SGOTM5 - Team jeffelammar

[jeffelammar]

First: I got a PM from MB. He says he should have our save updated by late tonight.
Second: I'm pretty busy tomorrow, so I may not be able to play till Sunday Morning. (Just so you know)

The more I look at this map, the more impressed I am with it.

1. The closest land for us to invade is the worst land on that big long continent. Arabia and France would be a great spot to build a FP and get lots of use out of it, but that is also far away.
2. The Logical (to me) place to attack first contains two strong defensive militaristic nations.
3. The thin part of the continent being near us, makes me pretty sure that France and Arabia will be pretty powerful by the time we get to attacking them.

So here are my thoughts on what I think we should do.
1. Attack either the Mongols or the Chinese.
2. I would just use horses swordsmen seem like a waste right now.
3. Start going east once we have some more cities.
4. Plan on building a FP as far east as possible as soon as we have enough cities to do so.

That said. If the team wants swords, I will build a bunch of warriors during my turns. Otherwise I will build up horses.

Either way, I will start getting units in place for the invasion of whichever nation earns the right to be our enemy.

EDIT: One other note. I actually would like to tackle the Mongols sooner rather than later. Their UU is strong, but very expensive. I'd like to take them down before they build too many.

 

[grahamiam]

jeff, i'm a big fan of horseman, one of my favorite units. However, it just feels like we'd be better off doing an initial 8 swords (via warriors), then go all out for horses. we can start capturing towns sooner (8 turns for warriors + 8 turns for galleys, unless one comes back, which is possible). building horses will take longer and delay the galley builds.

the problem i forsee is the Zulu, with the impi, will really chew up horseman. we will need the swords here and there to pop the stubborn ones. if i were playing this solo, initially, i would use the swords to establish the beachhead and expand slowly into the Chinese, while the horses are built and arrive. once they land, they can speed up the demise of the vikings. leave the swords in chinese territory so we can quickly swing on the Zulu and then work our way E, making sure to divide our enemies when units get thin.

another option is to go for the English, then swing W and NE once we buildup enough troops, but this will divide our troops while we go in 2 directions, rather than keeping a single, strong front.

edit: actually, we could just build 5 warriors, and take the 2 horses and the elite archer with us.

 

[jeffelammar]

jeff, i'm a big fan of horseman, one of my favorite units. However, it just feels like we'd be better off doing an initial 8 swords (via warriors), then go all out for horses. we can start capturing towns sooner (8 turns for warriors + 8 turns for galleys, unless one comes back, which is possible). building horses will take longer and delay the galley builds.

Good points. Unless there are arguments otherwise, I will aim to have an invasion force ready to go at the end of my turns. I'll aim for 6 swords plus what we already have. I'll get one or two more galleys into position. The one in the west will go north to discover the continent that has to be there. The farther east one will keep exploring and the one by the tundra island will head south to help in ferrying troops.

If I build 6 warriors and a galley, found the iron colony and switch to making Horsemen, I think we can be ready to invade midway through bed_head's turns. (Sound like a plan?)

I guess the main question then is which AI should be the target. If we are going in with mostly swords, then there is no reason not to go after the Zulu first. The main advantage of their UU is much less useful when defending against Swords.

So I guess the candidates for attack are as follows.
1. China - Get em before their UU.
2. Zulu - Militaristic, we might even get some prebuilt barracks from them.
3. Mongols - Get em before they can build many of those killer UUs.
4. England - More central start. Maybe get an early FP over there.
5. Vikings - Seems to me that there is no reason to take them first. Could very well be second if we go China first.

I'm leaning toward either China or Zulu. What do you guys think?

 

[denyd]

I just took a look at the map and would like to make a case for attacking the Vikings first.

According to what we know already there is a safe passage (crossing via 3 ocean tiles) just NE of Canton, that we could use to ferry troops across to the desert NW of Bjorevin. We could make a pair of trips with 3 galleys, giving a total strike force of 12 units. We'd then be in position to strike at the Viking core and eliminate them before Berserks (the most dangerous units in this game) are available. We'd then be in a position to advance on China and finish them off before Riders are available (the 2nd most dangerous UU in the game). Because the Vikings are at the end of the island, we'd need only a minor defense force to hold that area while advancing on China. We also be able to use the 2 luxuries in the Viking lands for happiness and the iron to upgrade mass produced Moscow Warriors to swordsmen for the Zulus. Taking China would give us access to another luxury and horses. At that point we should be able to steamroll the rest of the world.

