SGOTM 11 - Shaka, not stirred

[Andronicus]

Cant comment authoratively without the save but my thoughts are

Support getting SoZ as high priority (and rush rax there).

Get all gold / tech we can for gpt then dow ally (eg get Viking gold, Russian feud???, Korean engineering - peace deal with that block expires in 2 or 3 turns I think. - watch we dont have automatically renegotiate deals on)

Still favour conquoring other continent first whilst they remain more backward, diversion to Thebes allows us to use AC until knights avail.

GA soon to boost our military production for war on Egypt then Germany.

Knocking down a civ or 2 will markedly speed up our conquest. Keep going for weak targets and gaining money / techs from false gpt deals


The choke to India is an impediment to our conquest of our continent but also a boon to our defence given the difficulty the AI has with galley landings.

A MA in our war to take Thebes would be valuable at the start to distract civs from attacking just us and to slow their research rate. Once the 2 blocks are at war we can dow India again to get out of gpt payments to Korea for Engineering.

Its time for us to expand

 

[Paul#42]

Edit: to do 1-turn horses, Z would have to reach size 9. That's a heavy strain on our luxes. It can do 2-turn horses right now (note that the gold mine comes on line this turn) and I think we should switch to that. Three horses every six turns is better than one horses and three workers ATM. Looking at it another way, a duct is 3.5 horses. And we can't exploit it because of the lux situation.
At GA 10% lux will be different. Also, Duckt will make more freedom for virtual money. Will calculate and see.

Are you sure we can make 30 shields at size 9 in GA?
We could do 15 spt at size 5 or 20 at size 7 in GA, but an Impi each turn is not what we would need...
From that point we do not need to grow Z now.
By founding new towns we get 4gpt virtual money per town (2gpt taxman, 1g wealth, 1g unit support) - that's exactly what 2 pop more in Z bring us. And pop is growing twice as fast at size < 7.
==> found more towns, keep Z below 7.
Should we use Z as a, warrior-settler-4-turner for some time?

 

[Paul#42]

A MA in our war to take Thebes would be valuable at the start to distract civs from attacking just us and to slow their research rate. Once the 2 blocks are at war we can dow India again to get out of gpt payments to Korea for Engineering.

Hm... If we get an MA against Cleo with say Korea by gpt, that gpt is cancelled by dow on India via alliance - won't the old MA be cancelled, too? But the civs stay at war anyway, won't they?
Big advantage would be that we could sign peace with Cleo without need to wait 20 turns...

 

[Abegweit]

Are you sure we can make 30 shields at size 9 in GA?
We could do 15 spt at size 5 or 20 at size 7 in GA, but an Impi each turn is not what we would need...

Serious question, Paul. Do you read my posts? Why are you asking Ivan when those are my words? Yes. I'm sure. It is possible. And we don't need a GA to do 15 spt at size 5 either. As I said before, we can do it right now.

From that point we do not need to grow Z now.
By founding new towns we get 4gpt virtual money per town (2gpt taxman, 1g wealth, 1g unit support) - that's exactly what 2 pop more in Z bring us. And pop is growing twice as fast at size < 7.
==> found more towns, keep Z below 7.
Should we use Z as a, warrior-settler-4-turner for some time?

We have little use for pop growth ATM. We will not win by founding garbage towns. We have better use for 30 shields than that. The only useful one would have been at the gold hill but that location has destroyed by the misplacement of Umtata, not to mention the Indian city to the southwest.

Nor do we need warriors.

Build 2-turn horses. Pop out a settler when the city is about to reach its pop limit. As I recall, to get 15spt, the city will gain 1fpt. It could be more using hills instead of mountains.

Hm... If we get an MA against Cleo with say Korea by gpt, that gpt is cancelled by dow on India via alliance - won't the old MA be cancelled, too? But the civs stay at war anyway, won't they?
Big advantage would be that we could sign peace with Cleo without need to wait 20 turns...

As I said, use the GPT to get a tech. THEN use the tech to get an MA. Getting a free tech is worth it on its own. Using it to gain an MA is just excellent. As for the old one, it expires next turn.

 

[Abegweit]

Get all gold / tech we can for gpt then dow ally (eg get Viking gold, Russian feud???, Korean engineering - peace deal with that block expires in 2 or 3 turns I think. - watch we dont have automatically renegotiate deals on)

This is important especially as the deal expires this turn.

