SGOTM 07 - Unusual Suspects

[Yamps]

I'd suggest priorities for the worker would be #2 Farm (2E of city), then road Sheep.

I would say we should road the sheep first for the health. We should grow as fast as possible. NE first, aqueduct second like Melior said.

Revolt straight away to Beurocracy + Caste (1 turn).

That said, are we going to even use Caste for a while ? I've almost never used it in any of my games because I can usually have as many specialists as I'm comfortable using anyway, and its a higher upkeep to Slavery and we can't hurry production anymore.

We'll be using many scientists, don't worry. We won't use so much production tiles after the NE, at least not right away. Our city will grow too, we'll have a lot of specialists.

Is it worth building a Temple after the Aqueduct (culture handy, but primarily for a Priest). I'm a big fan of Monastery's as well (culture v.handy at this point, and +10% science will be quite big for our city). But of course National Epic to make our +17 GP +34 would be marvelous (does it work like that ? or is it +100% to a base value?)

All multipliers in the game are additive. This means that if we have 100% from NE and then 100% from Pacifism we get an increase of 200%. 100% base +200% would give 17*3=51 GP per turn. We'll have much greater base GP production than 17 very soon, too.

Those buildings are fine and we'll build them. The tile usage is what matters. Imagine sth like this after the NE: (or right away maybe ?)

Spoiler :

Scientists instead of artists of course and more people on the grassland farms for more specialists. Note the base production: 15, that's just fine. At some point, marble tile can be dropped too and another scientist hired.

1N Farm - it actually can come in handy now and again, because its better than using a forest when we are trying to maximise production + growth in the city. Forest would be better long term, but I say only raze when our worker has no priorities left (which I see as Farm, Sheep, Cow, Iron ... a good 20 turns or so away at least).

We shouldn't be working any forests. That farm should go for health reasons. We don't need to chop a forest right away, but that's going to happen eventually.

I'm also on a very steep learning curve here (and trying to remember 4-5 forum pages of notes and ideas every turn is hard!).

Well, I'm writing things down. Yeah, this game sure gives a steep learning curve. I'm very happy to be a part of this.

P.S. Imagine what it must be like in the Murky Waters team. They have posted 3 times more than we did.

 

[vra379971]

The roster...if we were in Murky, I'd not have been able to find the roster...anyway...

1 - marconos
2 - classical_hero
3 - kcd_swede
4 - Melior Traiano
5 - Morganknight
6 - shikhee
7 - Yamps
8 - Ankka
9 - vra379971
______________

Made a few changes to the batting order, to accomodate the new arrivals, if there are any complaints, feel free to mention it.

So, Sir Yamps, we await your planning for the next set.

 

[Ankka]

The roster...if we were in Murky, I'd not have been able to find the roster...anyway...

1 - marconos
2 - classical_hero
3 - kcd_swede
4 - Melior Traiano
5 - Morganknight
6 - shikhee
7 - Yamps
8 - Ankka
9 - vra379971
______________

Made a few changes to the batting order, to accomodate the new arrivals, if there are any complaints, feel free to mention it.

So, Sir Yamps, we await your planning for the next set.

Usually it's also helpful to mark who's up on the roster. For instance, after these pages of posts, I have no idea who played last.

This is how it should look like.


marconos
classical_hero
kcd_swede
Melior Traiano
Morganknight
shikhee -- just played
Yamps -- UP!
Ankka -- on deck
vra379971


On game matters, do we really want asoka on jc as PA? That way we won't really have any power on the possible and propable other continent. We should wait until we find that, too, to make our final choice, but of course we should keep a door open here, too.

 

[vra379971]

Usually it's also helpful to mark who's up on the roster. For instance, after these pages of posts, I have no idea who played last.

This is how it should look like.


marconos
classical_hero
kcd_swede
Melior Traiano
Morganknight
shikhee -- just played
Yamps -- UP!
Ankka -- on deck
vra379971

True Ah well, night all.

