SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[markh]

If I understood correctly what Thrallia wrote JC is pleased with us.

This is my second diplo game only, so I am VERY curious whether we will be able to get the votes in the first round.

We should keep researching after Mass Media at the highest possible rates. Maybe we have to leave this crowded world.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Julius became pleased with us after we gave him printing press goodjob: the people who suggested doing that)

I've had some experience of diplo wins, and I'd say it's very unlikely we'll win the diplo vote first time. Provided our opponent is unpopular, I think we should be able to muster the votes for secretary general without too much trouble though (that doesn't require such a large majority, AND we will get civs who don't like us enough to vote us a diplo win but do like us enough to vote us in as secretary general). The first diplo win vote will probably be a learning exercise to see who does like us enough to vote for us, so we can then study the people who didn't vote for us to try and figure out what we can do to get them to like us more. It'll also be the first time that we find out just how many votes each civ has - something we can only roughly guess at right now. (It'll be quite important for whoever has that turnset to note down all the votes so we can analyze them).

At that point it'll probably also be worth identifying unpopular people who will never vote for us, whom we can then go and conquer - with cossacks/cannon that could be a quick way of getting our votes up. (For that reason once we have mass media, we may want to focus on military tradition/steel).

Spaceship is a possibility, but I'm pretty sure we can get a diplo win a lot faster than we can research and build a spaceship, even if it involves a couple of wars to get the population/votes.

One other point: Once we're a bit nearer mass media, it may be worth trying to identify the 'enemy' civs who will never vote for us and whom we might need to take out to give ourselves more population (but not the civ we want to be our opponent in the vote), and start regularly demanding tribute off them - see if we can goad them into declaring war on us (That way we get to be at war without the penalties for declaring war on a friend).

 

[markh]

(For that reason once we have mass media, we may want to focus on military tradition/steel).

Definitely. It would be a shame not to use our UU.

Spaceship is a possibility, but I'm pretty sure we can get a diplo win a lot faster than we can research and build a spaceship, even if it involves a couple of wars to get the population/votes.

Of that I am sure, too. Too many techs, apollo and parts to be built, but I mentioned this just to be sure we have this option just in case.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Julius became pleased with us after we gave him printing press goodjob: the people who suggested doing that)

Had to re-read your writeup twice before I finally spotted where you mentioned that.

 

[Dagnabit]

@Simon-What experience do you have with offering up all the UN petitions? Do they help us with the AI or are they just as confusing as they seem?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

@Simon-What experience do you have with offering up all the UN petitions? Do they help us with the AI or are they just as confusing as they seem?

I don't think they have much relevence to diplo wins, other than that they can give you a backdoor to adopting civics you don't know the tech for, which could help you in the "you have wisely chosen your civics" diplo bonus. I'm not aware of any other way they affect civ's views towards you, and I tend not to use them if I'm going for a diplo win since getting everyone to vote on something else means you lose a 4(??)-turn cycle when you could've tested the diplo win waters again.

Have to admit I don't think the other UN votes are that well designed in the game - they feel more like some designer tacked them on as an afterthought. Occasionally I've used them to force a civic change that I think will help me more than it helps the other civs, and I sometimes use the UN to ban nuclear weapons (purely coz I don't like them), but overall they don't seem to me to do much at all for gameplay.

 

[Dagnabit]

Just looked at the save and noticed Julius is not pleased but only cautious. At this point I see about 6 AI's I would be careful with:

Toku
Fred
Mao
Salad
HC
Wash
Izzie??

Is this reasonable?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Just looked at the save and noticed Julius is not pleased but only cautious.

Bugger! He must've changed back towards the end of my turnset and I didn't notice.

 

[markh]

That must have happened when you refused to give him Lodestone City as a gift. Bad Simon.

 

[Thrallia]

all the wins I've submitted to the GOTM have been diplo wins. I can tell with virtual assurance that we will get elected SecGen the first time. Anyone who is pleased with us will vote for us for that. However, It is more cloudly for a diplo win...anyone friendly with us WILL vote for us. If they are pleased, they will vote for us if they don't like the opponent.

I know the votes required to be SecGen go down when there are more civs, but I'm not sure about the diplo win votes. Also, it is very hard to change the opinions of a civ when you get that close to a win. The only ways I'm aware of are to get Defensive Pacts, Perm. Alliances, mutual war bonuses, and wisely chosen civics bonuses.

 

[Thrallia]

another thought...once we get Mass Media researched, we should get Biology ASAP to increase our population as much as we can.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Summary

Electricity learnt. Radio should be known in seven turns @ 100% although we probably need to raise more funds before we can complete Mass Media. Julius is pleased with us again after some one sided trading. Made a reasonable trade with Mansa. Mansa subsequently made a even more favourable one from his point of view.

