SGOTM 14 - Spooks

[Paul#42]

As best as I can tell, we declared on the Aztecs and Rome's peace treaty has been tied to an alliance up to markh's first turn. We told him to "cancel" that deal, and I think he cancelled the whole thing, peace and all.

That's what happens if you ask an AW-player to negotiate trades...

Or stay at war and have them be the target of the Russian forces.

Russian Forces won't leave our continent in remarkable numbers...
No need to bribe any of those two.

I had once started to pillage roads in those tundra residences.
It won't prevent speedy Shaka from backstabbing anybody though...

 

[ControlFreak]

That's what happens if you ask an AW-player to negotiate trades...

Russian Forces won't leave our continent in remarkable numbers...

I was referring to our units that will need a new target after rolling over Russia/Babylon. I hope they do leave our continent in HUGE numbers!

I like the idea of pillaging tundra roads. Our bigger problem is that we've got 10 turns from the time the tundra prison becomes their capitol before some of our prison sites can no longer be founded without an act of war. We need to get some settlers in key positions ASAP and prioritize settling based on the ones that will be consumed by culture.

 

[denyd]

Progress Report through 4 turns:

Summary: Russia is an OCC, Mayans just landed 2 units and preparing to start off island adventures.

Turn 0 – 190 BC – Start by MMing looking for optimal shield counts – We have a couple of settler builds about 2 complete in size 2 towns – I add a worker to each to save wasting shields – Sell off barracks in Medina & Zimbabwe & Market in Zimbabwe – Sign peace with Zulu getting Literature & Monarchy – Trade Chivalry to Russia for Invention + 10g – Trade Chivalry to Greece for 25gpt + 60g – Trade Chivalry to Germany for 244g – Trade Republic to Iroquois for 5gpt + 20g – Time for war with Catherine – Declare on Russia

Battle for Yaroslev:
V.Knight (3/4) kills R.Spear and captures Yaroslev – starts a worker
Crusader captures 2 slaves
Knight captures 2 slaves

Battle for Yakutsk:
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Pike (3/4)
V.Knight (3/4) kills V.Pike and captures Yakutsk starts worker

Battle for Rostov:
E.Horse (3/5) kills R.Spear
E.Knight loses to R.Spear (2/3)
V.Knight kills R.Spear and captures Rostov starts worker

Position remaining Knights for assaults on Russian cities

IBT: V.Knight (2/4) defends against R.MDI - Damascus Settler->Settler - SS Knight->Knight - Najran Settler->Wealth (for 2 turns) - Babylon starts Great Library

Turn 1 – 170 BC –
Assault on Yekaterinburg
Knight Army (7/14) kills V.Pike (treb miss)
V.Knight loses to R.Pike (1/3)
V,Knight (2/4) kills R.Pike and captures Yekaterinburg & treb – starts worker

Assault on Novgorod:
V.Knight (4/4) kills V.Pike
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from R.Pike (2/3)
R,Knight loses to R.Pike (2/4) promotes

Assault on St Petersburg:
V.Knight (4/4) kills R.Spear
V.Knight (4/4) kills R.Spear and captures St Petersburg & a worker – starts worker

Sign peace with Babylon giving Uskudar

IBT: No Russian counterattack - QQ Pike->Pike - BB Pike->Pike - DD Pike->Pike – MM Pike->Pike

Turn 2 – 150 BC – Assault on Novgorod:
V.Knight (1/4) kills V.Pike
V.Knight retreats from V.Pike (4/4)
V.Knight retreats from V.Pike (3/4)
V.Knight loses to V.Pike (2/4)
V.Knight (2/4) kills V.Pike capturing Novgorod and a worker starts a worker
V.Knight captures worker

Found Master Gracey’s Mansion & Jungle Terror

IBT: Nothing much – CC barracks->pike – HH Knight->Knight – GG Knight->Knight – AA Knight->Knight – XX Pike->Pike – Russia starts Great Library in Moscow

Turn 3 – 130 BC – V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Spear – V.Knight (3/4) kills V.Spear – Trade Literature to Sumer for 62g

