SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

<<THE SAVE>>

10 1210

• Lots of tile switching to get the extra tiles to the South Second Ring. (South First Ring is improved and building units so they don't need max shields.) Add some workers to Kastle. Shift some irrigation to mines for better output. Kastle's market improved by a turn and Ville's factory improves by 4 turns. Heim and Nan end up on starvation diet to shave 4 turns off Deer's Factory. Bachs is still due in 1.
• Acapulco and Food both hire a taxman for lack of tiles, extra tiles shave 6 turns off Kastle's Market.
• Kalmurkz goes on starvation so it can use the coastal tiles without wasting shields on the harbor build.
• Smurkzland university is due in 1 and it stands to make about 8bpt so I leave Motorized Transportation due in 4 (8 scientists shy of 3 turns) and hope to see "due in 2" next turn.
• I make peace with the Celts for 2gpt and all their cash. I sell/gift all techs up to Physics to everyone. I hope they prioritize Economics/Free Artistry earlier than Physics. They may also pursue Military Tradition since I don't have it to give them yet.
• I set some more cities to wealth including Albus, which makes 10gpt on wealth. We really don't need more units right now and with tanks coming in 3 I wanted to maximize our income while minimizing our unit costs.
• Any city currently building units with no sheilds in the bin switches to wealth. Others will follow when they finish their current unit. Switch food to temple due in 1 and then it will go on wealth as well.
• I also notice that with a few Commercial Docks due next turn I can fire all scientists and still hope to see "due in 2" next turn.
• All my changes result in 739gpt (up from 691 at original handoff)
• Added 1 unit to Missismurki, New York, Seatle, Boston, SF_Rises_Again and Lugdunum to eliminate flip risks. Richbourough, Highway and Lamb required too many units to be worth my while. OeHah and Mo I'm half hoping flip to India anyway. Detroit and Thunderfall I can't do much about right now and I'm not sure I care.

IBT
Istanbul worker>wealth is now at ideal size. Heim Bachs>bank (need to stop the starvation diet soon) Arizsmurkz, Missismurki, Zentral infantry>wealth. Food Temple>Wealth. Atroid dock>bank. Am-zee Dock>Transport. Vlad Destroyer>Transport. Smurkzland Uni>Factory. Highway temple>wealth. OhHah Temple>harbor.
The loss of WLTKD makes me fall 1s short of the harbor in Kalmurkz.

11 1220

• New Infantry move to Victoria for transport to Tadpole.
• New worker from Instanbul joins Kalmurkzs and MM to commerce with Harbor due in 1s (set to negative food).
• Chopping starts towards Thunderfall's harbor. Slaves moved on Tad to unroaded squares.
• Lugdunum and Istanbul are now "X" cities.
• 2 scientists hired to get MT in 2.
• Starvation in Heim fixed by stealing two plains from Adelphia who now has 2 taxmen due to lack of tiles. One of the plains is irrigated and Heim keeps one taxman.
• Kalmurkz and Nan are still at negative fpt but Kalmurkz will switch next turn after the harbor is done and Nan can last 6 turns until the Dock is finished.

IBT
Olive dock>transport (over a SE). Smuez Canal duct>market. Kastle market>factory. Kalmurkz harbor>factory, MM to sheilds, will add three workers now that the market is done.

12 1230

• Infantry and workers reposition for better roads/defense.
• Ship chains are reset but nothing to transport.
• Victoria now needs a unit to prevent flipping. I open the Celt gate tile and use the unit for flip suppression.
• Fire all scientists, still MT in 1.
• Resign Incense Deal with Spain for 29gpt. We need to chip in 13g to make the deal.
• Resign Wool Deal for same prices.
• Resign Ivory for 30gpt if we chip in 12g.

IBT
MT>Flight
Bursa Library>Court. Cabana dock>Transport. Zala bank>transport.

