HUI Game #1 - Pacal II

Many thanks shyuhe. Re: GE bulbing, I agree with you entirely as mentioned in an earlier post. Out of curio, does anyone know of an article that covers how much of a tech a GP will bulb? The results may be very interesting at this juncture. For the record, I managed to find OzzyKP's thread re: GEs, but this deals wth how quickly they accelerate build times.

 

From another thread

 

Many thanks hunterai. Looking at the article, it would seem to imply that a GE will therefore bulb 1000 + 2*population (assuming no modifier for game speed since we’re on normal). Given the current size of Shafi's empire (92), this implies that a GE will currently bulb 1184 beakers which, at the current 198 BPT, means a GE will shave around 6 turns off a tech.

Returning to the corrected (ex guilds) figures, this implies that we now have the following final figures:

cuirassiers: 44 turns
rifles: 61 turns (GE part bulbs replacement parts), 67 otherwise
cannons: 51 turns (GE part bulbs steel), 57 turns otherwise.

So, what to make of it all? Well, given the list of pros and cons in the earlier post, my conclusions remain the same as previously. IMHO, printing press is the tech of choice from liberalism and gunpowder is the tech researched after liberalism given its part in all three tech paths. Thereafter, I think it remains dependent on progress in the war with Shaka...rifles if you really need them to take down Ulundi, cannons otherwise. Although cuirassiers offer the quickest upgrade, their vulnerability to pikes means IMHO that cannons, which are available just a maximum of 13 turns later (if you decide to keep any GE you might pop) offer a much better investment. Hope this helps. .

 

Super

I was thinking Cannons myself - but now that you have backed it up with some sound logic, we know it's the right choice, and we seemed to have figured out the tech path as well, so maybe we are ready to start on the next round today ...

 

Hi all,
Just thought i'll let you know that i finally got around to playing the next round, played up to 1550 AD, will probably play a little longer and hopefully post the next round by tomorrow.
Cheers
Shafi

P.S - Things are going very well indeed!

 

Before we kick things off, I must say in hindsight I am rather disappointed with my last round, I think I could have done it much better, specially with the tech choices, micro etc. probably should have concentrated more, instead of being in a hurry, anyways on to the next round then!

First things first, we convert to Buddhism, whip out a spy in the double gems city and make some changes to the micro as suggested. Nappy comes around informing us that he wants to cancel the Fish deal.

Spoiler :

We finish researching Education and begin researching liberalism next. My plan is to head for cannons so the next tech in line is gunpowder and we will be picking that up from Liberalism.
We send a spy across to Zulu land to have look see, here’s what he’s got protecting that capital of his,

Spoiler :

Right now I am building up my army and waiting for the mandatory number of peace turns to end, so that we can go back in there.

We win the Lib race and pick up gunpowder as the free tech, and now begin researching Chemistry.

Spoiler :

It’s time to DoW Shaka once again, we enter his lands heading straight for the Zulu capital …

Spoiler :

He has reinforced his capital significantly, here’s what he has sitting in his capital now,

Spoiler :

This time we have much better luck with the spy,

Spoiler :

We take the Zulu capital without too many losses and that has basically crippled Shaka as he has lost most of his army in the battle, we needed two turns even after the spy was successful,

Spoiler :

Hmmm …. We are not doing too badly on the power front, except for the pesky little detail that the one guy that’s more powerful than us is our neighbor …

Spoiler :

We now prepare to take Bulawayo, No luck with the spy once again! We take Bulawayo without too much fuss but had to spend an extra turn knocking down those defenses.

Spoiler :

Meanwhile our exploring caravel reaches the other continent and we meet our first inter continental neighbor …

Spoiler :

We trade Lib + Optics with Willem for Drama, Lit, Guilds & Mono.

Spoiler :

We also trade world maps with Willem and it turns out Willems got some nice neighbors, Toku & Sury!!!
We complete the research of chemistry and begin researching Steel, soon we shall have Cannons!!!
We trade Education + Philosophy with Nappy for Theology, Printing Press & some gold and immediately revolt to Theocracy.

Spoiler :

In the meanwhile our exploring caravel meets Toku & Sury, heres a look at the relative tech position

Spoiler :

Next comes a random event that plays into our hands beautifully and we make maximum use of it to get Nappy to Friendly,

Spoiler :

Shaka’s Holy city falls, that’ll be a very nice source of gold

Spoiler :

Another one of Shaka’s cities surrenders meekly and we also generate a GG in the process whom we promptly settle in Novgorod.

