[BTS] SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

[bcool]

I'll write one up tomorrow in about 24 hours. My initial post was just to make sure everyone was on the same page with cease fire, DoW to take a ragnar city, and the 12 knight wizard killing plan which by the way has to happen on T188.
I assume it makes sense to hit him with 12 amphibious knights on T188 rather than 9 on T187 with 3 healthy ones following up on T188. The split attack would allow the wizard to promote and heal while the 12 amphibious knight attack is 99+% chance of killing him but it has the 0.001% risk of losing the game entirely.

Especially because several of the knights will be Combat III amphibious.

[bcool]

Originally Posted by frogdude

Top to bottom in whatever order they were in the Foreign Advisor screens. This should be still the same order if someone wants to go find.
This is largely academic though, we aren't going to try begging again are we?

Yes it is largely academic at this point, but I wanted to get a sense of what the begging options might be for the south witches.

By STW's post it seems the safe beg from mansa is 180 gold. The safe beg from shaka is not covered by the post since we had 2 failures. I'm uncertain how beg failures affect the results. And I don't think it is important enough to look up myself as I have to do some real life work tonight.

There also appears to be a power scaling factor to begging. I assume they compare our power to their combined power, but of course that might be wrong. This might explain our failure with several begs.

[frogdude]

Originally Posted by bcool

Yes it is largely academic at this point, but I wanted to get a sense of what the begging options might be for the south witches.

By STW's post it seems the safe beg from mansa is 180 gold. The safe beg from shaka is not covered by the post since we had 2 failures. I'm uncertain how beg failures affect the results. And I don't think it is important enough to look up myself as I have to do some real life work tonight.

There also appears to be a power scaling factor to begging. I assume they compare our power to their combined power, but of course that might be wrong. This might explain our failure with several begs.

If we're going down the cease-fire route, money should not really be an issue at all. We can turn off the culture slider as War weariness has dissappeared.
There are 12 knights already on the road, so we don't need to buy any full price knights in Wizard City or anything like that.
There is a Spy in Wizard City that was already purchased but got delayed when we realised that the east wizard's stray caravels were making our life riskier and the decision was reached to get a 4th "slow" Galleon going for a T188 assault.

So all you really need money for are about 4 granaries (the one SE of Madurai is bought already), and maybe a spy or two if you want more insurance.

We should double-check West&North relations with East to make sure that the cease-fire + re-DOW plan won't pick us up extra 'You picked on our friend'

[shulec]

It looks like you guys have everything covered.

I like the cease fire for 1-2 turns.

I like the idea of taking peace with the east Witch on turn 188 to get Cimmeran. But, we should only do it if we need the votes. If for some unforseen reason we lose the first vote, we may have a hard time on the next vote too if we don't have the mutual war diplo bonus.

I think a beg from Shaka has 0% chance of success. Again, academic.

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by mabraham

I'm happy with bc's option 3 (short cease fire, then some more war, then peace with Cimmerian) but I think the value of the war is only in keeping the team amused :-)

War through turn 188 will maximize "Mutual Military Struggle" bonus at it highest level until the beginning of turn 188 when the DV vote takes place.

I'd prefer that we are at war with the Eastern Witches with the Western Witches and Northern Witches (no longer an option) right through to sometime in t188 for maximum "Mutual Military Struggle" bonus. I'm OK with 2-3 turns of Cease Fire starting t182 (now).

I understand that you think we have everything we need to win t189, but I'd prefer to have a greater margin of error in all three major requirements for our victory:

1) More Population for us and our allies, as long as the Southern Witches remain our Diplomatic Victory opponents. Thus, they have more Population than any other AI Team by a significant margin that can't be realistically nullified.

2) We need +8 Diplomacy, including hidden modifiers, with each AI Team member to vote for our DV resolution. There are only four hidden modifiers and as I recall they can be only +2 (hidden attitude only) , +1, 0 or -1 in value, so our worst case hidden modifier total is -4. Thus, an AI Team with both members at +12 visible Diplomacy will vote for us with absolute certainty. We need all AI leaders' personality identified to analyze the hidden modifiers in detail. Knowledge of the Diplomacy value of when the AI leaders transitioned from Pleased to Friendly might help determine the hidden modifier.

