SGOTM 10 - Maple Sporks

Norvin_Green · Oct 18, 2009

I don't know how to tell you guys this but to tell you we lost St. Pete. I stopped immediately. My apologies. I've included the log file for disection. I really feel like I let you down.

Turn 1 made the Nat/180/WM for Astro/Lib exchange with Mao. Moved all our available units toward St. Pete. Changed our builds to units in Moscow & Novgorod. Switched to Nat and entered anarchy.

IBT Gandhi's trebs stripped St. Pete's culture.

Turn 2 Drafted the 3 muskets. A mace, 2 LB's and the cat reached St. Pete. Slammed the cat into Gandhi's stack and lost it (no surprise) and then did the same with the Knight (survived at 22% odds).

IBT Gandhi's trebs led off and damaged our units followed by his attacking units which captured the city.

Spoiler :

Sorry for the lack of pictures as I'm too disgusted.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm10/Maple_Sporks_SG010_AD1788_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

Sengir · Oct 18, 2009

Hmm, not much to say really, was afraid that this would happen. Nohting you could do about it. On the bright side, Ghandi has expended all his trebs, so we have some time for our other cities. We are going to need some more muskets/LB's (drafted or build regularly) and some pults+knights for picking of units.

MM Smolensk to grow asap (it can use the FP's St-Pete had) so it can draft at size 6. Island cities can stay on infra, others should switch to units I suppose (not Yekat, should finish FP first).

And we can trade Nat+Astro to DG for RP + WM + 150g. I suggest we take it.

Oh, and send the caravel to pillage the crabs near Bombay.

GG should probably go to Moscow or Novgorod... not sure which.

I suggest you play untill Ghandi is willing to talk, as there is not much to discuss right now.

sturick · Oct 18, 2009

No reason to feel disgusted Norvin...

Given that there still is a rather large stack of units near Pete tells me that if the city hadn't fallen this turn it would have fell the next.

The only move I question was using the knight to attack his stack with 22% odds.
Granted, you won but obviously it didn't change the outcome.

FYI...once the trebs assaulted we lost all the battles.
The odds of that happening were 3.86%
So we didn't exactly have good luck.

Lesson learned....aggressive AIs (even Gandhi) pack quite a punch!

Whosit · Oct 18, 2009

Unfortunate, but I suppose not a huge surprise. Collateral damage is a huge advantage.

The only thing I have to add at the moment is this: We are not prohibited from capturing/recapturing a city without nuking, but it will create a penalty on our score. Because St. Pete was our major production center, I wonder if accepting that penalty is worth retaking the city as soon as possible.

Sengir · Oct 18, 2009

It is quite a heavy penalty and I'd personally rather be defeated without taking the penalty then take St-Pete without Nukes and win the game.

Whosit · Oct 18, 2009

Fair enough, but let's still do our best to salvage the situation . . . .

I suppose the bright spot here is that St. Petersburg wasn't pulling much in the way of our economy, so far as I recall. With the capacity to draft, we can probably manage to scrape up a decent enough military to not get run over. Perhaps Moscow should be put on permanent unit training to make up for St. Pete?

But, yeah, stall Gandhi until he'll talk peace . . . do our best not to lose anything else. I guess we need to get Representation ASAP so we can kick our economy into high gear and go straight for nukes. With a few of those bad boys, it doesn't matter how many stacks Gandhi has: We can just nuke 'em off the face of the continent. Yeah?

nocho · Oct 18, 2009

That's rather unfortunate.

Not your fault at all, Norvin. We all should have been more alert building more units earlier, instead of all focus on infra. And the RNG seems not to have been very nice to us either. Still, not all is lost. Yet...

Will look later at the save.

