SGOTM8 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

Sorry you missed me, Leif.

I just keeping getting slower and slower!!

I mean to rush horses and upgrade them to knights. That costs 29 x 4g + 40 x 2g = 196g. Compared to 276g for a rushed knight this saves us 80g per knight, minus the 156g for the short-rushed barracks. Calmar and Brighton can both short-rush horses, Brighton can upgrade to knights, Oxford needs the road to do anything. With two cities having access to horses, we only need to short-rush in peculiar circumstances.

A mixed force of knights and horses will be cost-effective and will do the job with the knights for the rough part and the horses to take out the red-lined defenders.

The problem are the useless shields in our 2 cores as we effectively only want the gold. In our game version, Wealth produces a meager 1/8g per shield. Maybe we could use units form the more productive cities as caravans to support city improvements (Courthouses) elsewhere.

The game runs on the old REP unit support (pay all for 1g per unit which is bad for our economy. We could have been more cost-effective with the new C3C system but Gyathaar modded the GOTM base scenario back or forgot to implement it.

Thanks for this, keeps me from having to think too much. I was pretty sure that was what you meant. That means it requires 3 turns to make a Knight and I'll rush a Barracks in Kalmar.

I think your idea of using the shields in our core to create units to rush Markets and Courthouses is an excellent one. Unfortunately, it isn't terribly efficent, but it'll have to do.

I'm intending to build a Barracks in Area 51 and ending the temple builds unless there is a shout not to. Then I'll clean out some of the Spears, Warriors and Archers and contiue ICS'ing the corrupt areas, leaning towards taxmen in those cities.

Then on the spending side, its Knights and Horsies for English domination. I hope to have a small army ready for you, Willow!! And I will try to disconnect that Iron for England as quickly as I can. I hope they have only 1 source??

 

[bluebox]

I'm intending to build a Barracks in Area 51 and ending the temple builds unless there is a shout not to.

I'd opt for 5 temples in following cities:

San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago or St.Louis, Cleveland or Beijing or Cincinnati - grab bonus resources and food tiles;

Corinth - gain up to 21 tiles, lots of them already irrigated.

This is why I started them; as I said, these are no must-be's.

 

[DJMGator13]

Good point about the temples.

Don't forget to cycle the cities and see if a taxman would be worthwhile, especially in low or zero growth cities.

Good luck leif.

 

[leif erikson]

I'd opt for 5 temples in following cities:

San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago or St.Louis, Cleveland or Beijing or Cincinnati - grab bonus resources and food tiles;

Corinth - gain up to 21 tiles, lots of them already irrigated.

This is why I started them; as I said, these are no must-be's.

I see your point on the first four.

I think we should ICS around Corinth as it is already quite corrupt.

Thanks.

 

[leif erikson]

Let's see, the good and the bad.
We are solidly on the English Island now and there is an army there for Wiloow to play with. We are also making 408 GPT to use to create Knight armies!!

The not so good, Buffalo flipped to the Vikings! So I gave them Delphi and declared, taking back Delphi but Buffalo was auto-razed.

<< The Save >>

The Turnlog follows:
Turn 160 – 450 AD
Pre-flight.
Cycle through cities, make the following changes:
Washington Catapult => Horse (to be used as shields). Hire a Taxman.
New York, hire a Taxman and let the Temple stand.
Tsingtao hires a taxman.
Micromanage Xinjian with a citizen working the rocks.
Corinth, change Temple to Marketplace.
Pharsalos hires a Taxman.
Hangchow hires a Taxman.
Area 51 Cat => Barracks.
Calmar Knight => Barracks.
Memphis Worker => Courthouse.
Los Angeles Archer => Worker.
San Diego Cat => Horseman.
Begin moving Cats to the southern coast in case of Viking attacks and Spears, Archers and Warriors to cities to be disbanded.
OK, time to press enter.

IBT
English Reg. Warrior kills redlined Horse flawlessly, promotes.
Boston Temple => Harbor.
Brighton Knight => Horse.
Detroit Worker => Settler.
Cleveland Worker => Courthouse.

Turn 161 – 460 AD
Disband Archer in San Francisco.
Disband Archer and 2 Warriors in Philadelphia.
Disband Spear in St. Louis.
Disband Archer and Warrior in Los Angeles.
Disband Archer in Nanking.
Begin moving Knight from Brighton towards English Iron, a long trek with all this jungle.
Cash Rush a Barracks in Kalmar.

