SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I can put in last minute changes early Thurs. 01:00 UTC (GMT) and begin play shortly there after. I believe that the revised PPP being published for 22 hours should be close enough, considering that PPP Rev 1 has already been out over 18 hours by now.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

I like the changes. I agree that the barracks in the capital is unnecessary (upon further reflection).

Sorry not much time to comment (real life has been crazy)

I like writing then mathematics because we have no immediate plans that will take advantage of fishing or sailing. Plus I think it is likely we will be able to get fishing and/or sailing in trade. I think it is less likely we will get mathematics in trade.

I thought moving the axemen on the gold mine hill is a decent plan that wasn't really discussed.

Our axes have 25% bonus on the hill without fortification and Toku's CR promos won't work if he attacks us on the hill. The odds of success on the gold mine are almost the same as fortifying in the city.

So axes on hill 25% def bonus vs. his axes with Combat I and CR I promos are 6.25 vs. 5.5 right?

Axes fortified in the city 10% with 40% culural bonus vs. axes with combat I and CR I are 7.5 vs. 6.5? (I know it is more complex than this, but the percentage of winning must be close)

Plus if we defend the gold then we don't have to attack and kill his leftover axes on the hill (which could be quite difficult if one or more of them win with little to no damage)

Only question is will Toku attack the units on the gold for sure?

 

[mabraham]

PPP is good.

I am happy with Writing first. I'm less sanguine about our chances of trading for Fishing and/or Sailing (with whom?), and feel we want to get a scout workboat to the western island, and a trireme to Hammu for combat and/or scouting through him sooner rather than later. I am hoping that the completion of Sailing will approximately line up with the completion of the granary in PigGems.

Earlier chops for maths are nice, but if they're mostly for our wonders

• we might not be in a position to either accelerate completion (no rush to do chops if there's 10 more turns of natural hammers also required), or
• we might not be able to use the result that soon (e.g. no population yet to run Rep specialists).

 

[Kaitzilla]

I too like writing. Plan looks pretty good. I'll cross my fingers Toku attacks our axe stack in 2 turns and gets destroyed

Hopefully if things go well we can attack Osaka or, failing that, walk a pair of axes across his borders on hills to make contact with AI's on the other side.

 

[bcool]

If we tech fishing then I think we should save the forest in PigsGems to chop into a workboat.

Why tech fishing if we are not going to immediately take advantage of it?

I edited my post above while mabraham and kaitzilla were likely writing their posts. What do you guys think about moving to the gold and hoping Toku attacks us on the gold hill?

 

[mabraham]

I too like writing. Plan looks pretty good. I'll cross my fingers Toku attacks our axe stack in 2 turns and gets destroyed

Hopefully if things go well we can attack Osaka or, failing that, walk a pair of axes across his borders on hills to make contact with AI's on the other side.

Fog-gazing has suggested we will not be able to transit Toku's culture by land. Getting smashed by shock axes is not something we want to risk without confidence in getting a result.

 

[mabraham]

If we tech fishing then I think we should save the forest in PigsGems to chop into a workboat.

I'm happy to do that. I'm happy to delay PigGems axe - which I'd probably have argued not starting if I'd paid attention to that.

Why tech fishing if we are not going to immediately take advantage of it?

I'm after Sailing more than Fishing. I want some combat from Hammu for a possible damaged gift caravel and/or cheap peace, and then to scout on through his culture while we can.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Fog-gazing has suggested we will not be able to transit Toku's culture by land. Getting smashed by shock axes is not something we want to risk without confidence in getting a result.

Heh, that figures. A workboat might be fruitful then if we could squirt it past Toku's borders before the war ends.

 

[Kaitzilla]

What do you guys think about moving to the gold and hoping Toku attacks us on the gold hill?

After the stack diverted to kill our bait, I'm not sure where it might be headed now. Moving 5 axes on the gold hill seems to be roughly equivalent to having them stay in SheepGold as far as odds go. Once you factor in counter attack ability and the ability to reinforce another city if the stack changes directions hmm...

Tokugawa's strongest move right now is to head directly for our capital, cutting us off from getting ahead of him and relying on his combat I to give him an edge.
However, I've never really tried to read AI code when warring, just cutting off every possible losing position down to a minimum.
Clearly, since we do have some nice code reading team-mates, I will defer to them in tactical situations like this more often.

I think Bcool's argument for moving axes onto the gold has merit, as it would make counter attacking a lot easier if they attacked our stack there.

 

[shulec]

I like writing->fishing->sailing. I think we should not move our axes to the gold mine. I would rather see the chop in pigGems to be saved.

PPP looks good to me.

 

[mabraham]

Thanks for drawing attention to this edit.

I thought moving the axemen on the gold mine hill is a decent plan that wasn't really discussed.

Our axes have 25% bonus on the hill without fortification and Toku's CR promos won't work if he attacks us on the hill. The odds of success on the gold mine are almost the same as fortifying in the city.

So axes on hill 25% def bonus vs. his axes with Combat I and CR I promos are 6.25 vs. 5.5 right?

Axes fortified in the city 10% with 40% culural bonus vs. axes with combat I and CR I are 7.5 vs. 6.5? (I know it is more complex than this, but the percentage of winning must be close)

CR1 subtracts from our multiplier, rather than adds to his. So if we have 40% culture plus
various degrees of unit fortification, less 20% for CR1, then our multiplier is in the range 20-45% to his 10% from C1. So we have at least 6 to 5.5 and at best 7.25 to 5.5. So moving out would be a significant loss of value for Amundsen, who's been fortified there for almost his full term.

