10-03-2004 03:54									#301
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Outstanding earth-scorching session, Mr. Git!

	10-03-2004 16:14									#302
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Thanks for the complements, guys.
Needed to re-establish my street-cred after the sad 'Magellan Incident'
A thoroughly enjoyable RAR outing - I think I fancy a French city for my second one - it's odd playing with so few cities - I simply could not spend our income - and I think you all know how loth I am to keep money in the bank.

RAR licks incisors hungrily

	10-03-2004 20:55									#303
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Nice piece of Rodentia, Sir!!

I like it that you also celebrate and trade while kicking "A". Cheap science and keeps the bribe cost to the AI up. If someone quickly steals Electronics from the French, then all that cash can be used to rush Hoover out from under them. And that should solve the pollution problem for awhile.

I assume you are pointing to MobWar, so barracks are avoided??

Monk

	10-03-2004 22:04									#304
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Lookin' forward to a hot time tonight.

Also looking for a home.

	11-03-2004 07:38									#305
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Save tonight, log tomorrow.

Nope, didn't get Electronics until too late --

I guess, we'll have to get ourselves another city...

But I do have a home now.

And it has three wonders

Attachment: co_1870.zip
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	11-03-2004 14:25									#306
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I hope our treasury is sufficient to justify buying a SuperMarket before a CourtHouse! My build list would have been CH, MP, Bank, SM. However your defence in depth looks good. There appear to be slightly fewer Greek cities than before

Outstanding, O n S. New Oldville looks good with those nice shiny WoWs.

Stu

	11-03-2004 14:28									#307
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Sparrowhawk to bat ...

	11-03-2004 20:51									#308
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1861 -- RB a port facility in Keno, a Barracks in Spare Oval, a cruiser, alpine & spies. Reallocate a couple of citizens in Lago to get production up to 30 shields without stopping the celebration. (Babs switch to Democracy, Chinese discover Elec2 & start Hoover’s.

1862 -- RB a cruiser in Keno, a cav & more spies. (Oh yeah, how about a harbor for Six’s Torch?) Smack a couple of Greek knights and a rifle. Raze Thessalonica.

1863 -- More spies. Take El-Armana down a couple of notches. More RR towards Greek targets. Also stop to clean up a skull or two.

1864 -- Hit Pharsalos -- lose 5 spies for no reason (only much later does the thought occur that city walls may protect against water poisoning.) Rest of team engages in sabotage. Meanwhile on the water, sink two Greek frigates & a French ironclad in the eastern sea. Sink a Transport+ in the west.

1865 -- Six more spies are added to the team -- they hit the streets -- size nine Pharsalos razed (+14 coins -- not a great business, I’m afraid.) Sink two more Greek frigates. On the Egyptian front, we nail a cav, but lose a rifle. In Chartres, we unload Silk (d) = 462, Dye (d) = 308, Hides & Silver = 156, 160.

1866 -- 8 more spies (we do go thought these wonderful volunteers.) Raze size 4 El- Armana. Raze size 8 Eretria

1867 -- Push a transport out into the eastern waters. Slay five Greek units while RR towards destiny. Clean up another skull. (Two nations warn about completion of HD.)

1868 -- Push a second transport eastward. Barbs near Six’s Torch. Lose a cav. Smack some random units. See Rhodes (size 9) en route to Miletos (size 12). (French build Hoover’s, Chinese abandon.)

1869 -- 3rd transport in the east; ship chain 3 alpines, 5 spies (no cav because they won’r reach -- rats alpines won’t reach this turn either.) to the Egyptian frontier. Size 8 Memphis loses all of its infrastructure and we Take Memphis with its three wonders as our NEW HOME!. Also take GW & 135 in coin (gov’t to Pi-Ramses..

(Doh! The Egyptians know Elec2! We could have spent too much money & built Hoover’s. Oh well, now we have another reason to head for France (Paris has three wonders as well.) (French discover AT, Egypt discover Ref2, Chinese discover AW.) Lose a rifle, cav+ outside of Rhodes, we slay a knight, rifle, fan & 2 cannons. Not happy with the Greeks. Our wounded destroyer in the SW slays a Greek cannon & cruc.

1870 -- Egypt becomes commy (three nearby cities have almost completed city walls (FYI.) We also steal the rest of their techs -- Elec2, Ref1, Ref2. Meanwhile in Greece, the walls of Miletos come down and we raze Rhodes.

Notes -- We still have about 5K in funds (down from the 8K budget handed to me.) Haven’t seen an offensive boat in three turns+, so the west may be a little at risk as I’ve allowed the cruiser to go wandering -- we may want to recall it closer to the boat chain. In the east, I’ve recalled a boat for healing, another is at the Egyptian shore and the boat chain is there should the next player want to open up the Egyptian front in earnest. The Greek front stalled for a turn or two since we have too few engineers to RR to the next set of targets on an ongoing basis.

