SGOTM 02 - VQ Black

Its the condensed version shorn of pretty pictures and blow-by-blow accounts of the various battles.
Might be worth focussing on HC to get hold of pyramids; police state sounds pretty good at this point despite the anarchy.
We are probably strong enough to have another crack at Biz but WW is a killer.
 
I looked at the save and have a couple (ok more then a couple) thoughts:


HC now has two destroyers and a transport (in Cori.....)!! To me this means the sooner we can take him out, the better chance we have of the other nations not getting combustion in trade and taking the naval dominance. We can see where the oil is, but he may also be mining uranium that we can't see. I would suggest raizing the oil @vilcamba soon if possible.

Mansa is building an oil rig at his new city of Awdagbot (sp?) which means he probably already has the oil s of djenne hooked up. No sign of a navy for him tho.

Bismark only has oil S of Dortmund, so we're probably ok once we remove the oil from the other powers.

If we do capture the pyramids and want to switch to police state, its a 3 turn anarchy and we might as well throw in switching to mercantillism and vassalage as well since it doesn't up the anarchy turns. We're hardly trading with anyone except ourselves.

We should disband any unused workers. There are 6 in Turfan right now. They count (IIRC) against our unit count so if we're not using them, disbanding makes a military unit free.

We're at 53% of land (62% is domination), so we need to be very selective from here on out. I'd suggest keeping:
Cuzco for the pyramids
Cologne for Angkor Wat
Mycenian for Versailles

Not much else to keep (again imo). Anything we keep we'd have to garrison and that just means less units on the front. Lets make it across the finish line.

When we do declare on Bismark, he will for sure sortie out his naval forces from Frankfurt and Berlin. Lets be ready to intercept those forces when we declare.

If at all possible, take out Cori... asap. It has 2 rifles and a cav for defense, and if we're lucky we can catch a destroyer and transport in port. Much easier to kill those ships on land. ;)

We've got 4 lbms in Osaka. Can we either upgrade them and send them over into battle OR just disband them. Or is there some reason we have so many defenders there?

I don't know what an HE looks like, so I don't know where our three remaining rivals have them. I seem to remember that Berlin had one, but its heavily defended right now.

Not that I'm advocating declaring a 2nd war so soon, but Mansa has a GA out in the open just north of HC's lands. He may be heading to the newly founded city in the north to pop the borders. Mansa has no navy right now, but he does have an impressive stack in Timbuktu. Probably not worth the artist to distract ourselves from HC.


Lots o random thoughts I know, but I guess the sumation is that HC is now dangerously close to teching away from us. Thank god his military is basically broken. If we can take him out soon, then hopefully Bismark won't benefit from him. I'm not secure in declaring on Bismark yet, but the second we see any modern naval units... well it has to happen before then:eek:

Getting exciting for sure and I'll be looking forward to how LuvToBuild handles the challenge!
 
Played my round and will get a detailed report up tomorrow. I didn't read your thoughts until now bob but I saw pretty much the same things in my early turns. I caught one destroyer in port at Cori but the one guarding the clams caused a small amount of trouble until I caught him in port at Tiwanaku. Captured and kept Cuzco. Machu Picchu out of revolt. Domination at 54% or so now IIRC. I have the game shut down right now. Biz has destroyers too but I think I've only seen one so far. He has a fair amount of transports in Berlin that appear to be loaded with cav and cannons. I fear a possible landing attempt on BT either before we declare or soon afterwards. I would suggest trying to blockade Berlin and force him to fight his way out. Oh, HC has infantry too in addition to MGs in one remaining city. More to follow.
 
Pre-Turn
I noticed we had some grennies with offensive promotions hanging out in old China. So I set a couple of crossbows to build for CG promotions and later upgrade. I also noticed that MM had a GA in the open headed north. HC has destroyers :eek: and Bismarck has built a few more MGs. This definitely isn't getting any easier.

HCsDestroyers.jpg

Turn 1
HC counterattacks at Machu Picchu. Our gren kills the cannon but the cannon inflicts enough collateral damage to cause the loss of a cavalry and a gren to two cavalry charges by HC. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), HC keeps his destroyer in port at Corihuayrachina instead of annihilating our bombarding frigates. A Great Prophet is born in Madrid. I merged him to support production and to give some extra income. I attacked HC's wounded cavalry with a CR1 cannon at 38% odds and lost but this softened him up for a CRII 9XP cannon to win at 98% odds. I left the second cav alone despite the easy win. He was at .8 strength but to attack him and win would have meant leaving a good gren alone on the battlefield.

