SGOTM 17 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

Well done, aside the fact that you kept Nagoya and razed Tokyo, which is the opposite of what we agreed.
Maybe is better in this way or maybe you could have kept both. We're >47%, so i think you can keep all the cities but Izumo.

I'm uncertain if start next turn with England. It's probably better to start with a 2 side attack, Canterbury and Warwick at the same time. But let's wait what the others say.

Now regroup, raze the barb cities S of Russia and pillage anything. Then keep the usual MP units and some cavalry.

 

[Shaandore]

See my previous post, but definitely start the attack. The sooner we can start airlifting to the other side the better. We can hide out in Canterbury if Churchill decides to throw his stack at us.

 

[unclethrill]

I agree with Shaan. Go now!

 

[Folket]

Save is looking good. 10 turns defintiely looks like doable, maybe even less. (~8?)

Sure, decalre next turn. Promote the attacking and wounded troopers with Pinch and strength. Pillage Churchill's iron on the first turn so he doesn't start building cannons to annoy us.

Promote stack defender machine guns up the drill line.

Raze the rest of Japan of course, maybe keep Osaka for faster paradrops to Warwick (the rest of our paras can continue in Nottingham)

Put 60% science slider for 2 turns and at least 20% culture slider to stop unhappiness problems. Put Prague on fighter building, so it can get some nice OF into tanks. Try to get some OF in other cities too so we can get some tanks to help with conquering.

Don't forget Pinch promos on paras, redcoats with 60% culutre def+ 25% vs gunpowder +25% Fortify + CG3 + we won't have siege on that side = pain. (Check out Warwick...) Tanks will be key units here. (They are also nearly as fast with movement as paras)

So try to airlift Tanks as soon as Industrialism is in. (Get it in 2 turns.)

In our strongest hammer cities, use fighters and wealth to have decent overflow 2 turns from now to get some tanks out ASAP.
These cities are: Prague, Hangzhou, Yasodhara, Nanjing, etc.

Fighters are also useful for some bombardment. 8 fighters will come in very handy.

EDIT: Keep all English cities! Most of them won't come out of revolt, so no problem with dom limit. But they are all arilift bases.

Mostly I agree except for pushing industrialism so fast. I would rather use my gold to upgrade the knights in Japan. With upgrading Japan will be way slower.

 

[Folket]

Well done, aside the fact that you kept Nagoya and razed Tokyo, which is the opposite of what we agreed.
Maybe is better in this way or maybe you could have kept both. We're >47%, so i think you can keep all the cities but Izumo.

I'm uncertain if start next turn with England. It's probably better to start with a 2 side attack, Canterbury and Warwick at the same time. But let's wait what the others say.

Now regroup, raze the barb cities S of Russia and pillage anything. Then keep the usual MP units and some cavalry.

To keep Nagoya was Shaandores plan. Perhaps I should have kept both.

I feel really bad today so I will not be playing. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow.

 

[Shaandore]

I think that transporting into and moving around in english territory will be much slower than the Japanese war where we can railroad around and have direct access. Besides tanks will help against Toku as well. You can get it with 60% research slider in two turns, and maybe do only 10% culture unitl then. This way you should have some money for upgrading a couple key untis even in the next two turns.

Nagoya vs Tokyo: I can't remeber what I said, but it doesn't really matter. (some PPP like post is always nice before playing to clear these things).

I hope you get better soon!

 

[Shaandore]

 

[Folket]

Sorry, as I said I have been sick. But I'm back to work now. I will post a PPP tonight and should be able to finish the game tomorrow.

 

[Shaandore]

Great, glad to hear that you feel better !

 

[Folket]

PPP
turn 1
drop paras in England
heal knights in Japan with help of GG.
turn 2
capture Canterbury, reinforce with paras
move fighters to Canterbury
airlift great general?
capture Osaka
upgrade knights to Cavalry in Osaka
turn 3
drop paras next to york
invent industrialism.
turn 4
capture york.
capture Satsuma
turn 5
paradrop+ remaining engish cities.
turn 6
capture Izumo and Kagoshima.


As for industrialism. I may get it in two turns. but I think upgrading knight have higher priority. By getting industrialism one turn earlier we may have 1 tank in England at a time we have 23 paras there. And that tank will take the place of something else. I do not think it will make much difference.

As for barb cities south of Russia. It will take me at least three turn to capture them. I do not see the point in spending energy here.

btw, Russia had airships so I guess they used them to find England and Japan.

 

[Shaandore]

Industrialism: You are right that it probably won't matter, because we could only lift 1 more tank into Engalnd if we get it 1 turn earlier.

In that case prepare a medic (if possible) to lift there on the first turn.

Green light from me.

 

[unclethrill]

Green light from me too

 

[BLubmuz]

airlift great general?
YES!
btw, Russia had airships so I guess they used them to find England and Japan.

