SGOTM 04 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

First, a bit of house cleaning: I started the Forbidden Pallace in Bibracte and then quickly reconsidered when I realized the Palace at Versaille was next door, but I failed to remove it from the queue list, so Gator needs to clean up for me.

Second: Frederiksberg suggested that there was a way to bribe civs to go to the Free Religion civic. I was perfectly willing to be corrupt, but I was never able to find a way to do so. I'd appreciate an explanation of how it can be done. More importantly, how can we utilize religion to our advantage? I confess, I've completely ignored it, as I rarely use it in my games.

"One problem with this plan is that Hannibal may be researching Assembly Line now and could have infantry quite soon."

See turn 339 above.

"

 

[Cactus Pete]

"We need a tech we can bribe Hannibal with."

That occurred to me too. I was thinking Biology, in part because our Celtic cites could really benefit from it, and someone said you need population to control the UN.

"Perhaps we need to take a little time to consolidate and get some Jails built to reduce WW? We are burning up 30% on the culture slider to keep happiness that we need in the research column to catch up a bit."

Culture is at 30% due to WW vs Brennus, which will disappear when anarchy ceases. There will be some that has built up with Gandhi, but probably not enough to adjust the slider from 0%.

"Blockading Gandhi's ports, as you said CP, will probably only set him back."

Yes, but if we don't, he will attack us again. Possibly just completely blockading the two cities in the straits is a compromise worth considering. We could throw a lot of galleons on top of frigates in the mix to discourage him. We just don't want any more conflict with him. This is a problem we need to try to solve before proceeding.

"I think we have to gift/trade Steel to Izzie right away and we should probably also think about Steam Power as well."

Similar to above . . . If we do, it will be harder to blockade him. We might want to delay one of them until we have, or nearly have, Combustion. But that is all old think, and we need new ideas.

I note that Izzie has closed borders with Mehmed and Hannibal. This means that they can only attack our cites via the sea. If (while) we have destroyers and they don't, we can be at war pretty safely and hope that they put units aboard galleons.

 

[Cactus Pete]

BTW, note that Assembly Line (infantry) requires Corporation, which obsoletes the Great Lighthouse. While we are trying to recover and get ahead in science, the GL may not be disposable. Is there another way to go other than with infantry?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Hannibal has Democracy.

D'oh. I think I looked at an old save. That makes it almost impossible to bribe Hannibal. We could try the same tactics but with Mehmet as the victim instead. He is weaker and is probably not trading with Gandhi. Or we could simply attack him to take his cities and extort some techs. I think it's important that we keep Izzy in the game since she has many resource deals with Gandhi and it's also likely that she's doing tech deals with him.

I think we have to gift/trade Steel to Izzie right away and we should probably also think about Steam Power as well.

Maybe start by gifting one of them. We don' want to give any techs to Izzy if Gandhi doesn't have some techs he can trade to her so I would wait with one of these techs.

Perhaps we need to take a little time to consolidate and get some Jails built to reduce WW? We are burning up 30% on the culture slider to keep happiness that we need in the research column to catch up a bit.

It's impossible to see how bad WW is since we are currently in anarchy. Maybe things are OK. Depends on how much WW we are getting from the war against Gandhi. I don't think it's much because the last battles we fought on our home soil.

Perhaps we should delay researching Combustion and try to get Biology so we can trade for a few techs we need, should we reach it first?

That's an interesting idea. I think anyway we should finish researching Railroad first. Big question is if we can afford not to trade Railroad to Washington when we get it?

Blockading Gandhi's ports, as you said CP, will probably only set him back. I think we need to set back Hannibal. He's higher in the power chart than us and may have a bit better tech. We need to slow that down. How?

We could attack him. Attacking his buddy Mehmet is another posibility allthough it's unclear how much that will affect him since he still has Washington to trade techs with. But maybe this is a good situation since Washington will trade with Gandhi as well.

EDIT: X-posted with Cactus Pete.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Second: Frederiksberg suggested that there was a way to bribe civs to go to the Free Religion civic. I was perfectly willing to be corrupt, but I was never able to find a way to do so. I'd appreciate an explanation of how it can be done. More importantly, how can we utilize religion to our advantage? I confess, I've completely ignored it, as I rarely use it in my games.