Norvin_Green · Oct 18, 2009

I can't play more turns until at least Wednesday, I think nocho is up next if he wants to try and stop the bleeding.

nocho · Oct 18, 2009

Okay, I'll try to look at this from the bright side:

- Our maintenance looks much better now!
- The two engines of our economy are still there (Moscow and Novgo)!
- We settled Smolensk where it is (and not 1S) and can now take tiles from St Pete!
- After hostilities have ceased we can settle 3N of St Pete and use more of its former tiles!
- We can draft to keep our hopes alive!
- We can trade for silk with Mao and will get furs soonish so drafting anger can be handled better!
- The forest preserves will help to be able to draft Moscow a bit!
- Our future reconquista of St Pete (after nuking it :mischief:

) will be glorious!
- Killing off Gandhi later will taste even better!

So I'll take it then.

Rough draft plan:
1st Yaro, Yeka, Rostov (can be shipped quickly)
2nd Yaro, Moscow, Rostov
3rd Don't know yet, will depend if and where Gandhi makes a move.
4th Same. The more we can avoid drafting in Moscow and Novgo the better, unhappiness in other cities I don't care too much about. But necessity will dictate above all!
5th ...

Where do we want to move the muskets that are currently in the field? Smolensk? Yeka? Moscow? If we need to sacrifice a city, we can do without Smolensk. On the other hand I'd rather keep it of course.

Hopefully Gandhi will spend turns healing and then takes peace, hopefully printing press will be enough.

Build units. Finish bio. Trade RP with DG, Astro+Nat should suffice. Shall we go rifling next? That would make me feel much more secure in case of future DoWs.

Sengir · Oct 18, 2009

Yeah, Rifling next sounds good to me. It's better for drafting as well (hammer/food wise)

Whosit · Oct 18, 2009

Gotta love optimism! Sounds like a good plan, nocho. I agree, Smolensk can be sacrificed if need be, but let's hope that it's not necessary. I wouldn't bank on Gandhi talking peace just yet; I figure we have to bloody his nose some. But maybe we'll be lucky.

Rifling would be awesome. Going after Steel next would be nice, but that might be too much out of the way . . . . Even if everything goes our way from here on out, we'll have to be extra vigilant. With St. Pete gone, that means Moscow is vulnerable to further incursions, so we'd better keep strong garrisons in all our front-line cities.

I think rather than using drafting to create our army, we might want to use drafting to supplement a standing army. Or, just draft regularly in peace time. I dunno. We can draft at least once every 10 turns, right? Maybe more if the city in question has a high happy cap.

nocho · Oct 19, 2009

So anyone with more thoughts on the current situation? Please chime in, demoralized or not!

I could play tomorrow evening. Some more thoughts:

I'm inclined to move the muskets to Smolensk and hope for the best should Gandhi move there. If he moves to Moscow or Novgo, we should have enough time to draft a whole bunch of units there, while also moving up units along the east coast. I think I'll set nearly all cities to producing longbows. Best hammer/defence ratio.

Also it occurred to me that we should pillage the tiles 1SE of St Pete and also 1S2E. It will save precious turns should Gandhi want to move to the east. His stack is on a not-roaded tile so this turn it should be save to pillage the tile 1SE. Also the knight currently on the galleon might help out, being a 2-move unit. The tiles should be double pillaged to get rid of the roads. There's no way to remove the roads before the workshops, is there? EDIT: Thinking a bit better, if we pillage the tile 1SE the other one need not be pillaged. Maybe just the workshop. We still may benefit from the road there, while Gandhi can't.

I also think it would be convenient to upgrade the galley in Rostov to a galleon.

Also we did get a GG who is in Moscow right now. Settle him there?

Whosit · Oct 19, 2009

Road pillaging is a good idea. Unfortunately, can't take a closer look at the save until this evening.

If we're still going to settle the Great General, Moscow is probably the best place now. I can't think that we'd make great use of an attached unit. We could attach to the Knight to give it the Speed Promotion, but that's probably just a waste.

Also agree about upgrading the galley. More naval mobility can't hurt us.