Still favour conquoring other continent first whilst they remain more backward, diversion to Thebes allows us to use AC until knights avail.

Not strong enough to go in two directions. Since we attacking Cleo's block, we need to concentrate on that. Germany would have been the right way to go, but the SoZ is just too valuable. Not to mention getting some luxes, which we can't get from Germany until Astro.

 

[Paul#42]

Serious question, Paul. Do you read my posts? Why are you asking Ivan when those are my words? Yes. I'm sure. It is possible. And we don't need a GA to do 15 spt at size 5 either. We can do it right now.

I do read your posts. The reason I quoted from Ivan's post is that I thought I wanted to answer his addition, too. I did not think I would ask just him but all my posts are for the whole team.

As the server is down right now I had no basis to calculate the production at the different sizes. I did not bother using an old save...
Estimating the production I had in mind to keep growing fast, but reducing food surplus to 1fpt at max production makes more sense of course.

We should start the occasional settler at size 5.16 or 5.17, switching a mountain (or hill) to grassland at 5.17 (or 5.18) with 15 shields produced.

 

[Abegweit]

We should start the occasional settler at size 5.16 or 5.17, switching a mountain (or hill) to grassland at 5.17 (or 5.18) with 15 shields produced.

The settler has to come at size 6. By adding an irrigated grass, we can do 2fpt at size 6, which means it comes at 6.16.

 

[Paul#42]

This is important especially as the deal expires this turn.

You could easily check to make sure, couldn't you? I can't bacause I do not have the save rigth now (nor civ at work).

Not strong enough to go in two directions. Since we attacking Cleo's block, we need to concentrate on that. Germany would have been the right way to go, but the SoZ is just too valuable. Not to mention getting some luxes, which we can't get from Germany until Astro.

Do we already know Cleo's Ivory source? IIRC SoZ does not work without Ivory connected, right?

The settler has to come at size 6. By adding an irrigated grass, we can do 2fpt at size 6, which means it comes at 6.16.

Of course, you are right. Did not plan it thoroughly.

 

[Abegweit]

You could easily check to make sure, couldn't you? I can't bacause I do not have the save rigth now (nor civ at work).

I have another game up right now. Anyway, Ivan's a big boy. I'm sure he knows what to do. The warning not to forget was important, though. Andro.

Do we already know Cleo's Ivory source? IIRC SoZ does not work without Ivory connected, right?

Cleo has two spices, two wine and two ivory. The most lux-rich civ on the planet. All I see ATM is one wine. As I understand it, the SoZ works w/o ivory. Not sure though.

 

[Paul#42]

Cleo has two spices, two wine and two ivory. The most lux-rich civ on the planet. All I see ATM is one wine. As I understand it, the SoZ works w/o ivory. Not sure though.

Those three luxuries would come in handy... We will need a harbor on Cleo's side soon, we should quickly get a beachhead there (capture that town NW of Iron mountain or settle if it is autorazed) to let our forces move and strike immediately after landing and rush a harbor there when the first lux is connected to that beach head.

Pity, screenies would be nice in this situation (especially for Andro ).

 

[I. Larkin]

What do you think?
In Egypt mainland things go "not good". It takes 1-2 horse to kill sword and 2-3 to kill AC. AC for example kill elite Impy fortified in the City and loose only 1 hp.
At homeland better, 1 town + 2 Spear-settler couples without loses.
Look at trade:
We may buy Feo from China fo virtual gpt and declare to have war with 2 blocks or try to buy Republic and trade Feo for Rep+ Eng. Why you make Pink dot City? We discuss that it is "harmfull".

 

[Abegweit]

Pity, screenies would be nice in this situation (especially for Andro ).

Oh. All right. I'll open up the damn game.

Re-negotiate deals is OFF. There are horses in Bapedi and Zimbabwe which need to be moved towards the front, which speaking of...

One AC is a reg, which means that anything trained before the SoZ was built is also (likely just two spears). The second AC will be due next turn. Investigating Thebes would cost 160g. Not worth it IMO.

 

[Paul#42]

Aih! Tough going.

I had thought to attack the town between wines and Iron first to get a shorter journey for our galleys... Of course I did not know about Hieraconpolis and getting TGL might be worth it. How much is the flip risk?
EDIT: Ouch. I thought it was already built...

