SGOTM 16 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

Ronnie1 · Dec 3, 2012

Part 2

Spoiler :

Ozbenno · Dec 3, 2012

Nice progress.

Longbows can be problematic for us, without trebs or maces, we could be in trouble.

Ozbenno · Dec 3, 2012

Had a quick peek at the save.

We have plenty of troops but not all in great areas but enough I guess to take the barb city and continue straight on to Ramesses.

We have our usual fiscal cliff to consider, -20gpt at 0%. Our militayr is costing us nearly 50gpt and maintenance over 100gpt, so we can whip courthouses everywhere I guess and work more cottages where we have them.

Research seems set on Civil Service, maybe we should consider Compass and Optics instead (although CS and Engineering are better military techs), we seem to be slipping in this game and meeting some AIs can help us catch up maybe if we get in first, at least have an idea what is out there and plan accordingly.

Probably need to keep a token force near Brennus' last city to take it in 10 turns.

Sleepless · Dec 3, 2012

Ozbenno said:
Nice progress.

Longbows can be problematic for us, without trebs or maces, we could be in trouble.

Agreed.

Plus side Ram is a very weak troop builder. We now have access to Horse Archers who are immune to FS and with our current forces can make a big dent in his cities. No harm in weakening him a bit. Peace for techs then attack again.

Sleepless · Dec 3, 2012

Quick peek at the save as well. Initial thoughts.

Thoughts on tech path.....

Obviously we aren't going to be teching anything very quickly unless we put all our efforts into it. i.e running specs/building wealth etc. So rather than CS I'd rather go compass - optics and hopefully be able to trade with others. Will have the problem of being heathens though.. Of course on the other hand we could just let them find us. The possibility to chain irrigate and maces has a big upside as well. Tbh more I think about it CS would be better.

City builds.

AP hammers. Its important to spread conf as much as possible and build the monasteries/temples for the hammers and also to be able to defy the votes when they come up.

Another city for the island is a priority as we will lose the trade with Ram when we declare.

Bibracte. Need to maximise the priests here when possible. They do give prod and cash to build the Christian shrine. Idea to spread Chrisitanity around as well. There is a missionary sleeping in Orleans which should be used somewhere. If it takes in Bibracte we could then run 6 priests.

Other than that courthouses/grans/forges/libs and where we have all them units..

Leading on to war with Ram.

Regroup in the barb city when we take it. (Think it should be roaded to asap). Scout a little bit then start the war in the next couple of turns.

Ideally we want the mids in the first war so we can run rep specs. All the other wonders aren't going to hurt either.

Ronnie1 · Dec 3, 2012

Random thoughts while not in front of the game.

...on Ramesses war....

I think we take the main stack straight to Thebes for the Mids & AP and all the other wonders. Then decide the order for taking the auxiliary cities. I still think there is land to the SW, you can see the "bleed" of the surf in the ocean tiles IMO.

I switched to OR, so we can spread religions freely without the need for Monasteries.

Building whips are now worth 45 :hammers:

/pop in cities with Forges, which is most of them I think.

Too many troops in the north? I did not have visibility of the new city on the coast until this turn. I probably have too many troops near there, but some are healing, and some started moving that way before I actually captured Durco, when I was unsure of what my losses would be on the hill city. However, we may want to leave a few extra troops in that area to discourage Ramesses from any kind of naval invasion across the straight.

EDIT:
Alternative options, only 1 really, start marching everything except the few troops needed to take the last city. Leave maybe 1 cat and a 4 unit mix, Spear/Sword/XBow/Chariot. Not sure how many troops he will be able to build in 10 turns, but he has the Iron mine so he is getting 5 :hammers:

/t.

There are workers near the barb city, captured 4 in the southern city, 1 in the SE city, and 1 when I killed the axe escorting the settler.

As soon as the northern units are healed, GG Medic heads south of course. Not sure if he is really needed in the north at all, I sent him that direction before the last attack.

Sleepless · Dec 3, 2012

A rush for Thebes is a good idea depending on what we find on the way but pretty certain Ram is weak and will probably bottle up in cities. With land targets anyway the likelihood is the attack if it comes will be in the former celtic lands not by sea.

Just a thought would it be worth vassaling Ram?? Sure we can do it if he has feudalism. Obv have to Thebes and the shrine city. Though prob best to just kill him off as well though with enough cities they can usually do quite a few techs for you.

