SGOTM7 - Team Wacken

[Offa]

Workers on coastal tiles don't prevent landings as you can just capture them, or don't the AI realize this?

We could try killing the galleys before they get to us (harbor in capital and then build lots of vet galleys). This isn't possible for the guys already after us though, and as they are mostly vets it isn't very tempting. The odds aren't too bad when you remember that we will kill 3 AI units with each successful attack as their galleys will be full. If we had catapults this would be pretty tempting. If you can keep the AI navies down, eventually they will stop making boats, at least at Sid.

We could block landings with warriors, but would need a lot, and the Arabs could still land in their town in the south. Ultimately this may be the way to go. If anyone knows a reliable way to funnel the AI boats to land in a suitable (for us) killing ground this could be very good.

If folk really want to give up our Indian ambitions then we really ought to try to build a town on one of the Indian hill and defend it. I really think though we need to capture the SOZ as it is very powerful. Getting rid of the Indian iron is important too. Perhaps we could free some troops by abandoning our captured indian town at some point.

We could even pop rush units if we are up against it.

It does appear that a lot rides on the PRNG over the next few turns. I don't think we have had a lot of luck so far though, and our kill ratio seems poor.

A leader or two wouldn't go amiss.

I think in our circumstances swordsmen are better than horsemen.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

The problem is that to take a capital, we really need 12+ units. That is each and every single unit we have.
Also de we have possibly 8 units coming at us.

 

[grahamiam]

the AI does not know that it can capture coastal workers, so they are effective at blocking the coast. another note, if we pillage the ivory, the SoZ will not produce AC's. blocking the coast with warriors may be a very good idea, what will it do to our unit support costs? at least, let's block around the core so we don't lose our 15spt ability in the capitol.

1 way to push the prng in our favor is research math and build cats in our less productive/non-rax towns. the number of units a diety AI produces probably requires some sort of arty as we go on.

I was playing a diety game last night, trying to see the AI's tendancy vs spears. Archers and warriors will not attack eSpears on hills. the will attack vSpears on hills, but not on mountains. did not get to check out how AI swords react, though. if we can get a settler onto the hills N of Lahore, it can act as a pretty good unit sink. however, with swords showing up, it looks like the odds start to tilt away from our favor.

i agree with WOA, we need at least 12 units to capture the Dehli/SoZ, which is somewhere in the fog. so, for now, we need to hold what we got, keeping the Arabs at bay.

imho, our priorities, if we decide to continue attacking india (which I think is a good idea) are as follows (just suggestions, but let's formulate it so we can all agree ):
1. spew out warriors (iron disconnect/reconnect required)
2. pillage iron (no swords) and sit on the iron (hope it's on a mountain )
3. pillage ivory (no AC's) and sit on the ivory
4. capture Dehli

probably the most economic way to do 2 and 3 is via 20s spears, not 30s swords. the best way to do #4 is swords.

just my US$0.02, feel free to toss it as it feels pretty cautious.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I agree,
Only keeping that ivory will be hard. We must bring multiple spears for that, and build a fortress.

Did you also check if they have only 1 source of ivory?

If you look at the situation compared to other teams, there is no way they can be capturing the SoZ. If we do not capture it, and we keep our homeland in one peace, we keep our advantage compared to them. And our advantage grows compared to those who do not manage to keep their island.

If we attempt to go for the SoZ right now, we only have a small chance of succeeding in both that capture and keeping what we have. Depending on the magnitude of our failure, we might lose part or all our advantage on the other teams.
Complete succes, capturing it and not losing any of our own cities is extremely unlikely IMO.
Even then, we would need to make a choise, attacking Delhi with marginal odds or leaving our homeland open to invasions.

We should now keep what we have, and proceed with India when we are ready for it. If we can take out their resources, that would be great. It would also be great if we can destroy some cultural influences first.
We should not keep units in cities that are prone to flip. Not our own, and not Lahore. If anything flips, we can retake it.

Maybe offa could give us some stats on how many attackers we need (both calculating horses and swords) to attack a size 7+ city with 3, 4, 5 or 6 spears.?

