SGOTM 05 - Misfits

[cnwjr]

You can check for wonders in the demographics page. (F9) It is one of the tabs at the bottom. The wonders are listed in a scrolling table on the upper right.

You can see how the civs feel about each other in the adviser 'glance' screen. You might have to turn on the hof adviser options if you don't already have them on. I mention this as I recall that Toku and Asoka are fairly happy with each other. We 'might' be able to bribe Toku if we have any techs he doesn't have to go to war. Or perhaps Cyrus? Almost certainly Alex. He's a warmonger of opportunity. You can see if this is possible in the trade screen.


I had mentioned a good defender, a knight, and a pike. The pike is good against horse, the other defender against other troops. It is possible to use horses only (or other troops) to pillage, but this leaves them pretty vulnerable to destruction. Remember, horses get no defensive bonuses.


I would suggest keeping Qin's last city as a forward base. It's an easy place to shuttle troops to for a quick dropoff on the mainland. If we do keep it, rebuild the seafood and get a library there for culture. Otherwise, Cyrus's culture will overtake it.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

Okay... I'm going to play it tonight! Any other advice?

 

[Piko]

KICK SOME ARSE!!!

hows that for advice?

 

[marowaker]

KICK SOME ARSE!!!

hows that for advice?

Brilliant

 

[Piko]

Well we have avoided the wooden spoon!!

well done team

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

KICK SOME ARSE!!!

hows that for advice?

Excellent advice! I'm more setting up the next guy for the attack. I'm the logistics guy... I've played about 5 turns so far:

Qin is dead. We own his last city. I'm creating a few pikes to go with our knights, grennies, and cats. A main thrust will be to the middle of his lands.

We're poised at his outlying cities with troops. I don't see any ships off our west coast yet. I'm working a caravel around to find his fleet. He has a galley headed for Qinland with a settler... I was temped to take it out, but with two defensive units, it doesn't seem like it will be a threat. Just something to kill off later.

His troops are older, from what I can see, but I'm sure when we declare they'll be upgraded. I'm wondering how many are down in Izzy's old lands with nice promotions, but we almost have to take him on now, regardless. He'll just get stronger.

Toku is cautious with Asoka now. Might be a benefit.

I'll give more later as I get into it. I'm trying to be very careful this turn.

 

[cnwjr]

I'm not so sure about the wooden spoon. I think it is awarded to the lowest scoring team that meets the requirements of the game. Losing doesn't qualify. We have not yet met the requirements of the game. (A Win) Also, if you are going by the drop in score on the progress page, it isn't all that useful until the game is actually finished. There are a couple of bugs that show a zero score when it shouldn't.

 

[cnwjr]

On a separate issue, I noticed that it took me quite some time to play out 15 turns with the size the game has grown to with numbers of units and cities to review each turn. It might be a good idea to drop back down to 10 turns for a turnset. If the current players want to continue through the next round at 15 turns, that is okay with me.

Which brings up another minor point. Please be careful in putting units to sleep or fortified outside of a city. It is hard for the next player to 'remember' about something he has no knowledge of. You can skip a unit's turn if you have nothing for it to do by pressing the space key. This also applies to putting workers or cities on automatic. The simple rule in a team game is don't. Related, but less of a problem is units automated to move somewhere that takes longer to complete than your turnset. Again, it is recommended that you not do this.

 

[cnwjr]

Mastiff, if you have played out 5 turns, you should have finished Printing Press. What did you change the research to? Does anyone have Replaceable Parts yet?

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

I went with Nationalism... thought we'd decided that one. I'll check on RP when I get home. In fact, I may run home and play a bit.

If no one has RP, do we want to go for it? It might be nice to use for trading to get others to attack Asoka...

 

[cnwjr]

I think Nationalism is a good thing regardless. It also leads to Cavalry via Military Tradition and if no one has that can give us a significant advantage.

If others have RP, there is an increased chance they will also have Rifling.

 

[cnwjr]

Trading techs this late in a game is a bit problematic. Especially as we are behind. We want to cut down on the other civs ability to research, so we really don't want to give away techs. There are always exceptions, but I personally would want to see a significant return on the trade. Other techs or lots of money. At this stage of the game, at a minimum - 1000 gold. I would also be exceedingly wary of trading any military techs or those that lead directly to a significant military tech.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

So how do you coax them into war?

 

[Piko]

by taking control of asoka's city on our land and land our units on same turn

its one longbowmen, shouldnt be hard to knock over, really?

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

by taking control of asoka's city on our land and land our units on same turn

its one longbowmen, shouldnt be hard to knock over, really?

Oh, I know how to start a war with Asoka... I'm talking about drawing Toku or a third party in against him. That could be trickier.

And I bet that bowman is upgraded as soon as we declare!

 

[cnwjr]

Well, the key to taking the city before the bowman is upgraded is attacking it in the same turn we declare. I haven't the game at the moment, so I don't recall the distance from our border to the city. I suspect it is outside of our reach unless it is a coastal town, in which case it might be possible to take it amphibiously. Costly, though. Catapults will solve that.

It is nearly impossible to get strong allies to attack each other. They might do it themselves, but we must be friendly with the ones we want to bribe. We are too far away in attitudes for that to happen right now. In fact, as soon as we declare against Asoka, there is a strong chance that Cyrus and a lesser one that Toku will declare against us. Toku is incompetent at war (so are most civs).

As I recall, a big consideration is the power levels. As our power level is so low relative to the others, we are unlikely to entice them to our viewpoint. The only way to solve that is to take/raze cities, build units, and kill units to shift the power balance.

If/when a civ is willing to go to war for us, the option of declaring war is white instead of red on the trades screen.

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

The bowman is close enough to get with knights, but it might be wiser to run cats down there and just kill a musketman instead.

There is one city we could pound from Cy's lands the turn we declare, though...

I should have units on the doorstep ready to go when I'm done. It's been a 14 hour day at work, but I'm still going to play some. If I finish, I'll upload tonight...

 

[Mastiff_of_Ar]

1810 is up... Need a warmonger to take over.

Not much to report. Making and moving troops. The bad news is that Asoka has rifling.

 

[marowaker]

EDIT: posted the same time as Mastiff so discussion is useless, Asoka has rifling, which is bad but we have grenadiers so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. How close are we to steel?

I am afraid I am not much of a warmonger so please don't pick me now.

 

[Piko]

aye keep the grenadiers pumping out, they will be our key attack unit if he has rifling, don't fear the rifleman, catapults and grenadiers make mince meat!!! well CNWJR you wanna go halves in the rampage? if marow wants to sit back until it seams we atleast weaken asoka?

we have a handful of knights for plundering no?

Edit: ok i had a look. I can see 3 asoka frigates visible, all spread out, mind you 2 are near us. umm there will be one dead barb city (Thracian) when we declare war i predict. One of said frigates is under one of our caravels. oh and we may want some catapults on salad land, we have units there, but should be able to pump some cats out quick there and knock out those 2 indian cities to its south