SGOTM 02 - Memphis Blues

[ShannonCT]

I don't see any problem with going to war with her now, after all she is probably already pretty focused on military with all the barbs running around. I would also like to take out her copper city before it expands. It might be interesting to declare and send our archer by her territory north to scout / pillage and our sword east toward the copper city. If the sword gets lucky to find a single archer there, that city would be some easy gold which would allow us to speed up research.

On a side note I wonder if the fact she didn't settle right next to the copper means she has another metal source already. Maybe I am giving the AI too much credit though.

I still am in favor of attacking Barcelona and Madrid and taking the other cities afterward. The copper city cant be worth much pillage right now as new as it is. Even if it expands, the AI wont send out a worker when there is a hostile unit nearby. We just need to keep an eye on the copper while we're attacking up north. There's no way she's going to hook up that copper after we declare war. The east coast city would probably be worth more in pillage and would be on the way to Barcelona. It might be a good place to bloody our swords and get some promotions. We can be certain that the east coast city is not on a hill, and that will make it a lot easier for our swords. After those archers get to the copper city, the rest of her cities will be easier to capture.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I prefer to let the two archers continue down south and then strike in the north when it has been weakened. I believe in hitting the opponent where it hurts the most and I think that capturing Barcelona and Madrid would mean a de facto victory since those cities must be the backbone of the Spanish Empire. They are probably also the two cities that offer best protection against barbs after we capture them, whereas the copper city could be quite difficult to defend. Of course we could raze, but why not leave these barb problems to Izzy - they should keep much of her military busy. So I say that we go for the kill immediately instead of spending time on capturing less important cities. We need of course to keep an eye on the copper, but I doubt that Izzy can manage to mine this during war time with both us and the barbs roaming the area. If Izzy has metals elsewhere they must be near Barcelona or Madrid so we already know where we need to concentrate our war efforts. My conclusion is that we stand to gain more by waiting for an opportune moment to start the war than by declaring right away. We might get an opportunity to snatch a worker or maybe to promote a swordsman by attacking a spanish archer in the open. Let's wait for the right moment

 

[Mad Professor]

I’ve played my 15 turns. I’m rather disappointed, and I think we have a very tough job ahead of us. I felt like I was always behind the necessary mark, and almost feel like I had to fight the barbarian hoards personally. Hopefully that can be turned around in coming turns. Of my goals for the turn set I felt I only really achieved the fog busting one, and got a score to nil against the barbarians. Other hopes were dashed.

Here’s the notes I made as I was playing:

I open the file, it’s 700BC. I hire a second scientist in Kyoto, and 2 citizens in Tokyo as suggested, and establish the academy in Kyoto with the great scientist. CoL is now 15 turns away (not 12 or 13?). It would be 14 turns away if we only had one citizen hired in Tokyo, but that will slow the library which we want as fast as possible, so I leave it as it is.

I shuffle some units near Osaka, getting the iron archer on the gold hill with the spear, and the warrior back into Osaka. The axe heading south turns around to be near in case needed. I see a barb axe SE of Osaka as well as the one in the forest to the SW of the city. The sword on the hill to the east moves east to look around Izzy’s borders, to see what can be stolen.

Izzy definitely doesn’t like the idea of open borders.

Turn 1 685BC:
Barb axe attacks gold hill, and loses to archer. Archer badly wounded though (down to strength 1.0).
I send archer back to iron hill. The spear moves south (heading for the forested hill further south) and the axe stays for the moment.
Barb axes coming in from the fog to the south.
Warrior starts heading SW from Osaka, heading for forested hill in the SW to fog bust.
The archer in the north spots a Spanish Buddhist missionary heading SE.
Our sword in the east sees a barb axe in Spanish territory with strength 0.5. I’d say he’s just reduced the archers in the city there by one.

Turn 2 670BC:
Archer on hill to SE of Osaka beats a barb axe.
More barb axes appearing (they’re everywhere!!) In particular one appears west of iron hill. This is a MAJOR problem as the archer is still strength 1.0 having just arrived back there. He can’t win. I withdraw him to Osaka to save his life. The axe in Osaka is one turn from finished, and I figure I’ll just have to attack the barb axe with him when he gets on the iron before he plunders it.
The wounded barb axe in the east moves to the copper (outside Spanish territory), and our sword pounces on him and kills him without loss.

