SGOTM8 - Ivan

[conehead234]

Hmm, worker on iron. Connect the iron and upgrade as much troops as possible. Lutecia would be a good city to get for peace, do not break rep. I don't know if you will support it, but we may want to try to squeeze some of our cities around the greek cities and try to flip them, or at least push their culture back so we can take some of their cities on the first turn of a war with our swords.

 

[King Alexander]

Ok, a few sugeestions:

1) We should trade with Greece asap, for their wines: offer WM + 14g + Gems for their Wines. Better do it now and for as much time as we can, before Greece colonises the Gems on their far-N mountains Besides, we want a good relationship with Greece, right?
This way, we could also lower our lux, and keep cash for the upgrades, when we learn Chivalry, and learn Chivalry in 7 turns.
We could also hurry a couple of improvements(in our cities with barracks), so they could build more military units.

IMHO, we should upgrade all our horses to knights(so, keep them near cities with barracks) , maybe, even partially hurry units and change back to knights, see how many of them can we have before Greece's borders expand and we lose our colony, and make a decision for an attack or not.
I'd like us to won our island before the end of the Middle Ages.

2) Chicago should go for a library first and next for an aqueduct, for more research. We may also flip a city in the SW island, later on, by the combined culture of Chicago and Seattle.

3) Work the second grassland in SF: the city will grow faster, and it's also roaded(gold).

4) Trade TM and WM with our "allies".

5) That Japanese galley near Boston has upoaded units or not? There're also some units in NY, in case for an emergency.

6) I'd like us to take Canton now, and settle where the Elite warrior stands. We could change Miami to a settler, hurry it for 36g, and settle there(1 more dyes source).

7) Connect the other dyes near Buffalo for trading with other civs(Greece also haven't connect their own dyes yet).

8) Better to cut forests first, and then road/mine the plains, in NY. We could also stop the workers in Boston to clear and mine the 2 forests between Washington and Boston, and then mine the mountains.

Adrian is up, I believe.

 

[AdrianE]

I'll play tommorrow night my time

Adrian

 

[AdrianE]

Actually I managed to play tonight.

Brief report: Iron gambit worked. We have knights and axemen. Full report tommorrow.

Adrian

 

[King Alexander]

Well, things certainly look BETTER!
Although, I don't know how much time have we before we lose our colony(I hope, Corinth won't build )

@Ivan: what about hurrying pikes and change back to knights?
Maybe, we should do that to cities with low shields, and change them back to axemen for more units with attack 4, while we leave strong-sheilds cities to build only knights?

We have 16 turns, before our trades with Greece expires. RoP ends the next turn. Thermopylae and Knossos are building Great Wonders, so they don't produce units, for the time being. This is an excellent opportunity for us, to prepare for Greece and have a better Army, before they start building axemen and knights. We should think of how we'll take the best advantage out of it.

We could gather and split our forces in Buffalo and St.Louis, and attack Greece on 2 fronts?

IMHO, we shouldn't raze the Greek cities, if we're succesful in our attack, but keep them, so other civs won't try to settle the area, and besides, why building new settlers and drop the pop of our own cities? They're also in good places, and if we'll manage to build an FP in St.Louis, we'll be in a good position. Maybe, we'll need one more settler for E of Beijing, but we can handle that any time.

That Elite warrior in Detroit should be replaced by another unit, and move him in Houston for future Leader fishing?

IMHO, we shouldn't attack Beijing: better to keep our Army for Greece: Greece will continue to lose it's units to Beijing(the Chinese must surely have Elite spears there to stand so much time!), while we're getting stronger and stronger for our attack.

If we manage to get a strong Army to attack Greece, I don't think we'll need Invention, but, if our colony is lost, we might need it. Should we learn Invention first or go for Education --> Astronomy(and prepare a pre-build in Boston)? Have we time to learn Invention first?

Comments?

