SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

BLubmuz · Feb 2, 2008

Not that tying my (nick)name to an elephant is one of my aspirations, but if u like...

The first thing we need is a fleet capable to transport no less than 15 units, or we risk our invasion force will be wiped.
We can build galleys and then upgrade them to galleons, or wait for galleons or a mix.
But first we have to decide it the fleet will sail from the west or from the east coast, or prepare 2 fleets.
No less than 6 cats in the first wave, and at least 6 more ready to embark.
WE, maces, xbows and a couple LBs mixed, WE mainly.

I think it's too soon to define our first target, just a close city.
I think also that domination with settler spamming is the quickest way to victory.
Just escort a settler with a LB or a WE can be enough, but we have to plan enough settlers and escorts, if we choose this strategy.
This should go in this way:
1) Start a settler in every city on our continent
2) at 1 turn to completion, start the escort
3) if we need more settlers than cities, start a 2nd settler before the first
escort completes
4) like (3) but for the 2nd escort
5) when the first wave is completed, send them to the farthest locations
6) like (5), for closest locations
7) revolt to caste in the same turn (see 8)
8) found all the cities in the same turn (revolt first)
9) put an artist at work in every new city
10) win the game.

greatbeyond · Feb 3, 2008

I will grab the save and start Monday morning

dutchfire · Feb 6, 2008

greatbeyond said:
I will grab the save and start Monday morning

*cough*

Sweetacshon · Feb 6, 2008

Yep, it's kind of quiet in here

But first we have to decide it the fleet will sail from the west or from the east coast, or prepare 2 fleets.

Not two fleets, I don't think, at least not on both coasts at once. We could entertain the thought of the pillaging crews, though.. something like 2 xbws, 2 jumbos, a lb, a medic spear, and a chariot or 2 should be able to keep itself alive and take out the AI metals.

Sweetacshon · Feb 6, 2008

I'm away for the weekend, back Monday, so good luck until then.

greatbeyond · Feb 6, 2008

TS completed, couldn't get the finished commentary done before tonight

Cough medicine to follow!

greatbeyond · Feb 6, 2008

Here is the save

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/Fifth_Element_SG006_AD1529_01.CivWarlordsSave

I changed directions with the Settler and settled him just east of Saxon. After looking at everything It looked like a superior site to the original. Same amount of gold but more food. I chopped a lighthouse and Forge

We are 3 turns from Guilds and are the only ones with Astronomy. Most of the map is now revealed. It looks like there may be enough land to settle with out attacking the other main continent.

I will post more detailed comments tomorrow, having trouble posting screen shots right now.

Blubmuz - up
Civicide - on deck
Sweetacshon -
Merum -
Greatbeyond -

Autolog - seems to be some kind of problem as I could only find from 1596 on:

[

Spoiler :

Civicide · Feb 7, 2008

greatbeyond said:
I changed directions with the Settler and settled him just east of Saxon. After looking at everything It looked like a superior site to the original. Same amount of gold but more food. I chopped a lighthouse and Forge

Um ... for that site, I see four grassland tiles with no nearby fresh water source and a single fresh water lake, so once we have a lighthouse and a massive irrigation chain (post-CS) that site will have 5 extra food, meaning that it can work both gold mines at size 6 and have 2 extra.

Settling on the Iron gives us a fish, a cow, and 2 workable grassland tiles; with a lighthouse it can work both its gold mines at size 3 and have 2 extra food, in addition to extra production from the cow.

The site you chose won't be terrible in the long run but will need CS before it can really develop. The iron city would be worthwhile as soon as its borders popped.

BLubmuz · Feb 7, 2008

I think to be up, unless Merum doesn't gives a sign (i know he's busy, best wishes btw).
Anyway i'll grab the save to take a look and post something, so we gain some time to see if M. be back.

2 things i don't understand:
1) even if the site chosen for the new city is better than the previously chosen one, why move the settler for an half continent instead to simply build another one for that site? the settler was already in position.
2) how can we have Astro already on line? it was some 40 or more turns when i openened the save.

You posted that there can be enough land to hit the dom limit without bother to war: OK, i'll count the tiles, so we can decide on a solid basis.

dutchfire · Feb 7, 2008

BLubmuz said:
You posted that there can be enough land to hit the dom limit without bother to war: OK, i'll count the tiles, so we can decide on a solid basis.

Don't forget to use the HOF mod alert to check the domination limit!

greatbeyond · Feb 7, 2008

I didn't do a count to double check the tiles. That was a rough visual estimate, and should be double checked. I guess the question is: what would be quicker. If we go for the land limit, we will have to have a strong navy to keep the AI confined to their continent and a harassing force landed there to pillage. I imagine we will need to save our money to fund this strategy.

If we are going to military domination I would suggest we use the West coast of our homeland for our launching point as it is a much shorter trip.

