SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

Sir Bugsy · Jan 24, 2007

Here is the first installation of my turnset. The remaining turns will get played tomorrow evening.

Pre-flight This game is getting very large. It must have taken five minutes to load in my machine.

There is no doubt that Nanjing (9 defenders) must be our next target. First, it hits Mao at his strongest point. Second, going for Beijing (6 defenders) would be tactically unsound. While it would split the Chinese island in two, it would also create a salient which could have potential defensive problems. I would like to attack Nanjing with a minimum of 15 units. Well need to leave some defenders in Shanghai. I will spend the first few turns gathering our attack forces. We also are in need of naval vessels. Transportation between islands is critical, not to mention defense.

I will also leave a Cossack or two on our main island to play possible zone defense.

We have managed to gain some negative diplomacy points with our war declaration on Alex.

IBT Gandhi wants us to go to war with Monty. I decline. That was probably another bad move on my part.

1523 I designate 14 units for the assault force on Nanjing. The fifteenth unit will be commissioned next turn. We should be in position for the assault in about four or five turns.

IBT Hatty wants us to declare on HC. HC declares on Fredrick. Louis makes peace with Izzy.

1526 Begin the march on Nanjing.

IBT Frederick wants us to go to war with HC.

1529 We are in position to begin the siege of Nanjing.

IBT Our assault force is attacked by a CKN and we kill it.

1532 The defenses are down to 15% Go full burn on science.

1535 The last of our assault forces arrive. The defenses are down to zero.

IBT A Chinese musket and a cat approach Shanghai.

1538 We press home the assault on nanjing, we lose three cats in the softening up phase, but go nine for nine the rest of the way. We capture the city and move our Cossacks in for defense.

IBT Both Mao and Alex beg for peace. No dice.

1541 Kill a CKN. Suicide a cat against the musket to no effect. Move some Cossacks into position to take out the musket. Science to zero. SciMeth due next turn.

IBT We enter the industrial age. SciMeth => Physics

1544 - Kill the two Chinese units laying siege to Shanghai. It will take about 2700G to get physics in ten turns. Healing up. We have oil near St. Pete.

To be continued

Iainuki · Jan 24, 2007

Quick comment, I'll try to get more up tomorrow:

Ok, we have Scientific Method. I don't see Physics as a huge priority: it doesn't give us any immediate benefits. I think our next tech should be either Biology or Communism. While we're waiting on those, we can burn scientists from St. Pete on Physics.

Compromise · Jan 24, 2007

I agree that we shouldn't rush for Physics and that we can use great scientists to do most of the research on it. We'll want to pay attention every 5 turns or so to make sure no AI gets Sci Method. We will want the GS that Physics gives.

State Property (Communism) pays us back in cash whereas Biology pays us back in population. At this point, I'm leaning toward the cash. SP also reduces the need to build courthouses in all our new cities, so they can build barracks and troops instead. So, I lean toward Communism next

The Kremlin seems a bit expensive at 600H even though we have stone. Maybe not, though. That's about 3.3 cossacks and reduces rush prices. Any thoughts? I'm guesstimating that it would put one of our production cities out of commission for about 30T.

On the turnset, it looks like health and troops are the only thing limiting our conquest of this third island. I can't imagine anyone else declaring war on us after this. Thoughts about our next step?

grangerm · Jan 24, 2007

Nice job taking Nanjing without losing giving Mao a chance to counter.

Our GPP in St. Pete will drop now that we have Sci. Method, I'm not sure how far away we are from our next GP. Our chance of getting an artist from here on out will be increased, which is fine cause they can give us a boost toward MM or Radio.

Communism and State Property sounds fine to me. I agree, of course, that it is important that we check other civs tech status to make sure we get the Physics GS. It should be able to help us with Electricity.

Kodii · Jan 24, 2007

Awesome work Bugsy!

I agree that Communism should come next. Biology after that unless someone has Scientific Method, in which we burn a scientist on Physics and complete that first.

I'll see if I can get some sort of summary posted up after Bugsy's turnset. We are moving along at an awesome rate. We have ~1 month to finish. It looks like a bunch of teams might not finish on time.

Sir Bugsy · Jan 24, 2007

I'll change the tech to commie. I went for physics because it was on the straight line to mass media and for the GS.

I'll have the remaining turns posted shortly.

Iainuki · Jan 24, 2007

I also posted some (what I think) are good guidelines for what cities should be doing near my last turnlog and slightly more recently, after grangerm's turnset, IIRC.

