SGOTM8 - Xteam

[DJMGator13]

Sorry for the delay. I realized today at work that I have worked 25 of the past 26 days. But I home early (only worked 9 hours today ) and ready to play. So I'll have it posted in the next couple of hours.

 

[leif erikson]

Sorry you're working so hard! Time for some fun, good luck.

Hard work is generally rewarded. Hope they've recognized it with a nice promo!

 

[DJMGator13]

The save

The Story

preturn 750BC (turn 90)
lower sci rate to 50% (+5gpt) and call up China - do deal for horses we give Wmap, 315 gold and 2gpt

sell Wmap to Japan just to gain 5 gold back in our empty treasury
leave sci at 50% for REP in 15 at +3gpt
change almost all archers to horses (leave 2 archer builds in cities without barracks)

IBT - ROM & CHN have signed a MA versus GRK / Athens (Grk) completes Colossus / China spent 350 gold but has no new techs, did they pay gold for a worthless MA with Rome??

Turn 91 - 730BC
we're exporting our only gem, so I move another worker to the other gem tile
move a few troops northward

IBT - quiet

Turn 92 - 710BC
I moved the archer out of New York last turn and guess what? It riots this turn.
establish 2nd gem colony - which allows all citizens to work tiles in Washington
mm Washington for extra food & free up a mined BG tile for Boston

IBT - a Bhorse rides up by our warrior north of Greece /
Washington horse => horse
Boston horse => horse
add a section to our palace

Turn 93 - 690BC
mm Washington for shields at +10spt next horse in 3 turns
start our 2 horses northward
can take sci to 60% for 11turns vrs 12 turns at +2got

IBT - ROM & JPN both declare on us
New York barracks => horse
Philly horse => horse
Atlanta horse => horse
St Louis barracks => horse

Turn 94 - 670BC
not sure why but we at +0gpt with sci at 60% (might be maintenance costs), we have 15 gold in treasury so I leave sci alone

IBT - trouble
CHN & JPN sign MA against us / we lose our horses / our rArcher defends against a CHN archer / our northern warrior defends against the Bhorse
Chicago barracks => archer

Turn 95 - 650BC
We are at war with EVERYONE
dail up the Greeks they'll give us their Wmap for peace - why not it's good to have one friend in the world

move 2 warriors out of Houston back to Miami - continue advance of horses to the front - return our redlined archer back to Houston

we have 4 horses completed and 8 more in production - this should be enough to grab Shanghai from China

poprush the Boston horse / mm Washington to speed up horse for San Fran

IBT - 3 CHN archers and a horse enter our lands, separately
Washington horse => archer
Boston horse => archer

Turn 96 - 630BC
our first 2 horses arrive in Houston / leave another in Miami so that it is not exposed to one of the CHN archers
decide not to attack the exposed CHN horse and archer by Houston since we have a wall and our own archers there

I check our Military advisor and surprisingly we are strong to GRK and ENG, average to JPN and weak to CHN & ROM

IBT - our rSpear defends against CHN archer attack, but our vArcher dies to the CHN horse / CHN other 2 archers approach Houston (whoever built the wall there that was a great move)
San Fran horse =>archer
add another section to our palace

Turn 97 - 610BC
kill a CHN archer on a hill with one of our rWarriors
should have stopped there - lose 2 rWarriors trying to kill the 2nd CHN archer - then use a horse to kill that archer - advance 2 more horses northward, they be in Houston next turn

IBT - a CHN horse approaches Houston / our horse defends against a CHN archer and we promo to elite (I smell a GL in the Shanghai attack)
Washington archer => archer
Philly horse => archer
Seattle horse => archer

Turn 98 - 590BC
poprush the horse in New York
CHN has been poprushing in Shanghai it is down to size 3 from size 5 two turns ago
attack the 3/4 CHN horse with our vArcher, they retreat

decide to poprush another spear in Houston (wasting 10 shields but it will give me 2 spears to protect our horses next turn)
Rome learned the Republic this turn

IBT - our vArcher defends against a CHN archer but is then killed by a redlined CHN horse / another CHN archer moves into view
New York horse => archer
Houston spear => spear
GRK are building Great Library

Turn 99 - 570BC
Interesting - Rome now has REP and CONST, while ENG only learned REP this turn
sci down to 10% we'll get REP next turn
lux up to 30% only for a turn to help Washington's unhappiness

Move 2 spears, 6 horses and 1 archer against Shanghai - ready to attack next turn

