SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

namliaM · Sep 5, 2006

Had a quick look at the save, probably my question is to early... and may be answered in your post.. But...
Why Raze and pillage at this stage? With the Gemmines alone that city would have seriously contributed, once out of revolt...
Why Head east? Why not north?

Why are we running research while still building the Obs in Osaka?
We should be running 0% science till the Obs finish, easy win of quite some beakers. We can run 100% after it finish...

wow lots of cats beeing build

Which is great if we are going to get Steel anytime soon.

Lets try and get Globe finished before we start whipping Sams in Kyoto... And lets try and get Sams up to CR3 before upgrading them to Grennies. Hatty should be broken by now....

pigswill · Sep 5, 2006

General comment: despite the cry of 'units,'units'units' I mixed in quite a few infrastructure builds as well. Despite that we're keeping up with casualties and quite a bit of upgrading has been done so overall military has improved. Already war weariness is becoming a problem and it won't be long before WW is the problem.

1535.
research 0%.
Satsuma- whip market
Osaka- change to grocer
Cordoba- change to market
Barcelona- change to harbour
Madrid- change to harbour

1538.
Madrid- whip harbour.
Edo- whip market.
Cancel deals with Hatsy.
Bismark - his spices for our cows.
War (with Hatsy).
Land stackette near hosses.
Main stack heads to Elephantine.

1541.
Madrid- builds harbour, start frigate.
Edo - builds market, start frigate
Satsuma- builds workboat, starts cat.
Kagoshima- builds galleon, starts frigate.
Barcelona- whip harbour.
Fuji-whip barracks.
Main stack arrives at Elephantine.
Stackette captures hosses (defended by longbow).

1544.
Fuji builds barracks, start cat.
Barcelona builds harbour, starts sam
Pillage horses, keep pike and sam on top.
Tokyo whips grenadier.
Satsuma whips cat.
Madrid whips frigate.
Battle of Elephantine. Lose 5 cats. Get 200gold. Keep it. Minaret and Islam Holy City.

1547.
Tokyo builds gren, starts cat.
Satsuma builds cat, starts cat.
Seville builds sam, starts harbour.
Madird builds frigate, starts market.
Barcelona builds sam, starts galleon.
Kawisaki builds workboat, continues forge.
Edo whips frigate.
General upgrade of raiders to grenadiers in Elephantine.

1550.
Edo builds frigate, starts galleon.
Satsuma whips cat.
Madrid whips market.
Troops resting in Elephantine.
Couple of axes pillaging iron down south.

1553.
Pillaging axemen killed (take out mace and knight).
Tokyo builds cat, starts cat.
Osaka builds grocer, starts observatory.
Satsuma builds cat, starts cat.
Madrid builds market, starts cat.
Troops march towards Minoan (gem city)

1556.
Kyoto whips cat.

1559.
Battle of Elephantine. 3 egypt cav kill sam and cat. kamikaze 3 more cats to weaken cav, polish off with grenadiers.
Battle of Minoan. No casualties. 187gp. raze Minoan (in retrospect this was a bad move, should have kept it for happy gems, sorry chaps).
Seville whips harbour.
Increase research to 60% (break even), 23 turns to steel.

1562.
Seville builds harbour, starts cat.
Lose (empty) galleon to egypt galleon, sink egypt galleon (2longbow,settler).
Cordoba whips market.

1565.
Barcelona builds galleon, starts cat.
Cordoba builds market, starts frigate.
Troops surround egypt city (forgot itsname), ready to attack next round.

Started off the set with 14 sams, 2 swords, 3axes, 6 pikes, no grenadiers,22 cats, 6 galleons, no frigates.
Ended the set with 7 sams, no swords, no axes, 6 pikes,11 grenadiers, 22 cats, 8 galleons, 2 frigates.
Few builds, few losses, few upgrades. Currently top of power rating (tho not by much).

Messed up whipping in Kyoto so still several turns from Globe. Reason for going east is to clear some neutral space so our units can move 3 tiles a time rather than 1 tile a time through hostile territory, also gives alternate route between BT and Hokkiado.
Choice between heading north or south. If we want pointy stick research it may be better to head south, get peace with Hatsy then start on Biz while waiting for Hatsy peace treaty to expire.

