[BTS] SGOTM 13 - Gypsy Kings

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by bcool

I am really worried about Cathy. I don't know if espionage is any indicator for war target or not, but Cathy does have a significantly higher espionage against us than any other AI (256). I think we might want to get compass before the revolt (so delay revolts to T200) in the off chance we could bribe willem to war with Cathy with compass and drama if the worst happens and Cathy declares on us.

She did start appearing to target her EPs on us quite a long time ago. Perhaps we should look at whether she was WHEEOOHRN as well...

Originally Posted by bcool

If it doesn't come to pass we can possibly trade compass and drama for machinery from willem as mabraham suggests.

If she does we would have our pants down.

I also want a trireme sent her way to give us at least a bit of warning. So I would whip the trireme in GH obviously before the revolts

OK

Originally Posted by bcool

I think hastings is the HE city, and we should whip another worker instead of a barracks in BF to help with the large amount of chopping to be done in Vicky's lands.

Delaying the revolts might allow us to get a worker out of london too. modifying the whip plan I posted a while back replacing a worker with a barracks.

OK to both.

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by bcool

(regarding PC)... workboat I think after the courthouse, let SM whip a trireme

PC has a trireme on the queue already, I think I recall, from anticipating the need to defend from Vicky's now-defunct triremes.

[bcool]

PC has a trireme on the queue already, I think I recall, from anticipating the need to defend from Vicky's now-defunct triremes.

I know but I think it is okay to let these hammers rot, SM has a courthouse, PC doesn't. So let SM take the pop hit for the trireme and let PC whip its courthouse.

We can build the trireme in PC after I suppose especially if Cathy is coming. I think perhaps our best hope vs cathy is trireme or perhaps caravels before she can get to us.

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

RE: Monasteries....I thought we were to quit teching before Scientific Method? IMO, if we have to go past SM in this game we played poorly. If we don't obsolete Monasteries, then one in CC makes a lot of sense. CC currently produces almost 1/2 of our sustainable beakers 77/157, and that number will increase with the switch to Caste. At 0% science, CC will produce 100% of our science which will still be 57b/t base, so even here the monastery offers a decent payback time. For the same investment of hammers as a CH, we get a much better ROI. The benefit of a CH here is only 2.4(now) up to maybe 3 g/t + the 2EP.

Yeah, but as I said in my edit to the PPP, by the time either building gets built, we won't need the benefit. The courthouse benefit also increases as the empire increases in size.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

After we get Compass, if we can trade for Machinery we can bulb Optics and get some Caravels out. If we can't trade for Machinery, we can bulb it with the GS. and move onto Optics or wait.

What is our long term research path if we are working/bulbing our way to Astronomy now? Beeline Gunpowder then Liberalism, or straight to within 1 turn of Liberalism.

Off the top of my head, Compass, (hopefully trade for Machinery), Optics, (single-bulb Astro), (hopefully trade for Feudalism), Guilds, CS, Paper, (double-bulb Edu), Gunpowder, Engineering, (double-bulb Chemistry), Nationalism, finish Astro, Lib->Steel. There is some trick to the timing of Engineering, but I don't recall offhand what it is. Maybe CS-Paper-Edu have to come after the Chemistry bulbs.

As you can see, I want to use bulbs on heavy-duty techs, not small things like Eng and Optics, but there are some choices to be made in the timing department. It does depend what we might get in trades, and when.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

If you really don't see a benefit to a monastery, then I would lobby for either mp's for outer cities or navy, something that can be whipped in an emergency. I just don't see the need for a CH here.

We'll like the courthouse when our empire is three times the size it is now. Meanwhile we want to get our EPs up for an opening strike on Moscow. Except for maybe defence against Cathy, I don't think we need MPs, and one galley is neither here nor there. We can build another galley elsewhere, we can't build another +-producing building elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I am in the Trireme go scout SE camp.

OK, happy to go scout.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I would build Trireme > WB after the CH just to be a bit safer. The test game seems to show a bit of an increase in barb activity about T202-204.

OK... silver site doesn't need a second WB for a little while after the first, but I suspect a post-trireme WB will be rather late.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

MC....either way really, a few warriors, then the Theater is the safer route for sure. If we are not in a hurry for the Globe, then I would vote safer. If Cathy is targeting us from the west, we are not very well prepared on that side.

Yeah, I think we're in trouble if she's targeting us from our north-west. I'm happy to send out a trireme to see what's happening, but

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I was leaning towards the worker....but here is a great reason to send at least 1 unit onto the hill at Canterbury! From the hill we get to see how many workers we have the chance to capture. We may not need to build as many as we think. I would build either Trireme or Galley, or WB I guess. We need 3 more WB's total as of now. Try not to build anything not directly related to navy.

I can't imagine we'll capture enough workers to improve all of England in the ~30 turns that we'd like to have done so. Each workshop takes 9 turns and each chop 5 turns. Hastings has one farm to its name so far. I can think of about 16 workshops without trying very hard. I expect that most of our western workers will make it over to England, and that won't be enough either.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Are we thinking of settling the Ivory city S of York? If so, that should really happen ASAP. Maybe get a settler out of BF or ???

Yeah, I'm up for that.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

(regarding FC) Why not whip it this turn?... no reason to wait to whip since it is only a 1 pop whip. Get to the Theater build sooner.

