MRG's Random Game of Randomness

[Spoonwood]

I took a look at the save. I see entertainers in a few towns! Especially with no imported luxuries, the only reason I can think of in using these lies in trying to improve score. But, score comes much lower on the priority list than having enough commerce so that you can get into a position to win... doesn't it?

 

[Lanzelot]

Playing capture and keep can address that, also, I think if you used scientists or tax collectors from captured towns. But, that's almost surely not going to work if you have multiple opponents when taking on Wang. If you can't keep a town, you can still sell off all the building in it before abandoning it. That's still better economically than razing.

Slaves aren't likely to be much of help economically. Likely playing capture and keep or capture, sell, and abandon is better economically.

Unfortunately, Korea had Artemis for such a long time now, that they acquired a big culture lead, so I'm afraid that by keeping the Korean cities, we might get into more trouble than it's worth, losing units in flips, having to divert more units to recapture flipped cities in our back (or even worse, on our supply line... if we have secured 1-2 of the Korean lux resources, and a flip disrupts the road network to those resources, our entire core would revolt for a turn, and we would have to raise the lux slider again for as long as it takes to restore the connection... I went through all this before... )
So my advise in this situation, at least against Wand, would be to not try and keep any cities, unless it has a useful wonder.

The way slaves can help economically, is by reducing unit upkeep: there is still some work to do in the semi-corrupt area, we will need roads to the frontline or to important resources, so we still need a sizeable workforce for quite some time. But for every two slaves, we can join one of our native workers to a town/city and reduce the unit upkeep (plus increase the output of that city). So slaves are quite useful.

Selling and abandoning is also an option, but in my experience not as useful as the slaves from razing. (You don't get any slaves, if you abandon a city after capturing it.) How much do you gain by selling the improvements of a captured city? Cultural buildings are auto-destroyed upon capture. The aqueduct cannot be sold. And of the remaining buildings, about 50% get destroyed on average, when capturing the city.

Smaller or corrupt cities don't have much to begin with, and even if you are lucky and capture a big productive city that has built temple, library, cathedral, university, market, courthouse, granary and aqueduct (which is quite a lot...), then if you are very lucky, you can sell market, courthouse and granary for a total of 60g. If you are unlucky, all three of those get destroyed. Then you have nothing. And on average, you can expect 1-2 buildings for let's say 20-40g. A slave is worth approx. 110-120g (that's the price for which you can usually buy them from the AI). Razing a big city gives you 5 slaves or 550g. I would take these anytime, if I have to chose between them and a 50% chance for 60g cash...
(Especially, if this game indeed goes into "overtime" and we need them later for rails...)

The research rate would be quicker, yes. ONCE you start to research that tech. But, the overall time to acquire the technology will likely be longer. A 50 turn run and two 8 turn runs is 66 turns. Three 20 turn runs is faster than that in acquiring the technology.

That's true. But the benefit of all those extra towns (in unit upkeep and for producing either income or trebuchets or workers) is permanent. And it's not so easy to weigh this up against the benefit of having the techs a bit earlier. As I said, everything in Civ has its up- and downsides... Takes years of experience to get a feeling for which option might be "best" (whatever that means) in a given situation.

Unfortunately, you cannot look into a city before deciding whether to raze or to keep it... The slaves from razing are guaranteed, but everything else is a gamble...

 

[Lanzelot]

BTW: I think the effect of markets on luxuries can easiest be remembered like this:
Without Market:

• Each lux resource gives one happy face.

With Market:

1. Luxes 1&2 give one happy face each (no change compared to without the market!)
2. Luxes 3&4 give two happy faces each
3. Luxes 5&6 give three happy faces each
4. Luxes 7&8 give four happy faces each

 

[Spoonwood]

Unfortunately, Korea had Artemis for such a long time now, that they acquired a big culture lead, so I'm afraid that by keeping the Korean cities, we might get into more trouble than it's worth, losing units in flips,

They don't have horses. They don't have the Statue of Zeus. Especially because of that, why keep units in cities? Because you're fighting other AIs? What good are those wars doing you anyways? Every extra war slows down progression on your main opponent. Leader fishing comes as the main benefit of simultaneous wars, I suppose, but that's still needing to defend or attack in several positions instead focusing on a point or capturing cities.

Even if they had horses, with the extra vision of armies, it's sometimes possible to see any nearby threats to kill off any fast units.

If a city flips, and you have to recapture, that's more gold from their treasury!

Selling and abandoning is also an option, but in my experience not as useful as the slaves from razing.

