SGOTM7 - Team Wacken

[Xevious]

I've started playing again, and something is definately wrong with galleys. I am able to move 3 coastal tiles with them even though they clearly show 6 movement points. Something has happened to drop the movement rate of each water tile by 1 (as far as I can surmise anyway). I want to find out what's going on before I continue. I'm sending a PM to mad-bax.

 

[grahamiam]

iirc, i noticed that the cost was 1mp for oceans, 1mp for seas, and 3mp for coastal waters. looks like it somehow changed to 2mp's for coastal tiles?

 

[Xevious]

It should be 3 for coast, 2 for sea and 1 for ocean. I'm seeing 2 for coast, 1 for sea, and haven't checked ocean.

 

[grahamiam]

that is different than what I saw. All galleys during my turns could only move 2 coastal tiles at a time before consuming thier 6mp's.

I checked the 1000bc save (didn't move anything, just found a 6mp galley) and it seems alright?

maybe you are in another area of the map, and it has a square that looks like coast but isn't?

 

[Xevious]

Hmmm, now that I've looked at it again, I see what I actually saw is it treats a move into a city as 1 mp. So it is actually working like you said, 3 for coast, and 1 for sea and ocean. Regardless, sea should be 2 movement points. I imagine it's the same for everyone so this shouldn't be a big deal, but I'd like to hear from mad-bax before we continue.

 

[grahamiam]

yep, i saw the exact same, used incense hill to get an extra tile when sending the wandering galley along the NW Indian coast. i don't think we're in a hurry atm, so waiting is probably best.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Hmm, well, let's wait what MB has to say about it.

On another note, i just checked the score graphs.
Team Grumpy is losing cpt. Imo, that can only mean they are losing cities.
I also still wonder what can cause the huge difference we made in the opening. This cannot only be the difference between a combi factory or not.
Oh well, team bede seems to be losing the game, grumpy seems to be losing cities....
With our opposition seemingly having a very rough time and our advantagous position, we can play slightly conservative at some points i think.
For a start, i think we should actually delay new contacts until India is destroyed. The fewer enemies the better.

I know, looking at the score graphs and using that information in our decisions might not be the nicest thing to do, but i rather just be fair instead of acting like i do not look them and still use the information. Maybe this also helps to make a point against even more information being shown

 

[Offa]

I agree with deferring contacts. That green border in the south is presumably Persia: not the best near neighbour in an AWD game. I doubt that monarchy is attainable in a deal anyway, and we don't absolutely need anything else just yet.

If we can take out the Indians without too much loss, capturing the SOZ and the Pyramids, we will be in a great position, and we want as little distraction from this task as possible. The SOZ in particular is very strong: Eman recommended it as a primary weapon in a tiny sid conquest (bit slow for this though).

The score graph is interesting: Klarius' team must have lost towns and Bede is clearly on the rack. However, with a bit of bad luck we could find ourselves under pressure too, so we need to maintain a good kill ratio for now.

Re defending the Indian town with spears: if the town is garrisoned with >50% of the attacking force then it is very likely to hold with a reasonable kill ratio (assuming vet spear defending v reg swords). The odds aren't that good though and I favour pressing on instead: the Indians can't buld many units with so few towns one of which is building a wonder.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

was anyone thinking about defending an indian town with spears?

That imo is not even an option we should think about. making a defence point to keep future enemies busy is ok, but defending against one we are currently in war with is not the way to win a war. This is what i keep telling newbies on the forums every day and i don't want to do the same here now myself.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

As SoZ is a pretty cheap wonder, 120 shields for the AI, it will soon be ready. We should move our units towards Bombay already and prepare to take it.

Do not hold back in the amount of forces to send. It is a size 7 city, possibly well defended. Also, our game might pretty much depend on succes in capturing this city. Therefore, send everything we can. 12+ units would be nice.

Also, i think we need to build some swords. We must now use our forces to capture SoZ. Soon we will need swords against the Zulu. I recommend changing horse buids to swords.

ToA also is pretty high on my wish list.
Of course, those arab's in the south must also be kicked from our island somday in a not too distant future.

When we have taken India, we should build a bunch of extra cities there and support as many scientists as we can. We will at least need to research towards chivalry ourselves.
If knights are not gonna win us the game, we will need to leave the lib alone until the AI gets gunpowder, then capture it.
Chivalry and MT are the only techs we need in Middle ages. Engineering is a little bonus for the bridges.
Of course, i still hope to win early, but looking at the other teams graphs makes a bit more carefull and start to think about the future.

