SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[Jimmy Thunder]

I think we should declare right now.

Kublai seems like a good target. After Julius declares, we can declare and then try to bribe Fred followed by Asoka. We can pretty much guarantee that Kublai will get destroyed by those 3 AI's dog piling him.

I wonder how much the bribe bait changes with each additional AI already at war with the target civ. I.E if we can't bribe Asoka with 3 civs already at war with Kublai, would we be able to if there were 6-7 AI's at war with Kublai?

Hopefully he will join in with just us, Julius and Fred at war.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"I'd say we should bribe JC to attack Kublai right now. We're not ready to get involved in the fighting right now anyway. We have an aquaduct, WB, and barracks to build before we start producing units." Okay, but do I understand that, while we won't get involved in the fighting , we will declare on Kublai as well to earn friendship points with Julius (and perhaps others, if they can be persuaded to join). I have some concern that Julius may not be at all successful, if he has to go it alone, since Kublai is powerful with a good UU, the defender always has a considerable advantage, the AI does not attack intelligently, and we're a long way away. If Julius fails, might there be undesirable consequences?

JT, why shouldn't we declare first to reduce the cost of the bribe?

 

[Mad Professor]

Thanks JT.

Updated Roster:
Jimmy Thunder - UP (for the weekend)
Cactus Pete - On Deck
Frederiksberg - Off for Spain - wishes for good travels.
Mad Professor - Off on an African adventure, where is he today?

On that day I was in Mbale in the morning, Kisumu in the afternoon, and flew back to Nairobi in the evening. I'm now in N'Djamena (Chad) and I'm up to page 17...

 

[Mad Professor]

Roster:
Cactus Pete - UP
Frederiksberg - On Deck (awaiting his return from Spain, if there is a delay, could be Gator if he is available?)
Gator
Mad Professor - Off on an African adventure, when does he return?

Lief, you sure know how to get a guy looking for your next roster don't you? What will you change the comment to next time?

I'm around an internet connection for the next couple of days (I've done my bush stint in Chad already) before leaving here on Thursday night. I arrive back in Melbourne Saturday. Who knows I might even be able to make some contributions to the dicussion in the next day or two. Then from next week life returns to some form of normality in Australia (whatever that is)

 

[Mad Professor]

"I'd say we should bribe JC to attack Kublai right now. We're not ready to get involved in the fighting right now anyway. We have an aquaduct, WB, and barracks to build before we start producing units." Okay, but do I understand that, while we won't get involved in the fighting , we will declare on Kublai as well to earn friendship points with Julius (and perhaps others, if they can be persuaded to join). I have some concern that Julius may not be at all successful, if he has to go it alone, since Kublai is powerful with a good UU, the defender always has a considerable advantage, the AI does not attack intelligently, and we're a long way away. If Julius fails, might there be undesirable consequences?

JT, why shouldn't we declare first to reduce the cost of the bribe?

It looks like this is going to be a triple post. My apologies, but if you look at the times, there's a while between them - I've been catching up!

I like the idea of attacking Khan better than Alex simply because we're more likely to get Julius in on it.

Declaring first might or might not reduce the actual cost of the bribe. Normally it will do so, but if it doesn't reduce it by a whole tech (CoL or MC) then he'll still want both in order to do it - that might get us a higher "our deals have been forthright" bonus though - just maybe... I wouldn't want to leave too long between declaring and inviting Caesar in though so that Khan doesn't conceive a desire to try finding a way to China, despite the obvious difficulties. At this stage I like the idea of a war where we can't get hurt

 

[leif erikson]

Okay, but do I understand that, while we won't get involved in the fighting , we will declare on Kublai as well to earn friendship points with Julius (and perhaps others, if they can be persuaded to join). I have some concern that Julius may not be at all successful, if he has to go it alone, since Kublai is powerful with a good UU, the defender always has a considerable advantage, the AI does not attack intelligently, and we're a long way away. If Julius fails, might there be undesirable consequences?

