SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

I think we must assume that the AI will build one or more units if Asoka doesn't show up fast. A wounded unit may not be able to defeat these fresh units.

Worse, a wounded unit could be defeated, requiring the time to move another group up to do the same job over again.

The 3rd stack is not built yet so I was wondering if we should use the Cuzco stack - possibly reinforced a little - to go after Madrid and then move against Rome after. Third stack could go after Berlin. Many options to consider .

We are going to lose some units to RNG and other oddities. Leaving a unit at each city to await Asoka weakens the stack it comes from. We have 14 siege units and are going for 11 cities. The newly produced units are being scheduled to produce new stacks. The stack strength can only decline in this scenario. To attack Rome may require that we combine two stacks into one?

I think it would be nice to get some feedback from CP and ShannonCT on these issues. Btw. how many turns remain of the turn set?

Yes, we should wait for them to weigh in. Perhaps some more from MP as he played some test games.

Gator has played 5 turns. I think he can continue for 10 to 15 more as each of us played about 20 or so in our first time through.

 

[Frederiksberg]

We should remember to reset the science slider to 100% as ShannonCT noted. Might as well get some beakers into Rocketry while we have low WW.

Another thing - we probably shouldn't trade for Economics! If we do this we run the risk that Asoka changes from State Property to Free Market adding some gold but preventing us from increasing hammer output in his cities. And think about building some water mills - they add 1 food and two hammers and can replace farms adding two hammers while keeping the 1 food bonus.

 

[ShannonCT]

I haven't had a lot of time to study all the recent postings carefully. Will have some more time later today. A few thoughts:

1. Kyoto and Hamburg can be saved for last. They will give our final troops something to do (Asoka's too). Culture from Dehli, Bombay, and Cuzco will take up most of those tiles anyway, and we may not even need them to come out of revolt to get domination.

2. Like the idea of sending the Sparta group and the Cuzco group to attack Julius. Cuzco group can go for Madrid first and Sparta group to Rome. Depending on the number of defenders in Rome, the survivors of Madrid can help with Rome or go for Antium. Hopefully, Asoka will follow us through German land, or it's all for naught. We should gift Asoka some of Beijing's archers near the front line to encourage him to capture cities. WW can be controlled with culture. After Cuzco is captured, we might be better off with a cease-fire with Capac. Too many enemies might be too distracting for Asoka and prevent him from capturing Roman cities.

3. If you see a chance to trade for Democracy, jump on it. Asoka will change to Universal Suffrage. He has lots of towns that will get an extra hammer and he has the Kremlin that discounts rush-buying.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"We are going to lose some units to RNG and other oddities. Leaving a unit at each city to await Asoka weakens the stack it comes from. We have 14 siege units and are going for 11 cities. The newly produced units are being scheduled to produce new stacks. The stack strength can only decline in this scenario. Gator is going to have to play this as it goes. As he builds new units, they can sometimes be moved to take over this city-guard duty (allowing the old guard to move on, perhaps a turn or two before the replacement can arrive) and sometimes be sent to a new city-to-be-weakened as part of a stack.To attack Rome may require that we combine two stacks into one?"Could be, but also could be that Julius moves units out of city.

1. Kyoto and Hamburg can be saved for last. They will give our final troops something to do (Asoka's too). Concur Culture from Dehli, Bombay, and Cuzco will take up most of those tiles anyway, and we may not even need them to come out of revolt to get domination.

2. Like the idea of sending the Sparta group and the Cuzco group to attack Julius. Cuzco group can go for Madrid first and Sparta group to Rome. Depending on the number of defenders in Rome, the survivors of Madrid can help with Rome or go for Antium. I like this general strategy too with flexibility built in.Hopefully, Asoka will follow us through German land, or it's all for naught. We should gift Asoka some of Beijing's archers near the front line to encourage him to capture cities. WW can be controlled with culture. Empowering Asoka is easily worth the risk of WW problems.After Cuzco is captured, we might be better off with a cease-fire with Capac. Too many enemies might be too distracting for Asoka and prevent him from capturing Roman cities. Concur.

