SGOTM7 - Team tao

[tao]

SGOTM3 was AWE. IIRC we had lots of early fights - it was really hard. And the fights gave us a Great Leader for the Great Library.

IMHO we face (at least) three questions/decisions:

• Are we on an island and do not have to worry about early attacks by the other civs?
• How soon will the other civs come and give us the chance for Great Leaders? Can we rely on it for the Great Library?
• How many barbarians will we have to deal with? There is at least one camp close.

IMHO there is no connection in the east, otherwise Zulus would have shown up already. Likely in the west neither, but only about 80-90% probabiliy, I guess.

If we are alone, we should go for the GLib. If we get a Leader, we can build Hanging Gardens, which would be a great happiness help.

A potential problem are the barbarians. We need a town to pump out some military asap. The wanderimg warrior IMHO should head towards Sogut to protect our settler.

And why don't we go for the flood plains wheat?

More sites in the west to be determined.

PS: Yes: purple=Arabs, yellow=Zulus as can be seen in the F11 screen.

PPS: we need lots of workers to clear all that jungle.

 

[Keath]

Okay, I now have my Thinking Cap on. I'd like to throw out a wild idea. Last game we started talking about maybe winning a laurel as we came close to the end of the game. It was very exciting and who'd have thought that XTeam could pull off such a come from behind win?

In this game, most teams will be playing the standard RCP opening and those who do will have success at the grace of the RNG. What about putting our heads together to come up with an alternate play?

Here is an idea -- get a worker pump going as well as our settler factory -- build towns all around the perimeter of our island, some on the coast for building a navy and most inland where they will deter AI builds once they have MM and galleys -- then fill in the gaps with more towns meanwhile adding workers as soon as they have roaded and developed enough tiles to support a pop 6 town.

Research towards MT with as much speed as we can -- build a navy and a UU army meanwhile protecting our space with chariots and horses which will be upgraded.

Go for the GL and then make a run at Leo's. Sabre has a good idea to keep the AI building military units and if that slows them down then we, with our island isolation could keep up some resonable research. It shouldn't be too hard to keep the AI out of our territory as we will have a navy to protect us -- a navy that eventually will allow us to conquer our neighbours with a nice invasion of our UUs. Having Leos will cut the costs of upgrades in half and give us an edge. We won't need to research what the AI do until we learn Education and by then we could be well on the way to having the four key ingredients - the GL, Leo's, a navy and Balkan Dragoons.

Then the fun of an invasion.

 

[Sabre]

0 - I've decided to switch research to Alphabet at max (80%). My reasons are: 1) It doesn't strike me likely that the Arabs or Zulus will be able to give us Alphabet, 2) The chances of having a neighbor requiring us to have early Swords is low and 3) If we are getting the Great Library, any research on AA techs not required for the build is money wasted. I believe we have 70 - 80 turns in which to time a prebuild with Literature. Even beelining for Lit, we will probably be ahead of schedule on the prebuild. A few Warriors from our 2nd city (or a Warrior/Worker) might be handy in bulking our barb defense while timing up the prebuild better.

Declare war on India - they will pay for not sharing their knowledge of how to scribble symbols onto bark.

1 - IBT a Zulu Warrior shows up and makes me look the fool - they have Alphabet and not only will they trade it for Masonry, they'll add in Warrior Code for only 9g more - a bargain at half the price!

Trade Masonry, 9g to Zulu for Alphabet, Warrior Code
Switch science to Writing at 10% (40t) - we can now time up our prebuild while saving money
Worker moves southwest - the grass tile is bg
Warrior southwest spotting southern coast

2 - IBT a barb Warrior shows up next to Worker - ack!
Sogut builds Settler - Warrior
Settler will stay put until a 2nd Warrior can be built
Worker moves north
Explorer moves west and finds barb hut, coast begins heading north
Lux to 10%

3 - IBT another barb shows up heading towards Sogut
Worker moves north into Sogut
Explorer moves north - I'll deal with the barb hut after confirming there is noone to the west

4 - IBT a third barb warrior shows up from the same direction (se) - good grief!
Sogut builds Warrior - Archer
Explorer north

5 - IBT barb warrior loses to Sogut Warrior
Build first piece of the Palace
Explorer moves north

6 - IBT barb warrior loses to Sogut Warrior
Explorer moves west - it's looking more like the end of the island
Slightly bad news - our 10th shield at pop 5 is wasted to corruption
We will have to mine that bg to get a Warrior/Settler factory
Lux to 20%

