Open Sid Succession Game

[BlackHat]

I'd say pick up the worker from Egypt and hold off on the other deals. Maybe Japan picks up Map Making here soon enough. The AIs usually prefer Map Making first, so I wouldn't worry about them researching something else.

Japan knows Philosophy and CoL and knows America who knows Construction but lacks Philosophy and CoL. The base cost of the techs is 16 vs 20, but japan has gold to make up the difference. I'm not really asking for permission so much as wondering what I'm missing here. They apparently had those techs last turn and did not trade them, but isn't it likely they will decide to do the deal soon?

 

[Spoonwood]

Japan knows Philosophy and CoL and knows America who knows Construction but lacks Philosophy and CoL. The base cost of the techs is 16 vs 20, but japan has gold to make up the difference.

I don't know. Japan knows the Maya, the Inca, and America who know Construction, while they don't. They might have hurt their reputation. How did you do the calculations to figure that they can purchase Construction?

 

[BlackHat]

How did you do the calculations to figure that they can purchase Construction?

When I said "has gold to make up the difference" I meant that they had something to sweeten the deal. "calculation" is a bit generous. I found base costs on a reference chart. If you know of a way to calculate the value the AI assigns to techs in trade with another AI I'd love to know it.

Note that our acquisition of the three techs from Arabia raised the number of civs that know these three techs in the group that knows America and Japan from 2 to 3. That reduces the total value differential of 4 base points, and makes it more likely that the gold will cover it. Then again, there's a good chance America is researching one of their two lacking techs, while Japan is going for map making.

I'm going to err on the side of learning and let them settle the debate for us. No trade.

 

[BlackHat]

Did not do the trade. on the interturn:

America obtained Philosophy,
Japan obtained literature, and construction.
Egypt obtained Phil, CoL, and Construction.

None of those 3 has any gold left and nobody else had a jump in gold, so my best guess is that Egypt discovered Construction, Japan traded philosophy and CoL to Egypt for Construction, then traded Philosophy to America for 9 gold (they had no gpt available in 1400, resources stayed the same, and no DOW popup) then sent all their gold to the Inca for the last bit of literature, who then spent ~137 lump gold on something.

Of course this doesn't prove that one should always make the trade we discussed earlier, but in this case I think the failure to extract the 96 gold from Japan led to Egypt receiving 2 techs, and Japan receiving 1, plus the Inca getting ~105 gold.

So I went back to make the trade and see what would have happened (without doing any unit moves of course) and that's almost exactly how it worked out. Japan had no lit, Egypt gained construction, America had philosophy (and Japan had 14 gold).

 

[BlackHat]

1. 1400 - Trade to get 4 techs and 4 gold for two techs. Drop sliders to 0, no riots +25 GPT. Fumble finger a settler while looking around, lose 1 turn on settling southern peninsula. move other settler south. road plains, chop forrest with slaves next to H. Trade for worker from Egypt and move to mine bonus near G.

2. 1375 - Mayans finish MoM, Incan's are building the Glib, and I think it was part of the cascade. B worker-> Worker. Mine at E-4, E-m, G-8, G-9.

3. 1350 - Fukashima founded in jungle. Japan building Glib. F worker -> worker, A worker -> worker, move to road G-q, G-t, F-9, and mine E-3, C-v. Changed B from worker to cat and A to Great wall so that forest chop at A-m goes to cat instead of worker. There was no way to synch B's growth with A anyway.

4. 1325 - G Cat -> Temple (I know Spoonwood said he preferred a worker, but B feels a lot more efficient for a secondary worker town since G is on 10 turn growth and doesn't have a cow or grainery) A -> worker. America got CoL and Egypt got Monarchy. I'm guessing America got Monarchy and traded for Egypt's gold and CoL. Found J, set to Cat (No clue, just nothing else sounds good).

5. 1300 - A Worker -> worker, B Cat -> worker. C grows, MM to forest to save 1 turn on FP. 9 to go. America gets lit, Japan gets MM. America had 22 gold last turn, now they have zero. Japan had zero, now they have 2. Best I can guess, America was working on Lit back in 1400 and bought the last bit. Don't see how Japan got literature for 105 gold in 1375 and MM for 20 gold in 1300, but maybe that's just SID. Incans got 18 gold boost, so apparently Japan bought from them.

6. 1275 - move slave to cut E-m, worker to mine H-3, worker to road hill at C-6. America learns MM, Celts learn MM. Trade Philosophy for Map Making and 8 gold. No clue how America obtained MM. Nobody has any GPT, no change to the lux situation - I give up. Maybe a lux deal with the Maya expired.

