SGOTM 12 - Regular

[Kulko]

Just looked at the save in CA II and I guess the distances come about right. Especially if we can load without Harbour. But its about two and a half turns for a ship from Japan or Persia to bein position to be part of the shipchain in Vikingland. So we can probably ferry a few thousand troops over there.

As for Zululand, I will leave exactly 4 troops there, but ship out the arty, so all bases are covered. And in England, I will leave whats there, but to be realistic, it is no match for what sumeria has stationed there. lets just hope they never find out. But we have a ROP with them so lets hope the best. Should I gift them a few GPT or a happyness ressource too?

 

[Kulko]

Ok I have played the first turn and all went according to plan

The good news:
Both Armies going to Carthage are fully healed
If we want we could ship 4 Boatloads at stavanger while attacking with 11 Cavs over the forts at Bergen.
We are getting over 1500 bpt before switching all the scientists back to fieldwork.
All the fields in southern france and scandinavia are empty so, unless we are really unlucky we should be able to land anywhere we want.

The bad news:
We will only bear 23/24 units on Carthage (I don't think more was possible), and we have some empty spots in Zululand
We do not have 4 boatloads of fighting units for scandinavia unless we strip ourselves empty.
Bombay is getting more and more corrupted and we don't have workers in India.

I leave one more question about the attack on scandinavia for you to discuss while I sleep. I am trying to think so much ahead, because the more we put into scandinavia the more we hurt our transport capacity in the core area, meaning we can't ship workers between the islands until the big shipchain to Stavanger is done.

As I said we can carry 3 loads from Hattusa to the mountain in 1220 and we have the two ships full of cav. I see 3 possibilities How to use these:

A) I can land these Cavs at Bergen and use the ships also for transport. That would mean 4 boatloads against Stavanger and 11 Cavs against bergen (through 2 forts)
B) try to land the Cavs also at the mountain. Then we will land 5 Boatloads near stavanger and need to conquer all of Viking with this army.
C) If we believe this is big overkill, we can leave 2 more transports in the core, allowing us to carry workers from rome to India or such and land with only 3 boatloads near stavanger and 11 Cavs from the South.
D) is similar to b) without 2 transports, but since we want the armies and the tanks that would leave us no more space for Arties, so I think that is unpractical.

I just want to know, if you think variant c) is worth thinking about. Of Course some inclination between A) and b) would also help leaing the exactly right situation.

 

[PaperBeetle]

So the forts are empty? If we can be sure of making an attack on Bergen in the first turn, we should consider adding a couple more cavs to the French detachment. Bergen is on a hill, so depending on the numbers of units shuffling in and out of there, it will be the harder town to crack. 11 cavs only gives us an 88% win chance against the units that were in there last time we checked. A couple extra cavs pushes that into the high 90s.

But in general, I am okay with option C. It sounds like we will be limited by the number of land units we have available, rather than our transport capacity. And it would be nice to keep a lid on the pollution situation, although in terms of our actual beaker production, pollution is fine; we just lose food and production.

 

[Kulko]

Oh misunderstanding.

There are still two pikes in the forts. but the french is not blocking our acess to these fields.

As for units: Well we get one load of Cav/Tank from Con, 1 load of Arty, and presumably 2 Armies. So that would be more then 3 loads. And we are building a few Cavs in 4 turns. So I am more into option B Best of all would be of course when I can figure out how to get a few more units into the suthern stack, but france won't sell us his Arties.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Ah well if we would have to fight through the forts, then it becomes much less likely to take Bergen in a single turn. And if we don't get it in the first turn, we have few units left to try again the turn after. Given that (a) only one Viking town is important to us, the other is just for neatness, and (b) Trond is nearer, less well defended, and more of an amphibious threat to our Mongolian province, I guess we should make sure of getting enough units onto that mountain.

Also I would send a couple of infantry along on that expedition, as the stack is likely to be attacked by Viking berserks and knights. And to mitigate against the danger of the Viking galleon heading out with a berserk on board, how many frigates do we have in the area? I know there is at least one, but perhaps that privateer can make it over from Rome too?

