SGOTM 12 - Team Zoe

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

If we apply that lesson, we'll need to reinforce Carthage - ther's one AC total in there since the persians landed an immortal. What a waste of efforts, taking a size 2 corrupt worthless city. Anyways, I'm against turning this into an all out war right now. I'd buy out ASAP and start it again ASAP - in the IA. I'd be more comfortable with Persia being potentially peaceful for the new age negociations, even if we have to sign peace just for the occasion. If they won't take it, we still have guns to show them.

 

[Whomp]

Good point Rat. We need them for the free tech. I would leader farm with them till they're willing to make peace.

 

[zerksees]

Let's not get our feelings in the way to win this game...

Reference the second part of my earlier quote (copied in below). My first response was the knee jerk reaction.

Really, having a presence there is going to be tough. This is not the last time he is going to come after us. Once we kill enough of his units he will make peace. So I guess we need to increase our military there.

In addition I think that the best way to help Xerxes keep his unit counts down is to give him a place to use them up. We definitely need a very solid presence there so we can leader fish, and maybe get a tech as part of the peace settlement. As time passes his cheap immortals and crusaders will lose their advantage.

I would stay way from making alliances against Persia if possible. Try to get out of it before war weariness kicks in. If not, we’ll end up wasting coin and shield on it. Just build up our strength there against future incursions.

I can’t believe Persia gave up 3 lux to DOW on us. Remember the despised government factor? I wonder if Persia hates feudalism.

What a waste of efforts, taking a size 2 corrupt worthless city.

Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Unlike the cities on the Persian mainland, these should be fairly easy to defend from Persia. They will make science farms once we get electricity, and in the meantime can spit out workers, or we could give them to Arabs (gifting them would be my last resort)

 

[zerksees]

Are we going to post in the spoiler thread? Gunpowder came around 300 AD and we have a list of the dead at that time.

I'd like to, but don't want the other teams to use the information somehow to benefit their game.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

About the corrupt city, the worthless effort was Xerxes', not Zerksees'. No offense meant, I would have rammed through anyone as well.

I think Persia is on room to expand mode. It was us or Babylon and they must have liked us less.

 

[zerksees]

About the corrupt city, the worthless effort was Xerxes', not Zerksees'. No offense meant, I would have rammed through anyone as well.

OK thanks for the clarification. I laugh every time the AI goes across the ocean to drop one unit in your territory, even if it is a worthless outpost like Utica. It almost goes without saying when the AI puts out these worthless efforts, that's why I assumed you were referring to what I did. Sorry about the mixup.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

After 3-4 turns of dumb drops, bikini babe and general failure, Xerxes asks for peace, will give gold and gpt for it.

Should we give him? We can declare back again in 20, but it sounds like a logistics waste right now. It does ensure that we have him peaceful when the new age strikes though.

Other option is to remain at war and only call off the dogs IF we need him for a first tier tech entering the IA. We leave the war as is, push a little if we can, wait and see how the new age plays out. If we don't need him, we ally everyone in the world against him right on that very turn, which saves us time in capturing Persia. But it means a more costy war (we aren't taking big hits, but we lose more troops than in peace time) in the mean time.

I'm stuck on the IBT screen waiting for an answer, although I have no problem waiting for it. I say we stay at war, I don't know that we can do anything useful with the troops and bring them back in 20 turns. If a useful option for the troops comes up, I'd be all into calling a 20 turns truce and charging back ASAP.

Turnlog to follow, 2 turns to go.

 

[Whomp]

I say make peace. It's not a war we want to prosecute yet.

 

[ThERat]

doubtful that we can achieve anything in this war...I'd say you try and leaderfish so we get another army. (so, I'd say go for peace and we go after England or Zulu instead). Remember in a few turns we get galleons and much better mobility

I think without Cavs we won't make any headway there. Also, remember that the tech cost will drop with Persia getting another tech...

Maybe, we should ask France to fight Celts or America to reduce their unit support...we need someone to get us metal and time is running out soon

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Alright; peace, move to Zululand, wait for cavalries before we engage (inevitably) Persia again.

 

[ThERat]

can you ask France to hurry up to research metal and MT for us

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

*******resume play***********

Rant: Dromons have 2 attack, 2 bombards, and we can't build them once we reach Astro ?!!!

WHAT THE BLOODY

intercourse

!!!!!

Keep boating reinforcements

IT
One semi-useful road pillaged by persian pike

Portugal bribes their way out of the Korean war, cancelling the ROP.
Korea comes in for our troops to be removed but I ROP back with them and bribe them back into the war for Chemistry (we were giving it to them anyways)

T5.
Lose a knight doing persian pike killing; keep the choke closed for another turn so that they keep going after Amsterdam, wasting their men on swisses.

Reach sight of the portuguese, they are back to spears and archers, I half expect them to throw rocks at our knight army (which has 3 men in prevision of getting galleons).

199 shields into HE, micro it up to 28spt, 80% sci to finish up.

