SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

[Compromise]

Compromise (on deck) (my skip is over)
greggo
LKendter
grangerm
Kodii
Sir Bugsy (just played)
Iainuki (UP)

 

[LKendter]

Summary:
I am finally starting to get free time again. This let me look at the game, and to offer some comments.

1) I also suck at diplomacy. However, I agree we MUST develop a diplomatic game plan. If we don't get this soon, we will NEVER get a diplomatic win. Does anyone of this team feel they are really good at diplomacy? Looking at game going Christian looks our best bet. However, we lack this religion. Unless we get lucky and it spreads to Moscow we are screwed. The Buddhist block is a waste as we there is too much hostility from that group. Hinduism has to little civs practicing it.

2) With the screwed up domination limits of 51% land backdoor domination is very difficult. Reread issue #1.

3) Looking further at issue number one we need to make sure any expansion gains a lot of happy and health resources. Rome is supplying us with just silks, and can't offer anything more. It is probably to late to change the Roman assault, but all of a sudden Greece looks more interesting. If we capture Sparta we could revolt to Christianity solving our diplomatic problems. If we can build a shared religious bonus, then China might not be a problem.

4) To be honest I am scared to death we are getting another wooden spoon. Read issue #1 to understand why.

5) I would like to halt any more turns until we can agree on a diplomatic plan. Without it we are fighting a lost cause. IMHO we waited far to long on this critical macro issue and got to bogged down on the micro issues.

 

[Tatran]

To be honest I am scared to death we are getting another wooden spoon.

You have looked at the score graph, didn't you?

Well, I have played your SGOTM and without spoiling anything, maybe
I'm allowed to tell you this :
1) You can abandon cities if captured by culture
2) The statue of liberty only gives a free specialist on the continent
where it's built.

 

[Kodii]

Thanks Tatran for those reminders

Diplomacy is probably my forte, even though I'm mostly just lucky. As I analyzed in an earlier post, the Christian block is probably the way to go. Does Caesar have any Christian cities? If we want to convert to Christianity, we either have to:

1) Hope it spreads to Moscow
2) Hope someone sends a missionary
3) Take a city with Christianity

I agree that we need a good solid foothold on happy resources etc. In order to grow large (which contributes to our vote), we need to be healthy and happy. I remember that Hereditary Rule was used by someone in Epic Three to allow their city to grow HUGE.

I notice Louis XIV is at war with Izzy. If he asks, we may want to join in a phony war. Hereditary Rule might be a good choice, as it is a favored civic of most of the Christian block, as well as many others.

The GS and the GE would hypothetically pop on the same turn... I'm not sure which one actually would appear (in 15 turns).

What defines the opponent in the UN? Hatty has the largest population, but Tokugawa has the greatest land area.

 

[Iainuki]

It appears as if I'm up. Warfare isn't exactly my forte, so if someone thinks they can do a better job, I'd be willing (prefer?) to swap. If not, I'll try to play tomorrow sometime, provided the team feels we have concrete plans for what I need to do.

 

[Compromise]

I agree with LK's call for a delay while we decide our diplomatic strategy, so don't feel that there's a hurry to play, Iainuki.

Question: Do cities in revolt count toward your population total? We might have to run some test games, but I suspect we could nab some big cities within a few turns and quickly run up our population without incurring a landmass increase by conquering the cities on the turn or two before the diplomatic victory vote. Needless to say, this could get tricky, but it's a way to temporarily increase our population/land ratio. If we had 3 assault forces able to take out some 5 or 6 big cities, we might be able to add more than 50 population to our total with only the city's center square counting toward our land total.

Another possibility: Let's say we're close to the domination land threshold and still under the diplo victory condition. So, we pick a civ that owns all of a somewhat small island. Conquer every city on the island while we're on our last few techs, but don't conquer the civ. Then, make peace and give all of the cities back to the civ. We can then go conquer elsewhere without going over the land limit. When it's nearly time for the vote, we can re-declare on the civ whose cities we gave back and take them easily since they will be undefended. A unit or two attacking from the sea can take the cities back. The biggest risk would be another civ declaring war and taking the defenseless cities.

I haven't actually tried this, so I don't know how long the revolt time would be. But, with some study, we could time this so that the new cities count toward our diplo victory vote.

Note: we're going to need chemistry for frigates at some point, but we can probably trade for it.

For the immediate term: I think we should take Roman territory at least up till Rome. If we're willing to wait until Monday, I could swap with Iainuki (though I think he'd do fine) for the initial attack.

My general strategy is: Land defensive units on forests/hills with the cats first, then go back and get offensive units who didn't fit on the first boats while the cats lower the cultural defenses. After about 3 suicide cats on a well defended city, you can virtually walk in. On the first city, you can leave a single troop in the city in the hopes that the AI will reinforce it with troops which will have no defensive bonuses against your (presumably) promoted and maybe even fresh assault troops.

