SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[Dhoomstriker]

If you have time, it probably wouldn't hurt for you to figure out (via a test game, a spreadsheet, or just using mental/hand-based calculations) what sorts of population whipping we'd see.

Recall that every City will have Police State, and I think that 2 Cities will also have a Forge. Paris will likely later also get the Bureaucracy bonus.

It would be a shame to accidentally "collect" too many Hammers in a build item that we were hoping to whip such that it becomes a 1-pop-whip.

Different Cities will be different in that they will have different base Hammer values. Base Hammers accumulated will also add to Hammers that overflow, so Paris is probably going to be the hardest to work with, in that we should probably plan to "collect" overflow Hammers into build items that we will complete purely using Hammers accumulated on turns whwere we have overflow Hammers, then spend a turn of building a whippable build item when we have 0 overflow Hammers for a turn.

Other Cities are more likely to still be able to 2-pop-whip an expensive build item that has overflow Hammers going into it, but it's probably worth your while to check the math in advance.

 

[Mitchum]

@shyuhe

There has been a lot of information thrown at you in the last several hours. When do you think you could have a PPP ready? Incorporate the things you agree with. Explain why you're not incorporating things you don't agree with. That will allow us to focus our comments on the key debatable items as opposed to having similar things said again and again... and again.

 

[babybluepants]

It would be useful to see a summary of how many units each city can produce on what schedule. I find that these games are all about getting the production going and keeping it going. We attack when there's enough.

I agree that we don't really need trebs in numbers unless there's LB's.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It doesn't look like we'll have much cover when landing next to Willem's Cities--we'll probably be on flatland in most cases.

So, sure, a defending Crossbowman per stack is a decent idea--a Crossbowman can still attack and kill units wounded by Trebs and can act as a decent temporary City Defender (i.e. probably the unit in a stack that attacks last and captures a City or else if there are more than enough attackers, just a unit that enters the City manually after the last attacker has won). Crossbowmen are slightly cheaper than Maces.


It's also nice that Willem seems to have Confucianism in most of his Cities, meaning +1 Happiness for us as well as some Cultural Borders expansion.

 

[shyuhe]

PPP is attached. It's basically a total whip fest. We will get by turn 185, 2 mace/trebs (can choose either), 8 maces, and 5 trebs. We will also have 5 galleons. No money needed - just lots of whips.

We will need civil service by T+2. We can revolt to bureau on turn 186 as the anarchy will fit nicely with whip anger cool down--what little we can get

We can hit Amsterdam on about T+10-12 with our first wave I think. Haven't looked at troop logistics yet. And yes, we will want to tech drama given my whip schedule... On the upside, Willem's land will give us 2 free whips

 

[babybluepants]

shyuhe, could you save down to .xls for me?

 

[Mitchum]

@shyuhe Can you also indicate what diplo actions you plan to take; tech trades, civic switches, etc. There have also been some exploration suggestions and it would be nice to see your high-level plans on that front as well. Finally, who is our intended first target?

 

[shyuhe]

I need to look at the log to see when Willem last revolted. If it's more than 5 turns ago, I plan to sell him code of laws and then sell him aesthetics to convince him to adopt caste system. I don't see any other tech trades on the horizon, although I'm open to selling aesthetics to the AI if everyone wants to. I just don't see it paying off in the relevant time frame.

Otherwise we're going to just revolt to police state/slavery/paganism on T+0. No other revolts are planned (until bureaucracy on T186).

Exploration wise, the warrior in Russia will explore north and the warrior in Willem's land will scout north to look for passage. The first boat will sail ahead to scout the area south of Amsterdam to see if that city is on a hill.

Our first target is Willem. Cathy will be next to grab the GLH.

 

[mdy]

Our first target is Willem. Cathy will be next to grab the GLH.

I think we will need to open up a second front as soon as reasonably possible. I think this means building enough units in our core to take William down, then whipping units in Williams old cities to take Cathy down, whilst our core focuses on building units for the second front. The 15 land units you have planned to built should be sufficient to take William down, allowing all future production in our core to be directed towards a Victoria/Jao front.


We don't have a barracks in pigs yet, maybe one of the galleon whips could be replaced with a barracks whip. Alternatively we could whip a galleon in pigs instead of a mace(this would replace one of the galleons currently planned in iron). If we dedicated this city entirely to building galleons we would never need a barracks there. As there is absolutely no need for more than 5 galleons for the William war we could build a land unit instead of one of the galleons in iron regardless of what we decide to do in pigs.

 

[shyuhe]

Pigs cannot whip a galleon instead of a mace at the end because it won't be size 4.

After the initial whipping frenzy, we will probably have to cool off a bit to a 3-4 turn whipping cycle (due to city sizes) to open up the second front. In the meantime, we can upgrade the galley over there into a galleon to go hunt for Joao. I think he's to the south of Vicky.

