LK38 - PTW, Deity Challenge

[Sirian]

Mapstat? Boo, hiss! We don' need no steeking mapstat.

After reading through the team's posts, I opt for the Invade Korea Plan. I open the save, however, and find that we have no navy. None. Nada. Zero. Ain't got any. Couldn't even find an ironclad hiding under the bed.

Hrmm.

The "airport plan" isn't going to cut it. If we had airports in every core city, maybe, but we don't. An airport in Korea might help, but there is NO WAY that we can take over Korea within a dozen turns using just our seven or eight airports to airlift reinforcements. If this is going to be done, it will be done with transports.

After considering several options, I decide to go with Sverdlovsk (a city I got from Russia in the peace deal after bullying Cathy). That will be the port on our side. Four tiles across to Pusan, but I NEVER EVER (ever) EVER land a modern age invasion in an enemy city. Got to be our settler, forming a new town that will serve as our military base down there. I choose a site halfway between Ulsan and Pusan. Bless whoever left me an empty army. That will be filled with infantry and anchor the landing.

OK, now we actually need ships. Four turns minimum to get enough to land in force, rushing one every turn. Well, actually, rush a harbor on the first turn, but I can rush another transport from a nearby town, plus upgrade our one galleon. That will be five ships. That's 20 units per turn, average. Yeah, OK. Four turns just to string together a cutout navy, blowing large chunks of our budget, then I'm going to have to conquer all of Korea in about six turns? Alrighty then. I'll see what I can do.


Inherited Turn: Plant Spy in Korea. Ooh. They have about a dozen destroyers? Two battleships. A few submarines? Subs? As in under the water? Hrrm. Don't know who said they only have rifles. I'm looking at a fat load of infantry here. OK then.

I rush a battleship out of Paegam, just to get SOME KIND of tin can out there with a gun on it. 700g cost. One ship. Heh, we cannot afford to build a navy this way! I set up our west coast cities to build ships, not going to be much. Persia's couple DOZEN b-ships will only snicker at us. But every great navy starts with the first ship, right? Right.

By the way, friendly reminder: need 2/3rds of world population, as well as territory. We might yet have to invade Persia AFTER taking over all three of the other AI's. At least they don't have reams of food and size 35 cities. Still, might be a good idea to pay a little attention to population in captured Mongolia. The more people we grow there, the less likely we'll have to invade the Persian mainland to knock out their best population centers. Population is not based on people, but size. One 30 city is worth a couple of 20's and dozens of 6's. Dozens. Most of our land is recently captured and sparsely populated. Some of Persia's is, too, so that helps, but don't eye up the territory and expect us to be done the moment we're over the line.

On that note, I rush a few granaries, a couple of courthouses, a couple of temples, and set the towns on higher food.

We've got plenty of units. Lots of slaves, enough native workers to make pollution duty easier, big ole SODs of artillery, and quite a SoD of tanks, too. We're light on infantry, which is not good for making beachheads, but I'll pull enough from our protected core to get it done, and prioritize training more on my round.

We're going for Korea, then India, then the Vikings. If our pop is high enough, that may do it. Irrigating our core and driving some of our cities up to 25 or so might be enough, too, as Persia's core only has a certain number of strong cities. I'll also see what I can do about holding on most of Korea's population.


Well, here goes.


- Sirian

 

[LKendter]

I open the save, however, and find that we have no navy.


I had one battleship started - it got vetoed?

Note to self: Write detail instructions, I though the first ship was enough of a hint to build a navy.

 

[Sirian]

IT 1425AD: Rushed harbor at Sverdlovsk, also the town to its west. Palace placeholder for Pentagon started in Utica.

1430AD: First two battleships roll off the lines, the one I rushed and one in the SW corner. That city MM'ed to higher shields (40, up from 34) and switched from b-ships @6 to destroyers @3. Numes disbanded in the two south-coast harbor towns, then transports rushed. Our galleon moves toward Sverdlovsk. I join the two battleships together, even though this delays the arrival of one of them.

1435AD: Galleon arrives at Sverdlovsk, is upgraded. Disband an artillery in Sverdlovsk, rush another transport. Move the transport from western town toward Sverdlovsk, due in two. Our b-ships are far behind. They will miss the opening action, while our transports ship out UNESCORTED. I cancel RoP with Korea.

