SGOTM7 - Team Chunky

[Khan_Asparuh]

GREEEEAT JOB Chunky! I'll take a look at the save and be back with some thoughts, but for now I think that before going for an indian city we must get rid of some Indian AC, with pikes/cats standing on a mountain. We must watch out for the Berserkers and build some navy for their vessels.
EDIT: It looks nice. I'd like to ask for something, as Baal is in vacation and probably the girls keep him too occupied to play (poor Baal, we're all with you ), can I eventually take it tonight and consider this as a swap, 'coz I have a really tough week to come and will have problems playing in the evening. Do you guys mind?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Thanks guys, here are some pics.

I'm not sure how much of a temptation the east coast of ex-Zululand is going to be for everyone else yet - so we should play it by ear for the time being with respect to military presence there. Obviously the knight army must stay. He can come back to Bapedi to heal now that the flip risk is eliminated.

Also, our mainland east coast is blockaded with workers, and we are light on military there. Removing workers may invite Persian landings.

I just realised something else - when Urfa completes its harbour, there still won't be a sea passage to the mainland due to Persian and Indian borders - we should get a harbour somewhere on the north coast - Iznik maybe.

I like the attack plan - I think 4 pikes should be sufficent to disconnect the iron up there. If we do it this way we may be able to use the army in India as well - land the pikes as a decoy - it could even be a suicide mission for more effectiveness, then a couple of turns later once all the AC have moved north - stick the empty army and a swathe of knights down in the south. Next turn we have a fresh army and an extra 6-7 knights - should be unstoppable right? However, I would still be OK with using the army on the mainland, either way is fine by me.

Whatever we do we need at least 5-6 more galleys. Two are on their way back from recon - one is still taking a look around Scandinavia - that is probably dead.

 

[chunkymonkey]

If you want to take it Khan that's fine by me - Baal is probably having too much fun anyway . I'm sure he won't mind.

 

[Mach]

I don't have much time to post now but here are thoughts for the moment...

I think we're going to want to switch production to galleys and pikes for awhile. Here's why:

• I'd like to lift our blockade and put all those units to work. (I'm guessing that's 15-20gpt of units that are doing nothing...) That means getting pikes in costal cities, except for a few completely empty for ai's to target. The army in our interior, plus another knight or three, could be there in case they do land somewhere unexpected.
• I guess I was the one who passed by the Indian iron, and I remember seeing many units shifting around up there. Have we seen an Indian galley yet? They might not be building them because they're choking under unit costs. All this adds up to we'll want more than 4 pikes in our iron landing party, maybe even 8. The landing might see, I don't know, as many as 10 attacks on the first turn...
• Vikings should come up from the south, we know the direction. Maybe we should put together a stack or two of galleys to try to sink Viking ships? Even if we lose a galley every attack, it might be worth it so we have less berzerkers to deal with...

Awhile ago, Khan mentioned that we'll want to compose our forces of knights, since they are a bit stronger then MI's, yet cost less gpt per strength. (For want of a better way of putting it...) I like that idea -- we should aim for having a lean and mean force of knights in our interiors to repulse landings (and avoid berzerkers), sending our MI's to attack India. I wouldn't mind (productively!) losing some MI's, to help our economy...

I can't wait to get those furs hooked up, so we can drop lux. If we need to build a harbor in the north, yes let's get that done soon.

Edit: It just occurred to me, if we get someone on that incense hill by Karachi, we might be able to see what the Americans are doing over there...

 

[chunkymonkey]

Unless anyone has a burning desire to do it, i could knock up a little something for the spoiler sometime this week.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Go on for the spoiler, Chunky. I've missed this one as an info.
Sorry, was unable to play. RL surprises. Tonight if Baal doesn't show, I feel that it'll be tough to wake up tomorrow morning.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