IBT
3 Forest chops complete near Area 51.
Rome comes knocking, want to renegotiate Gems deal. They were paying 10 GPT and we increase it to 11 GPT. He is furious with us?
Washington Horse => Horse.
Xinjian Marketplace => Aqueduct.
Seattle Aqueduct => Horse.
We quelled 2 resisters in Oxford and it riots.
Kalmar Barracks => Horse.

Rturn 162 – 470 AD
Disband Archer in Memphis.
Disband Spear, Warrior and Reg. Horse in Philadelphia.
Set Oxford to starve and move 2 healed Horses out of the city, in case of flips.
Workers are chopping jungle madly.
Rush a Horsie in Brighton for 116 Gold.

IBT
10 shields to Tientsin, chop completes.
Athens Temple => Knight.
Sparta Courthouse => Marketplace.
New York Temple => Knight.
Thermopyle Courthouse => Marketplace.
Atlanta Temple => Knight.
Order restored in Oxford.
Brighton Horse => Knight.

Turn 163 – 480 AD
Disband Spear in Philadelphia, Temple in 1 turn.
Disband Archer in Memphis.
Found the town of Las Vegas and start a Temple.
Upgrade Horse in Brighton to Knight for 80 Gold.
Vet Knight attacks a Vet English Warrior near Nottingham (on the way to the Iron) and defeats him, redlining?
Pillage the Iron near Corinth.
Rush Horse in Kalmar for 116 Gold.
Change all Knight builds to Horsies.
Hire a Taxman in Miami to prevent a riot.
Change build in Seattle from Horse to Harbor as we are losing food.

IBT
Philadelphia Temple => Harbor.
San Francisco Temple => Harbor.
Pharsalos Worker => Courthouse.
Starvation at Oxford.
Tatung Worker => Courthouse.
Area 51 Barracks => Horse.
Kalmar Horse => Horse.

The Japanese are building Sistine Chapel.

Turn 164 – 490 AD
Disband Spear in Memphis.
It was a dumb move to attack that Warrior, now a Frankish Axeman is sitting on the Iron and I’m redlined. I must retreat to heal.
Start the new Knight towards the Iron.
Rush a Horse in Brighton for 116 Gold.
Move a Vet Horse towards the Iron.
Canterbury has been taken by the Vikings?
We have passed Rome in Firaxis score; 997 to 991.

IBT
Our wounded Knight is attracting a lot of attention, which may leave the Iron open for the Horse?
Washington Horse => Knight.
Macao Worker => Temple.
Cincinnati Marketplace => Aqueduct.
Brighton Horse => Knight.
Kansas City Worker => Courthouse.

Turn 165 – 500 AD
Upgrade Horse in Brighton to Knight for 80 Gold.
Upgrade Horse in Kalmar to Knight.
Three Frankish Axeman and a Warrior are chasing our redlined Knight, so I retreat away onto a hill to draw them from the Iron mountain.
Pillage our source of Iron near Corinth.
Rush Horse in Kalmar.
Change Knight builds to Horses.

IBT
Atlanta Horse => Horse.
Chicago Temple => Horse.
Buffalo flips to the Vikings????
Kalmar Horse => Horse.
New Orleans Marketplace => Aqueduct.


Turn 166 – 510 AD
3 Frankish Axes have moved near Oxford and our wounded Knight. With a fresh Knight from Brighton I attack the stack and our Vet Knight kills a Reg. English Axe flawlessly.
Move 2 Reg Horses out of Oxford and occupy the hill overlooking the town and move the wounded knight into town and fortify.
On the Iron Mountain are a Reg. Warrior and a Reg Longbow. A Vet Horse attacks this stack and kills the Warrior, losing 2 HP, now 2/4.
Move some Horses into Washington for upgrade.
Disband an Archer in Kansas City.
Rush a Horse in Brighton.
I am amazed at the flip percentages of the cities around Buffalo. I am going to have to declare on the Vikings soon to take them away.
Move some Horses into Washington for upgrade and a couple to Area 51.