3) Sufficient Knights Combat II-Combat III Amphibious attacking Emerald City until the Wizard of Oz is destroyed. Twelve of these units should be adequate for a near 100% successful mission. If we have sufficient units to also capture Emerald City, we should do so for the extra 1 Population and may not have a choice, if the wizard is the last unit standing.

Both goals #1 and #2 are further advanced through war. I don't agree with "value of the war is only in keeping the team amused :-)". In my opinion, it increases the margin of victory, in case some unforeseen game element reduces that margin (potentially too much).

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by bcool

Yes it is largely academic at this point, but I wanted to get a sense of what the begging options might be for the south witches.

I'll have look at the game some time in the future. I can't remember what our Diplomacy is with the Southern Witches. Nor can I say for certain what their begging point accrual rate is. If shared borders really makes difference, the accrual rate at the beginning of the game, starting at the turn # we met, until we shared borders should be just 1 Wpt and after shared borders, it should be 3 Wpt.

Originally Posted by bcool

By STW's post it seems the safe beg from mansa is 180 gold. The safe beg from shaka is not covered by the post since we had 2 failures. I'm uncertain how beg failures affect the results. And I don't think it is important enough to look up myself as I have to do some real life work tonight.

Have we ever begged from this Mansa character? Is he the Good Witch of the South?

Every beg attempt whether successful or failed is remembered equally well. The (current turn # - the turn # of the last beg attempt) is the index into the % success table. I don't think it matters that there were two failed attempts with the Shaka character; its the last attempt that is remembered and forgotten (what the table shows).

Originally Posted by bcool

There also appears to be a power scaling factor to begging. I assume they compare our power to their combined power, but of course that might be wrong. This might explain our failure with several begs.

Power scaling only applies when then target AI is Cautious or lower. I would hope that our power level is now high enough to deter any AI from aggressive action. If their power is greater than our power x 1.33, they will always reject our demand and we would get an arrogant demand penalty.

Begging at cautious or level is no longer truly begging. It is more properly called asking for tribute or demanding something.

Sun Tzu Wu

[bcool]

Made some tweaks in red-- just the gunpowder teching and wizard option choice, and no settler in Washington but spies instead. Will plan to play in about 10.5 5 hours from latest edit.

Final Draft of PPP T182-T189

Civic Changes
Plan to change to Hereditary Rule & Nationhood on T187 (or earlier if I don't see any more value to Universal sufferage--i.e. there is nothing left to buy that will help with population growth or war with the east)
This is mostly +1 relations bonus with Elizabeth but the 1 extra happiness in most cities will be nice.
Nationhood just for the +2 from barracks. I will only switch to nationhood if the happiness helps somewhere. There really will be no need for wealth or research with the switch to Hereditaty rule. Nationhood would help espionage at least as much as bureaucracy in the capital might if we use the slider. So Nationhood is likely.

Research
0% Gunpowder for T182, T183
On T184, T185, T186, T187 I will adjust the slider so that I can finish gunpowder by the end of T187. If I can't because I need too use the cultural slider too much to keep several cities growing then I won't finish it. This is primarily so that I can give pinch to 2 of the wizard killing knights. Also it doesn't hurt to have another tech to trade to the AIs.
I will use the cultural slider as necessary to keep our cities happy and growing. I might use the espionage slider for espionage benefits for the war if I have spare gold and nothing useful to use it for.

Diplomacy and Espionage

• Will call for diplomatic victory vote T188 unless something horrible happens
• Cease fire with the east T182, T183
• DoW with the east T184 expect to stay in the war until the end for diplo bonuses. Peace with the east only if we need the votes from a city they might give up in trade for peace. (highly unlikely we will need the votes)
• Switching the civics of each of the north witches and west witches diplomatically T184-T187. I will use spies to do this only if absolutely necessary. I will keep back a large tech for this purpose.
• I will give each pair of west and north witches a tech every turn (holding 1 back) in the hopes of getting more shared technologies bonuses with them.
• I will use a spy to switch Monty back to Taoism on T184, and keep trying until I'm successful if 1st spy fails.
• I will trade physics to the south witches for constitution and shaka's gold.
  
