SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Scowler · Feb 5, 2007

Flashback? Causality-loop? Big Bang? Was that a turn report or a lost episode of Star Trek!?

Well, after that picturesque temporal anomaly we are back to the present. The current turnset began with the GGeneral being used as advised to build the military academy in Yaroslavl. Then it was simply a matter of getting into position to attack Mao:

The war declaration coincided with our latest GS being born at St Pete. Macau was not surprisingly taken very easily [NB: it might be worth considering gifting this city...]; Chengdu took a while longer as Mao whipped the population ruthlessly to increase the garrison.

Meanwhile, Gandhi offered us this deal...

...which reminded me that it was time to spend one of the GEs on Rock N Roll:

Unfortunately, it somehow slipped my mind to actually make use of this wonder - next player, please see about putting these hit singles to good use!

The following turn, Gandhi also offered Communism in exchange for Artillery, and I decided to accept - after haggling a bit:

By this time I felt ready to tackle Monty as well so I declared war and landed two stacks of units on his home island. Izzy was willing to join so I brought her in too...

The next turn was quite eventful, but had an unpromising start:

I politely declined and persuaded her to accept the following instead:

I don't know whether we will have the opportunity to arrange a PA with her, but it is at least worth trying now that we have Communism.

At long last Mao has bitten the dust...

...and he was followed immediately afterwards by the city of Texcoco:

Monty has cavalry, but they had all scuttled off somewhere else to hide. And that is how things stand at the moment, with a nice stack sitting in our new city waiting to be transported to the next target.

By the way, I didn't accept this deal, but the next player might want to consider it. Mansa is Furious with Toku, and if we can get some Mutual Struggle points and lift him up to Pleased we might even get his vote once the UN is built.

Speaking of the UN, I haven't started it yet; Eiffel still has a few turns to go in Moscow. As for research, I set up Railroad -> Combustion.

SAVE

Scowler · Feb 5, 2007

...and the logs:

Spoiler CFC log :

Spoiler autolog :

GreyFox · Feb 5, 2007

Looks like an excellent progress! I'll stil suggest learning Fission (with have 2 scientists for that, so should be pretty fast).

So, you got us Rock&Roll and have Gandhi sell us his hit movies? These should be help immensely when the eiffel tower is up. :goodjob:

Hmm .... bobrath says consider this his skip ... so that means the roster will be:

- Cosmichail == UP
- Bobrath == On Deck
- GreyFox
- Scowler

-

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

You were reading my mind. I can play later today as (phew) weekend over. We stuck in a deep freeze now like
-30celcius last night. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Actually dangerous to go outside when it's that cold.

Have to read that "Sirian doctrine" (geek alert LOL) and then wipe Monty out. Yes let's get Fission with those scientists no sense in letting them sit around smoking cigarettes.

So will play later on today and likely post too.

bobrath · Feb 5, 2007

Yup, that's the correct order now.

Great stuff to both of you, glad to see we can wipe out two civilizations in two turnsets... Wonder if Cosmic can make it 3 for 3 ... hee hee.

Looking at Scowler's dip screen, I spy a few DPs out there, not 100% on this, but looks like Louis has DPs with Saladin and Kublai Khan. That will make our next wave of destruction a bit tougher.

I do want to mention that each time we wipe out a "most hated", we need to check the relations screen again to reset our "do not trade with" list. Someone's always going to be the most hated and we need to be careful of that.

I'd definitely gift Macau to Cyrus. That city does nothing for us (IMO) and only adds to hurting our economy that much more. Did either of you start the Forbidden Palace? I know that coming up soon we'll have Monty's Versailles, but the FP will be a big help as well.

From the screen shot of Texoco, I didn't notice any Grens... where have our little bomb throwing fellas gotten off to? (not that CR3 Artillery is anything to sniff at!) One other war with Monty note, do we have a little bit of a Navy off our *Western* coast in case Monty tries to bring the war to our home continent?

Once again, top play by both.

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

Ok checked the save and a few things:

Military front is looking good.

As mentioned we should gift Macau to Cyrus yes? and Vilcabamba is of no use to us so gift that to Vicky.