Norvin_Green · Oct 19, 2009

I wish I had something better to offer than this. I promoted the Knight (the one that survived @22% odds) to Combat 1 and Charge. I realize that whether or not I threw him at Gandhi's stack had little to do with the outcome but why we promoted that way doesn't make sense to me. Charge is if we are attacking seige, no? (That's why I attacked at such low odds because the promo doesn't do any good for the knight defensively). The problem is that when I sent him forward he wasn't going up against seige but against a pike. Wouldn't we have been better off with Flanking I and II to damge more of Gandhi's seige?
Also because I stopped immediately I didn't see if we could get the RP trade from DeGaulle. Would bribing someone into the war even help us?

nocho · Oct 19, 2009

Norvin_Green said:
I wish I had something better to offer than this. I promoted the Knight (the one that survived @22% odds) to Combat 1 and Charge. I realize that whether or not I threw him at Gandhi's stack had little to do with the outcome but why we promoted that way doesn't make sense to me. Charge is if we are attacking seige, no? (That's why I attacked at such low odds because the promo doesn't do any good for the knight defensively). The problem is that when I sent him forward he wasn't going up against seige but against a pike. Wouldn't we have been better off with Flanking I and II to damge more of Gandhi's seige?

In retrospect I think indeed flanking would have been better, especially when attacking. I was hoping the siege promotion would have helped on defence, not sure how it works. Combat is surely not the strongest part of my game. That must be a relief to you all with me up with a war out there! :lol:

Norvin_Green said:
Also because I stopped immediately I didn't see if we could get the RP trade from DeGaulle. Would bribing someone into the war even help us?

Everybody is fighting and in red fist mode, so bribing will be impossible anyway.

Norvin_Green · Oct 19, 2009

nocho said:
Everybody is fighting and in red fist mode, so bribing will be impossible anyway.

Once again can we say "Duh"

Whosit · Oct 19, 2009

The Charge promotion was my idea, so I suppose I'll explain more clearly (in retrospect) why I was thinking. The biggest threat of Siege is their collateral damage, and I couldn't really think of anything to do about that, but I thought that maybe, a Charge promoted unit could scrape by with relatively little damage, and at least provide a stronger front to the actual attacking units. Basically a slim hope at best.

Actually, nocho, if we're drafting Musketmen, you may want to consider building some more catapults. Would still be helpful for countering enemy stacks.

Actually, one other bright point, having just read through the combat report a bit more closely, is that it looks like we killed all of Gandhi's siege during his assault on St. Petersburg. At the very least, it should slow down his advance, or make it harder for him to take our cities now.

Assuming that he doesn't have another stack of siege, of course.

nocho · Oct 20, 2009

Don't have the time for a proper report, sorry, it's getting a bit late.

I played on until Gandhi was willing to talk.

Started making a trade:

And renegotiated this:

Spoiler :

for this:

Spoiler :

Then started drafting and setting builds mainly to longbows. Also pillaged the road near St Pete. I ordered a quick road between Smolensk and Yekatarinaburg for swift movement of troops which turned out handy.
When Gandhi had healed he moved south to Smolensk, but could build up a sizeable stack to defend. Nothing really much happened until near the end when I decided to take some shots at some lose units, basically for racking up XP and hoping to unlock Heroic Epic. Got some subpar luck, but at least I got a knight to 11XP this very last turn, when Gandhi finally would talk. However, he asks Smolensk. That's a no of course. The alternatives are quite expensive techs or cash. Tried with 100 gold but he said no. So we're still at war, but we could technically end it now if we really wish. There's no immediate need however. This is the situation near Smolensk.

We have three units 1N of it in not so excellent shape (including the 11XP knight) who might need some cover, but of course without weakening Smolensk itself too much, should we not take peace now.

In other news, we got bio and rushed the NP with the GE. All forest preserves are done, so I proudly present you Moscow:

That's 15 specs right now! Choose scientists to get to rifling sooner. After we pop next great person, may have to run merchants again. Anyway, if sturick is up next, I'm sure we'll get another great artist!

Finally, the tech screen.

Roosey is 4 turns from constitution, that might open up possibilities.

Log:

Spoiler :

Save

Whosit · Oct 20, 2009

Good work, nocho. Nice to see that we're in a good position, all things considered. A few notes . . . . in no particular order, I guess. OK, maybe in an order.

