SGOTM 05 - Geezers

AgedOne · Aug 12, 2007

OK, team. Are you ready for this?

Summary
The invasion commenced.
We landed attack wave 1 beside Sparta and took it easily.
This then revealed Tokugawa's presence on Alex's land.
Scouted further to find this was a small island, and not Alex's mainland!
Diverted the fleet carrying attack wave 2 to explore the coast.
It seems we cannot reach Alex's mainland unless we have a city with expanded borders on this island!
Destroyed Tokugawa's tiny outpost (Satsuma), but refrained from taking Thermopylae immediately.

Detail (My notes)

T160 (100BC)
Rushed Keshik in K. Queued Lib to go next. MM city to grow again.
Sent Galley from clams towards the embarkation point.
Loaded 2 axes onto each of the galleys already present.
General movement of forces towards Old Sarai.

IBT
Sal's empty galley moving N along our coast near our gold & stone.
Ning-hsia will grow into unhappiness.

T161
Two galleys now waiting off-shore loaded with axes.
Third galley half way to Old-Sarai.
MM Ning-Hsia to reduce growth.
Workers start another cottage by Karakorum.
Units still moving south.
Karakorum now on library (using overflow hammers)
Losing 5gpt, and only 4g left - so reduced tech to 40%

IBT
Sal's galley passing by Turfan.
Ning-Hsia will grow into unhappiness next turn.

T162
Back to 50% tech for a turn. Can afford it.
MM Ning-Hsia to stop growth.
Nearly all attack units now in Old Sarai.
Galley3 will be outside Old Sarai next turn.

IBT
Nothing

T163
Two Keshiks on galley3.
Tech rate down to (gulp) 30% to avoid going below 0g.

IBT
Nothing for us - tho some barb activity.
Karakorum will grow to 3 next turn.

T164
Tech back up to 40%
Third loaded galley arrives in position.

IBT
K grows to 3

T165
MM Karakorum to slow growth & get extra income.
Here we go!
Move galleys to Alex's coast, declaring as we go.
Sparta is defended by 2 archers, and the city has 20% cultural defence.
Land the first attack wave on the grass. 4 axes and 2 keshiks.
Galleys turn to get wave 2.

IBT
We learned Polytheism from the Barbs
No new units in Sparta. A worker runs indoors to shelter.

T166
Two hits and we're in! Axe and Keshik each defeat an archer.
Oh Ho! Tokugawa is on the island!! Red borders just to the south!
View attachment 158035
We raze Sparta. It is just a memory. We gain a worker.
Most units move to forest, ready to defend if an attack come in. One Keshik moves on SE to scout ahead. No units visible.
Galleys reload with attack wave 2 and set sail.
We now have 93gold, so I can set the tech rate up a bit. 60%.

IBT
Nothing. Just barb activity.

T167
Scouted forward with Keshik - and -
Astonishing revelation! Sparta and Thermopylae are on a tiny island, away from the capital!!
View attachment 158037
Toku has planted tiny Satsuma here also.

Need to be very careful! Was Alex only able to reach this island courtesy of his expanded borders in Thebes? If so, maybe we cannot reach his mainland without an expanded border of our own.

IBT
Nought.

T168
Snooping around the N coast of the island with our galleys rather than landing the forces.
Moved wave 1 to look at Satsuma. Single archer defending here also.

IBT
Nothing.

T169
The fleet moved on further. Appalling news! I don't think we can reach Thebes!!
View attachment 158038
We may need Thermopylae (with expanded borders).
Oh. I splatted Satsuma.

Here's the next save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Geezers_SG005_AD0050_01.Civ4SavedGame

Game Log:

Spoiler :

Autolog

Spoiler :

The-Hawk · Aug 12, 2007

Ahhh... nice to be at war with Alex. Great job!

Stepping back from the to look at the big picture, we have a serious economy problem in front of us. I think we can only build a handful more units and we go cash negative at 0% research. Obviously we can't afford to go 0%, I suspect Alex's buddies on the lush island will be much tougher nuts to crack. We are facing a tough balance... build enough units to be successful, but not so many as to overburden our economy.

I think we are going to need to shift a couple of our citizens to commerce instead of pumping units. Its a good thing we've been building cottages, but we need to work more of them so they grow to towns.

However, we can't give up on aggressive conquest. I think our best long term answer is to establish a foothold on lush island, build a FP in our original island, then build the capital on lush island. If we delay now, with our research pace the AI's will get away from us. As long as we keep taking cities, we can live on the gold boost we get every time. So, full speed ahead on conquest, this is not the time to be meek.

