SGOTM 08 - Fifth Element

[WastinTime]

It's not a big deal. In fact, I did not expect you to have us as ready as we are for war. Just because your turn stopped before liberalism, doesn't mean we have to be ready to attack on turn 1 of the next TS. Like you said, the cats couldn't get there any faster. The next player can spend a couple turns setting up their attack plan.

It's not about when the war starts, it's about the end. I'd like to end it when we get rifling. (~25 turns?)

 

[MacBalt]

Thanks. I don't feel terrible, but it bugs me when I get blind spots like that. The fact is we could have had 3 catapults and a stack of macemen ready on that tile this turn if I had been a little more on the ball. Given that Joao still doesn't have longbows, that probably would have been enough to take both of those cities within two or three turns. Now we won't get both of them for at least 5 or 6 turns no matter how we decide to play it. Granted, I wasn't planning on Joao still not having longbows, but still...

What do you think about just launching the attack now anyway? It still looks like a straight linear assault no matter how we start it. I suppose culdeus will have a plan...

[EDIT]:

Do you think we can start the war when the cat and the BE join the main stack, or right now?

I should have responded to this earlier BLub. I am leaning toward starting the war as soon as possible -- maybe even this turn, depending on what culdeus and the other warmongers have to say.

 

[MacBalt]

Just noticed one more thing of interest. Joao may not have Feudalism yet, but he does have Engineering. (Go figure...) I don't think he's had it more than a turn or two, which might mean he's still got a few turns to go on Feudalism -- and that now might be a good time for us to stomp on his iron, regardless of the positioning of our troops...

[EDIT]: We could probably also trade him something benign for Engineering and all his "upgrade" gold on hand.

 

[Mesix]

Nice turnset. Let's get this war under way.

I vote for Communism too. It was the plan, no reason to change now. We can research to rifelmen as we war on Joao. We don't need them until we roll to the other continent.

One other note from the game log. I see that Ghandi is spreading religion for our shrine as planned.

 

[BLubmuz]

Lot of xposts, not easy to keep the discussion linear.

If J. has Eng., we MUST pillage his iron (i hope he's go only one source, can't remember).
And, of course, start the war right now!!!

My idea about rifling was just to show the chance, but i agree it's too risky.
Not only we can't know how many turns G. has from Edu (if he's researching it), but the risk is that he's close to Edu and he pops a GPro. Liberalism is the last tech a GPro can bulb (except FT, of course).

If WT thinks StPr is so beneficial for us, let's go with SM, then Lib for Comm.

Culdeus, be aware to switch research, before hitting enter
Then the path to Econ, use the GM for RP or stright to rifling?
We need a Gm for a corp.

 

[greatbeyond]

Let's trade for Engineering before declaring war. I Don't have the save open right now, does Joao know any other Civs? If not this is a perfect trade
as he won't get a chance to build many Trebs or Pikes and he won't bbe able to trade what we give him away. It does however mean he may rush a Castle making more Cats or Trebs a necessity.

If we are going to a domination based win then Rifling should be a priority, take the shortest path there.
If we are going to try anything else then SM to Physics makes more sense.

Pillage the iron now, before Joao can make use of it.

If we haven't already, switch all our espionage points to Gandhi. If we can get a spy or our religion in his capitol, we can see what his progress is. It would be an invaluable asset.

 

[WastinTime]

Not only we can't know how many turns G. has from Edu (if he's researching it), but the risk is that he's close to Edu and he pops a GPro. Liberalism is the last tech a GPro can bulb (except FT, of course).

I switched the esp. points to Gandhi on my TS. 2 turns ago his research was revealed to us. Education in 6 turns.

Maybe we should consider spreading the points out now?

Eng: We've given compass to others, so J will meet everyone soon if he hasn't already. We can't trade him anything good. The only trade I see is gift him CoL, then trade CS + something for Engineering. I'm not saying I like that trade, just that it's the only thing we could do (he's not getting feudal or Astron).

 

[MacBalt]

Eng: We've given compass to others, so J will meet everyone soon if he hasn't already. We can't trade him anything good. The only trade I see is gift him CoL, then trade CS + something for Engineering. I'm not saying I like that trade, just that it's the only thing we could do (he's not getting feudal or Astron).

I haven't checked his willingness to trade, but what about Optics (or Optics with COL)? Several other AI have it already, but Joao is pretty backward technologically, so I don't think it could help him much... (unless someone decides to gift him feudalism?). Just a thought.

