SGOTM3 Rome - Team microbe

[dmanakho]

Double post...
....(I still have yet to see an MDI from anybody ) .....

Lurker comment:
MDI's were disabled in this SGOTM for the purpose.. MDI as a unit only appears in PTW and doesn't exist in vanilla, so to put everyone on the same page M-B has disabled all units and everything else that is unique to PTW...


... oh and goodluck with the game, you guys really need some knights here

 

[microbe]

Lurker comment:
MDI's were disabled in this SGOTM for the purpose.. MDI as a unit only appears in PTW and doesn't exist in vanilla, so to put everyone on the same page M-B has disabled all units and everything else that is unique to PTW...


... oh and goodluck with the game, you guys really need some knights here

Damn, I wonder what else we didn't know?

But Feudalism is also not in vanilla (and pikes?).

 

[dmanakho]

Damn, I wonder what else we didn't know?

But Feudalism is also not in vanilla (and pikes?).

Vanilla has Feudalism tech, it doesn't have Feudalism as a form of government.
and I firmly believe vanilla has pikes

 

[barbslinger]

Nice job Empire! In, retrospect, we should have been on those suicide galleys 80 turns ago. Things might be different right now. Nice getting the pillaging units to France. Pike upgrades will certainly be helping.
Knights like crazy now and lets pillage some iron and clean up our South and East. Once that is accomplished, we should have this game in the bag.

 

[ForTheEmpire]

@dmanakho
Thanks for the clarification, and those knights will be our saving grace for now.

@barb
Did not mean to scare you last night. I was sick, not thinking clearly, so I really had no idea how to judge my turns. I woke up, looked at my turn log I wrote last night, and I'm thinking, we have chivalry???

@all
So it looks like I don't need to be skewered, yet...

 

[barbslinger]

BTW, nice report. Once our knight production gets cracking and we can get the iron pillaged off our continent and keep it pillaged by keeping a legion army nearby this continent will roll right up. Hopefully all the iron is fairly close. 20 or so knights, build a couple of knight armies and this will be a cake walk.

 

[microbe]

I want to send an army to pillage the other continent as well, but the route isn't safe. I hope we can get to Astronomy or Navigation soon.

 

[dmanakho]

I want to send an army to pillage the other continent as well, but the route isn't safe. I hope we can get to Astronomy or Navigation soon.

Another lurker's comment:

Yes. The original GOTM16 bic and all the SGOTM3 Bics and Bix have the army pillage flag un-checked. Armies cannot pillage within the GOTM mod, which is news to me. I'm sure this nugget is buried somewhere in the spec.

But there is a work around, you can find it in maintenance thread

 

[microbe]

Thanks for the reminder. We discussed that and here is the solution.

 

[ForTheEmpire]

But there is a work around, you can find it in maintenance thread

It's all about the horsie!

Oh yeah, check to see what Iroquois trade status is like. I kinda neglected them. From what I can see, we still haven't fully uncovered our land yet. Maybe Iroquois could give us a WM? I see two irons so far in Germany (by Berlin and Munich), one in France (Tours), one in America (south west of Washington), one in Russia (Odessa), none in Babylon, and none in England that I can see. Maybe they are getting theirs from the extra German iron.

 

[scoutsout]

@ForTheEmpire: That was a nicely played set. This is a different game now.

 

[gozpel]

Good job.

Knights finally, now the AI can taste their own medicine.

 

[ForTheEmpire]

I just hope by the time I get to play the game again, you four would have had your fill of AI blood so that I would have nothing left to kill. It's fun to fill the role of relief pitcher to the star closers

 

[microbe]

preturn: I'm happy to see many knights are being built.

I don't think I need to declare on anyone..

There are 3 English knights outside of Byzantium and we only have 2 legions. I move another legion from Neapolis to it.

Shuffle units around. Basically move units from inner cities to the fronts.

IBT we've got our first knight!

(1)660AD: Rome is building knight with 17spt - not good. I MM to get to 18spt. Many knights approach.

