MRG's Random Game of Randomness

tjs282 · May 29, 2022

Lanzelot said:
BTW: we don't get WH for Dows that were the result of a military alliance. So we have WH from Byzantium and America, but not from Egypt and Korea. --> Ergo make peace with these two as soon as it is reasonable (meaning they don't want an arm and a leg for it).

Yes, I already know that:

tjs282 said:
I would suggest trying to make peace with Korea and Egypt ASAP, since those wars are giving us no WHappies.

Lanzelot said:
And why? There is a single Korean warrior approaching our borders. It'll be at least 15 turns, before any significant number of units start appearing, and we should have enough archers to deal with those for a while

(1) That Axe was already Barb-hunting in the vicinity, and I was not panicking about him (he was also not visible when Korea DoW'd).

But he is almost certainly a vanguard for a much larger stack, because (AFAWK) Korea has fought no wars yet. And Cheju is only 8 tiles away from the prospective new town, and Korea has also had Horses hooked for a long time, so your estimate of 15 turns to our borders is likely ... optimistic.

(2) We have been at war with Byz for 13(?) turns already, and America for 7 turns, and while we have seen no stacks from them yet, that does not mean they are not on their way, possibly along with Dromons to firebomb our puny Axe-garrisons. Anything landed along our western coast, will likely be landed on Hills or Mountains, making them very difficult to kill using A=2 Archers.

Lanzelot said:
Sorry, but that was not smart (not to say stupid). Couldn't you discuss this in the team?

Honestly? No. I had time today to play, I will not have time tomorrow, so I didn't want to wait for another 24-hour consultation.

Plus, last time I offered a discussion, the wrong decision was made, IMHO. If I had been 'allowed' to buy Rep, and then trade it around, we would now be sitting on a massive stack of gold (1-2 turns after Korea got Rep, Byz and Egypt had suddenly amassed substantial piles of gold -- Dora alone had >500g -- which I could not relieve them of), possibly close to reaching the Medieval (if not already there), and likely would not be at war with so many enemies (because the AIs would have been in Anarchy again, so would likely have been less inclined to sign MAs).

We would also not have had to pay the full price for Rep if/when Wang DoW'd us -- or maybe, since we would still have owed him so much cash, he would not even have DoW'd (I think the AI doesn't really care about that, though).

And honestly, 4T delay is no great shakes, IMO, since our civ is still small, and all current towns are now approaching the limits of their available food/growth -- until we revolt and start irrigating BGrass tiles.

If the next player wants to hit the revolution-button, they still have that option.

MrRandomGuy · May 29, 2022

As soon as you get the ability to get out of depo, you revolt. For the most part you don't want to wait to revolt. I would imagine the only reason to wait is if the survival of your empire was at stake. Like if troops were marching into your cities and you needed more right then to attack/defend your empire. We are not at that type of situation.

I have the save and will post preflight before the end of the day.

MrRandomGuy · May 29, 2022

Preflight/Assessment

Korea, Egypt, Byzantines, America all at war with us. As soon as Korea and Egypt are in the talkative mood, I'll sue for reasonable peace. America and Byzantines we'll keep at war for WH.

Portugal and Sumerians are both annoyed with us. Portugal has techs we do not. We have techs Sumerians do not. If we can get the Sumerians to declare war on us that would be perfect for WH. We can keep that war going without any worry about a land campaign like Egypt and America. So I'm not going to do anything that makes him happy.

We have enough units to where we don't have to worry about a massive land campaign from anyone yet. In fact it would be better if some of those units were killed in battle due to unit costs in Republic.

Why is there a worker on a polluted tile?

Plan

- Revolt to Republic immediately. We have enough units to defend/attack an invading force.

- MM is 4 turns away from being researched with Lit 7 turns away. We've seen in this game that one turn makes a difference because we were a turn away from getting Philo first. Therefore, it would make the most logical sense to switch to Lit as soon as we are out of the revolution.

- Start a prebuild for GL. Kazan looks like the best choice. The prebuild and delaying trading Lit for a few turns (or if we want to trade it at all) will help us build GL

- KK will be a settler pump

- Ta-Tu will be a worker pump

- Work Kazan's tiles and send a few workers to join the city to ensure GL is built asap.

choxorn · May 29, 2022

tjs282 said:
(2) We have been at war with Byz for 13(?) turns already, and America for 7 turns, and while we have seen no stacks from them yet, that does not mean they are not on their way, possibly along with Dromons to firebomb our puny Axe-garrisons. Anything landed along our western coast, will likely be landed on Hills or Mountains, making them very difficult to kill using A=2 Archers.

