SGOTM 05 - Gypsy Kings

da_Vinci · Oct 16, 2007

Reading the maint thread, looks like no extension is coming up on the deadline. Also seems like enough teams have finished already that laurels are not the issue now. So my goal now is to see if we can reach a victory before Oct 31, not too worried about how fast in game time that is. In which case I might be a bit cautious about going to war before we are ready.

How sure are we that Izzy won't give OB? We could wait and see if the brothers of the faith will go up soon enough to get it ... if it does not after one more uptick, then back to Christianity (or if no uptick in 5 to 10 turns, or if the MMS drops by one).

Or if we are sure it will never come, Christianity now.

I like the idea of seeing what progress we might make against Asoka before we make peace, esp if we are not declaring on Izzy right away.

And is the golden age option worth considering?

dV

Ronnie1 · Oct 17, 2007

I played, nothing like dV's previous post.We are at war with Izzy and Qin still. We got all of Izzy's gold before we declared, and all of Asoka's for peace after we razed a few of his cities. My biggest mistake was trying to hold Delhi, actually that was the second biggest, the first was taking Delhi instead of keeping the stack moving east towards Bombay after razing Calcutta. I couldn't resist the shrine! It is lost now, but Izzy has it instead of Asoka. We just got Gunpowder! The big issue now, is that we need to declare on Cyrus if we want to keep feeding troops westward. The borders on his west isle city just popped for the second time and blocked our access. We can have Banking in 1 turn, which I think we should get and switch to Mercantilism and Vassalge. I have been building Caravels in the cities that can't get ground troops to west bridge. We have a toe hold in Valencia, and have razed the 2 eastern most Spanish cities. Keep it going!

The roster order is

Lehm - UP NOW
Conquistador 63 - on deck
hellwitch - in the hole
da_Vinci - waiting
Thrallia - waiting
g_storrow - waiting
Scout 214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - just played

New Inning

The autolog

Spoiler :

EDIT: There is a pile of troops in West Bridge, and the chain of galleys is just kicking in, so I think we should declare on Cyrus, raze his west isle city and keep pumping troops onto the mainland.

Lehm · Oct 18, 2007

I got the save and will post my ideas later today. What do you think is most important now?

da_Vinci · Oct 18, 2007

I like what I see! Good work R1! :goodjob:

Glad the war with Izzy went better than I had feared ... and not like my first forray at Hannibal in SGOTM 04 when we had to pull a Dunkirk ... :lol:

I see Assyrian fell ... I had wondered if taking it back would have allowed us to give it back the barbs, which would re-establish the cultureal defenses?

I saw a drill promotion for a cat ... some brilliant new idea that I have not thought of ... or a misclick? :lol:

Going forward ...

Rather than take on both Cyrus and Izzy at the same time, If we go back to Judaism, can we get OB with Cyrus and just fight Izzy? Then Asoka, keep some cities and get the FP up, then go get Cyrus and then Toku?

Yes, we lose some happiness, but we can whip that away ... we need a few more courthouses for FP anyway.

Valencia is starving, due to pillage troops. If we upgrade spear to pike, we can perhaps pick off one or two conquistadors (one is wounded), also our knight can pick off the crossbow. I would mass all troops in Valencia, then march on Santiago, which I would think about keeping. With 16 pop, might be a good place to whip the FP

We have a cr2 sword that I'd upgrade to a mace.

If we do declare on Cyrus, I might ignore his Westilse city for a while, to get troops faster to mainland. But Izzy's conquistqadors are tough ... +50% against our pikes, so let's not bite off more than we can chew.

dV

Lehm · Oct 18, 2007

Well, I had a look at the save and I am surprised about our good situation now. Really good job R1!!!

I think we could keep Santiago as dV proposed but IMO the FP would be better a bit more west.
Furthermore I wouldn´t declare on Cyrus right now. We could wait a couple more turns to and take maybe 2 cities of Izzy. After it we could make peace with her and declare on Cyrus to get a free way to the continent. After that we have once again the free choice of declaring on Asoka or Izzy again.

