SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[WastinTime]

Grens might save us huh? Would they draw the Rifles as defenders first? or, as usual, end up targeting a knight or something?

Good news on Brennus is that he needs Nationalism (to draft as if the AI would) and that's a pre-req for MilTrad. So we shouldn't see any Cuirs or Cavalry. It's probably fortunate that we gave him horses all these years since the top out at knights. Otherwise, he'd have 100 Rifles soon.

Brennus will need a lot of cash to upgrade so there should be time to move on him even after Rifling. Should be exciting!

 

[LowtherCastle]

Yes, exciting! And then Hannibal right afterward. We haven't had much of a respite since we started our warring. We're right at the front of the wave each time, barely escaping the crest crashing down upon us and drowning us, or forcing us to tech to cannons or something like that.

I suspect the grens will still draw the rifles because they're still going to be pretty strong. 14*1.2 = 16.8. Actually, they'll be whoppers with all those CG defense bonuses. Oh Jesus. We might need a stack of siege just to knock them down to half.

.

 

[LowtherCastle]

At 100% research we're showing Steel(10). We could postpone Brennus till then.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Brennus
T188 No PP, GP
T190 No PP, GP
T193 No PP
T195 No PP(2392b)
T199 No RepPts(2691b)
T201 No Rifling(3588b)

We could estimate his tech rate by determining more exactly when he got GP and PP. Latest he'd get Rifling would be about T208.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Working scientists instead of engineers, we could probably get Steel in 8t.

Edit: Actually, going max research we could probably get Steel in 5t, so 8t easily without seriously affecting our production. Since Brennus is going down on someone else, we could just wait for him to do that while we collect CaptureGold from others. Hannibal, for instance would be a good target since he'll be the next to threaten Rifling. Plus, Zara+Sal, while we're at it, so we can then focus primarily on Brennus. Darius is a weakling with only two serious cities.

Even if Brennus gets Rifling in 5t, there isn't a lot we can do to him before that, so we could just not bother putting eps on him for now, teching Steel instead. The only catch is that we would want to stay in Christ, so we wouldn't have enough eps to steal Mil Sci right now. If we build a Christ Miss, we could lower the cost somewhat.

.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Brennus just lost two happies from trade with Gil. He'd lose two more from gold with Sal if we take that away from Sal.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If we can deduce that we have 4-5t before Brennus gets Rifling, then we could capture 4-5 Brennus cities on his western front, knocking him back to 7 excellent cities. Probably also his new city Venta and Vienne and he's down to 6 cities. That would be quite a loss.

So the question is, when did he tech PP?

 

[WastinTime]

If we can deduce that we have 4-5t before Brennus gets Rifling, then we could capture 4-5 Brennus cities on his western front, knocking him back to 7 excellent cities. Probably also his new city Venta and Vienne and he's down to 6 cities.

I like the sound of this. I'd hate to leave him with 10+ cities all making a Rifle in ~2 turns. I think you were right on when you said we need to catch the wave before it crashes down on us. Hannibal will be ready to crash down right after Brennus.

I haven't decided if I want Steel or not. Seems like if we burn our gold for that, we have no way to upgrade to cannons or upgrade Cuirs, grens, etc.

 

[ZPV]

If we can deduce that we have 4-5t before Brennus gets Rifling, then we could capture 4-5 Brennus cities on his western front, knocking him back to 7 excellent cities. Probably also his new city Venta and Vienne and he's down to 6 cities. That would be quite a loss.

So the question is, when did he tech PP?

EDIT:
Gunpowder t190-191 interturn
Printing Press t196-197 interturn.
Replaceable Parts on the t200-201 interturn.

It's t203 now.

I'd estimate he could learn Rifling on t205-6 (meaning he gets to upgrade units t206-7, but units autoupgrade in production for t206) if the overflow is nice to him. One turn later if not.

Looking at that tech rate, I'd assume PP had no overflow going into it, and RP had quite a lot, so his tech rate is really ~5 turns for a tech of that size.
That means Rifling would take ~7 turns, or 6 with some empire growth/optimism bias.

 

[Pollina]

Brennus switched into Vassalage ibt 202/203. That should delay Rifling by at least 1t. Maybe 2t, as he no longer gets the commerce boost from Bureaucracy. His GNP is now 50-100 less than it was a few turns ago.

Oops, he's spiritual.

 

[ZPV]

@Pollina: I'm hopeful that massacreing his stack in our land (WW), and getting a couple cities will push it a turn as well.

Here's a basic plan of attack for Brennus:

N.B. 5 or so knights from Calleva are AWOL. Brennus is in Caste System and can't whip.

