SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

"Misclicking with units stacked can be very painful " Yes, it's just asking for trouble when turn times are still short and misclicks are particularly consequential. I speak from painful experience. (Don't think there is a generic answer to how much to group units. It's situation specific. I move all units individually early in the game.)

Concur with working of stone, promotion of axes, trading of deer, and continuing play.

If cat damage is indeed only 4% per turn (BtS is surely different), then agree with Htadus that we need to go ahead and attack without further bombardment and mainly with collateral-damage-promoted cats (at least up to the point where withdrawal is a reasonable possibility) once units are all in place.

 

[leif erikson]

Yes, we are trading Deer to Hammu for 2gpt, it can be canceled in 3 turns so go ahead and make the trade.

OK

Misclicking with units stacked can be very painful

"Misclicking with units stacked can be very painful " Yes, it's just asking for trouble when turn times are still short and misclicks are particularly consequential. I speak from painful experience. (Don't think there is a generic answer to how much to group units. It's situation specific. I move all units individually early in the game.)

Ah, I get it. You are talking about grouping units. Will move individually.

Concur with working of stone, promotion of axes, trading of deer, and continuing play.

OK.

If cat damage is indeed only 4% per turn (BtS is surely different), then agree with Htadus that we need to go ahead and attack without further bombardment and mainly with collateral-damage-promoted cats (at least up to the point where withdrawal is a reasonable possibility) once units are all in place.

The units in place can bombard until the others have joined in though. Also, wounded Cats can bombard, all one of them.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"The units in place can bombard until the others have joined in though. Also, wounded Cats can bombard, all one of them. " If bombard only subtracts 4% from cultural defence, that would seem optimal.

 

[leif erikson]

We have Kyoto for the loss of 5 Cats.

Log:
Reload Save:
Turn 114 – 0025 BC
Trade Deer to Eliza for 6 gpt.
Adjust citizens in Delhi and Varanasi.
Promote three Axes in Osaka.

Just noticed that there are two Axes and an Archer in Kago where before there were just two Archers. Wonder where they came from?

IBT
The Parthenon is completed in a land far away.
A Japanese Sword leaves Kyoto headed for Kago?
Delhi Cat => Cat.

Turn 115 – 1 AD
Pop-rush Library in Vijay for two pop.

Move troops towards Kyoto.
Bombard Kyoto with Cats, olnly 2% per Cat attack.
Attack Japanese Sword on grass tile with CBT1 Axe at 72.77% and kill him without injury to the Axe. (my luck for the night!)

Turn research up to 100%, losing 74 gpt.

IBT
A Cat enters Kyoto
Delhi Cat => Cat.
Oaaka comes out of resistance.Vijay Library => Cat.
Shwedagon Paya is built in a far away land.

Turn 116 – 25 AD
Hire two Scientists in Vijay.

Battle of Kyoto:
Bombard with wounded Cat, take off 2%.
Promote Cat to Barrage and attack at 0.08% odds and dies.
Promote Cat to Barrage and attack at 0.08% and die.
Promote Cat to Barrage and attack at 1.06% and die.
Promote Cat to Barrage and attack at 4.31% and die.
Promote Cat to Barrage and attack at 4.31% and die.
Promote Cat to CR1 and attack at 42.67% and survive.
Promote Cat to CR1 and attack at 71.13% and survive.
Promote Cat to CR1 and attack at 72.23% and survive.
CR1 Axe attack Cat at 34.78% and dies, no damage to Cat. (so much for luck!)
CR1 Axe attacks at 34.78% and kills the Cat, now 2/5. (payback?)
CR1 Axe attacks at 90.51% and kills him, now at 3.7/5.
CR1 Axe attacks at 91.37% and kills him, now at 3.8/5.
CBT1 Axe attacks at 97.26% and kills him, taking Kyoto with a Granary and an Academy in the city. Set city to Forge. We receive some gold, now up to 174 in treasury, but game did not tell me how much?
We have enough to complete IW.

Move units into Kyoto.

No AI are at WHEOOH, Toku is ready to give us everything but Alphabet for peace but not yet.

Land to the east looks kind of nice.