The question for me now is where to culture pop with the great artist. I would take the city SW of Santiago (already forgot the name) because it has more borderline to other cities.

Okay, I am curious about more of your ideas and I´ll play tomorrow.

Lehm

Ronnie1 · Oct 18, 2007

I saw a drill promotion for a cat ... some brilliant new idea that I have not thought of ... or a misclick?

It was intentional, after reading some more about promos I decided to try it, I think it was intended as the only sacrifice that turn, and it survived. It may have followed a cat that did NO damage ahead of it. The idea is that the first strike gives better odds of inflicting at least a little damage to the strongest defender. We have the 3 accuracy promoted cats that I was using to take down culture pretty quickly.

There was no way the barbs could hold Assyrian. I had a Keshik there, I tried to withdraw him to the east, but he was eventually killed anyway. I was going to try and bring the GA to Delhi through that territory, I'm glad I did not get there in time! We still have a GProphet somewhere also. I was going to settle him, but decided to save him for possible GA with next GP. Speaking of GP's, we may want to consider a few farms in Athens to allow for more specialists now that we have NE there.

If we do declare on Cyrus, I might ignore his Westilse city for a while, to get troops faster to mainland. But Izzy's conquistqadors are tough ... +50% against our pikes, so let's not bite off more than we can chew.

The best counter to the Conquistadors will be Formation promoted Knights and Pikes. If we can get a few to CR3 or better with Formation, we should be able to use them exclusively for Conq killing.

As to biting off more than we can chew, I'm not sure we have much choice, I don't think switching back to Jewish will have an immediate effect on Cyrus. I don't have any data on this, just a gut feeling, so I'm fully willing to listen to anyone who understands the AI happiness code. I don't think it will really matter though as Cyrus has to send his troops quite a long way also. Eventually we may have to find a good defendable position and hope the AI's will burn some units.

I think we could keep Santiago as dV proposed but IMO the FP would be better a bit more west.
Furthermore I wouldn´t declare on Cyrus right now. We could wait a couple more turns to and take maybe 2 cities of Izzy. After it we could make peace with her and declare on Cyrus to get a free way to the continent. After that we have once again the free choice of declaring on Asoka or Izzy again.

I think we may need to get more units to the continent right away. There was a pretty sizeable stack the attacked Delhi, and those troops are just starting to show up near Valencia. I think many more could be on the way soooooooooooooon!!! We may want to regroup in Valencia as dV suggested, but our bombard stack is already on the move in Spain.

The question for me now is where to culture pop with the great artist. I would take the city SW of Santiago (already forgot the name) because it has more borderline to other cities.

I agree with further inland to maximize tile grab.

da_Vinci · Oct 18, 2007

If Izzy has a bunch of conquistadors in the cities we can't see, we might not be able to take her on without new troops from the west. In which case maybe the religions conversion for OB with Cyrus is the safer path? If we convert I think we would be 0 diplo with him (maybe -1 at first if only +1 for shared religion), but he is pretty easy on OB, isn't he?

Musketmen with formation promotions might be the antidote to conquistadors. We could whip a round of them to get rid of any unhappy faces resulting from a religion conversion.

Finishing off Izzy, then Asoka before we have to go to war with Cyrus and Toku makes sense to me ...

dV

Maybe I will run some sims on cyrus and OB ... is there a hidden negmod for us being on a team (with the barbs?)

If we were sure that Jewish conversion would give us OB with Cyrus right away, would that be the preferred course?

Lehm · Oct 18, 2007

Yes, I would prefer the OB.

By the way. Qin would make peace in exchange for gunpowder. Are we willing to give him what he wants or does it not matter anymore???

da_Vinci · Oct 18, 2007

Lehm said:
Yes, I would prefer the OB.

By the way. Qin would make peace in exchange for gunpowder. Are we willing to give him what he wants or does it not matter anymore???

I did some testing in worldbuilder, two civs, Khan and Cyrus. There are two things that will make Cyrus not go for OB even if cautious:

1. If we are his worst enemy

2. If we just cancelled a deal (like open borders) ... in which case he would not make the deal even at +2, until maybe 10 turns passed.