IBT: LB (2/4) kills V.Knight – Mayans land 1 spear & 1 Warrior – Golden Age is over – Yaroslv worker->worker

Turn 4 – 110 BC – Assault on Vladivostok:
V.Knight (2/4) kills R.Pike
E.Knight (5/5) kills R.Spear and captures Vladivistok starts a worker

Assault on Ellipi:
V.Knight (2/4) kills R.Pike
V.Knight (5/5) kills R.Pike and promotes and captures Ellipi starts worker

Assault on Moscow:
Knight Army (9/14) kills V.Pike
V.Knight loses to V.Pike (3/4)
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Pike (3/4)
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Pike (2/4)
V.Knight loses to R.Pike (1/3)
V.Knight (3/4) kills R.Pike
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Pike (3/4)
V.Knight (1/4) retreats from V.Pike (2/4)
E.Knight (3/5) kills V.Spear
V.Knight (3/5) kills V.Pike and promotes
V,Knight loses to V.Pike (2/4)
E.Knight (3/5) kills V.Pike and promotes
E.Knight (4/5) kills V.Pike and captures Moscow (with Mausoleum) & worker
V.Knight (3/4) kills V.LB

Decide to call it a night and let the team point me where in the next direction.

My thoughts on what’s next. I expect the Mayan visitors to do something dumb, so I’ll be moving troops that direction. I’ve got 5 galleys & 10 knights ready for the Celts and 6 galleys awaiting the knights from Russia for France. I’ll need to MM all over again and I really haven’t rushed much of anything (2262g w/265gpt in treasury)

 

[Yilar]

Why are you building pikes? We should only be building knights and horses to upgrade. Use the massive amount of gold we got to short rush knights or galleys and to upgrade horses.

Why haven't we invaded celts yet? It is crucial we begin our offshore activities as soon as possible. Heck we could send all knights towards france or celts and use the army to take the last 2 babylon cities. We are by no means in a rush to take the continent, it will all come down to how fast we capture the islands in the end.

 

[Paul#42]

Shouldn't we build more workers in CC?
Or do we have sufficient slaves and no places to join workers left?

Agree with Yilar we should start to take islands right away.
I also did not see that our army will stay at home to ensure the civil order...
Remember to taker (native!) settlers with the first waves wo establish beach heads.
Raze and Replace is more important on islands than on our homeland.

We had "agreed" to build a couple of pikes to secure beach heads on hostile islands. No need as long as we can do rop-raping.

 

[denyd]

I was under the impression that task #1 was take out Russia and it took everything we had to get that done. As stated, I plan on loading up 10 Knights for the Celtic island this turn. Another 12 Knights will be heading for our shore accross from France and should be landing in about 3-4 turns. The Army will be healed and then sent to remove Hammy from his original homeland to our exile location.

Excellent point as far as switching from pikes to horses, though I did want to replace some of our home land defending knights with something cheaper. I probably should have used MDI as they'd be able to remove any interlopers with their higher attack factor.

With the Celts & France lacking iron, I wasn't planning on using ROP rape as the worst we can expect is archers, spears or horsemen and our Knights should be able to run over that combination. I will be gifting the Celts Wraith's Wasteland this turn and founding spots for Joanie & another tribe (Abe) very soon. We're short settlers to run a raze & replace on these islands, so I was planning on keeping the cities.

I plan on picking this up again for a couple of turns tonight with completion scheduled for Wednesday.

 

[Yilar]

Celts has iron. Also don't forget to gift them cities before attacking

Btw Rome is average to us even with our 43 knights and 7 pikes hmm..

 

[ControlFreak]

Nice Job with Russia!

I thought we were going to be building two turn settlers from CC for the duration of the GA. That would have put us ahead in settlers for both the prisons and the raze and replace operations.

I still think the Celts are lowere priority in much the same way that our continent was lower priority. We want to be extending the galleys as quickly as possible. My previous post mentioned attacking India then Mayan and then making strikes from the Mayan continent. The strategy could be modified to use some other continent as the base of operations, but most are either farther away, or involve more coastal tiles to circumnavigate to the various targets. Eitherway, with France and Celts being so close to our homeland, we can easily get them on wave two or wave three and not loose out in the overall timeline.

