SGOTM 04 - Team VQ

Maquis · Mar 11, 2007

I can't say I'm entirely happy with my turns... looking back I should have used the :whipped:

a little more. Oh well...

The good:

I took some advice, and sent one of our triemes south, to see if we can hit that orange border. By the time I got there, they had popped! Hello Mr Hannibal!

He's up a few techs on us, but does not have Lit at this time. I didn't pull the trigger an any tech trades (Probably a mistake on my part!)

However, I did pull off a quick trade, Corn for Furs. I know we're more strapped for health, but I figured that we should get some trade going ASAP.
I also opened borders so that our boat can travel on.

So who else is out there?? Mr. Washington, how are you?

He also does not have Lit.

Tech-wise, I went for Metal Casting after Construction came in. Hopefully no one gets too upset :mischief:

I think forges will be good, both for the production, and the

I ended my turnset the turn that MC finished. I put Machinery in next, but that is totally Veto-able. Do we want to get maces? Or should we work to back-fill some other tech?

I went ahead and settled Cyan2. Started a granary there first. Workers been bustin butt all over. Hooked up the Iron, as well as the food in the nothern city. I've also been roading up our southern cities. As we are preparing (are IN WAR) we ned some more roads to get our troops south...

The bad:

I lost out trireme in the north, to a misclick... I did not reload it, I guess I just didn't think that it was that terrible a mistake. Shoot me for it

The big news, of course... Khaaan beat us to the war declaration. This came about, because he asked to trade for Construction. I declined, as I did not want him to get cats (of course). He immediately declared.

So anyways... I have been building up some cats, swords, and axes... however, they were all kind of spread around. I've started moving them to the south-east.

Khaan did send one Kesik/Chariot to our land, trying to pillage. I took them out, losing one of our Chariots in the meantime.

Oh, and that little crappy city of Tefis... is no more.

I stopped right after razing it. We need to discuss war strategy at this point.

GK seems lightly defended, at least in a couple of his cities (only 2 archers each) Of course, he's got Keshiks, and will be cranking them out in droves now.

Notes:

I did not revolt to HR yet, but we may need to now. Khan declaring on us canceled our trade with Hannibal, as well as our trade with GK. Nidaros became unhappy, and a couple other cities are pushing the limits.

CFC turnlog:

Spoiler :

The Save

Maquis · Mar 11, 2007

How come he declares? We are not that low on power and we share religion! *GRMBL*

That really took me by surprise as well. Early in my turns, he asked for sheep for our gems, and I agreed.

When he declared, he asked Horseback Riding for Construction, and I declined. At the time, we were +1 with him (-1 for close borders, +1 each for religion and trades)

I suppose there was a -1 for declining the trade? Anyways... I don't see any other huge threat coming out way (yet). We should make sure to watch Upsalla, as that's where he sent his small pillaging party.

Cosmichail · Mar 11, 2007

When he declared, he asked Horseback Riding for Construction

Wow I thought he just was asking for construction (tribute) and we refused. I have had him declare that way but never for a trade.

I suppose there was a -1 for declining the trade

Never seen a negative arise from turning down a trade. (tribute, request yes but not a tech for tech trade).

He doesn't have much IIRC and if anything we should send a pillage team south and take out iron/horses if we can.

And going for MC was a good chioice as if we go for Machinery we get our UU Berserkers and they do a great job at hiding in the shores and taking down cities. Excellent strategy for weak cities (amphibious attack).

Since we have found other AI that are easier to deal with (Hannibal can be a good trading partner but does tech very fast) I'd say we take out GK completely. Go for machinery and send berserkers his way. He won't stand a chance.

Maquis · Mar 11, 2007

Might have something to do with Maquis and Khaaaan's wife....

Where did you hear that? I thought she said "What happens in Ning-shia, stays in Ning-shia..." :lol:

Maquis · Mar 11, 2007

And going for MC was a good chioice as if we go for Machinery we get our UU Berserkers and they do a great job at hiding in the shores and taking down cities. Excellent strategy for weak cities (amphibious attack).

