SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

beestar · Oct 24, 2010

Hey pnp_dredd,

I'll let the others comment on the detailed build plan though it seems generally OK.

Peace with Stalin now sounds fine, as does the trade with Gandhi. I'm fine with not giving CoL away to Roosevelt (as Fluro suggested earlier) - if he declares then we can bribe him to peace with it later.

After Calendar, I would tech Metal Casting for forges, then Paper, and bulb Philo before we finish Paper. Then Education. We actually don't need to complete Liberalism soon - we should try to grab a big juicy late tech with it.

P.S. Can't you just embark the Missionary to explore overseas?

Fluroscent · Oct 24, 2010

Hey dredd. I did say the mechanics of overflow are weird. Too bad it does not work.

Comments on PPP:

Tech:
(trade for sailing + monotheism)
Calendar: 5 turns (this opens up MOM and also lets us build plantations)
Then I think it's time to head towards Education, if we are aiming for laurels. Do we want Philosophy or Paper first?

Agree on Calendar, although I don't think we should build MoM (rather capture it like I argued earlier)
Then get Music! We still need the artist for a golden age. Remember, Gandhi will be rather close when we trade him Aesthetics.
Calendar can probably be traded for Monarchy. I think we should do this too.
I like Philosophy then, so we can run pacifism during the golden age. Then paper-edu of course.

Is it worth moving some cats out to gain XP? after we have a 10 XP elephant of course.

I don't think they get acceptable odds against anything in the open to risk it. We are not looking to be fighting damaged units since that would mean we lost a battle!

StP
Can complete 3 Cats in 5 turns (5*17 = 85 + 43 current overflow + 30 chopped forest = 158). This makes 6 Cats in total
Then settler (4 turns) - the marble site won't be ready much earlier than this
Then elephants (3-4 turns each) - assuming that 6 is enough cats?
stagnant @size 6

If we build a settler, there is no reason not to do it immediately. The workers will be available very soon, so we want to found it quickly.
And let's keep the elephant production in Moscow, where we have stables.
6 catapults enough? Not even close. Just spam those things. It is hard to have too many catapults at this point.

CI
Barracks -> Axe (stack defense) -> Spear (stack defence) -> Axes (MPs in French cities)
grow to size 6, working 2x grass mines

I think one more axe is enough for now, maybe two. I think we should build more catapults as that will allow us to start the war properly, then worry about MPs later. Spearmen are completely useless when we have elephants, please don't build even one.

Other things:

-Marble city build: I think we just want to do granary->library. It's too late to contribute to the war at this point.
-Working the marble site: Of course, clear the city location before settling, then improve deer->silver->rice->marble. Roading to save turns is probably a good idea.
-Remember that we can improve the silk with calendar, so we might want to have the chopping worker stay and build a plantation before resuming it's other tasks. I think we should wait on switching to working silks to grow until we decide that we are ready to move out though.

Fluroscent · Oct 24, 2010

@beestar
Bulbing philo requires a GS. We probably need philo to even pop a GS. And bulbs can just as easy go directly to education.

I would tech Metal Casting for forges

I think we should consider this carefully. Gandhi has MC already, so once any other AI gets it, we can trade for it. MC is a lot of beakers, and we might not even have time to build forges for a while. And we are going to be ahead on happiness with soon to be hooked silver and silk, so I prefer waiting to trade for it.

We actually don't need to complete Liberalism soon - we should try to grab a big juicy late tech with it.

True, Liberalism is for the distant future (Democracy/Steel look most appealing right now). I imagine that we kill our research completely after Education to build a nice pile of gold for Oxford research once ready.

P.S. Can't you just embark the Missionary to explore overseas?

So far, the "overseas" is just small islands. So the workboat can scout most of it. And we certainly don't want to build a galley right now

Plus we probably want to have the missionary spread confu in one of our captured cities after it is done scouting the north.

beestar · Oct 24, 2010

Are we that far away from generating a GS? We've already filled up half the GPP bar, and I think running 1 scientist for a while would do it. I'd like to get Philo bulbed soon, to discourage the AI from aiming for Taoism. This would slow down their teching toward Liberalism.

