SGOTM 13 - Spooks

[Andronicus]

It seems we have in principle agreement for G&R Celts with aim to get as much of their gold as poss
As for the details
- we need to be in rep the turn we G&R
- we need all units protecting NO (and Ise)
- we ping any units coming close with cats (though cavs will attack from out of reach)
- we need to bring our slaves in

I would estimate we might face 2 cavs per turn since all spare attackers should be en route to Rome at time of dow. We therefore face what they can produce from their 17 towns. Some of those towns will be producing infrastructure and some are recently captured Roman towns. I expect half of all military productiojn would be muskets which are not a danger to us (other than pillaging) Hmm, maybe they might get 3 cavs per turn.
12 warriors in NO should do the trick

America would then follow after Celts as soon as we have sufficient army.

 

[killercane]

I dont think we need to be in Republic already, just close to it, we can still whip or something if we are in danger; agreed with all other points. How many travel turns from Celt territory to ours? Are we double certain we can get peace in 4 turns? Im pretty sure but there is the possibility of them having such high power they will stay at war?

 

[Andronicus]

I dont think we need to be in Republic already, just close to it, we can still whip or something if we are in danger; agreed with all other points. How many travel turns from Celt territory to ours? Are we double certain we can get peace in 4 turns? Im pretty sure but there is the possibility of them having such high power they will stay at war?

Well we cant use the gold to rush units unless we are in rep - that was my thinking on that. Not sure we want to be whipping in our capital - we want to build it up ASAP with market and duct as soon as we have our army for America. Gold will help speed structures but wont speed growth (a worker factor may come in handy for that, but it is some time in the future).
If we suffer enough hits to get WW then I suspect we dont get out of this war well.

I count 27 tiles from Entremont to NO, less from many of their towns. I'm not sure how relevent that is as they seem to be sending units up by Iroquios and Mongol territory towards Rome so each turn's units are already on the way to us. Celts have rop with Mongols, Iroquois, Americans as well as Spain, Carthage, Babylon and Scandinavia. It appears Celts dont know French.

We can never be certain of getting peace in 4 turns, but I suspect losing 12 towns would be strongly persuasive. If we are down to last couple of defenders and Celts have a cav stack outside our capital, they may think otherwise - its a risk, but one I think we have to take.

 

[Paul#42]

We should also take into account that they might ally others against us - Iroquois, Mongols, America...
In that case we might get trouble to sign peace...

At least they would block each other in advancing on our capital...

Maybe we should at least pillage all roads on neutral territory they could use to our capital. Are there any? The swamp is our friend.

I agree we should reach republic soon to use the money. Hey, we're religious, that's no effort, right? Otherwise I'd pledge to play G&R&R - revolt between gifting and retaking to lower the town count...

But indeed, I think it is worth the risk. Probably game breaking for us. This way or the other...


So KC, you're ready to go?

 

[Andronicus]

Stupid idea deleted

all yours KC - good luck

 

[killercane]

Sure I will play this weekend sometime. Spent the night at the hospital (nothing major) for family things so once that is resolved I will have time.

 

[killercane]

Playing now. Fingers crossed.

 

[killercane]

Gah I just lost my entire turnlog as C3C crashed to desktop. Heres the lowdown from memory:

Interturn
Do a lot of map trading and gain a few hundred gold and visibility to Celt cities. They are pretty far from us.

Turns 1-5

Peace with everyone we are warring with, Portugal gave 91 gold, Vikes Currency in exchange for our world map, and Babylon jsut 7 gold.

Celts moved 2 muskets in our territory and I made them furious and they declared after city gifting. We make 2800 gold from taking back cities; I forgot Ise, so it wasnt gifted. They had 13000 gold at the time. They then signed a military alliance against us... with Carthage, nullifying our 16 gpt payment there. They also signed a military allinace with Mongols... against ROME! They are dumb for sure.

Made an embassy with Mongols and got right of passage with them and Iro. We are 2 turns in the Celt war.

Turn 6 was the bad turn. Celts dump off a MDI and Knight behind our lines on the big island (from a galley out of the blue, nothing could be done there), and New Nagasaki freakin flips to the Spanish. I was in the process of abandoning Nagasaki or whatever when the game crashed. 3 Celt cavlary captured our slaves (also out of the blue), and finally our warrior was killed right below our territory in Mongolia by a crusader, escorted by 3 muskets.

So all in all it is working out, but still touch and go for 2 more turns.

We need to abandon the threatened city, and put two warriors in each of the others the knight can reach on the big island. We then rush archers or spears, cat him and the MDI down, and kill them.

By NO, we need to cat the cavalry closest down and kill it with the archer so they cant all attack Ise which has only 3 warriors vs. 3 cavs. We also need to rush here.

Scary stuff but if the Mongols dont attack we will get away with this craziness.

