SGOTM 14 - Xteam

[Mad Professor]

On that note: GONE HUNTING!

(later today that is)

Looks good to me Hawk - go kick some butt - preferably fast I think leif has covered all the "watch out for..." comments I would have made.

 

[The-Hawk]

Turnset is complete, I played 14 turns. One screenie for your viewing pleasure:



And here is a quote from the submission page "News Flash: The Wizard of Oz is DEAD!"

Other highlights:

• Wiz was a well promoted rifle backed by 3 LBs (I assume built by the barbs during the game). Attack force was 9 units, the best unit in the invasion force (the Gren in the pic) had about 8% chance against the Wiz. Most of the units had <1%. I debated bringing more units but decide it would take too long. So I decided to suicide the grens and see if I could wound the wiz a bit. I ended up losing 5 units, but the wiz is gone and Emerald City is now Ashes City.
• GK is history and we are ready to attack West. I have set up 5 invasion forces, marked on the map. Three are for Gandhi, 2 for Monty. The Monty forces are attacking from the hub. I thought we needed to do this because otherwise Monty has too large of a front in the hub and can attack us in multiple places. If we capture his two hub cities, then attack forces 4 and 5 can combine and work up the spoke. The next city we capture up the spoke will bottleneck Monty and make our defensive position much better.
• A few turns into my turnset, I realized how many level 5 and 6 units we had running around. I turned all cities to producing wealth for 1 turn, then promoted them all. We now have a bunch of level 5 and 6 cavs running around .
• Our economy is fixed. I built FP in London and got a windfall of gold. Also, some of our captured cities are gold mines (e.g. holy cities).
• All cities are building units. Most are building Cavs because it will take too long for cannon and rifles to reach the front. Some cities near the hub are building slower units.
• All cities are prioritizing population growth vs. hammers. At this point, I am more concerned about getting to the pop limit (our production is still quite high so we are still producing plenty of units).
• West has researched Steam Power, but I think it came late in my turnset. Unlikely they will get Inf any time soon. South has Inf already.

I saved the game mid-turn, the next player can start the attack on turn 0.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice work Hawk.

Sounds like Genghis is history.

Roster:
- UP
Cactus Pete - On Deck
leif
Mad Professor
Htadus
The-Hawk
-Asterix-
DJMGator13


As CP will be out of town until Sunday night, looks like I am up. Am working on Civ 5 TSG25 today and tonight. Think I can get to play Friday and Saturday as needed, unless someone else has time right now?

Haven't even had time to look at the save yet.

Please let me know.

 

[Mad Professor]

Nice work Hawk.

I am not a candidate for the next couple of days leif, sorry.

Hope to have good look at the save sooner rather than later.

 

[leif erikson]

I am not a candidate for the next couple of days leif, sorry.

Hope to have good look at the save sooner rather than later.

Well, you need a break after picking up on Asoka.

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

 

[The-Hawk]

I had toyed with offering to play a few more turns, but as expected, work has buried me here at the end of the week. However, I think we are OK... if you and CP are not able to close the game this weekend, we have a couple of days next week to finish.

One thing we need to start to think about: at what point do we start to raze cities and backfill with settlers? This will be a balance between the time to come out of anarchy to get the border pops we will need vs. killing off all that nice population. Depends on how quickly our existing cities grow out now that we are emphasizing population. We probably should start to build some settlers at our larger cities (that are not growing population).

 

[Htadus]

If no one else can play, I can pick it up in 13 hrs.

BTW, I just tested attacking from galley with Cav against LB, Muskets and rifles in a real ongoing solo HOF game without dropping culture and found the results to be good against LB, ok against muskets but horrible against rifles. I should use a test games next time.

Anyways, who ever playes the next set should start building the Army for the hub now. This should contain many cannons to go with cavs and a defending rifles. Each branch we have now should provide the force for that branch of the hub. Overwhelming forces is what we are going to need.

 

[Mad Professor]

If no one else can play, I can pick it up in 13 hrs.

About now was when leif said he might be able to play - how's it looking leif?

 

[leif erikson]

I had hoped to get some kind of plan done last night but several things intervened.

Was going to put something together now, planning to play tomorrow evening. However, it would seem better, time-wise, if Htadus wants to have at it tomorrow morning and I can play tomorrow evening, if need be, after he finishes?

Besides, Htadus is a far better warmonger than I.

Need to look at the save tonight anyway and see if any brilliant insights come my way...

 

[leif erikson]

Looks to me as though Hawk has things pretty well set up.
There are 5 groups of armies all set, some loaded in Galleons, and ready to attack 5 separate cities of Gandhi and Montie.

