SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

I don't like the way you add comments in color interspersed between someone else's quote without using the quoting mechanism of the forum.

It makes it hard to quote what you write.
Okay


Are you sure we can turn off research in ~35t? I believe it can be done in ~30t. Consider the turns that can be saved right now on nearly 3/4 bulb of Printing Press. Too bad we don't have more Villages and Towns that could benefit from the +1C for Villages and additional +1 for Towns.
Printing Press will give us 4-5 additional raw commerce in the capital in 6-7 turns from now and maybe a total of 6 in 12 turns time. So bulbing printing press will get us Printing Press 4-5 turns earlier. So bulbing printing press will get us an additional 25 commerce we wouldn't get teching printing press slowly.

If we don't build the academy I would much rather bulb astronomy. Astronomy doesn't get any tech prerequisite modifiers. Unlike any of the other techs on the path to Mass Media. So a great scientist bulbing astronomy basically gives us its full ~1750B value. A great scientist bulbing printing press gives us ~1750B as well but when we put research into Printing Press our research is multiplied by 1.2 for having a prerequisite for Printing Press. So the bulb of Printing Press really saves us only 1750B/1.2 = 1458 raw science. 1750-1458 =292 in total savings for bulbing astronomy instead of printing press. Bulbing astronomy gives us more value than bulbing printing press by a large margin. Printing Press only gives us about 25 extra commerce in the capital that we wouldn't get otherwise.
Absolutely, no Academy. It is too late; I don't understand how you can justify it when it loses 300B by your own calculations when it matters. We can't generate enough Great Scientists to perform all the bulbs that would be possible; we certainly can't afford to expend them on academies, not even one in the Capital.
I justified it because the academy will help us after we tech mass media. The long term strategic goal is to conquer the eastern witches. In order to conquer the eastern witches we were hoping to switch to nationhood and draft musketeers. This requires that we research/trade/steal for Nationalism and Gunpowder. I think there is a very good chance we will be able to steal or trade for gunpowder. I think there is a decent chance that an AI will not tech nationalism for us by the time we want to switch or we will not be able to steal or trade for it.

Also there are a few techs that would be very useful to us beyond mass media that the AI will likely be far too slow to tech for us. Here are a few. Since it will take time to build the UN we will have some time to tech some useful things after Mass Media. With an academy it will be easier to get
  • Chemisty would give us +1 hammers on our workshops (and unlock frigates--although I doubt they would be useful in a reasonable time frame)
  • Biology would give us +1 food in all of our farms that we could use to grow our population and have that many more votes. It could also be given away to an AI we hope to increase in size to be our rival, or given to our friends so they grow and have more votes for us.
  • Any techs that research after Mass Media could also be given to the AI for possible "you shared technologies" with us bonuses.



I agree, but it can hurt us to try too hard to avoid completing Scientific Method just to keep a few TAP monasteries and The Great Library going a few more turns. In my opinion, it is more likely to hinder our research progress than help, if taken too far.
I agree. However, I don't think we are taking it too far.

Getting Scientific Method ~5 turns earlier means we lose the value on ~3 monasteries and the Great Library. Each monastery is producing 2 hammers for us and about 8 :science: in washington 8 :science: in GPFarm and 3 :science: in Stone city. The great library produces 12 :science: *1.6 = 18 :science: and 24 :gp: per turn.
So Scientific Method 5 turns earlier costs 30 :hammers:, 191 :science: 120 :gp: (however the :gp: might not be useful)

Getting

It doesn't appear that you took into account a Golden Age which would increase GPP generation by an additional +100% for 8t. We still have the Music Great Artist; when do we use him for a GA? I asked this question in recent post as well.
No I didn't. Here is why. There is a strong possibility that we will use the Golden Age to switch to Police State, Nationhood, Slavery, and Theocracy while we are finishing Mass Media or already have finished Mass Media. (Which brings up the possibility of whipping the remaining hammers necessary for building the UN after we use the great engineer--I don't anyone has mentioned that already). We could time the GA so that we get maybe the first 2 turns of the GA to help us produce a great person under caste system and pacifism and then use the the last 6 to switch into Police State, Nationhood, Slavery, and Theocracy, and then back into whatever civics we want to finish the game in at the end of the GA. If we use the GA in this way it won't significantly help our great person production.

Yes, I stated in my post that I probably over estimated the turns and I also only tracked GPFarm and I believe I noted that other cities might add a few GSs of their own.
yes you did.
You are getting into the micromanagement phase of this turn set, before the bigger issues are resolved. I'd prefer to concentrate on the higher level (strategic part) of the turn set development process right now.
You were also discussing the micromanagement of the great people production--or at least estimating turns when the great people would be produced. I just pointed out that I have already made more detailed estimates for the great people production.


Re: the value of the academy revisited
STW feels the value of the bulb is more than the academy, so I am revisiting my academy calculations.

For the next 8 turns or so the capital will likely not have bureacracy and will only produce science after Oxford is finished so 5 turns of approximately 46 commerce until T151. revolt T152. T153 With bureacracy and printing press this goes up to about 75 commerce. By T165 with a test game I have washington producing 94 commerce. I'll assume Washing produces an average of 85 commerce for 12 turns from T153 to T164. At T165 and beyond I will assume 94 commerce.

At T183 the academy produces ~1800 after prerequisite modifier science assuming 100% science the whole way.

However, getting scientific method 5 turns earlier by bulbing one of the tech before it, loses approximately 181 *1.2=216 after modifier :science: and 30 :hammers:. So the academy equals the value of a bulb by ~T179 if you do not put a value on the lost :hammers: and :gp:

So in 35 turns the academy's value is about the same as using a GS on a bulb before Scientific Method.
However the Academy continues to help us tech useful techs like nationalism, chemistry and biology after we have finished Mass Media.

