SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[dmanakho]

All well thought ideas... and yes we will need libraries...
but i think we will need marketplaces sooner than we need libraries..
I suggest starting market places one (may be two a little later) at at time in core cities, then do libraries next round.
We also can do short-rushing markers and libraries since we have a nice cash flow coming in.

 

[smackster]

RE: Navigation/The Great Lighthouse.
Like I said, it has been my experiance, at least in the more recent GOTM's that i've actually played in, that it is usually not neccessary to build the Great Lighthouse or get navigation in order to get contact with othe continents because of how the maps are edited. I do not know if this is the case in the earlier GOTM's like the one this is based on.

Agreed that we can probably get the contacts without it, but I think we probably need Navigation for an invasion of what appears to be another continent, with 3 contacts on it. I'm just guessing that we need to get to that continent for a domination win.

 

[smackster]

All well thought ideas... and yes we will need libraries...
but i think we will need marketplaces sooner than we need libraries..

Yes, we don't need libraries until we start to research again, which is likely to be some time from now. So just before Education is researched, it would be nice if a couple of libraries are built. Now when will that be?

 

[dmanakho]

Oh, and just to defend my idea of prolonging GL life...
We may want to intentionally not to search contact with those 3 AIs on another continent. They will contact us eventially probably by the time they have all late MA techs. Since we will probably try to use lower branch to get MT, we won't have many of upper techs. We will get them all for free even those past education when AIs from the other side contact us themselves..
I used this trick in few of my games.
It all of course dependes how soon we annihilate our continent, if it happens before we research MT we can simply start our own research towards navigation, so it won't change much. All we will miss is the knowledge of the rest of the world, which we don't really need at this point. It will rather hurt us simply because we will have to declare war on the 1st AI from other side immmediately and then that other AI will probably just sign MA against us...
Plus, if we anihhilate our continent before we find another one, those guys overseas won't know nothing about our trashed reputation and we will be able trash it one more time with profit

EDIT: This is a special game... Remember like at the very beginning we tried to avoid contacts with AIs... i think we should do the same at this point and try to postpone contact with Ais on other side of the world

 

[dmanakho]

Now when will that be?

I doub't it will happen soon.. We are getting stronger with every turn and AIs getting weaker, their research will be slowing down more and more so.....
it may take some time

 

[dmanakho]

There... here we go.... I am sorry.... I am really sorry...

And no, I was not defeated, and we haven't lost a single city, but I must give my personal apology to DH and rest of the team. My previous message didn't make any sense and was based on the wrong assumptions... I will run ahead of my story, but I must say I was really pissed of when on my 10th turn while checking F4 screen I realized that Lincoln had made contact with civilizations abroad, and all this time I kept my galleys in our own waters without research... As a result, we still don't have chivalry and I am wondering if those unknown and now well known to our enemy tribes know secrets of chivalry... We must send our galleys immediately to find those lands, although we did lost 9 turns.... Well, since you guys are too far from here I will be kicking my butt myself.

But here goes my story... I wasn't doing much but playing the game, had to fight battles in two different directions. Our northern frontier was the busy one and occupied most of my time. Our southern neighbor Alex used mountains to sneak attack with archers from time to time and we had to keep forces to dodge those attacks while taking out Greek cities.

T1: 70AD. Our then most northern cities of Jerusalem and Caesaraugusta completed building city walls to protect our citizens against evil enemy forces. We didn’t see much going on, our horse killed lone Bab’s swordsman. Did some MMing, checked F4, dispatched units and workers around.

T2: 90AD. Boring, Boring, Boring… Moving units around again, killed couple of Babs, another Greek horse…

