TJS1 -- Going on the Pill-age

[robbus]

ROBBUS Preflight... with lots of questions.

Military:
We are at war with Russia, Aztecs and arabia.

Our horsemen are near Novgorod defended by regular spearman(men). Taking Novgorod with that expeditionary force is optimistic IMHO. If we get Novgorod we need more forces to hit Smolensk>Moscow (or Moscow>Smolensk). To defeat Russia we need zerks.

Yakutsk has pike and medieval infantry... our horse/archers will get creamed even if we attack from mountain near Yakutsk.

We (prez nathiri) are building zerks and have cut off Russia from iron.

I suggest taking Novgorod now then using zerk stacks to smash rest of Russia. I just do not feel that we have enough firepower to mount a Russian campaign without zerks.

Carthage will sell us iron for 93gpt so we can produce knights/pikes instead of horse/pikemen. I like this idea.

My MM city plans:

Aarhus: aqueduct then spear or pike.

Stavanger: spear or horse (Knight/pike)

odense: change to galley from settler

Hareid: carry on spear/pike

molde: 3 workers irrigating! Mine one at least. Move knight and archer towards Moscow

alesund: move knight towards Moscow

bodo: >galley

Karasjok: Rax> spear

Tromso: >settler

Trondheim:: wake worker to join Copenhagen... wake other to mine irrigation. or wake both to mine. produce the zerks!

Bergen: reassign to get 2 turn zerk, then cop forest for another 3T zerk

Copenhagen: add 2 workers to grow to 12, continue zerk prod'n

Yaroslavl: 1 horse towards Moscow, continue walls

yektarinaberg: carry on

Kufah: carry on

Reykjavik: finish market then either galley or library?Rax

oslo: worker factory

Stockholm marketplace

birka > aqueduct

I have posted a save with the above changes made but without the trade made.

 

[robbus]

Nathiri had iron then lost it unfortunately.

My suggested trade with Carthage is expensive but would allow significant upgrades to our horsemen/spearmen. We have the manufacturing capacity and this trade still has us positive about 40-50GPT.

OTOH we can concentrate on zerker production only without this trade for iron.

I like the trade

I am worried about Reykjavik 5 happy and 5 unhappy faces now. When will they riot? Next turn?

I don't understand "settler disband" of Yaro mentioned in #496.

 

[tjs282]

Nathiri had iron then lost it unfortunately.

This is a problem -- the sea-route to Carthage is not yet secure, and we can't secure it at present, so that Iron could get off at any point. So why not turn this unpredictability to an advantage, rather than a disadvantage?

My suggested trade with Carthage is expensive but would allow significant upgrades to our horsemen/spearmen. We have the manufacturing capacity and this trade still has us positive about 40-50GPT.

OTOH we can concentrate on zerker production only without this trade for iron.

I like the trade

We can only upgrade if we have the gold to do it -- which we won't if we're spending a large quantity of it on the Iron. And Knights take a long time to build from scratch, unless we re-route the Zerk-builds into Knight-builds (I don't like this idea: Zerks-in-SEA-Galleys are effectively A.D.M=6.2.4 units, which are preferable to 4.3.2 units).

So if possible, I would suggest holding off on making the Iron-trade for, say, 4-5T, and rather banking that ~135gpt (~540-675 gold total), while building 4-5 Horsemen in our lower-SPT (Rax-)towns (high-SPT cities should carry on with Zerk-builds). Once you have those Horses built, then make the Iron-trade, and immediately upgrade the Horses to Knights using the banked gold (3*40 = 120 gold per head, 480-600g total). Upgrade any Spears we already have if you can afford it (30g per head), but preferably don't start building Pikes: instead, switch our lower-SPT (Rax-)towns to building Maces.

