SGOTM 14 - Kakumeika

[mabraham]

Well, Monty founded Hinduism, and my analysis earlier indicated the founder of Hinduism might be on an island of some sort.

Having to sail settlers over might be a reason for Monty to only have 3 cities at such a late date for emperor AI.

Do AIs sail over scouts, though? We've seen one of them.

If Monty really is on an island, then Ghandi his partner will be getting all kinds of gold in the city that built the Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis.




Also, I wonder how much gold a Great Merchant would yield from a trade mission sent 60ish tiles across the map to a city with such wonders.

Yum yum... if we ever get a GMerchant. Worth a WorldBuilder test, though.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Hmm, I'm not sure if I ever saw an AI sail a scout over. It is possible one of the two cities he settled after the capital might have built one on our landmass and we are just now seeing the scout. Or it is possible the island theory is flawed in some way I'm not thinking of.

Should we infiltrate the Western witches right away for a larger %espionage spending bonus? Or should we focus on scouting with our 1st Great Spy? I personally vote keep scouting with him, as the west is so far away.

 

[bcool]

Originally Posted by shulec
2. I want the Archer at Isengard to fog bust the hub city site so a Barb city doesn't spawn.
Yes, he was doing that in my turn set, I guess we didn't keep that detail constant between the PPPs.

just guessing but he may have been running from a barbarian since he was down to 0.8 health. Or Walter_Wolf was being extra cautious and brought him home to heal.

Should we infiltrate the Western witches right away for a larger %espionage spending bonus? Or should we focus on scouting with our 1st Great Spy? I personally vote keep scouting with him, as the west is so far away.

The spending bonus isn't going to be that big of a deal for at least 6-7 turns. Since I'm assuming we are still waiting 5 turns for a stationary spy bonus. I guess we might want to try and steal techs really fast if we wanted to try and make a run for philosophy. (if for example we had to steal caste system)

I think the bulb is out though, since I believe gems is at 78 and needs 300 for the next great person. So we have ~20 turns to go before our next great person. After a trade or steal of caste system, we could possibly switch to caste system and run a more scientists... Might not want to whip gems city if this is the case. if we get gems to grow this turn the spy whip is fine. We can still run 2 scientists after the whip and work the wheat, gems, deer, and crabs.

Or just thinking here, we can trigger a golden age with the new great spy instead of infiltrating him. The Golden Age doubles our and gives us a free turn to switch to caste system and Organized religion perhaps. This will get us the great scientist that much faster. Founding our own religion could translate to a very significant savings in espionage. It might very well be worth it if we can get philosophy by the end of the GA, so we avoid 3 turns of anarchy at least (the switch to caste system & organized religion?, the switch to pacifism, and the switch to taoism).
With a GA I think we can get a great scientist out of gems by T108
T100 switch to spy work wheat, crabs, gems, deer, grass, 2 scientists (to grow) 78 28/34 food
T101 whip spy, work wheat, crabs, gems, deer 2 scientists 90 17/36 food
T102 settler 2 scientists, wheat, crabs, gems, deer 102 24/32 food
T103 start another spy, work wheat, crabs, gems, deer, 2 scientists (Trigger GA--switch to caste system) 114 24/32 food
T104 wheat crabs deer 4 scientists 132 17/34 food 7 pop
T105 wheat crabs deer 4 scientists 168 20/34 food
T106 wheat crabs 5 scientists 204 23/34 food
T107 wheat 6 scientists 259 21/34 food
T108 0 scientists 14/34 food 303 *great scientist born

OR (I don't think starving will help)
T104 wheat deer 5 scientists 132 17/34 food 7 pop
T105 wheat 6 scientists 177 14/34 food
T106 wheat 6 scientists 231 7/34 food
T107 wheat 7 scientists 285 0/34 food
T108 0 scientists 14/34 food 303 *great scientist born