Not a brilliant set though not a major cock-up either. In terms of infrastructure and research I remain convinced that we aren't going to win with just grens and cats; we also need to look at how to reduce war weariness (that's why I should have kept gem city); and we need to be able to sustain our economy when we're not plundering.

Cosmichail · Sep 5, 2006

Good start Pigswill a shame about that Gem city though.

We might want to think about getting a settler there later on for the commerce but then again who knows.

Also checked KK will trade chemistry for education. He doesn't like hatty but it might still get to her. So at some point we might consider that. I suggest we keep the next city just for troop movement ability and landing area.

LuvToBuild · Sep 5, 2006

Gem mine city: Before griping at pigswill about not keeping the gem city, one should ask himself "Did I mark it as a keeper before ending my turnset?" IMO, it would have been nice for some commerce but other than that it was marginal. In fact, until we get the FP or Versailles, the maintenance would have probably eaten up a lot of the extra commerce anyway. You guys also seem to forget that with 0 culture, Hatty would have still controlled one, if not two, of the three mines. Concerning the happiness, we already have our own gems on Hokkaido so we didn't need them for that reason. If we just really can't live without them, then we can always plop a settler down there after finishing Hatty and taking Versailles. What if Bismarck gets them you say? So what, he's next on the hit list right? We need to be mindful of our greed and not let it tempt us into an unintentional domination victory.

My intent at the moment is to raze Niani and Anasazi, pillaging the entire area as I go. I probably won't make it to Anasazi before ten turns are finished but Niani is a goner unless you guys can give me some really solid reasons to keep such a marginal city. If it were something like 1 tile south, it might be good for whipping once the borders popped. As it stands though, I think it holds little value.

Reasons to pillage and raze marginal cities:

1. We have to garrison them. These defensive units cost us and do little to help further the war effort. They are only worthwhile if the city's value far exceeds the cost.

2. We have to pay for them. More cities means more maintenance, not just for that city but for ALL cities. So each new city needs to pay for itself PLUS the extra maintenance it generates in the other cities. Otherwise, you end up with a negative return.

3. More cities = more MM in addition to prosecuting a nearly continuous war. That will become a distraction. Being distracted means making poor decisions which means getting less out of the city than we had intended, making it less valuable to us.

Even Memphis, when you think about it, will become less valuable with time. The more Jewish cities we raze, the less income we get from the shrine. Is this a reason to keep all Jewish cities? Of course not. We can't because we can't get a domination win. So why keep one or two for this reason? Is the couple of gold those cities generate in the shrine worth the extra maintenance and added micromanagement?

Anyway, those are my thoughts/rants for the moment. As usual, they are subject to change

I will look at things a bit more closely this evening when I sit down to play.

bobrath · Sep 5, 2006

Great to come back and see we've begun a nice little war. Of course I expected to see a "discussion" ongoing tween Namliam and Cosmichail and I was rewarded

.

I do agree with LTB: if it aint' marked as a keeper, then I probably won't keep it. The jewish shrine is a great keep for the start of our war because of all the cities that are out there right now. Yes as we raize those cities, our income drops, but that also means our army is rolling and the pillage income will make up for small loses in gpt.

If we kept all of germany and egypt, we would probably be around 40-50% of the land. That's not close to domination, but it certainly means that keeping other cities will be a tough decision. Being a bit miserly here will allow us a bit more freedom way down the line.

Also - WW will be an ongoing problem. We need to plan spots of peace in between blitzkrieg style wars. Attack hard and fast, then once it starts to stagnate/slow - settle for peace. This way our units can heal up for the next blitz AND our cities can continue to produce. Yes as soon as you redeclare war the WW pops right up, BUT with healed units we'll be able to win (and wipe out) faster.

LuvToBuild · Sep 5, 2006

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. I hope I didn't confuse anyone into thinking we should raze Memphis :eek:

I just meant that keeping marginal cities solely because they are Jewish and give us 1 gold in the shrine city isn't something I would consider a convincing argument.

