SGOTM 03 - Team One

[hamfist]

Remember Alexander is aggressive so any maces he brings with us are going to chew our maces up as they will have 1/2 additional promotions, espesially if they had shock. I would therefore immediatly whip a crossbowman in St Pete, as they are the best counters to maces/crossbows.

Alex doesn't have the required techs for maces. Those will be swords and cats at the most. I will whip a crossbowan, though. Should I attack with caravels? I've always found naval combat to be horribly broken.

I would actually stay at war with Mao, he is no threat to us

We already have a +1 War Weariness with Mao, and I suspect that should be climbing again shortly. That is a threat to our economy and production greater than any particular unit he can build at the moment. Since we have no particular need for his crappy cities, I still think we should get peace.

Alex has very few cities, I think that whatever is in those galleys will present the only threat. Our maces can take his cities once the stack is healed and we get a couple more cats there.

 

[TDK]

Good progress! Alexander attacking us is really good news. I'm at work so I can't look at the game.

I would make peace with Mao.

I would bring in cheap allies against Alex.

I would trade for engineering for cash and nice trebuchets, they are much better at attacking cities than maces and much better at bombarding than catapults.

I would not rush an X-bow in Pete, as far as I remember Alex didn't have many troops in his port city(what is it called?), what are the current troop level?

We need to decide if we are to continue the university plan or revert to troop building, it's pretty much either or. I vote for continue with universities, Alex can wait a few more turns.

Mdy, as to the 25% artist, a national epic doesn't warrant that at all(doesn't it only make out one artist ggp/turn?). My comment about an engineer in Moscow was that if we have a spare, we could use it for HE(UN need only one in a really big city, like Athens?).

TDK

 

[mboza]

Mdy, as to the 25% artist, a national epic doesn't warrant that at all(doesn't it only make out one artist ggp/turn?).
TDK

IIRC, the percentages are based on the number of sources of ppg, so the national epic is 1, the engineer is 1, th GL is 1, and the scientists might just count as one between them, or maybe two. So GS is 2/4 or 3/5.

 

[amh52]

The ships must have come from Athens. The troops and ships in Argos have not changed recently. Also it looks like Alex knows CS and Machinery and he could have Macemen. He doesn't seem to have horses though.

If Alex pillages our iron it is bad but it is not too bad as we still have one source of copper. I am more worried about StPete. How likely is it that he will attack directly from the sea? I have never seen it but can we assume that he won't do it?

Whipping a X-Bow would cost us 3 pop, a Longbow 2 pop. I would only do it if we think he could attack the city from the sea. Otherwise we should be ok. Depending on what he lands I would nevertheless like to build a few more defensive units.

 

[hamfist]

I will regrab the save and play 6 more turns.

 

[TDK]

If we want to revolt to free religion we should do so while Beijing and Nanjing are still in resistance(to minimize our production/commerce losses). I would vote for this.

[Edit:] I don't see a mention of Yaroslavl', what do you intend to do with it? Have you whipped it for the lighthouse? Or changed it to the university? Our plan with the Oxford only makes sense if we get 6 universities at the same time. The reason I feel we should hold on to the Oxford plan is that this will grant us room to manouver if this end up in large scale conquest or space race.


TDK

 

[TDK]

I looked at the game, I would just move the maces into st. Petersburg, move a warrior north from Moscow that can upgrade next turn in Pete if necessary and move the cat into Moscow, I would not whip anything. If he lands very strong units, we can always whip next turn in Pete and we will have an extra defender in his turn.
I would move all ships to the vicinity of Pete-Moscow.

I see we are running a scientist in Yaroslavl' and we shouldn't. We are also working several seatiles without a lighthouse there(we even have a courthouse losing one hammer/turn in the qeue. I've been advocating whipping the lighthouse for a long time, can we please do it, or can someone tell me why we are not?

TDK

 

[hamfist]

Finished my turnset:

Turn 5:
HC, Cyrus, JC give us over 700 gold for... 1 World Map
Mao gives us peace for some decent cash.
Upgrade All I can to Maces. A waste, I'm sure but will be proved right later on.
Whip Crossbow in StP. We are working 2 farms and 1 unimproved forest, so hammer cost is 1 hyammer per turn til growth.

