SGOTM 12 - Smurkz

[zyxy]

Sounds good! Good luck!

 

[ControlFreak]

Turn 0 - 10 BC -Preflight

• Ozzy: Map out the boat routes from Ozzy and StF to Paris. Eastern route via Ozzy to the south is faster by one turn.:rolleye: Send Righteous to Ozzy. Wake and move AC and Pike in StF and send them to Ozzy to buy ferry ticket. Wake Spear from Theo and send also. He can upgrade if Ozzy barrack built.
• Oporto: Wake slave by Lisbon and send to the forest N,NE of Oporto. Send 2 of the GB slaves also, the third goes to road to StW. Two Maces enter Oporto for MP who hires scientist and change to harbor. The GB Pike heads towards Oporto.
• Lisbon: works as much food tiles as possible, two AC move in for MP but doesn't change the happiness level. Entertainer is required.
• StF hill mine finishes this turn. I switch one BG to the hill for the extra gold. Worker moves to forest (CAII says sheilds still available).
• Pink Panther moves towards StF for pickup in a couple of turns.
• Advance boats near Inca towards Oporto.
• New worker in KZ moves towards Ozzy for forestry. Workers in Ozzy chop 10s towards the Uni, now due in 1. Unmoved worker joins the planting SW.
• StW: Pike moves towards Oporto. Horse moves towards Lisbon to upgrade. AC into StW for MP.
• Workers start roading towards Mayan.
• Declare on Spain and pull in the Mayans. They pay us 7g for ROP and MA. I can't pull Korea in without excessive gpt, so I wait for now. We can pull them in with Astronomy later if desired.
• 94g buys Arabian Embassy. Cathedral, colosseum, harbor and Pyramids are offscreen.
• 40g buys Carthage Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen.
• 88g buys Iroquois Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen. They don't have iron.
• 46g buys Chinese Embassy (it was cheap intel).
• 96g buys Greek Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen.
• Declare on China. Carthage pays us 6g for ROP and MA. Theology buys the Arab ROP and MA. Iroquois take MA and ROP straightup. I decide to buy in Greece now just incase China would try to MA them against someone else. Invention buys ROP and MA.
• Declare on France. Vikings pay us 5g and 1gpt for ROP and MA (It's the ROP they're paying for). I didn't realize before but they are at war with America also. That's a big bummer. Get ROP and MA with America against French for free.
• 86g buys Celt Embassy. Colosseum and harbor are offscreen. Theology buys ROP and MA. Hittites give 6g, ROP and MA for Monarchy.

IBT

Mayan unit near Oporto moves away from Spain. Others move north by StW.
StF Medi>Medi. Ozzy uni>barracks.
​

Turn 1 - 10 AD

• StF: workers set to chop due in 1. Join one worker for 10spt. Slaves tag team the mining now due in 2. Join worker to StF to get to 10spt. Remaining worker starts planting forest.
• Oporto: Rush harbor, change specialist to Sci. Pike climbs Incense hill to the west to look out for Spanish troops.
• Lisbon: Rush Library.
• Pink Panther gets Medi from StF and moves toward India. Advance Shot and Deadly towards Oporto.
• Two workers join the planting effort in Ozzy, due in 1. Other three mine the deforested grass.
• StW adjusted to grow in 3 instead, sacrificing the sheild count.

IBT

Lisbon: Library>spear (for now). KZ: worker>worker. FS: Epic>Medi. Mayan unit turns around and heads for Spain.
​

Turn 2 - 30 AD

• Pink returns to the Point by FS after dropping off Medi. Other boats move towards Oporto,
• Pike ventures farther to see Korean shore. Dromons are due in Oporto in 5 turns, Astronomy due in 3. With the rushed dromon in Oporto we will have three caravels after upgrades (if I can afford upgrades, our treasure is down under 200 after upgrading the Knights.) We will need more pikes to fill all three caravels in Oporto so rushing the spear in Lisbon and upgrading makes sense. I won't be able to do that again though now that the harbor is connecting our iron. I switch StW to spear also for this purpose.
• The pike coming from StW will be blocked by the Mayan next turn so I send an AC to hold the road tile for him. Spend 240g to upgrade 2 knights.
• Ozzy workers chop forest for the Barracks. Citizen assigned to the grass that will be mined on the IBT should be enough to have the barracks finish on the turn Astronomy comes in which would delay departure waiting for the upgraded spear.

IBT

A hoard of Spanish horsemen run through the Korean area visible by us.
​

Turn 3 - 50 AD

• Workers mine chopped BG in Ozzy for Barracks due in 2. Other two start planting.
• Rush walls and switch to dromon in Oporto, forest will finish it as zyxy said. Rush spear in Lisbon.
• GB uses mined spices (forgot to fire the scientist last turn) for more science.
• Slaves join to mine the chopped grassland at StF.
• Pike is past the Mayans now and the AC clears the way for them to use our roads. The Spanish horses will still beat the Mayans to Oporto. Korean MA still would cost Ivory and 12gpt and I don't think there's a viable trade route to Korea once they declare on Spain. I won't jeopardize our rep. The Medi are going to have to do some horse killing.
• I notice that Persia has taken TaTu so if we want to go through Ta-Tu we can do that without losing our War Happiness from the Mongols (if they survive).
• Carthage owns Beijing.

