SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

[LuvToBuild]

BTW, there's a spoiler thread now opened up (see maint thread for link). We more then qualify for posting into it (all our rivals are known). So if LuvToBuild is up for an initial spoiler entry, I'm all for him putting one up.

Yeah, I saw it this weekend. I still need to get something worth posting written up. All that talk about getting something put together early kind of fell through. I'm such a slacker.

Looks like we've made some good progress. I was surprised to see that we were after Mao and doing well this early.

Concerning whipping in Kyoto, the galleon idea sounds like a good way to not forget about tracking Kyoto's whipping progress.

Looking forward to some more bloodletting

 

[pigswill]

Shogun bobrath: request permission to commit suicide by ritual disembowelment to expiate my shame.

Good News


Bad News
Heavy losses for minimum gains.

Spoiler :

Heavy losses: 3 grenadiers, 5 cannon, 1 sam.
Minimum gains: Nanjing (kept), Shanghai (kept), Xian (razed), Chengdu (razed), Tianjin (razed)

.

Other News

Spoiler :

Judiasm in Osaka, started to build monastery; GS en route to Hokkiado; minor stack se of cordoba waiting to head off to last chinese city (cannon on goto to join them); flotilla near madrid awaiting units or relocation; 1 stack in heliopolis; 1 stack in alexandria; stacks in chinaland need moving/organising; some CR2 sams/cat awaiting upgrades; been running 100% cash; been mainly building units in Hokiado, infrastructure in egyptland, Memphis has a bank (whipping moneylenders into the temple ?!!).

 

[eektor]

I'm sorry I've been unable to play or to make comments. I don't think my situation is going to get better, so it will be best to put me on perma - skip. I thought I was able to handle working, studying, and playing Civ 4, but I realize now that I just have no time now that the classes are full swing and giving out more work than before.

I'm sorry to bail out on you guys.

I wish you the best and hope you guys play to the best of your abilities.

 

[bobrath]

No worries Eektor. RL always has to come first. Best of luck/wishes. Your spot will be waiting for you when you get back.



pigswill.... we need to work on your perception of success and failure!!!

Spoiler :

 

[pigswill]

I reckon that my set was reasonable; not brilliant, not crap; on t'other hand a long succession of reports on the lines of ' built x sams/grens/cannon, captured n cities, kept y, razed z' could get a bit dull.
BTW I offered Mao peace in return for replaceable parts, rifling and miltrad, he refused, the ingrate; from that point on he was doomed.
Thoughts on next round or so; finish off chinese, maybe use mini-stack to attack german cities (Kumba Saleh?), import a few units from Kyoto/northern army and combine with mini-stack to create fifth army.
We could debate optimum army size; eg if we've got 60 units (30 sam/gren, 30 cannon) is it better to have 6 armies of 10, 4 armies of 15, 2 armies of 30 etc. If armies are too small they fail; if armies are too big we're wasting units (something I was conscious of last set) which means wasting time.

Sorry you're missing out Eektor; RL is a PITA; hope you can lurk and make comments if you have the time between classes and assignments.

 

[Cosmichail]

Eektor don't go we need ya good buddy but hey understand the needs of RL. Take care and hope to see you soon.

Also excellent job on the game Pigswill. Our GPT is a whopping 464. That Ghangzhou is pumping out lots of cash with the GL. Maintenance a whopping -22 in that city so yep CH is a good choice there.

Strategically speaking we aren't strong enough in Old Egypt to take on the Bismarck quite yet. He has three fair sized stacks in Berlin and two other cities near us. We certainly can go for Khan now though but just need to get that one city of Mao's. Maybe build a galleon on the east side and send a couple of cannons and gren (maybe two galleons) and finish him off.

No DP's yet thank goodness. We could do a slow burn on the science as suggested by NamliaM too. We have quite a bit of gpt right now and the cavs would help out in the long run and get us closer to other important techs should we need them. Khan is pretty big and being aggressive will be maybe tough to take out fast. I tend to put the troops in a defensive (forest or even better foresthill) position in the beginning (of a foe like Khan) and let him attack first just to see what he has. Hopefully he'll waste his best whilst we literally hide in the bush. Then whammo go after him once he slows down. Karakorum is a keeper indeed. Madrid is a little unhappy but once that city with the fur pops its borders should help.

I didn't look but did good ole "Lucky Bastard" survive. I think he's NamliaM little buddy but I have grown found of this cannon as well. He took out two rifles in my turn.

So it looks like we are going the two front approach which is a good way to go. Bismarck will be tough and I recommend we add at least another 10 soldiers there and probably need some pikes too.

 

[Cosmichail]

LuvtoBuild/team....

I was looking at the save and we can get a tech from Mao for 10 turns of Peace. Just do "bury the hatchet and what will it take" and he offers Divine Right but I changed it to Military Tradition and he agreed to it. Since he is miles away I would suggest taking advantage of this one pointy stick thing we can do and then get a few troops in the process to finish him off.