I was thinking to preserve the population point for a turn for the 3, but the + is better.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

I like whipping the Trireme this turn, finishing the WB with the overflow and then finish the archer. Then probably pick up the navy builds for the rest of the game.

Seems fair.

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

Here is another option for building late settler(s) with all the excess food.

Whip missionary yes, granary yes, but probably want to work the mine some as bc was hinting at.

Again it would be great to know how many workers we can look to capture. If we are close to getting workers for free, then I would lean towards mabs plan. If no or few workers, then maybe whip a worker here.

You convinced yourself this was the best spot for HE....does Forbidden Palace still fit here? I don't think we have time.

I'm currently leaning towards HE in Hastings. Will look at a spreadsheet and see how it would play. If HE in Hastings, then FP in York for sure.

[bcool]

She did start appearing to target her EPs on us quite a long time ago. Perhaps we should look at whether she was WHEEOOHRN as well...

Cathy's espionage history...

we met her T124 and by T178 her (WHEEOOHRN turn I believe) she had 167 espionage on us. By T198 she had 256. So her average for the first 54 or so turns was ~3/turn. for the last 20 turns after the WHEEOOHRN she is averaging ~4.7/turn.

Not sure if it means much. I think she is using her slider for espionage and so espionage would go up for her as she expands. It isn't a super dramatic rise, and she has a lot of commerce from her GLH so maybe it is just a natural increase of using 10% espionage slider.

She knows 5 civilizations including us so if she split her espionage equally that would mean she was producing about 24 espionage per turn.
For a comparison if we went 10% espionage we would be producing 33 espionage per turn. So her espionage on us doesn't mean she is targeting us especially if she is doing 10% espionage slider.

[mabraham]

OK new test game. I fixed all the things that it was possible to fix. Thanks for the offer Ron, but I'd already done a pile of creative engineering and it would have taken you a while to gather the data to work out what I was doing

CC is stuck with +1 because I realised too late that we have an unavoidable +3 per turn from the GProphet, and you can't affect that with the WorldBuilder. I was already inside the envelope to be +1. Fortunately, this is unlikely to be relevant for the remaining useful lifetime of the test game.

Everything else is OK.

[bcool]

wow, I'm more convinced that the Ducks already won. I think aj was right just military no wonders. Even with this limited start, the AI couldn't get ahead fast enough. Instead of the wonders I bet they built galleys and workboats with the overflow of their settler and worker whips.

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by bcool

Cathy's espionage history...

we met her T124 and by T178 her (WHEEOOHRN turn I believe) she had 167 espionage on us. By T198 she had 256. So her average for the first 54 or so turns was ~3/turn. for the last 20 turns after the WHEEOOHRN she is averaging ~4.7/turn.

Not sure if it means much. I think she is using her slider for espionage and so espionage would go up for her as she expands. It isn't a super dramatic rise, and she has a lot of commerce from her GLH so maybe it is just a natural increase of using 10% espionage slider.

She knows 5 civilizations including us so if she split her espionage equally that would mean she was producing about 24 espionage per turn.
For a comparison if we went 10% espionage we would be producing 33 espionage per turn. So her espionage on us doesn't mean she is targeting us especially if she is doing 10% espionage slider.

OK, good. That data seems to suggest downright alarm is not called for.

She might also have been put off by our rapid rise in power in the last 20 turns.

[mabraham]

bc looked back at old saves and we were cautious at visible +2 and +3 modifiers, pleased at the current +4. So that means the hidden modifier is -1, because the net has to be +3 for pleased. We need net +10 for friendly, so we have to acquire seven more plusmods to get monopoly trades out of WvO.

I dug in the code. All leaders get +1 for switching to their state religion, and a further +1 for them having the holy city. WvO founded Taoism. After a further 10 turns, WvO will get another +1, but that is his limit. So we can get 2-3 from religion.

We've known WvO for 74 turns and have traded him fish for quite a bit of that. 50 turns of trades of a single resource gets our existing plusmod, up to a maximum of two. So gifting him (say) iron and/or stone will get a second plusmod sooner or later - and sooner if we gift both. Edit: we acquired that plusmod during Ron's set, so between T178 and T189. So we have 59-70 points in the bag, and need another 30-41. So 14 turns of +3 will do it for sure.

So we need to gift him a tech and still have trade fodder for Machinery soon. bc gave away Drama in a test game and got +4, so we are hopeful that if we trade Drama to Cathy now for HBR, gift WvO Drama now to see the size of the plusmod, we'll get four of our needed seven. Merely switching to Taoism gets another two.

To get the last one, we either switch to Taoism ASAP to get the 10-turn timer started, or gift iron+stone ASAP, or both.

However judging by flavours, WvO (5 gold 2 science) will likely tech compass (1 gold 7 science) next (Civil Service is 2 gold 2 science, Feudalism has no gold or science). That is a big spanner for our plans of trading Compass+HBR for Machinery. Instead, maybe we should give up on Compass and tech Feudalism instead.

So we think we should immediately

• trade Drama to Cathy for HBR,
• gift Drama to WvO (check that we got a suitable size of plusmod), then
• gift iron and stone
• switch to Taoism (which helps delay the decision below)
• either switch to teching Feudalism or stay teching Compass and hope for the best

then do a couple of turns in slavery to finish whipping, then two-turn revolt into Paci+Caste. Later, once we've revolted, the timers have elapsed and we have our new tech, we hope to trade Machinery for HBR+(Feudalism or Compass). If we're trading Feudalism away, maybe we'd get Compass from WvO as well - I haven't looked at the sizes.

