SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

What are votes with regards to waiting a turn near Indra? I personally prefer to hit them a little now, even if some of the knights head off to join the Patali assault. I'm just a little worried that they will temporarily retreat and/or head across the river. Even healing would be inconvenient as we don't want to tie up our airships that will be wanted for some Patali action soon.
We want to finish up this fight with Ragnar, so we can free up these knights to go east.
Also, if we hit them 5-6 times right now, there would still be a couple left for some double XP next turn, so we may be able to have (some of) our cake and eat it too.

I recommend moving citizen from Grassland Cottage -> Plains Cottage, so we build 10 Culture and pop borders this turn rather than build 8 Culture and pop borders next turn.

Just place all units that might attack the Wicked Witch of the East's stack next turn in Indraprastha. If his units stop to heal, they will heal only 1/2 as fast in our new Culture.

We should also get double XP towards Great General due to The Great Wall, but that could depend on the definition of culture, though our own current culture may trump previous Civ inactive culture in this limited case.

We can fight with culture as well as with units.

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Yeah, sorry. My brain only cares about things completing when we can then do things with or about them, rather than when we take the action to cause their completion. Since it's not easy to find out the turn number on which the game reports completion (because the logs are all in dates) I have never attempted to train myself to follow a rule whose mechanics I don't know. If there's some way to find this out, I'm all ears.

When a city shows completion of an item in 1 turn, it is completed in the turn number you see in the upper right hand corner.

When a city has just completed an item, subtract one from the turn number you see in the upper right hand corner.

You may need to configure the turn number display via the Buffy Mod: CTRL-ALT-O -> Clock Tab -> check off "Completed Turns" (main clock or both).

I agree with your comment about the in-game logs showing only dates. However, its also easy to convert a date with a known game speed to a turn number. It gets messy for non-Ancient Era starts that begin with 0 (I prefer consistency with Ancient Era turns and dates)

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Taj Mahal

Build the Taj Mahal ASAP, give away Nationalism (well trade it for some spare change and Divine Right) and hope the AI races us for it!

When we win the race we get to trade for their failure gold!
If we lose the race, not a big blow. We get the faulure gold.

The AI may have fail gold to trade too!
 
Looks basically good.

Losing Taj race gets us gold, and will not delay UN.

If we get our 90% merchant, then we know what to do (bc hopes for 1500:gold: from some tests). If it's an artist, cry, bring him to the front and hope we think of a useful culture bomb to do (get out of revolt fast, pop borders fast to get to use roads for a last city capture, get enough culture for front-line musket drafts, etc). If it's a scientist, bulb Chemistry and think about finishing it after MilTrad for trade fodder and buffed workshops.

Suggest a few scientists in Silver city to empty the food box by T178 when we turn off Rep.

GPfarm consider rush-buying settler if the economy can cope.

Isengard overflows only base hammers, so if we are converting excess overflow to gold, the Pworkshop returns 5 hammers=gold. Spy returns 4 beakers and 3EPs under rep, so it's probably not as good. Late EPs may come from the slider for final revolts and flips as required.

Indra should always keep the sheep. Should be able to build lighthouse in 6 turns. I know I suggested working camp, cottage and artist to get the border pop, but best is actually camp and two cottages to get 10 hammers to build culture (or Gforest instead of a cottage if we want 1:food: more than 2:science:) because we get more food with it.

Ayodya consider buying granary.

Madurai plan varies: if it starves regardless, run artists to pop border in 1 turn; otherwise build culture to pop in 1 turn. Thereafter I think chopping into a settler for 2S3E is better than some crappy longbow. No rush to finish that fort.

I still like withdrawing to Indra to defend against Ragnar, but I can live with partial attacks this turn. Maximise GG return from flanking kills, if so.

Revise the resource trades to AIs... there's some pocket change to pick up.

Pillage towns before border pops where possible (e.g. medic chariot and knight 2E of Madurai this turn, moving back into forest cover afterwards).

Two workers move to under the knight stack if we attack Ragnar this turn.