• I will try to beg shaka and mansa (south witches) on T183 or T184 (hopefully they will have some gold) I will try to beg mansa for 10 gold less than he has up to a max of 180 gold. I will beg up to 90 gold from shaka. These max values are approximately 3 times the number of turns since our last beg attempt.

Resources
Gifting Gandhi marble and deer this turn.
I will cancel silk with mansa on T183
Gifting Monty silk on T183, then wheat when we get our 2nd T186, possibly giving him banana on T186 if we don't need the health from it ourselves
I will renegoiate resource trades for more gold only if it is a spare resource we can't gift to either Monty or Gandhi

Spies
Gandhi
there is a spy in gandhi's lands who will hang out outside of a city until T183, on T183 he will move into a city, T184 wait, T185 flip Gandhi if necessary to taoism or out of free religion
Another spy built in wizard city will just make it to another one of Gandhi's cities T187, for an emergency backup. (this spy must be built this turn, so another reason not to risk the galleon attack vs. Ragnar's caravel) Need to look at the details, but if we need to make changes on T187 to affect the T188 vote then this spy will be too late.
Monty
spy in Trojan Horse will remain, plans to flip him back to Taoism T184, backup spy next to TH will jump in and try again T186, 2 more spies will be built and jump in T186 after backup spy, and try again T187 twice
spy in Boston waits will flip if necessary, backup spy waits, will build 2 more backup spies for Boston. Spy in fur city will wait in another english city (Liverpool probably)
Elizabeth
spy in Boston waits will flip if necessary, backup spy waits, will build 2 more backup spies for Boston. Spy in fur city will wait in another english city (Liverpool probably)
Genghis
spy in Bactrian waits, spy in samarquad waits, 3rd spy near Liverpool will wait in a 3rd city of Genghis, and backup spy will be built and wait in a boat outside of Bactrain.
Ragnar
spy in Madurai moves down and boards boat on Asoka's south coast on T185 and sets up to revolt ragnar's city Jelling possible only on T188
Asoka
spy will be built and sent down to spy on ragnar's stack, possibly revolting Asoka's city

City Builds and expected growth

Washington no growth planned (losing sheep to middle city at some point--will prevent starvation)
Settler (for spot 3N 1E of Varasanai )
spy x2
Airship
wealth

Stone 13/42 +8 growth rate; 29 for 1 growth, 51 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more
wealth

Gems 40/44 +10 growth possible; 4 for 1, 27 for 2, 51 for 3; will shoot for growing 3 more
spy (will backup spies outside Trojan Horse)
airship
wealth

GP Farm 0/50 +12-+16 possible; 50 for 1, 76 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more
spy (will wait on boat outside of Bactrain)
airship
wealth

Silver 22/44 +7-+12 possible; 22 for 1, 45 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more
spy (will backup spies outside Trojan Horse)
wealth

Isengard 35/48 +6 growth; 13 for 1, 27 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more
knight x6
wealth

CB 21/38 +7 growth; 17 for 1, 37 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more (losing seafood to Ham at some point)
wealth

Marble 26/40 +8 growth possible but happiness issues; 14 for 1, 35 for 2 will shoot for growing 2 more (losing seafood to Ham at some point)
wealth

Phants 14/36 +8 growth; 12 for 1, 31 for 2, 51 for 3, will shoot for growing 3 more
wealth

Sheep 18/34 +5/+6 growh; 16 for 1, 34 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more
knight (might rush buy) otherwise wealth

Fur City 24/40 +3-+5 growth; 16 for 1, 37 for 2; will shoot for growing 1 more
spy (sent to another elizabeth city)
wealth

Madurai 2/40 +7-+8 possible; needs MP 38 for 1; will shoot for growing 1 more
wealth