@Byzantium:
Cat hits musketeer bringing it to 1hp.
vet legoin loses 4/0 straight to the musketeer. [0-1]

@Cumae:
2 cats hit knight to 1hp.
Elite legion 1/1 kills knight. [1-1]

@Brundisium:
cat hits regular archer.
Elite legion kills it and we get a leader. [2-1]

@Veii:
Things are a little hairy here. There are two knights.
Cat misses knight.
Knight 0/4 kills knight. [3-1]
No unit to take the other knight and we may lose the cat, but we have an army nearby that will deal with this mess next turn.

Short-rush a knight in Neapolis to deal with the English knights.

@Gonzomonium:
cats hit two reg archers.
vet legion 1/2 kills archer. [4-1]
vet legion 0/2 kills archer. [5-1]

We seem to not be able to creat another army. But we can rush Sistine Chapel (not built by AI yet?) or FP. I rush it in Byzantium.

IBT India MA with Iros against us. We lose the elite legion and a spear to knight, but another spear kills a knight. [6-3]

We build Sistine and AI cascade to JS Bach, Copernicus and Smith's.

(2)670AD:

Vet knight 3/2 kills knight. [7-3]
Elite legion 2/2 kills knight. [8-3]
Vet knight 3/3 kills knight. [9-3]

I don't understand why we have 5 cats with the pillaging army. What can they do?

These English knights are annoying, but I don't feel comfortable attacking them in the forest. So let them attack us instead.

IBT we lose 2 horses, legion and a spear but kill a knight. [10-7] England lands a knight.

(3)680AD:
Vet legion 2/2 kills the knight. [11-7]
Elite legion retreats knight, another elite legion finishes it off. [12-7]
Elite legion 1/3 kills longbow and we get another leader. [13-7]

Not sure what to do with the leader. Will save for later.

IBT We lose an elite legion, but kill a knight. [14-8]

(4)690AD:

Vet legion 0/1 kills knight. [15-8]

(5)700AD:

Vet legion 0/1 kills knight. [16-8]
Vet knight 2/2 kills knight. [17-8]
army kills spear. [18-8]
Knight 0/2 kills spear. [19-8]
Vet legion 2/2 kills longbow. [20-8]
Vet horse kills longbow. [21-8]

Japan has Invention.

IBT we lose a horse. [21-9]

(6)710AD:

Army kills spear and we raze Chicago. [22-9]
Vet knight 0/3 kills longbow. [23-9]
Vet knight 3/3 kills Musketeer. [24-9]

IBT Russia builds JS Bach's.

(7)720AD: We completely isolated Paris.

Vet knight 1/4 kills spear. [25-9]
Vet knight 1/4 kills spear/settler. [26-9]

I use the leader to rush a granary in Antium - it's 4fpt which could be a good settler city. I'll try to make it 5fpt.

(8)730AD:

Vet knight 3/3 kills spear. [27-9]
Vet legion 2/3 kills spear. [28-9]
We raze Samarra.

Vet knight 1/2 kills knight. [29-9]
Longbow Killer 2/1 kills knight. [30-9]
Elite knight 3/3 kills pike/settler. [31-9]

India agrees to talk and wants 140g for peace. The rule doesn't say we cannot make peace, and we are supposed to declare on India at turn 212, so I make peace and get Education by 43gpt.

I then get Invention+3g from Japan by Education. It's probably our last tech trading.

I start min research on Gunpowder. We have 240g with +gpt.

I hope someone drags Japan into war again.

Now we can build LBM. We probably should build some.

(9)740AD:
Elite legion 0/1 kills longbowman. [32-9]
Elite knight 2/1 kills knight and get another leader. [33-9]
2 vet legions kill two longbow. [35-9]
Vet legion 2/3 kills spear. [36-9]

Veii is about to riot, I start a market in it. We barely have any infra.

IBT we lose 1 knight and 1 legion but kill 2 knights [38-11]

(10)750AD:
Vet knight 2/1 kills knight. [39-11]

I see musketman in Brighton!

Elite archer 1/1 kills spear/settler. [40-11]
Vet knight 3/2 retreats from vet musketeer. [41-11]
Vet knight 2/2 kills musketeer. [42-11]
Elite legion 4/2 loses to regular longbow! [42-12]
Longbow Killer finishes it off. [43-12]

I leave some units unmoved.

