SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

Oh yeah, and maybe we should even leverage the Forest that grew by Chandi, Chopping it soon, as well.

GOT IT!

Questions:
1. Will we be able to get Alpha if we just capture Osaka and Kyoto? That seems best for our growth.
2. Would we want to DoP at that point, rather than continuing onward? We have to prepare somewhat for a Hammy dogpile, so maybe that would be a good time to stop with Toku.
3. How much does building a Deer/Cow settler slow down our attack on Kyoto?

Toku now has mining and his GNP graph has climbed steeply, so I estimate BW in 7-8t. I don't think we can attack Kyoto before he can poprush units, but we could take probably Osaka before that.

Okay, as far as I can tell, then answer is yes, we will be able to get Alpha for Osaka+Kyoto, as long as we can threaten Tokyo without him threatening Kyoto or any other city. The x3 factor is huge.

LowtherCastle said:

Okay, as far as I can tell, then answer is yes, we will be able to get Alpha for Osaka+Kyoto, as long as we can threaten Tokyo without him threatening Kyoto or any other city. The x3 factor is huge.

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That sounds about right. Alpha will cost the whole 936 value if it's a monopoly tech, going down a bit based on how many other civs that Toku knows have it.
Capturing Kyoto more or less wipes out Toku's power base - he's just left with techs, maybe a couple of units, and a crappy city - and it gives us his castle+walls+possibly barracks.

Then we'll get (say) 6 attacking wins + 20 from capturing cities, putting 880 into his cost for peace, whereas we'll lose (say) 7 units, giving him 420 in our cost for peace.
Alpha is definitely within range with the x3.

Dhoomstriker said:

Well, what do you know? If we gift the Deer + Cow City to Toku, he'll then gladly take Zlatorog (or even Chandi, but we're not giving him Chandi).

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I want Chandi..... I want Chandi... - Bow Wow Wow

I think we should take the route that gets us Kyoto the fastest, especially since either an all out attack or the deer/cow gift gambit both give us Alpha for peace.

The gifting gambit takes 6 to 8 turns to build up units/settler + 3 turns for DoP + 10 turns of Peace + 3 more turns to capture Kyoto = 22+ turns. That's a long time. If we can't build up a proper stack of axes/cats and capture Kyoto in less than 22 turns we're in trouble.

For planning purposes, I suggest LC put together a PPP that gets us our stack (10 axes + 6 cats?) on Osaka's front door plus an axe ready to handle Toku's stray archer. We will need more axes if Toku has more than one archer in Osaka.

Pre-Play Plan T61-T64 (changes in blue)

61 1560bc
Manually save the game
Both workers at Delhi-SE move to deer-2S and road.
GEL-2W worker moves to GEL-1NW and completes road.
Settle Marble City once all road segments are completed. Build granary. Steal copper mine from Delhi.
Nature’s Candhi grows to 2 pops and should be working the pigs and improved gems mine… JIT.
Gold-E Locks builds The Oracle from partial Granary now that the Marble has been connected
Warrior 1 (John) Moves toward Delhi
Warrior 2 (Jack) Moves toward NC, where he will be needed for happiness at pop4
Warrior 3 (near Zlatorog) Goes fishing
Research Hunting at 100%

62 1520bc
Zlatorog builds a Worker -> Granary
Manually save the game
One deer-2S worker chop/stop Marble-1NE
Second deer-2S worker chops GEL-NW
Zlatorog’s new Worker camps deer
GEL-NW worker moves to GEL-N and chops.
NC-S worker moves to Delhi-1NW
Warrior 1 (John) Moves toward Delhi
Warrior 2 (Jack) Moves toward NC, where he will be needed for happiness at pop4
Warrior 3 (near Zlatorog) Catches a minnow
Research Aesthetics at 0%

63 1480bc
Manually save the game
Marble-1NE chops/stop
Delhi-NW worker chops Delhi-2N
Zlatorog worker camps deer
Warrior 1 (John) Moves toward Delhi
Warrior 2 (Jack) Moves toward NC, where he will be needed for happiness at pop4
Warrior 3 (near Zlatorog) Disembowels the minnow

64 1440bc
Manually save the game
Bulb Math
GEL-1N Worker waits for Math to be Lightbulbed and then chops into Oracle
GEL-1NW Worker chops into Oracle

Discussion:
1. I've changed the northwestern workers a bit above. ZlatWkr camps deer and lives there for the duration. NCWkr goes straight to chop Delhi-1N then comes straight back later to chop the NC library and the derelict axe. The NC library expands the borders just in time for the axe chop to count as 30h and be available for our DoW on Toku.