Also need to scout a bit more -- maybe use a spy & partisan/alpine team for deep recon.

SG -- I had a market in place, but opted for a supermarket (pun attempted) as the Egyptians did a nice job of farming the country side.

	12-03-2004 01:31									#309
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Query: Would VET spies be more successful poisoning the water??

Monk

	12-03-2004 08:04									#310
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Looks like another productive turnset.

Once again I am looking for guidance, right now I think I will be getting mainly Spies from my cities and using them to poison water (and bring down walls if necessary).

A couple questions for the audience though first:

- do you think it is better to poison cities down to size one (without walls) and then send in offensive units to destroy the city by destroying one defender or poison the city down to one more then there is units protecting the city (without walls) and then use offensive units to destroy the defenders and "scorch" the city?

- should we continue to focus on the Greeks? bring down the Egyptians (who though they have large perfectionist cities, don't have many left), or perhaps send some units north to the Mongols who are ripe for the picking, and I think one boatload could potentially take out their two southern cities, and potentially more

* Sparrowhawk likes the idea of the war on three fronts(though I know strategically it is a bad idea), just not sure I will make progress on any if I split my attack in three (especially with only 8 turns to do it in)

	12-03-2004 18:12									#311
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Greeks and Egyptians should be plenty.

And RB those spies. We'll need tons of them!

	12-03-2004 18:43									#312
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For what its worth my strategy was - take down walls - kill all defenders - poison until size 1 - raze.

Stu

	12-03-2004 19:09									#313
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and quite effective it was!

Now what's this about the Poison function not working on walled cities? (I rarely use the function and was unaware of this limitation.)

True? If so, odd imho.

Last edited by -Jrabbit on 12-03-2004 at 19:15

	12-03-2004 21:57									#314
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Simply not true!

	12-03-2004 22:00									#315
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and Monk - effective no - poisoning always works, but efficient yes - vets have a higher escape chance
Stu

	12-03-2004 22:35									#316
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quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits Simply not true!

Don't know -- all I know is that a lot of lovely ladies behaved like Cleopatra's end. (Five in a row.)

Sparrow -- I count the defenders, sabotage the infra (spy's choice -- better odds, but takes more spies; better chance of growing vets, I think.) Once walls are down, poisen until #defenders +1; smack away with vet cavs -- should get to an empty size one city -- enter with most wounded attacker & voila! Fresh land!

Took a few turns to get the system in gear -- also too many turns roading to next set of targets.

The Mongols are easy -- look how lokg the barbarians have held them at bay. -- Feel free to send a boat with a couple of spies that way to buy up some None units...Maybe get a second city? (but I don;t think that quality cities are in that direction.

Razing a couple of Egyptians cities would be appreciated -- not only will it solidify that front, but it will add to our presence on the rock & prepare us for more customers...

	12-03-2004 22:36									#317
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quote: Originally posted by Scouse Gits and Monk - effective no - poisoning always works, but efficient yes - vets have a higher escape chance Stu

Perhaps I misconstrued these words from OnS,

quote: lose 5 spies for no reason (only much later does the thought occur that city walls may protect against water poisoning.)

I didn't think walls mattered, but OnS seemed to imply that the poison attempt failed, not that the spies were lost after an otherwise successful mission.

So, OnS, did the poisoning work afterall?? Like Sir Rabbit, I have little experience using the poison function. Does it ALWAYS work??

Thanks.

Monk

	12-03-2004 22:48									#318
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OnS - I think SG(1)'s method is a little more elegant - hit with the cavalry first and poison when the city is empty. We know that an empty city lowers bribe cost, and it may be that poisoning is also more effective (or survival rates higher) when the city is empty. Nobody has tested this AFAIK.

	12-03-2004 23:19									#319
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Here is a link to SlowThinker's excellent work on dips &spies. The first reference is to a La Fayette research paper on poisoning.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthre...5830#post335830

According to this, poison water is always successful as Stu said.

I still do not understand the OnS comment.

Monk

	13-03-2004 03:07									#320
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Must be that he was losing the spies while the city shrank.

Can't imagine what else it could be...

	14-03-2004 03:57									#321
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One more question before I start...
Pi-Ramessess is key to our trade (9 trade routes by my count). Does the scorching of this city help us or hurt us?
Obviously losing those trade routes hurts us short term, but does it free up trade routes and allow us to build more Caravans and deliver them for the juicy bonuses (both science and )?


Should we hold off scorching it or do it as soon as possible?

