SGOTM 11 - Team Newbie

[PaperBeetle]

The scout must move to a position where it can move and pillage and Egyptian improvement in one turn.

Actually, this may not be absolutely necessary. If Otto does draw Feudalism and we buy it, we could revolt immediately, and we would then not be held responsible for meeting our gpt repayments until we establish the new government.

we were two towns short at 1000BC. One of these was due to the barbarian incident - that was unlucky and couldn't really be helped.

Eh, that was bad play and should have been helped. Trust me; I was there, I saw it happen!

PaperBeetle had an alternative idea for Hlobane where it would use its food bonus to work both gems (under Feudalism) and we would get the town a marketplace that would use a combination of the gems and the coast to be a powerful commerce producing town.

A little bit of Civ4 there. At size 5 or 6 it should get about 16gpt. The market would lay on an extra 7gpt net, which is enough to buy 2.33 shields in an upgrade... the market would pay off in 42 turns, which is quite a long time.
With a temple in there (a temple to Artemis say ) it would be more profitable, being able to work three more coastal tiles. So I would be happy to run it as a population pump for now and consider the marketplace refit at a later date.

 

[PaperBeetle]

1) Feudalism gambit
The scout must move to a position where it can move and pillage and Egyptian improvement in one turn.

The SOD must move to where it can hit China.

We convert everyone of our citizens in tax men (other than 2 in the capital which work the gems). We also set our tax rate to 100%

We buy Engineering from Korea for gpt.

We DOW China and attack them so that Korea are forced to DOW us. This removes the sizable gpt debt.

We gift Otto into the MA and hope he draws Feudalism. If he draws Feudalism we buy it from him for GPT, Engineering and cash (if necessary).

We dow Egypt and pillage one of their improvements. Now Otto is forced to DOW us and again this removes the sizable GPT debt.

Anyway, I recommend we attempt this as soon as possible. I haven't actually opened the save for a look yet, but the limiting factor would seem to be the position of our Egypt-bound scout and the military stack. The stack can afford to attack Tsingtao a turn or two before the scout is in position, for the reason I mentioned in the last post. We should dow China before the stack moves in, as our ROP rep is very valuable in this game, but we don't have to trade with Korea before dowing China (although it is marginally safer to do so - to have the deal and the dow on the same turn, we should use a horseman. We could use an impi, but we would run the risk of it actually winning ).

Now, what do we do if Otto draws Engineering or Monotheism?

We put our empire back to the way it was and call a revolt.

Not quite, perhaps. Is everyone familiar with setting up an empire for anarchy? Food is the only resource being gathered, so all citizens should work as much food as possible, without regard to shields or commerce. Scientists or taxmen do still contribute, but gathering food is better. Rioting is preferable to running a food deficit, but make sure the riots only last one turn at a time, or we risk losing our buildings.
When the F1 advisor (not Murray Walker?) says that "order will be restored in 1 turn", I think she means there is still an interturn's worth of anarchy to go, so putting the empire back into a sensible configuration should wait until after the new government has been selected. But I'm not 100% on that last point. Can anyone confirm?

 

[socralynnek]

I think it is the way you describe Paper Beetle.

Maybe you can make a small spreadsheet only with the few turns of one round of the Settler factory to make it clear, how it should work.

Taxpayer's Money, when can you play? Alan has ranted a little about the speed of the teams in the maintenance thread, so I propose the following rule:
When you are "on deck" (due after next player) you already state when you have time to play, s.t. we know in advance if you have to be skipped.

Here is the roster as a reminder:
PaperBeetle -
Taxpayer'sMoney - next up
Wardancer - just played cause of swapping
archphoenix - on deck
Bucephalus -
socralynnek -

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

I've finished my turnset but I'm having trouble accessing the upload page at the moment. I followed Wardancer's strategy, but unfortunately the Ottomans drew monotheism. I decided that it wasn't worth having eight civs at war with us just to get monotheism so I didn't pull the gpt trick on the Ottomans. Instead I set the empire back to its normal footing and started marching my troops to Delhi.