Could we tech Civil Service in the relevant time (10 turns less three for revolts)? Yes, but we don't want to unlock bulbs of Paper before we put one on Astro.

[mabraham]

On my spreadsheet, with three workers in support after doing two chops for York and one chop for Nottingham or London, I can get Hastings to size 8 with HE by T236, including the effect of three turns of artist for the border pop, time to improve pasture, quarry and plantation, and time to chop all five forests, and assuming marble. It will have 14 base hammers at the time. It's still growing about every four turns and can grow onto the necessary mines and workshops as they finish, while still being useful as it continues to grow to about size 12. Seems reasonable to me. I'm in for Hastings HE.

London will need at least another worker, but we plan to build one there, and hope to capture some more.

[mabraham]

About 10 hours from now I plan to post an updated PPP, and play about 24 hours after that, unless there's substantial new discussion.

[bcool]

I think it makes sense to grow CC to 12 pop and run 8 scientists with starvation after the revolts. We max growth now before revolts and maybe 1 turn after the revolts to get an extra scientist for 12-15 turns as CC slowly starves down to 11 pop. We don't run 3 specialists now maxing food for 3 turns but get a scientist under pacifism for 12-15 turns. At 12 pop we will be unhealthy but with the border pop in Nottingham we will pick up sheep and become healthy. So we lose 3 food maybe 1 turn and then 2 food until we used up the granary ~30 food.
I think there is a slight advantage to this plan.

It does delay the build in CC a little bit (or exchanges an any extra hammers we might be tempted to put from a mine in the time before the revolts for an extra scientist later).

[bcool]

Catherine Owns the GLH! First met after end T124
Fav Civic: Hereditary Rule (Conflicts with our favourite government - Representation)
80% NoWarProb at Pleased. So there's still a small chance.
iDemandRebukedSneakProb = 80. So if she demands stuff and we really don't want war, consider handing it over.
iTechTradeKnownPercent = 20. Pretty low. Need at least 2 AI to know a tech before she'll consider sharing it.
Tech Threshold = None. No matter how much she hates you, she'll still consider tech trading. Provided you aren't her actual worst enemy that is.
Bribe war Threshold = Friendly or better, provided target is *anything*!
Must be Pleased or better to diplomatically convert her religion, Cautious or better for civics.

If I understand this correctly, Cathy will be willing to trade feudalism to Willem if we tech it. Cathy still doesn't know joao so she thinks there are 5 other civilizations in the world. So if we learn it then 20% of the known AI have feudalism and she would be willing to trade it.

[Ronnie1]

Originally Posted by bcool

I think it makes sense to grow CC to 12 pop and run 8 scientists with starvation after the revolts. We max growth now before revolts and maybe 1 turn after the revolts to get an extra scientist for 12-15 turns as CC slowly starves down to 11 pop. We don't run 3 specialists now maxing food for 3 turns but get a scientist under pacifism for 12-15 turns. At 12 pop we will be unhealthy but with the border pop in Nottingham we will pick up sheep and become healthy. So we lose 3 food maybe 1 turn and then 2 food until we used up the granary ~30 food.
I think there is a slight advantage to this plan.

It does delay the build in CC a little bit (or exchanges an any extra hammers we might be tempted to put from a mine in the time before the revolts for an extra scientist later).

This sounds like a great idea. If we have to grow after our revolts???...would we consider delaying our revolt? We might sneak in another whip somewhere if we have an extra turn or 2.

[mabraham]

Ok I have an updated PPP, I'll play through it to see if I need changes, then post.

[mabraham]

There's three turns of anarchy planned, and not a great deal to be done with the war under control and little whipping to do, so I think this is reasonable as a 13-turn set.

Hastings will be the Heroic Epic city, and various parts of the plan have changed to suit that. I've rejigged my worker plan to improve it - with better tile improvements I can get HE T232 at size 7. Hmm, Hastings can be attacked and maybe taken T201 with two cats, a sword and three axes with 4% culture still, but AFTER the revolutions start, so that we don't increase their length (tested in game). The earlier capture does lead to earlier emergence from city-revolt because that timer decays during the empire revolts! Edit: Also, take some more of the injured swords from the York stack, especially swords that can use another XP for a promo. Leave two axes for cover defence.

Once I have taken Hastings, plan to move on Canterbury per #1780.

I've incorporated suggestions for more triremes, and over-growing CC. The plan I used in my play through for the theatres was OK, but the rate-limiting theatre in GH is a bit slow (T224). We have to build five theatres from (FH, SM, PC, MC, BF, FC and GH). FC is too slow, even with its chop. My play-though built a trireme in PC which I think is surplus to requirements, and theatres in FH, SM, MC, BF and GH. I have changed the plan build a theatre in PC instead of GH, which will speed up the last theatre and presumably speed up the finish time of the 450 Globe Theatre in London. There's still T201 whipped-triremes from GH and SM, La Couronne healing up and Paralus north of England, so I think we're decently covered without starting a new trireme in PC.

Various parts of the plan have been subordinated to the desire to get WvO friendly to get some useful techs out of him in the near future. To do this, I am implementing the plan discussed in #1769.

