Redbad
should have shaved
playing civ4 botm3 all weekend
will look at the new sgotm situation shortly
will look at the new sgotm situation shortly
SGOTM 13 - Spooks
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
The dilemma I see is that we won't be researching any tradeable techs for quite a while. We were extremely lucky that none of our four known rivals was able to get lit (after TGL was built!). It will have low trade value though due to the not available wonder. 
So we will probably only get 2-4 techs. Researching the others for ourselves will definetely hurt.
When we finally
make more contacts, tech prices should fall rapidly, allowing us to catch up at high pace. That calls for libs. 
Nevertheless I think we got that chance to get those american towns without much resistance now. We could gamble on flips - but not on deity...
Maybe we should try to get CoL, Philo and IW (and HBR if we are lucky) and run a min sci on Republic, giving us enough money for upgrades. Libs (apart from Nara) could be delayed, then.
HBR or IW?
HBR is the safer bet imo. We do have horses. if we gain that incense hill (roaded
), we can attack both towns with horses right on the dow. 3-4 vet horses on each town should do the job against 1-2 spears. 
IW also carries one problem: if we only got a source in our old world we'd have to carry all warriors back and forth for upgrading...
Cats (Maths!) are way out of reach...
Horses also allow us to block / protect our coast more efficietly if anybody threatens to land...
So right now my priority list would look like this (trade value):
CoL (525)
Philo (314)
WC (154)
HBR (285)
BW (154)
IW (342)
Mas (211)
So we will probably only get 2-4 techs. Researching the others for ourselves will definetely hurt.
When we finally
make more contacts, tech prices should fall rapidly, allowing us to catch up at high pace. That calls for libs. Nevertheless I think we got that chance to get those american towns without much resistance now. We could gamble on flips - but not on deity...
Maybe we should try to get CoL, Philo and IW (and HBR if we are lucky) and run a min sci on Republic, giving us enough money for upgrades. Libs (apart from Nara) could be delayed, then.
HBR or IW?
HBR is the safer bet imo. We do have horses. if we gain that incense hill (roaded
), we can attack both towns with horses right on the dow. 3-4 vet horses on each town should do the job against 1-2 spears. IW also carries one problem: if we only got a source in our old world we'd have to carry all warriors back and forth for upgrading...
Cats (Maths!) are way out of reach...
Horses also allow us to block / protect our coast more efficietly if anybody threatens to land...
So right now my priority list would look like this (trade value):
CoL (525)
Philo (314)
WC (154)
HBR (285)
BW (154)
IW (342)
Mas (211)
killercane
Deity
I dont see anything that would be better than the minimum on Republic. Horses sound ok, does America have iron at home? I figure we can get them to declare on us when the time comes... any chance we can get them busy on someone else in the meantime? Maybe if we cant get anything else from Lit and can ally them vs. someone?
CoL and Philo have the priority, with just a couple cities to take we can get by on archers or even warriors.
CoL and Philo have the priority, with just a couple cities to take we can get by on archers or even warriors.
warriors against spears in a hill town?!? 
C'mon, that's not serious, is it?!?
We won't attack America in the next ten turns I guess (build rax + horses), none of our allies would be without lit for such a long time. And if, he won't rate lit as high as a war with America
I investigated the waste after the capital jump for our old core towns.
The main difference to me is the effect on Kyoto that robs us the 4th shield. This is huge and kills the 2-turn-worker-factory.
But only one of [New Kyoto, Osaka] can be a 2-turner, so it's enough to have no effect on Osaka imo. Still the conquest of Denver and Baltimore will make things worse...
If Osaka gets the cow, BG, two fish and a mined Iron hill on growth, that would be the 4+6 shields. We still have the happiness problem at size 4, then... temple, granary - is it worth the effort?
Right now I'd think we best use the old core as slow worker producers - harbors but no granaries and temples.
So I'm still in favor to move to Edo to take advantage of the BGs without building another lib.
C'mon, that's not serious, is it?!?
We won't attack America in the next ten turns I guess (build rax + horses), none of our allies would be without lit for such a long time. And if, he won't rate lit as high as a war with America
I investigated the waste after the capital jump for our old core towns.
