SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

I have always played Civ 4 with the idea that balanced trades with worst enemies don't cause diplo hits if you carefully use gold to even things out.

I've had success with this method, but since this is SGOTM and others disagree, and paired-AI value techs in a strange way, perhaps it is best to err on the side of caution. We should thus probably not trade anything with South Witches.

Kaitzilla said:

I have always played Civ 4 with the idea that balanced trades with worst enemies don't cause diplo hits if you carefully use gold to even things out.

I've had success with this method, but since this is SGOTM and others disagree, and paired-AI value techs in a strange way, perhaps it is best to err on the side of caution. We should thus probably not trade anything with South Witches.

Click to expand...

I have been testing your hypothesis consistently since this post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9461931&postcount=307

I tend to play as a peaceful player, avoiding war and always trying not to step on the AI's toes. I wish it was true that you can get away with it with a gold balanced trade, but I have seen it too often when I get diplo hits for equivalent trades.

Walter_Wolf said:

Marble city doesn't seem to have a bright production future, so I would suggest devoting one of the workers from Washington for a mini cottage spam party after the job around Wash. is done.

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bcool said:

Marble city with a few farms can whip out quite a few boats/military units for us. I doubt cottages will be in its future.

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mabraham said:

Or Caste merchants to pay the bills.

Click to expand...

I can see now wow: <- you opened my eyes ) (if I understood correctly)

I don't remember much discussion about city specialization and stuff (or missed it), and behind your quoted replies, I think I sense a quiet and strong strategy.

We don't have any cottages yet (well, one or two could be just freshly finished around the capital in the few turns Tachy played), and starting to develop a cottage economy at this stage of the game, could be very slow. What you are implying is running a food heavy variant with Caste system and representation. Run as many scientist specialists as we can, and put enough merchants to be able to run the science slider 100% all the time. The representation bonus bakers from merchants is just a plus on the scale to take this route. The speed at which this system can get developed beats the cottage variant on its knees .

We are close to CS, so a cottaged capital won't hurt either.

I wonder if this approach would work in a space race game which lasts longer. In a quicky one where we beeline MM, it's very strong.

I often put a few merchant specialists in my games, but never enough to make my economy float. I always put more scientists, and just run binary research. (I also screw the city specialisation every time )

In fact, the UN diplo victory condition seems most suited for this kind of play. With no need to research the complete tech tree, it still lasts long enough to make this variant interesting.

(or, am I just jumping into conclusions?)

Walter_Wolf said:

I can see now wow: <- you opened my eyes ) (if I understood correctly)

I don't remember much discussion about city specialization and stuff (or missed it), and behind your quoted replies, I think I sense a quiet and strong strategy.

We don't have any cottages yet (well, one or two could be just freshly finished around the capital in the few turns Tachy played), and starting to develop a cottage economy at this stage of the game, could be very slow. What you are implying is running a food heavy variant with Caste system and representation. Run as many scientist specialists as we can, and put enough merchants to be able to run the science slider 100% all the time. The representation bonus bakers from merchants is just a plus on the scale to take this route. The speed at which this system can get developed beats the cottage variant on its knees .

We are close to CS, so a cottaged capital won't hurt either.

I wonder if this approach would work in a space race game which lasts longer. In a quicky one where we beeline MM, it's very strong.

I often put a few merchant specialists in my games, but never enough to make my economy float. I always put more scientists, and just run binary research. (I also screw the city specialisation every time )

In fact, the UN diplo victory condition seems most suited for this kind of play. With no need to research the complete tech tree, it still lasts long enough to make this variant interesting.

(or, am I just jumping into conclusions?)

Click to expand...

Oh yes, you made me recall. Sorry if I misunderstood your proposition. I read so badly, I thought you were mentioning Washington cottages, but you wanted to cottage Marble City.

Me too, I feel the cottage phase is late, but I suppose it is necessary if you wish a nice REX first. We didn't have the possibility to spoliate the AI, thus an efficient REX was necessary. Cottage in Washington is correct, because putting farms everywhere don't use at its max the bureaucratic power. Moreover, We need two-pre-bio-farms to nourrish a specialist where only the beakers,gold,hammers parts output is affected by bureaucracy.

But, I suspect at some moment, we will put back the farms to have better growth for
U.N.

Re: balanced trades diplo hits?
Balanced trades cause diplo hits in my experience as well (and most recently in the test game for a aesthetics for calendar trade). However this might not be balanced since the AI teams seem to value the research at about twice its regular value.

Regardless I think aesthetics for calendar now is too risky.

bcool said:

Re: balanced trades diplo hits?
Balanced trades cause diplo hits in my experience as well (and most recently in the test game for a aesthetics for calendar trade). However this might not be balanced since the AI teams seem to value the research at about twice its regular value.

Regardless I think aesthetics for calendar now is too risky.

Click to expand...

You really can't tell if they are equivalent unless you have gold to balance it.

I have also noticed if an AI make a trade offer, it is equivalent. So it an AI offers you calender and 40 gold for CS, it is almost always equivalent even though it looks unbalanced. The assumption to make is that the AI has some beakers into CS or everyone else has it and its value has gone down.

shulec said:

You really can't tell if they are equivalent unless you have gold to balance it.

I have also noticed if an AI make a trade offer, it is equivalent. So it an AI offers you calender and 40 gold for CS, it is almost always equivalent even though it looks unbalanced. The assumption to make is that the AI has some beakers into CS or everyone else has it and its value has gone down.

Click to expand...

My experience agrees with this observation.

Walter_Wolf said:

I can see now wow: <- you opened my eyes ) (if I understood correctly)

I don't remember much discussion about city specialization and stuff (or missed it), and behind your quoted replies, I think I sense a quiet and strong strategy.

