SGOTM 12 - Spooks

[Andronicus]

wait where?
beachhead
Should we land, fortify and fight some small battles? With Teno building a wonder, it would be enough to hinder troops to come back into Teno.
We might be able to pick off some units risking to wound our units - or promote them.Wounded units migth be carried to our capital to heal - which takes 3 turns till they can fight again.
stay on board
Safer of course it would be to keep the first wave aboard and the second in our Capital to minimize happiness problems. The landing is on the turn after the GLH (or SoZ) is finished.

Remember the first wave has the spear.

I would be against landing prior to our definitive attack
Our strike force is small and we can only reinforce at 1 unit per 2 turns.
We will be in strife if we plant units down early and draw some fire from from units at Aztec 2nd town - several lost or damaged units puts our stack smaller risking failure of our attack, more units dragged to threatened capital makes it harder to take.

I'm not sure if we should quell the resistance before we got both towns. A flip would really hurt us.

Units need to heal up before moving to next town, also require reinforcement. Quickly suppressing resistors allows starving pop with scientists till flip risk low.
May want to consider pillaging connecting roads in 2nd town's cultural area to slow any units from there. ? bring dromons to Aztec capital after dropping off attack force so we can quickly transport them to outside the 2nd town when we are ready - would probably require 3 dromons for that task plus another 1 or 2 to drop off reinforcements directly across the straight - this decision affects where we send dromons after dropping off last batch of attack force outside Teno...

Not sure if we should research CoL. Some AI (India, Ottomans) might be about to research it. Maybe we rather make money?
It would be nice to collect some money for trades at the dawn of the Middle Ages.

My understanding is we need to self-research our final AA tech ourselves to be able to get into TBP to do the trades and potentially get a 2nd tier tech as our freebie. The cheapest left is CoL, there fore we need to self research ASAP as soon as we complete lit. Should another civ discover CoL before us it will bring down the tech cost.

 

[Paul#42]

May want to consider pillaging connecting roads in 2nd town's cultural area to slow any units from there. ?

I think you are right. Better safe than sorry.

bring dromons to Aztec capital after dropping off attack force so we can quickly transport them to outside the 2nd town when we are ready - would probably require 3 dromons for that task plus another 1 or 2 to drop off reinforcements directly across the straight - this decision affects where we send dromons after dropping off last batch of attack force outside Teno...

That would take ~6 turns without any use (of the ships in the meantime). I don't think it's worth it. Our healthy units will be W or SW of Teno anyway so it's just one extra move on board if the dromons wait W or SW of our landing spot and carry the units to the forest ivory if we want to spare two turns' march.

My understanding is we need to self-research our final AA tech ourselves to be able to get into TBP to do the trades and potentially get a 2nd tier tech as our freebie.

Are you sure about that? Do you get the free tech immediately on a trade?

 

[Andronicus]

Are you sure about that? Do you get the free tech immediately on a trade?

No, I'm not sure, just repeating something someone else (?KC) said. Does anyone know for certain

 

[Andronicus]

That would take ~6 turns without any use (of the ships in the meantime). I don't think it's worth it. Our healthy units will be W or SW of Teno anyway so it's just one extra move on board if the dromons wait W or SW of our landing spot and carry the units to the forest ivory if we want to spare two turns' march.

OK just looked at save - yes it is too many turns to get dromons all around Aztec land.
Also noticed they havnt connected their towns up yet despite having roaded to west of their second town. There are 2 workers under a stack on the ivory we had been planning to land the first 4 units on (no longer forest) so I expect at least some will be roaded before we get there.
I note there are 22 Aztec units visible outside of their towns - I hope we dont see too many when it comes time to attack.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I think we should not land in advance of our attack, just wait in the boats.

Resistors are no better for culture flips than angry citizens i think.
We heal there, we end the resistance and we take the second city. Culture is only in early stages yet, and we should hopefully be able to take the other city soon enough. I don't think we need to starve anything.

We have 2 choises when going to MA.
-not researching our own tech means we cannot get a free 4th MA tech. In this case we won't need gold for trades, our own free tech will do.
-research COL, do the tech trading thing for a 4th free tech. We need Lit and gold for this, We will get back our gold though. (and hopefully more)

 

[Paul#42]

We heal there, we end the resistance and we take the second city.

Aztecs culture will be easily ten times our culture (78c). IIRC that factor dominates not just the probability of a flip but also the chance to calm a resistor. Our units would be in quite a danger after the first interturn.
Casually I'd heal redlined units in there, but up from 3 hp our units should heal outside.

We have 2 choises when going to MA.
-not researching our own tech means we cannot get a free 4th MA tech. In this case we won't need gold for trades, our own free tech will do.
-research COL, do the tech trading thing for a 4th free tech. We need Lit and gold for this, We will get back our gold though. (and hopefully more)

Then my vote goes to research CoL @max. Never trust an AI to research something for you (in time). And don't even trade for it if it shows up.

 

[killercane]

No, I'm not sure, just repeating something someone else (?KC) said. Does anyone know for certain

Positively positive. We have to research our way in.

Please dont leave troops in the Aztec town. Flipping would be 150 shields gone poof. But dont forget jag warriors who can sneak in either.

