SGOTM 11 - Smurkz

[Ansar]

Great job, zyxy!

Really appreciate the excessive amount of pictures! It's nice to have a visual of Zulu troops taking over the AI!

 

[ControlFreak]

I had another thought. Instead of building knights, or trebs, build impis and move them to the front. They're cheaper and faster. Then upgrade just before disbanding for sheilds. Our strategy should be to capture towns, make settlers in the captured towns with disbanded shields and use the settlers to fill in the opened territory.

 

[Niklas]

I'm concerned that even without making a strategy, you will have enough time to play. It could easily take an hour and a half per turn at this point. But if you are confident in giving it the thought it needs, by all means proceed without the strategy guide. I think we've got most of the ideas deliniated previously anyway.

Your concern for my lack of time is not unfounded, unfortunately. I was hoping to be able to have played around 3 hours already yesterday and this morning, but a multitude of small things have gotten in the way all the time, and prospects for play seem less and less likely up towards Christmas. So, if anyone else (CF?) thinks they will have time to play before the weekend, do grab the game. Otherwise I'll play if/when the chance arises.

 

[ControlFreak]

So, if anyone else (CF?) thinks they will have time to play before the weekend, do grab the game. Otherwise I'll play if/when the chance arises.

I probably won't get a chance tonight. There is an off chance I can play tomorrow and will post in my morning when I grab it.

Until then, if CB or McLMan are free tonight, we owe them both a few turns...

 

[CommandoBob]

I probably won't get a chance tonight. There is an off chance I can play tomorrow and will post in my morning when I grab it.

Until then, if CB or McLMan are free tonight, we owe them both a few turns...

Maybe, just maybe, after a come-n-go Christmas party my wife is having this evening for other election workers.

Couldn't touch it till around 10 pm or so.

I'll check back around then and see.

 

[CommandoBob]

Didn't get free until after 11pm, so no turns from me.

I'm just glad my Christmas shopping is done.

 

[McLMan]

Well that's it. After a hellish end-of-year flurry at work I'm now off until January 2nd. Family duties through Christmas day will keep me fairly busy, but I should be "caught-up" in the happenings here by Tuesday, when I get to have a nice lazy day to myself with the kids playing with their new toys & the wife at work.

 

[ControlFreak]

Didn't get free until after 11pm, so no turns from me.

I'm just glad my Christmas shopping is done.

Well that's it. After a hellish end-of-year flurry at work I'm now off until January 2nd. Family duties through Christmas day will keep me fairly busy, but I should be "caught-up" in the happenings here by Tuesday, when I get to have a nice lazy day to myself with the kids playing with their new toys & the wife at work.

Well I guess if falls to me then. I have a couple of things to check on but I should post a got it in a couple of hours.

 

[ControlFreak]

So much for that. I forgot what a hectic time the last day before shutdown can be. Sorry I didn't get to it. And I'll probably be away from the forums for a few days while my parents are in town.

Good luck Niklas.

 

[ControlFreak]

I can't stay away so I'm grabbing the game for a turn or two. I should post by tomorrow with an update.

 

[ControlFreak]

The save is here. It's 4:30AM so I'll have to add pictures some other time.

Preflight

• Move the galleon of cavs towards Boston. He'll get a frigate escort next turn.
• Switch many builds to settlers. Disconnect salt and change many more builds to impi. Rush a couple Knights
• Shift a few fortified units around. Namely Lyons cavs cross the divide to head toward the German area. Army in Heidelberg moves to Hasting's Mountain.
• Move units out of Avinon towards the mountain in french territory.

IBT

• We lose a cav in Lyons and a wounded cav on a german mountain, but for the most part, France moves units away from our troops. Their pike captures our slave on the iron tile.
• The Americans cancel our 6gpt for wines deal.