Indra 15/30 +6 growth; 15 for 1, 31 for 2; will shoot for growing 2 more (shares floodplain farm with Ayodhya)
pike (rush buy possible), catapult (rush buy possible)
wealth

Ayodhya 6/24 +6 with stolen floodplain farm, then +7 (should reach pop 5)
buy granary T182
wealth

Wizard no growth expected
runs artist to avoid cultural revolt for 2 turns then a merchant most likely
spy finishes
wealth

Pataliputra (1 revolt) needs MP, shouldn't starve, most likely can grow 1 more
wealth

Varanasi (4 revolt) needs MP, shouldn't starve
wealth

Hyperabad (4 revolt) needs MP, will starve at least 1
wealth

Madras (6 revolt) needs MP, will starve at least 1
wealth

Bombay (7 revolt)

Spam +4 growth
wealth (I don't think a granary helps here)

Calcutta (7 revolt)

Middle 5/22 +5 growth, then +8 with stolen sheep (should reach pop 4)
buy granary T182
wealth

Ham 6/22 +6 growth, then +8 with stolen seafood, then +10 with stolen 2nd seafood (should reach pop 4)
buy granary T182
wealth

Bacon 5/22 +6 growth (with farm and irrigation this turn), then +7 with new grass farm (should reach pop 4)
granary (buy T182)
wealth

new city 3N 1E of varansai
wealth

I expect about 35-37 new population by T189.

Workers goals

• road to gandhi's land for 2nd spy.
• fort NW of Madurai to assist getting knights to Indra... area faster (thinking of abandoning this in favor of sending the knights to pillage asoka's former lands and reinforce ragnar assault)
• farms where it will help cities grow 1 more pop by T188.
• Roads to help move military units to the front faster
• farms for Bacon (irrigate corn and then a few grass land farms)
• roads to help spy in Madurai to get down to 1W of the clams on asoka's southern coast by T185

War Details UPDATED*

see attached image for a sense of my war plan

• Black team stack of 4 galleons (4- 8+ xp trebs, CRIII mace, GG medic knight, CRIII pike, CIII crossbow, CRII mace, 2-2 xp mace),
  On T185 I will use airships to weaken forces in Tonsberg, and bombard with 2 treb (one with accuracy), attack with best odds units but not a treb, finish them off with best odd units (not the GG medic knight) and capture Tonsberg T185.
  The rest of the force will move next to Jelling minus perhaps 1 healthy defender. Galleons move back and pick up remaining forces.
  On T186 drop remaining forces plus spy next to Jelling
  On T186 2 trebs already next to it begin bombarding Jelling. Move units from Tonsberg attack next to Jelling minus a defender or 3.
  On T186 other forces from mainland land next to Jelling
  On T187 all treb bombard Jelling
  On T188 revolt attempt, if no bombard and attack with a few trebs and then the rest.
• Green team is Hood with (knight 8, CI CRIII mace, Forest III mace) these units heal on T183 in tile 1W of clams that will be shared with GG medic. Then join black team.
• Pink is trailing galleon which will swap units for (2 treb, 3/4 xp mace)
  These units heal on T183 in tile 1W of clams with GG Medic and then join black team.
• Yellow is the spy walking down, will be in Jelling on T187, can revolt on T188

I expect Jelling and Tonsberg will fall by T188 easily.

I will play the situation near Indra... by ear. If ragnar stack leaves then I will try to finish off asoka. Otherwise I will play defense most likely.


T182-T183 pillage with wounded knights and units that don't have room on a boat starting with towns, villages, hamlets and cottages around cities that won't come out of revolt until T187 or T188


medic I knight boards galleon stack
Galleon stack heals for 1 turn
Move 3 airships to Kolhapur to prepare to airstrike Ragnar's SE city
Move 2 airships to Indra... (will need them to airstrike Ragnar's stack that will have healed)
Move 2 airships to wizard city area to hunt for caravels

Build 3 more airships


Wizard Attack details UPDATED*

In 2 turns we should have all 4 galleons past or in a southern witches city. I believe since the south and the east do not have open borders so our galleons should be safe from both of the caravels we see from the east witches. I suspect the galleons will be safe from caravels until they are safely next to Teotihuacan.