SGOTM7
(0) 450AD
Our two islands are looking niiiiiiiiiiiiice.
I switch Istanbul and Bursa for a few 2 turns galleys, plus a few pikes. I foresee a landing of at least 5 galleys loaded with pikes and knights.
(IBT) The americans land a musket and a MDI. I see an Indian galley.
(1) 460AD
Found a colony on the furs in Zululand. Urfa and Iznik will soon have harbors each, so will be able to root it in our mainland. The American MDI kills our MDI while redlined 2-1
(IBT) Many naval movements, including some Vikings. I don’t like this
(2) 470AD
Quelled resistance in Bapedi so it riots. Reorganise the forces to counter the eventual Berserk strike. Build the army and load 2 knights in the homeland.
(IBT) 2 american knights and 2 MDI land on a single tile. This will be tough.
(3) 480AD
Kill 3 Americans with the army for 1 HP and then finish the last one with MDI. 6-1
(IBT) We have foreign ships all around us…
(4) 490AD
Harbors are done, we have 3 lux in every city. Found a city in Zululand – dunno if it is where you’ve seen it. A barb camp in Zululand gives us 25g. Nice. Lux goes down to 10%. I order some markets in productive cities.
(IBT) Vikings and Indians land lower units. Trondheim finishes Bachs. The Americans are building Smiths.
(5) 500AD
I decide to strike the Viking and Indian transports, so I bomb them and sink them. Then kill Indian spear, 2 Viking MDI and Viking Pike. 12-1. Persian Caravel is blocking our harbors and force me to MM some. It’s redlined now, if it doesn’t move it will die soon.
(IBT) Persian landing of 2 Immortals.
(6) 510AD
Kill the immortals, redline their Caravel but my galley dies. Kill the other one that had blocked us, I think it was full. 15-1
(IBT) Movements
(7) 520AD
Finish the Persian caravel. There’s an American but I’m short on navy.16-1
(IBT) Nothing
(8) 530AD
Kill an American caravel. Probably full. Still short on galleys. 17-1
(IBT) Bursa and Aydin finish markets.
(9) 540AD
Preparing a welcome comitee for American, Persian and Viking galleys.
(IBT) Persian landings.
(10) 550AD
Persian redlined Immortal on a mountain in Zululand kills an elite Knight. Then dies to a horse. Take out another barb camp. Kill Viking archer and a galley probably full. 20-2
A pic:

The Persian caravel in the west is full. The Viking just landed an archer (deadmeat). The galley near India landed an immortal. Where the wounded elite horse is I’ve had 2 barbcamps already, it’s a nice place to farm them. I’ve 2 galleys mapping the world, and the rest serves better than the knights against the invasion forces. There’s an American (full) caravel in the south, the committee is near Iznik.
Most landings are in our homelands, which is nice.
Have fun guys.

 

[Mach]

Looks great my dear Khan. More galleys good. Indians got pikes, bleah. And finally they are landing units! Looks like our economy is doing better, although I'd still love to lift parts of our blocade at least. I'll be able to look at the save tonight. I think I'll give Baal his 24hrs, and if he's still out having fun then I'll take it. That sound ok chunky?

It looks like the next player will be setting up the Indian invasion for the player after. We should probably discuss detailed plans for our landing(s), like we did for the Zulu landing. You guys got any new ideas? Anyone want to sketch out a plan?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Very cool

I'm not too worried about the Indian pikes, they are still not much of a match for knights and cats. As long as we can cripple them before they get elephants we'll be fine. Luckily, they don't have any horses to upgrade so they'll have to build them from scratch.

It would still be good to destroy the Indian iron, but its not so much of a big deal now. They already have pikes and have probably started upgrading their swords to MI.

I'll have a think about our battle plans in a bit i've got to run some errands now. This world is turning out to be a very strange shape!

Oh yeah, always remember to bombard the carvels first before attacking them. I'm sure everyone is but just trying to save heart attacks!

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I'm always bombarding them.
Actually the coast blockade is the one that makes it possible to intercept quite some enemy vessels, as I change the free landing point constantly and force them to move up and down until I've a sight of cats and a galley to finish them.
The indians will be easy to deal with after we beat off their AC. This can be done by landing a party of about 5 pikes and 5 knights on any mountain (the galley in the north is actually looking for a closer mountain than the one with the iron), the party takes all the hits it can and retires on the galleys to heal. Then we send them back.
BTW, I've left a lot of scientists here and there, was too tired to reassign them back on work... The next player must do some MMing, I was close to dead from fatigue last night. I remember that some of them are assigned just because the city hasn't any good tiles to work so I went for the 3 beakers.
We have 3 sleepy settlers BTW, maybe Uskudar can swap to something more usefull, keeping some specialists to control its growth.
EDIT: The kill ratio I gave is incorrect, I've lost a MDI, a knight and a galley, so it's at least 20-3, having sinked at least 3 enemy vessels potentially full of units...
EDIT2: And yes, there are quite some libs being built in Zululand, I see nothing better unless we do a palace jump up there with a leader. And keeping the fog (which isn't really a fog as I can see the tile but the camps keep showing up) is a good idea IMO...

