SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

Ok, so I would propose:

• Moscow builds cha-cha-str(marble)-str(pigs). After that, we could build a granary and grow, I think, but it's well beyond the scope and open to discussion.
• Finish Currency and start on Calendar @ 0% slider. Keep 0% until academy.
• Trade Currency to Gandhi a.s.a. he has reasonable trade bait (something like IW to go with Poly & Masonry would be nice).
• Hold Currency back from Roos.
• North workers: fairly straightforward - get food tiles going asap.
• South workers: ensure that the city site is ready and pig ready to pasture in time for settling. Otherwise, road further west with spare turns.
• Moscow workers: irrigate rice.

I would play another 8-ish turns, I think, which should be marble city founded, chariots past DG borders, and hopefully western explorers revealing something interesting.

mystyfly said:

Hey, bbp, since when are you part of the GOTM staff? Congraz, I guess

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Thx, I guess. I did something silly yesterday...

That plan sounds good to me.

Sounds good to me. I thought your idea of ...-str-wkr-str for better development of Moscow was pretty powerful, but I'm fine either way.

When you playing?

LowtherCastle said:

Sounds good to me. I thought your idea of ...-str-wkr-str for better development of Moscow was pretty powerful, but I'm fine either way.

When you playing?

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The two chariots take as long to produce as that third worker. It was a placeholder build for me, while irrigating rice. I'd rather grow the city. What do you think?

Tonight after work, I think. Have to run soon.

If we are going to be stealing several workers then we should not need to build another one in the near future.

mdy said:

If we are going to be stealing several workers then we should not need to build another one in the near future.

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I wouldn't count on having use of a stolen worker on nearly the same schedule. Still, I agree there's no immediate need for more. As long as we're growing Moscow to 7, it would be nice to have the copper mine asap, is all...

You need a ton of workers in this game, more than you can easily steal. Even after aggressive worker stealing I ended up building more in my test game.

babybluepants said:

The two chariots take as long to produce as that third worker. It was a placeholder build for me, while irrigating rice. I'd rather grow the city. What do you think?

Tonight after work, I think. Have to run soon.

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Tested it for a clearer picture. Turns out the Marble settler is only slowed down 2t. That means if we want the furs done asap (we do right?), then only one worker can go to a grass tile and road. The other can road a no-fallout tundra tile for 2t, then moves to the furs a turn before the city is settled, the second wkr joining hima turn later.

I agree with stlr-stlr-wkr now. The wkr completes soon enough to build the hills road, the other two workers just go road the cows for a turn or something.

Also: In 2t you can put our research slider to 0% (or maybe 10%) already, Currency will still complete. MIght as well. Good idea on 0%, btw, I hadn't thought of that.

Everything else works fine with the workers. The south rice worker is free to make one more road further west, etc. There is one problem I forgot to mention earlier though. If we 2pop the granary in Fish, then Fish can't work the gold for two turns. This is a very tight schedule. We mustn't forget to build the granary for at least one turn before the GS is born so we can 2pop immediately.

WARNING: The test save builds the Rheims archer and pops its borders 1t late, if I'm not mistaken. So, assuming no Buddhism spread at all, the second chariot must go 3tiles N to not get culture-whacked back toward us.

Good luck, bbp!!!

INteresting that Gandhi will trade Masonry. That means he was building GLH but isn't building the Pyramids, if I'm not mistaken. I would have thought he was building them. Maybe it's doable after all. In any case, keep an eye on Gandhi's Masonry. WOuldn't surprise me in the least if he takes it off the market any turn now.

On Rheims:
If Buddhism doesn't spread before the first chariot gets there, the chariot can go to the hill at 2N and see if dG has added any archers. You should also monitor the Rheims espionage sab prod screen to see if the archer already got finished or is about to get finished. This way you can know if you have a 2-on-1 chance or not. 2-on-1 is the cheapest it'll get to attack Rheims, especially since in that case, the only archer will be the built one and won't be fortified more than a turn or so. It would slow down our worker stealing, but speed up building Gems. In that case, I'd take the chance, I think. Or maybe stop to discuss.

bcool, in your test game, what techs were you able to trade for?

Iron Working
Polytheism
Horseback riding
Monotheism
Paper
Monarchy
Banking
Compass
Drama
Optics
Astronomy
Printing Press
Scientific Method
Physics
(last two might have been mistakes since now I'm fighting the advanced Rosey)
And yes I was beaten to Physics by Rosey, I did the railroad beeline.