Spies never finish a turn on the same tile. Land them on different tiles where possible. We're not going to do simultaneous revolts, so one tile slower doesn't matter. Spies don't finish a turn in a city unless they're planning to fortify there.

Spy to Mathurai to flip Asoka to caste in 5 turns.
 
I'm pretty skeptical that allowing for a second turn attacking the wizard is useful. If we use all 9 units and don't kill the wizard, then at most we'll have 3 more units to attack a promotion-healed wizard, and our attacking units might not have full health. We won't have any follow-up units. Our airships won't be able to help. If we were to lose about 5 knights attacking the wizard, who has ducked the longbows we'd be down to about a 50% chance of killing him that turn. Would we ever stop attacking, wait for the wizard to heal, and hope our first attacker kills him first time next turn?

The Wizard of Oz is a Rifleman with attached Great General (20 XP) with four promotions, City Garrison I (2 XP) , City Garrison I (5 XP) , City Garrison I (10 XP), and Drill I (17 XP). The next promotion is at 26 XP. Units defending at around even odds or better get 1 XP for surviving each attacker. If five of our units hit the Rifleman, its XP goes from 20 -> 25. We may want avoid hitting it a sixth time, unless we have very good odds, since that would give it a promotion it can apply before our attack the following turn.

I previously suggested that we can send four Knights with Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious with an unused promotion. Three of these can (try to) take out the three Longbowmen (Guerra I, City Garrison I, City Garrison I); these three can use their promotion to heal half their damage and get Pinch for additional effectiveness against The Wizard of Oz next turn. The fourth unit will be held back and thus at full strength next turn. Two to three more Knights will all be at least half strength due to the Pinch promotion. There is a slight less than 50% chance that we lost one Knight attacking a Longbowmen, so we may or may not have a third Knight newly promoted to Pinch.

By holding back the 9th Knight, we are making our first turn attack an 8 Knight attack which has a 95% (95 attacks of my 100 samples took eight or fewer Knights). In all cases the Wizard was usually weaker than the Longbow after 5 Knight attacks, and assuming it is 1 XP short of a promotion, it won't be able to heal much of its strength and should be quite vulnerable to one 100% strength and 2-3 50+% strength Combat 2 Pinch Amphibious Knights on the second turn. I would not be surprised to see average odds in the second turn of 95%, but this should be tested.

Odds of 95% success in destroying The Wizard of Oz in each of two successive turns, assuming 95% in the 2nd turn is accurate, would be almost a certainty:

95% + 5% * 95% = 99.75 %

Sun Tzu Wu
 
I recommend moving citizen from Grassland Cottage -> Plains Cottage, so we build 10 Culture and pop borders this turn rather than build 8 Culture and pop borders next turn.

Just place all units that might attack the Wicked Witch of the East's stack next turn in Indraprastha. If his units stop to heal, they will heal only 1/2 as fast in our new Culture.

We should also get double XP towards Great General due to The Great Wall, but that could depend on the definition of culture, though our own current culture may trump previous Civ inactive culture in this limited case.

We can fight with culture as well as with units.

Sun Tzu Wu

Yup, will work the tiles such that the culture pops this turn.

I believe the Great Wall works purely off ownership of the borders, and not at all off tile culture.
 
The Wizard of Oz is a Rifleman with attached Great General (20 XP) with four promotions, City Garrison I (2 XP) , City Garrison I (5 XP) , City Garrison I (10 XP), and Drill I (17 XP). The next promotion is at 26 XP. Units defending at around even odds or better get 1 XP for surviving each attacker. If five of our units hit the Rifleman, its XP goes from 20 -> 25. We may want avoid hitting it a sixth time, unless we have very good odds, since that would give it a promotion it can apply before our attack the following turn.

