SGOTM 04 - Gypsy Kings

da_Vinci · May 1, 2007

I might play a few turns and load a mid-set save to discuss after chem comes in ... the issues of what trades to make may be critical ... who we decide to attack next has a lot to do with who we trade chemistry to.

I'd be tempted to trade chem to Brennus (even if we plan to attack him) if I get something good ... he may get it from someone else we trade it to anyway, so why lose out on a tech from him?

Especially if we can get something on the path to artillery ... seems the AI does not prioritize artillery (I had that advantage over them for a long while in GOTM 17).

So tonight I will play at least to chemistry, and upload ... unless we have more certainty before that.

dV

da_Vinci · May 2, 2007

Satan is buying a parka. Hell has frozen over. da_Vinci needs to skip this one.

Something has come up and I'll be full focused on that until after Monday, so I guess Jon gets this one (this save seems to be cursed for skips).

Last thoughts before the blackout: I don't fear trading chem to our future enemies if we get a tech on the way to artillery, or some other useful one. It took stopping hoarding military techs for me to start winning on Monarch.

Look at Brennus' west coast ... if weak, consider attacking before cannons.

If we don't attack Brennus before cannons, consider if logistically Hannibal should be next target.

I can be happy either way on those issues though.

dV

Ronnie1 · May 3, 2007

I think we should take a pause!
:band:

This is how the last week or so has gone!

da_Vinci - skipped by request
Jon Shaw - played April 24
Conquistador 63 - on holiday till further notice, returning around May 8-9.
g_storrow - skipped, then flipped back in, last to play, played April 28
Ronnie1 - played April 26
Immaculate -skipped by request, until May 10.

How do people feel about taking a break until Imac can play on May 10, then we should be able to maintain a more normal order with C63 returning soon. I think this will give everyone a small break and allow us to come back more focused with some better energy. I think we need to brainstorm and strategize about how to push Gandhi to the top. It could also give some of us time to play the new GOTM as Genghis Kahn!!

da_Vinci · May 3, 2007

I think a playing intermission is fine. But let's not take a posting intermission ... By May 10 maybe we can have input from all on the large strategic questions: Brennus or Hannibal, now or later.

And the tactical question ... who to trade with for what.

R1 ... why don't you play the three turns til we get chemistry, then upload? Scout Brennus if you can. The we can evaluate the trading options, and think about whom to attack at our leisure until May 10 :goodjob:

dV

g_storrow · May 4, 2007

Sounds a good idea. DV

Ronnie1 · May 4, 2007

I'll play those few turns later today!

Ronnie1 · May 4, 2007

I played the 4 turns to Chemistry, not very exciting! But Chemistry is very popular. As it is impossible to really test trading possibilties, we can only speculate. But I think we can get all there is to get without trading to Brennus. I have attached a few screens of Brennus'es west coast as I went by, and our foreign advisor screen as well.

The Autolog

Spoiler :

The Upload log

Spoiler :

da_Vinci · May 5, 2007

Thanks for the screens R1!

Final hard copy of Dissertation is due Monday, some unexpected last minute modifications are the recent rush. Going OK though.

Screens suggest that we could go after Brennus before cannons ... our CR3 grens should take his rifles with ease. I might even trade him chem ... AI doesn't seem to use grens that much, and we could soften any up with some trebs. The boost in tech for us might outweigh loss of military advantage, especially if someone else trades chem to Brennus anyway! Might as well be us getting a tech for it!

More to say monday night, when I get a look at the save.

dV

Immaculate · May 8, 2007

Just posting from my out-of-home computer...
The problem with Brennus getting Chemistry isn't the grenadiers, its the frigates which will easily eat up our galleons (so, we'll need our own frigates).
Having said that though, if we trade chemistry to most of the civs, there is no way we can avoid them turning around and trading it to Brennus. I think we should trade chemistry as widely as required to try and close the tech gap a little bit.

Ronnie1 · May 8, 2007

The problem with Brennus getting Chemistry isn't the grenadiers, its the frigates which will easily eat up our galleons (so, we'll need our own frigates).
Having said that though, if we trade chemistry to most of the civs, there is no way we can avoid them turning around and trading it to Brennus. I think we should trade chemistry as widely as required to try and close the tech gap a little bit.

Brennus is at war with Isabella and may not be able to trade with the Buddhist block. If I remember right, he is the sole possessor of his religion and we are his best trading possibility.

da_Vinci · May 8, 2007

Good point Immac about the frigates. Like you, I still think getting and extra tech for chemisty is the way to go. One exception to that idea ... if we think that giving chem to Izzy but not Bernnus gives her a big edge in their war, maybe that is worth doing to bring Brennus down.

Ronnie1 said:
Brennus is at war with Isabella and may not be able to trade with the Buddhist block. If I remember right, he is the sole possessor of his religion and we are his best trading possibility.