Conclusion
After all this analysis, I think the value of the academy is at least questionable. I'm happy if we...
1) use the GS for an academy (since if we are forced to use liberalism for something other than radio, having the academy will be very nice)
2) use the first GS from GPFarm for an astronomy bulb. (since that returns more value than getting Printing Press 5 turn earlier)
Plus I think an observatory build in washington might make sense, and getting galleons going earlier is nice too.
 
I'm just trying to put forth a preliminary PPP, without excessive details. I'm not duplicating any detailed analysis. That comes in about 24 hours from now. I will gratefully accept such analyses, but please do not expect me to put it immediately in the the preliminary PPP which I consider to be not much more than a framework for the PPP to be developed later.

I do agree that it is hard to work in ongoing discussion to PPP development. Neither is it efficient for everyone to stop and wait for the partial or full PPP before saying anything. The active player and the team have to do their best to stay on top of what everyone is saying so we can get a timely outcome. That means that participants in the PPP development process need to read, consider and then agree or discuss.

The screen shots I took were of t144. The ones you referred to were made on an earlier turn. I'm not going to compare your screenshots to see whether they match the current state of the game; that doesn't save me any work.

Then you're not looking at the screen shots I took and posted 90 minutes after the save was uploaded in posts 2575-7.

You and bcool are possibly wrong about the Academy; it loses 300B in the time frame that matters based on bcool's own calculations, but still you want me to agree that is ok. Sorry, I consider no academy an improvement on what you and bcool have agreed is ok. So what do we get in exchange for the 300B? By bulbing the Great Scientist rather than constructing an Academy we might be able to complete Mass Media 1t earlier and rush The United Nations 1t earlier and win 1t earlier, or maybe 300B isn't enough to save 1t of research; it's hard be sure without a test game, but with an expected Research rate of maybe 600 Bpt, 300B saved won't necessarily save a turn of research.

So above you've concluded that if MM is enough tech to win, then maybe an academy loses part of a turn of research for a faster win. However, if MM is not enough tech to win, then the academy is a no-brain better approach. This was approximately the conclusion bc and I reached in a thread 2583-2589 before you posted a "got it". That discussion assumed about 8 bulbs and 35 turns. Since then I have extended my minimum estimate to around 41 turns to MM via 6 bulbs (post 2603). Using more bulbs doesn't get MM earlier for the reasons I discuss in post 2603.

I don't post things just to have something say. They either have educational value (helping others learn to be better players) or it has a direct bearing on the game. Please be accepting of both, because that is what SGOTM is all about. It isn't just about winning laurels.

Sure:

The goals for Kakumeika are
1) to get the GOLD!
2) learn something through exhaustive debate about the fine details :)
3) have fun ('cause learning is fun :) )

Yep. What isn't fun or a learning experience is to have fruitful discussion and have to wonder if it is going to be used.

Please stop criticizing what people fail to mention in their posts when it is something that could be considered to be already understood by context. For example, I said I wanted to grow Washington after it completed Oxford University. You said it should work its cottages. I considered that understood which would be clarified in the final PPP. I meant move citizens from hammer plots to plots with more food which can include grassland cottages.

You considered something understood. I thought it was open to misinterpretation. I think it is more important to work (say) a plains cottage than a fresh water lake. If your plan of "grow Washington" meant grow the population, maybe to work a scientist, then there's a material point for discussion. If so, then when we are under time pressure it's surely best to get the issue in the open than wait for clarification and then starting discussion.
 
Re: the value of the academy revisited
STW feels the value of the bulb is more than the academy, so I am revisiting my academy calculations.

For the next 8 turns or so the capital will likely not have bureacracy and will only produce science after Oxford is finished so 5 turns of approximately 46 commerce until T151. revolt T152. T153 With bureacracy and printing press this goes up to about 75 commerce. By T165 with a test game I have washington producing 94 commerce. I'll assume Washing produces an average of 85 commerce for 12 turns from T153 to T164. At T165 and beyond I will assume 94 commerce.

At T183 the academy produces ~1800 after prerequisite modifier science assuming 100% science the whole way.

...and that's 39 turns from now, which is in the 35-45 window of time that has seemed plausible at various stages of the discussion. Each 100% turn after T183 adds about 50 science to that estimate of the value of the academy.

However, getting scientific method 5 turns earlier by bulbing one of the tech before it, loses approximately 181 *1.2=216 after modifier :science: and 30 :hammers:. So the academy equals the value of a bulb by ~T179 if you do not put a value on the lost :hammers: and :gp:

So in 35 turns the academy's value is about the same as using a GS on a bulb before Scientific Method.
However the Academy continues to help us tech useful techs like nationalism, chemistry and biology after we have finished Mass Media.

Conclusion
After all this analysis, I think the value of the academy is at least questionable. I'm happy if we...
1) use the GS for an academy
2) use the first GS from GPFarm for an astronomy bulb. (since that returns more value than getting Printing Press 5 turn earlier)
Plus I think an observatory build in washington might make sense, and getting galleons going earlier is nice too.

I think the academy is sound insurance. I haven't seen any evidence that building one will delay the fastest possible victory condition we could imagine (tech MM, build UN, get elected, win first vote), and it will likely improve the time of our finish if more tech is required than we currently hope.

A 150 hammers observatory could work out OK. Assuming we get 8 base hammers from center, cows some plains cottages and some resources, the forge turns that into 10 hammers per turn. So 15 turns to build something that will contribute a 25% bonus on our expected ~94 commerce hopefully going through a 100% slider. So the observatory is worth something up to 25 beakers per turn. Not really significant if we don't need tech after MM, since by the time we get Astro and obs we'll have only about 15 turns left of teching. If we get evidence we need deep tech, then an observatory will make good sense.
 
