SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[Pollina]

Superlative turnset, ZPV!!!

Indeed!

Lucky thing Pollina's up next, because this is the most important turnset of the game!

Oh, the pressure... Okay, "Got it".

I'll try to get a PPP up tonight. We have a christmas party at work tomorrow , so I won't be able to play before Saturday.

I have no experience with these kind of highly efficient endgame clean-up wars. Advise, ideas, suggestions are much appreciated.

 

[Pollina]

Screenshots t209

Territory

Rome:

Spoiler :

Brennus + Gilga:

Spoiler :

Hannibal:

Spoiler :

Arabia & former Ethiopia:

Spoiler :

Info screens

Spoiler :

 

[WastinTime]

Sal still has the fist and we are locked in a peace deal.
So does that mean for sure he's picked someone else to attack?
Darius is his only other landtarget.

Not sure what we can do with that information, but watch for his stack buildup and it might make sense to kill Sal/Zara as soon as he crashes is stack on something.

 

[Pollina]

Questions:

1. Civics: Switch into Slavery + Vassalage?
2. Will Gilga's culture reach the cow tile at Bibracte-5E, or can our units heal there for a few turns?
3. Steal Optics with our HaGift spy? Wait for 50% fortification?
4. Any ideas what to do with our next GP?
5. Rax in Nibru or galleys/caravels?
6. How much are treb->cannon upgrades? Edit: Upgrades cost 80 gold.
7. Promote some 17 xp Cuirs with Blitz?
8. Build research and run ~30% slider to finish Steel next turn, or build units and run higher slider?
9. How many cannons do we need for Brennus?
10. Land at Carthage-W on t214? We want to declare a bit earlier than that, to raze some of the cities closer to us, right? Are there any Hanni caravels in the area that could threaten our galleys? Should we rush a couple caravels in Nibru?

 

[Pollina]

Sal still has the fist and we are locked in a peace deal.
So does that mean for sure he's picked someone else to attack?
Darius is his only other landtarget.

Not sure what we can do with that information, but watch for his stack buildup and it might make sense to kill Sal/Zara as soon as he crashes is stack on something.

That was supposed to be question#11. Do we need some more units in Mecca and Damascus, in case Sal attacks us? Can he even attack us, or are we too powerful?

 

[WastinTime]

Durno gets razed next turn, 210, easily. We can move in all the horses (sans healer) near bovino and any other healed or mostly healed horse this turn. A Prat could provide defense. That's over a dozen attackers.

Our healer can go to the Nemet ruins and heal those units. I case you forgot, that's the Hanni border.

Then I think the castle/hill cities have to wait.

Hide the galleys in Nibru 209 and CF or peace T210. I think we have plenty to do for 10t, so we could go with DoP if there is enough cash. I'm afraid Brennus will be spending all his cash on Rifles IBT.

T210 we need to take civics. I'm still a fan of Nationhood. In the last 10 turns of the game, that is 30 extra units. Quantity over quality.

 

[WastinTime]

2. Gil's culture will not reach that tile.

 

[WastinTime]

8. build units instead of research with higher slider.
and you can run mostly scientists in Nibru if it's going to starve anyway

 

[WastinTime]

10. good idea. When we take slavery next turn we can whip a boat in Nibru. It can catch up to the galleys before they should see any danger. Yes, I see us landing T214. I suppose a 2nd caravel will come in handy. We don't have the EPs to steal Optics so we'd have to build a (culture+)Trireme this turn and upgrade it.

Hanni: I see 5 cities that we can raze on DoW+0 (not HaGift). We won't be able to reach Thapsus til DoW+1 because it has 40% culture.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Nibru (with Slavery harder to get spices): hire 8 artists, work 1 wkshp, build culture(57c)->trireme(12h), 2whip trireme next turn after Slavery but before stealing Optics (if that matters), and after completing caravel, again build culture until 100c.

Nibru can't support more than 9 happy citizens without a lighthouse anyway. Iiuc, we should have enough eps for Optics next turn at 30% stationary spy.

.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If we're planning to draft in the end-game, might as well go for Rifling. Actually, had I realized Rifling gives us bargain-rate Cavalry, I'd have pushed hard before. I'd strongly consider bringing our vagabond spies back and planning for both Optics-Astro and Paper-PP-ReParts-Rifling.

Now, how bad do we really need Optics? After we dump our units at Carthage, risk-free, do we care all that much about enemy caravels? Cavalry and drafting rifles could be a huge upgrade to our warring.

 

[ZPV]

Questions:

1. Civics: Switch into Slavery + Vassalage?
2. Will Gilga's culture reach the cow tile at Bibracte-5E, or can our units heal there for a few turns?
3. Steal Optics with our HaGift spy? Wait for 50% fortification?
4. Any ideas what to do with our next GP?
5. Rax in Nibru or galleys/caravels?
6. How much are treb->cannon upgrades? Edit: Upgrades cost 80 gold.
7. Promote some 17 xp Cuirs with Blitz?
8. Build research and run ~30% slider to finish Steel next turn, or build units and run higher slider?
9. How many cannons do we need for Brennus?
10. Land at Carthage-W on t214? We want to declare a bit earlier than that, to raze some of the cities closer to us, right? Are there any Hanni caravels in the area that could threaten our galleys? Should we rush a couple caravels in Nibru?

