SGOTM5 - Team jeffelammar

[grahamiam]

nice jd! and it's a good idea to start on 2 fronts, now that the FP core is being productive. good luck cks! get on with India and keep the wave on the big island pushing forward. now that we have knights, we should be trying to capture 8-10 cities per set. if possible, let's get our armies off the worthless islands and onto the worthwhile islands (actually, i'm not even sure where you are refering to).

 

[CKS]

Sounds great. I've got the save. I'll work on India, England, and moving troops down the long island. I'll see if I can eliminate the Zulu while I'm at it.

Nice job on the one-tile island. Also, I'm glad you picked up the extra workers. Roads aren't railroads, but they are better than nothing, and we seem to be forced to build all our own roads.

 

[jeffelammar]

In the north of the center island, mainly at Chittagong, the troops that are being produced there are being gathered to head to India. I think all of the center island's resources should go towards the small island, as they are pretty unneccessary elsewhere. For that reason, I moved all the galleys from the south up to the north, or at least began the movement.

Good call. We definately want to start the process of getting a big force deployed on the "short island".

I would suggest taking the last few worthwile English cities within reach, then take Southend, Dover, and whatever else can be had for peace.

Then in those areas, lets rush a longbowman and try to finish off the Zulus, who have their last city, Swazi, up on that same island.

It might be worth rushing a harbor over there so we can rush 3 knights to patrol the area.

There is an army outside of Bengal, a worthless island. Its only value to us is through the added territory, so we might as well hold onto it. In addition, it will make a decent landing point for units, and from that point we can take them up to India.

We should definately take that city. It will probably be better to setup a ship chain directly to the "short island".

I must have been infected by whatever made jeff write so much at the end of his turns.

One other thing I noticed this morning when looking at the save. The Iroquois have built up a 1 tile city to about 5 population. This is a problem as the AI rarely gives up such a high pop city. We are going to have to plan how to take care of it. I see two main strategies for dealing with it.
1. Send a bunch of galley/caravels over and occupy all the tiles, thus starving it it down to 1 pop. Then demand it in peace. (Would take a long time)
2. Research frigates and bomb the heck out of it till it is small enough to get in peace. (Drives us down a lot more research than we want to do).

Either way, we have to be careful not to accidently jump the AI's capitol over there.

Just submitted the save, and it looks like I lost a tiny bit of ground to Team smackster. Entering this, I had no real desire to win, but now that it looks like we are in a tight tight race, it is sort of exciting.

I too wasn't expecting to be in the thick of it, but since we are, let's keep giving them a run for the money.
I know we have bumped heads a few times as a team, but I want to say that I am really enjoying playing this game with you guys.

 

[CKS]

The Iroquois 1 tile island is going to be pain. Either of jeff's options will take a long time. The starve-it-down plan only works if we are at war, correct? And frigates bombard poorly, in addition to taking a lot of research to get. I think the starve plan is better, but we'll need to declare war on them long before we actually go to war, except for the galleys that fill the tiles. Thanks for noticing this problem, jeff, so we have the time to deal with it.

Do we have any other options? I can't think of any way to convince the Iroquois to pop-rush there, but maybe it is stupider than I think.

 

[grahamiam]

Do we have any other options? I can't think of any way to convince the Iroquois to pop-rush there, but maybe it is stupider than I think.

i do not know of any other options other than aquiring during peace. we just need make sure that the capitol does not jump there, or we're screwed just avoid attacking the capitol, only attack the outlining towns. if they won't give it up, the rush some galleys along the lower coast and starve them while going after Japan. Coastal and sea squares give 2fpt with harbor, ocean tiles give 1fpt with harbor.

 

[bed_head7]

Rushing stuff is a bit expensive, and until we get Military Tradition, we probably won't have too much disposable income. Of course, once we have that, we will be upgrading knights. So I would still advocate the easiest solution at this moment, which is rushing a longbowman. Then again, a regular longbowman only beats the regular impi 2/3 of the time. Long term though, getting some fast units to patrol islands will be vital. If we want to start now on that one island, that is fine. But I would still advocate leaving a bit of money in the bank for emergency rushing.

 

[grahamiam]

well, we can always shutoff research for a turn or 2 when we get a new tech. when i was up, we were capable of 100+gpt, and that's probably improved by now. we just have to take our opportunities when we can. once we get MT, i would expect that we would turn off research and just short rush cossacks via muskets.

 

[bed_head7]

That is true, but lets get MT as fast as we can and then we can rush two cossacks instead of three knights.

 

[denyd]

I just did a quick survey using CRP-Rings looking for 1 tile island and there are quite a few.