 

[pigswill]

If we trade peace for miltrad with Mao then stackette can sail straight to germany; bring over a few units from old china (coz we got a lot there) and we will indeed have five armies: 3 for Biz, 2 for Khan.
We also have the option of building FP in the land formerly known as china. Lucky bastard is alive.
BTW grenadiers have same strength as pikes vs cavalry (12) and are stronger against everything else i.e. don't build pikes.

 

[bobrath]

I need a new keeper list...... Someone fill my need for a list of city names!!!

 

[namliaM]

WHAT ? You lost 3 Grens and 5 cannons, whats worse.... A samurai???



Good job, we just got 5 cities closer

To bad Eektor... But studies go first... Hope to see you around...

LOL Yes get MT or better yet wait a few turns for some Knights to finish? Which we can then upgrade to Cavs?

*Checking city list*

Edit: I had to go back 4 pages to find the roster ... So updated roster:
bobrath -> on deck
namliaM -> I want it
Cosmichail
pigswill
LuvToBuild -> Up for the game AND the spoiler
eektor -> Perma study skip

 

[bobrath]

Don't wait on the pointy sticking of MT. It may be taken off the table, HC might take out Mao on his own, we'll have that many more turns of WW, delay in getting our units into place for the next war.

Take the peace, any gold he can give and leave him as a detour for our HC destruction tour.

 

[Cosmichail]

I agree Bob let's not wait with the MT and grab it while we can.

 

[namliaM]

A few observations:
- I wouldnt build the Monastary at Osaka... Just adding it to build 1 or 2 missionaries is a waste IMHO. Lets build the missionaries that we need in Alexandria (forget about the cannon there), we have Galleons going back to Hokkaido every other turn anyway... And we dont need the science boost.

- There are 2 slacking workers in Alexandria, lets try and get the right number of Workshops there ASAP.

- We need 2 workboats for Thebes and Memphis ASAP

- We have some Grenadiers on defence in Hokkaido... Get some LBs to replace them...

- Madrid has 2 unhappy citizens (1 due to a whip) may I propose putting 1 turn into a Colloseum and Whipping for 2 pop (with overflow ) to decrease unhappy with 1 (2 decrease and 1 increase due to whip) and increase happy with 1
Same can be done with a Hindy temple.

- Suggest we grow barca a bit more (1 pop) and add 2 more Workshops there (1 to replace the Hamlet and 1 on the forest)

- Nanjing is a good place ( I think) to build the FP, if we want/need it... FP = 300 hammers to save some (~5gpt per city?) gpt ....
Also Najing is in dire need of Farming IMHO, who needs mills? I want mines...

- You feel like we can use more Grens? Build some Crossbows or Pikes and upgrade them... The only place to build/whip Grens directly is in Kyoto. Kyoto btw is "back in synch" Pigswill

Mongolian
Turfan: Holds nothing special (but for more Cottages) Raze... Keep it if we want to risk Domination for $$$
Karakorum: Great producer (if we get to keep a barracks and Forge ) Keep it (not for the shrine tho)
Old Saria: Home of the Colossus, we are not working that much water.. Raze..
Samarqand: Home to nothing, low on food... Raze
New Saria: Good producer, enough food to work them Hammers. Keep it.
BeshBalik: To low on food to work the hammers. Raze it.
Ning Hsia and Tabriz are both on hills, may be nice to keep them in a front line on HC/Way station for recouping troops... But I say Raze them as we will have 4 armies converging on HC.

Germany
Mycenian: KEEP
Hun KEEP $$$ and low upkeep
Dusseldorf Raze
Frankfurt Raze
Berlin Keep (#1 target for German war due to HE beeing there)
Hamburg Raze
Munich: We allready have Incense Raze
Dortmund: Raze
Walata: Raze
Kumbi Saleh: Raze

Milanese
Timbuktu: Keep it

Incan
Do as you please, but lets surround the Incan lands to make sure no stray settler settles in our backyard somewhere costing us turns to turnaround...

 

[bobrath]

When do you propose we start closing borders with the AIs? That's going to be the quickest way to ice out backyard settling.

 

[namliaM]

It will only close the door on backyard settling if we keep the entire ring of cities around the ring...

Maybe we can do just that? Keep a city on the outer ring just to disable landing of settlers? I think that can be done easier...


If we put a few Frigates on the Yellow lines we effectively cordon off the outside....
Add one or 2 near BT which we need for protection there anyway... and our "backyard" is protected.

Before declaring on Germany we need some more Frigates in/near BT to hold off Bismarck's fleet from disrupting our cities there ....

