JFC-3: Ping Pong

[AnotherPacifist]

I think Jet is right. It's the absolute amount of money that's earned each round that's compared to the next turns that counts. Whether you save it or spend it on science/culture/espionage doesn't matter.

However, I think that if you devote a city's hammers to gold or hire merchants, that counts as an absolute increase in gold, which boosts your economic stability.

 

[pigswill]

Had a look at the save. Not sure about Hanging Gardens.

If we send our scientists in Beijing to work in the mines we can get GWall built in 14 turns (before any more chops). Obviously this affects our research rate and slows down the GP production but I'd guess GWall is the priority at the moment.

Our military at the moment consists of three warriors. Let's hope we get Gwall built in time!

We've got research set to Calendar. Taoism hasn't gone yet. At breakeven it'll take about 12 turns, I'm happy enough to revert to binary research if it doesn't affect stability too much. Seems like there's a bit of confusion between total commerce and total gold.

If I'm UP I've Got It. Otherwise, I haven't.

 

[Quotey]

Sorry, must have forgotten to switch the scientists to mines. Accident, please fix. Gardens might be useless but I couldn't think of something better to build- maybe a granary or rax?

 

[Jet]

Quotey - played
pigswill - up
mushyman - on deck
Let's say, for the rest of the game, that anyone can play more than 10 turns to round off the turn numbers or to make a better break point. And just to keep the game moving.

If we want Seoul (for my part I think saving the settler hammers makes it an OK choice) remember that we want a military unit two tiles away on turn 120, or at least before it builds a defender.

Once we have Calendar I suggest settling at least the jungle city to block India and secure the resources. Maybe start the Settler before Calendar is done.

What do you guys want to do after Calendar? What classical wonders, if any, do you think would be good targets for this game?

 

[pigswill]

Playing now. Let's see if we can great wall and then think about life after calendar. I'll probably build an axe for Seoul and start another worker while we're stagnating.

 

[pigswill]

I thought I'd try out this new-fangled (or at least 'back in fashion') binary research thing so a few turns on 100% gold followed by a few turns on 100% research at -8gpt.

Beijing went into max hammer mode. Three workers were dispatched to chop down the local woodlands. Still 14 turns for Great Wall.
Macau starved a tiny bit to get an axe out faster.
Hangchou switched to a worker in anticipation of future plantations.

Sent the workboat out to meet our new neighbour:

I must confess that my limited knowledge of Japan doesn't include the city of Nigata.

Meanwhile to the west something stirred....

This could end up a very short game.....

Ethiopia is born. Do I want to switch? For a moment I was tempted.

Tokugawa turns Confucian!

Darius makes a brief appearance. He's Buddhist. Asoka is Hindu. We're certainly finding some religious diversity early on.

Macau finishes its axe, stops starving and starts a worker. Axe meanders northwards.

Great Library bidl! For a moment I was a bit worried.

Workers have finished chopping and resume the cottage south of Beijing.

Usually I think to myself: "Another screenshot of a wonder being built? How tedious". But not this time:

Spoiler :

Beijing completes a warrior then starts on a worker.

Hmmm. Well, that answers the question about gold and stability:

Screenshot taken after I'd reset the gold slider to positive. Went from stable(ish) to shaky in something like eight turns of deficit research with a Two Star Economy.

Let's hope the economy recovers. Meanwhile calendar is duly completed:

Taoism in Macau. Taoist missionary wandering around aimlessly. Have we achieved one of our historical victories?

We've got a warrior not sure where he should be heading. We've got a WB hanging around not sure what to do. We also have an axe near Seoul-to-be:

I picked AH as our next tech but its beaker free and available to be changed.

I ended up playing thirteen turns:

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Niigata is on the Japan Sea coast. If RFC is reasonably accurate in this point, it will be on the Japanese bronze hill NNE of the so-called Kyoto start location, which would be a fairly odd place to build, so I suspect it may not be all that accurate...

Cheers, Luke

 

[Quotey]

If that Indian scout moves right Seoul won't spawn- great.

On the gold issue- you should download the stability numbers (I'm sure someone will link you to it... Jet?) and see if the economy was teh bad thing... I'm not losing any econ points for deficit researching in a Monarch england game. The unstable could be due to you starving a city or our growth stagnating.

