SGOTM4 - Team Grayarea

[King Alexander]

I'll keep producing hoplites from Carthage, try to pillage the Roman cities and/or have an Hoplite nearby each of them so they cannot develop their land with workers(of course, more hoplites will keep an eye on Rome itself).

I'm not sure that I can finish off Rome inside my turns as there're no roads to move quickly, but we'll finish Ceasar sooner or later, once and for all.

When we "control" all the Roman cities, it's good to try to take them simultaneously, perhaps to trigger the FP.

@:Hippo is building the GLhouse; keep with it as it's crucial if we get the Great Library in 5 turns; if don't get the later, I'll switch to the GLhouse asap.
If we get the Great Library but not the GLhouse, switch Hippo to the Great Wall(palace) to get another Wonder, maybe even Sun Tzu's/Sistine if we keep it for long time, and with size 6 without aqueduct, we can keep it enough.

Note: I'd strongly recommend that before our FINAL destruction of Rome, to take all the gold/techs he has, because it might be some time before we meet other civs(?), so the Great Library will not give us anything until then.
Of course, we'll see how things are going until then.

btw: Carthage is a 2-turn Hoplite factory atm(Golden Age), and not a 3-turn factory; there are BG's that they're not worked(1 of them near the river= more gold), so there is no need to work that irrigated grassland across the river.

What do you think?

 

[Grayarea]

1 KA - playing next
2 Gray - Skip
3 Sir Ortin - Get ready
4 Alex top
5 Matternich - Just played

I am away this weekend, so if KA playes before Monday you should skip me as the earliest I could play will be Tuesday night.

Good luck all, Matternich nice moves

 

[Matternich]

KA- if you can build a galley or two to search for civs.

 

[King Alexander]

I'll play probably today, and try to build 1-2 galleys as Matternich said.

 

[King Alexander]

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/Grayarea_SG004_BC0370_01.SAV

IBT
2-3 archers and a warrior went inside Rome

550BC (1)
Pillage a tile in Rome, and move Hoplites forward.

IBT
Rome completed the Pyramids.

530BC (2)
I kill 2 archers, both Hoplites lose 1hp.

510BC (3)
I kill another archer, Hoplite drops to 3hp.

490BC (4)
We can now lower the science to 60%, Construction in 2, lux at 10%, -4gpt, 418g.

Rome has dropped to size 3 from 7, due to pillaging.

470BC (5)
Good news: We complete the Great Library in Utica. Utica starts a granary as a pre-build for aqueduct, Construction next turn.

Cumae drops to size 2.

450BC (6)
More pillaging and Hoplites produced.

I choose Currency as the next tech.

430BC (7)
Leptis Magna: harbor >> galley.


410BC (8)
1 Roman archer attacks our Hoplite across the river, dies, and Hoplite becomes Elite.
2 Roman archers attack another Hoplite across the river, 1 dies, the other kills the Hoplite.

I finish off the Roman archer with our Elite warrior, wins flawlessly, but we get no GL – of course, I protect our warrior immediately by moving a Hoplite to the warrior’s tile.

I colonize 2 wools that are protected by Hoplites: now, we still need lux at 10% so Carthage won’t riot, but it can grow further witout worrying much.

390BC (9)
We lose an Hoplite by 2 archer attack, I attack the last archer with Elite warrior, wins and drops to 4hp, but still no Great Leader.

Our Golden Age comes to an end.

370BC (10)
Nothing.

Summary
1) I have enough Hoplites fortified across Rome and the river, as well as the bottleneck lake: leave them there, because the block everything Rome throws at us, and Ceasar loses many archers attacking our Hoplites across the river; those 2 Hoplites that we lost had 3hp, that’s why we lost them, after 2-3 archer attack.

2) I have 2 Hoplites, each fortified outside Cumae and Neapolis: we control the area there and Ceasar cannot work the land, so, these cities, are useless for him as I’ve pillaged them totally(the same with Rome).
1 Hoplite is pillaging Veii’s wool’s/tiles, so the city can quickly become useless, and when the Hoplite is done with pillaging, fortify him there.
Do the same with the other 2 Roman cities, and we totally control Roman cities.

3) Ceasar will give us The Wheel, Mysticism, Philosophy, Code of Laws and 280g(of his 313g) for Peace Treaty. He hasn’t met anyone else yet, maybe because no one else has the GLhouse yet.