13 1240

• Have to switch all taxmen to scientists in every town but the last 3 cities (sorting reverse order by city name). Chicago, Washingtion, Entremont, Orange and Grape still have Taxmen if more are needed due to MM. Spicy's university is due in 3 which should provide an additional 10b for the last turn so we shouldn't have a problem making flight at >500gpt.
• Workers continue to road/rail. I've started roading some key tiles in Spanish territory near Mohacs. If we're serious about invading them with tanks, I would use our ROP to build fortresses on both their Rubber sources on their mainland. Then when we attack, we can drop a few infantry on these tiles and they will benefit from the fortress and be able to disconnect them the next turn. Not that Spain is close to infantry yet.
• Food and Acapulco switched to settlers due next turn. They will be used for the third Popsicle (Cherry) and any invasion requirements. The towns are at size 12 with a full bin but are forced to carry a specialist due to lack of tiles so we're only going to loose the max pop for one turn.
• 3 Elite horses moved to Entremont to deal with new cultural pressure from Spain's vitoria. Golden Smurkz gets a spare infantry to deal with Vitoria as well. I switch Entremont to library since it will help grab the tiles back as well as a tile from Mohacs. It should pay for itself since Entremont is capable of making an uncorrupted beaker and can be MM make 3 after the library. Chicago also gets two units due to pressure from Augustodurum.

IBT
Carthage SE>Tank. Adelphia transport>transport. Food settler>tank. Acapulco settler>dock. Am-zee transport>destroyer. Vlad transport>transport.

14 1250

• M-O Island Ferry disbanded for 15s in Kalmurkz. Replacement Transport is offshore.
• Transport from Vlad is renamed to Point-Madrid 1 replacement and heads to Point. Won't disband Point's first Galleon until he arrives.
• Transport from Am-Zee heads for Smuez Canal enroute to replace one of the Victoria-Entremont chain.
• With airstrips due in 3 and all these spare workers lying around, I'm thinking we might want to move all transports towards Madrid instead and just use aistrips for moving units to Tadpole.

Handoff

• Science Squeeze is where the mix of tax and scientists lie. Keep it close to exact, even favoring a few less than Civ says you need since the university due in 2 will make up some beakers and you can always add the remaining scientists on the last turn.
• HotB can slow down TOE by 8 turns just by irrigating 4 tiles so use the discussion to resolve when we want to give up the GL and adjust accordingly.
• US is timed per our agreement, 2 turns into the MA.
• Consider making fortresses on the Spanish Rubbers in preparation for our invasion.
• I haven't traded with Spain and I don't think what they have to offer justifies risking the US/TOE builds. They have 20gpt and we just lost our gems. We could renew the furs but I don't think it's necessary at the moment.
• Tanks are available so if we want to amass our army, switch the big city wealths to tanks.

GO GET EM WARDANCE!

Good going CF, thanks for bringing the game back on track!

Everything is looking really fine. We're approaching the MT fast, only 7 more turns to go! Sustainable research rate is now almost 1700 bpt (means 6800 over 4 turns), max is ~1875 bpt (7300). If we were to trigger our GA now we'd have ~2300 bpt sustainable (9200), enough for all techs except Integrated Defense.

The thought about airstrips is a good one. I've actually never used one, never played a game where I needed them (except SGOTM 8 where they were disabled...).

Alright, roster:

• WarDance - UP!
• zyxy - On Deck!
• Niklas
• CommandoBob
• ControlFreak - Just Played
• Methos - ghosting

Some post game discussion:

• WAKE THE SETTLERS IN VICTORIA! Sorry, I fortified them during the turn and never went back to move them. The Victoria ship chain is locked and loaded to bring them to Tadpole. The "Cherry Popcicle" Settler can go down to Houston. Take Thunderfall's ferry and move him to the tile below the American Galley (SW, SW of Houston) and then have Cherry jump in. The other settler can hangout on Tadpole until needed during the Spanish conquest.
• We must learn Computers within the first 4 turns of the MA, either self researched or bought from the Ottomans. Sages is working on a Seti prebuild that is timed for the fifth turn of the MA. Once the GA is triggered, Seti-Prebuild will probably need to be slowed down unless the Ottomans get Computers as a free tech and we can buy it from them. (Doubtful since we won't have anything to trade until we learn an MA tech.) It can finish on the same turn that Computers is due if you use the big picture to switch.
• Since Computers will happen on turn 4 of the MA, you need to start prebuilds for research labs. At this point, the best inland prebuilds we have are cathedral/coalplant which will only permit 160s. If you can arrange to be close to but not greater than or equal to 160 the turn before Computers are due then most of our inland cities will make more than 40s and can finish a research lab if switched on the IBT. This is upto Wardance to start the prebuild and adjust for changes caused by the GA but up to zyxy to adjust to 159s, switch on the IBT and finish labs the same turn as Computers. Coastal cities are easier because you can use Battleships and time them with Computers exactly.

