SGOTM 05 - Fistful of Dynamite

Munro · Oct 10, 2007

Thanks Ralph - yes Hinduism rather than budhism, thanks for spotting that!

As Manic hasn't posted a got it yet, do you or Xatsmann want to post a got-it and play as soon as you are able?

Note I am going to out of town this weekend (thurs-mon) so will not be able to play again until tues eve, although I may have intermittent internet access so will check in when I get the chance.

xatsmann · Oct 10, 2007

sorry to be silient...i was out of town over the weekend and then sick until tonight..I got the turn and will play it sometime tomorrow.

Ralph_Jackson · Oct 11, 2007

Xatsmann, the main thing I would advocate is to be quite conservative initially in Attacking Tokue.

This means land troops but dont attack until the mixed stack Munro outlined is assembled.

Then look for a good defensive position e.g A wooded Hill would be ideal.

Then be prepared to pause and wait for Toku to come to you. The AI is daft enough to attack your mixed stack effectively suiciding troops and promoting ours. We probably want to wait for Toku to suicide his troops allocated to "attack" mode (the AI does allocate troops specific roles which then define their patterns of behaviour) before going for a second city

Once his counterattack stops that is the time to take the unavoidable risk involved in moving and attacking cities.

Don't be surpirsed if Toku comes very hard. He has a tech and power advantage so he could well swamp you which no one will hold against you as we have no option once we have our stack but to try and use it to get stuck into Toku. It is a slightly do or die situation which means dieing is an option!!!

Ralph

Ralph

xatsmann · Oct 13, 2007

I will be playing tonight and I will do as Ralph advises.

xatsmann · Oct 15, 2007

I did my turn and here is the turn log:

Spoiler :

The good news is I took Nagoya...the bad news is I could not hold it. I tried to take Nara too soon and lost Nagoya. I still have substantial forces in the area and we might be able to retake it. I thought it best to turn it over to someone else since I seem to be messing up, before the position became irretrievable.

Here is my turn notes:

Turn 0 1610

Converted to Buddhism

Turn 1 1616

Turn 2 1622

Turn 3 1628

First forces land in Japanese territory

Turn 4 1631

We get Philosophy!
Continue to reinforce our troops in Japanese territory
Notice that Japan has Musketmen!

Turn 5 1634

Turn 6 1637

We take Nagoka and only lose one maceman after using cats to reduce its defense to zero.

Turn 7 1640

We fight off wimpy counter attack on Nagoya and make ready to move on Nara in the next turn or two.
Sink a Jap carvel.

Turn 8 1643

Move toward Nagoya
Sink another of Qin's carvels.

Turn 9 1646

Spot Grendiers and Knights in or near Nara

Turn 10 1646

Big counterattack by Toko

Turn 11 1649

Tried to protect my cats by coming out of Nagoya but lost Nagoya

Turn 12 1652

Bombared Nagoga but could not take it.

Turn 13 1655

Bombarded Nagoaya and landed reinforcements but still cannot retake it.

Our economy is only doing fair due to our excess military units but I have a feeling a few turns of war with Toko will take care of that.

We are still about 3 turns away from gunpowder with very little money and only 20% allocated for research.

I think we need to build more knights and get them over to Japanese territory and try to defeat his knights as quickly as possible. Of course, he also has musketmen and grenadiers so I was a bit of loss as to how to deal with those units.

Ralph_Jackson · Oct 16, 2007

xatsmann said:
We are still about 3 turns away from gunpowder with very little money and only 20% allocated for research.

musketmen and grenadiers so I was a bit of loss as to how to deal with those units.

Xatsmann, I am not sure anybody can deal with Toku's Grenadiers with the military we have. So no criticism of you for losing troops as versus Grenadiers we would all have got :spank:

I will look tomorrow but suspect we are heading towards the Ambulance as he is that far advanced we wont succeed in invading him and I don't see anyway out of this.

Views????

Ralph

Munro · Oct 17, 2007

Took a quick look at the save.

I think this is still winable. Military looks like the only way though - as our economy is not geared for anything else, and it's the area where the AI is weakest.

We are 4 turns from 8XP musketmen with combat2+pinch which will be competitive against Toka's grenadiers, esp. with terain bonuses etc. and a solid stack. Regroup and above all *keep the stack together* avoiding the need for double medics and the like, and specialising units for specific counter-duties (formation for War Elephants, pinch for knights / muskets etc).

I think it can still be done, but it is getting tougher...

Note it was Hinduism we wanted not Budhism, as discussed just a few posts previously. We really need to be more careful about this kind of thing!!!

Manic / Ralph - either of you available to take the next turnset? Otherwise I am happy to play another turnset tomorrow eve if no-one posts a got-it (or questions / comments) before then.