T3 110AD. Babs bowman and French Swordsman attacked our Horses, well… they both died. Our brave soldiers will see another sunrise. Palace splash… it’s getting better… we could really live there, five of us… well we would need some women though….yes, that’s what we would need.
Oh, where was I…..Seleucia was founded in tundra, just filling up spaces I guess, there is a game nearby, so some food will be provided to citizen. Artaxata is founded; I believe will become a part of future FP cities ring.
Now the fun part, Caesar was falling asleep when his generals reported troops are ready to storm a great city of Paris, home of French queen Joan. Caesar commanded to attack… Our brave troops burned Paris to the ground. We have no single loss… To celebrate this even we sacrificed French slaves in ritual bonfire. Caesar wasn’t happy though, our generals didn’t bring us the most desired gift – head of Joan the French.
Caesar was going to quit for the day when a courier brought news… Our troops surrounded Greek city of Delphi…. Just kill them all said Caesar and asked to bring him some Tylenol… He had a head-ache.
Guess what we raised Delphi and had another sacrificial bonfire… Our troops didn’t lose a single unit… But it was just a beginning of much bigger and fiercer wars.
While falling asleep Caesar could not figure out why all the tribes in known world seem to dislike him… He could not stop thinking about it and was only able to fall asleep when sun showed up on the horizon and next day arrived.

T4: 130 AD. Germans wanted audience but Caesar had such a bad night and headache still bothered him, He simply ignored German leader, plus nobody in Roman Empire seemed to understand German dialect… It all sounded like Bar-Bar-Bar to Caesar… therefore we will call them all Barbarians decided on.
Some unknown courier brought news that some unknown tribe that calls itself Japanese have built Light House...
Another person came and said that our golden ages are over…. Too bad... our income fell to 31GPT. And the usual news… we killed eng. Spear, we killed Gr. Archer. We lost a legion to a lone but lucky Gr. Archer… We killed Gr. Hoplite.

T5: 150AD. We kill 3 English troops. We seem to have lost luck hunting Gr. Archers… We lost another 4hp legion to 2hp archer. What do we see here – an American spearman... We haven’t seen Lincoln troops approaching our land yet. Well…. He has no place here, dispatched horse and killed American.

T6: 170AD. We founded new city with I can’t pronounce its name – Aurelianorum. This will become our new northern frontier. Here we shall keep many troops to protect our land. And just west from this city we founded another yet city with funny name – Hippo Regrus… I switched both cities to build city walls just in case. One day they will become parts of FP cities ring. Sending another settler to the new spot next to the English city of Dover… Ah, those English, they didn’t bother as much, but I think it will be soon when we have to deal with them…

T7: 190 AD. Just usual news: We retreat after Fr. Swordsman attacks our horse. Bab’s bowman attacks our horse and dies. Greek arch attacks our legion and also dies. Leg kills English spear and sacrifices enslaved settler.
City of Nicopolis is founded on former Greek Soil. It will be a source of our next luxury.
Bad news: we lost a legion to English spear. We killed that spear with second unit. F4 is clear, I wonder if chivalry will ever be invented. Our troops are ready to attack new French capital – Lyons.

T8: 210AD Wow!!! I mean Wow!!! German army arrived…
Full blown German sword army…. Just 4 tiles north-east from Aurelianorum
Crap, I guess I will have to postpone trip to Joanie… Collected few more troops in Aurelianorum. Waiting….. Nothing goes on our southern frontier…

T9: 230AD Londinium founded… If it is Roman for London then I have placed it really smart… right between Dover and Oxford… We will use this as an outpost to start clearing lands from English barbarians.
We raised Greek city of Corinth. Alex has only 2 cities left at this time and for Caesar time came to deal with German Armies… Our generals realized that Germans brought not just army but 5 more units and some American allies, but little did they know about how mighty our catapults are… 4 catapults stroked German army and destroyed half of it… Our brave horses prepared to attack next…. Veteran horse attacks first, and Caesar can’t believe his own eyes, German army falls dead….
Caesar heard stories and legends about parallel universe called conquests and listened to many stories about how mighty armies are in that parallel world. He never saw an army himself, but he is certainly not afraid of them anymore. The rest of our horses easily killed all allied units that Germans and Americans brought. We are preparing to attack English city Dover and we keep collecting forces to attack Greek city Mycenae. Those hoplites are tough and city is located on top of hill, makes our soldiers more vulnerable to Greek defenders.

