SGOTM 10 - Team Liz

[Andronicus]

Roster

Abegweit
Redbad
juballs2001 - swapped - now UP if avail, otherwise skip
Andronicus - just played
markh - on deck
Paul#42

Notes to next player
We have just emerged into Republic and our empire requires considerable rearranging

My thoughts
I suggest adding native workers into all non-corrupt towns which can support increased pop with respect to avail tiles and food and happiness
- this will boost production and commerce, reduce unit support costs (less units and more size 7 cities)
Non corrupt towns req markets and ducts where appropriate.
I tend to build courts more than most - I like to build them anywhere less than 50% corruption but more than 20% and of sufficient size to get production and / or commerce benefit. Others may have differing opinoions on this. In this game we may not progress as long to get the benefits of courts that will take 40 turns to build.
Libs anyone? Abegweit suggested not earlier when I mentioned them. I would suggest a selected few for our highest sccience cities would pay off.
Barracks / military builds. We need to get much stronger and with only 3 towns with rax on military I feel this is insufficient and should have high priority
Cuzco on course for FP - I recommend setting lux rate to keep this city's production as high as we can. After FP this is a viable option for Leo's - of course capturing Leo's is also an option.

Sev settlers are in place to settle next turn, last I checked F3 there were no barbs, I would be cautious taking settler S of Cambridge further south as there is fog which barbs could appear in.

Corrupt cities need irrigating all grass and food bonus tiles to support as many scientists as possible. Mining hills and improving plains (other than for connecting purposes) is wasted worker turns. I suspect after folding workers into our core we will need a few replacements. These corrupt towns can build workers or settlers if food rich, ? cats if food poor or ? galleys if food poor and on coast.

Diplomacy
Thea is not doing well in her war with Gil - I suspect she may give techs to Gil for peace soon.
Once Gil at peace with Thea he may look for another target, at present we are a large juicy undefended target! Allying with Gil against Bill makes sense if Gil is willing. Gil not yet gifted into middle ages - if he gets feud and builds lots of MDI it could get ugly.
Mayans have a settler pair requiring swift execution east of Constantinople
Troops ready to attack Dutch next turn, ensure use rop to get closer on roads before dow-ing

Techs
No research yet into Engineering. I would be keen to get mono from Thea by hook or by crook so we could start on Theology. Alt is full speed on engineering expecting AI to research feud.

 

[Redbad]

Good work Andronicus, we're still firm in the lead.

IMO high priority getting us out of the big negative gpt.

disband our warriors except the one on 1-tile island

I suggest adding native workers into all non-corrupt towns which can support increased pop with respect to avail tiles and food and happiness

agree

Non corrupt towns req markets and ducts where appropriate

agree

I tend to build courts more than most - I like to build them anywhere less than 50% corruption but more than 20% and of sufficient size to get production and / or commerce benefit

don't agree, it will take a long time before the corruption reduction will make up for the required extra 80 shields

Libs anyone?

Only if we have to research into the IA.

Barracks / military builds. We need to get much stronger and with only 3 towns with rax on military I feel this is insufficient and should have high priority

I would suggest, leave it as it is for the moment. When other cities have completed their markets, they can assist.

Cuzco on course for FP - I recommend setting lux rate to keep this city's production as high as we can. After FP this is a viable option for Leo's - of course capturing Leo's is also an option.

It has to be balanced. Setting lux slider high just for Cuzco will cost us research speed. I would only set lux slider high when it benefits 4 or more cities. At present reducing lux slider to 10% will only cost Cuzco 1 corrupt shield.
I wouldn't want to wait 15 to 20 turns before starting on Leo's. Cuzco isn't especially well suited for the job, any productive citie can do it. I'm not in favour on gambling on the AI to build it for us. We have our needs concerning Leo's time of arrival.

Corrupt cities need irrigating all grass and food bonus tiles to support as many scientists as possible. Mining hills and improving plains (other than for connecting purposes) is wasted worker turns.

agree

I suspect after folding workers into our core we will need a few replacements. These corrupt towns can build workers or settlers if food rich, ? cats if food poor or ? galleys if food poor and on coast.

We're doing great on improving our core. Having extra workers build for getting us faster corrupt research cities isn't very effective when at the same time we have to lower research to maintain those extra workers. I would say build settlers in corrupt area's and hurry them at size 3. Some galleys will be handy. Do we want catapults?

