SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[Wotan]

A few possible RCP6 locations (red/White) not showing on last map. 1,2,4 and 6 will give us the area with 3 and 5 as fill-ins if we want them. (1 is on last map as are all red dots.)

Edit: And a small note on the use of Workers. I guess this is not really needed but just in case someone have missed it. There are two workers north of the horses. Olny move one of them into horses tile to road it not both! Two workers take three turns, first move into the tile then two turns to build road. One worker takes four turns, first move into the tile then three turns to road it. So move them to different tiles to get two roads in four turns instead of only one in three turns. Never use two workers to build a road as it cost 3 turns, we lose 1 workers turn each time we do this and workers are a limiting factor at the moment.

 

[Tarkeel]

I see it and will play it soon

 

[smackster]

First of all, well played Smackster!

@Smackster: France and America was not contacted only "discovered" before your turns. In DH writeup he stated that when Babylon contacted him he contacted Germany, England and Russia. Never France and America first contact with them was when you contacted them and in that order.

All that talk of what contact means, and I still get it wrong. Sorry yes I contacted, more by luck than judgement I got America first, then France, as I always start at the bottom of the dip screen

France being our neighbour this may really help us.

A few comments re. city placement: (See map below) Settler at 1A/1B should go to either of these instead of settling in place. Prefer starting with 1A and settle 1B later. Two things gained from this. 1. We have a coastal city with full use of water after harbour is built. 2. We can get two cities in the area, (both coastal).
I have also added a number of other locations to the map.
[/IMG]

I agree with 1A, much better than where I was going, and thanks for doing the map

The Pyramids is already starting to kick in on our score, and we have a curve in the graph, should start scaring the other teams.

 

[smackster]

As we are about to get Legionaires, I say that it is up to the next players as to when we take our GA. Normally I'd wait but feel in this game, its worth taking it, we can use it to wipe out Greece, and that will give us good breathing room as we don't have to fight France for a long time.

 

[Wotan]

@Smackster: I agree on using Legionaries even if (or maybe to get) an early GA is the result. This game is special in many ways and an early GA might give us an edge to build from.

 

[dmanakho]

I hope we get lucky and some of the AIs will open embassy with us,
otherwise we won't be able to build military aliances, and opposite can happen when AIs we are currently at war with signs MAs against us with other AIs with snow ball effect.

 

[dmanakho]

I downloaded the save to look at and noticed there is a city without barracks currently buliding legionnaire... I hope Tarkeel will notice it and switch it to barracks 1st... We don't really want to build regular units, or do we?

 

[Tarkeel]

Sorry, but won't have time to play it today Will get it done first thing tomorrow probably though.

 

[smackster]

I downloaded the save to look at and noticed there is a city without barracks currently buliding legionnaire... I hope Tarkeel will notice it and switch it to barracks 1st... We don't really want to build regular units, or do we?

Feel free to change it, I feel with Babylon coming at us now, and Greece probably ready to send some more now that we might need one more Legion (even a regular one) before the barracks.

 

[smackster]

Contacts

READ THIS M-B in the maintenance thread has just clarified the date of when you should declare war after a contact made IBT, to the latter date. For example we got IBT contact with Babylon in 1750 and should have declared war at that time, but the 20 turn clock starts in 1725 (the next turn), I have adjusted the dates below.

Important point, declare war on Germany, next turn, you we can still trade with them for one more turn.

Declare war with Germany 1225BC
Do not get into per turn deals with England, they are next

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

Note 50 yrs / turn 4000->2750, 40 yrs / turn 2750->1750 25 yrs / turn 1750->750, 20 yrs / turn 750BC->250AD, 10 yrs / turn 250AD->?

 

[Tarkeel]

SGOTM 03

(0) 1250 BC
Fortify spear and move warrior under it.
Switch Pompeii to Armamentarium.

(1) 1225 BC
Neapolis: Worker->Worker
Move settlers to 1A and hill.
Declare on Germany

(2) 1200 BC
Lux to 20%
Found Pisae on 1A
Found Ravenna on hill
4/4 Archer vs 3/3 Bowman -> 3/3 Bowman

IBT:
3/3 Bowman vs 4/4 Spear -> 2/4 Spear
Russians start Great Library

(3) 1175 BC
Antium: Settler->Settler
Veii: Legionary->Legionary
France, England, Russia, America has literature and England and France has CoL.

