SGOTM 23 - Phoenix Rising

[Gumbolt]

Sundays are always tired days for me. Hadn't realised KK lacked construction. So he will be suiciding stacks against Russians. (Assuming he even has a stack.) I don't see his war going anywhere against a hill city with a city wall. On plus side KK faces a very weakened Russians. Russians won't be able to fight on 2 fronts.

Our scout is 3 turns from seeing anything interesting near Mongols or China.

Point taken on wonders.

One thing we have not done yet is beg gold from any AI? Any reason why not?

Still lack philosphy for pacf switch. That or gold for the SW wonder. Hmmm.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Camp outside Cologne was destroyed by enemy infiltrators again?!?

Our army is small now as we got sidetracked by forges and wonders. Once those are up, the numbers should rise quickly again.

I'd prefer if we at least can take out Novgorod and whatever he has south of Moscow and Novgorod before we end the current Russian conquest.

Wow ! I had not noticed the camp being destroyed.

Very much agree about the other 2 points.
It's not clear to me that the infrastructure will end up delaying us but, as it is, it partly explains our low troop count.


On other issues :

Mongols :
- It may have 0 effect but we should ask Kublai to target Yekaterinburg, right ? It's the most annoying city to capture, for us.
- the scout should head into Mongol territory, I suppose, so we know what our war ally is doing. Then he'll be close by China to keep up with the scouting.

Moai :
I think it would pay off real fast but we'll have troubles getting much, in terms of fail gold.
Spare hammers in our European cities should go towards military. We need to replenish asap to minimize any downtime.
Maybe we can get more fail gold from another Stone Wonder, like the Notre Dame or yet some other one.

 

[elitetroops]

I agree scout is heading into Mongolia. Next turn he could see Beijing with one side step. I think it would be worth it to get a peak. In Mongolia we not only need to find out what Mongolian units are doing, but also what kind of road network there is.

I agree failgold is a bit of a problem. If some failgold can get us banking one turn earlier, then it's worth it. But when and where is the question. We are running out of gold fast as conquest seems to be slowed down for a while. Since conquest is slowed down, we need to build units, not failgold. We will not see any Great Merchant in a long time...

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Ok, so...
We're on t101.
I'll need your help to make a plan for healing the troops. Do we just gather them into Moscow and heal ?

I'll try to work on a plan for the Western cities' management.
We'll have 3 maces coming out on t104 (SH, FF, Wheatos) and they'll be able to upgrade on t105 by Paris (the Axe, too ? axe unloads in Munich and goes forward).
What we lack, over there, I think, is a decent road network (no roads NW of Paris). Needs checking with galley movement.
I've had the impression loading in the Eastern galley was fine but the Western one was tougher to load into.

Also, t104, StonedHorse can start a Trebuchet. Depending on what units we scout in London, we could/should unload a Treb rather than a 4th Mace.

 

[elitetroops]

Our super medic has 2.5 movement left. He could move NE into forest to get a look at Russian city, then move back 1W to the stack of 2 wounded HAs. Super Medic not needed in Moscow this turn as no units there can heal. Could you do this move pretty soon and report what there is in southern city? Might affect some of the coming decisions.

Both HAs 2S of Moscow should get to full strength in one turn by healing in place with super medic.

 

[Rusten]

Hey! I'm back! Good to see that I've got a lot to catch up on -- you've made progress. I'll try to get reacquainted with the game tomorrow. I might be too tired tonight.

 

[elitetroops]

Welcome back! Just in time to tell us how to get a ton of reinforcements to Russian front, while completing 3 wonders, preparing maces for invading England and somehow dealing with the increasing gold deficit.

 

[Rusten]

Spoiler :

Боже!

 

[Gumbolt]

Welcome back Rusten.

Went to lay down for a couple of hours and ended up sleeping for 8-9 hours. Ooops.

