte pressure on Arbela. My concern is that India will fill in around Susa.

And you can see Cyrus's lone swordsman from Persepolis peering into Tarsus which is in revolt.



Cyrus sends a sword out of Susa towards Arbela



This is a somewhat unfortunate development - crossbows are murder on swords and maces, so there will be some pain at Arbela. Use a cat or two to weaken them.



The residual war weariness showed up right away so garrisons needed to be shifted about.

Research is at zero, as I used the cash hoard to upgrade swords and such. Our best bet is going to be "binary research" towards whatever we choose. I am of two minds - do we research Feudalism and Guilds first, and train up the military while researching Astronomy, or is it Astronomy first for the overseas trade? We need health resources to get the full potential out of Thebes.

And we are about to make a new friend in Saladin. A Caravel sailed out of Novgorod verey shortly after we learned Optics and is almost to Arabia's borders.

 

[DJMGator13]

Good job Bede

 

[Bede]

If you look at the map you will see that contact with America will come shortly after contact with Saladin. I would caution the next player about making any deals until we meet them both. There are some relationship things we need to know about before we start wheelin' and dealin'.

 

[leif erikson]

Good luck Redbad.

Sorry to see the Dutch lose to Portugal.

 

[Redbad]

Yes, me too. Weird match, they might as well start playing bridge: enough footballers sent away with almost enough cards.

Well this is how it went with our little match:

1280AD: pre turn
troops towards Sidon
revolution from organized religion to paganism (+10 gpt)
research to astronomy, research speed to 30%
2 galleys towards inca lands
Pasargadae troops towards Susa

Thebes:
Work the cottages more, build to temple

Memphis:
Temples after market

Heliopolis:
change farms into cottages, build to temples

Petersburg:
Build to temple

Moscow:
Build to aqueduct

Yakutsk:
Build to temple

Novgorod
Working the farms and mines, build to temple

Yaroslav:
Working the land to speed up the library

Rostov:
Build to temples

Elephantine:
Working the cottages

Arbela:
Release working the horses in favour for Bactra

Bactra:
Switch working the sea to working the horses and the incense

Pasargadae:
Switch working the cottages

Tarsus:
Nothing

IBT
Tarsus captured by Persians

01: 1286AD
attack on Susa:
5 cats reduce defense to 15%
2 maces dead vs 2 longbows, 1 axe and 1 spear, we receive 145 gold

we bring judaism to Arbela

we meet Saladin and can trade for feudalism (which we do not yet)


IBT:
Saladin wants to give feudalism + 20 for civil service, we decline

02: 1292AD
Judaism failed to spread to Yaroslav
Troops close in on Tarsus

IBT:
A Tarsus crossbowman attacks and kills a mace

03: 1298AD
6 cats destroy Tarus’defense
3 maces dead, 1 chariot and 1 spear vs 3 longbowmen, 3 crossbowmen and 1 cat, we receive 4 gold
we meet Roosevelt and can trade for feudalism (which we don’t)
research speed to 40%
hire an engineer in Thebes

IBT:

04: 1304AD
zzz

IBT:

05: 1310AD
troops towards Persepolis

IBT:

06: 1316AD
zzz

IBT:
Persepolis' cat causes collateral damage

07: 1322AD
cats destroy persepolis' defense

IBT:
Roosevelt wants civil service + 50 for his feudalism, we decline
Persepolis:
Crossbowman kills our mace
Our mace kills a longbowman
Our mace kills a swordsman

08: 1328AD
battle for Persepolis
horsearcher vs longbowman, ha dead
mace vs longbowman, mace dead
mace vs longbowman, lb dead
mace vs longbowman, lb dead
mace vs longbowman, mace dead
chariot vs longbowman, chariot dead
mace vs longbowman, lb dead
mace vs crossbowman, mace dead
mace vs crossbowman, mace dead
chariot vs longbowman, chariot dead
axeman vs axeman, our axe wins
mace vs longbowman, mace dead
cat vs crossbowman, cb dead
cat vs longbowman, lb dead
spear vs longbowman, lb dead
spear vs cat, cat dead
we receive 213 gold and 2 workers
mace vs spear, spear dead

we trade feudalism, 90 gold and worldmap for calendar and paper with Roosevelt

we’ve got another 3 priests in Rostov to get us an additional shrine.

