SGOTM 05 - Murky Waters

[LowtherCastle]

I probably won't be able to play my turn set until tonight or tomorrow morning.

I don't see that as a problem at all. Taking it easy makes sense anyway since our team is not at full-strength until BP and Gnejs give up on their futile attempts to tan their pale hides.

 

[klarius]

Oh well, we don't have 100% WW up to now .
The number in EK is misleading. The 2 unhappies are in reality a combination of WW and safety crybabies, just the interface isn't showing it like that.
We get 0.668 unhappies from safety. That's added up with the unhappies from WW and only then gets truncated.
We have 2 WW in MW. So our WW lies between 66.7% and 99.9% currently.
Still, we will get to 100% and then we are in big trouble.

Edit:
Judging from the abysmal production we had in MW, we had the 66.7% already when it grew to 3.
We might be 80-90% by now.

 

[Erkon]

An option would be just to build a city on the western shore on the rice then auto-raze it after 10 turns of peace. That gives us a workable rice for the newly build city w/o the need of IW.

Very nice idea, although we will get penalties for razing cities. But that may not be important due to the extra -3 for DoWing anyway. But will WW really decrease enough to be worth the 150 hammers if we re-DoW at once? Isn't it better to stay in peace for a long time and let the maintenance drain the economy for the AI?

 

[Erkon]

You see, that's where our early testing was simple-minded. Our conclusion should not have been:

tests misleading,​

but rather:

different land masses, different effects​

==> Big Conclusion: As soon as we had a general idea of the land mass (we had it pretty early on), then we do a new round of tests that would have told us:

Whoa....we're in for some intense WW...now what?​

Of course that's water over the dam for this game, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't gain some insight testing now (as you agreed with me on, I take it).

Yes, I agree that testing is valuable and that we get insight. The closer the test is to our game, the better the insight will be. Most important, we will get a heads up warning for events that we cannot predict (such as 300% WW for example, or LBM in the BC years).

 

[klarius]

Very nice idea, although we will get penalties for razing cities. But that may not be important due to the extra -3 for DoWing anyway. But will WW really decrease enough to be worth the 150 hammers if we re-DoW at once? Isn't it better to stay in peace for a long time and let the maintenance drain the economy for the AI?

Seems you didn't come around to read all my blabber thoroughly.
Razing a city immediately would be to get peace again a few turns later. The first peace resets the war success counter, so the second peace should be no problem.
But in another post I already stated that's it doubtful that a city with only 2 health/happy resources is good enough to get peace.
And BTW, razing cities with no culture doesn't give the penalty, though as you stated after the second declaration Asoka is anyways a lost cause for good relations.

 

[Erkon]

I did some testing with a map with a large continent shared by several AI. I reached -2 from WW @ size 3 & 4, but it didn't grow beyond that. The city gifting trick worked (I tried it with three AI, two others refused - Qin and Tokugawa). They (Asoka, Saladin, Cyrus) were not that picky of city and would accept mediocre sites. It was possible to get peace after recapturing the city as well. Once, they (Cyrus) poprushed an archer. Qin built the stonehenge around 600 BC.

It took until the AD-years until WW had gone down to -1 at size 3 & 4, even if I got peace with three of the AI. At that time, there we're not that many tiles left to spawn to, and two AI had got into war with each other.

The conclusions I draw from this (simple) test was that we will still have WW even if we get peace with up to three AI, and that it decays quite slowly. This does not come as a surprise

What this test has lead to is that we should not gift a city that we don't want ourselves. I therefor suggest that we gift Klarius Klam (1N of stone) to Asoka and then retake it once it grows to size 2. We will loose 1 due to lost trade connection from GC, or perhaps we should postpone GC until after Trojan Asoka?

I still think Gold City shall be located 1N of rice....

 

[LowtherCastle]

I still think Gold City shall be located 1N of rice....

It's hard to justify GC as Drojf other than its being a Drojf. Not having to build the obelisk is more workable, unless this game is going to last forever. So I tend to agree with 1N of rice, hate it though I do, not having the port on the E side. It does mean, however that we wo't pop those huts till we do build the obelisk...

So did you get the impression that we need to think in terms of Catapults?

Note: Don't forget that once we gift them KK, we can't get a settler to GC before we build a galley or take back KK.

 

[klarius]

I did some testing with a map with a large continent shared by several AI. I reached -2 from WW @ size 3 & 4, but it didn't grow beyond that. The city gifting trick worked (I tried it with three AI, two others refused - Qin and Tokugawa). They (Asoka, Saladin, Cyrus) were not that picky of city and would accept mediocre sites. It was possible to get peace after recapturing the city as well.

That doesn't sound to me as if you lost units at the rate we are currently.
And again the price for peace is depending on the losses we have. We want to have peace with the ones where the price is highest, as they are also probably giving the most WW.
I calculated (in fact guesstimated, knowing no exact numbers about the last 18 turns) that one city worth 350g (two health/happy resources) might not be enough to get peace with Asoka (though his low power helps).
The city east of the bananas has a value of about 540g, I still can't guarantee this is enough, but the chances are higher.

 

[Murky]

Posting a got it message. Does anyone care to summarize the plan for the next 15 or so turns?

 

[Murky]

I can't seem to open the save file. When I load the mod and try to load the file it says something about protected assets and closes.

 

[Murky]

I managed to open the save file but now I feel totally lost.

Why did we cottage over the dye when cottaging a river grassland tile would produce the same 2F/2C?

