SGOTM 06 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Compromise]

Ah the irritating double-post.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

It looks like we can continue the war against Ragnar as we have enough Jumbos to cope with the amount of Cavs he's likely to have. Tech-wise, I decide it's time to backfill: we need Theatres, so it's decifit research to get Alpha and Drama (1T each), then to Lit at 20% research for the Epics. After that, it's the along the bottom of the tree (aka Warmongers delight) for Feud- Guilds - Guns - Chemistry - Banking. So far Feud is in and Guilds in 5.

The war went pretty well, with acceptable losses given we're facing technologically superior opponents (plural as we have some Persian and Arabian units incoming).

Uppsala got razed as it won't give us many land tiles. Raggy seems to be down to two cities, both of which should be razed. There's a sign on the big city mentioning a Cav, but I think it came out to play again and got destroyed. The capture of Angle and now Roskilde has opened up the Arabian front: seeing as Sal has resourceless Camel Archers, we should defend here for now, and train some more Jumbos whilst teching to Grens. Cy has a stack near Haithabu: it's an irritant rather than a real danger.

At home, we've got theatres and I made the way overdue switch to HR & BUR I propose a Marble city SW of Athens to fill some tiles and help speed the Epics; a road is being built down there (but no Settler).

We've just got a GS: as I see the options are an Academy in London, or save him for a Chemistry bulb (either way he should be sent to London).

Great Scientist:

Writing
Mathematics
Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Fiber Optics
Computers
...
Philosophy
Chemistry
Fission
Fusion
Optics
Paper

Thus if we avoid Paper then we can LB Chemistry. I favour this seeing as we're never going to be running enough research % to make a Academy pay out better.

Save in this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6580396&postcount=479

 

[Swiss Pauli]

New update: looking at the save again, I see Raggy has founded Jelling off to the south of Persia, so we should send the Galleon sitting on fish by Persia back to Hanny-island pick up some of the troops and go raze it.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

In case he's forgotten, Lee is up...

 

[LKendter]

In case he's forgotten, Lee is up...

Not sure what happened to a possible Ruff_hi turn.

Two lousy inches of snow cancelled my weekend flight.
That means I can play shortly.

 

[ruff_hi]

sorry - I will not get to this game this weekend. Feel free to play on Lee.

 

[LKendter]

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_AD1616_01.CivWarlordsSave


1595 AD
IMHO we should have gone for Vassalage over Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy isn't gain much money after the cost, and I would rather have the double promoted troops.


I've seen no additional discussion about the scientist, so he will follow SPs suggestion of chemistry.

I start be deleting a bunch of meaningless signs such as SOD with no units underneath.

Unfortunately we only have 34.59% land toward domination. We should pick up some border expansions in the new world.

The biggest problem is we have an awkward front to defend in the new world, and IMHO we are expanding the wrong way. We can take several cities in the south and claim a one tile choke point.
(IT) It was pretty quiet from the AI.


1601 AD
Cyrus moves his stack off the hill, and I proceed to stomp it to death.


1604 AD
I finally cleared Ragnar's blockade by Bjorgvin.


1610 AD
Banking is selected, but I have shut off science for further discussion.

While it doesn't gain any land, the raze or keep decision was still hard. I finally razed, but I hate to not pick up the incense now.


(IT) Saladin snuck in a Camel Archer in stole Bjorgvin.


1613 AD
I recover Bjorgvin from the injured CA.
Due to my missing this unit the city is now size 1, and has just a lighthouse.

Cyrus now has rifles.
(IT) Cyrus is starting to rip us to shreds.


1616 AD
Where in the world did these two units by Haithabu come from? My guess is a galley I see three tiles south.
I kill the offending units.



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

New Updates
I didn't start it, but do we want to build the Heroic Epic?

Do we want Mercantilism? We have a large empire and no useful trade routes. The free specialists everywhere would clearly help us. We could gain a lot of scientists, and a few artists in key border cities trying to get the extra border expansion.

We went from 34.59% to 35.82% during my round. I realize some of that is Bjorgvin, but we are still making very little progress.

I left the game with two decisions to be made.
The first is marble city. The settler and spear are there to build it. However, I disagree with the location and want to propose blue dot. This also gains us silver, and we can use every possible source of happiness. I have a missionary in progress to get the town the needed culture.




