SGOTM 08 - XTeam

[ShannonCT]

How are things going up in snowy Mass Leif? Snow has turned to rain here. I will be leaving for warm Florida tomorrow if the weather permits, and will back on Dec 29th. With no game access for a week, I thought I better get in some good comments now.

Do we know what defenders are in these Barb Cities scattered about. We can see Yayoi, Mimoan and there is another south of Furville. Would it be worth grabbing them and building fewer Settlers? You mentioned earlier Gandhi's cities of Calcutta and Lahore. I think we only need to be careful of delay and Gandhi capitulating to Augustus.

The two islands North of X-ville can be settled easily.

Since a settler costs the same as a Cuir, and a settler can build a city immediately, it might be faster to spam settlers rather then trying to capture barb cities.

As I said above, he is on very good terms with Augustus, Gandhi is Friendly towards him. If we aren't quite fast, I fear he'll vassalize to Rome.

It should take only 3 turns to capture Vijay, Delhi, and Bombay. If we can find enough healthy Cuirs, we could probably take an island city on the 4th turn. We'll have frigates to bomb defenses to 0% and we can rebase airships to Delhi to attack the defenders. In my experience, AI wont vassalize themselves to a noncombatant in so few turns as 4.

I think the nice thing about the plan for Bombay, Delhi and Vijay is that it puts our strength where we will need it next, to get Cumae, Rome and Antium (although it would be faster to send a separate amphibious force to Antium I think. Would having two main axes help at all in confusing the AI or will it just pick one to send its strength against?

There are probably some complex calculations there that we can't hope to uncover. We can only bring as much force to bear on both fronts as possible. What should be the composition of the Antium force if we have 9 units? I was thinking having 1 musket would be good to have in the stack to defend the Cuirs and defend Antium once captured. Maybe we can whip cannons in Evora, Lagos, and Braga to accompany Cuirs from Jute, Horseville, and Ivoryville. Are 5 Cuirs enough? Maybe we need to move 1 additional galleon to Lagos so we can have 12 units for Antium.

Then it may turn out that we actually delay taking a city in order to get Versailles built and perhaps some Indian island city(s) taken.

There's no need to build Versailles if Augustus will build it for us. If the GE still remains in Cumae next turn, I think we should prepare to gift DR to Augustus.

Do we then have time for MS?

If we can take on Rome without grens, then it looks to me like we'll do better by skipping MS. Researching MS and spending cash to upgrade macemen delays the final techs by ~3 turns. So we should only research MS if we think it will speed up the conquest of the necessary Roman cities by at least 3 turns.

If we get a GM in X-ville, could we get a trade route in time to do any good with buying builds?

It will be easier to answer this question when/if we get the GM. If we're still a few turns from beating down Rome when we finish Medicine and Corporation, researching Refrig and founding Cereal Mills is a way to keep our wonders/turn from going down over the final 4-5 turns. If the conquest of Rome goes faster than expected, we may find that a trade mission would increase our wonder/turn score. We would have to find a good place to send the GM (Varanasi maybe?) and have a galleon chain set up to do so. If we need galleons to complete Blessed Sea and deliver a Prophet to Hun, these two goals might conflict.

 

[Cactus Pete]

How are things going up in snowy Mass Leif? Snow has turned to rain here. I will be leaving for warm Florida tomorrow Sounds like good strategy. if the weather permits, and will back on Dec 29th. With no game access for a week, I thought I better get in some good comments now.

Since a settler costs the same as a Cuir, and a settler can build a city immediately, it might be faster to spam settlers rather then trying to capture barb cities. Yes, though there could be some excess cuirs available to take a city or two.

There's no need to build Versailles if Augustus will build it for us. If the GE still remains in Cumae next turn, I think we should prepare to gift DR to Augustus. Yes, but if Caesar doesn't build it right away, we're going to want to build it before capitulation, and that means staring right away.

Certainly the better, simpler outcome would be to succeed without either MS or another GM. Question is how likely is that outcome.

 

[leif erikson]

How are things going up in snowy Mass Leif? Snow has turned to rain here. I will be leaving for warm Florida tomorrow if the weather permits, and will back on Dec 29th. With no game access for a week, I thought I better get in some good comments now.

