SGOTM 13 - T'dr'duzk b'hazg t't

[Trystero]

I'd almost be tempted to move the HE to Nidaros (do we get failure gold for National Wonders?). It has more base hammers than Paris, and would be closer to the action. Any troops on Paris have to be transported by ship. But I guess that will be true of Nidaros soon enough... And Nidaros needs some development first.

I'd suggest moving our capital to Nidaros as well, but we'd lose a lot of commerce from Bureaucracy + Colossus. After the Colossus obsoletes however... (edit: Of course, by that time we might have better options available.)

 

[neilmeister]

I hadn't thought of moving the cap, its definitely an option.

Especially since we are going to get issues with the number of cities on the Vikings island. As any island with more than 3 starts to get colony maintenance issues.

edit: I'd leave HE in Paris, with Maoi its hammers will increase, and its closest to Vicky. After we have cleaned up Ragnar and maybe Willem (I would completely kill at least Ragnar, to reduce 'yearning' unhappiness), we will probably be fighting wars on 2 fronts.

 

[drlake]

That turn set worked out reasonably well, given Willem getting Cats first. Might be worth taking out Ragnar in two pieces, to try to get HBR for free. Beyond that I concur with both the general strategy proposed (Ragnar > Willem > Liz) and the Tech path (go for Steel). Note that if we don't grab at least MS for Grens, we're going to have a lot of cats killed or damaged by enemy attacks on our stacks.

 

[neilmeister]

I forgot to say, we have a super-medic warrior in a galley moving towards Ragnars island, which should greatly increase the rate at which we can attack.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Ok, I'm next !

You did a great job capturing these cities. Moving the capital to Nidaros would probably hurt our maintenance a lot, wouldn't it ? In the long term, we might envision a forbidden city on the island. Maybe sooner than later.

Did you do all the trades or not yet ? I'll do them if not, including peace, without hunting.

What it the state of our army ? Do we need lots of reinforcements ? What is the consensus on a reasonable attack force ?

Build the shrine and half bulb education, whip uppsala, other things I must not forget ?

I didn't get the comment about MS, grens and cats attacked, could you explain more ?

I'll get a quick look at the save tonight, and maybe do all the trades if we agree on it.

And yeah, it's a first baby, and the house is big. But all in all, it's happy problems : there is worse fates in the world than owning your place and becoming a father.

 

[drlake]

What I was referring to with regard to Military Science, is that if we don't have it, Military Tradition, or Rifling and have Cannons, the Cannons will be the stack defenders when we're attacked, which will mess with our offensive operations as they get damaged.

Now, on to important stuff, congratz on becoming a father! I picked up my kid at the ripe old age of 10 (I call marrying her mom a "buy one, get one" deal) and am amazed at how much work they can be when they aren't infants!

 

[Trystero]

Moving the capital to Nidaros would probably hurt our maintenance a lot, wouldn't it ? In the long term, we might envision a forbidden city on the island. Maybe sooner than later.

Yes, I think I'm changing my mind about moving the capital right now. It seems pretty clear to me that although the Dutch have a city on the main Viking island, most of their cities are to the north on what looks like a separate island. And as Neil pointed out, out capital is near Vicky who we'll want to hit as soon as we are able to open up a two front war.

Did you do all the trades or not yet ? I'll do them if not, including peace, without hunting.

What is the opinion on when we stop building warriors for MP duty? It seems we are approaching the point where it would be better to use archers for defense (it certainly seems like it would be better to use archers than maces in the former Viking cities).

What it the state of our army ? Do we need lots of reinforcements ? What is the consensus on a reasonable attack force ?

According to the statistics on the info screen we have 13 maces and 8 cats (along with 12 warriors who are on MP duty, except for the super-medic), and 8 galleys for transport.

2 maces are in galleys south of Paris. 1 cat is between Orleans and Lyons. 3 cats. 1 mace and the super-medic are in 4 galleys between Avignon and Sigtuna. 2 maces and a cat are in Sigtuna itself, 1 mace is 2 tiles west, and 2 maces are on the a galley also to the west. 1 mace is in Nidaros, and another mace and 2 cats are in a stack just to the south. 1 mace is in Uppsula. 1 mace is on the hill SE of Bjorgvin.

I think that's most of them.

We will certainly need more catapults. And more maces would not hurt.

Build the shrine and half bulb education, whip uppsala, other things I must not forget ?

Just don't trade Paper to Willem (he will give us Engineering for it), at least until we see how the Liberalism race is going to turn out.

And, although it is not critical, we might want to consider settling the furs/crab island north of Paris to help with happiness (I think Neil mentioned this already as well, but I could be wrong).

And yeah, it's a first baby, and the house is big. But all in all, it's happy problems : there is worse fates in the world than owning your place and becoming a father.

Kids are great, but your life will never be the same again.

 

[drlake]

I think its time to switch to Archers for defense, personally. I'm also in favor of settling the Crab/Fur city for happiness fairly soon, though no hurry.

