SGOTM 04 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

Trading notes
We walk a tight-rope between violating the WFYABTA threshold and trading for techs that G knows so he'll trade with GK. For now, I think we should grab any tech that G knows that GK doesn't. Example: Theology.

1. Mehmed knows too many players to trade Theology. Brennus would trade us Theology if he were cautious with us. We don't want Brennus to acquire Machinery>Engineering but we don't care about Compass and CS for now. We could gift him Compass to get him to cautious and then trade him CS for Theology. Then Gandhi would trade Theo to GK. Isabella wouldn't like us trading with Brennus, but we can spare the negmods with her.
2. GK will continue to trade with Gandhi if ONLY Hannibal meets him. We could play to isolate him at sites 1, 2, or 3, if we also built a city at site 4. Site 1 would give him no resources within his cultural boundaries. I'm not advocating this, because it may sidetrack us somewhat from conquering Brennus, but it's something to keep in mind.
   
   An alternative is to rapidly beat him down to just Otrar, where others might not find him for a long time anyway. When we give this land to Gandhi, everyone will find him through river connections and G's OBs. In this scenario, it behooves to take stone island asap, as BP suggested.
   
   EDIT:
3. For the time being, we don't want to trade techs to GK that Gandhi might be researching.

Comments?

 

[Big Pig]

Trading notes
We walk a tight-rope between violating the WFYABTA threshold and trading for techs that G knows so he'll trade with GK. For now, I think we should grab any tech that G knows that GK doesn't. Example: Theology. Sounds sensible. Should we also plan our research with that in mind?

1. Mehmed knows too many players to trade Theology. Brennus would trade us Theology if he were cautious with us. Are you sure? According to the MW Man, both Brennus and Mehmet have the same 40% value, so 2 others must know it
2. GK will continue to trade with Gandhi if ONLY Hannibal meets him. We could play to isolate him at sites 1, 2, or 3, if we also built a city at site 4. Site 1 would give him no resources within his cultural boundaries. I'm not advocating this, because it may sidetrack us somewhat from conquering Brennus, but it's something to keep in mind. If the city is his capital its culture will grow to reach the coast
   
   An alternative is to rapidly beat him down to just Otrar, where others might not find him for a long time anyway. When we give this land to Gandhi, everyone will find him through river connections and G's OBs. In this scenario, it behooves to take stone island asap, as BP suggested.
   
   EDIT:
3. For the time being, we don't want to trade techs to GK that Gandhi might be researching. Or techs that Gandhi can't research (as Gandhi won't be able to trade for them). Hang on tho' - so if we don't trade techs that G could be researching and don't trade techs that G couldn't be researching, then.....

Beating GK down to Otrar is the best bet. We probably want to put him to the sword as soon as he meets another civ tho' in case he decides to vassalize to them

 

[LowtherCastle]

Originally Posted by LowtherCastle
Trading notes
We walk a tight-rope between violating the WFYABTA threshold and trading for techs that G knows so he'll trade with GK. For now, I think we should grab any tech that G knows that GK doesn't. Example: Theology. Sounds sensible. Should we also plan our research with that in mind? Hard to know what's best. Right now I doubt we can outresearch Hannibal so we have to not let him become to militarily dominant, don't you think?

Mehmed knows too many players to trade Theology. Brennus would trade us Theology if he were cautious with us. Are you sure? According to the MW Man, both Brennus and Mehmet have the same 40% value, so 2 others must know it The catch is that Brennus knows fewer players, which could change at any time. The risk is that we boost Brennus' teching to much and have trouble beating him down. Or he could use Compass and CS to trade with others, maybe. But I think we could give it a shot.

GK will continue to trade with Gandhi if ONLY Hannibal meets him. We could play to isolate him at sites 1, 2, or 3, if we also built a city at site 4. Site 1 would give him no resources within his cultural boundaries. I'm not advocating this, because it may sidetrack us somewhat from conquering Brennus, but it's something to keep in mind. If the city is his capital its culture will grow to reach the coast

An alternative is to rapidly beat him down to just Otrar, where others might not find him for a long time anyway. When we give this land to Gandhi, everyone will find him through river connections and G's OBs. In this scenario, it behooves to take stone island asap, as BP suggested.

