SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[ZPV]

Turnset report, t193-?

t193, continued
Our builds shuffle around a bit - we need galleys in former Ethiopia to cart our other Praets around.

Ur is razed
We lost 2 trebs and 2 praets.
We also found Gilgamesh's City Raider stack!
There are 4 knights, 1 WE, 7 catapults, 2 maces, 1 pike and 1 chariot 1NE of the ruins of Ur.
We can screen that off from our Bad-Tibira stack by pillaging roads.

Kish is razed
We lost 2 trebs and 2 praets.
In addition, 3 praets and a mace are sitting around waiting to be cleaned up.

IBT:
Gilgamesh cleans up our injured praets and mace near Kish's ruins.
Gilgamesh Caravel loses to our trireme!
Gilgamesh Pikeman loses to our knight!
We have sight in all Gilgamesh's cities (espionage)
Gilgamesh is learning Gunpowder! (1 turn)
Zara Yakob will talk.

t194
CF Zara. He won't trade any of his gold to us.
Continue bombarding Bad-Tibira. The city will fall easily next turn. If he puts up 15 stooges for us to kill, so be it.

IBT:
Not much of note. The caravel in Uruk kills one galley. Two workers are move onto the horse, undefended. They are very tempting...
Actually, Gilgamesh trades for Horses from Darius. So we won't be throwing away a unit for that...

t195

Bad-Tibira is razed
We destroyed 11 units; lost 3 trebs, 2 knights and 1 praet.
Gilgamesh's city-raider stack is nearby, but there's nothing we can do about it.
We have a nice little puzzle, to try and best keep our units alive, so I'll upload.

Spoiler :

Our galley stack moves conveniently out of range of all of Gil's Caravels.
We also have three GPs, so we could launch a golden age.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Did Gil trade for horses?

 

[WastinTime]

Kish: my expectation is that any treb that bombards defences will die IBT. So I'd rather just straight up attack with a couple and run with every unit I can get away with, so I can combine stacks into something safer.

That's why you're the general.

 

[WastinTime]

If we can get all of Zara's gold for Peace, I'd do that.

 

[WastinTime]

I feel like he'll repasture the horse in a couple turns. I hope the knight's death is worth it.

 

[WastinTime]

1t GunPowder. Sheesh. Good thing you took out the horses.

 

[ZPV]

Did Gil trade for horses?

Nope, and since our knight survived the inter-turn we've pillaged the road too, before extracting the knight.

Edit: now he has.

 

[ZPV]

I've stopped for the night again. We've razed 3 cities, and our fleet will be able to drop next to undefended Lagash next turn.

We have 3 different GPs for the golden age, but one of them is a Great Merchant, and I'd like to use it on a trade mission in Bibracte if possible.

We'll be able to settle HaGift next turn @size 22.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Rome can complete the current Cuir working 3 priests and a merchant, still grow to pop22. Then complete the GP in 3t working more merchants and complete one more Cuir 2t after this Cuir. Thus we don't lose any Cuirs per turn that we would have gotten otherwise and start the GA in 4t so Rome can get back to 1 Cuir per turn.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In our next GA, I would consider going Vassalage-Slavery. Drafting 3 2XP muskets per turn doesn't appear to be as good as whipping 7XP Cuirs everywhere any time. We lose a hammer per wkshp.

The GM trade mission will give us 2100g by my testing.

 

[LowtherCastle]

No clue how to protect our units at Bad-T. Should we hope he upgrades WEs and knights to Cuirs instead of attacking?

We should attempt to pillage Gil's iron asap.

 

[WastinTime]

In our next GA, I would consider going Vassalage-Slavery. Drafting 3 2XP muskets per turn doesn't appear to be as good as whipping 7XP Cuirs everywhere any time. We lose a hammer per wkshp.

We can't get much mileage out of 3 pop whipping a city like HC.
I think we should be drafting it. Even without Rifles. Draft now to get the anger clock started. Especially now that we're out of the GA. And especially if you plan to leave Nationhood (I don't think we should) We get a Musket and lose only 21~30 hammers depending on the GA.

Other cities will lose even less hammers since they grow back so fast.

 

[WastinTime]

Rambling...

