Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

That' said, I am really curious to see Sulla open his save to check what Kongo did.

[Sullla]

Timmy, that's a very good question. We need a ton of gold to pull off all of those upgrades; let's look just at the income part of the equation and not the research component for the moment.

The upgrade formula is 10g + 1.5 * difference in production cost between the units. Professional Army policy helpfully cuts this in half, and we can assume that it will be in place for all of our upgrades. What are we looking at then in terms of costs?

Legion to musketman upgrade: 110 to 240 production = 102 gold * 6 = 615 gold
Sword to musketman upgrade: 90 to 240 production = 117 gold * 2 = 235 gold
Catapult to bombard upgrade: 120 to 280 production = 125 gold * 2 = 250 gold
Horseman to cavalry upgrade: 80 to 330 production = 192 gold * 10 = 1925 gold

Galley to caravel upgrade: 65 to 240 production = 136 gold * 6 = 818 gold
Quadrireme to frigate upgrade: 120 to 280 production = 125 gold * 12 = 1500 gold

OK, so that's a heck of a lot of money there. I get a sum of 5300 gold and clearly we won't have quite that much available in the immediate future. However, it's not quite as far out of reach as you might think. We have 1800 combined gold in the bank right now, and we're making a combined 165 gold/turn at the moment. Obviously that income will drop somewhat as we upgrade units, but we'll also be getting some more money from larger cities and stronger policies, so hopefully it will balance out somewhat. Triangular Trade in particular will help Rome offset some of these increasing unit support costs. If you take our current income of 165 gold/turn and multiply that by 15 turns, we would generate a projected 2500 gold together. Add that to our current 1800 gold treasury and we're in the ballpark with about 4300 gold available for unit upgrades. Maybe we end up with something like 8 cavalry and 10 frigates to start and then upgrade more of them as we go along. It's a stretch but we're in the general area here.

What about the research side of things? Rome only needs to reach Square Rigging and Printing (to pass the boost along to China) and both of them should be easily doable. China is the trickier issue here; China needs to finish Metal Casting for bombards and then Siege Tactics, Printing, and Military Science, fortunately with the boosts unlocked for all of them. Metal Casting costs 264 beakers, Siege Tactics costs the same 264 beakers, Printing is cheaper at 216 beakers, and Military Science is the most expensive at 338 beakers. That's 1082 beakers combined, or 18 turns of research at China's current pace of 59 beakers/turn. We can expect to shave some turns off of that as research rate increases, so figure maybe 15 turns of research required? That puts us at... Turn 127, right around where we're thinking. I think the math lines up, largely because that 60% boost for China's unique ability really comes in handy here.

Going through this exercise also made me realize something else, something that should have been more obvious to me: the upgrade math applies to the other teams too! It's not as though all of the Nubian crossbows instantly become field guns the moment that they discover Ballistics tech. The crossbow to field gun upgrade isn't too costly at 117 gold apiece (in Professional Army policy), but if the England/Nubia team continues to sit around with no money in the bank, that would make them a lot more vulnerable to attack. We are the only team with any kind of war chest right now, and that's a huge factor in terms of strategic planning. Heck, England/Nubia apparently can't even manage to upgrade their current army to contemporary tech, given that England has only just been able to upgrade chariots into knights and archers into crossbows. They are also making about half of our gold/turn income right now, about 80-90 gold/turn as opposed to our 165 gold/turn. This is one of those things that we have to watch and see. If they still have no money in the bank and a mediocre income a dozen turns from now, that makes the case for attacking look a whole lot stronger. We shall see.

[Modo]

When you take Nan Madol if you don't have a DoF in place they might consider it as a prelude to an invasion and get ready for it, with a DoF in place they might think they have more time and not ramp up their gold reserves.
As an aside, I wish the game would allow the players to choose the time for each agreement....30 turns in the early game is a very different time frame than later on.

[roland of gilead]

Hi have just caught up with this over the last month so will be dedlurking this thread. 