(5) 1125 BC
Pompeii: Armamentarium -> Horse
France will take WM+90g for literature, which costs about 160-180 to reasearch. Done deal.
Our economy is rather shot, so I set a 40 turn on Polytheism (can get in 36 at 30%, max before deficit)
Change Veii and Cumae to horse.
4/4 Archer vs 3/3 Hoplite


IBT:
English start Great Library

(6) 1100 BC
Neapolis: Worker->Worker
Chop forest at Pisae

(7) 1075 BC
Veii: Horse->Worker
Set a lone scientist in Veii for one turn, as worker will complete in 1 anyways.

IBT:
French, Americans and Russians start Great Library

(8) 1050 BC
Cumae: Horse-> Horse
Err, what sounded like mining completing in 1, was actually roading. Change to spear, due in 1 with MP.
Found Hispalis on SE Horses.
4/4 Archer vs 3/3 Archer -> 4/4 Archer
4/4 Horse vs 3/3 Hoplite -> 3/5 Horse

IBT:
FP is now available
3/3 Bowman vs 3/3 Warrior in mountain -> 3/3 Warrior

(9) 1025 BC
Veii: Spear->Worker
Do some MP shuffling.

IBT:
Babylon and Russians start Great Library

(10) 1000 BC
Veii: Worker->Horse
5/5 Archer* vs 3/3 Warrior -> 5/5 Archer

Pompeii and Cumae can borrow Antium's spare game every second turn as it is now.

Summary:
We have a settler in place to found the next city
Make sure Antium works both games next round
I have mianly built horses, both to delay GA and because they are much more surviveable and thus good for leader fishing.
Forest chop at Pisa should finish in 1 turn, and complete the barracks there.
Veii has 10 shields now, and can pump out horses or legionaries.
The worker in the SE is building a road to the frontline for better supplies.

Firaxis: 224
Jason: 110
>>Save<<

 

[dmanakho]

Allright,
Looks like it is my turn to play again.
I can start immediatelly but i woud like to wait for the team members to provide me with some feedbacks, strategy and tactical plans...
Looks like we are behind in building GL and in the current situation our only luck to get it before AI is by fishing another MGL, which is while a lottery but still better chance than by building it ourselves.
I guess I will keep science research at minimum level at this point. It will be cheaper to buy. And at this point we should be looking to research/buy monarchy and revolt to the new form of government. Republic is probably not a best choice at this point since we are going to be at war for next millenium and our infrastructure is too weak to support big army and keep our people happy.
Any thoughts and suggestions????
I think i will start playing at aroung 6PM EST (-5 GMT). Currently, it is 11:45 AM EST here.

Cheers!!!

 

[Tarkeel]

If we wanted to handbuild the library, we should have started ages ago. our only chance now is a MGL and rushing it, or going without it.

 

[dmanakho]

Tarkeel,
I noticed you never built legions...
Do you want to postpone GA until we change government was there another reason???

 

[Tarkeel]

I have mianly built horses, both to delay GA and because they are much more surviveable and thus good for leader fishing.

We would need some horses anyways, for scouting and mobility. They also upgrade very well, so they are usable in the future too.

 

[dmanakho]

Oops, i have read your turns, but missed wasn't careful in reading last paragraphs....
I concur, we do need few horses, plus those are good to cover emergency situations when we need fast troop movement on larger distances.
I will try to keep balance between building horses and legions...
At this point legion is our best defence unit, lets see how it goes... I hope other teammates will post before i start this game.

 

[Tarkeel]

As for government, I don't think we have much choice. We have 2 native luxes, so republic would be hard to keep happy. With monarchy we won't have to worry about WW, but are missing out on the free commerce.

 

[Wotan]

@Tarkeel: Good turns!

@dmanakho: Two things I might have changed, first move the Elite horse onto mountain to get protection from Spearman. Second, shift Ravenna to produce a Worker. Future Settlers, please check my City placement maps above for potential locations. Maybe start with location 2 on second map? And keep your fingers crossed we get a GL to build the GL with

Edit: Just had a second look at the map. The elite horse is on a mountain already, not in a forest. The river and mountain should be enough defense bonus to keep him alive if Greek horse attack, but he is in a better position under the spearman's protection...

 

[smackster]

General comments I like building the horses, looks like our enemies are not posing much threat anyway right now.

