SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

All yes's so far minus BIC who hasn't voted yet (I think he was ok with the last versions).

Stopping on t214 is a minor rest, just to see into which path we will head next.

Allright. I'll start playing within 1 hour.

@duckweed:
The stop T214 is really just to figure out the final GPP plan. I think after that we've probably tested enough to get quickly to the end. Hopefully I can play the final part tonight, and kossin can pick up his set while he's got the time to spare

Allright. Played and uploaded

As far as I can tell everything went pretty much according to plan.

Not much of a report, really, but key points :

I stopped the Just/Toku war T206 (It was pricey, but somehow the screenie is lost on me.. gave Just some stuff, he was less expensive than Toku).

We found fur :



So I basically stopped production of settler in Lali (We only need the 2 barb cities + a fort).

We have a 100% success rate in spreading Hindu so far ( yay! ) If we're lucky, we only need to produce 2 more HM overall.

And we got our next GP.



With the way things are going, we obv got a GS

Did some trades to get gold etc. A few 1g trades have opened up (I haven't taken them yet). Let the AI have some gold the last turns. We can now trade them something (We just got Drama). Hopefully we get Engineering soonish.

EDIT: Seems like we somehow can't get the CH out in Barcelona now (it's size 7, so I probably messed it up). I'm pretty sure it didn't shrink, so it was probably a mistake in the testgame...?

I'm gonna post my plan for my final turns in a bit. Not really a whole lot left to do.

The only key point remaining (pretty much overall in the game) is how to manage specialists so we get max bang for our buck while still ending up with 4 GP on fur.

The only uncertain factor left should be how quickly we get Meh to cap...

I will give it a go, I'm hoping dingding chimes in with how he did what he did with the specialists.

Plan is about like this for T214-219 (leaving specs mostly out)

The "easy" and sure way to get there in time is:

Delaying Sci-met 2 turns (only delaying Physics 1 turn, should work out the same in the proper save, I think) (that is 0% research T214 and T215 to get Glib scientists in Delhi slightly longer as well).

2x bulb physics, 1x bulb Electricity, finish MM 860-870AD

We have 1 GG

Delhi produces a GP T 222
Madras produces a GP T232
Delhi Produces a GP T235 (which gets there on time even without Enigineering)

Edit 2: It's a good thing to have som slack between the last 2 GPs. Madras and Delhi are not 100% accurate on GPP and foods compared to real game. (Delhi has 46 more GPP in the proper save, and Madras has slightly less food and 68 less GPP)

IF we get a GG somewhere and want to gamble we can do it, I suppose it's allways possible to 2x bulb Electricity as well (saving 2 turns on our victory to 950AD if everything works out according to plan...), but do we really need to make that gamble? Not really.. at least not looking at the current scoreboard imo...

I can't really find a way to get Pati to produce a GP, but it doesn't really need to it seems. If anyone else can make that happen, I'll be amazed

Edit: My updated plan would be :



EDIT: Concerning mercs. I don't know what you want (or what we need). Running more mercs early could lead to 1 turn sooner Physics in the actual game (even earlier MM, I suppose). I prioritized food to grow right now (since we may want to whip/draft to up power later)

Very good news on all fronts!
I'm kinda disappointed by the anti-climatic placement of the Fur but I guess I'll take it!
It is probably easier to just keep both barb cities at this point, the cost won't be so bad. And with the # of workers there, a Fort will be easy to build.

CH in Barcelona will be fine, we just need to spread Hinduism there (whip is 45H*1.25=56 56*3=168 180-168 = 12, we have 16 hammers invested).

Major issues remaining

Saladin's vote:

Currently at +6 (-2 in expected vassals, -1 from difficulty), (+1 from fair trade, +1 from no more closed borders, +1 from Theocracy, +3 from Religion if it's +1 /10 turns) putting us at about +9. We can hope for either that he forgets a penalty or two which might land us Friendly for the UN vote.

Capitulation of Mehmed
This shouldn't be too much of a problem. The Mehmed AI in the test game looks far more competent than the one in the actual game. He should fold pretty easily.

GP
With 2 GGs almost guaranteed, that means we only need 2 more GPs.
The current one costs 1350 and the next one 1500 (it jumps to 1800 after so that would be hard to get).

