SGOTM7 - Team Chunky

[chunkymonkey]

Sorry Mach, I started playing before you posted, so I started building the FP in Edirne. I think this was the best solution. Time will tell i guess.

0 - 350BC - Change Iznik build to library. Upgrade 2 wariors. Modify Kafa to give taxmen, since all the food there is useless.

1 - 330BC - Edirne horse -> FP. Bursa spear -> spear. Uskudar worker -> worker. Arrange troops in Istanbul for invasion.

2 - 310BC - Ist horse -> sword. America is building Sun Tzu. Land troops (3spear,2sword,3workers). Prepare next wave.
IBT - Here come some impi and horses. Hang on, they didn't have horses a second ago did they? A barb galley moves onto Istanbul oysters, and so it riots due to commerce denial (I should have anticipated this, sorry.)

3 - 290BC - Bursa spear -> spear. Uskudar worker -> worker. Aydin catapult -> sword. Sinop catapult -> catapult. Ankara lib -> cat. Attack barb galley and defeat it. Land second wave.
IBT - Most impi fortify next to us. Zulu horse attacks, but retreats. We learn Feudalism . Persians are building Sun Tzu.

4 - 270BC - Kill vet zulu warrior. 1-0.
IBT - Fort completed. 2 zulu archers attack and lose, spear promotes. zulu horse attacks and retreats. 3-0

5 - 250BC - bombard some impi. upgrade some spears and swords.
IBT - our fort tile gets encompassed by zulu culture.

6 - 230BC - Istanbul horse -> horse. Iznik lib -> medinf. attack impi with medinf, it retreats. attack impi with sword, win. attack archer with horse, win. 5-0
IBT - barricade up. zulu warrior attacks pike, loses. zulu archer attacks pike, loses, pike promotes. 7-0. zulu impi attacks, loses and retreats.

7 - 210BC - Kafa builds settler ->worker. bursa MI -> MI. MI attacks impi, wins. 8-0
IBT - persia lands two immortals. 2 zulu archers attack pike and lose, pike promotes. 10-0.

8 - 190BC - Istanbul horse - market. need some cash. izmit cat -> cat. konya pike ->pike. 2 MI take care of immortals. merge worker in Ist to give 20spt. sword kills zulu archer. MI makes impi retreat. MI kills impi. sword kills impi, promotes. horse kills archer. decide its more efficient for shields to be in edirne at moment so give it Istanbul sheep, return Istanbul to 15spt, and set istanbul to horse. 16-0

9 - 170BC - Uskudar worker -> worker. Salonic cat -> cat. Aydin MI -> MI.
IBT - two american galleys show up.

10 - 150BC - Ist hoss -> market. Sinop cat -> cat. MI kills impi. MI kills impi. Final kill ratio 18-0

Lets try and keep a tally of our kill ratio. Will be fun to see at the end. I think adding together past three turnsets where we have seen some action, total is 25-4. That's good.

Istanbul is at 20spt to build market. It would probably be best if we could keep it like this so we can built MI here. If we don't agree on building market, which will probably only net us an extra 4/5 gpt max, then it can be set to build MI.

Edirne is starving at the moment, but when it finishes the FP, the taxman can go to work since there should be enough luxury there. BTW, i'm hoping completion of the FP will be a major boost.

We currently have a stack of 2 archers, 7 catapults, 2 horsies, 6 MI, 4 pikes (2 elite), 1 elite sword, and 1 elite spear, and 1 settler. I think the lull in the zulu attack will be soon, so we should probably start razing, maybe with a few more MI in place.

Americans are about to land on the west coast. There should be enough forces there to deal with them.

I can only see markets being worth the production time, and maintenance cost in Istanbul and Edirne for now. Military is better in other towns.
Apparently, we have a strong military compared to America and Persia, an average military compared to Zulu, and weak compared to India. Dunno what to read into this.

Can't think of anythin else right now, i'll post if i do.

EDIT: Oh yeah, since our galleys have minimal work to do at the moment, i figured i'd send one north through the zulu/india strait and around zululand for a bit of recon, and one around india for the same purpose. some corrupt towns could replace these as they may get mauled along the way.]

I'm a little concerned on on to proceed in Zululand. Them getting horses from somewhere makes things trickier, but i still don't see them being a massive threat. We just need to make sure we have a decent SoD before we move off. We might like to leave a couple of pikes hanging back to protect the fort, as a sort of refuge point or something.

Also, still nobody has Literature. Looks like we were doing all that fretting for nothing. And India doesn't even have Writing. I think they may be killing themselves with high upkeep costs.

Here's the save...

 

[Mach]

Wow, CM, it looks really great. Don't sweat the FP; hopefully I'm wrong.

