SGOTM 08 - XTeam

[leif erikson]

I'm leaning in this direction also. Only reason to continue the war is for the captured gold. But I guess we might as well capture Roman cities then.

I am also. Let's get set up to pound Augustus.

You have answered that yourself...

We can't afford to give these techs away unless we are 100% certain they can't be traded to Pericles or Augustus.

Just showing off...

I think you are crediting Augustus and Pericles with much more strength than they have. Gandhi crumbled in only 3 turns and our 41 cuirs will also make life more than just a little difficult for Augustus.

Perhaps. Gandhi was along the coast, within reach of our Galleons dropping off troops at his cities. Looks like we have some marching to do to get to Augustus' cities, meaning we will have troops in the open while he has the advantage of manuever with his roads.

I hope your right that our allies can take care of Pericles, more or less. SCT mentioned earlier in the thread that the upgrade costs for AI units is less then ours and they have a gold reserve, generally, to perform those upgrades. Giving them the tech should result in some fairly quick upgrades, so it seems a good strategy? When we get an AI to agree not to trade with another AI, doesn't that last 10 turns?
Charlie will stop with Augustus but I do jnot se Pericles for some reason.
Both Joao and Boudica have both under the option to stop trading with.

I was wondering how to tackle the large stack in Arpinium. Does the AI know how to weaken a stack by initial sacrifice? If not it might be possible to block his entire stack with a small stack on the rice tile outside the city.

If we can get them out in the open, they can be dealt with through Airships and Cuirrassier. Augustus has Engineering, so if they move three out of Arpinum, that could place them 2 tiles from Vijay, within range of a stack of Cuirrassier. If they are outside that distance, they should be hit with Airships to weaken them before they can strike Vijay I think.

Not sure about bottling them up. Might work?

What about the Apostolic Palace? Has the capture of Gandhi's cities moved the power balance in an unfavorable way?

It is still not favorable, although I doubt it matters much. In the F8, Victory, Screen, you can click on the Members tab for details. Hinduism is the religion and Augustus has 308 votes combined with Pericles' 138. With have 113, Gandhi 60, Charlie 46 and Boudica 7.

A Diplo victory for Augustus would require 504 votes, he is short. All the other resolutions require 416, so we should defy them should they come up.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Here's a screen shot of what we are building in our most powerful cities at 1410 AD:

The forge in Oporto and the Settler in Ivoryville are just placeholders and not the result of any deep plan.

 

[leif erikson]

What is our time frame? Are we looking to achieve victory in 12 turns or?

 

[rrau]

Could we wait to gift the military techs to our vassals once war is declared? If they're at war, they can't trade.

 

[leif erikson]

I think we could. To get them to Military Tradition will require 3 turns, iirc.

They need Philosophy, then they'll need Nationalism and finally, Military Tradition. To help immediately, we can gift them Guilds for Knights. And we'd have to insure they have Iron and Horses.

 

[ShannonCT]

Gandhi is ready to throw in the towel. Question is if we want to continue the war and finance our research this way or perhaps accept and turn our interest to Augustus. It seems that we have an overwhelming military superiority so I don't think we need to build any more units. Conquest is clearly an option as things are now.

I think we should continue the war against Gandhi for 1 more turn. We can land a Cuir and cannon on Calcutta island this turn and prepare another galleon-full of Cuirs for amphibious assault next turn. Airships in Vijay and Delhi are in range of Calcutta, so suggest we base 6 airships there. We could also take Agra next turn with a Cuir-airship blitz. Might as well get the extra cash. Since Gandhi is willing to give Madras, he's probably willing to give his other island city next turn instead.

Hun is a holy city so we must hang on to it. And Pericles doesn't look very scary. He will have enough on his hands fighting our vassals.

Our stack in Hun could probably take Knossos.

We can't afford to give these techs away unless we are 100% certain they can't be traded to Pericles or Augustus.