IBT

The iroquois destroy the Chinese! That was quick. Carthage took Beijing first and the Iroquois took Shanghai. Greece got nothing. I think the Iroquois are the next target on that contient but I can't afford to Embassy Russia right now.
5 Horses move into the fog NW of the Korean colony. 7 Horses come from there onto the landbridge. Mayans move onto our roads. Inca have lots of knights and Medi. They will stomp on Mayan if war breaks out.
Lisbon spear>court. KZ Worker>Worker. FS Medi>Medi. Oporto Dromon>Dromon. Theo Dromon>Dromon.
​

Turn 4 - 70 AD

• Upgrade pike in Lisbon. Move all mounted units towards Oporto in preparation for the Spanish wave. All Medis and the three slaves move to the tundra 2N of Oporto. We will be able to attack the Spanish horses no matter which tile they choose to move to. Pike that was on lookout duty moves E to Tundra to be able to cover one of the attack tiles once we win.
• Workers SW of Ozzy join the planting effort until it's due in one. Remaining worker moves towards Theo.
• Slave/Worker combo moves to roaded grass to mine in StF.
• GB uses irrgated grass, science not needed on last turn of Astronomy. Slider down to 70%
• Medi from StF travels the roads south towards Theo.
• Russia and Greece are equal in tech at the moment so I can't buy them into a war with the Iroquois. The Iroquois lack Theology and will pay 17gpt + 8g. I make the deal because I can still declare war without breaking my rep. Arabs also have 8gpt+40g for Education, but I want to use the tech to MA them against the Iroquois later.

IBT

Spain heads to the forests as expected. What is unexpected is something in the fog retreats a Spanish horse from the forest. I think it's a lone Mayan unit
Hittites Destroy the Mongols so I'll have to check for happiness.
Astronomy>Banking, big picture to check happiness. FS is the only unhappy town. I zoom in and make a coastal worker into a scientist for now.
AC produced. Ozzy Barracks>Medi.
​

Turn 5 - 90 AD

• Medi-Horse battle. Win, Lose or Retreat (Hit points of winner) W(4),L(1),R(4), L(1),W(4),W(4),AC kills 1hp horse.W(4) finishes last horse in the forest. That could have gone better. Wasn't expecting 2 Medi loses. There's one 1hp retreated horse left on the tundra next to the fresh stack of 5horses. I don't want to put a Knight on flat ground next to the horse stack, so I leave him. The Knights cover the units in the forests. The pike covers the AC on the Tundra SW of the forests. The second pike covers our used Medis and the slaves start a road there due in 2. All our troops are within range of the next horse assault but all tiles have a 3d defender and are mostly in the forest.
• Astronomy opens up trade opportunites. Egypt give gems for ROP, Incense and Ivory. This deal relies on Persian water rights. America gives silks for Ivory and 1gpt. This trade relieson Persia and Babylon water rights. The vikings don't have a harbor so we can't help them.
• Dutch give 6gpt for Ivory. Babylon 5gpt for Ivory. Arabs give furs for Ivory + 3gpt. This is more to help them research faster than it is for us.
• Forestry continues around Ozzy with the last two tiles starting to plant. Worker stack cuts wood in one turn leaving a bare grass in need of mining.
• Troops from StF moving towards Ozzy. The AC will make it in time. The Medi will have to hop on the boat while it's sailing by. The Dromons are all upgraded to caravel for 120g. (2 in transit to Oporto still). Spear also upgrades.

IBT

Tundra pike kills two horses flawless and redlines a third before dying. Remaining two Spanish horses attack Knight in forest and both die promoting Knight to 5/5. Mayans head south since we're blocking all the tiles to Spain. I'll fix that this turn.
KZ: Worker>Worker. FS Medi>Medi.
We lost our Incan spices. Good thing I bought the extra furs.
​

Turn 6 - 110 AD

• Don’t Renew the Incan Spices because we'll have native spices from StW when the worker finishes the road on the IBT. Sell them Ivory for 7gpt.
• 2AC and 1Medi (leaping from the shore) jump into Righteous who had to make a 1 tile detour to let the Medi make the leap. "Pillager 1" has 2 pikes and sets out in a different direction but should end up close to the other.
• Slaves in StF join worker planting, now due in 1.
• Decide that it's better to forest the tile N of Ozzy. Don't chop it as the shields are already grabbed, but we can use a 1fpt 2spt tile here.
• With most of the threat averted and only 4 1HP horses left in the North, I withdraw our units in favor of letting the Mayans slog through the rest of the Spanish troops. I have two fast moving elites that can leader fish and then withdraw. Neither produces a leader.
• Adjust StW to grow and make spear in 1 turn. I'm thinking that the road will complete first though and the spear will turn into a pike. StF uses coast instead of BGs to reduce shield overrun.

IBT

America and Vikings settle for peace.
Road finishes to StW which makes it very happy, but keeps the build as spear which finishes>court.
​

Turn 7 - 130 AD

• StF gets another worker added. 4 slaves start chopping the forest. The other two join the workers making a road to the NW.
• Pillager 2 from Oporto takes 2 pikes and a Knight and heads towards Paris. Shot will leave next turn with 2AC and Knight.
• Two Medis disembark near the Indian spices. Pink Panther should be in Rhythm to pick up one medi from StF, 2 from FS and drop near India.

IBT

Mayans advance towards Spain.
​

Turn 8 - 150 AD

• Ships advance.
• Forestry continues. Join 1 worker to Ozzy. And use the new forest to get Medi in 1.
• Shortrush via pike then knight from 10s to 70s then switch oporto back to court.