Turn 2
Moving towards Corihuayrachina. HC tried to retake Machu Picchu once again but with only a riflemen this time. He was, of course, no match for our CGII gren. I noticed that Bismarck has now obtained destroyers as well. It appears that he upgraded his ironclad to a destroyer right away. It looks like we have no choice but to keep pressing forward. We can't afford peace anymore. It will only allow them to better defend their cities. Even Mansa now has MGs and will probably have destroyers soon too.

Turn 3
Last step to Corihuayrachina. The frigates have shelled the city to 0% so I should be able to take it on the next turn. So far so good in terms of HC leaving his destroyers on the defense. One still remains in port at Corihuayrachina and the other is defending the clams north of the city. I expect it may go on the offense when I take Corihuayrachina but I REALLY hope it goes into port somewhere.

Turn 4
MM is certainly becoming a pain in the arse. As I expected, he culture bombed Awdaghost with the GA that was headed north. He is currently in the process of trying to get another city started west of Ning-hsia. I debated about declaring on him but I didn't really have any units in place to take out the settler stack anyway. So, as much as I hate to have to take out another city later, I guess I have no choice at the moment.

In other news, I captured and razed Corihuayrachina. I start redirecting troops towards Cuzco.

CaptureandRazeCori.jpg

Turn 5
I continue towards Cuzco. As I feared, the destroyer that was guarding the clams north of Corihuayrachina now decides to get frisky since he has nothing better to do. He easily sinks one of the frigates that I sent south to bombard Tiwanaku. I moved the other one to protect the convoy that I had sent from Hokkaido to land near Tiwanaku. I'll have two frigates there and its the only destroyer in sight so hopefully the galleons will be safe even at the loss of a frigate. The galleons were out of movement points to turn back but I was able to get the cannons and gren unloaded.

Turn 6
Sure enough, the destroyer attacks again and sinks another frigate. He's down to 18 strength though and retreats to Tiwanaku. I return the empty fleet to Hokkaido. With none of our navy in sight, it seems likely that he will be foolish enough to leave the destroyer in port as we take Tiwanaku within the next few turns. I have troops in place to bombard Tiwanaku and Cuzco next turn. I hope to take both before by turnset is complete.

Turn 7
Tiwanaku is no more and HC's fleet appears to have (tee hee hee :) ) disappeared. Should be in position to get Cuzco soon.

CaptureandRazeTiwanaku.jpg

Turn 8
Cuzco bombarded. Should be able to finish off the defenses next turn and take the city.

Turn 9
Cuzco is ours. I checked the civics because I wasn't sure if PS would be available with Cuzco still in revolt. We do have all options available now so I considered revolting but didn't because I figured it was something we should discuss first. It will cost 3 turns of revolt with or without Mercantilism so we might as well pick up a free specialist in every city too. A priest would probably be best to add an extra hammer and gold everywhere. I guess those without a temple will have to settle for a free citizen specialist.

CaptureandKeepCuzco.jpg

Turn 10
I took a look around to survey our position. There isn't much I can do at this point to tackle another city. I need to heal some troops and get some others in position for bob to finish off HC.

I got sloppy with whipping Kyoto unfortunately. I should have been skipping the turn on a galleon or something there to remind me to go back every turn but I'm afraid that didn't happen. I think there was a cannon building there from scratch with very little overflow from the previous build when I first started. It was probably somewhere around turn 5 that I realized I hadn't been whipping Kyoto. I whipped the cannon for 1 pop within the 91-112 window and then loaded it up and debated on what to build next. I noticed Bismarck had upgraded his galleons in Berlin to transports. They also appeared to be loaded with cavalry and cannon. This didn't bode well since our navy in BT would be hard pressed to stop a serious assault by Bismarck. I started to switch to ironclads for a slightly beefier naval defense but then I realized that without a drydock, they wouldn't get a second promotion for added strength. So, I decided to build a drydock since it was only 30 hammers more than an ironclad. I had intended to whip it in the next turn but unfortunately, its still building. I REALLY should have had something there to nag me every turn to go check Kyoto. I'm afraid the big WHIP ME sign just isn't enough, especially if my attention is elsewhere :crazyeye: So, the drydock is currently within the 91-112 window and should be whipped first thing during your preturn bob. I have ironclads setup to catch the overflow. I've also noticed this morning that Bizzy has two destroyers parked in Berlin along with those transports. I have a bad feeling that he plans to hit us while we're still busy with HC. If HC drags him back into the war, we could be in trouble. I think I fear that I've screwed us some by not getting Kyoto and the other BT cities whipped. Edo has grown to 9 and not produced anything in ten turns. Kagoshima hasn't either. All three of those cities are sitting ducks with only a single, outdated defender. Our only hope will be to get Bismarck before he gets us.

