Jumpmasters 1B: Power is Knowledge (Vanilla, GOTM mod - Emperor - No research)

[AlanH]

Well done nikof.

I agree that it's way too late to change to SS launch, we would have been playing a very different style.

Not necessarily. We still have a few power house civs to do our research for us, and Russia at least is scientific. Maybe now MB is around he can tell us who else is. We are earning lots of cash to buy techs as they appear, and we could increase the rate if we focused on it. For example, rather than automate workers that are doing useless tasks, why dont we join them into productive cities in the Palace core to increase cash and reduce unit costs?

If MB is coming aboard please note his comment in our opening posts:

The spaceship launch with no research variant has been done (at least at monarch).
The inability of the AI to pre-build actually makes it quite straightforward.

He might want to consider doing that as an exercise, now that we've already learnt a lot about the early game and focused warfare.

I did say, after his comment:

Well, if it's doable I have no objection to trying. We could target the domination limit asap, then we can decide from there whether it looks as if we can build a spaceship. We probably need to keep more civs alive on small islands as research pets than we would if we were going for conquest. Unfortunately it's vanilla, so we are unlikely to get a lot of free techs from Scientific civs.

What do you think M-B?

Military Tradition still seems like a long way away.

It's only two techs away. We may not need it now, but I recommend we work towards it. Cavalry will do a lot better against rifles than our existing UUs would on their own, and if the team decides to try for a space victory we'll need them in the early Industrial.

hey, we can trade World Maps now

That means Navigation is about. Trading time!

 

[AlanH]

We've had votes from all the active players except Gator, who's either fighting high winds or paint stripper or both. I suggest M-B takes the next 5 turns so that he grets a chance to play with the Mongol UUs. That makes our roster:

Nikof
mad-bax - UP
AlanH - on deck
Mistfit
Gator

Grunthex MIA

If M-B prefers to take some time to get up to speed I can take it now.

 

[Mistfit]

Good looking turns nickof

Minonans, Arabs, Russia, France, Vikings all know Navagation

 

[mad-bax]

I have it. Are we playing for domination or conquest?

 

[AlanH]

Well, this is where the recent debate arises. See the last few posts.

We've been playing for a domination victory, and we're about half way there, but it's been suggested that we might try for a space launch. You suggested this is feasible with this zero research variant, and as I'm going AWOL in a little over a week you and Gator will be running the show so it's up to you guys.

I don't think much we've done so far compromises a spaceship. There are still several research partners around that we haven't ticked off yet, but I don't think we can get any gpt deals now. I think it would be very instructive to see a space victory with zero research - even more telling as an object lesson in turning the science slider off thatn it's been already. It would also mean that Karasu and maybe I would have a game to come back to

On the other hand, the Mongols' destiny is military domination, and we are well on our way.

What does everyone think?

 

[Mistfit]

I think Domination is the easier of the two.

 

[AlanH]

Correct in one The question is - do you want it easy or interesting?

 

[Mistfit]

Personally I'd prefer to go conquest. But don't you need to have domination turned off for that victory condition? because at some point as you cull off the other civ's you will reach the 66%.

 

[mad-bax]

Spacehip is doable, but boring. You end up hitting space a lot because you are just waiting for the next tech. You can't kill anybody else because you need them to research for you, and everything else is done.

I agree that domination is the easier of the military conditions, which is why I would go conquest

 

[Mistfit]

Please Explain

 

[AlanH]

Personally I'd prefer to go conquest. But don't you need to have domination turned off for that victory condition? because at some point as you cull off the other civ's you will reach the 66%.

Not if you raze instead of keeping them. Get up near the dominaton limit and then make sure you don't capture or grow any more territory.

 

[Mistfit]

So just keep empty land and our territory will not get over the 66%. Ok I can see that. How close do you get? Do we raze/ abandon our own cities if we get close? Does this actually make the game easier because the remaining civs will be concentrating on trying to grab land instead of military?

As you can tell by my posts and questions I have never tried to win by that victory condition. I think it is the way to go. It seems like what the Mongol's should do.