The scientist will only lightbulb computers not fission. Each scientist gives 3356 beakers so a total of 6712 beakers of some 14000. Since that is our UB and each city that builds Research institute gets two free scientists we should go that route. Once we finish railroads we could proceed with that and finish computers in about 7 turns.

After that we should consider combustion and get us some destroyers and transports.

As to our winning goal of diplomacy I take it that Moscow will start the UN after Eiffel Tower is done (5 turns).

Will play a bit and check later on before starting UN since there might be suggestions or ideas on how to approach.

Also just wondering why we are building some grens in cities that have no production. (like 61 turns to build). Was it the intention to whip these here or as I always find with cities with no production don't know what to build.

bobrath · Feb 5, 2007

Sounds good Cosmic on all ideas/comments.

One question to the team: Is there anything we can do to prep for the space race victory in case the diplomacy doesn't work out? If we have cities that have nothing left to "do", then does it make sense to get some of our research muscle moving on space race techs? We can always use them for war bribes if we need to break up DPs and other problems. To that end, I think light bulbing half of computers is a great idea - esp since it gets us to our powerful UB.

Yes, lets still try for the dip win asap - but I hate relying on the "whims" of the AIs to give us this win quickly.

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

Just played 3 turns and have some bad news. Monty counter attacked with what seemed like 20 cavs and basically wiped out most of our contingency. I pulled out the remaining troops into galleons (they were so injured and serve no purpose to die).

The sad part is that we it also wiped out most of Monty's cavs except for about five or six outside the city. There is no way our wounded troops can stand up to it so we have to retreat let the city be taken and try again. Part of the problem too is that I shuttled a few troops to the other city since it was weakly defended and should have left them in the city. I don't think it would have made much of a difference since I shuttled them back next turn but the onslaught was quite extensive. We really should keep a couple CD2 rifles in our stack to deal with counterattacks better.

We also need to build defenders for the cities holding offensive units. I am starting rifles in Yaroslav to help better with cavs and defend the cities better. NOT likely I can do this in my turn (wipe out Monty that is) and the spread nature of our empire is making it difficult to get troops to the battlefield fast. WE NEED AIRPORTS......

Thanks for the input Bob and will start computers after railroad. I like railroad for the production boost which we get things a going. May I suggest after computers, definitely flight. Three or four airports can move the units a lot faster to the battlefield.

GreyFox · Feb 5, 2007

too bad abt Monty .... we should regroup and try again.

If our troop movement is painfully slow, then perhaps it is time to increase our fleet compliments (at least before we get airports, which are very expensive, up). Although the infinite transport relay is a thing of the past, we can still do a relay of one galleon transfer per turn. That will double the ferry speed if we place galleons strategically. Also, we cannot rely on Yarsolavl for troop prod only. We should start trooops in HC's cities as well. No matter if there is no barracks or stables ... better have the number than to have small but experience troops.

The scientists was going to learn fission in my previous turnset ... the learning of something (Radio, perhaps?) must have changed that.

Good luck Cosmic. Just remember that the war with monty is primarily to gain brownie points with war allies, so may need to be content with pillaging the sea resources for the time being while we build up our military for both defenses and offenses.

I hope JC will join in ... he has been having enough on his hands for quite some time now and still no action from him!

--

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

Well just finished playing and we are back in the offensive with Monty. Have retaken Texcoco (pardon moi the spelling). We have enough troops (about to arrive too) to do some real damage to Monty now. His huge stack of cavs have been wasted on his first/second waves of attacks.

When I went to take Texcoco again he had jags in there. :eek:

Took it amphibiously with arties. We have two machine gunners in there now so no way he can get anywhere with that city. Will post my report shortly after some lunch and friends.

We also can build the UN in one turn now. Have invested 300 hammers into it and GE will finish the remaining 1200 hammers. I didn't go ahead and wanted team input if we want to build it right now and see what happens. Isabella is near friendly with us so I think we have a good voting base now.

bobrath · Feb 5, 2007

I don't see any reason we wouldn't want to build the UN right away. This is a competition after all and doing it faster then anyone else can't happen if we put off building it. Right?