EDIT:
For the time being, we don't want to trade techs to GK that Gandhi might be researching. Or techs that Gandhi can't research (as Gandhi won't be able to trade for them). Hang on tho' - so if we don't trade techs that G could be researching and don't trade techs that G couldn't be researching, then..... Lol. Right. I'm thinking more the tech or two we think it's likely Gandhi is researching. Anyway, right now, GK has a couple to trade. Maybe Gandhi is going for Paper or Philo now. I think he likes to target Liberalism and so far doesn't seem to care about MC. But I really don't have much experience in that.

Beating GK down to Otrar is the best bet. I think so too. We probably want to put him to the sword as soon as he meets another civ tho' in case he decides to vassalize to them

You mean so the other civs remain more likely to trade, right?

 

[Erkon]

I've taken a look at the save and we are in a very strong military position. Nice!

My initial reflections are:

• Build Galleon in NS - to attack and keep stone city
• Build barracks in Karak and Besh, then build units
• Raze Tabriz and Tiflis
• Keep Turfan and Hing Sia
• Trade sugar to Brennus at 6 gpt
• Whip settler in GC (for brown city)
• Evacuate GC - let Gandhi take it
• Move trireme from GC waters - or disband?
• Keep research at 0% (for a long time, or shall we grab guilds?) - why are we researching paper?
• Upgrade all swordsmen to berserkers (cost 1550 gold)
• We have too many melee units compared to trebs (after queue is complete, build only galleons and trebs). We will loose more trebs than melee units when fighting Brennus.

 

[Erkon]

BP, can you please confirm that I'm next, or do you want LC or someone else to screw this up even further? j/k

 

[Big Pig]

My initial reflections are:

• Build Galleon in NS - to attack and keep stone city I think it is important that the others don't meet GK yet
• Build barracks in Karak and Besh, then build units
• Raze Tabriz and Tiflis
• Keep Turfan and Hing Sia yes
• Trade sugar to Brennus at 6 gpt
• Whip settler in GC (for brown city)
• Evacuate GC - let Gandhi take it probably is the right time - but it will mean G can get land units to pillage improvements in our other cities
• Move trireme from GC waters - or disband? don't disband it - it will grow into a frigate one day
• Keep research at 0% (for a long time, or shall we grab guilds?) - why are we researching paper? Paper - and selling maps - is a good source of extra gold.
• Upgrade all swordsmen and axemen - and maybe even warriors? to berserkers (cost 1550 gold)
• We have too many melee units compared to trebs (after queue is complete, build only galleons and trebs). We will loose more trebs than melee units when fighting Brennus. the cats will do the bombardment - so it will lessen the treb numbers we need. But yes, we need more trebs

BP, can you please confirm that I'm next, or do you want LC or someone else to screw this up even further? j/k

Yes, Erkon is next (God help us all)

We need a lot of money for all the Beserker upgrades. But I not convinced we want to freeze our research. We will be very vulnerable on our new island if we are backwards in tech. More importantly, don't we want to continue to drive forward the tech pace? We should be looking at going for Liberalism if we don't think G is going to get it

 

[Gnejs]

Yes, Erkon is next (God help us all)

We need a lot of money for all the Beserker upgrades. But I not convinced we want to freeze our research. We will be very vulnerable on our new island if we are backwards in tech. More importantly, don't we want to continue to drive forward the tech pace? We should be looking at going for Liberalism if we don't think G is going to get it

Considering the kind of military might we have or will soon have there is no AI that could even hope to stop us pre-riflemen. In a regular game it would all be over soon.

 

[Big Pig]

We should capture the Barb city asap - the archers will upgrade to LBs as soon as Isa gets Feudalism. Upgrade the axe and send a couple of Beserkers north

 

[LowtherCastle]

I've taken a look at the save and we are in a very strong military position. Nice!

