SGOTM 03 - Geezers

[Dagnabit]

Just opened the save: A lot of comments and as many questions.

Comments not in any particular order:

I liked Thrallia's idea of ending war with TOKU by giving Hittite, then taking Louis city/s and gifting. I don't think it will be timely. Toku definately will need more than Hittite to overtake Monti. He continues to slip and is currently 12cities(97pop);Monti 12cities(107pop). Even gifting Hittite in 2 turns when it turns 8 pop will not be enough. Thus the need for Louis City. Now the problem. We Can't muster a force to even take one of Louis's cities in less than 10 turns. No troops currently available. We can take Cuzco in 2 turns but only have 1 galleon to transport remaining to Louis. We have 3 galleons empty off west coast with only 1 Gren ready. There are only 2 frigates avail IF we pull them away from Huanya. I can't remember if Louis had Frigates before but our 2 can't provide bombardment and defense for a landing force IMHO.

We Have a total of 5 Frigates. 2 are engaged with Huanya. 3 in limbo between JC and Khan. JC and khan have 6 Frigates betwwen them that we can see. Any troop movements we have over water on our West Coast are in jeopardy.

We currently have 19 workers with about 17 getting paid to sleep. Can we either disband half of them or should we disburse them in preparation for Railroading?

There is a full galleon off Lodestone. Where was he headed?

We should upgrade the last 2 knights we have while we can, and also a horse archer in Ninjing(I think) that has 3 promotions-2medics.

Now to a couple questions:

Should we change to Free speech? It is 13G cheaper, +2G per town and 100% increase in culture. We do lose some hammers in Moscow but we aren't heading towards a hammer heavy build at the moment.

Are we headed to Combustion? Infantry? Infantry is 11 turns at 100% or about 15 sustainable(I think) if we lower culture and don't use the golsd for troops (not likely)

Why are we not building troops in Mao's new territory instead of theatres if we are keeping culture slider at 40%?



My inclination is still similar to my previous post, except I may not want to risk the time it will take to take a city from Louis. Then there is the fact that Khan is betweeh Louis and Toku so will he even Accept a gifted Louis city? One final think(brain cramp)- We are going to have to gold rush Hittite for at least 1-2 defenders if we want to keep Khan out of our buisness. There goes part of the bank which is supporting research, other war with Huanya, New war with Louis, Build up of Navy to insure lines of supply remain open, and finally continued build of troops to go against Eastern Block (Toku,Khan and possibly JC)

Is everyone having a nice day?

 

[Thrallia]

well, I think gifting a former French city is out now since we got a peace treaty with Louis sometime during Sam's turnset...however we are now at war with Khan, which would just as eady to do

I'm worried about JC also, partly because in a different game I just got backstabbed by JC when he was pleased with me one difference was that in that game I was last in power and he was #3...I believe we are either #1 or #2 in power right now, so even if he doesn't come around, he shouldn't declare war on us anytime soon.

I think we should indeed change to free speech, and perhaps Representation at the same time...while cash rushing is nice, we need to do something to get the other AI happier with us again...a civics change may be the only way to keep Vicky's vote, and perhaps gain Cyrus and JC's vote.(Note: we should actively pursue Cyrus now...OB with him, resource trades, and perhaps gift him a tech)

Huayna...won't be a problem once we take out Cuzco, but we want to keep the war bonus with Hatty and Monty.

I still think the fastest way to win is to get Toku as our opponent...wars will work, but they'll take much longer. With Toku as our opponent, we'll be likelier to get JC back and we'll gain Monty's vote.

To do that, we need to get some cities somewhere to gift to Toku that'll put him ahead of Monty. The obvious thing to do is let him capture Hittite...other than that, we've got to get creative. My thought was to capture french cities and give them to him(he would definitely have taken the COnfuscian Holy City), the other thing to do is take some cities from Khan and gift them to Toku. He'll take them, and since when we gift them he doesn't gain any military, if it doesn't work to get him as our opponent, then after the peace treaty is over, we could easily take them back again and conquer our way to a victory.