Tactics:

We have a damaged Frigate up north. I'd take it into port and have it start healing. Gandhi has a Frigate, but it is better promoted than ours. It is damaged, too, but we'd probably lose if we attacked. Stay on the defensive and in shallow water to take advantage of the 10% coastal defense. We should probably get a second Frigate out to back up our current one.

Smolensk: We have a wounded Musketman that has earned a promotion. We want to promote him in order to speed his healing. I'd suggest either Combat II or Pinch. Unfortunately, Shock is not an option. We can send one of our no XP Muskets to guard our wounded stack. We probably want to save as many troops as possible.

The biggest threat to the city is Gandhi's CR II Maceman, which would have an effective strength of 11.6 on the attack. However, our Combat I/City Garrison Musketman is effectively 13.5, so it can probably blunt that attack. The others get a nice boost from the natural Combat I promotion and the 20% cultural defense. So I think we have the advantage on the defensive. Without siege, Gandhi is less than a threat.

Builds: We still want some troops. Knights are nice, especially to try and counter stacks of siege. If we can, I'd like to sneak some Stables in to get the benefits of the extra XP. Once Rifling is in, a few more rounds of drafting are in order, I think.

Moscow/Forests: Looks nice, but note this: Any forest preserve NOT "claimed" by Moscow does not benefit the National Park. 1 forest is claimed by Yaroslavl', two others by Novgorod. I messed around with the tiles, and if Moscow takes them all, it can probably get up to 18 specialists (assuming that it works every tile). This may not be cost effective, as it robs the other towns of valuable hammers.

Therefore, here is my suggestion: We have Replaceable Parts in hand, let us convert the forest preserves of the non-Moscow forests to lumbermills. It preserves the forest, so we can always convert them back later if need be. But, basically, the non-Moscow preserves are only contributing happy faces to the other towns, when they might do better with hammers.

Yakutsk: Barbs on the prowl, but probably not a big deal. Just keep an eye on them.

Others: Check the towns. I think a couple have Spy specialists or something funny like that. Dunno if we want them. The governors are being silly.

Next Turn: Assuming we get our Knight to safety without being damage, a Hit-and-Run on Gandhi's stack might be nice, if we can get good odds. With the War Elephant injured, it would probably be a safe attack (so long as you don't attack across the river).

Would it be prudent to take a couple of Knights and pillage the Ivory sources + roads in Indian territory?

Come peace time: Smolensk MUST get some more culture. Library, University, and Theatre will be critical. It is going to lose the northern tiles soon, but getting some culture in will help. St. Pete still has the Great Artist settled, though. More culture in Yekaterinburg will help, too, as two cities can overpower one. I may be a crazy-haired naysayer, but let's not neglect our culture! We can't afford to lose more useful tiles. Hopefully I'm not the only one on this side of the fence . . . .

Also in peace-time: Let's settle that two-fish island! We're planning to get Rep, and even running a few specialists there should let it pay for itself. It would also make a nice forward base for hitting America.

Ah: We can take down those signs around Moscow, probably. Especially the one noting the Great Engineer (which is no longer there!).

Misc: Is the Galleon northeast of Rostov taking that Longbowman to the mainland?

I'm fairly optimistic. If we can outlast, or even destroy, Gandhi's stack, I think that we'll be in the clear. Let's just make sound tactical choices. Gandhi's troops are, unfortunately, better promoted than ours, but come Rifles, that shouldn't matter much. I think that a solid round of drafts (which our happy cap can take!) should give us the fighting force we need to wipe out anything he sends at us for the time being.

nocho · Oct 21, 2009

Whosit said:
Good work, nocho. Nice to see that we're in a good position, all things considered.

Yeah, despite the unfortunate loss of St Pete, things are not that bleak at all. Power-wise we have caught up more or less, tech wise we're still in the driver seat and our research base remains strong. Looking at the graphs we're still doing better than quite some other teams. The power graph is funny too. Just don't look at the culture graph...

