SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Cosmichail · Jan 9, 2007

Else, the liberalism > Astro chase is the single most worthwhile slingshot in the entire game. Sometimes, to get some military techs faster, you need non-military tech support. Writing is one of them. Liberalism is another.

Totally agree Greyfox and it's a real bonus to catch it first and get astro that way. I forgot for the moment it takes a couple of GS's for Astro. So take the meditation, lightbulb Philo, and research liberalism and get astro. Just having the galleons will make a big difference.
(also the trade too of course but I don't think it makes much of difference on this map)

Took a look at the save:

Our army is hanging out in the jungle injured and they will have to traverse non defensive terrain to get to our target. I don't like that. There isn't enough there imo and we need more before we can move. I think going for Beijing first is wise since that is where Mao has two ivory. Obviously trading it to Alex for iron since Mao doesn't have that. Alex may have a second source of iron in the south in Mycanae. (whatever but there is iron there too and not sure if it hooked up or not since we haven't seen a recent view of it lately)

Ergo better to take a peace deal with Alex as he may still have phants. I don't like the travel to Beijing at all and we should cut across through jungle/forest to hill and then proceed south. That will give us some defense from attacking forces and some time to get into position. Personally I am not used to such a small military and feel we need two more pikes two more maces and add the horse archers. They are only useful against treb/cats if you read their description so how good are they against CKN???? Throw an archer in the stack too so when they are on a hill they have better defense. I WOULD NOT proceed with that small force until we have built it up somewhat. Maybe get someone else in on the war too to keep Mao busy. Gandhi????

I don't think we need a stable in Yaroslav. We need units!!!!!!!!!!!
More maces/trebs/ and one more pike. Plus why not throw a chariot in there too in the event an axe comes into play. If you can throw the kitchen sink in it too so the soldiers can eat and attack at the same time.

Courthouse in cottageville a will need us 2gpt. All those hammers being used for 2 gpt when we need units. Did I say we need units.

Moscow should build some more maces/trebs as guess what we need more units.

The next GG should build an military academy in Moscow not be attached. Our production sucks big time and you want to have a super healer when we can increase military production by 50%. So a mace every 2 turns and with HE every turn. (me thinks just ball parking right now)

The next GG after that should be used for Novogrod for a military academy. That would pay off a lot more than a super healer and we can get one of our units (pike??) to level 2 eventually and it will suffice.

TOO much whipping is why our score dropped. I don't mind this but wish we had more military to show for it. We just have a few more crossbows and less caravels??

Our super army as of now hunkering down in the jungle like a pack of girlscouts:

3 maces/1 pike/1 crossbow/2 cats/three trebs.....

What we should have to proceed to Beijing and feel that must be our next target to get rid of those annoying elephants so then we have the extra happy and go annoy someone else with OUR elephants.

6 maces/2-3 pikes/2 crossbows/2 cats/three trebs (and the HA/one chariot)

Support force on Greek lands: 2 pikes/2 crossbows should be sufficient.

Mao has quite a few cities south of Beijing and I am sure once we take it will experience a good counter attack. We need to be prepared for that.

Break a leg namliaM and keep those forces on defensive terrain as much as possible on the way to Beijing. Trebs are great but they have to get there to do their job.

EDIT: Mao does have his own source of iron in Chengdu. So what Alex is giving him for the ivory is still a question???

Cosmichail · Jan 9, 2007

Looked at the save again and see that our army will receive a pike and treb. Our galley is sitting there unprotected?? Get that HA over there too but we need attackers. At least 3 more maces. I see no point in going for Shanghai and then Beijing. Are forces are too small and will be spread too thin so we need to go for Beijing immediately. It has Chichen Itza too which will help our defenses by 25%.

Economic question

walls/castles anyone??

Here is the suggested path to Beijing since it appears that Shanghai is the target but I think we should go for Beijing first and get rid of those phants. We can take Shanghai after that.