Save's uploaded. I played 7 more turns. Founded Siberia on the marble. Next settler in 2t. DG came demanding cash, and I chose to deny. We didn't discuss this, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Haven't made any Currency trade. Gandhi's still willing to trade Masonry, but not Poly, and hasn't discovered anything new. Churchill and Stalin still don't have Writing.

Our missionary just ran into an English archer in the SW. Our chariot could steal a loose worker this turn. DG had 2 archers in Rheims circa 5t ago, with one more hanging around right next to the city.

I think I'll sign off here and hand over to Mitchum.

babybluepants said:

I think I'll sign off here and hand over to Mitchum.

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Good job, BBP!

Got it. I'll download the save and put together a preliminary plan / discussion tomorrow.

bbp, can you play the test game forward to the current turn, please?

Good play, bbp!

Rheims dies.
Iron in Orleans is a PITA. May not be safe to capture the worker till it moves southward. When did dG discover IW? What is Orleans building with 36h? Did Paris poprush again?

Mao still has only archers, but he'll get IW soon too, no doubt. Worker stealing may now be a matter ofMoscow: settler-wkr-granary-rax-units while growing, settlers while not growing.

Develop our cities. Settle GP Farm and get it going. Settle 2 overseas cities.

Kill Rheims. May it cough radioactive blood.

In view of France's success in hooking up metal, and the logistical difficulties involved in worker stealing from De Gaulle I am inclined to abandon plans to engage in mass worker stealing. We might get away with stealing the worker we can currently see if we are confident he will make peace immediately afterwards, but that is about it.

Have we tried to make peace with Churchill by offering him all the available techs?

Kill Rheims.

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Why would we want to do this now. With 2-3 archers around we would need 6-7 chariots, and it would not gain us anything immediately (we can easily get enough scouts past before the border pops). On the contary raising it would mean we would have to build one more settler.

Rheims is targetted for annhilation, but not in the upcoming turnset. We would need to use the units built while growing Moscow.

The key to the AIs cease firing rapidly is to not lose a battle. That's why we need to know when dG got IW and what he's been building in his cities, so we can know if we should wait a turn to capture the worker when it has moved one tile further south, out of reach of any metal units.

mdy said:

Why would we want to do this now. With 2-3 archers around we would need 6-7 chariots, and it would not gain us anything immediately (we can easily get enough scouts past before the border pops). On the contary raising it would mean we would have to build one more settler.

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Edit: Okay, I think I understand this better. Do you mean, why raze Rheims now rather than keep it later?
1. The main reason in the short term is access to the rest of the continent.
2. When Rheims is connected to Paris, it will require Edit: 16t! 32t to grow to pop2, unless dG has a fourth resource. He doesn't have fish or cows, he could have pigs. Too slow to wait for.
3. The current Rheims location is MUCH WORSE than dyes-SW for a space race. We want to work workshops, not coastal+ocean tiles. Plus, the current location misses the dyes.
4. Settlers are relatively inexpensive.

Guys, to be understand my posts, you have to understand that I'm always, but always, looking forward. To the end of the game, really. Why is it crucial to wipe out Rheims in the near future? It's blocking our path. We'll never have OBs with dG. It now appears that every AI but Stalin is on our landmass. We can see Churchill's culture to the south. That probably means that Gandhi and Roosy are to the west-southwest. Trade routes will go by sea around the north of dG or by land, but we need raods for the land routes.

So we need to defog dG's northern coast for trade routes or capture Rheims.

We also need to capture Rheims for continued worker stealing because on ~T117 Orleans' borders will expand again, making that passageway virtually impossible. This is not a trivial matter. Ideally, we will put together an attack force for Rheims before it has any metal defenders. But of course, we don't want to mess up our REX, growth and research in the process. So we only build units when Moscow needs to grow. Luckily, that happens to be in the near future, because Moscow will have at least 9 excellent resource tiles to work. Furthermore, we might want to consider some cottages in Moscow.

One more thing: Imo, not worker stealing is simply not an option. Not in this game. Not with this map. I just don't see it, but I'm open to some other strategy. ANy ideas?

Moscow simply can't produce everything: settlers, workers, infrastructure, wonders and still grow to size 9+. But again, growth and building units align with each other, so this is not a problem. Note also that we want to have a Level 4 unit asap so we can build HE as soon as we decide to. All of these things must be considered and planned for. That's the way it works.
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Current worker needs (conservative estimate):