SGOTM 07 - Smurkz

Niklas, Lit is a good target, but we should beware of diplo changes. HC status, and religion change mostly.
And (you do not need me to remind that to you but...) check for trade every turn, to see if there is underground trade with the yet unknown civs...

 

Short story - everything is better than fine! Long story will be edited in.

I'll use the autolog as template:

Turn 59/460 (1640 BC) [06-May-2008 17:05:44]
Niklas: Silver 68, Cow and Fur 50 (and ours!)
Niklas: 43 beakers applied towards Myst, expected 44
Tech learned: Mysticism

IBT:
Attitude Change: Washington(America) towards Asoka(India), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Washington(America) towards Elizabeth(England), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Washington(America) towards Huayna Capac(Inca), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'
Attitude Change: Asoka(India) towards Tokugawa(Japan), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Elizabeth(England) towards Asoka(India), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Tokugawa(Japan) towards Huayna Capac(Inca), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'
Attitude Change: Huayna Capac(Inca) towards Washington(America), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 60/460 (1600 BC) [06-May-2008 17:10:10]
Research begun: Polytheism (3 Turns)

Turn 60/460 (1600 BC) [07-May-2008 23:42:26]
Tech learned: Mathematics
Tech learned: Iron Working
Niklas: Trade Alpha for Maths with Asoka and Alpha for IW with Washington.
Niklas: +1 Fair Trade bonus with Washington now.
Niklas: We gift Furs to Washington and trade for OB with HC
Niklas: 50/50/67 on Furs/Cows/Silver

IBT:
Attitude Change: Elizabeth(England) towards Asoka(India), from 'Pleased' to 'Cautious'

Turn 61/460 (1560 BC) [08-May-2008 02:03:20]
Niklas: We have 74 beakers invested as expected
Niklas: 50/50/66
Niklas: Worker completed Pasture on Sheep.
Niklas: Lizzy dropped one in relations with the three Jews, as expected after 5 turns of a different religion. The feeling is mutual of course.
Niklas: Washington just learnt Maths, and HC learnt IW - did they trade?
Beijing finishes: Granary

IBT:
Attitude Change: Asoka(India) towards SGOTM07(China), from 'Cautious' to 'Pleased'

Turn 62/460 (1520 BC) [08-May-2008 02:06:52]
Beijing begins: Barracks (7 turns)
Niklas: We lost the cows to Washington, not surprising
Tech learned: Polytheism

IBT:
Attitude Change: Tokugawa(Japan) towards Asoka(India), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'
Civics Change: Washington(America) from 'Despotism' to 'Hereditary Rule'
Civics Change: Elizabeth(England) from 'Paganism' to 'Organized Religion'

Turn 63/460 (1480 BC) [08-May-2008 02:11:21]
Research begun: Literature (6 Turns)
Niklas: We learn Polytheism
Niklas: Panic! Mining the silver is 5 turns since it's a tundra hill
Niklas: I'll have to wing it, getting the GLib in time takes precedence of course, if we have an angry face at size 8 then so be it
Niklas: We retook the Cows, 51/51/67 now - did Washington revolt? Indeed he did, to HR! And Lizzy to OR.
Niklas: Gift the cows back to Washington
Niklas: Toku and Asoka got another +1 Brothers bonus to each other.
Niklas: Washington, Asoka and Lizzy all have Priesthood (meaning +5% bonus to our research), none of the others.
Beijing grows: 7

IBT:

Turn 64/460 (1440 BC) [08-May-2008 02:21:26]
Niklas: 51/50/67
Niklas: Asoka and Toku got a +1 Brothers bonus to Washington, but the feeling isn't mutual. Strange.

IBT:
Attitude Change: Washington(America) towards Tokugawa(Japan), from 'Annoyed' to 'Cautious'

Turn 65/460 (1400 BC) [08-May-2008 02:23:44]
Niklas: HC comes to visit with 2 archers
Niklas: 51/50/66
Niklas: Washington got those bonuses towards Asoka and Toku now - maybe it has to do with playing order?
Nabu-rimanni (Great Scientist) born in Beijing

IBT:

Turn 66/460 (1360 BC) [08-May-2008 02:26:54]
Beijing finishes: Academy
Niklas: We lost the cows again
Niklas: Washington wants to trade Poly for Medi, nah
Niklas: We now have an Academy! 61 bpt as expected
Niklas: 51/65, still no sign of a second border expansion for NY
Niklas: Stop the worker on the silver, he'll have to return later
Niklas: Yippie! Asoka will trade us Incense!
Niklas: I cancel our stone gift, then trade him stone for incence

