Turn 199: 840 AD

[DeepO]

The new save has arrived already... this is nuts, I can only play it late tonight. I hope I get a bit of rest the next couple of turns, this is going too fast for me.

DeepO

[DeepO]

BTW, this should be 840 AD, of course.

DeepO

[Cort Haus]

Yes, it is going too fast, and we need to develop a war plan. I can try and catch MZ in chat tonight - or compose a PM, but what are the parameters? AIUI, we're looking at ~ 30-35 turns to kick-off? What sort of force do we expect to have by then, and what we will be asking of GoW?

When it goes too fast DeepO, just slow it down by giving yourself the time allowed, and frankly, break the rhythm and don't let ND have time to play it the same night. It's the only way

[Cort Haus]

I guess Tempest is on Rifles next build. It's tempting to try Sistine, but perhaps not. Ah, units at last.

[WarriorPoet]

Do we all get the save files? I'd like a look at the strategic situation, and as a new member, who should I be focusing on learning about? Vox or GOW?

[asleepathewheel]

If you want the save on arrival, contact vondrack of Legoland.

The world currently seems to be US/RP (our vassal) and possibly Gow (we can't always read them accurately haha) vs Lego/Vox (their vassal) and ND (whom used to partner with GoW but seems to be leaning heavily towards lego at the moment)

[Arrian]

Vox is largely a non-factor (especially now that their industrial free tech has been shopped around). RP is even more of a rump state, occupying Vox's former land to our north.

GoW, ND, and Lego are major powers. We are too, at least economically, but in terms of raw power we're running 4th. That includes allowance for growth of GoW/ND, as they expand & build hospitals. We have a tight build and have long ago come close to maximizing our useable tiles. Hospitals will not help much, and we've no room to expand into. So, while we are often 2nd or 3rd in key stats, as time passes we will likely drop towards 4th.

Lego is the favorite to win. They own their own continent, though they shared it with Vox (Vox is to Lego what RP is to us), so they are fairly secure. They are huge, and populous (Pyramids). They *just* finished their GA.

After Lego it's either GoW or ND. I usually view ND as the solid #2, but GoW actually has some advantages IIRC (for now, higher pop, and of course Leonardos). Once ND finishes resettling RP's land and pumping up their pop, they will be #2... but it's a pretty decent drop from Lego. The worrisome bit is that ND has said several times that they aren't really interested in taking Lego down. GoW thinks they can be convinced otherwise, but I'm not so sure.

GoW is decent, though I'm not real impressed with their economy. Leos helps make up for that. They are our main hope for an alliance vs. Lego, unfortunately (our relations have been rocky in the past, and I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that we don't trust them, nor they us).

Of course, in order to hit Lego, GoW would need to feel secure with ND, and vice-versa. This also plays into Lego's hands. GS can attack Lego, but at this point that will require marines (a LOT of marines) and we cannot have the element of surprise: Lego has a line of picket ships set up to see any approaching assault (and they have Magellans too, which sucks). If we have marines, others will or will shortly, and our vulnerability to marine attack from GoW or ND is huge, given that our west coast is reachable in a single turn of movement from the east coast of Bob in some places. So that's always a worry.

Winning will not be easy. On the upside, we just finished ToE and will be getting Hoover (ok, that's mostly denial value). Our other still-functioning wonders include the Colossus, Copernicus and Newton. Hence the tech lead.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Major hangover here... sorry if I won't comment much at this moment, and just play the save, and send it forward.

CH, you're right about the need for a war plan, and yes, rifles are next in Tempest. I'm planning on doing an analysis and see what we can build where, and what kind of force we're expecting in 30-35 turns (which will have to be the invasion date, as later our disadvantage will only grow). But not today...

Arrian, I agree with most of what you said, except that GoW is not weak, or bad in economy. They're very close to us, and are collecting more culture then us...

WP, I sent you the save. Password is OneToRule. Please ask Vondrack for regular saves...

Damn, my head is killing me
DeepO

[DeepO]

Start
- ND sends an accepted offer for 150 gold. Accepted

- Cyclone builds worker, starts worker.

- Send Electricity accepted to RP

- Someone (Lego?) have discovered Corporation. The cost went down considerably. ND may have gotten it as well, don't know... don't want to calculate it today...

- RP have moved their sea wall out of the way! That was not the plan... I'm filling it again with workers

- 900 gold, 60%,487 bpt, 69 gpt
- 41 workers

Moves
In general, the specific worker moves are not covered anymore, it gets too tedious. Only important stuff is mentioned.

- RR on D-ville 2. factory in 3.
- RR on El Paso 7, 8, 89, 9, 3, 32
- RR on San Antonio 89, 8, 7, 1.
- RR on Monterrey11 (2 workers)

- Galley2 moves 6669. All of Antarctica spotted, returns home.
- our Southern most galley Moves 888, returning home.
- our Western most galleon moves 7777. Will return towards Stormia via the North. more pickets spotted of both Lego as GoW.
- Northern most galley moves 966
- last Galleon (West of Inchon) moves 9699.

workforce shuffles
- Cyclone set back to ideal pattern (needs this every turn).
- Tornado and Sufa swap coast and sea tiles, for +1bpt.

Current Builds


Eli : harbor in 10
Inchon : Harbor in 3
WoC : Iron Works in 8
Inchoff : market in 17
Diss : factory in 3
Santa Ana : factory in 16
Blizzard : factory in 7
Monsoon : factory in 19
Arashi : factory in 7(one shield short on eta -1)
WW : factory in 14
Tempest : factory in 3
SS: worker in 1
Hurricane : factory in 4
OG : factory in 17
EotS : Hoover Dam in 7
BB : factory in 6
Cyclone: worker in 1
Tornado : factory in 5 (one more shield for eta -1)
Typhoon : factory in 9
Sufa : factory in 23

Other
- #3 in Mfg Goods. GoW has gained on us again.

