SGOTM 11 - Wotan

[Kulko]

Ok, I played the turns. took me a while to get that Factory in Z organized, costing us probabaly a turn, but now it should be running on track.

I didn't really do much in warfare. but there is now an unmoved stack of about 7 HM waiting outside of that Egyptian fishing village. Unfortunately, that is in the way of all meaningfull attacks, while lying on a hill. It was founded in turn4 of my turnset, so shoudl have a second Spearman ready yet, but an Archer went there last turn.

Dman is free to attack, but I still feel we are a bit too weak, although by now the reinforcements should come faster.

The iron is mined first, as I didn't want to connect before we get Chivalry to allow us to build cheap Warrior for MPs.

We have 2 Impis now, with 2 more in the make.

Techwise I kept research high, selling some old techs for money from time to time, so we should be able to keep the pace most of the age. I don't know exactly at which price korea is able to buy Monotheism, from Otto, but hopefully they are into war soon.

China is at war with everybody, so lets hope this time somebody manages the way back to push the other allinace into war soon.

But the problem with all this interalliance war is, that there is always ne pair waiting to make peace on first sight, so it might end very soon too. But we still have some techs to gift to china, so we can keep it up for a while.

 

[Wotan]

Have looked at the save now. Looks good! One warning, Ulundi nee to shift a citizen from a forest to a coastal tile to avoid unrest. Still producing 6 spt. so a HM then a Settler.

Z will run a 4 turn factory starting next turn 7-9-7-9 shields using goats, cow and the mined bg, plus forest on growth. Add a grassland on size 4 and a second on size 5. Alternative would be to mine both the remaining grasslands to give full control of goats to Untata and Z running a 6-8-7-9 factory using cow, mined bg, and mined grass. One on size 4 and two on size 5. I would prefer this solution. But it is not to happen during the next two turnsets I guess, since we are using two workers to mine the goats, 8 more turns plus 5 turns to road it. 2 Workers roading cost 4.5 turns but since moving a worker off the mountain without a road still cost a turn for that worker there is no benefit from moving one off.

We should place a town on the gold mountain NE of the Archer(elite), then focus on moving Settlers to calim new territories when we start reducing the egyptians. We need to fill the area with locations.

Also, we need to discuss where to jumpo our palace to? My own personal favourite now is Damascus, only weakness is the amount of jungle but with a lot of worker actions that area is the strongest on the map, plenty of fresh water for non-aqueduct expansion. But it requires "some" worker activities to clear jungles. would also give us continued war on the western alliance.

Warfare: I know I am proactive when war is discussed. I like to go on the offensive ASAP. I would like us to DoW Egypt now, take ot the Sworkdman and go after the two Egyptian frontier towns right away. No reason to allow them to produce extra defenders. First take out the town east of the Swordman then turn on Hieraconpolis. Don't bother with the slave working the jungle next to our stack. When we DoW Egypt it will move into the town and we can capture it there. No reason to divide our stack, 5 HMs should be more than enough to kill a new town and take some loss from the Swordman attack. Heal wounded, wait for reinforcements and take out Hieraconpolis. Hopefully start our GA during the next turnset, that would give us Chivaly quicker and a nice stack of Knights sooner too. It would let us rule the continent! Several AI has iron and feudalism now so beware pikes and MI appearing soon. WE really need to shift from HMs to Knights.

And finally, keep the war going. As Kulko said, we still have techs to gift to China should they be tempted to seek peace.

We sure want the Temple of Artemis to land on our continent, that GW is a key to this game.

 

[Kulko]

Worker
Sorry when I misused some workers here, but my feweling was that Z was running smoothly along, alowing us do shift some actions to the goats.

Cities
There is one settlert on his wayx south. This was meant to go onto the plains location between gold mountain and Intombe. Anyway, I would setlle both locations anyway. Apart from that everything can go across to the frontier.
Do we want to settle the 3 locations on the land bridge too? I defibtekly would like to secure the spices, once the Egypt town there has fallen, although we nee a second transport possibility apart from the land then.

