SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

kcd_swede · May 13, 2012

AAA said:
I understand it sucks,...........I just don't think we'll reliably get them to friendly any other way.

And if we are to give up on the exclusivity we might as well go all the way.
Can you control who your opponent will be in a AP victory vote?

Yes, to a degree. The candidates are the AP owner and the civ running hindu as state religion that has the most number of votes in the elections. Remember that when running hindu, their hindu pop is doubled. So if they have a size 6 city and a size 13 city, they'd have 38 votes.

Just infect enough cities of the civ you want as your opponent, and they will become the opponent unless your friend self-infects more.

Things to watch out for:
AI will self-spread the faith if they are running it as state religion, and
With lots of hinduists, the votes that we have get diluted... we might not be able to get enough votes with just one friendly. But we can see and probably correct for that when the time comes.

Xcalibrator · May 13, 2012

I also think infecting more cities (other than of MM/HC) is a bad idea. Not that we have any great ideas at this point. But I'd still try for the Religion win by infecting the last two, presumably by capturing some of Hatty's coast and building ships to carry over miss's or perhaps gifting an infected coastal city. For those keeping track, our share of the AP vote is now down to 78%.

MM at this stage isn't a big deal but I can't help noticing that Calcutta has 2 unhappies and Varanasi is still growing (and about to go over its hapy cap) while running a couple commerceless farms. Babylon does not have barracks. Heroic Epic in Drona, even though Bombay and Babylon have nearly the same production plus 2 settled GG's? OK, Drona is closer to the eastern front if you're sure that's where the main fighting will be. It depends on where Hatty's big stack (now over 50 units with more nearby) is when we DoW. At the moment it's 1SE of Babylon. Is it heading off to fight Cyrus?

If/when it gets north of Babylon, our superdefensive chokepoint (although it still doesn't have walls), do not let it get behind our lines again! If she makes peace with Cyrus it may very well come back via Babylon. That must not be allowed to happen--DoW even if you're not ready to attack.

Speaking of getting ready to DoW, it looks like there's no way to bribe Shaka or Liz into DoWing Hatty--she's redded out as a target. Stealing Drama from Liz will take 582 EPs before any stationary-spy discounts (in Kago--Canterbury is cheaper because it has Hindism--can we infect Kago yet?). Drama is listed as 482 beakers on the tech map. Rifling is 3744, so it's going to be a long time before we can steal it, and we might need our EPs to control her civics. It might be cheaper to research it ourselves. BTW, we should have enough EPs to see what Hatty is researching. Why doesn't it show? Did she just finish something? Nothing useful, I hope?

We can get Steel in about 6 turns. 9 turns to next AP vote. We can trade our fish to MM for 11 gpt. Nobody will sell a map. Let's prepare to take Satsuma, probably by way of taking Tokyo and Lahore to deprive Hatty of any Hindu cities, and infect the last 2 civs.

Xcalibrator · May 13, 2012

Since Steel is going to take longer than expected and Hatty will have grens before long, build (or prebuild) a whole mess o' trebs, then build wealth and turn the slider to 0% once Steel comes in so we can do a massive treb upgrade for 80 gold apiece. The longer we wait to attack the harder it'll be (apart from the big factor of which side of Babylon Hatty's stack is on).

AAA · May 13, 2012

How about I just change Liz and Shaka into Hindu as an experiment, but do not add any Hindu into any of their cities. See if it shakes loose any maps or reduces Hatty's dip with them to the point they can be bribed into a war or we at least don't loose dip for DOWing her, maybe we will even go to friendly with one or both.

Hatty just finished Sci Meth. I have no preference for where the Heroic Epic goes, where do people think?

If esp points are no cheaper than straight tech, I'll just tech. If Hatty's stack leave us for Shaka I'll close boarders with her - I want our marble back anyway.

I'll wait for input :scan:

Xcalibrator · May 13, 2012

AAA said:
How about I just change Liz and Shaka into Hindu as an experiment, but do not add any Hindu into any of their cities. See if it shakes loose any maps or reduces Hatty's dip with them to the point they can be bribed into a war or we at least don't loose dip for DOWing her, maybe we will even go to friendly with one or both.

