SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

No Domination
I agree that we need to be careful, but I still think that we can capture the Spanish cities. In general, the North would permit more scientists than the south because of the grassland and food bonuses. If we capture a good scientist farm, we could abandon an X3-X5 city in the south to compensate and would still maintain decent coverage of the continent to prevent resettling by the AI.

The Internet would be a no-no in this scenario unless we gave it to India the minute we built it. Since it's an optional Space tech, this won't be a problem for quite a few turns yet.

The Great Decision
I still think the big question is do we give India the GL as soon as SuperConductors is learned (5 turns?). If we do, that leaves 5 techs for India to buy. If we use one and only one proxy to gift a city at a time, the first gold gift would be about $15K, letting India gain about $7K which should be enough to buy a MA tech at last. Assuming they don't waste the rest of their cash all at once, subsequent gifts would be about $7K each. That's a total of 15+(4*7)=$43K. Now that I do the math, I guess we should wait to hand over the GL.

Techs to buy and Required Cash
1 = $15K
2= $15K+$7K = $22K
3 = $15K+$14K=$29K
4 = $15K+$21K=$36K

So I guess we should hold the GL for at least 4 more turns if not 8 after Super Conductors is learned. That gives India 12turns more to build Apollo, but keeps our cash gifts within the limits of our existing treasury. So I guess I can retract my previous comment and let zyxy finish his turnset without handing over the GL.

And I've been dreading to hear that news.
I guess I knew it was coming sooner or later, but I was hoping our overwhelming military might would be enough to deter her. Guess not.

Spain
I don't see what we would gain from taking Spain out. Not on Ostrich, nor Tadpole. There's no way we could get anything like 200 gpt from that land if we were to hold it ourselves. And I don't really understand CF's comment about her being "a cash cow once the corruption from the Tadpole holdings are eradicated". Only Valencia and Zaragoza are affected by the towns on Tadpole, and there's no way that the loss to corruption could be greater than the gain the towns on Tadpole yields.

My vote is to play a holding war as much as possible, take out units for Spain but let her keep the towns.

India
I agree with CF's last statement that we keep India from GLib for a while after Superconductors. We simply can't rely on getting that much money across.

I change my mind after viewing the discussions. I say take Verulamium and maybe Augustodorum to relieve some cultural pressure. Starve them down and maybe add a couple native workers to them, try to keep them from flipping. Then play a holding war and make peace when possible. It's possible Spain will spend some of her gpt to buy something from the Ottomans and we might be able to trade for it.

Edit: And why is the internet a no-no? I'm sure we don't really need it, but I'm curious...

Niklas said:

Spain
I don't see what we would gain from taking Spain out. Not on Ostrich, nor Tadpole. There's no way we could get anything like 200 gpt from that land if we were to hold it ourselves. And I don't really understand CF's comment about her being "a cash cow once the corruption from the Tadpole holdings are eradicated". Only Valencia and Zaragoza are affected by the towns on Tadpole, and there's no way that the loss to corruption could be greater than the gain the towns on Tadpole yields.

Click to expand...

Hmm, you may be right. I guess those cities aren't affecting their corruption much and may even be adding to their GDP.

I'm fine if we don't want to take any towns, or maybe trade Mohacs for Richborough so that our front is more defensible.

Of course, doing some damage would make getting Communism nearly free. But probably not worth the long term effects in terms of lost GPT. At a minimum, we're going to have to do some damage to get them to come to the table for peace. Let's start by shelling the boats in the channel and sinking them with destroyers.

WarDance said:

Edit: And why is the internet a no-no? I'm sure we don't really need it, but I'm curious...

Click to expand...

My understanding about the Internet is the free research lab in all towns results in all of the Tadpole towns getting culture and simultaneously expanding. That would definitely drive us over the Domination limit.

Ok, I'll just hold the fort against Spain for now, just taking the one town behind our lines (forgot the name, the one near Richborough), and play a bit with her troops.

IMO the main argument to take out Spain is: We are getting near the point where we want to gift India up. If we are going to use the GLib to the top, then there's no problem: we just gift the Ottomans up, Spain's research rate would increase a bit and she would perhaps extort a bit, but it will still be a while before she leaves the IA. And Modern Armor vs Infantry is about as good as Tanks vs Rifles. If OTOH we use the GLib to some earlier point as most team members seem to want, then we'll be giving techs to everyone, and I would rather not have a large Spain by then. First of all a lot of the cash we supply to India will end up in Spain (through extortion, lux trades, etc - India might even buy an alliance vs us), second Spain will possibly become a nuclear threat, and third she may start a space ship. The first of these reasons worries me most.