 

[AdrianE]

turn log:

preturn buy wines from Greece as King Alex suggested
switch some builds around
trade WMs

30AD colonize IRON, upgrade 1 axeman
realize we don't have enough cash to research chivalry in 7 so I dial down research
destroy canton at the cost of 2 archers
trade WMs

50AD found St Louis trade WMs

70AD trade WMs

90AD trade WMs

110AD found Detroit

130AD sell dyes to Greece for WM and 91G (all they had)
Japan will not give up any city
IBT Japan and Greece sign peace

150AD trade WM

170AD trade WM Rome has Chivalry

190AD trade WM
IBT learn chivalry, set research to invention at single scientist
we need cash and lots of it to upgrade/rush knights

210AD upgrade 1 horse for 80G, set all cities to building knights

I looked - noone has anything worth trading Chivalry for

I have been marching the new axemen up to the north. Every city with a barracks should build knights until we lose iron. We should try to keep Greece away from Chivalry

We also might want to investigate Corinth to see if it has built anything cultural that could threaten our iron colony. If we send a unit up there we could pillage the colony before Greece gets access to iron.

I checked with Japan every turn after the alliances expired. They just won't give up a city.

 

[King Alexander]

I don't think we have much time, until we lose our colony. Greece's borders had expanded on my last turn: nerovats and Adrian played 12 + 12 turns = 24 turns(correct?). We should barely have one more player's set(Ivan's), before Greece expands it's borders again.

The only reason to investigate, is to pillage the Iron the turn before Greece's borders expand, as Adrian said, so Greece will delay starting on Axemen and Knights(the AI will probably send 1 worker, and it'll take around 9 turns to road it: they aren't industrial).

As I've said, Thermopylae and Knossos are set on Great Wonders, so, we should target Athens and the city near St.Louis(don't remeber it's name), which are their best core cities. If those 2 cities will fall, then we should have not much of a problem to slowly take their other cities as well.

 

[King Alexander]

Long term planning, I bet that're going to need some paratroopers(AF) to take some cities, if the AI doesn't agree to gift them: we'd need a good force to capture a city, and then hurry barracks/harbor/units/airport there to conquer the rest of the area.

 

[I. Larkin]

As I said we must learn Astronomy ASAP! Why we learned Chivalry? What the hell single Sci with lot of Libs??!!

 

[AdrianE]

Ivan

We need CASH to take advantage of IRON. We only have iron temporarily. Conquering Greece => 2nd core => much faster progress and permanent access to iron

Were you paying attention to the iron discussion?

We need single scientist for 3 or 4 turns then we can turn up science again. That will give us the cash to upgrade our remaining horsemen to knights and maybe rush a few.

King Alex

I only played 10 turns.

 

[I. Larkin]

Since we are not going to war with Greece now, we do not need knights, Chivalry and Invention. We will build Copernicus Observatory, research Theology, Education, Astronomy at maximum rate. Dixi.
Ivan.

 

[conehead234]

I believe that we have to get jumping on Greece. We don't want to have possession of the iron for too long. We have to use the iron while we have it. Greece is probably weak from the long war with china, it is a perfect time to strike.

 

[King Alexander]

Still, we need to wait some time(around 16 turns), until our deals our out: we can be well prepared in those turns to whack Greece.

IMHO, we just might be able to it without longbows, so we woudn't need Invention right now.

As for the pre-build in Boston, maybe, we should build a courthouse before it, and calculate how many turns Boston will need to build Copernicus asap when we learn Astronomy.

WE DO NOT HVAE MANY TURNS WITH OUR COLONY: we must take advantage of it now, IMHO. However, we could start min on Education.

We ARE a Republic: how long do we continue our war with Japan before WW comes?

 

[King Alexander]

I believe that we have to get jumping on Greece. We don't want to have possession of the iron for too long. We have to use the iron while we have it. Greece is probably weak from the long war with china, it is a perfect time to strike.

Yes, Greece IS "weak" right now, not so much in military, but on the population of it's cities: we wouldn't want to face Greek cities with pop beyond 6, since they'll be TOO strong for us, AND, they'll also posses the Iron.

