SGOTM 14 - Ivan

[DWetzel]

1. D'oh! You're right about the math. I'm wrong. I blame the drugs. Still, the principle is the same.

2. I'd assume that Delhi (as the former capital) has a lot more culture built in. That has a sizable influence, does it not?

 

[Lanzelot]

2. I'd assume that Delhi (as the former capital) has a lot more culture built in. That has a sizable influence, does it not?

Yes, possible. That might also be the reason, why Zimbabwe flipped?! So what is the consequence? Perhaps it will already eliminate much of our pain, if we do not keep capitals. (Raze&replace...) Kyoto obviously being the exception from the rule...

PS: also by doing that, it should destroy a big portion of their "total culture", so other cities might not flip that easily?

Russia, Babylon and Arabia were at war very early, so probably didn't build that much culture yet. Paris probably build the Colossus and that's it for culture. So we can probably keep those relatively safely. We want to keep Kyoto. As Ivan said, he plans to gift India away anyway, so no need to take any measures here. That leaves Zimbabwe for now and any capital we are going to take in the future. Just abandon and re-settle? (We can always check when establishing an embassy, how much culture the city has build.)

 

[I. Larkin]

8 330*AD Intesive Ship chain via Ocean. One Knight arrive to Celtia. Arabia does not want to talk.

IBT Neapolis flipped. Got Boot order from Celts. All troops jumped to R+

9 340*AD Intesive Ship chain via Sea. More Knights arrive to Celtia. Capture Maya’s C+ at Celtia. Rush Walls at R+. Arabia doesn’t want to talk. Trade Lux to Korea for 11 gpt.

IBT Zimbabwe flipped again. But no Knights nearby and we are in Peace.

10 350*AD Sign RoP with Zulu for 1 gpt. (We pay.) Mongols like to arrive to this area and our “savvy move, Lancelot.” (Othniel) vs Mongols could be a pain. Also German’s Galleys here and if they “DoW via MA” it will be problem…

I forgot my general rule to have Ship chain always ready, in this case to Mpondo… May be not to late to restore now.

Gift Calcutta to Celts and Declare. Capture Alesia. They have no roads there, so it is relativly safe. "C+" need more defenders, we may rush Wals, but not sure. Intesive Ship chain via Sea from Yaroslavl’ . More Knights arrive to C+.
Plan is to gift to Korea Alesia next Turn and Declare. Don’t forget to remove troops from Alesia to C+ or R+.
Arabia does not want to talk. Is it bug or something? Really, Lanzelot should think twice before make them declare. Just gift Moscow or something… Decided to Pillage around and build City near. May be help, don’t know...

Thinking if Declare Inca at lunch this turn but will it be too much? My brain can hold 3 directions but when 4 it was a disaster.

Hardest turn set in my life. Will finish at lunch (soon). Successfully capture Alesia. Now thinking shall I gift Madras to Inka and declare or better gift them some Celt's City?

Ok, I did it. And Finish. As a simbolic price for all efforts got MGL at Inca. File on server now. It is an option to make Army with Elite* Knight and try one more Elite win vs Archer.

 

[I. Larkin]

India has been "run over" quite quickly, despite their big stack of swordsmen... amazing!

Takctics approximatly following: The city yo want to gift leave "undefended". When all swords go there give it to "friend". If they do not have RoP with your fried they stuck.

 

[I. Larkin]

Othniel up.

Sounds good on DWetzel's resettling plan. Definitely keep a few military units in the jail and get ROPs from everyone. They should agree to ROPs after we bludgeon them some more. Bummer that there are so few "free" domination tiles. I was wondering about that.

I still think that "big square" is the best option. It has smalest border/area ratio. but it is Math, and we are in real world.
Empirical rule I found that if you broke with this AI they never agree to RoP again no matter what. If AI “knows” that you did RoP rape from other AI they may agree for some fee. AFAIK 25 gpt+. But if they have small land like Zulu, price just 1 gpt. Russia agreed for “free”.

Piecemeal wars: What it is? I am afraid we do not have much resources for that.