Food for thought...
- Is it worth building a Drydock (180 hammers) to speed up (and get +4xp) boatbuilding in either Madrid or Barca?
A Drydock we get 100% bonus for beeing aggresive so thats actually 90 hammers.
In barca we get 10 extra hammers on boats, so if we spend 9 turns building boats we break even... 9 * 35 (hammers per turn) = 305 / 135 (Frigate) = 3 Frigates...
In other words, if we plan on building 3 or more Frigates/Galleons ... It is to our "profit" to build them from a Drydock in Barca.... We get more XP and spend less hammers.
I think we need no more Galleons but Frigates? Dont know...

- is it worth investing 17 turns for Westpoint in Osaka? Maybe a little less with a timed whip (overflow) and some chops?
With westpoint we have 10XP units (CR3 Samurais, CR3 Pikes! or CR3 Cannons I think ) comming out of Osaka
We are however investing 17 * 47 = 799 (raw) hammers (or ~6 Cannons/Grens, or ~8 Samurais), On westpoint we get a bonus with stone... therefor the number of invested hammers (799) is lower than the hammers needed to build it (1200).

- Is it worth investing 23 turns in Ironworks in Osaka?
We are investing 1050 hammers (no bonus) to get 50% gain later on...
50% gain is 15 hammers 1050/15 = 70 turns to "Break even"

- Is it worth building both Iron works and Westpoint in Osaka?

I am only considering Osaka at this point but if anyone have any other suggestion please do suggest...

Edit:
Another suggestion... Build only (cheap) Pikes (they get CR!) and Crossbows (No CR) in Edo and Kagoshima these upgrade to Grenies...
LBs are also possible to replace the current garrison of the captured cities which are now (offcourse) garrisoned by Grennies/Sams and Cats

Pike or Crossbow => Grennie = 200 gold
Samurai => Grenie = 155 gold
So at the current GPT (+465) we can upgrade 1 Pike and 1 Samurai every turn without every capturing a city and still run a surplus

Edit2: At 47 hammers (+100 gold) per turn (currently) Osaka can build us a Pike every 2 turns ,
Thats is a CR2 Grennie every 2 turns (without Westpoint)
I dont know why we/I didnt spot that earlier

 

[bobrath]

We definitly need to be popping some garrison units out to free up any attackers camping in captured cities.


In terms of the ironworks in Osaka (or other cities): 70 turns seems to be beyond when we should be *done* with this game. I think everyone would agree that right now we're at a critical mass point where the more units we can put on the front lines (sooner) the better, We have to wipe out the civs before they tech away from us. We've got 3 more wars to go (germany, inca, and mongolia).

Westpoint... While have the next level of promoted units sounds fun, how long will it take a unit produced in Osaka to get to the front? 7 turns? So even these higher promoted units will take relativly forever to make it where they can do damage (and thus benefit us). If we look at them as "filling gaps form unlucky RNG rolls" while the ring and BT city produced units form the grunts of our army then it might be worth it. I'm up in the air on this one.

Drydocks - Bismark is the only navy we really have to worry about. Once we take him out, the promotions we earn from those battles will give us very superior naval units and we can fill the gaps created. I've never fought a big naval battle with the AIs. In fact more often then not I see ships hanging out in dock where our land forces take them down as we capture the city. Are we worried about more then we need to be? We'll definitly end up producing at least 3 more naval units, so lets go ahead and do drydocks (overflow if possible and reasonable).

 

[pigswill]

I'd never noticed pikes could get CR promotions; something to remember in my solo games. As the resident religious fanatic I'd say Osaka build monastery (2 turns), 1 missionary per turn; it'll only take a few turns to spread theocracy throughout hokkiado. Drydocks sounds good, maybe in Madrid.
For garrison units maybe build crossbows with CG, upgrade to grenadiers.

 

[bobrath]

If you look at hammers spent in Hokkiado on mil units vs hammers spent in ringworld/BT mil units and then overlay the time to market of those units... It makes a lot more sense to crank out missionaries from Osaka and the monastery is an investment for missionary creation, not research.

In fact these missionaries have the effect of "west pointing" Hokkiado!!

 

[pigswill]

If we do decide to research anything its probably better to go binary than slow burn (tho I'm not sure off hand what we're likely to want to research). May as well merge GS with Osaka.
Might be worth thinking about theatres/happy culture in all our cities (even though it leads to border pops and more territory). Missionary spam in Osaka likely to lead to hammer overflow, maybe intersperse with the occasional military unit.
Infrastructure building in egypt is a temporary phenomenon; it shouldn't be long before egypt cities are only building units.

 

[Cosmichail]

I feel that no more infrastructure period is necessary.....NADA we go the whole mile now and build nothing but units and necessary buildings to maximize production. Osaka spreading for theocracy is a good thing and Westpoint would be a waste of hammers as we need to amass a large army in Old Egypt. (Drydock too sounds good)

I was doing that with pikes just recently in my solo games and realized it as a good tactic to upgrade to grennies. Soldiers get lots of experience in the battlefield but that CR3 really does a number for grens against rifles.