IBT - the redlined CHN horse attacks Houston and dies, then the CHN archer kills one of the 2 warriors left in the city, while another CHN archer moves onto the roaded hill S of the city / GRK land a settler on my proposed city for the iron colony / we learn REP - I do not make a switch
Washington archer => archer
Atlanta horse => archer

Turn 100 - 550BC
kill the CHN archer blocking the road south of Houston

Battle for Shanghai (size 3)
vHorse vrs rSpear - we win flawlessly promo to elite
vHorse vrs rSpear - we die they promo to 2/4
4/5 eHorse vrs 2/4 vSpear - we redline and win (no promo the luck continues) but we capture the city and a supply of horses that is already roaded
set city to starve and start a wall

use our rArcher to kill the redlined CHN archer outside of Houston
I set sci to 50% for CURR in 13 turns at -1gpt, but this can be changed


Notes to next player
1) you should be able to move and attack Tsingtao on your first turn (not preturn)
2) ENG will make peace but won't give us anything so let's hold off on that peace deal
3) ROM wants a city for peace - no way
4) CHN will make peace but won't give Tientsin yet, let's take a few more cities and then see
5) I changes all archer builds to horses
6) We have 10 horses and 8 archers - have fun
7) we are now average to CHN

 

[leif erikson]

Looking Good Gator!

I'm not sure how to break the news that the AW game was last game, not this one.

Glad to see you've got the horses, that makes me feel better. I'll have a more thorough look in the morning.

Roster:
Bluebox - UP - For 10 turns!!
Leif - On Deck
Willow
Capt.
Nemesis - If you wish to slip in before me, please let me know?
Gator - Just played, thinks its AW!

BTW - I want you to know that I recently completed GOTM 46, played it to conquest victory and never got a single leader the whole game. I figure it cost me about 30 turns! Makes me want to buy a new computer just to acquire a better RNG!!!! As if that might help?

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I really don't care that we're at war with everyone. We've achieved our first objective.
That's one excellent turn set, Gator! You deserve an extra banana That worked out a lot better than even optimistic me would have thought

Just one thing: Why didn't you trade more gpts to China instead of the lump sum? It may have prevented them from turning on us and if they did anyway, we'd be better off on the whole, we can always run research at deficit, providing we have cash in our coffers.

 

[DJMGator13]

@Capt - I was trying to keep our research pace pushed to the limit. I was hoping we would be the first to Republic and would be able to trade it for several other techs. I was not expecting to be on the bottom of a dogpile when everyone was at tech parity. I think ROM brought in JPN against us and then the next turn JPN brought in CHN against us. We were trading gems and paying 2gpt to CHN when they declared on us.

As it played out I think trading more gpt and less lump sum would have been the better move.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Thanks. Good points.
Hindsight is always at least 80/20...

BTW: I've never really built walls, but then in the last few games on higher difficulties, I've built them in frontier cities if I expect to see action there. Often times I've combined it by placing the city on hills, if possible.

 

[leif erikson]

Things are looking good!

As soon as resistance ends in, I think we could pop-rush the walls as this will reduce the number of Chinese citizens to one in that city.

I'm thinking we want Beijing and Canton next but Beijing is on a hill and is going to need some additional horses to take. We have 10 horsies.

I've been running Offa's City Capture Simulation. Assuming 4 Regular Defenders, we have a 50-50 chance of taking Beijing with 10 Attacking Horses. Using 12 attackers, we have a 75% chance of victory, 13, an 81% chance. With 15 attackers, we have a 92% chance of victory. It become a 100% chance at 25 Horses!

"Was it 5 shots or 6? In all this confusion, I lost count myself. Do you feel lucky punk? Well, do YA?" Dirty Harry. Bluebox, take your best shot!

The beauty of this would be to cut China in half and open a trade route to Greece for some wines, freeing up some MP's. We have 8 Archers, 6 are tied up in our core and another is in Buffalo. We might get some of the cities around Shanghai in trade for peace, but let's not forget that the cities we want are the ones off of our homeland.

I see Greece is using Galleys to spread settler, this is good news. It shouldn't be long before we see some Greek cities on the land mass to our west.

 

[bluebox]

Wow, a lot of action going on, and I have to jump right in. Thanks for your precise turnlog, gator! Great turnset!

CHN had 3 spears in Shanghai, so they won't have a lot more in Tsingtao. Moreover, a lot of CHN archers are already used up in their initial "wave." Tsingtao is of size 3 and might be pretty valuable for CHN. I think it's a good idea to go get Tsingtao before taking on Beijing.

