SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

We don't need Theocracy to gain a single promotion on drafted units (drafted units gain only XP / 2 where XP is the non-drafted XP a unit is trained with); Vassalage and a Barracks would suffice for drafted units to get 2 XPs.

... and you'd need the ability to run Nationhood and Vassalage at the same time.
 
Sorry, your arguments to the contrary (City Raider not being an important promotion) are not convincing.

Neither has the complete absence of evidence to support CR being an important promotion been persuasive :) All you've done is talk about how to get promotions, not whether they'll be useful in relevant combat scenarios.
 
First, here is the screenshot of the suspected Wizard location in Monty's land. The great spy should be able to check it easily.

Spoiler :





Although it is probably two turnsets premature, I want us to take a look militarily at Asoka the East Witch now that our spies have revealed most of his lands :)

Here is Asoka's lands T134:

Spoiler :











Here are some other relevant screenshots:

Spoiler :










Diplomatically, it seems only Elizabeth is pleased with the East Witches with a meager +3 feelings towards both. Mostly due to everyone running hereditary rule I think.

Power-Wise, Asoka and his partner Ragnar are both the most powerful AI we currently have info on. Research by Tachywaxon indicates that Asoka is really Tokugawa's personality, and that Ragnar is really Cyrus. Declaring war on Asoka will also bring his partner Ragnar into conflict with us, who will probably bring his stack of doom to bear down on the barb city we just captured on his spoke. Losing it to his stack of doom will probably cause a fair amount of war weariness to us.

Focusing on Asoka, he has 8 cities. He is running hereditary rule, vassalage for 2xp units, slavery, and organized religion. He is vulnerable to a Galleon fleet depositing a large stack of units a tile away from his capital the first turn of the war by staging from 2N2E of Hyderabad.

His capital would be across the river upon a hill from such a force, so would be extremely hard to take. He also has a 13:hammers: hilltop city 3 tiles to the southwest from his capital to reinforce from which is hard to get to. If our spies showed the capital to be weak, then we could try such a fast attack. Otherwise, a slower assault on the two northern cities and capital from the sea works too.



Spy-Wise, Asoka looks to be self-sustaining with military resources, holding a domestic supply of horse, iron, and bronze. We could seriously hurt him with a lightning war by flipping him to caste system at the start of the war. Not being able to whip on emperor difficulty hurts the AI a lot. As long as our spies can find his stack of doom and keep track of it, I predict only moderate difficulty conquering him. He is seperated from his buddy Ragnar by a body of water, and Ragnar would have to put his 3 movement point galleys to good use to help him out. Hopefully we don't see a counterattack from the sea by berserkers when the time comes :lol:
 
turn report T125-T134

  • Shaka has 260 gold for trade and someone else has 200 gold but we don't have anything we want to trade for it probably
  • northern witches are teching engineering so we might be able to steal that too :)


Hmm, it seems from screenshots we could trade Paper to Shaka for 260 gold since they will have it in 2 turns anyway. (1 turn probably, AI seem to take leaps in reasearch time estimates eg. 10-8-6-4-2-done)

Unless there are diplo reasons for not doing it, I always say a gob of gold in the hand is worth two in the bush. 260 is a lot on normal speed.
 
Diplomatically, it seems only Elizabeth is pleased with the East Witches with a meager +3 feelings towards both. Mostly due to everyone running hereditary rule I think.

Power-Wise, Asoka and his partner Ragnar are both the most powerful AI we currently have info on. Research by Tachywaxon indicates that Asoka is really Tokugawa's personality, and that Ragnar is really Charlemagne. Declaring war on Asoka will also bring his partner Ragnar into conflict with us, who will probably bring his stack of doom to bear down on the barb city we just captured on his spoke. Losing it to his stack of doom will probably cause a fair amount of war weariness to us.

IIRC, WW is linked to loss of military units. If WW is not linked to loss of cities, then we will have the option of walking away without losing units when a stack big enough to capture the city actually arrives.

Focusing on Asoka, he has 8 cities. He is running hereditary rule, vassalage for 2xp units, slavery, and organized religion. He is vulnerable to a Galleon fleet depositing a large stack of units a tile away from his capital the first turn of the war by staging from 2N2E of Hyderabad.