Looking back through the saves, the Zulu have had horses for 20-30 turns. I could have sworn I saw them pick up iron during my turns, but I guess I'm delusional since they don't have any now, and they didn't in the last save either.

Not much to say except we should push on. Edrine and Ist will be military factories again soon, so Baal should be able to take a Zulu city on his turns. At that point, we should get workers over there to connect our fortress to that city. Rush walls in it, too.

Gotta go eat dinner now.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I dunno Mach, I thought when I looked at the beginning of your turnset they had no horse. Oh well...

Just read in the Maintenance thread that due to a bug in the implementation of diff naval movement, ocean and sea travel both require one movement point. So the Americans and vikings are probably a long way away, but due to the Americans' Lighthouse they could probably catch a safe sea passage 7 tiles away from us. Doesn't really affect us much until we go looking for American and Viking lands, but thought we should all know.

 

[Baalzebul]

Fine Chunky... 18-0 is great.

I think I can play tonight. After transfering a few units to Zululand I will destroy the nearest city and settle where the damaged Impi is now. So time is short for your ideas.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

18:0
The fun has started! Go on baby!
Can we set Istanbul back on settler building? We'll need them.

 

[Mach]

Good luck Baalzebul! In a few hours I'll be hitting f5 every 30 seconds...

Setting Ist back to settler factory is one idea. Another is to turn our worker factory into a settler factory; we have lots of workers now, but it might need a bit of rushing help, and we'll hopefully need workers in Zululand soon. A third is to just rush settlers in our food-rich and shield-poor corrupt cities, which is what I usually do in games like this. Don't know which is best, just bringing up options...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Can we get enough shields in Uskudar without too much production penalty for Edirne? Not that I'm lazy, will check tonight.
Still, having both (2 turns worker and 4-6 turns settler factory) is better IMO.

 

[Mach]

Do we need a settler every 4-6 turns? I doubt it -- we'll need them slower than that; only as fast as we can conquest...

I think I like the idea of rushing settlers in Kafa when we need them. It'll cost us gold, but I'd rather keep the military factory in Ist for awhile longer. (And also keep Ist above size 7 for the unit support...)

 

[chunkymonkey]

For at least the next 10 turns, I think we should keep Istanbul as a military factory, have Uskudar as a settler factory (somehow), and the other food-rich towns as worker cities. This still should give us settlers every 6 turns and 2 workers every 5 turns. We definitely need more military. After the razing has commenced, we can make a judgement on balance of military to settlers/workers. There is already a settler waiting in the fort, so we are not in desperate need of them.

Good luck Baal!

Oh by the way guys. I'm off to Portugal tomorrow night, and i won't be back until the evening of the 9th. So I hope everything goes well this week, I expect to see a conquered Zululand when I return

Seriously, take it easy, think carefully about the strategy of different manouevures and we'll be laughing. Don't do anything too risky, although get a feel for when the opportunity is right to strike, and do it decisively - nothing half-hearted. If anyone thinks things are going drastically wrong in their set, stop, and discuss with the others for a day or so as to next moves. We do not need to rush - some teams haven't even got to 1000BC yet.

I'll pop in and saye goodbye tomorrow, and hopefully we can celebrate our first razing/capture!!!

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

See you later Chunky, have fun in Portugal, I hope it's a vacation.

 

[Baalzebul]

IBT
Bursa MI-->Pike
Uskudar Worker-->Settler

Turn 1
Persia and America learned Theology..

IBT
We learn Theology.
Iznik MI-->Pike
Persians are building Templar.
Americans are building Sistine.

Turn 2
Kill Zulu horse. 1-0

IBT
Lost 1 MI to Zulu. 1-1
Americans land near Kafa.
Chivalry from GLib
Ankara Cat.-->CAt
Persians are building Sistine.
Americans building Templar.

Turn 3
Lost 1 Sword to Americans. 0-1
Lost 1 Sword to Zulu.
Lost 1 Horse to Zulu. 1-3
Killed 6 Impi. 7-3
Destroyed Hlobane

IBT
Killed American Sword. 1-1
Lost 1 warrior to Americans. 1-2
Killed 2 Zulu warrior, lost 1 pike. 9-4
Edirne Forbidden Palace-->Knight
Bursa Pike-->Pike
Aydin MI-->Knight
Persians land near Denizli

Turn 4
Killed immortal lost horseman to persians 1-1
Killed American Sword 2-2

IBT
Immortal killed our sword 1-2
Pikeman killed Impi 10-4
Ist Market-->Knight By the way what happened to the Istanbuls granary?
Izmir Cat-->Cat
Denizli Cat-->Cat

Turn 5
Killed Immortal 2-2
Killed American Sword Lost 1 MI 3-3

IBT
Killed Zulu Archer & Horse 12-4
Iznik Pike-->MI
Uskudar Settler-->Worker
Konya Pike--> MI
Simop Cat-->Cat

Turn 6
Urfa found at Zululand. Begin building wall.
Killed Zulu Archer 13-4

IBT
Bursa Pike-->Knight
Kafa Worker-->Cat
Americans land near Kafa
Persians land near Kafa

Turn 7
Lost MI to Americans killed American MI 4-4
Lost Horse to Persian Archer Killed Persian Archer 3-3
Killed Zulu Archer, 2 Impi lost 1 MI 16-5
Hurry walls at Urfa. I did this turn because it's half the price.
IBT
Urfa walls-->Barracks
Uskudar worker--> Settler
Bolu Cat-->Cat

Turn 8
Zzz

IBT
Killed 3 Impi, 1 horse, 2 archer 22-5
Ist Knight-->Knight
Edirne Knight-->Knight
Disease strikes Kafa

Turn 9
Killed Persian Immortal & Archer 4-2
Killed Zulu 2 Archer 3 Impi 27-5

IBT
Killed Zulu 4 Archer 1 Impi 1 Warrior Lost 1 pike 33-6
Education from Glib as a last science.
Izmit Cat-->Cat
Ankara Cat-->Cat

Turn 10
Istanbul rioting. I shut down civassists alarm by mistake. I'm so sorry.
Killed Zulu Warrior archer & Impi. 30-5

 

[Mach]

Just looked at the save and it looks really good, Baal. We took some losses, but we're doing ok. We need to get more troops up to Zululand; I think Khan will be able to push forward there. You guys think we can hold Zimbabwe (and the Great Wall), or should we raze it?

Getting Education so early is a big bummer -- we didn't even get engineering! I was hoping we'd get invention. At least we got chivalry. Libraries just got a lot more important; we have 6 techs to go to get to sipahi. I think we'll want libs pretty much everywhere one will pay for itself...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Education
Scheduled for tonight.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Wow, wasn't really expecting to get Education that fast

Oh well, so what do we do now? Our research capability is limited at best, it will take a long time to get to Sipahi. But we need to i guess.

I propose we just do whatever research we can afford and modify it accordingly as our economy improves. As long as we're lagging, techs will be cheap anyway.

Great kill ratio though. And a city! Well done Baal. Lets keep pushing.

Right, i'll see you guys next week, i'm off to Portugal

 

[Baalzebul]

OK. Research is set to 0 now. You can change it as you wish. Education came really early so we need to build our infastructure but the Americans and Persian are raiding our southern cities and there is a war going at Zululand. So we need military too. We have to do all but at equilibrium.

Another thing. Our new city Urfa is under cultural pressure. We can rush a library before building barracks. I don't want to lose all of our military. And a few pikes are needed both at Urfa and our mainland.

I left two knights at the mainland because of the raids and I guess to leave them there. Zulu have too many Impis and knights will do fine there.

 

[Mach]

As long as we're lagging, techs will be cheap anyway.

That's a brilliant idea! Right now we make 153g at 0% sci and lux, and 150b at 100% sci -- because of the market in Istanbul. So how's this for an idea: we stay at 0% sci for the moment. Get a market in Edirne, we're going to want that in any case. Build up our bank for awhile. If we're lucky, we might meet the Vikings soon, and be able to trade for eng. (A long shot, sure, but worth a try.) When most of the ai's get eng, then we can build libs and start the burn in, researching at a deficit (spending the extra cash we built up earlier). I don't think we lose any research turns this way. We may actually gain turns, since we'll be making more gold right now with markets and without libs. (And if we're really lucky, we'll get eng from the Vikings...) Plus we'll build up military quicker, hopefully leading to new cities in Zululand sooner, and thus more unit support.

Just a thought...

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Sounds not bad as a plan, Mach, as I think that the AI will get PP soon and will trade our contact to the Vikes (must check the screens in order to declare in time).
Haven't checked the save yet, so more to come later. So we're only 3 players for a week, right? I think we can hold a bit for the return of Chunky.

 

[Baalzebul]

Might be but a bit risky. First build markets and enough military units and if we're lucky enough we can buy engineering cheap. Then start building libs and universities. But we have a rep hit and we might have trouble at buying it.

And I have another idea. When we contact the Vikings we can bribe them to enter war with other nations. Probably with the Americans and Persians. This may cause a long World War hampering all of them.

 

[Khan_Asparuh]

Rep Hit? How could we? We had no 20 turn trades done AFAIK...

 

[Baalzebul]

Declaring wars on other nations and destroying their cities cause a rep hit.