This way, even if we lose the Iron-import on the very next IBT (as happened to Nathiri), we will already have a fully-assembled and powerful fast-attack force to attack Novgorod and Yakutsk, and the expectation of producing another wave of equally powerful A=4 (albeit 'slower') units over the next couple of turns after that. And we've got all that extra gold-income back, for piecemeal-upgrades of any remaining Horses/Spears. Those 'slower' units can follow behind the fast force for pre-emptive border defence around our new acquistions (most likely against D=1 Archers/ Horses/ LBMs) -- but without triggering our GA before we're ready. Remember, Maces can move 3 tiles on our own roads, so as the front is pushed back by our Knights, the Maces should be able to keep with it/them -- but they're 40% cheaper/quicker to build from scratch than Knights.

So don't worry about Cathy's current crop of Pikes (or Maces) -- there will likely only be 1 Pike per town (apart from Moscow, which may have more), and Cathy will build/upgrade no more of them. And once we have Novgorod, a Slave could be sent to colonise the ex-Russian Iron, which will save us having to build a road to it after Nov's borders re-expand (but will also then prevent us from building more Horses-for-upgrades, unless we use the 'Iron-disconnect trick').

On the subject of our GA, try to get all of Stavanger's flatland irrigated ASAP, so it can also be pumped up to Pop12.

Also, Molde needs irrigation more than it needs mines right now: it has Forests that it could work for extra shields -- but only if it has the population to do so!

I am worried about Reykjavik 5 happy and 5 unhappy faces now. When will they riot? Next turn?

No. A town will only riot if it starts the IBT with more unhappy than happy citizens. If a town is not rioting yet, it will not riot on growth, unless WW increases as well. You can check whether the war is already making people unhappy, by going into Reyk's city-screen and clicking on one of the 'Unhappy' citizens; if WW is becoming a factor, at least of the quotes will be "All we are sayin', is give peace a chance" (but that seems unlikely here, since we got lots of War-Happiness points from being the 'victims' of 3 AI-Civs' DoWs!).

I don't understand "settler disband" of Yaro mentioned in #496.

If you have captured a AI-town which is poorly placed (with respect to Bonus-resources, water-sources, or your existing towns -- as in this case), and you want to (re)move it, the simplest way to do this is to right-click on the misplaced town and then click 'Abandon City': this will instantly remove the town from the board, but gives you nothing in return -- no Workers/Slaves, no gold, nothing. And you'll still need a Settler to re-found the town where you want it. Alternatively, under govs which use cash-rushing, you can Settler-abandon that misplaced town, rather than 'right-click abandoning' it:

1. If the town isn't already at Pop1/2, shrink it down
   • e.g. by starvation, or by cash-rushing Workers/Slaves
2. Ensure that it has a zero/negative net food harvest
   • e.g. by setting its cititzen(s) to work on 0-1FPT-tile(s) (to cancel out the FPT from the city-tile), or turning him/her/them into a Specialist(s)*
3. Rush the unit-build; to reduce the cost, it's best to put at least 1 shield into the production-box first
   • If the box is empty, the Settler costs 240g; with 1 shield in the box, the cost is 116g

The advantage of Settler-abandoning is that you instantly gain the Settler you need to found your new town -- if this is done in a foreign town, the resulting Settler(Foreign) is zero-maintenance. And crucially, even though a Settler normally costs 2 pop-points (and gives 2 pop-points when it joins an existing city), the game allows you to Settler-abandon at Pop1. Because you cannot found Civ3 towns directly adjacent to one another, Settler-abandonment is particularly useful if a 'misplaced' town needs to be moved by only 1 tile.

You could also Worker-abandon a foreign town*, which gives a zero-maintenance Worker(Foreign), and is significantly cheaper (80g, or 1s+36g) than Settler-abandoning, but again, you then need to get a Settler from somewhere else to re-found.

*Under Rep/Dem, Settler-/ Worker-abandonment at Pop1 is not possible for AGRI-civs: Since an AGRI-town tile gives 3FPT, it can only harvest zero/negative net food at Pop2 -- therefore your only options to remove it, are right-click abandonment, or Settler-abandonment.

 

[Lanzelot]

Move knight and archer towards Moscow

They will only get sloughtered. We need stacks of at least 6 units for a successful attack. Please also re-review post #497, which has a few tips on the next military actions. (And other things.) If you assemble two stacks, each consisting of 1 Knight and 5-6 Horses, you can capture Novgorod and Moscow during your turnset.

