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

[Revent]

7-10 is what I am currently arguing for after having explored most of Brennus's lands. However, I do not suggest going for Trebs anymore as I have seen that Cats will do the same/similar job except that they die.

In the test I just ran, I put 3 archers in each city and one axe in mine. I put stacks of 2 and 3 of units in between the cities I captured and they all went to the cities I didn't capture. He ended up with around 13 units or so in his capital without thinking of attacking.

Why don't we want any vassals?
We are going to eliminate two AI. Leaves us our continent to ourselves. We need two victory options in one turn. Culture may be one of them. The other have to be from Domination OR Conquest, Diplomatic OR Religious and Space.

Space should be out of the question because it results in us having to research an extra 5 techs, invest hammers in Apollo, build the parts and then 10-12 turns to launch. That leaves us with Diplo/Relgious and Conq/Dom. Having 2 vassals (along with our pop and land) opens the door to BOTH Diplo and religious. Plus, AI get era bonuses, but their problem is they try to research everything pretty much. So if we had an Emp AI (a good one, not **** like SB) vassaled to us, we could have him research X whilst we are researching Y meaning we won't have to research it.

 

[neilmeister]

7-10 Galleons = NO from me.

Happy to support:
- 3 galleons (and galley) taking 11 units to Bibracte
- 5-6 units marching on Verlimion, then Camulodinum
- 10 marching on Tolosa

Tolosa units can then either reinforce Bibracte, or help take Camulodinum.
Bibracte survivors could either defend, or move on Vienne, depending on circumstance.

I see no benefit in trying to fight faster than this.

What I propose above is a total of 30 units, including galleons (which cost as much as maces).

edit: anyway, I am done arguing about this. The team should vote.

 

[Revent]

Benefits of a fast war:
1) We won't need to war with him again. This alone has its own benefits.
-No fighting LB's so more units survive overall
-Don't need to invest in more seige
-We have lots of strong cities straight away, each city will add a minimum of 7-16 commerce via trade routes alone
-Extra cities earlier means we can focus on specialisation earlier and our research will skyrocket more earlier

2) We save turns being unproductive due to not being at war for so many turns. Current method means that we will be at war for at least 10-15 turns. If we half it or a third it, that just means more turns that we are actually researching something.


Extra investment in hammers will pay off in the long run since we won't need to build those galleons again for a future war and won't need to waste hammers on Brennus either.

Well, even if you are done arguing, I still feel I have to fight my case despite there being no solid argument against it other than votes.

 

[neilmeister]

Well, even if you are done arguing, I still feel I have to fight my case despite there being no solid argument against it other than votes.

Of course you can keep arguing your case, but I see no solid argument for it either.

 

[Revent]

I've mentioned the points above for starters.

 

[neilmeister]

I don't want this to get personal, and I apologise if my previous statements crossed that line.

To rebut your points.

- 'Fast' war as you say is actually a 'later' war, as we need to invest more hammers in units before we start.
- Later war is more likely to encounter longbows than earlier war.
- In your scenario, we will be at war for less actual turns, but will need - at least - the same amount of hammers in units/galleons, so there will be no difference to research.
- We won't have lots of strong cities straight away, as we have delayed attacking them.
- What we do get is a bunch of galleons that are used once and probably never again. (though I could happily take 3-4 galleons and take Cahokia, with 'mids, HG & MoM)

 

[Benginal]

My main unknown is the difficulty level. What's emperor like? Maybe the players that play that can enlighten us? I've learned, through trial and error, not to get too greedy too early. Wars are pretty fast no matter what, when you're a level ahead. And in this case, maces versus archers is a level ahead. And then trebs versus longbows without castles is a level ahead. So we will take this whole continent in 30 turns a level ahead the whole time.

What are the actual costs of being at war? I don't think either plan has us losing many units. So we pay extra maintenance for having units in foreign lands. Is that the only cost? There's no diplo penalty since the intercontinental AIs don't know Brennus and Ramesses. I'm not just not convinced a super fast war is better in this case.

Benefits of a fast war:
1) We won't need to war with him again. This alone has its own benefits.
-No fighting LB's so more units survive overall

We won't have to war with him again period. This war will be slower. But he should be dead in twenty turns. Especially once we get a super medic, which should happen relatively quickly. The army, since it's all together, will be able to heal quickly. We can splinter up and take the lightly defended cities later if we want.

-Don't need to invest in more seige

I'm not sure how the speed of the war affects this. We take the same number of cities either way, so we'll need the same amount of siege.

-We have lots of strong cities straight away, each city will add a minimum of 7-16 commerce via trade routes alone

This is a good point. We lose the income those cities bring in. But the cities will also have a very high cost. By taking them slowly, we should be able to whip in courthouses so that our economy doesn't have a sudden spike in costs.

