SGOTM 01 - Peanut

[MailMan]

Re techs: code of laws in 2 sounds great. we have a wide empire, we should whip some courts in the outskirts. for example a whipped court in Cyrus old capital will give us 6-8 gpt.

Re caravels: I agree with DaviddesJ - we do not need many of those. we need approx 3. their usage is very limited to finding other civs and aim for the circumvent bonus. once its done, they should be returned home for some minor defense against future galleons.

Re score: score is not so important in this game as the tech speed IMHO. we have nice score due to taking out Cyrus and Cathi, but we can not compare out tech rate to other teams to see who got astronomy first.

 

[BSmith1068]

lurker's comment: Sorry for the intrusion, but how about some screen shots for us poor lurkers? It has been a little while!

Good luck, and I am enjoying watching your progress.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Here are some current screenshots. (P.S. You know, you can load the save file yourself?)

 

[BSmith1068]

lurker's comment:
Thanks!

I know I can load the files, but most of my lurking occurs when I am at work, where I don't/can't have the game!

 

[ainwood]

The other benefit from code of laws is that it allows caste system.

Yeah - maybe we have too many caravels, but I figured that three going east and three west might be good: one high, one equatorial and one low. Given that this is a non-standard map, land masses might be more difficult to find. I also suggest that one caravel should concentrate solely on circumnavigating the globe.

Sorry about trading optics. I figured that literature would help with the GPPs, although couldn't decide on where (or when) to build the national epic. I also feel that getting gandhi to replicate research is a bit wasteful. Granted that if we can get CoL in two turns, we could probably get literature in one.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Personally, I think staying in Slavery is better than switching to Caste System. If we are sufficiently motivated, we can switch back and forth, but that's really a big hassle (trying to switch to Slavery and schedule pop rushing in the next 5 turns, then switch back to Caste System and assign more specialists for 5 turns, and repeat). It's not clear that our specialist cities can sensibly have significantly more than 4 specialists (which we can get from library, forge, temple).

You don't need to literally circumnavigate with a single caravel to get the movement bonus. Just send one east and another west until they reach the same longitude from opposite directions.

No need to apologize for trading Optics. It's very true that Gandhi might have researched it himself, and we'd rather have him do something else. The cost is also hypothetical (but it's true that he's likely to meet people to his west before we can). I would perhaps have waited a few turns to try to get Feudalism for Optics instead. But that could easily backfire (I don't know much about predicting what the AI will research).

 

[ainwood]

You don't need to literally circumnavigate with a single caravel to get the movement bonus. Just send one east and another west until they reach the same longitude from opposite directions.

Or in our case, its probably easier for the one sailing east to keep going until it sights gandhi's lands that we've explored. Others can stop and map the coastline of anything its finds.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Re score: score is not so important in this game as the tech speed IMHO. we have nice score due to taking out Cyrus and Cathi, but we can not compare out tech rate to other teams to see who got astronomy first.

Of course, it's not just a race to Astronomy, especially because Huayna Capac is so advanced. And we are certainly well placed to churn out lots of military units for conquest, even if our tech rate isn't faster.

I'm surprised by how few postings there are in the spoiler thread (only 4) (I assume it's not "cheating" to look at the SGOTM forum index page!). Many teams have played many more turns than us; have they still not reached Optics, or have they chosen not to post in the spoiler thread, or is there some other obstacle we don't know about (e.g., land barriers that will make it hard for our caravels actually to reach all remaining civs)? Probably, much will become clear in the next 10 turns.

 

[DaviddesJ]

there is no real urge to take out Cyrus, he is too crippled now to cause any problems and we do not gain anything from capturing his land (or even gifting them to India).

If we capture Cyrus's cities and give them to India, then Gandhi will gain a second source of Marble and Wheat, and we can probably get both of those from him in trade (in exchange for resources that we're now giving him for free). So that's a significant benefit. Plus we speed Gandhi's research, which is probably a net plus for us (although it's not entirely clear).

I agree that we don't want the cities ourselves. Pasargadae and Phoenician look superficially attractive, but, if we do capture them, their cultural boundaries will be squeezed by India to the point that they really won't be good for us at all. And Gordium is good for nothing but Marble.

But there's a real case for attacking Cyrus in order to give the cities to India.

