SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

bobrath · Jan 18, 2007

From the SS, Mao only has three cities left: Tianjin, Macao, and the offered Xian.

Oh wait you can't offer up your capital so that explains the missing city.

I agree with GreyFox - take the two cities closer to our landmass (NE of Guangzhou). If he wants to offer up Xian still, so be it - does it really do much for us in adding to our empire? Leaving it in Mao's hands gives him an empire of two cities split to either side of the world - in effect killing him. Whether or not an opposing AI decides to remove him is trivial at that point... aside from the "return to fatherland" negatives...

Being gifted a city is better then having to lose units taking it tho. Meh

I'm guessing that trying to bulb as close to Physics as we can is being done so that we can use the newly popped GS (from Physics first) on ...Biology (and then Electricity)? Dunno. I like holding the GPs for bulbing until you actually use them just to maximize the bulbs, but I think trying to wait for a 3rd GS to give us Physics in pure bulbs is a mistake - it wastes any overflowed beakers from the third and takes a chance on an AI beating us to the free GS - an even bigger loss of beakers.

On note on the GS's. Once we get Electricity - they'll "waste" their bulbs on Fission ICK

EDIT:
We need to be careful of Mao jumping into vassalage with someone else in these next few turns. I don't know how many times in my SP games that a perfectly good war of elimination was ruined when my target jumped under the protective wing of a far more dangerous AI. If we're going to take Mao down, we need to finish off any cities we want *very* quickly now.

frankcor · Jan 18, 2007

Another downside to consider before taking on a Chinese vassal would be a -1 diplomatic hit with every other civilization. If you can get Xian without capitulation it will take all the cultural heat off your new Holy City.

Scowler · Jan 18, 2007

I'll take a look at the save later to see if there are any specific issues I want to raise before playing. In the meantime, any further suggestions or comments will be appreciated of course.

bobrath · Jan 18, 2007

Hmm... Don't screw up!

muah ha ha

I'd say the foremost goals are to finish the war with Mao, and get setup for the "cultural readjustment campaign" with Alex.

Oh and knock out some more research!

namliaM · Jan 19, 2007

On the GS, 3 GS * 2600 = 7800 where physics is 8970 beakers. So with 3 GS we still have to research a good 1170 beakers.
For 3 GS to bulb all of physics we would have to get 2990 beakers/Great Scientist... No way we are wasing bulb beakers when we are bulbing 3 GS on Physics.
GS will be useless in bulbing basicaly after physics... Maybe Biology is worth while... but we will have researched Electricity by that time... And there is (near) no way to get GS to bulb towards Mass Media after that.
Actually the GS currently brings (allmost) 2700 beakers.

I had allready posted something about delaying Moscow in favour of Yaro and St Petes, but appearently we didnt do that. I think we need to...
Tho now we can only equal Moscow to St.Petes at 4 turns, which means that Moscow will generate first if we dont add a specialist in St Petes.
Adding a priest will generate the GP from ST Petes in 3 turns exactly while moscow is in 4 if we fire all the specialists there.
So if we wait 3 turns we may have another scientist. 2700+2700 = 5400
8970 - 5400 = 3570 / 700 (beakers/turn at 100&#37

= 5 turns at 100%.
Which means we can start running 100% science on Physics now and burn 2 scientists on it (if we get the second one) and have no beakerloss from the bulb(s) as in turn 4 will will know/have the second scientist.
Only Mansa, Hathy and HC can research Physics, but I agree it is a waste of a good free GS to chance them not researching it for a while. All 3 are getting to be a pain IMHO and should be moved up the Extermination list. Them beeing on the same landmass is just a bonus... Gather the forces in Egypt, and take on Mansa first, then return to Egypt and finish with HC. From there we take out Monty...
Offcourse first we have to take care of Mao and Alex first.

