SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

we should prepare to gift that city to some other, unsuspecting AI. We could keep some units nearby to recapture it near the end, or let the barbarians grab it.

I think we should alway check the diplo screen before attacking any city. Make a decision in advance on whether any AIs might want it (3+ bonus tiles, less than 4 cities, etc.) and whether we want to give it to them. Then when we capture it, we know whether we want to keep or raze it.

 

[klarius]

2. War Weariness. We must maintain WW at < 50%, because that and only that enables us to poprush pop4>pop2 in all our cities (5 cap). Now, Asoka may be 50% of our WW, but for how long? ==> DoP Toku and Asoka.
3. Maintenance Costs. We need to have 2-3 cottages growing. (Maybe eventually grab California Gold Rush near Toku.) I'm not convinced captured cities and pillaging will provide enough money.==> We need to pasture the pigs. The lost hammers are minor by comparison and once we get EK back, it won't want to share the bananas with MW.

Key Factors

• Access all AIs asap=> 1)BBW, 2)QG
• Pillage AIs asap => Keshiks => tech to HBR
• WW<50%=> Gift EK to Toku, then to Asoka
• Finances => pasture pigs

I don't like it, but I find it to be the unavoidable reality.

I don't see that 2-3 cottages, which will not be worked for most of the time help a lot. It's unrealistic to assume that we will have 5 working population in the capital ever. Even 4 working is very doubtful, while there is pop rush unhappiness. EK, will nearly never work cottages.
More than 2 cottages shared between MW and EK don't make sense, IMO.

The crucial part, IMO, is to stop research early. If we go HBR that means for me, don't research IW at all, wait for the automatic barb research to deliver it. The same for writing and math.

 

[klarius]

I think we should alway check the diplo screen before attacking any city. Make a decision in advance on whether any AIs might want it (3+ bonus tiles, less than 4 cities, etc.) and whether we want to give it to them. Then when we capture it, we know whether we want to keep or raze it.

For the original owner (in fact for any civ who ever owned the city) the 4 city limit doesn't apply.
Also it doesn't apply if the city is within 9 tiles of the next city of the civ.
But there is also another denial reason, that's "financial trouble" in this case. Don't know if the AI runs into this, we sure do .
Value should be no problem, if we are talking about a civ we where at peace at some time to reset the success counter.

Still it, would be nice if we could:

• Keep a city some turns to rush some military
• Gift it with all tiles pillaged
• Redeclare, move some troops on every production tile
• Let the barbs take it, before it can build a defender

I just think the last part maybe a bit a bit tricky .

 

[jesusin]

Furthermore, the city hasn't grown to pop2 yet...

Oooops. I knew someone would make me blush. Not as much as the "we are not building a granary because we already have it", though . Is there a prize for the most stupid idea on the thread?

Your unavoidable reality makes a lot of sense. Completely agreed. Have we all reached an agreement?

 

[klarius]

Ok, a few older posts

Very important questions related to WW:

1. Why 11 turns betwee DoP and recapture? (EDIT: and Re-DoP w/Toku?)
2. Can we capture EK from Toku and gift to Asoka on the same turn?
3. In other words, can we lower our WW by DoP w/Asoka the same turn we raise it with DoW w/Toku?

1. I think 10 turns of peace mean really 11 turns, but haven't checked it.
2. Yes
3. Sure, that's the big idea

By the way, our Scouts are sitting in the cities. Should they...
a) stay like that
b) be disbanded
c) lurk in the jungle fugbusting so that no ore barbs pop up in our island.
d) try to pass to Saladin land on a barb galley (would workers run away and stop working or that doesn't happen with Scouts?).

6.- Would Toku accept Drojf for peace? I can't test it at the moment since that would be playing forward. Murky, do you know?
Ok, the idea is to gift Drojf, saving EK granary and it's great production. We would be losing gold though. An important side benefit is that we free MW from building the second settler, so it can concentrate on Galleys.

a) We don't have to decide before we have more units.
b) Most probable solution.
c) Doesn't help. Barbs can appear where our scouts look. We also have already the max barb contingent on our island. But anyway why? Barbs are our friends.
d) Very unlikely to work, but interesting idea. Maybe try. Edit: Workers run away only from units with attack value.

6. We can never check beforehand, but for Toku I would assume the value of Drojf would be enough. But really losing the gold is no good.
DoP with Toku will not help a lot with WW, so we may stay at the same happiness level. We still need peace with Asoka.

 

[Big Pig]

By the way, our Scouts are sitting in the cities. d) try to pass to Saladin land on a barb galley (would workers run away and stop working or that doesn't happen with Scouts?).

