SGOTM 12 - Spooks

[killercane]

Ok looking at it now. Why are we not attacking Egypt with the troops left at home? 6 units should be able to take Thebes and give us a 4th lux. She has only archers, no horses/iron. Troops can then go on to Paris. We can bring 8 units to bear on her without much difficulty (an anc cav @ turn 9, 4 warriors>MDI upgraded, LB at Teno, 2 troops from Kyoto, and another warrior maybe if built at Teno). Only 2 dromons to deliver, but we can make some headway there surely.

Then troops load up at Orleans, and unload on iron mountain in Viking land. Those are the 10 cities for FP. We still do the workers after the dromon and harbor at Teno.

 

[Abegweit]

Why are we not attacking Egypt with the troops left at home? 6 units should be able to take Thebes and give us a 4th lux. She has only archers, no horses/iron. Troops can then go on to Paris.

I like this idea. So let's try to build a plan around the whole thing.

Const dromon -> harbour -> workers
Teo dromon -> duct
Teno LB -> warrior
Osaka warrior -> warrior?
Kyoto? Continue training the slave, I suppose.

Then three dromons sail for France with five units and the MGL while an upgraded curragh provides a ninth dromon for home use. The dromons don't have to leave at exactly the same time, if it doesn't work out that way. MGL goes in the last boat.

Edit: I suspect that we'll want to attack Bergen before Trondheim due to troop movement considerations. Both cities do have to go. In any case, that's a long way off.

 

[Abegweit]

Is the southern approach even safe for GA ?

We can certainly protect ourselves by landing on the hill instead of charging straight into the bay. ATM, we can't know whether this would cost us a turn because part of the route is through uncharted waters.

Question which just occurred to me. If a dromon has a choice between pinging a spear and pinging/killing a ship, what will it do? Does anyone know?

 

[Abegweit]

Looks like they are to arive in about 8 turns, thats good.

Y'know, that actually was the hardest part of this turnset. The first half was just whack-a-mole. I was surprised to see how fast I got to Kyoto, as you apparently were too, but it was just basic troop movement. Then came the second half. Trying to juggle all the pieces and figuring out which unit had to be at which location at which point in order to get them all off together... I spent about two hours on this before I made my first move. Nothing like the amount of time you spend on your excel charts, I'm sure. Still...

I regret not having built warriors and/or dromons out of Teno. Sorry, I wasn't concentrating on this and sorta pulled the build out of a hat. In my defence, it seems that no one else saw the error either.

 

[Andronicus]

Question which just occurred to me. If a dromon has a choice between pinging a spear and pinging/killing a ship, what will it do? Does anyone know?

Dromon bombarding city with naval unit in it will not damage defenders until after naval units destroyed

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Your plans sound interesting KC, but also maybe over ambitious.

When France starts to fight Scandinavia, there research will go up. So we have no time to lose, we must take them ASAP. I think it is needlesly risky to fight the strongest civ on the map with 10 units while we have 14.
I don't think 10 units is safe to conquer just france, and you intend to take Scandinavia with them as well. They are nice units and they did a good job against Japan, but they are not a bunch of superheros.

I thought if we are lucky and the 14 units do well against France, they may be able to fight Scandinavia after wards.

If we upgrade our core while the units are fighting there, we can upgrade some more workers with excess gold and build some units from Kyoto maybe since that town doesn't have much to build anyway. These units could then be shipped to Egypt by the time those 14 units, if we are lucky, conquered a bit of Scandinavia.

I suggest building warriors from Kyoto before it is connected to Iron. Much better to build them there than in Osaka and Teoti who have so much to build.


This way, we could be able to both send 14 units to France (and if i were relgious, i'd pray that is enough, incase of a city flip) and send some units to India.

The 10 units will arive at the first* French city and take it. The remainder of them are shipped to the second French city and join up with the delayed 4 units. The remainder of the units will now be transported to Scandinavia. This surely wont be more than 10 units, so 2 of the boats can return home to pickup the new units we made. They should be back here in about 20 turns from now, At that time with some luck, the troops there have taken some or all of Scandinavia, but i don't really expect it from just 14 troops.
At home by now, we could have gotten 2 AC's, upgraded a bunch of warriors and maybe even produced an MDI from scratch in Kyoto.

*We still still need to think properly about what city to attack first. Orleans first is better for flip risking purposes, and the southern landing spot is not safe. Either the troops would have to move on land, or the boats would be in shallow waters.
The boats on the southern route can drop on the backside at Orleans losing little or no time.
I just counted, wether we bring them east or westside of Orleans, it takes one turn longer than bringing them to Paris.

 

[Andronicus]

I agree with attacking Orleans first
Most of France's units will be near Paris where the Viking action is likely to be (assuming there is a land connection). I would expect far fewer units to be left in Orleans than in Paris.
Once Orleans taken, the bulk of French units will make their way to Orleans
If we can time it such that we move our healthy units onto the hill north of Paris as France moves units into Orlean's area, Paris will should be ripe for taking with most of Frances's units going up in a puff of smoke.

