SGOTM 16 - U'nu'sual S'us'pec'ts

[Revent]

He has 11 cities:
5 or 6 or coastal
1 is one off coast
Bibcarte is 2 off coast
Tolosa can be taken by our small land stack in 4 turns
Thebes we can take as well fairly quickly with a naval attack.
Verlamion can also be taken with a mini stack

It makes so much more sense to me to be honest. This isn't a conventional war because if his stack really is in Thebes, it'll take over 10 turns for him to get to the closest city! That means, we basically have 10 turns to massacre him and if we take all his cities, his stack automatically will vanish meaning we ALSO save hammers on seige.

 

[neilmeister]

Why??

We do not want any military conflict with the other continent, OK, maybe towards the very end.

I don't undertsand why you think producing lots of galleons, and trying to attack walled, fully culturally defended cities with a handful of units each is a good idea.

I support the idea of getting Bibracte using a galleon backstab, and we can reuse the galleons to take Thebes and Ramesses.

I don't know if you have noticed, but no one else supports doing this, at all. Yet you are pushing for something most of the team has completely disagreed with.

I need to check out now, and have a bex and a lie down.

Please put together a full PPP.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I am not in favor of galleons. I am not in favor of anything that delays the war. Take him out with the basic units we have now. Whip every city every two turns.

 

[Benginal]

Sorry Revent, you're outgunned on this one. I'd much prefer a slow (probably not that slow), steady, and safe large army marching through Celtia than a naval assault. The naval assault would be very elegant if it works. But there's too much riding on 6 maces amphibiousing against 3 units with 80% defense. We could VERY easily lose that. We probably wouldn't, you're right. But if we did, we open ourselves up to a probably huge Brennus stack that will eat our small stacks alive.

Also, whip every two turns. Overflow is at its most useful when it's turning food into hammers (whipping worker/settler into something). In this case, it's turning hammers into hammers. So not that great. If you don't believe me. Get two cities together in worldbuilder. Make them both pop 12 and then have one whip every two turns and the other whip to maximize overflow. At the end, the one that was whipping every two turns will be smaller and will have made more units. In this case, that's exactly what we want.

 

[neilmeister]

OK, no more Galleons, at all. Enough of the team are against it.

Use the 1 galleon we have already whipped to ferry whipped troops to the mainland.

edit: actually, the island and West Coast Silk could together whip a mini-stack to take Verlamion and Camulodnumn. Main SoD does Tolosa, Bibracte & Vienne

 

[neilmeister]

MoM got built last turn, in Cahokia.

It also has Pyramids & Hanging Gardens.

 

[SteelHorse]

Yup - We spent a couple days working and agreeing on a plan. We should stick with it unless something new comes up. Once we have our troops massed we should discuss path in. In may turn out that if Verl does not get another border pop, that may be the best path in. Won't know for a few more turns. In the mean time roads and troops.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I want to see a PPP for the next mini turn set.

 

[Trystero]

I just got home and I am catching up on the last 3 pages, But....

I am also in favor of the current plan; Whip an army every 2 turns and march on the Celts. I am also opposed to the naval invasion. Just march a stack down Brennus' throat.

I am also OK with Engineering next. I'm not sure about trading it to Ramesses, will have to look things over.

 

[Revent]

Against a city such as Bibicarte with 60% city defense and units fully fortified:

Simulation 1: 4 maces against 2 archers with CG and 1 GW with C1
The Odds: 65% odds for the first fight and 69% for the second and third assuming we win first and second. We can expect to lose 1 fight so an extra mace is used.

Test 1- Captured city on first turn with no losseses
Test 2-Captured city on first turn with 1 loss
Test 3-Captured city on first turn with no losses
Test 4-Captured city on second turn with 2 losses
Test 5-Captured city on first turn with 1 loss

Simulation 2: 4 maces and 2 cats against same stack (I will not count the loss of a cat as a loss in the tests below) Odds for first mace is 77% and second and third mace is 88%

Test 1- Captured no loss
Test 2-Captured no loss
Test 3- Captured 1 loss
Test 4-Captured no loss
Test 5-''
Test 6-''
Test 7-Captured 1 loss
Test 8-Captured 1 loss
Test 9-No loss
Test 10-No loss

Simulation 3: 4 maces, 2 Xbows and 3 cats against 5 archers with CG, 1 GW with C1
More complex simulation but the most realistic. There are various methods of attack here so I will do the one that I personally would do. Cats always suicide first in every test.