Between: Korea makes a deal with Persia for Radio, then immediately declares war on X-man to cheat him out of his payments! Apparently, when we did that to poor Xerxes, it was so effective the Koreans had to try it too!

1440AD: OK, we have three vet transports in port at Sverdlovsk. A fourth, from the western town, will arrive this turn, but cannot participate in any landings made on this turn. I have a choice: go now, a turn early, with three transports, or wait one more turn and go with five. The Korean destroyers (three of em) in the area just moved AWAY from Sverdlovsk.

Dial up X-man, who pays us a small amount to "agree to punish the Koreans". We sign an alliance. War has been declared. OK, folks, here we go.

D-DAY! H-Hour. T-Turn. Turn 0 of the war.

Three transports of troops land on the north shore of the Korean desert. Our army has three vet infantry inside it. There are five other infantry units, one settler, six artillery, the rest elite tanks, all elites. I left the tank army and our newly-produced third (empty) army back at the capital.

After travelling three tiles south to make the dropoff, our transports return two tiles to the north. Yep, they are sitting ducks at sea. Our b-ships aren't due to arrive in the area for another decade or so.


1445AD: Turn 1 of the war. Korean bombers peel 5hps off our army. Korean destroyers swarm after our transports but are ALL JUST BARELY OUT OF RANGE!

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. We lost no ships! :jump:

Our transports use one move to sail into port, they have four left. Load em up, ship em out. Four moves brings them safely into port at our new beachhead, called Invasion Control Center. The original three are joined by the fourth from the west, making it seven full transport loads of units now on Korean shores. These include two Persian workers for making radar towers, a second and third settler, a pack more of artillery, a couple infantry, our tank army, the rest tanks and more tanks. "Tank you very much, ladies and germs." I rush another transport at Sverdlovsk to give us a fifth hauler, one to use on odd turns while the other four are away. Korea is officially toast, they just don't realize it yet.

Our tanks roll. Pusan captured. Ulsan captured. I fortify infantry to cover our tanks in the field, other infantry in the new cities. All units not needed for defense of other tiles pile into Ulsan for our one free turn of no-risk occupation. That's the plan: massive garrisons on turn one, light thereafter, and if a city flips, always be in position to recapture immediately. Only one flip can occur per round, so when the odds suck, just EXPECT flips, leave light garrisons everywhere, and recapture as needed.

One radar tower goes up. Rush barracks at Invasion Central.

Here's the state of affairs after Turn 1:

Oops, I see I hadn't rushed the fifth transport yet. I did do it before hitting next turn, though.


1450AD: Korean bombers spend all their time trying to disconnect their own oil from my control. They do kill the rail, but fail to take out the roads, and this distraction means no more damage to our army. Korean cavs attack at Ulsan. We fend them off, one infantry promoted to elite!

Pentagon completed in Utica. Utica and Hippo MM'd to produce an infantry per turn, each.

Our tanks roll. Cheju, size 15, captured. A couple of tanks perish, one or two promote, and we pop a leader!

I use the leader to rush the airport at Invasion Central. (Those things are pricey for nonmilitaristic civs!)

Oh look, 14 resisters! Our SoD moves in to quell. Definitely moving OUT of Ulsan, which is now a prime flip risk. We did pacify over half the resistance there, though, so that was good. Also, those folks are going on a diet: the zero calorie diet.

Our artillery, combining from both sides of the channel, pastes the tar out of Korean ships. Our battleships arrive! We go to sink their wounded battleship only to find it guarded by the Sub From Hell. This sub SINKS our first battleship! The second then sinks the enemy battleship. (I rushed a 700g ship to watch it LOSE TO A SUBMARINE, on the attack even. I don't know whether to weep or guffaw).

Lonely Transport arrives this turn, bringing the empty army and a pack of artillery. The Four Horseships sail home for their next loads.


1455AD: Korean bombers attack our new spices at Cheju, and they are unable to disconnect them completely. Korean Air Force needs to get some glasses for its myopic pilots.

