SGOTM 12 - Regular

PaperBeetle · May 4, 2007

Okay, I got it.

The French units are a knight and 2 horses. And we can get 9hp of knight and an AC into there, which should certainly be enough to defend. The French also have a caravel west of Byzantium, which could be a nuisance. So I think I'll try the Mongol distraction plan anyway.
And as we are fresh out of cash, I think we have to tech trick on the death of the Portuguese.

PaperBeetle · May 4, 2007

Still in the first turn...

The bad news is that neither Joan nor Will took my offer of alliance seriously. 160gpt didn't turn their mood one bit. Will might have taken our ticket for all the gpt plus all our luxes plus tech parity. No deal pal.

The good news is that I booted Joan for a dow, and my first attack was taking the elite crusader (shipchained in from Persepolis) into the French knight. We have a leader. :clap:

FP in Pasargadae then? I might wait a couple of turns to be sure the area is secure from French and Mongolian invasion, but the army is around to cover things.

socralynnek · May 5, 2007

Yeah, FP in Pasargadae sounds really good.

Have you signed the Vikings or someone else against France?
That would be nice (You knwo I am a little afraid of Berserks...)

PaperBeetle · May 5, 2007

Ragnar is also of the opinion that our alliance is not good; Theology + Chivalry + Invention gets a doubtful response. We don't have a trade route to him yet either.
It is true that the berserks could be a threat. I wonder if we ought to build some actual defensive units, and keep all our towns garrisoned! Not just against the Vikings, but against any of these opportunitsic landings. It seems like the AI is sitting there with its huge pack of units, trying to find something for them to do. It sees our undefended towns, and thinks "hm, something for nothing: good deal: off we go".

Kulko · May 5, 2007

Hmm Do you believe There is a reason, why everybody thinks we are horrible allies? Is this a problem once our finest hour will arrive?

Agreed on FP in Pasar as soon as you can.

Actually I am pro Defensive units. In feudalism they provide happyness, and we should have at least on posted everywhere, so that they don't look undefended for the AI. These guys desperately want new cities, and we probably look like the easiest Targets around.

PaperBeetle · May 5, 2007

Uh well, because we are such horrible allies of course. :mischief:

But also because we are not yet the world's military superpower. We are still average to France, for instance.
As for whether it will it be a problem getting votes... I won't say it doesn't keep me awake at night worrying, but all my test games suggest that we will still be able to get alliances for the right price, and every alliance we have is at worst an absention and at best a vote. As for that high price, when we hit the modern age, we will presumably want to gift the other scientists all the way up to help us get Fission, so we can try using those techs to pay for the alliances.
In any case, I am still being careful not to pull con tricks on the other scientists. X-man is furious after our war, Otto is annoyed, Ham and Alex are cautious, and the other three are polite. It may be that X-man's mood is beyond repair, but I think a bit of gifting will bring the rest onto our side.

PaperBeetle · May 5, 2007

The Mongol army is vast beyond belief. I'm really scared. :lol:

I can see 2 archers, 5 horses, 13 swords, and cover provided by 11 spears. Well I suppose that's not "vast beyond belief", and we are rated strong to them, but still it looks bad for us in Persia.

PaperBeetle · May 5, 2007

Okay, I have uploaded at 400ad.

We are most of the way through the turn, but a couple of ships, workers and troops near Persia still have moves left.

Currently, we are at war with France, America, Mongolia and Scandinavia. And yes, the Vikings have Invention. So far I haven't seen any of their ships; they are also at war with the French, so hopefully they are keeping themselves busy at home. They should be ready to talk peace any turn now, so keep checking.

The French and Mongols are available for peace (as are the Americans of course), and France will pay good money for the privilege. We don't need the cash though, so it's probably better to hold off that peace deal until Joan comes up with a tech.

We have the Dutch on side against Mongolia, so we don't really have the option of giving the Mongols peace. But then I don't think we need peace there anyway. So far we haven't lost a unit in that war, although they have a sword which will probably attack our crusader this turn: the bulk of the Mongol horde toasted itself trying to kill a single swiss pike :lol:

, while our army took care of any Mongol horses which outpaced their Stacks of Death. Anyway, Tarsus will surely fall to us next turn, and then it's just a matter of logistics about whether we can keep ahead of the Dutch in rolling up the rest of the Mongol empire.

