[BTS] SGOTM 26 - Unusual Suspects

kcd_swede · Sep 8, 2020

So, good news: France war will help us a lot. Bad news: Peter is on the warpath - and we're in his way.

Peter will approach with galleys, so if he DOW before landing troops, maybe we can pick them off with caravels or even galleons. Definitely want to reinforce the city at most risk... second wave production should fill in nicely. We should at least shadow our coast so we know when the galleys are moving. I bet if we get iron before he attacks, our power will go up quickly enough he will cancel plans. Perhaps.

Infrastructure should be at a low priority now. Build units. (Finish NE, but otherwise only units). We are what... 5-6 turns from attacking HRE? I think the plan doesn't need change, but will want to watch the coast closely.
" I'll continue on the existing basic plan plus maybe an extra archer or two in Scientist / finishing our Trireme in Cam, and proceed tomorrow."
Green!

SittinDown · Sep 8, 2020

I have a warrior in Peter's land, and a WB parked to scout and galleys coming across. I can bring up a couple of caravels to intercept galleys. I think we can just park them on the coast, and force Peter to attack while we get the 10% bonus. He still didn't connect his iron - no worker up in that area yet, and if he does, it should be easy for us to stomp it.

Will do - I'll focus on units. Sorry if the extra barracks were not good.

kcd_swede · Sep 8, 2020

SittinDown said:
I have a warrior in Peter's land, and a WB parked to scout and galleys coming across. I can bring up a couple of caravels to intercept galleys. I think we can just park them on the coast, and force Peter to attack while we get the 10% bonus. He still didn't connect his iron - no worker up in that area yet, and if he does, it should be easy for us to stomp it.

Will do - I'll focus on units. Sorry if the extra barracks were not good.

The barracks will come in handy and they have to be built some time, so no big deal. IIRC they are half price due to our traits, so maybe its the right call anyhow... you need to know I'm still a bit rusty at this. :twitch:

SittinDown · Sep 8, 2020

Yea, I wouldn't have done the barracks if we weren't aggressive. But sometimes winning the race to attack before LB's is way better than +3 exp.

SittinDown · Sep 8, 2020

UPDATE:

Played 5 turns. Army is built to spec -
- 4 galleons loaded and ready to go.
- 6 catapults
- 4 horse archers
- 2 archers (could do 3/3 but we'll delay a turn if we do).
- Should be ready to land and DOW in 2 turns. 2nd wave will be arriving 4 turns later.
- HRE was defending the iron mine with a single AXE, so it might be good to bring 1 chariot over.
- There are a number of chariots we could bring over in wave-two - might help with anti-axes.
2nd wave is being built.
Peter is pleased, and seems to be concentrating his army very far from us for now. He just got Engineering. He has lots of catapults, and is about ready to connect his iron. Our power ratio with him is close to 1.0 now.
- Caravels are in place for coastal defense. and Scientist has built an archer, and building a 2nd archer. Cam will assist it's next unit to defense rather than contributing to the 2nd wave, and is finishing an almost-done trireme.
We lost the MOM to Bismark.
NE is finished in Scientist. Get another GS in about 8 turns.
CS is in. Started on Paper, but we *might* want to divert to music. Many AI's can research it now. the GA could be nice for culture-bombing near HRE, or just to trigger a Golden Age.

Log

Spoiler Log :

SittinDown · Sep 9, 2020

Plan is to go forward with the attack on Acchen.
There are a lot of trades and gold available right now.
We have 500 gold, so we can tech at 100% for a bit if we want to. Should be able to grab EDU pretty soon. Music is on the table, though it's a risk to miss the GA now, and it's pretty useless otherwise. I like the Paper -> Edu -> Gunpowder route. Agg + Dun = decent muskets - start with 2 free promotions.

I can play tonight and Friday, but not tomorrow. So, I'd like to start the war tonight, and do wave-1 and mobilize wave 2 tonight, then we can look it over on Thursday, and I can continue it on Friday.

Let me know if you see any trades we should make or whatever. I'll plan on starting the war tonight unless someone objects.

kcd_swede · Sep 9, 2020

Looks good! Maybe trade furs to France for 1gpt and open borders with him. We'll get relations boost with him for common war anyhow, and if we go the diplo route in the end, its nice to have the plus diplo. I'd also sell HRE CoL for 70 gold before the DOW - he can't trade it to anyone he knows, and if we are lucky he builds CH instead of units or even leaves slavery for castes, though that is very unlikely. Downside is minus diplo on France and its one less tech HRE needs to study before LB's. So I'll leave that up to you.

