SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[DeceasedHorse]

Preturn: Science to 70%, Navigation in four. Preparations for Operation: Overlord commences in several coastal cities as several caravels are ordered up.

IBT: Lose a Cavalry to a German Knight. Barbarians attack our soldiers but inflict little meaningful damage.

Turn 1: Wake up Artillery Command in Wotan and send all cannons east to New Smackster. Many new cities founded on the barbarian continent; I won’t bother to list each one unless they are in signifgant in some manner. New York falls. Munich falls.

Turn 2: Boston falls, and the American capital jumps to Miami. No luck on leaders so far. Attacks on Moscow fail miserably. Berlin is at our mercy; I leave it alive another turn in order to leader-fish some more.

Turn 3: Berlin falls, but not before costing us two cavalrymen, and we don’t even pop a leader. Capital jumps to Kongisberg, the last German city on our continent. Cavalry move up to attack Miami.

IBT: Otto ask for peace, so I take the opportunity to see what techs he has. Looks like he’s almost to the Industial age at this point.

Turn 4: Navigation comes in, science set to Music Theory and slider set to zero. Kill Atlanta’s defenders with the exception of a single longbow, as there are two fresh Elite Cavalry who can leader fish next turn. Konigsberg has only one pikemen defending it, and the city is captured and razed to the ground. Germans are down to one city. Our first Caravel sets sail from New Ravenna to open up the equitorial sections of Barb Death Island for colonization. Plus, the cavalrymen on board can go and whack Heidelberg.

Russian Cossack defeat one of our cavalrymen in the Siege of Moscow. Didn’t even know they had any; too bad as these are the PTW defense 4 Cossacks.

Settling on the southern part of the Island of Death has been slow lately; a rather large number of barbs showed up from somewhere. It almost seems like an age-change uprising, but that does not seem to be the case as it doesn’t look like anyone has entered the industrial age quite yet.

Turn 5: Raze Atlanta; still no luck with the leaders. I knew I used up all my mojo on my last set of turns…
Raze Moscow, finally killing that stinking elite Cossack. Spot an Impi Barbarian by the name of Alweth on Death Island.

Turn 6: Raze Sevastpol. Japenese amphibious invaders destroyed. During the attack on Kiev, after like my 30th elite victory, GERMANICUS arrizes to lead us!

The Great Navigator will rush Magellan’s next turn. Oh, and Kiev gets razed to the ground. Capture and raze Miami.

IBT: Spot an Impi by the name of Capt, Buttkick.

Turn 7: Rush Magellan’s in Mournhold (random city with unexpanded borders up in the north. Capture and raze Smolensk, finishing the Ruskies off for good. Capture and raze Detroit, the last enemy settlement on our starting continent. American capital jumps to Houstan, located on a small Newfoundland-esque island a little ways off shore. Will leave a few cavalrymen behind to patrol the wasteland while the majority of our units will begin to assemble in New Smackster for Operation: Sudden Death-The Roman invasion of the second continent.

IBT: The Cavalry garrison of one of our settlements on Death Island is slain, then a bunch of barbarians sack the city, carrying off some small change in gold.

Turn 8: Units moved around, a few new cities founded.

IBT: Japanese land a lone archer in our core. Military advisor pops up and reports of a massive barbarian uprising near one of our cities on Hadrian’s Wall; looks like our foes have reached the Industrial Age.

Turn 9: Soldiers continue moving. Kill the Japanese archer. I think I must have screwed up on the turn count, as I am fairly sure that this should be turn ten. I will therefore stop here.

Summary: Our home continent is now ours. Most of the southern third of Death Island/Hadrian’s wall has been settled, and we have three more settlers in boats waiting for a chance to land. I didn’t build sufficent caravels up in the north, but the next player should have no troubles rushing several more and launching Operation: Sudden Death. The only factor slowing down our settlement of the wastelands is the speed of our settlers now.

 

[smackster]

Turn 9: Soldiers continue moving. Kill the Japanese archer. I think I must have screwed up on the turn count, as I am fairly sure that this should be turn ten. I will therefore stop here.