I say, we should prepare to get to Greece after the deals are off, and as Adrian pointed out, we need to form our 2nd CORE ASAP, if we want to have hopes of finishing the game sooner(with our FP, the second core will help us),

Edit: Don't forget that Greece will attack us after the war with China is over, either from our "agressive settling" or because it'll want more land for itself, and since we're the nearest(resourceless and weakest) rival...

 

[nerovats]

Why do we nead astronomy asap. Only reason I can think of if trading. When we get a japanese city the only civ we´re not able to trade resources with is England. I also think we should take a bit out of greece. Go straight for core, can clean up small cities later.
Counted the turns: I played 6? Adrian 10, so that makes 16, should leave about 10 turns on teh iron if calculations about estimated 25 for greek growth were correct.

 

[King Alexander]

IMHO, Adrian's move researching Chivalry was good, providing us an opportunity to strike Greece soon(after the deals end), before it builds many knights and axemen, and build our second core much faster.

The question now is: are we sure that we'll research Invention first and also we won't lose Copernicus?
We'll need around 18-20 turns to learn Invention(17 turns if we research at 40% now).

If we have another 8-10 turns before we lose our Iron colony, we should upgrade those 2 horses in NY.

I'd like to hear the opinions from all the members, Adrians' as well.

Maybe, we should start min on Theology, and cash-rush knights until we lose our colony, but I'm not 100% sure that we won't need longbows, if we won't have enough knights.

 

[I. Larkin]

1) Obviously, to win the game we need a flight and probably advanced flight. Therefore we need research ASAP. Greeks will not limit our date of win. We will have plenty of time to finish them IBT, and, probably demand their overseas Cities. That’s why Copernicus is a must. Moreover it must be in most research productive City, Washington.
2) We also need Golden Age at reasonable time. Next Expansionist Wonder is SETI and it is too late. I believe we may finish game before Modern Age.
3) To build Copernicus in capital is very difficult. AI will cascade wonders and, because Copernicus very cheap they may get it straight as Astronomy discover. We must pre-build it and to be sure hold monopoly on Astronomy until Copernicus will be built.
4) Somebody (I think Japan) will have TGL soon. To reduce influence of TGL we have to research and trade Education ASAP.
5) To summarize above it will be total disaster to miss Copernicus, like miss TGL in AWD SGTOM7. Unwise Chivalry research made delay of research progress at 15 turns and put at risk our build up of Copernicus. I thought we agreed about research rate and order. I changed research to Theology and set rate at maximum.
6) It is not too late to learn plan more then 40 turns ahead. Now dilemma is war with Greeks . It is not good to have it before GA because money limited, also it is not good to have it at GA for obvious reasons.
7) Mistake we made at K-A turns (but it was my idea) was mutual MA vs Japan. As a result we loose opportunity to get Yakhogama. I think our next war (with Vikings?) will be without MA. Mistake that nerovats did was trade away Engineering for monarchy. Better was a trade to English (or Romans) only. And get Wine and cash from Greeks. BTW, where 2 workers gone? Adrian trade Dyes to Greeks for free, also he miss opportunity to make good peace with Japan. I don’t see any reason with delay of capture Beijing.
8) Research, I think will be Theo, Education, Astronomy, Invention, Gunpowder, Chemistry, Physics, ToG. We also may want to build Newton in NY, because it will be very difficult to build it in Washington.

 

[conehead234]

Well I would agree with that research ivan, but what if the iron runs out. If that happens, we need to go for cavs to get greece. Actually, I think we should go invention, then gunpowder. If we don't have saltpeter and Greece has it, we need to know before they get muskets.

 

[I. Larkin]

@ Conehead. I do not belive, that weak Greeks wil make any problem. We will take them with few Knights and pillage Iron.

 

[AdrianE]

I didn't miss any opportunity for a good peace with Japan. They had absolutely nothing of value to give. I couldnt get a city from them. I figured as we build knights we will get stronger so they'll eventually give up a city.