No whip... and can trade for caste system T102
T100 settler// work wheat, crabs, gems, deer, grass? 2 scientists 78 28/34 food
T101 spy// work wheat, crabs, gems, deer, grass mine, grass 2 scientists 90 28/34 food
T102 spy 9/40? // wheat deer 6 scientists 102 17/36 food (Trigger GA--switch caste earlist could trade for it)
T103 spy 16/40 // wheat deer 6 scientists 156 13/36 food
T104 spy 23/40 // wheat deer 6 scientists 210 9/36 food
T105 spy 30/40 // wheat, crabs, deer, grass mine 4 scientists 264 5/36 food
T106 spy produced 300 7/36 food *Great scientist born



Might be able to do better elsewhere, but gems has the biggest head start.

Might want to infiltrate with the great spy near the western witches culture rather than explore to assess if we have a chance to get philosophy. The western witches are probably the biggest threat, so we need to know if they are working on it. Sacrifice some scouting time to assess if we use the other spy for GA or not.

 

[mabraham]

just guessing but he may have been running from a barbarian since he was down to 0.8 health. Or Walter_Wolf was being extra cautious and brought him home to heal.

He was even lower in health during my turn set - I spent two turns healing him in the wilds, because it would take longer to come back and return than to heal in place, and we had good visibility and a sound escape route and some AI units around to help fog bust. No big deal if a barb city doesn't spawn, though

 

[mabraham]

Should we infiltrate the Western witches right away for a larger %espionage spending bonus? Or should we focus on scouting with our 1st Great Spy? I personally vote keep scouting with him, as the west is so far away.

I'm up for scouting at least until the spy has fortified in Trojan Horse for 5 turns. Even then, is there a rush for stealing (I presume) MC?

 

[Kaitzilla]

A golden age with 8 cities in the BC era? That is a pretty bold move.

With 8 AI who have had libraries for a while along with alphabet, there is a fair chance they can bulb Philo too. I'll think on it.

 

[shulec]

In response to other suggestions:

1. I think we need to explore Gandhi's land before infiltrating.

2. I don't think we should trade techs to get Monte into slavery.

3. I think both spies need to be used for infiltration. No golden age. Our hope is to no longer get Great Spies. If we don't infiltrate the second one, we will lose a lot more in being unable to steal techs than by not having the espionage bonus for the holy city of a state religion. And we certainly are not guaranteed to get to philosophy first even if we do trigger the GA.

 

[bcool]

In response to other suggestions:

1. I think we need to explore Gandhi's land before infiltrating.

2. I don't think we should trade techs to get Monte into slavery.

3. I think both spies need to be used for infiltration. No golden age. Our hope is to no longer get Great Spies. If we don't infiltrate the second one, we will lose a lot more in being unable to steal techs than by not having the espionage bonus for the holy city of a state religion. And we certainly are not guaranteed to get to philosophy first even if we do trigger the GA.

1. I agree that exploring Gandhi's land would be nice, but I think it might, and I emphasize might be worth not exploring if we can determine that we have a chance at Philosophy.

2. Getting Monty into slavery might easily be something we can add to a aesthetics for code of laws trade, so it effectively costs us nothing.

3. Yes getting philosophy is no guarantee however did you consider...

A) If we infiltrate Gandhi, we will know if he is researching philosophy and we will know what the eastern witches are researching. The northern witches do not have code of laws so they can't research philosophy.
The only AI we won't know what they are researching is the southern witches
A1) we can get philosophy by T106 if we trigger a GA (not to mention the other & & and extra running a bunch of scientists would give us giving us literature and probably currency significantly earlier than otherwise)

B) If we get a religion of our own we effectively get 40% off of all espionage mission we run. We also will get at least some free religion spread from having the holy city plus the free missionary that we can

C) we avoid a minimum of 2 turns of anarchy (switch to caste system, and switch of our religion possibly twice --we might benefit from a switch to Judaism and then later a switch to Taoism) (Also I suspect we would want to end up with organized religion as well, we probably are not ready for a switch to pacifism yet)

D) Our own religion gives us options later on for diplomacy. We can get Elizabeth into taoism probably with just the spread to her city near us.