Spoiler :

Shaka is now down to two cities, the end is near! We complete research of Steel and begin researching Scientific method. We trade Dyes to Nappy for 12 GPT, trade gunpowder for Banking with Willem., we also generate a Great Prophet and promptly settle him in our newly captured holy cities which will soon be equipped with the wall street wonder.
We take another Zulu city and are on the brink of finishing the war, things have been surprisingly easy.

Spoiler :

One of our new possessions the city of Ondini is being culturally swamped by Nappy,

Spoiler :

We finish researching Scientific method and begin researching Economics.
Shaka’s final city falls without too much resistance which brings us to the end of the round …

Spoiler :

So once again it’s time for me to seek your advice on how we should move forward, my thoughts are very much on a Space race here, but the decision I need to make is should we look at continuing our military build up and aim to take out / cripple Nappy before we pursue our space victory or do we turtle up with all the new land we got, focus on our economy and head for a space win whilst beefing up our defenses?
Also what do we do with the city that’s being swamped by Nappy’s culture? Gift it to him?

And the game save is attached.

 

Gunpowder from Liberalism usually isn't a great strategy. Gunpowder is cheap - you're better to either research it and try to delay Liberalism for Chemistry (or Steel if you can), or take one of the other techs (PP, Nationalism, Astro) that are a bit more expensive.

As for going forward, having Nappy to friendly means that you can probably not bother taking him out, and just turtle up for space from there. If you get to a point where you get bored, and have a good tech lead (ie. fighters and infantry, and he's still only at rifles), then you can take him out, but probably don't need to. You have good land, you have a tech lead.

The main question now is whether you can get the GM/GE and go for a corp-fueled edge, or go state properly and plan to watermill/workshop your lands late. You should probably count up your food and metals, and decide whether you get enough benefits from corps, and whether you feel you can actually get the engineer/merchant in time to make it useful.

 

More often than not i pick up Astro from Lib, but in this case it did not serve any purpose to pick that up, i was looking to beeline Cannons cos i thought i might need them against Shaka or even use them against Nappy, as it turns out i have hardly built any due to how things turned out, but i did'nt want to just pick the most expensive tech.

Yes i could have delayed lib a little i guess, but i was worried about delaying it for too long, maybe PP might have been an option from Lib though ...

I have'nt done the math but i feel corps may not be that beneficial here, as i dont have a large number of resurces ... could someone please do the math and tell me what i should do???

 

Here we go.

Gift Ondini to Napoleon, it will never be useful to you and you will need to park 10+ units just to keep it from revolting. You also get a +1 to relations with him.

Cancel your free Ivory deal with Nappy, no point giving him advantages.

Why are you researching Economics? You missed out on the GM already and everyone is in Mercantilism. A better choice is Astronomy for Intercontinental resources, Observatories. Another option is to beeline Democracy for US+Emancipation. Biology and Communism are also viable choices.

Civic change suggestion: OR(+Mercantilism). Or is Sury's favorite civic so it should lessen the religion diplo hit. You can also gift him and Toku Liberalism to get a +4 to relations. Free Speech will also soon be a good choice. Just check the amount of Towns you have in the Info Screen and compare with the amount of lost commerce in the Capital.
Don't forget to spread buddhism to your cities to help with infrastructure.

You can get RP from Nappy in exchange for Scientific Method.
You may also want to gift Scientific Method to Sury to obsolete his TGL+Parth combo.

You still have a lot of old useless and obsolete units. Remember to delete as many as you can to save maintenance. You can get rid of a lot of them once the war unhappiness goes away next turn.

Switch Moscow to a Forge or directly Oxford university the next turn. This is a massive amount of beakers delayed. It should also get to use its full BFC for the full benefit of Bureaucracy and the Academy. You have too many hammer improvements here... you want cottages. So... as soon as OU is built, make Moscow get its whole BFC (bananas+some more cottages) and focus on growing to size 20+ and having mostly cottages/windmills(maybe after RP).

This being said, you need to decide how you'll end this game. If you decide to go for Dom/Conquest, then taking out Nappy becomes necessary (it looks like he's going for Rifling). Otherwise, turtle up, in which case, stop building military.
Sury and Toku are going to hate you for your religion. The good news is you can keep them busy by bribing your attack dog Nappy until the game's end.