The mechanics are simple: Call up the leader you want to "persuade" and then click on "Adopt Free Religion" in the trade screen and start bargaining. In some cases it is shown in red because that particular leader is unwilling or it could be missing entirely - either because that civ does not know Liberalism or because it has recently had a revolt preventing any new changes for a while (6 turns I think). Adopting a religion will give you both good friends (Those with the same religion) and enemies (Those with different religion). How many diplomatic points you can earn this way depends on the leader. Some leaders like Izzy and Saladin value shared religion very much and the diplomatic modifier can go as high as +7 (or is it 8?) over time. Other leaders will rarely go above +3, +4 (Mao). In this game I think we are best served by getting the other civs to give up their religions since that will remove their negative diplomatic modifiers in relation to Gandhi.

Yes, but if we don't, he will attack us again. Possibly just completely blockading the two cities in the straits is a compromise worth considering. We could throw a lot of galleons on top of frigates in the mix to discourage him. We just don't want any more conflict with him. This is a problem we need to try to solve before proceeding.

I don't think the blockade has got to be complete. In my experience the AI is very timid when it comes to sending out naval units when enemy vessels are visible near the city. So posting a Frigate near Gandhi's cities but never adjacent to any sea resources migth be enough to prevent his ships from leaving their safe ports.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Call up the leader you want to "persuade" and then click on "Adopt Free Religion"

I never noticed this. Is it available in the present save for any leaders?

"I don't think the blockade has got to be complete. In my experience the AI is very timid when it comes to sending out naval units when enemy vessels are visible near the city. So posting a Frigate near Gandhi's cities but never adjacent to any sea resources migth be enough to prevent his ships from leaving their safe ports."

Over the last twenty-plus turns Gandhi certainly sailed frigates when ships were visible to him. How close to the actual city of emberkation, I didn't make note of, but they were within attack distance. Do you think the programming is different for galleons? How about galleons escorted by frigates?

 

[Frederiksberg]

"Call up the leader you want to "persuade" and then click on "Adopt Free Religion"

I never noticed this. Is it available in the present save for any leaders?

Yes - we can make Mehmed adopt Free Religion if we give him Steel.

Over the last twenty-plus turns Gandhi certainly sailed frigates when ships were visible to him. How close to the actual city of emberkation, I didn't make note of, but they were within attack distance. Do you think the programming is different for galleons? How about galleons escorted by frigates?

I'm afraid I lack hard evidence. I have just noticed a strange reluctance by the AI to attack from a city even in cases where it had superior naval power. My theory is that some code has been put there to make the AI less easy to bait and trick to leave the city and that's what makes it keep units inside the city even though it doesn't make sense for naval units. But I can't confirm this.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Yes - we can make Mehmed adopt Free Religion if we give him Steel."

Thanks. Do we want to do that?

"I have just noticed a strange reluctance by the AI to attack from a city even in cases where it had superior naval power."

I've noticed what I regarded as the AI's susceptibility to naval intimidation . . . quite possibly the same thing you picked up on. That's part of why I was taken by surprise by G's behavior. Even if it's a partial truth, I'm concerned that intimidation may cause Gandhi to stay put but build naval units to the exclusion of everything else. I suspect that he did that during my turn set. I really wish we could come up with a different strategy.

 

[Frederiksberg]

"Yes - we can make Mehmed adopt Free Religion if we give him Steel."

Thanks. Do we want to do that?

I think it depends on our overall strategy. Do we pursue the peaceful development trying to improve our own tech speed and making the other civs more friendly towards Gandhi or do we take advantage of our strong army and attack someone.

I'm starting to think that it's not the right time to attack Hannibal. He already has SAM Infantry and could easily be close to having ordinary infantry as well. Izzy and Washington I would prefer to keep in the game because they trade with Gandhi and Izzy has many resource deals with him. That leaves only Mehmed as a possible target right now. What we could do is to trade Steel to Mehmed in return for adopting Free Religion, war with Gandhi and a small amount of gold. Bribing him into going to war is necessary in order to break the defensive pact he has with Hannibal. Then we attack him and try to squeeze out a tech or two. I think we should be aiming for a short war and not build many more troops (we already have 21 grenadiers, 6 cannons and 3 cavalry). Maybe we need a few more cannons.