We might be alright to proceed to the hill on the same path as outlined. It could be that it won't have the cross river penalty. So rather attack from non defensive terrain, once arrived at the jungle hill proceed immediately south and still receive protection from the cross river penalty if the AI attacks from the city. That's only good if there is no cross river penalty at the hill southwest of Beijing. If everybody is in agreement that we should focus on the main target of Beijing then we should drop our forces closer to the intended path. I realize we have a few of Mao's troops to deal with but once we get the other pike treb there we should be alright. The HA is accompanied by a treb so they should be taken out asap since the treb may threaten Argos. Mao will likely go for the iron to pillage it so then hopefully the pike is healed enough to take him out. The other pike will need to take out the HA and the HA take out the treb. We can get troops from Moscow to Argos in one turn just park the galley in the city and push the unload button and he is in the city ready to fight.

We can do this but we need attackers too. Three maces will not be enough to take Beijing. Maybe reinforce Athens with a crossbow and get that mace join the army.

GreyFox · Jan 9, 2007

The reason why I say HA is the best available counter is because it is the only non-melee unit that is strong enough to take on the crossbows ... come ot think of it, crossbow itself is the counter to crossbow :crazyeye:

Let's just hope that Mao is brought into this war by Alex (cos this means he may not be ready for war).

I think we need to quickly take Beijing and then wall in to wait for reinforcement.

--

Cosmichail · Jan 9, 2007

I just looked again and noticed too that Beijing has the HE in it. This in my mind makes it more of a priorty to stop the flow of troops. His cities in the south aren't that good production wise so I don't he has much but we need a bigger force to deal with Beijing because of protective trait and the tendency of the AI to stack the capitol. Once we take Beijing we can build elephants and use them on Shanghai. A lot of those cities in the south aren't worth keeping and that silly holy city is on tundra but would be nice if the shrine is there.

namliaM · Jan 10, 2007

Log said:
Turn 238 (1070 AD)
Maceman defeats (0.80/8): Chinese Chariot

WTH? A maceman nearly defeated by a Chariot??

I would have given monty the stone I think....

A GS will give us ~2600 beakers into any tech he burns on => More like 3/4 of Astronomy instead of 1/3 Greyfox...
One needs Philo for researching Liberalism? Heck I sure missed that one ... :mad:

IIRC we currently havent got a single beaker into Astronomy => Lib Astronomy is possible...

On Yaro (without looking at the save) I think I agree with Cosmic... We need units more than buildings and have no real need for HA's, maybe when Knights come around. XBows are good enough defenders against Chucks... (LOL Greyfox, yes they are and dont need Stables too...)

Cottage ville carries its abt name for a reason. It has near no hammers at all so building units there will bring us a catapult every 15 or so turns + we first need a barracks there. Wont do us much good. Also we need some sort of Navy. Cottage ville can build infra (i.e. Courthouse/University) and Boats, contibuting on the navy part of our military.

GG for Moscow, are you sure? Do we want to turn our capitol into a unit machine? I would think we add this one to Novgorod and the next to Yaroslavl which should get Workshops all round => Better production than anywhere IIRC.

Why take that looooong way around to Bejing Cosmic? We are still attacking from flat ground vs Beijing... Just go straight for it.... we will be out in the open anyway. The Elephant tile will NOT get the cross the river defence bonus if the AI is attacking the same way we are going to Beijing...

We can sure use some castles, but.... Who said we needed units? Which I agree we do

.

Cosmic said:
Beijing has the HE in it.

WTH? From what war did he get the XP to get the HE? This definatly gets Beijing to #1 on the hitlist, capturing beijing will:
1) Get a nice counter attack going (AI dont like you taking their cities)
2) Get us the Mids
3) Will most likely get us Ivory, but becuase of culture from Sparta will also "give" ivory to Alex

Good input cosmic

, is this my got it Dot? Or do you want to take this for another spin?

GreyFox · Jan 10, 2007

Yes one need Philo for Lib ... which is what makes a Philo slingshot attractive, apart from founding Taoism and enabling Pacifism early (which helps a SE strategy).

