SGOTM 11 - Team Newbie

[socralynnek]

The roster:



archphoenix - will finish his turnset
Bucephalus - up then
socralynnek - on deck
PaperBeetle -
Wardancer -
Taxpayer'sMoney -

I'm fine with you finishing your set first. Although I haven't looked into the save, I agree with PaperBeetle in most aspects.

The only thing is: I normally don't take a fliprisk where the minimum risk is higher than 5%, I wouldn't want to lose units that way...in Civ4 it's no problem cause the units don't get lost, but here...
So I think we should heal outside, although it slows us down, but losing some units would slow us down more.

 

[archphoenix]

turn6: (156th 410AD) continued
we can only draw France and American into war(Embassy).
but American want Theo and Gun! no more diplomacy.
move 2 knight wait Egpty longbow,
aid 1 knight,1 imp,1 horsman to seoul.

turn7: (157th 420AD)
vet knight kill a Egpty longbow on mountain;
elite horseman kill a MI;
elite knight get a MGL, since we have 1 knight army, build army.
elite knight kill a Arabia archer on mountain;
vet knight kill a MI,
vet knight kill a longbow,take basra;
lsipezi found.
the only knight army hurry match to north.
we can't disconnect salt, delhi settled on salt!

turn8: (158th 430AD)
add 2 worker into FP city, mined some ir-grass,
FP city become 15spt, can provide 1 horseman per 2 turn.
Amatikulu found.
elite knight kill a Arabia longbow.
a knight army(10HP)+6 knights approach Mecca, see a Egpty knight.
leave kufah undefend, 17% is too risk to leave small troops when massive units away.
MI army kill a MI, a pike, an imp kill a longbow, clear up troop around seoul.
disconnect the last iron. many city build switch.
search citys that build horseman,leave 17-20s,and only +1 food or less,
whip horseman in these citys.
switch worker to rax in koyto.
switch knight in Hlobane_RCP3 to horseman,waste 12s.
switch Kagoshima,Tokyo and Cheju from rax to harbor.
buy 83g+chemistry with 94gpts from England, gift bombay to american,DOW to American,
and take bombay back.

turn9: (159th 440AD)
take Mecca, lost a vet knight.
move troops out of basra;(see socralynnek's post.)
some troops goto front.
wine connected, forgot to slide tech bar, move the 6 slaves north to build road to korea.

inter turn:
see an ansar!
korea longbow capture our 6 slaves! sorry!

turn10: (160th 450AD)
no any move.

post write:
1.leave turn10 no move,
2.we have some force in the middle of Arabia and Korea, they can aid to conquest korea
or Arabia.
3.we leave no units in basra and kufah; this turn as socralynnek said should move units
out of Mecca,
4.I spoiled captial's 4 turn settler at turn6, please correct it.
5.buy chemistry at 8th turn, draw England and American into war,no more diplomacy.
6.leave some scattered units to guard conquested china and india land.
7.iron just connect this turn.
8.many workers(slaves) are around another iron, they can build a shortpath.
9.does these troops near basra enough to take Damascus?
A.how to handle the troops in Mecca when they leave the city?
B.should it too greed to devide troops into 3 parts to focus on Mecca, Korea and Damascus?
C.I mined some ir-grass around FP-citys and other core city, should the irrigation be
mined afer city arrived 6?
D.should the mountain north of swazi and hill north of Mpondo need mine? or let these
pack of workers hurry to front help building road?
E.do it need a road south of the basra to short new troops trip?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm11/Team_Newbie_SG011_AD0450_01.SAV

 

[socralynnek]

I think we can let some core towns grow past size 6, we have enough small towns to never pay unit maintenance, so we can get more shields and more by letting them grow.We should just make sure that corrupt cities never grow past size 6, se the whip there.

I am still impressed by our territory graph, so it seems we are doing something right (although there surely be a team that grows even faster...)
I can only repeat: Please keep on playing careful, we still have a chance to win this one. Rather play less turns or request a skip than playing fast and sloppy.

bucephalus, when can you play?

 

[Bucephalus]

bucephalus, when can you play?

It will be Thursday, at the earliest. If the next player wants to swap, leaving me the weekend, that would be cool. Whenever I play, may I request as much guidance as possible?

 

[PaperBeetle]

elite knight get a MGL, since we have 1 knight army, build army.