Delhi: 72/1350, will be at 155GPP/turn under Pacifism+GA (we can make this better with even more specs)
Madras: 16/1350, 72 GPP with 6 specialists under GA+Pacifism

It's pretty clear Madras can't get the first GP. To get 1500GPP, it will need about 20 turns (~t234) i.e. when Mass Media finishes or so.
For Delhi to get 2850GPP (i.e. both of them), it needs 19 turns or so.

With some starving, it's possible to get 3GPs (1800GPP is about 4 more turns in Madras or 2~3 more in Delhi, depending which city we allow to get the 2nd GP).

^^
An alternative to Bugg's suggestion: [since we're not guaranteed a GS as next GP]

So there's no problem getting 2GP. Getting a 3rd though could prove interesting:
A Great Artist.
Yes, to bulb Mass Media and gain at least 1 turn of research. (even if we save it for when there is 1 turn of research, bulbing gives us the tech right then = 1 turn earlier UN)
That'd be from Madras of course. Getting it before Mass Media is complete shouldn't be too hard.

Now for some technical issues about cities:
Patali: don't forget to switch two coast to the 2 farms that will complete this turn (gaining 1 turn of pop)
Agra: we shouldn't be working the gold and looking to max food for drafting season
Lahore: same as Agra
Bangalore: Engineer->Coast
Lalibela: I guess we can say screw you to the settler OR we can use him to plant on the southern tip of Saladin's continent between Najran and Damascus [in the test game, Saladin agrees to become our vassal when I create a city there?] Even if that doesn't work, there are good chances that it will be worth +1 for Liberated city. The downside is that we don't have much time before Najran will pop borders I think so we'd need to hurry this up somehow.

About the plan:
Izzy had less improvements in the actual game... tile swapping between Madrid and Barcelona won't work (sorry my bad).
t214
As I said, whip CH in Barcelona after spread
Assign 2 farms in Patali, Engineer next turn
Lali: whip settler

Madrid: not convinced we need a Barracks now that you mention it since it's almost the cost of an extra WE
Try shipping 1~2 FW to help chops in Madrid

The rest needs to be tested a bit I think (and we need to make up our mind on GP issue). Nothing that should take too long though.

@kossin:
Getting the 3rd GP isn't that hard, I think.. at least it's doable. The next one from Delhi has good odds to be a GS. I think getting a GA from Madras isn't desirable (since the Mercs help out nicely with our gold issues).

Good pointers to plan. Trying to settle the Arab south could indeed be interesting. (we'd need about 8-9 turns or so, I guess). We're not losing much by trying, that's for sure.

Will await some more testing.

When will you be unavailable to play next kossin?

I'll be at home until July 27th. But I'm taking a laptop (this one is good enough) with me this time around so I can play here and there afterwards, depending on my schedule.

I know running Artists sucks compared to merchants but if we can manage to save enough gold and don't successfully get a GS in Delhi next, it's our last option to gain research.

I've updated the test game while trying to make it as accurate as possible to the real game. Here are my notes of differences by city:

+ : test game has more of this
- : test game has less of this

Delhi: +2GPP, +4H
Vijay: +3F, -12H
Varanasi: +2H
Madras: +87 GPP
Hyderabad: -10H
Aksum: +42H
Lalibela: -28F
Cordoba: -6F
Madrid: +3H

~500 beaker less than the game on SM
I've modified Saladin's attitude towards us to better reflect the game's (+3 past events reflect +2 from resources and extra +1 from religion)

I have not checked for units accuracy and modified the barbs to relfect the game (gave CG2 to archers to simulate fortify). Workers are also not accurate.

What is important is that this is fairly close to the game to test GPP, although there is one turn's extra worth of GPP in Madras.

I ran a GPP test:

If we get another GS from Delhi, we can't bulb an Artist from Madras... we can expect Mass Media to come around t228! Meaning t239 victory on 920AD!
I came up 17 food short of 21 pop in Pataliputra unfortunately (but I think it can be done if we focus our workers there better than I did).

So I would say: let's max scientists in Delhi and hope for another GS to 2x bulb Electricity.
Merchants just about everywhere else.

I had no gold problem either and finished research before the GA was over.

