SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

[namliaM]

Building Drydocks and Barracks doesnt seem like Infra to me... Offcourse they add to the warmachine... Tho I dont know about the second Drydock... Do we need that many (>6?) Frigates?

Turn 4
....
The 6 beakers isn't gonna do much for us right now and an academy somewhere is "useless" ....
If another scientist pops up in Edo, I'd suggest merging him there for the extra hammer. One more hammer there is more significant than an extra hammer in Osaka.

Wow... The U-word ...
I dont know about the hammer tho... We may have to do some math on which is better... I.e. merging to Madrid?
Or not at all? We will/should try minimizing the number of scientists around our empire. Thus chances of scientists will fall dramaticaly. If we pop another scientist it may also be worth it to keep him around. Together with a profit, Engineer and a merchant we could start 2 GAs... But I dont think we will be around for a 4th GP to pop so merging the 2nd Great Scientist (if we pop it) may well be the best choice. But where?
The best place would be somewhere that is "stuck" on 3/4 and has a Forge... I.e. if a city has 15 (raw) hammers it will get 3.75 (rounded down) bonus from the forge. Total 18 hammers. Merging the scientist would make that 16 raw, forge making it 20. Thus actually getting 2 hammers out off the Scientist

Maybe the lighthouse should have come before the Drydock, food (thus growing) before production bonus which we are (currently) not using...
Other than that Kudo's to your (short) set... A lot of time I imagine to do all that MM-ing and trying to get a feel again for the game.

With 2 Drydocks up and running we should be getting some quick Frigates out... Also I dont know about just the 2 galleons for Hokkaido => Ring transport. IIRC it is a 4 turn round trip, with a Galleon departing every 2nd turn.... are we (on average) producing 3 units every 2 turns? (6 units every 4 turns?)
Osaka can build a Pike every 2 turns.... So that is 1/3 of each galleon filled allready.... All of the other cities would only have room to produce 4 units every 4 turns. I think we need atleast another galleon on that route...

Cheers bob... I hope you had fun (and won?)

 

[bobrath]

Unfortunatly we lost (thus the drinking!).

I'll be looking forward to my ten turns. Good chance there will be a war with KK during my turns, and I'll make sure the south is set up for a nice blitz of the Germans.

 

[namliaM]

Sorry about the loss, just make sure we win here

War on KK is a must IMHO...

 

[Cosmichail]

Yep do what you do best Bob setting us up for the kill. Also I have been playing a game with grennies/cannons and found that they will stand up against infantry but need lots and lots of cannons. SO I am now doubly on the war path. Have fun Bob.

 

[LuvToBuild]

With 2 Drydocks up and running we should be getting some quick Frigates out... Also I dont know about just the 2 galleons for Hokkaido => Ring transport. IIRC it is a 4 turn round trip, with a Galleon departing every 2nd turn.... are we (on average) producing 3 units every 2 turns? (6 units every 4 turns?)
Osaka can build a Pike every 2 turns.... So that is 1/3 of each galleon filled allready.... All of the other cities would only have room to produce 4 units every 4 turns. I think we need atleast another galleon on that route...

Umm...I probably did underestimate the transportation requirements. Most of my five turns were spent getting buildings put into place. So, the few cannons that popped out on Hokkaido didn't seem to need that many galleons to move them. By the time one galleon was full, the other was close to port again. With full bore unit production, its likely that we would want to add either a third frigate galleon combo or maybe increase both convoys by a second frigate and galleon. Ultimately, two groups of three frigates and two galleons could probably accomplish the task. Add in a handful of shore protection frigates too. I'd hate to be surprised by a landing on Hokkaido.

 

[namliaM]

We can block off atleast the western part of Hokkaido from the ring quite easy by blocking the routes with Frigates like I outlined a few pages ago... here in post 596
Offcourse this does cost us (quite) a few Frigates, but we wont have to escort the galleons anymore.... and (atleast) the westcoast (Osaka in particular I think) would be safe from any landing for quite a while.

On the other hand ... How many (succesfull) landings have you ever seen an AI make?

 

[bobrath]

Only the ones where they bring an entire stack in one batch near the start of a war... I don't think we're in danger of an AI declaring on us and the very next turn dropping a landing party off in Hokkiado.

Hate to be wrong tho!

 

[bobrath]

As I opened the save.... someone in the govt decided to put signs on *all* the roads:

On my first full turn, I declared war on KK (thanks for the setup LTB) and snatched two workers on our borders.

The very next turn I see this:

At the loss of one frigate, we quickly send their entire strike force (and the defenders of Turfan) to shallow watery grave. (Remember this for when we go after Bismark. Any stack on a water edged city will load up and sail out. Make sure we have enough frigates around to break it down. The war was *so* much easier with all that offense gone.)