The Willem --> Cathy front can probably ride the 15 units + whatever else we whip out of Willem's cities.

I will replace the third galleon in iron with a treb in preparation for the eastern front.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A couple of thoughts before looking at your spreadsheet:
How is it that we plan to build these Archers that are supposed to replace the Warriors that will get upgraded into Macemen? I mean, if most production is coming from whipping, how will we feasibly complete Archer units?

Also, are you planning on upgrading our existing Galley or do you just plan to have it remain as a Galley and shuttle our Workers around?

What are your thoughts on garrisoning Willem's captured Cities? Should we be sending along a follow-up 6th Galleon filled with Warriors or Archers (which could come a couple of turns after the initial stack--perhaps even by re-using one of the original 5 Galleons with the assumption that we won't need to keep shuttling around 15 troops as some may die or need to wait in captured Cities)? I still don't see how we're going to be building these Archers (1-pop-whipping is unlikely), so do enlighten me on how that will happen.

If we don't see a feasible way to build Archers later, would we be open to the idea of Pillaging our Iron temporarily later in order to build some Warriors? Doing so would mean working a Coast instead of the Iron square for a couple of turns. In the meantime, if this approach is preferable to either building Archers or building Warriors immediately, then a Worker could stay on the Iron and manually pre-Fort it (Worker 1's keyboard commands: Ctrl + f, 1, Backspace) without actually completing the Fort, giving us immediate access to the Iron agian whenever we would need it. Of course, we'd probably never complete that Fort, as we'd simply just have the Worker immediately start on re-Mining the Iron, but then we'd have the flexibility of a 1-turn-Fort should we find that we want the Iron "right away" again.

Further, you'd mentioned sending Crossbowmen with the initial assault but in your text above, I only see mention of Maces and Trebs. We'll definitely be assaulting Willem from flat land in some, if not most cases. A couple of Crossbowmen could at least temporarily act as City garrison units (probably with Combat I promotions though, so that they can also defend our stacks).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

In the meantime, we can upgrade the galley over there into a galleon to go hunt for Joao.

So, does that mean that you have no plans to shuttle at least 1 Worker around to Chop our Forests?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I don't see any other tech trades on the horizon, although I'm open to selling aesthetics to the AI if everyone wants to.

Well, you know that I want to do so, including asking Cathy to switch 2 Civics (Caste System + Pacifism) as part of the sale, meaning that we'd also have to sell it to her before revolting our own Civics.

I just don't see it paying off in the relevant time frame.

There is no issue about timeframe for getting techs in trade--that potential benefit is nearly irrelevant compared to the main benefits. The real issue is: if we open up two artsy-fartsy techs for each AI to be able to research, where every single AI has at least one of those two techs as a non-zero research choice, then we'll give them more opportunities to delay research on Feudalism. Also, they'll have far more incentive to join the Music race.

On top of that, there are THREE World Wonders (4 for the AIs that go after Literature) that the AIs will be able to begin to spend their Hammers on. It is HIGHLY likely that out of those Wonders, at LEAST one Wonder will be begun by each Civ that receives Aesthetics.

So, the primary goals of selling Aesthetics are:
1. Tying up AI research into artsy-fartsy techs like Literature, Drama, and Music
AND
2. Tying up AI production in Wonders that aren't going to help them beat us but will reduce their Military Unit + Settler spamming

Exploration wise, the warrior in Russia will explore north and the warrior in Willem's land will scout north to look for passage. The first boat will sail ahead to scout the area south of Amsterdam to see if that city is on a hill.

Any thoughts on using the Warrior at Vicky to explore her lands? The safety of a having nearby Trireme + Galleon ownership should give us this flexibility, too, right?

On that note: we should probably NOT upgrade our Triremes, since a Trireme has better odds against a Galley than does a Caravel. The only time that we might consider such an upgrade (more like a downgrade except for the +1 movement point) is if the AIs somehow make it to Optics and start fielding Caravels of their own.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't plan on building archers to replace warriors during the initial wave. It slows down our build-up too much. We can slow build archers in Paris and Stone while our cities re-grow a bit (after T186), or build them using whip overflow on maces.

We will upgrade the galley into a galleon. Not sure if it's better to send it out to look for Joao or to shuttle workers for forest chopping. I'd prefer to find Joao first.

This is beyond my current PPP but the idea is to garrison Willem's cities with spare maces initially. After the initial troops cross over, we can set up a galleon bridge to move troops from our core to the front (i.e., archers).

Mdy pointed out that Willem doesn't have iron = no xbows. So there's no reason to build a xbow ourselves.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I started to look at your spreadsheet (the .RARed one) and I'm wondering what it means for a City not to have a build item listed for Turn 176. In particular, for Paris, Pig Mmm Fish, and Iron.

Does that absense of a listed build item mean that those Cities will have some other build item that they will need to complete first?