Good thing at least someone agrees with me :lol:

Also, forgot to mention; Hannibal doesn't like us anymore, we've got a -3 for religion. Also, our trades got canceled when Khan declared on us. Right now he won't trade any techs with us. Hopefully we can remedy that sometime soon.

namliaM · Mar 11, 2007

As far as I know there is no -diplo on declining a trade offer, maybe it was a last ditch trade thing?? Which we do often, you know get that one trade in before killing Khaaaan :devil:

Nah... I think he was bought into war with us by Gandhi.
*** After looking at the save... He demanded tribute, which could offcourse if we decline (and rightfully so!) result in war ***

:goodjob:

on removing that interloping city of Khaaan and improving Bjorgvin, tho I think you went a bit overboard on Bjorgvin...
Bjorgvin is only size 2 and has 5 or 6 tiles (pre-) improved, while other cities (Birka and Nadiros come to mind) are working unimproved tiles.

The 2 new civs both are Confused, causing allready mayor -diplo on religion. We could consider dropping the religion, yes this is -1 happy... but we also gain some (-3 with hannibal) diplo points.

About MC, I think I wouldnt have picked it. We dont need the happy right now, we do want the production, but.... have a higher prio on units right now I think. Also our economy is suffering real bad at 50% and paying 12gpt for units, offcourse this cannot be helped but I think we need to do something about that. Which is why I suggest going after either CoL or Currency (niether of which is known by Washington. Also getting those 2 cheap cities (Orange and Yellow) will help in getting unit support down.
Khaaaan has currency has well, maybe we can extort it from him after razing a few cities and taking Karakorum??
We worry about Khaaan fielding Keshiks but we are fielding no spears to counter them??

About beeing spread out, well we need some units in both Cyan 2 and Birka to protect them from Gandhi (for the time beeing) Gandhi has 2 galleys near Birka...
If we can muster up a "SoD" of 4 Cats, 2 spear, 2 Axe and 2 Swords I think we can start marching towards the east and clean up Khaaan clockwize?? Those eastern cities seem the most productive to me... Plus them hills and forrests (if still there) will give us some cover. Raze everything but Karakorum??
Capturing cities = $$$ to run more science... So lets start doing that ASAP. If we can get Currency and his 250 gold for peace anytime (soon) that would be GREAT.

Edit: If we want to bulb Astro we dont want to research CS for another ~500/11 = 45 turns. Presuming we get 2 GSs

GreyFox · Mar 12, 2007

I don't know if there is a diplo minus for refusing to trade. What I always do is to click on "Care to Negotiate" and then click "Exit", instead of outright rejecting the trade.

But normal for GK to attack, I always have him declared for no apparent reason other than he perceived me to be weak. Anyway, he has ran out of space to settle as well, and with the settling of Tiffis, we must have incurred border-tension penalty with him.

Why bother with relationships to other civs? Let them be annoyed.

We need to whip a few units out and take Karakorum fast. Maybe have to remove one or two surrounding cities to ease cultural pressure ... but we cannot keep more cities ... we need to cottage up. But remember to leave enough defenders near the North and West cities in case Gandhi coordinated an attack with Khan.

--

namliaM · Mar 12, 2007

We dont have the close borders penalty (yet) with Khaaan, I agree on taking Karakorum and RAZING all others.
We do need to be mindfull of that gandhi caracter I agree... we need to find ourselves a save haven someplace where we can sit and watch Gandhi launch... The American/Carthage Island/continent perhaps?

I disagree with Fox' assesment "let them be annoyed", for one this would make them more likely to declare war (OK accross water but still) and less likely to deal with us. We need (IMHO) some (heavy) techtrading to get back in the tech game.

Roster
namliaM -- +1 gmt (Actually 0 atm due to DST)
Greyfox -- +8 gmt
Maquis -- -7 gmt > Researched MC
Bobrath -- -5 gmt > Your's UP

More prepping on Khaaan?
Healium -- +1 gmt -- Auto skip due to a Herniated disk *Good luck man* and be well
Scowler -- gmt > On deck for some serious Khaaan bashing
Frankcor-- -5 gmt <Lurker>
Cosmichail -- -5gmt > Most definate Basher!

