SGOTM 08 - Fifth Element

[WastinTime]

We shoul take Delhi before we research Steel. That means that Delhi is no later for NE than Engineering.

Engineering can build NE now. Not sure what steel has to do with it. I'd rather not magnify one of our polluted gene pools. Engineering will be the purest and we could always use an extra GE or an accidental GA. Without the NE, Engineering will produce only 1 more GE before the end of the game (after the GP due in a couple turns...which may not be a GE...)

 

[Mesix]

I'm not sure there is any more penalty for having Pacifism as your Religion and DOw as there is for any other religion. Perhaps it is something I have missed.

Yes...you missed something. If we are Conf then we will have a -4 penalty to diplo with all of the AI on the other continent. When we DOW Ghandi, it would be nice if Rome et al don't DOW us in return and combine arms to oust us from our invasion. Running FR will mitigate this possibility. Getting Ghandi to run FR (via a Liberalism trade) will mitigate it further since he will lose his shared religion bonus with the other AI players.

That is +4 diplo for us running FR.
That is -4 diplo for Ghandi for running RF.

Does that make sense?

 

[Mesix]

Engineering can build NE now. Not sure what steel has to do with it. I'd rather not magnify one of our polluted gene pools. Engineering will be the purest and we could always use an extra GE or an accidental GA. Without the NE, Engineering will produce only 1 more GE before the end of the game (after the GP due in a couple turns...which may not be a GE...)

Engineering can only run one engineer specialist now. We can't build IW until we research steel. That means that we are building NE in Engineering to get +3 GE points and +1 GA point for a net gain of +4 great people points until after we research Steel.

If we build in Delhi we will get +100% for all of wonders that Ghandi had built for us.

edit: I don't like the hodgepodge of points from various wonders in Delhi either...but more great people is more great people at this point.

 

[WastinTime]

The above scenario is a best case scenario. It is still a bit behind the power curve for a turn 250 finish. In 20 turns we will have only 43 turns remaining to take out India, Rome, and at least one city from Celtia and HRE to get the wonders. We also need to destroy or vassalize AI opponents to get our victory.

Right this has been my fear all along. We move too slowly. Let's look at speeding things up...Take Lisbon and Coimbra in 8 turns. Trade peace for Lagos and/or Braga. Upgrade/heal...Delhi should come sooner than 20 turns then.

t250 was if we played an ideal game. Maybe we should start to figure in t270.

 

[Mesix]

If we want to maximize the benefit of Engineering and build NE there then we need to beeline Steel after finishing Rifeling.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't like the hodgepodge of points from various wonders in Delhi either...but more great people is more great people at this point.[/i]

More GP just make it harder/impossible to get the GP we want. The cost keeps rising.

 

[WastinTime]

If we want to maximize the benefit of Engineering and build NE there then we need to beeline Steel after finishing Rifeling.

Of course, where else would we go. rifle, (0% research for gold), chem, steel

 

[Mesix]

We need Lagos to stage our conquest of Ghandi (it is the closest). Taking Lagos is only 2 turns of delay (1 movement in enemy territory vs. 3 movement on roads) from getting Lagos in a peace treaty. After we take Lisbon, Joao will be on the ropes. I don't like the idea of letting him recover at all.

We should be able to get Galleons to Lagos, take Lagos, upgrade troops, and set sail in due course. If we keep producing troopps, we can have new recruits decend on Joao's remaining cities after our invasion force sets sail for Delhi. Mopping up Joao should not be tough with rirelmen.

Playing for the victory, we will need to take all of Joao's cities and probably all of Ghandi's cities. After that we need to take Rome and Antium for wonders and then try to vassalize Caesar if we can. Our goal should be to vassalize as many AI on the other continent as possible.

 

[Mesix]

Of course, where else would we go. rifle, (0% research for gold), chem, steel

I will agree that Engineering is a good choice. I was just trying to point out where I was coming from with the Delhi recommendation as a counter option.

After we get the necessary gold to upgrade troops it should not take long to research Chem and Steel.

 

[WastinTime]

We only have 15 macemen. I'd keep producing those even after rifling. They can be promoted to CR II, then upgraded. We should get some more bang out of rifling than 15 units.

Does everyone realize what happens to exp when you upgrade? No one is thinking of upgrading a 16/17 exp mace, for example, correct?

 

[MacBalt]

Pacifism actually costs 1g per unit, but the civic cost is 0.
Thus *the civic* it's less expensive than FR or No R.
This partially compensate the higher units maintenance.

Yes, but I doubt very much that the final costs will be even close to equal. I'm away from home and don't have access to the game, but I'd be willing to bet if we add up all our units the total cost of running pacifism will far outweigh the cost of free religion, despite the civic's cheaper base cost.

I'm more concerned from our GM from Econ burned on RP.

Yes, me too. Ouch.
Look, fancy formatting is not required, but dare I suggest again that we would benefit greatly from posting more detailed pre-play plans and taking a little more time let people think about them? JMHO.

