SGOTM 09 - Murky Waters

[FiveAces]

Great play LC!

LC, that was Majestic! Intense!! Time to start the tech race

GA ages are accumulative, yes? So Taj will add the turns to the end of the previous golden age? I wonder if we can run GA for the rest of the game?

Yes they are accumulative.

2) Taj
3) Merchant+sci
4) Merchant+sci+artist
5) Merchant+sci+spy+prophet

Or force/pop an artist/engr to replace a merchant or sci. Fusion GE comes too late to be useful unless we save genetics for after.

 

[Erkon]

I think the game will end around T170

Assume AL on T135 and run 1500 bpt T135-T140 = 9k final beakers
Run 2000 bpt T140-T160 = 48k final beakers
Run 2500 bpt T160-T170 = 30k final beakers

This means that the GA plan in FiveAces post above will be enough for continuous GA from now on.

 

[ZPV]

Amazing, LC!!!

Got it. I'll take a look around, so don't expect a PPP before tomorrow.

edit: I won't try to do it all at once, however, so I'll put a basic framework in tonight.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Great play LC!



Yes they are accumulative.

2) Taj
3) Merchant+sci
4) Merchant+sci+artist
5) Merchant+sci+spy+prophet

Or force/pop an artist/engr to replace a merchant or sci. Fusion GE comes too late to be useful unless we save genetics for after.

We're now running our second GA, so the next one uses 3 GPs. Something like this:

1) T126-135
2) T135-144: Taj
3) T144-153: Merchant+sci+artist
4) T153-162: Merchant+sci+spy+prophet

Are we going to need a GA for hammers to build the space parts?

 

[Gnejs]

I think the game will end around T170

Assume AL on T135 and run 1500 bpt T135-T140 = 9k final beakers
Run 2000 bpt T140-T160 = 48k final beakers
Run 2500 bpt T160-T170 = 30k final beakers

This means that the GA plan in FiveAces post above will be enough for continuous GA from now on.

With a NE and Pacifism, Babylon alone can produce about 9500 gpp until T170. How many great people are we talking about then? Some 13 more? Plus Economics GM, Fusion GE, and the GP and GSpy that we already have. I guess we just triggered the 2-GP golden age, so we need to dedicate 3+4+5 for golden ages. This leaves at least 5 for other uses = GM trade missions.

 

[ZPV]

Pre-Play-Plan t127-135 v-1

OVERVIEW
Settle the good land
Let our cities grow
Build lots of workshops/watermills as appropriate
Capture Libyan, Hun, Atlantis and southern Portugal.
Build the required wonders.

CITY BUILDS

Murky Waters: Hanging Gardens(1t) - Grocer (2t) - Taj Majal(4t, I think) - conf miss.
Frozen Fish: Observatory(6t with chop) - Harbor
KonTiki: Lab(1t)-Frigate(1t)-
Babylon: Nat Epic(3t)-Bank
SW Clams: Moai(2t, with chop), Frigate(2t)
Mosquito Ranch: Aqueduct(2t)-Grocer-Bank
Fine Leg: Hospital(2t)-Airport(3t)-The Kremlin
C1: Aqueduct(1t)-Para(1t)-Grocer(1t with chop)-pike_garrisons
Nippur: Worker(1t)-Worker(1t with chop)-Forge
Marble:Conf miss(2t)-Settler(3t)-Conf miss(2t)-Conf miss
Dur-Kurigalzu: Forge(3t)-Library(2t)-University
Akkad: Granary-Library
Flood Plains: Grocer(3t)-Levee(3t)-Harbor
Ulundi: Granary(1t)-Forge(3t)-Library(1t)-Aqueduct
Morocco: Granary-Levee-Forge
uMgungundlovu: Forge-Harbor-Factory
Athens: Granary(1t)-WB(1t)-Levee
Ondini: Granary-Forge
KwaDukuza: Forge-Library
Bulawayo: Granary-Forge
Suez: Granary-LH-Odeon
Assyrian: Granary-LH-Health/happy buildings

CITY MM
Frozen Fish: This turn, hire a citizen. After next growth, hire another citizen. When Observatory is done, hire merchants instead of citizens.

