SGOTM 11 - Team Newbie

[archphoenix]

I have some exp about later tech, whole I always play build-like games that always advance to MT(age).
I am quite sure at least 1 AI is researching MT(tech), the German, and Russia will be, and maybe viking is attend;
furthermore, France more likely research Eco;
england likely Nav, physics is less favor, if England have physics, she certainly favor Mag

 

[Bucephalus]

I'd like peace with the Anglophones too, because English ships are crawling all over our shores, making me nervous. But what will they charge for peace?

Since they have just allied France against us, might it not be better to concentrate on avoiding the dogpile by MA'ing Bismark or Ragnor against England? That would break the alliance, avoid a problem with Beserks, and slow down the tech pace.

 

[socralynnek]

I am always in favor on allying the civs on beta against each other, especially if we attack Germans,we need to keep Vikings busy on their continent cause then they probably won't send Zerks. If we can take off German saltpeter fast (or if they don't have it) we don't need Cavalries to attack them soon. I guess min research on MT is fine, it will take some time for them to reach Nationalism if we keep them at war. Knights are enough until Rifles appear esp. if we get 1-2 armies.

 

[Wardancer]

Agreed, I'm persuaded the best option is to rely on the AI to get MT for us. As PaperBeetle says, I think we are good to scam one more tech from them.

In terms of the current geopolitical climate. I would advise peace with Cleo and Cath to be followed up with a ROP rape on Cleo using Cath as the trigger.

I would also like peace with the English and Americans as soon as it is on. When we ROP rape Bismark we can buy them in the other Europeans as a bit of back up.

I don't think we really need to worry about the AI getting Nationalism as long as we keep the pace of military conquest fast. They still have a few techs to go and Nationalism itself take a lot of beakers - another reason for killing Germany first would be to remove the chance of himming getting to IA and drawing it!

 

[PaperBeetle]

Half way there. The micro is taking its toll!
I'm at 710ad. So far there's good news and bad news.
On the plus side, Bucephalus's army of settlers has grabbed a lot of decent land. Our military has pushed through Russia, and we are now in a position to read the spoiler thread.
On the minus side, the Egyptian muskets are chewing up our knights faster than we can build them, and war weariness is killing us, which slows our whipping. The diplo situation is pretty dire:

Cleo
At war, but will talk to us. 3 towns left, but well defended. Has Navigation.
Gandhi
At war, triggered by our attack on Korea. Lives in a houseboat off the Russian coast. Won't talk to us.
Cath
Dead, to alleviate war weariness. But I regret that, as a OCC Russia would have allowed a ROP rape on Egypt. I figured it wasn't worth it to rape three towns, but wading through Egypt's vast cultural borders is a real drag.
Wang
At war, bought in by one of the Beta civs. Won't talk to us.
Has one town, stocked with an unfeasibly large number of units. But will die shortly.
Abe & Liz
Still at war. Still won't talk.
Joan
Still at war, bought in by Cleo in Bucephalus's turnset. Still won't talk!
Ragnar & Otto
At war, triggered by our attack on France. Won't talk. We'll have to peace these guys through Joan.. speak to us dammit woman!

The AI now getting heavily into landing knight stacks in our provinces and snapping up undefended towns. I can see why other teams are posting saves where their territory drops. We have already kicked out one invasion by England, and are almost done mopping up a French incursion. An American galley lies off the coast of China, probably carrying a couple of units.

So: question. Should I get peace with Cleo? It would ease the weariness. Would it help Joan talk peace, or make her peace more expensive? Not sure.
If I plough on with the war on Egypt, they will probably fall early in the next turnset.

I'll finish up tonight - I'll try and sneak home early

Edit: Egyptian muskets, not Egyptian knights. Their core has three sources of saltpeter, and they get them (industriously) rehooked as fast as we can disconnect them.

 

[Bucephalus]

I suggest peace with Cleo; Joan is more likely to talk peace (I think) if she doesn't have to break an alliance. And Cleo will fall more easily if you have a chance to muster our Armies; how many do we have now, four?

