SGOTM 16 - Kakumeika

[Sun Tzu Wu]

...
I've never really gotten why people like Crossbows. They are mainly for countering Macemen and city defense. Longbows are better at city defense and Elephants make better Macemen counters.

Crossbowmen are the next strongest unit after the Copper and Iron Ages. They have no effective counter. They can easily kill any melee unit on a flat plot even with some defensive bonus. They aren't too bad against cities with some Catapult support.

I don't believe War Elephants are a better counter to Macemen, since WE have no bonus against Macemen while Crossbowmen have a +50% bonus versus Macemen (melee). While the odds may slightly favor War Elephants, Crossbowmen can take full advantage of defensive terrain and fortification bonuses while War Elephants can do neither.

Crossbowmen are often supported by Trebuchets before Civil Service and thus Macemen.

Of course Longbowmen are better city defenders than Crossbowmrn, but Longbowmen require Feudalism, making it a defensive military technology more so than offensive. Thus, players may delay it till after Machinery and Engineering to get that military offensive edge earlier.

Of course none of the above really applies to our current situation where Macemen and Catapults would suffice. Still a few defensive Crossbowmen would be more efficient and would be quite effective in substituting for Macemen when the situation calls for it.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I agree with the plan to complete six universities, capture most of Brennus' cities, via mainly Macemen and Catapults, securing Stone for Oxford University and University of Sankora.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[shulec]

Lyons needs to whip some two triremes before or after a lighthouse (after the library). Barb galleys wil be coming soon and we don't want to waste hammer on new workboats and lose food due to pillaging.

I ran a test and education came much faster than the troops. Engineering before paper will help both war efforts and synching Oxford and stone.

 

[WastinTime]

Revised Goal - PPP for T126-T136​

Grand Strategy

Conquer up to the Domination Limit and race to Future Tech 1 using corporations to win the fastest while completing 10 objectives.

1) Blazing: You must submit a save covering at least your first 100 turns not later than 2 months after game start.
2) Steal EITHER Iron Working, OR Astronomy, OR Physics using espionage. [Probably Iron Working from Brennus]
3) At least one AI opponent has been eliminated (conquered) by your team
4) Kill Humbaba 32 Mech Infantry Super Medic to our Northwest
5) Be EITHER the United Nations Secretary General OR the Apostolic Palace Resident [AP Resident as long as we dont research Mass Media!]
6) You own at least 2 Legendary culture cities
7) You own at least 3 Holy Shrines
8) You own at least 3 Corporate Headquarters
9) You have learned Future Tech 1
10) Fulfil the requirements for TWO victory conditions, at least one of which is NOT Conquest or Domination.

The Plan:
We want Iron Working this turnset. Check

Hook iron up by the time Machinery is done. (the only reason I'm agreeing to settling the grass-iron.)
I'd like to see us using the power of the Pyramids. Scientists racing to Education. We're at about 80 beakers/turn at break even gold. I want to double our research rate this TS. Libraries will come before forges. Then attention turns to war prep. I'll complete the warriors we have started before iron is hooked up. Then prioritize Barracks and Maces. If iron is not ready, Cats are built. Collosus will be completed. Workers will do the essential tiles (like Pig, horse, etc, but then also look to putting down roads for the war. Get another settler for the island (one more beyond that isn't a bad idea either)
AP: The next vote occurs T135.
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Know Your Enemies - Brennus, Ramesses II

Reference Screenshots for T126 are here
Kaitzilla's T116-T126 Turnset results here and here
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Research

T126 Machinery (ETA TBD)
Paper? or Engineering? (trebs + road movement)

Great Person
The GM will be sent to Egypt's Temple of Artemis city (Thebes) for a trade mission (t132) while Paris builds population. Paris at Pop 11 is ideal.
I'm sure I can cram some more into the build queues, but this is the basic idea. I'll run a couple tests on this.
Paris
Grow to size 11 (working GE)
cats, mace

Orleans
Collosus (in 8, working more specialists), rax whip, maces

Horse City (no library)
missionary, forge, rax, warrior (before iron hookup), mace

Drunk Pigs
Library whip
rax (half finished already)
Warrior (before iron hookup)
mace

Trojan
Needs a farm to irrigate Corn
libarary whip
missionary

Lyons (Barb island city, between sheep and fish)
Library whip
(turns into a trireme at some point. probably now while growing city)
settler

CornFishPigs
Library whip
Forge (wait for confu to whip)

