SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

da_Vinci · Jan 17, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
@ dV,
Do you think how they feel about Mao has any impact on the voting?
It seemed that some (Alex and Monty) who voted for Mao over us did not vote for Mao/US over Toku. Does the AI treat other AI differently than the human player?

Alex was F +11 with Mao and only P +13 with us in first Scout214 vote, so that follows the logic.

However, Monte was P +12 with us and only P +6 with Mao and voted for Mao. That one I don't get, unless each AI has its own logic in these things. Maybe the agressive AI scrambles up the voting logic. Or maybe the rules for us are different from the rules for AI. We did not have any negatives with Monte so it can't be that having a negative is a factor.

Hard to see how we can make enough friends to win vote without a lot of conquest!

Let's say we need to own 70 cities of size 10 to win the vote back door. Mao has 13, we have 16 for 29, we need to found/conquer 41.

We can build 3 (after we take Izzy), so need to conquer 38. Izzy has 8, Vicky has 5 (13 total), for our western army. Musa has 5, Khan has 8, Barbarins have 2 (15 for northwest army). There is 28. Capac has 11, Alex has 4, Cyrus has 9 for 24 that Mao can easily help to attack.

So if we create three theaters of operation, (maybe build rushmore, research fascism for police statefor the War Weariness), how fast can we conquer enough cites for the outright win, and can we do it without going over the land limit for dom? Faster than space? Probably.

If we take Vicky, Izzy, Musa and the barbs, that is an extra 20 cities, plus we make the 3 we can and build granaries, lighthouse, and farm them up. 23 extra cities, plus the 29 we have now, for 52 cities. If we spam food in them, and keep a few friends, is that enough for the diplo? We can be heading for space at the same time as a backup.

And it still leaves Capac, Cyrus and Caesar and Alex as final targets that Mao can get to easily.

Or, maybe we send a small force after Cyrus early, and get Mao to help with the attacks there. No diplo negatives with Monte and Capac, but a dipo hit with Caesar.

Hard to imagine that spamming troops, in multiple theatres of operation, won't get us the diplo before we could get to space. Of course, 50 cities at an average size of 15 is 750 votes, so that might work too. In either case, gettting factories built will be critical.

Can we get Caesar, Capac, of Monte friendly with us? Alex is irrelevant, as we can take him whenever we want. War on Vic or Cyrus will irritate Caesar, so write him off and focus on getting Capac or Monte votes. Fight three wars at once eventually. If we don't, someone else will.

And if we are getting too close to land win, then we use the nuke option to deplete world pop until we get the vote win.

Here is a cute twist: build SDI, launch a hoard of nukes on the same turn that we have a vote to ban nukes, and it goes into effect after we have used ours!

A way to get extra pop without land is to take a bunch of large cities in the center of empires all at once. The cultural pressure means we don't get much land, but we get the pop!

dV

da_Vinci · Jan 17, 2007

Still making a palace in Dehli, so be sure we turn that off.

Musa, Vicky and Cyrus seem to be the targets with fewest diplo negatives (all create negatives with Caesar it seems). That would be 19 extra cities, halfway to the 38 extra we need. So lets upgrade to artillery, get Vicky (cats are already near Canteb so take that fast and then head for Musa. Then continue for Izzy, turn to Cyrus, or both! :lol:

Mao can help with Cyrus, so maybe we just need a token force.

So Vicky and Musa as fast conquests seems to make sense for any victory type.

If we turn science to 20% we get artillery in 4 but 411 gpt for upgrades. So keep research at 50% as that is art in 3 and 194 gpt. Then I might cut science for a few turns to finish upgrades as fast as possible.

Change civics? Police state is avail due to Mids, how great is that? We can change 1 for 2 turns of anarchy, 2 for 3 turns, and 3 for 3 turns, so there are volume discounts!

US anyone? Hammers from towns. And railroads add hammers to mines. But spaceship parts can't be rushed?

Emancipation speeds cottage, hamlet and village growth, and adds happiniess penalty to other civs (slow their growth), is that worthwhile? Pacificsm +100% GP points in cities with Hindu, but extra troop costs.