A side note, if we do plan to conquer our way to victory...perhaps we should speed up our research or get a PA with Mansa, so that our tech levels continue to rise and so we do have the option of a space race victory...I think its getting down to the wire for the line of a fastest finish and taking a risk might be the only way to pull out a fast one.

 

[markh]

Nice set, Sam.

Weird situation I would say. I think the only chance winning this diplomatically will be getting Toku as our opponent in the election, therefore gifting cities to him seems to be the only option we have. Still I am curious whether he would accept cities at all.

I have not checked the save. How is the tech situation ? I noted that Sam started research again during his set, so where do we stand if we want to take a trip to the stars ?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I still think the fastest way to win is to get Toku as our opponent...wars will work, but they'll take much longer. With Toku as our opponent, we'll be likelier to get JC back and we'll gain Monty's vote.

To do that, we need to get some cities somewhere to gift to Toku that'll put him ahead of Monty. The obvious thing to do is let him capture Hittite...other than that, we've got to get creative.

Is Toku still at war with Gandhi? If so can we gift him some units so he's more likely to take out a city or two of Gandhi's? (Yeah, I know that will lose us some of Gandhi's pop which will lower our votes slightly, but if it makes Toku our opponent...)

Also is that settler I bought in Hittite still knocking around (I think I left him in the build queue)? He could found another city by Hittite giving us another one to gift to Toku.

 

[Dagnabit]

I think we should indeed change to free speech, and perhaps Representation at the same time...while cash rushing is nice, we need to do something to get the other AI happier with us again...a civics change may be the only way to keep Vicky's vote, and perhaps gain Cyrus and JC's vote.(Note: we should actively pursue Cyrus now...OB with him, resource trades, and perhaps gift him a tech)

I am hessitant to lose cash rushing until we have a few more forces. If we want to take a city from Khan quickly to gift to Toku we first have to keep Khan from taking Hittite which he could take if we don't cash rush a couple defenders. We have a longbow and a knight and he has a Gren and 3-4Cats 1turn from Hittite. We need a couple frigates and galleons ASAP to move troops to Khan and if we can get bye Khans 2 frigates and galleons (after destroying his invasion force) it would be nice to remove our troops before Toku takes Hittite.

My thought was to capture french cities and give them to him(he would definitely have taken the COnfuscian Holy City), the other thing to do is take some cities from Khan and gift them to Toku. He'll take them, and since when we gift them he doesn't gain any military, if it doesn't work to get him as our opponent, then after the peace treaty is over, we could easily take them back again and conquer our way to a victory.

sensible with the concerns noted above

A side note, if we do plan to conquer our way to victory...perhaps we should speed up our research or get a PA with Mansa, so that our tech levels continue to rise and so we do have the option of a space race victory...I think its getting down to the wire for the line of a fastest finish and taking a risk might be the only way to pull out a fast one.

we need a defensive pact with Mansa then but at the moment have nothing to offer him that i remember. What steps do we need other than time in a defensive pact for a PA?

 

[Dagnabit]

Toku will talk to us, do we take hit with our friends if we gift Hittite to him now for peace before Khan attacks?

 

[Dagnabit]

Is Toku still at war with Gandhi? If so can we gift him some units so he's more likely to take out a city or two of Gandhi's? (Yeah, I know that will lose us some of Gandhi's pop which will lower our votes slightly, but if it makes Toku our opponent...)

I think so but forgot to look. How do you gift troops?

Also is that settler I bought in Hittite still knocking around (I think I left him in the build queue)? He could found another city by Hittite giving us another one to gift to Toku.

Yes, but difficult to use with Khan next door as we have no defenders for it.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Is Toku still at war with Gandhi?

IIRC Ghandhi & Toku weren't at war at the end of my turn. However Toku & Vicki were. I believe Thrallia posted that you can't gift stuff when you're at war so that may be a non starter.

Also is that settler I bought in Hittite still knocking around (I think I left him in the build queue)? He could found another city by Hittite giving us another one to gift to Toku.

The settler has actually been built as mentioned in my write up. It's sleeping in Hittite. However Toku showed zero interest in attacking Hittite during my turn.

I'm at work so I won't have time to post for another two or three hours.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I am hessitant to lose cash rushing until we have a few more forces.