I have a question regarding the Academy or bulb issue. I will use nonspecifics since hard numbers can be inaccurate and confusing (to me).

What is a reasonable estimate for the percentage of turns between our current turn and when we get Mass Media that will be run at 100% research?
 
OK so we have T145 GEng and GSci for an academy, and then 7 more GScientists over T151-T178. Plus one from Physics. Subsequent turn estimates are approximate, and depend when we get Bureaucracy.

...

Late bulb plan
T147 Oxford+academy, start PPr
T153 finish PPr, get Bur, start 100% Astro
T160 done Astro, start 100% on SciMeth
T168 done SciMeth
T168 3 bulbs on Physics
T170 finish Physics... still not enough room on Lib and Elec to allow for:
T181 last GSci arrives for 3 bulbs on Elec
... and there's two spare bulbs we can't use!
T190 MM

... Now we only bulb 6 times and that makes for more breathing room:

Late and few bulb plan - 100% slider throughout
T147 Oxford+academy, start PPr
T153 finish PPr, get Bur, start Astro
T160 done Astro, start SciMeth
T168 done SciMeth - but we have all our GSci already!
T168 3 bulbs on Physics
T170 finish Physics... start Elec
T171 3 bulbs on Elec
T173 done Elec
T176 done Lib for Radio
T185 done MM

What I find confusing is both these time-lines use six Great Scientist bulbs, three each on Physics and Electricity, but the first time-line bulbs Electricity on t171 and the second bulbs it on t181 (presumably because the last Great Scientist is generated t181, but doesn't the second time-line also have this issue?) I Assume that bcool's GS generation spreadsheet is the source which shows the sixth Great Scientist being generated in t167 which is well ahead of when its needed on t171.

Also, how are we financing 100% research throughout? We won't have enough Wealth built up in the treasury by the time Oxford University is completed to finance ~40t of 100% research.

===

The case for an Academy on turn 146-147 seems good enough.

Great Scientists generated after the Electricity bulb still have value in bulbing Chemistry and Biology, two technologies that bcool thought may be useful to have an Academy help research (in partial justification for an Academy).

I'll be back in a few hours to gather useful information for a detailed PPP and I will refrain from commenting on any future posts, but I will be reading them as well as earlier posts and include what seems to be firmly grounded strategic and tactical plans into the detailed PPP.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I have a question regarding the Academy or bulb issue. I will use nonspecifics since hard numbers can be inaccurate and confusing (to me).

What is a reasonable estimate for the percentage of turns between our current turn and when we get Mass Media that will be run at 100% research?


I'm not sure. We appear to have -90ish gpt at 100% science.

If our plan involves extra Great Scientists at the end we cannot use, why not make our next great person attempt a Great Merchant instead of a Great Scientist? 900 gold is useful in its own way with all the science multipliers we have now.


Also, if our plan is Holy War, then the West and North Witches will already be dragged in I think, unless they defy the resolution. Elizabeth is spreading Tao in her main cities, and Monty's Trojan City already has Taoism. We could perhaps take Trojon City back with an AP resolution, but that would hurt our spying game. All the new cities the AI are founding have a small chance of a Taoism spread, so I'm not sure how we can keep the South witches out of it if they happen to get such an event.

I noticed in post #2576 that fake Ghandi was friendly with fake Mansa at only +8 relations. Do AI always reach friendly with each other so early? Or is there a certain AI personality that reaches Friendly at +8?


Most AI love getting Guilds, Banking, and Engineering before attempting Nationalism in my experience. Since our war plans depend on drafting a huge army, we are at the mercy of the AI teching Nationalism in time for us to conquer the East Witches to get their votes for the UN.

Fake Ragnar is Cyrus, who is a decent warmonger I think. Asoka is still in expansion mode trying to take the hub. He won't be building up troops for a while. I estimate around 40 turns of war to completely conquer the East Witches assuming we are using Galleons.
 
I have a question regarding the Academy or bulb issue. I will use nonspecifics since hard numbers can be inaccurate and confusing (to me).

What is a reasonable estimate for the percentage of turns between our current turn and when we get Mass Media that will be run at 100% research?

I think it is quite reasonable to assume we can run 100% research for at least 90% of the turns between now and Mass Media, and I think it could easily be 100% of the turns.

We need about 30 turns of 100% research to get to Mass Media (assuming 6 bulbs and an academy or 7 bulbs and no academy). And we need ~99 gold per turn to run at 100% science. That will go up and down as our population grows and we finish courthouses. We plan to run merchants in Cultural Bridge (up to 4 soon), Marble (up to 4 as well), Fur City (up to 4 as well), A couple in Phants (2 maybe?), a couple in stone (2 maybe). It will takes some time to build up the population in those cities to run those merchants, however 14 merchants make 42 gold per turn.

so lets say 10 turns at -99 gold and 20 turns at -57 gold.
Means we need about 2130 gold. We have ~800 gold now plus we are going to rack up ~300 more gold until Oxford finishes.
So we need to make ~1000 gold in resource trades, map trades, tech trades or wealth builds from now until the end.
I think there is a reasonable chance we get a big lump of gold from an AI at some point. The team AI seem to store more gold than individual AI do.
So I think it is likely we will be able to run 100% for most of the rest of the game.