Settled already:
Byblos - Egypt
Tynendenga - Iroquois
Ngome - Russia
+1 with a placeholding spearman

Open (potential settling nation):
1 NW of Byblos (Egypt)
1 N of Shiraz (Arabs)
3 SE of Nagasaki (Japan or Celts)

We'll need to survey the map before settling for peace or taking the capital with a nation to be sure we don't leave one of these hanging. We should also try to get placeholder for those SE islands before someone settlers them.

One thing I have noticed, once you take a tribes most of their cities and their capital, they will tend to be willing to give everything else (all other cities, knowledge & cash) to get peace. We might have to go that path with the Iroquois to get Tyenendaga.

In the north, as for a second front, once we've taken most of the home city intruders, the Egyptians & Americans are quite weak and have a lot of smaller cities. With the number of cities we have now razing is no longer an issue. Alternately, we could start on the mountain island to the west and just start attacking whomever we come to along the way to Egypt. These are all secondary AI cities and will be weakly defended and most will auto-raze.

In the south, with the Mongols, Zulu & English gone (or going), we should probably turn our attention to the Aztecs, Japanese & Celts. At last look Japan had no iron conntected and should fall quickly, the Aztecs trailed in tech and have a weak military. Only the Celts with the Gallic Swords might prove a speed bump in our advances.

 

[bed_head7]

Japan's iron was connected at some point, I do not know when, but in turn 8 or 9 when I started looking furthur down the road I saw that it was connected.

 

[grahamiam]

Japan's iron was connected at some point, I do not know when, but in turn 8 or 9 when I started looking furthur down the road I saw that it was connected.

then, with all haste, we must go after them and that iron source. don't give them enough time to build more than a few samari this makes killing the next 2 opponents between us and Japan critical. we must be swift. hopefully, the next player is able to bust thru them and start on japan before they become difficult. i would even delay the aztec's if that's possible.

 

[denyd]

It looks Japan's iron is coming from Osaka, one of their northern most cities. We can delay the Aztecs, but staying on the western coast. We have to go through the Celtic core however. From Canterbury we go after Entremont, Mohacs & Lugdumnum, which reduce the Celts to a non-player then we've reached southern Japan. There is a Japanese & Celtic city S/SE of Newcastle, so we'll have to watch our back as we take on the Japanese core.

In the north, it might be faster to sign peace with India, getting a city or two and going after America & Egypt (the weak sisters up there). We can keep sending reinforcements from the homeland until a formidable force is created (maybe with an army or 2) and then run over India (who's bound to have Jumbos by then).

 

[bed_head7]

I saw one war elephant towards the very end.

 

[CKS]

Here is the save.
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm5/jeffelammar_SG005_AD0950_01.sav

Here are a few quick notes. I'll post my turn log after them.

1 Tile Islands: Besides the ones visible earlier, I found three more in a nice little island collection. I don't think anyone else can get to them until Astronomy, but we'll want to get them occupied. The galley over there can transport units over. I thought scouts and warriors built in corrupt cities would be good.

I took Ulaanbaatar (eliminating the Mongols), Bengal, Newcastle, Oxford, York, Coventry, Southend, Calcutta, Entremont, and Camulodunum. Richborough autorazed. We lost Houston; our spearman survived 3 elephants but the fourth killed it. England is down to a pop 1 city by the Zulu; a couple of rushed units will allow us to kill them both. The Celts have 2 cities left, and we will take them in 2 turns. This will also give us our own 7th luxury. I looked a bit, but couldn't find an eighth lux.

India has gunpowder and education, but they don't have saltpeter. France has two sources, but they can't trade yet. We'll have metallurgy in 2 turns.

We can declare on Japan now. There is a settler pair running around somewhere. We have a knight that can advance on the city denyd mentions, and an army in the vicinity if needed. We'll want to finish off the Celts before attacking them, but the troops are moving into position now.

I don't think India is all that strong right now, but making peace with them isn't a bad idea either if we can get something from them. However, their culture is strong, so we'll probably lose Calcutta to a flip if we make peace - we'd need a garrison of about 70 to make it secure.

 

[CKS]

Turn 0, 850 AD Did some MM, switched some builds to harbors and libraries, sell WM for ~100 g.

IBT Beijing starts a knight, Canterbury riots as 2 resistors are quelled.

860 Take Ulaanbaatar, start harbor there. Vet MI kills Oxford spear.

IBT Ghandi offers Bengal and Jaipur for peace. I decline. Zimbabwe starts barracks, St. Louis starts harbor, Bapedi starts library.

870 Hurry Hastings library - will give us incense. Vet MI dies attacking Oxford spear. Army takes Bengal, starts harbor. Science to 80%

IBT Hastings starts marketplace, Shanghai starts library, many start knights.

