SGOTM 9 - Hagar

[juballs2001]

i would go in order of how andronicus wrote them

going against mongold first would give us the territory to expand, and they will be an easy early target.
since the ottomans dont have iron, i would not fear them, but we MUST take them out before they get gunpowder, remember we gifted them to the MA.

that leaves Carthage who will be strong, but by that time, our army should consist of enough zerks, trebs and pikes that we should not fear the NM and the AC

 

[Abegweit]

Pre-flight: We look a lot healthier than the last time I came up to bat. Good job, guys.

Some changes. WV is still too large. It gets a clown and is switched to a worker. This allows us to reduce the lux rate to 10%. As a bonus, we get Feudalism in 2 turns instead of 3. The lambs is given to Rey. Trondheim is delayed a turn, changing it to a 4.5-6.5 factory. This has the effect of allowing us to give one of the mined BGs to Oslo (for this round, it gets both of them). Birka is switched to a barracks. Alesuna and Bodo, which are hopelessly corrupt, get Trebs. As discussed, the overseas civs are gifted Republic.

I think that some of other libraries should become markets, but there is no rush to make this decision yet, so I leave them alone.

1. 330 WV worker -> worker. Clown->taxman. I just noticed: differential movement is on so... the GLH can get us across the water!

2. 310 Feudalism -> Invention. Due in about 10-11. WV worker->worker. Oslo Library->Aqueduct. Fold worker into Birka. Risor founded, starts treb. Celts pay 35gpt + 9 for Currency. 0.9.1 Invention due in 9 @-1 gpt.

3. 290 WV worker->barracks.

4. 270 Trondheim settler->settler; Birka barracks -> pike; Fauske founded, starts worker; Karistad founded, starts treb

5. 250 WV barracks -> Pike. Celts are willing to pay 14 more gpt for engineering. I judge it not worthwhile.

6. 230 Farsund worker ->worker

7. 210 Rey aqueduct -> barracks; Oslo Harbour -> aqueduct; 0.8.2; Invention still due in three

8. 190 Trondheim settler -> settler; WV Pike -> worker

9. 170 WV worker -> berserk; Birka pike -> berserk; Batsfjord founded, starts treb; 3.5.2

10 150 Rey barracks -> berserk; Odense harbour -> worker; fold workers into Oslo and Rey. Ottomans have a town in America. Well, we knew that TGL was enough to cross to the New World. Fold worker into Aarhus.

Summary: I spent most of my turns concentrating on infra. Unit costs have gone from 26 gpt to 8 during my turns as four new towns and four new cities have been established. We discovered Feudalism and Invention. I have built two pikes, one of which is heading for each choke. There are two trebs about to complete, again one at each choke.

Notes:

1. MM is needed between Trondheim and Oslo in order keep the settler pump running without wasting shields. To a lesser extent, you need to keep track of the cities around Wonderville as well.

2. Research is currently set on Monotheism (due in 6) but this can be freely changed as there is nothing invested yet.

3. Oslo is about to grow too fast and needs to be slowed.

4. The friggin scout west of Delhi hasn't moved through my entire turns. That bugger needs death.

5. Gandhi still doesn't know how to Write

6. Celts are now willing to pay 16 gpt for engineering (at one point, it was 21). Our trade for currency expires in 12. I suggest that we get everything we can at that point.

7. We are running out of places on the dot map. It's time to make a new map.

8. It's decision time on whether to switch the libraries at Aarhus and Stavenger to markets and/or other things. I think we should.

 

[Abegweit]

On the question of war, and how to go about it, I agree totally that the Great Lighthouse is more important than the Statue of Zeus. Far more important, in fact. However, it is not an either/or proposition but rather a question of timing. We are planning to take both Istanbul and Carthage. In fact, we will be at war continuously until we have taken the entire world.

We should make our war plans on the basis of how best to achieve our plans of taking over the world, not in terms of which enemy is the weakest. We have no reason to fear anyone. We already have trebs and pikes and soon will have and a Golden Age. Nothing can stand in front of us.

