SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

greatbeyond · Jan 6, 2008

I have the save and will probably take a day to examine before moving.

Are we still playing 20 turns, 15, or 10?

One difference I have with the proposal to take Utica and then move to Carthage is that it allows Alex to keep growing and building his Army, even if we have harassing forces in his territory.
I would propose taking Utica, send a small force to pin Hannibal into his one city, then turn our forces on Alex to knock him down to size
Continue with harassing Mansa as well.

I will stick with MC unless there is some drastic reason to change

More thoughts as I get them

Merum · Jan 7, 2008

The stack for Athens is almost finished in York. Once Hanni's horse raiders are taken care of, the two axes protecting the horses can join it, and from there all it needs are a couple of cats.

IMO, that stack, once assembled, should head directly for Athens, without stopping.

BLubmuz · Jan 7, 2008

I was out of pocket for the weekend, and i see the game is goin' pretty well, thanks to 2 good TSs, S & M.

So, Alex has copper, we need to pillage it at all costs, he's aggressive.

Agree about Utica as first target, and to keep pillaged the copper close to Carthage.

I think we can/must keep all the greek cities, too many resources there, even Thebes with marble and gold.

Roster:
Greatbeyond - up ~~(if alive)~~
Blubmuz - on deck
Civicide
Sweetacshon
Merum - resting

I think we must inform AlanH that Strauss only gave that message, then disappeared, and to delete him from our team.

More will follow, i'll take a look at the save in some 8 hours from this post.

dutchfire · Jan 7, 2008

Good work guys!

Merum, some of your pictures aren´t working for me.

Utica being settled on iron might be a problem.

BLubmuz · Jan 7, 2008

sorry guys, especially GB, i didn't noticed this page, i thought the last post was Merum's report.

Turns: around 12-15 is OK, depends from how long it takes.

I misunderstood Merum, my thoughts:
Utica is not coastal, and without roads and with the copper close to C. pillaged, the only metal is accessible by the city itself. So a priority, but not the first.

Agree about Athens, too important to lost time and units elsewhere.

We must keep the rivals' horses pillaged, don't forget the chariot bonus vs. axes.

culdeus · Jan 7, 2008

I also agree utica is not a keeper. Needs to be 1NW. Gets a FP and keeps Iron, and cows and won't relent to pressure as easily. Still on river. Though I imagine with the river there the iron is connected to all the other cities via some road/river combo. It does need to die, and soon.

Very un AI like to settle on a resource. Sort of makes you think maybe it isn't all knowing.

Civicide · Jan 7, 2008

BLubmuz said:
sorry guys, especially GB, i didn't noticed this page, i thought the last post was Merum's report.

Turns: around 12-15 is OK, depends from how long it takes.

I misunderstood Merum, my thoughts:
Utica is not coastal, and without roads and with the copper close to C. pillaged, the only metal is accessible by the city itself. So a priority, but not the first.

Agree about Athens, too important to lost time and units elsewhere.

We must keep the rivals' horses pillaged, don't forget the chariot bonus vs. axes.

Woah, woah. I think we have to take Utica out as the top priority. So long as it survives, Hanni will have iron. Pillaging roads won't do anything. Utica is on a river, and that river opens into a coastal tile inside Carthage's borders. I don't think that Hanni even needs Sailing in order to connect the two.

Is Utica a keeper? I don't know. I would move it 1W or 1NW. (1NW gains FPx2, but one of them is already in York's FC). But we're going to be quite busy building an army and Settlers will want to be spent on other cities, particularly our gold spots. It may be good enough.

Keep in mind that we need more defenders than usual, even as we're sending our stacks out. No rule says that more harrassment stacks from Hanni, MM, and barbs won't show up while we're out warring.

MM will totally be at longbows soon, I fear

Luckily our Jumbos + cats should be up to the task.

Graph-gazing: CRC certainly got off to a fast start (no surprise) and looks to be taking cities. Some of the other teams got off to quick starts on the power graph but I'm not sure that will pay off. We are about equivalent with Trash Team at the moment, and that's a pretty decent standard.

I will be out of pocket Tuesday and Wednesday, so if our next two TS's go quickly I can be skipped, though that probably won't be necessary.

eta: What's our technology path going forward? MC is fine for the time being as a Forge will help London immensely, but our next priority, I think, has to be Sailing and then Calendar. London will be a beast once its bananas are worked, and York will be a pretty good production city with its bananas as well.