Move 2 airships to wizard city or another reasonable city T182, scout for more of east's caravels.
starting T184 attack ragnar's and asoka's caravels.

T182 cease fire 3 galleons make their way to tile 1W of Teotihuacan, trailing galleon heads that way as well.

Two options
Option 1: attack T188 with 12 amphibious knights, 1 with combat III and 3 of whom will have the option of promoting to Combat III or PINCH
All galleons and knights make their way to 1W of Teotihuacan. Use GG on T187 before they board boats to spread 20 xp to Wizard 1 10/4 xp, Wizard 2 9/2, Wizard 5 10/8, Knight 3 CII shock, Knight 4 CIII, Knight 7/8 xp
If I lead Wizard 2 I should have 1 knight with combat III and amphibious and 2 knights with CII amphibious (and 1 with shock) and 3 knights with CII amphibious the option to upgrade to combat III or PINCH. In addition to the other 6 CII amphibious knights.
T187 move 8 airships to Teotihuacan and Calixtlahuacain preparation to airstrike wizard and his longbow lackeys on T188 prior to knights attacks


Option 2: attack T187 with 11 amphibious knights and 1 non-amphibious knights, 2 of amphibious knights have Combat III

See 2nd attached picture for the details on option 2 wizard plan

• Black is the 3 galleon fleet which makes its way to 1W of Teotihuacan as before. Its path is labeled with single digit numbers that represent where it will be at the end of T18(2), etc.
  
• Red are the 9 named Wizard Knights with amphibious already or enough xp to get it. Red path is labeled with wk (2) which also indicates where they will be at the end of each turn. They make there way to 1W of Teotihuacan as before but board boats on T186.
  
• White is the late galleon currently in wizard city. The GG boards it on T182 and it makes its way to 3South of Zapotec. On T185 before it moves 2 late knights board it, the 12/13 CIII knight and the 7/8 CII knight. On T185 the GG on board attaches itself to the 12/13 knight, and the boat upgrades to flanking and navigation I, the knights on board become CIII amphibious. Before it leaves the last late knight the CII shock knight boards. On T185 after all that, it moves towards Teotihuacan. On T186 it should be one south of Teotihuacan and with its 5 movement should be able to bring its knights to attack with the other 9 knights on T187
  
• Pink are the late knights. 2 of whom board the late galleon on T185 before the GG attachment and then the last one boards on T185.
• Yellow is Yama who needs to build a road so the late knights can get to the late galleon.

T186 move 8 airships to Teotihuacan and Calixtlahuacain preparation to airstrike wizard and his longbow lackeys on T187 prior to knights attacks

T188 attack again if necessary

[mabraham]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

War through turn 188 will maximize "Mutual Military Struggle" bonus at it highest level until the beginning of turn 188 when the DV vote takes place.

I'd prefer that we are at war with the Eastern Witches with the Western Witches and Northern Witches (no longer an option) right through to sometime in t188 for maximum "Mutual Military Struggle" bonus. I'm OK with 2-3 turns of Cease Fire starting t182 (now).

I understand that you think we have everything we need to win t189, but I'd prefer to have a greater margin of error in all three major requirements for our victory:

1) More Population for us and our allies, as long as the Southern Witches remain our Diplomatic Victory opponents. Thus, they have more Population than any other AI Team by a significant margin that can't be realistically nullified.

They are strongly in the population lead (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...postcount=3486), and so must be the vote opponent. Even WorldBuilt Sushi couldn't change that now. So we may as well grow as much as possible.

At the time of the vote we expect that South will have a different religion from all the AIs, so can't be liked more than us. Even if South switches to Free Religion, we still have a buffer of liking from shared religion and shared war. They've been running Mercantilism for a while, so will have lost some open borders diplo value.

With another four (or so) granary purchases, we have 5 brand new cities that can get to about size 4 in time to be counted, so let's say there's 15 population to be gained there. Ayodhya is probably also going to grow 2 or so. Most of our other cities will grow about 1, so conservatively there's another 10 population - probably 15. Most of Asoka's cities have just been taken, and so won't have a chance to starve. Patali and Vara have had some borders popped near them, and have enough food not to starve if we keep them happy with the slider. Not sure about Hyderabad.