IBT:
Christianity founded in a distant land

Turn 67/460 (1320 BC) [08-May-2008 02:35:37]
Niklas: Asoka builds Temple of Solomon
Niklas: Could we get some Judaism then please?
Niklas: Send worker to start chopping
Niklas: Asoka also just learnt Literature - yikes! But we'll beat him to GLib for sure.
Niklas: 51/65
Niklas: We now have a +1 Fair Trade bonus with Asoka - the stone for incence deal?
Niklas: Toku has learnt Poly.
Tech learned: Literature

IBT:

Turn 68/460 (1280 BC) [08-May-2008 02:37:58]
Research begun: Priesthood (1 Turns)
Beijing begins: The Great Library (18 turns)
Niklas: We learn Literature and switch to production mode.
Niklas: Lizzy would now trade us Monotheism, despite only Asoka having it too. What does that say about her contacts?


To summarize: Everything went according to plan, except the Silver mine that would take one turn longer than expected. But thanks to some Indian incence, we're still good. The Furs our still ours and no second border expansion for NY, so it's looking good there too. Only slight worry is that Asoka learnt Literature one turn ahead of us, but I can't see how he would possibly beat us to GLib.

>>The Save<<

 

I still think Unusual Suspects score/power lines are strange. Now that our save is uploaded, you can see their jumps were much more dramatic than ours. They must have made more trades than we did or built a wonder on the same turn they traded techs, or something like that.

Save looks good. I keep waiting for religion to spread to us, darn it.

Asoka has Literature. Elizabeth will trade Monotheism for Literature.

Our culture on the fur is rising - perhaps the Academy will let us keep the furs indefinitely? That would be very nice. With the gold/incense trade you made, we could have two more happy after the silver is mined.

 

It's really not so strange. US uploaded immediately after the big trades were made, so it looks more dramatic. We uploaded several turns after the trade. It's possible US had a couple other power-increasing events in those two turns (maybe they finished a unit/walls/barracks and/or grew a size), but it's probably nothing major. I'm guessing their next upload will show a much flatter slope.

We traded for incense? And NY's borders haven't expanded again yet? Niiiice. I also noticed that polytheism is only a turn away -- is that a sign that you've found a way to knock another turn off of CS, or is that only a transient thing?

 

No, our own lines also rised almost as dramatically, it's just that we didn't upload all the intermediate saves like they did. Our power jumped from 17 to 44 between turns 58 and 60 for instance. But we haven't shown that to the others.

Me too. Hopefully it'll go faster now that Asoka has the Temple of Solomon.

That she would - though I'm not sure we want it to be honest. If we can go straight for Pacifism, we might be able to skip Mono altogether.

The longer NY's borders keep from popping, the bigger the chances that we can keep it. But the incence were a real boon!

 

Veeeeery niiiice!

It's only transient - it's counting the beakers we made at the beginning of the turn, but that will drop significantly since we're now in builder mode (no scientists for starters). We got a few beakers (I think 2) benefit of Asoka learning Literature before us, but other than that we're still according to plan. EDIT: Eh, actually, never mind that. The spreadsheet had it wrong, it was always one turn to Priesthood thanks to us working the Furs for so many turns.

 

Roster:

• Renata - UP!
• unkle - On Deck!
• Methos - Warming up
• ChrisShaffer
• zyxy
• GeneralEuropean
• Niklas - Just played

 

Very good. But I'm going to bed now. See you all in the morning.

 

Alright, first thought as I woke up this morning: Incence??! But how, Asoka doesn't have Calendar, or? Ok, a few checks later tells me what I missed - Calendar requires Sailing, so we wouldn't see it. So he does have Calendar, which (likely) makes him one of the more advanced of our neighbors (not surprising). We are in no particular need of it though so no need to change our plans in any way because of it. Just thought I'd point it out.

 

First attempt at an updated plan for the upcoming turns:

Spoiler :

A few things to note.

In the previous plans, culture hasn't taken the doubling for Pyramids and Library into account. This one does, and that speeds up our culture doubling by several turns. I'm beginning to think that we will actually hold the Furs indefinitely, or at least only lose it for a handful turns at most.

Also, by sacrificing a few more hammers for a lot more beakers, by working Furs over Hill, we can actually speed up CS by a turn! Also that leaves the worker free to do other things than go mine that river hill for now, like connecting the iron (just a suggestion though, we're in no rush to get iron).

Also note the worker turns - we want to cancel the current forest chop and go chop the river hill first, and then go back to complete the first chop, so we don't need to waste a turn going to the Silver afterwards.