If you could put the year in each turn then we can help to determine this. It may be that you crossed a turn barrier and we are now on 5/yr per turn, which would confuse

Summary: Our home continent is now ours. Most of the southern third of Death Island/Hadrian’s wall has been settled, and we have three more settlers in boats waiting for a chance to land. I didn’t build sufficent caravels up in the north, but the next player should have no troubles rushing several more and launching Operation: Sudden Death. The only factor slowing down our settlement of the wastelands is the speed of our settlers now.

That is great well played, I think overall Magellens is good as moving our ships is probably one thing that will slow us down. This really does show how quickly you can finish off the enemy once you have Cavalry, even if they do too.

It would be good if somebody can post the military screen (with unit counts) so I can see what we have. I'll look at MapStat once the save is up.

I'll play late tonight, when I get back from Soccer Practise (yes I do go out sometimes, and do other things apart from civ, but not too much )

 

[Wotan]

Wonderful news, DH! Especially love the news we have Magellans. Now we can have a 8 move transport lane between two cities from New Smackster and to the "indian" land with 2 Caravels and ship hopping... I posted a map of this as an exaple, now we can actually have it...

Found another Impi named: Haphazard in my notes...

 

[smackster]

Wonderful news, DH! Especially love the news we have Magellans. Now we can have a 8 move transport lane between two cities from New Smackster and to the "indian" land with 2 Caravels and ship hopping... I posted a map of this as an exaple, now we can actually have it...

Found another Impi named: Haphazard in my notes...

N, G, H, but is Capt. Buttkick, C or B?

I think the first wave will go straight over, although it depends how quickly I can build the Caravels. I assume we'll be short of Caravels, and will only do the ship hopping once we get short of troops, and so can get the reserves over quicker.

I'll also send those two Caravels, to southern Inida, to take away some of the heat.

 

[dmanakho]

@DH: it looks like you haven't uploaded the save file yet...
And congrats with building Maggelans, it will really help us....
You've been a great warrior as usually

 

[DeceasedHorse]

Whoops, forgot that I had already posted before uploading. Sorry about that, had to take the dog to the vet, which is somewhat difficult because he doesn't seem to understand concepts like momentum and inertia when riding in the car.

 

[DeceasedHorse]

I am certain that I played 10 turns. I immediatly switched to research on Navigation @4, then completed six turns of minimum research on Music Theory. I probably just got mixed up on one of the later turns when all I was trying to shuffle are army over to the east without using too many Go-To commands and pissing off Wotan

edit/and here is some more pictures.

Speaking of turn increments, I would like us to consider switching to five turn sets. Turns take a long, long time, although on the other hand we are relatively close to victory and I probably won't be up again so I suppose it doesn't matter in the end.

edit2/ Regarding worker efficieny: I'm not sure that I agree with Wotan on this. While using, for example, 2 workers to build a road does waste worker turns, it also gets the road built a turn earlier. While it is clearly preferable to use the most efficent number of workers for the task (Using the same example, 3 workers when building roads as pre-replacable parts non-industrious civilization) slowing the construction of tile improvements merely to maximize the efficeny of what is ultimately an abstract concept does not seem to be always a positive thing. I am not saying that workers should be used in groups that are clearly ineffecient for a task, like sending a group of three to irrigate a square, only that I would rather, in most cases, get one plains tile irrigated in two turns rather than have two tiles irrigated in four. Unless the city has multiple bonus tiles (settler factory) it simply will not be needing the second tile immediatly, whereas the extra food point is immediatly useful.

I am somewhat suprised that we have so few workers relative to the number of cities we have, but again this likely to my inexperiance with ICS strategies. The variant rules are also a large factor in our worker count, to be sure; since we cannot capture cities we have been building settlers non-stop, so population units that normally could have been workers, and the enormous amounts of slaves we have captured are not useable.

 

[Tarkeel]

Go-to commands are fine as long as they don't extend beyond your turn

Rename is also very handy to tell what an explorer/ship/other special unit is supposed to be doing.

