SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

namliaM · Jan 2, 2007

With Triremes upgrading to Caravels it is verry much worth it IMHO to upgrade say 3 (1 due West and 2 on Alex' borders) of them to Caravels from the money we can gather up selling some techs... This does however delay the war 1 turn, cause if you upgrade, you cannot move the unit...

I dont know how much 1 upgrade is, typicaly its ~100 gold... and I think there is some 1500 gold out there... so we can upgrade them and still have enough to go 100% for 20 more turns (not counting war booty

)

GreyFox · Jan 2, 2007

Can one upgrade when there is 1/2 movement point? If so, one way to do so is to move the trireme one north and one south, then upgrade. That way, we still block Alex's passage (albeit without the 10% coastal defense, but 3 is better than 2.2).

NamliaM, is there some tech that we should not get (in consideration to GS lightbulbing) while trading?

--

bobrath · Jan 2, 2007

IIRC you can only upgrade in your own cultural borders, so keep that in mind.

Also, with all that tech trading to make the money... will we be giving up any advantages to future targets? Just want to be cautious.

dot · Jan 2, 2007

To get this straight.

I won't be able to play before the next weekend and even that I can't guarantee.
:sad:

>> Real Life Kickin My Butt Like :mad:

.

So if you want to grab it Cosmic, grab it!

On Blocking the triremes ...

In Post 354 earlier in this thread there is a screeny where you can see, that Alex has at least on city further down south. Is he able to send triremes up thru JC's territory? - Just asking. :rolleyes:

Even more interesting: Remember SGOTM1, where we used the state of war to move our galleys over ocean tiles that have been under control by the enemies culture? --- IIRC, then

--- If not, then :blush:

.

X marks the spot, Gentlemen.
Not just two galleys or triremes. We're talking about four to six - at least, imho.

With kind regards, from Germany, .

namliaM · Jan 2, 2007

The dot man is right... I did a quick worldbuilder test and it clearly shows you can cross ocean tiles on enemy culture....

There goes another brainheared idea of mine

Cosmichail · Jan 2, 2007

That's funny I could have played yesterday but today can't play so it will have to be tomorrow sometime if that's ok. Ok enough analysis about the boats and let's go knocks some heads.

GreyFox · Jan 2, 2007

namliaM said:
I did a quick worldbuilder test and it clearly shows you can cross ocean tiles on enemy culture....

Huh??? Did warlords, patch 2.08, or HoF Mod changes things? I remember in SGOTM01 we were agonizing over HC being ale to send his troops to our side, and we can't because of cultural border. Same thing with SGOTM02 where kyoto's culture allow us to go to the outer ring, but non of the AI can reach kyoto. I am pretty sure you can't use enemy's cultural border to enter non-coastal tiles pre-warlords.

Even if Warlords indeed changes this, it makes no differences. All it means is we don't block. What we need to do is upgrade the triremes to caravels. If alex dare send ships over, we sink them. Simple. Our caravels are going to get 4 movements points next turn, so they can catch anything.

dot said:
In Post 354 earlier in this thread there is a screeny where you can see, that Alex has at least on city further down south. Is he able to send triremes up thru JC's territory?

In a recent post, I have already mentioned: by the time the trireme reaches our border, they would be inconsequential.

I seriously don't see any compelling reason to delay the war declaration any further (at most by 1 turn for tech trade and caravel upgrades).

--

namliaM · Jan 3, 2007

GreyFox said:
Huh??? Did warlords, patch 2.08, or HoF Mod changes things? I remember in SGOTM01 we were agonizing over HC being ale to send his troops to our side, and we can't because of cultural border. Same thing with SGOTM02 where kyoto's culture allow us to go to the outer ring, but non of the AI can reach kyoto. I am pretty sure you can't use enemy's cultural border to enter non-coastal tiles pre-warlords.

I am pretty sure too... but the worldbuilder test is pretty clear... I will make a new one and post a screeny

Should have done so to start with...

The one problem we do have is that we need to be able to sink 4 ships at the same time to make sure they dont "hack" our nets.

I agree with Greyfox that anything coming from that southern city is going to be very late arriving at MR, if at all...

Cosmichail · Jan 3, 2007

The war has begun before I even hit enter I declare war on Alex. Mao doesnt react well and goes to annoyed. The idea about blocking was great but after looking at it we need to block three tiles to keep his ships in. Since we only have two triremes at the location and I did not want to risk needed galleys Alex still got his navy out. The tile in question was the one immediately north of Argos. Heres where the other trireme ended up. Also the suggestion to upgrade to caravels was great but can somebody tell me with what? We are out of moola guys and had to turn off science for a few turns to get some cash for upgrades. I also upgraded an axe outside of St. Petes. NO we werent ready for war but hey doing it on the fly suits me fine.