 

[Wardancer]

Alternatively we could kill her. She only has 3 towns where as we have 5 armies and 50 Knights.

Lets keep it simple.

 

[socralynnek]

The problem with making peace with Cleo is that one city after the other will flip back. I'd rather kill them soon.

Looking at CAII is quite impressing, we are at war with everyone and no one wants to talk. Never seen that before. I hope the other continent is also busy fighting each other, then we shouldn't worry too much about them now. When Egypt has fallen we could make peace with one side and ally the other again.
Keeping them busy is the key to not let them get into IA.

I hope we can trade for a map of Beta soon s.t. we can exactly calculate how many tiles are needed. maybe we can get them in one big ROP rape where we don't have to care about flips if we win the following turn.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Armies...
1 mace army trying to kill off the Koreans. How many units can they have???
1 mace army lost taking Memphis.
3 knight armies healing up and suppressing resistance in Russia.
1 knight army busy kicking Beta landing parties out of the Oriental provinces.
1 leader on his way to build Pentagon in the westernmost Ottoman town. (This town was chosen because it needs cultural expansion to get the strip of coastal tiles to the northwest, and the borders will stretch nicely to the southwest when we take that Egyptian town.)

Dom limit... our previous estimate seems to be holding up well. iirc we are currently listed as having 42% of land area, with just under 1100 tiles. That puts 75% of land area at about 1960 tiles. Anyway, I will try to recalculate today, using the world map we have, how much Beta land we need. I have already started shifting some Japanese towns to give our southern coastline better coverage.

 

[socralynnek]

I forgot that the dom limit got increased for this game, so no chance getting that in one turn...

 

[PaperBeetle]

Never say never. We could take a large contingent of settlers along for the rape, to ensure that we a get good area of land captured, rather than lots of isolated towns spaced five tiles apart.

 

[Wardancer]

I question whether the Pentagon is a good use of a leader right now. For sure its nice but personally I would rather use it for an army to be used in the beta continent campaign.

However, I can see the advantages of buffing our alpha continent armies too - so I leave it to your judgment PaperBeetle.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Well, that's a fair point. I guess I had pretty well convinced myself that we would get Magnetism sooner or later, and those armies would be going to Beta, getting the fourth member on arrival.
We can't really see how far the AI is from Mag (because there are no outward signs of having Physics), and even if they do get it, we may be using the last of our good will up to get Mil Trad, so perhaps you are right.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I've counted the beans, and I reckon there are 2545 dom tiles, broken down as follows...
Alpha: 1518 (one very hard to get; a coastal tile SW of Zimbabwe)
Beta: 973
Gamma: 28 (the southern tundra isle)
Delta: 26 (the northern tundra isle)
Actually, both islands have 8 tiles of land, so not I'm sure which way round CAII would put them.

That gives a dom limit of 1910 tiles - we could reach it by taking all of Alpha and 400 tiles of Beta, for instance.
To get 400 tiles on Beta, we would need to take down at least two, probably three civs.
To get every last tile on Alpha, I estimate we need to found another 30 towns, and build 40 coastal temples. Temples should only be used for grabbing coast; towns are a better way of covering land in the interior, as they add to our economy rather than detracting from it.

 

[Wardancer]

Nice analysis PaperBeetle. The prospect of getting 400 tiles on the beta seems quite daunting when you consider that we will struggle to get much of the coast.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I have uploaded the 750 ad save.

Here is my turnlog. In undigested format I'm afraid - I'll review it later today if needs be...

650ad
Set the governor default for new cities as "emphasise food". For any new cities we build, food is production, and shields are worthless. The governor is not reliable - I think it stops trying to max food once it reaches +4 or +5 fpt, but it is better than not using it at all unless everyone is prepared to micro as much as me. Also manually set the governor this way for all provincial cities.
Set Zimbabwe to run as a two-turn axe/worker combo. We are fine to build settlers in the provinces, but are short on proper workers.