 

[dmanakho]

Go for it Wacken...
Play safe and keep increasing our army. Delhi isn't going anywhere...
Even if India manages to produce one or two Anc. cavalry we will deal with that. It's better that than losing homeland cities.

Good luck. I will be eagerly waiting for the report.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Go for it Wacken...
Play safe and keep increasing our army. Delhi isn't going anywhere...
Even if India manages to produce one or two Anc. cavalry we will deal with that. It's better that than losing homeland cities.

Good luck. I will be eagerly waiting for the report.

I'm not playing. Xevious is.

Yep, a few AC we can deal with if needed. They are much less powerfull in AI hands than in ours.
If we attack them instead of defend against them, our horses have somewhat reasonable odds.
We can do this by keeping lahore open and let them move in an AC if they come near. I suggest pillaging the infrastructure around lahore so that they won't move in faster than we can react and bring spears in the city.
This way, if we see we are gonna lose Lahore, we can burn it before we leave the indian island.
Remember, it is better to let them retake it so we can retake it again than to let it flip. Just let them retake it all they want as long as it is not with spears.

About the catapults, we could make less galleys in those border cities and build cats there if we get math. Both have their advantage. Galleys can kill other galleys with units in them, cats can damage galleys causing them to sail back home. Of course, dead is a lot better thain sailing back home :d


Note: none of the teams that are 40 turns further than us have probably taken any city on other islands. Some probably didn't even succeed in taking their own island.
Maybe when i am bored enough, i am gonna think about how i can backtrack the score history from those graphs to current date score (as opposed to average score)

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I did a little calculation on Grumpys score graph. It has little value for us. I cannot check if it is correct. For short, it is pretty useless, but i just like to calculate everything i can. I post it here now for my own fun and will see after the sgotm if there is some sence in it. Thats about it.

Our score value 1000BC: 1405 (so that is without Lahore)
Grumpy score value 1000BC: 942
Grumpy score value 750BC: 1111
Grumpy score value 550BC: 1365
Grumpy score value 350BC: 1491
Grumpy score value 150BC: 1469

If i look at it, it would mean they now have the same amount of territory and citizens as we had 1000BC, slightly more.

The score increase in the first turnsets here is pretty linear. After 750BC, the borders started to expand from culture.
The score increase from 1000BC to 750BC must still be mostly new settlements. Not so hard, they had probably like half their island in 1000BC.

750BC - 550BC, part of the score starts coming from cultural borders. Not too much yet, so expansion still is going on.

550BC-350BC, they must have had some more cultural border increase. Their score increase has dropped now, So probably no new cities are build. Or maybe new cities are build and others are lost. If any have been lost, it are probably not very important cities yet as culture is not yet lost here.

The score dropped only marginaly during the last turnset 350BC to 150 BC. However, their culture did. This could be explained if they lost cities but the cultural expansion from other cities made up for that loss and /or they settled new cities while losing older ones with cultural buildings.

The score didn't drop significantly during the last turnset 350BC to 150 BC. However, their culture did. This could be explained if they lost cities but the cultural expansion from other cities made up for that loss and /or they settled new cities while losing older ones with cultural buildings.

Comparing their numbers to our score, i think around 350BC, they had most of their island, but still not everything. Due to their cultural expandings they probably had no more land than us, and their higher score would be from coastal tiles. After that, they lost cities and thus land tiles while more coastal tiles were taken by cultural expansion.

Very likely, they have fewer cities 150BC than we have 1000BC as their score is marginally higher and their number of tiles per city should be quite a bit higher with their culture.

So, as said, pretty useless, just for me to try and see what conclusions i can get out of the graphs now. After the game we will see if i am correct. If i am correct, i suggest showing less information

Edit: if i apply my methods to team bede's graph, i come to conclude a virtual extinction.
90: 600
100: 470
110: 470
120: 260
130: 240

Compare that to the capital alone providing 130 points and you can conclude they have 2 or 3 cities remaining if my method is correct.