I'm not sure we could do much to help him anyway, except to try to bring in another civ or two to help him out. By the time we get units there, in the small quantities we can afford, I doubt they will have much of an effect.

In some ways, should Julius fail, and we have gotten Asoka involved, we achieve our aims of shared war with Asoka. A more powerful Mongol empire is far away and much can happen in the next 60 or 70 turns. I'm not sure we have a better choice at the moment?

JT, why shouldn't we declare first to reduce the cost of the bribe?

The current price with Julius is both techs plus 60 Gold. Saving the 60 Gold would be nice as we may need it to bribe someone else? Ah, the political world of money and power...

Lief, you sure know how to get a guy looking for your next roster don't you? What will you change the comment to next time?

Wouldn't want you to be bored with all this reading to do. I'm amazed you are keeping up.
And we're way behind in post count to Murky. I think they are already over a thousand posts...

I'm around an internet connection for the next couple of days (I've done my bush stint in Chad already) before leaving here on Thursday night. I arrive back in Melbourne Saturday. Who knows I might even be able to make some contributions to the dicussion in the next day or two. Then from next week life returns to some form of normality in Australia (whatever that is)

Very happy to hear you are safe and seeing the world. Once you're home and settled, let us know when your mouse finger is to get into the action.

It looks like this is going to be a triple post. My apologies, but if you look at the times, there's a while between them - I've been catching up!

No problem, we like triple posts. Means you're reading fast...

 

[ShannonCT]

I have some concern that Julius may not be at all successful, if he has to go it alone, since Kublai is powerful with a good UU, the defender always has a considerable advantage, the AI does not attack intelligently, and we're a long way away. If Julius fails, might there be undesirable consequences?

Remember Julius has Praets (I saw them in my exploration of Roman land). It would be hard for Julius to lose a city to Kublai. Worst case scenario would be a stalemate. But it's really about getting some turns of shared war right now.

JT, why shouldn't we declare first to reduce the cost of the bribe?

I think we should declare first. Try to bribe him with MC only.

 

[Mad Professor]

I think we should declare first. Try to bribe him with MC only.

I agree. I think we have almost nothing to lose doing that. At worst the bribe won't be significantly reduced. At best we get the same result cheaper.

 

[ShannonCT]

In general, I think we want to spread MC around to all of our friends. We want them to research Machinery, Compass, and Optics while we focus on CS, Paper, Education, and Philosophy. Asoka, Julius, Toku, and Fred can all likely be bribed into war with Issy, Kublai, or Alex using MC. Washington can't be bribed into war until he's Friendly with us, but we could gift him MC to get us closer to the point where he'll trade monopoly techs (+11 diplo). If we max out the shared religion bonus (+5) and the trade relations bonus (+4) with Washington, we'll be at +10 with him.

I also notice that Julius and Fred don't have HBR. If we get HBR from Washington, we can gift it to Julius and Fred to improve our trade relations bonus.

 

[Cactus Pete]

In general, I think we want to spread MC around to all of our friends. We want them to research Machinery, Compass, and Optics while we focus on CS, Paper, Education, and Philosophy. Will do. Asoka, Julius, Toku, and Fred can all likely be bribed into war with Issy, Kublai, or Alex using MC. Do we want them all involved with us in the same war, which would put them on extremely good terms with each other going forward, or do we want to limit their compatibility?Washington can't be bribed into war until he's Friendly with us, but we could gift him MC to get us closer to the point where he'll trade monopoly techs (+11 diplo). If we max out the shared religion bonus (+5) and the trade relations bonus (+4) with Washington, we'll be at +10 with him.

I also notice that Julius and Fred don't have HBR. If we get HBR from Washington, we can gift it to Julius and Fred to improve our trade relations bonus.

