SGOTM 04 - Trash Team

[cabert]

According to the illustrious Cam_H Versailles is located in Hadrumetum.

"Sure, but if hannibal and mehmed trash us, it won't be a space race loss, it will be a conquest loss ."
This is true but imho very unlikely, even if we lost vinland we still have a sizeable empire and powerful offensive forces. My concern is that we're heading towards the Full Monte (lots of obselete units, poor research) at which point we would be struggling.

interesting discussion (not sure it will lead us to our goal, but at least we're starting to draw some lines for the next turnset). Here is what I think is consensual :
1) Try to conquer hadrumetum. It doesn't matter if hannibal retakes other cities, but we want this one.
2) trade with isabella
3) go back to research, get ready to storm in the near and far future any hostile to gandhi (or just a runaway AI).

I'm considering declaring war on mehmed to give him a better opinion of gandhi (not necessarily taking anything from him). What do you all think?

 

[stuge]

Sounds good to me.

 

[MrMahk]

Sorry I haven't been around much lately to comment guys, I've had a pretty busy week. However, today we have a flood warning or something here in New York, so I have off from school .

Going back to last page- I don't think we are losing interest in the game; we are moreso disappointed and maybe even shell-shocked that many of the things we took for granted aren't actually coming true. (Some examples being that Gandhi would invade instead of just building units and sitting there, the whole religion issue, etc...)
Our role has also had to change- we were originally so certain we would be "migrants" following the Independence Day strategy, now we are being the "executioners" - killing those who Gandhi doesn't like/who pose a threat to him, and some of you are considering evolving to a "world police" role- declaring on even more people for the occasional city or just for mutual struggle bonus for Gandhi.


The way I see it, we should not worry about Hanny for a while. He has lost his 2 sources of horses, meaning he won't be able to build cavalry, which is the only thing we were really worried about on his front. I think we should sign peace to alleviate the WW. Furthermore, the "culture surrounded city" (I forgot the name- the one with the horses) is the Hindu holy city, so since we have no state religion, it will produce 5 culture per turn on its own.

Right now, the only friend Gandhi has is Brennus. I think that the one thing we should be working on right now is cultivating this friendship by declaring war on Brennus to give them the mutual struggle bonus. I know it will give us demerits from Brennus's other friends, but this game is about Gandhi, not us, and we don't want him to be alone out there. It should be a purely defensive war, using our frigates to repel any landing he might throw at us.

I think the only other time we would plan on declaring war on someone would be if they are a military threat to Gandhi or in danger of completing the space ship before him. However, we have time before that becomes a major issue, and as I said, I would like to worry about giving Gandhi a friend before anything else. As has already been said, even if the worst should happen and we lose ex-America, oh well, because we would still have our Viking-Mongol lands which would be more than sufficient for giving us the means to be World Police.

 

[cabert]

interesting points MrMAhk

Brennus isn't a good friend to have. He is very reluctant to trade.
Still, it's better to have him as a friend than as an enemy.
I'll check the relative techs for both and try to see if DoWing on Brennus can be worth it.
It could prevent him to storm Isabella, which can only be good.

Now we have 2 options for the war vs Hannibal :
1) going a bit further, by taking hadremetum
2) going for peace straight away.

I'm not convinced by either 1 or 2. grenadiers cannot defend vs cavalries. And he still has a good deal of those. On the other hand, taking one more city with versailles could really help us.

 

[pigswill]

If we're staying conventional then we're only one turn from rifles which defend ok vs cavalry. Maybe ten turns of peace to upgrade longbows/build rifles and ship them to Greater Vinland (aka Carthage).

 

[cabert]

I've played half a turn (inherit turn : traded with isabella, checked our options, whipped the library in washington which is by far the best place for GT, whipped the granary in los angeles) and crashed to desktop.

I'll try again tomorrow, hope my computer is in better shape

I don't think we should go on with the war.
I think a good consolidation now is good for us and for gandhi (trade options).

 

[cabert]

edit : I PMed AlanH about this crash.
I'm going to wait for his answer before playing.
How about you all use this time to give me your opinion on the next moves (those I stated in the previous post are "done", so you can bash me I won't change them ).

edit :
- what do you all think of GT in Washington?
- I can certainly build rifles in new vikingland if needed (for example in Washington, whipping with overflow to GT) and hannibal is gased, for sure. I have tried unsuccessful "peace for techs" trades before crashing. He would only give rifling which is only 200 beakers away anyway (something I didn't take obviously). We could still get 400+ gold + some gpt from peace while shipping some troops from old vikingland. I'm still unsure what to do. If the game hadn't stopped me, I would have put all troops except 2 or 3 back in the boat and gone for hadremetum. This WILL cost us some troops, but going down in power is part of the plan, so no big deal.
- do we want some more berserkers before going to rifling or not? We're building wealth in half our cities, and I will change this. Either for more buildings or for berserkers. (to be whipped before rifling is in).

