SGOTM 02 - Geezers

[Sam_Yeager]

If a civ declares on any other, all defensive pacts it has are canceled.

Ah. I never realised that.

Bismarck has a pact with Mao. So if somebody would want to declare on Mao that's not good.

Humphh. I had to go and have a second look at the diplo screen to see this. For some reason I missed this the first time.

But I think we anyway will not declare on Mao, but rather on Kublai. Mao then declaring on us will cancel the pact.
But there is the problem that Mao might pay his good friend Bismarck for war.

Apparently Bismarck will declare on Mansa. I wonder if it would be worth getting him into a war with Hatty before we attack Kublai? Of course that would then mean leaving the Hatty-Mansa DP in place.

 

[klarius]

Sure we would love to have a war between Bismarck and Hatty.
But I don't think we will be able to afford it.
Bismarck will declare on Mansa or Hatty, but not for the money we have. I assume he would want several thousands to do it w/o us being at war.
We could try to push fast to assembly line and hope he hasn't researched it by then. From the units he has in Berlin we know he has artillery and combustion, so he might research flight or rocketry first.

Edit:
Just looked again, Bismarck is also running around with SAM infantry, so he has also rocketry.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Edit:
Just looked again, Bismarck is also running around with SAM infantry, so he has also rocketry.

Preventing the AI getting a space victory is another worry.

Well if we're going to attack Kublai, and hence Mao via DP, then we need to make sure we have some troops ready to invade Mao's land after he declares. That way we can split their forces rather than Mao just sitting peacefully building units. We don't necessarily need to attack any of Mao's cities initially. Just a big enough stack to pillage his resources, preferably his metal and happiness ones.

 

[markh]

I take it for tomorrow evening.

 

[markh]

Sorry, guys I could not play yesterday evening, but I will do it today for sure.

 

[markh]

0) 1800AD : looks good, hit enter

IBT : nothing

1) 1802AD : moving units and bombarding Huamanga

IBT : nothing

2) 1804AD : take Huamanga for the loss of two cannons

IBT : an Incan cav attacks Cuzco and kills a gren

3) 1806AD : bombard Tiwanaku

IBT : the wounded cav and a rufle attack Cuzco for the loss of one gren

4) 1808AD : take Tiwanaku for the loss of three cannons and a cav

IBT : nothing

5) 1810AD : we take the last Incan City and Huayna is gone

As this is an even turn I stop here for further discussion how to proceed now. Who do want to take on now ? Any target will be quite tough now. I would say Kublai is the chosen one.

File will be uploaded in a minute.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Nice to see another civ bite the dust. Shame you kept Ica though.

Rather unfortunate that you didn't pull in Bismarck into the war though as klarius suggested. If I understand these DPs correctly, attacking Kublai will bring in Mao and Bismarck against us. I notice Bismarck now has combustion.

So I think that means Mansa & Hatty and cross fingers no other civ joins them. As an aside WW was really hitting us hard. I've never seen that message 'Hell NO, we won't GO!' before. Hopefully switching to State Property will help that.

EDIT: Another alternative is to really tech up and build up our forces so that we can take out Bismarck, Mao and Kublai together but I think that would involve more time than we can afford.

EDIT 2: Thinking about it further I wonder whether we want to use some of accumulated dosh to pull Bismarck into the war against Mansa/Hatty to break that triple defensive pact? Two problems against that is that it would mean Bismarck getting more powerful and there is no guarantee that he won't renew the DP.

 

[markh]

Silly about Ica. Played too much Civ3, I thought we could abandon it later. We could gift it to our next victim before going to war to get rid of it.

I did not get the thing getting Bismarck into the war with Huayna. I thought it was about getting Bismarck into war with Hatty or Mansa.

I think we should head for assembly line first before starting the next war. We anyway have to get everything in shape again and forces to the right positions.

 

[klarius]

As an aside WW was really hitting us hard. I've never seen that message 'Hell NO, we won't GO!' before. Hopefully switching to State Property will help that.

'Hell NO, we won't GO!' is draft unhappiness not WW.
WW goes away when the enemy is destroyed, so we don't need police state until we go into the next war and even then not immediately. WW with Kublai and Mao shouldn't be as bad (we didn't fight a lot in their land), Mansa should be destroyed immediately should we go for him.

EDIT 2: Thinking about it further I wonder whether we want to use some of accumulated dosh to pull Bismarck into the war against Mansa/Hatty to break that triple defensive pact? Two problems against that is that it would mean Bismarck getting more powerful and there is no guarantee that he won't renew the DP.

I don't think we can afford to get the several thousand gold we would need to bribe Bismarck, if we want assembly line.
Bismarck cannot sign a new DP as long as he is in war and I think war with Hatty would take some time. But again I don't think we can afford it.