I think knights make better homeland defenders because of their mobility. I know they're expensive, but they're better build and shuffled forward than leaving pikes or medi's on guard duty trying to cover targets they might not be able to reach in time.

Also, we need to have a plan for handling flips both on our continent and on foreign islands.

 

[Paul#42]

Just a few thoughts on the save:
1. Zulus and Babylon are still at war. We need to protect Uskudar from Shaka.
2. No sense in mining those BGs N or UU.
3. Bad tile allocation for almost all core towns.
We need to shuffle tiles and short-rush so we reduce waste!!
4. corrupt towns (Badajoz, Castelo Branco, São Mamede) should max food! No rax there, just settlers!
5. cash-rush settlers in any corrupt town that is about to grow to three. cash-rush. Switch worker builds to settlers unless there are just foreign people in town and it's larger than size 1.
6. Disband cats to rush settlers or slaves.
7. Rush slaves in 100% foreign towns when resistance is quelled. Don't let it grow before we extracted all slaves (but then quickly!).
8. Short-rush units whereever appropriate: (5spt-towns)
9. PP, YY should build rax and horses.

And to debate:
Build a temple in XX to get hill (to be mined) and horse.

When I see production like in FF...

When did the Celts get IW? If it's not too long ago, we should hustle to attack there...
(in my set they did not know IW)

 

[denyd]

Bad tile allocation for almost all core towns.

What you see is the just ended GA allocation. I'll be reallocating before this turn ends.

Zulus and Babylon are still at war. We need to protect Uskudar from Shaka.

Nice catch...I may need to reclaim Uskador if Shaka snags it...I'll make sure that Hammi has a safe home

When did the Celts get IW? If it's not too long ago, we should hustle to attack there... (in my set they did not know IW)

They didn't know it before this turn started so it just happened.

Most worker builds are in towns that have all foreign nationals.

I'm a bit confused now...I thought that Celts->America & France->Inca->... was a good plan for the current forces with the next set of galleys & knights heading S to Korea, etc.

The Celts & America can probably both be taken using 10 Knights with 4-6 pike for MP duty (reduces resistors & protects from interlopers).

The French invasion is the first step of taking all nations to the NE, starting with 12 Knights with 8-10 Knights for reinforcements.

All additional Knights would be sent south to begin with Korea.

 

[Andronicus]

I've only had time for a brief look at the save.

I agree with comments that we should be building horses and upgrading rather than pikes.

I dont think there was any consensus (actually I cant see any comments on it) on CFs idea to go for India first - my inclination is still to go France and Celts first - they are still only a galley trip away, France are one of the weakest civs. I agree that India first is a valid option. Each civ then becomes just one galley trip from the previous with homeland reinforcements taking the ocean superhighways.

Yes the end of GA does stuff up the MM. Perhaps its worth posting the save after the MM and after the following.
Disconnect iron
Switch pikes to horses, where appropriate (less than 30 shields in bin and good numbers for 30s) switch knights to horses.
Est embassies. We still have quite a few to do and this will give us an indication of the forces we will be up against.

Not only is Uskudar at risk to Zulu, but Russians remain at war with Babs. One idea is to get rop with Babs and send 2 pikes to protect Uskudar. When the 20 turns are up we simply declare on Babs taking their remaining southern towns with the army and leave the pikes in place.

Forgive my ignorance, but why dont we have the option to give Mayans the boot? Also note Persian horse in the south.

edit - chop NE of SS appears to be liely to be wasted; we could complete in 1 by also chopping with the 2 workers adjacent and use wonder builds in SS and GG to direct shields to QQ so it finishes horse next turn.

edit 2
we have 43 knights, hopefully soon 100, but only 11 galleys to transport them - we need many more galleys

 

[Paul#42]

What you see is the just ended GA allocation. I'll be reallocating before this turn ends.

Ah. Okay, that explains the mess quite well. Sorry, I should have known.

