Grand Strategy Thread

[AutomatedTeller]

I dont' know that we NEED to control another continent, but if we did, we could use a lot of scientists or taxmen and really up our ability to rush units. Granted, we would have to defend twice as much land which could be problematic - one problem with a game like this is that it's hard to get rid of weariness. The AI will let you be after awhile, but human opponents may stay at war just to screw you over.

 

[donsig]

I dont' know that we NEED to control another continent...

Good points. What if SABER attacks BABE or GONG with an eye towards controlling a second continent? Would that change your answer?

Back to peter's question of why I think it's natural for us to attack BABE in concert with SABER. I wasn't suggesting it was logical. I think it's natural in that momentum will carry us in that direction. Once we have flight we'll take back SCI. SABER will most likely capture their 11-tiler at the same time. Then if one (or both of us) decides to deprive BABE of their 11-tiler we have a land base from which to launch an attack on the BABE homeland. I see this as the path of least resistance. I brought it up so we could decide if that is the best path for us. I'm still not sure.

There are other things we must decide:

• AT has discussed the timing of our Golden Age.
• Paul has brought up the benefits of Magellans.
• How to balance military production with science wonder production.
• We should look into the benefits of small wonders like Wall Street, Secret Police HQ and an Intelligence Agency.
• Should our EWS be naval or air based?
• When do we go it alone on research? Going alone with a viable FREE and SABER left only means we then compete against a combination.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'll spend some time ruminating on small wonders:

Wall Street

Great wonder, makes us a lot of money. There are 2 problems with it, though.

1) Maintenance costs. We are running near 100% science, so building up to 1000 gold inventory isn't easy. It requires 5 SE, which means that, unless we were going to build them anyway, we would have 20 gold in maintenance cost that we wouldn't have (5 banks and SE), so to just break even, we would need to keep 400 gold in the bank at all times.
2) Shields required. I don't think we have any banks yet, so 5 banks and 5 stock exchanges are 1800 shields, total, plus wall street is 300, so that's 2100 shields, which is 21 bombers.

I'd rather have the bombers, even if we would actually only get 15 or so (cause of shield overrruns)

Secret Police Headquarters

Can't be built unless we are in communism. Only has an effect in communism. I don't think we want to be in communism....

Intelligence Agency

Useful in many ways, but I don't know how if it works the same way in multiplayer. In particular, being able to see how far along a civ is on it's SS is useful, and being able to sabotage production is great.

Costs: Have to research espionage and it takes 400 shields. Espionage missions cost money and we are not likely to have a lot of it.

I think it's useful, but not necessary

Battlefield Medicine

Useful in itself, plus makes a nice prebuild. Would be particularly useful in a game like this if we invade another continent, because we can heal.

I'd like it, but I'd like it as a prebuild for now.

Military Academy and Pentagon
Can't build until we get a leader, of course, cause you need a victorious army for mil academy and 3 armies for the pentagon. If we war, these will be nice - dropping a 4 infantry army onto another continent will cause consternation, especially if we take a city with marines. But is moot until we get a leader.

Apollo

Central to our plans, of course. Need aluminum to get it

Heroic Epic useful if we are going to have a LOT of war, because it increases leader chances. Not very useful otherwise. Dependent on that first leader/army, of course.

 

[donsig]

Good look at the small wonders AT. I didn't realize we had to have a communist government for it (Secret Police HQ) to have benefits. Of course it is not surprising I didn't know that since today is the first day I ever heard of that small wonder.

Paul did a breakdown of modern times techs in the Unit/Improvement costs thread:

technologies
Computers 7800
Miniaturization 9600
Rocketry 7200
Space Flight 9000
Fission 8400
Nuclear Power 8400
The Laser 8400
Robotics 9600
Ecology 7800
Synthetic Fibers 8400
Superconductor 9000
Satellites 7800

altogether 101,400 beakers

At 1,000bpt we are at best 101 turns away from launching (minus our bonus tech) after we enter modern times. We are scheduled to finish our part of SCIAa on turn 206 and the (as yet unsigned) treaty calls for SABER to finish on turn 212. This puts us at a launch date after turn 300.

