SGOTM 07 - Murky Waters

klarius said:

I don't see that she is having big progress on chemistry. She will still give divine right +10g for chemistry alone, which is about the same value now with Hatty having chemistry.

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Oh shoot I missed that Since Hatty has chem, that explains the drop from DR+20g (all of her gold) to DR+10g. And why she offered DR+gold for sci meth a couple turns earlier.

So I revert to my original statement that she's researching sci meth - which means it's highly likely she goes to physics next for the free GS, especially if we wait until she has sci meth to DOW.

FiveAces said:

Oh shoot I missed that Since Hatty has chem, that explains the drop from DR+20g (all of her gold) to DR+10g. And why she offered DR+gold for sci meth a couple turns earlier.

So I revert to my original statement that she's researching sci meth - which means it's highly likely she goes to physics next for the free GS, especially if we wait until she has sci meth to DOW.

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Well, there is still the possibility that she has researched constitution or military tradition in the meantime. She still values SM at DR+20, so cannot have a large progress (more than about a quarter) on SM.
Maybe buy nationalism from Sal for SM + lib (that is not a bad value at after PA prices) so we finally get a better hand at what the people are researching.

klarius said:

Well, there is still the possibility that she has researched constitution or military tradition in the meantime. She still values SM at DR+20, so cannot have a large progress (more than about a quarter) on SM.
Maybe buy nationalism from Sal for SM + lib (that is not a bad value at after PA prices) so we finally get a better hand at what the people are researching.

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Yeah that's not a bad idea.

My experience is that Liz doesn't much prioritize MilTrad. Constitution is definitely a possibility.

klarius said:

Population threshold is not quite that simple .
It's not fixed, but calculated as pop percentage of the 2nd biggest + 25.

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That's catastrophic news. Sal is really the only other AI whose pop is still growing and it's growing rapidly. Let's not trade him SciMeth. He doesn't have too many farms now, but if he happens to research Biology, he would be a walking disaster. (Yeah, I know it's unlikely, but still possible, right?)

Edit: On the other hand, it simplifies pillaging their seafood--we just need to focus on Sal and Cyrus, the two biggest AIs.

Gyathaar rigged this to surprise anyone going for domination, if you look at all the turf he gave Sal. Although Cyrus is pretty big too.

LowtherCastle said:

You lost me on that one. I tested this using your save, with us teamed with Hatty. So you're saying that gave inapplicable results?

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Doesn't matter which save, but is a general thing.
A city that doesn't have culture still has 1 plot culture in the city plot. Capturing the city will also give 1 plot culture.
Looks like you tested it with a new built city, so the culture component is 50% own (I said team, because our plot culture would also count, as in the case of Nottingham) plot culture.
A longer existing city with more than 100 culture in the city plot (all cities we are concerned currently), will lead to 0% own culture. That means:
The full 3+floor(pop*0.5) turns resistance.
For the other case it's 3 + floor(0.5*floor(pop*0.5))
For Nottingham which is currently 42% Chinese it will be
3 + floor(0.58*floor(pop*0.5))

klarius said:

Edit2:
I thought about a scheme to get Nottingham w/o disturbing other plans:

• Build a galleon and load our warriors.
• Transport them into KK's culture and gift the warriors but not the galleon.
• Get the galleon back to Murky. He should now upgrade them.
• Unload the grens in Murky.

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Have you tried this? I got them to upgrade, but couldn't unload them anywhere and they seemed pretty content to just ride around the world and enjoy the view. But I didn't quite make it back to Murky because a caravel took me out (it was easier to declare war than ask for OBs...).

Edit: I was hoping to unload them elsewhere so KK could capture Paris or something.

EDIT2: Okay, I got a new galleon home and he could unload the units. BUt try as I might, I couldn't get any gifted, cannons, warriors, chokos, grens to attack a red-lined city from teh ship or to disembark nex to the enemy.

