SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

No WB, please!

No techs for peace.

They will never become friendly or even cautious and we stay their worst enemy unless they fight between themselves.

We spare another war declaration if we stay at war. Let them come.
Remember Erkon's (our map designer) motto: kill 'em, kill 'em all!
This game has to be played with this in mind.

Proposed tech path: all the early techs (agri, BW, pottery, sailing, masonry) then CURRENCY! Even masonry can wait. Then we can start thinking to Alpha or Aestetics.

Yes, if we are going to go after DeGaulle, we will want const-HBR first (still think after currency), since there is probably no way to get 10XP in a useful timeframe otherwise, so going for lit will delay the attack.

We will also have to build military in Moscow, since there is no way we are going to get a big enough army from StP and Lake city in time. So in that case, we probably want to build barracks-stable-elephants in Moscow, and barracks-catapults and a few axes in the other cities.

I'm still firmly behind early exploration though.

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I agree somewhat, and that is why I offered the compromise of worker-wb after the chariot. There will be a less than 10 turn delay in wb exploration, and I think we will benefit much more from getting the worker out a bit sooner.

I agree that it's possible, but do we really want to trade away something as valuable as CoL to Gandhi just to get him happy and to acquire Alphabet?

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I think we should worry about our own pace foremost, since we are not competing for space with the AI, but the other teams. I don't think we need to be super cagey on advancing the AI, but rather see it as an opportunity to gain more advanced techs in trades later.

I thought it was "no land for peace" Okay, maybe we don't need Alpha first. Short term path is the same, Agri, BW, Pottery. Not sure that Sailing is the best next but we can discuss that in when we get there.

I'm happy to go with Fluro's revised builds:

Moscow: finish Worker 3, Worker 4, Settler, (Confucian Temple)
St. P: finish Chariot 2, Worker, WB, Granary
City 3: Granary

If people are happy with this then I can go tonight (it will be quite a short set), if not let's aim to agree a plan by tomorrow.

After that, are we okay with me planning to play the next half of the turnset after that? If someone else wants to go, I'm happy to turn it over.

Philosophically:

fluro said:

I think we should worry about our own pace foremost, since we are not competing for space with the AI, but the other teams. I don't think we need to be super cagey on advancing the AI, but rather see it as an opportunity to gain more advanced techs in trades later.

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True, we are only trying to suppress the AI if it helps us get into space faster. But in this Always War type scenario, our fast space race is dragged back by the need to spend hammers on a military to defend against the other AIs. The more advanced we make them (by leaking techs through Gandhi), the more we have to build military to defend against a more advanced AI.

If we have a lot of fighting in the future, then we ARE going to ramp up our war weariness. It's worth thinking about our midterm strategy: beat down the AI as early as possible, and keep them furious but suppressed? Try to gain peace and watch out for surprise attacks?

I'm good with the plan and I also agree that the AI needs to be kept ans backward as possible so that we don't have to waste alot of hammers on troops.

beestar said:

(...)
True, we are only trying to suppress the AI if it helps us get into space faster. But in this Always War type scenario, our fast space race is dragged back by the need to spend hammers on a military to defend against the other AIs. The more advanced we make them (by leaking techs through Gandhi), the more we have to build military to defend against a more advanced AI.

If we have a lot of fighting in the future, then we ARE going to ramp up our war weariness. It's worth thinking about our midterm strategy: beat down the AI as early as possible, and keep them furious but suppressed? Try to gain peace and watch out for surprise attacks?

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Go on. The WW does not work in this way. Lot of successful fights do not increase it, or not much. Keeping for long troops outside our territory and lose many will increase. My plan is to wipe the AIs from this continent and offer them cities in small islands, where they can watch us travel for AC barely arriving to Astro. Let's see how we can realize it. Growth is power!

Turnset pause as we do need to decide techs. This set we got Agriculture (T76), BW (T78), Pottery (T79). I'm leaning toward Currency to keep the economy going - 624 beakers, we get it in 6 turns at 100% science (79 bpt, -3 gpt from our treasury of 32 gp) Our tech rate is blazing fast but our production is slow and there are too many things we want to build (like Civ 5!). So even if we tech Sailing, it will take us quite a few turns to build lighthouses or galleys or whatever. At least with Currency we get the trade routes immediately.