 

[Jet]

Stability drop - I don't believe it was due to deficit spending. Again, this is because of my reading of the Python. We might have taken a hit from our GNP not growing. I think the GNP formula is

(commerce - costs including inflation) + (4 x hammers) + (2 x food)​

I think the commerce, hammers, and food are from tiles only, and not trade routes, specialists or corporations, but I'm not sure. Anyway, GNP is checked for growth every 3 turns, and you gain or lose stability depending whether you grew. GNP is the only quantity that's checked for growth like this. But Stability and even the Economy part of Stability incorporates other factors and tweaks.

Niigata - yes, it's that Copper hill, or maybe an adjacent tile. I've seen that tile settled before.

"a very short game" - just remember that we auto-win the first 3 barb fights. (For that reason, it's preferable to attack, for more XP.)

Our WB - I thought we'd need to reveal the southeast Asian coast to open trade routes to India, but we have them now without it, so I was wrong. But it's still good to have contacts for known tech research bonuses and trade.

Seoul - I think only human units can block the spawn.

Warrior - how about staking out the jungle city?

Stability numbers - I have two mod mods installed:
From this post. Changes the UI to show some stability numbers in F2, no gameplay changes.
From the first post in this thread. Improves speed, no gameplay changes. By way, I was running this mod mod when I ran the speed tests in post 20.

We need to decide about wonders. In my opinion the Hanging Gardens are too risky, the Statue of Zeus is not worth it, and the Leaning Tower is very unlikely. I suggest that we immediately attempt the Mausoleum in Hangzhou and the Colosseum in Macau, microing both for max production. Who knows if we'll get them, but they're both plausible, good, and Marbleized. We could grow and expand instead of building them, but I think the time pressure to land grab is modest as long as we grab Seoul and the jungle city (Mandalay).

I argued for the Shwedagon but I'd like to examine the cons, too. I can see going either way on it.
Pro:
* early FR for happy, trade, and research
* can skip Liberalism until after the Internet (best if we have more specialists and less cottages)
Con:
* skipping it allows us to skip Aesthetics until we need the Opera House.
* Japan is Confucian for now, so shared religion might deter an attack
* Organized Religion is a possibility, although at some cost (acquiring Monotheism, civic maintenance, instability from Taoism, the civic switch)
* can still use Spies, Caravels, and embassies to maintain contact with civs who won't open OB
* can still research Liberalism and switch to FR then (best if we have more cottages and less specialists)

Apart from Aesthetics and Drama, it seems to me that the best bang for our near-term research buck would be from Hunting -> AH and Currency -> COL. That's kind of assuming we can pick up Alphabet in trade. Hunting and AH might be available in trade at some point, but if we research them I think Hunting should be before AH for the prereq bonus.

 

[mushyman]

Got it, for tomorrow evening most likely. I will take a look at the save then.

Good work getting the Great Wall, when we started this I had no clue we'd manage that. And Taoism too! Sadly though pigswill, we've not completed a UHV condition - IIRC, the actual condition is to build two Pagodas and two Academies by 1200AD. Very unlikely! I'm assuming we're skipping the UHV GA, since the other possible condition, 120 units in 1600AD, also seems completely unrealistic.

Wonders: I think you're spot on Jet - the stability bonus from as many wonders as possible will likely be crucial, thus I'd be cautiously in favour of Shwedagon regardless. I don't think OR or Theocracy is good idea due to the stability problems.

Techs: Currency would be good to shore up our economy, CoL likewise for courthouses.

 

[pigswill]

Re my set: I should have read the thread more carefully to work out what to do with the WB and warrior.

I thought that founding confu and tao is the first UHV condition. I agree the pagoda bit is unlikely. 120 units in 1600ad, possible but unlikely due to maintenance costs.

Shwedagon could be worth going for, whether its worth adopting confu in the meantime to placate Tok is debatable if we get increased instability due to anarchy while swopping religions.

With three cities (and hopefully four if the indian scout doesn't mess it up) we could build wonders (Colosseum and Mausoleum) in two of them while building a settler for jungle city in the third.

Once we start getting some calendar resources we should be able to grow our cities a bit and also improve commerce from tiles both of which (I think) should help stability.

I might have wrong about deficit research as the major factor in economic instability. Our cities have been stagnant for several turns now and running specialists instead of working tiles. It could have been a coincidence that our stability tanked. On the other hand it could be that deficit research reduces economic stability and we had no other economic factors to compensate at the time.

