SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

Yamps · Jun 27, 2008

@Marconos

As I said, I really should go to sleep now :mischief:

, I don't have the time to analyse the save right now.

First thing: meet the beauty of Vanilla! Cannons can and will kill everything! And they Bombard like crazy! Try it with WB.

Izzy will fall fast, Toku too. We should kill him because we can.

Yes, Fred next is the plan, but we will adopt if necessary. Capac next, maybe, we'll see. Kublai can't be bribed to attack Alex. Look at the save, I also recommend the personality file. "Leader trades summary", look it up, I posted the link before somewhere in the forest of posts.

We can bribe him to attack Fred. The best timing for that would be at the same time when Cathy attacks Mansa. The war prevents Capac from signing the pact with her. That's just an idea, we'll see what's best when the time comes.

You'll see those cannons rock soon!

marconos · Jun 27, 2008

Cannons can kill in Vanilla? Damn, alright I take back everything I said about having too many of them

I still think we should go after Fred before Toku. IMO, we should take him out before he gets infantry.

classical_hero · Jun 28, 2008

Cannons also kill in Warlords, but not in BTS. I am up and willing to play I will need some time to prepare my attack plans.

kcd_swede · Jun 28, 2008

Yamps said:
@Marconos

As I said, I really should go to sleep now , I don't have the time to analyse the save right now.

First thing: meet the beauty of Vanilla! Cannons can and will kill everything! And they Bombard like crazy! Try it with WB.

Izzy will fall fast, Toku too. We should kill him because we can. Yes, Fred next is the plan, but we will adopt if necessary. Capac next, maybe, we'll see. Kublai can't be bribed to attack Alex. Look at the save, I also recommend the personality file. "Leader trades summary", look it up, I posted the link before somewhere in the forest of posts. We can bribe him to attack Fred. The best timing for that would be at the same time when Cathy attacks Mansa. The war prevents Capac from signing the pact with her. That's just an idea, we'll see what's best when the time comes.

You'll see those cannons rock soon!

All siege units in Vanilla are "overpowered". In multiplayer, even the best Vanilla players need a month or so before they figure out how much warring changed.
As for Tokue next... definitely. Consider it REX. Marconos is right that we need REX and Kyoto is as rapid as REX can be.

Cathy's obvious target is Mansa. No troop movements would suggest anything different, in case someone is worried.

Our tech rate is disappointing when I see how the AI are doing. Hopefully that improves when empire expands, but JC has some weird ideas about what to build in his cities sometimes... so I think this warring phase should be a big push almost without let-up until at least 3 civs are dead (Spain, Japan, Germany, if I get a vote).

This part of my turnset was so short there isn't more detail to give than you can get by looking at the save.

Liz has been in WHEOOHRN for a while without any visible signs of her preparing to do anything to anybody. Evem though Nottingham is workds 2nd cultural city after Beijing, we are not losing ground (or not quickly) on those critical resources. Watch the %Chinese on the iron and fish to see if/how fast they are changing hands.

But for now, its time to feed the cannons some spanish fodder.

Yamps · Jun 28, 2008

@Kcd_Swede

Just some small observations:

You decided to move all cannons from the city. Maybe just one for city defense? Liz does have WHEOOHRN, it is highly unlikely that she'll attack us, but still...
Warrior should be in England, not in India now.
Us the Ctrl+I shortcut to minimize interface to see the entire city stack. Toku has 2 more LB, 12 total, not 10.
I would appreciate the turn number on the signs, not the year. Turn number tells you much better when sth happened, don't you think so? There is a HOF 3 setting to turn that on. Btw, I really miss the HoF mod when playing multiplayer games!

Reasons to attack Toku before Fred:

We can.
We need more land ASAP.
Capturing cities will bring cash, we need it badly for upgrades.
Artillery will be researched in ~8 turns, we should upgrade the cannons before we attack Fred.
Fred has 12 rifles in Hamburg and 13 rifles + 3 cannons in Berlin. We need more soldiers to attack him, we should conquer Izzy and Toku while we are waiting for reinforcements.