Re: great merchant.
Also because I think we will be able to build or trade for enough gold from the AI, I don't think going for a great merchant makes sense.

turn we get tech estimates
I feel that mabraham teching estimates for various bulb plans underestimates how much our tech base rate will increase. So his turn estimates are too late. I think it is quite reasonable that we will be finishing Mass Media in 33 turns (3 turns to build Oxford and 30 turns at 100% science)

war estimates
And if Kaitzilla's war estimate of 40 turns is accurate I think the academy makes more sense than a bulb since we will won't be preparing for the war until T167 (absolute minimum time). After the bulbs go into Electricity so we can steal gunpowder.

Add that to the fact that we will likely have to research nationalism ourselves and then we have a stronger argument for the academy.
 
Add that to the fact that we will likely have to research nationalism ourselves and then we have a stronger argument for the academy.

I think there is a good chance the AI will tech Nationalism for us. As stated previously, they seem to love the guilds/banking/economics line, but they sure love the Taj Mahal. Mansa/Shaka are teching Divine right. I see them heading for Nationalism next. They don't have marble, so this could be a reason to suspect this is wrong.
 
I want to move the chariot in the hub 4 moves to the tile 1N1E of the banana by Kumbi Saleh. I want to close borders with Mansa/Shaka in 5 turns. This will teleport our chariot onto the island in the fog. It will give us 2 movement points to find safe ground or high ground with vision. This looks like the place with the most space for the wizard.

I agree that I am biased to want to do it because I came up with this idea, but I think there are merits to this plan.

Why do this now?
1. We will benefit from closed borders in that it will decrease the likelihood of Taoism spread to Mansa/Shaka.
2. This may give us the location of the wizard 20 turns earlier.
3. There is a small chance that the wizard could be a non-military unit that we could kill with a chariot. (doubtful)
4. They will still trade tech with us at cautious. We should not fall to annoyed.
5. This will help us to form a small war party to kill the wizard if he is there prior to attacking Asoka/Ragnar.

Why this may be a poor idea.
1. Our highest paying trade routes are with Mansa and Shaka. (They have the most high population cities.
2. We lose the diplo of open borders with them.
3. It may be many turns before they open borders.


If you look at the map, it appears that the closest neutral territory is 6N1E of the proposed teleporting site. But Mansa has a city here and as the chariot goes by, we will see that the nearest northern neutral tile much farther away.
 
I've been working on a detailed PPP for the past few hours. Still have some work on it yet to go; maybe a few more hours; depending on the time, I may post a detailed PPP that isn't yet complete.

I like shulec's teleport idea. Does anyone have time to check whether it can teleport a unit past an otherwise impassable mountain range? I'm guessing yes, otherwise it doesn't merit much disscussion. We really need a reasonable expecation of success to compensate for trade losses.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I like shulec's teleport idea. Does anyone have time to check whether it can teleport a unit past an otherwise impassable mountain range? I'm guessing yes, otherwise it doesn't merit much disscussion. We really need a reasonable expecation of success to compensate for trade losses.

Sun Tzu Wu

I did test it and it only works if the teleportation tile is not obscured by fog.
Maybe we can institute this gambit after airships.
 
turn we get tech estimates
I feel that mabraham teching estimates for various bulb plans underestimates how much our tech base rate will increase. So his turn estimates are too late. I think it is quite reasonable that we will be finishing Mass Media in 33 turns (3 turns to build Oxford and 30 turns at 100% science)

Yeah I do agree that my estimates for time to MM were at least about 6 turns too large. Per a bc test game, we might be doing 775:science:/turn by T170, which cuts most of my tech time estimates down by two turns. That does narrow the window when the academy has a confirmed near-equivalent payoff, but the flexibility and safety are attractive.
 
I've given a lot of thought today to the best way to win this game as fast as possible.

Should we beeline a military advantage and start smashing AI?
Should we beeline the UN and lean on our spies to steal tons of techs?
Or should we do some mutant hybrid of military first, then UN while involving the entire world in a Holy War to slow down everyone's tech rate?

I would have to say for Gold Medal purposes we should stick to our guns and try to beeline UN. Sure, our war of conquest will start later than we want, but we will unlock our desired victory condition. The blimps will be quite the one-sided advantage, and we will pick up a naval advantage along the way too.


I propose that we attempt Bcool's and Mabraham's best bulb path to Liberalism. I vote that we also perform the following actions:

1) Delay infiltration of our 2nd Great Spy until we see what the West Witches tech after Civil Service. The West Witches appear to be teching much faster than the North Witches, and Engineering is not yet crucial.
2) Immediately construct 2 elephants in Isengarde. Send them north and use the galley to capture the city that incompetant fake Elizabeth has still not captured. Keep the gold and Liberate the city to her when Liberate becomes available.
3) Construct 4 cheap Longbows after the elephants in Isengarde to reinforce the new city on Ragnar's Spoke.
4) Chop walls and if possible a castle instead of the courthouse in the new city on Ragnar's spoke. Build culture for 5 turns to expand the borders.
5) Start a war and then holy war with the East witches in about 14 turns when the next AP resolution comes up. Galleons on the northern coast of Asoka will outmatch any boats that Asoka/Ragnar manage to send up the east side of the map. Knights to the south of Isengarde can counterattack any Asoka or Ragnar force sieging the barb city we captured on Ragnar's spoke. I like fighting on a castled barb city because our Great Wall bonus will mean 4GG points per attack and 2GG points per defense. We will pile up shared war bonus with North and West Witches, and cripple East Witches research rate. If West and North Witches start constructing war units, then South Witches might be free to expand into hub more and become our UN opponents for sure.
6) If we salt a side city with an engineer specialist, we might get a lucky 2nd Great Engineer who can construct Cristo Redentor. Fake Monty's favorite civic is free market. Fake Ghenghis favorite civic is Free Religion. No anarchy and 1 turn between changes is ridiculously good. Convert to our religion? No problem! Convert to our favorite Civic? Sure! Spies want to flip South Witches out of Free Religion and out of Heriditary Rule before a vote? We just dip into Theocracy and Despotism for a turn and make that happen too :lol:
7) We need to plan on giving fake Monty a tech when he demands it. The Mansa personality is always begging for them. 5 techs to him will also give +1 diplo.
8) Spread our religion to Ghenghis. Once we convert the North Witches to Taoism, they should be Friendly. Ghenghis will switch to Free Religion when he gets a chance, but hopefully that will be much later.
9) Steal Engineering and Guilds at some point of course :)
10) Academy in capital because it is most flexible choice.

