SGOTM 14 - Ivan

I. Larkin · Dec 10, 2008

IIRC, 4 units were lost on defense

If you'd have all in C+, probably all 'd alive. You probably observed, (as me at first attempt) how Knights become yellow lined after first wave ans some died later. 4 hp Knight have good odd vs Horse and GS, but not 3/4.
Raze Entr at least...

So, I picked the third option, attack as much as possible with our 4 attack units vs their 2 and 1 def units. I was able to kill most of the (initial) covering spears, but didn't have enough units to really touch the chasquis and archers. I ended up with 4 hurt knights defending Tiwa, with the rest of our hurt knights sitting outside covered by one healthy knight. Not the best of scenarios, but hoping our knights could hold out.

Very funny, you know... Flip risk with many units inside not that big... May be resonable to have 1-2 healthy knight outside to take back in the case of flip. Or Abonded Sity. Or gift it to next High culture Victim...

59 kills to 11 losses

Important figure is Cities to losses. So it is 1/11 or 2/11 ? But it is so low anyway that "out of theory applicability". Was it really my mistake and we should put all stack in 1 or 2?

Othniel · Dec 10, 2008

I. Larkin said:
If you'd have all in C+, probably all 'd alive. You probably observed, (as me at first attempt) how Knights become yellow lined after first wave ans some died later. 4 hp Knight have good odd vs Horse and GS, but not 3/4.
Raze Entr at least...

I don't disagree in principle, but in this case only 1 or 2 of the losses were C+ defenders. The others were units in the field.

Very funny, you know... Flip risk with many units inside not that big...

Well, CivAssist reported a 10-20% risk with all the units inside. I know the flip risk goes up with fewer units inside, but that means it's a tradeoff: suppressing the flip risk % compared to risk of losing more units if a flip does occur. IMO, when the flip risk starts at 10%, that is too high to risk more than 1-2 units.

Othniel · Dec 10, 2008

I. Larkin said:
No, it will not. To help FP core we need to delete Low (Small) rank low productive City. It is Novgorod, Babedy, Vipesi. It is few more, but they have higher rank.

I'll look again at CivAssist. Not trying to be disagreeable here, but IIRC, after looking at CA2, I felt that abandoning those cities would have little to no effect. My feeling, again, is that rather than putting lots of effort into making marginally corrupt cities more productive, I much prefer having them build galleys and settlers. If they make 2 or even 3spt, all the better. The time spent on making a court at this point in the game is prohibitively expensive, imo.

The main issue, honestly, is that I think we put the FP in the wrong city. It needed to go a ring or two closer to Lisbon. In the long run, perhaps, the further out FP can help for a better core. But this is not a long run game, it's a blitz to domination, so the setup costs for the "larger core, further out FP" scenario are just too high.

Othniel · Dec 11, 2008

I'm in the middle of turn 6. Will finish this marathon set tomorrow night.

Current Save is attached.

Turnlog so far:

Spoiler :

Highlights/Discussion Points:

We have landed in force in Greece. Ivan has been proven (unfortunately) right in that Greece is an island. What to do with our two knight armies? My first reaction is: fill one up fully, kill Greece with it. Save the other for another tough island.
Incaland has been a bear, but we are ready to advance on it again. Any suggestions how to handle things differently, or just go at it?
Ivan was also right, and I was wrong, on the city deletions thing. We should delete those three cities that are messing up the FP core. I've been working on that.
Can anyone tell me what civs are giving us war happiness?

P.S. If you take a look at the save and things look a bit weird, it's might be because I haven't moved a lot of units this turn. Fortified them temporarily instead.

I. Larkin · Dec 11, 2008

I. Larkin said:
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+.

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.

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.

Othniel :Build an army with our MGL. Place the e* knight inside.
Kill 4 Incan units, get one knight promoted, and the army got one of the kills so Heroic Epic can be built [4-0]
After this, move all but 2 units out of Tiwanaku. The flip risk is sky high and the risk is just not worth it. Our units will have to heal outside.

Click to expand...

At preturn there was no flip risk...

Gift them Richborough

Click to expand...

Why?? It was only one native town on this Island... Why not C+?
Edit: I see, you gave it to Iro. (Almost the same color). Note that only 1 city we need at Celtia (1W from settler position) not to let anybody to setlle there. So this settler in Yaroslavl' may go to Greece.

