SGOTM 04 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

Should we then reduce Izzie, H and W to one city sites in order to keep them at bay while we reduce our military? If this is necessary, do we need to gift and raze cities as well? :

Once we gift NS, Bjorgvin, and probably Upsalla as well, we could take a city or two from whomever looks to pose the greatest future threat and then reduce our military. I don't think we need to get the other civs down to just one city to keep them from being a threat. Will G make his evaluation (and gain confidence) based on quality or quantity of units?

 

[Bede]

Once we gift NS, Bjorgvin, and probably Upsalla as well, we could take a city or two from whomever looks to pose the greatest future threat and then reduce our military. I don't think we need to get the other civs down to just one city to keep them from being a threat. Will G make his evaluation (and gain confidence) based on quality or quantity of units?

I think it is based on a comparison of the power curves, or something like that, so quantity, quality and capability are accounted for. It may be tough to bring our rating down enough, given we can train all the advanced units.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Hey, Xers! Doing good on the score graph If only Gandhi would start grabbing cities... Same problem we had with this variant in Civ3

 

[rrau]

In the attack would we want to capture Madras to try to force Apollos to a more productive city?

 

[leif erikson]

Hey, Xers! Doing good on the score graph If only Gandhi would start grabbing cities... Same problem we had with this variant in Civ3

Hi Capt. Nice to see you again. Hope all is well in the north as the celebration of mid-sommer must be about to begin!

The other problem we had was war weariness, and that is becoming a problem here too.

In the attack would we want to capture Madras to try to force Apollos to a more productive city?

Not sure what the cost in war weariness to G will be if we take Madras. However, Delhi is beginning to be paralyzed by it. This is not a good development!

 

[Bede]

Took a slightly different tack than discussed.

Recaptured Nidaros and then shipped out disbanded every military unit on the home island. I had to give Atlanta back to GW to stay below the Domination limit as Nidaros immediately blew out its borders to the original dimensions. Gandhi keeps skating his cavalry around Uppsala to little effect. The city is now empty of any defenders and there are no Viking troops anywhere on the island, so maybe, just maybe, Gandhi will act, since a city that once belonged to his vassal is now his for the plucking, as well as every other Viking city.

Will have to see. Obviously at some point we will have to reopen the ball with Washington and the Spanish witch.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Well, Why?

 

[Bede]

Watching Gandhi's lone cavalryman ignore Uppsala's single warrior was the convincing factor.

It occured to me that decimating his army while our cities south of Birka were still heavily defended, relative to his local troop strength, would not convince him to act the way we wanted. And if I gave the towns to someone else (Isabel or George, Hannibal being out of the picture as a vassal of Gandhi), the only way to set them up for Gandhi's eventual ownership would mean keeping an overstrength force on the island during that interim.

If he doesn't take the bait in a reasonable time, I can still come down on him like a ton of bricks to force him to build quality units, but the dude still doesn't have factories, so it is going to take him a long time to build what he may need to feel capable again and rifles are hardly a match for Modern Armor, Stealth Bombers and Mech Infantry anyway.

I fear we grew too strong. Old habits are hard to break! Leaving the homeland behind as soon as we had a defensible toehold in Celtia might have been the better choice but I certainly did not foresee that Gandhi would remain such a technology slug.

The preplaced forces are still off shore India so the hammer can fall in a turn.

 

[Cactus Pete]

You're arguing that G has ignored Upsalla because of the overwhelming nature of our forces, particularly forces on the island. I hope you are right, but there is evidence inconsistent with that analysis: G has pillaged and taken other cites in the face of our island strength. Do you know of something in the programming written to make the AI behave consistent with your interpretation of G's behavior?

 

[Frederiksberg]

How would Gandhi know what kind of troops we have in our cities? I don't think he has any spies or subs.

 

[Bede]

He has to know we have at least infantry and gunships as we showed him a conga line back when we were trying to protect our improvements from his pillaging.