By taking out Spain we would lose her gpt payments for good, but we don't really need that money anymore I think. We would OTOH gain 2 more luxes. In any case those gpt payments would be insecure I think - they were probably the reason Spain declared in the first place.

In both scenario's India might buy an alliance with Spain against us, which could be a minor problem.

Conclusion: we probably have to reduce Spain sooner or later (and if not, why did we take out America?). But perhaps later is better.

I'm feeling really wishy-washy today. Based on zyxy's comments, I guess we should grab the formerly american city south of Richbourgh, and then settle for peace ASAP. Let Spain repay their transgressions by gpt through the nose, then, if they don't declare again on their own, wipe them out a few turns before we gift India the GL (which is now delayed by about 8 turns but still not waiting the full 20).

Good news and bad news...

Turnlog, part 2

Turn 3, 1300AD (cont'd): Team decided against aggressive action vs Spain, so I'll just take one town: Verulamium. It seems that I somehow wrongly saw the Ottomans acquiring Communism before, because they don't have it now, but they do have MilTrad... I take Verulamium and destroy some wandering troops. sci can go down to 50% with hiring a load of scientists.

IT: Americans land at Smurkzville. Fission -> Rocketry. Resistance in Verulamium ends.

Turn 4, 1305AD: India has 5 units out now. The UN has apparently been removed from the game, and we cannot build it. Uranium is only to be found on Ostrich (2 sources) and Tadpole (3 sources; 2 under our control), not on the Home Continent. This is not a problem for the Jumbo, but it is a problem for the Spaceship parts..
I can only trade Fission to Ottomans for Computers, and it's not enough . I want to trade for the tech now, so:
We buy Computers from Ottomans for Fission + 1742 gold + WM. I hope most of the money is still there in 4 turns. Change a lot of builds.

IT:


Turn 5, 1310AD:
I park him outside Washington. There's not much for him to do now, but perhaps an FP move later on?

IT: Spain lands near Bursa.

Turn 6, 1315AD: India has discovered Monarchy and has switched to this government. Two tanks promote to elite killing the Spanish invasion.

IT: Spain lands three separate groups near Istanbul. They also land at Thunderfall, where we have no defenses. More Americans land at Smurkzville.

Turn 7, 1320AD: I find out that Bombers have lethal bombardment against naval units. I cannot save Thunderfall, so I'll gift it to someone - let's see: the Americans.

IT: Rocketry -> Space

Getting Space and Superc, researching Ecology.

Turn 8, 1325AD: Aluminum can also not be found on the Main Continent, only on Popsicle (1), Tadpole (3) and Ostrich (1). I sink a bunch of ships and finish the turn, but I'll stop here because we obviously need to discuss how to proceed.


notes:

• We can get most of our gold back from Otto's by selling Rocketry.
• No gold invested in current research project yet.
• Bad news: Both Aluminum and Uranium are nowhere on our home continent. India will need Aluminum for Apollo, and both resources for the Spaceship. How to get these resources to them? Some sources are under Spanish control. There are 5 of each resource, if I counted right.
• Good news: There's a GL outside Washington. Maybe to move the FP at some point? There's nothing else to do for him IMO.
• There are Spanish ships E of Istanbul. I think all are empty and redlined. There is a Spanish party near Alcatraz, we have a ferry in Houston. Spain is also trying to sail some ships south at Richborough, hence the bombers. I've started some carriers to increase the effectiveness of our bombers.
• There's a stack of fortified units in Zentral and in Upstate New York. Most other units are positioned to block rivals or suppress flip risks.
• We're about 80 tiles from Domination, that seems safe enough.
• There are some Americans at Smurkzville. I have used a "containment strategy" (they are used to that ).

The save.

Well played, but very disappointing nonetheless. We are indeed at an impass to get India the Space Ship resources.

I don't see them being able to bring any units across to the other continent. They won't even build a boat to go from Dehli to Indiana.

We could try to berserk their capitol to a mainland one and let them capture a harbor. Then give one of our weaker opponents two sources of aluminum. But the likely hood that India can initiate/maintain that type of trade seems slim. After all, for the civ to be able to trade aluminum, it must already know Rocketry. Nevermind the fact that we'd need four million berserks to whittle down the stack in Dehli (or one nuke, but that would be the start of something bad).

This is a problem.

