SGOTM4 - Team Smackster

[Wotan]

Very impressive...
I was always wondering how good wotan was at pulling those leaders for us...

I haven't delivered any for the past two stints... I guess the law of averages just "paid back" the outstanding debt we had coming... My experience is that leaders have a tendency to appear when you least expect them to or when you least need them I usually get them in the mid game, no leaders during AA, and a lot during IA. OTOH, in 20K games one tend to show a lot more attention to elites and the way you use them.

 

[dmanakho]

I think i have had somewhat successful set of turns (i have had a leader after all ), well, not sure if i did a good job on last minute trading though....

So here we go:

Pre-turn...

Checked the troops; sent workers to guard Ivory Coast and few more down to the wool coast.

T1. 1060AD. Sabratha: knight->knight. ToG in 1 turn; Persian settler pair is heading towards their horse colony.

IBT: Xerxes founds new town of Ergili on top of the horses.

T2. 1070AD. Carthage: knight->knight; we have some barbs to disperse; Rusicade knight->caravel.
Knight attacks barbarian and is promoted to elite but there is another barb in a hut. I will use another knight next turn.
ToG is discovered; Magnetism in 5 turns 100% science slider. Switching Utica to Newton’s

I was checking the trades previous two turns and it looks it is the best time to trade banking now:
So here we go: Greeks 20Gpt and 6Gold (he is furious for some reasons); Babylonians 11Gpt and 60Gold (also furious); Osman 7Gpt and 20Gold... (Also furious). Sold PP to Germans for 13Gold. (Oh my, he is furious too). The rest are broke....
Our treasury 196Gold +16GPt and 100% science.

IBT Xerxes asks for the peace treaty; tell him no way, we are officially at war.

T3. 1080AD. Persian pike leaves Karachi and I decided to ask what his business was.
Vet horse attack that pike and dies. Pike redlined. Elite horse attacks and Himilco rises... We've got another leader!!!
Switching Utica back to bank.
Have a terrible RNG luck attacking Karachi...
Knight attacks reg pike, retreats
Knight attacks 2hp pike, retreats
Horse attacks dies
Horse attacks dies
Finally army attacks kills that pike, Karachi is razed.
I will wait on attacking Celts until we have our leader delivered to Utica and used on Newton’s.

IBT:
Persian longbow attacks our MDI and dies. Vikings founded new city of Goteburg on top of the silks.

T4. 1090AD
Hamadan is razed; Argii is razed; Knight takes care of barb hut.

T5. 1100AD
Extend luxuries trade agreement with Hammurabi
Loose another knight attacking spear in Persian settler pair; but next horse kills spear, 2 more slaves
Our sabotage platoon lands from caravel on top of Celts iron and will cut it next turn.
Upgraded horse in Rusicade.

IBT Celts longbow attacks our stack and dies. Persian long bow shows up

T6. 1110 AD
All cities completed builds (except Utica), switched them to knights
Knight attacks Persian longbow -> promoted to elite. Rushed bank in Utica, leader will be there next turn to rush Newton’s.

More trades, this time I am selling democracy.

Greeks whopping 46Gpt and 91 gold;
Babylon 7Gpt and 38gold

IBT: Talking about bad RNG... Persian galley attacks and sinks our Caravel... fortunately, it was empty

T7. 1120 AD. Newton’s is rushed...
Upgraded horse in Rusicade.

Entremont siege is started;
We lost only 2 horses; 4 elite attacks with no leader appeared.
Entremont is razed;
Celts have 2 cities left on their main island and up way up north on a small island.
Babylon will give 15gpt for economics, but the rest of our main trading partners (Osman and Alex) are broke, so I will postpone trade.

T8. 1130AD. Utica has completed Newton’s... I shifted Utica to maximize food and gold and switched it to palace pre-build
Right now it produces only 12shields per turn and palace will be ready in 25 turns...
I really want to use it as a factory pre-build; I expect we will have industrialization in less than 25 turns.
(My guess estimate -Metallurgy 5turns, plus Steam power and Industrialization 8 to 10 turns each, total 25 turns top)
We should monitor Utica carefully and make sure it doesn't finish palace on its own, at the same time making sure we are as close to the factory pre-build as it gets. We can not use any leaders from now until US anyways... so any leader we get will have to be stockpiled for future use... I see no sense using leaders for armies.
Babylon will give 22gpt for economics, but Greeks and Osman are still broke... I don't want to sell it now just to Babs, I will wait one more turn.
Oh, there is something I’ve just noticed. Babylonians will give only 13Gpt for Astronomy... Khmm... They must have been researching it since they give so much less money for the tech... Should I sell it now???? ok, i will wait another turn...