The lonely hearts horseman has been running circles around Uppsala playing follow the worker never bothered to whack the warrior. It has to be because he thinks the much stornger forces will leap upon him out of the fog.

His fleet remains bottled up in the north other than three firgates in the straits that spin around Uppsala like bottles on a honky tonk dance floor.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I have a nasty feeling that you are giving the AI to much credit when it comes to intelligent reasoning. It's probably necessary to have detailed knowledge of how the AI is programmed in order to understand the odd behaviour it exhibits. I doubt that moving our troops away from our home continent will make any difference because I don't see how Gandhi could know that we did this.

 

[Bede]

Well, it broke the stalemate, whatever I did.

In the next three turns Gandhi captured Uppsala and New Sarai and has sent a SAM to capture Nidaros which will happen in the next three turns.

If he would only release the cavalry from Madras and put them in the Viking lands he could capture the rest of the homeland in three more turns.

 

[leif erikson]

This is good news, although a little late to make a real difference I'm afraid.

The bizarre behavior of the AI continues to baffle!!

 

[Cactus Pete]

It certainly baffles me, but "Bravo!" for Bede.

If we let G continue in this mode, we need to monitor his ww.

We will probably have to defend Hadrumetum
again.

Should we attack G and reduce his supply costs after he has seized as much of the home continent as we want him to?

And what about rrau's suggestion to get Apollo out of Madras?

 

[leif erikson]

We will probably have to defend Hadrumetum
again.

I think you are absolutely right!!

Should we attack G and reduce his supply costs after he has seized as much of the home continent as we want him to?

And what about rrau's suggestion to get Apollo out of Madras?

I think both of these ideas need to be weighed against what WW they will create for G.

If it will cause five more red faces, that can't be good?

Frederiksberg seems to have the best handle on this? What do you think?

 

[Bede]

I'll have to take a look into Madras but I fear it has way too many improvements that are money spinning for the Mahatma. Spy is there now so will take a look tonight and report back.

The Mahatma's war weariness is less of a problem than the "just too crowded" unhappiness throughout his cities by a factor of 4 or 5 times. That reflects lack of access to resources more than anything else. And since his enemy (us) controls most, if not all the resources in the world I am not sure what to do about that, short of turtling up in one city and giving the rest to Spain and Washington and hope they are in a generous mood when it comes to the Mahatma.

I am in a position now to smash both Washington and Hannibal into the dustbin, and if I do that I shall end up giving the Spanish all the territory in the middle of the continent to avoid the domination thing, or wait for Gandhi to gobble the rest of the homeland, and then smash them, or let them live a while yet, though what either has to offer I don't know as no one has been in a particularly generous mood when it comes to making Gandhi more competitive.

 

[leif erikson]

If he would utilize the resources he has, he would be better off, the Gems tiles are the prime examples.

If he gets off his can and takes most of our former homeland, then he should be fairly well off, if he doesn't pillage all the resources...

The only reason I can think of to keep the other civs about is tech trading. As long as we keep them in the stone age, they can't really trade anything. But I think I would wait before we whack them...

 

[Cactus Pete]

I think we have to assume that G will be able to trade, so let's keep the option available.

 

[Bede]

I'm ujp to 1940 and at peace with all but Gandhi. Washington and Hannibal yet live, and Gandhi is about to take Nidaros and the desert city SE of Haibathu.

There is no trading going with the Mahatma happening, he has nothing to trade with and is self researching everything. He was researching Assembly Line when I picked up the game and is researching Electricity now, very, very slowly.

I have gifted Isabella and Hannibal all the way to Robotics to remove the monopoly status of those techs, hoping to see them offer something to Gandhi and it is no dice. No give, even though Isabel is "Friendly" with the man.

Fission I am hanging on to, although only Spain has Uranium, which I keep sabotaged.

If there are no objections I will play on to 1950, just to see if Gandhi uses his new infantry to capture some undefended cities. That will leave us 100 turns to play.