SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

A nonstop golden age does make Isengarde into a beast. And muskets are much safer than macemen for longevity. I suppose Electricity and Liberalism followed by Economics is pretty good with extra trade routes too. Might even get Taj built by the end of the 2nd GA to keep it going too.

If we do go ahead with that path, is reverting to Theocracy on the current T163 a decent idea? Pacifism seems so wimpy I want to work some of GPfarm's hammer tiles in 3 turns too, unless we really need more Great People for something.

If we delay drafting to T173, it would take them until about T180 to be felt in Asoka's cities. Complete conquest of Asoka would take some time in that scenario being at war so long. Ragnar has already defeated our roadblock city.


A lightning war could be waged by Curaissers promoted with march and blimps in theory.

I am getting lost in you guys' details. My feel for the situation is that war with Asoka needs to be our biggest priority and will be our most limiting priority with regard to getting votes.

shulec said:

I am getting lost in you guys' details. My feel for the situation is that war with Asoka needs to be our biggest priority and will be our most limiting priority with regard to getting votes.

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Screenshot dump is coming up soon

shulec said:

Deleted. Post was about CRII Amph Maces--nonsense!

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shulec said:

Duh! I think I took that from an STW post, but now that you say it, I am sure he must have meant Combat II amphibious. Scrap that.

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Sorry about that. I thought tried to make it clear that I wasn't sure CR2 units could get Amphibious. That's why I stated it as Amphibious CR2/CR3 Macemen which I intended as either Amphibious CR2 (which all now know isn't possible) or CR3 Macemen in case we can't have have an Amphibious.

City Raider III is +30% and +10% versus Gunpowder units, so its not so bad of a "replacement" for Amphibian which would have negated a +50% for the defense. With just City Raider III we get +40% versus Gunpowder and we don't really that its only +30% versus Archery units.

So a Macemen with City Raider I + City Raider II + City Raider III attacking from a Galleon versus a Rifleman ignoring the Rifleman's promotions for the moment. The Rifleman starts +25% fortify +25% hill defense +50% amphibious attack minus +20% CRI + 25% CR2 +30% CR3 +10% versus Gunpower units = +100% - +85% for a net gain of +15% for the Wizard of Oz. Add the wizard's promotions of CG1 + CG2 + CG3 + Drill1 we get +15% + CG1 +20% + CG2 +25% + CG3 +30% +10% Melee = 100%.

The Airships bring the Rifleman's strength down from 14.0 - 20% = 11.2. Not quite as tough. Drill 1 provides a first strike chance, so maybe it get a free hit in 50% (I'm not sur that is what "chance" means, but its probably close enough. That is no so good for a unit that isn't immune to first strikes like a Maceman. A Knight would be better in regard to first strikes, since it is immune to first strikes.

A Knight with Combat 1 + Combat 2 + Amphibious may be a better unit to attack the wizard with. A Knight (strength 10) with Combat I + Combat II has an effective strength of 12 which is greater than a Rifleman after the Airships are done with it 11.2. However, it can subtract just the +50% Amphibious, leaving the Rifleman with +50% defensive bonus, excluding promotions and CG1 +20% + CG2 +25% + CG3 +30%, making a +125% bonus for the Rifleman, but with the Knight's vastly strength of 12, this is much better than the case of the Maceman facing a +100% defensive bonus, but only at strength 8.

So for lower technology units, I suggest that the Maceman be taken out of consideration. We should concentrate on Knights.

If the Knight reaches 13 XP, it can get a fourth bonus which should be Pinch which reduces the defensive bonus it faces from +125% - +25% Pinch = 100%.

So we should consider Knights with Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious and Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious + Pinch.

Knights also have the advantage of starting out with +2 XP from Stable and can move across roaded land at 6 plots per turn as fast as unit unit we are ever likely to have. This will allow the earlier built Knights to earn up to 13 XP for a total of Combat I + Combat II + Amphibious + Pinch.

Sun Tzu Wu

shulec said:

Tests for Combat II Amph Knights after 8 airship air strikes.