E) The golden age would also let us build the Hanging Gardens faster.

F) Do AI emphasize religions if they already have founded one already?

G) If I understand team mechanics, the AI need twice as much research to finish philosophy, so there might be less risk they bulb it. I'm assuming they do not get more research from bulbing as a team so the AI can't pop a great scientist and boom get philosophy.

I think the potential benefits of getting taoism are worth delaying the infiltration to the northern witches and infiltrating the great spy in Gandhi's lands T102
--we lost some turns exploring gandhi's lands but we can figure out if philosophy is a possibilty for us. So we can decide on the GA when we know more.

I don't think there is anything preventing us from getting a chariot to Gandhi's lands in another 15-20 turns. That still gives us time to learn about his lands long before the UN will be ready...

edit:
Of course without the GA we can switch to caste system and possibly get a great scientist by T109-10? if we don't whip in gems city...

We would still need to infiltrate Gandhi by T102 to determine if it is worth it the switch to caste system to try for the great scientist and philosophy. It might still be worth it for the earlier academy...

 

[shulec]

G) If I understand team mechanics, the AI need twice as much research to finish philosophy, so there might be less risk they bulb it. I'm assuming they do not get more research from bulbing as a team so the AI can pop a great scientist and boom get philosophy.

It is my understanding that techs cost the AI team just as much as it costs us. They simply value our techs more in trade. I assume they can bulb Philosophy in one turn just like us. I admit that I am not sure of this.

I think the potential benefits of getting taoism are worth delaying the infiltration to the northern witches and infiltrating the great spy in Gandhi's lands T102
--we lost some turns exploring gandhi's lands but we can figure out if philosophy is a possibilty for us. So we can decide on the GA when we know more.

If we use our Great Spy for a GA, how can we infiltrate both teams? It is not likely that we will get another Great Spy.

 

[bcool]

Originally Posted by bcool
I think the potential benefits of getting taoism are worth delaying the infiltration to the northern witches and infiltrating the great spy in Gandhi's lands T102
--we lost some turns exploring gandhi's lands but we can figure out if philosophy is a possibilty for us. So we can decide on the GA when we know more.
If we use our Great Spy for a GA, how can we infiltrate both teams? It is not likely that we will get another Great Spy.

we delay the decision to infiltrate the northern witches until after we know what the western witches are researching after our infiltration of them. If philosophy is a possibility then
we decide
1) can we get philosophy just by switching to caste system without a GA? then we infiltrate northern witches
2)can we get philosophy with a GA but can't without one? Then we do not infiltrate the northern witches and instead use the great spy in stone city for a GA.

If philosophy isn't possible regardless of what we do then we infiltrate the northern witches.

One big reason I'm okay with a GA and just infiltration of the western witches is because with our own religion we get 40% discounts on the espionage missions we do run which goes a long way to recovering the espionage we lose by not doing 2 infiltration missions.

Re: AI team research costs

I'm positive the AI teams research is more expensive for them, so I believe a single bulb of philosophy is not possible for them.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

I finally got in front of the PC, so I can add some more info on the mini turnset played last night. Checking the screenshots again, I found some more interesting info that might be usefull to note.

I'm sorry I didn't put mabraham's PPP event flow into mine regarding the archer. I moved him to Isengard's culture borders for some gold savings. It was in my PPP, and nobody commented that. It was an idea I got during playing the test game, and I had trouble getting aesthetics there (higher maintanance I think). I left that in the PPP even after checking the real save and concluding we would get the tech, and have some spare gold to go with it. I am the newbie here, and if that remains my biggest mess-up, I'll be happy . So, do you want me to start getting him back next turn, or should he heal (at double speed) where he is now? It is a 7 vs 4 turns heal IIRC.

