The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[dingding]

Do we really want to try eliminating Ragnar?

It's your turn so you can decide what to do. Personally I suggest capitulate him.

He's an extra happiness, and one more happiness from Incense help a lot. His rest two cities are really crappy and useless.

Declaring on T/J and then taking peaces raises the odds substantially that they will later declare war on us in retribution. Bestsss discussed this code recently (I don't remember where).

The only fear is fear itself. We'll have 1000+ production. I don't think an disarmed 8-city Toku is fearful.

 

[shyuhe]

^ If T/J declare war on us before we're prepared, it's going to hurt a lot since we really don't have any means to stop them. I haven't had a chance to look at the save but I'll look tomorrow before I play and see whether it's worth capitulating Ragnar. I personally don't think it is - we should eliminate him or just take peace after finishing Monty.

 

[bestsss]

The war weariness will be halved next turn and the cities will have room to grow.
You can take the cities north of Uppsala (Birka and Roskilde, I think) in the same time removing the last Monty's city.
There are 2 more (one newly founded and would not have even culture defense) which would be very light defended.

There is too much time before the army returns at the Toku's border and I don't see how we can attack CG3/C1 infantry w/ what we have got.

 

[dingding]

There is too much time before the army returns at the Toku's border and I don't see how we can attack CG3/C1 infantry w/ what we have got.

Maybe you misunderstood. I didn't mean to attack Toku with Rifl/Gren but with Infantries as AL is on the horizon.

Our troops drawback from the front and prepare for the next fight. Once AL is finished they can immediately upgrade to infantries and make the DoW.

 

[Duckweed]

First, welcome to the team, dingding.

Since you have not read through all the game progress (yeah, that's a little bit long), let me do some introduction.

This map is very hard on top of an already tough deity team game. Our 2 neighbors are the worst in all means, and we got an BC DOW from 2 aggressive deity AIs. Although we are lucky to survive it, this war inevitably hurt and slowed down our early development. After that, we have tried our best to avoid any DOWs and finally to be able to launch our revenge on the nuts. I think Bestsss and Shyuhe had done a very good job in war preparation to assemble a SOD of 50 units in ~15 turns. We started with ~ 50 units and after 24 turns of the war with 2 deity AIs with SoZ, we are able to maintain a healthy economy and kill ~150 units with the mere loss of ~35 units. I think that our war progress has been very efficient ( Upplasa is 14 tiles away from our culture border) and successful so far.

 

[Duckweed]

Now back to the issues for the next set.

As Bestsss and Shyuhe mentioned, Toku/Joao are very advanced and powerful atm. There's no doubt they each has a SOD of >50 units and they each has the capability of producing ~10 units in every turn. Those units will quickly appear in our border with the railroad network and there's no way we can stop them without the aid of bombers. Artillery is not very good to handle modern war against huge AIs since their loss rate is very high and their war pace is very slow. Moreover, we can't handle the counter attack from 2 huge deity AIs in their land with a limited protection from infantries.

I had thought about capitulating Ragnar before my set since I think our target next is Willem/Churchill and Ragnar could help us with the front city culture and his remain research power. But for now, the menace from Willem/Churchill is minimized and we'd better to weaken Joao/Toku sooner than later, so getting rid of Ragnar is a better choice. However, I still prefer to take the city of Birka for peace after taking Monty's last city since an undamaged city will help us the culture war with Churchill. We may have a chance redeclare 10 turns later to take Ragnar out since as Bestsss pointed out, Ragnar can take the peace treaty after Joao/Toku DOWed.

 

[bestsss]

Maybe you misunderstood. I didn't mean to attack Toku with Rifl/Gren but with Infantries as AL is on the horizon.

Yes cannon/pinch infantry vs CG3/c1 infantry, air ships and artillery. We can take the city next to our border w/ the uranium mine if we lack heavily uranium but that's all... and the only peace treaty will be if we have some technology to give them or AP.

I believe their SoDs are over 70 units perhaps more and like pointed they can produce like 10 units each turn both of them. Without bombers or nukes or laser (mobile arty) I'd not dare to declare.

So we can take Roskilde by force and Birka as peace deal and killing by the same time Monty. The other 2 cities have 2-4 rifles top so they can taken easily but Birka as intact city sounds a good idea. Hmm, if we take Roskilde I think he might like to give away Birka as it'd become capital.

 

[bestsss]

I took one more look about taking Birka as peace deal.
However it has both national epic and hermitage. We will end up w/ them in that city since they are not build yet. Not really the best place to put them.

Also when I was talking about Roskilde I meant Jelling, not the present capital.

 

[dingding]

I rechecked the save. Though it's not my turn, I tried a few turns with my playstyle. Forgive me, I'm a newbie in this game.

What bothers me the most is the bribery condition between teams. For a bribery of DoW, WoV needs Friendly (to you) and Cautious (to a third-party) and Churchill needs Pleased (to you) and Cautious (to another). Which counts?

There are two options now: to launch a Dogpile war against J/T or to industrialize first. No matter which one we choose, one problem is unavoidable: can we possibly beat J/T in the modern Era, considering they can easily get IDS at the time we get Fission/Rocket in their research speed?

They are supposed to have more nukes than us and have IDS much earlier. I haven't succeeded in a nuke war when I'm a lot behind in techs. Anyone has an idea?

To use UN to ban the nuke can be an alternative as we can certainly win the election with W/C. My concern is we don't have much time to stop their spaceship if they aim for that.

(anther question: If they Launch Spaceship, which cap should I destroy if to stop it? Kyoto or Lisbon or both?)