Even if we get Boudica and Joao to cancel deals with Augustus and Pericles, I can't guarantee that the techs couldn't be brokered through Charlemagne. I think we should just wait on giving away techs like Gunpowder, Chemistry, and Military Tradition. We can however give away the prereqs to those techs, like Philosophy-Nationalism and Education. We also need to give Charlie and Boudica some horses.

To help immediately, we can gift them Guilds for Knights. And we'd have to insure they have Iron and Horses.

Augustus and Pericles don't have Guilds yet so giving away Guilds to anyone poses a risk. We can give away Education as an alternative prereq for Gunpowder.

I think you are crediting Augustus and Pericles with much more strength than they have. Gandhi crumbled in only 3 turns and our 41 cuirs will also make life more than just a little difficult for Augustus.

We know what Augustus's armies look like. We could fly a couple sorties over Greece and see what they have. I don't expect much.

I was wondering how to tackle the large stack in Arpinium. Does the AI know how to weaken a stack by initial sacrifice? If not it might be possible to block his entire stack with a small stack on the rice tile outside the city.

I wouldn't count on this sort of trick working in BtS. The AI is better at combat now.

What about the Apostolic Palace? Has the capture of Gandhi's cities moved the power balance in an unfavorable way?

Neither of Joao's cities has Hinduism, so the AP victory vote can't come up. After we vassalize Gandhi, Augustus can't get a religious victory (because our vassals vote the same way as we do).

 

[leif erikson]

Even if we get Boudica and Joao to cancel deals with Augustus and Pericles, I can't guarantee that the techs couldn't be brokered through Charlemagne. I think we should just wait on giving away techs like Gunpowder, Chemistry, and Military Tradition. We can however give away the prereqs to those techs, like Philosophy-Nationalism and Education. We also need to give Charlie and Boudica some horses.

Augustus and Pericles don't have Guilds yet so giving away Guilds to anyone poses a risk. We can give away Education as an alternative prereq for Gunpowder.

Boudica has had Guilds for some time. For Divine Right, she will stop trading with both Augustus and Pericles.

Charlemagne is the problem here. He wants too much to stop trading with Augustus. Pericles is Cautious towards Charlemange but Charlemagne is Pleased with Pericles, +3 for Brothers and Sisters of Faith.

We know what Augustus's armies look like. We could fly a couple sorties over Greece and see what they have. I don't expect much.

Not a big problem.

Approx. how many turns do we think we are from wanting to claim victory?

 

[ShannonCT]

Boudica has had Guilds for some time. For Divine Right, she will stop trading with both Augustus and Pericles.

Charlemagne is the problem here. He wants too much to stop trading with Augustus. Pericles is Cautious towards Charlemange but Charlemagne is Pleased with Pericles, +3 for Brothers and Sisters of Faith.

Charlemagne is also pleased toward Augustus. I suspect what happened is that Charlemagne recently made a deal with Pericles for iron, and therefore can't stop trading with Pericles until 10 turns have passed.

Approx. how many turns do we think we are from wanting to claim victory?

We could claim diplo victory in 12 turns.

We should be able to capture the targeted Roman cities in 12 turns.

If we get a GM in X-ville and want to research Meds and Refrig, we'll need 14 turns of research if we can stay at 80% (through trades, capturing cities, merchants, wealth-building, banks, gold overflow in Ivoryville). Then we'd need one more turn to found Cereal. We'll know about the GP in X-ville in 6 turns. If it's not a GM, we can finish the UN the next turn and claim diplo victory 14 turns from now.

If we can get Gandhi's 2 island cities and perhaps Satricum from Rome (at last check it was defended by a single HA), we'll need 3 more island cities to complete Blessed Seas. We could send a galleon to wait north of Ulundi and get settlers from Canalville, Horseville, and Jute.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Won't have a chance to look at the save for at least 12 hours, but it certainly reads like Fred did very well for us.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Concur with SCT that we need to wait a turn to accept capitulation. In addition to getting island cities and money, it will give us more time to heal, scout Augustus, and move units into place. There are only 8 cannons near Rome and all are at least a couple of turns away from deployment in battle (as are cuirs on our home continent).