 

[Kodii]

Yes, cities in revolt count towards your population total. Iainuki, Jet and I are playing an RB Middle Earth game, and whenever we take a city, our score jumps a bit, and the opponent's score drops a bit.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

The task force would be easy to divert to Greece. we would want to evaluate how many units we would need to land and we would want to reposition the 2nd wave of forces to Moscow, but it wouldn't take more than five turns to set up for Sparta. maybe another galley or two.

BTW, greece has a third city that is being crushed culturally by China. Maybe we capture it and give it to Mao. I think if we were Christian, Mao would lie us as "fellow brothers and sisters of the faith".

 

[Tatran]

Lurker's comment :

I'm sorry for thread jacking again. I would like to thank Gyathaar
and AlanH for this SGOTM. A very refreshing and interesting concept.
I'm glad I didn't join any team, because this SGOTM isn't suited with
all it's diplomatic actions. If every team member has to stop playing to council
the other members this game would take much more time than 3 months.

I wish this team all the luck. You need it and don't bet on 1 horse.

 

[LKendter]

Any more comments from the team. It seems like we went from insane comments at the beginning to very quiet.

 

[Kodii]

I really don't know at this moment. The only religious block that looks good enough to side with is the Christian block, and there is no way to get there yet. I think our main decision now is:

Rome or Greece?

Rome: Kodii (because our troops are already lined up there, and we aren't in a rush to get Christianity, especially since our relations with Louis, Huayna etc are already decent)
Greece:
Unknown: Compromise, greggo, LKendter, grangerm, Sir Bugsy, Iainuki, Atlas*, Others

Iainuki would prefer that Compromise take this next, but I guess it depends on how much time you guys have. Let me know of your decision.

 

[Compromise]

Oops; I was waiting for confirmation from Iainuki before switching turnsets with him. I might be able to play tomorrow, but Wednesday for sure.

My vote is to take some Roman cities now.

I think our lack of diplomatic strategy and our decision to go for a diplomatic victory means that we should try to win by backdoor domination with few, and very likely no, votes from any other civs. We'll have to do some clever population conquering toward the end, but considering that after we get Mass Media, we'll be running all culture and cash, we should be able to manage. We'll want to be gunning for: good population centers, good production cities (especially early on) and good resources.

After we take our first few cities, I'm curious to see which--if any--civs will take captured cities in trade.

More intel on nearby civs should help us plot our conquest.

 

[LKendter]

I think our lack of diplomatic strategy and our decision to go for a diplomatic victory means that we should try to win by backdoor domination with few, and very likely no, votes from any other civs.

I think everyone needs to look at the broken percentages for domination. They are absurdly low this game. We *must* get multiple people to vote for us. There is no way around it.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I've always thought that Greece made a smarter target. With Sparta we can convert to Christianity. That will make Mao less likely to attack us, especially if we have substantial power.

Let's look at diplomacy. What influences our standing with another leader? Help me out here if I miss one.

1. Same religion or free religion
2. A history of fair trading
3. Trading or not trading with a hated enemy
4. Having the right civics
5. Declaring war on someone
6. Declaring war on a friend
7. Giving into demands
8. Fighting a mutual enemy

I think we select three or four civs and do everything we can to make them happy. Perhaps those are the Christian civs. Then we try to get as close to the pop limit as possible, keep our friends happy and ensure a bad guy is our foe in the UN election.

 

[Tatran]

With Sparta we can convert to Christianity. That will make Mao less likely to attack us,

Mao doesn't give a f**k about religion, +3 if sharing and -1 or -2 for a
different religion. I wouldn't trust a pleased Mao as neighbor. Invading
Greece means to maintain a respectable army overthere.

 

[Compromise]

I think everyone needs to look at the broken percentages for domination. They are absurdly low this game. We *must* get multiple people to vote for us. There is no way around it.

If this is true, then the winner of this event will be determined by luck rather than skill. Randomly distributed religious diplo bonuses will dominate the early opportunities for improving relationships. This is especially true with aggressive AIs.

In that case, we're already out of the running for any kind of fastest finish because we didn't choose a clear diplomatic plan from the start. Of course, the reason we didn't choose one is because no obvious choice presented itself to us. Perhaps the majority of the other teams settled their capital somewhere other than where we did and therefore somebody like Gandhi founded Hinduism or something and boom: all the nearby civs are buddy-buddy with each other. Easy diplo victory.

I think we can (and in fact must) find a way to win a diplo victory without many (or even any) friends. It may require some tricky timing of our last few city captures so that they are in revolt when the diplo victory vote is taken, but that's fine.

