SGOTM 01 - Xteam

[Bede]

Though I love a good fight and we seem to have on going on, I think the honors should go to Redbad as I played the set just before 'Gator and that would be hogging all the fun.

 

[DJMGator13]

The more detailed version of my turns.

Preturn 1460AD
Entering the stage of the game where I have not played much, so any comments or criticism are welcomed and encouraged.

Pull the trade for Engineering



Review the game and determine that we need to start up researching again. We have no trade bait and pointy-stick method is no good because we can’t gain any techs from the Inca’s due to our permanent at war status and can’t attack India for techs. So I set research to 50% for Guilds in 7 turns.

Unfortunately we are researching what India already knows but at least we can progress towards grenadiers.

IBT – Wealth list displays, we are #4 / Inca galley dies attacking our galley
Memphis crossbow => pike
Moscow Hindu Mon => Jewish Mon (already in the queue)

Turn 1 – 1466AD
Make the trade for Divine Right (not sure if we needed it but figured I try to get something from our techs before they lost all value)



Then trade Saladin a cow for a deer. Sign an open border also which increases income from +2gpt to +7gpt

IBT – we lose a galleon that I foolishly left in the open not thinking the Incas would attack with 2 caravel, but I do kill 1 of the caravels
Thebes crossbow => pike
Novg galleon = galleon

Turn 2 – 1472AD
move troops to Elephantine as launching point for Incan Invasion

IBT – Thebes pike => pike
St Pete Conf Mont. => cat
Yak work boat => galleon

Turn 3 – 1478AD
Only 2 galleons in position I need to wait for a 3rd one
Jaipur now Jewish
Jewish Missionary to Boston – no good, they are Theocracy
We’re 4 turns from Guild when America learns it so I trade for it, Wmap and 40 gold



Set research to Gunpowder, since India already has Banking (looking for something we can use to trade)

Question: What’s the difference between “Won’t Trade” and “Can’t Trade”

IBT – Memphis pike=> Observatory
Helio mace => cat

Turn 4 – 1484AD
we lose a caravel attacking the remaining Inca caravel, I injure severely so I use a galleon to finish it off – no other enemy ships in sight

The Jewish missionary is no good in Saladin’s land either.

IBT – Thebes pike => Observatory
Moscow Jewish Mont=> Conf Mont

Turn 5 – 1490AD
finally have 3 galleons in Elephantine as the turn ends

IBT – Helio cat => Observatory
St Pete cat => Observatory
Novgorod galleon => galleon
Persepolis FP => library

Turn 6 – 1496AD
load up 3 galleons and head towards Inca lands
FP increased our gpt but not enough to increase our research rate

IBT - zzz

Turn 7 – 1502AD
land troops by Vitcos 9 units – mostly cats and pikes – this will allow me to start reducing city defenses as I’m waiting for the 2nd wave to land

IBT - Elephantine market => Jewish Mont.

Turn 8 – 1508AD
load up 9 more troops (lot of maces) and head to reinforce our 1st landing
the cats reduce city defense from 40% to 16%, fort rest of troops in anticipation of attack from a cat and crossbow

I upgrade a galley to galleon status

IBT – we get attacked and defend against the cat but lose our crossbow to a crossbow
Novgorod galleon =>mace

Turn 9 – 1514AD
unload 9 more troops and bomb city defenses down to 0%
India has gunpowder, not sure if I missed it earlier but I don’t think they had it when I started to research

IBT - Moscow Conf Mont.=> Observatory
Persepolis library=> Jewish Mont.

Turn 10 – 1520AD
Battle for Vitcos
1) Cat does collateral damage (CD) (pike 5.5 / LB 5.5 / LB 6.0) – not very impressive
2) Mace dies attacking the 6.0 LB no damage inflicted
3) cat does more CD (pike 4.9 / LB 4.9 /LB 4.3)
4) mace dies attacking the pike (still at 4.9)
5) cat does CD and withdraws (2 earlier cats died) (pike 4.3 / LB 4.1 / LB 1.2)
6) cat dies against the LB (LB 3.2 / LB 1.2 / pike 3.7)
7) cat kills a LB (LB 1.2 / pike 3.2)
8) mace kills the pike
9) promo a mace to CR1 then attack and we capture the city, 140gold and a worker



Unload a single galleon with 3 more cats onto our stack, move 2 maces into city to heal.

Not proper SG etiquette (I was going to play more then realized it was too late after making the trade) but I trade America rice for 8gpt

Overall we captured a city, acquired a few techs and some gpt.