IBT

Mayan Javlins fend off two horses. Spanish move 5 archers, 4pike,3spears,2 turtledoves and a Partridge just outside the set of trees.
France completes Leo's. Can't wait to capture that city!
​

Turn 9 - 170 AD

• Workers continue forestry in Ozzy, nearly done.
• Spear upgrades in Lisbon. Caravel in Oporto must wait for more units so it heads to Spanish shores to do some scouting.
• Shortrush (pike,knight) to 70/80s for court in Lisbon and in StW.
• Jungle is cleared near FS. Three slave road, fourth starts mine.

IBT

Babylon declared war on the Hittites.
Mayan loses 3 units to one spanish. Another stack of Spanish appears.
​

Turn 10 - 190 AD

• I think it's time to get some more MA's. Korea against Spain for Astronomy gives us all their 27g plus ROP/MA.
• Declare war on the Iroquois. Arabs give all 69g and ROP/MA against them for Education. Carthage gives all 41g and ROP/MA for Theology. Greece gives all 6g and ROP/MA for Astronomy. 74g buys Russian Embassy. They have colosseum and harbor also. Russia give all 9g and ROP/MA for Astronomy.
• The first boat (pillager 2) arrives at the French border with 1mp left. I opt to stay out of her territory. The french have taken the American city in the fog. America now lacks iron as well.
• The numbers of units are as follows:
  • Us:8 Medis, 1AC, 1Pike.
  • Mayan: 4 Javelin, 1LB (a second coming) so combined allied offense is 10.
  • Spain: 5Pikes, 5Spears, 6Archers. Their defense outweighs our offense. Hopefully half will turn back to Korea.
• Adjust StW to 0f 6spt for court in 1. Adjust Lisbon to +5fpt to grow in 4. Adjust GB to grow in 2.
• Caravel is loaded with Medis from FS and moves to drop off near GB. Three units will be available near StF next turn and the Caravel will head there next.
• Forest planted in Ozzy is making it starve. I joined a worker to Ozzy, but realize I need him to chop the forest next turn or the sheilds will be wasted, so I wake a worker from the planting operations losing 2WT there. Oops. He moves to be able to finish the chop next turn. SW of Ozzy.
• Slaves are mining an extra tile near StF while they wait for the forestable tile to be roaded.
• Sell Babylon Spices for 4gpt. Nobody else has gpt and I don't want to risk our rep with the fragile water trade routes.

IBT

Half the Spanish army turns around. Archers go 2 for 3 against Javelins and capture a slave. A pike moves alone onto the neutral road tile. Javelins and Longbow go 2 for 3 and take the slave back killing a spear and archer. Spanish land a pike and a medi next to our new units by StW. I almost thought they were mayan.
Hittites want us to join their war against Babylon. No Thanks.
Forest Chop finishes the Lisbon courthouse.
StF Medi>Medi. Lisbon Court>Medi. The uni will build when the town is bigger. The landing shorted the StW court by 1 sheilds since they landed on the BG.
Greeks start Copernicus' but France should win that also if they learn Astronomy.
​

Turn 10 - 210 AD

• The Spanish and Mayan units are the same color so I really have to be careful. There is only one pike in the North that can reach our territory and nothing is severly in jeopardy. So I leave the Spanish to the withering Mayans. The landing party on the other hand is a problem. The 2 Medis that landed last turn attack. First one dies making the pike 2/3. Second redlines but kills the Medi. Pink Panther sails into StW so the Medi on board can attack. We kill the pike and the danger is averted. Pink Panther will be a turn behind picking up units from StF.
• StW set to max food/commerce.
• Deadly flames moves a tile in the wrong direction so that the units can jump on board this turn. 1AC, 1Pike and 1Medi load up and sail towards France.
• Slave near Theo joins planting for due in 1. I realize I miss counted again. I don't need the worker to help the chop, but after the chop, the two shields from the forest tile will not be there. Ozzy will be two sheilds short. With the planting and mining both due in Theo, that build will overrun by one sheild. Decide to shift the mining tile to Ozzy to complete the Medi exactly, and complete the Theo boat in 2 turns instead of 1. Plus the planting tile will make Theo miss it's growth by 1f if it was used. Worker that was sent to Ozzy to help with the unnecessary extra chop joins to Ozzy.
• Zecond Wave caravel clears fog as it heads toward the Incan Borders for passage to Oporto.
• Slaves work to finish mining FS grass.
• Pillager 2 scouts the landing site and theres a worker on the hill, but all the work is done. Since Shot is a turn behind, we retreat out of French waters and will land together next turn.
• Pillager 1 and Righteous round the cape of America but can't see any action from their limited view.
• Planting begins on a forestable tile in StF. Mining due in 1 between Ozzy and Theo choose to keep the sheild in Theo to finish the Caravel first.

IBT

France asks for peace. No thanks.
Spanish pike kills redlined Mayan LB.
Mayan LB kills redlined pike that beat its comrade.
StW Court>Uni. KZ: worker>worker. FS Medi>Medi. Ozzy Medi>Medi. Russian and Greek start Cops.
​

Turn 11 - 230 AD

• Pink returns and gets 2Medi and 1AC from StW.
• Stack of troops disembarks on target hill SW of Paris.
• Pillager 1 spies Pike on French iron colony, but the colony is connected only with an unprotected road on a coastal hill. Pikes will land there next turn.