I thought about building an embassy in Athens and sign a MA for REP with Greece against, let's say: England to put more pressure on them? If we keep on growing aggressively by expanding into Chinese territory we might get a city from England - and one would be enough ... might do that even pre-turn, as long as Greece doesn't have REP. Do you agree?

 

[WillowBrook]

Great job, Gator!

Sorry I've been a bit out of the loop. only have internet access on campus, not at home, for a few days (I live a few miles off campus), so I can't check as often.

One thing we need to think about is what we do with off-island cities that we get. If we're at war with most everyone, they could quickly land and attack. If it's size one, we can't pop-rush defense. If we're in republic, we have to have some money to buy defense.

speaking of republic, any thoughts as to when we switch? if we switch? we discussed this earlier, but could someone rehash the arguments?

On a completely different topic, I finally completed my huge demi-god space race in 1764. with almost 80 hours of playing time. now it's just the chieftan 100k to complete the quartermaster challenge....

 

[Mistfit]

78:58:22 to be exact

 

[bluebox]

Congrats, Willow!

 

[Mistfit]

Very nice game indeed! It's been accepted BTW.

 

[leif erikson]

CHN had 3 spears in Shanghai, so they won't have a lot more in Tsingtao. Moreover, a lot of CHN archers are already used up in their initial "wave." Tsingtao is of size 3 and might be pretty valuable for CHN. I think it's a good idea to go get Tsingtao before taking on Beijing.

Please remember that under Canton, there are horses. To emasculate China, we ought to remove their access to resources. Then we face only Archers and Spears and no fast units. Cutting them in half does that and makes Tsingtao easy prey once we complete the northern part of the job. Also, the Chinese are building The Great Library in Beijing, so they can't produce units, atm.

I thought about building an embassy in Athens and sign a MA for REP with Greece against, let's say: England to put more pressure on them? If we keep on growing aggressively by expanding into Chinese territory we might get a city from England - and one would be enough ... might do that even pre-turn, as long as Greece doesn't have REP. Do you agree?

I'm curious why you'd pick England for that type of deal and not Rome? There is a very good chance we will see English troops nearby soon as the island between us and them is accessible to them. The Romans on the other hand are further away and if we get a toe hold on that continent, both Rome and Japan are there. Of course, we would have to be wary of wars or we'll lose it.

Willow's question is a good one and one that I have wrestled with. Once we have a city somewhere, protecting it and growing it will be difficult. We shopul,d try to get sea side cities as we can build harbors to at least share resources with them.

Good luck Bluebox!

Nice game Willow!

 

[bluebox]

Hi, team! Just played, captured Beijing and Pyramids and a couple of other cities from CHN. Managed to stay within the 10 turn limit. We got lots of Horsies and have to decide right now if, when and how to defeat China and get the most of it for us. Four horsies and a possible peace deal are left to next player's decision.

The details:
100 - 550BC MM Wash. to 10s.4f; MM Boston to 4s.2f; poprush Horsie (-19s) in Phil. (not poprushed here before); MM Chicago to 5s.1f (Horsie -15s = 3turns); MM Frisco to 4s.2f; re-MM Wash. to 15s.0f (Horsie = 2 turns); MM St.Louis to 1s.3f; MM Atlanta to 6s.1f (eqWorker due to clear forest E-SE next turn will be finished in 6 turns).

IBT Greeks found Knossos, Galley moves in, BHorse appears W of Knossos; Phil. Horse -> Horse;

101 - 530BC
2 Houston Horses to Tsingtao (numbers in brackets are hp):
rSpear defeated by vHorse(3)
rSpear defends vHorse retreats

Shanghai Horse to Tsingtao:
rSpear defends(2) vHorse retreats

Shanghai Horse to Tsingtao:
rSpear(2) defends, prom., vHorse dies

Shanghai eHorse to Tsingtao:
vSpear(3) defends(2), eHorse retreats

worker stack builds mine; 2 Horsies reinforce Tsingtao stack, Houston Archer moves onto road.

IBT 2 CHN Workers move to Tsingtao; Alex is unhappy; Wash. builds Horse, resistance in Shanghai ended.

