SGOTM 15 - Phoenix Rising

[Gumbolt]

A thought on Sippar. Our first catapult is 5 vs 13. Same for the second one. There is a chance we could lose 2-3 catapults and not harm it. We could however weaken it first attack. Once the longbow is 50-60% strength the other units should fall. The 2 +100 attack axes should do well. We could heal the stack for 1 turn to up the strength of the mace.

Again this whole battle for Sippar could mean nothing if we plan to let them take one island city. We do need to make sure we don't hit a position where Hammy adopts our religion. Or would that help?

On this basis perhaps prioritise the island attack and send the mace near Babylon towards the island city? We might as well upgrade other units to get a stack of 6 units to the island city. Get the missionary near fleet.

If we plan gifting hatsy more cities should we spread bud to them to help ensure she stays in bud?

Edit - If we switch Hatsy civic can she change her religion the same turn?

 

[justjohn]

PLAN UPDATE

AP win: Just keep in mind we currently have too many votes. Might need to gift some cities.

Spread Hinduism: Main priority obviously. Four AIs don't have Hinduism yet:
Hatse: Gift Kyoto to her, and maybe even Osaka and/or Satsuma if we need to lower our own vote. We do this as late as possible, of course.
Mansa: Move Missionary from Caravel to land, take it from there.
Cyrus: Main problem. I will renegotiate some deals and gift him as many resources as I can. I will start a Caravel in Akkad, whip it next turn, and ship our missionary over.
Hammu: It might be better to keep him around (keep the war bonus, maybe we can get Cyrus in on it too). We still try to take out his mainland cities, but might let him recapture on of the island cities (after we take it and spread Hindu to it). Taking one island city means whipping some units in nearby cities (details to follow). Also bring the missionary currently in Hatse's land back so he can be ferried over.

Battle of Sippar: This will not be easy given our current attack stack. But unless anyone comes forth with objections, we try, starting with sacrifising some cats.

Research: Finish Engi for the faster road movement, otherwise nothing important now I think.

More missionaries? Could buy more with US civic, or whip more with Slavery. But no more that 3 at a time, hence none at the moment.

Shaka: The idea of gifting him cities to please him is OK, but none of our current cities have the Liberate option. If we take out Hammu's last two cities up there, then maybe we could get some Liberate options. I don't think we will need it, but if the opportunity presents itself, we will not forget the possibiliy.

A thought on Sippar. Our first catapult is 5 vs 13. Same for the second one. There is a chance we could lose 2-3 catapults and not harm it. We could however weaken it first attack. Once the longbow is 50-60% strength the other units should fall. The 2 +100 attack axes should do well. We could heal the stack for 1 turn to up the strength of the mace.

Do you want me to wait with attacking Sippar? I thought you said Hammu has been hitting us every turn, meaning we will loose more than we heal?

Again this whole battle for Sippar could mean nothing if we plan to let them take one island city. We do need to make sure we don't hit a position where Hammy adopts our religion. Or would that help?

It wouldn't hurt if he adopts Hindu, but shouldn't matter either way.

If we plan gifting hatsy more cities should we spread bud to them to help ensure she stays in bud?

Might be a good idea. I havn't counted her bud pop yet.

Edit - If we switch Hatsy civic can she change her religion the same turn?

Cannot change if already in anarchy.

Anyone else with comments?

 

[Jaybone]

i don't have anything in particular. Except, is the easiest way to spread our religion to simply gift small cities to other people? Seems that way. For instance, we could take one of hammy's captured cities, spread hindu, and then gift it to cyrusgawa. We don't have to liberate to give a city away, so diplo bonus unimportant, right?

 

[justjohn]

i don't have anything in particular. Except, is the easiest way to spread our religion to simply gift small cities to other people? Seems that way. For instance, we could take one of hammy's captured cities, spread hindu, and then gift it to cyrusgawa. We don't have to liberate to give a city away, so diplo bonus unimportant, right?

Absolutely, but the AIs don't accept most city gifts, only close ones. For instance Mansa will not except any city we currently have. Hence depending on how far away Cyrus is, he might not accept a city gift (and I expect he won't :/).

 

[Jaybone]

also, don't blow all of our catapults if we can't take the city. They'll get upgrades and a turn of healing and such. Wait til the rest of the units move into position

Edit: Crikey, our other units are 4 turns away from attacking. Ok, NVM then, I would splash 4-5 catapults (depending on if you're still getting good collateral damage) on the city and then take out everyone you can this turn, start moving our other units to reinforce and finish the attack on the last city.

 

[Jaybone]

you're right, cyrus won't accept any city gifts from us. bah.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think the city has to be within 9-10 tiles from their empire. Hence for Mansa and Cyrus this may not work. I wonder if one of Hammys island cities is close enough to be gifted to mansa?

Do we gift mansa/cyrus the missionaries or do we risk going for cities with religions?

Sippar is really not that important. We should focus extra troops to take island city and then leave it empty to be retaken.

I am happy for JJ to play out 2-3 turns and report back if anything interesting happens. He knows what to do. I leave his judgement on war and healing units as need be. We should allow the others a few more hours to post.

 

[Jaybone]

oh btw, let's start switching our religious civic back and forth from pacifism to theo or OR every 5 turns so we lower our likelihood of getting a request to change civics or religion that we have to refuse. Make it 1 in 5 turns as opposed to 5 in 5 turns we can be asked

 

[Jaybone]

also, what are we using in the caravel in Dur-K to explore with? Missionary? explorer?