IBT

French LB retreats our elite Knight from the target hill stack. Second LB moves near but not to the redline knight.
Theo caravel>caravel.
French start Cop's. We actually want them to get this in Paris.

​

Turn 12 - 250 AD

• Move and disembark three units NE of Paris with the mission of cutting the road from Orleans. In retrospect, this was probably not the right thing to do with this boat, but we had talked about "starving" down Paris. With all the wool, there is no way to starve down Paris unless we had 13 units parked on its tiles. Even then, the units would get picked off and their stored food would handle the fluxuations in food. I think that we are just going to bite the bullet and put 30+ Medi in Orleans after we take it. At this point, Paris is wonderbuilding again, so there shouldn't be a steady stream of unit from it for a while. Plus we want them to succeed in getting Cops because it's going to end up being our super science city. If this small stack survive, they should pillage the road tiles between Orleans and Paris to prevent getting any resources from Orlean's harbor.
• Healthy Knight disbatches healthy French LB, Redline Knight moves there and cuts road taking French Horses. Elite cavalry kills 2/4 LB and retreats to Knight Stack. Regular AC pillages hill and moves to Knights. Two pikes join them.
• Righteous ship chains it's offensive cargo to the Knight stack via Pillager 2 who then blocks Paris' harbor. Shot in the Dark blocks Bergen's harbor.
• Pillager 1 unloads 2 pikes on the road to the french colony, then heads for Oporto. Plan from here is to move all the boats back to Oporto where the new offensive is amassing for transport to France.
• Pink Pather brings its load as far north as it can and unloads them. He will need to go to FS for 2, then StF for 1 Medi and return them to Indian area.
• The forests around Ozzy and Theo are only for 2s tiles in food rich areas. All the chopping is complete for these two towns so DON’T CHOP THE FORESTS. There is one more being planted on the ivory by Theo that will give it the ability to run max shields,0fpt. Ozzy is already there. The workers planting should probably join to cities when they're finished as happiness allows.
• KZ and FS can benefit from forestry, but not now with their current build orders and shield counts.
• Lisbon is setup to to get both forest chops and hand build 10s three turns from now. It can switch to pike to finish that, keep on Medi due in 8 turns, or switch to University now. With all the whipping in Lisbon and Oporto, they will not grow much above size 4 or 5 I'm afraid. Sending some of the Medis there will help it temporarily, but when they leave, I don't want to end up starving it to keep it happy.
• The Spanish units are frequently blocking our only road to GB, so the workers should probably build them their own road on the west side of the mountain. At least the BG tile should be roaded.
• I left one unmoved boat in Theo (just built) because I'm not sure the best direction to send him. I think he should just head to Oporto. However, he could go straight to Orleans in an attempt to block the Harbor there. That's a 7 turn trip. It's 9 to Oporto.

Save is on the gotm server. I will add some pictures late tomorrow when I have more time.

I was manning our garage sale and watching kids so I could only play a turn or two at a time. Sorry for the big reload count.

 

[zyxy]

Looking very good!

Concerning the French war, I think it would be very useful to pillage the countryside around Paris, to slow down production and to starve it down to town size. Perhaps we can compute this such that Copernicus will finish just on the turn before we take Paris, that would be ideal!
You are right we'll have to occupy the tiles to starve Paris. (We could use some more pikes for this, maybe Lisbon and Japanese island can build a few.) Probably Paris is still defended by pikes and trebs only (Paris may have trained a few troops, but I guess most of them went to the front), so we are unlikely to lose a lot of troops.
Starvation will be rapid: The full foodbox of Paris only helps to delay the first starving citizen, but after that it's one citizen per turn (the granary doesn't help when starving). If we block all land tiles and one coast then Paris will produce 6 fpt and eat 24 fpt, so the foodbox (24 food on Deity) will empty in 2 turns, and Paris will starve down all the way to size 3. Of course, this could be faster with lux shortage.

The two pikes down south near the French iron colony should probably just keep destroying the road net (and maybe disconnect silks). This will hopefully help America to reclaim her town.

While the forces in France pillage, we can send most caravels back to Portugal/Mayaland to refill. This time we bring a load of MDI to attack Orleans. One caravel will stay behind to block the Paris harbor, and it might be useful to send another caravel to the bay between Paris/Orleans and Trondheim. It can extract wounded units from France, send them to Scandinavia to heal, and ferry them back to France.

Seems our treasury went down quite a bit . Babylon will pay 4 gpt for spice. Russia will pay 4 gpt for ivory. Carthage and Arabia will pay 1 and 2 gpt for a lux, resp. I would make the first two deals, but perhaps not the other two, unless we want to help these civs.

You mentioned it in your log, but this really deserves some emphasis:

Be careful who is who there!
Btw, is the Spanish galley E of Lisbon empty?

The roster is a nit of a mess. It seems sercer was up before CF, and was unjustly skipped. Sorry about that sercer, we should have paid better attention to the roster.
I think we're down to 4 players: CF, sercer, CB and zyxy. So I'll just make this up, roughly based on who played last:

sercer88 - Up!
CommandoBob - On deck
zyxy
CF - just played

McLMan - lurking
Niklas - on sick leave

 

[ControlFreak]

Quick reply:

Luxuries are probably not a problem for France at the moment because of all the war happiness we gave them in buying MAs.

No need to pillage tiles if we're going to sit on them, so I would not pillage. After all, Paris will eventually be ours!