Research: I say finish artillery, then rocketry and satellites. Then maybe computers (+50% spaceship production, +25% science with labs enabled), or maybe railroad (add hammers to mines and improves our defenses with the mobility). Industrialism path early for factories and aluminum.

After Vicky, Musa and maybe Cyrus, re-eval the diplo scene, might make sense to go for the biggest AI ... once we start taking their cities and they spend their troops, the cities will fall fast, so that maybe fastest way to add cities. Toku is third in food production after Mao and us, so do we go for him (after Vicky, Musa and maybe Cyrus)?

Try to keep all options open as this evolves.

dV

da_Vinci · Jan 17, 2007

The AI are DPing up ... Saladin has one with both Cyrus and Musa IIRC. So maybe we declare on Vic, then go for Izzy?

Wonder if declaring on Musa draws in Saladin, and if drawing in Saladin then draws in Cyrus? :eek:

We could take all three in short order with Mao's help against Cyrus, but the diplomatic implications get wild.

If possible, would like to get friendly enough with Capac and Monte that they vote for us. Caesar is too friendly with Civs we want to kill, so I'd give up on him (maybe kill him later?).

Re thinking tech order ... maybe railroad after artillery (+1 hammer when we rail a mine, and rails make defense much easier... and puts our workers back to work). Then, steam power assembly line, industrialization (so we can start making those factories). With Mao helping, might get all three of those in a dozen turns or so!

For troops, make all artillery. Upgrade foot to grens, NOT Rifles. Rifles are the antidote to Cav, and our Cossacks already beat Cav. Want the grens as antidote to rifles. A few rifles would be OK. Gren upgrades are 1/3 cheaper IIRC.

I think that Ronnie1 could play past 5 turns to a logical stopping point regarding the inevitable war with Vic (up to 10 turns).

Go get her Ronnie1!

dV

Ronnie1 · Jan 17, 2007

I have a meeting @ 6:30 this evening. I might be able to play after that, but I was kind of hoping for some more feedback from some of the other GK's. If left up to me, I'm declaring on Vicky right now and going to it before she DP's with someone else. "Is there anybody out there?" I believe Pink Floyd said it best!

da_Vinci · Jan 17, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
I have a meeting @ 6:30 this evening. I might be able to play after that, but I was kind of hoping for some more feedback from some of the other GK's. If left up to me, I'm declaring on Vicky right now and going to it before she DP's with someone else. "Is there anybody out there?" I believe Pink Floyd said it best!

Well, Scout214 said kill Vicky back in #455, I concur with that, you are for it.

Joemama is wrestling with real life, it appears, and C63 is having real fun for this week. You may have all the feedback that is coming, at least for this week. And it is unanimous, if not really a quorum

Don't forget to turn off the palace in Delhi! :eek:

dV

Scout214 · Jan 18, 2007

The Civ Forum system was down for much of the night so I couldn't say more.

I think we should proceed to administer an MLBK on Vicky. (MLBK = Major League Butt Kicking) She is handy, disloyal and the easiest immediate target. And she deserves it!

Ronnie1 · Jan 18, 2007

I'll play tonight!

Ronnie1 · Jan 19, 2007

The file is up.

Logistics are here

The current roster order is

Ronnie1 - just played
da_Vinci -UP NOW
Conquistador63 - on deck
Joemama -in the hole
Scout214 - waiting

Igelkott - Temporary leave of absence

Confussion - Injured reserve until further notice

To tired for much of a post. We are at war with Victoria. She has 2 cities left. Artillery are starting to roll out. We researched Steam Power after Artillery. It was needed for both Railroads and Assembly Line. I chose Assembley Line next for Infantry and Factories.

There were 2 votes, the first I went for Diplo Victory, the second was for Sec. Gen.. The results are on the screens. We are still playing, so we didn't lose!

The save is here
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Gypsy_Kings_SG003_AD1670_01.Civ4SavedGame

The upload log is here

Spoiler :

The Autolog is here

Spoiler :

da_Vinci · Jan 19, 2007

Way to go Ronnie1! :goodjob:

On first glance ...

We have 3 GS ... each takes perhaps 1/8 off of computers (3K our of 25K). Or, we could build academies in Rostov, Dehli (if not already there), but would take 300 turns to make back the 3K not used in a bulb. Save them for golden ages?

