SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

ControlFreak said:

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

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Uh, yeah. I meant radio!!!! Boy, that would have been really bad. Sorry for the scare.

And regarding Spain, we may be ready for war much sooner than I anticipated. The tank building and transporting has gone quicker than I though it would. There are 20 on Tadpole already.

WarDance said:

Uh, yeah. I meant radio!!!! Boy, that would have been really bad. Sorry for the scare.

And regarding Spain, we may be ready for war much sooner than I anticipated. The tank building and transporting has gone quicker than I though it would. There are 20 on Tadpole already.

Click to expand...

{whew}

Ahhh, twenty tanks.

We must decide soon if we're going to war now or later. If later, I would start building wealth again rather than strapping us with heavy unit costs for a war we're not fighting. That could be worse than just losing Spain's GPT.

What does the team think, war now while Spain is relatively weak, or war later after we've earned more gpt from them?

Of course we could do both, war now to take the Tadpole continent, leaving Spain relatively healthy, settle for peace and resell all the luxuries/techs for gpt (Spain's economy would be trimmer if we can kill a lot of their units). Keep them around until they start being a space race threat, then attack again, just to thwart their Apollo.

I'm back.

I haven't looked at the recent save, but the plans look good to me. Some random blabla:

- Spain is not going to build a spaceship for a long time, so that's no reason to take her out soon. Why not bleed her for cash for a while? We can safely sell Industrialization, Corp, Steel, Refining, and subsequent techs - slowly of course. It might be fun to take out Spain with Modern Armor. I haven't used those in a long time. This gives lots of leader chances, b/o nearly assured victories and blitz. With Modern Armor, rolling over Spain is a matter of a few turns.

- EDIT: We cannot fight Spain and get her gpt at the same time...

- Once we gift cities to India we'll have a prolonged front, India will produce more units, and we have to be careful not to suffer from the "genie out of the bottle" syndrome. We also have to destroy the civ we use as proxy, to stop resistance. Even then, those cities will likely starve. Gifting Bach's (and some luxes) is a good idea I think, it would also be nice if India had another government but despotism, but we cannot really help that.

EDIT: perhaps we should use our units first to restrain India, and after that to fight Spain? That would mean we can let India out fairly soon, get her some cities with luxes/Bach's, but hold back the GLib. Then, when we are ready to let India out, we move most of our units to Tadpole and the Spanish mainland to finish Spain, and let the rest seal off the north of our home continent, leaving the south (nearly) undefended for India to take.

Perhaps it is best not to let India out until we can see all resources.

I got home from work kind of late so I'll have to finish tomorrow. I guess the big question is... war on Spain to clear Tadpole, or wait? I'll get us to the modern age and let everyone look at the save and we can decide from there.

To CF: Your ship chaining technique sounds like it's better than what I've been doing. It will be easy to adjust what I've set up to do it your way.

Edit: I've gotten us into the Modern Age and this seems like a good place to stop and discuss. The Ottomans got Computers so we are set to research rocketry. Spain had lousy gpt available so Industrialization only got us 145 coins +7gpt. Universal Suffrage is due in 3 but can be sped up if that's incorrect. I think it should be sped up to 2 but I'm not sure exactly. Theory of Evolution is due in 13 but can be adjusted as well. The Palace prebuild is due in 5. Uploading the save now and will post my log sometime between 12 and 2 CST.

The Save

Game loaded 3 times prior to play to peruse save and ask questions of
the team.

Turn log for 1250 AD to 1285 AD

Turn 0) 1250 AD: Wake up settlers and use ship chain to move them to Tadpole. 1 loaded on Thunderfall's ferry. Other fortifies in Entremont.

Irrigate at HotB. 4 tiles gives 17 turns. 5 tiles gives 20 turns. I want 19 turns. Re-mine 1 tile for 17. Will adjust more as time goes on.

Switch a bunch of towns to tanks. Move 4 workers towards Madrid rubber. Landing zone is clear. Move destroyer near Toledo. LZ on rubber there is clear.