Korean cavs attack at Cheju. They fail. We pacify seven resisters!

Yay! The Four Horseships are back, bringing four more loads of troops, also known as Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine. We now have TWELVE full transports of troops on Korean shores, and the airport is operational, which will allow me to start airlifting in a few more, beyond what the ships carry. (Speaking of famine, Cheju citizens start on the zero calorie diet). I move a settler, with guards, into the hills west of Cheju. Another settler moves with our ENTIRE artillery SoD and most of our tanks (who have to get OUT of Cheju now) into hills east of Cheju, in attack range of Wonsan.


To Be Continued...

 

[Sirian]

I was expecting Cheju or Ulsan to flip, and instead this little pissant village kicks us out! Arg. It had been so small, and such a modest risk, I had already spent cash to rush the library there, intending to let expanded borders from there give me access east to Pyongyang. Welp, that ain't happening now. And I am not throwing away any more cash on this hole in the wall. Going to have to come up with a contingency plan!


1460AD: Korean bombers buzz our resource tiles again. They all miss. Incredible. It occurs to me that I should have moved some fighters into place, but I was so intent on the ground forces I forgot. Then, this round I forget AGAIN and just say screw it, they aren't hitting anything anyway.

Recapture Pusan. The maddening part is that the flip wiped out my radar tower. (Good thing we have enough workers on hand! I send a worker over in the Lonely Transport -- along with a pack of infantry -- and rebuild the tower).

Our settler west of Cheju settles. This gives us access to Inch'on, which has conveniently reduced itself to size 12 this turn. I load up our empty army with elite tanks and they roll. Inch'on captured!

Our artillery SoD blasts away at Wonsan. I hoped to reduce the pop below 13, get rid of that massive defense bonus, but no dice. On the up side, a lot of hits on the defenders. Our tanks roll. Another one bites the dust. Wonsan razed. Razed. Only Korean city I intend to raze. I want secure cities in the middle of the continent, not some massive Destined To Flip (TM) metropolis.

I saw that LK used the capture-settle-abandon move a few times on his turn. That qualifies as "Throwaway Cities" exploit under RB rules, so I won't use that move myself. Wonsan is razed before I move the settlers forward. The one I had moved into range of Wonsan moves again now, without settling, turning south toward Namp'o. Our last settler moves east into the plains. Both are escorted by infantry and tanks, of course.

Turns out I needed one more settler. Well, I knew that. I thought I had one more, but I didn't? Hrrm. My bad. A whole extra turn will be required to complete the conquest, thanks to not having one more settler ready to go. To overcompensate, I rush eight new settlers out of our corrupt towns. Ha! Take that!

Most of the Korean bombers had been based at Wonsan, so there's no more need for fighters now. Not the best way to clean up such a problem, letting them have their way with us until I could raze their base, but I got the important stuff right. Mostly.


1465AD: No sign of Korean bombers. Not much gas left in their tank, either. They sent one cav and two guerillas. (Guerillas? Ouch).

The Four Horseships arrive, bringing eight settlers, a massive sod of vet tanks, a few more artillery, and assorted other units, including four cavalry I see I'm going to need to chase down a Korean radar tower on the east coast. (Got to kill off those towers before we go attacking metropolises). Lone Transport wanders home. I *have* been maxing use of the airport, as well, adding another transport load per turn, so we now have well over a hundred units in Korea.

Settle north of Namp'o, bring up the artillery SoD and bombard the dickens out of them. City loses about four or five pop, plus some buildings, plus a goodly number of hps off defenders. Our tanks roll. You know the story. Ooh, 16 resisters.

I roll eight tanks from Namp'o south into attack range of Hyangsan, a fishing village. Our east settler moves east, into position. If I had not screwed up the logistics, we'd have another settler in the SE moving into position near Pyongsong, but better late than never. I send one that direction now.

Click next turn. Ooh.

1470AD: Dammit. The worst about that is that they wiped out another radar tower! I don't have that many workers in Korea, now running out of the ones gained from razing Wonsan. Oh well, it will be enough to get the job done, and next player can worry about shipping in more workers to clean up all these massive toxic polluted sites the Koreans have left for us.