We might however want to wait for it to be size2 or have culture. If we raze the city, we need to build our own there to prevent the AI from settling there again.

 

[Xevious]

Just to let you all know, I stopped playing part way through 925BC and at the beginning of that turn SoZ was built in Delhi, same place Pyramids are. This is oviously a cascade as it was being built in Bombay. Makes me wonder if they built an FP in Bombay or lost all the shields to a unit.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Oh ok, gogo take Delhi !

How many cities did we need b4 we could build FP? can they do so with 6 cities ? Oh well, either way, they lost a lot of shields not used on units.

 

[grahamiam]

was anyone thinking about defending an indian town with spears?

the question was at the end of Xevious' last turn, and my response was only in reference to that turn. we have a bunch of wounded units facing 2 spears and 6 warriors. my advice was to let the spear and sword in the captured town absorb the warrior attacks on the ibt. that should keep the kill ratio up, which is very important right now. we don't need to waste wounded units on spears and warriors in the open. i did not advocate defending all captured Indian towns with spears, nor has anyone even considered it.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

the question was at the end of Xevious' last turn, and my response was only in reference to that turn. we have a bunch of wounded units facing 2 spears and 6 warriors. my advice was to let the spear and sword in the captured town absorb the warrior attacks on the ibt. that should keep the kill ratio up, which is very important right now. we don't need to waste wounded units on spears and warriors in the open. i did not advocate defending all captured Indian towns with spears, nor has anyone even considered it.

oh ok, i thought offa was talking about that. What you say is indeed what i had understood before, offa's comment made me doubt i misunderstood something

 

[Offa]

Grahamian is correst in that I was referring to the possibility of defending the Indian town. I agree that this isn't worthwhile, especially as the town is not on a hill. I don't think you should entirely dismiss such a tactic: on sid it was extraordinarally successful. Here, it is hampered by the lack of strong defenders relative to the attackers, and it doesn't appear necessary to be so cautious.

Now that the Indians have built the SOZ there is no time to lose in capturing it.

 

[Xevious]

Well, I've posted the 950BC and 925BC turns so AlanH can look at them to see whats up with our sea tiles. He says they are fine in the 1000bc save. So anyway, since the saves are up, please take a look and point out anything I'm doing wrong. 925bc is only partially done, still a lot of things to do. I remember WOA saying horses should switch to swords. Anything else? I'm seriously feeling out of my element in this game.

 

[grahamiam]

I'm seriously feeling out of my element in this game.

not many people feel that AWD is "in thier element" in fact, i believe in encourages drinking. just get after Dehli the best you can.

pic of the sit rep so others can comment

imho, setup a ship-chain between Istanbul and Lahore if possible. The attack to Istanbul can be well protected along those mountains. Looks like the Arabs will have a favorite spot near our core

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Yep, all i can say is that you need to go after Delhi with really everything you got. This is absolute priority !!!

The horses to swords is for Zulu. I made that comment while not yet knowing the SoZ are already build. Think about the Zulu After we have SoZ.

SoZ can be the difference between a smouth victory and a long long strongle.

Edit: Looking at the safe. I think we have 2 options now basically:
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Take the risk but go for the best:

I see you already started preventing landings with workers. Good job, keep doing this. You can do the same again in 925BC if you be carefull and think about it a little. After that i am sure it should be rather easy to keep them from landing for another 5 or so turns.

During those 5 turns, we will produce more, and you can send units to the other side. I would transport 4 or 5 more horses to Indian soil while keeping them from landing with workers. Then, after that transport, i would attack the regular arabian galleys with our galleys. The odds will be equal, but it will destroy unit+galley.
Meanwhile, our cities produce new horses, the units remaining after the destruction of some of his galleys will be taken by these horses. It is however also very possible he will land near Lahore. Don't worry about that, We can retake that any time we want.

Stop all spendings to upgrade that warrior.

The risk is that the zulu will also land while we have not enough units or we fail capturing SoZ. This is quite a risk.

==========================================================
The safe way, but bad future prospects.
Retract most of our units from India. Abandon capturing SoZ. Use our forces to defend home and attack culturally offensive cities.
This way we can keep our own lands safe, but the Insdians will be having SoZ against us, More and more units will be coming in the future.

More and more i start to fear we must take the safe way.

 

[Wotan]

I am all for a continued attack on India.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I am all for a continued attack on India.

yes, but 4 boats are coming at us, others might be coming.
Other teams seem to be in trouble already.

Oh well, i don't know what to do either