 

[Mach]

Thoughts after looking at the save...

I don't like the lib builds in Zululand. I think I'll irrigate and specialize the north, have those cities slowbuild trebs, and maybe get another city or two up there so we don't need 'ducts. The possibly productive Zulu south I'll switch to mostly court. On this note, I think we've horribly mismanaged the Bolu Peninsula; those two cities are completely corrupt. I'm gonna irrigate over those mines and specialize them.

Really great job with the barb hut strategy Khan, I'm gonna keep that going.

Make a galley sweep around India, check.

I don't think I like sinking too many enemy caravels. I like the landings because they give us many great chances for promotes and leaders. Also they waste enemy shields. I think it's been shown in other sg's (and possibly by india in this game) that the ai's won't build more units if their unit costs get too high. So if we sink too many ships, their islands get choked with units, and they won't build more ships to move them...and we end up with heaviliy fortified enemy islands. I want them to land units so we can slowly bleed the ai's. The exception is the Vikings -- I'm gonna target their ships so we can avoid zerks.

The last time I passed by the Indian north they had many units up there, on the iron and around it. Both spears and offensive units. So a landing up there may be impossible; we'll find out when I pass by again. A brute force push from the south may be our best choice if it still looks messy up there. I'll make sure to get some screenies of what I see.

I'm gonna build some pikes and lift parts of our blockade, at least on the edges. If there is an unfortunate landing because of that, well, that's why we built a 3-tile spacing.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Do as you see it Mach. About the caravels, I definitely think that we must do our best to kill them without allowing the AI to land, as we risk much more losses like this. The leaders are not really a good reason.
And after all, to sink a ship requires a lot of management and we'll certainly have a lot of landings. It must be on the coast, near our cats and with a galley arround. Tough to manage.
But having the AI's islands overloaded with units is not so bad finally, it will cripple them (like India) and they'll be unable to upgrade and research.
Up to a team decision. Do we want to use the sinking strategy, that requires coast blockade, or face the landings? I definitely vote sink whatever you can.
Irrigation Zululand is fine with me, I'm looking forward your scheme for Indian invasion.

 

[Mach]

Well you make good arguments for the ship sinking thing. I probably shouldn't even think about it, since we can't stop all the landings with our galleys, so we'll have a balance between sinking ships and beating landings. I still will aim at Viking ships, though. Zerks scare me.

Edit: Sorry guys I didn't get anything played tonight, RL got a bit in the way. I was able to study the save somewhat, so I'm all set to play tomorrow if Baal is still away. Anyways, it would have been tough for me to play without any direction on the Indian war. How we gonna approach this? I'm leaning towards a landing in the south; even though it's all plains down there, our reinforcements will be quicker to arrive. I think we'll need at least 6 galleys to land troops; a first wave of 12 (8 pikes and 4 trebs, say) to blunt their counterattack, then a second wave of offensive troops and a settler to burn and replace Karachi on turn 3. I think I can have a force like that just about ready by the end of my turns, if I play my cards right.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I totally agree.

It would be nice to kill their iron, but we don't even know if that's their only supply. Besides we must get to them before they build a stack of elephants. That would really be bad news if they did.

We need to get a healing point at least, whether a city or just some ground after razing Karachi - so whatever seems best. We should do exactly the same to them as we did to the Zulu. Just let them come to us and burn, and then once we have a stack of knights, we can move. The only fast-moving units they have for now are AC, so they are slightly easier to defend against and pick off than zulu impi and horses - thank goodness.

I'm hoping the Americans got rid of a few AC for us - that would be very nice.

Take your time Mach, there's absolutely no need to rush.

 

[Mach]

Preflight thoughts
Ok, we have plenty of offensive troops for a landing -- say 6 or 7 MI's and 3 knights, plus arty. We need pikes.
I'd like 6 galleys for the landing, 3 in the south to pick off caravels, and 2 around Iznik. Plus the one exploring, that makes 12, we have 8. Istanbul can make 3 more.
I'll mass troops in Aydin, hoping to land on that plains s of Karachi. We can shift that if we have to.
We have to keep cats and galleys out of the cities when possible, because of zerks...

Preflight (550BC)
Toss a rock at the Viking caravel, boom! Nice start.
Move pike into Ankara, and lift the blockade there.
Shift a pike into Konya, and lift the blockade there.
Found Kankiri
Start irrigating Bolu peninsula
Shift some units
(I) Persians land a single knight.

