SGOTM 14 - One Short Straw

Yes, I only used CR III maces and I attacked a fully fortified rifleman on a hill from sea. Here are the results:

1. 4 maces
2. 10 maces (had to attack archers)
3. 10 maces
4. 6 maces
5. 8 maces
6. 12 maces (had to attack archers)
7. 5 maces
8. 15 maces (had to attack archers)
9. 8 maces
10. 4 maces

I never used our warlord unit.

Attached is the save. I'll be back in about 3 hours if more testing is needed.
 

Attachments

We have yet to figure out a LB date. Should we also test with LB's for now?
Edit: Ais got it during your set, LC. Could you find out the exact dates?

Can we also test amphibious vs. CR3?
 
babybluepants said:
Can we usefully switch EP to someone else, or do we just forget about it at this stage? Mansa/Shaka is the only other option, I guess.
If there is an AI Team that hasn't spent too many EPs on us then yeah, we could switch to a different Espionage target.

It may not matter too much, but even having a little bit of EPs invested will make it proportionally a lot harder for the AIs to get a good relative EP rate... perhaps enough to hide our Cities, perhaps not, but it can't hurt to try since the game will be ending soon.


LowtherCastle said:
Btw, absolutely NO! on Buddhism.
Fine by me. No State Religion it is. We'll get better Cultural Border expansion in non-Buddhist Cities this way anyway.
 
We have yet to figure out a LB date. Should we also test with LB's for now?
Edit: Ais got it during your set, LC. Could you find out the exact dates?
I'll check that and also try to find the formula for the AIs. The problem is, in SG5 we didn't have teams, so I'm not sure how that plays into it. I guess we'll have to assume worst-case scenario, 4 players out of 9 knew it up till it was 4 out of 8. DO you have any idea where Silu described it?
 
I seem to remember a special case where if all teams know a tech (or maybe all teams minus 1 team), the Barbs instantly learn a tech. That said, I may have dreamed up that idea, but it's been tickling at the back of my mind.
 
I can't test right now, but if I have a chance I will. Can we possibly build 15 three-promotion maces and get them all to the Wiz (requires 5 galleons to be all the way there too) in time and still meet our other warring goals? If not, we may need to use some vetran troops to take down the Wizard, which will slow down our domination a bit.
 
Actually, Mitchum raises a good point:

Should we perhaps skip over an AI and attack someone that is further away and then use newly-created troops to attack the AI that we passed by?

I'm not exactly sure where our forces are, but an example could be to skip going after Shaka and either head straight to the Wizard or head to Mansa (or even to Monte if we have a few large-sized Cities that give us 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes)... then leaving Shaka to be handled by newly-created troops?

Similarly, if Gandhi's Cities are reasonably lightly defended, maybe we can go after him instead of Genghis (again, if we have sufficient 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes) and then use newly-built troops to take down Genghis?
 
PPP big-picture ideas

With so many cities producing, we have a lot of variables on what to build where. The bottom line is units to the front followed by settlers to their locations. Galleon chaining has three facets:

1) Lengthening the chain
2) Galleon clusters branching out at the end for multiple city attacks
3) Galleon clusters leap-frogging cities as new units arrive and old units heal.

Galleons built at the base can be used to lengthen the chain. Galleons builts close the front can help form clusters.

Galleon chaining and leap-frogging can basically drive our military planning and thus our production queues. So the first thing to do is to map out the best routes.

Zululand will require two routes, north and south. The southern route will end closest to Oz, so that chain will require a cluster of 5 galleons, based on Mitch's testsing. The northern route is landlocked by the 3-tile wide spoke, so that cluster is the bare minimum needed.

GK will likewise require two routes, north and southeast.

We need to work out the details on these four routes. How many galleons, how many units. Then we can figure out the builds in the cities and figure out where we can build settlers instead of galleons and units.
 
Can we possibly build 15 three-promotion maces and get them all to the Wiz (requires 5 galleons to be all the way there too) in time and still meet our other warring goals? If not, we may need to use some vetran troops to take down the Wizard, which will slow down our domination a bit.
We need to capture cities first because we waant them to come out of resistance for our domination count.

Should we perhaps skip over an AI and attack someone that is further away and then use newly-created troops to attack the AI that we passed by?
No time. We basically need to capture 26 cities in the next 13 turns. We can't afford to re-trace steps or double back. This has to be chaining and leap-frogging. We need units landing at two cities per turn. With four fronts, that means a SoD at each front every other turn. We don't have time to go visiting Gandhi for a picnic... ;)

That's said, our war economy has basically been keeping our reserves stable, even though we now up to a deficit of 200gpt. So my thining is that we'll need to continue attacking even if we do finish off all four of these AIs in the next 13 turns, just to keep the cash flowing in. The alternative would be to delete the units and run commerce everywhere. We'll see which is better. Maybe a combination. Maybe we'll attack till the units die off, while runing commerce in our cities.
 