I think the AI will use his seige weapons to soften us up and we should presume that Augustus will do so if given the opportunity.

Khazak and Ravenna are hill cities and will costs us time and units. Forgotten if there are wonders in either of them. Looked through thread quickly (know it's in there) but couldn't find that discussion. Please inform my ignorance.

Furville: Can still get CR in 3 turns if take citzen off workshop and onto beaver to gain a little gold per turn.

Suggest putting our spy on the mined hill equidistant to Circei, Cumae, and Arpinum.

Need to monitor Greek WE and mace now north of Verlamion.

Move unit in Pisa to find out what is in Khazak.

Prague is vulnerable. Suggest move the longbow in Aachen to Prague (probably other units as well) and have the longbow already in Prague move temporarily to the hill to see what is in Augsburg.

Find out what is in Knossos and Mycenae.

Will try to contribute to a more specific battle plan once I know what cities we need to capture.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Attacking Calcutta next turn seems like a good idea and then we should try to get Lahore in the peace deal when we accept capitulation. Note that we have 2 cuirs in Vijay that can be promoted to amphibious and we already have an amphibious cuir in Delhi.

Approx. how many turns do we think we are from wanting to claim victory?

This question is hard to answer before we know the GP coming in X-ville. I must admit I'm still tempted to hire two more merchants there and get the GP in 5 turns. It seems that we can research Democracy and Biology in 5 turns and it would be nice to know immediately if we should continue with Medicine by then (we would do this if we get a GM or a GE). This way we give ourselves an extra turn to build all those Hospitals and the Red Cross because we can't start on Medicine before we know the GP type.

Within your turn set I think we should anyway play to capture Cumae, Antium and Rome ASAP. As far as I understand these cities are all we need to get control of all the Roman Wonders. Antium is best attacked by moving units up there in Galleons I think. We also need a plan to deal with the stack in Arpinium - one problem is that Cumae can be reinforced in one move by this entire stack. It would be better if he moves the stack towards Vijay so that it can be attacked and destroyed in the open.

 

[ShannonCT]

Concur with SCT that we need to wait a turn to accept capitulation. In addition to getting island cities and money, it will give us more time to heal, scout Augustus, and move units into place. There are only 8 cannons near Rome and all are at least a couple of turns away from deployment in battle (as are cuirs on our home continent).

If we are looking to draw Augustus's stack to within 2 tiles of Vijay, we can start the war as soon as we have enough Cuirs in Vijay (15-20?). We only want to march on Cumae after the stack has been destroyed. We can deliver a force of 3 cannons and 9 Cuirs from Lagos to Antium after we begin our march on Cumae. Suggest we build 3 cannon in Braga, Oporto and Guimaraes now. Once Augustus's attention has been drawn south, the Antium stack should have an easier time. It's going to be without airship support if we land too early. Airships based in a captured Cumae could reach Antium.

I think the AI will use his seige weapons to soften us up and we should presume that Augustus will do so if given the opportunity.

In the 1380AD save, we can see 12 seige weapons in Roman territory (there were two mainland cities out of view). 6 of those are in Arpinum, so destroying that stack will leave him only 6 cats.

Furville: Can still get CR in 3 turns if take citzen off workshop and onto beaver to gain a little gold per turn.

If Furville is to build Statue of Liberty, we need every possible hammer. We should whip Statue as soon as we can and get that extra specialist in every city. I'd still like to build a workshop on top of the sheep at Furville.

This question is hard to answer before we know the GP coming in X-ville. I must admit I'm still tempted to hire two more merchants there and get the GP in 5 turns.

This is OK with me.

