SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

O.K. If we can generate a 4th GS quickly, I guess it doesn't matter if we get a spy.

Not really, it seems. I was just thinking about it more - off the top of my head, with 3 bulbs we're approx. 12t from Bio @ 100% research (3t more with 2 bulbs). Hard to say what slider percentage we can realistically run, though. We're looking at GS #2 around T+16 with a 2t revolt, and GS #3 around T+23. We might be only using 2, in other words.

 

[bcool]

I'd like to play soon, anything in the PPP that needs adjustments now?

 

[mdy]

We could consider using our next GP to start a golden age if we are worried about a 2 turn revolt. I haven't checked the numbers yet but the +100% GP production should give us an extra GS in time to bulb scientific method to make up for the one we used for the golden age.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I think we should attack America immediately after the China war is won, gifting him several cities would not be consistent with this.

If we can reduce him to 3 cities fairly quickly we can gift him 2S 1SE temporairily and steal techs from that. Alternatively a Great Spy would make distance considerations fairly unimportant. If need be we could also consider relocating the capital closer to America for a few turns if need be.

Okay, well, this isn't really relavant to bcool's turnset, so I'm reluctant to get into it too much, but I must say that I honestly don't see the excitement to go down on Roosy immediately after Mao. And that's coming from someone who's much less conservative about warpreps than you and bbp... Allow me to list some issues I see with that:

• New York is on a hill, with walls and a castle
• Washington and Phily also have walls and probably castles any time
• We'll need 13 treb-turns just to knock down the castle defenses
• Boston is well along on a stone wonder. The only one available is Chichen Itsa, iirc.
• Roosy has been WHEOOHRN for many turns and is building up his army
• Roosy will probably having knights by the time we finish with Mao (Guilds leads to Banking and Mercantilism, his favorite civic)

I also don't think that GLH is particularly attractive right now, considering the drastic cost in military units lost, because our research is flying and we'll research COrporation very soon, if we can get our eppt up to 100-150/turn, by stealing guilds+banking+nationalism+constituion. Even if we're unlucky and raze both intel agencies Mao built, we can build our own after Communism. And we need to do this, btw, because we'll soon be in a race to Economics with Roosy.

As for your ideas on stealing Roosy's techs, I would point out this:

• The long distance will raise the cost almost 50%
• The city needs to have COnfucianism
• Spy failure requires a many, many turn trek across the continent
• We want to steal multiple techs from Roosy, requriing multiple many turn treks, with multiple possible failures
• Settlers cost us 59base-h in forge cities
• Two palaces would cost us I don't know how much, but surely the same or more
• The number of units expended to beat down on Roosy will cost far more than a few settled cities.

Frankly, I'd rather grab London w/Scotland Yard and his whole area while he's still researching Metal Casting. Then steal MilSci from Stalin and go down on Roosy with cannons and grens. Meanwhile, milking Roosy for more techs he researches for us. After we get LIberalism, Roosy can tech like a bat out of hell, for all we care. The more the merrier. Maybe we don't even want to go down on Roosy until the end-game?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'd like to play soon, anything in the PPP that needs adjustments now?

I wouldn't put any beakers into PP. If you can't put them into Liberalism yet, then start on CHemistry. Bulbing is PP is always tricky, because the numbers are so close.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We could consider using our next GP to start a golden age if we are worried about a 2 turn revolt. I haven't checked the numbers yet but the +100% GP production should give us an extra GS in time to bulb scientific method to make up for the one we used for the golden age.

How fast can Moscow complete MoM?

Edit: 4t. We might consider that, right after we get our initial Mao set-up done. That would also give our cities more turns to grow.

Edit2: Without MoM, a GA now loses far more than the 2t of revolt.

Edit3: In general, you want to run golden ages right before poprushing cycles, not right after.

Edit4: I think bcool should just play, but not revolt yet. When we're ready to DoW Mao, we can decide whether we want to build MoM in Moscow or not. See how many specs we can actually run and whether we want to revolt to just pacifism. Etc.

.

 

[babybluepants]

^^ Let's at least think through this a bit before playing.

Edit: I kinda doubt we could affect the Lib date much, though. So, my inclination is no GA yet.

Edit2:

I also don't think that GLH is particularly attractive right now, considering the drastic cost in military units lost, because our research is flying and we'll research COrporation very soon

It's easily 100 base commerce, and we don't need to obsolete it until after Railroad. That's still quite a lot of research, I would think (haven't calculated or anything).

 

[LowtherCastle]

Edit: I kinda doubt we could affect the Lib date much, though. So, my inclination is no GA yet.

2t of revolt doesn't really affect our research rate, just our production. Most important, it delays all our follow-up trebs by 2t.

 

[babybluepants]

^^ So does MoM. No?

 

[bcool]

I can build MoM by 1030 AD in Siberia (with 3 forest chops -one fur unless we want to delay a turn or 2 with forest outside the borders instead)

edit: test game attached, (but it had one more forest in fat cross, so would have to replace with fur forest)

Included one 2 pop confu missionary whip.

 

[LowtherCastle]

^^ So does MoM. No?

Even worse: 4t instead of 2t. But it then gives us 12t of more coins and hammers. In general, I've grown to dislike using GAs too soon, just for that reason. I think it's a weak solution. But I'm always open, just in case.