Oh, a scientists can give 2600? So much? I thought it scales with the size of pop, and with our whipping, I imagine the beakers yield from a lightbulb is only ~1500 :crazyeye:

The formula still remains, however, that if the remaining beakers in Astro after lightbulb is not significantly less than the beakers for Liberalism, going Liberalism > Astro is better.

Right, I spoke before thinking deeper abt HA :blush:

... I was thinking "WTH do we need HA for?" when I read that Dot is recommending we build HA ... then I thought "maybe it's for the CKN".

Now, i think crossbow is the answer. Thus, apart from navy, we need some crosses + some trebs + some pikes.

In summary, this is my recommendation for next player (which is namliaM):

- sign peace with Alex
- lightbulb philo
- build more trebs, pikes, crossbows
- take Beijing and wall in
- may consider adopting a religion and revolting to Pacifism

Good luck.

Cosmichail · Jan 10, 2007

Why take that looooong way around to Bejing Cosmic? We are still attacking from flat ground vs Beijing... Just go straight for it.... we will be out in the open anyway. The Elephant tile will NOT get the cross the river defence bonus if the AI is attacking the same way we are going to Beijing...

Well maybe not. There is a hill outside Beijing for our troops to attack from and I don't think there is a cross river penalty. In addition we have too few troops to risk going out in the open and getting hit by multiple elephants which we can expect him having the HE. If you look at my pic you will see that route only leaves you out in the open on one tile and when we proceed south will be protected by cross river penalty. "Remember SGOTM02 where we lost a bunch of troops because we were out in the open" Is is not better to take the safe path considering our poor production and how much it takes to build them. Our military actually got smaller since my turn. We can't afford to take big hits and take chances on traversing out in the open more than we have to. The position of the current troops are situated for Shanghai. We should be dropping just west of Argos and moving from there. Let's not take unnecessary risk as if we are out in the open and get hit by 3 ot 4 elephants it's game over.

The Elephant tile will NOT get the cross the river defence bonus if the AI is attacking

Just stay west of it as I further elaborated in my post. (it's not a bonus btw but a penalty) and if someone knows for sure but I think that hill will not have the penalty as it's at the mouth of the river. I don't have a good feeling about traversing around with our little compliment unless we know better what is coming from the south. Perhaps get a caravel to see what the deal is before we proceed. AI tends to reinforce a city big time once it's under attack especially the capitol. If he's reinforcing by boat then we need to stop them. Our army is too small to deal with any extra reinforcements.

In addition those troops are wounded and have to take out the elephant/HA/and treb before they go after Argos. Who knows what follows so keep on the safe ground for now.

It is how I would proceed even if it cost a few more turns. We might be able to see what is in Beijing when we get to that jungle hill northwest of it.

Concur with Greyfox's outline. PS I hate HA's they suck big time and never use them.

GreyFox · Jan 10, 2007

The hill east of beijing would most definitely have cross river penalty. It is at the start of the river where you won't have the penalty, not the at the mouth.

In this case, namliaM is right, we don't have to the roundabout way. What we do need to do is to get ourselves more pikes.

Cosmichail · Jan 10, 2007

You're right as I just tried it out in worldbuilder. It does not mean we should just go through terrain with no defensive bonuses. We need to know what is there so that we don't risk our army. It's all we got and if we get slaughtered out in the field by a lot of elephants which is possible considering the HE is there we're basically screwed. We must take care with what little we have and if we go wrecklessly into unchartered territory we might find ourselves with a major setback.

Imagine if he attacks with 3 elephant/and some those CKN's whilst we are out in the open. There is a roundabout way to get there with at least coverage two tiles before we get there. Then our troops can see what they are up against and even let them attack whilst we are on a hill that is two tiles away rather than get slaughtered out in the open. I've seen it happen so often where everything is fine and once we get there he's shuttled the majority of his troops.

(exactly what happen with Alex everything seemed fine but when we got there elephants (3) showed up from Sparta.)

Good luck but to be safe this is what we need:

at least 6 maces
2 crossbow preferably 3
3 pikes for sure one of them already medic
we have 2 cats and three trebs and a pike/treb in the galley ready to be brought over.

