SGOTM 06 - Trash Team

chopster · Jan 22, 2008

Ok, I've played. All in all a pretty uneventful turnset.
I did much better than the last on IMO!

Only suffered one loss - a LB that lost to a Skirmisher without damaging him at all, and at 79% odds! 8 kills for one loss - a nice ratio.

Alex happened to found a city, defended by only two catapults - right next to two of our cats. I promptly promoted the cats to CR3 and made light work of this new city.

BIG NEWS - I got ivory hooked up!

I don't think we're too far off being able to go for Athens. This is the current state of our military.

Here's the turnlog from my set.

IBT:
A Cottage was destroyed near Hadrumetum

Turn 232/660 (980 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:24:14]
A Farm was built near York
Nottingham finishes: Spearman
Hadrumetum finishes: Longbowman

IBT:
A Farm was destroyed near Argos
While defending in English territory at Argos, Longbowman defeats (5.28/6): Greek Catapult (Prob Victory: 100.0%)

Turn 233/660 (995 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:32:48]
Nottingham begins: Catapult (4 turns)
Hadrumetum begins: Longbowman (10 turns)
Longbowman promoted: Drill II
Longbowman promoted: City Garrison II
Longbowman promoted: City Garrison III

IBT:

Turn 234/660 (1010 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:38:51]
London finishes: Catapult
York finishes: Spearman
A Hamlet was built near Argos

IBT:
While defending in English territory at Hadrumetum, Longbowman defeats (6.00/6): Malinese Catapult (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
A Cottage was destroyed near Hadrumetum
A Cottage was built near Hadrumetum

Turn 235/660 (1025 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:46:55]
London begins: Swordsman (4 turns)
York begins: Swordsman (5 turns)
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: City Raider I
Catapult promoted: City Raider II
Catapult promoted: City Raider II
Catapult promoted: City Raider III
Catapult promoted: City Raider III
While attacking in Greek territory at Ephesus, Catapult defeats (3.50/5): Greek Catapult (Prob Victory: 96.0%)
While attacking in Greek territory at Ephesus, Catapult defeats (3.50/5): Greek Catapult (Prob Victory: 96.0%)
Razed Ephesus

IBT:
While defending in English territory at Hadrumetum, Longbowman defeats (6.00/6): Malinese Catapult (Prob Victory: 100.0%)
A Cottage was destroyed near Hadrumetum
A Cottage was built near Argos
A Cottage was destroyed near Argos

Turn 236/660 (1040 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:51:04]
Longbowman promoted: City Garrison II
Spearman promoted: Combat I
Spearman promoted: Combat II
Nottingham finishes: Catapult
Hadrumetum finishes: Longbowman
A Village was built near Argos

IBT:
A Cottage was built near Hadrumetum

Turn 237/660 (1055 AD) [22-Jan-2008 17:55:32]
Nottingham begins: Catapult (4 turns)
Hadrumetum begins: Swordsman (9 turns)
London finishes: Swordsman

IBT:
A Cottage was destroyed near Hadrumetum

Turn 238/660 (1070 AD) [22-Jan-2008 18:02:18]
London begins: Swordsman (4 turns)
A Farm was built near London
Spearman promoted: Combat I
Spearman promoted: Combat II
York finishes: Swordsman
Nottingham's borders expand
Christianity has spread: Nottingham

IBT:
A Cottage was built near Hadrumetum

Turn 239/660 (1085 AD) [22-Jan-2008 18:07:22]
York begins: Longbowman (6 turns)
York begins: Swordsman (5 turns)
While attacking in English territory at Hadrumetum, Longbowman loses to: Malinese Skirmisher (4.00/4) (Prob Victory: 79.2%)
While attacking in English territory at Hadrumetum, Axeman defeats (0.50/5): Malinese Skirmisher (Prob Victory: 59.9%)
A Camp was built near Hadrumetum
Spearman promoted: Combat I
Spearman promoted: Combat II
Spearman promoted: Combat I
Spearman promoted: Combat II
York begins: War Elephant (7 turns)

IBT:
A Cottage was destroyed near Hadrumetum
While defending in English territory at Mycenae, Spearman defeats (3.20/4): Greek War Elephant (Prob Victory: 50.0%)

Turn 240/660 (1100 AD) [22-Jan-2008 18:13:02]
Axeman promoted: Combat III

Turnlog from submission:

Spoiler :

HERE'S THE SAVE

stuge · Jan 22, 2008

Looking good. I've got Warlords rigged up again and it seems to be running fine, so hopefully there won't be prblems this time around.

