MRG's Random Game of Randomness

[choxorn]

I think there's no reputation hit in gifting a city away to some other civ.

If you could trade the city for a tech or gold or gold per turn, that would help, but I don't think that they will give you anything for a city... my memory might be faulty on checking that though.

The AI will only trade cities in peace treaties, and only if there's nothing involved except the cities and peace, and only if the cities are only on one side of the deal.

The Egyptian Archer stack doesn't look all that bad right now, how many units do you have left in the stack near Chongfu? Can you both protect the city from the Egyptian Archers and deal with the Korean LBM's?

 

[Spoonwood]

Other than attacking archers having better odds of win when attacking an archer on a hill, there's an elite 5/5 archer in Ch'ongfu. If you try to protect the city, that archer will get shot at first. If you gift the city, I think it would get teleported to your capital if I recall correctly.

 

[Lanzelot]

I will be on the train all day tomorrow, so can look at it in detail only tomorrow evening. But perhaps you can attach the current save?
In general I would say, though, the Korean war should be kept going, as long as they only have spearmen as defenders, perhaps they will indeed concede a tech later on...
All other wars can be ended, if they turn into a nuisance. (Though we still get WH from Byzantium, right? Whom else do we get WH from? I lost track...)
Do we have any spears left to cover Ch'ongfu?

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Sure, here is the current save. Note that I am not finished with the turn yet. I just stopped as soon as I saw the Egyptians to see what the team wanted to do since it's a new development we weren't expecting.

 

[Spoonwood]

Note that I am not finished with the turn yet. I just stopped as soon as I saw the Egyptians to see what the team wanted to do since it's a new development we weren't expecting.

I had a recent game where I was at war with France and Sumeria, and France walked its units through Sumeria towards me. Watching AIs play against each other in debug mode, they seem to have the same behavior.

 

[tjs282]

The Egyptians have arrived. The stacks are all archers.

But (so far) there are only seven of them visible, and five of those are still 2T away from attacking Chongfu.

Has our stack near Chongfu got no moves left? Because if you can move in 2 (or more) additional units, Cleo can't take the town before the rest of our stack catches up with that vanguard — which will then be able to defend against the other 5 Archers.

Korea will give us peace outright.

Wang would have done that already on my turns! But now having killed so many (more) of his units, and taken two of his towns, how much will Wang pay us for peace?

Before I got the Flintlock patch, I zeroed in on an "Acceptable" deal by entering an estimated amount in the Lump-sum box to start with, e.g. 500g, then halving it repeatedly until my advisor switches from "Insulted/Doubtful/Close" to "Acceptable", then splitting the difference (up or down) between that and "Doubtful/Close", until I identified a gold amount within ~2g or so of the maximum(/minimum) that the AI would accept (depending on how long I want to haggle!).

If the acceptable amount is very high, it's definitely worth trying to get a tech or even a town instead of the gold, because once you've made peace, you can get the gold via a loan with GPT-repayments, as @Spoonwood has suggested.

That latter really requires to grow fast and build Markets for TAX%-boosting, though, so may not be feasible/ optimal yet.

Interestingly, when I place Engineering as part of the deal our advisor says "I doubt they will accept that proposal."

This is a good sign: it means that that you might be able to buy Eng (or Theo?) as part of the peace-deal — and since we haven't killed our trade-rep, you might even be able to buy with GPT-payments.

Remember, once we sign peace with Korea, our WW goes away, which means you can drop LUX% prior to the negotiations, and then (once the PT is signed) either earn more TAX%, or raise SCI% for faster research to Feud --> Invention. We already put enough beakers into Feud during my turnset that we should be able to finish it in far fewer than 50 turns, especially now that we have more Libs up.

Egypt will give us peace for 140 gold.

i.e. Payable to her, presumably?

Is that Cleo's initial offer, or her minimum? We're getting no War-Happies from that war, but we also haven't built up any WW either (yet!). So if you're reasonably confident that you/ we can hold her off, then don't sign a PT until her units are dead, because that way we should be able to force her to reduce her demand.

Alternatively... We already have an Embassy in Seoul, which will re-open once a PT is signed with Wang. So rather than signing peace with Cleo, it might be worth signing an MA with Wang against her, which will not only help take care of that mess of Korean and Egyptian units near Chongfu, but — if Wang prevails here — he will then send all his units north/west, which will make it much easier for us for to backstab him when the PT expires (if that's what we choose to do).

It might even be worth signing an MA as part of the Korean PT — though that does mean that if Wang signs peace with Cleo, he will be forced to declare on us again, which (if it happens before the 20T MA is finished) will give us back any remaining WW from the current war (but would also cancel any GPT-payments to him...).