Having a Forge in time for Oxford would be good, but I suppose we can trade for MC some time while we're teching Paper and Education.

By the way, I'm assuming we are going down the Corps path, and will be running Ironworks engineers to generate our GE for Mining Inc. Fluro's right about not generating too many GSes in the meantime, or else it will take forever to pump out that GE. Maybe we should choose an Ironworks city now, and start running an engineer from a Forge soon - possibly Cote d'Ivoire? That GE is going to take a long time, especially if we build GLib and generate a few GS in between

I'm fine with teching Music some time after Calendar, ideally as late as possible (we can tell when Gandhi has the prerequisites). I'm still not sure what civics we need to have in place before our GA: Monarchy, OR, and Slavery (and revolt to Confucianism) for the University push?

Embarking the Missionary was just a Civ 5 joke

Fluroscent · Oct 24, 2010

beestar said:
Embarking the Missionary was just a Civ 5 joke

And here I thought Civ 5 WAS the joke

I didn't try 5 though, so that would be why I didn't notice that.. By the way, based on the reports coming in here, I am glad I decided to wait for patches/expansions before diving in :rolleyes:

.

Are we that far away from generating a GS? We've already filled up half the GPP bar, and I think running 1 scientist for a while would do it. I'd like to get Philo bulbed soon, to discourage the AI from aiming for Taoism. This would slow down their teching toward Liberalism.

I don't think we want to run a scientist, or any specialist in Moscow, since they gain little from bureaucracy. Even if we do, it might come a prophet anyway.
I don't see the problem getting there first anyway. If we only tech calendar+music first at least. Maybe if we tech MC it would be nice. Still think we shouldn't. Again, Gandhi is the only AI with any reasonable tech level. The others should not be a threat to Philo.
I might be inclined to prefer turning a GS now into an academy at the silver/marble site (huge number of cottages possible there) rather than bulb philo.

With a golden age running caste/pacifism, we can easily pop a couple of GP to complete education. So for the golden age we first switch to hereditary rule (if we traded for monarchy), caste, pacifism and confu. Then at the end of the GA, we want slavery/OR.
Hopefully we can time it nicely so that we can switch from unit/missionary to university production as we switch to slavery/OR.

Having a Forge in time for Oxford would be good, but I suppose we can trade for MC some time while we're teching Paper and Education.

I doubt it. Also, a forge is not that big a bonus. Consider that it is only our base production that is multiplied. Moscow will already have +75% production (Bur+OR). Getting it to +100% is a relatively small increase. Again, I don't think we can count on the non-Gandhi AI getting MC before we get education. Let us just focus on the balance of war and Oxford without adding more clutter yet.
There is also GLib to build in Moscow, and missionaries for all non-confused cities in time for OR. And that is after the large amount of elephants we need.

I think we might well end up with StP being our gold city, and CI a natural military (HEpic) city. Probably better to give one of the captured French cities the IW role (the most food rich).

pnp_dredd · Oct 24, 2010

Just checking on the timing here. THis is really rough - I haven't checked to see if we can actually achieve this. I think this works, but our tech pace might outstrip our production/war plans?

Code:

TURN:1--------10-------20-------30------
TECH:clndr-philo----music-paper---Educ|0%
PROD: war prep------------|GA(SS)|Libs|Universities
CITY:----mrbl-------------|3FS---|

GA(SS) = golden age (Scientist Specialists)
3FS = 3 French cities

We'll have to remember that our happiness.. no wait... tech rate will fall a bit once we capture the three French cities.

Fluroscent · Oct 25, 2010

We'll have to remember that our happiness.. no wait... tech rate will fall a bit once we capture the three French cities.