Babylon: 13 merchants until the next GP pops, then 13 artists. 15 artists after NE, until 2 GAs are born. Then 15 merchants. We want to generate any GAs we need for golden ages while they cost the smallest number of artist-turns

Marble: borrow cottage from FF for 1t to allow growth in 2t


DIPLOMACY
Trade Educ for Guilds this turn.
Direct Hammi's and HC's research to something sensible.

WORKER ACTIONS
Around FF: road, farm, wm-coal, move to MW for airlift.
Around Dur-K: 2 workers move to C1, Wkshp forest for 1t, then chop SWC forest, wkshp that, then go to work at C1
The other 2 workers will watermill the forest, then one will wkshp plains, the other will continue milling.
Around Nippur: Chop grass-forest into worker, then windmill the grass hill. Don't chop any of Babylon's preserves.
Around C1: workshp the unimproved tiles and forests. Send a worker to MW on t131 for airlift t132
Around FL: workshops. Airlift one worker per turn to Africa after airport is built


UNIT MOVES
See post 1359 for military unit moves.
Airlifts:
t127 - conf miss to Morocco
t128 - settler to Libyan
t129 - worker (currently on boat) to Morocco
t130 - GM to Cuzco
t131 - conf miss to Assyrian
t132 - Worker from MW to Africa
t133 - Settler from MW to Hun,
t134 - Worker from MW to ?

RESEARCH
Banking-Economics-Constitution-Corporation-AL-Elec (if I get this far)

OTHERS
Civic change: none. No Pacifism until factories are built.
Religion change: none.
Cities Settled: too many to count. Suez, Morocco, somewhere in Europe, Spices. Anything else that strikes my fancy.
Wonders: HG, Taj, Kremlin.

STOPPING CRITETIA
mid-turnset break before DoWing Joao


OPEN QUESTIONS
Vassalize Joao after taking southern cities?
More to come, but not today.
GP optimization. I'll try to generate any surplus artists soon, while they are cheap.
Anything you want to comment on. In particular, if you would like to look at one thing in detail, and optimize it, I would really appreciate it.

 

[LowtherCastle]

ZPV, a couple of changes to the MM I left you with:
1. In Athens, working the cows gives more food and hammers.
2. In SWC we can build Moai in 3t!

 

[Erkon]

Will HC trade Banking to us? If so, we should tech Constitution first and trade for Banking.

 

[ZPV]

HC is WFYABTA.
edit: and I want to give HC Economics as soon as we get it, so he builds a Customs House for the GM trade mission.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Morocco Analysis

First: Morocco is awesome! About 225bpt starting T147 or 235bpt starting T149!

Based on Erkon's T170 finish-research date (43t from now), clearly the Critical Path for Research on using Morocco and any other city we settle is population growth. The sooner the new city matures, the more we're going to get out of it. In Morocco, a hammer economy is a no-brainer. Check it out:

      HE      CE
      ------  ------
[COLOR="Blue"]pop15 178bpt[/COLOR] 
pop17 190bpt
pop18 191bpt
[COLOR="Red"]pop29         173bpt[/COLOR]

These calculations exclude coins, because that's the same for both (~45bpt)
if we buid lib and uni in both. Figures are for "Morocco." 

"Morocco-N" is good for only 135bpt at pop11. 
Six coastal tiles make it 162bpt at pop17, minus 6bpt for two fewer river tiles. 

[SIZE="1"]I also excluded watermills because we don't have the Elect equalizer and anyway they are halfway 
between HE and CE. (Watermills are good in Dur-K because of the lack of food.)[/SIZE]

At pop15, not only does Morocco mature 14t sooner, it also requires no happiness and at worst a bit of health bldgs.