Your experience isn't mostly with this sort of struggling economy though, correct?

110-120g (that's the price for which you can usually buy them from the AI).

One factor of the cost of slaves is the AI aggression level. They are least expensive at minimum aggression.

I don't agree with your numbers for slave cost. It's more situational than that.

Also, it isn't like it's take the slaves or have fewer workers for ever. Captured cities make good sites for making more workers, which can have the AIs nationality or yours.

For sure, the value of a slave 10 turns earlier is definitely not 100 gold (which is minimum aggression rate). Since a worker costs 2 gold per turn for upkeep, iirc, a slave I guess could get thought of having a values of 1 gold per turn if not industrious (and 2/3 gold per turn if industrious). Then, over the course of 10 turns, it's 10 gold if the city doesn't flip. Maybe something like 15-20 gold since cities can flip. 20-40 gold is more than that.

And it's more than 20-40 gold. So a city flips. Especially on this map, it's a simpler recapture. And since Korea has more gold, that's 2 city capture for even more of their gold.

And it's less unit support if a city doesn't flip.

And any unhappy citizens can get turned into tax collectors or scientists upon capture.

 

[Spoonwood]

Oh I also noticed Spain is a Democracy in the latest save. They have almost surely known Astronomy for quite sometime now.

 

[Spoonwood]

Spain has extra horses and iron!

Ok, so I said this commenting on the 50 AD save.

Now, without making any moves, I can say that they have a trade deal with Korea and one with America. Korea had extra wines and silks earlier, and still have wines and silks. America has a resource of iron (could be trading that iron elsewhere), but no horses. They have luxuries of spices, silks, and gems.

Only opening the trading table, Spain has horses, iron, spices, ivory, and gems. Spain is thus not trading spices with America.

And AIs don't keep trading resources or luxuries with each other if they are at war.

Also, any trade routes for resources or luxuries can get canceled by pillaging all of the 8 tiles around your capital if your economy goes broke buying it for gpt. The AIs have the responsibility to supply you that resource or luxury under all possible moves.

Spain could have an extra resource or luxury supplied to someone else, but an embassy with them could tell if they have existing trade routes with anyone else.

 

[Spoonwood]

Also, establishing embassies or doing a city investigation on the AIs trade network (don't pick one of their weakest towns, it might not be roaded... picking their capital is the safest way) will tell you if an AI has a resource or luxury even if it's getting supplied by someone else.

Thus, if an AI does NOT have a resource or luxury on the end of their trading table, BUT has it supplied on their trade network (e. g. by investigating their capital), then you can deduce that they are importing that luxury or resource from someone else.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Something to take note: Education cancels out the effect of Artemis. We know that. What may not be known is that if you did not build a temple in the city before getting the benefits of Artemis, that temple will disappear when the effect wears off. I noticed this in one of my games when I suddenly had multiple cities rioting. And it was because there was no longer that free temple there.

Started playing and we do not have any saltpeter in our territory. Korea does. You can see where in the image below.

Spoiler :

 

[Lanzelot]

That's perfect. Chonju is our first target anyway, so it's as good as ours...
They have another resource at Inch'on, which isn't roaded yet. (You might want to trade maps with someone, to get an updated view. Perhaps they built a road, since we last traded maps.)
If that is their only connected resource, they'll soon be unable to build further muskets.

Spoonwood's points in favor of keeping the Korean cities do have something for them. Especially, if Korea will soon be without saltpeter, then they get only a pike (or even a spearman) in a flip, so retaking the flipped town is not too painful.
Perhaps we should replace Chonju to make sure our saltpeter will never flip, but the rest we can try keeping and see how it goes?!

However, be careful to not keep any units in those towns from turn 2 on. (In the first turn upon capture, they cannot flip.) And be very careful with our Armies: all our current Armies only have defense 1, they will get attacked if not fully healed. (Don't know the exact numbers, how many HPs need to be left for the Army to not get attacked by LBs. But better safe than sorry. If we lose an Army, our Pentagon build gets busted.)
So best would probably to keep all three in one stack, use them only once, let them heal before the next attack, cover the stack by a musket for extra protection etc. Next Army should definitely be a Musket Army.

Do we still have WH from Portugal? If not, we should make peace with them before declaring on Korea. Even if these archers are no real threat, they side-track quite a number of our units, which may exactly be the ones missing for taking the next city...

 

[MrRandomGuy]

We do have WH with Portugal. They've only managed to kill one galley this turnset so far and they've brought in units to try and attack Fu.

