SGOTM 15 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

The Hermitage?

It looks like Bombay might be the best city. Alot depends on how many artists we can get but the likelihood is Delhi will get there on its own before the others. Then we can use bombs to finish off the legendary cities on the same turn. hopefully anyway.

As mentioned we want Bud temples in Agra and Palit asap so Kyoto can start the bud stupa. In 3 turns we get the stone back from HC to fast finish the cathederals.

Builds for Osaka and Tokyo we should be looking to get the next 2 gps from there so maxing artists is the way to go. Have better idea once we change civics this turn.

Rep - Caste - Pacifism certainly and nearly forgot def free speech!!!

It all looks like great reading. Nice work Oz

Could we get a quick screenshot of the F1 domestic adviser screen, and perhaps of the internals of our 3 legendary cities? With this info I'll go off and update the Culture and GPP spreadsheets.

The Hermitage:
is indeed best in Delhi.

Heroic Epic:
is basically 200 / 2 = 100 for 4. It is a better choice than monasteries though not as good as a theatre. I would suggest we put it in Bombay, since we don't really want the in Delhi.

Globe Theatre:
is 300 for 6 . It's actually a very poor return in terms of culture - worse than a library. Our legendary cities have better things to build, and in non-legendary cities I don't think the extra 1 is worth it.

GG:
I kind of like the idea of a super longbow. Or how about splitting the XP between 3 or 4 longbows? Alternative - settle in Patal as Sleepless wanted all along

Tech:
We have reached Nationalism + Drama. Our basic cultural tech path is complete. From here, I suggest we keep the slider at 0% , and increase the slider as high as our allows. With our army of artist specialists we should still be pulling in some okay /turn. I like the idea of heading toward Banking, as Mercantilism is a nice civic for us.

City Builds:
Legendary cities are obvious: Cathedrals first, then whatever buildings give the highest culture for the least hammers.
Satellite cities I think should pretty much stop after the requisite temples. At that point they will have poor anyway as they are assigning artist specialists. What few they do have can be used to build Wealth.

adrianj said:

...

Could we get a quick screenshot of the F1 domestic adviser screen, and perhaps of the internals of our 3 legendary cities? With this info I'll go off and update the Culture and GPP spreadsheets....

Click to expand...

Two (2) F1 Domestic Adviser screen shots. The 1st is sorted on total culture in cities, the 2nd on culture generated/turn in cities.

Thanks Griff, reliable as ever

Delhi should fire the artists to get the Hermitage built faster. Also, working cottages and growing is a high priority as well.

Kyoto can temporarily fire its artists as well to grow the city a bit to size 12. In anticipation of ending this war with Hatty (possibly via AP vote coming up soon, even better if she's willing to talk and we can extract techs from the deal) we should have workers on hand near Kyoto to rebuild the copper mine and possibly food sources if Hatty decides to start pillaging.

There should be no unhappiness in our empire from now on. Put the culture slider up to at least 20% right now to ensure this.

I'm not sure why Vijay is building an aqueduct, it's not expected to grow much more and the situation looks fine. Same with Varanasi.

Patal - is it ever going to work a coastal tile? I think it unlikely.

Barracks in Tokyo+Osaka are also unnecessary.

I'll go play around with the spreadsheets...

Culture spreadsheet updated.

Culture

At our current rate, I think Delhi will go legendary about T240. This is actually earlier than anticipated, because we Won Liberalism!

However, Kyoto is lagging behind. For Bombay and Kyoto to go legendary at about the same as turn as Delhi we need 14 GArtist bombs. I haven't updated the GPP spreadsheet yet, but the original situation was we might get 13 GArtists by T240. Except, we've burnt one already on a golden age, and I'd have to see if our cities can still produce those other 12.

I think there is still hope however. I don't think the situation calls for a change in where we put the Hermitage. I also feel that we'll be able to generate an extra GArtist or two through clever micromanagement toward the end.

The micromanagement really needs to start now however. Any builds that aren't strictly necessary should be discarded. All satellite cities should be putting great effort in to artist production (except Patal, who will still be part time unit building).

I could play a turnset this evening if that's ok?

OK by me. Intuition would tell me Hermitage is Delhi is overkill, but I'll defer it to your better judgement - and spreadsheets!

Yep def ok to play by me as well AJ... goodluck.

Tech path. I would still prefer to go for gunpowder first as we might end up facing cuirassiers in the not to distant future. Pikes are a lot further off.

A world map would be nice to see if HC could get to us as he only has open borders with Ham/Shaka. One thing to remember as he is pleased with us we can beg some gold if we see a stack coming to us for the 10 turn auto peace deal. Actually can see Incan borders to the west of Agra so more likely to see a sea invasion which might mean bolstering defences in Agra a bit as well. Can also see Liz's boundaries as well. Whether she would come via Hattie or Hammy from that screen.