3. If you see a chance to trade for Democracy, jump on it. Asoka will change to Universal Suffrage. He has lots of towns that will get an extra hammer and he has the Kremlin that discounts rush-buying.

I'd suggest Gator play a few turns and pause when he wants to consult. Any battle plan we come up with will soon need changing.

 

[leif erikson]

"We are going to lose some units to RNG and other oddities. Leaving a unit at each city to await Asoka weakens the stack it comes from. We have 14 siege units and are going for 11 cities. The newly produced units are being scheduled to produce new stacks. The stack strength can only decline in this scenario. Gator is going to have to play this as it goes. As he builds new units, they can sometimes be moved to take over this city-guard duty (allowing the old guard to move on, perhaps a turn or two before the replacement can arrive) and sometimes be sent to a new city-to-be-weakened as part of a stack.To attack Rome may require that we combine two stacks into one?"Could be, but also could be that Julius moves units out of city.

The only way to find out is to send a Frigate as soon as his duty is completed outside Sparta to Rome so we can see what is going on. Depending upon what we find, we may need more shipping?

Managing Artillery units during this part will be interesting. Once capitals are taken, generally, we can split stacks to take on other objectives.

suggest Gator play a few turns and pause when he wants to consult. Any battle plan we come up with will soon need changing.

I agree, this part of the game will require flexibility and keeping an eye out for opportunities.

Good Luck Gator!

 

[DJMGator13]

Skipping Tiwanku will help keep the Sparta group stronger. The whole plan will definately need to be flexible but it gives a general direction.

Not sure I'll play tonight but I"ll have time tomorrow.

 

[leif erikson]

Was doing some reading in the forums this morning and came across this post. When we get to the completion of Rocketry, sounds like we should let Asoka finish it so we can put Apollo into our queue to keep him from building it.

 

[DJMGator13]

Was doing some reading in the forums this morning and came across this post. When we get to the completion of Rocketry, sounds like we should let Asoka finish it so we can put Apollo into our queue to keep him from building it.

Interesting, I've printed the post so I can check it out when we're at 2 or 1 turn left.

I'm getting ready to play some more.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm getting ready to play some more.

Good Luck Gator!

Time to call in the Capt so we can, well, kick some butt!
(always watching out for copy write infringement?)

 

[DJMGator13]

I've played 5 more turns, part way into 1140AD and thought this was a good place to pause for more comment. Here's the current rundown:

Cuzco is ours, Sparta will fall on the IBT. We can see into Tiwanku and the lead unit from the Cuzco Group can see into Madrid. JC just started a Golden Age.

Our big hammer overflow is over in Beijing, this is the first turn that it will take 2 turns to build a unit. I'm tempted to build a gren as an escort but we'll have SAMs in 2 more turns. I should build something useful but cheap this turn so we can get the overflow back on our side.

Also WW is at +3 already, but I've gifted 4 prior MP to Asoka so we could keep something at home instead of hitting the culture slider. All cannons are upgraded, and I've been asking Asoka for gold to keep us at 100% science.

Sparta starved down 2 pop points when Asoka parked ontop of the fish for a few turns, so it is at size 7 now.

Could somebody test to see what happens when we cancel a trade with our PA partner? That option is available from the Active Trades page and we're currently trading Asoka crabs that he no longer needs now that London has them. We could sell these oversea for gpt.

 

[rrau]

My civ computer is balky right now (I think hard drive's going) and I'm doing a complete backup of it, so I can't test right now. Sorry. Maybe in a few hours if noone else has tested by then.

 

[ShannonCT]

I was able to look at the new save briefly before heading off to a baby shower with my wife (since when were guys expected to show up at baby showers? ). Thank God for iPhones.

