SGOTM 12 - klarius

[klarius]

Northern Pike.
Should be ok to put you just on the end of our current roster.

So let's look at the roster:

klarius
TedBentley skipped, is away for a week
Wotan just played
Mighty Dwarf up (are you here?)
Ronald on deck
Northern Pike can play from Friday on

 

[Wotan]

Mighty Dwarf was online this morning so I guess a "got it" is imminent?

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Sorry guys, have been ill over weekend and have not been able to keep up during that period, seems progress has been made though .

I will do usual pick up save post plan, take on board comments etc.

Will probably not have time to play till Thurs eve though as have RL to catch up on too. Hope that not a problem.

 

[Wotan]

We are ahead of all teams so I cannot see any problem waiting a few days for your turnset to be played. Take your time!

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Sorry guys for delay.

I have save.

Taking on board what Klarius has recommended, will look for following.
1) Pillage French Iron to halt their production of Iron related troops.
2) Look to occupy Mayan troops elsewhere.
3) Trade AStro to Babylon in hope of gaining Chiv etc
4) Embassies.
5) Alliances, apart from further occupying Maya and Iroquois are there any other suggestions.

We have a strong military compared to France so will look to build up troop presence there and move on main French cities.
Bearing in mind French cities are likely to be size >6 and they will have at least a few Pikes, in your opinions what sort of numbers will we need to look at??
Ship chain was mentioned. Am I correct in thinking that this is a ploy involving moving troops from one ship to another in mid sea/ocean to cut transport time between continents?? and that max is one ship transfer per turn??

Buildwise
Const MDI@2, Teo wrk@2, Hattussas MDI then uni, Osaka Aqua then Uni, Tars Uni??, Ta Tu Harb for rocks, Karak Lib, Berg harb,
That leaves Teno and Kyoto. Should these be used to expand military or to build city improve???

I assume we continue to merge workers where needed?? In your opinions where should this be done?? Should workers or slaves be merged first??
Could another AC be moved into Army???
Wotan do you know if nearby French and Maya galleys are empty or not???
What do you consider chances of America doing something silly like attacking/destroying Trondheim??
I assume lux deals should be renegotiated when needed??
Please give your feedback on this, Will look to play tonight, or will wait till tomorrow morning for more feedback/discussion if necessary.

 

[klarius]

I think you have to expect 3-6 pikes in French cities. Both core cities are building a wonder, so no new troops coming out currently. Move troops in on Paris under army cover as soon as it is healed.
Please set the governor in Bergen. That should lead to automatic starvation, if the resistance is quelled, instead of the very flip risky revolt. Later Bergen should be kept empty but garded, because of flip risk and for the chance to draw French troops out of their other cities. I would also look to load one of the slaves in Bergen to the caravel north of it now. This can then unload somewhere in the French hinterland for the famous "bikini babe" maneuver. Very likely defenders move out to catch the worker. One move units will not reach it, if it's on the forest 3 NW of Paris. Adjacent troops (not on the same tile as the worker) can then take out the troops w/o them having defensive bonus. If the slave is captured by a 2-move unit, no big harm is done. We can recapture it, immediately or at least when we take the cities.
You could add the Elite* AC to the army, but I would rather look to add the first knight to it. That gives a bit more attack punch. I'm pretty confident that the astronomy maneuver will get us chivalry, so would in fact already start a knight prebuild (courthouse or cathedral) in Constantinople. We have already 22sh in the box, so changing to 24sh now (coast->mined BG) will finish a knight in 2.

The Americans might destroy Trondheim, if they get a lucky hit. That cannot be helped currently .

Ship chaining is indeed moving troops from one ship to another in mid ocean. If the troops have movement (only then it's possible to change ships). They can do this infinitely many times. So if they load inside a city or did load the turn before, they can move along the whole ship chain and unload the same turn. So next turn the caravel SE of Tenochtitlan can move to the tile NW of tarsus. The troops unload to the other caravel, which can move to Ta-Tu at first drop of the workers, which can immediately move, then we can even load one of the ACs in Ta-Tu. The caravel still has one movement point to get to the tile east of Ta-Tu and can unload to the caravel there. This caravel can move towards France (note always use as much ocean as possible), but there the chain breaks as we have no caravel there. So we want some more caravels to get a complete chain and we also need more so that we can transport every turn. It would be also nice to extend it all the way so they can load inside of Constantinople instead of losing a turn by loading land->coast.