Spoiler :

I suspect Portugal may not have horses either.

Looking at diplomacy with Korea, they have not hooked up their other salt yet.

My suggestion would be to attack the wave of Portugal troops first then capture Ju. After that, we place a settler directly onto the salt spot to find a city and defend that city like our lives depend on it. That way if Ju flips we don't lose out on the salt source.

Edited to add: It's probably going to happen during the next turnset as right now I'm focused on bringing the units together and defending Fu.

 

[Spoonwood]

So best would probably to keep all three in one stack, use them only once, let them heal before the next attack, cover the stack by a musket for extra protection etc. Next Army should definitely be a Musket Army.

I've come around to think that the best/safest way to use armies to attack cities lies in having them attack in pairs. A lone army attacking a city with no defenders around can be a bit dangerous, especially if you attack when it's yellow. Especially, if the AIs have a bunch of artillery type units parked there or an army, but that's more along the lines of playing with the C3X mod. The first army attacks. If it doesn't wound too much, then the second army can attack if it's not too outclassed. If it wounds to yellow, but not to red, then it fortifies and the second army attacks... at least with 3 defense unit armies in the middle ages and industrial era. From what I can tell the same idea applies to two defense armies in the medieval or ancient era before your opponent gets cavalry. BUT, I'm have a much weaker reader on archer or longbow armies. I don't think archers will attack those if 7/13, and I would guess that swordsman won't attack them (barring some strange case... I reread my old notes about spears attacking cavalry armies from one game). I would feel surprised if longbows won't attack one defense armies, but maybe they won't, I don't know the numbers or have any sort of read.

After that, we place a settler directly onto the salt spot to find a city and defend that city like our lives depend on it. That way if Ju flips we don't lose out on the salt source.

A city can have walls for a defense bonus. I can see how it would sound best to place a city on the saltpeter. But, if you have 12/12 musket army, even a 7/12 musket army, they won't bother attacking such an army with cavalry. I can say from experience that I have used 7/12 or stronger cavalry armies to cover workers railroading near AI borders on multiple occasions. Unless they can bombard such armies with artillery type units or bombers, they are safe before tanks. I would guess that I'm not the only or first person to realize this.

Armies fortified in border cities can get lost to culture flips. The AIs will attack armies in cities, unlike out in the open, so unless it's something like a pure defense army, used to attempt to let a dozen or more AIs impale on it, it's probably best to not have an army fortified in cities.

 

[choxorn]

y suggestion would be to attack the wave of Portugal troops first then capture Ju. After that, we place a settler directly onto the salt spot to find a city and defend that city like our lives depend on it. That way if Ju flips we don't lose out on the salt source.

Such a city would still be flip vulnerable if there's Korean borders in the area, the odds would just be pretty low. We should just raze Chongju.

Might also be nice to get Korea's TM before declaring- for all we know they might have another source somewhere deep in their territory they haven't bothered to hook up yet, and it would be nice to know that (and generally nice to know more about our enemy)

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Turn log:

Spoiler :

Preturn: Change KK production to Pentagon.

Made peace with Spain for our world map and she gave us 13 gold.

Took all citizens off tiles and reorganized all cities. Now only Barun-ut has a shortage. With a settler set to be complete in 2 turns, it's a non issue.

Lowered lux to 30% and raised research to 40%. Gunpowder now due in 2 turns with -10 gpt. Not bad from where we were.

IBT:

Portugal units retreat to Korea.

T 181:

Nothing of interest to note.

IBT:

Gunpowder researched. Chemistry next.

4 Portugal archers enter our domain.

T 182:

Catapults succeed in knocking down all 4 archer health. All archers killed with no losses

IBT:

Notification about Spanish building Magellan's Voyage

Portugal galleys show up on our east side from the void.

A few cities are unhappy with me and revolt. (forgot to note which ones sorry!)

T183:

Adjusted citizen tiles.

IBT:

Three portugal galleys attack our ships near Ulaangom. One galley lost, two of their galleys dead. Our galley promoted to elite status. Their surviving galley redlined.

T184:

Galley kills the remaining Portugal galley.

Saynshand founded south of Taegwon.

IBT:

Korea and Egypt signed a trade embargo against us.

Koreans building Newton's University

T185:

Tumentsogt founded south of Fu.

IBT:

Spanish and Egypt are building Shakespere. Egypt completes Smith's

Americans building Bach's

Portugal units emerge from the void in Korean territory.

