SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Deckhand · May 8, 2012

:

SteelHorse said:
The closed borders between MM/HC and the rest of the AI, is that an indicator that there are no water path for commerce between them?

That's what it looks like to me. If the map we can't see is consistent with the map we can see, then they are both isolated inside mountain chains and cannot reach anyone before airships. :cry:

Did Neil make a map that was indeed winnable with Religious Victory? He should have given the Missionary theme and restrictions. But it doesn't look like it. :sad:

My vote is to give up on reaching them by sea. Either go for UN or closed border teleportation. :scan:

It would be nice to get some maps. :mischief:

Trystero · May 8, 2012

Oh god - what have I gotten myself into?

OK - First aim is to play to execute the DC plan. I will follow Xcal's PPP, but here are some details:

To be clear, this is where we want to plant the DC, correct?

Spoiler :

We have 176 EPs against Hatty. We are making 375/turn (currently focused on Liz). City revolt in Thebes costs 617 EP. City revolt in Memphis cost 585 EP. Total EP needed = (617 + 585) – 176 = 1026. That is 3 turns accumulation at our current rate. I will drop Espi slider to save for upgrades then move back up to 70% to time with arrival of last spy (I will try to do this at least).

For the DC “stack” I need: 1 settler (en route to Tokyo), 3 workers (all 3 from near Drona), 2 Hindu missionaries (Where do I build these? I don’t see any cities we own capable of building Hindu missionaries. Am I missing something? :confused:

), 10 units from Kyoto. Need 4 spies. 3 en route, need 1 more: build in Drona in 1 turn. Maybe build more for additional revolts (?).

This turn:

1. Switch EP focus to Hatty.
2. Switch research to Liberalism. Try to get cash in trades to move slider above 0%
3. Flip Liz to Merc. Try to trade for her map.
4. DP with Shaka. Try to trade for his map.
5. Start moving units to DC settling spot.

Xcalibrator said:
Draft PPP

FT= Friend Target. Civs we would like to vote for our victory. Roughly in order of Shaka, Liz, Cyrus/Genghi.

OK - I will watch diplomacy. Nobody is WE of anybody at the moment. Am I interpreting that correctly?

DONT's

Do not close borders with Hatty! We need them open to try the DC ploy.

Do not research Astro! (Uh, remind me why not? Galleys and triremes both cost the same--50 hammers. Galleys upgrade to galleons (requiring Astro) and triremes to caravels. I believe (?) that you can still build caravels even after Astro, but that doesn't matter here, does it?)

I will try to tech Liberalism and sell it around to get others to adopt FR.

DO's

Do spread Hinduism to MM and HC.

Do try to get maps showing HC/MM land.

These are "wish list" items, correct? I see no way of doing these at the moment.

Assume until proven otherwise that we can infect MM/HC using caravels. That means little emphasis on research (e.g., no whipping uni's for Oxford) other than to get Liberalism and give/trade it to the AI and hope they adopt Free Religion.