1. Fine by me. Drafting isn't really all that appealing to me in this scenario.
3. Nothing better to do. I don't think any more tech would speed up our victory, but Optics will give us caravels and better vision over water. I would like to get vision inside Carthage beforehand though.
4. Bait to draw an enemy chariot out of a city.
5. Maybe one caravel, but after that, rax and units.
6. So cheap that we should upgrade all our trebs.
7. I wouldn't do it - the luxury of taking a second battle against weak units is probably worth less than the better odds against strong ones.
8. Save enough gold to upgrade our trebs. Aside from that, the slider's fine.
9. I'd probably want 7 or 8, on top of the 5 we'll upgrade (and presumably ship right back to the south after taking Carthage)
10. I haven't seen any of Hanni's Caravels in the last couple turns, but I would assume he has one in Carthage.
11. Sal might be after us. It would be nice to build a spy in Mecca and see how many units he has. In any case, Hannibal has a few units near Damascus, so we can't empty the city out completely.

I'd suggest razing Sardis on turn 1 of the war, and Kerkouane on turn 2. After that, Hadrumentum, and then Utica. The key is, raze one city, and then move a lot of healthy Cuirs up to 6 tiles by newly opened roads to within striking distance of the next city. Take some workers to fill in the gaps (see the ones near the ruins of Bagacum in the south as an example).
The galley stack would get Carthage, and then head straight back south to meet up with newly built cannons and take on Brennus, while Cuirs handle the straggler cities in the north and move towards Darius/Sal

 

[Pollina]

Nibru (with Slavery harder to get spices): hire 8 artists, work 1 wkshp, build culture(57c)->trireme(12h), 2whip trireme next turn after Slavery but before stealing Optics (if that matters), and after completing caravel, again build culture until 100c.

Triremes don't auto-upgrade to caravels iirc. We'd have to cold-whip the caravel or upgrade a trireme at Nibru-2W, if we want a caravel to defend our galley stack on t214.

Not sure if stealing Optics for caravels is worth it. I suppose we'd also get +1 happiness from whales.

 

[ZPV]

Triremes don't auto-upgrade to caravels. We'd have to cold-whip the caravel or upgrade a trireme at Nibru-2W, if we want a caravel to defend our galley stack on t214.

Not sure if stealing Optics for caravels is worth it. I suppose we'd also get +1 happiness from whales.

We already have whales! Unlike land resources, it seems we don't actually need Optics to use the whaling boats someone else built.

 

[Pollina]

Good to know.

What's the plan for the GG in Rome? Another medic?

 

[LowtherCastle]

For about 78 spybucks we could revolt Hanni to Castes next turn before revolting ourselves to Slavery.

Brennus is still in Castes.

 

[Pollina]

For about 78 spybucks we could revolt Hanni to Castes next turn before revolting ourselves to Slavery.

Brennus is still in Castes.

Do we want him to run artists in HaGift?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Questions:

1. Civics: Switch into Slavery + Vassalage?
2. Will Gilga's culture reach the cow tile at Bibracte-5E, or can our units heal there for a few turns?
3. Steal Optics with our HaGift spy? Wait for 50% fortification?
4. Any ideas what to do with our next GP?
5. Rax in Nibru or galleys/caravels?
6. How much are treb->cannon upgrades? Edit: Upgrades cost 80 gold.
7. Promote some 17 xp Cuirs with Blitz?
8. Build research and run ~30% slider to finish Steel next turn, or build units and run higher slider?
9. How many cannons do we need for Brennus?
10. Land at Carthage-W on t214? We want to declare a bit earlier than that, to raze some of the cities closer to us, right? Are there any Hanni caravels in the area that could threaten our galleys? Should we rush a couple caravels in Nibru?

1. Slavery if you want all that MM that goes with it. Castes gives us spices in 2t instead of ~5t in addition to the wkshp hammers.

3. Revolt Hanni to Slavery? Otherwise I like the Rifling tech line more than Astro at this point.

4. Depends. GSpy can safely spy or bomb for tech steals. GArtist could be used for a new kept city, like Pasargadae or similar. GS, ??? Prophet, settled somewhere.

5. 3whip caravel with Optics, else Rax+units.

8. Units.

9. 4 cannons knock castle defenses to 2% in 2t. Seems like we should be able to build 4 in the Mecca/Aksum area to chain to Brennus-East. Maybe 4-6 from the west so we can bombard plus suicide if helpful. That gives you the treb upgrades for Carthage.

10. I wouldn't worry about seeing into Carthage. Just bring the a ton of units (leaving a galley or two empty for defense against caravels).

11. After(if) 4 cannons for Brennus, the Aksum/Mecca area should be mobilizing for Darius/Sal/Zara anyway, right? So keep some in Mecca and Damascus and we're good.

12A. I'd bring the spies back home. Steal Paper+PP from Hanni cheap. RepParts+Rifling from Brennus cheap (stationary in HC). Frankly, building a couple extra spies is probably worth it, especially if we go to Slavery. We could have Rifling in ~8t and Cavalry and drafted rifles would crush everything in sight.

12B. Steal Optics+Astro asap and upgrade a few galleons for quicker end-game access to remote cities, like Ergili Ecbatana.

12C. Steal nothing, a la ZPV. Just crank out units.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Do we want him to run artists in HaGift?

No! Or, depends...

 

[LowtherCastle]

I have no experience with these kind of highly efficient endgame clean-up wars. Advise, ideas, suggestions are much appreciated.

I don't think there's any magic formula. It's basically a matter of rolling up the sleeves and planning it out. The most common mistake is to not plan enough, for example, not plan our Darius-West attack early enough, and end up with 100 units attacking the final 3 cities, one at a time.