SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[Htadus]

Both CS and theo are out of the question if we want to bulb our way to Astro.

Also, if we skip Monarchy and say get Theo for peace process (after astro bulb), we can part bulb CS with the GP. I have used 2 GP for Theo and CS several times in the distant past when I had the urge to build the SH very early.

As for astro (and Engineering bulb) we need to:

Bulb Machinary (current GE)
Bulb Engineering (GS1) skip iron works
Learn Ironworks
Learn Compass,
Bulb or learn Optics (GS2)
Learn/trade Calender
Bulb Astro (GS3 and 4)

then start the run to Currassas and MT

EDIT: Trebs are way better than sword for this game.

 

[Cactus Pete]

So, if we avoid IW, we can bulb Engineering with our first GS? Concur that trebs would be better than swords, but wondering how soon we can get them. What would we want for peace with Toku if not IW? Does this argue that we should research Sailing?

 

[Htadus]

We need Alpha or the first GS will bulb Alpha instead of Engineering.

Sailing is useful to settle the culture bridge city.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Sailing is also likely to be useful militarily.

 

[zamint3]

We can't afford research anyway.

We're doing +6 gpt at 0% research at the moment and with our current level of unit production we'll run out of gold pretty soon.

I suggest Sailing at 0%

 

[Mad Professor]

We can't afford research anyway.

We're doing +6 gpt at 0% research at the moment and with our current level of unit production we'll run out of gold pretty soon.

I suggest Sailing at 0%

Time to put those units to work then...

This is getting hard!

 

[Undecided]

Ok, i'm completely confused right now.

A short time ago, MP (i think) asked in the thread, if the civ that builds the AP automatically makes contact with every civ in the world, like building the UN. I said that this wasn't the case, based on my experience.

Now z said, that he made contact with every civ with a buddhist city in a test game.

After that i questioned if my answer was correct in the first place. While i'm not building the AP in my regular games, i was very sure that when i played Game 10 of the last challenger series (Religious, continents) i didn't make contact with every civ in the world when i built it.

Checked my old saves of the game, didn't make contact with everybody.

Figured that maybe this whole presettling cities thing has something to do with it.

Made a test game. worldbuildered the AP and a religion in my cap, ended turn....

1. Scenario: Not in BUFFY, presettled a couple cities, some with AP-religion, some without.

Spoiler :

I make contact with every civ regardless of religion and presettled cities.

2. Scenario: BUFFY, didn't presettle any city

Spoiler :

Same result

So we have Game 10 of the Challenger Series: No contact

My testgame: Contact regardless of presettling or religion spread.

z's test game: Only contact with buddhists.

SGotM 15: No help because scout contacted us before building the AP which is ruining the experiment, as we are a civ without a buddhist city.

Any ideas where i could've screwed up?

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We don't know for sure if every civ has buddhism already so, if we get buddhism spread in any of our cities - Bombay being the biggest threat - eliza can (most likely) start calling votes for AP-vic. Hammu and Toku are already friendly towards eliza (also thanks to the +2 "you voted for us" modifier, which isn't permanent though) and it's only getting worse. So i wouldn't worry about clogging up our bulb path to astro with theology. Astro is miles away at this point, we have land contact to atleast 4 civs and the mountain ranges are placed in a way that ensures we can't take any shortcuts to reach our enemies with gallons. I know that astro is essential to get a fast finish date on regular water-maps but this game is far from regular and we have more pressing things to take care of.

Theology gives us +2xp for our troops (tokus double-promoted axes have 75% (c1, shock1) or 67% (c1,c2) chance of winning against our c1 axes on flatland right now)
and saves us from a vic-vote for atleast a bit of time if we're targeting the cities without buddhism first). I think that this is better short-term than astro long-term, but i could be convinced otherwise.

 

[Htadus]

undecided:
I can not help with the AP.

But as for your question regarding if all the civs have AP religion , we need to look at the first few turns to see what the religion screen said.

However, I do not think neal would make a game that would cause a team to loose the game so easily. So I would say no; he did not give AP religion to all civs. But that does not mean that civ did not get a freak RNG spread. So wwe should proceed as if all the AI have the religion with the exception of us.

As for the axes, collateral cats can take care of them very well. But I am not against using theo, however I am more in favor of getting the game finished earlier and as we have noticed already, it is going to come down to tech rate. And no other tech rate can touch the early bulbing process. So, lets not killed the bulb path as we did in the last SG.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Concur that we are going to need to bulb big to win. Couple questions that follow from that strategy: How do we get CoL, so we can convert to Caste and run specialists, and, once we have CoL (and then research Med), do we want to bulb Philosophy and convert to Pacifism to accelerate bulbing?

In the meantime, we need to chop forests and produce cats ASAP. Suggest worker5 complete road and move to forest 2N of Bombay (before finishing cottage) to get that forest chopped into a cat. Until we have two cats for use near Bombay, we could get unlucky and badly hurt by an attack from Toku.

Also, workers 2&3 should complete chop and get cow pastured.

Units on hill east of the sheep are no longer optimal there (now that culture expansion has taken place), so probably should be moved onto hill west of corn. We can't defend everywhere, and if Toku moves units onto that hill, then he will be dividing his forces. We will be able to re-pasture the sheep soon enough. Tiles we must defend are Bombay, hill SW, and forest 2SW (once we attack).