He stayed there until I got caravels and sank him to the bottom of the ocean.

Once again Alex shows tenacity and even upgrading the triremes to caravels doesnt help me get his entire navy sank and he manages to get four swords on our land. Again we are ill equipped to deal with invasions and had to whip up a couple of maces. The usual sea resources pillaging took place not at Moscow where I had most of my attention focused but at St. Petersburg. In addition our small stack should have had a pike in it before proceeding but I felt that Greyfoxs input about going to war should happen. I felt pressured to do so but honestly we could have saved a mace by having him there to go. Of course once we move onto Argo an elephant attacks and we loose a mace. I am not a fan of leaving the promotions until the last minute. WHY? They fair better in battle with a promotion than without.

After our caravels heal a bit we finish off the two galleys that brought the swords. We also finish off a trireme that was harassing St. Petersburg and the other near Novogrod.
Unfortunately the swords pillage the iron and mine but we do finish them off and they are no longer a nuisance.

We get this request from Vicky and decline:

We get this request from HC and decline too.

Heres a look at Beijing and how heavily defended it is: LOL

Both Cyrus and KK ask us to cancel deals with MM but decline simply because we have a trade with him. KK is annoyed so who cares and Cyrus stayed pleased.

Although I was looking for this early, really didnt find it until later in the game:

It did make a big difference in getting the ships to attack quickly and decisively.
PS: Did I mention we pretty much wiped out Alexs fleet.

Also these guys wives will be bringing flowers once a week.

Decline on the war and I dont see how getting into a war with India is a good idea. NAY Julius.

KK also makes another request. (God this AI is really annoying with the requests)
I give in as I forget that hes KK now and not Qin. Thinking he was China I gave him COL to shut him up.

Our land is now clear of the insurgence.

I am trying to get to the war on Greece by all these requests are keeping from that. I was looking for the picture on that but the picture didnt take (probably pressed the wrong button) but we do take Argos which imo is a pretty useless city. I leave our four maces and four cats in Argos until we can move out. It is some time before I move as I wanted to see what was in Athens and see that it is lightly defended. At least it was but when the troops got there (now 6 maces/1 pike/6 cats) but we see that Alex is reinforcing the city with elephants. We loose the pike and move the troops to the hill just outside Athens. This does help but the elephants do take out a mace again. (there are now three elephants in Athens)

We get a GG in Moscow and decide that for now hes best merged as we need the XP for the troops so that they can fight better and will need it for Mao.

We also receive two requests from Gandhi and he wants to trade Drama for Machinery and say no of course. He makes another request and asks us to stop dealing with JC and I say no because we dont need him on the war path either. Id rather go after Gandhi than take on JC who might have Praets.

Louis makes this threat and oblige to and he goes to cautious.

Monty asks us to go to war with Hatty. Yeah right shes a friend so no thanks Monty.

Pleasant news we now have a neighbor on our land mass.

Hatty asks us to cancel deals with Monty and I oblige.

Now Gandhi asks us to go to war with JC. With what may I ask Gandhi. Our entire army is Greek lands and they have enough on their hands right now trust me.

Getting real tired of the requests and just wish these guys would go away and let us deal with our war.

We lightbulb PP as suggested by Greyfox. I let it get researched until the GM gets it down to one turn. (I started on Education so the GS will lightbulb Astro next)

We do manage to get all the pillaged resources back to working again and St. Petes kept those two scientist the whole time. It does help having good land food and added a farm for the eventuality. I still think we are shy of a few workers but right now I would rather see military get built. Especially maces/trebs. Moscow will give the added XP so CR2 trebs are invincible right now so maybe we should build a lot of those in Moscow and built some maces in the other military city. We should build a few pikes just in case Alex or Mao have any more elephants.

Although I should get my head checked I stay at Athens on the hill and hope and pray I dont get attacked but just to give you an idea of what he got in there now:

PART 2 to follow

Cosmichail · Jan 3, 2007

PART 2

Heres something that I thoroughly enjoyed. Lets say elephants probably dont swim that well.

Now Mao asks us to cancel deals with India but I decline. He stays cautious now. (mmm maybe I mistook KK for Mao again and thought he was annoyed oh well)

The battle rages on for Athens but notice too that India makes peace with Rome. Mmmm why does the AI try to get you into war and then shortly thereafter makes peace.