These are simply the things I would do, but the final decision is with the team and especially Sun Tzu! Hopefully they make sense.
 
Introductory Remarks:

This PPP has not yet incorporated all input presented before my "Got it". I will read those posts now to ensure I didn't miss something there and will make revisions to the PPP as needed. I just don't want to keep everyone else from reviewing what I have. Please note that the micromanagement in cities is not as tight as when we had week long turn sets, but its there when its needed such as the # of Scientists being run in cities that will generate our six Great Scientists who are critical to early Mass Media and a Diplomatic Win.

----

In my Preliminary PPP, I had intended to cover the PPP without concern for the details. I regret not making that clear; I assumed that was what was expected in a Prelimanry PPP based on bcool's comments a few turn sets ago when we shifted from a turn set a week to a turn set every 3-4 days. We just can be as detailed with the preliminary PPP with this more aggressive turn set schedule.

The Preliminary PPP lays unfinished, so in the interests of keeping this turn set on schedule, I volunteer to play it out without a PPP. Just kidding (joking)!

Seriously, I will dive into the Detailed PPP which will contain micromanagement only for those specific parts of the PPP that are critical to the Win turn, irrespective of the "Destroy The Wizard of Oz" requirement, which due to lack of intelligence about the wizard would be impossible to due other than a blanket/carpet search for him (eliminating where he "probably" isn't to determine where he "may" actually be). This aspect will be covered in a subsequent post.

Please refer back to the Grand Strategy:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11040888&postcount=2604

A Strategy may achieve its Goals with perfect efficiency, but if it doesn't "optimally" get one closer to the Grand Strategy Goals, that means an Alternative Strategy is better and time is better spent developing that Alternative Strategy instead.

Detailed Strategy: (No change from the Preliminary PPP)

Detailed Strategy must concern itself with Logistical Capabilities (for those entities in the game that require it, mainly Units). It mainly concerns itself with efficient producing and efficient consuming of Food, Hammers, Commerce, Research, Wealth, Espionage, Units, Great Person points, Great General points, Buildings and Wonders, and others I may have omitted. Some of these things can be only produced and consumed locally within a single City, with some exceptions (a lot of the exceptions concern Corporations).

Research:

Our primary research goal is Mass Media which allows us to build The United Nations which allows us to place the Diplomatic Victory Resolution of the UN ballot.

To acquire Mass Media, we must first acquire, via various means, the following technology path (at a minimum):

Astronomy (3120B) -> (Liberalism - 1t) (330/2184B) -> Printing Press (2496B) -> Scientific Method (3744B) -> Physics (6240B) -> Electricity (7020B) -> Radio (9360B) -> Mass Media (5616B)

EDIT: Astronomy is listed first, because it allows Observatories which bring in +25% Research at a modest cost of 150H compared to Universities at 200H. However, since Dorthy is Philosophical, Universities can be built at +100% Hammers making them cheaper than Observatories for those cities that do not have Universities. However, we must keep our war plans in mind and build Barracks in all cities expected to produce military units.

The long term plan is to bulb at least Physics and Electricity, use Liberalism to acquire "free" Radio. Currently a Great Scientist will bulb exactly 1500 + 3 x 80 = 1740B, since our Civ-Wide Population is 80. EDIT: Our population will be growing this entire turn set, so Civ-Wide Population may exceed 120 by the end of this set set, making the GS bulbs about 1500 + 3 x 120 = 1860B. This means that using two GSs to bulb Astronomy would waste up to 700B.

EDIT: According to bcool's Great Person generation spreadsheet (shows all Great Person generation one turn later than actual) we should generate a both a Great Engineer and Great Scientist on turn 144, and Great Scientists on turns 150, 156, 157, 163 and 166. Of course these Great People can't be used until the turn following their generation.

EDIT: The best plan for Great Scientist utilization is for the first Great Scientist to construct an Academy in Washington ASAP and bulb three Great Scientists on each of Physics and Electricity:

1) Three Great Scientists bulb (3 x ~1860B = ~5580B) just over 8/9 of Physics
2) Three Great Scientists bulb (3 x ~1860B = ~5580B) just less than 4/5 of Electricity

We still have a Great Artist which could be used for a Golden Age (8t) to increase the speed of getting Great Scientists and Mass Media, but several players want the golden age later while building military and maybe building The United Nations?

Academic Question: How large must a city be to leverage a Great Engineer rush to complete The United Nations in a single turn, including Hammers that city can muster yet that turn? Assume Hill Mines and no Railroad for primary Hammer sources.

City Builds:

Cities will continue building what is in their build queue, except those building Wealth could build Galleys which will convert in the queue to Galleons after Astronomy. Originally suggested by bcool and other cities where a player suggests a better alternative.

Since we currently do not have a quick way (Slavery or Universal Suffrage) to Build things other than forest chopping and Great Engineer rushing, we need to build things in cities well in advance of the need, especially for low hammer cities.

All cites that will be building military units for are future war will need to complete Barracks well before the war starts. For some cities, that may mean building Barracks now or putting it in the queue for building somewhat later.