At what point should we sue for peace and start preparations for a second whack at Hatty? After Niani and Anasazi? Try to get Memphis or Versailles first? Are we going to hit Bismarck during those ten turns? I assume we want to keep Bismarck happy while finishing off Hatty. He'll have one less friend to help him out then.

bobrath · Sep 5, 2006

Just a quick update of the current war front picture (this might be helpful to see each turn of war)...

Looking at the save, I'd agree that Niani and Anasazi dont bring much to our war effort aside from giving us a "secure" landing point. Not a huge deal tho. Neither is villaged up.

Heliopolis would probably be a good keep, but will be under some tight german pressure for a while. We need to be very careful with Mycenian. It does that Versailles, but as soon as we capture it, its going to be under intense german pressure. That means we should plan on going to war with Germany within a few turns of taking Mycenian. Also, buying Bismark into the war right now would be less then helpful. He would take Mycenian right away and probably reinforce it much better then Hatty has.

We can't afford to settle for peace with Hatty right now since she can sit back and reclaim her lands with cultural pressure. IMO, I wouldn't pointy stick research until she's down to 2-3 cities left on the ring (if not less). Perhaps leave Mycenian, Alexandria, and Pi-Ramses for last. So yes, clear the middle of her lands, but then turn our stacks north. If we can pillage her two copper in the south then so much the better. BTW, if you folks agree with this "plan", then I might suggest keeping Anasazi as a starting point in the second war against Hatty and as a buffer against resettling by the AIs.

Couple other thoughts. Hatty still has workers out in the field... they make me just.... ever so greedy. More importantly tho, we've all seen the AI make repeated attempts to resettle raized sites. I think that raizing the gem site may work for us. Hatty will obviously attempt to resettle there soon (or heck Biz may make it his new home). Any time we can get two military units in the field, well that's a good thing. So keep an eye out for escorted settlers or newly founded cities. Should be easy pickings (and exp) for our forces.

Finally, I'm too lazy to go look, but what's the updated whipping windows for Kyoto now that we have HE there?

pigswill · Sep 5, 2006

I'd totally forgotten we had gems in Osaka. I retract my apology for razing gem city. In terms of cities to keep: only if it has a non-obselete wonder or a happy resource we don't already have or its a holy city. Everything else should be razed regardless of how developed it is.
Is it worth taking out China after Egypt? It's the most advanced civ around and blocks half the strait between BT and Hokkiado. We've now got the sealift capacity.
We've got enough sams/grens/pikes for two stacks once they're rearranged and probably enough cats to at least knock down defences; I think that we should basically be focussing on cats and garrison troops for military production, few more frigates for protection.

namliaM · Sep 5, 2006

pigswill said:
not a major cock-up

I definatly agree...

I didnt mark anything for keeps. I did mention that we will (IMHO) want to keep most if not all of Hatty and Bismark...
1) It is "free" production
2) They is all Judaist => Shrine
3) They is Judaist, we too => Culture

Any remnance of Egypt culture will soon be gone with... Sure our GPT may drop (a little) in the short run. In the mid-long run we simply need production and some gpt to keep our army alive...
Pillaging mines brings nearly nothing .... Why even bother? The 1 turn extra spend in moving alone costs us more for beeing in enemy teritory....

Gems definatly are not needed for the happy... But for the production and added commerce...

1 true
2 Not completely true, we dont anymore need (much) commerce... What we need is production, which additional cities can give. Additional $$ does not gives hammers (unless we have heaps of money and are in US)
3 Just build a barracks and set it to allways build a catapult, they are never wasted.

Memphis => Dont raze any Judust cities (in particular in Germany and Egypt)

Re: Niani and Anasize, I think we can all agree that they are marginal at best... Then why go after them NOW?? We have 2 tasty cities (memphis and Thebes, for keeps) just to our north and we are going after marginal cities to raze?
Take the tasty cities and leave Hatty with the marginal ones, for some techs and 10 turns later, with the marginal cities she will still be nothing. With Memphis and Thebes in tact she could build again some (smallish) army and give us some grief getting her out of the game.