Sir Bugsy · Jan 25, 2007

1547 Start marching on Beijing so we can start the siege.

Shift over to Communism. That will take seven turns to get at full burn. Well need 1960G for that burn. Four civs would like SciMeth, but no one has it yet.

1550- Sink two caravels.

IBT Cyrus wants us to go to war with Monty. Mansa wants to trade Divine Right and 450G for Liberalism. Other than financing our research, Im not sure how valuable that trade is. Other than founding a religion, has anyone ever considered that a valuable tech? He will give us banking instead of DR with the same deal. How generous.

HC (who by the way is only at war with the Germans, everyone is at war with Monty) wants us to declare war on the Germans. Since Frederick isnt a threat, HC has already captured one city, this would probably be a phony war, and we only have one strike against us with him, I accept his war invitation. He would more than likely not be our competition in the election. Throw stones now.

1553 Continue marching.

After Action Report: In about two turns well have enough cash to turn on science full bore. See the next post for the SITREP in China. There are seven defenders in Beijing. We have five Cossacks, five maces and a cat headed towards the city. I would set up siege camp on red dot and start hammering away at the culture defense while the other forces are gathered. You could probably pull a mace out of Shanghai and send over the Cossack that will be commissioned in Moscow next turn. You probably want a minimum of 11 attackers to take the city in one turn. We could use some cats since I suicided several at Nanjing.

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/The_Real_Ms_Beyond_SG003_AD1553_01.Civ4SavedGame

Spoiler :

Sir Bugsy · Jan 25, 2007

Iainuki · Jan 25, 2007

Hi, I'm next, right? I have some questions before my next turnset, but it will take me a little while to assemble them.

Kodii · Jan 25, 2007

Yup,

Compromise (on deck)
greggo (uuum...?)
LKendter
grangerm
Kodii
Sir Bugsy (just played)
Iainuki (UP)

Iainuki · Jan 25, 2007

There are lots of things going on here. This is my first blush attempt to address them all.

If we can't yet, we will soon be able to build West Point. This wonder raises two questions. First, is it worth the 1200 hammer investment? We have stone to reduce its price, but it's still rather expensive. Second, if we do build it, where do we put it?
At the moment, I'm thinking that we should get Steel before turning off research: cannons have improved bombardment and can win battles outright against medieval units, while having a decent chance even to beat muskets, grenadiers, and rifles. It also opens up two other things that could be quite powerful: drydocks and the Iron Works. We still have a lot of ships to build before we finish our conquest, I suspect, and one drydock in a strategic position could make them a lot cheaper. We also might manage to squeeze out some more speed by using massed frigates instead of cannons to bombard coastal cities. The Iron Works is a tricky problem that deserves an entry of its own.
How would we feel about using our great engineer to rush the Iron Works in Moscow? I know this sounds a little crazy, but I think it could pay off. The Iron Works will give us a +50% production bonus in Moscow right off the bat, +1 GE points, and, most importantly, it would let us run three more engineers there. With Biology and State Property watermills right around the corner, and Moscow's use as a commerce farm mostly having outlived its purpose, we could farm and watermill over some cottages to get the food to feed the engineers. With the extra GPP from the engineers, we might be able to get another engineer in time for the UN while running St. Pete's scientists; or, if push comes to shove, we can just turn St. Pete "off" for awhile until Moscow pops an engineer for our use. (I think we should also start running an engineer in St. Pete, on the off-chance it will give us an engineer.) A subsidiary consideration: if we pair the Iron Works and West Point together in Moscow, we could get an efficient, high-quality unit pump while maintaining the purity of its GE pool.
State Property obviates the need to build the Forbidden Palace, saving us 300 hammers.
When we flip to State Property, we can change another civic. Should we? The obvious thing to flip is to switch back to Bureaucracy from Nationhood. At this point, the commerce will probably be a wash, or soon will be, because of the difference between medium and zero upkeep. The big factor will be the production: more units in the short run, a faster UN in the long-run. However, Nationhood is quite good when we still have so much territory to conquer. I don't see that changing any of the others benefits us: Slavery is good in general, good on archipelagos, and good for warfare; Free Religion is good for warfare (it helps beat war weariness and pop borders in new cities) when you have a large, multireligion empire; and Representation gives us happiness and research.
How far do we want to go in conquering China? At the moment, I'm inclined to think we want to take every city on the mainland, including killing off Alex in Thermopylae, but I'm willing to listen to alternative opinions about that. Do we want to go after the junk cities Mao founded on the other island? They have little food, but lots of ice, adding land but not population towards domination. I'm leaning towards leaving them, but again, I'm willing to listen to alternative ideas.
Who's our next target? Mao looks to be crippled after the loss of Beijing: I don't expect him to put up much more resistance. I don't think I'm going to start the next war in my turnset, but I will probably end up positioning troops for the next player to attack someone. I'm inclined to think we ought to go after Inca next, to get the Great Lighthouse and a foothold on that island.
What's our tech path? State Property seems to be our next tech. I think after that, we want Steel or Biology, then the other one, then Physics and Electricity. At some point, we'll be able to trade for Banking, which will open Replaceable Parts. Do we want to research that tech, try to trade for it, or ignore it?
What do we want to upgrade our city raider maces to, and when do we want to do it? I normally beeline the Replaceable Parts/Rifling line, but in this game, for entirely sensible reasons, we've run up the Chemistry/Steel line first. At the moment, I'm leaning towards upgrading to grenadiers, for a couple of reasons. First, it looks like there's a good chance we'll be facing rifles before we're done: rifles beat cossacks, but city raider grenadiers aren't that much weaker in raw strength and get the attack bonus against rifles. Second, we can upgrade to grenadiers now: they have lower strength and thus are less effective against the medieval units we're killing now, but cossacks can handle those quite well. Third, once we have Rifling, we'll probably have more than enough rifles to cover our offensive units. If we do upgrade to grenadiers, when do we want to turn off tech to do it? Should we build more maces, in the hopes of upgrading them, as well?
If and when do we settle the fishing villages on our main island, and the one-square-desert fishing village with two fish? Do we try to capture Hsung-Nu, the barb city? When do we try these things?

