SGOTM 07 - Xteam

ShannonCT · May 3, 2008

Cactus Pete said:
Educate me. Does gifting tech and/or just opening borders risk generating you-have-traded-with-our-worst-enemy diplomatic consequences?

I believe that both count as trades and have diplo consequences.

Will play in an hour or two.

ShannonCT · May 3, 2008

I'm stopping at turn 66, not having been able to trade for Math. Save is up.

Turn 62 - Trade Writing to Washington for AH. Trade Sailing to Fred for Mysticism (+1 relations). Gift Writing to Fred (+1 relations, now pleased). Gift Writing to Toku. Convert to Hinduism (relations: +2 Asoka, now pleased; +1 Washington; +1 Fred; +1 Julius; +1 Toku; -1 Alex; -3 Issy, now annoyed).

Turn 63 - Start Polytheism. Workers go to stone.

Turn 64 - Both Washington and Julius ask to trade IW for Alpha. I refuse. Stone roaded. Trade stone to Asoka for incense.

Turn 65 - Alex asks for open borders. I refuse. Polytheism -> Lit. Axe -> granary. Delete a warrior to stay at 100% research. Workers start deer camp. Trade Polytheism to Washington for Preisthood. Trade Polytheism to Capac for Archery.

Turn 66 - Kublai converts to Buddhism. Beijing grows to Pop7, works plains cottage. Deer camp finished. Trade Polytheism and Preisthood to Fred for Meditation (+ 1 relations). Gift Preisthood to Julius (+1 relations, now pleased).

After report:
No one has declared war or appears to be planning to.
Literature is 4 turns away. No one but us has Alphabet. Iron Working is the only tech available for trade. Various AI are withholding Math, Monarchy, Monotheism, and HBR. Asoka "has his reasons" for not trading Math. Julius and Capac are "not ready to trade" Math.
In Beijing, Pop8 and granary are 5 turns away.

Turn log:

Spoiler :

leif erikson · May 3, 2008

Nice work Shannon! :high5:

Now we're moving right along. Next stop, The Great Library! :cheers:

Roster:
Frederiksberg - UP
Cactus Pete - On Deck
Jimmy Thunder
Mad Professor - Off on an African adventure and caught up on reading! :goodjob:

Gator
rrau
leif
ShannonCT - Just Played!! :rockon:

Mistfit :coffee:

Cactus Pete · May 3, 2008

So far, so good. SCT has moved us along nicely. Trading should open up soon.

rrau · May 3, 2008

Nice job......I like our power curves compared to the rest. :cool:

leif erikson · May 3, 2008

rrau said:
Nice job......I like our power curves compared to the rest.

The curves are very interesting. The culture graph looks like Murky hasn't built a wonder yet, but they are at 2200 BC. Should see one soon. I'm guessing the Smurkz have built the Great Lighthouse as well.

Any other divinations from the curves? :mischief:

rrau · May 3, 2008

I also assumed Smurkz built 2 wonders. *grins* All the better for us since it will dilute their gp points.

[edit never mind....I rechecked and it wasn't the culture curve that I had remembered looking at. So far, it doesn't look like anyone's built 2 wonders]

Jimmy Thunder · May 3, 2008

Good stuff Shannon.

Nice work team.

I notice that there are at least 11 out of 18 civs on our island, which makes a home continent domination/backdoor diplo very likely. (Clarification: have we ruled out a peaceful diplomatic victory? - from all of our test games it seemed very unlikely/impossible)

I've had a look at the save and am starting to think about how we might influence the political climate.

Our relationship with Julius is great, he will attack anyone for the right price (but we don't have enough to bribe him currently).

I think Asoka is a contender for the best PA partner, his land is very good for research, and I think he has enough of a warmonger personality to backstab/dogpile into a joint war.

So we should be positioning ourselves very soon to form a shared war with Julius and Asoka and I'm thinking the best targets would be one of HC/Izzy/Toku.

Fred looks to be an excellent long term trading partner.

Additional note: We don't want to get horseback riding in trades since it is no use to us and will count against us in the WFYABTA counter. (Also, I seldom get Theology/DivineRight for this reason).

EDIT: Oh yeah, we have a -1 with Kublai for trading with his worst enemy.

leif erikson · May 3, 2008

Spent a few minutes looking at the save.

We have not yet revolted to Slavery, should we do so soon?

Once we get Lit, is it Monarchy next for Hereditary Rule and MP's or is a beeline for Civil Service, then Monarchy? :hmm:

Hope Math is available soon as it would be nice to get Iron Working to see if we can find some Iron for Cho-Ko-nu's.

