SGOTM 05 - Gypsy Kings

Ronnie1 · Sep 6, 2007

I favor raze Medina before peace.

I can go one of two ways after that.
1. Raze the rest of Sals cities for the gold now, (after 10 turns of peace of course).
2. Go directly for Alex and Mids.

I agree with peace with as much of the mainland as possible.

I think we keep producing troops as fast as possible, (no whipping)!

I think we need to grow fast, but I think we need to work the gold mine in Besh also. It is too valuable to not work.

Attack stack for Alex needs to be bigger than we sent to Sal IMO.

da_Vinci · Sep 6, 2007

Well ... maybe there is enough consensus to play on tonight ... then hw can be up to go from there.

R1 says raze Medina, g_s says raze Medina, I like the idea, C63 and Thrallia are in gamless limbo now, hw did not object to the idea ... so I think i am good to go tonight after all (I had forgotten about C63 and Thrallia issues).

So I am playing now.

dV

Thrallia · Sep 6, 2007

yes, I'm in limbo still, my wife doesn't remember what she did with the disc(guess that's one of the side effects of attempting to bring her from just casual flash/java games to actual gaming) so hopefully I'll find it by the time it is my turn to play.

As for the plans...I agree with raze Medina first, peace everyone we can, and then head straight for Alex and the Mids. With the mids, we'll be able to redeclare war on people without having any sudden unhappiness problems(not to mention getting +25% military production! :goodjob:

)

I disagree that we'll need more troops, unless Alex has had a growth spurt, because last I checked, he was in last place among the AI in pretty much every area.

da_Vinci · Sep 6, 2007

Played 11 turns to turn 240. Razed Medina, decided that it made sense to go at Damascus too so have just catted it to 4% defense. I think we could raze it, then split the stack to take both remaining cities on that island at the same time. That leaves him one in the NE on the small island.

Made peace with all but Qin and Sal for theo. I maxed food to grow cities. Sal was trying to counterattack mecca so I whiped an archer there just for insurance. When that grows a pop back in 1 turn, we will have + cash flow at 0 sci.

The barbs researched cal turn 231, making peace with sal less urgent. Now he will make peace and give us alpha, monarchy, and HBR. Will he still make that deal after we take out all the cities on this big island? or should we take it after we whack Damascus? Or at least take out his last metal?

I now think we should finish him off on the big island while we are there, then consolidate and go for Alex. Unless that ruins the trade deal.

Plantationed the bananas for food, not sure what to do with dye as we have cottaged two of them ... Could pasture the pigs and run scientists in Karak.

Making a missionary in WestBridge for Mecca ... which will be a powerhouse once it has FC. Had to whip off two unhappy, then the archer there.

One goof, left a cat loose and he got at it with an HA. lost one other cat first attack on Medina. No other losses.

I think the economy is stabilizing, and we can resume cat production, we will have 4 galleys (later a 5th) to move the troops east.

autolog:

Spoiler :

upload log

Spoiler :

dV

Thrallia · Sep 7, 2007

In my experience, once the AI is willing to give up techs for peace, they stay willing unless they suddenly start winning the war...I could be wrong though as it seems most of the time the AI prefers to fight to the bitter end against me, rather than give me some technological gift to survive.

Ronnie1 · Sep 7, 2007

Nice going dV! I won't be able to see the save until tomorrow, but it sounds promising.

The roster order is

Lehm - waiting
Conquistador 63 - on deck
hellwitch - Up Now
da_Vinci - just played
Thrallia - in the hole
g_storrow - waiting
Scout 214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - waiting

Without seeing the save, I think we should take Sal off the south island. Then make peace for all we can get. We can withdraw all but a single mp in Mecca for the attack on Alex. Hopefully the barbs will place a city or 2 down there to eat up some space.

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

got the save. So taking Damascus is obvious then i think make peace for the techs make sence. To the end of my round i will transport our troop near Alex. Other thoughts or suggestions?
Finishing Sal maybe but i dont think we must loose more turns on him. We can benefit more in few war/peace affords with Sal because we can get some techs and money that way.

da_Vinci · Sep 7, 2007

hellwitch said:
got the save. So taking Damascus is obvious then i think make peace for the techs make sence. To the end of my round i will transport our troop near Alex. Other thoughts or suggestions?
Finishing Sal maybe but i dont think we must loose more turns on him. We can benefit more in few war/peace affords with Sal because we can get some techs and money that way.

My thinking on Knocking off sal first on big island is that
1. we then don't need to leave a big defense in place in Mecca
2. Barbs can start to fill it with cities
3. The troops are already there ... if we split the stack, then we take both remaining cities at the same time, then ...
4. Our entire army moves to Greece with extra promotions
5. All new units go directly to Greece with no need to spend any more turns to chase after Sal.
6. We get all the pillage cash now and can spam troops.

