SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

Do we really want Liberalism as fast as possible?
What would we take?

I had in mind to delay Liberalism to grab one of the techs that would slow us down the most (Radio for example) but other alternatives are fine of course.

Good going guys, this is a good read! I'd just like to point this out:

(from the Rules discussions thread)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9113361&postcount=97

DynamicSpirit said:

In answer to the various questions about this...

When you win the game, you select the option to continue playing, which takes you to the turn immediately after you have won. You may submit your final winning save at any time during this turn, it does not have to be at the beginning of the turn. However, you must submit during that turn - DO NOT allow the game to proceed to any subsequent turn before submitting, as that'll risk disqualifying your victory.

Eldine will examine the save you have submitted, no matter at which point during the turn it may have been made, to determine which of the game conditions your team has satisfied.

Click to expand...

This means the submitted save is the one where you see the white text with '[...] Victory'.
We can easily switch to a religion the previous turn and even land the warriors+GPs on the fur tile the following turn.

For example:
UN vote t287
t287 vote
t287 convert religion
t287 bribe/convert any AI not running a religion
t287 hit Enter
t288 win
t288 press continue playing
t288 land warriors+great people
t288 save and submit

@dingding
I think the discussion of those points turned out to be a good result.

1. I tried some tests last night and I agree that 2 pop whip of granary at size 4 followed by 3 pop whip of a settler to be the best result.

The comparison between 2 plans is
30F + 20H + 1 whipping anger vs 2 turns earlier of settler.

2. you did not get my point, the 9th city is commerce even, which means 0 commerce gain even counting the 3C from tiles. It's for a city 4 tiles away from capital, any further and later city will be negative on commerce.

4. Pat is the major city for GS production, and it's the most valuable type. Running at it's full potential is preferred.

5. kossin explained it.

@ kossin
You may need to judge whether we want to
1. Vij whips granary and them 3 pop whip a settler. Are the hammer gain worth of 4~5 turns delay of the settler.
2. Do we want a 3 pop whip of a settler in Delhi, it weakens the capital, but allows faster growth of the Fish/Horse city and a faster new city.

Lib takes Radio for sure if we can.

May I point out that the voting process is more like:

UN vote t287
t287 Our vote
t287 Hit Enter
T287 Other AIs’ votes
t288 Win/Loose

Click to expand...

That being said:
1) Even at the turn of vote (t287), anything we do on diplo/religion will count in AIs' consideration of voting. (Actually I used to gift away cities to neighbors at this turn if chasing for a diplo victory)
2) We won't benefice from Free Religion in the votes if converted to a religion in the previous turn.

Given the actual situation, in the long run, it’s more reasonable to get support from the Hindu party (Toku, Saladin and Zara if we want to make it) and win diplo. I’m not against converting to Confu in short term but the gold city need to help us spread Hindu and we’ll convert to it ASAP.

@ Duckweed:

About 2, in my WB test, the 9th city beside the fish is +9C of output and gives -6gpt of maintenance. That's what I meant +3C.

@dingding

1) Sorry, that is completely false. The AIs vote at the very same time you do (at the beginning of the turn). In the Darius DR I played, I thought so as well but Silu convinced me otherwise. To test it, I went back on the turn of the vote and after voting declared war on on of the guys voting for me previously... the end result is they still vote for you.
So everything diplo-wise must be done before the vote comes up.

2) See 1) In any case I see two options:
a- try to form a Hindu block
b- try to abuse NSR + Theocracy to get more votes ... with gifts we can get all 4 Zealots to vote for us. Despite their having different religions, they usually aren't worst enemies thanks to peaceweights, warmonger respect and Theocracy. Heck we can even liberate cities to get more brownie points.

9th city will be 9C shortly yes (2-2-1-1 trade routes, 1 from city tile and 2 from fish 5 turns after settling). 10th city will be up shortly after on north island I guess which will add 1 more commerce and more throughout the empire as well... we just need to find a 4th overseas spot I guess.

dingding said:

@ Duckweed:

About 2, in my WB test, the 9th city beside the fish is +9C of output and gives -6gpt of maintenance. That's what I meant +3C.

Click to expand...

It's -9g of maintenance for the fish/Deer city as 9th city and I clearly mentioned that it was the result from a real test last night. My previous impression of 9th city with GLH bonus getting negative commerce came from deity games and it's also true for a city further away from capital in this game. The civic maintenance is quite steep at this stage.