Note we still need to pick up the pace on the turnsets - only managed 1 turnset in the last eight days (and only 15 days left...)

Cheers,
Munro

xatsmann · Oct 17, 2007

Munro said:
Therefore I think we should now switch back to Budhism ASAP for the +2 XP we will get everywhere for our new military units (meaning land units will start with a healthy 9XP!) Everyone agree?

I didn't think switching to Budhism made much sense but right here Munro you said we would get a +2 XP for our new military units--if it was wrong then you should have gone back and corrected it as I did check it just before I took my turn. I assumed you would have gone back and edited your post if it was wrong, I don't think I am completely to blame on that one! :blush:

xatsmann · Oct 17, 2007

The biggest issue is our lack of sea transport. I was getting killed by all the knights that the Japanese have. Given his larger cities, most are 10 or higher in population, and higher production--I simply could not get enough troops up to the front quickly enough.

The lack of sailing transports is seriously hampering our war effort. For example, to get troops from Mecca or Medina to Athens takes about 12 turns--this is far too long. If we are seriously about a military campaign we need to get our navy up to steam power/ironclads level so we can move troops around. If we lack mobility I don't see how we can conquer enough territory.

I also think we have too many cats as well. If we aren't going to be bombarding cities every other turn we should have more knights as they our the best all-around troops that we have.

Do we want to think about switching to Serfdom as it will allow us to complete buildings in half the time? I was tempted to do it but I thought I'd better ask the group first. I'm also not sure of how many more buildings we have left to build--I was thinking mostly about building a bunch of courthouses to keep our city maintenance costs down. What does the teamt think?

I also think we should ask to have the deadline extended as I don't think we're going to make October 31st deadline. My turn set took over two hours to do and I only did 13 turns.

Munro · Oct 17, 2007

xatsmann said:
I didn't think switching to Budhism made much sense but right here Munro you said we would get a +2 XP for our new military units--if it was wrong then you should have gone back and corrected it as I did check it just before I took my turn. I assumed you would have gone back and edited your post if it was wrong, I don't think I am completely to blame on that one!

Ok - sorry for the confusion. I will be more careful also. Do let me know though if my comments don't make sense (or I have made a mistake) - much better to explain before the turnset than afterwards!

Munro · Oct 17, 2007

xatsmann said:
The lack of sailing transports is seriously hampering our war effort. For example, to get troops from Mecca or Medina to Athens takes about 12 turns--this is far too long. If we are seriously about a military campaign we need to get our navy up to steam power/ironclads level so we can move troops around. If we lack mobility I don't see how we can conquer enough territory.

Yes, well said. Unfortunately more Galleys won't help though (since they would have to follow the coast, and with engineering, our land units can actually move faster at 3 tiles per turn). Astronomy for Galleons will help though, so definitely still think we should tech this next after gunpowder (3 turns away).

I also think we have too many cats as well. If we aren't going to be bombarding cities every other turn we should have more knights as they our the best all-around troops that we have.

Cats are still essential to taking cities (they have no real counter when protected and deployed in sufficient numbers). You're right though that we first need enough other units to protect them in our stack. Too many knights may not be the ideal choice for this though, since they don't receive defensive bonuses - and using those bonuses carefully is one useful way to regain the upper hand on the battlefield (and is something the AI does badly).

For example, after regrouping, one strategy would be to land a solid mixed stack on the forested hills outside Kagoshima (if they are still forested - do we know?) and allow Toka to suicide against the stack for a while. Musketmen are probably a key unit for this job, since they get the defensive bonuses from the hills and forest, plus free combat 1 (which makes them nearly as strong as the knights) and access to good defensive promotions (e.g. guerilla 1 / 2, and woodsman 1/2, which knights can't get).

Do we want to think about switching to Serfdom as it will allow us to complete buildings in half the time? I was tempted to do it but I thought I'd better ask the group first. I'm also not sure of how many more buildings we have left to build--I was thinking mostly about building a bunch of courthouses to keep our city maintenance costs down. What does the teamt think?

Unfortunately, Serfdom doesn't give any :hammers:

bonus for buildings, as far as I know. The +50% bonus is only for worker improvements (farms, mines, roads etc) so doesn't really help us here.

I also think we should ask to have the deadline extended as I don't think we're going to make October 31st deadline. My turn set took over two hours to do and I only did 13 turns.

Personally I feel bad about doing this if other teams have 'rushed' to complete on time, but will go along with whatever the team decides.

Munro · Oct 19, 2007

Manic / Ralph - either of you able to play a turnset tonight (or over the weekend)? I am able to play this evening (after about 6pm EDT / 11pm BST) so will put in a turnset unless anyone else wants to post a got-it before then.