IBT: India wants peace. 'Heim: bank-->Uni. Alcatraz rioting? Oops. Pollution at Smurkz-am-zee

Turn 1) 1255 AD: Unload 4 workers on rubber by Madrid. Point-Madrid-Buffalo woken up and sent to pick up workers at Richborough. Point-Madrid replacement picks up 2 infantry and 2 workers. (I intended to land the infantry on the fortifications on the rubber sites but then read CF's post saying to not have any units in Spanish land when we declare. They were later removed)

ToE at 16 turns. Adjust to 19. Pollution cleared.
Flight is in 3 turns?! The beakers lost from the polluted tile must have done it. CF really had those beakers exact! Switch one taxman to scientist and Flight in 2. US in 8 turns. I think it needs to be 9. Irrigate 2 tiles. Now in 9.

IBT: Ari, Ismurkz, Olive, Missi, Zentral, Alba, all build tanks.
Nansmurkzet: comm dock-->Uni. Victoria: comm dock-->SE. Spicy: Uni-->factory. Pollution in Atroid. Cabana: transport-->transport. Trom: factory--> bank. Zala: trans-->trans. Sing Sing overthrown. We rebuff the rebels.

Turn 2) 1260 AD: Load 4 workers at Richborough. Settler dropped off at Popsicle. Clear pollution. Fortress built on Madrid rubber. 2 infantry dropped on Madrid rubber. A bunch of scientists become taxmen. Flight in 1 at +485.

IBT: Flight, now Radio in 5. 70% gives us Radio in 4. Will adjust down with specialists. Carthage, Grad, San An, 'Food build tanks. Pollution at 'Adelphia. Atroid: Bank--> SE Vladivo:trans-->trans.

Turn 3) 1265 AD: Drop 4 workers on Toledo rubber. X1 Cherry
Popsicle founded. Pollution cleared. Change all taxmen to scientists. Still 5 turns at 60%. Switch back to 70% and most scientists to taxmen for Radio in 4 at +345. US in 7. ToE in 17. Just slightly off, unless I'm misunderstanding the intended timing. Ship 4 tanks to Tadpole. Upgrade 1 galleon. (Suppose I should have just disbanded and replaced with fresh transport).

IBT: Carthage tells us to move our troops? Ah, a transport in their waters. Ari, Ismurkz, Alba, Missi, Zentral build tanks. Am-Zee: Destroyer-->transport.

Turn 4) 1270 AD: 6 tanks to Buffalo. 4 tanks to Spam. Upgrade 1 galleon. Radio in 3 at +340.

IBT: Deer: factory-->SE. Pollution at 'Food. Cabana:transport--> rax. Zala:trans-->trans. Pollution at 'Capulco.

Turn 5) 1275 AD: Radio in 3?!! Must be the pollution again. Switch 4 taxmen to scientists for Radio in 2. Pollution cleared.

IBT: Zala, San An, Grad, Ari, Ismurkz, Olive, Alba, 'Food, Missi, Zentral build tanks. Cabana:rax-->tank. Vladivo: trans-->trans.
SingSing overthrown again!!

Turn 6) 1280 AD: fortress complete on Toledo rubber. start evacuating units from Spanish mainland. 4 tanks to Spam. 6 tanks to Buffalo. Game saved.

Adelphia, Am-Zee, Vladivo, Zala and Cabana switch to destroyers to protect shipping lines. Disband a galleon in Point. Factory goes from 4 to 2 turns.
Drop science to 60% and all taxmen become scientists. Radio in 2. No
good. Back to 70% and scientists become taxmen for radio in 1. I keep
some extra scientists to avoid pollution knocking us back.

IBT: Radio. Computers in 6 and we are in the Modern Era!! Am Zee is polluted.
Trom:bank-->SE. Palace expands.

Turn 7) 1285 AD: Trade Industrialization to Spain for a meager 145 gold +7gpt, and Military Tradition. Trade Indust and Elec to Ottos for nationalism and world map. Gift them the rest of the way up and they get computers. This drops research from 6 to 5 turns. Set research to Rocketry. All taxmen to scientists... still 5 turns. 80% sci drops it to 4. Switch some scientists back to taxmen for Rocketry in 4 at +64gpt. Ouch.