Have you checked the food bar in KK's cities?
Talk about insane Deity bonus! :d
It doesn't take much to be able to grow one pop per turn, just a granary and a couple of biology-boosted farms. And since there is so little food in the granary in even the biggest cities we can effectively reduce pop in other AIs cities.

LowtherCastle said:

Gyathaar rigged this to surprise anyone going for domination, if you look at all the turf he gave Sal. Although Cyrus is pretty big too.

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Well, I think, it's more to help diplomatic by having a clear opponent. Big, but separated, with theocracy as favorite civic, so he will not have the same religion as the other civs over sea.

LowtherCastle said:

Have you tried this? I got them to upgrade, but couldn't unload them anywhere and they seemed pretty content to just ride around the world and enjoy the view. But I didn't quite make it back to Murky because a caravel took me out (it was easier to declare war than ask for OBs...).

Edit: I was hoping to unload them elsewhere so KK could capture Paris or something.

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I tested it, unloading in a city does work.
Edit:
My first idea was also to get units abroad by that .
And in fact it's still possible, but not really feasible for a quick attack. You have to unload in a friendly city (e.g the target city before DoW ).
Edit2:
To make such things possible, I recommend to build (I think 4 will do) cannons at 42h, then galleon, Globe.
We can sustain 42h for up to 10 turns, if we take KK's bananas.

klarius said:

Getting second thoughts about our GA.
Maybe deliberately use it in Kyoto (gift it to KK) after Bombay falls.
That should allow to keep Kyoto's population and also gets us some tiles difficult to reach otherwise.

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I don't see Kyoto losing more than 2-3 pop depending on whether KK uses an artist to expand culture faster. I think not having to wait for London to come out of resistance might pack a bigger punch.

Erkon: More PPP thoughts.

One more detail you might not have picked up from the save. Cuzco has 8 units that were all in some sort of attack mode and captured CUzco. Only the additional two CGI lbs came after capture. So it's possible that when we DoW Liz, she'll send that entire stack somewhere. (Athens? Hamburg? Berlin?)

So I'm thinking a couple of things about our Kyoto S stack. Instead of gifting in Kyoto, it could move to Hamburg. From there you have two choices, let a unit or two hang around (not gifted) in case KK needs more help fending off Liz's attackers. The other choice would be to send the whole stack down to Beshbalik. If we consider that stack expendible enough to gift, then why not just use it on Rome? Rome is kind of the thorn in our Achille's heal. That stack could take care of the problem. The sooner the better for our pop growth in Antium, Rome, and Besh.

I generally don't like this gifting units to KK. The cat I gifted in Madrid became a defender. That was good. BUt do we really know if KK won't just leave a lot of them in some city to rot?

EDIT: A more immediate use for that stack could be to help with the pillaging of a path to Delhi and then onward to Rome.

I'll try to comment on the previous 20 posts or so:

Pillage of Asoka lands
As LC has shown, it takes ALOT of turns to pillage a good, simple route ala Gnejs'. What I'll do is to join KK with my stack and follow him and help him pillage. That way he won't get stuck for two or more turns. And hope that KK sends a CITY_ATTACK...

Timing of Liz Dow
I don't want to DoW Liz until our cannon stack is in Washington (i.e. earliest next turn). If she sends units towards the silver-gren, then we can retaliate with the cannon stack. If she sends units north from Cuzco, we can kill them in Washington lands. I'm not worried that Liz will attack Murky from York. I would actually prefer her to do that, so we can kill her units in the open. Absolute worst scenario (apart from chemistry) would be a) she keeps all her units in her cities, and b) she lands a large stack next to Murkopolis.

I hope I can avoid (a) by timing the Dow, and (b) is prevented by stationing healthy frigates next to London. That's why I don't want to attack her caravels since I don't want the two frigates to be injured. As long as they are 100% healthy, Liz will keep her ships in port. And she will not get chemistry if London is choked.

