SGOTM 10 - The A Team

[killercane]

Well looking at the save, there are three knights forted there by Cherokee. We have to move them fast to the front and keep them moving. We should be able to take Cherokee this turn or next. I think it should be razed for workers. I would rather raze cities to provide workers than take up cargo space with our workers but if we are out of troops to ferry then it makes lots of sense. We just need those roads very soon. And a settler or two to provide an unload point in barbaria so that we do not have to drop the troops off on the unroaded landmass.

The settler up by the ivory will do us no good until/if we have navigation. And the treb will be destroyed by the barb warrior.

The Musket builds I dont think will do us any good either. Better to have a regular cav than a musket in this situation. We are pressed for time now, we have to really move to end the Barbs quickly.

 

[ThERat]

maybe I was too careful, but I did not want to lose the knight army. managed to take 2 cities and raze 1, not too bad I think. Now we have more troops over there. I wasn't sure what to expect from the barbs in terms of response.
They do send knights and LB's and quite a few of them. I prefer to raze cities since we don't want to be bogged down with defense.

I did not build asingle musket as they are overpriced and not useful IMHO. That's whay I wanted to hear the team about this.
I grabbed the ivory to make sure we get it and not one of the others. We can slowly build a harbor and get slaves there.
Once we have navigation, we can then rush the harbor for more happies.

 

[killercane]

Perhaps we can set the Byz towards Navigation, but I hate to give them Astro as the Barbs will be running about with those pirate ships via Tech Thieves. Our Golden Age will unfortunately end soon. Perhaps we can switch London to building the Mil Academy per Obormots suggestion and short rush Knights as much as possible.

We should probably slow down on playing and do some more discussion as we are far out in front of the other teams in terms of saves.

 

[ThERat]

actually one option would have been to eliminate everyone on our continent so that the barbs do not get techs. Their GL will never expire? If that's the case, we might want to really eliminate all 3 so that the barbs do not get Cavalry.

But, I guess that would simply take too much time. I think it's better to just try and get the barbs with combined forces, maybe we should gift Sumer and Dutch to higher techs as well?

As for our campaign. I think we should raze and replace as much as we can. The flip risk for those fringe cities is already unacceptably high. We better raze and get slaves. We can ship some of them home and join more natvies in our cities. This will decrease unit cost ofr us as well.

We should try and find the barb core and maybe circumnavigate their continent so that we have an idea what we are facing.

 

[hendrikszoon]

I agree with killercane that we should discuss the next steps very detailed.

In my opinion we should eliminate all the other Civilizations. They will not help us a lot. Some years ago I played an SdM - the German version of GotM - with two alliances in a locked war. Every alliance consisted of three Civilizations. So I played together with two AIs against three other AIs. It was the only game I had lost in this series. The two other AI Civilizations were a catastrophy - they did allways the wrong things - and because of the locked alliance I was not able to eliminate them (I would have done it if possible). And in this game there was only one continent. I can't believe that the other AI Civilizations will send a lot of troops to the Barbarian Continent. So the only help I expect from them is that they will eliminate some Barbarian ships.

And in this game the Barbarians will get immediately every Technology researched by the other Civilizations. And in the Civilopedia nothing is written that the Technology Thieft Wonder will expire. So at least we should never, never trade any Technology.

In a few turns the problems with War Weariness will start. These War Weariness is the reason why the other Teams didn't make the Slingshot. Only we were so crazy to do it. But at the time we decided to try the Slingshot I was - not completely, but relatively - sure that the Barbarians are on their own Continent. By the way, Team Liz now have changed its Government after a four turns Anarchy. And I am sure their choice was not Republic.

Without any doubts we have to switch to Monarchy - never fear, I will not do it before the Golden Age has ended. The only question is: When we should do it? I would like to do it after we have researched Military Tradition. But in this case we would have to change our military activities against the Barbarians from offense to defense.

In my opinion we have to raze the Barbarian Cities. The flip risk is too high. The Barbarians have a lot of Cities. So after some time when we have conquered 10-15 Barbarian Cities nearly every turn a City will flip. Then a lot of our Troops will do nothing else to reconquer these Cities. And while they are doing this they will have some losses. In my eyes this is a waste of our Units.

Last point from my side: I agree to build Military Academy and The Pentagon. We need a lot of strong Armies to take out the Barbarian Guards.

 

[Obormot]

I don't think we should eliminate other civs. Just not trading with them should be enough. Of course they will be of no help, but I think that wasting time conquering them is not a good idea too. We will only gain some taxmen for upgrading our units and that's all.

As for the switch to monarchy, I am in doubt. I think we should stay in Republic at least untill MT and then we'll see how bad the WW will be. I think that the first level of WW in Republic is still better then Monarchy the second is propably worse, but not by far and propably not worse enough to justify a 7 or 8 turn anarchy if we draw one. Anarchy lenght depends on RNG and on empire size, so we are very likely to get a long anarchy now.

We should raze barb cities, i agree. Keep one or two coastal cities to speed up movement by a turn and maybe few key cities that would speed up troop movement.

 

[ThERat]

I am with Obormot here. Eliminating the others would cost us too many turns. In the meantime we can focus on razing barb towns so that even their gain in techs wouldn't help them much.

It looks as if the barbs have built cities defended by pikes only and we should be able to handle them. The stronghold will be an entirely different story.

But, even if they get higher techs, it won't help them much. Speed is essential now to get rid of the majority of cities. The AI's will send settlers over to fill the gaps and that will help us as well.

As for the government. If we can gain more luxes (we can get gems and ivory now), it would help fight WW. Are we sure to get WW? How do we know that? Barbs usually never give WW, so where do you guys get this info from?
By the way, how do you figure that the other team had 4 turns anarchy (I am interested to know how you can tell, do you use the graphs for that?)

 

[hendrikszoon]

I am with Obormot here. Eliminating the others would cost us too many turns. In the meantime we can focus on razing barb towns so that even their gain in techs wouldn't help them much.

It looks as if the barbs have built cities defended by pikes only and we should be able to handle them. The stronghold will be an entirely different story.

The Barbarians will get Gunpowder soon - if they don't have it yet - and then it will not be easy to conquer their Cities. And they have a lot of Cities (Before you ask me how it is possible to know this: have a look to the Victory Screen).

Also if we are forcing our military activities against the Barbarians we will have the War Weariness problems very, very soon (explanation concerning War Weariness see below).

As for the government. If we can gain more luxes (we can get gems and ivory now), it would help fight WW.

One or two or three additional Luxuries will not help us really. In the SdM mentioned in my post before I made the mistake to choose Republic. I had terrible War Weariness problems and when I switched to Monarchy, it was too late. We should not make the same mistake.

As for the government. If we can gain more luxes (we can get gems and ivory now), it would help fight WW. Are we sure to get WW? How do we know that? Barbs usually never give WW, so where do you guys get this info from?

I am nearly completely sure - I would say around 99.99%. The Barbarian Civilization are not Barbarians. They are an AI Civilization named Barbarians, but their behavior is the behavior of a "normal" AI Civilization. And I never heard that it is possible to switch off "War Weariness" for the fights with a special AI Civilization.

By the way, how do you figure that the other team had 4 turns anarchy (I am interested to know how you can tell, do you use the graphs for that?)

It is very easy: I took a look into their spoiler. But please don't tell it to anybody else, maybe we would become disqualified.

But there is also another possibility to get the information without taking a look into the spoiler of Team Liz. You are right: I used the Culture Graph (thanks to you, now I know how I can get it). Between 350BC and 150BC (10 turns) the Culture value of Team Liz increased from around - you can't extract the exact values from the Culture Graph, but the estimations you can get are sufficient - 660 to around 1450. So in this time they had an increase of Culture of around 79 CpT. But in the six turns from 470BC to 350BC they had only an increase from around 510 to around 660. So it is obviously that they lost four turns.

But this calculation is wrong - or better: not complete - because I oversaw something. They also lost one turn in the session between 550BC to 470BC (Culture increase of around 230). So I would say that their revolution take place in 490BC followed by a five turns Anarchy.

 

[Obormot]

I am afraid they already have gunpowder Because we know it and Byzantines know it. So it is too late now. As for further techs, only nationalism is bad, but tehre is still a long way to go, so I think we better concentrate on eliminating barbs before AIs on our continent reach Industrial age.

 

[killercane]

Well I dont like the govt change idea but I do see the benefits mentioned by Hendrik. We will not want to change until after stage 1 WW, which hits pretty soon I would assume (next 5 turns). But that still gives another 10 turns or so before stage 2 WW. We will have MT by that time and will turn off research.

We can A) do Navigation and connect the silks in Barbaria and ivory on Rat Island or B) do the govt change and assume a 5 turn anarchy.

I would rather do A and continue to the finish with WW.

We need to find the barbarian guards asap. I wouldnt be surprised if they were in all the core cities. Either that or placed blocking the capital somehow. Maybe the capital is guarded by a 2 tile mountain gate with lakes around, thus the stronghold name.

To be competitive, I would think we will have to end the Barbarians in the next 30 turns. I dont think that is enough time to destroy the other civs too, and our lone troop on the Dutch front (weakest AI) is the army. I dont think it can cut through a bunch of swiss mercs by itself, thus we would need to devote more resources to claiming what would be only a few taxmen.

We could use a FP, but using all leaders for armies is better I think at this time. Barb Stronghold is undoubtedly a great city site, we could build a FP there if we get there in a few turns, but its flip risk will be absurdly high and we would lose that. I think we should just raze it and all the other cities, as mentioned above.

I propose changing Newcastle and York to Barracks or knights, and Oxford to a caravel rather than a library. London can do 3 turn cavs when it borrows a bonus grass from another city. But it will need mil academy up asap first. We have 7 more turns of GA left if my count is correct. If we put london up to 39 shields a turn now with that bg it will shave a turn off of Mil Academy I believe. By switching immediately we will have 273 shields in the box by end of GA, 27 shields/turn thereafter will take 5 turns more. So mil academy in 12 turns.

We will make about 200 gold per turn out of GA with no research, but I dont doubt we can get that up to 250/turn with some markets in the core. And 300 gpt if we get some corrupt cities down to alleviate our support costs. If this is going to be a long hard slog I would rather have those up sooner rather than later.

Another idea, but in my mind a fool hardy one is to ROP rape Byzantium and take Leos workshop. That is more akin to Hendrikzoon's idea of killing all other AIs, since we would need to do a lot of hurting to the Byz to take away flip risk, ie eliminate cultural influence on Constantinople by razing core cities of theirs around. We can then build horses for mass upgrade, that is 3-4 cavs/turn, certainly better production than we will have. But I do not know if it will be too late to make use of that. I still cant get a feel of how strong the Barbs really are and how many troops we will need to take them. If we are in for a hard war it would be better to do that but I just dont know at this point.

One benefit of playing slower right now will be the other teams will think we are done .

 

[hendrikszoon]

We will not want to change until after stage 1 WW, which hits pretty soon I would assume (next 5 turns). But that still gives another 10 turns or so before stage 2 WW.

If the theory mentioned on the War Weariness Page is correct, we should already have War Weariness Level 1. And after my ten turns we will have at least War Weariness Level 2.

But I made a calculation concerning the consequences of War Weariness. When we are continuing to fight the Barbarian Civilization with high intensity, we will get War Weariness Level 4 very soon - latest after further twenty turns.

I started with my calculations in London. From 12 Citizens living in London we get 11 "Unhappy Faces" mad. With War Weariness Level 4 we get further 12 . In sum we have 23 . So we need 23 "Happy Faces" )). We get four from our Luxuries and one from The Hanging Gardens. So we need 18 further to compensate the . Setting the Luxury slider to 40% should give us these missing . So for London it is acceptable to stay in Republic.