T186:

Taegwon is experiencing WW from Egypt. Since it's a flip risk I decide to make peace with Egypt. I probably should have done this a few turns sooner.

IBT:

Portugal units enter or borders. More Portugal units arrive behind them.

Hovid settler abandoned. And I realized I forgot to send workers over there to build a road right after. Oops.

Koreans building Newton's, Bach's and Shakespere. Then they complete Newton's! Another SGL probably.

Spanish are building shakespere and Bach's

Egyptians are building Bach's

Bayzantine are building Bach's

T187:

Successfully killed all Portugal units in our borders with exception of one R LBM. No losses. I am leaving that LBM alone because I do not want anything to be attacked in the IBT.

IBT:

Bayzantines declared war on the Americans. Interesting. They are also building shakespere.

Egypt building Magellan's Voyage.

Americans building Shakespere

T188:

Successfully kill all Portugal units. No losses. We got another MGL. I create another LBM army.

IBT

America wants an alliance vs the Bayzantines. They have nothing of value they are willing to give us. I decline.

Portugal for some reason only sends one pikeman into our territory.

T189:

Successfully kill the Portugal pikeman with no losses.

IBT

More Portugal units arrive.

Darhan revolts. Forgot to check it.

T190:

Switched scientist in Darhan to entertainer.

Killed all Portugal units in our territory.

Lowered science slider to 20%

Handoff:

- The spearmen fortified by the Korean border were there to protect workers as they completed tasks there. They can be moved elsewhere if needed.

- Watch the Bayzantine dromons and caravel in the area. While they did declare war on the Americans, I would not put it past them to try and land units in our territory to start another war with us. Send a few units from the core south in case they try to go for the southern cities.

- Aside from the border with Korea, most tiles look like they are completed with a few exceptions. I wasn't sure how to further improve our core because I cannot see the larger picture that a more experienced player probably sees.

- There are two worker stacks building a road on mountains that I know isn't optimal. I had miscalculated how many to use. Twice.

- Portugal has lost a good chunk of their units in their attempt to attack us. It may be time to get peace with them so that the war with Korea can start.

- The war with Korea can likely start within the next turn or two. We have enough units and armies to take the city.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

And I forgot the save, lol.

 

[Spoonwood]

The AIs usually research Magnetism before Theory of Gravity. Don't think I've ever lost a race to Theory of Gravity, if I got Physics around when the AIs had it, though maybe I forgot one time.

I open the 750 save. Uh, is that Korean's city industrial graphic? Check 650 save. Korean cities look different in the 750 save than the 650 save.

Also, Wang is now wearing a suit.

That's two confirmations. Korea is industrial.

Make no mistake, Korea has Nationalism already or is researching it (of course I took the opportunity to check using an RoP) and will soon know it. Has anyone ever seen an AI research something other than Nationalism first? Maybe someone has, but I think you get my point.

20 trebuchets and 4 armies, 3 of them 4 attack armies... hmmm... I don't know. 20 trebuchets might be enough to bombard rifles down to one hitpoint in a city. They bombard at 6, but the defense bonuses imply they miss more often than they will hit. That might be enough, but I think it's kind of close vs. rifles. Chonju is size 12 on a hill also.

Even IF you had cavalry, without a single cavalry army, would you really want to fight your first opponent with cavalry vs. rifles?

The Great Library is in Toledo. It only needs held for one turn.

Oh my... I'm guessing here... another comment I think warranted.

 

[Spoonwood]

Korea only has Saltpeter, Wines, and Silks.

BUT, Korea is trading something with Spain and Portugal and Sumeria. Sumeria has Horses, Iron, Saltpeter, and Incense. Sumeria doesn't appear to have any extra horses in previous saves, so it doesn't seem likely that they are exporting horses to Korea. Portugal has Iron, Saltpeter, Dyes, and Furs native. Most definitely, they are not supplying horses to Korea.

Spain had extra horses though earlier for sale. Now those extra horses aren't for sale meaning that either they were sold, pillaged, toasted by a volcano eruption, or disconnected by a city capture. Spain was fighting Mongolia though, and sent ancient cavalry your way. In the 750 AD save, Spain could be supplying Korea horses, and Wang has 6354 gold in the bank, he can purchase a lot, even if he can't purchase techs from other AIs soon. His gpt is high. If an AI has cavlary and rifles, and I've got trebuchets, longbows, and spearman... uh... maybe that's a Monarch level challenge, or maybe even something which is in the rare "finally ready for regent" category?