Whipping windows dont change... They are still the same... I.e.
Samurai/Grennie:
1) Produce
2) Whip for 2 pop
3) Produce
4) Whip for 1 pop
5) See 3

I suggest whipping (defensive?) grennies in Kyoto and spamming Sams and Catapults everywhere else....

Re: The Obs and Research. If we are running 0% science now while we have NO Obs in Osaka, we can run 100% for a few turns after we build it. Thus we gain free beakers... I dont see getting free beakers as slowing tech down??

pigswill · Sep 5, 2006

Observatory completes in two turns.

Cats are good; cannon are better. More damage, better survival chance means 8 cannon are equivalent to 20 cats; 20 cats cost 40gpt maintenance, 8 cannon cost 16 gpt maintenance (actually its more complex coz you lose cats vs infantry at an alarming rate then you've got to transport the replacements to the front line). China's got rifles already, you can be sure we'll be up against infantry before the end of the game.
Better survival also means field promotions; few cats will get even a single promotion in battle.

namliaM · Sep 5, 2006

I am not disputing the fact that we need Cannons, I am disputing that had you either not yet started the obs or turned science to 0% This would hurt us. I dont think it would...

At current it is steel in 20 at 60%, logic would say that we can run 6 or 7 turns without any science then run 100% for x turns (with an Obs in Osaka) and be done before 20 turns are over.

Keeping cities on the mainland (in particular in the early going) saves us in a lot of ways IMHO.
1) Added commerce => More tech?
2) More production => More Units
3) More pop => More support for our army
4) Shorter supply routes => Any unit build on the mainland is at least 4 turns earlier to the fight than one build on Hokkaido (same as BT)

Why?? WHY?? would we want to raze any cities? Cause they may drop us a few GPT? We have GPT to spare (even not counting the shrine!).
We gain 200gold every city, Pigswill just captured 2 cities in 10 turns thats 40gpt folks.... 40! What city can produce that even at 0% Science? Right at this time near none (Baring Osaka and Madrid) of our cities. Units !
If we have 30 Sams for every Modern Armor we ware it down and kill it. If we have 10 Riffles we fail.

If we have enough units we can move on 3 or even 4 stacks, thus lowering WW which you are fearing so much. And 4 stacks move 4 times as fast... But we need production to support 4 stacks. 4 stacks of Grenies/Sams/Cats(cannons) now (and continuing that) IMHO is much better than continuing with 1 stack and Ending up upgrading all our cannons to Artilery and sams/grennies to Modern Armor for the last city to raze....

Cosmichail · Sep 5, 2006

Hey I was just agreeing with Pigswill but he retracted so am I. Do think we could use production too like NamliaM (this is getting scary we are agreeing more and more)
To be honest I don't care if we raze it all. Raze the shrine too while you're at it. Hate that religious citiy being pyscho and all. That way nobody gets any money or spying. Lacking culture has to be rectified soon. We need to have theocracy to for improved units down the road. I think too we should go for Mao next as well since he is teching the fastest. So far grennies (promoted with CR) will fine against rifles but I would like to see us have Cavalry as well.

I don't think we should let Hatty off the hook until she is finished. My main reason is this. Once we get peace she will quickly seek an DP with Bismarck and give us grief. It happened to me in a SP game and better to finish them off so raze as much as possible, let the stupid AI settle whereever it wants and do the same to Mao. Get rid of two civilizations in one swoop with this army and then prepare a more advanced army for the next round. Bismarck.

Of course I expected to see a "discussion" ongoing tween Namliam and Cosmichail and I was rewarded .

Two dutchmans not in debate is like George Bush not having his stupid hat on. (and mike on his back for intelligent debate)

pigswill · Sep 5, 2006

We can of course run binary research which will help marginally by correcting rounding errors but probably by less than one turn and only if the cash isn't siphoned off into upgrades.
Still an unresolved argument about theocracy and which religion (confu or judaism); ideally we'd have one religion throughout our empire (given that every city will be producing units either most or all of the time). At the moment confu is more widespread than judaism; we have the shrine already with some money multipliers so I would say spread confu starting with Osaka, next build in Osaka should be confu monastery and Osaka should spend most of the time producing confu missionaries to spread confu to all our cities.
namliaM will of course disagree strongly and say either we don't need a religion or if so it should be judaism.