T10. 250AD Crap, Crap, Crap American and English galleys landed troops near our City of Neocaledonium. I will have to postpone attacking Dover but rather dispatch some troops to defend empty Neocaledonium. Catapults attack first, we shave 1hp from American sword but we do no damage to English longbow.
We attack, American is dead, but English elite bow kills our veteran legion and we only take 1hp of that guy. Our last spare legion attacks and we kill English bowman.
Many many German troops came from north-west, currently they are all located 2 tiles west from Aurelianorum, I had a horse outside city borders from the previous turn so I saw them coming. I moved horse back into city can’t see Germans there, but they have 7 units, including swords, archers and pikes… plus there are 2 Americans… I am sure they will show up next turn. We have quite few troops and catapults in Aurelianorum and I have short rushed city walls just in case. I looked at F4 and the rest of the story you guys have read at the very beginning… Now we need to move galleys west to find those tribes and hope that they have chivalry… I was hoping we will be able to postpone this meeting and pretend we have a good reputation and manners, but I guess we will be at war with another yet world soon.


I guess Greeks will be gone in next few turns and we won’t have those over-stretched frontlines anymore… We will need to build more settlers to fill in the gaps down south.
All cities that I built that can only produce 1 shield due to corruption I switched to courthouses… since it takes long time to build either courthouse or library feel free to change my orders at any time… I just didn’t see much sense of what else to build in those cities at a moment. I made a mistake sending 3 workers up north to mine after they put road to the new city… That city is corrupted so I just wasted turns and 3 workers… They should be done next turn I believe and we can send them to put road to Londinium. I guess we lost too many turns already not researching chivalry, and now I am not sure whether it is worth to research it or just fight with what we have and keep waiting. At the moment Horsemen do okay job, but we yet to see a city defended by pikemen. (Well, we kind of saw Greeks with hoplites already…). It just would be so much faster with knights….

It's almost 11pm and i want to sleep.... well i still have to download save and maps... will do in the next post below.

We have 656 Points at the end of my turn and here is link to save

That’s all folks!!!

 

[dmanakho]

OUR NORTH:

OUR SOUTH:

 

[smackster]

Good progress, don't worry about the contacts, you might as well send the galleys home, there is a very good chance they will buy our contact before you can get there. In my experience a continent with few civs (I think there are three left) will not be ahead in tech, so its unlikely they would have Chivalry, and if they did America would trade for it and we'd soon get it anyway.

I do wish we'd started on Chivalry eariler, I almost think we should start to research it but out of our GA it will take 14 turns at -29GPT. I think we just have to wait it out and there is nothing we can do about it.

Some points I note looking at the save

1) We need to build some more settlers to fill out the SE, that will really help our score and is what the other teams will be doing, they will catch our score unless we keep spreading

2)In any city that is not growing (and there are at least 6 now) work out why its not growing, and either fix it (build aquaduct/irrigate), or build a settler/worker, otherwise we are wasting growth potential. Lugdunum is a classic example, full food box, size 6 not growing, build a worker/settler and in one turn it will be back to size 6/5.
Personally I feel we have a little too many mines, if we were micromanagers we'd count the shields and get them on boundaries (5/10) for each city, but as we are not then just build a little more irrigation. More irrigation = more growth = more settler = more people = higher score, without effecting the military too much of course.

3) Try not to build culture buildings just for growth, build a settler and grow the culture expansion through settling. I assume that is why for example Viroconium is building a library, as its only size 3, and not growing. I'd change that to a harbor and let it grow.
The exception to this is any city on the coast, that can only get more land (or rather coast/sea) through culture expansion.

4) Keep building horses, we seem to be building a little too many Legions. Don't worry about losing them, just keep pumping them out.

5) Next leader for the FP, that we really need now.

edit : 6) One last thing, try not to sleep any troops in either cities or open at the end of your turn, as its hard for the other player to find them. For example Nicopolis

 

[smackster]

The Roster

smackster
Tarkeel
dmanahko (just played)
Wotan (playing)
DeceasedHorse (next up)

 

[smackster]

Contacts

Next contact we get, diplomacy first, and then declare war.

I suggest we also get all the contacts at that point so that we at least have a few more turns of trading again.

 

[Wotan]

Got it! Will play today, just off to the office first for a quick checkup of events there.

@Smackster: Re. your six points, we are as always in total agreement. Will of course do so. As to the point w. non-aqueduct cities (and future non-hospital cities) always build a Worker/Settler when it approaches size 6/12 to keep it "growing".