I can't think of any negatives to building the UN unless we're going to try bumping Tok (if he's still the population leader) from the top by gifting all sorts of cities to someone else. We will need to carefully consider which resolution(s) if any that we attempt to pass to make sure it doesn't affect our relations with the blue block and it doesn't hurt our own economy/abilities.

Something like "no nukes" is a good safe one - unless someone has a reason we'd ever want to use them this game... Other thoughts?

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

1670

Seeing that we have some movement left on our troops in Texcoco we shuttle a few over to a city that is weakly defended thinking maybe Monty is weak and easy prey. Do leave quite a few troops behind and perhaps taking this risk might have caused us to loose the ability to hold the city.

During the same turn make this deal with Julius.

Since the physics is out and we need cash decided to go ahead with this deal.

1673

Do notice now Monty has two large stacks of cavs/trebs and a couple of muskets approaching. Just by the stacks alone I definitely thought we could hold out against them. The only problem is the cavs move fast and are coming from the south as well to attack on the same turn.

(forgot to take pictures of Montys troops but I wasnt overly worried about it since they didnt look like there was enough to hurt us.)

Washington makes a request for open borders and decline for now since Washington isnt overly liked by JC whom we are trying to keep pleased for votes.

1676

Many cavs attack Texcoco and it is apparent we arent going to hold it and after loosing a few good men I decide that it is better to withdraw and put them on galleons to heal. One Cossack got stuck behind and had to be sacrificed. The troop shuttling is going better and pull what troops we have to the battlefront from China/Greece and Inca.

1679

We loose Texcoco as expected and the troops move closer to Inca to add some troops and heal.

Mansa Musa makes this request and I was tempted to say yes but felt it was something that we shouldnt give away just yet. We could have gotten him to pleased (maybe) by this gesture but other developments follow that would make that unlikely.

I thought I had taken a picture of another request by Mansa Musa. He asked us to cancel deals with Toku which I felt wasn't good being on the offensive with Monty since Toku is a friend I believe. I was hoping to avoid a sneak attack by Toku by staying on good terms.

As already suggested by Greyfox (great minds think alike hee hee) we are also building military in cities in China/Greece and Inca. It will help the flow of troops much better and basically moving troops from Russia to Greece and shuttling from Greece to Inca and then shuttling from Inca to Aztecs.

1682

Not much happened during this time and mostly getting troops to the battlefront.

1685

This is a happy year for the Russian citizens. We build the Eiffel Tower.

This will definitely put pressure culture wise and keep our citizens content.

We start the build on the UN and the GE will only build part of it. (most of it) but nonetheless let it invest a few hammers first before using GE in the event we feel we arent ready for the UN vote.

1688

The lovely Isabella makes this request of us and of course we accommodate her. (she is only 1 point from being friendly)

Feeling generous we gift Isabella some bananas. (hopefully shell know what to do with them)
My logic here is her vote is ours and if she can grow better for us.

We also discover how to build railroads which will give us a nice production boost and not to mention the machine gunners. Since we cant get corporation for a while and deprive ourselves of infantry we should at least have something that will provide good defense. Mansa Musa does have Assembly Line and in the town Niani there is an infantry garrisoned there.

Use both scientists to lightbulb 3356 beakers each for computers. The outstanding beakers will take about 7 turns to finish.

1691

Saladin makes this requests and decline too (since Gandhi doesnt like him much nor Toku)

Looks like he dropped some candies and is trying to pick them up. LOL

After getting our arses kicked at Texcoco we now finally have brought enough of a force to take it back although looking at his city defenses one wonders what happened. He did waste a bunch of cavs on his first attacks but now its defended by Jags. WOW

Did you notice Tokus troops?

This concerns me enough to offer him a gift which I thought might bring him to pleased.

Not what I had in mind after all but I didnt really want him to declare on us. When I see troops from him on Montys land I wonder if we might be up against the vassal crap. Meaning when we hit Monty hard he vassals up to Toku and voila we are at war with Toku too. Just speculation at this point and no need to adjust our strategy. We DO border with Toku and knowing his ability to build a huge amount of obsolete troops (knights) he could cause us some grief. The reason why I wonder too is he is now cautious due to war declaration on Monty. Toku does have a large population and is likely to be the contender at the UN.