Another Civ V joke I wonder? :hmm:

True, the cities will cost a bit in maintenance, but we will get conquest gold to compensate. Hopefully enough that we are not slowed until education.
I find the timing chart hard to predict. We are pretty much committed to the rough outline anyway, so we have no choice but to press on with the war prep, and then try to make a better estimate for the next set. I feel the bottleneck is probably going to be building universities in two of the captured cities. All the more reason to get the war rolling.

A scenario that might come up could be that we are so far ahead in tech vs production that we might not even want to bulb education.

Future discussion
I am beginning to really like the prospect of a Lib->Steel sling.
The advantages are numerous:

-An army comprised of cannon/musket/elephant will wreck anything until rifles. Should be good to clean up the remaining AI on the landmass, depending on the geography.

-Strong synergy with a beefed up HEpic city with settled generals from our first war. We get +2 :hammers:

on workshops from guilds+chemistry to really make cannon spamming possible. CI has a lot of plains to workshop.

-IW early so we can get that engineer. Maybe even two so we can rush SoL too

-Covers a large part of the prereqs for mining inc.

-Short path to economics, which is a prereq too, and a huge economic tech if we do a trade mission with the merchant.

-Might be possible to extort parts of the upper branch (natio+const) by delaying it.

pnp_dredd · Oct 25, 2010

Revised PPP, changes are bold. I plan to play around 20 turns, or whenever we get enough Elephants (how many is enough?).

Firstly, Stalin says "That's just crazy talk" to an offer of peace for writing/poly.

Tech:
(trade for sailing + monotheism)
Calendar: 5 turns (this lets us build plantations)
Music: 6-7 turns (for GArtist)
Philo: 11-13 turns

Workers:
-Have the remaining StP worker chop the silk forest , build road and build plantation, then clear and plantation the other silk at StP, then cottage the remaining grass tiles at Moscow.
- The worker near Moscow to begin roading to the marble site (road first saves worker turns)
-The other free worker helps the CI ones build those two mines. Then have three work the marble site (deer/silver/rice/marble). The remaining scrub/cottage the northern grass tile at CI (CI can help grow it since it is shared with the marble site).
-The two working on the war road should continue that.

Troop deployment:
Our new elephants both get Combat II and attack French archers and swords on flat tiles.
Keep stacks together - don't allow any wounded units to be isolated.
The axe should try to gain two XP so it can get a shock promotion.

Cities:
Moscow
Elephants (I'll complete 9 if I play for 20 turns. Is that too many?). Then GLib.
@ size 8, work 2 cows, 2 gold, iron mine, 2 cottages, and switch between clam and scientist +1 to -3 surplus to avoid growing to size 9 before we get more happiness.
Once we have silk plantation and deer, steal fish to grow to size 9 to allow us to work one non-riverside cottage. And grow again once we have silver.

StP
Build 2 Cats (3 turns)
Then settler (3 turns, including chop) - the marble site won't be ready until ~10 turns into my set anyway. The road-worker needs 3 turns to move and 4 turns to build roads. Then it will take three workers 3 turns to clear the site
Then more cats
stagnant @size 6
Once we have silk plantations and deer, switch from grassland hill to riverside grassland silk plantation to grow to size 7 (214)
(I think it's worth losing 2 hammers for 8 turns to gain 1 :hammers:

4

/turn)

CI
Barracks -> Axe (x2) -> Cats
grow to size 6, working 2x grass mines

Marble city:
Granary-Library

Diplomacy:
Trade Aesthetics to Ghandi for Sailing + Monotheism + 65 gold. These are tech's we need, so we are saving 4 turns teching.
Trade Calendar for Monarchy when available
No peace with France.

Scouting
The missionary explores NE.
Workboat checks South first then East. I don't think that we want to find Stalin too soon.

I'm planning to play turns either 24 or 48 hours from the time of this post.

beestar · Oct 25, 2010

Is it worth scheduling one more cat before the settler? This way we could prepare a good tile for the city to work before settling it.

What prerequisites does Gandhi need to self-tech Philo? As I recall, he's actually quite close, and I'd like to complete it before he starts it, so that he will be deterred from researching it. Maybe even reverse Philo and Music, especially since we intend to revolt to Pacifism, and Gandhi is farther from Music than he is Philo.

