SGOTM 07 - Xteam

[Jimmy Thunder]

A good initial attack order is: Washington, Toku, HC (only take Cuzco then make peace), and then Fred. This will clear out the enemy from around Asoka's borders and creates a narrow target for our attack path.

Then perhaps we go: Julius, Elizabeth, Alex, HC, Kublai.

 

[Mad Professor]

A good initial attack order is: Washington, Toku, HC (only take Cuzco then make peace), and then Fred. This will clear out the enemy from around Asoka's borders and creates a narrow target for our attack path.

Then perhaps we go: Julius, Elizabeth, Alex, HC, Kublai.

This is good because it frees up Asoka's borders, and it gets Cuzco and Madrid in the first half. I like those things.

The second half involves some units trekking around from place to place though - ie Julius to Elizabeth. It might be worth playing SCT's test game again deliberately choosing a sequence of targets far apart to see what delays this causes. The first effort I made at it wasn't good in this regard - I left America to last and had finished rushing south with just America to go, and it took a little while for Capac to get his units into America - he didn't look enthusiastic. Maybe this was just one instance and is not indicative that this is a general problem? There seemed to be less delays when I chose a sequence more of civs close to each other so I kept the carrot pretty much under the nose of the big stack...

Would going to Elizabeth after Fred be better, and putting Julius on the end after Kublai...?

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

OK, new proposed order:

Washington, Liz, HC (only take Cuzco then make peace), Toku, and then Fred.

Followed by Julius, Kublai, HC, Alex.

Shouldn't require any cross continent treks.

This gives us two tough targets near the start (i.e. Washington and Liz) and will slightly delay capturing Madrid... but it would be good to get Liz out of the way before she has a chance to get redcoats.

 

[leif erikson]

OK, new proposed order:

Washington, Liz, HC (only take Cuzco then make peace), Toku, and then Fred.

Followed by Julius, Kublai, HC, Alex.

Shouldn't require any cross continent treks.

This gives us two tough targets near the start (i.e. Washington and Liz) and will slightly delay capturing Madrid... but it would be good to get Liz out of the way before she has a chance to get redcoats.

I agree with Washington (razing New York?, Asoka's culture will overcome some of our tiles I fear?) and then Liz. Do we plan to attack with Grenadiers and Cats?

I would like to propose an alternative. I think I understand the reason for going for Toku is to clear Asoka's borders. Toku's culture is so inferior to Asoka's that Kyoto presents no push on his borders. Since we are moving Washington to Liz, then south to Alex, HC and, after getting Cuzco, continue on to Fred while also snagging Tiawanaku, then on to Julius and Toku and wrapping up with the Mongols. We could conceivably wait to end with Toku depending upon how things progress? Between Madrid, Hamburg, Bombay and Delhi, Kyoto's area may get swallowed anyway?

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Infantry only or infantry + Artillery?"

Artillery, then infantry.

Do we declare on Alex to cheapen the price of getting Lizzie to attack him?

Regarding order of conquest:
Why not Alex after Lizzie? His non-defensive units should be in England and vulnerable. Having a galeon built by then would certainly faciltate matters.

Presuming we attack Washington first, let's get workers and 9/10 mace home. Wash will likely counterattack us with his cats, trying to pillage (this could well include Asoka's gold). The mace should be able to pick one off and let us build the HE. The workers may have to repair an improvement.

Delaying war a few turns while we continue towards Chemistry will allow Wash to send and lose units trying to take Cusco. We should consider declaring war before we have Chemistry though , because our lack of power may sucker Wash into attacking us, just before we upgrade.

Razing NYC, trading low-level techs, and selling our map will get us gold for upgrading, so we may want to keep some of our excess archers and concentrate on bulding cats and maces. An early build should be theater (one turn if we micromanage) to free up an MP and prepare for later Globe.

Probably risk of going to Free Religion now is greater than possible problems with cultural expansion later.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Probably risk of going to Free Religion now is greater than possible problems with cultural expansion later.