Worth a shot. If successful on Liz, have a Hindu miss ready to immediately infect Kago to knock down the cost of espi missions--that should definitely make tech stealing cheaper than straight research (after stationary spy discount).

I don't know where HE should go, but agree we should cancel the marble gift while we're building it--either Bombay (for 4 GG XPs) or Drona (closer to eastern front). Both will have the same number of hpt once Bombay grows in 5 turns. Definitely build barracks in Babylon before finishing the gren, though.

AAA · May 13, 2012

OK it is 1575 and we have steel.

Many good things have happen, some not so good.

Hatty's stack is going for Cyrus. It is four turns from us, three turns from Cyrus, I have two fast units shadowing it.

I flipped Liz into Hindu at the cost of two spys and -1 dip, but she went to friendly opening up all tech trade but not the map. The next turn however she switched to Free religion...........all for nothing :cry:

Then same turn Shaka flipped to friendly all by himself and will tech trade everything - not map.

Liz however is willing to DOW Hatty, and she (and Shaka) doesn't have steel, and Shaka won't DOW Hatty cause there is nothing in it for him - that will often change if a dogpile starts.

Here is the log

Spoiler :

The save is uploaded and I'm passing off, cause the thing I learned from Osaka is that I have no feel for siege unit fighting :confused:

. I pretty much only use them for bombarding cities. Hopefully everything is in place for someone how does.

I think the DOW should go down in three or four turns once Hatty's stack has reached Cyrus.

Steel was the better choice.

SteelHorse · May 13, 2012

Howdy - been traveling - sorry for lack of correspondence and help.

Great job AAA getting Shaka to Friendly.

Looks like the best path forward to try get Liz to declare on Hatty and join in on the fun. Upgrade to canons. Then try to take Satsuma. Hopefully Liz sends the stack from Kago.

Yikes - Liz flipped out of her favorite civic. Have we gifted her any cities? Is the next city gift +1 or +2.

AAA · May 14, 2012

SteelHorse said:
Great job AAA getting Shaka to Friendly.

Thank you, thank you very much,......I did nothing :goodjob:

kcd_swede · May 14, 2012

AAA said:
OK it is 1575 and we have steel.

Many good things have happen, some not so good.

Hatty's stack is going for Cyrus. It is four turns from us, three turns from Cyrus, I have two fast units shadowing it.

I flipped Liz into Hindu at the cost of two spys and -1 dip, but she went to friendly opening up all tech trade but not the map. The next turn however she switched to Free religion...........all for nothing

Then same turn Shaka flipped to friendly all by himself and will tech trade everything - not map.

Liz however is willing to DOW Hatty, and she (and Shaka) doesn't have steel, and Shaka won't DOW Hatty cause there is nothing in it for him - that will often change if a dogpile starts.
The save is uploaded and I'm passing off, cause the thing I learned from Osaka is that I have no feel for siege unit fighting . I pretty much only use them for bombarding cities. Hopefully everything is in place for someone how does.

I think the DOW should go down in three or four turns once Hatty's stack has reached Cyrus.

Steel was the better choice.

Not sure what you mean by some not so good things happened. I expected Liz to switch to Free Religion, and that eliminates the "heathen" penalty for us. So it wasn't for nothing. Looking real good, AAA. :goodjob:

Normally, I'd expect Shaka to become willing to DOW Hatty once the warring starts... the question is whether the penalty for DOW on his friend will make us unable to.

I asked what Liz wants to DOW Hatty and she says "I don't think that can be done". So we don't have enough to bribe her yet.

So the DOW will hurt ourselves diplomatically with FT's Liz, Shaka, and GK, but gain with Cyrus. Its worth doing, in any case, as it is our only option.

Steelhorse, I think its your turn. Can you play? If we don't hear from you in 24hr then XCal will play.