7. 1250 - America boots exploring warrior, but it puts us farther north in a desert next to Egypt. Inca get The Republic, Egypt get's Lit. Inca will not deal for any price. Egypt is the last of their associates to obtain lit, so we have several turns before we need to trade mapmaking. They want 127 for lit straight up. A Worker -> Worker, B Worker -> Worker. Move workers to chop A-z and A-q (plan to turn off workers in 2 turns so can use shields in A). move slave to Road H-8.

8. 1225 - Celts complete SoZ. No research news. Mine J-8.

9. Japan completes Great Wall (MoM Cascade) I have a hard time imagining a higher ratio of oh-no to wonder-desirability. Japan and the Maya get Republic. Even with 27 GPT and 319 hard cash nobody will talk. Flip probability has risen by about 0.1% each for the three cities threatened by Japan in the past 3 or so turns. Egypt is now threatening the silk town. Mine A-8, A-q, F-1. Move additional worker onto A-z because he could not reach a useful task in 2 moves.

10. Celts discover CoL. B Worker -> Temple (could make it 'racks). Reconfigure A and B cow.

Next player:
B and J need their builds reconsidered. Watch the Republic but remember that we're not big enough to really take advantage of it so wait for a good deal, and be ready for Currency. A should not build another worker lest it waste the chops. FP in 4. I think Temple -> barracks is the appropriate build in most towns. Watch the lux slider now that we're not bleeding A's pop with workers. Not sure what to do about the jungle town's development. Worker tasks getting scarce soon.

 

[Ray2]

Hi guys. I have a problem with my Civ3 installation. The game will load, but I can't see any in-game text anywhere (menu, save game names, etc.). This happened after the latest W10 update. Tried a few quick fixes but nothing worked, so I will have to reinstall and see what happens.

@BlackHat Welcome aboard! I can't have a look at the save, but it seems like you did great with the trading.

We are in a very weird situation. On the positive side, despite playing on a Sid, 60% pangaea - where you fall behind in techs in no time, we have managed somehow to stay afloat. On the other hand, crammed core, flip risk, no luxes/resources, and no GL make this game almost impossible to win.

I really don't want to use the connect/disconnect trade-route exploit, although I understand that it is the only way to have a chance in this game (even then it won't be easy).

Anyway, I think we should first build temples/aqueducts/markets everywhere, and later join the workers that have finished work. I wouldn't build any barracks or units before that. Keep accumulating gold, building cats and warriors - trade for iron - upgrade - declare + sign the Incas against Japan.

However, we would need a lot of gold for all this (minimum 1800 for at least 30 Warriors + gpt for the alliance), and even then the war with Japan would be extremely hard...

 

[Spoonwood]

I wouldn't build any barracks or units before that.

The Celts don't have contact with anyone else. I've had a recent run where my neighbor didn't have any contacts and they didn't declare on me. But, still. Also, they probably would always land their units right next to our capital. So, I'm in favor of some military builds to leader fish.

If you don't want to use the trade-route cutting exploit Ray2, you don't have to do so on your turns. Or you can make it deliberately harder for us to do so, if we do so.

We also don't know where The Great Library will get built yet, though we will see on that.

 

[BlackHat]

I can't have a look at the save, but it seems like you did great with the trading.

Thank you very much, but I just took what was given to me.

On the positive side, despite playing on a Sid, 60% pangaea - where you fall behind in techs in no time, we have managed somehow to stay afloat.

The tech situation is very temporary. The Celts will be surely be getting contacts soon, and their isolation is a key piece of our current success. More importantly though, our income is minuscule. That age transition will be nasty. And Republic won't help much given the few gold to multiply.

I don't see Japan as a viable opponent for a long time. The great wall, samurai, our exposed borders... Maybe they won't get iron... Oh wait, they have two unconnected sources.

On the one hand I've claimed that the human player can almost always win once they make it to artillery and railroads. On the other hand, I'm not sure how waiting to lose our 5 border towns to flips is a viable strategy - four of them are between 0.5% and 1.5%, and they will probably get worse. We should expect to lose a city every 30 or so turns in the current situation.

I'm with Spoonwood. I would really love to win a SID game that doesn't require trade route breaking one day, but this is not that game. Of course you're free to avoid the strategy on your turns Ray. Get a war with the celts, leader farm for a palace move and an army, then regroup and find somebody to whack. Egypt seems better than Japan until we have Calvary or knights at the least. Or we could skip the palace move for now and cut trade routes with the current capital.