Made it through fairly well. My son had to work Friday night during the height of the storm. In order to get him home, had to go out and shovel out the driveway enough to allow him in as we live on a state highway. I looked like a snowman when we were done.

Sorry I haven't gotten anything up yet, also managed to contract the flu and can't concentrate. As the game is getting difficult to make sense of, decided to wait until Christmas has passed to put the plan together. Hope that is OK with everyone. Need some extra

Merry Christmas to you Shannon and I hope you enjoy the warm beaches of FL. No white Christmas for you, although the sand is pretty white down there iirc. I'll try to have something put together for your return...

 

[leif erikson]

Have you guys checked the graphs lately?

CRC has gotten a Christmas present or something, their power graph has gone vertical.

What a set someone played...

 

[ShannonCT]

Have you guys checked the graphs lately?

CRC has gotten a Christmas present or something, their power graph has gone vertical.

What a set someone played...

My bet is that they researched Assembly Line and are drafting/whipping/upgrading infantry. That would explain their small increases in score. I think we should easily finish before CRC. The lesson we learned from SGOTM07 is that the team that starts its final conquest first finishes first.

On the subject of power graphs, I was looking at Rome in our game. I looked through all of the interim saves provided by CP and found the most recent defender list in various Roman cities:

Ravenna - 1 mace, 2 praets
Cumae - 1 praet, 1 Xbow, 1 LB, 1 cat, 1 chariot
Antium - 2 praets, 1 LB, 3 cats
Arpinum - 1 mace, 2 praets
Arretium - 1 Xbow, 2 LB
Neapolis - 1 praet, 1 WE, 2 LBs, 1 pike, 1 chariot
Mediolanum - 2 LBs, 1 pike, 1 axe
6 other cities - unknown
Other known units - 5 trebs, 2 HAs

These units plus population, techs, and buildings/wonders accounts for 498,000 power points. Total Roman power points are 734,000. So I expect another 10-12 LBs (72,000 power points), 12-15 more maces/praets/WEs/trebs/Xbows, a few more cats, and a few galleys/triremes.

Assuming the AI keeps 3 units in each city for defense, Augustus has ~25 reserve units that he might try to use against us. Maybe we can find a way to draw out some of those reserves so that we can hit them in the open field like we did with Boudica's stack. If we can destroy much of Augustus's reserves before trying to capture his cities, we would make things easier on ourselves.

 

[leif erikson]

My bet is that they researched Assembly Line and are drafting/whipping/upgrading infantry. That would explain their small increases in score. I think we should easily finish before CRC. The lesson we learned from SGOTM07 is that the team that starts its final conquest first finishes first.

Interesting. That is quite a way up the tech tree. Their research would have to have been faster than ours?

These units plus population, techs, and buildings/wonders accounts for 498,000 power points. Total Roman power points are 734,000. So I expect another 10-12 LBs (72,000 power points), 12-15 more maces/praets/WEs/trebs/Xbows, a few more cats, and a few galleys/triremes.

Good info.

Assuming the AI keeps 3 units in each city for defense, Augustus has ~25 reserve units that he might try to use against us. Maybe we can find a way to draw out some of those reserves so that we can hit them in the open field like we did with Boudica's stack. If we can destroy much of Augustus's reserves before trying to capture his cities, we would make things easier on ourselves.

Perhaps, as soon as we grab Gandhi's cities, we declare on Rome and hope he attacks first? The only problem I see is where he will come, into our strength in India or into our weakness in former HRE? The border between Augustus and Pericles is quite long. How can we best hedge our bets...

 

[Cactus Pete]

"Sorry I haven't gotten anything up yet, also managed to contract the flu and can't concentrate. As the game is getting difficult to make sense of, decided to wait until Christmas has passed to put the plan together. Hope that is OK with everyone. Can't imagine this game being fun with the flu. Wait until you can enjoy it. Just hope the bug allows you a merry Christmas. (Curious if you had a flu shot or are just relying on chicken soup or ginseng.)

"Maybe we can find a way to draw out some of those reserves so that we can hit them in the open field like we did with Boudica's stack." That's probably what we should try; plus, with the intelligence gained from airships, we may also be able to hit 'em where they ain't. My experience (limited in BTS) is that the AI will come after you if he has a decent chance of winning battles, so we may want to consider sacrifice.

Anyway, that can wait. Get some rest.