Rather than troops I would build 3 more universities in some of our commerce cities and then Oxford in Nidaros so that we can hire more scientists there. What about building The Globe Theatre in Bibracte? Would make that city an almost ideal place to use the whip.

In the longer perspective I think we can handle Hannibal by denying him access to oil and thus preventing him from building armored vehicles, gunships etc. He has no oil inside his own borders but might be able to trade one from Washington who has two oil resources on land and one off-shore. One of Washingtons oil resources is very close to Vienne and we might be able to get this one peacefully by applying cultural pressure i.e. hiring artists and maybe building the Hermitage. Unfortunately Hannibal already has uranium in two places SW of Thaenae and NW of Kerkouane so he will be able to build destroyers, battleships and ICBM's. Nuclear weapons we can get rid of if we manage to pass the non-proliferation resolution in due time in the UN.

 

[Cactus Pete]

I think it depends on our overall strategy. Do we pursue the peaceful development trying to improve our own tech speed and making the other civs more friendly towards Gandhi or do we take advantage of our strong army and attack someone.

Once we've healed and positioned our troops, can we not find a compromise? I'm not clear why the two approaches are mutually exclusive.

I'm starting to think that it's not the right time to attack Hannibal. He already has SAM Infantry and could easily be close to having ordinary infantry as well.

I'm unclear on the difference.

Izzy and Washington I would prefer to keep in the game because they trade with Gandhi and Izzy has many resource deals with him. That leaves only Mehmed as a possible target right now. What we could do is to trade Steel to Mehmed in return for adopting Free Religion, war with Gandhi and a small amount of gold. Bribing him into going to war is necessary in order to break the defensive pact he has with Hannibal. Then we attack him and try to squeeze out a tech or two. I think we should be aiming for a short war and not build many more troops (we already have 21 grenadiers, 6 cannons and 3 cavalry). Maybe we need a few more cannons.

Does Mehmed have cities we'd want to take that we can hold against cultural pressure?

Rather than troops I would build 3 more universities in some of our commerce cities and then Oxford in Nidaros so that we can hire more scientists there. What about building The Globe Theatre in Bibracte? Would make that city an almost ideal place to use the whip.

Makes sense . . . Any reason why this is incompatible with a short war vs Mehmed?

In the longer perspective I think we can handle Hannibal by denying him access to oil and thus preventing him from building armored vehicles, gunships etc. He has no oil inside his own borders but might be able to trade one from Washington who has two oil resources on land and one off-shore. One of Washingtons oil resources is very close to Vienne and we might be able to get this one peacefully by applying cultural pressure i.e. hiring artists and maybe building the Hermitage.

Would it make sense to not develop our own oil reserves and then trade for W's extra to keep H from getting it?

QUOTE]

I'm still looking for a tactic that will allow us to avoid conflict with G in the short term.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Once we've healed and positioned our troops, can we not find a compromise? I'm not clear why the two approaches are mutually exclusive.

Maybe they don't ned to be. Particularly if we can make the war short and fight it mainly with the troop we already have so that most of our cities can focus on building improvements. Taking out Mehmed will probably slow down Hannibals tech pace somewhat but since those two are supposedly not trading with Gandhi it may not matter much to him.

I'm starting to think that it's not the right time to attack Hannibal. He already has SAM Infantry and could easily be close to having ordinary infantry as well.

I'm unclear on the difference.

SAM infantry are best at fighting aircrafts and are a little weaker (18 vs 20) than ordinary infantry.

Does Mehmed have cities we'd want to take that we can hold against cultural pressure?

That doesn't look too good since the ottoman cities are quite close to each other and to the spanish and american cities. Could be a reason not to go to war right now.

Would it make sense to not develop our own oil reserves and then trade for W's extra to keep H from getting it?

Nice idea but then we would have to give away two cities that are placed on top of oil first...