This should have been the turn I completed the conquest, in six turns as originally predicted. Instead I have to wait for that late settler, so it will take all the way to the end of the round.

I settle east of former Wonsan. I plant two radar towers at the corners, one each in range of Seoul and Pyongyang. Koreans also have towers, one each at these cities. I send in the cavalry! (No, really. The cavalry). "Reagan's Heroes" bravely assault the enemy position on the far side of Pyongyang, taking them down to 1hp before perishing. Our other elite cavs follow up and, BAM, pop another leader!

It takes our entire artillery SoD, down to the last gun on the continent scraped up from radar tower duty, to reduce Seoul to size 12, but I did it.

Our tanks roll. One little, two little, three little Indians.

Should have been four. Korea has one city left, Pyongsong. Our settler moves into range.

Now get this. After all that work to reduce Seoul to size 12, we lose NO UNITS taking out all the full strength enemy troops at metropolis Pyongyang, then turn around and lose five tanks attacking the battered, beaten down troops with less defense bonus at Seoul. Go figure.

Lonely Transport sails home with our leader on board.

Oh, by the way, after that submarine disaster, I rushed a sub out of the city west of Sverdlovsk. Not because I like subs, but I like being able to see enemy subs. You know? Not seeing one cost me 700g worth of prime battleship. Our west coast cities back home have been building ships all round, and we now have a semblence of a navy, most of it near Korea. Persia still laughs at our fleet, but nobody else is chuckling.

Well, can't say this was unexpected. Note that I had settled New Hippo just in case little Hyangsan had flipped. I'd have had to bring over all our cavs from home to cross hills or forest and get in there to attack, but they'd only have gotten rifles for free so it would have been doable.

Instead, this time the logical thing happens: their big city with a wonder in it flipped back on the first eligible turn. Their capital and Pyongyang would be major flip risks, too, but this is the grace period, the one turn after capture they can't flip, and they are not going to get a second turn.


1475AD: No Korean counterattack. Imagine that.

Our settler, finally in position near Pyongsong, settles. I bring up our artillery sod, fire a couple shots, then realize I don't need to be doing that, since the city is already below size 13. Our tanks roll. Why Pyongsong before Namp'o? Because the last city of a civ captured will not generate resistors. I figure its better to have no resisters in the larger, Magellan city, so I save its recapture for last.

Finally, as my round comes to a close, I have met the task. Took me three turns to prepare, six to execute, plus one turn for botching logistics. This was a fun round for me. Blitzkrieg!

With the war now ended, just a few loose ends to wrap up...

 

[Sirian]

Oh, did I mention that India turned out to have MPP with Korea? I missed it complete and was surprised when they declared against us. Not that it matters. They sent one galleon and clad over into the channel, got shellacked from shore, and limped home. They didn't make it. Persian subs sank them.

We only lost the one battleship, at sea. I moved our transports to meet up with our escorts, which have FINALLY arrived. Next player will be in position to move quickly against India.


We DO have a problem here, though. The UN. Nobody likes us. They just happen to dislike X-man even more. We MUST NOT allow ourselves to end up at war with Scandinavia while he's at peace with Persia. We could lose the game. So what I've done is sign both Persia and Scandinavia to alliances vs India. Once India is gone, we need to get Persia to sign alliance with us against the Vikings, and renew if they cancel, so as to be sure the Vikes will abstain from any voting.

We should make it before Persia can launch. They still lack ecology, but no telling how far down the Space Flight line they may have gone. I don't think it's as much a given that we'll win as some of the others seem to think, though I do still like our chances if we can press on quickly enough. Remember, we also need 2/3rds of the world's population!


Finally, having left Computers alone all round so I could train a bunch more foot infantry, and to be sure not to end up in war with Xerxes while fighting Korea, now I go ahead on my last turn and try to steal tech. Success! I take computers, then rush SETI in Utica (our highest commerce site, thanks to the gems and the river). This will be our first self-built wonder? Good grief.

I then upgrade a big wad of our infantry to mechs. This takes our treasury down to the principle, but income is still over 700gpt, and I needed to rush a LOT of various things to be in position to move on Korea in a hurry, starting completely from scratch on the naval front. Good thing their land was so close to ours. We wouldn't have made it if our ships couldn't go port to port on the same turn.