 

[Kulko]

Well Guys I made it. The plan worked almost to perfection so far apart from the minor hassle, that almost there would have been no empty space left in Carthage to land. I definitely should have checked that before declaring.

Tech:
We confortably made MT in 4 and have now 3 tanks being finished next turn. Sorry about Constantinople but I just couldn't figure out how to finish it this turn. In certain situations, which I don't understand, turning scientists into Engineers brings no shields, So I just couldn't boost the production above 95.

OUCH just wrting this I think I found my mistake I should have build Mines of course. Sorry for that blunder, costs another tank on Trondheim.

Carthage
The Capital is taken without unit losses, but mmost of our Cavs are quite shaken. I managed to get one Army (21/22HP) and one Inf in postion to attack Utica this turn. The AI moved quite some untis out there and has now a stack of 16 outside Carthage waiting for attack. So I think we should give it a try.

Ship Chains
Everything is mostly in place as described. Should be easy to get 4 Boatloads onto that Mountain in Trondheim. ( 2 Armies, 6 Arties, 2 Tanks 3 Cavs and 3 Infs)
Opps I just realized, that I forgot lst turn to move that Transport oput of india to Byzanz. It is still possible to build up the chain of ships in 2 turns, but you might want to be careful.
I also named all transports after there coresponding destinations, top sort them out.

Buildup for Norway
I went with plan B, but somne slight modifications:
There are now 14 CAv 1 Inf in Army Group South which is poised to attack Bergen. 5 of these are still on a ship, but can jump into france this turn. I think we can get together 24 Strong attacking untis into Trondheim without these, so I suggest to leave them there.
The Mountain is guarded by an Explorer as PB suggested.

Whack a corruption
The AI is definitely watching where we don't have a worker team for clearance duty. No Corruption at all in Con, but lots of them in Bombay.
Well I made sure that we have enough workers in Japstec to deal with anything there. Also since we have way more science, then we ever need, I have started to build some workers in our big towns too, to get a few more.

Happyness:
Oh I overlooked us losing a fur ressource this turn, so Ta-Tu is in Riot.

I will upload in a minute and also post a screenshot of Carthage and Norway.

 

[Kulko]

Oh yes and I had another bug detected in my C3C Apparantly there was some mnisnaming in my ART FIles for Tanks (German Version) I Had to fix it by hand, but the first time I tried to play the last interturn my CIV crashed.

 

[Kulko]

 

[Kulko]

And another multipost:

There are 2 Frigates north of Norway and 3 south. I hope that Enough to discourage landings. I have tried to leave full Veteran INF in all Coastal towns on Persia.

 

[archphoenix]

good turnset, a very careful 4 turns.
this encourage me that play one turn with 1 hour is not enough.
even several turns a detailed plan is need.
and any confuse emerged during play should suspend the game and is need to ask for discuss.

 

[Kulko]

I think the first turn took like 3 Hours divided over 3 days, But The result was very rewarding.

ANd I still should have stopped again and asked about the tank.

 

[socralynnek]

Looks good.

I am currently away from home, visiting a wedding (seems like almost all of Germany is at some wedding on 07/07/07)

I don't know if I find time to play when I get back home after Monday, so feel free to finish it without me.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Ouch. That Carthaginian stack of death wasn't part of the plan. So you think we have a chance to take Utica this turn? We have two bombards and 4 attacks to do it with.
And the Scandinavian situation looks dicey too; those pikes blocking access from one town to the other are American. That means we either have to take both Viking towns with self-contained attacks, or we need Utica and Trondheim. This will require some more number-crunching I think.

The 1210ad tank could have been done with an extra mine, yes, although I envisaged using a power plant to get our production way over 100spt, as that makes the town pollution-proof, i.e. if we get polluted we still build the unit, rather than losing a turn of production. Anyway, going forward now, we should just use a mine to get 100spt and take our chances with pollution.
Engineers only work on buildings and wonders.