Kodii · Jan 25, 2007

As of now, we are able to build West Point. I saw the option while I was playing. I don't know which city would be best. I don't build West Point very often, so I don't know where to put it.

I was also going to mention going for Steel. Cannons are a big upgrade from cats. At the same time, we also want to get Biology and continue to work towards Mass Media. Furthermore, we're going to need the money for upgrades, which I will talk about more later on. My gut feeling says: Communism --> Steel --> Biology --> Mass Media beeline.

I would like building Iron Works using the Engineer. In fact, I don't even think we need to have a Great Engineer to speed our victory. The construction of the UN isn't the slowing factor; its the population and AI votes. If we can get another GE popped before Mass Media, that'd just be icing on top of the cake.

I personally aren't a grand master of civics. I would like to hear from others on this issue.

I don't think we are in too big of a rush to select our next target. I am somewhat against going for Huayna, just because he is our friend, but it may be a good idea. I think the main Mao/Alex island is enough targets for us. I'd rather leave the crap cities alone.

We should upgrade our macemen to grenadiers as soon as we can. Somewhere in our tech path we need to take a break for upgrades. Perhaps after Steel?

I think the Fishing Villages should be settled as soon as possible. We have five locations for fishing villages: the Spice City, the Iron City, the West City, the South Spartan City and the East Shanghaian city. We should probably send a boat to see what the defence at Hsung-Nu are like. The two fish island was already settled by Mansa I think.

Compromise · Jan 26, 2007

* If we can't yet, we will soon be able to build West Point. This wonder raises two questions. First, is it worth the 1200 hammer investment? We have stone to reduce its price, but it's still rather expensive. Second, if we do build it, where do we put it?

600H is 3.3 cossacks. It's also some 30 turns from a good production city. I don't remember the last time I built it, so I lean toward not building it. I'm open to any insights.

My gut feeling is: conquer population, grow our own, get some votes, and don't expend efforts on any more non-UN wonders.

* At the moment, I'm thinking that we should get Steel before turning off research: cannons have improved bombardment and can win battles outright against medieval units, while having a decent chance even to beat muskets, grenadiers, and rifles. It also opens up two other things that could be quite powerful: drydocks and the Iron Works. We still have a lot of ships to build before we finish our conquest, I suspect, and one drydock in a strategic position could make them a lot cheaper. We also might manage to squeeze out some more speed by using massed frigates instead of cannons to bombard coastal cities. The Iron Works is a tricky problem that deserves an entry of its own.

I like steel. A drydock would be great. (More than that is probably a waste.)