Great idea to gift to Macau to Cyrus. That city is no good we dont want it already.

Only problem is this:

We try this too and she dont want Vilcabamba so looks like we are doing the bamba on our own. Freakin AI oh sure we plan gift this and gift that but then we piss off the guy we want to gift it to, so much for that plan and shes no dummy doesnt want it. Although Vilcabamba really isnt that bad of a city??

We also make this trade with Hatty. She also offered corporation but took that out to keep the benefits of TGL.

1694

We start the attack on Texcoco amphibiously since hes only got Jags in there. We use three arties and take Texcoco back. I dont know what happened but he had more troops stationed there so maybe Vicky or Isabella caused him to move his troops.

Have been also watching Vicky every turn to see if PA is available since we are now fighting side by side for a while now. It remains redded out during the entire turn.

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

1697

Kublai Khan request this deal but of course decline.

Heres the current diplomatic situation and DPs are popping up more now.

Hatty/Mansa are both in a DP with Saladin.

Toku/Kublai are in a DP too.

Toku again is a concern since he has DPd with Kublai which could well lead into a PA. I dont think we have the pop yet as last time I looked we were 3rd in population. I did notice that not all cities are maximizing food (well production being a problem thats understandable) but maybe have food rich cities work food and get the pop up. The stats I recall no 1 pop has 18 million whereas we have 12 million. We do have the following votes I believe:

1. Vicky (hoping shell PA with us) mutual struggle for a bit now
2. Isabella
3. Julius Caesar
4. Hatshephut
5. Gandhi

If we go after Kublai or Toku then we face both unless we get one into war which shouldnt be too hard considering we are way more advanced than Toku.

1700

Montys other city Tlatelolco is only defended by one musket. We shuttle troops there and should be able to take it maybe even amphibiously with artie before he reinforces the city. (usually just after you land the troops although there is plenty there so shouldnt be a problem)

There are also four galleons of troops heading towards Montys lands. Two galleons/frigate are there next turn and two galleons will be there in two turns.

I have been shuttling as outlined earlier in the report but only this time the two galleons are on the way to Montys lands but those two were shuttling between Greece and Inca.

Maybe I am being just paranoid but I did check to see what Toku was up and it appears he just dont like us enough.

JC does not like Gandhi much so we are getting negatives with him for trading with Gandhi. I bet that hes going to declare someday on Gandhi since that is the one he calls his bitter enemy.

He still got enough on his hands which does seem rather long.

The good autolog for the critics of the SG.

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

And the less desirable log (part one)

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Feb 5, 2007

And the less desirable log (part two)

Spoiler :

SAVE

GreyFox · Feb 5, 2007

Looking good. We should build the UN asap, I see no reasons no to be built t. And I see no reason why (if we are selected Sec) we should not go straight for Dipo Win unless there is some civic we want to use then a UN resolution will give us a free change of civic without anarchy.

The DPs are a *****. It will lock out KK. But we still can declare on Loius and perhaps American.

I thought we should be 1st in pop ... because the victory screen show the closest rival (toku) has only 10% pop, whereas we have much more than Toku. I cannot fathom who can have a larger pop than us, since we have assimilated 3 different Civs into the Soviet Union.

Vilcambamya is nearest to Freddie, he will love to accept it. It is Macau that we want to give to Cyrus.

I have not looked at the save yet, so maybe more observations / suggestions will come after I do that. But excellent play from both scowler and cosmic.

Bobrath is UP.

bobrath · Feb 5, 2007

I'll wait for observations and thoughts and will play by this time tomorrow.

GreyFox · Feb 6, 2007

Long Term (Diplo) Observations:

I didn't see any defensive pact between Sally, Hatty, Mansa. The only 2 DPs I see are Washy+Sally, and Louis+KK. This pretty much kills off our next war target ... leaving us only Cyrus and Freddie

Nobody is in Free Religion except us. If we can force Free Religion via UN, it will remove some of the animosity between our potential friends and reduce some of the affection our friends have towards our enemies.