Here's a slightly more detailed turn log:

750BC
Settled Swazi in the SW leg of our empire, east of the oyster. Swazi starts barracks. Send Zimbabwe horse to Tsingtoa in order to trigger war with Chinese later, to cancel our gpt deal with the Koreans. Send the two swords south of Isandhlwana further south to hunt for the massive barb uprising that Wardancer mentioned. Archer 4 moves along the isthmus's (now that is tricky to say!) road and discovers a barb camp (presumably the one Wardancer warned us of). It attacks and kills barb axe. Sword 2 follows it and disperses the barb camp for 25g. Galley goes clockwise around the coast (but darting out to the sea to take advantage of the differential naval movement). Shuffle my military towards the Chinese front, workers mine stuff mostly. In the interturn it all goes a little Woodstock and our rival civs sign peace like it's going out of fashion:
India + Russia = peace
India + Ottomans = peace
Korea + Arabia = peace
Japan + Arabia = peace

Arabs start ToA.

730BC
Set slider = 6.1.3 to avoid riot in Zimbabwe
Military continues advance towards Tsingtoa hill.

710BC
Ulundi builds horse, starts horse.
Ngome builds barracks, starts horse.

690BC
Zimbabwe builds settler, starts horse.
Switch all civilians to tax men (ugh! Zululand sure is a fun place to live now!), except the two lads in Zimbabwe who work the gems.
Buy engineering from Korea for 55gpt.
Declare war with Chinese, move the horse into Chinese territory ready to attack. At this point I spot a Chinese worker on the hill above Tsingtoa and decide to capture this with a sword instead to trigger the war and break the deal.
Horse attacks a Japanese archer instead, kills it but gets redlined
.The oriental block declare war en masse.
Gift Ottomans into medieval and they draw...monetheism. Gosh darn it!Set the empire back to the way it was.
Switch Bapedi build from sword to horse.

670BC
Bapedi builds horse, starts horse.
My blood lust gets the better of me when I decide to attack Tsingtoa instead of walking straight past. Lose an elite sword, but next two units have no problem and the town autorazes. I decided to attack because I figured we could then make use of the tiles the Chinese had roaded for us and speed our troops progress to the front.

Galley is attacked by barb galley, wins and is promoted to vet.
Egypt start the Pyramids.

650BC
Redlined horse retreats from the front for a well earned rest.
Rest of troops continue progress to Delhi.
Workers continue building the eastern highway linking up the already existing Chinese roads.

Japanese horse attacks our sword gets redlined and retreats.
Russia, Ottomans, Arabia all have monarchy.

630BC
Elite archer kills redlined Japanese horse.
Settle Tugela North of Ulundi next to the forest on a desert tile (worker has been making its way here to irrigate some tiles).

610BC
Scout had been positioned to strike at Egypt for the now defunct Feudalism deal. It spots two Indian axes on their way to cause mischief so decides to run away.

Chinese horse kills one of our horses and recaptures a slave.

590BC
I couldn't remember the etiquette of whether I was supposed to make these moves or not. In the end I didn't and left them for the next player. So the settler pump is pumping nicely. We have a stack of 3 archers, 1 horse and 5 swords on a mountain on their way to Delhi. However a few Chinese troops (mostly archers and horses) have approached this stack. We could probably kill at least three archers on the next turn although it would slow our progress to Delhi. The galley is positioned to start its suicide run west. We're still researching Feudalism at min.

 

[Wardancer]

Looks like a very good turnset TaxPayer. Shame the Feudalism Gambit didn't pay off.

Out of interest, what is our empire production at now?

Also, I don't suppose we have any scope to trade Monarchy. Not that it does much for us. Might be nice if we could get it for some AA techs though

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

Here's a picture of the eastern front

OK so this link doesn't seem to work. Troubles with the upload system!

 

[Wardancer]

Just thinking...

It would be useful to gift Monarchy to the AI's we are fighting.