The question to ask yourself is if you do nothing what will the other 2 teams do. 

Will they see you as the biggest threat and team up?

or will England go after Germany etc. 

good luck guys i caught up right at the exciting bit. oh and for heavens sake get singa those truffles sulla 

[Sullla]

Roland, that's a really good point. A lot of what we choose to do needs to be based on anticipating the reactions of the other players. Woden in particular has been known to carry a grudge, and it might not be the best idea to put him in a winless scenario where he spends the rest of the game trying to drag us down. Anyway, we're keeping our options open for right now. Here's the anticipated Turn 112:



As expected, my exposed knight was killed between turns by Japper. That was the first unit either of us has lost all game, and while it's not surprising to lose a unit when pushing against an enemy capital city, I think I might have been able to save this unit if my positioning had been better. Japper used his injured Ngao Mbemba to claim the kill, which suggests that he had already used his ranged attacks against the target. Would he have still managed to kill the knight if I had finished off the Ngao Mbemba last turn? Impossible to know from our perspective. Still, I might have been able to save this unit with better prebattle positioning. I was caught off guard by the ability to attack on Turn 111, thinking we would have to wait until Turn 112.

The good news is that Japper apparently didn't do anything else to stop our tactical planning. No new units in his cities, nothing to stop the battering ram from crashing up against the walls of Heart of Darkness this turn. Let's get some of those walls down, shall we?



Max Havellar was first. I rotated the healthy knights up to the north, then sent in the three remaining knights in the south. I attacked first with the undamaged knight east of the city center tile, then attacked with the knight on the tile southeast of the city. They did practically identical damage on the attacks, 36 damage to the city itself and 6/7 damage to the walls. I found it interesting how more and more of the damage was bleeding through to the city itself as the walls weakened. They were gone completely after the second attack, leaving the third and final knight free to attack without impediment:



Boom! 70 damage just like that. I nearly captured the city myself, which I didn't even think about before ordering this attack. The first two knights were doing chip damage and then this guy almost leveled the place in one blow. Anyway, we should be set up perfectly here for Singaboy to take Max Havellar with his knight southwest of the city, leaving the northern Chinese knight free to move up and attack Heart of Darkness this turn. Speaking of the Kongo capital:



The battering ram and its legion escort were free to move right up next to the city center, although the legion won't be able to attack until next turn. The important units were now the two knights, who had free reign to punch at Heart of Darkness from the tiles east and southeast of the city. (Side note: how cool is it that we're hitting Japper's cities from the EAST to capture them? Heh.) Even with the combination of the crossbow defender, the city walls, Bastions policy, and the palace boost, the walls crumbled almost immediately. The first knight took out 39/50 HP, and the second knight did the rest. No more shooting at our guys from the protection of those walls.



Next, I moved a crossbow east onto the bananas plantation and fired on the nearly dead Ngao Mbemba, eliminating it instantly. (I marked the location with an "X" above.) This left my northernmost crossbow free to take a potshot at a Ngao Mbemba on a nearby jungle hill. While that only did 17 damage thanks to the combination of Tortoise promotion and their innate ranged defense, it's still more than the unit can heal in a turn of resting. Not so for my guys: with the Great Scientist in position, I fortified the injured legion and knight pictured above in place to let them heal for the turn. They'll both heal back 30 HP by virtue of being in neutral territory and will be at full strength next turn.

Of course, Japper is free to move up his Ngao Mbembas to try and attack them, which I'd be very happy to see him do. He can't kill the legion (with Battlecry promotion and a ton of defensive bonuses) nor my crossbows, each of which can only be attacked by a single unit. Please do come out of your fortified defensive positions and try to slug it out with me, Japper! I don't think he will though. Japper's Ngao Mbembas are quite strong against ranged attacks, and he can turtle up in the jungles for a little while yet if he wants. However, because he's taken all those anti-ranged promotions, his units are very weak to melee attacks. Battlecry-promoted mustkets with 62 strength will absolutely murder them, since the Ngao Mbembas only have 36 base strength of their own. Give them another +10 strength for fortification and rough terrain and whatnot, and it's still roughly +15 strength in favor of my guys, a one-sided slaughter. Time is rapidly running out for his units.