I'm starting to doubt that we should go to war right now. How about persuing th UN path. That means researching Physics - Electricity - Radio - Mass Media. If we build the UN in Camulodunum and give the city away to Izzy we should be certain of the General Secretary position. Our best chance of improving Gandhis relations to Mehmed and Hannibal is to pass the Free Religion and Universal Suffrage resolutions. Right now Gandhis GNP sucks big time (he is dead last in GNP) - maybe because he has adopted Mercantilism.

The alternative could be to research towards Assembly Line and then attack Hannibal with our CR infantry. Allthough this slows down Hannibal it won't help Gandhi and that's my main worry.

 

[leif erikson]

Wow, lots of discussion!!

Right now Gandhis GNP sucks big time (he is dead last in GNP) - maybe because he has adopted Mercantilism.

I don't know if this is an accurate indicator as the total amount of gold is recorded, not the Gold per Turn? I've always wondered about it as the curves on the graph look like the total gold to me.

I just called up Hannibal and he said to me, "Fear my Artillery". That's not good!

However, I think we need to plan on a war with Hannibal soon. He is getting too far ahead in tech and will be in a position to launch a space ship before Gandhi.

Looking at the two empires, Hannibal and Mehmed, I am struck that in Hannibal's empire there are mostly farms and in Mehmed's there are mostly Towns from Cottages. This makes me think that conquering Mehmed first will help give us a monetary boost. It will also improve our relations with Izzie as she hates him. I think we can fight this war with what we have and at the same time consolodate our holdings in Cetlia and get research moving again.

I think we should follow the warmonger's tech path of Combustion, Rifling, Assembly Line and Artillery, trading when we can. We also need to pick up Democracy along the way. We can bribe Mehmed with Steel and then stab him in the back.

Hopefully, this will put us in a position to take on Hannibal. At this point, it seems to me that the best help we can give Gandhi is to eliminate his rivals and support his friends, although we'll need to watch Washington. He could head for a Space Ship too, but he is a bit behind Hannibal.

EDIT - Just remembered that I haven't addressed CP's question about our fighting with Gandhi. I think the best way to stop him fighting us is to focus him on someone else. Allying with Mehmed may help that a bit but Mehmed is too far away. Gandhi is not ready to face Hannibal, in fact I think Gandhi would lose several cities to Hannibal. So, we need to get ready to take on Hannibal to prepare him for Gandhi.

The short answer is that I don't have one at the moment.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I don't know if this is an accurate indicator as the total amount of gold is recorded, not the Gold per Turn? I've always wondered about it as the curves on the graph look like the total gold to me.

They are a bit hard to decipher. This might help: The GNP Graph

However, I think we need to plan on a war with Hannibal soon. He is getting too far ahead in tech and will be in a position to launch a space ship before Gandhi.

As things are going right now I think that all civs - even Izzy - can launch before Gandhi.

Looking at the two empires, Hannibal and Mehmed, I am struck that in Hannibal's empire there are mostly farms and in Mehmed's there are mostly Towns from Cottages. This makes me think that conquering Mehmed first will help give us a monetary boost. It will also improve our relations with Izzie as she hates him. I think we can fight this war with what we have and at the same time consolodate our holdings in Cetlia and get research moving again.

Problem with taking Mehmed's cities is that we will have a hard time keeping some of them due to cultural pressure from Spain and America. Out of Mehmeds 6 cities I think its only 3 we can use: Bursa, Istanbul and Konya. Edirne wil come under cultural pressure from Madrid, Ankara is under pressure from Atlanta and Samsun is pure crap. Should we simply raze these cities? Anyway, what we stand to gain is only 3 fully functional cities. Might be good enough though. Relations with Izzy will not change unless we can get her to join the war...

Hopefully, this will put us in a position to take on Hannibal. At this point, it seems to me that the best help we can give Gandhi is to eliminate his rivals and support his friends, although we'll need to watch Washington. He could head for a Space Ship too, but he is a bit behind Hannibal.

