SGOTM 08 - Smurkz

[Niklas]

Xc, I agree, getting the rice irrigated will be beneficial. Good thinking.

I too think Ulundi before HG would be a possibility, but we have to make sure we don't overstretch our forces. One pop isn't worth possibly missing the capture and having to regroup for another 5+ turns before we can take it.

Bomb three and splash one cat at Nobamba? That should improve the chances for the phants and axes. But I would really rather sacrifice an axe than another cat, if we think that's a possible tradeoff.

rolo, when will you continue?

 

[Backwards Logic]

I had mentioned on IM to Niklas, Rolo, and unkle a trick I noticed in an article in the War Academy. In KwaDukuza, we can get ourselves a good chunk of extra gold via a chop/whip combo of either granary or library (imo the former should be the one, but we can discuss). If I understand the idea right, we build the building until there is one turn remaining on it, then switch to another build while chopping Kwa's 2 forests. On the turn the forests into lumber, we switch back to building the first item while whipping it for one pop. The hammer overflow will be large enough that some will be converted into gold. And with our economy in the trash for the most part, any way we can get extra gold would be nice.

As for taking Ulundi before HG, I'm skeptical at best that that can happen. And just out of curiosity, do cities in revolt get affected by HG anyway? If not, then no immediate rush to take Ulundi, because I don't see us delaying HG that long to get us an extra pop.

 

[r_rolo1]

I will play today, but now I have my nephew in here and as you can assume, taking care of a 7 y old boy is not a good paralel action to playing civ

 

[Xcalibrator]

I've never tried the gold overflow trick, but vaguely remember something about it being most efficient on slower speeds (e.g., marathon). Might be worth it, but it would be simpler (i.e., less likely to be botched, speaking as a build-botcher) to put a few turns toward a wonder for which we have the bonus resource and let somebody else finish it (assuming we don't have to be actively building it to collect the gold).

 

[r_rolo1]

I'm playing now if anyone wants to join to the IM chat..... turn 136 and some scares so far

 

[Xcalibrator]

It's been three and a half hours since your post! You can't just say there've been "some scares" and leave us hanging!

 

[r_rolo1]

So the long awaited turn 139 is here......

Some pictures since last stop:

Spoiler :

Pictures in cronological order

As you can see, we are in the verge of starting the siege of Ulundi ( 50% ). Shaka was kind enough of not having archers there, but the wall will make our actions slower ( Niklas is saying that we need 3 turns with our cats to put it to 0% ).

Other point is that someone sold Monarchy to shaka ( he was teching maths at the time ). This means that or shaka stoled it from João ( very unlikely ) or that there is another civ with Monarchy able to trade with shaka besides joão that joão also knows ( otherwise he would consider it a monopoly tech and not trade it ). That and the fact that shaka took a settler team in a galley from ulundi this IBT points that there should be some kind of connection with the outer world W of shaka....

BTW we have the queues in 4 cities to discuss ASAP ( Yo, Hari, Pura and kwa ). Yo has not much of wonders to build now ( SoZ and Paya were done IDL and we have done HG ( we need to make a new MM scheme counting with the new cities and the new citizens that HG gave us this turn ), so maybe some infra ( colloseum and monastery comes to mind ) is a sensible idea

Other thing is the sheer number of cities shaka has. He, in spite of losing 3 cities to us, still has 7 cities (!) ( and 1 settler on the way to somewhere ) ..... We'll not be able to kill him now, so a break after ulundi could be a idea. We haven't lost too many units ( 2 cats and 1 axe in my shift ), but we surely need to regroup and think in what to do after Ulundi.

Save here​

 

[ChrisShaffer]

So what were the scares????

 

[r_rolo1]

The big scare was when we had a axe in garrison of nobamba and shaka appeard with with a c1 chariot one one side and a c2 axe in the other ( you can see both in the screenie of nobamba taking ). But as the AI is smart, he decided not to attack with the c2 axe after we took the chariot with the medic axe....