Stop and save for consultation.

 

[The-Hawk]

What a bottleneck.

Plan looks good to me. I would probably bombard a bit more to save cats, but I understand the desire to get on with it. Especially since there are no archers. Hopefully we won't lose too many cats without wounding the top defender.

/Edit: whoops, crossed posts.

 

[leif erikson]

Beat you!



edit
I think I'm up for heading further east. Would be nice to grab the next city which looks like it is 3-tiles to the NE?

 

[Cactus Pete]

A city well worth the losses. Like forge there, then perhaps a barracks. Need to get more workers east.

Why are the tiles 3E and 3ENNE of Kyoto visible but fogged, while the forest north of the copper hill is black? Shouldn't they all be in black?

Suggest moving an axe onto the forest 2E of the city to see if the copper hill is defended. If not, then safest, and therefore best, route to next city is likely forest, copper hill, forest, and see what lies ahead. May even want to play to there next and pause.

BTW, suggest best use of wkbt might be to monitor the western side of the island. Perhaps a new culture will show up west of the corn.

After IW, Machinery.

Suggest worker6 mine hill east of Osaka before chopping forest.

Bombay doesn't need to grow right now, so corn to Osaka.

 

[leif erikson]

Forgot to report the best news, Toku is no longer a member of the AP!

 

[leif erikson]

A city well worth the losses. Like forge there, then perhaps a barracks. Need to get more workers east.

OK.

Why are the tiles 3E and 3ENNE of Kyoto visible but fogged, while the forest north of the copper hill is black? Shouldn't they all be in black?

Kyoto is on a hill, but that shouldn't be why?

Suggest moving an axe onto the forest 2E of the city to see if the copper hill is defended. If not, then safest, and therefore best, route to next city is likely forest, copper hill, forest, and see what lies ahead. May even want to play to there next and pause.

If the hill is undefended, perhaps move onto hill and then stop? Should we send an Axe/Spear team?

Then we need another Spear to defend Kyoto.

Some Axes showed up in Kagoshima, not sure from where. They haven't moved out of the city, so suspect they will remain on defenseive?

BTW, suggest best use of wkbt might be to monitor the western side of the island. Perhaps a new culture will show up west of the corn.

Good idea, should have thought of it.

After IW, Machinery.

Surely.

Suggest worker6 mine hill east of Osaka before chopping forest.

OK, there is another Worker north of Bombay that can head east next turn.

Bombay doesn't need to grow right now, so corn to Osaka.

Yes, hadn't adjusted cities yet.

edit - should we consider a switch to OR once Kyoto comes out of resistance to get some Buddhist missionaries to our core?

 

[Mad Professor]

Good work Leif. Particularly nice that Toku is no longer member of AP. That means we're safe if we can keep him with his borders closed to everyone right? (And that shouldn't be too hard).

Keep thumping, leif.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Kyoto is on a hill, but that shouldn't be why? Anyone have a clue?

If the hill is undefended, perhaps move onto hill and then stop? Should we send an Axe/Spear team? Wouldn't an axe & cat do?

Then we need another Spear to defend Kyoto. Little reluctant to be building spears when no chariots have shown up, no AI have HAs, and we'll have swords soon.

Some Axes showed up in Kagoshima, not sure from where. They haven't moved out of the city, so suspect they will remain on defenseive? There was one axe there last save. Could one have slipped past your notice to the south while advancing on Osaka? If not, then perhaps there is a galley in the waters off Kagoshima. If so, further reason to move the wkbt.

edit - should we consider a switch to OR once Kyoto comes out of resistance to get some Buddhist missionaries to our core?

Wouldn't we have to convert to Buddhism too and lose happiness? Thinking we need a Hindu missionary (probably for Kag) first, and won't we want to build a forge in Kyoto before Buddhist missionaries? Indeed, we need to seriously consider whether it is necessary to spend hammers on Buddhist missionaries right now (before we see more of the map) if at all. Thinking the probabilty of spread to Japan will be minimal if we take out the adjacent civ(s).

Note that two unknown civs have no AP votes. Know this is re-visiting a covered topic, but just still not clear why that isn't reason for further safety.

