SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[dmanakho]

I do believe most of the other teams had despot GAs, but as far as Wonders, with amount of fighting all have, most of them would have at least a wonder and some two like we have...
It's just in my opinion we have 2 best wonders of ancient ages...
May be if we lucky we will get ourselves some of the MA wonders...
SunTzu we probably won't need since barracks cost us less than units themselve... Although, i would rush SunTzu just to avoid fighting with veteran AI units.

 

[smackster]

Don't forget the FP, we want that as soon as we get enough spare land to build it into

 

[Wotan]

Have started thinking about a possible third ring. Byzantium is at 10 and so is british city of Liverpool (good site for a future roman city). I would suggest we try to have a go at 10 if the map, when revealed in fogged out area, is able to support this.

 

[smackster]

british city of Liverpool

English city

 

[Wotan]

@DeceasedHorse: Before you hit return on my save please move a horseman from Antium -> Cumae and another from Neapolis -> Antium to avoid Cumae going into unrest. I was a bit tired last night when finishing my session.

@All: Else the situation is OK, but I suggest you MM all cities each turn, I gained a lot from doing this. The game is a cutthroat game as it is and any advantage we can gain from managing our resources well in the beginning will show itself in the end.

 

[dmanakho]

... but I suggest you MM all cities each turn, I gained a lot from doing this. The game is a cutthroat game as it is and any advantage we can gain from managing our resources well in the beginning will show itself in the end....

I do agree with that... I tried to MM when i played but i must kept forgetting to do it quite a lot....

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Contact Greece 2710 BC, war declared 2710BC
No contact by 1910BC, therefore war on next contact
Babylon 1750 BC (IBT contact), war declared 1725BC
Germany 1750 BC, war declared 1225BC
England 1750 BC, war declaration due 730BC
Russia 1750 BC, war declaration due 330BC
America 1500BC, war declaration due 130BC
France 1500BC, war declaration due 70AD

Preturn: Diplomacy reveals that The Republic will pop out of the library next turn, so I do not think we can count on getting Monarchy. None of our opponents have the tech. In any case, the sooner we get Monarchy, the better. Gold does us little good under Despotism in any case. Cumae will riot next turn, so I switch it to Settler and hire a scientist, which shaves a turn of Monarchy.

IBT: Our regular warrior in the mountains of France defeats a French Swordsmen and promotes to veteran 
English Galley spotted off the coast of Viconium.

Turn 1: The Republic pops out of the Great Library as expected. Trade the Republic to the Russians for all their gold (70) and their World Map. Excellent, now we know what the terrain looks like as well as having sufficient reserves to continue deficit research. It looks like the AI’s have indeed been warring fairly heavily on one another. Abe wants something like 23 gpt plus our entire treasury for an Alliance, depending on who we sign him against. I buy in Abe vs. the English for 30 gpt and our WM. I’ll give our new buddy a chance to sign some allies before cutting the deal next turn. This won’t slow research because our treasury now has enough cushion to keep us afloat for a turn or two at –34 gpt. I don’t think Abe will be accomplishing much militarily; his population is anemic and his territory fairly small. Ah well. Using catapults against the Greeks will indeed be futile, as their cities are on the other side of a fairly sizable mountain range.

IBT: Russia declares war on America. Oh well. Our mountain warrior slays another French Swordsmen, promoting to Elite.

Turn 2 (510BC): Declare war on America. Science to 80%, Monarchy due in 5 @ -9 gpt with 56 in the bank.

IBT: The English found Dover next to the wheat west of Cumae.

Turn 3 (490 BC): Diplomacy reveals that the English know Currency; no one else does, however. Found the oddly named Gonzomonium. Elite Horse kills the lone spearmen defending Liverpool and razes the BRITISH city to the ground .

IBT: The English build the Collossus in Hastings, giving them an immediate Golden Age is I’m not mistaken. Furthermore, the art shift of their cities indicates that they’ve reached the Middle Ages. The English land a warrior next to “undefended” Ravenna, which fill finish a spearmen next turn, not to mention the numerous horsemen also within range.

