SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

An infiltration mission in the test game easily gave us city visibility, but of course we need to uncover the fog ourselves before we get city visibility of specific cities.

I should have expected visibility into most (all?) cities this early in the game, because the AI has no chance to generate a lot of Espionage and without The Great Wall its hard to do without the espionage slider. AIs simply don't use the espionage slider as far as I can tell.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Really? I remember in one game I could suck so much gold I was running afloat 100% of the slider easily. Anyways, the fact teamed AI's can easily make up the losses and restore the balance renders that tactic less powerful. But still, to my opinion, it is not all about economically killing the AI, but boosting yourself in abusive way. Anyways, if cultural victory was the target, automatically, that tactic is strong. Of course, the tactic works best on emp+.

well it seems you must show me the way to economically abusing the AIs, or I need to read better.
 
Sorry, you didn't provide a link back then. I usually bookmark good stuff like this, so I can offer it to others or refer to it myself later.

I was just fooling around. ;) I am happy to finally have time. Not enough for gaming in addition, but at least I can reintegrate the team.

And I did add the linkz in that old post...10 minutes later as the edit tag said. ;)
 
well it seems you must show me the way to economically abusing the AIs, or I need to read better.

It all depends of the situation, the AI attitude towards you, its propensity to gold (Mansa Musa, Wang Kon) or economy in general. Unfortunately, I didn't looked up well the trading possibilities during my failed turn-set, but having almost all resources in sight let me think the AI is in the same situation, automatically killing the tactic. And the tactic works strongly with big empire controlling vast regions of resources and denying them to others. We don't have an empire, so it is harder.

Okay, I exaggerate the idea of 100% science/culture slider only upon the shoulders of the extorted, but even a meager 40 gpt helps. The more AI's as we have now should ease the trading possibilities. Of course, the tactic has its weak moment when you gain nothing but maybe diplomatic points...those points are needed in fact. The faster the better in case worst enemies web change through time.
 
One additional benefit to winning the race to Philosophy is that will slow the AI's progress to Liberalism, since they will not aggressively pursue it once we have it.

We won't be trading the techs we will be bulbing, such as Philosophy, Paper, and Education.

I want Compass and Music for trading. These would be good to steal. I also want Engineering, and Optics from the AI.

Once Currency becomes available, we can steal technologies we don't care about and may be able to earn significant Wealth from all Civs we trade with. Maybe? It can take a while before the AI has significant Wealth reserves to spend on Technologies though. Point is the Technologies we steal don't always have to be in the bee-line to Mass Media to have value to our eventual win.

We might want to trade Technologies to the AI to steer them in the direction we want them to go. We can accelerate them and use their tendencies to target Technologies that give them free Great People and other Technologies that the AI tend to research first. Teams of "Emperor level" AIs should tech faster than they would alone, since each member of the team search their completed technology with their partner immediately. We stand on leading AI technologist, the Western Witches. Or maybe not?

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I was just fooling around. ;) I am happy to finally have time. Not enough for gaming in addition, but at least I can reintegrate the team.

And I did add the linkz in that old post...10 minutes later as the edit tag said. ;)

First link you provided was a link to a post containing a link to a thread I provided very early in this game.

The second link was the jewel I missed. Yes, exactly the same one as I recently posted. I stand corrected.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Okay bcool... I understand your point about the weakness of the strategy...I think. The strength in sucking gold from AI's isn't by the value they give for each resource, but the total one can amass from a civilization. As an example, challenge-V-03 is a more or less prime example where I reached the top of 100 gpt from some civs. I don't think it is easily possible to reach such height on emperor without that agressive method. Nevertheless, there is a double-edge consequence of such free flow of resources (health and joy): enabling the receiver to reach high states of populations and if that civ is going to make trouble diplomatically for U.N. victory, then the target civ for that trick isn't a good target. It is not surprising to see 5-6 gpt per resource on emperor, but it is possible to snatch up to 40 gpt from a civ. Anyways, a good use of privateers if ever the teams don't evolve too fast may stunt their populations growth according to our will. (Kai's piracy strat.). I've seen civs offering up tp 10 gpt for resources multiple times, but there are rare case emperor and below.