 

[civ_steve]

Great Progress! and the game is definitely entering an exciting phase! I've got the save, and here's the general points to pursue that I see:

- Research Code of Laws, sounds good; courthouses will help, and possible trade opportunities.
- explore and make contacts; also, find HC; might want more Caravels to fend off possible raiding parties.
- take out Cyrus' cities and gift to Gandhi, very nice idea especially where he gets a 2nd resource to trade to us. Sounds like more commitment to Permanent Alliance, which should be OK.
- National Wonders; HE where we have good production and Barracks; NE perhaps, where we have a World Wonder (for more GPP); maybe determine a Wonder city.
- further research, doing pretty good; I'm thinking more and more that we'll need Cavalry more than Knights to finish this; if this sounds good, we should research in this direction; leave Music to the AI, need Philosophy or Divine Right plus Civil Service to get to Nationalism, and then we can learn Military Tradition. Meanwhile Great Scientists can help us with Astronomy, Paper, Printing Press and Scientific Method, we should get help towards 2, maybe 3 of these.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I would think the National Epic should go in Heliopolis or Persepolis. (I can make a reasonable argument either way.) Increasing the GPP from a city that can feed lots of specialists seems more important than increasing the small number of GP from a wonder.

Gandhi already has Music so we definitely shouldn't research that. After COL, I assume you will just switch back to Astronomy at 0%, for now, while we wait to see what the other AIs have and will trade. I see no reason to actually finish Astronomy until we're ready to launch an attack. (It gets us some trade opportunities but also obsoletes our Colossus.) But putting some points into it is fine.

 

[DaviddesJ]

We could build the Forbidden Palace in Persepolis, which would save us some gold in the short term. But I think this is a bad idea; it's better to save it to build overseas once we start conquering new continents.

 

[ainwood]

We could build the Forbidden Palace in Persepolis, which would save us some gold in the short term. But I think this is a bad idea; it's better to save it to build overseas once we start conquering new continents.

I agree. Once we start our main offensive, we'll probably put research at 0%, and just try to keep total gold +ve through capturing cities.

 

[civ_steve]

OK. I've played 4 turns and need to do some consulting. (In fact, I changed a major consensus point once I had gotten into the game, and this has some significant effects, good and not so good. More about that shortly).

I decided to restart the War against Cyrus. Declared, and moved Swordsmen on Gordium, the Marble city. It's been captured, roads are being built to connect Marble, and a couple of Archers from Cyrus have been fended off. However, he's got 7 Archers defending Pasargadae, which is a bit much with our current forces in play; I'm planning to get India in the war with us, and between the 2 of us Cyrus should be finished. Or I can build a few more Swords, ship them over, and do the job ourselves, but I think that would take longer.

With Marble, both HE and NE are speeded up. I was thinking, and have started HE in Memphis; it has plenty of shields and would make a great city to produce 8XP units from (or 10 if we choose another civic that gives us the extra XP). I agree that Persepolis would be a great GPP farm, and plan to start NE there shortly unless there's vehement disagreement. Rather than figuring out a trade with Gandhi, I plan to keep Marble to complete these 2 Wonders, then gift him the city.

HC has sent a Caravel our way - we greeted him with a few of our own and that was that.

We now have contact with the Arabs and with the Americans, both are located to the SE. Traded MetalCasting and Calendar to Saladin for Construction and HorsebackRiding. He has Feudalism, also wont trade it. Neither Saladin nor FDR have Alphabet, so they are both somewhat behind in Tech. Saladin is pleased with us and HC; FDR is cautious towards both.

Now the point of departure. For trading value, I changed the next Tech to Theology, 4 turns - half again the value of Code of Laws and I thought we might have a chance to trade for CoL with new contacts if they were following HC's lead. CoL and Theo should gain us Feudalism from Gandhi at least. (In retrospect, I should have delayed that decision and the research until the contacts were made to see if this type of a trade would be available.)

So Gandhi is almost interested in the trade (Theo for Feud), and some more Gold would probably seal the deal. Feudalism would allow us to research Guilds next, if Knights are the unit we want (vs Cavalry later, or Macemen). Right now I'm not too impressed with the Arabs or the Americans, and am thinking that Knights would probably do the job against them. For Cavalry we would need Guilds and Gunpowder anyway, so I'm thinking save Gold, trade for Feudalism and set up to research Guilds next.

However, researching Theology has changed the order of Techs the GS's will give us. Paper and Printing Press (possibly Education as well) will be benefitted by GS before Astronomy gains a GS benefit. This is OK if Permanent Alliance is our goal; these Techs help us on that path, and preserve the Colossus' benefit in the meantime. However, if we think we can gain the land requirement with Knights, then not getting the GS help earlier in learning Astronomy will slow us down some. Setting up GPP factory in Persepolis will alleviate some of this, possibly (I figured at least 7 Scientists with NE and Caste System, eventually, is 40+ GPP/turn so this is a good city to set this up for).

One other option we can do: trade, or gift, Alphabet to Saladin. This may free up Feudalism from him to be available for trade, and we have Machinery and other Techs to trade for it (save some gold from Gandhi). Also, if Saladin then trades with HC, we might get Code of Laws this way as well (we will want Caste System for Persepolis). Drawback is that these AI's are strengthened and may make it more difficult to use Knights for domination if that is our choice and is available to us.