First of all are we definately going for English first? Which ever we attack we will need both galleys. T1 of war we dump 4 unit next to city and load 4 more on galley. If we have built 2 trebs these should be 2 of the first units. Getting 5xp trebs is an issue. Then bombard for 16% and attack following turn. He may have more than 4 units??

One option is to use 2 trebs and 2 mace when we use GG. T1 of war land 2 mace and 2 trebs. Bombard for 24%. T2 bombard for 24% and attack ith 4 mace but only 2-12% defences.

I should be around more tomorrow but I am out most of Tuesday.

 

[Gumbolt]

Were running out of cheap techs to give to the AI. We could get 40 or so from Poly. Plus a similar amount from calendar. We could also demand gold from Indians. Plus from Persians? Or any Ai we don't intend to attack in next 10 turns? I don't see us running much wealth or fail gold here.

Do we know if the English have a galley near London? This could scupper some of our plans.

Religion in Paris for happiness would be nice. We'll get +2 from forge. Were -1 for war. Would also help with market.

Hamburg and vlad are next best to produce HA. Sadly both cities are a number of turns from whipping anything. They both lack barracks. Gemmy will grow to size 4 soon but lacks barracks and is now building another workboat.

Jeruslaem long term could be a nice production centre. Berlin too.

The reality is the Russian front needs a ceasefire soon as we lack the reinforcement troops to keep fighting for 5-6+ turns. Once cities come out of revolt we can then start chopping units during the golden age. That being said we should try and take Novograd as Moscow is losing it's best tiles. 1-2 mace near Russians would be great here.

Alexandria at some point could use a defender. The same will be true of Thebes.

Would we consider giving mongols construction?? He might start bombarding the Russian border city?

We still have forest near Gemmy and FF to chop. Plus the 2 forest above SH.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Been lazy yesterday, mostly did nothing...
... but I did get some perspective over the game.
Some thoughts.

A/ We lack workers.
It hurts all the more to have lost a Worker to Stalin but we won't get it back.
We lack workers... in Europe. Africa and Greece are fine.
Europe, we have a large territory to cover and need more improved tiles if we want to grow cities. We also have many forests.
Chopping into workers would make a lot of sense to me, over improving the infrastructure. (Not over the military.)


B/ We definitely need Yekaterinburg before heading towards China.
I think HAs could capture Beijing. But we're looking at a downtime in on the Eastern front. Maybe like 5 turns.
To capture Novgorod, we probably simply need to heal our forces.
To capture Yekat, it would be nice to have a couple of Macemen, even unpromoted, or a single Trebuchet. Maces would act as nutcrackers. Suicide Treb would drastically improve our combat odds.


C/ I think the rest of our plan is fine.
We just need to be aware of the incoming Caste switch.
--> The production we want, we need right now.

 

[Rusten]

Had a quick glance -- more later.

Regarding workers: Mines need to be turned into windmills wherever possible (at least when not on rivers). So much better during GAs which we'll be in almost permanently once started. I'd say that were short on workers even in Africa as those Thebes hills should all be windmills by the time we launch our GA.

The 2 workers near Memphis need to be put on windmill duty soon. Perhaps irrigate 1 more FP first.

We are indeed running out of steam at the Russian front. Signing a cease fire would make sense, but I agree that we should at least capture Novgorod (and perhaps junker) before stopping.

 

[Gumbolt]

19 cities 14 workers. Were just not capturing as many workers as we are cities. Russian workers are tucked away somewhere.

We do need a path to China. HA may take too long I fear. Scout will reveal China capital in a few turns.

I am about but I will leave better minds to work out what is needed here.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Welcome back, Rusten ! I hope you had a fine trip !


