SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[LowtherCastle]

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.

Seems fine with me. Is the point of taking out BrSoD to prevent it from defending Bibrachte, attacking Nibru, or what?

 

[Pollina]

Seems fine with me. Is the point of taking out BrSoD to prevent it from defending Bibrachte, attacking Nibru, or what?

I don't want it to kill our units at Vienne-N or to threaten Nibru. I would like to get another healer in the Vienne area, so that our grens at Vienne-N can heal for the Bibracte attack.

 

[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)

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.

For me, the critical path is to have enough units in the east, so that we can declare on Gilga on the turn after we raze Bibracte. Gilga is not that scary, but he has quite a lot of units and a rather big SoD. Would be nice if we could lure his stack out of his cities. Gilga's island cities take some planning. We might have to CF Brennus immediately after attacking Bibracte, so that our boats can move in place safely.

In the west, the only tough nut to crack is Pasargadae, which had a ton of defenders last time I checked. We should have enough units for it, unless we lose too many in Persepolis. DariusNorth should fall easily. Same for Sal who has lost most of his offensive units trying to attack Darius.

I'm thinking we can have the west cleared by around t230. The east may take longer.

 

[Mitchum]

Things are looking good, Pollina. The victory is in the bag, now I think it comes down to a problem of optimization and logistics.

It would be nice to take out Hannibal so that any survivors from that war may live to fight at least one more battle.

It's hard to tell but it looks like some units may be sleeping/fortified. Better is to skip their turn so that the next person knows that the unit is available.

I'm thinking we can have the west cleared by around t230. The east may take longer.

Is this an indication that we need to send more units east and fewer units west?

You said that the last time you looked into Pasargadae it had a lot of units and may pose the only problem. Since the city is not threatened and he's at war with 3 AI, do you think he still has it stock piled with units? We have 15 cuirs hitting Persepolis, which is defended by an LB, HA, 2 axes and a spear. At last check, Pasargadae had 5 LBs, 2 maces and a musket. We also have 3 cuirs in Damascus that can help out.

I'm not sure what the right answer is or if the issue with the east taking longer is due to logistics and not lack of units. But, if the east falls later due to lack of units, then we should start sending more units that direction.

 

[ZPV]

It would be nice to take out Hannibal so that any survivors from that war may live to fight at least one more battle.

Agreed. The only other battle I can see is for them to hop on boats to Gilga's islands, so we might need to send our galleys through the (relatively clear) gauntlet to get them soon.

Is this an indication that we need to send more units east and fewer units west?

You said that the last time you looked into Pasargadae it had a lot of units and may pose the only problem. Since the city is not threatened and he's at war with 3 AI, do you think he still has it stock piled with units? We have 15 cuirs hitting Persepolis, which is defended by an LB, HA, 2 axes and a spear. At last check, Pasargadae had 5 LBs, 2 maces and a musket. We also have 3 cuirs in Damascus that can help out.

I'm not sure what the right answer is or if the issue with the east taking longer is due to logistics and not lack of units. But, if the east falls later due to lack of units, then we should start sending more units that direction.

The east is hampered by a combination of logistics and lack of units.
Throwing units at the problem won't make our cannons march any faster.
However, extra Cuirs might let us finish off Gil faster once Bibracte has fallen (no need to wait for Brennus's new tiny city - our remaining cannons and grens will be able to clean that up in 3-4 turns without cuir help).
We also need to rebuild the road near Nibru when it's not threatened.

 

[ZPV]

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.

Sounds pretty good.
Nibru: Definitely whip the caravel. If we can kill the two caravels outside Nibru, there might be opportunities with our galley stack, rather than walking it to Vienne.

If we can get a little bit of safety for our galleys, I'd like to ship Cuirs from Rome to Nibru, where they'll be able to hit Gil's stack on the turn we DoW (either by sitting on that hill, or by using a newly built road).

 

[Pollina]

Is this an indication that we need to send more units east and fewer units west?

I don't intend to send any more units west from the Rome area. Hard to predict how long the east will take. Depends on how many rifles Brennus builds in Bibracte. A t228 Bibracte attack is possible, assuming we don't lose too many of the units that are currently in Nibru and near Verlamion. That could mean DoW Gilga t229, raze all remaining cities t230 if we have enough units. But it's not guaranteed.

You said that the last time you looked into Pasargadae it had a lot of units and may pose the only problem. Since the city is not threatened and he's at war with 3 AI, do you think he still has it stock piled with units? We have 15 cuirs hitting Persepolis, which is defended by an LB, HA, 2 axes and a spear. At last check, Pasargadae had 5 LBs, 2 maces and a musket. We also have 3 cuirs in Damascus that can help out.

The city was threatened by stacks from Hanni and Sal. I don't think many of their units survived, but they could still have some around. Darius would have taken Khurasan if they didn't.