P.S. Kudos to Maquis on playing that turn extra to get the tech in and raze that eyesore of a city.

bobrath · Mar 12, 2007

I'll play tonight, but will be looking forward to any further discussion beyond "go make Khaaaan cry mommy".

Tech path being the operative discussion topic. Both trading and research. Is there any tech we want to keep a monopoly on or beeline towards?

namliaM · Mar 12, 2007

Techwize I think we really need CoL or Currency. Other than that beeline for Optics so we can burn scientist(s) on Astronomy?
A GS will give ~2500 beakers towards that goal, 2 GS is overdoing it basicaly wasting beakers. By the time we get Calander + Optics we should easy generate 2 GPs from Nadiros, but I we cannot be sure what it is. So I suggest keeping a GS around. A GP we might be able to burn on theologie?? Is that trade bait?

On Khaaaan and Mommie... well get a Dollop of Pointy, a spoon full of blades, add a pinch of Miouw and we have one recepy for Mommie (tm)!
Edit: Dont forget to whip it all together before feeding it

Spoiler In english :

And lets try to not be "over prepared"

GreyFox · Mar 12, 2007

@namliaM: let's wait until we actually meet the other civ before we decide what to do, ok? It's really pointless to go to no religion now.

--

frankcor · Mar 12, 2007

Maquis said:
Where did you hear that? I thought she said "What happens in Ning-shia, stays in Ning-shia..."

Maybe it's just me but the torrid naughty affairs always seem to gain the most noteriety.

Cosmichail · Mar 12, 2007

Geez I thought that was Vegas. (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).

Tech wise too I tend to agree with namliaM with COL/currency. However the warrior part of me is screaming for CS/Machinery. Load up a few galleys with berserkers and go a shore warmongering and watch those cities fall. You don't even have to go on land until you raze the city. In a SP game took out Alex with two galleys loaded with berserkers. (Two of them were CR3) He declares war and is defending cities with archers. Berserkers just eat those guys for breakfast.

But lacking Berserkers it will have to be swords/cats/axes and a few spears to smashy those Keshiks. Have fun Bob and make us proud.

bobrath · Mar 13, 2007

And the turns just get worse and worse.

Ghandi is not the pushover we wanted him to be... course Bombay being size 20 can't help but make him more then a bit proud of himself. He took Birka from us, I was lucky to hold it through one set of attacks. Just as I get an offensive force ready to retake Birking... He lands outside Jelling and his lbm + 2 WE + 1 sword will easily take it from our axe and warrior defenses. I'll leave it up to the next player to decide the course of action here.

I made no progress against Khaaaan other then to fight off the single Keshik pillagers he sends our way. I do have the basic SoD requested ready to go tho. Again, up to next player to decide to use it against Khaaan or to bend it backwards to retake Jelling - assuming we can hold off Khaan (who had Lbms of his own show up in some cities).

We popped a GP and he would initially research meditation. I held off.

Hanging Gardens and Colosuss were built during my turns along with the Church of the Nativity.

During my turns, we met Izzy who was annoyed with us and 5 turns later demanded construction. I gave in and then right away asked for a trade. She gave us Meditation + Monotheism + 30g for our knowledge of Literature. After this we picked up +4 fair trade and +1 tribute given. She's the only AI that doesn't want our blood. Hannibal decided that we didn't need OB with him anymore, but that's ok since Mehmed II hates Hannibal and was happy to see we no longer had OB with his enemy - giving us OB in return.

Thanks to the techs from Izzy, out GP would research Theology. I did this right away, but Christianity had already been founded. Of the folks we know, only Ghandi has this knowledge. I would suggest trading with Mehmed first and getting Feudalism for Lit + MC + Construction. We could then go to GW and get Calendar + HBR + 10g for Theo + Lit, however I don't think Mehmed would appreciate it and I don't know that we really benefit from it.