If we can determine that Asoka is Friendly at +10 I don't see any risk. In that case the "cost" is an extra turn of Anarchy. In return we get 10% more research from Asoka and we can use or GS's for something else than Academies in Cuzco and Madrid. Finally we can get expansion in minimum 5 turns in the last captured city.

 

[leif erikson]

If we can determine that Asoka is Friendly at +10 I don't see any risk. In that case the "cost" is an extra turn of Anarchy. In return we get 10% more research from Asoka and we can use or GS's for something else than Academies in Cuzco and Madrid. Finally we can get expansion in minimum 5 turns in the last captured city.

Asoka is at +17 with us now. If we lose the +9 for "We Care for our Brothers and Sisters in Faith", we will be at +8. Will that be enough?

 

[Frederiksberg]

Asoka is at +17 with us now. If we lose the +9 for "We Care for our Brothers and Sisters in Faith", we will be at +8. Will that be enough?

We can get an additional +2 by gifting some techs - that's why I'm talking about +10. We would have to gift Liberalism anyway.

Looking at the alternative, we can use 3 GP's (unless they are Merchants!) to solve the culture expansion problem. We can build Academy/settle GA in Cuzco, Madrid and the last city we capture to get the fast expansion we need. Academy+Hinduism is 5 cpt i.e. 1st border expansion in 2 turns and 2nd border expansion in 20 turns. we can expect to get a GS from Physics and 1-2 additional GP's in the remainder of the game. This means that we can use max 1 GP for other purposes. And if we get a merchant it could cost us a considerable number of turns in the end (probably 8).

 

[leif erikson]

We can get an additional +2 by gifting some techs - that's why I'm talking about +10. We would have to gift Liberalism anyway.

Looking at the alternative, we can use 3 GP's (unless they are Merchants!) to solve the culture expansion problem. We can build Academy/settle GA in Cuzco, Madrid and the last city we capture to get the fast expansion we need. Academy+Hinduism is 5 cpt i.e. 1st border expansion in 2 turns and 2nd border expansion in 20 turns. we can expect to get a GS from Physics and 1-2 additional GP's in the remainder of the game. This means that we can use max 1 GP for other purposes. And if we get a merchant it could cost us a considerable number of turns in the end (probably 8).

This is provided Asoka does nothing to help himself? Should he build Theater in each captured city, except the last perhaps due to build time, we would not have to intervene as much?

Perhaps we should watch what Asoka is building and we could reserve a Great Person for the last city. The key cities we've ID'ed as Madrid and Cuzco, with Cuzco being in the worst situation. A Missionary could help that situation?
When can we no longer build Missionaries?

 

[ShannonCT]

If we can determine that Asoka is Friendly at +10 I don't see any risk. In that case the "cost" is an extra turn of Anarchy. In return we get 10% more research from Asoka and we can use or GS's for something else than Academies in Cuzco and Madrid. Finally we can get expansion in minimum 5 turns in the last captured city.

One thing I'm worried about is that I don't understand how all of the hidden modifiers work. The reason one AI may be friendly with you at +8 and another may be cautious at +8 (Toku) is the hidden modifiers. Can we be sure that Asoka will still be friendly with us at +10?

What are the chances that Asoka will adopt Free Religion on his own somewhere down the road?

If we adopted Theocracy before we sign the PA and get Asoka to adopt it as well, how many turns earlier could we expect to conquer our final city because Asoka's units are stronger?

When can we no longer build Missionaries?

Apparently we can build Hindu missionaries for the rest of the game. SciMeth didn't obsolete the Monastary in that respect. So we have a guaranteed way to get a first border expansion in 10 turns.

The HE and Globe will be two more sources of Artist GPPs. So we'll be reducing our chances of getting a GM with those two builds.

 

[Frederiksberg]

This is provided Asoka does nothing to help himself? Should he build Theater in each captured city, except the last perhaps due to build time, we would not have to intervene as much?

Yes, we can hope for this. Theater yields 3cpt. If we add 1 cpt for Hinduism that is 25 turns + build time for Theater to 2nd border expansion. Maybe good enough if Cuzco and Madrid are not captured late.