Byzantines will give us peace for 40 gold. That's a little more reasonable than Egypt.

But unlike Egypt, Byz is (or was, before they started bombing us?) giving us War-Happies.

If they haven't tipped us over into WW yet, then I would also hold off on signing a PT with Dora a little longer if possible.

There's two dromons bombarding us now, but more could be on their way. And we don't have the navy we need to counter them.

Our coastal core-towns should be able to spit out Galleys pretty fast by now -- or Cats/Trebs to bomb nearby Dromons, which would cause WW for Dora, and encourage her to retreat her boats.

 

[Spoonwood]

It might even be worth signing an MA as part of the Korean PT — though that does mean that if Wang signs peace with Cleo, he will be forced to declare on us again, which (if it happens before the 20T MA is finished) will give us back any remaining WW from the current war (but would also cancel any GPT-payments to him...).

That's definitely an interesting idea, with gpt getting paid for gold to Wang getting cancelled by Wang declaring war on you again, because of the linking of the military alliance and the peace treaty. I doubt it's random when AIs sign a peace treaty with each other. I don't know the factors, but they could be useful to know. It might be that if an AI has suffered enough damage from another AI that they will pay for peace from that AI.

Also, I think that the AIs like to target barbarian ships with their ships. Even if moving through someone else's territory whom they are at peace with. Which could quickly turn back into war.

 

[Spoonwood]

Trapping units concept:

Since Wang has all that gold, if you see that he's willing to make peace, let his units come within your cultural borders. Then surround a stack of two units at least completely on all eight sides. Then make peace with Wang. His units won't be able to move without attacking yours, so they'll stay within your cultural borders. Check the military advisor. Especially if he tells you that are your army is weak compared to Wang's, then ring him up, buy out tech or gold or both with gpt. Then tell Wang to "leave or declare". That would yield both war happiness and gold or tech.

Edit: Also probably applicable to units landing on your shores. But, it's easier then, since you won't need to block off coastal squares from movement.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:
I used that tactic years ago to trap about 900 infantry. Surrounded them with cav armies and they do not attack the armies. Use the rest of my armies to eventually take all the cities and the 900 go poof.

 

[Lanzelot]

It might even be worth signing an MA as part of the Korean PT — though that does mean that if Wang signs peace with Cleo, he will be forced to declare on us again, which (if it happens before the 20T MA is finished) will give us back any remaining WW from the current war (but would also cancel any GPT-payments to him...).

That's definitely an interesting idea, with gpt getting paid for gold to Wang getting cancelled by Wang declaring war on you again, because of the linking of the military alliance and the peace treaty.

Yes, a very clever idea. We definitely need to keep it in mind when making peace with Korea.

 

[Spoonwood]

The trapping units concept might need a turn of peace. I'm not sure that you'll get a leave or declare option after making peace on the same turn you made peace. Though, maybe you would. Also, I emphasize you need at least two units. One unit is only the "they must be withdrawn" request.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, took a look at the save. First of all: congratz on the nice progress on the front! Two towns taken, we are back in business... So taking the risk payed off well.

The situation with Egypt is not nice, but not that critical yet, that I would pay 140g for peace. Just make sure to clean up the remaining Korean LBs, move a couple of units in, repel the Egyptian archers, but then we need to be careful to leave both towns empty again, because the flip risk is quite high.

Hmm, perhaps it would be a good idea to give these two towns to Egypt for peace? Then we won't have to worry about defending them, nor worry about flips (and losing a stack of units in a flip...), and we would get peace from Egypt for free. And once we have captured Seoul, we can then easily re-take those (and other similarly gifted) towns from Egypt. (So basically they are our "caretakers" for a while... )

However, I need to criticize the MM. Looks like you missed (or did not understand), what I wrote two days ago:

KK can take one of Ta-Tu's tiles. (There are enough unused tiles south of Ta-Tu.) and also switch the irrigated BG to Kazan.

This is a completely wasted citizen! It's doing exactly nothing, zero, niente, because that shield is not even needed to finish the archer... Even a scientist would be better than this...

And all the while, as I wrote above, Ta-Tu has lots of unused tiles which it could lend to Karakorum:

Next I wonder, why we have a total of 13 workers on mountains?!? 3 or 4 of them may be justified, but most of them are wasting their efforts, e.g. these 4 here:

Neither Kazan nor Mandalgovi have any surplus food for working another mountain, let alone two!!
As I also wrote earlier, it would have been much more important to improve the hill marked blue, so as to speed up the FP in Mandalgovi by a turn or two.
Same goes for the three mountains at Tabriz.