No need for lots of discussion... the plan as outlined by AAA is still in effect. Hatty has very few units home. Note there are 2 knights in Nippur so upgrade one of the spears in Dur-K to a Pike might be worthwhile before the DOW. I wouldn't waste a lot of money upgrading Trebs, they are enough to do the job. Since Hatty has few units around, I'd take the time to cross the river before attacking Tokyo. That also puts you closer to Satsuma. You have enough units to take Lahore, and probably Memphis, too, which you might have to do to clear the culture borders around Satsuma.

One thing to watch for: Hatty has the Statue of Zeus in Thebes. War weariness will build up quickly.... so this is blitz warfare! The AP vote cycle is in 4t and 14t and 24t. I think the primary objective is to infect MM/HC in some way, and get the victory vote. Probably 24t is the earliest possible. The 14t vote could be used to get a dogpile on Hatty or to end the war, depending on what is best. The 4t vote isn't going to be of much use.

Save enough cash to upgrade at Babylon when the Egytian stack returns.

Its killin' time! Someone give us a got-it please. Sooner is better than later. Right now would be better still. :mischief:

AAA · May 14, 2012

kcd_swede said:
I asked what Liz wants to DOW Hatty and she says "I don't think that can be done". So we don't have enough to bribe her yet.

The price for getting an AI to declare war before you is always astronomical, once you have declared the price drops considerably, steel maybe enough if she still doesn't have it in a few turns. Hatty also has been good enough not to research any military techs

.

Xcalibrator · May 14, 2012

Haven't opened the save but things sound good! :goodjob:

I read that Kago is now infected--espi should be quite a bit cheaper now. Do not whip to finish the Heroic Epic in Babylon--we need warm bodies to work hammer tiles. And from what I recall, we should have enough food to build some workshops there when our pop is big enough.

Unless there's some other really pressing need for our commerce, I'd upgrade a fair number of trebs--it's cheap, their city-attack strength is 50% higher than trebs (3x as strong in defense or when attacking something other than cities), promotions (e.g., CR) have 3 times the effect because it's relative to base strength, they knock down units to a lower point than trebs (25% vs 50% or something like that), and they bombard faster. If you want lightning war--and who doesn't--cannon are way better than trebs. [Edit: Cannon are also invulnerable to knight flanking, unlike cats and trebs.]

Hold off on upgrading our super-city-defender Xbow in Babylon until we have Rifling (assuming we have time before Hatty shows up at Babylon), since a rifle is better than a gren. A fortified rifle with CG3 and Drill2 on a hill behind city walls--ooh, I'm getting all tingly.

I'm not sure where would be best for our supermedic. If we have him stay put in Babylon we can leave a fairly small force to defend, but Hatty might not even attack Babylon while we know we're going to see fighting in the east. I guess I'd favor the east. In any case, make sure you have some healers where you need them.

Make sure we've taken all of Hatty's Hindu cities before the AP vote in 14 turns, so we open the holy war option (unless we want her to have Hinduism for some reason). Too bad about the diplo demerits for DoWing Hatty but I don't think we have a choice. Once we do, try again to bribe the AI to join. One would assume that if Shaka DoWs, Hatty's big stack will teleport to Cyrus's territory (so Babylon will be quite safe), but it's conceivable it would teleport to Nippur if it isn't close enough to Cyrus--good thing we have those shadow units to see where things are. Keep in mind that once we DoW, our camp followers can be attacked by Hatty.

kcd_swede · May 14, 2012

^Xcal:
You keep saying "we" and implying that someone else is going to play the next set. I guess you are holding out for Steelhorse, eh? It would be good if YOU are ready to go asap, in case we don't hear "got-it" from Steelhorse.

Of course, you may pre-empt the additional 14hrs wait and take it yourself... the plan is still green. We only need the volunteer to step up.

If there's anything left and Steelhorse doesn't want a peice of the action, I can be up after you, whether you go before or after Steelhorse.