Also need to think about how to trigger India's GA. They get Chivalry with the GL and will make elephants. We are also planning on giving them some wonders (Glight,Bach) but would need to wait for them to build a wonder.
[*]Keep checking that US will finish IBT the second and third turn of the MA. We're going to need it to finish the tech in 4.

ControlFreak said:

Also need to think about how to trigger India's GA. They get Chivalry with the GL and will make elephants.

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From what I recall in CivIII (it's been a while since I played, so could be wrong) but the AI tends to build their UU whenever its available. Surely we still have some weak units parked somewhere, so we could use them as GA 'bait'.

Waiting for them to build a wonder will take too long, plus their GA won't kick off when we want it too. Thinking on that, we'll also need to make sure their GA isn't accidently kicked off early.

I was pretty sure we were going to use the UU bait technique but the wonder build was an option and was trying to be thorough.

Would we want them to kick off the GA the same turn they learn Space Flight? Or do we wait until we've transferred a lot of cities? With the Elephant's 2-tile move, we need to pull the defensive line back so that we can bomb them down and make them retreat without being able to attack our infantry (they could get lucky and win one of those battles).

Posting my "got it" and making my preparatory notes...

Do we want to loose some cities to India during WarDance's turn? In particular I was thinking about Heim so they can gain from Bach's and hopefully offset some of their happiness problems. Of course that may just prompt them to whip more.

To go along with the package, Deer is a RCP4 citi to them, as is Mo. They have 3-4 archers now, getting more cities will help them build archers faster but will also help them research faster.

A big negative is that we would loose over 40bpt. Another big negative is we would loose cities to give by proxy to help India buy MA techs.

Niklas said:

The thought about airstrips is a good one. I've actually never used one, never played a game where I needed them (except SGOTM 8 where they were disabled...).

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It's been a while since I used airstrips too. Do they destroy terrain improvements when you build one? If so, I count 5 tiles on the home continent that are unusable by any of our cities. I'll build at least 5 airstrips then in those locations. If they don't destroy improvements then we can put them anywhere.

Edit: Building an airfield DOES destroy previous terrain improvements

I saw some suggestions about tech trading somewhere back there... can you help me out with that? Do we want to gift Ottomans up to get their free tech? Could be risky... and expensive. We would have to buy it for cash because they don't have a harbor to trade luxes or resources. Also Spain has MT and could probably get something from the Ottomans with that.

Everything else looks pretty self explanatory and looking at the save I don't see anything I have questions about.

We MUST gift the Ottomans up immediately upon entering the MA. If we don't we run the risk of researching what they are destined to get for free wasting 4 turns towards our goal.

However, we don't have to buy it from them the minute we gift them up. We can live without their free tech, we just need to know what it is.

Once they are gifted, you are right that Spain may be able to get one more tech from them using MT and their big GPT available. I doubt they can get more than one. I don't think that one tech matters. One more tech for spain doesn't get them to RP which is the only problem with them getting smarter. The Ottomans won't have anything to do with the extra gpt so we can always get that from them once we get ahead of them in MA techs again.

The two scenarios are:

1. The Ottoman's get Computers, we research Rocketry. We trade for Computers with our tech (and gpt if necessary).
2. The Ottoman's get Ecology, Rocketry or Fisson. We research Computers. If that's enough to trade for their freebie, then we buy it. If not, we research what they didn't get as a freebie (Rocketry or Fission) and then trade for their freebie.

Now that I've written this, I'm starting to agree with zyxy that we need to slow the TOE down by at least 4 turns, if not 8. The reason is being able to trade for their freebie. In scenario 2, Computers will finish the same turn that TOE finishes and we're forced to pick the two techs before having the opportunity to trade for their freebie. That means if they get Rocketry, we cant get SpaceFlight from the TOE because we won't have the chance to buy Rocketry first.

