SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

Ronnie1 · Feb 8, 2007

More lurking has revealed the following post!

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Pig
Perhaps they get their laughs by seeing how many millenia they beat other teams finishes by.....? (Edit, referring to the CFR teams)

No doubt.

Checked the latest CFR-V save. Obviously, their drastically earlier city development is the major difference. They also sent out a quadrillion wbs to circumnavigate the globe almost a millenium before us! They're using libraries to expand their city boundaries and they didn't deal away alphabet, so they'll only extend their already huge tech advantage. And they're going straight for Bureaucracy. They're keeping their GE gene pool in Murky Waters (their historians aren't worth a hill of beans) 100% clear. I think they'll win at least 100 turns before us. If they're smart they'll just go straight for MM and forget any detours.

They've clearly taken some calculated risks and they have paid off. They have 4 warriors defending their five cities!!!?!?! Man, if Alex had attacked them like he did us, I don't know.... But to their good fortune, Alex is a virtual non-entity. I checked, he has a bunch of archers but no galleys. Instead, Mao has done some major land-grabbing.

My problem is I 'm so inexperienced with these different levels, I would have never dared to leaave my cities so unprotected. Aggressive AIs? Could have fooled me.

The points I found most interesting were the early city development and the not trading of alphabet.

@C63,

In GOTM14 I noticed I could ferry troops from one boat to the other, provided one boat (maybe both, not 100% sure) was inside a city. Not if both were already at the sea. But I might be missing something.

I can do this also, but in the post I referenced, they were definitely talking about chain moving across open water, we need to get an answer to this one. Think about how much faster we could have moved troops in the Toku SGOTM.

A war weariness thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181512

Conquistador 63 · Feb 8, 2007

About boat chaining, I don't know nothing more about it. But if there is a way, would it be considered an exploit? We might ask the mods about it.

About our game, any recommendations for the next steps? If nothing has changed, I assume we would go for MC next. Is that it?

Conquistador 63 · Feb 8, 2007

I saved at a point where I think there is a window of opportunity to attack Cyrus. 3 WC can attack a sword, a cat and a settler in the open if we declare now. All other troops have landed in his continent. I'll comment more tomorrow.

Spoiler :

da_Vinci · Feb 8, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
Nice job da_Vinci!

I think we need to finish the settler in Helio before the hammers degrade, and I would probably build the next city on the desert square SE of Thebes before I went for the rice. The desert city will grow faster because of the food resources and I think we want to get it up and running as our future GP site.

Edit: I just noticed the Iron near the Rice, how does this effect city placement? I think I might prefer the food from the Sugar over the hammers from the Cows now. What are your thoughts on this?

IIRC, cows add a mix of hammers and food when pastured. I'll have to look closely at the civilopedia.

I agree, finish that settler now. I wanted to get CoL for courthouses ASAP so we can recover the economy. Might use it for an iron city first.

Ronnie1 said:
Cyrus is obviously heading that galley with the settler towards our territory, he is probably our next target as the only civ we can reach before Astronomy. How do we want to prepare for the next conquest? We obviously need a few galleys to get across the straight, it looks like our attack stack has enough for an initial push at Cyrus. But it will be difficult, or at least time consuming to keep feeding troops over the water.

Any thought about going diplo in this game? We could try the UN giveaway ploy ... attack Capac and then give him UN. We have decent relations with both Gandhi and Cyrus, so maybe convert them rather than attack? If so, main need is caravels. Just a thought.

I am about to start WOTM 5, so hopefully I'll have some experience in Warlords for SGOTM 4

dV

PS ... looks like I am a little late with this advice :eek:

Nice work C63! Especially the currency and calendar trades!