Piecemeal wars is a little inevitable on 'pelago maps, but we need to minimize this. We are seeing the power of isolated civs having tons of units just sitting around. I can't remember all the landmasses right now, but where possible we need to concentrate on landmasses that have multiple civs, such as the aforementioned Greece/German/Mongol bloc. Signed those civs in on MAs against each other was a savvy move, Lancelot. . We need to do more schemes like that. Get the AI to kill each others stacks off. Makes it soooo much easier.

Looks that they are isolated or have a good Chock Points. Nothing have happened in my turns with Mongols/ Greece / Germany. I think after finishing Korea this stack will go south or what?

I'll add that having so many civs plus the relatively inability to kill off the loose threads makes this game have a very hectic feel. We will do well if we keep from being distracted by all this. Getting some more settlers and making a jail asap will really help. Speaking of which, how are we doing on the settler production?

I got 2 Settlers from Gui and Lisbon. May be wrong move, but I immediately put Worker there. Next may go from Lagos. Also, I want remove Ispezi and Babedy ASAP. May be a good idea to send them to India and make close Settle pack. Or we can do it along our south costal line.
However, I think, that we better focus on Knight Production now and will deal with Culture and Jail later. According to my “Knights.doc” article there will be a moment at the game when production of Knights dose not matter. (When available Knights will do the job). As I estimate this moment does not come yet.

 

[I. Larkin]

I updated a bit paper. (attached)

In more user friendly way equation (7) can be re written as:

(8).
Where Lpt is simply number of Knights player loose in one turn “in average” and Wpt is amount of wins in one turn at average. Wintotal is actually Big Constant that is amount of all single victories that “necessary” to win the game. In “best case scenario” it is just total amount of defenders in Cities, new defenders that appeared due to flip counts again, of course. Ratio Lpt/Wpt may be very small, in best AWD games it is about 0.03 – 0.05.
It is obvious that at regime (8) tactics should be similar to AWD. Normally second term is largest and time determined by ratio of loss to win.

Conclusion that come out of that obvious: increase win rate. But in curent regime ratio small ratio of Lpt/Wpt is very imortant. Anyhow losses should not exide production, bette to have it 2 3 times smaller. In avarage 12- 18 Cities capture for turnset is a good number. Unfortunaly Math does not say "how" it only says what will be "if".

 

[DWetzel]

Edit: I'm an idiot, never mind.

 

[I. Larkin]

Edit: I'm an idiot, never mind.

Take it easy... You know, when I pretend that I try explain something to others, actually I just explain it to myself.

But still I wonder: suppose in "normal situation" we have 70 Knights. What is maximum wpt and how lpt depend on wpt??

But "normal " question: what to do with MGL?

 

[DWetzel]

Don't worry--that comment was because I thought I was up, but saw you'd posted who is up.

Normal question first: we need a knight army on the German continent, I think. It will be "stuck" there after that, but well worth it I would say. So I'd save the leader for that, and try to find a safe spot to create the army. If we can maintain a ROP/MA with one versus the others, it can even just sit there until we are ready.

Regrettably, we may want to take a little time to regroup, consolidate, and (dare I say it) start research again, or at least focus on beating a couple of techs out of people when able. I'm more worried about the galleys than the knights, honestly--but both are concerns with stronger defense coming soon in the form of muskets.

Now the complicated mathy bits:

Your wins per turn, especially on a map like this, is affected by the number of available targets (and our ability to transport them). And this is tough to quantify.

We should be able to fairly easily approximate the win/loss ratio based simply on the units that we are attacking. (Up to now, that has been spears for the most part; pikes and muskets are coming soon!) It's a simplistic assumption, but not a terrible one, to just go based on those. (We'll have some counterattacks to deal with, but we will also be occasionally bombing units; those even out in terms of win/loss ).

Beyond that, well, I'm at work and trying not to think TOO hard... But I think somewhere in the formula is an argument for more MDIs/pikes than we are using (as I have been pushing for for a while now), because while the number of attacks per turn goes down quite a bit (and thus our wins per turn goes down), our number of units increases much faster, because we can much more easily replace a 40-shield attack 4 unit than a 70-shield attack 4 unit. A slightly slower start, which is made up for by an increasing force as time goes on.

 

[Othniel]

Mongols like to arrive to this area and our “savvy move, Lancelot.” (Othniel) vs Mongols could be a pain.