I did whip what I could and we've got units - we're not going to lose in a wave of AIs jumping on us. HOWEVER we're in bad shape and its going to take some very good moves coming up to get us into a position where we'll last long enough to see Ghandi reach the stars. Right now, I don't see any way that Ghandi can't win this game. He's a powerhouse with a tech lead - we need to figure out how to avoid elimination - as in we need to find a second home FAST.

Its 500AD - do you know where your Indian is?

HoF Autolog

Spoiler :

CfC Autolog

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Mar 13, 2007

Not surprised by what has happened. I think we did go wonder happy instead of focusing of the possibility that we could get overrun. I have found that when warlords AI has room to grow they can become quite powerful.

I believe this is all the more reason to beeline to CS/machinery. Crossbows for counter against melee and beserkers for attack. Even better to have pikes too but I'd be happy with berserkers. Nidaros hopefully since this happened is doing nothing but pumping out units. We can come back from this if we concentrate on military alone. Enough swords/axes/cats/spears should do the trick for now. If we can bulid Heroic Epic I think it should be built in Nidaros as I don't think we care down the road what it needs (you know the usual oxford/wall street combo or globe). We don't really have a lot of production other than Nidaros and we definitely need to protect the iron up there and horses.

We weren't prepared to take on Khan and now must be on the defensive which is always bad. We need to turn this around and get on the offensive. Same with Gandhi since he is spending his time building units as we saw with all those Triremes we should get him on the defensive by attacking.

I definitely find Berserkers quite effective at wearing down AI's. Example by using galley/galleon/or transport use berserkers to attack weak coastal cities. Just kill all but one unit. The AI will scramble to defend and regarrison. Rinse and repeat and you have him on the defensive. Doesn't work too well with cities of high culture at least not until frigates. The berserkers also need to be at least CR2 or 3 to be effective.

I see that Healium is up too. Wow not the best time to start. At least if you are up to it Healium.

Cosmichail · Mar 13, 2007

Just looked at the save and I don't things are quite as bad as it seems. (although we only got one city to pull us out of this one.)

We need Feudalism for better defense and HBR for horse archers which are great for quick pillaging and countering siege weapons. We can get both from Mehmed and/or Washington and I think we could even get HBR from Isabella so trading with Washington wouldn't be needed. Either way turn off research for a while to upgrade some archers to longbows especially the iron/gold cities as they are vunerable. Birka can be recaptured but not with the current soldiers there. We need at least two or three more cats to take it back and we should.

Also we need to curve the unhappy by revolting to HR right away and going to theocracy at the same time for the XP points. Our nets are undefended so we also need ships badly. Unless we are building chariots for MP duty I don't see the need. We should build cats for a bit.

As to Jelling it's a goner and to be honest I think we overexpanded. We didn't need that city but I don't like loosing Birka which had a lot of commerce.

I don't think we are ready to run for the hills yet. Far from that I would say and once we go to HR/theocracy (probably 2 turns anarchy) we at least will curtail the unhappy. Better 2 turns of anarchy now then have unhappy in our most important cities to the point that gold city is starving.

I see enough troops there to do damage and building cats is what we need to accompany them. GK is production lite so I don't think he'll come on too strong. If we can make peace with him we should for now. Maybe razing another city will change his mind. Then get our house in order and keep a strong defense on Gandhi's side. Then return to war with GK and finish him.

Although our relationship with Izzy looks good I don't trust her. She may be cautious but I have seen that before and eventually will slip to annoyed at some point. Good thing we didn't build the TGL as it would be useless to us in this game. I would say the same for Mehmed so don't count on him being cordial for long. So trading with Washington imo doesn't make a difference either way as eventually as long as we are Hindus we can't change the fact that our relationships with Izzy/Mehmed will deteriorate. EDIT: no state religion may appease Izzy for a bit but she will attack even with no state religion.

bobrath · Mar 13, 2007

I think the only building(s) even attempted during my turns were the library in Birka and granary in Jelling. Neither completed and were actually preempted by unit whips.