 

[Bede]

@Gator, There is a one turn delay between learning a new tech and being able to trade for the next tech in that path. That is the "Can't Trade" category. It is in there to prevent the kind of trade fests that you used to see in Civ3. ""Won't Trade" is simply that. There is some AI reason for not wanting to make a deal for that piece of knowledge.

Nice bit of warfare over there on the other continent. I guess we are off the rock and on the way.

Just one comment, I don't know how many troops you had with available promotions, but I would have promoted them up before beginning the battle based on an assessment of what kind of opposition they were facing. I know that it is popular technique to use promotions as a way of healing faster, but I have found that unless you outclass the enemy by a factor of 2 or more, that that tactic just results in a lot of unpromoted dead units.

The trading was good and thanks for fixing the bonehead move I made closing borders with Saladin after both Roosevelt and Gandhi had asked for the closure. Too bad about the Theocratic neighbors though, they must not realize the benfits of financing the Egyptian war machine.

 

[Redbad]

Commenting Gator’s turnset from work (so I can’t look at the save). On the whole good going Gator. Below are only criticisms as I tend to not commenting the good points. So please note that I consider the points not mentioned as good ones.

1460
Good tech trade with FDR for engineering. The pikes and extra road movement further our war effort. However I do sense you like to trade for any tech asap. I doubt if we want to keep doing that. With knights, cavalry and grenadiers in the near future, we should get a little less enthusiastic with trading. I like your FDR deal, but I don’t like the Saladin deal. It brings him pikes and extra road movement which he will throw at our knights.

Memphis is building monasteries and an observatory. These structures are increasing science output. I don’t know how many beakers Memphis manages, but it can’t be all that much as Memphis has no commerce bonus tiles and only works IRC 1 cottaged tile.

1472
Thebes: pike. Now Thebes is a city that could use an observatory. But it probably already has one. Largely the same goes for Petersburg. And Heliopolis. Later I see you start building the observatories in these cities, so my comment only concerns the priority.

1478
Guilds!! Why aren’t we with our military full on building knights from now on???? They are fast and strong and we have a whole lot of the other stuff already.

1490
Novgorod is building galleons. I know it is tempting to do so as Novgorod has high production and is near the front. But we must remember that Novgorod is twice as efficient when building military. I rather would have liked Memphis having built the galleons or hurried in Elephantine.


With the captain, bradley and romeo unavailable I suppose I’m next. We have decided in view of time restraints to do up to 20 turns each?

 

[Redbad]

Teammates

There’s something I have to discuss with you which is bothering me for some time. It’s about the seemingly irresistible tendency to make every city mediocre. Two examples:

A city like Thebes, who doubles its research output (academy, library, 2 monasteries) has to work 4 mines an a farm when it could have been 4 cottages and a lake. And shortly Thebes will have an observatory, adding an extra 25% research.

A city like Novgorod, who doubles its hammer production when building military has to work two cottages at the sacrifice of working an extra farm and a mine.

I’m sure everybody will immediately see that it’s better for Thebes to work cottages and for Novgorod to work farms and mines. But it goes further then that.

If, lets say, Thebes and Moscow were both exclusively geared towards research (libraries, monasteries, academy, working towns), then I’m convinced no amount of mediocre cities will match them in research. And I mean NO amount of mediocre cities, be it 1, 10 or a 1000. At larger numbers the upkeep will simply kill research. Only thing to beat Thebes and Moscow then is adding a third city in fine surroundings and also exclusively geared towards research.

But it goes further still. Having specialised cities is not only more efficient in what they produce, it’s also more efficient to realise. For example there is basically no need for a barracks and a forge in a commerce city. Just like there’s no need for libraries and monasteries in production cities. So we’re relieved from the duty to build all the junk we can everywhere. We just have to need to build half the junk. Which is a big advantage for both types of cities. The commerce cities are slow in building stuff, so having to build less is a big relief. The production cities can build much needed units when not having to build their irrelevant stuff.

But it goes even further one more step. And I think Memphis is an example of that. We have built a library and a market in it and are about to add a observatory. Not only equals that an investment of 135 + 225 + 225 = 585 hammers, but it also provokes us to have Memphis work cottaged tiles, in order to get some return on our investment. When we wouldn’t have built those buildings, we wouldn’t need to hesitate now and turn the two cottaged tiles into farms and thus enabling Memphis to turn a citizen into an engineer thereby adding an extra 2 hammers.

