SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

Yes, I'm quite sure.

This exchange from the Maintenance thread:

Well, could you give him a little push back? Looking at the progress graphs (particularly the dates played to and their scores), I don't see many teams likely to feel comfortable finishing in two weeks. Has AlanH been monitoring the various team games or just monitoring the deadline?

"If we join forces where our 1st stack is this is not so bad!" Absolutely, better than on the forest.

BTW, forgot to suggest that the wounded pike be set out as knight bait.

 

[leif erikson]

Well, could you give him a little push back? Looking at the progress graphs (particularly the dates played to and their scores), I don't see many teams likely to feel comfortable finishing in two weeks. Has AlanH been monitoring the various team games or just monitoring the deadline?

I'll have a look this evening and send a PM.

 

[Htadus]

Deadline is scary. However, it is possible some teams managed to finish the game already. I think PD is finish. Or Duckweed has scolded the entire team and nobody is posting anymore. (their thread is in the bottom of the stack for nearly a week)

It is likely they managed to build the AP or/and played a very effective Espionage game to make friends and likely captured the AP city (if under Buddhist).

As for our game, let proceed as if Alanh already said no to an extension. We can not afford to take long discussion time anymore. So basic plan and good execution is what we are going to need.

BTW on mm, personally I am against sacrificing very usable wounded Pikes, I am for building the suggested Missionaries and whipping of CH.

 

[Undecided]

Ok, i'm going to play in ~5h

Will combine our stacks on the tile our 1st stack is now, looking for an opportunity to hurt hammy and advance towards babylon.

I'll incorporate zamint's and CP's suggestions into the city builds:

Dehli: NE for 1 turn, then wealth
Vija: Overflow into NE, then treb
Thebes: missionary, then CB
Helio: missionary, then overflow into granary
[given, that we only need two missionaries for eleph and illinois, alex could produce wealth instead of another missionary. If we fail somewhere Illinois has priority over eleph, as this will never be a good city and should stay on wealth for most of the time]
alex: wealth
giza: rax, then wealth
Illinois: whip CH with hindu-overflow into lib.
Rest: as originally proposed

Trying to incorporate NE for one turn, if the opportunity arises and will hold on any GPersons we'll get.

Other stuff:

@CP
What is the evidence that he has Gunpowder?
Hammy can tech chemistry, which can be researched after gunpowder.

[What about waterwheels and windmills?]

Watermills and Windmills only become worthwhile after replaceable parts and good after electricity. Our research path will probably go through guilds and chemistry for cannons which benefit workshops, plus we can run caste, making them more appealing for us.

Not sure we want to move to many too far too fast. Can't afford war weariness until we have peace with Ham, and the Mongols could attack. They don't like us very much.
In my experience there are very few leaders that can actually declare war on a second target, if they are at war already, without resolutions from AP and similar things. (Monte, off the top of my head). Given that mongolia is at war with toku, they can't be bribed by hatshe, so we're pretty safe on the eastern front for now. This situation also applies to the west. I'm sure hammy would've bribed shaka at some point, which he could actually do because he is more advanced than him. Problem is that shaka is already busy with toku and therefore doesn't want to get involved. Being in war-mode also prevents defensive pacts, which could be one reason to get rid off hatshe fast, to hopefully deny the chance of an pact with cyrus or the team-AI.

Given that we're under a bit of time pressure, should i play the first part until i captured Babylon and D-K, if nothing our of the ordinary happens? Otherwise i would consult the team after getting babylon.

 

[zamint3]

We need to deal with the ww from Hatse at some time, and it should only be a few turns, we might as well do it know so that our Egyptian cities can grow a bit before we go into research/GP mode.

Given that we're under a bit of time pressure, should i play the first part until i captured Babylon and D-K, if nothing our of the ordinary happens? Otherwise i would consult the team after getting babylon.

Green light from me.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Was thinking that waterwheels and windmills get a double benefit from a GA but understand your logic.

Green light here.

 

[Htadus]

Yes, go for it.

 

[leif erikson]

Good Luck and Happy Hunting.

One legged haka in the rain with the turkeys...

 

[Undecided]

Got only 5 turns in so far. Lots happened though.

1. The clash with the babylonian stack went ok. Problem was i placed most of the trailing units on the wrong tile on the hill next to the joined stack. Sorry about that. The accidental "lure" left our units dead and most of the babylon stack on flat terrain. Killed it the next turn and advanced on the forest. Lost 5WE, CB, Cat, Pike, 2 HAs over the course of the battle and killed 5 Knights, 3 WE, CB, Cat, 3 Trebs.
Then we advanced towards babylon and killed another knight and 2 cats. This is the situation right now

Spoiler :

Wasn't sure what to do, attacking without the reinforcements seems like suicide, but even with them it's not pleasant. Thoughts?