After Vicky, Izzy? Seems like the fewest negatives diplomatically. If Saladin makes a PA, he might drag his partner into voting for us, so I think we leave that alone until we see how that goes.

I will see how much Mao reduces our research times. If he cuts off 2/3, then it might turn out faster to get over 40% pop to guarantee safety in UN, then beeline to space. So many AI are getting friendly with each other, that conquest may risk losing all who are voting for us now. If we can get all the techs peacefully in 100 turns, that may be faster than trying to conquer 60% of pop. For example, if it takes 20 turns start to finish to take out Vicky (3 turns to move to city, 2 turns to bombard, 1 turn to take, 6 turns per city per stack not counting healing. We will have to keep a close eye on how fast we are warring.

Turns out that adding Mao to us reduces research time by 30% at present. When I last looked, we were 300 turns from all of the space techs just us, so adding Mao would be 200 turns. Conquest looks faster.

Nuke option may not work in practice ... 10 pop = 1% or less, nuke a 10 city cuts pop in half, so each nuke is 0.5% ... need 20 nukes to gain 10%. Seems like taking a few cities works better than nukes.

After AL, I think Railroads, then Indust.

Someone is running emancipation, as we have -1 hap from it. May need to pop rush some jails if we are going to stay at war. Might end up running slavery-emancipation cycles if we still want to pop rush at times, or just go to US and gold rush what we need. Or, do we need police state in that column eventually?

Does it make sense for me to play to the demise of Vicky, then we upload and reassess (before any further declarations of war)?

dV

Ronnie1 · Jan 19, 2007

Sounds like a plan. C63 should be back sometime this weekend anyway, it wopuld be nice to get his opinion.

da_Vinci · Jan 19, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
Sounds like a plan. C63 should be back sometime this weekend anyway, it would be nice to get his opinion.

Especially since he plays after me ... I guess we are guaranteed to get his input on that turnset. :lol:

He may have some tricks to convert some of the pleased to friendly (match their civics, then get DP which adds +2 eventually, if we think a peaceful strategy works)

I think that we should conquer at least to 40% of pop to prevent a surprise UN loss. Then, if we have a diplo play, we could try that.

So I'll play until I kill Vicky (unless something unforseen drags that out too long). The city we are sieging is on a hill, so I may need more art before I strike. If London is on flat land, I might attack that first, while art comes up.

I am inclined to get rails before tanks, as our artillery already rule the battlefield, and we need to optimize our logistics after ALine. The faster we can move the artillery to the front (rails, then ships), the faster we win.

7 turns to finish Aline, then 8 to finish Railroad.

I'll make some exact calculations as to turns required now to complete space techs. If Mao knocks of 30%, I am guessing 200 turns. I think we could take Izzy in 20-30 to get to 40%, then a Cyrus/Capac/Musa/Saladin attack (looks like how the DP might fall) with several stacks of doom (tanks, artillery, gunships) should finish this off in 30 to 40 more, esp if we get flight and airlift the reinforcements. Much faster than space.

Might pause to see how voting goes after Saladin makes a PA before aggravating him. If he drags his partner along, might win with just 50% pop us and Mao.

dV

da_Vinci · Jan 20, 2007

The sun rises on the year 1703 in Gypsalia. The citizens are restless ... the war has been long, but successful. Prince da_Vinci awakens in Buckingham Palace, wondering where are those last English holdouts, depriving him of his sweet victory, and the chance to appease the citizens in the homeland?

His admiral enters and tells him that a final English city is on an island west of recently conquered Hastings. Hmmm ... Prince da_Vinci ponders ... can we assault a city on a single tile island? Do we face combat penalties if we do? We have two frigates and three galleons at London, readly to load the troops for the assault. But does Vicky have a navy, to sink our brave troops at sea? Best to leave this decision for King Conq

lol: ), so Prince da_Vinci hands over command of the troops. We are still at war.

The war went smoothly. The two catapults were retreated to our borders and upgraded to artillery. Then they returned, with newly made ones, to attack Hastings. There was concern that the hill might lead to some losses, even after the defenses were down, but only one artillery (lead attacker) was lost in the assault.

