SGOTM 10 - Xteam

[scoutsout]

First we need to get those last four Byzantine cities.

Make that two.

But no upgrades until we take Adrianople and Leo's; half price is always nice!!

Upgrades are in progress... and we "waited" for Leo's.

Key to managing Communism is changing your world view about gold and shields. In a government that you can cash-rush, you can convert gold into shields. In communism you've got to convert shields into gold... not by "building wealth", but by identifying shield overruns and turning that into gold... hire a specialist...work a higher commerce tile... etc.

*****

Well dangit... I forgot we were still in Anarchy in 1120 AD. So much for the comparative analysis.

So... this would constitute something that resembles a pre-flight check.

Key to managing our collective will be balanced production. Since we cannot cash-rush or short-rush with cash, we must make every effort to minimize shield overruns on our builds. Any citizen working an overrun shield might be put to better use as a specialist...or doing something else useful for the empire.

Take London... currently producing 31spt net. At that rate a Man-O-War will be completed in 3 turns, with a shield overrun of 28 shields on a build that costs 65 shields. I can put 3 citizens on coastal tiles, which frees up some land tiles for York and Canterbury.

Ur is producing 14spt net... and one turn from equipping a setter. There is a riverside horse that is not being worked... and that one MM move adds 2gpt to our treasury. Swapping the build to a Rifleman gets it to 20spt net... a Nice Number.

Hiring a scientist in Chichen Itza nets a few shillings to the beakers...

Note: We get the benefit of mobilization when building ships of the line, but not when building Galleons.

We're at 441g, +178gpt... Replaceable Parts due next turn. After "a little" MM, we get to +194 gpt... without slowing down any builds. Wake some cannon and knock a few hit points off some Barbarian ships.

Like Mistfit... I can't resist the temptation to play.

IBT - LOTS of Barbarian Bombardment... I saw a galleon in the south...but couldn't tell if it was Byzantine or Barbarian.

Replaceable Parts comes in, queue up Industrialization. Due in 12, but that will change. F2 check - we've got Rubber galore. Four connected, and at least one that isn't.

Turn 1/1255

Tempted to upgrade some Trebs... but then the sticker shock reminds me that...if I do my part, we'll have Leo's this turnset.

Utrecht puts a MoW in the water...and I get to practice Differential Naval Movement. The coast cost 3, sea 2, got it. Bombard a Barbarian Pirate Ship.

Grab some cannon and chip away at some Barbarian ships. I'm going to make them respect the shoreline a little more.

Spend... lots of time fiddling with our workers. First I consolidate them into stacks, sorting the slaves from the natives. Then I start railing all around Canterbury, to get it growing again.

Add some cannon to the stack NW of Adrianople.... Crusaders advance with them.

As predicted by Leif, Industrialization is due in 8 at 60%, +22gpt. Fiddle with the cities and specialists until I get it in 7 at +4gpt.

*****At Nicea
Sword Army whacks a 3/3 Rifle, now 8/14.

Rest the Army at Constantinople... move the banged-up Cavalry to our size 12 cities. Advance our MDI Army on Adriannople.... which is now rioting.

IBT- not so much Barbarian Bombardment this turn. Byzantines whack an exposed MDI/Crusader pair.

Turn 2/1260

I mess up and leave a couple of MoW's where some Barbarian Ironclads can pick them off. At Utrecht one MoW enslaves a Barbarian Frigate.

Rest a couple of armies... advance cannon on Adrianople.

Hiring a Civil Engineer at Apache 2 gets us our harbor a turn sooner at a cost of 1gpt.

I've got Dover producing 30spt net, with a Scientist on the payroll. That's a 3-turn Infantry pump with no Factory.

Fiddle with the cities...Industrialization in 6 at +10gpt.

IBT - the Barbarian Ironclads leave our exposed MoWs alone... because I beat on 'em with some field pieces, they went home to heal.