Newton's is Scientific. Haeju is working on Magellan's which is commercial, though Haeju has a lot of flood plains locally.

Technology and gold can also get acquired by using gpt to get a tech and/or gold from an AI. Then if the trade route to your capital is cut, say by having no roads in the squares directly adjacent to your capital, the AIs fail to supply you the luxury (or resource), and the AIs take the reputation hit, since they couldn't fulfill their promise to supply you the luxury or resource under your moves. You get to keep the gold and technology. It's possible also to exchange lump sums of gold for gold per turn from the AIs before you reacquire the gold with a luxury or resource thrown in.

 

[Spoonwood]

The war with Korea can likely start within the next turn or two. We have enough units and armies to take the city.

You have no horse units. Nor any explorers. But, you do have armies with extra vision and extra movement. An army can move into a border square, peak at what's at least the top unit in a city and then move back to your territory before the turn ends IF you decide to attack the next turn. A city investigation in this sort of situation, well, if you're unsure about defense strength, and your attack stack isn't overwhelming, it might just be worth it. If it can get spared from other things... which may seem rough, but I think the cost of city investigation is constant or increases somewhat slowly. The cost of a bad choice on a war, I think can go up over time. 200 gold is probably cheap compared to the cost of a bad war, though I could be wrong.

 

[Lanzelot]

Now only Barun-ut has a shortage. With a settler set to be complete in 2 turns, it's a non issue.

You did not really build a settler in a fully productive size 12 city??
I think, tjs282 only set this settler build as a short-rush target for Longbows. (And I wrote in the pre comments, that Baruun-ut does not need to short-rush, because it can use the extra mountain, once the WW from the Egyptian war is gone, giving the required 14spt for 3-turn LBs.)

We got another MGL. I create another LBM army.

Ahem, what about the Musket Army that we urgently need?? All our Armies are now defense-1 and will get attacked when wounded.

Edited to add: It's probably going to happen during the next turnset as right now I'm focused on bringing the units together and defending Fu.

That's two confirmations. Korea is industrial.

I have the very bad feeling, we are getting too late once again. You should have attacked at the beginning of your turnset. Everything was ready, just make peace with Portugal and go for the important targets. This insignificant war with Portugal side-tracked us for another 10 turns, Korea used these 10 turns well and now we are facing rifles on hills.

That's it. Game over, I would say.

 

[Lanzelot]

And I don't understand, why you have been researching Chemistry, when the plan was to get these techs for free from Korea before attacking? Do you read our comments? That's a lot of gold that could have been used better, for example for settler rushing and easing our unit upkeep (which is now at 174gpt )

Ok, don't look back. We need a different plan now. I'm afraid the plan of winning with Cavalry+Artemis will no longer work.

A war against Korea will get us a bloody nose...:

I have run a quick test: Def-1 Armies are attacked (and killed easily) by Cavalry!
So that means our units including the Armies, will get attacked & killed by Cav (best defensive unit we have is the spearman...), while at the same time we can't make progress, because we are up against Rifles... (Ran another quick test: LB Armies just die against Rifles on hills.)

How could an alternative plan look like? We still have a very powerful core (if we don't let our cities riot... ). Second place in population, third place in production and commerce. A win should still be possible.

• After Chemistry is finished, trade Education from Sumer.
• Start Universities
• Buy any tech we get for gpt from Byzantium and then declare.
• Build the Military Academy in another 20spt city. (For example, switch Ta-Tu to palace now.)
  
• Pack up 44 units in our galleys (why are they scattered all over the place? For an attack on Byzantium, they should be concentrated at Ch'ongfu.) and capture/replace Naissus. (They are still medieval, if we hurry... And they don't have saltpeter, so we will be up against pikes at most.)
  
• Make peace afterwards, before they retake it.
  
• Build as many Keshik as possible.
• Catch up in tech (shouldn't be a problem: with Edu from Sumer and 3 techs for free from Byzantium, we only have 4 techs to go until we are industrial ourselves.)
• Upgrade some spears to rifles
• Plant a settler next to the saltpeter resource.
• Found the town the same turn we declare, upgrade Keshiks to Cavalry (leave some for our GA, there will certainly be LBs around for an easy kill), form size-4 Cav Armies and roll over Korea.

If we can pull something like this off, before Korea upgrades their Rifles to Infantry, we are back in the game.

 

[Lanzelot]

Spain is quite backward and has everything we need...

We could also sail over to Spain, once we have Magnetism...
Or to Sumer, who are even more backwards, but only have one luxury.