Builds:
Moscow: Worker 3, Worker 4, Settler in progress (3 turns)
St. Pete: Chariot, Worker 5 (6 turns to go)

(The micro is a bit off as we have are about to start a Settler and we have massive overflow (28 hammers out of 100 + 21 this turn), and I think even a single chop will overflow the settler. Also the Settler will finish before any chopping does. I plan on just slow-building the Settler to get it out sooner. Or we could overflow into Granary, and then chop into the Settler?)

Minor things: Gandhi revolted to Slavery in this turnset; Roosevelt founded his third city; and France actually dropped score by -6 in one turn. Also, I clicked on each AI ten times and here's the military situation.


We discover copper:
And as we explore the southwest, we confirm pnp_dredd's finding that every tile is fallouted (except France's). Massive numbers of worker turns are needed. Would be nice to grab a French worker, even if he only works 35 hours a week.

Not sure if I'll be around much in the next week or so, my business trip is still up in the air (to Paris, a loooong way from Canberra).

I've no problem with the current ppp.

I would vote for Currency next.

Then we would need to decide whether Fishing gives us anything valuable (what do we gain from an extra 2 food in Msocow, when we are already at the happy/health cap, don't particulary want to run specialists and aren't in Slavery?).

After that we have a few different tech choices which indicate different medium term strategies. We will have additional information by then which can inform our decision.

One thing we may want to consider a bit earlier is spending hammers on an extra worker to start roading towards France (after we get that settler out). With no barbs there is low risk until we get close to their borders. Spending 4 turns on a worker now could speed our attack by 10 turns. Plus we'll want a road towards the bananas site at some stage anyway. More workers is always going to be a good thing, given our goals.

pnp_dredd, I liked your summary of the different medium term tech plans. Right now I'd lean toward the Masonry-HBR-Construction path.

Do roads aid movement on fallout tiles? I had a worker grind to a halt on a road-fallout-desert tile, but maybe that's because he was crossing a river as well.

By the way, when an AI says "our words are backed by nuclear weapons", that means it actually has a tac nuke or an ICBM, and not just the capability to build one, right? If Stalin kept an ICBM, then when he gains visibility of our cities ...

Copper in the tile i started scrub! Do i have a crystal ball?

So, dG is in our landmass, with a good land. Let's set up a good army.

I'd bet Erkon gave Stalin some nuke, this can explain his impressive power. It's a key point to never trade our WM and possibly never let an AI arrive near Moscow.
If you can't see a city, you can't nuke it! I will ask something to Erkon in PM.

Stone... not too close, not so easy to arrive, not so easy to protect, but stone.

Good news.

I'm for Currency next. I agree Sailing (not Fishing) is not of immediate benefit or use.
Currency is, once we have a third city, otherwise is almost useless with no OBs.

Needless to say, hook that copper ASAP! Go on.

beestar said:

pnp_dredd, I liked your summary of the different medium term tech plans. Right now I'd lean toward the Masonry-HBR-Construction path.

Currency will help to speed up any other tech, with the additional trade route
In case: Masonry-Contruction-HBR

Do roads aid movement on fallout tiles? I had a worker grind to a halt on a road-fallout-desert tile, but maybe that's because he was crossing a river as well.

By the way, when an AI says "our words are backed by nuclear weapons", that means it actually has a tac nuke or an ICBM, and not just the capability to build one, right? If Stalin kept an ICBM, then when he gains visibility of our cities ...

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It's what i Xposted... eyes wide open, guys!

And yes, fallout work in the same way as forests: if you cross a river to a roaded forest you lost the move until Construction. But the only rivers are near Moscow, so we can live with this for few turns.

Currency-masonry-construction-HBR is good.

But I still want visual confirmation on the route to France before committing, you never know if there might be a terrain obstacle like a mountain in the way.

So if we are going for the war path, then let's build barracks-catapults in StP (when worker done). We can probably wait on granary here and just slow grow onto the various mines that need to be built.

Lake city should be granary-barracks-catapults, with the cows+ivory being the first tiles improved, and the fish shared to grow once the granary is up.