Turn 6
HC asks us to accept Hereditary Rule. I agree. He is pleased.
Alex unloads 2 War Elephants and 2 maces on top of our iron.
Our 3 carvels sink 2 triremes and 1 galley.
great General Born in Novgorod.
Drop 2 maces at Argos.

Turn 7:
Lose our Iron
Lose 1 mace at Argos, Longbow not even scratched. 2nd mace at .4

Turn 8:
Can no longer build Spearman?????
Saladin asks for Buddhism: OK. Buddhists are now Pleased/Friendly.
Mace at Argos killed. Second wave on the way as Argos is only defended by 1 sword.

Turn 9:
Smack down most of Alexander the landing party at poor odds.
Whip the lighthouse (thanks for the heads up TDK)

Turn 10:
finally realize that it's not a bug that causes no copper, but a trade agreement with Kublai Khan. That is cancelled.
Finish destroying the landing party.

Alex is poorly defended and the tide of war has turned against him. Our main stack should be healthy next turn and can walk on his territory. Our Iron is being rebuilt. We managed to make a lot of neighbours happy. We will need to switch back to Representation and Free Religion in a few more turns.

We may want to trade the copper to Kublai Khan again once the Iron is built.

Library is built in StP. next person can decide whether we need more military or build the University there.

 

[TDK]

Also it looks like Alex knows CS and Machinery and he could have Macemen.

I'm curious, how do you know this?

IIRC, the percentages are based on the number of sources of ppg, so the national epic is 1, the engineer is 1, th GL is 1, and the scientists might just count as one between them, or maybe two. So GS is 2/4 or 3/5.

Interesting Mboza, I didn't know that. It's weird they would calculate it like this.

TDK

 

[mdy]

I agree that we should switch back to free religion/representation as soon as possible.I would also complete the university in St Petesburg, Rostov will have finished it`s university next turn and can begin pumping out military units. The library in Bejing should be whipped immediatly-it is starving.

Our military situation looks O.K. We should be able to take Argos in two turns, after that we will have to build up a stronger force to take Athens. We sem to have enough maces so we mainly need new catapults/trebuchets. We can get trebuchets by giving Kublai Kahn paper and philosophy in exchange for engineering and 140 gold.

We need to decide what to do with our great general. Forming a super unit seems like a waste in the current circumstances. A military academy will probably allow us to build more units than would be gained by a 2 exp point bonus, so I would build a military academy in St Pete with him.

Also it looks like Alex knows CS and Machinery and he could have Macemen.

I'm curious, how do you know this?

If you go to the foreign advisor and click on Technologies, and then click on Alexander the advisor will show you all the techs you could give him if you could contact him. Paper and Optics were on this list, so he must know CS and Machinery,

 

[hamfist]

Oops, didn't notice Beijing was starving. Good spot on the Kublai Khan Engineering thing. That must have opened up after we switched to Buddhism.

 

[TDK]

Mdy, thanks for the info, didn't know that.

Theres no reason to starve our people in Beijing, we can simply work some of Shanghais tiles and whip library/university when we have at least some hammers in it.

Yaroslavl' still has a scientist assigned, why I have no idea. Lets whip the courthouse and start the university ASAP.

Did Shanghai work the corn and whip a workboat, if so where is the work boat?

I suggested we switch to free religion, that would have saved us the buddhism detour at least. Should we do that? Having revolutions all the time is really slowing down our game.

Let's not pillage Alex's work boats, we need them.

I think we should try to renegotiate some of our safe ressource deals, they seem a little cheap. Selling copper to Kublai might not be safe anymore as we might pick up negative modifiers with our friends.

Let's replace our mine in Rostov with a windmill.

I would use the great general on a drill instructor in st. Pete. I'm also ok with a military academy.

TDK

 

[mdy]

Let's replace our mine in Rostov with a windmill.

Why? Rostov is our 2nd production city, and this will reduce it`s hammer output.

 

[TDK]

mdy, we lose 2 hammers but we gain 1 food and 1 commerce. As the city is now, it will never grow to work all our cottages while working the mine so we might as well lose the mine. When we hit Electricity a windmill will get +1 commerce and Rep.Parts will give us +1 hammer. We need to grow this city so I would also suggest a lighthouse after the university completes.

When Aztecs and Germans were at war the first time, we talked about brokering a peace deal, did we do that? Is this then the 2nd war? Did Monte convert to christianity after declaring on Germany?
I would be interested in looking at the turn log for the last session.