Nice catch...I may need to reclaim Uskador if Shaka snags it...I'll make sure that Hammi has a safe home

Just draw two units to block Uskadar, Shaka won't attack with Impis.
We can also make peace with Shaka - but destroy the roads before, no need to give him too much commerce.
He might offer a slave every now and then worth buying it - or declaring war again

They didn't know it before this turn started so it just happened.

That clinches it for me - go after Celts right now. We might even avoid their GA if we are quick and take all their money before.

Most worker builds are in towns that have all foreign nationals.

But there are some in size-1-towns. Those won't be slaves.

Est embassies. We still have quite a few to do and this will give us an indication of the forces we will be up against.

Good idea.
Use the money!

Not only is Uskudar at risk to Zulu, but Russians remain at war with Babs. One idea is to get rop with Babs and send 2 pikes to protect Uskudar.

rop - or keep war and block the town till he's got a bowman (and Cathy a spear). WW won't kill us

When the 20 turns are up we simply declare on Babs taking their remaining southern towns with the army and leave the pikes in place.

Rather take those now before signing peace.
And raze and replace them if they are too cultural.

Forgive my ignorance, but why dont we have the option to give Mayans the boot?

Yes, nice opportunity to get some more wh.

we have 43 knights, hopefully soon 100, but only 11 galleys to transport them - we need many more galleys

Yep, like ten on each side would make start. Some crossings will be cheap and might see a galley transport 4 knights per turn, but we'll still need some more to carry reinforcements to the fronts.
Cash rush some.

 

[ControlFreak]

I dont think there was any consensus (actually I cant see any comments on it) on CFs idea to go for India first - my inclination is still to go France and Celts first - they are still only a galley trip away, France are one of the weakest civs. I agree that India first is a valid option. Each civ then becomes just one galley trip from the previous with homeland reinforcements taking the ocean superhighways.

Yes, Andronicus is right. My proposal was just that, a proposal. I like playing devils advocate so we can avoid "group think".

The discussion regarding Iron Working and Celts is enough for me to agree that they can be first on the target list. I would really like to discuss hitting India before France though so we can get a start on some of the farther away civs. Can't open the save at the moment, so I'm not really sure where our troops are at the moment.

 

[Andronicus]

Yes, nice opportunity to get some more wh.

Actually I was referring to the fact there is no remove forces or dow option in the diplomacy dialogue

Yep, like ten on each side would make start. Some crossings will be cheap and might see a galley transport 4 knights per turn, but we'll still need some more to carry reinforcements to the fronts.
Cash rush some.

20 nights to each island should be sufficient, I think - I guess we'll find out soon enough.

If we can quickly get to 100 knights that will see us to the end game very soon
I fear a lack of galley transport could be the limiting factor

 

[denyd]

CF: We've got 10 Knights about to board galleys for the Celtic highlands. There are 4-6 other knights available to provide support as needed. My plan is to board them this turn, unload on a hill next turn near Alesia. On the next turn taking Alesia & Richardborough. Then move on to the 3-4 cities to the south culminating with the capital of Entremont.

Within 3 turns I'll have another 10 newly built/upgraded knights ready to head for Boston (if America is the next target).

I've 3 Knights & a Crusader on the way to evict the Mayan visitor in the old Zulu lands if they don't leave peacefully.

Most of the rest of our forces are in old Russia. 24 Knights in different state of health and our Knight Army. The 24 Knights will head for Medina, they can be shuttled to France in 2 waves. After the 2nd wave is dropped, the galleys will head North to provide transport from France to Inca land and then to the Iroquois & Mongols (and maybe Greeks) major island. The Knight Army will heal before going south to finish off Hammy's homeland.

Once America & the Celts are assimilated, bring their troops back to the main island (replacing them with some pikes & MDI). Let them move SE to currently Babylon lands for transport (along with any new Knights (probably another 15-20) to Japan, Persia & Korea.

I'm thinking I can probably take the Celts & France in my remaining turns and have troops in place the next player to begin the assault on America & the Inca.

I'm going to spend the next 20-30 minutes MMing the land and changing builds. (then )

I'll send 2 knights up right now to protect Uskador and replace them soon with pikes or horsemen.

