SGOTM 21 - Xteam

Cactus Pete said:

My question is: Do we really want to feed Isabella with all out techs?

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Nope. She can't help us unless she is Friendly toward us, which would mean that we'd have to be Buddhist, as she won't switch from her self-founded and likely well-spread Religion.

The best way to keep Isabella from being enabled is to ensure that any AI toward whom she will become Friendly is an AI who is far more advanced than her and thus she will have nothing of value to trade to that AI, and therefore won't make tech trades with that AI.

If we sit back and don't enable Mansa, Mansa will learn techs from Isabella, while Isabella will learn techs from Mansa.

So, if the goal is to help keep Isabella backward, then ensure that any AI with whom she will become Friendly is more advanced than her. Enabling Mansa with techs fits in with this goal.

Cactus Pete said:

What is the fall-back plan if W builds a fourth city?

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First, when he settles that City, check if City 4 would still be giftable to him. If not, we settle northern Fish City's Settler to the west of City 4, to share the Corn, which should be close enough to his eastern City to be gifted to him, allowing City 4 to be gifted to him.

leif erikson said:

Think we could sell Mysticism to Shaka for 45 gold.

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If Hammers = Gold (we don't have Stone or Marble to make them worth double), then that's equivalent to the death of 1 Catapult.

But, we unlock Shaka's path toward Feudalism.

Several Military Flavour AIs who do not start with Mysticism will stay away from Feudalism for a long time, until the human player intervenes and sells Mysticism.

If we REALLY want Shaka's Gold, we could sell him one of the other techs (Alphabet or Math).

leif erikson said:

edit - Horse City could go 1-tile south if we want the extra cottage. If we want the production of the grass hill, then it can remain on the river tile.

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It would be a G Riv Farm, not a Cottage, since it's not in our capital.

We'd miss out on the GH Mine and a G Farm and would have 1 less Forest in our big fat cross by moving 1S.

So, it looks marginally less good to settle 1S of the River, but either location will get us all of the Resources in our big fat cross.

The nice part about settling 1SE of the G Riv Horse is that after we Road our way to the City (partially Farming the G Riv that is 1E of the G Riv Horse on the way), we can immediately start to Pasture the Horse without waiting for our Cultural Borders to expand, which is the strongest square there with 7 yields (F + H + C) and only takes 4 turns to improve. The Deer would take 6? turns to improve, or 7 turns if 2 Workers move to that square, and only produces 5 yields.


Oops, I meant to type sending the Settler 2NE from City 4. Corrected.

Played to end of T88 and stopped due to trade possibilities:
Shaka has 60 gold and will trade it for Med (or other techs)
W has 70 gold and will also trade for Med

Notes:

At the beginning of T87, Mansa completed Mids and solicited Monotheism, which I obliged him with.
Traded CS to M for 50g and then traded him Currency to achieve a switch to Bureaucracy, all on T87
W founded Theo
Temple of Artemis built in a foreign land

T88: Learn that W is now researching MC (7 turns) and that Mansa is teching Paper (12 turns)
F2 screen shows research at 156, not the 155 that is on the PPP. Not sure why the inconsistency. (Researching Aesthetics at 100%.)

Save posted at Central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_BC0675_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

If I get feedback on making trades, which seem fine to me, except that someone may come demanding gold, then I should be able to play T89 about 9 hours from now. (Will not play until I get feedback.)

So, Shaka self-teched Mysticism finally, then?

We definitely want the 60 Gold and 70 Gold.

For Shaka, Meditation does lead to Priesthood, which leads to Monarchy, which leads to Feudalism.

Math could lead Shaka to teching Construction, but that's better than Feudalism. Capturing Colosseums is good. Fighting Longbowmen is bad.

So, I'd probably say:
60 Gold from Shaka <-> Math
70 Gold from Willem <-> Meditation


I can't see anywhere where we could make 3 Hammers when building Research, so let's just accept the fact that we got +1 Flask and not worry about anther bonus Flask on top of that for this turn. There are too many important build items being built now, anyway.


If an AI Demands/Requests the Gold, as long as it's less than 100 Gold, we haven't really fallen behind by earning 130 Gold and having to give away 99 or less, so I'm okay with accepting that risk. We'll get some Catapults out pretty soon to help with building up our Power level.


By the way, things are looking really good in the game! That's excellent news in terms of Willem's and Mansa's tech choices!

Dhoomstriker said:

So, Shaka self-teched Mysticism finally, then? I did not trade it to him. How do you know someone else didn't?

We definitely want the 60 Gold and 70 Gold.