Still need bud temples in Agra and Palit. Kyoto should start the bud stupa as soon as they are built. Then change back to cathederal once we get the stone back in a few turns.

Chopping. There are still tiles North of Delhi which can be chopped into the hermitage to speed that up as well.

LBs in Osaka/Tokyo should be swapped with units from Kyoto like the unpromoted archer etc as well.

I think by the screen the next AP vote should be in next turn so a stop the war vote seems good. Military we are still very weak compared to the AI so can't see us getting a tech in a peace deal with Hattie.

Edit again. Not sure how much Free Speech will increase our culture rate? If it doubles base culture I can see Delhi putting out nearly a 1000 culture per turn before long. Good thing is we can always take it our of the build queue and build somewhere else for the failure cash if it seems better.

Hmmm... it's worth thinking about some more.

If we decide to put the Hermitage in Bombay there are a few issues to consider:
1) It helps bring Delhi and Bombay closer together, meaning our date might be later but we require fewer bombs.
2) The total amount of culture generated by the Hermitage is less, because Bombay produces less base culture and the Hermitage will end up being built at a later date.
3) Inserting an extra high-priority build in Bombay will also inevitably reduce Bombay's output since we'll be choosing mines over specialists.
4) My assumption that we can eventually maintain the slider at 80%. A lower slider slows Delhi down more (relative to Bombay and Kyoto), a higher slider speeds Delhi up. If 80% isn't correct, do we have a feel for what direction it would go?

My initial tamperings with the GPP spreadsheet show that we might not even get to 12 GArtists by T240. That last one requires 2800 !

GPP Spreadsheet

The order looks to be:
1/800: Varanasi
2/900: Vijay
3/1000: Agra
4/1200: Tokyo
5/1400: Kyoto
6/1600: Bombay
7/1800: Vijay
8/2000: Kyoto
9/2200: Varanasi
10/2400: Agra
11/2600: Patal
12/2800: Hard to say... either Delhi (risky % chance of non-GA) or Kyoto (needs some serious starvation).

Another way of looking at it:

NOT building Hermitage in Delhi
NOT building Hermitage in Delhi at approx T185 equates to about 15 turns later that Delhi goes legendary.

In that time, we can save 3 bombs for Bombay (needs only 3, instead of 6), but Kyoto then also needs 1 fewer bombs (6 compared to 7). In total we end up only needing 9, so we'll actually be oversupplied.

To me, building Hermitage in Delhi seems the best route. Yes, it will likely go legendary BEFORE the others are ready, but the difference might be less than 5 turns. Compared to victory delayed by up to 15 turns if we don't build in Delhi.

Happy to go along with Hermitage in Delhi. I'm hoping we will be able to get the slider up to 100% with wealth building/merchants etc but 80% should easily be do-able.

Obv alot depends on what the AI do as well..

PPP

Scope:
I'd like to play until the end of the war with Hatty. This will be when the AP successfully forces to end the war vs Ghandi (maybe less than 4 turns away), or Hatty is willing to talk on reasonably acceptable terms. In this case, I won't actually make the peace trade, but will stop for dicussion (might be 10 or more turns away).
Other reasons to stop:
1) Another angry AI has a stack of units approaching.
2) Hatty unbelievably turns up with another enormous stack (unlikely).

Civic Changes:
Note to self: Change Patal and Agra builds to Bud Temples first - as might be opportunity to whip before switching to Caste.
Immediate switch to: Rep + Free Speech + Caste System + Pacifism.

Resource Trades:
Cancel stone trade when possible.
Sell all remaining happiness resources, since we have culture slider now.

Tech Path:
Gunpowder -> MC -> Mach -> Guilds -> Banking. OR
Iron Working -> MC -> Mach -> Guilds -> Banking -> Gunpowder. ??? <= I am favouring this one.
0% science slider, variable % culture slider (at least 20%)

City Builds and MM:

Delhi: Hermitage. Put all population to work on best tiles, preferring cottages to mines.

Bombay: Cathedral -> Theatre -> Monasteries. After cathedral build, remove pop from non-gold mines and assign max (5) artists. Steal Osaka's corn.

Kyoto: Cathedral (1 turn) -> Stupa -> Cathedral. Doing Stupa first because we have copper but no stone. I'll grow the city to size 12 in preference to assigning artists, though will assign some gradually.

Vijay: Wealth. Assign max artists.

Varanasi: Wealth. Assign max artists.

Patal: Temple -> Lighthouse... (might as well finish it now) -> Walls -> Longbow*/Spear*. Assign max artists and gem mines.

Tokyo: Wealth. Assign max artists.

Osaka: Wealth: Assign max artists.

Agra: Temple -> Missionary -> Wealth. Assign max artists.

Worker Actions:
Do whatever needs doing...
Delhi might like another couple of cottages.
Keep 2 or 3 near Kyoto so they can quickly repair improvements after the war ends.