So we immediately

• trade Drama to Cathy for HBR,
• gift Drama to WvO (check that we got a suitable size of plusmod), then
• gift iron and stone to WvO
• switch to Taoism

Tech Path
100% on Feudalism, Edit but do not finish until we know WvO is at Friendly, lest Cathy get access to trade Feudalism to WvO before we do. Run 0% on Feudalism or Civil Service when I have to. End edit. Then expect to do HBR+Feudalism for machinery. However, if WvO (unexpectedly) does not start Compass, then go back and finish Compass and use it for trading to WvO - this would probably require that I put a turn of tech on Machinery, with a size judged by the gold he wanted to seal the deal last turn. Then continue binary research on Optics.

Civic changes
Anarchy is still one turn. Switch to Taoism T198 (spread in CC already, want to get diplo benefits with WvO earlier) then Paci+Caste T201 (keep slavery as long as possible in case of needing to whip trireme in GH)

Religion Changes
As above, Taoism T198. Anything to be done with other AIs before they start to hate us for our religion?

Tech Trading
We could g Get Ragnar's 70 for Monotheism. By the end of the set, we hope to organize a HBR+(Feudalism or Compass) deal for Machinery with WvO once WvO likes us a bit more.

Other Trade Opportunities and Diplomacy

• Maintain current trades
• Gift away iron and stone to WvO as above
• We traded away our marble to Ragnar for wheat for the , but we hope to change that during my set if something looks possible.
• Reject "Stop Trade" demands, particularly with Cathy, Ragnar and WvO who make up our 14 overseas trade routes.
• If we have an excess resource, unload it if we can get some cash
• If we have an expired deal for (easiest to check on the F4-"Active" screen by mousing over deals) and they have more income, cancel and try to get more. AIs will normally trade all their excess income for a resource up to about 10 (or more)
• Check if there are other deals that can be canceled/reevaluated.
• Reject Accept research demands of low cost (<300 ) techs from others - we want their cash, not their liking, but for the next ~30 turns we don't want extra wars, either. Consult the AI attributes and judge on the size of the tech, erring on the side of avoiding wars.
• Reject other research demands (but will check with the team if at all possible before doing so)
• I'm thinking we accept a demand to go to war with Izzy (but probably AI won't ask since we are at war?) Will reject other war demands

Espionage
Adjust allocation to maintain a view of WvO research, but put any excess towards Cathy.

Great People
One in the middle of the set and another at the end of the set. First one is about 85% scientist, 9% merchant, 6% artist, 0.1% engineer. Next one will be mostly scientist. Save them all, for bulbing Astro and war-time Golden Age as appropriate.

Workboats
We need three for the silver site and one for Hastings, and probably one for Vicky's eastern iron site. We have two en route and two in the build plan below. We also need one for GH, which is already nearly finished building in GH. Silverlode will want its WB on T201 when it plants, and the first WB goes there. Hastings will want its WB by T207, and the second WB is well-timed to go there.

City Builds
This should match the attached PDF

• CC... Grow to 11 happy next turn, and plan to grow to 12 when we'll be healthy at that size, running six scientists as we grow to 12, then eight scientists with starvation after the growth (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next.
• FH... Whip courthouse T200 before revolt, continue with workboat for Silver Lode working fish, Gmine, then Pmine and then coasts, unless switching to coast gets growth one turn earlier. (Basically, a workboat for elsewhere will get the growths there even faster...) then theatre
• SM... keeps fish, switch to a trireme (New Jersey) to 2-pop whip next turn, then theatre
• PC... whip courthouse T200, then workboat for Silver Lode, use Pmine at size 4, then theatre, then Edit probably abandon End edit trireme (do not run any artists)
• MC... put a turn on a warrior, continue courthouse, then warrior, then theatre
• BF... switch to worker to whip, then workboat for Canterbury, then theatre while growing, then more workers. Do not bother with artists to pop border (turn off the damn spy!)
• FC... growth here is slow, so don't bother to whip the courthouse, then build warrior MP, then galley (too slow for theatre)
• GH... whip trireme to look for Cathy (Salaminia II), then finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, grow to size 9 (where we are -neutral running five merchants and gold mine) building galley/warrior/caravel as appropriate
• SR... whip missionary next turn, then grow and finish the granary (preferably with the food box just below half full - I found a few ways to acquire the granary with the food box just under half full on T217. Work rice until size 3, add Gmine, and switch away from rice after one more turn to the Gworkshop to finish the granary. This makes sense, because 2>3 before the granary is built.)
• London... has just been poisoned. We start a worker this turn, whip next turn and start a granary, and whip the granary the turn after that, revolt, and let the worker and granary build off the queue afterwards. T203 work two artists while finishing the worker. Then finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and (maybe) barracks to prepare for GT.
• Nottingham... courthouse with artists after Caste to pop border ASAP, then max food, then maybe settler for ivory? - but it won't happen in my turn set Edit unless a worker from SR arrives to chop. See how things go
• York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food, then Forbidden Palace
• Hastings... Capture T201 AFTER REVOLUTIONS, run three turns of an artist to pop the border, plant workboat and run max food building granary (completed by two chops before the food box is half full), then barracks.
• Silver Lode... plant T201 AFTER REVOLUTIONS on the southern silver (allows for working the iron and PForest tiles later - or do we want to get the fish in the city square to work earlier?) build lighthouse, then granary

There's only a vague plan for a settler for the ivory site...

