SGOTM 08 - Fifth Element

[Mesix]

Nicely played.

The only mistake I see is trading away Paper. We did get a much needed Currency tech from it, but we could have gotten Currency much cheaper. Maybe we shold see if we can get any techs from other civs for Paper since Ghandi will no doubt trade it to everyone anyway.

Once we got the circumnavigate bonus there is no reason to hold Optics anymore. Trade it away, but don't give the AI players Astro once we get that.

 

[Mesix]

Is there any chance that we could achieve a different VC faster?

Perhaps with a proper focus we could get our top three cities primed for a Cultural win.

I am only brining it up because we need to seal the deal as quick as possible after getting the required wonders. It would be a shame to have an additional 50 turns of war to secure a domination VC when we could have a back up or two ready to go.

After taking the wonder rich cities, we may want to consider vassalizing some AI civs to speed things along. We need to start keeping count of wonders to plan our late game strategy. I'll open the save and post an analysis of the wonder situation in a bit.

 

[berserks01]

We should at least raze Shaka's copper city before declaring peace. It will block Ulundi from fully utilizing its tiles. Or trade for Feudalism and vassalize him, but only after razing copper city.

 

[BLubmuz]

I missed the paper trade.
I never trade that, it's in the edu/Liberalism route.

First we have to RAZE the copper city, then we can sue for peace.
If we don't like the city he's offering, we can always gave it to Joao, then we'll raze it when we go to war with him.

Let's try to move the trireme near Stone, to see how the barb city looks.

 

[WastinTime]

Nice cottaging. Please tell me I'm next up.

 

[WastinTime]

I missed the paper trade.
I never trade that, it's in the edu/Liberalism route.

First we have to take the copper city, then we can sue for peace.

Agree. We are only 2 turns away from razing it.

 

[berserks01]

According to the roster

Sweetacshon is up and WT you're on deck.

 

[BLubmuz]

Noticed?
Turn 142, 640 AD: Isca (Boudica) has been captured by the Holy Roman Empire!!!
Interesting, Charlie is at war, the others are a Hindu kissy-kissy in a calender fest, damn them.

 

[berserks01]

That should've popped up as an alert!!! I didn't see any alert like that.

It does not show up in the Relations screen because we haven't met HRE yet.

 

[MacBalt]

approved plan? with the RNG involved? fight, that's all

No, I can't agree. This sets a bad precedent... surely others would've wanted to comment on (at least) cities, builds, and workers for the TS.

The reason why i didn't posted a plan before play, it's simple: we already has a plan.

Okay, I know I'm not checking in often enough to make too much of a fuss about this, but I've got to say something, so, IMHO...

If we don't post detailed pre-play plans and open them up for discussion from the team before every turnset then we haven't got a prayer of winning, or even of coming close. If we are just playing for shits and giggles, then fine. Frankly, I learn way more (at least when I'm paying better attention) from the discussion about the PPPlans than I do from playing my turnset, or, for that matter, from participating in post-mortems on other players' turnsets. Personally, I'm disappointed to see us abandon the PPP format. It makes the whole SG format a lot less appealing to me.

Sweeta is right. Not posting at least some kind of PPP sets a horrible precedent. It's only my two cents... but I'd really rather not play just for shits and giggles. We need the experience of the whole team to be in on every turnset if we want to be competitive.

 

[WastinTime]

@balthalion: Amen, We didn't share any of our experience on how to war. I was looking forward to learning something and sharing a few of my tricks. It's like we assumed that any child can do the warmongering, just fight!

I'm certain that our careless play has cost us 20-25 turns on our end date. I criticized the last TS a bit (sorry if I came off harsh), but berserks actually did quite well and has put us on the road to recovery. If we continue to recover, we will still be 20 turns behind, but at least we're not 40 or 50.

(P.S. Gandhi won't trade that paper, so don't give it to anyone else.)