* How would we feel about using our great engineer to rush the Iron Works in Moscow? I know this sounds a little crazy, but I think it could pay off. The Iron Works will give us a +50% production bonus in Moscow right off the bat, +1 GE points, and, most importantly, it would let us run three more engineers there. With Biology and State Property watermills right around the corner, and Moscow's use as a commerce farm mostly having outlived its purpose, we could farm and watermill over some cottages to get the food to feed the engineers. With the extra GPP from the engineers, we might be able to get another engineer in time for the UN while running St. Pete's scientists; or, if push comes to shove, we can just turn St. Pete "off" for awhile until Moscow pops an engineer for our use. (I think we should also start running an engineer in St. Pete, on the off-chance it will give us an engineer.) A subsidiary consideration: if we pair the Iron Works and West Point together in Moscow, we could get an efficient, high-quality unit pump while maintaining the purity of its GE pool.

Hmmm. I just don't know. Maybe after we have a plan and an estimate of how long it will take, we'll be able to tell whether the 30+ turns the G. Engineer will save on the UN will matter or not.

* State Property obviates the need to build the Forbidden Palace, saving us 300 hammers.

Agree. I don't think we need the FP.

* When we flip to State Property, we can change another civic. Should we? The obvious thing to flip is to switch back to Bureaucracy from Nationhood. At this point, the commerce will probably be a wash, or soon will be, because of the difference between medium and zero upkeep. The big factor will be the production: more units in the short run, a faster UN in the long-run. However, Nationhood is quite good when we still have so much territory to conquer. I don't see that changing any of the others benefits us: Slavery is good in general, good on archipelagos, and good for warfare; Free Religion is good for warfare (it helps beat war weariness and pop borders in new cities) when you have a large, multireligion empire; and Representation gives us happiness and research.

Good summary. I'd just do State Property and leave the rest.

* How far do we want to go in conquering China? At the moment, I'm inclined to think we want to take every city on the mainland, including killing off Alex in Thermopylae, but I'm willing to listen to alternative opinions about that. Do we want to go after the junk cities Mao founded on the other island? They have little food, but lots of ice, adding land but not population towards domination. I'm leaning towards leaving them, but again, I'm willing to listen to alternative ideas.

I don't want the junk cities on the other island at all. I think culture forces us to take everything on the original Chinese/Greek island.

* Who's our next target? Mao looks to be crippled after the loss of Beijing: I don't expect him to put up much more resistance. I don't think I'm going to start the next war in my turnset, but I will probably end up positioning troops for the next player to attack someone. I'm inclined to think we ought to go after Inca next, to get the Great Lighthouse and a foothold on that island.

We need a plan.

* What's our tech path? State Property seems to be our next tech. I think after that, we want Steel or Biology, then the other one, then Physics and Electricity. At some point, we'll be able to trade for Banking, which will open Replaceable Parts. Do we want to research that tech, try to trade for it, or ignore it?

Agree with Kodii: Communism, Steel, Biology, Physics->Mass Media

* What do we want to upgrade our city raider maces to, and when do we want to do it? I normally beeline the Replaceable Parts/Rifling line, but in this game, for entirely sensible reasons, we've run up the Chemistry/Steel line first. At the moment, I'm leaning towards upgrading to grenadiers, for a couple of reasons. First, it looks like there's a good chance we'll be facing rifles before we're done: rifles beat cossacks, but city raider grenadiers aren't that much weaker in raw strength and get the attack bonus against rifles. Second, we can upgrade to grenadiers now: they have lower strength and thus are less effective against the medieval units we're killing now, but cossacks can handle those quite well. Third, once we have Rifling, we'll probably have more than enough rifles to cover our offensive units. If we do upgrade to grenadiers, when do we want to turn off tech to do it? Should we build more maces, in the hopes of upgrading them, as well?

Hmmm. I like the idea of city raider grenadiers, but I wouldn't delay much to get them.

* If and when do we settle the fishing villages on our main island, and the one-square-desert fishing village with two fish? Do we try to capture Hsung-Nu, the barb city? When do we try these things?

We need a plan.

I may not get a chance to look at a save for a couple days. But, I said twice above that we need a plan. Here's my gut feeling on a plan, but I don't have hard numbers to back it up:

1) Finish up the Mao/Alex mopup.
2) Get more troops and position everybody to...
3) Take out Huayna, probably starting with Cuzco
4) Sweep through the Egyptian lands on the Mali/Egyptian/Incan island
5) Found all of our fishing villages
6) Sweep through the Mali lands on the incan island
7) Take Hsung-Nu and any city with decent food on that island (and the two-seafood city off of it).
8) Re-evaluate

After this wave of conquest, I think we want to try a combination of: A) Switching to a religion (almost certainly Christianity) if we can get some votes, and B) Beating up on backwards civs to get their land.

