SGOTM 10 - Team Liz

[Redbad]

My first turn takes forever, as I'm reading our last few pages, printing out Abegweits dotmaps and MMing until I'm seeing all stars and stripes.

Indeed, well done Andronicus, I see I reinvented your wheel. Sorry about that I have to do some more reading before I start civving.

About the disbanding of the cities Yaxchilan, Chichen Itza, Bath and Smyrna. Yes it would make room for more cities if we moved them. However I'm not that keen on disbanding Chichen Itza as it will get tourism income in 390AD.

I've noted Abegweits warning about Constantinople. I will come in full force, like 20 to 25 units. Not only because Constantinople has to fall, but also as Paul stated if it flips we will take it back. Thea has no iron, so she'll get only a spear should it flip. btw I've reduced Leo to 9 turns.

Question: shall I let Thea live on in case we want a IA tech?

Abegweit suggested getting Oxford, Nottingham and York go on caravel duty. I fully agree. I even think caravels could very well become our Achilles heel. I wouldn't be surprised if there would show up a large number of barb galleys or other floating mischief. Then getting some Men-O-war could be in order.
I reduced Yorks market to 2 turns and then 4-turn caravels, Nottinghams market to a 2-turn harbour and then 3 turn caravels, Oxfords market to a caravel (2 turns) and then 4 turn caravels. Switched Exeters court to a caravel too, cause I don't think the city will ever be significant. (Dover could though).

Further just switching tiles from one city to another, not very exiting. Only thing worth mentioning is trying to exile the scientists to the boonies.

Still not finished pregame turn, already 2 hours on the clock, it will be my longest turn ever

 

[Abegweit]

Question: shall I let Thea live on in case we want a IA tech?

Well, the consensus is that we should never go there. OTOH, it's a cheap insurance policy in case we change our minds. I'd let her live.

 

[Andronicus]

I was thinking along the lines of removing Thea and Gil immed with our first cavs, then Bill cities on our continent with any spare cavs awaiting transport.

The reason for this is to prevent AI from learning new techs and giving them to Dr Evil, this way Dr Evil will only learn guns, astronomy and mil trad by self research

I agree the insurance of free AI tech if we have to go there is worth considering - but 1) I think our chances of winning this game fastest lie with cav conquest, 2) what if we gift up Gil and Thea and they both got Nationalism?

My leaning would be to remove or severely weaken research ability of all other AI (actually just thinking about it - leaving more AI alive but with negligible research potential might increase the beaker cost for Dr Evil to research further techs, but have no effect on us if we have turned science off)

OK I change my mind again and agree with exile others to 1 small city with minimal commerce

 

[Abegweit]

We have agreed to attempt a win with cavs. However, as von Moltke said, "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

2) would be seriously annoying. But it's a one in 9 possibility.

In any case, we can always take them out without bothering to buy the tech should we so choose.

One thing I didn't mention: Dr. Evil is currently in Republic. hmm.

 

[Andronicus]

One thing I didn't mention: Dr. Evil is currently in Republic. hmm.

I noticed also - at least any WW will hit him too

 

[Redbad]

I'm exhausted. I'm stopping in 340AD, 1 turn short, because we hit the Golden Age and I really can't do any more MMing. That's for my successor

Here's what happened:

250 MMing, sell spices to Gil for 5 gpt, gifting Bill horses and he goes from furious to annoyed

IBT: our caravel is sunk by a barb galley

260 zzz

270 zzz

280 zzz

290 zzz

IBT: Thea and Bill start on Knights Templar

300 zzz

IBT: Gil starts on Knights Templar and Dr. Evil builds Sun Tzu

310 attack on Constantinople: 3 MDI and 23 horsemen
we loose 1 MDI and 1 horsemman and we kill 4 pikemen

320 zzz

330 we capture Trebizond and declare peace with Thea

IBT: we build Leo and get golden age, Amsterdam builds Knights Templar

340 don't feel like MMing again and call it a day.

btw another dozen elite victories but still no great leader.

 

[Abegweit]

Constaninople is ours. Four turn science throughout. A smooth increase in our score curve. Lots of caravels. And a GA. The important stuff is been achieved.

Immediate objectives: More cities. More upgrades. (both mean more cash). And I see what you mean about MM. There is a ton of it necessary. The start and end of GA are always pains in this regard. I wish the next player well.

Re: elite victories. Yeah. We have been unlucky. I had about ten and Paul had a lot too. Oh well. I have no doubt we will have plenty when we stake out terrritory in Barbaralia.

Comment: if people want to do 5 turn rounds, it shouldn't be a problem.

Edit: we are still rated weak to the barbs. We do need to move to the attack very soon. However, let's be careful about it. Choose an initial landing point far from their core. I am in favour of a single beachhead in the south.

 

[Andronicus]

re attack on Barb land

I favour a decoy to south as you previously suggested Abegweit

this will draw their units away - land main attack force 4 turns later - they wont be able to counter attack for 4 turns with any force.