FreeReligion automatically puts you in "No State Rel", but when you switch out of it, it would remember that you were in confuc and you save a turn. I neglected to mention that trick in time. I thought we were still discussing it.

I didn't know that. What a great tip! Thanks!

I think the we should trade Liberalism to Ghandi for Music and Theocracy. He will switch to Free Religion which will give him one turn of revolt slowing him down. He will also lose the shared religion diplo bonus with the other AI players before we DOW. Those are the only two techs that the AI will trade and we should be able to get both for Liberalism.

Agreed. Go for it.

Since we are a few turns from being ready to advance on Ghandi, I want vote to continue the war on Joao. We have a healer with our forward stack. We can let a few units heal while the healthy units escort the cats to Lisbon. 2-3 turns of pounding down walls and the other units should catch up. Suicide one cat and then take the Capitol.

Yes, we need at least the capital and one or both of the coastal cities, but keep an eye on the war weariness.

We only need one more GE for corp HQ. I suppose that any extra great people above the corp HQ should be GE to rush wonders in the late game. To that end, Engineering might be the best option.

The other side of the argument goes for Marbles. With 2 seafood we can run a bunch of specialists. We currently have a surplus of 7 food in marbles at the happy cap so we can run 3 specialists now. We can get more specialists later. It may be a good idea to get NE in Marbles since we can get more great people totoal out of there.

What does everyone else think?

Why don't we wait and see what we get first from Engineering? If we get an Engineer then put the National Epic in Marbles (or maybe Dehli). If the polluted gene pool there gives us an Artist, then we ought to hege our bets and put the Epic in Engineering.

Fifth & marbles have GP pollution issues.
Delhi is also a mess and comes a bit late.

I think Eng, running 4 engineers is a good place for the NE.

With the burned Great Merchant we might end up more hungry for non-engineer Great People, in which case wouldn't the National Epic be better placed in Marbles where we've got more flexibility in terms of what kind of Great Person we'll be able to produce?

Lisbon falls in 8 turns.
1 Turn to upgrade to rifelmen (9 turns).
4 more turns to get to Lagos (13 turns).
2 turns to heal/upgrade more troops (15 turns).
2 turns to move galleons to the edge of India's cultural borders (17 turns).
2 turns to land troops near Delhi (19 turns).
Take Delhi (20 turns).

The above scenario is a best case scenario. It is still a bit behind the power curve for a turn 250 finish. In 20 turns we will have only 43 turns remaining to take out India, Rome, and at least one city from Celtia and HRE to get the wonders. We also need to destroy or vassalize AI opponents to get our victory.

Sounds like a plan...

We need Lagos to stage our conquest of Ghandi (it is the closest). Taking Lagos is only 2 turns of delay (1 movement in enemy territory vs. 3 movement on roads) from getting Lagos in a peace treaty. After we take Lisbon, Joao will be on the ropes. I don't like the idea of letting him recover at all.

We should be able to get Galleons to Lagos, take Lagos, upgrade troops, and set sail in due course. If we keep producing troopps, we can have new recruits decend on Joao's remaining cities after our invasion force sets sail for Delhi. Mopping up Joao should not be tough with rirelmen.

Playing for the victory, we will need to take all of Joao's cities and probably all of Ghandi's cities. After that we need to take Rome and Antium for wonders and then try to vassalize Caesar if we can. Our goal should be to vassalize as many AI on the other continent as possible.

And this sounds like even more of a plan. Green light here -- take it away, Mesix!

Does everyone realize what happens to exp when you upgrade? No one is thinking of upgrading a 16/17 exp mace, for example, correct?

An important reminder that is probably worth repeating as we get closer to Rifling.

 

[WastinTime]

Liberalism trade. I don't like it. We can get music, theo from anyone and we don't even really want those. If we're going to give Gandhi something good, we better get Nationalism or constitution. HOLD off on the Lib trade. He may not even go FreeReligion anyway.

 

[MacBalt]

Liberalism trade. I don't like it. We can get music, theo from anyone and we don't even really want those. If we're going to give Gandhi something good, we better get Nationalism or constitution. HOLD off on the Lib trade. He may not even go FreeReligion anyway.

Okay, I agree that the trade is pretty weak in terms of the value of the techs involved, but might the chance of tempting Gandhi into Free Religion before our invasion be worth the bad compensation -- especially if it could break up a religious bloc on the other continent? (I can't check the save right now to be sure they are in such a bloc, but it sounded like that from earlier posts/conversation here.) Also, if we're already shooting for Rifling, isn't Liberalism kind of old news anyway now? I wonder if spreading it around just to try to tempt other leaders "over there" into free religion might not also be worth considering? We could use it to improve our relations before the invasion to prevent the "pile-on" continental resistance scenario. Finally, if Gandhi is really going to go down in 25-30 turns as Mesix envisions, how much does it really matter if we effectively just give him Liberalism? Does it really hurt us that much if he passes it around, or might that also work out to our benefit in the long run? In any case, with a prognosis of 25-30 turns, it doesn't sound like Gandhi is going to be able to use it to get much farther in the tech race...