Turn 3/1265

*****Siege of Adrianople
Cannon Bombardment (18 Field Pieces!) reveals 3 Vet, 1 reg Rifle defending the city. MDI Army whacks a 3/4 Rifle. Vet Crusader takes out a 2/4 Rifle, now 1/4. Redux with another Crusader. Redux with a Crusader against the 1/3 Rifle, and the city is ours. It comes packed with resisters. Natch.

The MDI Army will spend the night there, to quell some resisters.

*****Action at Constantinople
Cavalry Army goes 4/13 taking out a full-health Elite Rifle. Lose 2 Cavalry after seeing a Rifleman standing at "Port Arms". Retreat a couple more. Then a Regular Cav clips a conscript Rifle. Then I retreat some cav and lose ... more than I care to think about... to a couple of conscript riflemen. Finally, we take the city.

Upgrade some stuff this turn...now that we can afford to.

I've got a couple of Galleon builds going on our original coast. Hopefully I can muster 5 or 6 Galleons to make a run at the Barbarian mainland. We'll see how it goes.

IBT - we build so many Cavalry that I don't feel so bad about the cost of Constantinople.

Oh yeah... the Barbarians are up to more of Gyathaar's tricks in Newcastle.

Turn 4/1270

Use our cannon and artillery to work on the Barbarian ships. Sink one, lose one that I just enslaved, damage several others.

Someone needs to use the computer... so I save off a mid-turn save.

Here's what the game looks like as I've left it: >>>The Save<<< I can't promise I'll finish it tonight, but I'll at least play a couple more and post dispatches.

One drawback to being mobilized...not only can we not build any cultural improvements... we can't build aqueducts or courthouses either. We've got a city in our old core (I think it's either York or Nottingham) that's wasting more shields than the former Sumerian capitol.

There's a Barbarian Galleon in the south. I suspect Dr. Evil will pick off the Dutch or the Maya very soon. When we take out the Byzantines it will probably demobilize the economy. When that happens... it will probably also be our last chance to demobilize. I suspect the Barbarians will pick off those islands off our coast.

On another note... we should be established on the Barbarian continent pretty soon. It may not come on my turnset... but I'm working on something here. And yes... it's another one of those "I have an idea" moments.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I'll be on holiday for two weeks from Sunday. I won't have access to internet the first week and probably not the second so I guess I'll wish you guys good luck finishing the game

 

[leif erikson]

Have a great time Capt!!

Nice work Scout!! You've increased our Beaker per turn output to 563, at 60%. That's, roughly, a 20% increase. Your MM skills are showing themselves well. Must have taken some time to get that organized!

The railroad network seems to be fairly well along. I see Galleons being built to transport troops.

I'm curious why so many Cav builds? I thought you guys liked infantry type units??

I'm also curious on your take for force structure for the invasion of Barbaria?
Infantry has the same offensive power as Cavs, but they move slower. That is why I was thinking about organizing as many Cavs as possible in mobile armies that can take out stragglers and provide maximum hitting power where needed but are failry well protected because of their army status. The Infantry, with good defensive capabilities, can better survive as "lone wolves" and protect things like Artillery and Settlers. If we want to ICS the Barb lands, perhaps we should do nothing but farm and rail and use pop rushing to push out settlers and workers, along with an occassional Artillery piece?

Keep up the good work!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I don't think we should waste production capacity on building settlers and stuff when fastest conquest of the Barbs is our goal.
Just leave a unit here and there so we keep track of any rogue Barb settlers and hit them before they can settle.

Edit: the above remark is based on the assumption that we don't want to use Moonsinger's territory-stealing settler strategy.

 

[leif erikson]

I don't think we should waste production capacity on building settlers and stuff when fastest conquest of the Barbs is our goal.
Just leave a unit here and there so we keep track of any rogue Barb settlers and hit them before they can settle.

This another reason I thought we wuld simply burn the barb civilization to the ground!! Besides, who wants to keep track of the domination limit?

Unless, of course, we need that land for a useful purpose?

Edit: the above remark is based on the assumption that we don't want to use Moonsinger's territory-stealing settler strategy.

I missed this one somehow. You'll have to fill me some day, after your vacation.