Gil not yet gifted into middle ages - if he gets feud and builds lots of MDI it could get ugly.

There's no way we can hold Gil much longer in the AA. And it is counterproductive as well. We need to know what MA tech he will get. And if Gil makes peace after that with Thea for her MA tech, the easier we can trade for it.
MDI are essentially not worse then say spears of swordman as long as we can do the attacking that is. I find his ability to build pikes in that case more annoying,

Mayans have a settler pair requiring swift execution east of Constantinople

agree

Troops ready to attack Dutch next turn, ensure use rop to get closer on roads before dow-ing

Next turn when the horsemen can move again I suggest dowing Bill and getting in Gil on our side. It will cut of Bills iron and also having no horse he can only throw spears and archers at us. I also suggest to do defensive warfare against Bill. We don't need his cities (and he has the great wall) but we need leaders.

No research yet into Engineering. I would be keen to get mono from Thea by hook or by crook so we could start on Theology. Alt is full speed on engineering expecting AI to research feud.

Getting Gil into the MA enables us choose our tech. I suggest when Gill get mono or engineering we research feud and in case Gill gets feud we do engineering. I would like the AI to get feud and engineering soon so they could do invention for us.

 

[juballs2001]

skip me this go around... take it markh

well done andro!!

 

[Abegweit]

I agree pretty much with everything Redbad said except for one thing:

Barracks / military builds. We need to get much stronger and with only 3 towns with rax on military I feel this is insufficient and should have high priority.

I would suggest, leave it as it is for the moment. When other cities have completed their markets, they can assist.

Military is the priority ATM. We are still in our expansion pahse. We have done extremely well by concentrating on growth and conquest. Let's not back off now, especially as the age of the horse is coming to an end. We need to concentrate on finishing the AI off before it does. The markets can come in when we are on our way to MT and Astro. For now, we need seize the opportunity while we can. This is aside from the fact that military has a bigger payback than infra anyway.

For those who are interested, Obormot has a good post on the relative values of various builds on post 17 of this thread. Note that he was talking about a science game - and one in which you can get all 8 luxes. This game is different, so marketplaces will be much more important than libraries. I don't think we will want libraries at all.

It remains that military, aqueducts and harbours are all we should be building in the core ATM. All market builds should be switched to aqueducts and barracks. Nottingham also needs a duct. We'll also need some cats and MDI to take down the big cities. Pikes behind walls are too much for horses.

Outside the core, in corrupt and semi-corrupt regions, build settlers and workers.



One other thing: After gifting Gil into the ME, if he gets Mono, we should go for Engineering. The AI loves Feudalism.

 

[Andronicus]

Amended Roster

Abegweit
Redbad
juballs2001 - skip
Andronicus - just played
markh - UP
Paul#42 - on deck

 

[Redbad]

Military is the priority ATM.

After rethinking, I agree

We'll also need some cats and MDI to take down the big cities. Pikes behind walls are too much for horses.

Quite possible. O.t.o.h. the AI might deliver us chivalry. Probably a mixed force when we get feudalism. Btw. isn't there a bug when attacking the walls with catapults of the civ owning the great wall?

Outside the core, in corrupt and semi-corrupt regions, build settlers and workers.

Kind of agree. I would go easy with the workers wrt our unit support.

One other thing: After gifting Gil into the ME, if he gets Mono, we should go for Engineering. The AI loves Feudalism.

agree

 

[markh]

I got it. I will have a look at it this evening.

 

[markh]

I am in my third turn and like to consult the team before playing further.

What happened until now is that I gifted gil into next age and he got engineering, so I went for feud which is due in 3. We destroyed the Maya meanwhile as they built their new capitol near our stack of horses. Now we would be in a position to attack Bill, but gil won't join us in that war and his attitude towards us is furious now. Did he have an alliance with the Mayas ?

The new save is uploaded for you to have a look. I will continue tomorrow after some discussion. Maybe we can get Gil into war with Bill when we have researched feud. I am quite nervous about his troops moving through our core having almost no defense there. At the moment I would delay the attack on Bill at least until we have researched feud and strengthened our core with military units. That will not make Bill much stronger. His cities are still defended by reg spears, so I think we would have good odds to destroy him quite fast.

 

[Abegweit]

Well done with the Maya. Good exploration too.

