SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

Agree with bcool's plan for York-London. Are we assuming the triremes won't attack against a small stack? We need to make sure we capture Canterbury right away, as well. If we get London on T+6, we could be done (3 cities done, that is) via Warwick on the same turn, I think.

Edit: Are we keeping all cities? Marseilles, for instance, is craptastic, but could still work 5-ish tiles not workable by Rheims or Orleans.

Edit2: yes on the FP whip, btw.

 

[bcool]

We'll have 2 caravels, trireme (and eventually one more caravels from Rheims)
Hopefully that will be enoug to prevent being swarmed but definitely not a guarantee. The boats really only give us 1 turn of healing in York and free up some siege for attacking instead of destroying defenses. (But that I think might be the difference on getting London 1 turn earlier.)

 

[bcool]

Edit: Are we keeping all cities? Marseilles, for instance, is craptastic, but could still work 5-ish tiles not workable by Rheims or Orleans.

Maybe we can gift Marseilles to Mao, gift St Nick to Stalin sooner.

 

[babybluepants]

Wouldn't that make it more likely for Roosevelt to kill in the short term?

 

[bcool]

Wouldn't that make it more likely for Roosevelt to kill in the short term?

yeah bad idea. Raze Marseilles I think.

Can we make a settler for Mao and get it to some island?

whip lighthouse in bcool island, and I think you can finish a settler there in 1 turn with OF, then iceball Mao SW of Crabbes (ideally away from any seafood)

37 OF /1.25 = 29.6 hammers + 19 production this turn + 19 production next turn * 1.75 (settler and forge bonus) =118 (settler can be finished)

 

[bcool]

Maybe we want to whip some settlers elsewhere, Kremlin imperialistic settlers appear to be quite cheap...

 

[mdy]

I'd keep Mareseille. With corporation even a poor city like that can be quite productive.

I agree that we need to focus on generating GP's for golden ages. I would start our next as soon as we generate our next GP in pigs if it is not a scientist, and revolt back to caste/pacifism on T+4. We are going to need a lot of GP's quickly if we want to run golden ages continuously for the rest of the game.

 

[Mitchum]

@LC

I like your battle plans, although I don't think we need to take Marseilles right now nor do we HAVE to get Churchill down to three cities. He'll take Steam because it is within 9 tiles of Marseilles, right. So I suggest that we have a three-pronged attack (three-pronged just sounds so much better than four-pronged ) What I'm worried about is having too few units (i.e. maces and muskets) in the York-London stack when I split off some units for Caterbury. Maybe a two-pronged attack is the best to ensure that we capture London, which is a must for this first war I think.

I also like your Sushi spread plan. Although, I prefer to whip the spy in Bananas and then to finish the caravel asap. We have to steal Steam Power on that first turn and I want two spies in Steam as soon as possible to get the best stationary bonus we can for both of them.

I'll whip the Forbidden Palace this turn.

I'll switch research to Democracy right now.

@bcool

I like your battle plans and this was my original idea, but there have been 1 or 2 triremes coming from the south EVERY turn. Worst case, his Triremes kill both caravels and our trireme but our galleys survive. We must take York on T+1, then move our galleys into the city on that turn. We can load 4 units on galleys in York and drop troops off a London-NW on T+2. At that point I think we can assume that our galleys will be toast. The rest of our stack will have to slow march to London. Hopefully the culture along the coast opens up when we capture York so that our units left in Hastings can quickly move south as needed.

Another Caravel in Rhiems sounds like a good idea to help police the waters a bit.

I think we can try to force Churchill out of Theocracy after we steal Steam Power (assuming that we still have a spy available to do so in Steam).

@mdy

We'll have to wait to steal Steam Power for at least 4 turns (if not more)m which gives Rheims-4E (aka Steam) time to grow to 2 pops.

I didn't think Stalin had another modern tech. I thought we figured out that he had Military Science and two ancient-era techs (or one Classical-era tech).

I will use the caravel to scout Stalin to see what he's got.

@bcool

I like your plan for Mao. I'll get a settler ready for him at The Crabbes.

I'll also plan on triggering a GA when Pigs generates its non-GS great person.


If all is cool with the above, I'd like to play soonish.

 

[bcool]

3 pronged attack at least!

We have muskets in the Marseilles area that can join the stack going for Canterbury (they might ahve to wait 1 or 2 turns for them but with 2 upgrades to the treb there to cannons and the muskets coming in I think we can take Canterbury and London. (and York of course)

I like your battle plans and this was my original idea, but there have been 1 or 2 triremes coming from the south EVERY turn. Worst case, his Triremes kill both caravels and our trireme but our galleys survive. We must take York on T+1, then move our galleys into the city on that turn. We can load 4 units on galleys in York and drop troops off a London-NW on T+2. At that point I think we can assume that our galleys will be toast. The rest of our stack will have to slow march to London. Hopefully the culture along the coast opens up when we capture York so that our units left in Hastings can quickly move south as needed.

