SGOTM 10 - Team Liz

[Andronicus]

I'm back from 3 days in the bush - magic

Check out the World Cup results : Australia 3, Japan 1 , who's next? Ah Brazil

Thinking about things in the clear outback air, I believe we are not going full strap at ouur best chance for early victory.

I would like to reiterate my previous thoughts about overwhelming Dr Evil with mass cavs ASAP.

We have gone down the military pathway (as I think has Klarius), so having reached this point we need to get max results from it. Our priority now must be to get as many cavs over to Barbaria as quickly as we can. We have plenty of galleons, the limitting factor is our rate of production. We can produce far more cav per turn if we build horses and upgrade. I believe we must go this route. We currently have over 50 cavs, it can soon be over 100.

My concern is if we start saving money for buying steam (3000g Abegweit suggests) we are robbing our chances of overwhelming cavs (3000g pays for 40 Leo assisted horse -> cav upgrades) Without the gold we cannot buy AI free tech (if they get steam). I would rather have the 40 cavs than steam. What happens if we dont destroy them first time? We need to leave 10 cavs by Sumeria and 10 by Byz to be certain - thats another 20 cavs that could be taking down Dr Evil. Our biggest chance of losing an early win is if we gift the AI's, they both draw Nationalism and we cant eliminate them in 1 turn because they have a settler on a boat. For all the risks involved with this (cost of cavs and risk of Dr Evil getting Nationalism) I dont think it is worth while.

I think we should now spend all our effort on sweeping Dr Evil with cavs. If (when) we meet a surprise we cannot deal with we would need to adjust plans, but frankly if we have to research to marines we are behind the fast research teams. If not for the BGs I would expect to eliminate Dr Evil in maybe 12-15 turns. If we are left with 100 cavs to take out the BGs we should be able to do it in 20 (extra turns allows for getting all cavs healed and in range of BS). Getting steam in 10 or so turns will not speed this up when it will cost 40-60 cavs.


edit
For clarity, what I am suggesting is
1) Stop research - set scientists to tax farms (I can see the logic in continuing more efficient scientists, but our specialists can finance another 3 upgrades per turn)
2) Ship all cavs to Barbaria leaving perhaps lone cav near Sumeria and MDIs and eHorse near Byz / Dutch.
3) 3 MoW on Barb west coast and 3 on east coast to prevent settler escapes
4) New builds in corrupt towns to wealth (poss also some current as wont need so many workers if not steaming, and we will get many barb slaves, prob have too many settler builds going - need to watch dom limit if send them all to Barbaria)
5) Raze Barb cities as quickly as poss without large losses, leaving Barb Stronghold till last
6) Send settlers to Barbaria to connect extra lux to allow us to manage WW
7) Mass rush Barb Stronghold hopefully with sev armies to supplement over 100 cavs
8) Ignore the other AI, beating up on them is a distraction. Extract any gold we can from them. Can we poss get an alliance v Dr Evil?

 

[juballs2001]

it would be the best for markh to take the next 5-10 turns... and me after him.

something has just come up within the family... nothing bad, actually quite good... i will give details in a day or two.

please do this swap for me... i will be clear to play in 2 days

 

[Andronicus]

no hurry juballs, but ...

Redbad completes turn 31/5
31/5

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

3/6

sorry guys... i have been without internet for the past day and a half.
i will post my results by tommorow

4/6

update guys.... thereis far too much micromanagement for me in this turnset. i swapped with andro.

no time to do that much work, im kind of stuck under a lot of work at hoem as it is already

Andronicus completes turn 7/6
8/6

alright guys i will play 5 or so turns tonight...

12/6

the earliest i can get to my turnset is tommorow morning...
i will post by tommorow night

13/6

it would be the best for markh to take the next 5-10 turns... and me after him.

something has just come up within the family... nothing bad, actually quite good... i will give details in a day or two.

please do this swap for me... i will be clear to play in 2 days

 

[Paul#42]

it would be the best for markh to take the next 5-10 turns... and me after him.

something has just come up within the family... nothing bad, actually quite good... i will give details in a day or two.

please do this swap for me... i will be clear to play in 2 days

You'd rather like to be skipped this time?

