SGOTM 07 - Fifth Element

greatbeyond · May 27, 2008

Until we get Machinery we don't have a very strong unit against Cats. It's too bad we didn't get the only supply of Horses. We need Maces to be able to have a 1 unit victory over Cats. If Washington doesn't settle for peace, we may have to build our military more. If he does settle, we need to upgrade our units every time we are able as this should make the AI think twice about DOW on us. I do not think we need to build a Worker or WB as a priority. The one Worker we have will probably suffice for now. Focus on things that are of primary importance to our goal, such as a Forge, then University, then Oxford. The combo of the GL, an Academy, and Oxford shouldn't be underestimated. We can be speeding through techs well ahead of the AI. We also need to decide what, if anything, we will give Washington for peace.

culdeus · May 27, 2008

I'll bet a donut he's giving us things for peace. The AI is very apt to give something for peace to a second war enemy that asks for peace first.

I'm adamant that we do not divert hammers for military. this is what gets us the bottom 2-3 teams each time (a big diversion from our plan with no benefit). We must continue to take the risks we are taking. It's all or nothing.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

When this war started, the first thing I said was "don't panic". We've lost 1 unit and we have 11. That's panic. GW could not possibly take our city. Our worker should have been out on the land if there were any safe places. We can get LB any time we want now so there hasn't been any danger for a while. Pillaging us will be tough if there's a next time. We will lose 1 unit to that cat, hardly 100 hammers. We could have saved both cottages. I would let it go 1 turn and hope for peace cus all it can do in 1 turn is make the hamlet a cottage, no work needed to repair that. But I really want to lose 1 military unit. We are -5 /turn right now and it sounds like people want to spend a lot on upgrades.

We need a 2nd worker. We have like 40-50 turns of work to do (work that would normally be done already). Then more work after that. Cutting that to 20-25 turns is the best way to get moving again. A 3rd worker would have been a good idea too, but it's too late now.

I don't think growing to size 11 is priority. Super-growth will come as soon as we get the deer/sheep and health resources back.

GW gets whatever he wants for peace. It should come next turn. I think that's 15 turns.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

So here's the plan to get us to Edu.

Road the stone.

Kill the cat.

Finish Forge, then worker. With the overflow from forge, the worker can be done in 1 turn if we really had to. I won't push it that hard (requires starvation), so it'll be almost done. Just a couple hammers go to that and the overflow hits the University on the following turn.

Make peace and do some diplomagic on our relations.

Get Edu. Then I'll stop and we can discuss where to go from there.

BLubmuz · May 27, 2008

agreed for the 2nd worker.
agreed to kill the cat: this not only removes a threat from our territory, but gives us a better trade for peace.

Disagree about our units: that's not panic, and we can use some (after Globe) to protect our territory, just in case.

We risk to arrive to liberaliam without optics: we must consider this.

Don't give nothing to Wash for peace: he must pay!

@Merum
for what i know, politics comes from the ancient greek "polis" meaning city.
It was the art to rule the city.
Poly means many, but it has nothing to share with politics.

MacBalt · May 27, 2008

culdeus said:
I'll bet a donut he's giving us things for peace. The AI is very apt to give something for peace to a second war enemy that asks for peace first.

Agreed. It probably won't be Feudalism, but I think he'll offer us something rather than the other way around too.

culdeus said:
I'm adamant that we do not divert hammers for military. this is what gets us the bottom 2-3 teams each time (a big diversion from our plan with no benefit). We must continue to take the risks we are taking. It's all or nothing.

As vulnerable as New York might look, I still think the peace approach is the better route for us too -- so long as we can get away with it. I agree that we are reasonably safe now. An artist bomb might give us trouble, but even that wouldn't be the end of the game for us. Better to go back to our plan, as culdeus advises.

WastinTime said:
When this war started, the first thing I said was "don't panic". We've lost 1 unit and we have 11. That's panic. GW could not possibly take our city. Our worker should have been out on the land if there were any safe places.

Well, maybe you are right, but I know if I'd been the one playing the turns I would have been careful to play it safe too. That stack of LBs doesn't look nearly as scary now that it's dead.

WastinTime said:
I really want to lose 1 military unit. We are -5 /turn right now and it sounds like people want to spend a lot on upgrades.

Seems a shame to lose a catapult though, which won't need to be upgraded for many turns. What about burning an axe instead? (Just an idea -- I'm not sure I really want to do this yet either.)

The rest of the plan looks good to me. Let's get back on track. Hopefully Izzy will give George a good spanking for us anyway.

EDIT #1: cross-post with BLub.

EDIT #2: Hey BLub, I think Merum's etymology for "politics" is meant to be a joke. (You are correct about the actual derivation of the word.) I get the impression Merum doesn't like politicians much.

I wouldn't normally be so quick to boil them all in the same kettle, but the last several years have me leaning more strongly than ever toward Merum's point of view.

culdeus · May 27, 2008

I like the idea of killing off some of our units to take out the cat and then sue for peace. The less upkeep the better.