The Ngome situation; Russia is about to take the town. How can I get a large number of units there quickly? Get Gandhi to defend it for me! He might even save Pusan for us.
Give Gandhi Engineering for war with Russia. Give Gandhi Inventin for his 10g treasury; now his free attackers will be longbows. Give Gandhi Ngome, and hope he doesn't flip Seoul.

Hlobane switches to worker - I'll try to run it as a 3 turn worker combo.
Switch Tokyo to settler. This town has long wanted resettlement. Starve it down for the sake of a couple of taxmen. No reason not to...
Isandhlwana switches to worker, as with our other core granary towns.
Iznik switches to settler. It has a bank, haha, I love the AI. Sell it.
Vladivostok switches to worker - it needs disbanding as it is built on saltpeter.

Switch commerce back to 10.0.0 - only a couple of towns are gaining from the lux %.

Start disconnecting Delhi to unhook our saltpeter. Take two other sources offline. Hook the iron and upgrade two trebuchet to cannon.

Push units towards Russia on the understanding that they don't have saltpeter, and spot a Russian musket. Let's hope they are only traded it from Egypt...
Kill the musket and take the settler it was covering.
Retreat knights from Giza to a nearby mountain, and catch sight of another Egyptian iron source.
1 elite win.

Found Tsientsin.
Give Otto ROP + 5gpt + 5g for war with England.

Interturn
Korea dows Russia, so obviously Gandhi got attacked. In fact, Russia took Ngome from India, so presumably Gandhi didn't get his free starting units when I gifted him the town.

Zimbabwe builds axe; start worker.
Hlobane builds worker; start worker.
Tokyo starves down a pop. Iznik starves down a pop.
Isepezi builds settler; start worker.
Upgrade 4 horses.
The Vikings dow the English; England must have attacked Germany; France will be dowing as well then.
The Egyptians dow the Indians; Gandhi must have counterattacked the Russians.

660ad
War weariness steps up, which will cut the output of the provinces.
Lose a caravel to a Russian galley.
Karachi, Yokohama, Nara, Tsingtao, Cairo and Goa founded.

Disconnect Delhi. Without luxuries it becomes inconsolable.
Disconnect Vladivostok and the empire no longer has saltpeter. Forgot to upgrade the other two trebuchets though.

Head towards St Petersburg; it is defended only with iron.
Army disconnects Thebes.

Commerce 8.0.2 to address war weariness.

Whip a settler from Iznik.

Interturn
England lands 4 knights.

Zimbabwe builds worker; start impi.
Iznik builds settler; start settler.
Isipezi builds worker; start worker.

America dows Germany. Scandinavia dows America.

670ad
Hiroshima founded.

Recapture Ngome. Capture St Petersubrg.
Lose a galley to a Russian and a caravel to an English.
Pillage Egyptian saltpeter at El-Amarna.
Armies are healed; move them out of Iznik towards Russia.
4 elite wins.

Interturn
America dows India.
England buys Korea against us, har har har.
England takes undefended Mpondo and loses a knight attacking Beijing.

Hlobane builds worker; start caravel to try to build our navy back.
Isandhlwana builds worker; start worker.
Isipezi builds worker; start impi.

680ad
Found Karnak, pushing in toward Giza. Found Taipei, Sariwon, Konya, Antalya and Guangdong.
Sacrifice a redlined knight to pillage the saltpeter at Byblos. Army takes out the saltpeter at Giza. Capture El-Amarna.
Lose a knight recapturing Mpondo.
Kill a spear in Ulsan, causing the Indians to dow. Lose a vet galley attacking a regular Korean.

Hook Delhi and upgrade the remaining two trebs to cannon.
Whip caravels out of the isthmus towns, and another settler from Izmik.

3 elite wins.

Interturn
The last English knight suicides against an impi, but France drops 3 knights off near Kyoto.

Zimbabwe builds impi; start worker.
Tokyo disbands into a settler.

