SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

[Yamps]

As for population counts, I believe that pop in revolt do not count towards the total until they come outof revolt. Not 100% sure on that, though.

No, the difference is too large, 476 vs 558! We have to look into that.


EDIT:

We'll have some cash problems because of unit maintenance. JC can provide some gpt, but we don't want him to drop the research rate too much.

JC should keep the Coal for now, the thing isn't event connected yet. We should let him build those railroads, he has a lot of workers.

EDIT2:

We should bring more arties to attack Washington. Those 3 from Beijing can go too, we'll have more in the city for defense by the time we attack Washington.

Strike forces for Washington: 2MG, 6inf, 11 art. George has a lot of rifles there but this should be enough judging by the war with Fred. It is vital to attack before JC does it to avoid losses.

 

[marconos]

I agree about the drydocks being a bad idea. We don't need to get into water battles .... yet.

I'm not positive about attacking Washington 1st. He has no power, no production, no research and he's not going to get any bigger until we remove the Asoka Cultural pressure from him.

I think our attack should go against Asoka 1st and knock him out. He and Elizabeth are the real threats on our continent. Adding 1 - 2 more cities to defend without removing a major threat is a bad idea. We can come up into Asoka from the S and walk right up through him. We will have losses but I don't see where waiting to attack him and killing Washington is going to change that fact.

Answer this question for me to explain why Washington before Asoka. What do we gain from killing Washington? From the way I see it nothing. We need to make sure that we gain something when we take out these guys. Once Asoka is out I believe we will have the game in hand but this is the last major critical point in the game IMO.

 

[Yamps]

Fine points Marconos, us usual.

The thing is that we need more soldiers for Asoka and we'll have to take out Washington after Asoka anyway. He is weak now, he could get infantry and artillery by the time we conquer Asoka. Washington's borders will spread out drastically immediately when we take Asoka down. What are we going to do then?

Btw, we have to avoid heavy casualties, we can only build 1 unit per turn. How many soldiers are we going to need for our continent? Liz has many soldiers, Capac and Kublai too. 50 soldiers means 50 turns, that's a lot of time.

Of course, we'll have some problems with JC spreading out. 2 more cities to defend, like you said. Maybe we should raze them after all! Population could be an issue, but we should manage somehow.

Well, you've made me change my mind again Marconos , I say we raze George's cities now!

There will be more critical points. Yes, domination is most likely possible, but when? Our unit building is limited, maybe Space after all. It is hard to say, we'll now better soon.


Let's plan this properly, do you want to win or what?

 

[Melior Traiano]

Recount

Land numbers are correct!

However, total population number for our continent is wrong, we have 248 pop. Melior, you added the 18 unclaimed tiles to the population number.

There is another problem with the total population number! Mouse hovering says 476, but I made the population count manually:

Cathy: 67
Sal: 79
Monty: 50
Cyrus: 66
Lois: 48

248 from our continent + 310 from other continents summs to 558. This agrees with the number of total votes!

We have a problem, how is population counted for domination? Why the 476 number?

Population also matter, there will be some starvation in wars too. Farming will be problematic, JC will work against us! He will rebuild sth else if he feels like it.

Excellent! So for calculating pop percentage, we go by the number of total votes in the F8 resolutions screen. Simple enough then, 82 = 14.70% of 558 and the land totals are confirmed valid as well. I don't know where the 476 number comes from. No matter. Oops on adding 18 land to the pop count.

I also just looked over the tech board & the AI's lands. Monty doesn't have Biology yet, but has lots of Farms. Louis & Saladin also don't know Bio yet. Once those guys have Bio, the % pop will be less in our favor and we'll have less of a margin for error to make the 39% threshold. Also, we simply don't have the sheer numbers of units required to kill George off before Caesar would get to the front, so we might as well let Caesar capture Washington & New York.

The timing would work out pretty well, probably. By the time George is wiped out, we'll have more troops to send at Asoka. Let's stay focused on building ground troops until it's time to confront Liz. At that point, a squadron of four Level 3 Battleships should be more than a match for her Destroyers. Once Liz is gone, the Battleships can sail toward Rome to reinforce Caesar from attack by Cathy when we eventually take on the three-way DP. Win or lose, there's going to be an exciting finish to this game.

I think our Worker near Berlin should help Caesar's bring the Coal online so we can start laying down tracks to boost our . Farming over random improvements can wait until later.