Also, have you given any consideration to the logistics of shuttling troops around?

In particular, the last couple of troops built and their logistics will matter the most, especially that last unit built in Paris. Having a mini-Galleon-chain using a 6th Galleon (the upgraded Galley?) for this last unit could actually save us a turn in staring the war.


If we fit a couple of Crossbowmen in, hopefully it won't be too much work for you to ensure that the whips will remain 2-pop-whips. EDIT: Cross-posted with your last message.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If it is true that Willem does not have Iron, then I see no reason not to assault 2 of his Cities on the first turn of war.

Also, it might make sense to attack his "somewhat further Cities," since the City that he likely settled near the two SE Gem Resources was likely only recently set up (it was quite a while before he expanded to new Cities and only recently that he got 2 Gem Resources online). The Gem City being only recently set up means that it will be of a small City Size and thus won't contribute much to his warring, which would mean that taking down a larger-sized City would be a higher-priority target.

The sooner that we capture his high-population Cities, the sooner that he will stop using those Cities against us and the sooner that they'll come out of revolt and will be whippable by us.

 

[shyuhe]

Unless otherwise indicated, the builds in the blank boxes are built on the turns preceding them. The only exception is the mace that is built in Paris by whip overflow.

As for troop logistics, yes, the boats are being built in the east and will pick up the troops as they head west. All of the troops will finish before or about the time that the boats swing by them. The 5th boat of troops will set sail 1-2 turns behind the rest of the boats due to timing issues, but it shouldn't matter since we'll have already start the war and they will be reinforcements for attacking later cities.

I really don't want to build any xbows as they're horrible on offense and are only necessary if the AI fields xbows, and that can't happen right now.

I will add the aesthetics --> Cathy to the trade list.

I forgot about the English warrior. He'll continue exploring Vicky's territory and when that's done, head west to jump in a boat. He'll most likely become military police in London.

 

[shyuhe]

If it is true that Willem does not have Iron, then I see no reason not to assault 2 of his Cities on the first turn of war.

Also, it might make sense to attack his "somewhat further Cities," since the City that he likely settled near the two SE Gem Resources was likely only recently set up (it was quite a while before he expanded to new Cities and only recently that he got 2 Gem Resources online). The Gem City being only recently set up means that it will be of a small City Size and thus won't contribute much to his warring, which would mean that taking down a larger-sized City would be a higher-priority target.

The sooner that we capture his high-population Cities, the sooner that he will stop using those Cities against us and the sooner that they'll come out of revolt and will be whippable by us.

The first two boats will contain 3 maces and 3 trebs. Not enough to split up. Boats #3 and #4 will contain 4 maces and 2 trebs. That shipment can head south. Amsterdam is on flatland at 60% with walls. The dye city is on a hill and probably 40% culture. It has walls though. The dye city should be target #2 since it will give us 2 for whipping.

This reminds me -- boat #5 will have a mace and our choice of 2 maces, 2 trebs, or a mace and a treb. Preferences?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, I did not realise that you were planning to attack before having all 15 land units prepared.

I was indeed thinking along the same lines--about 6 units per City--which will probably just barely be sufficient.


As for the composition of the 5th Galleon, it depends upon what you plan to do with the initial units.

If you think that you're going to attack without bombarding, then we'll want some Treb replacements. If you think that you'll first bombard, then most of the Trebs should survive, meaning that we can afford to bring along more Maces--having slightly more Maces means being able to leave a Maceman as a temporary City garrison unit.

That said, running really low on Trebs means more losses or longer bombarding times, if not both.

So, I'd say:
If we're going to attack without bombarding, then 1 Mace + 2 Trebs

If we're going to bombard first, then 2 Maces + 1 Treb

 

[mdy]

I forgot about the English warrior. He'll continue exploring Vicky's territory and when that's done, head west to jump in a boat. He'll most likely become military police in London.

Could we send the eastern trieme to scout in that direction as well? We need to locate Jao fairly quickly.

As for the composition of the 5th Galleon, it depends upon what you plan to do with the initial units.

Utrecht has the bulk of Williams units, and it is on a hill, and has the collosus and christian holy city meaning we may face 60% cultural defence when we attack here so if we attack this city in the first wave I think we will have to bombard it suggesting we should lean towards maces, so in these circumstances I would go with 2 maces+1treb.

If we put 100% espionage on William we should be able to regain city visibility of his cities which would help the war. If Utrecht/Amsteram look like they are heavily defended we could abort one of the first landings to the gems site.

The 5th boat of troops will set sail 1-2 turns behind the rest of the boats due to timing issues, but it shouldn't matter since we'll have already start the war and they will be reinforcements for attacking later cities.

On what turn do you think the 5th galleon would be able to drop it's units of at Amsterdam/Utrecht, adn how does this compare to the date when we will be able to land our other units?