Tactically, it may not work perfectly in the short term, but I still think it's a good longer-term strategic move.

If you were asking what a piecemeal war is, it is when you fight with scattered stacks of units rather than with an overwhelming SoD that can hammer your opponent. Basically, it's what the AI does. We in turn, of course, want to concentrate our forces when possible to give a quick kill stroke, but archipelago maps plus a race to the domination limit tends to force the player to scatter his forces.

I'll give the save a very close examination this evening. I need to really get my head wrapped around the current situation. I'll probably have a number of questions when I'm done.

 

[Othniel]

Empirical rule I found that if you broke with this AI they never agree to RoP again no matter what.

Hmm, I thought that a civ that you had really hurt would generally give up most anything for peace, including an ROP. But perhaps if we explicitly ROP raped that civ, then your rule applies.

Concerning Arabia's reluctance to sign peace, I've noticed in the past that small civs that you have been beating on for a long time can get a little more suicidal. Basically, if they hate you for razing most of their empire, they seem to be slower to come back to the negotiating table.

@DWetzel.
I'm not 100% sure what to think about the MDI/treb idea. It has upside of getting a larger force more quickly, but the downside of having slower movement plus greater need for transportation. Plus it's working against historical anecdotal evidence that Knights work better than MDI/treb stacks.

 

[I. Larkin]

Normal question first: we need a knight army on the German continent, I think. It will be "stuck" there after that, but well worth it I would say. So I'd save the leader for that, and try to find a safe spot to create the army. If we can maintain a ROP/MA with one versus the others, it can even just sit there until we are ready.

Single Knight Army is Transportable on Galley. And it is faster on ground. We also may build HE.
If so we probably do not need an Army in Germany. We need to verify is this 2 island or not. RoP will be expensive. May be just to land big stack…

Regrettably, we may want to take a little time to regroup, consolidate,

What do you mean? Now I have build 3 “armies” 2 now at war and third will strike next turn in normal Human style.

and (dare I say it) start research again, or at least focus on beating a couple of techs out of people when able. I'm more worried about the galleys than the knights, honestly--but both are concerns with stronger defense coming soon in the form of muskets.

Sort of disagree. My feeling is that “we are close”. I think War vs Persia will let us extort Invention .As I wrote, I think 2 Picks better then 1 Musketeer. But all that depend on time and if it is short it is OK. Well, all was “gambit” but we can’t research to MT, GP will not help much, I think. Experience with Rome showed that AI’s are very strange...

Your wins per turn, especially on a map like this, is affected by the number of available targets (and our ability to transport them). And this is tough to quantify

.

This is a reason: What proportionality of Galleys to Knight is “optimal”? I wrote equation to “analyzing pre-turn” then did not get an answer, and rush some Galleys as I need.

We should be able to fairly easily approximate the win/loss ratio based simply on the units that we are attacking. (Up to now, that has been spears for the most part; pikes and muskets are coming soon!) It's a simplistic assumption, but not a terrible one, to just go based on those. (We'll have some counterattacks to deal with, but we will also be occasionally bombing units; those even out in terms of win/loss ).

Good...

Beyond that, well, I'm at work and trying not to think TOO hard... But I think somewhere in the formula is an argument for more MDIs/pikes than we are using (as I have been pushing for a while now), because while the number of attacks per turn goes down quite a bit (and thus our wins per turn goes down), our number of units increases much faster, because we can much more easily replace a 40-shield attack 4 unit than a 70-shield attack 4 unit. A slightly slower start, which is made up for by an increasing force as time goes on.

Knights have great advantage that they retreat. So they are not lost. MI win or loose and that’s it… For suicide mission better to send MI, of course but for “normal process” Knight is the best. Vs Pickmen an Hoplite it is more important I think. Knights may unload on Mountains, and if many AI don't attack them. Fortified Knight I notise vs Horses and sword is visibly better then nonfortified. So if we can afford knights let it be so. I'd like to have more Trebuchts for assistance, but you know...

 

[DWetzel]

I don't totally disagree--but if they aren't attacking knights, I'd be surprised that they are attacking pikes. Plus if they DO attack pikes, and lose, the attacking unit is completely undamaged. (Against that of course, if they send enough forces, they get to attack the weaker MDI as well.)