We cannot really afford to wait 24hrs every 10 turns anymore. :trouble:

Xcalibrator · May 14, 2012

You keep saying "we" and implying that someone else is going to play the next set. I guess you are holding out for Steelhorse, eh?

One can hope, yes?

But yeah, I should be able to play some tonight if SH can't.

Trystero · May 14, 2012

If you just need someone to hit the "end turn" button (i.e. no thinking involved), I should be available after Wednesday. Hopefully Xcal will pull an all-nighter and we'll be done by then.

Whatever you want to do from here has the green from me.

Xcalibrator · May 14, 2012

I can play in about 3 hours and will announce when/if I start. If SH would like to play instead :mischief:

please post here so we don't have two people playing at once.

Xcalibrator · May 14, 2012

Alrighty then! I'm playing...

Xcalibrator · May 14, 2012

Played to 1610 AD, T232. DoWed Hatty on T227. Great Prophet born in Bolly T228. We have a Great Sci, too. Run a Golden Age? I flipped Liz back to Merclism (from State Property). Nobody will sell a map or be bribed in to war. I could trade Steel to Shaka for Steam Power, I think--am aiming for Railroad to speed movement. Is that OK? Stole Rifling from Liz on T231 for 2134 EPs.

With Hinduism, Kago is an espionage goldmine. AP vote on 230--did nothing since only option was to stop the war. Captured Tokyo 229, Nippur 230, Satsuma 232. It will come out of revolt in 6 turns. Hatty's big stack is sitting next to Assyrian, very slooowwwwly bombarding it. Idiot. She should be ready to attack next turn. We still have AAA's worker and explorer keeping an eye on things up there.

I would not be at all offended if someone else wanted to play, but should be able to continue tomorrow if needed. Save has been uploaded. Bah. Log is too long. Suffice to say we have suffered very few losses, and Hatty many. I only keep the beginning and end of the log.

Spoiler Upload log :

Deckhand · May 15, 2012

Xcalibrator said:
Nobody will sell a map ...

I don't recall Tokugawa ever being willing to trade maps.
Have others experienced him willing to do so?

Good job everyone.
One week left, Go Team Go!

kcd_swede · May 15, 2012

Played to 1610 AD, T232. DoWed Hatty on T227. Great Prophet born in Bolly T228. We have a Great Sci, too. Run a Golden Age? I flipped Liz back to Merclism (from State Property). Nobody will sell a map or be bribed in to war. I could trade Steel to Shaka for Steam Power, I think--am aiming for Railroad to speed movement. Is that OK? Stole Rifling from Liz on T231 for 2134 EPs. With Hinduism, Kago is an espionage goldmine. AP vote on 230--did nothing since only option was to stop the war. Captured Tokyo 229, Nippur 230, Satsuma 232. It will come out of revolt in 6 turns. Hatty's big stack is sitting next to Assyrian, very slooowwwwly bombarding it. Idiot. She should be ready to attack next turn. We still have AAA's worker and explorer keeping an eye on things up there.

I would not be at all offended if someone else wanted to play, but should be able to continue tomorrow if needed. Save has been uploaded. Bah. Log is too long. Suffice to say we have suffered very few losses, and Hatty many. I only keep the beginning and end of the log.

Interesting situation here.... Incans ARE willing to take Satsuma as a gift. So all we need is a caravel with a Mish and get it to MM who we have OB with. Infect MM, gift Satsuma, and then the Diplo Vic option is available. :goodjob:

However, with 6t revolt left in Satsuma (and no GArt to end it faster), we won't make it in time for the vote in 7t. We MUST get this done by the 17t vote.

Don't need to do anything that takes longer than 17t to payback, because that's when the game ends.

We have 370 votes ourselves, and the max (right now) is 336. Gifting Babylon to Shaka 1 or 2 turns before the vote reduces our votes by 24, and Satsuma to the Incans by another 12. That's perfect, but we could afford to gift Agra back to Liz as well and try to get some more votes. Have to see what the pop counts are 15t from now. No point gifting cities before we infect MM, though. Besides, we don't know for sure that we can get a mish to MM from Satsuma, even with OB to HC/MM. But we sure hope so.