EDIT: A few notes
I don't like the 1-pop whip in Varanasi. As a matter of fact, that LH is useless. Build wealth right away and run merchants instead.
Similarly, I'm not entirely convinced the CH whip in Aksum is worth it.

If my test is any accurate, we have 14~15 turns of research left. Any improvement is better be worth it.

I think there were a few more things but I'm drawing a blank atm.

kossin said:

Lalibela: I guess we can say screw you to the settler OR we can use him to plant on the southern tip of Saladin's continent between Najran and Damascus [in the test game, Saladin agrees to become our vassal when I create a city there?]

Click to expand...

This is absolutely interesting.
That makes me reconsider the peace vassal conditions, which we almost fulfill. The main ones:

1) Vassal's power is below the average. (Fulfilled. Saladin's power should be ranked 5th, behind Toku, Gandhi, Meh and Justine.)
2) Vassal's land and pop are below 50% of those of the Master. (Fulfilled. Our land and pop are more than twice of those of the average rival, the fourth one; while Saladin can only be ranked 4th or 5th.)
3) Vassal can't DoW or be afraid of our enemy at war. (Fulfilled. We are at peace.)
4) Relation should be enough. (Fulfilled. Saladin needs Pleased, and he's Pleased with Gandhi, Izzy and Zara. So the average attitude is Pleased.*)
*: here I don't know which attitude counts, the individual one or the average one. Both works anyway. And there is a hidden attitude modify: Saladin's another land target Toku is too powerful (2 x Saladin's power), which adds +1~+2 hidden relationship towards us.
5) Master's power should be enough: about 1.5 x Vassal's power if Master is a land target; 3 x Vassal's power if not. (Unfulfilled. We are not Saladin's land target.)

Why we are not Saladin's land target? Because we don't have 3 cities on his continent. (Another condition to be a land target is to have 8 adjacent tiles on the border, which we do have) So building another city would make the vassaling happen. Of course, it's the best way to win the game at the moment.



So:
1) Whip that settler in the wheat city. (Can it arrive on the spot before we DoW Meh? If not, whip a settler in Lahore.)
2) Put 100% EP weight on Saladin. Assign spies in some cities. We'll be able to see his graphs in 5 turns, which would help us to consider the situation.

@dingding:
Hmm.. peacevassal, eh? My least favorite feature of the game

It does sound allright, though, doesn't it. But I think we'd rather whip a settler in Lahore (and settle T218) than whip the Lali one and settle ~T221, maybe.

@kossin:
You're probably right about the CH (Aksoum) and LH (Varan). We may not need to whip the CH in Madrid either if we want more hammers into war. We're not that far off ending research anyways.

Can you get all GP to FUR by 920AD? That's pretty good!

Yes, that's interesting. We should be able to 3-whip a settler from Lahore next turn. Can we get Saladin's map? It's be a shame to get there and see his culture had expanded already.

@Bugg
Delhi can get its 2nd GP out in 2 turns after Madras, that's about when MM comes in. With galleon-bridge we can move to island really fast, unload on Fort and walk to the fur in 1-2 turns.
It's okay to starve down pop points in Delhi/Madras towards the end.

Allright then. I guess it's worth a shot

I say we just finish up my turnset sooner rather than later. If you have a plan to get where you want to be with regards to spec assignment, I can incorporate that in the plan along the new vassal-developement.

I suppose we could also do a quick trade-for-map, then reupload on Sal, but I mean.. it's not gonna change all that much for us if the land is occupied (except skipping the settler in Lahore).

Bugg123 said:

I suppose we could also do a quick trade-for-map, then reupload on Sal, but I mean.. it's not gonna change all that much for us if the land is occupied (except skipping the settler in Lahore).

Click to expand...

Feel free to play a short set, and grab all the money on tradeboard as well.

Alright, I'll try to specify what specs we should run in a little while.

Trade for the map and grab the gold+reupload is fine.

Whipping settler next turn would imply delaying Pacifism+Caste by 1 turn too, hmmm.

Allright!

Done... Unfortunately we can forget the peace-vassal plan. If only we considered it before... EDIT err...

I suppose we're running pretty much Mercs on all tiles in most cities (except the super-high yield ones where we'd lose beakers too much) for as long as possible.

If you don't mind specifying it, that's great. If not I'll put up a plan tonight/tomorrow morning.