HTML:
Kyoto Osaka Tokyo
Edo 31%: 2, [B]5[/B], 9, 12 27%: 2, 6, 10 23%: 3, 7, 11
Nagoya 27%: 2, [B]6[/B], 10 24%: 3, 7, 11 18%: 3, 9, 15The main difference to me is the effect on Kyoto that robs us the 4th shield. This is huge and kills the 2-turn-worker-factory.
But only one of [New Kyoto, Osaka] can be a 2-turner, so it's enough to have no effect on Osaka imo. Still the conquest of Denver and Baltimore will make things worse...
If Osaka gets the cow, BG, two fish and a mined Iron hill
on growth, that would be the 4+6 shields. We still have the happiness problem at size 4, then... temple, granary - is it worth the effort? Right now I'd think we best use the old core as slow worker producers - harbors but no granaries and temples.
So I'm still in favor to move to Edo to take advantage of the BGs without building another lib.
killercane
Deity
You can conquer the entire world with warriors and catapults, Quattro Deuce! Veteran warriors vs. redlined units are 50/50 or favored up until Rifles.warriors against spears in a hill town?!?
C'mon, that's not serious, is it?!?
We won't attack America in the next ten turns I guess (build rax + horses), none of our allies would be without lit for such a long time. And if, he won't rate lit as high as a war with America
I investigated the waste after the capital jump for our old core towns.
HTML:Kyoto Osaka Tokyo Edo 31%: 2, [B]5[/B], 9, 12 27%: 2, 6, 10 23%: 3, 7, 11 Nagoya 27%: 2, [B]6[/B], 10 24%: 3, 7, 11 18%: 3, 9, 15
The main difference to me is the effect on Kyoto that robs us the 4th shield. This is huge and kills the 2-turn-worker-factory.
But only one of [New Kyoto, Osaka] can be a 2-turner, so it's enough to have no effect on Osaka imo. Still the conquest of Denver and Baltimore will make things worse...
If Osaka gets the cow, BG, two fish and a mined Iron hill
Right now I'd think we best use the old core as slow worker producers - harbors but no granaries and temples.
So I'm still in favor to move to Edo to take advantage of the BGs without building another lib.
Attachments
But we are quite far away from catapults...
Impressive stats nevertheless. But apart from the 12 warriors - how many cats do we need?
And how are the odds for the four horses if the same number of cats cleared their way?
Or were both tests run fully bombarded (or both not)?
Impressive stats nevertheless. But apart from the 12 warriors - how many cats do we need?
And how are the odds for the four horses if the same number of cats cleared their way?
Or were both tests run fully bombarded (or both not)?
killercane
Deity
No thats two different creatures. The combat calc pics are for 12 warriors (or 4 horses) vs. 2 spears, to assess shields invested and whether HBR is necessary to trade. Warriors are definitely the way to go in this instance, plus they upgrade (though it will be almost impossible to have the funds to do so).
The catapults were put to test in International Friendly #3: Greeks. You can do a forum search for that or do your own calculations. But vs. 1/3 muskets its something like 49% win for warriors, vs. 1/3 rifles 37%, vs. pikes 59%. If we can shortrush horses with Republic, they win only 80% of the time (no retreat vs. 1/3 units). So on average you should lose 3 warriors or a horse for every 5 pikes. About even, but the considerations are unit support (solvable by Feudalism) and increased movement of horses.
With the lowest rent army imaginable, we could use a 20-30 cat, 20 pike, 20 warrior army to start to eliminate these island civs one at a time, and then supplement with horses/swords later (with aqueducts to produce 10 spt in multiple locations). It is all moot unless we get Lighthouse to reinforce positions with horses then.
I think cats at least is the way to go, with such poor production and limited economy, we cannot afford to lose many units. All of this is on down the line however.
The catapults were put to test in International Friendly #3: Greeks. You can do a forum search for that or do your own calculations. But vs. 1/3 muskets its something like 49% win for warriors, vs. 1/3 rifles 37%, vs. pikes 59%. If we can shortrush horses with Republic, they win only 80% of the time (no retreat vs. 1/3 units). So on average you should lose 3 warriors or a horse for every 5 pikes. About even, but the considerations are unit support (solvable by Feudalism) and increased movement of horses.
With the lowest rent army imaginable, we could use a 20-30 cat, 20 pike, 20 warrior army to start to eliminate these island civs one at a time, and then supplement with horses/swords later (with aqueducts to produce 10 spt in multiple locations). It is all moot unless we get Lighthouse to reinforce positions with horses then.