Turn 3 655BC:
Barb axe near iron heads into forest west of Osaka and not onto the iron hill. Good. I put new axe (with shock promotion) on iron mine. Archer still healing in Osaka. Start another axe in Osaka – there are now 3 barb axes around Osaka!
I swap to using oasis near Osaka instead of gold mine so it doesn’t shrink to size 1.

Turn 4 640BC:
2 barb axes die. The one west of Osaka attacks the axe on the iron mine and loses. The archer on the hill SE of Osaka beats another. A third barb axe attacks a Spanish archer and settler to the north of Osaka and wins without loss, getting a combat I promotion. More barb axes to the south, the spear can’t reach forested hill for fear of getting killed before he gets there. He’s playing hide and seek with barb axes.

Turn 5 625BC:
Izzy is cranking up ahead of us in power. Does she have metal somewhere? More barb axes come.

Turn 6 610BC:
Axe on iron has a good win against the combat I barb axe. Our axe was still only str 3.8 healing and won without loss! Give the guy a medal!
Library in Tokyo can now be whipped for 2 population.
Osaka – swap to using gem mine now that it’s finished instead of oasis – gets us an extra hammer and a lot more money, while still growing at 1 food per turn. Science will suffer soon as unit maintenance is starting to catch up with us I think.

Turn 7 595BC:
Science dropped to 40% during the turn from 60%, but I could put it back to 50% at minus 1gpt. We have 3 gold, so that will last us three turns…
I hire one scientist in Tokyo. Hiring a second would leave it stagnant and I thought perhaps the growth would be better for now.

Turn 8 580BC:
Fog busting starting to have an effect, the barb rush is slowing a little.
Izzy’s power graph takes a BIG leap. Ouch! She just upgraded some units perhaps? From what to what? Warriors to axes? We have problems here. I check the diplo screen and she’s boasting about axemen now. This proves categorically that she has a metal source further north as the eastern copper is still not hooked up.

Turn 9 565BC:
More bad news. Confucianism founded in a far away land. Beat us by 6 turns.

Turn 10 550BC:
Science drops to 40%. CoL still 6 turns away.

Turn 11 535BC:
More barbs to the south

Turn 12 520BC: Nothing interesting

Turn 13: 505BC: More babrs!

Turn 14 490BC:
Spear sitting on forested hill to south beats a barb axe! I give him woodman I.
Whip Lighthouse in Kyoto to overflow to Parthenon. This is ugly for happies though. Hopefully they’ll lose one of those unhappies soon.

Turn 15:475BC:
Tokyo’s culture expands
CoL 1 turn away
Tokyo growth one turn away, which will mean a second scientist with growth.
We have a sword and 2 axes on the Spanish border to the north, and reasonably good fog busting to the south.

Here’s a couple of pics:




The save file is also uploaded to the progress page

 

[Mad Professor]

Here's the playing roster now:

Mad Professor (Just played)
Frederiksberg (Up next)
Radiopill
KingdomBrunel
ShannonCT
BSouder

 

[ShannonCT]

I’ve played my 15 turns. I’m rather disappointed, and I think we have a very tough job ahead of us. I felt like I was always behind the necessary mark, and almost feel like I had to fight the barbarian hoards personally. Hopefully that can be turned around in coming turns. Of my goals for the turn set I felt I only really achieved the fog busting one, and got a score to nil against the barbarians. Other hopes were dashed.

Nice job with the barbs. It looks like we are set up quite nicely to defend Osaka now.

Bad news about Issy's axemen though. I think we just have to push on building swordsmen and axemen and giving them the Shock and City Raider promotions. A swordsman with Shock and City Raider I attacking an axeman in a city will be 6.0 + 10% City Attack + 20% City Raider + 10% Combat I + 25% Shock = 9.9. An axeman in the same fight will be 5.0 + 50% Melee + 20% City Raider + 10% Combat I + 25% Shock = 10.25.

I think we can declare war now and send the sword and 2 axes against the east coast city. It should be a good place to earn more promotions. Osaka could switch back to working the gold mine instead of the gems mine for more hammers, now that we have some stored food.