DeerPigsFish (Settled 4E1S of Horse City)
library (whip after confu)
forge

Jungle Pigs
granary whip
warrior (half built already--finish before iron)
library

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Workers

TBD

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Military

Spy - Send back to Camulodunum.
Spy2 - Send to Stone.
Eve - Go home on the trade mission boat.
Boudica (Combat II Chariot) De-fog Brennus south and look for XP.
Archie - Move 1SW and fog-bust.
Adam - continue de-spawn. After a city is settled, return home (to lower maint cost) and wait to worker steal.
Emerillion - pick up merchant and settler. Drop settler in desert, merchant in Elephantine
Sea Vous PLas - explore west and south.
Jaques Cartier (scout) - is sleeping. Wake him. unload 1S, reboard next turn. Continue exploring like that. If we reach a dead end, kill him?
Crusoe - return to MAINLAND in our culture (a warrior will go to the island for MP duty)
1st Workboat from CornFishPigs - net fish for DPF.
settler - settle clam/grass-iron desert on t129

Diplo
Brennus. All demands will be refused except maybe cash.
Will accept all tech/gold/resource demands from Ramesses except for Civil Service which would be refused.

Brennus: Trade something for 4 gpt

End of Turn
Save Game at the beginning and end of every turn
Screenshot Demographics and Espionage screen every turn
Record Ramesses' and Brennus' sabotage building values every turn for their cities
Check zoomed-out culture screen
Did Brennus! or Ramesses enter WHEOOHRN mode? (Fist Icon)

Stopping Conditions
Meet a new AI
Unexpected War Declaration
Brennus goes into war prep mode

 

[Kaitzilla]

Lyons needs to whip some two triremes before or after a lighthouse (after the library). Barb galleys wil be coming soon and we don't want to waste hammer on new workboats and lose food due to pillaging.

I ran a test and education came much faster than the troops. Engineering before paper will help both war efforts and synching Oxford and stone.

Do we even need stone for Oxford? We have the 50% bonus to wonders working for us pretty nicely so far this game.

I think the main barb galley threat is going to hit the fish at Lyons. If we put a hammer into a trireme we should be ok later whipping one when/if the barbs finally come back.

Brennus disbanded a chariot? >_>. Maybe when we take Camulo someday his economy will crash and he'll disband all his army


Can we do clams for 4gpt? Then maybe cancel the pigs or sheep deal with Ramesses.

From the info sheets it looks like Brennus will trade maps at Pleased and Ramesses at Friendly, so Paper first will probably net us Ramesses' map if we don't mind starting Macemen later than we could.

 

[shulec]

If we go for engineering, we should build at least two spearman before pikes (fewer hammers) to counter chariots (unless Brennus goes for HBR).

 

[WastinTime]

Playing test game and building detailed PPP (feel free to follow along--changes frequently...until I go to bed.)

Machinery
T126-7 0%
T128-130 100%
T131 Machinery (??%)
T132-5 Engineering?
T136-7 Paper
T138-145 Education

Paris
T126 - Forge(1); Wheat,x5FPcottage,Pcottage,x2pmine
(size 10)
T127 - cat (2); Wheat,x5FPcottage,Pcottage,x2pmine, grass
T128 - cat; Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2Pcottage,x2pmine
T129-130 - cat; Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2Pcottage,x2pmine
T131 - cat; Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2Pcottage,x2pmine
(size 11)
T132-3 - cat; Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2Pcottage,x2pmine, engineer
T134 - Mace; Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2Pcottage,x2pmine,engineer
T135 - Mace (whip); Wheat,x5FPcottage,x2pmine,engineer

Orleans
T126 - Colossus; Fish,Sheep,FPcottage,Gmine,x2FloodPlain,pmine
T127-8 - Colossus; Fish,Sheep,FPcottage,x2Gmine,x2FloodPlain
(size 8)
T129-130 - Colossus; Fish,Sheep,FPcottage,x2Gmine,x2FloodPlain,pmine
(size 9)
T131 - Colossus; Fish,Sheep,x2FPcottage,x2Gmine,FloodPlain,pmine,engineer
T132-3 - rax (2); Fish,Sheep,x2FPcottage,x2Gmine,FloodPlain,pmine,engineer
T134 - Mace (2); Fish,Sheep,x2FPcottage,x2Gmine,,FloodPlain,pmine,engineer
T135 - Mace (whip); Fish,Sheep,x2FPcottage,x2Gmine,FloodPlain