I don't think that's really something to be too concerned about, the AI rarely sends large groups of units to invade by sea.

Lanzelot · May 29, 2022

tjs282 said:
Yes, I already know that

Yep, I missed that when reading your turn log... :blush:

I still think that delaying a revolt is an important decision that would require team discussion. And if it means a 1- or 2-day delay, so what, we don't need to rush this! And better a bad decision done by the team than a single player overruling the majority...

Seoul is 24 tiles away from our border, and that's where they have their main capacity for building units. Chonju is not dangerous: too far from the palace to be that productive. Byzantium can only reach us by water (or by marching ~ 40 turns through Korean territory), and the AI is notoriously bad at seaborne invasions. And America is still farther away, via land or via water. I still claim there was no immediate danger. And 4 turns delay is a lot. :sad:

MrRandomGuy said:
Therefore, it would make the most logical sense to switch to Lit as soon as we are out of the revolution.

We already have one third of MM finished, would be a shame to throw that away. I would say we finish MM now. We can use some cheap harbors soon, tjs282 is right here. (And we don't need Literature that urgently: none of our towns can finish the GLib within the next 7 turns...

Erdenet and Ulanbaatar could both start a pre-build for harbor now, and Tabriz can build one after the aqueduct.

MrRandomGuy said:
- Start a prebuild for GL. Kazan looks like the best choice.

Kazan has barracks, so should continue with units. At the moment, I don't see any of our towns building a 400s wonder anytime soon... We would need at least a 15spt city to have a reasonable chance. So I guess we scrap that idea. (Unless we want to set our capital on that job, but we still need lots and lots of settlers, or we'll drown in unit maintenance...)

MrRandomGuy said:
- Ta-Tu will be a worker pump

Ta-Tu also has barracks. Darhan is the one with the granary, so it should get 3 irrigated BGs asap and then it can operate as 2-turner. And midterm, Choybalsan will be a good 2-turner.

When revolting, remember to move all warriors to Mandalgovi, so they can be disbanded there. And all archers can move towards the front, except for 1-2 mobile fire-brigades (= a stack of maybe 1 spear and 2 archers) in the west, which can fend off the occasional unit the Byzantines may land on our shores.

MrRandomGuy · May 30, 2022

Spoiler :

Handoff

- The settler built in Durhan is intentionally left unmoved for the next player to choose which spot to build it at.

- Military wise we are ok, but we are heavily behind in tech. I also micromanaged the best I could, but I have a feeling that it could have been done better. Micromanaging was challenging during this turnset.

- I have left citizens in Tsetserleg and other cities alone so that all of you can give me helpful tips on how I could have managed the empire better. If I was going to continue through the turnset, I would not leave citizens and sci/lux the way it is. I'd look for the best balance.

choxorn is up next.

Lanzelot · May 30, 2022

Tip for MM: try to avoid this:

In a Republic, we can always fix this, e.g. the turn before, when you see you have 19 shields in the box, so you need 11 more, but making only 10, then switch to archer, buy one shield for 4 gold and switch back to settler. Voila, you now have 20s in the box and are finishing the next project clean, not wasting anything.

Similar things are happening in other towns. Ta-Tu will waste 5 out of 6 shields in the turn after this one. So give the mined BG to Choybalsan to speed up the granary there. (Plus put both citizens in Choybalsan to work instead of having one sleep as a scientist, see below.)

Before:

After:

See, how this is much more powerful than those scientists?
And all of this snowballs exponentially. In 4 turns, Choy will have another citizen, making it even more powerful. While in your setup it's not growing at all

On the warfare side I think our units are a bit too exposed and too scattered.
E.g. there is a red-lined archer right next to two Byz horsemen. It'll die in the interturn

. And there is another unprotected archer exposed and in danger of getting killed in the interturn. Always keep them under cover of spears. (Then they even get an additional defensive shot.)
Also there are many archers in our core, where they are not needed?! Move them to the front! Combine everything in one SoD, and then take Chongfu and Chonju. After that, Wang will sue for peace... 10 archers should be enough for taking a town, even on Demigod. And we have 30 archers! So use them in a concentrated action (instead of getting them killed piecemeal in skirmishes).