I also think Kyoto and Tokyo should be running two scientist each right away. Tokyo's population grows to 4 in 1 turn but its already at its happiness limit until a whip wears off in 6 turns. Kyoto can run two scientists now and accept a food deficit until one of its whips wears off in 2 turns. This will give us Monarchy in fewer than 20 turns. If we are going to go ahead with Monarchy, might as well start building warriors in Kyoto and Tokyo.

I wonder if the archer fortified 1W of our iron could be better used elsewhere. It looks like he's only busting 1 tile of fog there. He could be moved to the hill SE of Osaka where we currently have a Medic Archer, who is only a slight favorite against an axeman. That medic archer could be used in the war against Issy.

No big deal about missing Confucianism. We'll just have to become Buddhists.

 

[Mad Professor]

Nice job with the barbs. It looks like we are set up quite nicely to defend Osaka now.

That at least I'm happy about.

Bad news about Issy's axemen though.

Obviously she's sitting on some copper not far from Madrid - has to be in range of either Madrid or Barcelona her first two cities since it's not where we've been by the other two. I don't think that was an accident on the part of the map designer. He's given us a tough one here. Everyone has the same map though.

I think we can declare war now and send the sword and 2 axes against the east coast city. It should be a good place to earn more promotions.

If you think we have enough. I feel the longer we leave it, the harder we'll find it since she has four cities to pump military out of, and we have only one. We have to do something kinda soon before it gets out of hand. Hopefully the barbarians are hammering the one near the eastern copper so we can ignore it for now. She might have road between Madrid and Barcelona (the NW one would be Barcelona I think) which would get reinforcements that far quickly, but she doesn't have such a road to the other two cities. The east coast one might be a good place to start because we could grab it before she can react. We need the gold.

I wonder if the archer fortified 1W of our iron could be better used elsewhere. It looks like he's only busting 1 tile of fog there. He could be moved to the hill SE of Osaka where we currently have a Medic Archer, who is only a slight favorite against an axeman. That medic archer could be used in the war against Issy.

I put it there rather than on the iron hill to bust that one tile to make the chances of barbs arriving there absolutely zero. That axe appearing next to the iron hill early in my turnset gave me quite a wake up call. I guess it was quite a fluke and the chances of another doing the same are very small. I wanted it zero though because I was sending the sword and axes away north.

No big deal about missing Confucianism. We'll just have to become Buddhists.

On that score I have no preferences. Buddhist will do - it would be really nice if the culture boundaries of Osaka expanded one day and that's one way to do it!

 

[Frederiksberg]

Well done setting up the fog busting perimeter.

I have got the save and hopefully I can play tomorrow afternoon - a little more than 24 hours from now. If not I will play Monday evening instead.

Regarding war plans I would like to take a step NW with our northern attack group (1 sword two axes). That should bring them next to Barcelona. We migth be lucky and find only a couple of archers there. And even with a road from Madrid reinforcements would need more than 1 turn to get there. If its well defended I could still get to the east coast city before any reinforcements. Or maybe I should continue north and cut off the connection with Madrid and maybe try to locate the iron? If this is going to be a long war pillaging Izzy's iron should probably be high on our list of intermediate goals. I really think moving north is the right move because it will also give us some of the scouting information we need to make decisions.

I would like some opinions on chopping. Can we sacrifice one or two forrests to speed up the war machine? I know we are going to miss those trees when we start building the Palace, but I am a little worried that Izzy wil be able to build axes and swords as quickly as we can - and maybe even faster! It will help a lot though if we manage to disconnect Barcelona and Madrid and deprive one of the cities of the metal.

I'm planning to focus on scientists in Kyoto and Tokyo as long as we are at the happyness limit (as suggested by ShannonCT) and the next tech will be Monarchy as we have already more or less agreed upon. When CoL is discovered next turn I plan to start building courthouses in Kyoto and Tokyo. Any particularly suitable moment where we should whip them? Maybe when some of the unhappyness from previous whips have gone away.

A friend of mine is getting married today so I will be away from now on until shortly before I play tomorrow. I will of course read your comments before playing and I may decide to postpone playing if there is something we seem to need to discuss more.

