SGOTM 04 - Team VQ

Cosmichail · Apr 15, 2007

That really sucks about Hannibal but to be honest doesn't surprise me at all. He was on steel way before us so I think we are bit too late. The tech path to infantry is long since we lack so many techs. I think before we attack anyone else we should scout first to see what they have just in case since I notice the ai is teching fast in general because of Hannibal.

At a loss what to do but as a team we should be able to come up with something. If only we had aircraft but I wouldn't be surprised Hannibal has Sam's too.

GreyFox · Apr 15, 2007

We could win with overwhelming forces (at least I tried once pitching countess cannons and grenies against monty's Infantries and managed to eliminate him ... but he does not have artillery and I am like 3x monty's production) ... but I don't think in this case we can ... berserker vs infantries??? (funny I just watched the last part of Last Samurai again last night on TV where they all got killed charging the machine gun :lol:

).

As I see it, we have two options:

(1) Forge peace quickly, and turtle in, giving up our northern cities to Gandhi and hope he catches up.

(2) Forge peace quickly, and go hunt another weaker victim. Until we can sufficiently get better, and hopefully made ourselves stronger.

Yes, I think its my turn again, but let's have some discussion on how to proceed first.

Cosmichail · Apr 16, 2007

Option no 1 imo is not something we should do mainly it will cause to loose an immense amount of commerce and cause our science to slip even further.

Option no 2 is what we should do however let's get a caravel first to scout them out. What we must watch out for is that if we find someone with rifles then they may well get to infantry whilst we attack. This seems to happen a lot in monarch warlords. (hopefully GW is still yielding rifles but I have my doubts)

Another suggestion:

Forge peace build some good infra to get science happening. I mean we don't even have Oxford and only maybe 2 universities. It's no wonder we are backwards. How can we compete with that cothon like this. I feel too we have been a bit heavy on the whip maybe (me too) as our pop is low compared to the rest. Look at Brennus's capitol. A whopping 26 compared to our Nidaros of 15.

Beeline to artillery and build a whack of them. They are even effective against tanks. Whittle our victim down with arties and the grens still should be effective.

Another thought is can we bribe someone into war? Hannibal is well liked unfortunately but Mehmed hates GW and may still be warring. I think too Hannibal having the edge may not settle for peace so easy or may demand a city too.

The victim list:
GW or Isabella or Mehmed even? We could research railroad (if we haven't) use machine gunners on the LZ at Hannibals land and give them drill and put a number of them in the stack. Infantry do have difficulty with Machine gunners I find so maybe he'll waste his infantry (hope he attacks) and then once he's wasted enough attack. (hopefully our analysis of Hannibal lack or production means he doesn't have a lot of troops)

This reminds me of SGOTM02 where we faced infantry/artillery with grens/cannons and just the sheer numbers we had made them insignificant.

Greyfox you have a tough round ahead and good luck.......(or has they say in Hollywood "break a leg")

namliaM · Apr 16, 2007

I fixed the bob <=> Fox mix up, sorry my bad...

Infantry is such a big step up... and they get city defence too....

Remember tho... This game is not for us to win... but to lose to Gandhi... If we can give up our lands and turtle up on that island city of Isabella... We may not have to tech at all. Just survive untill gandhi launches... IF he launches, cause right now he is way behind in techs.

GreyFox · Apr 16, 2007

Remember tho... This game is not for us to win... but to lose to Gandhi... If we can give up our lands and turtle up on that island city of Isabella... We may not have to tech at all. Just survive untill gandhi launches... IF he launches, cause right now he is way behind in techs.

Which is why I suggested option 1 in the first place

Alternatively, we can *try* to beeline to Internet and built it for him before playing Santa Claus to Gandhi. That will be difficult though.

bobrath · Apr 16, 2007

While the idea of giving almost everything to Ghandi has its appeal... we would be taking away our ability to affect the world AND would be one set of bad RNG rolls away from being taken out. We've all seen the AI remove the chaff (us) from other games.

If we don't want to throw bodies at the meat grinder, we need to have a two part (long term) plan.

1) Find our second home. Ghandi's lands just won't support a full fledged space race.
2) Get our military (and spies?) up to a point where we can hinder the more elite AIs (currently Brennus and Hannibal).

As much as I'd like to pull the Internet out of our pocket AND have it built in a location that is beneficial to Ghandi - that's a very long way down the line and I've got to believe it leads us to being even more the policemen then not.

We (I hope) currently have naval tech parity with the other civs. Right? If so then lets go into super blockade mode as best we can. Just put ships all around our target's coast. We can at least shutdown his fishing based food and commerce. Save the land units for an opportune strike. We can rule the seas with numbers for now. Lets do it and see what else we've got going right for us. (so yes lets scout the other civs to see if there's something we're missing).

GreyFox · Apr 16, 2007

Played half a turn ... basically renegotiating a 12gpt spice sale to 15gpt.

Our grenediar will have a 9.5% chance against hannibal, cannons has close to 0%. So, I guess trying to bulldoze a city from hannibal isn't an option. For price of peace, he wants his City of Sici back. What do the team thinks of giving him back the city? On one hand we could use some peace, on the other Hannibal is furious with us, so this city may be a launch pad for further war from him.