I. Larkin · Dec 11, 2008

I belive everybody can calculate SQRT? Really it is simple, so please do it for self -assesment.
Just to see how things are going:

K_o is amount of Knights (total) C_ai amount Ai's Cities in total S may be how many Knights you have produce, but in fact it should be "big average" over the game. Cpt is amount of Cities you captured in this interval of turns.
To get more accurate result you may calculate that in a few turns and even get "statistics". If you tink that "this city" was tougher than "avarage rest" may put "extra coefficient" for that. Divide your losses to this number.
Ideally result should be 1. If less that mean you may be more active. If more - be more carefull.

DWetzel · Dec 11, 2008

Couple random thoughts:

If we plan to gift away cities in our "forbidden zone", or for that matter to abandon them, we need to get some culture going in the surrounding cities. That would be a useful way to contain a number of civs in a very tight area... in theory we could put 4 civs in a 3x3 box (on the corners) with no foreign tiles outside it, if we had sufficient cities with culture surrounding them (our cities would be CxC to the edge of the box). In our forbidden zone would be the spot to do that, in theory.

Shame about GMG being more than one island.

How are other civs doing technology-wise? Anybody making a move to at least Education? We may not want to research to Astronomy, but we may want to exercise pointy stick research. I suggest that we may want to get Theology in the hands of civs that don't have it (and that we don't plan to kill right away), so they can pursue research for us.

I. Larkin · Dec 11, 2008

4 Galleys allow anload 10 Units +2 from another Galley near Tiwanuku. Way wait? 12 Knights can do job. Normally AI scare of big stacks. Even Rome does not attack 8 Knights. City is another story. So may be defend with minimum but MOVE FORWARD!, like Murphy played chess. Have some Knigts to heal near (covered with 1-2 healthy), and 2-3 Pikman in. If they manage to recapture, take it back. Raze next City, may be laet to get Tiwanuku as Peace deal: Nationality changes and flips no more. Declare again... never fight vs units "in field", only capture Cities.

The same story with Greeks and Korea. Knights move forward and Razed fliped City.

Othniel · Dec 11, 2008

I. Larkin said:
At preturn there was no flip risk...

Then this was my mistake. However, I did look at your log and it seemed to me that Tiwa had been captured earlier in your set. That's why I thought it might flip.

Note that only 1 city we need at Celtia (1W from settler position) not to let anybody to setlle there. So this settler in Yaroslavl' may go to Greece.

My thought was, we should settle on both sides of the Celt island. Reason being, if we get our ship chain working right, we can shipchain knights all the way through to Greece in one turn by having them move a few tiles on the island itself. Using the southern coast of Celtia with ships would require a lot more ships to accomplish the same purpose.

Sounds good on pressing forward to Inca. That was my plan, just wanted to check if anyone thought differently.

For our landmass, I prefer abandoning the cities in our forbidden zone, move them back a couple of tiles until they don't affect the rank of Mecca, and then resettle. Build a little culture to grab the empty tiles. I prefer this to resettling AI civs in that space. Makes it a lot easier to manage if we keep our main landmass mostly free of AI civs. Use the islands as our jails.

What should we do with the armies?

I. Larkin · Dec 11, 2008

Othniel said:
I'm in the middle of turn 6. Will finish this marathon set tomorrow night.

Highlights/Discussion Points:

We have landed in force in Greece. Ivan has been proven (unfortunately) right in that Greece is an island. What to do with our two knight armies? My first reaction is: fill one up fully, kill Greece with it. Save the other for another tough island.

Incaland has been a bear, but we are ready to advance on it again. Any suggestions how to handle things differently, or just go at it?

Ivan was also right, and I was wrong, on the city deletions thing. We should delete those three cities that are messing up the FP core. I've been working on that.

Can anyone tell me what civs are giving us war happiness?

P.S. If you take a look at the save and things look a bit weird, it's might be because I haven't moved a lot of units this turn. Fortified them temporarily instead.

Wel it is 1 Knight Army. I'd pull it to Sparta, while RoP goes and strike Sparta next turn. I'd leave Army as it is to cover troops, scouting, emergency case. Or, in case of emergency fill 1-2 More Knights.
Sure, Just straveTAX + worker. Sell Barracks in Babedy.
OK, it is America, Maya, now Germany. Petential WH from Rome, and may be from Japan.

Othniel · Dec 11, 2008

I. Larkin said:
Wel it is 1 Knight Army. I'd pull it to Sparta, while RoP goes and strike Sparta next turn. I'd leave Army as it is to cover troops, scouting, emergency case. Or, in case of emergency fill 1-2 More Knights.
Sure, Just straveTAX + worker. Sell Barracks in Babedy.
OK, it is America, Maya, now Germany. Petential WH from Rome, and may be from Japan.