Hope it doesn't show up under one of the Cottages we've built... :rolleyes:

Looks like we could use another Axe when we get a chance after the Great Library. :trouble:

EDIT - The Pyramids, Stonehenge and Oracle all seem to have been built on the other continent. :hmm:

Edit2 - Some interesting ideas JT, I like them. :thumbsup:

I think we should also consider Fred's idea of a Monastery and then, I think rrau's suggestion, a Hindu Missionary to convert the Incans.

Looks like it may be a while before we can get to that though. :coffee:

Time to turn in for some :sleep:

rrau · May 3, 2008

I'd be suspicious of the plains cottage being an iron site. It was the only one without trees and I think that I read somewhere trees and jungles don't grow on top of iron or copper. [edit] Re the diplo: We'd have to conquer most everyone and since there's so many civs on our island, domination's probably the route to go for the quickest win.

Cactus Pete · May 4, 2008

For discussion:

Domination only requires 51% of the land area (33% of population) in this game. Isn't this a moderator manipulation, and doesn't it enable victory by taking over just our home continent? If so, then perhaps research is not as important as anticipated (indeed, we may want to think about when stopping research would become appropriate) and getting a PA ASAP is.

Other than Frederick, I'm not sure which of our neighbors will research Metal Casting any time soon. Might that be our next tech both for eventual trading purposes (including inciting to war) and perhaps to build an early forge (plus 2 happiness) after the GLIB.

Because tech trading among the Ai is based on a percentage of contacts already having the tech, there may be advantages to spreading Alphabet around.

What about, after one more turn, moving a citizen off the cottaged plain and onto the deer in order to grow in just four additional turns?

Jimmy Thunder · May 4, 2008

Cactus Pete said:
For discussion:

Domination only requires 51% of the land area (33% of population) in this game. Isn't this a moderator manipulation, and doesn't it enable victory by taking over just our home continent? If so, then perhaps research is not as important as anticipated (indeed, we may want to think about when stopping research would become appropriate) and getting a PA ASAP is.

This isn't a moderator manipulation. Domination requires less land % as you increase the number of AI's in the game. With 18 civs, the limit is always 51%. As for population percentage, this figure changes as you go through the game. I'd assume that if we were close to the land domination limit, the population threshold would be somewhere around 60% (this is from my experience only).

Other than Frederick, I'm not sure which of our neighbors will research Metal Casting any time soon. Might that be our next tech both for eventual trading purposes (including inciting to war) and perhaps to build an early forge (plus 2 happiness) after the GLIB.

I would advise against Metal Casting. From test games, I could pick it up in trades before I really needed it. I think it's a waste of self-research in this game. After the GLib, getting to Civil Service ASAP is our next great development landmark (that is, if there are no pressing happiness problems causing us to detour? - I don't think there will be since one AI already has monarchy and we have 2 happiness resources from trades).

Because tech trading among the Ai is based on a percentage of contacts already having the tech, there may be advantages to spreading Alphabet around. I think I can see what you mean; if the AI's trade techs between themselves so they all get Math, then they would be more likely to trade it to us? For our case, I think that Alphabet is our leverage, and we don't want to trade it away until we know we can pick up a number of decent sized techs all in one go.

What about, after one more turn, moving a citizen off the cottaged plain and onto the deer in order to grow in just four additional turns?

See you all in the morning. :sleep:

ShannonCT · May 4, 2008

leif erikson said:
We have not yet revolted to Slavery, should we do so soon?

I can't see any reason to spend a turn on revolt right now. When we revolt to Hereditary Rule later, we will be able to change one more civic for free.

leif erikson said:
Once we get Lit, is it Monarchy next for Hereditary Rule and MP's or is a beeline for Civil Service, then Monarchy?

It looks like we're in good shape to beeline for CS. We're at a happy cap of 9 now, and we can go to 10 with a temple. If trading starts opening up soon, we will probably be able to trade Code of Laws for Monarchy. If we get to our happiness limit, we could consider hiring scientists to improve our chances of getting GSs.

Cactus Pete said:
For discussion:

Domination only requires 51% of the land area (33% of population) in this game. Isn't this a moderator manipulation, and doesn't it enable victory by taking over just our home continent? If so, then perhaps research is not as important as anticipated (indeed, we may want to think about when stopping research would become appropriate) and getting a PA ASAP is.

Yes, with our continent likely having enough land for domination, we will want to go for a quick PA and then maybe head for Chemistry, Steel, and Biology.

