The second Finnish succession game: struggle for immortality

[sinimusta]

Ok, the main objective that was Zara's conquest was achieved. I'd like to know how many units we lost in which cities to be able to analyze the war better. I checked the stats and your losses seem to be 7 cats, 3WEs and 3 axes (I lost 1 cat taking Gondar). These seem to me unnecessarily high. I'd like to also see the peace treaty but it seems you've got compass and CoL.

It seems that the tech trades you made were proposed by AIs. I never accept them. Instead I go to check the trade screen and with that info decide whether to trade or not. Now Monarchy is something we need (edit: not really, since Stalin has mids) but I'm not sure if giving away constr is a good idea, now Rome can start trading it around and we may have to face cats in our future Soviet/Russian campaign. But the calendar trade was bad, we lost gold needed to tech currency asap and we don't even have unimproved calendar resources!

Cities: Beaver city is using unimproved tile while Lakamha can't use the gold->give one of lakamhas cottages to beaver and use gold, whip 2-pop in beaver asap. Silver/copper site is also using unimproved so whip asap. Farm in double-gold city? We don't intend to grow that place so it's redundant. Mutal is using a lot of tiles not worth working, whip 2-pop asap. The plain farm and hill mine are not good tiles. We should get our GS from there also so I think next player should start running double sci. Our eastern prod/elephant/PH (can't remember the names) city is wornking a cottage! That is bad, city like that will never be a good commerce city so it shouldn't even try.

How to proceed:
Trades: Joao has 140 gold which I think we should get by giving him compass. We can also get 3gpt from Sully.
Civics: We don't currently have happiness issues so we shouldn't switch to her rule. In fact we should get the mids soon so I don't think we should use her rule at all but go for rep or police state. I think rep since research is currently harder to get than prod imo.
Army: get our guys stacked to our eastern border and go for Stalin. We need to replace our lost siege so I think most of our cities should switch prod to cats from WEs. I think we should head almost straight for Moscow. JC is pleased with Stalin so beg first from him. Check out what kind of def stalin has and locate the main stack.
GG: I think we should get a scout supermedic since we don't have a good HE site yet and it will help our future campaign a lot. We have now a WE medic which I don't think is good: weaker units like axes or scouts should be medics since they don't get attacked in a stack and WEs, our best units should focus on killing the enemy, not healing.
Techpath: currency. Then what? We need MC, Mach and Eng for trebs and Feudalism to get vassals. Feudalism is very typical AI tech so I think after currency we should go towards MC.

 

[Robert FIN]

OK, I'll explain a bit more. I don't remember the exact numbers of lost units per city but its about a pair of units per city and higher against his units sitting on the capital. It may be high but I thought that its better to blizkrieg than do little more catapult softening (is that a word?). I got also Poly from Zara, the techs were all he got. Is it Sampsa's turn? P.S. Sorry for making the game hard !

 

[sampsa]

It seems that the tech trades you made were proposed by AIs. I never accept them. Instead I go to check the trade screen and with that info decide whether to trade or not. Now Monarchy is something we need (edit: not really, since Stalin has mids) but I'm not sure if giving away constr is a good idea, now Rome can start trading it around and we may have to face cats in our future Soviet/Russian campaign. But the calendar trade was bad, we lost gold needed to tech currency asap and we don't even have unimproved calendar resources!

This. Robert, your trading game is on settler level. Giving gold and a tech many AI's lack for calendar (which is useless for us) is horrible. Don't accept the deals AI proposes. Instead, look at the <F4> screen and see what you want and how do you get it. What techs they lack is important, hold onto techs many AIs don't have and don't give gold in trades. Gold is good, take gold from them for techs many AIs already have.

I'll look at the save tomorrow. Don't worry Rob, we will win the game. You just made it exciting.

 

[Robert FIN]

This. Robert, your trading game is on settler level. Giving gold and a tech many AI's lack for calendar (which is useless for us) is horrible. Don't accept the deals AI proposes. Instead, look at the <F4> screen and see what you want and how do you get it. What techs they lack is important, hold onto techs many AIs don't have and don't give gold in trades. Gold is good, take gold from them for techs many AIs already have.