One of the joy aspects of CIV is that there’s so much to decide and to optimise. Unlike civ3 where commerce is just roading everything in sight. And as cities are not corrupt in CIV it is tempting for ex-civ3 players to erect a library everywhere. But just think of it that in CIV having commerce rich tiles like a town or gems is a positive way to say there’s no commerce corruption. So a library is in order. Not having commerce rich tiles is CIV way of telling the city has commerce corruption. So a library is not in order.

The above is also tremendously important for choosing the city sites. It either has to be food rich (for example GP farming), hammer rich (for example building an army) or commerce rich (for example taking care of research). Cities placed in mediocre surroundings to fill up the landscape or mostly not worth the extra upkeep.

In this game we hold on to the last named cities as they do help in bringing domination nearer but that’s about all they do. I know it’s not longer important for this game, but for future games it is essential to lift us to a higher result. One could say another big difference between CIV and civ3 is that in civ3 we need to make a lot of easy decisions and in CIV we need to make much less decisions but the decisions we make have individually much more impact.

And finally I think Carthage should be destroyed.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks Redbad. I think what you say is an important point for us to learn. And, as someone who still plays Civ3, I am guilty of what you speak of...

I ask that, as we move ahead as a team, that we discuss things like city sites, purposes for the city, builds and worker priorities. As I am still learning, I must fight my urge to build everything and I'm not always sure of my decisions. So, a discussion would be most helpful to me.

 

[Redbad]

Entering the stage of the game where I have not played much, so any comments or criticism are welcomed and encouraged.

I'll play tomorrow, but fyi I'll post my pre-game thoughts and actions now.


Cities:

Thebes:
Switch working the 2 mined grass hills to 2 plains cottages.
Switch working the rice to the lake.
Adding a grocer to the production queue.
As Thebes is large enough I’m switching on avoid growth.

Memphis:
Change working a sea tile to an engineer and running temporarily a minus 2 food.
Stop building the observatory and start building knights.

Heliopolis:
No changes, only adding knights to the build queue.

Petersburg:
No changes, only adding knights to the build queue.

Moscow:
Maximising food to get growth in 2 and sack the engineer specialist.
Add a grocer to the build queue.

Yakutsk:
Line up a observatory after the galleon.

Novgorod:
Switch working the cottages to working a farm and mine.
Add knights to the build queue.

Yaroslavl:
Switch working the farmed plains to working a water tile.

Rostov:
Just fine. Though I have somewhat mixed feelings if we should get a great prophet out of Rostov or a great engineer out of Thebes first.

Elephantine:
Switch working the desert hill to the floodplain cottage.

Arbela:
Just fine.

Bactra:
Just fine.

Pasargadae:
I think Pasargadae will be slightly better at commerce then at production. So I decide to make it a small money maker and I replace the barracks build by market and grocer.

Vitcos:
Nothing (obviously)

Tarsus:
As Persepolis is so much more important then Tarsus, I’m putting Tarsus in service of P. Tarsus gives the fish to P. and start working the 2 northern cottages of P. That way their development is sped up a little.

Persepolis:
Switch working 4 mines to working the fish, the lake and 2 cottages, in order to accelerate growth. Plan is to grow 4 pop shortly.

Gordium:
No changes.


Trades:

Ghandhi:
Cancel rice for pigs deal as I want to turn the Thebian rice farm into a cottage.
Also cancel the incense for silk deal as we silk ourselves.
Establish a sugar for pigs deal.

Roosevelt:
Want to change the rice for gpt in a incense for gpt deal, but that’s not possible yet. I want to change the Moscow rice farm into a cottage too.

Saladin:
Establish a fish for 1 gpt deal.


Civics:
As emphasis becomes more towards military conquest and less towards research I change civics: bureaucracy in vassalage and paganism in theocracy.

 

[DJMGator13]

Very good comments Redbad. I like that you explain how it could be better and not just point out the negatives. I hope Brad returns before the next game because I think a pairing of you 2 in the same game would be excellent.

I thought of switching the civics but was concerned about the increase in upkeep. Which gets back to your point about only building the proper additions in a city and not building everything. By reducing the maintenance costs we allow ourselves more gold for either research or for running a higher upkeep civic.

 

[Redbad]

The 20 turns took a bit longer then I thought, but they're done. I have some good and some bad news for all you warmongers. The bad news is that the fight on the Incan mainland is over and the good news is we landed a small force on long island

Thought the city on long island had a different name though I'm afraid FDR will have a hard time keeping long island as we have 4 knights and a mace against his 1 longbow and 1 pike (and a worker).

