SGOTM 05 - Mac Team

willpax · Oct 16, 2007

OK, so I don't check in due to one busy long weekend, and boy have I missed a lot. I think my internal calendar forgot to adjust for the smaller team size.

I will plan on playing Wednesday evening (US eastern time) with whatever save is available, unless all think it would be less confusing to keep to the cycle. I'll try too keep on top of things with the new hurry-up schedule.

Welnic · Oct 17, 2007

Democracy is being researched at the moment, the emancipation blues are hurting us at the right now. Once we run emancipation everything should be fine. We should finish up Economics and switch to Free Market at the same time. We should probably whip the Observatory in Ning-hsia before the switch, then we can run 3 scientists there. I've switched to theocracy, I have been concentrating on building 6XP macemen so we can have CRII grenadiers and riflemen. Once Rifling is discovered we can't make macemen anymore. There are a couple of cities with dry docks to make frigates at. For the next research I would either go Steam Power -> Assembly Line or Railroad -> Combustion. If we go for the latter we should probably grab Scientific Method first just to make sure we have oil somewhere.

I don't know who we are actually going to declare war on. Sal has defensive pacts with both Cyrus and Toku, Toku also has a pact with Alex who has a pact with Qin. If we want to fight Sal we should declare on Cyrus, that way we will fight Cyrus and Sal without Toku getting involved. Or we could declare on Qin and fight him and Alex.

Spoiler :

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Mac_Team_SG005_AD1814_01.Civ4SavedGame

dr_s · Oct 17, 2007

I haven't looked at the latest save yet, but I have a question: what are our long-term goals? I don't think that conquest and domination are in the cards, are they? That would seem to leave space race to me.

Cyrus is one of the weaker civs, so we should probably declare on him and try to conquer Saladin. Taking on Alex+Qin doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Welnic · Oct 17, 2007

One thing we need to do before we declare is beef up our defense units. When we do this we should also get rid of some of the worthless units, there are is scout and I think some warriors that have no XP that we should eliminate.

willpax · Oct 17, 2007

Next save here.

Spoiler :

Turn set highlights:

1817: learn economics
1818: learn democracy; revolt to emancipation and free market (which solves almost all happiness problems).
1823: learn corporation (increases our income by 28/turn)
1826: learn liberalism
1827: finish researching steam power. We have coal. Begin assembly line, as two others already have it and I assume everyone else will soon.

1831: Learn scientific method (New Sarai is sitting on top of oil). Isabella completes the Apollo Program, which messes things up considerably (although I don't know that we can do much about it without infantry).

1834: learn rifling.
1839: finish turn set one turn away from assembly line. Saladin no longer has a defense pact with Tokugawa; he and Cyrus are allies, but no one else has joined them. We need to move quickly to build up a population, an industrial base, and a space race. We may want to beeline artillery soon so we can begin the Apollo Project ourselves ASAP.

dr_s · Oct 18, 2007

Turn 440, 1830 AD: Isabella has completed Apollo Program!

Turn 448, 1838 AD: Isabella has completed SS Casing!
Turn 448, 1838 AD: Isabella has completed SS Casing!

Urp!

So I guess it's my turn, huh?

I usually delay Artillery, and head for Industrialism/Computers first to build powerplants, factories and laboratories, and try to time the completion of apollo to that. Have we built the ironworks?

Welnic · Oct 18, 2007

We haven't built the ironworks. I think the only city that would work for it is Kufah. It will work okay once we are in State Property and can change farms to workshops.

Yes, we are hopelessly behind.

dr_s · Oct 19, 2007

Played 25 turns. Save here.

I made one huge mistake. :mad:

I sometimes forget that oil doesn't work like most of the other resources, and the tech you need to utilize it is more advanced than the tech that reveals it. That means there are times you can trade for it even though you can't use it. Well, that's what I did. Cost us 175 :gold:

for 10 turns. I realized what I'd done right away, and in a solo game I would have rolled back to the autosave, but of course I didn't do that. Sorry!

I don't think it matters, though, I don't see how we can win no matter what happens.

Mostly I built naval units. I built a bunch of ironclads. Techwise, after Assembly Line completed we got Biology, Physics, Railroad, Combustion, Artillery. After Combustion finished, I turned science down to zero in order to start upgrading units. We now have about 5 destroyers and 5 or 6 ironclads that can be upgraded. We also need to upgrade our land units. If we're going to attack Saladin, we need to do it before he gets a bunch of tanks, though it may be too late.

My suggestion would be to DOW on Sal very soon (next turn or two) and hope he puts an assault fleet to sea that we can destroy. While that's going on we might be able to upgrade some CRII macemen to CRII infantry and then invade Arabia.

We're near the bottom in almost everything, of course. Isabella has completed 5 casings and at least 1 thruster.

Spoiler :

dojoboy · Oct 19, 2007

Sorry for my absence. Nice to see you guys are rolling.

peter grimes · Oct 19, 2007

My suggestion would be to DOW on Sal very soon (next turn or two) and hope he puts an assault fleet to sea that we can destroy.