 

[scoutsout]

Unless, of course, we need that land for a useful purpose?

Two words: Specialist Farming. If we decide to stay mobilized, we will need lots of scientists for the research.

I missed this one somehow. You'll have to fill me some day, after your vacation.

Well... Moonsinger's Article made it into the War Academy... though many (including myself, and Mad-Bax) regard it as a big-time exploit.

As for the Cav builds...they fit with the shield output; 90 shields is a funny number at the moment. We'll need to do some terrain trimming to find some 30-shield cities... though if I find any 15's I'll build some grunts there.

And... "I suspect" we're about to mount a cavalry charge against Theodora, to prevent flips.

 

[DJMGator13]

Infantry for defensive purposes can easily be drafted.

@Scout - do we have a decent city to use as a settler pump for the specialist farming. I'd like to keep the big production cities cranking out the units.

 

[leif erikson]

Infantry for defensive purposes can easily be drafted.

Well, that isn't what I meant. When I was talking about for defensive purposes, I meant defense of Artillery and Cavs in the Barb war zone. Let the Barb waste their offensive units against Infantry teamed with Arty! Then we'll need to take is their defensive units in cities.

 

[scoutsout]

@Scout - do we have a decent city to use as a settler pump for the specialist farming. I'd like to keep the big production cities cranking out the units.

Um... the short answer is "probably"....or "I sure hope so". Dispatches in a moment. Let's just say the tactical situation is now... well shoot. This is a whole new game.

I've got one combat settler flat-footed on the ground on our western peninsula... waiting for our Galleons to return. I used two settlers to found some specialist towns in some former Byzantines floodplains.

I another combat settler ... somewhere else.

 

[scoutsout]

Now let's see...where was I? Oh yes, Turn 4/1270

*****At Nicea
Sword Army, now fully healed, has another go at a 3/4 Rifleman.

Funny...that took us to +0gpt...from the corruption?

Get some rails down to Adrianople...

After much terrain trimming, I get Sumer to 30spt net. There's a second 3-turn Infantry pump.

Hastings is producing 48spt, wasting 11. That's a 21 shield overrun on an Infantry, 10 shields on a cav.

Lots more worker moves... I need to be more self-disciplined and get these worker moves out of the way at the beginning of the turn... but it is just too darn much fun to whack stuff.

Unlesss Theodora's got a city I can't see... she's down to Heraclea.

*****At Heraclea
Vet Cav retreats from a Vet Rifle after taking a longbow freeshot...doing no damage.
Second Vet Cav does a repeat performance.
Third Vet Cav dies flawlessly.
Fourth Vet Cav goes 3/4 killing the Byzantine Rifleman.
Lose another Vet Cav flawlessly.
Sixth cav retreats like #1 and #2.
Seventh Cav retreats doing 1 hp damage.
Eight Cav dies after redlining a Vet Rifle... but we're down to the 3/4 Rifle.
Ninth Cav dies taking the Rifle to 2/4, but he promotes.
Tenth Vet Cav kills the Elite Rifle...leaving me faced with that dreaded defender...

The Conscript Rifleman.

Eleventh Vet Cav whacks the Conscript Rifle.
Twelfth Cav (Elite) whacks the 1/4 Rifle.
Take a 3/4 Cavalry and go after the longbow...

Oh...Mah...Gawd. You guys should see where the new Byzantine Capitol is. I'll give you a hint. I'd have an easier time taking New Teoihuacan than Chalcedon.

You know... taking New Teoihuacan doesn't sound like a half bad idea, team. And for those of you watching and wondering at home... yes, New Teoihuacan is a Barbarian city on the Barbarian Continent.

Spend 225 g to upgrade 3 MDI to Guerrillas. s'right. Guerillas. I might want a defensive freeshot soon.

Fiddle with the cities and get the cash flowing again. Industrialization in 4 at +18gpt. Decide that a 10 shield city can build my choice of Infantry or Cav... so swap Vilcas to training grunts.

Take one of our settlers and send it to a gap between Caesarea and Ollantaytambo. This riverside, floodplain rich area is a great spot for a specialist farm.