BLubmuz · Jan 7, 2008

Updated the first page link index (i hope you appreciate this, i find it useful)

Some thougts with the save opened:
- good idea to farm the banana near London, perhaps we can farm the one near York, too
- Horse-protecting stack: perhaps reinforce with a Jumbo? at least an axe is needed there!
- Utica: you're right about the river, and we have enough units to defeat those poor defenders, let's do it, and we can keep it, IMHO.
- That damn mine near Athens is up, we need to pillage it ASAP (easier to say...)
- rival's horses: we can try to use the chariot to verify the greek ones are not improved, then we can send it to pillage the Carthage ones
- I should have missed that, but Hippo is gone... well done!
- I'm not so sure MM will tech fast, if we kkeep his improvements pillaged, he can only pray his gods
- Corinth is tempting, defended only by 2 archers in plain, but i agree to beeline directly to Athens: we don't have enough units to keep it, better use them for Utica
- why in the hell York is working a non-improved grassland instead of the ivory? we MUST watch the damn city governor
- same for London: it's workin' E banana instead of farmed gl (+1g)
- MC is OK
- i disagree with Culdeus about Utica: farmed rice gives 5f, thus we can cottage the gl, and it has enough hills to be productive, not to mention the cows, and we save the time to build and move a settler - i was good 1NW, but we can keep it "as is"- pro: starts at size 4, no settler needed, already a religion - cons: a settler to build and to move, long time to reach s4, better position perhaps

Athens battle plan:
first of all, it's some 10 turns away from York
- move an axe from York to the horses,
- WE+cats+medic warrior to Athens, picking an axe and the CR3 (wow) cat in the path, to begin the bombardment
- do your best for the rest (ehm...)

Have you noticed? we got (well not exactly, but we can have soon) 3 religions: what about a cultural victory? (OK, Ok, don't throw me all those things and don't tell me i'm goin' crazy... it can be at least considered)

greatbeyond · Jan 7, 2008

Here are my thoughts on the Axe and Swordsman threatening our horses.
We move our axes one space away but on the road. Hannibal moves his units onto the horses and then has to wait one turn before he is able to pillage. We then use our Ellie and Axes or Ellie and a Chariot to kill both Hannibal's units. This then eliminates the threat of units pillaging our rear. We should be able to kill both units without losing one of our own. If we don't take them out now, they may start moving towards London, pillaging all the way. Then we have to divert forces back to deal with them.

Sweetacshon · Jan 8, 2008

Nice TS, Merum, but :nono:

for playing 20. I think 10 or so should be the go, especially now we have an army. Not that I don't love your playing style, but things can change quickly, so we may need to get in more tactical talk, as well as minimising MM/governor errors.
/patronising claptrap

GB, good idea on the horse defence, it could be worth a go. With regard to the Athens SoD, what other units are we waiting on? A couple of cats, you say, Merum? If that is the case, I suggest we take some of the units to Utica and take it. The archer from the Carthage pillage stack can garrison while the 2 axes keep pillaging the horse and copper. Soon after, the attackers will be healed, and new reinforcements will arrive so the army can move on Alex, and I agree with beeline to Athens.

I really think we should bite the bullet and build a granary in London, and later in York. I have no doubt we will be whipping forges, and I can't sanction this without granaries. Whip them if need be, as the cities are using unimproved tiles. edit: Or not, as I take another look, but we still need them. On that note, we still only have 2 workers, and still no roads toward conquest... bah, I don't know what to say. I know it seems like we should keep on the units, but these are things I think we should get into. If Athens (which I guess will fall soon enough, but we put a lot of faith in it) is actually holding no workers, we're in trouble, imo.

I also think another couple of chariots are in order.. in fact, we seem to have fallen into the trap of not following our own plan: Keep an eye on AI resources, and keep a pillage stack in enemy territory to control those resources. I know it is attractive to move on Athens in the next few turns, but perhaps we should get back to the plan we agreed upon and send out the pillage stacks.

OK, I know I've contradicted myself

, but I'm just getting a few ideas out there.

BLubmuz · Jan 8, 2008

GB tactic for the horses seems good. The only problem is the jumbo: we need it to protect our Athens stack. perhaps we can use an axe, together with the 2 already there.

I agree with the most of Sweeta's post, first of all we need a couple more chariots, and the greek workers are all in Thebes, so we can be plenty of workers, but when? And we need a road to the greek borders, we can save no less than 3 turns with that.

Agreed on granaries, too, but when? too much priorities, and only 2 cities...

Perhaps next job for the worker near York can be road the tiles to the greek border, then move the London one to farm York Banana.

I see 2 chariots for London, once completed the jumbo, don't forget there're barbs, too.

dutchfire · Jan 8, 2008

Have you noticed? we got (well not exactly, but we can have soon) 3 religions: what about a cultural victory? (OK, Ok, don't throw me all those things and don't tell me i'm goin' crazy... it can be at least considered)

Throws heavy object at BLubmuz
I doubt cultural will be faster than domination/conquest

I think we shouldn't be afraid to whip, we need lots of things right now, granaries, forges, settlers, workers, troops...

Merum · Jan 8, 2008

I don't think I played 20 turns... did I? I was only planning to play 15.

