SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

[Bugg123]

@duckweed
I moved the spy, and saved on my computer to continue from there. If you'd rather I reupload after moving spy, I'll do so right away. (It shouldn't really matter)

I'm also now not 100% sure the FUR is actually on that Island (we'll find out next turn, I guess). Maybe we got fooled by the mapmaker?

If the FUR is not on the island, I suppose we upgrade a galley, load a couple of spies and search the ocean from both sides (Caravel from east, galleon from West).

 

[dingding]

In this case, I suggest play another short set to check the fur, though I don't think the fur can be somewhere else.

@ BIC:

No I won't play any more.

BTW. I have never seen a war vassal break away from me, even on Deity, even I free all his cities. So I'm unable to be aware of the risk of vassal being free with the liberated cities.

 

[Bugg123]

Anyways... I reuploaded with the Spy move to make sure.

Also, I'm working on the test. But it doesn't look like I'll be able to finish it tonight, so I'll go at it again tomorrow.

It shouldn't matter that much, though.

I think we need to hold off the attack on the barbs (If fur's not there it makes no sense to us to go there?)

Is our current plan to spread Hindu to 1 of Meh's cities while building an army that can take out enough to cap him?

What kind of an army do we need? How many more than 15 maces? How many cats and WEs?

Research: We're currently 1 turn away from Astro. It's blocking the rest of our research. We still need a GS to partial Physics, I guess.. but maybe we need to finish Astro and start towards Radio?

 

[Bugg123]

@dingding:

I tend to aggree... we need to see the fur before making a good plan. If the barbs we currently see is all there is, then really... it would seem odd...

I'm ok for 1 more turn to check the barb island.

Will have to look at the infra and such if there's anything (other than WE) that needs to be queued this turn.

 

[Bugg123]

Final thought before I have to go:

was edited out

 

[dingding]

@ Bugg:

The idea of avoiding finishing Astro during the GA is to maximize the benefit from Colossus+GA. I think you can keep the slider on 0%, and switch to Liber 1 turn before Atronomy is finished.

Postpone Astro before Delhi is free to build Obser, and slider can be set to 100% once Delhi finishes the Obser.

So suggestions about micro: keep pop working on sea tile like 2F4C instead of 3F; whip Market as early as it can (exp: Pata); avoid whipping in some of the commerce city, keep the pop for obser.

Consider switching to Nationhood. The loss of commerce/hammers in Delhi can probably be covered by saving of pops from the other cities. With drafting, a maceman: 2 pop => 1 pop. If you can manage to draft 15 macemen within 5 turns, it's like 1.67 turns of hammers+commerce output in Delhi = 15 pops saved + a lot of time saved (drafting works in T0 turn but whipping works in T2).

 

[dingding]

double post

 

[Duckweed]

@duckweed

I'm also now not 100% sure the FUR is actually on that Island (we'll find out next turn, I guess). Maybe we got fooled by the mapmaker?

I can't say 100% that the FUR is in the island before I actually see it, but I'm 99.99999...% confident that it's the case. There's no stronger hint that the city name "Devilsgate".

We should finish Astro when 4 galleys and (3cats + 1 warrior + 1 Med maceman + 6~7 level 2/3 macemans/1settler, 1 galley can be delayed a little bit) are ready to sail from Cordoba.

Spread Hindu to Lal and Gonda next and then whip granary and then a settler from Lal, so that the settler can be ready soon.

Cordoba should hire citizens rather than coastal tile so that it can pop culture next turn.

2 spies can be deleted now and so does the spy in the island next turn.

Bombay can start cat now and stops when 5 more are produced. Vij can do the whip in the beginning and build WE slowly after 5 WEs. 4 airships should be enough for the last war.

 

[Bugg123]

@duckweed:
Yeah, don't worry about the micro in Cordoba in the upload, I have only capped Spain and moved the spy. The rest of the turn should also be played out now, I think, and next turn we'll see if the Spy has more luck. Then another round of upload. Would that work out?