Click to expand...
Do immediately:
- Make Defensive Pact with Shaka--then see if he'll trade us his map.
- Flip Liz (in Kago) back to Merc'lism--then see if she'll trade us her map.
- Put EPs on Hatty, with high slider. I think we'll need around 1000 EPs total to make Memphis and Thebes revolt after a few turns of sitting spies.
- Send at least 2 spies to each city so they can start sitting. I'd prefer 3 each. And more if we decide we need to cut the caravel build-time with another revolt. That would, of course, require more EPs.
- Build a settler for the DC ploy.
Click to expand...
I will follow the plan below, but pause as kcd suggested, when the city is founded.
Plan for Devious City:
- Abort mission if the required forest gets chopped--monitor this starting now.
- Spies should be pre-placed in Thebes and Memphis ASAP. (Don't wait for the full 5-turn discount if you're otherwise ready to go on the revolts.)
- Assemble 3 workers to chop forest in 1 turn.
- Assemble units to prevent revolt. (How many? 10?)
- Assemble settler.
- Assemble 2 Hmiss's (one as backup for caravel).
- Move them all (don't delay for stragglers) to the site SE of Memphis/Thebes next to the forest (hope it's still there). Cause Mem/Theb to revolt, settle, chop, work hill mine. We will have 30+4hill+1CC= 35 hammers the first turn toward a trireme. Triremes are 50 hammers, caravels are 60. We will build a trireme and then upgrade it to a caravel (for 30ish gold).
- Our stack will (?) prevent revolt in DC, but Egyptian culture will take away all but the City Center tile the next turn, giving us 2 hpt (from CC and a citizen). That means another 8 turns to finish, or 6 if we create another 2-city revolt.
- Do we gift/abandon the city after the caravel is built?
Click to expand...
Other stuff:
- Balance EPs. We need enough to cause Hatty's cities to revolt (but not until our units are in place). We want to continue to steal techs from Liz (and Kago might be in danger of flipping to us so there's some urgency??). We don't want EPs to go to waste when we could be using our commerce for research or unit upgrades. Keep an eye on what Liz is researching. Don't research stuff we could get in favorable trades or that we could steal (if it would be cheaper that way).
Click to expand...
- Umm... sure. No problem. I assume if we are going the DC route that EP for city revolt will be the priority. I can't guarantee that I can micro things to the extent that we get precisely the EP we need against Hatty and no more, but I will try my best.
  
  [*]AP vote comes up in 2 turns. Election is 10 turns after that.
  
  Click to expand...
  
  What sort of resolution should I put forth?
  
  [*]Have Hmiss's ready to go.
  
  Click to expand...
  
  Again, I am not sure where I can build these. Am I being dense?
  
  Pause condition will be:
  
  1. DC settled.
  2. Hatty or other DoW.
  3. I obtain maps of HC/MM
  4. Demand or any other event I am not sure how to handle.
  
  I am planning to play tomorrow night (22 hours or so from this post). What say ye gents?
  
  Edit: x-post with Deckhand. I am skeptical that HC/MM can be reached by water as well (Have we seen any of their units?), but think the DC plan is worth a shot. Feel free to change your minds while I am sleeping or at work.

kcd_swede · May 8, 2012

The DC plan is indeed a longshot, but it has little downside. The victory dates are set by the AP vote schedule, and this won't slow us down if we learn we need to take more brutal methods. At worst, the city flips to Hatty, and she is saddled with a worthless crap city that should be easy to steal from if we want.

We pause after founding because it might be a crap city that HC could accept as a gift, and get us OB.

We avoid Astro for now while DC attempt is on-going because we have stolen Chemistry, and Astro+Chemistry makes Frigates/pirvateers available but caravels obsolete.

Trys has marked the correct (and only possible) location for the DC. 3S from Thebes.

Don't worry about overshooting EP on Hatty, we can use it to pick up cheap techs or cause mayhem later.

Lack of OB from MM/HC probably means that only the AI with Physics have a map that shows us the interesting bits. Liz does. Not sure who else. HC/MM.

Don't be afraid to take lots of pauses. No need to upload the game, but just describe the situation (screenshots nice in some cases) that needs some thought.

Be aware that the DP with Shaka could come back to bite us if someone we don't want to DOW declares on Shaka. HC/MM comes to mind. But I still think Hatty is their most likely target, even if they can't reach her except with airships that's the only place the border tensions could be significant. And we need the DP to build the relationship to Friendly and buy map.

Green from me. Be devious! :devil:

vra379971 · May 8, 2012

And overshoot the amount of EP's in case of failure o.o

ChrisShaffer · May 8, 2012

kcd_swede said:
We pause after founding because it might be a crap city that HC could accept as a gift, and get us OB.

This is one of the keys.

Be devious!

Green.