EDIT: I guess I played 19 turns... sorry. Does the HOF mod have that reminder thingy in it, and does anybody know how to use it?

There are plenty of units en route to Utica to take it and move on to Carthage. No need to strip the Athens stack for that.

The only thing the Athens stack is waiting for is the resolution of Hanni's flankers near the horses. It already has two cats.

There is an archer on Alex's copper mine, and the odds weren't good enough for me to attack it with the chariot. Therefore, I bypassed it, and pillaged the roads around it. It's not hooked. The horses at Sparta are not even pastured.

Sorry Blubmuz, but the suggestion of waiting for a cultural victory is... well... :crazyeye:

Anyway, here's how I envision the campaigns going:

Spoiler :

Both stacks will need reinforcement, so we'll have to decide who gets priority based on combat results and defender strengths.

FWIW, I think the citizen got pushed off the Ivory by the greek archers when they moved onto it. not putting him back was my mistake.

Off topic: Does anybody know how power is calculated? Is it the sum of the :strength:

of all units, or is it relative to everybody else in the world?

BLubmuz · Jan 8, 2008

Don't worry, i just put it on the table, it's between the possibilities, after all.
Please, don't use image shack, often it doesn't open the image, or it takes a life. I think the forum image management is far better.
No way for me to see your images
And don't worry about mistakes, we all (me first) have to pay attention on MM.
It there was an archer on the copper, you did the right thing: if you even won, another archer would had wiped the chariot next turn, so no pillaging.
One last thing: we are not "curing" MM. we must do so.

Your questions:
No, i never use the reminder, i have to try it.
IIRC the power is calculated on the sum if units COST+pop*1000 ... dunno if there's a multiplier for the unit cost (i suppose there is, but oh, well i'll open a game with few units and try to figure out)

Easy:
Land (square km) land tiles * 1000 (water does not count)
power: total pop * 2000 + units cost * 500: the game i opened i got s.6 city, and 2 warriors (cost=22) i got a worker, but i think it doesn't count, my poweer is 34000
edit: no sorry, it seemed to work, but there should be more... let me search for some thread, i've seen a way to do this math.
edit2: this link is what you need http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php

greatbeyond · Jan 8, 2008

Breaking news from the first turn, ..... we have a Great General William the Conquerer! He was courtesy of our Chariot near Athens killing an Archer

I am inclined to create a Military Academy with him as it will benefit us in the long run.

2nd thought would be to add him to the Stack at York. The 20 pts should work out to 2 promotions each

I will wait about two hours or so before deciding what to do.
Any quick input?

Complications near Utica is the approach of an Axe and Sword from Hanni. I have move all units adjacent to Utica (ready to attack next turn, didn't like the odds )and fortified units in the forest, hopefully forcing them to move to a plains square

Merum · Jan 8, 2008

Military academy, OK. Settle as a GG in a high production city, choice #2. I will never, ever, favor adding a GG to a stack. I feel it's a gross waste of a resource that could be better spent elsewhere.

That CR3 cat has a good chance of actually killing a unit in a city if it attacks after the defenses have been brought down. Utica should be a cakewalk.

I didn't notice this before, but there is iron next to the huge gold site S of London. Now I feel it might be worth a settler. Only after we have beat the other civs into irrelevance, though.

BLubmuz · Jan 8, 2008

GB, you can't create a MA until Education.
2 chances:
- add him to a city as MI for +2 XP (and with representation he gave us also +3beakers) i vote for this, at least for our first GG - add him to London, if you agree
add him to an axe, give the +1 movement and the 100% promo, plus what you think is better or the medic 3 promo.

Crossposted... you are not prepared, Merum :lol
see my post above for a link

I noticed the iron too, but if we want fish in that city, we must settle on it
But we can try a better dotmap.
I think our first settler can go to the rice/gold site close to London.

Merum · Jan 8, 2008

As I said before, I don't support adding a GG to a stack. Medic 3 is not worth losing the unit, and it will be lost, especially if it's attached to an Axe. We don't want to wait until education to use the GG, so it's best to settle him as a specialist.

EDIT: Regarding the power calculations... you've got to be f*****g kidding me. I think I'll just look at the graph and decide whether I'm in good shape or bad. :crazyeye:

greatbeyond · Jan 8, 2008

We haven't made out to bad. We have Utica and have repelled an end run attack on London by Alex. Next Turn will have a Great Prophet born in London. We will need to decide what to do with him. Money is going to become a problem unless we start building Cottages or continuously capture cities. I turned back research to Zero so make sure you adjust after deciding how to proceed.

Highlights of my TS

Spoiler :

The Save:

Spoiler :

Blubmuz - up
Civicide - on deck
Sweetacshon
Merum - resting
Greatbeyond - gone to a happy place

dutchfire · Jan 9, 2008

How come those wines and farms aren't pillaged?

SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

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