 

[killercane]

Cant use upload feature for big saves, so I uploaded it here: http://www.2shared.com/file/3062731/662c6d41/Conquests_Autosave_650_AD.html

 

[killercane]

After thinking on it, I will play on to the conclusion of the Celt war and hand it off. I have thought every possible way and I dont think there is anything to do but get peace with them.

Turn 6 cont'd

Bomb Celt cavalry, and kill it with archer. Cover with warriors and spears. Ise has 3 warriors there vs. 2 cavalry but...

Interturn

Another Celt cavalry arrives and the Celts take Ise. Gah. This is frustrating as we cant defend everywhere. Boy I hope they give peace soon. Another cav moves in so we cant take it right back and will try to get it in peace treaty. Knight attacks warrior on island, and goes redlined, killing the warrior; good deal there.

Turn 7

Kill the knight with the newly rushed archer, bomb the MDI and kill it with the elite warrior, no leader.

Move units back in NO and batten down the hatches there. Rush a new spear. Reinforce coastal blockade on the big island, we have almost enough there but the Spanish city is a problem. Ise has a musket already on top .

Turn 8

Celts kill 2 units in NO. They also land a longbow on the small island which is killed by a cat and a warrior. They give peace for 280 gold from us. DONE.

We have 1680 gold and are losing 33 gpt. We havent adopted wealth on the islands, but we can do so and use taxmen to get our deficit down to close to 0.

Our force in NO is 3 cats, a couple warriors and a spear and an archer (or spear, cant remember). With the gold, we can now rush up an army finally. I dont think we have so much we can rush every turn though, but maybe we can get underway on America within 20 turns.

Results of the Celt war are mixed. The loss of Ise really hurts but the cav out of the fog was a complete surprise. 1600 gold is worth the loss of 2 cities but it could have been so much better if we had had one more unit in Ise.

Save (670 AD) is on the upload page.

 

[Andronicus]

Wow hairy stuff!
Sounds like you did well though, I'll have a look at the save later.

 

[Paul#42]

Phew, quite a heartbreaker...

But sounds like a good job you did

I fail to understand this one from your turn 5 (650 AD):

We need to abandon the threatened city, and put two warriors in each of the others the knight can reach on the big island. We then rush archers or spears, cat him and the MDI down, and kill them.

The picture shows 6 cats in range to bomb the knight - there was no need to abandon Nagasaki, right?
Or did I misunderstand the log?

We were lucky that Brennus did not sign in the Mongols...

 

[killercane]

Phew, quite a heartbreaker...

But sounds like a good job you did

I fail to understand this one from your turn 5 (650 AD):


The picture shows 6 cats in range to bomb the knight - there was no need to abandon Nagasaki, right?
Or did I misunderstand the log?

We were lucky that Brennus did not sign in the Mongols...

It was a knight and an MDI. I guess we could have, but only 3 warriors could reach along with the 5 cats. Even if all 5 cats hit there would still be a 2/4 MDI to deal with. Worse case we could have lost all the cats and 2 cities. Nagasaki was the only one w/o culture.

The Celts are everywhere. For our main victory goal though, maybe we can make nice with them since they somehow keep accruing this gold. They are building Smith's which will also fuel their goldpile. Once we get pikes hooked up we can hopefully GR them again at a time when we are much more powerful.

 

[Andronicus]

I think we should consider peace ASAP with Celts, then G&R Spain to retake flipped town
What do you think about then allying Celts v Spanish and perhaps also G&R French and allying Celts v them too. If we pay lots of gpt to buy celtic gold 4 turns later we could get the gold for free by booting Celts (after gifting), thereby freeing us to peace with Spain and France, then MA Iroquois v Celts - this would leave Celts fighting Iroquois, Spain and France (as well as Rome), hopefully occupying them enough to allow us to take on America. Oh, and peace with Carthage ASAP (might cost us this time).
??? recipe for disaster or road to success???

PS. perhaps another option if we are in danger of losing an undefended town is to gift to an enemy (in the above case gifting Nagasaki to Romans - Celts would take from Romans (and not get our gold) then we would be free to retake (increasing the cost of peace for Celts)

 

[killercane]

I think we should consider peace ASAP with Celts, then G&R Spain to retake flipped town
What do you think about then allying Celts v Spanish and perhaps also G&R French and allying Celts v them too. If we pay lots of gpt to buy celtic gold 4 turns later we could get the gold for free by booting Celts (after gifting), thereby freeing us to peace with Spain and France, then MA Iroquois v Celts - this would leave Celts fighting Iroquois, Spain and France (as well as Rome), hopefully occupying them enough to allow us to take on America. Oh, and peace with Carthage ASAP (might cost us this time).
??? recipe for disaster or road to success???