And the final point of improvement: now that we are a Republic, don't use scientists anymore. Our towns need to grow, grow, grow. Use the lux slider! We are currently drowning in unit support costs, because we have no size 7 towns. So we cannot afford slowing down the growth of our towns. That's what makes Republic so strong (and what the AI is also doing wrong): the extra food enabling exponential growth. Even if we have to go 50% lux for a while, go for it and you will see, how powerful all our cities will become.
More shields mean more shields. More commerce means more commerce. But more food means more citizens, more shields and more commerce!

We have 7 scientists at the moment, meaning 14 (or more) food is lost every turn. By raising lux from 10% to 20%, we can put all of them back to work in the fields, except for one. A scientist makes 3 commerce. A citizen on a roaded and mined river tile makes 2 food, 1 shield and 3 commerce. This is more than the little extra gold we pay for luxuries! (Ok, some is lost to corruption, but food is never lost to corruption, and as I said, in the long run, food is everything.)

MrRandomGuy · May 30, 2022

Ok that makes a lot of sense. I'm used to Monarchy where you can place units for MP and don't have to deal with war weariness. I've only recently started going for Republic in my games and always struggle the first handful of turns trying to manage the empire. Now I know the solution is to just raise lux. It seems so simple now lol.

choxorn · May 31, 2022

350 BC (Pre-Flight):

-We’re at 45 gold, +10 gpt, Lit due in 13, 10% in both sci and lux. We have a ton of specialists, which seems kinda wasteful right now, and Tsetserleg is rioting. I raise lux to 20%, send all the scientists back to work in the fields, and do a bunch of MM’ing to all the cities. Able to get all the cities at least +2 fpt except Ulaanbaatar (which has only one 2-food tile in its radius), and speed up Dalandzadgad’s Harbor from 3 turns to 2, Mandalgovi’s courthouse from 5 turns to 3, Ta-Tu’s Archer from 2 turns to 1, and Choybalsan’s Granary from 29 turns to 10. I somewhat frustratingly am not quite able to get Kazan up to 10 spt for 2-turn Archers.

-Set Science to 20%, -7 gpt, Lit due in 17. We will definitely lose some military units and build more cities, so I’m not too worried about the deficit, at least for a bit.

-I’m not really sure what the two Curraghs in Ulaanbaatar are doing right now, are they future Galleys? Given our money troubles we could just disband them to make the Harbor builds in Ulaan and Tabriz faster, but we also do need Galleys eventually.

-Given the danger to the East, I think I’d like to send the next couple of Settlers to fill in spots in the South on the coasts, maybe also grab that area in the hills and mountains to our SE where the barbs were all coming from. The one currently in Darhan will probably head to the dot 2 NE of Hovd.

-There’s no reason to have all these Archers this far from the front- given the AI tech level there aren’t going to be any sea landings unless they’re near Erdenet, and if so we’ll see them from a turn or two away. Leave a couple of Archers between Daland and Erdenet as a precaution for landings, but the rest head towards the front.

-Also not sure what the vSpear and vArcher are doing fortified on a hill east of Baruun, so I move them north, and move a couple of spear/archer stacks around to cover injured archers. Sadly, not much I can do to save that 1/4 archer right next to some Byz horsemen.

-For the hell of it, I check in on diplomacy. Sumeria and Portugal have basically nothing to trade us, and none of our enemies will accept peace unless we give them a city. The wars shall continue, then.

A before and after:

Lanzelot · May 31, 2022

Looks good!
Double-check Mandalgovi, I think it could be rioting at 20% lux.

Regarding the curraghs: we could move them to Erdenent. If we see dromons approaching, we could attack them and sink them, before they unload. (1-2 catapults might also be useful for that in the long run, but I don't think it's urgent. Last time I checked, the Byz coastal towns were size 1-2, so even for a demigod AI it'll be a while before they build and send any significant number of dromons our way. And if they already had any when war broke out, they must've been on their way around the continent clock-wise, because otherwise we would have seen them by now.)

choxorn · May 31, 2022

Lanzelot said:
Looks good!
Double-check Mandalgovi, I think it could be rioting at 20% lux.

It's 1H/1C/1S citizen at 20%, just barely not rioting.

Lanzelot said:
Regarding the curraghs: we could move them to Erdenent. If we see dromons approaching, we could attack them and sink them, before they unload. (1-2 catapults might also be useful for that in the long run, but I don't think it's urgent. Last time I checked, the Byz coastal towns were size 1-2, so even for a demigod AI it'll be a while before they build and send any significant number of dromons our way. And if they already had any when war broke out, they must've been on their way around the continent clock-wise, because otherwise we would have seen them by now.)

