Deity challengers

[Rusten]

Played 10 turns.

Traded for Lincolns world map which revealed Mansa Musa as the final AI. He isn't very big so we shouldn't be too worried. He does have several religions in his cities though, so we probably have to do something about his culture eventually.

Spoiler :

Lincoln is very close to Olmec.

Philosophy+~140 gold to Brennus for Feudalism.
After trading for some maps we have proven that the world is round. I then trade our world map around again for cash (including what I just gave Brennus).

Set research to monotheism and end turn.

Next turn I find Montezuma having compass so no need to research it ourselves.
Paper -> <- compass+gold Montezuma

Lightbulb liberalism and it's due in 1 turn.
philosophy+paper -> <- machinery+gold AC
Adopt slavery and OR.

Start on universities and whip 2 triremes in our deer/crab city. People complain a lot about random events, but the RNG can be just as bad. Our first trireme loses its first battle to a barbarian galley (4.4% odds for the galley).
Now we have a C2 galley roaming around so killing them will be much slower.

Mansa contacts us at the end of the set. After trading for guilds I find him with banking+printing press (both needed for rifling).
Nationalism+liberalism -> <- PP+banking+gold Mansa Musa

I whipped the last university this turn so we can start on OU next turn. I timed Olmec for max overflow. 82/120 on forge -> 2 pop whip 157/120.

Spoiler :

Current techs:

Spoiler :

Taj Mahal is due in 2.

 

[Dirk1302]

Looks good, the world is backward. I think what'll happen next depends more on Monty than on us. If he researches straight to rifles we'll need to find another plan, otherwise i guess we'll take him out with cavs maybe helped with airships if we can trade for physics somewhere.

I think we should finish constitution, oxford. Trade for economics so we can do the civic switches during GA. After constitution we can go rep parts or mil trad, depends on what the ais have done in the meantime.

 

[shyuhe]

Monty's teching like a human! He may get cuirassiers before knights

If he doesn't get rifles, I think cossacks alone will be enough to take him out. Airships will help greatly of course. Do we want to re-assign EP for possible spies? I don't remember how it's currently assigned, but it might help take down at least his capital.

 

[Rusten]

Montezuma is researching MT now -- so maybe you're right.
I got a glimpse of his research (and then it faded away) -- I think it said 7 turns. We should get it permanently soon.

We have been putting EP on Montezuma for a long time.

 

[JujuLautre]

Another not so useful lurker's comment: by the way guys, did you notice this post on page 2?

I only suggested best ball (only for the 1st set) to avoid the problems of starting next to Monty.

And then you re-rolled the first start and got this one; you know shyuhe, you should change your job and get into the divination business, I'm sure you would do great

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hi guys ,

Nothing to add compared to what you said about tech path...
Note that the main Aztec stack is trapped in Rome, so the war might be easier than expected.

Roster duty:

Rusten -> just played!
Duckweed -> up!
Dirk -> on deck!

Cheers,
Raskolnikov

edit:
@Juju: I am sure Shyuhe has changed his mind since a certain LHC game... and is now glad we started NEXT to Monty

 

[Duckweed]

Got it and look at it tomorrow.

 

[Duckweed]

Questions and Plan:

? When did we trade away Nat? I'd like to delay the Taj for a few turns to gain cash by building it in another city and to have more citizens to work in the GA.
? OB with JC and Wheat<->3G
? Chop forests before forge while there's no emergent usage
? Workshops everywhere while there's room for growth. Isn't food + slavery give you the best production.

Tech: Don't like Constitution, especially we aim to take Monty away and MM is in the game. RP->Rifling make more sense.

Citizen: Will maximize growth since I'd like more citizens to work in the coming GA.

Trade: Will trade Economy when it is handy to take the benefit of FM. No OB and being Annoyed with Charlie is bad, we lost a trade partner. Should give him 10G when met him and OB with him. I'm thinking of adopting FR temporary during GA to gain something from him.

EP: Will focus on MM. The EPs on Monty is enough for 1 revolt and knowing what he is researching is useless.

