SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

[Fluroscent]

Tested, and it does seem to work with a lake adjacent to the fort. Forts take 10 turns on normal speed, and needs to clear fallout first. And with roads that makes it 18 worker turns/fort. Exactly equivalent to beestars estimate for the long road.
So I will maintain that it costs us worker turns, since the road is generally useful while the forts.. not so much (will even need to be demolished later).

And for reference: Elephants are 60, catapults 50, galleys 50.

 

[BLubmuz]

Tested, and it does seem to work with a lake adjacent to the fort. Forts take 10 turns on normal speed, and needs to clear fallout first. And with roads that makes it 18 worker turns/fort. Exactly equivalent to beestars estimate for the long road.
So I will maintain that it costs us worker turns, since the road is generally useful while the forts.. not so much (will even need to be demolished later).

And for reference: Elephants are 60, catapults 50, galleys 50.

Good arguments. I appreciated the creative use of forts, but since we need roads, building them is not a waste like building the forts.

So, i favor this solution.

Axes are even cheaper and pretty good, mainly since the stupid AI build Swords if they have iron.

I guess the up next is between Fluro and me. Also Havr is MIA.

 

[unclethrill]

I think tonight I will try to test Axe versus Phants to see what will get it done better.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay here are some test results. Understand that this was quick and dirty (not optimized at all)

By T138:

Moscow had GL.

Researched Aesthetics, Philo, Music, Paper & 1/2 of Edu

StP: HE

Built 6 Axe, 5 Caps, 2 chariots.

Sent these along with 2 workers and the Confused missionary towards DeG. I started with one axe escorting the 2 workers who can build the road in 1 turn. (1 turn to move on and 1 turn to build). By the time I got the road built to #10, The entire stack had caught up and I was ready to attack. This seems like a good solution to the road versus forts idea. We need the road and the stack can catch up one at a time as 2 workers build the road.

I took out 2 1 pop cities that where in the way. Lost 2 axe and 2 caps. Those losses popped a GG so I built a chariot and made a medic. He caught up before the stack made it to Paris. I lost anther axe and a char on the way to paris to axes swords and archer attacks. I also had to rest and heal once.

I lost the rest of the caps doing collateral damage after knocking down walls. Lost 2 axe and 1 chariot. Took Paris on T138 with GG Chariot, Chariot and Axe. Had to get peace or would have lost it immediately. Had to give Alpha to get peace.

I will try with Phants tomorrow but the bottom line on axes is he will likely have a buttload of troops and we will need to roll deep or stay home.

 

[Fluroscent]

unclethrill, do you have a more updated testsave where DeG is in the same location?

But tests on axes vs phants are not really useful imo.
8 str vs 5 is just too superior to make axes competitive. Then comes stable bonus. And fewer but stronger units are cheaper in maintenance too. If we go with axes mainly, we would still need phants for stack defense. But we are much more susceptible to attrition warfare still, where phants are a lot more robust. The advantage axes have sometimes is the CR promotion. But we would have to promote most to combat anyway or be pummelled by superior numbers on defense.

We might consider a bigger army to start though, since it seems unlikely that he will have longbows anytime soon. Something like ~6-8 phants ~8-10 cats 2 axes and a medic.

 

[Fluroscent]

I guess the up next is between Fluro and me.

Your call. I figure the next two sets will get us either into the war or on the doorstep.

Another query: Do we know if the AI will always accept an iceball city as a gift? We might be tempted to build one and gift it before the war begins for two reasons: 1. So we can capture all his mainland, and 2. So we get peace earlier to make him build less units.
Otherwise, we can always build it for the end of the war, make peace, gift city, wait 10 turns, declare again and leave him the ice.
I guess either way, we will suffer "you declared on our friend" from some of the AI.

 

[unclethrill]

unclethrill, do you have a more updated testsave where DeG is in the same location?

But tests on axes vs phants are not really useful imo.
8 str vs 5 is just too superior to make axes competitive. Then comes stable bonus. And fewer but stronger units are cheaper in maintenance too. If we go with axes mainly, we would still need phants for stack defense. But we are much more susceptible to attrition warfare still, where phants are a lot more robust. The advantage axes have sometimes is the CR promotion. But we would have to promote most to combat anyway or be pummelled by superior numbers on defense.

We might consider a bigger army to start though, since it seems unlikely that he will have longbows anytime soon. Something like ~6-8 phants ~8-10 cats 2 axes and a medic.

First, no I just used the old test save. Like I said quick and dirty. Mostly I wanted to see how axes and cats would hold up and to test my worker roading while the stack moves and congregates idea.

I still agree that phants will be the way to go but I am hoping for some empirical evidence to present. I will run a similar test with phants tonight.

Your call. I figure the next two sets will get us either into the war or on the doorstep.

Another query: Do we know if the AI will always accept an iceball city as a gift? We might be tempted to build one and gift it before the war begins for two reasons: 1. So we can capture all his mainland, and 2. So we get peace earlier to make him build less units.
Otherwise, we can always build it for the end of the war, make peace, gift city, wait 10 turns, declare again and leave him the ice.
I guess either way, we will suffer "you declared on our friend" from some of the AI.