And there you have it. As I said before the US and ToE builds may need slight adjusting and possibly the palace prebuild for SETI. Ship chaining is still new to me so feel free to laugh at my set up and make it better. It was functional, but maybe overkill. 24 tanks are on Tadpole ready for action... if we want some.

EDIT: something I thought of. Do you think India would keep slaves if they were to capture some of our workers? I'd hate for them to waste time building workers to go and clear their pollution. Also, should we build coal plants in the southern town? Oh wait, they'll have the Hoover dam. Never mind.

Sounds like a great turn WD!

Wonders
Since we can easily make Rocketry in 4 turns with positive gpt, you can leave US due in 3 or even slow it down by 3 turns so us the half in-half out for different techs.

We definitely want to speed up TOE by 1 turn or else we lose a turn researching something we're going to get for free. However, I think that the GA will do that anyway so you should just keep it close for now and reevaluate when we trigger the GA.

SETI should be fine in 5. We can't do the Big Picture technique here because we have to buy Computers from the Ottomans. We won't do that until the turn after we finish Rocketry.

Research
Hopefully Rocketry and MT is enough to buy Computers. (Rocketry and Computers are equal cost in CAII so I hope MT can offset the AI premium/monopoly) Another alternative is to research Fission first. This is a more expensive tech and we may need US to finish in 2 to get the tech without losing a lot of gpt. (I haven't looked at the save yet.) The more expensive tech will have a better shot of being traded for Computers.

EDIT:
We need to start Research Lab prebuilds soon. Since there's no good 200s prebuild in landlocked cities, we're going to have to set coal plants to finish in 5. We can't do CP in 4, switch to research lab and finish because of having to buy Computers. However, if we set the coal plants to do <= 159s in 4 then we can switch to Lab on turn five and it should finish in 1 in most cities.

Coastal towns can use Battleships as prebuild. Vlad could switch right now and would need to slow down by a turn, there could be others like that.

Spain
I am definitely in favor of delaying our Spanish Attack. They have a lot that we can sell to them and really want their cash rather than their unusable land. But I'm not in favor of delaying it until Modern Armor. Once we gift the GL, we're going to be gifting up a proxy and getting India a lot of cash. That means the other civs are going to get really smart soon so they can sell India the MA techs they need. Spain needs to be small (near OCC) before that happens or they'll become a pain in the A#@. Once I look at the game and see what trades we have with them, I'll give my opinion as to when the war must start, but my guess is three turns before TOE is due. They should be decimated in 3 turns, no more capitol, hopefully we get lucky and take out their FP too.

Indeed, great work!

Research and trade
I would go for Fission before Rocketry, who cares if we tax the economy a bit now? It just means we'll get more back when we research Rocketry in the GA. Rocketry is the cheapest MT tech and will probably not be enough. Fission and MT would probably buy us Computers though, but Spain might sell MT to Ottos first. Fission alone might work, otherwise we can chime in some cash, the money should end up back with us later in any case.

OTOH, Spain has Communism, we might want to consider trading for that just before we trade for Computers. Spain will value it high as a monopoly and will not currently give it up for Electricity and Corporation, she wants ~2000 gp in between, which means the Ottos can't trade for it. We could gift her Corporation and then trade for Electricity + Refining + Steel, and then Fission + MT + Communism should definitely be enough to get us Computers. Note that this is a backup plan in case Fission + MT is not enough.

Wonders
Agree with what CF said.

Spain
We are currently enjoying nearly 200 gpt from Spain, I wouldn't let go of that in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, Spain can stay in their current state to the end of the game, as long as they don't build a space ship and don't start attacking India. We should be sure to keep the upper hand in the cold war to deter them from any stupid hostilities, but I see no reason to do more than that.

Minor notes

• Why is X4 Lamb on Broadway not Z10 Lamb on Broadway?
• We could settle an extra Z4 town N-NW of Entremont. Not much gain, but a little.
• Uranium gives more commerce than Aluminum, another reason to begin with Fission.
• What about those privateers that CF suggested?