I hate fighting a despotic AI as they have a habit of pop rushing their towns down to size 1. You can a lot of autorazing.

Not sure how to do this though - any ideas?

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

@ Socralynnek: Weekends aren't good for me in terms of getting my turns played so I'll switch if my next turnset falls to me on a weekend.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Sounds promising indeed. Only one unit lost this turnset?
We haven't broken any 20-turn peace deals yet have we? I've never been too clear on whether this gives a rep hit or not. There was an article in the War Academy saying that there was no such thing as a peace rep, but I've often felt my rep to be disadvantaged by such tricks. Anyway, peace rep notwithstanding, we can trade with our enemies quite easily... Japan will still pay us for peace I presume. The peace would spread to India and China, and we could get back to war as soon as we had given them Monarchy.
But as you say, I don't suppose we have any way to get Monarchy from the Middle-easterns other than gpt-dowing them, which I am sure we don't want to do. Taxpayer was right not to go for Monotheism - we want to keep that trick available for the first instant that one of them researches Feudalism.

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

Two units lost: one sword on the attack on Tsingtoa and one horse that was guarding a slave.

Couldn't we trade engineering for monarchy? I can't remember who had what...

 

[PaperBeetle]

Taxpayer emailed me the save file while the gotm.civfanatics.net server was down, so I've uploaded it. Under his alias - I hope that works...
Anyway, here it is.

Taxpayer'sMoney - just played
archphoenix - next up
Bucephalus - on deck
socralynnek...
PaperBeetle...
Wardancer...

 

[archphoenix]

the link works.
I will write a 10 turns analysis first.

@captain
I sometimes do outburst work, so I can't judge my play time in advance. but commonly, I needn't to use shift.

 

[archphoenix]

excite news, we see Feud!

turn0:
2sword and 1archer kill china 3 archer and capture 1 settler(turn into 2 slaves).
archer re-capture slave and move several sword to hangchow.
move workers and slave back to improve homeland.
galley sail west. see border!
horseman4 come south to replace elite sword.
horseman1 return to sheep town.
horseman3 go north of homeland to kill barbarians.
elite imp goto sheep town, will shift with vet imp.

inner turn:
Zimbabwe_RCP0 built setter, start sword.
Isandhlwana_RCP7 built ganary start worker.

turn1:
galley continue west, contact with american and german,
gift currency to german,(at least get back 31 golds).
german draw Feud!

next thought:
1.get Monarchy from middle-east using gpts,
exchange Monarch and Engineer with German's Feud.
at this point, all peace give revolution -1 anarchy turn.
then dowyo Egpty, and use scout3 to pillage goats.
also, before dow, gift Monarchy all around.

2.I think workers should retrun to improve homeland,

3.use horse and imp to distroy barbarian north, if elite, shift a vet horse.

4.shift a vet horse with the elite sword.

5.consider of mil trait, we should hurry fp rather than by hand.

6.troop wait at door of hangzhou. if they grow to 2.

7.why do we match to delhi? they start pyramid, but don't finish it.
I perfer we wander at chockpoint to fish MGL, by the way capture some 2 pop city.(>2 is better)

8.I perfer settle 3s to Basra, as a relay town.

9.then next city I perfer 3s to the sheep town.

you can see the save here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/61567/Shaka_of_the_Zulu_570_BC.SAV

edit:
please throw some advice about my turnset operation.
and
we need discuss about Feud, as a Mono-tech, I wonder whether Monarchy + engineer can exchange it, I don't want to hand over Literate.
after that, should we exchange Feud to Otto for Mono and use Imp to trigger our goldage for max to Chavalry?

 

[socralynnek]

I have looked into the file with CivAssistII, so i don't know what Germany would want for it.

