RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Speaker]

I just got home from a very long weekend, and figured I'd answer some of your questions. I hope I managed to get them all. If I missed you, feel free to repeat your question.

Now that we are out of war mode, Sullla will be largely taking over as the turn player, and I'll be helping out with the micromanagement and long-term planning. Managing our troops during the war was very stressful and consuming for me, so I'll be glad for the break. Apologies to the fine citizens of our empire for using the whip so readily, but desperate times call for desperate measures!

Wow, some of those Jowy moves. I just can't even figure out.

I can't believe I am defending him, but just remember that human players are far more devious than the AI. He saw our big stack converging to the east, and he figured that was all the units we were attacking with. He didn't know how many two-move units we had, since we had killed all his attacking units well before our defense was over. For someone not used to multiplayer, defending your land is incredibly difficult. Jowy's first mistake was planting his front 5 tiles from Sparta, so he couldn't shuffle units between them. And it appears that his unit placement was poor, so he was unable to defend multiple areas with the same units. Maintaining flexibility is key, as I hope I showed you all during our defense against their attack, with the way we were able to shuffle archers and axes between cities and keep a "zone defense" (speaking of zones, holy crap, what a win for Syracuse basketball tonight!). But putting yourself in Jowy's shoes, without access to our unit composition and troop location: would you have fared much better? We had 50% more power than him, after all, and many of our units had 2 promotions from earlier victories. Defending in multiplayer is seriously hard. And under a blazing turn timer, it's ridiculously hard. I have league players who have 1000 games under their belt make many of the same mistakes Jowy made. So he shouldn't feel *too* bad. And I give you lurkers permission to repeat that to him.

Congratulations, guys! Now, what does your tech plan look like after MC? Any ideas for that stone resource?

Metal Casting followed by Code of Laws for sure, and then we'll build (slave?) a round of courthouses, which will help our tech rate tremendously. After that, I will push for Machinery, and Sullla will push for Currency and Civil Service. But we have a pretty good idea on how to satisfy both of us, involving the stone resource. A plate of warm cookies to the first lurker who guesses the plan.

Are you going to rename the cities you "captured"?

Yes. I would like to name Argos as "St. Albans" and Thebes something like "Fort Henry," since it already has the walls. It just seems appropriate.

Click here for more information on the Raid of St. Albans. It was the northern-most action of the war, in a tiny town near the Canadian border in Vermont, and a pretty funny story actually.

Fort Henry was the Union's first important victory in the western theater, in Tennessee.

Good work on the peace treaty. I'm surprised you didn't capture/raze Athens before offering peace, but whatever.

We felt like if we did that, he would turn down our peace treaty and take the "fall on his sword" option, and just be annoying until we finished him off. We can take his remaining cities later with Medieval era units.

Is resettling Sparta part of your treaty, or are you just confident you can get there?

It wasn't part of the treaty. We'll be able to plant it next turn. I don't see how Jowy can beat that, or if he will even try.

Also, what were your plans with the slow stack if Jowy didn't accept peace?

Kill all his units and capture or raze Sparta.

it'll be interesting to see what you do with Thebes, considering what a crappy site you think it is built in

It's not so much that the city is that bad. It's that he had much better options, and could have planted it better (one tile north, for instance). It won't be bad for us long term though. Once we get calendar, we get 4 food from the sugar, and with just 2 farms, are up to the magical +6 food surplus. It will be a good commerce city, and has a couple hills it can use when production is needed. But it was madness for Jowy to plant it when there were other much better sites available.

Don't get me wrong...taking peace was the right move for all the reasons stated. I just wanted to make it clear the ghosts of Byzantine are not yet sated!

Don't worry, your loss will still be avenged!

The top GNP is 187!? Any idea who that is?

It's hard to tell with the chart going up and down and up and down. But it looks like either Kathlete (who is mass expanding) or Plako (who just built The Great Lighthouse and has all coastal cities).

Is that a galley scouting offshore city locations you have NW of Hampton Roads? Is it empty?

Our galley just finished and is starting to scout out a bit, and will return soonish to pick up a settler to plant our first island city. After that, we will probably see if we can gain more map information and figure out how close the other side of the donut is across the toroidal wrap.

Kathlete's galley pillaged our fish (twice!) and was then performing the ridiculously stupid "coastal blockade" feature. One boat stopped us from being able to work 24 tiles. Now aside from the realistic fact that one ancient era boat can not simply blockade that many miles of coastline, the silly part is that if we put a boat on a coastal tile, he would not have favorable odds to kill it, yet his coastal blockade would stop us from being able to work that tile. How does that make any sense? Of all the silly features that were introduced in Beyond the Sword, I think coastal blockades are the worst. But don't get me started on the rest...