Workers

• Strauss workshop N of SR
• Eiffel workshop N of SR for a turn, then to jungle, then one turn on horse pasture, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• Stevenson chop forest, workshop south of FC (maximises chance of forest growth)
• Yeltsin pasture horse for three turns, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• BF worker (near SM, named MacAdam) workshop north of SM, then NW of SM, but interrupt to load onto Beta and go to BF to chop and workshop there. then join Fleming heading for England
• T201 new worker from BF (named Fleming) boards Ferry to be dumped in SM that turn, to build workshop NE of SM before being taken to PC or BF as suitable to head for England, galley-chaining as suitable
• Hoover unload on marble, road there T199-201, move to hill W of Hastings T202 (the turn after the capture) and road there T202-205. Border pops on T206 and Hoover does cow pasture T206-211, then road T212-214, then helps with marble quarry to sync to growth to size 3.
• Nottingham worker (in Nottingham, named Goethals) moves along roads toward London, then to the forest 2SW of London to road T199-201. We capture T201 and when safe, we road the tile NE of Hastings T202-4 to connect it to the road network. Then move to forest N of Hastings T205, chop it T206-T210, put one turn on a workshop NE of London T211 and wake up, then move to marble and quarry T212 onwards to sync with growth to size 3
• Post-revolt worker from London (named Barlow) moves to forest 2SE of London to chop, then to forest 2N of London to chop, then to hill forest NNW of London to chop
• Captured worker (SW of York, named Brunel) moves to forest S of York to chop into lighthouse. Then chop forest 2SW of York after running artists to pop the border. Then chop and plantation the spice tile for Hastings.

War Plans

• I think there's no rush to pillage the eastern iron - there's no route to Hastings, and since Vicky settled only T192, and at best has built an iron mine, she's probably going to get about one iron unit, if she beelines it. She does have a C2 sword somewhere (unless Ron killed it London) and I expect to find that in Canterbury.
• I think we want to keep Canterbury - the grassland-iron-and-fish tile combo is pretty nice despite the maintenance until we build the FP, and it will be OK to put out granary (12 turns of iron+central) and courthouse (19 turns of iron+central) and get up to drafting size in a relevant time.
• Fetch Great General from GH when the missionary arrives, and take him to Hastings to settle. Details of galley movement TBD, no hurry.
• Catapult to hill near Hastings under the axe (promote axe to Combat1), bomb down Hastings. Attack with cat+axe if she leaves only one unit in Hastings.
• Take uninjured sword and twoone axes in/near York, Edit and other slightly injured swords End edit to wine en route to Hastings.
• London catapult waits for a turn, then 2SW onto forest, then S onto stack arriving from York.
• Upgrade one cat CR1 and attack Hastings after revolution T201. Will have second cat from London available as needed, and four uninjured swords and axes, including CR1+CR2 sword. Should be fine over at most 2 turns, even if she builds another archer.
• Other two swords, cat, axe and archer heal up one tile north of York. This allows the stack to cover either city as needed, and still move on Canterbury (1N of eastern iron) soon.

Triremes

• La Couronne heads into PC to heal up - what promotion, if any? Then bust fog for workboat parade Edit bc thinks medic promo. Consider the number of turns he's the primary fog-buster and whether he gives value for running for PC before scouting, or not, or what
• Paralus heads up to bust fog near the silver site, then back to the PC-Nottingham space
• Salaminia II built in GH T201 goes through the NW passage to look for Cathy's navy.
• New Jersey built in SM T201 heads to PC, and either it or La Couronne goes scouting south of England according to health and timing.
• Other triremes RIP

Galleys

• Argo RIP
• Kon-Tiki off-loads settler in Nottingham and continues to the silver site crab tile. and comes back east to help with galley chains. Settler walks along roads to the tile 1N of corn. Then to iron and tundra and finally to the silver city tile if safe AFTER REVOLUTIONS. It could stay on the boat at plant at the same time, but we would not have vision of the tile 1N of the iron at the time we offloaded. K-T then continues through the new city with Paralus to provide vision near Hastings, and later a landing force for Hittite. In extremis, the settler can run to board K-T. Paralus is around for fog-busting
• Nautilus busts fog for the workboats coming through, Edit helps with galley chains End edit, then heads to east of England once triremes are back on duty - prepares for war with Cathy
• Beta lurks near the horses and prepares to take Eiffel and Yeltsin via galley chain to jungle south of SM, then to tile 1S of MC to get the second missionary (who does produce before the revolts), take him to GH, get the GGeneral and take him to HE site. The timing seems to work.
• New Galley moves to clam SW of CC to set up galley chain for Eiffel and Yeltsin
• Ferry heads east to move Fleming from BF to SM, and then workers to BF once the border pop is due.

Stopping/Pausing Conditions
A barbarian spawns in an awkward position that I can't immediately deal with
AI declares war on us
War with Vicky goes badly
Timing of something goes badly awry
Giving drama to JoaoWvO doesn't get 3+ diplo

Checklist every turn before hitting end turn
double check MM and whip timing for each city
check tech trades available
check if and what AI have researched from F4 screen
check for new/better resource trades
check espionage screen for large sabotage production values in all visible AI cities
check if any AI went into war prep mode
check for any barbarians
turn off spy specialists
save the game

While scouting
will put a note that notes the most recent location of barbarians
will put a note that notes the most recent location of all AI units

[mabraham]

Unless there's a significant issue that comes up, I plan to play the real game in 20 hours.