7 - IBT last barb warrior loses to Sogut Warrior - SWarrior promotes to vet
Sogut builds Archer - Worker
Worker moves southwest
Settler/vet Warrior moves SE, S
Explorer moves west
Archer joins Settler/Warrior
Lux to 30%
Arabs have settled a town within view so we can make contact when we get down there

8 - Sogut builds Worker - Settler
Settler stack moves south
Worker1 moves SW to bg
Worker2 moves SE, S
Explorer moves north

9 - Iznik founded - Pyramids (GL prebuild)
Iznik Warrior fortifies
Archer moves to olives to protect Worker
Worker2 S, W to olives
Worker1 mines bg
Explorer moves N

10 - Explorer moves N - it looks like it could be connected to India, but lack of Indian units makes me think it's not.

Furiey (up now)
Tone
Keath
Renata
tao
Sabre (just played)

 

[Renata]

We need to look at what we'll be able to use for prebuilds. What are the palace costs at which number of cities? Pyramids is usually the third wonder built, behind Colossus and Oracle -- it goes very early. And there's really not much else out there once it does -- Great Wall, Hanging Gardens and Lighthouse are all out of reach. Depending on what we can get out of the Palace, we may be better off delaying the start of the build long enough that we can use the Library itself for the end of it.

I'm not sure what to do about contacts. In my experience, mapmaking turns up among deity AI rather quickly, if they have contact with each other. Whether or not they do is of course anyone's guess. But I wouldn't count on it still being unresearched beyond about 1000 BC. The settler factory will probably turn out about 13 towns by then -- not really enough to fill up the island. Not to mention fill it up in a defendable way. And the GL will not yet have kicked in -- we'll have archers (good deal on WC, by the way), warriors and spearmen, but nothing else probably. If we make all possible contacts, we risk being overwhelmed once the AIs have boats. It's rather obvious that distance will not protect us.

On the other hand. I assume everyone's seen Handy's Sid game? When he got everyone at war very early, he wound up seeing very few boats -- the AIs maxed out their unit support on land units. I think we've made contact with the Zulus and India early enough for this to work in our favor. But considering how long it might take us to get a warrior over to the Arabs, much less any additional civs, we risk catching them only when they're close to mapmaking already and hence letting ourselves in for much badness. Can we discuss a time limit on voluntary contacts? One we have our own boats, swords, horses and cats, we'll be in a much better position to beat off invasion attempts. We have to be able to sink the boats if there will be very many. Just redlining them and killing invading units won't help us much in the long run.

Renata

 

[Sabre]

On the Palace - it's currently at 300 shields with the two towns. The way Sogut will be putting out Settlers I think the Palace will be expensive enough by the time the Pyramids are built, but it may be useful to get a few more Archers out to handle the barbs before proceeding with the prebuild.

I did read Handy's game (very entertaining) and that's where I got the idea that early declarations could be handy. We might want to put one of our next Settlers to the east and getting it building a Barracks so we can have a standing force of Archers to defend against landings. Once the Arabs or Zulu have boats it probably won't be long before they trade contacts with us and we end up declaring anyway, so I'm not sure which way I'd recommend going with them.

 

[tao]

We have 311 beakers left on writing; with min research, we will get it 1475BC. If till then we build 1 town every 6 turns, we may make say 25-30 beakers per turn. Literature is 400, thus we will learn it in 20 turns or 975BC the latest, maybe 15 turns.

In other words: 45- 50 turns of production and the Great Library is 400 shields. This should be easily doable by joining some workers to Iznik. Founding at the green positon will allow to work the desert goats and connect the spices.

PS: Why isn't the worker on the bg, but on the olives hill? Twice the effort for the same result.

PPS: Will we pop the goody huts the turn we finish writing and hope for learning literature? Might be a good idea.

PPPS: We can speed the date by researching writing full speed. Even thou that would reduce the money we have for trades, it sounds like a good investment.

 

[Renata]

If I remember correctly, huts always give the cheapest tech not yet known, so there's no chance we'd get lit.

I don't really like that version of the dotmap very much. Green dot really cramps Iznik (and misses the opportunity to clear a jungle tile by settling on it, and isn't on fresh water). Black dot is a flip waiting to happen -- it's inside Damascus's radius. It'll be a while before we can raze it, I think. Trying to stick to perfect rings is going to be nasty with such an awkwardly-shaped landmass -- I'm looking and I can't see any way to do it and still avoid AI culture battles, keep the three-tiles-between cities movement idea, build on rivers as much as possible, etcetera.

