SGOTM8 - Xteam

[Capt Buttkick]

Btw: sorry for the late handoff. I had a late evening with the team at work, celebrating that the budgeting process is finally over (only 5 months til we start over )

W/r to buying cavs, I only bought a few during the last couple of turns because I achieved what I wanted with the Vikings and Rome and Japan were quite a way off when it came to parting with one of their main island cities. I believe it's the way to go, but I didn't want to tie the next player too much up to my choice in the matter.

 

[leif erikson]

Nice work Capt., excellent job of gifting and sending the Viking capital to a "new place".

I love the Cav screen around Newcastle. That should show the Vikings who's Boss!! And it looks like we can clean up the little island with Jerusalem on it.

I also noticed that Team Durkz may have hit a small snag on the territory graph.

Roster:
Gator - UP
Bluebox - On Deck
Leif
Willow
Nemesis - Skipped
Capt. - Just played.

@Gator - we can get into the IA with the purchase of Theory of Gravity and Magnetism, iirc. They may be purchased from Japan for about 2295 Gold. We are currently making about 1200 GPT.

While The Capt. made some progress by getting us on the remote island with Jerusalem on it, I think we should discuss whether or not to try to use espionage, or whether it would even help, given our cultural position, or lack thereof actually. CRpMapstat says that we have 3390 with a gain of 71 culture per turn. The Vikings are frozen at 5573 (+0). The Romans have 9078 plus 158 per turn and the Japanese have 13445 plus 117 per turn.

Japan recently captued Pisae, so it could be available if it starves it down. We would have to do some more gifting and warring to see if we can get it while it is smaller.

What can we do to get onto the main island of Japan and Rome? HHmmmmmm????

Good luck Gator!!

EDIT - We also have a Great Leader the Capt conjured! He is located on the Viking Continent. The only wonder available that I saw is The Pentagon. Can't see building an Army down there?

 

[WillowBrook]

Yay!
We've got a bit more under control...

IIRC, Malmo is a two-tile island, right? Should we build several units there and disband the city to avoid a flip?

I wonder if increasing our military is what finally convinced both the Vikings and Japanese to give us something.

As for getting techs, I think as long as we keep about 10k gold in the bank for a rapid military buildup once we get on the mainland, we should spend what we have on techs and start going for espionage. We could save the leader to build the Intelligence Agency.

 

[DJMGator13]

Good job Capt.

I wonder how much our reputation affects the peace deals and gaining cities?

I like Willow's suggestion for maintaining a good treasury while still trying to get to spies.

I'll try to play tomorrow, but I'll check in first to see any last minute advice. I think the mass gifting, recapture and sue for peace strategy is the best way to go.

 

[DJMGator13]

Team Durtz may not be the problem. We need to finish in 30 or so turns to match Team Tao.

I assume the final saves don't register on the territory graph, so we may have slightly over 30 turns.

 

[Capt Buttkick]

As for getting techs, I think as long as we keep about 10k gold in the bank for a rapid military buildup once we get on the mainland, we should spend what we have on techs and start going for espionage. We could save the leader to build the Intelligence Agency.

I thought about using the MGL for the Agency. If we decide to go with espionage, I think that's a good proposal
If we go for Espionage and the AI already has Nationalism, we could gift them Communism and that would make them start drafting and whipping which, in turn might make it easier to get cities in peace deals (but obviously harder to get them through warfare).

I really have a lot to learn if I'm not in a commanding position by MT. The first half of my turnset (except for the war with the Japanese), didn't help much. Perhaps we should have gifted and taken back cities with Rome as well?

 

[WillowBrook]

Go, Gator! and good luck!

Note that we can now use some towns on former Viking Island for gifting/taking from Japan and/or Rome.

 

[leif erikson]

I really have a lot to learn if I'm not in a commanding position by MT. The first half of my turnset (except for the war with the Japanese), didn't help much. Perhaps we should have gifted and taken back cities with Rome as well?

I'm in the same boat as you!!

I am beginning to get the feeling that unless there is something we can gain from peace with another Civ, we should simply make peace, get what we can, gift up to 10 to 15 cities, declare and take them and then try for another peace deal. In addition, we need to keep the Japanese and Romans at each other's throats so that one of them begins to take some of the other's cities. Then, I think , we should be able to capitalize by snagging a city or two in a peace deal.

The strategy is working, but slower than I expected. I wonder, perhaps, if we have so trashed our rep by the re-declarations, that the AI isn't taking us as seriously any longer. :shakehead

 

[bluebox]

Hi Team! This is not a direct answer to the last postings. I wanted to tell you about some experiments I made regarding our strategy ideas.

A few days ago I suggested propaganda to get a city and also suggested a city (I think it was Lugdunum) where we could try this means. I tested propaganda on a gotm47 save. I made peace immediately and rushed SP HQ with a leader I had in stock.

It took me about 4 - 6 turns after building CIA HQ to plant my spy and another 2 - 3 propaganda attempts to actually get a city. I was culturally equal to the enemy, which probably helped a lot. Nonetheless, the test was quite successful.

Today I tested the "shell and awe" strategy where we'd shell out big bucks to impress our opponent with a huge army that actually will never attack him. I started from the same save (Germany at war against Aztecs) retreated all my troops from the positions behind our borders.