IBT:

09 1334AD:
we destroy Sidon
Though warwearines is hitting us hard, I don’t make peace with Cyrus.
He only has 1 city left which we can take in about 6 turns and each time we declare war on Cyrus damages our relation with Gandhi.

IBT:

10 1340AD
Inca shows up near Elephantine; high time we start teaching him a lesson.

Epilog:
I boarded a jewish missionary onto our caravel to spread the good knews to Roosevelt. Saladin and Roosevelt have no religion, but Saladin has theocracy.
Cyrus’ last city Gordium has islam and so Cyrus converted, now Gandhi is only pleased with Cyrus.
I set Yakutsk to a workboat in case Inca destroys some nets. War waerines is severe, but I think we should kill Cyrus first. Knocking out Cyrus will take about 5 turns.
Only city now having specialists is Rostov, which has 3 priests. I must say that Rostov turned out to be a whole lot better then I thought it would be. All of the food made it possible to hurry 3 temples and running 3 priests.
I think we should turn the cottage 1W of novgorod into a farm. After that Yakutsk needs a few cottages, but that’s pretty much it with improving the home island. So if anyone feels we need some more roads, be my guest.
I think we need Confucianism in Petersburg for getting another temple against war weariness. Also Novgorod could use some extra religions for the same reason.

Onto the next and have fun finishing of Cyrus.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice work Redbad!

A couple of questions and observations:
War Weariness is indeed severe! But I think you are correct that we should finish Cyrus. The last city may give us Marble as well!

Once Cyrus is finished, how much of the army do we move back to our core for the attack on the Incas? We have some fairly experienced Maces in Persia that I'm sure we'll need in Inca lands. My fear is that the Incas will attack though Gandhi's lands against us, as Gandhi is peaceful to all? Currently, Gandhi is annoyed with Huayna Capac and has contact but no agreements.

Susa looks like it may flip to Gandhi?

Tech path after Astronomy is Guilds to Gunpowder?

As we approach Astronomy, start building another army of Maces and Cats?

The good news is that Roosevelt and Saladin are not ahead of us in tech. What should we hold back from them in trade? I am hoping that thge Incas are not very far ahead of us either. Is there a way to find out as they won't talk?

Interesting that Cyrus has converted to Islam but Divine Right doesn't show in his list of techs, must have inhereted it from Gandhi. Hope Gandhi doesn't decide to convert before we can ally wiht him.

 

[Bede]

RB. Told you Rostov might grow up to be something someday.

Keep shipping missionaries into both our new friends to the east and to our old friend Gandhi. If we can keep the majority of his citizens Jewish I think the risk of his changing is limited.

And by no means let Cyrus off the hook. Oscillating war with the same opponent tends to anger both your citizens and their friends. Not a good thing, IMHO. And see if India will help in the finish, though it is unlikely as we have little in the way of bait.

 

[DJMGator13]

Roster
Leif - Up, but no rush, I've got to finish my set in the other SGOTM first
Gator -
Bede -
Redbad - just played

Currently on the sidelines
Capt - skip (computer issues & vacation 2 weeks starting 6/25)
Romeo - skip (as requested, can insert at top when ready just let us know when you have time)
Bradleyfeanor - awaiting his return

 

[leif erikson]

Roster
Leif - Up, but no rush, I've got to finish my set in the other SGOTM first

OK, I'm planning on giving it a go tomorrow evening.

Shall we start building units to embark for Incaland?