IBT
Reg. Frankish Axe attacks our Reg Horse and defeats him, redlining.
Reg. Frankish Axe attacks our reg. Horse and defeats him, redlining but promoting to Vet (2/4).
I watched the English Longbow on the Iron Mountain defend himself successfully and then move off the iron to the east.
Athens Horse => Knight.
Hangchow Worker => Courthouse.
Area 51 Horse => Knight.
Brighton Horse => Knight.

Turn 167 – 520 AD
Upgrade 2 Horses in Washington and two in Area 51.
Upgrade Horse in Brighton to Knight.
Upgrade Horse in Kalmar to Knight.
Near Oxford a Vet Knight attacks an English 2/4 Frankish Axe on a hill and defeats him, now 2/4.
Near Oxford a Vet Knight attacks a 1/3 English Frankish Axe and kills him flawlessly.
Our 2/4 Horse can see that the English Iron is disconnected!!
Hire a Taxman in Kalmar and rush a Horse.
Pillage our Iron.
Buffalo is now size 1? The Vikings are still in despotism so they pop rushed a unit, prolly a Spear.

IBT
The Vikings are upset that we moved troops into their territory (actually ours, around Buffalo.) So I allow them to be moved.
Washington Horse => Horse.
Kalmar Horse => Horse.

Japan completes Leonardo’s Workshop in Kyoto. :thumbdown
Turn 168 – 530 AD
Rush a Horse in Brighton.
Move Knights to threaten Nottingham.
Move units towards Buffalo.

IBT
English 4/4 Longbow attacks our 2/4 Horse and we retreat, no damage to the LB.
Atlanta Horse => Horse.
Houstonm Courthouse => Marketplace.
St. Louis Marketplace => Temple.
The resistance in Oxford has ended.
Brighton Horse => Horse.
Dallas Marketplace => Aqueduct.

The Romans are building Sistine Chapel and Copernicus’ Observatory.

Turn 169 – 540 AD
Rush a Horse in Kalmar.
Set Oxford to starve and rush a Barracks for 128 Gold.

Battle for Nottingham.
4/4 Knight attacks 3/3 Spear and defeats him, losing 2 HP’s.
4/4 Knight attacks 3/3 Spear and defeats him flawlessly, capturing the city and two workers leaving 1 resistor. Set production to Barracks.

Visit with the Vikings and gift them Delphi. Then trade them our World Map for their Territory Map plus 3 Gold. I then declare war on them.
At Delphi.
4/4 Knight attacks 3/3 Spear and retreats.
4/4 Knight attacks 2/3 Spear and retreats.
5/5 Horse attacks 2/3 Spear and defeats him flawlessly, no leader. We retake Delphi and there is still a Greek citizen there. Set production to Spear.

Move troops up to Buffalo, those traitors!!

IBT
The English Longbow heading for Brighton decides to turn around and head for London.
A Viking Galley drops off 2 units near the English city of Norwich, near Athens.
Chicago Horse => Knight.
Miami Settler => Settler.
Starvation at Oxford and we build a Barracks => Spear as a pre-build for a Horse.
Kalmar Horse => Knight.
Baltimore Aqueduct => Knight.

Turn 170 – 550 AD
Battle of Buffalo.
A Cat fires at a 3/3 Spear and misses.
4/4 Knight attacks 3/3 Viking Spear and defeats him flawlessly, promotes to Elite.
4/4 Knight attacks 3/3 Viking Spear and defeats him, now 2/4, but destroys Buffalo.

Settler from Miami heads to refound Buffalo.

Move some Horses I pulled to attack Buffalo back towards their staring locations near San Francisco and Atlanta.

Note – Seattle is losing food but the Harbor will complete the trun before they lose a pop point and this will stabilize the population.

Upgrade a Horse in Brighton to a Knight and rush a Horse.
Upgrade Horse in Kalmar to Knight and change build from Knight to Horse.
Pillage our Iron source.
Move a Knight out of Nottingham as the flip chance is fair, 1.8 to 3.7%. After watching Buffalo flip, without any pressure on it, I take no chances.

The road between Oxford and Kalmar will be done in 2 turns. I have also started a road between Nottingham and Oxford. It can be built through grassland and forest squares instead of jungle.