I'm wondering how Asoka's unit got to Sparta. By land or sea? Can we really expect Asoka to follow us directly to Rome? With his crew of units roaming Greek lands, it might be more realistic to expect him to follow us to Antium before Rome. If we can take Antium and Madrid in the next few turns, we'd have a good place to upgrade our gunpowder units to SAMs. Asoka may need a couple more units in the Cuzco area to be persuaded to take Madrid quickly.

As far as canceling Asoka's clams, sure, why not? What's your question Gator?

 

[DJMGator13]

I was able to look at the new save briefly before heading off to a baby shower with my wife (since when were guys expected to show up at baby showers? ). Thank God for iPhones.

I'm wondering how Asoka's unit got to Sparta. By land or sea? Can we really expect Asoka to follow us directly to Rome? With his crew of units roaming Greek lands, it might be more realistic to expect him to follow us to Antium before Rome. If we can take Antium and Madrid in the next few turns, we'd have a good place to upgrade our gunpowder units to SAMs. Asoka may need a couple more units in the Cuzco area to be persuaded to take Madrid quickly.

As far as canceling Asoka's clams, sure, why not? What's your question Gator?

Question is would it cancel the PA? I've never cancelled a deal with a PA partner. Just wanted to make sure I was doing something stupid.

Asoka's troops reached Sparta by ship (from London) but he was moving some overland also. I think Asoka's on the verge of being offensive, he just needs a few more units. Should we build some 1 turn gren for upgrading and/or gifting to Asoka?

JC is still down Chemistry, once I saw the relatively few units in Madrid I'm wondering if Freddy might be a better target since he is more advanced. JC has more cities and more units but Freddy is more advanced and is closer to Asoka.

 

[leif erikson]

Question is would it cancel the PA? I've never cancelled a deal with a PA partner. Just wanted to make sure I was doing something stupid.

Just tested and there was no effect, not even a -1 to diplo.

Asoka's troops reached Sparta by ship (from London) but he was moving some overland also. I think Asoka's on the verge of being offensive, he just needs a few more units. Should we build some 1 turn gren for upgrading and/or gifting to Asoka?

We now have 17 Artillery and a Cat (should we upgrade the medic Cat for duty at the city of Rome?) That is three stacks worth of Artillery. We have 3 Grens, 2 LB's and 2 Archers. I think we need a few nore Grens or Rifles to cover our stacks.

Asoka is building 3 Artillery units in his cities. His current force consists of 20 Rifles, 6 Grenadiers, 9 Artillery, and 2 each Caravels, Galleons and Frigates. I can see why he might be thinking a bit more offensively.

JC is still down Chemistry, once I saw the relatively few units in Madrid I'm wondering if Freddy might be a better target since he is more advanced. JC has more cities and more units but Freddy is more advanced and is closer to Asoka.

Fred's cities seem to be more economically focused than production focused.

JC has recovered in the power graph more than Fred. Perhaps JC is still the better target due to the distance factor and his productivity (JC is by far number one in Mfg. Goods, what a spike his Golden Age has brought! Fred's Mfg. Goods are in the toilet!

 

[Frederiksberg]

A couple of quick thoughts: I would suggest that our Sparta stack continues by following the coast line and attacking Tiwanaku and then Karakorum. Our galleons can provide some transportation. The Madrid force goes to Rome after dealing with Madrid. Asoka has an artillery unit very close to Tiwanaku that he will hopefully be willing to use in the attack on this city.

Delhi is starving and I suggest that we deal with this by giving our deer to Asoka. This will cause some temporary starvation in Beijing and we deal with this by asking Asoka for corn when it comes online. Since we get 2 health from corn we can give Asoka our sheep as well when we have the corn. Next thing to build in Beijing could be work boat (for Sparta) or missionary. Last unit would be intended for Cuzco since this city can get 2nd border expansion in 17 turns if it has 3 religions. We could sell constitution to Louis for 100 gold and demand 80 gold from Caesar before we attack.