Fluroscent · Oct 25, 2010

Like the PPP :thumbsup:

Agree on StP plan.
Number of phants: I think we should MOVE OUT when we have 2 axes, 6 phants and at least 5 cats and the medic (beeline for Orleans). Then continue building phants/cats. 9 is probably a good number of phants before we can afford to switch to GLib. Obviously, don't start GLib until marble is hooked up.

beestar said:
Is it worth scheduling one more cat before the settler? This way we could prepare a good tile for the city to work before settling it.

It might be ok, but I would want to settle as soon as possible (when the city square is cleared), since we can always just run a merchant if no working tiles are cleared yet. I'll leave it in pnp_dredd's hands to time it.

beestar said:
What prerequisites does Gandhi need to self-tech Philo? As I recall, he's actually quite close, and I'd like to complete it before he starts it, so that he will be deterred from researching it. Maybe even reverse Philo and Music, especially since we intend to revolt to Pacifism, and Gandhi is farther from Music than he is Philo.

Gandhi can research philo, along with a host of other options.
Good thing is that we should gain information on his tech through espionage before we finish calendar. So if he goes for philo, we can probably switch and beat him to it. Same for Music.

Fluroscent · Oct 25, 2010

One more thing. Please pay attention to the other AI's tech progress. We want to know if it is feasible to continue warring after dealing with DeGaulle (same as saying, do we have time to beat someone else up before they reach longbows?).
Also, if Stalin somehow self-techs writing, try offering math or something for peace.

unclethrill · Oct 25, 2010

Sorry I've been so quiet lately. RL has been busy (wife baby and me sick along with a ton of HW).

I've looked of the PPP and the plan looks good to me! Good Luck!

BLubmuz · Oct 25, 2010

Busy days here too.
Please don't play more than 15 turns.

The marble city as Fluro proposed can probably be moved 1N to have direct access to the furs.
In this way we change the rice for 1Deer+2 furs. And spare one city.

The iron/wine city can stay where Fluro proposed or be moved 3E (coastal) or 3E+1N.
If we need Corn we can always settle one city later to grab it. Low production, but good food (corn, fish, deer).

Sure, we're creative so that city will gain access not so late, but i really don't see a city built NW of Marble city (Carrara perhaps?) only to grab the furs.

I agree with the plan to scrub a tile before to settle the city.

For the rest, eyes wide open, fight only if necessary or with a guaranteed result (at least very good chances, you'll never know with the RNG). I guess the medic chariot is the unit which will go with the GG.

Good luck!

pnp_dredd · Oct 25, 2010

I like Fluro's position for the marble city, with another to the north. We don't have many rivers and Fluro's suggestion means we can utilise every riverside tile across two cities. Settling 1 North means we lose a couple of riverside tiles and the rice, unless we move other cities around. We'll get furs soon enough with border pops.

But keen to hear what others say (or to see another proposed dotmap for holistic evaluation)

Here's Fluro's post with the proposed dotmap.

Once we have 6 phants I'll begin moving a stack with the cats towards France.

I'll stop at 15 turns.

Fluroscent · Oct 26, 2010

BLubmuz, the reason for settling as I suggested is that it is a much more powerful site. And it utilizes the land optimally (very important in a space game). Getting furs (a temporary happiness boost that we will get anyway a bit later) cannot compare with giving up good cottage land and rice.

The suggested fur city is just a possible marginal site, which can be profitable since it has 2x deer but not much else. I don't suggest we settle it until much later.

BLubmuz · Oct 26, 2010

Fluroscent said:
BLubmuz, the reason for settling as I suggested is that it is a much more powerful site. And it utilizes the land optimally (very important in a space game). Getting furs (a temporary happiness boost that we will get anyway a bit later) cannot compare with giving up good cottage land and rice.

The suggested fur city is just a possible marginal site, which can be profitable since it has 2x deer but not much else. I don't suggest we settle it until much later.