I'll set getting Athens under siege as my objective.

remconius · Jan 22, 2008

Good turnset, Chopster. Nice work on the ivory. It's Jumbo time!

How is the stack near Athens looking?

Roster
- Remconius
- chopster
- stuge (up)
- cabert (on deck)
- patagonia
- pigswill
- Cam_H

chopster · Jan 22, 2008

There's nothing more near Athens... YET.

Theres a few cats and spears healing at Argos before making the journey down there. Also there are a couple of swords heading in that general direction also. (none of these should be moving still if I remember correctly - I'm pretty sure I was moving them turn by turn.)

patagonia · Jan 22, 2008

It looks like there are enough units in transit to Athens (via Argos) to finish the job. 4 suicide cats should be enough to weaken the defenders enough to mop up from there. The biggest risk is that we'll have to move down from the hill to get rid of the amphibious penalty when it comes to attacking and may well get hit for a load of collateral damage by the cats Alex has in the city.

Good work connecting that Ivory Chopster - lets get some Jumbos out there!

remconius · Jan 22, 2008

Might be a good idea to move 1-2 units beside Athens to lure the Cats out, before moving all units and getting full collateral damage.

Before pressing enter, Stuge, kill Alex's cat from Argos. Here kitty, kitty.... Bam!

stuge · Jan 23, 2008

Hey hey, things are starting to look up.

The battle of Athens:

Once the whole force was assembled, I bit the bullet and moved the whole stack
to 1S of the city. Alex never attacked out with a single cat. Congrats, you've just lost your capital.

In the end, only a couple of cats were lost. (I got pretty lucky with retreats.) First capital down. :cool:

Note that the Greek longbow that guarded the copper mine remains alive, though it seems to be making a run for it. A GG was born out of the battle. No obvious uses for him right now. Perhaps we should look for a good naval yard and merge him there?

Other battles took place around Hadrumetum. A longbow/mace pair that threatened to sever our road connection was a bit of a pain. In the end the longbow was killed by a war elephant and the mace injured himself taking out our sword and was mopped up next turn. The next player should build a secondary route to the river SW. It requires one road.

Mansa had a cat bombard the defences for some turns and then suicided iy against the wall of arrows. It was pretty pathetic but fun to watch.

Build orders: Jumbos and cats. we'll get CS in seven turns with defict research.

Mycenae is building a workboat. :smoke:

I realised only just now that we have a zero chance to protect that net. Fix it.

Situation at the front.

Corinth's defences are a joke. Get some cats over there and add it to our empire.

That little stack of our was supposed to pay Mansa a visit, but it probably has to stay for now. The malinese units are LB/cat and HA/cat.

Go give Hannibal some love.

remconius · Jan 23, 2008

Good turnset!

Great job on taking Athens! We now have the pyramids... Time for a civic change?

Roster
- Remconius
- chopster
- stuge
- cabert (up)
- patagonia (on deck)
- pigswill
- Cam_H

cabert · Jan 23, 2008

Yep, representation would be great, don't you think?

ho by the way, i'm not playing before at least sunday.
So swap or skip for me...

stuge · Jan 23, 2008

A couple of things I forgot to mention:

Kerkouane is a goner.

Our guerilla longbow is 1SE of Hadrumetum. Move him onto the hill 2NW of Utica to ensure that Hanny won't be able to ambush our forces when we capture Corinth.

remconius · Jan 23, 2008

Roster
- Remconius
- chopster
- stuge
- cabert (swap till Sunday)
- patagonia (UP)
- pigswill (on deck)
- Cam_H

patagonia · Jan 23, 2008

Good set stuge. Things are starting to look up on the war front.

I can either play immediately or on Sunday (like cabert), but we've got a few decisions to make so I don't see any need to rush into things.

Things to do:

Swap Mycenae from workboats to longbows.
Pull the stackette up by York back towards the city to protect from pillaging by Mansa's longbow-catapult pair to the south. Parking them in the city is probably best for now as we can cover all tiles from that location.
Move the medic chariot 2SW and then back into Athens. It'll reveal more tiles and as long as it finishes the turn in the city our units there will still get the healing benefit.
Athens needs culture for a border pop, so its first build should be along those lines. I agree with the worker in principle though - we'll be needing more of them, but Alex's final city may be able to help out.