BTW, do you need aluminum to build the Apollo? The nice thing about the request to build Apollo is that India should start the build pretty quickly after the GL.

The lack of easy resources for India explains why teams have played into the 1800's and beyond. I was wondering about that.

Here's how I see it, in an over-simplified way.

Step 1: get India all the techs they need.

Step 2: Wipe everyone else out completely. EVERYONE.

Step 3: Abandon large areas of land to encourage Ghandi to settle them, including land with luxuries and especially land with aluminum and uranium. Mayeb even leave ALL of Tadpole empty. Near any uranium and aluminum deposits we leave a town with a harbor for Ghandi to capture. Leave the resource itself clear, just have a harbor nearby for Ghandi to take so he doesn't waste time building it. Keep our northern core intact and hunker down on Ostrich. Hopefully this would encourage Ghandi to lay claim to Tadpole. Keeping our northern core and Ostrich should keep Ghandi from the domination limit.

There are two ways IMO:

- Let India capture or settle a town with the Alu resource. Hopefully India will build some boats once she gets a decent sized empire. We can arrange some harbors or even airports in the cities that India will take over, so that the resource is connected to the mainland. (I think it doesn't need to be connected to the capital in this case, just to some productive city/cities that can do Apollo, right?) Hopefully we can get India to target the right town(s) by blocking everything else.

- Let India trade for Alu. Then another AI needs to have two sources and the knowledge of Rocketry. It should not be able to trade the spare source to a third party. India needs to have some trade material, probably a tech, or gold. There needs to be a trade route from the the sources to the other AI's capital, from there to the Indian capital, and from the Indian capital to the Apollo candidate cities (Delhi isn't a good choice). In my tests I have seen India build a harbor in Delhi (and lose it again due to empty treasury), so this may be possible. Btw, we cannot train berserks anymore. We would need marines to take Delhi.

Delhi has a harbor already. Getting them Mo, Oe-hah or Kristiansund with an intact harbor means they'll have full trading access.

I think that letting India trade for Alu is more likely that the other scenario. The obvious choice for trading partner is Spain since Isa has two sources of Alu already - but OTOH that means gifting them up to MT and Rocketry.
The second obvious choice is then Ottos who are in MT already and will be gifted all the way up. They would need two sources of Alu - I would suggest capturing Mohacs and settling a fishing village on top of the Alu there to gift to Osman. For the second source we could give them the Alu town on popsicle, and rush a harbor in one of the other towns.

Btw, great news about the leader, and I agree that rushing FP on Tadpole is the only real use we'll have of him.

EDIT: Hmm, another option could be to put the FP in Smurkzala near Carthage. Right now that yields a lot more than to put it on Tadpole, but then most of Tadpole's inhabitants are specialists and could be of better use if close to the FP.

zyxy said:

- Let India trade for Alu. Then another AI needs to have two sources and the knowledge of Rocketry. It should not be able to trade the spare source to a third party. India needs to have some trade material, probably a tech, or gold. There needs to be a trade route from the the sources to the other AI's capital, from there to the Indian capital, and from the Indian capital to the Apollo candidate cities (Delhi isn't a good choice). In my tests I have seen India build a harbor in Delhi (and lose it again due to empty treasury), so this may be possible. Btw, we cannot train berserks anymore. We would need marines to take Delhi.

Click to expand...

I think this is our more feasible option. I like the idea of helping another AI to two sources of aluminum. When India gets all the techs they need, we can eliminate the other AI easily. We would keep one AI around to trade with India. Now that Dehli has a harbor (hopefully they can keep it from being repossessed) and Indianaposmurkz has one too, we just need to let the indians get to one of our coastal cities with a harbor (Nansmurkz or Smurkzville). That's part of the plan anyway. Now the other problem is that the Ottomans need a harbor to trade too (or did they build it on zyxy's turn, I haven't checked). We could destroy or move the Mongols and use their captured city to build a harbor/airport and gift it to the ottomans. Then build an airport in on of the cities that India is going to capture. Once they own that, or the harbor towns, they could trade with the Ottomans.

All in all, if we're going for the whole spaceship, we should probably ride the elevator to the top so we can start destroying the other civs now to arrange the proper aluminum trading.

If we're still just trying for the fastest tech/apollo completion, then do the GL 12 turns earlier and proceed with the proxy technique.

ControlFreak said:

All in all, if we're going for the whole spaceship, we should probably ride the elevator to the top so we can start destroying the other civs now to arrange the proper aluminum trading.