McArine · Dec 3, 2012

I agree with the rush for Thebes, with a couple of Horse Archers I think we should be able to manage.
I also agree with us researching Civil Service next.
I took a quick look at our economy, courthouses everywhere and markets in the best cities will get us researching again. Just 4 will get us to positive numbers at 0%.

adrianj · Dec 3, 2012

Great stuff Ron. We're keeping up a good pace.

The turn set roster order is...
Players
1) Ronnie1 Just Played
2) Ozbenno Up Now
3) Conquistador63 On Deck
4) McArine
5) Sleepless

Team Advisors
6) adrianj
7) timmy827

Hoping for his return
8) Grifftavian

adrianj · Dec 3, 2012

Almost every time I've taken an AI as a vassal I've regretted it. The vassals former cities are forever in danger of revolting, they're not much help with research and they make diplomacy with other AIs more unpredictable.

The only time I've appreciated them is if I'm close to Conquest or want their vote for the AP/UN.

Ramesses building the AP is actually quite good for us, given the alternative of it being built on an unknown continent. Do we have any important cities with Confu? If Ramesses proposed something annoying, eg, to end a war between us, couldn't we just defy it?

I agree that a beeline to Thebes is best. With some luck and a little planning, we can aim to take it before an AP vote comes up.

Ozbenno · Dec 3, 2012

OK see that I'm up, will have a PPP down soon.

Sleepless · Dec 3, 2012

Don't think we want to defy any AP votes. Most of our celtic cities have conf so 5 unhappy is alot for them to take.

Must admit the AI are a bit stupid though just thinking it might save a few units/time etc. Think we should just do enough to extort all his techs then kill him off.

Ozbenno · Dec 3, 2012

Will look at the vote cycle and time the initial attack to give us the most turns between votes.

Sleepless · Dec 4, 2012

It looks like there are 4 turns to the next vote. We do need to release some of the x bow defenders so possibly whip an archer in those cities in place? We could well have enough happys just to move them out?

Sleepless · Dec 5, 2012

Just a little nudge as there only 47 days till the finish. Or 20 days to Christmas.

Ozbenno · Dec 5, 2012

Should have a PPP done tomorrow and play soon after...

adrianj · Dec 5, 2012

I'm quite happy with our pace.

Two things that make me happy:
a) the turn around between turnsets has been quite quick in the last little while,
b) active players are making executive decisions like razing undesirable cities and making tech trades. These "less important" decisions can really bog the team down if we stop for every one of them.

We might be at a point where the PPP is really about broad strategy, eg, civic changes, wonder builds, city build 'themes' and tech path. Micromanagement, specific builds, diplomacy, worker moves and unit moves I think we can have faith in the active player.

If team members do have an idea for neat tactical trickery, by all means speak out. Timing the war declaration to try to avoid the AP resolutions is an example. I'd also like to reiterate what Sleepless mentioned about running Priest specialists.

Conquistador 63 · Dec 5, 2012

Talking of broad strategy...

The Decathlon objectives are as follows:

1> Humbaba --an advanced era barbarian unit -- must be dead (Thanks Leif). He is a real monster just like in BOTM 41, but now lives in a fairly secluded place. STATUS: Not Achieved.

2> You own at least 2 Legendary culture cities. STATUS: Not Achieved.

3> You are EITHER the United Nations Secretary General OR the Apostolic Palace Resident. STATUS: Not Achieved.

4> You have learned Future Tech 1. STATUS: Not Achieved.

5> At least one AI opponent has been eliminated (conquered) by your team. STATUS: Not Achieved.

6> You own at least three Holy Shrines. STATUS: Not Achieved.

7> You own at least three Corporate Headquarters. STATUS: Not Achieved.

8> You have stolen EITHER Iron Working, OR Astronomy, OR Physics using espionage. STATUS: STATUS: Achieved.

9> You fulfil the requirements for TWO victory conditions, at least one of which is NOT Conquest or Domination. (For example, your spaceship arrives on Alpha Centauri the same turn you get Domination, thats two. If you achieve domination on the same turn as conquest victory, then you need one more victory condition to fulfil this condition. Understood? ). STATUS: Not Achieved.

10> Blazing: You must submit a save covering at least your first 100 turns or victory or defeat - not later than 2 months after game start. STATUS: Achieved.

Is it too early to think about the 2 victory conditions we plan to achieve in the same or consecutive turns?

It's been a while since I last opened a save, but is it possible to achieve Dom land threshold with just our starting continent and adjacent islands? Probably not, but we might count the tiles regardless.

I think we can rule out Diplo (Religious should be easier to achieve thanks to Ram's AP). BTW, objective #3 is an easy target now.