The Spanish galley dropped two units off before heading north past Lisbon so it is empty and should be heading north. There is also a Mayan galley of unknown content or intent that just came south from Korean waters.

The pikes next to the French iron colony served two purposes, they should pillage the road to the iron, and they scared away some french workers that were trying to make another road. That tells me that there are no American or Viking units nearby.

I think it would be benefitial to take Bergen soon if America or Vikings can't manage it. I also think that Orleans will fall easily. Paris is not helping with units as it's always wonderbuiding.

 

[ControlFreak]

sercer, I'm SOOO sorry I stole the game from you. I don't know why I thought I was next up, but I'm really very sorry. Thank you for letting me play these turns as they were a lot of MM and build up which is what I like to do. Hopefully you will get to see some action in your turnsets.

 

[sercer88]

d'OH

Oh well, I didn't know it was my turn!!

This is my "got it."

Just a quick comment to clarify something zyxy said, but I don't think that it is right. If Paris has a granary, then it will have half of the food box full when it starves down a size (or two, just like if you built a settler.) so Paris will not starve down too quickly...but since it is diety, and the food boxes are smaller => faster growth, but faster starving, too

 

[Niklas]

Just a quick comment to clarify something zyxy said, but I don't think that it is right. If Paris has a granary, then it will have half of the food box full when it starves down a size (or two, just like if you built a settler.) so Paris will not starve down too quickly...but since it is diety, and the food boxes are smaller => faster growth, but faster starving, too

You're right about the deity food box size, very clever, I didn't consider that. But you're wrong about the granary, it only works on growth.

Nice play CF!

 

[ControlFreak]

I concur with Niklas and zyxy about the food box depleting. You don't actually starve the town until the granary part of the food box is empty. Once it's empty, no food gets added back into it when you lose the pop point.

However, that's a great catch about the diety sized foodbox. It will be easier to starve a diety city because its not as big to begin with.

When the embassy was established, Paris had three entertainers and was still at +5fpt. They also had two unused wool (+3fpt tiles). So to starve it, we would need to take away at least 8 wool tiles making them -1fpt. The situation will probably be easier than that because we can take away two of their luxuries which means they have to hire two more entertainers which would already put them at -1fpt.

But in terms of priorities, I'd rather get the offensive troops on French lands to take Orleans and Bergen.

There are five caravels in French water. A sixth is coming around the Incan cape. They can all reach Oporto in 4 turns if they head there right away. That's space for 18 units which would be more than enough to take Orleans. The newly built boat in Theo could probably aid Pink Panther in transporting troops. Having a two boat ship chain would let the slow units get to opporto faster. Assuming we call the new boat "Return of the Pink Panther" we could do something like:

1. Return (starting near StF) gets StF units, moves to point north of FS and gets those units, Pink moves to the designated transfer point within range of Return's next move.
2. Return brings it's units to the handoff point and transfers them to Pink, Pink brings them forward as far as it can.
3. Return moves back to starting point near StF. Pink uses half of it's move to advance, drops the units off and then returns to within range of the transfer point. Repeat step 1.

With the primary mission fulfilled of pillaging the hill SW of Paris and cutting the roads to Bergen complete, I think that taskforce should take over the fortresses on the landbridge. They should have enough units to overcome the spear(s) there. This will cutoff Bergen from any reinforcements and provide some better defensive position. They won't be able to heal here, but I think they can last until the boats can come back. Holding at least one of the fortresses prevents reinforcements from Orleans and Paris from Reaching Bergen. I think the Vikings and Americans should be able to push back the french and may even take Bergen. If not, it will still give us a defensible area to attack from once Paris is ours and only Bergen remains in French hands.

 

[ControlFreak]

Sorry I've been really busy at work and at home. I haven't had a chance to post the embassy screen shots or any others I took. I hope that's not holding you up sercer.

What's your plan?

Some offhand comments. After dropping off the Medi, Pike, AC near Paris, I noticed a problem. Since the pike is only 3HP, the AC ended up being the primary defender. I think the Medi would also be the next primary defender, so the pike isn't doing the stack any good. If they survive, it would be better to pick that whole group up again and redeploy them somewhere where they have more support. Our strength is currently on the land bridge but the troops will be in a bad position between two strong French unit producers. Perhaps we would be better served to pickup all the units and move them to join the pikes by Bergen. We can ensure that the workers don't connect any saltpeter potential tiles (we need to disconnect the mountian road S of Bergen). Then as the American, viking and hittites make progress, we can help take the city. The two of the ships would stay as support enabling the units to heal out in neutral waters or evacuate if the French numbers become too great. The remaining three boats would join the one from Inca land at Oporto. We will have 12 healthy Medis there by the time the boats return to Oporto. This 12 Medi force should be enough to take Orleans and could be helped by the boats pulling any offensive forces left by Bergen and transporting them to Orleans as well.

EDIT:
The new Caravel in Theo can head up the Eastern seaboard and be packed with units in one turn if Pink helps transfer Medis from FS to StF. Then it can head straight for Orleans via the Celtic waters and should end up there about the same time as the 12 Medi from Oporto.

After that, Theo's next caravel can do the 2 boat ship chain to Oporto. With about 5 units every four turns (2Medi from FS, 1 from Ozzy, 1 from StF and an AC) we should be able to build a second wave by the time the boats return from Orleans the second time. If there's enough units left from the first wave, we should have nearly enough to take Paris.