After Action Report.
The flip pressure on Brighton and Kalmar is gone. Oxford still has some.
We are at war with England and the Vikings. Neither will talk. It would be nice to take the Viking cities on English land and then deal for some of the cities on the Viking continent.
We can obtain Invention from Japan for World Map plus 564 Gold. I think we should consider it. I am becoming concerned that we are falling too far behind in tech, but sometimes I worry too much!!

Our Treasury has 3,998 Gold in it and we are gaining 408 GPT. On the English continent we have 8 Knights and two horses. Gold is not a problem at this point. And with 4 cities on the English island, three of which can pump out Knights (in 2 turns), we should soon be ale to challenge London.

We are strong compared with the Vikings, England and Japan. We are weak versus Rome. We currently have 75 units including:
1 Settler
33 Workers (including the eqWorker)
3 Spears
19 Horseman
3 Pikes
12 Knights
4 Cats

We might consider starting to build a small army of Knights in Tientsin and Macao to take the Roman cities on their island and force Rome to give us a city on their continent. We could ally Japan against them but would need to provide Japan with Iron.

We are the number 1 civ with a Firaxis score of 1082 and Rome is a close second at 1049. Japan is 885, Vikings 687 and England 651.

Good luck Willow, hope you had a fun wedding party and got home safely!!


EDIT - Added the save and a picture.

 

[leif erikson]

Triple Post Alert!!

Roster:
Willow - UP
Capt - On Deck
Nemesis
Gator
Bluebox
Leif - Just Played and tired!!

Hope it doesn't look like that was how I played!!

I don't think Willow will return until Monday so I think we shall give her a few days to post a got it. She may not be able to see the screen straight until Tuesday anyway!

So far, the startegy seems to be working. The question will be whether we can make it happen fast enough. I think we need to think of a way to put a dent in Rome's power.

EDIT - I hate this 10 smiley limit!!
EDIT2 - Our territory curve is headed in the right direction...

 

[DJMGator13]

Well done

I'm not too worried about being behind in techs as long as they don't get to rifles. I'll try to look at the save and post more later.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks, I look forward to your comments.

The jungle chopping is getting closer to finish. Once done, we can save a lot of gold by joining workers, I think.

I am wondering if we should begin to plan for action on several continents?

Those Gators looked pretty sharp yesterday from I what I understand!

EDIT - I was really quite amazed that Buffalo flipped. I noticed in CivAssist II that there was a little red box but it was only under Buffalo, nothing around it. I never thought that a civ so far away would affect one of our cities like that, especially when they were in Despotism and we were in Republic.

 

[WillowBrook]

Got it!

Looks good, Leif! (Well, I haven't looked at the save yet, but the action report looks good.)

There's a slim chance I'll be able to play tonight, but more likely sometime tomorrow and it could slip until Wednesday.

I think building up an army to take the Roman cities within reach sounds like a good plan. I'll start working on that unless I hear howls of protest.

I also think it wouldn't hurt to buy invention - let me know if there are serious concerns.

I'll keep watching for opportunities to make peace for valuable consideration.

BTW - the wedding was lots of fun! Amazingly, everything went smoothly and everyone seemed to be happy! (Well, there was one bump in the smooth sailing - a barrette I was planning to wear went down a sink drain as we bridesmaids were getting ready and we had to call the bride's father to the rescue. )

The trip home wasn't great though - plane delayed for five hours! which meant I didn't get home until early this morning.

 

[leif erikson]

Thank goodness for fathers!!

Glad to see you made it home despite the efforts of the airlines.

Please have a look and see if there are any questions or ideas of where you think we should go. I'm also waiting to see what Gator comes up with.

I'm fairly sure that we'll need to take out all the Viking cities on the English island before they will give us anything on their island. The Vkings are still in the AA, so you should only face spears.

Should you start, good luck.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I'm sorry for my recent inactivity.
Workload has been pretty heavy with the completion of the budget for next year drawing near.
I probably won't even have time to look at the save before Willow plays, but looking from the graph, leif

Could I have a switch this time? I'm going away this weekend and with the budget deadline Friday, I don't think I can play before monday/tuesday next week.

 

[leif erikson]

Could I have a switch this time? I'm going away this weekend and with the budget deadline Friday, I don't think I can play before monday/tuesday next week.

No problem Capt.

I wish you luck on getting all that work done. Just think how good it'll feel when it is approved and all you have to do is track it!!