[bcool]

comments in blue, MM looks good, except for build changes I mentioned below

Originally Posted by mabraham

There's three turns of anarchy planned, and not a great deal to be done with the war under control and little whipping to do, so I think this is reasonable as a 13-turn set.

Hastings will be the Heroic Epic city, and various parts of the plan have changed to suit that. I've rejigged my worker plan to improve it - with better tile improvements I can get HE T232 at size 7. Hmm, Hastings can be attacked and maybe taken T201 with two cats, a sword and three axes with 4% culture still, but AFTER the revolutions start, so that we don't increase their length (tested in game). The earlier capture does lead to earlier emergence from city-revolt because that timer decays during the empire revolts!

Why not take 2 (or 3) swords (the healthy sword, the 5/6 strength crI with promo available &the significantly wounded sword 7/8 xp crII which could easily finish off a unit weakened by a catapult and get his 3rd promo too) to Hastings with 1 axe and leave axes in York in case the CII swordsman shows up?

I've incorporated suggestions for more triremes, and over-growing CC. The plan I used in my play through for the theatres was OK, but the rate-limiting theatre in GH is a bit slow (T224). We have to build five theatres from (FH, SM, PC, MC, BF, FC and GH). FC is too slow, even with its chop. My play-though built a trireme in PC which I think is surplus to requirements, and theatres in FH, SM, MC, BF and GH. I have changed the plan build a theatre in PC instead of GH, which will speed up the last theatre and presumably speed up the finish time of the 450 Globe Theatre in London. There's still T201 whipped-triremes from GH and SM, La Couronne healing up and Paralus north of England, so I think we're decently covered without starting a new trireme in PC.

Various parts of the plan have been subordinated to the desire to get WvO friendly to get some useful techs out of him in the near future. To do this, I am implementing the plan discussed in #1769.

So we immediately

• trade Drama to Cathy for HBR,
• gift Drama to WvO (check that we got a suitable size of plusmod), then
• gift iron and stone to WvO
• switch to Taoism

Tech Path
100% on Feudalism, then plan to do HBR+Feudalism for machinery. However, if WvO (unexpectedly) does not start Compass, then go back and finish Compass and use it for trading to WvO - this would probably require that I put a turn of tech on Machinery, with a size judged by the gold he wanted to seal the deal last turn. Then continue binary research on Optics.
I'm concerned that once we research feudalism Cathy will be willing to trade it to Willem. I tried to test this with a test game (giving Cathy her techs and Willem his and making sure they knew the same AI) and Cathy didn't trade it to Willem, but not sure how accurate that behavior is. The 20% AI tech limit Cathy has I"m not sure it is 20% of known civilizations including hers or not including hers. I assume it is known civilizations other then her, so when we do research feudalism then she might trade it to Willem. A possible solution is to research feudalism, but wait to finish it until we are friendly with Willem.

Civic changes
Anarchy is still one turn. Switch to Taoism T198 (spread in CC already, want to get diplo benefits with WvO earlier) then Paci+Caste T201 (keep slavery as long as possible in case of needing to whip trireme in GH)

Religion Changes
As above, Taoism T198. Anything to be done with other AIs before they start to hate us for our religion?

Tech Trading
We could get Ragnar's 70 for Monotheism. By the end of the set, we hope to organize a HBR+(Feudalism or Compass) deal for Machinery with WvO once WvO likes us a bit more.
Sure I would trade for his 70 gold, he has been hovering around that amount 60 one turn, 50 the next, and now 70 so it might be a good time to grab the gold. It might piss off Izzy but who cares?

Other Trade Opportunities and Diplomacy

• Maintain current trades
• Gift away iron and stone to WvO as above
• We traded away our marble to Ragnar for wheat for the , but we hope to change that during my set if something looks possible.
• Reject "Stop Trade" demands, particularly with Cathy, Ragnar and WvO who make up our 14 overseas trade routes.
• If we have an excess resource, unload it if we can get some cash
• If we have an expired deal for (easiest to check on the F4-"Active" screen by mousing over deals) and they have more income, cancel and try to get more. AIs will normally trade all their excess income for a resource up to about 10 (or more)
• Check if there are other deals that can be canceled/reevaluated.
• Reject research demands of low cost (<300 ) techs from others - we want their cash, not their liking.
• Reject other research demands (but will check with the team if at all possible before doing so)
• I'm thinking we accept a demand to go to war with Izzy (but probably AI won't ask since we are at war?) Will reject other war demands

Reject research demands of low cost? I think avoiding the added risk of a war with an AI is worth accepting a demand of a small tech. We don't need to make friends but we don't need to make enemies either during this time of peace and relatively weak military strength. Without slavery a war in the next 30 turns would be costly.

Espionage
Adjust allocation to maintain a view of WvO research, but put any excess towards Cathy.

Great People
One in the middle of the set and another at the end of the set. First one is about 85% scientist, 9% merchant, 6% artist, 0.1% engineer. Next one will be mostly scientist. Save them all, for bulbing Astro and war-time Golden Age as appropriate.

Workboats
We need three for the silver site and one for Hastings, and probably one for Vicky's eastern iron site. We have two en route and two in the build plan below. We also need one for GH, which is already nearly finished building in GH. Silverlode will want its WB on T201 when it plants, and the first WB goes there. Hastings will want its WB by T207, and the second WB is well-timed to go there.

