TGOM 02 - The Grumpy Old Monk and the Ancient Crone go to Alpha Centauri

[cleverhandle]

Our core:

The southern incense colony:

The western canal area:

The barbarian north:

 

[General Mayhem]

I've got it, will probably play sometime tomorrow. I think I agree with cleverhandle that we should revolt soon, I would probably do it after the settler in Venerable Valley completes, and pray we don't pull 8 turns.
I plan on heading that settler to the East to try and form a line of cities across there to discourage AI settlement in that direction.

 

[Bede]

@cleverhandle, you asked for it. Once you can build swords spears are a bad deal all the way around. I would much rather spend the extra turn building a swordsman for the same defense and the offensive capability. With A3 you can hit anything that comes inside your borders, before they get to the city, and you still have D2 for coverage. Spears can only sit fortified in town and wait to die. Or use the 20 shields in a non barracked town to build catapaults.

They have their uses if you are trekking a stack of cats and swords halfway across a continent so that when the swordsmen reach the destination they stilll have hitting power left. Other than that....

Even with the upgrade path to mech infantry they are, to my mind, a poor value. Now infantry on the other hand are a great combination of atttack and defense values, when you combine them with fast moving troops and artillery support.

The difference arises because of a difference in play style. But I will argue that even if you are not an agressive war maker offensive capability is still the strongest defense.

My ideal late AA to mid MA ToE is lots of cats or trebs, no units with A less than D, some fast movers like knights or horses, and a quantity of swords or maces at least equal to the number of defenders in the target city. The quantity of artillery should be at least 1.5 times the number of assault forces and probably 2X.

And towns do need MP garrisons, and that's why I like to have lots of regular warriors during the early phase.

@General Mayhem, They are calling your number and it is #9, #9, #9. So let's sacrifice to the RNG gods and have a revolution.With three luxuries in hand any town at pop6 or below should be just fine. Skim a worker or a settler out of any town over pop6, that will make the anarchy less painful to watch. You can always add them back after the revolution is over but we probably need them anyway.

 

[gmaharriet]

I took a look at the save and have some observations for whatever they're worth.

I agree we need to expand our borders in Smelly, both to get add'l good land and to get a land connection to Eotin Bay. How about a lib instead? It would take an add'l 7 turns, but give some small impetus toward our spaceship goal while also giving more culture.

Why the tax collector in Scoutsville? They are happy and he could go back to work for growth in 2 turns and faster galley build. Alternatively, a scientist would give min research (waits for brickbat thrown by Bede J/K ).

I agree I left our S/E settler in a rather dry area, but was looking to block the AI from the area. I'm sorry if that was a poor choice. Do we need an updated dot map at this point? I'm not volunteering due to kindergarten handicap.

 

[cleverhandle]

I would much rather spend the extra turn building a swordsman for the same defense and the offensive capability.

If we were still in the AA, I would do exactly that. But Feudalism is around the corner, and a mace doesn't do quite the same job as a pike. I'm not suggesting that we build loads and loads of spears, just a few for the borders. The extra bit of caution seems worth it to me - a difference in style, as you say.

I agree we need to expand our borders in Smelly, both to get add'l good land and to get a land connection to Eotin Bay. How about a lib instead? It would take an add'l 7 turns, but give some small impetus toward our spaceship goal while also giving more culture.

Sure.

Why the tax collector in Scoutsville? They are happy and he could go back to work for growth in 2 turns and faster galley build.

That was a mistake on my part. He was a scientist earlier and must have gotten switched just in the last turn, because I was running 0% science and still making progress on Engineering. Setting him back to scientist is probably a good idea if we're going to revolt in order to keep the research going.

Do we need an updated dot map at this point?

I think that any dot map we make would be entirely theoretical at this point - there are several AI settler pairs in the area that will almost certainly mess up our plans. I suggest we play it by ear.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment: @ bede, when u want me to stop, let me know.

most humbly beg to differ on the mathematical approach to the artillery. In emperor or less, u are not likely to encounter more than 3 (it happens, but usually only ifn you're an idiot or have really bad karma). Point I'm trying to make is that u rarely need more than six (this is the walmart approach to emperor war) stone throwing devices. with no emphiric evidence to present, I submit that you'll either hit or not hit. 50/50 proposition. depending on the composition of your force, you're better bringing more troops than stone throwers. Since you've only got three defenders to kill in emp, more that six artillery is paranoia. the force composition of your attackers doesn't matter so long as you have at least 2x the numercial force of attackers v. defenders. This is a very simplistic approach, but it usually works on emp or below.