Moscow should probably finish settler->worker (yeah, one more)->monastary->temple->barracks->stable->chariot (medic)->phants.

We should chop chop asap to finish all these builds (NOTE, make sure Moscow gets the chops from the shared tiles, to gain the bureau bonus on the hammers), and then make sure to cottage at least two tiles to work as we grow to size 8 (9 if we go confu). Growth can be stagnated by handing the fish to the lake city, and working either the yet unbuilt mine or a scientist instead. Edit: check on the health status, since we will lose 1 health from chopping, gain 1 from rice. We need to be healthy at 8, so if we aren't, then we need a granary, which should then be built before any other buildings.

We might be inclined to avoid going confu yet if we want to open up trade with Gandhi.

Worker management is something to be careful about. We need to time it well so the cities grow fast and have improved tiles to grow on to. At the same time, we want to road the invasion path, but tile improvements are much more urgent. We also need to be careful to get the Ivory online in time for growth in Moscow, and so forth.

Land: Looks like we can easily get a good GP farm to the south. We might be better off turning one of DeGaulles cities into one instead, especially if it still has some forests left for a national park later.

Otherwise, with ample food scattered around and lots of flatlands, we could just cottage it all up and go for a democracy based push to the endgame.

A small but critical thing, since we cannot finish off France, then we need to make sure we "herd" workers/settlers we cannot catch in the open into the 2nd to last city attacked, since getting workers is one of the nicest spoils of war. Also, we should pillage any tiles in his last city before making him pay for peace (currency should allow us to extract some gold).

Thoughts on army size:
I think we should get going when we have a smallish army, so that we might get there before longbows arrive. I think 2 axes (stack defense from spears and later MPs), 1 chariot (medic), ~5-6 pults and a handful of phants are enough to go at first, while we keep building troops to reinforce.

If we can get there before LBs, then We should be good with one CR catapult sacrifice per city and no more losses unless we get shafted by the RNG.

Fluroscent said:

A small but critical thing, since we cannot finish off France, then we need to make sure we "herd" workers/settlers we cannot catch in the open into the 2nd to last city attacked, since getting workers is one of the nicest spoils of war. Also, we should pillage any tiles in his last city before making him pay for peace (currency should allow us to extract some gold).

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I really like Blub's idea to settle a city on a lousy small island, then take all but one city from france. We get peace by giving the lousy city to him and then 10 turns later declare again and take the last mainland city (along with all the mainland workers) and leave him stranded on a lousy island.

If we plan well we can do that to several AI.

Will play late tonight. Stay posted ...

In the mean time, who's up next?

Okay, turnset played. The big news is that England has sent a stack of 2 spearmen and 2 axes toward us (all C1 promoted). I discovered them south of France with Chariot 1, when they were 11 turns away from our border. I wasn't sure if they would beeline for our lands, so I advanced the Moscow barracks build and started on an axeman.

Fortunately, Chariot 1 was successful in leading them away from our lands, and we might even be able to delay them long enough to stick to our elepult plan, if we're very careful about micro'ing Chariot 1 movements. Maybe go HBR, Masonry, Construction and build an early HA to defend against the axemen? Better odds than a C1 Axe vs. C1 Axe.

By the way, I claim the spotting of the mini-stack for the strategy of More Early Knowledge, even if it was Chariot 1 that discovered it, and not Workboat 1

Techs: Currency

Moscow: Settlers, Barracks, Axe (1 turn invested, 1 turn left)
St. Pete: Worker 5, Barracks (5 turns left)
Cote d'Ivoire: Granary (58 turns left)

Economy: we're running 100% science at -7 gpt, and breakeven is about 75 bpt.

Interesting bits:
- Gandhi doesn't have Pottery, and he still doesn't have bronze units.
- Remember we can demand Nationalism from de Gaulle after we bulb Philo (and have Alphabet, of course). Then we can demand Constitution from Roosevelt!
- I'm starting to see some scattered tiles with no fallout.
- We definitely have land access to France (and England)
- America builds the Great Wall
- Deers have been spotted to our north. We're in the northern hemisphere.

Session turn log: I've uploaded the save. Who's up next?

