SGOTM 15 - Maple Sporks

DwarfSleepy · Feb 23, 2012

sturick said:
First off big-time kudos to DS for pointing us down this path to finding castles. Secondly, thanks to the number crunchers for getting the evidence we needed to prove it. I wonder how many other teams are going to catch this subtle difference.

Does a quick chopped GW make sense at this point?

Or would a GSpy throw off our Great People plans (ie make it more expensive to pop our GS's)

I would think a GSpy would be an excellent way to scout out Toku (no fear of capture) as well as get the necessary points to revolt his capital.

Oracle still in Golden Fleece for the culture pressure and taking of the corn tile still makes a ton of sense.

Keep this in mind with all of our planning. If we are going to take out Toku, we need to plan on finishing the job before he gets to longbows and/or Samurai. I dread the thought of longbows in Kyoto.

I was actually also thinking of GW and Gspy. I only have no experience whatsoever with real spying. I believe there's a lot of factors that influence the cost of missions, including religions, city distances, holy cities etc. I remember in the previous game Kakumeika even gifting cities near themselves to AI to make missions cheaper... Anyway, maybe someone with more knowledge of spies can shine their light on it.

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

EDIT: X-post with DwarfSleepy

Also do we really want to wait until catas? I think our spies should be well enough to break Kyoto's defences.

I made a test save where I put Kyoto on hill, surrounded it with rivers, added Walls & Castle and put 4 PRO archers to defend it. I waited 5 turns so all the achers had +25% fortify bonus.

I gave us 12 axes (9 of which had CR1) and put the city into revolt. Here are the results:

Spoiler :

And that's just 12 axes. We can build a lot more. The only limiting factor I see is getting to Alpha and getting sufficient EPs to put Kyoto into revolt.

Sure, there is Math, a very good tech, in path for Construction... but this way we wouldn't have to delay our rush for that long. In fact, we could attack a couple of turns after we research Alpha (all we need is about 3 spies and 100% espionage slider for a couple of turns)

Maybe T80 DoW then?

sturick · Feb 23, 2012

Ororo said:
So let's talk about city builds first:

Pearls before Swine: Warrior -> something -> Granary. We could maybe consider building Stonehenge here for failgold?

As long as the trade route connection is complete...I would want the double failgold from Stone.

We may want to run more tests on the axe scenario that you just showed us Ororo.

Just to make sure that we didn't get any fluky luck from the RNG.

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

DwarfSleepy said:
I was actually also thinking of GW and Gspy. I only have no experience whatsoever with real spying. I believe there's a lot of factors that influence the cost of missions, including religions, city distances, holy cities etc. I remember in the previous game Kakumeika even gifting cities near themselves to AI to make missions cheaper... Anyway, maybe someone with more knowledge of spies can shine their light on it.

I actually like the G Spy plan a lot as we wouldn't have to run 100% espionage slider then...

However there are SOME drawbacks to this approach.

1) We would have to give up on either a) G Prophet to bulb Theology, which means we would have to self tech it or b) give up on Engineering rush

2) It would cost us 2-3 more forests (probably not that much of an issue but still)

So maybe we should chop the Great Wall in MarbleCrap before the Oracle in Golden Fleece... That way, we get the G Spy and can still get Oracle reasonably early and troll Toku with culture. No G prophet though I'm afraid...

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

sturick said:
We may want to run more tests on the axe scenario that you just showed us Ororo.

Just to make sure that we didn't get any fluky luck from the RNG.

Of course. I just wanted you to consider the idea of Dow with spies only. If you like it, we can start testing it...

nocho · Feb 23, 2012

Massive xpost!

The Maple Sporks were formed after a spying SG we did together, so there is some experience with it...

I think spying is ok, but more as a byproduct than as mainfocus. Especially if we're looking at a specific bulb path. So far I'm not hot on GW.

Ororo has a point that delayed rush is a bit weird, especially if we're looking at the bulbing. Being out of slavery while building a SoD is unnatural at least, while cities with multiple specs hired obviously contribute little to unit construction. Maybe we should look at fasttracking to engineering and from that point DoW and do total war... I don't know. Culture can't be the answer, however.

sturick · Feb 23, 2012

Not sure if its feasible (and I'd have to look at the tech tree) but if we are delaying Oracle a little bit could we potentially Oracle Theo and self tech COL. COL has fewer beakers and I don't think we need Caste as early as we would get it from the Oracle.

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

Just opened a bottle of Heineken (currently in Slovakia so no good Czech beer around) and I'm ina mood for some heavy testing once again.

I'm going to try my Axe/spy/GW/Oracle troll rush plan

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

sturick said:
Not sure if its feasible (and I'd have to look at the tech tree) but if we are delaying Oracle a little bit could we potentially Oracle Theo and self tech COL. COL has fewer beakers and I don't think we need Caste as early as we would get it from the Oracle.

True, but we would have to discard Engineering rush then. Theology opens up Paper bulb. So either no Engineering rush or no Theology before Machinery/Engineering bulbs...

nocho · Feb 23, 2012

I like the immediate alpha idea and spyrevolt a lot! :goodjob:

Let's test that...