That was my other thought. Whatever we do with them they shouldn't just sit where they are, they're doing nothing there and we aren't going to use them to ferry troops anywhere at least until we're done fighting Korea.

Lanzelot · May 31, 2022

Comment on general strategy: we must act swiftly now, as I fear we will otherwise suffer another incident of "too late". (Too late for Philo, too late for Rep, too late for trading before the wars broke out.) Some AIs have started the Knight's Templar, meaning most of them will have Feudalism by now, so if we don't hurry, our archers will be up against Pikes, MIs or even Knights, and then things start looking bleak...

The window of opportunity is already closing. So we need to use our 30 archers quickly and take 2, perhaps 3 Korean towns, before they connect iron to them and build Pikes. If that happens, we are trapped in our tight spot and the game needs a miracle in order to win it. I hope those ~10 turns that the archers spent twiddling their thumbs at home, are not again those few turns that cause another "too late".

The biggest advantage that the human player has over the AI is: we know how to use Republic and how to use the lux slider. The AI (on any difficulty level) usually fixes happiness problems by using entertainers. Which means they are wasting a lot of their potential. If we can inflict war weariness on them, they'll hire more entertainers, up to the point where it really cripples their production. (We on the other hand, just raise the lux slider and keep producing... Sooner or later our troops will get the upper hand as they can no longer replace their losses, while we can.)
The WW level goes up by one, when 30 WW points are accumulated, which is 15 killed units or 2 lost towns. If we can capture 3 towns and kill 8 units in the process, their WW level is already 2 up, and then we have the choice: take peace and 1-2 techs (or another town) in the peace deal, or keep pouncing their now economically crippled empire (if our own WW is still manageable).

Edit: ok, Nicea and Heraclea look like they could be producing 5spt. A dromon on Demigod is 21 shields, so lets say they need 4 turns for building it and then 10 turns to travel to Erdenet. If they had been building other stuff (like a harbor) at the point when war broke out, they will probably finish that first. That would buy us some more time. And they may also wait a couple of turns before setting sail, if they don't have any unit nearby that can be boarded.

choxorn · May 31, 2022

I think we have to worry a lot more about attacks by land than sea, in any case.

Also agreed on the acting now thing. It doesn't help that most of the closest Korean towns are on Hills- if they stick around long enough to grow to size 7 and get Pikes, there's no way we're taking them with Archers. One of them is already size 7!

Lanzelot · May 31, 2022

Off topic: I am trying to determine, how much difference the delayed revolt and the delayed growth due to 7 scientists really makes. Therefore I'm replaying the last two turn-sets. I'm now in the critical turn #97, 610BC, the turn before we discover Republic and Korea declares war on us, and I noticed I can now buy the last turn of Republic from Korea for 12g:

@tjs282 : did this opportunity also come up in your game? (I noticed that Byz now knows Rep as well, so it's no longer monopoly, but according to your turn log, Byz got Rep one turn later in your game, so this deal might not have been possible.)

I can still trade Rep to America and Portugal at this point, so would perhaps get Construction and Currency, or at least Map Making and Polytheism for it, But I'm not making that deal now, because then it would really be a different game. I only want to try the earlier revolt, no scientists and a quicker archer rush, to see, how much difference that really makes.

Lanzelot · May 31, 2022

Here are the results of the "food variant" in 350 BC:

Population: 59
Income: 188
Production: 57

Thanks to the earlier archer rush, I have already captured Chonju (before it grew to size 7!) and Ch'ongfu, losing a handful of archers in the process. (That's why I have only 28, compared to 30 in the game.)
Units: 1 settler, 10 workers
28 archers, 9 spears, 3 curraghs

Ta-Tu is at size 7, making 10spt. KK is producing an archer every two turns and a settler every two turns (with a little shortrush to speed it up).
Most western towns are growing quickly now with 4fpt, we'll have another 2-3 size 7 towns soon. Darhan needs 4 more turns, then it can operate as a 2-turner at size 6. Choy needs a bit longer to finish the gran and get a few more tiles improved.

