SGOTM 17 - Plastic Ducks

[Doshin]

I'm thinking about adding the missing turn of road, and then killing the Mace with XBow. Then we grab the hidden city and go straight for the boats to hit Churchill/Peter.

I like this suggestion. There are several hills north of the hidden city, and protective archery units are a real pain.

If you want to chance it, you could also attack the Catapult with the HA.

---

It's also strange that Churchill hasn't built a Fishing Boat, unless kcd granted the barbs an overpowered naval unit. Perhaps they have a Privateer? We never did find out who started the map with the (predicted) strength 6 unit...

Some tiles are unfogged between Guangzhou and Angkor Wat.

Churchill almost has Currency. I'd sell it for his 40G.

 

[kossin]

I like this suggestion. There are several hills north of the hidden city, and protective archery units are a real pain.

If you want to chance it, you could also attack the Catapult with the HA.

---

It's also strange that Churchill hasn't built a Fishing Boat, unless kcd granted the barbs an overpowered naval unit. Perhaps they have a Privateer? We never did find out who started the map with the (predicted) strength 6 unit...

Some tiles are unfogged between Guangzhou and Angkor Wat.

Churchill almost has Currency. I'd sell it for his 40G.

My guess is the 2 barb Longbows with guerrilla promotion moved to defend the new barb city I doubt it's a Privateer, wouldn't it be blockading Churchill? Plus he'd be massing galleys in his cities.

Good catch on Currency, forgot to check recently

~~~

Those in favor of going medieval on Churchill right away, let it be known (i.e. not waiting for galleons to scout him).

I'm not too certain of how we'll work on the last 4 AIs without losing too much time.
I mean, QSH is almost dead.
We can only go after Toku once we have enough troops to kill Churchill.

So that means... finish off the Chinese, and work on Churchill as much as possible.

Send all the boats we can to Peter and then start on Tokugawa?

EDIT: we need a good game plan moving forward; that is the big picture so we know where we're heading. I might finish this turn tonight but not much more.
Also noticed we might be a bit short on espionage to attempt a revolt of Beijing. We might have to hop into Hinduism after all to get the religious discount?

 

[Doshin]

I agree about the need for a definite plan and clarity. This is especially important if kossin and Bebekija start to alternate. Let's not get our wires crossed.

I would like us to play conservatively, and plan for a worst case scenario. This would be that Churchill is inaccessible without teleporting.

However, I am personally a little fuzzy on the teleportation mechanics and (particularly) the possible plans. If it's not too much trouble, could you outline these, kossin? Would "going medieval on Churchill right away" be a total war, for instance? Or simply a means to secure a landing point? Would it entail delaying the war against Peter? Sorry for creating extra work.

My uninformed feeling is that we should look to crush Peter first, Churchill second, and Tokugawa third. The stack attacking Peter can move back to attack Japan via Satsuma or kossin's suggested gift city, but it will take forever and a day for the English troops to return (if that is even possible). Therefore the quicker we finish off Russia, the better.

----

I am reluctant to enter Hinduism, but it wouldn't be the worst thing ever. How many EP points are needed to eliminate the Castle? I sometimes do this to circumvent expensive city revolt missions when warring with Trebs.

The other possibility is to just move the Spies into Shanghai. The city is poorly defended, but those LBs are likely to heal and promote to CGIII thanks to Toku's suicide mission. The revolt would also let us use the roads, saving us a turn or two.

 

[kossin]

Teleportation
It's been covered already (look for Bebekija's post) but the formula is as follows:

min(2*JumpDistance + CityDistance)

The unit in question will be bumped to the tile that satisfies the above formula by being of minimal value.

Wall of text about how it is calculated:

Spoiler :

Let's define distance in civ4.
Horizontal = 1
Vertical = 1
Diagonal = 1.5

The engine always calculates the shortest path, that is NE is closer diagonally (1.5) than vertical and then horizontal (1+1 = 2).

If you know the (X1,Y1) and (X2,Y2) coordinates of 2 tiles, civ4 distance is calculated as follows:
|(|X1-X2|-|Y1-Y2|)| + 1.5*min(|X1-X2|, |Y1-Y2|)

With | | being the absolute value.

JumpDistance is the distance between the current tile and target tile.

CityDistance is the distance between the target tile and closest city to this target tile.

It's quite long to check as you can understand because there are a ton of potential tiles where the unit can be teleported.

I find it's easiest (especially at this point where we know most of the map) just to use a teleport tester such as I've attached here.