I don't think we should give up helping Gandhi and I would like to try the UN path. Hard question is if we should go for Assembly Line and Artillery first in order to remove Hannibal or go for the UN first. Removing Mehmed and Hannibal won't help Gandhi's tech pace it's more likely to slow it down. The UN path would most likely help him if we manage to pass resolutions increasing trade, enforcing his favorit civic and banning nuclear weapons. From my point of view we have lost control of the game if we allow other civs - particularly Gandhi - to develop nuclear weapons. Firing nuclear weapons increases WW a lot. At least we should aim to aquire Physics quite soon to get an idea of where the uranium is. All we know is that Hannibal has two uranium mines already. If Gandhi has no uranium the nuclear ban is still nice but maybe not crucial.

 

[leif erikson]

They are a bit hard to decipher. This might help: The GNP Graph

Thanks, this is very good info. Might have to change some lines of code in my game for that graph.

Problem with taking Mehmed's cities is that we will have a hard time keeping some of them due to cultural pressure from Spain and America. Out of Mehmeds 6 cities I think its only 3 we can use: Bursa, Istanbul and Konya. Edirne wil come under cultural pressure from Madrid, Ankara is under pressure from Atlanta and Samsun is pure crap. Should we simply raze these cities? Anyway, what we stand to gain is only 3 fully functional cities. Might be good enough though. Relations with Izzy will not change unless we can get her to join the war...

Then that is what we should do. Please see below.

I don't think we should give up helping Gandhi and I would like to try the UN path. Hard question is if we should go for Assembly Line and Artillery first in order to remove Hannibal or go for the UN first. Removing Mehmed and Hannibal won't help Gandhi's tech pace it's more likely to slow it down. The UN path would most likely help him if we manage to pass resolutions increasing trade, enforcing his favorite civic and banning nuclear weapons. From my point of view we have lost control of the game if we allow other civs - particularly Gandhi - to develop nuclear weapons. Firing nuclear weapons increases WW a lot. At least we should aim to aquire Physics quite soon to get an idea of where the uranium is. All we know is that Hannibal has two uranium mines already. If Gandhi has no uranium the nuclear ban is still nice but maybe not crucial.

This is an interesting argument. I haven't looked at it like that before and it might work.

The problem I see to beelining is the weakness we will have in military techs and the chance that a Transport full of Tanks and some Bombers show up over our core cities. Also, as Brother Bede has pointed out to me numerous times, we need enough population to control the UN votes. And that means more

 

[Cactus Pete]

“Nice idea but then we would have to give away two cities that are placed on top of oil first...”

Oh . . . Never mind.

“I'm starting to doubt that we should go to war right now. How about persuing th UN path. That means researching Physics - Electricity - Radio - Mass Media. If we build the UN in Camulodunum and give the city away to Izzy we should be certain of the General Secretary position. Our best chance of improving Gandhis relations to Mehmed and Hannibal is to pass the Free Religion and Universal Suffrage resolutions.

Given that we could use the UN to help Gandhi’s tech pace, wouldn’t we still have to combine that with attacking his competitors at some point? Are you just saying that perhaps we should get the UN first? You’ve certainly convinced me that the UN would be very helpful (not completely convinced that its essential), but I’m reluctant not only to let our military stand idly by (until it becomes obsolete and we have to take away from research to upgrade) but also to not take advantage of the research we’ve already done and go ahead and get Combustion so we can, at least temporarily, control the seas. BTW, who, besides Washington (and Gandhi, but he seems no threat) is likely to compete with us in getting the UN? I’d like to know if the team thinks the UN is essential and whether not going that tech path now will make it unlikely we build it.

“Hard question is if we should go for Assembly Line and Artillery first in order to remove Hannibal or go for the UN first. Removing Mehmed and Hannibal won't help Gandhi's tech pace it's more likely to slow it down.”

It’s not clear to me that H is ever going to help G’s tech because he’s well ahead of him. Are you thinking open borders or trading techs or what (and when)?

On the other hand, wouldn’t it help G if we either raze H’s cities on G’s border to accommodate his expansion, or capture them and allow G to take them from us, or even weaken them and then allow G to take them from H (as I think was suggested earlier (though I’m unclear how we could accomplish that)? My thinking is that, long term, we should pursue one of those strategies (though can’t see getting any of them done soon). If there is a strong argument against doing that at all, ever, then please explain, and I’ll adjust my thinking.