BTW: What should a 100% corrupt size 1 city with a foreign citizen be building?

 

[Andronicus]

BTW: What should a 100% corrupt size 1 city with a foreign citizen be building?

If it's coastal -> galley, otherwise settler provided it has 2fpt to grow to size 3.
If it has neither (and I dont see any that fit that description) then I would build wealth until it has enough food to build a setter.
Building a pike costs us 2gpt to support the pike and it is incapable of evicting any landings.
If we have lots of knights, we should be able to keep a flow of knights past any trouble spots (perhaps whilst awaiting galleys) to defend our borders. Our core should be producing knights every turn (either upgraded horses or de novo) so these should be able to defend the core. Also our army should provide defence to a sig part of our realm

btw I agree with Paul we should stop the miners in our corrupt NE and get them doing some useful irrigation. Irrigation allows quicker settlers if rush or hiring tax men if allow to grow - both of which aid our domination goal ( I realise these were started before your turn - I had noticed before, but forgot to point it out, sorry)

 

[Più Freddo]

Have had litte (no) time lately. My two comments:

1. Yilar is right: All Knights off the continent A.S.A.P! No Pukemen. No masses of Knights which have to wait for transport.
2. I can't believe the ....-up with the Rome-Aztec deal. You don't ever let these babies expire! What's so difficult cancelling the Alliance with Rome, declaring war on Rome, and making peace with the Aztecs tied to a reversed Alliance!? How could you ever have "enough!" or "too much" happiness!?

 

[Paul#42]

I've 3 Knights & a Crusader on the way to evict the Mayan visitor in the old Zulu lands if they don't leave peacefully.

If we can't boot them now, we certainly can next turn (after annoying them by demands), teasing them to dow.

Once America & the Celts are assimilated, bring their troops back to the main island (replacing them with some pikes & MDI).

MDI and Pikes are too slow, we might have a couple near our capital to cope with the occasional landings there, but faster units outside the core.
A couple of Crusaders should be sufficient to cover our core (especially the valuable coastal tiles).
Once we made peace with all residants up north we might also place cheap and un-bootable scouts to devide the powers.

I'll send 2 knights up right now to protect Uskador and replace them soon with pikes or horsemen.

Or scouts once we got peace with all up there.

Should we get CC on worker duty again? I'd like to have our whole continent irrigated to make more population in corrupt areas. Food is power!
We could switch (and short-rush) the current build to a market.

 

[Più Freddo]

A couple of Crusaders should be sufficient to cover our core (especially the valuable coastal tiles).

We have an Army. Should cover most of our needs. We need no slow units other than the Crusaders.

Once we made peace with all residants up north

Once we have gotten a few more islands, these residents should be booted off the continent. No Scouts or other play-toy units. Knights, Knights, Knights, Knights.

Should we get CC on worker duty again?

Without having looked at the save, I'd say no. Let it grow and produce Knights (shields and gold). Irrigating for score is lower priority, we want a fast win.

 

[Paul#42]

I did not mean to irrigate for score but for food.
We'll need a lot more settlers for the islands.
Especially if we raze and replace at least the first conquered towns.

Those remote lonely rivals had nothing to build for ages and will have quite some temples and libs there so we better raze our captured towns untill we are about to secure the island...

We might also rush a couple of granaries in towns that can do +5fpt to farm some workers there. Is it worth the effort?
~200g + 1gpt for the granary and 36g per two-turn-worker?
I'd like that as a compromize.
Once we got enough workers we could spit out 4-turn settlers (at sizes 3-5 for 108g each) there

I think this will be operated for some 50 turns or will the game be over by then?

To compare: The current tactics issue a settler every 12 (7+5) turns (at sizes 1-3 rushed for 78g) from a town with two +3fpt tiles.
There might also be towns near flood plains that can do +7fpt for six-turn-settlers.


We might need dot maps of the islands to plan our settler needs...
We should plant our towns on the conquered islands in a way that we gain maximum land per settler by rushing culture four or five turns before the game ends.