I'll look at the diplo screen tonight and see how the trading patterns look.

I turned in the final copy of the dissertation to the academic office at the grad school yesterday ... so that monkey is officially off my back! :goodjob:

dV

g_storrow · May 9, 2007

Are we thinking of attacking on that tip rather than the other way. I think it is closer but more likely to run into gandhi ships than going the longer way.
I think we trade with brennus. The only problem is there is not not enough techs to get in 1 turn so we need to trade 1 turn then look the other. I dont know who to trade with first though. Brennus as he has tech lead would be a good one.

Ronnie1 · May 9, 2007

Congrats dV!!

Are we thinking of attacking on that tip rather than the other way. I think it is closer but more likely to run into gandhi ships than going the longer way.
I think we trade with brennus. The only problem is there is not not enough techs to get in 1 turn so we need to trade 1 turn then look the other. I dont know who to trade with first though. Brennus as he has tech lead would be a good one.

@gs, We are thinking of attacking Brennus to our east, his western cities first. I would consider trading with him, but I was hoping we could trade Chemistry over a few turns to all of the other AI's first and only trade with Brennus as a last resort. We will take a Diplo hit with the other Buddhists if we trade with Brennus also.

We need CASH to upgrade all of our Berserkers. I think 179g/unit, a little over 3000G! And we still need more Galleons, and as Imac pointed out we need some Frigates for cover, probably need 2 pairs to start. 2 strong ones out of Nidaros would be nice to have. After steel, we can build a Drydock in Nidaros and start naval units with 10xp. That allows us Nav2 plus another upgrade. On the topic of upgrades, I think we should start our Galleons with Flanking, if we can get them to 5xp, we can get Nav2 because we start with Nav1, then we will be faster than the Frigates chasing us!

Immaculate · May 10, 2007

I am playing now. I'll try to do the best i can on trades and then have a look at the build-up of military to try and get us to Brennus's lands ASAP.

Immaculate · May 10, 2007

So the first thing I do is initiate a trade for Mehmed’s GPT. We give him spices for 10gpt.

Looking at the cities, most are building observatories (or other science/economy related builds). I really don’t understand why this is… We need a military and we need ships. We don’t need to improve the infrastrucuture of cities that we are leaving anyway. When Ghandi takes our cities, we (he) may well lose those observatories (and we will DEFINITELY lose our libraries). I thought we intended to move soon, so what is happening with that? In my opinion, this was a massive empire-wide waste (i know i could be more diplomatic about it, but thats my feelings).

I then start looking at the technical trade options:
I trade Chemistry to Washington for nationalism, 90 gold and his world map. This moves Brennus into WFYBTA (Mehmed was already there). We then trade with Hannibal for Education and 40gold and Isabella won’t trade Chemistry for Replaceable parts straight up anymore because we have traded chemistry around a bit, but she will trade it if we throw in 250gold. So that’s what I do. So we now have education, nationalism and replaceable parts. Next turn I find out that we are still down rifling, constitution, liberalism and economics with nothing to trade for them with those who will trade. We are WFYBTA with brennus and Mehmed who would otherwise love our chemistry. Chances are that Isabella will trade it to them before we can break the WFYBTA limits.

I am really not sure what to do with the observatory builds, so I will stop here and let us discuss that. I think they are wasted turns that could have been spent building catapults or galleons or berserkers, but before I cancel those builds, I want a consensus, so I will up-load the save and let people have a look at it.

EDIT: Is it worth shifting to mercantilism?

EDIT2: sorry if i sound a little harsh; but i guess discussions arise and if we disagree its best to come up with a plan/reasoning so we all follow...

Immaculate · May 10, 2007

Sorry to triple-post,

I reread the previous posts. And i guess we haven't really come to a consensus as to east or west to attack. I see arguments for both.

To me, the strongest arguments are that:

Hannibal:
1. easier to reinforce. this is the strongest argument for either case.
2. can perform a 'rolling' acquisition and 'gifting'. this is interesting and i hadn't considered this until it was mentioned, but we can gain territory and lose it by attacking west. This has some very interesting possibilities. We could shift into nationalism and as we head west whip and draft the cities to the best of our capabilities before leaving them undefended for Ghandi. If we did this though, we could even just leave our cities in Hannibal's land for Ghandi to take and let him grow at the expense of others while keeping our core- -our current cities (in which case, btw, it makes sense to keep observatories being built). Eventually we would withdraw from our core though.
3. smaller risk
Brennus:
1. Diplomatic- everyone hates Brennus
2. Space to Ghandi- we would leave Ghandi's sphere of influence
3. One-time Gift- i suppose we would give the core of our empire to Ghandi in one swoop and build a new empire across the ocean.