At the end of turn 4, I load 4 Infantry on a Galleon at Zabalam.

IBT - Barbarians sink a MoW with a Frigate...then we sink one of their Ironclads. No shoreline bombardments this turn, and the task force I hammered last turn went homeward.

Turn 5/1275 AD

Load 3 Guerillas onto the Galleon with the Combat Settler.

Bombard a Barbarian Pirate ship with shore batteries, then sink it with a MoW. Bombard a Frigate with MoW's and then sink it with an elite, enslaving the Barbarian ship.

A forest chop in London will complete a Galleon there next turn. The Task force will soon be assembled. A little tedious terrain trimming in Canterbury (plus a cop) gets us a Galleon next turn there too.

Queue up the settler... and "Leeds" comes up. In honor of an absent comrade, I name this town "Bede's (SpecialistFarm)". It wants to work the mined/railed hill for a cav in 14. Set it to the railed/irrigated floodplain, for +5fpt right off the bat.

Fiddle with the cities... Industrialization in 3 at +34gpt.

IBT - a Barbarian Ironclad destroys improvements outside Lagash. The Dutch request an audience, and are rebuffed.

London puts a Galleon in the water, starts another. Same for Canterbury.
Apache 2 completes its harbor, starts a rax.

Turn 6/1680

For some odd reason I'm allowed to take science down to 50% this turn. Either I muffed the research cycle, or I picked up some gold I didn't realize. Industrialization in 2 at 3.5.2

Redline and then sink a Barbarian Ironclad off the coast of Utrecht. Shore batteries work over the one off the coast of Lagash.

Mostly worker stuff this turn... end the turn with Industrialization in 2, +102gpt.

I also end the turn with 3 Galleons in Zabalam, and 2 more just off the coast of our Western Peninsula.

IBT - Barbarian ships threaten our coastline...as usual... but it doesn't matter. I've seen the opening.

WLTKD kicks off ask Ivory kicks in. We train 3 Infantry, drop a couple more Man-O-Wars in the water, and Coventry produces...

An Army.

Zabalam also produces a Galleon.

It looks like the Barbarians just made Industrialization cheaper for us.

 

[scoutsout]

Turn 7/1285

I've got to get over to the Barbarian Continent, or Mistfit will have the honor all the fun of invading the Barbarian Continent.

Time to focus. First things first... I drop research to ZERO, and we still get industrialization next turn.

The squadron out of Utrecht bombards and sinks a Barbarian Frigate, without so much as a single hit point loss to us.

The short range cannon I left near Adrianople are enough to reach an Ironclad off the coast of Yaxchilan. Machu Picchu's freshly commissioned MoW sinks the Ironclad, enslaving another.

After some worker stuff... it's time to assemble the troops for "Operation ToeHold". Three grunts are loaded into an Army, redubbed "1st INF", and loaded onto a Galleon. Our Cavalry Army ("1st CAV") is loaded onto the other Galleon off the western peninsula.

Take a settler and drop it into another food-rich spot in former Byzantine lands. Queue up a combat settler in London.

Spend a little gold upgrading some stuff, and end the turn with 36g, +551gpt, Industrialization due next turn.

IBT - A single Barbarian Frigate bombards the coast near The Hague. Industrialization comes in, queue up Corporation. We can get it in 5 at negative research... might be something here...

Adrianople deposes our governor

Turn...8/1290 AD

Focus... remember that settler that was going to be another specialist farm? Theodora's Bane is founded on that hill. And it puts Adrianople in Artillery range.

I spent too much gold upgrading cannon... Corporation in 6. I'll try to shave a turn off next round.

*****Adrianople (again)
A single artillery piece redlines the Regular Rifle defending the city. Lose 1 Vet Cav against the redlined Rifle. A second re-takes the city.

*****Task Force Toehold
Advance our Task force to within striking distance of New Teoihuacan. The task force consists of 5 Galleons, transporting:

• The 1st Cav
• The 1st Infantry
• 3 Guerillas
• 4 Artillery
• 4 Infantry
• A Combat Settler

I've also brought along 18 ships of the line for fire support.