Ok, let's go get Cyrus. Keep his cities? If we do, we can probably win the culture war with Gandhi and push his borders back, maybe even flip a city or two. But if we are gonig to do that, we may need to whip courthouses in a lot of our cities (at least all the former Russian ones). Teching to caravels I assume?

dV

Conquistador 63 · Feb 9, 2007

I could/should have waited a little for more feedback, but I'll be away for the weekend, so I decided to play a few turns until the next crossroads. :mischief:

Ok, I'm away from the game now, so these are somewhat vague comments on our current situation:

unhappy and unhealthy pop caps are not a concern, at least for a while, thanks to traded resources
settling good sites near capitol shouldn't harm our economy - low distance maintenance
shifted emphasis on building infrastructure: every city should have granary (and forge when available) for efficient poprushing. CH's should be poprushed when possible - but let's try to keep those bonus tiles worked all the time (e.g. Yaros at size 3 until basic infra is up)
we should try convert our cities to hindu - bad luck with 1st missionary
after MC, compass/optics?
agree with dV, diplo path could be a good strategy. Maybe even PA with Gandhi in the future. But I don't remember ever being so backwards in tech in a monarch level game. See what HC already has in the tech trade screen! Can we shift that? While conquering Cyrus, enter a cottage-spam frenzy?
depending on how high maintenance is on Cyrus cities, give them away to Gandhi? That can be dangerous, not sure.
we have a fishboat in Cyrus city in our mainland, hiding from barb galley. If we declare I guess it will be sent automatically away. My idea was to send it to Eleph, waiting for city in dV's desert inn.

Ronnie1 · Feb 9, 2007

I guess I'm up, I'll have a look and post my thoughts before I play.

Edit:
I've looked at the save. Nice job C63!! We have lots of stuff to play with now.
My guess is that when we declare on Cyrus the WB will get booted and then we can move safely away from the barb galley.

The troops in Gandhi's territory should be plenty to take the settler and the first city, I doubt I'll get farther than that this turnset.

After MC, Compass looks like the obvious choice.

I'll wait to hear other thoughts before I proceed.

Conquistador 63 · Feb 13, 2007

I have nothing else to add.

da_Vinci · Feb 14, 2007

The two victories for laurels in SGOTM 1 were domination and diplomacy, right? So have we decided for sure which one we want to pursue?

This has implications for whether to raze or keep conquered cities. At some point, I almost think that a faster dom comes from razing and rebuilding cities, rather than keeping all of them. I have tended to keep all, and I think that just drags down my economy too much.

I had a recent success in dom by going after the most advanced civ first. Crippling the tech leader meant that the overall AI tech level was depressed, and I was able to keep a large military tech advantage. If we go dom, we may want to use that approach.

Of course, we could put SGOTM 1 on hold now that SGOTM 4 in on the horizon. Pick it up after we complete #4 early.

I have cleared out my PM box to only 64% full, so if you need to PM me, that is available again.

dV

da_Vinci · Feb 14, 2007

Agent Tamborine reports on the competition for the podium in SGOTM 3:

Here is an estimate of the current status ...

CFR 350
Flying V 305 (Ship?)
Memphis 1538 Threat

1. Murky Waters 1688
2. Gypsy Kings 1766

Smurkz 1178 Doubt (Ship?)
Choko 1025 Doubt (Ship?)
CDZ 1661 Doubt

Real Ms 1770
Geezers 1830

FBG 1280

Still only two teams done. footballguys dead and not ressurected (but with a 3/31 end date, who knows?). Geezers and Real Ms. past our date.

Real Ms. is some amusing reading. They now wonder if Geezers are done at 1830, and are sweating to beat that. No hint that they wonder if we or Murky are done. Maybe they just can't imagine a diplo that fast. They are impressed with their own power graph ... they will be surprised to learn all that power is for nought!

CDZ is 40 turns from our date, and 58 turns from MM at 100% sci, not to mention needing to build the UN.

Chokonuts are 160 turns away from us, about 5 techs away from MM, with 84 just to get radio on 100% science. Now, that will change with growth and GP, but still seems like an uphill climb for them. Plus, they seem to be talking about going to space.

Smurkz is about 135 turns from our date, about 130 turns from the UN at 100% science. Their dilplo screen is not strong. And they too seem to be thinking of a space path.

Memphis Blues is a great threat. Excellent diplo screen. 80 turns from our date, get to MM in 20. Looks like they plan to build UN in Berlin, and gift it to Fred. Seven forests can be chopped for UN, so maybe that takes 350 off the 1500 hammers? 1150 hammers at 20 per turn perhaps ... 57 turns, so 77 turns to getting UN built ... 6 turns to first win vote ... VERY CLOSE !! :eek:

If they pop a GE, we are toast!

