SGOTM 14 - Spooks

[Più Freddo]

With so many cheap units, we might even fill that army in France and go for the quicker kill. We'll get lots of opportunities for MGL there.

Units in Armies don't produce any Military Great Leaders, now do they? And units outside of Armies get more opportunities to fight, right? What are you talking about?

 

[Più Freddo]

Yilar -- please play until 250 AD, 12 turns!

 

[Paul#42]

Units in Armies don't produce any Military Great Leaders, now do they? And units outside of Armies get more opportunities to fight, right? What are you talking about?

You are right of course.

I'm talking about forming an army to give other units shelter in the open and to kill 2-3 units every turn and thus taking France quicker so we can move on.

We might also move on and keep / extend fighting in France because there will not be much resistance and our lone knights will gain even more MGL.

I tend to finish one target before moving on which in Gotms probably delays my conquest / domination victories big time

So I trust you warmongers to chose the right strategy...

edit: Wow, our graphs are looking great...

 

[Più Freddo]

I'm talking about forming an army to give other units shelter

There's nothing in France from which we need shelter.

Could we ICS the land around Paris and gift these cities to the Civs currently exiled in our own north (except France)? And the same with the desert in the middle of Celtia (e.g. France)? I'd like to get the home island free of foreigners A.S.A.P.

And disband those Pukemen, please! What are they for?

And the empty Army at home must be filled with a single Knight and transported to the off-shore front immediately.

I would change Entremont to Settler. Also if we keep the resulting city it has a territory. A Slave has no use at all on that island.

Richborough should build a Galley (to be rushed in the right moment), not Wealth. Alesia has a Barracks, we could rush Knights there, so again no Wealth. Same in Entremont once population is down to one Celt and/or the Celtic capital is far away.

We have far too much gold, we should rush units close to the frontiers. I don't think we need any more city investigations, always rather another Knight. And always no gold in the chancellor's chest. 1001 gold -- did we build Wall Street?!

 

[Paul#42]

There's nothing in France from which we need shelter.

OKay, you are certainly right for France.

Could we ICS the land around Paris and gift these cities to the Civs currently exiled in our own north (except France)? And the same with the desert in the middle of Celtia (e.g. France)? I'd like to get the home island free of foreigners A.S.A.P.

Good idea. Always remove any roads in every exile.
Keep a couple of knights there to guarant peace.
Try to compose AI that are at peace with each other...

And disband those Pukemen, please! What are they for?

Still useful for landings - but no need to build more (there never was).

I would change Entremont to Settler. Also if we keep the resulting city it has a territory. A Slave has no use at all on that island.

Agree.

Richborough should build a Galley (to be rushed in the right moment), not Wealth.

I'd rather gift that to Babylon right now (or next turn) to get rid of those on our home continent.
Or should we rather expell them to France?
Then a galley from Richborough would be okay. Knights (276g) or horses (116g+120g) also.

Alesia has a Barracks, we could rush Knights there, so again no Wealth. Same in Entremont once population is down to one Celt and/or the Celtic capital is far away.

agree.

We have far too much gold, we should rush units close to the frontiers. I don't think we need any more city investigations, always rather another Knight. And always no gold in the chancellor's chest. 1001 gold -- did we build Wall Street?!

Agree, no need to pile gold for worse times...

 

[Yilar]

I won't be able to play the save before friday (exam on thursday), so if you want to swap Piu, you play this set and I take the next one.

A few notes I have by looking at the save. The size1 cities should be producing wealth no? Sell some of the harbors, many of them are quite useless. Why don't we just starve the crappy foreign people out and produce wealth instead? We have what seems like a gazillion workers atm. Also don't throw away the gold, we need a lot to upgrade horses.

Btw, whats up with the many wars? We seem to be at war with everyone for some reason?

I would not disband our pikes, instead lets move them to our fronts, we could land a lot of them at America shortly.

 

[Paul#42]

Agree that we should make peace where possible and we are not gaining wh - try to tie it to rop. Destroy units and infrastructure in the reservation before signing peace if it's an already defeated enemy.

what to build
wealth is 1gpt, production 4gpt, if we build something we'd rush elsewhere.
And if it's for libs / temples in the long run. We'll have to rush lots of them in the final turns.
Against selling harbors if we need them for food. We still need some settlers in some islands.

As long as we are short of galleys we should build galleys in corrupt towns - or even knights if rax are in there. However I'd rather sell those rax and build cheaper galleys there if we are in danger of being short of money by upgrades. How many horses do we get per turn? More than two?

cash rushing knights (at ~280g) seems too expensive to me...