BTW, I expect we will have a large count of population by ourselves to win U.N. victory, right?
Those four big teams are a bit hard to harness to vote for us...

Anyways, if there are no ends to that tactic, let's just bury it. Anyways, there are so much stuff in espionage side. :hatsoff:
 
Okay bcool... I understand your point about the weakness of the strategy...I think. The strength in sucking gold from AI's isn't by the value they give for each resource, but the total one can amass from a civilization. As an example, challenge-V-03 is a more or less prime example where I reached the top of 100 gpt from some civs. I don't think it is easily possible to reach such height on emperor without that agressive method. Nevertheless, there is a double-edge consequence of such free flow of resources (health and joy): enabling the receiver to reach high states of populations and if that civ is going to make trouble diplomatically for U.N. victory, then the target civ for that trick isn't a good target. It is not surprising to see 5-6 gpt per resource on emperor, but it is possible to snatch up to 40 gpt from a civ. Anyways, a good use of privateers if ever the teams don't evolve too fast may stunt their populations growth according to our will. (Kai's piracy strat.). I've seen civs offering up tp 10 gpt for resources multiple times, but there are rare case emperor and below.

BTW, I expect we will have a large count of population by ourselves to win U.N. victory, right?
Those four big teams are a bit hard to harness to vote for us...

Anyways, if there are no ends to that tactic, let's just bury it. Anyways, there are so much stuff in espionage side. :hatsoff:

there was no hidden meaning behind my comment, I just didn't get a chance to use the strategy to the extent that it seemed the author or you have. Perhaps because I made enemies in the game I was playing or something else I was doing poorly.

I can see how we might want to help at least 2 teams with resources, so if we can get more gold from them then great.
 
Draft PPP T100 - T105
Units:

The T103 settler from gems city heads towards the marble site to settle T105.
The exploring workboats continue their yourney. The one N of Isengard follows the isthmus, and gets back towards the GP farm when it reaches the "bridge". The northern WB explores the Nothern's witches coast heading West. The WB 1S1E of Marble site improves Culture bridge's clams on T102, and the one produced in Gems improves the crabs on T100. The WB produced in Stone city later will be used to improve the future marble site crabs.
The great spy heads into the western witches culture. We need an infiltration decision.
The wounded archer heals for 4 turns in Isengard's culture.


Tech trading:

T100 Trade Aesthetics to the Western witches for Alphabet, Politheism and Meditation.
T101 Trade Aesthetics to the Eastern witches for Priesthood and Monotheism.
T102 Trade aesthetics to the Western witches for CoL.

Cities/worker actions

Washington
T100 3 pop whip Aqueduct. We are at 39/100 hammers, so we get max overflow into the Hanging gardens. Working sheep, corn and cow.
T101 start HG; growth, add grassland mine.
T105 Growth, add riverside PH mine

Hoover
T100 chop the forest into the aqueduct to overflow into the HG
T101 move to the forest 1N1E
T102 chop
T104 finish chop for Washington
T105 move to marble hill – planned but not executed

New worker from Stone city
T102 move to corn
T103 move 1S, road
T104 move to marble hill
T105 Build quarry
or
T102 move 1S2W, to the Wash/SC shared tile for a cottage


Stone city
T100 build worker, working gold, rice,stone, crabs, oasis and 2 scientists
T101 2 pop whip worker at 29/60 hammers; loose 2 scientist specialists
T102 Overflow goes into a Spy
T103 Spy produced and heads for Boston or Trojan horse city
T104 Build Spy; Growth, add 1 scientist

Gems city
T100 Build warrior, working wheat, gems, deer, crabs, grass mine and 2 scientists.
T101 Warrior done
T102 Continue settler
T103 Settler done, heads towards marble site; Start a spy.
I think Gems city could be set – up for a few whips into the Parthenon after we get marble on line ( around T109). It still needs a lighthouse, an aqueduct could be whipped, and maybe barracks? Corthouse (hopefully if we get CoL from trade), and has an abundance of food. The tech tree path up to Mass media is paved with G scientists, so this, along with the philosophical trait would help a lot. Also, we would get a ton of culture to fight Trojan horse city. Our GP farm is fabulous. This would make it even better.