Horse City
T126-7 - Confuscian Missionary(2); Deer,Horse,Gmine(heading to Tolosa)
T128-130 - rax(3); Deer,Horse,Gmine, Pmine
T131 - Warrior (1); Deer,Horse,Gmine,Pmine (MP in place--move chariot)
T132-3 - Cat; Deer,Horse,Gmine,Pmine
T134 - Mace; Deer,Horse,Gmine,Pmine
T135 - Mace(whip); Deer,Horse

Drunk Pigs
T126 - Library; Pigs,2xFPfarm,grass-to grow 1 turn faster
T127 – Library (whip); Pigs,2xFPfarm
T128 – Cat (to catch overflow); Pigs,2xFPfarm, scientist
T129 Warrior; Pigs,2xFPfarm, scientist
T130 Warrior; Pigs,2xFPfarm, x2scientist
T131 – Cat; Pigs,2xFPfarm,x2scientist
T132 - Cat(whip); Pigs,2xFPfarm, scientist

Trojan
T126 - Library; corn, gRiver
T127 - Library; corn, Pcottage, Pmine
T128 - Library; corn, Pmine, gRiver
T129 - Confucian Missionary; corn; 2sci
T130-1 - Confucian Missionary; corn; farm, ???
T132 - Confucian Missionary; corn; farm, 2sci

Lyons
T126 - Library; Fish,Sheep,Horsetile
T127 – Library (whip); Fish,Sheep
T128 - Workboat; Fish,Sheep
T129 - Workboat; Fish,Sheep,Horse
T130 - workboat; Fish,Sheep,Horse
T131 - Trireme; Fish,Sheep,Horse,scientist
T132 - Settler (chop); Fish,Sheep,Horse,scientist
T134 - settler (whip); Fish,Sheep,Horse
T135 - Trireme; Fish,Sheep,Horse
T136 - Trireme; Fish,Sheep,Horse,Scientist


CornFishPigs
T126 - Library; Fish,x4Coast
T127 - Library; Fish,x5Coast
T128 – Library(confu whip); Fish,x3Coast
T129-0 - Forge; Fish,x2Coast,x2scientist
T131-2 - Forge; Fish,Pigs,Coast,x2scientist
T133-6 - Forge; Fish,x2Coast,x2scientist

DeerFishPigs
T126 - Library; Pigs
T127-8 - Library; Pigs, fish
T129 - Library; Pigs, fish, deer
T130 - Library; Pigs, fish, camped deer
T131 - Library (whip); Fish, deer
T132 - Trireme; Fish, deer
T133 - Trireme; Fish, deer, Pigs

Jungle Pigs
T126 – Warrior; grass
T127-9 – Warrior; Clams
T130-3 – Warrior (4); Clams, plains
T134-6 - Granary; Clams, Pigs

Iron City
T128-9 - Granary; Clams

Eiffel
T126-8 - Pasture Horses 1N2W of Lyons
T129 - Move 1W
T130-132 Chop

Fritz
T126 – Road 1S or Cottage 1E?
T127-135 Move to Pigs and Pasture.
T136-7 - Move to 1SE of Camulodunum
T138-9 - road

Slave
T126 – mine (only because it has 1 turn left)
T127 - farm 1NE
T128-130 - farm Trojan-1E
T131-3 - Move smartly to JunglePigs
T134-5 - Road 1S of JunglePigs

Satan
T126-130 - Improve Deer 2N1W of DeerFishPigs
T131-3 - Road Deer
T134 - move 3S to FPH
T135 - mine

Strauss
T126 – Road Wine 1 turn
T127-8 – Road 1S
T129 - Move SE
T130-1 Road

Pope
T126 – Move 2W
T127 – Move SW
T128 – Road 1W
T129-132 – Mine Iron
T133-4 – Road Iron

Leroy
T126-7 - Mine
T128 - Road SE
T129-T131 - cottage NE
T132 - Road SW
T132-4 - Road SE

Ricky
T126-7 –chop (into Trojan)
T128 - farm 1SW
T129-130 - farm Trojan-1E
T131-3 - farm NW of Trojan
T134 - move NW, farm