It's easily 100 base commerce, and we don't need to obsolete it until after Railroad. That's still quite a lot of research, I would think (haven't calculated or anything).

Unless we want Sushi first. I see two paths after Communism, and these are the techs we'd research. The ones in parentheses I assume we could steal/trade for, given enough EPs:

Sushi
-----
Steel
(feudalism)
(guilds)
(banking)
Econ
(Nationalism)
(Constitution)
Medicine
Corporation

Mining, Inc
----------
Steel
(feudalism)
(guilds)
(banking)
Econ
(Nationalism)
(Constitution)
Replaceable Parts
(steam power)
Railroad
Corporation

Either way, it's not a whole lot of techs and it would take a while to capture Washington, presumably, although I guess we could just try to ferry our entire army there, grab only Washington, then DoP. But then we'd have to keep a huge stack there just to protect it from Roosy who would have every intention of grabbing it back.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I can build MoM by 1030 AD in Siberia (with 3 forest chops -one fur unless we want to delay a turn or 2 with forest outside the borders instead)

edit: test game attached, (but it had one more forest in fat cross, so would have to replace with fur forest)

Included one 2 pop confu missionary whip.

That's awesome, bcool. Outside of my little box, today... I like that you managed to grow most of our cities. Any chance you could grow Bahamas more too?

I think this might be a pretty good idea. The only problem is, not really a problem for me, actually, but if we pop a GSpy cough cough well, the best laid plans of mice and men...just don't start any GAs yet, okay?

I'm a go. I guess we do't have to commit ourselves to anything yet, right. All you've done is changed Siberia and maybe focused more on growth?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I kind of like the idea of keeping the fur forest and delaying MoM a bit longer, but on the other hand, chopping it gives us an extra coin, so it's not a huge loss. We're likely to workshop or watermill one of those furs anyway...Either way, I guess. Delaying the GA and growing our empire 2 more turns doesn't necessarily sound bad to me. especially since it doesn't delay our unit production either way.

 

[bcool]

Yes just Siberia and will try to get more growth certainly for Pigs but Bahamas might be tough unless we give up the spy specialist and/or settler.

I won't start any GAs but will give us options and I think I'll end my turn T164 before we have to make any big decisions.

I will use forest outside fat cross. I'll give that a quick go in test game.

 

[mdy]

New York is on a hill, with walls and a castle
Washington and Phily also have walls and probably castles any time
We'll need 13 treb-turns just to knock down the castle defenses
Boston is well along on a stone wonder. The only one available is Chichen Itsa, iirc.
Roosy has been WHEOOHRN for many turns and is building up his army
Roosy will probably having knights by the time we finish with Mao (Guilds leads to Banking and Mercantilism, his favorite civic)

If we continuously build units in Moscow and fish and we do not get too much bad RNG in the China campaign I reckon it would be possible. Even with a castle/C.I. we should have enough trebs to attack New York 2-3 turns after we start bombarding his defences. The knight threat can be dealt with if build a couple of pikes in fish before the attack. Rooservelt is the AI who is most likely to beat us to economics. Attacking him after China would drasticly reduce the chances of this. Capturing the Great Lighthouse could also shave several turns of our victory date, I can't see anything Churchill has as being nearly as useful.

Generally I prefer to knock out the strongest AI first (Rooservelt) before they can get too powerfull. Allowing an AI to research techs for us to steal is almost always less efficient than capturing their cities and adding their research potential to ours.

Of course we can't really know for sure how viable it would be to attack America until we have scouted his territory, so we should probably leave this question till after BCool's turnset.


If we can get the MOM in Siberia by 1030 B.C. I think we should go for it to keep our options open and to ensure an inconvenient AI does not get it. We would also get any failure gold from it sooner.

 

[babybluepants]

Go for it.

Don't know what spending a GS on GA does for our Lib date exactly (probably break-even ), but it's worth it if only for securing MoM.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Yes just Siberia and will try to get more growth certainly for Pigs but Bahamas might be tough unless we give up the spy specialist and/or settler.

I wouldn't give up the spy specialist anywhere. But I wouln't mind delaying the settler at all. He'll get built faster later anyway. Bahamas is a good city to build archer garrisons for our entire empire, if you ask me.

By the way, delaying the settler would also mean you could send a worker to scrub the site 1S on your island. Don't you think it's seems better? Ad you could also send a archer there to defog the other tiles so we can make a decision based on complete info.

It's up to you though. I'm fine either way.

Good luck, bcool! Exciting turnset, you've got! Most important of the whole game!

 

[bcool]

Ok I'll take a closer look at growth and focus MM on that without sacrificing spy specialist. I think the settler in Bahamas might be delayed a turn or two (galley needs time to come back) and so growth might be a bit better.

Still think non-fallout tile is good and will be settled significantly earlier ( will benefit from GA if it happens.)

 

[LowtherCastle]

You could also consider using one of the missionaries for the new city. Just a thought without any analysis. Or maybe just build them elsewhere for it, I don' konw.

 

[bcool]

Churchill is builiding something in London Pop 14 base 24 hammers
sabotage went from 575 to 775 in 1 turn
building sabotage 366

I haven't learned the art of identifying buildings from the world view (I guess monastry, temple, courthouse

building sabotage always is the cheapest building so...barracks? 50 H that means he has 105? hammers into something. and he is putting 28? hammers into it (I think it is a marble wonder)