Hopefully this way healthy units move onto the forest (2N of Paris) the same turn we take Orleans, move to the hill after the flip-safe IT and then take Paris only subjecting Orleans to 1 turn flip risk. If that flip risk is deemed too risky we could still do the gifting to a 3rd party and dow trick.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I think we should gift Orleans so that the troops go back to the vikings.

 

[Paul#42]

We seem to have consense that France will match the Vikings - what if Vikings are stronger (they have Iron and can produce nothing but units while France is wonder addicted) - they might even attack Paris and bind the French units.

They might also be a hard nut later - we should at least consider not to roll over them easily...

So I'd also favor attacking Orleans first and then turning on Paris - perhaps after the Vikings did some of the work for us.

At least we should soon ignite the war there.

And I don't think we should go after Cleo actively before we have solved the Paris problem. Delaying the FP bw 4-6 turns to be sure is pesky, but seeing the invasion fail due to missing reinforcements might well cost us the game

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I thought it was posted that France is militairy strong compared to us and the vikings only average. Paris also produces units in 1 turn. So i do think France has ehm... pretty good chances against the Vikings.

If we would delay our first attack until the backup forces are almost there, we could shorten the time between attacks and thus reduce the flip risk. However, if the first attack is unlucky, units need to heal. If units need to heal, we will actually need time in between the attacks.

 

[killercane]

Ok.

Plan is:

1) Orleans first. Are troops on Go To or do I need to manually move them?
2) Const- switch to harbor and then workers.
3) Dromon from somewhere, maybe Teoti, which then get workers or granary done. Teoti has two forests to chop.
4) Upgrade all warriors.
5) Teno plan- Well I guess continue on library since we dont need MDI or Longbow from there?
6) Kyoto- get some ancient cavs/some workers/then harbor, library, or ?
7) Declare France next turn or the one after that.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

5) Teno plan- We still need an extra boat to transport our workers, so i think a dromon here.
3) granary ? I think it needs an aquaduct
6) I think 2 vWarriors, then Library. You could either complete this worker, or swich it to warrior. an extra warrior will be able to serve as MP for a while, so that may work pretty well.

Both the east and west side of orleans should take 1 turn more than south. South imo is ruled out for GA purposes. So i think we should sail to the westside.
The second boat load is to arive 6 turns later, or 7 maybe ?
We should delay the war with the vikings as long as possible to avoid their research going up. Thats why i think we should make pretty precise plans.
We want some vWarriors for upgrading in the comming 20 turns.


Maybe we can make a more precise estimate on when they will research gunpowder and see what options we have.
-Do we want to have a short time between captures to avoid flips ?
-Can we take paris last and not be too late for gunpowder ?
-Are we still in time if we wait for the reeinforcements ?
-How can we handle city flips ?
-When do you plan to gift a town, and to whom ? (nearby and more culture = less flip risk)

I'd love to discuss some of these questions, but today it is exactly 31 years ago my sister was born, so i gotta go, will be back tonight around 22.00 GMT

 

[killercane]

5) Teno plan- We still need an extra boat to transport our workers, so i think a dromon here.
3) granary ? I think it needs an aquaduct
6) I think 2 vWarriors, then Library. You could either complete this worker, or swich it to warrior.

Both the east and west side of orleans should take 1 turn more than south. South imo is ruled out for GA purposes. So i think we should sail to the westside.
The second boat load is to arive 6 turns later, or 7 maybe ?
We should delay the war with the vikings as long as possible to avoid their research going up. Thats why i think we should make pretty precise plans.
We want some vWarriors for upgrading in the comming 20 turns.


Maybe we can make a more precise estimate on when they will research gunpowder and see what options we have.
-Do we want to have a short time between captures to avoid flips ?
-Can we take paris last and not be too late for gunpowder ?
-Are we still in time if we wait for the reeinforcements ?
-How can we handle city flips ?
-When do you plan to gift a town, and to whom ? (nearby and more culture = less flip risk)

I'd love to discuss some of these questions, but today it is exactly 31 years ago my sister was born, so i gotta go, will be back tonight around 22.00 GMT

I meant aqueduct in Teoti rather than granary. I would probably gift Orleans to America or Celts, celts might be easier since they are pretty backwards. I may also wait to upgrade until we have Leos.

 

[Abegweit]

Northern troops are on goto, aimed at the square e-e of Paris. Southern ones are manual.

 

[Paul#42]

I would probably gift Orleans to America or Celts, celts might be easier since they are pretty backwards.

And they are closest so they have the smallest flip risk. And they have no harbor, so nothing worse than spears they could build there.

In Kyoto, we could gain +1 fpt by working the roaded grass instead of coast wothout losing commerce - just one food, but that might be crucial if we need a clown for a turn or two.