I think cats at least is the way to go, with such poor production and limited economy, we cannot afford to lose many units. All of this is on down the line however.
weight in... 
Andronicus
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 1,672
Very interesting indeed, I would never have contemplated warriors against red lined troops. Obviously numbers (both cats and warriors) is important.
Actually we are not so far from cats - just masonry and maths - perhaps could get in literacy deal?
Actually we are not so far from cats - just masonry and maths - perhaps could get in literacy deal?
Having many warriors also allows to block the coast, catapults make ships retreat or easy to sink... 
But they also cost lots of ship capacity if we want to ferry them elsewhere...
Obviously we'll have trouble to ferry them unless we get GLH. To get that we need to take our island quickly, make peace with rop and try to get units over to America...
Does that work before Navigation?
I fear no.
If we have a couple of (reg?) horses we might try the gift-and-retake game (without rop-raping) with Abe to get a town there - unless it flips we might build / rush some units there to take GLH before Navigation.
Say we build some horses, some vet warriors, some cats (sparing us barracks) and a lib in Nara, gift all but our capital to Abe - this would mean no libs in the meantime. We can't wait too long before we build libs, right...
Or will we rather catch up at zero research anyway?
But they also cost lots of ship capacity if we want to ferry them elsewhere...
Obviously we'll have trouble to ferry them unless we get GLH. To get that we need to take our island quickly, make peace with rop and try to get units over to America...
Does that work before Navigation?
I fear no.
If we have a couple of (reg?) horses we might try the gift-and-retake game (without rop-raping) with Abe to get a town there - unless it flips we might build / rush some units there to take GLH before Navigation.
Say we build some horses, some vet warriors, some cats (sparing us barracks) and a lib in Nara, gift all but our capital to Abe - this would mean no libs in the meantime. We can't wait too long before we build libs, right...
Or will we rather catch up at zero research anyway?
killercane
Deity
We wont need libraries for a long time so that might work. We just need a foothold on the American continent. With that we can rush units there or palace jump if its not totally terrible. If we can get a couple cities in America say in 20 turns (still 30 turns from Republic) we could build units there straight up by palace jumping again there. The old world could still build cats, galleys, and warriors while we undertake the Lighthouse acquisition around Republic time. Then take the hurt elsewhere once we have a nice American core.Having many warriors also allows to block the coast, catapults make ships retreat or easy to sink...
But they also cost lots of ship capacity if we want to ferry them elsewhere...
Obviously we'll have trouble to ferry them unless we get GLH. To get that we need to take our island quickly, make peace with rop and try to get units over to America...
Does that work before Navigation?
I fear no.
If we have a couple of (reg?) horses we might try the gift-and-retake game (without rop-raping) with Abe to get a town there - unless it flips we might build / rush some units there to take GLH before Navigation.
Say we build some horses, some vet warriors, some cats (sparing us barracks) and a lib in Nara, gift all but our capital to Abe - this would mean no libs in the meantime. We can't wait too long before we build libs, right...
Or will we rather catch up at zero research anyway?
A capital in America should make at least 5 spt if there is food, enough for about 8 cats there in 30 turns. So it would make the best sense if we could get 1 or 2 others there to make at least some warriors. Adopt Republic... Rush a couple more units, take TGL, move in our old core units and go to work.
Mostly it is just a lot of guesswork at this point.
killercane
Deity
Nagoya and the town below Edo need to switch to Barracks.
Nagoya? Ouch. That already loses 5 shields. I was thinking granary for some workers, but you are right, better military.
Anything else we could build without losing 5 shields?
Harbor useless, granary overkill (for now)...
Yep, I think we should switch to rax
How are the odds of reg warriors taking the redlined spear?
After the palace jump, Nagoya and Edo can do two-turn-vet-warriors, the rest builds cats, right? Except for Nara building some culture - rather a temple than a library!
Anything else we could build without losing 5 shields?
Harbor useless, granary overkill (for now)...
Yep, I think we should switch to rax
How are the odds of reg warriors taking the redlined spear?
After the palace jump, Nagoya and Edo can do two-turn-vet-warriors, the rest builds cats, right? Except for Nara building some culture - rather a temple than a library!
Andronicus
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 1,672
I have no experience with this approach of getting a city on another continent in peace treaty, then rushing units to grab a wonder in a core city of theirs.