880 Vet MI kills spear in Oxford. Rush harbor in Swazi.

IBT Elephants approach Houston. We build more knights.

890 Vet knight kills settler pair. Elite knight dies attacking spear. Knight takes Newcastle. Galley finds bunch of little islands. France now has gunpowder.

IBT 2 elephants die at Houston. Now I wish I'd rushed another unit there. Learn chemistry, start Metallurgy - 8 turns at 80%

900 India has gunpowder, but no saltpeter. Elite horse takes Oxford, starts library. 2 Vet knights kill York spears. Unload 3 knights on hill between Calcutta and Delhi.

IBT Houston spear retreats an elephant, then dies. Elephant kills knight by Calcutta

910 Vet knight takes York, promotes. York starts library. Capitol jumps to Dover. Make peace, getting Coventry, Southend, 17 g, 3 gpt, Wmap. Declare on Celts. Horse army takes out settler pair. Knight army kills archer.

IBT Calcutta longbowman dies attacking knight.

920 Horse army kills Entremont spear. Knight army kills Entremont spear. Knight kills Calcutta pike, knight kills Calcutta spear and takes Calcutta - start walls.

IBT LB kills knight, elephant dies

930 Vet knight dies at Ent. 2 Vet knights kill Ent spears, taking city, settler, worker. Vet knight kills archer. Reg knight kills archer. Knight army kills 2 Camulodunum spears, takes city, sinks galley. Start warrior. MI kills Indian longbow, Knight kills elephant.

IBT Elephants arrive in Santiago. Celtic archer kills knight.

940 Vet knight kills archer. Switch Santiago to spear.

IBT Elephants retreat from Santiago without attacking. LB kills knight near Delhi.

950 Vet knight razes Richborough, nets 3 workers. Vet knight retreats at Lugdunum, Vet knight kills spear at Lugdunum.

Firaxis 564
We've lost some more ground to team Smackster.

 

[grahamiam]

nice for a builder actually, very nice let's open up 2 fronts so we can pick up some speed. i think denyd get's to implement his plan of peace with the indians for war with the americans and egyptians.

 

[denyd]

Sounds good to me.

Any Samurai sightings?

Think Japan might sign an ROP?

Looking at the map (via CRP Rings), I'm planning a campaign of Nara to Edo to Kagoshima to Kyoto. That will put Japan on the ropes. Then I'll head for Osaka to take away the Japanese iron. Of course, I'm hoping to have finished off the Celts, signed peace with India (for a city or 2) and started moving troops to prepare for America & Egypt. My real reason for wanting to attack America and Egypt, is I hate to type those *&^%$ Aztec city names.

Research to Military Tradition at full speed, then shut off research until all knights upgraded. I was thinking after that we might head for Music Theory. Bach's on the big island would add a lot of happy faces (more points). Remember to starve down captured cities, foreign faces are no points.

I should be able to start tonight (and hopefully finish). I got it.

Just a question, if I happen to get a GL, what's a good use? Has Leo's been built? Save for Cossack army?

 

[grahamiam]

Just a question, if I happen to get a GL, what's a good use? Has Leo's been built? Save for Cossack army?

cossack army or rush a court somewhere semicorrupt so we can get another useful town. sounds like a good plan, can't wait to read about it i would bag the wonders and just concentrate on military. the key is to win this as fast as possible!

Remember to starve down captured cities, foreign faces are no points.

 

[jeffelammar]

First off to CKS.

nice for a builder

Heck, that was nice for anyone.

i would bag the wonders and just concentrate on military. the key is to win this as fast as possible!

I agree with this. Once we have all the Knights upgraded, I suggest using all availiable cash to rush more cossacks and any other military units we need. No reason to build up a surplus at that point. More military is the way to go

Remember to starve down captured cities, foreign faces are no points.

This is news to me. I just went back and re-read the scoring article in the Strategy section, and found no mention of foreign vrs native citizens.

If this is true, then I have been under a mistaken impression for a long time.

I thought the main disadvantage of foreign workers was that they became unhappy during a war with their nation.

EDIT

Think Japan might sign an ROP?

Since we already shot our Rep, if you can get them to sign it, you should and then take them to the woodshed.

 

[grahamiam]

Points

2 points per turn for happy people (your own nationality)
1 point per turn for content or specialist
0 points per turn for unhappy or foriegners
there's also a multiplier for difficulty

so, a size 12 city with 11 natural citizens and 1 foreign will produce a lot more points per turn than one with 6 natural and 6 foreign. therefore, it is advantageous to taxstarve all foreigner cities captured militarily till size 1, then build the pop back up. any cities taken for peace automatically get our nationality so no reason to starve them.