Also Space would probably take longer than the alternatives, lots of otherwise unnecessary beakers and hammers to get there.

With #2 in mind, I think Culture and Religious are a possibility. After we clean our continent for ourselves, we should start the missionary/temple/cathedral spam. Obviously balancing it with spreading the AP religion to the overseas AIs, and not turning off research anytime soon given objectives #4 & #7.

How is our GPP generation status? We should try to get a GS or 2, I believe they would bulb Optics if we learn Compass, otherwise it will be Paper (we got Theo). Is it worth? Unfortunately we can't bulb Astro anytime soon (Paper/Edu/PP will come first IIRC).

adrianj · Dec 5, 2012

GS bulb order from here is (assuming only bulbs):
Philosophy
Paper
Education
Printing Press
Compass
Optics

I don't think a GS bulb is a useful plan for the near future.

I agree that Culture is an easy #2 victory condition, because it is easy to trigger on an exact turn simply by bombing a bunch of GArtists. I wouldn't rule out Space so quickly. Compare a fast space race game (where learning a Future Tech is simple) to a fast Domination/Conquest that needs a Future Tech... fast doms/conqs tend to suffer with tech rate once the war machine really starts to roll.

Diplo is certainly a possibility.

The other thing I like about Diplo/Space is that once we have our continent secured, we can gear ourselves up for nothing but tech and not have to worry so much about future wars. Managing only the domestic economy makes the game a bit simpler and turnsets will play faster in real time.

The Corporations requirement states that we at least three Corporate HQs. It doesn't say we need to benefit from them... so if we wanted to we could still use Communism/State Property which is the de facto 'large' empire/warmongering civic. However, if we stick with the 'small' single continent empire then Free Market + a good balance of Corps could be a good strategy. Again, I prefer the FM+Corps option mainly for simplicity.

Regarding GP generation: we still need 1 GProph (or capture another shrine) and 3 GPersons for Corps (or capture them). Capturing corps I think is undesirable because a) late in the game we don't want to rely on AI to build anything, b) it means we need to gear up for war. We should also plan for a bunch of GArtists for the aforementioned cultural VC. This doesn't leave much scope for wasting GPersons on things like tech bulbs.

I think our overall strategy should be:
1. Clean up our own continent.
2. Gear up for science. Don't worry about anything else just yet.
3. Start to focus only once we are well advanced, eg, have the Corporation techs.

Ronnie1 · Dec 5, 2012

adrianj said:
GS bulb order from here is (assuming only bulbs):
Philosophy
Paper
Education
Printing Press
Compass
Optics

I don't think a GS bulb is a useful plan for the near future.

I agree that Culture is an easy #2 victory condition, because it is easy to trigger on an exact turn simply by bombing a bunch of GArtists. I wouldn't rule out Space so quickly. Compare a fast space race game (where learning a Future Tech is simple) to a fast Domination/Conquest that needs a Future Tech... fast doms/conqs tend to suffer with tech rate once the war machine really starts to roll.

Diplo is certainly a possibility.

The other thing I like about Diplo/Space is that once we have our continent secured, we can gear ourselves up for nothing but tech and not have to worry so much about future wars. Managing only the domestic economy makes the game a bit simpler and turnsets will play faster in real time.

The Corporations requirement states that we at least three Corporate HQs. It doesn't say we need to benefit from them... so if we wanted to we could still use Communism/State Property which is the de facto 'large' empire/warmongering civic. However, if we stick with the 'small' single continent empire then Free Market + a good balance of Corps could be a good strategy. Again, I prefer the FM+Corps option mainly for simplicity.

Regarding GP generation: we still need 1 GProph (or capture another shrine) and 3 GPersons for Corps (or capture them). Capturing corps I think is undesirable because a) late in the game we don't want to rely on AI to build anything, b) it means we need to gear up for war. We should also plan for a bunch of GArtists for the aforementioned cultural VC. This doesn't leave much scope for wasting GPersons on things like tech bulbs.

I think our overall strategy should be:
1. Clean up our own continent.
2. Gear up for science. Don't worry about anything else just yet.
3. Start to focus only once we are well advanced, eg, have the Corporation techs.

I think I agree with most of this post. Bulbing seems a stretch for us at this point given our other GP needs. The exception may be a bulb of Philo which would allow pacifism after we have cleared the continent.

Right now I think we need to move fast and try to consolidate our gains ASAP.

SGOTM 16 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

Deity

Fly Fly Away

Fly Fly Away

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

King

Deity

Deity

Fly Fly Away

Deity

Fly Fly Away

Deity

Deity

Fly Fly Away

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

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