I'm going to watch Le Tour now, but I'll try and have a better look later.

 

[Kulko]

Ouch. That Carthaginian stack of death wasn't part of the plan. So you think we have a chance to take Utica this turn? We have two bombards and 4 attacks to do it with.

Well this stack of doom comes from someplace. and that place is Utica. My feeling is, that we have a chance to get it. The problem is, that I moved the frigates to late, so I think we won't get the bombards?

And the Scandinavian situation looks dicey too; those pikes blocking access from one town to the other are American. That means we either have to take both Viking towns with self-contained attacks, or we need Utica and Trondheim. This will require some more number-crunching I think.

Well The Americans hate us thoroughly from our long war anyway, so we might have some options here. And when you said that the chance of taking Bergen with 11 Cavs was 88% it should be even better by now. And that also means, that all Beserkers which the viking might have had, will long be burned in the war with the Amerikans.

The 1210ad tank could have been done with an extra mine, yes, although I envisaged using a power plant to get our production way over 100spt, as that makes the town pollution-proof, i.e. if we get polluted we still build the unit, rather than losing a turn of production. Anyway, going forward now, we should just use a mine to get 100spt and take our chances with pollution.
Engineers only work on buildings and wonders.

Sorry about that, as I said I am completely newbie to the industrial/modern, as you might have noticed, there was a critical bug preventing me from building tanks ever, and I just noticed in this game.

I'm going to watch Le Tour now, but I'll try and have a better look later.

have fun, I am probably joining you, if I can shake of the fact that I have no hero legt in the pulk.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Okay, I'm going to grab the save, and try to finish in 4 turns.

My basic plan:
- Try to take Utica. After two bombards and two army attacks, it should be clear how many units are left in there. If it is untakeable, retreat the units to Carthage. If Utica cannot be taken this turn, Carthage will hold out against the stack of death, but I expect the numidians will not all attack. If many fortify on the hill, we may have quite a fight there, so I will try to arrange for more troops.
- Bring Kyoto to 894 shields over the next two turns. Add at least one worker as an engineer/cop. This brings the max spt to 56, so we go over 1000 in 1240>1250ad, with room for one pollution. If we can't get enough towns in time, taking all citizens off the land gets 4spt, so 900 shields can be delayed for a turn.
- Next turn, send 15 cavs through the forts, aiming for Bergen. Land two transportloads next to Trond, including at least two tanks. Three transportloads may be possible if the Carthaginian war goes well.
- Cane the empire for beakers, and get Flight in 4 turns.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Kulko, you're my hero. No further hp were lost in this campaign.

 

[Kulko]

Yippieh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How many were in that Hideyhole?

EDIT: Do you realyy think we can get flight in 4? that would be 300 more beakers per turn?

 

[PaperBeetle]

Two numids fortified and only newly whipped.
Flight in 4? Well I've got us to about 1650bpt, but there are still builds finishing this turn which we want. Next turn there should be chance to hire even more scientists. So I don't really know, but it will be close. I figure that any corrupt town with 5 pop or more will do best to set them all to scientists every turn... so it drops from pop 5 to pop 1, who cares? Over the four turns it would make 64 beakers instead of 16.
I'll be pressing the space bar just as soon as I summon the courage.

 

[Kulko]

lol, thats how I felt every single turn in this game. I can't wait to see if we beat klarius and how Spooks gained 200 years on everybody.

 

[PaperBeetle]

I don't think 4 turn Flight will be possible. I'm just a couple of scientists short now, so I'll keep pressing for it, but as we slowly starve we lose a couple of scientists per turn too.

Ack! We didn't notice that the forts were barricaded - the modern barricade is a moat, which is rather hard to spot on that isthmus... So Bergen will take a while to fall. We'll get Trond in time for the prebuild, but still that's valuable citizens passed up; taking Bergen first would have meant that the larger Trond would have no resisters, and the longer Bergen remains Viking, the more pop Ragnar whips from it.

Edit... ah, but I had the science slider at 90% Good thing I was triple-checking everything!