BTW, I am available to play some turns, if need be.

 

[Yamps]

Nice observations Melior! To raze or not to raze, that is the question! I'm fluctuating on that question from one post to another. Your arguments are bringing me back to the capturing plan.

Well, that's good team effort!


@Farming

That farm will be finished when Berlin gets out of revolt, mouse hovering over farm improvement says 3 turns. Berlin needs that food, how urgent is that Coal?

@Game play

It is very late in Australia now, I'm not sure that Classical will be ready for play today. Classical, what's the situation?

OK, let's wait for an hour or two. In the meantime, let's finish the preparations. Melior, get ready for war!

Classical, I apologize, but if you are not ready I think we should swap you.

 

[kcd_swede]

I think we will need the population eventually, so keeping Wash/NY seems best to me. I assume JC brings the garrison troops and we lose nothing with this attack on America before India, and gain some promotions while we otherwise would be waiting for building more.
I thought we were timid with Toku, too. But it gave Liz something harmless to do, so it turned out well. Basically I think the plans are good, whichever is ultimately chosen by the consensus.

I agree that if Melior is ready and Classical doesn't check in soon, it is fair to swap.

Go get'em!

 

[vra379971]

Agreed on the swap.

...and, looking over the save, I might have an idea, let me look into it...

 

[marconos]

We don't want to raze Washington's cities ... I was just thinking that we wanted to knock off Asoka 1st.

Question for those that have seen this in this game. When we declare war on a computer do the instantly upgrade all their military units to the top type? If not where does that actually leave Asoka in the unit count? Are we capable of hitting him now instead of waiting? I'm just concerned on Ceasar having to garrison too many cities. IMO we knock off Asoka and then instantly hit Washington. either way would work I guess but I do not want to raze Washingtons cities. We are going to need the pop.

 

[Yamps]

@Marconos

Deity AI upgrades instantly when it has the tech available. Upgrades are almost free, Asoka will upgrade his remaining rifles and grens very soon. We would have to wait for the attack on Asoka and we can attack Washington now. We only have to upgrade the cannons and move troops to the front. After all discussions, I think that Washington -> Asoka attack line is better than Asoka -> Washington. We also agreed on taking the cities, although that could get tricky. The attack is a bit risky but that's not new for us.

I believe we discussed everything, we should play now.

Melior, are you ready for play? I'm going to sleep now, hope to see Washington and Asoka conquered when I wake up.

 

[Melior Traiano]

Okay guys, I'm gonna kill George tomorrow night. I'll march our stack from Hamburg to the square NW of Washington. It'll take three turns to get there & start bombarding the defenses. Meanwhile, the city will build more units for now, but I'll train a couple of Workers in time for the Coal. Units from the city will attack New York at the same time as the main army attacks Washington. With some luck, we'll get some free xp with no casualties.

 

[kcd_swede]

Tomorrow nite I guess its a time-zone thing.

 

[kcd_swede]

Excellent! So for calculating pop percentage, we go by the number of total votes in the F8 resolutions screen. Simple enough then, 82 = 14.70% of 558 and the land totals are confirmed valid as well. I don't know where the 476 number comes from. No matter. .

Well, that might be the pertinent parameter, but... that's counting city size which is NOT the same as city population.
Go into Rome, hover over the city name, and you see pop 3.8million (size 19). Try Antium pop 1.96 million (size 15). Try Beijing 4.39 million (size 21). So clearly population and city size should not be confused as being the same thing.

Us+JC = 12.04 million souls = 14.7% of world pop.
Ergo, world pop at present is 81.9 million souls. Saladin is #2 in population at 14%, so we can figure out he has 11.5 million pop. Check on the Demographics screen, the Rival Best is indeed 11.6 million (which taking into account my rounding errors surely checks out). Interestingly, on the average, a civilization that we conquer will have a pop of 6 million, but that is skewed in a binomial distribution between the haves (like JC, Cathy, Saladin, Cyrus, Liz) and the have-nots.

Notice, 39% world pop is needed for Dom victory, and that means we need to reach 31.9 million pop if world population stayed the same (which it surely won't). But I think 39% we should be able to easily get from our continent unless we start razing left and right (or get ourselves nuked).

 

[Yamps]

Still no action! Oh, well.