Edit: yes to polishing off Hatsy as first objective, not forgetting her city in Hokkiado. It might pay to set caravels on autoexplore just in case there are specks of land that an AI can hide away after all other cities destroyed.

Cosmichail · Sep 5, 2006

I say screw it and go confused now and start using theocracy for new units. Judaism is a while away before it proves effective and Kyoto isn't going to give us enough units compared to Hokkaido (although impressive, most impressive.) Sooner or later we want that Globe too so that will take a few more whips with the cats at Kyoto taking away from building Grennies which we should be doing in Osaka as it has the best production. Maybe break for monastery but I don't think we can at war worry about spreading confused from Osaka until we have more grennies. We are in it for the long haul and going to need a huge army. Maybe Tokyo/Satsuma can help with that but Cordoba could be used for spreading the religion but personally I don't see it as a priorty and more so think we need soldiers.

Good luck LTB.......(long train bullet)

faster than a speeding bullet........

bobrath · Sep 5, 2006

Being in Judaism was basically to get the positive modifiers to keep Hatty off us and Bismark open to letting us use his lands. Those requirements are gone now. We have a landing, and I could care less what Hatty thinks of us. NSR is nice since it gives us culture everywhere, but no benefit from Theo (I think, never tested that). Confusing our citizens results in Hokkiado produced units being more exprienced, but until we make it to the other side of the ring, that's going to be a longer and longer walk for them.

Any thought to going to vassalage for the extra, extra exp?

namliam said:
Re: Niani and Anasize, I think we can all agree that they are marginal at best... Then why go after them NOW?? We have 2 tasty cities (memphis and Thebes, for keeps) just to our north and we are going after marginal cities to raze?
Take the tasty cities and leave Hatty with the marginal ones, for some techs and 10 turns later, with the marginal cities she will still be nothing. With Memphis and Thebes in tact she could build again some (smallish) army and give us some grief getting her out of the game.

Again, I'd suggest capturing/raizing everything north of our current line and then with Hatty down to threeish Ring cities and one on Hokkiado, make her a pointy stick target. A ten turn pause to reheal and increase our stacks isn't a bad thing at this juncture - heck it lets us set up our next invasion. I'm advocating pointy sticking here because she has a military tech we'd like to have.

Finally, pillaging *any* resource outside of our kept city borders benefits us:

Deny upgrades to newly founded AI cities - slows em down.
extra gold is never a bad thing
if it lures out counter attackers, they're easier to kill.

Of course leave roads untouched. Can explorers pillage? If so, they're pretty cheap and with two moves can pillage and move in the same turn. Makes em pretty optimal. If you can manage to get one medic promoted then so much the better. It doesn't hurt us to lose these guys if it draws out defenders and I'm sure they'll pay for themselves quickly by releaving our attackers from pillage duty.

Cosmichail · Sep 5, 2006

Any thought to going to vassalage for the extra, extra exp?

It would hurt cost wise as we would loose bureaucracy. (if we can withstand to loose some coin/science but I think it's tight right now)

We would loose 2 turns of anarchy too with one changing religion to Confused and one changing to theocracy.

I'm advocating pointy sticking here because she has a military tech we'd like to have.

Make sure we time it right so as Hatty doesn't go into DP. If we can do it with Cease fire only but I don't think we can.

I like the idea of trying to sway the opposing force out into the open with a unit that they like to go after. Workers can be enticing too for the AI to go after.

Sounds like we are on the right track a balance so to speak.

namliaM · Sep 6, 2006

Cosmichail said:
Once we get peace she will quickly seek an DP with Bismarck and give us grief.