In general, city specialization looks ok, but you have a lot of cottages in hammer-heavy cities. You are also lacking a lot of infrastructure for the date, especially forges.

Chichen Itza could get farms instead of cottages, that will also allow you to irrigate Uxmal's Rice.
Novgorod is again working a Desert hill 3 while you have a plains workshop 4 . It's also stagnating and working a cottage. Farm over it and work that farmed fp!
uMgungundlovu needs attention now. You have excellent non-worked tiles in it in exchange for coast!
kwaDukuza I would have razed. It's small, does not have many buildings and does not have a food resource. It's basically useless.
Nodwengu will become marginal when you give its bananas to Moscow,but it's almost done growing and has almost no other good tiles to work.
Nongoma could use irrigation to the rice, unfortunately yo'll only be able to do this via farming over some mature cottages or taking out Nappy.
Rostov will give a village to Moscow and borrow one from St-Petersburg, which looks more like a Production city anyway.
Ulundi could work a bananas...

Remember, the rule for getting the most commerce is to grow first, then work cottages. Or as DaveMCW puts it... make your food surplus = happy surplus.

Might have missed things, went over a bit quickly.

All that being said, this game is in the bag with 17/16 cities and an 'ok' economy.

 

Once again, very well played Shafi! With Shaka disposed of, you’ve taken a big step on your way to victory.

So where to from here? Well, I think kossin has done a great job summarising your next moves and I agree that Ondini may as well be gifted to Nappy...sooner or later I think Paris’ and Tours’ culture will simply overwhelm the city. If doing this though, just be aware you need to get those culture buildings (and a forge) up in your holy city to protect it.

Now that war is over, I’d advise looking to boost your economy’s infrastructure, so the points that kossin raised re: forges and Oxford are very well made. Although war vs Nappy may sound appealing, a look at the power graph and info screen (where I’m betting that Nappy is the only civ with more troops than you) suggests that this is best avoided right now. Indeed, with Nappy seemingly trying to complete the Taj Mahal (NB “we have our reasons” for not trading nationalism), DoWing any time soon could see you attacking when he spams troops in a golden age. All that said, I would not yet rule out a later war with Nappy (meaning that Novgorod keeps pumping military), even if you’re going the space route. After all, you don’t yet know if you or he has aluminium that would prove awfully useful. (As it happens BTW war with Nappy, if needed, will be easier than you think....I see he has just one source of oil – which spies can easily keep destroying once you DoW - until plastics.)

These points, taken together with the fact you are currently 3rd in GNP, also suggest a way forward. Once again, kossin is right IMHO to suggest that astro is good for you right now, even though you won’t get any foreign trade routes until other civs come out of mercantilism. Aside from being able to trade for resources, building observatories will boost research and increase your chances of being able to secure techs ahead of Nappy, so you can subsequently use them to bribe him to direct his military as you see fit....if needed, you could then even backstab him when his military is engaged overseas. After astro, I’d be inclined to tech towards industrialism to see if you have aluminium. Only then will you know whether you need to spam military to invade Nappy or can concentrate on defensive military builds and tech to space. In addition, it’ll also grant you access to levees, Wall Street and maybe a free GS from physics as bonuses along the way. Moreover, by getting rifling and combustion (perhaps via trade), you'd also gain quick access to tanks and marines if you need them in a war with Nappy.

Before you switch to astro however, I’d ask whether it’s worthwhile teching a turn or two into RP to lower its price. That way, you might then be able to trade Nappy liberalism (instead of sci meth) for it, keeping SM to maximise your chances of getting to physics first for the free GS. If you could do this, you might still then be able to trade liberalism to Sury and Toku (rather than gift it) and maybe get some of their gold in return (as well as a boost to relations.)

Looking at the other tech paths meanwhile, biology also has some merit (even though you’re running a CE) because it would help Uxmal, Bulawayo and Lakamha. For that reason, I’d therefore make it or physics (for the GS and its en route to industrialisation) your tech after astro. IMHO, democracy can wait until the Taj is built...Nappy may then be willing to trade you its pre-req nationalism. Whilst emancipation will help your CE, you don’t have enough towns right now IMHO to benefit from US to justify beelining democracy. I’d avoid communism unless you want the GSpy points on Nappy.