So the countdown is on.

I don't think RR is so useful with only 17t left. Astro is a better call, in case we do need to move something heavier than spies/missionaries. We can get it for steel, no prob (Shaka, probably others too).

I do not see any further war objectives against Hatty. The only thing it does for us is gain diplo with Cyrus, which is good. Can just fight defense from here, except I'd very much like to be able to move units to Satsuma without having to cross Egyptian territory, which means it would be nice to take down Memphis as well, which should take maybe 4-5t, as she has nothing left. Leave her Lahore so she remains an AP member. After Memphis there is nothing else that helps us... caravels can go through Hatty territory to get north even without OB... we don't want to have to fight caravels up to the north, so it is best to make peace (take whatever she will give, right now we'd get map, drama, 390 gold) AFTER taking Memphis.

Take Memphis BEFORE the 7t vote and make peace for booty, then use the 7t vote to force OB, or end the Cyrus/GK war.

---

Critical path:
Revolt in Satsuma ends in 6t
Memphis falls in 5t
Peace for goodies-- esp MAP 6t
3-pop whip caravel 7t, load with Hmiss, and sail north towards MM.
Bad news: Caravel will require at least 10t to get north. :mad:

Alt 1: One caravel, 2-mish: whip caravel asap and load with mish#1 who goes land route through HC, who may have RR to MM? Then the caravel picks up the second mish who is headed north with heavy escort along Egyptian coast. After mish#2 is loaded on the caravel, we accept peace from Hatty.

With luck, one of the mish get to MM before the vote, otherwise its 27t to victory.

Alt 2: Accept peace with Hatty as soon as memphis falls, and see on map if possible to reach MM within the 17t vote. If not, plenty of time. If yes, we can use AP to try and force OB, and proceed with the 1caravel-2mish plan.

Gift Satsuma to HC as soon as MM is infected.

Gift pop to make threshold, preferably to Shaka, vote, win.

Max, 27t. Min 17t.

Keep slider heavy on EP, will revolt memphis prior to capture, will keep folks in correct civics. See that enough spies are on hand to do all this.

Physics would let us see the map without buying one, and Hatty doesn't have it so her map might not be much better than ours. So all things being equal, I'd trade Steel for SciMeth (Liz) and Astro (Shaka), and then "steel" Physics. Get an airship and see the map.

386EP to steal Econ (2184 beakers) in Kago, so Physics at 6240 beakers should be around 1200EP (without stationary spy bonus). We can have this amount of EP on Liz in 1t.

We'll have a spy to get -40% then, too.

So PPP:
Trade Steel for Astro + Sci Meth and whatever else Liz/Shaka might part with. Steal Physics in 1t from Kago.

Make airship in fastest city, rebase to Old Sarai, and see MM territory. Rebase to other places to reveal more as needed. Take screenshots, upload, and come up with new plan when MM is seen to be inaccessible.

Take Memphis in 4-5t with help of city revolt, get map for peace when Satsu comes out of revolt (6t) (so caravels do not have to fight). Use 7t AP vote to force OB (might get defied). If MM is accessible within 17t vote limit, (even if he isn't) save game 2t before vote and plan final adjustments.

Final set will be just to adjust hindu populations, ensure Friends stay in right civics, plan eventualities for last second demands, vote and win.

Pause if something unexpected happens or new planning needed when more map is revealed. Max 15t, pause 2t before the 17t AP vote

-----------

Any comments or suggestions?

You want to finish the war Xcal, or you want me to play it?
You've done awesome this far. :goodjob:

--------
Est completion at t250 or t260. Unless Neil's map bends us over again.

Xcalibrator · May 15, 2012

Don't have time to think at the moment but if we get Astro we can build galleons, which will save time sailing up north. Would we have the pop to whip one quickly? If not, build a galley (before getting AStro) and then get Astro and upgrade it. Keep in mind the missionaries don't always work the first time.

I'm happy for kcd to play.

SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

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