 

[Yamps]

The roster...if we were in Murky, I'd not have been able to find the roster...

So, Sir Yamps, we await your planning for the next set.

Yes, time to get up from that comfortable chair.

I'll post plans shortly and wait ~24h before I play.

 

[Yamps]

All right, here are the plans.

Wining
Our winning plan is Space or Domination. There are 554 land tiles in the game (mouse hovering over the score reveals that). We would need 51% or 283 tiles rounded up. I haven't counted the tiles, but our continent looks big enough. We shall soon explore it entirely. We can discuss the domination option later on.

PA partner
PA partner should be on our continent. There is only Cyrus on the other continent with Representation as a favorite civic. Napoleon likes that too, but maybe Louis is in the game. They need to know Constitution and that could come too late. They could sign the DP with someone else before they start liking us. They could be weak, too. Religion is the way to go, here is the plan:

First we stop the Alex-Izzy war. CoL to Alex will stop it. We might get some diplomatic penalties, but we can compensate with techs. We could pay Izzy too but Alex is only at +1 with us and Izzy at +3 so paying Alex is better, IMO. Izzy will most likely start sending missionaries again.

However, we shouldn't rely on Izzy. When we research Philosophy, let's convert to Judaism and adopt Pacifism. We are going for Phil because of that. Taoism has been founded somewhere else, civs on our continent won't be rushing for that. We'll have a monopoly or almost a monopoly and we'll do more trading. Anyway, the idea is to convert JC to Judaism. Fred is Jewish too, but one of his cities is not. Fred should be our secondary target, let's keep him Jewish. Asoka will most likely convert to free religion and we won't be able to get him.

Trades

Monarchy from Capac for CoL + 80 as Melior suggested.
Construction from Kublai for CoL + Literature. OB with Kublai to finish the exploration.
Currency +10 from Fred for Drama+Literature.

Probable CS trading on the next turn, I'll report the options. I don't expect diplomatic hits because of these trades, I'll post how it went.

Revolt to CoL and Bureaucracy
I'll do that at the end of turn, there is no point to wait. One more civic change would prolong the anarchy period so there is no reason to wait for Pacifism.

City management
I'll switch to NE, keep 2 scientists and work the new grassland farm. There is no reason to remove the scientists. Total production emphasis would only hurry the production from 5 turns to 4, it is better to hire 2 scientist than 2 forest hill lumberjacks. Worker will hook up sheep first for the needed health. Next build will be the Monastery for the 10% more science. I'll make more exact calculations to make sure we grow as fast as possible and have just enough health. Farm will be needed before the cow, that's the first estimate. Hooking the cow next and aqueduct later on for the health.

Unit orders
Like I've said, worker will first hook up sheep, than build a farm. Cow after the farm. Axeman will pillage the old farm, we could use a forest there. Scout and Warrior will keep scouting and also keep an eye on Izzy to see her missionaries.

So, what do you think?

 

[Ankka]

How is a propability to have a forest regrow calculated?

 

[Ankka]

How is a propability to have a forest regrow calculated?

And because of the forum settings I have difficulties posting this, which in the end ended in a double post...

 

[marconos]

The sooner we get Pacifism the better, we need to get as many GPP as we possibly can. Agree with getting the NE going as soon as we can. I haven't been able to get the download yet but how does our power look on the graph? Are we still extremely low? If so this is my only concern. Trade ideas look fine to me. I still don't get how you tell if someone is someone elses worst enemy. If they have the lowest standing that is one thing but what do you do with they are equally annoyed with 5 different civs?

Balance trades: how do you tell that a trade is balanced and you aren't going to piss off other civs with your offer? Is there an average Gold to Beaker analysis that is used?

Please let's get rid of that dang farm. We really need to a forest to grow in that slot. If we get uranium, oil or some other resource inside our fat cross that is on a forest tile we are going to have to chop those to get to it. I really don't want us to have to chop anymore .... we are going to get ourselves into trouble there.