On peace with Mao I think I agree with Bob, take the 2 cities NW of Guangzhou then make peace... IF we can get peace with MAO for Macao (that far away city) maybe we can do that instead. We can probably gift that (junk to us, due to Persian culture) city to Cyrus who can have some fun with it. Reducing Mao to the 3 cities on OUR island. We can then turn around and take out Alex, after which we return down south for Mao's extermination.

Looking at the save Cosmic, where did you put your :whipped:

????
Why are we running culture when the cities that are having WW problems dont even have Theatres and/or Colloseums?
I.e. Moscow has 2 unhappy at 0% culture, but doesnt have a Colloseum yet.
Put one turn (33 hammers) into that and whip for 3 pop.
We lose 3 pop (2 unhappy + 1 happy) gain -1 for the whip for 15 turns and gain +1

for ever, effectively allowing us another pop and adding the Colloseum. We could even overflow into the Theatre which it doesnt have either, adding another

.
This is true for most cities having WW problems, Yaro (why not work the gems there??), Shanghai and Beijing IIRC.
Offcourse University/Observatory/Market/Grocer/Bank all make good whip targets too...

Why spend good money on culture when you dont need to???
And and and.... Why is Rostov working those coastal tiles?? Wastefull I say... get it to working hammers and nothing but hammers, use the surplus pop to produce something more usefull than a few commerce.

Oh and... I know HE is a big investment in Yaroslavl... But we really want that ASAP. Maybe make smart use of a whip?
i.e. Yaro is producing 22 hammers/turn. Put 2 turn into a Cannon 150-44 = 116 hammers left, whip for 3 pop, 135 + 25 %=168 -116 = 52 overflow into HE + production of some 15 hammers. HE gets the production bonus with Marble, but no AI has a spare source...
300 / 22 = 14 turn
(300 - 52 - 15)/15 = 15 turns but we get the extra cannon... Dont know if this is worth it tho...
15 turns of no Cannons, 15 turns to catchup... after that only gain

How about Iron Works?? In Moscow? It is a huge build... of 1050 hammers (or 32 turns in moscow). It may also be worth considering if we pop an Engineer... to use the engineer on that.

Scowler · Jan 20, 2007

I didn't get a chance to play yesterday, and in fact work is making it more difficult to find time for this game during the week (especially since losing some time recently due to illness), so I'm going to ask to go on weekend duty from now on (unless I post otherwise).

Back to the turnset, this is what I have put together from the previous posts:

Research:

Proposed tech path:
Physics - [Biology?] - [RP?] - Electricity - Radio - Mass Media

- Turn science to 100%; switch research to Physics
- Use our first GS to lightbulb immediately, along with a second GS (if we get it) in 3 turns
- Manually research the rest
- Use the free GS to help with Biology?

If we get a GE instead, namliaM proposed using him for Ironworks in Moscow. Does everyone else support that, or would we want to save him for UN? There is a 9% chance of getting a GP: any thoughts about what we use him for if we are unlucky? We already have the Jewish shrine but both Monty and Mansa have holy cities, if we are planning to take them out later.

Warfare:

Short-term targets:
1) Mao
2) Alex

- Aim to capture Tianjin ASAP and then get Xian with a peace treaty (no capitulation), leaving Mao with his final two cities split by Persian territory. (Or maybe capture Xian, which is closer, and get Tianjin as war reparations?). We can always capture Chengdu later, if we want. Either way, we need to wrap up this war quickly due to WW.

- Regroup and turn attention to Alex, starting with Sparta - due to the cultural pressure it is currently exerting on Athens.

Domestic:

Previous advice:

GreyFox said:
Novgorod should keep building Longbows until all our cities have at least one longbow each.

Two cities remaining; Novgorod is currently building a cannon

namliaM said:
DONT build Grennies!!! DONT... we want Macemen, they be cheaper (hammers) and get CR or Pikemen.
CR2 Mace is 11.6, a Combat 2 Grennie is 14.4
CR3 Mace is 13, a Combat 3 Grennie is 15.6
Yes the Mace looses out by a considerable margin, but it is way cheaper to build and more than powerfull enough to clean up after a Catapult or 2. And at a 3:2 ratio of build time we can risk losing one or two.
CR2 or even better CR3 Grennies are very nice City raiders...
Looking at hammer investments we want to be building some Pikemen too, they only are 90 hammers and accept CR upgrades too.