I thought you had planned to build Pentagon with the next leader.
Did this army get filled? We already have enough armies for this continent, so the next leader should build Pentagon, and any after that should build empty armies so that we can send them to Beta on galleys.
The armies that are stuck on Alpha then become our coastguards, picking off any AI landing parties. We may as well add extra units to these armies when we have Pentagon, as I can't see the research in this game going as far as Magnetism (a galleon can carry a 3-unit army, but it takes a transport to carry a 4-unit).
Also, I would recommend putting Ancient Cavalries into armies rather than knights, as there is a good chance that we will get to upgrade our knights to cavalry. ACs can't upgrade of course.

Has the Templars been built anywhere? Is anyone working on it?

 

[socralynnek]

Then I'll play tomorrow in the morning.
If Paper Beetle wants to play after me, then you have the weekend, bucephalus.

 

[Bucephalus]

Then I'll play tomorrow in the morning.
If Paper Beetle wants to play after me, then you have the weekend, bucephalus.

Excellent, thanks.

Edit: Actually, Thursday evening should see me able to play, so whatever is convenient for Paperbeetle.

 

[Wardancer]

"buy 83g+chemistry with 94gpts from England, gift bombay to american,DOW to American,
and take bombay back."

Nice move

 

[PaperBeetle]

I can play the weeknights if needed, but I'd prefer the weekend slot, because I play so slow.

I see our score graph is shooting up. That is a bad sign now!
It means we have lots of people, and they are happy. Remember this is feudalism; we should have a low population, who are mostly content. Let's get busy with that whip! Shanghai - size 7! Kyoto - 5 happies. Canton - working a desert. You get the idea...

Actually there are plenty of citizens producing less food than they eat. The provinces can be micro'd right now for an extra 19fpt. Further to this, I suggest we switch all city governors in these towns to emphasise food, and set that as the default for all new towns.

On the diplomatic front, Arabia will give us ROP for peace. How about we kill that ansar (I presume they haven't triggered their GA yet) and all the other weak units around Mecca, get the peace/ROP, and then set up another ROP rape? We ought to be able to get 5-6 units outside each of their towns within the next 5 turns or so. Medina deserves a couple extra, being a city and a hill. Mecca will probably flip too. And then splat! No more ansars, no more flip risk, no more resistance. Back to the whipping.

 

[archphoenix]

I thought you had planned to build Pentagon with the next leader.
Did this army get filled? We already have enough armies for this continent,

amazing, how to estimate army force? I think 4 army is too small to conquest alpha, do we finish alpha then goto beta, or run the war concurrently?
furthermore,
we can utilize all armies using the trick "massive troops magicly jump to beta". cost 1 MGL.
of course, if we want palace back, use another MGL....

@Bucephalus@PaperBeetle
contrast, I perfer workdays' play.

"buy 83g+chemistry with 94gpts from England, gift bombay to american,DOW to American,and take bombay back."
Nice move,

actually I waste 2 turns england's gpts, when england DOW to us, I found out amazedly that our incoming reduce from +222gpts to +186gpts,later I reload the save to find that england still has 2 turn gpts to us.

 

[Wardancer]

Just to clarify PaperBeetle's point........

The military situation is not good at the moment. Or at least is not as good as it should be.

We have A LOT of corrupt towns with high pop and A LOT of cash in the bank. However, just having corrupt towns with big pop and lots of cash useless. We must turn these things into Knights!

This means the next player has a big job to do whipping out all these horses and upgrading them into Knights - there is around a back log of 20 that need doing and (at least until our GPT payments from Germany and France run out) we need to do another 1-2 per turn on top of that.

Being slow at this is costing us a lot of turns.

 

[socralynnek]

OK, I'll start playing in half an hour or so.

I'll try my best at whipping and upgrading.

I think the massive army jump is banned in GOTM (and therefore SGOTM)...just checked, didn't find it on the rules page (nevetheless to jump the capital we need a significantly number of cities on beta, meaning we already need many units there, only for teleporting the armies it could be nice)

maybe I'll come back with questions before I play, I'll look into the save first.

 

[Wardancer]

Oh and now the Ottomans have Leo you have twice as much work to do. Suggest the followng stragegy.

i) Call Peace
ii) Whip horses like crazy
iii) Set up quasi rop to finish of Arabia and take Leo plus further Ottoman key towns.
iv) Perform mass upgrade - use a barracks near the front line to avoid wasting time.
v) Pwn everybody

Also btw, I wasn't having a dig at anyone in particular in my above post. I'm just as guilty of not spending the cash as the rest of the recent players.

 

[PaperBeetle]

OK, I'll start playing in half an hour or so.