Niklas said:

Why is X4 Lamb on Broadway not Z10 Lamb on Broadway?
...
What about those privateers that CF suggested? [/list]

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Did I label Lamb wrong or is the new size 10 because we have a culture building there?

Yes Privateers would be fun.

I also agree with Fision first but it means refiguring all the scientists again.

Spain can stay, and it would be nice to get Communism (didn't know it was available) and eventually trade it to the Ottomans to make sure someone gets to Economics (Smiths) and Espionage (a necessity for this varient).

Spain must have just researched Communism because I was checking every turn. The Fission plan sounds like a good one. I must have missed the privateers suggestion. That could definitely add a bit of fun. I've not messed with them until very recently.

One thing to watch out for... be careful when you have 1 turn left on research that your beakers aren't calculated too closely. On 2 occasions in my turns pollution knocked me back just enough to add a turn. Luckily it wasn't when there was only one turn left. On my last turn I had some "extra" scientists just in case and sure enough I got some pollution. It would have sucked if I hadn't had a few extra beakers.

WD, you are not playing the last three turns?

There seems to be little disagreement on how to continue, so here's my plan for this turnset. I'll play later today unless I hear protests.

Long term (but getting shorter and shorter)

Get India to space asap:

• Tech Elevator: Keep India backward. Let India take the GLib city near or at the end of the tech race. On the same turn, gift all techs to some AI (probably Ottomans).
• Indian Empire: Gift India our southern core and possibly large amounts of gold by proxy (i.e., via the other civs). This will probably be done partly before, and partly after the Tech Elevator, but not before India has sufficient force to take several cities in short succession. In this process, all cultural improvements and half (I think) of the other city improvements will be destroyed, but India's tech level plays no role (this was tested for gifting, but conquest probably works the same). It seems a good idea to get Great Wonders in as many towns as possible to protect them against razing, but this is not tested.
• Indian Power Play: If the Tech Elevator is stopped before the top floor, then India will have to get some techs in peace deals or by paying in cash, that we can gift by proxy. It is not clear yet whether that will work.
• Rivals: Ottomans will stay alive for their free techs. All other civs are to stay alive to act as proxies if needed, and possibly to do some research (of optional Middle Age techs). Possible exception: if we want to prevent drafting then any AI that learns Nationalism has to die before the Tech Elevator starts. Perhaps similar for Communism (poprush government, superspies). Spain will likely be reduced to OCC at some convenient moment in the future, but for now they prove useful as money supply.

Short term

• Research: Fission -> Trade for Computers -> Rocketry -> Space (ToE) -> Superc (ToE) -> Ecology -> Synth Fibers. Trade for any useful optional MA/IA techs. Will try to get Communism in particular. I would prefer if we can keep India away from it (poprush government with vet spies), but that will be tricky.
• Start GA in 2 turns with US. Hopefully I can MM Ol Smurkz to speed up by 1 turn, it needs to do 53 spt. It can get a few more mines as well, it's wasting food.
• Finish Seti in 5. Sages needs 221 shields, is doing 50 spt now, 68 spt in GA I think, so it can slow down considerably.
• Finish ToE in 8 turns. Beard has 246 shields to go, doing 20 spt. In GA it will do 36 spt I think, for 2*20 + 6*36 = 256. It also has 10 surplus food that can be changed into 10 surplus shields by mining 5 tiles, in case we need to speed it up.
• Start UN in Smurkzfood.
• Get Labs. Also build a few more Tanks, and quite some destroyers. Maybe a few pirates, why not. Get rid of all pre-industrial units to save on support costs. Add workers back in whenever possible.
• Settler: near Entre it will be.
• India has 2 archers out, maybe more. I'll just leave them alone. When do we want to let India out?
• Spain: nothing to do. I'll renegotiate RoP and lux deals when Spain has spare gpt, and make sure we have an invasion force ready to land in Spain at a moments notice.
• Keep flip risks at 0 where feasible.

If India does get Communism, we're going to revise our city strategy. Too many cities will mean total corruption to all cities.