 

[ShannonCT]

Interesting. That is quite a way up the tech tree. Their research would have to have been faster than ours?

Techs that they would need to have that we don't have would include Replaceable Parts, Rifling, Steam Power, Banking, Econ, Const, Corp and Assembly Line (~26500 beakers). If they took AL with Liberalism, they don't have Communism at 1350AD, and probably wouldn't have Military Tradition, Steel, SciMeth, Physics, Electricity, Radio, or MM (~41500 beakers).

Perhaps, as soon as we grab Gandhi's cities, we declare on Rome and hope he attacks first? The only problem I see is where he will come, into our strength in India or into our weakness in former HRE? The border between Augustus and Pericles is quite long. How can we best hedge our bets...

Augustus would probably attack Pisa and/or Vijay. If he wants to capture Pisa, fine. We should be able to head him off at Nuremburg and take out any stack with airships, cannons, and Cuirs.

If he came after Vijay, we have to be careful. Just like Boudica's stack earlier, we dont want to give Augustus a chance to attack our stack in a city with a bunch of CR trebs and cats. If Augustus would be nice enough to move his stack within one tile of Vijay, we could destroy it pretty easily. But if he has his stack out of range of our cuirs but within 3 tiles of Vijay, we could let him capture Vijay. We could recapture it next turn with our own CR cannons. Augustus has a RazeCityProbability of 0.

 

[Mad Professor]

Good work CP.

I probably won't check in again before Christmas, so here's wishing you all the very best of the season!

 

[leif erikson]

Can't imagine this game being fun with the flu. Wait until you can enjoy it. Just hope the bug allows you a merry Christmas. (Curious if you had a flu shot or are just relying on chicken soup or ginseng.)

I'm more of a chicken soup kinda guy. Long story behind it...

Feeling better already, just coughing a lot. What can spoil Christmas?

Anyway, that can wait. Get some rest.

Trying, kinda wild around here these days.

"Maybe we can find a way to draw out some of those reserves so that we can hit them in the open field like we did with Boudica's stack." That's probably what we should try; plus, with the intelligence gained from airships, we may also be able to hit 'em where they ain't. My experience (limited in BTS) is that the AI will come after you if he has a decent chance of winning battles, so we may want to consider sacrifice.

Augustus would probably attack Pisa and/or Vijay. If he wants to capture Pisa, fine. We should be able to head him off at Nuremburg and take out any stack with airships, cannons, and Cuirs.

If he came after Vijay, we have to be careful. Just like Boudica's stack earlier, we dont want to give Augustus a chance to attack our stack in a city with a bunch of CR trebs and cats. If Augustus would be nice enough to move his stack within one tile of Vijay, we could destroy it pretty easily. But if he has his stack out of range of our cuirs but within 3 tiles of Vijay, we could let him capture Vijay. We could recapture it next turn with our own CR cannons. Augustus has a RazeCityProbability of 0.

I think Airships will be our best weapon in figuring out what to do as recon elements. The tough decision will probably be where to deploy our units to best react to whatever happens. That'll take some thought if I can find the brain cells?

Techs that they would need to have that we don't have would include Replaceable Parts, Rifling, Steam Power, Banking, Econ, Const, Corp and Assembly Line (~26500 beakers). If they took AL with Liberalism, they don't have Communism at 1350AD, and probably wouldn't have Military Tradition, Steel, SciMeth, Physics, Electricity, Radio, or MM (~41500 beakers).

Interesting. It seems to me that this would require a strategy of getting the AI to build most of your wonders. I think our experience is that means more time. It will be very interesting to see how it all ends up.

EDIT - Hope you have a nice trip today. Weather seems favorable for flying south.

I probably won't check in again before Christmas, so here's wishing you all the very best of the season!

Hope you have a great Christmas, wherever you find yourself.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Merry Christmas, MP. Stay safe.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Hi guys! Merry Christmas to all of you!

As I mentioned earlier my work schedule is looking better in the new year and we just passed an important milestone in my department. So I'm now looking forward to almost two weeks of vacation and I'm planning to invest some of this time in playing Civ. If you can slot me in soon I could even play a set! (I'm away until 28th but after that I have plenty of time until 5th of January when work returns).