I previously suggested that we can send four Knights with Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious with an unused promotion. Three of these can (try to) take out the three Longbowmen (Guerra I, City Garrison I, City Garrison I); these three can use their promotion to heal half their damage and get Pinch for additional effectiveness against The Wizard of Oz next turn. The fourth unit will be held back and thus at full strength next turn. Two to three more Knights will all be at least half strength due to the Pinch promotion. There is a slight less than 50% chance that we lost one Knight attacking a Longbowmen, so we may or may not have a third Knight newly promoted to Pinch.

By holding back the 9th Knight, we are making our first turn attack an 8 Knight attack which has a 95% (95 attacks of my 100 samples took eight or fewer Knights). In all cases the Wizard was usually weaker than the Longbow after 5 Knight attacks, and assuming it is 1 XP short of a promotion, it won't be able to heal much of its strength and should be quite vulnerable to one 100% strength and 2-3 50+% strength Combat 2 Pinch Amphibious Knights on the second turn. I would not be surprised to see average odds in the second turn of 95%, but this should be tested.

Odds of 95% success in destroying The Wizard of Oz in each of two successive turns, assuming 95% in the 2nd turn is accurate, would be almost a certainty:

95% + 5% * 95% = 99.75 %

Sun Tzu Wu

That really depends on how the mapmaker created the Wizard. In the worldbuilder, you can just add promotions without giving the unit more xp or increasing it's level.
We could be facing a Level1 wizard that will get another promotion available with just 2XP.
 
The Wizard of Oz is a Rifleman with attached Great General (20 XP) with four promotions, City Garrison I (2 XP) , City Garrison I (5 XP) , City Garrison I (10 XP), and Drill I (17 XP). The next promotion is at 26 XP. Units defending at around even odds or better get 1 XP for surviving each attacker. If five of our units hit the Rifleman, its XP goes from 20 -> 25. We may want avoid hitting it a sixth time, unless we have very good odds, since that would give it a promotion it can apply before our attack the following turn.

Possible. Also possible is that the map-making added those promotions to a 0XP rifleman who gets two promotions from those 5XP. I don't know how to test for either hypothesis. In earlier testing, giving a barb a GG and a rifleman in a city, the barb did not attach the GG.

I previously suggested that we can send four Knights with Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious with an unused promotion. Three of these can (try to) take out the three Longbowmen (Guerra I, City Garrison I, City Garrison I); these three can use their promotion to heal half their damage and get Pinch for additional effectiveness against The Wizard of Oz next turn. The fourth unit will be held back and thus at full strength next turn. Two to three more Knights will all be at least half strength due to the Pinch promotion. There is a slight less than 50% chance that we lost one Knight attacking a Longbowmen, so we may or may not have a third Knight newly promoted to Pinch.

Wouldn't we prefer to give these hypothetical 13XP knights C2-amphib-pinch to attack the wizard earlier? I don't think we're likely to get more than two 13XP knights, and that only if we get a GG we can send across. Hitting Ragnar isn't going to be very profitable fast enough. Anyway, just one or two knights with an extra pinch upgrade will give us a significant amount of that last 3% we'd like for a one-turn kill. One fewer knight needed to drop the wizard below the longbow strength is one more for killing the wizard after the longbows are dead.
 
Everything is looking pretty good. We need that spy from Fur City that will be built to head to Ghandi if we want every civ to have 2 spies.

Just remember to work spy specialists where you can T173-T178 during Nationalism. We need the espionage against the east witches to flip Asoka to caste and do 2 or 3 city revolts which is a lot of EP (1200?).

If we are unlucky enough to get a Great Artist, we could always bulb Mass Media with it right?

2 missionaries to Ghandi and 1 to Ghenghis look good. We might want to gift one more to Ghenghis, as he still doesn't have enough cities converted to be bribed into Taoism just yet.



We are down to our last 2 weeks and hopefully 17 turns to go!
 
Everything is looking pretty good. We need that spy from Fur City that will be built to head to Ghandi if we want every civ to have 2 spies.

Just remember to work spy specialists where you can T173-T178 during Nationalism. We need the espionage against the east witches to flip Asoka to caste and do 2 or 3 city revolts which is a lot of EP (1200?).