 

[Redbad]

Once Cyrus is finished, how much of the army do we move back to our core for the attack on the Incas? We have some fairly experienced Maces in Persia that I'm sure we'll need in Inca lands. My fear is that the Incas will attack though Gandhi's lands against us, as Gandhi is peaceful to all? Currently, Gandhi is annoyed with Huayna Capac and has contact but no agreements.

I think we can ignore the possiblility of being attacked by Inca through India. The AI still isn't good at invading countries from sea. And to pull of a trick like this means they have to sail past our lands. Capac doesn't have astronomy (F4-screen) so he can't sail to the east. And even if he did have astronomy I find it hard to imagine he would do it.
Btw. I doubt if Gandhi is inheritly peaceful as declaring war on Capac is negotiable, but we only don't have enough to offer.

Susa looks like it may flip to Gandhi?

No big deal, I'm sure he will take good care of the Susian people

Tech path after Astronomy is Guilds to Gunpowder?

Yes indeed, and after that I was thinking of going towards Military Tradition. If we find that a good direction, then it might be a good idea to get us a great engineer from Thebes who can build us West Point in Novgorod. We also need to preserve a 4 times promoted unit for being able to build West Point.

As we approach Astronomy, start building another army of Maces and Cats?

I'd say maces and crossbows. We can use the present cats in Persia, the cats don't have the same wear and tear as the other units have.

The good news is that Roosevelt and Saladin are not ahead of us in tech. What should we hold back from them in trade? I am hoping that thge Incas are not very far ahead of us either. Is there a way to find out as they won't talk?

The Inca are quite ahead of us, just a little less advanced as Gandhi. WRT Saladin and Roosevelt I think we should hold back on Civil Service as long as we can, and after that hold back on Guilds. My estimation would be we have to fight Saladin after Capac. Roosevelt is liked by Gandhi and we can spread Judaism to the US for financial reasons which would make Gandhi like him even more.
We can't spread religion to Saladin, but with any luck Capac's Buddism might spread naturally. I suggest we make 2 shrines: 1 jewish in Novgorod and 1 Buddist in Inca land. That would pay for our future Inca conquest. If we could persuade Saladin at some point to abandon theocracy, then we could try to spread buddism to Saladin. We would make money from it and it would undermine relations between Saladin and Gandhi.

Interesting that Cyrus has converted to Islam but Divine Right doesn't show in his list of techs, must have inhereted it from Gandhi. Hope Gandhi doesn't decide to convert before we can ally wiht him.

Shall we start building units to embark for Incaland?

Yes, and building missionaries to spread Judaism to Franklin and the Mahatma and to make some extra temples possible in Petersburg and Novgorod. Until we have astronomy we should possibly bypass Vitcos from capturing, so we can keep sailing towards Inca land. Vilcas looks like a good choice, it's very defensible and we might be able to land in a forested tile.
Inca has a large city on a 1 tile island, so I doubt we'll be able to eliminate Inca any time soon. This could mean we might be facing severe war weariness problems in the future.

 

[Redbad]

We can't spread religion to Saladin, but with any luck Capac's Buddism might spread naturally.

Of course this cannot also, as long as he's in theocracy

 

[leif erikson]

OK, thanks for the thoughts Redbad.

Planning to start soon.

 

[leif erikson]

Cyrus is long gone!!

<< THE SAVE >>

Turn log:
Pre-flight &#8211; 1340 AD
Everything looks good, except the war weariness (ouch), so on we go&#8230;

IBT
Incan Galley heads for the Clam square.
Turn 1 &#8211; 1346 AD
Gordium has a Longbow and an Axeman.
Two Maces and a Cat heal, head west from Persepolis.

IBT
Incans destroy our Fishing Boats on the Clam near Elephantine.
Susa&#8217;s borders expanded and then Susa goes into an Indian revolt.

Turn 2 &#8211; 1352 AD
Jewish Missionary in the Caravel headed for the USA.
Move troops towards Gordium.

