SGOTM7 - Team Chunky

[Baalzebul]

I'm at holiday now and a bit far away from home a lovely seaside town called Kas.

Good news is my friend have civ3 conq so I will be able to play.

Everything looks fine but I'm concerned about AI's research rate. We must get military traditon as soon as possible so libraries and universities must be our first objective.

 

[Mach]

Well libraries are almost done in our core, but they aren't doing much. Our unit support costs are so high, we can't run more than a 10-20% science rate. Does anybody think we can do without the shore blockades? That would help a bit, but it would be dangerous. We're gonna have to free up those workers one of these days, to work Zululand...

I forgot to mention that Zimbabwe just grew last turn, so I expect it to start shrinking soon. I'll finish my turns right now.

 

[Mach]

T7 continued (320AD)
Ok, I totally rethink our southern builds -- we're building libs in cities that only make 1bpt at best, so +50% of that won't even pay for the support cost of the library! I switch to courts, except for a harbor in Salonika so it can grow.
Also I start setting up a trap near Bursa. Next turn!
(I) Just two Zulus near Urfa.
Zimbabwe shrinks!


T8 (330AD)
Much cat missing on those Zulus, but I kill the impi and archer. 28-5
Pillage, pillage, pillage.
Land 4 knights in Zululand.
(I) Two more Zulus, that's it. Zimb shrinks again.

T9 (340AD)
Kill the Zulus, get a knight promote! 30-5
(I) Yikes! Americans land a pike, a knight, and 2 MI's in the south...
Also there's a persian caravel about to drop troops down there...

T10 (350AD)
Cats do good, 5/7 hit. Deep breath.
Our knight flawlessly kills pike.
Our horse flawlessly kills MI, yes!
Our MI flawlessly kills knight, ok this is silly.
Our MI kills their MI, losing 2hp but promoting to elite.
34-5. Well, that ruled.


Ok, I'm done now. Everything went well, except for the lost army. We're almost done with improvements in our homeland, I guess then the workers can all go on blockade duty. I set up a trap around Bursa, but I haven't seen an Indian galley yet, so maybe we might want to send one of those knights over to the Zulu front.

In Zululand: remember that the army can pillage for free! I was able to pillage 3 tiles per turn. For instance, from where it is right now, the army can pillage the mtn, move nw-n, pillage, then move n all in one turn. Zimbabwe is shrinking, and hopefully Ulundi will soon. I suggest we send the army back to Urfa, pillaging along the way (leave the Urfa - Zimbabwe road intact, though), and then use it to escort cats, knights, and MI's to Zimbabwe to burn it. I think we only need to leave 4 cats, the pikes, and the horses in Urfa; the Zulu unit flow has slowed to a trickle, maybe 2 per turn.

We still have 4 settlers in Urfa; once Zimbabwe is burnt, let's start settling. Each city means another 4gpt. (1 from the city, 2 from the added unit support, and 1 from not having to support the settler anymore.)

On our economy: we're only able to run 10-20% sci rate right now, becuase units are choking us. Let's think about getting rid of some old units, horses and archers, except when we need them for mp duty. Let the workers do blockade duty. Also, it's only profitable to build a library in a city that makes at least 2bpt at 10% sci (the maintenance cost of a lib is 1gpt, so in the 2bpt city the lib will pay for itself). Let's get the courts done in the south, and see what those cities look like then.

I just discovered that CivAsisst II won't let you place potential cities in enemy territory! Anyway, here's my suggested Zulu dotmap. In the south, we could do either the red one or the two blue ones. Red dot has less cultural pressure from the persians, blue dots have more cities.

We are doing awesome -- we're not the first civ to die, and we have a good shot at destroying at least one civ ourselves! Not bad.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Niiiiiiiice Mach.
Sorry for that army guys, I was so concerned about razing Zimbamwe, mostly because of it's culture treat on Urfa, that I wagered too much. And that Impi that took of at least 8 HP of it... Sorry again, the Zulus would have been already dead with 2 knight armies.
Can we hold all those MI builds now? We can use some knights and pikes and the unit support we are paying is huge. And they don't have a good upgrade path, I doubt we get to ???guerillas??? (I've never had any MDI after the Military Tradition, no idea of their upgrade path...)
EDIT: I'd rather use Bursa for indian bait... if it can hold without MP, or with some regular warriors in.

 

[Mach]

I was also thinking along those lines, Khan. The nice thing about MI's is that we almost get two of them for the shield cost of one knight, and they are almost as good on offense, especially when escorting cats. On the other hand we finally get eng soon, which means that river cutting our land in two ceases to be a barrier, so knights become much more effective on defense. And 1 knight costs less to support then 2 MI's. (I wonder if, by the time we start our next offensive, our homeland defense is simply pikes in the cities, cats/trebs posted around, and knights in the core. We can send all MI's to the beachhead, to escort cats...) But we're going to take losses when we attack Zimbabwe, so I figured a few more quick infs were in order, they are still very effective on offense since we're guiding cats. After that, though, moving to all knights and pikes is fine with me.

