SGOTM 12 - Team Zoe

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

I see no reason why it wouldn't change to whatever value it must have, and if it changes underway, hopefully we can change the build, tempoprarily, to Hoover or an airport or somesuch for a second and switch it back to a full 1000shields palace.

 

[ThERat]

the build will simply increase while you're building it, don't worry....done that in AW games many a times

 

[ThERat]

Had a look at the save, if you didn't start yet, whomp, here are a few pointers.

I would sell factories banks and plants to keep cost lower. The French would offer quite some cash for a tech and some luxes, go for it.

Most important: The prebuild must get started NOW

Flight is due in 5 or even 4
the other 2 techs would take maybe 14-15 turns in case we get RP from the AI. If we finish flight and the AI doesn't have it, we can always slow our prebuild. But, it would be a shame if we are too slow. So, get Bombay started , we can always adjust things, but 18-20 turns left need a prebuild NOW

 

[Whomp]

I hit the IT and stopped. I'm starting the prebuild right away.

Getting 89gpt, gold and 2 luxs from the French right away seems risky if we are counting on them researching RP. I thought I'd wait until Flight was researched so we might be able to avoid researching RP too.

I disbanded some units (45gpt at the start), merged some native workers and will sell some unnecessary buildings. If a city is not producing beakers I'll sell science buildings. We're better off using them as scientists for the end run here. Keeping the newer cities small helps with costs too.

 

[Whomp]

Pre turn: Pre turn: Disband a couple MI since I don't think I'll need them and we're running 45gpt unit support and get it to 30gpt. Start the palace prebuild in Foot Print. Due in 19. Hoover's is 16.

IT lose a knight to a Arab sword, a transport to a Persian frigate and a frigate to another Persian frigate.
1255 Take two rifles at Beijing and the city falls. That was too easy as the army had a promo and went from 15/16 to 14/17. Take a couple persians who are zero threat right now. Take some Arabs with elites and clear a path towards our next city. Galleons move that direction so I can ship chain through the Arabs with Armies.
Sell factory and coal plant in Niagra Falls and Beijing. Short rush a temple at Sumer for two pop, do the same in London and Barecelona. Our unit support goes to zero. We're running -129gpt still so I'll need some work on that.

IT Ottomans and France MA vs. Arabs. Germans and Ottos MA vs. Arabs. Take out a pile of Arabs and get a MGL on defense but lose our knight and MI that are protecting the MGL.
1260 Woohoo!!!! The French researched RP! Trade Electronics for RP, 49gpt and 177g. Then sell steel for 38gpt, silks and wools. Sell RP and coal to Greeks for 2gpt, 80g. Trade RP to Russians for 73g. Econ to Ottos for 60g.
Notice we have deals working for 18gpt with the French. We can cancel anytime for future reference. Sign a ROP with Greece so we can move faster towards Arab Shanghai. Heal and move units in Shanghai's direction.

IT A massive stack of Persians appear. Lose furs
1265Land a pile of units at Shanghai. I think it will drop next turn and it's on the Arabia. Trade corp to Greeks for 18gpt, furs, WM and 1g. Block the stack of Persians with some newly upgraded Infantry. Whack three of their rifles oo.

IT Lose a infantryman after taking 5 Persian rifles. They pour into our borders. Celts declare on French. The Arabs drop off four units at Zimbabwe
1270 Take Shanghai after taking an army to 1/18. Move towards Mecca and Medina. Lose a cav to a redlined rifle and we'll lose 3 cannons because of it.
1275 Hit the units at Zimbabwe and lose a cav to a cav and a MI to a MI. They're left with a redlined MI at the end. We'll save our Zulu cities. Phew. Turn down research to 20% and get flight next. MM to get Mass production in 7 instead of 8. Trade combustion to France for 263g and 100gpt.