Flying Vanillas appear to be going for a space ship and warring with everyone. That will take diplo off the table, and I don't see them getting all the space techs before our diplo date.

So, if we can get past the MB threat, assuming that CFR-V will beat us, we may still be on the podium at the end! :goodjob:

dV reporting for AT

Edit/Addendum: CFR-W has won diplo at 1352 AD ! I dropped a congrats post in their thread after a couple of others did ... no one on their team has covered it, and Thrallia of Geezers notices and posted that we are done in the Geezers thread. I am amazed that after two weeks of no movement, this comes as a surprise ... ?

dV

Thrallia · Feb 16, 2007

congrats on your win guys.
I wasn't surprised you guys had finished, but I didn't realize it was 2 weeks ago lol I guess I stopped paying much attention to the graphs when I realized that we'd made a big mistake(warring Toku instead of building him up).

If we'd had adequate cooperation from our AI buddies, we may have come much closer to you

Your finish is in the time area we expected to be done by in the worst case. Unfortunately, things went worse than my worst case lol

Ronnie1 · Feb 16, 2007

@dV and C63,
Sorry for letting SGOTM1 slide but I have been very busy lately. I was able to get Warlords last Sunday, and I'm working on completing my first attempt. I have a really hard time not building infrastructure when I'm heading for Domination wins. It is taking way longer than it should (Prince level), mid 1800's and still not quite enough land. I'm leaving for the weekend on Saturday AM and won't return until Monday PM. I'll try to get a few turns in on the SGOTM1 game this evening so you guys can play on if you wish.

Ronnie1 · Feb 17, 2007

I played to the discovery of MC. I set research to Machinery which can be changed of course.

I decided that if we were going for Domination as discussed earlier, that keeping Cyrus's(sp) cities was better than razing. I figured Gandhi would just settle the ground before we could get to it. We haven't even settled all of the starting continent yet. I captured Susa and Pasagardae with 3 total losses I think.

I did not pop rush anything.

That's all I have time to report, I'm off for the weekend! Good Luck to whoever is next!

da_Vinci · Feb 19, 2007

Next up would be me ... just finished screwing up WOTM 6 (the return of old bad habits), so I'll get a look at this.

So we are definitely going for domination? That is the only way I have even won besides space, so fine with me!

Any thoughts about putting this one on the shelf once "SGOTM 4 / SWOTM 2" comes out? Between overlapping SXOTM and dual G/W OTM each month, might need to finish this one in bits and pieces.

dV

Addendum: Looking at the save. Interesting that Cyrus and Gandhi are not much ahead of us in tech, but Capac really is! Maybe highest priority needs to be caravels, to get contacts for tech trades. After we kill off Cyrus, only Gandhi left to trade with. To that end, Machinery is good, but compass first might be better as we could build harbors to help economy while we then research machinery.

I think that we will need to pop rush the courthouses ASAP, to get off the 30% science kick.

Persepolis is unreal, with five food resources !!! I think going for that next, then razing Arbella and Gordium. Bactra seems unimpressive, so maybe raze that too?

A little MM to get the Memphis cows feeding St. Pete seems in order.

Next, I will put up my thoughts on city specialization for discussion.

dV

Addendum 2:

Thebes: clearly our science. Currently 10H 15C from worked tiles. Academy up. What national wonders should go here? Oxford? I used to think so, but if Bureacracy does not compound the effects of Oxford or Academy, maybe it does not matter so much? Place wonders more for purity of GP gene pool?

Farm or Cottage flood plains? Lets say 6 FP are farmed, to support 6 scientists. That is 6 commerce from the tiles (one each), and 18 Flasks for 24 "commerce". Run Representation and now that is an additional 18 flasks, for 42 "commerce" in total. Downside is that to get this, you would have to have happiness to run 6 farmers and 6 specialists, or 12 to keep happy.

Now cottage the FP. This supports 3 specialists. At 5 commerce each, now 30 tile commerce and 9 flasks, for 39 "commerce", and if representation, 9 more flasks for a total of 48 "commerce". Downside is that you don't get this until they mature, and if the slider is not 100% science, then it does not all to to science. But you can run it on 9 pop instead of 12.