Build sequence: granary-levee-forge-factory-coal plant-lib-uni

Here's the best way I found, using some quick attempts:

      Pop Food Fpt  Hammers  Build  Wkr1      Wkr2     Comments
      --- ---- ---  -------  -----  ----      ----     --------
T127            3                                      ConfMiss airlifted in
T128   1   3    1      2     gran   MWair     Ndond    switch to plains w/conf
T129       4    1      7            farm1     chop     farm Mor-1W
T130       5    3     12                      done     switch back to fp
T131       8    5    done    levee  done      farm2   
T132      13    5      2            farm2     done 
T133   2  10    7      4            wkshp1    wkshp1   work farm2
T134   3   9    8      6            wkshp1    done     work wkshp1
T135   4   8    9     15            wkshp2    done     [COLOR="Red"]need 4 wkrs now...[/COLOR]
T136   4  17    9     31            wkshp3    done     
T137   5  17   10     47            wkshp4    done         
T138   6  17   11     69            wkshp5    done     only need 3 wkrs now
T139   7  17   12     98            farm      done     wheat (or wkshp?)
T140   8  18   15   done+10h factory ...      ...      ...   
T141   9  19   15     65
T142  10  ..   ..    120                    
T143  11             done    coal            
T144  12             done    lib 
T145  13             done    uni
T146  14             done
T147  15

The basic plan is to chop the granary, farm 2 fps, then wkshop 5 fps, farm the unirrigated wheat, wkshop the rest. We farm the wheat if we want pop17. We wkshop it if we want to stop at pop15. We start with 2 wkrs (Dond asap and airlift the wkr-on-galleon asap). Conf miss is airlifted right after settling.

 

[klarius]

I wouldn't go for Atlantis now, but concentrate on Joao. Guimares and Lisbon should be captured as early as possible, Atlantis might even be too early.

Consider to airlift a missionary into HC's new cty. Either to convert him, or have him go free religion.

Also a question if we should convert Hammi. Note currently Joao and Hammi could pass an ammoying resolution. We either have to have more votes or weken their block (or both by going for Lisbon fast).

 

[ZPV]

Well, using Erkon's estimate of t170 for end of research, we have 20 turns' starvation, ~17 turns' revolt, so we need to capture Atlantis by t133 at the latest. My way uses the airships in the interim period before the Portuguese war, when they would otherwise be idle. I will change my plans, however, to capture Lisbon and Guim at the start of the Joao war.

 

[Erkon]

HC is WFYABTA.
edit: and I want to give HC Economics as soon as we get it, so he builds a Customs House for the GM trade mission.

I thought that WFYABTA did not have any effect when he's friendly. Has it always been so?

 

[ZPV]

It doesn't, but he isn't Friendly to our vassal.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Don't forget to be sure MR is defended, on land and by sea (Carrack pairs). I think we need a frigate down there. I should have built one in KT. Maybe chop one in Athens.

 

[Erkon]

I think we need to plan improvements and city builds right now to ensure we're in a good position once AL is learned. First some figures:

Farmed grassland fuels one scientist: 6 beakers + 100% => 12 beakers
Workshopped grassland during GA generates 5 hammers + 110% => 10.5 beakers

Can we decide already now how to specialize our cities?

Cities that builds wealth or science - needs forge + levee + factory + cplant
Cities that runs scientists - needs library + uni + obs + labs
Cities that runs merchants (Babylon + MR) - needs market + bank + grocery

Of course, cities with lots of commerce needs research buildings too.

So where do we begin?

Moai + Wall street in MR perhaps? Moai in SWC gives us a super-production city, but MR has more need of the hammers for buildings.

Perhaps it's better to identify which cites that have really high production potential? Which cities will have the most base hammers?

EDIT - here's my list:
Nippur - Scientists
Babylon - Merchants
Durk - Build gold/beakers + Science Buildings
SW-clams - Build gold/beakers
FP - Merchants
MR - Merchants
FL - Build gold/beakers
C1 - Build gold/beakers
Athens - Build gold/beakers
Marble - Build gold/beakers
MW - Scientists
FF - Scientists (needs a workshop or two)
KT - Build gold/beakers
Libyan - Merchants + science buildings
Ndondak - Science buildings (needs a workshop or two)
Nodwengu - Build gold/merchants + Science buildings (mix farms, workshops and watermills)
Nobamba - Build gold/merchants + Science buildings (mix farms, workshops and watermills)
uMu - Build gold/beakers + science buildings
Ulundi - Build gold/beakers + science buildings

All African cities go hammer intensive (farms only for rapid growth, no specialists)

Does anyone think that we should go for Wall Street somewhere? Then we would have use for six merchant cities and builds beakers. Else we run scientists and build wealth. It depends if we want to spend the hammers on banks or not.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Other factors to include:
1. We should decide which cities will produce space parts and make them hammer cities.
2. "Farmed grassland fuels one scientist" and requires an extra citizen. This means that cities that can't grow enough quickly should probably go hammer.
3. We would like to have a couple offshore cities with very high populations for more lucrative trade routes.
4. We need to spawn a variety of GPs for GAs.