IBT - An isolated Man-O-War is set upon by a pair of Ironclads. The MoW takes one to the bottow with her.

Turn 9/1295

Redline a Frigate that Dr. Evil left in range of our shore batteries.

*****at New Teoihuacan
Relentless fleet bombardment reveals 1 Veteran Infantry and at least 2 Regulars defending New Teoihuacan. Task Force ToeHold lands next to the city.

I'm not able to get more than one turn of the research back... but Corporation is now due in 4 at +105gpt. Sorry I muffed that on the previous turn, team. I had a chance to bump lux down.

IBT - not much.

Turn 10/1300 AD

*****Siege of New Teoihuacan
MoW's go 5 for 18 on the defenders. Our land based Artillery goes 1 for 4.
The 1st CAV takes out the 2/4 Infantry.
An Elite Cav takes out a 1/3 Infantry, no leader.
Another Elite Cavalry "Finishes the Drill".

Barbarian Toehold is founded on the spot.

@Next Better Player: Some Important stuff -

All of our naval units next to Barbarian Toehold are fortified with all of their movement points (except the ones used for a round of bombardment).

Note that B.T. is next to a lake... you could actually bombard Cherokee with MoWs. (It's a little "out of the box"...but it's an option. )

Try to avoid negative research gambits until we can get the rest of our cannon and trebuchets upgraded.

The Barbarian Kulcha is pretty strong... we need to torch Cherokee real soon.

 

[Jnthn56]

Just one thing to point out in case you guys haven't caught it.
If the barbs won't negotiate and all the other civs are gone, then you are stuck mobilized permanently...Unless I'm missing something.

If the barbs wipe out the other civs while you are mobilized, while it knock you back into Normalcy?

 

[scoutsout]

If the barbs wipe out the other civs while you are mobilized, while it knock you back into Normalcy?

I believe if the Barbs wipe out any one civ we're at war with, it will demobilize our economy.

Byzantines have an island city that is very close to the Barbarian mainland. I will be surprised if they survive the next turnset. This is probably something we need to watch out for... because it will probably be our last opportunity to demobilize ...or at least, the last opportunity when it will matter.

@Team: Don't forget - there are still a lot of movement points left on that fleet next to Barbarian Toehold!

 

[leif erikson]

Nice job Scout!!

While your tactical genius is well known, your micromanaging skills are what shined during that turn set, imho.

Roster:
Gator - UP
Mistfit - On Deck
Leif
Capt - On Vacation at the Capt's Cabin!
Bugs
Scout - Just played a little whack a Byzantine, then a Barb!

A couple of questions because we've talked around a few issues a lot but have never seemed to fully agree. So I think we should decide so we're working together here.

1. I don't understand why we would wish to demobilize? It seems to me that we are now at a time when military units are what we need and mobilization is the fastest way to get them?

EDIT - And I see he definately has Infantry units!!

2. What are we going to do on the Barb Continent? Do we want to ICS or burn and pillage?

Personally, I see no need to go through the shields to ICS because I hope we don't get to the Modern Age. It seems the Barbs are a little bit ahead of us in tech, but not overwhelmingly so, or am I wrong? If this is so, they will lose tech pace as we take down their oldest and most productive cities. As long as we have good artillery numbers, we should be able to defeat Mech Inf if need be. The only cities we should need are those to claim lux resources and a few places to rest and refit.

Besides, by the time we get the ICS set up, the cities populated and producing something positive for us, I hope we will be almost done?

The interesting thing for me is looking at Cherokee, I don't see rails? What is that about? Why would they rail on the island north of Barb Toehold and not on their main continent??