If we are unlucky enough to get a Great Artist, we could always bulb Mass Media with it right?

2 missionaries to Ghandi and 1 to Ghenghis look good. We might want to gift one more to Ghenghis, as he still doesn't have enough cities converted to be bribed into Taoism just yet.



We are down to our last 2 weeks and hopefully 17 turns to go!

I'll try to remember to suppress my reflexive disappointment whenever I see a Great Artist! I'll bulb Mass Media, and probably end up having to play with the money slider instead to fund our plans!

I will be working spy specialists where suitable in the representation period.
 
A city with no walls or castles has 0% bombard damage reduction.
A treb can bombard a city 16% a turn, so it can knock down culture defense from full to zero in 6 turns.

So if a city defense from culture is 40%, it will fall about 6% each bombardment.
If a city defense from culture is 60%, it will fall about 9% each bombardment.
In either case, the defense will be near 0% after 6 bombardments.

If a treb has the accuracy promotion which adds 8% bombard damage, it bombards 24% a turn. That means defenses will go to 0% after 4 bombardments.

Now, if a city has walls, it gains a 50% bombardment protection. The non-accuracy trebs take 12 or 13 bombardments to reach 0% defenses, and accuracy trebs take 8 bombardments. That is twice as many bombardments as a non-walled city can absorb.

If a city has a castle, it has a 75% bombardment protection. Non-accuracy trebs take 24 or 25 bombardments to take it to 0%, and accuracy trebs take around 16 bombardments. That is four times as many bombardments as a non-walled+non-castled city can absorb.

In the case where a castle is built and the culture defenses have already been knocked down 80%, then the city culture defense will become 20%.

Cannons only bombard city defense 12% a turn, less than trebs do, but they ignore castles and walls like they don't even exist. Non-accuracy cannons knock a city to 0% in 8 bombardments, and accuracy cannons knock a city to 0% in 5 bombardments.

Although what you state mostly matches what Civilopedia/Sevopedia says, you have much of the details wrong in your examples. The following statements might help clarify % Defense as used in the Combat system a bit:

A Trebuchet removes 16% Defense via bombardment, not 16% of remaining defense.

An Accuracy Trebuchet removes 24% Defense via bombardment, not 24% of remaining defense.

An Canon removes 12% Defense via bombarbment, not 12% of remaining defense.

Walls give Defense 50 (non-Gunpowder only) and reduce bombardment defense reduction by -50% via non-Gunpowder siege units (such units reduce defense half as much as normal).

Castles give Defense 100 (non-Gunpowder only) and reduce bombardment defense reduction by an additional -25% [-75%, including -50% from Walls] via non-Gunpowder siege units (such units reduce defense one quarter as much as normal).

Take a Culture Defense 20% city for example. An Accuracy Trebuchet (-24%/turn) will take it down in 1 turn. One non-Accuracy Trebuchet (-16%/turn) will take it down to Defense 4% in one turn.

What is doubly confusing is the game reports % reduction based on the city current maximum potential Defense in its on-screen scrolling messages (ignore those). Look only at the Defense number of the city as you bombard it down; that is measured in % defense units as used in the combat defense system (and not percent of defense left which just confuses players who don't understand the relationship between the two systems of measurement - which is the game's fault).

Sun Tzu Wu
 
Although what you state mostly matches what Civilopedia/Sevopedia says, you have much of the details wrong in your examples. The following statements might help clarify % Defense as used in the Combat system a bit:

A Trebuchet removes 16% Defense via bombardment, not 16% of remaining defense.

An Accuracy Trebuchet removes 24% Defense via bombardment, not 24% of remaining defense.

An Canon removes 12% Defense via bombarbment, not 12% of remaining defense.

Walls give Defense 50 (non-Gunpowder only) and reduce bombardment defense reduction by -50% via non-Gunpowder siege units (such units reduce defense half as much as normal).

Castles give Defense 100 (non-Gunpowder only) and reduce bombardment defense reduction by an additional -25% [-75%, including -50% from Walls] via non-Gunpowder siege units (such units reduce defense one quarter as much as normal).