Also, after we sink Alex's fleet in port, should we send a caravel to meet the americans?

We can get trebuchets by giving Kublai Kahn paper and philosophy in exchange for engineering and 140 gold.

I would do this, just hope we don't get negative modifiers.

TDK

 

[hamfist]

Mdy, thanks for the info, didn't know that.

Did Shanghai work the corn and whip a workboat, if so where is the work boat?

Shanghai did not grow, therefore no population to whip.

 

[amh52]

Ok, I've got the save. I'll try to play tomorrow. The major plan I assume is to continue on the universities and Oxford. I will also start moving against Alex and hopefully take Argos.

Have we agreed that the general should be used for an Academy in StPete?

Do we want to whip the wb in Shanghai as soon as we reach 2 pops? I will definitely whip Beijing as it is in starvation.

I will change to representation and free religion as soon as possible. Also I will try to renegotiate some deals. I will also look at trading paper+philosophy to Kublai Khan for Engineering and some gold.

Please let me know if you can think of anything else. Long term I am wondering how we could make Victoria our opponent. Any idea? She would be much easier to beat than Hatty. Or how can we make Hatty less popular?

 

[TDK]

Do we want to whip the wb in Shanghai as soon as we reach 2 pops? I will definitely whip Beijing as it is in starvation.

I just wrote above that Beijing can simply work some of Shanghais tiles, hence no reson to whip from scratch.

Shanghai did not grow, therefore no population to whip.

I kind of suspected that, what I want to know is why? I suggested several times that Shanghai work the corn outside of Beijing. At the start of your turnset it could have grown in 4 turns, and now 10 turns later it didn't.

Do you have the game log?

I must say that this game bears all the scars of sloppy playing or lack of interest. Sometimes I wonder if people are bothering to read the forums, or is it me that is unintelligible?

I'm very close to simply quitting this team as I feel that very few of us are really interested in playing it.

TDK

 

[mdy]

Long term I am wondering how we could make Victoria our opponent. Any idea? She would be much easier to beat than Hatty. Or how can we make Hatty less popular?

Unless Victoria builds the UN it will be difficult to make her our opponent. Both Huyna Capec and Rome look like they have bigger populations (and maybe 1 or 2 others). She may make a better victim once Alexander has been killed.

The only way to make Hattie less popular looks like getting her to adopt a different religon. She founded taoism so she may switch to this on her own accord. Unfortunatly none of our cities have taoism so we can`t speed the process along. If we built a confunican monastry in Rostov we could try converting her to confunicism. If we wanted to do this we would have to build the monastry immediatly as we won`t be able to after scientific method is discovered.

Egypt has an equal No of buddist and Taoist cities so an alternative would be to attack Egypt and conquer one of her Buddist cities, which should cause her to switch religions. Unfortunatly this would mean picking up several modifiers with her friends, though the advantages may outway the disadvantages in the long term.

 

[hamfist]

I'm very close to simply quitting this team as I feel that very few of us are really interested in playing it.

TDK

I don't think it is lack of interest, but in my case it can probably be chalked up to lack of experience in SG games. I certainly don't sense a lack of interest on my part or that of mdy, amh52, and mboza. We haven't heard much from Astrum in the last little while, so perhaps he has lost interest??

As best as I can tell, living with the decisions of your teammates is part of the SG format, even if you don't always agree. For example, I still disagree completely with our lack of a specialist economy, but the team made a decision there and I am proceeding within that framework. Others make mistakes that you may not make, and perhaps you make mistakes that others would not. That's a part of the game in an SG format as best as I can tell.

I make mistakes, and accept criticism as given. Please do not doubt that I am trying my best. I doubt that others are giving anything less than their best as well. We all appreciate your input, insight, and play. Don't bow out...

As to our current result, I ask that you filter the SGOTM results in the Warlords group. You will see that we are behind Peanut in Score, but ahead of everyone else. We are often our worst critics, but it seems we are doing fairly well. I make no pretensions of being able to beat as skilled a group as Peanut.

 

[TDK]

Sorry about that, I just got a little frustrated.

Maybe we can all post more detailed plans for our upcoming turnsets to avoid these kinds of things? I hope the team will consent to this and I will certainly do this.

I make no pretensions of being able to beat as skilled a group as Peanut.

Last time we got to within 6 turns of doing exactly that, let's beat them this time!

TDK