4) Once we soon control the Roman land, start producing more archers(I have Theveste on archers atm, after it produced 3 Hoplites), and bring them outside the Roman cities for the final attack/elimination of Rome.
Before the attack, make a false peace treaty, and take all the techs/gold Ceasar has and brake the treaty by attacking – Anyway, we need to exterminate Rome, and maybe block the area with warriors, so no one else can settle to our island and threaten us(although, for the later, we’d need to support many troops, but we’d have all the wool luxuries to trade, not to mention the iron that we need, and the jungle that could have rubber/coal – I want us to discuss this).

5) Let Leptis Magna to pump galleys.

6) I was tempted to shut down the research when we got the GL, but we don't know any other civ yet.
I chose Currency to build markets(more income and happyness), and because Ceasar has the other techs we miss, but we can discuss our tech path.

 

[Matternich]

well done KA sounds like we are doing well.

 

[Grayarea]

1 KA - Just played
2 Gray - Skip
3 Sir Ortin - Playing next
4 Alex top - Get ready
5 Matternich

BTW I am still away, just managed to get on the net

Nice moves KA

 

[Sir_Ortin]

Well done, guys. By graph, we are leaders at this moment.

I got the game, will play tonight, post result tomorrow morning.
Also, I can not load a save and check everything right now, but according to the log, we are going very good.

 

[King Alexander]

Sir_Ortin, please wait, because we need to re-discuss our strategy a bit.

Here's why:
I had built the FP in one 5CC epic game after capturing 3 enemy-cities at once and I had told it so, but there were doubts.

I wanted to see if it worked with settling 3 additional cities, so that I could trigger the FP and abandon the new cities before the end-turn, and it worked in another epic game, and, I've built the FP and completed it without any problems
btw: you can try it both ways in your epic games.

So, that changes our plans a bit. We no longer have to wait to capture the Roman cities simultaneously(assuming no one has "altered" the FP in this SGOTM?), so we can finish Ceacar asap.

There's another thing I want us to discuss: coming soon.

EDIT:
Is it worthy to keep Rome instead of Leptis Magna?
We've already built a temple/granary/harbor in Leptis Magna, but Rome's terrain is far better, though it'd need a courthouse/temple to be a good city(with a FP it'd be a strong city).
Of course, Rome can't built a harbor.

This is what I were thinking; assuming we get Rome a courthouse, temple and FP, it'd be a top city. We could build the FP in Rome after it has a court/temple, by additional settling 3 more cities-abandon them at the end-turn.
Another thing is that Rome is by a river and it doesn't need an aqueduct.
As I've said, Rome can't have a harbor, but we already have 2 coastal cities and we only need to defend ourselves later.

I'm NOT proposing all this because Rome completed the Pyramids, but because it's terrain is TOP(3-4 BG, cattle, river, iron hill) and Leptis Magna is never going to reach size 12 and has slow growth.

I'd like your opinion as I know that it's not the best thing to re-settle.

 

[Sir_Ortin]

I also like the idea of taking Rome, especially if we could produce GreatLeader for FP.

I think that we should try to capture enemy cities at once, as it will be cheaper then building 3 settlers and then disbanding them. And we should keep fighting with Rome for GreatLeader.

 

[King Alexander]

If we get a GL, we could hurry the FP in Rome then, otherwise, we'd need to build/rush a court/temple in Rome before we built the FP and we'd also need to settle/abandon 3 cities.
Let's hope that the RNG is nice to us.

 

[Matternich]

Lets keep part of Rome alive so we can 'farm' Great leaders.
At least 1 anyway for the FP.

I agree with SOrtin best to conserve resources by using Roman cities to trigger the FP.
Is Leptis the best city to ditch though? What about Theveste.
Theveste might look good but it has limited growth. As I have said before if you count the food on the tiles around it, it won't grow above 10 pop until Democracy.
Because Port of Entry gives sea shields earlier it makes Leptis a better long term city to keep hold of and if Rome is going to have FP this may reduce its corruption.

Once we have decided which city to abandon- make settlers/workers with that city. Hurry them if necessary as to squeeze as much from them as possible. Also sell all the buildings even though its not a great gold yeild.

But without a great leader I wouldnt bother with Rome.