I would recommend moving a citizen in Karakorum to a cottage, and maybe one or two others to cottages in other cities. If any AI wants peace, we should take it (maybe Toku will take it since we razed his city). We've got to get out of this war weariness problem.

And (shudder)... I think we keep Themopylae. It is going to hit our economy, but we need a step off point to Alex capital. If we do keep it, our ex-Alex worker should start building cottages asap. I wish there was a way to get that silver, but I suspect a city down there would be a waste.

PS... I was right about Alex being on a small island, wasn't I?

Sam_Yeager · Aug 12, 2007

Well that's an interesting kick in the teeth. :crazyeye:

I agree that we need to take and hold Thermopylae despite the cost. Given that we need to cut costs and crack on with science I'm surprised that Karakorum is building yet another keshik insteasd of carrying on with the library. :confused:

Since we haven't lost any troops yet I think we should change our city builds away from military and towards infrastructure. Any military builds that are close to completion should be completed and older units such as warriors and archers/chariots deleted to compensate.

I believe we should disembark our military from the galleys. It would be rather annoying, and a waste of hammers, if Alex or Toku managed to sink some of our galleys whilst they still have troops aboard.

The fourth galley under construction should probably be sent to investigate the north route towards Qin. On the subject of Qin it looks as though there's a sea passage from his land towards lush island.

Since Sally seems to have covered most of his island it may well be worthwhile making peace with him for the time being.

Sam_Yeager · Aug 12, 2007

Roster

Sam
drhirsch
Harbourboy
AgedOne - just played
markh- UP
The-Hawk - on deck

Pariah (skipped until he reports being available)

AgedOne · Aug 12, 2007

The-Hawk said:
Stepping back from the to look at the big picture, we have a serious economy problem in front of us.

Sam_Yeager said:
Given that we need to cut costs and crack on with science I'm surprised that Karakorum is building yet another keshik insteasd of carrying on with the library.

Oops. Yes. Sorry guys.
I think I hadn't quite got my head back round from thinking we were going to be in a mass brawl with Alex that was going to need a never-ending supply of military. The ease with which Sparta fell, and Thermopylae is going to, just took me by surprise.

Anyway, not too late to fix it. The library has a fair number of hammers towards it, and has missed out on 2 turns of building.

The-Hawk said:
I think we keep Themopylae. It is going to hit our economy, but we need a step off point to Alex capital. If we do keep it, our ex-Alex worker should start building cottages asap.

Sam_Yeager said:
I agree that we need to take and hold Thermopylae despite the cost.

After I got over my initial shock, I had time to think about this more. Maybe we don't need Thermopylae.
Two small pieces of evidence.
The first is that Athens is probably on the far side of Alex's main island (judging from the early screenshots where we first saw his borders). In that case, he wouldn't have been able to use expanded borders as early as he got across to the island.
The second is that Tokugawa was able to settle there. Of course he might have arrived via expanded borders too (he has OB with Alex and they are best buds)
I just feel that if Alex was boxed in on his island until after stonehenge widened his borders we would have seen him settling his 2nd city on lush continent.
All a bit guessworky, but I just feel there has to be a way through that we haven't seen yet.

Sam_Yeager said:
I believe we should disembark our military from the galleys. It would be rather annoying, and a waste of hammers, if Alex or Toku managed to sink some of our galleys whilst they still have troops aboard.

D'oh. Yes. My brain definitely slipped out of gear for the last couple of turns, following the big revelations.
Next person up can pop these guys straight off onto shore before doing anything else. I saved at the start of turn, so all units are still to move.

The-Hawk said:
However, we can't give up on aggressive conquest. I think our best long term answer is to establish a foothold on lush island, build a FP in our original island, then build the capital on lush island. If we delay now, with our research pace the AI's will get away from us. As long as we keep taking cities, we can live on the gold boost we get every time. So, full speed ahead on conquest, this is not the time to be meek.

Totally agree.
We got something like 90 gold from Sparta. We've got a bit more to come from Thermoplyae. Athens would be a big cash bonus, if we can get there soon. (I seem to have been calling Athens "Thebes" sometimes, I notice. Just who are we invading? :crazyeye:

)
This end of lush continent is ripe for a foothold. There are 2 barbarian cities here (Magyar and Phoenician) and just Corinth to dispose of. Lots of unclaimed land, and lots of gold.

Sam_Yeager · Aug 12, 2007

AgedOne said:
After I got over my initial shock, I had time to think about this more. Maybe we don't need Thermopylae.
Two small pieces of evidence.
The first is that Athens is probably on the far side of Alex's main island (judging from the early screenshots where we first saw his borders). In that case, he wouldn't have been able to use expanded borders as early as he got across to the island.
The second is that Tokugawa was able to settle there. Of course he might have arrived via expanded borders too (he has OB with Alex and they are best buds)
I just feel that if Alex was boxed in on his island until after stonehenge widened his borders we would have seen him settling his 2nd city on lush continent.
All a bit guessworky, but I just feel there has to be a way through that we haven't seen yet.)