Turn 1 - 940AD

• French front:Rheims and Chartes are on hills with rifles. They are not sensible targets. Striking at the southern towns makes more sense but our troops are mostly in the north. Instead of moving the galleons as zyxy suggested to Chartes, I send the cav galleon with the northern fleet towards Seattle. The southern boats (6 cannons, musket and cav) will head towards Tours, getting reinforcements from Japan area. Avinon only has 3 cavs and three cannons. I pillage the mountain road so cavs can't attack Avinon directly and pull back on defense.
• Viking front: Change my mind about running the boat of cavs all the way to Boston, the war will start before they get there. They disembark on the Viking silks and the boat heads back to Hareid.
• Oslo: the first 6 cannons miss, the next three hit three different rifles and the last misses. 2 cavs retreat and a third and fourth redline their rifles but die. Next three cavs kill the wounded rifles and I raze Oslo. (Flip risk getting rifles is too great a risk.)
• Reinforcements to the Vikings: I want to start getting the settlers to the Viking shore. The galleons are all spread out but I think I manage to juggle the troops on the waters handing them to empty galleons, retreating one tile so I can connect a ship bridge from Heliopolis. That gets our settler, 2muskets a medi and 4 cannons dropped off on the point of land by the dyes. The stack of galleons with all the troops heads towards our landing party and will unload in the port next turn.
• Rename galleons and position them for chaining to Vikingland/Germany
• Germany: Cavs from the back lines kill Germany knight (first cav died). Cav on roadless mountain kills Eastern berserk and retreats to Heidelberg. The remaining berserks are not endangering anything to I position the cannons under the medi army on their way to Hastings. A cav pillages the road 2S of Hastings so their knights can't plunge as deep into our territory. Disband a medi in Leipzig to get the settler due in 1. Rush settler in Hamberg. Move impi to Munich and upgrade before disbanding next turn. Wounded cav returns to Berlin to try to quell last resister. Cannons Bomb intruding cav and our cav kills him, retreating back to Lyons.
• Notice that Scandinavia is in Anarchy!

IBT

• Cav near Avinon wins on defense, promoting.
• Germany declares peace with England which will cause a massive cascade leaving everyone at peace.

Turn 2 - 950 AD

• Cancel all luxury and ROP deals with America. They will MA against Vikings for all of our luxuries and a ROP.
• MA England against the French for Physics. MA them against Vikings and Germans for TOG.
• Germany: Cav redlines but kills one of the LB on the mountain by Hastings. A stack of cavs join the army and cannons next to Hastings. Cavs from Lyons reach Nottingham and anhilate all the berserks there with only one cav getting in the red. Workers and cannons head towards London to connect roads and be ready to Bomb before ROP is over.
• Vikings: Found Viking Death and start unloading Cavs from the offshore galleons. Half the stack attacks Arhaus and we get a great leader! The town is ours two cavs later. Remaining Southern cavs move to Arhaus for loading into army and then advancing toward the remaining German cities.
• Galleons to Viking land: Ship chain a settler/cannon group to the entrenched workers. Ship Chain some cannons to the North 2E of Trondhiem. Ship chain the army from Hareid to cover them. The cavs that landed last turn pillage the three visible silks but a fourth remains under Trondheim. One of the two remaining cavs jump into an already moved boat near Hareid for transport next turn.
• Galleons near Put-In Bay: Setup a ship chain that will let boats from Tatung or Put In Bay reach the future town of East Germany.
• Northern France: Elite cav kills crusader in Seattle. Cav kills LB and Seattle is ours. Three E.Cavs kill 2 spear and wounded crusader to take Miami. Workers move to join the road from Canterbury to Miami. The cavs in this area are now tasked with getting in position in America. The mace army moves S of Atlanta spotting a musket/settler pair on the way. There is a worker roading the incense hill preventing passage of our troops up the East side of Atlanta. Move some cavs near Philly to scout. Move the army from Canterbury to scout the french troops that left Canterbury's area. Move cavs to the hills in our territory to prevent incursion of the pike. Will wait until he reaches flat ground before attacking.
• Southern France: Cannon bombs cav to 1hp near Lyons. E.Cav kills him and retreats to our territory. Galleons land an artillery batallion SE of Tours. They should take out Frances horses next turn and wait for reinforcements to attack Tours itself.

IBT

• The massive French stack heads south into the Fog towards Avignon. A french cav takes a cannon ball in the face in Lyons and is killed by our cav. A musket move towards Lyons.
• German troops are moving but not attacking either of our armies.
• The Americans start moving Knights around.
• Viking berserk redlines but then kills one of our pillaging cavs.
• Two french frigate/galley/caravell pairs move between germany and Tatung.

Turn 3 - 960 AD

• Deal with the french first: Bomb Muskateer by Lyons and get a leader killing him. Make an army. Stupid pike near Coventry kills a cav and redlines the second before dying.
• Germany: The cannons are very successful at Hastings. Only two rifle defenders and both are redlined. Two E.Cav victories later Hastings is ours. We lose a cav at Hannover but the other two are victorious and the Germans are gone.
• Viking: Settle Fortress town in the entrenched region. Army moves to kill redline berserk thinking I would have enough moves to cover the stack again. Must have miss counted so the cavs are left alone to cover the cannon. Oops. Our Massive cannon stack is on it's way (through the forests) to Bergen and or Odense.