I count 52 citizens of food support on land tiles between 9 cities in our core, which means aqueducts aren't really critical, and taking advantage of them would be disastrous for happiness. If we need a few more citizens to allow us to work the coastal tiles, consider a temporary city on the river between A and C that only gets a barracks.

The question then is what to produce. The really cost effective option is archers. If we're confident in our ability to get iron then warriors might be good. And if we want to hold out for a luxury force, trade for horses and build horsemen. Of course we need some cats as well, and 2 or 3 towns should not get barracks for that reason.

 

[Spoonwood]

Maybe more long turn, we can have the AIs fight the Celts. The AIs don't do naval invasions well, so that might manage to get the AIs into war weariness. Also, long-term, maybe we can turn The Celts into a vassal state... which I don't know how it works, but it's an idea that I've finally started to pick up on, even though I had read DocT's idea before.

 

[Ray2]

I wasn't able to resolve the problem with my Civ3 installation, even after reinstalling. I will have to find my old cds (I was using the Steam version).

You guys go on and play. I will be following, and probably it is better if I don't play at all. This is a succession game and simply to not use the disconnect trick during my turns would not feel right, for me or for the team.

I repeat, even with the 'disconnect trade route' exploit this game will still be very hard, so I would feel less... guilty for using it in this case.

The Celts don't have contact with anyone else. I've had a recent run where my neighbor didn't have any contacts and they didn't declare on me. But, still. Also, they probably would always land their units right next to our capital. So, I'm in favor of some military builds to leader fish.

You are right - I have even said it in one of my previous posts. After the Celts have Map Making it is very probable that they will declare soon thereafter.

In my experience, the AI will always declare when the only civ they know is yours. The only thing that varies is when they will do it. Not even a MPP (much less active trades, RoP, etc.) will prevent them from doing so. Maybe the only exception is when they are significantly outnumbered by the human player?

Maybe more long turn, we can have the AIs fight the Celts. The AIs don't do naval invasions well, so that might manage to get the AIs into war weariness. Also, long-term, maybe we can turn The Celts into a vassal state... which I don't know how it works, but it's an idea that I've finally started to pick up on, even though I had read DocT's idea before.

It won't work. In my experience the AI will only mobilise if they share borders with another civ they are at war with + that civ is strong enough to pose a danger to them. I have never seen an AI mobilise for a phony war, or against a tiny civ.

I have checked this several times, although maybe there are differences between different civs?

 

[Spoonwood]

This is a succession game and simply to not use the disconnect trick during my turns would not feel right

It would feel right to me if some people used that trick and some didn't. You're welcome to pick up turns at any time Ray!

 

[BlackHat]

This is a succession game and simply to not use the disconnect trick during my turns would not feel right, for me or for the team.

Agree with spoonwood. I'm here for fun and a chance to learn, so no problem if you want to play your way. Plus, honestly trade route breaking is so powerful that we can catch up on our turns...

 

[Spoonwood]

Got it.

 

[Spoonwood]

0 - Preturn Swap A to a warrior, as it can pillage out a road before a mine completes. Swap B to a harbor. No... keep it on a temple to grab the fish. Wake a warrior and move it to a spot to pillage. Raise lux. slider accordingly. Swap I to a worker. Swap J to a harbor.

1- 1150 BC Egypt boots us. A worker-catapult. Oops... I didn't realize how many chops would end this turn! It would have worked better to slow some of these chops down or to do them later.

2 - 1125 BC A - catapult-catapult. Currency and The Republic are known.

3 - 1100 BC D temple-catapult. F worker-temple (which probably needs cash rushed). And stop. Yep. Sic.

What do we want to do with A?

It's at size 4. Do we want to run it as a 1 turn worker pump in Republic? Or do we want to have it put out military and just forget the idea of a 1 turn worker pump for growth with this start? We do want some forces to defend against a Celtic landing and/or leader fish, I think. So, even if we wanted a 1 turn worker pump it might work out better to wait on doing that. If we want a 1 turn worker sooner and possibly even later, we probably would do better to change some worker jobs to irrigation, and I didn't think this through when I started playing. It's not really all that many worker turns wasted, but I think it better to do this sort of thing now, as we might manage to get The Republic soon enough via trade route cutting and luxury/resource trading... that is *assuming* that we want a 1 turn worker pump.

If we don't want a 1 turn worker pump, I think sticking with mines around the capital non-roaded squares works out better.

