SGOTM3 Rome - Team Bugsy

[grahamiam]

do we have any non-threatened cities right now that can tear down it's walls? we do pay upkeep for them and maybe we can cut costs by replacing them with markets or something.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Our infrastructure does stink right now. I don't know if we pay maintenance on walls. I'll need to look that up. The problem is that putting even a few cities on infrastructure builds hurts right now. That may be part of the problem. I shifted too many cities to building libraries (3)

Edit - I just checked the guide. No upkeep for city walls.

 

[grahamiam]

Our infrastructure does stink right now. I don't know if we pay maintenance on walls. I'll need to look that up. The problem is that putting even a few cities on infrastructure builds hurts right now. That may be part of the problem. I shifted too many cities to building libraries (3)

Edit - I just checked the guide. No upkeep for city walls.

i guess i'm just grasping for straws here. the way i see this is that we can go on like this only so long. maybe we need at least 1 city in the core always building infrastructure. we can rotate between cities and eventually get libraries and markets in them all. probably something we should have done 1000 years ago

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Yeah, probably a little late, but we should probably start now. I'm keeping a list of lessons learned in this essentially AW game.
1. Tight build
2. Infrastructure
3. Don't start AW game.

 

[grahamiam]

3. Don't start AW game.

yeah, and don't declare on the 1st unit you see, wait till they contact you that was mine and it got us started on this miserable treck

 

[alerum68]

Can't blame just one person... look at my "trading" earlier on. We'd have been able to trade if I hadn't signed the first deal I could. I think the major problem is that we didn't play this one out like AW until it was too late. Even with all the challenges we're facing, we're still doing better then most playing the varient, and as MB has said, this was to gauge how hard he had to make it for alot of people to loose.

 

[RowAndLive]

Keep in mind that only 1 team has lost so far. Team Handy also trails us, and Team Akots is only minimally ahead (on the log chart, he's only 1 point above us, and decreasing, while we were just about flat). Three teams have won, and two were variant teams. In fact, 11 of 15 teams are still on the variant.

During my turn set, aside from the fact that I just couldn't seem to get enough units over to Samarra (Bab cavs kept coming up), I thought things were going fairly well. They just weren't going fact enough. Bugs did a nice job in getting Corinth off the map, and did plant a few, so we should be eligible for that 9th army now. The two biggest pains are definitely still Babylonian cavs (quantity) and Rus cossacks (quality). It's too early to say how rifles will play out. I thought we had way too many cats before. Now I'm not sure. We'll need money to upgrade them and the pikes. We've already seen due to the backstage troop landings that a banzai wouldn't even last us very long. Better to stay the present course, and look for attrition. If the cats are missing the city, then use them to blast the tile improvements: first luxes, then food to cause starvation, lastly mines.

Having said all that, I still think that our best bet is to pillage the connections to the capitals. Perhaps do horses & iron first, trade roads at borders as possible, and capital disconnects third.

 

[alerum68]

Yes, we have to cut off the capitols, and resources... but we'll still have the problem of Rifles... from now, until the end of them game there is nothing we can do about that but bombard them down to 1hp, an use armies to take them out.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

You're right on the combined arms Alerum. It is the only thing keeping us alive at the moment. On my last turn I got the Babylonian horses pillaged so that should turn that faucet off for a while. Once we get Babylon pillaged we can make the mistake that I made and move the army out. I think we may see some French cavs again.

 

[alerum68]

One thing we do have ot look forward too gentleman... the downfall of communism in PTW. Soon they'll be switching over, and using their population to rush and conscript rifles. 2hp rifles are fairly easy to kill. There's going to be a window of opportunity between now and the age of aluminum, that' they'll be communist but not have tanks... the bad news is with the current AI tech trading rate, that window is only going ot be 30 turns.

 

[denyd]

OK, I got it.

Just a question though. Is it too late to abandon the variant and just go for a win?

 

[RowAndLive]

I think it's too late to get the win without the variant. If our rep was still intact it might be possible, but we really trashed it good. As such, even if we get peace, we won't get trade or techs. Then, it wouldn't be too long before we got dogpile again for being so far behind.

