SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

GreyFox · Feb 8, 2007

Sorry guys, I feel that I have taken this game backward rather than forward ... :sad:

Anyway, inherit turns seen me firing artists (why so many artists?) all around, and scientists from those cities without an academy, and all those odd engineers. Grow, grow, grow. We need to grow.

I reviewed our trades:

Decide that we have to stop helping Toku and KK grow (we are not trading with Louis).

I have also made a few trades (and renewed a few):

Idea here is to help our voters grow.

War wise, I took Tenochitilan losing one arty at 75% odds.

And then, out of blue, "You have made peace with Monty."

Huh? I beg your pardon?

Following which is the UN voting results, Free Religion got passed.

I was thinking: "Huh? Never knew Free Religion would force a world peace."

Well, it doesn't.

The truth is that stupid Vicky accepted Monty as a vassal ... :aargh:

Damned. That's when I stopped.

Spoiler CFC Extracted Log :

Spoiler HoF Autolog :

GreyFox · Feb 8, 2007

And continued to take the game backwards.

after the break, I decided to stop this stupid AI decisions once and for all.

And here is our gift to you in matrimony:

If we ever have happiness problem, remember to take away the wine and gold from Vicky. It will help us better than her.

Well, this PA does not turn out to be expected ... we became Monty's master and suffer a -1 diplomatic hit with everyone else.

To avoid anymore hits, somehow I declined Mansa's offer ...

In retrospect, should have accepted. That will sealed his votes. After tis, he no longer wish to be vassal, and what's worst his relationship with Vicky wasn't as good as before.

Damned. Not only did we not gain Mansa's votes from the PA, we lose Izzy and Gandhi's votes as well. (Screenie did not take, but I tried for a diplomatic win to see the result of the PA, we are left with only 467 votes instead of 558). :sad:

Now for some good news:

I declared.

Indeed, KK declared on us:

And with the DP broken, I got Mansa to jump in on Louis:

At least we can start repairing our relationship with MM.

Izzy, JC, Gandhi, and Hatty are not interested in war. I didn't think about while playing, but maybe we should pay Loius a visit. If we significantly reduce Loius's power, maybe they would join our crusade.

Anyway, I focused on KK ...

After flight is in, I reduced the science rate to 0%. promote all those rifles and grenies to infantries. Both Loius and KK have infantries. We are soon going to have tanks and bombers.

Here is the Sec voing result, noticed Cyrus and JC voted for Toku:

Damned traitors.

Our relations screen.

The Save, hope Cosmic had better luck.

Spoiler CFC Extracted Log :

Spoiler HoF Autolog :

GreyFox · Feb 8, 2007

We have a great artists:

I suggest using him to take city out of revolt, or trigger a golden age.

We have a general (this time borned in the correct place):

Suggest settling him as instructor.

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bobrath · Feb 8, 2007

Doh!!!

Hindsight is that we should have PA'd right away. That might have at least mitigated the Monty jumping on board. I completely spaced on the vassal negatives jumping over to us once aligned. Ah well live and learn.

It does appear that getting into a PA does not in fact bring the more positive votes to the front and instead does something different (most negative to the front or some sort of weighted average). Not sure.

I am happy that at least we captured the capital before the vassalage happened. That takes away all sorts of cultural pressure issues on Monty's main island.

Sorry about all the artists, every turn I thought about it I went through cities and fired them. The AI keeps hiring them - not sure why.

Did Machu Pichu finish the FP yet?

I'd suggest saving the GA for a Golden Age. Given the size of our empire now, that will be a much more dramatic effect then popping borders or blubing some tech.

In terms of going for the dip victory... its looking more and more like we'll get stuck going for a true backdoor now. :grumble: Have to think more about the new religion free landscape.

Lets not forget to get single currency passed to counteract the loss of the Great Lighthouse.