Military

Spy - Send to Tolosa
Spy2 - Send to Bibracte.
Eve - Go home on the trade mission boat.
Boudica (Combat II Chariot) Look around Brennus' land for defenses and workers, etc. take over fog busting for Archie.
Archie - Move 1SW and fog-bust. Around T131 head to JunglePigs. Let the Boudica fog bust
Adam - continue de-spawn. After a city is settled, return home (to lower maint cost) and wait to worker steal.
Emerillion - pick up merchant and settler. Drop settler in desert, merchant in Elephantine
Sea Vous PLas - explore west and south.
Jaques Cartier (scout) - is sleeping. Wake him. unload 1S, reboard next turn. Continue exploring like that. If we reach a dead end, kill him?
Crusoe - return to MAINLAND in our culture (a warrior will go to the island for MP duty)
Larry - when warrior is built, this chariot will head to JunglePigs.
1st Workboat from CornFishPigs - net fish for DPF.
settler - settle clam/grass-iron desert on t128
missionary - Go to Bibracte
west workboat - net clams for ironcity

Diplo
Brennus. All demands will be refused except maybe cash.
Will accept all tech/gold/resource demands from Ramesses except for Civil Service which would be refused.

Ram: Cancel Pig and sheep
Brennus: Wheat for 4 gpt (will not cause unhealthy problem with clams coming next turn, and deer eventually)

End of Turn
Check Ram for a good amt of gold to beg for.
Save Game at the beginning and end of every turn
Screenshot Demographics and Espionage screen every turn
Record Ramesses' and Brennus' sabotage building values every turn for their cities
Check zoomed-out culture screen
Did Brennus! or Ramesses enter WHEOOHRN mode? (Fist Icon)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Brennus settler can settle 1SE of the iron T128, so T129 for us might be too late. Our settler can board galley T126, land on the desert hill T127, settle T128. Iron mined T132, connected T134.

Good question about killing Jacques. He might be useful when we get a caravel. Scouts are cheaper than explorers. BUt he costs maintenance till then...

On Engineering
I agree with your previous contention that our main research goal is Education. The benefits of Engineering are primarily military: trebs, pikes, and +1 road movement. Our military goals right now are very limited. Cats are plenty capable for our purposes and once our small army gets to Brennus' land, +1 road movement doesn't help. And Engineering is very expensive for a relatively early tech.

The only alternative I see to Paper-Education is Optics. Meeting other AIs has the potential to drastically accelerate our game for several reasons: knowledge ("is power"), marble, tech trades, new religion spread, etc.

Incidently, getting Ramesses maps might tell us something about that mystery tile 2SW of Pi-Remesses that mabraham has mentioned a couple of times.


.

 

[WastinTime]

Brennus settler can settle 1SE of the iron T128, so T129 for us might be too late.

Not a problem. I can unload on the iron, settle the desert as planned, but it will be on T128.

 

[LowtherCastle]

WastinTime, what are your long-term thoughts on the fp at Orleans-1E? It already has 2 turns of cottaging in it. I'm asking because I see the grass 2S of Horse CIty as a useful 3f tile for Horse City, but it needs irrigation. That could come from the fp or from Trojan-1NW. If we think it will be Trojan-1NW, then perhaps more useful would be

T126 Ricky farm 1SW (Trojan-1NW)

then Ricky can still continue irrigating the corn, per your PPP.

 

[WastinTime]

We should probably post signs when improvements are partially complete. If the fp has 2 turns of cottage, I'll probably complete it since we're working that tile.

So I will do:
T126 Ricky farm 1SW

 

[LowtherCastle]

We should probably post signs when improvements are partially complete.

Yes. In terms of roading from Orleans to Paris, I haven't checked the Test Save, but Orleans-1S has 1 turn of roading and Paris-1NW is already roaded but virtually impossible to notice.

 

[bcool]

We should cancel the pig and sheep gifts to Brennus. No need to keep those going now.

the only thing I can imagine we could trade to Brennus for 4 gold is wheat. If we cancel the pig and sheep gifts we will encounter in Paris with the forge and the expected growth. Is 4 gold worth slowing Paris's growth?
Although we could wait and trade clams perhaps that should work... as Kaitzilla suggested

PPP looks good although it seems we are delaying the 2nd island city quite some time. Would it be possible to whip the settler in Orleans and use the OF to finish the Colossus either? I konw it is a sacrifice, but perhaps it is worth it?

 

[WastinTime]

PPP looks good although it seems we are delaying the 2nd island city quite some time. Would it be possible to whip the settler in Orleans and use the OF to finish the Colossus either? I konw it is a sacrifice, but perhaps it is worth it?

I think Orleans should save it's whips for maces.

I plan to get out the rest of the PPP this morning, then play the first 5-ish turns late tonite (15 hours). Hope to play the rest tomorrow morning (~26 hours). I'm feeling the deadline approaching already.