I've just located HC's culture, so the next few turns will tell us how well he is defended.

So. looking for some feedback or ideas on these subjects: 1.) plans to build HE in Memphis (this is well located to build units for HC combat, who is to our ENE) and NE in Persepolis. 2.) war with Cyrus - get Gandhi allied or do it ourselves. 3.) research from here, a couple of paths:

3a) acquire Gold, to trade Theo and Gold to Gandhi for Feudalism - learn CoL next, then start on Guilds for Knights (and Grocer)

3b) Gift Alphabet to Saladin, look for trade with existing Techs for his Feudalism (if he changes his mind about trading it), start on Code of Laws in meantime or save money

I think Persepolis will be ready to be GPP farm before we can learn Guilds, so I'm thinking we should pursue CoL next; only question is how to obtain Feudalism, and I'm leaning towards 3a, primarily to keep Arabs, Americans and Incans further behind.

We get a GS on turn 9 from Heliopolis; do GS get a certain number of research points that apply to the appropriate Tech on the list then cascade to the next if they exceed the amount required, or are they done once the Tech is learned? If no cascade, we might want to store GS's to help us with the expensive Techs, and learn the cheaper ones (like Paper) first by our research. After Guilds, though.

 

[DaviddesJ]

However, he's got 7 Archers defending Pasargadae, which is a bit much with our current forces in play

I could have told you that. You can easily conquer Cyrus with a few catapults to reduce his defenses, right? I would have built those first, and moved them up, and only then attacked.

I'm planning to get India in the war with us, and between the 2 of us Cyrus should be finished.

I don't think you can get Gandhi to attack Cyrus. They are relatively friendly.

Rather than figuring out a trade with Gandhi, I plan to keep Marble to complete these 2 Wonders, then gift him the city.

I think we can probably save 15 gpt by just giving the city to Gandhi and then trading for the marble. We're giving him two resources for nothing, right now; we can just cancel those deals and trade him the resources instead. But I guess I'm not 100% certain; it might not work for some reason. Actually, he may have developed his own source of one of the resources we're sending him, in which case he won't give us anything for it now.

However, researching Theology has changed the order of Techs the GS's will give us.

Yeah, this was a bad idea. Theology does almost nothing for us and seriously screws up our research path.

We already had Philosophy outranking Astronomy, but I figured we could get that somehow. Now we have to get Paper and Education and Printing Press! It's cheaper to just research Astronomy directly.

One other option we can do: trade, or gift, Alphabet to Saladin. This may free up Feudalism from him to be available for trade, and we have Machinery and other Techs to trade for it (save some gold from Gandhi). Also, if Saladin then trades with HC, we might get Code of Laws this way as well (we will want Caste System for Persepolis). Drawback is that these AI's are strengthened and may make it more difficult to use Knights for domination if that is our choice and is available to us.

We definitely don't want to help them! The idea is that we should gain by arbitrage (trading certain techs that they could also get from some other AI), but not speed them up if we can help that. And Alphabet is absolutely the worst thing to give because it takes away our trading advantage (they can then just trade back and forth more easily and cut us out---it makes them much more efficient researchers, as a group).

Especially since it's going to be way longer before we can attack them now, it becomes more important to keep them relatively backward. And you have no assurance that making a gift will get him to trade more with you, anyway.

3a) acquire Gold, to trade Theo and Gold to Gandhi for Feudalism - learn CoL next, then start on Guilds for Knights (and Grocer)

What good are knights without Astronomy? There's no hurry to get Feudalism now. I also (as posted earlier) dislike the idea of switching to Caste System for GP production: Slavery is so powerful (if used well), especially when you have high happiness levels (which we do).

Realistically, we have two choices now. One is to assume that we aren't going to attack overseas until we get Cavalry. In that case, we might as well head toward Cavalry now, and then get Astronomy relatively late (in order to keep the Colossus as long as possible). An idea might be to research toward Military Tradition, which will get us a Defensive Pact with Gandhi (I've heard that getting an early DP is a good way to get PA later), and will enable Cavalry when we can trade for the other stuff we need.

The other approach is to research Astronomy the hard way (no GP boost), and hope that Gandhi gets Guilds in the meantime, and we can trade with him, and still build our knight army on a reasonable schedule.

I don't know which of these is best. Neither of them makes Feudalism or Guilds, now, a priority. I don't like either as much as if we could use the GS for Astronomy and go on a knight rush.

We do want COL soon, in either case, because we still would greatly benefit from courthouses.

We get a GS on turn 9 from Heliopolis; do GS get a certain number of research points that apply to the appropriate Tech on the list then cascade to the next if they exceed the amount required, or are they done once the Tech is learned?