Xcalibrator · May 8, 2012

Trystero said:
We have 176 EPs against Hatty. We are making 375/turn (currently focused on Liz). City revolt in Thebes costs 617 EP. City revolt in Memphis cost 585 EP. Total EP needed = (617 + 585) – 176 = 1026. That is 3 turns accumulation at our current rate. I will drop Espi slider to save for upgrades then move back up to 70% to time with arrival of last spy (I will try to do this at least).

1026 will be overkill because we'll get at least a few turns of stationary-spy bonus, but that's a good target. And extra will be required if we decide we need to cause a second revolt to speed the trireme/caravel by 2 turns. By the way, we need both Memphis and Thebes to revolt at the same time. I don't know what the odds of success for this mission are, but failure is not an option.

I'm getting nervous and would like at least 3 spies in each city--see what the success % is when you can and adjust accordingly. If we go for a 2nd revolt we'll need another batch.

[Regarding the "Balance EPs directive"] Umm... sure. No problem. I assume if we are going the DC route that EP for city revolt will be the priority. I can't guarantee that I can micro things to the extent that we get precisely the EP we need against Hatty and no more, but I will try my best.

Yeah, that needed some :rolleyes:

. I know it'll be tricky--was just laying out the competing demands we're facing.

AP resolution: Dunno. Would open borders with all members be a good idea (assuming it's an option)?

I haven't opened the save so don't know what the problem with building Hmiss's is, but remember that we can only have 3 of them in existence at once. If one is off in booneyland and you need another somewhere else, it may be quickest to delete it and build anew. Second factor is that under any religious civic other than OrgRel (and I think we're in Theoc now?) you need a monastery to build a missionary. We ought to have several of those, but if they're not in good places then you could revolt to OrgRel.

Thanks for addressing the pause conditions--my brain was full. GREEN from me, but feel free to ask more questions. Good luck!

[[[ Edit: One more pause condition is if the forest next to DC gets chopped by Hatty. ]]]

Trystero · May 9, 2012

I am up to turn 211. Nothing too exciting so far, but we have somewhat of a situation. Hatty has a worker farming the forest next to the DC site. This will take 6 turns. Everything is in place except the spies. We will have 2 spies in Thebes and 1 in Memphis in 2 turns, and one more in Memphis the turn after that. If I understand correctly, the forest won't be chopped until the turn the farm is finished. So we can still revolt, settle and chop the trireme. So we should be able to still carry out the DC plan, yes? I am pausing here for an OK to continue to founding DC.

Here is what has occurred so far:

Turn 207: Switch research to Liberalism. Switch EP to Hatty. Reduce Espi slider to 60%. Spread Hinduism to Dur-Kurigalzu. Build HMiss in Drona. Settler to DC site in 4 turns. Stack of 10 units from Kyoto to DC site in 4 turns. 3 FW to forest at DC in 2 turns.

Made DP with Shaka. He is Pleased, but won’t sell map. Use Spy to switch Liz to Mercantilism. Success! Still won’t trade map. Everyone is now running Mercantilism.

IBT: Almost everyone in now running Theo.

Turn 208: Build walls in Babylon. Delhi builds wealth. Closest spy is 6 turns from Thebes. 506 EP against Hatty. We are Hatty’s WE. I drop the Espi slider to 0% to save for upgrades. Still no map trades from Shaka or Liz.

Turn 209: Walls done in Babylon, start castle (1 turn). Spy in Kyoto to Thebes in 4 turns. Build another there in 1 turn. 555 EP against Hatty. Move Espi slider back up to 70%. Still no maps.

Turn 210: Castle done in Babylon. Build Grenadier. Hindu Monastary done in Babylon, start spy (3 turns). AP resolution comes up. Only option is “stop trading with HC/MM”. I choose to put no resolutions forward. We have a Hindu Missionary all the way up by Cyrus. I gift it to Cyrus (who is running Theo) so I can build another in Kyoto since Hatty is now running OR. 945 EP against Hatty. Now need 1189 EP for city revolts (244 more). Drop Espi slider to 40%, and run research at 30% (into Liberalism). Closest spy 3 turns from Thebes. Stack of units and settler arrive at DC site. Hatty has a worker roading the forest tile. Our workers are standing by. Still no map trades from Shaka or Liz. I gift stone to Shaka, who is at +10 diplo. I upgrade 2 CR3 maces to grenadiers. Everyone is still running Merc.