On that note, I think we should move the two knights near Bursa up to Zululand, since I think Bursa is pretty safe for the next few turns as we haven't seen an Indian galley. Them plus the MIs finishing soon will give 6 knights and, what, 6-7 MI's for the Zimbabwe attack? Them plus the army hopefully will be enough. This being deity, I have no idea how many impis to expect there. A dozen? Less? More?

(Baal, remember to escort those troops across the Zulu river, to the tile se of Zim for instance. Also remember cats don't climb mountains, and the ai won't attack our healthy army...)

What shall we do with the blockade? Do you guys think if we just get a vet pike in each city, they will only attack our empty city traps? Maybe we should build some more pikes and test this...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I'm not feeling fine with this coast blockade with non military units, but we have a city that will flip really soon and we must keep an eye on it. We can surround it with military units, to block the coast and to retake it if it flips. I definitely think that we must have cities to attract the enemy. And think that we allready need a navy, even if it's only galleys. With cat support that's enough.
I've barely got used to MapStat, so I'll need some time to get it with MS2.
BTW, with Engineering we can upgrade our cats, if I recall correctly, and I think that at least those in Urfa must be upgraded before the assault. This will be a good use of the rax there. Even if trebs don't climb mountains neither (I think; must check).
Finally, a few workers sent in Zululand may do good job, especially connecting Urfa so we don't waste a turn in the open.

 

[Mach]

Hm, you are right, I wasn't looking at flip chances too closely. Bolu needs a lib -- switch it to a lib.

We are at least 10 turns from eng, and then we'd need time to store up some money to do the upgrades of the cats -- it would be nice, but IMO that's too long to wait to assault Zim. We should go with just the cats. I think the def value of the fortified impi is about 4 (behind the great wall), so we should get ~50% hits with the cats. I hope...

Edit: Oh yeah, also we have 2 workers over by Urfa already, and I already connected Urfa and Zim with a road, for future use. The workers are under the elite pike, north of Urfa where the Zulu city was razed.

Edit: Except I just discovered that the city walls give a bombard defense bonus, so maybe we shouldn't send the cats against Zim at all... (Do cities get a bombard defense bonus as well? Since supposedly, walls don't do anything over size 6...)

 

[Mach]

Hey guys, are we waiting for chunky to get back? He said he'd be back on the evening on the 9th (two days away), and then he'd probably need time to catch up, so no turns would get played until Friday. Baal, if you want to just go that would be fine with me, chunky could just consider it a swap.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I forgot the roster, is Chunky ou Baalzebul up? In both cases, I agree with Mach, go on Baal and play 10 turns. Lets finish the Zulus before the Indians wake up.

 

[Mach]

Chunky is up, roster goes like a-this...

Khan
Mach
Chunky - UP
Baalzebul

Well, Baal said he's on vacation, and he hasn't checked in for 3 days, so maybe he's out of contact right now. If you felt eager and he doesn't poke his head in soon, I wouldn't mind if you played, say, 5 turns to pass the time till Chunky comes back...

 

[chunkymonkey]

Hi guys i'm back!

Well you certainly have been busy whilst i've been away. A couple of leaders - cool! - shame about the army death but hey, c'est la vie.

Assuming someone hasn't already taken it, i'll play some turns tomorrow night - i'm a little sleepy at the moment. I'm OK with the current plans and i'll try to continue with the good trends.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Go on, Chunky, we're in the fun already

 

[Mach]

Welcome back chunky! I trust your trip was good?

Good luck on your turns. Think you can raze Zimbabwe?

 

[chunkymonkey]

I most certainly will try! I really would like to see our score graph start to curve soon. We have two major competitors against us - Teams Grumpy and Wacken. I haven't a clue how Wacken got away so quickly, but Team Grumpy's curve starts diverging from ours after the next ten turns, so hopefully towns settled in the place of Zimbabwe will help us keep up.

And, yes, I had a great vacation thanks. It was blisteringly hot - compared to England anyway - and I ate some great food. There were also some very gorgeous girls there too

 

[Mach]

Things are better when there are pretty girls around, aren't they?

I'm not so concerned about the other teams; they got some very experienced sid-level players over there who I wouldn't expect to compete with. If we can manage to merely win this thing, I'll be really pleased, I don't know about you guys.

What will you do if we get another leader? (The chances of that are sporting, there's a 1/12 chance of it happening on an elite kill, and we've been getting about that many every 10 turns...) I would suggest bringing him back for a home army. I think if Zimbabwe falls, we should be able to roll over the rest of Zululand without needing another army over there.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I think that another leader that pops must be brought home for 2 purposes:
1) Homeland defense if we ignore Mil Tradition
2) Immediate Mil Academy for the bonus if we know it
Of course the second one will be considered a few turnsets later...

 

[Mach]

Hmm, I was figuring Mil Trad is ~100 turns away for us. Even that might be a overly optimistic estimate. With average luck, we should get a bunch of leaders in that timespan. (There but for the grace of God... ) Anyways, I don't think Mil Trad has any impact on what we do with our next leader, or even the one after that.

Obviously we should build another army; the question is: where?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Don't worry guys, i am still playing, i've just had a lot of interruptions over the past day. Should have a post by this evening.