 

[Xevious]

I've been going nuts today since a power outage knocked out the internet service at my hotel this morning. It didn't come back up until about 3pm.

I got a pm from AlanH that says it looks like what we are saying about sea tiles is right, but he has no way of opening our saves (cause he has a mac). Mad-bax is away right now so he sent a note to ainwood to look at them. In the meantime, however, he says we can continue playing. He thinks if its happenning to us, it's probably happenning to everyone, so we shouldn't have an advantage. I can't see it being much of an advantage anytime soon either way.

So, I have read over the last few posts and will get back to playing shortly. I will do some more looking around and see if I can come up with any bright ideas of my own and then funnel all this knowledge into a blender and see what comes out.

 

[Xevious]

The Save

This will start at middle of 950BC turn which is where I left off before.

Started up again, and before ending turn 2(950bc), move horse out of Uskudar. Move Istanbul horses to galley. Have to raise lux to 40%. Move warrior toward istanbul. Move horses from Iznik toward Istanbul to board galleys. Have to make scientist in Iznik. Switch Uskudar to sword.

IBT: eWarrior in Arabia survives attack (4/5). India loses 3 warriors and a spear but kills an elite sword and a spear in Lahore. India builds SoZ in Delhi.

925BC(3) Take out warrior, and sword, losing 1 horse. Decide I should wait on mad-bax to rule on 1mp sea movement. Save.

Ok, AlanH says play on anyway, so that's what I'm doing. Pillage Arabian horses. Drop science to 0% for one turn to allow warrior upgrade. Use galleys to ship chain horses to forest SW of lahore, and then leave one galley E of istanbul. Move 2 horses out of lahore SW to forest. Leave 2/5, 1/5 and 1/4 sword in Lahore and cross my fingers.

IBT: Arabia kills ewarrior. Indian warrior loses to sword in Lahore. Spears move west to grass??? They must be looking for some to smoke! Arab galleys advance toward Istanbul, but don't land any troops. Quell another resistor in Lahore, down to 2.

900BC(4) eSword(5/5) moves west before attacking Indian spear so he won't be left in Lahore. 5/5 sword dies to unfortified 4/4 grass spear! Use horses to finish off the 2 spears, but we have swords approaching lahore now. Lose another horse to warrior before taking it out. Yikes, I'm not likeing how things are going here. Last 4/4 horse is able to take out one of the swords. I've got a 1/4 and 1/5 sword in lahore, that will heal this turn and then I will move them out. I have a 2/4 forest horse next to a sword, so it will probably die this turn. Now that's odd. the warrior in Istanbul went NE and S last turn, and lost it's last movement point for apparently crossing a river. But now this turn, I can move it N and SW to Istanbul and still have a point left. Very odd. Anyway, move warrior to Istanbul and upgrade it. With some careful movement, I've covered the entire coast of our island enough to prevent any landing this turn IF they don't attack and defeat our fortified galley in the inlet E of Istanbul. Use our eastern galley to go out 3 tiles and come back, found a lot of sea in the ocean, but no coast spotted. Would be nice to find out where America is so we know how to get to the GL. I have no intention of getting close enough to make contact, yet. Make scientists out of both lahore citizens. Iznik is costing us a ton of gold in lux tax, and we are very corrupt because of how far away our cities are. Switch Iznik to settler and rush it (it's exactly 20 shields away). I'll send this settler to the forest above sheep on Indian isle. This will put it at the same distance as Edrine and Uskudar, and also should keep 3 tiles away from Lahore if it flips, allowing our units to heal right next to Lahore.

IBT Arabian galleys appear to be heading to India? Maybe they will go after Lahore? or Maybe after India? Arab archer is approaching from Najran. Indian sword kills a horse, but it's down to 1/4. Iznik builds spear. Uskudar builds a sword. Lahore starves to 3 with one rioter left.