Otherwise, either Sal repopulates the Island, or we have to keep enough troops there to keep knocking him back. So maybe it is less hassle to clear the island during your turn, then the whole stack, plus new units in production goes to Greece ... might be faster in the long run?

I think we might waste a lot of moves chasing Sal later, when we can clear him while we are right there now. Give it some thought ... although I can see that keeping him around as a whiping boy has its good points too.

If we leave the improvements standing, the barbs cities spawn where tile yield is max, I think ... so they should fill that island nicely. Maybe the reason to kill sal now is that such a plan is really much better for our barb allies, and at worst just a small delay for us (I think maybe faster in the long run as no future diversions to that island) ... so on balance, clearing Sal on that island first seems like the best play ... unless that loses the trade deal. It maximizes the value of our ally.

dV

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

So dV is for finishing Sal.
My opinion is to raze Damascus and go for Alex now. (as we could meet longbows later and). Also the techs we will gain: HBR - Keshiks

,Monarchy - a unstopable source of happines + 23 turn earlier Alfa , are good benefit. For the troops a Axe and a Sword are enough to raze every new city that Sal will settle. These new cities wont be much at all - Sal will have only 2 week snow towns. We can pillage the iron regularly and Sal will stuck with archers.
About the benefit from attacking Alex earlier look at the attached picture. GL+Mids are hudge advantage!!!!
New barb cities - they are not plus they are minus because the will add hudge maintenance to the babs.(I've looked at Aryan and the barbs have 60% science slider at the moment - 4 breaker) and for what - 2-3 barb ice cities which will produce useless units(they will never meet battle).
A more precisious examination of the barb city of Aryan tells me that this town is a real monster - tons of food, commerce and hammers.(this is my dream town for OCC game)
If the barb stay with this town only they could make more breakers than us(at same %) after ~ 40-50 turns. As the city is on the big continent( and not too far away to our future invasion position) we would like all barb units to be builded there.
My conclusion: a easy cat-mouse game with Sals + earlier GL and mids must be our near strategy.

One other thing - IMO we must settle the West island on 1N of the horses soon(maybe somewhere around the invasion vs Alex) so i want to start a settler (but i dont know where for now) in my round. What do you think for this teamates. Do i need to write again why this city is good and important.

P.S. As i want to wake up the discusion thats why i will delay my turn set for some time.(i will play in the 48 hours as i had to)

da_Vinci · Sep 7, 2007

hellwitch said:
My conclusion: a easy cat-mouse game with Sals + earlier GL and mids must be our near strategy.

One other thing - IMO we must settle the West island on 1N of the horses soon(maybe somewhere around the invasion vs Alex) so i want to start a settler (but i dont know where for now) in my round. What do you think for this teamates. Do i need to write again why this city is good and important.

P.S. As i want to wake up the discusion thats why i will delay my turn set for some time.(i will play in the 48 hours as i had to)

You make good points for early peace with Sal. If you are confident that Sal will not be a major distraction, and that the barbs won't benefit from cities on that island, I can agree with peace after Damascus razed.

Do barbs pay maint? no distance from palace issue, but maybe # of cities? Or maybe none?

I was figuring we get all the techs from sal after we take last two on the island anyway ... if that is not true then definitely peace after Damascus.

Your point about hitting alex before LB is a good one too. So I could go either way on this one.

Addendum: but he can make axes for the 10 turns before we redeclare and pillage the iron, and he can rebuild the iron during peace, so we may have to contend with a few axes along the way. Just keep this in mind. Also, I was thinking the barbs would resettle Medina site and Damascus site, with pre-built improvements, so not just barb ice cities. Early peace may still be better, but taking the last two cites may not be as bad as you say either. I still can be convinced either way.

I like the WIsland horse city, but can we afford it? we keep Athens for sure, and we have to pay the troops. We are barely making money at 0 sci now.

But if we build a settler, I'd say pasture the pigs, and whip it in Karak ... pop will grow back fast with two 5F tiles.

dV

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

IMO when we invade alex the tresury will go up. We will keep the cities growing, working on cottages too. So our economy will goes better and better. Thats why i think we can afford 1N city. (the goody hut can be good too)
I've notice new point in the current situation - Alex is the only one without calendar and he have 150 gold. It is event possible to make him a trade budy for few turns before we attack him.
For the research route Col next as we could get MC from Alex. Also if i keep our force in our bourders we could aford 10-20% science!?!(cant decide is it right to do it).
I think our next tech route must be toward Col> (MC from Alex) Machinary>Engineering>CS(or Col>CS>(MC from alex)>Mach>Eng ) if we open the research again.
I agree for a settler in karak after the popup.

da_Vinci · Sep 7, 2007

hellwitch said:
IMO when we invade alex the tresury will go up. We will keep the cities growing, working on cottages too. So our economy will goes better and better. Thats why i think we can afford 1N city. (the goody hut can be good too)
I've notice new point in the current situation - Alex is the only one without calendar and he have 150 gold. It is event possible to make him a trade budy for few turns before we attack him.
For the research route Col next as we could get MC from Alex. Also if i keep our force in our bourders we could aford 10-20% science!?!(cant decide is it right to do it).
I think our next tech route must be toward Col> (MC from Alex) Machinary>Engineering>CS(or Col>CS>(MC from alex)>Mach>Eng ) if we open the research again.
I agree for a settler in karak after the popup.

see some extra comments that crossposted with you, in my past post (last of the italics)

Doubt that alex gets happy enough with us to trade before war, unless gift of calendar does it? He also does not have theol.