The number of units required to kill the Wiz:

4
2
6
8
4
7
8
2
2
6
3
1
4
3
2
6
6
7


9 Combat II amphibious Knights should be enough. With a stable and settled GG, these knights will not require a specific civ to be produced in Isengard.

... on to the next option.

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I have just provided an analysis of why Knights are the best unit to use that we can start building as soon as we acquire Guilds (in a few turns presumably).

Great work on the game testing shulec!

Sun Tzu Wu

Kaitzilla said:

Honestly, if you guys want a major war against the East Witches right now, we should consider teching Nationalism right now. It should take 3 turns I think. Nationalism is about the most powerful war tech there is, netting 240 per turn if abused.

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Yes, it's highly efficient. We can't afford to abuse it much (i.e. 15-20 units will be comfortable), because our population is so vital and we have so few barracks. We might be forced to draft only maces if we don't organize gunpowder... we have only 1.5 spies at the moment and our EP supply is not infinite - stealing Gunpowder will require the stars to align even if we get to trade for Guilds. Waiting for Nationalism after Eco might let us steal Nat instead, and now we might afford to tech up to more efficient horse units.

Each extra turn of golden age adds something like 70-80 hammers too, so some of the earlier drafts get offset by earlier other stuff from raw GAge hammers. The higher commerce output goes into paying for Economics, which then slowly pays itself off from the extra trade route. We build the Taj either way, so that's mostly a washout.

Kaitzilla said:

If we steal or trade for Guilds in that time(for better workshops), and juggle Stone City a bit so that it has a nearly complete spy, then we can overflow into Taj Majal and work every hammer tile with some starvation. We can probably get Taj half built by the time the golden age ends. This non-GP GA would free us up to go Nationalism and Theocracy in 3 turns since we don't need any great people after GPP completes its scientist. We can save him for bulbing Chemistry.

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Economics plus the 1200 GPerson from GPfarm we get fast is a very efficient use of food to get some useful things. A golden age returns something like 80*12=960 base hammers, and about that much commerce, and allows for possibility for the increased to get a replacement 1400 for Chemistry highly efficiently from our GPfarm food if we want to go that way. The Free Market trade routes will pay about 2*12=36 commerce per turn for the rest of the game, increasing as we get more cities. If the game's going to go 30+ more turns, arranging to spend T170-T194 in golden ages sounds fabulous compared with just T175-T187.

The question really is can earlier drafting get an earlier kill on Asoka without delaying the other objectives?

Kaitzilla said:

After 3 turns of teching Nationalism, and maybe 3-5 turns to finish Electricity->Liberalism->Radio(slower without Bureaucracy and annoying gold shortages), we can start gifting techs to north and west witches to speed them up so we have something to steal from them. Perhaps we can also crank espionage to 100% and get city vision on the East Witches with the 25% bonus for a turn.

I am worried about when Ragnar combines that stack of doom and starts marching north 3 tiles at a time. Our worker near Cimmeria looks like he is trapped dead.

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Speaking as the person who has lost every military unit we've lost, and all of them to Ragnar and barbs, I'm seriously not worried about Ragnar He moved 3 siege units one tile north of Cimm and then turned around and went back. That sounds like quite a confused AI. Once he takes Cimmerian his war target gets chosen again. He might well have chosen that English city near him on the hub. Liz could well show up with a harassment force even if he does go for us. Isengard doesn't have many critical tiles to get pillaged on the SW side. Fur City is totally optional if it comes to that, which it shouldn't. Or he could come to take Madurai. Our airships will be able to snipe off the sharp end of the knights of whoever from the East gets to build them. Once we get a canal fort we'll have the option of raiding Cimmerian if that looks right.

The worker in Cimmerian could have died there, but I thought this way we could get some vision by moving 2NW before he dies

mabraham said:

We can deny one iron on a desert in 3 turns with a spy, and time that for our attack on Madurai which will remove culture from the other iron. That syncs with our first airship and third treb arriving. We probably don't have enough units to take Madurai on that turn, so we might consider a suicide 0XP chariot pillage too.