The main reason to take Carthage first is to get those ACs into our hands instead of the hands of the enemy.

Today, I would guess that there are 2-3 regular Numidians in Carthage plus possibly an archer. The city has been in Wonder-building mode since it was size one and I doubt that there are more than that. Three berserks, and three trebs should be able to take it without problems. Drop an amphibious force two squares away and grab it. Check this guess if you wish; we are currently running a positive economy and probably will be for a long time to come.

In contrast, let's say that the Turkey-first route takes 20 additional turns to get to Carthage. During that period, the city will have built 4 ACs. We will have to amass a force which is twice as big in order to take them out (because of the extra HP, an AC is almost as difficult as a Numidian). Let's say killing them costs a berserk . Those four ACs could have been ours. That's five units wasted, units which we could be using to take out our other enemies. So, tactically, taking Carthage first is clearly superior. Five first-class units is nothing to sneeze at.

Another consideration: Carthage is our fastest route to a fourth lux. In this department: we currently have Dyes, Ivory and Incense. Carthage gives us Silks. Istanbul gives us Spices. Spain has Furs and Gems while the Celts have Wine and Wool.

I would argue that it is better strategically too. Waiting doesn't even get us to the New World faster! Our route to our new home in CelticAmerica lies through Carthage and Spain.

If the purpose of this game was conquest, I have no doubt what my course of action would be. I would grab both Carthage and Istanbul as fast as I could with amphibious attacks. Then a force would strike out from Carthage towards Spain while new units are being built back home to take out the home continent.

This might even be the best course of action as it is. It's certainly worth discussing. Berserks are slow and it will take time to get them to the front. Galleys help, it's true. But we don't want to build more of those than absolutely necessary. This, BTW, is also our fastest route to five luxes and we won't get more until Magnetism.

Perhaps I'm stretching a bit with this thought, but it would be nice to take Entremont before Education to get those nice free border expansions all over the place. It's probably not reasonable to hope for it, as we are only five techs away, (Gunpowder, Chemistry, Metallurgy, Monotheism and Theology) but one thing is sure: the only way to get there is through Carthage.

Summary

The first two cities we should take are Carthage and Istanbul.

Carthage because:
1. It will have the Statue of Zeus.
2. It gives us a fourth lux.
3. It is on the route to Spain and CeltAmerica.

Istanbul because:
1. It has the Great Lighthouse, which opens the route to S and C/A.
2. It gives us a fifth lux. A cash-rushed harbour might be a good investment.

Once those cities are taken, our strike should be towards Spain. Hit hard. Hit everywhere. The Mongols are of no interest. They can be taken at our leisure. In fact, the rest of the home continent is of no interest. The entire thing can be taken whenever we want.

Edit: if we do adopt this plan then:

1. We should take whatever we can get from the Celts. They aren't going to be around long and grabbing their gpt gets us something while simultaneously reducing their capacity to research.

2. We could bring the Mongols into the wars if we choose. It's probably a good idea. I'd suggest pitting them against the Turks. We'll have enough troops marching through Carthage to keep Hannibal in hand, but an attack on Istanbul could be annoying.

 

[Andronicus]

4. The friggin scout west of Delhi hasn't moved through my entire turns. That bugger needs death.

Did you try my suggestion of releasing east choke by moving the warrior then move settler 1 S. I have mentioned this several times above.

Dont have time to comment on other things now.

 

[juballs2001]

Did you try my suggestion of releasing east choke by moving the warrior then move settler 1 S. I have mentioned this several times above.

Dont have time to comment on other things now.

well, nobody else except mongols can settler there..

its only a matter of time until we declare war on mongolia, so why not leave him there, have the settler handy, take our necessary territory and destroy him when the time comes

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

If IstariAtsuka has problems, this makes me up, right? If so, I can play in about 10 hours, meanwhile he can take it if he can...