We should be dropping our troops near Argos to move on to Beijing and WHY would we even consider Shanghai when we are getting attacked by elephants and the source is in Beijing????

Scout scout it out first we can't risk this since it took a lot to build.

So far we aren't looking so good with wounded troops there and an elephant/HA/treb and he's just declared. There's always more to follow and we should not presume that's not the case. We were lucky to take Athens and to be honest I would not venture with such a inadequate military in my SP games. (once we get it up to snuff yeah but as it is not much good)

I am sensing Deja vous here from SGOTM02, where we lost a bunch of troops to cavalry that were stuck out in the open without even knowing what was ahead of us. No commander goes into the battlefield unless he knows somewhat is ahead. Unless he is sure of his superiority and at this point we are just scratching to get by. Play it carefully and take Beijing and the reward is huge, play it stupid without scouting, moving wrecklessly and we'll have to start again.

I swear that I have used a hill like that before and didn't get river cross penalty but I tried it in worldbuilder and we will get that penalty apparently.

Here's what I would go out with:

8 maces 2 combat rest CR
3 pikes/3 crossbows
2 cats/4 trebs

Now that's an army and if we had gone for Shanghai how do you propose we could ever gotten out to Beijing to take it. I hope you understand the gravity of playing this right Eric since you are up. One booboo and that's it. I was very close with the Athens battle and prayed to RNG god that he wouldn't counter a second time with the phants and he didn't. I really don't like playing like that and insist that we take care and make sure we have a proper army.

namliaM · Jan 10, 2007

GreyFox said:
Oh, a scientists can give 2600? So much? I thought it scales with the size of pop, and with our whipping, I imagine the beakers yield from a lightbulb is only ~1500 The formula still remains, however, that if the remaining beakers in Astro after lightbulb is not significantly less than the beakers for Liberalism, going Liberalism > Astro is better.

Yes it scales, but.... I read someplace on the forum
GS: 3*500 + 3 * pop
Other: 2*500 + 2 * pop
thus 1500 beeing the base this is then times 1.5 cause its epic = 2250 + pop.
In a worldbuilder test, 20 pop was about 2600 IIRC. We should have 20 pop easy.

I am thinking pick up meditation from peace and philo on a trade.

Right Got it then... Tho I find myself mostly overprepared when going to war... but I will see where we are, when I get at the save....

Thanks all for the input

namliaM · Jan 10, 2007

I have started my set and this is what is going on...
Cottage ville can use a harbor as that will bring (atleast 4gpt vs 2 of the courthouse) also Why are there 2 workers on the Jungle next to Novgorod when Cottage Ville hasnt got a single cottage yet? This is rectified.
Moscow is stagnant, why? we can use the pop for the whip atleast! Set it back to grow again.

I make nice with Alex, but he doesnt get off quite as cheap... after renegotiating and retrying a few times... he is willing to part with drama for dropping his maps and some gold....

To compensate for the loss of Mediation I turn to Fredrick who is friendly enough to give us Meditation in return for our friendship...

Mao is kind enough to move his WE to the Iron, where it gets picked off by our Pikeman but only barely

The HA + Cata Move of towards Athens... And Long Live the HOF mod, check out those GPT! ! !

So I check out the AI deals and come up with a whole lot...... of options...
We can sell our stone (we have 2) to
~~Qin~~ KK or HC for 7 gpt, Monty for 6 and Gandhi for 5.
Monty and KK are pretty far away and Gandhi is a friend, right? HC is pretty close but not likely a target untill later.

I smoke one on Tokugowa... He has 4 gpt to deal with,but canceling his Gems appearently is costly as he drops back to only 4 gpt available instead of the 5 we were allready getting from him + 4 he had. So I redeal with 4 gpt

Is it worth it to sell one Iron to Gandhi (if he is a friend) for 5 gpt???

My brain couldnt handle all this information after a long day at work. So I had to go and arrange the screenshots and see what was/is available.
I like getting Feudalism from Fredrick or from HC (I didnt think to check beaker value, but I think the deal with Fredrick is better cause Fredrick is further behind in techs.).
I dont like selling Printing Press to either Gandhi or Victoria. Victoria is tech lead and Gandhi is Buddy buddy with her, thus will probably trade it to her....
So that leaves the deal with Mansa for Philo and Music.