Everything else sounds good. Good luck and have fun!
BTW-I like our power curve.

SittinDown · Sep 9, 2020

UPDATE:

Begged Peter for 60 gold, and now we don't have to worry about a DOW for 10 turns.
Traded HRE for Aesthetics for 70.
Opened borders with France, and traded a fur for +1 GPT.
Thought about begging SB for 40 gold, but eh.
Army got built.
War got declared.
Battles were mostly won - only lost 2 catapults! (and a caravel also lost against a trireme. probably should have just let it go, but odds were 80%).
Aachen was razed. The AP was destroyed.
Charlie seemed really really mad about that.
Isca was founded 1-E of Aachen's ruins.
Iron is not connected because of ocean problems and culture borders, but I have 3 Cat's and 3 HA's, and more ready soon against Nuremberg which has 2 archers at the moment.
Techs:
- Paper is in.
- Education will be in next turn.

Aaaaand then I misclicked and called a cease fire with HRE. [Wanted to see what he wanted for peace] Whelp, at least iron is connected everywhere now, so we can build up our iron powered army while we think of Phase-2 of the war plan.

Spoiler Log :

SittinDown · Sep 9, 2020

If we build up a good navy, we might be able to wipe out Peter's forces with Galleons, and then crush him pretty easy once we disconnect his metal.

I'm pretty concerned about the Hindu contingent. (Bismark / Saladin / France). Bismark has Feudal, and is teching well. France and SB have such bad land, that they won't be a threat, especially once we start crushing their trade allies. Saladin is somewhere in the middle.

Bismark is plotting, and it'd probably be HRE or us.

SittinDown · Sep 10, 2020

Note: because of my dumb cease fire, we have iron in all cities for now. so we can proceed to Mace up, or throw in some X-Bows, or whatever.

kcd_swede · Sep 10, 2020

Cease fire is better than a 10t forced peace, at least. We'll make ourselves into Bismarks worst enemy with more DOW, but no big deal. It may even be a good thing if it lets us build metal units asap. Good job with Peter... I didn't think of that! I won't get to see the save until tomorrow, but will add comments when I do. Don't need to wait for me, it seems things are under control for now.

SittinDown · Sep 10, 2020

Sounds good - I can't play tonight. I can play tomorrow. I'm guessing we want to build up metal units, and get ready to beat up HRE, and then maybe go after Peter or Bismark? I'm leery of Bismark without Trebs or Cannons against LB's, but if we play an attrition war, like Zhary suggested, we can probably cripple him, and let us get a big tech lead with Oxford. Since we'll auto-raze all cities, we don't have to leave garrisons behind though! If we do go after Peter, his army is almost all chariots and catapults, so it's a REALLY weak defensive army, and should give us no problem getting experience units. Though come to think of it, if we just do a great-general on one unit, we should be able to get our fully upgraded unit without any real issues.

SittinDown · Sep 10, 2020

hmm.... wondering - since metals are so scarce on this map - knights might be a good play. they can do decent against LB's, and are only really hard-countered by pikes. guilds is 1 tech away. Libbing Military Tradition for a Curs attack could also be a good way to conquest - we just need music, nationalism, gunpowder, and liberalism for Curs. should be able to roll the world with that and isolate a couple of AI's. then we can pick our wonders pretty freely. probably best to save Peter and SB for later there, since they're kind of maxed out until they get astro. could even possibly leave Peter and SB around, and win diplo, after killing Bismark? they're both pleased with us at the moment.

Curiassers can roll up against LB's without siege, which is really nice for how much land we want to take. They don't really run out of steam until rifling, and if we do this right, none of the AI's ever gets that far.

mobility will be helpful here, as without vassals, we'll need to move around a lot to get complete kills.

SittinDown · Sep 11, 2020

Want to get a bunch of turns in tonight if I can.

...but as you can see by my posts here, I'm not quite sure what we want to do strategically.

