SGOTM 19 - The Shawshank Redemption

[Mitchum]

KCD is only an Evil undergrad. Putting a sub in the sea would be PhD-level evilness. Are we trying to give him ideas?

We can play it safe but I'll bet 5 sammiches that no sub exists...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Why wouldn't we draft in KK's cities? Seems like the best place to do so by far...

Well, it's a matter of timing and exec spread. Will they come out of resistance soon enough to draft units and get them to Alex? Will they need to 5whip execs for spread?

We can 5whip execs while KK is still alive. For that matter, we can also whip knights or whatever unit we want.

We can whip/starve these cities town to pop1, gift them back to KK even, if that's what the code requires to then raze them and kill them off the last turn. In fact, that might be the best way to prevent barb city spawning, because KK gets all his culture back, re-owning lots of tiles.

We would just need to have the right mounted units in place to arrive in time for the re-capture and razing. We might need to keep Madrid, for example. for an outpost to Barthelona and Seville, or whatever.

.

 

[WastinTime]

Before play, I'd like to review the list of diplo actions planned, in order.

And I'd like to hear the HQ galley plan.

 

[LowtherCastle]

KCD is only an Evil undergrad. Putting a sub in the sea would be PhD-level evilness. Are we trying to give him ideas?

We can play it safe but I'll bet 5 sammiches that no sub exists...

I'm all ears, genius. What's your explanation for KK's perpetual need to re-build his nets? I'm a newb and haven't see that before.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm not certain I understand you. When you say, "EDIT: Culture from another City going into the City doesn't seem to matter" are you that it's the sum of all alive AIs' city culture in that city?

Tested. I captured a city with tons of city culture. I put 132 city culture into it. Then:
1. I gifted it to a third party, re-captured and razed.
2. I reloaded and gifted it back to the original owner, re-captured, and razed.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm not certain I understand you. When you say, "EDIT: Culture from another City going into the City doesn't seem to matter" are you that it's the sum of all alive AIs' city culture in that city?

Let's say that we have City A as our City that we want to raze, and City B that puts cultural pressure on City A.

For example, City B is Trumpster and City A is a City that is settled 3 squares away from Trumpster.

If we put 3 Culture into City A, gift the City to an AI, end the turn a bunch (so that Trumpster is putting Culture on the City A City Centre square), we will be able to raze City A upon recapture once there is a total of 10 Culture in the City from all currently-alive AIs, regardless of the fact that Trumpster would have been putting Culture on the square itself.

Dhoom, the point about drafting from KK's cities is not about getting 10% in there. It's about killing him off or not. If we don't plan to draft, we don't need to kill him off, so that we can re-capture any of his cities and raze them as long as KK is still alive, assuming his city culture still counts.

Thanks for clarifying your line of thinking.

I'm all ears, genius. What's your explanation for KK's perpetual need to re-build his nets? I'm a newb and haven't see that before.

Do you have evidence that Kublai has kept rebuilding his fishing nets? If yes, that changes things.

I thought we said that we'd wait to see whether Kublai's Clam got Pillaged. I confirmed that a Sub and an Attack Sub, unlike a Caravel, can both pillage seafood Resources.

If our only current evidence is that Kublai has an extra Work Boat, then it could simply be a BtS exploration Work Boat.

I think that Subs would be a neat challenge if both islands have a Coal Resource on them, but it wouldn't seem like a fair challenge for Sid's Sushi. That's not a fair problem since it's not something that's predictable or likely to be discovered until too late, so I would be angered if Subs existed in the Kublai sea, as it would make Sid's Sushi games non competitive without any fair amount of warning (it would have beeen a lot fairer if the game description mentioned them or if, near our starting area, we had a 3rd City location with a Clam Resource that would keep getting mysteriously pillaged). Even that scenario would be a bit unfair unless there were NO other good City-settling locations, as some teams might still decide to ignore such a seafood Resource and settle elsewhere (such as by a far away Gold Resource or a far away Stone Resource).

 

[Mitchum]

I'm all ears, genius. What's your explanation for KK's perpetual need to re-build his nets? I'm a newb and haven't see that before.