 

[kcd_swede]

How is a propability to have a forest regrow calculated?

And because of the forum settings I have difficulties posting this, which in the end ended in a double post...

It is like a random event, multiplier is number of adjacent forest tiles. Probability decreases with year. Will not occur if any man-made improvement exist.

 

[kcd_swede]

All right, here are the plans.

Wining
Our winning plan is Space or Domination. There are 554 land tiles in the game (mouse hovering over the score reveals that). We would need 51% or 283 tiles rounded up. I haven't counted the tiles, but our continent looks big enough. We shall soon explore it entirely. We can discuss the domination option later on.

PA partner
PA partner should be on our continent. There is only Cyrus on the other continent with Representation as a favorite civic. Napoleon likes that too, but maybe Louis is in the game. They need to know Constitution and that could come too late. They could sign the DP with someone else before they start liking us. They could be weak, too. Religion is the way to go, here is the plan:

First we stop the Alex-Izzy war. CoL to Alex will stop it. We might get some diplomatic penalties, but we can compensate with techs. We could pay Izzy too but Alex is only at +1 with us and Izzy at +3 so paying Alex is better, IMO. Izzy will most likely start sending missionaries again.

However, we shouldn't rely on Izzy. When we research Philosophy, let's convert to Judaism and adopt Pacifism. We are going for Phil because of that. Taoism has been founded somewhere else, civs on our continent won't be rushing for that. We'll have a monopoly or almost a monopoly and we'll do more trading. Anyway, the idea is to convert JC to Judaism. Fred is Jewish too, but one of his cities is not. Fred should be our secondary target, let's keep him Jewish. Asoka will most likely convert to free religion and we won't be able to get him.

Trades

Monarchy from Capac for CoL + 80 as Melior suggested.
Construction from Kublai for CoL + Literature. OB with Kublai to finish the exploration.
Currency +10 from Fred for Drama+Literature.

Probable CS trading on the next turn, I'll report the options. I don't expect diplomatic hits because of these trades, I'll post how it went.

Revolt to CoL and Bureaucracy
I'll do that at the end of turn, there is no point to wait. One more civic change would prolong the anarchy period so there is no reason to wait for Pacifism.

City management
I'll switch to NE, keep 2 scientists and work the new grassland farm. There is no reason to remove the scientists. Total production emphasis would only hurry the production from 5 turns to 4, it is better to hire 2 scientist than 2 forest hill lumberjacks. Worker will hook up sheep first for the needed health. Next build will be the Monastery for the 10% more science. I'll make more exact calculations to make sure we grow as fast as possible and have just enough health. Farm will be needed before the cow, that's the first estimate. Hooking the cow next and aqueduct later on for the health.

Unit orders
Like I've said, worker will first hook up sheep, than build a farm. Cow after the farm. Axeman will pillage the old farm, we could use a forest there. Scout and Warrior will keep scouting and also keep an eye on Izzy to see her missionaries.

So, what do you think?

I'm ok with this.

 

[Ankka]

It is like a random event, multiplier is number of adjacent forest tiles. Probability decreases with year. Will not occur if any man-made improvement exist.

Is there some year after which it will not happen?

Also, are there tiles where forestration will never happen, or will a map be very forested if left untouched for the game?

I'm ok with the plan, btw.

 

[vra379971]

All right, here are the plans.

Wining
Our winning plan is Space or Domination. There are 554 land tiles in the game (mouse hovering over the score reveals that). We would need 51% or 283 tiles rounded up. I haven't counted the tiles, but our continent looks big enough. We shall soon explore it entirely. We can discuss the domination option later on.

PA partner
PA partner should be on our continent. There is only Cyrus on the other continent with Representation as a favorite civic. Napoleon likes that too, but maybe Louis is in the game. They need to know Constitution and that could come too late. They could sign the DP with someone else before they start liking us. They could be weak, too. Religion is the way to go, here is the plan:

First we stop the Alex-Izzy war. CoL to Alex will stop it. We might get some diplomatic penalties, but we can compensate with techs. We could pay Izzy too but Alex is only at +1 with us and Izzy at +3 so paying Alex is better, IMO. Izzy will most likely start sending missionaries again.