Not clear if you are advocating trading MC to Wash for HBR or gifting it to him to improve relations. Does a trade bring the same friendship bonus as a gift?

Mad, in Chad . . . Was it bad?

 

[ShannonCT]

Not clear if you are advocating trading MC to Wash for HBR or gifting it to him to improve relations. Does a trade bring the same friendship bonus as a gift?

We should get at least +1 for fair trade if we trade MC to an AI for less than they were willing to give, i.e., if they get the better end of the deal.

Do we want them all involved with us in the same war, which would put them on extremely good terms with each other going forward, or do we want to limit their compatibility?

The better relations they have with each other, the more freely they will trade techs with each other and the faster the tech pace will be. I think this is what we need to encourage to improve our chances for the gold medal. The only problem I see is that a 4 AI dogpile will eliminate the enemy too quickly. We want the wars to drag out for a while. So maybe it's better to pit Julius and Asoka against Kublai and pit Fred and Toku against Issy.

 

[Cactus Pete]

We should get at least +1 for fair trade if we trade MC to an AI for less than they were willing to give, i.e., if they get the better end of the deal. Thanks, didn't know that.

The better relations they have with each other, the more freely they will trade techs with each other and the faster the tech pace will be. I think this is what we need to encourage to improve our chances for the gold medal. The only problem I see is that a 4 AI dogpile will eliminate the enemy too quickly. We want the wars to drag out for a while. So maybe it's better to pit Julius and Asoka against Kublai and pit Fred and Toku against Issy.

I'll see what I can do.

Plan to play three turns in about three hours. Welcome any other advice. JT, did you get your log to Gator?

 

[leif erikson]

I'll see what I can do.

Plan to play three turns in about three hours.

Good Luck CP!

Looking for a Great Scientist...

 

[Mad Professor]

Mad, in Chad . . . Was it bad?

I have many stories to tell but they're all rather off topic

Chad generally is settling down after the coup attempt in February but an army will not solve the underlying problems. It's all waiting to happen aain sometime.

I like Africa by the way. Not everyone's idea of fun, and I wish they would stop shooting at one another (that might apply to some non-African countries too) but generally I like the place

Good luck when you start playing!

 

[Cactus Pete]

Playing now. Will post in a few hours.

 

[DJMGator13]

Playing now. Will post in a few hours.

Based on how things stood at turn 77, you should see a bunch of tech trade offers coming through around turns 97 to 105 provided something is available to trade.

Quick rundown, Based on our refusals:

Kublai: open border @T93, stop trading @T97, tech trade @T114
JC & Wash: tech trade @T94
Asoka: tech trade @T97
Alex: tech trade @T100
Fred: tech trade @T102
Capac: tech trade @T103
Liz: tech trade @T105, Ask for help @T119

Edit: updated from JT's log, I'll upload the worksheet after CP posts, since he is already playing.

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

Turn log is added to my post:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6810064&postcount=398

Apologies for the delay gentlemen (and lady).

 

[Cactus Pete]

CACTUS PETE
SGOTM7 REPORT 725BC TO BC​

725BC (What turn # is this?):

Move workers to road and mine iron; run one scientist; move citizen to stone to get aqueduct [why isn’t it ‘aquaduct’] in four turns.

Declare war on Kublai and immediately bribe JC to join us for CoL (and got him to throw in 80 gold – guy likes to fight).

Bribe Asoka to join the war against Kublai for MC (and got him to throw in 40 gold, plus he’ll now trade some techs with us).

Toku won’t declare war on Issy. He doesn’t like us enough, since we just declared war on a friend of his, so I traded him Poly for 40 gold, thinking the good deal might improve our relations +1. That didn’t work, so I gifted him MC, which did the trick.

Trade MC to Washington for HBR and 10 gold.

Declare on Issy and get Toku to join for CoL and Monarchy, then get Fred aboard for CoL and MC. (None of our four partners is now willing to consider participating in a second war.)