Units healed, then headed for London. London was taken without a loss, entirely by artillery (escorted by horse and foot, of course).

Galleys were upgraded to galleons, and frigates begun as the seas are now full of frigates of all nations. Ironclads were ignored due to their coastbound nature. A sealift naval task force was moved to London, in the event war on Izzy is next.

The Gypsalian diplomats are tearing their hair out! Toku continues to get 400 out of the nearly 700 votes required for the diplomatic victory. In the last vote, Monte voted for him even though Monte was P+12 with us, and only P+6 with Toku! The change happened the same turn as the vote, so perhaps the vote runs on the status of the previous turn? That would allow the human to know the situation of the last turn when deciding how this turns vote might go. The last vote is attached.

Cyrus asked to cancel deals with Toku, we agreed. He later asked for electricity, but as our + are so low with him, refused.

Capac asked for communism, agreed to it. Might still get his vote if we play civics right. Capac DOW Fred, and Monte cancelled deals with us (same turn he dropped to pleased from friend with Toku).

Prince da_Vinci founded two new cities, one west of Moscow, one SW of Thebes. We need to max pop/land ratio. If we are running specialists, that leaves plenty of tiles for these crowded cities to work. We want pop to reach 40% ASAP to prevent surprise diplo loss. And we want our pop to be 10 percentage points larger than our land, to protect from accidental dom win.

Jails under construction in cities hard hit with WW. Whipped jail (3 pop) in St P early as it had 4 idle citizens! One other whip, artillery for 2 pop where 1 was idle I think (see autolog). Could go to Police State, I suppose. Also making some Hindu miss to put culture in England for fat crosses. Working on culture in border cities in REgypt, where we are under some pressure.

Made no civics changes, did not want to tie C63's hands when peace breaks out.

War? Peace? Diplo? Space? We need 14 techs to build all ship parts. At 70% research (currently - gpt at that rate), it is 301 turns of research. Rail is 14 turns us, add Mao it is 9 turns. So Mao cuts off 1/3. So 200 turns to space techs, plus build time for last part. I think war is faster to back door diplo. We can war in three places at once eventually. And we might still get a few other civs to vote for us.

What to tech? Rails, then I say combustion and flight. Build airports and then don't need much sealift. Indust for tanks while we make airports (about 3 of them). After factories and coal plants, with rail connections, I'll bet we could airlift three tanks per turn to the front, for fast conquest. Esp if running US on 0% science. Mt. Rushmore, anyone?

Ironworks will be done in 5 turns in Thebes.

What to do with 3 GS? We could use them on computers for mech inf, eventually, I suppose. Save for G-ages?

Take Vicky's last island, then I'd say go get Izzy. Seems like only diplo hit is Caesar from that move.

Pop 32%, land 26%. Long live Gypsalia! :king:

Prince da_Vinci

Upload log

Spoiler :

Autolog:

Spoiler :

Ronnie1 · Jan 20, 2007

@ da_Vinci
Do you always promote your Artillery with barage? I always promote my seige units with City Raider (at least the ones I plan on attacking with). If I can get them to CR3 they get an additional 10% against gunpowder units. This makes them very tough, even against Infantry defenders in the later stages. Nothing works against Mech Inf except Modern Armour. If I am able to build Pentagon, matched with West Point in a city with Ironworks, I am able to produce units very quickly that start with 10 exp (CR3) before they ever go to battle. We had some discussion around promo paths during SGOTM2. I'm always intersested in learning the reasoning behind the choices. One that slipped by me until just recently. Transports that start with 6 exp can promote Flanking and Navigation I for increased movement right out of drydock.

My wonderful wife just informed me that I have a committment @ 11:00 this AM. I haven't even had a chance to look at the save yet, or get down more than 1 cup of coffee. Nice playing, I missed that off continent city totally. We should be able to take it out with minimal losses. But do we need to? I'll be back later this afternoon for more thorough investigation of the current state of the Empire.

da_Vinci · Jan 20, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
@ da_Vinci
Do you always promote your Artillery with barage? I always promote my seige units with City Raider (at least the ones I plan on attacking with). If I can get them to CR3 they get an additional 10% against gunpowder units. This makes them very tough, even against Infantry defenders in the later stages.