One thing I'm worried about is that I don't understand how all of the hidden modifiers work. The reason one AI may be friendly with you at +8 and another may be cautious at +8 (Toku) is the hidden modifiers. Can we be sure that Asoka will still be friendly with us at +10?

I was thinking about going back to an earlier save to estimate when Asoka became Friendly.

 

[Cactus Pete]

A GM early would facilitate upgrading, but late we should certainly try to avoid. As SCT has pointed out, revolting to Caste System at some point (are we likely to use Slavery again?) would give us more control.

Couple of notes on war:
Let's get caravel in position to be upgraded before we declare on Lizzie;
if we promote archers to CR, it's more likely that Asoka will upgrade to offensive units;
if we declare on Alex now, it will give us the option of just taking Athens (after London) and then getting a cease fire or peace (and taking care of Sparta later);
after Chemistry comes in, it may be worth it to go 100% gold for a turn to have additional money to upgrade.

 

[leif erikson]

Where are we on the culture discussion. I think I hear that we are not sure about changing to Free Religion and asking Asoka to do so as well. Do we think we have enough of a plan on expanding culture that we can do so without the change to Free Religion?

What about the idea of getting Asoka to take up Theocracy and the additional promotions it involves? I kind of like this.

How about order of attack? Seems like we're ready to go Washington and then Lizzie. If we can agree here, we can always decide once we have fought our initial wars. To do this, I think we must trade for Gunpowder with Washington and then see how quickly we can achieve Chemistry, or are there still leanings towards Physics?

Not trying to rush. Just checking to see where we are as it has been a discussion of many good ideas.

 

[ShannonCT]

Couple of notes on war:

if we promote archers to CR, it's more likely that Asoka will upgrade to offensive units;

after Chemistry comes in, it may be worth it to go 100% gold for a turn to have additional money to upgrade.

If we wait until Chemistry before we gift the archers, he'll almost certainly prefer to upgrade them to grenadiers rather than longbows, right?

And I expect Asoka will have plenty of gold in reserve to give to us after upgrading his own units. The AI only make a small percentage of their reserve gold available to non-allies. But with the PA, we'll see a lot of gold available. When we take some, he'll probably reduce his research rate to replenish it. But it's better for us to stay at 100% research since we have a 200% beaker bonus and no gold bonus.

How about order of attack? Seems like we're ready to go Washington and then Lizzie. If we can agree here, we can always decide once we have fought our initial wars. To do this, I think we must trade for Gunpowder with Washington and then see how quickly we can achieve Chemistry, or are there still leanings towards Physics?

After we sort out any civic change pre-PA, the first order of business should be to trade for Gunpowder and make the PA so we can see how many turns Physics and Chemistry will cost with Asoka's beaker boost.

 

[Frederiksberg]

If we adopted Theocracy before we sign the PA and get Asoka to adopt it as well, how many turns earlier could we expect to conquer our final city because Asoka's units are stronger?

Good point! I have a hunch that he might go for Free Religion later. But that's not bad either.

When comparing the Free Religion strategy for culture expansion with the Academy/GA strategy the main difference is that we need to use some GP's for culture rather than science. I think we can use our current GS for Physics/Academy in the expectation that we get a GS from Physics and will be able to get 2 more GP's before the game is over. A GS is no more than say 1.5 turns worth. Free Religion will also be worth a couple of turns. Then we have to spend an extra turn in Anarchy so the tech gain is likely to be around say 3 turns. I guess there is a reasonable chance that Theocracy can compensate some of this allthough it's hard to quantify.

I have a couple of questions regarding this: When we are researching Physics together with Asoka who will get the GS? And how will the PA affect the time it takes to get GP's? Maybe we can only expect one more GP unless we hire a significant number of specialists thus reducing gold/hammer output significantly.

Let's get caravel in position to be upgraded before we declare on Lizzie;
if we promote archers to CR, it's more likely that Asoka will upgrade to offensive units;
if we declare on Alex now, it will give us the option of just taking Athens (after London) and then getting a cease fire or peace (and taking care of Sparta later);
after Chemistry comes in, it may be worth it to go 100% gold for a turn to have additional money to upgrade.