Overview of the Wars
We can't really plan which cities KK will capture, and even less when. That is why I want to open up a second front. Our units pouring south from Murky will prevent Liz to reach far beyond York. I will of course check if KK sends units towards Bombay close to Cuzco/York and delay the DoW in that case.

I would prefer to delay the war against Liz if (a) we knew she was not researching chemistry or (b) we knew KK would soon capture Bombay (withing four turns).

My interpretation of the events to far is that KK is very slow to react i.e. we have to initiate actions well in advance. If we DoW Liz next turn, KK will capture Cuzco in eight (or something). We still have JC and Washington left to kill, so I'm very afraid of delaying the war on Liz (which is on the critical line).

Population
We will get Biology in less than 20 turns. At that moment, KK will grow one pop/turn at least, probably two or three. Perhaps we can do something clever to prevent KKs newly captured cities to starve, but I don't want to delay any city captures for that reason i.e. quick capture of cities are of higher importance than reducing starvation. Starving Far Away cities such as Damascus is rather easy, and Susa/Persepolis too if Saladin drops to 3rd place.

Other stuff

Erkon, what are you planning to do with Liz if she gets Chemistry before you DoW? - I will stop

I will send our workers north from the Hamburg region when they're done there. I agree that they should repair the roads after city captures.

I will ask KK to target Delhi on T153, not Bombay.

I'm still a bit confused about the dot map. Is #16 and #18 the only errors? (already covered by Beshbalik's culture).

What to do with the GA - still open to discussion

Buy nationalism from Sal for SM + lib (so we finally get a better hand at what the people are researching) - still open to discussion

Spare Nottingham? I can do after red-lining to prevent her from pillaging our iron. I don't want to build the Galleon this turn set though, since the cannons are needed against York/Cuzco. - still open to discussion

I will put the LBM on the silver.

I prefer to gift the chokus in Kyoto to increase the chance of a quick capture of Delhi (who am I kidding? )

EDIT: LC, the units we gift may become DEFENDERS, but that will stop KK from building more DEFENDERS and build ATTACKERS instead? Kan klarius konfirm?

FiveAces said:

From the hill SE hamburg. It moved through the mine NW hamburg but did not pillage. I don't know what it's doing - i think it's confused. But it is a pillager - it was one of the muskets that pillaged around kyoto and then backed away/ Maybe it just didn't get the mine since it's in hamburg's FC. Don't know if the AI is that smart though.

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Looks like it wanted to pillage, but Kyoto was captured before it was it's turn . Now it's on the way to pillage near Bombay (tiles adjacent to cities have a much higher pillage value). There is a good chance it moves to Bombay IBT. It will do a new decision then, so only 1 hurt defender will make it attack.
No need to attack Bombay now. That may attract another defender from Delhi, coming then before it's the muskets turn to attack. Wait until the musket is adjacent. But have enough units, in case there is a new unit built.

Sparing Nottingham might lessen the chances of an amphibious assault on Murky - if it's redlined to 1 defender she will bring any assault galleon there first to provide defender(s), right? And only then continue to Murky?

I am strongly in favour of opening up a second front against Liz very soon, whether she is researching Chemistry or not. Then we should also declare on JC during Erkon's turnset. And as soon as York is captured we can raze Washington.
We shouldn't be afraid that KK becomes confused because as klarius points out there is no central strategy, only individual units. And we want to send those units to many targets which is why more than one front is good.
I am therefore strongly opposed to any CF with Asoka or anyone else.

Gnejs said:

I am strongly in favour of opening up a second front against Liz very soon, whether she is researching Chemistry or not. Then we should also declare on JC during Erkon's turnset. And as soon as York is captured we can raze Washington.
We shouldn't be afraid that KK becomes confused because as klarius points out there is no central strategy, only individual units. And we want to send those units to many targets which is why more than one front is good.
I am therefore strongly opposed to any CF with Asoka or anyone else.