 

[Andronicus]

When France discovers gunpowder is academic if we can ensure they have no access to it
So far, there appears to be just 1 tile which could have salt (the hill 2SW of Paris). (I'm no great shakes at fog gazing but I cant exclude a hill 1S or 1SW of this hill).
This would be vulnerable to pillaging from Vikings since they would be attacking from that direction.
We need more scouting of the area between France and Scandinavia by the nearby curragh.

 

[Andronicus]

We appear to be a long way from getting any re inforcements to France. ? 11-12 turns for 2 units if that dromon sleeping near Con moves to Kyoto now.
When will further ones come? - I think we need the next build in Con to remain dromon to bring more backup.

We seem to have a weak plan for back up for a war on the other side of the world where the benefits wont be realised until we have FP which requires conquering Paris, Orleans, and 3 more cities.

Unless our plan has forces to get all the cities we need we risk it fizzing out with 1 (at risk of flip) or 2 corrupt cities and long delay in getting remaining 3 to realise our goal.

The plan is for our best military producer (Con) to go to worker mode for the next 20 turns or so - leaving poor producers to scramble a few odd units whilst trying to also get infrastructure - no point having those lovely workers to boost pop to size 12 if dont have duct or lib (to pop the borders).

Whilst I agree with Wacken's figures for predicted scientific growth with developing our core, this is to the detriment of military builds which we still require for our planned conquest.
How do we best maintain the balance?

If the plan in France is to wait for reinforcements to complete the campaign we must be sure to plan those military builds even if it delays our core development.

If the plan is to get what we can with our small force then we will likely be waiting a long time before we can rebuild a military to get the remaining required cities for FP.

Then again, I'm often too timid to gamble on high risks

 

[WackenOpenAir]

No, i am not planning to gamble.

The core upgrades takes about 15-20 turns. In that time, we could make some 8 more units instead. This would be enough to take egypt and allow us to have 10 cities in 20 turns.

That however delays our core upgrade by about 20 turns, and it brings paris to use only 5 to 10 turns earlier. Paris is not valuable enough to delay the core that much.

If you call attacking France with 14 units a gamble, then yes, it is a gamble. But what else can we do ? How many is enough for it not to be a gamble ?
Sending more doesn't seem really usefull anyway since we need to conquer France before gunpowder. It will take way too long to bring more units.

 

[Andronicus]

If you call attacking France with 14 units a gamble, then yes, it is a gamble. But what else can we do ? How many is enough for it not to be a gamble ?

14 units is certainly better than 10 which is all we could land in next 8 turns and I recall you saying KC would be attacking in the next turnset.
If the intention is waiting for another 4 units to join then that will be 12-14 turns time. This would require building dromon next turn in Con and clear plans for where its 2 units are coming from. My concern was based on comment

2) Const- switch to harbor and then workers.

which suggested no immed dromon for bringing troops 13 and 14.
although I did note your earlier comment

I think it is needlesly risky to fight the strongest civ on the map with 10 units while we have 14.

My thoughs are both core development and getting Paris as FP are valuable
Going for both at same time may be risky.
I guess I would keep the unit builds in Con for another 8-10 turns delaying core development, but speeding conquestphase. This would cost us research but whilst we are waiting for guns and possibly chemistry whilst we do theology, education and astronomy, I figure this not so costly.
I would probably also go for Egypt first as they are on the way and trust to dromons pillaging salt when France researches guns (after trading for it) edit - with troops half way to France it is past time where that is an option
Of course this may just be part of the reason you play so much better than me

 

[WackenOpenAir]

France must be conquered before gunpowder. I know i have proposed to attack orleans first, but i also have my doubts if that brings us to Paris in time to prevent gunpowder. (paris is providing their research and probably their salpeter)

Thats why i said KC could be attacking at the end of his turnset.

An extra boat from the capital is not needed if we make them from Teno / Teoti.

Extra units cannot reach Paris in time, they can only make us have 10 towns faster. Now is a perfectly reasonable discussion if you want Paris to get online faster at the cost of the core development, but i don't really think it will help Paris. To increase our chance of succes, we would have to keep sending units, not only 4. This would be helpfull espescially if a city flips back to Paris. If you guys want to do this, we surely could.

We cannot be pilaging stuff at france without risking a GA i think. Even if we can, a unit on top of the hill will prevent us from bombarding the roads. And if we bombard the roads, they can put workers there and reconnect it. Relying on bombardment while taking other towns is a risk i think.

Most interesting in these choises i think is to estimate what the opposition is doing. We don't have much information from the 3 graphs, but maybe it is possible to have a better estimate of it by calculating the currect scores from their average score graph and comparing that to the territory graph. This may tell us if they also joined workers in their core.
If for example bringing Paris online in 20 turns and starting our core upgrade as late as 20 turns from now is enough to be ahead of our competition, that could be a good plan.
If however this will not bring us ahead of our competition while a riskier method would work, then more risk is needed. In other words, we can pay a high price (too high te be normally paying it) to reduce risk if that still brings us well ahead of our competition.

Oh, and please don't add small text like that.