I'm starting to wonder whether NE is really more important than a Lighthouse at this point. I think we may well want to look at scenarios where we go for a LH first and NE afterwards. In any case this means we will likely want to trade for Sailing after all. Do we really need those Axemen...

 

Could you post the spreadsheet?

I would be interested to look at plans that allow us to delay building defenders. If an AI attacks, we'll be dead from pillaging anyway. What additional technologies or buildings will increase our power rating?

 

Absolutely, here you go!

 

I did some projections based on our trades, and I wonder why we're not seeing any +1 OB relations with Washington and Asoka - they should have come this turn. Could anarchy set back the counters? In any case, these are the numbers I predict, if we keep up our current exports:

Washington: +1 OB on turn 69, +1 Resource: 74, +2 OB: 94, +2 Resource: 99
Asoka: +1 OB: 69, +1 Resource: 72, +2 OB: 94, +2 Resource: 97
Lizzy: +1 OB: 53 (correct), +2 OB: 78, +1 Resource: 95

 

I just wanted to check in, but I'm exhausted today and not currently able to offer ideas. If the turns until the GL get nailed down in the next several hours, I'll play those this afternoon; otherwise, it'll be tomorrow.

 

I don't think we are in any particular hurry to play, we're already one of the faster-playing teams. When the road ahead seems clear enough, what better time to discuss alternative strategies? The road to GLib seems clear enough, modulo minor variations only, but what then?

Also, heading for CS seems obvious enough, but all our current plans end there. Have we decided once and for all whether to head straight for diplo, or whether to attempt a PA approach? If the latter, MilTrad should be our next target. If the former, we really need to start thinking of strategies to win that vote!

EDIT: Oh, and Chris, I missed your question before - the details on the power rating can be found in this article.

 

It is fine to delay play for 1 or 2 days. As Niklas mentionned we are already on schedule. And it is true that time for decisions (post CS) will come.

For instance, and I need to think more about it, I believe we could be more aggressive in the trades. Main reason being that we have met very few AIs yet, so these will not WFYBTA us soon. Plus we should have a good opportunity of being friendly with Asoka and possibly Washington with Ju. Liz is a different story. Getting to Lib would trigger Free religion, which could help on that.

I also think Oxford is on our path... So much to build, so few turns. Indeed some longer term planning is good right now

 

Just to get it out in the open what a diplomatic victory would require of us:

We need civs representing at least 62% of the world's total population (the sum of all city sizes) to vote for us. As a comparison, if all 18 nations in this game are of equal population at the end, 62% means 11 (10.16) other nations must vote for us.

To vote for us, a civ must a) have better relations with us than with our opponent, and b) have at least +8 relations with us. Since the relation includes a large number of hidden factors, the only safe way to know (unless we can accurately predict all those hidden factors) is to get the civ to Friendly, i.e. +10.

In other words, the naive interpretation of the above, we need to get 11/17 AIs to Friendly. And also ensure that they like us more than whoever is the biggest of the world.

 

Adding to that, what is required to get an AI to sign a PA agreement with us:

The AI must not be Alexander, Tokugawa or Napoleon. They never sign PAs.

The AI (and all AIs in that AI's team - I guess meaning all those that the AI already have PA agreements with) must be Friendly with us.

We must have shared a Defensive Pact and/or shared a war against a common enemy for a total of 40 turns (and it must be recent, since the AIs' memory counters tick backwards).

Our power rating plus that AI's (team's) power rating must not exceed half the total power of all civs in the game (seems unlikely that will ever bite us on this map).

 

Well played!

And we have iron too. That's good news!

So the question is: how to get 11 AI's to like us a lot - or possibly less if they start fighting. What kind of plusses can we get? And when do we need to meet our candidates to have the time to rake them in?

Concerning unit construction: I think we need at least one axeman, so that we can send our warrior out scouting and meet some more people. The main purpose of additional units beyond a scouting warrior and one MP is not to actually defend, but to increase our power rating.

Niklas, thanks for the latest plan! We are sure researching and building fast. One drawback is that we do not grow very quickly, so moving the lighthouse more to the front of the queue seems a good idea. On the other hand, we also need to be able to keep all those people happy, so growth is limited by our ability to trade for luxes (or get a religion).

 

And to complete the exposé, the total list of all relation modifiers that we can have with an AI: (x-post with zyxy - how convenient that I answer his question )

Factor 0: Team mates
If we're on the same team, it's +100, no more no less. (If it's the barbarian team, it's -100, but that's irrelevant here.) No other factors then apply, but on the other hand the value is then never used for anything, team membership is always checked first.

Factor 1: Base Attitude
The leader's iBaseAttitude, as determined by the leaderhead spreadsheet. This is a value between -1 and 1 (since Gandhi isn't in the game).