 

[smackster]

I am certain that I played 10 turns. I immediatly switched to research on Navigation @4, then completed six turns of minimum research on Music Theory. I probably just got mixed up on one of the later turns when all I was trying to shuffle are army over to the east without using too many Go-To commands and pissing off Wotan

If you could put the year with each turn number then there should be no confusion.

Speaking of turn increments, I would like us to consider switching to five turn sets. Turns take a long, long time, although on the other hand we are relatively close to victory and I probably won't be up again so I suppose it doesn't matter in the end.

I think at this stage each player can make their own decision. If 5 turns takes too long a time, then stop and post the save here, for the next player. I think its good for the team to review the situation at this stage to maximise our end. I will start to play tonight and see how it goes, I'll play 10 if its not too bad, otherwise 5.

I am somewhat suprised that we have so few workers relative to the number of cities we have, but again this likely to my inexperiance with ICS strategies. The variant rules are also a large factor in our worker count, to be sure; since we cannot capture cities we have been building settlers non-stop, so population units that normally could have been workers, and the enormous amounts of slaves we have captured are not useable.

We had enough workers to make our cores look good, and beyond that building extra workers is probably a waste. As you say in a normal game with slaves we would have a lot of free extras. I think that is the difference. Certainly makes this stage go quicker when you don't have so many.

 

[smackster]

MapStat says
Rome 34.8% of land with 24.9% unclaimed, America/Germany 2%. India for example have 8%, so we may need a little over half their land.

 

[dmanakho]

It will be hard to claim all tiles on barbs island because of all those mountains...
But on the other hand we can get extra sea tiles between our main continent and barbs land since many of them fall under our area of influence with temples built.

 

[Wotan]

Go-To commands and pissing off Wotan

just when they continue into next players turns and you end up watching units move into exposed situations wo the ability to do anything about it...

 

[Wotan]

I would rather, in most cases, get one plains tile irrigated in two turns rather than have two tiles irrigated in four.

It is always a question of how many Workers you have available and what you need to do. If you are low on workers I assume you try to make the most of them, if they are plenty you can be more lax with how you use them. Also, you have to consider the importance of each worker task when allocating them. I was just trying to express an opinion on how to maximize the output of worker actions. Not micro manage them. But when 5 workers are mining a mine in a mountain it does look like you have misused them, (or 3 irrigate a tile) And, if the tile has a road in it the question of using 1, 2 or 4 to irrigate it is just a question of how fast you need it...

 

[Wotan]

Impi named Alweth in DH's 950AD save.

Edit: saw a reference to it in DH's report too.

If PTW have not disrupted Mad-Bax intentions we have N, G, H, A and C or B. So I guess this is not what it is supposed to be. PTW might have corrected spelling so capital letters only appear at the beginning of a word. It might be we need to wait for MB's input before analyzing this further.

 

[smackster]

It will be hard to claim all tiles on barbs island because of all those mountains...
But on the other hand we can get extra sea tiles between our main continent and barbs land since many of them fall under our area of influence with temples built.

Only coastal squares count towards domination, not sea squares.

I've met Alweth and he has 6 horsemen and 8 warriors with him, and now they are coming out way.

 

[smackster]

T0 950AD
Turn slider down to 0%, hire some entertainers/taxmen, we get another 40GPT, seems worth it.

IBT Alweth and his stack of troops come our way. Barbs sack a city, but take only 1 Gold.

T1 960AD
Rush 6 Caravels, and we already have about 25 Cavalry at New Smackster. The armada will go soon for sure. Also build the southern fleet to attack there first. Rushed one Settler. Still needs stacks of these, and need them to go India obviously. So will start to rush more of them.
Fleet of two Japanese arrive near our core, we put 3 Cavalry in place ready for them.

IBT Alweth troops attack but they are beaten back

T2 970AD
Continue to move troops to the front. Rush some more Caravels, nearer to New Smackster, rush some settlers.

IBT Japs drop a Samurai on hadrians within reach of one of our cities, nothing I can do it will go, rushing Cavarly over there. Will push some more workers over there so we can road it and defend it.