 

[mad-bax]

Guys, your save has been fixed and uploaded to the server. You can download it and play on.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[grahamiam]

thanks MB!

my preference is china, vikings, then a strong push E towards the rest of the rabble, as i outlined above. i think the zulu will require more troops than either the chinese or vikings, but that's just a gut feel.

i'm not worried about the viking or chinese UU yet, but i agree with denyd that it's best to eliminate them before we have to worry. probably doesn't matter if it's chinese 1st then vikings or vis versa.

edit: deleted my attachment so we don't use the wrong save file. also, if bedhead can play before jeff, maybe it's best to do a swap?

 

[denyd]

One other thing I noticed, is that the amount of resources available. It seems like every nation has access to iron, horses and at least one luxury. We should set Moscow to producing warriors or horses as fast as possible and upgrade them when they reach the other island.

Any thoughts on research? Do we even need to do any at this time? Our cash would probably be better spent on upgrades than research at this time.

We can probably pointy stick research our way to the MA. Just leave a single AI city and sue for all known techs & cash. Then move on to the next tribe. Once the peace expires (hopefully they'll have added another city by then) we can absorb what's left (unless they've got more techs for us) and move on.

As for future FP sites, I was thinking about London for FP site and maybe Paris for a palace jump location. From the looks of this map, I don't think we'll be able to acquire 67% of the dirt, so we shouldn't have to worry about accidently winning via domination.

I have the sneaky feeling that the Cossacks won't be much of a factor in this game.

 

[grahamiam]

imho, the only research we need is for a new gov't, hence the min run on poly towards monarchy. we can get the rest via trades. with so many civ's in the game, i wouldn't let any of the initial civ's survive.

London as an FP site's ok. with the current setup, the palace rank corruption bug will help us greatly

 

[jeffelammar]

Since the save is already available, I will be able to get my turns in before Sunday, so no changes are necessary. I have a few hours to get them in tonight.

I'll check again before I play, but it looks like we are leaning to either China or Scandinavia first.
Since the landing spot for both of them is the same, I will try to setup an invasion to hit the spot between the two of them.

 

[grahamiam]

no need to be so diplomatic. pick one and focus on it. as we ferry troops over, we'll be gracious enough to expand the war to include others

 

[jeffelammar]

Not sure what exactly MB did to our save. I didn't detect any big difference except that the AI started building roads. (Maybe that was it)

750BC Save

Turn Log:

Turn 0 - Preflight:
Switch Moscow to Warrior. MM to improve food and still get 12 spt. (going down to 10 didn't give us any advantage)

IBT: Moscow W1 -> W, Arabs start Colossus

Turn 1 - 975BC:
Check AIs, no new maps (all cost 1g). I would have thought MB's edit would add roads, but I guess not.
Olga moves near iron to start roading towards the launch spot.
Anna heads the same direction.
Both horses head out barb hunting.
Ralley Galley (I renamed it) keeps heading north in hopes of finding the missing AIs.
Suicide Sister Galley Explores and starts to head west.
Northward Ho Galley obeys its name.

IBT: Moscow builds W2 -> W3

Turn 2 - 950BC:
Horses still hunting.
Olga starts road. Anna joins her. (yes I'm doubling up after earlier discussions, isn't hipocracy great?)
Galleys keep exporing.
AI's WMs are still worthless.

IBT: Moscow builds W3 -> W4. Barb climbs the iron mountain.

Turn 3 - 925BC:
Hood kills the barb on the iron. A horse disperses barb camp in west, heads back.
I send Suicide Sister Galley around the north of our home. She will still arrive at about the right time to ferry troops and will scout out that area on the way.
Ralley Galley spots Egyptian and Spanish borders, goes to investigate Egypt first.
Egypt lacks Alphabet and HBR, but knows Spain. (Big surprise)
I choose not to do any trading with them as I will meet Spain next turn.

IBT: Moscow builds W4 -> W5, Zulu starts Oracle.