 

[Andronicus]

well, nobody else except mongols can settler there..

its only a matter of time until we declare war on mongolia, so why not leave him there, have the settler handy, take our necessary territory and destroy him when the time comes

Because each turn he sits there costs us 2gpt in unit upkeep and once we build our town there we get another free unit support saving a further 2gpt upkeep in addition to any gold / science that the city makes (one option can hire a scientist for 4 science per turn) Overall this means we are losing 4gpt + 4 science per turn for the last 20 turns.
(edit - notice we still have warrior at eastern choke paying 2 gpt as well as reg warrior at western choke - I recommend disbanding these old units and building new better ones rather than upgrading to useless MIs)
(edit 2 - just noticed mongul galley approaching site occupied by scout - we need to act fast if we want that site - if not we have been wasting our settler sitting there)

 

[Andronicus]

2. Research is currently set on Monotheism (due in 6) but this can be freely changed as there is nothing invested yet.

Option of pursuing lower branch of tech tree first gives AI last opportunity to contribute other than Otto's freebie techs. Chance that they would research Mono and Theo for us.

3. Oslo is about to grow too fast and needs to be slowed.

Can speed duct by swapping iron mountain from Rey with mined grass.

7. We are running out of places on the dot map. It's time to make a new map.

Sites avail include W of Karistad, N/NW of Bodo (west choke) and multiple sites avail N of East choke - this will surely annoy Monguls so we need to be ready for war.

8. It's decision time on whether to switch the libraries at Aarhus and Stavenger to markets and/or other things. I think we should.

Libs will be more beneficial after FP is built - I would complete these builds.

Query - why is Stockholm building duct - it is food poor (currently size 5 with excess of only 1fpt)?
Recommend only growing it to size 6 then using 2 hills - the incense hill and hill 2NW - giving it good production. Would prefer if it had built rax and was now building zerk.
Options for switch include rax and waste 30 shields, reg zerk or court or market.

Suggestion to increase science
Corrupt towns with only 1fpt (ie jungle and mountain ring towns) can hire a scientist - not really wasting food as only able to grow 1 more size - until more food avail with either irr grass after clearing jungle or harbour.
This could produce 2 extra science in Molde, and 3 science per turn in Risor, Alesund, Batsfjord and Karistad giving overall boost of 15 science per turn. This will of course be magnified once the jungle towns are fully cleared and irrigated allowing support of 2-3 scientists per town.

 

[Andronicus]

Options include quite a few spots N of eastern choke providing path to central Mongolia - I would recommend only settling these once we have troops in pos and a road going through. Also 3 sites avail on jungle island.

Do we want to conquer first then ICS or continue settling whilst warring?

 

[Abegweit]

Did you try my suggestion of releasing east choke by moving the warrior then move settler 1 S. I have mentioned this several times above.

Dont have time to comment on other things now.

Apologies. I never saw your comment. It certainly wasn't addressed to me. I actually tried to figure out how to do open this up myself and couldn't find the answer. Moving the settler south never occured to me.

This actually costs at least 4 gpt, 2 gpt for the settler, 1 for the unit support and 1 for the gold from the town. Not very expensive really... but it all adds up.

 

[markh]

I agree that Carthage and Istanbul should be our first targets. These two wonders are too good to be delayed. The Monguls can wait. The more ACs we get the faster we can war.

When do we begin to use zerks against India to help him use his money on research ? He still has not learned how to write and how long will he need to research map making then ?

 

[Abegweit]

The issue of how best to get to Istanbul can be debated but there is no doubt about the route to Carthage. I suggest peaking to find out how well defended it is and how close it is to completion. Since it has been wonder-building since it was at size 1, it shouldn't be difficult to take.

 

[Abegweit]

DO NOT SWITCH Stockholm. It still has plenty of growth potential. It can grow at least to size 9, or more if we choose. There are unused three 2-food squares which belong to it alone and more which can be taken from Stavenger or Birka. Cities like this need to grow by folding in workers from places with higher food potential (Stavenger, Trondheim, Birka and Wonderville on this map).