For Shaka, Meditation does lead to Priesthood, which leads to Monarchy, which leads to Feudalism.

Math could lead Shaka to teching Construction, but that's better than Feudalism. Capturing Colosseums is good. Fighting Longbowmen is bad. I'm not too fond of fighting cats either, but certainly that's preferable, so will trade him Math.

So, I'd probably say:
60 Gold from Shaka <-> Math
70 Gold from Willem <-> Meditation


If an AI Demands/Requests the Gold, as long as it's less than 100 Gold, we haven't really fallen behind by earning 130 Gold and having to give away 99 or less, so I'm okay with accepting that risk. We'll get some Catapults out pretty soon to help with building up our Power level. Understood.


By the way, things are looking really good in the game! That's excellent news in terms of Willem's and Mansa's tech choices!

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Concur.

Will send settler 2NE of City 4.

"If we sit back and don't enable Mansa, Mansa will learn techs from Isabella, while Isabella will learn techs from Mansa." Follow that.

Will be playing in a few minutes.

Cactus Pete said:

I did not trade it to him. How do you know someone else didn't?

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Shaka almost certainly self-teched Mysticism then, because:
1. He's the most backward AI, so no AI should trade with him
2. He doesn't really have anything to trade in exchange for Mysticism and I don't think that AIs are allowed to purely use cash in a tech trade, just Gold to top-up a trade
3. Shaka doesn't easily trade techs unless a lot of other players know that tech or he is Friendly toward the target player

Good luck!

Made trades and played until the end of T89.

Notes:

Shaka was only willing to give 55g for Math, so would have researched it soon himself anyway.
Shaka has chariots and so does W.
Mansa now gets Paper in 8 turns and W now gets MC in 5 turns.

Given the coming war, suggest worker1 (immediately after completing Piscatorium's final mine) be moved to road iron, sheep, and perhaps the line of forests in preparation for settling Iron City.

Save posted at Central and here: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG021_BC0650_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

This is all for me on this turn set. Regret that it took me so long to get up to speed and that I didn't get us further along (and we are behind other teams).

It would probably take Hawk or anyone else a while to catch up as well. The plan to gift and attack seems to be proceeding nicely and is probably too far along to alter it significantly without setting us back. Moreover, none of the other players (other than myself and Folket) have gotten involved much at all for some time now. So, what about letting Dhoom play out his scenario himself (which figures to be both much quicker and much less uncertain)? He's doing all the work anyway, and, if someone else proceeds without following his direction, that risks jeopardizing what appears to be an excellent start to the game.

After that, suggest we be a little less rigorous in our micro-management.

Cactus Pete said:

Shaka was only willing to give 55g for Math, so would have researched it soon himself anyway.

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Very weird. The only conclusion that I can draw is that Shaka has been researchign Math for quite some time and he got Mysticism in trade from another AI in the game who is relatively backward himself or herself.

Cactus Pete said:

Mansa now gets Paper in 8 turns and W now gets MC in 5 turns.

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Around the time of stealing Theology, we can try to steal Metal Casting, too. Perhaps we should plan to build a 3rd Spy and also spend some time at 100% Espionage again.

Cactus Pete said:

Given the coming war, suggest worker1 (immediately after completing Piscatorium's final mine) be moved to road iron, sheep, and perhaps the line of forests in preparation for settling Iron City.

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We could do that. Unloading the Worker inside of a City gains us a Worker turn, but if we feel that those actions are important, we can simply go do them.

We might just put a partial Road on the Iron, though. As soon as we have a complete Road on the Iron, we won't be able to build Warriors anymore, and yet we might want to work the Iron Mine without having the Iron Resource connected, so we could just wait to finish off that Road until later.

We might just pre-Chop Forests instead of Roading them. Our Resources will be connected to the City and then through our Trade Network.

Cactus Pete said:

Regret that it took me so long to get up to speed and that I didn't get us further along (and we are behind other teams).

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If by enabling Willem and Mansa, we're able to beat other teams by a margin of turns, then maybe we're right on track.

Cactus Pete said:

It would probably take Hawk or anyone else a while to catch up as well. The plan to gift and attack seems to be proceeding nicely and is probably too far along to alter it significantly without setting us back. Moreover, none of the other players (other than myself and Folket) have gotten involved much at all for some time now. So, what about letting Dhoom play out his scenario himself (which figures to be both much quicker and much less uncertain)? He's doing all the work anyway, and, if someone else proceeds without following his direction, that risks jeopardizing what appears to be an excellent start to the game.

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What I like is having at least another set of eyes looking closely at what we're doing.