 

[FiveAces]

Babylon/MR also need the science buildings because of representation.

Need to figure out where ironworks goes - we need to absolutely max production in the best city to make the first engine critical path. The second engine we can prob get at same time by slow-building factory+power in Babylon and workshopping all tiles (chopping the forest preserves in the process) the turn we get fusion. Then we need to find another city that can build life support while the engined finish.

Yes we absolutely must be in a GA at the end for the hammers. We can get by until fusion without, but need during engines.

Also need to figure the tech path - BTS SR in my games so far (limited to a half dozen or so, but still...) I've had to go for genetics before rocketry etc. to deal with the unhealth from the buildings.

My normal path is superconductors-medicine-genetics-industrialism-rocketry-satellites-plastics-computers-FO(GS bulbable)-fission (GS bulbable before plastics)-fusion-ecology

The alternative is to end fusion-genetics-ecology but then you don't get the health benefit and the genetics part is pretty expensive too IIRC.

I have also had great annoyance with global warming though I have no idea how that works or how to fix it.

 

[ZPV]

War plans:
t127: capture Hun. At least 6 paras move inside, including the most injured ones and the medic.
3 healthy paras in uMu paradrop to Nodwengu, and board galleons to go north.
Airships rebase to Athens.
Try to capture Assyrian, to get the HG bonus there.
t128: building Frigate in KT. 6 paras from Hun board galleons at Nongoma. 3 paras move inside Hun to board 3rd galleon. Airships + 3 paras attack Atlantis.
t129: capture Atlantis, hopefully. Galleon there picks up paras (not sure that all three will still be alive), and moves south. Frigate in KT is done, and moves south. Extra African paras gather at Nodwengu for 2nd shipment.
t130:
t131: 3 paras leave from Nodwengu, for Edirne.
t132: Frigate arrives at MR. DoW Joao. Atlantis paras arrive at Faro-NW. 6 paras arrive at Guimaeres and capture it. 3 paras arrive at Lisbon, and any extras needed from Guim will paradrop there.
2 newly built paras will move onto the jungle next to Braganza to "threaten" it, and keep the troops there.
t133: Capture Lisbon, Edirne (amphibiously) and Faro. If there are enough spare paras around, I will prepare to capture Oporto and Braga next turn. Otherwise it'll happen t135.
t134-135: capture Oporto and Braga. Vassalize Joao (although I'll leave this decision to the next player if t135, and will stop for discussion if t134

edit: I'll use the spy in Faro to force Joao into Caste System for about 260EP. That should prevent unwanted whipping of his cities.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The war plan looks suitably ambitious. But what about the Hun workers? If you have no builder in you whatsoever, you can still think in terms of rape and plunder, no? Just to challenge you a bit, ZPV (), in addition to capturing all of Shaka's cities in just a few turns, I also captured 13 of his 14 workers. It's not like I had lots of chariots to do it with either. Okay, I screwed up on the 14th, moved the para to the wrong tile and I don't forgive myself for that....

Those 2 are the only Hun workers I've seen, no need to air-scout for more. But they are available and highly useful. The 4th uMu para and the kwaD para could be 2 of your first 6 paras leaving Nongoma, freeing up two paras to capture the barb wkrs this turn. I assume the workers won't vanish when Hun is captured, is that right? If not, you could at least capture one before attacking Hun.

Oh, one more challenge for you--see if you can be the first to capture a city without destroying an airport (or do airports auto-raze on capture?)!!! We could really use an airport in ShakaLand.

EDIT: Okay, airports have <iConquestProb>0</iConquestProb>. That means they auto-raze, doesn't it, klarius? That sucks.