T1 (560AD)
Kill the knight. 1-0
Sink an American caravel. 2-0
(I) Americans land knight, MI, and musket
Invention --> Gunpowder

T2 (570AD)
Kill all three with the army. 5-0
Still shifting units.
(I) Viking caravel comes out of the fog and a zerk takes Salonika, a pike and MI follow.

T3 (580AD)
Elite MI kills pike (no promote), lose knight to MI, knight kills zerk, vet MI takes the city back. 8-1
Redline the caravel, lose 2 galleys to it, aargh! 8-3
(I) No landings

T4 (590AD)
In southern India, I count:
3 archer
9 spear
8 sword
3 MI
2 AC
1 pike (in Karachi)
And that's just what I can see.
(I) Americans land knight, MI, musket

T5 (600AD)
Army kills musket, elite MI kills knight, elite MI kills MI. 11-3
(I) America lands 3 knights, India a spear and sword, persia a longbow

T6 (610AD)
The longbow retreats a knight! Another kills him. 12-3
Many cats all miss.
Army kills one knight, two knight, three knight. 15-3
MI kills spear, promote. MI kills sword. 17-3
(I) No landings

T7 (620AD)
nada
(I) Americans land longbow
These IT's take forever...

T8 (630AD)
Kill the longbow 18-3
Kill American ship 19-3
(I) Americans land MI, musket. vikings land pike and 2 crusaders. Indians land 2 AC's. So much for trying to invade during my turns...

T9 (640AD)
Army kills the Vikings. 22-3
Knight and elite MI kill the Indians. 24-3
Knight and elite MI kill the Americans 26-3
(I) Vikings land 2 MI's and a pike

T10 (650AD)
Sink an Indian galley, probably full 27-3
MI and two knights kill the Vikings
Final tally: 30-3, not counting what might now be on the bottom of the sea.

Ok, that's it. Luck was against me in the beginning, especially those two lost galleys, but then things settled down. Our military grew quite a bit, especially pikes. Now our entire core is on knight. There's a big stack of units in Aydin for the invasion. India has lots of troops on their island, but there's nothing we can do about that but land and hope. They got chivalry now, although I haven't seen a jumbo yet.

The two Indian galleys visible are probably full, as well as the two Persian caravels; I circled them on the map. The Viking ship is empty, and the American ship is probably empty (it poked it's head up by India, and seems to be heading home).

All landings were by the Ankara-Salonika-Sinop line, although that Persian caravel to the east is heading north. There are two galleys in Iznik that were ferrying troops; one can head out to sink that caravel after it's bombed, maybe.

There's a knight in Istanbul that can be moved (I had him there because of an Indian galley that I just sunk). Also there's a knight in Konya, that I left there to watch that Persian ship. Maybe the Istanbul knight should head that way first.

The ai's seem to be mostly ignoring Zululand; maybe we should bring some units back home, at least the cats in the far north. Or maybe disband them? We should found more cities up there too. I would have, but I was waiting for barb camps to appear. None did.

Our economy is struggling a bit again, since I built so many 30s units. But we should lose a bunch in the invasion, plus founding new cities...we should be ok. Guns will be discovered next turnset, in 6 or 7. We might want to dial down research for a turn or two, though, so we can rush walls in the foothold city.

That's all I can think to say. I tried to get another leader, but no luck. It would have been nice. Looks like I leave the action to you again, chunky. Have fun!

the situation

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Guys, I'm a bit scared of this landing on plains we plan. This will cost us a lot of units and we can't keep it. We need to send a one time offensive force to a mountain in indian east that will pull most of their army there and then do the landing in the south when we feel that the hordes are slowing down. Aiming for an offensive on turn 3-4 after landing is not realist IMO.
I don't know if you imagine the number of units needed to gass a Deity AI like India... We'll face about 100 offensive units IMO, including a lot of AC and swords. In the plains we can't hold. Please send first wave of galleys (only pikes loaded, against those numbers I prefer an extra defender then a defensive shot) on that mountain, this is the least to do before offensive landing. Leave a galley or 2 to pick the survivors (there won't be much if we have less than 10 pikes) and allow them to heal. The war with india won't be easy, they've spent 3000 years in unit building, that's bad.
I repeat, don't count on a landing of 8 pikes and 4 trebs to survive in the open.