If they attack the 2 caravels and trireme we can abort the galley moving down to London, but why not try it. They won't die the first turn. The caravel have coastal bonus so the odds of both dying and the trieme from 4 trireme is slim to none.

edit: I bet they won't be attacked this turn with movement to York area, then they will be availiable for sacrifice on the first trip to London, then retreat to York for safty, load and deposit troops next turn (then who cares if they die then?)

If they don't attack they we can see what the situation is and I think with a little luck/care you don't ever have to risk land units (they disembark the same turn that the boats are at risk)

edit #2: might even be able to blockade London with Trireme if it survives.

edit #3: getting Churchill down to 3 cities isn't just for the city gift, conquering asap is in our interests regardless.
edit #4: you have plenty of muskets in Marseilles area (I bet some of them could reinforce the London attack even)

 

[bcool]

I didn't think Stalin had another modern tech. I thought we figured out that he had Military Science and two ancient-era techs (or one Classical-era tech).

I'm pretty sure he does

 

[babybluepants]

I sorta remember Mitchum figuring out only MS early on with his WB testing, and then everyone starting to mention another in mid game. No idea what's right, though.

 

[bcool]

Hopefully the culture along the coast opens up when we capture York so that our units left in Hastings can quickly move south as needed.

I highly doubt this will happen since London has so much Culture. Does anyone know the mechanics of this?

 

[babybluepants]

London seems to have culture all the way there. I'm pretty sure it's all 1t movement from York.

 

[Mitchum]

Edit: Are we keeping all cities? Marseilles, for instance, is craptastic, but could still work 5-ish tiles not workable by Rheims or Orleans.

Marseilles might also be a nice temporary iceball for Churchill. It's not currently stealing any of our tiles, so we can likely avoid taking it during our first and second war with him until we have a proper iceball prepared, which we'd be in no rush to do.

 

[bcool]

looking back at speculation in first few pages it does seem unlikely Stalin has another Modern tech. Not sure what Military Science is and I don't know if we ever figured out what else he got

point value of Modern tech - Military science point value = unexplained points of techs
(unless you get points for finishing the Manhattan Project that we didn't account for)

by the way would nukes make sense for Gandhi conquest since Manhattan Project is finished already.

 

[Mitchum]

3 pronged attack at least!

OK

If they attack the 2 caravels and trireme we can abort the galley moving down to London, but why not try it. They won't die the first turn. The caravel have coastal bonus so the odds of both dying and the trieme from 4 trireme is slim to none.

edit: I bet they won't be attacked this turn with movement to York area, then they will be availiable for sacrifice on the first trip to London, then retreat to York for safty, load and deposit troops next turn (then who cares if they die then?)

If they don't attack they we can see what the situation is and I think with a little luck/care you don't ever have to risk land units (they disembark the same turn that the boats are at risk)

Yes, I'm agreeing with you. I was stating the worst case, in which we lose our caravels and trireme but we speed up York with speeds up London, even if we lose our galleys after that. However, for this to really work, I think we should take York on T+1 if at all possible rather than waiting for T+2. Of course, I won't do this if we don't have enough units to hang on to it.

edit #3: getting Churchill down to 3 cities isn't just for the city gift, conquering asap is in our interests regardless.

Agreed, but Marseilles is a very low priority for us right now. That was why I said that we don't HAVE to get him to 3 cities. If we get him down to 3 cities, he'll take Steam. If we don't get him down to 3 cities and he still owns Marseilles, he'll take Steam. I'd prefer to let him hang on to Marseilles right now so that all of our units (that just finished healing after taking out Churchill's SoD), save a few protective muskets and a treb, can head east and south to help us finish off this Churchill war and prepare for Roosevelt.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm pretty sure he does

At the start of the game, Stalin had 74 points. In order to get him that point total, we initiall assumed that he had Ecology, Hunting, Mining and Archery. If we take away Ecology and give him Military Science, his score drops to 62.

So, he either had 2 ancient techs (6 points each) or 1 classical tech (12 points each).

 

[Mitchum]

London seems to have culture all the way there. I'm pretty sure it's all 1t movement from York.

I was talking about between Hastings and York so that we could quickly move units south to York (for those that miss the ferry). I agree that it will be a slow walk between York and London.

 

[bcool]

I'm fine with letting him keep Marseilles.

sorry I didn't read your post carefully

Looking at the troops I think T+1 capture of York is unlikely but possible. You would want to move more units down to 1S of the Mountain this turn (T+0) to move into York for defense if you do take it T+1

 

[Mitchum]

It sounds like we're pretty much in agreement on the plan. Wait, it's more than just a plan... it's a Plan (or is it a PLAN).

I'll give LC and mdy another hour to respond. But, I am incorporating all of their comments, so I should get into too much trouble for playing ahead in an hour if we don't hear from them...