Oh, I see how it's going to be: Let's see if Pete can lose us another town or two! :lol:

No biggie on the oil - I've made that mistake before as well.

I should be able to play within 6 hours, my better half has to work late!

dr_s · Oct 19, 2007

peter grimes said:
Oh, I see how it's going to be: Let's see if Pete can lose us another town or two!

If I were shooting for that, I'd just have declared war near the end of my set!

peter grimes · Oct 19, 2007

save is here

First the bad news - I didn't have time to play through a whole 25 turns. I did about 18. I'm going away for the weekend tomorrow, so there's no way I could save it for later.

Summary:
Dr_S left us a really nice navy! I didn't spend any gold upgrading Galleons to Transports, as Saladins' really closeby. I spent gold upgrading CR2 promoted maces to Infantry

I woke up some workers, and started them on railroading mines, as well as a transportation spine.

I waited 6 or 7 turns before declaring on Saladin... I had snapped some shots of his capital using a Sentry Destroyer:

Lots of units, but so many of them on boats, I figure we're pretty safe. We declare, Saladin sails north, we shred his fleet. We invade the next turn, facing no more than a handful of lame defenders.

So I declared, and Cyrus declared right back at us. Our Economy took a hit:

That's ok - I traded around a bit to make up for the lost

resources. We we came out about -20 gpt compared to before declaring, but that's the worst of it, economically. The same turn, I switched to Nationalism so take advantage of Drafting. Truth time: I've never used the Draft before.

But Saladin didn't move his fleet! can you believe it? He was almost as smart as a person.

I set sail with our fleet, keeping it protect by 4 Drill promoted destroyers.
Unloaded our Expeditionary force just east of Mecca, so we don't have to cross a river while attacking.
Set the Destroyers to bombarding Mecca down from +80% to +20%ish.

Then Saladin hit our stack with an artillery.
Then an Infantry (we lose)
Then 6 or so Cavalry...
Here's a shot of what we're left with. Mind you, I landed 15 units - only expecting to lose the Cannons and 3 suicide maces/infs.

Now it's our turn to attack

I hit him with 3 CR2 Cannons...
I figure that pretty much all of his army unloaded from his galleons :mad:

There's no way we're taking this city any time soon.

RETREAT!

I load the tattered remnants of the Expeditionary force back onto the Galleons, and ship them home to heal.

Lesson Learned:
Don't unload. The penalty for an amphibious attack isn't nearly as harsh as being hit by an artillery and then pummeled by several unit attacks. At least on the boats, they can't hurt us.

Now the Worst News:

Cyrus is about to teach us the fine art of Cavalry warfare. Mind you, I didn't actually lose us any cities at this point, but you've got to admit - if I had time to play out my turnset, I might have :lol:

Good luck, DojoBoy, and Welcome back

dojoboy · Oct 21, 2007

Guys, I must bow out for the time being. My wife's grandmother is passing, and my time is unpredictable. We're having an early 90 B-day party for her today. Wife's grandmother has reached iconic status among them.

Finish strong. :thumbsup:

peter grimes · Oct 21, 2007

Thanks for your contributions, Dojo.

...and may she pass peacefully.

Welnic is up! :whipped:

Welnic · Oct 22, 2007

I started my turn, but the game crashed in 1891 after 14 turns and it was so late I stopped, I'll finish tomorrow. The invasion from Cyrus was wiped out on the turn that they were dropped off. I hunted down his naval forces and wiped them out with a variety of ships. He tried to hide a crippled destroyer in the Greek city just above Izumo, I ran a unit up and killed it. Started making factories in the big production cities. Revolted to Free Speech and Universal Suffrage. We have enough infantry that Nationhood wasn't as useful, I drafted another round on my first turn. The production boost for US seems to be worth the science hit. I just finished Industrialism for tanks and battleships. I've started on flight, as no one else seems to have started it. Rocketry should come our way pretty soon. I'm not sure if I'll be ready to make a landing on Sal's island during my set or not. Cyrus payed around 400 gold for peace after the licking that he took. I then renegotiated trades with everybody.

Welnic · Oct 23, 2007

We get flight in 9 turns. We'll probably get Rocketry next turns without researching it. I think Radio for bombers would be a good tech next. I think about 3 more tanks and a couple of gunships and we should be ready to hit Sal's beaches. Isabella has only 3 SS parts left, and she is rampaging through Asoka's land.

Spoiler :

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm5/Mac_Team_SG005_AD1902_01.Civ4SavedGame

Welnic · Oct 24, 2007

I don't know who is up, but somebody should grab this.

dr_s · Oct 24, 2007

I think willpax is next; if he doesn't grab the save in the next day or so, I'll get it and finish us off, uh, I mean advance the cause.

peter grimes · Oct 24, 2007

Yes, finish us off, indeed! The fact that we're still alive means we're doing better than I thought we would.

willpax · Oct 24, 2007

I've got the save and will progress tonight on welnic's line of thinking. We will see how it goes.

SGOTM 05 - Mac Team

Warlord

Emperor

Prince

Emperor

Warlord

Prince

Emperor

Prince

Tsalagi

...

Prince

...

Tsalagi

...

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Prince

...

Warlord

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