SGOTM 07 - Fifth Element

[culdeus]

I don't think we can get an archer in 1 turn, so finish the monastery, then archers will come every turn using the overflow. We get the exact same # of defenders. It's only like 9 hammers left on the Mon.

No CG1 promos.

Upgrades cost 80 not 115, if that's what you meant.

oh, didn't realize we were so far into the monastary.

hmm, I put my world built game on epic speed and not normal hence the lower upgrade cost. This is even easier to deal with at normal. Not worried about anything except losing all our land based improvements.

 

[MacBalt]

Ah yes, finally something in my wheelhouse. A WAR!!!!!!!!. Forget all this peace stuff. Have I mentioned that in 15 years of playing Civ I've actually never launched a space ship.

Aha! I was wondering why you were so preoccupied about expecting that DOW. Now I hope you are just as right about the outcome!

Anyone know if Merum has sobered up yet?

 

[Merum]

Anyone know if Merum has sobered up yet?

As if that happens.

Anyway, it's not my turn, it's GB's.

 

[MacBalt]

Yeah, I know. It was just one of those general interest questions.

Good luck GB!

Hey, Does anyone know if Izzy has open borders with either HC or Alex? If she doesn't, I'm not sure drawing her into our little disagreement with George is going to help us much. (Toku is, I suppose, out of the question.)

 

[WastinTime]

She will still be someone for George to hate more than us.
And maybe George has OB to get to her.

 

[greatbeyond]

All right here is where we stand. The 2 LBs on our Silver pillaged it. The LBs in NY are only 1 T from our city, the forest just west of NY is roaded. For this reason I switched from the Monastery to an Archer. By switching from the Plains Cottage to the Deer we gained enough Hammers to complete an Archer in 1 turn. We only had 5 units, and with Washington able to put 6 LBs at our doorstep on the next turn, I felt it urgent enough to forgothe Monatery for 1 turn. This gives us 6 defenders, 3 Axes, 2 Archers, and 1 Spear. George would have had to win all 6 matchups to defeat us. This leads to the first question.

Question #1
Do we continue with the Monastery or using the above MM of tiles, get another Archer in 1 Turn?
Washington will be able to put 8LBs next to our city in 1 turn. I would feel better about having as many defenders as possible.

By switching the Tiles worked, we lost 1 turn to Paper, going from 5T to 6T.
No one is still willing to trade us Feudalism. I would recommend changing to Feudalism for the boost in Defense.

Question #2
Do we continue with Paper or switch?

I gifted Isabella COL and sold PH to Alex for 30G and COL to HC for 100G and then upgraded both our Warriors.
Isabella was the only one who would even consider a MA against Washington and we didn't have enough to even convince her.

 

[Merum]

Finish the monastery. The increase in science will help to offset the pillaging losses.

The team seems set on continuing with paper, although I don't agree with this decision.

As I previously said, I think we should not be looking for a war ally here. We're giving techs away for nothing, when we could be holding on to them for trades. Izzy will not contribute significantly to any war effort, we will take a diplomatic hit for bringing in a war ally against George, and spend a lot of capital getting this alliance that we don't need or want currently with a civ that we won't ever be able to trust anyway. Better to handle this problem ourselves and be use our valuable techs to better ends.

 

[dutchfire]

Leave the monastry for now, IMO, better build some defence first.

Construction will come too late anyway, better continue Paper

@Merum: gifting away techs isn't that bad. Trades will be limited due to WFYABTA anyway. This way, we will get something from them.

 

[Merum]

@Merum: gifting away techs isn't that bad. Trades will be limited due to WFYABTA anyway. This way, we will get something from them.

Something which I feel is of little to no value. Why should we make crazy Izzy stronger when doing so does nothing but make us more vulnerable to her? We don't need the military help, so why do it?

At the same time, we're gifting techs that we could be trading to another civ for things we need, like construction.