You just get the tech. E.g., we used a GS to discover Compass; there was no "carryover".

 

[ainwood]

Do we really want to attack with knights? Personally, I think knights are fine if you're either prepared to take high losses, or your opponents don't have longbows.

If they have longbows, then my preference would actually be macemen. Give them city raider, and they're as good as knights with the first promotion, and better with 2 or more. Secondly, because the attack stack moves at 1/turn, you can stack 4 catapults with them, and bombard-attack to take cities much more easily (you can do that with knights too, but the speed bonus is negated). I would actually suggest maces + cats for taking cities, with a few knights for pillaging, cleaning-up & cutting resources.

BTW - if we're going to do a lot of self-research, then we may want to consider an academy.

 

[DaviddesJ]

If they have longbows, then my preference would actually be macemen. Give them city raider, and they're as good as knights with the first promotion, and better with 2 or more.

I don't think so!

Maceman(CR1,CR2) vs Longbowman(CG1): 8 vs 6*(1+0.45-0.45) = 1.33
Knight(C1,C2) vs Longbowman(CG1): 10*(1+0.2) vs 6*(1+0.45) = 1.38

The Knight with 2 promotions is better than the Maceman with 2 promotions. It also doesn't suffer a first strike.

Put the target city on a hill, and the Knight is much better:

Maceman(CR1,CR2) vs Longbowman(CG1): 8 vs 6*(1+0.45-0.45+0.5) = 0.89
Knight(C1,C2) vs Longbowman(CG1): 10*(1+0.2) vs 6*(1+0.45+0.5) = 1.03

Secondly, because the attack stack moves at 1/turn, you can stack 4 catapults with them, and bombard-attack to take cities much more easily (you can do that with knights too, but the speed bonus is negated).

You don't need or want to move them together. You want to send a few catapults ahead, and spend a few turns bombarding, then bring up the assault troops when the defenses are down to zero. Then the catapults can keep moving toward the next city, while the assault troops need to rest. Matching speeds has no particular benefit. The higher speed of the knights means you can dash them around to whichever city is next to fall. You definitely can accomplish the same amount of conquest with fewer units this way, because they spend less time en route.

You may need a melee defender to stack with the catapults, but, you don't need very much defense because we're going to be a lot stronger and getting the AI to expend its units attacking out generally just helps us. Especially if you have knights, because you only have to be within a range of 2 spaces in order to be able to counterattack if he does attack out.

 

[ainwood]

- sorry - I'm used to playing as aggressive civs (in which case free combat1 + CR1 + CR2 is better than Combat1 + Combat2, especially when macemen cost less). But you're right about the hills.

 

[DaviddesJ]

BTW - if we're going to do a lot of self-research, then we may want to consider an academy.

If we can get an expensive tech that we want, I think that's going to be significantly better. I'm not sure what the maximum beakers we can get from using a GP for a tech is, at this difficulty level, map size, and speed, but I think it's between 2000 and 3000. If we're running at 50% science, on average, an academy might be worth 20 beakers per turn? That means it takes over 100 turns just to break even. Way too long, compared to getting an immediate benefit (and trading for other stuff we can use---one advantage of getting a tech by GP discovery is we can guarantee we don't invest beakers in something that Gandhi might discover before we're done). The game might be over in less than 100 turns from now.

 

[ainwood]

If we can get an expensive tech that we want, I think that's going to be significantly better. I'm not sure what the maximum beakers we can get from using a GP for a tech is, at this difficulty level, map size, and speed, but I think it's between 2000 and 3000. If we're running at 50% science, on average, an academy might be worth 20 beakers per turn? That means it takes over 100 turns just to break even. Way too long, compared to getting an immediate benefit (and trading for other stuff we can use---one advantage of getting a tech by GP discovery is we can guarantee we don't invest beakers in something that Gandhi might discover before we're done). The game might be over in less than 100 turns from now.

Firstly, if the next GS won't give us astronomy, then purely to get astronomy, the academy may help us get there faster - and isn't that our next major goal?

The academy bonus is worked-out on top of (base-commerce * research rate), so you get a greater benefit out of it from it at higher research rates - 50% average doesn't give the true picture, because whilst it may be 20 bpt at 50%, it can be 30 bpt at 100%. It doesn't invalidate your point, but I think the decision on an academy (or not) is best framed by how we're going to research and run our civics. Eg. Bureacracy vs vassalage? Will we ever bother with printing press? Will we research by stop-start, or will we go slow-and-steady? Also - how are we going to get any intermediate techs? We can't get everything with GSs, and on current specialists, we'll get the odd GE. Caste system would help here (especially if coupled with the national epic), although self-research of these would probably be preferred, because we don't realy want to increment the GP counter with artists & prophets (although a great merchant can effectively be used as a GS over a few turns!)