"Playing."

Five minutes from now I'm going to take the most recent save and move the explorer in western Zululand. I'd like to know that information for planning's sake.
 
LowtherCastle said:
Maybe we'll attack till the units die off, while runing commerce in our cities.
There is War Weariness to worry about.

That said, if units built near the end won't contribute much or anything to the fighting, then we might just have to switch to Wealth in a lot of places. Whipping Courthouses may also be of use.

Since the units that are furthest away get deleted in a Strike, we don't want to lose units when we go to attack the Wizard, as then the Wizard could survive and promote up the Drill line. THEN the Wizard would become very scary. ;)
 
"Done playing."

Uploaded. I moved the epxlorer and the scout. Zululand has another healthy chunk of tiles, but then what looks liek a 1-tile snake toward Mansa and a 1-tile connnection to those mountains. My guess is that what looks liek an island to the north of those mountains is also connected to our landmass. We still don't know about GK's tile count, but we have a better idea of Shaka's.
 
I'm more worried about the wizard than I am reaching the domination limit. I think that both will be tough but to have the right units healthy and ready to attack all at the same time on the far end of the globe is going to be tough. If we can't muster 15 CRIII maces, which isn't likely, we may need to rely on a mix of vetran WEs and maces that have had time to heal. We may want to plan on having 18 units (6 galleons full) just in case.

I like the idea of chaining and leap frogging. Two cities per turn should be doable with the massive production base we have. The biggest issue will the logistics of having the right mix of units on the right front at the right time. :crazyeye: Where are Gnejis and Erkon when you need them! :D

EDIT: Add to all of this the need for a handful of settlers and we've got our work cut out for us.
 
PPP first draft

GK Theater
Note 1: Our info is old--his culture may have expnded, his cities may have walls. Hence, all ideas are FLEXIBLE.
Note 2: His keshik stack in Tabriz is a warning. Let's not get hosed right off the bat.

T+1 We dump 3 galleon-loads at Samarqand-1N. These galleons continue north, picking up units from Nottingham. Chained units get dumped in/at Samaqand to walk to Mystery City (assuming it's really there--the culture pattern should gives us clues). At this point, we're capturing any city possble while developing our two galleon fronts, first Northern, then Saraian. So galleons always keep moving forward. No backtracking.

attachment.php


T+2 and beyond: Keep pushing units northward, dropping a stack at Beshbalik when possible, while moving further westward. When the northern front can't take any more units, we should have started to develop our chain toward Old Sarai and we push a stack there.

Ragnar Theater
Capture Bjorgvin and Jelling EDIT: and Roskild on or before T153 and immediately CF. CF on T153 at the latest, no matter what. Ragnar's last city will be captured in 1t, preferably on T154 so we don't have to give up some city because of his lousy proposal and probably independent of the Shaka Theater, or before taking that mini-stack toward Nodwengu. Ragnar's last city might autoraze, but if not, let's keep it (along with all the other cities). We can just settle the dotmap city 1 tile further west, no probs. Btw, the last proposal FAILED because Shaka voted No!

Shaka Theater
I haven't developed this, but I assume the Southern Front should take priority, just as the Northern did for GK, simply because we want to get our galleons moving westward toward Oz asap. As for the Northeastern Front, note that all three cities, Bulawayo, Nobamba, and Nodwengu would be nice at 100:culture:, so we'd like to get them asap for that reason alone. (The southern cities don't need 100:culture:.) We also need to settle and well fortify Zulu Mountain Pass asap, and that would allow our northeastern chain to start with Bulawayo, if that works better. ONce we capture a couple cities westward, the MOuntain Pass doesn't need fortifications. That city will require very careful MM to get to 100:culture: because it's a piece of crap.

With this plan taking shape, we can start planning the city builds.