It seems overly optimistic to imagine that 8 cats and 8 warriors could take Chicago from what will presumably be a minor town perhaps the other side of their territory.
Chicago will surely be guarded by at least 4 pikes this being deity and protecting a wonder - it will take much more than 8 cats to be certain of red lining them all.
Then there is the question of how do we get our army next door to Chicago - if we are using galleys, we also need 8 galleys (and waiting until we get maps, by which time we could well be facing rifles), if we march them across enemy territory, I dont think America will quake in her boots at our stack - it wont last 2 turns. That leaves rop abuse. OK, suppose we do capture Chicago in the first turn of war - how do we survive with cats and warriors against a deity AI in their core? Seems our acquisition might be short lived.
Perhaps there are ways this might succeed that I dont know about, I'm willing to hear them, but meanwhile ask that you consider an alternative.
In Goz 12 succession game a 5CC civ won spaceship at deity, so is it possible to win this one with our existing old and new worlds?
If we concentrate on getting all towns up to size 12 with commerce multipliers we should be able to get techs by combination of buying, stealing, selling resources (get good price to large AI, buy from AI for good price as we are small) and self research. We would have access to far more commerce than the Goz12 game, our main limitation would be poor production. Wars would be easily defended with cats producing a blockade, perhaps funnelling landings to our desired killing ground.
Any thoughts
It seems overly optimistic to imagine that 8 cats and 8 warriors could take Chicago from what will presumably be a minor town perhaps the other side of their territory.
Chicago will surely be guarded by at least 4 pikes this being deity and protecting a wonder - it will take much more than 8 cats to be certain of red lining them all.
Then there is the question of how do we get our army next door to Chicago - if we are using galleys, we also need 8 galleys (and waiting until we get maps, by which time we could well be facing rifles), if we march them across enemy territory, I dont think America will quake in her boots at our stack - it wont last 2 turns. That leaves rop abuse. OK, suppose we do capture Chicago in the first turn of war - how do we survive with cats and warriors against a deity AI in their core? Seems our acquisition might be short lived.
Perhaps there are ways this might succeed that I dont know about, I'm willing to hear them, but meanwhile ask that you consider an alternative.
In Goz 12 succession game a 5CC civ won spaceship at deity, so is it possible to win this one with our existing old and new worlds?
If we concentrate on getting all towns up to size 12 with commerce multipliers we should be able to get techs by combination of buying, stealing, selling resources (get good price to large AI, buy from AI for good price as we are small) and self research. We would have access to far more commerce than the Goz12 game, our main limitation would be poor production. Wars would be easily defended with cats producing a blockade, perhaps funnelling landings to our desired killing ground.
Any thoughts
killercane
Deity
How do we know they have iron? We just need to survive a couple of turns. There has to be a better way than waiting until 500 AD to get out of the ancient age. Demigod AI will research too slow on an archipelago map to say capture the Great Library and catch up. We will have to do our own research as soon as possible.
In that particular game, you could extort techs via war, had better traits for a spacerace, better lands overall, etc. We dont have any such luxuries here.
I dont advocate building a particularly crappy army of cats and warriors, but it is a better choice than a crappy army of cats and horses in some aspects. Its a lot of guesswork.
Do we agree to attack America with the gift and retake? If so we can proceed on that and go from there.
In that particular game, you could extort techs via war, had better traits for a spacerace, better lands overall, etc. We dont have any such luxuries here.
I dont advocate building a particularly crappy army of cats and warriors, but it is a better choice than a crappy army of cats and horses in some aspects. Its a lot of guesswork.
Do we agree to attack America with the gift and retake? If so we can proceed on that and go from there.
This is also quite new to me and I'm also not very tempted to fight pikes with warriors.
I'd also like to know what the GLH town looks like and how we get there.
To get a town over there might still be a good investment - even if it's just to scout and trade workers. And it migth work to get one in a peace deal if we take 4-5 towns from them before.
At least if we should have 1 horse per gifted town (2?) to retake them immediately without rop rape.
And we should wait till incense is roaded and we have had a temple for a turn before we gift Nara and attack Abe.
Both approaches I think have in common: Get rid of the Yankees on our island, get most of our partial tech monopoly, get to Republic quickly and go for cash rather than science, so no libs at the moment, right?