I've realized that I should mention another important difference in combat that exists in Vanilla:

Injured soldiers are much weaker than in Warlords and BtS!

When the Warlords was released, I read that the effective strength of a soldier was an average of current strength and maximal strength. This is not so in Vanilla! For example, injured infantry soldier with strength 2 has strength 2 in Vanilla. However, his maximal strength is 20 so his effective strength in Warlords is (20 + 2)/2 = 11. This is a huge difference!

Of course, we should check this. Maybe some patch changed things, or the mathematics is a bit different. I don't think so, but some testing would be useful here.

EDIT: things are really complicated regarding combat. I've read more on the subject, above statements about combat math are wrong, I misunderstood some concepts. Combat mathematics is really complicated. I can't really say what is true, but it is quite possible that injured units don't fight the same in BtS and Vanilla.

More spoilers ahead. Make your own plans first, read then!

Spoiler :

kcd_swede · Jun 28, 2008

Yamps said:
@Kcd_Swede

Just some small observations:

You decided to move all cannons from the city. Maybe just one for city defense? Liz does have WHEOOHRN, it is highly unlikely that she'll attack us, but still...

Warrior should be in England, not in India now.

Us the Ctrl+I shortcut to minimize interface to see the entire city stack. Toku has 2 more LB, 12 total, not 10.

I would appreciate the turn number on the signs, not the year. Turn number tells you much better when sth happened, don't you think so? There is a HOF 3 setting to turn that on. Btw, I really miss the HoF mod when playing multiplayer games!

Warrior should be in England. After spending 20 min looking for warrior, thought Yamps was insane. OK, I suck, If there is a warrior in India, I am sorry.

CTRL+I I don't even know what interface you are talking about. But I'll try it out.

Turn numbers would be good. didn't know how to turn them on. Now I do. For clever guy like you should not make difference.

I'm not planning here, just stating opinions. I think Izzy AND Toku should go down n the next turnset, Then we see if nothing changes that Fred is next best victim.

I don't know how accurate the <alt> ket odds shown are, but I usually go by them. I have learned to divide odds by 2 if below 60%, tho. Don't know if you guys think thats worth anything, but that's my exp.

I also think one or two units should promote before they move into barrage range. Most of them should wait until after the first barrage, and use best judgement from there.

Heroic epic is high on my list too.

As for defense, since I was able to promote home unit to inf, thought it less important to keep cannon home. We want 2 fast kills, overkill is better than underkill. We can build more if you worried.

Take anything and everything JC has, unless it would cripple him like on happy or health. And remember he's stupid and trades away stuff he/we could use if you give him the chance.

Yamps · Jun 28, 2008

kcd_swede said:
Warrior should be in England. After spending 20 min looking for warrior, thought Yamps was insane. OK, I suck, If there is a warrior in India, I am sorry.

Here is another tip: F5 key, click on the warrior.

CTRL+I I don't even know what interface you are talking about. But I'll try it out.

Try Alt + I, too..

Turn numbers would be good. didn't know how to turn them on. Now I do. For clever guy like you should not make difference.

Well, thanks for the compliment!

I'm not planning here, just stating opinions. I think Izzy AND Toku should go down n the next turnset, Then we see if nothing changes that Fred is next best victim.

Hear, hear!

I don't know how accurate the <alt> ket odds shown are, but I usually go by them. I have learned to divide odds by 2 if below 60%, tho. Don't know if you guys think thats worth anything, but that's my exp.

Didn't try dividing anything, I just look at the odds too. Those injured units in Vanilla are much weaker than in BtS. I think I'll do some testings now.

I also think one or two units should promote before they move into barrage range. Most of them should wait until after the first barrage, and use best judgement from there.

4 cats, 4 promoted defenders, no?

marconos · Jun 28, 2008

My reasoning for killing Fred before Toku is 2 fold.