I left half my final turn unplayed. A lot of units have movement left. I stopped after I beat Korea and tidied up a few loose ends. Gothmog can figure out what he wants to do about India, then move the pieces around as he sees fit.

What follows is a schematic showing turn-by-turn events in the Korean War.

White shows moves from 1440AD: Our transports sail out, drop off three loads on white dot, sail back, left vulnerable at sea.

Red shows 1445AD: Founded Control Center, capture nearby cities.

Dark Blue shows 1450AD: Capture Cheju.

Orange shows the movements in 1455AD: Settler goes west, SoD goes east, including newly arrived troops from the third shipment (shown arriving at base) and from the airport.

Between turns, Pusan flipped.

Yellow shows 1460AD: recapturing Pusan, razing Wonsan at the yellow square, settling in the west and the tiles this controlled, giving me access to Inch'on, then the two settlers moving east and SE.

Green shows 1465AD: Settling in range of Namp'o and the tiles this controlled. Capture Namp'o, then send tanks south to the fishing village. East settler keeps moving east through enemy culture zone. Late settler moves SW toward Pyongsang.

Between turns, Inch'on flipped.

Light Blue shows 1470AD: recapture Inch'on. Capture Hyangsan in the south and settle New Hippo nearby. Settle in the east, plant my two towers at the light blue squares near my town, take out their towers at the other two squared, then capture Pyongyang and Seoul. Move late settler into position near Pyongsong in the SW.

Between turns, Namp'o flipped.

Pink shows the final turn, 1475AD: settle to gain access, note the odd shape of the tiles controlled, because I'm so close to Pyongsong. Enough to let my tanks through along the pink line, though. Capture that city, then recapture Namp'o to end the Korean civilization.


LK38 - 1475AD - Zip File

That was probably my last round. If so, I enjoyed playing with you all. Good luck with the end game.


- Sirian

 

[Gothmog]

'Got it', hopefully will find some time to play tonight - but no promises. May have to be monday night, i'll try to post an update.

Good job on Korea, now that I am used to culture flips they don't impact my play too much. Just assume you will have some flips and every thing works out. The only time it's really a problem is when you fight a limited war with a more cultured enemy. Trying to hold their cities after peace, and actually that makes some sense (who'd've thunk it?).

So it looks like I go for India, then get a MA vs the vikes with Persia.

If we do need to reduce Persian population real quick, would nukes fit that bill? It's nothing I've tried before, but it would make for an interesting ending.

 

[Reagan]

Great turn, Sirian!

"'I open the save, however, and find that we have no navy.'

I had one battleship started - it got vetoed?

Note to self: Write detail instructions, I though the first ship was enough of a hint to build a navy."

Note to Lee's self: The battleship did not get vetoed. Except for a few cities in our interior that were building walls I did not veto any of your build orders. The battleship was being built in the city whose production was sabatoged (as noted in my report) and, thus, was delayed by a few turns. The naval build orders I inherited consisted of one battleship on the far side of the Korean front and two or three transports in corrupted cities on the Persian front. From that I could not determine whether Persia or Korea was your intended next target.

I'm new to SGs but am learning more from being second-guessed in this game than I could have in any other. One of the primary things I am learning is that passive "hints" about your desires for future play are far less likely to be effective than explicitly stating them in your turn report and/or just doing them.

Given that we had (1) two different options for our next victim (Persia and Korea), (2) a limited budget for rushing/tech steals, and (3) geographically separated potential war fronts, I saved our money and did not rush a navy prior to our team deciding which direction it preferred. If this was then I 100% apologize. I thought it would be weedier to rush a navy on the opposite shore from our eventual/at the time unknown attack plan than to delay the rush until our plans were settled.

 

[LKendter]

Well for those of use who do like stinking mapstat

After Sirian successfull round:
We have 1168 of 1662 tiles needed for domination.
We have 527 of 809 needed for population, but that number quickly shifts as you get new cities.

=============================

By Sirian
We should make it before Persia can launch. They still lack ecology, but no telling how far down the Space Flight line they may have gone. I don't think it's as much a given that we'll win as some of the others seem to think, though I do still like our chances if we can press on quickly enough. Remember, we also need 2/3rds of the world's population!