Other important things for now:

2. I was moving units towards the egyptian border, when suddenly hatshe signs a def-pact with eliza. I'm slightly disappointed but i can't do anything about it.
So i move the small stack back to giza and the other troops back west. 2 turns later she declares on toku, so the def pact is nullified. I'm planning to move the troops back and wipe her out, i don't want her to sign another def-pact if she decides that warring with toku isn't a good idea anymore.

3. Speaking of toku. I infected kago with hinduism, and he converted to it. We can steal monarchy right now, with 20% discount or wait a couple turns for the complete discount. Chances are 84% iirc. We could trade monarchy if he gets to pleased, but i'd want to steal it and save the trading for later because he's teching CS right now which we want at some point and could maybe trade for Machinery.

4. Hammy went for chemistry as his next tech. Couple of his frigates visiting pat right now. I hope he finds stuff like scientific method more appealing than rifling.
5. I tracked the progress of elizas culture cities:
London is currently at ~ +160 after she settled a GArtist in there.
Nottingham is constant at +222
York is constant at +85
This is without free speech.

6. We got the scientist!

7. We'll have to start the NE in kyoto pretty soon, otherwise we'll get a priest in bombay first.

8. I switched dehli back for one unit because we can handle it money wise. We would be in the green if dehli is on wealth.

Was hoping to give you guys two successful city captures, but smashing our troops against babylon without consulting seemed pretty stupid...

Edit:
I'm available for another 2h, but that's a pretty short time window. Therefore i'll probably wait for the discussion and continue in about 10h. Hopefully it gets smoother after that.

 

[Htadus]

1. Mistakes happen and we play on. Wait for the rest of the team. Lets hope for the knights and some of the LB's to leave the city.
2. If we can lets takeout that Civ.
3. It is about time we did this. Great. Lets wait for the total discount since we have nothing to gain by hurrying. Well he could get captured but our esp is high.
4. Once we take these 2 cities, we should be safe.
5. Once it becomes an issue we can focus Espy on Elis and start sabotaging buildings and what not.
6. Heeehaaa
7. Sounds like a plan. Better later than never.

 

[leif erikson]

1. The clash with the babylonian stack went ok. Problem was i placed most of the trailing units on the wrong tile on the hill next to the joined stack. Sorry about that. The accidental "lure" left our units dead and most of the babylon stack on flat terrain. Killed it the next turn and advanced on the forest. Lost 5WE, CB, Cat, Pike, 2 HAs over the course of the battle and killed 5 Knights, 3 WE, CB, Cat, 3 Trebs.
Then we advanced towards babylon and killed another knight and 2 cats. This is the situation right now

Wasn't sure what to do, attacking without the reinforcements seems like suicide, but even with them it's not pleasant. Thoughts?

Do not see how we can be successful with only what we have there, so bringing up the second stack is needed I think. An awful lot of LB's on that hill, but we need that city with GLHouse. Gonna be a tough one...

2. I was moving units towards the egyptian border, when suddenly hatshe signs a def-pact with eliza. I'm slightly disappointed but i can't do anything about it.
So i move the small stack back to giza and the other troops back west. 2 turns later she declares on toku, so the def pact is nullified. I'm planning to move the troops back and wipe her out, i don't want her to sign another def-pact if she decides that warring with toku isn't a good idea anymore.

Yeah, time to kill Hatse while we can. Sooner the better within resource constraints.

3. Speaking of toku. I infected kago with hinduism, and he converted to it. We can steal monarchy right now, with 20% discount or wait a couple turns for the complete discount. Chances are 84% iirc. We could trade monarchy if he gets to pleased, but i'd want to steal it and save the trading for later because he's teching CS right now which we want at some point and could maybe trade for Machinery.

Agree with Htadus, think it can wait. We are just over parity in EP's with Toku.

4. Hammy went for chemistry as his next tech. Couple of his frigates visiting pat right now. I hope he finds stuff like scientific method more appealing than rifling.

I hope so.

5. I tracked the progress of elizas culture cities:
London is currently at ~ +160 after she settled a GArtist in there.
Nottingham is constant at +222
York is constant at +85
This is without free speech.

No much we can do for now. It is going to take forever to build enough EP's to hurt Liz. she is ahead 4,164 to 212.

6. We got the scientist!

Something is going our way!

7. We'll have to start the NE in kyoto pretty soon, otherwise we'll get a priest in bombay first.

Yes.
Although, what GP would we prefer?

Was hoping to give you guys two successful city captures, but smashing our troops against babylon without consulting seemed pretty stupid...

Keep up the good work. Mistakes happen, we just have to keep at it.

Hopefully it gets smoother after that.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Little choice at this point but to try to take Bab, then hold the city as a choke point and go after DK. Suggest we sacrifice a HA to pillage the cottage and the road south of Bab, then move second stack onto the iron along with a HA (to pillage it next turn) Then move everything to join the first stack and attack. By then all units will have healed if not attacked again.

Trade clams to Mansa for 10gpt.