There are some Roman galleys heading around the north coast of Azjap; keep an eye on them, but they should be heading to France, as they are at war too. In fact I sent Rome, Korea, Celts and Vikings to war with the French, all tied to war with Portugal, which means those alliances are now defunct, and it is safe for us to give Joan peace. The Dutch alliance is the only one we have still in effect. There was plenty of cash involved too of course. We are currently getting big gpt payments from the Romans, Zulus and Celts. Maybe enough to see us through the rest of the game.

Physics is due in 2 turns, and Gravity should be possible in a further 8 turns. We still haven't seen any more optional techs go by, so the bank is still our best prebuild for Newton, at 6 turns in length.

Osaka is about to finish its university. After that it could go back to producing workers for joining to other towns. That would require remining the saltpeter (I did a disconnect/reconnect on it) and re-irrigating the forest I planted.
Another possibility is to move the worker pump job to Memphis, which also has a granary. Either way, we certainly do need a source of workers to pump our slower-growing towns (Thebes, Persep, Teo, Tenoch; Copan and Chichen still need aqueducts, and Cuzco will be able to start growing soon with border expansion). Really, all our core towns should be at max size already.

Here's the log:

Spoiler full turn log :

Kulko · May 6, 2007

Wow Great turnset PB. I am goging to have a look at it.

Who is up next?

I fear, it will be me again, as we are apparently down to a three player game.

I will not be able to play from tomorrow Morning until until next week, as I will be in gheavy pre holiday stress and then at a games fair. Therefore I plan to play tonite another 5 turner.

I will then be able to play another turnset next monday or tuesday, so please plan me in. Afterwards I will be gone for 18 Days for my wedding or honeymoon, So i hope until then somebody of the others rearrives.

Anyway, I just loaded the game so consider this a got it.

PaperBeetle · May 6, 2007

Congratulations are in order hey? Let me look up some suitable smilies...
mmm, there's nothing wedding-specific, so I'll just through around some :band:

and a bit of :cheers:

. And

of course.

Oo look, here's some more :beer:

. Never say no to a :beer:

.

Oh yeah, sorry, back to the game: I went back to Ambiorix about what France and Korea might be researching. The chances are high that France is doing Navigation, and Korea too, depending what he was researching at the point we gave him Astronomy.
If we give Joan Physics, she would have about a 67% chance of going for Magnetism. But there is an issue of turn orders... (1) she gets her interturn and learns Navi; she starts e.g. Economics, (2) we get our main turn and give her peace + Chemistry for Navi, and gift her Physics, or some similar arrangement, (3) she gets her main turn, she has no beakers invested, does she switch research from Economics to Magnetism, or can she only do that the moment she learns a tech? I don't know.
If we get her up to Physics before she finishes Navi (assuming that is what she is doing), then Mag is highly likely, but we give away a lot of techs for little gain, i.e. we have nothing to trade for Navi. But we will have Gravity available to trade as soon as Newton is safe (again, Paris can build it in 7 turns). So I don't really know what is best. Play it as you see it...

I have been counting potential commerce as well. I think France could be getting at most 210 beakers per turn. That's assuming max science. We could investigate Orleans to see what science rate she is actually running, and scale the figure down accordingly. Also right-clicking the map suggests that some of the Frech improvements at Orleans are being destroyed, which would be a sign that Joan is having trouble with Ragnar.
Anyway, at 210 bpt, Joan would be researching at the same speed as us (as that is about 6/10 of our bpt). Given that 100% science is unusual for the AI, I guess we are outpacing her now, but she would still be good to do Mag for us in the time it takes us to get Gravity and Metallurgy.
Wang's commerce is likely to be very low. His empire is not well sized up and his land is poor. We would be lucky to get 40 turn research from him I think, so we are probably going to have to research Metallurgy ourselves.

PaperBeetle · May 6, 2007

I've done a quick bit of number crunching about what techs we want at the start of the industrial. Of course, I don't know exactly how the game decides which free tech to award, so I've assumed it gives an equal chance to all available techs in the new era. (I certainly have seen a screenshot of someone getting a free second-tier tech when they still had first-tier techs available.)
Anyway, the upshot is that we want to concentrate on getting Steam and Medicine from the AI during that interturn. If we get Nationalism from them, then we would actually increase our chance of getting a bad free tech, because Nationalism allows both Fascism and Communism. We could of course trade for Nationalism after our free tech has been awarded.