 

[mushyman]

Ok, so I managed to play last night. BTW pigswill, we are already Confucian - Jet switched in his set to maximise the happy.

Initial comments: Comparing Quotey's save with pigswill's, we have dropped 6 stability points overall. The bulk of this is in economy, with a drop of 8 in total. We appear to have gained 3 points that are not listed in any category. I did try to keep track using Jet's formula, but I got hopelessly lost
I mostly managed to keep overall track though.

Unfortunately I mucked up some of my screenshots as well, so there are less than I'd hoped! Never mind.

Turn 0: Macau and Hangzhou change tiles to maximise production. Macau switches to the Colosseum immediately. Hangzhou is 1 turn from the Barracks at max production, so I leave that to finish. I also instruct it to stagnate. Beijing is three turns from a Great Person, so I leave it as is for now. There is ~20% chance of that GP being a Merchant who can bulb Currency, so I decide to go the AH route and select Hunting. Science set to 100%

Turn 1: Workers start improving the Calendar improvements around Hangzhou while it starts the Mausoleum. Spare Warrior heads towards the jungle.
Stability: no change.

Turn 2: Hunting in.

Spoiler :

AH next.
Stability: We are back to Shaky - Economy improved by +3.

Turn 3: IBT the Mayans spawn. No switch!
A Great Merchant is born in Beijing.

Spoiler :

Unfortunately Currency is not available in one, but I bulb him right away in case he's costing maintenance - he isn't. Doh. Currency now due in 6 turns (at 100%), so I stick with AH.
Stability: no change.

Turn 4: Worker finishes in Beijing. I start on a Settler, and unhire the scientists.
Seoul spawns successfully - this means war!

Spoiler :

Stability: Economy up +1.

Turn 5: Seoul is captured.

Spoiler :

Dye plantation is completed giving +1 happy, allowing Hangzhou to grow again. I also fix some of my subpar worked tiles on Macau
Stability: +3 to expansion.

Turn 6: AH is in. Currency next, but I set science back to zero for the moment.
Stability: no change.

Turn 7: Uneventful.
Stability: +1 to economy.

Turn 8: Seoul is out of anarchy. Work boat improves fish, and I start it on a library. Sugar is connected giving +1 happy.
Stability: Cities +1.

Turn 9: Confucianism spreads in Hangzhou
Science back to 100%.
Stability: no change.

Turn 10: Uneventful.
Stability: No change.

Turn 11: Uneventful.
Stability: Cities +1.

Turn 12: The Colosseum is built in Macau. It resumes building a worker. Colossus is BIADL.
Stability: Cities +1.

Turn 13: Currency is in. I decided this would be a good place to stop while we consider our next move.
Stability: +2 hidden stability - from the Colosseum presumably? I thought Wonder stability is added to the cities category, but maybe not.

Thoughts: The Mausoleum is one turn away in Hangzhou. I'd still favour going for Shwedagon Paya if we can, but we still need Meditation before we can build it. Fingers crossed we could trade for it from India while researching Aesthetics. Alternatively we could just forget it and go for CoL.

Economy-wise, I saw no ill effects from science switching, so I'm happy to continue with the 0%-100% switcheroo.

 

[mushyman]

Forgot the roster:

mushyman (just played)
Jet (UP)
Quotey (on deck)
pigswill
mushyman
Jet
Quotey
pigswill
......

 

[Jet]

I liked your report. Got it for ~8 hours from now.

Quotey or Pigswill, any further thoughts on the Shwedagon? If not, I guess I'll try it. My instinct here is to be greedy. Aesth + Med is ~13 turns, COL ~15.

We have 5 1/2 Workers now. 6 is probably enough to keep us working improved tiles, but I wonder if I should build another 2. We are paying 1 GPT per extra unit now, though.

I think I should make Granaries a priority, as much for health as for growth.

We might get a plague around turn 140, end of my turnset. RBTS8 got one then and it looks like the code (Stability.py) used to hardcode one to occur around then. I haven't figured out exactly how it works now.

If a plague comes, we should be ready to rush the workers into the countryside to protect them. I think 3 tiles from a city is safe, so we still have a hinterland in the middle that would work. We could try to do the same for our army. If we're still hooking up Gold, we might have to lose Workers on that project.