Can we find out if philo has been researched yet by looking at the religion screen?

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

(@culdeus: Philo/Tao was gone a while back.)
(@Balth: You're right about being more cautious if you're the one playing the TS. No one wants to be the one to get us killed. I don't mind the extra military, but we should not have sacrificed getting the worker out sooner. We should have been looking ahead to the University.)

I started:

No horses on continent, so I promoted and threw the spearman at the cat. No damage.
Next I attacked the Cat with our C1 Axe. We got lucky (?) and killed it.

Worker to stone.

T1: Peace! for 10 gold + 1 GPT and WM from GW (Furious -> Annoyed)
Isabella also made peace. She must not have to wait 15 turns.

In order to repair relations and prevent further wars:
Gave GW Metal Casting (Annoyed->Cautious)
Traded CoL to Toku for 40 gold. Gave him Lit and Metal Casting (Cautious -> Pleased)
Traded KK Metal Casting for 20 gold (Cautious -> Pleased)

Keep in mind, we want them all to have MC so they will get Machinery and trade that with us.

We got no negative relations for any of these trades.

The entire continent is pleased with us except GW who is cautious.

Worker: road.

Forge done, start worker.

T2: We have Edu and need a new target. I suppose it's just Philo/Liberalism. No point getting drama before we need it.

Moved Axe back home and healed. Did not promote.

Build queue is a no-brainer finish worker, univ, ox

culdeus · May 27, 2008

Some graph gazing seems to at least show signs that some of the teams whipped an army about the time we got our war.

I'd think a good heavy majority of teams got a DoW from Washington or other AI like we did at about the same time.

Looking at the way the AI is shaking out with it's resources and geography I can see no way that 3 teams don't at least finish the game with some victory of some kind. The thought that this would be a race to outlast is now no longer a question.

Our score/power looks very competitive with the usual top teams meaning at least we are staying with them in tech and population growth.

The key to this game will be mostly luck though in picking a PA partner and getting that PA partner to launch prior to an AI on the other continent, which BTW with optics already had by our AI on our side and likely the other side as well we should be hearing from a "new world" AI in the next 30-40 turns.

The trading experts need to explain the consequences of open trading with new world AI for us before we get too far along. They'll certainly have a different religion (probably the whole continent is jewish).

MacBalt · May 27, 2008

Sounds good so far WT. Too bad about Izzy's peace treaty. What are George and Izzy's "glance" relations at? How much of a priority should it be for us to make sure our relations with George stay better than his relations with Izzy?

Agree that Philosophy has to be our next research target. We can reassess after that to see how far we can get along the Optics path. Unhappiness is no longer a problem, right?

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

Izzy and GW are at -5 with each other. They should stay mad as long as they are different religions.

There won't be a launch on the other continent. They don't have us as a trading partner and are probably way behind.

There isn't much luck involved in picking a PA partner or getting them to launch first. Some people think you need spys to sabotage the competition, but that is not necessary. It's all much clearer if you've done a launch before. Has anyone tried a test game where you launched spaceship yet? It's not hard and very educational. I don't see how we will be able to discuss a tech path if no one has even tried to finish a game. There are actually other roads that let us skip Philo and Liberalism...two techs we don't really need immediately. But going to Lib first is just as good, so I'd rather not discuss the other options and go with the target everyone thinks we've been aiming for all along.

culdeus · May 27, 2008

I'm fairly clear on the process. I haven't done one all the way thru, but I've at least tried and been able to get a PA. I'm a little fuzzy on how we plan on or will handle the other continent's civs under certain scenarios. I've actually been able to get a foreign PA easier than a domestic one.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

I don't see any reason to hold off playing out my TS. There's not much that is going to happen (I hope). Workers finish the stone, then move on to the Deer and Marble. I'll keep an eye on the tech, but I don't think we'll trade for anything yet.

I'll wait a while longer for input before finishing my TS.

It sux that Liz's ice city survived the culture war. We may not get the clams. It could be a blessing. We could get those clams in trade and she will tech faster with the 3rd city. I'm scared she might start a spaceship part there and it would not finish very fast. She may be a bad choice for PA.

MacBalt · May 27, 2008

Go for it. The plan looks good to me.

Are you sure Liz has "won" that culture war? Even if/when her borders pop our 21 cpt in the clams is only -3 to her 24 cpt. With a university and Oxford we'll be ahead of her again (in the clam tile, at least) unless she builds more culture buildings.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

Balthalion said:
Go for it. The plan looks good to me.

Are you sure Liz has "won" that culture war? Even if/when her borders pop our 21 cpt in the clams is only -3 to her 24 cpt. With a university and Oxford we'll be ahead of her again (in the clam tile, at least) unless she builds more culture buildings.