~~~

The reason to rush Churchill now (send everything we can his way immediately) is in case he is completely encircled by ice and Paratroopers/Teleportation are the only means of getting to him.
In this case, we have to get there before Churchill can steal the tile owned by Tokugawa on his turf, otherwise we have to reach Fascism

That's planning for the worst case scenario. There's no telling if Churchill is reachable by galleon or not before ~T141. (roughly 2 turns after the last fort is made)
In other words, I suggest, like Duckweed said, that we prepare to Warwick with a smallish force ASAP to ensure we have a way of reaching Churchill.

In this above post (see link), we can see that Warwick still is below 10 culture. Maximum culture at present is 25/100 from the single Monument there. So I think there's no risk of missing the opportunity of teleporting there but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.
It's also his SoD from what we've seen of his other cities so ~10 units will suffice imo.

Once we own the city, a lot of tiles can be used from Tokugawa to teleport there.

There are 2 more tiles that we know of but those are more likely to be gobbled up by English culture.

Still, I am not too clear on how we should proceed.

EDIT: base cost to sabotage castle should be ~600 EP.

 

[bestsss]

I am all for hitting Churchill the earliest.
Just make sure the city doesn't flip back (i.e. have enough units to guard)

 

[Doshin]

Let's estimate that it will take somewhere between ~15-20(?) turns to eliminate Qin. At that point, we want to attack Tokugawa immediately in the south. If we do not attack, our stack is stuck in limbo.

Tokugawa is needed to access Churchill, either as a matter of necessity (Ice) or as a matter of speed (Galleons are slower). In ~15-20 turns, we need to have transported enough troops to wipe out Churchill entirely. Let us assume that whatever troops attack Churchill will be unable to return (again, as a matter of necessity or of speed).

The number one priority is to establish a beach-head in England. We need to assemble a stack of ~10 units to take Warwick ASAP. We can then push on or ask for a ceasefire, depending on how the war proceeds. In these few turns, we can use Workers to scout Peter as best as we can.

After Warwick is captured, Peter will temporarily become our number one priority. He isn't dangerous, but he can research Engineering. This would be a huge time sink, so let's do as much damage as we can before then, all the while remembering that the turn we conquer Qin is the turn (or turn before) we should DOW against Tokugawa. To repeat, at this point we need to have moved all the necessary troops to wipe out Churchill.

---

While warring against Tokugawa, the southern stack is limited to moving one tile at a time for 9 turns, simply in order to reach Kyoto:

Spoiler :

After the ~9th turn is done, we need to have troops in place to rush Tokugawa from the north:

Spoiler :

The fogged area needs to be scouted and roads built towards Toku's cities. We may also decide to settle some final cities, to unload troops.

The southern stack's movement will determine our overall victory date. The sooner this invades, the sooner it can proceed from Tianjin ---> Tokyo ---> Kyoto. The north is much more flexible. We can control the flow and direction of all our new troops, emphasizing Peter or Toku as applicable.

Finally, after Kyoto is captured, Toku's remaining cities will all lose the 25% Chichen Itza boost (= 1.5 Trebs per city). I assume that we will be attacking with siege units more freely at this point, simply to shave a turn or two off our victory date. Taking this bonus away from all his recent Jungle cities will definitely help.

 

[Doshin]

All of the above is IMO, of course.

---

An addendum: our Golden Age finishes next turn. Peter and Churchill will both switch Civics at Pleased. I'd favor getting them both to switch into Caste System.

Gifting Code of Laws should bring both to Pleased. Astronomy will be enough to switch Peter, and (I hope) Compass + Aesthetics will be enough for Churchill.

I'd rather not give Peter Civil Service, because this increases the odds that he will go on to tech Engineering. Churchill... eh, maybe. He's nowhere near Machinery, and it'd be nice to limit the number of protective Longbows.

 

[kossin]

I'm more puzzled about how we can kill Peter in time rather than Tokugawa. He is farther away, we don't have that many boats and we don't have any units heading there for now.

Of course, if troops can be shuttled from Churchill to Peter, then we can open several fronts on him and he will fall pretty fast... but I think the Churchill stack is going to have plenty on its hands for a while.

In other words, we kinda need 3 stacks of ~20 units in all.

QSH & southern Toku
The south stack is strong enough as is, perhaps it'll need a few Trebuchets of replacement to speed itself up and account for losses. These can be made from ex-Chinese and Khmer cities exclusively.