And BTW. I don't think it's silly to keep all Incan towns. I don't like the AI to settle a lot cities there to build up another front.
Just raze about everything else. At this stage it takes a long time for new captured cities to come out of disorder and for this time they are very difficult to defend.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

So mark to continue his turn, research Assembly Line, buildup our forces and bring most, if not all, cities out of revolt?

@klarius I am unclear from reading your post what you think we should do on the war front.

 

[klarius]

Well, I haven't looked into the save.
But generally I think, we are now facing units, which aren't well suited to be attacked with rifles/cavs.
Though you can capture every city with enough cannons, I don't see how we shall get them in place (ok landing with ships would be a possibility, but that would mean a lot ships we don't have).
So yes, I think our best bet now is completing assembly line quick.

 

[markh]

We are a little short on cannons at the moment, so we are not really in a position to start a advancing war. We could hold positions, but hurting an AI will be quite difficult. The good thing is that Bismarck railed his territory almost completely, so any units we drop on this eastern coast are in our territory in about 1 - 2 turns.
If we start upgrading our rifles and grens to infantries, dunno what the costs are right now, we would have a very powerful force.

I will continue this evening and see what I can do.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Well, I haven't looked into the save.
But generally I think, we are now facing units, which aren't well suited to be attacked with rifles/cavs.
Though you can capture every city with enough cannons, I don't see how we shall get them in place (ok landing with ships would be a possibility, but that would mean a lot ships we don't have).
So yes, I think our best bet now is completing assembly line quick.

Ah ok. At the moment it will take 9 turns for Assembly Line @ 100%.

 

[markh]

continued

IBT : we make a jump in research, assembly line drops from 31 to 23 turns at 0% and we are making 198gpt
rush a courthouse in Cuzco

6) 1811AD : not much

IBT : nothing

7) 1812AD : not much to do

IBT : nothing

8) 1813AD : zzz

IBT : nothing

9) 1814AD : zzz

IBT : nothing

10) 1815AD : zzz

Bismarck was so nice to build a railroad through our territory, so I gathered units on the rails, so we are able to attack him or Kublai. Depends on what we agree on.
Assembly line is due in 2.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Had a look at the save last night. Amazing how long Tiwanaku's been in revolt.

We get Assembly Line in 2 turns and presumably after that we want to build up a cash pile to upgrade our troops. I suspect that will take up the rest of my turn. To keep me from dying of boredom I propose to scout out Bismarck and Hatty's land. After that we will have a better idea of the way ahead.

Looking at the graphs Hatty's production and power ratings have increased dramatically recently. Hatty, Bismarck and Kublai have assembly line. Everyone has railroad and we know that Bismarck has combustion. So do we need to do more research? If so, then what do we need?

 

[markh]

I doubt that we will be able to finish this game with infantry. Artillery would be nice as one of the next techs.
For tanks we need combustion and for gunships all the flight techs. Still some way to go for both options. If we do not go for Bismarck soon I think we will face panzers not too far ahead. We have to hit someone quite hard to extort techs to catch up a bit. With self research it might get quite difficult.

If we take on Bismarck we should consider that he rules the seas with his destroyers. We have nothing to counter that and reinforcement will be almost impossible, so at the moment the only options are Hatty or Kublai. Logistically Kublai would be easier.

I will have another look into it later today to see whether something useful comes to my mind.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Logistically Kublai would be easier.

I agree. It's the DP he has with Mao and more to the point the DP Mao has with Bismarck that's a bit of a problem. BTW I'm assuming that these DPs will work in succession i.e. if we attack Kublai that brings in Mao which brings in Bismarck. Is that correct or does Mao declare on us which invalidates the DP with Bismarck? The latter is way more manageable.

 

[Thrallia]

I would expect that since Mao would have to declare on us, it would invalidate his DP with Bismark, but we might need someone to test that in a test game just to be certain.

I don't think we've got much to fear from Mao and Khan, since they would be the same front, and we killed a ton of Mao's units last time.

unfortunately, just as I have time to play again, I'm going on vacation this weekend, so I guess I need another skip.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I would expect that since Mao would have to declare on us, it would invalidate his DP with Bismark, but we might need someone to test that in a test game just to be certain.

Well I had a play with WorldBuilder in a test game and the sequence was

You have declared war on Khan
Mao has declared war on you

Going back into F4 the DP from Bismarck was no longer there which looks promising. However since I am not an expert with WB I suggest someone else checks this just to be sure. An error could be bad news.

 

[markh]

I made the same experience with WB. If we declare war on Kublai, Mao will automatically declare on us. Then it seems that the DP between Mao and Bismarck is gone.

IIRC Mao has combustion also, so his navy will be superior to ours, too. We have to consider that our island cities might be gone then. Now as I think of it maybe it would not be too bad if Mao takes the island cities. We could then build the Forbidden Palace in former Incan land. Wouldn't we gain quite a lot that way or is my thinking too optimistic ? Taking the cities back in the end should not be too hard IMO.