Other events:

I've seen Lizzy's units in the two revealed cities. At T96, she had a swordsman, archer, scout and settler in York (York is the English empire 2nd city isn't it). T97 the settler was still there, and the WB went on to reveal Hastings. Two archers, one of them had the City garrison 1 promotion. The York archer had the same promotion.


On T97 Ragnar came by asking to stop trading with Mali. I refused, as agreed upon, so we got a -1 (YRTSTWOWE ) diplo hit. No diplo hit from Asoka.
The witches from the East didn't want to open borders. I tried a few times in different turns, but no luck.

I have a screenshot from the techs/foreign advisor T98, and only Mansa and Shaka had alphabet. So, the Northern and Western witches must had aquired it T99 (or T98, as the AI's turns are after ours). Mansa didn't even have Meditation, so he must have been researching it at the very moments.

This is the T98 / T100 tech situation:

Spoiler :

I like bcool's tech trading plan from post #1455, so I'll incorporate it in the PPP. I thought I would be making it today, but the team's game plan is getting new ideas in an exponential fashion with every new post , so I have to wait for some decisions to be taken.

I'll start working on it, and will post a draft soon if my wife fells asleep on the couch in the next half hour .

cheers

 

[Walter_Wolf]

I made the save game update. It's the mabraham's test game tweaked by bcool. I just repeated the moves. I hope it's accurate

The only mistake I know about is I didn't move goodyear to the FP on T97, bu put another turn into the grassland farm.

View attachment Kakumeika T100 test game BC-0375.CivBeyondSwordSave

Tell me if it's worth anything

EDIT: maybe it would be handy to have all the "official" PPP-s on the 1st page of the thread

 

[mabraham]

F) Do AI emphasize religions if they already have founded one already?

I understand that tech choices are made on the basis of leaders' "flavour" settings and the RNG. Isabella seems to beeline every religion in order, and that would seem to be a consequence of her massive religious flavour. So I do not think possession of a holy city inhibits choosing to research a tech that might found another religion.

 

[mabraham]

It is my understanding that techs cost the AI team just as much as it costs us. They simply value our techs more in trade. I assume they can bulb Philosophy in one turn just like us. I admit that I am not sure of this.

Re: AI team research costs

I'm positive the AI teams research is more expensive for them, so I believe a single bulb of philosophy is not possible for them.

There is definitely a scaling component from the number of members on the team in the cost of a tech. See http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/tech_research.php. I can't say whether that's the origin of the "over-valuation" of tech in trades. I would have to look at the code.

I don't know for sure how tech bulbing interacts with this scaling, but http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3728459&postcount=10 suggests that civ (rather than team) population is the issue, and so it is possible the AIs cannot bulb Philosophy. I can dig in the code if we want to explore this point further...

 

[mabraham]

we delay the decision to infiltrate the northern witches until after we know what the western witches are researching after our infiltration of them. If philosophy is a possibility then
we decide
1) can we get philosophy just by switching to caste system without a GA? then we infiltrate northern witches
2)can we get philosophy with a GA but can't without one? Then we do not infiltrate the northern witches and instead use the great spy in stone city for a GA.

If philosophy isn't possible regardless of what we do then we infiltrate the northern witches.

One big reason I'm okay with a GA and just infiltration of the western witches is because with our own religion we get 40% discounts on the espionage missions we do run which goes a long way to recovering the espionage we lose by not doing 2 infiltration missions.

The problem with infiltrating west first is that we have to do it with the exploring GSpy once it gets inside their culture/city, so that the home GSpy has the option of infiltrating north second. So there is an unknown scouting cost associated with the plan to optimize our chances of founding Taoism.

That said, we were thinking of infiltrating north first, and then infiltrating west once the spy has been fortified, which is only a matter of about 8 turns anyway.