 

[Pollina]

Playing...

t222 (continued)
- DaGift razed. 2 cuirs die at 40% and 70% odds.
- whip caravel

t223
- BrSoD attacks. We lose 1 cannon, 1 gren, 1 cuir. We kill 8 units. Our cuir kill the remaining 2 rifles and WE at 98%+ odds while moving towards Vienne.
- Darius has 7 units in Persepolis. 2 LBs, 2 axes, 2 immortals, 1 spear. It is 1565 AD!
- Persepolis razed. 1 settler killed. We lose 2 cuirs. Only 106 gold.
- Hanni moves a CG2 LB out of Hippo. His second city has yet to pop borders. His defenders (musket, lb, cat) there have no defensive bonus except for being inside a city. Our units are mostly healed, so we could DoW this turn if we want. Go for it? We should be able to kill him next turn or, worst case, in 2t.
- 2 of Brennus' caravels sail north into Gilgaland. I could move our two caravels out and dare his other two ones to attack them. They are both unpromoted.
- One of our worker-slaves peeks into Pasargadae: 1 musket, 3 maces, 5 longbows, axe, treb, spear. Hanni has a stack next to it: 3 grens, 5 knights, musket, 2 trebs. That stack must have been sitting there for a while now, probably bombarding. That may be one reason to keep Hanni alive for a while longer. Probably not worth it.
- DoW Hanni. WW is kicking in immediately. 4 unhappies in Rome with 40% culture slider.
- Thaenae razed. 1 Cuir dies at 97% odds. This could delay our killing off Hanni by a turn if he whips a defender in Hippo.

t224
- Darius and Hanni make peace.
- Hanni whips a settler in Hippo.
- Hippo razed. 1 cuir dies. Hanni is dead.
- 2 Brennus caravels die trying to attack our caravels. His other 2 caravels are back from their trip to Gilgaland.
- Susa razed. 1 musket dies.
- Verlamion razed. I suicide 1 cannon after the gren takes down the top defender. That gives the cuirs winning odds. We lose one of them at 90%.
- Brennus has a settling party next to the Verlamion ruins. The settler near Vienne disappeared, so it might be the same one.
- 800 gold in the bank. We're losing ~350g at 70% culture slider. Rome has 12 from WW. Should be a lot less next turn now that Hanni is dead.
- Sal has an unprotected settler near the Anjar ruins.
- We are one battle away from another GG (our 11th).
- We could CF Darius for a turn if we want. Not sure how useful that would be.

Save uploaded

*End of turnset*

 

[Mitchum]

I think I would DoW Hannibal and take him out of the picture ASAP to free up those units. I suppose that one or two units should hang around once he's dead to watch for settler parties that may land in the area.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Go for it! Kill Hannibal. Kill 'em all!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Another factor for the Gil attack is that our units between Vienne+Bibrachte should be able to move faster toward Gil's capital just when Bibrachte falls, before the culture resets.

FOr example. we might capture Gil's capital faster conceivably by delaying Bibrachte a turn.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If we have cannons, bombard Pasagard down so Hanni can suicide?

 

[Pollina]

I expect that Darius captures Khurasan with his SoD once Hanni's stack disappears. He can reach it in 1t.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Does Gil have RepParts yet?

 

[Pollina]

Does Gil have RepParts yet?

He got them this turn. Rifling in 12t.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Magnificent turnset, Pollina!!!

 

[Pollina]

I've set the culture slider to 70%. Probably not worth it. We can probably let Rome starve and reduce WW that way. We won't be keeping any more cities.

 

[Pollina]

Screenshots t224

Map:

Spoiler :

Info screens:

Spoiler :

previous screenshot post

 

[Mitchum]

Nice turnset, Pollina. Things are looking great!!

There have been several cuirs sitting in Damascus for a few turns. What is the plan for them?

Our Darius-N army is made up of several one-movers with several cuirs that can heal and then catch up. The one-movers don't have the luxury of healing and have to move forward, I guess. The cuirs can fork Ecbatana and Ergili at Ecbatana-S or Ecbatana-2S and attack where needed. Darius is running Slavery and could whip several units once we threaten his cities but currently, the cities are weakly defended (or were 4 turns ago). Darius-N can easily be finished by T230 and is not the critical path.

Sal should easily fall after we've taken care of Darius, which means that we want to raze Pasargadae ASAP to free up all of our units there. We should use one of our cuirs in Mecca to peek into Baghdad although it's possible that cuir by Najran has been bouncing back and forth between Sal's cities.

So I think we should spend some time mapping out the Brennus/Gilgamesh war. There are a total of 9 cities, 2 of them are island cities.

Like LC said, on the turn that Vienne and Bibracte fall, we'll have time (is it only the turn the cities fall or the next turn too?) to position stacks right at the door step of all four of Gilgamesh's cities. In fact, we may want to leave one defender in each of Vienne and Bibracte so that on the turn we raze them, we can DoW Giggles and the majority of our units are free to move into position. We just have to watch out for Giggle's stack in Girsu...

Any idea where Brennus' settler will go?

Who's up? I still can't play for at least one more day, maybe longer.

 

[ZPV]

Awesome! Well done, Pollina! Brennus is nearly beaten.
Thanks for the screenshots.

@Mitchum: I think we're doing ad-hoc "got-its" now, just to get us to the end. I'll take it tomorrow, if no one else does.
We have the turn the cities fall, and the turn after, to move on forced-neutral land.