2. This is a bit of a decision point for researching Aesthetics, though it would be only at 0% for a couple turns. Since we expect to get Alpha for free, the cost of Lit+Poly is equal to Alpha so doing the Mach+Eng double-bulb is fairly realistic, I think, though I still haven't run a test out yet. My current testing has us attacking Osaka about T81 with 6 cats and 7 axes, with an additional axe at Nature's Chandi. Nature's Chandi completes its library on T74 and will produce GS#2 on 575BC. GS#3 would have to come from Delhi, which should be able to start working 2 sci around T80.

3. I'm assuming we'll attack Asoka+Kyoto, then DoP for Alpha. Toku might not talk/DoP for about 8t, depending on our losses. Note that with 6 cats, we'll have a couple of options at Kyoto. If there are only 3 defenders, then we attack, I suppose. But our axes will be at a sever disadvantage (below a break point). If we weaken defenses by 12% (1t) that puts our axes above the breakpoint, sort of, depending on the first strikes. 24% (2t) gives our axes a decent advantage, despite the 1-2 first strikes. But that's down the road a bit now.

4. This PPP is based on my tests to 1000BC, btw. I don't think this part changes any of that.

I can play these 3t whenever you guys give me the go-ahead.

Plan looks good.

Are you able to finish the Delhi chop on T64. No, it comes on T65 since it's one worker starting on T63, right? May be a turn late for ideal food overflow, but I'd have to check in game for that, which I can't do. No worries. This gets Zlatorog going sooner.

It looks like you're relying on Toku's archer to spawn bust the SW, which should be fine.

6 cats + 7 axes sounds like a bare minimum force, especially if we have to use 2 per archer to take Osaka first... But that's later down the road.

Be nice to minnows!!

I'm fine with this plan for the next 4 turns. We need to know if we're going to get the Oracle before we plan too far out...

Looks fine to me too.



I havent had civ to load the last couple days. Can I get a screenshot?

LowtherCastle said:

1. Will we be able to get Alpha if we just capture Osaka and Kyoto? That seems best for our growth.

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Hmmm, so now you DO want to grow Zlatorog, after all! That fact is fine by me... even temporarily gifting only Cow + Deer is a reasonable thing to do...
I forget the exact numbers, but I think that it's something like +3 War Success for a win and -2 War Success for a loss... if those numbers are right or are close to right, then it's actually hard to get +10 War Success with Axemen versus Archers, since it's hard to get 4 wins with only 1 loss, particularly when an AI doesn't have a ton of units and when most of the units that you face will be Protective Archers on a Hills square that might be guarded by a Castle.

That said, I'm quite happy with building Warriors out of Zlatorog, avoiding Hunting, and planning on gifting Zlatorog.

The cost will be that we WILL need to settle Deer + Cow City (as Zlatorog will be too far away from Toku for him to accept the City as a gift if he has built his 4th City by then, which is a likely possibility).

But... more realistically, to get +10 War Success, you would have a scenario more like "5 wins and 3 losses" = 5 * 3 - 3 * 2 = 9 (close to 10)... and the cost of those 3 Axemen is roughly the cost of 1 Settler.

The differences though, are that:
- We'll have less of a standing army, which may mean we can't quite win a battle versus a City, such as Toku's capital, with ease (we might have to pillage Roads, move back, move in a Warrior lure or two, fight the Archers in the open where we're still losing some units but losing less units, while waiting for reinforcements)
+ We'll have +1 City
+ We can afford to be riskier with our attacks (losing more total units) with the goal of capturing Cities at the cost of losing units, since we will care a lot less about the War Success of our individual battles
+ 1 Settler costs slightly less Unit Cost Gold than do 3 Axemen

The 100 Hammers (or thereabouts) for building a Settler probably will delay our war slightly, but as I said, we can then afford to be a little bit more suicidal when attacking Toku's capital (as long as we can capture his City on the same turn or on the following turn with units that still have a lot of health remaining).

LowtherCastle said:

2. Would we want to DoP at that point, rather than continuing onward?

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Well, our primary goal should be capturing Toku's capital. If we capture that, then we can certainly take Peace if we can get Alphabet out of the Peace deal.