We do have two 1-Knight armies. I would favor filling one of the armies and kill the Greeks. They are going to be tough. Since all the lands are probably islands and I doubt we'll get to Carracksno one is researching worth squatlet's start using these armies even if that means they are stuck on a landmass.

So Maya is giving WH. Also Celts are a potential source if they renegade on their MA deal. What about Russia? If Russia isn't giving WH, then I will probably sign peace plus MA with them against someone.

I. Larkin · Dec 11, 2008

as I said, try without "big Army", Sensibele idea just have one "2 Knights Army".
Note, that not only army locked, but knights inside.
Thats why I think, may be for future better to have MI Army?
Army may be disbanded fo Library, say.

We can hunt for WH, but the risk is that thi one come and kill russia. If Russia at peace we at leas will know "Russia declate to ..."

Minor thing, but do you sii how to have 2 Knights more near Tiwanuku? (hint: you unload via mini chain 4, and have two 2 MP and two 5 mp Galleys near Diu. 5 mp will brind 4 more and 2 2mp 2 more. (minichain).)

I. Larkin · Dec 12, 2008

Dear All, why nobody write about situation? Or everething clear? Or (because we are not expected to win this) somebody lost intrest? As I know in our team Ignas best Knight expert, but I have not read his coments for a very long time. Really I do not understand what's going on.
Looks that most part of the game will be "island invasion excersise". And (based on our experience) things not goes well sometime. It is important to understand whats going wrong and not to make the same mistakes on next Island. It is hard to analise your own playout, because it is allways impression that "I try my best but RNG...". In fact statistics works in general and we have to adjust to this somehow. Game have many parameters and as soon as we understand the Macro-behavior the better. That's why I did some calculs to find out optimal way and ajust style. Theory based on "simple assumption", that City capture rate proportional to amount of "Knights" and losses proportional to amoun of captured Cities. We may take it from rule of thomb, but better to varify it somehow.
However, no matter, what these coefficients are "SQRT" at post #26 is "universal". Basically it explain what is better on current stage of the game : capture more Cities or save Knights for future players? Answer is "save more Knights is better".
All of us however try to do "opposite", in Ignas, Lanzelot and my turs it was "resonable" but still big. I wonder why? Is it "wrong theory" or it is our intuition wrong? and instead of split Knights to 33 groups better to capture each island in one or two turns?
Few words about

eldar · Dec 12, 2008

I've so far written nothing about the situation because (I think - not sure about DWetzel?) I'm so far the only player not to get involved in "major" combat operations - so apart from what others are saying as they return from the front, I don't really know what it's like "out there".

What I gather from I. Larkin's analysis are the following two basic conclusions:
- Which cities can we abandon/gift to best improve our economy by reducing corruption and waste in our FP core? I think this is covered well enough so I'll go along with the results of the analysis.
- How quickly can we win, given the balance between rate of building knights, and rate of loss of knights? As a corollary to this, what is the optimal strategy for taking AI islands? It would appear that this would be to ignore stacks outside of cities, and capture cities instead, as it will keep more knights healthy. Whilst it would appear that it is low-risk to attack 1- or 2-def units outside cities, these invariably end up with a knight losing 1-2 hps, and sometimes far worse. So (i) moving knights into a city on the turn of capture to assist in MP duty (in which I include quelling resistance) and fortifying them for a counter-attack (if there can be one), then (ii) moving dedicated cheap defenders that are "expendable" as far as flips concerns - i.e. pikes - into the city ASAP thereafter and therefore (iii) moving the knights on towards the next target, seems to be the way to approach invasions.

When taking these concentrated single-AI islands, we need to move quickly, and hanging around waiting for knights to heal after dealing with a stack of archers/spears/etc. is not an efficient use of resources.

Personally I believe we should have included settlers in our invasion stacks, to allow us to raze-and-replace. With long ship-chains in place, we may still be able to employ this against Inca and Greece. How much effort/time would it take to send along a settler+warrior (for disband to rush walls...?) with each stack of knights?

DWetzel · Dec 12, 2008

"All of us however try to do "opposite", in Ignas, Lanzelot and my turs it was "resonable" but still big. I wonder why? Is it "wrong theory" or it is our intuition wrong?"

I think that intuitively it is wrong to delay somewhat--but that may be because we are asking an incorrect question. Or maybe I just am not understanding the math.