[EDIT]: On the other hand, once he knows everyone it probably won't be long before he trades his Engineering for someone else's Feudalism.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't see any immediate use for Eng. We need it before Chemistry, but that's after Rifling.

 

[BLubmuz]

I don't see any immediate use for Eng. We need it before Chemistry, but that's after Rifling.

3 moves on road instead of 2 are a sufficient reason.
One tech for other techs he will never be able to use, is another good reason.
Not CS, or we'll face maces, he's got machinery already.

I vote for try to trade.

 

[Mesix]

I vote not to trade with Joao. Once we get Liberalism (1 turn away) we can trade with every AI on the other continent for every tech that we are missing. Let's just DOW Joao and get the show rolling.

 

[culdeus]

I'm back around. I'll review this and start draft 1 of PPP tonight or early tomorrow. Lots to read here.

 

[WastinTime]

Oh yea, 3 movement would be nice, but I don't think there's anything we want to trade.

 

[MacBalt]

I just checked and Joao won't take anything less than either everything we've got except Astro, or Astro itself. Turns out he's already got both compass and optics. We could give him something to get his gold, but he's only got 30, so I don't think it's worth bothering.

Just so I'm on the record, I vote (with everyone else so far, it seems) to self-research SM and use Liberalism on Communism.

 

[culdeus]

Ok got a look. RL has been nuts and I had more issues last night. I now swap CD drive and second battery slot and apparently the game does not like to hot swap the CD drive for verification of a valid CD. Kept giving me the "insert right CD error" oof. I just decided to reboot on a whim and that fixed it. Whatever. Working now.

My first comment is if we are to get all these multitude of GP we are not running very many specialists at all. In fact, if I recall right only one GE in engineering right now is in progress. We are getting some GPP from wonders, but this in my rough math will not be sufficient. I think now we have made a major error in not getting parthenon to accelerate GPP production to the corporation goal. The number of GPP needed to fully populate the corporations should be an easy one to at least get in the ballpark of calculating. I'll start working on this.

Rough draft of PPP. No fancy formatting right now 2nd draft might be more "pretty"

Research - SciMethod - Lib - Communism(free) - Economics

City plans

Fifth - Probably needs to continue research, but might consider becoming a cat ramp after sci method. Would like to hire GP.

Parma - Mace LB LB

Nong - Continue Courthouse

Engineering - Pump Horse Archers for later upgrade to knights

NBOMB - Is it time for Heroic after Mace?

Ulundi - Needs barracks after courthouse? Can pump maces. Should hire GP.

FarCanal - My handwriting is bad I think I wrote down finish crossbow - barracks - Also needs workers to clear jungle or else will have issues.

Stone - Chariot - Galleon pump

Marbles - Galleon pump Hire GP

War plan is fairly simple to execute. Push the cats forward to the third city and use mace and other units to take the outer ones. No point in holding up the war now. Should have two cities easy in this TS and ready to take 3rd in next.

 

[WastinTime]

Gmen: I think we're ok. We have a GE and another coming from Engineering (if it's not a GE, then we hang those that corrupted our gene pool). That's the minimum 2.

We'll get a free GM and GS.

The 2nd GM should come easily because we will run a lot of merchants late game (so we can turn up the research slider). This is better than running scientists (except scientists go in the capitol).

That just leaves the GA we missed at Music. Engineering can build the Nat Epic (and IW.) It will pop either GA or GE. Or we may want to have 1 city run all GA with the Nat Epic to guarantee an artist.

 

[WastinTime]

When you say Economics, you mean guilds, banking, econ?

what is "cat ramp"? 5th shouldn't build cats.

You can hire some specialists, but don't allow any city to get ahead of Engineering. And I think you should hire Merchants (explained above) or engineers.

 

[culdeus]

When you say Economics, you mean guilds, banking, econ?

what is "cat ramp"? 5th shouldn't build cats.

Yeah - Econ just means start moving towards econ asap.

I think we'll be short of cats for the island invasion if we are going to suicide any more than 2 on J. 5th might serve to be the best source of them for a little while. Pump 3 or 4 out and then back to research.

I missed the comment about hitting J's Iron. I need to look to see best way to do that.

I think this TS will be mostly straightforward though. The engineering trade seems doable and will help speed reinforcements at least. Should I get that before DOW?

 

[WastinTime]

You will need to stop your TS when you get Lib/Comm. A civics change is needed, and not just StateP.

 

[culdeus]

You will need to stop your TS when you get Lib/Comm. A civics change is needed, and not just StateP.

That's just gonna be like 7 turns. If that.