I've got some time on my hands now to test/plan the next 10 turns (or until someone has Alphabet)... so far, if I understand correctly, we have:

-beg as much gold as possible from Zara (130 - will check in test game)
-re-negotiate deals with Justinian when possible
-trade horses for gpt/resources?
-slider to 0% until we can almost 100% (expecting to get some gold by selling techs)
-switch EP weight (Toku/Justinian?)
-Delhi: keep on Temple, try to grow as fast as possible
-Bombay: worker (switch horses to fp next turn - horses to Vijay) This makes the worker take longer. Not doing it doesn't affect the settler.
-Vijay: settler next turn
-Pataliputra: switch to granary, 2-pop whip overflow in lighthouse... spit out wb when needed and at size 6 start settler
-horse+fish: size 2 settler/worker?

Settler from Bombay goes overseas to crabs+gold, runs artist for 4 turns.
Next settler is for fish+deer W of Delhi.
3rd settler from Vijay either goes on the north island or the triple-clams
Send WIII warrior on north island in case of barbs.
wb from Vijay explores north (if no more islands it can be the wb for deer+fish or another city)
2 FW road for 1 turn+cancel S of Vijay then cottage remaining flood plains

@DingDing :
Thanks for your reply! When I was asking "when will we grow cities?"... I didn't mean it like "when will we focus on food?" but rather "when will we keep them big and fat?" i.e. stop whipping.
In retrospect, I know we whipped to expand and know we still need some whips to expand further. Then there will be the infra whips and then...

kossin said:

-slider to 0% until we can almost 100% (expecting to get some gold by selling techs)

Click to expand...

Isn't that dangerous ? AIs tend to demand gold when the player is rich...
We aren't going to build libraries/markets anytime soon, so I would alternate 0% - 100% every 1-3 turns.
+: Trading via Alphabet wouldn't change the tech we will research.

kossin said:

-switch EP weight (Toku/Justinian?)

Click to expand...

Why Toku or Justinian ? To be honest, I can't see reasons right now to set EP towards one or another AI. To choose one, I'd target Saladin, because he is closer...

kossin said:

3rd settler from Vijay either goes on the north island or the triple-clams

Click to expand...

Here, the "convenient" order would be 3-clams first and then the sugar spot : if the 3 clams borders pop, then we won't need culture in the sugar city for some time (enough to build a temple/library). On the other hand, if we settle the sugar first, we will need border pops in both cities.
Traderoutes may say otherwise, though. I guess it depends on what is available from the AIs.
It would also be better to settle the sugar city after an AI has Alphabet (so that we can improve tiles right away with IW) but... that will come fast

@BIC
-Good point about slider... odds are we can already finish CS 100% if the beg from Zara is successful and trade some techs for gold.

-EP switch was suggested by dingding to see their graphs. While not essential it could reveal useful information I guess.