Caravel is already on it's way back home.

I don't think archers can get CR promotions. We could try combat 1.

Going 100% gold for one turn will hardly give us gold enough for one upgrade. Our many beakers are a result of many science multipliers.

 

[ShannonCT]

I have a couple of questions regarding this: When we are researching Physics together with Asoka who will get the GS?

I'm not sure who will get the GS if we're both researching Physics when it's finished. It might depend on whose beakers contribute the final bit needed. But we can guarantee that we get the GS by telling Asoka to research something else when we are one turn away from Physics.

 

[leif erikson]

Good point! I have a hunch that he might go for Free Religion later. But that's not bad either.

Yes, I do like the idea of Theocracy. But i think I said that already...

I have a couple of questions regarding this: When we are researching Physics together with Asoka who will get the GS?

Found this in another thread:

Starting the turn after you sign a PA, the info box in the bottom right of the screen will show what your PA is researching, along with what you are researching. You can ask your PA to change what they are researching (diplomacy screen, "Let's discuss something else"). Usually you'll want your PA to research the same thing you are, as your research points get added together and you can research even faster. Occasionally you'll want to ask your PA to switch to research something different, for instance if the tech you are about to discover gives a free GP. The AI is notoriously bad about using GP -- very inefficient. Have your PA change research so you get the free GP, then you can use the GP in one of your cities, or even in one of your PA's cities, whereever it will do the most good.

The entire thread is a discussion of a PA. You can get there by going HERE.

And how will the PA affect the time it takes to get GP's? Maybe we can only expect one more GP unless we hire a significant number of specialists thus reducing gold/hammer output significantly.

I did not notice a difference in how I got Great People in the test game, but I wasn't exactly paying attention to it either. It seemed that it proceeded as normal?

Here is a link to the Startegy Forum and a Guide to Permanent Alliances by WastinTime.

I don't think archers can get CR promotions. We could try combat 1.

No, no CR1 for Archers. CBT1, Guerilla1, CG1 or Drill1 only.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"If we wait until Chemistry before we gift the archers, he'll almost certainly prefer to upgrade them to grenadiers rather than longbows, right?" Right (my mistake), but he could just put them in a city . . . so we might want to put one or two on the gold hill and upgrade them to Choks, declare war, finish Chemistry, then gift. For this purpose, we might be better off using a couple of the unpromoted archers in our capital (whatever number we don't need as MP's, given a theater) if we're going to gift units to Asoka (and I'm inclined to gift fewer, if upgrading is affordable, as I think we'll do better with the promotion, and the next one, than Asoka.)

Caravel is already on it's way back home. Good, how about the mace and the workers?

Going 100% gold for one turn will hardly give us gold enough for one upgrade. Our many beakers are a result of many science multipliers. Yes, forget that idea.

Be helpful to have an additional mace with two promotions available near our capital before we declare war on Wash (and, as I suggested earlier, just before we get Chemistry) so we can defend the marble and other key improvements from pillaging the turn after war is declared, while we upgrade to grenadiers.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I did a WB test that confirmed that Asoka will be Friendly at +10. So the Free Religion path is feasible.

I did some calculations on the appearance of GP's. When Globe and Heroic Epic are built we will be making 2*8=16 GPP per turn. To reach 600 GPP we need 38 turns. The 2nd one will then come after 44 turns. Seems to fit reasonably well with a schedule 80 turns to domination. Can we hope to achieve Dom faster than this? 16 cities spending 4.5 turns per captured city means 72 turns. When we get near the end we might be able to hire some specialists to speed the 2nd GP.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Not easy to choose between the Free Religion and Theocracy plans. On one hand we can gain maybe 3 turns on our research to Infantry (rough estimate) and on the other we gain some promotions for Asoka's forces and a few of our own. It's like comparing apples and pears. Will the extra promotions really speed the attack or will all enemy cities be taken down to one defender by ourselves and then captured by Asoka in which case promotions seem to play an insignificant role?