Renata

Renata

 

[Renata]

Edit to last post: cheapest tech not known and not currently being researched.

Renata

 

[tao]

CivAssistII says:
- mysticism: 136
- wheel: 148
- horseback riding: 200
- philosophy, iron working: 240
- mathematics: 320
- literature, code of law: 400

Thus we should make some trades first and hope at least for iron working, if any.

 

[Keath]

What about planning Iznet to be our Forbidden Palace? Make our builds fit an approximate RCP 4. There are several nice sites that have a couple of advantages:
1. These sites use little coast squares and don't confilct or overlap with any AI land.
2. Two would be good harbour sites for galleys.
3. There could be further sites s of Iznet.
4. The sites inland are easier to defend as the AI have to land and move to get to our city.
5. An extra site could be squeezed between yellow and green sites.

If we plan a prebuild for Leo's we can always use the FP as a backup plan in case we got a leader or the AI get there first. So Iznet would have GL, FP and Leo's.

Then a palace move to a nice location elsewhere.

 

[tao]

What about planning Iznet to be our Forbidden Palace?
If we plan a prebuild for Leo's .....

Yes on Forbidden Palace in Iznet - unless we have a good site a little bit more in the west. I don't think we should pre-build for any other Wonder, as the AI units will arrive like locusts once map making is known. We have to build lots of vet units and Great Leaders will come. Definitely. Iznet could e.g. build Heroic Epic after we build our first army. IMHO a sword army will be very strong for the forseeable future.

 

[Tone]

@tao: that seems sensible to me although we can always make a refined judgement nearer the time. I would hope that we can get Herioc Epic and see the GLs rolling in.

A sword army is useful way into the MA. Our only concern is the amount of firefighting we might need to do when we face landings from all directions. The mounted unit will be invaluable in this respect.

 

[Renata]

We may be able to control landings to some extent. In COTM11, the AI only ever landed one three different mainland tiles the whole game -- and the vast *vast* majority of landings were all on the same tile. If you played the game, you may remember that Korea started on a sort of large peninsula. The Dutch and Celts would send boats all the way down the east coast of the peninsula (sometimes even the north coast, when coming from the big bay), then all the way along the south coast, to land on a grassland tile west of the start.

The same sort of thing is likely to happen here, although from lurking a few AW succession games, it seems the AI is not typically predictable to quite that extent. At any rate, we can almost certainly influence their choices by leaving a convenient city lightly defended. (We'll have to be a bit wary of Vikings after invention, of course, but it's my hope we have decent homeland defense by then anyway.) We want to look for a place where the neighboring tiles are all easy to attack -- flat ground with few inconvenient rivers, in other words -- then concentrate attack forces in the area. Places we *don't* want the AI to land should be heavily defended: towns in the jungle, adjacent to mountains, or with coastal tiles we really really don't want to risk getting pillaged.

Renata

 

[Keath]

A sword army is useful way into the MA. Our only concern is the amount of firefighting we might need to do when we face landings from all directions. The mounted unit will be invaluable in this respect.

I think the bulk of our builds should be horses or chariots -- they are fast and have the retreat ability -- and they upgrade to Balkan Dragoons.

I really think we should discuss our plans and agree that we are all on the same page -- city locations (I can't see the point in building on sites where part of the working tiles are on enemy soil), army preparation -- we don't need spearmen or any defensive units, just offensive units. This is what the warmongers agree upon so how does the team feel about what builds we should do and in what quantities?

And what about galleys? I think we can forestall a lot of enemy invasion with galleys -- we should keep 2 or three harbour towns building galleys -- use artillery units to blast them out of the water and finish them off with galleys, eventually frigates (a personal favourite).

If we control the seas, we are in much better shape to conquer the world. It's amazing how quickly ironclads appear but a fleet of frigates and one ironclad can destroy them every time. In this game, a navy strategy is a key to success, methinks.

 

[tao]

A lot of the points will come clearer as the game progresses.

Do we have both iron and horses? Who knows? When will we learn which tech?

IMHO "controling the seas" is not our main priority. The canal surrounding our island(?) is so small, that AI ships can drop units and return to port same turn.

I strongly believe now we have to research full speed towards literature while pushing Iznik to pop 12 and the Great Library. If we succeed in this, we can make more plans.

 

[Tone]

Do we have both iron and horses? Who knows? .