We don't have any cottages yet (well, one or two could be just freshly finished around the capital in the few turns Tachy played), and starting to develop a cottage economy at this stage of the game, could be very slow. What you are implying is running a food heavy variant with Caste system and representation. Run as many scientist specialists as we can, and put enough merchants to be able to run the science slider 100% all the time. The representation bonus bakers from merchants is just a plus on the scale to take this route. The speed at which this system can get developed beats the cottage variant on its knees .

Click to expand...

Yep, this is referred to in the forums as a Specialist Economy. In the very short term it is faster than a Cottage Economy, but in the medium term it requires effective use of the to catch up. Three population working two grassland farms and one merchant for net 333 doesn't compare favourably with three grassland cottages returning net 3-12. It also requires some buildings (libraries, mostly), tech (Caste System and maybe Pacificism), and wonders (Pyramids, maybe Parthenon). One of the benefits is a larger population (no whipping), but you have to plan carefully for a source of hammers (once you have MC and Guilds, the buffed grassland workshops are more efficient than whipping). Keeping that large population happy can be easy with using the slider (plus theatres and maybe colosseums) for culture for happiness - since little of your economy is based on the slider. In the long term, it starts to suffer once Emancipation is around.

Walter_Wolf said:

We are close to CS, so a cottaged capital won't hurt either.

Click to expand...

Yes, a common combination with the above.

Walter_Wolf said:

I wonder if this approach would work in a space race game which lasts longer. In a quicky one where we beeline MM, it's very strong.

Click to expand...

Yes, it is very strong in a beeline game. Gypsy Kings used it to beeline Steel for a Musketeer/Galleon/Cannon conquest in SGOTM13 and that was the difference between our third place and the rest of the pack. We didn't get started conquering early enough, possibly through poor scouting, so were never threatening the leaders

For space, you have to plan for a transition to a cottage economy.

Walter_Wolf said:

I often put a few merchant specialists in my games, but never enough to make my economy float. I always put more scientists, and just run binary research. (I also screw the city specialisation every time )

In fact, the UN diplo victory condition seems most suited for this kind of play. With no need to research the complete tech tree, it still lasts long enough to make this variant interesting.

(or, am I just jumping into conclusions?)

Click to expand...

For space, you have to plan for a transition to a cottage economy.

Click to expand...

Actually for most of my best space race games, the only city I cottage is the capital. Using the farms to whip out AP and Uni of S. enhanced religious buildings in my large empire and then bee-lining biology and then corporations allows you to produce tremendous research using specialists alone.
In the end game I keep the AI in caste system using espionage to keep my extra population as the desired specialists.
And I use factories & power to build wealth and research using the workshops and hammers from mining inc.

If (because uncertainty is floating amongs members I think) we pass Calendar and Construction trades, it ensues I can continue my turn-set, right?

A lil' question in regards to diplo points decay, does someone know in depth at which pace the malus points decay. I only remember it is probabilistic and something like 5 % decay rate, but I am unsure.

Despite I was in fatigue state yesterday, I had to stop early to observe the spectrum of opinions.
Because to me, it is a tasty trade with a tech almost known by everyone.

Tachywaxon said:

If (because uncertainty is floating amongs members I think) we pass Calendar and Construction trades, it ensues I can continue my turn-set, right?

A lil' question in regards to diplo points decay, does someone know in depth at which pace the malus points decay. I only remember it is probabilistic and something like 5 % decay rate, but I am unsure.

Despite I was in fatigue state yesterday, I had to stop early to observe the spectrum of opinions.
Because to me, it is a tasty trade with a tech almost known by everyone.

Click to expand...

We pass on the trades for now.

We trade for calendar construction and monotheism with the northern witches with aesthetics and code of laws after we bulb philosophy is the best way forward.

If we can't trade for calendar then we plan to steal it from them.

When the time comes, I will play until Philo. Short term of course, we have to hurry.

shulec said:

I have been testing your hypothesis consistently since this post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9461931&postcount=307

I tend to play as a peaceful player, avoiding war and always trying not to step on the AI's toes. I wish it was true that you can get away with it with a gold balanced trade, but I have seen it too often when I get diplo hits for equivalent trades.

Click to expand...

Well, if testing has verified that equal trades still cause diplo hits, then that answers the question. I have no good advice for trading with worst enemies then. Sorry

bcool said:

We pass on the trades for now.

We trade for calendar construction and monotheism with the northern witches with aesthetics and code of laws after we bulb philosophy is the best way forward.

If we can't trade for calendar then we plan to steal it from them.

Click to expand...

Yep. Agreed.

Kaitzilla said:

Well, if testing has verified that equal trades still cause diplo hits, then that answers the question. I have no good advice for trading with worst enemies then. Sorry

Click to expand...

I ran a few tests on a few different games with totally equivalent trades. There was no predictability on when you would get the diplo hit, but there was definitely a diplo hit a few times. I had gold to balance and made sure that the deal was unacceptable if the deal was off by one gold.

Okay, I intent to play in 15 minutes.
Who are ready to follow me, just to know?
Of course, it is not necessary condition as bcool mentioned.
I know it is a bit distant in time to my first notice of play intention, but I really need peace and concentration and now I have it.

Also, I have to thank Katzilla and shulec for the research and especially test games to observe the subtleties of trades.

frogdude is back and we're around for the next while.

I will be around for a long while.

Nice.
And welcome back frogdude.

I know the archer in the tundra is to fogbust and avoid spawn of galleys and a barb city.
So I guess, it is strictly forbidden to move him away from a good fogbust pattern.
Once again, I will provide pix to entertain you and let you study what I could miss.
And everyone, take whatever ligneous object, we need luck. We don't want to see ugly thing like Philo loss by one turn.

Basically, you want me to take the blue path?