Talking of civics, the adoption of mercantilism by the other civs means, funnily enough, that this civic is actually likely more valuable than OR right now. After all, neither Toku (fav civic) nor Nappy (pyramids) have any incentive to switch out of merc any time soon. As a result, you’re therefore likely relying on Van Oranje or Sury to switch to free market to get overseas trade routes.

Whilst I would therefore just about advocate switching to merc against this backdrop (it depends on how quickly the AI implements free market), it also means IMHO that (a) there’s little value in teching economics at the mo’ and (ii) it emphasizes the need to look at which civics offer value before revolting. I say this because, whilst revolting to OR as kossin suggests would normally speed infrastructure builds, its effect on your civ will be very limited at the mo’ because Buddhism is not in any of your key cities. For that reason, if you also decide to implement OR to boost infrastructure builds, you’ll need to get Rostov or Nongoma (neither of which has a forge yet) to pump out missionaries into your cities before OR has value. (Admittedly, OR will also boost diplo with Sury but I think this can wait at least until he gets astro; until then, he’s not a military threat.) With that in mind, maybe you could instead switch to OR once this has been done as part of a bigger civics change to emancipation and US?

Another factor which argues against multiple civics changes right now is that you also don’t yet have enough cottages to benefit from switching from bureaucracy to free market. Note also that you’d lose the 50% hammer bonus in Moscow too if free market were implemented right now. This is key since you currently have a 31H overflow in the city and, with bureau, each person whips for 45H rather than 30H. This means you can switch production right now in Moscow to a forge for one turn, then whip it for just two pop (instead of three normally.) Better yet, because you’ll then be in a sweet spot, you’ll regrow one of the two pop whipped very next turn, when Oxford becomes available. Sweet.

Returning to the issue of missionaries for a mo’, if you do spend time building infrastructure here (and eventually adopt OR), consider also designating a city such as Uxmal, or perhaps even Bulawayo, (after its infrastructure has been built) as a long term missionary pump, to spread both Buddhism and, most importantly, Judaism. After all, spreading Buddhism to maximise the benefits you get from OR only gives Nappy more gold since he has the Mahabodhi. Now you have the Temple of Solomon, it makes sense IMHO to spread Judaism far and wide and boost your coffers more than you boost his by spreading Buddhism.

On the issue of troop numbers, whilst I concur with kossin that having large numbers of old troops milling around is not a good idea, I wonder if it’s worthwhile keeping them for a little while longer until (i) you know if you have aluminium and therefore need them to invade Nappy and / or (ii) until you get a GM for a trade mission that you could then use for upgrades if they are needed. To that end, how about re-assigning tiles in Mutal to give you four merchants and an engineer specialist (as opposed to the 2 GS you currently have) instead of working three mines? If done, 17 - 18 turns from now, you’ll then have another great person (as well as the one you get next turn) thanks to the NE.

Looking at the micro, kossin makes some excellent points. For my part, I’d ask if there’s any reason why workers are currently congregating to build forts? Perhaps they’d be better deployed farming 1N, 1NE of Ulundi so that irrigation can be spread to Bulawayo? How about also cottaging St. Petersburg’s and Moscow’s watermills? Meanwhile, whip the theatre in Nobamba for 1 pop and start a forge. With the Moai in CI, I’d also agree with kossin re: farms in this city and a forge when you get a mo’.

As mentioned, very well played to date – and, as always, I look forward to reading the next steps on your road to victory.

PS Re: corps. Is there really a straight forward mathematical comparison to illustrate whether SP or corps are better? After all, I confess that all I’ve done to date is to use the corporate advisor to tell me the current benefits of adopting a corp (by holding the mouse over each corporate symbol in turn when in the advisor) and then comparing those benefits to what I can work out would be obtainable from SP. (Assuming this is the correct way BTW, you can show that the hammer bonus from Mining Inc will beat SP in all but 4-5 cities (but those of course may be the very cities that produce the space parts). However, the better corp may well be Sids for the 4F and culture to beat back Nappy’s borders. In either case, it strengthens the need to reconfigure Mutal as pointed out earlier.) If there is an article which illustrates a better method, would someone be kind enough to post a link so that I can learn? Many thanks.