As per the team discussion, please stop all Marketplace and Courthouse builds. In the core, we want Harbours and Aquaducts where necessary. Other than that, Barracks and Military. Outside it settlers and workers.

Canterbury, London and Coventry need barracks. York, Nottingham, Brighton, and Oxford need Aqueducts. Cash-rush (short-rush?) the ducts or pump out a settler first. Do not waste the growth.

Newcastle could, I suppose, get a duct too but I believe it should be abandoned instead. It was built to claim the horses and has served its purpose. As it is it crowds out other citys. Build a few settlers and then remove it. Remember to have a couple or three workers in place to replace the road.

I might add that a 20% lux rate is sufficient w/o any mm. Possibly you we going to change this before the end of the turn.

When Feud comes in, made sure everyone gets feud and engineering, then start research up the top side of the tree. The AI likes Invention and Gunpowder.

As for Gil, he's furious because of what we did to the Maya. That won't stop him from making an alliance but, if you want on, you have to declare on the enemy first. I don't know what he wants for it but you do have to declare first. He'll never accept an alliance otherwise. Personally I don't see any reason for an alliance. It only complicates things and we have lots of troops to take out the dutch by our lonesome.

At the moment I would delay the attack on Bill at least until we have researched feud and strengthened our core with military units.

Horses are quite capable of taking out flatland cities with walls. Clobber 'em Just take them one at a time. Five or six horses per attack. And Holland is too far away to drag MDI. Save those for the big cities. We'll need a few cats/trebs too. And, yes. It wouldn't hurt to build a few swords to keep Gil honest.

Edit: how come we have ROPs with both Gil and Theo? These should have been cancelled. In view of this, I agree that the core needs to be strengthened before starting any new adventures. Further, some of the horses in the east need to come home. The units Gil has in our core are just scary. The horse in Nottingham should go to York and the one about to be built in Hastings goes to London. Once we have the ability to clean his forces out of our core, sign an alliance against him with Theo. She'll accept it. This is all the more reason to cancel the Markets.

 

[Paul#42]

Good progress, guys!

I`m on a duty trip to Frankfurt and will b back in 24 hours. I can pick it up and play probably on Thursday (if I can prevent myself from too much... ).

leave me something to fight, Mark!

 

[Andronicus]

I understand your nervousness re Gil. This was the main reason I was so hesitant in my turns. Much though I would like to get some markets up, I have to agree with Abegweit that we need military first (no point building markets for Gil ). My other point of unease over the current situation is the high losses with horses. I am not used to fighting AI where win loss ratios are close to even, I prefer overwhelming odds. Horses against 2 defence units results in losses - more so when every city has walls. I am not sure what our alternative is as I think we need to take Tikal to connect our empire - after that leader fishing makes sense. Bill may send his troops towards Bonampak along the forests which makes for higher horse losses than on plains.
I would love to have Gil on side but he appears reluctant. Maybe once we have feud some options may open up. I would be very wary of trading tech to Gil and have him owe us gpt - that might be too tempting for him. It may be better to trade feud for Gil's engineering first with MA v Bill if poss (if requires extra payment can still trade gpt if renegotiate peace treaty - just ensure science slider turned down first so we have gpt to trade, may also want to throw in lux but remember if lux cut off for any reason -> automatic war), then trade feud + engineering for mono to Thea netting gpt if avail
For this reason I would recomend waiting the 3 turns until feud comes in before dow on Bill. Meanwhile position troops to take Tikal (+/- Groninger) in first strike.

edit - I would also add that core towns which have excess of happys can have workers folded in

 

[markh]

I would like to trade feud for Gil's engineering and a MA against Bill. Maybe I can get Thea's monotheism first and can throw in both for engineering and the MA. At least I like to try. As soon as he ends his war against Thea I fear that he might see us as a very tempting target. And I think the end of this war is quite near. Thea is not doing well and she might negotiate peace with Gil soon. Bill will not get much stronger if we delay for another 3 turns. I would then consider to even rush a few pikes or MDIs in the core if possible. Tikal will fall with 9 horsemen around it ready to strike now or 3 turns later. Another thing I am not sure of. If we declare war on Bill we will disconnect the iron trade of Gil and Bill. Could this make Gil even more annoyed ? One last thing, I would prefer to get Bill declare war on us for the war happyness in republic. If everybody thinks we should go for Bill immediately I will do it.