 

[stuge]

Go for Hadrumetum. Washington is definetly the best place for the Globe. I'm still looking for an Ironworks site, though. A final round of berserkers sounds good. Don't forget to build some navy if you feel we're lacking there.

And remember to give Gandhi the finger every time you see him.

 

[pigswill]

If we're taking a break from research then can certainly build lots of berserks while we have a chance; on the other hand we want to upgrade them asap which does require cash so maybe a balance between wealth and berserk production.

 

[remconius]

Been reading up on the radical strategies from the Cap'n and the comments on it.

We should not forget our goal: to lose the space race from Gandhi.

Currently, our strategy is geared towards conquering, dominating the world. This would leave only Gandhi to build a space ship, however I am worried he will not complete it on time when he is this small.

Time for Radical actions!!!

*Speculation*
I think he does not attack because:
-He doesnt have the power or the units to attack us
-He thinks we are too powerful and fears out counter attack
-He realizes our production power is great enough to whipe him out even if we had no units left.
-We are much bigger population wise than G.
-The power per population is not a factor in deciding whether to attack. We are lower than G, and yet he does nothing.
-Our continued growth through expansion makes G even less willing to attack.
*End of Speculation*

What we can be certain about is:
The AI calculation to decide "Should G attack us or not?" is currently at a clear NO.

If we want to get a result, we need to change the odds so the calculation swings to our favour, ie. G will attack us.

If any of the speculation makes sense (and I think it does given the way the game is going) we are currently doing everything to make sure G is even less likely to attack. Hence we are moving away from our goal instead of towards.

I think what we need to do is the exact opposite of what we are doing now:
Get smaller/weaker instead of bigger/stronger.

Proposed plan
It seems power per pop is not a factor if our absolute power, production and population are bigger than G.

So, if we can lose a significant amount of weight we might be able to swing the odds. That means we need to lose cities in a controlled way.
I suggest picking a small number of good cities (3-5) and fortifying in there. This should be our future base and we need to make sure it does not get taken. Could be former GK or American terriotory. They need good defensive units, counter units, siege weapons and naval support. Building defenses is the main prio of these cities.

We also have the rest of our force ready in the original empire to control things there. They are positioned outside of our cities ready to take back what we lose. Maybe we should protect hill cities as they are difficult to reconquer.

We then declare on a number of enemies (Brennus, Mehmed?), basically inviting them to come over and attack our cities. At least someone should come over and grab our cities. After a number of years our nation should look like a patched blanket of nations. We still have our retreat base and units standing around to take back when the time is right.

When we have lost enough cities and/or when the balance of “us vs our enemies” is safe enough, Gandhi will join in the fun. He will take the cities closest to him. When he has a solid foothold, we start recapturing our cities and let Gandhi take them from us.

Techwise we could rush to some key techs and stop one turn before so they dont add to our score. We can then complete them when we get back into action. Like we stop rifling, and start saving cash again. We can then complete rifling and upgrade to get an instant boost of power.

To be honest, at the moment even if Ganhdi only captures a few cities and the rest of our empire is taken by others, it will be better than the current situation.

We then continue our efforts from our new base trying to control the world and making sure Ganhdi gets bigget and others get smaller.

RISK: The risk is we lose too much, lag behind in tech and are no longer able to control the game.
Well, as we lose size we also lose maintenance costs which is good for our tech rate. With less cities we have less to defend, we should keep a good conquest force ready to be upgraded and strike who-ever needs pounding.

I must admit this plan goes against everything we would do in a normal game. We must remember our strategy, and at this rate we are not getting any closer.

I dont mind executing a strategy like this in the next turnset if I can get the game up and running.

 

[cabert]

I'm OK with losing some power from population.

This changes some of the plans, and make hadremetum less a priority.
And to be true, I was struggling to make some contradictory directions work together (taking hadremetum while delaying rifles , building a horde of berserkers while not wanting to power up ).

I don't want to lose cities, though. Power comes from population, not from number of cities. SO basically, I'm going to whip our cities dry .

1) immediate steps :
- redo what I did before the crash (by the way AlanH answered me, and I'm ready to go on, just lacking free time these days)
- peace with hannibal (for gold)
- switch all cities towards economic and whippable building
- switch all cities towards commerce (to get a bit lower in the production graph and increase our science rate), ecpet those currently building berserkers. Those are our city conquerors, we still want a few of those (enough to be able to raze a few ottoman cities later on).