Turn 4: Diplomacy reveals that Joan has reached the Middle ages as well; we should be getting Currency and Construction next turn. No one has Monarchy yet. Found Lunacantorium, and while I may not know much about Latin, I’m starting to get rather suspicious about some of these city names…

IBT: 4 Babylonian Bowmen on an inbound vector spotted. I will wait for them to get closer before sending out the horses to ride them down.

Turn 5 (450 BC): We pull Currency and Construction from the Library, entering the Middle Ages. Science to 60%, Monarchy still due in two.

Turn 6 (430 BC): Don’t have to much luck disloding the Babylonian Bowmen from the hills. Sure could use some catapults…hehehe. Draw six turns of anarchy both times. Pompeii, Veii, and Neapolis must be allowed to riot at some point in order to stop starvation.
IBT: Enemy troop movements in increasing strength detected

Turn 7 (390 BC): Force larger cities to riot next turn in order to slow starvation.

Turn 8 (370 BC): Engineering and Monotheism both pop from the library. English start the Hanging Gardens. Neapolis is now safe from starvation thanks to an irrigated game tile. Elite Horse guarding Gonzo wacks a greek horse landed last turn, no leader though. Force Veii to riot next turn.

IBT: Babylonian and French forces surround Byzantium, which has plenty of horsemen but the mountains surrounding it make it pure hell to defend with fast-movers. (Did some mention bombardment units?)

Turn 9: (350 BC): Take moderate casulties fighting off the French/Babylonian offensive in the west. Greek mountain offensive stalled with no casulties thanks to retreats.

IBT: The Aztecs build the Great Wall in Tlaxcala.

Turn 10: 330 BC: Most units pause to heal. There is a German Elite spear loose in our territory; he will likely move to the wines and pillage them next. He has already killed a horsemen and enslaved one of our workers. Pompeii is set to riot next turn; this is intentional. I left an elite horsemen exposed in order to kill a retreating French swordsmen. Anarchy ends in two turns, and it is a good thing too as this has been a rather painful one. All this mountain warfare combined with our inablity to replenish losses has been quite damaging. We should use the next leader either for building the FP or form an army so we can get the Heroic Epic online. I suggest that the Galley building in Pisae complete; in my admittedly limited GOTM experiance, it is generally possible to contact other contact prior to Magnetism, even without the Lighthouse.

Current Score: 406. This puts us in first place

NOTE: DECLARE WAR ON RUSSIA BEFORE ENDING THE TURN! I HAVE NOT DONE SO IN CASE THE NEXT PLAYER WANTS TO SELL RUSSIA TECH OR SOMETHING.
The Save

 

[smackster]

Great set of turns DH, sounds like a really hard set of 10 working through the anarchy.

I'll have a look at the save later, and play tonight. You can all be rest assured that we'll be a in GA before you wake in the AM, and at war with everyone.

edit: What is the graphics mod you have?

 

[Tarkeel]

Nice going Tough luck on the anarchy, but with the size we've got, 6 isn't that bad. A big on getting the map, we needed that. The greek lands aren't very inviting, so guess our FP will be founded in former France. Judging from the screenshort, between Paris and Lyons would make a good FP, giving us a close second core.

We appear to be one turn off though (ending at 350 instead of 330), so maybe the next person should take 9 to get us on track again?

 

[DeceasedHorse]

The terrain is one of snoopy's sets, don't remember off the top of my head which one but I think it is the Greener one. I also have multi-units for all units present in the original release for civ, but not any of the conquests or PTW ones since there is apparently some stupid legal issue about posting units from the expansions for download. It's not as is A): Games are particularly hard to pirate or B) Conquests is all that expensive. Whatever, though. At least civ doesn't have any of that CD key crap or Safedisc to deal with.
M-Units

 

[Wotan]

@DeceasedHorse: Good playing.

@Smackster: I do not like the German Spear still being alive. Please make sure he does not move onto Wine or Iron to cut our road there! That would be a hefty price to pay... Also be aware DH played 11 turns not 10!!!! So I guess you only have 9 turns.

I opened up the save and saw that 2 turns remain of Anarchy so we apparantly got 6 turns, was that in the first revolt or the second and if in the second what was the number of turns in the first attempt? Just curious.

Good sites for future cities, former site of Liverpool, Dover site or BG N/NW Pisae.