Interesting points. However there definitely seems to be a row of ocean tiles separating Alex's island from this one. Equally we need to make our mind up before we take Thermopylae.

We can try having a quick scout with the galleys but realistically I think we have to take Thermopylae.

AgedOne · Aug 12, 2007

Sam_Yeager said:
Interesting points. However there definitely seems to be a row of ocean tiles separating Alex's island from this one. Equally we need to make our mind up before we take Thermopylae.

We can try having a quick scout with the galleys but realistically I think we have to take Thermopylae.

Yes. You're probably right. My evidence is a bit vague isn't it.
Considering we should be unloading our forces immediately the next turn starts, and returning the fleet to Old Sarai, I guess we could afford for one galley to move onwards instead of back in the hope of finding a way through.

My main driver in this is the thought of how much of a drain on our already weak economy taking ownership of Thermopylae is going to be.

The other slightly depressing thing is that to achieve the plan The-Hawk outlined for relocating to lush continent we will need courthouses. Civil Service seems a way off at the moment, and receding every minute.

The-Hawk · Aug 12, 2007

Sam_Yeager said:
We can try having a quick scout with the galleys but realistically I think we have to take Thermopylae.

One other reason for keeping Thermo... it will create a choke point on settlers from lush island. We can keep this island to ourselves, maybe our barb allies will settle it.

AgedOne said:
Oops. Yes. Sorry guys.
I think I hadn't quite got my head back round from thinking we were going to be in a mass brawl with Alex that was going to need a never-ending supply of military. The ease with which Sparta fell, and Thermopylae is going to, just took me by surprise.

No problem at all. I'm OK with building a bit more military, I think we will need it. As I said, I think we need to sustain our attack and this will require more units. Besides, I suspect we will spend several units taking Alex's capital without cats. We just need to watch our bank account. No point in building units only to lose them to bankruptcy.

By the way, Alex has expanded onto the western side of lush island... looks like a candidate site for our toehold.

I also noticed a three gold site further onto lush island... might be a great capital someday.

markh · Aug 13, 2007

AgedOne. 3 attacks without a loss. The RNG was gracious to you. Each below 70%. I would have lost at least 2 units. :lol:

In my trials for the previous HOF gmajor I had axes attacking an archer in a city each at 59% and guess what, the archer killed 3 axes clean, a fourth axe wounded it, a fifth died at 89% and a sixth one killed it finally. Thank you.

I made a statistic of my battles then and the outcome was :

from 100 battles at 60+% my units win 45 times
from 100 battles at 70+% my units win 59 times
from 100 battles at 80+% my units win 53 times :eek:

from 100 battles at 90+% my units win 88 times

Sorry, I got off track.

I got it. Will have a look tonight.

drhirsch · Aug 13, 2007

There may be a southern passage to Alex/Lushland. We should definetly do some exploring before deciding about keeping Thermopylae. I suspect too, we won't need it.
OTOH settling on the Island where both silver and the fish are in the fat cross might be worth it - we have a serious happiness problem and a +1 pop for most of our cities will reduce military cost and increase income, so even if the new city is at -8 coins or something it will soon pay off.
I would like to stop military builds now (or delay them until we know more about the southern passage) and resume when we get cats.

Pariah · Aug 13, 2007

Hi folks.....

Been on holiday 2 weeks. No forum access. Is there any chance I could still contribute at all?

markh · Aug 13, 2007

Hi Pariah, of course. Welcome to the team. I would suggest you go through the few pages

and get yourself familiar with the situation and what we have discussed so far (if you do not have it done, yet). Just post when you think you are ready for playing and I will fit you into the roster.

AgedOne · Aug 13, 2007

markh said:
AgedOne. 3 attacks without a loss. The RNG was gracious to you. Each below 70%. I would have lost at least 2 units.

Yes. This didn't occur to me at the time, but I was very lucky. I was working on the assumption that I had 6 good units against their 2, and that I might lose a couple but would win through in the end. I just remember thinking that the battle for Sparta had gone very easily, but hadn't appreciated how much the fickle RNG had been on my side.
(All change next time of course.)

markh · Aug 13, 2007

Had a look at the save. BTW please save at the end of the turn, not at the beginning. Especially when asked to build something as you cannot scroll around, but have to give a buildorder. I saved it again after having had a look.