Plus if we defend the gold then we don't have to attack and kill his leftover axes on the hill (which could be quite difficult if one or more of them win with little to no damage)

Only question is will Toku attack the units on the gold for sure?

I don't know about that one.

We're not actually growing to size 2 to potentially use the gold until T76 (per PPP). This gives us some time to clear Toku off (or have him retreat).

We only want to move to the gold if we're still going to get a good combat result and it was going to be painful to remove Toku from the gold by T76 if we don't occupy it now (i.e. he has a high-health axeman survive). Since we've got a higher chance to have our medic survive if we stay in the city, and we get to heal in the city regardless, I think it's probably best to stay in the city.

 

[mabraham]

I think Bcool's argument for moving axes onto the gold has merit, as it would make counter attacking a lot easier if they attacked our stack there.

How is counter-attacking easier? If he heads for Delhi in all cases, then we break even regardless of our choice. If he attacks the stack on the gold, then we have combat a turn earlier, we hope, but we have to use that turn to move east again.

 

[DanF5771]

Heh, that figures. A workboat might be fruitful then if we could squirt it past Toku's borders before the war ends.

Unfortunately there is no water way passage towards the east, it's a dead end - blocked by the peaks south of Kyoto. We need to send a Spy through the Kyoto gate.

I also vote for keeping our Axes in the city and defend there, so not move to the Gold mainly because that move would negate the guaranteed healing (+20HP in city / +30HP if Amundsen survives) we'll get directly after Toku's attack.

Further I'd like to go Fishing first and chop a Work Boat in PigsGems (can get another forest from DeerGold). I consider scouting out the western island and Hammu's SoD with the WB the most useful immediate goal. We will not start building Libraries immediately, SheepTown and PigsGems need Granaries first and DeerGold will build defenders vs Hammu. I'm even inclined to get a Barracks up there after the Granary before the Axe.

Hammu will take some time to prepare his invasion forces and they will likely consist of C1CR1 Swords, we should defend with Woody1 Axes fortified on the forest 2W1N of DeerGold.

 

[mabraham]

Further I'd like to go Fishing first and chop a Work Boat in PigsGems (can get another forest from DeerGold). I consider scouting out the western island and Hammu's SoD with the WB the most useful immediate goal. We will not start building Libraries immediately, SheepTown and PigsGems need Granaries first

Yeah that sounds pretty sensible. PigGems can rush out a WB with one or two chops, put the other half of the second chop into its granary, finish granary while we tech Writing and Sailing and be ready to start on a trireme.

The point about Writing being fast with lots of prereqs is true whenever we tech Writing. But there's no real rush for Writing until we're ready to build a library. And there's no real rush for Maths for chops into Pyramids until we've got some libraries around the place...

... and DeerGold will build defenders vs Hammu. I'm even inclined to get a Barracks up there after the Granary before the Axe.

Hammu will take some time to prepare his invasion forces and they will likely consist of C1CR1 Swords, we should defend with Woody1 Axes fortified on the forest 2W1N of DeerGold.

Ah, there's a good reason to try to hold on that forest - though against swords we may as well have plain axemen on plains .

 

[DanF5771]

Ah, there's a good reason to try to hold on that forest - though against swords we may as well have plain axemen on plains .

He will certainly mix in some shock Axes and perhaps Bowmen too, increasing his odds against our fortified W1 Axes from 1.2% (C1CR1 Swords) to 9.1% (C1Shock Axe); Bowmen also <2%. -> We won't need that many Axes to withstand his attack.

 

[bcool]

Okay I'm a "no" on the move to the gold mine.

I agree if we go fishing, might as well do it first.

If we did go writing first, I would like to see the capital build a library before the pyramids.

 

[bcool]

Alt Plan for PigsGems

T72-T76 work granary (adding pigs T75) (Fritz puts a chop (forest 2N1E of PigsGems) into granary T75 and Karl puts a chop (forest 1S of PigsGems) into granary T76)
T77 granary finishes, put OF into Workboat (working pigs and gems, getting full value out of granary)
T80 grows to pop 3 and can whip workboat (significant OF can go to partial axe build in queue)

We chop 2 pre-math forests and don't get the workboat as early as we could, but we get the granary significantly faster which translates to at least 12 more food, plus gives us good whipping options there.

 

[mabraham]

Alt Plan for PigsGems

T72-T76 work granary (adding pigs T75) (Fritz puts a chop (forest 2N1E of PigsGems) into granary T75 and Karl puts a chop (forest 1S of PigsGems) into granary T76)
T77 granary finishes, put OF into Workboat (working pigs and gems, getting full value out of granary)
T80 grows to pop 3 and can whip workboat (significant OF can go to partial axe build in queue)

We chop 2 pre-math forests and don't get the workboat as early as we could, but we get the granary significantly faster which translates to at least 12 more food, plus gives us good whipping options there.

I like it.

 

[WastinTime]

I like the idea of covering the gold with 2 or 3 axes leaving a couple to fortify in Sheeptown.
In the test game the Toku units are set to ATTACK_CITY_LEMMING
Is that correct? or should it be ATTACK_CITY?
There is a big difference in their behavior (the former attacks the Gold/Axes, the latter moves the stack)

 

[bcool]

In my attempts to simulate the real game. I tried setting the units to Attack_City, but they ended up moving into their culture and forming a stack rather than attack the city.

I know Attack_City_Lemming is inaccurate, but it is the best I could do to simulate the AI behavior.