Anyway I looked at the save and read some of the latest posts to get a feeling for the game. It seems to me that a lot of the decisions revolve around the tech path and the uncertainty of the GP that is due in X-ville. Here are my (rounded) estimates provided we can keep 80% research:

Banking 0
Divine Right 2
Economy 2
Corporation 2
Biology 5
---------------------
Sum 11
Refrig. 5
--------------------
Sum 16
Medicine 6
--------------------
Sum 22
Const 3
Demo. 3
-------------------
Sum 28

Looks like the simple solution is to go for victory in 16 turns ending with refrigeration. Backdoor diplo in 16 should be possible according to SCT (UN can be partially whipped). Changing to slavery should not be a problem since we soon have Redentor and can change civics as we please.

Regarding the GP uncertainty problem we could sacrifice some hammers and get the GP in 12 as SCT explained. If my research estimate is correct this means that we are still 4 turns from completing Refrig. and may have the option of switching to Medicine should we get a GM in X-ville. Only problem is that the timing of the UN vote may be out of sync then. How often do the votes come up? And are they timed relative to the build date for UN or do they come on fixed dates as it used to be in Vanilla Civ. Maybe it would be possible to back in for domination in 22 turns? I toyed for a while with the idea of not spending our current GM to prolong the Golden Age. My rough estimate is that we loose 15% commerce and 20% hammers. The commerce lost will decrease tech speed and cost 4-5 turns so this approach doesn't seem feasible.

It seems that we can finish all except perhaps the last Wonder within 16/22 turns without problems. Where do we build Hollywood? I was thinking Horseville where it will be done in 12. Versaille is 800 hammer but with 100% bonus for marble - build in Opporto 5 turns from now? Wall Street is 600 hammers and can be done in Ulundi in 4-5 turns when Rock'n'Roll completes. National Park is 300 hammers and can be done fast in many cities. Ulundi should be ready to build Red Cross in 4-5 turns as well. There are probably even better ways but at least it looks feasible to build the Wonders we need. We also need 6 banks and 6 settlers (unless we capture some island cities). There are 6 islands north of our home continent so the logistics are not complicated, the only question is where to build them. Marble City? Other options? And the banks? With some use of the whip I'm sure it can be done in 16 turns.

In cities building wonders it may be a good idea to MM for hammers rather than food even accepting a little starvation as long as it doesn't mean loosing pop. The game is not going to last much longer so it's time to squeeze every hammer out.

 

[leif erikson]

Merry Christmas to you as well Fred!

If you would like, we can slot you up next, if that fits in with your schedule. I have only done some very preliminary planning, so I do not have a great deal of time invested so far in the next set. I would be happy to see you join us again!

Beside the 6 Banks and 6 Settlers, we also would need 6 Hospitals in order to build Red Cross. It was one of the considerations in trying to research it earlier rather than later. As building Cereal Mills does not require hammers, only a Great Merchant and a city with Wheat, Corn or Rice, I figured that should be our last tech to research.

Constitution is required for Corporation as well. When we are first to Economics, we get another Great Merchant.

Maintaining 80% research will require some quick city takes, I think.

 

[Frederiksberg]

If you would like, we can slot you up next, if that fits in with your schedule.

Depends on how anxious you are to get the next turn set done. I could plan on the 28th and perhaps play the 30th. Is that OK with everyone?

Got to run - I have a train to catch. Talk to you on the 28th.

 

[leif erikson]

Depends on how anxious you are to get the next turn set done. I could plan on the 28th and perhaps play the 30th. Is that OK with everyone?

Got to run - I have a train to catch. Talk to you on the 28th.

How far did you have to run to catch it?

SCT doesn't return until the 29th, so I had planned to have a plan ready by then so we could discuss it for a few days and then play sometime after that. Too much to do in preparation for Christmas Eve, our family's night together with a smorgasbord, and then Christmas Day with the kids, even if they are now teenagers.

We are at a critical stage and want to finish this one strong. I think we have to work together, examine ideas and discuss before we move the mouse too much...