We do take Athens finally (I take an extra turn to finish it as it took two turns to take the city as there was a lone catapult and injured lbm left.) Our troops are pretty wounded and need to get into the city for healing. We did loose a few cats and have there now five maces/one treb/one pike and a treb on the way. I am not comfortable moving thru Maos lands as he may decide to close borders at any time and think we should shuttle to Sparta after that. We need some time for building more troops and our small army needs to heal. I would like to get Feudalism so that we can defend our cities better and keep the offensive units on the march.

We do have some trades we could make but leave that the to the team. Did sell a couple of techs to Freddy but thats it since I felt we our techs were too important to sell right now. We should try to find out where Alex is getting ivory from and hopefully by taking Athens that trade is broken since that is mostly likely what he was trading it for or maybe iron since he had two. Either way those resources (clams, iron) are capped now and he might not be able to build them anymore.

Here are thes trade that were available but did not do them. They can be initiated on the next turn if so desired since I checked on the very last turn. I also checked quite regularly with AIs to see what they had but it aint so sweet anymore.

autolog

Spoiler :

Und der save:

The save

PART 3 for CFC autolog to follow

Cosmichail · Jan 3, 2007

Spoiler :

bobrath · Jan 3, 2007

Great Stuff Cosmic - always good to see the AIs smacked back down.

The gold for the initial wave of upgrades was probably thought to have come from any tech for gold trades we might make (or selling our map since we now have the bonus locked up).

It all works out tho as we've removed a major chunk of Alex's economy and brought it under our purvey.

I never know what to do with GGs, so thanks for making a decision! I just haven't figured those fellas out.

Oh btw, I leave promotions until I'm one turn out from combat - not after the fact. Sorry if that was unclear. Nothing worse then losing a promotion eligible unit!

Cosmichail · Jan 3, 2007

Actually I was one turn from combat but the elephant came the south and was unexpected. Personally I like raider promotion for mace and a few combat maces for protection. Some people like the melee/archer promotions but I don't like them as they become useless later in the game.

I didn't think to sell the world map but we will need to do something to get our finances happening again as we can't run 100% research anymore.

I was contemplating leaving for the team to decide on the GG. At some point in my mind I felt that we need XP points and would do much better with CR2 trebs than CR1. The other thing I like to do and we should think about it when we get the next one is the super medic. Although considering our prodution dilemma on this map probably better to put a Military academy in Moscow. That would give us maces every 2 turns and trebs every 3. Since we are on Education we will be able to build the MA soon.

We will definitely need reinforcements for the next city. Sparta?

The battle for Athens was bloody and luck was on our side as if Alex had countered attacked another time with the elephants we likely would have lost all our maces. That is why the next turned I attacked and lost so many cats to make sure that at least we keep our maces. After that he had only a lone cat/injured lbm and was easy to take. Hopefully taking that galley out coming from Sparta stopped him from sending reinforcements. We could NOT take a counter attack at either city right now.

Cosmichail · Jan 3, 2007

I dont know how much 1 upgrade is, typicaly its ~100 gold... and I think there is some 1500 gold out there... so we can upgrade them and still have enough to go 100% for 20 more turns (not counting war booty )

Could you please show me where this 1500 gold is. I checked every AI and even read Greyfox's turn about the same thing and there isn't anything to sell except important techs that I feel we should keep until they are out. I don't see where this 1500 gold would be unless we sell all our techs including monopolies.

I have been under the "weather" so to speak with a bit of a flu bug so I if I missed something could you please point it out. And blocking Alex would not have even worked with upgrades.

The upgrade is cheap I think even less than 100 like 95 but don't quote me.

I also looked at your turn too namliaM and looked at the trade screen there too and many of those trade aren't available anymore. Much of the AI has CS now and Mao has Machinery as I noticed his UU.

GreyFox · Jan 3, 2007

Good job, cosmic ... hmmm .... Alex seems to be better prepared than I thought. However, you handled it quite well, excellently played.

I think namliam is refering to trading techs for some of the early religious tech + gold. If most AI has CS, then there is no harm trading it away, right?

We don't need actaully to block. We do need a lot more ships to effective kill enemy troops even before they land, however.

I have yet to looked at the save ... but anybody thinking of taking peace right now, or should we go hunt down Athens?

Rsoter
-- namliaM
-- bobrath
-- GreyFox
-- Cosmichail == Kicked Alex in the nuts
-- Robo / dot == UP

bobrath · Jan 4, 2007

[Not having looked at the save]

IF an invasion of Athens is not going to happen in say the next 5 turns (not turnsets), and our real goal is Mao... Then perhaps peace would allow us to reinforce the two new cities we've captured and plan out the real war we want.