IBT: Hinduism spreads to Persepolis. HC/MM enter a DP with Shaka.

Turn 211: We have 1210 EP against Hatty. We need 1169 for city revolts. 2 spies in Thebes and 1 in Memphis in 2 turns. Drop research slider to 0%, run espi at 80% and switch EP to Liz. Whip Hindu temple in Trojan Horse and D-K. Still no map trades.

Edit: How did Hinduism spread to Persepolis if Cyrus is still Buddhist and still running Theo? If he used our gifted missionary there the spreading should have failed, yes?

Trystero · May 9, 2012

I decided to upload the save as well.

Upload log:

Spoiler :

Autolog:

Spoiler :

vra379971 · May 9, 2012

Annoying on no map trades - answer to your question is yeah, DC still works.

kcd_swede · May 9, 2012

IBT: Hinduism spreads to Persepolis. HC/MM enter a DP with Shaka.

Turn 211: We have 1210 EP against Hatty. We need 1169 for city revolts. 2 spies in Thebes and 1 in Memphis in 2 turns. Drop research slider to 0%, run espi at 80% and switch EP to Liz. Whip Hindu temple in Trojan Horse and D-K. Still no map trades.

Edit: How did Hinduism spread to Persepolis if Cyrus is still Buddhist and still running Theo? If he used our gifted missionary there the spreading should have failed, yes?

I would not have gifted it to Cyrus, he is already a member and we don't necessarily want him having more votes. Doesn't matter right now, but he could spread and switch to Hindu and become an election opponent. Like I said, no big deal now as we still have more votes than allowed for the diplo vote option to come up.

The aim of getting a missionary up there was to be prepared if we get OB to try teleporting him into HC/MM space. As long as we do not have OB, its no big deal that he isn't there in GK's land. To free up building another missionary closer to home, I'd just have deleted it.... because even though the Player cannot spread non-state religion to a civ in Theocracy using a missionary, the AI can and will self-spread a non.state religion if you gift them a missionary. And they will almost always use it in their largest city.

So Theocracy is only an issue in that you cannot control which city gets infected. It is NOT an obstacle to infecting a civ that gives you OB, though.

That's why OB is so critical. Without OB, you have to give them a city that has hindu by gift or by war losses. Neither will work right now due to geography. No harm done, and if we get Cyrus friendly it actually is a plus that he has more votes.

Let me look at the save and I'll come back with some advices... I expect this to be a short pause since pretty much everything is still on plan.

Trystero · May 9, 2012

Sorry - I forgot about the teleporting trick. I can send another up there after we get DC done. I have played on a few of turns since vra verified that the chop would not finish until the farm was done. We have lost 2 spies en route to Thebes/Memphis, but the back-ups are almost in place and we still have a turn or two margin of error.

The only other notable event is that Hatty declared war on Cyrus.

Should I play the last couple of turns to the DC founding or wait?

Update: I am calling it a night. I have uploaded the latest save. It is turn 214 and we are 2 turns from DC, assuming we don't lose more spies. Apologies if I have mucked anything up.

Upload log:

Spoiler :

kcd_swede · May 9, 2012

Be careful dropping the EP slider... missions are cheaper the more EP you are making. Also, chance of spies getting caught is higher if the target civ is spening more on you than you are on them. Anyhow, Hatty will have Sci Meth in 6 turns and she is cheaper to steal from than Liz, so for now I'd continue high esp on Hatty.

Some diplo manipulations to be made (or at least considered):
.if we ask GK politely for his extra Rice, we can then start GIFTING crab to HC. We can already right now start gifting extra Sheep to Mansa. Do it, don't ask for anything in return... building up diplo is more important than 11gpt. Hatty does not give us any Fair Trade diplo, and we have not gifted her Divine Rights. We should go ahead and gift that to her... never hurts to improve diplo, even though she's not a FT.
You are green to continue to the DC founding.