Sending Celtic slaves back to the home land.
Size of Persepolis is decreased this turn, they must have built another settler, lets hope so... we need more slaves.
Oh, I sank that Persian galley...
Celts will talk peace and would give us one city... I'd say we wait until next person plays, and then when we take that city, gift it to Germans. Poor Bismarck is too small to be useful at the moment.

T9: 1140AD. I was right and Xerxes sends a settler pair. Another elite win and again with no leader. 2 more slaves we have.
And Babylonians are researching astronomy indeed. Price for the tech dropped again... I am not sure how you feel about it but Hammurabi is not getting a free tech... I am selling him Astronomy for 11gpt and all little cash he had, plus he bought Ivory for 14gpt...
I bet Alex is at war with Osman, and that is why those 2 guys are so cheap. I was so curious, I built embassy with osmans... no they are not at war... strange...
I don't want to do any deals with Vikings, we need to let them grow and then declare on them after making peace with Celts.

Upgraded 2 caravels

T10. 1150AD.

Moved slave caravels across ocean toward Utica, did nothing else...
Some units are fortified, but it should not be difficult to find them.

6 or 7 elite wins - one leader... I got few more elites though and that should help next person, too bad not many enemies left.
we will have metallurgy competed in i believe 3 turns and then we should switch to Steam Power full speed. No need researching MT ourselves in this game.

Utica 6835 points 95CPT Estimated win date 1768AD according to Civassist.

Post play comments:

Since we have nothing else to build I think we should continue building an excessive number of Knights, some of them will be upgraded to cavalry later and some of them we should disband to rush factories… In Utica we should also build a coal plant.

Only 20 turns ago we were screaming for leaders but we have had 3 since and it looks like we won’t really need them in next 20 turns until Universal suffrage, so hopefully this is long enough time to get one even with bad RNG luck.
If we don’t get a leader it still would probably be faster to build factory and coal plant and then start Un. Suff. from scratch rather than using existing pre-build. (I could be wrong, but that is what my past experience tells). Please monitor Utica and make sure it doesn’t switch the tiles and builds a palace. Actually when we know how much Steam power will take to research we should be able to correct Utica worked squares accordingly.

I haven’t posted the map, there is nothing really to see but ruins.
One thing different you will see is that I lined up workers to safe guard our shores.
Babylonians have astronomy and they will want to land on free space on our island anytime now. Rest of the gang doesn’t have this tech, but I guess they will have it at any time also…

We should discuss this but I suggest NEVER MOVE those slaves even for the railroading… (And if you move then replace empty spots with another units). As soon as we open the shore tile someone will land and we will be in a pretty bad situation.
Osman will actually buy astronomy, he doesn’t have much money but he will pay with Dyes and some small amount of cash. So it's something to think about for the next player.

I recommend do not make any deals with Vikings, but rather declare war on them when peace agreement is over…

Thats all folks!

Oh right, the save - there we go

 

[Wotan]

Well played! So now we enter a period of "phony war" again with no urgent need for Leader farming, when and if we get one he will just have to wait for Universal Suffrage to become available.

 

[dmanakho]

I believe we should expedite our game a little. (well, actually i didn't mean to say expedite but rather play it "smackster style" we did in SGOTM3 and early in this game )

We still have 100-150 turns to play, that means 10-15 turnsets, if we keep playing 2 turnsets a week it will take almost until Christmas to finish this game.

EDIT: It looks like team Bede has finished the game with most likely 20K cultural win...(info taken from maintenance forum). Their finish date is 1780, which we have already beaten (I hope CivAssist properly works 20K victory dates)

 

[smackster]

I believe we should expedite our game a little. (well, actually i didn't mean to say expedite but rather play it "smackster style" we did in SGOTM3 and early in this game )

We still have 100-150 turns to play, that means 10-15 turnsets, if we keep playing 2 turnsets a week it will take almost until Christmas to finish this game.

EDIT: It looks like team Bede has finished the game with most likely 20K cultural win...(info taken from maintenance forum). Their finish date is 1780, which we have already beaten (I hope CivAssist properly works 20K victory dates)

I think its right, it matches what AlanH's spreadsheet comes up with.
Just as a reminder here at the best dates, so we are right there already on the best 20k date. That 860AD conquest (assuming that's what it is, is 24 turns prior, so we need to get it in about 1675AD).

Conquest 1200AD
Cultural 20k 1760AD
Cultural 100k 1555AD
Diplomatic 1010AD
Domination 970AD
Space Race 1330AD

Now for the bad news if I used the spreadsheet calculator and add wonders I find that I can only make the end date move by a couple of turns each wonder, if we got ToE, and Newtons in the next 20 turns, the date only gets to 1758AD.