- So... keep building military to defend the homeland in case Monty visits; make sure sea defenses are in place to sink any incoming troopships; provide reinforcements overseas for the uncoming battle with Alex
- Was a decision made on specialisation for Beijing? Commerce (cottages) or Production (workshops)?
- HE in Yaroslavl, using whipping if possible

Also:

namliaM said:
Courthouses are definatly better to whip as one of the first things now that our number of cities is growing and growing. There are some cities in MR that could benifit from a courthouse too, but Units = more important I think.

Civics:

- Only civic change worthwhile at the moment is CS (2 turns), which would have to wait until after Physics anyway.

Is there anything I've forgotten or gotten wrong?

EDIT: The deal with Mansa for Replaceable Parts is not worth it, in my opinion. We have surprisingly few forests for Lumbermills and only one Windmill at the moment. It can wait.

namliaM · Jan 20, 2007

I agree on RP beeing a low priority...

IIRC someone said a GE will get about half the UN... If that is true, than getting IW (assuming we get coal somewhere, for which we need steam power

) will do the same (more or less, due to the effect of a forge)...
But handbuilding IW in Moscow will take 32 turns, for a 50% bonus on production. So it will take (atleast) 70 turns to catch up to not building the IW. Dont think this is worth it...

On physics, I am not quite sure on turning science on right now... Maybe we have to wait a turn... Just make sure to have >2700 beakers left when we pop the Great Person so we can make full use of the beakers if it is a GS.
GP we can save, IIRC confusionalism hasnt got a shrine yet as well as Buddism hasnt got it yet... Check the wonders screen to make sure.

I dont know what would be smarter bulbing a GS on a (more or less) useless tech... or making an Academy. The beakers of the Academy will go toward the tech we want, tho it will take a while for the Academy to make up for the 2600 beakers lost. (52 turns at 50 beakers/turn)

WW? Where? There is no problem with WW, or atleast not the one that cannot be solved by the :whipped:

Put one turn into some usefull builing (i.e. Colloseum) and whip the WW "problem" away, while getting a source to fight the WW problem... win-win...

On LBs, I dont think we need an LB in every city... but... We do need a few LBs in future stacks as they still make decent city garison for new aquisitions... Also to relieve those Pikes in China... I would really hate to see the pike go to waste on defending a city... With combat 2 (+Formation?) and made to be grennies... they make decent stack defenders

Dont whip the HE itself, we will get the 50% penalty...
But getting the extra Cannon before we commit to HE might be very nice as we seem low on Siege right now....

Peace with Mao, Well I wouldnt ... He is down to near nothing and should be easy to whipe out completly, yes we have some WW... but still a non issue IMHO.

On Beijing I think it will help if we turn that into science/Commerce, I would hate to see those villages/Towns go to waste!
See my post here on Beijing and Shanghai... The big issue offcourse is our total lack of workers in Chinaland. This is a big reason for me to want to push and get more cities where the workers are hiding, so we can start re-working the land.

Lastly on courthouses... well that is in captured cities mostly where i.e. a lib will bring 25% bonus on research of 16 beakers = 4... A courthouse will save 50% upkeep for 10 upkeep = 5 gold...
Just work the numbers on the first turn the city comes out of revolt.... its easy enough...

bobrath · Jan 20, 2007

Defintly Bejing for commerce. Already lots of towns and villages there - why waste those with workshops?

I'd still take peace with Mao. We can redeclare when our land forces get up to his last city. Why have the undercurrent of Mao's war working against us when we war against Alex? Aside from a possible negative for declaring again (with other AIs), there's not much (in my mind) against taking peace with Mao for now so we can fully functional against Alex.