This is probably a demonstrably stupid idea, but what about a pike army with a bunch of MDI to take on opponents without horses?

 

[Othniel]

I took a real good long look at the save. That means...this will be a long post. Please bear with me.

First off,

The Macro, Large Scale View:
I'm gonna try and sum up where we are at, and maybe give us a little fresh perspective. I'm not reinventing the Wheel here, most of this we already know, but re-summarizing might help.

So here we are in 350AD. We have 62 knights, plus a small motley crew of horseman, pikes, and other assundry units. We also have around 22 galleys to transport said army.

We currently own around 20% of the land, which means...we need a lot more. There are a number of tiles that we can grab by just settling or building temples, but a lot more warring is of course needed.

We are ahead of practically everyone in techs, but most civs either have Pikes or are close. Also, nearly everyone has Iron on this modded map.

I see two major routes we can take to capture the necessary amount of tiles. (Screenshots aren't big enough to show all this, so open up the save if you want the graphics version of what I'm talking about)

a) We go after the ignorant civs that are far from pikes.
OR
b) We go after civs that we can most easily project our power upon. Bear with me, I'll explain what I mean by this.

We are, of course, the large pink blob in the center of the map. Our core, and thus our power center, is stretched along the northern section of that blob. Extending further to the south, we begin to get very weak as all the cities are highly corrupt and undeveloped.

Our main armies are located in the west in Celtia, and in the east in Incaland. We have a smaller grouping in the south-central on Korean land. Other than these three groups, we have very few troops.

I support the fact that our main armies are in the west and east because I feel this is the correct strategic path to conquest. In other words, I assert that we can most easily project our power eastward and westward, rather than southward. This is due to the simple fact that our core is geographically located how it is. We can easily re-supply troops to the east and west, but not to the south.

So my plan is as follows:
1. Continue up with what Ivan was doing by killing Celts and Incas first
2a. Then, send the Celtia army plus reinforcements up to kill America.
2b. Send the Incaland army plus reinforcements to kill the Iroquois
3. Send both the Celtia and Incaland armies to attack the German/Mongol/Greece (GMG) bloc. Notice that this will be pincer attack of sorts as we will simultaneously attack on both ends of that landmass.
4. Once that big bloc is under our control, send these armies to the south and south central, taking out nations such as Egypt, Rome, Aztecs, Hittites, and China.

Note that none of this involves the current southern group. That group, currently located in Korea, should continue with the plan of ROP raping Korea. But I would not reinforce it at all, or hardly at all. Send the reinforcements east and west so that we can hammerstroke our way into the main GMG bloc. Once Korea is nullified, unless the southern group took virtually no losses, I would mainly play island defense with the remnants. Persia lurks as a juicy target, but they have Iron and Horses and probably Chivalry really soon, so they will be hard to take on until we can muster overwhelming force.

Rome is another juicy target in the south, but I see no reason to kill them until the GMG bloc has fallen. Rome already has 3 def Legions; them getting Pikes should make little difference overall. So I would wait until near the end of the game before attacking them.

The Pros of this plan:
We form a pincer arm that sweeps east and west along the route we most easily resupply. We should be able to muster overwhelming force strength provided we concetrate our reinforcements properly. Our ship chains are also better positioned for east-west movement at the moment. We consequently avoid fighting in the south for the time-being, avoiding the problem of fragmentation that is currently haunting us. In effect, we reduce ourselves down to 2 fronts only.

The Cons of this plan:
The nations that are the most backward (i.e. lacking Feudalism or worse) are mostly in the south. So we risk them getting Pikes.

Random Questions about attacks:

• Do we think that the visible Celtic Galic Swords (14 of them) constitutes most of their army?
• The units attacking Korea are a little strangely positioned, imo. Why didn't we move them more "inland"?

Ok, onto more detailed things.

Land Management:
Our current jail is in former India. We also have plans for a jail in Korea. Ok, that's all well and good, but here are a couple of my modifications:

• Resettle France to India jail. That leaves former Japan as exclusively our island.
• Take the current capital of India away from them and resettle them in Korea. That removes their culture influence over former India
• Look to gift our current cities on former India to someone. Prime candidates include Iroquois, America, or even Babylon.