 

[ShannonCT]

Anyway I looked at the save and read some of the latest posts to get a feeling for the game. It seems to me that a lot of the decisions revolve around the tech path and the uncertainty of the GP that is due in X-ville. Here are my (rounded) estimates provided we can keep 80% research:

Banking 0
Divine Right 2
Economy 2
Corporation 2
Biology 5
---------------------
Sum 11
Refrig. 5
--------------------
Sum 16
Medicine 6
--------------------
Sum 22
Const 3
Demo. 3
-------------------
Sum 28

These estimates don't seem to take into account the 20% bonus we get for knowing the requred prereqs for each tech. Banking/Econ/DR should take 3 turns total, Biology should take 4 turns, etc.

Medicine needs to come before Corp if we hope to build Red Cross. Wall Street can be whipped while we research Refrig.

Democracy has to be researched earlier to have a chance of building Statue of Liberty. It costs 1500 hammers, and cash-rushing doesn't benefit from havig iron (though whipping does).

How often do the votes come up? And are they timed relative to the build date for UN or do they come on fixed dates as it used to be in Vanilla Civ.

I thought it was every 6 turns after the secretary vote, but someone should double check.

 

[leif erikson]

Did you make it to Florida?

I'll try to run a check on the UN vote later today between cooking times...

 

[ShannonCT]

Yes, I am Florida now. It's 75 degrees and sunny. Looks like a green Christmas for me.

I looked through some of the turn logs from some of the diplo victories of the last two BOTMs (both on Normal speed) and they seem to confirm my earlier findings. An example of the timing:

Complete the UN IBT205/206 (turn log will say UN completed turn 205)
Secretary vote comes up on turn 206
Victory vote can be proposed and voted on turn 212
Successful victory vote results in victory on turn 213.

If we want to delay the victory by x turns, we simply delay completion of the UN by x turns. If we start building the UN next turn in X-ville, we can build it to within one turn of completion and then decide whether we think we're 8 turns from victory.

 

[Frederiksberg]

SCT doesn't return until the 29th, so I had planned to have a plan ready by then so we could discuss it for a few days and then play sometime after that.

That would suit me fine. Planning on th 28th or 29th and then playing sometime in the first weekend of January.

Too much to do in preparation for Christmas Eve, our family's night together with a smorgasbord, and then Christmas Day with the kids, even if they are now teenagers.

This is also a Danish Christmas tradition. Most important is the pickled herring served on dark rye bread and the snaps which is basically a shot of strong alcohol flavored with local herbs. Skål!

Constitution is required for Corporation

Missed that. It probably means that we can afford to work in Democracy in our tech path.

These estimates don't seem to take into account the 20% bonus we get for knowing the requred prereqs for each tech. Banking/Econ/DR should take 3 turns total, Biology should take 4 turns, etc.

Those are only rough numbers, they may be 1-2 turns off due to rounding errors. Anyway we don't know for sure if 80% research rate is possible. As far as I understand the Golden Age will last only 1+12 turns more and that will also decrease tech speed.

Medicine needs to come before Corp if we hope to build Red Cross. Wall Street can be whipped while we research Refrig.

Democracy has to be researched earlier to have a chance of building Statue of Liberty. It costs 1500 hammers, and cash-rushing doesn't benefit from havig iron (though whipping does).

Refrig is clearly the best choice for final tech, my list doesn't imply any fixed order of the techs since we need to stay flexible due to the uncertainty of the GP (type) from X-ville and the war progress. Actually I didn't think that Democracy was any good to research, but since we need Constitution anyway things change in favor of including it I think.

Complete the UN IBT205/206 (turn log will say UN completed turn 205)
Secretary vote comes up on turn 206
Victory vote can be proposed and voted on turn 212
Successful victory vote results in victory on turn 213.

Good info. Does the 2nd victory vote come 6 turns after the first one? It could be important in case we shoot for a fast victory and then get the GM in X-ville and decide to postpone the victory and go for Medicine.

If we get the GM it may also be possible to go for Conquest instead. This should be possible within ~28 turns. Are there any circumstances where the AI will keep refusing capitulation?

I'm probably not online for the next 2-3 days. Talk to you again on the 28th.

 

[ShannonCT]

To keep things in perspective, we are currently aiming for a wonder-points-per-turn score of 1.2-1.25. One wonder every four turns gives a score of 1.25, so we should only intentionally delay victory if we can add another wonder in four turns or fewer.

UN votes come up every six turns, but we should try to time the UN completion so that we can win on the first resolution. Waiting until the second resolution only improves our score if we can add two or more wonders during the interim.