 

[King Alexander]

@Matternich: I'd say, if we get a GL so we could hurry the FP in Rome, we could abandon both Leptis and Theveste, and settle another coastal city east of Rome, where 2 hoplitea are fortified in the grassland between the 2 wools;
it'd be a powerhouse city with 3 BG's visible, 2 wools that aren't developed yet but give(food:2, shields:2, gold:2), and 2 forests/2 jungles tiles that will probably have more BG's above them, 6 coastal squares to work, 2 fresh water lake tiles(food 2) and there're also 2 hills.

Of course, as you said, we should make a lot of workers/settlers from the city(s) that we want to abandon and sell all the buildings before we abandon them.

We should concentrate our forces to take Rome-Cumae-Neapolis: Neapolis we'll soon grow in population(it has the fish), so it won't autoraze when we capture it.

We have 3 Elite Hopltes and 1 Elite warrior; 2 hoplites are on their way to the front, so they could go and fortify in the place of the Elite Hoplites, and the later would be free to attack archers to get a GL.

Just a few thoughts(I don't have 2 cents!!!).

 

[Matternich]

I like that idea KA though disagree with city placement.
Check out the picture.
The big green cross is, I think, a good location.
Mainly because it doesn't 'steal' as many tiles from Rome.
Settling SW one tile from both of these locations could prove even better when the cities start to approach the 20 pop mark.

SW of the purple cross on the wool tile looks great as there's so much river too giving all those gold bonuses. Not too much desert either and though we lose benefits of working the 1 wool it is made up for by the extra gold.

It's not at all a bad suggestion mainly because Rome has the Pyramids which is an automatic granary in any new city.
Also it could mean more spare workers to add to the new cities for purposes of hurrying at least one or two buildings before monarchy.

Graybeard said he would be back today.
@Sir Ortin - I think GB was expecting you to have played. Doesnt matter but we should push on as we are seriously lagging behind the rest of the teams.

 

[King Alexander]

@Matternich: I haven't understood well - I was reffering to the grassland tile between the 2 wools that we already have colonized and is protected by 2 Hoplites at the same tile, so I can't see how that city "steals" any tiles from Rome, has excellent land to work, it would be between the capital and the FP( = less corruption), and can also have a harbor(maybe we'll need it even with only 5 cities, who knows?).

Why should we go for Monarchy?

 

[Sir_Ortin]

370BC (0) All seems to be ok.

350BC (1) Leptis Magna built Galley, start another. Carthage built Hoplite, start another. IBT: Two Roman archers attacked our Hoplites, both died. We had no promotions.

330BC (2) Just moving.

310BC (3) Theveste built Archer, start another.

290BC (4) Carthage built Hoplite, start another. Utica completed Aqueduct, start on Library.

270BC (5) Just moving.

250BC (6) Theveste built Archer, start another. Leptis Magna built Galley, start another. IBT: Two Roman Archers attacked our Hoplite, promote him to Elite (3 damage).

230BC (7) Carthage built Hoplite, start another.

210BC (8) Theveste built Archer, start another.

190BC (9) Carthage built Hoplite, start another. A noticed that Rome army (~8 units) departured city Rome. Begin to move our troops towards Rome cities.

170BC (10) Utica built Library, start on Colosseum. Theveste built Archer, start settler. Move our troops near 3 Rome cities.
IBT:Our Galley killed two barb galleys, become elite. Rome army moved away from the city Rome. It is a good chance to attack right now, when Rome army is far away from the capital.

150BC (11) Carthage built Hoplite, start Colosseum. Our Galley found a lonely mountain rising from the ocean... Rushed in Theveste Settler, because we can ruin some Rome city during attack. Move our troops to Rome cities.
IBT: Rome army is returning back, but it is too late, Rome is a weak-defended city.

Right now all is ready for simultaneous attack of Rome cities. I have finished moving of our troops to their walls, so next player can start fighting right next turn. We have 2 elite units, 2 near Cumae, 2 near Nealpolis. We should keep them for 100% won battle, so attack first with veteran until defenders have 1-2 hp.
Will research Currency in 1 turn. Will built GreatLighthouse in 3 turns.

Also, you could notice that i played 11 turns, this is done because our turns were 109, 99, 89 and it was a little hard to compare our score with the majority of others teams.

Latest save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm4/Grayarea_SG004_BC0150_01.SAV

 

[King Alexander]

I think that we should keep pumping Hoplites/archers from Carthage/Utica until the war is over because:
a) we're still in war
b)we also need to "occupy" enough tiles, especially close to our 3 core cities so no one can settle there(tundra/ivory - east of Utica, ect...); more units won't hurt us and it's good to have a strong military to avoid wars/demands.