Okay guys, I'm gonna kill George tomorrow night. I'll march our stack from Hamburg to the square NW of Washington. It'll take three turns to get there & start bombarding the defenses. Meanwhile, the city will build more units for now, but I'll train a couple of Workers in time for the Coal. Units from the city will attack New York at the same time as the main army attacks Washington. With some luck, we'll get some free xp with no casualties.

That's 4 turns if you upgrade the cannons in Hamburg, I believe we have to do that. There are 2MG near Washington too, those are important for stack defense. Washington has a lot of rifles, they could get dangerous.

What do you plan to do with those workers? Do you plan to gift them to JC or do you plan to take JC's Coal? We can't both build rails at the same time. Besides, if you build workers we won't have enough artillery for Asoka. I think we should skip workers for now and let JC keep his Coal for rails while we are busy with George and Asoka.

Attacking New York at the same time increases the chances that our culture will raze it. The garrison is the only thing that's keeping it alive. That's why I suggested using 3 arties in Beijing too for the attack on Washington. Bring many soldiers for the attack on Washington to be sure. New York will be an easy target after Washington.

Suggested numbers:

2MG from the hill nearby
3 arties from Beijing
3 inf near Hamburg
main stack with upgraded cannons: 3 inf + 8 arties

Total: 2MG, 6 inf, 11 arties.

We need large numbers for best results.

Tomorrow nite I guess its a time-zone thing.

That should be Monday evening, Melior is -9h from our perspective.

 

[Yamps]

Well, that might be the pertinent parameter, but... that's counting city size which is NOT the same as city population.
Go into Rome, hover over the city name, and you see pop 3.8million (size 19). Try Antium pop 1.96 million (size 15). Try Beijing 4.39 million (size 21). So clearly population and city size should not be confused as being the same thing.

Us+JC = 12.04 million souls = 14.7% of world pop.
Ergo, world pop at present is 81.9 million souls. Saladin is #2 in population at 14%, so we can figure out he has 11.5 million pop. Check on the Demographics screen, the Rival Best is indeed 11.6 million (which taking into account my rounding errors surely checks out). Interestingly, on the average, a civilization that we conquer will have a pop of 6 million, but that is skewed in a binomial distribution between the haves (like JC, Cathy, Saladin, Cyrus, Liz) and the have-nots.

Notice, 39% world pop is needed for Dom victory, and that means we need to reach 31.9 million pop if world population stayed the same (which it surely won't). But I think 39% we should be able to easily get from our continent unless we start razing left and right (or get ourselves nuked).

There are at least two ways that the game counts population:

Diplomatic victory.

City sizes are counted, all citizens are equal in voting.

Demographics screen numbers

The Inner Workings of the Demographics Screen Explained

Population- The population of all your cities. You can see in the city screen when you run the mouse cursor over the city name. For example a city with 1 pop point = 1000 people, with 2 pop points = 6000, 3 pop points = 21000. All these population scores are added up to give you the result.

Note that here larger cities are worth exponentially more! One city at size 10 is worth much more than 10 cities at size 1. That's not good for us, AI from other continents have large cities.

Domination numbers

Most likely you are right kcd_swede, it's probably the same as for the Demographics screen.

However, hover over our score. What those numbers mean then? Score is score, Demographics counting should be the correct one here.


We have some problems with this, things are not clear. More digging for info is necessary.

 

[classical_hero]

I really do not think we have enough troops for us to take over Asoka and it is a very big risk that we cold lose the game if we attack too early. We need more units up their before we attack him. We will need plenty more artillery since they will be bable to bust down the defence of Asoka very quickly. I think that it the only way we can defeat him is by having an overwhelming advantage in siege weapons. We will need a few MG's for 0proection since our infs will not be able to stand up to well.

Also there is no way I could have played when you wanted me to, since it is early morning, like past 1am my time.

 

[Yamps]

I really do not think we have enough troops for us to take over Asoka and it is a very big risk that we cold lose the game if we attack too early. We need more units up their before we attack him. We will need plenty more artillery since they will be bable to bust down the defence of Asoka very quickly. I think that it the only way we can defeat him is by having an overwhelming advantage in siege weapons. We will need a few MG's for 0proection since our infs will not be able to stand up to well.

Also there is no way I could have played when you wanted me to, since it is early morning, like past 1am my time.

Yes, I knew it was late in Australia, that's way I suggested the swap. Melior seemed ready at the time and it was early morning for him, 10 AM. You also said you were busy during the week so swapping was logical. No hard feelings?