 

[WastinTime]

From paris, roading SW.

Would ya'all like to use the wheat road and add 1 road SW of wheat?

or, move more efficiently and add 2 roads S of Wheat and then SW of that?

 

[WastinTime]

Anyone else thing we should take Aesthetics+30 for Currency?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Anyone else thing we should take Aesthetics+30 for Currency?

I was itching to do it for a few turns, but I can see why it might be best to hang onto Currency for a little while longer.

Aesthetics does nothing for us but open up Literature/Music/Drama trade. Ramesses is not yet researching Currency or he'd already be refusing to trade Aesthetics for Currency.

That means he is researching Paper which would be annoying, Civil Service which we can keep an eye on with Aethetics and gold, Monarchy which would be great,Compass which is nice, Calendar which we could trade Currency for or wait for Brennus to get and trade with him, or Literature/Music which would be good too. Philo,HBR,or Machinery round out the list. AI always seem to go for Calendar and Construction pretty early so I will hope that's what Ramesses does and we can make the trade with Brennus to preserve our Ramesses trade bait.


I think Currency for Aesthetics is a good trade if we can get some gold too. If Ramesses is gravy and techs Music/Compass/Calendar/Monarchy for us next, we can trade him Civil Service for Drama+one of those. We can get cheap Theatres in our 2 LC's

I also want us to beg Ramesses for gold this turnset too. Now is when gold is most needed and his golden age means it is likely for him to have some. Someone made a post in the last few days that mentions how much we should beg for but I forget.

 

[Kaitzilla]

We should cancel the pig and sheep gifts to Brennus. No need to keep those going now.

the only thing I can imagine we could trade to Brennus for 4 gold is wheat. If we cancel the pig and sheep gifts we will encounter in Paris with the forge and the expected growth. Is 4 gold worth slowing Paris's growth?
Although we could wait and trade clams perhaps that should work... as Kaitzilla suggested

PPP looks good although it seems we are delaying the 2nd island city quite some time. Would it be possible to whip the settler in Orleans and use the OF to finish the Colossus either? I konw it is a sacrifice, but perhaps it is worth it?

I think you mean cancel the pig+sheep gifts to Ramesses since we are friendly and that canceling those gifts will solve all our health problems in Paris

I'd recommend waiting a turn and trying clams for 4gpt. Brennus doesn't deserve such a strong health resource like wheat. Technically wheat for 4gpt is ok since canceling two Ramesses gifts and clams gets us healty in Paris anyway.

We don't really have a boat available to ferry another settler over to Barb Island with that trade mission heading down. Lyons is in the best position to whip/chop another settler somehow.


@WastinTime - Will look over the PPP details later today. Don't forget we should have 2 missionaries running around T127 with that PPP. The one from Horse City is heading to Drunk Pigs T127 maybe?

Strauss building roads or mines hmmm. Maybe our new clams/sugar/iron city can chop/whip us another worker at size 2 around T136 or T137? We are reaching turn time when we want roads yup.

 

[shulec]

PPP looks good although it seems we are delaying the 2nd island city quite some time. Would it be possible to whip the settler in Orleans and use the OF to finish the Colossus either? I konw it is a sacrifice, but perhaps it is worth it?

This is a good idea. This second city should add 3-4 gpt by settling (at 0% research) T137-T138. A settler whipped on T127 will yield 60 hammer overflow, slows the Colossus only one turn. Alternatively, a settler can be built in Paris with nearly the same result.

 

[LowtherCastle]

the only thing I can imagine we could trade to Brennus for 4 gold is wheat.

Next we'll have clams to offer, if he still offers any gold. (xpost w. Kaitzilla)

From paris, roading SW.

Would ya'all like to use the wheat road and add 1 road SW of wheat?

or, move more efficiently and add 2 roads S of Wheat and then SW of that?

More efficiently, straight SW from Paris. The question is, how to do sequence capturing Camulo and Tolosa. Camulo is out of the way if we want to slam Tolosa fast from the NW. Plus, we don't necessarily have time to make two stacks for a dual front, though they could catch up with each other at Tolosa, sort of.

Anyone else thing we should take Aesthetics+30 for Currency?

We want to be able to trade for Calendar the instant he gets it, don't you think? Or were you thinking CS for Drama+CoL (if he does that next)? He's in a golden age so his research is going to be even faster. Currency will kick it into fourth gear. Is that what we want?