“As things are going right now I think that all civs - even Izzy - can launch before Gandhi.”

Absolutely, and I see no way to keep G from losing the race except to, at some point, attack his competitors. I would be delighted for someone to convince me otherwise.

“Just remembered that I haven't addressed CP's question about our fighting with Gandhi. I think the best way to stop him fighting us is to focus him on someone else.”

If getting Mehmed to declare war really has a chance of turning G’s attention from us, that would be a pretty persuasive argument for attacking M as soon as our forces heal a bit. I do have concern that he would become H’s vassal.

“What we could do is to trade Steel to Mehmed in return for adopting Free Religion, war with Gandhi and a small amount of gold. Bribing him into going to war is necessary in order to break the defensive pact he has with Hannibal. Then we attack him and try to squeeze out a tech or two. I think we should be aiming for a short war and not build many more troops (we already have 21 grenadiers, 6 cannons and 3 cavalry). Maybe we need a few more cannons.”

Shouldn’t we gift it to Izzie too, hoping that she’ll trade with G?

“One of Washingtons oil resources is very close to Vienne and we might be able to get this one peacefully by applying cultural pressure i.e. hiring artists and maybe building the Hermitage.”

If the team thinks this has a decent chance of success (and I’ve no experience with such a tactic), let’s try it.

 

[Bede]

Controlling the UN votes are important to prevent Gandhi or someone else from achieving a UN victory. I don't really have a sense of the voting blocs, but votes for either Gandhi or us are unlikely at this point as our friends are too low in the population count. Getting in the race requires one of two things: 1) build the building; or, 2) have the biggest population of all the nations. Neither one is a sufficient condition for election to the Secretary General post which allows control of the resolutions later voted upon. Election as SecGen requires that nations representing a simple majority of the total world population vote for the candidate. Abstaining leaders can cause deadlocks.

The simplest way to guarantee control of the voting is not necessarily to build or control the UN, just control more than 50% of the world's population when the vote for SecGen takes place. That is why the conquest or vassalization of the larger nations plays such an important role. A vassal will always vote for the master unless somehow the vassal manages to become a candidate by building the UN.

With all those variables in play, controlling the votes of 50% of the population is the simplest, if least elegant, solution. It does have a brutal beauty of its own, however.The notion of getting the UN into Isabella's hands so she becomes the opponent has a roccoco brilliance to it, but I have seen those kinds of ploys fail before. For instance Isabella couild somehow ingratiate herself with the Mahatma or some other player and come through with enough votes to stalemate the SecGen election or outright win it herself.

Setting out to conquer the 50% of the population necessary to assure the SecGen victory regardelss of who erects the building has the advantage of not bifurcating the research path between the path to Mass Media and the path to a stronger military.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"With all those variables in play, controlling the votes of 50% of the population is the simplest, if least elegant, solution. It does have a brutal beauty of its own, however.The notion of getting the UN into Isabella's hands so she becomes the opponent has a roccoco brilliance to it, but I have seen those kinds of ploys fail before. For instance Isabella couild somehow ingratiate herself with the Mahatma or some other player and come through with enough votes to stalemate the SecGen election or outright win it herself."

Is this RL, or is it Civilization?

Given the voting reliability of vassals, how feasible is it to conquer the three desirable Ottoman cities and then make a vassal out of Mehmed at that point?

 

[rrau]

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Diplomatic victory is off the table.

 

[Bede]

Diplomatic victory is off the table but UN resolutions are not, I think .

Just did a little Worldbuilder test on another map. Disabled UN and gave the settler knoweldge of Mass Media. No UN building in the building options. Looks like we are chasing a red herring.

The lady from the "Show Me" state stops another snipe hunt.

 

[leif erikson]

Diplomatic victory is off the table but UN resolutions are not, I think .

Just did a little Worldbuilder test on another map. Disabled UN and gave the settler knoweldge of Mass Media. No UN building in the building options. Looks like we are chasing a red herring.

The lady from the "Show Me" state stops another snipe hunt.

I've PM'ed Gyathaar with the question of whether we can build the UN and use the resolutions.

Should hear soon.