Military:
Thats what I had in mind, when I positioned like this. Fully agree on your analysis.

FP
Can't look at the save now, will comment later.

 

[Wotan]

No, no, you misunderstand my comment on Z workers. You did not misuse them, we where in agreement about mining the goats when you started your turn set. This thought of mine came when I looked at the new save. No reason for you to feel you did something wrong, I am a bit disappointed at myself though, for not seeing this alternative earlier...

Settlers on landbridge is a definite yes, but we really need to have sttlers follow our victorious armies to calim territories gained. On settlers in south, agree on the two being the "final" ones until we have surplus of settlers again. 3 or so needed for landbridge plus a yet to be decided number to fill the area we conquer.

Military: Tally Ho, Dman! Go for it!

FP: If we do decide on Damascus there are plenty of locations around it for a great FP to be in so no real need to decide on FP location right now. Some use of CivAssist in analysing locations would probably help us too when we get closer to that in time.

 

[dmanakho]

Looking at the save...
will study.. plenty of time for discussions.
Sunday is busy... so will play monday night.

 

[dmanakho]

ok, no discussions, but i am still playing tonight right?

 

[schmiddi]

Seems like Wotan and Kulko figured out most of the plan.
Do you have anything to add?

 

[Wotan]

Seems like Wotan and Kulko figured out most of the plan.
Do you have anything to add?

That is my take on it too. Kulko and I had an extensive discussion after his turn set. But before you posted about discussions yesterday. Please check it out.

 

[dmanakho]

I checked it out... just wanted to make sure there is nothing else in addition to what you guys said.

I think we should discuss whether to stop research after chivalry. I think we should proceed to MT.
One of the SGOTMs we played in the past we stopped at Chivalry and opposing team proceeded to MT. At the end they won the game. Military campaigns are much faster when one can use cavalry.

EDIT: Another argument to MT - we have 60% of land and modified domination limits - that means we need to conquer more land - more time - more chances to meet stronger defenders. will be tough with just knights at the end.

 

[dmanakho]

Pre-turn... Moving workers east to road.
5 horses will definitely go to down east of egyptian sword.
Hiearnconpolis can become a tough nut to crack due to the hill location. Wish we had few spare swords just for that town alone. Back to egyptian land -> moving elite horse on top of the mountain SE from Hieraconpolis and see egyptian archer just W from where sword stands.
Home land -> Moving citizen in Ulundi to sea tile to avoid riots.
I see we have an elit horse in northern desert. I am relocating it to the battle zone. We need those elite in hot spots. Found horse in Hlobane - moving to battle zone. Running lux tax at awfull 40%... definetely need second lux to be connected ASAP.

Show time: Declared war on Egypt. Attacked and killed swordman. 2hp horse survived. Ottomans immediately declared on us.
Captured egyptian slave. I decided to capture it this turn to avoid one turn loss of usefull actions the slave can do for us. Moving remaining horses to egyptian town, which was apparently Chinese town at some point - Tsingtao.
Good news it has pop 2, we won't auto-raze it.

IBT. Egyptian archer attacks our 2hp horse. We win and promoted to elite actually gaining 3rd hp. Another archer attacks same horse and we retreat. See arabian settler pair near Tsingtao.

T1. 530BC. Horse attacks Tsingtao.. We easily kill reg spear and capture town. Our horse is promoted to elite. concentrating troops near Hiearconpolis. Hopefully 4 horses will be enough to take that town. Unfortunately we will auto-raze it.
Vet. horse kills reg archer in jungle with no scratches
Korea is the only nation that has the knowledge of republic, but won't trade.

IBT. American's are building Hangin Gardens. English are bulding GL.

T2. 510BC. I was incredibly lucky. vet horse kills fortified spear in H-copolis and we win with only one hp down. City is raized.
Less luck when i tried to attack arabian settler pair. Vet. horse retreated leaving arab. spear with full health. Move citizens in Intombe and horse town to sea tiles to prevent rioting.
Amatikulu is founded down south. Sold Lit to France for 25 gold.

IBT. Egyptian warrior-archer pair moved from the fog.