Trondheim can easily be converted into a two-turn worker factory, giving the mined BG to Oslo on a permanent basis. This could happen at WV too but it is a powerful enough producer that it is probably better just to skim workers off as it grows. I took four workers of it in my turns. The optimal size for core cities at this stage in our development is 7-8. That brought it down to where it should be while simultaneously helping others grow.

Stavenger could become a worker factory. It would need both a courthouse and a granary for this. This is well worth it. We can use workers virtually forever, first to grow our core and then to fold into the junk cities, helping them grow. As such the library should be converted to a ch and a granary completed during the GA. It should then shrink to the proper size.

In the near future, we should concentrate on growing our core. Big core cities will benefit from the GA far more than junk in the jungles. The fourth lux from Carthage is an important aid for this.

 

[Andronicus]

Re science farm.
Need irrigation to jungle cities.
Notice that workers currently mining S of east choke, I think it would be better to first clear the jungle allowing irrigation to be brought to this region as waste will nullify any mining until at least after FP is built

 

[Andronicus]

When do we begin to use zerks against India to help him use his money on research ? He still has not learned how to write and how long will he need to research map making then ?

I suggest waiting until we have secured our new base on other continent. Once Gandhi is released life will become complicated on our home island and we must be able to switch to our new lands to continue the research thats required. Of course he may learn it before then particuarly since he has probably met the mongul scout, although what he could offer in trade I dont know.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

SGOTM9
(0) 150BC
Situation check. With our military I won’t be able to launch any offensive, so I get builder turns. Move away the settler and unblock a choke to let the Mongol Scout away.
I don’t exactly agree with the mining/irrigation plans, as mine green irrigate yellow is not the best system but that’s not a biggie.
(IBT) The mongol scout moves away India comes and goes away. You take care of the space vessel, I’ll take care of the girls.
(1) 130BC
Settler in position. Upgrade a curragh in Odense, we’ll need some galleys. ReMM the settler factory.
(IBT) Carthage finishes SoZ. We’ll have to face several AC.
(2) 110BC
Found Hammerfest. Set on lib.
(IBT) Our galley kills a barb near America. Aarhus lib-rax.
(3) 90BC
Disband regular warrior. He would have never served for anything. Our galley meets another barb, hope it survives.
(IBT) The barb wins.
(4) 70BC
Found Honningswag in ICS with mongol city. Our curragh meets a barb now. Switch Stockholm for faster growth.
(IBT) Our curragh promotes.
(5) 50BC
Vadso harbour-galley. Celts start Sun Tzu. Stavanger has grown and gets scientist.
(IBT) Monotheism – Gunpowder
(6) 30BC
Wonderville zerk – horse, I would like some fast units too. And Zerks are so expensive… Copenhagen ‘duct – harbour. Reykavik zerk-zerk. Stavanger lib – court.
(IBT) Madrid finishes TGWall.
(7) 10BC
Missed a turn I think.
(8) 10AD
Aarhus rax – pike. Found Svolvaer.
(9) 30AD
Wonderville horse-lib (can be vetoed.
(IBT) Theim settler-settler, Stockholm ‘duct – rax, Birka Zerk-zerk, Stavanger rax-pike
(10) 50AD
Not much. I’ve tried to focus on military. Don’t forget that if we’re going to research ourselves, markets and banks are not that important if not for the happiness modifier. So we must not build tons of them. And actually I rather prefer a pike and a MDI than a zerk. Up to you, but I haven’t went all the way with it. We’re weak to attack anyone now, but quite some infra is up so we can start thinking of it during the next turnset or two.
Actually I see that I haven't followed most recommendations, especially concerning Stavenger, but I feel that only 3 military cities is not enough... Our army is ridiculous. And we want our continent well ICS-ed, don't we? I would reinforce the cities around India, they may be near MM and we have not defence there. I wonder if the AI is clever enough to figure that it needs the MM tech in this situation (after writing)?