1. Stop Fred before he gets on infantry.
2. Toku's land won't be worth much do to culture pressure from Asoka.

kcd_swede · Jun 28, 2008

<4 cats, 4 promoted defenders, no?>
Normally, you have defenders and attackers are different units, and I'd agree. But since our strongest defenders are also our strongest attackers, and are strong enough that a +10% isn't going to make any difference at all defending against cats, I'd promo 2 max. 20+10%=22; cats = 6, promoted 6.6. 20 vs 6.6 is not much different than 22 vs 6.6. If she had cannons or artillery it would be a different story.

After initial cat attack you can then promo and they are available to attack at full strength. If you promo first, they must either attack at less than full str, or heal. 13 defender units must die, (12 by us, 1 by JC), so those inf are going to see action even after the cannons tear them apart.

In the end, it won't matter much either way, but it could save a turn or improve odds in Japan. I should do some testing too. Classic_H should weigh the options and decide. Lets see what he thinks. It should be an interesting plan.

kcd_swede · Jun 28, 2008

<1. Stop Fred before he gets on infantry.>
Hmm... how likely is this in the number of turns lost to a Toku diversion? Toku's land might not be worth much, but he is pressing the borders of our new city, Madrid. Just a thought.

shikhee · Jun 29, 2008

Hi guys - SORRY I have been away, work has been crazy. The teams progress looks fantastic - congratulations so far!

Please DO NOT roster me on to play at all, but I still want to be part of the team - if I get more time I'll let you know... now to start reading the last 15+ pages to properly see whats happened

Yamps · Jun 29, 2008

@Classical

Ready for play? We would like to see some plans soon.

@Marconos

Yes, I would like to stop Fred ASAP too. But we can't do it atm. We have to attack Berlin first like you said and he could send say ~7 rifles from Hamburg to Beijing while we do that. We don't have enough soldiers yet to attack Berlin anyway and we don't have much defenders back home too. We need more soldiers, we have few turns to attack Toku while we wait. We can't afford many casualties if we want to wage war effectively.

@Kcd_Swede

I agree, 2 promoted defenders should be better. We will have +20% actually, remember Theocracy. I've read the Combat explained article in the War academy. If that article is correct, cats will make collateral damage first and then fight a normal fight, killing them faster won't help. However, that article is not up to date. Patches did change things so I don't know the current combat mechanics exactly.

@Shikhee

Hi there! Here is the brief summary for you:

We've signed a PA with JC. Cathy and Saladin are strong and hate us. We have a DP with Cyrus, he is also strong. AI from the other continents is teching fast, they have a lot of land. We are going to war now to increase JC's land.

Hope to see you back in play soon!

classical_hero · Jun 29, 2008

Our first opponent. I am actually thinking that Fred shoul be our first opponent since Izzy and Toku are so weak that they easy targets and we really need to get rid of Fred before he gets Infs and stop our charge. Alex will also fall quickly so we need to make sure that we have the right troops to cause trouble. Getting the order of clearing out our continent is very important we because nee to destroy those who are not too strong but not too weak either.

Techs. I am thinking that getting combustion is a good way to go since we need to get oil based units and getting tanks will help in our quest to destroy our enemies and get Aluminium. But of course collateral damage is very strong so getting Artillery first does make sense, so we should get Art then go for the techs I have made mention of.

Yamps · Jun 29, 2008

@classical_hero

Fred first?

Short answer: it won't work.

Long answer:

Which city would you attack first?

a) Hamburg

Our soldiers are near Hamburg, we could move them to India now and attack on the next turn. We could bust the city but we would lose our entire stack and JC doesn't have access to Hamburg, from where would he arrive? Even if we get Hamburg somehow, German culture from Berlin would kill it off. Culture from Capac, Izzy and Asoka wouldn't help either. JC would also have lot's of trouble from Berlin. He would lose a lot of units on that front. We have to attack Germany in a blitz attack.

b) Berlin

We have to move our soldiers there first. With JC's help and lot's of casualties, we would take Berlin eventually. We would also have some problems back home from Hamburg's rifles. Results would be bad, culture from Hamburg would kill Berlin off. Look at Washington or NY for illustration. Culture is power!