 

[Tarkeel]

Another thing, all cities outside RCP10 should be fully irrigated. Those will be corrupt anyways, and should only build aqueduct and market imho. Apart from that I mostly agree with you smackster, except that some cities need culutre since there won't be any on the outside of them, Viroconium is one of those IIRC.

Try to shave workers of the largest cities, we need as many as we can get, even if it's just for joining into other cities.

@Dmanakho: Don't kick yourself for those contacts, kick me. I should have sent that galley west instead of north. Did you spot any other named barbs on the eastern island?

 

[Wotan]

Hi guys, I have stopped playing at 280AD. We are now at war with Japan and have been contacted by all remaining tribes. I emptied out their coffers. As Samckster suspected they are behind our continent in tech. The contact order is Japan-India-Iroquois-Aztecs. Any ideas re. treatment of Astecs and maybe Iroquois since they are the farthest from being at war with us? All are furious with us now. Will hold off from continuing the game for a few hours to let our "eastcoasters" get a chance to express an opinion when out of bed.

 

[smackster]

How far behind in tech are they. Not sure that gifting them to the present will help get Chivalry. Better to keep them behind. Hope for embassy.

Its a big continent

Edit : why do you think the AI hasnt mapped the right side

 

[dmanakho]

Do you guys think we should start researchin??? It looks like AIs switched their economies to producing units and don't have much money to trough on research... May be we should start researching towards gunpowder->MT and then eventially we will get free chivalry from AIs...
I am taking all the constructive critisism. Will do better job next time..
Lugdunum just stopped growing while building a horse and Nicopolis has 3 or 4 1hp horses fortified for recovering. I did build quite few workers i believe and some settlers too. As a matter of fact at this point we might benefit from having another settler factory.

As for the other continent goes... I think we should try keep tech parity between AIs on other continent and not letting one AI be ahead of others, this will help us to keep their land within the same borders and there won't be one who takes over an entire continent before we get there.
@Tarkeel: No i haven't noticed any named barbarians... to tell you the truth i didn't look much for them. That's my another miss.

 

[Tarkeel]

Neapolis was working as a second settler facotry during my turns, and should be able to do so even out of GA as long as it has a mined hill to work on growth. It needs to get 3 shields on growth because of corruption (I think).

Too bad we thrashed alliance rep, we sure could use to start some wars on the other continent. Might actually be worth to declare on all or most of them to get them in war footing.

For research, we're probably going to need navigation, will see if there is a way to ship hop over. You are allowed to ship hop if you use the unit's move for it without it being exploit, and I'm not 100% sure if ship chaining is considered exploit here? This is still far in the future though. We should maybe try to land a settler and some defense in the middle area, there was one good spot there atleast.

 

[smackster]

They have to establish embassies with us for alliances, and I doubt that will happen so no real loss.

Ship hopping is ok, and if we can see a way, might be cheaper than research to Navigation. Then again not sure how many useful coast cities we have.

I have some more thoughts I'll post in an hour

 

[dmanakho]

I had a settler or two out of Neapolis too, it is just not as fast as Anteum.
I think i have settled 6 new cities during my turns but 4 of those went north, and we still don't have nearly enough settlers to settle emtpy southern lands.

 

[Tarkeel]

Forgot the embassy thing Just ignore my ramblings, but still would be nice to get wars started over there..

Neapolis should be able to do a size 5-7 factory, just remember it probably needs a hill for growth if going for 6-6-7-7 production

 

[Wotan]

OK, back home now.

The tribes on the other continent was: Japan, India and Aztecs into MA, Iroquois still in AA.

Will not gift them to parity.

@Smackster: Your thoughts? An hour has passed since your last post. Will wait for them before starting the game again.

I harvested Workers/Settlers from non-growing cities in the first turn(s). Shifted all Legionaries to Horsemen. Will build Horsemen everywhere, unless: a. city is about to stop growing. b. on seashore. Building marketplaces in one city at the time and only in core. Since we have Barracks everywhere I am shortrushing Catapults when cities have produced 1 shield and switch to Horsemen. If and when Chivalry appears we will have plenty of horsemen finishing off within a few turns to upgrade.