I won't say we went backwards, but our dramatic rise has slowed a bit. BTW, that's the first time I've ever seen a civ approach a human to offer vassalage instead of doing it to end a war. Always enjoy seeing new things. Not sure if taking him on would have been the right thing or not. We'd be stacking up another negative (that we could never reasonably get rid of) for a few more votes. I think you made the right decision - but we'll find out with the next dip win vote. It will be important to alternate dip win votes with any civic votes we make. Its the barometer that will help us aim our actions to improve relations.

Cosmichail · Feb 8, 2007

The PA wouldn't have hurt near as much without Monty. We are stuck with him now too but more reason to get building lots of military and get the UN the hardway. With tanks soon online and bombers we can start a blitzkrieg fairly soon.

I have been approached by a weaker civ seeking vassal. I have found there are two ways to get a vassal.

1. through war/capitulation
2. by being on good terms and you are fairly powerful an AI may ask to vassal.
(this happened to me on more than one occassion)

The 2nd vassal method is a pain as they stay with you a while but eventually will separate due to you are "too weak"

I once had Gandhi come to me who was being attacked by Toku and I accepted and took on Toku. Being nice I let the cities go back to him he lost. Shortly thereafter he broke the vassal (made peace with Toku) and left me holding the bag. I now never accept this kind of vassal. I did not accept his breaking the vassal and declared war on him and finished him off.

So Greyfox I believe made the right decision and of course hindsight is 20/20. That capitulating always happens to me just after taking their capitol. What is done is done and there's nothing we can do except send a huge army out there and get our vote that way.

Our pop is low on average so getting some growth there will make a big difference. Will take a look at the save and hopefully have some time later tonight to play.

bobrath · Feb 8, 2007

Yup, I knew the later was possible, just never seen it happen. Maybe because I'm always playing so aggressively in sp that civs never get a chance!

hmm.... side thought - You can drop a civ out of vassal state if they grow or shrink too much.... any chance of shrinking Monty too much?

Cosmichail · Feb 8, 2007

1750 ad

Had a good look around and everything looks good. A nice compliment at Mongolia should make the battle go well.

Current diplomatic situation

The only two that are voting for Toku is KK/Louis.

1756 ad

Put forth the vote for Single currency as suggested by Bob.

Sanchu falls:

The results of the single currency vote: (which passes of course)

During this year we also take Tabriz.

1762 ad

Another great artist is born in St. Petersburg and send him to the front to deal with any cultural pressure. There isn’t a golden age available need two more GP’s.

New Sarai was also taken during this turn but I forgot to take a picture. We are now getting troops to KK’s heavily populated landmass with Karakorum on it. After checking each city only Karakorum is somewhat defended but shouldn’t be too hard to take.

1764 ad

Another UN resolution is put forth and we try for a diplomatic vote.

1766 ad

The results of the diplomatic vote:

Hatty/Gandhi/JC/Isabella count for 407 votes total which won’t give us the win but taking a few more cities may change that if we get their vote. Again JC is not likely to go to friendly so maybe we think about after KK/Louis going after JC. Get Gandhi involved and maybe we can get him at least to friendly. Again this is only an idea/suggestion. We also might want to consider going after Toku land’s since he borders right on KK’s lands after we finish with him. Toku is already annoyed with us but only problem with that idea is Gandhi will become the contender at some point.

Bottom line capitulation/PA cost us at least Hatties/Gandhi/Isabella’s votes.

War effort

On the battlefront we are doing good and will be ready to take his larger cities now. KK was surprisingly weak and fortunately no SAM’s yet to bother our bombers. The bombers are definitely the key to moving the battle quicker. Once the troops get the city has no defenses (also destroyers aided in this) and the defenders are softened quite a bit.

1768 ad

We discover refrigeration which gives our ship the added sea movement and the ability to build a supermarket.

After contemplating I start genetics for the health/happy since we are experiencing unhappy and a little unhealthy here and there. I ring up Vicky and get her to research the same.

1770 ad

Our troops are ready at Turfan and the bombers are doing their job. Turfan falls easily and we are mobilizing troops to Karakorum as it is also defended lightly.