My initial reflections are:

• Build Galleon in NS - to attack and keep stone city
• Build barracks in Karak and Besh, then build units Okay, I suggest we build HAs and get those OS workers to build the Karak plains/hill mine (but don't chop the forest until border expansion).
• Raze Tabriz and Tiflis Capturing Tiflis is lower priority now, because it's E and will just contribute to WW.
• Keep Turfan and Hing Sia I suggest Tabriz(raze)>Turfan>Samaqand(keep/raze?--if we don't keep, someone else will settle)>Stone(keep if not auto-raze), then worry about E front, unless you're planning two fronts.
• Trade sugar to Brennus at 6 gpt But, I no longer like gifting Brennus Compass...etc. Too risky. We need to topple him asap.
• Whip settler in GC (for brown city) Sneaky devil.
• Evacuate GC - let Gandhi take it This will require serious defenses in CC, MW, MC, CF, BC... I'm beginning to think we're not in a big hurry on this.
• Move trireme from GC waters - or disband?
• Keep research at 0% (for a long time, or shall we grab guilds?) - why are we researching paper? Becuz you wasters refused to answer my call yesterday. Paper is great trade-bait and maps are great for an income boost. Should we build a bunch of HAs before researching guilds? With Knights we could roll over Brennus and Isabella.
• Upgrade all swordsmen to berserkers (cost 1550 gold) How many do we really need? Better to spend the money on Knights?
• We have too many melee units compared to trebs (after queue is complete, build only galleons and trebs). We will loose more trebs than melee units when fighting Brennus. Yes, I see that now.
• Speaking of which...on T0 switch the OS build to treb and the chop goes to it, then when pop grows in a turn or two, poprush. (Forget about the the Berserker hammers.)

Good morning, Erkon, how's the hangover? We'll have our first E galleon in 4t and can have 4 E galleons in 11t turns total. Plus ~5 turns to get to Bibracte and hello Homeland! I seriously think we want to put the peddle to the metal now. Great idea on dumping GC. Let's just time it correctly. Let's carefully think about how many swords>berserkers we need because maybe it would be better to build trebs and HAs (galleons in CF, MW, MC), and have some gold to upgrade the HAs.

I would add to your list:

• Send E caravel to scout around Gergovia for a non-Brennus tile and quickly return to resume defending nets
• Build galleons in MC, MW, CF(poprush in CF when appropriate)
• Ship the first allotment of Berserkers to free Gergovia tile, if exists, when first galleon pops
• Carefully plan GK campaign to clear out western front and also get 3 (upgraded?) berserkers up to MW for transport to Gergovia
• Circa T11, a large contingent should be arriving in MW for second wave to Brennus.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We should capture the Barb city asap - the archers will upgrade to LBs as soon as Isa gets Feudalism. Upgrade the axe and send a couple of Beserkers north

• CC has a Sword that can be upgraded and sent N.
  
• We still have 4 cats for defense bombardment, plus 1 recuperating in Karak.
  
• Don't forget to watch for a sneak attack from the SE toward MW. Maybe move another chariot over there...
  
• Karak has +2 from Great Wall, but Besh borders will not expand without some culture.
  
• After you take Turfan, Ning-hsia will become the Capital (I assume) and its borders will quickly expand to the iron!!!
  EDIT:
• You might want to send a scout over to Brennus' S border to keep an eye on that scene.
  p.s.
• You finally have your chance to KILL! KILL THEM!! KILL THEM ALL!!!

 

[Big Pig]

• Build galleons in MC, MW, CF(poprush in CF when appropriate)

Don't forget the forest 2NW of MC that can be chopped for MC hammers (Hammer-time! )

Rather than send a bunch of Beserkers to sit around Gergovia twiddling their thumbs for 10 turns or so, you may actually like to have them do something useful, such as capture and raze barb city....

One other thing: OS has had Hinduism spread to it. It would be in our economic interests to spread Hinduism to all our cities so that when we capture Bibacte and the Hindu shrine) we have a nice little source of income which continues even after we have evacuated the continent

 

[LowtherCastle]

One other thing: OS has had Hinduism spread to it. It would be in our economic interests to spread Hinduism to all our cities so that when we capture Bibacte and the Hindu shrine) we have a nice little source of income which continues even after we have evacuated the
continent. Good idea.

Rather than send a bunch of Beserkers to sit around Gergovia twiddling their thumbs for 10 turns or so, you may actually like to have them do something useful, such as capture and raze barb city....

My thinking is that this way, we will have 15 units there for the attack in 15t. Otherwise, we wait till ~T21 for 15 units or attack with 12. Better safe than sorry. Better sooner than later.

Plus, we've got so many Swords down S who have been twiddling their thumbs watching Karak and Besh fall, that a lot of them might as well head N now.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Gifting our Cities to Gandhi

Let's think this over carefully, so we don't regret anything. BP makes a very important point about pillaging. Gnejs also makes a relevant point about Gandhi racing along in tech once he gets our lands.