IT
2 Persian caravels moving, 2 porto swords in the field but a korean LB is nearby.

T6.
Moving on

IT
Pike/immo drop on Thebes, LB win over a porto sword
1 caravel suicide, 1 comes for another drop on Thebes
Lose our dyes deal with Sumeria

T7.
Lose 4 HP on army, kill 2 spears; vAC goes 1/5 killing the remaining porto sword
eAC win on a pike but it takes 2 vMDI to kill the immortal
Ship in dyes again for guns and the luxes we have 10-folds of

T8.
Nada

IT
Peace with Xerxes, we gain 2gpt and crumbs of gold.
France starts Smith'S

T9.
Trade ToG for Economics from France and drag them into war against Celts, 3gpt and 170g gained.

T10.
1 town left to Portugal, misfortunately the Korean ROP will not disappear until 14 turns have passed.
We'll get Magnetism + Newton's in 3 turns.

We can investigate both French cities at will now; I think we should since they have ToG and they are building a wonder.
Military builds might want to be changed around.

I tried micro'ing for food as much as I could, an irrigation team is near Moose Trail (Mayan) to irrigate grasses.

Now that the persian war is over we should hurry up and clear one of the jungles near Memphis, we can't pass artillery before that.
The Sanabas is on its slow way to Oporto to be upgraded into a Galleon for army transport, the rest of the boats can remain caravels for as long as we want them to.

Save uploaded, with the due territory increase, as usual.

 

[Whomp]

Nice going B.
In the meantime, the French research nothing. Man we need a break here. Did you MA the French vs. Zulu?

Beorn --
ThERat-- up
Smart --
Zerksees--
Bucephalus -- out indefinitely
Whomp--
Sanabas -- Give us a wavey when you can be re-inserted

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Nope, vs celts, we could pull germany into zululand though.

 

[ThERat]

guys, this is one game I look really forward to play, it's a real blast

Anyway, will start to play tonight and if I am not wrong, will catapult us into the IA...

Some questions for the team

Research:
The AI seems pretty incapable and with France wasting their time on economics, they might research navigation/metal or magnetism now...

What if they get metal before we get it ourselves (but after we got magnetism). If we take if from them, we might gain metal earlier, but lose a 2-tier of the next age.
Should we save turns on metal, but lose that opportunity? We got a 2/7 chance for a useful 2-tier, we might end up with ironclads if we really get bad luck.

Wonders:
with magnetism in 3, metal in ~ 6, we need 2 more techs to ToE. Let's say electricity takes 10 and sci methods 9 turns (estimates only), we have around 30 turns to ToE...It's a 600 shield wonder IIRC. Thus, we need to start a prebuild NOW. How much is our FP town doing (or Delhi?). Rails might help that a little, but we better start now.

Expansion
With Portugal almost gone, next up is Korea and ??? Guess our army can take out one of the Korean cities.
Do we want to attack Zulu or England? what about America together with France? I think we better keep the AI busy, I rather they fight each other than us...

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Our boats are headed towards Zululand, it will be close enough to go back up from there and pick up the troops in Spain. After that England is the best bet for our expansion. We want to keep this steady expansion curve going.

 

[sanabas]

We don't need to go for the TOE prebuild so early. We're little risk of losing it, better to start it a bit later, and research the universal suffrage tech (industrialism? It's been a while.) after sci method. That way we can slow the prebuild down if necessary, and grab electronics & atomic theory after industrialism. As long as we build the TOE, it doesn't matter if it finishes to coincide with sci method, or it finishes to coincide with combustion.

If france do get metal, it should drop us to 4 turns, and/or let us turn down research and cash up for a turn or two. I'd rather do that, and have the chance for the tier 2 freebie, than save a couple of turns on metallurgy.

 

[sanabas]

Further to the last post, the palace is up to 1000 shields by now, isn't it? So we're zero danger of losing TOE to cascades, it's just a case of timing the finish of it to coincide with a tech.

 

[ThERat]

thanks Sanabas for the thoughts. You are right, we simply need to time it right. We should try and finish it in an IT after we get a tech, be it sci methods or industialization.

I was just hoping that someone there might research industrialization for us while we go for electricity and sci methods...

I will check how many turns we need for the ToE

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

The AI's that built momentum and will keep expanding against anything are France, Arabia and Persia. If we get into the way of either of them, they just might crash in and fight their way through.

I'd hate to lose France or Arabia as research partners, so I advise against going after America. We can push France into war with America though, it would be more profitable this way than trying to grab it for ourselves. Same with Arabia, I'd rather gift them Carthage than lose them as partners.

Persia is already gone, on the other hand, and we will need everything we have to get through them. Bikini babing the gems will keep them away from us, so long as there are others on the landmass to fight against. I'd juice up the Dutch with gold and techs to keep them alive and kicking during the next war.

When we are done in Zululand, we should split our forces. A few troops will do if we ally Sumeria against England now and we can send the rest to kick some Persian butt - including the juicy knight army.