 

[chunkymonkey]

0 - 350AD - Just swap some tile usage around to get a bit more optimum.
IBT - Persians continue to sail around the west. Zulus give me leader bait.

1 - 360AD - Iznik MI -> MI. Uskudar cat -> cat. Aydin lib -> knight. Bombarding zulus. horse (e) kills archer. MI (e) kills archer. knight (e) kills archer. swap some police around. 3-0
IBT - America lands MI. Persia lands immortal.

2 - 370AD - Istanbul knight -> knight. MI (e) kills immortal. knight kills MI. 5-0
IBT - america lands pike and bow. zulu horse attacks urfa but doesn't scratch pike (e). 6-0

3 - 380AD - Izmit builds MI -> rax. horse kills impi. MI kills archer. horse kills archer. horse kills horse. knight kills impi. MI kills pike, promotes. poise forces for battle of Zimbabwe.10-0
IBT - zulu horse kills horse 10-1

4 - 390AD - A most strange thing happens... whilst bombarding Zimbabwe, we get the messages "Palace of Zimbabwe is destroyed", "Market is destroyed", and ... "The Great Wall of Zimbabwe is destroyed!" What!!! OK, I take that as an invitation. Knight army kills two impi. Knight kills impi. Knight kills impi. And Zimbabwe is no more... horse (e) kills horse. archer kills horse. horse kills archer. 17-1

5 - 400AD - edirne builds knight -> market. bursa builds knight -> knight. uskudar builds cat -> settler. denizili builds cat -> cat. Found Bingol - start cat. Knight army attacks Bapedi, kills impi. Knight kills impi. horse (e) kills archer. pike kills archer 21-1
IBT - zulu land horse.

6 - 410AD - Iznik builds MI -> knight. knight kills horse. army kills impi, take Bapedi. I see a Persian musket. Found Riza 22-1
IBT - Persia and America have Printing Press. It won't be long before we get Berserkers at our gates.

7 - 420AD - Istanbul builds knight -> settler. MI (e) kills archer. Battle of Intombe: army kills two impi. knight kills impi. knight (e) kills archer. takes Intombe. Found Zonguldak. 27-1.
IBT - Learn Engineering - Invention in 23.. America is building Smiths.

8 - 430AD - Izmit builds rax -> knight. Aydin builds knight -> knight. Ankara builds court -> rax. Found Kirklareli.
IBT - America lands 3 guys.

9 - 440AD - Istanbul builds settler -> knight. Sinop builds court -> rax. knight dies to knight. MI (e) kills MI. MI (e) kills bow. knight dies to impi in Ishandlwana, knight kills impi, army kills impi. In Ulundi, knight kills impi, knight dies to impi, knight kills impi. Meet Vikings (7 cities, up Invention, Music Theory, Astronomy at least.) They have wines. They do not have horses at the moment. I try to trade but they do not want anything. So I slap them with a glove and run away. 34-4

10 - 450AD - Bursa builds knight -> knight. Uskudar builds settler -> settler. horse (e) kills archer... And just when i thought things couldn't be better, old Suleyman I turns up. knight dies to impi in Ishandlwana. Army kills Impi. Take Isandlwanha. Ulundi: knight kills impi. knight dies to impi. MI dies to impi. knight kills impi, promotes, Take Ulundi, along with the Oracle. 38-5

Thoughts/Musings:
Invention in 13. Our economy is starting to look better and better with every turn. We can now run 30-40% research. If we can cram a bunch of cities in as tight as possible on the outer coast of Zululand and irrigate them, we can soon have access to a horde of taxmen/scientists. More settlers are on their way.

We now have furs, but they won't behooked to the mainland until Urfa gets its harbour.

The Vikings appear to be militarily weak, but i'm not looking forward to defending against Berserkers.

Indians should be next. I think the Americans have been pounding them a little, so it will be a little easier, but they still have a stack of AC. They just entered the MA, and as of yet, do not know Feudalism. I think perhaps we should disconnect their iron ASAP, assuming this is their only source, although this maybe a risky mission. We need more galleys to land a decent stack of troops somewhere in India.

At the moment, I think we should use Suleyman to build a knight army on the home continent. We should remember to keep the army away from the southern shore just in case the Vikings attack it. I considered the possibility of transporting the empty army over with a few knights for the Indian invasion, but that just seemed very risky to me - but open to debate.

Erm, can't think of anything else right now, except, we now have 22% of land according to the Victory Screen. Woohoo!

Here's a save

I'm tired now, off to bed...

 

[Mach]

Zulu are goneski! That makes me happy.

I only took a quick look at the save. Chunky, can you go over our military disposition for us? Where were the landings? We seem to be surrounded by American ships.

At least two big things to discuss, I think. First, do we want to sustain this huge blockade we have going? That's a lot of units just sitting around. Can we instead get vet pikes in most cities, leaving a few empty with an ambush nearby? That might free up lots of units...

Second, I concur with your idea to disconnect the indian iron. I was thinking about a two-prong attack on India -- a force of pikes land in the north on the iron to get the indian units moving that way. Two turns later, we retreat the pikes and land offensive units in the south. Turn four, raze a city and plant one of our own. Then push.

Great job Chunky!