If we want GW and Oracle, maybe both can go to GF. Both wonders get 2 chops, wall might be done already when PH comes in. We'd definitely swarm Osaka with a dpuble wonder. Speeds up GP gen too, either GSpy or GPr are useable...

sturick · Feb 23, 2012

GWall doesn't give any culture points IIRC.

@Ororo: I figured there was a flaw in my Oracle of Theo logic. Just spitballing ideas.

And I envy you and your Heineken sooooo much right now. :cheers:

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

sturick said:
GWall doesn't give any culture points IIRC.

@Ororo: I figured there was a flaw in my Oracle of Theo logic. Just spitballing ideas.

And I envy you and your Heineken sooooo much right now.

It DOES give 2 :culture:

(currently building it in my test save

)

Thanks! :beer:

nocho · Feb 23, 2012

Crazy thought: what if we Oracle alpha? Only 50 beakers less than CoL, but might buy us critical time with earlier spies...

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

Crazy, but I like it

It's definitely worth a test...

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

Ok, a quick test showed one thing: Teching to Alpha takes far too long. It might not even be doable pre-1000BC unless we nerf our production by running zillion caste scientists everywhere. Not a good idea imo.

So I'm starting to like Oracle->Alpha more and more. However, I would probably build TGW and the Oracle in separate places to ensure we get the Great Spy. It also makes Golden Fleece much more productive as far as military is concerned (in test it was building wonders for a long time. Remember: TGW in MarbleCrapwould only cost us 30 hammers and 3 chops...

nocho · Feb 23, 2012

I wonder, do we really need the Great Wall? By itself it does not give EP, it only gives spy GPP, but a spy won't be popped until after 25 turns after we built it. Obviously by that time we should have declared ages ago...

So aren't those hammers maybe better spent on units, including spies?

Critically, how many EP does it cost to put Kyoto in revolt?

After writing, we can of course max the spy slider instead of hoarding cash, in case we need more EP.

Just to promote the case for alpha: it obviously post DoW allows us to build research to quickly get to other key techs (CoL

). We might actually steal something small like pottery too. And if we meet non-Tokus (if they exist), we might actually be able to trade for small stuff (before WE kicks in, with people that trade at annoyed/cautious).

Sengir · Feb 23, 2012

Jeez, this is what I get for posting my findings just before going to work

Anyway, I don't want to discard the rush completely just yet, though I think we should test some non-rush scenario's as well (such as getting engineering asap without rush, and be able to declare at that point).

Some (random) thoughts:
About Great Person's: it should be possible to manage our GPP-pools so that both MarbleCrap (GW) and GF pop a GP at the same turn; both wonders have 2gpp and can be enhanced with a temple-priest or courthouse spy. It will take some MM to make it work though. Maybe even throw in a GS from library/cap as well

I'd save the GProphet for bulbing theo after getting Engineering (I think that means getting 3 more GS's, but if we manage our GPP-pools nicely, with pacifism, we should be able to pop 2/3 GS's on the same turn as well).

Other thoughts:
What techs were we planning on bulbing on the route to Engineering? We might want to burn a GS on Alpha, depending on how fast we can get our first round of GP's

Sengir · Feb 23, 2012

And another x-post to boot. :crazyeye:

nocho said:
I wonder, do we really need the Great Wall? By itself it does not give EP, it only gives spy GPP, but a spy won't be popped until after 25 turns after we built it. Obviously by that time we should have declared ages ago...

So aren't those hammers maybe better spent on units, including spies?

Critically, how many EP does it cost to put Kyoto in revolt?

After writing, we can of course max the spy slider instead of hoarding cash, in case we need more EP.

Just to promote the case for alpha: it obviously post DoW allows us to build research to quickly get to other key techs (CoL ). We might actually steal something small like pottery too. And if we meet non-Tokus (if they exist), we might actually be able to trade for small stuff (before WE kicks in, with people that trade at annoyed/cautious).

If we decide not to go GW (I'm not too hot about it either), we might be able to pop 2GS and a GP instead in the first round.
And we should definitely get an EP-count for revolting Kyoto. Is there a formula for it (I'll do some code-digging tomorrow, unless someone knows it)?

nocho · Feb 23, 2012

Yeah, those 2 great people on the same turn, you did that last game, right? Is it really reproducible? I mean, strangely, I hardly or never saw it commented on these forums at all... Which is not too say it won't work, but I'd like to see a test confirm it. It would be awesome of course, if not an exploit...

Ororo · Feb 23, 2012

Sengir said:
And another x-post to boot.

If we decide not to go GW (I'm not too hot about it either), we might be able to pop 2GS and a GP instead in the first round.
And we should definitely get an EP-count for revolting Kyoto. Is there a formula for it (I'll do some code-digging tomorrow, unless someone knows it)?

There is this quide:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=252496

Seems a bit complicated

And I've never heard of 2 simultaneous GPs on the same turn...could you please explain a bit more about it?

SGOTM 15 - Maple Sporks

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Emperor

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Emperor

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Emperor

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