 

[Mesix]

Here is my analysis of World Wonders that have been built:

Fifthberg (Fifth Element)
-Great Lighthouse
-Colossus

Parma (Fifth Element)
-Oracle
-Kong Miao (shrine)

Engineering (Fifth Element)
-Hanging Gardens

Delhi (India)
-Hagia Sophia
-Statue of Zues
-Stonehenge
-Temple of Artemis
-Keshi Vishwanath (shrine)
-Temple of Solomon (shrine)

Bombay (India)
-Church of Nativity (shrine)

Bibracte (Celtic)
-Great Wall

Rome (Roman)
-Pyramids
-Chichen Itza

Aachen (Holy Roman Empire)
...no wonders, but is the Buddhism Holy City

 

[Mesix]

Here is a list of wonders that remain:

Angkor Wat................Philosophy
Apostolic Palace..........Theology
Broadway...................Mass Media
Cristo Redentor...........Radio
Eiffel Tower................Radio
Great Library...............Literature
Holly Wood.................Mass Media
Kremlin......................Communism
Mausoleum of Maus......Calandar
Notre Dame................Music
Parthenon..................Polytheism
Pentagon...................Assembly Line
Rock & Roll.................Radio
Shwedagon Paya.........Aesthetics
Sistine Chapel.............Music
Space Elevator............Robotics
Spiral Minaret..............Devine Right
Statue of Liberty.........Democracy
Taj Mahal...................Nationalism
Three Gorges Dam.......Plastics
United Nations............Mass Media
Versailles...................Devine Right

Religions yet to be founded (Holy Shrines)
Islam........................Devine Right
Taoism......................Philosophy
Buddhism was founded in Aachen but the shrine was not built yet.

 

[Mesix]

Here is a list of National Wonders. We have to plan these as only 2 can go in each city. There are 14 total NW so we need to have aminimum of 7 cities that will build them. We cannot capture these from the AI so they must be built.

Marbles
-Moai Statues

Remaining National Wonders:
Forbidden Palace..........Code of Laws
Globe Theatre..............Drama
Hermitage...................Nationalism
Heroic Epic..................Literature
Iron Works..................Steel
Mt. Rushmore..............Fascism
National Epic...............Literature
National Park...............Biology
Oxford University..........Education
Red Cross...................Medicine
Scotland Yard.............Communism
Wall Street.................Corporation
West Point.................Military Tradition

 

[Mesix]

Here is a list of corporate HQ. They count as wonders too so we should aim to build or capture them all.

Aluminum Inc..........Rocketry..........GS
Cereal Mills.............Refrigeration.....GM
Civilized Jewelers.....Mass Media.......GA
Creative Construct...Combustion.......GE
Mining Inc..............Railroad............GE
Sid Sushi................Medicine..........GM
Standard Ethenol.....Plastics............GS

 

[greatbeyond]

Interesting. I see we don't have a single catapult. I thought that was everyone's favorite unit? I usually only have 4 of them.

I never build any, when I'm trying for a peacemonger win, ..many(!) when I'm in a foul mood.
I'm using stacks of them in a current test for a GOTM. Even though they can't kill units in BTS, they still work wonders.

I've been playing a test of BOTM on the same level and have managed to build every wonder after ~ Drama ( and about 75% before), it is possible and I did so by about 1900. Of course I was not trying for the quickest win and wanted to see if getting them all was possible/worth it. One of the good things that appears to have changed in BTS is that it doesn't appear you need to get the AI down to 1 or 2 cities to get them to capitulate. I took two of ~12 cities and got capitulation.

Of course Vassals's wonders don't count but I suppose we could use them for other things.

Stupid question #32343: can you release your vassals and then attack them or just attack them? Or once you get them, are you stuck with them?

Sweeta, Sometimes I have to catch myself with those kinds of capito(a)l errors. It seems common that the native speakers butcher their own language worse than anyone.

capital can also be used to describe money - as in a company's working capital (available money) OR as in "a good (capital) idea" a slightly older usage.

In the US you will find many people use capitol only, to refer to both the capital city and the building(s) where government meets. Though it doesn't make it right.

 

[WastinTime]

Can't release a vassal. You can demand resources from him and hope he refuses. Then you can go to war over that.

We'd have to take all the wonder cities before vassalizing, but according to Mesix's wonder data, that's not many cities.

 

[greatbeyond]

The AP is probably the quickest win from here but I have never successfully pulled off the vote, in my current test I got close but wanted to continue to see how the wonder builds went. I did use the trick described by Gosha in BOTM10, and so had the only standing to be elected and the necessary votes, I just had to spread the AP religion to the last two civs (1 city does it) I had the AP built and ready to win by 700AD (started late)

 

[WastinTime]

RE: our new GG. We may need to attach that to a unit with 17 exp. Making it 37 exp. Don't we need a 37 exp unit to build West Point? Or is it just 23 exp?

 

[Mesix]

Sooner rather than later, I think we should aim to go down the Railroad/Steel tech tree branch. Building Ironworks in Engineering to run additional engineers and founding Mining Inc in Parma will be a huge benefit.