suggest you discuss combat settlers

sorry for the spam

 

[Bede]

lurker's comment: @ bede, when u want me to stop, let me know.

most humbly beg to differ on the mathematical approach to the artillery. In emperor or less, u are not likely to encounter more than 3 (it happens, but usually only ifn you're an idiot or have really bad karma). Point I'm trying to make is that u rarely need more than six (this is the walmart approach to emperor war) stone throwing devices. with no emphiric evidence to present, I submit that you'll either hit or not hit. 50/50 proposition. depending on the composition of your force, you're better bringing more troops than stone throwers. Since you've only got three defenders to kill in emp, more that six artillery is paranoia. the force composition of your attackers doesn't matter so long as you have at least 2x the numercial force of attackers v. defenders. This is a very simplistic approach, but it usually works on emp or below.

suggest you discuss combat settlers

sorry for the spam

Adm, I think we are saying the same thing - you just plugged the numbers in.

 

[General Mayhem]

Turn Log:

Turn 0 (50 A.D.)

Due to impending revolution, decide to change all the builds in our 3 cities over size 5 to settlers, we'll need them eventually and they will do a better job of reducing pop than a worker, plus they will all finish within 3 turns, so revolt will happen in 3.

Turn 1 (70 A.D.)

Turn the animation of our units off. Change Smelly Sticks to a library, wack 3 barbs, but 4 others appear out of the fog to the east near Mayhem City.

Turn 2 (90 A.D.)

Venerable Valley and Harriet Bay complete settlers, start VV on a barracks and HB on a library. Tynendenaga finishes worker, start it on archer. Greeks are the prize winners of the first to settle in our east. Wack a couple more barbs, Babs have invention since they just started Leonardo's.

Turn 3 (110 A.D.)

Salamanca and Bedeville both complete settlers, start them both on Mounties since we just lost one to a barb horse. All settler builds are now done, so:

Cross fingers, eyes, arms, legs, toes, say a few prayers to the almighty RNG gods, and we get 8 turns of anarchy. Have to hire a specialist in Salamanca, so make it a scientist so that we at least get a little research done...

Turn 4 (130 A.D.)

Anarchy plus barb wacking, during the IBT on of our mounties holds off 3 horsemen and promotes, but it will probably die next IBT. Take out the barb camp up north.

Turn 5 (150 A.D.)

Because Caughnawaga was waiting on growth to pump out a worker it finishes it. Wack a few more barbs, move settlers around. Amazingly our 2 hp elite mountie is still alive.

Turn 6 (170 A.D.)

Forgot to tell CAII to be showing alerts , so miss HB growing to size 5 and it riots (not that it matters in anarchy) During the IBT we got another mountie promoted to elite. Dig back into the archives for Bede's dotmaps of the east...
Found North Pole:

Start it on barracks.

Turn 7 (190 A.D.)

Lose a mountie in the northeast to a stack of about 8-9 barbs. Keep moving settlers towards their positions.

Turn 8 (210 A.D.)

Keep moving settlers.

Turn 9 (230 A.D.)

Found Farm1:

Start it on a worker, then I assume it will just produce wealth.

Turn 10 (250 A.D.)

The Oh crap alarm goes off as I see several Egyptian MDI's move towards us, but closer examination reveals that they are just settler escorts. Found Farm2:

Start it on a worker. Found Farm3:

Start it on a worker. wack a couple barbs off the 6 horse stack just to the north of Farm3.

I think this pic about sums up all Eotinb needs to know:

Engineering due in 22, there's "only" 5 barbs visible in the northeast, but I'm guessing there may be at least that many in the fog. Babs and greeks have been settling on the coast in the east/northeast, as will be shown in an ammended dotmap in the next post.

The Save

 

[General Mayhem]

Dotmap amended to allow for the current situation in the east:

 

[gmaharriet]

Now THIS will be interesting with the other civs all traipsing over each others' land to get to their towns. I wonder if they'll fight each other or collaborate to come after us. If they fight each other, we can just have settlers ready to fill in the gaps, but if they dogpile us, it will make for a very wide front. At least maybe for the short term we'll get some help in fighting the barbs.

I found it amusing that you called Harriet Bay "HB", because those are my initials in RL. Made me feel right at home.