We should build workers/settlers not only from Theveste but also from Leptis so we can join them in the new cities OR IF we don't get 3 Roman cities at once, we could settle the cities we need to have the FP option.

Attack with archers first, then Hoplites and then Elites(or if there's only 1 wounded Roman unit left in a city, with Elites).

Keep an eye on those Roman stucks: they could break the Hoplite wall with so many archers and go towards Leptis(some of them).
Anyway, I'd built more units for many reasons: we could have our cities later on building improvements/Wonders if we have a strong military, and keep focusing on pre-builds for Wonders later on.

If we get the GLhouse, let Hippo to build aqueduct asap. If the war is going ok and we don't have many loses, build markets for happyness/income.

We can make the false peace treaty now, so we don't bother to reasearch techs that Ceasar has (see where the horses are, etc..). When we get into the Middle Ages, we should start palace pre-builds to get Wonders.

 

[Alex Top]

Seasar can give us for the peace:
1) 24g, wheel, philosophy, mysticism, Cumae, Neapolis, Pompii .
2) all gold, all technologies & Pompii.
I think We can agree for 2). And disband Pompii. So we have 1 turn for build settlers/workers in Theveste and Leptis (hurry production).
Roman army can't reach any city in 1 turn.
Then we'll break peace, capture Rome, Neapolis and Cumae.
Begin to build FP in Rome.
Disband Neapolis, Cumae and Theveste or Leptis.
Move settlers to build new city (I think that best place for it - see the picture. red cross. So we take more river squares. But we know nothing about horses now, may be will correct place later)
And our gloryous army move to finish puny Rome cities.

We can take any city (more strong then Pompii) for the peace, but then we can't take all technologies.

I'd like to hear your opinion about my strategy. If you are think that we don't need peace now, then i will attack and begin to build FP next turn.

 

[Matternich]

It can be done in 1 or 2 turns but the city east of Rome will be razed. If we have a settler ready this can be sent to a free tile to settle and trigger FP.
Probably best to leave it 2 turns to move this settler onto the hill North of Theveste so it can build a road there.

OR - take the two cities first then make peace with Rome and take get another city in the peace deal. Highly likely as Rome will be begging for peace and probably give all her spare cities. They all have 1 pop and deemed of little worth to the AI.

Our few archers are the best offence troops and should be use first against Rome Capital. Then Hoplites, then onto the city west.
The city east as I say is too small to capture and it will be razed.
Dont even need to attack it realy except to increase GLeader chance.
Both of these cities have 2 spearmen as do all satellite cities around the capital.
To increase chance of great leader it could be good to attack these cities over 2 turns with the same ELITE hoplite to coincide on the 2nd turn with taking Rome.

I am worried about the stack of archers on the way towards Leptis. If we are abandoning Leptis it doesn't matter but its not good to have Rome marching over us regardless.
2 Hoplites will not hold back these Roman archers but if we move them back in Leptis and move the closest troops the archer and the other Hoplite on the colony and spare troops from the western Roman city would have to race to help out. It should be ok.
The Roman archer stack will take 3-4 turns to reach Leptis by which time will have Rome and trigger the FP.

Peace would then give us all of Romes gold and tech or most of her cities and tech or gold. Whatever it'd be better than before.


If it wernt for the archer stack I would say wait until we have built a few workers ready outside Rome to imporve those tiles immedialty. A stack of 5-10 would be great.


@KA - Seems I misunderstood where you meant to position another city.

The position you pointed out between the colonies isn't bad. But do we need more coastal squares?
In a normal archi. game probably but with 5CC a green tile is better than a blue.
Inland lakes/freshwater are terrible tiles. They cannot be improved at all and are only useful in the earliest parts of city growth.

An extra harbour would be good for churning out naval units but again in 5CC it would be mainly for defence. I think the two north of Carthage will be able to be our 'boat' builders'. Unless we are going for Conquest which is a tough victory option but at this level well within our reach.


After looking at the map again I seriously consider the tile South-West of the purple cross as a good long term city position. FP acts as a second Palace in terms of corruption so it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Matternich]

Just Read your post Alex Top after I posted. (didn't refresh the posts)

I like the idea but peace after taking Rome would give us even more.
And might give us a chance to position hoplites, to destroy the archers when declaring war again.

That spare settler can be added to Rome to speed growth.