The growth rates of the southern witches have been slowing (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...ostcount=3486; their new cities are hub tundra and not good for much), and should be well under the conservative +25 that I expect above. Our allies rate to grow more than South does, too.

So it is inconceivable to me that we won't have enough people to win the vote. We'll probably have a 2% margin even if we don't take any more cities. So I wouldn't want to accept risk on the other victory criteria in order to get more votes.

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

2) We need +8 Diplomacy, including hidden modifiers, with each AI Team member to vote for our DV resolution. There are only four hidden modifiers and as I recall they can be only +2 (hidden attitude only) , +1, 0 or -1 in value, so our worst case hidden modifier total is -4. Thus, an AI Team with both members at +12 visible Diplomacy will vote for us with absolute certainty. We need all AI leaders' personality identified to analyze the hidden modifiers in detail. Knowledge of the Diplomacy value of when the AI leaders transitioned from Pleased to Friendly might help determine the hidden modifier.

We've been doing this for ages. See bcool's planning posts for the last 3 weeks. The hidden modifiers are mostly zero. We have not measured Liz precisely, but she accepted tech to switch to Taoism and has no holy city, so is quite unlikely to do anything to which we have to react. If we can have all four AIs in Taoism, then we have a significant diplo buffer on all four West and North AIs. Some of them probably are at +12. We can probably win the diplo vote even if most of them switched to Free Religion.

At best, we can get a further +1 from the West guys if we take peace and re-declare war. This increment is lower than our existing safety margin once we have them back in Taoism.

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu Wu

3) Sufficient Knights Combat II-Combat III Amphibious attacking Emerald City until the Wizard of Oz is destroyed. Twelve of these units should be adequate for a near 100% successful mission. If we have sufficient units to also capture Emerald City, we should do so for the extra 1 Population and may not have a choice, if the wizard is the last unit standing.

Both goals #1 and #2 are further advanced through war. I don't agree with "value of the war is only in keeping the team amused :-)". In my opinion, it increases the margin of victory, in case some unforeseen game element reduces that margin (potentially too much).

Sun Tzu Wu

I'm happy to go back to war so long as bc checks there will be no diplo penalty, but I can conceive of no worst-case scenario where going back to war helps any victory criterion. If all four other AIs flip to a new religion or non-favourite civic, and all our spies fail to switch enough of them back, staying at war won't help either.

A true-worst case scenario would be Ragnar's caravel fleet appearing around T186 near Emerald City and sinking some galleons. We'd rather wish we hadn't DOWed for some irrelevant extra population if that happens...

[Walter_Wolf]

Originally Posted by bcool

Updated, new target to win is T189 (17 turns from now)


I now think a target of 17 turns (or winning on T189) to meet each of these goals is what we should shoot for. This will tie or beat any team currently on the scoreboard who seems likely to have finished.

I was trying to get inside your thinking about this, and got the clue (I think) of what you meant. I remember you mentioning it in an earlier post also (will try to find it).

EDIT: found one of the posts you mention it.

Originally Posted by bcool

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.

I stumbled upon an interesting post from SGOTM 12 X-team thread:

Originally Posted by Grifftavian

@CP - Progress & Results still shows the 1872 AD save; you may need to resubmit, unless they're just slow to update the page!

EDIT: Never mind, I just remembered, they don't post the final saves until everyone has finished.

I saw you were in the same team as Grifftavian in the last SGOTM, so you'll know better if this info is relevant/accurate.

What's my point - when speculating about other teams finish dates, you can probably take a few turns safety margin from what the progress & results page displays.

[optimistic] We could even beat the "T191lastsaveuploaded" team with a second DV vote round as we don't really know their finish date[/optimistic]

cheers

[bcool]

Yes if we beat their last posted save we are clearly the winner by a good margin. I was aware they don't post the last save, but of course the Plastic Ducks are likely not finished. So we are competing with their unknown win date as well. And possibly even OSS if they pull a few marathon sessions out in the last few weeks.

