UNGY-04 Who do they think they are?

[silverbullet]

I don't mind building soon to be obsolete ships and upgrade later. Is upgrade more expensive than rush buying with Kremlin?

Also, I think we can catch most of Shaka's navy in the port, so maybe we don't need that many ships.

In my opinion Shaka is a better choice than Charie because:
1) His land is much better/bigger
2) Removes a potential threat.
3) Charlie can still be useful for future tech trading (we might get him friendly by mutual struggle).
4) A good target practice for a future war with almost 0 losses.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm sorry.
I'm quite busy writng my "abitur thesis" and with numerous squash matches/tournaments. In 2 week's it'll be fine again. Boy, I haven't played a SP game in months... Next to all remaining leisure/civ time gets eaten by SGOTM...
Often, in war, speed is crucial. I wouldn't wait for destroyers to go after shaka, just get artillery and kill him. We can minimise naval losses by bringing our stacks in place early, DOW, load off the units and have our ships disappear.

 

[ungy]

I'm sorry.
I'm quite busy writng my "abitur thesis" and with numerous squash matches/tournaments. In 2 week's it'll be fine again. Boy, I haven't played a SP game in months... Next to all remaining leisure/civ time gets eaten by SGOTM...
Often, in war, speed is crucial. I wouldn't wait for destroyers to go after shaka, just get artillery and kill him. We can minimise naval losses by bringing our stacks in place early, DOW, load off the units and have our ships disappear.

np--just pop in and post that you need the skip.

Yes we might be able to amphibiously invade the near city and take out his fleet at one stroke.

I'm for getting Shaka, for the reasons Silverbullet mentions.

So I guess the plan would be to hustle up an army of arty/rifles cutting research to 0 once arty is in?

I can't take it before Mon at the earliest.

 

[silverbullet]

One thing to make sure - the capital (with SoZ) should be the 2nd city we capture (The first would be the city with the docking fleet, assuming it's still there when we attack).

 

[Rusten]

This all sounds good to me, I'm definitely for attacking Shaka.

Regarding the SoZ: I agree that taking it is a priority but it's not that important in 3.17 as the WW is much lower. We'll still want to take it fairly early, but no need to rush towards it.

 

[pigswill]

And of course cashrush all missing banks, markets and grocers before rushing a single unit.

 

[silverbullet]

Question about rush buying mechanics:

Suppose the city has production of 10 hammers per turn.
We spend 1 turn into a unit that costs 100. We now have 10/100.
We spend 90x2=180 gold to rush buy the unit.
On the next turn the unit is built. Do we have any overflow in the queue at this point? I would expect an overflow of 10 (since we "paid" for 90 hammers but we also produced 10 hammers during this turn).
However, I think I remember that rush buying actually leaves us with 0 overflow.

IF that is the case, it's definitely better to rush buy in the lowest production cities only.
I am away from the game now so I can't test it now.

EDIT: just tested it. We get overflow as usual after rush buying, so it doesn't matter that much where we rush buy. I still think it's more advantageous to rush buy in low production cities, but we don't have to be so strict and it will depend on circumstances.

 

[ungy]

OK time to get this one moving again:

Looking at the diplo screen I see Nappy and Wang are now each other's worst enemy--Joao is nobody's. I try selling him nat for 120g to get relations improved. He will now trade tech and OB with us. I rush buy a couple of buildings in high commerce cities.

Basic war plan will be to build a couple of units to defend the island while the main force starts with an amphibious attack to take out Shaka's fleet.


1625 ...

1630 ...
Joao asks for con, I give it to him.

1635 arty in cut research to 0.

Looking at the commerce at this point our best rush buys are banks which would get us a 6% return on our cash at 100%. That is pretty good, but we won't be running 100% cash for too long. Hmm. I decide to set the floor at 5% return and rush a couple.

Upgrading cats-arty=320g, actually more than the cost of building them (300). However, we've got them in place so I keep them. Axe and holkan are also more expensive to upgrade but I keep them around in case we have an emergency.

1640 Joao takes FM--we OB. Joao is in WHEOOH. Hmm. I have a hard time imagining that it's us.

1645 Shaka has ship of the line and grennies. Makes taking out his navy more important.

1650 Shaka's fleet seems to be split.
I send our spy to Shaka to steal drama or possibly take down culture for an invasion.

1655...

1660 we pick up gems from Joao. Emancipation at -2. Now Wang is in WHEOOH. We're at pleased so I'm pretty sure it's Nappy. We spot the portugese fleet in port.

1665 ...

1670 Over to the next general! I think we are ready to go in a few turns here. We have some reinforcements coming from the island that I think we should bring over prior to attack so that would put attack in around 4 turns.

Overall, this rushbuy seemed to work pretty well.
We run around 1080 GPT now, and can pretty well buy every other turn in the non-bonus cities. Not sure when we want to resume research but probably pretty soon.

Joao is researching SM--I'm thinking it's time to trade for economics.

I renegotiate a bunch of trade deals, we can take 2 happy from Wang but they aren't going anywhere so we can wait until we go to war.