Yes, we need a path to China and, as it is, it goes through Yekaterinburg.
Ideally, we'd also have a road network to both Istanbul and Persepolis. We're a long way off having the worker turns to spare for that.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I've had a hard time wrapping my head around this.
Here's a city by city overview. It's all up for discussion. Some of it describes our current plans, some of it has more to do with my own opinion. I've tried to keep it concise and short of arguments or tangents.
I wanted to do that anyway but it should help Rusten grasp the bulk of what we're doing, what we're missing and some timelines (even though it's all quite short term).


France :
Paris completes Forge and grows onto Market.

SH, Wheatos and FF :
t101 : have whipped items (Forge, 2x HA)
t102 : overflow into Maceman
t103 : whip Maceman
t104 : Maceman out, merge with Axeman around Paris, share xp (4x CR3 Maces), then load galleys.
Room for improvement :
We need to load 2 units into the Western galley, which isn't easily accessible : lack of roads NW of Paris.
Loading 3x Mace + 1x Treb could be plain better than 4x Mace. Increases our survival odds drastically.
SH could start Treb on t104, whip on t105 and the Treb would be out on t106.


Africa :
Gold Coast is well set.
Memphis grows onto 2x floodplains farms, then cottages. Whips Gran at size 4.
Alexandria whips Courthouse when it lacks tiles to work / shortly before Golden Age. We need to hire a Spy for 2 turns to speed up our Golden Age. Golden Age trigger : t108.
Thebes completes the Colossus naturally. Completes at size 10, t107, eot. City can then contribute a GP during the Golden Age (note : we lack Philosophy for a 5 turns Caste System switch - as it is, we're rather looking at a 10 turns switch - nobody did the maths, I made them up).
Jerusalem, for is used to spread Christianity.
Room for improvement :
We could find a better use for Jerusalem. If we keep a galley around, we could ship units North : workers / military. Maybe we want to build military over there ?
There's a fine Fish, 2x ivory spot in South Africa. I don't think we can settle it short term.


Greece :
Gemmy is a complete mess. No culture, no LH, 1/2 clams improved. Can we help it ? The plan is currently to pop its borders using a Golden Age Caste Artist.
Athens completes the Hanging Gardens on t102, eot. Then it focuses on growth. We've talked about building the Moai Statues over there. Moai would bring great benefits under a Golden Age.
Athens has 2 workers on duty. 1 of them could easily go help some other area afterwards (likely Cologne).
Room for improvement :
Help Gemmy.
Maybe Athens would be better used (at least short term) to help with our military production. Or, same as Jerusalem, pumping a couple of Workers.


Germany :
Berlin completes the Mausoleum of Mausoles on t107, eot. (Hence Golden Age trigger on t108.) It will whip 1 HA on t106. Has 3 workers on duty until then.
Munich has Christianity. The main build order for that city is Christian Missionary. 1st Missionary goes to St Petersburg. Next ones go to France. Missionaries are most important to help build infrastructure --> cities getting Forges benefit the most of missionaries.
Munich could, conceivably, be managed with such cycles : grow on Missionary, whip Missionary, overflow into Worker, grow on Missionary, whip Missionary, overflow into Worker. Can complete a worker after overflowing if it's lightning fast. City can also grow onto infrastructure/wealth/Moai Statues if it uses the iron mine.

Hamburg and Cologne should be dedicated military cities, set up asap. Chops help, cities have forests.
Cologne will provide a Workboat, first, for Athens, if its Camp (espionaged) is re-improved fast enough. Otherwise, Athens will provide for its own Workboat.
Room for improvement :
?

Russia :
Rostov and Yaroslav are military cities from t0.
We were chopping/whipping a garrison unit for St Petersburg in Yaroslav. Seeing the losses we suffered against Moscow, it might be better to chop/whip a unit for the frontlines, instead.
St Petersburg, Moscow are strong, well-developped cities. We can make other plans for them. They're coming out of revolt in quite some turns.
Room for improvement :
Find a use for St Petersburg / Moscow.


Edits in blue.

 

[Rusten]

I'm not going to be too hands-on and suggest movements and similar things until we've played some turns and I'm warm. However, I feel more comfortable talking about the big picture.