Fritz
T100 Build grass mine. We're whipping Washington this turn, so it won't grow into any cottages in the near future. I'd build some hammer producing tiles instead of previously discussed Washington cottaging.
T104 move to PH 1S of Gems city
T105 mine – planned but not executed

GP farm
T100 Build moai statues, working pigs, fish, clams, FP farm, grassland farm and 2 scientists
T102 growth, add coast
T104 growth, add PH mine

Eiffel
T100 move 1S1W, farm
T101 road grassland farm
T102 move to PH 2S of city, mine

Goodyear
T100 finish farm
T101 road grassland farm
T102 move to PH 1N2E of city
T103 start mine. I believe this two mines are essential for the G library and National epic run. Still, it might be a few turns too early, so Goodyear might set up the roads for a later ivory site settler.

Isengard
T100 build chariot, working fish, horse, sheep
T101 growth, 2 pop whip barracks, work fish and sheep
T102 OF into an Axeman; work sheep and horse to finish same turn
T103 Chariot; growth, add fish
T105 growth, add copper mine

Karl
T100 finish road
T101 start mine
T103
T 104 move 1N1E, 1t road
T105 move to the core cities and cottage/mine spam

Yamamoto
T100 finish road
T101 move to copper hill, mine
T103move to cow, pasture

Silver city
T100 Build library, switch fish to pigs
T102 growth, work fish and pigs
T103 growth, add PH mine
T105 growth

Stevenson
T100 finish pig pasture
T101 move to silver
T102 mine

Culture bridge city
T100 build granary, switch grass mine to improved crabs
T102 growth, whip granary
T103 start library
T105 growth, work crabs and clams


Stopping reasons

Wizard spotted.
Something weird happens.

Every turn

Taking interesting stuff screenshots such as new tiles deffoged, resources found, demographics screen, barbarians and AI units appearance etc. Note new AI's cities founding, wonder completition, forrest/jungle growth, note barbarian appearing using the Alt-S option. Saving each turn.


Thoughts

UIf we decide to burn the Gspy for a GA, I think GP farm could grow to size 9 (maybe even 10) in the next 3 turns, and if we trade for CoL successfully and run 7 - 8 scientists, we can get a G sci at T106.
 
there was no hidden meaning behind my comment, I just didn't get a chance to use the strategy to the extent that it seemed the author or you have. Perhaps because I made enemies in the game I was playing or something else I was doing poorly.

I can see how we might want to help at least 2 teams with resources, so if we can get more gold from them then great.

:lol: Me and my weird writing. There were no intents of flame, just poorly expressed.
Anyways, we will see because at this stage, that strat. doesn't mesh well with fledgling civilization. The only thing I poorly embrace is the relationship between attitude (cautious, pleased, etc.) and higher bar of gpt for a resource. I definitely noticed in one case when the AI comes from cautious to pleased, suddenly, I could gave more gpt for higher gpt per resource.
I think this has potential and must keep an eye if the occasion to use it presents itself.
 
Tech trading:[/B]

T100 Trade Aesthetics to the Western witches for Alphabet, Politheism and Meditation.
T101 Trade Aesthetics to the Eastern witches for Priesthood and Monotheism.
T102 Trade aesthetics to the Western witches for CoL.

Unfortunately, I think tech trading will need to be discussed after each trade opens up new possible trades.

The trade for Priesthood and Monotheism can hopefully be beefed up with another tech. If not, we must trade with a civ in good standing with the world and one we eventually want to vote for us, so we get a +4 trade bonus and not get a -4 diplo hit, as this will be a VERY lopsided trade.
 
Unfortunately, I think tech trading will need to be discussed after each trade opens up new possible trades.

The trade for Priesthood and Monotheism can hopefully be beefed up with another tech. If not, we must trade with a civ in good standing with the world and one we eventually want to vote for us, so we get a +4 trade bonus and not get a -4 diplo hit, as this will be a VERY lopsided trade.