Turn 4 - 900BC:
Horse disperses Barbs in north.
Meet Spain. They know India and America, but are behind in tech.
Trade Masonry to Spain for world Map. (Probably not best choice in retrospect, but Since everyone else seemed to have it it seemed safe.)

IBT: Moscow builds W5 -> W6 : English start Colossus.

Turn 5 - 875BC:
Galleys keep exploring. Horse kills Barbarian Horse.
Trade WM to Spain for Contact with America and India
America is short MM and HBR as is India.
Trade WM to America for WM + 95g
Buy India's WM for 11 gold. (Hope to get better value this way)
Arabia and Iroquois have discovered Polytheism.

Break: Take a 2 hour break to have dinner with friends. Left the game up, so made it look like it took us two hours longer

IBT: Moscow builds W6 -> Galley

Turn 6 - 850BC:
Trade WM +43g to Iroquois for Polytheism (should have done this last turn)
Trade WM to Arabs for WM + 18
Trade WM to Vikings for WM + 25
Trade WM to Japan for WM + 13
MM Moscow Back to 14 shields per turn.
Set research to Monarchy.

IBT: Arabs start Pyramids, Spain builds Colossus.

Turn 7 - 825BC:
Ralley Galley heads south to help in troop transport.
Anna heads south to continue road.
Olga moves onto the Iron.
MM Moscow to 16 spt. Galley in 1.

IBT: Moscow builds Galley -> Horse.
Arabs, Egypt, French, China and India switch to Pyramids.
Vikings and Arabs start on Oracle.

Turn 8 - 800BC:
Olga forms Iron Colony.
Anna builds a road on tundra.
Upgrade 6 Warriors to Swordsmen for 240g.

IBT: Nothing to report.

Turn 9 - 775BC:
Swords head towards the launch point. Robin also heads that way.
Move horse into Moscow to act as the MP that used to be Robin.
MM Moscow back to 14 spt.

IBT: Moscow builds Horseman -> Heroic Epic (See later discussion)

Turn 10 - 750BC:
Move Units toward launch point.
Move Galleys toward launch point.

After Action Report
3 Galleys will arrive at the launch point in the next 2 turns.
The other galley (Northward Ho) is exploring the north and is headed west.
We have 6 swordsmen, 2 archers and 2 horsemen headed towards the launch point.
England and Zulu have both learned Philosophy, but not Polytheism. We can make a trade if we want. (I leave that up to the next player)

We have 17 units for a cost of 13gpt.

I set the Production to Heroic Epic, but I'm not sure that is what we want to do. We could just keep building units. Our 147 gold will allow us to run at a deficit for a while, so maybe units are the way to go.

Invasion. The Vikings only have 1 city over pop 1. We may want to go after China first and then loop back to take out the Vikings once their cities grow.

I have attached a Map of what I think we should do to ferry the troops across. (Ignore it if you see something better)

The red dot is where we would load troops, the green the first galley destination, and the purple the second galley turn and unloading spot.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to point out. The two AI continents still do not know each other. Arabia has MM, so might be contacting India soon, so consider trading contacts when one of the AIs has a useful tech to trade for.

 

[grahamiam]

nice set jeff!

lets start building the horseman for the 2nd wave. if we had currency, then a market would be fine, but units is the way to go now. we'll get more towns and the troop support will swell soon enough.

 

[jeffelammar]

lets start building the horseman for the 2nd wave. if we had currency, then a market would be fine, but units is the way to go now. we'll get more towns and the troop support will swell soon enough.

Sounds right to me. I just did the switch to make sure I remembered to have the discussion on the subject.

For what it's worth

Roster
bed_head7 <-- UP
CKS <-- On deck
denyd
grahamiam
jeffelammar

 

[bed_head7]

Okay, got it. Will go after the Chinese. Your map with the galley stuff helps me a lot. Differential naval movement is a pain.

 

[jeffelammar]

Okay, got it. Will go after the Chinese. Your map with the galley stuff helps me a lot. Differential naval movement is a pain.

In case you didn't notice it, the Galley coming from the north can reach the load points in two turns from where it is by going through the blacked out ocean.

If you knew that, then sorry for stating the obvious.

 

[CKS]

Looks good, jeff.

City size makes the Chinese a much better choice as a first victim. As long as both the Vikings and the Chinese are gone early, I'm happy. Once we've absorbed the Chinese, the Vikings should be ready for assimilation.