 

[Abegweit]

Warring with horses

It's not one-to-one. Andronicus had bad RNG. I took out 4 cities with the loss of one unit. I think that Red's experience was similar. It was certain to rebound sooner or later. Even so, horses are cheap - a fraction of the cost of knights. So if you lose a few it's no big deal.

According to Offa's combat calc, 5 horses will take out a town with two defenders over 90% of the time with a mean loss of .85 units. I like those odds. Add walls to the town and a sixth attacker to compensate. You still win 86% of the time at a loss of 1.35 soldiers.


Securing our homelands

WRT the current situation, I don't think it is possible to get an alliance with Gil under any circumstances. He won't ally against Theo who he is currently at war with. Even for all our gold, it's still "He would never accept". We broke a deal with him and proceeded to betray the Maya a second time. This is the consequence.

Theo will ally against him though. Straight up. And we have to fix this situation up in our core ASAP. I suggest we abandon the idea of attacking Bill for the moment and get this guy out of our lands. Bring back most of the army home and start building more. Rush if you have to (short-rushing is best and never from 0g). A few cats, especially around York, would be good too.

I agree with the idea of waiting until Feud comes in. I just hope Gil will too. In the meantime, gift him a lux or two and see if that helps. Try one. If that doesn't work, try two.

Mark, are all the units @York fortified or is it just one?

I also think that the idea of get him to attack us has to be abandoned. We have a ROP with him so we would have to wait 17 long turns in our to trick him into declaring. As soon as you feel comfortable with your ability to clean out the varmints, ally with Theo and take him down. Forget Bill for the moment. He is no threat.

We've already trashed our rep with Gil. Might as well finish it off. Theo, though, is our friend. Do not be nasty with her under any circumstances. However, cancel the ROP when it is due.

Iron trade

Declaring war on either will break the trade and trash Gil's rep.

Markets vs barracks

We are still in the expansion phase of the game. Harbours and aqueducts help us to expand upwards. Settlers and military help us to expansion outwards. Markets and courts do neither. Furthermore, we are emphasizing research ATM. Markets don't help with that either so their only effect is on happiness. With only three luxes, that is minor too. In any case, ducts are alway more important than markets.

 

[markh]

The horses we have at Bill would be enough to keep him small and take the cities one by one, but actually I see no real benefit from it. He will not do any harm.

IIRC Gil always leaves 1 Enkidu fortified at York as cover for the units that walk through that tile. Gil has 2 or 3 settler/enkidu combos and various swords in our lands. I think the horses we have at Bill + a few MDIs would be able to clear the situation in about 10 turns.

I will switch markets to barracks where appropriate. I think a few markets are almost complete and might be worth cashrushing. I do not remember. I have to check when I have access to the save again.

 

[Abegweit]

The horses we have at Bill would be enough to keep him small and take the cities one by one, but actually I see no real benefit from it. He will not do any harm.

Agreed. Gil is the threat. We can take out the Dutch any time.

IIRC Gil always leaves 1 Enkidu fortified at York as cover for the units that walk through that tile. Gil has 2 or 3 settler/enkidu combos and various swords in our lands. I think the horses we have at Bill + a few MDIs would be able to clear the situation in about 10 turns.

I feel a little better to know that they are just streaming by, but ten turns is far too long. Should take a lot less than that.

I will switch markets to barracks where appropriate. I think a few markets are almost complete and might be worth cashrushing. I do not remember. I have to check when I have access to the save again.

Markets have no purpose until we hook up the fourth lux or turn off science. Wasting cash on them would be pointless. And I did check. All can switched. Some need to become barracks and some need to be settlers. York and Oxford should build settlers followed by ducts. The rest of the core needs to go military.

 

[markh]

I feel a little better to know that they are just streaming by, but ten turns is far too long. Should take a lot less than that.

I think as long as he stays at war with Thea we do not have to fear him that much. It will get interesting as soon as that war is ended and I have the feeling that will happen sooner than later as Thea is hardly countering the units from Gil.

 

[Abegweit]

No wonder she wants an ally. We just need to be ready and have the war come at a moment of our choosing. Not his.