 

[Mad Professor]

I don't know how we could see that tile to the NE of Kyoto without sending a unit through.

I notice Tokugawa is willing to give quite a list of techs to buy us off. That is strong incentive to actually leave him alive when we're finished with him so that we can get those techs - especially considering our difficulty teching lately.

One of his cities is called Illinois - that's a barbarian city name right? Looks like the next best city is to the north-east, whichever that one is.

Is it worth taking the one on our borders now that we know he doesn't have any other buddhist cities? If we want to leave him with one, then leaving him with one furthest away from our own capital would be better for maintenance, right?

 

[Undecided]

Nice city you got us there, Leif.

A city well worth the losses. Agree.. Like forge there, then perhaps a barracks. I'd suggest we're making a GP-Farm out of this one, going granary->lib or lib first. Looks like there is one city NE that has 3rd ring culture, so the corn naturally belongs to Kyoto therefore having an excellent, a good and a mediocre foodspecial, enough hills to set up the city quickly and an academy from the start. Need to get more workers east. Yes.

Why are the tiles 3E and 3ENNE of Kyoto visible but fogged, while the forest north of the copper hill is black? Shouldn't they all be in black? I think this is only the case because we just got the city. Should update next turn. But i don't mind free scouting from the game.

Suggest moving an axe onto the forest 2E of the city to see if the copper hill is defended. If not, then safest, and therefore best, route to next city is likely forest, copper hill, forest, and see what lies ahead. May even want to play to there next and pause. Agree

BTW, suggest best use of wkbt might be to monitor the western side of the island. Perhaps a new culture will show up west of the corn. Good idea.

After IW, Machinery. Concur.

Suggest worker6 mine hill east of Osaka before chopping forest. Agree...

Bombay doesn't need to grow right now, so corn to Osaka. ...and agree.

MP
Is it worth taking the one on our borders now that we know he doesn't have any other buddhist cities? If we want to leave him with one, then leaving him with one furthest away from our own capital would be better for maintenance, right?

If we want to leave him with one and i think it's still a very good option, Kago is the best city to isolate him.

What do we want to do with our GPersons? I usually go for a medic-III healer with the first General to unlock HE and it seems that we're probably not done with warring after Toku. What about our GPriest? Lots of (valid) options but i hate to let him sit there for another 20 turns.

Could also switch our EPs to eliza. She's clearly the powerhouse but it could be difficult get to the point when we can see the research. We're currently 91/0 in Points.

Would stay away from OR and missionaries until we have a better picture of the situation in the NE.

 

[Mad Professor]

...we're probably not done with warring after Toku.

I think you could be right! The medic III is a powerful option - units can just rush onto the next city without stopping and they heal while you're bombarding if you are doing that. Unlocking HE sounds attractive also. I was hoping for some variation from a military victory, and might still get it, but I can't see any victory coming without banging more heads, if for no other reason than to stop them (eg Liz) building a spaceship first!

If we want to leave him with one and i think it's still a very good option, Kago is the best city to isolate him.

Leaving him one is a very good option when he's willing to give us a lot of techs to leave him alive! The bit about isolating him is a good point though - that had slipped my mind...

 

[leif erikson]

Like the idea of a supermedic, which unit should we use, the Spear?

Also like the idea of Kyoto becoming a GP Farm. We can use Kago to isolate Toku.

Think waiting on OR is probably a good idea. Might have to build a few more Axes to defend our gains?

Will mine hill near Osaka. Planning to move ahead this evening (+10 hours or so from this post) trying to finish this set unless we have more to discuss?

 

[Htadus]

Most excellent way to loose 5 cats leif. I see we got our self a GP farm.

Regarding the explored area, i believe that we see the former culture boundary of Kyoto. What that city saw/knew is now our knowledge.

I think it is time that we start to use our ability to build libraries to good use. We really need CoL more than any other tech right now. Even more than IW. It is not constructive to spend precious reserach into a tech we can extort. So lets think about this.

leif, I think its is a superb suggestion that we adopt Org to build at least 1 Buddihst Missionary to infect a production city and build more there to get blocking vote. It will take a while to get the blocking vote but we need to prep early. CP I do not think we need to be in Buddhist to build tham, just need to have the religion in the city.