 

[sercer88]

Hey, guys...I'm gonna have to ask for a swap: I have finals until next Tuesday, so it will be hard-core studying for me (well, maybe a tiny bit of playing) and definitely no extremely important/time-consuming SGOTM playing for me until the finals are done.

Sorry for holding this up: I thought I could play this Yesterday...but, well, that didn't work out

 

[ControlFreak]

Thanks for the post sercer. Good luck on finals!

CB, the roster has you up next. Can you take it?

 

[CommandoBob]

Thanks for the post sercer. Good luck on finals!

CB, the roster has you up next. Can you take it?

I'll look at the game tonight and try to post some intelligent questions/observations.

I'd expect to play this in two sets of five turns each.

 

[ControlFreak]

I'll look at the game tonight and try to post some intelligent questions/observations.

I'd expect to play this in two sets of five turns each.

Sounds like a good plan.

My advice:
First 5: Get 4 boats and 12 Medis to Oporto. Keep first wave alive (move to Bergen area and/or hide in American or Viking land?) and pillage French iron and Bergen mountains.

Second 5: move all units to Orleans and take the town. Accumulate more units in Opporto, or even possibly advance them to/through Spain.

Throughout, we need to get a leader and then save him to build the FP. We need to take one more town to enable the FP build. The leader will probably be generated on French soil, which is all the more reason to have a ship or two in support of the troops over there. We'd hate to get a leader and then lose him under French onslaught.

We also need to improve on our research time. Banking was something like 9 or 10 turns at 100% when I started it. That's not going to win the laurels for this game. With the courts built in India/Portugal towns, I'd been trying to grow them so they can contribute more beakers. They also need universities relatively soon but I was thinking to grow them bigger first, and do some partial whipping.

The slaves are nearly finished with StF. The two tiles having forests planted are the last forestable tiles left. Ozzy and Theo are entirely forested out and have forests planted to provide higher sheild count for the primarily grassland/coastal area. KZ is relatively unforested but is continuing to build workers and does not need forestry yet. New workers can help clear the last of the wetlands so forests can be planted. There are a few more workers to be joined to get our towns up to size 12, but be careful about happiness. Future ACs should probably MP the towns on Japanese island to get us to size 12. Your plan should include how many workers we need to build before KZ gets to start other building (Barrack, Units, or Market).

At somepoint, markets would help out a ton, but they are not the priority right now. Having the jungle cleared in FS and mining the Eastern Cow that Theo is sharing would let FS get to 25spt which is great for market building. We're going to need markets to deal with War Weariness as the French war lags on.

Hmm...that might make it better to pull our troops completely out of French land once the Bergen area is pillaged so we don't get weariness from squatting on French soil. Keeping the two support boats near to the Paris hill and Bergen would let us know if a worker is trying to reconnect the potential saltpeter sites.

Have fun planning this one!

 

[CommandoBob]

Didn't get a chance to open the game; tried to get caught up on the current situation. Bad weather, power outages and other committments took my time away.

Looked at the game with MapStat and CAII.

Per MapStat, we have no cities with any chance of flipping. This seems odd, given our rather low culture and diverse city locations. But that tab is just blank. At other times I've seen it show the flip chance as '0.000 to 0.000%' when the city was heavily garrisoned. Right now, though, every cell is empty.

Is MapStat saying our cities cannot flip? (That could be real good new, if true!).

Per CAII we have many ROP and MAs that end in 7 turns.

We also have a 'free' (no MAs involved) war with Rome. Do we have someone for Rome to attack?

 

[ControlFreak]

Since we've been thourough in eliminating all of our opponents, there is no flip risk from foreign citizens. The only other flip chance is overlapping borders and with no settler builds allowed, the city spacing isn't close enough to generate overlapping borders, so yes, no flip chance. (That will change when we take Orleans but haven't eliminated France. I expect Orleans to flip many times. I hope the pop stays high enough for us to still capture it instead of razing. I think if we join a slave of non-French, non-Byzantine nationality, that should keep the city captureable, but I'm not sure about that.)

The ROP's are easy to renew, but I've been adding them to MA's so we have control over when they end. When attached to an MA, the death of our common enemy ends the MA which ends the ROP. Then we are free to backstab our ally (e.g. Vikings or Americans) immediately. As long as you keep the "Always Renegotiate Deals" turned off, the MA should be enough to keep those deals going forever. We have the strongest army and as long as our ally doesn't sell out for peace, they would rather have us in the fight than not.

Rome is not strong enough to send any units to us let alone anyone else. I thought about MA's against them, but it's just really not worth anything to us. They are still in the ancient age and have no plans of getting out of it anytime soon. We can claim their land when our troops have nothing else to do.

Have your time problems been resolved or do you need to swap? We really need to get this game moving again.

 

[zyxy]

CF is right, we need to get this moving again. For some reason both Smurkz games are at snail pace.

Also we know from experience that when the turns are not played, some of us will start to make long posts full of endless drivel that take forever to read.
(No that's not a threat )

 

[ControlFreak]

Read between the line:

CF ... will start to make long posts full of endless drivel that take forever to read.

{drivel, drivel, drivel}

I think we should start enforcing 24hr got it, 24hr strategy post, 72hr play. That will at least double our turn production.

 

[CommandoBob]

I would be helped greatly if certain other persons were not so quick in playing their turn in MTDG 2!

I will do my strategy post before I serve as Turn Player Elect for Team FREE tonight.