Here's the detailed turnlog: See attachment

Here's the latest save: Current Save

Current Roster:

bobrath -> UP
namliaM -> on deck
Cosmichail
pigswill
LuvToBuild -> just played
eektor -> autoskip
 

Attachments

The German Navy has gained a serious technological advantage. Bismarck has apparently been sitting on piles of cash just waiting to upgrade his frigates and galleons. As you can see, we will have to tread carefully from here on out. Hopefully, we can catch a lot of his navy in port but only if we play our cards right. There is something to be said for sinking transports full of cavalry and cannon at sea but I'm not sure we have the ability to pull that off at present, even with ironclads. It think if we blockade Berlin, we either keep him in port and sink his navy when we take Berlin, or we force him into an attack where WE get the 10% defense bonus for being in coastal waters.

GermanNavyOverview.jpg
EasternFleet.jpg

SoutheasternFleet.jpg
BerlinBlockade.jpg
 
I really wish I could have finished HC off but things were just too slow moving and I needed time to heal. I was kind of lacking in healthy grens to protect the cannon stacks during the long journeys through enemy territory. Naval landings are now getting too dangerous due to the strength of enemy navies. HC had some serious freaking culture to wade through. I knew he'd be a pain due to his size and the fact that he had more inland cities.

Anyway, HC has managed to get Infantry now along with his MGs. Fortunately, we have nearly finished him off so I don't think they will become too troublesome. I expect we will take significant losses though. I just hope he doesn't trade Assembly Line to Bismarck to get him into the war again. I expect Bismarck will have Infantry before long anyway but I'd prefer it show up later rather than sooner.

CurrentHCSituation.jpg



ADDED NOTE:

Mansa has a destroyer in port at Timbuktu. I also spotted a gren headed north to Awdaghost at one point so don't be surprised if he doesn't magically turn into an MG before we get there. I'm not sure if we should go after MM next to clear a way towards Bismarck or go after Germany first. We could try taking them both on but that seems risky. Unfortunately, not doing that just allows the other one to keep teching away and building up defense. Anyway, I honestly hope this one is over before it gets back to me, preferably with a win. I'm not sure if I want to fight in a nailbiting war against superior forces :scared: My pansy butt might have to take a skip. :)
 
Great turns LTB. Good to see we managed to wipe out HC's navy! :goodjob:

I'd say that if we can make decently quick work of MM that it would be worth it prior to taking on Bismark. If you look at the western German cities, they are much less defended then the east. Our forces are split up right now, why not force Bismark to do the same?

If we are truly worried about sneak (naval) attacks by Bismark then switching to Nationalism (instead of Vassalage) along with Mercantillism and Police State would be my suggestion. The increase in military production will quickly make up for the lost 3 turns of anarchy (imo).

Pending thoughts and discussion from the group, I'll play later today.

I intend to finish off HC and if possible reduce Mansa back down to two (or less) cities. I'll also do my best to pillage the snot out of every oil source I can find.

I'm wondering, what would the GP have lightbulbed for us? If we can lightbulb Physics, then we can find the uranium and pillage it along with oil to remove the ability to build those advanced naval units. Germany has only one oil resource and MM has two. Those are HPT.
 
If we're not going after Biz but picking on poor MM why not transport some units from egypt to mansaland?
 
Mansa is allready a weak measly poor AI.... We need the troops in Egypt to defend against the raids that will be comming from Germany...

Cannons, we need loads of cannons... to drag down the Infantry + Infantry dont get their natural bonus vs the Cannons...
Whats more... WHY FOR PEAT SAKE are we having a Drydock in Kyoto? CANNONS! Ships should come from Edo and Kago.... Kyoto is to precious to be using it for ships... on the otherhand.... An Ironclad is 150 hammers as well right? So you should be able to whip Ironclads as easy as Cannons and Grens... :goodjob:

To bad about letting the whip slip tho... Missing the whipping in Kyoto sure doesnt break this game but we missed a lot of it over the turns...
 
I think drydock is more for the free 2xp on the ships then for the produciton boost. At this point, its fait acompli (sp?) so we'll try to do what we can.

Agree on keeping all the units in Egypt. Bismark will land in our backyard soon, we have to be ready for it.
 