Whosit said:
A few notes . . . . in no particular order, I guess. OK, maybe in an order.

I'll try to address them all.

Whosit said:
Tactics:

We have a damaged Frigate up north. I'd take it into port and have it start healing. Gandhi has a Frigate, but it is better promoted than ours. It is damaged, too, but we'd probably lose if we attacked. Stay on the defensive and in shallow water to take advantage of the 10% coastal defense. We should probably get a second Frigate out to back up our current one.

Ok. We actually had a second frigate (upgraded caravel IIRC) that got sunk by Gandhi after pillaging the sea food near Bombay and Delhi. We could upgrade another trireme of the barb island, but maybe better not as we'll need it there to protect the sea food and against the barbs it's maybe a waste.

Whosit said:
Smolensk: We have a wounded Musketman that has earned a promotion. We want to promote him in order to speed his healing. I'd suggest either Combat II or Pinch. Unfortunately, Shock is not an option. We can send one of our no XP Muskets to guard our wounded stack. We probably want to save as many troops as possible.

The biggest threat to the city is Gandhi's CR II Maceman, which would have an effective strength of 11.6 on the attack. However, our Combat I/City Garrison Musketman is effectively 13.5, so it can probably blunt that attack. The others get a nice boost from the natural Combat I promotion and the 20% cultural defense. So I think we have the advantage on the defensive. Without siege, Gandhi is less than a threat.

Gandhi just has 7 units in that stack, of which 1 is a wounded jumbo. Including the explorer we have 8 units defending. We can certainly afford to move 1 musket out to protect our little stack to the north, maybe even a 2nd unit. Actually, Gandhi has not dared to attack, he already moved his stack to the 1S of Smolensk and then moved back.

Whosit said:
Builds: We still want some troops. Knights are nice, especially to try and counter stacks of siege. If we can, I'd like to sneak some Stables in to get the benefits of the extra XP. Once Rifling is in, a few more rounds of drafting are in order, I think.

Dunno about the stables, we won't be mass producing horse units, I think. Once we go on the offensive with nukes, I guess we won't be far off from tanks for a 2-move unit... But I agree some extra units won't hurt, although indeed I'd mainly count on some drafted rifles.

Whosit said:
Moscow/Forests: Looks nice, but note this: Any forest preserve NOT "claimed" by Moscow does not benefit the National Park. 1 forest is claimed by Yaroslavl', two others by Novgorod. I messed around with the tiles, and if Moscow takes them all, it can probably get up to 18 specialists (assuming that it works every tile). This may not be cost effective, as it robs the other towns of valuable hammers.

Therefore, here is my suggestion: We have Replaceable Parts in hand, let us convert the forest preserves of the non-Moscow forests to lumbermills. It preserves the forest, so we can always convert them back later if need be. But, basically, the non-Moscow preserves are only contributing happy faces to the other towns, when they might do better with hammers.

Hadn't realized that forests not taken by Moscow didn't count. But indeed, looking at the pic it's 9 normal specialists, 1 from merc and 5 from the NP. Note that you don't have to work the forest for the specialist, it's just that the tile should be "assigned" to Moscow and not to other cities. So yes, we can have 3 specialists extra for free. I would definitely do that and not lumbermill them. Those forests are not that great tiles for Novgo and Yaro, while they are for Moscow: extra GPP, extra science or cash. Maybe the rice should then go back to Novgo.

Whosit said:
Yakutsk: Barbs on the prowl, but probably not a big deal. Just keep an eye on them.

Yeah, that's why I left a drafted musket there and a LB it built.

Whosit said:
Others: Check the towns. I think a couple have Spy specialists or something funny like that. Dunno if we want them. The governors are being silly.

Indeed. I did eliminate some spies at some point, but they could have been reassigned. Should keep an eye on that. IIRC I put 2 artists in Vlad to try and claim that sea food from the barbs.