 

[leif erikson]

I'm starting to get a bit confused, so here is a very preliminary plan for comment and to work with:

Wonders – working or needing capture:
Globe Theater – working in Canalville.
Kremlin – working in Guimardaes
Broadway – working in Lisbon
Rock n Roll – working in Ulundi
The Eiffel Tower – working in Braga
Cristo Redentor – working in Furville
United Nations – working in Horseville
Note: stop working when 1-turn to completion.
Versailles – working in Jute
Forbidden Palace – working in Coimbra
The Great Wall – located in Cumae or Antium in Roman lands
Angor Wat – Cumae
Apostolic Palace - Rome

Wonders that need to be scheduled:
Wall Street – X-ville?
Statue of Liberty – Ulundi?
National Park – Horseville
Hollywood – Furville
The Masjid al-Haram – need Great Prophet in Hun
Civilized Jewelers, Inc – requires Great Artist – X-ville?
Cereal Mills – requires Great Merchant – Canalville?
Sid’s Sushi – requires Great Merchant, from X-ville?
Red Cross ???
Any I missed?

Research – Democracy => Corporation => Biology => ? (depends upon Great Person from X-ville)
Note: To get Hospitals started, Medicine might be nicer earlier, but we do not know if we will use it or not?
To figure this out, hire two more Merchants in X-ville immediately?

Military – Prepare to attack Calcutta and Agra next turn by loading a Galleon with Amphibious Cuirassier units from Delhi and (once promoted) from Vijay. Land Cuirassier and Cannon near Calcutta this turn from Galleon south of Vijay. Move four Airships available to move to Delhi so they can reach Agra. Move several Cuirassier to within a tile of Agra for attack next turn.

Future attacks into Rome to seize Cumae and Rome, if Great Wall is not in those cities, move ahead to Antium. Going by sea to Antium will require at least 5 to 6 turns due to Galleons needed for Calcutta attack.

A suggested plan for Arpinum stack – declare war with Airships in Vijay, along with a stack of Cuirassier units attempting to draw the stack towards Vijay. Once in the open, attack it and then move on to Cumae?

City builds:
Ulundi – Rock n Roll and then Statue of Liberty.
X-ville – Bank, Settler, Settler and then Wall Street.
Stoneville – Bank and then Wealth.
Pigville – Bank, wish we could speed this up by a couple of turns, and then Airship.
Ivoryville – Cuirassier
Canalville – Bank and then finish Globe.
Horseville – UN until 1 turn remains and National Park or Cuirassier.
Jute – continue Versailles.
Furville – complete Cristo Redentor and then Hollywood.
Braga – Canon and then The Eiffel Tower.
Oporto – Cannon and Cuirassier
Guimaraes – Cannon and then The Kremlin.
Lagos – Galleon.

EDIT - And CP suggested reinforcing Prague - I agree.
Once we have the Great Person in X-ville, civics change to Slavery, with Cristo Redentor?

 

[Cactus Pete]

"If we are looking to draw Augustus's stack to within 2 tiles of Vijay, we can start the war as soon as we have enough Cuirs in Vijay (15-20?). We only want to march on Cumae after the stack has been destroyed. 15 healthy cuirs should be enough to dispense with the more powerful units and get rid of the seige units, but we would want a couple of healthy units to remain in (or arrive in) Vijay for defending it the next turn. The greater problem is how to draw the stack out into a killing field. Suggest, the turn we declare war, we move two slightly wounded cuirs (still powerful enough to be a favorite against HAs) to the tile E of Vijay (which protects them from all but the chariot in Cumae [and they can pillage the tile for some much needed gold, which is something we should be able to do frequently as we move through Roman territory], then put the entire remainder of our wounded units and 4 airships in Vijay (protecting against any chariots or HAs that can get there in one turn and increasing the temptation to advance the stack toward Vijay), holding our healthy forces back out of sight on the tile SW of Vijay. Because our power rating is so high, this may not work, but it seems worth a try. If we can't draw the stack out, then suggest we advance on Cumae with multiple stacks, at least one cannon (not succeptible to collateral damage) in each stack.

We can deliver a force of 3 cannons and 9 Cuirs from Lagos to Antium after we begin our march on Cumae. Not sure we will need to wait depending on the defenses we find. Suggest we build 3 cannon in Braga, Oporto and Guimaraes now. Yes. Once Augustus's attention has been drawn south, the Antium stack should have an easier time. It's going to be without airship support if we land too early. Airships based in a captured Cumae could reach Antium." With three cannons, we may not need airships, but we'll have to both take and hold the city.