IBT
The enemy has been spotted, still, near Elephantine.
Another Galley is coming our way from the Incas and it has a Longbow and a Settler aboard.
Memphis Harbor => Library
St. Petersburg Hindu Monastary => Harbor.
Moscow Confucian Temple => Aqueduct.

Turn 3 &#8211; 1358 AD
Unload Cat and Mace in the Galley near Gordium.
Move attack force towards Gordium.


IBT
Moscow Aqueduct => National Epic


Turn 4 &#8211; 1364 AD
Battle for Gordium.
Cats bombard Gordium, using 6 Cats the culture goes from 40% to 4%.
Mace attacks Longbow (combat odds 94.2%, 8.00 vs. 4.95), Mace wins.
Mace attacks Axe (odds 96.4%, 8.00 vs. 4.71), Mace dies!
Axe attacks Axe (odds 99.4%, 5.00 vs. 2.35), we take Gordium plus 2 workers and 75 Gold. 5 turns of resistance for the city. Gordium has a Lighthouse.
Best of all, Cyrus is gone and his empire destroyed.


IBT
Incan northern Galley turns north?
Thebes Jewish Missionary => Confucian Missionary.
Yakutsk Work Boat => Forge.
Arbela Granary => Forge.

The units listed in the piccie are for the northern galley.

Turn 5 &#8211; 1370 AD
Promote Axe to City Raider 3 and upgrade to Mace for 179 Gold.
Hire 2 Priests in Moscow.
Change build priority in Novgorod from Mace to Market.

IBT
Incan Galley headed for the Silver.
Roosevelt wishes to trade World Maps straight up, I say OK.
Heliop[oils Confucian Monastery => Crossbowman.

Turn 6 &#8211; 1376 AD
Drop off Jewish Missionary in Saladin&#8217;s empire as he can walk faster to Roosevelt than the Caravel can take him.
Move troops back towards our core from the Persian Campaign.

IBT
Persepolis comes out of resistance and we start a Courthouse. Persepolis is going to starve anyway so I pop rush the Courthouse at a cost of 5 pop.


Turn 7 &#8211; 1382 AD
Move some troops.
Workers complete the Farm west of Novgorod.

IBT
Incan Galley heads north for Silver?
Thebes Confucian Missionary for St. Petersburg => Jewish Missionary.
Persepolis Courthouse => Jewish Temple.
Incan Southern Galley leaves the Clam to come after our Workboat.

Turn 8 &#8211; 1388 AD
Workboat heads back for Yakutsk!!

IBT
I get the message that the enemy has been spotted near Thebes?
Memphis Library => Maceman.
Heliopolis Crossbowman => Mace.
St. Petersburg Harbor => Lighthouse.
Yaroslavl Hindu Temple => Forge.
Persepolis Jewish Temple => Market.
Gordium comes out of resistance, start a Courthouse.

Turn 9 &#8211; 1394 AD
The message about the enemy unit near Thebes is the Incan Galley chasing the Work Boat.
We spread Judaism to Philadelphia with Roosie, although I notice he has adopted Islam.
We have Marble in our cities.

IBT
Thebes Jewish Missionary => Jewish Missionary.
Novgorod Market => Mace.
Gandhi completes Versailles.

Turn 10 &#8211; 1400 AD
Work Boat get schased back into Yaktusk.
St. Petersburg gets Confucianism.

After Action Report:
Religion:
A Jewish Missionary is waiting on the hill SE of Novgorod for the Caravel for a trip to see Roosevelt. Another is on his way to Rostov, currently near Yaktusk, for transport to the Persian area to be used at Gordium. Roosevelt has converted to Islam, so we need to try and persuade him to try Judaism.

St. Petersburg has been given Confucianism and is building a Confucian Temple now.

Army:
The Army is on the move north, currently between Pasagarde and Arbela, for transport to our core area for redeployment against the Inca. There are 2 Galleys available to transport these troops.