So, from here just ICS India and Korea as our jails. I would sign ROPs with every resettled civ (when possible) and then keep a number of Knights in the jail lands as some Military Police of sorts. This is gonna take some effort to detail to setup right, so we need to pay careful attention.

Every other landmass should be our exclusive territory. We need to settle the land is a smart fashion so as to maximize the amount of territory gained per settler. That generally means CxxxC sorts of patterns. But most of the domination tiles will probably be gained from building temples in coastal cities. I think we should wait to rush temples until we get a little closer to the dom limit. Of course, we also need to have groups of island guards, probably pairs of knights, to ward off invaders.

Technology:
I think we are stuck at where we are at. Astronomy is the only tech other than Cavs that I see as beneficial. Having Carracks with greater carry capacity, and to a lesser degree, giving us 2 attack ships that could patrol for invading ships, would be useful. But even if we did max research toward Astro, it will take 25+ turns. That is way too long, plus we need the gold for other things. So I say keep research at 0% and live with our choice to not build Libraries earlier.

Builds:
In core, things look pretty straightforward. I'm not sure I agree with having so many cities building Pikes. I understand naval invasions are tough with the enemy counterattacks, but if we can continue to sign ROPs so that our knights get the first attacks in an invasion, I see maximizing our knight numbers as the way to go. But perhaps I'm being wishful thinking there...

Question for Ivan: What's with all the Warrior builds? Are those placeholders or are you really wanting to build Warriors?

Personally, I think all the corrupt towns should either build Settlers, Galleys, or Wealth. Maybe workers. Nothing else. Warriors won't help for island defense and just eat up unit support. They work ok for flip quelling, which might be why you are building them ...let me know. Also, I plan on hiring some taxmen in the corrupt towns where possible.

A couple more semi-core cities might benefit from courts, I think about that.

Worker Stuff:
I was a bit confused on our worker usage. We have a bunch planting forests, but there are still a lot of tiles to road and jungle to clear on the main landmass...For instance, Lisbon and other core cities still have some undevloped tiles. We really are pretty short of workers, not sure how to help that.

Reputation:
If we haven't already busted our rep, I think we should do it now. For instance, I plan on taking back Zimbabwe right away. I see no sense in saving rep at this point. Too inconvenient with flips.

Rushing / Connect Disconnect:
Any specific ways we are running these schemes? I see some horse builds so I know some kind of scheme is being used.

 

[I. Larkin]

Two pictures first: My original plan was to have jail in our forbiden zone.
(Moscow - Zimbabwe area). Blue is our "guard Cities.
But to reduce flips we need lond distances. So it is Celtia and India in first approximation.
Babylon may be reseteled to Inka.
Delhi has Spices and WLKD helps somtime.
Will read carefully and reply.

Another is corruption... If we want Paris

I did not understand you, Othniel, are you going to Attack Korea Next Turn?

And what you want to do with MGL?

Never thought about details, but Domination counted fram All landmass + coast, or from Climed Only l/m?

 

[DWetzel]

All landmass + coastal tiles (but not sea).

 

[Othniel]

Two pictures first: My original plan was to have jail in our forbiden zone.
(Moscow - Zimbabwe area). Blue is our "guard Cities.
But to reduce flips we need lond distances. So it is Celtia and India in first approximation.
Babylon may be reseteled to Inka.
Delhi has Spices and WLKD helps somtime.
Will read carefully and reply.

I understand your reasoning on reducing flips. But I think that we have a bit of a dilemma there as it will be so much easier to contain our jail spots to just one or two islands. Using just 1-2 islands allows us to pack in the jail citizens, giving us more land to settle, and also requires less guards to oversee the inmates.

Good point on spices in Delhi, I'll have to think more about that.

I did not understand you, Othniel, are you going to Attack Korea Next Turn?

And what you want to do with MGL?

Not sure about the attack on Korea. We definitely will attack them soon, but it might be helpful to reposition our forces before dowing. But we probably don't have enough ships in the area to reposition quickly, so I'll probably end up dowing right away.