PS. perhaps another option if we are in danger of losing an undefended town is to gift to an enemy (in the above case gifting Nagasaki to Romans - Celts would take from Romans (and not get our gold) then we would be free to retake (increasing the cost of peace for Celts)

We have peace with Celts. Dont know if we have a deal w/ Spain or not. We dont have lots of gpt to do whiz bang tricks like mentioned.

Probably we need to go for America now and take the ultimate prize, Chicago. Once we have them, we will have the cat force to defend better and get more gold from Celts. They are too strong right now.

 

[Paul#42]

What do you think about then allying Celts v Spanish and perhaps also G&R French and allying Celts v them too. If we pay lots of gpt to buy celtic gold 4 turns later we could get the gold for free by booting Celts (after gifting), thereby freeing us to peace with Spain and France, then MA Iroquois v Celts - this would leave Celts fighting Iroquois, Spain and France (as well as Rome), hopefully occupying them enough to allow us to take on America. Oh, and peace with Carthage ASAP (might cost us this time).

Interesting idea. Bribing Celts however might prove extremely expensive, they will most likely have gpt-deals with most AI...

PS. perhaps another option if we are in danger of losing an undefended town is to gift to an enemy (in the above case gifting Nagasaki to Romans - Celts would take from Romans (and not get our gold) then we would be free to retake (increasing the cost of peace for Celts)

The city would autoraze, then. Nevertheless it would emberass Caesar but maybe it just forces him to sign peace with Brennus quicker and at a worse price, further strengthening Celts.
Better might have been to gift to a civ that we would probably G&R in the next 10 turns...

Probably we need to go for America now and take the ultimate prize, Chicago.

We should! How many units do we need? Should we take a look at Chikago so we know what we are up for?
If we agree, any of us can do so as long as I do it on the first turn of the next set. I'd favor to take a look.

Too bad we lost our cat-town. I think we should not found another because it would increase our defense effort in our "core"...

 

[killercane]

Thinking on Andronicus' idea, I think it is implementable when we get enough troops together to take back Ise. There are at least 3 cavs and musket there now. We need to work out a timeline for taking Chicago, and see if it will be better to do that first and bring cats down to bomb that musket.

Really our best option right now is to get Mongols/Iro placated as the Mongolian cavalry makes me quite nervous. If we could get Chicago sooner rather than later and bring those cats down, taking Ise back would be easy, then Mongol/Iros could be our meat shield while we finish off America. We can also get another payday by booting Celts, but I fear that MongIro will want most of that in return for DOW.

 

[Paul#42]

Our peace with spain runs another 15 turns, leaving us no option to take New Nagoya without losing our reputation before. Unless we get the chance to dow via boot order if the become careless - but that's impossible to plan.

Should we invest 1xxg to investigate Chicago?
If we dow before entering American territory we are losing momentum. Is it worth to rop-rape them?
If we take New York first, our path to Chicago is shorter...
But maybe we are running out of units after taking New York...

How do we build our army?
Rushing an archer, cat or spear from the scratch costs us 120g. 7spt is a horrible number to rush any units, short rushing impossible.
That's a mere 13 units till our cash flow dries out...
That's just 10 archers and 3 spears...
Rather 6 cats, 5 archers and 2 spears?

A 20-shield-unit every second turn makes ~52g. Not too great a solution either as time is our enemy...

And if we take Chicago (and keep it) and ferry over all those units, our homeland becomes vulnerable...
Best investment then seems to upgrade all warriors to swords / MDI.

Does anybody see us getting any more tech via G&R? Should we min-sci run to Feudalism? It's at 2gpt - in 50 turns


This is the first time in years I'm playing a game I'm not confident that we will win it...

 

[Paul#42]

If we rush most parts of the units, there is little need to have NO at size 3 or bigger. What if we rushed a settler there and placed an offensive town right in the jungle before New York? With a little culture it would even claim the tiles at NY's gates - this would open up a good path to Chikago - at tremendous flip risk of course...

At least we would double our military output and could rather rush every second turn - effectively at the same pace as we would have done with lone NO every turn. So it would be a settler, then archers and spears in NO and cats in "Manhattan".

I tried to bribe the Celts against Cartaghe - no deal. Mongols would do the job for a mere 1300g - I guess they won't lose too many gpt
I doubt we will be able to bribe the Celts against anyone with our weak economy even after some gpt payments have ended...

What do you guys think?
I'd like to play but I'd also hear some of your opinions before...

 

[killercane]

The idea sounds good. We cant get to 10 spt until we take Ise back any how. I dont think a min run is worth it. We will just go for discounts on tech. Once we get Chicago, the rest of America should be a piece of cake w/ iron.

I would still rather have 2 warriors for every spear, ie instead of 2 spears in our stack rather I think 4 warriors would do a better job. America is pretty weak, maybe ten units will do with cat support.