His capital would be across the river upon a hill from such a force, so would be extremely hard to take.

There's no need for a one-turn naval landing if we're not going to take the city immediately after landing. A two-turn naval landing to land W or NW of Bombay makes more sense if we'll have to bomb down walls. If we're using a spy to take down the culture defence (with our high relative EP spending), then there's probably no rush for a one-turn landing either.

He also has a 13:hammers: hilltop city 3 tiles to the southwest from his capital to reinforce from which is hard to get to. If our spies showed the capital to be weak, then we could try such a fast attack. Otherwise, a slower assault on the two northern cities and capital from the sea works too.



Spy-Wise, Asoka looks to be self-sustaining with military resources, holding a domestic supply of horse, iron, and bronze. We could seriously hurt him with a lightning war by flipping him to caste system at the start of the war. Not being able to whip on emperor difficulty hurts the AI a lot. As long as our spies can find his stack of doom and keep track of it, I predict only moderate difficulty conquering him. He is seperated from his buddy Ragnar by a body of water, and Ragnar would have to put his 3 movement point galleys to good use to help him out. Hopefully we don't see a counterattack from the sea by berserkers when the time comes :lol:

Seems all good.
 
Neither has the complete absence of evidence to support CR being an important promotion been persuasive :) All you've done is talk about how to get promotions, not whether they'll be useful in relevant combat scenarios.

Heh, the stack composition and promotions don't really matter a great deal if you have huge amounts of Trebs. Obviously you want gunpowder units if your target is building castles and walls.

The main thing is smashing the enemy stack of doom, a devasting initial attack, and having properly promoted healing units on site to heal up damaged units. All three at once is even better. Spy revolts won't really be effective on normal speed, so our campaign will stall if we run into castles without gunpowder.

Galleons still feel like the key to a tidy war to me. Even if we conquer Asoka, we need a way to get down to Ragnar right away, and that means sea power for our broken wheel map. They can bridge the army south right away when they get there, defend our massive amounts of seafood tiles, and carry out lightning speed attacks on coastal cities.
 
Quote: Originally Posted by bcool
turn report T125-T134
Shaka has 260 gold for trade and someone else has 200 gold but we don't have anything we want to trade for it probably
northern witches are teching engineering so we might be able to steal that too


Hmm, it seems from screenshots we could trade Paper to Shaka for 260 gold since they will have it in 2 turns anyway. (1 turn probably, AI seem to take leaps in reasearch time estimates eg. 10-8-6-4-2-done)

Unless there are diplo reasons for not doing it, I always say a gob of gold in the hand is worth two in the bush. 260 is a lot on normal speed.

I would much rather trade music for the 260 gold since it isn't on the direct path to liberalism. 2 Turns for paper could mean 2 more turns for us to get farther on the tech path to radio before we have to divert to liberalism.

I want the gold I just don't want to accelerate the AI on a direct path to liberalism.

My comment was poorly phrased. We have a tech to get the 260 gold, we don't really have a tech to get the 200 gold. Other than paper and philosophy neither of which I'm interested in trading.

I would like to steal drama soon so we have another tech to trade for these lumps of gold when they pop up.
Maybe whip a spy in the newly captured barb city and send it down to spy on Ragnar?

good idea.
 
IIRC, WW is linked to loss of military units. If WW is not linked to loss of cities, then we will have the option of walking away without losing units when a stack big enough to capture the city actually arrives.


:lol: walking away from a city.
I usually do it when my army is all city raider with a forest nearby, just so I can attack them again with the huge bonus. Or so I can take it back and raze it.

Yes, now that you mention it, WW always did seem to strike when I lost a ton of units.
 
The main thing is smashing the enemy stack of doom, a devasting initial attack, and having properly promoted healing units on site to heal up damaged units. All three at once is even better. Spy revolts won't really be effective on normal speed, so our campaign will stall if we run into castles without gunpowder.

Galleons still feel like the key to a tidy war to me. Even if we conquer Asoka, we need a way to get down to Ragnar right away, and that means sea power for our broken wheel map. They can bridge the army south right away when they get there, defend our massive amounts of seafood tiles, and carry out lightning speed attacks on coastal cities.