A few turns later (its a long walk!):

Kept it

It was suprised when I realized that some red dots on KK's west coast had troops on them! I quickly applied the hammer and:

Burninated it

Continuing the carnage:

We snagged the Colossus and (more importantly) the Hagia Sofia.
Kept it

The cries of oppresed buddhists called for:

Kept it
Notice the bottom left of the screen? Otrar is Mongolian for "stupid AI settler stubborness" or "Wipe me out please"

I found (I think) KK's HE. It was busy being blockaded...

Burninated it


So here's where we're at:

There's a mini stack up north that can easily remove Samarqand.
KK has a mini stack in Ning-Hsia that our bigger stack(s) can handle en route to Tabriz.
The mongolian city on Hokkiado is having its out lying resources pillaged. We should be sure to pillage the entire area where Otrar is sitting. Lots of nice towns and other improvements to wipe out. KK is in mop up stages.

I've got 3 massive stacks on Bismark's borders and there is a continuous cycle of troops in bound.

Once we start on HC, lets start shipping some units from Hokkiado's east coast - its a shorter trip!

First two attempts to spread judaism on Hokkiado failed. Next two succeeded. I discovered a sleeping Jewish missionary on the ring... why? Used him on one of the new german towns to get its border popped (preventing other AI settlings).

We popped another GS. He's two turns out from Hokkiado. DO what you want with him (and his twin)

oh... remember the city signs that went up? I did what I could to reduce them:

Our armed forces:

and the all important domination clock:

Turn log was freakin huge, so here's a link to a text file if you want it:
View attachment turnlog.txt

The Save

 

[pigswill]

Bye bye KK. Hello Biz. Hello HC. Progress progresses. Any cities worth keeping? Lots of sams and lots of cash could equal lots of CR grens.

 

[bobrath]

There's 6k in the bank, we're pulling in roughly 480gpt.... so lots of cash in the bank and I turned out a good number of sams. Not many upgrades tho, since I figured we might want to try and get them to CR3 first. It was a bit hard to find a fight for them that was >50% winning tho, given that most of the defenders are riflemen now and grens just eat up riflemen.

Most of my city captures invovled the cannons taking down cultural defenses and then the grens taking out rifles with no losses. No sense (imo) suiciding cannons just to move a 86% battle up to 99%!

Keeping cities:
Since we're at 40% with none of the newly captured KK cities out of revolt yet, I'm not sure how close we are. We need to get more and more selective on keeps. If we intend to keep "most" of Germany, then I'd raize the rest of KKs cities.

 

[namliaM]

we will be closing in from 2 sides now... No sence in keeping anything anymore we have more than the units needed, even if Bismarck/HC gets Infantry.... Maybe we switch now from Sam/Pike/LB production to Cannons just in case we do encounter Infantry and we do need to start sacrificing Cannons to get 50% to >70% chances...

Wow @LTB (I guess?) to figure out all those farms and Workshops

How nice of KK to send out 3 galleons , good you had some Frigates near (enough) to take that out...

Wow another 5 cities closer... and double wow ! 44 Cannons/55 Grenadiers/18 Samurais...
Do we need any more units? Geez...

Got it...

 

[Cosmichail]

I'm impressed......

Good luck NamliaM and have fun with good ole Bizzy.

 

[bobrath]

Lets make sure (hope) that Mycenian (Versailles City) gets taken very early on so that it can come out revolt asap and help provide even more gpt for the upgrade festival.

Also .... BE SURE to have plenty of frigates around Germany when you declare. We need to wipe out his naval stacks in the first couple turns. IF he gets loose in either backyard, its going to get ugly fast. The one thing I did not do well is preposition our navy. The army is golden, its those sea based folks I have hanging out around KK that need to be repositioned.

 

[LuvToBuild]

As I opened the save....someone in the govt decided to put signs on *all* the roads

Sorry for the clutter guys. I got carried away with the signs so that I could remember what improvements I needed. I left them there because I thought maybe it might help save some time for others. Feel free to delete them. It looks like you were taking them off as things were completed which is what I was doing to make it easier on the eyes.

I was suprised when I realized that some red dots on KK's west coast had troops on them!

I sent the landing party that pigswill had assembled on Hokkaido's eastern shore northeast to hit KK from the rear. Sounds like it came in handy.

I discovered a sleeping Jewish missionary on the ring... why? Used him on one of the new german towns to get its border popped (preventing other AI settlings).

Did you find him in Heliopolis? I probably put him in sleep mode there so he could wait on a ship headed to Edo. I probably should have just skipped his turn until the ship arrived. I'm guessing that I forgot about him there.

 

[bobrath]

AH!!!!! yup he was there. I (now) wish I had noticed edo needed judaism. AH well something else for the follow folks to knock out.

Speaking of which... Where's the writeup namliam???