No Archers nor Berzerks should be used for the next couple of turns: we don't want to risk losing a precious Archer, and we don't want to kick off our GA prematurely yet. Upgrade the Archers and move the Berzerks to Kufah. They'll man the boats there later.

Iron from Cartage: it was fine, while we were able to get it for free, but if we have to pay an arm and a leg for it -- no thanks! Considering our luck so far, that deal would probably stick the full 20 turns, costing us more than 1800g! In 5-6 turns we'll have the iron at Novgorod re-connected and can then upgrade all the Horses we want. Till then use the gold for upgrading our Archers and short-rushing a few useful things.

Reykjavik: finish market then either galley or library?

Just to emphasize this: we are done researching for this game. So no more Libraries.

As tjs282 already said: the number of happy faces and unhappy faces in a city should be equal. Then everything is perfect. Content faces don't matter and can be ignored.

 

[Spoonwood]

If the box is empty, the Settler costs 240g;

You can buy a worker, don't let it finish, swap to a settler and then purchase those 20 shields for the settler. This costs 160 gold instead of 240 gold.

 

[Elephantium]

Novgorod force: I agree that it's ambitious. We're likely to lose one of those four Horsemen on the IBT (move the wounded one under the others). To go to Smolensk will require some reinforcements.

I don't agree that defeating Russia will take Zerks. We have 15 Horsemen and 2 Knights. From what I can tell, we can advance on Russia with the 2 Knights and 6 more Horsemen in about 2 more turns.

We have an Average military against them, so we can't advance willy-nilly; we'll have to choose our path carefully. Taking Novgorod actually extends us more than I'd like, except that it denies Russia her Iron. If we take it, I'd send the Knights up to reinforce it and just hold it against counter-attack, sending those 6 "other Horsemen" (with 2 Spears as cover -- maybe switch Alesund to Spear?) at Krasnoyarsk and then Moscow (the Knights could rejoin the attack there).

Whatever you do, make sure that our top 8 cities are all size 12 before committing Zerks to battle -- we *really* want them all producing at full capacity once the GA kicks off!

Iron: Too expensive IMO. We can wait until we hook it up at Novgorod.

MM: Aarhus should be Worker-joined to size 12 after the 'duct completes. Also, I'd build a Horseman or Zerk; a Spear would take too long to get into position from here.
Stavanger DESPERATELY needs more irrigation to help grow (and support 12 citizens!).
Molde Workers should help irrigate Stavanger when their current jobs complete. Mines in the plains are low priority right now.
Karasjok I'd put on Zerks rather than Spears.
Yaroslavl should switch to Settler.
Yekaterinburg needs MM every turn to keep the Worker factory on track; it was only getting 4 food in the save
Reyk - Galleys are best after Market here.
Stockholm - Zerks after Market
Birka should build Zerks after 'duct.

Reyk won't riot this turn. When happy and sad faces are balanced, it's ok. Only when the sad faces outnumber the happy faces do you have to worry.

In general, I agree with TJS and Lanz's analysis.

 

[robbus]

Thanks very much for the feedback! I am at work now but will look over this carefully.

Post a revised 250ad save.

I will try and pick up the pace...

 

[Elephantium]

Don't worry about the pace. Better to take care to make sure that we're in agreement than to forge ahead on a misunderstanding! Slow and steady wins the race.

 

[robbus]

Message received loud and clear about zerks and archers.

First few turns are MM then.

We need more horseman for immediate war against russia. Those 4 horsemen opposite Novgorod might take novgorod... no defensive units with them (knight would be very handy). Before novgorod assault need a defensive unit there or on the way to let the horses heal after victory.
The problem is whether there are 2 spearman there at novgorod... We have 19 cities with 24 land military units (1,26 units per city). They have 10+ cities and are militarilly equal. Maybe 24 units in 15 cities... We know of 3or4 for sure.

some chance of 2 units in novgorod.