 

[mabraham]

1. I agree that exploring Gandhi's land would be nice, but I think it might, and I emphasize might be worth not exploring if we can determine that we have a chance at Philosophy.

2. Getting Monty into slavery might easily be something we can add to a aesthetics for code of laws trade, so it effectively costs us nothing.

3. Yes getting philosophy is no guarantee however did you consider...

A) If we infiltrate Gandhi, we will know if he is researching philosophy and we will know what the eastern witches are researching. The northern witches do not have code of laws so they can't research philosophy.
The only AI we won't know what they are researching is the southern witches
A1) we can get philosophy by T106 if we trigger a GA (not to mention the other & & and extra running a bunch of scientists would give us giving us literature and probably currency significantly earlier than otherwise)

B) If we get a religion of our own we effectively get 40% off of all espionage mission we run. We also will get at least some free religion spread from having the holy city plus the free missionary that we can

... use to spread to Boston for espionage on the northern witches.

C) we avoid a minimum of 2 turns of anarchy (switch to caste system, and switch of our religion possibly twice --we might benefit from a switch to Judaism and then later a switch to Taoism) (Also I suspect we would want to end up with organized religion as well, we probably are not ready for a switch to pacifism yet)

D) Our own religion gives us options later on for diplomacy. We can get Elizabeth into taoism probably with just the spread to her city near us.

E) The golden age would also let us build the Hanging Gardens faster.

F) Do AI emphasize religions if they already have founded one already?

G) If I understand team mechanics, the AI need twice as much research to finish philosophy, so there might be less risk they bulb it. I'm assuming they do not get more research from bulbing as a team so the AI can't pop a great scientist and boom get philosophy.

I think the potential benefits of getting taoism are worth delaying the infiltration to the northern witches and infiltrating the great spy in Gandhi's lands T102
--we lost some turns exploring gandhi's lands but we can figure out if philosophy is a possibilty for us. So we can decide on the GA when we know more.

I don't think there is anything preventing us from getting a chariot to Gandhi's lands in another 15-20 turns. That still gives us time to learn about his lands long before the UN will be ready...

edit:
Of course without the GA we can switch to caste system and possibly get a great scientist by T109-10? if we don't whip in gems city...

We would still need to infiltrate Gandhi by T102 to determine if it is worth it the switch to caste system to try for the great scientist and philosophy. It might still be worth it for the earlier academy...

I do like the combination of options and advantages the "infiltrate west, then see if GA to rush Philo will work" plan. Reduced revolt turns, more secure HG, faster extra population from HG, and faster access to our "leverage" techs of Literature and Currency are all very valuable, and increasing the security of our 40% espionage discounts are particularly good.

I'm not sold on the value of infiltrating the northern witches. We were going to infiltrate them perforce if the western witches were not exploitable with the city gift. We have succeeded with west, now. We know west will greatly out-tech north (and may already be doing so), and with the religious barriers that will be going up, I don't see all that much inter-AI tech trading going on.

I'm also not sold on the value of two infiltration missions, regardless of who the targets are. Infiltration does offer a good return of beakers for EPs eventually, but a large stockpile of EPs from the second mission does very little (or nothing) for us until the AIs get techs that we actually wish to steal. We knew we wanted very many GScientists for bulbing to the UN, and we have not got one that we might have got. I think we want to use the GPerson we did get to further our strategic goals in a clear manner. A Golden Age does this, I think. Scotland Yard or settling doesn't. Scouting the western witches might do this, but it is unknown.

We should be sure to run max scientists in the meantime in the city that would rush the Gscientist in any of the scenarios.

 

[mabraham]

I finally got in front of the PC, so I can add some more info on the mini turnset played last night. Checking the screenshots again, I found some more interesting info that might be usefull to note.