 

[ShannonCT]

I put it [the guerilla II archer] there rather than on the iron hill to bust that one tile to make the chances of barbs arriving there absolutely zero. That axe appearing next to the iron hill early in my turnset gave me quite a wake up call. I guess it was quite a fluke and the chances of another doing the same are very small. I wanted it zero though because I was sending the sword and axes away north.

I think that axe could have been spawned anywhere in the fog to the west and SW. He showed up before you had that warrior in place. I guess the chance that another axeman will spawn in that one tile is pretty small.

I think that if we dont see any barb axes approaching when that swordsman in Osaka is finished, we can actually send that axeman guarding the gold north against Izzy too, and start building another axe. Axes will be built every 5-6 turns, and it takes a barb at least 5 turns to get to Osaka from the fog.

Regarding war plans I would like to take a step NW with our northern attack group (1 sword two axes). That should bring them next to Barcelona. We migth be lucky and find only a couple of archers there. And even with a road from Madrid reinforcements would need more than 1 turn to get there. If its well defended I could still get to the east coast city before any reinforcements. Or maybe I should continue north and cut off the connection with Madrid and maybe try to locate the iron? If this is going to be a long war pillaging Izzy's iron should probably be high on our list of intermediate goals. I really think moving north is the right move because it will also give us some of the scouting information we need to make decisions.

Attacking Barcelona first would knock out her second biggest city I would think, a good idea if our three men can pull it off. If not, you can go for the other one. I can't tell if Madrid is on the east or west coast or neither, but I think you should assume that just cutting/blocking roads will not cut off the coastal cities from her metal. Trying to go all the way to Madrid to find the metal is pretty risky, as you could quickly be surrounded. I think we just have to knock out some of her productive cities and produce units faster than she can, even if that means chopping. There are several forests up north (where the worker is standing now) that could be chopped and we would still have enough for the palace, especially if we use the Great Scientists for Mathematics in about 30 turns. The three Spanish cities that we can see look pretty hammer-poor. We should be able to out-produce her.

I'm planning to focus on scientists in Kyoto and Tokyo as long as we are at the happyness limit (as suggested by ShannonCT) and the next tech will be Monarchy as we have already more or less agreed upon. When CoL is discovered next turn I plan to start building courthouses in Kyoto and Tokyo. Any particularly suitable moment where we should whip them? Maybe when some of the unhappyness from previous whips have gone away.

There's no reason to whip those courthouses before the palace is moved. Maintenance up there is already close to nothing. When monarchy is done, those cities can grow nice and big if they have enough warriors guarding them.

 

[Mad Professor]

Regarding war plans I would like to take a step NW with our northern attack group (1 sword two axes). That should bring them next to Barcelona. We migth be lucky and find only a couple of archers there. And even with a road from Madrid reinforcements would need more than 1 turn to get there. If its well defended I could still get to the east coast city before any reinforcements. Or maybe I should continue north and cut off the connection with Madrid and maybe try to locate the iron? If this is going to be a long war pillaging Izzy's iron should probably be high on our list of intermediate goals. I really think moving north is the right move because it will also give us some of the scouting information we need to make decisions.

Going NW to see Barcelona (or whatever its name is) is a good idea. Just looking at the pic I posted again, I think you're right - just one move NW will see that city in the NW. If you think our sword and 2 axes can take it, do it. If not, go east and hit the other one.

Izzy has metal. It might be copper not iron, since she's got axes, but we haven't seen any swords yet. Either way for us it's much the same axes probably make better city defenders than swords do anyway, when most attacks are melee units. Plundering the mine on the metal seems like a good idea, but it depends where it is. If you have to go right up next to Madrid to plunder it, it might not be worth it - Izzy would have a spare unit or two there that could jump out and knock you over before you plunder. If it's nearer Barcelona, then it will definitely be worth it. In order to go near Madrid with a stack that's going to survive, you'll need to take too much away from forces attacking the other Spanish cities.

If you can take the NW city, it might be worth sending a unit up the neck of land (especially if there's forest or hills there to help you survive the trip) to see if you can spot the metal if it's not in the black right near the NW city. That at least will give us valuable info even if you don't manage to plunder the mine.

I would like some opinions on chopping. Can we sacrifice one or two forrests to speed up the war machine? I know we are going to miss those trees when we start building the Palace, but I am a little worried that Izzy wil be able to build axes and swords as quickly as we can - and maybe even faster! It will help a lot though if we manage to disconnect Barcelona and Madrid and deprive one of the cities of the metal.