690ad
Unhook Russian iron. Kill 6 defenders to capture Moscow.
Arrive at the new Russian capital Yakutsk. The Indian galley is offshore!
Unhook Egyptian iron. Capture Giza.

Defend Yokohama with an AC; it is behind a river, so will have better defense, and unlike Kyoto, it will autoraze.

Istanbul and Edrine refounded.
2 elite wins.

Interturn
France takes Kyoto and Yokohama, which does not autoraze.
Korea dows the Vikings.

Zimbabwe builds worker; start impi.
Isandhlwana builds worker; start worker.
War weariness hits again.

700ad
Tokyo and Izmit refounded.

Attack France; Germany and Scandinavia dow (but I forgot to hoover up Otto's 100g treasury first).
Capture Yakutsk, Rostov and Yekaterinburg. Capture Smolensk and the Russians are out, relaxing war weariness a little.

Sink an English galley.

2 elite wins. Get a leader at Rostov.

Interturn
France captures Ulundi.

Vladivostok disbands for a settler.

710ad
Recapture Kyoto and Yokohama.
Lose a mace army capturing Memphis.
Sink an English galley.

Murmansk and Polokwane founded.
Commerce 9.0.1 brings in 110gpt.

Interturn
The last French knight suicides against our AC.
No landings from the Americans.

Zimbabwe builds impi; start worker.

720ad
Recapture Ulundi.

Nagasaki, Archangel, Kowloon, Lanzhou and Sakarya founded. Vladivostok refounded.
Leader forms Beta Regiment.

Peace time! Give Joan w map for peace + t map + 11g.
Give Cleo peace + ROP + 31gpt + w map for war with Korea + t map + Navigation + 163g. Cleo has hooked her westwernmost saltpeter.
No more war weariness!
Give Joan spices + wines + furs + gems + ivory for 43gpt.
Give Ragnar t map for w map. Give Otto t map for w map + 15g. Swap w maps with Joan.

Interturn
America drops off a longbow.

Satsuma disbands for a settler.
No flips to Egypt!

730ad
Nothing doing - just moving knights into Egypt.

Interturn
Disaster! Despite my land blockade of Ulsan, Ragnar takes it with a berserk; we are back to war with Egypt.
The American longbow is beaten back.
The AI get Economics.

740ad
Lose only 1 knight capturing Heliopolis.
Superb luck at Thebes, and we capture the town - I only had about half the forces available that I would have budgeted for it.

Sivas and Omsk founded. Satsuma refounded.

Abe will talk, although Liz is still holding out.

6 elite wins.

Interturn
Abandon Edo for a settler.
No flips to Egypt; their fate should be sealed.

750ad
Luxor, Kazan and Siwah founded.
There is an Egyptian galley off our southwest coast.

 

[socralynnek]

The roster once again:
Taxpayer'sMoney - UP
Wardancer - on deck
archphoenix -
Bucephalus -
socralynnek -
PaperBeetle - just played

Looks good still. Are the Beta AIs at war with each other?
Plan: Kill Egypt, then kill someone on Beta. we can use false ROPrape once again to get our troops near the enemy's cities. We might even try to take (maybe) Germany down in one turn to prevent flips.

Other thoughts?

EDIT: I coul look at the territory graph for hours, I still love it...

 

[archphoenix]

awesome graph

by the way, do we use up zulu's native name, why city name like taipei ,archangel appear, a manual name?

 

[Wardancer]

Hehe, all bow down and worship our god PaperBeetle

 

[PaperBeetle]

I think the last two blocs are currently at war, although I didn't specifically check since getting peace. That is to say I've had no messages saying they all fell to peace, but we wouldn't get those messages while we were at war with everyone.

For city names, we have the most amazing variety of styles don't we? It's a bit like the way cities all get their names in different ways in the real world! For the record, I use city names native to the locality of the city, so Taipei will be a town I built in what used to be China (not that I want to get into the politics of China's historical claims on Taiwan) and Archangel should be in old Russia somewhere. If I can't remember a city name from the game's roster, I look one up in my brain or on the web.