SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[Pollina]

Looks like I may have some time tomorrow to play a few more turns.

But if someone else wants to play that's fine too.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Play on, Pollina. The deadline is looming.

 

[Mitchum]

I had visions of playing but with my mother-in-law in town and the kids out of school, I can't string more than 30 consecutive minutes of Me Time together.

Play on!!

 

[ZPV]

Keep going! If you get to the point where you want to hand the save off, I can pick it up in a few days, if no one else wants to.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The completion deadline will now be January 7th. Plan your game, and please avoid a last minute struggle to meet the deadline.
Please be warned, except in the event of cosmic catastrophes. THERE WILL BE NO DEADLINE EXTENSIONS.

We have 11 days to finish. Other teams have significantly picked up their pace. We should assume the deadline stands as is. I suggest we shift into play whenever you can mode. That would mean:

1. Got it! in our thread.
2. Play mini-turnset.
3. Report turnset in our thread.
4. Upload and announce that your turnset is over, so anyone else can "Got it!"

Currently, Pollina is still playing, which is perfectly fine by me. Once Pollina wraps up, if we're in agreement with above, we can shift into that mode. That works particularly nicely with two of us in Europe and the rest in the USA. Mitchum can play for a 1/2 hour at a time as well. Why not.

 

[Pollina]

I'm going to hand off tomorrow. Should be able to start playing sometime this afternoon.

War Plan
(to refresh my memory)

- t220 DoW Darius
- OB with Sal & Hanni

Darius:
- Move Addis stack in place to attack Zohak and Ghulaman next turn, then move east, new units (cuirs) from Ethiopian cities join attack, possibly 1-3 more praet upgrades if we have the gold)
- SE front units heal 1-2 turns, then move towards Persepolis, then Pasargadae, then move to Damascus area to heal for Sal war
- New units in homeland capture DaGift (t221). Cannon and muskets and maybe 1-2 cuirs attack Anjar (t222, hopefully before Sal captures it)

Brennus
- Kill 0.6 health caravel
- Unload units in Nibru, upgrade praets and mace, attack Brennus stack (suicide 1 4XP cannon if necessary)
- Attack Vienne (t224 or t225)
- Attack Verlamion (t223 or t224)

Hanni
- Kill DoW+1 (t223 or later)

Sal
- Kill DoW+1 (t230 or later), Verlamion galleys can ferry Cuirs from Mecca to Baghdad-NW

Gilga
- DoW after Bibracte is razed and before plot culture updates
- reinforcements from Rome area (cuirs)

 

[ZPV]

We have 11 days to finish. Other teams have significantly picked up their pace. We should assume the deadline stands as is. I suggest we shift into play whenever you can mode. That would mean:

1. Got it! in our thread.
2. Play mini-turnset.
3. Report turnset in our thread.
4. Upload and announce that your turnset is over, so anyone else can "Got it!"

Currently, Pollina is still playing, which is perfectly fine by me. Once Pollina wraps up, if we're in agreement with above, we can shift into that mode. That works particularly nicely with two of us in Europe and the rest in the USA. Mitchum can play for a 1/2 hour at a time as well. Why not.

I'm happy enough with this. We only have 10 or so turns left, so the deadline isn't too tight.

 

[Pollina]

Playing...

t220
- Our caravel kills Brennus 0.6 health caravel and moves into Nibru, along with the galleys. Upgrade mace and praets. 530 gold left in the bank.
- DoW Darius. That somehow updated our WW and Rome got very unhappy. Running 20% culture slider for 55 gpt.
- OB with Sal and Hanni
- I'm not expecting much failgold next turn, so I won't upgrade any more Addis praets this turn. For now.
- Sal's Khurasan's only defender is a wounded axe. His other main cities have 3 CG2 or CG3 musket/LB defenders each. No settlers in sight.

t221
- 2 couple rifles attack our BrNorth units. We win both fights, but one of our grens and one cuir gets heavily wounded.
- I forget to move our Damascus galley out of the fort and it dies. Sorry! Hope we won't need it anymore. Our tiles 3 north of Damascus (including the fort) flip to Darius.
- Brennus' Nibru stack moves into Gilga's territory. Weird. Now I can't kill it.
- Hanni settles a city 1E of the Carthage marble hill on flat terrain. The city has 2 guerilla2 defenders.
- We raze Zulak and Ghul. 1 cuir and a couple muskets die.

