SGOTM 19 - Also Sprach Sid

[soundjata]

I just moved a few cuirs towards Damascus and captured another worker. pillaged some gold.

I'd like to hear Doshin's view on the city micro and unit movement before continuing.

If no feedback in the next hour or so, I am handing over the save to Kossin for the (Europe) night. Hope to have a couple of hours available tomorrow morning and tomorrow night.

 

[kossin]

We should start dot mapping the fog busting spots now.

I'll have a look at the spreading plan as well (tonight or tomorrow), if there's a way to shave a turn we'll find it! If TSR have planned to spread Alu our only shot at the Gold is to optimise perfectly the spreading, time with war progress and gift/raze/fogbust shenanigans

A dotmap isn't made but realistically, we can place regular units on hills and sentry units (if available) elsewhere.

I may get a few hours this evening to play... first: inspecting the save.

EDIT: feeling kind of tired, I'm going to take the evening off and be more rested for tomorrow.

 

[soundjata]

Is anyone around? I feel I should proceed because we are too slow.
I am going to brew some coffee and baby milk then I'll push the game.

EOT won't be perfect but in line with our objectives

Edit: ending turn 149 now.

 

[pomthom]

Is anyone around? I feel I should proceed because we are too slow.
I am going to brew some coffee and baby milk then I'll push the game.

EOT won't be perfect but in line with our objectives

Edit: ending turn 149 now.

Good call. I might be around for a few hours but not sure I won't

 

[soundjata]

Thank you Pomthom. Here is the EOT 150.

Research:
We have enough beakers for Liberalism +50 BPT safety margin you never know

Mecca:
Next turn we have 12 cuirs in position to take Mecca vs. 7 defenders. We should be good
(failed to kill a couple of units south of the gold )

Damascus:
We'll have 7 attackers for 5 defenders. Dicey maybe...

Suggestion for gift plan next turn (T151):
1. Take Mecca
2. Cease Fire
3. Attempt to give Augsburg to Alex
(will Augsburg be give a free defender in this case?)
4. Raze Augburg (using cuir 41 that needs to move from Khurasan to NW of Nuremberg)
5. Attempt to Raze Damascus?

Here's a little screenshot for the lurkers, showing Napoleon stack eyeing at Mecca

Spoiler :

 

[Duckweed]

We should not raze Augsburg immediately. The reason of delaying razing Damascus is to let Alex alive for longer, so that there's more flexibility later to gift more cities to Alex.

Upload T150 save, I can take a quick look now, but I won't have time till this afternoon.

 

[kossin]

I'll be around today, except for a brief excursion for groceries relatively soon... if soundjata is around and can upload the save... fear the WAL!

 

[Folket]

Looks very nice. It feels that with 10 turns of golden age left it could have been made faster.

Once they are down to 1 city they will accept any city during a cease fire. Perhaps we will be able to shave off an other turn.

One more turn and we have vision of the barb city right? Let us play that turn ASAP.

 

[kossin]

Starting the Golden Ages earlier could arguably save 1~2 turns but problem would be city size for generation, the 1200 would have been about impossible to obtain for instance, and that's 1500~2200b. The gpt is nice though for gold-rushing a few executives.

 

[soundjata]

Forgot to upload this morning. Here you go.

Will be back for plays in 3 hours.

 

[kossin]

There are a lot of micro changes to do; we don't really need gold right away but food is important. The smaller cities may not get to size 10 to whip Executives but they sure can whip Cuirassiers... and then Chariots (Vassalage+Theology might be beneficial).

All merchants cancelled and replaced by sufficient amount of scientist specialists. Just leave enough merchants to finish research.

EDITs:

We should not raze Augsburg immediately. The reason of delaying razing Damascus is to let Alex alive for longer, so that there's more flexibility later to gift more cities to Alex.

Upload T150 save, I can take a quick look now, but I won't have time till this afternoon.

This is kinda important; do NOT take Damascus.

Snowcrab should go 2S of the spice on the tundra hill. It can pop borders in 2 turns, fogbusts more and has first ring forests. (2N2W of your marker)

Fogbusters should use hills as advantage as much as possible.

 

[soundjata]

Understood.
Safety margin on research?

 

[Duckweed]

Good that you start to leave some workers to fogbust in the south pole. The position could be optimized.