Numbers from the original game:
Population: 47
Income: 143
Production: 47

Units: 1 settler, 10 workers
30 archers, 5 spears, 3 curraghs

However, my diplomatic skills seem not quite up to tjs282's and MrRandomGuy's... :mischief:

But this looks worse than it is: only Korea and Byzantium are "hot" wars, all the others don't matter. And if things do turn dangerous, I can always make peace for a bit of gold. (Korea should soon be ready to pay us...)

There are two main differences to the original game:

Korea did not sign that MA against us?! So I declared on them, to make the game equal...
I popped Polytheism from a hut. So ignore that... And I traded Republic to America for MM. I think this deal would have been available in the original game as well, because according to your turn log, America declared only after you got Rep (like they did in this one).

MrRandomGuy · Jun 1, 2022

Yeah, I can see the difference between them. So in the beginning stages of Republic, growth is the most important thing and lux slider is a better fix than using citizens as specialists.

choxorn · Jun 2, 2022

Done with the turnset. My military adventures did... not always go as planned.

Spoiler :

Handoff notes:

- Some of our cities are starting to experience WH, presumably from Korea, but not enough to make any city unhappy. So that's worth keeping an eye on.

- Korea is least to Invention and America has Chivalry. Thankfully it doesn't look like Korea has any resources, but those LBM's will kill us if they ever get to attack. But for sure we might start to see more advanced units soon, especially if the Byzies start showing up again.

- We're gradually filling up the southern peninsula, so Hovd should Settler-abandon soon, maybe after the worker it's currently building, even. At some point we'll run out of space there and the Settlers from Karakorum will have to head East instead.

- Karakorum and Kazan need careful MM'ing of which one of them works the 2-shield tiles between them to speed up Kazan's archer builds and keep Karakorum's Settler builds synced with its growth. But we knew that already, right?

Lanzelot · Jun 2, 2022

Got it.
Well, the Korean war really starts to drain our capacity... :sad:

Things I will try to achieve during my turnset:

Get Darhan and Choybalsan ready as worker pumps. (BTW, why is Choy building barracks?! It will be churning out workers probably for the next 100 turns...)
Finish temple in Mandalgovi and then start Forbidden Palace.
Get a few libraries started. I think, backward as we are, and cut off from the trade loop, we'll have to do something to catch up in science. (Granary in Tabriz is pre-build for our first Library, I assume?)
Try to take Ch'ongfu. But probably that'll be possible only after retreating for now, fend off some more Korean units while minimizing own losses and refilling our ranks? If you failed with 12 archers, I should probably take 20?!
A few more settlers out of KK, and then we should probably let it grow. Settlers will then have to come from elsewhere?!

Other ideas?
Why do we have mines at Hovd? Isn't that area already totally corrupt atm?

choxorn · Jun 2, 2022

Lanzelot said:
Get Darhan and Choybalsan ready as worker pumps. (BTW, why is Choy building barracks?! It will be churning out workers probably for the next 100 turns...)

I may have selected that build at like 2 in the morning at the end of the turnset and forgotten why exactly Choy was building a Granary. It just started, so switch it to whatever makes more sense.

Lanzelot said:
Get a few libraries started. I think, backward as we are, and cut off from the trade loop, we'll have to do something to catch up in science. (Granary in Tabriz is pre-build for our first Library, I assume?)

Could be that or could just be a granary. I think it's currently scheduled to finish before we research Literature though, so if it should turn into a Library might need to slow down a bit.

Lanzelot said:
Try to take Ch'ongfu. But probably that'll be possible only after retreating for now, fend off some more Korean units while minimizing own losses and refilling our ranks? If you failed with 12 archers, I should probably take 20?!

Something like that. You might be able to get away with fewer than 20 if it's mostly veterans when I had regulars, or if you also have some catapults, or if you just get better luck than me.

Lanzelot said:
Why do we have mines at Hovd? Isn't that area already totally corrupt atm?

It's also really far from fresh water right now and there was a worker already in the area building mines so I kept building some. But you're right, they're not doing any good.

Spoonwood · Jun 2, 2022

choxorn said:
It's also really far from fresh water right now and there was a worker already in the area building mines so I kept building some. But you're right, they're not doing any good.

I think if you get a city to 11 shields, even if it's totally corrupt, you'll have two blue ones for production. Granted, that is a lot of shields in comparison to the value of irrigation.

Edit: I felt surprised that such an archer stack failed against Ch'ongfu. I did a ctrl + shift + m after that, and saw it was on a hill. Also, all three Korean border towns are on hills.

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