Wow missed a lot. Good job LuvtoBuild. We are getting there and the tech developments was to be expected. I sensed it. (Dark Lord clairvoyant) ergo pursuing some techs to keep us near the tech we might need. We should be able to research combustion and equal the naval situation. We have to face that we have a long battle ahead and we will need a ton of cannons now. I know there will be disagreement but combustion would give us MG's and destroyers which would help in dealing with Bismarck. One MG in that stack in Egypt (which is still there right since we didn't declare) and Bismarck wastes a lot more troops. With infantry/MG's it will take a lot of cannons to take them out. Going with a change in civics is a good idea. If we can research combustion in the same speed as steam power at 100% (binary mode) we could have it in 5-10 turns (police state would affect that).

Considering the situation with Bismarck we might want to consider fortifying Hokkaido a bit just in case.

(It might be contingent on get rifling first for Machine gunner)

Whatever the team wants to do is fine with me but I do think we would be better off even if we slow burn towards those goals.
 
namliaM said:
To bad about letting the whip slip tho... Missing the whipping in Kyoto sure doesnt break this game but we missed a lot of it over the turns...

Yes, I know. I should be :whipped: myself. I built the drydock for the extra promotion. I feared an assault by Bismarck on BT and I figured our current navy would be hard pressed to stop much. The beefier we could make the ironclads, the better off we'd be if he gets frisky. I just wish that I'd have been watching the production there closer so that it would be built already plus one or two ironclads. Edo and Kagoshima can certainly produce some but not as quickly as Kyoto when it's managed properly. Keep in mind that if our navy were to be annihilated in BT, we could produce all the cannons in the world from Kyoto but would have no way to get them to the ring. Trying to get Combustion might be a good idea but pillaging uranium and oil would be almost as effective. It wouldn't help us much initially but once we sunk all current enemy fleets with overwhelming numbers, we could then be on an even footing with frigates and ironclads again. I think the move to get SM turned out to be a good one. We can see the oil now. Getting Physics would be good too just to spot the uranium but pillaging all mines would get the same result.
 
I haven't played yet (fyi).

We could pillage every mine, but that takes longer then sending directed commando strikes in!

Edit:
Just looked and a GP can never lilghtbulb Physics.
However, Physics is next up for GS.
GEs can research Physics, but its way down the list.

So IF we pop any more GS's lets lightbulb physics. I'll take a short look to see what other great Peeps will lightbulb when I play so that we can plan ahead for the next pop.
 
I have been trying to go with this, but all this talk ... Tech tech tech tech tech.... any tank can be destroyed if you use enough brave warriors...

Build build build ! lets just overrun this guy... we have the numbers if we "do it by the numbers" (not doing it like I did before! Looks like I may get a second chance... :) )

Get a few cannons and any infantry is a gonner... All we need is to have 1 unit left on the ring when we capture the LAST city... no more but certainly no less.... Which means we CAN lose a lot of cannons and Grens without any problem... As long as we make sure to take down some of Bismarck's troops as well....
Pikes ! Crossbows ! they are only 90 hammers to 150 for a grennie. But that is semi relevant... The longer we let Bismarck be... The more units he will build and the more tech he will have... If we wait just long enough we might start running into Mech Infantry.... or a part of a space ship casing...

The time to strike is NOW ... He is probably busy building Factories and stuff.... Not units at the moment... If we let him finish his factories we can pack up and leave ... NOW (or ASAP) is the time to strike...
 
I was hoping that we'd strike him during the last turns having a huge stack in Egypt but HC has been a handful too so understand why. We might have a problem now with Bismarck considering he is preparing an invasion in Frankfurt? (I think) Hokkaido is in danger of a landing. Now I have heard that AI's don't land well but I have had montezuma land a huge stack right on my capitol in other games. So have one defender in Hokkaido each could be costly if he does that. How many frigates/Ironclads would it take to take out a destroyer. At least 3 ironclads or probably 4 o 5 frigates. Even the transports won't be easy to take out with ironclads. It could cost us and imo is a risk even with large numbers of ironclads/frigates. To think we will be able to outdo destroyers is a pipedream. The destroyer can take out 4 or 5 frigates easy. Last time I checked we don't have that many maybe 6 or 7 in total.

Assessing our strategic is paramount before entering a battle. Our naval situation is going to be a problem and perhaps it would be better just to let the land masses self sustain themselves in units and helped by the BT. We amassed quite a few cannons in the stack ready for Bismarck, (15 or so) however I imagine that the HC army is weakening at the strain of facing MG's and infantry. There probably won't be much left to take on MM or sandwich the Bismarck. This army will need replenishing.

My personal view is this we are tactically weak right now even with strong units and by the numbers will be the only way or lightbulbing as Bob said/slow burn. I think we will experience a setback should we go against the Bismarck with our current naval situation/army.
 
slow burn.... we will get the next tech by the time Bismarck reaches alpha centauri !