Decisions to make:

1) Who to attack next?
The obvious course of action seems to be to mop up the remaining Greek cities to secure the west. Both will be under immediate Carthaginian cultural pressure and need a reasonable garrison (eg 2CG3 longbows and a spear) until we can advance further. Mansa's the most powerful, but Hannibal is the closest neighbour and that's where our CR veterans will be so I think it makes sense to press on east into Carthage once Greece is no more. We can then roll the war machine anti-clockwise round the continent to finish off Mansa. He'll almost certainly have gunpowder units and knights by the time we get there, but we should have the production to Zerg him by then.

Does that plan of action sound OK?

2) What civics to run?
Representation will immediately add 9BPT to our research. We're currently on 15BPT @30% losing 9GPT so that's a significant increase. The key question is what to ally that with? Serfdom has been a lifesaver while we've had so few workers, but we're reaching the point where Caste System has real economic benefits. A CS merchant brings in 3 gold and 3 beakers which will make all the difference to our economy, whilst running an artist for 5 turns gets that early border pop without needing to waste production on monuments etc. Slavery might have a role to play if any of the Carthaginian core are still 10+ when we capture them, but we'll be able to decide on that switch while they're coming out of revolt.

Should we revolt to representation and bureaucracy at the same time in 7 turns, or stick with vassalage? London will gain 13 commerce and 7 hammers from the switch based on its current production, but we'll lose the 2XP bonus elsewhere and have to pay upkeep on the units we're currently getting free. Do we add caste system, or stick with serfdom? At this stage it's one turn of anarchy per civic changed.

3) It's the economy, stupid?
Further to civics changes, our empire is reaching the size where we might want to consider having one city at a time build a courthouse instead of units. That should allow us not to crash without having too much of an impact on our production capability.

4) What to research next?
To me, it seems like Metal Casting > Machinery for maces and xbows is a no-brainer (plus one tech from both engineering and guilds), but there may be other opinions. If so, lets have them!

5) What to do with the GG in London?
Is it time to make that chariot a medic 3? It only needs 5XP to do so, so we could bump up 3 more units at the same time - which 3? Swords or do we want to get some longbows promoted up the guerilla 3 and drill lines? The alternative is settling in London or elsewhere. Nottingham is our best production city for the forseeable future, so that would probably be the best spot.

cabert · Jan 23, 2008

I'd like to go for gunpowder as soon as possible, but maces sure are good.

chopster · Jan 23, 2008

Nice turnset there stuge - we're actually making REAL progress!

patagonia said:
I can either play immediately or on Sunday (like cabert), but we've got a few decisions to make so I don't see any need to rush into things.

Agreed - let's stop and think for a bit and make sure we're all agreed on the "best" path to follow.

Things to do:

Swap Mycenae from workboats to longbows.

Pull the stackette up by York back towards the city to protect from pillaging by Mansa's longbow-catapult pair to the south. Parking them in the city is probably best for now as we can cover all tiles from that location.

Move the medic chariot 2SW and then back into Athens. It'll reveal more tiles and as long as it finishes the turn in the city our units there will still get the healing benefit.

Athens needs culture for a border pop, so its first build should be along those lines. I agree with the worker in principle though - we'll be needing more of them, but Alex's final city may be able to help out.

These all sound sensible to me.

Decisions to make:

1) Who to attack next?
The obvious course of action seems to be to mop up the remaining Greek cities to secure the west. Both will be under immediate Carthaginian cultural pressure and need a reasonable garrison (eg 2CG3 longbows and a spear) until we can advance further. Mansa's the most powerful, but Hannibal is the closest neighbour and that's where our CR veterans will be so I think it makes sense to press on east into Carthage once Greece is no more. We can then roll the war machine anti-clockwise round the continent to finish off Mansa. He'll almost certainly have gunpowder units and knights by the time we get there, but we should have the production to Zerg him by then.

Does that plan of action sound OK?

It certainly makes sense to me. Once we have the production of Athens and Corinth on line, the war machine might start moving a little faster too.

2) What civics to run?
Representation will immediately add 9BPT to our research. We're currently on 15BPT @30% losing 9GPT so that's a significant increase. The key question is what to ally that with? Serfdom has been a lifesaver while we've had so few workers, but we're reaching the point where Caste System has real economic benefits. A CS merchant brings in 3 gold and 3 beakers which will make all the difference to our economy, whilst running an artist for 5 turns gets that early border pop without needing to waste production on monuments etc. Slavery might have a role to play if any of the Carthaginian core are still 10+ when we capture them, but we'll be able to decide on that switch while they're coming out of revolt.