City MM (In order the cities appear when scrolling through them.)
Washington: Fire sci. Build trebs. Needs a fort at Bridge-2N for galleon chaining units.
Gems: Galleons
Pigs: Work 2 merchants, 1 sci for 2t, then 2 and 2. (We prolly won't start the next GA till T163, so there's no hurry anyway, except we'd like Pigs producing again...)
Stone: units, plainsriver tile could be farmed, but lower priority than war efforts, like forts for galleon chaining
Ivory: Maces (trebs if we need instant accuracy for walls). Settle GG here. CHeck MM after trading for firs.
Marble: galeeons
Silver: units
Panama: units, galleons, if necessary
Bridge: galleons
Madurai: 2pop units at pop4, 2pop theater as per bbp's schedule.
Bombay: 2pop units liberally, may need garrison soon
Ahmedabad: galleons
Agra: Assign mine for theater in 2t. Work 2f3c rather than 3f. Then units, as needed.
Vijay: 2pop galleons asap
Lahore: units
Madras: Switch build to mace, 2pop next turn, OF back to treb and complete. 2pop units at pop5.
Jute: Put granary OF into settler (1t), then grow to 2pop of settler. Save northern chops till Roskild's culture subsumes them.
Hyber: switch build to theater, 2pop next turn. Units.
Birka: Build culture this turn (!), then complete the theater, then whip a granary
Pragaya: Build theater using hammers and chop (we want 100:culture: here). Workers finish that chop, road(1t) then pasture sheep, then chop granary, finish wb, build a settler.
Apache: galleons
York: galleons
Nidaros: culture (1t), theater, units/settlers. The worker will finish the chop when we're building culture. WIll we lose those hammers?
Canterbury: This city is a useless piece of crump. I suggest we build/chop a lh and just let it grow, working the best 2f tiles available. Eventually the two hills could be windmilled, if we have spare wkr turns. After the lh, just build wealth.
Hastings: BUild/chop theater (not culture). On T+out-of-resistance, MM to assign best tiles from Apache and Canterbury, to complete theater in 2t. We could build settlers or units here. If settlers, it's faster to just stay at pop7 and build them by hand. This city could crank out a lot of units, but do we need them more than settlers?
London: BUild theater and 2pop on next turn. Then I don't know what.
NY: Would have been better to build culture since there's allready a fishing net and cow pasture, but now finish wb, then build culture. Then galleons.
Haithaban: Immeidately assign forest hill so Haithaban can expand borders in 2t, then build I don't konw what.
Uppsala: culture, theater, then whip units or keep Uppsala large for lucrative TRs? By the time it comes out of resistance, Ragnar should be DEAD, so this city might be happy enough. We'll see how badly we need the units in 8t.
COventry: Another lousy city. Culture-granary-growth+commerce? or units?

Trading
T+0 Bananas for firs
We might consider trading Monty and/or Mansa more resources, just to get the pluspoints. If we can get one of them to pleased, they might be willing to join the war against GK. Let them beat each other down a bit.

Okay, that's it for me tonight. Let me know what you guys think...
 
Looks good, LC. :thumbsup: Comments on cities in red:
City MM (In order the cities appear when scrolling through them.)
Washington: Fire sci. Build trebs. Needs a fort at Bridge-2N for galleon chaining units.
Gems: Galleons
Pigs: Work 2 merchants, 1 sci for 2t, then 2 and 2. (We prolly won't start the next GA till T163, so there's no hurry anyway, except we'd like Pigs producing again...)
Stone: units, plainsriver tile could be farmed, but lower priority than war efforts, like forts for galleon chaining
Ivory: Maces (trebs if we need instant accuracy for walls). Settle GG here. CHeck MM after trading for firs.
Marble: galeeons
Silver: units
Panama: units, galleons, if necessary
Bridge: galleons
Madurai: 2pop units at pop4, 2pop theater as per bbp's schedule.
Bombay: 2pop units liberally, may need garrison soon
Ahmedabad: galleons
Agra: Assign mine for theater in 2t. Work 2f3c rather than 3f. Then units, as needed.
Vijay: 2pop galleons asap
Lahore: units
Madras: Switch build to mace, 2pop next turn, OF back to treb and complete. 2pop units at pop5.
Jute: Put granary OF into settler (1t), then grow to 2pop of settler. Save northern chops till Roskild's culture subsumes them.
Which northern chops? In Jute's borders or beyond?
Hyber: switch build to theater, 2pop next turn. Units.
Birka: Build culture this turn (!), then complete the theater, then whip a granary
Nice. :)
Pragaya: Build theater using hammers and chop (we want 100:culture: here). Workers finish that chop, road(1t) then pasture sheep, then chop granary, finish wb, build a settler.
Apache: galleons
York: galleons
Nidaros: culture (1t), theater, units/settlers. The worker will finish the chop when we're building culture. WIll we lose those hammers?
No
Canterbury: This city is a useless piece of crump. I suggest we build/chop a lh and just let it grow, working the best 2f tiles available. Eventually the two hills could be windmilled, if we have spare wkr turns. After the lh, just build wealth.
I think use the chops on a unit or two.
Hastings: BUild/chop theater (not culture). On T+out-of-resistance, MM to assign best tiles from Apache and Canterbury, to complete theater in 2t. We could build settlers or units here. If settlers, it's faster to just stay at pop7 and build them by hand. This city could crank out a lot of units, but do we need them more than settlers?
Not sure. Doesn't seem like we have many unit builders, and this is closer to the war theater.
London: BUild theater and 2pop on next turn. Then I don't know what.
Ho about a WB for the nice lake clam? Then some units or settlers.
NY: Would have been better to build culture since there's allready a fishing net and cow pasture, but now finish wb, then build culture. Then galleons.
Fair enough. You could build culture this turn, as the chop is completing next anyway. Btw, it was auto-named New York, and I like how appropriate it's placement is...
Haithaban: Immeidately assign forest hill so Haithaban can expand borders in 2t, then build I don't konw what.
What forest hill? Units here. Be nice to get farms, but I doubt we have worker turns.
Uppsala: culture, theater, then whip units or keep Uppsala large for lucrative TRs? By the time it comes out of resistance, Ragnar should be DEAD, so this city might be happy enough. We'll see how badly we need the units in 8t.
What do we gain with this theater? 1 tile? Ok, I guess. 10+ turns is pretty far along. Let's see how it's going.
COventry: Another lousy city. Culture-granary-growth+commerce? or units?
Could get theater after culture for 1 extra tile.
 
