SGOTM 08 - Fifth Element

[culdeus]

Finally done with work for the year more or less today. I need a break and a beer. Hope to help out at least with possible unit movement ideas for the war(s).

 

[BLubmuz]

I was posting a comment, when one of the 2 new cats did something while walking on the keyboard, so i have to write again.

Seems a good TS Balth!
Great luck, but... see my sig!

Xmas is close, so i propose to take a break for draw a plan.
We must try to forecast:
1) When all our NW are completed, and decide if it's worth to build all.
2) When the modern WW are completed, and decide where to stop.
3) Draw a war plan, with probably conquest in mind, taking in count the above points.

In other words: we need to build a lot of wonders, no point risk to win before we're ready.
As an alternative we must try to see if skip some wonder but finish n turns sooner can be an advantage.

I think this is the moment to begin some simulation to try to figure our best path to a medal. hopefully

Have a nice Xmas, and nice holidays

 

[MacBalt]

I've been out of the state on vacation (until Jan) so slow to respond. We're playing very fast again after dragging a bit on the previous TS. I had a dozen comments/questions which are all too late now. We've all been talking about HRE next before we get infantry for weeks and somehow, now we've back tracked all the way east to Rome. This is disturbing. We are not ready for Rome.

Hmmm... I regret that you didn't get a chance to weigh in. Half the reason I do those detailed plans is to learn from others how things could/should be done better. I thought I waited long enough and I got the green light to go from BLub, so I did. Also, I can report that the repositioning of troops toward Rome isn't as "complete" as it may have sounded. The troops in Agra are all recent arrivals from overseas. Our experienced units from Bibracte have only made it to Calcutta, so if we want to target Charlie first that should still be very possible.

As for talking about the HRE "for weeks," I can only say that I've been posting plans and maps about re-positioning the troops toward Rome for almost a week now and nobody said anything about it. After looking at Augustus' territory with airships, I think we will be ready for Rome with a few Infantry upgrades and the cannons already in route. I thought we were all worried about speed now and finishing quickly? If we attack the HRE first it will take us many turns to slog our troops all the way up to places like Antuim and Thebes. If we save the HRE for last, we can use Charlie's roads to get there much more quickly. We have a fairly large and effective army now. Even if we have to sacrifice some units to knock Rome and Greece over quickly, that won't be a problem if we leave Charlie for last because a quarter of our current army could still just walk right over him.

Engineering will probably need to do Pentagon, not any of those listed.

I just listed the ones I knew we were sure to have access to by the time the CR finished. Pentagon sounds good.

Fantastic luck on the GM. Let's immediately stop running merchants in Ulundi and elsewhere. We'd like a GS and another GE from Eng, right?

I switched the Merchants to Scientists in Ulundi, but I don't think we've been running as many Engineers as we should have been in Engineering. Several other cities are way ahead on the GL count. I didn't think Engineering could get caught up in time to pump another one out before we finish. I hope there is still time to correct this. Also, we still might want some merchants in small cities to keep our gold rate up, no?

 

[WastinTime]

If we're talking about a simulaneous attack on Rome and HRE. I can understand that. I just don't see where we got off the HRE plan. He's weak, We are right there. We don't have Infantry yet. So now we're wasting 5+ turns doing nothing at a critical time in the game. Boudica was ready to capitulate on my TS!! Now it's 2 TS's later and we haven't moved on. AAArrgh. HRE should be vassalized by now and then we could use his roads.

Do we have enough troops for 2 wars? If we can get them both vassalized in 2 TS. then we just need to end the game any time we want by taking out Perc.

New topic: City builds. Once again we are building useless buildings everywhere. Customs house, library, Baray, lighthouse, etc. All junk. Build military or wealth (or a wonder). Do not build any wonders in cities that can flip (like the suggested Nat Park in Vienne...No)

 

[WastinTime]

Ulundi needs to work more specialists. The gman is coming too slowly. Work a priest. We can turn that into a wonder. In fact, we should probably go for that over another GE or a GS. Turn on a bunch more priests in cities that can pop in 20 turns.

We should not need go to Plastics, so we don't need another GS. We have one that we can use for AlumCo. and that's only if we go all the way to rocketry. A Gprophet is is best because it can build a wonder instantly (if we grab Rhodes.)

 

[Sweetacshon]

Balth, the thing about HRE is that his eastern cities are on the way north anyway, and that our troops were (are?) so close that it would all be so quick and easy. Just take the lesson that top players are pedantic about unit efficiencies. As for plans and discussions, yes, we talked about HRE first, but there was also talk of Rome first. More important than any particular route is our wonder score. We need to estimate when we can finish/ capture each wonder and also when we can finish to maximise our score at this late stage. I assume we own the wonder if the city is in revolt? Does anyone know this?