Plan will be to finish tech'ing gunpowder and move to Astronomy, while building up military for another crack at Toka (landing initially on a forested hill) and probably going for his heartland first to try putting the brakes on his economy.

Munro · Oct 19, 2007

Ok - this is my 'got it' for the next turnset. Starting now..

Munro · Oct 20, 2007

Ok - here's the save.

Session turnlog:

Spoiler :

Munro · Oct 20, 2007

Well, close but ultimately no cigar...

Tech'd to gunpowder, whipped a few muskets, landed a large stack (20 units) on the forested hill outside Kagoshima, and shortly thereafter captured Kagoshima losing 5 cats but no other units. Toka's army is largely to the north (successfully) destroying Cyrus and the barbs, and all looks good.

View attachment 162648

However, Toka sends a couple of knights to attack and wins a string of lucky victories destroying 4 veteran defenders at 12% and 4% and then again a couple of turns later at 22% and 28% (losing two at 23% and 27%).

Spoiler :

Meanwhile Toka wins two lucky naval battles at 32% and 4% (!) which delays the arrival of reinforcements, and the combination of the two eventually proves decisive.

Spoiler :

Without the planned reinforcements, Kagoshima eventually falls to superior numbers a few turns later when Toka's main counter attack shows up.

Spoiler :

Munro · Oct 20, 2007

Meanwhile in the rest of the game:

- I was able to get peace with Qin in exchange for Gunpowder the same turn we discovered it, and also traded it to Cyrus for music and drama + world map + 450 :gold:

(and avoiding paper as it would have impacted the :gp:

lightbulb options).

View attachment 162649

- reinstated the engineer + 2 scientist and popped a GE, which allows us to lightbulb Chemistry (but only gives 1800 of the required 5000 beakers, so I have saved him until we can use him)

- We're 15 turns from discovering Astronomy

- Cyrus and the barbs eventually got convincingly destroyed by Toka, and are now relegated to a single city each on the far eastern side of the main continent.

View attachment 162650

- Isabella has just settled on the unused 'clam' spot on the SW of our homeland; probably not a huge deal unless she pops her cultural borders there, since she still won't sign OB with us; (we will have astronomy shortly anyway)

View attachment 162651

Munro · Oct 20, 2007

At a high level, I think we have little choice but to continue with our campaign against Toka (he will not make peace in any case), while tech'ing Astronomy (to ensure we can continue to transport our troops) and then Chemistry (using the GE in Mecca for a head start).

The current miltiary situation is that we have
- 4 new guerilla II muskets fortifying on the wooded hill outside Kagoshima (Toka has suicided a few units already, but they are holding so far)
- another 7 muskets + 1 pike are 2 turns away from reinforcing (galleys 1W of Nagoya)
- 12 more units waiting in the wings back in Athens / Sparta (and others being built or on their way from the homeland).

View attachment 162653

If we can get another stack of 10-15 guerilla II muskets / woodmsan II pikes and maces onto that wooded hill spot, there may still be a chance that Toka will let us back in the game (by suiciding units against us and then losing Kagoshima again to another stack of cats). His economy is most likely still hampered from his long military campaigns (and all 3 of his western cities have now been captured and recaptured, so will not be well developed). This may all mean we get a usable window to take out one or two of his larger cities before he shows up with cannons.

However, it is looking like an increasingly long shot...

Munro · Oct 22, 2007

It's gone very quiet...

Ralph_Jackson · Oct 23, 2007

Apologies for being out of the loop currently in Lanzarote with limited Internet Access and no CIV DVD.

Will be back on Thursday and will try and look at things then but not terribly optimistic..

Ralph

xatsmann · Oct 25, 2007

sorry to be quiet all week..I was laid off from my job rather suddenly on last Friday so I was busy with setting up interviews and that sort of thing....anyway I agree that this game is a long shot at this point.

Our problem is in a nutshell is this: we lack technology, i.e. we will be using larger numbers of our lower tech maceman and knights against the AI higher tech of grenadiers and calvary, so we must overwhelm the AI with numbers. As much as I would prefer that we out think the AI, I don't think we have time to wait around for the AI to commit suicide with 'idiot attacks'.

We lack the sea lift capability in terms of speed and capacity to bring up enough units to do this. The AI will simply produce too many of its higher tech units thus allowing the AI, even with its limited intelligence, to recapture cities that we take since our depleted forces will not be able to hold the cites against it's counter attacks, as we saw during our last move.

I'm not sure what we can do now except decide on a technology course to get us back into the game.

I agree with your line of reasoning...we need Astronomy and then Chemistry.

SGOTM 05 - Fistful of Dynamite

Deity

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