Not at all sure we need to attack Egypt and disrupt our economy, certainly not before gaining Calendar (or certainty that we will be able to before peace with Ham). Only two Egyptian cities now with just one unhappy citizen.

 

[Undecided]

Played to T217. Had to stop because we're in trouble.

Good news:
We captured Babylon, stole Monarchy and teched Calendar. That's about it.

Attacked with the trebs first, decimated the troops in babylon to 4 heavy wounded units.
Next turn heal-promoted everything possible, killed the only reinforcement a knight and got it. Incredible city with Lighthouse, harbour, forge, academy, observatory, colloseum, market, bank, courthouse, scotland yard, G-Lib, G-lighthouse, G-wall, 3 settled GG and a settled GEngineer.
Managed to hold it and reinforced the garrison. Formed a stack to attack D-K next, but when i moved out, hammy started counter attacking so i moved the stack back to not put babylon in danger. With the money from babylon and the wonders, i could tech calendar in 5 turns at low science slider with no money loss. Stole monarchy after getting the full discount without problems. Hammy won't give us anything for peace since we captured babylon. We wants his city back.
Got a lot of money after finishing NE in kyoto.
Also got a GG who's currently in pat.

Situation in the west:

Spoiler :

Bad news:

We lost a couple tiles west of kyoto, but should regain them with NE in the city.
Found this and tracked it's progress. Has me slightly worried, but that's not the worst.

Spoiler :

We have a lot of ww. I hoped to get D-K quickly and ease the pressure but won't happen. One reason for that is hammy bribing cyrus into war with us on the IBT 214-215. I counted the tiles and babylon is nearer than our border to the east, so i expect the attack through babylonian territory. The other reason is this...

Ugly news:

Spoiler :

my conservative estimate is that we'll get a DoW next turn with a probability of 99,5%
Our small garrison from giza was on the way back from the egyptian border to help just in case cyrus would send some units through the east. They won't reach giza in time, but we probably have to abandon the city regardless.

Sorry for coming off (a bit) frustrated, i was so glad to get babylon and the western front under control and now everything just went downhill.

 

[zamint3]

Uuuuh

Well I guess this had to happen sooner or later.

 

[leif erikson]

Holy crap!

Agree that this was bound to happen. Do we a prayer?

Off to look at the save.

edit - Eliza is in "We have enough on our hands right now", so she is coming for us.

She also has defensive pacts with Huayana/Mansa, although they will break if she attacks.
She has great diplo relations with all the other civs except Toku.
Time to start praying to our Hindu Deity.

 

[Htadus]

Darn it. Did we miss "Deity" in the setting?

This is scary. We do not have a defensive unit. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Cactus Pete]

Only thing I can think of is to gift Giza (and swap cows for gold) in hopes that her intentions will change, and/or pillage the hill road to Alexandria to buy time.

Please pillage the iron!

 

[Htadus]

Since Toku does not have OB with Eliza, we can gift Giza to Toku if England dow us. Then we leave Hammy alive.

 

[Undecided]

I'm having trouble with my internet connection and couldn't log on here. So i missed htadus' suggestion of gifting the city to toku which we should try i think. I only klicked end turn to get an overview over the whole situation.

Got DoWed from eliza and hatshe.
Eliza insta captured giza, which surprised my a bit, given that there were cultural defenses and the AI loves to bombard them down. Hathse has a mace and a pike near memphis and i got an elephant and a treb inside the city so we should be good for atleast one turn there. I moved the stack from former giza inside alex. to defend against the knight, archer combo. I'd like to gift alexandria to toku if possible. Opinions?

On the west couple of our trailing units got counterattacked out of D-K. We have a small stack assembling in borsippa but the way to babylon is dangerous.
Spotted a stack of units in akkad. hammy has cannons now.

Spoiler :

I also changed our research to feud, but question is if we can get this in time.
I'd like to try to hurt hammy's wandering units with the stack inside borsippa to hopefully get a peace treaty that doesn't involve giving up something on our side.
Then gift alex to toku to buy some time. Get feud somehow, switch to vassalage and build a couple longbows to prolong the war and hopefully somebody loses interest. Maybe even get CS from toku, this would screw our bulb path but i don't think we need astro anymore. Deal with hashe first.
I haven't spotted cyrus' stack yet, but it should be visible in the next couple turns.

Re: deadline.
It seems that there'll be no extension so how do we proceed. We should make a plan to get as much turns in with as little time loss possible. Chances of winning are slim to none but retiring is out of question imo. It's not going to be fun, but still is a learning experience few people have gone through.
I'll play a couple more turns but we should still do the 10-20 turn sets, so can MP or someone else pick it up around friday?

 

[Htadus]

No worries undecided. It is just a game and I wish I had time to look in to the save when I got home. But I had to go coach soccer. That is why it took forever.

Also, there is no gurantee that Eliza wont dow Toku, just as easily and continue toward us.