I don't think it's a show stopper if they get Communism in the GL. They'd be likely to buy it, wasting our generous gold gift if they don't get it for free. As long as War Weariness stays low, they might not switch governments. I say, lets still buy it from Spain when we're ready to trade for Computers.

At this point, it too late to kill rivals that have Nationalism before the GL. (Since we own it, Spain and the Ottomans would have to go.)

Assuming you're talking about playing immediately without WD finishing the 3 turns, I agree with your wonder timing: US in 2, TOE in 8, SETI in 5.

We don't want to give India any cities before the GL for two reasons. First, we need to know if they are switching to Communism. Second we need to use the proxy techinque to give them gold AFTER they can buy MA techs.

WarDance said:

One thing to watch out for... be careful when you have 1 turn left on research that your beakers aren't calculated too closely. On 2 occasions in my turns pollution knocked me back just enough to add a turn. Luckily it wasn't when there was only one turn left. On my last turn I had some "extra" scientists just in case and sure enough I got some pollution. It would have sucked if I hadn't had a few extra beakers.

Click to expand...

That's a great warning, I'm glad it didn't happen to me because as you can tell, I had the techs down to the penny.

I wasn't planning to play the last 3 turns... go for it, zyxy!

Sounds like a good plan, go for it!

With TOE due on zyxy's turn, I was thinking that we're going to give up Grad and Heim on his turn as well. The Ottoman's are going to need to be even in tech with us on the turn that India takes the GL. My thinking is that means Communism too but it's debateable.

Then we probably want to wait to Proxy until we learn the next tech and can get India a big amount of cash. That should happen on Niklas turn if zyxy is only playing 10. Otherwise, we should probably stop to rediscuss at the GL handoff. The questions we've been putting off are due on either zyxy or Niklas turnsets.

ToE comes in 8 turns, that's the very earliest we could give the GLib to India. 2 turns more is no big deal, so I think zyxy could safely play his 10 turns, and then we can take that discussion before I play my turns.

Turnlog, part 1

It seems Spain has solved one of our problems...

Turn 0, 1285AD: Switch research to Fission. sci 100%. On Tadpole, I found Z4 Coal Mountain, and let Lamb grow. Send our horses and swords to the shredder, add some workers into cities, and change a few builds. I don't see the point of the harbor builds on Popsicle, so I change those. I cannot start prebuilding for UN yet, because there's no long prebuild available.

IT: Spain starts US.

Turn 1, 1290AD: Ottomans have acquired Communism, Spain Corp. Trading, eh? India now has 3 archers and 1 spear out.

IT: .

Turn 2, 1295AD: GA has started. Our max beaker rate is 2600, sustainable rate about 2300: more than enough. sci 70%. Start a UN prebuild.

IT: Interesting event:

I get lots of WLTKD, thanks to Spain . Their attack consist of 1 cav who redlines and retreats, and several outdated units that just sit on our land. Richborough starves and drops in size. That's all.

Turn 3, 1300AD: sci 60%.

I'll wait a bit for team input. What do we want to do about Spain? IMO we can easily reduce them, and we should. We do not really need their money, and relations are going to be a bit sour anyway.

War Plan for Tadpole: Bombard and take Mohacs, Augusto, Verulamium and Jaen this turn. Continue as much as possible. Tadpole should be ours in about 3 turns max.
War Plan for Spanish mainland: Land 10 tanks + 2 infantry from Point on the tile E of Madrid this turn. Or better: land a bigger stack 1 turn later, including some arty and more infantry, using 4 transports (dropping 24 units in total). Take out Madrid next turn and proceed. Reinforce with tanks/arty/infantry from Tadpole. Main island will probably fall in less than 10 turns.
Spain can keep Logrono (island down south) or Santander (island up north). We could use some destroyers on the Spanish west coast, it will take about 4 turns to get them there.
Do we take or raze their cities? I think raze, as the flip risk would be rather big. It's a pity about the wonders, especially Leo's in Madrid. If we raze we will need some settlers, I suggest to cashrush here and there on Tadpole.