If we are pretty sure we are the biggest civ in pop (strange: according to victory screen we hold 18.55% pop, whereas Toku got 11%, but according to the demographics, we are a distant 2nd, 14 millions against someone's 21 million), we could always build the UN in a city and gift it to someone whom all our friends do not like (eg Cyrus, Freddie). But I think Toku is pretty okay as the rival (so no need to gift city wth UN)

Short Term (Military) Observations:

We have zero ships in the east coast of chinese land. There is a pair of aztec ships there. The nets will be gone. I recommend rectifying this situation.

We have 9 galleons but 7 of which are in Texcoco? Should move one of them to between Inca and Greece. This will set up an effective galleon relay. We need more shps. Airports are superb but they are really centuries away.

Short Term (City Management) Observations:

Some workers are idling in the cities ... it may be better to have them idle at a mine or lumbermill so that they can immediately start railroading when it comes in. It is easier to spot them also than in the city.

Some cities' pop distributions beg reconsideration. For example:
- Macchu Picchu should fire the scientist and work on a town or farm.
- Tiwanaku and Olantaytambo should fire their specialists and work on fully grown towns or farms.
- Athens should fire 2 scientists to grow as well.
- Shanghai should fire his engineer.
- Nanjing should change artists to priest (it is our next GP bornplace, so don't fire the specialist).
- Guangzhou should fire the 2 artists as well.

FP should ideally be built in Macchu Picchu, but it does not have enough hammers. Suggest converting some farms to workshops there. There is way too many farms. But careful which farm you convert, we don't want to break irrigation chain.

In fact, most of HC's land is littered with farms and ungrown hamlets which IMO some are better converted to workshops.

Don't read this as criticism of your play, cosmic. They are not meant as that. I know it is extremely tedious to think of the war and still govern the cities in a micro-manager's way, which is why I am doing it for the next player, so that he can spend his initial turn making some civil changes and concentrate on the war throughout the remaining turnsets.

-

Cosmichail · Feb 6, 2007

Don't read this as criticism of your play, cosmic.

Didn't take it that way and am glad you are putting the effort into making sure we do it right. I also noticed these things (specialist) and wondered since they all were there when I started my turn. I don't think there is any idle workers except for one I forgot where the heck he was and hopefully that is the one you are referring to. There simply wasn't anything to do until railroads. I did place workers in mainland/colonies on mines to start railroading once it was discovered.

As to the ships I too was wanting to do something about those ships but aren't they caravels if I recall, so they can't pillage only deprive the city of using the resource if they sit on it.

The military ships need indeed to move back to Greece/Inca for troop deployment but they just got there in the second last turn to deploy. Monty is now totally weakened and should be easy to run over. By the time we take his lands we should see our pop get to no 1. I am too wondering who has 21 million now???

I was actually thinking the same thing about HC lands and felt we could some workshops there to boost production since there really isn't any. No wonder HC caved in so easy the AI doesn't focus on production but pop/commerce.

I feel we are very close to a win and agree we build the UN now and see what happens. The GE will finish it now so the next player should before even starting his turn use the GE and the UN will be done on his first turn. From there we will see who's the contender and strategize from there.

As to gifting Vilcabamba I get Germany/England mixed up.(both very similiar color and thought it was Vicky who was close)

Cyrus won't talk to us right now so Macau will have to wait until we improve relations with him.

Good luck Bob and there is lots of troops ready to fight on Monty's lands.

EDIT: My picture shows Hatty/Mansa in a DP with Saladin but that was taken two turns before end of turn. So maybe it changed????

2nd EDIT: Other thing is research. We have 3 turns left on computers which will give us Research Institute and I think we should go for combustion after that as Scowler already mentioned.

GreyFox · Feb 6, 2007

Hmm ... I am starting to feel that I may have looked at the wrong save

So bob, take a look and compare (eg see if our pop is 18.55&#37

and decide whether to throw my previous post into the sink.

But I think Monty's ships are caravel+trireme in Chinese's east coast.

--

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Mr. Understatement

Mr. Understatement

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Emperor

Make it so ...

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Similar threads