[Shoot the Moon]

Metal Casting followed by Code of Laws for sure, and then we'll build (slave?) a round of courthouses, which will help our tech rate tremendously. After that, I will push for Machinery, and Sullla will push for Currency and Civil Service. But we have a pretty good idea on how to satisfy both of us, involving the stone resource. A plate of warm cookies to the first lurker who guesses the plan.

Hanging Gardens?

[Rowain]

I can't believe I am defending him, but just remember that human players are far more devious than the AI. He saw our big stack converging to the east, and he figured that was all the units we were attacking with. He didn't know how many two-move units we had, since we had killed all his attacking units well before our defense was over.

He knew you had fastmovers somewhere but didn't know where and your strike at Sparta took him by surprise.
And building the Great Wall during the war is close to AI-lvl play .

[Lurker]

I'd like to thank Speaker and Sullla for excellent updates and explanation... and then instantly turn around and ask for even more of their time! Sorry guys, but there is one thing that is confusing to me:

From what I gather (and note that I have no personal MP experience in CIV whatsoever),
a) You're going to be founding island colonies soon
b) Current NAP notwithstanding, for the forseeable future you are going to be in a state of perpetual hostility with at least Jowy and kathlete, and possibly others.
c) The key to MP war is being able to spot attacks early and shuffle troops to the affected areas quickly
d) Troops don't shuffle between islands very well

Since Speaker is doing it I assume it's a good idea, and I'm missing something either diplomatically, strategically or tactically.



Or in other words, I'm fishing for "Naval MP Doctrine, the essay" because I enjoy your writing and want more of it.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

I don't think we "owe" a complete description of everything we're thinking about.

FWIW, I agree. For us lurkers it's not easy to accept because by now we are spoilt from having received so many detailed posts from you until now, but that doesn't mean we suddenly have a right to get even more.

Like T-hawk said, I don't think any information would have leaked to other teams if you have posted about your plan - lurkers now are very sensitive with regard to spoilers. But if you decide not to post about surprise moves we have no right to complain, of course.

I hope y'all enjoyed Speaker's post of Jowy caught with his pants down as much as I did. (Speaker's comment to me: "don't do a image search for pants down")

-Kylearan

[Sullla]

For Lurker's comment on how to establish naval dominance: get better ships and get them in large numbers. If your opponent has galleys, build triremes, and so on. Because there's no "terrain" at sea, tech and numbers will pretty much always win. The only counter to a giant naval stack of doom is an even bigger naval stack of doom. That's why Speaker and I want to get some more port cities built very soon, and get some more galleys (and soon triremes) into the water.

All of the guesses about Argos were correct, we'd like to build the Hanging Gardens there. And since we have stone present, it's pretty easy to do. I have us spreading Judaism there with a missionary (for Organized Religion bonus) and chopping out the wonder in 9 turns from now:

T122 0/30 food, 0/100 aqueduct, 0/10 culture

T123 4/30 food, 8/100 aqueduct, 1/10 culture

T124 8/30 food, 16/100 aqueduct, 2/10 culture

T125 12/30 food, 24/100 aqueduct, 3/10 culture

T126 16/30 food, 32/100 aqueduct, 4/10 culture

T127 20/30 food, 40/100 aqueduct, 5/10 culture

T128 24/30 food, 48/100 aqueduct, 6/10 culture

T129 28/30 food, 56/100 aqueduct, 7/10 culture [spread religion]
whip 28/26 food, 131/100 aqueduct

T130 137/100 aqueduct = 74/300 Hanging Gardens, 9/10 culture
chop NE, chop NW [67 shields each]

T131 208/300 Hanging Gardens, 11/10 culture [borders expand]
chop E-E, NE-E [67 shields each]

T132 Hanging Gardens 342/300, overflow into forge

It could be done even faster, probably, but the limitation is actually getting a border pop in Argos (most of its forests are in the second ring), and we're not willing to lose out on shields by chopping them pre-border pop. If someone beats us to the Gardens, then we'll simply put those shields into a Forge and Stables instead, then crank some more units.

Assuming we would get the Hanging Gardens, we then follow up with a Forge, and with an Engineer running we would get 3 + 2 = 5 + 100% (Philosophical) = 10 Great Engineer points/turn. Since we already produced the early Great Scientist, we'd get a Great Engineer on Turn 152, and Speaker would get his Machinery lightbulb. We could even get a second Engineer in another 30 turns, for a potential Engineering tech lightbulb. That's assuming we don't go for some Great Scientists out of other cities, which is a real possibility.