 

[DJMGator13]

The cat will cost about 350 gold to upgrade. Since it is a medic I've just been bringing it along for the healing. That gold will be better spent on upgrading gren to SAMs. Are we shutting down research when we finish Rocketry? This will affect WW issue/culture slider and whether we upgrade some of our "older" units.

I'll do the deer trade, Alex's galleys should be gone on the IBT so that should help some also. We'll do the other trades also. Would love to get the 130 gold from Salad but our techs are too good to sell.

A w/b or missionary build will help create the hammer overflow we need to get back to 1 turn art and 1 turn SAMs. Based on upgrade cost and our lack of gold we may be better off building SAMs instead of upgrading.

 

[leif erikson]

Asoka has our Deer already. The only resource left that we can give him would be our sheep.

Our city screen says that we have Crabs, so no need to cancel that deal with Asoka unless we can get something for those Crabs with someone else, and I only see GPT deals as a possibility.

Its too bad we don't have a faster route to Delhi so we could provide a Work Boat to give it more food. Don't know why he hasn't taken care of that yet?

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Question is would it cancel the PA? I've never cancelled a deal with a PA partner. Just wanted to make sure I was doing something stupid.

You can sleep easy Gator; you can't cancel a PA once you've signed it.

Might be good if someone can provide a second count of predicted tile coverage. When I did the count originally I found that we had enough with every city having one border pop and Cuzco/Madrid with 2 border pops. Hopefully the razing of New York hasn't affected this. Does anyone have time to do a double check of the tile count? - just so we can be 100% sure as we head towards our victory.

 

[leif erikson]

Might be good if someone can provide a second count of predicted tile coverage. When I did the count originally I found that we had enough with every city having one border pop and Cuzco/Madrid with 2 border pops. Hopefully the razing of New York hasn't affected this. Does anyone have time to do a double check of the tile count? - just so we can be 100% sure as we head towards our victory.

Gator PM'ed me and asked pretty much the same question. I recounted.

It seems we need 282 tiles for domination. We have, not including fresh water lake tiles within our land mass, 293 tiles on our continent. It will be very close, but if every city has a border pop and the two you cite have two, we should be just over the limit.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Looked at the save . . . some thoughts:

We can put science at 0% and still get Rocketry in two turns (then Biology?), so there is no reason to be keeping units as MP's (really don't even need one MP, except to reduce culture needs and allow us to generate a little more gold per turn for help in upgrading). Suggest we move out and upgrade the two archers to grens (might want to then gift them if situation arises where we are going to be able to weaken a city and no Indian units are close). One or two longbows can be moved and then gifted to help Asoka to defend captured city (perhaps Cuzco) so he can move on.


I don't think grens (or rifles) can be upgraded to SAMs, only infantry.

"Can we really expect Asoka to follow us directly to Rome? Unfortunately, don't think so. With his crew of units roaming Greek lands, it might be more realistic to expect him to follow us to Antium before Rome. If we can take Antium and Madrid in the next few turns, we'd have a good place to upgrade our gunpowder units to SAMs. Don't think so. Asoka may need a couple more units in the Cuzco area to be persuaded to take Madrid quickly." Yes, might be a place to send some of our MPs, but I'm not advocating Madrid next.

My suggestion differs from both SCT and Fred (so looks like Gator picked the right place to pause). How about letting Sparta fall, sign a brief cease fire with HC, and then attack both German cities? We have stacks near both and Asoka can get to both fairly quickly, plus they are on the way to JC's cities anyway. (Otherwise we're just going to have to retrace our steps and go back to Germany.) Disadvantage is it gets us to Rome later, but I'm thinking that Asoka is not going to get there very fast anyway. We can reduce the delay a little by declaring on Julius just before Asoka takes the German cities. That will keep our units in place at the southern border of German territory. We'd also use our galleons, perhaps chained, to get newly built units down and around to Rome.