Reducing this time requires the following:

• 2020bpt for 50 turns
• 1684bpt for 60 turns
• 1443bpt for 70 turns
• 1263bpt for 80 turns
• 1123bpt for 90 turns

This assumes we go it alone once SCIAA is complete. I do not know what our max bpt will be once we max our population, nor do I know how much SETI and the Internet would add (if we get them). But 101 turns after entering modern times will be long after an unimpeded GONG reaches 100k.

The question of when we go it alone on research bothered me quite enough before I made this realization. Going it alone with both SABER and FREE viable means we only invite them to partner in research. We either have to keep one of them as a research partner till the very end or the research capabilities of one must be severely and permanently damaged. More and more I see a projection of military might as imperative. I think the GONG threat can he dealt with last. Either FREE or SABER must be dealt with before GONG. I'm still inclined to the idea that BABE would be a good first target with an eye towards getting a leader to make an army.

 

[Niklas]

Just thought I'd point out that the current trend of cultural increase for GONG points to a victory in <55 turns. That's assuming they keep up their ++30+ increases.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, that means they are getting 10 libs or caths or 8 unis doubling EACH turn. That's not going to continue indefinitely. Actually, we can probably figure it out - do we know how many cities they have? Or is that spoiler info?

 

[donsig]

We can only see a small portion of their land. We do see 14 cities. I'm sure they'd also have one on their other one-tile island. Not sure how many others they crammed on their home continent. They have no 11-tile island (since FREE snagged it). We can't use the trade screen to see how many cities they have like we can in single player games. The espionage screen only shows the cities we can see. Perhaps trading maps with SABER would show us more of GONG's lands.

If GONG can reach 100k in ~55 turns then they are a more serious threat. We need to get a post-SCI strategy in place. We can't really carry an offensive war past SCI until we have carriers. We need mass production for that which is scheduled to arrive on turn 200 from SABER. Amphibious war and marines are expected to arrive on turn 206, also from SABER. So it seems to be in our interest to make peace with BABE after retaking SCI. We could try to get them to give us military tradition in the peace deal, though straight up peace wold be acceptable. We might want to take our time capturing SCI so as to be able to bomb away more of BABE's war happiness.

Once we get SCI and peace we set up our air based early warning system and wait for carriers. Then we assemble a strike force and set out for GONG in conjunction with SABER and FREE or against FREE in conjunction with SABER, GONG and their toady BABE. In the former scenario we might again have war with BABE but they'd have to declare on us this time.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

So let's take a look at what they COULD have.

We have 27 cities in our land, and we aren't all that heavily ICS'd.

We could add 11 towns or so to our land without a problem, so assume GONG has 40, since they would have planned for it more.

Without research labs, the max a town can make is 2+3+3+4 = 12*2 = 24. So the MAX cpt (outside of wonders) is 24*40 = 840 cpt. They have 12 cpt from great wonders and assume 3 from FP and palace, doubled is 30, or 870. They reach that, at this rate, in 11 turns.

If that is true, then they get to culture victory in about 90 turns, which is better.

Of course, if they have 50 cities, their max is 1080, which gets them to culture victory in 70 turns.

Now, maintenance on that many culture improvements is 8 per city, or 320-400 gpt, which is a LOT and doesn't include markets, barracks or harbors - so I'd guess they have between 400 and 500 gpt in maintenance costs, which means their research will be very, very slow. If we were in feudalism, for instance, our income would not cover that much gpt - of course, GONG is probably heavily using specialists.

I think we have time with GONG and I do think that GONG can generally be handled by bombers from offshore - if each of SABER and US remove 2 culture producing buildings a turn, that's an average of something like 8-10 cpt a turn removed (assume that half the buildings are doubled culture) from each civ, which will slow their expansion. And, also, Feudalism has weariness, so they will have to deal with that which will slow their research, at least until they get communism.

It would be very useful to find out how many cities they have, though.

 

[Paul#42]

GONG's increment of increment of culture lowered a bit again in turn 184. Actually the third derivation was -27, IIRC the increase dropped from +33 to +6

turn 185, that's 690 AD. We'll witness culture doubling of all buildings that were built in 310BC. We can't really evolve what progress they made back then, we met them on turn 119 (190 BC). Could anybody dig out the #119 save and post GONG's culture here?

Maybe SABER has information about GONG from older times?