There is no value in using the scouts for this as they will soon contribute to our WW with Sal if we do. However the spear (+? soon-to-be-made axe) from EK could try to go to Sal-land on the barb galley

 

[klarius]

There is no value in using the scouts for this as they will soon contribute to our WW with Sal if we do. However the spear (+? soon-to-be-made axe) from EK could try to go to Sal-land on the barb galley

We shouldn't put a valuable unit on a barb galley. The movement is completely random (it's not scouting) and they stay away from enemy culture unless there is something to pillage or attack. The idea with the scout would only be for scouting and only because the unit will be disbanded anyway.
WW with Sal is no problem. The 2 WW points we would get for losing the scout are away 2 turns later. It's unlikely/impossible (we don't really see his culture boundaries - what we see is what the barbs have seen a long time ago) that there will appear new barbs on his island, so no new WW.

 

[Big Pig]

We shouldn't put a valuable unit on a barb galley. The movement is completely random (it's not scouting) and they stay away from enemy culture unless there is something to pillage or attack. The idea with the scout would only be for scouting and only because the unit will be disbanded anyway.
WW with Sal is no problem. The 2 WW points we would get for losing the scout are away 2 turns later. It's unlikely/impossible (we don't really see his culture boundaries - what we see is what the barbs have seen a long time ago) that there will appear new barbs on his island, so no new WW.

True about WW but I disagree with your concerns about putting units on a barb galley. Sure the movement is random but there are 2 options:
1. It ends its turn next to our island
2. It ends its turn next to Sal land

If 2. then great - if 1. then we wait another turn, or disembark when the units can be more usefully employed elsewhere or we have our own galley to provide transport

 

[klarius]

DOes it take the floor of the unhappiness percentage?

What do you mean? There is no percentage. It's calculated in 1/1000s. The unhappy population is as usual then calculated by truncation like:
floor((unhappy_thousandths*pop)/1000)

1. It ends its turn next to our island
2. It ends its turn next to Sal land

3. The galley suicides before we can disembark.
Anyway it would take a long time to put a spear (which we don't have to spare up to now) on the galley. By then we should have our own galleys.

 

[klarius]

I've tried to emulate what happens if we gift EK and whip MW and not work the horse, and the HBR takes 34 turns to complete. I think 30 turns is a bit optimistic...

I think 30 turns are realistic.
MW will work the horses most of the time during research-
Gifting EK reduces our maintenance by 2g, so we can run 100% for probably until we retake EK (West gate will cost 3, but only comes later).
Retaking EK gives a few gold, so we can continue 100% for a few more turns.
QG comes online during the research.

 

[Big Pig]

3. The galley suicides before we can disembark.
Anyway it would take a long time to put a spear (which we don't have to spare up to now) on the galley. By then we should have our own galleys.

Highly unlikely - to the best of my fog-gazing neither Sal's 2 visible cities or his capital are coastal

It would be good to pillage Sal's copper before he starts building units. But, if we don't have the units, then we don't have the units. I assumed the spear in EK would be surplus once we gift EK, but maybe we need it for garrison duties?

 

[klarius]

Highly unlikely - to the best of my fog-gazing neither Sal's 2 visible cities or his capital are coastal

It would be good to pillage Sal's copper before he starts building units. But, if we don't have the units, then we don't have the units. I assumed the spear in EK would be surplus once we gift EK, but maybe we need it for garrison duties?

Where is Sal's 4th city. I think it's east of the capital on coast.
If he liked Sal already has an axe. His copper should be in his culture boundary for quite some time. The city there has religion (even before Murky's turn) and an obelisk. We just didn't note the culture expansion as there was no barb unit there in a long time.

The EK spear is needed for retaking EK, while not letting MW w/o garrison.

 

[Erkon]

... My kalle and Orgar charts ... Orvar, LC! Orvar.

Worse news for Gnejs. The Gnejs/klarius fastest Keshik Plan looks tragic. The timing of the re-DoW could hardly be worse. As a consolation, I offer an alternative solution that seems to work just fine:

We poprush 2 unpromoted axes in EK and gift to Toku on T6, Asoka on T16/17. The rest stays pretty much the same with the 2 chariots, 2 galleys, etc., except that the QG settler comes out a bit earlier, T28, and the Keshik later, T35.​

Now if Erkon is right about HBR, then this solution is better anyway, because the 2 axes are ready to cross the ocean on T34 at BBW border expansion.

The timing between the Keshik and HBR seems very tight. Why not send two workers with the first galley? One worker can road the inbetween island and the other can start on the continent. Instead I think we should send our melee units to Saladin, and only send Keshiks to the continent. Axes would be fine for Saladin.

Vote postponed. From the responses since yesterday, I get the impression that we're not ready for a decision. The proposal to gift EK twice is obviously interesting enough to pay further attention to...