It still sounds like CoL and Philo being main target and Republic to go for at min sci.
So I guess we might agree on the next set's basics if we only agree on what kind of units to build. At least when we should agree on fighting oversea wars I don't think that we want to carry warriors that distance (unless we have our only Iron source there to upgrade...). And for Republic era I'd also want quality over quantity. That does not rule out a bunch of warriors for now.
Still I would like to get statements from Redbad and Abegweit on this (Wacken would also be nice
) before we go on.
Nevertheless we cannot wait for weeks and weeks...
KC, in the mean time, could you do another analysis with Offa's tool on armies without cats? Just to compare pure horses & warriors / swords stacks to those mixed stacks.
The problem I have with cats is: When I use them they keep knocking off the usefull stuff like civilists or buildings before damaging the units - and most of the time they fail to hit at all...
They do not block a landing and they are slow.
Good things are they don't need rax and can be (re-)captured.
I'd also like to know what the GLH town looks like and how we get there.
To get a town over there might still be a good investment - even if it's just to scout and trade workers. And it migth work to get one in a peace deal if we take 4-5 towns from them before.
At least if we should have 1 horse per gifted town (2?) to retake them immediately without rop rape.
And we should wait till incense is roaded and we have had a temple for a turn before we gift Nara and attack Abe.
Both approaches I think have in common: Get rid of the Yankees on our island, get most of our partial tech monopoly, get to Republic quickly and go for cash rather than science, so no libs at the moment, right?
It still sounds like CoL and Philo being main target and Republic to go for at min sci.
So I guess we might agree on the next set's basics if we only agree on what kind of units to build. At least when we should agree on fighting oversea wars I don't think that we want to carry warriors that distance (unless we have our only Iron source there to upgrade...). And for Republic era I'd also want quality over quantity. That does not rule out a bunch of warriors for now.
Still I would like to get statements from Redbad and Abegweit on this (Wacken would also be nice
) before we go on. Nevertheless we cannot wait for weeks and weeks...
KC, in the mean time, could you do another analysis with Offa's tool on armies without cats? Just to compare pure horses & warriors / swords stacks to those mixed stacks.
The problem I have with cats is: When I use them they keep knocking off the usefull stuff like civilists or buildings before damaging the units - and most of the time they fail to hit at all...
They do not block a landing and they are slow.
Good things are they don't need rax and can be (re-)captured.
Andronicus
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 1,672
so we need HBR in addition to CoL and phil
so we need CB as well
btw, is that another civs borders that our exploring curragh has arrived at? It looks a much darker purple than Portugal's and I see no new AI on the F4 screen. Perhaps we should trade next turn after moving the curragh and making contact to gain another customer rather than on the inter turn (although I have been burnt before with AI learning tech on same IT.
Just had another thought, scanning the map shows areas not settled because of swamps, we could possibly get a toe in if we get a crap city nearby in peace deal, then clear a nice site with worker.
edit
noticed your comment about cats Paul - they can be used to line an island just as workers can. Yes they can be attacked and taken, but the AI does not do know this
A chariot also is sufficient - so no HBR necessary
And CB we already know.
So it's just CoL and Philo we really want - IW or HBR if we can get it.
Or rather maths? I think so.
So my new wishlist:
1. CoL
2. Phil
3. Maths
4. HBR
5. IW
Swamp areas are intestering. However our workers are busy and we can't ship them over without another couple of galleys...
Letting the interturn pass can be troublesome. Even if nobody seems to be getting it (low price) they might still trade it from another source and you won't know in advance. I'd rather see what we can get on the interturn, sail on and take what we can get from the new rival. And if it's just money...
And CB we already know.
So it's just CoL and Philo we really want - IW or HBR if we can get it.
Or rather maths? I think so.
So my new wishlist:
1. CoL
2. Phil
3. Maths
4. HBR
5. IW
Swamp areas are intestering. However our workers are busy and we can't ship them over without another couple of galleys...
Letting the interturn pass can be troublesome.
Even if nobody seems to be getting it (low price) they might still trade it from another source and you won't know in advance. I'd rather see what we can get on the interturn, sail on and take what we can get from the new rival. And if it's just money...
killercane
Deity
Next player needs to push Control-Shift-D to meet the new AI first thing, no need to wait until the interturn. It actually might be just shift D but I got in the habit a long time ago of the other way...
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