I want to agree with Cp and say that we probably do not need toku around to be safe from the AP vote since there are 2 Civs with no AP religion. And I will also guess that they do have their own religion by now. However, I agree that we should use Toku to get some techs. But before that we need to take copper city from him and for that matter, should only leave him with just 1 city. But there is a problem I have observed with Toku. He seem to want to give less and less techs as his empire get smaller. We should check often to see what he will give for peace. But not before we take that production city he built for us.

@undecided. Kago is a poor city to isolate him in because it being coastal. Once optics come in others can infect him with budhist if he is still alive. However, if we want to make him Hindu, we can capture that city, reduce him to 1 city and after Peace gift Kaga to him as a gift. He will want to OB once he become caustious. Then we can work on getting a friend in him if we so choose to proceed toward potential AP game.

I do not think we need spear to protect Kyoto since Toku do not have horses. Axe get my vote.

Meaaaaadic III,,,,MeaaaaadicIII,,,,,MeaaaadicIII (chant)

Also it is time to plan our war against north.

 

[zamint3]

Nice city.
Keep the army moving.

Wouldn't we have to convert to Buddhism too and lose happiness? Thinking we need a Hindu missionary (probably for Kag) first,

Converting to Buddhism means Game Over And we only need Buddhism present in the city to build missionaries.
We can't use a Hindu missionary in Kag as long as it is Japanese and we don't have open borders.

I like Undecideds idea of Kyoto as GP farm and it already has the granary.

GG as super medic

I'm not sure why we tech IW? Can't it wait until we extort it from Toku?

EDIT: X-posted!! When war with Toku is coming to an end we should switch to OR and build some missionaries, forges and libraries.

 

[Undecided]

Like the idea of a supermedic, which unit should we use, the Spear?

Most of the time i build a scout and promote him to medic III. It's quick, low cost and only gets destroyed if our stack is already lost und we've made a serious mistake.

@htadus
Fair point i mostly thought of it in terms of being such a badly placed city that he won't make any problems further down the line.

 

[Htadus]

I would use a warrior as the super medic. And some day he may grow up to be a mech infantry for free.

(lets hope not)

 

[Cactus Pete]

Like the idea of a supermedic, which unit should we use, the Spear? Idea of building a scout for this purpose was proposed by Undecided. How much of an advantage is a 2-move-per-turn unit as a supermedic?

Also like the idea of Kyoto becoming a GP Farm. Seems to be some agreement on this, though it would make a good production city too, with units produced closer to the front. In any event, shouldn't we build a forge first, both for happiness and to improve the rate of production for library or barracks or missionaries or whatever else is to follow? We can use Kago to isolate Toku. Thought the plan was to leave Toku with two cities: one, that we never attack and that has no religion and allows us to gain tech for peace; plus another, that we either capture and convert to Hindu (like Kag) or that we settle and convert to Hindu, then gift back to Toku so he will become Hindu. Has recent knowledge gained altered value of this approach?

Think waiting on OR is probably a good idea. Might have to build a few more Axes to defend our gains? It would allow us to produce missionaries to convert Osaka and Kyoto to Hindu, giving both added happiness, increased production for buildings, and culture for expansion. Not sure this wouldn't be cost effective. We're going to be doing a good deal of chopping around those two cites soon.

Will mine hill near Osaka. Planning to move ahead this evening (+10 hours or so from this post) trying to finish this set unless we have more to discuss?

One issue that might merit more discussion: whether to continue to tech IW. Understand the utility of CoL, but not sure it would be that useful immediately while we are still prioritizing units. Like to hear opinions on how useful Alpha would be, as it's unlikely we could get both IW and Alpha for peace, and how useful would earlier crossbows and swords be. Also, best strategy is dependent on how much more fighting we want to do after peace with Toku. Like to see more of the map, but inclined towards more warring, as we have an abundance of units (and their maintenance cost) with the prospect of better ones to come, at which point we should at least consider opening a second front to the west. Opinions?