 

[berserks01]

Just looked at the save.

I think we can probably capitulate HRE by the next TS. He's in the "You've grown too powerful for us" mode, so taking a city or 2 will most likely cause his capitulation. The current stack in Calcutta can head up and take Vienna, and the Rifle stack by Tolosa can head up and take Ulm or Pisa.

Hopefully he'll capitulate by then, we just have to make sure to check every turn if he's will to capitulate or not. That'll also leave some HRE and Indian city buffers for us when we declare on JC.

What do y'all think?

 

[MacBalt]

If we're talking about a simulaneous attack on Rome and HRE. I can understand that. I just don't see where we got off the HRE plan. He's weak, We are right there. We don't have Infantry yet. So now we're wasting 5+ turns doing nothing at a critical time in the game. Boudica was ready to capitulate on my TS!! Now it's 2 TS's later and we haven't moved on. AAArrgh. HRE should be vassalized by now and then we could use his roads.

Our units just finished healing! There is NO WAY we could have both taken Achen and vassalized Charlie within my six turn turnset. If we'd taken Vienna -- which we almost certainly would have had to do to protect Achen from cultural creep -- then we would NOT be able to use the HRE's roads, because we would be facing the same kind of culture creep over there from Greece and Rome that we are facing now near Bibracte from the HRE. That WOULD have slowed down our attack on Rome considerably. Honestly, you are a great player WT, but with all due respect, to say we're "wasting 5+ turns doing nothing" is over the top. You saw the Pre-play plan. If you had said something earlier I would have eagerly changed strategies.

Do we have enough troops for 2 wars? If we can get them both vassalized in 2 TS. then we just need to end the game any time we want by taking out Perc.

Maybe. I think we'll need all the cannons we can muster to take out Rome, but I think our cavalry can probably handle Charlie just about on its own. We should position our troops up north before declaring on the HRE though. I still prefer the Rome and then Greece semi-simultaneous attack plan though. Why not leave Charlie until last? His roads can take us everywhere we want to go. Who cares about Vienne anyway? So what if it flips to him?

New topic: City builds. Once again we are building useless buildings everywhere. Customs house, library, Baray, lighthouse, etc. All junk. Build military or wealth (or a wonder). Do not build any wonders in cities that can flip (like the suggested Nat Park in Vienne...No)

I only put that sign there because it is the only city in our empire with any trees left. In fact, I put it there before the HRE cultural borders expanded -- so I agree that that would be a "no." The rest of your rhetoric is again a bit over the top though. We are not "building useless buildings everywhere." I count 3 lighthouses (one in a city with almost all water tiles, one in a city with only 2 hammers production capacity and no room for growth, and one in a city that was producing Frigates [we have enough of those now] but could be growing while it did that for us too). The library in Agra was inherited and the city is under cultural pressure. When we vassalize Rome we'll be grateful to have expanded borders around Agra. The Baray is building in Calcutta -- a city that was starving and shrinking because of cultural pressure. Because the Baray comes with an additional food I thought we could hold onto more population with it. That was probably wrong, but the city couldn't do much of anything else anyway and it is not, as you say, "useless" in any case -- probably not the best move, but NOT useless. I'll grant that the customs house in Pataliputra is fairly useless. I shouldn't have fooled around with that.

 

[MacBalt]

Balth, the thing about HRE is that his eastern cities are on the way north anyway, and that our troops were (are?) so close that it would all be so quick and easy. Just take the lesson that top players are pedantic about unit efficiencies.

I'll accept the unit efficiencies argument, but so far as I can tell we'll get those Roman wonder cities a lot faster if we go up there three tiles at a time on Charlie's roads than we would one tile at a time through enemy territory.

 

[MacBalt]

I think we can probably capitulate HRE by the next TS. He's in the "You've grown too powerful for us" mode, so taking a city or 2 will most likely cause his capitulation. The current stack in Calcutta can head up and take Vienna, and the Rifle stack by Tolosa can head up and take Ulm or Pisa.

Hopefully he'll capitulate by then, we just have to make sure to check every turn if he's will to capitulate or not. That'll also leave some HRE and Indian city buffers for us when we declare on JC.