3. Strategy for Barb Continent? We're established up north and need to set up a ship chain and protect it. Looking at the map, I think we can do almost everything we need to using this port as our entry point. As we enlarge the bridgehead, we should be able to develop a two prong attack, one headed north into his heartland of older cities and another headed south for the chokepoint. Without rails, he ain't going to get his reinforcements moved around as fast as he'd like, unless the rails are all inland. To split him means we can further frustrate his efforts to reinforce.
As we capture his cities and workers, I think those workers need to rail a single line forwards to the fronts so we can rapidly move troops forward.
EDIT - We'll prolly need to "station" a few troops along this line to hinder his use of it.

@Scout - When you took Nicea and got no gold, The Byzantines were prolly using their gold to keep themselves happy. They had no lux and there had to be war weariness as they were in Republic and had been at war with the Barb Nation the whole game. The lesson we learned with Gandhi in SGOTM09 is how devastating WW can be to an economy over a long period of time.
The needed use of gold to maintain their happiness is prolly why they didn't help with research at all.

 

[DJMGator13]

A couple of questions because we've talked around a few issues a lot but have never seemed to fully agree. So I think we should decide so we're working together here.

1. I don't understand why we would wish to demobilize? It seems to me that we are now at a time when military units are what we need and mobilization is the fastest way to get them?

EDIT - And I see he definately has Infantry units!!

If we are strictly building military than staying mobilized is good. If we demobilize we can build some factories or more importantly Hoover's which will increase production in every city. We can also build a few universities in our high bpt cities to try to speed up our overall pace of research (more on this point later).

2. What are we going to do on the Barb Continent? Do we want to ICS or burn and pillage?

Personally, I see no need to go through the shields to ICS because I hope we don't get to the Modern Age. It seems the Barbs are a little bit ahead of us in tech, but not overwhelmingly so, or am I wrong? If this is so, they will lose tech pace as we take down their oldest and most productive cities. As long as we have good artillery numbers, we should be able to defeat Mech Inf if need be. The only cities we should need are those to claim lux resources and a few places to rest and refit.

Besides, by the time we get the ICS set up, the cities populated and producing something positive for us, I hope we will be almost done?

Due to their huge culture advantage (over 30k vrs our <10K) any city we keep of theirs will have a very high flip risk. We don't want to waste time fighting for the same city more than once. As we move down the continent we may build some small cities of our own, but I would raze every Barb city we capture. I don't think we need to ICS the Barb Nation either, especially because this will push us over the domination limit. Only Space was turned off, we have to watch for the dom limit as well.

The interesting thing for me is looking at Cherokee, I don't see rails? What is that about? Why would they rail on the island north of Barb Toehold and not on their main continent??

We won't see their rails until we get a more current world map or as we push back the inland fog.

3. Strategy for Barb Continent? We're established up north and need to set up a ship chain and protect it. Looking at the map, I think we can do almost everything we need to using this port as our entry point. As we enlarge the bridgehead, we should be able to develop a two prong attack, one headed north into his heartland of older cities and another headed south for the chokepoint. Without rails, he ain't going to get his reinforcements moved around as fast as he'd like, unless the rails are all inland. To split him means we can further frustrate his efforts to reinforce.
As we capture his cities and workers, I think those workers need to rail a single line forwards to the fronts so we can rapidly move troops forward.
EDIT - We'll prolly need to "station" a few troops along this line to hinder his use of it.

Sounds good, we won't know the best path until the fog is lifted but controlling the chokepoint and limiting his reinforcements is always a good part of ant plan.


Other thoughts:

I'm getting mixed numbers from the game and CivAssist. The game says we are producing around 550bpt from the F1 screen, but CA2 is giving me 2 different sets of numbers. On the Technology tab CA2 says we are at 609bpt, but the Economy tab reports only 495bpt. We are currently running 32 scientist so this may explain some of the difference, but it affects the planning of how long until we get airports and tanks.

At 600bpt it will take us 8 for refining, 7 for steel, 8 for combustion, 9 for flight, 7 for mass production, 7 for motor transportation and 6 for amp warfare. That's 52 turns. We would need to increase the bpt count to 700bpt to take 1 turn off of every tech listed above. Not a very big difference, but acheives those techs in about 45 turns. If we can only maintain 550bpt than it will take 1 turn longer than the 600bpt numbers for every tech, meaning we get them in 59 turns.