That and seeing Shaka city list

 

[unkle]

quick thoughts after looking quickly:
* we should build HE somewhere... hari/pura are nice targets
* after getting ulundi, shaka will remain a minor nuisance that needs to be taken into account.

Do we think we should pause after Ulundi to regroup and rebuild, or push after Ulundi to avoid him getting some of his economy back ? (ok economy and shaka does not fit very well but... you get the point).

Nice analysis of tradepatterns rolo. we need our galley there asap )

that's a semi-official got it i think

 

[Niklas]

I want Nongoma before we consider peace, so we can sail over the isthmus, and also expand south without worrying about Shaka.

Good playing rolo.

 

[r_rolo1]

If we want to do HE now, IMHO it should go to to hari, that is the city with more prod potential we have. If we want to wait, Ulundi is the natural candidate

About shaka and being a nuisance..... i think we should not make a permanent peace with shaka without nongoma, since it seals the south for us and allows us to put navy in the Portuguese eastern shore. Besides that, we would need a better map of what shaka has, since ours is defintely outdated P.S beaten by Niklas

 

[Xcalibrator]

Yes, indeed, good playing!

I want Nongoma before we consider peace, so we can sail over the isthmus, and also expand south without worrying about Shaka.

We already have a galley through the isthmus, so what more would we gain in terms of exploration? And I think south of Nongoma is already a lost cause--probably crawling with Shaka's cities. How about we send our Rockport galley over for a peak? [Edit: Ah, sorry, you must want to secure a trade route to Joao and beyond. Once we get Paper we can trade maps with Joao to find out who he's met--that's enough to establish trade with them, isn't it?]

If we hold off on peace for another 5 or so turns, I think our northern galley will be far enough west in Shaka's lands to get thrown into culture-clear coastline north of Leiria (Joao's town on the peninsula west of Ulundi) so we have new coast to explore by sea.

Lots to think about and plan here--very happy we got the HG. Shouldn't uM be building a granary (instead of library) to help with the whipping? And we should whip it immediately!!! We're already at pop 3. Has Kwa whipped a granary yet?

Do we have a unit with 10XP to allow us to build the Heroic Epic yet? He has to be in our cultural boundaries to count.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

uM already has a granary, courtesy of Shaka.

Definitely capture Nogoma for the trade routes.

Good playing rolo.

 

[r_rolo1]

It looks that I forgot to mention that we have a GG medic spear , so we have the required 10XP unit ( not in our land now..... it is in the ulundi-taking stack )

About shaka cities.... I don't think that he had gone south. None of the shaka cities has a barb name, indicating that he didn't took that barb city down there.... and the axe ( not sword, as I said above.... sorry ) and settler that took out of Ulundi in the 138-139 IBT had not gone south, but by boat somewhere to the W of him...... I think that this points for W-NW as the direction of shaka main expansion. In fact , i fear more that the Portuguese to settle the south than shaka ( it has a galley ferrying something to the islands SE of Portugal )

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Our great general medic is a spear? A good defender with only one move?

I'm a bit disappointed this wasn't discussed.

 

[Niklas]

I'm not sure I see the problem. The spear is by far our worst defender, since dumbos would defend against mounted and axes against melee. And we don't have any unit whatsoever with more than one move. So what would you have wanted instead?

To me this was obvious enough that I didn't even think to ask for a discussion around it. Sorry if you feel left out.

EDIT: Also, since the spear was Medic I already, it is only 1 xp from a Morale upgrade for +1 movement.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Ah, ok, I guess with dumbos it's not bad on that front. My apologies. However, I recall us building the spear specifically for defence - why did we build it if dumbos are better defenders?

I'd still have wanted a two-move unit - and have been willing to build one for that purpose.

 

[Niklas]

I'd still have wanted a two-move unit - and have been willing to build one for that purpose.

We don't have the ability to build any either, since we have no horses (yet).

Sure we might have put it on a Scout, but a Scout could never hope to gain more xps to be upgraded even further. See my edit above regarding Morale.

 

[unkle]

should have been a galley then since we do not have any horses, Chris.

I think having the medic NOW was better than to wait for ulundi's fall.