Are we sure he's had to rebuild his nets, newb? In other words, do you "see" nets in one save and then gone in a later save? I thought that they had never been netted and KK is finally getting around to it? I guess we'll find out for sure if the current nets get pillaged.

I say we play it safe with the galleys but the bet is still on if you want to take it. WT already capitalized on my carefree willingness to gamble sammiches at the drop of a hat. Feel free to take advantage of me...

 

[ZPV]

Ok, I'm here. I'll have a quick run through and see if there are any major planning issues for the exec spread, and then I'll get it.

My main thought is we now need to start massing a stack for Alex.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are we sure he's had to rebuild his nets, newb? In other words, do you "see" nets in one save and then gone in a later save? I thought that they had never been netted and KK is finally getting around to it? I guess we'll find out for sure if the current nets get pillaged.

I say we play it safe with the galleys but the bet is still on if you want to take it. WT already capitalized on my carefree willingness to gamble sammiches at the drop of a hat. Feel free to take advantage of me...

I've never seen a save in which any seafood, anywhere on the map, was netted until T145, but I haven't checked religiously.

I accept your bet on the condition that the winner gets to specify the ingredients at a value not exceeding $10 a sammich.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Let's say that we have City A as our City that we want to raze, and City B that puts cultural pressure on City A.

For example, City B is Trumpster and City A is a City that is settled 3 squares away from Trumpster.

If we put 3 Culture into City A, gift the City to an AI, end the turn a bunch (so that Trumpster is putting Culture on the City A City Centre square), we will be able to raze City A upon recapture once there is a total of 10 Culture in the City from all currently-alive AIs, regardless of the fact that Trumpster would have been putting Culture on the square itself.

I'm willing to bet this doesn't work, because Trumpster is putting tile culture rather than city culture, but we don't need for this scenario to work anyway.

I think that Subs would be a neat challenge if both islands have a Coal Resource on them, but it wouldn't seem like a fair challenge for Sid's Sushi. That's not a fair problem since it's not something that's predictable or likely to be discovered until too late, so I would be angered if Subs existed in the Kublai sea, as it would make Sid's Sushi games non competitive without any fair amount of warning (it would have beeen a lot fairer if the game description mentioned them or if, near our starting area, we had a 3rd City location with a Clam Resource that would keep getting mysteriously pillaged). Even that scenario would be a bit unfair unless there were NO other good City-settling locations, as some teams might still decide to ignore such a seafood Resource and settle elsewhere (such as by a far away Gold Resource or a far away Stone Resource).

I disagree. We knew from the start that exploration was important. Underwater exploration might be a new concept to us, but it's perfectly valid as a concept and as a form of exploration.

I hope kcd did that, simply so I can congratulate him on the ingenuity.

Furthermore, there are ample workarounds to get the seafood netted.

 

[Jastrow]

I would love if there was a sub there... It would be a brilliant bit of design creativity.

Having said that, I dont really beleive in it... Mostly, I simply do not think KCD would have thought of it...

The question remains, why are some seafood not getting netted? IF there is no sub, then there must be an alternative explanation. It surely is unusual, since none of us have seen this in games before, so something unique to the scenario.

The only possibility I could imagine (I might have said this before; I certianly thought about it before) is that the AI "cheats" and knows about the Ironclad, and that there is something in the code that prevents if from betting its seafood when it knows that it is that far behind in level of top sea unit.....

Other than that... I cant come up with anything...

 

[ZPV]

For the AI to build work boats on a body of water, it must have 2 cities adjacent to it, and other teams must have 2 cities adjacent to it.
That only became true when we captured Toledo. Then KK gets to start spamming work boats.

 

[Jastrow]

Whuuu...????

What kind of weird rule is that? Why in the world would other "teams" need access to the body of water? If anything, that should be a deterent, not a benifit for building a WB. Also, why in the world would a single city not be able to net its seafood.

I just cant imagine why this would be coded like this???