The Save

 

[Andronicus]

Wonderville horse-lib (can be vetoed.

I agree here - WV has lots of science - lets boost it
I am wondering however what the reason for libs in Molde, Tromso and Hammerfest are for. At 1spt they take 80 turns to build. If they are for cultural expansion to access the bonus tiles then better to build temple and disband after expansion. Other alt is harbour as this allows bigger town with more science anyway. As Molde and Tromso have accumulated 30 shields they could be switched now with loss of only 1 shield each. Other alt is switching to galley or treb.

I feel that only 3 military cities is not enough... Our army is ridiculous.

Agree - we are not yet prepared for war. Zerks are expensive - they need protection when travelling by land and when take city from sea.
I'm no great shakes on military campaigns but my 2 cents worth is to suggest maybe 6 zerks, 3 trebs and 3 pikes to attack Carthage. Need to leave skeleton force to protect core from galley landings and a small force to discourage Mongul aggression - particuarly now we are cramping him. Option of allying Otto and Monguls as we attack Carth appeals to me.

And we want our continent well ICS-ed, don't we?

Yes - we need irrigation to ICS area to support those scientists

I would reinforce the cities around India, they may be near MM and we have not defence there. I wonder if the AI is clever enough to figure that it needs the MM tech in this situation (after writing)?

Gandhi has learnt no new techs in past 10 turns. Still to research Poly, Curr & Writing

 

[Andronicus]

Havnt heard from Istari if his computers back yet so assume I'm up
This is my "got it"
Opened save to have a look. As we are deciding on Carthage attack I have investigated city for 66gold
Note only 2 NMs, no rax, but duct next turn so will be size 7

I will save here as I dont have time to complete my turns for 24 hours (dental appt ) I would appreciate any comments on invasion force required so I can endevour to prepare it probably for next player
Current military 3 zerks, 2 trebs, 4 archers, 2 pikes, 1 horse , 1 sword, 2 warriors, 2 galleys and 1 curragh.

 

[Abegweit]

I agree here - WV has lots of science - lets boost it
I am wondering however what the reason for libs in Molde, Tromso and Hammerfest are for.

These cities have quite a bit of commerce and could be decent producers. Stick with the libs.

At 1spt they take 80 turns to build.

Yeah. So they need to be cash-rushed. Yet another reason to get our GA.

Other alt is switching to galley or treb.

Hmmm. Seems that the best course might be to get the galley or treb right away and then cash-rush the lib afterwards during our GA.

Agree - we are not yet prepared for war. Zerks are expensive - they need protection when travelling by land and when take city from sea.
I'm no great shakes on military campaigns but my 2 cents worth is to suggest maybe 6 zerks, 3 trebs and 3 pikes to attack Carthage.

One or two pikes is about right. We need one now since the AI has an AC. By the time we attack, we'll might need another. As for the attackers, 4 zerks and 4 trebs or 5-3 should be enough. Carthage probably has about 3-4 defenders right now and that will be about 4-5 when we go to war. Add a sword plus an archer or two and this will be more than enough to take the city down.

Trade: our GPT deal with the Celts expires in 2 turns. It should be renewed immediately, for Monotheism obviously. Once that is done we need a deal with the Ottomans. They are willing to give us a lux for tech. Do it.

General: we need war for a GA and we need core growth to take advantage of it. Instead we are doing infra. That should come afterwards.

Stavenger: is currently running a scientist, wasting growth. I agree that this is better than upping the lux rate. However. It also shows that the city needs to be pruned back. Switch to a worker, who should go live in Stockholm.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Those two Numidians will be easy to take out by 3 zerks, but they must get there.
Let's not underestimate the home defences and build some pikes and several horses. The extra movement point is precious.
About Stavenger, I tried to tune every middly productive city for military building. I'm just not used to that few military, even on monarch (my last game this low goes back 2 years though).