I'll look at the save tomorrow. Don't worry Rob, we will win the game. You just made it exciting.

(laughing to my mistakes). Am I too kind to the game? I've always thought that a request to trade is like special offer. You can't have it next turn. Seems like its not how it works.. How about this; Do I get diplo penalty from refusing his/her offer?

 

[sinimusta]

No you don't. However as I've read in K-mod they actually are special offers, somewhat better than the offers you make.

 

[sinimusta]

Quiet here. I think it's Sampsa's turn. Something keeping you busy in RL?

 

[Robert FIN]

Holy silence..

 

[sinimusta]

Ok what about this: to keep the game going JSS gets a turnset now since he would be after Sampsa? When/if Sampsa shows up he gets to play a turnset.

 

[sampsa]

Yeah sorry for my absence - I have a busy week probably so please skip me.

 

[JSS]

I'm sick so I don't really feel like playing now.

 

[sinimusta]

Ok I can play a turnset then. I've already written some advice for this turnset:

How to proceed:
Trades: Joao has 140 gold which I think we should get by giving him compass. We can also get 3gpt from Sully.
Civics: We don't currently have happiness issues so we shouldn't switch to her rule. In fact we should get the mids soon so I don't think we should use her rule at all but go for rep or police state. I think rep since research is currently harder to get than prod imo.
Army: get our guys stacked to our eastern border and go for Stalin. We need to replace our lost siege so I think most of our cities should switch prod to cats from WEs. I think we should head almost straight for Moscow. JC is pleased with Stalin so beg first from him. Check out what kind of def stalin has and locate the main stack.
GG: I think we should get a scout supermedic since we don't have a good HE site yet and it will help our future campaign a lot. We have now a WE medic which I don't think is good: weaker units like axes or scouts should be medics since they don't get attacked in a stack and WEs, our best units should focus on killing the enemy, not healing.
Techpath: currency. Then what? We need MC, Mach and Eng for trebs and Feudalism to get vassals. Feudalism is very typical AI tech so I think after currency we should go towards MC.

Now that I think about it I would give Joao CoL instead of compass just because it's cheaper.

I'll start running double sci in mutal and lakamha should take over the cottage tiles it shares so it will be fully operational when we get the academy, so I'll avoid whipping there and whip more in the supporting cities. Save gold until academy.

GG: We could make a medic3 guy from almost any unit we please, I think I now prefer a holkan since holkan doesn't get to defend so likely.

I'll concentrate our forces in Mayapan and heal. First significant forces will arrive there in 6 turns, then heal a turn with GG medic and will be ready to attack. That means 6 WEs, 2 axes, holkan, 4 cats and the troops we produce in the meantime. So that's definitely enough. We could go Moscow first, three turns to move into bombarding range, bombard and cross the river, then attack. If I play until Moscow has fallen it will be approximately 12 turns if things go well. After Moscow St.pete and then novgorod.

We could go St.Petersburg first too, no need to cross rivers, probably easier, but currently I'm in favour of Moscow, scouting will influence on this though. After St.peterburg go for moscow, then maybe double-gems Novgorod.

Northern parts of USSR are good cities, souther cities are weak. Rostov is on a gold which is annoying but I'm not sure if it's worth it to raze and refound it anymore.

Diplo: JC is only one who likes Stalin so I'll try to beg from him. He doesn't have any cheap teches though or currency, so I'll have to beg for a resource.

I'll play until I've taken a city from USSR or failed somehow. Comments on PPP?

 

[sampsa]

What is our long-term plan? Keep rolling after Stalin or not? Are we planning to capitulate him?Probably we are planning to tech a lot still as we are investing into academy. Do you guys think we should shoot for lib?

I don't see much point in holkan medic (woodsman can be a point). Why not scout/chariot? They would never defend.

 

[Robert FIN]

Green light for the short term plans. I'm ok with both long term plans, rock n' roll and lib plan. We should choose it..

 

[sinimusta]

The benefit would be saving hammers by using a unit that already exists. Now the cheapest option would be a chariot (30 hammers) since we've got explorers (40 hammers).