When you say keep force in border, you mean after we own Athens, I assume? Isn't the point to attack with our troops as fast as we can? Any plan that is based on keeping troops home for very long defeats the point, I think.

We can plantation the dyes for fast cash ... not sure why we have cottages on two of them now (?)

One benefit of razing the other two sal cities is we get that cash now ... is that important, or is the speed to Greece more important?

dV

Scout214 · Sep 7, 2007

The idea of taking some of a civ's cities, making peace and moving on to another while leaving that one in our backfield to build up and counterattack seems like a mistake.

I'd make peace to extract techs, alleviate war weariness, allow our pops to grow and get a breather to build more troops in order to resume the fight as soon as possible. This is not a scenario in which the 'sit back and build up plan' works. Attack! Leave nothing in our backfield.

Destroy Sal ASAP. THE only reason to delay at all is to build up more troops if necessary.

Make peace with other civs farther afield to buy us reduced WW, pop growth and build up troops. Then attack. No unnecessary delays.

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

I mean to transport the land troop by land not in the galleys. And yes IMO fast attack on Alex is my point.

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

Scout214 said:
Destroy Sal ASAP. THE only reason to delay at all is to build up more troops if necessary.

.

Sal is dead as it is now. 3 snow cities will not make counterattack at all. The only reason to keep Sal alive is that there are greater benefits which wait to be taken and i don't want to spend more time on Sal.
And for Sal's iron - i can make the peace after i pillage it. Sal cant finish a axe for 10 turn for sure. And IMO hi will stuck on archers and settlers(workers for us or cash if we had enough workers)
And for current cashflow i will take 150 gold from Alex on turn 0. Thats ~330 gold in the treasury. One of the questions is what to do with them - keep them for invasion support or use the for research (10% or 20%).

Ronnie1 · Sep 7, 2007

I think I agree with hellwitch. After Damascus falls, Sal will not recover from the ice. He may build some annoyance troops, and may even resettle, but we should be able to handle him with minimal troops.

We send all experienced troops to Alex, and backfill an Axe and maybe a Cat to the south island later.

hellwitch · Sep 7, 2007

I find out that some trades are good imo: rice for 3 gold to alex, stone for gems and 2 gold for Asoka(we dont need stone now and if we need it we can cancel this deal any time).
I found One bug we have 2 rices but on the diplo screen it says we have only one?!!??!?

da_Vinci · Sep 7, 2007

hellwitch said:
I find out that some trades are good imo: rice for 3 gold to alex, stone for gems and 2 gold for Asoka(we dont need stone now and if we need it we can cancel this deal any time).
I found One bug we have 2 rices but on the diplo screen it says we have only one?!!??!?

Oops! I think I traded a rice to Cyrus in my turn but forgot to log it ... sorry! We got a happniess resource IIRC. He asked, I thought why not?

I thought deals lasted 10 turns before your could cancel?

As long as we are certain that Sal will not be a problem if we let him live (and that the benefit to the barbs of clearing him is minimal), I am fine with raze Damascus, peace with Sal, go get Alex. hw seems convinced this is best, so who am I to resist? :lol:

Given this discussion, I am curious what folks think of my decision not to get peace after Medina was razed? My thought was that an intact Damascus would be a threat to Mecca, and right after barbs researched calendar, all we would get for peace was alpha at first. So for more cash, less pressure on Mecca, and hopefully more techs from peace, I went for Damascus. I think it works out better than the immediate peace would have.

dV

Ronnie1 · Sep 7, 2007

Given this discussion, I am curious what folks think of my decision not to get peace after Medina was razed? My thought was that an intact Damascus would be a threat to Mecca, and right after barbs researched calendar, all we would get for peace was alpha at first. So for more cash, less pressure on Mecca, and hopefully more techs from peace, I went for Damascus. I think it works out better than the immediate peace would have.

I agree with your decision 100%.

hellwitch · Sep 8, 2007

i agree that you shouldn't left Damascus as it is not so bad town and can make troubles.
One thing that i didn't mention yet is after monarchy - instant revolt to it or to wait for more covics to come online(maybe after CS). IMO immidiate switch is better but ....cant find arg why not.

PS. i will play tomorrow so i want opinions about what kind of troops we need to build(IMO at least one more axe is needed) maybe cats or some mixture.

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