Agreeing. Can Priesthood or Monotheism be begged from the Wicked Witch of the West and Good Witch of the North?
I am sure some agreed to only beg gold when the time comes...anyways I find it weak to get Monotheism plus Priesthood for Aesthetics.

Moreover, Parthenon is a strong wonder for U.N. Nations Victory as long as we abuse scientists before SM. Would be nice to know who has marble. Temporarily avoid Aesthetics to one team increases a bit our chance to get the wonder.
 
Draft PPP T100 - T105
Units:

Tech trading:

T100 Trade Aesthetics to the Western witches for Alphabet, Politheism and Meditation.
T101 Trade Aesthetics to the Eastern witches for Priesthood and Monotheism.
==> shulec is right, this is weak, but may be the only choice. Diplomatic points may be considered then.

T102 Trade aesthetics to the Western witches for CoL.

Cities/worker actions

Washington
T100 3 pop whip Aqueduct. We are at 39/100 hammers, so we get max overflow into the Hanging gardens. Working sheep, corn and cow.
T101 start HG; growth, add grassland mine.
T105 Growth, add riverside PH mine

==>I don't if someone has done a test game to the supposed date of build of HG, but as far as I remember of my practice, the forest 3 N of Washington is for Washington. I don't know the mechanics behind forest hammers distribution on conflicting shared third culture ring, but Stone City has reached 3 cultural level not so long ago and is conflicting with Washington. Nonetheless, that forest must be chopped. Goodyear is doing something unnecessary right, let him go in the forest and chop asap.
Later he may try to reach the forest 2E of Trojan Horse as GPFarm and Gem City will never reach third level of culture in time before Monty gets the city to second cultural level. That weak trade of Monotheism and Priesthood may be used to switch him back to slavery for avoiding cultural growth through artists in Trojan Horse and if done right in time, the outside forest is ours. Not much of hammers but still free hammers.

Last fast comment: I prefer we never put another turn of cottage in spices 2N of Washington because not so long, we will have calender, I am sure.



Gems city
T100 Build warrior, working wheat, gems, deer, crabs, grass mine and 2 scientists.
T101 Warrior done
T102 Continue settler
T103 Settler done, heads towards marble site; Start a spy.
I think Gems city could be set – up for a few whips into the Parthenon after we get marble on line ( around T109). It still needs a lighthouse, an aqueduct could be whipped, and maybe barracks? Corthouse (hopefully if we get CoL from trade), and has an abundance of food. The tech tree path up to Mass media is paved with G scientists, so this, along with the philosophical trait would help a lot. Also, we would get a ton of culture to fight Trojan horse city. Our GP farm is fabulous. This would make it even better.

==> Aqueduc seems unimportant right now and barrack, nah...
Parthenon seems juicy notwithstanding. I vote yes for Parthenon in Gems City. Moreover, the great quantity of food may help the GP pool to the Great Artist points dilution with many scientists.


Anyways, I inspected your PPP and compared to the official save to catch better and it seems a good half PPP.

Good job. You managed well, better than I did. :)
 
So..., you're alive Tachy! Chime in!

Thanks. Now I am really back. Unwavering I hope. :please:

Sorry to say that, but my presence back then wasn't really effective and more of a whining ghost, so now I am accepting your encouragements. ;););)
 
I know the 2nd step of tech trading is weak, but it's the only way to get CoL quick.

So, if we get CoL in three turns, and grow/starve GP farm, start a GA T103, we could get a G scientist for Philosophy bulbing by T106 (I think, should test it).
The research from 7 or 8 scientists in GP farm might be enough to get us to Literature/start of great library by the time we hook up marble.

I don't have time to test right now, but will do it in a few hours
 
I made the save game update. It's the mabraham's test game tweaked by bcool. I just repeated the moves. I hope it's accurate

The only mistake I know about is I didn't move goodyear to the FP on T97, bu put another turn into the grassland farm.