Re the WHIP. Remember that whipping will take away beakers from the GS. So consider the tradeoff of a few more beakers versus the benefit provided to reduce WW. Sure there's a building that comes out of it too, but losing 3/4 pop to get a courthouse ... well I understand if those are revolting citizens if we just captured a city - make their lives worth something at least. However whipping homeland cities or established (conquered) ones just feels wrong somehow - as in a waste of resources.

namliaM · Jan 20, 2007

The war on Mao you can do 2 ways...
1) Take him out now/ASAP...
Down side, we dont have much siege at the moment so its gonna take a while + Xian is on a hill.
2) Take peace
Get Xian, which will save us some heartship as it is on a hill.
Downside we keep the malus for "home country" and some culture presure here and there... Xian and the holy city in particular

On the culture slider vs the whip...
Yes it is true the whip will cost us some beakers on the burning of the GS. How many?? Lets say a hundred beakers (overestimated IMHO) per GS. 2 GS = 200 beakers.
Running 20 Culture is costing us ~77 GPT or if we run science 127 BPT.
So even if whipping costs us say 27 BPT thru the somewhat lower trade routes. It is still only 2 turns to return on investment of the lower GS.
So if we are going to take peace, dont whip... If we stay at war for atleast 2 more turns. Whipe 'em, or thats what I think....

Cosmichail · Jan 20, 2007

I agree with Bobrath take the peace deal less capitulation (probably will vassal to another civ). The culture slider is only on for two turns and intended to put it back to 0 because only one red face in Moscow. Whipping a colosseum would do the trick too as namliaM pointed out.

Our troops are spread thin and we need lbm's for garrison and use offensive units for advancing. We need more and if we run at 100% science it will be difficult to upgrade the maces. Although using the maces to attack to get to CR3 might be a good idea too. Pikes will be needed too against Alex since he got those elephants hooked up now. Good luck Scowler and looking forward to your report.
I didn't whip much as per reasons outlined by Bobrath but did whip the university in St. Petes and forge in Rostock. Yes it's working ocean tiles again as that annoying AI keeps changing that with growth and keeps putting up engineers everywhere. I do believe we should consider caste system to pump up St. Petes/Beijing to numerous scientist to get the GS's we are going to need. So priorties are build more military (maces) and several cannons are almost complete. There is also a couple of cannons in the holy city too.

What concerns me right now is the roster.

We have lost 2 players and haven't heard from Dot in a while. NamliaM is going away this week Jan. 25 so that will leave the following:
Greyfox, Bobrath, Scowler, Cosmichail and Dot? Scowler, Dot are on weekend playing only but Dot hasn't commented even during the weekend and hasn't been heard from since Jan. 9th. Considering that we will be finishing this game with 4 players.

GreyFox · Jan 20, 2007

I still think the way to go for this map is to build up navy. moving troops through enemy land takes too long, it is more effective to ferry. 2 or 3 galleons with 3 frigates (both as escort and as defense bombard-er).

We should definitely take out Tianjin next, and if so inclined, take both Xian and Chengdu. Else take Xian for peace, and focus on Alex.

Shanghai is unhappy, so suggest switching to a temple and whip it after 1 turn.

I am not too worried abt finishing this game with 4 players, but I would love to have namliaM play one more set before he sets off to the moon. Hey, say, buddy, how abt delaying your honeymoon? You can go anytime for honeymoon, but SGOTM will have to be moved on, you know?

... seriously, I am sure dot wouldn't mind if I put namliaM on deck after Scowler.

Scowler · Jan 21, 2007

Played 4 turns so far, but even that took me over 2hrs so I couldn't spend any more time on it. I will finish the turnset tonight, but here are some quick edited "highlights" to muse upon while you are waiting for the rest.

First, does anybody have any objection to me accepting this?:

Second, troops are now in place to attack Tianjin, which is defended by an axe, a sword, and ... a worker :lol:

That's the good news. Now for the less good news. :rolleyes:

- We popped a Great Engineer at St Pete. He is currently sitting unused in Moscow.
- The following turn Mansa popped a Scientist. I checked his tech status and...