We'd need follow-up spies to keep the desert iron pillaged, but that's not too big a deal. Or we go squat on that desert with a pair of crossbows and a pike.

We should bring a worker to Madurai soonish for the canal fort.

Successfully denying iron suggests that we run a horse-heavy army, so nationalism isn't very useful and bureaucracy is. Thus slavery looks right, and we use the fact we're still in Bur to get MilTrad after Nat at some point. Nah that's crap. Set up two stacks, one with trebs muskets and galleons along a coast, and another with mass knights. Run caste and Nat.

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Excellent idea. Iron is critical to the East Witches war effort and no one likely to trade them Iron, except Dorthy.

You mean Nationhood rather than Nationalism isn't so good compared to Bureaucracy.

Nationalism -> Military Tradition after Mass Media seem like the right technology path to get Cuirassiers. We could upgrade a few of the Knights to help destroy the wizard.

Spies can put cities into disorder with enough espionage. This allows mounted units to be more effective, since they don't need to wait for slow Trebuchets or other non-mobile siege weapons

Sun Tzu Wu

bcool said:

Okay, seeing as the war is likely the choke point there doesn't seem to be much rush for Mass Media.

So I suggest
Electricity (2 turns)
Liberalism (1 turn)
trade/steal guilds and banking
Economics (3-4 turns)
Trigger GA with GS due in GPFarm and free merchant
Nationalism (3-4 turns) do a dip into Nationhood for 5 turns
steal or trade for gunpowder (hopefully)
Start Taj Mahal (during a GA the Taj Mahal could be finished probably close to the end of the 2nd GA)
Mass Media (5-9 turns depending on civics)

Military Tradition if it makes sense
Bulb Chemistry if it make sense with 1400 gp great person from GPFarm (or make it a Great Merchant for trade mission)
Use slider for gold or espionage to help with war
possible 1600 gp great person from Gems for a trade mission perhaps (although it could be a great prophet or something else depending on how much pollution we allow --and depeding on our civics.

Goal kill wizard in 30 turns. Get diplo win vote in 30 turns, wipe out Asoka in 30 turns. Stay in GA for the remainder (most likely)

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I'm not convinced we need all these extra technologies and turns to win the game much later than 23 turns from now which would be optimal. Do we really need all the Good Witch of the East's cities to have enough population. I'm up for War, but I'd rather win first place. Alternatively, we can put more effort into growing our own cities to increase our weight in the UN.

Sun Tzu Wu

Screenshots for T163!


Our Empire




Front Lines



Advanced Diplo

World Population T163 - 838

Our Population - 120 (14.29%)
South Witches (World Population Leader) - 218 (26.00%)
North Witches - 164 (19.57%)
West Witches - 137 (16.35%)
Ours + North + West = 421 (50.24%)

Trades, Demographics, etc.




Elizabeth, Icy Wasteland, Ghenghis, Ghandi







Guilds will obsolete chariots, our cheapest city MP soon.
Economics will obsolete castles, which might be an issue in Fur City or Isengarde when Ragnar's stack heads north.


Taking Madurai will probably give us another Great General soon thanks to Mabraham's epic last stand in Cimmeria.
If we also settled him in Isengarde, and we ran Theo+Vassalage later when not in Nationalism, we could have Knights with 4 promos.
Combat II March spearheaded by a Combat III Shock would make short work of most units. Upgraded to Curaissers, and they would conquer anything with blimp support.

bcool said:

If anyone has time to test out these various scenarios with mabraham's test game that would be appreciated. We have tested the grenadiers but not the others. mabraham has volunteered to do this on his tomorrow ~12 hours? thanks. Although he wouldn't mind some help here.

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When is the start time? Twelve hours from the post timestamp or latest edit timestamp?

The more data we can get the better the results will be.

For fortify bonuses, I would just do a straight forward press end turn 5 times and Save the start of the test with all Barbarians with 25% fortify bonus (they can't move unless they have Galleon or at least a Galley).