But is it worth breaking our PP monopoly? We could chance waiting one turn and see what we can get for Education (which Victoria allready has). This does help them on the Liberalism race... Touch choice...

But since I had to go collect them screenies it now got to late for me to continue after HALF a turn... I will have to continue tomorrow.

frankcor · Jan 10, 2007

namliaM said:
I find myself mostly overprepared when going to war...

That's because you like to win.

Your comment rings true for me. I am trying to go war sooner in my games without overwhelming force and reinforcements in the pipeline. I keep trying to remember that if I'm not losing cities every game, I need to move up a level.

GreyFox · Jan 10, 2007

The first Freddie trade is definitely a :nono:

, HC one can be considered, the last Freddie trade seems the best. We definitely should not give Vicky PP, since she is our closest competitor for Liberalism.

If Vicky already completes Edu and has Philo, I think we would lose on the Liberalism chase. So, keep the scientist around to lightbulb us Astro.

I don't mind selling Gandhi the iron, or stone. We could always cancel 10 turns later and reap 50gold out of the useless extra iron.

Cosmichail · Jan 11, 2007

So that leaves the deal with Mansa for Philo and Music

Don't be surprised when you give him PP and Vicky's got it in no time. MM is a tech whore plain and simple and is why I didn't hardly make any trades since the techs we had to trade were too valuable. I do think the cat is definitely out of the bag on CS and we should trade it sell asap except for the AGG with machinery of course. I noticed in one of the logs a lot of AI's went to bureau so definitely a lot of them have it.

Your comment being overprepared as mentioned by Frankcor I hope means a strong military and not what we have on our shores right now. Mao's protective trait and elephants may prove to be a challenge. I got the impression some thought Alex was going to be easy. Never underestimate your enemy right? Let's say a lot of horseshoes were being tossed during that campaign if I may call it that.

namliaM · Jan 11, 2007

I have played my set and uploaded the save for your enjoyment if you want to look at it.

The save

Spoiler Upload log :

I will post a full and true log of my set tomorrow...

GreyFox · Jan 11, 2007

seems like a fabulous turnset, namliaM! Curious abt the tech learnt though ... awaiting your full report.

bobrath · Jan 11, 2007

Waiting for report, thoughts, and discussion before picking up and running with it.

(lots o learning and capturing going on tho, great to see!)

Cosmichail · Jan 12, 2007

Got Beijing and going for Shanghai, discovered astro too and philo/med/education. Good work namliaM excellent turnset. Are we trying for liberalism still?

Looking forward to the report and see that we are definitely making progress. Representation?? Athens/St. Petes good for SE economy and hopefully Beijing too.

EDIT: Just looked at the save and like we are doing good. Only 2 turns to liberalism and 2 turns to another GS like what timing. Looks like we will get the liberalism free tech and get us closer to Mass Media which is now only 5 techs away or Sci Meth - Physics - Electricity - Radio - Mass Media. A lot of those cities in the south suck except maybe grabbing the holy city.

I notice too Alex is already hooking up the ivory and maybe once we get enough out of Mao we deal with him again too as that Sparta is a nice city too. Love the signs too no way we can mess up now. LOL.....

We now in second place and poor Americans what a terrible start. Our diplo isn't bad either with about 5 civs pleased and 3 or 4 cautious. You certainly have the midas touch there namliaM. BTW that's an army we have now. I like it!!!!!!!!!!

Scowler · Jan 12, 2007

I'm back-ish and just about ready to rejoin, if that is okay with everybody. Just give me a couple more days to catch up on what's been happening in the game while I've been gone.

So maybe consider me officially back in pocket from Monday?

Greetings to all!

namliaM · Jan 12, 2007

Hey scowlor welcome back, sure join in... no probs here.... I am just about to give you some more to read

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Deity

Emperor

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Make it so ...

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Mr. Understatement

Deity

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