Do you agree with me that it currently stands between Orvar and some variant of klarius#4 (aka fastest keshik on continent aka almost fastest keshik in continent)?

...
I would have liked to play tomorrow this time. Erkon says we are not ready for a decision yet (I agree, "one more day", as usual ). ... So if play doesn't start today/tomorrow, I would like to have my turn swapped with someone's else.

Your post has a time stamp of 06:28 AM in Sweden. Which time zone are you in I think that the upcoming turn set will be halted perhaps every five turns to enable a review of the situation. Due to delays in correspondence, perhaps it's better if you swap with Gnejs? Unless Gnejs is away this weekend... Well, we'll sort it out when we know how to play. Perhaps you've come back before, jesusin

A few comments on your strategy, Gnejs...
Settling BBW on rice adds a turn to all sea travel.
...
Isa has copper in her hill capital!!! We may need to cripple her econony and leave her capital until we have amassed a huge attack force.
...

I agree on most of this stuff. But why would "Settling BBW on rice adds a turn to all sea travel."?

A tripple promoted archer on hill with walls/60% culture will have a strength of about 9.5 to 10 + first strike against a sword (archery promoted) that has 8.1. Two swords / archer would be enough, which is not a "huge attack force" A keshik will have 6.6 against 9.5 - 10 (first strike cancel each others).

...
By the way, our Scouts are sitting in the cities. Should they...
a) stay like that
b) be disbanded <= when unit cost show up.
c) lurk in the jungle fugbusting so that no ore barbs pop up in our island. - wont help
d) try to pass to Saladin land on a barb galley (would workers run away and stop working or that doesn't happen with Scouts?). - wont help
...
5.- In the 3 excel options there are a bunch of warriors built. ... How many should we built?
And now the great idea you have to frown upon:
6.- Would Toku accept Drojf for peace?
...

We could use scouts to attract mobile units, but I think they will cost upkeep before we have use for them.

5. One warrior for each city (4)
6. Bad idea...

A combination of studying all your ideas, game mechanics from klarius, doing hours of excel charts, and not being able to fall asleep tonight has led me to the following rationale which I think gives us a way out of this dilemma...

Agree in general.

I've looked at LC's charts and I can't improve them . Regarding Drojf: how about chopping the obelisk (done ~T6), completing the spear (~T14), build a galley (~T33). Worker chops forest, road to tile 1N of stone, then farm rice. Border expansion ~T21, switch to rice on ~T34 (or when HBR is in)

 

[Erkon]

True about WW but I disagree with your concerns about putting units on a barb galley. Sure the movement is random but there are 2 options:
1. It ends its turn next to our island
2. It ends its turn next to Sal land

If 2. then great - if 1. then we wait another turn, or disembark when the units can be more usefully employed elsewhere or we have our own galley to provide transport

Let's try with a scout then!

 

[Big Pig]

Fair enough - if the WW is negligible then it would be worth getting some extra info on Sal's lands.

 

[klarius]

One more point for deciding on gifting Toku:
Osaka hasn't grown in Murky's set, though it has at least 3 food surplus.
Good chance that it was or is still building a settler.
Either the settler is already under way, or will be within the next few turns.
So any turn delay gifting Toku may close this option for ever (at least until we offer him Madrid ).

 

[Gnejs]

Is there a prize for the most stupid idea on the thread?

Dunno, but if there is, Erkon has claimed it long ago.

Btw, I grabbed post #1000!

 

[Gnejs]

Your post has a time stamp of 06:28 AM in Sweden. Which time zone are you in I think that the upcoming turn set will be halted perhaps every five turns to enable a review of the situation. Due to delays in correspondence, perhaps it's better if you swap with Gnejs? Unless Gnejs is away this weekend... Well, we'll sort it out when we know how to play. Perhaps you've come back before, jesusin

I will be away for the weekend. With internet access and my Civ laptop , but with social obligations too

 

[jesusin]

Same timezone here as Sweden, of course. Don't worry, for me 6:30 is not late after night's party but early after a good night of sleep. I usually start great cultural games this time in the morning before going to work... only to blunder in the evening, when i am tired and sleepy!

 

[klarius]

OK, my newest planning . Has the advantage that it doesn't hurt the MMers feelings for not working the best plots.
Gift EK turn 0 to Toku. Complete settler in MW by hand working all the best tiles .
T4 settler sets of for rice tile to settle T10. MW works on galley mostly working best tiles, but MM to grow to 4 on T11 (horses - irrigated grass).
T11 retake EK and gift to Asoka, hope is we can work MW at size 4 now (reduced WW with Toku - none with Asoka).
MM normally to get galley and settler, but note that we have higher WW from T22-T28.