Any city without a Courthouse will build one sooner rather than later, even the Capital. In my opinion, they should have been built as soon as possible after Code of Laws in all cities, starting with the ones furthest from the Capital. They reduce city maintenance -50% regardless of any slider setting. Courthouses will probably not be considered for cities with not enough Hammers to build them in 20t or less. In such cases, even building Wealth would be better.

Markets will be considered in high commerce cities and those cities we expect will support a significant number (3 or more) of Merchants. However, like Courthouses, only cities that can build them in 25t or less will be seriously consuidered.

Washington will complete Oxford University in 3t. After that it will focus on growing its population while working all grassland cottages. Some plains cottages and grassland hill cottages (if any) will be considered if it permits reasonably fast growth (.i.e +5 Fpt or better).

We probably want Globe Theatre in GP Farm before the war, but with its low Hammer rate and dedication to generating Great Scientists at least until t167, it will build very slowly until then. So, GP Farm must start building Theatre immediately, compleing it in 17t; Five other cities must also complete Theatre as well before Globe Theartre can begin, so I've placed five additional Threatre builds in cities with significant Hammers, so they are completed by the end of the turn set or at least nearly complete, so there's no rush to complete them later; these Theatre builds can be delayed a bit to build something more important.

City Growth:

All cities will focus on growth yet still work higher commerce plots when feasible, until they reach happiness cap or can support their tasks most efficiently. Growth goal shall be +5 Fpt or higher without significant loss of commerce.

Great Wonders:

Although none of the available Great Wonders are critical or even of major help in achieving the Grand Strategy, some may be useful to build in some of our Hammer cities when nothing else is especially useful. The remaining Great Wonders are:

Parthenon (obsolete with Scientific Method and thus of limited use in accelerating Great Person generation, but it could be built in 10t and provide +50% GGP generation in all cities)

Angkor Wat (obsolete with Computers and thus likely to last forever in our game; it provides +1 Hpt for each Priest making them produce more than an Engineer; 12t ETA)

The Hagia Sophia (obsolete with Steam Power and thus probably long lived for us; +50% Worker improvements is nice; 12t ETA)

Chichen Itza (obsolete with Rifling and thus it will last a while, but we may Rifling; +25% Defense is nearly useless to us, we hope; 12t ETA)

The Sistine Chapel (never obsolete; nearly essential for a cultural victory; +2 Culture per turn per specialist; 15t ETA)

University of Sankore (obsolete with Computers; +2 Bpt per State Religion building; has great synergy with our Taoist Monasteries and Taoist Temples; 14t ETA)

Mausoleum of Maussollos (never obsolete; +50% Golden Age length; we can build it before our planned Golden Age and extend it 4t; 11t ETA)

Shwedagon Paya (never obsolete; access to all Religious Civics; we lack access only to Free Religion and although that grants +10% Research we probably do not want that; 11t ETA)

Great Wonders we might consider include Angkor Wat, University of Sankore, and Mausoleum of Maussollos. The latter two seem best to me.

City Build Queues and Worker Tasks:

Washington:

Oxford University (3t)
Taoist Monastery (2t; 3 Mines -> 2 Grassland + 1 Plains Cottage)
Taoist Temple (4t; +2 Hpt; +1 Happiness)
Theatre (3t; 1 of 6 needed for Globe Theatre)
Courthouse (+2.5 Wpt; +2 Ept; Spy specialist option)

Stone City (Switch a citizen to Washington's cottage; after +3P, run Spy specialist + Merchant):

Taoist Temple (4t; t145 Spy specialist +4 Bpt +4 Ept)
Taoist Missionary (2-4t)
Theatre (4t; 1 of 6 needed for Globe Theatre)
Market (12t; should be able to support 3-4 Merchants)

Worker builds Workshop 2-N (6t); builds Workshop 1-W (6t).
Worker moves to 2-SE of Phant City's Iron (1t); build Iron Mine (6t); build G Farm 1-NE (5t).

Gems City (will be running 0, 0, 2, 3, 6, ... Scientists -> 1 GS through t156):

Taoist Missionary (2t)
Taoist Missionary (4t)
Theatre (4-5t; 1 of 6 needed for Globe Theatre)
Market (great capacity for running 6-8 Merchants after generating 2 GSs)

Worker completes Jungle Chop (2t); build Workshop (6t); build Road (2t).

GP Farm (running 8, ... Scientists -> 4 GS through t166):

Theatre (17t; required to build Globe Theatre)

Taoist Missionary: Convert south witches using Horse Archer being built as escort.

Silver City (will be running 3 - 4t, 4 - 4t, 6, ... Scientists -> 1 GS through t163):

Taoist Temple (12t)

Worker builds Farm (5t); builds Farm 1-SE (5t) if Civil Service, otherwise Roads 1-SW, 2-S, 1-SE of Silver City.

Isengard:

Horse Archer (2t)
Taoist Temple (3t)
Library (4t)
Theatre (3t; 1 of 6 needed for Globe Theatre)
University (5t)

Culture Bridge:

Caravel (4t)
Theatre (8t; 1 of 6 needed for Globe Theatre)
Galley (8t; do _not_ complete before we get Astronomy)

Marble City:

Galley (24t)

Phants City (Adds Merchants + Spy specialists when Population can support them):

Courthouse (15-20t)

Worker build G Mine (4t); build Road (2t); move to 1-E of GP Farm (1t); build Road (2t); move 2-NW (1t).

Sheep City (In t145, add new citizen to Gem City's Grassland Hill Mine):

Courthouse (15-18t)

Worker builds Workshop (4t); builds Workshop 1-E (6t)
Worker moves onto Copper Hill (1t); build Workshop 1-NW (6t); move 1-S of Isengard (1t); build Workshop (6t).