I didn&#8217;t do too well on getting military units built. First, the war weariness early in the turn set did not allow much production. Second, I build Jewish and Confucian Missionaries to spread the faith.

Enemies:
The Inca are about to build a city near the Silver up north.

Beware the Incan Galley near Yaktusk, which has a Work Boat in it waiting for our Galleys for escort.

Wonders:
I started National Epic in Moscow to speed along our Great People points. It is due in 6 turns. A Great Prophet (I hope) is due in Moscow in 14 turns, but that should be less with National Epic. We now have Marble as a resource from Gordium.

Other Matters:
We still have Susa, although it is very tenuous. We survived an Indian upraising but need some culture, a lot of culture. Not sure a Great Artist would help??

Technology:
We are 9 turns from Astronomy at minus 15 Gold per turn.

Things to decide:
I think we should continue to build some more Jewish Missionaries in order to try to convert Roosevelt. We also need to work on an army to invade the Inca. Which should have priority, I&#8217;m not sure.

OK, please ask questions and good luck to the next player, Gator?
It would also be nice to convert all of Gandhi&#8217;s cities to Judaism. I think we can build a lot of the Missionaries in the former Persian zone, once we get some Monasteries built there.

 

[Bede]

Ding dong the witch is dead! Way to finish him off.

I am not sure Iwould put a whole lot of resources into trying to hang onto Susa, as Redbad said, Gandhi can take care of those people as well as we can. Besides he will just keep dropping culture bombs into that border. With all wonders he's built the GPPpt must be humoungous.

Missionaries should have equal priority with troops. That shrine income starts to mujltiply like rabbits with markets and grocers and banks in the shrine town and goes a long way to paying for the armies. Every trooper on foreign soil has a cost and missionaries are a good way to offset it. If we can get two or even three shrines working the benefits are tremendous.

 

[leif erikson]

I am not sure Iwould put a whole lot of resources into trying to hang onto Susa, as Redbad said, Gandhi can take care of those people as well as we can. Besides he will just keep dropping culture bombs into that border. With all wonders he's built the GPPpt must be humoungous.

I did the right thing then, nothing!! The Mace Redbad left there is still there, but I did not add any troops to hold it. Somehow, we managed to hang on, this time!!

Missionaries should have equal priority with troops. That shrine income starts to multiply like rabbits with markets and grocers and banks in the shrine town and goes a long way to paying for the armies. Every trooper on foreign soil has a cost and missionaries are a good way to offset it. If we can get two or even three shrines working the benefits are tremendous.

That is kind of what I thought and why I continued to produce Missionaries. We should have a Great Prophet in, or vewry near, the end of the next turn set. I'm looking forward to that Gold.

 

[Redbad]

Good job leif.
Here&#8217;s a new little rundown from me.

Thebes:
Excellent idea to bring irrigation to the rice, it will improve the food production of the rice by 1, making the rice a good insurance against war weariness. But IMO I think we should keep Thebes emphasising commerce above production. I know it&#8217;s more sexy in the short run to work a mined hill then to work a fresh cottage, but please do keep in mind that we&#8217;ve gone through a lot of trouble to get us an academy in Thebes. So I think we must make the extra miles and give the cottages the opportunity to develop. In times of crises we can always fall back onto the rice (for food) or the mined hills (for production). Thebes can take over the cottaged plains from Heliopolis and the grass forest in the west can give a final cottage.

Memphis:
For Memphis it&#8217;s more or less the other way round. There is precious little to gain by growing and adding water tiles to work on. I would switch working a water tile for working the mined plains hill and take the 5 extra hammers.

Heliopolis:
Excellent. It can grow another pop who can work the last mined plains hill.

Petersburg:
Excellent. Both the temple and the lighthouse can be build as an insurance against war weariness. Then Petersburg is another city which is ready for waging war.