You're right that Izzy can build swords or axes or maybe both faster than us. She has four cities there to pump them out of. I guess it just depends on our success taking cities. Running spanish cities once they come out of riot will cripple our economy if we don't move the palace. If we take a couple of spanish cities we want to keep, we'll want to build the palace in Osaka as soon after deciding to keep them as possible. Then the chops would be very helpful. We do still have a couple of forest tiles east of Osaka which have not started to be chopped I think. We could use those still, for either military or palace. My opinion? It really depends on whether you see the NW city is capturable and worth keeping. If it is, we want the palace sooner. If not, then it might be better to chop a sword or axe.

I'm planning to focus on scientists in Kyoto and Tokyo as long as we are at the happyness limit (as suggested by ShannonCT) and the next tech will be Monarchy as we have already more or less agreed upon. When CoL is discovered next turn I plan to start building courthouses in Kyoto and Tokyo. Any particularly suitable moment where we should whip them? Maybe when some of the unhappyness from previous whips have gone away.

Don't forget the benefits of having another warrior or two in each of these cities under monarchy. We need to fit those in somewhere. Maybe putting some hammers into courthouses would be a good thing, then swap to warriors as monarchy gets close, then later when we're building the palace in Osaka, whip the courthouses then.

A friend of mine is getting married today so I will be away from now on until shortly before I play tomorrow. I will of course read your comments before playing and I may decide to postpone playing if there is something we seem to need to discuss more.

Have fun!

 

[ShannonCT]

Going NW to see Barcelona (or whatever its name is) is a good idea. Just looking at the pic I posted again, I think you're right - just one move NW will see that city in the NW. If you think our sword and 2 axes can take it, do it. If not, go east and hit the other one.

Izzy has metal. It might be copper not iron, since she's got axes, but we haven't seen any swords yet. Either way for us it's much the same axes probably make better city defenders than swords do anyway, when most attacks are melee units. Plundering the mine on the metal seems like a good idea, but it depends where it is. If you have to go right up next to Madrid to plunder it, it might not be worth it - Izzy would have a spare unit or two there that could jump out and knock you over before you plunder. If it's nearer Barcelona, then it will definitely be worth it. In order to go near Madrid with a stack that's going to survive, you'll need to take too much away from forces attacking the other Spanish cities.

If you can take the NW city, it might be worth sending a unit up the neck of land (especially if there's forest or hills there to help you survive the trip) to see if you can spot the metal if it's not in the black right near the NW city. That at least will give us valuable info even if you don't manage to plunder the mine.

If you can take Barcelona, I think the safest move would be to fortify your strongest axeman 1 tile NE of Barcelona in the jungle (if it hasn't been cleared). If Issy counterattacks from Madrid, our units would be getting no defensive bonus in Barcelona. If we dont lose any units attacking Barcelona, the other axeman can fortify in Barcelona and the swordsman can join the reinforcements to attack the east coast city or wait for them to get to Barcelona and attack Madrid. It would be good if we could get Issy to use her axemen attacking ours when we're getting the defensive bonuses.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I think my turn set went well - some of the things we have been hoping and planning for actually came through I was particularly impressed by the fog busting which seemed to work very well - I saw very few barbs (only 4)compared to the other turn sets.

Turn log:

460 BC: CoL discovered.Start researching Monarchy. Worker starts chopping forrest N of Osaka to speed up next axe. Move axe to join sword and axe near Barcelona.
445 BC: Move our attacking trio towards Barcelona. Finally some luck! Only two archers are defending.
430 BC: Our cover + city raider swordsman wins against one archer. Our cover axe looses but injures the archer sufficiently to let the last axe do the job of capturing Barcelona. I decide to keep the city even though its very hammer poor. On the other hand there are commerce city potential. A worker is captured. Science is increased to 100% for a while to burn the pillage money and get Monarchy.
415 BC: Production switched to courthouses in Tokyo and Kyoto.
400 BC: A spanish settler accompanied by a spear and an archer appears in the jungle outside Barcelona. I decide not to risk any attack right now. Our spearman kills a barb archer.
385 BC: Our archer on the SE hill kills an archer.
370 BC: The spanish settling party decides to camp on grassland next to our northbound axe . Not a wise choice that is immediately punished by our axe taking out the archer in the group.
355 BC: I have moved the Axe in Barcelona north towards Madrid where he pillages the road to slow down the spanish forces. Barcelona comes out of resistance and our economy instantly plummits. I switch production in Osaka to Palace (Probably should have done this a few turns ago ). The spanish settling party continues on open grassland and is defeated by our swordsman thus giving us a third worker. I start moving workers back to Osaka for chopping duty.
340 BC: Osaka is MM'ed to increase commerce and get us Monarchy fast. I whip a lighthouse in Barcelona. Right now the coast tiles are the only good thing there.
325 BC: Mahabodhi built in Madrid Izzy. We can't wait to get our hands on it . Our axe approaches Madrid and sees the copper mine just outside the city. Madrid is defended by two archers, a spear and an axe.
310 BC: Axe kills archer guarding copper.
295 BC: Copper mine is pillaged. Spanish archers appear on plains hill east of Osaka.
280 BC: Road on copper pillaged. It seems that we don't have the forces to capture Madrid so I decide to send our two swordsmen in Barcelona towards the spanish east coast city. The spanish archers move to the forrest east of Osaka.
256 BC: Spanish archer attacks Axe on gems mine and is killed. Other archer moves to grassland tile NE of Osaka. Axe finishes him as well A camp near Madrid is pillaged. Monarchy is discovered. Switch civics to Hereditary Rule.
250 BC: Road on camp pillaged. Anarchy is over. Start researching AH, but this can be changed if we want - no beakers has gone into this yet.

A barb axe is approaching Osaka and might give us some problems since our own axe is currently wounded. Hopefully he will attack and loose against our hills archer. Osaka is starving right now because it has been MM'ed for maximizing hammers. This should of course be changed when the palace is finished. Courthouses are ready for whipping In Kyoto and Tokyo when we are one turn from getting the palace.

Here's the save:

New Save 250 BC

And some pics:

 

[radiopill]

Good job Fredericksberg.

I've just download the save, but I won't play until 24-36 hours, so we have time to discuss our next move.

I'll give you my comment tomorrow, after I have read (again) the previous post...

 

[ShannonCT]

I think my turn set went well - some of the things we have been hoping and planning for actually came through I was particularly impressed by the fog busting which seemed to work very well - I saw very few barbs (only 4)compared to the other turn sets.

A barb axe is approaching Osaka and might give us some problems since our own axe is currently wounded. Hopefully he will attack and loose against our hills archer. Osaka is starving right now because it has been MM'ed for maximizing hammers. This should of course be changed when the palace is finished. Courthouses are ready for whipping In Kyoto and Tokyo when we are one turn from getting the palace.

Nice work Frederiksberg

It looks like we are in good position against Issy. Madrid is going to be tough to take without cats with the culture bonus and the hill, but she cant do much more than sit there and build archers now. Maybe after we get a couple swordsmen up there, we can lure her to attack our axemen by stepping out of the forest. It looks like she might also send a galley out to try to retake Barcelona. We can burn her other two cities while we're waiting for a good chance to take Madrid. What a nice city location! Five different food and copper.

If the barb axe bypasses the archer we can send out our axeman to defend the gold hill. He should be healed to 4.0 next turn and with the hill and shock promotion, he'll still have a good advantage.

I think the overflow from whipping the courthouses in Kyoto and Tokyo should go into warriors. If we could get 2-3 more warriors in each of those cities, we could switch to caste system and start running more scientists.

I am not opposed to going for Animal Husbandry right now. It will come in handy for Tokyo and Osaka soon. When we finish the palace and courthouses, we can turn science back up to normal and go for something more expensive like Civil Service or Alphabet.

 

[Mad Professor]

Nice turnset! Well done. Where are those axes Izzy was boasting about? Why did her power graph jump? Oh well, I'll take the result

I'm glad the fogbusting perimeter was very useful. My turnset actually achieved something then - it didn't feel like it at the time.