I agree. Cash-rushing is what's allowing us to move so rapidly on the taking-cities-front. Also, the fact that we can rush means we don't have to tie up nearly so many defenders on Muscovy Isle guarding in case Julius invades. Changing civics may be a good idea once we're at the point where we have enough pop of our own for swaying a couple of friends to make a difference to the diplo vote - I don't think we're there yet.

we need a defensive pact with Mansa then but at the moment have nothing to offer him that i remember. What steps do we need other than time in a defensive pact for a PA?

I'm confused. Why do we need a defensive pact with him? It looked to me like he likes us sufficiently that his vote for us is pretty much guaranteed anyway. A defensive pact will dissolve anyway if we declare war on anyone else in order to grab more population.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't think we get a diplamatic -ve for gifting cities in exchange for peace. You gift units by moving into the AI's territory then selecting gift from the unit move options. Which thinking about it means you can't gift unless you have open borders, so we can't gift units to Toku

 

[Dagnabit]

I'm confused. Why do we need a defensive pact with him? It looked to me like he likes us sufficiently that his vote for us is pretty much guaranteed anyway. A defensive pact will dissolve anyway if we declare war on anyone else in order to grab more population.

I didn't know that about Defensive Pacts. Don't think I have ever been in one.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

We currently have 19 workers with about 17 getting paid to sleep. Can we either disband half of them or should we disburse them in preparation for Railroading?

I don't see any great need to disband them unless we're pushed for cash which I don't think is the case.

There is a full galleon off Lodestone. Where was he headed?

I was intending it to be used as part of the Toku attack force.

Are we headed to Combustion? Infantry? Infantry is 11 turns at 100% or about 15 sustainable(I think) if we lower culture and don't use the golsd for troops (not likely)

I merely carried on the research for Steam Power as we were starting to run out of techs to trade with.

Why are we not building troops in Mao's new territory instead of theatres if we are keeping culture slider at 40%?

The culture slider is prinicipally for WW. The theatres are for cultural expansion.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

I have not checked the save. How is the tech situation ? I noted that Sam started research again during his set, so where do we stand if we want to take a trip to the stars ?

I continued researching Steam Power which we can get in two or three turns @ 100% research, more likely 10 plus turns at the existing research rate of 20%.

Other than that we're a long way behind for the stars.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Third post.

I still think the fastest way to win is to get Toku as our opponent...wars will work, but they'll take much longer. With Toku as our opponent, we'll be likelier to get JC back and we'll gain Monty's vote.

To do that, we need to get some cities somewhere to gift to Toku that'll put him ahead of Monty. The obvious thing to do is let him capture Hittite...other than that, we've got to get creative. My thought was to capture french cities and give them to him(he would definitely have taken the COnfuscian Holy City), the other thing to do is take some cities from Khan and gift them to Toku. He'll take them, and since when we gift them he doesn't gain any military, if it doesn't work to get him as our opponent, then after the peace treaty is over, we could easily take them back again and conquer our way to a victory.

I've been thinking further about this idea of Thrallia (emphasis by me). I was in favour of taking down Toku since taking him down should be easier as he's fairly backward. Also I was sure that we could grow his pop enough to make for losing Monty's vote. I still think I'm right about taking him down and maybe about growing his pop.

However I take Thrallia's point about the time this would take. Soooo I'm rather more attracted to the idea of taking some of Khan's cities and gifting them to Toku as well as Hittite to make absolutely sure. Khan cities are right next to Toku's land so there's a pretty good chance he'll accept them. Equally Khan's lands aren't that far from our mainland and Hittite. With Julius looking dubious it means effectively running two and a half armies but it does look rather more doable than attacking the french would have been.

 

[Thrallia]

Responding to Dagnabit and Simon about the Permanent Alliances...To get a permanent alliance with someone, it appears you need to either be in a long-term defensive pact, or in a mutual war for awhile.

A defensive pact won't work because it'd require us to put conquering extra votes on hold for too long, but we do have a mutual war going right now with Mansa, Hatty, Vicky, and Monty. That means we could attempt to get a PA with any of them each turn. I chose Mansa because he is the most advanced technologically and could therefore perform our research while we did all the warring to gain votes.