I reloaded the test after the run where I cancelled OB and found the following:

Cyrus was cautious even at -2 (heathen religion) ... he will make the OB deal at -2 ... in fact, if I don't make it, he makes the offer!

But at -3, he goes to annoyed with us and the deal is off the table.

Now if we go to Judaism, we lose -2 for heathen, so we are at least -2, and we add +1 or +2 for brothers of the faith, so should be -1 or 0 with him.

He is -2 with Toku, so we should not be his worst enemy after the swap. And he is annoyed with Toku at -2, not sure what that is about.

Now, maybe there is a -1 hidden negmod because we are teamed with the barbs ... so we might be -2 or -1 right after the swap

So it looks like Judaism should get us OB with Cyrus pretty quick, but there is some uncertainty.

Now for peace with Qin ... we might cut some WW if we get peace, which might help re the religion change. Question is would he trade GP to Izzy right away? No, he is annoyed with Izzy, but might trade is to Cyrus, who is really friendly with Izzy.

If we don't care if Izzy gets it, we could trade it to Qin for peace and to Cyrus for some tech maybe? (after he is cautious with us).

If we don't want Izzy to get GP, then we can't trade it to Qin.

Let's hear from others on these two issues.

dV

Lehm · Oct 19, 2007

Good job dV. Interesting statement!

I would agree to convert to Judaism right now and I also would make peace with Qin and give gunpowder to Cyrus if he has a tech for us or maybe just gold. I don´t see musketman as a big manace and it is still a step more for easy to get cavalry. we should have conquered her until she would get cabalry.

da_Vinci · Oct 19, 2007

Lehm said:
Good job dV. Interesting statement!

I would agree to convert to Judaism right now and I also would make peace with Qin and give gunpowder to Cyrus if he has a tech for us or maybe just gold. I don´t see musketman as a big manace and it is still a step more for easy to get cavalry. we should have conquered her until she would get cabalry.

If we convert to Judaism, don't make peace with Qin for GP until we can trade it to Cyrus ... it may take a turn or 2 for the diplo points to settle out. But I would not wait much more than a couple of turns to get the peace with Qin, as that war has been a big pain in the butt!

dV

Ronnie1 · Oct 19, 2007

I'm going with your opinions in regard to diplomacy. Everyone from Monty to my wife will tell you I'm not great at that option. Charge! is turning into my mantra, along with Steal! in BTS. I'm really starting to love spys. Since I'm off topic now, this has been a fun and informative thread to read, http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=240749.

So I say do what you feel will work for the near future, keep an eye on our gold, as we are now negative at 0% Sci IIRC. Play 20 turns so we can try to finish by Oct. 31, I think Alan would extend the deadline by 2 weeks if we asked.

da_Vinci · Oct 19, 2007

Ronnie1 said:
So I say do what you feel will work for the near future, keep an eye on our gold, as we are now negative at 0% Sci IIRC. Play 20 turns so we can try to finish by Oct. 31, I think Alan would extend the deadline by 2 weeks if we asked.

The maint thread has a team who really sped up play (to their detriment, apparently) to make the 10/31 deadline when no extension was announced at the outset of the discussion, so I am not anxious to ask for one at this late date.

If we can get OB with Cyrus, this becomes pretty straightforward I think ... kill Izzy (or weaken her and get peace for tech), knock off Asoka, then go for Cyrus. A late killing spree, just like SGOTM 04. With the same no laurel result, unfortunately

. But at least we maintain the record of always finishing, and always winning the game (if not always meeting the goal of the competittion), which is more than several teams can say ... :mischief:

)

Since we are trying to finish fast, I think the on deck person should also post an "I got it" and be prepared to play if we don't hear from the up person in 24 hours. We can always put a skipped person back in later in the inning, so the skip to the on-deck person after 24h of silence can be strict, and we don't want to lose time if we have to make that skip.

dV

Conquistador 63 · Oct 19, 2007

Well I'm on deck. I haven't had the time to upload and study the latest saves but I'm following the discussion and will probably be able to play after Lehm's turnset, assuming it will happen in the next few days. Of course some 24h of debate between turnsets should be the minimum required interval.

da_Vinci · Oct 19, 2007

Conquistador 63 said:
Well I'm on deck. I haven't had the time to upload and study the latest saves but I'm following the discussion and will probably be able to play after Lehm's turnset, assuming it will happen in the next few days. Of course some 24h of debate between turnsets should be the minimum required interval.