Xbow, Xbow, Mace, Mace, Mace, Mace: 78, 89, 98.7, 99.2, 99.9, N/A
Test 1-No loss
Test 2-No loss
Test 3-1 loss of Xbow
Test 4-1 loss of Mace
Test 5-No loss
Test 6-1 loss of Xbow
Test 7-No loss
Test 8-1 loss of Xbow
Test 9-No loss
Test 10-No loss


Simulation 3 is the most likely simulation we will get since Brennus is likely to whip out some units. And from this, EVERY test I've done, we take the city with a maximum of one loss. That will be the toughest city to take; every other city will not have enough time to whip out a unit. 9 units is exactly the right number since we need 3 galleons. This city is also the one that is the most defended so far and has the highest culture defence as well. All other cities will be a cakewalk in comparison.


I'm not seeing WHY I am wrong here; rather I am just seeing that I am outnumbered without anything to actually say why. Feel free to actually tell me why I'm wrong, but I'd like some solid basis for the reasons. If not, if it is fine with the team, I'd like to pass this turnset because I am not comfortable playing on doing something I feel is not optimal. If I can be proven wrong and my method is indeed sub optimal, I'll happily play on however.

Edit: I would also like to say that it is nothing personal at all; purely on the basis I would not be very comfortable doing the turnset if I feel it is sub optimal.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I will admit, I don't and haven't had time to really understand how the galleons would work, but Revent's testing seems impressive...,.

 

[neilmeister]

Your plan says nothing about holding cities. Taking them is not holding them.

I fully expect a horde of Brennus troops to disagree with us keeping his best cities.

Anyway, if it turns out as easy as you say, then there is no problem with marching a hug SoD right at Bibracte, through Tolosa.

If the team was more divided, then I would be trying to prove you wrong, but it isn't, its up to you to prove you are right.

In my tests, the first couple of maces survived the attack, but they were stuck outside on very little health, some WB'ed Celtic chariots killed them and took back Bibracte easily.

I am happy to take the save and put up a detailed PPP on whipping our cities down and amassing an army.

 

[neilmeister]

I will admit, I don't and haven't had time to really understand how the galleons would work, but Revent's testing seems impressive...,.

The problem with Revent's galleon plans were they were way over the top. 7-10 galleons, taking almost every city Brennus has in a few turns. There are 2 distinct galleon ideas, but they keep getting confused.

What I did like was the idea of building a few, taking Bibracte from the Bay of Benginal (2 tiles from the coast). If a SoD also took out Tolosa, we would have a clear road to move reinforcements direct to Bibracte.


edit: it is riskier though, and we could lose a fair number of very good troops.
edit2: getting a SoD and moving it through Tolosa to Bibracte is safe as houses, but will take a little longer.

 

[Trystero]

I will admit, I don't and haven't had time to really understand how the galleons would work, but Revent's testing seems impressive...,.

My understanding of the the arguments against this approach, which seem persuasive to me, is that the scenario laid out accounts for troops in cities, but not potential stacks of Celt troops wandering around. If we do capture the cities, we would still possibly have to deal with Brennus counter-attacks. Multiple small stacks are less well equipped to deal with that contingency than a large stack would. I think that is the argument.

Edit: x-post with neil.

 

[neilmeister]

My understanding of the the arguments against this approach, which seem persuasive to me, is that the scenario laid out accounts for troops in cities, but not potential stacks of Celt troops wandering around. If we do capture the cities, we would still possibly have to deal with Brennus counter-attacks. Multiple small stacks are less well equipped to deal with that contingency than a large stack would. I think that is the argument.

Yes, this is correct.

 

[Trystero]

What I did like was the idea of building a few, taking Bibracte from the Bay of Benginal (2 tiles from the coast). If a SoD also took out Tolosa, we would have a clear road to move reinforcements direct to Bibracte.


edit: it is riskier though, and we could lose a fair number of very good troops.