I couldn't agree more - Persia has been way to far ahead with tech, and is still doing good. Our key is to get all those open tiles under our control ASAP. We need to rush every possible temple, even if we have to use the draft and disband stunt to get the shields. Just getting all of the Indian cities with 9 square radius won't win this one.

Go Gothmog - we need another kick some major league butt round.

 

[Reagan]

Because I am not a domination/conquest type of player, I've never used mapstat. Where can I get it? How does it work? Are there any bugs or other reasons one might not want to use it? Is there a limit to how many questions may be asked in one post?

Thanks in advance for adding to my small, but growing, amount of combat knowledge/experience.

 

[LKendter]

This thread is located at:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=18243

 

[Speaker]

Well done Sirian. Looks like I may get to play the finishing turns. Gothmog, if you please, leave me several transports near Persia (former Germany border) in case I have to go in there and get to Persepolis before they launch. That would be a horrible last case scenario, but may have to be done.

 

[Speaker]

By the way, peeking around our military advisor screen, I see that we still have one warrior. Do you think he looks around, at the other members of the military who have big guns or drive in tanks, and gets jealous? He is still using an axe, afterall.

 

[Reagan]

@Lee - Thanks for the info! Do you have the PTW test version of mapstat? The version that is publicly available on the linked thread doesn't appear to work with PTW.

 

[Speaker]

From the readme: NOTE: If you fail a spy mission, you will automatically fail any spy mission against that same civilization for next 2-4 turns.

I stand corrected.

 

[Sirian]

I thought it would be weedier to rush a navy on the opposite shore from our eventual/at the time unknown attack plan than to delay the rush until our plans were settled.

It would have been.

We had over 70 tanks when my turn started. Did we need every last one of them? Considering that most of our strong cities are inland, there were only a few sites that could build ships. If they had started earlier (we had combustion since my last round) we could have had a few less tanks, and had a few ships already built. That would have taken more foresight, looking ahead past the Mongols, and it's understandable that that didn't happen, especially in an SG. Still, it was a bit of a shock to have the team talking about invading Korea, then open the game and we don't have a single attack ship.

I found a way out of needing the ships, but even there it cost a couple thousand in rushbuys, and I just plain got lucky not to have those first three unescorted transports sent to the bottom of the channel. Who would have predicted that the same turn I would be set to begin the invasion, Korea would decide to attack PERSIA and move its mass of patrol ships out of the channel toward X-man's waiting armadas. They turned around to come back to attack our transports, but it was too late. Having seven loads on Korean shores before I fired the first shot was a better outcome than I could have dreamed of when I laid out my plan.


Oh, and Lee? "527"? Haha, that silly bean counter doesn't know what it's talking about. Here's the number that counts:

I can only presume that 527 is the number of faces we have combined in our cities? Mapstat is good at simple addition, but that's not enough to give an accurate measure. The faces of size 3 and 4 cities are contributing next to nothing to our population total. Those do not "weigh" as much. The first face in any city is worth 1. The second is worth 2. The 20th is worth 20. That ONE UNIT of the twentieth in the 20 city is worth 20 size 1 cities. Adding up 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21 points for a size 6 city. The 22nd point alone in a size 22 city is worth an entire size 6 city. (There's a little bit of overlap from partial credit for food in the box, which counts as "fractions", but that only further complicates matters by a small amount).

I did manage to preserve all but one of Korea's large cities, so that helps, but just getting rid of India's and Vikings' cities may not be enough. If 527 is the total number of faces, and 2133 is the total number of points, then our "average" point value per face is only 4?!? That's worse than I thought! We may have to invade Persia after all unless we get that number up a bit.

I wouldn't put too much faith in that bean counter. Knowing that coastal tiles count toward domination, but not sea tiles, will let you eye how much territory you need. Maybe you can't predict it out to the last tile, but you only need to do that to stop short of the limit to milk the score for the GOTM or similar purposes. And to that end, they rely only on the tile counter. They don't need mapstat's pop counter at all, so they may never have noticed that it's broken.