Factor 2: Peace weight
All leaders have a base PeaceWeight number defined in the leaderheads XML file, between 0 (Alex, Monty) and 10 (Gandhi). Every leader also rolls a number between 0 and 3 at the start of every game, which is added to the base PeaceWeight, to get the specific PeaceWeight for that game. Two leaders then get a mutual relation modifier towards each other of 4 - abs(PeaceWeight A - PeaceWeight B). In other words, a value between +4 (they have the same number) and -9 (Alex rolled 0 and Gandhi rolled 3). This is the major hidden factor for relations between AIs, and doesn't affect AI-Player relations at all.

Factor 3: Warmonger respect
Warmongering leaders respect each other. All leaders have a Warmonger score, from 0 (peaceful) to 2 (warmonger). Two leaders get a mutual relation modifier towards each other of min(Warmonger A, Warmonger B). This means two full warmongers, say Alex and Monty, have a base +2 towards each other. Alex (2) and Caesar (1) would have +1 towards each other, whereas Caesar (1) and Gandhi (0) or Gandhi and Lizzy (0) would have no extra modifier. This also doesn't affect AI-Player relations.

Factor 4: Handicap modifier
We're on Deity, hence an automatic -1 with all leaders. Note that the AIs don't have this negative, since they all effectively play on Noble.

Factor 5: Team member modifier
If we are on a team with more members than the AI's team, we get the difference in negative modifier. So if we sign a PA with someone, we will have -1 relations with all other AIs (who aren't also PAed to someone).

Factor 6: Rank difference modifier
EDIT: Reworked and corrected.
Each leader has two values governing relations depending on rank: iWorseRankAttitudeChange and iBetterRankAttitudeChange. The former is a value between 0 and -3 and determines how that AI feels about players with lower higher score, i.e. a jealousy factor. The latter is a value between 0 and 4 and determines how that AI feels about players with a higher lower score, i.e. a factor of magnanimousity. The actual modifier is [iXXXRankAttitudeChange*iRankDifference/19], where 19 is the total number of civs ever alive +1.

Factor 7: Losers unite
If both we and the AI are on the bottom half in score, we get +1.

Factor 8: Memories of war
If we have "won" a war against the AI, we get a -1 with that AI.

Note that factors 1 through 8 are invisible to us. All the ones that follow will show up in the numbers in the F4 screen:

Factor 9: Close borders spark tensions
This is a negative modifier that depends on the number of workable city tiles that our cultural borders have "stolen" from an AI. The modifier is iCloseBordersAttitudeChange*(40+3*X)/100, where X is the number of tiles stolen up to a maximum of 20 (so the total is never less than iCloseBordersAttitudeChange). This is something that will only ever come into effect with our closest neighbors, i.e. Washington and possibly Asoka (unless their towns get conquered, Yahve forbid), who both have -2. So if we steal 4+ tiles from either of them it's a -1, and if we steal 20+ tiles (not likely) it's a -2.

Factor 10: This war spoils our relationship
If we're at war with the civ, -3 immediately, and another -1 per 5 turns at war, up (or down) to -8 after 25 turns.

Factor 11: Years of peace
+1 after 60 turns of peace.

Factor 12: Brothers and Sisters of the Faith
+1 if we share a religion, +1 more if the other civ has the holy city for that religion, and +1 per 10 turns of sharing that religion up to iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit for that leader. For Asoka that number is 7, for Monty it's 2.

Factor 13: Heathens
If we are of different religions we immediately get that leader's iDifferentReligionAttitudeChange, ranging from 0 to -2. -1 more if the other civ has the holy city for their religion, and -1 after 5 turns of different religions, for a total between -1 (no holy city, tolerant) and -4 (holy city, intolerant).

Factor 14: Bonus resources
+1 per 50 turns' worth of exporting resources to that AI (the counter is increased by the number of exports each turn), up to a total of +2.

Factor 15: Open Borders
+1 per 25 turns of Open Borders, up to a total of +2.

Factor 16: Defensive Pact
+1 per 12 turs of Defensive Pact, up to a total of +2.

Factor 17: Rival Defensive Pact
If we don't have a DP with that AI, we get a "We are worried that you have a Defensive Pact with our rivals" negative modifier of 4*(nr of DPs we have)/(nr of other civs alive). So with 16 (all) other civs alive, we would get a -1 modifier per 4 DPs we have. Strangely it doesn't seem to matter if the AI itself has a DP with the same civs.