If we're still just trying for the fastest tech/apollo completion, then do the GL 12 turns earlier and proceed with the proxy technique.

Click to expand...

Even though it means a lot of do-nothing turns, I prefer the Whole Spaceship approach. Not greatly prefer; 60% Whole Spaceship and 40% Apollo/Tech. I just happen to think that we can get India to the launching pad.

CommandoBob said:

Even though it means a lot of do-nothing turns, I prefer the Whole Spaceship approach. Not greatly prefer; 60% Whole Spaceship and 40% Apollo/Tech. I just happen to think that we can get India to the launching pad.

Click to expand...

The heck with the laurel, I'm in for the Jumbo too. (75% Whole, 25% Apollo/Tech). I think it's doable also.

That mean's we can kill all but 2 AI right now. One smart AI for transfering the GL techs, to be exterminated the minute they fulfill their mission. One not so smart AI that will eventually be used to sell Aluminum and Uranium to India. Keeping them dumber than India will allow India to buy the resources.

I think that the Ottomans (smart) and Carthage would be our two AI that fulfill the need, but Mongols/America/Celts are all good candidates for the resource seller.

So if you want to beat on Spain, go for it, we don't need gold anymore.

I want us to go for both. (Hey, why not? )

But really, I more and more leaning towards a go-to-the-top approach. Regardless of how else we proceed, we need to make the Aluminum trade a top priority (and later Uranium, but not until India has built all SS parts not needing it). This means we need to devote one AI to do the trading for us, presumably Ottos since they will have all the techs already. It would probably greatly simplify our lives if we could get the others out of the way before that, to make sure they don't disrupt the trade.

Whoa, when did this this happen? I must have been busier than I thought... well, here's a double post to get back on track.

Niklas said:

Whoa, when did this this happen? I must have been busier than I thought... well, here's a double post to get back on track.

Click to expand...

You were

Now that you're I'll have to step it up. Double posts or not.


Sound's like we're in agreement that Spain has sealed their death certificate.

I still think that while the Ottomans are good partners for the GL elevator to the top, they are bad trading partners because they will always be ahead of India.

This would be my approach:

1. Capture the Mongol city, eliminating them from the game.
2. Eliminate Spain keeping only the furs or gems (or both)
3. When we know all Space Techs, gift the Ottoman's up to par, give India the GL, start researching Espionage if it's not known.
4. Eliminate the Ottomans so no one but us is as smart as India.
5. Keep Carthage backwards in tech. They can trade India Silks for the time being. Keep Celts and America backwards as well.
6. Gift cities to India by proxy (MA with Celts AND America). As soon as the cities are taken, backstab the MA and eliminate them from the game to get rid of the War Weariness. We retreat to our Northern Core, rebuilding the FP in Chicago or Washington with the leader.
7. Let India build the Apollo, we win the Laurels.
8. Prevent anyone from building the Manhattan project by Sabotage.
9. Gift Carthage two aluminium sources with harbors and airports if desired.
10. India builds all but the Uranium space parts.
11. Gift Carthage two uranium sources with harbors and airports if desired.
12. We win the Jumbo.

(crossposted)

I would be happy to stop after the Apollo program. I'm not looking forward to potentially 100s of turns of boredom, waiting until blind luck persuades Ghandi to build a spaceship rather than 1000 frigates.

Niklas said:

I think that letting India trade for Alu is more likely that the other scenario.

Click to expand...

Why not try both? They are not mutually exclusive. We cannot really control what India does, so our best bet is to present as many options as possible and hope she uses at least one.

To let India trade for Alu we have the following conditions:
1. There has to be a civ X (not us or India) with 2 sources of Alu.
2. X needs to have Rocketry.
3. India needs to have Rocketry and Space Flight at least.
4. No other civ should have Rocketry.
5. There has to be a trade route Alu sources -> X's capital -> Indian capital -> city/cities where Apollo can be built.
6. India needs to have something to trade away. Money is best, as techs hardly ever have the right price.
7. Preferably no civ (except us) may have a luxury or strategic resource that India doesn't have (except for Alu of course).

To let India capture (and use) Alu we have the following conditions:
1. We need 2 sources of Alu (we'll want 1 for ourselves).
2. One of these is near the coast, in radius of a city with a harbor.
3. India needs to have Rocketry and Space Flight at least.
4. We have to persuade India to take this city. Perhaps by guarding all coastal tiles/cities except this one.
5. There has to be a trade route from the Alu city back to the Mainland. In case the harbor in the Alu city is destroyed we could gift a neighboring (connected) city with a harbor to a third party.