Since a plague might be coming I'll also make it a point to hook up Deer, Pig, and Banana. I noticed we can trade 2 resources to India for Ivory. We could do it now with Fish+Clam now but eventually he'll hook up his own Fish. I guess if we want the trade ASAP, to make sure we don't lose the chance, we could do Clam+Silk now, both of which we don't need immediately and are replaceable for us. I think the trade is probably a good idea for stability and good relations even if we don't use the happy right away. I think it's probably OK to give him the benefit of our resources. India is unlikely to beat us to space, and indeed it's better for us if he doesn't collapse. Well, he's unlikely to beat Germany and England to space. I guess it remains to be seen whether he'll beat us. Anyway if we grab Mandalay the jungle will mostly block him from invading, and eventually he should be friendly enough not to attack.

We probably don't need more military quite yet, but I want to build at least a Galley for ambassadorial duties. A Scout would also work, but it would be more vulnerable to the barbs and the plague.

 

[Jet]

Throughout, I mostly did toggle 0 / 100% research. One turn I forgot and another turn I set it to finish Aesthetics in 1 turn.

0 129 170 AD
Stability -8 = Cities 1 =, Civics -6 =, Economy -10 =, Expansion 9 =, Foreign 2 =
Aesthetics it is.
Take the Ivory for Clam+Silk trade.
Burn the Taoist missionary in Beijing, since we're paying maintenance for him. There's no stability hit for non state religions in Paganism.

1 130 190 AD
We get the Mausoleum, yay.
+1 City stability
Hangchen grows to size 2. We're now officially working unimproved tiles, so I decide to build more workers.
Beijing Settler -> Worker.
Hangzhou Mausoleum -> Worker
Tokugawa has learned Alphabet. He wants Calendar, Currency, Construction and won't trade Med, Poly, Alpha, Archery, MC.

3 132 230 AD
Macau Worker -> Galley

Asoka has Alphabet. Wants Calendar, Currency, Construction, will trade Med, Poly, Alpha, Archery, HBR, IW.
I try to figure out how favorable a trade needs to be. The closest I come to cracking the code is observing that he will trade Med (220) + Arch (220) for Con (1105) + 20. I don't know the formula and there might be a variety of factors such our cost versus his cost, different known civs, wealth (gold) being valued differently from reserach, but an approximation is that we need to offer a litle better than double the value of his techs, maybe around 220%. My instinct is to be shrewd and hold out until we have more contacts, but we are racing to the Shwedagon. We could get Meditation for Calendar, which by the 2.2 theory is about 150% more than we need to offer. We could get Meditation + either IW or Alpha for all 3 of our techs. We won't be able to make any other contacts by the time we want Meditation. I take the Calendar - Med trade and hope we won't miss the boat on trading away Construction and Currency to someone. We get no diplo bonus for the trade. My experience in other Emperor games is that tech trading can be frustrating.

I consider building a unit to put on the Galley in an effort to improve our foreign contacts. Maybe we can drop the unit off in the middle east. If we made the bold trade for Alpha we could do it with a Spy, but I'm not willing to. I think the best move is to use one or two of our existing Warriors and replace them with new Axemen out of Macau.

5 134 240 AD
None of the individual stability indicators have changed (1, -6, -10, 9, 2) but overall stability is up from -7 to -6.
Leaning Tower and Hanging Gardens are BIDA. The Leaning Tower is in the GL / Parthenon / Moai city which I'm almost certain is Athens.
Found Mandalay. Expansion stability goes up to 10 and overall up to -5. Pagan is present, and blocking the Spice and Banana to its south. I'm not too concerned, although we could have a problem if 1. it eventually gets an Elephant defender 2. we're at war with the Independent owner of Pagan (there are two, Independent 1 and Independent 2) and 3. the Elephant walks up through the jungle to Mandalay. I think all 3 together is unlikely. I hire a temporary Artist for the first border pop [actually, I forgot to] and set the first build to a Granary.
Beijing Worker -> Granary.

6 135 290 AD
Macau Galley -> Axeman. Load one Warrior, the one that was in Macau.
Hangzhou Worker -> Work Boat to replace the Clams we traded away

7 136 310 AD
Plague in Jaipur.
Cities stability is down to zero, but overall stability is up to -4.
Hangzhou size 3.
I notice Asoka and Tokugawa are both running HR. I don't know when they adopted them.