We've made a very good start against Izzy. We should push on as fast as unit production allows I think. If we can take that city on the east coast, then we should do it. If we stall (because we're building the palace) then we might have to go for temporary peace, but it would be nice if Izzy didn't get a chance to hook that copper back up. She'll whip some axes quick if she does and I'd rather she didn't.

When we have the palace established in Osaka, we should think about checking out that barb city to the SW to see if we think it's worth having. Even if it's not, when Izzy is dealt with, we could benefit from the plunder money.

AH seems good for the next tech with the sheep near Osaka soon to be within cultural borders after the palace is built, and the cows near Tokyo (though they will need a worker built). It will also show us horses which we want eventually to hook up too.

 

[Mad Professor]

I've just been having a look at the file. I see Izzy's axes. They do exist after all

I notice the cultural boundaries of Izzy's city near that eastern copper appear to have expanded which probably means that copper is within her boundaries now. the likllihood of her having a worker down there are quite small though, so she shouldn't be able to hook it up.

Barcelona would be vulnerable to counter-attack by Izzy via galley from Madrid. As long as we can see Madrid though, it's safe since we can see if the galleys leave, and it's a long trip by sea from Madrid to Barcelona even assuming a galley could go around the north of the continent which is just aout of our view. If that's a land bridge north of Madrid, then she wouldn't even be able to do that. I suspect from Izzy's expansion pattern though that Madirid IS near the north end of the continent.

Bacelona is a good spot once we get calendar. 3 sugar, clams and rice within the fat cross, and the jungle unhealthyness can be dealt with in time too. Looks good for commerce and food.

The chopping certianly has brought the palace along nicely. That pre-chopping has proved very useful. How do we get rid of those labels? I don't know how to put them there of take them away. They're not exactly needed any more

Looks like Madrid might need cats. garrison 1 archers in a city on a hill behind 60% cultural borders? Ouch. And the instant she gets Feudalism, they'll become more unassailable as longbowmen. We need either overwhelming numbers, or cats to deal with Madrid. Either way it will take a little while I think.

Since the power graph says we're Izzy's equal in power now, and we now have similar production capacity, we look to be in a MUCH better place than one turnset ago. Very pleasing! If we're her equal in power, she can't have very big garrisons in her two other cities because I can see quite a nice lot near Madrid.

Moving fast to the city on the east coast and knocking it over straight away if we can would be good. Hopefully she has it only lightly defended like Barcelona was. I guess Radiopill will find out in his first turn!

The city near the eastern copper is a good fogbuster and barbarian absorber for now. It wouldn't have much commerce so it wouldn't be improving her science much. Maybe just making sure she doesn't hook up that copper might be all we need to do with that city until we're ready to finish her off properly.

 

[ShannonCT]

I've just been having a look at the file. I see Izzy's axes. They do exist after all

I notice the cultural boundaries of Izzy's city near that eastern copper appear to have expanded which probably means that copper is within her boundaries now. the likllihood of her having a worker down there are quite small though, so she shouldn't be able to hook it up.

After that barb axeman is dealt with, we can send our axeman to the plains hill and have a look.

Barcelona would be vulnerable to counter-attack by Izzy via galley from Madrid. As long as we can see Madrid though, it's safe since we can see if the galleys leave, and it's a long trip by sea from Madrid to Barcelona even assuming a galley could go around the north of the continent which is just aout of our view. If that's a land bridge north of Madrid, then she wouldn't even be able to do that. I suspect from Izzy's expansion pattern though that Madirid IS near the north end of the continent.

If she sends her axeman to counterattack, this would be great for us. Both of our axemen can beat her to Barcelona and if she sends her only axe, it will die, and our swords will be more effective. Let's see, a Swordsman with Cover is 6.0 + 10% Combat I + 10% City Attack + 25% Cover = 8.7 against an archer. A Swordsman with Cover and City Raider I is 9.9 against the archer. A Swordsman with Cover and City Raider II is 11.4 against the archer. The City Garrison I archers are 3.0 + 25% Fortify + 50% Hill Defense + 70% City Defense + 60% Culture = 9.15. So our swords need at least two upgrades to be favored against an archer.

After the palace is finished, I would like to keep chopping everything in sight to pump out those units and finish off Issy ASAP. The palace wont cause Osaka to expand until 8 turns and those sheep will take a few more turns to come online, so we could get 2-3 more units from Osaka before we would be tempted to go for population growth.

