SGOTM 02 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Compromise]

Cool. I think our priorities are something like: Trade Chemistry for fun and profit. Get some frigates trained for coastal protection. And keep improving our continent. And we need to start planning our next invasion sometime reasonably soon I guess.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Slight delay, but I'm playing now. Still looks like something of an uphill struggle here, though.

IHT - 1472: Upgrade a couple of former fogbusting axemen to samurai since they're reasonably experienced and no longer needed as fogbusters, the AI having settled our continent with a couple of tiddly cities.
The AI players seem to like one another a little too much for my liking, despite the three-way religious split among them. Mao's lone Jewish state would seem to be the obvious primary target.

Tech-wise, Mansa's running away with it a bit - he's up Divine Right, Education, Nationalism and Printing Press on us. Hatty lacks Banking (which we have) and Education. Mao's up Divine right and Education on us, as is Huayana. Kublai just has Divine right over us. Bismarck lacks Banking - he's essentially out of this game, behind on score and tech. Nobody has chemistry (yet) - hopefully I can get some value for it in a few turns.

T1 - 1478: Mansa demands 200-odd gold from us. Tell him to bugger off, incurring -1 to relations.

T5 - 1502: Huayana completes Taj Mahal.

T7 - 1514: Chemistry in. Trade it to Kublau for his world map, 70 gold and Printing Press. Hatty and Mao already have it, apparently, and Huayana won't trade for it due to WFYABTA (erk). Mansa won't offer me anywhere near value for it - only the pointless Divine Right and some change. Decide to keep hold of it for now in case he changes his mind in a few turns.

T8 - 1520: I'd underestimated how far ahead Mansa is - just spotted a rifleman hanging around.

T9 - 1523: Down to 3 years/turn it seems. A Great Scientist is born in Kyoto. He'll lightbulb about half of Sci Meth if we want to try and grab more trade fodder; I think I'll leave it here so the next player can decide whether to do that or found an academy (I reckon lightbulbing probably makes sense, so long as we don't want to build more monasteries afterward - might be worth building some while we save up for the research).

Heroic Epic's in Osaka - start our first Grenadier there. I queued up a few galleons and upgraded a frigate. It's worth noting that we have next to no defense in the central islands - warriors and so on

Save.

 

[Kodii]

I think ruff is up now. I'll play after ruff, as I don't have enough time to sneak a turnset in now.

 

[ruff_hi]

Hmm - not sure really what to do here. I turn tech up on Scientic Method (we have quite a few monestories so we will still be able to produce priests - more later) and also let the Great Scientist do his stuff ...

Unfortunately, Hatty gets SM just before we do and not many people will trade for it. No one is interested in starting a war (well, Hatty and Mansu are but we don't have enough to offer), nor change their civics, nor stop trading. I cannot see anything that we can do to affect the relationships. Hatty was annoyed with Mao but went to Cautious when she went to free religion.

I did do this trade ...

... which was all I could get for it. Tech is back to education. I suggest rifles, cavalry and cannons and then draft and :smash: (I admit it, it isn't much of a plan).

The Save (not uploaded to system - is it broken?)

 

[EL_OSO]

[Just getting back after a couple internet-free days.]

Oso, no offense taken at all. I like the discussion. The reason I point out forests is because they are less productive than forests for production. If you work a forest, you are food-neutral and make 15 hammers in 15 turns (on epic). If you have a food surplus and whip that citizen instead of having him do the forest, he's worth 45 hammers in the same 15 turns.

That said, forests are okay if you're trying to build up population so you can whip it, but you're usually better off chopping the forest (unless you need it for health) and working a cottage in that square instead.

Most of this is certainly not any one player's (or one turnset's) issue, but something I think we can all be aware of when we're trying to figure out how to assign those worker actions.

Good call on getting chemistry before education. I didn't consider the (considerable) tech trade opportunity. I hope they still don't have chemistry when we get it.

I no longer look for notification in email, but just log onto the usercp.php page frequently, so I'm not sure if the email notification is broken or not.

So, it looks like Beef is up?

Thanks for the explanation. That's what I'm looking for when I'm under scrutiny.

 

[EL_OSO]

We probably need to get the save uploaded to the system prior to continuation. I'm not sure if there are rules on that or not.

Did we find any oil in our lands?

 

[Kodii]

Ok got it, I'll see if I can upload the save for ruff.