It seems that in the present case we are limited more by our ability to bring force to the enemy (e.g galley capacity, and the turn "lost" every time we unload a galley onto land) more than our knight production capacity. Which means that the "optimal" number of knights lost per turn ought to be equivalent to our replacement capacity (which is affected by both our knight production capacity and our ability to bring reinforcements)--because keeping knights available from one conquest to the next is less important because we can't move them anyway. (In this way, you might consider army knights "lost" in our present situation, since once an island is conquered they are essentially useless.)

I have not the mental capacity to put this into equation form, but it seems as though focusing on number of knights lost may not be the "right" question. Intuitively it seems right to bring "just enough" force to each island to attack and defend against counterattacks, assuming that we can produce enough knights in the interim to invade the next island, almost regardless of the result on the first one.

DWetzel · Dec 12, 2008

And in my conclusion I also observe (again) that in terms of pure attacking force, it's almost certainly better to have lots of MI + pikes rather than knights, at least on small islands, because our replacement rate is much higher--and our loss rate shouldn't be that much higher. (We'll lose more pikes probably, but at 30 shields we can lose twice as many of those as we can knights and still come out slightly ahead.) MI loss rates would be higher only if the enemy wades through all our pikes.

I. Larkin · Dec 12, 2008

I've so far written nothing about the situation because (I think - not sure about DWetzel?) I'm so far the only player not to get involved in "major" combat operations - so apart from what others are saying as they return from the front, I don't really know what it's like "out there".

X-mass parties allready, you know...
OK... yes, it is true. And it is very special emotional feeling. Unfortunately it is too many players at the team so we have to learn on Partner's experiences. Cool. Really Tl can't reproduce all emotions that you have when you forced to leave City on Island (your only hope) or did not capture city because of 3 poip - up there...(?) (Veli).

Personally I believe we should have included settlers in our invasion stacks, to allow us to raze-and-replace. With long ship-chains in place, we may still be able to employ this against Inca and Greece. How much effort/time would it take to send along a settler+warrior (for disband to rush walls...?) with each stack of knights?

Settlers are OK, but not warriors to disband for Walls. I think even better if AI re cupture City, we may raze and replace. Co this is cocept of moving bolloid.

I think that intuitively it is wrong to delay somewhat--but that may be because we are asking an incorrect question. Or maybe I just am not understanding the math.

I also... really it is really contra - intuitive math that says, that bepper capture 4 citiesa and lose 4 knights then capturre 8 Cities and lose 8 Knights... Anybody will prefer second , I know...

And in my conclusion I also observe (again) that in terms of pure attacking force, it's almost certainly better to have lots of MI + pikes rather than knights, at least on small islands, because our replacement rate is much higher--and our loss rate shouldn't be that much higher. (We'll lose more pikes probably, but at 30 shields we can lose twice as many of those as we can knights and still come out slightly ahead.) MI loss rates would be higher only if the enemy wades through all our pikes.

From "general point it is correct conclusion, but depends on your stYle.
Really Knights may move fast from City to City (unles, like in roman, all filed by ememy units) and capture them ignore the Tail. Or you have to have very many Galleys to bing them to "position".

Othniel · Dec 12, 2008

Turnset is done

Newest save is here and on the Progress page. Klarius' territory graph is now much steeper and higher than ours. :sad:

Summary:
- We've now cleaned out almost all the forces of Greece and Inca, and probably Korea. The next player should be able to quickly capture the rest of those islands.
- Filled one Army in Greece. I know Ivan and I disagreed a little on this, but I felt strongly it was the right move. I think it's helped alot, both to take down tough city defenders and to cover our big stack so the Greek MDI wouldn't attack us.
- Our core is finally humming along. Most necessary infrastructure is in place and we we're producing lots of horses very quickly.

Rest of the turnlog:

Spoiler :

Handoff Thoughts:
- Greece: Most of Greece's army should be dead. Once our units heal, we should be able to take their cities. Sparta will probably flip, so be careful of leaving units inside
- Iron Connect/Disconnect: I've been using the Iron near Moscow for this purpose. Every other turn, the iron is reconnected and units can be upgraded. I been doing very little short-rushing as a result. Instead,
I've been saving all the money on the off-turn so that we can upgrade more on the connect turn
- City Placement on Homeland: This will need to be carefully done so as to not raise corruption in the FP core
- Some of the tundra near Evora and Braga needs to get forested.
- Shipchaining: Keep on working on getting enough ships so we can stretch a shipchain accross the whole northern hemisphere.
- WLTKD: Be careful to leave MP units in select core cities so that they get WLTKD waste reduction help
- City Builds: I've been building Pikes in a few cities near the coast--Uskadar, and around Sagres and Rio Janeiro. Other cities in the center have been building horses. Almost all corrupt cities are either on galleys or settlers
- Lisbon: MM this once the current knight is built. Lisbon can do 24 shields with a little tweaking to get 3 turn knights
- Army: we have a one knight army in Greece. Be careful to not load units inside (unless in an emergency) so that that army can be used on next island attack, probably Mongols.