If J/T grab more cities from W/C and we do nothing, the odds to success in a modern war against them before their space victory is very dim. In this circumstance I recommend we discuss the victory strategy in this very moment. I think we need to have a further vision of the game.

 

[Duckweed]

dingding, forgot that you are new to SG. Here's a link of a good reference of general things to play the SG. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3964212&postcount=2 We are not strict with those, but if you can not play in a few days after you are UP, it'd better to tell the team when you can play or ask for a swap if you can not play in a week. A set of ~10 turns is usually a good stop for a normal speed game as this one, IMO the best stop time is the time before we want to choose a tech to start.

Also a proposed plan before the actual play is strongly recommended. The spirit of SG is to play the game according to consensus of team members. It's not practical to discuss too many details of the game play, but it's necessary for issues that will dramatcally affect the game, as the following I mentioned before.

1. tech path
2. civic change
3. city placement
4. diplomatic decision -- especially tech trade, joining the war
5. war plan -- target, force composition, march route.

I see that you are worrying about how to deal with Joao/Toku now. Well, it's impossible before we have bombers online and still require sophisticated war skill and very careful play to win a brutal and lengthy war when we are ready. My war plan is 30 fighters in carriers + 24 bombers + 50~100 tanks/cavs/infantries at the start. We need to kill their SOD in the border before we can march into their land, even this will result in the loss of the wine city. I never count on bribing Willem/Churchill into war and I also don't like the nukes.

BTW, There's no need to know some information forward, I believe our team is good enough to win it out. If you are ready to play, take the set after Shyuhe.

 

[Duckweed]

I took one more look about taking Birka as peace deal.
However it has both national epic and hermitage. We will end up w/ them in that city since they are not build yet. Not really the best place to put them.

Also when I was talking about Roskilde I meant Jelling, not the present capital.

I think that's fine, at least that saves us a lots of hammers. GPs are not very important atm.

To Shyuhe:
Something forgot to mention -- we can cancel some resource trade with the Joao/Toku and there could be some trade open when they DOW.

 

[bestsss]

I'd have preferred Hermitage at the Toku's border.
@duckweed
BTW, why do you dislike the nukes. They feel like cheating?
Keepong the uranium down w/ huge empire usually is not big issue and then it's just marching ahead.

 

[shyuhe]

I just wrapped up the warring. Ended up killing both Monty and Ragnar since WW was minimal once Monty was eliminated. And as predicted, war has broken out with Willem losing two cities so far. The pace has been pretty slow though - the AI may be lacking in siege weaponry.

You will be missed Monty:

We finish biology and trade:

It looks like W/C are going for combustion so I set research to AL.

We get this choice of AP votes (chose none):

And you will be missed Ragnar:

An annoying random event:

Some free diplo:

We should switch back to OR soon though.

Current techs:

And land:

 

[shyuhe]

There is a scouting cavalry nearing the warfront out west so that we can see what's going on over there. I'm not too worried yet since W/C have more than enough land to avoid capitulation for now.

 

[dingding]

To shyuhe:

Good job to build two settlers to set up new cities! That gives us more pro to win the UN victory if we are unfortunately trapped at the worst situation.

BTW I found you were building Cannons under Free Religion. As I see it, one 3-exp Cannon = 1/2 5-exp Cannon. If there is no war intention at the moment, hammers can be put on beakers or on Machine Gun (for whom exp is not that important). Well factories are on the horizon as well.

 

[dingding]

After AH (in 3 turns), next tech should be normally Physics. But after that I suppose there are many options to discuss:

1) Artillery if the war is to be prepared.
2) Electricity for one cheap money from mills, for Industrialization and Fission.
3) (Combustion from trade) Flight for paratroopers and bombers (as Duckweed prefers)
4) Medicine for hospitals. A lot of pollution is envisioned especially after trade for Combustion.

I prefer Electricity. Factories + coal plants can be built during the research. Medicine can be obtained by trade as it's quite prioticized by AI, or at the worst, we can research it ourselves.

 

[EmperorFool]

As I see it, one 3-exp Cannon = 1/2 5-exp Cannon.

Lurker's Comment: I would gladly take less than twice as many 3XP Cannon as 5XP Cannon as I think a 3XP Cannon is worth nearly as much as a 5XP Cannon (85%-90%?). First, the more you have the faster the cultural defenses go down. I'm certainly not wasting that second promotion on Accuracy when I can have CR2 Cannons. Second, CR2 Cannon are going to die against Infantry defenders anyway, so you'll need to have plenty of extras to make up for losses.

But more importantly, if you're planning to go into OR, you'll still be producing 3XP Cannons so you may as well build them now.

 

[bestsss]

We are going for bombers. After bombers raid nothing really matter just enough numbers to clean and enough to defend the stack.

For now we need mostly infrastructure, I'd postpone building troops. With factories in, we should be #1 prod by large enough margin.

AL->Combustion+all the gold available.
Churchill can possibly go for physics but his tech rate seems slowlish. Shall we tech. medicine on our own to hope trade for physics?

 

[EmperorFool]

We are going for bombers. After bombers raid nothing really matter just enough numbers to clean and enough to defend the stack.

Good point. Back to lurking . . .

 

[shyuhe]

That was my intent with building cannons. We will need some fodder for our stack and that was my goal. Although in hindsight, cavalry may actually be better fodder units. The cities currently building cannons don't have anything better to build except espionage buildings or wealth/research, neither of which speeded up the time to AL.

I'd prefer to avoid physics for now in hopes of trading for it.

On a side note, if Joao/Toku builds the UN, I'm pretty sure we can win the game by UN with W/C voting for us (assuming we're #2 in pop). We have more total cities than W/C so I think it's quite possible, although I would kind of like to try smashing J/T for the military victory if possible.