Cactus Pete said:
Other than Frederick, I'm not sure which of our neighbors will research Metal Casting any time soon. Might that be our next tech both for eventual trading purposes (including inciting to war) and perhaps to build an early forge (plus 2 happiness) after the GLIB.

Agree with JT here. Better to beeline for CS and trade for Metal Casting. Bureaucracy is so powerful here. CS is good trade bait and will help our friends tech faster as well.

Cactus Pete said:
Because tech trading among the Ai is based on a percentage of contacts already having the tech, there may be advantages to spreading Alphabet around.

I agree. If Math is not showing up for trade soon, we could trade Alpha to a couple AI that have Monachy or HBR but not Math, in the hopes of getting Math to more people.

We really want Math within the next 8-9 turns. We can prechop two forests and then move on to chop two more, but if we don't have Math when the chops complete, we're losing 25 hammers per forest toward the GLib.

Cactus Pete said:
What about, after one more turn, moving a citizen off the cottaged plain and onto the deer in order to grow in just four additional turns?

Sounds good. We want as many hammers as possible when it comes time to build the GLib.

ShannonCT · May 4, 2008

Jimmy Thunder said:
I think I can see what you mean; if the AI's trade techs between themselves so they all get Math, then they would be more likely to trade it to us? For our case, I think that Alphabet is our leverage, and we don't want to trade it away until we know we can pick up a number of decent sized techs all in one go.

Another thing about Math: Asoka wont trade it now because he "has his reasons". Can we interpret this to mean that he's trying for Hanging Gardens? If so, he shoud be getting them soon. Asoka already had Calendar when we got Alpha, so he must have had Math for a while, and had some time to build an aquaduct. Now that we've traded stone to him, Bombay can produce at least 31 hammers per turn for Hanging Gardens. So he should finish it by turn 72.

ShannonCT · May 4, 2008

Just looking through the LeaderAI Excel file Gator sent us earlier:

Asoka needs 20%+ of known AI to have a tech to no longer consider it a monopoly tech. Right now, 3/11 of known AI have Math, so he's past the threshold. But he wont trade it because he's building the Hanging Gardens.

Capac needs 30%+ of known AI to know a tech before trading, so he should trade Math when one more AI learns it. Julius and Lizzy are 40%+. Washington and Fred are 30%.

Capac and Julius will trade us monopoly techs when our relations reach +6 or higher. So it would be good to find a way to make these two happier. Toku, Alex, and Issy are the other AI on our continent with the +6 threshold for trading monopoly techs.

Edit: We are at +3 with Julius right now. We could gift him Meditation next turn in the hopes of crossing the +6 threshold for trading monopoly techs.

Frederiksberg · May 4, 2008

leif eriksson said:
Once we get Lit, is it Monarchy next for Hereditary Rule and MP's or is a beeline for Civil Service, then Monarchy?

When the Granary finishes very soon we can grow at rate of 1 pop every 3 turns so I think we need Monarchy very soon. I'm not sure we even have time to finish research of CoL before deciding this. Is it likely that we can trade for Monarchy 13 turns from now? We might try this approach.

Jimmy Thunder said:
Our relationship with Julius is great, he will attack anyone for the right price (but we don't have enough to bribe him currently).

I think Asoka is a contender for the best PA partner, his land is very good for research, and I think he has enough of a warmonger personality to backstab/dogpile into a joint war.

So we should be positioning ourselves very soon to form a shared war with Julius and Asoka and I'm thinking the best targets would be one of HC/Izzy/Toku.

Both Asoka, Frederick and Caesar will attack HC and Izzy and Alex are also possible targets. Toku is Hindu so attacking him does not seem obvious to me.

Cactus Pete said:
Domination only requires 51% of the land area (33% of population) in this game. Isn't this a moderator manipulation, and doesn't it enable victory by taking over just our home continent? If so, then perhaps research is not as important as anticipated (indeed, we may want to think about when stopping research would become appropriate) and getting a PA ASAP is.

According to my calculation we need 283 tiles for domination and I would be surprised if there are not enough on our own continent. Research is important because we need to get to Communism ASAP in order to form the PA. This has been the master plan all along. When we have the PA we will have to decide to go for either Mass Media and the UN or for military techs that will aide in the conquest. For a fast conquest we will probably need a tech superiority.

I'm leaving for Spain on Wednesday so maybe it's better if I swap with CP or JT?

ShannonCT · May 4, 2008

Another tidbit from the LeaderAI spreadsheet. We could trade Lizzy Alphabet for IW right now, and she wouldn't trade Alpha to anyone until 3 additional AI learned it or until she had +15 relations with someone.