 

[markh]

0) 350BC : wow, this has changed since my last set !
disband warriors that are not necessary
gift Gil into next age. He gets engineering, put research on feud

IBT : renew our ROP with Gil
Bill does not want to extend the ROP
Thea gets 115 gold for ROP
Mayas declare war on Byz by founding a city in Thea's territory
a Mayan warrior retreats one of our horses in Byz territory
Stupid Smoky starts building the Great Library in his new capitol
our horseman at his new capitol defeats two spears, retreats against a jav and is killed by a second jav

1) 330BC : the new Mayan captiol is near to our horsies, decide to strike them next turn. I want them gone
found Berwick

IBT : nothing

2) 310BC : two horses attack Calakmul and kill both defenders and the Mayas are gone
found Bath

IBT : our galley defends against a barb galley, but is redlined

3) 290BC : change builds

IBT : troops moving through our territory

4) 270BC : nothing much add some more workers to cities

IBT : nothing much

5) 250BC : moving troops

IBT : feud comes in
trade feud for engineering and 12 gold (all he had) to gil
Thea wants feud, engineering + 1050 gold for monotheism, too expensive. she even refuses to ally aginst gil
Something must have hit her head
I go for invention in 7

6) 230BC : moving troops. I will prepare a force for the next player to take out Sumer and Lagash. There are gil's iron supplies

IBT : nothing much

7) 210BC : moving troops

IBT : nothing much

8) 190BC : zzz

IBT : Gil takes Caesarea

9) 170BC : nothing much

IBT : Sumeria and Byz sign peace

10) 150BC : I'll stop here. No units moved. In my opinion gil has moved all his forces through our territory to Thea. There are 6 - 7 units still in our territory. Our core is still lightly defended. If we cashrush units it might be ok. We could move units to take out Sumer next turn and Lagash immediately if we want to hit gil now. I did not check whether Thea would join us in a war against gil to hold his forces in her territory.

Invention is due in 3

 

[Andronicus]

@ mark
how does our military rate compared to Gil's? I'm asuming you have built our military significantly since the end of my turnset if you are contemplating taking him on now

On general strategy we have a choice whether we move to research top of the tree immed after invention (trading for mono with Thea) and encourage Gil and Thea to research guns for us whilst we go Theology, educ, astronomy (only other tech I would expect from them is chivalry). I had hoped we would be able to trade for Thea's mono and go straight to Theo letting the AI's do invention but it appears Thea had other plans.

The other approach is forgetting about AI research and dow Gil as sooon as we can militarily do so, aiming to control our continent and self research to astronomy and cavs.
Recent developments seem to be shifting us towards the latter option

 

[Andronicus]

My last comments were from work without being able to look at the saves. I have now looked at them

Some comments
We are number 1 in culture - have just scraped past Sumeria
We are number 1 in pop, GNP, Mfg Gds, land area

We are weak compared to Barbies and Sumeria, strong to Byz and Dutch

F3 reveals there are Minoan tribes near Berwick (we have no military there)

Sumeria has 6 swords and 2 Enkindo that I can see in our territory, our most vulnerable cities to immed war appear to beCuzco and Warwick, towns around Caesarea and Smyrna could be vulnerable next turn likewise our northern border towns. We are not nearly so exposed as at the beginning of your turns mark

Newcastle is still building a duct - I agree strongly with Abegweit that this city should be abandoned. It has done its job securing horses and providing workers, now it is in the way taking tiles that are needed by Canterbury and Warwick, Leister and Brighton. It can provide a couple of quick settlers (rush)

Our science is slow with no libs - I have been persuaded by the argument we need military rather than libs, but now our corrupt towns are growing I believe we should give serious attention to science farms. I suggest all corrupt towns should not use 1 fpt tiles at all -> scientist, and only use 2fpt tiles where would otherwise starve. Those with plenty of irr grass tiles can support 2 scientists at size 4; or more finicky can support 2 whilst growing, then 3 whilst shrinking at size 6. Towns using food boni tiles will support 3 scientists. To this end the worker priority in corrupt areas should be to irrigate the highest food tiles - eg FPs near Bath & Berwick and wheat near Chicken Itza (being done )

I am not convinced we need quite as many workers as currently being built - I would rather see more settlers as I believe we could do with another 20 or so science farms. Currently building 9 workers and 2 settlers, I would suggest the other way around. We currently have 54 workers and 3 settlers.

edit
currently doing Invention in 3 turns @ 70% science with -11gpt
with scientists in science farms (and switching current taxmen to scientists) we can do Invention in 3 @ 50% with +20gpt or Invention in 2 @ 80% with -58gpt. With intense MM I'm sure we could improve on that gpt.