102 - 510BC 3Worker stack build mine near Atlanta; lonely Worker starts mine at Frisco; Archer and 3 Horsies move S.

vSpear in Tsingtao is healed;
vSpear(4) defends against vHorsie, retreats;
vSpear(4) defends against vHorsie, dies;
vSpear(4) defends(3) against vHorsie(3), retreats;
vSpear(4) defends(2) against vHorsie, retreats;

Horse stack retreats from Tsingtao, Archer helps defend.

Warrior stack tries to find a way trough Greek territory.

Poprushing walls in Shanghai.

Trade with Greeks: WM + Constr. = REP

IBT Chicago Horsie -> Horsie; Shanghai Walls -> Archer

103 - 490BC Horsies N, MM Frisco; Horsie stack fortified to heal.

IBT Wash., Boston, Seattle, Frisco Horse -> Horse; Alex is unhappy.

104 - 470BC Horsies N; Worker stack N to improve Buffalo.

IBT Atlanta Horse -> Horse; Rome has learned POLY.

105 - 450BC vHorse defeats(1) vSpear in Tsingtao, 2 resistors, 2 Workers. Evacuate Workers, move in Archer for city policing. Now, with only one horseman needed to conquer Tasingtao I have some overhead for Beijing.

Chairman Mao is getting himself ready to give up Tientsin.

IBT 10s delivered to Phil. (not Atlanta, grrr); Wash. Horse -> Horse; Phil. Horse -> Horse;

106 - 430BC Atlanta gets a Taxman for one turn until 10s are acumulated, porush horsie then; Horsies N.

IBT Alex is unhappy.

107 - 410BC Poprushing Horsie in St.Louis, Atlanta. 14 Horsies are heading to Beijing.

IBT Wash., Atlanta, St.Louis Horse -> Horse; Miami Walls -> Archer; Romeans are building GLib.

108 - 390BC Phil. poprushing Horsie.

IBT Alex is unhappy; Greece has Swords; NY, Boston, Phil., Chicago Horse -> Horse. Resistance in Tsingtao has ended. Romans building GWall.

109 - 370BC vHorse defeats(3) rSpear
vHorse defeats(3) rSpear
rSpear defends, Horse retreats
rSpear defends(2), Horse retreats
rSpear defends, prom.(2), Horse dies
vHorse defeats(3) rSpear
eHorse defeats(3) rSpear, captures Beijing w/ Pyramids! 2 resistors
eHorse attacks vArcher in Jungle, no Leader

move Horse from Phil. to Gems to defeat possible Barbs (2 Warriors are a bit weak).

Poprushing Spear in Tsingtao.

IBT Alex wants to trade WM; trading WM + 4g = WM; Wash., Seattle Horse -> Horse; Tsingtao Spear -> Archer;

110 - 350BC Nanking:
vHorse defeats(3) rSpear
vHorse defeats(3) rSpear, captures Nanking, 3 resistors, starting to starve.

Canton:
rSpear(2) defends against vHorse(3), Horse retreats
rSpear(2) defends against vHorse(3), Horse dies
rSpear(2) defends against eHorse(4), Horse retreats


Remarks: 4 Horsies around Miami can still be moved, may form a stack to attack Tatung.

We have to get rid of China to prevent a flip and also try and get Tientsin. We may need to cheat in a peace deal, get what we want and attack again. I leave that to the next player. China is ready to give us Tientsin, Hanngchow, Xinjian and Macao in one package!

Firaxis score: 424
Jason score: 272

 

[bluebox]

Sorry Leif, have already played

Please remember that under Canton, there are horses. To emasculate China, we ought to remove their access to resources. Then we face only Archers and Spears and no fast units.

Never saw a single CHN Horse at all. We can get Canton by any means next turn.

I'm curious why you'd pick England for that type of deal and not Rome? There is a very good chance we will see English troops nearby soon as the island between us and them is accessible to them. The Romans on the other hand are further away and if we get a toe hold on that continent, both Rome and Japan are there. Of course, we would have to be wary of wars or we'll lose it.

I decided against such experiments to allow a deficit research (nobody has learned Currency yet). I'd picked England because they are much weaker and they are alone on an island. I'd expect that we'd have much better chances to win an early distant war.

Moreover, Rome still isn't willing to make peace, not to mention extorting a city from them in peace deal. Our chances to get a city for nothing would have been bigger with England. But now, Tientsin lies before us.

Good luck Bluebox! Thanks again! No leader though. :duh:

 

[bluebox]

Cutting them in half does that and makes Tsingtao easy prey once we complete the northern part of the job.

I "decided" to cut her in three pieces!