This confusion makes every team member focus on other tasks (games) and we are losing track and efficiency

 

[markh]

I will play tonight. Tomorrow no chance as we are playing Poland at 21.00h.

Are we agreed that we land in the South ?

 

[Paul#42]

I think we had a consense on landing on the olives.

Good luck!

 

[Paul#42]

Thinking about things in the clear outback air, I believe we are not going full strap at ouur best chance for early victory.

Best ideas come to your mind when you are alone with yourself, just you and nature...

My concern is if we start saving money for buying steam (3000g Abegweit suggests) we are robbing our chances of overwhelming cavs (3000g pays for 40 Leo assisted horse -> cav upgrades) Without the gold we cannot buy AI free tech (if they get steam). I would rather have the 40 cavs than steam. What happens if we dont destroy them first time? We need to leave 10 cavs by Sumeria and 10 by Byz to be certain - thats another 20 cavs that could be taking down Dr Evil. Our biggest chance of losing an early win is if we gift the AI's, they both draw Nationalism and we cant eliminate them in 1 turn because they have a settler on a boat. For all the risks involved with this (cost of cavs and risk of Dr Evil getting Nationalism) I dont think it is worth while.

Good point about those risks. We can not be completly sure that no settler escaped. Some bad luck could really spoil our chances.

1) Stop research - set scientists to tax farms (I can see the logic in continuing more efficient scientists, but our specialists can finance another 3 upgrades per turn)
2) Ship all cavs to Barbaria leaving perhaps lone cav near Sumeria and MDIs and eHorse near Byz / Dutch.

I'd bring eHorses to Barbaria for faster leader chances.

3) 3 MoW on Barb west coast and 3 on east coast to prevent settler escapes

good call.

4) New builds in corrupt towns to wealth (poss also some current as wont need so many workers if not steaming, and we will get many barb slaves, prob have too many settler builds going - need to watch dom limit if send them all to Barbaria)

We should take 5-10 settlers to barbaria to use some combat settlers. These might take our forces faster to those BGs by using roads!

5) Raze Barb cities as quickly as poss without large losses, leaving Barb Stronghold till last

At least have a spearhead exploring its strength. It might be appealing to burn this Thieves Guild early.

6) Send settlers to Barbaria to connect extra lux to allow us to manage WW

nice idea. let's get a harbor soon. First town (on olives?) builds harbor, barracks, walls(?).

7) Mass rush Barb Stronghold hopefully with sev armies to supplement over 100 cavs
8) Ignore the other AI, beating up on them is a distraction. Extract any gold we can from them. Can we poss get an alliance v Dr Evil?

D'accord.

 

[markh]

I played 7 to even out and I am quite tired. Here it is.

0) 430AD : move a lot cavs towards our west coast
change scientists to taxmen making +931gpt

IBT : nothing

1) 440AD : cavs boarding
upgrade 2 caravels to galleons, rush 2 MOWs as escort for the trek starting next turn

IBT : Bad Tibiria flips

2) 450AD : our invasion force sets sail, D-Day in 3

IBT : Constantinople flips and TGL is gone. I am fed up with this. Thea will be gone soon.

3) 460AD : declare war on Thea
retake Constantinople

IBT : nothing

4) 470AD : our invasion force lands
we take Heraclea and Thea is gone

IBT : Dr Evil sinks a barb galley. Family crisis ?
Actually I observed 3 barb galleys strolling around
Erech flips, That's it with Gil, too. I am too annoyed with such a crap.

5) 480AD : found Beach Head
we raze the first barb city

IBT : barbs land a pike and MDI at Beach Head
2 barb galley attack one of our caravels, one suicides, the second sinks our caravel

6) 490AD : capture New Olmec
raze Chanca2
raze another city, never heard of that city
raze Anasazi2
declare war on Gilgamesh
take Bad Tibiria
take Erech

IBT : nothing

7) 500AD : raze Neu Lupaca
raze New Cherokee
raze New Asazi
take Kish and Gil is gone

Attached is a pic. No counter attack from Dr Evil so far. The cavs in the West should take the last two remaining cities in the SW next turn. There are a lot of barb galleys moving around. Could be a problem, but I think he will try to settle on the continent than on an island.
I do not think that we need any more research. The best Dr. Evil has are pikes and MDIs.