That also finishes off what navy KK has.

I hit enter by accident and didn’t want to leave it like that so continue with the turn and decide to go for 15 to round it off.

1772 ad

Continue to get troops to Karakorum and it should fall next turn.

1774 ad

We receive this request from our expensive vassal and oblige.

Put forth another diplomatic vote and this is the result:

We gained 23 votes but the total also increased. That increase is for three cities so we have our work cut out for us.

The same year Karakorum falls:

1776 ad

Beshbalik falls next:

We try to this method to better relations with Isabella but it makes no difference in the relationship.

1780 ad

We had made a landing on Paris but he’s got more umphf than KK so after loosing a few put them back in transports awaiting the tanks that will make this battle somewhat easier. He does have cavs and counterattacked with artillery too. I don’t think he has much but made sure there are enough men ready to arrive in the next turn to slow down any counterattack. There is a hill outside Paris but it’s cross river so no good to attack city from but maybe a good spot for a landing until the counterattacks cease.

Renegotiate with JC for the stone:

This is the current diplo screen and as far as I can tell there is only one DP in place.

War effort

Just outside of Paris there are quite a few transports with troops but some of them are wounded. There is also some tanks on the way from Aztec lands which will arrive next turn. I have been basically moving the troops this way:

Ship troops from Russia to Greece then dropoff
Ship troops from Greece to Inca then dropoff
Ship troops from Inca to Aztecs then dropoff
Ship troops from Aztecs into battlefield

It is rather tedious but works and if we could slip in an airport in Russia it would speed up things a lot. Don’t forget too we get extra trade route with airport too.

Aztec lands are proving to be not bad at production after changing many ivory to workshops/watermills and farms. We are experiencing unhappy and needing 30% culture. The Aztec capitol has started Mt Rushmore to remove war weariness.

We should be able to take Paris next couple of turns. The reason why I went for Paris and not Nsing is to remove the culture influence before it affects Karakorum. It is too a large city and will help with the vote. He doesn’t have much but KK is spread out with three cities also in the north too. (or two and one more in the south)

Even with MA Yaroslav/Moscow still take 4 turns to build a tank. I have had games where a city could build it in one turn but that’s the nature of the map. It appears the others don’t have much in the way of production. You will notice citizens here and there and I put them there to speed up production. In addition I also fired a lot of scientist/artists to work food and speed up city growth. It seems one has to check every turn as the artists keep popping as Bob mentioned. The GG was settled in Yaroslav but in hindsight I think it’s a mistake. I just realized after typing this that Moscow doesn’t have one.

Cosmichail · Feb 8, 2007

HOF autolog

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Feb 8, 2007

CFC log part 1

Spoiler :

Cosmichail · Feb 8, 2007

CFC log part 2

Spoiler :

The Save

GreyFox · Feb 8, 2007

Looks like excellent progress (war-wise)!

We are definitely growing faster than the rest. In the 1758 results, VQ+Vicky+Monty = 33.54%, whereas in the 1774 results, we hold 36.21%. But not fast enough ... that's like 3% in 16 years ... so to reach 62% will take us another 150 years :lol:

Did we grab the wine and gold (resource) from Vicky? As I said, it will help us better than her.

We should keep checking Hatty, Izzy and Gandhi as the war progress to have them jump in. We desperately need the Mutual-Struggle bonus.

I presume we are still in Representation ... might consider Police State to convert Izzy, or HR to convert Hatty, or UniSuff to convert Gandhi. It depends on which one is nearer to being friendly with us, and which one is possible to gain diplo points via Mutual Struggle (Gandhi is almost out).

Scowler is UP.

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Scowler · Feb 9, 2007

Nice sets. I'll do my best to look at this today and play tomorrow.

GreyFox · Feb 9, 2007

If artists keep popping up, might wanna simply click "Focus Growth" and be done with it

Most likely, Cosmic, you city that produces a tank in 1 turn has the Ironworks + factory, which Yarsolavl has neither.