Not my best set of turns. I had to deal with constant stream of knights. I did push our front a little bit. One of the problem is those mountains and hills. We should still build some cheap legions to fortify on those locations.


Two armies are in the north. We need some knights over there too to take out Greece.

We have a leader in Brundisium, but we cannot build armies yet. I suggest to use it to rush market in Veii.

We also really need libraries and universities going.

 

[microbe]

 

[barbslinger]

Rough turns I'm sure. I was using leaders for markets too. It would be nice to knock off Thermop and clear the rest of the south and East. Lokks like we have units down there to deal with it. That will give us on large front to play with and will make things easier. The next few sets of turns will let our knight count rise. The Thermop area looks nice for an FP. More workers are definately needed too. More settlers for a knight army too.

 

[gozpel]

Hair-raising stuff.

I got it and play tomorrow, hopefully. If the daughter invites her friends for that make-up party I have to wait till tomorrow night, my time.

Can you believe how many leaders we got and what we used them for? Quite funny actually, but sensible.

 

[microbe]

I was always wondering.

Maybe we should rush it now and move our palace later.

Workers: I think we need them to road on those mountains to the north and other front. I couldn't do it without enough escort, though.

We do have one healthy legion next to the bab city in the south. There is only one reg bowman over there, and a knight will heal next turn too, but we can also wait a turn to use those 3 cats.

EDIT: I just noticed Antium doesn't have aqueduct so is not growing! I probably have made a smoking move to rush the granary. Next player can see how to make the best use of it.

 

[gozpel]

I want FP in Thermo-whatever..it's been spoken for by slinger and others for a long time. We surely haven't been without leaders in this game, but I would take a punt in my game and remove that awful city and replace it with ours.

But then, I can't do anything until I open the save, but that's my very wish to stop the AI to walk from all sides. A city over there would give us 2 fronts kind of and a less manouvering game.

Still, as I said, I need to see where we are on the battlefield.

4-1 isn't good enough, how can we increase that. microbe used cats and stuff very intelligently and yet lost too many units.

ForTheEmpire: I can't find that darn RNG-charm, I have to do Wicca. Swirl a cat three times in the air over your head and say the WORDS loudly, while dancing counter clockwise.

If that darn cat just could understand this is for the better good and stopped scratching me!

 

[ForTheEmpire]

@microbe
Good work with a hard set of turns. Sorry, but those 5 cats were there to help with the pillaging. Here was what I thought. Let's say we start at tile 0, we have two groups there, (a) 5 cats, army, horse vs. (b) the army, horse. I figured adding the 5 cats makes a better pillaging group than just a horse because, in turn 1, both groups move to the next tile and pillage the tile they finish on (a-1, b-1). Next turn, (b) can move next tile and pillage (a-1, b-2) while (a) can potentially knock out 5 more tiles in it's bombard range (a-6, b-2). The next turn, it's would be (a-7, b-3) because group (a) would now move again and (b) does their thing. Of course, bombarding is a gamble, but it's a gamble that I personally like. Group (a) can still move towards a final desitnation, but bombard whatever tiles are around while group (b) would have to do a lot more movement. The drawbacks is (a) is gambling and can be a slower pillager while (b) is not as dynamic, but a sure thing and better for single target pillaging. I agree, if we are just pillaging iron, then it's better to just head straight for that first and bombard. I was orignally planning to pillage EVERYTHING along the way towards the iron. But whatever, I hope it didn't piss you off too much.

@gozpel
I"m not exactly a cat person, but I try to play with them as if they were dogs. They return my affection by clawing and biting my hands and arms .
Also, it is during your turns (turn 2) that you must declare on the Iroquois if they are not at war with us.

@all
About FP placement, I agree with Thermopylae. Even though Paris would be perfect, by giving us 2 solid rings, the Greek capital is better because it is not as exposed. Better late than never I guess.

EDIT: Also, I think we should be pretty liberal with leaders, and not hesitate to use them on improvements in key cities. Libs, markets, granaries, and univs are great for this, since we can't sacrifice too many turns of building civilian buildings.