Since there's a large pile of trebs and galleons to organize, as well as rax (probably needed for +2 :) to offset drafting :mad:) and theatres for the Globe, it does seem like gearing up for a fast war is going to take an amount of time comparable to our bulb-through to MM. So that is all fine. We do the bulbing while gearing up, probably get Gunpowder and definitely get Nationalism, and then draft out the bulk of the army instantly.
 
I would much rather trade music since it isn't on the direct path to liberalism. 2 Turns for paper could mean 2 more turns for us to get farther on the tech path to radio before we have to divert to liberalism.

I want the gold I just don't want to accelerate the AI on a direct path to liberalism.

My comment was poorly phrased. We have a tech to get the 260 gold, we don't really have a tech to get the 200 gold. Other than paper and philosophy neither of which I'm interested in trading.

I would like to steal drama soon so we have another tech to trade for these lumps of gold when they pop up.


I still think we should give up the paper to get the gold. They will have it in a turn (or two) anyway. At least see if they will give less than 260 gold for the trade. If they will give all 260 gold because they are getting a good deal, then don't do it.
 
I also think it makes sense to bulb out to electricity and then go into a war prep mode. By triggering a GA and drafting (timing a steal of gunpowder the turn after we put 2 bulbs into electricity :) )

I still think we should give up the paper to get the gold. They will have it in a turn (or two) anyway. At least see if they will give less than 260 gold for the trade. If they will give all 260 gold because they are getting a good deal, then don't do it.

I disagree. Giving them paper even 2 turns earlier means they could trade it 2 turns earlier. If an AI gets paper then they have a chance to target education, the more turns we can keep AI away from liberalism the better. We do not want to accelerate the spread of paper even 2 turns. 2 Turns could mean the difference to us. 2 turns is a lot at normal speed with the teching monster AI teams.

So what if we give music for 260 gold, then we get +4 diplo too, allowing us to beg from them...
Plus making less likely we will be a war target, giving us more possible diplo options perhaps like cancel trade requests perhaps?

Also very minor point --Once the AI start trading maps we lose the ability to continue to sell maps for 5 to 10 gold every other turn.
 
:lol: walking away from a city.
I usually do it when my army is all city raider with a forest nearby, just so I can attack them again with the huge bonus. Or so I can take it back and raze it.

Yes, now that you mention it, WW always did seem to strike when I lost a ton of units.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181512 suggests that losing any city does not affect WW. Losing units defending a city where you are culturally dominant does not affect WW. Fighting in your own sphere of cultural dominance does not affect WW. When not in your own sphere, attacking and losing is three times as bad as attacking and winning. Defending is twice as bad as attacking and winning, whether the defender wins or loses.

So we should not worry about Cimmerian and WW. A stack of longbows to put a speed bump in front of Ragnar's stack might be in order - if they're still alive, they'll reinforce the push into Ragnar's territory and defend captured cities.
 
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181512 suggests that losing any city does not affect WW. Losing units defending a city where you are culturally dominant does not affect WW. Fighting in your own sphere of cultural dominance does not affect WW. When not in your own sphere, attacking and losing is three times as bad as attacking and winning. Defending is twice as bad as attacking and winning, whether the defender wins or loses.

So we should not worry about Cimmerian and WW. A stack of longbows to put a speed bump in front of Ragnar's stack might be in order - if they're still alive, they'll reinforce the push into Ragnar's territory and defend captured cities.

Cool, didn't know that. Thanks :goodjob:
 
Note that our bulb path gets us access to airships. So a direct attack on Asoka's capital might be slower than a path that captures other city(s) first, because we won't have airship support for the former.

(Aside: since airships damage the defender, the benefit of hypothetical City Raider upgrades on macemen is reduced, because their value is proportional to the defender's health. Combat upgrades on muskets is unaffected.)

Also, our airships may prove necessary for efficiently finding the wizard if he is on one of those islands. They will also finish off our scouting, so perhaps we need not worry about scouting further with our vulnerable spies. Airships from Cimmerian will get most of the scouting of Ragnar done, and the rest can happen as we invade.
 