- Lego doesn't have Sanitation yet. Vox neither. Further all techs have been distributed

- turn will be sent in 5 minutes.

- with shuffling, we're at 489 bpt and 68 gpt (60%).

Next Turn


DeepO

[Cort Haus]

GoW chat

Chat with Master Zen of GoW here .

1. I said that we want to hit Lego in 30-35 turns - how are they placed to join that. He thought it soon initially, but agreed we had to strike soon.

2. Chaining of vessels might be a no-no - Trip will declare for us on that one (nods respectfully towards Barad-Dur). Specifically Vondrack got very upset, it seems, when H_E chained on him in a PBEM. This will blunten our capacity but 'rools is rools'.

3. The first GoW factories come online in ~5 turns, the 2nd wave in ~9 turns.

4. They have Rep Parts in 3 turns.

[DeepO]

Nice to see you're picking up diplo with GoW, CH. We will definately need more of that soon...

As to analysis: I'm starting on it, but I'm not feeling well... apparantly my hongover of yesterday was not that much a hangover, as general illness... a bit of a fever, and a cold. Nothing too serious, but it's hard to concentrate.

Very roughly, I've been looking at some numbers, and it doesn't seem that good for us: once factories and Hoover is finished, we'll have 9-10 cities capabable of 40 spt or more in mobilization, 6 of those able to get 60 spt. We will nowhere get enough spt for 1-turn tanks at size 12... but 2-turn, or 3-turn tanks are nice as well.

Very roughly, I guess we'll need at least 15 turns after tanks to have a decent enough force ready (nearing 100 tanks), but part of that can be built when we're already under way with our invasion, especially if we're not allowed to galley-chain. Transports, artillery and defenders will not be a problem, these will be done before we get to tanks and marines.

I'm going to check whether sacrificing pop in some cities can't give us a few supercities which can do 1-turn tanks, or at least 1-turn marines, we'll need a couple of hospitals, but if a city is producing 88 spt (like EotS in Mobilization would be), it is still producing 2-turn tanks... that's a terrible waste of shields.

Oh, BTW, since when would galley chaining be a problem? We did that during the RP-war, and nobody complained. I'm not going to say we need exploits to win, but why would that be an exploit? It costs you more transports to get a job done, but for the extra shields and upkeep, you gain mobility. Sorry, but I don't consider that an exploit, but advanced play. Unless someone tells me not to use it, I wouldn't dream of leaving it out.

DeepO

[Jon Shafer]

Re: GoW chat

Originally posted by Cort Haus
2. Chaining of vessels might be a no-no - Trip will declare for us on that one (nods respectfully towards Barad-Dur). Specifically Vondrack got very upset, it seems, when H_E chained on him in a PBEM. This will blunten our capacity but 'rools is rools'.

Chaining is similar to teleportation in its effects and similar to to cut-and-dry cheating in its results. The ability to move a large number of units across the oceans in a single turn (and beyond, if you use Marines to capture a city and then RRs to move on inland) is completely past the scope of the designers and makes a mockery of the combat system.

So as you can see, I don't like chaining...

I didn't mind too much during the war against ND-GOW because the effects were not as great as being able to cripple a nation in a single turn because of the lack of RRs and Marines, but now that the abilities of combat units are enhanced it can be a serious game-breaker.

[vmxa1]

Yeah it is out. Nice job on the chat CH.

[DeepO]

I don't agree... but if that's the framework we'll play in, we'll just adjust our plans. No big deal.

Just for the record, a few reasons why chaining can't be compared to teleportation:
- the first batch of transports aproach land just as non-chaining transports do. If your defense is good, knocking these out will be easier as there won't be that many transports as when all of them come together in one bunch
- chaining requires you to defend a chain, any ship lost in the middle will break the chain.
- marines to capture a city, and RR to move inland is just the same in chaining or non-chaining ploys. The 'problem' is in capturing a city and moving a large numbers of troops in, not in how these get transported over the seas.
- Without chaining, it takes ages to reinforce a naval expedition, making them extremely hard to perform.
- infinite movement exists for land transport(RRs), air transport(rebase of planes, unit transport between airports), and for naval transport by chaining. So what is it that makes one of those three "completely past the scope of the designers" if the others are written explicitely into the game?
- chaining exists since Civ 2 (Maybe 1 even, but I'm only using it since 2). If it was a problem, it would have been easy to patch in the past 10 years. Most other problems were fixed, and these were in many cases not so easy to solve

I'm sorry, but I can understand why anybody that was once the 'victim' of chaining screams, I can not see why others have to rule age-old tactics out of the game because they don't like them. That being said, I'll shut up, and just use less transports, and more tanks when planning our invasion force

DeepO

[Jon Shafer]

I hate RRs, but I guess my beef is with Soren on that one.

Transporting by air has it's own issues. Additionally, infinite rebase was done away with.

Simply because there are a lot of ways to foil chaining doesn't mean it isn't a form of exploit.

Look at it this way. A successful chain + a number of combat Settlers (quite a lot, I admit) can bring any civ to its knees in a single turn. A few Marines, a few Cavalry, a few Settlers and a lot of Transports can tear the heart out of a civ like nobody's business.

Anyways, I am going to be starting an exploit discussion in the main forum which I hope will culminate into some sort of banned exploits/rules list, so that all the teams can together decide what is and what is not acceptable. I'm not infallible nor do I claim to be and if the teams feel that chaining (and other tactics) are acceptable, then I will not stand in the way.

So you may yet win.