Given we are in GA and able to upgrade with full economy turned to tax I expect we can pump out a huge number of cavs in next 20 turns (? 6-10 per turn) which should totally overwhelm Dr Evil unless there are more surprises in store (should I say until we find Gyathaar's next surprise?).

With GA boosted superior unirts we should be able to cut through to Dr Evil's core quickly further reducing his ability to counter attack

PS great going Redbad

 

[Andronicus]

Roster
Abegweit
Redbad - just played
juballs2001 ? still around, give 24/24
Andronicus - on deck
markh
Paul#42

Question - will this be everyone's last turnset?

 

[Paul#42]

310 attack on Constantinople: 3 MDI and 23 horsemen
we loose 1 MDI and 1 horsemman and we kill 4 pikemen

Another brillant example of boldness succeeding...

EDIT: Just for the record (and school) books: How many horses did retreat? Did you let 3 MIs attack first?

I'm still much to hesitant in my warfare...

btw another dozen elite victories but still no great leader.

At least they cannot say, we were only lucky...

 

[Redbad]

Just for the record (and school) books: How many horses did retreat? Did you let 3 MIs attack first?

Of the 3 MIs there were 2 veteran and 1 elite. The 2 veteran attacked: one was killed and the other won and promoted to elite. Then 2 veteran horsemen attacked again the first died and the second won (didn't get promotion). I then saw Thea got a wounded pikeman for defense. Now the elite MI atacked and won and finally a elite horseman attacked and won. So no retreats.

Trebizond had only spears for defense. I attacked them with elite horsemen only, 1 died and 3 were victorious. No retreat there either.

 

[juballs2001]

i am still around....

knowing that this is gonna be a MM turn... this should be trying for me...

i will pick it up today or tommorow and play

 

[Andronicus]

Quick look at save (edit - OK I ended up having looong look at save )

Notice Bill has guns and astronomy, so Dr Evil will also, hopefully we get to him before cavs.

We seem in good shape

Priority needs to given to optimise builds now in GA
Caravels
Nott can do 20spt -> 2 turners
Dover, Liverpool, Oxford and Cambridge can do 10spt -> 4 turners
Few extras from Exeter, Bristol -> approx 2 caravels per turn
Currently have 8, 6 more in productin. How many do we want ? 30? - should have by end of 10 turns.
I suggest York switches to horse at 15spt (cant manage 20spt) as most efficient build, although 3 turn caravel an option if people think we need more.
After this can put good producers onto military (after rax if required)

Cavalry
A number of cities produce over 20spt and are more efficient building cavs than horses for upgrading - aim is 40, 27 or 20spt
London 40spt -> 2 turner (collosseum is a pre-build)
Cuzco 27spt -> 3 turner
Coventry 27spt (if steals mBG from Warwick) -> 3 turner
Hastings 24spt -> 4 turner (? 27spt when mountain mined and grown to size 12)
Warwick 23spt -> 4 turner (cant quite make 27spt so reduce a bit to boost Coventry)

Horses
Aim here is 15 or 10 spt
York, Gloucester, Brighton, Leicester, Canterbury, Norwich all at least 15spt -> 2 turners
Machu Picchu and Leeds 10spt -> 3 turners
I suggest switch Richmond to rax (court only nets 1 more shield) and 12spt -> another 3 turner
With Richmond inluded this gives 7 horsemen per turn

Currently can make 656gpt @ 0% science and 20% lux, have 29 scientists so we could do over 700gpt running zero science
As Redbad calculated Leo's allows us to upgrade horse to cav for 75g - those 7 horse will upgrade for 525g per turn, still leaving a little change for rushing current horses (45, only 4 I can find are elites so 41 will req 2975g, have 262 in hand) - I suspect most can be rushed in 10-15 turns. Remember more towns = more commerce.

So above will give 1.3 cav and 7 horse -> 8 cav at least per turn during our GA. Imagine 80 cavs travelling to barbie land in 30 caravels in 10 turns.

 

[Andronicus]

Settlers
biggest gain is from towns with food boni
I suggest next 4 towns be settled near FPs between Nicaea, New Leeds and Varna per Abegweit's dotmap

edit - I dont see priority to move Varna as can grow to utilise all avail food boni (as Varna has rax I would make use of it to build horse there and allow to grow).

Workers
Should either be improving core (note Isin, New Liverpool, Syrna and New Dover not included in above post but will become productive with improvement and growth) or irrigating corrupt tiles to get 3 or more fpt so can support more taxmen

 

[Andronicus]

War
We need a firm plan on what to do with our troops to get max benefit
My suggestion
In 2 turns peace treaty and 15gpt payment from Gil runs out. This gives us time to upgrade a few HM and dow. I suggest first target is Lagash for HG (if we can lower lux slider we will be able to afford more upgrades sooner) and Sumer to disconect iron (if dont have sufficient numbers for 2 strike forces - then just pillage iron at Sumer first turn of war). Gil can build knights so beware on the counter attack. I dont expect him to have many yet, but Leicester and Newcastle are vulnerable.
How far we take this war depends on timing and plans for barb war.