 

[bluebox]

The current result looks very nice! I agree with everything proposed before. We should attack Viking cities next and strengthen our England forces a little bit more before going north. As soon as there is any opportunity (and possibly there is one already ) we should do something about Rome. Maybe we can even get Ceasar to declare. Also I'd try and get JPN into the conflict. We should try and do things simultaneously as far as we can afford it. Invention could be a wise buy.

After a look at the save following isues drew my attention:

Seattle - from 19 to 24 gpt without the taxman;
St. Louis could go WLTKD when the taxman becomes entertainer.

 

[leif erikson]

The current result looks very nice! I agree with everything proposed before. We should attack Viking cities next and strengthen our England forces a little bit more before going north. As soon as there is any opportunity (and possibly there is one already ) we should do something about Rome. Maybe we can even get Ceasar to declare. Also I'd try and get JPN into the conflict. We should try and do things simultaneously as far as we can afford it. Invention could be a wise buy.

I'm with you Bluebox!!

While we all know naval invasions by AI civs are pretty inept but, before we get too involved with Rome, we should prolly upgare some of our horses on our continent and station them around to ensure we can repel any threat. Also, we have nothing on the island between us and Rome, so Rax and Knights are in order there.

Good luck Willow. Your favorite activity: WAR!! Have fun.......

 

[WillowBrook]

Seattle - from 19 to 24 gpt without the taxman;
St. Louis could go WLTKD when the taxman becomes entertainer.

Thanks for checking out the MM! I'll also take a careful look as I start playing.

I didn't get a chance to look at the save last night, but I'll play this afternoon unless some big questions come up when I look at it. And if I come to a place of decision (such as trying to decide what sort of peace settlement we'll agree to), I'll just take a break and post for opinoins.

Has anyone checked if our trade route with Japan will get messed up if we go to war with the Romans? I won't provoke war until there are sufficient troops to start taking the island we share with Rome, but ATM, the Japanese are our friends....

 

[leif erikson]

Has anyone checked if our trade route with Japan will get messed up if we go to war with the Romans? I won't provoke war until there are sufficient troops to start taking the island we share with Rome, but ATM, the Japanese are our friends....

I have not checked that. However, thinking of the map, I don't see how it can not be interrupted, especially since we are war with England and the Vikings, through whose territory is the only other route.

I would like to supply Iron to Japan so they can put up a fight with Rome. Doing that will cost us a lot of Gold as we can no longer play disconnect to rush Horses and upgrade to Knights. Allying Japan, without Samauri's maybe giving them a death sentence? They have a source of iron but I don't think it is connected.

 

[WillowBrook]

I
I would like to supply Iron to Japan so they can put up a fight with Rome. Doing that will cost us a lot of Gold as we can no longer play disconnect to rush Horses and upgrade to Knights. Allying Japan, without Samauri's maybe giving them a death sentence? They have a source of iron but I don't think it is connected.

Hmm - I wonder if we could get a ROP and connect it ourselves...

 

[leif erikson]

Hmm - I wonder if we could get a ROP and connect it ourselves...

This would be a great idea, if we weren't so afraid of water or were able to keep our city we earned through phoney wars.

I just checked the map and Nagoya's boundries have expanded to encompass the Iron mountain. I wonder how long it will take them to road there. You should be able to tell in the trade screens when our Iron is hooked up whether Japan needs any or not. Once they don't, time for an alliance. Well, once we have enough force to resist in the eastern island?

Good luck Willow.

 

[DJMGator13]

I haven't had time to look at the save but it looks like the discussion has covered most of the topics.

I agree that we should get full control of ENG and VIK before going after ROM & JPN. But time is very important. We can't let anyone get to rifles. Good thing is there are no scientific civs in the game so rifles will have to be researched.

Once we are ready to go for ROM/JPN we may want to target JPN first so that we can capture the Library and catchup in techs. But if we haven't seen cavalry or rifles it may not matter which we go for first.

 

[bluebox]

I would like to supply Iron to Japan so they can put up a fight with Rome. Doing that will cost us a lot of Gold as we can no longer play disconnect to rush Horses and upgrade to Knights.

Of course we can! We have two iron sources on our continent; if we disconnect one of them we'll fulfil our hypothetical deal with Japan and nothing left for us - exactly what we want.

Goooood Luck, Willow!