I'm sorry I didn't put mabraham's PPP event flow into mine regarding the archer. I moved him to Isengard's culture borders for some gold savings. It was in my PPP, and nobody commented that. It was an idea I got during playing the test game, and I had trouble getting aesthetics there (higher maintanance I think). I left that in the PPP even after checking the real save and concluding we would get the tech, and have some spare gold to go with it. I am the newbie here, and if that remains my biggest mess-up, I'll be happy . So, do you want me to start getting him back next turn, or should he heal (at double speed) where he is now? It is a 7 vs 4 turns heal IIRC.

I could have checked your PPP also, so sorry on my part. For now, heal up. It is too risky to move onto the tundra forest hill while injured when we can't see what is on the other side. If we were already out there, then we'd have our vision before choosing to heal on every turn. By moving we lose the option of running.

Other events:

I've seen Lizzy's units in the two revealed cities. At T96, she had a swordsman, archer, scout and settler in York (York is the English empire 2nd city isn't it). T97 the settler was still there, and the WB went on to reveal Hastings. Two archers, one of them had the City garrison 1 promotion. The York archer had the same promotion.


On T97 Ragnar came by asking to stop trading with Mali. I refused, as agreed upon, so we got a -1 (YRTSTWOWE ) diplo hit. No diplo hit from Asoka.
The witches from the East didn't want to open borders. I tried a few times in different turns, but no luck.

I have a screenshot from the techs/foreign advisor T98, and only Mansa and Shaka had alphabet. So, the Northern and Western witches must had aquired it T99 (or T98, as the AI's turns are after ours). Mansa didn't even have Meditation, so he must have been researching it at the very moments.

This is the T98 / T100 tech situation:

Spoiler :

I like bcool's tech trading plan from post #1455, so I'll incorporate it in the PPP. I thought I would be making it today, but the team's game plan is getting new ideas in an exponential fashion with every new post , so I have to wait for some decisions to be taken.

I'll start working on it, and will post a draft soon if my wife fells asleep on the couch in the next half hour .

cheers

You can certainly work on a city and unit PPP. One thing to consider is the timing of getting CoL and building some courthouses.

 

[mabraham]

Also while doing some research into bulbing, I learned that bulbing buildings with GEngineers scales with the size of the city in which the bulb occurs. So if our plan to get a GEngineer comes off, and the UN costs more than a typical GEngineer bulb, then we will want to grow a city as large as possible during the teching phase.

 

[Manco Capac]

G) If I understand team mechanics, the AI need twice as much research to finish philosophy, so there might be less risk they bulb it. I'm assuming they do not get more research from bulbing as a team so the AI can't pop a great scientist and boom get philosophy.

It is my understanding that techs cost the AI team just as much as it costs us. They simply value our techs more in trade. I assume they can bulb Philosophy in one turn just like us. I admit that I am not sure of this.

I'm positive the AI teams research is more expensive for them, so I believe a single bulb of philosophy is not possible for them.

I don't know for sure how tech bulbing interacts with this scaling, but http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3728459&postcount=10 suggests that civ (rather than team) population is the issue, and so it is possible the AIs cannot bulb Philosophy. I can dig in the code if we want to explore this point further...

I am doing a small experimental research about bulb value under team play and it seems one great scientist for philo is possible with reasonable population, but not huge as expected. I will delve into this.
Here are the fledgling tests.
I have seen a threshold of population for Isabella of 19 populations. Calculus must ensues.
I also need to scrutinize into partner's population influence into bulbing efficiency. Sorry I don't read well codes, so I prefer stick with empirical values.

 

[bcool]

If you set yourself up on a team of 2 on normal speed on emperor difficulty...

Philosophy costs 1716 for a human player teamed with an emperor AI and a Great scientist bulb value is 1506 (with 1 pop) 1575 with 23-4 pop

So I'm still not sure if an AI would be able to bulb philosophy since AI have bonuses with research right? It is close, so there is a real risk certainly if they have started the research that they could bulb it with a great scientist.

As Tachy concluded above...