Fail Gold/Moai: I don't think we should aim for fail gold from this. We have so many other needs --> mainly workers, infrastructure and new units. Besides, we want this wonder completed early -- no waiting around.

Also, our empire is very poor in science infrastructure, so while we would of course like to run a 100% science slider, it's not like we're wasting dozens of libraries across our empire.

But as BiC mentioned; fail gold for Notre Dame is also possible and this comes at a much better time where we have more "idle" cities. I much prefer using this wonder.

Looking over our empire is .... frustrating. There's so many useful things to build and we can't get it all. We're in opportunity cost hell.

Memphis grows onto 2x floodplains farms, then cottages.

Why cottage at this point? Surely a farm is better. Only because of 2 less worker turns? Here's another point to worker cottage shortage even in Africa btw. When memphis gets to 10 culture we have a lot of costly (in worker turns) tiles to improve.

Thebes completes the Colossus naturally. Completes at size 10, t107, eot.

It's whipping its forge this turn, right?

I like the GG share exp with maces plan.

I agree with Moai in Athens before GA.

edit:
Jerusalem should definitely get a forge. This is not a junker -- it's one of our better cities. It's worth investing into infrastructure here. Imagine it during our GAs at size 9 with windmills all over those plains hills.

Workers (again): In a normal game one can get by without too many workers, but in this variant we will need them later on anyway to complete the railroad, so we should make them a priority. We need more of them immediately and then we don't need to get as many new ones later on when discovering railroad. It's not a "wasted" 60 once our territory is improved.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

No forge whip in Thebes
Looked into it in posts 2624 and 2626

Yes, extra Farms in Memphis are likely be the best route. We're planning some long term Caste Switch with power workshops, so it's not like the extra food is lost.

Yes @ cruel lack of production. 2 Libraries we have. I think we drop the slider to 0% after Engineering. We'll see about that.

 

[Rusten]

I will trust you regarding Thebes -- that plan is reasonable. It's just so unintuitive to work a desert hill (and next turn citizen).

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Because Thebes pops borders on t105soon, unlocking Fish & 2x plains mine,
It only gains 1 turn by whipping the Forge (but loses about 25 food in the city)
Yes, it's counter-intuitive. There also are the HG gaining a pop on t103 that skew things towards no whip.

 

[Gumbolt]

Great breakdown by Bic.

I am not sure what were really trying with Memphis. I almost wish we had razed it. We were never going to be able to do much with it. Farming flood plains is a nightmare. We could grow it to S4 and try to whip workers? Overall in 40-50 turns it will not be great as we lack the workers. Guess it can run some scientists eventually. We could gift it away?

Remember Thebes gets border pop in 2 turns and 1 free pop from HG. So 2 turns with a citizen is not a disaster as it has mines to work. Plus whipping before golden age?

Jerusalem should be a good city here. Worth some worker turns. Forge seems logical. Whip before GA if possible?

Cologne. My gut would be to whip the workboat at size 2 into another workboat. After HG?

Athens - Moai - More you delay this less value it adds. It does need coast tiles. It will soon be running 3 sea resources. Moia is a 3 turn build? Why delay that for 1 HA? Would we want it as a GP farm in 5-6 turns?

The big question for me is where to put the workers?? Munich plan seems okay. Everywhere else seems very busy. Athens?? Whip St Peters?? Whiip Yarl??

Quickest way to get workers is to steal them. Declare on China to steal workers? Ceasefire with Russians to find workers. I am not sure the AI even have that many workers. If we gift memphis maybe the AI will send across 2-3 workers?

There are no easy choices. I think we need to focus on 6-7 cities to make them great. Then accept the others will mainly be for whipping units and running specialists when they can.

I think we would all welcome Rusten's comments coming fresh at this. At times when you play you can't see wood from the trees without looking at Short/Medium and long term plans.