I'm stopping here. We're going to have to decide what to pursue next. My guess is that we move all the units in the Germany area to the tile where the american spear is NW of Boston. That will take two turns to reach (one turn for the spear to move and one turn to get there) and on turn three, we can simultaneously ROP America and England. There should be enough cavs/cannons on their way to london to with that town. There should be enough cavs on their way to take Philly, Washington from the West flank and Washington, Boston and the town North of Boston (can't remember the name at this point).

We also have a stack of artillery near Bergen/Odense. They can either

• Move to Bergen in two turns and bomb them to oblivion and we divert the German troops there to capture the city. Repeat a two turns later at Odense. or....
• Move to Odense in two turns and bomb them to oblivion, move the army/cavs from Trondheim down to help take Odense and then work our way back up to Trondheim.

I think the latter is better so we can focus on America in three turns.

There are ship chains either setup or almost setup to move across most of the short areas.

Pay close attention to the French troops. There are boats near East Germany. There is a sizable stack West of London that looks to be heading for Avinon.

Good luck! And Merry Christmas!

 

[zyxy]

Nice going! Good to get an RoP extension with America! Odd that it worked though, did they not know what happened to Ghandi?

It seems there are about 100 clear tiles on battle island. And we only need about 150 tiles to domination. We have enough pop, so it is mainly settling and clearing out England and a small part of the Americans from here - I would swap our towns to settler builds as we need them and RoP rape England/America. It all depends on how fast we can get the settlers in place, but this should be over in under 5 turns now.

Niklas, will you take it?

 

[Niklas]

I still cannot promise that I will find the time required to do this game justice, so I will not take it. Anyone that wants to play, go right ahead. That includes me, if I find myself with enough time on my hands, and nobody else has grabbed it by then.

 

[CommandoBob]

I see the holidays have kept us all busy.

I thought I might have some time to play a turn or so, but on the 23rd my son went into the hospital with malaria from his mission trip to the Congo this past summer. That got fixed, but then he got double pneumonia, for which he can take antibotics intravenously. We think he gets out tomorrow, if his lungs are clear.

I had taken last week off, hoping for my son to teach me the ropes on Civ4. Well....

On the good side, since he goes off the college, about 1000 miles away from us in Kentucky, this was the best time for him to get sick. He missed no school, his family and friends were around to support/pester him, and he gets to rest at home.

(And maybe he will have time to teach me Civ4 after all! )

 

[ControlFreak]

Well I hope everyone has had a better holdiay than CB.

I'll pick it up and play a bit tonight. Post no later than Monday.

 

[ControlFreak]

We had a awesome New Years Eve Martini party. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far before the party (1/2 turn in three sessions). I think things are getting set to ROP America and England with 6 settlers boarding boats ready to ship chain them to foreign lands.

Hopefully I'll finish today or tonight and post tomorrow.

Happy 2007!

 

[ControlFreak]

990AD ....

Preflight - 960AD

• Setup the ship chain from kago to Tours. I hope we can capture Tours with limited troops.
• The cannons bomb Tours hitting the rifle and musket there once each. The attack will have to come next turn as the galleon of 2 cavs and medi,musket just dropped off this turn.
• Take a wounded cav from Arhaus and kill the barb camp. Wake all the workers and flood the pennisula. I'm guessing the French boats have settlers bound for the empty viking territory.
• Ship chain settlers towards viking land. Land 4 cavs in East Germany and move them towards London.

IBT

• Berserk retreats a cav. Viking Rifle kills american LB. Musket on cannon stack defends against berserk. American LB kills viking Rifle. English LB dies fighting the french.
• The French boats are definitely headed to Viking land so probably settlers and no offense.

Turn 1 - 970AD

• Tours cannons hit 1HP each on the rifle and musket. Cav 1 kills rifle but is redlined. Cav 2 retreats from musket. Cav 3 captures the city which keeps the barracks. This takes the horses out of french territory.
• Lyons cavs load into army and start marching towards Orleans.
• Ship chain three settlers to Viking land. Two are a turn away from settling, the third must enter viking territory and then settle on the third turn.
• Workers block the shore from the french landing parties.
• Ship chain a settler two muskets and a cav to Tours.

IBT

• American and Vikings skirmish. France moves towards Avinon with their stack of crusaders/LB.