 

[BLubmuz]

Not easy to see everything, but...
My opinions:
OK for the archer (now it's done, right?) but after the first one switch again to monastery, then archers, archers, and more archers.
Guerrilla1 is good, in case we can promote 1 to CG1.
Avoid growth.
Don't give away techs for nothing, or almost nothing.
Can we have some decent trades for calendar?
Don't touch the research, we MUST go straight to Liberalism.

CS to Izzy is too much, for a war that can be phony.

Sure we need construction, but we can obtain it in trade, and in any case we lack the time to research it and build cats before it's too late.

Revolt to the damn HR when the revolt will be available.

Trying to think:
Someone thinks that Wash was bribed? As i already said, if someone can have done it i suspect Asoka, don't ask me why.
Which can be his objective for that war?
1) simply destroy us (to gain land)
2) obtain something for peace
3) just disturb us
Remember he made a good trade with us the turn before declare

 

[culdeus]

It's possible he was bribed. Probably not for sure Alex or HC as they would want to bring them on the other first. Though more likely it's the "unsettled settler" theory proving out. This coupled with the power graph delta between us made it a no-brainier for him.

I also agree now that there's no better tech path that will make an impact in this war than the one we are on. Perhaps a different trading strategy develops, but the amount of time to move to a military tech path is too long compared to the impact it might have.

 

[MacBalt]

All right here is where we stand. The 2 LBs on our Silver pillaged it. The LBs in NY are only 1 T from our city... with Washington able to put 6 LBs at our doorstep on the next turn...

The LBs in NY were also only 1 turn from our city last turn, and he hasn't even made any move toward pillaging the fur. What is he waiting for? (Not that I'm complaining! )

My opinions: stay on paper, either archer or finish monastery works for me, remember to revolt to Hereditary Rule on turn 91, maybe hold off another turn on dragging Izzy in with CS -- I'm just not sure how serious George really is about this war.

 

[WastinTime]

I understand with a 7 turn TS the player has to make some minor decisions along the way, but this was 1 turn. I'm a little disturbed that so many things were done that were not discussed, some good, some questionable.

Monastery: Good one. I hadn't looked at the save to see if an archer could come out in 1 turn. Since it can, building it was good. But now, if we can make 1 more before the marble is lost we should. Why finish the Monastery now? Then we'll have 1 new archer (5% fortify) and a monastery that could have been done last turn. Since we made this choice, let's make a 2nd archer.

Trade to Alex. Good, I think we have a ton of extra tech for him. Still why didn't we plan for this?

Trade to HC: Questionable, If he gets construction we should not trade CS for it. CoL might have been nice for that.

Upgrade 2 warriors: I thought we weren't even sure we'd upgrade any until the attack is coming. Since it is 99% likely the attack will come, it's probably OK. Not sure we needed 2 right away. Again, not discussed.

Four surprises on a turn that should be completely mapped out is disturbing, but no harm done. Moving on...

Agree no tech change, We can't research Feudal before it will matter.

Stop talking about CG1, it is strictly worse that G1...look at CG2 and G2.

1 more archer.

Again, we want Izzy to be George's worst enemy so he doesn't attack again.

So, you pressed enter right? The suspense is killing me...what will Izzy offer if we ask for War + stuff for CS?

 

[BLubmuz]

Definitely 100g for CoL is a poor trade, but we need money to upgrade our warriors. As axes they can maybe resist to an attack, as warrior, they were cooked. They can also be good for mop-up the survivors, in case.

Here is our survival on the table.

Agreed on g1-g2, it's better than CG1-CG2.

Izzy is pleased with us, and Wash is her worst enemy.
Maybe she accepts to help us for nothing.

If i have to vote, no to give her CS for a war.

Let me understand: 1 more archer, then monastery-axe?