(Sorry, namliaM, I warned you about my amazing luck with this game...)

But as far as I can see, we wouldn't have been able to beat him to Physics, even with another GS.

Anyway, here is the CFC log for the save. The save is available on the score page if anybody wants to take a look before I resume this evening. (and yes, I know I screwed up the whipping at Moscow...)

Spoiler :

namliaM · Jan 21, 2007

GreyFox said:
I still think the way to go for this map is to build up navy. moving troops through enemy land takes too long, it is more effective to ferry. 2 or 3 galleons with 3 frigates (both as escort and as defense bombard-er).

Agree, but.... You were the one IIRC to promote building LBs :sad:

Yes we need city garison too.. but not that bad...
Cannons, jr. Grennies (In the form of CR promoted Macemen and Pikemen) and some sr. Grennies (hand build and promoted to Combat + Formation?) for some stack defense...

GreyFox said:
I am not too worried abt finishing this game with 4 players, but I would love to have namliaM play one more set before he sets off to the moon. Hey, say, buddy, how abt delaying your honeymoon? You can go anytime for honeymoon, but SGOTM will have to be moved on, you know? ... seriously, I am sure dot wouldn't mind if I put namliaM on deck after Scowler.

Moving the honeymoon ??? :lol:

Looking forward to sun, beach and .... fun...
Whereas we are having storms and general bad winter weather in the NL.

Maybe I can bring a laptop and connect from the hotel... That would be one surefire way to get a divorce ASAP....
I would be happy to take another set before I go AHOL, and I did anounce my beeing out and about WAY in advance ....

Beeing Upped by Mansa on Physics is a minor setback :sad:

GreyFox · Jan 21, 2007

Looking forward to sun, beach and .... fun...

where to ... if you don't mind me being nosy ... maldives? Mororco? Hawaii? Carribean?

Back to the game:

I think we need LB for defense ... navy is for offense. Different thing.

I wouldn't mind taking the peace with Monty.

Too bad about Physics, we took the risk and lost ... not too bad, but at least it give us a kick in the rear we are not as advance as we thought we were.

--

namliaM · Jan 21, 2007

We are going to the ABC islands (Aruba to start and maybe going from there)

Well we are that advanced... There are just a few AI that can keep up, like Mansa... Which is why I vote we take him out next. It is totaly rediculous that he is keeping up so few cities...

On the Save...
Tianjin, we have 2 movable Grennies with something like >98% change to win right this turn. I dont mind having 9% culture defence in place with those odds. STRIKE and take it. If Mao is still willing to give us Xian (on a hill *ouch*) Take that peace + city deal.

Monty is still a long way away in particular if we are going after Alex & mansa first. I dont mind taking the peace either... 200 cash and what did we do? Nada!
Maybe we can sink that Trireme first ...???

On whipping Moscow... bygones... and if we do strike and peace up, we dont really need it. Just let it finish and focus back on units.

Guangzhou will come out of revolt next turn and has a courthouse lined up.... Generaly I think this is not a bad idea, but in this case we have something like 26 gold from the shrine allready, maybe a market (if we can whip it) would be smarter... The market will give 6 gpt, Just have a look at what the courthouse will save.

Beijing is still having an artist, why? and its is building a courthouse!? Why? If this is going to be commerce/science... An obs or uni might be more advicable?

Shanghai is running a priest specialist?? I presume for the 1 hammer? Food transfers to hammers way better than using a priest... Also I dont know about the Theatre.. maybe finish the Forge first? In particular if we pick up peace.

On IW... best place (biggest bonus) for it would be Yaro, but that is also getting the HE.A 150% boon to unit production is nice, but where do we put westpoint (should we get MT).

Cosmichail · Jan 21, 2007

Instead of building obs/uni in Beijing why not consider caste system and put nothing but scientist in Beijing and St. Petes to get us GS faster. As to Monty deal I agree take it too.