Barbarian cities will spawn on any site (not in vision) that including the resources, therefore a worker on plain tile can only fogbust 9 tiles, while on a hill tile can fogbust 25 tiles.

For instance, the worker on the snow hill tile is a good position, but it does not prevent the barbarian city to spawn on the 5 western edge tiles to claim the copper resources. The 2nd worker should move 1S on hill to fogbust more tiles.

To summarize, the safest way is to have every tile in vision.

Another thing about worker management is planning ahead, for instance, you need to send at least 1 worker not to start chop a forest for the south crab site since the settler is almost ready to settle.

There's no need of that much safety margin on research, the only thing that can change the beakers is losing cities or losing working tiles to invading units around a city(this only happens if you miss some Alex's units).

Edit: since we are going to gift away Augsburg next turn, we could start to shrink the city pops (Move the farm tile to the plain cottage tile, and then cold whip an explorer next turn, leaving Alex a size 2 city)

 

[Doshin]

To add to the suggestions of Duckweed and kossin: the road between Sea Horse and Cornish Cow is more important than roads next to Rice Pudding. Bring the Worker SE of Constantinople back to that area. At least one more Worker will need to help out (possibly from the Whale site).

The Super Medic Cuirassier could move 1SW, to help heal the March troops as well. Could pillage the hill for some gold while he's at it.

 

[soundjata]

Very Well.
Will apply the suggestions and continue.

 

[soundjata]

We're at turn 151

1 gold banked
15 beakers overflow (I'm superstitious)

Libbed Steel !!!!!

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Medicine

I'm going to play some easy moves first DND

Ah and Aksum popped silver

 

[kossin]

Ah and Aksum popped silver

We should have had you run your magic at the start of the game

 

[soundjata]

Kossin it's your turn now!

Took Mecca, losing 3 cuirs in the process. 230 gold Bounty.
Snapshot before Razing:

Spoiler :

1+230=231 ​

Culture trolled by Alex; Nappy is sending more elephants and catapults. The city of Kenya to the West seems to have been culture bombed or something. It cannot be taken on T1 of the war anymore.

Spoiler :

I suggest letting Nappy grind against Damascus while healing and massing at his borders/ garrisoning in SnowCrab.

Cities were all microed for max gold (merchants, build wealth). We could assign high hammer cities to chariots (pillage iron first) or explorers for fogbusting.
Some granaries / banks / courthouses can be built, depending on their ROI (11 turns to go )
Most units unmoved.

This turn we should
A. Cease Fire with Alex and gift him Augsburg.
B. Change Civics (Suggested by Duckweed = Police State / Nationhood / Slavery / Free Market / Theocracy)
C. Incorporate Sushi in Aksum
D. Spread it like it's hot (Jata Plan. 11 turns. No hustle)

Save uploaded.

 

[kossin]

Let's allow Napoleon to continue fighting Alexander, that will keep his stack at Damascus for a few turns while we sweep in on his cities. Heck, we might just be able to ignore it entirely and keep our spy monitoring its movement.

We can't DoW this turn, and probably not realistically before T153.

Konya reached 100 culture, that's all... if we're lucky, we can launch an attack from here:

Spoiler :

The closest city to pop borders here is Istanbul at 385/500 so there shouldn't be an issue at all.

Istanbul would fall on the second turn of war and clear out a lot of culture issues and speed up progress

 

[Doshin]

Good work soundjata.

Snow Crab should be settled 1S of Kayseri, surely?

Corporation spreading will be the bottleneck to victory, I have no doubt.

----

B. Change Civics (Suggested by Duckweed = Police State / Nationhood / Slavery / Free Market / Theocracy)

Universal Suffrage, not Police State.

I think Nationhood is fine, but have we planned the # of rushes we need to perform over the next 5 turns? Costs go up 10–15GPT with each Sushi spread.

Konya reached 100 culture, that's all... if we're lucky, we can launch an attack from here:

Spoiler :

The closest city to pop borders here is Istanbul at 385/500 so there shouldn't be an issue at all.

Istanbul would fall on the second turn of war and clear out a lot of culture issues and speed up progress

This would be nice. Do we have a spare explorer nearby? The "hole-filling" culture algorithm may have claimed these tiles.