 

[dmanakho]

That's the thing with 20K games... It doesn't matter how many wonder's you build in Industrial and Modern ages. Only ancient wonders really matter, had we luck getting more leaders and squeezing pyramids and collosus to what we have, we would be in a whole lot better shape. But honestly we are having a great game and i think we are in a good shape for second place.

I doubt any team managed to do AA better than us at least according to the spoilers posted. And we had simply superior MA with all the wonders build except Leo with only 2CPT as early as it was possible.

We haven't heard "I got it" message from Tarkeel. I hope he can play tomorrow. We need to get this baby going.

Now for the bad news if I used the spreadsheet calculator and add wonders I find that I can only make the end date move by a couple of turns each wonder, if we got ToE, and Newtons in the next 20 turns, the date only gets to 1758AD.

Hey, we do have Newtons built already. Did you mean Universal Suffrage??


Here is the list of culture generating buildings of IA:

Great Wonders:
1. Universal suffrage 4CPT
2. Theory of Evolution 3CPT
3. Hoover Dam 3CPT

Small Wonders
1. Wall Street (requires 5 stock exchanges) 2CPT
2. Battlefield Medicine (requires 5 hospitals) 1CPT

 

[smackster]

Wow no posts, I'll play it tomorrow, unless Tarkeel appears.

smackster

 

[Tarkeel]

Forums were down for me yesterday.

Have 7 pages left of a 10 page essay due on wednesday, so will need yet another swap...

 

[dmanakho]

Forums were down for me yesterday.

Have 7 pages left of a 10 page essay due on wednesday, so will need yet another swap...

Forums... essay... how boring... and i was pretty sure Tarkeel found new girlfriend who doesn't leave him any civ. time

 

[smackster]

OK I have it and will play tonight

 

[smackster]

I'm working too tonight, still watching the baseball, but can't play civ. I can only hope that I can play tomorrow, but will do my best.

smackster

 

[smackster]

T0 1150AD

My first thought is that we don't have enough people to fight, and we have too many GPT deals. It may be time to break one of them. Babylon, Greece, and Ottomans are paying us so much cash though, but they must have some pickings for us

Send troops to both Celts and Scandy.

IBT
Scandy ask us to move, which we do, and they want to reneg peace, which we deny, war.

T1 1160AD

Elite Knight attacks Camulodumum and wins (1). Elite horse does the same but dies, leaving the last defender 2/3 spear. Will send the boys to Lugdumum

Elite Knight attacks Goteborg and wins (2), but takes the city

Utica is one food away from growth, so I turn up the shields

IBT Persia drop off a longbow, nice.

T2 1170AD
Elite kills the Persian lb (3)

Elite Knight attacks Scandy city wins (4) and takes that one too, Scandy are too weak. Will have to attack Babylon. Red Sox come back from 3-0 down to beat the Yankees for the first time in ages. World Series here we come.

No point sending the horses into the Babylon Muskets, so need to send them home to upgrade them. Why are they even here?

T3 1180AD

WW is kicking in somewhere, as we have lots of it, but don't really know who its from

Metalargy comes in, but its 8 turns to steam at 100%

Move troops to form the rape of Babylon, might as well make this one good, so will get a ROP as well.

T4 1190AD
Two elite attacks Nidaros, one retreat and one loss without a single point of damage on the pike defender

Elite Knight attacks Perseopolis looking for leader and finds one [5], Hasdrubal rises

Ottomans arrive on the Celtic continent, with a settler.

With the leader around, we send in the vets. Attacking Nidaros, we get one win and one retreat, but show there is at least two spear defenders left

T5 1200AD
Two elites go into Lugdunum, and all die, oh yes. Why why why did they attack. We have a leader. Logic defeats me. Too late.

Its 1.30am, time to stop. We have deals with all, time to break rep, so a good time to get the team feelings on this. Do we ROP rape Babylon.

Do we gift the AI into the IA to help us research, that is what I would do, riflemen, spiflemen

 

[Wotan]

Red Sox come back from 3-0 down to beat the Yankees for the first time in ages. World Series here we come.

This was obviously totally unexpected, , it even made the news here in Sweden. First time since 1914 or something equally ancient???

Elite Knight attacks Perseopolis looking for leader and finds one [5], Hasdrubal rises

Yes!!! Now we do not need to go leaderhunting until we have built the Universal Suffrage.

Two elites go into Lugdunum, and all die, oh yes. Why why why did they attack. We have a leader. Logic defeats me. Too late.

I guess we have all made this type of thing, they are not to be kept from battles but one is not so happy when they die attacking soft targets...

Its 1.30am, time to stop. We have deals with all, time to break rep, so a good time to get the team feelings on this. Do we ROP rape Babylon.