As for the city location, I was originally going to settle it one tile West to share the rice to give it a boost. I then re thought that we didn't want to much overlap if we're going for the domination limit. One factor I considered was how quickly I could get it on line. With all the forest around, I chopped the lighthouse in record time two turns with a Forge 2/3 completed 3 turns later. Probably the most influencing factor though, was that there are 5 unusable tiles at the original site and only 3 at the new site. Looking perhaps too far down the road, I projected a long term benefit we may not need.

I would suggest the next city to be either Just to the south to fill up all the territory with a quick expansion, or to the west of Carthage for the quickest growth. Then with CS irrigate the water northwards towards Hastingsto help quicker growth.

When I got the save we were about 10 turns from Astro at 40%. MM the cities gave us a 50% rate for only slightly more gold. Corinth and Utica were set to producing Research. I was able to reduce the number of terms to nine. We are now 3 turns from Guilds. The question is what next? At our current rate we can research CS in 5 turns.

It wasn't until I was done with my turn that I noticed that we have Vassalage but never revolted to it. I see it'll cost more per turn but it gives each unit 2 experience points. Is this something we should do ?

We will have another GP in London in about 8 turns, most likely a GS.

Call me a rookie but I couldn't figure out how to rename our elephant.

There are quite a few Barbs spawning in the northern parts. We lost 1 chariot to them.

greatbeyond · Feb 8, 2008

On more idea has arisen, If we are going to go for the land domination limit. Should we revolt to Universal Suffrage and set research to zero so we can buy all the necessary Settlers?

culdeus · Feb 8, 2008

That's the way I usually do it (w/ US). It looks like CRC is done at 845AD. No saves in quite some time.

It's fairly amazing they were able to roll with an 845 victory. It's almost assuredly a conquest victory at that speed. Sometimes I think the focus can get lost among many of the teams and they/we don't take the risks that we would alone in our own gotms or personal games. This leads to lack of singularly focused military rushes with abandon and a tech path that comes as a head scratcher.

A small epic map almost regardless of size can be conquered in the 3 digit AD timeframe with catapults, swords, and axes. It takes a focused build order of nearly exclusively military units in a majority of cities to really come together. The thing is if you miss the small window for domination the AI provides it can be tremendously difficult to come out of it well. The one tile islands and things of that nature always seem to just slay me in the end costing dozens of turns seeking and then killing the AI.

Civicide · Feb 8, 2008

Okay, here is my stab at a tile count and analysis for the path of least resistance to domination victory.

I know from my turnset that the domination limit is 780. So that's our goal.

I counted our current tiles to be 313 (next player please verify this), which leaves 467 that we need to take.

Remaining on our continent: 216 tiles. Breakdown:

The frozen south: 43 (5 settlers)
Southern Hanni scraps: 14 (2-3 settlers)
Western Nugget: 16 (1 settler)
Mid Hanni scraps: 2 (0 settlers; Carthage border pop)
Eastern MM scraps: 27 (2 settlers)
Mid-condinental area (anything S of Saxon's influence): 57 (5 settlers?)
Saxon area: 25 (2 settlers)
Hastings Area/NE Peninsula: 31 (3 settlers?)
W of London: 1 (1 settler)

Island Scraps: 130 tiles. Breakdown:
Unrevealed SE Tundra: 6 (minimum) (1 settler)
SE Ice w/Crabs: 3 (1 settler)
SE Blah Tundra: 3 (1 settler)
Carthage area forest Hill: 1 (1 settler)
Hadrumentum Barrier: 2 (1 settler)
Hadrumentum Desert: 1 (1 settler)
NE PlainsHill/Clams: 1 (1 settler)
NE Copper/Clams: 7 (1 settler)
NE Horses: 13 (2 settlers)
NE Desert: 1 (1 settler)
E Wheat: 7 (1 settler)
E Jungle/Clams: 5 (1 settler)
N Arab Iron: 4 (1 settler)
N Arab Clams: 4 (1 settler)
N Arab Ice/Marble: 15 (minimum) (1 settler)
Our Continent/N Bay Desert: 1 (0 settlers)
N Iron/Ice/Crabs: 6 (1 settler)
N Tundra/Ice: 5 (1 settler)
N Pole Ice/Crabs: 4 (1 settler)
N Tundra/Marble: 7 (1 settler)
N Tundra Hill: 1 (1 settler)
NW Grassland: 1 (0 settlers)
NW Nice Landmass: 23 (3 settlers)
SW Forest/Whale: 9 (minimum) (1 settler?)