I would say Teno builds 2-turn dromons for some time (switch now), which get immediately upgraded to caravels. Kyoto should build university and courthouse.

Sure do lux deals as needed. You can use lux, gpt or techs for that, except for Egypt, where we should only use techs or cash IMO (also no alliances with Egypt). We wanted to give Persia the chance to get a nice empire by taking Egypt. But they failed miserably. So we might want to take Egypt for ourselves, if we get through with France soon.

For merging workers (Osaka, Kyoto), we should use native ones. The slaves work for free, while keeping too many native workers will coast us troop maintenance. We currently have enough free troop allowance, but that will change, with more troops and caravels built and Osaka growing.

 

[klarius]

Well, there is another question, which the whole team should think about .
Do we feel lucky enough to get another leader. Then we should form a second army immediately, rather than waiting to build FP in Paris.
I'm for taking the risk of a leader drought, to have 2 armies available. A pure knight army, would make France a piece of cake.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

I would go for another army, if there are more than a few pikes in french core cities they maybe costly to remove. If we get another leader then gamble has paid off, if we don't then few extra turns on FP is less of a loss than the turns needed to rebuild our troops.

 

[klarius]

There will be definitely quite a few pikes in Paris. More than we can afford to attack soon. We shouldn't attack with MDI, before we see hurt pikes, as that will just lead to elite pikes.
So two armies (one with knights, one with 2AC one knight) is about the minimum I see to get Paris anytime soon. So that means at least 4 knights to build and ship over. Orleans should be easier, but for Paris I think we will have to get rid of the majority of pikes by armies and only then can get the rest (new build spears and longbows) by other means.
A faster alternative is to fill the second army with MDI. They pack the same punch on attack and the MDI are currently not useful to attack the cities as noted above.
In fact after some pondering, I think that's the only way to get Paris in any decent amount of time. We have some MDI available, so can fill the army pretty quick. One knight to add to the AC army can also come in a few turns. These two can get down the Paris defenders pretty quick. If we wait for enough knight's to come Paris will complete the Knight's Templar. They will build new troops and get also Templar Knights.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Ok I will concentrate on luring troops out of Paris whilst our armies attack cities directly. Have a couple more questions.

1) Would it be worthwhile to wait till Paris has completed Kinghts Templar before we finally capture it therefore capturing Knights Templar too??

2) Will most civs preference in tech be for Gunpowder and Astro before banking. If so do you think it maybe advisable to allow any civs access to these techs to help stimulate them researching banking for us?? Or do we continue ourselves until eventually one of them does get it??

3) Ship chains. Do I assume correctly that you need to have the two ships on the same square, (does first ship need any MP left), wake the transported units, and then select load onto ship for each unit, move second ship, then repeat???

4) You mentioned concerns about Bergen flipping and about setting governer. I understand the basic theory of city flipping but not an expert on the exact mechanics of it. What do I set the governor to?? I normally would strve a city to get rid of foreign nationals, is this correct ploy?? Is there somewhere on Civ Assist I can check on likelyhood of flipping and a mark where it becomes less/more of a problem??

 

[klarius]

1.) You will anyway not get Paris before it finishes KT. No need to wait specially. It's only 180sh for deity AI - about 5 turns for Paris. They started it 3 turns ago.

2.) Yes, getting the techs out will increase the chances to get banking in trade. Just don't do it, before we get chivalry to not devalue our techs.

3.) Yes both ships in same square. No MP needed for unloading ship. Just right click the square and wake the transported units. BTW renaming the ships to different (shift-N) would be a good idea to get a better feeling in which vessel to load.

4.) You set the governor to manage the population. He will set enough clowns when citizens come out of resistance. Otherwise you run the risk that they come out of resistance unhappy and revolt. This doubles the flip risk. And they don't starve then.
As soon as all resistance is quelled you can just set all citizens to specialists to starve them down.
The problem is just while you have resistance and cannot predict if the citizens coming out of resistance will be unhappy.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Ok have played, nothing spectacular to report.