GA and Monarchy

Ideally we would get into Monarchy before the GA, but if any player needs to win with a Legion, then they should do it. Not sure if we can actually wait until we get Monarchy before we start to clear out Greece, I mean we would need Legions to do that. We also could do with another leader or two, and we'll only get that with more elite wins.

So I suggest we carry on for now, building mainly horses and some legions, and when we have enough start to move on Greece, with max priority to elite wins (i.e. only attack damaged troops with elites, with horses attacking we should get a lot of that).

Tech research

You know, I'd probably do a Poly gambit right now, we can get it in 11 turns (probably less as we expand), although we might get beaten to it, we could buy it and trade it if that happens. For one thing our trading turns are slowly coming to an end as we declare war on each civ (it would be good to get Poly before we declare on England). Getting to Chivalry should be our prime goal, and clearing enough of the map as we can with Knights to put us in a position to win. There are actually only 7 techs to go (not counting Monarchy) to Chivalry.

One thing we might consider changing on the map, is to build a settler in Cumae, as its not growing already. That is my general rule if a city stops growing, pump out a settler or worker.

Final points I'd like to put the next set of cities north / north east of Veii, and I think it is time to clear out Thermoplyae

 

[dmanakho]

Ok. First I am providing with the new map and then you can read my write-ups below.

Ok, I have finally played my game.
I had changed couple of things before I advanced to the next turn. First, t I switched to worker in Cumae and it will be ready next turn.

Second, I swapped Spearman and Elite horseman positions at the southern mountains.
I figured horsemen are really weak at defense so if Greek horseman attacks he has good chances to kill our 4hp elite horseman. If I move spearman one tile to protect vet horseman and move our elite horseman one tile to hide it behind vet archer. Now Greek horseman will most likely attack archer and even if Greeks win we will lose cheap archer instead of expensive horse plus because there is another unit hiding behind archer Greek horse won’t be able to move to mountain and will be left on the open field most likely wounded to become easy prey.

Technology wise I decided not to pursue Polytheism, and before smackster smacks me I think it was a right decision, well… I think it was… please read below.



T1: 975BC. My predictions were almost right. Greek horseman attacks our archer and kills. Darn… too bad it was promoted to elite and managed to hide in Thermopylae. (We’ve got to destroy that city 1st)… well… at least horsemen are alive.
Viroconium is founded and immediately switched to barracks to be ready in 10 turns.
Cumae builds worker -> dispatched worker to mine BG, switched to legion

T2: 950BC Pisae builds barracks thanks to forest cleanup; switched to spearman until road is ready, and then we can switch to either horseman or legion. Nobody has polytheism yet.


T3: 925BC: Arrghh!! Infamous elite Greek horseman shows up again together with archer…
I have 2 horsemen fortified and defended behind spearman… I am waiting on what Greeks are going to do next... I have to take them to the clear field; don’t want to risk attacking in mountains or across the river. Everything else is clear… Workers work, AIs are busy researching some unknown technologies. Oh, and settler arrives to the new city location. I know smackster wanted to start building cities up north, but I hope you guys will forgive me. I decided to send settler south and create new city on the red dot next to the wheat across Greek City of Thermopylae... I think this new city will be a good starting point to siege Thermopylae, plus it’s a good strategic location to stop Greeks sorties and restrict their freedom of movements. Oh, and another point, we already have road to that city,
Oh and another yet, it’s on RCP3 that means it will have little corruption and become a quite productive in not time.

T4: 900BC I have to attack bloody Greeks… If I don’t do it now I will have stop worker that is mining BG and hide it behind the city walls. That means losing many turns…
Our vet horse attacks Greek elite horse sitting on top of mountain. Yes!Yes!Yes!!... Our horseman is redlined but wins the battle. Our elite horseman attacks Greek archer and kills.
It is 2:1 in our favor so far. New southern city of Lugdunum (another weird name) is founded. Immediately switch to barrack to be ready in 7 turns. I promise next settler will go north.