1) Hatty will be nothing to worry about at that point with little nothing towns left...
2) We will/should declare war on Bismark soon either way...
3) We get Nationalism for FREE, possibly some other tech too?, that puts us that much close to Cavs (which you want so badly)
4) Not researching nationalism saves us Money which we can use badly for the Cat => Cannon upgrades (one time) and the ongoing Sam => Gren upgrades...
5) I do not like to see us getting Riffling anytime, cause then we lose the ability to build units that get CR promotions.

Piggswill said:
... will help marginally ...

Marginally !!! Yes if it is only the binary research. Turning of science before we were building the Obs in Osaka, will mean 25% bonus in Osaka. I posted this a while back and did an complete calculation on it. IIRC doing 10 turns 0% (No Obs) + 10 turns 100% (With obs) saved more than 1 turn of research. Which is 5% of our research budget, which (again IMHO) is nothing to sneeze at....

And all this for Cannons, yes they may be nice and harder to lose .... but are harder to replace as well. Good news may well be IIRC a Cannon is as expensive as a Grenny, if that is so.... We can whip cannons as easy as Grennies in Kyoto and rule the world with Cannons.
As much as I was in favour of ruling the world with Sams and Cats (which I still think we could have done, tho with a higher casualty rate). We can surely rule with Grennies and Cannons. IMHO no need for Cavs and certainly no need for anything beyond Cavs.

We do need a religion if only for the 2xp (thus CR2 out of the Barracks). Having CR2 out of the barracks on Sams may make them promotable to Grens, tho offcourse CR3 (just a few selective battles away) makes them that much stronger. We can use Hokkaido to produce (mainly) dispensable units (Cats/Cannons). While we build Sams on the mainland.
Beeing Judaist tho lets us spy on Germany and China, even while at war... Which means we can see troop placement/movement.... Intel can be very valuable.

bobrath said:
pillaging *any* resource outside of our kept city borders

Sure pillage away, but I think we should keep each and every city in Egypt and Germany.... For reasons I allready posted. Plus it really adds speed
1) No pillaging to slow us
2) More units in the end => More speed.

Explorers IIRC cannot pillage...
Worker lure is not needed IMHO... No AI can hold us back at the moment.

This has been said before, if we can make 2 stacks 1 going north and 1 going south from Elephantine.
North goes, Memphis, Thebes, Heliopolis... Depending order on do we go after Germany next? Or China?
South Goes Alexandria (KEEP), Pi Ramesses (Marginal at best, razable in my book) and finaly Mycenian.
South definatly goes on straight into Germany, also due to the culture problem(s) at Mycenian. Once we capture Berline (with HE) Germany is done for.

Why go after marginal cities now, when we can leave Hatty them and know she can do nothing with them... Even signing a DP, WHOPPIE, without effective units WHO cares if she signs a DP....

Edit 1)
I think losing Burocracy is a bad thing in comparing to getting 2xp... If need be lets get out of Theo and into Paganism and screw the XP... However it will take considerable time to earn back the turn(s) of Anarchy (money wize) and we will never catch up Production wize. So I think we leave it as is...

Edit 2)
We should try and find a balance on Hokkaido, only producing sams and cats/cannons there. Cats only till we have steel (for mass upgrades), then a building sprea of Sams (to replace the once we lost in the past 20 turns). Then a balance...
While we spam (defensive i.e. no CR promotions) Grennies from Kyoto.

Remember: Kyoto doesnt have Globe yet, Please switch the Sam to a Cat and whip that cat and another cat and another till we have the Globe it is THE #1 priority at the moment...

bobrath · Sep 6, 2006

The danger in a DP is that it gets us into a war with another power before we want to. Yes, if she DPs with Bismark, its no big deal since he's next (basically to remove pressure on Versailles). But if she picks up someone else, that might make our next "whopping" a bit more involved then I'd like. Yes, it looks like we have a powerful stroke, but not if we end up warring with the world.

I don't think we can split our stack right now. That cav mini stack in Thebes is hanging out there and could decimate a half size stack.