We have to be able to take Achen and hold it from cultural pressure if we want the shrine located there. We'll be in same boat there that we were in with Boudica -- it is not simply a matter of taking a couple of cities and accepting his Capitulation. From the looks of things we'll need to take at least Nuremburg and maybe Prague too. Maybe we could skip Vienna and keep using the roads there after capitulation, but then Calcutta and maybe Bombay would still be feeling HRE cultural pressure.

 

[MacBalt]

Ulundi needs to work more specialists. The gman is coming too slowly. Work a priest. We can turn that into a wonder. In fact, we should probably go for that over another GE or a GS. Turn on a bunch more priests in cities that can pop in 20 turns.

Yes, but remember we just got the Great Merchant this turn. At the beginning of my turnset we fired all the non-merchant specialists in Ulundi to keep the gene pool clean. I just switched the existing specialists to scientists before saving the game thinking that the next player ought to be the one to sort the details out on that one. I agree that running priests is a great idea.

 

[WastinTime]

I wasn't bashing your specialist assignment Balth. Just suggesting a refocus on Gprophet and a quanity boost is needed to get anything out in time.

Sorry if my comments sound confrontational or critical. The TS actually looks quite good. I wasn't saying you should have been able to get HRE on your TS. But I thought we had considered a split stack to get him over the last 2 TS...or at least start on him.

I stand by my "useless buildings" comment. Not that many cities completed builds during the TS and those that did started on useless buildings. It probably not going to have any effect on the big picture, but I'm trying to point out a bad habit. When in doubt build wealth. I've said it too much, I know, but rarely have I ever seen anyone put wealth in the queue.

I also stand by my "wasting 5+ turns" I'm not saying you or anyone has wasted them yet, but if we are going to wait 3 turns for AssLine/Infantry, then several turns to get money to upgrade, then finally move in on Rome. We will have burned 5+ turns. Let's just smoke HRE while we wait for Infantry upgrades.

 

[MacBalt]

I thought we had considered a split stack to get him over the last 2 TS...or at least start on him.

I would have been happy to take this approach if anyone had brought it up within the context of my PPP. The last time I remember anyone saying anything about attacking the HRE was in the context of culdeus' planned assault on Bibracte. But even then I couldn't figure out why there was discussion about Pisa when we needed to go through the HRE to get to Vienne.

I stand by my "useless buildings" comment. Not that many cities completed builds during the TS and those that did started on useless buildings. It probably not going to have any effect on the big picture, but I'm trying to point out a bad habit. When in doubt build wealth. I've said it too much, I know, but rarely have I ever seen anyone put wealth in the queue.

Fair enough, though once again hyperbole is sneaking into your rhetoric. Wall Street is not a useless building and I disagree with you about the lighthouses. You don't need to slap people around to make your point. I do appreciate having bad habits pointed out, though, so thanks for that.

I also stand by my "wasting 5+ turns" I'm not saying you or anyone has wasted them yet, but if we are going to wait 3 turns for AssLine/Infantry, then several turns to get money to upgrade, then finally move in on Rome. We will have burned 5+ turns. Let's just smoke HRE while we wait for Infantry upgrades.

Okay, but lets smoke him with mostly cavalry and start most of them from Greece. If we send our rifles up into that sea of yellow it will be 8 turns before we get our infantry upgrades. We've got enough gold on hand now to upgrade more than ten units. I'd bet that and cannons is all we need get Augustus on his knees. Oh, and I'll stand by my comment that we could have been much better set up for this approach if someone had warned me about it in the PPP discussion.

 

[berserks01]

I'll accept the unit efficiencies argument, but so far as I can tell we'll get those Roman wonder cities a lot faster if we go up there three tiles at a time on Charlie's roads than we would one tile at a time through enemy territory.

True. But wouldn't we still move 3 tiles per turn through his land after Charlie capitulated?

I guess it bogs down to timing. I doubt the cities will flip within a few turns, so if we can go through them fast enough we don't have to worry about flips. But I do understand that timing isn't an easy thing.

Maybe hitting Rome first might not be a bad idea. Just a thought, but since we're taking most of Rome's cities we wouldn't worry about flips and then we can hit HRE and Greek at the same time?

 

[BLubmuz]

As i posted, we need a plan for wonders/wars.

Anyway, since our main force is close, and HRE is weak, we can go for him first.

Try to take Rome without infantry is a suicide, i guess.