I will also test the iceball city idea. Where do you propose we place it? we don't want him on our land to the NW and we will need it to be somewhat close to him (ie not on the otherside of our land).

 

[Fluroscent]

I will also test the iceball city idea. Where do you propose we place it? we don't want him on our land to the NW and we will need it to be somewhat close to him (ie not on the otherside of our land).

It looks like somewhere on the NW we could found a city with zero workable tiles (or just coast). That should work nicely.

Did you guys check out the graphs? Especially the culture graph. It looks quite decent for us

 

[beestar]

Good test data. Looks like the advantage of attacking by sea is marginal.

Fluro, you mong war more than I do, but could it be better to attack Paris first? When I attack minor cities first, I lose a few units from suicide siege or attrition, and by the time I heal my units and bombard the capital, the enemy has whipped more defenders. Often I get bogged down and have to declare peace without taking the capital.

Conversely, if I take the capital first, my diminished army can easily handle the smaller cities.


By the way, I think there are some risks to gifting a snowball city for peace. First, gift cities have to be reasonably close to the AI (either by distance or culture, I'm not sure which). The AI won't take just any city you offer it, so we risk settling crap cities that we are unable to give away later. Also, we'd have to sign a peace treaty with 1 city left (ideally accepting techs for peace), then gift a city while we're at peace, then re-attack 10 turns later, capture the last proper city, and then sign cease fire or peace. It's a long time to remain at war, and even longer if the enemy refuses to talk to us.

Remember, when we sign peace, we can't simultaneously accept techs and give away a city ...

EDIT: I see Fluro has addressed this previously:

Another query: Do we know if the AI will always accept an iceball city as a gift? We might be tempted to build one and gift it before the war begins for two reasons: 1. So we can capture all his mainland, and 2. So we get peace earlier to make him build less units.

In the case of de Gaulle, since we're already at war with him we'd have to gift the city now, then re-declare again later (when our army is built up). It will incur an extra permanent "-1 you declared war on us" penalty, but it's possible and may help us build up our army / road in peace.

It hinges on whether we can gift the city successfully.

 

[Fluroscent]

Fluro, you mong war more than I do, but could it be better to attack Paris first? When I attack minor cities first, I lose a few units from suicide siege or attrition, and by the time I heal my units and bombard the capital, the enemy has whipped more defenders. Often I get bogged down and have to declare peace without taking the capital.

I think it is better to take out cities on the way rather than march through a lot of culture. We want to have a fast+safe path for reinforcements. And the stacking of units in the capital is solved by bringing enough catapults for several rounds of attacks.
I think we should beeline for the city on iron, since it may well be his only metal (considering he only had archers until recently). We should take out any lesser cities on the path first though.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay I ran the test with phants and the results were overwhelmingly better (as expected). The phants travel much faster down the road so although the beginning results were similar in amount of losses, the phant reinforcements arrived much faster to keep the push going.

We can see that the iron (at least one of them) is in Orleans so that was my first target in my test. I know the attack results will vary but a hill city with lots of culture and being the first site of attack means that we need to be prepared for a real tough fight.

I played this test until T142 but I had the same wonders and was able to take all three core french cites and had enough troops left over to make a push into the next civ if needed.

Bottom line: Phants and cats are the way to go and we need to have workers (2) building the road as the first troops work the way down.

So who's up next?

 

[BLubmuz]

Well, i'm a pretty good warmonger too. Pity this set is just of preparation.
I think that our first target must be the iron city.

Cats + phants + axes is the way to go. After the stable we'll want to build a chariot with medic 1, so it can easily arrive to medic 3 once attached to the GG.

So if Fluro does not volunteer i'll take it in charge.

Then, let's see if anyone else will chime in.

If no news in 12-18 hours, i'll try to post a PPP in 24.

 

[beestar]

Sounds fine to me.

Some thoughts I had on diplo:

Mao and Gandhi are worst enemies of each other. I assume we're going to be friends with Gandhi. Also, I don't understand why Mao hates Gandhi when he's -6 with us, but only -2 with Gandhi.

It would be nice to get Gandhi to Pleased, then we can start begging cash from him. We need to build up our +2 OB, and probably our resource trade diplo benefit (we'll need to locate him first). Also, remember our +3 from fair tech trades will decay over time, so we'll need to find something else to sustain diplo.

It looks like one big continent except for Stalin and his Grenadiers.

Can we bribe Roosevelt into neutrality? A +4 gifted tech would do it, but we should probably wait until we can see him and start resource trades. I don't know what level Roosy will trade OB at - need to check the files.