IT Celts and Greeks make peace and later the Celts declare on the Greeks. Notice the Persians have a infantry.
1280 Shoot. The Arabs have a infantry in Mecca. Take 2 with our army. Decide to risk the army at 8/18 and lose it but do damage to the infantryman left. Take the city after a couple more losses but the city is ours. Another army unloads and will be able to hit Medina next

IT Ottos and Persians embargo against us. Persians drop off next to an empty Leipzig.
1285 Not enough units to take Medina so I'll wait. I need to gift Leipzig to the Germans. Rather than have WW from losing it.

IT Russia and Arabia make peace.
1290 Bombard Medina. Not enough ammo.

IT Arabs and Germany make peace.
1295 Still not enough to destroy the Arabs.

IT
1300 Hammer Medina and we finish them off. Move units towards Persia.

Summary We're 10 more turns on the prebuild and 2 more turns on mass production. We're at 1111g and +53gpt so things are looking really good. Be careful of the Persians they are nearby Moscow but have been repelled by our rifle. I think we can continue to maintain a war footing with Persia the rest of the game so we don't have any rep issues.

The save

 

[ThERat]

great , the AI finally did something for us...it's all yours BeF to finish this in 10 turns...make sure we have no issues with our rep...I guess we got no chance but to stay at war for 10 turns while making sure Persia stays #2 in pop for the UN vote

 

[zerksees]

Great job Whomp!

Did the palace get up to 1000 shields?

I had some workers roading a mountain near FP so we could mine and rail it to increase shields for the prebuild. Could we use that to speed up the prebuild? Maybe some forests? I should have started that palace a couple turns earlier.

 

[Whomp]

It must be at 1000 because I started the prebuild at 19, added the mined mountain along the way and still finished at 10 turns. There's a possibility putting up forests will help but I doubt it. I think we'll be hard pressed to finish motor trans in less than 7 or 8 anyhow.

Btw Moscow and the Zulu cities need some units. We had two landings down there and the Arabian was tenuous and the Persian one forced me to gift the city.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

We are at 1000 shields, we only need motor trans and if we scrape 15 beakers out of the empire we have, we'll get it on time for our prebuild (in 2+8 = 10 turns).

Got it, will play nice kitten and mop it off. Will use a worker in Zululand for an airstrip, that should help with reinforcing.

 

[zerksees]

Like the airport idea.

The quiet route is probably best, but...

I know this is low priority but those Celts did DOW us. Maybe we can get our armies over there in time? We have been taking cities every turnset so why stop now? Plus they will not get to vote for Persia if they are dead

Or maybe we could send our armies to Persia to pillage them into oblivion.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

I took the quiet route, Zerks.

I only pillaged Persia's trade routes in Persepolis and then figured they would start losing pop if I was to pillage plain tiles, plus the WW was starting to grow. So ...

Pre-Turn:
Micro for 200 beakers/turn up from 871 - hopefully this is sufficient. CA2 gives is contradicting itself on this matter, we'll see how it goes.

Send the army out to pillage Persia's land trade routes. Will send boats for the sea.

IT
Nada

T1.
1 tile left to pillage at Persepolis. Persia has 69 pop, France 55, so if we take a city it shouldn't do much harm. Won't just do it for fun though.

Airfields operationnal on most major landmasses.

IT
Persia approaches Zululand, so does our cav army.

T2.
Mass Prod >> Motor Trans in 7 turns at 90% research, 1374 +102gpt.

Peace with Celts, ROP with everyone.

Persepolis is completely cratered; Persian activists dig their graves in Zululand.

IT
Persia approaches our coasts with Frigates

T3.
Trade every piece of lux and ressources to everyone, netting all polites but French, Ottos and Germans.
Call off the pillage armies, Persia still trades with France. Must just be gpt.

IT
Persia lands 1 immo 1 LB, we have 2 infantries and bombers on place, you figure it out.

T4.
There are Phrygian tribes near London!

T5.
Good news: Persia captures Nineveh, effectively guaranteeing its #2 pop position. Sending Reinforcements to Babylon so that they don't die.

T6.
Bomb a few Threats to Babylon but not Persian defenders bound to Nineveh. Persia still has 13% pop.