Factor 18: This war brings us closer together
+1 to relations if we share a war (and are not at war with each other of course). This increases by +1 per 8 turns of shared war, up to that leader's iShareWarAttitudeChangeLimit, ranging from 2 to 4. If either of us sign peace, the initial +1 disappears, but the bonus from the number of turns is remembered, though the memory decreases by 1 per turn.

Factor 19: You have wisely chosen your civics
+1 to relations if both we and the AI have adopted that AI's favorite civic. Also +1 per 10 turns of sharing that civic, up to a total of that leader's iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit which ranges from 1 (Saladin) to 5 (Toku and possibly some more) (not 6 since neither Gandhi nor Mao are in this game).

Factor 20: Fair Trade
A complex calculation depending on three things:
1) the total value of all things given for free to that AI: iGrantValue
2) the total value of all things traded to that AI: iTradeValue
3) the number of turns we have known each other: iTurnsKnown
The total bonus is then (iGrantValue + iTradeValue/3)/((iTurnsKnown +1)*5), but capped at +4. In other words this value will deteriorate over time, unless we add more trades to it. The calculations of the values is very involved, but I can list that too if it becomes necessary.

Factor 21: You have traded with our worst enemies
The calculation is very similar to that above, except the constant factor in the divisor is 10 instead of 5. In other words, we can trade twice as much to a worst enemy before we reach a certain modifier, compared to the Fair Trade. Note that the worst enemy can switch, but things added to iGrantValue and iTradeValue never disappear, they only get diluted by passing time.

Factor 22: You declared war on us
This is -3 per time we declare, never disappears or deteriorates.

Factor 23: You declared war on our friend
-1 per time that happens (since Gandhi isn't in the game). Never decays.

Factor 24: You brought a war ally against us
-1 per time it happens, never decays.

Factor 25: You nuked us!
-2 per time it happens, never decays.

Factor 26: You nuked our friend
-1 per time it happens (since Gandhi isn't in the game), never decays.

Factor 27: You razed one of our cities
-2.5 per time it happens (rounded down), never decays.

Factor 28: You razed our holy city
-2 per time it happens, never decays.

Factor 29: Your spy was caught making trouble
-1 per time it happens, except for Cathrine for whom it is -2 per time. Never decays.

Factor 30: You gave us help
+1 per time it happens. Decays with 1/200, i.e. on any given turn there is a 1 chance in 200 that they will forget about one occurence.

Factor 31: You refused to give us help
-1 (or -2 if the leader is Cathrine, Kublai, Louis or Toku) per time it happens, decays with 1/100.

Factor 32: You gave us tribute
+1 per time it happens, decays with 1/50.

Factor 33: You refused to give us tribute
-1 (or -2 if the leader is Cathrine, Kublai, Louis or Toku) per time it happens, decays with 1/150.

Factor 34: You converted to our religion
+1 per time it happens, decays with 1/100.

Factor 35: You refused to convert to our religion
-1 (or -2 if the leader is Cathrine, Kublai, Louis or Toku) per time it happens, decays with 1/50.

Factor 36: You adopted our favorite civic
+1 per time it happens, decays with 1/100.

Factor 37: You refused to adopt our favorite civic
-1 (or -2 if the leader is Cathrine, Kublai, Louis or Toku) per time it happens, decays with 1/50.

Factor 38: You gave us help during war-time
This is weird - there is no modifier for this, even though the AI clearly has a memory counter for it, decaying with 1/150. But for some reason it has no effect on attitude. And it's even more weird since the constructor code for the CvLeaderheadInfo class clearly tries to read that data from the file, even though it isn't there. And it's even more weird since I could swear that I have seen this modifier at play in the game.

Factor 39: You refused to help us during war-time
-1 (or -2 if the leader is Cathrine, Kublai, Louis or Toku) per time we refuse when the AI asks us to join a war, decays with 1/100.

Factor 40: You stopped trading with our worst enemies
+0.5 per time it happens (which is why we almost never see it in game), decays with 1/100.

Factor 41: You refused to stop trading with our worst enemies
-1 per time it happens, decays with 1/50.

Factor 42: You stopped trading with us
-1 per time it happens, never decays.

Factor 43: You signed a trade embargo against us
-1 per time it happens, never decays.

Factor 44: You made a demand from us
-1 per time it happens up to max -10, never decays.

Factor 45: You have shared you technological discoveries with us
Depending on leader we get between 0.05 (Asoka (!), Bismarck, Isabella and Toku of those that could be in the game) and 0.2 (Mansa, Peter) per tech traded to that AI. Decays with 1/100.

And that's all. Note that a decay means the AI forgets 1 occurence, not 1 less relation modifier (unless it's +/-1 per occurence of course).