Hannibal Territory: 37 tiles. Breakdown:
Leptis Island: 21 (2 settlers)
Thapsus Island: 16 (2 settlers)

Lightly Contested Enemy Islands: 52 tiles. Breakdown:
Aden Isle: 21 (2 settlers)
Tonsberg: 1 (0 settlers)
SE of Tonsberg: 8 (minimum) (1 settler)
E of Tonsberg: 1 (0 settlers)
SW of Tonsberg: 1 (1 settler)
Bjorgvin/Sigtuna: 15 (2 settlers)
Tarsus: 1 (0 settlers)
Bactra/Surrounding: 4 (0 settlers)

TOTALS
DOMINATION LIMIT: 780
OUR CURRENT TILES: 313
UNCLAIMED ON OUR CONTINENT: 216
ISLAND SCRAPS: 130
HANNIBAL TERRITORY: 37
LIGHTLY CONTESTED ENEMY ISLANDS: 52

Which brings us to: 748
Leaving: 32 tiles off of the mainland

Now, obviously a lot of the tiles (particularly in the "unclaimed islands") are 1-tile islands that make for spectacularly inefficient use of our settlers, but I felt the need to be thorough. It may be that we determine it will be more efficient to take those tiles off the mainland with our army rather than waste settlers on all these 1-tile islands, and so I'm going to work under the assumption that we're going to need to take around 40 tiles off of the mainland.

For that I would target peninsulas with little to no enemy culture overlap. That would include:

Uppsala/Nidaros/Haithabu for 16 tiles or so
Kufah for 6 or so
Arbela (raze/settle 1N?) for 8 or so
Ligurian for 12 or so (maybe with a settler)

40 should be very doable, hopefully even with the army we have. In the meantime, the priority has to be navy, followed by the cranking out of some 42 settlers (my goodness). I would suggest a revolt to US, research to 0%, and max out or merchant specialists to buy as many as we can, and then busting out the whip once we get close to what we need.

I will try to take some time and dotmap some of the non-obvious Settler spots, but no promises on that today.

BLubmuz · Feb 8, 2008

Great job, Civ :goodjob:

I agree that settling 1 or 2, or even 3 tiles islands doesn't worth the effort, better conquer some land.
Revolting to US to buy settlers means to have a lot of money, of course after 1 turn of normal production, but it's a lot anyway.
I think it's better prepare our army, first of all to wipe Hanni to eliminate a possible WW from his former cities, and to gain some land without settlers.

My goals for my TS are:
- verify your counts (but i'm sure you're accurate)
- build an army to go West
- pre-build some settler if i got time

since this is a crucial phase, i'll play for 10 turns, and i propose to adopt this lenght for all this final phase.

I wish to research at least CS and banking before stop the research, if we decide to do so.

greatbeyond · Feb 8, 2008

Kudos to Culdeus, you completed a huge task by counting all the tiles,

I don't see how CRC could have finished so quickly. They would have had to learn Astro to get to the other Continent. Without being able to make peace and get a City from the AI on their continent, You couldn't get a foothold to speed things up. I also don't see how they could conduct the required research in that time. They have very few posts per turn. I see that x-team is slightly ahead of CRC on the power curve. I am thinking that perhaps they are at the point of having eliminated the AI and Barbs from our continent and are trying to plot out a strategy.

I think our research is going very well. How about revolting to US now and buying Galleons now. We can land units on their continent before we have to worry about them getting units to us. With the exception of Hannibal who really must go! This lets us send most of our units on the offensive. We don't have to worry about Barbs in our territory, with the GW, and thus we will have time to build more units.

One question that comes to mind is if your cultural borders expand into the sea/ocean can you safely travel it with a galley. It seems to me I saw the AI do this at one point but I may have imagined it.

It seems like the Settler spamming all the little islands will take longer that wiping out the AI. Most of their cities, when I was exploring, seemed to only be occupied by 2 or 3 units.

Merum · Feb 8, 2008

Hi guys...

I'm back, from what has to be one of the most hectic weeks of my life. I've just gone through an excruciatingly difficult interview process with a company that, the more I learned about, the more I wanted to work for.

The process consisted of a phone interview (complete with logic problem to solve live), followed by the completion of a very long "written interview", followed by flying to Austin to interview in person 2 more times with 2 more people with 2 even more difficult problems to solve, with the interviewer watching me as I sweated over them. All this to find out late this afternoon that...

Spoiler :

greatbeyond · Feb 8, 2008

Don't spoil what is assuredly great news for you by apologizing. Unfortunately RL has to take precedence.

Austin, sounds like maybe an incrediDELL company to work for?
You may want to practice drinking Sake. Good Luck.

Civicide · Feb 9, 2008

greatbeyond said:
Kudos to Culdeus, you completed a huge task by counting all the tiles

...*cough*

BLubmuz · Feb 9, 2008

cough cough

I'm glad to see Merum is on business again, pity we lost him, but i'm sure it will be for few days.

I can't see how CRC can have reach astro in the BC while fighting a war... i suppose they have discovered they need astro and try to plan.

I'll play this afternoon or tomorrow, no reason to hurry with a member in autoskip and beeing the most advanced (in terms of time) team.

edit:
i'll play tomorrow, no way today!
and first of all i'll make a dotmap with the tiles-count

SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

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