Anyway, Speaker wanted us to move the Sparta replacement location down one tile for safety:



It's a little weaker, but vastly easier to defend. Good call. You can see the plan for the start of the next turn, workers roading (in white) and the settler then moving and founding on the yellow path. Jowy's probably not going to be too happy about this, but do you think we care about that? If he wants to attack us again, he can come get some more whoopass.

For those who missed it, the Great Wall was in Sparta, and it was razed to the ground. Since Jowy won zero battles against us after it was built, he didn't get even a single extra Great General point. Nice build, Jowy! Speaker pointed out that just building three spears instead would have saved Sparta, and prevented having to give away Argos and Thebes.

Building wonders - in border cities! - while in a hot war was definitely a poor decision.

Here's an updated look at Thebes, as its transformation continues:



Five workers added the farm to the south this turn, to give us a slight +3 food surplus. Meanwhile, Thebes borrows two tiles from Chancellorsville (which has extras while growing back from its latest triple whip, haha) so that it can avoid working those unimproved grassland forests. Not too much longer and this city will be supporting itself.

[binary010101]

I vote that the next city to be built be named "Harper's Ferry."

[Speaker]

Here are some of our latest diplomatic messages that have come through. One or two of them may have been posted in this thread already, but there are so many new pages, I don't feel like searching.

I'm thinking we may want to touch base with every team in the game and try to arrange a gChat, just to clear the air and make sure we are on the same page with each of them as to the state of our relations. What do you think, Sullla?

Hey Killer Angels,

We accept your terms for peace. I'll offer the trade in-game once I've sent out this message.

Should I consider our diplomatic relations to be open once again? There is much I want to clear up and discuss with you. Though I understand if you don't ever wish to talk to me again. What I really want to say, if nothing else, is that my war declaration was nothing personal.

~ Jowy

Hello Killer Angels,

I hope this finds your troops enjoying the new cities they have
earned! With an NAP in place with the 4 of us perhaps you could put
that army to use say against Mali ? Didn't think so as you probably
have to return his army back to him in a peaceful manner.

Anyways this e-mail is being written to try and guage how our
relationship stands and how much (if any) of a grudge you might hold
upon the Rebel Alliance for it's role in the attack against you. I
look forward to hearing from you.

Athlete for A/K
The Rebel Alliance

Dear Killer Angels,

This is really great news. Gongratulations for your big success.

Jowy's militarily seemed quite strong to me. Did he left his army to be smashed by siege or did you surprise him with fast movers? How big military he has now. I'm just considering how worried I should be and whether I should prioritize Metal Casting or Construction after I get Currency ready this turn.

Generally I think we'll be more or less beelining towards Astro and Chemistry. We can probably find profitable ways to co-operate on different parts of the tech tree.

Nakor/DMOC did suggest extending our NAP until turn 165-175. I'm currently thinking to accept, but if you've some plans with Dantski that would require our commitment I can decline. If I understood correctly, Dantki's NAP with Nakor is also ending on turn 135.

Best regards,
plako

This last one is pretty old, but I don't think we ever actually responded to it:

Dear Sullla and Speaker,

We, of the Holy Roman Empire, are glad that you're taking your time regarding our "cease fire" request.
Such things need to be thought through thorougly.
So this message won't concern that thought process.

Let's talk about our common neighbour, if you are so inclined.

We must applaus you on the deal you made with Dantski.
I don't know exactly what you promised him, but it must have bene quite a big sweet!
Could that sweet be "Krondor"? We had word from a little bird that that city was mentioned...

Of course we both know that Dantski will have problems in the middle and late game to keep up in research with all those financial civs.
The best way he can cope with that is by getting more cities.
And since he has made peace with you, we seem like the most likely target.
Krondor indeed is a gem of a city. We streched quite far to get it as our second city and we knew Dantski wouldn't like it a lot.
But what can we do about it... it was the only copper resource in reach for us...

Anyway, should Dantski declare war on us, he may leave his northern cities a bit under-guarded.
Your freshly trained troops could get some experience there, should such a situation occure.
Feel free to take any advantage you want if that happens.

Well, I hope I gave you some food for thought.

Kind regards,
Nakor of HRE

[Speaker]

With the war now officially over, I am preparing a post with a ton of screenshots showing an updated "state of the union." Look for it soon ™.

[Speaker]

Here's an overview of our empire:


Here is the city screen of each of our 7 cities: