LK82 - Science Experiment II Invitational, Spain, Deity

[microbe]

This was technically a rules violation. However, the logic for the deal is valid about iron being unneeded. Effective immediately I am removing the below rule.

Sorry I completely missed that rule.

I still hate the fact that we are playing Russian roulette with our rep. If the iron expires we are in deep trouble.

America is the biggest empire. I am pretty sure we are safe.

However, our horses deal with Zulu got broken. I am not sure what that did to our rep. Maybe it was already broken? (don't remember if Aztecs are at war with Zulu - we were able to make gpt deal with it)

 

[LKendter]

However, our horses deal with Zulu got broken. I am not sure what that did to our rep.

It ended because the Zulu stopped shipping us Ivory when they lost there last source. Since the Zulu were the one to end the deal our rep wasn't hurt. The Vikings will loan us cash for GPT. The Aztecs will pay $18 for dyes (Credit).

My point on the iron is if the iron runs out our rep is destroyed as WE stopped shipping the goods.

 

[Greebley]

As you may know if you place a city too close to an enemies city, they will declare war several turns later.

It turns out that this 'danger zone' is equivalent to the 20 squares that a civ can work. If you place a city that blocks them from placing one of their 20 citizens, they will declare war (at least with very high probability).

If you place your city outside these 20, in general you are "safe". I can't say difinitively that it doesn't change the chance of war, but it is a small effect if it is one. I have placed cities just outside the 20 squares and not gone to war.

Note that the suggested square is E-E of Zimbabwe. This is not within the 20 working squares of the city.

I tested this specific case in a COTM that had "gone wrong" My initial placement was within the 20 and war was declared. Since the COTM was wrecked for me, I went back and tested what would happen if I put the town S-S of the city. For that case no war was declared in the 50+ odd turns I played.

So the result of the tests was that you can place you city in any squares that are 3+ moves away, OR S-S, E-E, N-N, W-W of the city and the Civ will not attack in the next 5-10 turns. If you place your city in the other squares that are two moves from the city, then they will declare war in a short time (an exception might be when you have already beaten them down).

 

[LKendter]

Anyway I believe 37gpt is less than half of the tech cost, and I'm impatient so I went ahead and played the rest of the turns.

We are doing exactly what I wanted to avoid with the science experiment. We are now giving up $110/turn to other civs and only have $47 for our own science push. This is with having to hire 6 specialist including some in core cites. We are now funding the other AI civs to run ahead of us with tech.

I plan the following rule addition for next time this variant is played. 4) We may not pay GPT to another civ if it would cause the domestic advisor screen to show more money to other civs then to science.

We better send a couple more units to the saltpeter town to avoid flip risk.

The only way to end flip risk is either:
1) To eliminate the Zulu from the game.
2) Build our own city after abandoning the Zulu city.

Our long line of defense will be the only issue.

This is a general issue regardless of whom we are fighting. To make matters worse there is a choke point even with rails between Umfolozi and New Zimbabwe that we have to be careful the AI doesn't block on us.

Given that everyone is attacking the Vikings, I feel that should be our next war and should start as soon as the deals run out and Zulu's are taken care of.

Lets work on one thing at a time. We need the Zulu 100% dead and possible war weariness gone before we think about another civ. The trouble is Carthage is the only other civ fighting them. The culture of the Zulu is almost double ours.

General game comments:
I don't understand the pure irrigation by Murcia. With the courthouse it is below 50% corruption. Please mine some tiles by the city.

The number one goal of the Zulu war needs to be getting a GA. I see some conquistadors correctly in play. The second we get our GA stop building them. I would much rather have a cavalry for just 10 shields more.

Signed up:
LKendter
Greebley
Microbe
Gozpel (currently playing)
Kaiser_Berger (on deck)


Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
Don't forget the variant rules listed in the first post.

 

[LKendter]

Note that the suggested square is E-E of Zimbabwe. This is not within the 20 working squares of the city.

I at least now understand why you were thinking about it. I finally understand the overlap rule. However, the Vikings have more then double our culture. The overlap here is extreme, and IMO to high of a flip risk.

This confirms that LK74 probably got the war declaration because of the city to close to the Persian dyes city. We all know the AI decision to declare war is often several turns before the troops show up.

 

[microbe]

We are doing exactly what I wanted to avoid with the science experiment. We are now giving up $110/turn to other civs and only have $47 for our own science push.

This is why I don't like the rule about "half of the original tech cost", intead of "half of the remaining tech cost":
1. it means you can always buy after researching half through, even if it's actually more expensive (as I showed in my case: if I continued to research it would be cheaper).
2. it is almost impossible to calculate it correctly. Even if you do not research, the tech cost will drop as more AI know it, compared to the original cost.

Only by calculating based on the "current/remaining" cost this makes sense.

On the other hand, if we can make deals like this, even if we used 37gpt to buy the tech, we could sell back and get back 20gpt, so it's in the end only 17gpt. If we had lumsum, we'd have taken all of them back. The rule doesn't consider such highly profitable scenarios.

In retrospect, maybe I should have made it the following way:
iron to America for Mil Tradition.
Mil Tradition to Aztecs for Astronomy.
Astronomy to America for Banking (which might need some gpt, not sure if need 17gpt more though)

 

[microbe]

I at least now understand why you were thinking about it. I finally understand the overlap rule. However, the Vikings have more then double our culture. The overlap here is extreme, and IMO to high of a flip risk.

It's very flip risky. Once it flips, the town next to it will get more likely to flip too.

I used the settler to claim the wines. If we can get that online we are not in dire need of another lux for a while yet. And we can have an extra wines to trade too.

 

[gozpel]

Ok, lots of discussion here and I'm not awake yet and need more coffee.

I get the placement of the yellow dot by the wines, but can someone confirm which spot is correct for the ivory. I never understood rings anyways and never played a game myself placing perfect rings.

But at least I understand GA and infrastructure. I will play this later, so this is a Got it.

 

[LKendter]

Ok, lots of discussion here and I'm not awake yet and need more coffee.

Boy does the time difference show. It is already the middle of the afternoon in America.

but can someone confirm which spot is correct for the ivory.

NONE - We were trying to understand Greebley's placement and both Microbe and myself feel the city is way to much of a risk.

 

[gozpel]

Ok, I keep an eye on the spot anyways, if someone raze a town there or something.

 

[microbe]

Boy does the time difference show. It is already the middle of the afternoon in America.

You mean Eastern America.

 

[gozpel]

Pre-turn - Cities are in good order, no changes.

460AD - I watch Vikings and Americans exchange units, they draw 6-6.

Funny, Toledo builds a conquistador and the city doesn't have barracks.

470AD - Some civs starts Bachs.

Santander founded by the wines.

480AD - Iroquois ally with Vikings against Dutch.

Carthage wants a donation of 22g and TM, then they completes Copernicus. A few civs starts Magellans.

490AD - Carthage joins the Viking quest against the Dutch.

We attack Ibanabago or whatever, elite knight kills pike and an impi shows up:



We raze the city and get 7 slaves and a pult. It was on top of iron and a settler will get there in a turn or two.

To avoid deficit we can only research at 40% atm, we get some gpt back in a couple of turn.

Swap Seville and Toledo to banks, I don't want to waste shields.

Ragnar and Hiawatha looks very industrial!

500AD - Wines are connected, we can sack some specialists and raise science to 50%, Physics in 6 turns.

510AD - Ragnar demands 24g and TM, no problems.

Asturias founded on the former Zulu site.

We got some gpt back, Physics would cost something like 50gpt. We can research it ourselves in 4 turns, I prefer that.

520AD - America sign peace with Vikings.

Iros starts Newtons. And so does Vikings.

Carthagian AC's shows up near Murcia, I hope they are just passing.

Attack Umtata and raze it for a couple of slaves, no losses. Sign peace with them, their 2 last cities are on the other side of Viking territory.

530AD - Carthage is just passing through.

We build our first 3 banks -> unis.

540AD - Hiawatha wants us to fight the Dutch, sorry we have no quarrel with them.

America and Dutch joins the others in IA, all except Zulu and Aztecs are there.

We complete another bank.

550AD - We learn Physics -> Magnetism at 70%, due in 7t.

Finish two more banks.

Vitoria might need an aqueduct before a library.

We have an extra source of wines.

 

[microbe]

It was on top of iron and a settler will get there in a turn or two.

An extra iron (didn't notice it before)! Plus an extra wines! That's great!

And our research speed is quite good. Maybe we should have built universities before banks.

We are doing quite well. If we could get rid of those Vikings towns around our core I'd be happy.

 

[LKendter]

This is why I don't like the rule about "half of the original tech cost"; instead of "half of the remaining tech cost"

I must agree this has gotten incredibly messy. I would like to hear other players' opinion on changing it to remaining.


I looked at the game. Bapedi is a flip risk city. Please drop the garrison to ONE unit.

We need the GA to push universities and banks. Toledo should build a university before the barracks.


Signed up:
LKendter (on deck)
Greebley
Microbe
Gozpel
Kaiser_Berger (currently playing)


Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
Don't forget the variant rules listed in the first post.

 

[microbe]

I looked at the game. Bapedi is a flip risk city. Please drop the garrison to ONE unit.

I'd rather keep the units (our useless UU?) there and send a settler to replace Bapedi. We cannot lose our only saltpeter.

In my turns I didn't think it was too much of a flip risk. It flipped once at size-3 but with size-1 it should be pretty safe. Of course, if we can manage to replace it it would be better.

 

[LKendter]

I'd rather keep the units (our useless UU?) there and send a settler to replace Bapedi.

I like the settler and replace plan. I have been screwed before on remote distance flips. I am not convince the extra units really help on stopping the flip.

We have 7 lousy knights and 5 of them are in Bapedi. They WILL be emptied on my turn. I suggest that settler at least be on the way by then. I refused to risk that much of our military.

 

[microbe]

Extra units do help to lower the flip risk. And if you put enough, the risk will become zero. The flip calculator will tell you the minimum number of garrison that is needed to completely eliminate flip risk.

If you allow to use such utilities in your game, then just use it in mapstat. For now, before we get a settler there, put our UU there (including the regular one that Gozpel was complaining about).

 

[Greebley]

I think I prefer the rule about not having more gpt outstanding than is put into science over 1/2 the remaining cost.

The two gpt deals I did were tech for tech. Microbe did pay all the remaining, but got us a great deal for it (essentially 17 gpt and iron for 2 1/2 techs.

Without these deals we would be hopelessly behind and would remain behind for the rest of the game. We got a total of 4 1/2 techs and 30 gpt for that 110 gpt. The 20*80 we spent would give us less than 1 tech in terms of research. We would be 3 1/2 techs farther behind (2 1/2 if we still spent the iron).

I feel that trading, isn't "pure" self-research, but I already know that pure self-research without trading is going to put us way behind. I am more interested in concentrating on research, but keeping ourselves open to trades and seeing if that can keep us competitive.

So while we hit a very high 110 gpt for a brief while, Gozpel correctly put us back on track with research.

Agree we need univerisities.

I guess I just don't like having a great 2-fer, but having to wait 1-3 turns to complete and finding the 2-fer gone and us hopelessly behind.

Agree the flip risk for the town is high - I would only consider it if we felt a war with the vikings was in the cards. If not then it probably isn't so good.

I feel we need Viking land to get enough land to keep up in research. Agree that eliminating the Zulu is first priority though.

 

[microbe]

I would not try to eliminate Zulu - it's impossible to defend that land and if we do it it's for the benefit of the AI. Since we already trigger the GA, I would not waste turns and units on killing them anymore, especially after we replace the saltpeter town. Or we can MA with AI to let them kill Zulu for us.

I also concur with Greebley about not missing two or three fers, even if by making so we have to pay more than 1/2 cost of the first tech. In the end it's still way less than 1/2 cost. However, I don't know how to put it into rules (i.e., it's not that easy to know how much you gain by making the entire set of trade beforehand).

 

[LKendter]

I also concur with Greebley about not missing two or three fers, even if by making so we have to pay more than 1/2 cost of the first tech. In the end it's still way less than 1/2 cost. However, I don't know how to put it into rules (i.e., it's not that easy to know how much you gain by making the entire set of trade beforehand).

This is the problem I have trying to play this variant. I want to continue it in future games, but I just can't come up with the right wording.

The problem with our multiple tech buy is we destroyed our economy for 20 turns. At that point we are way behind again. This is the deity trap I am trying to figure the way out of.