I vote for continuing to produce units (horsemen) in Moscow. We have a cushion of cash and pretty soon we'll have some not particularly productive cities to increase our allowed number of units. These cities aren't going to be good for cranking out units for a while, but our support costs will drop as soon as they are ours.

I also agree that we shouldn't worry about researching past monarchy. We should take what we can get in peace deals and do a minimal amount of trading. We're not in a hurry to rush the tech pace. We will need knights before we get around to the Mongols, unless we can get to them really quickly. I'm leaning toward holding off on them until later and trying to get them involved in fighting someone else first.

 

[grahamiam]

We will need knights before we get around to the Mongols, unless we can get to them really quickly. I'm leaning toward holding off on them until later and trying to get them involved in fighting someone else first.

what??? please remember, this is regent. do not respect the AI! run over everyone!

 

[bed_head7]

750 BC (0) - Check things out and am definitely going after Chinese, still unsure about Polytheism-Philosophy trade, though.

730 BC (1) - Okay, here goes. Polytheism to England for Philosophy, WM, 8g. For no particular reason, Writing to Egypt for their WM, 3g. Iroquois give 82g and WM for Philosophy. Arabs give WM, 50g for Philosphy. Go back to Iroquois to get another 45g for our WM. I also decided to make it a galley, since we have two explorin' and two shippin' galleys.

710 BC (2) - Now the Vikings have more cities bigger than size one, so I guess the decision will come at the very end.

690 BC (3) - CoL was discovered by someone, and it only takes contact with India to get CoL and 16g from the Iroquois. After doing this, I trade for every bit of gold in the world so that no one can buy contact with anyone else.

670 BC (4) - Trade for a grand total of 6g, to leave everyone broke again. No contact has been traded, though, so it is working.

650 BC (5) - Halfway point, and I consider marching into Scandinavia with two swords, a horse and our elite archer, but decide to wait for our forces to double in size.

630 BC (6) - Math and literature learned, so a harbor and then maybe some cats. CoL and WM to Japan for Math, 8g, and their WM. Math and WM to Arabia for their WM, 8g, and Literature. I also notice that everyone has contact with India despite my best efforts, but the other three are still unknown.

610 BC (7) - System low on virtual memory again, and reload.

590 BC (8) - What the heck. With six units total, we'll invade Scandinavia. We will have four more dropped off this turn, but why wait?

570 BC (9) - Move towards Nidaros, Scandinavian capital.

550 BC (10) - Well, a vet horse against a reg spear fortified on flatland has about 50% chance of winning, meaning retreat rate will be really low, so I'll send in a sword instead. First sword wins. Second sword loses, redlining the defender. So much for what I thought, as the third sword also loses. Might as well have sent in the horses. First horse retreats against the now 2/4hp defender. Second horse wins, redlining. Overall, not to good. We just traded 60s in our units for 60s in Viking units. Anyway, send in Robin, our elite archer, to finish off the redlined spearman, and he flawlessly captures Nidaros, and Ivan the Terrible rises from Robin's ranks as a Great Leader. If only our first elite win had popped a leader in SGOTM4...

I was going to head after Oslo next, as it is size 2. I have never won by conquest before, so I don't really know what the strategy is, especially in a map as strange as this one. We ought to build some catapults, as three or four catapults may have meant that we caputre Nidaros without loss. Unfortunately, we can't get up to 20spt just yet, though I think we can at 12 and with harbor (though I didn't think to check). And we probably don't need a library until we finish up researching Monarchy and have captured a few cities, making research affordable. And I guess we need a few more swords to replace their fallen brethren. Most importantly though, we need to decide what to do with the leader. I say army for sure, even though they aren't particularly fun after playing with a Conquests army, as we will do lots of fighting, making the Heroic Epic very valuable to us. The main debate I see is between building a sword army or horse army.

 

[bed_head7]

Leader, with all three moves remaining.

 

[grahamiam]

bedhead! nice to see you decide not to hesitate. we need to strike, and strike fast. as you can see, there were only 2 defenders in town. probably only 3 in the capitol and some others will only be 1. there is no need to wait. the key is to keep attacking in strength, and then wait only when troops get thin. we'll be able to outproduce the opposition once we get more towns.

for the MGL, sword army is fine with me