SGOTM8 - klarius

[AlanH]

The submission system reads the entire file and it seems to have uploaded OK, so there's a reasonable chance that it's OK.

 

[Northern Pike]

My computer freezes on me. I cannot restart civ. Since I am travelling untill friday, I cannot repair it untill then.

That's foul luck. Were you on the F3 screen, or one of the F screens?

 

[klarius]

Ok, I downloaded (before going to work ) it and it looks ok on my computer. I will probably play in the evening.
We are in a very tricky position now. We will reach IA in 11 turns, (3t left on MT, ToG and Magnetism in 4 turns each).
We need to build more science capability in our GA otherwise we fall in a hole after that. Unis and maybe Newton's should be built.
If we want to take on Greece in a few turns, we will not be able to profit of their free tech. We will be in IA, before we want to stop the war and we would research rails already. In that case we already have decided the research path and cannot react on the free tech, so there is no advantage in gifting them immediately.
Another problem is the upgrade cost. We really should use our money overseas, where we don't have production. A large army on the home island will be stuck there until flight.
All in all I'm still not happy with the research of MT and the plan to take on Greece. I will still look what is possible, but the overseas holdings have priority for me.

 

[Megalou]

If we gift Greece before the war we may well have to fight riflemen. They are likely to have money to upgrade quickly. I think it is possible to capture most cities, make peace and get all off-shore towns in 11 turns, although it may take 13-14 turns. Couldn't you rush a barracks way up north near the Greek border (saving one turn of unit movements) + upgrade the horsemen on the interturn as those barracks are completed?

 

[klarius]

Sure it's possible to have a respectable force at the Greece border in a few turns.
But that means all money into upgrades and further delay the rushes overseas, which I think have been delayed too much already.
I really have to look some more into the save, but I think I don't want to risk this. So the options are :

• no war with Greece

• a short war for only a few cities

• the decisive war with Greece, but that will not be finished before IA, unless we delay research

And still there is the problem how to avoid a dog pile. I don't think Greece can easily persuade Rome, but our overseas holdings could be endangered by weaklings like England, Japan and even China. Even building defenses against them will cost a lot. And I definitely don't want to give up our footholds there. I can try diplomatically to make it less likely, but you never can trust the AI really.

 

[Megalou]

I see the problem.
If you feel it's just a question of patience v/s haste, then do as you wish and finish the Middle ages first and build up the defence in our colonies. May I suggest horsemen in the colonies since they are more effective than spearmen after upgrades. (You may be able to rush a few before MT comes in.)

I am more concerned about Scandinavia. My failed attempt there must not be the only attempt.

 

[Northern Pike]

Your (Klarius's) worries about what might happen to our overseas holdings during a war with Greece would be justified if we were only playing against the AI, but I think it's the kind of moderate risk we have to accept in a competition with other teams. I expect that the strong teams will get to Flight at approximately the same time, and the game will be won by the team that has the least work to do at that point.

I very strongly feel that the opportunity to attack musketmen (or weaker) with cavalry is a precious opportunity which we can't let slip if we expect to win. Attacking won't be this easy again until tanks, which will be too late. If you can't reconcile yourself to attacking Greece, perhaps you could at least start rushing cavalry in Caesaraugusta and Newcastle, so that the next player could attack Japan and/or England.

I also feel, though this is just intuition, that you may be overestimating the Greeks' strength, and that an immediate cavalry campaign against them might be quick and easy. This is why I recommend spending the gold to look into a couple of their cities. We might see four musketmen per city, we might see one musketman and a Hoplite; the difference matters a lot.

 

[klarius]

NP, I'm playing currently, but will probably not finish today.
Especially because of the competition with other teams we should not risk the advantage we probably have.
The big part of work after flight is to get a foothold everywhere. Greece is the smallest problem overall.
Nevertheless I will attack Greece soon, but not with overwhelming force (and I'm still in doubt it's a good thing).
We will soon see how it works

 

[Northern Pike]

Great. Now you can use all your devious tricks to reduce the chance of a dogpile.

 

[Evil_Kanevil]

I'm back =)

Should I hop in after klarius, or wait for my original slot in the roster?

 

[klarius]

Played The save

Turn log:

Preturn:
I rush harbors in Caesaraugusta, Cleveland, Chinan and Newcastle.
Barracks in Byzantium. Some settlers and workers in our north to get rid of foreign pop.
Change the horsemen builds to cavalry prebuilds.

Turn 1 470:
Lux deals with Rome and Greece end. Renew for Physics.
Move units towards Greece.
Short rush market in New York to complete next turn to get rid of lux tax.