City builds look good and economy is doing pretty well (at least it isn't all red).

There is an Aztec Galleon in the south, near Bjorgvin, to watch for?
Could ask Shaka for his gold, or some portion of it?
Could also ask him for Steam Power or Communism? (State Property gives +10% hammers to a city, +1 food from all Workshops and watermills and no distance maintenance costs) Of course, one civic change requires 2-turns.

Looks like we need to attack, now, and take as much as we can as soon as we can!

Hawk - Have you been attacking cities directly off of the Galleons after bombardment by Frigates?

Htadus - I am happy to let you take it in the morning if you wish? Please do so if you are ready.

If not, I can take it tomorrow evening, about 19 to 20 hours from this post.

 

[The-Hawk]

Most of GK's cities fell to land attack. The channel across his spoke was not in place until late in my turn so the frigates could not get west without a large detour. GKs units were obsolete so I took several cities with just cavs (no siege).

My first reaction is we don't want to spend two turns on a civics change. However, we will soon get to a point where production is not really necessary (too long for units to move forward). At that point, we may well want to go to SP for the food bonus.

 

[leif erikson]

Most of GK's cities fell to land attack. The channel across his spoke was not in place until late in my turn so the frigates could not get west without a large detour. GKs units were obsolete so I took several cities with just cavs (no siege).

I guess my real question is should we attack Gandhi's cities directly on this turn or land siege units and take a turn to bombard culture? Frigates aren't going to do much damage, but would it be enough to give reasonable odds?

To give them a turn is to allow them to upgrade to more Rifles.

 

[The-Hawk]

I would land and bombard with cannon. I think Htadus' experience noted a couple of posts up would say cavs will be meat against rifles on an amphib landing.

 

[Htadus]

Since we are running out of time, I will play few turns now.

 

[leif erikson]

Since we are running out of time, I will play few turns now.

Up bright and early!

Good Luck.

It is a cold Haka this morning.

 

[Htadus]

Up bright and early!

Good Luck.

It is a cold Haka this morning.

Both kids are under the weather, so once I woke up at 3Am no sleep for me. Oh well.

Anyways I played 10 turns and the kids are finally up so I had to upload the game.

India down to 2 cities. And monti has 8. Most of the cities now need 12 turns to come out of anarchy. So we may need to consider razing and founding new cities soon. We are still about 15 turns out but about 5 turns to attack the hub.

There are 3 galleons with cannons near St Fran to be used to attack Zulu city nearby. We should consider attacking them from 5 fronts. There are 2 galleons in a former mongolean city. It has a cav in it right now but they need to be replaced with cannons. They can attack from mongolean side. Cannons and cavs should be it. BTW, they have destoyers so all naval activity must start in such manner that we can drop off units by the cities that turn; that is to load the units the turn before.

Sorry I got to go. Haka lief.

 

[leif erikson]

Both kids are under the weather, so once I woke up at 3Am no sleep for me. Oh well.

Sorry to hear it, seems there is a lot of stuff going around. Been fighting some crud myself. Hope you get some sleep sometime today, or you will probably end up getting it too?

Anyways I played 10 turns and the kids are finally up so I had to upload the game.

Looks like you took your frustration out on Gandhi for sure.

Sorry I got to go. Haka lief.

Take care, nice work.

Save is Here. Suggestion welcome.

Looks like it'll be a slog, Grens, Rifles, Cavs and Cannon versus Infantry, Cavs and Artillery.

 

[The-Hawk]

Very good progress!

Leif, time to slog away.

Attacking Shaka in the hub will be a pain because we will need to attack from multiple locations or risk a counter up a weak spoke. I think Htadus has it right, we will need 5 attacks. You might want to start accumulating those forces now while the mail army finishes West.

In theory, we can complete domination without attacking south, but it is a very near thing. I would recommend all cities bordering Shaka build culture to nip away some of his land. Even if we can't get enough, maybe we can make this a quick war... e.g. if we've built enough culture, our existing cities will expand into the empty space when we kill a city or two.

 

[Mad Professor]

In theory, we can complete domination without attacking south, but it is a very near thing. I would recommend all cities bordering Shaka build culture to nip away some of his land. Even if we can't get enough, maybe we can make this a quick war... e.g. if we've built enough culture, our existing cities will expand into the empty space when we kill a city or two.

I haven't looked at the save yet - I suppose it's too much to expect that we have a strong enough economy to use the culture slider to increase the rate at which cities near the hub might expand...?

 

[The-Hawk]

We could do that easily by having a few cities build wealth... I think a good idea.