SGOTM3 Rome - Team Smackster

[smackster]

And some small border cities:

If needed, there is still room to found plenty of coastal cities to claim coast squares, but I feel that is a waste of settlers...

Based on what MapStat is telling me we should fill in every land and coastal square on our continent and the barb continent. Those tiles will be a lot easier to grab than the tiles on the other continent.

However right now we should fill in all the main gaps, and grab the last few coastal squares as we near domination. Also we need to rush the temples on the barb island at least 5 turns before we think we can reach domination, with that expansion.

 

[Wotan]

Please feel free to move the ships serving as transports in the S northward and to take a few settler with them for settlements farther north on the barb stretch of land. I should have done that myself. At least one of the ships (caravel) is currently halfway between landmasses acting in a shiphopping role. Please wake it and move it north if you want to.

 

[smackster]

We have 29.1% of land, there is still 23.2% unclaimed, America, Germany and Russia have 9.8%, which is 62.1%. It means we may only need about 5% of land from the other continent

 

[smackster]

Here are my suggestions after looking at the save

We have 36 Cavalry in play which look more than enough to finish off our continent.
But we only have 2 Caravel, and 1 galley, all on the east side. Therefore we should research Navigation as quickly as possible and use all rushes to get more Caravels in the west.

I think 10 Caravels is enough for the first main wave of attackers.

However I would like to see a Caravel or 2 sent from the south (with Muskets) to the south simply to draw attacks that way, before the main troops arrive (in the North). Obviously land on Mountains.

To the south Viriconium could complete one this turn. Neocaiedonium in 7 without rush.

To the north most cities are totally corrupt and we'll have to rush for lots of cash, New Hispalis looks the best at 2 shields. I'd switch all west coast ships to Caravels until we have enough.
Remember New Smackster is the main attack point.

We can research Navigation in 4, with +57 GPT, so lets do that.

 

[smackster]

I note all our cannons are sleeping in front line cities. Might as well send them to the west now. They can arrive in our second wave of troops

 

[Wotan]

I note all our cannons are sleeping in front line cities. Might as well send them to the west now. They can arrive in our second wave of troops

When Cavalry comes into play Artillery cannot keep up with the speed of the attacking forces so are helplessly left behind. They are however just a few turns from New Smackster so might get into action in the West. However, With 10 Caravels I would rather ship 30 Cavalry than 20 Cav and 10 Artillery. So I fear the Artillery will be late coming to the next front line as well.

I fully agree with Smackster re. plans for the next phase. With one addition. I touched on this in a followup to my turn report. We need a few more landing sites on barbarian lands. Else we will have to wait until eternity and then some more before they are fully settled. Maybe even lift a few of the settlers we have landed in the extreme south and put them ashore farther north.

 

[Tarkeel]

Artillery is best used with some infantry to cover it, and move to the tough cities while the cavs clean up the easy ones. Then the cavs can come to a properly pruned city.

And yes, we need to land several places along Hadrian's Wall (barb frontier).

 

[Wotan]

Artillery is best used with some infantry to cover it, and move to the tough cities while the cavs clean up the easy ones. Then the cavs can come to a properly pruned city.

I guess I normally just use enough Cavalry to eventually take those tough resistance nests. Time is usually more important than a few cavalry not retreating when redlined, the rest is redlined and back in action in two or three turns. Moving Artillery within an enemy culture is a tedious and time consuming task. Can be speeded by putting down new cities close to the target though but still timeconsuming. This game should be over in at the most 30 turns, we will probably not have time for "softening targets" if we are to keep to that time table.

 

[Wotan]

And yes, we need to land several places along Hadrian's Wall (barb frontier).

Good name Let's make it official so everyone know what we talk about when referring to it. Sounds so much better than "barbarian lands" etc.

 

[smackster]

Just to clarify, when I said build 10 Caravels, I meant build 10 then send them across, but don't stop building them, and don't stop sending troops across. Hopefully that first wave is enough, but we really don't know how many troops they will have over there.

Sure the cannons are likely not even to get to the front, but move them into position anyway, and only if there are spare seats in the second/third wave, should they be sent over.

smackster

 

[smackster]

Good name Let's make it official so everyone know what we talk about when referring to it. Sounds so much better than "barbarian lands" etc.

Any ideas on the puzzle? So there appear to be some barbs that have our team names? For some reason the other continent did not land on it? It does appear to block sea access? I have no idea?

 

[mad-bax]

You are in a position to solve the puzzle. I don't really want you to solve it though, so I made it harder then GOTM16. Then there were two of each identically named unit, so that if one got killed by charging out of the fog before you could read its name, there would be a second chance.

The only clues I will give is that there are a number of non-standard barb units, each of which has a name with a single capitalised letter within it. Mostly this is the first letter, but not always. If you solve it, it won't mean much to you until you see the SGOTM4 game announcement. Then the penny will drop, and you will have a weeks worth of foreknowledge between the announcement and the start of the game, which you can use as you will. Do not allow the answer into the public domain.

In vanilla civ it seems that the AI will not try to settle a barb infested island until the human does. I am not sure if this behaviour applies to PTW. It may be that a few of the necessary pieces of the puzzle are already dead. In this case it will just provide more of a challenge.

 

[smackster]

Looks like we might have missed some, as Germany did in fact settle on the Island first. But none of the other continent went there?

So team we need to note the first capital letter of each unique name we see.

 

[dmanakho]

Haven't Americans also landed on barbs, sorry, Hadrian's wall continent??
If so then between them and germans they probably managed to kill one or more barbarians with unique names....
it would be pity if we don't get to resolve the puzzle, but not a big deal after all

 

[Wotan]

Apart from a few (3?) units with CFC members names, Northern Pike etc. I must admit I just checked if any of the Impis had similar names. But not if any of them had just a single letter capitalized. Will startup the saves I have left and check them for names...

 

[mad-bax]

All of the named units are named after people who have played a previous SGOTM. The names are not signifacant except for the first letter. There are a couple however that have a different letter capitalised. I am sure I checked all the names in the bic b4 converting to bix. Northern Pike should have been spelled Northern pike. So now you have me worried that the way the names were presented in the vanilla version did not survive translation to PTW, and I can't check until Friday. (at myself).

 

[Wotan]

A picture of Northern Pike, just to help you out here Mad-Bax. So how will you help us now The other Impi I have in my notes is Grahamiam. Maybe the player's origin is the clue here? or that they won a game with the tribe in question. Or maybe???

 

[Tarkeel]

@mad-bax: I just went back to the save I found them, and had a look:

Edit: Bah, beaten by Wotan. I think clue lies in which letters are capitalised, shuffle them together for a clue word...

 

[smackster]

So far we have 'N' and 'G', I'm sure we saw one other, I think we need to start looking at saves.

 

[Tarkeel]

I'm guessing that we're supposed to come up with either a tribe name or variant.. How does England sound? Or Mongols? Maybe the Germans? For variant, there's always fast moving, or the various X City Challenge, but I don't think it's a xCC