 

[Murky]

Alright, nevermind about being lost. I think understand the idea behind the previous actions. I finished by turn set and stopped at 1000BC.

Good news:

Peace with Alex lowered WW by 1 Red Face.
We settled Drojf east of the gold
Gold is mined and roded
We discovered horses near MW and they are pastured.

Bad news:

Asoka still wants Erkopper for peace.
WW has crippled Erkopper, we might trade it for peace. Since we do have horses, we could easily get it back.
WW increased back from barb loses to the original 2 red faces.

I was a bit short on time, might have made a few mistakes.

Spoiler :

Here is your Session Turn Log from 1420 BC to 1000 BC:

Turn 86, 1420 BC: You have made peace with Alexander!
Turn 86, 1420 BC: You have discovered Mysticism!

Turn 87, 1390 BC: You have trained a Settler in Erkopper. Work has now begun on a Spearman.

Turn 89, 1330 BC: Guangzhou has been captured by the Barbarian State!!!

Turn 90, 1300 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!

Turn 91, 1270 BC: You have constructed a Granary in Erkopper. Work has now begun on a Spearman.

Turn 93, 1210 BC: The villagers have provided you with a Scout!
Turn 93, 1210 BC: Drojf has been founded.

Turn 98, 1060 BC: You have discovered Sailing!

 

[Puddleduck]

Hey guys, I'm enjoying lurking in your thread. Thought I'd chime in to say hi, enjoying the depth of your analysis.

edit: p.s have you considered cease fire, instead of DoP ... don't know if it would help WW, but it might be easier to get

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well done, Murky! Looks good to me. Nice job on getting peace w/Alex and conquering a Qin city!

With that gold IW is only 22 turns away!

WW in MW is over 100% now, evidently. 3 people...yikes. Better gift some Trojan bananas to Asoka asap.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Question on DoP and Power Ratings

I know that AIs don't like to DoW if your power rating is a certain percentage higher than theirs from the xml. I noticed that our pwer rating is already slightly higher than Asoka's. IF we crank out units now, our power rating will soar above his. Will that convince him to DoP?

More questions on WW:

1. Is there a difference in the decay rate (that 99% factor) between Peace and cease fire?
2. On the -1/t decay, is that a total of -1/t or -1/t for each AI with whom we have positive WW points? (I.e., a max possible of -7/t)?
3. The Qin city we captured shows 50% barb. Does that mean battles on those tiles still add WW, because it's supposed to be >50%?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Getting to him to kill him, needs a culture link established (at least ~35 turns, even forgoing gold city) and about 25 turns movement.

Okay, I counted this out exactly and we need 33 turns to expand borders toward Asoka (27t if settle on RIce). From that location, our units need 15 turns to arrive at Asoka's doorstep. So we need 38 turns to attack Asoka after settling next to rice.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Now the unknown to me is, if we won sometimes (about 50g for us).

It appears to me that you can determine this from the p.wer graph. A notch down is 1 unit, a double notch down, I suppose means two. DId Cyrus lose two units when his city was captured or just one?

If I'm right, we've killed 3 Asoka units, but the warrior next to Delhi is damaged, so maybe one more this turn (Murky?) or is he unhealed from an earlier battle?

 

[Murky]

It appears to me that you can determine this from the p.wer graph. A notch down is 1 unit, a double notch down, I suppose means two. DId Cyrus lose two units when his city was captured or just one?

If I'm right, we've killed 3 Asoka units, but the warrior next to Delhi is damaged, so maybe one more this turn (Murky?) or is he unhealed from an earlier battle?

Your guess is as good as mine. I couldn't make out much.

 

[klarius]

Peace with Alex lowered WW by 1 Red Face.

We had no WW with Alex, so it cannot have helped.
WW was 67-99%, it is now over 100%.

Why are we building a spear in Drojf . Just so that all cities have the same pretty useless unit?

Neither EK nor Drojf can grow w/o desaster. MM accordingly.

Question on DoP and Power Ratings

I know that AIs don't like to DoW if your power rating is a certain percentage higher than theirs from the xml. I noticed that our pwer rating is already slightly higher than Asoka's. IF we crank out units now, our power rating will soar above his. Will that convince him to DoP?

More questions on WW:

1. Is there a difference in the decay rate (that 99% factor) between Peace and cease fire?
2. On the -1/t decay, is that a total of -1/t or -1/t for each AI with whom we have positive WW points? (I.e., a max possible of -7/t)?
3. The Qin city we captured shows 50% barb. Does that mean battles on those tiles still add WW, because it's supposed to be >50%?

Our power is in reality much higher than that of the AI currently, as the barb power (which is more than double ours) is not counted in the graph, but the whole team power is used in any AI decision. We will not increase the power short term with our production.
More power goes into the price of peace (basically scales down their price by their_power/(our_ power+their_power), but our small efforts will not make much difference. If they continue to win more battles than we (and that's for sure as long we aren't coming with our own units), the price will constantly go up. Our power ratio will in fact get worse over time, as barb power stagnates or goes down.
BTW techs which give power are a very efficient way to raise power, as they will count double (for us and the barbs). So IW gives 2*10 power, as much as 10 axes.

1. 99% is for not being at war, peace or cease fire the same.
2. -1/t with every team.
3. Only the cultural dominant team on a tile (the team containing the cultural dominant player) gets the break on WW. Ties decided by sequence. And the barbs are last in sequence . So yes there is still WW generated.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

One ( maybe ) critical question : did Asoka settle his second city or not ?