So rather build something other than wealth!

 

[Più Freddo]

I won't be able to play the save before friday (exam on thursday), so if you want to swap Piu, you play this set and I take the next one.

OK, that fits me just fine.

Got it at 10 AD.

 

[denyd]

And disband those Pukemen, please! What are they for?

I thought of a good use for them. Transport them to the Iroquois lands and drop them on a coastal mountain. Then send the boats back for the real invasion force. Let the Iroquois waste bunch of units trying to kill 30sh Pikes instead of 70sh Knights.

 

[Andronicus]

Checked flip risk in CA2 and it seems not a matter of if but when we get a flip.
Paris and Entrement in particular have high flip risk (around 10%).
We dont want to leave units in longer than we have to and risk losing half our invasion force. OTOH just 1 more turn will allow the injured knights to heal with the rax in Paris.
I think it worth the risk as injured knights sitting around waste our gpt and delay victory, so the risk is worthwhile to gain instant heal.
All the more reason to aim for short quick wars which boot the AI off their island as quickly as possible.

The territory graphs look promising. Klarius has not sustained the last surge, but presumably they have cavs so we need to keep ahead of their curve.

 

[Più Freddo]

I thought of a good use for them. Transport them to the Iroquois lands and drop them on a coastal mountain. Then send the boats back for the real invasion force.

Sounds good.

 

[Paul#42]

Got it at 10 AD.

That sounded to me like it's about to start...

Any schedule and plan?

 

[Più Freddo]

Any schedule and plan?

Was on a trip and had less time than expected. Have only looked around at the game for an hour or so. Plan so far:

1. Troops should be transported (in Galley chain) over Ocean, not from island to island. One Galley on an adjacent Coastal tile can move into a city, collect two units, move out onto a Sea tile where the next boat waits and back to square zero every turn. Novgorod is a perfect shipping harbor on the west coast. Mpondo could work somewhat on the east coast. In order to reach the Incans from the mainland, we need to use Baghdad, but the Galleys are stuck further south in Medina with only gooey Coast tiles around.

2. Entremont and Paris could flip, but we should take the next set of capitals soon and expel them from their respective islands.

3. Home front: We are at peace with Babylon and have very little troops available. Should gift prison and ROP rape them with Cruisaders and the Army.

4. Core setup is unsatisfactory. Send in some Workers.

5. MM. Entremont Wo>Se, Alesia We>HM, Richborough We>HM

6. Diplo. Rome PT/A vs. Aztecs. Russia PT.

Quick answers please, plan to play this afternoon and tomorrow.

 

[Paul#42]

Sounds good.
No game at hand now but I trust you to do the little stuff right

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Andronicus]

1. Troops should be transported (in Galley chain) over Ocean, not from island to island. One Galley on an adjacent Coastal tile can move into a city, collect two units, move out onto a Sea tile where the next boat waits and back to square zero every turn. Novgorod is a perfect shipping harbor on the west coast. Mpondo could work somewhat on the east coast. In order to reach the Incans from the mainland, we need to use Baghdad, but the Galleys are stuck further south in Medina with only gooey Coast tiles around.
Excellent idea
2. Entremont and Paris could flip, but we should take the next set of capitals soon and expel them from their respective islands.
Agree

3. Home front: We are at peace with Babylon and have very little troops available. Should gift prison and ROP rape them with Cruisaders and the Army.
Agree, getting SoZ would be a bonus as well

4. Core setup is unsatisfactory. Send in some Workers.
Agree, some cities can get 18spt for knights. We have a number of unused shield producing tiles in our core, each non used shield is 3 or 4 gpt lost

5. MM. Entremont Wo>Se, Alesia We>HM, Richborough We>HM
Yes please
6. Diplo. Rome PT/A vs. Aztecs. Russia PT.
Yes again

10 characters

 

[Paul#42]

Più, what's up?

Shall Yilar play on rather?

 

[Più Freddo]

Più, what's up?

I'll try to wrap it up tonight. If I can't, then I'll post my latest save.

 

[Yilar]

No rush... I won't be able to play before monday/tuesday anyway

 

[Più Freddo]

I have uploaded a save at 170 AD. Won't be able to play again until next year, so Yilar's up.