The plan is to attack Washington first. I'm thinking 20 arties for Bombay + defensive forces. More reinforcements for Delhi. What do you think about that?

 

[kcd_swede]

To avoid confusion in the future, the first thing the person who is up as current player should do is state when they would like to play the turnset, imo. And remember, it shouldn't matter who plays the actual turns since the team is always consulted on the plan, and it is the team's turns that get played. But sorry that we swapped c_h place in line-up unecessarily... breakdown in communication. There will be planty of action for all before this is done, anyhow.

Our plan is a good one and it will work. Always room for improvement, though. So lets all post more ideas!

 

[Melior Traiano]

So...

Turn 221: Switch production to Infantry. Move our army by Hamburg into the city.

Turn 222: Cyrus asks for Medicine as a freebie. Not gonna happen. He's got AL now. No one is willing to trade any techs ATM. City keeps building Infantry. Hamburg comes out of revolt (must have bombed the GA), but Caesar lets it starve despite available tiles to work. Decided not to bother upgrading the 2 Cannon. They'll be upgraded while the army heals after taking Washington. Army starts marching north.

Turn 223: City built another Infantry. Army continues march north.

Turn 224: Built another Infantry, order up an Artillery. As expected, Huayna-Kublai PA comes online. For some reason, I don't get any mouseover text when trying to determine WHEOOHRN status. Very strange. Well, let's get this over with:

Told Caesar to capture Washington.

Turn 225: Infantry kills George's Artillery attacking from Washington. George kills our Scout in Bombay. He also marches three Rifles out of New York. The city promptly revolts & autorazes. Liz builds Apollo & Broadway. Cyrus also builds Apollo. Cyrus is willing to trade Electricity, but not for cash & not as a freebie. Kill off George's Rifles from New York. We now have a Guerilla II Infantry to support the attack on Bombay. Healed the troops near Washington, since Caesar won't be able to attack next turn anyway. 4 more Artillery will be available next turn to attack the city.

Turn 226: George kills Chinese Cartography Corps in Cuzco! CCC & the Scout made good bait for George. He sent 4 Rifles after the Scout & 1 Rifle & Grens after CCC. Cathy builds another Casing. Lost an Artillery at 89.0% odds. All others win, leaving George with one Rifle at 4.2 strength. BTW, Saladin has researched Industrialism as he's boasting about his Tanks.

Turn 227: Caesar duly captures Washington. Cathy builds another casing. Cyrus is no longer willing to sign a DP. Moved troops into Washington to upgrade & heal. We have more Infantry that I had forgotten were fortified in Antium & Madrid that are on their way to join the stack. Caesar is building a lot of Artillery units. The stack in Washington consists of 10 Infantry, 11 Artillery, 2 MG & will be fully healed in 2 turns, by which time, 2 more Infantry will be in range to join the army from the south. There are 3 Infantry fortified in our Fur forest in case Asoka sends a stack into our territory. If he doesn't, these 3 Infantry are in position to join the invasion.

Our Power is steadily increasing, but we still can't match the behemoths overseas, yet.

Techwise, we don't have any trade options except with Cyrus, who wouldn't trade Electricity for cash. After Electricity, onward to Industrialism. Asoka's Artillery will be problematic. Maybe what we should do is declare war and wait for Asoka to show his hand. He might just be stupid enough to suicide his units onto Washington.

 

[kcd_swede]

I'll look at the save and see if I have anything to comment.

 

[Yamps]

Good job Melior!

We are playing longer sessions now, ~15 turns with breaks. You are still up. Of course, please say if you are too busy for play.

I'll examine things closely soon. I've looked the save a bit and I have a question for you Melior: why didn't you build more artillery for Asoka? CR II is the strongest thing we have for city attacks.


I think we should evaluate our strategy at this point. Specifically:

1. War with Asoka, logistics and tactics.
   
2. What are we going to research after Industrialism?
   
3. Are we going for Domination for sure?
   
4. How much time do we have before AI's launch?
   
5. Drafting for fun and profit. We could farm everything and draft those scientists!
   
6. Other civic changes?
   
7. What do we plan to research till the end? What do we expect AI to research by then?
   
8. Plans for war with Liz - when, how many soldiers, what technology?
   
9. Plans for war with Capac - Kublai, same questions.

Let's think about this, we have a lot to talk about.