Fur City (At Pop 8, add 3 Merchants + Spy specialist):

Galley (24t)

Worker completes Fur Camp (4t); moves to Ice Hill Silver (1t); Silver Mine (6t)
Ramanujan builds Road 1-SW on RS Tundra (3t); Road 1-SE on Ice (4t); Move SE on RS P Silk (1t); Build Road (2t); Axeman escort protects Worker.
Archer sits tight watching for 10t.

Cimmerian (Run Artist till border pop):

Walls (7t)
Castle (14t, assuming we can steal Engineering)
Courthouse (~30t)

Worker completes Rice Farm (2t); Build Road (2t); Move 2-SE on GF; Build Road (2t); Build Pig Pasture (4t)

Exploring Units:

Our goal shall be having at most 5, 7 or 9 units out of border for exploration, so we incur no, +1, or +2 Wpt support costs for exceeding this limit.

The Work Boat will be moved south to explore Barbarian city that lies south of its position.

The Chariot will be moved to attempt shulec's teleport idea; more details on how to perform this are needed as well some test that it will work as expected.

The southern Axeman will move west to explore the SE and S part of the SW unrevealed area.

The War Elephant shall move SE along the coast and then explore the big unrevealed area in the SE corner of the map.

Horse Archer built in 2t will escort Taoist Missionaries to South Witches.

Caravel being built in 4t will explore unrevealed area in the southeast corner of the map.

Spy on Pig: explores unrevealed area in SE corner of Map.

Galley near Gems City: move along coast in our culture NE, cross over to North witch area; move SW to Barbarian city.

Great Spy moves to infiltrate North Witches.

Espionage:

Spy in Boston waits there for infiltration of North Witches; Will steal Engineering if the opportunity arises.

Spy near Trojan Horse will be moved there and wait; possibly steal Civil Service after waiting there 5t.

Lost Spies will be replaced ASAP in the nearest Hammer city to the city where the Spy will do his Espionage work.

Game Changing Situations:

Unless it is an Emergency, I will use my own judgement on what to do, giving special consideration of possible negative effects on diplomacy between us and West, South and North Witches.

Please let me know of any omissions.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Oh nice the PPP :)

Other than the Taoist Temple, I think Isengarde should stick to building military units the rest of the game. Courthouse in our capital also seems like it won't be needed.

The Mass bulb plan to Mass Media appears to be cementing into place if support for it keeps appearing.

Mausoleum hasn't been built yet? Hmmmmmmm. Even its failure would net us a lot of gold. And a longer golden age is always great, especially if we end up doing more than one. Very interesting possibility!

I see the Globe Theatre is also in there. I will think on it. Another military powerhouse city would be a big plus.
 
I did test it and it only works if the teleportation tile is not obscured by fog.
Maybe we can institute this gambit after airships.

Great work shulec!

We will be able to build Airships (have Physics) between t167 and t171. Fastest way to build one is in Isengard and with 19 Hpt base and rising and +125% Hammer bonuses, it will take just 2t to complete an 80H Airship. Isengard was very well designed and developed!

There should be plenty of time from closing open borders until the witches are ready to open borders again (maybe 10t). We don't need open borders until the turn before the actual Diplomatic Victory Resolution Ballot turn.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
We also might be able to pump up Phants City faster by stealing the fish from GPFarm and running down its food box for a while. Then when Phants is bigger we can switch back.
 
Oh nice the PPP :)

Other than the Taoist Temple, I think Isengarde should stick to building military units the rest of the game. Courthouse in our capital also seems like it won't be needed.

Thanks.

The Theatre should stay in Isengarde because there aren't that many places to built it and it does help with unhappiness; the last place we want unhappiness in war time is in our Heroic Epic city.

The Library and University builds may seem odd here, but with Maoi Statues we will grow Isengarde to utilize all eight Shore plots which bring in and extra 16 base Commerce eventually. Also, we don't want to build too many extra units that are costing us 1 Wpt to simply maintain.

We are already paying 11 Wpt in unit maintenance and 3 Wpt in out of culture maintenance. I don't really see the point of building many more military units right now; we should wait until we get Engineering and maybe then start spamming Trebuchets.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I've given a lot of thought today to the best way to win this game as fast as possible.

Should we beeline a military advantage and start smashing AI?
Should we beeline the UN and lean on our spies to steal tons of techs?
Or should we do some mutant hybrid of military first, then UN while involving the entire world in a Holy War to slow down everyone's tech rate?

I would have to say for Gold Medal purposes we should stick to our guns and try to beeline UN. Sure, our war of conquest will start later than we want, but we will unlock our desired victory condition. The blimps will be quite the one-sided advantage, and we will pick up a naval advantage along the way too.

Yes, I agree.

I propose that we attempt Bcool's and Mabraham's best bulb path to Liberalism. I vote that we also perform the following actions:

1) Delay infiltration of our 2nd Great Spy until we see what the West Witches tech after Civil Service. The West Witches appear to be teching much faster than the North Witches, and Engineering is not yet crucial.

Indeed. I do not recall anybody making an actual case for infiltrating the northern witches rather than the western. Despite this, we've been heading for the northern witches for about two turn sets now. If West are going to keep teching harder than north, how does infiltrating North speed our victory more than infiltrating West?