Haven't though much about the MGL. A knight army seems best, but without carracks to move it around...I would probably lean toward what someone else suggested: make an empty army now, and wait until we get to the GMG big bloc before filling it up. Maybe, maybe put one knight in now, but avoid fighting with it.

 

[I. Larkin]

The Macro, Large Scale View:
I'm gonna try and sum up where we are at, and maybe give us a little fresh perspective. I'm not reinventing the Wheel here, most of this we already know, but re-summarizing might help.

So here we are in 350AD. We have 62 knights, plus a small motley crew of horseman, pikes, and other assundry units. We also have around 22 galleys to transport said army.

Main question is 22 Galleys enough?

I see two major routes we can take to capture the necessary amount of tiles. (Screenshots aren't big enough to show all this, so open up the save if you want the graphics version of what I'm talking about)

a) We go after the ignorant civs that are far from pikes.
OR
b) We go after civs that we can most easily project our power upon. Bear with me, I'll explain what I mean by this.

"theory" recomends plan a) but reality may be different.

Our main armies are located in the west in Celtia, and in the east in Incaland. We have a smaller grouping in the south-central on Korean land. Other than these three groups, we have very few troops.

And all 3 should fight. Theory says that "only very good reason" must be to keep stack frozen,

So my plan is as follows:
1. Continue up with what Ivan was doing by killing Celts and Incas first
2a. Then, send the Celtia army plus reinforcements up to kill America.

May be OK, but we 1)have WH from America, 2)No use, but some corruption harm from American Cities, 3) It is far from Center.
I prefer Rome, in fact it is Closer, then America by sea.

2b. Send the Incaland army plus reinforcements to kill the Iroquois

If it is dooable I prefer this (2). But I am not sure that remaider from Inca will be enough for Iroques. Better to check, when it will be clear.

3. Send both the Celtia and Incaland armies to attack the German/Mongol/Greece (GMG) bloc. Notice that this will be pincer attack of sorts as we will simultaneously attack on both ends of that landmass.

Actually If AlanH follow my instruction it should be 3 Islands, but who knows...

4. Once that big bloc is under our control, send these armies to the south and south central, taking out nations such as Egypt, Rome, Aztecs, Hittites, and China.

It is very remote furure...

Note that none of this involves the current southern group. That group, currently located in Korea, should continue with the plan of ROP raping Korea. But I would not reinforce it at all, or hardly at all.

Yes, it was an idea. May be some AC from Babylon, but that it. But please, do not delay.

Send the reinforcements east and west so that we can hammerstroke our way into the main GMG bloc. Once Korea is nullified, unless the southern group took virtually no losses, I would mainly play island defense with the remnants. Persia lurks as a juicy target, but they have Iron and Horses and probably Chivalry really soon, so they will be hard to take on until we can muster overwhelming force.

looks like a plan. But when Persia will about to finish Leonardo it is time to strike.

Rome is another juicy target in the south, but I see no reason to kill them until the GMG bloc has fallen. Rome already has 3 def Legions; them getting Pikes should make little difference overall. So I would wait until near the end of the game before attacking them.

Like Japan Rome is a "center location". Also I "now know how to deal with Rome" but well... you have a reasons. Will see on Celt's remaider.

The Pros of this plan:
We form a pincer arm that sweeps east and west along the route we most easily resupply. We should be able to muster overwhelming force strength provided we concetrate our reinforcements properly. Our ship chains are also better positioned for east-west movement at the moment. We consequently avoid fighting in the south for the time-being, avoiding the problem of fragmentation that is currently haunting us. In effect, we reduce ourselves down to 2 fronts only.

Exactly...

The Cons of this plan:
The nations that are the most backward (i.e. lacking Feudalism or worse) are mostly in the south. So we risk them getting Pikes.

So we need a compromise...

Random Questions about attacks:

• 
  [1]Do we think that the visible Celtic Galic Swords (14 of them) constitutes most of their army?
  [2]The units attacking Korea are a little strangely positioned, imo. Why didn't we move them more "inland"?

2 Galleys are slow trough the sea. And Korea’s stack mainly from Maya.
1. I think it is more. First time it was 40 vs C+ that take out 4 Knights and 2 Picks.
Before I forget, I make small mistake “non fortified Pick, but fortified Cruzader. Need vise a versa. Un-fortified Crusader, at list.