 

[neilmeister]

I also support getting hunting, not for archers, but for spears. Ragnar still has elephants & horse archers, and spears that are promoted for defense mean thay will defend rather than the maces, which are mostly promoted for city attack.

As the others have mentioned, crab/furs would be a nice additions to happiness/health issues.

I agree with Trystero, in that we probably have enough maces (we have only lost 1 so far). With enough siege (cats & eventually cannons), the maces are only really needed for cleanup duty.

Oh yeah, have as many nights out to the cinema & dinners while you still can. Trust me

The most important thing to say is: dont stop building units. You can build wonders/infra as required, but keep building units.

edit: Though, CR III rifles are awesome!!!, but the only way to get them is to upgrade maces or axes.
And yes, all of those trades are already history, except for the peace offering from Ragnar.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Well I'm just popping in to say that Trystero has succinctly put down the right responses to what you've said Alaman. Like the others I'd follow his lead.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Good, then I'll try to get on to it tonight.

As for warriors, they don't qualify as defense in my book.

What is the consensus for the use of siege ? Bombard till it's 0%, then suicide enough of them so that the maces are at 99% ? Use more cats when they start having decent odds to give them XP ? Don't bombard, suicide and attack ?

 

[Trystero]

I usually bombard away the cultural defense (unless there is very little or the defending units are pretty weak) then suicide cats until the odds are >80%.

edit: And as Neil said keep building units. The sooner we can start attacking other AI, the sooner we will finish, and the higher our score will be.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

80% is usually a good idea until you're in mop-up phase. @ 99% it is very hard to pick up xp for units, and the odd extra loss won't be too bad unless it's close. But the overriding factor is, what'll get the city/stack destroyed this turn? In cases where the numbers are close always make sure first.

As regards bombarding I look at the odds of the best attacker after using every catapult. It's time consuming but often worth it. Sometimes you're hitting 80-85% @ 20% defences if you use the catapults right.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Ok, 25 turns coming then, as soon as that website de merde allows me to give you a proper "got it", but it's being extremely naughty right now !

 

[neilmeister]

What is the consensus for the use of siege ? Bombard till it's 0%, then suicide enough of them so that the maces are at 99% ? Use more cats when they start having decent odds to give them XP ? Don't bombard, suicide and attack ?

Hmmmm, how to answer this one. The best answer is that it depends.

When attacking Ragnar, I used 2 suicide cats against a stack of horse archers that arrived a few turns into the war, and 1 on Upsalla, but other than that they simply bombarded until the maces had decent enough odds.

The main point of suicide cats is to give collateral damage to either tough units, or many units. Ragnar didn't have many tough units (he was defending with archers/swords). He also generally only had 3 defenders in each city, thus reducing the net benefit.

The other thing you must weigh up is speed. Every turn you are at war, the enemy is building/whipping units.

If you look at my log, I DoW, then bombarded for 2 turns, and attacked after the second bombardment, with odds of 73%, 70% and 99%. I got lucky I admit, but I did have a few more maces ready to attack.

The next turn a stack of 1 WE and 3 HA appeared, so I used 2 cats at 12% & 48% to make sure they wouldn't be attacking me. The flank attack of the HA's is particularly annoying. The maces then cleaned them up the next turn.

When I attacked Upsalla, I took 4 cats, bombarded for 2 turns, except for 1 suicide cat against his promoted, fortified, in a walled city, axe as the combat odds for my mace were only ~50%.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make, is that there are lots of factors, and it can be hard to judge.

At the start of wars, when taking big important cities early can swing things, I look for odds > 70%. Once the war is effectively won (which I believe it is with Ragnar), then you can take more time to bombard defenses down to 0, and use siege to ensure that I get odds > 90%.

Make sure you only suicide the turn you want to attack with the main forces. There is no point letting his units heal the collateral damage.

The appearance of our super-medic will also be a factor, as you can roll a stack onto the next city immediately and heal the maces while the cats bombard.

 

[Alamankarazieff]

Ok, still no sign of life from the gotm.civfanatics.net, ergo, not real "got it", just a "I'll got it as soon as I can access it. Am I the only one who can't reach the higher powers ? Have I sinned ?

Anyway, I'll look at it by wednesday, european time.

 

[Trystero]

I can't seem to access the SGOTM progress page either. So it's not just you. I've contacted the higher powers.

 

[Trystero]

OK - Alan says the page should be working down.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Qouting this from the tech thread:

The GOTM server seems to be a bit unstable over the last 24 hours. If it is down, and you need to exchange saves, please attach them to your team thread, and then upload them later when the server is available again.

Neil if you still have the save could you please upload it as for a normal SG and attach it to a post. We'll inform Alan about it too through the maintenance thread.

 

[neilmeister]

As you may have seen in the maintenance thread, the server is having some emotional issues.

Here is the save, it is from my PC. It is the one I uploaded, so if you cannot get it from the official page, use this one.

edit: very timely x-post with Brian