SGOTM 04 - Trash Team

[remconius]

Good stuff, Cam. Nice cracking of the GK defenses.

G's inactivity (apart from the small poke in cabert's turn) is becoming a big problem. Gandhi is increasing in power, but dropping off in score. He needs more land and population, to compete.

What is also worrying is that G's cities we can see are not building units.

Maybe we should send a small invasion force to Gandhi to let him know we mean business. To make him more aggressive get him to build and send military...

[edit] Or we could raze old sarai and leave settle-able hole for G.

 

[cabert]

[edit] Or we could raze old sarai and leave settle-able hole for G.

sounds good!

 

[pigswill]

Nice set from Cam_H. Losing units at good odds is not a big deal as long as it doesn't become a habit.

Razing Old Sarai would leave a potential site for Gandhi, it would also leave a potential site for Hannibal and most other AIs. No guarantee (given his performance to date) that Gandhi would get there first.

Clearing the continent at this point is pretty much a mechanical exercise due to our warmongering sets. The two challenges now are moving overseas and persuading Gandhi to occupy our island. Moving overseas should be not too difficult as long as we take on Amercia with CR grens/berserks.

What can we do to persuade Gandhi to invade?

Patagonia is UP (15 turns). We may have to wait a day or so for patagonia to return from his trip, check the forum and realise that he's up. That's ok. We've got masses of time left for the game. What we need is a cunning ruse or strategem to motivate Gandhi.

 

[stuge]

Cam.

Does the AI have an urge to chase workers/settlers. Would it motivate Gandhi to come across if we leave a couple standing defensless so that he can see them from across the channel.

Or leave some northern city defensless. Either way, Gandhi's passivity is becoming really alarming.

 

[Cam_H]

(a.) Please ... thanks for the "thanks" but I really don't think that my turns were too much to get excited about. It seemed a good opportunity to continue driving 'nails' into Genghis' 'coffin', but that's pretty well it.

(b.) I was expecting New Sarai to be suffering under huge Indian cultural pressure, and possibly flipping, but it's far from likely too soon . I think that we've got to examine every possibility - such as invading India without doing any real harm, just to get him active (?).

Roster
--------- catch up turns
Patagonia (15 turns) ... now
--------
Stuge ... on deck
Cam_H ... what? again?
Cabert
Mr. Mahk
Patagonia
Pigswill
Remconius
Cam_H

 

[MrMahk]

(b.) I was expecting New Sarai to be suffering under huge Indian cultural pressure, and possibly flipping, but it's far from likely too soon . I think that we've got to examine every possibility - such as invading India without doing any real harm, just to get him active (?).

Many of you are suggesting this, but has anyone actually observed that landing on an enemy's continent make them more aggressive in a regular game? (I know obviously you don't fight eternal "fake" wars in regular games but still...)

Stuge's idea of leaving workers our in the open sounds more appealing to me. Maybe we could even combine the two, try and nab a few of his workers so he is more likely to want ours? Actually...thinking that over, I forgot that he has "fast" workers, meaning they're harder to catch and he needs less to get the same amout of work done as regular...Oh well.

 

[remconius]

Tricky thing is we have no way to get Gandhi to sail across. He doesnt seem very eager to attack.

What I have observed is that AIs tend to counter what you throw at them. So if you dont hit them hard, they wont feel the need to hit you hard back.

Let's piss Gandhi off (read: teach him the art of war) to get him to come after us. If at the same time we move our forces accross the ocean, he might be tempted to come in from behind.

 

[pigswill]

Attack cities until they've got one defender left? Pillage special resources?

 

[remconius]

Maybe go in AI style... Bring the wrong and too few units... Hopeless battles, but to make him mad (and promote his units...)

 

[cabert]

i don't think attacking gandhi is any good.
Leaving the cities empty and the workers undefended seems more likely to have effect.

 

[remconius]

The cities have been sitting with just one chariot in it, and that hasnt given him any ideas.

Added benefit of sailing across is that we can check out his cities and what kind of military he has built.

 

[cabert]

The cities have been sitting with just one chariot in it, and that hasnt given him any ideas.

Added benefit of sailing across is that we can check out his cities and what kind of military he has built.

one workboat out in the open could motivate him to send a ship
and a chariot is too hard to kill for gandhi

 

[remconius]

We have to try something, he is losing ground on the competition.

 

[cabert]

We have to try something, he is losing ground on the competition.

yes, I vote for moving our troops out of our cities.
0 defender

If after 10/15 turns, there is no attack, I vote for destroying his trireme with a galleon, and sending our free workboat in the open

 

[patagonia]

yes, I vote for moving our troops out of our cities.
0 defender

If after 10/15 turns, there is no attack, I vote for destroying his trireme with a galleon, and sending our free workboat in the open

I'm back.

I think this plan is best for now. I'll try a worker-bait too - just to the south of Bombay (he has a galley there) and if successful lure his landing party towards New Sarai.

As for GK, I think he has to die as soon as possible. WW from him is what's causing us the happy problems and that's the easiest way to end it. If he'll part with gunpowder, I'd be happy to have a pause in hostilities once Turfan has fallen, but if not, I don't know that it's worth letting up on him.

Speaking of WW, does our continuous war state with Gandhi involve any reduction to WW suffered by either party? If not, we want to minimize conflict with him (in terms of units lost) for both our sakes.

Basic plan for my turns then would be to take Turfan, march on to Old Sarai and then set sail a raiding party of Berzerkers for Tabriz, making peace if Khan will give us gunpowder as part of the deal. We could keep Tabriz as a staging post for further invasion of the other continent, or raze it - I'm not too fussed which option to pursue there.

In terms of the economy, we'll want to get to Chemistry before invading anyone other than Washington, but are running out of trading options other than extortion from Khan. We'll have to turn research back on at some point, but I've got no problem with leaving it off during my turns in case we can extort something useful.

If I'm on the same page as everyone else, I can play tomorrow evening. If not, please let me know.

 

[pigswill]

Sounds pretty solid to me. In terms of stimulating Gandhi lets try combination of things: empty northern garrisons, dot workers around ready to run away to our undefended cities, launch minor invasion, sink some of his triremes (tho not galleys).

 

[Cam_H]

I'm happy to try to lure him with empty cities and unprotected Workers. I'm running low on other ideas.

 

[remconius]

I am not sure luring him will work. let's send a force over to "remind" him we mean business.

Destroy a farm or two, maybe some roads he does not need anyway. Let's not pillage cottages or resources. We could even bring some cats to lower defenses and take a few pokes with units that will lose. In extreme case we take his worst city and leave it empty, so he can take it back.

That should remind him to build military and set sail for our lands.

 

[stuge]

Go for it. Time to teach Gandhi what waging war means. (Hopefully he'll listen.)

 

[cabert]

I think sinking his useless triremes is enough to make this war more real to him.
Maybe suiciding a few obsolete units on his capital could be usefull, but I would need some test to believe this should make any effect.