T7.
Ally everyone against Persia, some for a tech (Notably Mass Prod to France); good progress there: all polite but Otto (annoyed) and Celts (Gracious)

IT
Babylon/Persia Peace

T8.
MPP everyone but Celts, all are polite or Gracious. Gifft every SCI up to speed.

IT


T9.
Bismark, Osman get Fission
Alex, Cathy, Hammurabi get Rocketry
No one gets Ecology or Computers

Since we have a spare turn, I'll go for our tech ...

We get Fission.

we have one single source of Uranium, but Persia has 2.

France has been drafting or rushing out of their american cities - lucky us, it's probably the only thing keeping Persia up in pop count.

Raise to 50% lux for 100% happy.

IT
Celts attack France, MPP demands that we declare.

T10.

Well holy crap, it worked.

Paris ends up with 12382 culture, well within comfort zone.

And a little reflexion to how unlawful the end of a diplo game is

The Save, after victory. We are the time to beat.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Thanks everyone for the awesome game

 

[Whomp]

Nice finish B! That was a fun variant and a great crew to run with!

Initially I would've thougtht the tech pace would've been speedy at deity but we learned the AI will kill themselves with unit support. We seemed to play a really, really solid game but from the QSC I wonder where we went amiss. Was it not entering the "big picture" after the first age?

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

We had all 30 contacts at QSC mark. In light of that I think sharing more techs, early on, would've been beneficial. We were behind in techs wrt to the other teams because the techs were just not on the market yet.

QSC also hit right before ThERat trampled over Japan, so we are behind in city count. Regular went for an archer rush on their neighbors, we played it safer. It probably will reflect on less speed conquering / researching, on the long run, for them. While they must have been building MDI's to make up for archers, we were building libraries and taking out india.

I think besides having poor luck with AI researching for us (both before QSC and after IA kicked in), we did a great job out of a really good strat. Not pre-building the UN would've cost us anywhere from 4 turns (Hoover pre-build) to 16 (intel agency or some such). Netting Fission was worth another dozen turns.

Not keeping Sumer, Korea and Persia in the modern big picture could've hurt us though, only 2 out of 4 techs were available. Had it been 2 other ones, it could have been painful.

 

[eldar]

Well done guys, it's been real fun lurking round Now I'm off to go break into all the other team threads and see what they've been up to!! (But of course without posting anything... I'm just curious, y'know.)

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Yeah, I offered Team Regular to sell all military units but they didn't buy it. Oh well.

 

[zerksees]

Nice work Beorn. And a great game - thanks guys.

We lost time at the change of ages because we did not get a good second tier tech either time (what Beorn said), and maybe we did not cultivate the AI well enough to grow us more techs. These are the big weak points in our game I can see.

I presume by your comments that we're OK to scope out the other team threads now that we're done? (Sorry SG newbie question)

 

[Whomp]

Interesting that most teams went for France. I guess the question is was it better to have Paris as a FP or having someone share in some in funding the research effort. They helped us a lot but I wonder if the maths said those wools were the key to even speedier research. Klarius seems resigned to self research since they are building hospitals.

Nice work Beorn. And a great game - thanks guys.

We lost time at the change of ages because we did not get a good second tier tech either time (what Beorn said), and maybe we did not cultivate the AI well enough to grow us more techs. These are the big weak points in our game I can see.

I presume by your comments that we're OK to scope out the other team threads now that we're done? (Sorry SG newbie question)

Yep go ahead. I wouldn't say anything since we don't want to give them too good of a target. I'm not sure all of them have considered the 1000 shields for the palace yet.

 

[msch]

What's interesting, it took Klarius 7 turns to research Industry being in Golden Age. They still have 13 techs to research (2 of them from ToE), and they are 63 turnes behind you. It means at least 7*11=77, even if they get RP from AI it's 70 turnes in the absolutely best case. I think there is no way they can compete with you.

It looks to me they wasted a lot of turnes in early middle age because of the "Golden-Age-phobia". Similar thing with Spooks, but they were soooo lucky with getting free GLH. They probably are going to win.

 

[Ansar]

Nice work, B (and everyone else)!

Thanks for letting me lurk in this thread.