-

namliaM · Apr 16, 2007

Wow Gren have a 10% chance against a full health CG2 Infantry??? What will the odds drop to when it is wounded??

You allways seem to pick up some extra gold when you start your turns Fox, I must admit I dont renegotiate deals enough

I wouldnt give peace just yet... pillage his nets and see if you can find a weakly defended city to raze

I personaly wouldnt give up the city for peace.

Cosmichail · Apr 16, 2007

I checked that out too and one question? Did you try for a cease fire? Sometimes AI will take that without the demand for a city. I agree with namliaM let's cause him some grief although he only has like 3 nets. Also regarding our "naval superiority" we may not have it for long. Although Hannibal has no oil he does have unranium since I see a mine on a grass tile which of course we can't see yet but I'm sure it's uranium. Once he gets to fission he can build destroyers with combustion. So that will kill our Naval superiority and we will be vulnerable. So that means tanks are out for Hannibal btw unless he gets it in a trade but each other AI except Mehmed only has one source of oil. (PS Hannibal does have offshore oil and we could keep that from happening easily enough)

Brennus is still yielding rifles but has railroad so he can build machine gunners. The other difficulty I see in attacking anybody is the cavalry. Raider grens suck at defending against them so I don't see a easy target anywhere except GW.

Our relocation isn't going to be easy since taking Hannibal's land plan would have left us without oil or coal. GW has oil but no coal and Mehmed has no coal too. The only civ that has what we need is Izzy or Brennus. Only good thing about Hannibal is he does have the shrine.

Alternative Plan

If we can get a cease fire then move those ships to Brennus and attack him. Pronto before he gets to assembly line. Fortunately there are no defensive pacts so we'd be ok.

Science

We certainly are doing a poor job of that. We have one good science city and the rest are producing mediocre beakers. 2 universities in our entire empire from what I can tell. (Don't know about Gk's lands) I am also of the belief had I not built those we would have none. So even if my timing wasn't right at least we have 2. Nidaros is building 200 beakers which isn't bad for a capitol at 1652 (yeah and the AI is nearing rocketry) but imagine what it would produce with Oxford.

We must take a big risk and hope it pays off since at this point I'd to say this game simply isn't winnable anymore. Gandhi is only building caravels and as long as we border on him he will keep doing stupid stuff like that so there's no way he's going for a space race. I am hoping though that Hannibal has no aluminium and maybe that will slow him down. Brennus otoh is well equipped to go for a space race although he is still working with rifles. In order to take him on though we will need a "sh&tload" of cannons.

It is better to risk then not have tried at all. And turtling in is something I am not comfortable with at all. :mad:

Hang out on some island and keep our fingers crossed for a Gandhi to win space race. Don't forget Brennus hates Gandhi and may well go after him. Then what we will sit on island totally helpless. NO THANKS would rather die in battle then withering on some island like Napoleon. :king:

Cosmichail · Apr 16, 2007

Correction on the above post we have 3 universities. One in Uppsala too. Karakorum has an academy but no library nor university and is set for production? Instead of military I'd put up a library/university there asap to improve our science. (54 base commerce) The city beside it with the wine (Nara?) has like 60 some odd base commerce but no science buildings. We should whip some up before we go for eman since I think too that's a priorty to get those cottages growing at Haithabu. At our science rate we it will take 21 turns to research assembly line and we still need corporation. We need demo too for eman and to alleviate eman penalty.

We need the kitchen sink too but I'd settle for some science. Our army is big but yep we need to upgrade those berserkers since we will never get them promotions anymore.

Other cities too are producing good commerce but don't have university/observatory to up the science. That is another thing I notice "no oberservatories". Hannibal with that cothon and lots of unis/obs is no wonder he is teching so fast. Being financial we could have kept pace and it's definitely going to be difficult to catch up.

namliaM · Apr 16, 2007

I think I agree cosmic, Brennus is a big threat to our SS loss to Gandhi (any AI is at this moment), Brennus has the city count and production to pop them space parts fast. ( I think )

So if he is yeilding Riffles.... lets go get him... Dont worry about Cavalry to much, we wont be landing for a while, untill we get his unit count down *a little* and get some riffles over....

Cosmichail · Apr 16, 2007

Me thinks I think you right about not being exposed to cavalry. But I think that Brennus has rifles because we have insight to his city that is Hindu the one that is settled one tile from coast. I think. (just kidding I checked) Hey namliaM at least there's a lot of thinking going on there. :lol:

You just don't sound overly convinced and to be honest I am reaching somewhat but from my point of view this game is losing ground quickly. We really don't have much choice as if we don't leave our landmass Gandhi will just keep building caravels and for the world of me don't understand the ai behaviour. :confused:

namliaM · Apr 16, 2007

I say I think because I didnt check the save to check...

The AI -Gandhi- doesnt know he should win the space race and is worried about us landing units and killing him...

GreyFox · Apr 17, 2007

Executive Summary

It's a war war world.