Here's an overview of the front lines. I'll come back to this in a minute, I just wanted to showcase what we're dealing with here. So far the war is going about as well as we could have expected. No major setbacks and only one unit lost thus far. (If you count the extended war that started on Turn 90, we already have two cities in hand and are closing in on two more. Not bad at all.)



There was one more combat that took place in the far north, where my quadriremes set up for a kill on this barbarian next turn. There's nowhere that this enemy ship can go, literally nowhere with Cartography tech finishing between turns and opening up ocean movement. I had been holding off on the tech for several turns until Ravenna finished one last galley, which it did complete at the start of this turn. So barring something truly weird happening, I'll pick up the Naval Tradition boost next turn and set up a double civics swap, finishing Reformed Church at the end of Turn 113 / beginning of Turn 114, followed by Naval Tradition the following turn. I'll run a single turn of Land Surveyors and Professional Army, then swap out of both of them back to normal policies. Musket and caravel upgrades, here I come.

Singaboy, I'm going to need some more of your money.



Not too much is happening domestically right now, most of my core cities are on longer-term projects. It's nice to have a pair of libraries finishing in 3 turns though. We still have only 4 civs in the Renaissance era, and I only need to make it four more turns to claim that next Great Scientist. I suppose we should have kept Singaboy from advancing into the Renaissance era for Great Person purposes, but China had already researched 40% of Gunpowder tech earlier and there was nothing we could do when the boost arrived. Hopefully it won't matter either way.



This is the tactical situation around Max Havellar. It's pretty simple: Singaboy takes the city with his southern knight and moves up to attack Heart of Darkness with his northern knight. The only thing that gives me pause here is that Nubian horseman visible off to the east. It does have a Great General boosting it and therefore 5 movement points. Would it be possible for that unit to move west to the road and then attack and capture Max Havellar this turn? I'm about 80% confident that the mechanics don't allow that, since the horseman can't reach any tile next to the city center. I believe that a melee unit has to be able to get next to a target in order to be able to attack it. (You can move through units and cities but I believe attacking is another story.) I have to admit that I'm slightly nervous about this. Still, Woden doesn't have vision of anything happening over here. Would he really be able to pick the perfect path through the fog to attack this city, surrounded by enemy units, with a horseman that's not even at full health? It seems unlikely even if the mechanics will allow for the city capture - which I don't think that they do.

I'll feel a lot better when Singaboy plays his turn tonight and reports back that the city is in his hands.



Heart of Darkness is a little more complicated. In a perfect world, we'll hit the city with Singaboy's knight this turn and then four Roman knights plus a legion next turn. That should be enough to take the city if they can all get off their attacks. They may not all be able to attack, however, depending on what Japper does with his units on his turn. If there's any doubt then I won't attack the city until more units can get into position. I'm not leaving the biggest prize of this war to fall over to another team's control. None of these units should be in great danger of dying either; the crossbow can hit everything, but the Ngao Mbemba is pretty limited in what it can do since the tile northeast of the city is a hill. Those knights east of Heart of Darkness can only be attacked by the crossbow. (I guess a unit could pop out of the city, so there is that danger.) Heart of Darkness should drop pretty fast when we do decide to attack, however. A full strength knight should do around 50 damage on a successful attack, and the damage will keep increasing as the city drops in health. We should have control of this place on Turn 113 or Turn 114.

I didn't sit down and go through all the score tracking numbers yet for this turn, I'll have to do that before I go to bed and see if I can pull anything out of them. For now, I'm quite pleased with how things are going. I saw that Woden had a pretty big power drop between turns and TheArchduke didn't increase in science for this turn. Good enough for me. Have fun Singaboy!