Ok, onto more detailed things.

Land Management:
Our current jail is in former India. We also have plans for a jail in Korea. Ok, that's all well and good, but here are a couple of my modifications:

• 
  [1]Resettle France to India jail. That leaves former Japan as exclusively our island.
  [2]Take the current capital of India away from them and resettle them in Korea. That removes their culture influence over former India
• Look to gift our current cities on former India to someone. Prime candidates include Iroquois, America, or even Babylon.

1. No, it is too close to Paris. Also it is Iron in Osaka. For disconect reason. Further to Rome, say OK.
2. No. I am greedy about Spices. Also, basic Idea is to send as far as possible from homeland. Korea must go to Alesia.
3. America is OK, but not Babylon, of course.

So, from here just ICS India and Korea as our jails. I would sign ROPs with every resettled civ (when possible) and then keep a number of Knights in the jail lands as some Military Police of sorts. This is gonna take some effort to detail to setup right, so we need to pay careful attention.

I assume that now RoP is 25-50 gpt. We may afford 1 turn RoP, just to land a big stack.

Every other landmass should be our exclusive territory. We need to settle the land is a smart fashion so as to maximize the amount of territory gained per settler. That generally means CxxxC sorts of patterns. But most of the domination tiles will probably be gained from building temples in coastal cities. I think we should wait to rush temples until we get a little closer to the dom limit. Of course, we also need to have groups of island guards, probably pairs of knights, to ward off invaders.

I am more consern now about how to make Core productive... Corruption eats us..

Technology:
I think we are stuck at where we are at. Astronomy is the only tech other than Cavs that I see as beneficial. Having Carracks with greater carry capacity, and to a lesser degree, giving us 2 attack ships that could patrol for invading ships, would be useful. But even if we did max research toward Astro, it will take 25+ turns. That is way too long, plus we need the gold for other things. So I say keep research at 0% and live with our choice to not build Libraries earlier.

Sure. It always not enough money…

Builds:
In core, things look pretty straightforward. I'm not sure I agree with having so many cities building Pikes. I understand naval invasions are tough with the enemy counterattacks, but if we can continue to sign ROPs so that our knights get the first attacks in an invasion, I see maximizing our knight numbers as the way to go. But perhaps I'm being wishful thinking there...

I really did not managed. Just press enter. I thought to disconnect Iron this turn and go through Picks to set horses. But we have not enough money to upgrade all...

Question for Ivan: What's with all the Warrior builds? Are those placeholders or are you really wanting to build Warriors?

I read somewhere that 4 units with WLKD are enough to suppress flips. We need many “for technical reason”. Also we may upgrade them to MI. And what else 1 spt City with Barracks may build?

Personally, I think all the corrupt towns should either build Settlers, Galleys, or Wealth. Maybe workers. Nothing else. Warriors won't help for island defense and just eat up unit support. They work ok for flip quelling, which might be why you are building them ...let me know. Also, I plan on hiring some taxmen in the corrupt towns where possible.

We are below Unit limit now, but that may change. Taxmen are an idea, but not wealth in inland as 1 spt better then 1 gpt in inland.

A couple more semi-core cities might benefit from courts, I think about that.

I put table at previus post and now 2 CH in process IIRC. Castelo Branco also deserve it. If we gift/delete many Cities in Forbiden Zone Paris also may get CH.

Worker Stuff:
I was a bit confused on our worker usage. We have a bunch planting forests, but there are still a lot of tiles to road and jungle to clear on the main landmass...For instance, Lisbon and other core cities still have some undevloped tiles. We really are pretty short of workers, not sure how to help that.

I did not found “good tiles” that Worker can improve in Core area. May be I miss something. Yes, you write, some Hills near Evora… As to Jungle I think it is Forbiden zone, what for we will clean it?

Reputation:
If we haven't already busted our rep, I think we should do it now. For instance, I plan on taking back Zimbabwe right away. I see no sense in saving rep at this point. Too inconvenient with flips.

And it will flip again and agin... After that NO RoP ever… Wait for good reason.

Rushing / Connect Disconnect:
Any specific ways we are running these schemes? I see some horse builds so I know some kind of scheme is being used.