Turn 310 - 1520 AD
Use GS to partially discover Electricity. Research time @ 100% falls from six to three turns.
IBT:
Ghandhi completes the Taj Mahal
Turn 311- 1523 AD
Beijing finishes university and starts harbour. Notice Mansa has techs to trade and is not that unpopular. Trade Physics for Constitution, Gunpowder, WM and 410 gold. Constitution will come in handy for Representation which is the favourite form of government for Julius & Vicki.
IBT:
Washington demands we cancel deals with Monty. Send him away with a flea in his ear.
Turn 312 - 1526 AD
SP finishes temple and starts bank. Lodestone builds pike and starts harbour.
IBT:
Louis demands we cancel deals with Ghanhi. Send him packing.
Turn 313 - 1529 AD
Learn Electricity and start Radio (15 turns @ 100%). Coppertownski trains a LB and starts another.
Turn 314 - 1532 AD
Shanghai now has a harbour. Decide to start Oxford there. Nanjing also has a harbour and starts on a market. Notice that Monty's second in score and has the largest pop after us. So much for facing Toku as opponent!
IBT:
Mansa turns up requesting we give him Electricity. After some serious thought I agree.
Turn 315 - 1535 AD
Julius has been steadily building up his forces in Cumae. Decide to gift him scientific method to keep him sweet. As a side effect it obsoletes his great library.
IBT:
Humphh! Well that went down well! Julius demands 360 gold. No real choice but to agree. Julius is now pleased and I should think so too! Ghandhi offers 100 gold for Economics. As he seems to have nothing else to trade I agree to keep good relations. Saladin demands we cancel deals witn Ghandhi. At least that's an easy decision. Louis asks for OB and I decline.
Turn 316 - 1538 AD
Coppertownski trains another LB and starts on a market. Lodestone's harbour is built and it starts on a market.
Turn 317 - 1541 AD
There have been a succession of messages so far about cities growing and the message below reflects the progress to date.



IBT:
Cyrus demands we cancel our deals with Monty. I decline. In retrospect this may not have been the best decision as it looks like we will face Monty as opponent.
Turn 318 - 1543 AD
The citizens of Beijing admire their new harbour whilst building a temple. Hangzhou's lighthouse is built. To store the additional food it starts on a granary.
Turn 319 - 1547 AD
Notice wth pleasure that Julius has stopped building additional units in Cumae. In fact he's reallocated a couple of them to the other city we can see.
Turn 320 - 1550 AD
Sparta will become unhappy when it next grows. Since acquiring electricity from us Mansa has been charging through the techs. I did toy with the idea of begging for one or more of them but decide to leave it for the time being. However it may well be worth trying to trade for some of them once we know Radio.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Roster :

Thrallia
Mark
Simon
Sam - just played
Dagnabit- UP
Htadus- on deck

 

[DynamicSpirit]

@Markh: Very funny!

@Everyone: Do we have any chance of rustling up a great artist, eg. from Athens? If so, can we use our ongoing war with Germany as an excuse to capture a German city right on Monty's border, and culture bomb it to get Monty's population down?

Failing that, any 'enemy' Civs near Toku's land that we can go to war with, capture a city or two, and gift them to Toku? (They'd have to be very close to Toku for him to stand a chance of accepting them)

 

[Dagnabit]

If we are considering a Civic change, I would assume it would be done very close to the time UN is founded.
From the previous save there didn't appear there was much for the workers to do. Do we use them to farm over certain areas when we get Biology or do we disband some of them? I have never used Biology before.
I would think Military tradition should follow soon after.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Farming is definitely an option. Basically in principle discovering biology means all our farms produce an extra +1 food, so those cities working farms will grow faster (But: They still have the same happiness caps). Only snag is we've hardly got any farms The way it would work is we research biology, then farm over some of our cottages (or windmill over the mines) to up our population. It's a risky strategy in our situation though as we're not that big a civ and more than a few farms will cripple our ongoing science (and we may also need to consider workshopping over some of the cottages around Moscow so we can build the UN faster). I think it's something that would be appropriate if it becomes apparent that we're just a few votes short of a diplo win and a small population spurt will put us over the limit (hoping none of our allies desert us in the meantime).

If we're substantially short of votes then there probably won't be any alternative than to go on the warpath.

Civic changes... Probably when the UN is built. Though if we get to mass media without an engineer then we may want a civic change back to bureaucracy at that point as that'll make a big difference to how fast Moscow can build the UN.

 

[Dagnabit]

Am downloading save now, will have a look and probably play in about 6 hrs if no new comments/thoughts. Maynot be able to play until first thing in the morning. (18hrs or so)

 

[Dagnabit]

Had a quick look at the game a couple of things:
-Radio in 7
-GP in 9turns. GA is close but since next GP requires +150pts it will take another several turns.
-I think we need to start upgrading the galleys.
-Louis is +3 (cautious) with us and in need of a lot of worthless techs. I think we could get him pleased but don't know how to read his other relationships
-If we are looking for Pop/Territory I see three maybe four possibilities. 1.Barbs (Hittite) north. They border Good guy on East and Toku to the west. 2.That then makes toku a little easier if we need him. 3.Mao is close 4. Fred's Hamburg looks easy but I don't think a culture bomb would do much there?

Here is my attempt at funny numbers from the Population screen. We have 11.3Mil: 16 rivals average 3.16mil. totalingl 50.56mil. Grand total 61.8 mil. (here is the iffy part) 6 rivals pleased (call them average 3.16m)=18.96Mil+Us(11.3mil)=31.2mil/61.8mil=50.48%:
How's that for a stretch?

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Here is my attempt at funny numbers from the Population screen. We have 11.3Mil: 16 rivals average 3.16mil. totalingl 50.56mil. Grand total 61.8 mil. (here is the iffy part) 6 rivals pleased (call them average 3.16m)=18.96Mil+Us(11.3mil)=31.2mil/61.8mil=50.48%:
How's that for a stretch?

I take it the 6 civs is assuming that we manage to get Toku as our opponent?

F8 -> Resolutions shows the current values required. Based on that we need 62% of votes for a diplo win. So we just to hope that our civs are larger than the average.

Mind you it's interesting to look at the values for rival best and rival worst to see the range of civ sizes.

 

[Dagnabit]

Yes, I included Monty as the 6th. Taking the already shaky premises and stretching them further, I would deduce that at least 3-4 of our adversaries are among the smallest (Mao,Wash,Fred,Salid) and our possible friends are among the largest-therefore I can say our number would logically be closer to 52-55% Leaving us with 7-9% OR 6 Mil Pop. Lets see Barbs, Mao, Fred, maybe a little Toku......