The chopping certianly has brought the palace along nicely. That pre-chopping has proved very useful. How do we get rid of those labels? I don't know how to put them there of take them away. They're not exactly needed any more

You have to go up to the global view, click on the strategy layer button, choose 'delete', and then click on the unwanted labels.

Looks like Madrid might need cats. garrison 1 archers in a city on a hill behind 60% cultural borders? Ouch. And the instant she gets Feudalism, they'll become more unassailable as longbowmen. We need either overwhelming numbers, or cats to deal with Madrid. Either way it will take a little while I think.

Issy is still in despotism so I dont think she even has Monarchy yet. With her empire crumbling all around her, it's going to take a while yet for her to get Feudalism. Madrid has basically no production now, except for the two hammers from the plains hill she settled on. If she starts whipping archers, we could have a rough go, but if she starts sending out troops in galleys to try to retake her cities, there might be an opening where we can actually hope to win. I think we should be aggressive as possible and try to take her down now. Madrid will be a very nice city to have.

 

[Mad Professor]

Issy is still in despotism so I dont think she even has Monarchy yet. With her empire crumbling all around her, it's going to take a while yet for her to get Feudalism. Madrid has basically no production now, except for the two hammers from the plains hill she settled on. If she starts whipping archers, we could have a rough go, but if she starts sending out troops in galleys to try to retake her cities, there might be an opening where we can actually hope to win. I think we should be aggressive as possible and try to take her down now. Madrid will be a very nice city to have.

Absolutely. The sooner we can do it the better, and I agree she's not going to get feudalism anytime soon. It just looks a bit scary. Actually, when I first looked I mistook one of our axes for a spanish axe. Shows how carefully I was looking...

 

[BSouder]

Madrid has basically no production now, except for the two hammers from the plains hill she settled on

She's actually getting 1 more hammer from the copper square, you can see the little hut that says she is working it. We should probably think about parking a unit there to deny her that extra hammer.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Just to clarify things: Izzy has only one axe (that we know of) and it is currently guarding Madrid. The problem with this is that our swordsmen are significant underdogs in relation to this axe since he has 50% bonus against other melee units. Including 60% cultural defense bonus, 25% hills bonus and probably 25% fortification bonus he has 160% or a strength of 2.5 x 5 = 12.5 against an unpromoted swordsman who has only the 10% city attack bonus. Against a combat 1, city raider 1 swordsman the strength of the axe is reduced by 25% to 2.25 x 5 = 11.75 - still a clear favorite vs. a strength 6 x 1.1 = 6.6 swordsman. So if we can't figure out how to make him leave Madrid then we really have a problem. I'm also worried about war weariness forcing us to a cease fire. And if we are forced to make peace Izzy will get the opportunity to hook the copper again .

 

[ShannonCT]

Just to clarify things: Izzy has only one axe (that we know of) and it is currently guarding Madrid. The problem with this is that our swordsmen are significant underdogs in relation to this axe since he has 50% bonus against other melee units. Including 60% cultural defense bonus, 25% hills bonus and probably 25% fortification bonus he has 160% or a strength of 2.5 x 5 = 12.5 against an unpromoted swordsman who has only the 10% city attack bonus. Against a combat 1, city raider 1 swordsman the strength of the axe is reduced by 25% to 2.25 x 5 = 11.75 - still a clear favorite vs. a strength 6 x 1.1 = 6.6 swordsman. So if we can't figure out how to make him leave Madrid then we really have a problem. I'm also worried about war weariness forcing us to a cease fire. And if we are forced to make peace Izzy will get the opportunity to hook the copper again .

So attacking Madrid is really contingent on whether the axe is there. We can send our full strength axeman out onto the grassland tile and see if Issy attacks. If she wont attack with it or put it in a galley by the time the palace is finished in Osaka, maybe we should send an archer up there, leave it all alone on one of the grassland tiles, and let Issy kill it so our axe could attack hers out in the open. We would of course need to make sure that that grassland tile didn't have a road that would allow the axeman to retreat.

War weariness shouldn't be such a big issue. Osaka isn't even close to its happiness limit, and Tokyo and Kyoto can whip two warriors with one population and net 2 happiness anytime.