-Extra cities earlier means we can focus on specialisation earlier and our research will skyrocket more earlier

Not sure what you're going for here exactly. The cities aren't going to be specialized just yet. They all need the same core buildings. And a lot of the specialization will come from workers. And I won't want workers down in the war zone just yet.

2) We save turns being unproductive due to not being at war for so many turns. Current method means that we will be at war for at least 10-15 turns. If we half it or a third it, that just means more turns that we are actually researching something.

Again, either way, we have to make the same number of units to take the same number of cities. The assumption is that the slow war will have more losses. I disagree entirely, since I think it will have fewer losses. Therefore the cities will actually be more productive. Just because we're at war doesn't mean all cities have to build units. Once we have enough units, the cities can return to infra. In the meantime our army can capture the Celtic cities. There is no opportunity cost in this regard, since we're not up against a "magic rifles" like deadline. Trebs will make mincemeat of longbows if they're not behind castle walls.

Extra investment in hammers will pay off in the long run since we won't need to build those galleons again for a future war and won't need to waste hammers on Brennus either.

10 galleons is way too many. I really like the idea of 3 galleons and a sniping of Bibracte. This will allow for a French highway into the heart of Celtia.

 

[Revent]

@Neil

I'm not taking it personal (Hence, I did add the smilies to emphasise that since debates can tend to get very heated)

1-Fast is indeed later. Later by roughly 7ish turns. That is NOT enough time for Brennus to get longbows. He still does not have monarchy! 7 turns extra to get ready and 5 turns for the war results in a total of 12 turns or so. It will take a lot longer to attack via land meaning we ALSO have a strong chance to end up having to face Brennus's stack.

2-Covered by 1

3-Hard to calculate in my current state of mind, will get back to this one.

4-The cities are quite strong because coastal cities alone will add a minimum of 12 commerce off the bat via TR's. 12*10=120commerce extra per turn just from trade routes. These cities will cost us money, yes but we will be making more from them.

5-We probably will use the galleons. It will almost be necessary if we want to win with all 10 conditions. There is no way we can get to domination or conquest without an invasion. As for diplomatics, it is far easier to vassal and make them vote for you rather than getting them to friendly and making them like each other less and can be done reliably.

Benginal, my response to you will come now

 

[Revent]

My main unknown is the difficulty level. What's emperor like? Maybe the players that play that can enlighten us? I've learned, through trial and error, not to get too greedy too early. Wars are pretty fast no matter what, when you're a level ahead. And in this case, maces versus archers is a level ahead. And then trebs versus longbows without castles is a level ahead. So we will take this whole continent in 30 turns a level ahead the whole time.

Fairly easy. Small stocks, easily doable. But why 30 when we can do it in far less? The rest of the turns can instead focus on winning the game rather than a long war. We will want to have OU built or being built in 30 turns for example. We want to be on our way to Lib and choosing a strong target for it.

What are the actual costs of being at war? I don't think either plan has us losing many units. So we pay extra maintenance for having units in foreign lands. Is that the only cost? There's no diplo penalty since the intercontinental AIs don't know Brennus and Ramesses. I'm not just not convinced a super fast war is better in this case.

Unit maintenance
War weariness
By the time we are done with the war, we should have infra in all of our cities. This is more likely to be possible by taking the cities early. Oh, Bibcarte doesn't have a market yet; let's whip it- Nevermind, we switched to caste so have to slow build it. If that doesn't happen and we're not in caste, we're not generating great people and bulbing enough clearly. We won't be getting a good lib target without lots of bulbing.

We won't have to war with him again period. This war will be slower. But he should be dead in twenty turns. Especially once we get a super medic, which should happen relatively quickly. The army, since it's all together, will be able to heal quickly. We can splinter up and take the lightly defended cities later if we want.

War weariness once again, with the whip anger, it may actually have an effect. Also, taking the lightly defended cities at our leisure could apply to my approach as well.

I'm not sure how the speed of the war affects this. We take the same number of cities either way, so we'll need the same amount of siege.

Well, you're assuming it will be one constant war in which case that may be true, but in a long drawn out war, we will be seeing Brennus's stack so we will have to fight that and for that, we need seige. Also, long war means he will be building more units, so need more units to counter those and seige for that.

This is a good point. We lose the income those cities bring in. But the cities will also have a very high cost. By taking them slowly, we should be able to whip in courthouses so that our economy doesn't have a sudden spike in costs.

We won't have a spike. We will have a net gain overall no matter what when we have all those cities, just that CH's will make the gain larger. Bear in mind the shrine will even let us push the slider up by an extra 10% or more.

Not sure what you're going for here exactly. The cities aren't going to be specialized just yet. They all need the same core buildings. And a lot of the specialization will come from workers. And I won't want workers down in the war zone just yet.

Poor wording on my part, I was referring to we get the city up and running faster. Also, there won't be any culture press which is always a good thing.