T3. 490 BC. Consolidating troops and moving workers to construct road to Tsingtao - lux connection. Japanese moving large formation of troops towards egyptian land.

T4. 470BC. Asked Japan to leave premises. They are blocking path for our horses. Moving troops towards egyptian land. Hopefully next turn will have couple of elite kills. Bapedi settler->horse.

IBT. Egyptian pair retreated.

T5. 450BC. Z. settler-settler. Other towns horses->horses. moving troops.. Having all these jungles and hills makes the war slow.

T6. 430BC. Three elite wins this turn but no leaders. Troops arrived near Alexandria. Settler arrived on top of spices. should be able to hook it up next turn.

IBT. Jap. Anc. Cavalry ran by Tsingao.

T7. 410BC. SpiceGirls is founded and we have secound source of luxuries. Managed to drop lux slider to 20% with some MM in Ulundi. But can't move science slider higher than 40% and that will actually go down to 30 next turn. Science research is about to halt. Chivalry in 14 for now. Looked at AIs and sold CoL to France for 25 gold. moved sci slider to 70% for another couple of turns.

Siege of Alexandria.
vet. HM vs reg Spear -> 1hp Spear
vet HM vs. reg spear -> 3hp spear HM retreats
vet HM vs. reg Spear -> 2hp spear HM retreats
vet archer vs. 2hp spear -> 3hp archer
3hp elite HM vs 1hp spear -> 3hp elite HM
City is captured along with slave worker and we have 3 more source of spices within reach.

At this moment i think it is time to turn to Arabs and capture Damascus and Mecca. Meca is located at the worst spot possible. So if we make Damascus our capital i suggest to burn Mecca and build town using proper planning. May be not right away but we need to do better planning for new core.

IBT. Good news - ottomans completed ToA, bad news - they are on the opposite side of continent. Japs completed HG. Wonder cascading across the map.

T8. 390BC - Impis still haven't seen any action. Perhaps when we take next city. Hired scientist in Hlobane to avoid riot.

IBT. Silly egyptian landed settler pair next to the barbarian stack...
Got killed.

T9. 370BC. We are bancrupt. Sold Feud. to America for 36gold and 6gpt...
Running deficit but chivalry should be ours in 4.
Workers finished mine in Z. It now has too many shields. We need to re-invent settler factory. Z. will be much better as military one. Moved Impi near egyptian town of giza. It has pop one and will be autorazed. I think we need to turn to Arabs at the moment.

IBT. English finished GL. I made a mess and both Bapedi and Umtata are rioting I had Civ Assist running, but somehow managed to miss the warning. Meanwhile Germany landed settler pair in the northern desert on our continent.

T10. 350BC. Armies are moving towards Damascus. Corrected situation in Bapedi by moving another mP. Left one worker unmoved.

Post action thoughts:
We need to mine some of the plains we irrigated to get better shield output. Move to arabian land and start capturing their cities. Egyptian warrior showed from under the fog but can be easily taken care of by one of the horses nearby. Research is going to be a problem. Our economy in pretty bad shape. We won't be able to research much even with GA. IMHO, having GA now won't do us good. All we will be able to do is to build half dozen extra HMs and then spend eternity developing new core. We need to coincide our GA soon after moving the core so we can develop it quickly.

I am territbly sorry for the mess at the end of my turnset.
EDIT: Alexandria shouldn't really be building an archer, i forgot to change the build. swithing to worker would probably a better choice.

Battlefield:

 

[Wotan]

Looks pretty good Dman, havn't looked at the save yet though.

GA will do us good right now, sorry but that is a fact! Better have extra resources to use now than in 30 turns or so. The new core will also take some time to set up for full productivity so yes we need it now.

We need to make a pause in research and run with Knights, then capture GLib for a science boost and a final trek to MT. We are in Monarchy so science will be a bit of a problem. Good thing the ToA ended upon our continent, we can disregard culuture expansion now until we have it! Just keep pushing in the west.

When you read the discussion Kulko and I had you must have noticed the Z. settler factory plans, mine two grasslands and leave the goats to the hill town. Until that is done we can share the goats to allow some extra production in hilltown.