EDIT: Yup, I got it uploaded for you. I'll try to play tomorrow. Its almost November, and starting then, we have a month to finish.

EDIT2: We have oil in the heart of the jungle. A worker is already on its way to chop the jungle. There are also two oil in range of Bremen, the German city to the far south. I forgot to check if Germany has any oil, but if they don't, we're going to want to target Bremen to make sure Germany doesn't get oil.

 

[ruff_hi]

Thx Kodii - I remember moving the worker to the oil but didn't flag that he should chop - there are a few flags in the game on suggested actions for the first round.

 

[Compromise]

I took a quick look at our latest save. As an admitted overwhipper, I see some people who need to be converted to products. In Kyoto, a bank, for instance. And Numidian can probably work its food surplus to make more such victims.

Also, I pulled up the various leaders for diplomacy. It looks like we could actually bribe Bismarck into declaring war on either Hatty (for 2 techs) or Mansa for all 3 techs we have over Bis. Since Mansa's starting to run away a little bit, we should consider this.

Also, it looks like everybody (except Bismarck) is bragging about their new grenadiers.

 

[EL_OSO]

Using Bismark to go for Mansa sounds like a decent idea to me. How are the relations with the other civs towards Bismark at this point? They will probably change a bit but I think its worth the risk to slow the tech pace down.

Hatty will probably take over the lead if Bismark is somewhat successful. From my experience these AI wars only last about 10 turns. Is there any way we could join against Mansa while this is going on? It could give us a foothold on the other continent.

 

[Kodii]

I'm having trouble finding time to play. Compromise, go ahead and play. If I have time, I will play after you, or if I don't, I'll skip this round.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, I'll do the next turnset. This afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. Anyone else with an opinion about bribing the AI to war? I think I'll bribe Biz to attack Mansa. It's entirely possible that Mansa will start overrunning Biz and become even more powerful, but if he does, we can declare on Biz and get a mutual struggle bonus with Mansa.

My impression is that we're still too weak to get a foothold on the AI continent right now, but we'll see.

 

[Compromise]

Okay, now it's my turn to have real life interfere and make me have to request a skip. I'm going to be unable to play civ until mid- to late- next week so I'll need a skip until then. I should still be able to keep with the thread, but my civ-capable computer is out of commission until then.

I do think we should bribe Biz into war with Mansa.

 

[Kodii]

Since its the weekend, I should be able to find time to play again. Should we bribe Bismarck right away?

 

[EL_OSO]

I haven't looked at the save so I can't tell you whether or not I think we should bribe him right away. It would be nice for us to have a galley or two ready and loaded to be able to join in on the fun just in case.

The longer we wait, however, the more the likelyhood that Biz will catch up in tech and the offer won't stand.

That's my two cents.

EDIT: I mean galleon; not galley

 

[Compromise]

With his superior tech, I think Mansa will probably get the better of Biz during the war. I think our best hope of a city capture is to grab the new German city on our Osaka continent. I wonder if any other AIs will dogpile on. That would be fun to watch.

I guess I lean toward doing the bribe sooner rather than later. I agree that it would be nice to get a couple full galleons into the action, but if the war is lopsided in Mansa's favor, the war won't end in 10 turns and we'll be able to grab one or two of Biz's last standing cities.

 

[Kodii]

I begin by bribing Bismarck into war with Mansa. I also get his World Map and gold in the process. Taking a look at the power graph, it looks like Mansa should easily be able to kill Bismarck. About 4-5 turns later, the Malinese capture Munich. Nothing much happened after that. I resume Frigate and Galleon production. It looks like Bismarck should be able to survive a while longer, and the next person can decide whether to declare on Bismarck too. I'll see if I can get some screenshots up later.

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG002_AD1580_01.Civ4SavedGame

 

[EL_OSO]

Okay, now it's my turn to have real life interfere and make me have to request a skip. I'm going to be unable to play civ until mid- to late- next week so I'll need a skip until then. I should still be able to keep with the thread, but my civ-capable computer is out of commission until then.

I do think we should bribe Biz into war with Mansa.

I'm assuming that you still need to skip until later this week. That would mean Ruff_hi is up correct?

 

[Compromise]

Yep. Skip me. Though I can play on Wed and will take whatever save we have available then. (Assuming no one objects.)

 

[Compromise]

Also, we should probably be in position to grab that German city on "our" continent if Biz really starts to fold.