T5: 875BC Crap, I forgot to mention but there was single Bab’s bowman approaching Veii. I didn’t pay much attention but guess what, it has redlined our horseman and I only have one spearman protecting Veii and Archer protecting Wine hill and road to Iron hill.
Too bad Bab’s bowman is located on our mine and if he decides to pillage it will cost us shields and turns to rebuild… I don’t think I have choice though… I am afraid to attack, If I attack and lose Bowman can move to our wine hill and do even worse pillaging, plus it will be promoted to veteran, so I fortify, next turn Veii will have new horseman built..
T6: 850BC. Ha!Ha!Ha!!. Stupid Babylonian… Instead of pillaging it saw that Ravenna has no garrison… it decided to move towards Ravenna… Our just built horseman attacks and kills stupid bowman. Veii switches to legion.
I dispatch 2 workers to road our second lux… I really don’t want to use luxury slider if I can provide to some luxuries early. Actually, I don’t remember if I dispatched workers during this turn or earlier... I didn’t put it in to my handwritten notes while I was playing and now I don’t remember when exactly it happened...

T7: 825BC. Okay, now I read my handwritten notes and it says second lux was connected at this turn.. So go figure… Settler arrived to the new location up north…
Everything else is clear. Defeated Greeks are not showing up anymore.

T8: 800BC. Town of Lutetia is founded up north, immediately switched to barracks.
I am going to send a legion to that town. We will declare war quite soon and I want that city to be protected, I am also going to send 2 workers to road and do some tile improvements.
English are our northern neighbors, they will attack soon after we declare war, and we have to have some troops up there. Cumae is also building legion, but we may want to switch to horse for the reason I provided below. I hope I founded this city in the right RCP6 location. I would be really embarrassed if I was wrong in my calculations…

Oh!!!!.... Americans have polytheism and nobody else has it… I decided to buy it.. Americans give Poly for 13Gpt and 284Gold..
Well, expensive but we will take it… I immediately sell Poly to every other AI on the same turn. Now we have all missing technologies plus some money in return… our science adviser tells me we are scientifically advanced nation…
That is nice to hear…
I think that even we gave americans so much money we managed to buy Code of laws and map making in exchange of Poly plus money and some maps... So in overal, i hope i had a good deal... I must admit i suck at making deals and haggles, everytime i need to do new car shopping i have nightmares . Well at least in this game there are no haggles and everything has a sticker price.

I believe now it’s time to follow smackster's advice and go for Monarchy gambit… I invest all money we have in researching Monarchy, we have some budget deficit, but I hope once our cities grow and we found new cities deficit will decrease and in 20 turns we will get back our 13gpt we give to Americans. I will let to the next player to decide what to do, but I figured if we manage to postpone our GA for another 20 turns, then revolt to monarchy while building some massive legion armies we will be unstoppable once Roman Monarchy enters golden age. That means we need to build more horses at this moment, may be we can switch some of the legions I am currently building to horses.

T9: 775BC. Veii builds legion and I am sending it to Lutetia, switch to horseman.
All coasts are clear otherwise.

T10: 750BC. Alert! Possible danger!!!! Troop activity inside Thermopylae.. I noticed that Hoplite entered city… I wonder what those Greeks are up to, they were awfully calm in past few turns.
I am sending 2 workers to northern region for land improving around Lutetia.

That’s all folks…

I think we are in pretty good shape. We have 4 towns finishing barracks in 1 or 2 turns…
We have 5 more towns already producing military units, so we should be quite okay if we manage to keep low profile for a little while and defend our land with little losses.
And that also means quite soon we will be able to produce large amount of troops in short notice.

I have just one thought though, is there any way to declare war on Russians before we declare war on English... English are our neighbors and it looks like Russians are far away. So it would be easier to have war with far away AI than with the one who is next door…
I am not quite sure if we can switch it, but if we can I reckon it would be a good idea.


Cheers!!!

EDIT: Greeks probably have map making, that means they will be able to use galleys and attack our shore cities from the sea... We should keep at least one unit garrisoned in each Pisae and Viroconuim. I never thought about it and it's something i just came up with.

MORE EDITS: That single warrior down south, I meant to send him to the closest city with barracks for upgrade... And i forgot to mention, our nothern warrior scout managed to enter Babylonian land and pillage their gem resourses... Ha!! Ha!! It will take Hammuraby another 20 turns to put road to that mountain
I really hope Joannie opens embassy in our capital, it would be such a good idea to have a little flirt with our french girl, give her a sweet deals and whatever else she desires to start war against babs and germans... But oh well.....there are little chances, and it looks at this point we are not getting GL either.... I'd say KILL 'EM ALL

MORE MORE EDITS:
Our firaxis score is 278, and we are somewhat in the middle comparing to other AIs.
I guess it won't hurt if i also upload my save file and here is the link:
>>HERE<<