Again, either way, we have to make the same number of units to take the same number of cities. The assumption is that the slow war will have more losses. I disagree entirely, since I think it will have fewer losses. Therefore the cities will actually be more productive. Just because we're at war doesn't mean all cities have to build units. Once we have enough units, the cities can return to infra. In the meantime our army can capture the Celtic cities. There is no opportunity cost in this regard, since we're not up against a "magic rifles" like deadline. Trebs will make mincemeat of longbows if they're not behind castle walls.

Firstly, my method will mean that we will be fighting less units since we should never even have to see the face of Brennus's stack come near his ex-cities. Less fighting means less units lost. As you've said, we're an age ahead of them so they don't exactly have a chance of killing us even if the stack is split since they have no stack.

10 galleons is way too many. I really like the idea of 3 galleons and a sniping of Bibracte. This will allow for a French highway into the heart of Celtia.

[/quote]
I was thinking more of 7 or 8 really. 4 down the bay and 3 down the east coast.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

In the test I just ran, I put 3 archers in each city and one axe in mine. I put stacks of 2 and 3 of units in between the cities I captured and they all went to the cities I didn't capture. He ended up with around 13 units or so in his capital without thinking of attacking.

Did you change any of the AI unit scripts? If they were all "AI defend" then that doesn't mean much. The script assigned to AI units has a huge impact on how they behave, and defend is the default.

 

[SteelHorse]

7-10 is what I am currently arguing for after having explored most of Brennus's lands. However, I do not suggest going for Trebs anymore as I have seen that Cats will do the same/similar job except that they die.

Lets try some math here. 10 Galleons with 3 units each - 30 units. Split 50-50 Trebs and mace. Hammers 10*80 + 15*(70+80) = 3000 hammers.

So 2 questions.
1 - Where are we going to get 3000 hammers?
2 - How long will this take? Feels like at 15 turns to me.
But put together a PPP and show how many turns to DoW.

My biggest concern remains what Brens has for a stack. We seem to not be exploring the west where he was last at war instead exploring the south. If he does have 20 or more units 3 injured mace in a revolting city aint gonna cut it.

On the other hand a force of 8 Cats (for bombard), 10 Mace, 2 Spear would cost (8*50 + 10*70 +2*35) = 1200 hammers. Less than half the cost and time. Much more doable. This stack could approach either from Verl and swing SE or due south thru Tolossa. This could be done in 7-9 turns. We get a great medic and heal the 2-3 to that take a city while the rest progress. This could be done in 7-9 turns. If Brens does have a stack of twenty, we have the cats to crush it.

PS. Caravel 2 is damaged. Move to safe water and let heal. Do not want to lose.

 

[Revent]

Lets try some math here. 10 Galleons with 3 units each - 30 units. Split 50-50 Trebs and mace. Hammers 10*80 + 15*(70+80) = 3000 hammers.

So 2 questions.
1 - Where are we going to get 3000 hammers?
2 - How long will this take? Feels like at 15 turns to me.
But put together a PPP and show how many turns to DoW.

My biggest concern remains what Brens has for a stack. We seem to not be exploring the west where he was last at war instead exploring the south. If he does have 20 or more units 3 injured mace in a revolting city aint gonna cut it.

On the other hand a force of 8 Cats (for bombard), 10 Mace, 2 Spear would cost (8*50 + 10*70 +2*35) = 1200 hammers. Less than half the cost and time. Much more doable. This stack could approach either from Verl and swing SE or due south thru Tolossa. This could be done in 7-9 turns. We get a great medic and heal the 2-3 to that take a city while the rest progress. This could be done in 7-9 turns. If Brens does have a stack of twenty, we have the cats to crush it.

PS. Caravel 2 is damaged. Move to safe water and let heal. Do not want to lose.

I was thinking of 7 or 8 galleons actually. As for how long it will take, I will estimate that to be an extra 6-7 turns. As for a stack of 8 cats, and 12 melee I think that is a severe underestimate. As for my plan, it is taking into account that we will almost certainly never fight Brennus's stack!

I've set up something to explore the west (the galley taking our chariot there). If it turns out that Brennus does not have his stack in Thebes or anywhere near it, my plan does become weak enough for me to say that it is wrong. I'm sure that Zhou and the other two island cities could push out at least 3 galleons or most likely 4. Even the double fish city at the top may be able to whip one out (will have to double check this). As for the remaining 2-4 galleons, it wouldn't take GP farm too long to produce one, Paris could do one as well and so can production since we do have an extra couple of turns to get some more units.

Did you change any of the AI unit scripts? If they were all "AI defend" then that doesn't mean much. The script assigned to AI units has a huge impact on how they behave, and defend is the default.

AI City attack and the archers were defend but I had no floating archers, the archers were already in the city.