875BC(5) Send 4/4 and 5/5 sword N of Lahore. Scout with horse and find Delhi 3N,NE of Lahore. It is size 8, grass, next to a river. There is a mountain W of it, accross the river. Now that I look at things, India only has 5 cities, and is therefore the weakest civ of the ones we know. It's quite possible that the Arabs may attack India which would help us considerably. Send horse to dispatch Arabian archer (3/4). Move galley out of lahore, which is completely empty now. Still blocking our shore just in case. 2 horses due next turn which can be chained over to India. 3 horses (1/4, 2/4, 1/4) resting outside lahore, plus 2 more (3/4 and 4/4) nearby (both in danger) and 3 swords are on India isle right now. In a few turns (assuming our luck holds) we could have 3 swords and 9 horses over there.

IBT: Sure enough, India is headed for Lahore. They drop a single warrior next to it. I will let them take it and then attack back.

850BC(6) MM to get shields up. 7 in Izmit (not growing) and Edrine (will use 7 for 2 turns and then 8 for 2 turns). 5 in Bursa and Uskudar. MM some more, taking into account losing Lahore next turn, and should have Poly next turn.

IBT: Arabia takes lahore. Arabian galleys head towards lahore to reinfoce it. Another Arabian archer approaches from Najran. Indian swords attacks mountain horse and dies. Sword and spear come out of Bombay. Zulu galley sets sail, next to ours. Learn Poly. What to start? Set to Math for now.

825BC(7) Lahore has a spear in it! How did they do that? Ah, Arabs are in Monarchy now (must have just got it), so they can cash rush. Take Arabian archer and have 3/4 horse next to Najran, defended by 3/3 spear. Kill spear in Lahore with eSword and create a leader! Take out warrior with 4/4 sword taking Lahore back. Barracks is still in Lahore. Now... We can use this leader to build an army, or ship it home to build FP. Will get to that in a bit. Move the mountain horses north to the mountain accross river and find that India has 2 ivory, both connected. Still can't see there iron, but it looks like there is only one more mountain tile in the fog. So it looks like it is NE,2N of the horses I just moved. They can get there in 2 turns to pillage it. Move pair of vet swords to mountain S of horses. Drop settler on Indian island as well as a worker on lambs.

Ok, I'm going to stop here and pass this on. There is a leader just N of Lahore that needs to be moved yet. I would like some discussion on what to do with him. We don't have an FP, and I haven't started one, however, there are 3 swords and 10 horses on Indian island. I think a horse army could help a lot in taking Delhi and then the rest of India. There are 2 horses W of Delhi that should reach the iron (assumed to be 2N,NW of Delhi) in 2 turns and pillage on the third, assuming they survive. There is also a horse next to Arabian city of Najran, it's take out two archers already. Not sure if it should attack Najran or back off and just pick off archers. I think we have a good number of units on Indian island, might be good to take a crack at Arab galleys. OH, research is set to math, but it is starting this turn so it could be changed to Monarchy instead.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Wow. Interesting stuff.

Need to check save file now !

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Only one unit is out of the arabian boats yet?

What boat is or are unloaded?

 

[Xevious]

Man, isn't it like 2:30 in the morning over there?

Yes, 3 of those galleys have units on them, but judging from the one galley only dropping one unit, I wouldn't be surprised if there's less than 6 units on them. Worst case would be 7 units (1 still left on the first galley that dropped warrior), but I think that's HIGHLY unlikely.

 

[Xevious]

Oh, and the boat that dropped the warrior is the one closest to Bangalore (eastern boat).

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I'd say, lets send the horse from our mainland and the horse that will be produced next turn in capital to India. Gather and heal all forces. This together makes 12 horses and 4 swords mines what will be lost by that time.
This includes retreating the 2 horses next to Delhi and healing them first as well as bringing 2 more horses over there.
I think this is needed as 5 spears defending Delhi is very possible.

We can use offa's tool to see more precisely what our chances are.
Also we can make a pricise calculation to see how many turns it will take to execute our options and see what we can de before the SoZ makes a second AC for the indians. The first cannot be avoided.
I might do such calculations tomorrow night, 20 hours from now.

It does look to me as we might well be able now to fend of the arabian attack and take SoZ soon. Still of course we need to be very carefull in this crucial stage of the game.