T3 980AD
Move troops to defend our city but its no good, it will go.

IBT Samurai trashes our city, but dies on his second attack on our legion. Clearly we have to protect Hadrains well.

T4 990AD
Ankka, is seen.
Nearly have the Armada in place. Well at least the first wave.

IBT America drop a Cavarly off on Hadrians, but we dispatch it with our Cavalry. 2 Jap Caravels near the channel, we have 5 Cavalry waiting now.

T5 1000AD
12 Caravels in place and full next turn. The southern 2 Caravels set off.

IBT Aztecs drop off 3 Cavalry, 2 Impi and a Longbow in our core. Luckily we can call on 6 Cavalry in that core and kill all but the longbow. It appears they will keep coming at our palace core, so we'll leave the Cavalry in and around that area.

T6 1010AD
Will hold the Caravels for one more turn, waiting for settlers.

T7 1020AD
Armada on its way, I think 15 Caravels full of Army, Cavarly, Muskets, Settlers

IBT This time Japan drop four Samurai on a mountain next to our city on Hadrians. We have Cavalry there, but its probably better to abandon the city and draw them out into the open.

T8 1030AD
Arrive outside Madras, and wait. Want to land both north and south forces on the same turn. Draw attacks both ways. We have to abandon Marching Mountains, pull the Cavalry back and will let the Japs come to us

IBT3 Samurai move close to our city on Hadrians, we have one shot with two Cavalry and a Longbow

T9 1040AD
Main force arrives outside Madras, unloads on mountain. Madras has a Galley, luckily no Rifle. The news gets better, the southern group arrive outside Calcutta which also has a Musket, but Hyderbad only spearmen.
40 troops in the northern group, 6 in southern. I think Tarkeel is going to have a fun set of turns.

Cavalry attack the Samurai on Hadrians. One dies, one kills, the longbow dies. Two Cavalry left in city, 2 Samurai left damaged. It will be a close one. More coming but can't get there in time.

Japan build a city on our continent, and we raze it.

Aztecs drop another load in our core and we kill them.

IBT We brace for the massive Indian retaliation, we see an Elephant move, damn forgot about them, it attacks, we are lucky it retreats with only one damage on our Musket. We brace for more, we spy a worker move, then its onto the next civ. Is that it????????????????

Japan drops another stack to the north of our continent, the army may be in range, a few Cavalry in the area.

On hadrians, the Samurai attack and both die, phew.

T10 1050AD

Unconventional but I'll not play this turn, its 2.00am and I have to sleep sometime. In a way its better for Tarkeel to run with the full attack.

So over to Tarkeel.

 

[smackster]

Sorry for the wide one, too late to reduce, 40 in that stack.

 

[smackster]

42% of land now, 18.6% unclaimed, 1.1% America.

Its slow going getting settlers to the front, but have been rushing them as soon as I can, even joining workers to size 2 cities so they can generate another settler.

 

[Wotan]

No Omaha beach then but more like "Utah resistance", well done Smackster. We are ashore and there to stay. I guess the fact we have to raise every city we take prolongs the game more than I took into account when setting a target for game end at 1000AD. I am not certain Jason will take this into account after all. Maybe Conquest would have been possible to get a better "end ratio" vs. Jason than going after Domination. There might be a "hidden" handicap in the raise/rebuild feature of this game that gives Jason a disadvantage to those teams aiming at dom. Still we are pretty close to dom, possibly closer than conquest anyway. So maybe Dmanakho will be the one to end this game and not Tarkeel.

BTW, put down the first city on the new continent at the tile just SE of Madras. Then we have the best possible troop transport distance between New Smackster and the new continent.

 

[Tarkeel]

I see it, might just play 5-6 though. Will see when I start playing later tonight. Have quite a lot to do over the next few days, but I want to lead the charge

Oh, how I wish we'd had time to get rails :bonk:

Smackster, looks like you had some notepad lineshift problems in your turnlog.. Might want to go over and clean it.