Also, I'll be busy for the next two days, so I might not have time to contribute much of anything for 2 days.

Cactus Pete said:

After that, suggest we be a little less rigorous in our micro-management.

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For sure, that time is coming soon.

Soon, bigger-picture items will come into play more, such as when and how soon to get our canal to Willem set up... doing that properly or improperly could have a significant impact on our warring date and therefore our dates for all future wars.

That said, some things will have to be timed precisely. For example, we probably have a 1-turn window in which to buy Paper from Mansa, after which he could start to build The University of Sankore and therefore refuse to trade Paper to us.

So, while saving a Hammer here or there might become less important, there will always be important details to pay attention to... and, the details are, I'm afraid, going to become harder to predict with a test game, such as watching for tech-trading opportunities every turn and being willing to stop play when they arrive, so as not to miss out on those opportunities.

Dhoomstriker said:

We could do that. Unloading the Worker inside of a City gains us a Worker turn, but if we feel that those actions are important, we can simply go do them.

We might just put a partial Road on the Iron, though. As soon as we have a complete Road on the Iron, we won't be able to build Warriors anymore, and yet we might want to work the Iron Mine without having the Iron Resource connected, so we could just wait to finish off that Road until later. That would mean the worker would have to go back and road instead of chopping. If we can't know when hostile units will show up, suspect we'll prudently want to be building units as soon as we can get a mine built.

We might just pre-Chop Forests instead of Roading them. Our Resources will be connected to the City and then through our Trade Network. Or both, if time allows.

What I like is having at least another set of eyes looking closely at what we're doing. Test game updated helped with that, but not sure how long that's going to be worth the trouble.

Also, I'll be busy for the next two days, so I might not have time to contribute much of anything for 2 days.

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Let's hope someone else steps up, then.

Nice work CP.

I am under the weather, flu or something, and it does not allow me to concentrate very well, dizziness and aches all over. So I dare not even make an attempt. Too much detail to consume and execute.

Not sure about Hawk's situation, he may be traveling.

In our current downtime, it might be good to talk about some higher-level concepts.


Clues
I'm thinking of buying Elizabeth #3 now. That would leave us 4 clues to buy later using Workers (Isabella #2, Isabella #3, Catherine #1, and Catherine #3).

Elizabeth #1 seems better to attempt than Elizabeth #2. But, Elizabeth #1 is going to affect the upcoming planning of what types of Military Units to build, whether to build Barracks and thus possibly delay our war, and the timing of when to build certain types of units, such as Galleys.

Also, it will affect how we go about getting our first Great Medic (do we need multiple Chariots to try to get one up to 7 XP plus 10 XP from a Great General that's on the same square as our Elizabeth Galley or can we simply build a Scout later with 7 XP by settling 2 Great Generals and building a Barracks in Surfin' Turf)... it depends upon which task we are going for.

It would be nice to know all 3 of her clues now so that we can conclusively determine if planning needs to revolve around Elizabeth #1 or not.

With the Gold that CP just got for us and a Market in X-opolis, I think that we can afford it.


Golden Age and Hereditary Rule
We're running low on Happiness. We already had to whip X-opolis's Market just to avoid Unhappiness at Size 8. I have a feeling that we're just going to have to accept a turn of Anarchy prior to running the Golden Age.

Also, whipping Catapults is in direct competition with hiring Specialists during a Golden Age, unless we intentionally can delay our Golden Age and have Hereditary Rule in our pockets.

2-pop-whipping a Cat gives you a Warrior to go with it, putting us at neutral Happiness and then we simply spend time regrowing and re-whipping.

If we have to minimize our Unhappiness prior to running the Golden Age, I fear that we will be-under equipped for the war.

Meanwhile, with Hereditary Rule being run soon, we can aggressively whip, then aggressively regrow after several rounds of whipping, so that when we do launch the Golden Age, we'll be in a position to hire several Specialists per City.


Northern Fish City
While we could hang on to the City for a few turns, I think that we should probably gift it as soon as we settle it, to remove the risk of Willem settling a 4th City, with none of his Cities being close enough to City 4 to be able to gift him City 4.

I suggest we buy Catherines #1. We could try to end this game fast by building the Colossus and then generate five great people. Perhaps We just need astronomy to win the game.

Folket said:

I suggest we buy Catherines #1. We could try to end this game fast by building the Colossus and then generate five great people. Perhaps We just need astronomy to win the game.

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The thing is that ideally, we should purchase all 3 tasks from a given leader before deciding which one is best.