Do we gift the AI into the IA to help us research, that is what I would do, riflemen, spiflemen

ROP? I would actually prefer to have knowledge of Coal and a secured source before thrashing our rep.
The thing with gifting them into IA is that they will then have riflemen instead of muskets/spearmen so it is all a question of whether we want to fight rifles in a "few" turns or not? The AI is so poor at researching in this game I doubt we will have any help from them.

 

[dmanakho]

I don't want to break our reputation...
from now until the end of the game we don't really need to do much of a warmongering... too few GW to build...
From now on the more GPTs we have the better, all we need to do is to be just one or two techs in front of AIs and keep selling them all we can.
If we break our trade rep we won't be able to do maximum research.
At this point, We must milk AIs not weaken them.
Next time we would need leader when we need to build Hoovers in quite a long time from now and I think if we leave Persia and India they will grow for another leader harvest.
Lets leave alone Babs, Osman and Greeks, they should be dedicated cash cows.
We probably don't even need a leader for ToE, that wonder is so cheap when you have factory and plant and will be probably prebuilt just as fine)
I say we should quit warmongering and just do a little of science rush.
After all, leader hunting was the only reason for us to go to war.

@Smackster, I believe, We have had horses on Scandinavian land for quite some time, since the times we haven't had knights yet...

 

[smackster]

Yes it was late last night, so my brain was not working too well. Clealry we don't need to fight anybody while we have a leader. But once we have built the next wonder, then we should get right back into it and go for Babylon. By that time the deals may be expiring, so may be able to attack them without ruining rep. For the record, if we trash our rep, they will still give us GPT for our tech.

We are getting enough cash from the Greece/Ottomans to keep research at 100%.

The only way to improve our date is to keep getting those leaders, I think I was lucky to get one this time, as there are so few targets

 

[smackster]

This was obviously totally unexpected, , it even made the news here in Sweden. First time since 1914 or something equally ancient???

It was a best of 7 series and they were 3 down, and won it 4-3, that feat had not been done in Baseball before. However, this was actually only the semi-final they have the final (world series, yea I know its not really a world competition) to play now starting this weekend. Its the world series they have not won since 1918, so they have not really done anything yet, but I still have a hangover.

Its a big thing over here in Boston and is all anyone is talking about now.

 

[dmanakho]

For the record, if we trash our rep, they will still give us GPT for our tech.

Yes, you are correct, forgot about that

We are getting enough cash from the Greece/Ottomans to keep research at 100%.

We do right now, but IA techs are whole lot more expensive and Greece/Ottomans cash may not be enough, plus we will want to rush those hospitals/stock exchanges (and even factories too) for Utica to be able to build corresponding small wonders... We will have to have a lot of surplus cash.

Let's see how situation will look when we need to do another leader hunting,
lets leave persia and india alone now and hopefully they will grow a little.
I really think we will be crippling ourselves if we weaken any of the remaining AIs we haven't touched yet.

 

[smackster]

T6 1210AD cont
Notice a Celtic city on a Babylon Island, with some knights en route will take it, and gift it to Babylon

We have no deals with Germany, they can only give us 2 GPT for stuff, so I'll line up for attacks on them. Will send a few Caravels that way, they only have two cities but its enough

In that case we do get another deal with Babylon, selling Economics for 21 GPT + 34 Gold. From Ottomans, the same for Gems +16GPT + 50 Gold.

T7 1220AD

We keep a wool deal with Babylon, and lose one with Greece.

Knights land on the Babylon island next to a Celtic city, defended by spearman

T8 1230AD

Attack the Celts Verulium, and take it, and gift it to Babylon, just looking for elite upgrades

T9 1240AD

Find a single tile gap near Germany and dump some Knights there. Will bring the elites over there.

T10 1250AD

Building a Frigate in Theveste to protect our open land at home, this can be changed.

There are some horses that can be upgraded, don't really need them yet and we may want to keep the cash.

India have built another city now, but they are still too weak really, might as well let them keep building until we have rushed our next wonder.

In Utica the palace will finish in 6 turns, Steam Power in 1, so I guess we'll have to starve the shields while we await Industrialisation.
There are a few stacks of workers outside Utica ready to road, lets hope we have the coal

T8 1230AD

Attack the Celts Verulium, and take it, and gift it to Babylon, just looking for elite upgrades

---------------------------------------------------

Note this turn from my log, I took that Celtic city and gave it to somebody else. There would have been little point in razing it. Giving Babylon more cities, means they have more cash to give to us.

When we took those Persian and Indian cities, we should have gifted them to the one we were not at war with if appropriate.

 

[smackster]

Sorry no picture, but there isn't much to show that is new.

Tarkeel is up again now

DeceasedHorse on deck

 

[Tarkeel]

Good timing.. Haven't had time to look at the boards before now Too knackered to play tonight, but will have time tomorrow.