 

[donsig]

Could anybody dig out the #119 save and post GONG's culture here?

From the spreadsheet I did a long time ago (note I didn't grab all turns when I did the original sheet and just averaged the gains and acceleration for turns for which I did not get data):

Turn	Culture total	Culture gained	acceleration
119	    1,079		
120	    1,267	      188	
121	    1,468	      201	     13
122    	    1,671	      203	      2
123	    1,880	      209	      6
124	    2,103	      223	     14
125	    2,329	      226	      3
126	    2,570	      241	     15
127	    2,823	      253	     12
128	    3,085	      262	      9
129	    3,355	      270	      8
130	    3,631	      276	      6
133	    4,462	      277	      1
135	    5,035	      287	     10
137	    5,629	      297	     11
140	    6,563	      311	     14
143	    7,451	      296	    -15
145	    8,107	      328	     32
147	    8,780	      337	      9
150	    9,794	      338	      2

 

[Paul#42]

So they will get like +10cpt on average every second turn by doubling culture.

That's not too impressive.

I'm confident that they will take more than 60 turns.
Unless they take over some more land...

Only problem is: If we finally have to attack and raze towns, the cumulated culture of those destroyed towns will persist. It won't grow but we can't erase it either.
But that's quite some turns away...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

true, but if we wipe out towns, then maybe we start catching up in culture, too.

 

[Paul#42]

I strongly doubt that we will be anywhere near 50k when the showdown begins...

 

[donsig]

We also have to remember that we probably won't be able to project any of our military power beyond the range of our bombers. This means we are limited to SCI until we have carriers.

Given the pace of negotiations in this game I think it is important that we decide who our first target is to be and start planning now. FREE or GONG which will it be?

 

[peter grimes]

If we go for Gong, the Free gets to skate by and pull further ahead.

If we hit Free, then Gong continues to slowly build up culture as they have been doing all game long.

The important thing to consider with Gong: At what point will we be forced to act? How close to 100k can we allow them to get before we (and everyone else) has to hit them? Gong will likely be prepared for this, if they are smart. It also bears on our relations with both Free and Saber: perhaps we need to establish an "Everybody Hits the Gong" treaty that will kick into effect once Gong passes a certain point - 75000, say.

But if we attack Free, will they still honor the treaty to hit Gong?

 

[Niklas]

Is there any way we could possibly win before GONG reach 100k? If it takes them 80 turns to get there, which seems likely, it doesn't seem likely that we would launch before then.

 

[donsig]

Is there any way we could possibly win before GONG reach 100k? If it takes them 80 turns to get there, which seems likely, it doesn't seem likely that we would launch before then.

Paul added up the beaker cost of techs we need to build the spaceship and the total was over 100k beakers. We're doing ~1k per turn so it looks like the only way we'd be able to launch before 80 turns is to continue a research alliance with either SABER or FREE. This has problems since we'd then also be in a position of having to launch before they could launch. Also, we know not where the aluminum and uranium are on this world.

I'm thinking more and more that we have to be in position to hit someone as soon as we have carriers. GONG seems the more immediate threat to win but FREE is more dangerous long term. The longer we leave FREE and SABER viable the greater the chance we end up on the wrong side of a two team scientific civ research alliance.

I see the advantages of attacking GONG as dog pile (us, SABER and FREE versus GONG and BABE), easier/weaker target, we won't necessarily have to invade - if our bombers can destroy enough culture buildings.

I see the advantages of attacking FREE as eliminating a scientific foe.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

oh, I think we can probably pull a dog-pile on FREE, too. I would think that those two look like the ones who are in the lead.

I'd like to see what SABER has to say on the subject - I think the email to them may start that subject.

Should we talk to BABE about it?

 

[donsig]

oh, I think we can probably pull a dog-pile on FREE, too. I would think that those two look like the ones who are in the lead.

We might get (limited) help from BABE but do you honestly think GONG will come out of their shell and participate in a war? I don't see it happening.

Should we talk to BABE about it?

Sure, after we take back SCI.

 

[peter grimes]

There's no way we can mention an attack on Gong to Babe. Babe has been Gong's only friend this whole game. If we mention an attack, we must assume that Babe will tell Gong immediately. So we should only do that for the purpose of mis-information.