 

[silverbullet]

Ungy - where's the save?

 

[ungy]

save is here--good to see you're right on it!

 

[pigswill]

Looking good. We might (its unprecedented but what the heck) get some good use out of ironclads to protect our fleet from ships o' the line.

Looks like Field Commander Rusten is next to run the gauntlet.

Edit: Running either cottages or workshops I really don't see the benefit of slavery (but can see pitfalls like emancipation misery and slave revolts).

 

[Rusten]

Alright, this came in at a good time as I just finished my SGOTM duty. I've got it and will have a look later on and post some thoughts.

 

[ungy]

Looking good. We might (its unprecedented but what the heck) get some good use out of ironclads to protect our fleet from ships o' the line.

Looks like Field Commander Rusten is next to run the gauntlet.

Edit: Running either cottages or workshops I really don't see the benefit of slavery (but can see pitfalls like emancipation misery and slave revolts).

yes I can't remember the last time I built ironclads--but we've got +1 movement and we're frigates facing SOL so probably never a better time.

Yes I think once we launch our attack we should take emancipation.

 

[Rusten]

Had a look at the save now and it seems pretty clear-cut what to do so not many thoughts here -- I'll start the war vs. Shaka.

Now Wang is in WHEOOH. We're at pleased so I'm pretty sure it's Nappy.

It could be something related to cultural victory as well. I often see (culture) AIs enter WHEOOH at the same time as they start increasing their cultural efforts (and never start any wars).

I'll probably play this some time tomorrow unless I get to it late tonight.

 

[mystyfly]

It could be something related to cultural victory as well. I often see (culture) AIs enter WHEOOH at the same time as they start increasing their cultural efforts (and never start any wars).

That sounds interesting. I never noticed that, might be a defensive mechanism vs bribes from other civs (humans could do it on purpose and AIs "accidentally").

Had a look at the save now and it seems pretty clear-cut what to do so not many thoughts here -- I'll start the war vs. Shaka.

I have nothing to say either

BTW I'm still following the thread and would like to rejoin should this game last longer than the 20th of octobre... I'd "sacrifice" myself for mop up duty again

 

[Rusten]

Started playing but doing a pit stop as something pretty annoying is about to happen (it seems).

These ships just popped up so Toku is probably declaring war on us. I haven't done anything but ending the first turn yet.



I guess Shaka bought himself some extra turns. Do we want to shift to Toku or just defend our island and take out Shaka anyway. We're going to lose that first city I assume, but the other 3 should be saved.

After seeing that WK is furious towards Napoloen chances are that he is preparing for war after all. I think every leader is in WHEOOH atm.

FYI Toku refuses to talk.

 

[silverbullet]

I would say just defend. Once we have the statue of Zeus it will be very hard for Toku to keep the war going, and will make him even more backwards if he does.

Shaka's land has a nice shrine and looks better in general, and the opportunity to sink so many ships in port is just too tempting.

If we upgrade the lobgbow and rush buy the artillery in Yokib, this may just be enough to convince Toku to land and not attack amphibiously. He has Curassiers and Grenadiers and at most 6 units, so he might not want the additional 50% penalty. In any case it shouldn't be too difficult for the island to defend.

 

[pigswill]

Agree with Silverbullet. Toku's current invasion fleet shouldn't be too threatening. Couple of defending rifles should deter amphibious assault and artillery would seriously hurt a small stack. It probably means that units on the island should stay there rather than join the invasion of Shaka. Maybe rebase a couple of airships to pick away at his fleet.

Edit: On reflection maybe it is worth changing targets. We could save diplomatic complications if Tok declares on us rather than us declaring on Shaka. We could even earn some browinie points with Shaka by joining a faux war against Chuck. Jo has enough on his hands but its not clear who's his target.

Maybe its even worth playing wait and see. Switch back to research and nab railroads/combustion for railways, MGs, destroyers (yum) and transports while seeing how the AI wars pan out.

 

[ungy]

I would say just defend. Once we have the statue of Zeus it will be very hard for Toku to keep the war going, and will make him even more backwards if he does.

Shaka's land has a nice shrine and looks better in general, and the opportunity to sink so many ships in port is just too tempting.

If we upgrade the lobgbow and rush buy the artillery in Yokib, this may just be enough to convince Toku to land and not attack amphibiously. He has Curassiers and Grenadiers and at most 6 units, so he might not want the additional 50% penalty. In any case it shouldn't be too difficult for the island to defend.

I'd agree with just defend vs. Toku. I wouldn't put much stock in the SOZ--I'd be inclined to just wait for him to talk and offer up a tech.

I'd continue with the original plan.

 

[mystyfly]

I'd also just defend, try to keep kill:loss ratio high (not suicide axes (suicide them against shaka )) to get peace soon. He won't have many troops in these 2 galleons and I doubt he'll do much damage, we can cash/pop-rush emergency defenders anyway, and toku will waste turns landing units and bombarding defences.

SoZ won't hurt Toku much (high-level AIs don't seem to know warweariness...).