The TOE options with good and bad points: (ranking of tech by cost)

1. Don't Delay Doesn't delay India's Apollo.
   Risks having to take Fission (third) and Rocketry (fourth) or Ecology (last) to avoid doubling up their freebie.
2. Delay by 1 turn Lets us trade for Ottoman freebie. If it's Rocketry (fourth) that lets us take SpaceFlight(first) and Fission (third). If it's Fission, we would take Rocketry (cheap) and SpaceFlight (most expensive).
   It wastes one turn of research. It delays Indian Apollo by 1 turn
3. Delay by 4 turns Allows us to get one tech researched and trade for Ottomans tech, and research a second before triggering the TOE. As long as we can trade for Ottoman tech with our first tech, we would have three first tier techs. If Ottoman's don't get Ecology (last), we end up with Computers (fourth), Rocketry (fourth) and Fission (third), getting SpaceFlight (first) and SuperConductors (first) from the TOE.
   If Ottoman's get Ecology (last), we'd get Fission (third) instead of SuperConductors (first). Delays Apollo by 4 turns.
4. Delay by 8 turns Allows us to get three techs researched and trade for Ottomans tech, which assures us of getting SpaceFlight (first) and SuperConductors (first) from the TOE.
   Delays Apollo by 8 turns.

I think the benefits outweigh the penalty for delaying by 8 turns. Push the TOE build back with irrigation or move it to a different city to time it for 12 turns after the MA.

If we delay 8 turns can we sustain 4-turn research without our GA?

I'm sorry that my input has been rather low these days, I've been busy with lots of stuff.

I think what CF says makes sense, we should delay the ToE for as long as is needed to ensure that we can get Space Flight and Superconductors from it.

I think that in the light of that delay, which will push back the Indian GLib take-over at least that long, we should not let India have any more towns during the upcoming 10 turns. After that we can reassess the situation.

EDIT: We're not going to delay the US build which will trigger the GA, only the ToE for the free techs.

All righty then. Here's my plan. I won't begin play until tomorrow so there's time to chime in with suggestions and corrections.

Coming Soon:
Copied from CF because I'm lazy...
Get india some ivory
Get india some dyes
Crush Spainish hopes of a spaceship win, prevent them from wonder building, especially the Manhattan Project
Let india read all the books in our Library, getting Space Flight at a minimum
Wither away to a smaller, defended core
Group hug, do a little dance, shout "Jumbooooo Innnnnnn Spaaaaaaaaaaaaace"

My turns:
Maintain 4-turn research.
Start Golden Age with Universal Suffrage.
Slow down Theory of Evolution by 8 turns.
Build 5 airstrips on unusable tiles on the home continent.
Enter Modern Age and gift Ottomans up to see what free tech they get.
Manage prebuild in City for Sages to get SETI project.
Build some tanks and send them off in preparation for a Spanish strike.



Do we want to build any airports? Any aircraft? I would think a few airports could be useful, but I'm not so sure about aircraft. If the turns go relatively quickly I will pause after gifting the Otto's up so we can discuss where to go from there. If the turns go slowly for me I'll plan to play to that point and then hand it off.

Overall sounds good.

I don't think any airports are warrented. We should have enough transports/airstrips to satisfy our transportation needs. No sense adding more drain to our economy through upkeep costs.

I'm not sure we're allowed to do this but if possible, building an airstrip on M-O Island that allows trade with the Ottomans would be a boon. There is one unimproved tile covered by our infantry. If the airstrip works, we could get all the spanish gpt they trade to the Ottomans for our gifted techs back in luxury sales.

You didn't have a date on the US build but we wanted to make sure it's not earlier than the 3rd turn of the MA so we get 2 turns of GA in the first and last tech researched.

Keep checking the flip chance/garrison until we eradicate Spain from Tad.

On the turn that you're going to gift the Ottomans up, sell Indust to spain for a lux and whatever they have. If necessary, sell Corp too to get all they have.

ControlFreak said:

I'm not sure we're allowed to do this but if possible, building an airstrip on M-O Island that allows trade with the Ottomans would be a boon. There is one unimproved tile covered by our infantry. If the airstrip works, we could get all the spanish gpt they trade to the Ottomans for our gifted techs back in luxury sales.

Click to expand...

You can only build airstrips in your own territory or in unclaimed territory.

Anyone mind if I use unit disbands to rush some of our improvements... like factories and commercial docks and markets that are already being built? Disbanding tanks or infantry (freshly built for the purpose of disbanding... I won't disband military we already have) would speed them along. I'm playing now, by the way.

EDIT: Airfields have been disabled in this game. Can I build some airports and if so, how many? Each airport costs 2 upkeep and each transport costs 1. Where do we want the tanks placed? Set up to clear Tadpole first or loaded and ready for the Spanish mainland first?