The problems will occur in other big cities which are far away from the capital. Because of the corruption in these cities a 40% Luxury rate will not prevent it from revolting.

But after thinking a little, now I have changed my mind.

If we have a Twelve-Citizens-City far away from the Capital, we have no chance to prevent it from revolting. But also this can be an advantage. Because of waste this City should be not very productive. So we can make eleven Citizens to Scientist. Then we get a revolting City which is not producing any Shield and which is also not growing (because of reaching the population maximum in any case the City will not grow). But this City will produce 33 Research Beakers.

So I agree to stay in Republic.

To be competitive, I would think we will have to end the Barbarians in the next 30 turns.

If we will be able finish the game in the next 30 - or also 40 - turns, my idea with fighting the other Civilizations is really nonsens without any doubts. But the problem is - maybe I am a pessimist - I am believing that we will need a lot of more turns.

Maybe the capital is guarded by a 2 tile mountain gate with lakes around, thus the stronghold name.

My personal nightmare is something else: Strongholds normally have - with one execption: when they are placed on a Mountain they have not - a moat. So it is possible that the Barbarian Stronghold is placed on a one tile island in a lake. In this case we would need Marines to get it.

Fortunately there is something arguing against my nightmare. The Marines have an Attack Value of 12. So there is no big difference between Attack Value of the Marines and Defense Value of the Barbarian Guards. In this case the implementation of the Barbarian Guards wouldn't have made a lot of sense.

Another idea, but in my mind a fool hardy one is to ROP rape Byzantium and take Leos workshop. That is more akin to Hendrikzoon's idea of killing all other AIs, since we would need to do a lot of hurting to the Byz to take away flip risk, ie eliminate cultural influence on Constantinople by razing core cities of theirs around. We can then build horses for mass upgrade, that is 3-4 cavs/turn, certainly better production than we will have.

Maybe this could be a compromize between ThERat/Obormot and me. The Dutch are weak. We can let them alive - at least at the moment. But the Byzantines and the Sumerians trouble me.

 

[Obormot]

Leo's is a good wonder. I assume we are going to stop research at MT or Navigation and use all money for upgrading horsemen (disconnect iron forever and disconnect/reconnect saltpeter every turn). But I am still no convinced that capturing it will pay off especially if we run 40% lux or switch to monarchy which means less gold for upgrading.

 

[killercane]

If we will be able finish the game in the next 30 - or also 40 - turns, my idea with fighting the other Civilizations is really nonsens without any doubts. But the problem is - maybe I am a pessimist - I am believing that we will need a lot of more turns.

You are probably right. I do not know how strong these Barbarians are, nor what to expect out of them.

I forgot that we will have gems available in addition to ivory and silks when we hit navigation. That will make 6 luxes for us, including the Byz dyes by trade or by taking.

I am coming around to the fighting Byzantium idea. It stops their research (and the barbs therefore, Sumeria is not so fast researching right now) though there is nothing really that I am afraid of Barbs getting other than MT and then Nationalsim as Obormot mentioned. It gives us dyes, and by allying the Dutch will make them both pretty weak. Plus more opportunities for leaders which we sorely need. I agree that they will be largely useless in the fight against the Barbs militarily, and will only be able to provide some gpt to us.

The only thing is we have no troops on that front. If Byz have saltpeter then sending in Knights only will be a high loss maneuver. And we will have less money than we think with WW.

 

[Obormot]

Sumeria and Dutch are slow and there is absolutely no point in killing them IMHO.

It may be a good idea to kill Byzantium though because of their fast research and because of Leo's. But this may not solve the problem since the barbs can also research techs on their own. We have also shipped most of our troops over to Barbaria. We can fight a defensive war there of course and a defensive war usually means more leaders then offensive, esecially if it is backed up by some artillery. But it seems to be too much of a waste to have a defensive war in a GOTM. Maybe you are right though, it is actually only a matter of how strong the barbs are.