 

[CommandoBob]

Turnset ?? 250 AD
310 gold -6 gpt
Banking 3 turns

City Builds

1. Furzt Smurkz (12) vMace 1 turn, zero growth.
2. Gloriouz Battlez (2) university in 84, grows in 3.
3. Oporto (3) courthouse in 1, grows in 5.
4. Ozzy Smurkz (10) vMace in 3, zero growth.
5. Theo the Whacka' (8) vCaravel in 6, grows in 9.
6. Smurkz the Wicked (4) university in 99, grows in 1 (work the mined grass; still grow in 1, uni in 33)
7. Smurkz the Fair (11) vMace in 2, zero growth.
8. Lisbon (3) vMace in 18, grows in 1.
9. Kommando Zentral (6) worker in 1, grows in 1.

Smurkz Military

• 11 Workers
• ?? Slaves
• 01 Spears
• 01 Horses
• 05 Pikes
• 02 Knights
• 08 Caravel
• 01 Army
• 18 Maces
• 06 Ancient Cavalry
• Army Upkeep
  • 43 Allowed Units
  • 53 Actual Units
  • 30 gpt support cost

We are at war with

1. France (we are average)
2. Rome (we are average)
3. Spain (we are strong)
4. Iroquois (we are strong)

Local Resources
02 Horse
01 Iron

Luxuries
01 Wines
01 Incense
06 Ivory
01 Furs (Imported)
01 Dyes (Imported)
01 Silks (Imported)
01 Gems (Imported)
01 Incense(Exported)
08 Ivory (Exported)


Military Deployment
NE of French Iron Colony
1 vPike and 1 rPike.

E of Bergen
Caravel (A Shot in the Dark) empty, 3 moves left.

2 SE of Paris
1 eAncientCavalry
2 vAncientCavalry
1 rAncientCavalry
1 eKnight
1 vKnight (3/4, unmoved)
1 vMace
2 vPike

S of Paris
Caravel (Pillager2) empty, 3 moves left.

3S of Paris
Caravel (Righteous Flamez) empty.

2NE of Paris
1 vAncientCavalry
1 vMace
1 rPike

3NE of Paris
Caravel (Deadly Flamez) empty.

3S, 3SE of Paris
Caravel (Pillager1) empty.


Long Term Strategy
Build United Nations and become Smurzk the Furzt.

Mid Term Strategy
Kill France.

Short Term Strategy
Capture Orleans.
Prepare to capture Paris, starving the city in the process.
Deny Saltpeter to France by pillaging suspected Saltpeter locations.
Learn Banking and then...? (I missed that discussion).
Keep the MAs active against France, using techs and gold when needed.
Need to clear the wetlands around Kommado Zentral and plant forests.
Build harbor (?) in Oporto after courthouse.
Other builds stay the same.


France 250 AD

French Foes 250 AD

Movement Thoughts and Plans
Caravels hold 3 units.
Deadly Flamez can make it to Oporto in 3 turns, but may need to let the AC, Mace and Pike onboard and move to Bergen.
Zecond Wave, between the Incas and Sumer, could make it to Oporto in 4 turns.
Pillager1 can be in Oporto in 4 turns.
A Shot in the Dark would need 5 turns to get to Oporto.
Righteous Flamez probably just 4 turns.
Pillager2 is blockading Paris. I was going to leave it in place.
'In Oporto' is defined as the coastal tile 2S of Oporto.

Eleven Maces are already overseas and can quickly walk to Oporto, the longest walk is three turns (if the Maya stay out of the way).
We have a vAncientCavalry over there also, making 12 military units in New Smurkz.
Load them all?

Operation Torch Possible Routes 250 AD

Taking the northern route we can arrive at Orleans in 3 turns, but we spend two turns close to Spanish cities.
The southern route gets to Orleans a turn later, but we stay far away from Spanish waters.

Do we fear the Spanish navy?

The new Caravel in Theo can head up the Eastern seaboard and be packed with units in one turn if Pink helps transfer Medis from FS to StF. Then it can head straight for Orleans via the Celtic waters and should end up there about the same time as the 12 Medi from Oporto.

Lets map this out.
Turn 0:
Pink Panther just unloaded an AC and 2 Maces in New Smurkz. It has no moves left.
New Caravel (in Theo the Whacka') E, NE, NE and NE (9+ MPs) into the coastal tile 3SE and 1S of Smurzk the Fair.
Turn 1:
Pink Panther moves and ends up 2N and 1NW of Furzt Smurkz (9+ MPs).
New Caravel E, NE, N and N (9 MPs) into the sea tile 3E of StF.
Turn 2:
Pink Panther moves E, loads the 2 Maces from FS, then NE, N and E (9+ MPs), now NW and W of StF, on the coast.
New Caravel, 2NW (3 MPs) and stops, on the coast, 2NE and E of StF.
Turn 3:
Pink Panther unloads the 2 Maces E, on the mined BG 1NW of StF, and then gets a ship chain set up to New Smurkz.
New Caravel sits.
Turn 4:
Maces move E, NE and E and board New Caravel.
New Caravel sails east to Orleans.

Right?

 

[ControlFreak]

City Builds

1. 
   ...
2. Gloriouz Battlez (2) university in 84, grows in 3.
   ...
3. Smurkz the Wicked (4) university in 99, grows in 1 (work the mined grass; still grow in 1, uni in 33)
   ...
4. Smurkz the Fair (11) vMace in 2, zero growth.