I was leaning towards Brennus but both arguments are strong and i could happily go either way.
But based on where and how we attack we have to determine if we want land troops with some navy (going west) or lots and lots of navy with a very fixed number of troops (going east). Andthe observatories...?

da_Vinci · May 10, 2007

My car ended up overnight in the shop for brake work, which meant I was on public transportation (never as good in US as in Europe) a couple of days that threw my schedule off.

How close are we to the observatories (won't get a look until later tonight)? If they can help us get to steel and cannons faster, that may be worthwhile. But if they don't get build until after steel, then may not be worth finishing.

I think that the Brennus vs Hannibal question may come down to how fast enemy frigates spread across the seas ... Hannibal can be reached almost with using ships as ferrys, rather than as long ocean voyages, so maybe that is preferable after all?

On the other hand, if Brennus is unlikely to trade with us, then perhaps he should be the target, as maybe we get a few more trade shots with Hannibal? And he is already occupied with Izzy, who had a few frigates on his west coast last time I saw the save.

Not a clear-cut choice by any means! :crazyeye:

dV

Ronnie1 · May 11, 2007

Looking at the cities, most are building observatories (or other science/economy related builds). I really don’t understand why this is… We need a military and we need ships. We don’t need to improve the infrastrucuture of cities that we are leaving anyway. When Ghandi takes our cities, we (he) may well lose those observatories (and we will DEFINITELY lose our libraries). I thought we intended to move soon, so what is happening with that? In my opinion, this was a massive empire-wide waste (i know i could be more diplomatic about it, but thats my feelings).

Since I was last up, I'll take the heat for this one, if there is indeed a fire.

This is how I was looking at it. We have a few cities that are fairly good producers and a huge stack of attackers waiting to be upgraded,19 Berserkers. We have a number of old well established cities that will someday belong to Gandhi. The more buildings those cities have before Gandhi takes them, the better the odds that more of them remain after he takes them. If you look at the Domestic Advisor and emphasize Commerce (See Screen Shot), the Observatories are being produced in our top commerce cities. Also, they can be poprushed and roll overflow into anything. This game has a science based victory condition, I still feel like we need to keep our tech rate up, even as we go to war. This will become harder to do as we give up our old core cities. So we can't neglect the newer cities, or they will be worthless to both us and Gandhi.

On the other hand, if Brennus is unlikely to trade with us, then perhaps he should be the target, as maybe we get a few more trade shots with Hannibal? And he is already occupied with Izzy, who had a few frigates on his west coast last time I saw the save.

This is the direction that I favor. It seems to make sense from the trade standpoint and from the standpoint of slowing down the tech leader. Brennus is bigger and more of a threat to all of the players on the map, plus as Imac stated he is hated by all the others, so if we get into trouble, we may be able to call in some reinforcements from that continent.
As for our tech path, I think we head straight for Artillery!!

EDIT2: sorry if i sound a little harsh; but i guess discussions arise and if we disagree its best to come up with a plan/reasoning so we all follow...

I don't think you're too harsh at all, just stating your opinion IMO. I would love to hear some strong opinions from the other GK's, that is what will make this a successful team. As the cliche says, 2 heads are better than 1, so it stands to reason that more GK opinions/discussions/arguments are better than less.

Those are my thoughts at the moment.
Carry on! :cool:

Immaculate · May 11, 2007

Okay, so perhaps a consensus would be to finish the observatories and then focus our cities on the military required to get Brennus/Hannibal cities.
In the meantime, grow our navy and research steel. Once steel is in, reduce our slider and upgrade our beserks and catapults/trebuchets and ship them over to brennus/hannibal.
Or do we want to skip the steel part and start earlier with our attack using cats/trebs (and just accept that we lose them as suicide units). We can always use Frigates for bombarding with this map...

da_Vinci · May 11, 2007

Sorry about limited useful input this week ...

We have a grant renewal due Monday at work that is eating more time than expected.

Seems like going for Brennus is emerging as the consensus?

On the wait for steel or go with trebs issue ... I continue to find very nice success with grens attacking Rifles full strength once the defenses are down. Dynamic Spirit posted in one of the G/WOTM spoilers that CR3 Grens are invincible ... I'd say that is about right until infantry and machine guns.

I think we may want to hit Brennus on a second front fast so he does not overpower Izzy. So see if that can be done ... I might even put research to 0for 3 to 5 turns to upgrade the best zerks and have a go at him. Maybe whip a few galleons and frigates as well. One sac treb or cat per city ought to do it. Then the gold from taking Brennus' cities fuels the further upgrades to grens.

If it does not look feasible, I am fine waiting for steel.

dV

SGOTM 04 - Gypsy Kings

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Prince

Deity

Deity

Gypsy Prince

unerring

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Prince

Deity

unerring

unerring

unerring

Gypsy Prince

Deity

unerring

Gypsy Prince

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