I suggest changing Stavanger, Molde, Alesund to horse. Repatriate damaged horse.

charge settler/spear duo with knight in molde. Move horse in yaroslavl toward roads near novgorod(on hill)

Take Novgorod then smolensk then moscow. This will occupy most of my turns.

Supply Russia task force with Horsemen from northern cities, may need regulars.

Defense of Trond, reyk, odense, bodo tromso consists of 1 horseman. I don't like this!

Southern cities with rax produce zerks, while those with harbor produce galleys.(in general)

Birka chop then irrigate; aqueduct > zerk shields from chop towards zerk.

AArhus- produce aqueduct then grow with food production and produce zerk or galley

Stavanger- irrigate after current projects and switch to horseman. Lots of mines underway there now...after irrigation of 3 non-hill NW desert (replacing a mine) This will boost fpt to use the mines.

Odense Settler vs Galley vs horseman for local defense... I have no idea? next player can decide

Hareid set to horse or can switch to zerk later...I plan on using forest and new pop'n to create horse.

Molde switch to horse and waste 3 shields, we need horses for Russia campaign. After that another horse.. at 3-5 spt will take a few turns maybe 6-8 to get another horse or chop to produce another.

Alesund... switch to horse... add a worker to increase pop'n afetr current projects. Increase irrigation after mines.

Bodo>galley

karasjok I prefer spear here.. zerk takes far too long

Tromso?

trond zerks

bergen rush zerk after 2 turns

copenhagen add a couple of workers to pop 12

yaroslavl settler?

yektarineberg workers

kufah spear from walls

reykjavik market galleys

oslo workers

stockholm courthouse then horse and move workers to chop/irrigate to increase poulation


Overall I do not see a lot of progress against russia because they are bigger cities and we have to wait a few turns for more horses... all the while russia building defense.

I am also concerned about southwest weakness even with galleys now patrolling for invaders.

Anyway I hope my plans are satisfactory... I am trying to anticipate more with micro management but still struggling.

 

[Spoonwood]

The problem is whether there are 2 spearman there at novgorod... We have 19 cities with 24 land military units (1,26 units per city). They have 10+ cities and are militarilly equal. Maybe 24 units in 15 cities

Careful. The AI rates offensive units higher than defensive units, so your reasoning might not work right.

all the while russia building defense.

Or longbows.

 

[Nathiri]

Trondheim and Copen are mostly fine. There is also a galley blockade on the east, so the galley drops we have received, have been up by Yeka. We only needed a couple horsemen in order to kill the troops dropped. But there was only 1 horseman there on my last turn, because I wanted to send the most available I could for the assault on Russia. You get a turn notice usually beforehand anyway. The tundra peninsula is a slight concern and I have already sunk a single arab ship that came there before, but we at least have that roaded now, while before we did not. If you want to put another horsemen close go ahead, like maybe near Aarhus.

 

[tjs282]

Defense of Trond, reyk, odense, bodo tromso consists of 1 horseman. I don't like this!

This is fine. Until Astronomy has been learned, none of the AICivs will 'risk' ending their Galley-moves on a Sea-tile (except the Dutch -- until we take the GLight from them!). The Galley-pair east of Cope should therefore be able to prevent Monty's M=3 Galleys from reaching our southern towns (if sailing from Ixtapaluca, he would need to move 10 tiles to get round them -- but the 9th tile is Sea).

Similarly, an Arab Galley from Basra would have to sail past Kufah and K'jok to threaten our south coast, so you'd get plenty of warning of a landing, and could reshuffle nearby troops to cover it. Moving a Galley-pair to the Coast-tile 1S of K'jok (i.e. the 6th Coast-tile from Basra by the shortest route) would stop the Arabs reaching the southern peninsula altogether (and if K'jok remains ungarrisoned, they would then likely land there, allowing you to kill the landed troops easily).

The only coastal towns that are in danger of an 'unexpected' landing are therefore Y'burg and Birka on the east coast ('threatened' by Monty), and Molde, Hareid, and Kufah on the west coast ('threatened' by Abu and Cathy) -- but (in your screenie at least), all these towns either already have sufficient garrisons to repel a landing, and/or are close enough to a garrisoned town to be reinforced within 1T -- if you recall, that was/ is one of the reasons for using a tight CxxC placement in the early game...