Having Hanni rip thru Darius is the best thing. When we go to take out Hanni, he won't be any stronger even tho he's double the size. There's nothing better than having the AI kill AI units. Our game has been strangely quiet. Any idea how we can make this happen with Brennus? Seems like he should have decided on his own a long time ago to attack. Our only chance to bribe him would have been when he liked us more, but without the tech bribes, it's just so expensive.

I suspect that the reason he's sitting tight is that he hasn't had a land target. At least not one he dislikes. Maybe this is something we can fix? Other than the 'fix' we have in place when the forced peace wears off and we become his land target. Maybe it's too late to 'fix'.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We can't get much mileage out of 3 pop whipping a city like HC.
I think we should be drafting it. Even without Rifles. Draft now to get the anger clock started. Especially now that we're out of the GA. And especially if you plan to leave Nationhood (I don't think we should) We get a Musket and lose only 21~30 hammers depending on the GA.

Other cities will lose even less hammers since they grow back so fast.

Nationhood(drafting) is instead of Vassalage(2XP). Slavery(whipping) is instead of Caste(+1h wkshp).

Bearing in mind that drafting divides XP in half, a musketman gives us 9str + 2XP = CI 9.0 = 9.9 str 1-mvmt at a cost of 3 angries and 1pop(80h). A Cuir gives 12str + 5XP = 14.4str 2-mvmt at a cost of 1 angry and 2pops(90h)+10h.

Whipping seems better than drafting to me, but we could keep Nationhood. The main point of Vassalage is 11XP Cuirs in Rome--15.6str. Pretty deadly.

~~~

HC is the worst comparison to choose for whipping versus drafting, btw. It's been a wallstick of since the day we settled it. Can't even hire an engineer. Maybe we should gift it to Darius, give Brennus a few land tiles to hate. FIgure out a way to get it up to 8 land tiles.

 

[Pollina]

Whipping seems better than drafting to me, but we could keep Nationhood. The main point of Vassalage is 11XP Cuirs in Rome--15.6str. Pretty deadly.

We're already building 13 XP Cuirs in Rome. Most other cities are building 5 XP Cuirs. I don't think Vassalage would be all that useful.

 

[WastinTime]

We're already building 13 XP Cuirs in Rome. Most other cities are building 5 XP Cuirs. I don't think Vassalage would be all that useful.

Yea, I think LC forgot we took Theo. and we birthed another GG after our 3rd healer...or maybe forgot about the Stable.

 

[WastinTime]

We're already building 13 XP Cuirs in Rome. Most other cities are building 5 XP Cuirs. I don't think Vassalage would be all that useful.

Of course there's this:

In a few turns we get another GG, + vassalage + MilScience =
17XP cuirs with Blitz.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I forgot to redo my Rome math after Theo, plus somehow I wasn't including the 3rd GG. When didwe do that?

Mil Acad is +50% hammer production in one city, not +XPs. That happens after another 108 gg pts.

Rome can do 1 Cuir per turn @ 40 base-h without a GA.
Mecca, with Mil Acad + stables + Vassalage produces 3 11XP Cuirs every 5t, with 1 2whip per 10t. During the GA, it's 4 every 5t, except the whip has to precede the GA or no 2whip.
Damascus with Mil Acad and Castes can easily do 1 Cuir per turn during the GA. With no whipping, it would keep growing, so Moai(2t) might make sense, because it would gradually approach 1 Cuir per turn without the GA.
Damascus with SLavery, w/o Mil Acad can do almost 7 Cuirs per 10t with 2 2whip per 10t.

Most of our cities have reached their growth limits and Slavery is unsustainable at that size.

 

[ZPV]

I'll draft HC, just because. After looking at HC, I can't bear to. It costs a lot of hammers to grow back because the city is so food poor, and all we get is a measly musket.
Ok, I'll save the next GG for a Mil. Academy in Damascus.
After that, it's probably back to

I agree that whipping doesn't look too promising in our large cities - although I guess Mecca can build the army to conquer Saladin. No way do I want to ship a GG all the way out there, so it'll have to make do without the +50%.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Drafting to me is a great fall-back if we suddenly get DoWed and need to defend. Muskets are better defenders than Cuirs. Better saved for that.