SGOTM 14 - klarius

[Northern Pike]

Excellent, thanks. So a useful way of thinking about it is that we need about 29 land or coastal tiles for each 1%.

 

[TheOverseer714]

691 tiles needed, according to CA2. I think what that means is we will need to take pretty much everything left or get lots of cultural pops. It will probably be somewhere in between. I will begin play tonight, but don't expect speed, this things grown into a many-tentacled beast.

 

[Northern Pike]

Take as much time as you need. The only thing we object to is a period in which no one's playing at all.

Just to be sure, do you know how to operate the ship chains Rat has set up?

The question of whether to attack Germany or Greece next is complicated, and more input from the team would be welcome. The Germans will have musketmen, but OTOH the Greeks may have any number of their cheap Hoplites. If we bypass Greece we may never get back to it, given the geography. The route through Germany leads eventually to more land, since China is large. I think the decisive factor is simply that given the deployment of our Carracks, we can get to grips with Germany considerably sooner, so that's my choice.

Putting together an optimal plan for settling Mongolia is difficult, but it's clear that the settler now on a desert tile in the west should not settle there, but on the plains tile with a road to its SW, after which the new town should rush a temple. The concentration of tiles in NW Germany on which we'll never be able to found cities requires this. The settler on a hill in Mongolia can found there. Eventually we'll want at least two more settlers in Mongolia than the four we've got, to poach the sites three E of Ta-tu and three SE of Ta-tu from the Greeks.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The ship chain could use a bit more explanation with bigger pictures. The differential movement is something I only see in SGOTMs, so it can be a pain. The Greeks could be tough, but the Germans need taken out ASAP, since being Sci/Mil might lead to them researching MT. I for one don't want to fight Cavalry.

 

[Northern Pike]

About differential naval movement, I can't say anything except that coastal tiles cost three movement points, sea tiles two, and ocean tiles and port cities one, and studying your ship's route to move it through the cheapest tiles (for example, the two ocean tiles south of Machu Picchu) is important, if a PITA.

The basic principle of ship chaining is that a ground unit which still has movement can transfer from one ship to another in the same tile at no cost in MP, and so can move much farther in a given turn than one ship could take it. As an example--which will involve some arbitrary assumptions, since our chain is imperfect at the moment --the cav unit now in a Carrack in Medina could take that ship to the nearby stack of two Carracks; get on one of those and sail to Paris; disembark, cross France, and board an imaginary Carrack at Rheims; take that, exploiting the presence of the two ocean tiles in the area, to the stack of two Carracks off Niagara Falls; board one of those; and finally, if the last two Carracks in the chain still had their movement, land on Germany's desert/saltpetre tile, all in one turn. The fundamental idea is that we should reinforce our now-distant fronts like this, not by the excessively slow procedure of just loading Carracks up on our continent and sailing them to the active theatres. Even if your operation of the ship chains is less than ideal, it'll be a lot faster than that. A two-turn rhythm, in which the ship chain lands units on one turn and resets on the next, is acceptable.

 

[ThERat]

I agree to go and attack Germany. With the many armies we have that should not be an issue.
Remember, I did only get 1 MGL though I had many elite victories. We should use a MGL and rush the Mil Academy in a city that needs border expansions. It would make our armies less vulnerable.

About the naval movements. It's a little complicated, but you can use the cursor as an indication which is the fastest path (which would be through open water of course). We do have plenty of carracks around that only really need to jump into action when we make big landings. Other than that, it should be such an issue and I wouldn't rush them any more.

We have a lot of land to settle, especially in Mongolia.

 

[greatbeyond]

I'll try to look at the new save tonight and post any decent ideas in the morning.

NP, if you're running Vista, CAII won't work as the Net framework is somehow changed/incompatible with Vista. I have searched for a resolution to this without much luck, so now I have been reduced to using Mapstat. While a good utility, it is not quite as informative as CAII. If we could only get the source code for CAII recompiled for Vista we'd be all set.

One thing to keep in mind while ship chaining is the chance of sinking in the Ocean. I can't remember if we have the GL and Astro if it is the same risk of sinking.

One alternative to abandoning cities (if in danger of flip risk or being recaptured) is to gift them to a Civ we are going to be declaring war on. If it flips back to the original owner, we retake it. If not, when we attack the Civ we gifted it to, we get it back.

 

[Northern Pike]

Thanks for the informative response , though I'm not running Vista, so the mystery continues. I'm glad to be reminded of Mapstat, anyway.

According to the Civilopedia Carracks don't sink in ocean tiles.

Overseer, I'll remind you that the real job of the workers presently clearing a jungle tile outside Hlobane is to clear the marsh tile just to the east of that, so that we can found a town there before the end.

 

[Elephantium]

NP, do you have the .NET 1.1, 2, or 3 framework installed? IIRC, you need 1.1 specifically - having 2 or 3 installed won't do the trick. Strange system, if you ask me. I'm still not sure what MS was thinking on that, not making them cumulative.

 

[Northern Pike]

Bizarre, and that's the problem, all right--I've got 1.3. I'll have to look into whether it's possible to downgrade.

 

[Elephantium]

You shouldn't need to downgrade per se, just install the 1.1 framework in addition to what you've already got.

 

[TheOverseer714]

By the way, I am playing, and I can concentrate, now that my Christmas vacation has begun. Hopefully I am advancing the ball and can avoid a fumble. We are at 46/53 on my 3rd turn. I have rushed Temples, hoping to capture Sea tiles and get our Domination territory faster. Any help or suggestions, please feel free to comment.

 

[Northern Pike]

That sounds like excellent progress for three turns. I hope you meant to refer to coastal tiles above, because actual sea tiles do not contribute to domination.

Remember that if you want detailed advice, it's perfectly all right to post a midway save.

 

[Vind2]

One thing i recomend is to keep an eye on the retired civs to make sure neighbors at the retirement village aren't at war.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Here is my mid-set save, I am also noticing a technical issue with marsh clearing, so hopefully Renata can take a look also.

 

[Elephantium]

@ Vind2: Yes, keeping the retired civs from killing each other is critical

@ Overseer: I couldn't clear the marsh on our continent that was outside of our culture borders. I didn't manage to check marsh inside of our territory.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The Arabs and Zulu are the ones that want to kill each other right now. As long as they are kept apart we're okay there. The others are limited by having 1 move units, so they will be watched. Things are going well, I think we are 2-3 turnsets from winning the game, then we'll see about the competition.

 

[Elephantium]

Heh. I probably won't even play another turnset in this game!

 

[TheOverseer714]

Very much a possibility. I went from 42% land to 48% in the first half of my turnset and there are still a bunch of cultural expansions due from rushed Temples. We may need to get several worker factories in gear so that we can boost population fast. If anything will slow us down, it would be slow growth.

 

[Northern Pike]

Very good progress so far. I like "Wooly Bully". Some points of detail:

1. The army in Persia can land in Korea as a stack anchor next turn if it uses a three-ship chain through Arbela, so we should be certain to do this.

2. Don't forget about rushing settlers in recently captured cities to reduce the flip risk, especially in the Aztec lands.

3. Veii would be a particularly cost-effective place to rush a temple.

4. We should take the secondary Aztec island as soon as we're in position to ship units through Tenochtitlan. To take the whole main island and then move units backward to do this would be a waste of time.

5. Be careful with the army on the Aztec island--at 5/9 HP it will be attacked, I think.

6. The most important non-obvious thing you need to do is make sure that Carracks are in position for our next landings by the end of your round. We'll want them at the Aztec-Hittite and German-Mayan crossings.