2) Immediately construct 2 elephants in Isengarde. Send them north and use the galley to capture the city that incompetant fake Elizabeth has still not captured. Keep the gold and Liberate the city to her when Liberate becomes available.
3) Construct 4 cheap Longbows after the elephants in Isengarde to reinforce the new city on Ragnar's Spoke.
4) Chop walls and if possible a castle instead of the courthouse in the new city on Ragnar's spoke. Build culture for 5 turns to expand the borders.
5) Start a war and then holy war with the East witches in about 14 turns when the next AP resolution comes up. Galleons on the northern coast of Asoka will outmatch any boats that Asoka/Ragnar manage to send up the east side of the map. Knights to the south of Isengarde can counterattack any Asoka or Ragnar force sieging the barb city we captured on Ragnar's spoke. I like fighting on a castled barb city because our Great Wall bonus will mean 4GG points per attack and 2GG points per defense. We will pile up shared war bonus with North and West Witches, and cripple East Witches research rate. If West and North Witches start constructing war units, then South Witches might be free to expand into hub more and become our UN opponents for sure.

I'm certainly keen for as early a war as we can afford, assuming that the longer the war goes the more chance we have to earn more shared-war diplo benefits, and capture more population for the final vote. I like the above approach to that war. We own the culture bridge, so naval assault from East would come only along the spoke coastline, if they did it.

6) If we salt a side city with an engineer specialist, we might get a lucky 2nd Great Engineer who can construct Cristo Redentor. Fake Monty's favorite civic is free market. Fake Ghenghis favorite civic is Free Religion. No anarchy and 1 turn between changes is ridiculously good. Convert to our religion? No problem! Convert to our favorite Civic? Sure! Spies want to flip South Witches out of Free Religion and out of Heriditary Rule before a vote? We just dip into Theocracy and Despotism for a turn and make that happen too :lol:

But do we need this? Shared religion and shared war are going to be pretty useful...

7) We need to plan on giving fake Monty a tech when he demands it. The Mansa personality is always begging for them. 5 techs to him will also give +1 diplo.
8) Spread our religion to Ghenghis. Once we convert the North Witches to Taoism, they should be Friendly. Ghenghis will switch to Free Religion when he gets a chance, but hopefully that will be much later.
9) Steal Engineering and Guilds at some point of course :)
10) Academy in capital because it is most flexible choice.

These are simply the things I would do, but the final decision is with the team and especially Sun Tzu! Hopefully they make sense.

Sure.
 
I've given a lot of thought today to the best way to win this game as fast as possible.

Should we beeline a military advantage and start smashing AI?
Should we beeline the UN and lean on our spies to steal tons of techs?
Or should we do some mutant hybrid of military first, then UN while involving the entire world in a Holy War to slow down everyone's tech rate?

I would have to say for Gold Medal purposes we should stick to our guns and try to beeline UN. Sure, our war of conquest will start later than we want, but we will unlock our desired victory condition. The blimps will be quite the one-sided advantage, and we will pick up a naval advantage along the way too.


I propose that we attempt Bcool's and Mabraham's best bulb path to Liberalism. I vote that we also perform the following actions:

1) Delay infiltration of our 2nd Great Spy until we see what the West Witches tech after Civil Service. The West Witches appear to be teching much faster than the North Witches, and Engineering is not yet crucial.
2) Immediately construct 2 elephants in Isengarde. Send them north and use the galley to capture the city that incompetant fake Elizabeth has still not captured. Keep the gold and Liberate the city to her when Liberate becomes available.
3) Construct 4 cheap Longbows after the elephants in Isengarde to reinforce the new city on Ragnar's Spoke.
4) Chop walls and if possible a castle instead of the courthouse in the new city on Ragnar's spoke. Build culture for 5 turns to expand the borders.
5) Start a war and then holy war with the East witches in about 14 turns when the next AP resolution comes up. Galleons on the northern coast of Asoka will outmatch any boats that Asoka/Ragnar manage to send up the east side of the map. Knights to the south of Isengarde can counterattack any Asoka or Ragnar force sieging the barb city we captured on Ragnar's spoke. I like fighting on a castled barb city because our Great Wall bonus will mean 4GG points per attack and 2GG points per defense. We will pile up shared war bonus with North and West Witches, and cripple East Witches research rate. If West and North Witches start constructing war units, then South Witches might be free to expand into hub more and become our UN opponents for sure.
6) If we salt a side city with an engineer specialist, we might get a lucky 2nd Great Engineer who can construct Cristo Redentor. Fake Monty's favorite civic is free market. Fake Ghenghis favorite civic is Free Religion. No anarchy and 1 turn between changes is ridiculously good. Convert to our religion? No problem! Convert to our favorite Civic? Sure! Spies want to flip South Witches out of Free Religion and out of Heriditary Rule before a vote? We just dip into Theocracy and Despotism for a turn and make that happen too :lol:
7) We need to plan on giving fake Monty a tech when he demands it. The Mansa personality is always begging for them. 5 techs to him will also give +1 diplo.
8) Spread our religion to Ghenghis. Once we convert the North Witches to Taoism, they should be Friendly. Ghenghis will switch to Free Religion when he gets a chance, but hopefully that will be much later.
9) Steal Engineering and Guilds at some point of course :)
10) Academy in capital because it is most flexible choice.

These are simply the things I would do, but the final decision is with the team and especially Sun Tzu! Hopefully they make sense.

I like all of these ideas except #6. The Cristo Redeemer is so fun to play with but I think getting an engineer instead of a Great Scientist is going to slow us down more than help us. Plus you need a really big city to build the Cristo Redeemer with a great engineer. It is a tough wonder to build (1000 hammers as big as the UN), so you need a great engineer and at least 5-10 turns of hammers from a big productive city.

#7 I agree with but no paper, education or philosophy

#8 if we get both the northern witches to friendly then we can trade for techs with them and thus would probably not need to infiltrate them with the 2nd spy. Another reason to keep the 2nd spy for the western witches.
 
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