Use this next turn to also gain intel, especially on the Greek forces.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I'm starting to get a bit confused, so here is a very preliminary plan for comment and to work with

Instead of starting the planning from scratch I suggest that we use the revised plan I posted before my turn set and make adjustments to that. As you see it is different from your proposal in several places. I think the discussion will be better structured this way and we will get to discuss where and why we want to make adjustments.

We can deliver a force of 3 cannons and 9 Cuirs from Lagos to Antium after we begin our march on Cumae. Not sure we will need to wait depending on the defenses we find.

No need to wait - let's get there ASAP and hopefully we will be able to capture Antium even without air support. With both air support and full removal of cultural defenses our cuirs have battle odds in the high 90es. I think slightly lower odds will do also.

If we can't draw the stack out, then suggest we advance on Cumae with multiple stacks, at least one cannon (not succeptible to collateral damage) in each stack.

Agree. No delay. We have an overwhelming force and don't need to sit around waiting. Antium and Cumae should be ours within leifs 6 turns and we should be close to capturing Rome as well.

Can we block Arpinium with a stack of cannons on the rice?

 

[leif erikson]

Instead of starting the planning from scratch I suggest that we use the revised plan I posted before my turn set and make adjustments to that. As you see it is different from your proposal in several places. I think the discussion will be better structured this way and we will get to discuss where and why we want to make adjustments.

Ok, let's go from here:

Assumption:
X-ville is MM'ed to get the GP in 12 turns according to SCT's proposal. Tech times mentioned below may be slightly higher than what we can achieve when we keep the towns around X-ville.

Revised tech path (22 or 28 turns):

Banking (1) -- DR(1) -- Constitution (3) -- Democracy (3) -- Economics (2) -- Biology (5) -- if GM or GE in X-ville Medicine (6) -- Corporation (2) -- if no GE from X-ville Refrigeration (5)

It's unclear if we can postpone Economics to after Medicine - this is something for discussion when we reach Democracy.

The associated builds:

This build plan is for the case where we skip Medicine - a revised build plan should be done when we know the GP type. Now that we wait with work shops in X-ville I have kept WStreet in Horseville since it can be whipped. The same goes for Hollywood and it won't even hurt the Diplo VC vote because we can whip after the vote and still have the Wonders built in time. Number of settlers needed is unknown - 5 settlers in current plan and we may need 6 if no island cities are captured or negotiated in peace deal. Not everything is planned and not all cities are mentioned. I suggest that captured cities only build military units. In the last few turns our homeland cities can build wealth.

Ivoryville (117 hpt) Cannon (1), Cannon(1), Cuirassier(1), Cuirasier(1),....,Settler(2), Workboat(1)+gold from overflow,.....

Ulundi (107 hpt - 140 with IW) IW (5), Versailles (3), Rock'n'Roll (6), Hollywood (9)

Horseville (83 hpt) UN (12), Bank(3), Wall Street(9)

Furville (75 hpt) Cristo Redentor (7 w. chops), The Statue of Liberty (11)

Oporto (54 hpt soon 63 hpt) Missionary(1),West Point (5), Cuirassier(2), Cuirassier(2), Cuirassier(1),

Lisbon (MM to 51 hpt - 60 hpt with Confu) Cuirassier(2), Cuirassier(2), Broadway (10), National Park (5)

X-ville (37 hpt - 77 hpt w. wshops) Cannon(1), Cuirassier(3), Cuirassier (3), Settler (3), Bank (6)

Braga (49 hpt) Cannon(3), Cuirassier(2), Bank(5), The Eiffel Tower (6)

Jute (43 hpt) Cuirassier (1), Cuirassier (3), Bank(4)

Guimares (40 hpt) Bank(5), The Kremlin (10)

Stoneville (MM to 26 hpt) Frigate (1), Bank (8), Settler(4), Settler(4)

Canalville (21 hpt soon 26 hpt) Bank(8), Globe (9), Settler(4)