Her borders have expanded, but then you're forgetting that at least one of her other cities is putting 20, 30, or more cpt on the city tile. So we lost the battle to flip that city I think, but maybe not the clams.

Merum · May 27, 2008

First of all, I didn't panic. I built exactly two military units during my set, and then started a forge so that we can build whatever it is that we build faster. I don't believe 11 military units was too much, considering GW got cats during the war and still has units an age ahead of ours. Then consider that my viewpoint is not equal to your viewpoint in regard to military power, and there you go.

WT, I value your opinions and for the most part agree with them, but to be brutally honest here, you're coming off as a little arrogant. This is a team game and all viewpoints should be considered respectfully.

@Blub: My etymology lesson is a little joke concerning the state of US politics as of late.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

Sorry, point taken. OCC and Diety are both my specialties. I have strong opinions about this type of game and I knew I would sound like a "know-it-all". The truth is I've learned a lot from this team. Every single member has taught me something new. The culture tile calculations, the avoid growth button, and I even tucked away your opinion about Cats as good advice for future use (I was just against them for now in this game.)

To be brutally honest in return, I thought your turnset needed some team approval. There was not 1 post between your plan, your update that you'd play soon, and TS complete. It felt like you wanted those cats and didn't want anyone to oppose you. You knew I would, and you knew I was out for the weekend, so my comments were harsh/arrogant out of frustration.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

TS complete and uploaded. Save File

T3: Machinery available

IBT: KK wants to trade maps. No.
Alex wants war w/Toku. No.

T4: Compass available

T5: Stone

T6: workers to Deer and Fur. Marble (+1/+3) didn't seem like the right way to go. It also takes longer than Fur.

T7: JC has compass + 80 for CS. No one is annoyed w/ JC, so I traded. Now we can plan a harbor soon.

No one has paper yet, so we are fine for the Lib race. Philo in 4. University in 2. Oxford should be complete in the next turnset! BC oxford is a good sign, although it might be 1AD.

Autolog:

Spoiler :

Merum · May 27, 2008

That's a good turnset. Fair comment on my not waiting to play the turnset. I suppose I took silence as consent and maybe that wasn't the best thing to do on a holiday weekend, but I wanted to get it in before my work week started getting hot and heavy again. I didn't play it quickly with the intent to subvert the team plans.

The biggest reason that I'm hawkish about military is that every test game I played basically ended with me getting beaten down because I didn't have enough troops to defend with. I'd much rather be able to take the fight to the enemy than sit and watch them run over my territory.

That said, your diplomatic tricks seem to be working out for us, so maybe that won't be so much of a factor. I did pull back from my military build plans to build the forge instead.

So, I'm willing to smoke a peace pipe and move on here if you are.

Looking ahead, is Astro really the tech we want to target as our lib tech? I see the benefits to it with the observatories and all, but if we're going to assume that we're not going to be militaristic and that the other continent is going to be backwards, does it have weight over other techs? I just toss that out as a discussion point.

Is it possible we could pull off scientific method with lib instead? If it is, would we want to do this and obsolete the Glib?

If not astro, what other tech might we want to take? To be clear, I'm not against astro, I'd just like to explore other options before we decide on that.

Edit: Putting my general hat on again, don't we want to consider freeing up some space for a PA partner to grow in? I'd think that would contribute to an earlier launch. If it's Asoka, he's certainly not going to clear the space on his own, the pacifist.

WastinTime · May 27, 2008

I would love to go for something bigger that Astro too, but once we invest beakers in Philo and Liberalism, I hate to gamble and lose the race. If we had machinery a couple turns ago, we could have done Printing Press first and then thought about it. If we had optics already, I would say manually research Astro and pick something else free. As it turns out, I think Astro will have the right timing and be the tech we pick. Seems like once the AI gets paper and philo, then are guaranteed to go straight for Edu/Lib and they will bulb scientists to do it fast. Let's keep an eye on when they get paper. Liz has Philo.

I also agree that freeing up space would lead to the fastest finish. In a normal OCC space game, I never even try to build a part, so my original plan was as you suggested: Go military and free some space. However, it's riskier. What I learned on my test game was that the 2 cities can actually get the space parts constructed pretty fast (with our help.) So I see us building Ironworks and factory and plant to help with that. Not sure there is time for war. The other consideration is war on normal speed is tougher. And finally, I'd prefer some cavalry or some other unit that dominates. Not sure we can get that.

We can certainly consider all that, but for the next TS, it won't apply. Here's what I see for the near future.

Worker 1: Deer, move-NW, chop/cottage, sheep. The chop has only 1 turn left and the hammers go to the Oxford. If we want to delay the oxford, we could road the deer instead first.

Worker 2: Fur, marble, road Marble, cottage. Again we could road the fur before moving but I vote to move faster and get on those cottages. Do we dare OB with Wash to get better relations and then he may road for us?

Hold off on trading until we can get machinery (using philo)

SGOTM 07 - Fifth Element

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