Let me give a small summary of what happend between 1520 and 1580 (btw a very crucial timeframe in dutch history). The pregame thoughts and actions are mentioned earlier. I did make a few changes though, most important ones are putting Persepolis to producing knights and Thebes producing after the observatory 2 knights first.

01 1523
Gandhi builds the Taj Mahal and gets a golden age. I just MM and shift troops around. I keep most troops that aren't maces on the persian and Egyptian island put in order to battle the upcoming war weariness.

02 1526
We've researched gunpowder and start on music (on our way to military tradition). I see FDR has music and banking and is lacking gunpowder. Though I don't like him to have gunpowder I do want to have music and banking (for mercantilism).

03 1529
We trade powder for music, banking, 20 gold and world map. I can't revolt just yet as I did that in the pregame turn. Research now for nationalism. We attack and capture Vilcas.

04 1532
We attack and capture Tiwanaku. A spying galleon saw that Vilcas was lightly defended so I split my forces. Rostov hurries its market.

05 1535
revolt to mercantilism. the lost foreign trade routes hurt but I like the free specialist a little better. In Novgorod the free engineer gives an additional 5 hammers: (2 base + 2 HE + 1 forge) And the odd free merchant pays back some gold.

06 1538
attack and capture of Vilcabamba (was also lightly defended)

07 1541
zzz

08 1544
hurry a court in Gordium

09 1547
found silver north of Petersburg

10 1550
capture Cuzco, it has Angkor Wat and the Mahabodhi. With Angkor Wat the priest specialist is better then the engineer specialist (except for Thebes of course). And it's much easier to run 2 priest specialists then it is to run 2 engineers. The Mahabodhi means we already have the Buddist shrine, so the next great person definitely has to be an engineer (i suggest it builds west point in Novgorod).

I've parked a 4 times promoted mace in Cuzco as we need such a unit alive when we build west point.

11 1553
zzz

12 1556
Nationalism researched, start on military tradition, revolt to nationhood and hurry a grocer in Elephantine, Nationhood helps against war weariness and it isn't a very expensive civic.

13 1559
capture Ollantaytambo

14 1562
zzz

15 1565
hurry a court in Tiwanaku and start producing catapults to MP the war weary people to work again. cats are the cheapest military unit atm

16 1568
capture Huamanga and hurry a grocer in Rostov

17 1571
capture Machu Picchu and hurry a court in Vilcas

18 1574
trade astronomy to Saladin for drama, so now we can use the slider too to battle war weariness ; hurry a court in Cuzco.
Start to rearrange the trades. As Saladin wants to trade his lux (ivory) and FDR has no lux for sale, I decide FDR has to go.

19 1577
zzz

20 1580 I tell FDR his head would look good on the end of a pole and find he has no sense of humour. So we land troops on long island.

Some other point worth mentioning:

I've run a bit out of imagination what to do with our workers. So quite a few of them are sitting somewhere.

Knights from Persepolis.
Persepolis is a long way from the front, but I've discovered a way to ease the pain

The red square is just reacheble at the end of the second move for a knight coming from Persepolis. Having the galley there it can take the knight 2 tiles north the same turn. Next turn the galley sails in to Rostov and unloads the knight. Now the knight can continu his journey the same turn. All in all it makes Persepolis very acceptable as a knight supplying city

Some special care has to be taken to get us the great engineer.

Thebes is running a great engineer. It will take another 15 turns before he emerges. We'll have military tradition in 6 but we can only run 1 engineer specialist. So no speeding the process without polluting the gpp.


Rostov has a little less gpp for his great prophet. But the risk is that Rostov often gets an extra priest for seemingly no good reason. So keep paying attention to both the cities as we want ideally have Rostov nearly enough gpp when Thebes gets the engineer.

I sometimes have started a temple to build in small or recently captured cities. Reason is not only the added happiness but also make it possible that the free specialist from Angkor What can be a priest. And the temples are build at double speed due to our Hatsepsut.

The highway to the front now runs over Elephantine - Vitcos ferry, over the Incan land (just north of the culture from his island city) and then to the ferry to long island. Shortly we will need another ferry from long island to the us mainland. The 2 present ferries have each 3 galleons. Probably we need split them up in 3 times 2 galleons. For the US invasion we might use Arabia as a landing point to amass some troops before attacking. I'm not sure as I haven't investigated FDR strength on the mainland.

I converted 2 captured Inca cities with our 2 jew missionaries and killed the caravels. I saw little use for the caravels and they did save us upkeep.

And for the next one: have FUN with FDR

 

[leif erikson]

Looks good Redbad. You didn't leave any Incas for me to chew on??