 

[Wotan]

Since we have the "luxury" of being able to choose the site of the FP wo taking current cities into account. I have looked at the map and would suggest the following site for it: It gives us an almost perfect ring of RCP4 cities with most of them on fresh water and a good distance to all coasts to build another uninterupted ring outside that ring.

 

[Tarkeel]

Team Oblivion are in the lead again, but with 20 turns more played. their curve the last 20 has been very steep though. Team mauer and Ivan is also looking sharp behind us, but they too aren't playing the variant. X-team looks for now to be our main competitor amongst the variant teams, but looks like sesn has almost as good incline as us, though it is hard to tell yet. No doubt our curve will improve again once we're out of anarchy, and we will soon have a lot of land to the SW to claim.

@Wotan: Agree, that spot looks good.

 

[Wotan]

All this mountain warfare combined with our inablity to replenish losses has been quite damaging.

I tried to "herd" the enemy units to "safe" attack sites by moving units into tiles I did not want the to go. Thus I killed most of the enemies in open terrain. An enemy spearman/archer will not kill something in a mountain tile if you have left a city empty a few tiles away. The AI is stupid and will move towards this empty city, if you "channel" him through a "good" attack tile you will be able to pick them off in terrain you like and he dislike.

eg. I kept Neapolis empty for a turn or two to have the AI move away from Byzantium, putting a horseman on a mountain I wished the AI would avoid and have him move into an open tile instead on his futile trek to the "empty" Neapolis. And if he fdid attack a horse on mountain odds were he would be killed or the horse retreat. I kept two Spear in Byzantium to really drive my point home with the AI. And as sheep to the slaughter they moved away and towards my designated target...

 

[dmanakho]

Wow!!! Much have changed!!!! Good turns DH !!!!

And we have only 2 turns in anarchy, once it's over we will be able to clean our land off invaders and start a massive attack on .......
Who shall we attack next you guys reckon???
We can start with Greeks, but since they don't bother us much and looks like Greek economy in somewhat collapsed state may be we should invade France 1st so we can start working on our FP sooner than later.
What i can see from the map France doesn't have large cities, so we should not have much troubles to overrun them. Plus we will be able to cripple economies of all our nothern neigbors during these battles.
English can become a problem, they are the biggest AI at the moment therefore can probably build most troops against us.
On the other hand if we take over Greeks we can connect 3rd lux - silks to Roman Empire.
There are so many options we probably will never run out of different possibilities...
Maybe it is a good idea that Captain Smackster is playing next since his moves will dictate the way our tactical warfare goes for next hundred+ years.
Chivalry will be here soon, and we should have a nice stack of cash by that time. I guess we can continue horsemen build up for the future upgrade, but for the short term advantage over AI we certainly need to increase number of legions.
We are going to kick some butts... Love it...

 

[Tarkeel]

We have another 40 turn before we HAVE to declare on France. I'd rather spend that time filling out the south and wiping out Greece so we have a clear flank, while massing for a solid strike into France.

 

[dmanakho]

Oops, aren't we already at war with France??
I remember English made MA with them... plus those Joannie's units are hanging around Bysantium...

EDIT: But i do see your point in clearing out Greece.... We won't need too many troops taking the Greece out, especially if we build few catapults.

 

[smackster]

Yes, France declared on us, the only peace we have is with Russia, and we are due to declare on them this turn

Until I look at the save, its not totally clear what I'll do, but I feel that building the forces for a big push is a good idea, we don't want to attack like the AI with 2-3 troops each time, the GA will certainly help the preparation.

 

[Tarkeel]

My bad, it appears we are! In that case, concentrate on taking out Greece first while filling out the south, at the same time harassing France. Swing our eastern force north and hit the French.

I really want to secure our eastern flank, we shouldn't be fighting a 2 front war if we can avoid it. We should try to secure a FP core as well though, but will be hard to do both

Edit: There should be a spoiler coming up soon (I think), if you want I can write it

 

[dmanakho]

What we can do while building up troops is to get around 4 legions and do some pillaging on greek land, they won't attack us (i doubt they will) but we can deny their access to horses, iron and less important luxuries.
It will make our life easier when we launch full scaled attack.


EDIT... Write the spoiler, just don't give away military secrets