Diplo plan: I mostly agree with you. Get Monarchy & Lit. Try to see whether Monarchy+Eng+all our gpt is enough for Feud (remember to set tax to 100% and temporarily set citizens to taxmen in cities where this will raise gpt, as you can set it back before next turn, you can even set all of them). Remember to not give a per turn deal to Egypt if you wanna attack there.
If all this is not enough for Feud then even give Lit (although if Egypt has it, the others will have it rather soon)
When we are at war with Arabia, Basra is a nice town to capture. Located on ahill it will be easier to defend and it has spices. Leader fishing sounds good, I'd use the first one for an Army, the second for FP, then all others for an army. With MedInf armies (or knights soon) we will capture our continent in no time. Nice to see that America is backwards. I was afraid the third block could be very advanced.

If we only exploit the Euro-MiddleEast block, we better make peace with the other, especially if Japan gives us something for peace. We can then sign India or Korea against Arabia if they are not already at war.

 

[archphoenix]

if we buy Feud with gpts, such as 75gpts, do we need hit our rep in westen block by DOW to german, or wait for turns to ship a scout to pillage?

 

[socralynnek]

Definitely not hit the Germans!

If we buy from Germans, then we declare on e.g. Egypt, pillage or attack something from them and then Germany declares war on us cause of their locked alliance. Then we don't pay the gpt but still our rep is clean.

 

[Taxpayer'sMoney]

Hey guys, this is just a gut reaction but I think we've been doing a little bit too much waiting around already. I do think we really need to start causing real damage to the AI. Lets take a few towns rather than just waiting for leaders at the choke point (but couldn't we do both?)

@ PaperBeetle: what do you reckon we should do with regards war?

I like the feudalism plan though.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Random thoughts...

- Swazi might be better served by a harbour than a barracks because (a) it has an interest in working the coast anyway (i.e. the oysters), (b) there are plenty of other towns in the neighbourhood who can work the land and (c) we will need plenty of galleys sooner or later, so they may as well be built from a harbour town.

- Germany is expected to be in the 'Western' bloc with the other caucasian races, so has no contact with Egypt. Attacking Egypt won't cause Germany to dow. Note: there is always confusion when PaperBeetle, Germany and the Ottoman empire find themselves in the same game. I usually refer to Bismark as "Otto", the Ottoman Empire as "the Ottoman" and the Ottoman Empire's leader as "Osman", while some people use "Otto" or "the Ottos" as short for the Ottoman Empire . For this game I will try to talk about "Germany" and "the Ottoman".

- That expectation is not borne out by the diplo screen: no grey "locked MPP" lines appear between Germany and America. This is a great shame, because there would be a better way of trigerring such an MPP than shipping a scout over: found a town 2W of Ulundi, add a worker to bring it to size 2, gift it to America, and then take it right back from them .

- So without that locked MPP to abuse, maybe we have to give Germany as many techs as possible to get Feudalism from them: Monarchy, Literature, Engineering, and Monotheism.

- I agree with setting up a relay+blocking town on the choke, and keeping it staffed with a couple of catapults and some elites. But we shouldn't put too much effort into this: if the AI fails to send many troops for us to kill, then that is wasted military. Also, it does little to further or drive towards domination. A leader or two would be nice, but what we really need is more land. Don't forget we can use the whip in any towns we capture.

- Why are we heading for Delhi? Because it is close, it won't autoraze, and taking it will cripple India (oh and there are furs in the next Indian town east of Delhi). Each rival that we take a couple of core towns from now is a rival that we can afford to forget about until much later in the game. But another possible target would be Beijing. A bit further away, but China should not be allowed to get powerful enough to throw riders at us.

- Let's take some time to look at the resource situation: India has no resources that we can see, but needs none for elephants. Japan has both iron and horses (the horse is in the fog south of Osaka btw) and needs the iron for samurai. China has horses underneath Xinjian, but lacks the iron it needs for riders. There is a spare horse in no-mans-land between China and the east Indian junk towns, and a spare iron right where we are scrapping with India.

- So I would prioritise settling 1W of that spare iron, and roading up (maybe with a pre-settling colony) the spice. We are desperately short of luxuries after all.