P.S. I've seen cas in the Civ5 forums, I'll go bring him back to Civ4

beestar said:

P.S. I've seen cas in the Civ5 forums, I'll go bring him back to Civ4

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I'm already losing interest in Civ5. It's basically a stable beta with huge balance issues. Everything top to bottom needs adjustment. A turn-based strat game dumbed-down for children...released with less than 10% of the play-testing needed so they could rake in the $$ a little sooner. So common now in the game industry...and very sad.

Anyway, I won't be able to play this weekend. And I doubt if I can get re-invested in a game at turn100+. I've been reading along and it seems like a fun scenario, but I'm not comfortable jumping into a turnset at this point.

cas

cas said:

Anyway, I won't be able to play this weekend. And I doubt if I can get re-invested in a game at turn100+. I've been reading along and it seems like a fun scenario, but I'm not comfortable jumping into a turnset at this point.

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Agreed about CiV.

We have now Cas, Pnpdredd and Orb who have to play. Unless any of them can play this weekend or Monday, i think we need to start the second round with Unclethrill, if he can play or any of the others who already played.

Good TS, Beestar. Now things seems to become hot. Let's set up an army of axes and be ready to lose some. After Construction we'll go for the machinery path to field some Xbow and maces. We have probably to squeeze IW somewhere.

The chariot north can scout N-NE, to see if there're resources. Looking at the screenies there's some tundra non fallouted, am i wrong?

BLubmuz said:

Agreed about CiV.

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Me three - my girlfriend saw me playing and said "It's just not as colorful as the last one is it?" I still haven't finished my first game.

Cas, if you can get back into SGOTM (perhaps not this turnset), we do want a full strength team and it would be really valuable to have you play as well as comment.

Good TS, Beestar. Now things seems to become hot. Let's set up an army of axes and be ready to lose some. After Construction we'll go for the machinery path to field some Xbow and maces. We have probably to squeeze IW somewhere.

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Thanks. If we can keep kiting the mini-stack with Chariot 1, perhaps we can buy enough time to build the Elepult Army. A few axes are good defense, but more than that would be less hammer-efficient than catapults and elephants.

The chariot north can scout N-NE, to see if there're resources. Looking at the screenies there's some tundra non fallouted, am i wrong?

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Well spotted, there are a few random spots that are non-fallouted, including a grassland hill. Are they there to lure the AI into settling them?? I'd vote for keeping the Chariot going west to see if there's another AI there. Maybe send a WB to the explore the northeast - there's an interesting island there as well.

Coastal cities and Fish/Clam are really strong in the early part of this game - food resources without needing to clear fallout. Too bad we don't have GLH (yet )

Well, there are other options now, and concerns.

-Since Churchill is sending troops "blind", there might be other stacks approaching. Either the AI cheats or they have vision somehow.

-DeGaulle has made contact with Mao too, which means the we have all the AI (except Stalin) in at least galley range, but likely on the same landmass.

-We have CoL, Math, Currency to give to Gandhi.

-Alphabet would take 6 turns.

-I think we should consider either reseraching Alphabet and making peace with the others (at least Churchill) or Gifting to Gandhi and then trading for it.

Now, I don't see how we can effectively wage war on France if we have to deal with the others too. It is a too far fledged empire to protect like that. So we should go for peace with the others. I say we resume our construction path, build order in Moscow, and try to appease Gandhi by gifting CoL first.

If it does not work, we should research alpha, which there is time for before Churchill comes.

Other notes:

-If we scrub/farm the grass NNW of StP, and mine the other two hills in its BFC, it will stagnate at size 6 with 17 base . We should work on this using the two workers there.

-The confu missionary can be used to scout along the north coast (now that we have autospread in Moscow), where it should be safe from running into enemies.

-Suggested build for Moscow: Finish Axe (use to MP CI for now), worker (needed), granary, monastary, temple, stable ->phants.
We can optimize by reclaiming the fish to grow once the granary is up. We need to make sure we hook the ivory in time for size 7, and finish the temple for size 8.

-Workers: Two at StP, Two at CI, and two with the new one at Moscow is probably ok for now.

-Tech: We need to go for Construction so we can start producing catapults in StP+CI. StP will have time for other builds, which could be axe+workboat.