Have a look at my Epic Seventeen report on my site and see how far I had to go to get over the hump against opponents who did have size 30 and 35 cities.


- Sirian

 

[Gothmog]

I played a long preturn and a couple of other turns late last night. I'll finish it up tonight and post either tonight or in the morning.

update: X-man demanded Dyes on my 1st IT, I gave them up. I hate to help Persian WW, but felt I had no choice given that Tanks vs. MI is not my favorite treat. Moved lots of Arti with a settler and infantry army to India - founded a city in a good spot. Transports can move from Korea - drop off troops ready to move the same round - and make it back to Korea in 1 turn. Did some shelling and found that India is quite weak. They will fall quicklly - then it's on to Scandinavian lands.

Oh more questions from Gothmog: How does GNP help you with the 2/3 population if you can't tell what the enemy GNP is? also is there any way to judge an enemy's absolute cultural value?

 

[LKendter]

@Sirian - Well so far Map Stat has predicted victory perfectly for me. I usually hit population above the limit way before I hit the domination list.

@Gothmog - Almost none of the utilities are available for PTW. Apollo will tell you the turn you will win a culture victory, but I don't think that one is available for PTW.

@ALL (with Gothmog emphasis) - Reread Sirian's UN vote comments. If we go to war with Scandinavia, we MUST get Persia fighting them or we will LOSE - period.

We can win the game without Persia mainland, but we really need to start rushing temples in all cities ASAP. We have sufficient tech to win - out problem is tile control. We may even want to look for a corner spot that will be worth settling to can a few more squares ASAP. We can still lose this on, so let us stop any work on technology research / stealing and rush culture like crazy.

 

[Sirian]

Gothmog: you're right. I circled the wrong number. I meant to highlight population. I'm sorry for the confusion. I'll leave that up there for the humor value. Sometimes I don't know what I'm talking about either!

At least that means our average point value per face is not as low as I thought it was for a moment there! If we do seem to clearly have enough land and the win hasn't triggered, try irrigating over mines at our largest cities and melding some of the slaves of dead civs in to pump up populations at size 20+ cities, fastest way to boost pop. Lee's right about filling in any empty corners. I had made a bunch of settlers at one time, because I knew there'd be use for them, and then some.


Lee: I've definitely heard reports of mapstat saying there was enough territory and enough population and a victory still not triggering. It's probably close enough in most cases, though. You clearly like relying on mapstat, so I'll shut up about it now.

I don't know that we'd definitely lose in the situation I warned about. The Vikes might abstain anyway. I just thought it would be prudent to reduce our risks if we can. I also looked at Persian culture: they're on track to win by culture, given the time, but we looked to be safe. They only seemed to have about 70k. That won't be enough for them.


- Sirian

 

[Gothmog]

Oh, I should be working but I am still thinking about my turns tonight...

First, I just realized that because we have a MA with Persia and Scandinavia vs. the Indians. We will take a rep hit when they are wiped out. I sent a ship down to the small Indian Island south of our homeland, and there were some Viking troops already landed there. If they lose that island they will be wiped out (once I take their larger homeland near Scandinavia). Will this make getting another MA with Persia a problem? Also, the only ways I can think of to get the Vikes to declare on us is to demand they leave our new Indian territory or do a tech steal (I think they have marines) - but what if they just wont declare? Can we wait 20 turns? (I think not) Will our rep hurt even more if I declare on the Vikes? My thinking is that I declare on the Vikes as a last resort and try to get persia in on it anyway. It doesn't seem likely that the Vikes would vote for Persia, but I don't want to base win/loss on "not likely".

Sirian: Ah, population... yes that makes a lot more sense! - but still we don't know the population of the other civ's right?

Can I assume that you get an absolute culture value for the Persians by adding up the culture for each of our cities and scaling it to the histogram culture value?

 

[LKendter]

Actually, I have no idea if we take a rep hit with the alliance. I think the alliance simply ends as this is nobody left to beat up.

To get the vikes to declare:
1) We don't even have a spy there, do we?
If not, let's hope he gets caught.
2) Sabatoge production in the small cities should still get a war declaration - we don't need that expensive tech steal. I started more then one war with failure to ruin production.