-north island will have to pop borders eventually but I guess we can delay it alright. Having just run one test for ~10 turns, I find it very difficult to manage caste<->slavery to get all we want accomplished. For example, we can't whip the granary right away in Patali because we're waiting for Varanasi to pop borders to grab the last floodplains. And then if we go in slavery then we can't pop borders of gold+crabs for 3 turns!

~~~

While granary whip might seem more tempting, our civics might not allow it if we want other cities to keep improving fast.

Good points. BIC. I agree.

@kossin

100% science slider from now on until the cash can't afford. Please be aware that Justinian is close to be pleased, so don't forget to beg cash from him, this is going to speed up CS by at least 1 turn.

Pat -- overflow to another WB for the Fish/Deer city, the WB from Vij can be used for 3 Clam city.

Horse/Fish -- settler if we don't want a settler from Delhi.

The FW in Delh should cottage the tile which can be work by the Fish/Deer city next so that the Fish/Deer city can help to grow that cottage.

Edit: I'd like you to play to the point when someone has Alpha, including Zara, even that's a longer set.

Alright, I'm fine to play up to Alpha.

How do you see the caste<->slavery civics happening? The 8th city by gold/crabs won't be able to run an artist for a few turns and we can't revolt to slavery early because Varanasi needs 2 more turns to pop borders.

@Kossin :
Remember that Vijay's 2nd border pop is very close : 5 turns (I only checked the testgame, it's correct on this, right ?). It will gain 1 fp for Varanasi.

Gold+Crab city would be settled in 4 turns.
Working 2fp cottages, Varanasi would also grow in 4 turns.

I'm somewhat lost with the whip agenda, but if we can whip what we want within 5 turns, it wouldn't be unreasonable to revolt into slavery right now.

Varanasi :
T130: revolt into slavery. Works 2 cottages.
T131-133: Works 2 cottages.
T134: size 3, works coast (taking the quarry from Vijay delays the settler).
T135: Vijay's borders pop : start cottaging 3rd fp. Revolt into Caste and hires an artist.
T137 : borders pop, works cottage if 2 workers were assigned for 3 turns.
Only turn 134 is awkward.

Crab+gold city :
T134 : settled, works coast ? Worker from Agra can start gold mine.
T135 : revolt into caste. Hires an artist.
T139 : borders pop. Workboat from Pataliputra is here : works the crab. We can revolt back into slavery.
Here, the workboat from Vijay could be online T137 so we waste 2 turns. It's a bit worse than for Varanasi but it's not sooooo awful.

Pataliputra :
T135: Granary is 21/90. Can be 2pop whipped with 26 overflow. Food is 14/45 with +11pt.
With 5H/turn, we can wait to whip it with better overflow, but there really isn't much of a point.
T136: Granary done. Resumes workboat.
T137: workboat done, synchro with crab+gold city's border pop.

If we don't revolt into slavery now, we can whip from turn 138, I think... I suppose... I believe... Maybe... (crab+gold earliest border pop)... But, that's too late for what we're planning, right ? Or is it not ?

EDIT : edited. I hope it's right, now ! I've a hard time with turn numbers...

Okay, I propose another pre-set turn.

Adjust the builds/cities and try begging 130gold from Zara.

If begging from Zara fails, civic swaps aren't too important as Civil Service will be quite delayed. However, if it succeeds, we can have Civil Service by t139 (that's 9 turns) and perhaps even t138 with a ~50gold beg from Justinian. Which means we can't revolt back to Caste System for a little bit longer... making the crabs/gold city useless for a while (unless we ship a worker and plan on improving gold right away).

Yes, go ahead for the pre-set, I believe it's quite safe.

Indeed, the civic timing is a headache in this way. I ran a test. Slowly producing Settler in pat is better in this case. The comparison with 2pop whip of granary and 3 pop whip of settler now is
[2 turn early of settler + 2 turns earlier of (crab + gold mine) + 5 turns earlier of cottage in Var + 1 turn of Burea (17C + 6H)] vs [30F + 20 H + 1 whipping anger]

The former is stronger.

@ kossin:

About the vote process:

I really have the impression which you think it's false.
I don't have time to test it, but I think it could be a question of roster, players' order. In the standard roster, Human player is always the number 1, and the other AIs are on the list by Alphabet order.

If it's one AI, say number 3, built the AP/UN, it would vote first, then it's turn for number 4, 5, 6, 7, then human player, then number 2.

It could be that the one who built the AP/UN votes first, so it could make great difference whether it's human player built it or an AI.

I would test it tonight or tomorrow night. If anyone would run the test, I would appreciate it.

kossin said:

Alright, I'm fine to play up to Alpha.

How do you see the caste<->slavery civics happening? The 8th city by gold/crabs won't be able to run an artist for a few turns and we can't revolt to slavery early because Varanasi needs 2 more turns to pop borders.

Click to expand...

I didn't check it for long on other points. But apparently Varan needs 1 turn to pop border if you assigns 2 artists at a time.

I'm ok as well for begging before the set

Make us rich, Kossin !!

@Duckweed+BIC
Ok, coming up!

@dingding

First: interesting idea about running 2 artists. We lose 1 commerce overall this way and slow down the crabs city a bit but it may be the best solution... I'll try it out to see how it works out.

Second: since you still do not believe me, I worldbuildered a test, just for you Here are the results, in spoiler.

Success!



After that, I cranked the slider to 100% and switched Delhi to 2 cottages, saved+uploaded.

Not sure if we want Delhi on cottages just yet but it will help with research a bit.

Yes, Delhi working on Cottages is good. Could you try build wealth in Delhi and also Bombay if needed? this could speed up CS by 1 turn.

Plan?

Great news !


@Delhi's tiles :
Working the cottages now is fine, but I think we should work the farm once Delhi hits size 6 to grow to 7 asap (and maybe keep on growing it till size 8). Priority now is to grow the city, right ?
Related : what improment should the worker do ? That's farm vs cottage. Seeing how we have 3 mines and are likely to produce another settler in Delhi, I'd be tempted by a farm.

Or...
If we don't plan to build another settler there, cottaging as much as we can.

Gold+Crab, Deer+fish, 3clams, sugar : 4 settlers needed. We have planned 3 for now.
If we want to fill our continent (maybe that's premature), a city could go east of Delhi, either by the lake NE of the river E-SE (like 4E1S of Delhi or 4E1N if Zara allows)... making it 5 settlers needed.

With CS in sight, cottaging is tempting but where will the 4th settler come from, then ? Are we going to chain 2 settlers in Vijay ? We could...


@Horse+Fish :
You ask what to build at size2. Between worker and settler, I think worker is a no brainer. We already have more cities than workers...

Working on the plan... 12 turns until Zara has Alphabet, or less if someone else gets it first.

@BIC

4 settlers
-1 from Bombay
-1 from Vijay
-1 from Patali
-1 from Calcutta [horse+fish] at size 2 (2 chops)

Vijay can queue a 5th settler if we want, it doesn't have really good tiles to work after its current ones (yet).