SGOTM 06 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Swiss Pauli]

Played some turns, mainly training units and doing a bit of whipping, but again loads of margin cottages have been built and lots of units are fortified for no apparent reason : if you want to look out for barbs, put the unit on sentry, especially those that get no fortify bonus

Founded a new city, too:

With river spices and wine, it'll pay its way very quickly.

There's another settler on the way. I had thought about Ragnargate (caste Artists for double border pop) but I think Astro will probably be quicker, seeing as we have a GS on the way. Therefore we should send the settler to fish/iron/cows as we need another western port.

Sent a first wave of troops to Hannibal, but we need to bomb down his defences and get more troops from the mainland.

Photgraphic eveidence of our fundamental mistake:

I could have checked this in a test game, but frankly I was too disappointed that I was the only one to do any sort of test to check whether this particular move was allowed

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_AD1304_01.CivWarlordsSave

 

[TheArchduke]

So Astronomy is not needed, ah well, we won´t get a quickest finish in any case.

 

[Compromise]

Good job, Swiss. Lee, you're up.

I agree with the plan to plant a panama canal city. I hope all the AI islands are over there.

I take full responsibility for not running a test game. I spent all of my limited holiday free time trying to figure out how to write a semi-automated worldbuilder file and ended up wasting all that time, so didn't get a test game run.

Though to be honest, I never would have considered testing to see if we could sail in an enemy's cultural ocean. Maybe it would have been discovered accidentally if I'd tested to see whether it was better to make contact or ignore the overseas AI.

 

[LKendter]

It feels like I just played, but I have it...

Playing right now to get this over with.

 

[LKendter]

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_AD1382_01.CivWarlordsSave


1304 AD
What are the AIs doing? 1304 AD and Colossus is still available? The only reason I don't build it is because we are heading toward astronomy.


1316 AD
The cow / fish / iron city has been built.

Our GS arrives, and he gives 2713 beakers to astronomy.


1328 AD




1334 AD
Ragnar adopted mercantilism. We are definitely behind on the tech front.


1352 AD



=======================

New Updates

Astronomy is completed, and we need to debate the tech path. I picked Feudalism as a place holder.

 

[TheArchduke]

It feels like I just played, but I have it...

Playing right now to get this over with.

You know this really raises group morale?

Feudalism sounds like a good idea to me, we should get maces as a next stop.

 

[sunrise089]

Nice job knocking Hannibal out LK. I feudalism really worth grabbing? Why not the offensive techs for maces?

The ocean thing is weird - I'm 99% sure it does not work that way in BtS.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

We should finish off CS for Maces. And I guess I should have put up some signs, but those two cities of Hannibal should have been razed.

As to the ocean thing, we were going to test it to see whether the AI could pillage our ocean nets (to see if fish/cows was worth founding).

 

[Kodii]

Got it! (I think I'm up...)

 

[Kodii]

I stopped rather prematurely because I am running out of time and I don't want this stuck in my hands for too long.

Civil Service in, Engineering is queued for Trebs and Macemen production has begun. I have not yet revolted to Bureaucracy

Ragnar has Muskets

We meet the final AI: Saladin

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_AD1430_01.CivWarlordsSave

 

[Compromise]

I unexpectedly lost access to my computer this weekend, but I've got it back now.

Assuming that sunrise is still out (yes, I agree that the ocean thing is weird), I'm up (and I've got it). I'll try to get a turnset done today or tomorrow. My general thought is: get a decent, defensible foothold on the AI continent, then move to expand from there. Ragnar is the most advanced AI, that usually means he's the one to go for first.

Are we still aiming for Conquest rather than Domination?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I was thinking that Dom might be quicker now that the AIs have reached a decent level. However, I think we need a foothoold on their island for either victory.

Maybe Ruff can get his abacus out and work out how many tiles we need on AI island?

 

[ruff_hi]

you want to trust me after I screwed the last set of calcs. I think the answer is ... LOTS!

 

[Compromise]

I think we needed some 760+ tiles. Without gaming by settler-explosion, we should be fine if we take about half the AI continent.

Let's go for Domination then. At least we'll have a unique finish in this event. Probably get some cutlery for the effort.

I notice that there are at least a couple of jungle hills in the AI lands still. I'm not super-experienced with late-game landings. Is it best to take a city to start with, or to sit on some defensive terrain for a bit and let the AI suicide against your defenses for a while?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Not sure, but if it's Dom we're after we might as well go after the weakest AI first (which seems to be Sal) as I don't think we're ready to tak on Ragnar in his homeland just yet.

 

[Compromise]

I played 15 turns to try to move us along. Mostly, I built units and started stacking them near London. I switched our research to Nationalism, but left the slider at 0%.

As our caravels scouted out the AI island, I left signs saying what kind of defenses each city has. Since this is prince, the defenses are minimal.

None of the AIs has Astronomy yet, but when Ragnar gets it, we could be in trouble:



Ragnar has cavalry! He hasn't whipped any in since I found this. I also saw a couple Musketmen in one of his northern cities.

I actually think we should go for the gusto and try to take Nidaros asap. It's Ragnar's capital. It's on a hill. It's got more troops than anyplace. It also has the Buddhist Shrine (and Buddhism is everywhere) and Angkor Wat (completed during this turnset).

Hey, at this point, what have we got to lose? Maybe our spoon will go from some nice hardwood to some type of cheap pine.

I left one of the galleons awake in the save to draw your attention to our might stack of dooooommm. We can start loading immediately if desired.

Also, I was ******** and discovered that there was no route over to the canal city because of ice...moments after I'd upgraded two of the galleys over there to galleons. There's a total of 4 galleons (one loner and another group of 3) headed across the ocean the long way. They're only now coming into range of some of the AI's southwestern fishing fleets.

I didn't see any obvious "collect stack of doom" ports in my caravel explorations.

The latest save.

Archduke, I think you're up. Swiss is on deck.

Edit: Oops. I was looking back through some of the earlier posts and noticed that I didn't switch to Bureaucracy either.

 

[sunrise089]

What are the qualifications for the Wooden Spoon? Wouldn't one of the teams that were defeated by the AI qualify as worse than us?

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I think we're going to need a huge amount of trebs to try to inflict 'death by collateral', and I'd go for Sal in the meantime as there's no way we're taking Nidaros with Cats, Maces and Jumbos!

I guess we should hold off FP for now, and look maybe at the same move as in the Mongol game.

 

[TheArchduke]

I have to agree with Swiss Pauli there, normally a city can be taken with low tech units. But Nidaros is on a hill as well, we need massive amounts of troops for that.

Will check around the save any try to play tomorow.

 

[Compromise]

If we attack one of the lesser AI's, like Saladin, won't the other AIs just come through his territory and attack us anyway? If trebs is what it takes, then I'd say we can tech for trebs and get an assault under way as soon as we can.

I've got some caravels sitting on some seafood to hurt Ragnar's growth prospects. The seafood near Nidaros is already pillaged.