 

[LowtherCastle]

For the AI to build work boats on a body of water, it must have 2 cities adjacent to it, and other teams must have 2 cities adjacent to it.
That only became true when we captured Toledo. Then KK gets to start spamming work boats.

That's freaking bizarre. Who'da thunk it?

I take back all my compliments to kcd and accept Mitchum's view of him as an undergrad evil doer.

 

[Mitchum]

That's freaking bizarre. Who'da thunk it?

I take back all my compliments to kcd and accept Mitchum's view of him as an undergrad evil doer.

And I'LL take my five sammiches, please!!

 

[ZPV]

Immediate plans:

DoW Huayna this turn. Not because of the situation at Vienna though. I want to give him Santiago, and then raze it with Zhuge Liang. This is the convenient time to do it, before we have the capability to march on Barcelona.
I also want to raze Cordoba this turn, so our rifles can move up to Barca.
Draft Samsun (also for Barca).
The idea is the Barca rifles get to come home before we DoW Alex.

Don't gift Bursa.
We do NOT want Alex to capture it, because it adds turns of walking to the end of the game.
It can also give us the wines very quickly.

Addis gets to do some prebuilding. So does Gondar.



Drafts:
t145:
Yeha
Samsun
Gondar

t146:
Aksum
Addis
Gaul

The idea is draft the Ethiopian cities in time for the units to get to Alex.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Summary:
Bursa is the City that I'd much rather see us getting rid of, but if we're not getting rid of Bursa, I see no good reason to get rid of Santiago now.

If we're going to keep Bursa, do not starve it any more.

Gifting Santiago later works for quickly razing the City LATER and benefitting from the City NOW as long as Kublai is still alive.

I also think that we will remain a lot more flexibile if we bribe Huayna against Asoka before declaring war on Huayna.


Details:
Are we going to bribe Huayna against Asoka so that we can later get Open Borders with Asoka? We might want to spread Executives to Cities later. We might want to spread Religion there. We might want to gift Asoka a City later and then be able to walk through the City's Cultural Borders (say, the first City of Huayna's that we capture), etc.


Can Bursa be gifted to Huayna if we first gift him Santiago?

If not, would we consider gifting him Konya first and then Bursa? The downside is that these Cities would have to remain Huayna's for a little while until he expanded the Cultural Borders in probably Konya and in Bursa, but we'd also get to raze the Cities instead of needing Executives for them later.


If we're going to keep Bursa, let's avoid starving it down. Instead, don't starve it, expand its Cultural Borders quickly without starving (say, by building Culture -> something), then work the Wheat plus other Hammers-squares.


Couldn't we also just keep Santiago for now? That's the far better City to keep. We then simply gift it to Asoka at Size 1 and raze it before killing off Kublai.

If we're going to keep Bursa, then we should definitely keep Santiago.

 

[LowtherCastle]

1. Will we spread AlumCo to Bursa?
2. Why raze Cordoba? Santiago? right before we learn where the coal deposits are?

 

[ZPV]

Ugh. Duhh. Ok, no razing yet. That'll be capturing Cordoba then.

Bursa: yes, we'll have to spread AlumCo to it. It's not really a big deal though, because it's 5 tiles from Istanbul.

Huayna: bribe him to Caste with PP? I don't see any value in also bribing him against Asoka.
Asoka: CF this turn to save our stricken musket, or next turn to mop up his archer, or much later?
My instinct is next turn.

Sheep will build us an explorer to get the corner. The muskets will start to fogbust too.

edit: planning these, and asking the questions I needed to, has taken too long to play tonight. If no one picks it up, I'll play in just under 8 hours.

 

[WastinTime]

Bursa. Well, we didn't plan that one very well did we.
Personally, I would gift it to Asoka and we'd be just fine.

But if you guys don't trust me, and we're going to keep it then we should get an exec there.

Start now prebuilding a (culture OF into) Mace(39 hammers) and an explorer(~39 hammers).
At 4 pop, it can 2 whip the mace (remove it), 1 whip the explorer.

It has 3 forests outside it's BFC that can provide 38 hammers.

That's overkill, so we don't really need exactly 39 hammers in those builds and/or don't have to chop all three.