We do possibly need a barracks in our far north city.

As far as ships go... I haven't seen even a murmur of ships coming around the north side, so for the mid term we should be fine as Ghandi concentrates on our west coast. I've seen at least 6 tiremes and 3 galleys out there (+ 1 tireme from Khaan) on our west coast. I'm camping the galley next to our capital to protect that resource, one tireme is watching our east coast (parked outside Khaaan's city). The other tireme is still scouting the known (southern) world - we're getting closer to circumnavigating btw. I'd really like to get optics - if only so a single caravel could explore the greater northern part of our world and find us a refuge off Ghandi's island.

I agree that changing religions to NSR would be a temporary fix to relations, but I wonder if that time frame might not benefit us in terms of tech trading. Hannibal just out and out hates us and refuses to trade. I'm thinking that tech trading may be our best way out of the mess we're in.

I spent all my turns with research going to CoL - mainly with the idea of trade bait on the other side. Remember for Beserkers we need both Machinery AND CS.

Make sure our first trade with Mehmed is a good one. IIRC the first trade you make has a greater impact then any later ones (see Izzy for an example).

The one good thing for us right now is that we only really border two civs - Khaaan and Ghandi. Anyone else that wants to come after us has a very long sail AND needs OB with one of our two neighbors.

I left the civic revolts until the group could discuss. I do agree that HR (for happy) and Theocracy (for exp) will definitely help.

One other note - at this point still no WW in any of our cities. All battles have taken place within our borders. That will change when we hit Burka or Khaaan's cities.

Cosmichail · Mar 13, 2007

Going to NSR at this point may alleviate stresses with other AI but imo would hurt us as then we don't have the XP bonus from theocracy. CR2 swords do a lot more then CR1. We could then consider vassalage to have the ability to build CR2 swords should we acquire Feudalism. So we are going to NSR just to appease civs that can't get to us other than galleys for now? Cripple our military and run around with one promotion and waste a lot more units to accomplish anything but yet we only have only city that produces. This makes no sense to me and going to NSR is a bad move at this point and vassalage is expensive. Once bureaucracy becomes available then can't use it as with our capitol that 50% bonus is a big help. What surprised me is that namliaM went to Hinduism right away rather than hold off until we could decide if we should or not.

It's 500ad already and we don't have one city over 10 pop. Gandhi has a monster of 20 and enough resources there to sustain it. Although whipping is effective method to get things fast in the long term it ends up hurting us and having cities that are low pop.

My concern too is this that if we don't speed to superior units we may find ourselves up against maces before we can get to berserkers. I think trying to lightbulb astro at this point isn't a concern since we need a very strong military soon which should have berserkers. I do understand we need CS/machinery for them and since we want optics machinery shouldn't be too far off.

We had HR some time now . Why didn't we revolt sooner as the happy would help us. We discovered HR in 25BC and now it is 500 ad. Would not the happy during all those years made a difference in our growth??????
I can see holding off until the Great Library was built but that was in 65ad and then still no revolt to HR. HR is 1 turn of anarchy and if we do two civics at once I do believe 2 turns so it wouldn't have mattered and losing the happy growth for that amount of time seems like a bad move. In my SP games I always revolt immediately to HR when I get it. Building chariots make great MP's and having a city of more than 10 can help. Again here too we are weak there aren't that many finished tiles in our empire. So even if we had larger cities they would end up working unfinished tiles???? 3 turnsets have gone by since my play and I don't really see any progress in our land improvements. Yep the odd cottage here and there but with all that jungle we should have built a lot more workers.

B#tch list.....

1. HR available since 25BC
2. Revolted to Hinduism too early
3. Built worker too early
4. Researched archery losing valuable turns. (archery is an easy trade)
5. City settling??? Why the need for cyans when we know already we go to war with GK. To waste settlers on chokepoints when war is inevitable also after some thought made no sense to me. Better to settle on spots that provide us with the necessary commerce/production than just to choke off AI. Jelling is a terrible city and I don't mind it getting razed. Even the other Cyan would have been better elsewhere. (the spot isn't bad but the spot south of Nidaros would have kept gems for us and more controllable)
6. 500ad and not even one cottage beyond a hamlet????
7. We are in a war with a neighbour but build wonders instead???