GB should be MM so that it has two turns at 3fpt using the mined BG or Spices, and 1 turn at 4fpt using two irrigated grass so it grows every 3 turns.
StW is also to maximize growth and commerce.
Smurkz the Fair is working a mined BG where a forest will grow. Make sure when the forest is planted that the town doesn't start starving.

We are at war with

1. France (we are average)
2. Rome (we are average)
3. Spain (we are strong)
4. Iroquois (we are strong)

Rome, Iroquois, and now Spain are all fake wars. French is a very real war and we will start getting war weariness from it soon because we are in their territory. It will get worse if we lose units.

Luxuries
(Imported)

Some of these deals expire soon and should be renegotiated. It bears repeating that we should only sell per turn stuff for per turn stuff. If anything is paid upfront on the AI side of the deal (gold, workers, tech) it hurts our rep if the trade route is cut by enemy boats.

Short Term Strategy
Learn Banking and then...? (I missed that discussion).
...
Build harbor (?) in Oporto after courthouse.

I think Gunpowder is the only required tech we can learn next so GP is my vote. Oporto already has a harbor and should start caravels, market or university. My preference would be caravel.

Movement Thoughts and Plans
Deadly Flamez can make it to Oporto in 3 turns, but may need to let the AC, Mace and Pike onboard and move to Bergen.
...
A Shot in the Dark would need 5 turns to get to Oporto.
...
'In Oporto' is defined as the coastal tile 2S of Oporto.

Eleven Maces are already overseas and can quickly walk to Oporto, the longest walk is three turns (if the Maya stay out of the way).
We have a vAncientCavalry over there also, making 12 military units in New Smurkz.
Load them all?

I think I made a mistake in setting the troops down in three places. The French still have a ton of units and are making progress against America and Probably the Vikings too. We need to consolodate the units in one spot so they can protect each other. With a big enough stack, the wounded can retreat to a boat and heal while the others hold their ground. From where they are now, I don't think they can outlast the French onslaught long enough for units to help offshore.

I see two options:

1. Try to pillage towards the North with the intent of cutting off Paris and joining the Orleans assault.
2. Boating the stack towards Bergen and using them for guerilla warfare to give America a leg up and keep Bergen from being a French asset (pillage the mountain).

I favor moving them to Bergen for two reasons. Marching them inland near Paris takes away the ability to heal on boats. Keeping them near Paris/Orleans, draws all the French units to that area. We want our second wave to blindside the French with our arrival at Orleans.

Since Deadly needs to bring the units from Paris to Bergen, and Shot is already a turn behind, I propose that those two boats stay in support of the units and ship them to Bergen or america (depending on how well they fare on their overnight stay in French Territory). That leaves four boats to head for Oporto arriving on turn four. All the Medis will need to be loaded, but reinforcements will be coming from FS every two or three turns. Together with the New Caravel coming around the Celtic island (busting fog North of Celts will probably be the shortest route to Orleans anyway) we should have 5 fully loaded ships capable of dropping off 15 units (all Maces except 1 AC) by Orleans on turn 8 or 9 depending on how fast all the Medi arrive at Oporto.

Operation Torch Possible Routes 250 AD

Taking the northern route we can arrive at Orleans in 3 turns, but we spend two turns close to Spanish cities.
The southern route gets to Orleans a turn later, but we stay far away from Spanish waters.

Do we fear the Spanish navy?

I don't think the Spanish navy is anything to worry about with the exception of units being dropped off near StW. With our steady flow of Medi's through StW, we should be about to kill any landing parties. And unless Spain knows Astronomy, they won't attack our boats on the sea I think.

[/quote]
Lets map this out.
Turn 0:
Pink Panther just unloaded an AC and 2 Maces in New Smurkz. It has no moves left.
New Caravel (in Theo the Whacka') E, NE, NE and NE (9+ MPs) into the coastal tile 3SE and 1S of Smurzk the Fair.
Turn 1:
Pink Panther moves and ends up 2N and 1NW of Furzt Smurkz (9+ MPs).
New Caravel E, NE, N and N (9 MPs) into the sea tile 3E of StF.
Turn 2:
Pink Panther moves E, loads the 2 Maces from FS, then NE, N and E (9+ MPs), now NW and W of StF, on the coast.
New Caravel, 2NW (3 MPs) and stops, on the coast, 2NE and E of StF.
Turn 3:
Pink Panther unloads the 2 Maces E, on the mined BG 1NW of StF, and then gets a ship chain set up to New Smurkz.
New Caravel sits.
Turn 4:
Maces move E, NE and E and board New Caravel.
New Caravel sails east to Orleans.

Right?[/QUOTE]
I'm wondering if New Caravel can be loaded with Medis from Ozzy and StF, and an AC due soon. That way we can keep our flow of FS Medis through StW just in case the Spanish land more troops there. Either way, you are right that the boat moves up the coast and waits for a turn while units arrive. It can probably afford to wait two turns and still catch up with the Oporto crowd. The fleet should join up on the Spanish coast and move as one unit into french territory. The best tile to land on is the one directly North of Orleans because it will be out of Knight reach when Orleans is captured. I think the caravels can reach that tile from the Green dot on the last leg. The last pink leg should be W(1ocean), W(2ocean), NW(3ocean),W(5sea), W(8coast), W(9+coast). Dropoff is SW from the boats. South is still an option if the SW tile is occupied.