Our early game plan has been to attack the highest score civs because they have the best land. This has two nice effects: it gives us the good cities, and it slows the AI tech pace by eliminating the leading traders.

Our late-game plan is to attack the easiest population, concentrating on quality cities. A tech lead will make this much easier.

We want a high population percentage and low land percentage for the backdoor domination victory. The primary ways to achieve this are to own the better city sites, to increase the relative population of our cities, to lower the population of the cities we don't own, and/or to get votes from other civs' populations.

By taking the Roman, Chinese and (presumably) the Egyptian lands, we will have taken the low-hanging fruit for the better city sites. Going for biology and farming (and sparing the whip a bit) will give us decent relative population in our cities. The other factor here is to found those fishing villages for lands we already own, but aren't getting pop out of.

To lower the population of cities we don't own, we can capture them, whip them to size 1 (on the turn it comes out of anarchy!), pillage all food, and give them back to the original civ. (This will only be slightly effective right near the end. It's also somehting of a desperation move in case our land isn't very good.

And then there's votes from other civs. We might need some test games or insight from diplo experts, but the bottom line is: Can we count on the votes of any other civs? If so, how many votes and under what conditions? Is there a magic number (e.g. +11 diplo points) that guarantees us a vote? Does that number vary by civ?

[Note: Is there any way a permanent alliance can help us here?]

So, I think after the Mao/Alex mopup, we need to look at the map, estimate where the population is (keepable, whip-and-returnable, and voting) and figure out the best way to get what we need.

But that's going to require some good analysis of the map.

Again, my guess is that it will be a good move to take possession of the Incan/Egyptian/Mali island (and the northern island west of that), but this might be wrong.

Well, that's my two cents. I'll probably have more thoughts after/during my turnset.

Compromise · Jan 26, 2007

One more thought: I haven't looked at the map to see if there are great production sites that we should grab sooner rather than later.

Iainuki · Jan 26, 2007

Briefly, I don't think the fishing village on the west side of our main island is worth settling any more: it has no bonus food, so will grow very slowly, and is squeezed by Indian culture across the water.

LKendter · Jan 26, 2007

Kodii said:
I don't think we are in too big of a rush to select our next target. I am somewhat against going for Huayna, just because he is our friend, but it may be a good idea. I think the main Mao/Alex island is enough targets for us. I'd rather leave the crap cities alone.

I disagree here. The teams seems to agree pop is our biggest problem. Our goal is fastest UN. That means we must stay at war with someone for the rest of the game.

LKendter · Jan 26, 2007

Iainuki said:
Briefly, I don't think the fishing village on the west side of our main island is worth settling any more: it has no bonus food, so will grow very slowly, and is squeezed by Indian culture across the water.

That is fine. We still should build spice city, and iron city ASAP. We need population ASAP.

Iainuki · Jan 26, 2007

I agree with Lee: I think it's imperative that we remain at war for the rest of the game. We're in the window of maximum effectiveness for cossacks and we need to conquer pop, there's never any reason to slow down.

I'm going to try to play today. I'm going to develop Communism, then Steel. I will start the Kremlin somewhere ASAP (I think it's worth it: 2/3 hurry cost is a lot of hammers if we use it right). I'll flip to State Property when possible, but not another civic. I will conquer all of the Chinese mainland, make peace with Mao, and start moving troops into position to take on Huayna. I'm going to settle the cities on our mainland if possible. I still don't know about West Point, and invite more comments. Anyone else have feelings?

LKendter · Jan 26, 2007

Iainuki said:
I will conquer all of the Chinese mainland, make peace with Mao, and start moving troops into position to take on Huayna. I'm going to settle the cities on our mainland if possible.

Why Huayna next? I thought he was one of the friendlier civs with us. Does he have a bunch of really high pop cities, or new unique resources?

Iainuki said:
I still don't know about West Point, and invite more comments. Anyone else have feelings?

West Point is really hard to call this game. I tend to combine Hero Epic and WP and keep GT separate. I don't want to pollute Moscow's GE pool.

SGOTM 03 - The Real Ms. Beyond

Civ.D.

Warlord

Emperor

Warlord

Ka ICE

Civ.D.

Warlord

Civ.D.

Civ.D.

Warlord

Ka ICE

Warlord

Ka ICE

Emperor

Emperor

Warlord

Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!!!

Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!!!

Warlord

Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!!!

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