I also think it makes sense to bulb out to electricity and then go into a war prep mode. By triggering a GA and drafting (timing a steal of gunpowder the turn after we put 2 bulbs into electricity :) )



I disagree. Giving them paper even 2 turns earlier means they could trade it 2 turns earlier. If an AI gets paper then they have a chance to target education, the more turns we can keep AI away from liberalism the better. We do not want to accelerate the spread of paper even 2 turns. 2 Turns could mean the difference to us. 2 turns is a lot at normal speed with the teching monster AI teams.

So what if we give music for 260 gold, then we get +4 diplo too, allowing us to beg from them...
Plus making less likely we will be a war target, giving us more possible diplo options perhaps like cancel trade requests perhaps?

Also very minor point --Once the AI start trading maps we lose the ability to continue to sell maps for 5 to 10 gold every other turn.


Does not 260 gold speed us up more than it slows them down?

The war target is a good point. They seem to have a hair trigger for somebody.

It seems like the North Witches and East Witches won't be trading maps with anyone much for a while. The 260 gold for a Paper that would be researched soon anyway seems like a gift for us to exploit thanks to our spy vision.

I always reflexively trade techs for gold I can see the AI pursuing when they are almost finished in espionage games. I hardly ever gift Techs to alter AI teching behavior, so I'm just speaking from my experience. I'll drop the idea if you still feel strongly about holding onto Paper and trading Music instead ;)
 
I think I will give up on my Buddist/Hindu island theory since it does not seem all that important anymore. Monty is not on one, and it isn't that important if Ragnar is since he is close enough to reach with galleons in reasonable time. I was just worried the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wizard wear near each other on a spot we could not reach. I will secretly be looking later though when Ragnar's land is revealed. :shifty:

I have also given up on the mechanics behind "our close borders spark tensions" diplo modifiers. Some AI seems to really seem to hate close borders, others not so much. With teamed AI, I can't make heads or tails of it, especially since one AI seems to count their partner's contested tiles as soon as one of theirs becomes contested. There are no Civ Articles written on the subject.



I will instead focus on a test game focusing on United Nations mechanics with teamed AI more. The final vote for diplo victory seemed ok, but the initial vote for who got to "Chair" the UN and decide which resolution comes up seemed off. AI were voting for other AI instead of the player even though they liked the player more. I don't do diplo much, so any info on this would be appreciated.
 
Paper trade for gold seems OK to me so long as we are trading fairly. The AIs equate beakers with gold for this comparison, so since our effective multiplier will be significant, by trading we will make a profit on the difference between us getting Electricity and them getting Liberalism, regardless of their actual tech path. The only thing that might affect that is whether they will tech Education next/soon. Research flavours might give us a clue there, if we have worked out the personalities, but it's only going to be a turn's delay anyway...
 
Here is what I have so far. I am workin' my tail at the office and spent all my waking free time the last two night on this:

Washington
Spoiler :


Washington
T 134 Tao Monestary
T 135 Uni Work 2 Pmine, Gmine.(Don't work 2 lake, 1 Grass)
T 136 Uni Work 2 Pmine, grass (Don't work 2 lake, 1 Gmine)
T 137 Uni Work Pmine, Gmine, grass
T 138 Whip Uni,
T 139 Oxford, work 2 Pmines, 1 gmine
T 140 Anarchy, CS/Pacifism
T 141 Oxford, grow
T 142 Oxford, grow
T 143 Oxford, grow
T 144 Oxford, grow



Stone
Spoiler :

Stone City
T 134 Tao Monestary
T 135 Uni Work 2 coast, Gmine to Washington
T 136 Uni Work 1 coast, gmine
T 137 Whip Univ 31 hammer overflow into monestary
T 138 Monestary
T 139 Barracks
T 140 Anarchy
T 141 Barracks
T 142 Courthouse
T 143 Courthouse
T 144 Courthouse


Gems
Spoiler :

Gems
T 134 AP
T 135 Work fort, GE, Uni
T 136 Switch farmed plains to working Pmine, Whip 36 hammer overflow into AP
T 137 AP Work GE, Farmed plains
T 138 AP, Work Farmed plains, GE
T 139 Barracks
T 140 Anarchy
T 141 Barracks, work scientist, not coast tiles
T 142 Barracks, work scientist, not coast tiles
T 143 Courthouse, work scientist, not coast tiles
T 144 Courthouse, work scientist, not coast tiles