Coimbra (18 hpt) Missionary(3), FP (9)

Pigville (16 hpt) Bank (13)

Other additions to the plan:

- Keep the towns around X-ville.
- Keep building work shops in other cities - in some cases even on food resources if enough food is there.
- Gift DR to Augustus.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"We have an overwhelming force and don't need to sit around waiting."
Agree that we should look to be agressive, but, just in terms of numbers, our forces are not overwhelming with a limit to available reinforcements, so we need to fight on our terms and minimize the need to defend.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Ok, let's go from here:

I have tried to update the old build plan so that it reflects the current state of the game. Hammers per turn are not updated since I don't have the game beside me.

Assumption:
X-ville is MM'ed to get the GP in 5 turns. Proposal is now to hire 2 merchants (remove citizens from mines) and get the GP in 5 turns.

Revised tech path (12 or 16 turns):

Democracy (1) -- Biology (4) -- if GM or GE in X-ville Medicine (6) -- Corporation (2) -- if no GE from X-ville Refrigeration (5)

The associated builds:

This build plan is for the case where we skip Medicine - a revised build plan should be done when we know the GP type. Now that we wait with work shops in X-ville I have kept WStreet in Horseville since it can be whipped. The same goes for Hollywood and it won't even hurt the Diplo VC vote because we can whip after the vote and still have the Wonders built in time. Number of settlers needed is unknown - 5 settlers in current plan and we may need 6 if no island cities are captured or negotiated in peace deal. Not everything is planned and not all cities are mentioned. I suggest that captured cities only build military units. In the last few turns our homeland cities can build wealth.

Ivoryville (117 hpt) Cuirassier(1), Cuirasier(1),....,Settler(2), Workboat(1)+gold from overflow,.....

Ulundi (107 hpt - 140 with IW) Rock'n'Roll (3), Hollywood (9)

Horseville (83 hpt) UN (5), Bank(3), Wall Street(9)

Furville (75 hpt) Cristo Redentor (2 w. chops), The Statue of Liberty (11)

Oporto (54 hpt soon 63 hpt) Cannon(2)

Lisbon (MM to 51 hpt - 60 hpt with Confu) Broadway (9), National Park (5)

X-ville (37 hpt - 77 hpt w. wshops) Bank (3)

Braga (49 hpt) Cannon?, Bank(5), The Eiffel Tower (6)

Jute (43 hpt) Versailles(6)

Guimares (40 hpt) Cannon?,The Kremlin (3)

Stoneville (MM to 26 hpt) Bank (1)

Canalville (21 hpt soon 26 hpt) Bank(3), Globe (9)

Coimbra (18 hpt) FP (3)

Pigville (16 hpt) Bank (5)

Other additions to the plan:

- Keep the towns around X-ville.
- Keep building work shops in other cities - in some cases even on food resources if enough food is there.

Please go ahead and make suggestions for changes. Notice that if we build cannon in Braga we may need to find another spot to build a Bank. Maybe Bibracte? I was wondering if the forests around Aachen can be used to speed a late wonder - or maybe just a hospital.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Another issue I think we need to get clarified:

The Objective
The winners will be the teams who achieve a Victory by any means, and who score the highest Wonder Points per Turn Played.

Five Wonder Points are awarded for each Wonder controlled by the Team, and are displayed as the 'xx' in "yy from Wonders (xx/310)" when you hover your mouse over your score in the game screen. 310 is the maximum Wonder Points score you can achieve if you control all Wonders and National Wonders.

My question is - which save are we talking about when counting wonders? Normally I would say that the save corresponding to the winning turn i.e. the turn that starts after victory has been announced. This is also the save that is uploaded. This should mean that wonders that complete IBT are counted. But what about corporations or shrines that are constructed in this turn but before the final save is uploaded? E.g. Diplo Victory is announced IBT and after we found Cereal Mills in the final turn before uploading the final save. Maybe we should ask AlanH to clarify?

 

[leif erikson]

I'll send him a PM and ask.