Roster
Schmiddi up
Wotan on deck
TimBentley
Kulko
Dmanakho just played

 

[Kulko]

Hi Dman great warmongering. We are getting progress here.Sorry for misplacing that horse, thinking of it, it was plain stupid to leave it there. On the otther hand a information, that theses Barbs don't move anymore would have been helpful from Wotan.

Zimbabwe
The irrigated cow is our only Settler source.

City placements
The city on land brindge is badly situated. Now we will need culture there to cover all the available land.
I would have rather settled the desert near the spices, but I understand your pain about the 40% Lux. Although when we don't spend on research who cares.
But when we use the Spice we should try to build 2 harbours so that we have a alternative connection should Egypt or some other pooor chap land on the bridge.

Jumping to the Continent
I understand Damascus was supposed to be FP not P. P should only be switched, until we have enough core cities build to make it valuable. On the other hand I do not agree that Damascus is the bst location there is. I think the egyptian land is much better I think Al Amarna or Thebes would be my locations of choice.


Tech
Given the state of our economy I support Wotan. Lets stop it and wait for the GL to get what Korea is able to research in the meantime. The hordes of Knights we can build insteatd of Libs and Markets will do us much better.
I think getting the research costs for Chiv by selling old techs to the other continent is the way its meant to be, Thats what they are there for.

 

[dmanakho]

We will get culture from ToA once we capture Ottoman's land.
So all our cities will expand sooner and later.
Nobody answered my question about what to do with research.
Chivalry will be here in 4 to 6 turns and I'd like us to think about further research towards MT.
Remember that we have to capture more land than in usual game to achieve domination limit and we have 60% land from the beginning.
On monarch game it might take longer with just knights.

 

[Kulko]

Hmm Wotan clearly stated his opinion and I seconded.

Lets capture the GL with Knights and then see how far we have to go from there. Right now Building up the Infra for something resembling Research will cost us 20-25 Knights now which will more than make up for it.
And with this huge scientist farm we have by then we might actually be faster in reaching MT too, because we only need to reseacrh 2 Techs insteadt of 5.

@ City Placement.
Yes we will expand culture, but we cannnot boot people from neutral fields in the meantime and I see no advantage in your placement. The solution aggreed on, was making sure that we get maximum control of the bridge withb is right now a vital lifeline. Would have been nice to hear why you swayed away.

 

[dmanakho]

I believe ENglish built GL so it is far away across the ocean.
Capturing GL will bring very bad side effect - ToA will expire and we really need it for free culture.
That means if we capture GL we have to capture it before education is researched which will be daunting task to do.

@Kulko: which city in particular you are referring to? Is it the one on top of spices or on the land bridge itself?

 

[Kulko]

Good Point about the ToA and the GL. The English shouldn't pose a problem, as we need to attack both continents anyway.

The city where I definitely don't see the point is the one on the bridge.

 

[dmanakho]

sorry about the city placement.. i was trying to figure out the best location ...
that is why we need to put dot map and put it often as we go

 

[Kulko]

Ok you asked for it . I will repost the dotmaps every turnset. Helps us generate posts too.

It was no biggie, the military success was far more important and well done.

regarding Tech I am a bit unsure now. I would still prefer pointy stcik research for a while, But the GL is definitely a less likeable option now.

 

[dmanakho]

Also, we need immediately discuss palace jump and where it goes.
We have split of opinions between arab land and egypt land.
I am sure in next few battles we will get leaders...
how do we use them?
Create an army is one option... however i'd rather have sword army.
imeddiately rush FP or palace is another option...
I'd say next player should stop the game if leader appears.
Also, who do we attack next...
I suggest taking Damaskus and Mecca as next immediate target...
then think again.

 

[Kulko]

Leaders:
I prefer rushing FP in a productive city with our next leader, to gve us some rally points in Egypt or Arab. From there build a real core and jump palace.

Location
I'd like to hear a good reasoning for why arab is better than egypt. I hope I have pointed out my points of preference.