 

[SteelHorse]

As for my plan, it is taking into account that we will almost certainly never fight Brennus's stack!

This is what worries me.

I was thinking of 7 or 8 galleons actually. As for how long it will take, I will estimate that to be an extra 6-7 turns.

I still think plan requires 13-15 turns for attack. We need 30 units. Draw up an outline. Which cities whip down to what to get which units? How quick to regrow for more whip? What is required to get which troops to which cities to embark? What is the transport, land, move attack time.
I will put to together a plan for the 20 unit Cat/Mace attack. I like the mini stack suggestion to take Verl that was suggested. While we are taking the first 2-3 cities another 10 units will be whipped and in transit. Roads already connect Brens cities.

As for a stack of 8 cats, and 12 melee I think that is a severe underestimate.

Why do you think this? This is the initial attack force. As we take cities, more units will come as we continue to whip. I am in favor of the Eng for travel speed and Trebs which should be the case after we take the first two cities and finish researching Eng.

 

[SteelHorse]

This should be doable in 8 turns

West Coast Mini Stack (2 Cats 3 Mace)
WCS - 1C+ 1M
WF - Galleon + 1C + 1M
Zhou - 1 M
Attack Suicide 1-2 cats 3 mace position troops on FH 3E of WCS

Main Stack (3CB + 7C + 7M + 1S)
Comm - 1C + 1M
Prod - 2C + 1M
Clams - 1S + 1M
GP Farm - 1C + 1M
Wheat - 1C + 1S
Paris - 1C + 1M
BC - 1CB + 2M


Troops from Clams and Wheat to converge from different directions on 1N of Tolossa Horse. The biggest issue is the lack of roads to Prod and Wheat. Barb city needs a road to wheat, Prod needs a road to Commerce, Commerce needs a road to Wheat.

2 workers SW of Paris to road starting 1 S of Commerce up to Prod. 2W south of Wheat to road from 1S Wheat NW to BC. 1W SE of BC to road SE to Wheat. 3W near WCS to road to attack point and chop the hill if there is time.

We get Eng - 5-6 Turns this will speed transport of replacements. Mix of Trebs, Cats, Mace continuously as we whip.

Suggest we DoW Rams first, then see if we can bride Brens in for something like MC.

 

[neilmeister]

This should be doable in 8 turns

West Coast Mini Stack (2 Cats 3 Mace)
WCS - 1C+ 1M
WF - Galleon + 1C + 1M
Zhou - 1 M
Attack Suicide 1-2 cats 3 mace position troops on FH 3E of WCS

Main Stack (3CB + 7C + 7M + 1S)
Comm - 1C + 1M
Prod - 2C + 1M
Clams - 1S + 1M
GP Farm - 1C + 1M
Wheat - 1C + 1S
Paris - 1C + 1M
BC - 1CB + 2M

That is more than doable, that is very conservative.

In 8 turns, all of the big cities: Paris, Production, Clams, Commerce, Barb City should have produced 4 units each. 1 every 2 turns. That's 20 units without even looking at the other cities.

 

[SteelHorse]

Yes - but I am counting the time to get into position for DoW

 

[SteelHorse]

The Cats should get whipped first and moving south so they can get a couple of turns of bombard in as the rest of the troops arrive. Obviously will need a couple of CBs and a Spear to protect, then main force of Maces should arrive. Wash rinse repeat for next city. And yes continued whipping for more as assault is unleashed.

What is the time difference to Aus from NY. Wasn't expecting a response for at least another 2 hours.

 

[neilmeister]

OK, time taken into account, fair enough.

I am GMT -10, so it is 8.25am right now. About to drop the kids at school and head to work.

 

[neilmeister]

I think everyone has put most of their arguments on the table, please feel free to correct me though.
What we have are a large number of options, if anyone else wants to add another or 2, please don't hesitate.

1) full frontal assault, 20-30 units going Tolosa->Bibracte->?? 1 city taken at a time.
2) full frontal assault, 10-20 units going Tolosa->Bibracte->??, 5-6 going for Vermilion 2 city taken at a time.
3) 7-8 Galleons, split half-half for each coast. ~24 units on these, with some more ?? for Tolosa. More ?? cities taken simultaneously
4) 3 Galleons (and galley) with 11 units for Bibracte, 10-20 more for Tolosa. 2 cities taken simultaneously
5) 3 Galleons (and galley) with 11 units for Bibracte, 10 more for Tolosa, 5-6 for Vermilion 3 cities taken simultaneously

I favour number 5, I think it gives us the best of both worlds, that is it does more than 1 city at a time, takes the most valuable cities first, but will not spread ourselves too thin. I could also handle 2 & 4.

Any stack taking Bibracte should have minimal siege, only for suiciding.
Tolosa & Vermilion stacks can have a larger amount of siege, and do some limited bombarding.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

I like option 5 also.