I'm up in SGOTM10, in a hell of a fight, and need to finish 4 more turns tonight. I will not be able to start this until Tuesday evening, earliest. If someone else has some time and can pick it up, that is fine with me!!

Good luck.

How can we take Cori? Looks like we need Chemistry and Frigates?

 

[Bede]

If our fearless leader is okay with it I'll play it tonight and tomorrow and have ut ready for leif on Tuesday.

So got it and will hew to the Redbad line.

 

[DJMGator13]

Good job.

Have fun with it Bede.

 

[leif erikson]

So got it and will hew to the Redbad line.

Good luck Bede!!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I'm back, have to work around the house today. Will check back tomorrow or later today.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm back, have to work around the house today. Will check back tomorrow or later today.

Welcome back Capt. Hope you had a good time, and could watch the World Cup!!

 

[Redbad]

How can we take Cori? Looks like we need Chemistry and Frigates?

I don’t know if we want to capture it. We don’t need it for our victory condition and the city poses little threat. Being on a small island it can’t possibly produce many hammers so it units output will be low. It has its latest cultural expansion during my turn set so it won’t get a new expansion any time soon. Only nasty thing that could happen if it flips Cuzco. But then a passing knight or cavalry will retake Cuzco immediately. Biggest setback will be that we won’t get rid of our war weariness.

Speaking of cavalry. After establishing West Point, Novgorod will be able produce every 3.25 turns a 15 base point strong cavalry that can be promoted 3 times instantly. I don’t think FDR and Saladin will have an answer to that.

Oh, btw. I ‘m not entirely sure if our mace in Cuzco meets te requirements for building West Point. It has 4 promotions, but it lacks the matching XP points (17). IRC we have 2 maces that do have at least 17 points. So best to keep one of them alive until WP is built.

Edit:
Small trick for Bede: After Cuzco get its cultural expansion (which will happen soon) we can pillage the cottages still inside Capac's culture. It will give give us some decent coins.

 

[DJMGator13]

Welcome back Capt.

 

[Bede]

The Save

We are on a roll. Seattle, Philadelphia and Boston fell to our catapults and cavalry, and Washington will come next.

Set up a ship chain from Novogorod and Elephantine to Boston.

Had to build some theatres to keep the lid on the population as the Emancipation penalty is kicking in on top of the war weariness.

Casualties have been very light and Washington's only meaningful counterattack at Boston was beaten back with no losses and the march on Washington was nt delayed.

Saladin is being a royal pain. After the captures of Philly and Boston he dropped two culture bombs and the towns are basically cut off. Once Washington is ours I would seriously consider giving him the two other towns, he will get them anyway. Even after taking Washington the two cities will have no breathing room, so maybe we want to turn on him once Washington falls.....though having his territory as a bolt hole if we need it is tactically better.

Shut off the research spending after MilTrad to run upgrades on the Knights, then once the kitty recovered set the science guys to working on Chemistry for Grenadiers, the longbow and crossbow killers.

We may want to consider building a bunch more pikes as Saladin's camels are death on cavalry and the real counter to those devils is still a few techs away. (Printing Press, Replaceable Parts and Rifling). Any cav that earns a promotion should get whatever promotion is strongest against mounted troops (Formation?).

And Leonardo appeared in Thebes and West Point went up in Novgorod.

We also need to do a little more proselytising with our shrined Missionaries. Every boat should have one aboard so we can kick Judaism into newly captured towns.

We stand number 1 in production which is where I like to be with an overseas war going on.

Will put up the newsreel tomorrow.

 

[leif erikson]

Looking good Bede!

Looking at the graphs, we are way ahead in power to Saladin and he hasn't got Gunpowder yet. If he gets those cities, fine. However, should we consider, with Chemistry in 4 turns, upgrading some Maces and going after Baghdad? Was it one of the culture bomb cities? If so, Washington will have some problems once we take it, no?

Checking, I now see that we only have 10 Maces left. All ten should be upgraded, as they are experienced units and will make good fighters I think.

Do you think we have the capability to take on Saladin and Roosie at once?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Thanks for the WBs
The vacation was most excellent (Uh-oh, Bill and Ted flashback ). I can tell you, sipping vintage port on a patio in Danmark in 24C (75F) at 9.30 PM is my way of living
The kids got theirs during the day with visits to theme parks and such and the evenings were just what the doctor ordered for the grownups

If I'm up in this sgotm, that puts me up in both, so if I can have one more switch, I'll be able to play Thursday. Will start playing sgotm3 today.