SGOTM 9 - Bede

[Bede]

Let's start at the beginnig by taking the island towns to the west of the mainland. They will provide safe havens for healing the wounded and reinforcing the assault forces.

Do no separate the forces until we have gauged the strength of the resistance. The only time I split a task force or battle group is when the fight enters the mop up phase.

'zerks are shocking amphibious troops, keep them in the boats, until yo can build a SoD with lots of heavy defense in it. If Brennus comes at our invaders with cavalry, bail. That's where the islands become important. Instead of having to seek safety at home, go hole up on an island to re-group.

I would run this campaign to create a salient by starting with the towns in the south. Hit 'em, burn 'em and move on. Our target is Lugdunum.

I am less concerned about Crusaders (they are slow moving ppikes with attitude) than I am about any mounted units. Knights will shred weakly supported zerks and will strike from anywhere very hard and very quickly. As I look at the map the Celtic terrain is perfect for a mounted invasion force.

Clear the coastline then start landing knights and muskets in abundance from an offshore stronghold for the clean up of the interior. The biggest towns are all coastal so concentrate hit hard and raze will cripple the Celtic economy and production base, making the mopping up operation a breeze.

Go get 'em!!

Bahzel - up and at 'em
Crakie - on deck
madviking -
crazybeard - just played
Bede - wrapped up Carthage and hurt the Mongol
Marc Aurel - got us ready to launch for the Celtic island

 

[crazybeard]

I'm with Bede, as usual. Take the islands, bring some Settlers over, make landfall at Verumanium, push through to Bungalala (I can't see the name under the arrow), then push North.
Watch out for Washington and New York's cultural borders, and make sure the Settlers are in position before the raze-n-replace.

Oh yeah - as my avatar suggests, I'd really like to control Crusader Central

[EDIT: For the record, the city's name is Burdigala]

 

[Bahzell]

I've got it.

Preliminary look at the save/ca2.
ca2 says 4 turns of peace left with Genghis. The peace may last longer if Genghis likes the luxes we are selling him.(could be a nuissance if he doesn't)

RoP with Spain ends in 2 turns(no biggy)

Looking at the map, I offer my Opening moves of the 2nd Celtic/Viking War.
For a shock to the Celtic Economy my first attack will be against Lugdunum, this should give them the message that we mean business. After Lugdunum is a pile of smoking ruins I will set sail for Ratae Coritanorum for our Island Base of operations near Brennus. RC will be razed for better city placement.(settler will be usable after I hit enter)

Production wise I'll be starting more Musketmen/Settlers for our soon to be new home, while keeping the Zerks rolling off the line.

Got a 3rd Target I'd like to hit if casualties/injuries aren't to high. I'd like to lay waste to Alesia.

Before I start the road to Brennus's downfall. I'd like to advice on my opening moves. So I will play tomorrow after I get my fellow players advice.

 

[Bede]

Cautious old bugger that I am I would make the island redoubt first.

That said, go ahead and burn Lugdunum, just make sure you land the muskets once the zerk is ashore. The wounded zerk will have a first strike on any attacker, if there are any seige units handy they would also help if Brennus comes at you with a lot of knights.

Go for it, Tiger.

 

[Marc Aurel]

I thought about the approach for our Celtic war and came to the conclusions:
Madviking is correct with his approach to first let the defenders land on the mountain. (NW of Entremont will be best) and let them take the storm of all the offensive units, Brennus will throw immediately at us after D-Day. Together with the Trebuchet and a couple of first striking zerks the defensive approach on the mount seems to be best. Use the other Zerks to attack all stacked Celtic units that won a battle or made it to retreat afterwards, since in that region they cannot avoid ending up on a shore tile. Do not hit a single unit, for not setting foot on land with the other Zerks.(unless you can move a full healthy musket there for shelter) Keeping our units alive seems to be more important to me than killing one further Celtic unit. After 3 turns this first storm shall be weathered and phase 2 begins.

I assume Brennus forces to consist of many Gallic Swords by now; early triggering GA. Looking at his immense economy he will throw out many knights after war has begun. So SPEED is CRUCIAL!! Destroying his economy is imho much more important than finding a resort. Using a city on the mainland for healing seems to be the better way, because I suspect these island cities having no barracks and rushing one there will cost more than 200g. A barracks surviving capture in one mainland town is much more probable, I think. (Cataractonium would be fine) Additionally our advantage is that Brennus seems not to be prepared for a defensive war, but his military strength will increase rapidly after war has begun and transporting the wounded units every time to the islands will cost so many turns that we can let them heal where they are in the same time (as long as we are successful – but if not, we have a much bigger problem than finding a healing resort, since the successful Celtic army will go to the offensive and will roll over our forces much faster than we might get them away to a save haven).