[Singaboy]

Turn 112:

I waited a long time for this turn to come back to me. Before turning my attention east, I do some empire management first. The juicy nice stuff later

The chop at Tianjin nets 93*2 hammers as previously known. This results in walls done and 182/253 hammers for the campus done. The completion will take another 7 turns though with this pathetic production. I am switching to finish the granary next turn and then continue with the campus. Other cities continue with their projects. Shangdu and Beijing stop their builders for two turns before I will swap into Diplomatic Service next turn to complete a civic swap on T114. I am trying to delay this as much as possible to prevent too many turns in Professional Army. On T114 I will promote two crossbows and hopefully finish Metal casting the turn after that to promote two catapults.



Time to attack Max Havelaar. The good news is also that Khmer still has its last city standing. Khmer have lost some of their power though. Let's hope they last a few more turns. I attack with my southern knight and easily take the city. 
It would be great to have a missionary here, but you can't have everything. The knight earns its first promotion. I lock the Holy Site there at 253 hammers. Certainly, it needs the stone to be harvested for that. For now, It is repairing the monument. I do not get any boost in science and culture as some cities move from ecstatic to happy. I really need that chocolate amenity from Kongo's capital.



Of course, the northern knight attacks the capital, does 52 damage and gets the city to 120/200 health. This means that Rome can attack with their knights and a legion next turn. That should be enough to take the city even though a counter with the crossbow is expected. Japper might actually try and hit my knights as it is at 66/100 health now. It should survive though.
Sulla, once the city is taken, do not forget to send me 1/2 chocolate amenities. Every bit of boost for research counts here.




The situation at China's core. Germany is showing some muscles with his armada that he is sporting there. I am not sure what exactly he is trying to impress on us? A sign that he will attack unless we stop attacking in the east? We will take Seoul, no matter what, though. Too bad.

Beijing is running a commercial project as I might aim for a Great Merchant along the way. I do not want to produce a unit there at the moment and the campus needs the jungle to be chopped first. I might use the jungle to chop into Tianjin though and then use the forest south of Beijing for its own campus.
I am also thinking of sinking my two new envoys that I will get in 6 turns to be invested in Geneva to get additional boosts for my campus districts.




In the east, I drafted another horseman. the units at Savoia are getting ready to get upgraded before attacking Seoul. The chariot, and two swords will be upgraded on T114. I am trying to keep the units out of sight of Seoul as long as possible. What turn do we plan to attack, Sulla?
You can also see my three archers that are finally getting closer to the front there. I am trying to stay out of the way of Roman units and use waterways mainly.




Good luck, Sulla, for the next strike and the successful conquest of Kongo's capital.....and remember that chocolate

[Sullla]

Wow, what a fantastic turn! I will admit that I spent most of last night worrying about the slim possibility of that Nubian horse unit somehow slipping over to Max Havellar and capturing the city. I may or may not have checked our thread a bunch of times to see if there was any news. Fortunately it all proved to be a non-issue and Max Havellar fell as expected. Landing 52 damage from the knight attack against Heart of Darkness was also an excellent result. The city will heal back to 140/200 HP between turns, and I think that I should be able to take it with my units, barring some kind of terrible dice luck. I'll have two knights and a legion available to attack at a bare minimum, and I can probably get a third knight into position as well. I'm pretty sure that knights get to ignore zone of control rules like other horse units, so unless Japper moves his Ngao Mbemba to block the road leading east to his capital, my knight west of the Great Scientist should be able to reach the city center tile as well. Three knights + legion would 100% capture the city. It's only dicey if it's two knights + legion, and even then I think the odds are pretty good. Hopefully I'll be able to take the city and send you that cocoa resource that you requested.

Other issues:

* Tianjin's production should be just fine once you have a chance to mine the iron and plains hill tiles. That would get the city up to about 10 base production/turn, and that's a pretty solid amount.

* I noticed that the borders have expanded and the desert hill east of Tianjin is now within Chinese territory. If you reassign that tile to Quanzhou, it should get the Petra bonus - definitely worth mining that tile for the 2 food / 4 production / 2 gold yield.