8 137 330 AD
Beijing grows to size 6.
I notice that when I was playing with Mandalay I accidentally unhired the artist so that it still has culture zero, and rehire him.

9 138 350 AD
Beijing Granary -> Market
Macau Work Boat -> Granary
Macau Axeman -> Granary
The fort on the gold in Mandalay is completed. We can't mine the jungle until IW.
Economy down to -11, overall down to -5.

10 139 370 AD
I think we had a successful GNP check this turn. Econ is up to -8, overall up to -1.
Aesthetics complete. Neither Asoka nor Toku has it. Started COL.
Checked diplo, neither Toku nor Asoka is in war prep.
Plague spreads to Mandalay. At some point, Mandalay also got Confucianism. Culture is up to 8, so I fire the artist and set it to the unimproved Rice, which with the plague just holds its food bucket steady.
Beijing puts the Shwedagon in front of the Market. The Horses are improved now, so ETA is 10 turns.

11 140 390 AD
Overall stability is up to 0, Stable. At some point we surpassed both India and Japan in score. W00t.
Oof. Plague spreads simultaneously to Macau, Hangzhou, and Beijing, killing their garrisons. Beijing's cottages are immediately downgraded.
I can't get the Galley through Pagan without declaring war, so I do. It is Confucian, but undefended. I could raze it with the Warrior to eliminate the nuisance, at the risk of the plague killing the Warrior. I do so. Stability is unaffected, at least so far.
Seoul grows to size 4.
The 2 northern Workers started a Manchurian highway. I suppose it would be better for them to just go and improve tiles. But right now they should step away from the cities.
The 3 middle Workers are finishing up the Deer.
The 3 southern Workers are sprinting past Macau on the way to join the middle Workers away from the cities.

You know, it would probably be better to switch research from COL to Priesthood. That would open a trade for Monarchy and switching to HR + FR together. Priesthood would also give us a prereq bonus for COL. We only have 21 beakers in COL, one turn at 0%.

 

[Jet]

Jet - played
Quotey - up
pigswill - on deck
mushyman

 

[Quotey]

Oh you know just how to get me playing!

BTW, I wouldn't be afraid of Pagan, because it only get 1hpt.

 

[Quotey]

Turn 0 (140)

+2, -6, -8, +10, +2, TOTAL 0

Switch to Priesthood.

(IT)

Plague in Hancheng

Turn 1 (141)

Economy goes up to -7

(IT)

Lose a worker

Turn 2 (142)

Cities goes down 6 points probably due to the unhealth. (Total -4)

Turn 3 (143)

(IT)

Priesthood finishes. CoL next.

Turn 5 (145)

Plague passes.

Trade Indians Aesthetics and Currency- it's the onyl deal they want but we have a lock on Shwedagon Paya.

Persia is destroyed.

Turn 8 (148)

Meet Babylon.

Spoiler :

Turn 9 (149)

Vikings spawn.

Turn 10 (150)

Carthage is destroyed. I noticed Persia was destroyed by barbs- I'd assume the same thing happened to Carthage.

Turn 11 (151)

Arabia spawns and the Shewggy P completes.

Spoiler :

Oh and by the way, that boat i built earlier was so we could see Japanese cities to get trade routes with them.

 

[pigswill]

Looks like I'm UP.

Had a look at the save:
1) I don't think a boat will be able to get round the Japanese borders far enough to see into their cities.

2) Hammy will trade alphabet for currency, aesthetics and 150g. He's not currently in contact with Asoka or Tok. He is a different religion so I'm not sure about 'trading with worst enemies'. Should be ok. I noticed that Quotey traded currency and aesthetics so if we're going to trade we should trade widely.

3)On the subject of religion should we swop to FR? It'll help with Asoka (and everyone else we meet) but lose shared religion with Tok.

4) Not very good on loading mods of mods so I'll try to puzzle out the stability display mod but I wouldn't guarantee success.

 

[Jet]

The modmod consists of only one file. You simply copy it over the old one.

I agree that we should do that tech trade. I think he's unlikely to trade our techs away anyway. His AI personality seems to me to be stingy, and he's Jewish, so he's probably isolated. He could be Arabia's worst enemy due to conflict over Arabia's spawn, but what can you do. It's not like Saladin is going to trade with us.

I do think we should revolt to FR+HR.