Since we have the "I got it" from Lehm, not really an issue at this time ... I was thinking of this going forward. Mainly, just so the on deck person is not taken by surprise when they are up 24 hours after they become on deck, if it comes to that.

Meanwhile C36, while we have you "on the phone", so to speak (if we in fact do :lol:

), since you are our diplo expert (you have too many diplo awards now to deny it :lol:

) what do you think about the switch to Judaism to get OB with Cyrus? We are -4 total now (with -2 for heathen religion), so we should get to -2 with that gone, get at least +1 for brothers of the faith (if not +2 right away), but maybe hidden negmod -1 for being teamed up (barbs).

The fact that Cyrus is annoyed at Toku at -2 does conflict with my test where he was cautious at -2 with me ... what do you think of that?

I am hoping Lehm plays tonight ... that would be about 48h from last turnset, and we need to play about every 48h to finish on time, I think.

dV

Conquistador 63 · Oct 19, 2007

I checked the AI attitude .xls and noticed Cyrus will accept open borders even when annoyed. If he doesn't agree right now it seems to me that his real attitude towards us is worse than it shows (a higher negative number), because of barbs in our team.

That been said, there is no clear way (at least for me) to determine if converting religion would be of any help.

And after having a quick glance at last save, I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to declare on him in the first place.

da_Vinci · Oct 20, 2007

Conquistador 63 said:
I checked the AI attitude .xls and noticed Cyrus will accept open borders even when annoyed. If he doesn't agree right now it seems to me that his real attitude towards us is worse than it shows (a higher negative number), because of barbs in our team.

That is odd, as in my sim he would take it at -2 which was still cautious, but not at -3 which flipped him to annoyed :crazyeye:

I am pretty sure that being on a team (like our PA with Mao in SGOTM 03) has a -1 hidden negmod ... maybe it is bigger if teamed with barbs?

It would be easy to declare on Cyrus, but would it be easy to win against Izzy and Cyrus both at the same time? That is my concern, and why I think the conversion play is worth trying.

dV

Ronnie1 · Oct 20, 2007

If we try it, and it does not work in 5-10 turns, I would go back to Christian and declare on Cyrus. I'd rather go down swinging than waiting to see if it may pan out.

Lehm · Oct 20, 2007

Okay, I played 20 turns. Here is the turn set:

Spoiler :

It´s by far too long to post the whole turn set. Now I lost the data of the rest of my turn set. Sorry.

Lehm · Oct 20, 2007

The OB deal with Cyrus went well and 2 turns later Izzy declared war on Asoka.
I conquered Cordoba because Valencia seemed to be to much in Indian territory. Then I destroyed Murcia three tiles east of Barcelona. Unfortunately Izzy must have discovered a hidden stack of conquistadors somewhere in her territory. A big amount of units took back Cordoba 2 times. After 19 turns I decided to make peace with her because we were not able to make any progress in the war. We still got Education , the world map and gold from her. I settled the artist in Cordoba but we are still having problems with revolution there as Barcelonas cultural boundery includes the tile of Cordoba. So we should send some more units there.

I made peace with Qin. Not for gunpowder but philosofy. Though it was better. I sailed along the borders of Toku and hohohoho... that is what I call an army. units over units in his cities!!!

We got a scientist in Athens but I am not sure what to do with him. We still have the prophet in Karak and could start a golden age.

We have to amount units once more now and then go for Izzy once more or directly go for Asoka...

SGOTM 05 - Gypsy Kings

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Jester

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Jester

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Jester

Gypsy Prince

Gypsy Jester

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Prince

Deity

Gypsy Jester

Gypsy Jester

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