Or longbows.

Take note of what Spoonwood says here: when at war, the AI will only prioritise building units with the 'defensive' AI-strategy in its 'under-defended' towns (i.e. 'less than 2 defenders', according to the AI). In every other town (that hasn't already put a load of shields into another project, e.g. a Wonder-build), an AI at war will switch production to/ start building the best 'offensive-strat' unit that it can currently muster -- for Cathy, that means LBMs (and/or possibly Horses, until you pillage the Horse-tile outside Moscow).

LBMs have D(B)=1(2), so A=2 (v)Horses should be more than sufficient to carve through them -- provided that the Horses only attack, stay in their stack (try to avoid leaving any lone Horse(s) exposed to an attack over the IBT), and the injured retreat to a Rax-town to heal or be upgraded (which instantly restores all HP, so prioritise redlined units for upgrades!).

(NB provided that a newly captured Rax-town already has access to any needed resources, and a unit has at least 1/3rd of a movement-point left on arrival in that Rax-town, it can be upgraded immediately -- the upgraded unit will then be available for use on the next turn. Conversely, healing takes at least 2T: 1T to arrive and fortify, 1T to heal -- so avoid using flip-risky towns for healing units!).

At Emp-level, a previously peaceful neighbouring AI is most dangerous in the first 3-4T after a DOW, because that's the only time when they will have a reasonably large stack of (attack) units (accumulated during peacetime) to throw at you all at once; after that, (attack) units will be thrown piecemeal, as they get built. Also, the AI will only send defenders out with attackers if it has an excess of them -- and having done so, it will always use those defenders as stack-cover/ pillagers. So one trick that works reasonably well at this level (not so well at DG, and hardly at all at Sid...) is to allow that initial (low-D) AI attack-stack(s) onto your territory, where even your M=1 units still have a mobility advantage, in order to kill it quickly (preferably before the AI-units can attack your towns!). Once that threat is neutralised, it's then relatively 'safe' to start sending your (fast) attackers into their territory, to start taking their cities.

So if possible, try to expunge Cathy's remaining Horses/Maces first, before crossing the borders; if we have any healthy Knights left after doing that, use them to cover the Horsemen-stack. Once in Russia, you're unlikely to encounter Pikes in the field: the few Pikes Cathy managed to build/upgrade before Nathiri cut her Iron, will be the top-defenders in her towns (max. 1 per town, plus 1-2 Spears under it; except Moscow, which will likely have more). It may therefore be tempting to go after 'easy kills' of her low-D attack units in the open, but try to resist that temptation: while Pike-garrisons are certainly hard on attacking Horses, they will fall eventually, if sufficiently outnumbered -- so concentrate on capturing the towns, to maximise the effect of your (lower) unit-numbers, and reduce Cathy's productivity (while also raising our unit-support).

Prioritise capturing Novgorod (before Willy gets it) and Colonising its Iron (using a captured Russian Worker if possible. Once we have Iron (and the cash!), you should be able to upgrade (y)our remaining Horses in any convenient Barracks, and take the rest of Russia with relative ease (all due respect to Tusker, but you might consider leaving Moscow until last, so that Willy can weaken it -- and himself -- for us in the meantime).

 

[robbus]

Dear team

I am S-L-O-W-L-Y playing my turns... Partway though turn 4 now.

Trying to follow the plan, I joined a worker to Copenhagen and it threatened to riot so I had to assign a specialist to calm them down and starve out the worker join, wasting a lot of food...

How could this have been avoided?

 

[robbus]

Here is my 289-290ad IBT save.

I have assembled a strike force on mount Novgorod with a spearman reinforcement on the way on the way.

I am having trouble assigning workers.

I do not have time for a fuller description but notable event is Alliance plus rop with Dutch against Russia . We lost silk luxury that I have not replaced.

What were 3 Aztec galleys are now one. Our galleys are in the shipyard after taking some damage

I have fought about 5 battles won 4 and retreated once I think.