However, I just had a brilliant idea...Monty really likes us, and we've had a mutual war with him for quite a while now...why not try to get a PA with him?!
If I'm right about Permanent Alliances, he'll no longer be our diplo opponent, we'll automatically get his votes for a diplo victory, and we could forget all this junk about making Toku biggest...he'd automatically become our opponent. We could then scrap the cash rushing in favor of courting JC and Cyrus to our side with civics.

I'm gonna pm Gyathaar about permanent alliances once more, but if it does mean Monty wouldn't be our opponent anymore no matter what, I think that's the direction we should go.

 

[Sam_Yeager]

However, I just had a brilliant idea...Monty really likes us, and we've had a mutual war with him for quite a while now...why not try to get a PA with him?!
If I'm right about Permanent Alliances, he'll no longer be our diplo opponent, we'll automatically get his votes for a diplo victory, and we could forget all this junk about making Toku biggest...he'd automatically become our opponent. We could then scrap the cash rushing in favor of courting JC and Cyrus to our side with civics.

Very nice lateral thinking. Just one or two points.

Monty 'just doesn't like us enough' for a PA at present. A lot of the civs who we need to vote for us don't like Monty. I'm not sure what their reaction will be if we manage to get a PA with Monty. I suspect a demerit. More to the point I don't know quite how we would be regarded after the PA.

Perhaps I'll have to have a try with world builder.

 

[Thrallia]

well, Gyathaar gave the go ahead for it, he said that we would then be against the next largest civ, which would be Toku.

So now we need to figure out the results of such an alliance on our allies, and what we need to do to get Monty to like us enough...it might require switching to his favorite civic for a few turns, getting the PA, then switching to whatever other civics we wanted.

 

[Htadus]

However, I just had a brilliant idea...Monty really likes us, and we've had a mutual war with him for quite a while now...why not try to get a PA with him?!
If I'm right about Permanent Alliances, he'll no longer be our diplo opponent, we'll automatically get his votes for a diplo victory, and we could forget all this junk about making Toku biggest...he'd automatically become our opponent. We could then scrap the cash rushing in favor of courting JC and Cyrus to our side with civics.

Allow me to second that. If we can pull a PA off with Monty, we are indeed set. Can we do that now that we are the most powerful? Con we do that and Take out Toku. I guess that will make Hatty our competition and so far she is an absentee. That would give us about 200 votes.

One thing I am concerned about is that there will be Votes going in the Toku direction, therefore the vote ratio might get worst. Right now only Monty votes for Monty. Also the civic change idea to get the votes of JC and Vickey will help in the whole process.

But first, lets get some breathing room for old Huanya cities by taking the remaining 2 cities.

 

[Htadus]

I think we are at or have passed the point of effectively heading to the space in a good time frame. With all these civs alive, we are in need of going for a Domination type game. Luckly there are defined groups of Nations and there are good number of wars going on. We just need to start more wars amoung others. Especially neighbors. The way I see it every time a city passed to the enermy, the total population in the world is going to go down, hence the needed votes for the UN.

First, do we keep the Space option open or do we dedicate to a back door UN victory? We need to choose.

Second, we are spreading ourself too thin. So lets focus on getting one civ out of the game at a time. Huanya comes to mind. And then perhaps Toku. We need to get the weak (unit wise) cives out of the way by adding to our own. From what I see Toku fit that picture way too well .

Third, but most important, get the civic change going to get the relationships we home to foster.

My dime. (the inflation)

 

[Htadus]

I think I am running a fever.

Here is my last thoughts on Toku. The reason I would go after him is that he was meant to be eliminated like Mao and Alex. He is close by and easy to supply with reinforcement.

We open two fronts and use the Navy to drop off units at the front door. Combined arms with one suicide cannon with collateral damage to leadoff after our other cannons drop defense to nothing. First couple of turns will be tough for one of the landing prties but the other should be able to do some major damage. By this time we should be able to supply fresh units because they are...next door to us. Toku could be gone in no time. We need to use the navy heaveyley. We must invite Ceasar for this.

oops. I am supposed to be working. I am at home but I brought work home. Doh ...I have home work again.