 

[archphoenix]

I see thread before, think we match to Delhi for pyramid, do we wait for it or match to it still?

there would be a better way of trigerring such an MPP than shipping a scout over: found a town 2W of Ulundi, add a worker to bring it to size 2, gift it to America, and then take it right back from them .

I learn this as a good trick.

@Taxpayer'sMoney
I think impose war should benifit us like these
citys, workers, techs, golds, leaders, luxs,
so I perfer attack spice town first, then back to other town , skip 1 pop town.

 

[archphoenix]

turn1 (570BC):
galley continue west, contact with american and german,
gift currency to german,(at least get back 31 golds).
german draw Feud!
switch rax in swazi to harbor.
troops near hangchow fortify.
sell currency to amarican for 60golds and 2gpts

turn2 (550BC):
hangchow grow to 2, sword8 kill a spear to capture hangchow, move archer5 to assist MP.
galley1 contact england, and see 4th border.
sell currency to england for 120+ golds.English is not in Germany block! too!
but the 4th AI will, I think.
galley2 sail anti-clockwise.
scout3 near the ir-goat last turn, see india axe approach, I have to declare this turn.
buy literate and Monarchy and 85 golds from Arabia with 63gpts.
buy 6 golds from Ottoman with 1gpt.
gift Egpty Monarchy for 3 golds.
DOW to Egpty, pillage to retake 64gpts.
give Germay Monarchy+engineer+753g+32gpts for Feudalism.

turn2 (530BC):
contact viking. viking and germany are in the same block.
move troop to one of india city, wait the city grow to pop2.
the settler continue to iron-spice-spot.
I have compose a city using for gift-town-trick.
wait a more turn to let galley leave viking's border.

inner turn:
France: paris built the pyramid,
ottoman: istanbul built the MoM.

turn4(510BC)
elite sword kill spear, elite archer kill another spear in bangalore,
make peace with india, give Monarchy+peace for peace+vs arabia.
trade 48gpts for 745g with Gremany.
gift Tugela to viking, leave viking's tiles,
revolt,5 turns anarchy, and DOW,then retake Tugela.

inner turn:
the other west block dow to us.lose American's 2gpts.

turn5(490BC)
Isandhlwana_RCP7 and Hlobane_RCP3 riot. have to hire specialist.
galley lost to barbarian galley

inner turn:
Isandhlwana_RCP7 and Hlobane_RCP3 lost a pop each.

turn6(470BC)
an imp kill a barbarian axe appear at chockpoint,
a horseman kill another, promote.
a vet sword lost to a arabia archer on hill, a elite archer kill a arabia warrior on hill,
a elite sword kill a arabia archer in jungle.

turn7(450BC)
elite 3hp archer lost to 1hp archer,very panic.
2 swords and 1 archer capture Najran, one promote.

inner turn:
France: lyons built the colossus.
india trigger the MP, all mid-east dow to india.

turn8(430BC)
settler arrive the iron-spice-which-paper-beetle-spot point.

turn9(410BC)
umtata found.
some combat happened near Najran.
a china settler want to goto chockpoint.

turn10(390BC)
no move,leave to next player,

military sum:
more than 10 elite win, but no MGL.
lose a elite archer, a vet sword, and a galley.a worker, for Tugela.
7 sword, 5 of them elite, 1 vet 1 reg, ready to upgrade if wipe a rax.
7 horseman, only 2 in front.one of them elite.
3 archer, 2 of them in front.
4 turn settler factory begin to function, but 2 turn worker factory need more turns.

discuss:
do we need join a worker into umtata and wipe a rax.
how to deal the china settler? do we block it using some troops?

edit: link here
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm11/Team_Newbie_SG011_BC0390_01.SAV

roster refresh:
Bucephalus - next up
socralynnek - on deck
PaperBeetle...
Taxpayer'sMoney...
Wardancer...
archphoenix - just played

edit2:
@Bucephalus
I make a mistake, to schedule the sword1, if you let the sword1 alone,
he will auto move to east one step.
so please first cancel his mis-order.