 

[Nathiri]

Here is my 289-290ad IBT save.

I have assembled a strike force on mount Novgorod with a spearman reinforcement on the way on the way.

I am having trouble assigning workers.

I do not have time for a fuller description but notable event is Alliance plus rop with Dutch against Russia . We lost silk luxury that I have not replaced.

What were 3 Aztec galleys are now one. Our galleys are in the shipyard after taking some damage

I have fought about 5 battles won 4 and retreated once I think.

What was the situation that you had to use the galleys to sink? The galleys on the east were to prevent the AI to locate a path down there to drop troops off, forcing them to drop off troops where we preferred. I used galleys to sink an Arab ship, because of insufficient troops in the tundra peninsula, and it would of taken too long to arrive there, putting the city there in a bad situation. But it is better to kill the drop off troops because we would have a better attacking advantage than a 1-1 galley vs galley. Plus units are easier to build than galleys.

 

[Elephantium]

Trying to follow the plan, I joined a worker to Copenhagen and it threatened to riot so I had to assign a specialist to calm them down and starve out the worker join, wasting a lot of food...

How could this have been avoided?

Kick up the lux slider another notch. We're at the point where it makes sense to do that.

 

[Elephantium]

I looked at the save in more detail:

Trondheim should steal a mined grassland tile from Reyk:

Theim: 14->15 spt
Reyk: 11->10 spt

Karasjok needs to switch to a new build IMMEDIATELY! A regular Spearman is a waste of shields. Build a Galley instead.

Ditto at Kufah and Yaroslavl.

MM Stavanger for growth.

For Workers:

2 Workers FORTIFIED between Reyk and Aarhus (???): Join with Reyk
The one by Hareid: Help irrigate. That completes the project; the other one should help finish irrigation S of Molde. That Worker should move to start a road next to Alesund.
By Yaroslavl: Help finish Stavanger's irrigation; those Workers can help speed the road to Novgorod.

2 Workers by Karasjok: Help chop 1N of Aarhus. Join with the city next turn.
By Stockholm: Move towards Aarhus
By Bergen: Move towards Aarhus
By T'heim: Join with Copenhagen

Worker Irrigating desert by Stavanger: Cancel that job; he's more useful heading up towards Novgorod.

Around Stavanger, finish the Mine right next to the city, then mine 1 more hill, then join 5 Workers ASAP after the city hits size 7.

By my count, we need 25 Worker joins to get our major cities up to size 12 (including the joins suggested above).
Theim: 1 (We'll get the last pop point through growth)
Copenhagen: 1
Reyk: 2
Birka: 5 (join after it grows to size 7. Steal the irrigated grass from Yekaterinburg and MM Yekaterinburg every turn to stay at +5 fpt)
Aarhus: 5 (join after growth next turn)
Stockholm: 5 (join workers built in Oslo)
Stavanger: 5 (after it grows in 4 turns -- MM'd for growth -- join 5 Workers)

 

[robbus]

Thanks guys

Nathiri- I attacked the Aztec galleys because there were 3 of them and I felt we were thinly defended. 2 spears, 2 horses with 2 reinforcements rding south east of bergen. I figured on losing one galley and them losing a galley. Leaving 2 enemy galleys with 4 horse defenders waiting for them. I won the first battle... got cocky and won the second. Probably was risky but worked out...

Your concerns are well placed, Nathiri.

Thanks for the input Elephantium. I was afraid to use cash on the lux slider. After screwing up happiness in Cope I was reluctant to have workers join cities. But we seem to have a lot of workers.

Will do some more turns tonight or tomorrow if I can get off work.

 

[Elephantium]

As many workers as we have, we still need a bunch more! All the joins we're planning will swamp even the force we have.

 

[robbus]

Question about upgrading elite archer and spearman:

I upgraded them then noticed they lost experience from elite to vet. (Don't worry I switched them back using the time machine).

I understand that elites create leaders when victorious(sometimes).

Q: What is the best plan for these 2 units and why?

Q: How do you insert spoilers? Is it with insert Icon? Sorry but I don't know