Tokugawa is currently the weakest AI so he must be pretty low on troops.

Churchill
There are currently:
5 Trebuchets
2 WEs
2~3 LK
1? XB
That are in the Styx area and should head to Churchill ASAP. We still need another 10 units. The current north stack in QSH is 16 units strong, minus garrison. Most of these are likely to be sent to Churchill.

Peter
Which means we have exactly 0 (or close to) units heading to Peter. They will all have to be built from scratch (a lot already in production, granted) and moved (boats already heading west for Churchill).

So it seems Peter is the bottleneck, at least to me. At least units will come from both our cities and captured ones. I suggest that all coastal cities make 1-2 rounds of boats right away so that we are not bogged down by transportation. Yes, before markets, happiness and whatsoever. There are a lot of queued units that will spawn in a short matter of time and several of Khmer cities will be ready soon.

Northern Toku
Once we have enough troops bugging Peter, we can think about preparing to hit Tokugawa from the north as Doshin suggests. We will also have to spare some suicide troops to capture the canal cities that were gifted.

~~~

I will think more about the whole thing. The save may have to sleep for a day or two while we gather our thoughts to finalize the general planning.

 

[bestsss]

I'd consider if it'd be possible to teleport some of the Churchill stack back, that may include gifting a city to back to Churchill (i.e. cease fire and reinstall the culture borders) and having captured city at Tokudawa's border.
After teleport we kill Churchill immediately.

Again the bottleneck is Peter, even if it'd be able to use some of the Churchill's invading force.

 

[Doshin]

I completely agree re. the boats.

To my mind, Tokugawa and Churchill have a pre-determined number of turns in which to live. The southern Chinese stack should not stop warring, and when we reach Toku we need to carry on.

After that, Peter will receive all new troops. If he falls quickly, the Galleon troops can squeeze Toku from the north. If he falls slowly, the Chinese/Khmer stack will have to wipe out Toku on its own.

We should only think about composing a stack for Peter when we are certain that we have moved enough troops to destroy Churchill. For Peter, the best, realistic scenario is that we have enough troops to wipe out his stack (before Mace, Pike, and Knight upgrades) while capturing one or two of his core cities. But this should not be prioritized if it will jeopardize our war against England.

 

[UnforcedError]

I agree with Doshin here. Let's assume the worst case scenario and move a whole SoD to Ch to kill him off. We can only get the stack over there as long as we're not at war with Toku. In the worst case Warwick needs to be lost to barbs later, and our units have to be deleted. But bestsss' suggestion of teleporting some units back after razing his established cities, leaving only minimal units to deal with the rest might also work

Therefore switching into Hinduism just to set Beijing in revolt is not crucial. Southern stack has a bit of time to spare. This is the only stack that can be reinforced easily, utilizing Sury's and later QSH cities. Those cities won't have anything better to do anyway. It may even be possible to finish off Toku with them (after Ch stack had been moved) and then move troops over to Peter.
EDIT: no. We want to be at war with Toku by the time we finish Ch.

Anyway, it's obviously imperative to check if Ch is indeed sealed or not. If he isn't we're still better off going with the original plan and prioritize Peter over Ch. We've had visibility on some of the water tiles around Peter for a while now and we haven't seen a single caravel. Still, the road at Toku's will have to be prepared just in case we'll have to use it.

Totally agree with the boats.

EDIT: the barb privateer may be blocking Peter atm The LBs in Phoenician are former archers.

 

[Doshin]

I was joking (mostly) about the Privateer. The 6 strength unit was probably a Swordsman, come to think of it.

My new pet theory is that Churchill is blocked in somehow, but that kcd will allow the teams to continue the fort/city canals onto the landmass immediately positioned to Churchill's north. There is a Lake just out of sight:

Spoiler :

The teams would need to settle two more cities and build four-six more Forts. Or something like that.

BTW, today I realized why the map is called the Quartermaster's Challenge. It only took me four months.

 

[UnforcedError]

Teleportation might just be faster than that. But there must be something eating Churchill's workboats and Peter's caravels

 

[kossin]

Given that we see the pointed road heading in the shadows, Tokugawa has a road already going over the cursor. Which means only 2 roads need to be added to complete the highway towards Churchill.

Spoiler :

Unfortunately, we are short 1 boat movement to teleport on T142, so it will have to happen on T143.

Troops are loaded 1W of Charon's port in 3 galleons T138 and move to unload 3S of Styx Lodge (SL) on T139.

So we need the second road ready on T140.
T136 load 2 workers
T137 unload 3S of SL (only 1 at a time in case there's already something there)
T138 1 roads, 2nd moves
T139 1 finishes road, 2nd starts road
T140 2nd finishes road

That means we can use T137 to kill those bloody Archers at Charon's Port. We can lure them onto the Pig tile and kill them with the Elephants at > 95% odds.

 

[Doshin]

I don't have time to check the save right now, but everything you write sounds good.

We can get back to whipping on T137, so we will have more Galleons and troops very soon. Before you switch civics and/or into a religion, be sure to give some thought to my mooted conversions:

Peter and Churchill will both switch Civics at Pleased. I'd favor getting them both to switch into Caste System.

Gifting Code of Laws should bring them to Pleased. Astronomy will be enough to switch Peter, and (I hope) Compass + Aesthetics will be enough for Churchill.

I'd rather not give Peter Civil Service, because this increases the odds that he will go on to tech Engineering. Churchill... eh, maybe. He's nowhere near Machinery, and it'd be nice to limit the number of protective Longbows.

I'm happy for the idea to be rejected, just as long as its been considered. I believe non-Spiritual AI remain in a civic for 25 turns after switching, by which point both Churchill and Peter's backs should be broken.

Churchill might need a little more than CoLs to reach Pleased.

 

[bestsss]

I believe non-Spiritual AI remain in a civic for 25 turns after switching, by which point both Churchill and Peter's backs should be broken.
The belief is wrong

If you trade switch AI, the timer is max (10, civerTimerLeft), but not 25.

Spoiler :

	if (GET_PLAYER(eFromPlayer).AI_getCivicTimer() < GC.getDefineINT("PEACE_TREATY_LENGTH"))
		{
			GET_PLAYER(eFromPlayer).AI_setCivicTimer(GC.getDefineINT("PEACE_TREATY_LENGTH"));
		}

Or if there are 20 turns left due to previous switch, 20 turns will remain till the AI may switch the civic on their own, if less than 10 - it's set to 10.

Still switching is likely to incur 2 revolts which is still slowing 'em down.

 

[kossin]

I'm far from being ready to play, there's still the matter of the northern stack to figure out.
I believe it should be able to boat up by T139 and get to 3S of Styx Lodge for T142 if we use a galleon bridge with 2 stacks of 4.

This is interesting because it's only 3 turns slower than the other stack. We will have time to capture Warwick and then we can look for a new tile that allows us to teleport into Warwick a bit faster. By ~T145, the stack for Churchill should in full motion.

If having the AI revolt by bribe counts in the 25 turns period, these switches are even more worth it. (EDIT: see post above)

Turn 129, 1190 AD: Churchill adopts Vassalage! (129+25 = 154 so ~10 turns to kick his behind)
No clue on Peter, couldn't find it in the thread. (EDIT2: hasn't changed since we've met him T121)

BTW, how can you tell Churchill is almost done with Currency ?