Apologies, I made a boo boo on loading the game. I'm not sure what happened but before I could change anything pre end turn I must have accidently done something to start end of turn process.
Unfortunately that meant completion of MDI in Constantinople, without changing to Knight prebuild in Const.

IBT American MDI lands near Trondheim
French MDI lands near Bergen

Turn 1
Babs would not accept any gpt for Alliance so did not do this deal.
Sold Babs Astro for 44g+6gpt
Inca, Port or Rome would also not accept any gpt for alliance against Maya. so sold them Theo, Mono and Inv respectively for it.
Kill french MDI.
Pillage French Iron

IBT
French complete KT, American MDI 1hp short of killing only pike in Trondheim.

Turn 2
French have Astro, trade Bab gunpowder for Chiv+26gpt+130g
Kill french Spear start to move troops into French land.

IBT
Osaka Aqua=>Uni
Greek complete Leos, French complete Cops in Orleans.
Maya land horseman nr Const.

Turn 3
Refresh lux deals
America silks for ivory and chiv
Eqypt gems for Chiv
See off Mayan horse
Pillage French horse.

IBT
refresh lux deal
Greece furs for Gunpowder

Turn 4
Trade
Otto chiv for 21gpt+137g
Inca chiv for 10g+9gpt
Port chiv for 3gpt+15g

IBT
AC kills French Lbow

Turn 5
Trade sumeria Astro for 7gpt+16g

IBT America land 2 MDI near Trondheim.

Turn 6
IBT Americans destroy Trondheim.

Turn 7
Attempts to lure out French are proving frustrating.

IBT
French counterattack
Lose Knight, MDI and AC to crusader and 2 Lbows.
2 pikes and one spear lured out after slave worker.

Turn 8
MDI army attack Paris, kills pike but loses 7hp. On this regroup troops on hill cornering French troops in open.

Turn 9
Kyoto uni => courthouse
MDI kills Pike
MDI kills Pike
MDI kills spear
AC kills Lbow
AC army kills Lbow and Crusader.

IBT
Celts make peace with French and DOW on us.
Maya and rome peace.

Turn 10 nothing.

We now have army of knight,AC,AC ready to attack Paris, MDI needs to heal before rejoining fight. Hopefully you more experienced guys will have a few tricks to help speed up the French war.
We have enough ships for complete chain from Const to France plus a couple of spare ships near France for shuttling troops back and forth from the French land to Bergen.
All work near Kyoto is now complete and workers can be moved to Hittite Mongol land. I have merged some into Kyoto and Osaka. Kyoto will hit 12 in a few turns and Osaka will be at opt happiness level in a few turns.
Provate Pike believe you are up next, Hello and good luck.

PS I made embassies with all other civs pictures below.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Here are some of capital pictures

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Here are the rest

 

[klarius]

Well, a few points for further reference.
You could have for sure had alliances for gpt. You just need free gpt for that so have to reduce the science slider temporary.
You shouldn't have retreated the MDI army. It heals (slowly) in enemy territory, so could have stayed adjacent to Paris.

 

[Mighty Dwaarf]

Well, a few points for further reference.
You could have for sure had alliances for gpt. You just need free gpt for that so have to reduce the science slider temporary.
You shouldn't have retreated the MDI army. It heals (slowly) in enemy territory, so could have stayed adjacent to Paris.

Apologies, was unaware of the above, but points have been noted.

 

[klarius]

Well, Ronald, if you're reading this, how's your travel doing .
Are you ready to play soon, or should Northern Pike go first.

 

[Ronald]

I should be back in civilized countries by friday. So please skip me for this turn or at least ask NP to go first.

 

[Northern Pike]

OK, I've got it. I'll study the situation and come back with some questions, probably.

 

[Northern Pike]

My first question would be, what is our objective after we eliminate the French? We're already at war with the Celts, but that would be a bloody campaign without the participation of our armies (until galleons). The Americans look like a better target, since they're on the same island as our armies, but I'm not sure of the diplomatic implications there. Are we set up to go to war with Abe automatically when our anti-French alliance ends?

My inclination is to research Physics --> Magnetism for galleons after Chemistry, unless there's some objection.

Do we have any interest in building Newton?

Are there any diplomatic gambits we should try?