Pillaging will not slow us down if we use non-attacking units - perhaps units intended for garrison duty. We've got a few extra units in Hokkiado right now (archers?). Upgrade them and use a small force of our more defensive units to scrape the land clean of everything but roads. We don't have cities to hold right now, but will in the near future. Get the garrisons moving and they can be ready to defend (thus relieving our offensive forces). I do want to keep in mind that we need to be careful of Hokkiado landings, but as we continue to increase our navy, those chances will go down.

Its too bad explorers can't pillage. They'd be the perfect unit to pair with a caravel for comando striking resources at the start of a war. Dream on Bobrath, Dream on.

So your "short" list for keeps:
Memphis - Jewish Shrine
Thebes - Capital site
Heliopolis - developed town and ?
Alexandria - ???
Mycenian - Versailles

Why Alexandria?

IMHO, we need to have "short" lists for every civ before we attack them. That way folks are on the same page and we don't have any more gem "incidents".

LuvToBuild · Sep 6, 2006

Pre-Turn
Whipped the samurai in Kyoto, the frigate in Edo, and the other frigate in Kagoshima. Turned science down to 0% for upgrades or an increased science rate later.

Turn 1
Captured and razed Niani. Continued on to Anasazi.

Turn 2
Completed an observatory in Osaka. Increased science to 80%. WW becoming a serious issue. The garrison should have been larger. We are tending to lose a lot of cats which is causing severe WW pretty early in the campaign. Cannons are a serious need and more galleons for lightening strikes as bobrath points out. A slow moving SOD does us little good. The AI reinforces before we get there and whittles us down as we move.

Turn 3
Continued the assault on Anasazi. We don't yet have the troops in place for a successful capture. I've been trying to get galleons in place to load and move towards Memphis after taking and razing Anasazi.

Turn 4
Awesome!! Check out the "suicide" catapult which attacked the LBM in Anasazi. His odds of winning were 0.4% and, can you believe it, he won! He went from like 4 or 5 XP to 12XP! Almost makes up for all of those times the RNGod frowns upon 90+ odds. This time ole Hatty was on the receiving end of an angry RNGod. I couldn't resist. I named him Lucky Bastard. Anyway, we took and razed Anasazi. Time for a serious pillage party while moving on Memphis.

Turn 5
Continued the pillage party and moved more troops by sea to Memphis. I would like to see us take Memphis before ending the war.

Turn 6
Hatty offers 380gold for peace. I decline. I figure we can get that or better about any time we want and I don't feel like we want it just yet. Her cavalry is having a pillage party around Elephantine. The odds for attack suck so I have been avoiding confrontation. She finally attempts a cavalry charge into Elephantine but fails. She seemed to be sending cavalry from the south. I thought that was odd given that her only known cavalry was holed up in Thebes. I checked the diplo screen and sure enough she has obtained horses from KK in exchange for dye. We might want to see about taking out her dye plantations or convincing KK to knock it off. I'd hate to face even more cavalry after 10 turns.

Turn 7
I managed to get the defenses down in Memphis and take the city. Unfortunately, I really don't have sufficient forces to hold the city without exposing the expended stack of catapults to an onslaught of cavalry from Thebes. So I thought it might be prudent to see about a peace deal and buy some time to reinforce. I hate the idea of doing that while she still has the ability to build cavalry but I don't see any real alternative without taking a big risk and needlessly losing units. I have no units in position to take out her dyes and thus end the horse deal. We should certainly aim there first when war recommences. I tried some pointy stick research but she's being stubborn. I started out big by suggesting Nationalism, Printing Press, Education, and her 380 gold. Yeah, it was a pipe dream but you might as well start off trying to get all of the marbles right? Well, as to be expected, no can do. I dropped Education. Still a no go. I dropped the Printing Press. Nope, not gonna do it. So, no Nationalism for us either. I tried two more times with just Education and just Printing Press. Still not interested. Well, I'm kind of in a situation where I take what I can get or risk losing Memphis to a counterattack. I cursed, a lot, and settled for her 380gold. Stubborn b**ch.