Mad-Bax! (sorry but I couldn't resist it )

I strongly believe now we have to research full speed towards literature while pushing Iznik to pop 12 and the Great Library. If we succeed in this, we can make more plans.

Agreed again!

Also agree on control of the seas-at least for what we can see of the world at the moment.

 

[Furiey]

I've now loaded the save so can sefely say got it.

I won't be able to play until Friday though, so we have time for discussion.

With the amount of coast that I can see and the small gap that will need crossing I think we'd need a lot of galleys to do any good, luring the invaders to a lightly defended city with clear flat land around where we can easily deal with them seems the best bet. Hopefully the AI will be as useless as it usually is at naval invasions.

I think that it is worth having some of our city tiles on AI land - it will give us somewhere on the AI's continent where we can if necessary heal our troops, but we won't be able to develop those tiles so not too many of them.

I guess that popping the goody hut in the SE would mean we can contact the Arabs and have to declare on them. Pop it with a city build/expansion perhaps, or would that too cause contact?

I definitely need to put more thought into this, knowing where we are and are not connected to other Civs is going to be important.

 

[Keath]

IMHO "controling the seas" is not our main priority. The canal surrounding our island(?) is so small, that AI ships can drop units and return to port same turn.

There is no reason why having a navy shouldn't be part of our strategy. We are going to need transport units to invade any neighbour and we'll need to have them protected. Galleys become Caravels then Transports. It's a no lose build for any coastal cities. Another tactic is to blockade those ports that hold AI ships. The best defense is a good offense.

For instance, if we get into a situation where the AI is outside our cities and we are inside defending, then we're probably toast anyway so we don't need spears or other defenders or walls for that matter. Why I mention being on the same page is that we don't want one player to build his choices and the next player undoing that with incompatible builds. We need to know what the plans are and stick with them.

I strongly believe now we have to research full speed towards literature while pushing Iznik to pop 12 and the Great Library. If we succeed in this, we can make more plans.

But this is not the only plan on the table. What happens in the beginning of a game dictates what happens later.

You mention 'as the game progresses' and I think that is the very point -- these things that dictate our direction happen during a player's turn and we should be prepared for them, all of us on the same page.

For instance, what techs are most important when we get an opportunity to trade? Is getting a Monarchy our choice of government or do we go with Republic? Is IW a better choice to get in trade than Wheel and HBR? There is nothing wrong with knowing what we will go for in government and army choices, navy included. And I'm not saying that a navy is a number one priority but for coastal cities, especially with a harbour, they are a natural build. That way you don't build land units in coastal cities because you need a barracks, too.

Are we going to build libraries? The GL expires very quickly and we will still be a long way from MT. Do we need temples? You mention a size 12 city but will there be enough happiness to have such a city on Deity without a temple? We will have 2 luxes. Is that enough?

I know I'm asking a lot of questions here but I'd like a clear idea of where we are going so that when the decision comes we know what fork in the road to take.

And, we still don't have an agreed upon plan for where we are going to build cities. I hope everyone agrees that a clear plan for city development is a must. This is a tricky island to fill with cities and there are a myriad of possibilities. We should have a game plan now, not after the fact.

 

[Renata]

Regarding galleys and control of the seas -- as I pointed out, the AIs will not generally make good choices as to where to land their units. The Dutch in COTM11 had plenty of opportunities for one-tile "cross/drop off/retreat" sorties against me -- and into my perenially under-defended back yard, at that -- and they *never* did it. Not once. So I'm certain it's safe to say that a navy for killing redlined ships will be invaluable.

Regarding unit builds. I think we do need some spearmen. It's likely that from time to time there will just be too many units to safely take out with attackers. Remember we want to keep our kill ratio enormous -- if you look at Deity AW games in the succession game forum, you'll see things like 40 AI units killed to only 3 player units lost. That's what we want. We're not going to get that sort of ratio trying to kill every single offensive and defensive unit that lands on our shores on offense. Sometimes defender odds are better, and defenders have at least a chance at taking out multiple units per turn, whereas attackers can only manage one.

Plus, I fully wholly completely believe we need to attempt to guide AI landings to a nice flat spot that's convenient for us. That means we need actual defense elsewhere in order to encourage the AIs to land where we want them to. We do *not* want mass landings in the jungle.

Personally, I would start building units out of every town but Sogut and Iznik. Anywhere with cruddy production can build reg warriors for MP; everywhere else gets a barracks and starts in on a mix of archers and spears. 2:1 ratio, maybe.