Can't really post a screenshot of our progress. Map is too big. But I will post a screenie here soon on my idea of a dotmap for filling the rest of the FP core.

I. Larkin · Dec 12, 2008

Summary:
- We've now cleaned out almost all the forces of Greece and Inca, and probably Korea. The next player should be able to quickly capture the rest of those islands.
- Filled one Army in Greece. I know Ivan and I disagreed a little on this, but I felt strongly it was the right move. I think it's helped alot, both to take down tough city defenders and to cover our big stack so the Greek MDI wouldn't attack us.
- Our core is finally humming along. Most necessary infrastructure is in place and we we're producing lots of horses very quickly.

balsam on my wounded soul...

Now D-Wetzel's turn to be Niff - Niff and Nuff - nuff. Or he will be Naff - Naff?

Why 2 Cities in Celtia? We need only 1!

Othniel · Dec 12, 2008

I think I disagree with eldar and DWetzel on invasion strategy.

First off, we can't "poof" away island defenders by killing all their cities. So we're forced to basically kill each and every defender to secure an island. Moreover, the flip risks on newly captured cities, especially if it is our first foothold on the island, are astronomically high. For instance, Sparta has been running a 17%-34% flip risk range. That's extremely high, and I'm almost shocked it hasn't flipped yet. Thirdly, we are fighting civs that have either spears or pikes (up to 3 defense) and also swords or MDI (up to 4 attack). So I feel it is in our best statistical favor to attack their units more than let them attack us.

So, my strategy so far has been:
- Land in a huge stack
- Capture a port city
- Evacuate that port city, and camp our units in a couple of stacks around the city
- Kill all of that AI's "field units" as they come to recapture their city.
- Finally, when their field army is mostly dead, start to advance on the rest of their cities and finish them off.

Some drawbacks to this strategy have been:
- Slower progress at first because we aren't capturing their cities quickly
- Slower healing because units haven't been using the cities to heal
- If the AI has horses, we are forced to defend the beachhead city more strongly

But I think it has the big pros of lessening our exposure to flip risk losses, and more importantly, getting the AI to come to us so that we kill their units when they are unfortified and hopefully, on flat ground.

One big strategy improvement could, indeed, be for us to go on raze and replace streak. But we need Settler Factories running in our core for that. Up until now, our horse production has been pretty evenly matching our ability to upgrade, but now that our core seems mostly improved, I expect our horse production to skyrocket. So perhaps building a couple of granaries and going for factories could be a very good move.

Also, revisiting the Pike/MDI vs Knight question, I think undoubtedly our Knight strategy is superior. Yes, knights have retreat, and no, they can't be built as fast as Pikes/MDI. But the critical thing in these island invasions is keeping our forces Concentrated. I cannot say that loudly or strongly enough. I made some mistakes on that early on in my turnset, and I think fragmenting our forces is the big mistake we made earlier in the game. By Concentrated, I mean we keep our units in stacks of 5+ until an island has been "cleared". Also, by concentrated, I mean we don't attack a fresh island with less than 25 units. Plus, we need reinforcements immediately available for that invasion. Knights have a huge advantage in concetration, especially in the first kind (keeping units in stacks of 5+), because they can go out to kill a unit and retreat back to protective cover. This is huge!

One note to DWetzel: Using shipchains and a port city, we don't have to burn turns moving our knights to the front. As soon as they land in the port city, they are ready to fight.

Also as a side-note, if we have an ROP during the landing phase, I think it might be a good thought to position our troops such before the rape, that we can best kill the AI's attack field units that are wandering around their island.

As a final thought, perhaps a big reason for Klarius' much steeper territory curve is indeed the ToA on their landmass. So perhaps their island invasions aren't going that much smashingly better than ours. Maybe wishful thinking, but a comforting thought nonetheless.

SGOTM 14 - Ivan

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