 

[Mistfit]

Sorry for the double post but it would seem that we would have to change the way we are playing. I think that we have been pushing for domination because some of the players have been puting temples in cities to expand the territory. Also the push to settle the Barb island makes more sense for domination then conquest. If we were going for conquest I would have suggested leaving the barb island alone because the AI would have expended quite a few troops trying to settle that area, instead we have knocked the barb population down a couple of hundred unit for them. Again I will abide by what the rest of the team decides

 

[nikof]

Hey, good debate going! Given all the comments here, I'm more interested in trying for a Space victory. I think it would be a good learning experience in developing a super-productive core in the late game. I think we'd want to reconfigure some of our core cities so we have 21-pop Metropolises for building components, not to mention the more expensive modern units for defense.

However, I'm sympathetic to mad-bax's comment that Spaceship is boring when you're waiting for other civs to do the research. Really, the only reason to do it with this game is for the thrill of the variant. If we do this, we could take a flexible approach to the number of turns we each play, so it's not just 5-10 turns of avoiding riots and hitting the spacebar. Would depend on what's going on, i.e. if someone has started a war against us we might play fewer (but more interesting) turns.

If we want to continue our military approach, I vote for Domination rather than Conquest. But only because I find Conquest a bit tedious in the latter stages, especially on large maps (I'm more of a builder at heart). Will follow the majority.

@AlanH: good point on the workers. I don't know if any of the core cities have much room for pop growth now, but reducing unit costs is a plus.

<edit> and Mistfit is bang on about changing our approach if we go Conquest.

 

[AlanH]

I'm only opening up the debate because (a) SesnOfWthr brought the subject of preferred victory options up and (b) mad-bax has turned up and said space was an option. I'm not advocating any change, particularly as I'm about to butt out. We can continue towards Domination if you prefer.

Temples in the conquered territories are not a problem if you are going for Conquest. You want to get to close to domination to maximise score (I know it doesn't matter, but we might as well do it right), and we've a long way to go yet. Let the temples expand the borders to grab the new territory we want. Then sell off the temples later to avoid further embarrassing growth and reduce maintenance cost. You can get within a few tiles of domination as long as you leave enough margin to allow for a city flipping to you if that's a possibility.

You can even go over the limit during a turn where you capture a city you want to keep (eg a Wonder city) as long as you raze another to balance it out before the end of that turn. In SGOTM 3 we were dicing with the domination limit to maximise score as we worked towards capturing the UN city. We had to raze a couple of unimportant cities in our home continent as we played the end game.

Barb island was an unnecessary diversion at this stage. We should be focussing on capturing AI territory first, whether we're going for domination or conquest, as we have a limited window of opportunity for our UUs. Barbs never get rifles or infantry, so they'll always be there for the taking if we want their territory.

 

[AlanH]

... reconfigure some of our core cities so we have 21-pop

Remember we have two cores. One is at high density, but the Palace core has plenty of space per city to develop fast spaceship part production.

 

[Mistfit]

Mistfit Votes: Conquest or Domination
nikof Votes: Really, Really wants to go to space (see next post)

 

[nikof]

Okay - doesn't look like anyone is too interested in Alpha Centauri. As I said, I'll express a mild preference for Domination over Conquest, but whatever the majority wants is fine with me.

 

[mad-bax]

I can't open the save. I'm not sure if it's the save or my installation, because I've been messing with it for SGOTM. I'm getting a fatal error after the minimap has loaded and the main map is loading.

I'm going to reinstall and try again.

 

[mad-bax]

Panic over. I fixed my install and played 3 turns. There is a lot going on in this game. A stack of caravels with units arrived at Scandinavia - must have been on autopilot so I assumed we were going to declare on the vikings. They have muskets - which is proving interesting. The Russians declared on us too. Basically, we are at war with all the civs we shouldn't be, and at pease with the civs we should be at war with.
I'll finish up tommorrow. I told you I'd be late. I underestimated the time it would take to complete a set of 5.
It's speeding up now though coz we have far fewer units to move around. <whistle> <shuffle feet> <sidle off stage left>