I would say, the ones at Erdenet, Karakorum, Batshireet and Uliastay are ok, perhaps also the one at Atlay to get that road connection, but the rest should move of the mountains again and do some useful work (e.g. mining said hill for Mandal, mining a mountain for Almarikh and Ta-Tu) or be joined into our cities. (Tabriz, Karakorum, Ta-Tu and Almarikh could all use at least one worker join.)

(BTW: why do we have 60% lux and a clown in Choybalsan?! 50% would be enough as far as I can see.)

 

[Lanzelot]

PS: I think I also already mentioned it, but better emphasize it here, so it doesn't get lost:
Darhan can also free up two tiles for Ta-Tu (or Karakorum, whoever needs it more), one tile now and another one in two turns, when the culture in Batshireet has popped:

 

[Spoonwood]

This is a completely wasted citizen! It's doing exactly nothing, zero, niente, because that shield is not even needed to finish the archer

It's an extra happy citizen. So, it's increasing your score. But, it's not producing commerce or decreasing the time of the archer build.

If I recall correctly, a scientist gets counted as a content citizen (though I might be wrong on that). So, a scientist would increase your score less or not at all *directly*. A scientist can indirectly increase your score, by getting you to a quicker winning position or getting more tiles under your control and happy/content citizens.

Also, even if you lose, well your score could be higher than your previous game.

 

[tjs282]

At least 2 Workers at Tabriz are on me. They were heading for Tabriz to join the town when the Dromon arrived, and since I didn't have enough combat-units in the area, I moved the Workers onto the unroaded Mountains to prevent any units from being landed there. And once they were there anyway, I set them to build roads so that next time Dora tried to land, we could block those tiles without losing moves getting on/off.

 

[Lanzelot]

They were heading for Tabriz to join the town when the Dromon arrived, and since I didn't have enough combat-units in the area, I moved the Workers onto the unroaded Mountains to prevent any units from being landed there And once they were there anyway, I set them to build roads so that next time Dora tried to land, we could block those tiles without losing moves getting on/off.

Ah, ok, that's a valid reason. So let's build these roads, they might come in handy in the future, this will not be the only time that we'll be at war with an overseas nation...

 

[tjs282]

Ah, ok, that's a valid reason.

Glad you agree

I do not believe that capturing and disbanding a city incurs the same penalty.

According to @justanick, that depends how soon you abandon/disband it: apparently foreign towns which are abandoned less than 20T after capture are also considered to have been razed, so incur the same attitude-hit.

Still, if we're planning to kill everyone anyway, AI-attitudes towards us are going to be pretty poor regardless...

And, if the city has any buildings (not sure if the ones you capture do), one can sell those buildings before disbanding the city.

Obviously all the Culture-generating buildings disappear, but I'm still not clear how the game decides how many (and which) of the other buildings the attacker is allowed to keep. Anecdotally, it does seem to be related to how quickly the town was taken, i.e. the fewer turns it takes, the more buildings you get to keep (leaving aside the effects of the "Collateral Damage" unit-flag, which no unit has in the base-game).

AFAIK, the AI doesn't usually sell buildings unless it goes broke, but they do panic-rush defenders in threatened towns — which could (under a non-whipping gov) in turn bankrupt them if their Treasury is already close to zero. So e.g. if the attacker kills all but one garrison in a just-failed assault, the AI's 'need' for immediate cash could force building-sales in that town.

The only upside of razing that I have read about comes as that one can get slaves by doing so, but I think there's a population threshold for such.

IIRC, you get half as many Slaves as the town had pop-points (in addition to any Workers/Settlers who were captured along with the town)

(Though we still get WH from Byzantium, right? Whom else do we get WH from? I lost track...)

Didn't Portugal also declare on us directly (and on your set...)?

 

[Lanzelot]

Didn't Portugal also declare on us directly (and on your set...)?

No idea... I'm an old man, can't remember what happened last week... only what happened 20 years ago...

 

[MrRandomGuy]

I did say that I wasn't done with the turn yet. I had forgotten to do it the first turn and planned on checking cities this turn after the war stacks.

The workers on the mountains were moved there for mobility reasons. Yes it's not currently needed now, but it could be needed later. Plus a future resource we can't see could be there.

 

[choxorn]

IIRC, you get half as many Slaves as the town had pop-points (in addition to any Workers/Settlers who were captured along with the town)

Something like that, but I think the first 3 or so citizens don't count (1 of them always dies upon capturing the city unless it's size 1 and has at least 10 culture)

The workers on the mountains were moved there for mobility reasons. Yes it's not currently needed now, but it could be needed later. Plus a future resource we can't see could be there.

Perhaps, but we have more important things to do with our workers than roading every single mountain in our territory. If one of them has Saltpeter or Coal we can road them when we see them.