So what if he lands on Hokkaido.... So what if he takes Osaka (one of our most important cities if not to mention capitol!)

We are producing units only even IF (yes IF!) he lands units we are on a continuing basis building units on Hokkaido. We should have atleast 3 units "waiting" on Hokkaido and another 3 not that far away and another 3 after that. NOT EVEN counting whipping ! We can also (if we like) post 2 Grennies (City Garrison promoted) inbetween 2 cities around the coast giving us 1 turn to maximize the city defence. As long as we keep producing an outnumbering Bismarck on every turn/corner he WILL FALL.

Waiting for Bismarck to finish Factories and Coal plants allround will make him jump in production +75% everywhere! thats allmost double...
And add to that his technical advantage...
We will then probably be on a 1 on 1 basis... Fighting Infantry with Grens and Artillery with Cannons. Still not unbeatable but .... we will have lost our numbers edge ... Right now we can outproduce and outthink Bismark. In 30 turns all we can do is try and outthink him. If the brute force of his units isnt enough for him to survive long enough to launch... Or cripple us completly with WW ! after which he will walk right over us or strole his way to space....
 
Biggest factor for me in not taking on Biz was WW, losing 50%WW with PS will keep our cities productive even with simultaneous wars against MM and Biz. Change civics to PS, mercantilism, feudalism now. Maybe combine two egypt stacks into one really quite large stack and go for Mycenae. Losing Kyoto and HE would be unfortunate but not a disaster; at this point I'd rather have Berlin than Kyoto.
 
Namliam you make me laugh man. You sound just like "Der Fuhrer". WE must do zis und dat und dat schnell. MACHT SCHNELL SCHWEINHUNDEN. Jawohl mein Fuhrer we don't want to get shot ja.

Ist gut wir sollen tun was sie fragen mein Fuhrer. Ist das gut?

General Rommel reporting. OH god there is again ranting and raving. It is difficult to convince him of the tactical situation from various points of views.

Ok seriously and I am not blaming here only that the turn during NamliaM "Der Fuhrer" reign is when we had huge losses which tactically really hurt us. Also loosing somewhat up against HC and others during the four front war which fortunately only lasted 1 turn to a three front and eventually two front and down to one. Had we not been so lucky with the Bismarck we would have lost the entire stack and all the wounded soldiers as well. He would have then started taking cities back from us. (OK who cares right)

If I recall we were supposed to stop at "Sams" and then rule the world. It didn't quite work that way and we see that we are up against superior (tech) forces. Maybe we waited too long but hey what's done is done that's why I am not blaming Namliam in anyway for the losses as it was a risk worth taking at the time. It would have been better to hit him hard right there and then. I would have loved to take him out but the forces were just not up to the job and we should have held our forces on safe ground and wait for Bismarck to attack us and let him depleat his forces. We knew what he had from start since we have view of what he has. Again a poor tactical move since we were well aware of what we were in store for.

We have made a further error but not taking him on now although I agree with Bob and we all feel it is a uncertain of trying again and having huge losses like before. As long as we have a counter for the cavalry we will be alright.

I don't like the naval situation but we will have to cope and dance around them. It will be hard they too can travel further than frigates.

Re the slow burn yep right. Binary or nothing and let us at least utilize the GS's in one city for lightbulbing. I think Bob has the right idea.

As to the landing on Hokkaido let's not worry about it and if it happens it happens and we will have to cope. My personal experience with MG's attack wise and they are very tough to take out. Lots of losses.

You're also right about us out producing him as obviously with our size we should be able to do that. I say too we strike the Bismarck now unless as a team we feel we might suffer a setback and would like to consider combustion for destroyers and MG's. (is the one that allows MG's don't recall or is RR)

Pardon moi mein grammer just a little tired. I think that we are all on the same page and that the Bismarck must be taken on soon. (NOW JA SCHNELL)
Even if it hurts. HC is still a tough nut and hard on our forces. Good luck Bob and looking forward to your turn.

PS: NamliaM just teasing you dude in the name of fun. I am enjoying your "how shall I say" strong approach. I admire a person who isn't scared to take risks and use an unorthodox method of doing things.

I just got Warlords (thanks to nice player who sent it to me as a gift) and now that's a game made for warmongers. You got to get it if you like the warmongering NamliaM as last time I remember you saying you didn't have it.
The promotion system is wild and I love the Great General. Been playing the Berserkers. The Viking have a navigation bonus "trading posts" which allow your ships to travel much further than normal.
 
Back
Top Bottom