I'll try my best at whipping and upgrading.

I think the massive army jump is banned in GOTM (and therefore SGOTM)...just checked, didn't find it on the rules page (nevetheless to jump the capital we need a significantly number of cities on beta, meaning we already need many units there, only for teleporting the armies it could be nice)

maybe I'll come back with questions before I play, I'll look into the save first.

I too was sure it is banned, and cannot find the ruling . I will keep searching...

But if it is not banned, it takes only one leader to do; rush the palace to a new town on Beta, gift the garrison town to somebody (and then use it as a trigger town a couple of turns later ) to get the military jumping over, then move the military out of the new place and disband it - the palace should jump back somewhere in our core where the towns are big. In fact, this being C3C, it isn't even much of a loss if the palace ends up in the Forbidden City.

If it is banned, we need to start planning the invasion of Beta soon. I don't know whether we want to fight on both continents at once (although I'm sure the klariuses and Wotans of this world will do it), but we certainly don't want peace on both continents eh? Anyway, to my eyes, Germany looks like a good place to enter Beta. The downside with that would be that it would put as at war with Scandinavia, but there are three reasons I suggest it:
1. They are near to our core, where we can build up galleys quite easily.
2. We can reach their coast without suicide chaining.
3. They have Sun Tzu.
Anyway, we can think about it a little later, when we are a bit closer to conquering the Middle East.

 

[socralynnek]

450 AD (0) :


Kill off the weak units around Mecca and sign peace for ROP+20g with Arabia.
Make an embassy with Ottomans. Investigate Bursa, it has 3 spears. Sign ROP with Ottomans. Move units out of Mecca, flip risk is too high
Make an embassy with Vikings.
Sign Vikings vs the Americans, giving them Education which is widely known and will stop their ToA.

Take back the workers from Korea. Rush barracks in Seoul.

MMing and rushing a lot...


460 AD (1) :


France declares war on America.

Stupid mistake: Move an MIarmy towards Arabia, the turn ends in Mecca. Praying that it won't flip this turn.

MMing.

470 AD (2) :

Mecca doesn't flip. Luck!
Captur Hyangsan.

MMing.



Stop here for the moment.
That micromanaging is taking really long.
I can declare on Egypt nex turn and thus (false) ROPraping Arabia.
Korea will be gone next turn, so I can trick someone, maybe Germany to give us gpt for free...
I think we should go after Arabia before taking Ottoman cities, otherwise the logistics won't work.
archphoenix, have you moved away some workers from the iron? I thought it was supposed to take 2 turns to reconnect, not 3?
I am moving some workers there.
I'll play more turns tomorrow in the morning (about 20 hours from now).

Comments and thoughts are welcome!

 

[socralynnek]

Here are the screenshots from Ottoman and Scandinavian capital:

 

[Bucephalus]

I thought you would all like to know what 'Bede' thinks of our morality. In another SG, I suggested the 'gpt for tech, gift city to MPP partner, declare on MPP partner and retake city, trigger MPP, tech for free' trick.

This was his reply:

To my way of thinking that is a less than honorable ploy, dastardly indeed.

 

[socralynnek]

If we'd play a normal SG here, I'd fully agree with you and Bede.
In a SG just for fun, I'd rather play with some limitations to have more fun.
But this is a competition. If we play to win (and that is why we play a competition, or not), we should use everything that is allowed.
There are banned exploits which we don't want to use, but this game is about maximising the use of such tricks.

 

[Bucephalus]

If we'd play a normal SG here, I'd fully agree with you and Bede.
In a SG just for fun, I'd rather play with some limitations to have more fun.
But this is a competition. If we play to win (and that is why we play a competition, or not), we should use everything that is allowed.
There are banned exploits which we don't want to use, but this game is about maximising the use of such tricks.

Actually, I am ambivalent about it. I just thought it to be a point of interest, since it may indicate that there may not be a level playing field in this game; other teams' interpretation of what constitutes 'fair-play' may be giving us an advantage.

 

[PaperBeetle]

It may be the case, and hopefully we'll find out when we (and the other teams) get to the spoiler thread.
Actually I suspect that you are right in the case of the Bunnies (Bede is on the team, and you earlier pointed out Whomp espousing some pretty honorable rules) which is why their territory graph is a totally different shape to teams Newbie, X-Nuts, and (to some extent) klarius. If they are using RBC rules or something like them, they can't abuse ROP, or even break any ongoing peace or war deals, so they will progress through the two local blocs much more slowly than we do.