 

[Sweetacshon]

Ok, so I can't check the save right now, but from the report it seems like the TS went well. However, I feel that Balthalion feels aggrieved because most comments have been negative. This is a slight failing of the system we play with, where good play is taken as "well planned and executed" and not really congratulated, whereas mistakes are "bad play". He is right in that his plan was posted with no major problems, so we are all responsible for large decisions such as "HRE not dead yet". What I mean to say is that I appreciate the tips and criticism, which is responsible for my civ improvement over time. I have learnt to translate the criticism into objective criticism, even though it sometimes isn't phrased in that way (but certainly should be). For example, I'm sure that WT means that no buildings other than wonders (or enabling buildings) or unit that can make an impact should be built with only 20ish or less turns to go, and this is fine advice. In this case, a lh won't be worth the hammers, and gold is pretty much the only reasonable build.

I guess the point, yet again :dead horse: is that if a deficiency is picked up in a TS, the issue should be addressed in the PPP and discussion before the next TS, and that any sustained error is the fault of the whole team, not just the TPer. Bah... it's too late and I'm thinking too much.

Using mainly cav with a smaller rifle/cannon stack on HRE while assembling the Rome SoD is a fine idea. Can it be done??

 

[BLubmuz]

I agree with Sweeta.

Balth's PPPs are the most fine and detailed of all the team.

He followed his PPP, but of course at this stage of the game it's close to impossible draw a completely detailed PPP.

I repeat: now we need a refined plan for those 20-30 turns we have before our victory.

This plan will also take count of the small cities we own, but in general.

I'll try a draft in a couple days, while closely analyzing the save.

 

[WastinTime]

I'm not sure why we've decided to farm around Guimaraes. Put workshops back on those farms. That city does not need to grow. It could try to put out a Gman, (edit: It can run 6 specialists right now, but we'd need caste to get what we want, and now we have our GM and it can't run priests. ) Hammers. Build a hospital.

 

[greatbeyond]

Here's my quick comments without even looking at the save, a shot from the lip , so to speak. Some of those cities that were set to building wealth were so hammer poor that they were not producing any gold. Check the city screen and in the upper left it will show you the science, culture, and gold.

Yes, if we are going to be done in X number of turns, it doesn't make sense to start any building that will not complete in that time.

It is the perfect time to take a week and discuss different strategies for finishing. We need to remember that taking wonders is the primary goal. I believe it was Blubmuz who stated we need to figure out finish date versus taking more time for more wonders. The so called "sweet spot" of the wonders vs turns curve

Balthalion's plan was very detailed, I don't see much of consequence that didn't happen as he outlined.

Military actions - When the game's over, please feel free to reload to each turnset where you could have done so much better and show us. I know there are places where I would have done something different. Sometimes doing so can be a great exercise in finding a new strategy. It seems that too much faith is being put in our advanced units. They should be able to kill LBs and Muskets fortified in cities. But what really counts is the odds of winning combat. Playing a team game, I am not quite so care free with units. The taking of Vienne is a good point in case. Do we gamble, get poor RNG odds and lose our Cavalry. We didn't lose any Cavalry but did have to soften the city up with airships, and some units were very low in health.

We should almost have enough units to have two strong stacks. I would upgrade one stack of Infantry (Now) and Cannons and use them for the closest enemy. The second stack could be Cavalry with Rifles close behind. Use Airships to provide bombard support. With their range they can keep up with Cavalry. Airships could be built on our home continent and gotten to the frontlines much more quickly than land units.

We need to make sure that we don't accept a capitulation that puts us over the top of the Domination limit until after we get all the available wonders.

As for Great People, A GP could be handy but the only place we can settle him and get the Wonder credit is if we take the Rhodes. It does us no good to create the shrine in the city Gandhi still owns, and we will not be able to take it from him.
GEs are going to be the most useful, followed by the lone GS we still need for Std Ethanol which is most likely the last Wonder we'll get. We may well be done by then. I did suggest switching to Caste System now that we can build Corps, so that we can run unlimited specialists. I need to re-examine the way GP points are now calculated. It seems it doesn't just count what Specialists you have settled in that city. Wonders that give GP points count across all cities, plus what you have from buildings that have GP bonuses in a city.

Now that I've exhausted the random thoughts bouncing around in my brain, I'll take a couple of days to prepare something more in-depth.

 

[WastinTime]

Caste needs to wait for Cristo obviously. Maybe that's in already? Probably has 1 turn left. Engineering can do a Hospital while waiting for Pentagon.

From a military standpoint our execution is excellent. I wouldn't expect to replay any TS and do any better. Even things like losing Delhi and re-taking it are things that happen to me all the time. I don't think I even commented on that.

It's mostly our military planning...order of cities that has been a small issue. And most of that was back in the Zulu war. We've cleaned up our act quite a bit.

Sorry if I complain too much about the meaningless stuff like workers and buildings. Let all get back in the team spirit and finish this in style.