Take a Culture Defense 20% city for example. An Accuracy Trebuchet (-24%/turn) will take it down in 1 turn. One non-Accuracy Trebuchet (-16%/turn) will take it down to Defense 4% in one turn.

What is doubly confusing is the game reports % reduction based on the city current maximum potential Defense in its on-screen scrolling messages (ignore those). Look only at the Defense number of the city as you bombard it down; that is measured in % defense units as used in the combat defense system (and not percent of defense left which just confuses players who don't understand the relationship between the two systems of measurement - which is the game's fault).

Sun Tzu Wu


Oops, I checked it with a test game and you are correct! Thanks for setting me straight :D
 
I did some digging in the code about the GMerchant. Such units return 500 + 200 * x gold, where x is the hypothetical value of a trade route from *their city* to our capital. So their population, distance, buildings and wonders matter. Open Borders doesn't. So we expect 1500 gold from Canterbury. Galleon builds will be 360 with no hammers applied. Knight->cuirassier upgrades will be 50 gold. So the economy should cope with the planned expenses after the T178 switch to US because the GMerchant will inject cash at that time. If necessary, once we know we have the GMerchant, we can plan to use up all our gold by T177 by running 100% slider and building max units.
 
Sounds like discussion is drying up. Unless there are objections, I'll plan on playing in around 12 hours time. I think mabraham is planning on coming by and supervising my play to make sure I don't do anything dumb, and we'll post regular updates during play and pause to consult team for any tricky decisions.
 
Spy Plan
Mostly reactionary....
Other spies (a couple are now on the various build queues) to head to other players and prepare to either force them back in line for religion, or steal tech if they refuse to trade something we want (Gunpowder), or whatever else may arise.

There is a window in which there is increased risk of spy flipping or trade/requesting an the AI to come to Taoism or out of Free religion. Based on the turns below listed by bcool, I recommend that we not change the AI's religion or Civics between turns 178-182. If we flip them into Taoism or out of Free religion on these turns, we will not be able to flip them back in time for our vote if they revert back in turn 183 to 187.

Alternatively, we may want to try to flip them into a new civic on turn 183, just to ensure that they won't go to free religion.

Specifically, Genghis won't need to turned since Theocracy is his favorite and his is unlikely to go to Free Religion.

Liz, Monty and Gandhi should all be open to a switch to theocracy.


If we finish the UN end of T181 then
T182 vote for UN Secretary general (5 turns displayed until next vote)
T183 (4 turns)
T184 (3 turns)
T185 (2 tutns)
T186 (1 turn
T187 (0 turn (we hit the wizard)
T188 vote comes up (we hit the wizard again if necessary) *if our wizard attack completely fails we have the option to delay the vote ... it would suck but we could do it.
T189 the vote results come up and we win.
 
There is a window in which there is increased risk of spy flipping or trade/requesting an the AI to come to Taoism or out of Free religion. Based on the turns below listed by bcool, I recommend that we not change the AI's religion or Civics between turns 178-182. If we flip them into Taoism or out of Free religion on these turns, we will not be able to flip them back in time for our vote if they revert back in turn 183 to 187.

Alternatively, we may want to try to flip them into a new civic on turn 183, just to ensure that they won't go to free religion.

Specifically, Genghis won't need to turned since Theocracy is his favorite and his is unlikely to go to Free Religion.

Liz, Monty and Gandhi should all be open to a switch to theocracy.

You can change an AI's civics or religion with a spy without waiting for the usual 5 turn delay for changing civics and/or religion. We couldn't ask them with a tech trade to voluntarily change to Taoism however.
 
You can change an AI's civics or religion with a spy without waiting for the usual 5 turn delay for changing civics and/or religion. We couldn't ask them with a tech trade to voluntarily change to Taoism however.

Can they, having had their civic changed on them, voluntarily change their religion within 5 turns or do they have to respect the 5 turn delay?
 
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