City Builds
This should match the attached PDF

• CC... Grow to 12 happy next turn and run six scientists on T204 as we grow to 12, then eight scientists with starvation after the revolutions (plus two from GLib). Build Courthouse next
  This is an improvement on my suggestion. I assume we can get close to growing to 12 pop before the revolt and slowly grow to 12. It also allows us to get more healthy resources online before we grow to 12.
  
• FH... Whip courthouse T200 before revolt, continue with workboat for Silver Lode working fish, Gmine, then Pmine and then coasts, unless switching to coast gets growth one turn earlier. (Basically, a workboat for elsewhere will get the growths there even faster...) then theatre
• SM... keeps fish, switch to a trireme to 2-pop whip next turn, then theatre
• PC... whip courthouse T200, then workboat for Silver Lode, use Pmine at size 4, then theatre, then finish trireme (do not run any artists)
  I would imagine the trireme would be losing hammers by the time the theater finishes. I think we can forget about the trireme here. A caravel would probably be unlocked by the time the theater finishes, or even a wonder for failure gold, or just wealth itself.
• MC... put a turn on a warrior, continue courthouse, then warrior, then theatre
• BF... switch to worker to whip, then workboat for Canterbury, then theatre while growing, then more workers. Do not bother with artists to pop border (turn off the damn spy!)
• FC... growth here is slow, so don't bother to whip the courthouse, then build trireme (too slow for theatre)
  Why a slow built trireme? Why not a warrior MP? Then a slow galley that might convert to a galleon that we could whip for the war?
• GH... whip trireme to look for Cathy, then finish WB (run one artist to accelerate border pop to sync with WB), finish archer, grow to size 9 (where we are -neutral running five merchants and gold mine) building trireme
  I think galley or warrior instead of trireme. Or possibly a caravel depending on timing.
• SR... whip missionary next turn, then grow and finish the granary (preferably with the food box just below half full - I found a few ways to acquire the granary with the food box just under half full on T217. Work rice until size 3, add Gmine, and switch away from rice after one more turn to the Gworkshop to finish the granary. This makes
  sense, because 2>3 before the granary is built.)
• London... has just been poisoned. We start a worker this turn, whip next turn and start a granary, and whip the granary the turn after that, revolt, and let the worker and granary build off the queue afterwards. T203 work two artists while finishing the worker. Then finish the courthouse and we can continue with theatre and (maybe)
  barracks to prepare for GT.
• Nottingham... courthouse with artists after Caste to pop border ASAP, then max food, then maybe settler for ivory? - but it won't happen in my turn set
  Are we chopping here for either the courthouse or settler? I assume no since Hastings will need them. But maybe a worker from SR island?
• York... chop lighthouse, artists for border pop ASAP, then courthouse while max food, then Forbidden Palace
• Hastings... Capture T201 AFTER REVOLUTIONS, run three turns of an artist to pop the border, plant workboat and run max food building granary (completed by two chops before the food box is half full), then barracks.
• Silver Lode... plant T201 AFTER REVOLUTIONS on the southern silver (allows for working the iron and PForest tiles later - or do we want to get the fish in the city square to work earlier?) build lighthouse, then granary
  Ah I see you have the reminder to plant after the revolt, good.

There's only a vague plan for a settler for the ivory site...

Workers

• Strauss workshop N of SR
• Eiffel workshop N of SR for a turn, then to jungle, then one turn on horse pasture, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• Stevenson chop forest, workshop south of FC (maximises chance of forest growth)
• Yeltsin pasture horse for three turns, then onto Beta and NG galley chain, then offload on jungle south of BF to chop and workshop
• BF worker (near SM, named MacAdam) workshop north of SM, then NW of SM, but interrupt to load onto Beta and go to BF to chop and workshop there.
• T201 new worker from BF (named Fleming) boards Ferry to be dumped in SM that turn, to build workshop NE of SM before being taken to PC or BF as suitable
  Wouldn't this worker be more useful over in Vicky's lands?
• Hoover unload on marble, road there T199-201, move to hill W of Hastings T202 (the turn after the capture) and road there T202-205. Border pops on T206 and Hoover does cow pasture T206-211, then road T212-214, then helps with marble quarry to sync to growth to size 3.
• Nottingham worker (in Nottingham, named Goethals) moves along roads toward London, then to the forest 2SW of London to road T199-201. We capture T201 and when safe, we road the tile NE of Hastings T202-4 to connect it to the road network. Then move to forest N of Hastings T205, chop it T206-T210, put one turn on a workshop NE of London T211 and wake up, then move to marble and quarry T212 onwards to sync with growth to size 3
• Post-revolt worker from London (named Barlow) moves to forest 2SE of London to chop, then to forest 2N of London to chop, then to hill forest NNW of London to chop
• Captured worker (SW of York, named Brunel) moves to forest S of York to chop into lighthouse. Then chop forest 2SW of York after running artists to pop the border. Then chop and plantation the spice tile for Hastings.