 

[eotinb]

Got it. I see no reason why I won't be able to finish the turns today/night. I will take a look at the save and come back with any questions, etc. before I start. At first glance, it seems like we want to fill in all of the farmlands pretty fast, but certainly seal the E/SE off from further AI incursions. I'm also guessing we want to buy our way back into the tech race. Any general advice on doing so? It doesn't seem like there is much of an opportunity for us to be a broker since all the civs we have contact with are in touch with each other. Guess that's why we need to get to the other continent. Final bit in this post: have we reconsidered our initial plan for a Modern Age GA? MWs + Republic + pesky nearby AI cities = a decent war scenario. And when you add the possibility of a sneak attack by one of the AIs, we can probably sell it to an unsuspecting public back home.

 

[Bede]

Modern Era GA was a dream on my part, certainly not a plan. Middle MA is a good time for a war driven GA but we need to time it right. What I mean is start it on the turn just before you make a peace treaty. So the AI settlements are right handy for us, making for a quick successful war. Raze a town or two then settle up for tech or money.

As for general advice on buying back into the technology game, settlers/libraries/markets remain a priority. There will be a little bit of a recession for the next dozen turns or so but after that we should really be able to burn the midnight oil.

Get some boats out and see if we can't get some more contacts. That is relly Job1

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Any general advice on doing so? It doesn't seem like there is much of an opportunity for us to be a broker since all the civs we have contact with are in touch with each other.

that doesn't mean there won't be opportunities. check what is out there every turn. take it one tech at a time

 

[CivFan91]

lurker's comment: Also, there are techs in Middle to Modern Eras that the AI tends to not research. If you can get your hands on one of those (Music theory is an example) then they will pay hugh prices AND you can get a SGL, and therefore, a free wonder.

Not gonna command you to do that, but it's an idea. Usually ones you don't need to advance eras is ignored by the A"I".

 

[eotinb]

What I mean is start it on the turn just before you make a peace treaty. So the AI settlements are right handy for us, making for a quick successful war. Raze a town or two then settle up for tech or money.

Does the same hold true if we are sneak attacked? Should we hold off on using MWs until we are ready to settle for peace? That is actually more important for me, since I don't intend on starting a GA-motivated war on this turn set -- we're still getting rid of barbs from the change of age, etc. But if we are attacked in the next few turns, it will be hard to counter without using MWs.

 

[gmaharriet]

Does the same hold true if we are sneak attacked? Should we hold off on using MWs until we are ready to settle for peace? That is actually more important for me, since I don't intend on starting a GA-motivated war on this turn set -- we're still getting rid of barbs from the change of age, etc. But if we are attacked in the next few turns, it will be hard to coutner without using MWs.

That would be my question too, Brad. If the AI have MDI's and maybe knights soon, we'd be hard pressed to hold them off with archers and swords and no fast movers.

 

[Bede]

Does the same hold true if we are sneak attacked? Should we hold off on using MWs until we are ready to settle for peace? That is actually more important for me, since I don't intend on starting a GA-motivated war on this turn set -- we're still getting rid of barbs from the change of age, etc. But if we are attacked in the next few turns, it will be hard to coutner without using MWs.

Should anyone be stupid enough to sneak attack us, the gloves come off. Start the GA, build a horde of Mounties and trebs and crush 'em!

Roster check:

eotinb - up for micromanagement time
Bede - waiting for war and rumors of war
gmaharriet - played with barbies
cleverhandle - cleaned 'em out
General Mayhem - got a revolution

 

[eotinb]

I need further clarification on tech strategy before I can do this. Not sure if I should: a) buy Engr from Alex or Hammi for everything in the kitty plus ~20gpt; b) research at 50% science, -11gpt, Engr in 9; c) research at 90% science, ~-50gpt, Engr in 5; or d) no research, ~+60gpt. This is all with lux at 10% and >300 in the treasury.

Edit: My inclination is option c, but that seems like a waste, since there is no way to get that gold back. If we buy the tech, on the other hand, we could eventually sell something to whomever we buy the tech from and get our money back. I was also thinking that it makes more sense to sell something for gpt right before we are going to declare war on that civ anyway which would cancel the payments.

 

[gmaharriet]

I was also thinking that it makes more sense to sell something for gpt right before we are going to declare war on that civ anyway which would cancel the payments.

I'm pretty sure it would ruin our rep with all the civs for the rest of the game, and we'd be unable to do gpt deals with any AI after that. Better wait for Bede's comments on that idea. A sale for lump sum gold just before our declaring would be alright and have no effect on our rep.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I was also thinking that it makes more sense to sell something for gpt right before we are going to declare war on that civ anyway which would cancel the payments.

bede will dismember you if you do that