Used to always go barrage. Now getting to like CR (convinced this turn, so you see mixed promotions). I think a few first wave art with barrage makes sense, likely to be lost, but do max collat so the CR art have better odds. And if a first wave survives, promote it to CR. Of course, using seige on defense or counterattack, barrage is the choice!

Ronnie1 said:
Nice playing, I missed that off continent city totally. We should be able to take it out with minimal losses. But do we need to? I'll be back later this afternoon for more thorough investigation of the current state of the Empire.

I didn't notice it until London fell, and the war was still on! :eek:

I suspect that Hastings masked it until Hastings fell, and I did not notice at that time.

I would take it out ... pop with just one tile, is just what we need, and it stops motherland unhappiness in REngland. WW will be pain enough in the next war! :rolleyes:

dV

Ronnie1 · Jan 21, 2007

I suppose a 1 tile city with a Grannary and a Lighthouse serves our needs perfectly at this point. I usually try to avoid them at all costs, but it makes perfect sense here. My game just crashed while trying to load the last save. I'm now off to watch some playoff action, so I'll not get back to it for a few hours.

Joemama · Jan 21, 2007

I finally had a chance to peak at the save. Nice work DV. I don't have any major comments at this point. I think we should finish taking out Vicki and move onto the next target. Overall, it looks like 18 civ front door diplomatic wins are very difficult. I am very curious to see how/if another team pulls one off.

da_Vinci · Jan 21, 2007

Joemama said:
I finally had a chance to peak at the save. Nice work DV. I don't have any major comments at this point. I think we should finish taking out Vicki and move onto the next target. Overall, it looks like 18 civ front door diplomatic wins are very difficult. I am very curious to see how/if another team pulls one off.

I wonder if the "aggressive AI" setting alters the voting dynamics in the game ... making it harder for the humans to get the votes?

dV

Conquistador 63 · Jan 21, 2007

Hi all! I have just arrived from my vacation trip this night, and needless to say, one of the first things I've done when I got home was to catch up with the readings. :lol:

Have to say, you guys have been doing a really nice job. :goodjob:

Too bad those AIs aren't helping us much. :lol:

After I can get a closer look at the latest save I'll come back and post my thoughts (if any does occur, that is :crazyeye:

) before playing my turnset.

Ronnie1 · Jan 21, 2007

@ All,
From the Diplo-Technology screen, no one is even close to being able to research what we have already. So winning a space race would be simple.
But how fast could we do it?

From the glance screen, I am mostly confused. Monty is the really strange one, but it leads me to question the the voting behavior in general.

I think we need to take a pause and evaluate some options for the fastest way to victory. It looks to me that Diplomatic Conquest is the way to go. We just need to be careful about who we attack, and possibly try to somehow create dissent towards Toku. I honestly can't even believe this is what we are faced with at this point. In all my games of CivIV, I can't ever remember Toku having this many friends.

@C63, Hope you had a great vacation! We're looking for some words of wisdom from you. Also, my wife wants to know where you go for vacation when you live in Brazil? Especially since Brazil is one locale we are looking forward to visting for our own get away!

da_Vinci · Jan 21, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
@ All,
From the Diplo-Technology screen, no one is even close to being able to research what we have already. So winning a space race would be simple.
But how fast could we do it?

No question we can beat the AI to space, but how to we beat the other teams to the fastest win? I think that factories making and airports airlifting collateral damage tanks to the front should make for some fast conquest.

Ronnie1 said:
From the glance screen, I am mostly confused. Monty is the really strange one, but it leads me to question the the voting behavior in general.

My only explanation for the Monte vote is that he stopped being friendly with Toku the same turn as the vote. So if the vote is based on the relations of the prior turn (which is what the human would know when deciding how to vote), that would fit. And if true then Monte should abstain or vote for us the next time, so we can test this theory.

dV

Addendum: The big next decision is whom to attack next. I think Izzy, as that seems to have fewest diplo negatives, and why not take her cities before Toku does! Attacking Toku is out because that would make too many diplo negatives. After Izzy, maybe Caesar has fewest diplo negatives?

SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

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Deity

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Prince

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Deity

Chieftain

Gypsy Prince

Deity

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