If we make an army, i vote for a swords army, it will have better attack power and also the retreat ability since armies add a movement point.

I am not yet sure if we should make an army or FP. The most important thing imo is that the AI will not attack an army. It will keep the whole stack safe from counter attacks.
The FP will also be immensely helpfull though, and building it won't be cheap fast or easy.

3 investments we have to choose for in attacking Delhi:
-An army (at the price of FP)
-2 renforcements (leaving our island basically empty)
-retreating the 2 damaged horses for healing (costing turns)

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Man, isn't it like 2:30 in the morning over there?

Yes, 3 of those galleys have units on them, but judging from the one galley only dropping one unit, I wouldn't be surprised if there's less than 6 units on them. Worst case would be 7 units (1 still left on the first galley that dropped warrior), but I think that's HIGHLY unlikely.

Yes, the AI very usually places 1 unit per boat. I kinda expected 4 units from the moment i saw those boats.

It is 3:51 here now. I did my last day check before going to sleep and saw your name as present in the sgotm forum, so i decided to await your post
I gotta work tomorrow, so i'll go sleep now.

 

[grahamiam]

nice set Xevious!

MGL, what to do with that wonderful MGL?

a sword army will be locked on that island till Astronomy (or Mag if we chose to completely fill it). that might not be a bad thing as the SoZ will be our most important wonder till GLib is captured, and the Pyramids will give us large specialist cities for money or beakers. the sooner we get those wonders, the better it is for our game as the AI will be getting to Fued soon.

What sort of gpt benefit can we expect from the FP on the home island? i don't have access to CivAssist atm.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

OCP is so important from the FP. And also will it make 1 city almost totally uncorrupted. The distance thing is minor compared to that.
I estimate the reward of FP greater than that of monarchy.

 

[grahamiam]

ah, then we do need to think about it. now go to bed so your not a zombie tomorrow i will enjoy a glass of vino then do the same

 

[Wotan]

You have been busy tonight! Will read up on the thread and post my own comments later today. I will most like not be able to play until tomorrow anyway so we have plenty of time to decide on FP/Army etc. Where to put the FP if we go that road (I sort of favour this, at least without having really looked at the situation)

EDIT: Forgot to comment on Xevious turn set. Looking good!

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I have not yet put much thought into where to build the FP. First i think we should decide IF we rush the FP. This IMO should mostly depend on our chances without an army. We need a good estimate on this.

If then, we decide to build the FP, it won't be too difficult to decide where we build it if we look at the corruption numbers etc.

I do think this great leader will be extremely important for our sgotm here. It will either give us a good overal boost or an almost guaranteed victory over India. With this we should maintain our strong position in the competition or set us ahead even more.

I have just been thinking about it and i now vote for building that army for the following reasons:

Note that an army does not only give us SoZ with almost certainty, it will also give us a large advantage in the following conquest of India, enabling us to secure SoZ from culture flips that much faster.
This faster conquest will:
-make us have SoZ faster, maybe worth 1 AC. (50 shields)
-Provide the Indians 1 less AC we need to fight. Suppose we would lose 1 horse to kill it. (30 shields)
-Provide an army that will stop the Indians from attacking our unit stack. Our units will be able to move from city to city safely trough India without being attacked. We will save several units here. (X * 30 shields)
-Speed up our conquest of India, giving them less time to build defenders, and thus costing us less losses in conquest. (X * 30 shields) And reducing the risk of losing SoZ to culture flips.

That together, i do estimate worth more than the 200 shields we need to invest in the FP.
Intuitive estimate:, I think this army can make a 10 turn difference in the conquest of India, costing us so much fewer units and alowing us to reduce our number of enemies so much faster.
With this army, we probably need to send only 5-10 more reenforcement horses to take all of India. Without it, we might be in a bit of a struggle and need to send all our units for the comming 20 turns.

We can do something with the army after India:
We can place it in the smallest Indian village there, then meet someone new and gift them that Indian city in the 1 turn of trade we can do. This will transport the army to our capital and we can use it to defend home. Of course, we can easilly retake the gifted city with any nearby horse.