Turn2 480:
MM a little. Move more units.
Small problem now I wont get any horses overseas before MT and I don't want to delay it.
Build Kansas City near Beijing.

IBT:
MT->ToG
Turn 3 490:
Newcastle settler->barracks
Washington cav->bank (Newton's prebuild)
Swap some prebuilds to cav. Upgrade two horses.

Turn 4 500:
Build San Diego near Caesaraugusta.
Upgrade 2 horses.
Move some units into position.
Prepare for disconnecting/reconnecting saltpeter.

Turn 5 510:
Declare on Greece.
Kill a nosy templar losing a longbow.
Capture corinth from two muskets losing a cav and will lose it again IBT.
Disconnect saltpeter. Rush horses in Caesaraugusta and Byzantium. Reconnect salt.
Build Richmond on Incense near Newcastle.
Gift some gpt to the weaklings and sell them a tech. This loses some gold, but I hope it avoids backstabbing.
Rush barracks in Newcastle.

IBT:
Templar retakes Corinth killing a cav.

Turn 6 520:
Capture Sparta, lose 2 longbows (again 2 muskets) and a cav (on a lousy templar outside the city)
Recapture Corinth.

IBT:
Lose a longbow to a knight.
Lux deals with Rome expire - renew.
ToG -> Magnetism.

Turn 7 530:
Rush temple in Richmond. That's about all our gold.
Move units.

IBT: A MDI takes one of our slaves.

Turn 8 540:
Kill MDI.
Rush barracks in Corinth.
Probe Athens. Kill two muskets.

IBT:
Knight takes out a longbow.

Turn 9 550:
Good RNG Capture Athens with no losses - only 2 more muskets.
Move a bit, rush a bit, MM a bit.

The greek front:

I quit here because it's a nice even turn number.
I also think I used up my good RNG and don't want to see the lousy battles.
Greece would make peace, but wouldn't give any interesting cities.
We also don't want peace before we have at least iron and the population in Athens is down.
We will enter IA in 2 turns. Peace by then is not really desirable, so we better just start researching railroads then.
We have still a small reserve of horsemen to upgrade (currently in Shanghai). But don't do it unless you really need it.
We need money to rush settlers in greek cities (to get pop down) and don't forget the overseas holdings.
If you want more horses overseas pillage the saltpeter and have workers ready to rebuild the road.
I also would urgently want a city to grab the wool southwest of York. This city then also needs a temple.

There is a deal available with Rome. 101gpt + music theory + change for ToG. I would do it, we need all gold we can get. In IA we will need high research for a decent time.

@evil
I would say you can play now if you are available. And maybe Ronald wants to do a real turnset after you. So that would mean.

Evil_Kanevil up
Ronald on Deck

and then return to the normal roster

Ciceroninian
Northern Pike
Megalou
Evil_Kanevil
Ronald
klarius

 

[Northern Pike]

I haven't studied the save yet, but fine stuff.

We need to reach agreement on what city we're going to leave the Greeks before Evil plays.

 

[Megalou]

Well done!

Some observations:
The crusader in Corinth should protect the cavalry north of Corinth. It is extremely unlikely that a Greek knight can reach Corinth.
Athens is already starving so we can start pulling troops out. The flip risk is ~3.5%.

I think we should not end the Greek war until they give all their off-shore towns in a treaty. Things will be messy if we have many civs left later.

I think we should give up the Greek free tech. Ask yourself: if we quit the war in 4-5 turns and gift Greece, and they get Steam Power, do you throw away the used beakers and start researching Medicine? Don't think so. If we gift them 20 turns after peace and they get Nationalism, we will be in a position to wipe them out. If they get Medicine, we can trade it and then wipe them out. We should not risk them spreading Nationalism, even if some civs will have it before we get flight.

As for the deal with Rome that klarius suggested: Ganz klar!

Which town to save for Greece? I don't have CivAssist at work so I can't see much but shouldn't it simply be the weakest one? We want to avoid new settlers coming out of there.

 

[Megalou]

Edit: It lools like the crusader is a regular. Not sure his defense is stronger than the cavalry's then. Cavalry=12. Crusader=9+fortification bonus. Do what you prefer.

 

[Northern Pike]

The ideal outcome in the Greek war would be for us to gain Argos and either Mycenae or Herekleia, since those are the only two pieces of land on which the Greeks have cities and we don't have footholds. Since those towns are respectively size four, size four with a resource, and size two with two resources, this may be very difficult, especially considering our failure to get a comparable city from the Vikings. So I'll point out that we have the option of attacking Eretria, Rhodes, Troy, and Thessalonica with cav units upgraded or rushed in the appropriate places, in an attempt to inflict more pain on the Greeks. (I've often thought that the number of cities remaining to a civ is relevant in establishing what concessions they'll make.) It may not be clear for a few turns whether we should do this, but we should keep the possibility in mind.