Good luck, Scowler. I may look at the save tonight and perhaps offer more suggestions.

--

bobrath · Feb 9, 2007

IIRC we have not yet popped a Golden Age due to GP usage, so we only need to different GPs. Popping a second GArtist was unfortunate. Its ok, just increases the effect of the eventual GA!

Great turns cosmic, lets keep the war engine running, but one question how long until its a shorter trip to go west from our mainland instead of the round the world journey east?

Cosmichail · Feb 9, 2007

Did we grab the wine and gold (resource) from Vicky? As I said, it will help us better than her.

Sorry I didn't and forgot too.....perhaps Scowler can rectify that.

As to getting anybody into a war well forget that idea here's the stats:

1. Ghandi - doesn't like us enough
2. Isabella - would have nothing to gain
3. JC - has enough on his hands (is this guy going to do something soon??)
4. Hatty - doesn't like us enough

Who would think -1 would have such an impact on the relationships but it obviously did. I don't think we can count on their votes anymore and must do this the hard way. Blitzkrieg Herr Generals....

but one question how long until its a shorter trip to go west from our mainland instead of the round the world journey east?

That's funny I was thinking the exact same thing when I finished my turn.

You're right Bob we should start mobilising east now as it is shorter.

All in all it's taking about 6 turns to get units to battlefront from Russia. Again I think an airport in Moscow would really help out as when it's building it still can airlift other units. I hate to loose on the production but the turns invested will net us in faster mobilization. Wir mussen eine blitzkrieg haben 21st century style or Desert storm tactic.

If artists keep popping up, might wanna simply click "Focus Growth" and be done with it Most likely, Cosmic, you city that produces a tank in 1 turn has the Ironworks + factory, which Yarsolavl has neither.

Yes should have done that putting them on focus growth but just the same I like to check every turn to make sure it stays that way. We did loose a turn on genetics when I fired a lot of artists/scientists in non critical cities but I don't think it matters much at this point.

As to production yes my city did have Ironworks/factory also had a city with heroic epic/military academy/factory and pumping out tanks every turn. Now that can really mess up an AI who goes the cottage route. Silly AI advance fast but no focus on production and get arses kicked by huge army from human that has focused on production. Love it especially the modern warfare.

Our bombers are kicking hiney big time so keep a build on a number of those. Louis does have Sams so some will get damaged but he only has like 3-4 cities so he's toast for sure. The tank line is moving slow but we now have I believe about 5 tanks getting to the battlefield. That should provide a good combo bombers/destroyers take out defenses and soften the defenders, tanks finish the job with barely any losses.

To be honest guys I am not being pessimestic but I don't think we will pull off the UN vote before 1826. We will have to after Scowler's turn already think who to go after next. Proximity would say Toku but he's better as UN contender at least he will never win the vote. JC has a good number of votes and of the ones we need the least likely to ever get to friendly so I think maybe we go after him and try to get Gandhi involved.

Gandhi has 144 votes by far the largest and I was also thinking during the game that US would do us well now as we don't need to advance science wise unless we want robotics for the mechs which is a ways off and game should be finished by then. Since that is his favourite civic it will get us those votes at least I hope. I think Hatty favourite is "organized religion" so that's out. Greyfox you mentioned police state but Isabella has only 52 votes so we need Gandhi more then we do Isabella. Hopefully taking KK's lands/France's lands and Romes plus Gandhi we have enough.

bobrath · Feb 9, 2007

One note on US. I think forcing that via a UN vote (to avoid anarchy) would actually hurt us more as it would mean everyone would be getting + relations with Ghandi - including Tok. We need to do things which distance us from Tok, not keep the pace.

We definitely want to keep Tok as our UN opponent. So going after him is counter productive. I agree that targeting Ghandi's votes via a US switch is a good idea. At this point we can't really lose anybodies votes, so lets focus entirely on getting old Baldy on our side. I would not gift techs any more - unless we are asked! There's no + from just ringing up and gifting (at this point).