 

[Mach]

We need to send a one time offensive force to a mountain in indian east that will pull most of their army there

I had thought of that, but I figured time was of the essence, and a diversionary landing would take too long to set up. So I changed my earlier plan. I wish you had spoken up sooner; I could have tried. Woulda built more pikes, and an extra galley or two, and tried to set up a landing of 2 or 4 pikes up there.

Anyways I know, I'm scared too. I doubt they have 100 offensive units, though -- maybe 100 units total, but a lot of those would be spears/pikes. They have been making landings lately, and the fact they have caught up with us in tech is a good sign; their economy isn't overloaded with unit support anymore. I was watching them closely, and I think the breakdown I made in turn 5 is roughly accurate -- we should expect 12 initial attacks. Also I realized my earlier comment was wrong -- those six galleys can land 24 troops on turn 1; they load 12 troops from the city, move out 1 space (3mp), drop the troops, move back into the city (1mp), load 12 more troops, move back out 1 space (2mp), drop the troops. That is the great advantage of the tile s of Karachi. So something like this...

Turn 1: Land 9 pikes, 6 arty, 8 MI's, 1 settler.
Turn 1 IT: Get attacked, pikes get beat up.
Turn 2: Take Karachi, move settler into city, abandon Karachi, build new city, move troops with mp left in. Land whatever more troops we can into the city; some knights, for sure.
Turn 2 IT: Get attacked again, this time only by fast movers.
Turn 3: Move the rest of the invasion troops in, bomb and attack the slow movers outside our walls.
Turn 3 IT: Get attacked again, only by fast movers, and by whatever slow movers survived. Some units recover their hp.
Turn 4: Rush walls, attack slow movers.
Turn 4 IT: All units can now recover hp.

If we get too beat up on turn 1, then simply retreat back on to the galleys to try again later. With 24 units landed, no unit should get attacked more than once, and each pike has about a 50% chance of winning against ac/swords, so I think the odds are good enough there. I dunno, I think this is our best shot...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I still think that even if it works, it'll cost us too many units. Let's say that sending 10 pikes on the mountain can take about 5 turns, meanwhile we'll have the forces and galleys needed to transport the main strikeforce... I think that we're taking more risk than we should.
I agree, 100 offensive units is a bit much, but we'll face many units. We can't afford to push on numbers against Deity AI, we must rely on fine tactics. Distract them in the north while we can ensure a tile with the same defensive value like the mountain (city with walls and fortified units) in the south. I think that even if we lose our distractive force of pikes, it's gonna be way easier after... and less unit-costly than the force strike on 1 tile.

 

[Mach]

True, your plan is safer, although I think it would take more than 5 turns to accomplish. It would take 5 turns to get 10 pikes up there, but it would take all but one of our invasion galleys. So we'd need to build at least 3 more galleys for a landing of 16; I think that would take 6 turns, plus 2 turns to get the new galleys over there. We'd need to build more pikes for the landing force, too -- we can't count on the diversion completely freeing the south up. All this would cut into our knight production...

Also, I'm not too worried about losses. That's why I stacked the landing party with MI's -- they are cheaper, and of course pikes are cheap. I think after the Indian war, MI's will have outlived their usefulness, so losing them won't really hurt our military in the long term, and it'll only help our economy. In fact, I hope we lose MI's and pikes in the invasion; I'd only like to keep enough to hold the city...

Let me point out the obvious, too -- the only mountain we see that we could land on is the iron mountain, which it's likely they have covered, or will cover when they see our galleys coming. So unless there's something near Lahore...is it worth it to send those pikes up there when the landing might not be possible?

This just occurred to me -- it's possible that we only need to 'show' a northern landing without actually performing one. So put a single pike in a single galley, and sail him to the north shore to threaten Madras. Dont actually land, just sit the galley next to the city and next to a landing spot. That might be enough of a diversion, and we could certainly do it in 5 turns. We could have another galley built and positioned in that time. We could even threaten Lahore in 4 turns.

Good disussion here. I'm interested to see what chunky has to say...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

I've never used this kind of AI manipulation... A single pike on a galley, that won't even land... I don't think it may work.
And I am concerned about the losses, so let's keep our good (about 8-1) ratio, even if our losses represent obsolete units. Let me point you the usefulness of our regular warriors...
I think that we've exposed quite well the situation, each one with his thoughts, so now Chunky can decide what to do and will know that the team is with him whatever he does.
Have fun chunky.
Don't go out unprotected Baal.