The second one is to assault Birka now, or wait. I use a lot of the bombard units up this turn in order to drop the expenses.

 

[TheArchduke]

I agree with blue dot, that city will stay a ressource graber for the rest of the game, the fish won´t help much.

I am for assaulting I gotta admit.

 

[Compromise]

I'll be able to look over the save tomorrow. Actually, I think that the fact that we didn't lose much ground by counterattacks is a good success here.

New blue dot looks good to me. Silver is nice, especially with forges.

The Bjorgvin incident is what leads me to lean toward razing rather than keeping if there is any doubt. We can always go back and resettle a city later, but now, against superior tech, our priority is to deny whipping/cash/manufacturing capacity to the AI.

And I completely agree with the GS helping us to Chemistry.

Kodii, you're up and then I'm on deck. Given our new "expeditious" rotation though, if I get a chance to play before you, I'll post that I'm going to start and then I'll play. I might get a chance tomorrow, and almost certainly on Tuesday failing that. Please feel free to do the same!

 

[Swiss Pauli]

@Lee - we didn't know Feudalism when I made the switch, so Vassalage was not an option.

We need to keep tech moving, so Gunpowder should be researched at max speed so we can get Chemistry to save us from Cy's rifles. Wasting turns not researching was not a good move at this point in the game.

Bjorgvin should have been a useful choke point as it blocks off the southeast corner with our culture. Losing it was a mistake in play, not in strategy.

 

[LKendter]

We need to keep tech moving, so Gunpowder should be researched at max speed so we can get Chemistry to save us from Cy's rifles. Wasting turns not researching was not a good move at this point in the game.

We can debate this one either way, but we can turn the slider up higher with the extra cash so I don't know how much of a difference it will make. The most we lost was a couple hundred beakers from the scientists.

Bjorgvin should have been a useful choke point as it blocks off the southeast corner with our culture. Losing it was a mistake in play, not in strategy.

Bjorgvin loss was a tactical mistake. The two cities beyond that are where we can debate strategy, as we don't have an effective defending unit.


Addition game updates:
I forget to mention they are additional settlers in progress. I have one for building a city to claim furs. We want every possible source of happiness. I have another one on the way to help fill in a gap somewhere. With going for domination we want to fill in the gaps as the AI cities are turning very painful to take. We have a debate when we take the remaining barb city and build a city south of it.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Cyrus getting Rifling is a disaster for us: we have anti mounted defenders (based on Ragnar/Sal) and we will get hammered by Rifles. Our army is attack only, so we're going to have it tough to hold onto our Viking possessions. If we raze Birka now, maybe Cy will settle (and defend) another city and give us enough time to tech Guns and whip some Muskets? Then the Chemistry LB will allow us to upgrade some non-CR Maces to Grens soon thereafter, so we can attack out from cities. This is going to be interesting, very interesting...

 

[Kodii]

Rifles?

Well, I can't get to it today, so Compromise, go ahead and take it.

To warn you ahead of time, I will be OOP starting this Friday for two weeks.

 

[Compromise]

I'll knock out a turnset tomorrow using the post, play, report posting plan.

 

[Compromise]

Sheesh...another double post!

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Sheesh...another double post!

Patience is a virtue

 

[Compromise]

Had another couple days full of unexpected demands. I'll try again tomorrow, but I'll post before playing.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

I'm OOP until Sat am.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, I'm going to run a few turns here....

 

[Compromise]

I played an hour. After the next player (Kodii?) hits "Enter", we'll have Gunpowder. Then, we'll be able to use the G Scientist in Athens to pop Chemistry (I sure hope that's right.)

This will be a godsend for our battle against Cyrus' rifles. We're getting creamed by them with something like a 2- or 3-to-1 loss ratio (not in our favor!). Grenadiers will be most welcome. Much better against rifles than our war elephants, which suffer a 25% penalty against them.

Not much to report, other than many rifle losses. I did take Ragnar's last continental city (I think). But we'll still suffer his weariness because he has some outlying islands.

Once we have Chemistry, I propose going all out for Grenadier building. Probably some trebs too for city assaults.

One opportunity I couldn't pass up:



I actually earned our great general a promotion on a very wounded rifle! I hope he survives.

The save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm6/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG006_AD1625_01.CivWarlordsSave