I am more open to this approach than a "galleons only" invasion.

 

[neilmeister]

I should also say I am perfectly happy with a full frontal assault on Brennus. It might take a little longer, but it should mean losing less troops, even as Brennus whips more.

edit: x-post with Trys

edit2: I will put together a detailed PPP on both a full frontal assault AND for a limited galleon backstab. It will take me a day or so, OK.

 

[Revent]

Regarding potential stacks wandering around:

So far, the number of them have been minimal, none of them have been more than 2 units. Taking back the city is just not going to happen or is VERY unlikely. If we take multiple cities in a few turns, the AI cannot co-ordinate attacks. He won't join up his floating units into one stack and attack. The AI's suck at that.

TEST it out. I've done a test game and seriously, I gave an AI 10 cities placed defenders in each city I wasn't going to take, took all the cities I wanted with one axe each. I then without ending turn went into worldbuilder and put the AIs units in, in between the cities I captured and the AI took ALL of them to defend their last two cities rather than come attack. Perhaps this was a one off or whatever, but the point is that the AI SUCK at multiple fronts. These units will just be confused.


Plus, let's say one unit is right nearby and it tries to attack the city. Firstly, it will have a low chance of surviving because we should have an extra unit that will be at full health. Let's say that this unit is needed to attack because one of our units was killed. It will still not die because chances are that it's fighting a wounded unit. Once our units are IN the city, we have nothing to worry about unless his main stack magically appears which it won't because it's over 10 turns away from the nearest city. The AI attack based on combined unit attack versus ours so even IF all of our units are at 25% health (total of 11), it will require 3 units before it would consider attack. Chances are, that at least one unit will be close to full health raising our total by around 6 and for that, an AI will want a stack attack of 5-6 of his mediocre units to attack. Them taking back cities is just not going to happen because they suck so much; simple as that.

As for the burden of proof, you are right in a normal case that it would be on me. However, as this is a team game and we both want to optimise the end result, we should both be arguing our cases rather than relying on the 'majority argument'. I'll continue in another post due to a paranoia I have of losing everything I type due to a crash or whatever

Nevermind, will edit it in since I forgot what I wanted to say

The point is, we could spend a couple of more turns setting up our Infra and some more units, forget Engineering, set up the galleon approach and in 5-6 turns of war, we would have an extra 11-12 cities AND we would be ready to kill off Rams straight after.


These then lead to an early vassal approach on the other continent. Snowball effect blah blah. Take them out earlier, make them research the techs for us so we can trade our way to the top. Two early vassals like that would be game breaking in my opinion and all these galleons would come in use then.

 

[neilmeister]

Revent, you need to concisely state your case. To be honest I find your arguments to be confusing. Are you arguing for a limited galleon war (3 max) or a total galleon war (7-10). You need to make your mind up which you are arguing for. When I support limited galleon use, you then start arguing for 10 again, and waiting for trebs.

Your WB testing is not invalid, but it isn't convincing:
- What makes a difference to what an AI does with its units is power. We have no idea how much power Brennus has, how much did you give him in WB. The last time we saw his demographics, how power was scary!!!
- How many defenders did you place in each city? The AI considers 3 a minimum, so if you put less than 3, it would have moved the units to defend.


As I have said, I do support the idea of taking Bibracte by a surprise Galleon backstab.

This opens up his lands, assuming the main SoD takes Tolosa, so that we can reinforce Bibracte, and continue against other cities easily.

 

[neilmeister]

Nevermind, will edit it in since I forgot what I wanted to say

The point is, we could spend a couple of more turns setting up our Infra and some more units, forget Engineering, set up the galleon approach and in 5-6 turns of war, we would have an extra 11-12 cities AND we would be ready to kill off Rams straight after.


These then lead to an early vassal approach on the other continent. Snowball effect blah blah. Take them out earlier, make them research the techs for us so we can trade our way to the top. Two early vassals like that would be game breaking in my opinion and all these galleons would come in use then.

x-post with this edit.

We do not want any vassals, they will complicate things.
We are already on top of the techs.

Waiting to build a pile of galleons and enough troops to fill them is asking for trouble. Brennus has crap, Ramesses has crap. Why risk them getting longbows?