Finish of HRE?
- I'm not sure about the rules of cease-fire. How soon can we re-declare?
- Should we leave him with a city or two, to block Bismark? I'm leery of letting Bismark get stronger.
Divert our attack
- Go after Bismark with metals?
With education, I think going Uni / Oxford is good.
- But should we consider a double-switch into Beruo and OR? Uni and Oxford would be greatly helped by the +25 bonus.
- Rest of cities focus on metal units.
Which tech-path after Education?
- Gunpowder -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Liberalism -> (Free steel)
  - Trebs. Muskets. Cannons. Frigates. Ironworks.
- Gunpowder -> Nationalism -> Music -> Liberalism -> (Free Military Tradition)
  - Curiassers.
- Printing Press -> Scientific Method -> Liberalism -> [Free Communism]
  - No units unlocked, so conquest will have to target non-feudalism AI's.
  - How good is state property going to be on this map anyway?
  - We eventually need this tech for the buildings.
- Gunpowder -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Printing Press -> Scientific Method -> Liberalism -> [Free Biology]
  - Mustkets. Frigates. Trebs.
  - Bio farms only help a little here. We don't have that many farms.
  - Biology is only useful to get to Superconductors without having to research Computers [avoid plastics].

I tend to like the Steel path - we need those techs anyway, and the good units will make conquest easy.
We can always watch out for liberalism, and see if anyone gets education to put some turns into it earlier.

kcd_swede · Sep 11, 2020

CIVICS: OR does not help building Uni/Ox unless we also make Tao our state religion. So to get the building bonus that is 2t anarchy. However, OR does not take more anarchy than just Bur, and Bur is definitely worth the 1t. While I am worried we become pariahs if we adopt Taoism, we don't need to adopt it right away to be able to build the missionaries we need... so civics switch sure... but wait on the religion adoption, maybe.

DOW: Cease fire does not restrict DOW, you can DOW same turn.

Next target: We need to set up killing fields if Bismark comes, so Prague (and Nuremburg) should be razed and pillaged. I'd leave Bismark alone until we have that task done, and depending what HRE has left, finish him off. HRE prevents German expansion, so we don't want to clear off too much land until we feel ready to bloody his nose. There is no specific advantage to eliminating HRE as we have no penalty for Long to Join the Motherland. A crippled HRE preventing German expansion is good, but like I said I think Prague and Nuremburg need to be eliminated before we rest. And we'll need to pop the borders at Isca and get the cows.

Free Tech: Looking at the board, I think you are thinking too small. I think we should be able to grab Electricity or better. Just tech up to be able to grab Steel, then if time permits you add PrPress, Sci Meth, and Physics. If someone can start teching Lib, you default back to Steel. Or maybe not... maybe tech through Steel, then start on Elec path, and default to Railroad.

BTW- after Edu, I'd whip the Uni and overflow to Oxford in Scientist. After we are in Bur, ofc.

I'm a much bigger fan of cannons than Cuirs... so I agree with the Steel path. Nothing else makes sense since we are first priority on the warpath. (PS- I'd like even Assembly Line for a free tech, but unless France is crippled soon, that's not in the cards).

Those are my thoughts, anyhow. I'm open for other arguments and/or ideas.

EDIT: RR requires Steam Power, which is on the Ass Line path. Steam would be just as good as Steel as free tech.

SittinDown · Sep 11, 2020

kcd_swede said:
but wait on the religion adoption, maybe.

Right, right. Forgot about that. not really wanting 2-T anarchy at the moment.

kcd_swede said:
I think Prague and Nuremburg need to be eliminated

Agreed. Nuremburg - 100% - it blocks our sea-lane and our cow. I'll take your word for it on Prague, I don't have that part of the map in my head. .......our army is massive compared to HRE. We'll have a big expensive surplus if we don't target someone else soon afterwards. Pretty sure we can clean up HRE with the army we have now, without building any metal units. Should probably put some spy points on Bismark.

kcd_swede said:
Steam would be just as good as Steel as free tech

Good thoughts. I'd been thinking about that too after I posted. I like the Gunpowder / Chemistry / Steel line a little better than the PP -> RP -> Steam line for short-term usefulness. I get your point about not rushing liberalism. I would think the best option would be to mostly tech liberalism, and then stash it until someone gets education, then pull the trigger. - more or less.

SittinDown · Sep 11, 2020

Update:

10 turns played.
HRE is no more. War went pretty well. Didn't lose much. Couple more cannon-fodder catapults.
We have a level 6 unit. (Thanks to a GG). It's a chariot super healer.
Bismark has a peace treaty with us because he made a demand for Furs, and I said okay.
- Bismark can research gunpowder.
- Nobody has paper yet, let alone Education.
- Everyone has Feudalism (but us).
- There are a number of trades on the table.
  - I think it's time we trade our map for all the gold we can get.
Peace treaty with Peter has expired. He's still plotting.
Education is in. Gunpowder will be in ~2 turns.
Scientist now has a forge, university. Working on Oxford.
Tolosa has Taoism now, and I built a monastery. I'm thinking this city will be the Prophet city, and thinking of doing M. Status while we wait for Cannons.
I'm thinking Isca can be the General city. After Granary, it can do a Dun, so that we can tech rifling.
I think some good scouting and surprise attacks from Galleons can leverage our current army to take out even a few lightly defended Feudal cities. I recommend Berlin or Paris.
- Isca has Hinduism.
- Diplomatic victory (via UN), might be do-able, if we spread Hinduism to all of our cities, and convert. Wasted some hammers into Taoist
- Conquest is still safest option, probably.