2) next moves :
- whip! I don't care if I have +5 unhappiness from the whip.
- heal our supergrenadiers
- tech towards more economic buildings (laboratories )
- try to trade our way up a bit in techs

3) general direction (probably next turnset):
- move troops away from gandhi's cities, except workers
- reinforce new vikingland with happiness providing troops
- create a defensive fleet + a defensive land stack in old vikingland
- declare on brennus AND mehmed. If hannibal redeclares, feel free to kill him
- try to keep up in tech (not going for races, though)

 

[remconius]

Good stuff Cabert and I think you are right with regards to the population stuff.

But why not lose a few cities?

This would lower our maintenance costs and raise the AIs by having overseas cities. When Gandhi is ready we just retake them and let G take them from us.

Personally I dont like losing cities at all, but in this game it would be ok I reckon.

With regards to whipping, how about:
You whip a unit, switch production to another unit, whip, switch to another unit, whip and then build some kind of building. Then we have stored production in units which could be used to produce three unit in three turns in the future. But for now not increase our power more than necessary.

 

[cabert]

hammers invested on units decay after 10 turns

 

[remconius]

no problem, then we have 10 turns of low population and high stored production in which our enemies can start coming for us.

 

[pigswill]

Let's go viking. Pillage everything, raze all cities, earn loads of cash. Wonders? Who needs them? Holy cities? Quaint superstition. Popularity? Are we politicians? If Hannibal or Mehmed wants some of our cities then we'll give them away and raze them once they've lost enough culture not to be ours. But our friend Gandhi will stay unscathed; his power will shoot up relative to everyone else.

Now that's being radical.

 

[MrMahk]

Let's go viking. Pillage everything, raze all cities, earn loads of cash. Wonders? Who needs them? Holy cities? Quaint superstition. Popularity? Are we politicians? If Hannibal or Mehmed wants some of our cities then we'll give them away and raze them once they've lost enough culture not to be ours. But our friend Gandhi will stay unscathed; his power will shoot up relative to everyone else.

Now that's being radical.

I like it (if slightly less radical and a little more organized)! It totally goes in with the idea of reducing our power/number of cities while still hurting Gandhi's competition and giving us some rewards.

 

[cabert]

well well well

you're doing nothing to make things easy for me
Are you suggesting that I attack cities without building troops?
it would be remaining at war with hannibal+ declaring on brennus and mehmed?
I'm going to postpone playing until tomorrow, let's hope we come to an agrement.
Just let me say I don't like being at war with multiple AIs and having no defensive troops at all.

 

[remconius]

I think the goals for the next turnset are:
-Reduce population by whipping (storing production in units, but not yet building any)
-Dont get rifling, leave it at 1 turn left and start saving cash (or slow science)
-Fortify NEW vikingland to keep it safe with good defense units.
-Declare on several of Gandhi's friends. Make peace with hannibal.
-Lose cities, preferably to Gandhi, but to anyone is fine (dont lose hill cities thougth!)
-Keep a largish force sitting around old viking land to recapture any cities lost to the wrong person.

 

[cabert]

I think the goals for the next turnset are:
-Reduce population by whipping (storing production in units, but not yet building any)
-Dont get rifling, leave it at 1 turn left and start saving cash (or slow science)
-Fortify NEW vikingland to keep it safe with good defense units.
-Declare on several of Gandhi's friends. Make peace with hannibal.
-Lose cities, preferably to Gandhi, but to anyone is fine (dont lose hill cities thougth!)
-Keep a largish force sitting around old viking land to recapture any cities lost to the wrong person.

those 2 items (bolded ones) don't work together.
When enemies have cavalries, good defensive units are rifles.

+ if I don't build units, I will have no good defense.
+if I don't build units, I will have no largish force in old vikland

 

[patagonia]

I'd rather not declare on Mehmed until we've got about 10 rifles on the border in New Vinland as he's bound to have gone cav-happy.

If we're going to be whipping defense units, then rifling's a must. Grens (especially ones upgraded from berzerkers) are good for taking cities, but pants at holding on to them in the face of AI cav stacks.

Our next tech after rifling should definitely be nationalism. If we want to start losing ground, but retain the ability to influence the game, a mass draft in Old Vinland as we start to lose cities there seems like a good idea to me. Much more efficient than the whip for building rifles too. We can pretty much tank our current forces and combine drafting rifles with whipping cannon to rebuild an army over there if/when AI invasion comes.

If Washington's going to get globe, we should double that up with West Point once that becomes available. Instant draft factory.