* When I checked Khmer's power on my turn, Cornflakes was down to about 450 rating from an earlier peak of about 700 power. Woden was sitting around 750 power, down from an earlier peak of just under 1000 power. Obviously some of Woden's decrease in power rating is from injured units that can heal and fight again, but it does look like he's suffered some actual losses. We need to salute the Khmer team on their efforts at defending: they held long enough for us to run out the 10 turns of our peace treaty and get back into the action again. That wasn't obvious at all back on Turn 101, and the whole situation has worked out almost perfectly for us. We're already at 3 cities taken to their 2 cities taken, and presumably with fewer units lost in the process.

* Germany having five galleys in the water is important information to know. It tips us off that TheArchduke is planning to have a major naval presence, probably a lesson from the PBEM4 game. We definitely need city walls on the Chinese coastal cities to limit the first strike naval capabilities of Germany. It also makes the decision not to plant a second canal city all the more strange; Germany would be a lot more dangerous if those ships could move into the southern ocean at will.

* For Seoul, the plan is to attack as soon as I can get a battering ram into position. It will finish on Turn 115 and then takes three turns to move to the destination, so we can launch the attack on Turn 118. I'll have a caravel remove the walls with the battering ram (the galley next to Savoia will be upgraded into a caravel) and then you can go to town on your turn. I think there's time for your two catapults to reach the tiles east of the horses (on the plains hill) and NE-E of the city. Both of those spots will let a catapult fire immediately on the city center tile. So I'll drop the walls with my naval unit, you fire with the catapults and maybe the Crouching Tiger if it can get into position, and then you can hopefully take the city with one of those swords (muskets by that time?) or the chariot after it's been upgraded into a knight. It doesn't matter which one of us takes the city, if you can capture it immediately on Turn 118, you may as well do so and then gift it over to me. With any luck, the city will be ours in six more turns.

* The three archers slowly walking down to the front lines are pretty hilarious. I'm sure that they'll be useful down the road in some form. We may even be able to get the Crusade bonus if we can convert Heart of Darkness to our religion eventually.

* I'm going to suggest that Beijing work on something other than the Commercial district project, as I think that's a waste of production. District projects can be very useful to gain control over specific Great People, but that's pretty much their role in this game: going after key Great People. The current Great Merchant isn't particularly important (200 gold and 2 envoys) and China isn't close to claiming it. Sinking eight turns of production into a district project worth about 35 Great Merchant points doesn't feel like a good use of Beijing's time right now. What about another builder there? You can never have too many builders. Or if there's truly nothing else, then I'd go for an arena in the Entertainment district. It's not that the arena itself is terribly useful, but it would clear the way for a future zoo and stadium, which would be useful since they extend their amenity bonus to every city within 6 tiles. I'm sure that there's something else more helpful than the district project here at the moment.

Overall, everything is looking great. One Kongo city down, another on the way, and then one last tough nut to crack.

[Singaboy]

By the way, I don't think anyone can conquer a city without getting a unit next to the city. I was played out this way in PBEM2 and could not conquer a city state as it was blocked by scouts.

Just make sure, that Heart of Darkness is taken by your units and not left open for England or Nubia to be taken between your and my turn.

* An idea that came up now, since Germany has quite a few ships that could potentially threaten my new city (which would also act as a canal city in case Germany conquers it. Should I divert the settler and move the settler to the peninsula SE of Pagan? That would keep the city out of reach for the western navy Germany has

[roland of gilead]

can you get a canal?

if so i would get the canal. 

with ventian arsenal hopefully you are going to rule the seas not germany. 

if not then if it's not significantly poorer it's a good shout.

[T-hawk]

By the way, I don't think anyone can conquer a city without getting a unit next to the city.

This is true in Civ 5 too. You can't start any combat by moving through another unit, because the game can't know ahead of time that you will win the combat to be able to advance into the target tile.