Main reason for that discussion is that if we want to be able to research at a faster pace we may want to demobilize and thry to increase our bpt, but as Scout has demonstrated we can still accomplish some gains through some science cities even while mobilized.

I think it may be worth detouring to Espionage as our next tech for a few reasons. I normally would not research it but it can provide us a few advanatages.

1. At a cost of 2700 it is a 5 turner even at 550bpt.
2. Gives us the ability to build the SPHQ which will have the following results.
a. Lower the waste in alot of cities from 28% down to 21%.
b. Increase number of +40spt cities from 1 to 2, in 30-39spt cities from 2 to 3, in 20-29spt cities from 11 to 13, decrease number of 10-19spt cities from 16 to 14. Theses numbers can vary based on hiring and firing of cops and engineers.
3. Ability to plant a spy and find out what we are truly facing. F3 advisors says we are still WEAK against them. A spy will give us counts of their units.
4. Ability to runs missions, ie steal world map (bust all the fog at once), steal techs, etc....

I know it slows down our overall tech pace but I think the advantages it gives are worth it. Besides with the SPHQ and more scientists we may be able to recoup those 5 turns.

A question:
Can airports be built while mobilized?

 

[leif erikson]

If we are strictly building military than staying mobilized is good. If we demobilize we can build some factories or more importantly Hoover's which will increase production in every city. We can also build a few universities in our high bpt cities to try to speed up our overall pace of research (more on this point later).

The name of the game is fastest to destruction of the Barb Nation.
As I see it, anything that slows us down is bad and anything that speeds this up is good. So, in order to figure out what is best for us, I think we need to evaluate courses of action on how long will it take to destroy the Barb Nation.

To demobilize and build Factories and Hoover's will require a certain amount of time, my guestimate is an average of 15 turns or so in most cities (with Hoover's coming later). In that time, we can put out a certain number of units, prolly an average of 3 in many cities and 4 to 5 in more advanced cities. The question then becomes how much faster will we pump out units with Factories and can we make up the gulf in units produced over that time. If we expect the war to last 100 turn, then demobilizing may be the best course. If we think we can do it in 50 turns, demobilizing would, imho, be the wrong answer.

We have much bloody fighting to do. The tools are basically in our hands to do so. Tanks would be nice, but are not essential. To demobilize means to me that we will wait at least 15 turns, perhaps 20, to begin the bloody onslaught as we can not supply troops and artillery in the quantity needed to sustain ourselves while we build infrastructure. And while research is important to get to Amphib Warfare, it does us little good to get there before we have cleaned out the Barb Nation's continent. Again, if it takes us 100 turns, research rate is not the key factor. If we can get there in 50 turns, then we'll have to wait for Amphib Warfare to finish for a few turns.

On victory, I think we should time a conquest victory for the defeat of the Babr Nation. Last Barb city goes, so do the last cities of the Dutch, Mayans and, if still standing, The Byzantines.

I think your plan to detour to Espionage has merit. My only point would be that, iirc, it gets very expensive to do spy missions and we may need gold for upgrades. However, I think your reasoning is sound.

And so we have a decision to make regarding demobilization or not. I think you know that I think we should go fight the war and see where it takes us. We'll know, quite soon I think, whether we can finish this as is or whether we'll need the greater production of Factories. A Tank costs 100 shields, plus oil and rubber, so the cost is 10 shields more than Infantry, perhaps another turn per unit, perhaps not.

If we can take the Barbs down in around 60 turns or so, airports will become irrelevent!!

 

[Jnthn56]

I know I'm not in this game or anything but you could remobilize later if you have finished rushing factories & plants or whatever.

I don't know if you can spawn leaders off fighting the barbs but if so, you can use those.

 

[leif erikson]

I know I'm not in this game or anything but you could remobilize later if you have finished rushing factories & plants or whatever.