 

[ThERat]

hendrik, why don't you play a few turns to raze that barb city and then scout a little with the knight army. We should be able to spot the stronghold soon if the army heads west.
Once we know what to expect, we can decide what to do. now, everything we discuss is based on speculation.

 

[hendrikszoon]

My save is available.

I will start with important news: I saw the first Barbarian Guards, but I didn't see the Barbarian Stronghold. And I am sure that it will take some time until the first player of our team will see this City.

The Barbarian Guards I saw (in sum five) are all placed on Mountains with Fortresses. The Barbarian Guards can not move, have a Defense Value of eight and also eight Health Points. So to eliminate one of them we need at least three Cavalry Armies. And I am sure the Barbarians have at least twelve Barbarian Guards, probably more.

Why I believe that there are at twelve Barbarians nevertheless I saw only five? It is easy to explain. The whole Barbarian Stronghold seems to cover an area of 25 tiles. The outer ring seems to consist of 12 Mountains with Fortresses and Barbarian Guards. I didn't see any tile of the inner ring, but it can't be again eight Mountains (in this case it would be not possible to feed 12 Citizens). But it is still possible that my personal nightmare will become reality. But it will took some time until we can prove it.


Game Play

I gave Teodora Horses to get Right of Passage. Then I send the MI Army and the Elite Swordsman close to Nicaea and attacked the City in the next turn. But there were at least four Pikeman in the City. So I couldn't get the City in one turn.

Because there were no troops at the front, I could only take one Byzantine City (Varna). But socralynnek will have now the chance to act a little bit more offensive. Now two Armies are waiting at the gates of Nicaea.

On the Barbarian Continent I was a little bit more offensive. So I could conquer three cities: Cherokee, Olmec and New Anasazi. After selling all buildings I destroyed Cherokee and Olmec. The flipping risk of these Cities with eleven Citizens and close to the Capital was too high. Altogether my game play was very defensive. Nevertheless I have had a lot of losses. But this time I can not say that I have had bad luck because I got two Leaders.


War Weariness and Research

I started with Level 1 War Weariness and ended with a Level 3 one. So it was necessary to set the Luxury slider to 40%. Nevertheless some Entertainer are necessary. These problems with War Weariness are the reason that I decided to research Navigation (seven turns now): We need the Silks (close to New Anasazi there is a Silk resource), Ivory, Furs and Gems to prevent thata 50% Luxury rate will become necessary.

 

[socralynnek]

I downloaded the save and will take a look into it later.
I guess, I will have some questions before I play...

 

[killercane]

Well Barb Guard are on Mountains with a fortress (150% bonus) so that gives them a defense of 22. If we bombard them down to 6 hps, we have 89% chance of killing one with 10 cavalry according to Offas combat calculator. Not too bad. The combat calc doesnt go up to 8 hps .

We can settle a combat city on the bonus grass SW of the mountain where Cherokee used to be (SE of barb guards' mountains). By keeping our units out of the bombard area of the barbs, we can take out one guard, then move all units in to the capital. I would expect 6 muskets in their capital. We will have to stack move the units through due to the barbs' zone of control.

I think we will have enough troops to do this maneuver once we take out all the peripheral cities of the barbs'. I say take out all other cities first since they might get the bright idea to resettle Barb Stronghold if we destroy it.

 

[killercane]

Some pics of barb lands

 

[killercane]

It might be best to up caravel production to be able to ship chain troops up to Apache and the North part of the continent to avoid the bombardment of the guards.

If SP game I would want to settle that BG in the first picture (SW of the mountain), kill a guard, then resettle right there on the irrigated grass to push the front with the combat settler. Assuming the capital is 2 moves inside the mountain barrier, and assuming six muskets on a hill in Barb Stronghold, AND assuming we would need 8-10 cavs to kill a guard, we would need 10 cavs +both cav armies to take the city on the safe side I think. Perhaps more.