Turn 8
Several LBMs completed in Hokkaido. I was building LBMs for garrison because there didn't seem to be a serious threat and the LBMs were cheap garrison units to build for countering WW. Granted, they wouldn't stand up well against a serious invasion and we can't upgrade them until Rifling. So, in hindsight, I might should have built crossbows. Anyway, I start on Grenadiers now that we have a little more time to build a garrison. We could use some more offensive units too but we have enough cats to make short work of defenders. Her cavalry will be the biggest threat but hopefully she won't be able to build many. We will have cannons soon too and that will help soften up cavalry for counterattacks by grenadiers.

Turn 9
I spent this turn getting the rest of the army moved into Memphis. I have a few galleons on standby to move them quickly around the coast to Thebes. I have a couple more galleons being moved into position between Hokkaido and Ringworld. I was using some shuttle galleons to get me to Memphis more quickly. I am preparing to resume the sealift.

Turn 10
I looked around the map now that we have some spying ability. It's too bad we're not in a position to take bismarck right now. He's much weaker than I would have expected. He has a number of units but right now they are pretty much just LBMs, macemen, etc. I don't see any riflemen or cavalry yet. I think we'd all like to have more units but at the moment, we'll have to do the best we can to finish Hatty off. If we can build more than we replace, things will go well.

The Globe should finally be completed in the next round. It's not been an efficient build but at least its almost there. I managed to keep it mostly on track. I missed a catpult build/whip early on I think. I was building the Globe directly for a turn, maybe two before I realized I had forgotten to go back and put in a catapult build and then whip it for the overflow. I think it would have still been the next round before it completed but we could have probably had it a couple of turns earlier. I wouldn't recommend we remove any units until the Globe is complete. Whipping unhappiness is ridiculous and the WW plus "We want Emancipation" only makes things worse. Hatty screwed us even worse when she adopted Emancipation.

I'm sure I will be the subject of wrath for some decisions that I have made. I'm sure I could be convinced that some decisions could have been better. I don't feel the need to expend a lot of energy defending my decisions this time around. I made what I thought were the best decisions I could make under the circumstances and with the forces at hand. Some will obviously gripe about not keeping Egyptian cities. I say its stupid to use offensive units to garrison marginal cities when I should be using them to maintain our momentum and hurt Hatty as badly as possible. I only regret I couldn't have moved towards Thebes and kept us at war. However, in the spirit of General Douglas MacArthur, "We shall return dear Hatty, we shall return."

TurnLog:

Spoiler :

Current Save

Current Roster:

bobrath -> on deck
namliaM
Cosmichail
pigswill
LuvToBuild -> just played
eektor -> UP or skip?

Cosmichail · Sep 6, 2006

WHO cares if she signs a DP....

Like Bob points out she could sign with more than one civ. What if she signs with Mao and Bismarck. Good luck with that. Just something to consider and can prove to be a pain if it does happen with more than one civ.

You think we could rule the world with sams however to be honest I don't think we will even rule the world long with grennies. (PS if one of these guys get Machine gunners, grennies/rifles/cat really suck big time against those.)

I agree with binary research but it can be forgotten or overlooked sometimes. Needs lots of mming.

If we go for that Mycenian we are going to have to blitz into Germany as we are going to suffer culture strain there for sure and maybe even loose it. Considering that the bismarck would be our next target but techwise I think Mao is moving the fastest and needs to be slowed down.

Also NamliaM I don't think we could "rule the world" taking all of the cities in Germany/Egypt without it costing us troops to garrison. We have a good stack but we could use a lot more. I take it we can still build Sams to get the CR promotion and then upgrade to Gren. Good idea the CR is quite good against rifles/city. I don't concur that we could stop at cavalry and see science as an ongoing thing but could be binary or turned off for upgrades from time to time. The AI is teching too fast but once we put a dent in the major players that will ease quite a bit.

Pointy stick doesn't always work the way you'd expect. I have taken down civs to their last three or four cities and they refuse to give any tech at all. Very frustrating and even won't give a thing when they are at their last city. So sometimes you get something but a lot of the time nothing.

SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

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fly (one day)

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fly (one day)

Deity

fly (one day)

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

fly (one day)

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Emperor

Prince

Dark Lord of The Sith

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