Be devious! :satan:

-------------

I'm also thinking about give Trojan Horse to Shaka. It doesn't count as a liberation so I'm not sure it would affect diplo, though, and would increase our border tensions... so best not to do that before we can infect HC/MM. Get a caravel made from DC and we might be able to gift the DC to HC.

Maybe we should start planning to use spies to switch their religion civics. If we flip them out of what they are in to something useless that they hate like Pacifism, then perhaps they will shift to Free Religion when they can. Kind of like hitting the reset button, and hoping the reboot works this time.

Is it just me, or do you guys agree that Shaka MUST have a city off the mainland? That could be the key to getting into Mansa. So we'd need to do the DC maneuver either on Shaka's Silk or on Cyrus' copper, to get over there. Make a settler and some more spies for that mission, and start them moving asap. Gotta get it done in no more than 12t!

The next election is in 8t, and the AP victory vote is in 18, 28, 38, 48t. I say 12t to give us a shot at the 18t vote, more relaxed timetable if the 28t vote.

kcd_swede · May 9, 2012

LOL... the classic cross-post. :lol:

I'll look at the save again and see if any of my suggestions need updating.

------

OK, one thing does change... we should start marching a small force of grens (about 6-8 should do, with the GG-medic, though you are better at deciding the composition of a force to take a city defended by 2LB's and a pike) towards Assyrian (Cyrus's barb-captured hindu city north of the ice barrier). When the force gets close to Cyrus' borders, we can decide whether to DOW him or not. We can bribe Shaka into war with Cyrus first so that we don't get a -2 hit on our primary FT when we DOW, but we'll need to tech something nice that he wants... don't know how much cash it would take. Who knows... maybe Hatty bribes him for us. Or GK, who then also moves up to the A-list of FT's.

So the PPP for the next turns need to take that into account:
--Add line: Prepare military expedition force and station in Shaka territory at the Persian border by Assyrian.
--Add line: figure out what it would cost to bribe Shaka to dow Cyrus, and start acquiring what is needed.
---add line: diplo-.if we ask GK politely for his extra Rice, we can then start GIFTING crab to HC. We can already right now start gifting extra Sheep to Mansa. Do it, don't ask for anything in return... building up diplo is more important than 11gpt. Hatty does not give us any Fair Trade diplo, and we have not gifted her Divine Rights. We should go ahead and gift that to her... never hurts to improve diplo, even though she's not a FT.

You are green to continue to the DC founding.

Once we have what we want going out of Assyrian, we will give that city to probably Shaka.

So we may want to burn Cyrus. No northern DC - reletively slow and expensive. Prep to take Assyrian by force. And the truly brilliant part of this is that Cyrus stays member even though he'd lose the city we infected... now that Trystero had the almost psychic foresight to inefect Persiopolis!!! :goodjob:

kcd_swede · May 9, 2012

Plastic Ducks haven't uploaded a save since April 26. :rolleyes:

ChrisShaffer · May 9, 2012

kcd_swede said:
Plastic Ducks haven't uploaded a save since April 26.

Yeah, I figured they were finished. How can you tell what date they last uploaded a save?

neilmeister · May 9, 2012

ChrisShaffer said:
Yeah, I figured they were finished. How can you tell what date they last uploaded a save?

Its a hover mouse popup when you look at the 'list of saves' graph on the results page.

Xcalibrator · May 9, 2012

Nice work, Trys! How are your nerves holding up? :lol:

Other than the Uckly Ducklings, all teams have submitted saves w/in the past 3 days. The Ducks tend to have significant intervals between sets of saves, so it's at least conceivable they haven't finished yet.