The only way that we'd want to take Peace without also capturing his capital is if our military sucked really hard and I would hope that whoever is up at the time would have stopped suiciding units after the first one or two if the first one or two didn't have the expected amount of damage, so that we could decide as a team how to proceed or halt in terms of the attack.

LowtherCastle said:

We have to prepare somewhat for a Hammy dogpile, so maybe that would be a good time to stop with Toku.

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I would think that our 1 Warrior staying at its current chokepoint location would fend off Hammy's army from ever being able to reach our lands. So, we should be able to completely ignore Hammy if he declares war on us.

LowtherCastle said:

3. How much does building a Deer/Cow settler slow down our attack on Kyoto?

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Roughly by the amount of time that it takes 3 Axemen, I guess.

LowtherCastle said:

Toku now has mining and his GNP graph has climbed steeply, so I estimate BW in 7-8t. I don't think we can attack Kyoto before he can poprush units, but we could take probably Osaka before that.

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Declaring war before we are ready to go after Toku's capital does not really make sense in terms of whipping, since Toku isn't likely to whip a bunch of Archers in Osaka until after we've declared war, and the plan is to capture Osaka on the first turn of war, giving him 0 turns to whip emergency units. So, the timing of when he learns Bronze Working really doesn't come into play for attacking Osaka.

Declaring war before we are ready to go on Toku's capital COULD work if we are willing to let Toku keep a City (probably Deer + Cow, since we will want Zlatorog's Gold Resource back soon), since then Toku might be tempted to send out units to try and defend his new City. I'm not sure how that aspect works during wartime, but during peacetime, if there is a path that an AI can use to reach a City, it WILL send out a City Defender or two to a gifted City... a fact that we could potentially leverage by gifting Toku the Deer + Cow City a couple of turns before we are ready to attack, so that we'll hopefully lure some of his capital's Archers out into the open. Of course, if we're impatient, said Archer or Archers could still be in a Forest or something, but if we give him a few turns, said Archer or Archers could be close enough to GEL that we might be able to force said Archer or Archers to walk on open Grassland terrain by declaring war and then walking on the Forested squares.


Now, I'm not saying that we necessarily need to go with the City-gifting approach, but if we don't do so, then we really should seriously consider improving Zlatorog as soon as is feasibly possible.

We could even do both--plan to gift Deer + Cow and not gift a built-up Zlatorog.

Building the Settler will slow down our attack, though.


I'm against any plan where the primary goal is to "get Alphabet" without capturing Toku's capital. "Getting his capital and going out to see the rest of the world" needs to remain our primary focus in our war with TOku.

Dhoomstriker said:

I'm against any plan where the primary goal is to "get Alphabet" without capturing Toku's capital. "Getting his capital and going out to see the rest of the world" needs to remain our primary focus in our war with TOku.

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The fastest way to go out and see the world is probably AsapDoPAlpha+2 spies.

Dhoomstriker said:

I would think that our 1 Warrior staying at its current chokepoint location would fend off Hammy's army from ever being able to reach our lands. So, we should be able to completely ignore Hammy if he declares war on us.

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Are you sure about that? I thought it only worked with barbs...

Mitchum said:

Are you sure about that? I thought it only worked with barbs...

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It does only work with barbs. AIs are clever enough to pathfind through our units.

Any more feedback on the PPP? ZPV? Dhoom? bbp? beestar?

LowtherCastle said:

Warrior 3 (near Zlatorog) Goes fishing

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Just to be clear, Warrior 3 will be fishing from the GRiv For that is NW + W of Zlatorog and 1E of the Lake, right?

LowtherCastle said:

62 1520bc
Second deer-2S worker chops GEL-NW
GEL-NW worker moves to GEL-N and chops.

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Maybe I'm being overly cautious, particularly if you have the "Forest Chops that are about to be finished will activate the Worker" setting enabled, but maybe you should make these actions Chop + Stop for this turn and the next turn, just in case The Oracle gets built in a foreign land.

LowtherCastle said:

62 1520bc
Zlatorog’s new Worker camps deer

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How quickly can we get two Forests Chopped after Camping the Deer? Do you think that we might be able to make it happen before growth to Size 2 in Zlatorog occurs?