Hi, Thanks for your interest in our game. I'm curious why you think it is so important to demobilize to build Factories, etc. In Communism, they would require us to pop rush them. Second, is the time it would take to get them built and running. As I wrote above, what do we trade off in production to get Factories and how long does that delay the war as the game is fastest to destroy the Barbs. You may have a valid point, but I wish you would expand on it so I can understand it better.

I don't know if you can spawn leaders off fighting the barbs but if so, you can use those.

We can earn leaders through elite unit wins. Are you suggesting that we rush factories with leaders?

 

[scoutsout]

I had to work today... so I am a little tired... but let me see if I can pick up on the discussion. Before I begin my rambling...

@Jnthn56: Welcome to the discussion!

First... some ramblings on Lief's comments and questions:

On mobilization: I'm not convinced we do want to de-mobilize. I simply wanted to point out that we may reach a "point of no return" on that issue. Personally, I'm fine either way. I see Gator posted... so I'll spam more after taking in his opinion.

On the Barb continent: IMO, we don't want to settle ICS style. Bugs mentioned a "Standard AW" settlement pattern that will allow us to claim maximum territory without culture. I think it's CxxxC... but I could be wrong. But we do want to claim all of that continent... so as to deny that territory to the Barbs. Everything should generally be irrigated and railed, and the cities set up as specialist farms to increase science.

Campaign tactics on the Barbarian Continent: This will be a raze-and-replace campaign. Any city we capture will need to be put to the torch; regardless of any wonder that might be present... no matter how tempting that wonder may be. The warfighting tactics should generally use a combined arms approach; pummel with Artillery, then attack with Cav. The Infantry Army should serve as the anchor. The 1st infantry can protect our artillery pieces and any banged up cavalry. Any Cavalry Army (armies) that get banged up can safely heal in enemy territory under the protection of the 1st Infantry.

I would be careful about splitting our forces too early... but there will be time to discuss that bridge before we cross it.

@Gator: I see no need to watch for the domination limit. The name of the game here is to eliminate the barbarian nation. I saw nothing in any rules about having to eliminate the Barbarians before "winning" the game.

Perhaps we should ask AlanH if it is necessary to defeat the Barbarians before winning this game.

On technology... we may need to evaluate whether or not we really need Flight to bring this to endgame.

On airports: I believe these can be built while mobilized. Since airports produce veteran air units, I believe they count as a "military" build. IIRC, I've queue'd them up in the WWII Pacific conquest scenario.

More @Gator: I agree w/ Leif that your thoughts on Espionage have merit... While I agree that it would be nice to use spies to gain some intel on Barbaria... the only way I see this helping us win faster is if we can manage to steal a tech or two.

My thoughts: Let's stay mobilized, and turn our attention to the task at hand - sacking as many Barbarian cities as we safely can over the next 20 turns or so. I don't think we'll need the production of factories... though it'd be nice to have 4 or 5 cities capable of spitting out infantry every 3 turns... there's something to be said for having 8 or 10 cities spitting out an infantry every 5 or 6 turns... and we're doing that now.

 

[scoutsout]

Sorry for the double-post.... but I did have one more miscellaneous rambling.

I think we can win this in an economy that is mobilized....or not. But either way, I think it's going to take a committment to micro-manage if we're to have any chance at a competitive win.

The key here is to convert shields to gold. Eliminating shield over-runs is one good way to find those gold pieces here and there that we need to shave a turn off of a research cycle. Sometimes pulling a citizen off a wasted shield and putting it on a commerce tile or turning it into a specialist is all it takes to make the difference.

This is simple, but hard:

• Turn wasted shields or gold into scientists.
• Hire scientists until you can't get the tech any faster.
• Then convert the scientists into tax collectors until you lose a turn off the research cycle.

Another factor: MPs. We're running 10% lux right now. Part of that is enabled by the Ivory coming in during that last turnset. Part of that is enabled by the number of MPs we have in our productive cities. I don't advocate that we willy-nilly fortify 4 units in every city... but we need to consider a city's happiness before pulling a unit out and deploying it to the front. This may sound counter-intuitive...but with the stupid-high unit support in communism...plus the happiness factor from 4 MPs per city... units actually help us in science.