The library town won't need to get to size 12, I don't think. If the date that's been estimated for its completion is accurate, no AI will beat us to it, so we won't need heroic measures. We can use our workers to build good roads and such.

@ Keath -- Republic for always war is a nonstarter. Unit support costs and war weariness make it no better than monarchy even late in the game, with multiple luxuries, maximum commerce, and such; with none of that in place, we'd be dead.

More later.

Renata

 

[Keath]

Regarding galleys and control of the seas -- as I pointed out, the AIs will not generally make good choices as to where to land their units. The Dutch in COTM11 had plenty of opportunities for one-tile "cross/drop off/retreat" sorties against me -- and into my perenially under-defended back yard, at that -- and they *never* did it. Not once. So I'm certain it's safe to say that a navy for killing redlined ships will be invaluable.

My last post cross-posted with you and Tone. As long as the Deity AI gets no bonus on warfare, I would even consider attacking galleys not red-lined. With a harbour nearby, they will heal in one turn and back to the seas. We will lose a few but them's the breaks.

Regarding unit builds. I think we do need some spearmen.

I don't know if I agree. You can build 2 warriors for one spear and they are good on the attack and can be upgraded to swords which are just as good at defence as are spears. Horses should be our major investment. The reason I say this is from lurking XTeam in the past. Every new player liked spears but by the time they had played offensive units only for a while, none of them build spears now. Period.

It's likely that from time to time there will just be too many units to safely take out with attackers. Remember we want to keep our kill ratio enormous -- if you look at Deity AW games in the succession game forum, you'll see things like 40 AI units killed to only 3 player units lost. That's what we want.

Actually, that's what we don't want. We want to prevent them from ever getting close to our cities and we don't want that many units showing up on our island. That's why the navy is important.

Sometimes defender odds are better, and defenders have at least a chance at taking out multiple units per turn, whereas attackers can only manage one.

I would hope we never have an AI unit attacking any of our cities. As far as multiple kills go, a galley win will take out three units even if the AI galleys contain cavalry. So one 30 shield galley takes out 1 galley, 1 spear and 1 sword(for example) -- a total of 80 shields! Even losing one galley every attack is definitely an advantage. And if we had cats, they might just make the difference in never having an AI unit reach our island.

Plus, I fully wholly completely believe we need to attempt to guide AI landings to a nice flat spot that's convenient for us. That means we need actual defense elsewhere in order to encourage the AIs to land where we want them to. We do *not* want mass landings in the jungle.

So let's clear the jungle around the shores and hide in the weeds for their arrival. Unimportant, though, if they can't get past our navy. You might want to let some land just to leader farm.

Personally, I would start building units out of every town but Sogut and Iznik. Anywhere with cruddy production can build reg warriors for MP; everywhere else gets a barracks and starts in on a mix of archers and spears. 2:1 ratio, maybe.

What is so great about archers and spears compared to warriors(swords) and horses? They have poor mobility, cannot retreat and don't upgrade to anything useful. Besides, warriors, spears and archers have one movement point and therefore you need twice as many to cover the same territory as horses.

@ Keath -- Republic for always war is a nonstarter. Unit support costs and war weariness make it no better than monarchy even late in the game, with multiple luxuries, maximum commerce, and such; with none of that in place, we'd be dead.

I do agree but at least now it's been discussed. Monarchy is not that much better than despotism, though.

So we need Monarchy techs, IW for swords, Wheel for chariots, Math for cats, Writing and Literature, of course. It's too bad we couldn't capture the GL later from a nearby civ but that requires too much luck. It is great to capture it and get umpteen techs in one lump! And when you do there is no Education restriction so you could get MT at the same time. I guess that option is not in the gameplan, though.

One plan I would like to see is that when we get Literature we research or trade for MM, build harbours and galleys, lots of galleys. Galleys can attack other galleys and the odds of winning are pretty close to 50%.

If successful, two units plus the galley are taken out at once and then the AI has to build another galley. The odds for archers and horses against spears are about the same but they only kill one at a time and next turn the AI can fortify or head for the mountains or jungle where it's very tough to turf them out. All in all, it seems to me that galleys and horses could be the only units we need in abundance besides a few warriors=>swords for MP duty and the luxury of a few cats.

I'd like to hear what other players think about going for an offensive navy. Every time i've had a sea advantage, it's been successful. And unlike investing in archers and spears, galleys can be used throughout the game and upgraded. They become the foundation of invasion forces and I doubt we could have too many.