I'm worried about losing DC's forest--my understanding of when the game says an improvement finishes has a slop of one turn, so please err on the side of caution--pay no attention to the stationary-spy bonus as long as we have enough EPs and spies. What are the odds of revolt success? Just for the sake of argument, assume it's 80% in both cities. If we have 2 spies in each city that means we have a 0.2*0.2 + 0.2*0.2 = 8% chance of putting only one city into revolt (plus a 0.16% chance for neither in revolt). Having a 3rd spy in one city reduces failure to very near 5%. (The failure prob for 70% individual-mission-success would be 19% with 2+2 and 12% with 2+3.) When the time comes, try the city with fewer spies first. If both have equal numbers, try the city with the lower mission success probability first. (The idea is that if we know we can't get revolt in both it's better to abort and save our EPs for something else, like stealing tech. A small matter compared to the profound sadness over our failed ploy, but one must be logical.

).

-------------------------------
There is belated interest, expressed in the Maintenance Thread, for a 2-week extension. Fools! They called me mad when I proposed it, and now look at them!

What's our position on this? I guess a lot depends on whether or not HC or MM is surrounded by mountains, which we won't know for another day or two, or more. If infection won't work (short of dropping paratroopers and building airports) then we're looking at a significantly longer game, going for UN or late Religious.

Xcalibrator · May 9, 2012

Um, just noticed in the BUFFY log that you built walls and castle in Bollywood, not Babylon. Bolly could have been building spies or something. The idea was to protect our frontier city against Hatty's northern stack in case we needed to DoW her. BTW, where is that stack now? Stone now gifted, and our grens can handle her, so forget about it.

Trystero · May 9, 2012

Xcalibrator said:
Um, just noticed in the BUFFY log that you built walls and castle in Bollywood, not Babylon. Bolly could have been building spies or something. The idea was to protect our frontier city against Hatty's northern stack in case we needed to DoW her. BTW, where is that stack now? Stone now gifted, and our grens can handle her, so forget about it.

Xcalibrator said:
Nice work, Trys! How are your nerves holding up?

I think my B-city mix up speaks to that. :blush:

Xcalibrator said:
I'm worried about losing DC's forest--my understanding of when the game says an improvement finishes has a slop of one turn, so please err on the side of caution--pay no attention to the stationary-spy bonus as long as we have enough EPs and spies. What are the odds of revolt success? Just for the sake of argument, assume it's 80% in both cities. If we have 2 spies in each city that means we have a 0.2*0.2 + 0.2*0.2 = 8% chance of putting only one city into revolt (plus a 0.16% chance for neither in revolt). Having a 3rd spy in one city reduces failure to very near 5%. (The failure prob for 70% individual-mission-success would be 19% with 2+2 and 12% with 2+3.) When the time comes, try the city with fewer spies first. If both have equal numbers, try the city with the lower mission success probability first. (The idea is that if we know we can't get revolt in both it's better to abort and save our EPs for something else, like stealing tech. A small matter compared to the profound sadness over our failed ploy, but one must be logical. ).

The first spy just arrived at Memphis, so I haven't checked the odds. We would have had 2 spies in each city except that we lost 2 of them en route. We are only a couple of turns away. In the name of expedience maybe someone (Xcal?) would like to play those turns to get us to the pause/decision point? I won't be able to play for another 10-12 hours from now, and then would have to pause again after a couple of turns.

Xcalibrator · May 9, 2012

Trystero said:
The first spy just arrived at Memphis, so I haven't checked the odds. We would have had 2 spies in each city except that we lost 2 of them en route. We are only a couple of turns away. In the name of expedience maybe someone (Xcal?) would like to play those turns to get us to the pause/decision point? I won't be able to play for another 10-12 hours from now, and then would have to pause again after a couple of turns.

No, no, you're doing fine! I wouldn't dream of taking away your opportunity to play more! [size=-2]Please play more. I am afraid.[/size] In any case, I won't be able to play for another 8 hours (0100 GMT) so there's little advantage, and you're more familiar with the situation. Bummer that we've had such bad luck on Hatty catching our spies. The odds of success with DC are still in our favor, but don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work out. We have other methods to deal with Hatty.

SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

Procrastination at its finest

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