GPFarm
Spoiler :

GP Farm
T 134 Tao Monestary
T 135 Remove GS, work coast instead. Uni
T 136 Whip uni, remove both Pmines work 2 more coast
T 137 Work coast, no mines. Monestary
T 138 Monestary
T 139 Courthouse
T 140 Anarchy



Silver
Spoiler :

Silver
T 134 Build Barracks
T 135 Start Univ Work Pmine, not coast
T 136 Univ Work coast tile
T 137 Work silver, Pmine
T 138 Whip Univ
T 139 Missionary
T 140 Anarchy



Isengard
Spoiler :

Isengard
T 134 Maoi
T 135 Maoi
T 136 Maoi
T 137 add pop to coast.
T 139 Finish Maoi Start HE, add pop to coast
T 140 Anarchy



Cultural Bridge
Spoiler :

Cultural Bridge
T 134 Courthouse
T 135 Work both PH, Univ
T 136 Work both PH, Univ
T 137 Work both PH, Univ
T 138 Whip Univ Work Ocean tiles
T 139 Courthouse, work 2 Pmines
T 140 Anarchy



Marble City
Spoiler :

Marble City
T 134 Courthouse
T 135 CH, Work Gmine
T 136 CH, Work Gmine
T 137 CH, Work All grass
T 138 CH, Work Gmine
T 139 CH, Work Gmine,
T 140 Whip Courthouse, Anarchy



Phants
Spoiler :

Phants
T 135 LH
T 136 LH
T 137 Whip LH
T 138 Barracks
T 139 Barracks
T 140 Anarchy




Sheep City
Spoiler :

Sheep City
T 135 LH
T 136 LH
T 137 LH, work sugar
T 138 LH, Work sugar
T 139 LH, Sugar, unimp grass
T 140 Whip LH (if possible) Anarchy




Fur City
Spoiler :

Fur City
T 135 1st chop
T 136 2nd chop
T 137 Finish Granary, Start Monestary or courthouse.
T 138 Monestary or courthouse
T 139 Monestary or courthouse
T 140 Monestary or courthouse



Captured Barb city
Spoiler :

Captured Barb City Gaul
T 137 Granary
T 138 Granary
T 139 Granary
T 140 Anarchy


Worker Goals:
Add farm by Phants, mine iron.
Farm grassland by stone, Farm Plains north of oasis at stone to set up irrigation.
Farm by Marble city
Farm south of lake by Silver city
Chop forests by Fur City
Road to Barb City Gaul
Chop jungle north of gems, then farm
Workshops around Sheep city.

Spies in Asoka's lands?

Research
Edu => Liberalism 0%
Trade music to Shaka
Consider trading Paper

Great Spy
Search out Monte's lands.

Galley
Needs a plan

Workers

Stevenson
Farm by Phants, Mine iron, mine Ghill

Eiffel
Farm by Silver City and Phants

Hoover and Semiramis
Farm around marble, set up irritation farm 1W of Stone city. Workshop 1W of Washington's cows.

Worker 8
Chop jungle north of Gems, then farm it.

Goodtyear and Fritz
Workshops around Sheep City, Chop for Heroic Epic.

Karl
Chops around fur city

Ramamujan
Chops 1F, then roads to Gaul

Yamasake
Chops 1F, the goes to Gaul to chop/improve.


Exploration units
Continue exploration.

More to come tonight.

Espionage:
Steal Compass form west witches.
Steal from Liz/ Genghis possibly drama or other.

Diplo and stopping points will be stated tomorrow.
 
There is not a lot of action that comes after the CS/Pacifism switch.

I tried to target bcool's goal of T138-T139. T 140 worked best because I could get the Wash whip overflow and a turn of hammers into Oxford with the OR bonus.
GP farm has to sit on its Population and can't run Great Scientists until Washington pops it GE.

I chose to build barracks during CS since production will not be strong. I am trying to get courthouses up as well.

If the timing for the CS/Pacifism switch not right, please suggest a better time.

I envision Isengard building only trebs once we have Engineering. In the meantime, building a Taoist temple and monestary here for hammers are decent builds until trebs.

Here is my save at T140:
 

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