I see three fronts for us:
1) The obvious home front.
2) Brennus-Gil border
3) A small stack (8 units) from Damascus arriving by sea. If we build a galley in Damascus, we can put 2 CR3 Grens on the boats (you can't upgrade while at sea)

t203 CF Gil, demand tribute from Sal (so we can empty Damascus and Mecca)
t204 DoW Brennus

Gil Stack:
(10 Cuir, 5Treb, 1CR3 Mace, 3CR3 Praet, 5CR2 Praet, 3C1Praet, 1 super medic Cuir)
t203
Move galleys back towards Nibru.
All slow units move towards Nibru. Fast units heal where they are.
t204
Teleport galleys, move them into Nibru.
All slow units move towards Nibru. Fast units heal where they are.
t205
Upgrade 4x CR3 units to Grens (665 gold)
Upgrade 5x CR2 units to Grens (925 gold)
Load up slow units in Nibru and move out towards Vienne.
Fast units raze New Bad-Tibira.
t206
Land at Vienne-SW
Fast units move to Vienne-N
t207
Attack Vienne with the slow units first.
If successful enough, fast units move to Bibracte.

Small stack (Damascus):
6 Cuir, 2x CR3Praet
t203
Build Galley in Damascus. Load up 1 Cuir, move galleys 2 squares.
t204
Load up 5 Cuirs from Mecca; upgrade 2 CR3 Praets (370 gold) in Damascus and chain them to the main stack.
Load up the GG from Mecca, going back to Damascus.
t207
Land near Gergovia, hoping to avoid caravels

Main stack
t203
4 3XP Chariots upgrade to Cuirs in Bovino? (920 gold)
All Cuirs, Chariots and Praets move to Bovino, apart from the units in HC.
Damascus Cuirs start to move to Rome.
t204
Sit back one turn, to allow Calleva's stack to move into our territory (if it doesn't, we'll just have to ignore it and go attack cities instead.
t205
Destroy Calleva's stack.
t206
Attack Calleva, send any other healthy units to the north to target the coastal cities.
Damascus units can mop up any stragglers from Calleva.
The medic from Damascus has arrived, so wounded units can heal.
t207
Send a stack to Bagacum (south coast)

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I feel like upgrading the CR2 units in the Sumerian ruins is worth more to us than a few chariots at home, because they are in position to do more damage to Brennus, and give us 1 extra turn because they can kill or redline the one or two rifles that get built on the turn Brennus learns Rifling.

 

[WastinTime]

Hold on. Awesome plan coming...

 

[WastinTime]

Brennus' stack should have moved last turn if he was after Sal or Darius, so it must be Zara and the stack will not move.

We gift Nibru to Zara T203. Brennus vacates Calleva.

Give the stack a couple turns to get lost in the center of his territory.

He will capture Nibru and, in the process, DoW both Zara and Sal (defensive Pact)

Meanwhile, we build 3 spies immediately in Bovino. DoW Brennus and raze 5-6 cities.
Cease Fire when we can.
Gift Bovino*, steal RepParts and Rifling, DoW, recapture it.

*We can either leave Brennus a city within 9.5 tiles to gift Bovino, or we just plan to have him re-settle close enough for the gift. Also: draft Bovino before the gift. Bovino should start working all workshops (slow starve) since it will lose the food bin. We can't do HC instead because it's not Hindu.

 

[WastinTime]

Or...
We draft/gift HC to Brennus this turn (Bovino is an option too, but it has 99/100 in a Cuir )

He will move everything to HC (closer to his target). We can surprise attack HC on DoW+0. Even with our 1-movers.
And it's much better than having his stack fortified on a hill.

 

[WastinTime]

If we do Bovino gift, the SoD will have no place to go except on a grassy non-city, non-hill

If we gift him Bovino and then raze all is western cities. Is it true that he would always take Bovino back since he owned it before? That's how we could set up our spy missions

 

[ZPV]

??
I'm expecting Brennus's stack to move next turn anyway - the AI makes war plans after it moves its units (AI_DoWar is called from CvTeamAI::AI_DoTurnPost)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Don't you think the Calleva stack will move when we DOW?

xpost

 

[WastinTime]

??
I'm expecting Brennus's stack to move next turn anyway - the AI makes war plans after it moves its units (AI_DoWar is called from CvTeamAI::AI_DoTurnPost)

ok, but if it doesn't move. I want to gift Bovino. Our Gil troops need time to gather, heal, board ships anyway, so I can wait. And at least we won't leave 99h in a Cuir.

 

[WastinTime]

Don't you think the Calleva stack will move when we DOW?

Thinking more, I'd still rather gift Bovino this turn.

The SoD will probably move to a hill if we are at war. The Bovino gift let's us wipe out the stack 1t early and our units will be able to attack from inside recaptured Bovino, so they'll be ready to heal the next turn and safe from counterattack. This is our fastest attack plan.

Sure, we lose 160h and Bovino will starve 1 in Brennus' ownership, but we will save several units with our surprise attack, so we come out ahead. As you know, Bovino does not lose population when we re-capture and is not in revolt.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The way I see it, we pick the low-hanging fruit while teching Steel(8) and saving our kill units. Already having 58 Cuirs, we avoid Brennus' castles and capture Nemet+Duroc+Calleva+Bagac(+ maybe Vienne or Isca?). We pre-build trebs so we produce 4+ cannons on T+8. Cannons knock the defender down to 20%, do 60% collateral, 12% bombard. Riflewhats? Brennus is DEAD MEAT. Our stack of 10 cannons plus some kill units slowly plow through his remaining cities while we move on to Hannibal.

xpost: This is general strategy, not necessarily conflicting with tactics, like gift Bovino or not.