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PA WARMONGERING WITH KUBLA KHAN 101

Rules Carved in Stone
1. Don't start DoWs unless you're ready to red-line cities. KK will just suicide all his attacking units.
2. Don't draw silly conclusions about KK's behavior right after you have decimated his units by violating #1.
3. Allow KK to build up his attack units by capturing cities that you have red-lined.
4. Red-line, red-line, red-line.
5. Make tactical decisions to gift a rare unit to free up KK's attackers. (Gift 1 unit to Kyoto.)

Discussion
1. Pre-PA we sped up our overall conquest using klarius' brilliant world war stratgies and tactics.
2. At PA our overall conquest slowed temporarily because KK had decimated his attack units and we didn't shift to a post-PA strategy as fast as we could have.
3. Since PA KK has gradually built up his attack force (except for the Athens decimation) and is sending out more and more attackers.
4. Gnejs' idea of multiple wars makes sense as long as we can red-line ahead of their arrival at various cities and thus prevent KK from wasting his attackers on idle suiciding.

Conclusions
1. We need to build up our red-line forces asap. At least 1 for each DoW, in advance of the DoW.
2. We need Globe before we start another war. (For WW, Biology, and to finance upgrades.)
3. We don't want to raze cities--just red-line them and keep them red-lined until KK arrives with a captor.
4. Send the Kyoto SW stack to Beshbalik if you want to DoW Rome any time soon. (Gift 1 unit to Kyoto.)

Gnejs said:

We shouldn't be afraid that KK becomes confused because as klarius points out there is no central strategy, only individual units. And we want to send those units to many targets which is why more than one front is good.
I am therefore strongly opposed to any CF with Asoka or anyone else.

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You make a good point, but we also must be careful not to stretch him too thin. If he's only at war with one civ, his attacking/pillaging/target city units only go towards one place. If he's fighting 3 or 4 at once, we could have a situation where 2 perfectly good city attack units go off and suicide themselves on Rome before we can get down there to redline. But yeah as long as this doesn't happen I agree more than one front is good.

EDIT: xpost with LC

Athens proved that KK can capture cities on his own. He can probably do the same with London if we just bombard it down to 0 with our frigates.
And we also want our enemies to spend their loose units early.

Erkon said:

EDIT: LC, the units we gift may become DEFENDERS, but that will stop KK from building more DEFENDERS and build ATTACKERS instead? Kan klarius konfirm?

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KK's putting 3 defenders in each city, judging from his cities: 2 lbs or a lb/pike pair plus a 3rd unit. All you have to offer is the 3rd unit. Fine. Gift one unit to Kyoto. In all likelihood, any other units you gift will move/pillage for 8 turns before getting to Delhi. Too late. Take a look at the map.

Erkon, just focus on red-lining cities and trust KK to follow your lead. Think of it this way:
1. Strategy layer: Which cities are you going to red-line and how soon can you do it?
2. Tactical layer: How can you make sure KK gets one attacker to the red-lined cities on time?

So we need to focus on red-lining cities and you and Gnejs want 2 or 3 fronts. Let's analyze that. Bombay is red-lined in 1 turn with at most 2 grens and a cannon. You currently have 2 grens defending Murky and 2 more grens and 3 cannons you could send to Delhi as a red-line task force. Now you need red-liners for Liz and JC, plus you need Globe asap. You need about 5-10 units for the Liz force, so if you build that in Murky, you won't have anything at Rome for about 20 turns. BUT, if you build Globe asap and send the Kyoto stack to Rome, then you can collect some cash for upgrades and by the end of your turnset you have Asoka totally red-lined, if not gone, and 2 deadly forces for Liz and JC, in position. jesusin mops up and klarius grumbles that we didn't leave anything for him but to hit <enter> and pillage Saladin's salad garden.

FiveAces said:

Sparing Nottingham might lessen the chances of an amphibious assault on Murky - if it's redlined to 1 defender she will bring any assault galleon there first to provide defender(s), right? And only then continue to Murky?

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No. Assault is assault. When filled they will only ever unload in enemy territory.