Edit: strike that. Lizzy doesn't want to trade IW for Alpha. But in general she wouold be a good person to trade monopoly techs to. Toku is even better. He won't trade techs with anyone unless he has +6 relations with them.

leif erikson · May 4, 2008

Frederiksberg said:
I'm leaving for Spain on Wednesday so maybe it's better if I swap with CP or JT?

CP or JT, are you able to play a set this week?

Frederiksberg said:
Both Asoka, Frederick and Caesar will attack HC and Izzy and Alex are also possible targets. Toku is Hindu so attacking him does not seem obvious to me.

It would be interesting to create a dogpile with Asoka, Fred, Caesar and Washington on the more powerful of the non-Hindu civs. That would go along way to our need for 40 turns of shared war and give us a choice of who we want for our PA partner. The only problem would be allowing one of them to get too powerful and then not being able to join with them. Is there a way for us to manage how much power they obtain?

Frederiksberg said:
According to my calculation we need 283 tiles for domination and I would be surprised if there are not enough on our own continent. Research is important because we need to get to Communism ASAP in order to form the PA. This has been the master plan all along. When we have the PA we will have to decide to go for either Mass Media and the UN or for military techs that will aide in the conquest. For a fast conquest we will probably need a tech superiority.

Communism is one requirement. 40 turns of shared war is another. Once we have the capability of building Cho-Ko-Nu's. we will need to start thinking a bit more about war. :hammer:

ShannonCT said:
Edit: We are at +3 with Julius right now. We could gift him Meditation next turn in the hopes of crossing the +6 threshold for trading monopoly techs.

Let's do it!

ShannonCT said:
Another tidbit from the LeaderAI spreadsheet. We could trade Lizzy Alphabet for IW right now, and she wouldn't trade Alpha to anyone until 3 additional AI learned it or until she had +15 relations with someone.

Again, let's do it! :thumbsup:

I always wondered why it was so hard to trade anything with Izzie. She can be such a, well, unladylike... :mischief:

EDIT - So much for wishing... :lol:

rrau · May 4, 2008

If we are looking at a Hindu civ for our target, we don't want to go to war against another Hindu civ. We'll take a diplo hit for that.....War against our brothers in faith or something like that.

Cactus Pete · May 4, 2008

ShannonCT said:
I can't see any reason to spend a turn on revolt right now. When we revolt to Hereditary Rule later, we will be able to change one more civic for free. Agree, and if we revolt to Slavery, won't we incur a 1GPT for the civic, thereby prohibiting constant 100% research?

It looks like we're in good shape to beeline for CS. We're at a happy cap of 9 now, and we can go to 10 with a temple. If trading starts opening up soon, we will probably be able to trade Code of Laws for Monarchy. If we get to our happiness limit, we could consider hiring scientists to improve our chances of getting GSs. Are we willing to run scientist specialists before we get a Great Merchant (for CS)?

Yes, with our continent likely having enough land for domination, we will want to go for a quick PA and then maybe head for Chemistry, Steel, and Biology.
What about Construction (and cats) to get started early -- perhaps join a dogpile and raze a city for the money or extort techs for peace? Why Biology?

Agree with JT here. Better to beeline for CS and trade for Metal Casting. Bureaucracy is so powerful here. No dissent about the value of Bureaucracy, but will we have a GM ready to light bulb CoL that soon? If not, isn't this a good argument for either Monarchy or Metal Casting next?CS is good trade bait and will help our friends tech faster as well.

I agree. If Math is not showing up for trade soon, we could trade Alpha to a couple AI that have Monachy or HBR but not Math, in the hopes of getting Math to more people.

We really want Math within the next 8-9 turns. We can prechop two forests and then move on to chop two more (like to get the sheep patured), but if we don't have Math when the chops complete, we're losing 25 hammers per forest toward the GLib. Agree, that would be an unecessary waste. Is there a danger that one of the forested hills will have iron? If so, we'll want to chop and mine it, which means not reducing our forests to four before we know where the iron is (or isn't). [/COLOR

Sounds good. We want as many hammers as possible when it comes time to build the GLib.

Won't the bribery cost become affordable if we declare war first?

SGOTM 07 - Xteam

Deity

Deity

Game of the Month Fanatic

Deity

Emperor

Game of the Month Fanatic

Emperor

King

Game of the Month Fanatic

Emperor

Deity

King

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Game of the Month Fanatic

Emperor

Deity

Similar threads