_10 AD _0 Rome PT/A vs. Aztecs, Russia PT. Change default Governor
for new cities to emphasize Food, not Production; Change Preferences:
Capital Governor is not default for new cities. Sell Harbor in NN,
Rostov, Ellipi. Rostov Wo>We, TC Se>We, SC Wo>We. Start moving Pikemen
south towards Japan for cannon-fodder duty. Move Galleys north from
Medina. SR MP in CC to 80 + 2x11. SR MP in AA to 40 + 3x18 + 7 from
Pikeman.

IBT Two Gallic Swordsmen kill one Knight in Entremont. French attack
by Paris kills no one, gives one promotion. Maya lands Spearman and
Warrior near Mecca.

_30 AD _1 Resistance ends in Entremont and Paris. Rush Settler
in UU, Paris. Capture Camulodunum.

IBT Iroquois land Spearman, MW and two Archers near Paris. Egypt lands
HM near Paris under our ROP.

_50 AD _2 Rush Settler in Entremont. Capture Lugdunum, capital
jumps to Brennus Home. Gift WW to Babylon.

IBT Egypt declares war, breaking ROP -- War Happiness.

_70 AD _3 Moving troops to America from Celtic lands.

IBT China lands two Spearmen, a SM and an Archer, France a HM near
Paris.

_90 AD _4 Capture Orleans, Rheims, Lyons. MGL emerges while
mopping up Chinese rabble. Form Army. ROP Babylon. Peace France. Peace
Celts -- end of War Unhappiness. WLTK next turn.

IBT Pikemen in Japan kill SM, HM, Archer before being killed.

110 AD _5 Move last troops to America. Prepare strike against
Babylon. Let troops heal in France, prepare transport to Incan
lands. Finally, unit support is below 100 gpt.

130 AD _6 Capture Washington, New York, Boston. Gift Boston to
Babylon.

IBT Persia discovers Gunpowder.

150 AD _7 The Empire strikes back. Three Knights lost, two
promoted. Capture Ashur, Babylon with The Statue of Zeus.

170 AD _8 Zzz.

I'm developing the core towards higher production and population. CC should get one more Hill from DD, which in turn should use the Hill being mined in the far north west. All cities on fresh water, including MM, should grow to 7 or larger for unit support (+4 gpt). There's a lot to do. The Army should probably move out of Babylon in case it flips.

Real risks not to be underestimated are

• flips
• island landings from Galleys

We're also getting a bit stretched. We should collect more strength and attack Inca. Japan should be forced to peace so we can gift a far-away city before finishing them.

But we can't let off, then klarius wins. Ivan appears to have lost their chances. We might want to start collecting a bit of culture, the flip figures in CA2 look very bad. Perhaps HE is better than yet another Army.

 

[Paul#42]

Good progress!
Let's keep that pace

Some remarks:
Always cut all roads around prisons. No extra commerce and movement for OCC-rivals!
Periodically dow civs (zulu next!) to pick off slaves, surplus units and towns and pillage all improvements.
Take Shaka's capital and gift it to someone else. Fill the gaps with other remote civs' shelters.
Name shelters at least after their leaders, rather after civ name so we keep track who's who.

Sell granaries in New York, Richbrough. Sell markets in Paris, Babylon (pay for themselves but create no gain. Rather get those 25g now!).

No need chance to grow AA, rather MM for 18spt at zero food.
Max food in Baghdad, II, Zimbabwe, Yakutsk, ...
Rush settlers in Mpondo, Moscow, KK, New York (to found exiles in N-2E and 2N-E)
ship a couple of workers to Paris to build roads and irrigate grassland.

Lisbon is a bad idea! It increases corruption for several more productive towns (EE, RR, NN, VV, PP). not sure how many shields and gold is lost. Should we rush a settler there?
rush Heroic Epics in XX instead to get hill and horses?

Stop clearing jungles. Stop roading them if we could also plant a town there. Rather water tiles for more food. grassland before plains, always (Vladivistok)!
Why is a worker irrigating by XX? No need for food there, but shields!
If we need +2fpt for QQ, take a lake tile! irrigated grass + forest will end up at +11spt.
What's the wheat by HH being mined for? 19spt is not good! Better 18spt (working Iron) at size 12 working 2 coastals for max commerce. Rather mine tiles for CC for food balance at size 12!

Don't build wealth anywhere unless there's
a) less than +2fpt at size 2 (settlers) or
b) no coast (galleys) or
c) no barracks (horses) or
d) no territory to be gained by culture (temple)!

Get some galleys to America / Celtia. We'll have to carry some knights from there soon!!
To the east to Greece I'd favor.