On the other hand if my assumption about equal chances is false, and the game has some way of making first tier techs more likely than later techs, then we should simply endeavour to get all the first tier techs before our free tech. Using the equal probabilities theory, the chance of (Nat+Steam+Med) giving rise to a useful free tech is 0.5, and the chance of (Steam+Med) giving rise to a useful free tech is 0.6. That's not a huge jump anyway, so I would recommend we play it safe and try to get all the first tier techs. :crazyeye:

Kulko · May 6, 2007

Preturn:

MM Olporto, don't think we need entertainers there.
In decide that we will get a prebuild within the next 5 turns from France and start the Bankl as a first prebuild in Con. If this doesn't work out we will buy a very expensive Musketman.

IBT:
Sword and spear go to defend Tarsus Sword kills Crusader losing only 1hp.
France researches Nav, which screws up PBs and my planHe is starting a new research 1 turn before we can gift him Physics and he will finish the Voyage 2 turns before we research ToG.

The french caravel flees towards rome.
I sell Russia offers 1gpt for our ROP. As I don't think they are on our menu soon and I want to keep them as happy as possible, I agree.

Turn 1

Make Peace with France. The Deal gives us Nav for Chem + WM+ 124 gp.
I Spy Orleans, finding a Science rate of 70%.
Sell Our WM around as France has it already.

Take Tarsus without Losses.

IBT:
Physics is researched
Oops I forgot the loss of war happyness from France, so Delhi is a bit unhappy.
We can go ToG in 7 if we can get 1 more lux I believe, so I am going to buy it.

Turn 2:
Start shifting some units into mongolia gain.
Bmbard 2 Mongolian Galleys.

Diplomacy:
Now I have 2 Questions:
Do we want peace with the Vikes, or do we risk it for some more happyness.
Also do we want long term deals with France? She is offering Wool and 10 gpt + WM and all their gold for Physics. Since we need some more luxes, I am inclined to take it.

Will make a stop here to let you decide.

PaperBeetle · May 6, 2007

Well for Scandinavia, I say go for peace right away. It was my highly abusive diplomacy which started that war, so we shouldn't be getting any war happiness from it. If it turns out that we can't get any votes come the UN, then that was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. :cringe:

We should remember to kill Ragnar so that he can't remind his friends about all this 1000 years from now.

Now what do we think France is doing? After Navi, she had Economics (most likely), Music, Chemistry and Democracy (least likely) available. If we are lucky enough that she chose Chemistry, and then Physics when we gave her Chemistry, then we could give her Physics and trust her to spend 17 turns doing Magnetism. (I estimated she took 14 turns for Navigation).
More likely she went Economics, which would take the same time as Navi. Music would be about 10 turns.

So it sounds like we might be researching all the remaining medieval techs ourselves. Ah well, that's the AI for you. Never there when you need them.
Still I agree we might as well sell Joan Physics, for the wool and the small chance that she is researching it herself now. We can also trade for furs from the southern continent I think.

Re: Oporto... the clowns were to keep the town in WLtKD, getting more shields for the library, but of course they won't work without the support of French war happiness. If we buy more luxes in, it may be able to run WLtKD again, maybe even without clowns. Or just whip the library now...

Kulko · May 6, 2007

Hmm How does this WLKTD work exactly. I think when I switched it said it would produce faster.

ok I go on and play.

Kulko · May 6, 2007

BTW where should I mass teh troops now that the mongols are basically toast? Dutch Border or Rome?

Kulko · May 6, 2007

Turn 2 cont.

Make peace with Scandinavia and forget to trade for his silk. So later I trade for his silk all our 4 access luxes. Well should make him think twice about attacking.

Trade Physics to France for 77 gp, 10 gpt, Wool, WM, and a prayer for Mag

Trade Arabia Banking for Fur.

Turn 3:
I shuffle our knights in the way of the Dutch hordes.

IBT:
The stupid Mongol attacks one of his protectors retreating him. Luckily he moves 2 units out of the garrision.

Turn 4:
The Army attacks Hattusas and kills the last 2 defenders. Now the slow moving stack is back into the fight and I can easily block the dutch from reaching the rest of Mongolia. Also the bombarders are back in business, giving me some iodea with whom I may be concerned.