* Sparrowhawk admitting his knowledge of freeing up trade routes is sorely lacking

	14-03-2004 05:21									#322
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Sparrowhawk (a small but fierce, and chatty, raptor )

Who among us has great experience razing AI cities?? I think you are correct but am not sure. It would be a drag if those routes turned to zeros and stayed in place. Even if a route slot is freed up, I doubt that supply slots will free up. Other tactics are needed for that, possibly. When you get some time, read, or reread, Solo's piece on trade in the Early Landing Guide that tops the Strat forum.

Monk

	14-03-2004 05:47									#323
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Well, you got me curious, so I did a test. Razing an AI city causes the trade routes to disappear and frees up some or all of the supply slots. This is something new to me, though it must have been previously discovered.

With this in mind, you may want to postpone razing a city with many trade routes to your cities. You will also get a big hit to ongoing revenue when those routes disappear.

Solo is still indicated for trade help.

Monk

	14-03-2004 09:00									#324
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Not only ongoing revenue, but celebrations could stop as well, and this will slow science too....and so on.

Still, Pi-Rammessess is in a strategically strong position for the Egyptians, and unless I am prepared to bribe it for my second city (and Lyons looks awfully good for that), I am unsure about razing it, especially now that you have confirmed my suspicions.

* Sparrowhawk

	15-03-2004 08:43									#325
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Okay, I am in the middle of turn number 5 and things are going well but I am not yet finished, turns are taking me a while (mostly because of the note taking).

I had three Military goals (I set accheivable goals ) and have accomplished them all already, so I am pleased. Will let you know as soon as I am done, and will post a detailed log (I am on page 7 right now of my notes, and I write small!! (-Jrabbit and bloody monk should be happy...I think they are the ones who appreciate detailed logs!)

* Sparrowhawk the slow

	16-03-2004 13:59									#326
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In keeping with Bloody Monk's "chatty raptop" description above, I thought I should offer an opinion on the spiea/vet spies description (though I have not yet read the thread on spies that Monk posted the link to above).

It seems to me (observation, not research) that the spies are more successful in their attempts against cities that are not capitals (you get the warning message when attempting to sabotage, but not for poisoning, but I suspect it applies to poison too). While playing it seems I have lost a disproportionate number of spies while poisoning capital(s).

In other words, it seems to me while playing that if you are poisoning a capital, while it is successful every time, you are more likely to lose spies (captured), whereas against non-capitals, it seems the spy is more likely to survive and escape to the nearest city. Anyone tested to disprove or prove this theory?

* Sparrowhawk conjecturing while out of town overnight, (as I said above, I am in the middle of turn 5, though with the end of the weekend so ended my free time, I will return to this on Wednesday I hope).

One further question on spies, has anyone ever done a list of the results (what happens and where do they go)....i.e. when a spy poisons a city it is either captured, or it returns to the nearest city, when a spy is expelled it returns to the capital, when a spy sabotages it returns to the nearest city, when a spy steals a tech it ??returns to the nearest city??, as I type this, I wonder if the only time a spy returns to the capital is when it is expelled by the opponent? Does it return to the closest city on surviving all other encounters?? Exceptions being establishing embassies and inventigating cities which both leave the spy outside the city? (Sparrowhawk asks his longest winded question yet )

	16-03-2004 14:25									#327
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All is revealed in M. LaFayette's esteemed paper



Stu (RTFM )

	16-03-2004 15:38									#328
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Wow!! (and I don't mean Wonder of the World)

I should have read that years ago, I am very impressed, quite usefull knowledge.

I bow before La Fayette (and Slow Thinker) and the effort put into this.

I had hesitated to read it earlier, due to the sheer volume of threads in Slow Thinkers post, but even reading through the first two threads I have a much bettter understanding of spies (and more importantly vet spies ) and I can make better use of them in the current game (Scorched Earth).

	16-03-2004 20:16									#329
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RAPTOP???

If that's what you prefer, but the spelling I used was slightly different.

Now that you have read the suggested post, perhaps you will better appreciate this old saying...

"One who is lost is advised to ask directions of the One who knows the way."

La Fayette knows. SlowThinker knows.

For future reading, I suggest you check out the several "Info:" threads. Long but very good stuff, there.

Monk

	18-03-2004 11:07									#330
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Just the save for now, as it is late and I am going to sleep

My log will follow (hopefully tomorrow, but I can't promise ), with significant detail I hope, but to summarize...
At 1870:
Babs - 5 Cities
French - 13 Cities
Egypt - 6 Cities
Chinese - 12 Cities
Greeks - 9 Cities
Mongols - 4 Cities
Total - 49 Cities

At 1878:
Babs - 5 Cities
French - 13 Cities
Egypt - 4 Cities
Chinese - 12 Cities
Greeks - 4 Cities
Mongols - 1 Cities
Total - 39 Cities

I am pleased, and prepared for the criticism, but perhaps you will want to wait for the log to criticize

Attachment: co_a1878.sav
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