Please do not destroy Lugdunum, there is a wonder inside! – the Sistine Chapel making many people happy if you have cathedrals! – very useful! Take the city and leave it immediately. We have to destroy Brennus military. If he recaptures the empty city – No problem for us. It is on the contrary an advantage for us if he is doing so!!!! He will concentrate his forces on regaining his cities and not attacking our units. He will keep the city one turn and lose it and his attacker the next turn. So afterwards he has lost a turn and a unit. If we destroy the cities, Brennus army will head for our forces and we maybe lose the unit. Conquered cities are wonderful decoys! Just avoid stationing units inside. (after the first unavoidable turn, and this does not apply for our military base camp city with barracks) If Brennus can keep the city only for one turn he will never be able to build a unit there and that’s all we must avoid.

A word to the splitting of forces. Here I also agree with Madviking, even if I would position his most northern force to strike at Lugdunum and Verulamium. But that depends on the ongoing of war. Lets’s assume we are successful in Lugdunum after killing two defenders without as single loss. Now putting all our forces there would be an immense loss of precious attacking moves. So I would immediately ship the rest to the capture of Verulamium and if possible also Cataractonium. I would say : just position our forces that we have the option to strike more often, if things are running well- if not so and we meet strong resistance the discussion is done in any case. But if we can, we shall capture as much of Brennus bases as we can asap.(Blitz him!)

From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans (Celts) we will kill. The more Germans (Celts) we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that. (George Patton to the Third army June 5, 1944)

 

[Marc Aurel]

Since we lost the race for the Great Lib , I took the time to think a lot about a new way to push Indias economy. The outcome was often disappointing, since nothing really works.
What stayed afterwards was a single strange idea I want to share with you now. I’m not sure whether it works. I have to play some test games again. I hope somebody of you would join this effort to reduce my work and get a better database for this weird try.
What is the core of the idea? If we couldn’t get India to grip the Great Lib directly in front of their noses, what can we do? If a human player has a dire need for a wonder he/she just conquers the town that builded it. Can we apply this simple strategy in our case? Can we make India conquer Entremont? Obviously not. We cannot lure their forces out in the ocean, where their galleys would sink, since they are not seafaring. We cannot force them to put units on their ships that invade at the beach of Entremont. Would be quite luck if we manage to do so. The only way we can transfer Indian units to the other continent is in the form of slaves; captured workers. We would need to bring them to Entremont and make them join the city, that we have starved before down to size 1. Now we need to make this city defect to India – is that possible? Theory says:
Chance for defection is :

P=[(F+T)*Cc*H*(Cte/Cty) - G]/D

where:
P = probability that it will flip this turn
F = # foreignors, with resistors counting double
T = # working tiles under foreign control
Cc = 2 if foreign civ has more local culture than you, 1 otherwise
H = .5 for WLTKD, 2 for disorder, 1 otherwise
Cte = Total culture of the foreign civ
Cty = Total culture of your civ
G = # garrison units
D = factor based on relative distance to capitals

Maximum Indians we can get into that city is 11. Great job to get them.
Letting them each work a tile makes (F+T) 22.
They have no local culture and we would have to refrain from gaining local culture too, if we want to keep Cc=1. Chances still 22%.
We throw the city into disorder, getting H to 2 increasing chances of defection to 44%
Cte/Cty is bad for us since our culture is higher than indias, but yet not too much. Maybe we should stop our culture growth now. So chances are reduced to about 30%.
D shall be 1, since both capitals are far from Entremont.
We should not garrison any unit there,keeping G=0.
We must destroy Celtia completely before to avoid a flipping to them. After all in about 4/5 turns the deal should be done, says theory ...

Weird idea, I admit. What do you think?
What makes it so desirable is that all the great wonders needed for fast science are in that region. Also we would not need to move to that continent ourselves and would not need to lose a single inprovement. Dream, dream, dream

 

[Bede]

If the math works, and it seems to, let's try it. It will mean capturing a lot of Indians. Very creative, Mason!

Only problem with Sistine Chapel is the lack of cathedrals in our towns (and there shouldn't be any temples either). So capturing and keeping the Chapel is a real low value for us. I say burn it to help wreck the Celtic economy.

We will lose no more units by burning the city than by keeping it. The Celts will attack in any case.