Spoiler Log :

SittinDown · Sep 11, 2020

Wonder update:

Only these prophet wonders are left

Angkor Wat
Chichen Itza
Spiral Minaret
Shrine

I think the AI's have the techs for all of them, except Spiral Minaret. I think we should focus on building a prophet wonder before it's too late. I think Tolosa is the right city for the job.

Safest thing is to tech Theology and Divine Right, and go for Spiral, but it's not the fastest path to victory. It's even slightly beneficial.
Chichen Itza has been out for a long time, but it's not a priority wonder. I feel like if we try it, we'll miss it. It has to be Tolosa. It's the only city with enough prod to get something in a reasonable time. It even has a couple of forests left just outside it's borders. Gotta build it before rifling if we do.
Angkor is a little risky, but some of the Music techs are still out there.
Shrine seems basically impossible or super-painful in any case.

SittinDown · Sep 11, 2020

Next plan:

Continue on the Gunpowder -> Engineering -> Chemistry -> Steel track.
Trade for Feudalism. Trade our map for gold.

Attack someone with our big old army. Current stacks are nearly obsolete, but with 4-5 galleons, we should be able to take out capitals / disconnect metals for main rivals easily.

I like attacking Peter or Bismark next. [as soon as possible] Peter army is junk units mostly.
Bismark has a bigger army, but seems like a bigger threat. We should leave a big garrison in Isca.
Louis is kind of far away, and weak, but he keeps spamming wonders, so he might be good to take out, but he's good friends with Saladin and Bismark.
Sitting Bull should be our last target. He's isolated and teching poorly with bad land.

I think it's going to be a long slog to win conquest. but winning is not in doubt.

kcd_swede · Sep 12, 2020

Random Thoughts:

Great Job!!!

I think we should make Camalundum the Prophet City. Put Maoi Statues there, and if we can get a prophet wonder, fine, but no rush because we can guaranteed get Taoism Shrine there just by generating a GPro, which should be easy enough (easier than producing a 30t wonder using scarce hammers). I would seriously consider eliminating France before attempting to actually build a GPro World Wonder. Seriously.

After Gunpowder, we should get Liberalism to within 1t, which makes sure we can wait until someone else gets Edu to finish it. Being so close to liberalism also seems to cause AI to prioritize it less.

Maybe we should trade compass+MC+10gold to SB for Feudalism? And then sell Compass for gold to everyone, so SB can't get anything for it? Its approx 300 gold total.

Bismark stack is going to be a problem soon, maybe 6 turns, as he will be looking for a place to put it. It's out in the open now, and tempting to attack, but I don't judge we have enough units to kill it, putting Isca (and the game) at risk. However, we can't go hunting for easy opportunities as long as that stack is around... so we'd best come up with a plan to deal with Bismark. As you say, once he is crippled, the rest of the game will just be to optimize logistics. Perhaps the back door approach with our existing galleon stack taking out a key coastal (German) city is the best way to go. Usually I confront those kind of stack problems head-on, though. If we do the back door, we need some way to kill that stack anyhow. Get ready to put a lot of cats and muskets into that German stack, one way or the other, is what I'm suggesting.

I also think no matter if we declare war on Peter or on Bismark, or one of those two declare on us, we should be mentally prepared that the other will dogpile, so we will face at least 2 AI at the same time in the next war. And Saladin could also chip in. So now is not the time to slow down unit production (or at least after gunpowder).

Maybe switch espionage to Bismark and pillage his metals with spies, or incite revolts to take down walls, or just to see his demographics. We are teching too fast to ever make stealing a tech cost-effective-relative to our espionage rate. And Peter is too boring to watch.

Still a little pillaging to do in old HRE.

Home Slices looks like on a culture VC push; Phoenix Rising must be AP or Diplo attempt, Indecives... too early to be sure, maybe being indecisive. Could be interesting if every team went for a different victory.

[BTS] SGOTM 26 - Unusual Suspects

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