IF on the other hand we can nab Athens and totally drop Alex as a power (perhaps getting a vassal...) then lets do it. I personally think there are too many other powers out there and since taking on a vassal is an automatic -1 with everyone else, well its not a real optimal solution. So death or nothing (imho of course)

namliaM · Jan 4, 2007

GreyFox said:
Good job, cosmic

I think namliam is refering to trading techs for some of the early religious tech + gold. If most AI has CS, then there is no harm trading it away, right?

I have yet to looked at the save ... but anybody thinking of taking peace right now, or should we go hunt down Athens?

Yes well played Cosmic !
Alex does have more sting than I had anticipated as well...

Well the first head is starting to role, lets keep at it and make sure he is dead before making peace... Tho Greyfox.... Did you notice this screeny in cosmic's report??

Grefox is right tho... about the cash. Alex had some 200 gold which he happily would have payed a chunck of gold for our (soon to be useless to him) map as would numerous AI. Also selling an obsoleet tech like CS for some cash cannot be bad... IIRC there was 1 AI tho I forget which that had like 400g laying around for us to pick up.

I wouldnt trade with Vicky if it can be helped... Last time I checked she was AI leader, no sence in helping the leader.. right?
But I am sure there are some nice trades available....
We either want to avoid Meditation or Pick up meditation in trade and get Philosophy as well... otherwise the GS will burn away Philo.

xPost with Bob: Generaly once you get the AI down two cities his back is broken.... I say push on atleast for the cities on this Island..... Fighting them Chuck's of Mao's is going to be hard...

GreyFox · Jan 4, 2007

Geez ... I was about to comment on the same thing on bob's post .... I MEAN SPARTA! :crazyeye:

dot · Jan 4, 2007

Nice gameplay, Cosmic!

My report would be up on sunday the latest. So if Robo wants to grab it before the weekend ... go ahead. Else, I'd be able to play tomorrow or on Saturday. This is NOT a 'Got it'.

Regards, .

namliaM · Jan 5, 2007

Had a look at the save and have a couple of ideas... or suggestions... or *uhm* :whipped:

suggestions

and all offcourse IMHO.

Why do we have 2 workers on the gems that will be useless to us but for maybe trading them?? I would rather improve i.e. Cottage Ville than the (possible) GPT Gain from the trade)

I looked at cities in particular not the warfront...

Yaroslavl, needs to be whipped, it is working 3 coastal tiles and has more important things to do than get 6 commerce.
For 3 pop we can whip a Treb (~25 overflow) or a Mace (~40 overflow)
Or for 4 pop we can whip the Forge (no overflow but long term gain)

Rostov, it too is working coastals... Whip it
I would whip the hindu temple because
1) The production it allready has is decaying (I think)
2) The overflow from that whip will (allmost) finish the Library allready in production
3) More culture to pressure on Niani.
Also I would work the (new) cottage there in favour of working the coast.

Cottage ville, This is working coastal tiles without having even a lighthouse. Whip it !
Whip the library and start a lighthouse and/or Harbor and whip those 2 ASAP too.

Novgorod, It is most efficient to whip Novgorod every now and then rather than work that unmined hill. Suggest whipping a Treb for 3 pop there.

St. Petes, why is it building a catapult? It doesnt even have a Barracks??
Let it finish the Cata (to much production allready in to lose that) St. Petes needs some infra! Market/Forge/Temple some sort like that.

Moscow really could use a harbor for (atleast) +4 commerce

and it just takes 3 turns to build IIRC.

Argos also is working coastal tiles without a lighthouse. Whip that lighthouse ASAP!

Athens is going to have quite some unhappy citizens and not enough food to sustain it!. WHIP WHIP WHIP Lib/Market (Forge IIRC survived our capture) all are needed there. Dont hesitate to whip them from 0 hammers if need be! I would rather lose pop to the whip than to starvation.

We have our first GS in 5 turns from now out of St. Petes.
~26 turns from now we have our seccond, from Yaroslavl.
Do we want to burn the first GS on Education ?? IIRC we have 3300 or so beakers left to research on Education, a GS will add about 2600...
I dont think many if any cities are up for building universities yet...
Or we can save the GS for the Astro => Sci Meth combo burn... (need 3 total) to get physics for free.
Or we can burn one on Education, research Gunpowder and burn one on Chemistry, picking up steel as free tech.

750 / 12 = 63 turns to the next GS from St. Petes, that is if moscow doesnt generate a GMerchant or GEngineer.
And if we dont add an Engineer or something to St Petes.
750 / 18 = 42 turns.

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Deity

Make it so ...

Emperor

crossing the i's

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Emperor

Deity

Make it so ...

crossing the i's

Deity

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