Who is Ghandi's most hated?

Looking at just word relations to us and Tok, there are three civs that are more annoyed with us then him: Cyrus (87 votes), George (53 votes), and Saladin (78 votes). Unfortunately Saladin is in a DP with JC right now. If we assume that we get Ghandi voting for us again AND we take away Louis and Kublai (call it half their votes), we need at least 219 more votes. Those three only combine to give 218. So we're a bit short even so.

Taking JC down would be the better choice from a purely "who has the most votes" point of view. JC + Saladin would be 198 votes swung over. The question is, can we safely engage that pair? Safely meaning 1) does it hurt other's opinions of us and 2) can we pull it from a military pov.

IMO Cyrus isn't coming to our side any time soon, appears to have no allies and has 87 votes to "donate".

Another (random) thought. But at this point if we decide that we're not going to get any more votes via true diplomacy, then creating vassals is an acceptable manner to increase our votes (and military campaign) faster. Knock a civ down just far enough to get them to capitulate and move on. Will either Louis or KK go vassal at this point? I think everyone knows I hate picking up useless vassals, but we want a fast(er) win and unless we think we have a realistic chance at converting Ghandi++ then lets stop dancing and start attacking the buffet.

BTW with just Vicki and Monty, we have enough votes to stop anyone else from getting a Dip win - so we're not in danger of a switch in opponents costing us the game.

Cosmichail · Feb 9, 2007

Who is Ghandi's most hated?

JC by the looks of it...

The question is, can we safely engage that pair? Safely meaning 1) does it hurt other's opinions of us and 2) can we pull it from a military pov.

I'd say yes here's why:

Saladin:

Vicky - pleased
JC - friendly
Gandhi - cautious (won't affect declaration)
Hatty - pleased (will get a -1 declaration with her but we won't get her votes for diplo anyways)

JC:

Vicky - pleased
Gandhi - annoyed
Hatty - pleased

Our best possibilities now:

Isabella +11
Gandhi +8 (how many points do we need to get him to vote)
Hatty +8

Gandhi is the best possibility to gain a good amount of votes. Perhaps switching to US with +1 point for civics or more then he will like us enough to go to war with JC since he is his enemy. Some civics will give +5 as with KK for being in bureaucracy. If that is the case switching to US then Gandhi could be in the bag. The mutual war will strengthen that.

Isabella also wouldn't take much to get her back to friendly again. It's only 52 votes and not sure what we could do to get her to friendly. The religious options do offer more range with the friendlies and I am not sure we should have chosen free religion and might have gone with Hinduism early and cultivated that somewhat.

20/20 as usual. Just need to know how much of a positive it would be to have US with Gandhi. I do believe Washington also prefers US too and some AI are likely in it already.

If we do go with US let's then put a factory/coal plant in Yaroslav to build those tanks faster. I think a factory is like 1500 gold to build fast. Love that US at the end of game for building fast and we have the cash. Once we take Vicky's happy resources then our happy problem will subside and we can go back to less culture.

Since we are considering revolting to US manually so to speak then we should also go emancipation as we are not going to whip anymore and can buy whatever we need. Don't need science anymore this is the end of game soon and smashy smashy to get there. I like JC's lands and strategically perfect.

As to mobilization we can now proceed through southern route through India/England to France. It's still about 3-4 turns by destroyer/transports but shortens the ride by 3 turns. There is only one transport ready to be dropped off on Inca to move to Aztecs for movement into the battlefield. There are three tanks and should be helpful in a our military campaign. As to the southern route we could start moving ship towards that area. We probably could part with some transports from Paris once unloaded. Also that destroyer/transport combo with 1 marine/3 infantry/2 tanks/ and something else including some rock n' roll star could droppoff and continue on to cottageville from there. Probably just easiest to shuttle directly from cottageville to Lyons once it's ours.