The save sofar is attached.

Oooooh! Interesting. I think we could probably keep the 2 size 6 towns on Tadpole reasonably safely, and even if they did flip we could just take them back. On the other hand, we are at a point where it probably doesn't matter if we just raze everything and cash rush some settlers to fill in. We could put towns where WE would like them that way. Leonardo's won't help us much at this point so I don't feel badly about razing it. As for your war plan, I would say go for the bigger stack with the one turn delay for the Spanish mainland.

Funny that Spain would help us make up our mind about when to go to war. They picked a tough nut to go after in their opening move. I think I put 4 tanks or so in that town to lower the flip risk, and I think it had infantry too.

I've been waiting to hear that news. It seems like she finally got uppity.
Here's my massive rambling.

Spain
I would like to evict her from Tadpole (and imprison the Celts in the process so the island is ours). But I would prefer to leave her main core alone. I think she will be a cash cow once the corruption from the Tadpole holdings are eradicated. Plus she'll need more luxuries from us.

We can keep all the spanish towns and the Celt town and we'd be ~10 tiles from domination. That's a bit too close for my comfort, but it's fine temporarily and can be corrected later to stay away from the win-loss.

I'm a little disappointed that even the elite horses faced the glue factory. It would have been nice to jumpstart our leaderfishing again. Oh well, different play styles. On the other hand, we don't really need to build the UN since that victory is disabled, so a leader is sort of pointless at the moment except as a backup to moving our FP somewhere specific when we start giving towns to India.

With the big culture in the Spanish towns (2nd or 3rd expansion) the fastest you could take the continent is 3 turns unless you had boats drop off units for the Northwestern most city. Some key roads will need to be built but you have enough workers for those. (I question not sending enough workers to finish their mountain roads on a single turn so that they'd be finished and available next turn.)

Settlers
I would still keep all the towns for now rather than rushing settlers. If they flip they shouldn't hurt too badly as long as we don't leave a lot of units in them. Just watch the domination limit.

If you really need settlers, find the big cities in the south of Smurkz that have surplus food/full food bins. They recover quickly back to full pop and don't really lose that much sheilds. They can build a settler in 1 turn and we can transport them to just about anywhere on the planet in 1 turn.

I would avoid rushing/upgrading anything at this point, we need India to inherit a lot of gold to buy techs.

Use of ships
I don't think the destroyers should go anywhere. We really need to protect our transports. They are still sinkable by Frigates, which Spain has a lot of. There are some Ironclads floating about as well. The ship chain is set up wrong though. There should only be one tranfer point, about three tiles south of the Spainish tip by Buffalo. Put 4 boats in Buffalo, 4 in Point and 8 on the transfer point. Then you can ship up to 24 units in either direction, every turn. Plus we only have one point to set our destroyers on. There are surplus moves even with what I described so you could set it up with the transfer point retaskable to hit the Spanish Mainland if desired. (The transfer point needs to permit its boats to travel to the shore of Spain, drop off it's units and travel back to the transfer point. It's a one way trip but can be used to pick up units one turn later if need be.)

Research Labs
If the Research Labs start finishing in 2 turns, we should be able to handle doing the rest of MA at 4 turn tech even while we give cities to India. (Watch the Battleship prebuilds, Trom is ahead of schedule, several others are behind by a turn.)

India
The difference between the Dumbo and Dumb luck may be just 2 turns. Let's use this pause to decide what zyxy does with the GL/India. If we're giving it up as soon as we know Superconductors, lets do that and not waste 2 turns for a good "breaking point". My vote is let's give the GL and Bachs as soon as we learn SuperConductors.

Just watch the tile count as we finish conquering Tadpole. From zyxy's save, we have 874 domination tiles and need only 86 more to win/lose with a Domination victory.

Each captured city would add 9 tiles to that number. This would be about 9 cities. Fortunately Tadpole does not have that much Spanish influence.

Conquering Tadpole should not give us a Domination Victory. Invading Spain, without giving cities to India, will bring us closer to the Domination limit of 960 tiles. An unexpected culture expansion on Tadpole could be devastating.