We need to work fast and finish Mao/Alex and yes I hate that guy too namliaM Mansa musa. ARGH he needs to be wiped from the face of the planet that irritating tech hog. How dare he take physics from us when we had such a good chance. Again overall we haven't been watching the specialist close enough as I found engineers where we shouldn't have them. That doggone AI with city growth will put them there. So we really need to watch that closely.

As to the GE we should keep him for UN. Let's just get to Mass Media asap since military wise we are fine but I do like cavs and namliaM mentioned something about MT. What about PA since there was discussion about that too who do we consider our best friend. Julius makes a great attack dog.
He's pleased with us but I think for PA need to be better than that???

As to our holy city we have banking so why not a bank? Probably good spot for wall street if we get that far. Did you guys see Trash team score they must be near finished.

I am not worried about finishing with 4 players but only would like to hear from Dot. Even a mere word from either Robo/Furrie would be nice too. Dot's input is important too as well as all the players. namliaM should take a turn before he leaves for sure as we need his wisdom and keen advice. How about even a longer session so that we can stand in awe of his play style. (need to change handle to the "whipmaster".) Just bugging ya dude but your last turn my friend I have to say was magnificent. Sorry about being so anal traversing our forces through Mao's lands but I envisioned a herd of elephants having our maces for breakfast. Perhaps a bit overcautious after thinking Alex would be easy only to find us fending off the elephant herds. LOL

OFF TOPIC
Eric I read about those storms in Europe and apparently quite fierce. (hurricane strength winds) Our west coast was devastated too by hurricane strength winds. Stanley park (Vancouver's beloved park) lost over 130 trees and lots of damage to power lines.

(PS overall the playing has been excellent by all players and look forward to your finished turn Scowler.)

namliaM · Jan 21, 2007

130 KPH windspeeds is normal day to day business here :eek:

I will just be playing my 15 not more... team and all...

Running Engineers I dont mind at all. Engineer + 2 Scientists = faster GP with a GE every 2 Scientists... Just bad? timing... And we can use some GE as well cannot we???

A bank is a much biger build and we dont have much hammers there to spend, only the/my faithfull :whipped:

Maybe add a barracks to it for strategic cannon whipping/overflow to Bank... Or skip the barracks and whip Frigates, overflow to bank...

We dont need anymore GS, unless you want to burn on Biology (offcourse this makes farms more usefull) and maybe add a strategic Acadamy (in Moscow?)
I think we need the whip mucho more than we do GS' ...
So hopefully Scowler can finish up this evening and I can pick up tommorow, or tuesday...

Edit: Hey why dont we put everyone in the roster??
It will take 3-4 days to get thru the abcent players and a week for the 4 players to play.... maybe the game is still alive when I come back ???

Scowler · Jan 22, 2007

Here is the end-of-turnset save for namliaM (and others) to look at. Full report up later, but in brief:

- Captured Tianjin
- Got Xian in exchange for peace with Mao
- Made peace with Monty
- We now have the makings of a nice stack ready to drop on Alex :satan:

(just needs a couple of pikes - which are on the way)

GreyFox · Jan 22, 2007

Looking good, nicely done, scowler.

Roster
- namliaM == UP
- bobrath == On Deck
- GreyFox
- Cosmic
- Dot == hopefully it is weekend by then

- Scowler == hopefully it is still weekend

- RoboKai / FuRRie == Auto-Skip

--

bobrath · Jan 22, 2007

Looking forward to the full report! Good to hear that Mao was still willing to give up a city for peace - I've driven hard on AIs and suddenly they won't give me squat to let them exist as a fishing village... Stupid AIs behaving like logical humans... SIGH

and that's a purdy stack there. I'm looking forward to seeing what Namliam does with it!

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Emperor

Emperor

Mr. Understatement

Emperor

Deity

Mr. Understatement

Deity

Emperor

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Mr. Understatement

Deity

Make it so ...

Deity

Dark Lord of The Sith

Deity

Mr. Understatement

Make it so ...

Emperor

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