 

[namliaM]

Comming right up... It is a dozzy ... As they say ...

 

[namliaM]

I start off my set doing some MM-ing, some towns get maxed for hammers + stagnation in order to stave off the WW which we WILL be encountering...

I also ADD some signs here and there... as we do have some signs about but lots more work needs to be done before the workers can retire.

In 1754 I Destroy a Frigate (without loss) and Take Samarqand with the loss of a Grenadier. However I suffer a CTD ...
Thus history that turn gets re-written.... The Friggin' Frigate is unwilling to sink so it takes a second frigate to sink the damn thing.
The same 5 (just enough) cannons bomb Samarqand to 0 Defence and 4 kills Raze Samarqand this time.


This same year I notice a Worker of HC somewhere strange... Oh Oh... I dont like seeing this


1756 KK and I exchange another Frigate (We lose one, We kill 1 can I get a break on >50% battles PLEASE?) I declare war on Bismarck eventhought I dont feel quite ready.

At this point... My PC reboots you have to be kidding...

Spoiler You dont want to know :

I should have taken this as a warning and not repeated this but...

So I restarted my PC and did some searching as to why ?? would it reboot... Nothing to find offcourse... So I start up the game. Load 1756 and I figure... This time I win... NAH ... Exchange the same Frigates... and DOW on Bismarck.

And so at the loss of 1 samurai Hanover is raze on the turn we declare war.

Otrar (the city KK was kind enough for us to rebuild so we could raze it again) was quick work... It did make in necesary to bump culture to 20% in order to keep our populous happy...

This turn Turfan comes out of revolt. I whip the hell out off it to try and keep it from starving... No such luck... But thanks to Specialist culture and the slider the borders of Turfan will pop in only 1 turn, making it viable again after only 1 turn of starving. + It will soon have a theatre, Courthouse and Granary

On the inner turn our scouting Cavalry (on Hokkaido) encounters a Riffle, with predictable result (loss). And we sink a Frigate of Bismarck's on defence south of hokkaido... The Frigate came from that ugly german town on Hokkaido so dont worry (yet).

 

[bobrath]

ugh.... the suspense is killing me!

 

[namliaM]

1758 Start off not so nice as a couple of Frigates (Bismarck) make it inot Hokkaido. However our nearby Frigates sink all 3 Frigates of Bismarck, 2 against the odds with backup present offcourse.

Just as Dusseldorf is RAZEd on the eastern end of the continent our forces in former KK lands encounter a Riffle/Settler pare (with CG promotions) I deliberate the decision, even consider stopping here. But decide to take out that settler pairing in the open rather than have to turn around and face another city. So WAR with Mansa, 2 quick high % grenadiers later and we gain a worker.

After sacrificing 1 cannon and 2 cannons withdrawing 4 more units just due East of (former) dusseldorf are cleaned up.

We sink another Frigate, unfortunatly there are 2 Frigates there so the nets at Thebes are lost , in exchange for the nets however we RAZE Bremen, after an UPSET win of a cannon and the suicide of a Pike...


After cleaning up I secure our Samurai by moving some Cannons and Grens on top, which are meant to March on Mycenian (Versailles). However after doing so I have a look around and I dont like what I see....

I am hoping that the stacks will follow the Teal lines towards Thebes. AI seem to be more intrested in Cities than in closing stacks... (most of the time) But not this time.
What comes after this is a masacre as all the units converge on our two stacks just south of Alexandria. We lose some 10-15 units

What makes it worse is that the wounded german Cavalry that are left are mostly out of reach for our 1 move units
Great move on Bismarck's part, bad move on my part ....

After sitting here, looking like a fool at our units beeing killed/mangled 1 by 1... Finaly 1760 rolls around the corner and we Spot a Galleon with a settler trying to resettle Bremen or something NE of Alexandria. They are promptly sunk by one of our Frigates who just *ahem* happenes to be close by *ahem*

Fighting Machine guns is no fun at all... as I discover when I face my first ever Machine gun in Stuttgart, None of the grenadiers have any chance so 1 has to be sacrificed. The rest is mop up of the Machine gun and a Riffle.


In 1762 I find myself in need of upping the Culture to 40% ! Geez... I sure hope we can take out KK soon so we can take that down a bit. Tho Allready Bismarck is also racking in the WW points for us

Hun is an easy target just a few fights against simple Riffles and it is razed... An invading cavalry (just south of thebes) is killed as well.


On the innerturn we lose a Frigate to a Frigate and another Frigate to an Ironclad *GRMBL* Not Ironclads... AAARGH, good news is they can only travel within culture or on the coast and can only move 2, bad news is they are MUCHO stronger than our Frigates...

Some more skermishes happen near Alexandria and the Units left from Hun are loaded on a boat, headed south....

 

[bobrath]

and the suspense continues!!!!