 

[shyuhe]

Constitution is to speed up research. I think it'll allow us to get RP--rifling a lot faster.

 

[Rusten]

I will have to check the log to pinpoint Nationalism, but it's very recent. Monty was first to get it (by research) and it was only 3-4 or so turns ago.

Chop forests. We get extra hammers for doing it in OR. We have several things to build too. Don't have the save open, but IIRC some forested cities are in dire need of basic infrastructure.

Slavery stops being more efficient with high-pop cities. Caste+guilds workshops makes them as efficient as hills and when we get chemistry they get another hammer.

We don't need FM -- mercantilism is better.

 

[Duckweed]

Constitution is to speed up research. I think it'll allow us to get RP--rifling a lot faster.

I agree that getting Constitution will improve our research, but does not make us getting Rifling faster. How many turns it needs to generate ~3300 beakers from Representation specialists? In ~10-15 turns (Constitution->Demo is one of the favorite tech path for many AIs when Nat is open), we can trade it. Researching something that you can trade in short time and beyond your 1st priority is the biggest mistake in the game.

 

[Duckweed]

I will have to check the log to pinpoint Nationalism, but it's very recent. Monty was first to get it (by research) and it was only 3-4 or so turns ago.

Chop forests. We get extra hammers for doing it in OR. We have several things to build too. Don't have the save open, but IIRC some forested cities are in dire need of basic infrastructure.

Slavery stops being more efficient with high-pop cities. Caste+guilds workshops makes them as efficient as hills and when we get chemistry they get another hammer.

We don't need FM -- mercantilism is better.

Whip the forge and then chop forests is better. I don't see that SP which should work on food tiles is in dire need of Forge. There are several riverside grasslands unimproved and 2 workers are chopping the forests. Why SP did not prioritize to work on farm to grow big for the coming GA?

High-pop cities? I don't see them, all cities are below 10 except capital and working on workshops only hampers the city growth. Even at size 12, working on 2 irrigated grassland slightly beats 2 plain hill production. Food + slavery is way better than cast + workshops for production for fastest war preparation. A size 10 city can whip 3 cavs in 5 turns, how long a city working on workshops can produce them? Moreover, growing cities 1st is always preferred when there's lots of room for further growth.

FM is much better than mercantilism with the exception that most of AIs are adopting mercantilism. Especially when we'll get intercontinental trade in short time. Instant gain of >10C is much better than any specialist under representation.

Will play tomorrow since I do not have time after.

 

[Rusten]

Cities are smaller because I just whipped universities for OU.

Even at size 12, working on 2 irrigated grassland slightly beats 2 plain hill production.

It's not fair to compare a plains tile to a grassland tile when comparing two improvements -- the workshops will be on grassland tiles.

 

[Dirk1302]

I agree that getting Constitution will improve our research, but does not make us getting Rifling faster. How many turns it needs to generate ~3300 beakers from Representation specialists? In ~10-15 turns (Constitution->Demo is one of the favorite tech path for many AIs when Nat is open), we can trade it. Researching something that you can trade in short time and beyond your 1st priority is the biggest mistake in the game.

Almost no one has nationalism yet, some of the ais here are not so prone to go demo soon. Good chance to get gunpowder and pp in return, techs you were researching yourself otherwise. If you researched gunpowder,pp you'd probably get constitution in trade instead of the other way around.But in this case constitution early helps out with research immediately and it'll help a lot.

 

[shyuhe]

Lincoln, MM, and Monty have Nationalism. Monty isn't likely to go constitution anytime soon but I think Lincoln and MM are. Even then, we'd only be able to get it via trade from MM (monopoly tech). I think constitution will net us both PP and gunpowder, saving us beakers in the long run. The alternative would be PP, which can net gunpowder but not constitution (unless you throw in a lot of gold).

 

[Duckweed]

Cities are smaller because I just whipped universities for OU.


It's not fair to compare a plains tile to a grassland tile when comparing two improvements -- the workshops will be on grassland tiles.