Again, Alex' and Capac's culture wouldn't help us.

To summarize, culture is very important in our war plans. Regarding the infantry, I don't expect Fred to have it so soon. For example, JC would need 13 turns to research fascism on its own. Fascism would cost us 4554 :science:

. Assembly line had cost us 9487 :science:

. Fred is a bit faster than JC, but I don't expect him to have Assembly line in the next 20 turns. Besides, he could be reseraching sth else first, Scientific Method maybe.

Like I said, we have to take Fred with a quick attack with enough soldiers.

Attacking Alex so soon is not so useful. Culture problems again! However, if/when Liz attacks Alex we have to re-evaluate things.

Izzy we can take now!

Turn 0: war declaration, troop movement
Turn 1: bombardment
Turn 2: city loses every defender but one (turn off stack attack please)

Hopefully JC moves in on turn 2 and takes the city. Watch his movements, it is important that he doesn't move in too fast. You can't stop him, but you can time the request for attack on Madrid.

Promotions

I think you should promote two soldiers immediately like kcd_swede suggested. One infantry soldier should get combat + medic, other just combat I. The second soldier should get his combat II promotion after collateral damage from Izzy to improve healing. Look at the experience, we have 2 soldiers that can only get one promotion. Cannons should get CR promotions. That was better than barrage in my testings, CR will reduce casualties. Soldiers should have combat I and II for LB's.

City production

Put more infantry in the queue to make sure Kremlin doesn't get any hammers. That's in the queue to prevent JC from building it. We should build only infantry atm. If we unlock HE, we should built it immediately of course.

Cash

Take the 27 gpt from JC, we need it. We have cash problems, taking Madrid should bring a lot of money, take that from JC too. However, if we don't get much, we have to consider building economic buildings for the upgrades.

Home defense and reinforcements

I think 2 infantry soldiers at least should stay back home. Warrior should go to England now. We have enough to take Izzy and probably Toku without reinforcements, but we should send more soldiers to the front.

Great people

I think we should bulb at this point to hurry things up. Scientist can give :science:

for Electricity, engineer for Combustion or Industrialism, artist for Railroad. However, if we do get a GE, we should consider keeping him for UN or Space Elevator. Remember, we can built the UN with a GE in any city in the world that is building it. Space Elevator could be a waste, we should evaluate that.

Research

Regarding research, we do need tanks. However, that means Railroad, Combustion, Electricity and Industrialism. We need ~30 turns of combined research for that, we are teching to slow! More good land ASAP! We are dreaming of world domination, but let's be realistic. Let's take some lands first to improve research first. If we lose our stack in the war with Fred and get culture problems, we'll be in a tough position.

Physics in 1 turn and then we can get artillery in ~8 turns. I recommend:

Physics - Artillery - Electricity - Industrialism (Marines!) - Railroad - Combustion (Tanks!)

Railroad - Combustion first doesn't look like a good option.

Btw, more elaborate planning from an active player would be greatly appreciated!

Yamps · Jun 29, 2008

Ok, let's finish the discussions and start playing in the next ~24h.

Here is the proposal:

Attack on Izzy, healing soldiers, short report after that to evaluate things. IMO, Toku after Izzy. ~24h for evaluation and then more play for classical_hero. If Liz attacks somebody, that's a reason to pause too.

We should make pauses during the war, other teams will do it too.

The final deadline is August 24th. We don't need to hurry, but let's keep a steady playing rhythm.