By the way, when I looked at the save, the military Sit-Rep is:

India: Spearmen
Mao: Archer
Roosevelt: Axemen, Swordsmen
Churchill: Axemen, Spearmen
CDG: Axemen
Stalin: didn't check, probably still nukes and Grenadiers​

Longer term Q: are we going Free Market / Sushi+Mining, or State Property? A big empire leans toward the latter, but I can see some synergies on this map with corps: we will lean toward seafood-food cities (because clearing fallout from land food is slow); lots of Sushi food drives specialists, and lots of Mining hammers produces city-based hammers, both of which help us avoid working tiles that need to be cleared; and a Confucian shrine in St. Pete would synergize well with Wall Street / corp HQ.

 

[havr]

Also Havr is MIA.

I am not MIA, just reading the post at a lower frequency than others
And I usually don't have any smart (or stupid) ideas to add so I shut up.
I will say that till this point in the reading, Fluro arguments against the very creative fort-plan (was amazed with the plan) convinced me. But there is still a few posts to read...

 

[havr]

I guess either way, we will suffer "you declared on our friend" from some of the AI.

Wow, I have an idea (probably the stupid type).

We can probably avoid this penalty (with all the - modifier against us we need to avoid it). We should just tempt him to declare war. Leave one of his old cities un-guarded and he will attack. So the plan is: capture two or three cities, give an iceball city for peace, leave one of the cities without defense our stack waiting in another city, let him attack, and just go clean everything.

 

[havr]

In the case of de Gaulle, since we're already at war with him we'd have to gift the city now, then re-declare again later (when our army is built up). It will incur an extra permanent "-1 you declared war on us" penalty, but it's possible and may help us build up our army / road in peace.

It hinges on whether we can gift the city successfully.

Another way to get dG to have the city is as follows:
build it, leave it undefended, and use some chariot or something like to that to lure a unit or two over there. He will capture it and keep it. The only problem is that he might raze it...

While he is doing this our stacks are already killing his real land.

 

[havr]

I can take the next TS if you want. It will take some testing, will take some nights. Not very good at war preparations, but probably even worse at actual war (compared to you guys).

Where is the updated test-game? How long is the next TS?
Are you in agreement big you want the army to be?

 

[beestar]

I am not MIA, just reading the post at a lower frequency than others
And I usually don't have any smart (or stupid) ideas to add so I shut up.
I will say that till this point in the reading, Fluro arguments against the very creative fort-plan (was amazed with the plan) convinced me. But there is still a few posts to read...

Havr, I encourage you to play a turnset now - everyone on the team should have their turn, and there's always lots of support from the rest of the team.


To everyone - I'm still not in favour of settling an iceball city as we'll be in trouble if CDG refuses to take it. Also, I'd prefer not to have to fight a second war later

On the other hand, if we don't give him an iceball city in a remote location, his last city will be close to his original territory, we'll have cultural pressure, and if we can't contain him (which might need another settler/city anyway), he could breakout and expand again. Which would tie up some of our units as border garrison.

I suppose what we need now is to know whether France will accept a remote crappy city ... anyone got a test save?

b*

 

[Fluroscent]

I think we should probably just start the war and leave him the worst of his own settled cities. Preferably a newly founded size 1 city that has not accumulated culture yet. We are creative, so we should be able to handle a culture battle.
Getting him to declare once beaten down is not going to happen (unless he finds room to expand again). Still, I wouldn't actually worry too much about getting some diplo negatives from a DOW.

Havr, you can surely handle the next set. We can all help work out the details, but the actual execution should be relatively simple.

Where is the updated test-game? How long is the next TS?
Are you in agreement big you want the army to be?

I have not used the testsave since Oracle, since there are so many different factors now that it would require a colossal effort to match the testsave. We just have to work out the plan from what we know, and it should be fine considering that we already have the techs needed for our planned builds. So We just need to consider the worker moves so they finish the relevant improvements/save turns and get the road to France done in time. And some city micro like I laid out in my earlier long post. About 15 turns for a set now seems reasonable.

About army size: I think that will be a question for the next set. We are not going to be moving out within the next ~15 turns.

One thing we might be caught by is an offensive DeGaulle stack. Since he has metal now, he might well be sending a stack. We need to scout it so it does not show up on our borders while we are unprepared. But it will work to our advantage if his stack arrives in 10+ turns, since our elephants should be able to kill it easily, making our offensive war a lot simpler. It would be annoying if he disrupts our road building though..

 

[Fluroscent]

Longer term Q: are we going Free Market / Sushi+Mining, or State Property? A big empire leans toward the latter, but I can see some synergies on this map with corps: we will lean toward seafood-food cities (because clearing fallout from land food is slow); lots of Sushi food drives specialists, and lots of Mining hammers produces city-based hammers, both of which help us avoid working tiles that need to be cleared; and a Confucian shrine in St. Pete would synergize well with Wall Street / corp HQ.

This is actually something we need to decide soon. For example, the location of HEpic could depend on that answer, as will the improvements we choose to build.
I somehow feel that this space game is handicapped enough (by fallout and poor diplo relations) that we should expect it to be a bit longer than a regular game. A longer game should favour mass cottages and corporations with US/FS/EM/FM/FR late game.
Still, state property is quite handy to get later founded/captured cities running fast. And it is quite a bit simpler to set up than a corporation empire.