All our brethren now have MC, except Julius, but I see nothing to be gained by gifting it to him immediately.

[note that the furs are 57% Chinese and the cows are 55% American – need to monitor this]

IBT: Washington adopts Organized Religion

700BC:

Run two scientists.

Send an axe toward Japan to take advantage of open borders for exploration and possibly to monitor and help out against the Spanish.

As we have declared war on his friend, Asoka again will not trade tech with us.

Nottingham disappears, leaving three wounded English archers guarding the ruins.

IBT: English archers begin to heal as they move out of our territory.

675BC: Manage city and move axe towards Japan.

IBT: A Great Artist has been born in Madrid, and Al-Kindi has materialized in Beijing (a GS!) [Someone please educate me. Where and when did Al-Kindi live, and what brilliant insight or discovery is attributed to him? He didn’t per chance originate kindergarten?] Asoka has invented the compass.

660BC: Manage city and advance axe.

[Note that fur is still 57% Chinese but that cows are now only 53% American.]

For discussion:

Plan to finish Aqueduct, then build workboat and barracks.

What about mining and roading the silver as a next task for the workers? Then just cottaging and roading?

What can be done to improve relations with Washington and get Asoka willing to trade tech?

Will it be Philosophy or an academy?

Gator, now that war has broken out, please give us an update on the requests I’m likely to receive. Comments on our best responses would be appreciated.

I’d like to continue in about 24 hours, unless the team has concerns.

When I try tp upload a screen shot, I get this message:

Cactus Pete, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

 

[Frederiksberg]

When I try tp upload a screen shot, I get this message:

Cactus Pete, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Are you sure that you were still logged in when you tried to do this? The system will automatically do a log out if you haven't been active for a while. I have often been logged out automatically because it took me some time to write a long post.

Will it be Philosophy or an academy?

I would say that Academy is the better choice because we can't be sure when we get the next GS and while the Academy can only be built with a GS we can always self research Philosophy. I haven't read up on the thread (just returned from Spain) but my guess is that we also get more beakers from the Academy during the remainder of the game than we get by bulbing.

[Someone please educate me. Where and when did Al-Kindi live, and what brilliant insight or discovery is attributed to him? He didn’t per chance originate kindergarten?]

From Wikipedia: Al-Kindi

It seems that he is not related to Al Bundy... Al Bundy

 

[leif erikson]

Very happy to hear that Nottingham has disappeared!

For discussion:

Plan to finish Aqueduct, then build workboat and barracks.

What about mining and roading the silver as a next task for the workers? Then just cottaging and roading?

What can be done to improve relations with Washington and get Asoka willing to trade tech?

Yes. If we mine and road the silver, can we trade it? I suppose at least while we have Open Borders with Washington.

Improving relations with Washington can best be accomplished by meeting his next tech demand or with a gift of tech?

Will it be Philosophy or an academy?

I think this is a difficult question.
I agree that the Academy will provide the most beakers over the long haul. I think the case can be made for bulbing as well because Philosophy is a valuable tech that other civs will trade for, or go to war to obtain. It might be of use in getting Washington in a more friendly place and revolting to Pacifism would help get another GP sooner? The value of the tech for trading, etc., could point to bulbing it for short term gain, especially since HC of the Incans has it already.
The other advantage of an Academy is the additional culture, since we are beginning to feel the pinch from Washington's cities.

I think the value of Philosophy, Pacifism and trade may be more valuable at the moment that an Academy? How long until we see our next Great Person?

I’d like to continue in about 24 hours, unless the team has concerns.

I think we should be able to meet this.

When I try to upload a screen shot, I get this message:

Cactus Pete, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

The easy upload system has been disabled as the site was hit by a virus using this system. Alan's post is HERE.
We now have to use an off site server, like photobucket. The only way I know of using CFC is to use manage attachments and upload your photos as attachments to the thread. You have no control where they go as they only show at the bottom of your post.