I would also be keen to remove Bill from our continent esp before he builds too many pesky crusaders. Whilst he cant do too much damage to us we dont need the distraction of war on our home continent when we throw our forces at Dr Evil. If Gil falls quickly perhaps we could afford a short diversion south before boarding for our overseas excursion? I suspect more likely it will delay us too long. Opinions anyone.

The most important war will be the invasion of barbie land
Given the number of units I calculate should be avail in 10 turns what do people think of these options
1) Big landing force far south, est base from which we attack northward
2) Big landing force right at Dr Evil's heart across from Bristol - settle and rush rax for healing, go straight for his core.
3) Small force (3 caravels full) south as diversion perhaps landing in 5-7 turns from now, then main force land as in 2 above

 

[Abegweit]

Nice analysis, Andronicus

I agree with everything you have to say. The conclusion is that we should be building the war machine over this set of turns in preparation for an invasion. In the meantime, if the player wants to toy with Gil or Bill, by all means do it...

Of your three invasion plans, I am definitely against #2. I think I still prefer the diversion over a big southern beach-head. Maybe I should have taken some shots to show the team (sorry), but he doesn't seem to have Sid-level troops. I saw lots of MDIs and Pikes on the roads but they came in ones and twos, and some squares were empty. This means that a diversion should work.

Oh, and if Dr. E has astronomy, we need magnetism. We do want control of the seas.

 

[Andronicus]

Well I've just returned from a 10k run (great for mulling over problems - RL and civ ) and I see a problem, but also a solution.

The problem
We are currently paying 26gpt in unit support. On my above calculations, if we lose no cavs (which wont happen) during our GA we will end up with an extra 180 units (160cavs and 20 caravels) costing an extra 360gpt which will cripple upgrading. Part of the problem is the 40 odd horse awaiting upgrading. If we are unable to upgrade them soon we will be paying 80 gpt for useless units sitting around.

A solution
16spt towns can build cavs instead of horse. Over 20 turns of GA we will get 4 cavs (which can be immed put to use) instead of 10 horse waiting to be upgraded. This gives us more useful units at less cost until such time we have all horses upgraded and cash to spare for switching over to 2 turn horses and upgrade.
We need to get all our units useful ASAP which means upgrade current horse first. I anticipate this taking 8-10 turns.
edit - Gloucester, Canterbury and Norwich can all make 5 turn cavs instead of 2 turn horses - also get Leicester 16spt next turn as hill mine comletes and Brighton 16spt by taking olive hill from Leeds (Leeds loses a specialist to maintain 10spt) , saving 25 upgrades in next 10 turns which should see most horses upgraded. End result 10 more cavs, 25 less horse.

 

[Andronicus]

Of your three invasion plans, I am definitely against #2. I think I still prefer the diversion over a big southern beach-head. Maybe I should have taken some shots to show the team (sorry), but he doesn't seem to have Sid-level troops. I saw lots of MDIs and Pikes on the roads but they came in ones and twos, and some squares were empty. This means that a diversion should work.

Given others have chivalry and guns we can expect knights and muskets, but knights are likely to be few as chivalry was only discovered recently

Oh, and if Dr. E has astronomy, we need magnetism. We do want control of the seas.

I am not convinced
We do not fear landings - near our core will be easily repelled with the units built each turn (less units to tackle on their home soil), further away we can always gift to another AI then recapture - only important cities like Lagash with HG would require some garrison (? our eMDI). Reinforcements to retake will never be more than a few turns away.
We should not fear sea battles with caravels. They wont attack if they are loaded, attack 1, defence 2 should see us win out most times if we are attacked, stacking our large numbers should discourage attacks anyway.

We can not have things both ways.
Either we go zero science and upgrade as many horse to cavs as possible resulting in overwhelming numbers to take down his cities (including any producing naval units) or we sacrifice the mass horse uprades and proceed to MoW. I dont think we need MoW based on current available information, should circumstances change then we would need to change plans and do some 4 turn research. Another point, though minor is magnetism cancels GLH and would result in 1 less movement although galleons would give 1 extra transport. Also if we resaerch magnetism doesnt that make it cheaper for Dr Evil?

 

[Paul#42]

Nice anaylysis, both A's

As an attack plan I would prefer a mix of #1 and #3. I don not like landing right at his heart, I'd rather have a beachhead with a nice killing zone around. Let him throw his offense to us, and then push forward.

As a spearhead I would also like a small force, just to test resistance. Three caravels, a settler and some pikes, maybe even MIs as they don't help protecting our home too much.

I also do not think that we should invest too much researching Magnetism. Even a lone scientist doesn't really help, if we find out that we want it, we will have to get it way before 50 turns are over. Let's try with caravels and cavs first.

Some screenies of the proposed beachhead(s) would be nice of course...

 

[Abegweit]

There is no point in lone scientist. Either we decide to defend ourselves from Pirate Ships... or we don't. I had hoped that we could avoid meeting them. Apparently we can't.