I thought it could have been slightly better, but at the expenses of the iron/wine city.

And sooner rather than later the 3rd ring will give us the furs.

Let's go ahead.

pnp_dredd · Oct 27, 2010

Turns 107-119

Lost the chariot as expected.

Us and Ghandi flipped as being the worst enemy of Mao
Mao is the worst enemy of Ghandi
England and China are WHEOOHRN

I didn't trade Calendar for Monarchy as planned. There's a risk that this will speed longbows as Monarchy would no longer be a monopoly tech. (Roosy has Monarchy now anyway, so we could make this trade)

English axe+spear hanging around our road.
Workboat and Missionary nearly completed scouting the North - not much of interest

We're poised to begin the war. France has built a city on the stone/gems, which has expanded it's borders. We have a stack of 3 elephants/2 axes/chariot medic just outside the bordrs of this city, and our stack of 6cats/2 ele / 1 axe is 2 turns away. There's a French Settler/Archer hanging around which we could leave to settle a city for us, or capture to grab the worker.

Tech:
Everyone but De Gaulle and Stalin have Alphabet (Stalin still doesn't have Writing)
Ghandi has Literature and Drama (if we want GLib we should start pretty soon)
Roosy (and Ghandi) have Monarchy
Mao has Alpha and Calendar
Churchill has Alpha only

Log:

Spoiler :

Fluroscent · Oct 27, 2010

Good job dredd. We look poised to strike, with no threat of DeGaulle making it to longbows.

I'll get to work on a PPP, and I think we should probably agree on a war MO on what to do and what to not do while waging war.

Info:

-Standing army is seven phants, eight cats, three axes and the medic.

-We have enough EP on Gandhi to see research. Nothing is showing so I assume he completed either drama or lit this turn.

-We can trade for some gold (Roos has 320 for instance) and finish music in 1T. I attached the tech screen.

-We cannot trade calendar for monarchy. He asks for CS as well.

-Attached screen of the army at the south. We know the location of all DeGaulles four cities now.

BLubmuz · Oct 27, 2010

It looks that with an army like this we're guaranteed to suffer few losses if the RNG doesn't go crazy.

DeG is dead, then we can test the iceball city (maybe in a corner NW or NE of the marble, not coastal) and clean the good side of the continent from French.

We can even consider to increase the army to take down the nearest AI before LBs. Protective LBs are hard even for knights. And both WC :lol:

and Mao are protective.

That gems+stone city is too nice to be true. And it's even coastal! The borders expanded are probably from a monument, so it can be at least size2.

Go on Fluro, but let me some fun.

Fluroscent · Oct 27, 2010

This is how I would like to wage the war on a principal level. Let me know if you agree or not.

War MO
Overarching principle: Limiting losses is more important than speed.

-Always bombard away all culture before attacking cities

-Attack with all catapults first unless the top elephant gets 90% odds or better AND the next catapult gets poorer odds than that.

-Never attack units in the open if it will leave units in stacks of less than three defenders. That means we need to move two defenders to the potentially damaged units, AND leave at least three defenders in the original stack.

-Attack units in the open only if getting 80%+ odds.

-Exception for when we take the last city: Move units to "herd" workers away from the city he gets to keep. Then block off access by stationing units all around the city.

-While the units choke the leftover city, they might as well pillage the terrain for gold.

-All catapults get city raider promotions. I believe it is always superior on city attack, whereas the other available promos are best used to kill stacks on the defensive. Bombard promo is not worth it. We rather want CR2 and an additional turn of bombardment.

-Elephants get combat promos, unless a specific promo can help more with a specific battle (like wanting to kill an axe in the open -> give the attacking elephant shock). Promote prior to attacking, but not sooner.

-First GG gets attached to the chariot, which gets medic2+medic3, and mobility if possible.

-Other GGs gets settled in CI.

-Obviously, no stack attack or other automatic options to be used.

SGOTM 12 - Fifth Element

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