View attachment 304494

Tell me if it's worth anything

EDIT: maybe it would be handy to have all the "official" PPP-s on the 1st page of the thread

sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. the test game looks good (although I didn't go city by city checking hammer and food totals) I don't think the mistake with goodyear makes much of a difference (although you can often fix these mistakes by using worldbuilder to add a worker then delete him later, and then just skipping a worker turn later on in the test)

The PPP on the 1st page would be somewhat difficult since I'm not sure everyone has a post on the 1st page, so someone would have to edit it and add it for them. For now I think if there are major revisions to the PPP you can just repost it. We have plenty of free space here :)
 
comments in blue

Draft PPP T100 - T105
Units:

The T103 settler from gems city heads towards the marble site to settle T105.
The exploring workboats continue their yourney. The one N of Isengard follows the isthmus, and gets back towards the GP farm when it reaches the "bridge". The northern WB explores the Nothern's witches coast heading West. The WB 1S1E of Marble site improves Culture bridge's clams on T102, and the one produced in Gems improves the crabs on T100. The WB produced in Stone city later will be used to improve the future marble site crabs.
The great spy heads into the western witches culture. We need an infiltration decision.
The wounded archer heals for 4 turns in Isengard's culture.


Tech trading:

T100 Trade Aesthetics to the Western witches for Alphabet, Politheism and Meditation.
T101 Trade Aesthetics to the Eastern witches for Priesthood and Monotheism.
I argee with the others, that we need to stop here.
T102 Trade aesthetics to the Western witches for CoL.

There is a possibility here, we can trade for alphabet, polytheism, and meditation on T100, then tech priesthood ourselves on T100 so that we can trade for CoL on T101 if we don't think there will be a good trade for monotheism and priesthood. Priesthood will be quite cheap and we could do it with the 20-30% of the slider.


Cities/worker actions

Washington
T100 3 pop whip Aqueduct. We are at 39/100 hammers, so we get max overflow into the Hanging gardens. Working sheep, corn and cow.
T101 start HG; growth, add grassland mine.
T105 Growth, add riverside PH mine
I agree with Tachy that chopping the forest 3N of washington makes sense. I think Goodyear can finish the farm with eiffel near GPFarm and then move to the forest on T101, then finish chop T104 with the chop 1S of Boston. Although the mines around GPFarm might suffer a little bit.

Hoover
T100 chop the forest into the aqueduct to overflow into the HG
T101 move to the forest 1N1E
T102 chop
T104 finish chop for Washington
T105 move to marble hill – planned but not executed

New worker from Stone city
T102 move to corn
T103 move 1S, road
T104 move to marble hill
T105 Build quarry
or
T102 move 1S2W, to the Wash/SC shared tile for a cottage
I think we want at least one cottage for Washington, so the T102 move 1S2W to shared grass tile for a cottage sounds better to me.

Stone city
T100 build worker, working gold, rice,stone, crabs, oasis and 2 scientists
T101 2 pop whip worker at 29/60 hammers; loose 2 scientist specialists
T102 Overflow goes into a Spy
T103 Spy produced and heads for Boston or Trojan horse city
T104 Build Spy; Growth, add 1 scientist



Gems city
T100 Build warrior, working wheat, gems, deer, crabs, grass mine and 2 scientists.
T101 Warrior done
T102 Continue settler
T103 Settler done, heads towards marble site; Start a spy.
I think Gems city could be set – up for a few whips into the Parthenon after we get marble on line ( around T109). It still needs a lighthouse, an aqueduct could be whipped, and maybe barracks? Corthouse (hopefully if we get CoL from trade), and has an abundance of food. The tech tree path up to Mass media is paved with G scientists, so this, along with the philosophical trait would help a lot. Also, we would get a ton of culture to fight Trojan horse city. Our GP farm is fabulous. This would make it even better.
Gems City is going to depend a lot on what we decide to do with infiltration and a possible GA.
Regardless of what we decide to do with infiltration and golden age, we want a spy or settler instead of warrior. So no warrior for sure now. We don't need a barracks or aqueduct here. This is going to be the city to get our next great scientist, so that is its priority rather than an build it might do.