Just remember though we need to keep relay from Inca/Aztec/Greece-China to keep troops being built there to move to the new position. I do think going with the southern route is better since Russia is building the fastest. Just we need to buy factory/coal plants in Moscow/Yaroslav/Novogrod at least to get those tanks to at least 2-3 turns and I hope 2 turns at least. We might have enough at Mongolia and France and I did check just now and KK will vassal to us. Again another -1 with Gandhi so if that US doesn't deliver +4-5 forget it. KK does have like 4 cities left and Nsing should be taken first to remove culture. Finish Louis off don't cap him I think he's too small and annoying to get negative points for.

bobrath · Feb 9, 2007

IIRC the + from civics slowly increases the longer you're in it. So we get the +1 for US in x turns, wait y more turns to get +2, and so on. Its a gradual thing.

Vassaling KK means that his 58 votes immediately become ours - ie no loss from city capturing and so forth. We do pick up the negative for vassaling and any negatives associated with the vassal (see Monty). The thing I'm trying to sort in mind is this:

If we vassal KK right now, then that is some number of turns that we no longer "lose". There are also units that we don't lose in attacking (flip side is fewer promotions and GG points). Is that quicker turnaround in votes worth the negatives in voting blocks?

I guess it comes down to a judgment call - can we win over Ghandi? Izzy will have to be a by product, her 58 votes just don't amount to enough (imo) to detour us. Ghandi's 145 do.

To win Ghandi we have to be more appealing to him by some margin then Tok. Ghandi is annoyed with Tok and Pleased with us, so I'd like to think we're right on the edge.

If JC is his most hated, then we obviously don't take any negatives for that declaration (unless Saladin holds a special place hidden in Ghandi's heart). I'd like to hear from others, but using KK and Louis as training grounds for our troops to break down what has to be multiple monster stacks for JC is probably the smarter idea. I do think we need to land on JC first so that his units don't decide to visit our own lands.

(After we finish this game, it will be interesting to go back to some key point, perhaps my last or GreyFox's turns and pick up the PA before Monty capitulated and see how that affected it OR picking up after the fact and going on a vassal tear to see if it ended up faster.)

Cosmichail · Feb 9, 2007

Well as it stands now are we just flogging a dead horse and should just go bananas on getting UN votes via vassaling. Nice thing is too that vassal only counts I think for 50% domination.

EDIT: Has anybody noticed that huge barbarian city east of Russia beside Samaqrand. It has one sheep and two deer so I bet it's a fair sized city. A small force can likely take it easy since they likely have rifles/grennies.

2nd EDIT
Do notice that JC is cautious and changing to US will cause him to get possibly annoyed since we are getting +4 for civic (representation).

bobrath · Feb 9, 2007

I went looking through the excel sheet that contains all modifiers hidden in the code. Ghandi and Izzy are capped to +2 for shared war bonus. On the other hand, Ghandi is capped to +6 for fav civic and Izzy to +3. So while the rate of increase is not affected, Ghandi will become far more influenced by a civic switch then just about any other AI (cept Mao and Stalin, but they're not in this equation now).

So yes, switching out of US will probably lose us any chance with JC... it might result in him declaring on us. We'd be ok with him declaring since there are no negatives for choosing poorly. :evil:

EDIT
I went through the math in this post and came up with a rough number of Ghandi being one or two attitude points away from voting for us. I'm not 100% with my math - but It really means that if we can not hurt our relation with Ghandi and pick up two points (by being in a fav civic for instance or by losing any negatives he has with us), then his votes will return to us.

Izzy looks to be a few more points off, mainly because her base attitude starts off 3 lower then Ghandis and she hates being lower ranked then us. It might be doable, but the only hidden calc we could affect would be to move her about 4 spots up in the score rankings.

SGOTM 03 - Team VQ

Make it so ...

Make it so ...

Make it so ...

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Dark Lord of The Sith

Make it so ...

Mr. Understatement

Make it so ...

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

Dark Lord of The Sith

Emperor

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