Damn I also missed the fact that we can research ToG one turn faster due to all the luxes, Bank should be started this turn, but there is one turn of the knight left.

Since invading rome has always been my pet project, I spy on Veji and find it quite small (Size 1) and only lightly defended. Looks like some sod trott on poor caesar despite his Legions.

Turn 5:

I loose an Elite LB and almost an Elite Knight while killing one stray sword, but Tatu falls easily. Unfortunately we now Don't really have enough Elite left to go efficient leader fishing.

I leave all the Troops in the back unmoved so you can argue if we migth want to send them for rome.
Also I think I missed the Osaka to Worker factory a bit Looks like I needed a mine under that forest. So its running a it inefficient now, the next player might want to correct that.

I call it a night and hope I left the next player with an easy conquest of Karakorum.

Kulko · May 6, 2007

And the Screenshot of Orleans.

PaperBeetle · May 6, 2007

During the interturn (commerce phase I imagine), the game decides whether WLtKD is on (size 6 or more, +0fpt or greater, no unhappies, happies >= contents). If so, it turns on the fireworks. Then during the production phase you get reduced shield waste, as given in the mind-bogglingly complicated corruption formula.
So if you make some change during the main turn, such that the WLtKD requirements are not met, it will switch off again during the next interturn, before the production phase. It may look like you will get more production by putting the clowns out to work, but that is just because the game doesn't re-check the WLtKD status during the main turn. Which is a bit of a pain for micromanagement diehards like me!

Ah, Rome or Holland? I asked myself the same question at the end of my turnset, and I didn't have an answer, so I didn't make any suggestions.

One factor is timing; we have a deal with Rome that will end in about 530ad, but once the Mongols are gone, we won't have any ongoing deals with Holland. So if it is a long wait before we can attack Rome, then Holland is better. And our troops would already be in the right area to attack Holland.
Of course, it takes several turns to get the troops and ships back ready to invade Rome anyway. We would actually go from Tenochtitlan I suppose, and have some dromons east of India to intercept any Roman landing attempts. Or a double-headed assault, Tenoch to Rome and Delhi to Veii.
The other factor is who is the more powerful. During my turnset I saw quite a lot of decent Dutch units, but I'm not really sure how many the Mongols took down. The Dutch have those swiss pikes of course, so if we fight them, even if they are weakened, we should expect heavy losses. It would be handy if we could bring the Babylonians into that war. They have knights after all. By comparison, the Romans have inferior units, some of which sailed off to fight the French.

So on balance, I think they Rome is a slightly easier target, and probably less corrupt than Holland, but the logistics are better for attacking Holland. I would probably go for Holland if you think they are weak enough to not kill the bulk of our military. btw if there are still three dromons in the area, we could completely blockade Rotterdam, which would cut any naval trade routes they have, and stop them trying to attack Egypt by ship.

PaperBeetle · May 6, 2007

Kulko said:
Now the slow moving stack is back into the fight

Yeah sorry about that. I'm normally pretty good about sending the foot soldiers by ship while the mounted units go overland. I have no idea how I got that stack of footmen stuck in the middle of the desert. :shake:

They weren't doing any fighting or anything...

Good going against the Mongols! It seemed like a long way to fight, I thought it would take longer.

Kulko · May 7, 2007

BTW A few things I was unsure about

What to build in Olporto? Its heavily corrupted, although this turn I switched the WLTKD back on, so it has maybe 3 or 4 spt next turn.

Whats the purpose of all the dromons in the open sea? I assume they are to scout ahead for enemy landings, so I left them around. As we have map trading now, I did stop the scounting missions though.

As for the war, I have a preference for the romans, as I would hate going after the Dutch with only knights. At least a second army would be welcome. BTW I forgot the screeenshot of Veji, but it is defended by 2 legions right now.

As for the Mongols, you had their back broken already. Unfortunately the build a couple of Superswordsman (must have defense 4) which cost us and the dutch a few units, but the towns where only lightly defended. And as soon as connectivity and logistics was restored it was just a matter of mopping up.

SGOTM 12 - Regular

Emperor

Emperor

Civ & Hattrick addict

Emperor

Innocent Bystander

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Innocent Bystander

Emperor

Emperor

Innocent Bystander

Emperor

Innocent Bystander

Innocent Bystander

Innocent Bystander

Innocent Bystander

Emperor

Emperor

Innocent Bystander

Similar threads