Klarius, I know you must have had something in mind, but why are we building roads on hills around Beijing, in our corrupt zone?

Tsingtao and Kansas City can reach size seven without aqueducts, and perhaps they should be allowed to do so before producing any more workers or settlers.

Descending to the level of outright quibbling , Sparta and Kansas City could work one more irrigated tile between them.

Athens is already starving so we can start pulling troops out. The flip risk is ~3.5%.

But as I understand Klarius's report and the save, this is still our safe interturn in Athens, so we can afford to cram the city with troops to reduce resistance.

 

[Ronald]

Nice turns klarius.

I will try to repair my civ tomorrow. If successful, I can play after evil. I will let you know.

Ronald

 

[Northern Pike]

Managing the Greeks' capital jumps as we take their cities is going to be tricky. We must not do the obvious thing and take Delphi, Thermopylae, and Knossos next, or Argos will very possibly become the Greek capital. I hope the rest of you will contribute your ideas here, and your most accurate information about what determines the movements of an enemy capital. But for the moment, I think we should take all four continental Greek cities other than Knossos (inconvenient, but not too bad with cav) and as many of their four distant cities as we can reasonably reach, and then see what we can get for peace. If we can gain Argos and a foothold on Mycenae Island, all will be well. If we can't achieve either goal, we can probably take Knossos without losing anything (since with Greece's cities seized in this order, Mycenae should become the capital), and try again. If we can get one foothold but not two...well, that will require further discussion.

Pardon me if I restate the general conclusion here: Letting an enemy capital jump to an island too small for two cities would be a disaster.

 

[klarius]

Well, I doubt that we will get any of the two desired cities and for sure not both.
We should keep the war short and we may be even forced to end it, because at least half of our empire is weak defended.

If we can get one of the desired targets (Argos or a city on Mycenae island) we should end the war immediately (remember the Vikings campaign ), even if not all goals on the home island are met.
We definitely want Delphi for the iron. Then it gets already difficult. If we leave Knossos to the Greeks this cuts off the northern part, so we probably better leave Thermopylae to them and get to the north first.
If we get to a point where we are confident that the capital doesn't jump to Argos (Mycenea bigger than Argos and the cities close to Argos away) we could think of taking Thermopylae also and let the capital jump to Mycenae.
Attacking greek cities on other islands is pretty hopeless for this war. We don't have the money to rush and upgrade enough military in a short time and on the english island the towns are also far from ours. We shouldn't extend the war into war weariness level 2 and that will soon be reached if the war is fought in the quick and dirty way I started it.

If we have money to spare, I would rather try to get some cavs to attack Japan. But overall we need flight ASAP and we need the production to build a sufficient bomber force. I don't believe that we get the cities needed w/o bombing them down.

@NP - why build roads in corrupt areas ?
The 90% corruption doesn't mean that we don't get a few coins out of corrupt cities (and even a second shield like currently in Beijing). I generally build roads everywhere in C3C. And especially Beijing should get a courthouse when we can afford it. 80% corruption then means we can even get a noticeable production and quite a few coins there. Note in C3C a courthouse in a totally corrupt city does more than a courthouse very close to capital or FP.

A few small points:
Looks like I forgot to rush the worker in Sparta.

Doing the Rome deal means we get a tech. This will change the horse builds to cavs. I rushed a horse in Newcastle so that's not desirable. Either delay the trade a turn or pillage the saltpeter and change the cavs back to horses. Note this will also happen always when we discover a new tech in the interturn. So horse rushes with disconnected salt should be timed accordingly. Gold will still be a problem for quite some time, so saving 50g by rushing horses for upgrade in corrupt towns shouldn't be neglected.

Yes, Athens is just captured this turn, it should keep all the military hoping to quell resistance right away. If that happens settlers should be rushed. We really want to keep it .

We currently have no problem with unit support, so getting some weak cities to size 7 is not urgent. But we need lots of settlers in the north and lots of workers for railroads. We also should use some more workers to get the core cities to size 12. Natural growth is too slow in several of them.

 

[Megalou]

Sorry, I misjudged the war situation. (No programs available.) With the discussion picking up like this I will refrain from guesstimations designed to get the discussion going... I've read Wacken's SGOTM7 thread and they were very active.

 

[Evil_Kanevil]

Hey, just wanted to say that I've started playing, but I won't finish until tomorrow.

A small question, I will end up with a couple settlers after shrinking Athens&Delphi, what do you think should be done with them? I'm leaning towards merging them with those of our core cities that aren't size 12 yet...