Ok those cyans to be fair would have done better once the tiles were finished however with so few workers it would have been a ways off.

Unless we get our act together this game is going south. Our civ looks like something of the BC's not AD's. We will be down to 4 cities after Jelling gets razed. 4 cities and not one over 10 pop. It will take some doing to get us out of this. I am sorry to complain but I am perplexed at how badly we are playing. With all these SG pro's I thought we'd be doing better.

Lastly we need to play more as a team.

namliaM · Mar 13, 2007

Roster
namliaM -- +1 gmt (Actually 0 atm due to DST)
Greyfox -- +8 gmt
Maquis -- -7 gmt
Bobrath -- -5 gmt > Went and lost Birka

Healium -- +1 gmt -- Auto skip due to a Herniated disk *Good luck man* and be well
Scowler -- gmt > Up for recovery??
Frankcor-- -5 gmt <Lurker>
Cosmichail -- -5gmt > On deck for who know what with this game :confused:

IIRC Scowler's best available times are in the weekend, maybe swap with Cosmic?

Why build a workshop near Nadiros when we have the Plains hill still unmined??? I think other than the hills we want basicaly cottages around Nadiros...

Revolting to Theocracy and Monarchy seems a given right now...
If we drop to NSR we lose the -3 causing hannibal to be unhapping with us, but I think we need Theocracy (and the second promotion) harder than we need the techs right now.

We can trade:
Isabella:
Theology for Currency/Calander
Isa needs/wants Feudalism (Mehmed?)
Washington:
Theology for Currency/Calander both +10g
Theology + Lit for Currency/Calander + HBR + 10g
Mehmed II:
Theo + MC for Feudalism
Hannibal (who is TECH LEADER btw) we cannot trade due to -3 for religion. But he has Machinery too :drool:

I think we basicaly want to keep like an Axe, Spear and Archer in Uppsala (yes one for basicaly each type) get the other units out to Birka and retake it. The warrior goes to Nadiros for MP I think.

Birka is STILL our city as we are "culturaly dominant" there even if we dont own the land there anymore... Culturaly it is still considered our city!
If/when we get Birka back we should settle Orange and Yellow ASAP too, while building up for Khaaan and defending on Gandhi, make sure to pack Spears on both, Gandhi in particular... I cannot believe we didnt have atleast 1 spear in Birka if not spears... :wallbash:

Gandhi is beeing much more aggresive than my biggest wish... I had hopes he would come and capture us (later on) but this soon .. :clap:

to Gandhi and :spank:

to us....

bobrath · Mar 13, 2007

Spears are only so good against WEs. I managed to whip one into Birka when the first landing occured and it was the only unit that even made it through the turn. As long as we have coastal forests/jungles we should be camping defenders there to force the landings to take place on plains/poor defense choices.

I think everyone is a bit guilty of assuming that Ghandi was going to be a war-wimp. He's dropping quality stacks on our cities at key points.

I appreciate your desire to found the more core cities of orange and yellow, but we first need to go about cleaning up the mess. Taking the time out to build a settler (and defenders) means fewer offensive units to keep Khaaan and Ghandi at bay.

I agree that NSR is probably the sub optimal choice UNLESS it gives us a massive jolt in trading ability. That's doubtful and (yes I agree here too) we need the bonus to exp. However, how many of our cities have the needed religion? I ask because its something I didn't notice.

Not revolting to HR was a conscious choice on my part. I didn't want to lose even a single turn in getting units out in the case of a dogpile. It seems now that we have a little room for the dual revolt and I say go for it.

SGOTM 04 - Team VQ

King

King

Dark Lord of The Sith

King

King

Deity

Make it so ...

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Make it so ...

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Emperor

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