Moscow:
I&#8217;d rather have Moscow work the cottages, slow down on the National Epic (or even abandon it) and hire a third priest. In the long run Rostov is a better choice for generating great people, as Moscow can do so much more, in terms of commerce and production. Besides the NE will further pollute the gpp.

Yakutsk:
I wasn&#8217;t in favour of doing a forge in Yakutsk and had silently dismissed it from the build queue. At best Yakutsk will do 16 hammers, the forge adds 4. That makes a return on investment of 45 turns. I don&#8217;t know if every city that can master a few hammers needs a forge?

Novgorod:
When we switch working the northern cottage to working the western farm, we&#8217;ll have +4 food and growth in 7 turns. And if we switch building a maceman to building an aqueduct first, we can have Novgorod fully operational in 7 turns (that&#8217;s in time for the Incan campaign). After growth the new citizen can work a mined desert hill and we can switch working the southern cottage to working the other mined desert hill.
This will result in: 23 (base) + 5 (forge) + 23 (heroic epic) = 51 hammers/turn military production. Alternative is to grow an extra pop to size 13 first and then work the 2 mined desert hills plus the irrigated plains west. That will result in: 24 (base) + 6 (forge) + 24 (heroic epic) = 54 hammers/turn military production. As the latter takes more time to realise and makes Novgorod more vulnerable for war weariness I&#8217;m somewhat in favour of the first alternative.

Yaroslavl:
I certainly wouldn&#8217;t do a forge here. Perhaps switching the forge to wealth and switch working the mined hill to working the cottaged plains and switch working the irrigated plains to working the sea. Then we can all thank the Yaroslavl people for their little contribution to the Great Cause and have no further ambitions for that city.

Rostov:
Excellent.

Elephantine:
Excellent.

Arbela:
A forge seems out of place here too. Get us ourselves a few grassland cottages and chop the forests into a market. After that the Yaroslavl solution looks appropiate here too.

Bactra:
After the court, wealth.

Pasargadae:
Hard to say, it will remain mediocre always in every aspect. So I have no suggestions.

Susa:
That&#8217;s quite a laugh: it has a forge and an academy. If it survives it should build some culture to try to get some land to work on.

Tarsus:
Tarsus can reach a little production if we farm the tile 1 N. I think Tarsus should give the iron to upcoming super city Persepolis. So work the mined plains hill north until the court is finished. Then we can start working the fish (2 fish is enough for Persepolis) and later on the farms and the mined hills.

Persepolis:
This city will surpass Novgorod in production and only the commerce from Thebes can compare. 2 fish and 2 crab will provide +14 netto food, enough to work 6 mined plains hill (of which 1 with iron) + 1 engineer specialist, giving a total of 29 base + 7 forge = 36 hammers. Above that we can also run 4 cottages (it has an academy also) at a total size of only 14. I think it could build the FP and as it quite far from the front it could spam missionaries.

Gordium:
Little prospect, hurry the court at the first possibility.

 

[DJMGator13]

Leif you played too quickly, I can't play until probably Friday night so if Bede wants to grab it first go ahead. I've got 1 self study test and an ethics test to take before the 30th to renew my license so that must come first.

 

[leif erikson]

Leif you played too quickly, I can't play until probably Friday night so if Bede wants to grab it first go ahead. I've got 1 self study test and an ethics test to take before the 30th to renew my license so that must come first.

Sorry Gator, wife's away on a Girl Scout camping trip. And I've got to get CIVGOTM done tomorrow!!

Good luck with the tests.
Ethics will be no problem at least.

EDIT - And thanks Redbad. Nice rundown as usual. I have to learn when and where to build things. I generally build Forges everywhere because of the value and the extra production. However, I do see that there are some places we prolly don't need them. Keep up the good work.

 

[Bede]

I will try and fit it in tonight.

And if the server comes back up I've got it

Good luck and good testing 'Gator!

 

[leif erikson]

Here Bede, I'll attach the save.