An airship cannot go such far. The only way for him could have been to rebase in one of our cities and scout from there. I didn't noticed it, but it can be the explanation to the mistery of his contacts.

About barb cities, probably at this stage it won't matter. If you like to spend some time, do it, otherwise let them go. But remember that we can face barb rifles, so keep good units in the area.

Green light, bring it home... or let UT the honour.

 

[Folket]

I'm happy to see we are all agreeing now. I will play this when I get home from work. Do people want me to stream it? If you want I can play it live in seven hours.

 

[BLubmuz]

I'm happy to see we are all agreeing now. I will play this when I get home from work. Do people want me to stream it? If you want I can play it live in seven hours.

I think it's complicated to have all of us in the same time. And probably you can lose concentration. But if the others want... Remember to keep the save before the victory turn.

Since i'm here, i'd like to share some thought about this game.

I see that many teams have an advantage in power and score, so i'm not optimistic about our final placement.

We have had a sort of stall after we wiped Mansa, so we weren't able to benefit of the contacts with the South and to start an early war with them.

I think that we did well in expansion and the choice of the cities sites.
As mistakes, probably we should have built earlier a WB or a galley to scout the coast and probably we should have researched Alpha first, or right after IW to trade some tech with Mansa. But i really don't see many other mistakes, if not a delay on a massive attack on the Hades.

Some opinion?

 

[Folket]

I think we should have cottages Aachen. Our early economic collapse cost us a lot of time.

Getting economy earlier to then wage a never ending war.

 

[Shaandore]

Main issues:

- no commerce city until Vienna (3rd city), and even after that not enough emphasis on growing Vienna as I planned. Cottaging Aachen might have been better, but working 2F1C tiles early game when we need production is just as bad. I'm not sure what is best here. Probably a faster Vienna and more emphasis on growing that. Also Florence is a very strong site, it should have been our 4th city. (we could have cottaged it back then too)

- Overexpansion. We settled too many cities. We should have started the Mansa war earlier instead.

- lack of grand plan due to lack of exploration. I tried to force the earlier WB, but didn't recieve much love back then. If we knew earlier that we need paras, we could have beelined Edu and later our main economic tech, communism. In our defense the ice was a mean move, and very far, properly hidden by mountains, Toku's closed borders, barb cities and water.

- early game micro. I think there is still much to improve on that front.

 

[BLubmuz]

- Overexpansion. We settled too many cities. We should have started the Mansa war earlier instead.

I agree about the lack of commerce in the beginning, but as you said, we needed production in Aachen.

I really do not see how we could have limited our expansion. Almost any city was settled to grab a resource and they're all good cities. Probably an earlier GLH+Colossus could have helped, but who even thinks to GLH+Colossus in a rainforest map?

IMO, is the research we chosen the main mistake. We weren't able to use Mansa to our advantage.

And about the galley/WB you're right. I never opposed it, but never showed much love for it.

Paras are not the reasl problem. The real problem was that Sury and Qin has a tech lead and we were close to strike. I always recommended to play as if we need paras, long before we actually know it.

 

[Shaandore]

I agree about the lack of commerce in the beginning, but as you said, we needed production in Aachen.

I really do not see how we could have limited our expansion. Almost any city was settled to grab a resource and they're all good cities. Probably an earlier GLH+Colossus could have helped, but who even thinks to GLH+Colossus in a rainforest map?

Of course every city had its uses, no doubt about that. What I'm saying is that after a certain number of cities the extra maintenance from the new city slows the whole empire. Eg. we get the next economic tech 2 turns later. We should have calculated/tested the maintenance cost hits (by maintaining the test save for a little longer) and should have stayed more conservative.

Next game we should try setting PD-style research objectives and key starting points. In this game we had Oracle, CS, Engineering, Edu, Steel. Running some tests that get these key techs 1-2 turns sooner gets us the same number of turns in the end (or more due to snowball effects).

IMO, is the research we chosen the main mistake. We weren't able to use Mansa to our advantage.

And about the galley/WB you're right. I never opposed it, but never showed much love for it.

Paras are not the reasl problem. The real problem was that Sury and Qin has a tech lead and we were close to strike. I always recommended to play as if we need paras, long before we actually know it.
Playing like we will need paras is not the best course of action. Why would we eg. do a double bulb into Edu and invest hundreds (thousands?) of hammers into universities? Especially if we estimate that there is <50% chance that we need to tech that deep? If we knew these in advance, we could have planned some bulbs to have a decent Edu date and better late game research. It's time to balme the mapmaker I guess. Having the icy quarter as neighbiour gives us a chance to have a long term plan and execute it.

On the other hand, it really gave a unique feeling to this game, and was educational still

answers in red

 

[Folket]

Getting alphabet early with some economy and trade with Mansa could have made our continent superior in tech.

Just getting alphabet early should have been nice. Getting colossus and GLH earlier would have helped. But that was far from obvious to me.