[shulec]

Originally Posted by bcool

And possibly even OSS if they pull a few marathon sessions out in the last few weeks.

I have to put my money on these guys. They are so far behind in the game timeline that they must be much farther ahead in game progress. Hopefully I am wrong.

[bcool]

Originally Posted by shulec

I have to put my money on these guys. They are so far behind in the game timeline that they must be march farther ahead in game progress. Hopefully I am wrong.

I think they have had team participation issues, or have taken planned breaks. They seemed to go for several days without any posts in the last few weeks. But it does seem unlikely that they won't finish.

[frogdude]

Plan looks good to me. There's a couple of ideas in there that I hadn't thought of which are quite sensible backups.

Originally Posted by bcool

War Details

Spoiler:

Attachment 308063

see attached image for a sense of my war plan (more details will follow just not tonight)
Sorry if it is hard to understand or to see right now

plan shown in image won't work. I can't afford to cold rush buy a galleon in spam. The spy will be delayed 1 turn that I intended to bring along for a revolt in Jelling. The spy will walk down on new roads to get to 1W of clams on T185 where it will board boats returning from dropping off units. Land T186 with more units, move into Jelling T187 for revolt on T188 if necessary. I expect to bombard Jelling with 5-8 treb for at least 2 turns, as a backup plan for the spy.

Can you afford to cold rush a caravel? Is that good enough? to get the spy there on time. Answer is probably not unless you get Hood involved and do some form of 'boat swap' but that probably makes it difficult to ferry the rest of the army in a timely fashion.

Oh, and there's a started pike on Fur City's queue if you feel you need it.

[frogdude]

Originally Posted by mabraham

I'm happy to go back to war so long as bc checks there will be no diplo penalty, but I can conceive of no worst-case scenario where going back to war helps any victory criterion. If all four other AIs flip to a new religion or non-favourite civic, and all our spies fail to switch enough of them back, staying at war won't help either.

I can think of some worst-case scenario where war helps, but none for either this vote or the next one.

For the meta-game, I'm assuming that greatest score will break ties in the event that some other team comes out of nowhere and wins on the same date as us.

Originally Posted by mabraham

A true-worst case scenario would be Ragnar's caravel fleet appearing around T186 near Emerald City and sinking some galleons. We'd rather wish we hadn't DOWed for some irrelevant extra population if that happens...

The Airships heading Caravel-spotting should take care of that. We obviously do as much spotting as we can before the DOW in order to make sure we aren't travelling into an ambush.

[bcool]

Originally Posted by frogdude

Plan looks good to me. There's a couple of ideas in there that I hadn't thought of which are quite sensible backups.



Can you afford to cold rush a caravel? Is that good enough? to get the spy there on time. Answer is probably not unless you get Hood involved and do some form of 'boat swap' but that probably makes it difficult to ferry the rest of the army in a timely fashion.

Oh, and there's a started pike on Fur City's queue if you feel you need it.

Hmm, I might be able to cold rush buy a caravel and get the spy there one turn earlier. It would be risky though since asoka's caravels would likely still be around.
I would also need to get about 90 gold in pillages in addition to trading for gold from the AI with tech trades. (assuming we want all four granaries rush buys --which by my calculations all net us one more population doing them this turn compared to the turn after)

Probably not worth it but a good idea.

I think I would rather rush buy the pike in fur and a catapult in Indra... (with 1 turn invested into the catapult first).

[mabraham]

I repeated some UN testing to settle any remaining discussion about diplo and population timing. Attached is a saved game you can use if you have any further issues to discuss. There's a UN vote that we can win T27 if you just press enter a few times.

Screenshots show

• such a normal T27 win with 23 population because one grew after the vote,
• after the vote on T26, a preview of how people would vote for the next election if/when it was held (everyone loves us)
• after the vote on T26, DOWing everybody who was legal and switching out of our shared religion, a preview of how people would vote for the next election if/when it was held (nobody loves us)
• despite that, still winning T27, with 22 population because we were in revolt. This agrees with an earlier test I did capturing a city from Suryavaman T26 after the vote, which then voted for us (results not shown).