 

[leif erikson]

Concur that we are going to need to bulb big to win. Couple questions that follow from that strategy: How do we get CoL, so we can convert to Caste and run specialists, and, once we have CoL (and then research Med), do we want to bulb Philosophy and convert to Pacifism to accelerate bulbing?

Currently Elizagawa has CoL's. The others cannot be far behind, so can we get it by ?

Was also looking at GP Tech preferences and it looks like Engineers will bulb IW before Engineering, so thinking we should bulb Machinery (-1 gpt as well), hire an Engineer in Delhi (28 turns to another GE) and attack Toku with the aim of grabbing at least IW and we'll see what else he has?
Great Engineer:

Machinery
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Combustion
Metal Casting
Mining
Iron Working
Engineering
Replaceable Parts
Steam Power

Not sure about getting Pacifism. Need to build a Library somewhere with food?

 

[Htadus]

Darn, it. You are right leif. We already know fishing and BW already. Fishing open sailing and BW open Iron works. My mistake. But you are right about Engineer.

We should consider runing a scienctist in the capital;so need a library there. That way we have a 50-50 chance of a two useful GP's.

 

[leif erikson]

Darn, it. You are right leif.

It happens once in a while.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Making progress. Like to learn Z's tentative plan.

 

[zamint3]

Like to learn Z's tentative plan.

I'm working on it!

This AP thing is puzzling me. I'll test a little more.

Anyway I think it will take a while before Eliza has enough votes, and there is 9 turns before next vote.
@Undecided: Eliza is friendly towards Hammu and Toku but they are only pleased towards her, but they'll get there soon enough.

I notice on the victory screen that Tokugawa has only 6 votes as a full member, this must mean that he has one Buddhist city of pop 3, his capital (!?).
So we should be able to take some cities without Buddhism.

Will concentrate on building cats for now, followed by one or two missionaries! So I'll stay in OR.

Not sure what to do with the GPro - tend to agree with Undecided but...!? (We could let him be for now)
and the GE: Machinery, agree with leif on that point

Agree with CP's proposed worker actions apart from the road N of Delhi. Workers NW will chop two forests around Pat.

Will move units near Bombay to hill SE (and you do mean SE right ) of Bombay.

I could play a few turns tomorrow (+12 hours from now)

 

[Cactus Pete]

"(and you do mean SE right )" Right.

"Not sure what to do with the GPro - tend to agree with Undecided" Please explain. Undecided listed three possible uses, but don't recall his advocating one over the others.

"apart from the road N of Delhi" Sorry . . . not clear on what this means either.

Don't think we'll need missionaries until after we take a city, so would build cats until then. We figure to have use for many of them.

 

[zamint3]

"Not sure what to do with the GPro - tend to agree with Undecided" Please explain. Undecided listed three possible uses, but don't recall his advocating one over the others.

I was referring to this:

Theology gives us +2xp for our troops (tokus double-promoted axes have 75% (c1, shock1) or 67% (c1,c2) chance of winning against our c1 axes on flatland right now)
and saves us from a vic-vote for atleast a bit of time if we're targeting the cities without buddhism first). I think that this is better short-term than astro long-term, but i could be convinced otherwise.

"apart from the road N of Delhi" Sorry . . . not clear on what this means either.

I'll move the worker onto the forest right away instead of finishing the road first.

Don't think we'll need missionaries until after we take a city, so would build cats until then. We figure to have use for many of them.

Agree.

 

[zamint3]

Tested AP again.

I get the same results as before: If I build the AP my self I'll meet every body with a Buddhist city when the vote is called. If I don't have the AP my self and get a city infected by Buddhism I'll meet every body with a Buddhist city when the next vote comes up.

With BUFFY it seems that the victory screen always has the resident at the top, then the full members ranked after number of votes (pop), then the voting members ranked after number of votes (pop) and last the non members.

So I'm pretty convinced that all our AI are full members.

Not sure why we can see the number of votes of some of the unknown AI, I guess that's the AI that Eliza met by land and the unknown who's votes we can't see are the ones Eliza only met through the AP. I'm guessing here..

 

[Cactus Pete]

I was referring to this: We will need OR for missionaries, but could switch back. Bigger concern is getting to Astro without bulbing. Not sure we can do that in a timely manner, given the lack of tech trading available. More experience is surely valuable, but not game changing.

I'll move the worker onto the forest right away instead of finishing the road first.

Road will only take one more turn. Not sure you shouldn't go ahead and complete it.

 

[leif erikson]

So I'm pretty convinced that all our AI are full members.

So, are you saying is that we need to be very careful about where we are concerning voting times and must try to ensure that at least one civ does not have a Buddhist city?

This is going to be very interesting...

 

[zamint3]

So, are you saying is that we need to be very careful about where we are concerning voting times and must try to ensure that at least one civ does not have a Buddhist city?

Would hope to be proven wrong - but yes

This is going to be very interesting...

Are you guys OK with:
Research: Sailing at 0% ?
Bulbing Machinery and leaving the GPro for now?
Building cats as fast as possible for the next 4-6 turns?
Staying in PS and next turn switch from OR to Paganism for 5 turns for the lower upkeep?