Set would be:
Micro Cordoba to expand borders
Move HMs in position near Lali and Gondar
Whip Granary in Lali. Hold whip Forge in Gondar a few turns, Banga waits 3 turns to whip market? Aksoum Whips forge, Bombay starts Cats.
I'll send galleys to pick up troops from former spain and upgrade to Galleons if and when we discover fur on barb-island.

We currently have 3 spies. Why not keep them untill we're sure fur is on barb-island, or at least keep 2 and only delete 1 this turn in case we need to ship one with a galleon in search for fur?

regarding "Devil's gate":
You are definately right that it would point to fur. Given that city's location, you need to take it or run a spy past it. It would be ironic to then not find the fur behind, but somewhere in the fog I'm not saying it's likely, just saying it'd be nice to know soonish

I don't think a couple of axes and archers fit this description: "This will be no easy feat, since rumour has it that fur is so rare that only one unique supply exists, and that is heavily guarded by the most vile barbarians."

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Too bad we can't see the fur...
I'll post more tomorrow, but the map makers maybe did 2 cities on 2 different islands

Devil's Gate would be a (demonic) trap - accessible via galleys
Heaven's Gate would house the fur - accessible... you know

Next few turns will tell, anyways

 

[kossin]

While we can't see (from the screenshots taken, can't open the save), odds are still the best that the Fur is there.

The design of that island screams it (blocked by ice, mountain range), it just is either south or more west. We should know within 10 turns I would think otherwise we need to hit the high seas. As a result, we need to check every last tile on that island, as Bugg suggested it might just be on a tile of its own and the 'most vile' comment is only meant in nature rather than being taken to the word. Lastly, as I said before it's only fair that those attempting Culture get a fair shot at capturing the fur as well when they go for less techs.

5 WEs sounds fine (how many horses those Meh have anyway?). 4 Airships for starters is good as well but they are fast to deploy as well so we can bring in a few more if need be.
IMHO drafting should only be used to up our power in the event where Mehmed won't capitulate due to power threshold.

 

[Duckweed]

@duckweed:
Set would be:
Whip Granary in Lali. Hold whip Forge in Gondar a few turns, Banga waits 3 turns to whip market? Aksoum Whips forge, Bombay starts Cats.

I'll send galleys to pick up troops from former spain and upgrade to Galleons if and when we discover fur on barb-island.

We currently have 3 spies. Why not keep them untill we're sure fur is on barb-island, or at least keep 2 and only delete 1 this turn in case we need to ship one with a galleon in search for fur?

Better to whip Gra after HM spread and Lal can grow back to size 4 next turn so that it can do 2 pop whip of a settler.

We need 3 galleons to the island at minimum or 4 galleons at maximum. In either case, 3 galleons with 3 cats + 6 macemans (note: level 4 macemans are not necessary) should go 1st.

 

[kossin]

We should very much include some WEs (2-3) in the initial stack as Mehmed will have Knights by then and they will have winning odds on us = we'd lose a few units for nothing. So 4 galleons might be better after all... after all we don't need to launch the war right away, we only need Mehmed capitulated for the UN vote.

What cities will be hit? Gaziantep...Istambul?... and whatever else needed for capitulation?

We can also trade for gold from Toku/Justinian as we don't care for their diplo anymore.

In other things: we it doesn't really matter that much but we can update resource trades a bit, cancel happy deals with Toku and Justinian and replace them with health deals/metals perhaps.

 

[Bugg123]

@kossin:

The initial force is going to barb-island if fur is located.

@duckweed:
Good point on Lal.

@all:
Any objections on me playing 1 more turn as planned with the Lal mod? Or do you want a longer plan assuming Fur is on the Island where I stop if we can't locate fur?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

What cities will be hit? Gaziantep...Istambul?... and whatever else needed for capitulation?

East or West coast...

Mehmed has 2 very good inland cities : Istanbul and Edirne. We can aim for one of them.

From the west, there would be better cities (Ankara and Gaziatep) but the cities are further from each other than on the east coast.
East : That's the Konya, Diyarbakir, Istanbul triangle. The 2 first cities are small but coastal, which may fit us. Istanbul hosts the Great Wall, which is probably irrelevant at this point.