Whosit said:
Next Turn: Assuming we get our Knight to safety without being damage, a Hit-and-Run on Gandhi's stack might be nice, if we can get good odds. With the War Elephant injured, it would probably be a safe attack (so long as you don't attack across the river).

Would it be prudent to take a couple of Knights and pillage the Ivory sources + roads in Indian territory?

Situation permitting that pillaging may be an idea, although I wouldn't make it a priority. After peace he'll rebuild it quickly anyhow, and (the risk of) losing knights against jumbos is not an optimal trade-off.

Whosit said:
Come peace time: Smolensk MUST get some more culture. Library, University, and Theatre will be critical. It is going to lose the northern tiles soon, but getting some culture in will help. St. Pete still has the Great Artist settled, though. More culture in Yekaterinburg will help, too, as two cities can overpower one. I may be a crazy-haired naysayer, but let's not neglect our culture! We can't afford to lose more useful tiles. Hopefully I'm not the only one on this side of the fence . . . .

Agree in general that some culture will be nice in Smolensk. Go theater first though, we'll need them for the globe anyway. Maybe hire some artists instead of the engineer. For production I think we should quickly workshop the plain forest 1SE and the grass 2E. We have a lot of workers available now who can do that quickly. I actually shipped a few from Rostov island to the mainland to get those forest preserves asap and they are now done.

Whosit said:
Also in peace-time: Let's settle that two-fish island! We're planning to get Rep, and even running a few specialists there should let it pay for itself. It would also make a nice forward base for hitting America.

Okay with the island. As I mentioned before we might want to settle 3N of St Pete as well. Thoughts?

If we can get constitution in trade that would be wonderful. I'd revolt to representation immediately, the 3 extra beakers per specialist will be huge in our case and will amply compensate for the turn of anarchy.

Whosit said:
Ah: We can take down those signs around Moscow, probably. Especially the one noting the Great Engineer (which is no longer there!).

Agree!

Whosit said:
Misc: Is the Galleon northeast of Rostov taking that Longbowman to the mainland?

It was taking a LB from Rostov to Yakutsk when the barbs came but then I decided to draft instead, so now it has no specific destination. It can go to the frontlines somewhere.

Whosit said:
I'm fairly optimistic. If we can outlast, or even destroy, Gandhi's stack, I think that we'll be in the clear. Let's just make sound tactical choices. Gandhi's troops are, unfortunately, better promoted than ours, but come Rifles, that shouldn't matter much. I think that a solid round of drafts (which our happy cap can take!) should give us the fighting force we need to wipe out anything he sends at us for the time being.

I don't really fear Gandhi anymore. Just keep a watchful eye. Also we can sign peace at any moment, don't forget that! We may want to try for 200 or 300 gold, wouldn't give much more either. Well, if it turns out really bad, which I don't think will be the case, we could even give replaceable parts. But wait with that for a while, I hope we can get constitution for RP with Roosey in 4 turns and we shouldn't devaluate techs easily, even if they're not monopoly techs anymore.

And on optimism, I'm fairly optimistic as well!

Of course the loss of St Pete is a setback ans will make us the laughing stock of the SGOTM community, but well, sh*t happens and Gandhi took us a bit off guard. But well, to look at it from a twisted positive side, I think quite some teams probably settled their second city where we have Novgorod as we were "lucky" enough to move that explorer on the hill of St Pete in the very beginning and notice Gandhi so soon. So in their case Gandhi probably settled around where we have St Pete. Now we're just back in the same position as the others!

And at least we have profitted from the posession of St Pete during the first quarter of this game. And surely we will profit from St Pete the last quarter (or half) as well... :mischief:

EDIT Some other notes:
- Assuming our knight survives, we should decide where to build HE. I think Yekaterinaburg is the best option.
- We should also build the Globe. Would do that in Yaroslavl.
- What will we tech after rifling? Physics maybe? Also, do we want to go for communism? At some future point (not very near) we may want to go state property anyway and the free GSpy may be nice fodder for a GA with any unfortunate great person we may pop.

SGOTM 10 - Maple Sporks

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