 

[Andronicus]

Great going mark, I think it was the correct decision eliminating Gil and Thea.

I note A Team has no posts for 6 days - could they have finished? If so we have a window of at least 15 turns, although Klarius may be finishing earlier.

Had a quick look at save before coming to work

- science to 0 gives an extra 71gpt

- extra 37 taxmen gives extra 74gpt (2 taxmen in Copan, Caesarea, Ollantaytambo, Birmingham, Manchester, Carlisle, Neu Cant., Trebizond, New Cambridge, New Manchwester, Constantinople, 1 in New Richmond, Varna, Quirigua, Ipswich, Portsmouth, Neu York, Neu Nott., Neu Hastings, Neww Nott, New Hastings, New Exeter, New Bristol, New Carlisle, New Ipswich)

- no gain in settler builds beyond 20 turns (Copan, Lagash, New Berwick)
? wealth

- towns with no shields invested yet ? wealth (eg Kish)

- add pop to Canterbury (see below), Umma, New Dover, Smyrna

- fire specialists in core cities (Oxford increases 2gpt by working coast rather than hiring taxman)

- mine plains in cities with food excess (York (after changes descibed below), Oxford (after putting taxman to work))

- Canterbury can be building 3 turn cavs as I previously descibed. Can now do it by swapping York's hill for river mGrass, and use desert in place of iFP - can the nadd pop to use FP and stop starving. York then needs to switch sea tile to iPlains (from Leicester which has some to spare) to maintain 15spt.

- specialist town using 2 food instead of 3 food tiles (Nicea - I think this has just occurred as grass irrigation just completed)

- do want to decrease number of MoW builds? I suggest Oxford -> rax -> horses

- we have only 39% area, well below dom limit so can build more towns in southern part of Barb land.

- I wonder about the value of the following builds: harbours in Erech and New Exeter; galleons in Ollantaytambo, Heraclea, New The Mumbles; duct in Berwick; settler in New Brighton (not growing size 3); pike (reg) in New Ipswich. Wealth might be better value

- flip risk - I havnt checked, but I suspect it might be sig in New Olmec. Suggest abandoning and rush harbour in Beach Head (to bring lux back to home continent)

- are we / could we use ship chaining to speed transport across. Should we dedicate some gfalleons to collect settlers from south of our continent and rapidly get them to barbarian southern area?

- colony on silks next turn (need to reinforce it)

- not sure how many turns left on GA but I think its about 3 - we will require some re-MMing after it ends. I suspect only London will be more than 20 spt (27 for 3 turn cavs), so others will likely be building horses and we will need as much gold as poss for upgrading.

 

[Paul#42]

Good job, Mark!

We could use an "arrow-map" for some detailed plans of our conquest.

How many defenders did those towns have? Pikes or spears? Vet or Reg?
How many cavs have we got on Dr. Evil's (soon to be ours) island?

juballs, you want to play (seriously ) or to be skipped?
(I'd love to play the next turnset )

 

[markh]

I did not change much. I used CA2 to see which cities grew and managed these. The other cities I did not touch. They seemed ok for me. The gold we got was sufficient to rush and upgrade what we needed, therefore I had science at 10%.

I admit some builds were not very smart. I just took something as I thought these would not be comleted anyway.

There are a lot of settlers on the way to barb land. Several already boarded and can be landed next turn I think.

I did not check on the flip risk of NO. I wanted a base to heal the wounded cavs sooner. The way back to Beach Head is too far and settlers to close the gap will arrive just now. NO has no cultural pressure any more , so maybe it is secure until we can replace/abandon it. Next player still can abandon it if flip risk is too high.

 

[markh]

How many defenders did those towns have? Pikes or spears? Vet or Reg?
How many cavs have we got on Dr. Evil's (soon to be ours) island?