Landing troops prior to our stack does two bad things IMO: having them attacked adn bringing Aztec troops back up from the south away from Japan. If our Dromons need something to do they can cut roads between the two towns to slow the Aztecs down. IIRC from some always war Sid game thread, destroying improvements requires lots of bombardment before it works.

 

[markh]

Bombarding improvements with dromons are not very reliable. I played an AW succession game as the byz and we were heavily disapointed about the "pillaging" skills of dromons. We would need quite a fair number of dromons to do some pillaging or a lot of luck. Not a very attractive option.

 

[Paul#42]

Pillaging is useless here. Especially if the ground is covered with units...

We need to get a consense on what to trade to whom.

I'd keep Curr, Lit till Cons is around.
I'd trade Philo, MM, Poly (in that order) if we are in need of money or we can get 30+g (or slaves) for it.
I'd sell Maths and HBR for less.

I'd Gift money before trading tech to any SCI civ to keep them friendly.

What do you guys think?

 

[markh]

Had a look. Quite a lot of units, he ?

Just to be sure about the attack and I understood correctly, I land the first wave on the ivory forrest and the second a turn later to attack the following turn with all 8 swords ?

I would sell philo now as it is known to 2 other civs already, so getting all possible gold seems to be good.

 

[Paul#42]

[/QUOTE]

Just to be sure about the attack and I understood correctly, I land the first wave on the ivory forrest and the second a turn later to attack the following turn with all 8 swords ?

7 swords, one spear actually. Make sure the spear is on the first wave.
Land the first wave the turn after Aztecs complete a wonder in Teno.
Keep building swords in the meantime.
Keep the sword E of Con as long as possible to monitor movements
Risk losing a curragh or two on suicide runs. Sailing coastlines is too slow.
When the iron is mined, MM to 20spt and build a 2-turn-library.

I would sell philo now as it is known to 2 other civs already, so getting all possible gold seems to be good.

I'm torn about that, I wanted the others to tell their opinion.
I'd keep techs as most don't have contact. But maybe getting 20+g for it is a good landmark

Have fun and luck
That's quite an amusement for a friday night, right?

 

[killercane]

Had a look. Quite a lot of units, he ?

Just to be sure about the attack and I understood correctly, I land the first wave on the ivory forrest and the second a turn later to attack the following turn with all 8 swords ?

I would sell philo now as it is known to 2 other civs already, so getting all possible gold seems to be good.

No, plains ivory. Ivory forest is by Teotihuacan; we are going after Tenochtitlan the capital. Teotihuacan is where all the Aztec units are.

Boats will land troops on the plains ivory and will be able to get back to load 4 more swords on the same turn (differential movemetn is on). All troops go to the forest next turn so we can attack with the 7 swords.

I dont see any problem selling philo for 20+ gold. We need to find the rest of the scientific civs.

 

[Andronicus]

The confusion re plains ivory or forest ivory is because the plains ivory was forest ivory in prev save, given they are building a wonder it is just another example of AI stupidity wasting a forest chop (and worker turns)

 

[killercane]

Ah ok. +xcl

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Why do you guys have the illusion the AI has few contacts ?
They also build boats and meet people. Not as many as us, but surely quite a bunch.

 

[Andronicus]

Why do you guys have the illusion the AI has few contacts ?
They also build boats and meet people. Not as many as us, but surely quite a bunch.

The only AI whose contacts we know are the Japanese
They know us, Aztecs, Indians, Portugal and Rome

I dont expect any communication between Persian island and Aztec - Japanese island without galleys or seafaring trait unless they can get around via Rome. With Portugal and Spain nearby contacts may soon increase.

Is it possible that there is one great long island?
The western hemisphere may well all be connected, and possibly the eastern may wrap around to Rome. Guess we'll find out soon.

 

[markh]

I am in turn 3 now and the second dromon is built. There are still Aztec units where we intend to land. I would consider to land in one of the forests rather than on the plain ivory. There will still be units on the hill next to it if we land in the next few turns, so our units would be attacked. Should I wait until they have burnt more units ?

 

[killercane]

We cannot drop troops off on the forest and make it back to load up 4 more on the same turn. So we have to risk attack on the ivory.

Sure wait some turns before landing, we have to wait on them to build a wonder anyways. If they make peace we must get them back to war again the same turn so they keep spending units.

 

[Abegweit]

Land on the nearer forest. Isn't that a better spot anyway? Protected and adjacent to the city as well. What's in the stacks, BTW? They look a bit scary.

Don't unload on the first round. Move the boats. Next turn unload them and head back to get the other four. That way the waves come in one after the other.

Has the wonder been built? Definitely wait until that is done.

Edit: cross post with KC. IMO, the forest is clearly the better landing site.

 

[Andronicus]

No way we can land our attack whilst they still have so many units there. Hopefully in next 3-4 turns they will burn them off. As stated need to wait till wonder built anyway.
Agree land both boat loads on forest.
Since we can start loaded dromons from just off forest we can land on forest on successive turns, waiting till both loads are ready bofore attacking Teno.

How many turns till iron hill mined? Once mine present (remember will get the extra shields when will be mined in 1 turn) we can buld a 2 turn lib. Otherwise builds should be more swords to reinforce the attack