I think I like the east side better because :
- We only need 1 of those coastal cities before taking Istanbul (though 2 is more secure, the remaining city is unlikely to be a danger) ;
- The 3 cities are very close together : 3 tiles max between each city whereas Gaziartep-Edirne is 6 tiles.
- If needed, we can strike from Istanbul to Edirne faster than from Edirne to Istanbul.



@ Bugg :
No objection.
I've lost track of the issues at hand, so

The mysterious island may take some 10 turns to fully explore with the spy, though !!! (it goes quite far south west, meaning "maybe" the fur is outside a city radius... )
Do we have a spare caravel and a spy to load ? I can't imagine the mapmakers leaving all the ocean empty.

 

[Bugg123]

Sort of updated the testgame.

It's not 100%, and I didn't get to the Barb-island just yet. Units aren't checked yet, so they're a bit off on the mainland. Will get to that tonight, hopefully.

 

[Duckweed]

Took a careful look at the save and found somethings more.
1. Workers had put a few turns of cottage on the riverside plain 1W of Delhi, we don't need more improvements in Delhi in 20 turns. When we are close to Mass Media, we need workshops. So sending the 2 workers to Gonda for chop is better, the 2 worker in Aksum can be sent to Madrid.
2. Aksum don't need the maceman for happiness atm and a warrior is approaching.
3. I don't care about seeing the FUR since it's no guarantee that you can find it out in 1 turn and that does not change the plan in your set. We want those 2 cities anyway.
4. I don't have a clear plan of which city we want from Meh since cities does not matter in the war with Meh. The goal of the war is to find and kill his SOD so that he can capitulate. We can even give up the city captured as a trap to make our macemans the best use.

 

[kossin]

How about whipping UN, what are the numbers on that after GE rushing?

 

[Bugg123]

@kossin:

GE rushing UN is 1170/1500

Cost for whipping is 13 the following turn / 11 next turn, I think

@duckweed:
allright. Will cook up a plan for the remaining turns.

My understanding of things to do:

1. Scout barb island (and find fur...)
2. Assemble army for barb island (and go there). If there's no fur we really don't need to take the cities, but I suppose our army has nothing better to do... (We may need 2 settlers down there if fur is in a waste area)
3. Complete WEs for the Meh war.
4. Spread hind to 1 of Meh's cities that we don't want to take, so west coast maybe.
5. General Infra and workermoves
6. Complete Astro as duckweed suggests in time for upgrading galleys and shipping them, then start -> Mass Media.
7. GPP management.. we need a GS soonish if we want to bulb Physics.
8. Spread Hindu as much as possible a long the lines suggested so far.
9. Bring our chariot to Meh (and possible add warriors for garrison after building WEs and cats)

I'll take duckweeds suggestions to heart, if anyone has got other stuff now's a good time

Will try to post plan+testgame at end of set sometime tomorrow. If not I'll hopefully get it done over the weekend.

 

[dingding]

About GE rushing UN:

GE gives hammers = [500 + 20 x pops] x speed modification.

With 20 pops, a GE can give 1350 hammers. You can pre-whip a pop at the turn before MM which can make 100+ hammers, so it's sure that you need no additional whipping into UN to finish it if you have 21 pops in Delhi. Size 20 may work as well but that may be the bottom line.

The question is: how to balance the role of GP farm and the pop growth in Delhi. Edit: We need 3-5 more GP (6-8 at total: 4 for victory condition and 2 or 5 for more GA (or 2 for another GA, 1-2 for bulbing Physics ; but minus 1 GS at hand + 2 GG + 1GS from Physics). Can Delhi make it at the same time when growing to size 21?

At lease, I think no more cottage on 1F1H is needed. Think it out: cottage 1F1H3C = -1F+1H+3C or = -0.5 specialist +1H +3C = +1H+3C-3B-6GPP. If GPP and food prioticized, it's doesn't seem to be the optimum way.

I think all the unimproved tiles in Delhi can be farmed now, and mine => windmill if needed.