I must warn you however, I'm planning a vacation on August 1st. Somebody will have to step in for the job if we don't finish by that time.

kcd_swede · Jun 30, 2008

This is probably a good time to mention that I will also be away Aug 1-16. I think we really should try to finish in July. Our list of active players is pretty short already!

classical_hero · Jun 30, 2008

I am very busy at work so I will need to be put on hold until the weekend so that means that I am after the next person. Sorry about that.

marconos · Jun 30, 2008

Let's finish in July IMO, no reason we shouldn't. We just need at least 2 turn sets / week of around 15 turns each set.

Who is up now then? Melianor(sp)?

Question about kill order. How is Toku's land going to be worth anything? It is going to have massive culture pressure from Asoka right?

Has we thought about getting to railroads soon in our model? This would allow us to really get our troop movement going fast as well as give us a production increase (albiet small).

Once we do get railroads are we going to want to pop out another worker or two to get the important tiles (for us and JC) railroaded as soon as possible.

I really think taking out Fred is much more important then Izzy and Tokugawa. Reasoning.
1 -- We keep others from getting his land.
2 -- He is going to get stronger, Toku and Izzy aren't.
3 -- We don't have to worry about defending if we drop a strong stack in his lands. The computer won't attack with a small stack of 7 at this level.
4 -- Taking Izzy and Toku 1st will cause JC to have to make defensive units for those cities. Giving him more to defend actually makes him weaker later on when we go after Fred.

I will yield on Izzy 1st as that is a good proving ground. IMO, we need to get artillery ASAP and the get Fred. Both of Fred's cities quickly and then proceed on to other things. Going after Toku is a distraction and really doesn't move us towards a victory. I really think it will weaken us more then strengthen us.

Yamps · Jun 30, 2008

kcd_swede said:
This is probably a good time to mention that I will also be away Aug 1-16. I think we really should try to finish in July. Our list of active players is pretty short already!

classical_hero said:
I am very busy at work so I will need to be put on hold until the weekend so that means that I am after the next person. Sorry about that.

Oh, well.

Yes our list of active players is getting really short. Vacations could kill us off, we have to hurry. On the other hand, we are going to war, brakes are necessary at this point.

Let's deal with the roster first:

Classical can't play, Melior didn't check in so we are moving down the roster do avoid more delays.

1 - marconos - on deck!
2 - classical_hero - skipped
3 - kcd_swede - just played!
4 - Melior Traiano - busy
6 - shikhee - busy
7 - Yamps - UP!

8 - Ankka - unofficially resigned
9 - vra379971 - save opening problems
5 - Morganknight - save opening problems

Well, this puts me in play. Melior, I hope you'll check in soon, we are really seriously down on players now.

I'll play today and report in after ~7 turns. We have a majority opinion to attack Izzy and I'll do that. We actually also have a majority opinion to attack Toku before Fred I believe. Kcd_Swede and me vs Marconos. :hammer:

. I won't start that war in the first playing session. Marconos, bring more evaluations, try to prove your point!

Yamps · Jun 30, 2008

@Marconos

To be honest, I would really like to get Fred ASAP too. However, what about culture problems? If we take Berlin and don't take Hamburg soon, culture from Hamburg will kill Berlin.

Ok, Izzy is going down, let's see how that goes.

Try to set up some WB situations, infantry + cannons against many rifles. Is it possible to conquer Fred effectively?

Yes, railroads are very important, I think you are right there!

Physics - Artillery - Railroad

Artillery is very important, we'll be using arties a lot. Infantry won't be useful against machine guns.

EDIT: of course, we need coal to build railroads. Another reason to attack Fred ASAP! We have all the reasons to attack him, but can we do it properly? Btw, the war against Toku would last 3 or 4 turns IMO, that's not a big difference actually. We'll see after the war wit Izzy. Liz - Alex war is a potential distraction too.

SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

Deity

Prince

In whom I trust

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Deity

Prince

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Jag är Viking!½

Warlord

Deity

In whom I trust

Deity

Deity

Jag är Viking!½

In whom I trust

Prince

Deity

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