So diplo changes after the vote are irrelevant, and population acquired is relevant.

[frogdude]

Originally Posted by Walter_Wolf

I was trying to get inside your thinking about this, and got the clue (I think) of what you meant. I remember you mentioning it in an earlier post also (will try to find it).

EDIT: found one of the posts you mention it.

I stumbled upon an interesting post from SGOTM 12 X-team thread:


I saw you were in the same team as Grifftavian in the last SGOTM, so you'll know better if this info is relevant/accurate.[/LIST]
What's my point - when speculating about other teams finish dates, you can probably take a few turns safety margin from what the progress & results page displays.

[optimistic] We could even beat the "T191lastsaveuploaded" team with a second DV vote round as we don't really know their finish date[/optimistic]

cheers

From a game theory point of view, if it is commonly known that the saves dates posted are that of the last unfinished save, if you want to mess with other teams heads there are 2 strategies available:

1. Have the save posted be as far away as possible from the winning date.
   In our case that means T182, when the true win date is T189. A team potentially looking at the save dates might think they need to beat T181 and take some risks to do this. Those risks might not pull off which might significantly blow out the win date to something hopefully past T189
2. Have the save posted be one just before the victory.
   In our case, T188. This could cause a team looking at the save think that they have a couple more turns up their sleeve because they know that that isn't the 'last save'. Thus they might aim for a win in the early 190's rather than take a risk (which might work to try and post a T187/T188 win.

As is usually the case when there are two dominant opposing strategies, it is correct for us to randomly choose one of the above.

[bcool]

Originally Posted by frogdude

I can think of some worst-case scenario where war helps, but none for either this vote or the next one.

For the meta-game, I'm assuming that greatest score will break ties in the event that some other team comes out of nowhere and wins on the same date as us.

In SGOTM we share the gold or silver or bronze if we finish on the same date. Ties are shared victories

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by mabraham

I repeated some UN testing to settle any remaining discussion about diplo and population timing. Attached is a saved game you can use if you have any further issues to discuss. There's a UN vote that we can win T27 if you just press enter a few times.

Screenshots show

• such a normal T27 win with 23 population because one grew after the vote,
• after the vote on T26, a preview of how people would vote for the next election if/when it was held (everyone loves us)
• after the vote on T26, DOWing everybody who was legal and switching out of our shared religion, a preview of how people would vote for the next election if/when it was held (nobody loves us)
• despite that, still winning T27, with 22 population because we were in revolt. This agrees with an earlier test I did capturing a city from Suryavaman T26 after the vote, which then voted for us (results not shown).

So diplo changes after the vote are irrelevant, and population acquired is relevant.

Thanks for game testing this and providing a game save it to the team so they can easily see it for themselves.

Personally, I've played a lot of HoF games that illustrate the same points. Nearly all of them are Religious Leader Diplomatic Victories (TAP), but The United Nations Diplomatic Victory (TUN) uses the same diplomatic system and resolution passing system as well.

In at least one of those games, I actually had an AI Leader vote for my RL DV ballot and in the same turn submit a Declaration of War against me. The DoW was sufficient to decrease this AI's diplomacy value below the 8 with hidden modifiers required of an AI to vote for the player's RL DV. However, the commitment to vote a particular way is done before everything else, including AI DoWs, so I won that game anyway, despite sweating bullets when the DoW was announced.

Sun Tzu Wu

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Originally Posted by bcool

In SGOTM we share the gold or silver or bronze if we finish on the same date. Ties are shared victories

To ensure no one takes Score too seriously, there is the special award of the Wooden Spoon for the most brutal slaver team. Low score is usually a sign of excessive whipping. In my opinion, Whipping Post would be a more appropriate name.

A Gold Laurels Tie and the Wooden Spoon would be a slightly embarrassing double win, except for a Diplomatic Victory where a lowest Score may mean more Diplomatic prowess.

Sun Tzu Wu