SGOTM 16 - Plastic Ducks

@kossin

I agree with your plan to make a plan.
But don't be offended if I don't participate aside cheap advices just like I lately do.
I am out of the city I live in for 10 more days and when I get there I will not have any free time for months.

So, message is, I support you but don't count on me coordinating anything.

And I won't be able to take any set.

No problem, it's what I get for being absent for 90% of the game

Note that there were 2 major difference in SGOTM12 -- more Sushi resources and the RI, which let the beaker output increase dramatically when RIs are online. Of course, we don't need to care about the tremendous hammers needed on SS parts in this game.

Duckweed said:

Note that there were 2 major difference in SGOTM12 -- more Sushi resources and the RI, which let the beaker output increase dramatically when RIs are online. Of course, we don't need to care about the tremendous hammers needed on SS parts in this game.

Click to expand...

Yes, I've tried taking this into account. We'll spend some hammers on units but we also have more cities than OSS did when I started the comparison (and more research) - they eventually caught up in cities but the overall situation at the first comparison point is favorable to us. The total beaker requirements are similar, RIs only accounted for 800~1,000 bpt in their game, they still hit 11k bpt by the end, which is more than we'll get but we only need to hit ~8k towards the end. It should be similar but every turn where we have a low slider (and don't research something in 1t) will delay victory by 1t.

I'm almost done with the test game, all the cities on the main continent and islands are done. I have to revise the AI continent and add our cities over there... tinker a bit with GPP in relevant cities and then it's ready.

kossin, I thought you were on vacation.

It takes an incredible discipline to make such a humongeous test game.

kossin said:

I'm almost done with the test game, all the cities on the main continent and islands are done. I have to revise the AI continent and add our cities over there... tinker a bit with GPP in relevant cities and then it's ready.

Click to expand...

That's really a surprise for me, last time was in SGOTM11.

To be honest, it's just a WB fiesta... maybe 3 hours so far.

When I'm on vacation is pretty much the only time I get to play, so why not

@Kossin,


It's really amazing to compile such a huge test game. I wonder how you record all of the city infras and the tile improments. Using two computers?

Screenshots and windowed civ4 in 1024x768. I should probably invest in a second screen...

Go go Kossin!

How do you plan to do the city gift/ culture spread thing?
If we cease fire with SB to gift Paris, that will delay capitulation, his cities will pop borders and we'll pass the domination limit won't it?

kossin said:

What we'd need is:
-bring SB down to 3 cities
-make cease fire
-give Orleans
-perform ~8 missions
-DoW
-re-take Orleans

Click to expand...

To avoid triggering domination: gift cities to Hammy or raze them...

We can only liberate cities to Hammy, and we can create a new vassal from new conquered cities of SB.

Good point. Gifting back Babylonian cities to Hammy is an option then. (although not too preferable) Also gifts to Saladin can be done.

Worst comes to worst, raze everything and re-settle everything at the last moment. I'll count tiles a bit later.

Here we go.

It's not 100% accurate, but the more important points are.

If you notice something wrong, edit ahead. For instance, I didn't add the Tao missionaries in transit...
If you notice something weird, it's a WB artifact

I might go on a trip for the next 2 days so it'd be a bit of time before I can do a complete test.
edit: yup, heading out.

EDIT2: first run, T236. T235 might be difficult to achieve, research is much more difficult than I'd hoped as we're capping around 8k beakers.

EDIT3: upon further consideration, I think T235 is unfeasible unless we manage to trade/steal at least Rifling. Although the test game is more conservative than the real save and I didn't really optimize things, I must also say that I ran Free Religion most of the time and we might have to stick to Pacifism for GAs. This test run also doesn't take into account the need to spend several hundred hammers (which I worldbuilded to save time): U.N. (1,000H = 1,000 beakers) , spies (18 spy missions, but built 25 spies = 1,000H = 1,000 beakers), 7 guided missiles to kill Humbaba (280 H = 280 beakers), 3~4 Marines (used 1, let's say 640H = 640 beakers)
---
~3,000 H = 3,000 beakers

So I'd say we can aim at T236 victory for now (and if things speed up in the actual game, we'll adjust), which requires Mass Media and the U.N.

Post. I just realized the above edits might go unnoticed...
tl;dr; T236 U.N. + Domination seems most likely in terms of speed, feasibility, reliability.

^ sounds like a plan.

How many artist bombs are required?

I can take a few turns if needed.

Will play with the test game first ^_^

I didn't micro properly and also skipped the Tao cathedral but it was almost enough with 3 GArtists. By running more specialists than I did and building the Tao cathedral I think there shouldn't be any problem.

kossin said:

Post. I just realized the above edits might go unnoticed...
tl;dr; T236 U.N. + Domination seems most likely in terms of speed, feasibility, reliability.

Click to expand...

I checked the post every day, so I noticed your changes.

Micro may change the result by 1~2 turns, so the highest risk is still the unexpected victory before T236. We'd better watch out.

Some more data...

U.N. completion
T0 - UN is built (the turn you see 1 turn remaining)
T1 - Sec Gen. vote
T2 - Sec Gen. result
T6 - First vote
T7 - vote result

So U.N. should be built 7 turns before expected victory. OTOH, we could potentially benefit from the extra traderoutes (worth about 250~300C per turn) which yield more than UoS+SM+AP together (32 temples, 2 cathedrals), however, timing becomes riskier.

U.N. vote vs Domination
As you might expect, we have no difficulty having enough votes for U.N., in fact, we have too much and must lose population (below 70%). Liberating cities will remove some population from the other continent but the big cities are at home; besides, liberating cities means losing land tiles, which we need. We can only gift these cities to SB once he's reduced to 3 cities. Another option is to starve population in our cities. Finally, the last option is to capitulate another AI, which means more hammers. I think starving our big cities might be easiest given that the remaining AI cities should be plenty large.

Research
I ran another quick test, this time I spent the extra hammers which were mentioned in previous post. Also, I stayed into Pacifism the whole time. I also added more beaker multipliers where they paid off in time.

The result is a T237 victory (short 6k beakers), but I'm pretty sure it's my fault, I favored Exec spread over fact+cp this time around.

Orleans' culture was done on T235 with 3 bombs as planned by soundjata. Paris can be done pretty much any turn with the spies... I end up with 9~10k EPP against Ragnar.

What's left to do
I more and more doubt we can achieve T235 victory, but T236 is pretty good (and not so easy... feel free to try!).

I'd rather win T236 than spend 3 weeks planning out T235 victory.

In no precise order...

1. We have to identify the next stopping point, probably 2T after Electricity.
2. GPP should be re-planned out... we absolutely need 5 more GPs: 3 GA bombs, 1 for Golden Age, 1 for 3rd Corporation... 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800, 2000 !! 2200 for GA safety which can be aborted if we have early success
3. What city will do what (some cities should switch to wealth right away, most cities should get Fact+CP, Mining spread, we don't really need much more Sushi spreading)
4. How to keep AIs out of Emancipation as much as possible (this is worth a few thousand beakers)
5. When to trigger next G.A.
6. Tech path (give more time to AIs to get Rifling for a trade)

If you have decided the GPP and number of the spy buildings, could you post the PPP and prepare to play? I'd still like you to stop often even you have a general feeling.