So later on, cottaging is better. But early, a farm and a specialist might be better, especially in a science city where you want all the commerce to be science, multiplied by all that science infrastructure that you have built. And the farm-scientist setup gives you science even with the slider at 0 science, something that I think the best warmongers do. maybe we try the specialist economy in the desert inn? We can compare its performance with Thebes, which is already heavily cottaged.

Memphis: Hammer powerhouse 21H, 5C. Our primary military city? Heroic epic here, and also west point? Althought west point gives GE points, and I hate mixing GA from heroic epic with GE from West Point.

In an ideal world, we would farm the grass to feed the hills? Sadly, no fw there.

Helio: Mixed Prod > com 15H 8C

St. Pete: 6H 13C Commerce-gold. Double Holy City, we need some GProph.

Moscow: 10H 7C Mixed Prod > com. Do we farm the lake to feed the hills?

Yaros: All water commerce

Eleph: Potential for production

Persia TBA

I think I will play on to the capture of Persepolis, as nothing controversial will occur before that. Switch to compass before machinery.

dV

Kodii · Feb 19, 2007

da_Vinci said:
Real Ms. is some amusing reading. They now wonder if Geezers are done at 1830, and are sweating to beat that. No hint that they wonder if we or Murky are done. Maybe they just can't imagine a diplo that fast. They are impressed with their own power graph ... they will be surprised to learn all that power is for nought!

Looks like true diplomatic was the way to go for a speedy victory. I was pretty sure you guys had finished as well, but we were busy trying to beat a team that had a later finishing date. I'm still impressed with our power graph though :lol:

We could imagine a diplo victory that fast. CFR-W on the other hand...

da_Vinci · Feb 19, 2007

Kodii said:
Looks like true diplomatic was the way to go for a speedy victory. I was pretty sure you guys had finished as well, but we were busy trying to beat a team that had a later finishing date. I'm still impressed with our power graph though

We could imagine a diplo victory that fast. CFR-W on the other hand...

We had to slow down our power growth to get our PA with Mao, which, it turns out, is a diplo negmod! I suspect we'd have been in your ballpark other than that.

Congrats on finsihing out of the woods, so to speak :lol:

dV

da_Vinci · Feb 19, 2007

I played to the conquest of Persepolis, and to the end of the 10 turns of peace after I took it (got meditation, HBriding, 190 gold and 1 gpt for peace. Then traded compass to Gandhi for drama and 130 gold). 26 turns played.

Also took Bactra (pop 1 so it razed) early. Moved the troops to Persia. Cyrus streamed some cats and swords at our cities, and I had some bad RNG luck in the open field a couple of times (on combats I should have won). Made me wait for the reinforcements before moving on to Persepolis. Even at that, he had 4 archers, two axes (not maces) and a cat defending. I had just enough troops to take them out. Only lost two. But needed time for the next wave to ship in, and Cyrus was willing to give us a lot of stuff for peace, so I took it.

Highlights: Great Lib built by Gandhi, Colossus elsewhere two turns in. Islam founded elsewhere. Later, Gandhi built Notre Dame. I pop rushed some items. Had to get culture in the new Persian cities to avoid revolutions, so CH delayed there, but most done in Russia. Built some markets and libraries, also some forges. Founded Alexandria as the desert inn, building settler in Thebes to get the silver in the north (also works the horses)

We are a few turns from machinery, have compass. I made some swords, in Persia now. There are workers between Persep and Pasarg with troop escort, see if they can chop the CH in Pasarg (just rushed the other). Been building cottages, given our cash crunch, I think we cottage the flood plains in Alex and Thebes. I have farmed a few to balance some hills (Alex, Moscow).

I set two sci, one eng in Memphis to finish off the 200 GPP there, done in 4 turns. After that, I'd just run the hills, no specialists there. Stopped GPP in Thebes until that is done. Built a second temple in Moscow, idea is to run two priests there to build shrines in St. Pete with the Prophet.