What's we've learned/know so far is that:
1. Whether a task obsoletes or not is not dictated by its order (we discovered this fact)
2. Tasks which do not obsolete are easier to accomplish (a claim made by BSPollux)
3. Tasks are roughly ordered by the order in which BSPollux believes that the tasks might have been completed, but we don't know what factors he used for evaluation

So, honestly, Catherine #3 might be better than Catherine #1. Or, Catherine #2 might end up being the best task. We won't really know until we learn all 3 of her tasks.

But, to learn all of Catherine's tasks now costs us 366 Gold.

To learn all of Elizabeth's tasks now costs us 166 Gold.

After we can gift Workers, we will be able to learn all of the tasks for 2 leaders.

I don't think that we should make a judgment on which task to choose until we have learned all 3 tasks for a given leader.


So, do we want to spend 166 Gold or 366 Gold now?

I'm not agreeing with you. We should try to minimize turns left and we can do that by buying tasks that replaces the task furthest in the future. At the moment the Catherines task is most limiting. Also likely Catherine #1 is going to expire before Elizabeth #3.

Folket said:

We should try to minimize turns left

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That's a goal that we all share.

Folket said:

and we can do that by buying tasks that replaces the task furthest in the future. At the moment the Catherines task is most limiting.

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The question to answer here is: Do you feel that we will change our planned tech path toward getting Astronomy if we learn Catherine's tasks prior to relocating Willem's capital?

Putting it another way, unless unforeseen complications arise, we will have obtained our Worker clues prior to learning Astronomy. So, if we're agreed that getting Astronomy is going to be a necessary condition, if not for the tasks, but at a minimum for our Victory Condition, and we feel that we can obtain our Worker tasks before that time, then learning whether we will tech Physics and Industrialism or a different set of techs can wait. Do you agree?

Folket said:

Also likely Catherine #1 is going to expire before Elizabeth #3.

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It might, it might not. I'm not sure how we can know for certain from the information that we have been given.

Even if you are correct, we may decide that since Elizabeth's task gets unlocked with, for example, Physics ("be the first player to Physics and gift her the Great Scientist from it"), we can safely go for Elizabeth #3 and thus can ignore Elizabeth #1, which allows us to better plan the usage of our Great Generals and can mean other differences to our Military planning, such as not needing to build several Chariots to try to get a 7-XP Chariot to act as our Super Medic.

Equally, we might decide that it is not worth waiting until Physics to complete Elizabeth #3, in case every leader has tasks that can be completed earlier than that time, and we'll know to put in solid planning effort toward achieving Elizabeth #1 by, say, the time of learning Astronomy.

Basically, it doesn't matter to us if Elizabeth #3 expires early or late, but what does matter is if it is easier than Elizabeth #1. If it is easier than Elizabeth #1, then we can plan to complete it, even if it means not completing that task until the very last task completed, as long as our Victory Date won't be affected by completing that task later in the game.

BSPollux implied that the non-obsoleting task would not be the easiest task, and yet Elizabeth #1 seems like it would be easier to complete than Elizabeth #2, so I am hopeful that Elizabeth #3 will be the easiest to complete, regardless of how late it occurs in the game.


Knowing Elizabeth #3 now lets us make a decision... if Elizabeth #1 ends up being our decision, I will need to take that detail into account when planning the upcoming Military Unit build-up approach. But, it will be extremely helpful to make that decision now, before the Military Unit build-up phase, and the best way to make that decision is to know all 3 tasks for the same lady so that we can pick the best one that aligns with our chosen strategy.

If Elizabeth #3 is complicated, then we will feel confident that we are likely to be ahead of other teams, as we have a reliable, although costly way to solve Elizabeth #1.

On the other than, if Elizabeth #3 is easy or trivial to complete, we will kick ourselves for having planned so perfectly for Elizabeth #1 without the need to have done so, and we will be behind other teams.

Either way, information is power and it will be good to know where we stand by being able to choose between all 3 tasks for a given lady. That's why learning Elizabeth #3 now would be helpful, as we can learn all 3 of her tasks with just a single purchase.

We are taking a risk not taking Catherines #1. We might be able to finish this game with only optics. It will have a huge impact. I do not think that Elizabeth #3 will do much difference.

At the moment the industrialism/combustion for Catherine #3 is very demanding compared to the other task. Getting an alternative seems very important.

Hi all,

Sorry for being AWOL. I was on holiday the last 10 days. I didn't post up before leaving because I expected to be able to drop in and contribute. However, my network connectivity was horrible.

I'll try to catch up over the next few days.