LowtherCastle said:

This is a bit of a decision point for researching Aesthetics

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I'm fine with Hunting at 100% or less than 100% (since we will be Camping the Deer) and then Aesthetics at 0%.


The PPP sounds good.

LowtherCastle said:

The fastest way to go out and see the world is probably AsapDoPAlpha+2 spies.

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While true, assuming that we only enter Cultural Borders of AIs with whom we have plenty of Espionage Points (otherwise our Spies will auto-die) "going out and meeting the world" isn't my only reason for insisting on capturing Kyoto as part of our war.

We also have this hopeful plan of being able to Chop The Pyramids there, which we won't be able to do if we take a Peace Treaty withtout first capturing Kyoto.

Then there's the fact that it's a City where Toku could Chop a lot of "our" Forests if we leave him 10 turns of Peace and whip a ton more units with "our" population points.

ZPV said:

AIs are clever enough to pathfind through our units.

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We seemed to believe that AIs were not smart enough to pathfind through our units last game.

I suppose that if Hammurabi attacks us, that time would be a good time to stop play and test out the theory of using a Maginot Line against him.

LowtherCastle said:

Any more feedback on the PPP?

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Sorry, I cross-posted and didn't see your PPP right away.

Just: keep that minnow away from me! Fish and me don't get along well.

The discussion bit looks fine to me. With that decided on, there isn't too much wiggle room to talk about, so I'm happy with what you've got.

A Mach-Eng double-bulb is enticing.

WAIT. We don't know Fishing yet. Unless the warrior is going to kill the fish with rocks...

Mitchum said:

WAIT. We don't know Fishing yet. Unless the warrior is going to kill the fish with rocks...

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At high noon, the fish linger in the shade below his two immobile hands until he suddenly grabs them. He has small hands, hence minnows.

Okay, I'll play on folks. The Oracle or bust!

Dhoomstriker said:

Just to be clear, Warrior 3 will be fishing from the GRiv For that is NW + W of Zlatorog and 1E of the Lake, right?



Maybe I'm being overly cautious, particularly if you have the "Forest Chops that are about to be finished will activate the Worker" setting enabled, but maybe you should make these actions Chop + Stop for this turn and the next turn, just in case The Oracle gets built in a foreign land.



How quickly can we get two Forests Chopped after Camping the Deer? Do you think that we might be able to make it happen before growth to Size 2 in Zlatorog occurs?

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The ZLat warrior chokes while angling.

I'll verify all worker stops.

It's possible we could get a second chop in before Zlat pop2, but the second chop is outside our culture at that time. I'd rather farm, I think, but that's after T64 anyway. Another thing to think about is chopping/building a settler in Zlat after the worker, with growing to pop2 in between.

Turnset Report T61-T64

All went well to T64. The Oracle has NOT been completed elsewhere. We bulbed Math and chopped correctly. On T63 we met Hatsegawa, who has OBs with Tokugawa and both are at +6 Pleased (Toku and Hammy are +5 Friendly ).

We grew a forest at Delhi-2E! No religion spread.

I commited a boo boo after all that: I 1popped the granary in Delhi, by accident, when I was trying to assign the 2 sci to work tiles. Since I didn't even think of testing that, I have no idea how that will play out, but at least our food bin looks okay to take advantage of that. Sorry about that, guys.

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So now we need to go forward and build our army. I'll post my tentative plan for doing so tomorrow. Meanwhile, any testing and ideas would be appreciated.

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I have uploaded the save. Here is the updated test save, without us meeting Hatty, of course.

LowtherCastle said:

The Oracle has NOT been completed elsewhere.

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Great news! Now's the time to pick Currency! (Just kidding!) Or Fishing! (Maybe I'm not kidding, here. ) Construciton it shall be.

LowtherCastle said:

T63 we met Hatsegawa

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Well, I guess that we will soon start to get tired of Toku's picture. Cut the snake off at the head, I say, and take down the real Slim Shady Tokugawa and the rest shall fall thereafter.

LowtherCastle said:

We grew a forest at Delhi-2E!

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Despite our best efforts to Chop up a storm, it seems that Gaia wants our Forests to live!

LowtherCastle said:

I 1popped the granary in Delhi

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Ah well, as long as you've updated the test game appropriately, we can accommodate for it.

In fact, maybe the Worker that was Chopping to the north of Delhi should go an help Chop a Granary for Zlatorog instead... That's really what you had in mind, wasn't it?