Should we revolt to representation and bureaucracy at the same time in 7 turns, or stick with vassalage? London will gain 13 commerce and 7 hammers from the switch based on its current production, but we'll lose the 2XP bonus elsewhere and have to pay upkeep on the units we're currently getting free. Do we add caste system, or stick with serfdom? At this stage it's one turn of anarchy per civic changed.

Representation does seem like a logical choice for the immediate boost. Caste system seems to align well with this - we don't really have the food to go too whip happy, so I feel it is superior to slavery at the moment. Also, we'll gain science from using artists for border pops in new cities.

I'm inclined to think we should stick with Vassalage at the moment - the XP boost in other cities is an extra promotion we wouldn't have without it at the moment, and the free units almost make up for the commerce boost that London would get. I'd like to hear others opinions on this one though.

So, my vote is Rep, Vassalage, Caste - revolt asap.
This also removes the need for Athens to build a culture building.

3) It's the economy, stupid?
Further to civics changes, our empire is reaching the size where we might want to consider having one city at a time build a courthouse instead of units. That should allow us not to crash without having too much of an impact on our production capability.

Another idea I can't see any reason for not doing.

4) What to research next?
To me, it seems like Metal Casting > Machinery for maces and xbows is a no-brainer (plus one tech from both engineering and guilds), but there may be other opinions. If so, lets have them!

Keep that war machine going! That also seems like the most logical choice. If Mansa has maces then we'll need AT LEAST maces to make a dent. Pikes sure wouldn't hurt against the impending knights.

5) What to do with the GG in London?
Is it time to make that chariot a medic 3? It only needs 5XP to do so, so we could bump up 3 more units at the same time - which 3? Swords or do we want to get some longbows promoted up the guerilla 3 and drill lines? The alternative is settling in London or elsewhere. Nottingham is our best production city for the forseeable future, so that would probably be the best spot.

I'd rather settle the GG - but that may be more "tradition" than sense. If we're not adding ALL the XP to one unit then it feels like kind of a waste to me.

cabert · Jan 24, 2008

I would go representation+ caste system, and bureau when available. We have gold in our capital, remember.

About the GG, we must remember to protect him well if it's a great medic.
Can we get level 4 troops from the barracks without settling him?

remconius · Jan 24, 2008

I think we should move to bureaucracy. Our capital is highest in commerce, production and xp units. A boost there will certainly help us.

To still get the +2 xp, we should research Theology after CS, spread Hinduism and move to Theocracy.

chopster · Jan 24, 2008

In which case, should we do it in two stages?

Caste System and Representation now (or asap), and then Theocracy and Bureaucracy once we have both available?

cabert · Jan 24, 2008

chopster said:
In which case, should we do it in two stages?

Caste System and Representation now (or asap), and then Theocracy and Bureaucracy once we have both available?

I think so. but with bureaucracy so very near it seems a bit stupid.
Is there a way to get CS faster?

patagonia · Jan 24, 2008

cabert said:
I think so. but with bureaucracy so very near it seems a bit stupid.
Is there a way to get CS faster?

Nope. We don't have Alphabet so we can't build research, and we don't have any libraries so we can't hire scientists.

It's one turn of anarchy per civics switch so I don't think that'll make a difference. We just have those turns separate rather than consecutive.

If Bureaucracy is the way forward, what do we do with the GG?

Settle in Nottingham (our second best production city) for 5XP there? Settle in London to keep 9XP there? Or make a medic 3 to keep the war machine rolling?

NB it'll take a significant hammer (monastery and missionaries) and beaker (meditation, monotheism and theocracy) investment to make use of Theocracy. We've currently got one Hindu city and one Christian/Jewish city, which is it as far as religion's concerned. If we revolt out of vassalage we won't get those XPs back for a long, long time. The extra unit upkeep cost by ditching vassalage may offset the commerce boost bureaucracy gives us, so economically we might not be that much better off until London can grow a bit.

stuge · Jan 24, 2008

Civics: I'd go with rep+vassalage+caste. Merchants will be great for us and I think that we need those free xp and units from vassalage. I really wish we were spiritual for some emergency whippings.

Tech: MC-> machinery-> engineering. This is trebuchets are overpowered-Warlords. They'll remove any problem we might have with Mansa.

GG: Boosting the chariot to medic 3 and promoting three other units sounds good. IIRC, we've got three combat 1/CR 3 swords. Combat 2 might be good for them before the upgrade to maces.

SGOTM 06 - Trash Team

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