I'm imagining that you think we can deal with them one at a time, and catch up as possible, since we'll have some room to build infrastructure. Indeed this may work, but we'd still have a very long road to catch up with Monty & Tokugawa. Personally, I'd rather keep the rep for being tough enough to fight the variant as best we can, rather than get "just another win" by abandoning the variant. We certainly won't be able to milk this one long enough to go to the top, or even get close to the teams who didn't go for the variant from the beginning. We're too far down the one road.

So, MY vote is not to abandon, but let's hear from everyone before deciding.

 

[grahamiam]

let's keep on chugging. there's some good lessons to be learned yet

 

[alerum68]

It's a tough nut to crack, but I *REALLY* hate jumping ship until I'm already paddling water.... Lets keep it going as is.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I agree, let's keep pressing those lit cigarettes into our arms. I enjoy the pain.

 

[denyd]

Here is the update through 3 turns - no significant changes on maps

Turn 0 – 1280 AD – Wake a catapult and redline the musket next to Caesarea , Elite Knight kills Babylon Cavalry and moves to defend Caesarea – Switch Hispalis from library to Legion (only 1 infrastructure city build at a time), Send Hispalis pike to Pisae

IBT: Redlined knight defends against 2 wounded German knights and promotes – Lose knight by Tarentum to a Cossack – Lose a Legion in Caesarea to a Babylon Cavalry – Three Aztec ships on the west coast – Confinium Walls->Legion – Hispalis Legion->Legion – The Gate Legion->Legion – Cyrene Catapult->Barracks

Turn 1 – 1285 AD – Catapults go 11 for 20 in defense of cities – Max’s Blue Bots (14/17) kill a Bab Cav – 2nd Knight Army (10/13) kills a Bab Musket – worker start roads to the west – 2 settlers heading west 1 heading north – pillaging around Babylon

IBT: No losses – 2 Cossacks die redlining Legions & 3 Bab Cavalry retreats – Lunacantorum worker->worker – Londonium riots

Turn 2 – 1290 AD – Spend 48g to hurry a knight in Cumae – Elite Knight (2/5) kills Bab cavalry – Catapults go 8 for 17 – Spend 56g to hurry a Legion in Tarentum – 2nd Knight Army (8/13) kills an English Rifle

IBT: 1 Bab Cavalry dies attacking Caesarea, no losses – Rome Knight->Knight – Cumae Knight->Legion –Tarentum Legion-Legion – Londonium Legion->Legion – Trevin Walls->Catapult

Take a break for the night and will resume tomorrow – Stats after 2 ½ turns: Lost 2 units – Killed 9 AI units – Built 6 Units – 3 more turns until Babylon is isolated

 

[Bede]

Quoth Bugsy: Fight like mad dogs

Do you strike? No, sir, I have only begun to fight.

 

[denyd]

We are barely able to kill all approaching units. My hope is to be able to kick Greece of the continent and found a pair of cities in the east and release those armies to head north, while continuing to kill everything that approaches from the north. There are 3 Aztec ships (carrying up to 8 units) on the west coast that keeping an eye on. Hopefully, they're empty, but I have to keep units ready to attack should any troops land as our core is barely defended. If that turned into a stack of 8 Aztec cavalry, we have nothing to stop them from dealing us a potentially fatal blow.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I told you this was getting harder by the turn. I found myself playing a lot of "what if" If I move this unit to cover this area does it leave me open. How about if that ship has units on board. How many attacks can I see at this city. Sometimes I was wrong. Anticipated three moves and didn't see the fourth. Take your time Denyd. This is like the three dimensional chess they play on Star Trek.

 

[denyd]

I hoping to play tonight (RL got in the way last night). I can probably get in 4 or 5 more tonight.

I know were off track on normal 10 turn sets, where should I stop to get us back on track?

I'm going to send a couple of unit s south in case those Japanese/Aztec ships are carrying bad things.