However, we shouldn't rely on Izzy. When we research Philosophy, let's convert to Judaism and adopt Pacifism. We are going for Phil because of that. Taoism has been founded somewhere else, civs on our continent won't be rushing for that. We'll have a monopoly or almost a monopoly and we'll do more trading. Anyway, the idea is to convert JC to Judaism. Fred is Jewish too, but one of his cities is not. Fred should be our secondary target, let's keep him Jewish. Asoka will most likely convert to free religion and we won't be able to get him.

Trades

Monarchy from Capac for CoL + 80 as Melior suggested.
Construction from Kublai for CoL + Literature. OB with Kublai to finish the exploration.
Currency +10 from Fred for Drama+Literature.

Probable CS trading on the next turn, I'll report the options. I don't expect diplomatic hits because of these trades, I'll post how it went.

Revolt to CoL and Bureaucracy
I'll do that at the end of turn, there is no point to wait. One more civic change would prolong the anarchy period so there is no reason to wait for Pacifism.

City management
I'll switch to NE, keep 2 scientists and work the new grassland farm. There is no reason to remove the scientists. Total production emphasis would only hurry the production from 5 turns to 4, it is better to hire 2 scientist than 2 forest hill lumberjacks. Worker will hook up sheep first for the needed health. Next build will be the Monastery for the 10% more science. I'll make more exact calculations to make sure we grow as fast as possible and have just enough health. Farm will be needed before the cow, that's the first estimate. Hooking the cow next and aqueduct later on for the health.

Unit orders
Like I've said, worker will first hook up sheep, than build a farm. Cow after the farm. Axeman will pillage the old farm, we could use a forest there. Scout and Warrior will keep scouting and also keep an eye on Izzy to see her missionaries.

So, what do you think?

Fine, and yes, that Farm is much past-due.

A quick question Yamps. Could you also confirm your tech path and the turns needed to achieve it...

 

[Yamps]

... I haven't been able to get the download yet but how does our power look on the graph? Are we still extremely low? If so this is my only concern. Trade ideas look fine to me. I still don't get how you tell if someone is someone elses worst enemy. If they have the lowest standing that is one thing but what do you do with they are equally annoyed with 5 different civs?

Balance trades: how do you tell that a trade is balanced and you aren't going to piss off other civs with your offer? Is there an average Gold to Beaker analysis that is used?

Regarding the power graph, it is high enough at this moment IMO.

I must say, you asked some important questions. I remembered that I had read an article before about AI attitude and managed to find it again.

AI Attitude Explained

The article is technical, but here is the thing I've been looking for:

Worst Enemy:

An AIs has a worst enemy if there is at least one other Player towards whom its attitude is worse than Cautious. The worst enemy is defined as the one with the lowest iAttitudeVal (source: CvTeamAI.cpp).

This means that AI needs to have more than one enemy to have a worst enemy! Relations have to be at annoyed or worse. Last but certainly not least, that iAttitudeVal thing is not the number displayed on the relations table, if I understand things right. There are hidden modifiers too. This means that we can't really tell for sure who is someone's worst enemy. Most certain thing to do IMO is to simply contact the civ and hope that they will tell in the opening line. However, we can still try to guess and minimize potentially dangerous trades.

About the trades, one can usually tell when the trade is lopsided. AI will often offer such trades themselves. But there is some guesswork here too. If a civ doesn't want to give a lot for your techs or you are almost making the trades, those are good signs. For example, Melior suggested we trade CoL and 80 gold for Monarchy. That trade won't work without the gold, that's a good sign that we are not giving too much. Also, suggested trade with Fred (Literature + Drama for 10 gold + Currency) has a good mark too, Fred has 40 gold for the trade. He is only giving 10, so we are not giving so much.