War Plans

• I think there's no rush to pillage the eastern iron - there's no route to Hastings, and since Vicky settled only T192, and at best has built an iron mine, she's probably going to get about one iron unit, if she beelines it. She does have a C2 sword somewhere (unless Ron killed it London) and I expect to find that in Canterbury.
• I think we want to keep Canterbury - the grassland-iron-and-fish tile combo is pretty nice despite the maintenance until we build the FP, and it will be OK to put out granary (12 turns of iron+central) and courthouse (19 turns of iron+central) and get up to drafting size in a relevant time.
• Fetch Great General from GH when the missionary arrives, and take him to Hastings to settle. Details of galley movement TBD, no hurry.
• Catapult to hill near Hastings under the axe (promote axe to Combat1), bomb down Hastings. Attack with cat+axe if she leaves only one unit in Hastings.
• Take uninjured sword and two axes in/near York to wine en route to Hastings.
  Don't we have an almost healthy sword that has a possible crII promo? Isn't this better than an axe who might be needed for defense against the CII swordsman Vicky still has?
• London catapult waits for a turn, then 2SW onto forest, then S onto stack arriving from York.
• Upgrade one cat CR1 and attack Hastings after revolution T201. Will have second cat from London available as needed, and four uninjured swords and axes, including CR1+CR2 sword. Should be fine over at most 2 turns, even if she builds another archer.
• Other two swords, cat, axe and archer heal up one tile north of York. This allows the stack to cover either city as needed, and still move on Canterbury (1N of eastern iron) soon.

Triremes

• La Couronne heads into PC to heal up - what promotion, if any? Then bust fog for workboat parade
  I think medic promo. Then maybe scout for joao, his trade routes would be valuable... New Jeresy and Paralus have the waters covered I think
• Paralus heads up to bust fog near the silver site
  Paralus can probably patrol down between Nottingham and PC after clearing the way up north until Silver is settled.
• Salaminia II built in GH T201 goes through the NW passage to look for Cathy's navy.
• New Jersey built in FH T201 heads to PC, and either it or La Couronne goes scouting south of England according to health and timing.
• Other triremes RIP

Galleys

• Argo RIP
• Kon-Tiki off-loads settler in Nottingham and continues to the silver site crab tile. Settler walks along roads to the tile 1N of corn. Then to iron and tundra and finally to the silver city tile if safe AFTER REVOLUTIONS. It could stay on the boat at plant at the same time, but we would not have vision of the tile 1N of the iron at the time we offloaded. K-T then continues through the new city with Paralus to provide vision near Hastings, and later a landing force for Hittite. In extremis, the settler can run to board K-T.
  Maybe K-T can come back and help ferry over a worker or 2 to vicky's lands instead of this settler safety valve purpose. I think we could send an axe up from York to fog bust/protect the settler. especially if we send the almost healthy sword to Hastings instead
  
• Nautilus busts fog for the workboats coming through, then heads to east of England once triremes are back on duty - prepares for war with Cathy
  could help with galley chaining workers /GG to vicky's lands.
  
• Beta lurks near the horses and prepares to take Eiffel and Yeltsin via galley chain to jungle south of SM, then to tile 1S of MC to get the second missionary (who does produce before the revolts), take him to GH, get the GGeneral and take him to HE site. The timing seems to work.
• New Galley moves to clam SW of CC to set up galley chain for Eiffel and Yeltsin
• Ferry heads east to move Fleming from BF to SM, and then workers to BF once the border pop is due.

Stopping/Pausing Conditions
A barbarian spawns in an awkward position that I can't immediately deal with
AI declares war on us
War with Vicky goes badly
Timing of something goes badly awry
Giving drama to Joao doesn't get 3+ diplo
I assume you mean Willem

Checklist every turn before hitting end turn
double check MM and whip timing for each city
check tech trades available
check if and what AI have researched from F4 screen
check for new/better resource trades
check espionage screen for large sabotage production values in all visible AI cities
check if any AI went into war prep mode
check for any barbarians
turn off spy specialists
save the game

While scouting
will put a note that notes the most recent location of barbarians
will put a note that notes the most recent location of all AI units

[mabraham]

I agree with bc's suggestions. The timing for wanting a galley and trireme over on the western edge of Vicky's empire is more like T220, so we can get better value by adapting to bring galleys back west.

Fleming and MacAdam getting on boats for Vicky's empire does indeed sound like good value. In my test play-through to T214 those two, plus Strauss and Yeltsin were nearly done in PC+BF, but we didn't want to be using those tiles yet. So we can do like we're doing near SR and FC - leave 1-2 worker(s) to finish the jobs, while we take the bulk of the workforce to where there's lots of stuff to be getting done to use right now. I can see just about all workers will end up in England, but we want the bulk there soon.

I finally see his point about unlocking Cathy's trade of Feudalism. I will temporise at 0% before finishing Feudalism so that we are Friendly with WvO before we finish Feudalism, so that we get first shot at trading to him.

[mabraham]

Assuming I take Hastings around T201, I will leave some anti-barb cover thereabouts (i.e. an axeman) and swing back to Canterbury.

I checked the game code, and a city will auto-raze if its highest ever population was 1. So if we want to keep the city, we can't capture it until it has been at size 2 - and preferably the turn it grows, so that she can't whip it. Assuming Vicky's been working the iron tile, she'll take about 17 turns from founding (T192) to grow. So if I swing a defensible collection of units over to Canterbury by about T205, I'll be able to keep an eye on things with a view to attacking around T209 with some of the units from the Hastings assault. She didn't have Stonehenge, so only if Christianity spread rapidly will she have culture defense to concern us, and we have at least one catapult. Even a hypothetical pair of longbows can and should be dispatched by the kind of force we can deliver.

Then disperse some of the army to provide temporary MPs and barb protection, and pool some units in Canterbury with a view to a possible naval strike on Hittite.

Canterbury builds a granary working the iron.