I think:

1. G will relatively quickly grab GC when we abandon it, because he can see inside it even now.
2. We want him to immediately continue to take CC without pillaging any cottages, so we need a clever, workable plan for this, such as leaving him a corridor--Funnel of (not) Doom--and baiting him along with a wkr or something.
3. G will move faster in the long-run if we build cottages on ALL the tiles first, hopefully preventing him from making farms there instead. (We have 4 new wkrs, btw.)
4. So the question is, is now the time or are we more clever to wait a bit?

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Erkon, one more note I forgot to mention. GK built 2 Keshiks in Besh just before I captured it. So your idea of leaving him the horses worked! (but don't overlook the LB he has planted on the horses)

 

[Gnejs]

One other thing: OS has had Hinduism spread to it. It would be in our economic interests to spread Hinduism to all our cities so that when we capture Bibacte and the Hindu shrine) we have a nice little source of income which continues even after we have evacuated the continent

This is a fine idea. It will give us a way (adopting hinduism) to keep an eye on Gandhi's progress.
We should probably switch to organized religion now to build the missionaries.

Btw, if you people are concerned with Hannibals economy we could always raze the Great Lighthouse.

 

[Erkon]

Good morning, Erkon, how's the hangover? Alas, it's already yielding. That means I didn't drink enough beer yesterday
...
Let's carefully think about how many swords>berserkers we need because maybe it would be better to build trebs and HAs (galleons in CF, MW, MC), and have some gold to upgrade the HAs. I doubt we need that many Horse Archers, but it's good idea to build them in advance upgrade them to Knight.
I would add to your list:

• Send E caravel to scout around Gergovia for a non-Brennus tile and quickly return to resume defending nets
• Build galleons in MC, MW, CF(poprush in CF when appropriate)
• Ship the first allotment of Berserkers to free Gergovia tile, if exists, when first galleon pops
• Carefully plan GK campaign to clear out western front and also get 3 (upgraded?) berserkers up to MW for transport to Gergovia
• Circa T11, a large contingent should be arriving in MW for second wave to Brennus.

I plan to divert three berserkers up north and the horse archer as backup. I also plan to use the first galleon as defender on the east-coast while we build the other.

My turnset will most probably not include any attack on Brennus, but I imaging that a good strategy would be to station a medium sized amount of units in the forest SW of Gergovia. Hopefully, Brennus will move all his mobile units into the city, where they will be easy to destroy with trebuchets. Depending on the size of Brennus army, we either got for his capital, or grab his SW-cities first.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I plan to divert three or 4 to play it safe? berserkers up north and the horse archer as backup. I also plan to use the first galleon as defender on the east-coast while we build the other.

My turnset will most probably not include any attack on Brennus, I was imagining this on T15-T20, roughly but I imaging that a good strategy would be to station a medium sized amount of units in the forest SW of Gergovia. Hopefully, Brennus will move all his mobile units into the city, where they will be easy to destroy with trebuchets. Depending on the size of Brennus army, we either got for his capital, or grab his SW-cities first.

We don't need any HAs, but the Knights would be nice. The more the merrier, within certain limits. So it HAs for upgrading that I was talking about.

Sounds good, Erkon. When ya playin'? (Hey, I stopped playing GOTM17 for TWO DAYS so I could do my turnset...)

 

[LowtherCastle]

By the way, no further discussion on whether to give up GC now or wait? I'm seriously reluctant to jump the gun here, even if CRC already did it. Doesn't mean they did the right thing.

 

[JERFit]

I don't think we should give it up quite yet. We still have to worry about G screwing with BC improvements before we give it to him, along with half of the continent.

Unless maybe we build a sort of unit barricade, but that wouldn't be very efficient. :\

 

[Gnejs]

By the way, no further discussion on whether to give up GC now or wait? I'm seriously reluctant to jump the gun here, even if CRC already did it. Doesn't mean they did the right thing.

Perhaps not right now, but it will have to be soon. Remember that the AI is not very competent at offensive wars when there is water involved. Even if we leave GC undefended Gandhi may not capture it for quite some time.

It also won't take many units to keep Gandhi inside GC and not out pillaging. 4-5 units on hills close by should do the trick. Then, when we want to give away other cities we can make a trail of workers right up to them.