Except from the higher culture, some conquering has happened before, and Germans are strong vs. Aztecs. So the situation is quite similar to our current game.

Germany had 16 Cavs, 33 Inf, 27 Panzers. Aztecs would have been insulted about any peace deal including a city except Tlacopan, where my advisor was doubtful.

After doubling my number of Pz to 60 another city went doubtful to get, Teayo. I suppose this was because Aztecs drafted some units and pop decresed. Thus the city was less valuable.

Increasing my troops to 24 Cav, 62 Inf, 92 Pz and and other stuff like guerillas and cruise missiles auto-produced by the gouvenor brought no change. The clickfest of 2 dozen turns didn't yield any positive result.

I draw the conclusion "shell and awe" doesn't work.

 

[leif erikson]

It took me about 4 - 6 turns after building CIA HQ to plant my spy and another 2 - 3 propaganda attempts to actually get a city. I was culturally equal to the enemy, which probably helped a lot. Nonetheless, the test was quite successful.

I draw the conclusion "shell and awe" doesn't work.

Thanks Bluebox, very interesting results. How was your reputation in that game? Any broken ROP or declarations immediately after peace deals?

Sounds like we need to get Espionage and a CIA HQ built, yesterday?

Good luck Gator!!

 

[DJMGator13]

Thanks for the expirement Bluebox. It let's us know that the huge army did not have any effect.

I'm playing now before making my final decision about boarding up the house. Lake County is officially under a Tropical Storm warning now, even though the storm is expected to come in near Naples. As of last night the storm had hurricane force winds out 85 miles from the center, so if the the storm comes in closer to Tampa I'll be in the hurricane force area. Looks like I'll have a fun late afternoon and evening.

BTW, my Mom has rescheduled her flight home for next week, Dad is waiting to see what happens with the original flight but we doubt it will be flying. It is suppose to land in Orlando at 5:00pm which is prime storm time.

 

[DJMGator13]

Progress report: I'm into turn 5 and we are now at war with everyone again. Yeah I know leave it to Gator to shake things up. We have good news and bad news.

Bad News: The turn I was planning on declaring on Rome they learned nationalism. So I gifted and declared anyway.

Good News: We own Jerusalem after a failed JPN attack on the city.

Other good news: JPN is at war with everyone also thanks to me.

Have not been able to talk with the VIK yet.

I'll play more this evening.

 

[WillowBrook]

Thanks for the update, Gator. Good luck! With both the game and Wilma!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

I draw the conclusion "shell and awe" doesn't work.

Ok. I stand corrected Nice research

If only we had thought of this before...
I think we would have had an excellent finish date by producing libs to up our culture while helping sci along towards espionage. I'm really not frightened by fighting rifles with cavs. We won the Rome sgotm doing exactly that.

 

[bluebox]

Sounds nice, gator! Good luck!

Thanks Bluebox, very interesting results. How was your reputation in that game? Any broken ROP or declarations immediately after peace deals?

I didn't use any rep-damaging tactics on purpose. There might have been a broken trade deal, but no Rop rape or such. In our current game, the word "Reputation" doesn't exist anymore in the dictionaries.

Sounds like we need to get Espionage and a CIA HQ built, yesterday?

It'll be a gamble, still.

 

[leif erikson]

Sounds nice, gator! Good luck!

I didn't use any rep-damaging tactics on purpose. There might have been a broken trade deal, but no Rop rape or such. In our current game, the word "Reputation" doesn't exist anymore in the dictionaries.

Amen, Brother!!

It'll be a gamble, still.

Its the only "gamble" we have left...

 

[DJMGator13]

We have to research 4 techs to reach spies. I so rarely research it that I forgot that we have to have steam and industrialization plus nationalism. We have nationalism now and can do 5 turn research so I'm not sure how beneficial spies will be in helping us win a laurel.

If I can manage a mainland city I'll probably shut off science and replentish our treasury.

I'm starting to play agin so I'll have the next five turns later tonight.

 

[WillowBrook]

No question that a mainland city now is better than one later. Good luck!

 

[leif erikson]

We have to research 4 techs to reach spies. I so rarely research it that I forgot that we have to have steam and industrialization plus nationalism. We have nationalism now and can do 5 turn research so I'm not sure how beneficial spies will be in helping us win a laurel.

If I can manage a mainland city I'll probably shut off science and replentish our treasury.

I'm starting to play agin so I'll have the next five turns later tonight.

I think the question now is how beneficial they will be to finishing the game with a win before November 1st?

Without a city on the mainland, we're dead in the water until advanced flight!

At this point, imho, we ought to have every avenue available to us, not counting advanced flight, to finish the game. I don't want to think how long it'll take to get to Adv. Flt., but I know it'll be a lot longer than it will to espionage.

I will be eternally grateful to see a city on the mainland if you can manage it, but I always like to try to keep an ace up my sleeve and I think Espionage is our last ace?

 

[DJMGator13]

I'm thru 10 turns. No one will talk so the turns are pretty boring. We're researching at 4turn pace and RR. If you want I can play 5 more turns just to speed things up some. If someone will talk I'll post the save and let the next player have it. Is that OK?