I don't have a strong opinion as to which works out best for this game... going with a 1 turn worker pump in 1 as soon as possible, going with a 1 turn worker pump after we have enough forces to kill off Celtic invasions, or forgetting about the possibility of a 1 turn worker pump all together (I have not always used worker pumps and had games where that has worked out alright). But, I think it would work out well to think this through and go with some sort of plan. And worker moves should get co-ordinated with some idea as to what to do here, I think.

I suggest that the warriors pillage adjacent squares to the capital only after a worker gets on that square to pillage it. And one of the warriors, and a worker currently sits on a regular grassland which I think will work best as the square to road and pillage when using the trade route cutting thing. The '1' spot from A.

 

[BlackHat]

Sorry, my post was a bit vague on the number of shields finishing with the chops.

As to the worker pump... My best guess is that we would receive about 18 population of accelerated growth from the worker pump, with probably 15 additional citizens at the end of the growth phase compared to where we would otherwise be. Here's the math if anyone cares:

Spoiler boring math :

Back in post 48, I noted that we had 52 food of uint support on land tiles. That's calculated using the "mine green, water brown" rule, and assumes republic. If we wanted to build harbors we could theoretically support 52 additional citizens with the sea, but this is of course unrealistic without aqueducts and significant use of the lux slider. If we placed the settler on the river as suggested in post 48 we could use a full 72 citizens. I'd say we should estimate our final citizen count to be 62 citizens, with the possibility for a few more if we want extra commerce.

Currently we have 23 citizens, and should expect towns to grow about once every 8 turns. That means that if it takes 16 turns (worst case) to learn Republic and revolt we'd have 39 citizens, allowing a total of 23 additional citizens after revolt. Obviously this is more if we get Republic sooner. Remember that the river town growth will slow dramatically at pop 7, so we can assume that they each need 5 workers added for a total of 15.

Most of that accelerated growth would theoretically come after the land tiles are occupied, so we would get very few additional shields. But that assumes we wait until the pump is running to add workers into towns, and that we only add workers as we make them. Planning a worker pump allows us to add workers NOW as we complete improvements for them to work rather than saving them for future needs. That means that planning a serious worker pump allows us to accelerate military building and make up for the lack of output from the capital.

I vote we build a worker pump ASAP.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think we should wait a little bit, but still build the worker pump. Something like this:

City A produces a few catapults. Other cities which aren't building harbors or temples, put in barracks and then archers.

Once we have 7-9 catapults (or trebuchets) then we have city A switch over to a 1 turn worker pump. I say 7-9 base on my experience of what seems useful in a 20k when waiting to destroy any landing instantly near my capital.

 

[BlackHat]

Sounds good to me spoonwood. We do need military desperately.

 

[Spoonwood]

To be clear... I put up the save, and anyone can pick up the save from where I left off. Oops... I didn't. Here it is:

 

[BlackHat]

well, I'd hoped someone else would pick this up, but I guess I got it.

 

[BlackHat]

Preflight:

We get 8 spare food and 3 shields from the city tile and the two irrigated cows. That means we need four grass squares with two irrigated to get to 1 turn growth and two bonus grass plus two mined grass tiles to get us to 7 shields. Growth will put the 7th citizen on the hill which gives 3 shields. All this is a long winded way of saying I need to irrigate two non cow squares and mine everything else, plus assure the capital gets at least two bonus tiles.

Hit enter

1 - 1075 America tells us leave or declare. I'll leave you to guess what I choose. C finishes the FP, goes on barracks (skipping the temple). set up warrior worker pillage teams with two turn cycles. Pillage southern cow with two workers to reirrigate, pillage tile NE of A with 3 workers to remine. Neither A nor B needs the extra food/production this turn to complete the projects. Move the slave in the north to road the mountain, and road with the worker north of Japan. Adjust lux slider to prevent riot in A.

2 - 1050 America kills the warrior and 3 horses show up north of I! (that's a joke. I didn't declare. Promise) A cat -> Cat, E temple -> barracks. Couple mines/roads in random places, and reconfigure warriors to be MP so the lux slider can go down.

3 - 1025 Move workers, etc. No great trading opportunities opening up, and we're just a few turns from getting disconnect/reconnect going so nothing going on on this front. Apparently I got lazy in observing the boats in the area, because...

4 - 1000 The maya declare war on the Egyptians. And this game just ended:

Stop here. There are two Gallic's, then an archer and warrior in that stack.

Anybody got any ideas? We might keep the capital for one turn by using workers to absorb an attack move by the swords, and swapping A, B, and E to archers would give 1 or 2 usable units depending on how many towns they choose to take. Of course someone should take a shot at it, but We're about 5 turns too late on the military.