Turn 2 - 980AD

• Settle three towns in Vikingland. Move two settlers from Cheju to American soil.
• Frigates bomb the French frigate to 1HP leaving the galley on top. Frigate bombs 1HP off the other French frigate, leaving veteran caravel on top.
• Trade Magnetism for Music Theory from England. Get all of America's 116g for gpt. Start Bombing London.
• London: Almost all of our cannons hit and the 2 muskets, 1 spear are redlined. 3 cav wins later London is ours with no resistance. I whip a settler for 4pop because it would have starved with unhappiness anyway.
• Avinon: Cannons go 2 of 3 on the French stack. The London cavs move to eliminate them from the iron fotress. Once the defenders are gone, the Avinon troops take care of the remaining LBs.
• Philly: Guarded by the lone musket falls easily to our scout cav.
• Atlanta: Musket and pike killed by the cav army. A retreating cav and redline cav finish the last musket. I drastically over estimated the defenses of America. Should have investigated the cities first.
• Boston: Mace army kills musket and pike. Cav kills LB and captures the city.
• Washington: Cav army kills musket and vet pike. Two more cavs kill reg muskets before a third cav dies. Then four cavs kill four reg muskets to take the city.
• Orleans: Cav army and cavs fail miserably. I should have waited for the cannons and crusaders, but being only 16 tiles from domination I went for it. Killed one rifle, there are at least two left.
• Odense: Cav army kills its rifle. Another cav dies promoting it's rifle to 2/4. Then the remaining cavs finish the defenders capturing the city. I hope it doesn't flip before we win. The new borders show an American knight and spear within striking distance. The knight is kills with a left over cav from the Boston seige. The spear is killed with the cav shipchained from Hareid to Two-for-the-show.
• Ship chain three settlers to Tours from the Japanese cities. Two settle this turn adding another 12 tiles. CivAssist now reports that we're 5 tiles over domination!
• Thanks to Magellans I can reach Tours with the other galleons which manage to bring two more cavs to Tours. Unfornately, only one has enough moves left to continue the attack on Orleans. He wins leaving a 1HP rifle who mocks me. If only I hadn't moved the Other cavs in Tours towards Rouen. I try taking out the 1hp rifle with a 1HP cav but I only promote him to 2/4.
• After killing the two crusaders with leftover London cavs, I settle for peace with France for Rouen. Nine more tiles is nine more tiles. I can redeclare next turn if need be.
• I join a bunch of workers to nearby cities, finish moving units around just incase we don't win.

IBT

• France and Vikings ask us to leave. OK.
• WLTKD celebrated everywhere. It's probably the American luxuries, but I think our people know we're going to win.
• We WIN!

The AI scroll through three quotes:"Wonderful being locked to a LOSER!", "Next time YOU be on their team." and the one in the picture.

We obviously were out classed citywise.

Not much to say here.

The bad news is it looks like we're in fourth place behind Shaka (830AD), Klarius (850AD), and Team Newbie (910AD). Sorry. I think we really needed to take out Germany at the same time we were hitting Egypt. We just couldn't get it started with all the swaps and skips.

Anyway, it was a fun game! Thanks Team.

 

[Niklas]

Wonderful!!

Too bad it's a fourth place, but I'm still very very satisfied. Remember our incredibly unlucky start, being locked out of all trading possibilities by the Indian spears. All the other teams were well into trading in the early game and got to the MA much before us. All in all, I think it's incredible that we're no further behind that 16 turns from the winner. Great game team, it was a good one!

 

[zyxy]

Happy Newyear indeed!

Thanks AlanH and Gyathaar for another fun experience! And thanks CF for keeping this going in the end, Xmas or no Xmas .

Only sixteen turns from the winner? I have never seen such a spear block before, and considering the number of turns this must have cost us (double digits definitely), this was a game well played indeed. Cheers to all followers of the Great Smurkz!

Team Smurkz was:
CommandoBob
ControlFreak
dojoboy
McLMan
Niklas
zyxy

 

[ControlFreak]

Only sixteen turns from the winner? I have never seen such a spear block before, and considering the number of turns this must have cost us (double digits definitely), this was a game well played indeed. Cheers to all followers of the Great Smurkz!

It was so long ago, I forgot all about those d**n spears! You are indeed correct that if no one else faced such a fate, we were severely handicapped. In retrospect, perhaps we should have sent a troop of warriors to move the buggers. I'm not sure it would have helped much, but we definitely would have gotten to MT MUCH faster, as well as identified the Egyptian threat much earlier.