Unloaded a galley and moved it 1SE, 1NE to reveal a passage to Athens (see picture). The passage is safe, so I would say raze Thermopylae. We would need quite a lot of units to go for Athens without cats. I wouldn't try it.

AgedOne · Aug 13, 2007

markh said:
Had a look at the save. BTW please save at the end of the turn, not at the beginning. Especially when asked to build something as you cannot scroll around, but have to give a buildorder. I saved it again after having had a look.

No problem.
We will all have to do this, of course.
(I left it at the same turn position that I picked it up in.)

markh said:
Unloaded a galley and moved it 1SE, 1NE to reveal a passage to Athens (see picture). The passage is safe, so I would say raze Thermopylae. We would need quite a lot of units to go for Athens without cats. I wouldn't try it.

Darn! If I'd played one more turn I would've seen this and saved a lot of unnecessary worry.
Mind you, those Phalanxes look a bit naughty.
As you said, I think we need cats to have any realistic chance of taking Athens.

Can we by-pass it and get our foothold on lush continent by taking Corinth instead?

Sam_Yeager · Aug 13, 2007

AgedOne for thinking there might be a sea passage and mark for checking it out before taking Thermopylae.

I see it's another one of those sea passages that relies on tile corners touching each other. That explains why it looked as though we would need culture to bridge the ocean. I just seem to have real problems with seeing those. :cry:

Definitely agree that we can raze Thermopylae.

I can't say that I'm too happy about waiting for cats to take down Athens. Even with what we get from Thermopylae it's going to be at least another 19 turns, unless our allies help us, to get Construction. We then need to build the cats and then transport them so it's 25 turns, at a guess, before we can attack? Meanwhile Alex will be building more military.

OTOH 60% culture is a bit of a bummer to attack. I suppose the question is whether it's worth building a few more troops and hoping to take Athens through sheer numbers. Oh btw we should keep Athens for Stonehenge.

It's certainly worth finding Alex's metal to stop him building any more phalanxes or axes. Taking Corinth is certainly a good alternative if we decide to bypass Athens. Mind you, the unhappiness from 'we want to rejoin the motherland' on top of WW will be a real pain.

markh · Aug 13, 2007

Without cats I would guess we'd need about 18 units to take it. I do not think that it is worth it. I agree that his other cities might be a better target. Concentrate on these and come back to Athens when we have cats. How does that sound ?

The-Hawk · Aug 13, 2007

Sam_Yeager said:
Definitely agree that we can raze Thermopylae.

I still don't think I would raze. Thermo is in a very strategic location. If we raze, then another AI can reach and settle this island. If another AI settles here, unless we can get OB with them, we lose this path to lush island. I think we keep Thermo and Alex's capital so we have a coastal path (and later a trade route) between the old world and the new.

I agree we need cats to take out the capital... we can't afford to build enough units to take it through attrition.

Sam_Yeager · Aug 14, 2007

The-Hawk said:
I still don't think I would raze. Thermo is in a very strategic location. If we raze, then another AI can reach and settle this island. If another AI settles here, unless we can get OB with them, we lose this path to lush island. I think we keep Thermo and Alex's capital so we have a coastal path (and later a trade route) between the old world and the new.

We're already at war with most of them. We don't need no stinking OB to use this path. :lol:

The trade route is another matter altogether. However whilst we are at war with Alex is still disrupted anyway. :confused:

Since Thermopylae will cost us needed gold for research I'm struggling to see the advantage in keeping it apart from a place to heal. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious If so, then perhaps somebody can tell me what it is.

The-Hawk said:
I agree we need cats to take out the capital... we can't afford to build enough units to take it through attrition.

Pity...

markh · Aug 14, 2007

Agree with you Sam. We are at war with anybody, so if anybody settles on that island it will not prevent us to sail through their waters. No OB required. However we could station some troops on the island and kill any arriving settler partly for some cheap workers. :devil:

Later on when our economic situation is better we can settle there. It is an easy spot to get us over the dom limit.

Construction is 19 turns to go. I have to check whether we can squeeze out some more commerce to speed this up. Thermopylae will give us some more money, so we should be able to shorten the time a bit more. The empty galley will continue scouting and if I see another tempting city I will go for it while waiting for construction to come in. Was it possible to lure out defenders by placing a worker on a nearby tile. I would consider to use the captured worker to place it near Athens to lure out some defenders if possible.

SGOTM 05 - Geezers

Emperor

Old Original Geezer

Another Original Geezer

Another Original Geezer

Emperor

Another Original Geezer

Emperor

Old Original Geezer

Deity

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Deity

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Deity

Emperor

Another Original Geezer

Deity

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