Now we should go to Thebes asap and then get that town SSW of it.

Any reason to place those units so far to west? It looks like they had to attack over the river?
EDIT: I see, they were ment to go for Thebes.

Did we already enter GA?

 

[Abegweit]

What do you think?

I think this was premature. Not only did you jump the gun before discussion was finished, you jumped the wrong way. You should have gone after Thebes once the rest of the units were in place, as everyone said on this thread. The hill town building the wonder should have been left for later. Now you have her in war mode and the big city will be much harder to take down.

Why you make Pink dot City? We discuss that it is "harmfull".

To bring the three plains tiles into play, of course. That certainly is not "harmful". For the same reason, a city needs to be build 4 to the nw.

Please switch Zimbabwe to running 2-turn horses as agreed.

 

[Abegweit]

Any reason to place those units so far to west?

Only place to put 'em. Look at my map. I landed troops on the iron hill and Cleo kept demanding they leave so that's where they got bumped to.

How much is the flip risk?

1.9-4.0% according to CA. Acceptable. It'll be better when (if?) Thebes falls.

It looks like they had to attack over the river?

I don't think so. Looks to me like he attacked from the hill the redlined horse is standing on.

Did we already enter GA?

No.

EDIT: I see, they were ment to go for Thebes.

Even if the objective was Heliopolis, they would have to start from there.

EDIT: Ouch. I thought it was already built...

My map does sorta imply that... I meant that it was being built there. Sorry. I doubt we would have gotten it but letting her waste shields is always a good thing.

 

[I. Larkin]

I think this was premature. Not only did you jump the gun before discussion was finished, you jumped the wrong way. You should have gone after Thebes once the rest of the units were in place, as everyone said on this thread. The hill town building the wonder should have been left for later. Now you have her in war mode and the big city will be much harder to take down.
Please, don't think that obvious things to you are obvious to me.
For me it is "unthinkable" to take just Thebes.
We could not reach Thebes at once. 2 more horse change nothing.
Initial step of war was "clearcut". And I thought, that it is time to start discussion.
You advise to start war next or this turn. What I did. And Iron City is a good one.
We may bring warriors and upgrade.

 

[Paul#42]

Okay, let's make the best of it.
How many horses are left healthy?

If the submission server is down for much longer, could one of you upload the save (Abegweit 350BC or Ivan 330 BC) to the forum so we can have a look at it?

 

[Abegweit]

Please, don't think that obvious things to you are obvious to me.

That's certainly true. My first priority is not a town on a hill building a valuable wonder. I'd rather have a city which has a valuable wonder.

For me it is "unthinkable" to take just Thebes.
We could not reach Thebes at once. 2 more horse change nothing.

Attacking a city is not more difficult than a hill town and the benefit to this one is far greater. Despite your bad luck, you have plenty of troops left over so taking Thebes was certainly possible. True, we could not reach it at once; it would have taken a couple more turns. So?

Initial step of war was "clearcut".

Obviously it wasn't. Not only did Andronicus and I want Thebes, Paul thought we should attack the city by the other iron (although I don't think he realised that it wasn't a reasonable target given the placement of our troops).

Do not do this again.

 

[Abegweit]

Okay, let's make the best of it.
How many horses are left healthy?

We shouldn't have much trouble holding Heliopolis, if that's what you mean. It's got a barracks, a 4/4 imp, a 5/5 horse and a 4/4 horse plus 3 more. Reinforcements will soon come from the home country too. Not sure what to do next. The other iron town appears to be on a hill as well and we certainly do not have the forces to take out Thebes anymore. I suppose the other iron is best - definitely if I am wrong about the hill.

Edit: one thing I don't understand. We had an elite impi at Heliopolis and now we have a vet instead. How did that happen?

If the submission server is down for much longer, could one of you upload the save (Abegweit 350BC or Ivan 330 BC) to the forum so we can have a look at it?

Ivan has put it on the thread, not the server, so you can look at it here.

Ngome is rioting

 

[I. Larkin]

Edit: one thing I don't understand. We had an elite impi at Heliopolis and now we have a vet instead. How did that happen?
Post #491

AC for example killed an elite Impy fortified in the City and loose only 1 hp.