Sun Tzu Wu

mabraham said:

Speaking as the person who has lost every military unit we've lost, and all of them to Ragnar and barbs, I'm seriously not worried about Ragnar He moved 3 siege units one tile north of Cimm and then turned around and went back. That sounds like quite a confused AI. Once he takes Cimmerian his war target gets chosen again. He might well have chosen that English city near him on the hub. Liz could well show up with a harassment force even if he does go for us. Isengard doesn't have many critical tiles to get pillaged on the SW side. Fur City is totally optional if it comes to that, which it shouldn't. Or he could come to take Madurai. Our airships will be able to snipe off the sharp end of the knights of whoever from the East gets to build them. Once we get a canal fort we'll have the option of raiding Cimmerian if that looks right.

The worker in Cimmerian could have died there, but I thought this way we could get some vision by moving 2NW before he dies

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Heh, AI turn units around like that when they are pooling a huge stack of doom together. The Cyrus personality is pretty warlike.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

I'm not convinced we need all these extra technologies and turns to win the game much later than 23 turns from now which would be optimal. Do we really need all the Good Witch of the East's cities to have enough population. I'm up for War, but I'd rather win first place. Alternatively, we can put more effort into growing our own cities to increase our weight in the UN.

Sun Tzu Wu

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Here's some numbers. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11055702&postcount=3034. Peaceful growth is not going to be enough.

Rough Goals for Turnset

Convert North Witches to Taoism so they will be Friendly
Send some missionaries to Ghandi

Liberalism Radio
Probably tech Economics for 2nd golden age
Gift techs to speed up North and West Witches

Conquer a few of Asoka's cities
Maintain Sea power over Asoka
Crush any Ragnar stack of doom that comes North

Trade more resources to west witches for +2 bonus
Choose to assign Boston from Lizzy to Lincoln, then vote no.

Settle a city on the southside of the Icy Wasteland as mentioned by Bcool. Guard with horse archer+axe. Pray Ragnar doesn't kill it.
Possibly begin building high xp Knights near end of turnset to smash Ragnar units and go kill Wizard later.

Oh!

Another idea, build several chariots and gift them to Elizabeth in her nearest city. She will transform them into knights for us and that would help stop any stack from Ragnar. Not sure if we can finish chariots in too many cities before we want to steal guilds, but it is an interesting idea, no?

I suggest stealing guilds next turn in Boston (Boston will come out of revolt,so we will get the open borders discount to the espionage mission. Assuming that Boston doesn't immediately go back to revolt.) Or just waiting to trade for it.

Kaitzilla said:

Rough Goals for Turnset

Convert North Witches to Taoism so they will be Friendly
Send some missionaries to Ghandi

Liberalism Radio
Probably tech Economics for 2nd golden age
Gift techs to speed up North and West Witches

Conquer a few of Asoka's cities
Maintain Sea power over Asoka
Crush any Ragnar stack of doom that comes North

Trade more resources to west witches for +2 bonus
Choose to assign Boston from Lizzy to Lincoln, then vote no.

Settle a city on the southside of the Icy Wasteland as mentioned by Bcool. Guard with horse archer+axe. Pray Ragnar doesn't kill it.
Possibly begin building high xp Knights near end of turnset to smash Ragnar units and go kill Wizard later.

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Seems sound.

We should look at the personalities of west and north and see what is exploitable. Different AIs have different capacities to like you for religion, or resource trading, or shared war. There's no point drowning an AI in resources who already likes you as much as they can.

Killing the wizard deadlines.

Let's assume that we need to win in 29 turns since the last uploaded save of the most likely team to have already won is T191.

It will take galleons 7 turns to travel from the proposed western coastal city and the wizard (however... if we are spread taoism to the city and run vassalage, the boats bought here could start with 4 xp, and pick up flanking and navigation I cutting travel time down to 5 turns)

If we assume the 7 turns of travel time we need to have the last unit arrive in 22 turns or T184. (gives 1 extra turn of battle if we need it)

It takes 4 turns for a mounted unit to travel from Isengard to the proposed western coastal city. Or it takes 7 turns for a non mounted unit to get there.

The last mounted unit must leave from Isengard before T181 (non-mounted must leave T178).