Until now it was no scheme. Just Connect - disconnect. Then I run out of money and have connected 2 turns.

In general: You simply do not imagine what landing means or what contra-attack you get next IBT. Or, if you brake RoP.
Fight in India looked “easy” when you read TL, but reality looks as 3 little pigs running from BBW. (Me was a pigs&#8230. And Rome when all you can see has 2+ leg per tile… Or 40 GS… Korea at least “one dimensional”, I’d at no circumstances split Korea stack. First strike will leave them without Iron and next. Just pull all to Mountins and then Declare...

Frankly, I have no idea what is better, Iroquois with flat land vs MWs or Germany, where we can land on Mountains. But really we need have a look from outside first. Aslo Germany has maximum culture.

Simple question: as any coin is count, so to rush Walls in C+ or save money? I’d simply rush settler->Knight in Lisbon to have knight in 2 turns.

Anything else?

 

[I. Larkin]

I understand your reasoning on reducing flips. But I think that we have a bit of a dilemma there as it will be so much easier to contain our jail spots to just one or two islands. Using just 1-2 islands allows us to pack in the jail citizens, giving us more land to settle, and also requires less guards to oversee the inmates.

Original plan was big poligon at Forbiden zone. But when Domascus still not ours it is hard to communicate. Also Flips is a real pain.

But we probably don't have enough ships in the area to reposition quickly, so I'll probably end up dowing right away.

Please do next turn. It was plan to get rid of Alesia.

Haven't though much about the MGL. A knight army seems best, but without carracks to move it around...I would probably lean toward what someone else suggested: make an empty army now, and wait until we get to the GMG big bloc before filling it up. Maybe, maybe put one knight in now, but avoid fighting with it.

I think the best 1 Elite* Knight Army. It has 1 mp+ and 1hp+ and see better, and can go on Galley.

 

[Lanzelot]

Othniel, your general plan sounds good. Just a few comments:

1. When attacking the GMG block, we should not attack all three at once. As long as we have RoPs with Greece and Germany, concentrate on Mongolia, then the other two. (The main army from Iroquois will arrive in Mongolia first anyway. A roaded mountain near Tabriz may be the best unload point.)
2. I agree that forming a size-1 Army (with the Alfonso Knight) should be the best usage for the MGL. Here is an idea, what it could do: send the Army plus two additional Kts to Germany and let them do some scouting. Once they have confirmed, that it's one single landmass, join the other two Kts, enter Mongolia and pillage the iron. (If Germany DoWs via MA, we can pillage their iron as well.) Also, if there really is some fighting going on between G&G and M, then we may be lucky and capture a weakly defended town somewhere... (But don't risk the Army prematurely: the AI does attack wounded Armies!)
3. Persepolis can finish Leonardo's in approx. 30 turns. (On Demigod it's 420 shields for the AI, and Persepolis can make 14 spt. If one of the other cities is using one of its shield-tiles, it will be a bit longer.) (Ivan, when exactly did they start?) So here is an idea for that southern stack, once it is done with Korea: capture Leonardo's, when it's finished! However, the stack will probably need some reinforcements in that case.
4. I think the warriors are meant for upgrading to MI. A few MIs in the stack will certainly be useful, but after reading everyone's arguments on this topic, I agree that the main force should be Kts. (Less transportation, retreat capability, and also it can kill loose units and retreat to the safety of a town in the same turn.)
5. A modification to your plan may be to omit 2a. America is very backwards (does not even have Writing yet!), so we can definitely take it later and concentrate on GMG first. (Similarly we may omit Iroquois?!)
6. If you retake Zimbabwe (yes, our rep is already busted: I've retaken Bapedi, Ivan Zimbabwe and he also re-attacked Celtia, all within a 20-turn peace deal... So only those civs that neither know Japan, Zululand nor Celtia still like us...), then I'd say you re-settle it. Two flips is enough, isn't it?!

As far as I know, the domination limit is calculated from total land+coast. (So it's a constant.)

One advantage of having multiple smaller AI prisons as opposed to one or two larger ones, is that it may be easier to prevent them from killing each other?! If many AIs have direct contact, it's more likely that some of them start a war. But having a larger prison will probably require less tiles?! We should think about this a bit more.

Lanzelot