They mainly had 1 or 2 pikes and a longbow in their cities. The cities I razed last turn just had one pike then a spear. IIRC they mainly had regs.
I did not count the cavs. I landed about 50 and I lost maybe 3 or 4. First reinforcements already arrived and it should be about 70 I would guess. Next player will definitely have fun.

 

[Paul#42]

Next player will definitely have fun.

Me, me, me!!

(Anybody remember that donkey at the intro of Shrek?)

 

[Andronicus]

Me, me, me!!

(Anybody remember that donkey at the intro of Shrek?)

Hope you're not going to be annoying like the donkey

 

[Paul#42]

Hope you're not going to be annoying like the donkey

Depends on when (and how) juballs responds...

However as Mark stated - today is Germany - Poland and I will not be playing. But if juballs doesn't play till tomorrow evening I'd like to take it and

 

[Andronicus]

I did not change much. I used CA2 to see which cities grew and managed these. The other cities I did not touch. They seemed ok for me. The gold we got was sufficient to rush and upgrade what we needed, therefore I had science at 10%.

Whilst in our GA we should have excess gold, but we will need it in a few turns when our GA ends as we will probably be upgrading far more horses per turn as only London is likely to provide a more efficient cavalry build

I did not check on the flip risk of NO. I wanted a base to heal the wounded cavs sooner. The way back to Beach Head is too far and settlers to close the gap will arrive just now. NO has no cultural pressure any more , so maybe it is secure until we can replace/abandon it. Next player still can abandon it if flip risk is too high.

civassist calculates flip risk as 0.1-6.4% requiring 45 units to totally negate

 

[Paul#42]

I note A Team has no posts for 6 days - could they have finished? If so we have a window of at least 15 turns, although Klarius may be finishing earlier.

I don't think they have finished yet, 360 tiles territory and half our score can't be enough to accomplish the mission. Right?

 

[Paul#42]

Whilst in our GA we should have excess gold, but we will need it in a few turns when our GA ends as we will probably be upgrading far more horses per turn as only London is likely to provide a more efficient cavalry build

Not to mention the short rushing of horses in 10- and 5-spt-towns...
You can never have too much money... (unless you wait for Gandhi to go to space and have nothing left to improve )

 

[markh]

Whilst in our GA we should have excess gold, but we will need it in a few turns when our GA ends as we will probably be upgrading far more horses per turn as only London is likely to provide a more efficient cavalry build

Yes, didn't consider that. Was too focused on rushing, upgrading and shipping units. We have a good number of settlers on the way, so these new towns should reduce our unit costs considerably. At the moment these costs are rising fast. Maybe we should switch the "Wealth"-cities back to settlers.

 

[Andronicus]

Depends on when (and how) juballs responds...

However as Mark stated - today is Germany - Poland and I will not be playing. But if juballs doesn't play till tomorrow evening I'd like to take it and

If juballs doesnt take it in the 24 hours I suggest you take it Paul.
The next few turns do indeed appear to be a lot of fun.
I think we have 15-20 turns to beat A Teams time. We may meet slightly stronger resistance in Dr Evil's core towns, but if he only has pikes it should be a cakewalk until we meet his BGs.
We currently have 98 cavs - 17 on southern part of Barb land, 44 on northern part, 6 in galleons en route. I would bring over the 5 by Bill (leave the MDIs and eHorses - they are too slow) and the ones in former Sumeria as soon as healed. I anticipate we may need up to 100 cavs to attack BS if they have a large number of BGs there. In another 5 turns we should have 150 so getting 100 healed cavs in vicinity of BS in next 10 turns should be no problem.
There are 3 southern towns visible which should fall next turn, possibly another in the fog further south.
There may be an island in the NE of barb land - a galleon with 4 cavs diverted there should quickly account for it.
I suggest split northern forces in 2 as per Plan A map. Blue force goes anticlockwise, Green force clockwise and reinforcements form Red force for central core, with all 3 meeting up in about 10 turns to take on BS. Of course we must be prepared to switch to Plan B ... whatever that is

edit - I suggest a town 2NE of NO to allow ship chain to enter town and units move straight away