The reasoning for the island retreat remains convincing to me. 1) troops on boats in neutral territory heal while traveling so sailing forth and back will get the wounded healthy again 2) cultural pressure is less on an island if we have razed the closest mainland city 3) keeping the boats moving in and out of Celtic territory provides cover. If Brennus can't see them, he can't attack and sink them. Just sailing straight up the coast without vectoring out is an invitation to a sinking. Having someplace to retreat to which is out of sight of the Celtic mainland will keep him guessing.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Sistine Chapel won't be so valuable for us I admit, but very effective for India, if we manage to place them there. As a religious civ I believe they are more focussed on building cathedrals and will do so. In the final turns of the space race that might give them a lot of WLTKD turns in big cities with higher production rate of spaceship parts.
Maybe we can postpone the capture of Lugdunum and see whether we can destroy the rest of Brennus empire before?

 

[Bahzell]

ca2 says we have 15 turns of peace left with Brennus.

Do I:

A) Build up a very sizable force for the next player to use when the peace treaty is over or

B) Let loose the Dogs of War!!!!

 

[Marc Aurel]

B) Our rep was damaged before - peace should only have given us money. We do not want to lose turns now and need to get that land imho.

 

[Bahzell]

Quick question. Why we researching Navigation instead of towards Magnetism which will give us Galley's and Frigates?

2nd Question: If we leave Risor undefended, will it flip to Gandhi(more income/sci for him) or is it to close to Bedeville?

 

[Marc Aurel]

Navigation was agreed by most due to be able to end caravel turns in ocean squares, but if you keep an eye on not having a caravel ending turn in ocean you might switch imho. Caravels are reaching far enough to let us cross the ocean. I reduced science to 10% to get money for upgrading, so only few beakers will be lost. On the other hand I think we shall press Brennus to give us techs in intermediate peace negotiatians between Viking-Celtic war 2 and 3.

 

[Bahzell]

IBT (4 to 5) Spain lands MI & Musket NW of Elverurn. Run Defenders there or let Spain make the biggest mistake of its soon to be short life?

 

[Marc Aurel]

Defenders, I think. Let Spain live and support the science race. You know: AI sucks at oversea invasions!

 

[Crakie]

Very well thought out, Mason, I like it! The one criticism could be that we leave India without a decent workforce for a while... but hey, this is just too elegant to turn down

I also like Bede's analysis of the boats going back and forth leaving Brennus guessing.

@ Bahzell: any chance of getting Spain back into our fight?

 

[Crakie]

In response to my own criticism, it occurred to me we can always let India capture slaves from us in return

 

[Bahzell]

Asked what Isabella wanted to Ally against Celts when our RoP ended and she said nothing we had would drag her into another war at that time.

 

[Bahzell]

Well Isabella must be on the Rag, cuz she done went and declared war on us, lost her MI to our MI in Elverurn but her Musket killed the MI and took Elverurn.

Held off declaring war on Brennus in turn 5 just to see what Isabella would do, now I'm asking for advice.

A) Kick her ass for being the hag she is
B) Declare war on Brennus anyway and fight a 2 front war(which might cost us)

IMO I say we have a brief war with Isabella by taking her 2 southern island cities and Elverurn back then demand peace from her plus as many techs as we can get out of her.

Awaiting advice before I proceed any further.

 

[Bede]

Kick her off the home island at least. After that use your judgement

 

[crazybeard]

We do not want to fight Spain and the Celts simultaneously. One strategy to deal with Izzy would be to take a city or two. I would suggest Barcelona, as it's only 1 trip away from Celtic lands (specifically Eboracum). It might even have a barracks. I don't have access to my Civ III computer right now, so I don't know how close Barcelona is to Madrid (can't be too far, the island isn't that big), so watch for it flipping back. Once we've taken a city from her, Izzy will talk treaty.

Another possibility is to let the Celts be (at least for now) and take possession of Spain's island and make it our new home. BTW, since we don't have an embassy, if the Celts had already had their Golden Age (presumably the Gallic Swordsmen played a role in the Celt-Spain war and they've been building Wonders right and left), would we know it?

I like Mason's idea for "gifting" Entremont to the Indians, but where are we gonna get 11 Indian Workers? Until Gandhi has Map Making they're stuck on their island. Once they have it, I would evacuate Rusicade, let Gandhi walk into it, and the bottle is uncorked. Rusicade even has a Harbor for them to use! Keep a couple of Zerks around. Once Gandhi has land to work (100 turns from now?) a boat with a Zerk can pick off any Workers Gandhi is incautious enough to leave on a coastal tile.

I'm not sure how our rep with the Ottomans got trashed, unless we attacked Carthage. Mongols attacked us. Celts attacked us. Spain attacked us. However, when the war with the Mongols started, we lost our trade route with the Ottomans - they have no harbors and the land routes go through Mongol territory.