Just thinking out loud again, but I think we still might want to consider this trade as a serious option.

 

[WastinTime]

No reason to rush on the Liberalism thing. We have 20 turns to find a better deal (nationalism). It's certainly off the table for the next TS.

 

[berserks01]

Maybe another draft of the PPP, Mesix?

I'm still unsure what the team decision is regarding civics. I, for one, am for Pacifism+Caste, but dunno if we should hold off switching til we get Delhi or switch now while we can still switch without going into anarchy.

I trust you know what you're doing on the war front, and that you remember about the exp points going back to 1 when you upgrade. So no comments here.

I'm also unsure about where to put NE. Both Engineering and Delhi seems fine to me, but if we go with Pacifism+Caste, it might be better off putting it in Engineering.

 

[MacBalt]

I'm still unsure what the team decision is regarding civics. I, for one, am for Pacifism+Caste, but dunno if we should hold off switching til we get Delhi or switch now while we can still switch without going into anarchy.

I like caste but not pacifism -- at least not until someone presents a rough calculation showing how it isn't going to break the bank and slow down our research significantly.

I'm also unsure about where to put NE. Both Engineering and Delhi seems fine to me, but if we go with Pacifism+Caste, it might be better off putting it in Engineering.

Isn't Engineering kind of food-poor though? Also, how many Engineers do we really need again? Two for corporations, right? And we already have one sitting in Fifth, right? Now we have about an 85% chance of getting another one in five turns. If we're lucky and we get a second Great Engineer then I think the National Epic would be better deployed elsewhere -- probably in Marbles, where we could use Caste System and all that food both to run more specialists for getting Great Persons faster and to keep the gene pool relatively clear for maximizing our chances of getting the type of great persons we want (minimum = 2 GS, 2 GM, and 1 GA, I believe).

 

[WastinTime]

Pacif will probably cost only 20-30 gold/turn more than we pay now (with the current size army). We could take the free religion switch now and run Pacif/caste. In about 10-20 turns we will have representation available, and we could get out of pacif and back to FreeR for free with that switch.

I guess I'm trying too hard to make up for that religion mistake. Pacifism will be much better later when we have grown and have the extra people, and the statue of liberty. The big thing is relations, specifically how confu will adversely affect them. I think we need to start some other wars over there. Otherwise we will get dogpiled and then have no trade routes. For example, If we can get someone to capture HRE's holy city, then we don't have to war with HRE. And they'd kill off each others units. We probably should have been stirring the pot over there long ago.

 

[BLubmuz]

So you propose to use our last GAge turn to switch to Pacif/Confu and when we'll have Constitution or Pyramids switch back to FR together with Repr? I guess we can follow this plan, but i'm concerned that with the number of cities we'll have by then we'll need 1 turn for each civic change.

If someone knows the exact number, please post it.

About be dogpiled by the other continent civs, i'm not too concerned.
With rifles ans soon cannons they will find their armageddon.

Agree NE is absurd in Engineering (poor name, see it owns only the HG) better in Marbles, ASAP.
BTW it's since the test games before we actually began to play i'm saying this.

 

[WastinTime]

So you propose to use our last GAge turn to switch to Pacif/Confu and when we'll have Constitution or Pyramids switch back to FR together with Repr? I guess we can follow this plan, but i'm concerned that with the number of cities we'll have by then we'll need 1 turn for each civic change.

About be dogpiled by the other continent civs, i'm not too concerned.
With rifles ans soon cannons they will find their armageddon.

Agree NE is absurd in Engineering (poor name, see it owns only the HG) better in Marbles, ASAP.
BTW it's since the test games before we actually began to play i'm saying this.

I suggested that civic plan, but by the end of my post, I convinced myself to hold off on pacif until later. I'm OK with caste, but be sure and do one last round of slavery on most cities! (not the capitol)

The Dogpile is a problem because of the loss of trade routes, not fear.

Marbles is too random for me, maybe if we get the GE next, we'll think about it.

 

[Mesix]

Maybe another draft of the PPP, Mesix?

I'm still unsure what the team decision is regarding civics. I, for one, am for Pacifism+Caste, but dunno if we should hold off switching til we get Delhi or switch now while we can still switch without going into anarchy.

I trust you know what you're doing on the war front, and that you remember about the exp points going back to 1 when you upgrade. So no comments here.

I'm also unsure about where to put NE. Both Engineering and Delhi seems fine to me, but if we go with Pacifism+Caste, it might be better off putting it in Engineering.

Experience points go back to 10...not 1 when units are upgraded. I would prefer to have CR3 Rifelmen with 10 exp then CR3 Macemen with 17. I will consider letting some of the Macemen attack an additional time to reach another level before upgrading. In the end, all of our experienced Macemen should be 10 exp Rifelmen though.

Does anyone disagree with this plan?