/EDIT: That network connectivity means I'm a little crushed at work as well. Hopefully I can get caught up all the way around pretty quickly.

Clues
I would like to buy Elizabeth #3 so that we can decide which Elizabeth task to complete. Doing so will help with planning the next couple of turnsets.

Three "fail save" (using BSPollux's wording below), also known as the "non-obsoleting tasks," are already known by us, one for each lady.

BSPollux said:

The 'fail save' option is some sort of fall back plan, and not really the best option. If it has low requirements it could as well be #1. You will have to decide which work best together with your style. I am curious to see how you solve that puzzle

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True to his word, two "#1 tasks," Elizabeth #1 and Isabella #1, are tasks that fall into the "fail save" category.

So, it is hoped that Elizabeth #3 will be easier than Elizabeth #1 and that at least one of Isabella #2 or #3 will be easier than Isabella #1.


Folket would like to buy Catherine #1 because of these reasons:

Deckhand said:

You can only fulfill a task you know of.

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BSPollux said:

the minimum requirements for #1 should be lower. But it's possible that it takes a lot of effort to finish that goal, or it might carry a high risk of failure.

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He fears that Catherine #1 may obsolete early in the game.


Both lines of thinking are valid, for different reasons. Rather than trying to say that one line of reasoning is stronger or better than the other, what we could do is simply buy both clues.


For example, we buy Elizabeth #3 now for 166 Gold, then we tech to Literature and then buy Catherine #1 for 200 Gold.

Then, we wait until the Worker gifting before obtaining any of Isabella #2, Isabella #3, Catherine #3, and possibly the info about where Isabella and Catherine are located.

Can we agree to that approach?


The Great Library
Are we thinking of trying to build The Great Library ourselves or are we going to gift Literature to Elizabeth and possibly even Shaka, in hopes that one of those AIs builds it, generates a free Academy for us, and then saves us the Hammers in building it?


Amsterdam could be a good location to Chop a Wonder if Willem hasn't clear-cutted the area by the time that we arrive there.

Dhoomstriker said:

Clues

Both lines of thinking are valid, for different reasons. Rather than trying to say that one line of reasoning is stronger or better than the other, what we could do is simply buy both clues.

Can we agree to that approach?

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Have no problem with this approach.

Cannot do much about either Izzie or Cathy until we know where they are? However, we can plan.

Dhoomstriker said:

The Great Library
Are we thinking of trying to build The Great Library ourselves or are we going to gift Literature to Elizabeth and possibly even Shaka, in hopes that one of those AIs builds it, generates a free Academy for us, and then saves us the Hammers in building it?


Amsterdam could be a good location to Chop a Wonder if Willem hasn't clear-cutted the area by the time that we arrive there.

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Would be nice to build it, better to capture it. Wary of giving Lit to Shaka as he can build the Heroic Epic with it.

leif erikson said:

Wary of giving Lit to Shaka as he can build the Heroic Epic with it.

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While Shaka is likely to have a pre-requisite cheap Ikhanda Building built in nearly every City, he would also need a unit that had achieved 10 XP before he could build The Heroic Epic.

EDIT: It might not be a good idea anyway, as Shaka would need Polytheism for Literature, and Polytheism leads to Feudalism.

Info from the real game
Top 5 Cities
Amsterdam at Size 11
Madrid at Size 10
London at Size 8 with Stonehenge
Timbuktu at Size 8 with Pyramids
X-opolis at Size 5 with The Great Lighthouse

Mansa is showing 2 Gold per Turn, so his population level has increased as well, presumably to 20 or higher total (I seem to recall that it is +1 GPT for every 10 population points, but I am not certain).

Mansa and Willem have met each other, so we may not always end up being the tech broker.


Shaka went to -2 toward us for trading with Mansa and now we're Shaka's Worst Enemy. At least we scored Open Borders with Shaka before that fact happened. Also, we can't trade with Shaka's Worst Enemy anymore for now, since we are his Worst Enemy.

Elizabeth's Worst Enemy is still Shaka.

Isabella's Worst Enemy is still Elizabeth.

Willem and Mansa are Cautious or above toward all players and thus don't have any Worst Enemies.


T89, 650 BC Espionage Report
York (Elizabeth) Size 6 (increased from 5 last turn): 73 Hammers in a build item
Ulundi (Shaka) Size 6 (was 6): Just completed a build item
Bulawayo (Shaka) Size 3 (was 3): Just completed a build item
Amsterdam (Willem) Size 11 (was 11): Just completed a build item

Tech progress:
Willem = 5 turns to Metal Casting
Mansa = 8 turns to Paper