For a woodsman medic I think we would want to farm him to get all medic promos so for that axe would be better.

I think I'll go with a chariot.

My idea about our war with Stalin is that we take his northern cities and check if he has something worth taking a peace like a good tech or if someone has researched Feudalism then try to trade for it and then cap Stalin. If not we could just press on, Stalins coastal cities would be ok since we have GLH. If someone has feud but is not willing to trade we need to evaluate the risk of peacevassaling. Also we need to finish Zara Yakob before AIs start getting Feudalism to avoid peacevassaling.

For long term I think we take Stalin and see how well the other AIs are defended. With the mids there's some temptation to tech with representation towards lib.

 

[fantsu]

Hi fellow Finnish people.
Been following these games and sadly I have to say that the amount of pictures are dropping all the time, please more. I'm not using BUG so the savegames won't work.
Thanks!

 

[sinimusta]

Will try to include more pics than usual to this report, got to admit I've been a bit lazy.

Our double gold-site:

Spoiler :

Lakamha, our economic motor:

Spoiler :

Our capitol, trying to inspire our the scientific ambitions of our youth:

Spoiler :

Got currency from Joao. Joao was 1 turn from getting construction, so I figured out we could give it to him:

Spoiler :

I begged 40 gold from Rome to prevent them from attacking us. Stalin is way behind in techs, so no fear about war bribes. Before war Stalin completed additional wonder for us, the Hanging gardens. Those hammers would probably been better used on spears.

Our GG Paavo Talvela leading our troops towards Moscow:

Spoiler :

I hoped that the 2 cha + spear would have teleported to the road tile on the way moscow, not to the hill tile, so that I could have killed them while moving towards Moscow. As they were transported out of reach I simply ignored them.

Also a Russian unit of arch and axe were teleported behind our lines and marched towards Lalibela.

Moscow is thinly defended but Stalin has ordered an attack towards us. I decided to back off some of our troops to kill them when they cross the river. Meanwhile general Talvela starts the siege of Moscow:

Spoiler :

They crossed the river and we're ready to attack

Spoiler :

I used first a drill cat to weaken the whole stack. I won them without losses, fights being at about 90% odds.

(Rest of the screenies aren't uploaded by imageshack as I run out of free uploads.)



I decided to use a worker to bait the Russian partisans from defensive ground near Lalibela, as I felt our workers have mostly improved our land and chopped our forests. After they left the hill I killed them with 2 chariots.

Anyway I decided to bombard Moscow 2 turns (1 more that I planned) since turn before I wasn't sure that we would have been able to hold it. I sacrificed 3 cr cats and no more losses. The last cat had +50% odds.

The bad news: I waited 1 turn before trading for Joaos 140 gold since I didn't want to give contruction away. (Forgot that we saw his research.) Next turn he had given the money away.

Also Zara peacevassaled to Joao when Joao got Feud (isn't willing to trade). Probably should have sent some phants and cats or at least dow on Zara so that no one would have deared to become his master. Well we can deal with that when we attack Joao, the biggest loss I see is missing silver as a happy resource.

 

[fantsu]

Thank you a lot for the pictures. Makes so much easier to follow and I can see so many things I was wondering before. btw. I don't see the usual flanking I/sentry chariot in your stack. Isn't it a bit risky to attack so deep without long sight? Anyways, thanks for the game guys. So annoying to post with a phone...

 

[sinimusta]

Well I had scouted Stalins lands so I had an idea what I would be facing. But I'm just not that afraid of Stalins counter-attacks, War Elephants dominate the battlefied completely at this point and he doesn't have them. Stalin doesn't even have siege yet, and even if AI does, they don't make usually effective counterattacks but get discouraged by a few defeats. It's very typical to see ai sacrifice a cat every now and then instead of using them concentrated.

We haven't even built stables which would be needed for sentry units.

 

[JSS]

Looks like we're doing well. What's the plan now? Sampsa, are you going to play your turnset this weekend or do I fill in?

 

[sampsa]

Go ahead before me, JSS, I can't play this weekend.