We want a minimum of 6 high xp mounted units and 3 backup units. So the first high xp monunted unit need to be built T175 at the latest. (we can also build mounted units elsewhere and get them up to 8 xp before T172? so they have time to travel to the city as well).

(these dates can be pushed back 2 turns if we run Universal Suffrage, theocracy, and vassalage in a window of T178-T185 while we buy the boats in the western Coastal city. This window can be quite narrow if we want to buy the boats without first investing a hammer into it)

Diplomatic deadlines

When to have a net +8 modifier for each northern and western witch (I assuming). It could be that we need an average of +8 for the team, but I would rather err on assuming we need +8 or more with both. This is after hidden modifiers. So we need to figure those out still.

Also we need to have better relations with the north and west witches compared to their relations with the south (our assumed opponents)

If we are going to win in 29 turns....

Shared religion bonuses increases every 10 turns?
So if we need +1 from shared religion then we only need to flip them very late like in 24-28 turns from now.
If we need +2 we need to flip them and keep them in the shared religion for 10 turns, so we need to flip them in 18 turns? or 19 turns?
If we need +3 we need to flip them and keep them in the shared religion for 20 turns, so we to flip them in 8 or 9 turns.

The only personalities that have less than 3 shared religion bonuses are
willem (1 max the rest are 2)
suleiman
stalin
sitting bull
montezuma
mao
lincoln

Sharing war bonuses increase every 8 turns.
So by T166 we should have +2 shared war
by T173 we should have +3
by T180 we should have +4

many AI have caps of +2 for shared war (and most have 3 a few have more than 3)
personalities with cap of 2 for shared war
Asoka
Catherine
Charlemagne
Elizabeth
Gandhi
Isabella
Joao
Louis

I believe shared resource bonus is capped at 2 and will decay if we stop providing any resources.

Open borders is also capped at 2

I've been using the attached spreadsheet to help get this info. I wasn't sure if everyone knew this existed.

Many AI have a limit of 5 to get a shared tech bonus. So if we give them 5 or more tech we get a bonus. Some have 10 a few have 15 or more.

We will soon share Genghis's favorite civic
That is worth +1 and increases by 1 every 10 turns. We should have up to +3 with Genghis for having theocracy as our civic for at least 20 turns by the end. (assuming that his true personality limit is 3 or more for shared favorite civic). I have a feeling that Genghis really is Isabella (I don't know what I did wrong with the earlier calculation that fake Genghis was the true Elizabeth--the lack of map trading at pleased threw me).

I like going for another great scientists in GPFarm after the T165 scientist for a couple reason.

1) We can use it to bulb Chemistry. Chemistry itself is useful for these reasons

• +1 hammers for workshops
• unlocks frigates and privateers, frigates can help protect our galleons and bombard coastal cities. Privateers can blockade northern cities and starve them down and get us a few gold in the process.
• It is another tech that we can give the AI for shared tech bonuses near the end if we need it.

2) I also like bulbing Chemistry because it unlocks biology. I like Biology because

• Biology could really accelerate our population growth
• we can gift it to the south to help make sure they are bigger than the others
• a larger population and faster growth means we can recover faster from whips and drafting, so that means we can whip and draft more aggressively perhaps.
• near the end we can gift biology to everyone if we need shared tech bonuses.

Earlier Switch to theocracy?
Kaitzilla suggested switching to theocracy a bit earlier.
So I took at what switching and running a continuous golden age might mean for our great people situation.

I think it makes sense to switch to theocracy on T166. That gives us time to use up the food in GPFarm's food bin and run 17 scientists on the last turn of pacifism. We lose 1 pop and then go back to running 9 scientists at a net food loss of zero. This gets us another Great Scientist from GPFarm on T176. We could switch out of caste on T175 or earlier if we don't mind delaying the great scientist a little bit.

This great scientist can bulb chemistry for us. We would still have ~15 turns of war left. So it is conceivable we could whip a frigate or privateer out and/or upgrade a caravel that could help us. Plus the bonus hammers from workshops isn't bad. And we could conceivably get Biology for the last 10 turns before the vote.