 

[leif erikson]

I "decided" to cut her in three pieces!

You certainly did, nice work!!

And you controlled your "one more turn syndrome"...

And you got us Construction, nice.

I've looked at the flip risks in CivAssist and they really aren't too bad. Houston at 0.7 - 1.4% and nanking at 0.9 - 1.8%, but that will go down as we pop-rush and starve them out.

A number of decisions to make? Let's see if I can list them in some sort of order.
1. Peace Deals. We are still at war with all the civs except Greece. All Civs are willing to talk for peace, but Rome wants a city and japan wants all our gold plus 1 or 2 GPT. England will make peace but will not give a city. China will give Poly plus 2 cities, they currently have 7.
I see no use in giving anything for peace at the moment. I think we need to take another 3 or so Chinese cities before they'll give up everything for peace. However, if we going to get Tientsin, I think we need to make peace with Rome or we'll lose it.

2. Forbidden Palace. There is a settler in Houston. I would like to propose the use of Canton as the Forbidden Palace City. Beijing, Athens and Xinjian are all dstance 4.x from the Canton location. If it autorazes, I think we should use the settler to build a new city there. Without a leader (I've forgotten what one looks like actually), I'm not sure how we'll build it there, buut we can check that out once we have it secured.

3. Strategy. I really don't want to touch Tatung because I fear the palace may jump to Tientsin. Looking at the cities list in the Intelligence Report off the main page, Tientsin is just above Tatung on the list, so it shouldn't jump there, but I don't trust these bits and bytes, never mind the RNG!
I think I should take Canton, and replace it if necessary, Hangchow and Chengdu. Those cities are mostly within our area of control. Then we can try to get Xinjian (bordering Greece) and Tientsin (on the other continent) and Macao (which I can't find) in the peace deal along with Poly, I hope. Then we'll wipe out tatung and that should be that.

4. Government change. I think we should proly start thinking about changing governments. We have 54 units currently, so thats going to hurt on unit support. I'm sure I can manage to lose some on the taking down of China. The biggest problem, imho, will be happiness as we have only 2 lux's and we have done some pop-rushing. What do you think? Also, see 6. below.

5. Research. I'm thinking that since we know Poly is out there that once we get Currency, we should go to zero research until we enter the Middle Ages?

6. War with Greece. This is a tough one.
Option 1. Once we secure Canton, we should be able to trade with Greece. I think we should try to get Wines from them to allow us to ease off on the lux sldier while we prepare for doing them in.
Option 2. Once we dispense with China, we *could*, after a short break, go after Athens. I think we may have to remain in Despotism to do this. We will have to hurt Greece badly if we can because we are impressed with thier culture.

OK, that's plenty to talk about for now.

 

[DJMGator13]

crossed with leif

Moreover, Rome still isn't willing to make peace, not to mention extorting a city from them in peace deal. Our chances to get a city for nothing would have been bigger with England. But now, Tientsin lies before us.

I agree, England is a better choice to try to extort a city from.

Going back to my earlier plan: if we get the city from CHN we need to make peace with Rome immediately so that we can keep control of the city. Eventually we will want to redeclare on Rome and align with Japan against them. If we can grab the two other Roman cities we might be able to sue for peace and a small city as they battle Japan.

Government wise I think we might want to hold out for Monarchy. I have a feeling we'll be going in and out of wars too much to try Republic. The WW when we break peace deals may be too much to handle in Republic. But if we're in a tech race to the modern age than Republic is by all means the best route.

We need to decide if we think we can gain footholds on the other islands and raise enough of a military to fight in the Middle & Industrial Ages or if we need to push for late Ind. & Modern Age techs.

We also need to focus on an iron source as soon as we make peace with China. I think the ROP and an iron colony may be the best bet at this point.

Gator Comes up with another Plan
I have another idea I thought of the other day that we might want to try out in one of the test games. Now that we have taken some of China's cities could we make peace with England. Gift them 2 cities on our island. Issue DOW, wait a few turns then capture those cities from them and sue for peace for a city on their island. Since we are strong to England this might work, any thought?

BTW, good round Bluebox Nice trade for construction.

 

[DJMGator13]

I know the Mad Land Viking is ready to spill some blood but I think (like you) that we are at a crucial point in the game and need to discuss some points.

You raised several that I did not think about. If you have some time to play with one of your test games could you look into my proposed city gifting idea? If this works with England we could do the same with either Rome or Japan to gain a foothold there.