Edit: After research finishes, are we going to run the espionage slider to influence things as we need?

 

[justjohn]

oh btw, let's start switching our religious civic back and forth from pacifism to theo or OR every 5 turns so we lower our likelihood of getting a request to change civics or religion that we have to refuse. Make it 1 in 5 turns as opposed to 5 in 5 turns we can be asked

I like that idea. I just have to make sure I don't block a civic change we really want to make

 

[justjohn]

also, what are we using in the caravel in Dur-K to explore with? Missionary? explorer?

I seriously doubt the caravel can access anything but a solid mountain range to the east (north and south) of Dur-K.

Edit: After research finishes, are we going to run the espionage slider to influence things as we need?

I'll stop when Engi is finished, which is just 2 turns. Then we will also know if the Sippar battle went our way or not. But I think you're right about esp.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ jay - Not sure what we will need espionage for? Unless Cyrus or Mansa go theo. In which case we gift the missionaries.

Will Hatsy accept Osaska and Satsuma right? (Not checked.) Not needed till closer to AP win.

We could send a settler towards Cyrus but I am not sure this is worth it.

The main issue will be if the missionaries fail to spread the religion.

 

[Jester Fool]

We could send a settler towards Cyrus but I am not sure this is worth it.

We have a settler (originally intended for Hatse gift city) doing nothing. So it is actually worth it to send towards Cyrus. We might get lucky...who knows.

I really think we need to finish off Hammu on mainland and capture barb city. We need these cities to gift. Staying in war the best possible diplo right now.

The plan looks fine. It should be safe now to trade Guilds/Banking to team AI.

 

[Gumbolt]

Okay we just need comments from Mylene, Lymond, stuge and Bobby. I think most of team are on board with the plan.

If no comments from the above by Sunday you might as well Play 2-3 turns. Pause if any suprises.

 

[justjohn]

@ jay - Not sure what we will need espionage for? Unless Cyrus or Mansa go theo. In which case we gift the missionaries.

Not sure I understand hat gifting would help. If they change to Theo, they cannot spread another religion themselves, either.

Will Hatsy accept Osaska and Satsuma right? (Not checked.) Not needed till closer to AP win.

Yes, she currently accepts all three cities.

 

[Gumbolt]

Hmmm true. We should avoid trading or gifting theo though. Quite a few Ai still need it.

 

[justjohn]

PLAN UPDATE - OK. Last chance for comments. I'll play in about 9 hours from now.

AP win: Just keep in mind we currently have too many votes. Might need to gift some cities.

Spread Hinduism: Main priority obviously. Four AIs don't have Hinduism yet:
Hatse: Gift Kyoto to her, and maybe even Osaka and/or Satsuma if we need to lower our own vote. We do this as late as possible, of course.
Mansa: Move Missionary from Caravel to land, take it from there.
Cyrus: Main problem. I will renegotiate some deals and gift him as many resources as I can. I will start a Caravel in Akkad, whip it next turn, and ship our missionary over.
Hammu: It might be better to keep him around (keep the war bonus, maybe we can get Cyrus in on it too). We still try to take out his mainland cities, but might let him recapture on of the island cities (after we take it and spread Hindu to it). Taking one island city means whipping some units in nearby cities (details to follow). Also bring the missionary currently in Hatse's land back so he can be ferried over.

Battle of Sippar: This will not be easy given our current attack stack. But unless anyone comes forth with objections, we try, starting with sacrifising some cats.

Research: Finish Engi for the faster road movement, otherwise nothing important now I think.

More missionaries? Could buy more with US civic, or whip more with Slavery. But no more than 3 at a time, hence none at the moment.

Shaka: The idea of gifting him cities to please him is OK, but none of our current cities have the Liberate option. If we take out Hammu's last two cities up there, then maybe we could get some Liberate options. I don't think we will need it, but if the opportunity presents itself, we will not forget the possibiliy.

Spare settler: Move north and see if we can find a cite close to Cyrus.

Civics: Change every 5 turns to hinder AIs asking for a change we cannot make.

Trades: Guilds+Banking to team AI. Also gift resources to Cyrus as stated above.

 

[bobbyboy29]

With hammu and the island cities, I don't think that we can guarantee that he'll take it back, we need to be careful here. Even if you leave the city undefended, if he's in turtle mode he may not even send out a unit for it. I think that we need to hedge our bets, keep open the possibility of eliminating him. Also, spread hindu to one of his former cities at least so we can liberate it to him if need be.

Unfortunately, I have 0 experience with AP wins, so i'm afraid I'm little help here. All I'll say is this: Play slowly. Even if it means only playing 2-3 turns at a time, track the vote progress to make sure that we're on track. If anything unexpected happens or the numbers don't seem to be working out right, you are always free to stop and ask for advice. Remember that we have plenty of time to finish the game.

 

[justjohn]

Still playing, but a quick update. I lost 5 Cats bringing down defences. But at that point I had damaged the Longbow good, and full collateral damage on all units (except the cat and one chariot). From then I won every battle. Sippar is left with only 1 defender, which is a low level chariot at half strength. All in all I think that went well. We still have 4 cats for the last battle, and I saved those with extra bombardment.

 

[justjohn]

Only played 1 turn so far!

Hammu got a new Bowman in Sippar. Most our units are much wounded. How to proceed? I can upload a save game even if I've just played 1 turn, right? (I'm still not familiar with all SGOTM facilities.)