 

[greatbeyond]

I'm not a big fan of leaving our survival to chance. I looked but could not find a battle results utility. What are the chances of our current defenders against LBs?
Defense modifiers:
Base defense - 3
Hill defense - .25%
City defense - .50%
fortify bonus - .25%
G1 or CG1 - .20%
Walls ( we don't have them yet) .25%
Combat 1 - .10%

are these figured cumulatively or just added together? (edit - apparently just added together)
attacking LBs are 6 or 6.6 for +10% strength and 7.2 if +20% strength
if cumulative a LB with +20% is 7.26

Our units:
Archer (G1) - Base 3 + 125% = 6.75 or 8.4 (if cumulative)
Axe - Base 5 + 60% = 8 or 8.6 (if cumulative)
Spearman - Base 4 + 60% = 6.4 or 6.9 (if cumulative)

Odds - LB 6.6 attack vs Archer 6.75
vs Axe 8
vs Spear 6.4

This drives my thinking about whether to build another Archer or Monastery. The fact that Washington didn't attack when he had a chance last turn probably means he wanted to improve the odds a little. 6LBs vs 5 defenders to 8LBs vs 6 defenders. Remember, this is only what we see.

 

[greatbeyond]

Thoughts on what has been discussed so far.

We have monarchy.

Give CoL to Isabella.

Monastery: Good one. I hadn't looked at the save to see if an archer could come out in 1 turn. Since it can, building it was good. But now, if we can make 1 more before the marble is lost we should. Why finish the Monastery now? Then we'll have 1 new archer (5% fortify) and a monastery that could have been done last turn. Since we made this choice, let's make a 2nd archer. AGREE to 1 more Archer

Trade to Alex. Good, I think we have a ton of extra tech for him. Still why didn't we plan for this? This was done for the money and as a side benefit, the improved relations

Trade to HC: Questionable, If he gets construction we should not trade CS for it. CoL might have been nice for that. See first quote above

Upgrade 2 warriors: I thought we weren't even sure we'd upgrade any until the attack is coming. Since it is 99% likely the attack will come, it's probably OK. Not sure we needed 2 right away. Again, not discussed. We discussed the cost of upgrades and the fact that they were better able to defend than a Warrior. This coupled with the fact that we could be attacked on the next turn meant they should be upgraded this turn. I think we all missed the fact that we could be attacked in 1 turn. I only realized it, as I was checking all the possibilities.

Four surprises on a turn that should be completely mapped out is disturbing, but no harm done. Moving on... I agree, we missed some things and should look a little closer

Agree no tech change, We can't research Feudal before it will matter. IF we build 1 more Archer, I think we can forgo Feudalism

Again, we want Izzy to be George's worst enemy so he doesn't attack again.

So, you pressed enter right? The suspense is killing me...what will Izzy offer if we ask for War + stuff for CS?

I haven't offered yet, as we appear to be divided on whether to do this or not.

Do we want Calendar?

Asoka is already giving us the WFYABTA

We seem to agree on keeping the research on Paper

 

[WastinTime]

Calendar is a prereq that we'll need eventually.

Since only you have the save, you can see what Izzy will offer without doing anything permanent. Just put War and CS on the table and ask what would complete that deal.

 

[Merum]

So... we are hell bent for leather on the path for liberalism. What are we going to take with it, and will we have all the prerequisites satisfied when we get there? This may have been discussed in other posts in the past, but I think we need to make sure we don't lose sight of this.

 

[greatbeyond]

Isabella is the only one who will sign a MA against Washington. She is willing to give us Calendar and 10 Gold and the MA against Washington for only CS.

Have we rethought converting to Buddhism to get the positive relations. It appears that most of our potential PA choices are Buddhists? Not necessarily this turn but soon.

I have not done anything yet, and will wait for about 6 to 8 hours from the time of this post ( 9AM EST). It appears our questions for this turn are.

Question #1
Do we continue Monastery or build another Archer? It appears the consensus is build the Archer.

Question #2
Do we take the above deal for a MA with Isabella against Washington? We appear split on this. The good news is that Isabella will give us Calendar, thus we won't have to trade for it.

Question #3
Are there any other trades we want to make, ie resource or tech for gold?

 

[dutchfire]

Don't convert
Build another archer
I agree with the MA, we need calendar for astronomy by the way.