Other Units:
GG: Settle in Patal.
Check northern warrior each turn for incoming unfriendly stack.
Make sure Osaka+Tokyo have garrisons.
Units newly built in Patal to fortify where they are.
Missionaries spread Hindu in Babylon.

Anything else?

Would think we can get to 100% by building wealth, we can also use the cash from our shrines to help I guess.

Agree with Hermitage in Delhi.

Would the culture generated by merging the GG in Bombay or Osaka save us a GA bomb? Not entirely convinced that a super longbow would help but if the culture from merging is insignificant in the long run then should be OK.

adrianj said:

Missionaries spread Hindu in Babylon.

Click to expand...

We have two there atm and he only has 1 unconverted city (as far as I can see). If we are sucessful converting can we use the remaning on anyone else??

PPP seems fine except we still need bud temples in Agra and Palit. If were feeling wasteful of pop we can whip them before the civic change so there done next turn.

Think Hammy has 3 non hindu cities. Mari we can't see but I assume its somewhere to the North of Babylon.

Sleepless said:

Happy to go along with Hermitage in Delhi. I'm hoping we will be able to get the slider up to 100% with wealth building/merchants etc but 80% should easily be do-able.

Obv alot depends on what the AI do as well..

Click to expand...

Ozbenno said:

Would think we can get to 100% by building wealth, we can also use the cash from our shrines to help I guess.

Agree with Hermitage in Delhi.

Would the culture generated by merging the GG in Bombay or Osaka save us a GA bomb? Not entirely convinced that a super longbow would help but if the culture from merging is insignificant in the long run then should be OK.

Click to expand...

A 'normal' culture game should get to 100% slider without too much trouble. This game on the other hand sees us building units pretty much constantly to defend ourselves, which could put the hurt on our finances under Pacifism.

The GG will add about 520 if settled in Delhi or about 450 if settled in Bombay. In either city it will generate about 300.
If attached to a single unit it might give about 4 promos. If spread amongst 4 units it might give 2 promos each, or 8 promos. If settled in Patal we get an extra promo for each newly built unit, which after 65 odd turns will be about 15.

Ozbenno said:

We have two there atm and he only has 1 unconverted city (as far as I can see). If we are sucessful converting can we use the remaning on anyone else??

Click to expand...

I hadn't realised this. Do we even complete the build in Agra? I think not, I'll switch to Wealth immediately.
Excess Missionaries I think I'll just gift to Hammu. No sense paying their upkeep, and we don't have OB with any of the other reachable AIs.

Edit: Thanks for reminding me about Bud temples in Agra and Patal - I'll amend the PPP. I don't think I'll whip them, unless there's already invested?

adrianj said:

Excess Missionaries I think I'll just gift to Hammu. No sense paying their upkeep, and we don't have OB with any of the other reachable AIs.

Click to expand...

Any idea what Hammy will do with excess missionaries? If we will convert AI cities we could do this but have no idea myself what he will do with them.

I don't really know for sure what Hammy would do. My hope is that if he has OB with Shaka he might send them that way. Our other option is to put the excess missionaries to sleep until we do manage to get OB or some other use presents itself. Problem with this, is that we'd be paying upkeep on the unit in the meantime.

I'll be sure to double check that all of Hammy's cities are converted before proceeding with any gift.

@ aj: PPP looks good to me. Good luck!

Just one note...

Tech Path:
Gunpowder -> Guilds -> Banking.
0% science slider, variable % culture slider (at least 20%)

Click to expand...

We still need Metal Casting & Machinery before we can start on Guilds.

Courthouses:

It might be worthwhile building some of these instead of Wealth. Depends on the savings of course, and what our current inflation rate is. As an example, if it takes 10 turns to build one and it saves us 5/turn, then it would take only another 24 turns to repay the investment. Considering there is about 65 turns until T240, I think they're a good idea at the moment.

Theatres:

Note that I haven't made any attempt to build these in non-legendary cities. I'm not a big fan of Globe Theatre, and since we'll be in Caste System for the foreseeable future we don't really need the Artist slots.

@Griff - noted. Will update.

@All - Are we sure we want Gunpowder before Guilds? If we do it the other way around we get a discount on Guilds. Also, I wonder if I should put Iron Working in there first, just in case we have a source...

adrianj said:

@All - Are we sure we want Gunpowder before Guilds? If we do it the other way around we get a discount on Guilds. Also, I wonder if I should put Iron Working in there first, just in case we have a source...

Click to expand...

I'm happy to go Guilds first to get the discount on Gunpowder but if we get declared on again or another massive stack from Hatty appears, gunpowder might need to be swapped back in. IW neither here nor there on. We probably want to get Printing Press as well at some stage to give Delhi's cottages a nice boost (and more culture).