Research

Someone set the research path to corporation, I follow through, then go on put my a$$ on the line ... uh, I mean go for AssLine.

Grumpy Fox's Gripe

I am unhappy about the way our city is managed. We are the largest empire, yet the way it was managed, one wouldn't be surprised when we are far behind in tech. Where is the GP-Farm? It's building troops. It doesn't even have a library to have the Epic enabled.

Granted we are in theocrary, but that doesn't mean every single city should be producing units. Especially when we have tons of units sitting at the southwestern city of Ningshia doing nothing.

We are running representation, and yet we have ZERO specialist??? :eek:

Please manage the cities with a bit more care, until we are ready to hand them over to our buddy baldy.

War Matters

As suggested, I did not go for peace. (I did not try for cease fire ... is there a way to test whether an opponent is willing to cease fire without actually committing to it?)

I pillaged all his sea resources, and he is still demanding the city Sicci back. But I think we should get a cease fire soon ... why?

As I said, it's a war war world.

Washy actually had a better navy than Hannibal.

Oosh, he is fast in sending troops to our lands.

I pulled back the pair of ships back to Isabella's island, where they are joined by 2 more frigates. Then its time to stop his invasion before it even started.

Turn 363 (1679 AD)
Frigate promoted: Combat II
Frigate promoted: Combat I
Frigate promoted: Combat II
Frigate promoted: Combat I
Frigate promoted: Combat II
Frigate defeats (3.20/8): American Frigate
Frigate defeats (1.92/8): American Frigate
Frigate defeats (4.88/8): American Galleon
Frigate defeats (5.76/8): American Galleon

Ha. I ran out of ships by then, and I don't want to risk galleon vs galleon. So, we retreated to Ning Shia, where one more frigate arrives.

IBT, washy pushed on to head towards our less protected city, despite losing two-thirds of his initial fleet.

And he refuse to land his troops to safety. And the Gods don't pity a fool.

Turn 364 (1682 AD)
Frigate promoted: Combat III
Frigate defeats (5.84/8): American Galleon
Frigate promoted: Combat III
Frigate defeats (4.48/8): American Galleon

The Vikings rules the high sea.

I have been bombarding his capitol meanwhile, but now I think its a mistake. Should try to get peace with Hannibal and take the easier target east of Washington (but Hannibal has 3 infantries sitting near there, that's why I don't want to take that city and then get slaughtered by the infantries.

We would lose some units to the CG3 defenders there. So I suggest wasting some cannons.

I have not started the Wall Street, I think we should, but do we want to do it in Nidaros?

Next player should try to get more ships, and start running more specialists here and there. It may be way too late to attempt to run a GP-Farm in Karakorum, I don't know ... but we sure could use some lightbulbing.

>>> The Save (1685AD) <<<

Spoiler CFC-Extracted-Log :

Spoiler HoF-Autolog :

Cosmichail · Apr 18, 2007

Good stuff Greyfox. I agree with you on Karakorum only I saw it as a cottage city but either way (GP farm/commerce) would serve us better.

I was kind of hoping we'd go after Brennus mainly because his landmass has what we need. GW's is a weak land mass and lacks coal I think. I see that assline has only 5 turns left on it. Good job as last time I looked it would take 21 turns and we still needed corp. That would give us the ability in 5 turns to upgrade all of grens should we have the coin. Maybe even turn science off for a few turn to do so. We could take Hannibal then but I still prefer Brennus now just because his landmass gives us what we need. Not sure if he has uranium though?

Looks like you're up Bob good luck.

bobrath · Apr 18, 2007

So the plan is to hammer GW into the ground.... right?

namliaM · Apr 18, 2007

The problem with that plan may just be that we are opening ourselves up to Hannibal in particular... I would rather go out for Brennus, atleast he is out there far away from most AI and he is a big threat that needs to be dealt with too...
But we have to start somewhere, guess GW is as good a point to start as any ...

So fox did his thing.... Maquis, up and at 'em

Roster
namliaM -- +1 gmt >
Greyfox -- +8 gmt >
Maquis -- -7 gmt > UP
Bobrath -- -5 gmt > On Deck
Healium -- +1 gmt -- Still on Auto skip, speak up if you want back in the rotation!
Scowler -- gmt >
Frankcor-- -5 gmt <Lurker>
Cosmichail -- -5gmt > just played

GreyFox · Apr 18, 2007

Ha, if we can't even take Hannibal, what makes you think we can take Brennus? It's good to wish for pigs to fly, but that doesn't make them fly. You have to start injecting pigs with pigeons DNA. And to do that, you need to first catch some pigeons. And GW is that pigeon, get it?

EDIT: swapped Hannibal <-> Brennus
--

namliaM · Apr 19, 2007

Pigeon hunting it is

Cosmichail · Apr 19, 2007

Greyfox whatever you're having I want some. :smoke:

And don't do anything illegal in the bedroom tonight. :lol:

(you sound like a mad scientist and wonder what kind of creature you get crossing a pig with a pigeon. Pigs will fly. )

SGOTM 04 - Team VQ

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