~~~

Everything has to be sorted out before we resume playing. These are very important turns, a tiny little mistake will cost at least 1 turn to final victory if not more.

 

[bestsss]

Churchill offers 40gold for the Currency tech, so we can't determine it.

 

[kossin]

Churchill offers 40gold for the Currency tech, so we can't determine it.

Yes, that's where I was getting at:

Churchill almost has Currency. I'd sell it for his 40G.

On another note, I've found something interesting, i think.

Why sabotage the Castle when you could sabotage the walls

Spoiler :

3 standard cities, wall+castle (100%), only wall (50%), only castle (50%).

Bombarded with Accuracy:

If revolting the city is too costly, we get 2 tries at blowing up the walls

With 2 Accuracy Trebs and 2 regular ones, 60% defense goes down to 0% in one turn.

EDIT: it's because they only provide -25% instead of the -50% of walls.

 

[UnforcedError]

So we need the second road ready on T140.
T136 load 2 workers
T137 unload 3S of SL (only 1 at a time in case there's already something there)
T138 1 roads, 2nd moves
T139 1 finishes road, 2nd starts road
T140 2nd finishes road

I think that sounds good looking at the save.

I'm not sure the civic switch is worth it unless they remain in Bur + Caste long enough.

EDIT: sabotaging the wall sounds nice