I doubt that it would be worth it to build/disband units. To be useful you'd need to build the unit in a high-productive town, and disband it in a low-productive one - but it the low-productive towns the improvements will be of less use. That's not an unconditional no however, use your discretion to decide.

I don't think we'll need any airports either. Building tanks to be shipped over will be more bang for the buck (or shields rather).

Oh, and a clarification to what CF said: be sure to sell Indu to Spain before gifting Osman up, that means she'll pay a lot more.

Good luck!

Niklas said:

Oh, and a clarification to what CF said: be sure to sell Indu to Spain before gifting Osman up, that means she'll pay a lot more.

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Yes, that's what I meant.

I think building/disbanding is a good idea to help the SW cities finish their improvements before we give them to India. They are mediocre producers for us but will be less corrupt for India. I'm assuming those are the towns you plan to disband in.

Since we want to get our moneys worth for gifting the Osmans, we don't want to declare war on Spain before we get to the MA or else we can't sell them techs. I'm hoping that we can get Nationalism and Communism from the Ottomans during the gifting process. I also think getting and keeping Military Tradition to help buy the Ottoman's free tech would be worth trying.

We could use an MA with the Ottoman's to prevent them from trading with Spain. On the turn we enter the MA, buy MilTrad from Spain for Corp or Refining or something (getting all her cash as well), cancel our ROP and declare war on her, buy Osman in on an MA for one of our gifted techs. Then learn our first MA tech four turns later and trade for Osman's freebie with our new MA tech and MilTrad. Spain won't have the option to sellout for peace much before the fourth turn anyway since the Ottoman's wont mount any assault for a few turns. Following this plan, you've got 7 turns to prepare the assault, are you sure you want to disband units?

Don't forget to pull our few troops out of Spanish territory. I'd like to keep our ROP rep intact so that we can still station troops in America/Ottoman lands. Also, we're going to want to have ROPs with our Proxies so that our units can still move on the rails after we gift cities.

The other option is we wait to kill Spain until she is actually a spaceship threat. In this case, don't buy MilTrad until we're ready to trade for the Ottoman's freebie.

By then Spain will have infantry in all of her towns and factories too. But we benefit from a bigger treasury that way. As much as I want to beat on her, I'm thinking we should wait. (So go ahead and disband! )

I don't think we need to wait for Spain to be a spaceship threat to go after her, but I also don't think we are ready to go after her after we reach the MA. When we declare war on her we need to do it with the intention of really doing some damage, and we don't have the forces to do it right now. The MA is only 4 turns away now! So the tanks... I'll send them to Tadpole for now and then we can discuss wether to clear Tadpole first or load them for the Spanish mainland.

About disbanding, the towns in the SW were the ones I was thinking of. And there are a couple towns building factories that could use just a little help. Most of the units I build will go to Tadpole, but I'll help out a couple towns that could use some bonus shields with just a few disbands.

EDIT: I'm setting up a chain between Point Smurkz and Buffalo. With an added transport or a few more each transport can load, unload, and then move back to it's starting point on the same turn. This way any units available on any given turn can move over on the chain and the chain is reset each time. This ok?

Another Edit: Buffalo chain complete... adding 2 transports so 12 units could go across every turn... not that we have 12 units every turn but there ya go. some of them can move on to ferry units to the Spanish mainland when we're ready for that. I'm on turn 6 and flight is coming next turn. Have to stop here. Will finish later today or tomorrow morning.

OK, we'll wait on Spain until our treasury is where we want it.

It probably makes no difference, but I usually set up the ship chains in a merry-go-round style. The first transport moves from Smurkz to position one. On the next turn, he becomes the position two transport. Enough boats must be setup to make the return loop as well from Tadpole back to Smurkz. One move forward triggers the boats on the return loop to move forward with the last boat replacing the first. Next turn you rinse and repeat.

One advantage is that if for some reason you want to reverse the process and bring units from Tad back to Smurkz, the merry-go-round can transport units on the return leg.

A second advantage is that if you lay the forward loop and the return loop on top of each other, you have half the number of fixed points to defend from frigate/destroyer attacks.

WarDance said:

I'm on turn 6 and flight is coming next turn. Have to stop here. Will finish later today or tomorrow morning.

Click to expand...

Please tell me that you meant Radio!!! Flight was due in three turns when I handed the game over.