Peace with Cyrus should wear off in 1 or 2 turns. Finish him off, or maybe go after Gandhi to take pressure of our new cities? Cyrus is pretty weak, so pretty harmless for now. We have some very promoted WChar that we might upgrade to horse archers.

addendum: autolog:

Spoiler :

dV

Ronnie1 · Feb 19, 2007

Nice work!

We are at permanent peace with Gandhi, so no options there. That is why I decided to keep Susa, but that may have been a mistake in hindsight given the cultural pressure. Yes, this will have to be a piece meal finish as the WOTM's come on line. I'm just starting WOTM6 as my first attempt with the 2.008 patch and the HoF mod. I hope to learn something more before the 23rd!!

da_Vinci · Feb 20, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
Nice work!

We are at permanent peace with Gandhi, so no options there. That is why I decided to keep Susa, but that may have been a mistake in hindsight given the cultural pressure. Yes, this will have to be a piece meal finish as the WOTM's come on line. I'm just starting WOTM6 as my first attempt with the 2.008 patch and the HoF mod. I hope to learn something more before the 23rd!!

Duh! Forgot the permanent peace. We are actually slowly winning the culture war at Susa, so if we build theatres and run some artists, or set the culture slider to 10 or 20%, we should be able to hold on if not push back. With two religions, we can build those cathedral equivalent buildings and really push culture.

I added the autolog above.

Have you seen AlanH's post in the SGOTM 4 sign up thread? He suggests that teams with less than 4 on it merge to form teams of 6 to 8. Any thoughts on a team we might fuse with for this game? In 48 hours, if we do not have a choice, AlanH will go ahead and make one.

dV

Ronnie1 · Feb 20, 2007

I don't really care if Alan fills out our team or merges us with another team. I looked at the other team rosters and there seems to be a number of 4-5 member teams. Merging would create 8-10 member teams which seems like overkill to me. I never heard back from any of the other GK's, so I'm inclined to just let Alan fill us out. It worked out pretty well last time, as da_Vinci is truly committed to our cause at this point.

@dV, Keep piling on those Murky Waters guy's, your posts in their thread make for some entertaining reading.

da_Vinci · Feb 21, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
I don't really care if Alan fills out our team or merges us with another team. I looked at the other team rosters and there seems to be a number of 4-5 member teams. Merging would create 8-10 member teams which seems like overkill to me. I never heard back from any of the other GK's, so I'm inclined to just let Alan fill us out. It worked out pretty well last time, as da_Vinci is truly committed to our cause at this point.

@dV, Keep piling on those Murky Waters guy's, your posts in their thread make for some entertaining reading.

Well, we have to give as well as we get over there!

Now that we are at 4, merging seems less attractive for the reasons you suggest. Good to see an original GK back in the fold: looking forward to "meeting" you Jon Shaw. Igelkott had a warlords preference for SGOTM 3, so I was kind of hoping we would see him, but RL may have him by the throat for a while.

On another note, recall that I was not a random addition by AlanH but an invite by C63, and Scout214 was an invite by me.

In that vein, I have sent a PM to g_storrow from Flying Vanillas to see if he might like to join us (with Immaculate, if he signs up as they want to play together, but he may be away according to their thread). Prompted in part by his post in the signup bemoaning multiple skips and slow play there (it was a de novo team for SGOTM 3). I am sure he would have a different experience here! :goodjob:

GK was a de novo team for SGOTM 2 wasn't it? I guess sometimes it works, and sometimes not. Are you OK with picking up g_storrow and maybe Immaculate?

dV

addendum: I guess I will assume that it is OK if random assignment is OK (Duh!). g_storrow was online but did not reply to my PM (missed it?), so I will put the offer in the signup thread.

dV

addendum 2: g_storrow is on board! He ranks 60th in score global rankings, and won the recent emperor GOTM, so he is a notch a head of me skillwise so probably a good addition to the team. And I think he is salivating :drool:

to have the kind of team experience that we can provide!

His buddy Immaculate is away until 2/27, so may be a late signup to us as well if he is interested. I have PM'ed AlanH asking that he leave a spot open for Immaculate if possible. Sounds like Flying Vanillas has not forged a team identity for the future, so perhaps they will bond with Gypsy Kings!

dV

SGOTM 03 - Gypsy Kings

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