t222
- Nibru: Brennus stack seems to be headed back towards Brennusland through Gilga's culture. Nothing we can do there.
- 2 more rifles die trying to attack our BrNorth units. Only 2 healthy grens left. We can move the medic and the cuirs from Nibru there to have them heal while the cannon bombards Vienne. No, they would die to Brennus' stack.
- Anjar razed. 2 drafted muskets die at 90% odds. Saves some maintenance.
- Darius moves a settling party towards our units there. We kill it and move within capturing distance of Persepolis.

Save uploaded.

Questions:
- Raze DaGift?
- Nibru unit micro
- Let Brennus stack attack or keep units in Nibru?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Our deficit spending is so high that it's probably a good idea to go easy on the upgrades in Addis for now.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The GG could meet a chariot from Hanni's area to become a medic.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We should not fortify units that we expect to move. That way they come up before <enter> to end turn.

 

[Pollina]

Are we done with DaGift? Raze it?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are we done with DaGift? Raze it?

I don't know, maybe we are.

We're going to need enough sea vessel transportation to raze Gil's two island cities. If we raze Nibru, we won't have a port nearby to build new ones. Will we need to steal Astro from Darius?

 

[Pollina]

We can keep Nibru (and the spices) if we can kill Brennus' stack. I'm moving some more units onto the galleys and some others out of the city. Maybe it will come back. It could be next to the city next turn thanks to Gilga's culture near Girsu.

Nibru could whip another caravel (or galley?) next turn if we want one.

I suppose I could wait another turn before capturing DaGift.

Edit: Astro costs almost 1000 EP in DaGift. That's 3 turns at 100% slider. Not gonna happen, unless we pop a GSpy in 6 turns. We don't have the gold for it. Plus, we don't have a spy in the area. 5 turns fortification would take too long.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Then somehow we need to ensure we'll have enough galleys for Gal's islands. If needed, extra can come from our Brennus-SE stack or newly built. They'll take time to arrive, if needed.

I'm not saying extra are needed, just if.

 

[Pollina]

Any idea how to deal with Brennus' SoD?

Spoiler :

 

[Pollina]

I need a break. Save uploaded.

 

[Pollina]

The GG could meet a chariot from Hanni's area to become a medic.

I decided against it btw and went with a 3-mvmt healer instead. It would have taken too long to move the chariot back, upgrade, then move it back to the front. The 3-mvmt healer was put to work immediately, which allowed us to move towards Persepolis this turn.

 

[Pollina]

Got sidetracked and can' play any more tonight.

Plan going forward is:
- raze DaGift, then move cuirs in Rome area towards Brennus/Gilga
- Raze Persepolis next turn (hopefully).
- Raze Verlamion, Susa in 2t unless they are very underdefended.
- Raze Vienne in 3t.
- Move Nibru units to Nibru-3S3E. Take out Brennus SoD if it doesn't attack.
- Galleys stay in Nibru. Whip caravel. Maybe try to lure Brennus' caravels away if possible.

Let me know if you disagree with anything.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm happy enough with this. We only have 10 or so turns left, so the deadline isn't too tight.

If this is true, do we have our critical path of cities mapped out yet? In other words, what do we expect to be the last city(s) captured, on about which turn (Txxx) would that occur, and what path will troops take between now and Txxx to make that happen?

I think it's important to have this mapped out at a high level. I've had cases where one single city delayed my victory by 5 to 10 turns because I either sent troops the wrong way (i.e. the non-critical path) or I just failed to plan the final city(s) capture appropriately.

Ideally, all of our troop/war vectors finish on the same turn but that's easier said than done.

EDIT: Pollina's plan in the above post looks fine but I think we need to look at the end game from a higher level so that all troops, not just the ones capturing these 5 cities can move in the correct direction. It also gives us an idea of when we can stop building units and start building wealth to afford a few troop upgrades.