Fritz
T100 Build grass mine. We're whipping Washington this turn, so it won't grow into any cottages in the near future. I'd build some hammer producing tiles instead of previously discussed Washington cottaging.
T104 move to PH 1S of Gems city
T105 mine – planned but not executed
This depends on what we do in Gems, Gems will not need a mine for sometime to come if we aggressively produce a great scientist here.

GP farm
T100 Build moai statues, working pigs, fish, clams, FP farm, grassland farm and 2 scientists
T102 growth, add coast
T104 growth, add PH mine
Scrap the moai statues build now, just build research (possible now that we will have alphabet). There is significant doubt we will ever build Moai statues. Regardless add coasts not mines.

Eiffel
T100 move 1S1W, farm
T101 road grassland farm
T102 move to PH 2S of city, mine
This changes since we want Goodyear to chop for washington, I suggest Eiffel moves to the river grass hill near Ivory instead of the road now.

Goodyear
T100 finish farm
T101 road grassland farm
T102 move to PH 1N2E of city
T103 start mine. I believe this two mines are essential for the G library and National epic run. Still, it might be a few turns too early, so Goodyear might set up the roads for a later ivory site settler.
Finish farm, but then move to forest 3N of washington on T101 and chop for Hanging Gardens.

Isengard
T100 build chariot, working fish, horse, sheep
T101 growth, 2 pop whip barracks, work fish and sheep
T102 OF into an Axeman; work sheep and horse to finish same turn
T103 Chariot; growth, add fish
T104 might want to switch to cows instead of horses if Karl and Yama finish the cows this turn
T105 growth, add copper mine add horses?

Karl
T100 finish road
T101 start mine
T103
T 104 move 1N1E, 1t road
T105 move to the core cities and cottage/mine spam
Karl should improve the cows after finishing the mine with Yama's help.

Yamamoto
T100 finish road
T101 move to copper hill, mine
T103move to cow, pasture
with Karl's help should finish cows T104

Silver city
T100 Build library, switch fish to pigs
T102 growth, work fish and pigs
T103 growth, add PH mine
T105 growth
No one took a look to see if lighthouse first is better, oh well. Library to set up a 2 pop whip perhaps now...as your plan suggets

Stevenson
T100 finish pig pasture
T101 move to silver
T102 mine

Culture bridge city
T100 build granary, switch grass mine to improved crabs
T102 growth, whip granary
T103 start library
I would prefer a lighthouse here instead of a library.
T105 growth, work crabs and clams


Stopping reasons

Wizard spotted.
Something weird happens.

Every turn

Taking interesting stuff screenshots such as new tiles deffoged, resources found, demographics screen, barbarians and AI units appearance etc. Note new AI's cities founding, wonder completition, forrest/jungle growth, note barbarian appearing using the Alt-S option. Saving each turn.


Thoughts

UIf we decide to burn the Gspy for a GA, I think GP farm could grow to size 9 (maybe even 10) in the next 3 turns, and if we trade for CoL successfully and run 7 - 8 scientists, we can get a G sci at T106.
I think it is better to use Gems for Great Scientist, Gems can get the GS by T106 and would let GPFarm grow into further glory later. We want it to grow so it can build the NE and Great Library quickly.
 
We need a vote on where and when to infiltrate as well. I think we want to infiltrate the western witches so we can better assess if we want to make a run for Philosophy with or without a Golden Age.

The earliest the great spy near Gandhi could infiltrate would be T102

The great spy in Stone City can infiltrate on T103
Advantages
-get at least 1 more turn scouting in western witches culture before we decide to trigger a GA.

Disadvantage
-delays getting the information we need to make a switch to caste system, and so it might make getting a great scientist as early as possible more difficult. Although I think it would still be possible to get the great scientist by T106 with w T103 GA and switch to caste system. A non-GA switch to caste system and run for a great scientist might be delay however (need to do the numbers for both possibilities still... anyone?)
-delays an infiltration of the northern witches for 20+ turns. (if we decide to not trigger a GA)

Right now my vote is to infiltrate T103 with the great spy from Stone City. Then stop and debate the philosophy question and the GA question.

If everyone else can vote or express their arguments in the next 24 hours, then we can get WW's turn going...
 
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