On the contrary, it's unfair to compare grassland farm with grassland workshops. We are talking about production from Food + slavery vs CS + Workshop. If I compare with grassland workshop, then the production from the grassland workshop is worse since you can not convert that 1F to hammer under CS.

BTW, the only tile really asking for workshop is the plain tile in Olmec, which could accelerate OU a lot while it's a cottage still.

 

[Duckweed]

Almost no one has nationalism yet, some of the ais here are not so prone to go demo soon. Good chance to get gunpowder and pp in return, techs you were researching yourself otherwise. If you researched gunpowder,pp you'd probably get constitution in trade instead of the other way around.But in this case constitution early helps out with research immediately and it'll help a lot.

I actually prefer Gunpowder at that time since it is on route to Rifling but Constitution is not. We can do the Gunpowder + RP for Constitution trade although it is a little waste. Partially research Constitution that time is not too bad since we need some beakers on it if we trade it with RP only. However, while RP is open now, we should go for RP and aim to trade for Constitution. As I mentioned, the real problem is that the >3000 beakers put on Constitution is a huge waste that the earlier representation can not compensate. So it does not matter whether we can trade Constitution in 10 or 20 turns since we get to Rifling faster by skipping Constitution and we won't be short of bait to trade for it. The only case that Constitution is better is that MM is researching RP now and this chance is really low.

 

[shyuhe]

But we're planning on warring with cossacks and not rifles, right? Then we need to get RP + rifling + MT. We could tech constitution--MT while waiting to trade gunpowder and RP. I'm fine going RP--rifling directly and trying to backfill gunpowder/constitution.

 

[Dirk1302]

I actually prefer Gunpowder at that time since it is on route to Rifling but Constitution is not. We can do the Gunpowder + RP for Constitution trade although it is a little waste. Partially research Constitution that time is not too bad since we need some beakers on it if we trade it with RP only. However, while RP is open now, we should go for RP and aim to trade for Constitution. As I mentioned, the real problem is that the >3000 beakers put on Constitution is a huge waste that the earlier representation can not compensate. So it does not matter whether we can trade Constitution in 10 or 20 turns since we get to Rifling faster by skipping Constitution and we won't be short of bait to trade for it. The only case that Constitution is better is that MM is researching RP now and this chance is really low.

At the time the decision for constitution was made we didn't have pp. Researching gunpowder was an option, it's in my experience never that good, researching pp is almost always bad since ais trade it without much restriction. Situation has changed now, we could go rp now which gives us a good chance to trade for constitution and gp later. Both Lincoln and MM can research constitution now. It's always a bit of a gamble, it is more likely that MM goes constitution than rp, if he doesn't however the consequences for us are worse than we go constitution and MM goes constitution. This is bad since we still want constitution for research. Might also be that we get constitution but it falls after our GA, also bad. Just finishing constitution might not give us HOF score but it's a sound way to continue and i'm sure we can trade it away profitably in the end. Early constitution also gives us more options to shoot for other options if Monty goes rifles early.

We're -7 with Charlie now, gifting wouldn't have helped, since both -4 bonuses count too heavy. I like the plan of going Fr during GA to do some trading with Charlie.

 

[Duckweed]

But we're planning on warring with cossacks and not rifles, right? Then we need to get RP + rifling + MT. We could tech constitution--MT while waiting to trade gunpowder and RP. I'm fine going RP--rifling directly and trying to backfill gunpowder/constitution.

If we want to trade for RP, then it would be at the time when Mansa get it or Lincoln and another AI, which would be very late since either Demo route or SM->Communism/Physics is more favorable for Mansa and other AIs don't even have PP yet.

@Dirk

Is this statement hard to understand?

As I mentioned, the real problem is that the >3000 beakers put on Constitution is a huge waste that the earlier representation can not compensate. So it does not matter whether we can trade Constitution in 10 or 20 turns since we get to Rifling faster without representation by skipping Constitution than research Constitution and then research Rifling with representation and we won't be short of bait to trade for it.