What kind of relations do we need to get other civs to vote for us instead of abstaining from the victory vote? Something like +11 or +12, right? Looking at Bugsy's list, I see possibilities for +4 shared religion (with civs who care about that), +4 fair trades, +4 favorite civics and other bonuses to counter "worst enemy" trading deals. We might be able to do that with a couple of civs, but it depends a lot on the luck of which religions go to which civs and whether their favorite civics are mutually compatible or not. It also requires that there be another civ out there who is big enough to be our diplo vote contender, and we won't be getting those votes.

What does it really mean that we need to stay below 51% land and have 62% population? It means roughly that our average city has to have 20% higher population than the average AI city. By concentrating on taking high-food cities, we should easily be able to manage that. In addition, there will likely be some backward civs near the end of the game whose capitals we can quickly take with several boatloads of troops.

In a crowded map like this, every possible city site will be settled by one AI or another. This means that on average, each civ will have cities ranging from a pretty good capital to some really poor no-food-bonus sites. We can be somewhat selective and concentrate on taking the food-rich cities. For example, with Greece, we don't even really need Sparta, it's Athens that we want with all that glorious seafood.

As for a conquest plan, it's generally best to take on the leaders. This is for at least two reasons. First, the leaders tend to climb the tech tree faster--and with so much tech trading here, any increase in the AI tech rate is bad--so we want to stop their progress. Second, since all the AIs follow roughly the same strategy, those with the highest score have the best land, and we're looking for the best land.

What does this mean for us?

I think it means that we should conquer several Roman cities now. All the good ones that we can see.

Then, I think we should take Athens and Sparta. If at a later date we need to ditch a city to lower our land holdings, we can gift Sparta back to Greece. Then, I think we need to take a bite out of Mao. We should take all or almost all Chinese cities with a good surplus. We might also need to take another couple of cities to reduce cultural pressure.

Then, I think we need to take out Hatty. Mainly because her good score implies that she has good land. With luck, she has a city somewhere off of here main island. That would mean that we could take all the cities on her main island. If we're getting too much land before we're able to run the diplo vote, we can gift her then-defenseless cities back to her. We can always re-declare war and unload troops directly into the cities from a boat, taking them (and their precious votes) instantly.

With a high power rating, no other civ will attack us, at least not in any meaningful way.

Note: nearly crossposted with Tatran. I completely agree about Mao. A pleased Mao is about as safe as an annoyed Mao. Better to have a conquered Mao.

 

[LKendter]

This is why I keep saying look at the victory screen. The domination limits are absurdly low. There is NO way we can pull of 62% of the vote with these broken limits. We need to get some other votes - period.

 

[Compromise]

This is why I keep saying look at the victory screen. The domination limits are absurdly low. There is NO way we can pull of 62% of the vote with these broken limits. We need to get some other votes - period.

From the screenshot posted above, look at our population and land percentages. If we maintain the exact same ratio of population to land (7.20%/5.57%) and have 50% of the world's land, we will have 64.6% of the world's population. That's enough to vote ourselves the diplomatic winner (we need 62% of the vote) without triggering the land threshold for a domination victory.

The screenshot shows that winning without any other civ's vote is possible if, on average, we keep the same ratio of food surplus to land tiles that we have with our present empire.

Since we have a good amount of choice as to which cities we capture and continue to hold (as opposed to giving away to another civ), we should be able to maintain this ratio or even improve upon it.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Mao doesn't give a f**k about religion, +3 if sharing and -1 or -2 for a different religion. I wouldn't trust a pleased Mao as neighbor. Invading Greece means to maintain a respectable army overthere.

First, may I respectfully request you lose the attitude.

Second, saying five diplo points doesn't matter isn't well thought out. All the AI can be manipulated. The key is knowing what makes them tick, and how they are programmed. Mao is programmed just like any other aggressive AI. He respects power and feeds off weakness. In fact we might want to pull him into a Greek war as soon as we capture Sparta. We go for Athens, Mao gets Thermopyle, Alex is gone. We then get "mutual military struggle" points. Like compromise pointed out, we can probably get to anyone's good side (including Mao's) with the right moves: religion, wars, trading, giving help. We just need to get up to something above +10. I think we can make the diplomacy work for us. We just need to understand how far above +10 we need to be.

Lastly, if we invade any island we are going in overwhelming force and we will maintain and build a respectable army where ever that may be. We will do that whether it is Rome, Greece, Egypt, China or Antartica. Well maybe not Antartica.

 

[Iainuki]

I'm sorry, I thought that I'd made clear my desire to swap--that was my mistake. I've just been preoccupied with other things since the weekend, so I haven't had much time to reply. I'm working on some analysis of our future directions, hopefully in time for comments before my turnset.