Plan update

Diplomacy is the most important thing right now, our situation is tricky. I've realized that if we want to convert JC, he has to be pleased at us. I actually found the reference table stating that. This means we'll have to send missionaries before we convert to Judaism! Life would be a lot easier if Isabella would just send some missionaries.

Leader trades summary.zip by oedali

I've also found the leader reference charts. PA with Alex, Toku and Napoleon is impossible. We need to be friendly with most civs to get DP, there are some exceptions. We could get DP with Cyrus with only pleased for example.

AI Leaders Personality (Vanilla, Warlords, BtS)

All suggestions are welcomed!

 

[Yamps]

Fine, and yes, that Farm is much past-due.

A quick question Yamps. Could you also confirm your tech path and the turns needed to achieve it...

Tech path is Meditation in 1 and Philosophy in 7. This could be faster with Bur + Caste and more specialists.

I propose a modification based on the previous post. Good diplomatic relations are of highest importance. We are pleased with JC now, we should seize the day. Those relations could melt with time, I think that we should send a Jewish missionary to him ASAP, immediately after the Monastery. The proposed built order is NE, Monastery, Jewish missionary.

EDIT:
We actually have to be Jewish to ask somebody to adopt Judaism, right? Need...some....sleep.... Sending Jewish missionaries, converting to Judaism ourselves and then asking JC to do it too right away before the relations melt should work. Bah, there is Fred too as a PA partner if everything else fails.

 

[marconos]

Well have you done the turns yet

 

[Melior Traiano]

One thing about becoming Pacifist Jews: Our plan to convert Caesar to Judaism might be hosed if Washington & Alex close borders. We would need to get those Missionaries out without delay to avoid this potential snag.

 

[shikhee]

Plans look good to me except worker order:

Aqueduct is in the current cue right ? if so you can build that 2nd Farm then road the Sheep, theres no way you can grow outside our health before then. Unless you mean to switch to NE straight away, then Sheep needs priority.

Yes to missionaries, I think we only need 3 (max) for 2 Roman cities and 1 Fred city. I'd also like to have a missionary ready for a Caravel to go across the seas when that is ready.

 

[kcd_swede]

Is there some year after which it will not happen?

Also, are there tiles where forestration will never happen, or will a map be very forested if left untouched for the game?

I'm ok with the plan, btw.

The forest growth probability does not expire. I was mistaken in assuming probabiilty decreases with game year, also. It does not, though this effect is commonly a result of there being less existing forest and unmodified tiles in later years to spawn growth.

There is a base chance of 0.1% for forest to spread, per square, per turn. (8/10000 modified by ?climate? in XML, +25%). This is cumulative based on the number of adjacent forests, so a square in the middle of a 4 forest cross has a 0.4% chance. If there is a preserve in one direction, the chance increases to 0.8% per square per turn. (or 3.2% if in the middle of a 4 preserve cross) This means, assuming only one adjacent forest with preserve, it will still take on average over 100 turns for the forest to spread to any given square.

Finally, all these probabilities are cut in half if there is a road or railroad on the tile you are waiting for growth. In addition, I believe game settings can modify this probability: tropical climate provides the maximum growth rate, though this might be an artifact from having so many jungle/forest tile on the map.

Anyhow, to maximize forest growth rates one should generally chop in a checkerboard pattern. But forest growth rates tend to be so slow that you can't count on them for a specific tile -- the average rate (assuming 4 adjacent forest tiles) would take about 200 turns for a tile surrounded by forest. Randomly, that could be as few as one turn or as many as "never". But 200 turns on avg.

Forests will not grow on rocky tiles, desert, or floodplains.

I researched this back when I switched from Civ3 where forest growth was a user action. I can't say for sure that the latest versions/hof mod has not altered them.

 

[vra379971]

That sounds like a fine deal.

I presume we plan to have a second revolt after we discover Philosophy?

Okay, so why don't you take us past our second revolt then Yamps, and we'll see on the other side of that how many turns we'll have you play past that.