Trading
T+0 Bananas for firs
We might consider trading Monty and/or Mansa more resources, just to get the pluspoints. If we can get one of them to pleased, they might be willing to join the war against GK. Let them beat each other down a bit.
Obviously yes on the fur trade.
You can give them resources for now, but I doubt we'll get them into war. Not sure we want to. Given our timeline, they won't get any fighting done and we have to give away a tech to get that fake war started.
 
LowtherCastle said:
Washington: Fire sci.
That idea got me thinking: at the end, we can not only build Wealth but slip into Caste System for running Merchants in Cities that don't need Cultural Border expansion (while running the obvious Artist Specialists in Cities that do need Cultural Border expansion.

I wonder when we'll be forced to give up on Slavery in favour of Caste System... within the last couple of turns only?


LowtherCastle said:
The worker will finish the chop when we're building culture. WIll we lose those hammers?
In Civ 4 Vanilla, you would lose the Hammers. In BtS, you will keep them for use in your next non-Culture, non-Wealth, and non-Research build, although you've have to spend at least 1 turn building said build item in order to "realise" the Hammers.

If, for example, you want 2 Forest Chops to go into a build item and want to build Culture for the rest of the turns, you can just build Culture until the second Chop comes in and then only spend 1 turn not building Culture... if doing so would help in any way (I don't see how it would help, but whatever).


LowtherCastle said:
If we can get one of them to pleased, they might be willing to join the war against GK.
You need an Attitude level that is rounded down... so if both are Cautious, getting only one of them to Pleased will still keep them at an average of Cautious. If, however, one is Annoyed, then getting the other to Pleased would bring the average up to Cautious.


LowtherCastle said:
Eventually the two hills could be windmilled
This point gets me thinking: did we capture The Hagia Sophia (for speeding up our Worker turns)? If not, are there plans to do so anytime soon or at all?
 
babybluepants said:
You can give them resources for now, but I doubt we'll get them into war.
Do they share a common Religion that we could consider temporarily switching to or would the loss of Culture in other Cities be too costly to even consider such an idea?
 
PPP first draft

GK Theater
Note 1: Our info is old--his culture may have expnded, his cities may have walls. Hence, all ideas are FLEXIBLE.
Note 2: His keshik stack in Tabriz is a warning. Let's not get hosed right off the bat.

T+1 We dump 3 galleon-loads at Samarqand-1N. These galleons continue north, picking up units from Nottingham. Chained units get dumped in/at Samaqand to walk to Mystery City (assuming it's really there--the culture pattern should gives us clues). At this point, we're capturing any city possble while developing our two galleon fronts, first Northern, then Saraian. So galleons always keep moving forward. No backtracking.

attachment.php


T+2 and beyond: Keep pushing units northward, dropping a stack at Beshbalik when possible, while moving further westward. When the northern front can't take any more units, we should have started to develop our chain toward Old Sarai and we push a stack there.
I would have said to attack Old Sarai and Beshbalik first. Old Sarai and Sarmatian seem about equal for canal purposes, without knowing more. It doesn't really matter. This is about keeping going, so I'm more worried about the unit flow then sequence of attack. We still have some WE's around this front, so I'm also not really worried about Keshiks. Keep track of any workers or loose siege, though. Keshiks are fast and tricky.

In the end, we want any remaining units in decent position. Going north to south might let us push into Monte a bit at the end. Anyway, ending up on the spoke with most units is probably best.

Edit: xpost w Dhoom
 
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