Based on this, I would proceed as follows:
1. The only smart civs will be India, X, and us. This means the Ottomans are the obvious candidate for X, and we have to reduce Spain to prevent them from becoming smart as well. So: knock down Spain to OCC asap. Then nobody will learn much without our help.
2. As we advance on Spain on Tadpole, the infantry there is free to return to the Mainland. We are 20 turns from reaching the end of the tech race. This means we have enough troops to let India out, and we should start doing that now, beginning with the towns in the southwest, after that those in the southeast. Try to split the Indian troops so that they take cities as quickly as possible. We should at least keep the GLib city for another 20 turns, and probably also the FP city and such other towns in the SE as needed to keep our research going at 4 turns. Cities together with moderate amounts of cash (not enough to buy techs, but enough to pay maintenance) will be gifted by proxy, most likely through Carthage or Mongols (they're OCC). Note: once we give up all cities bordering the Indian lake we can no longer move Delhi without recapturing a city (or leaving ships in the Indian Ocean).
3. We will control all Uranium sources. We will keep all Oil resources, or disconnect & occupy them. (EDIT: Indian cruise missiles are going to be a pain though.) Preferably also Rubber and Saltpeter, and any other strategic resource we can block. India only needs Alu, and we can release Rubber & Uranium later for the space ship parts. We may need to start temples/cathedrals to deal with WW, but this is not at all urgent.
3. Make sure that India gets harbor towns on the Mainland facing Delhi and facing the ocean. Perhaps we should build an airport here and there as well.
4. As soon as we give up the FP city to India, rebuild the FP on Tadpole using the GL. Try to time this for a moment when we have enough to spare to maintain research, or after the space techs are done. Start infra on Tadpole. We should have finished Spain by this time and can probably scrap Tanks for shields.
5. Research all space ship techs in 20 turns. Then gift the proxy up, and let India walk into the GLib city. Give a larger amount of cash this time in the hope that India will buy Alu with it. Hopefully India will have a decent economy by this time.
6. Place two towns next to two of the Alu sources (preferably not on top). Rush a harbor and/or airport in each. Gift both towns to Ottomans, and raze their current capital. Note that the two towns need a trade route with each other and with India that does not pass through our territory. A town between Gergovia and Pamplona, and a town W-SW of Mohacs would probably work.
7. After India has our entire southern core, kill the proxy to end resistance/unhappiness. This means that the Ottomans should not be the proxy, because they are the Aluminum supplier.
8. Vacate Cherry Popsicle, give it a harbor, grow it to size 2, and guard all other coastal towns. Give one of the other Popsicles a harbor as well, and be prepared to give it to a neutral civ. Hopefully India will go for the bait.
9. After the space techs, research Espionage, and build CIA, preferably on Tadpole. Acquire Communism as well.
10. Be prepared to give up the Mainland entirely, and to switch to Commie if needed.

EDIT:
- There are 4 civs that will be smart: us, India, the proxy, and the Alu trader. Of these, the proxy will be as smart as us and India but also very dead immediately after that. The Alu trader will be somewhat smart, knowing rocketry but not much beyond that. Ottomans could serve in either of these roles. Perhaps Spain would be a good choice for the other one. In the above I used Otto's as Alu trader, to keep it simple.
- There is no reason to kill any civs except for the proxy. SO I would just let them live, you never know what they are good for.

Seems we are more or less in agreement.

• Spain should go down, at least to OCC.
• Ottos should be kept alive, and be gifted up in order to act as proxy for the gifting of techs via GLib.
• At least one other civ (Carthage and Spain have been nominated) should stay alive and trade stuff to India, most importantly Aluminum.
• Other civs could stay or go, but would be useful as proxies for gifting towns to avoid WW (for us). As we can take them out once the towns are in Indian hands, that will also stop resistance. This is probably the best way for them to go. Also it would be good to have a backup AI in case our chosen trader decides to DoW India at the wrong moment.

zyxy, have your way with Spain, I don't want to have to fight any after the hand-off ya hear!

I just remembered that we ruined Carthage's rep so he is not a good candidate for Aluminum trader. Ghandi wont buy resources with a tech and won't have enough gpt to get aluminum. Is there anyone left on the planet without a stained rep? If so, they should be the aluminum trader. I think you can check this through the trade advisor. He will tell you if a civ can't be trusted (bad rep).

I like zyxy's plan as long as the Ottoman's rep is intact.