 

Well before we start off, thank you to Kossin, Learner gamer & others for your feedback, which really is a great help in going into this round with a focused game plan .

Now given the situation I definitely feel we have done enough for a Space win from here, I would normally consider a military approach to finish things off quicker, however given the situation I feel trying to take on Nappy would be a real slog, therefore my approach now is going to be to do everything I can to speed up research and head for a space win, whilst maintaining relations with our rivals at pleased and above to avoid being dragged into any wars.

So here we go then, we start by switching research to Astronomy, gifting the city of Ondini toNappy and successfully begging him for 140 gold. We also gifted Liberalism to Toku & Sury. We also traded scientific method for RP with Nappy. Switched civics to OR + Mercantilism + Free Speech. Traded chemistry + 40 gold for Nationalism with Willem. Traded with Nappy to gain access to Coal. We generate a Great Spy and send him to Paris on an infiltration mission.

Spoiler :

We trade Scientific method for Constitution + 70 gold with Willem. Immediate switch to Representation. We complete research of Astronomy and begin on Physics with the intention of picking up the free scientist. Traded RP for Economics + some gold with Willem and also did a bunch of resource trades with Sury & Willem now that Astro was available. Begged 70 gold from Toku as well . Traded steel for Democracy with Willem. We get the free scientist from Physics and use him for a golden age.

Spoiler :

We go for an immeadite civic change to Free Market / Emancipation / US & Free Religion. This drops nappy down to pleased but we quickly fix that,

Spoiler :

Of course Nappy accepts and we are back to being best buds. We research Rifling next, Mutal generates a GM and we promptly dispatch him to the Jewish holy city to be settled there, that would indeed make for a lovely wall street city. Begged 50 gold from Sury.

We complete Rifling and begin researching Artillery in a bid to get to Rocketry. Traded Steel & Rifling for Corporations & Steam power with Nappy. And we also steal Biology from our “chum” Nappy . We also begged another 50 gold off Nappy. Couple more resources to Sury for gold, we have quite a bit of intercontinental trade going on, here are the current deals with Sury,

Spoiler :

We complete researching Artillery and bein researching Assembly line to get to Industrialism so that we can hook up the aluminum required for the Space race. We also signed a defensive pact with Nappy. We complete research on Assembly line and then Electricity and Industrialism. Mutal generates another GS whom we use for an Academy in Rostov.

Spoiler :

We also decide to Bribe Nappy into war with Toku .

Spoiler :

We complete researching Industrialism and begin researching Rocketry upon completion of which Novgorod immediately begins building the Apollo Project, and we begin researching Combustion next. Apollo Project will be done in 13 turns.

Spoiler :

We complete the research of Combustion and begin researching Plastics. Mutal generates a GE and we use him for Mining Inc in wall street city. By the way Wall Street and Oxford have been built as planned. I think I forgot to mention when these were done. We trade Rocketry for Communism + Military Tradition with Nappy. We complete researching Plastics and begin on Refrigeration, then ecology and superconductors. We also sign a defensive pact with Willem. Mutal generates a GM we send him off to Wall Street city.
We complete researching Superconductors and move on to Radio and then Genetics next. Sury comes around asking for Electricity we oblige …

Spoiler :

Nappy has built the Apollo program too but he’s too far behind to actually mount a challenge now, he might have been a culture threat had he gone for it I guess …

Spoiler :

We definitely seem to have his one in the bag now, We finish researching Genetics and move onto Satellites > Composites > Computers and fiber optics whilst our core production cities keep churning out those space ship parts at a rapid pace.

Spoiler :

We complete researching fiber optics and then Fission and Fusion, after which we drop our research down to zero since we have all the techs we need, and we now use the gold to beef up our military in order to ensure our victory is not disrupted. Have a look at the change in power rating …

Spoiler :

The Ship is launched …

Spoiler :

1911 – Space Victory !!!

Thanks all for reading & chipping in with your advice & points of view, until next time ... (which will be pretty soon)

 

Just thought I'd say very well played Shafi, great game! Have learned loads, so thank you!

 

Thanks! Yeah it turned out pretty comfortable in the end . BTW - Game # 2 is already up , so looking to see your posts there as usual. Also thanks to all of you guys i am definitely feeling very confident at Monarch level now even in my off line games, so after another game or two i might take up HUI game # 4 at Emperor i think.
Thanks guys!!!