SGOTM 10 - Murky Waters

[klarius]

Ignore Gandhi and his settlement plans.

Gandhi will declare on us. Probably in ~10 turns, or if I misread the code in ~ 4 turns.
And if we let him declare the base value for refuse to talk is 12 turns instead of 6.

 

[LowtherCastle]

What's the probability you misread the code?

One thing for sure, if we start the GA now and get DoWed in 4t, we're royalled if CC gets its food squatted on.

 

[Erkon]

All right, so there's no way to avoid the war? We can't force a peace treaty with him, right?

 

[klarius]

All right, so there's no way to avoid the war? We can't force a peace treaty with him, right?

We can, probably. He should pay, if we demand 10g. That's 10 turns of peace. But still doesn't solve the long term problem.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We can, probably. He should pay, if we demand 10g. That's 10 turns of peace. But still doesn't solve the long term problem.

That's funny. I did a test run, trying to answer Erkon's question, but didn't think of that.

Maybe this would be the best solution, if it works.

But if you're up for the challenge, we could analyze how much food we'd lose if we Dowed now, waited with the GA 1 more turn (switch out of Astro again) to put more food into CC, then probably even if a fish gets covered up for a turn or two, we'd be okay, but we'd have to make sure we could end the war quickly. Actually, looking at my workout, I see that CC doesn't go below 27f, so we probably don't even need to wait a turn, if we can get teh war over quickly.

Edit: Hmm...but you can't capture 3 wkrs this turn. So when were you planning to DoW?

 

[klarius]

Well, I'm still thinking. If war at all, for sure only when the knight is around, 2-4 turns from now.
What do we really know about the barbs? Where was the galley last seen - where?
I would like to unload the knight and heal 1 turn in GC. Does this mean, I already face a barb landing?
Rough plan:
Get units in to position towards Gandhi. Minimum goal is 3 workers (otherwise peace). If there's a good chance go for his settler, go for it.
All this shouldn't interfere with science. So no additional units.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Barb galley
I think it's NOT safe to leave SHS unblocked this turn. Furthermore, SHN hasn't been blocked since T51 . Here's the breakdown:

T51 mv to SHN
   IT BarbG mv to SHS-1se 
T52 mv to SHS
   IT BarbG retreats to fog
T53 stay at SHS
   IT ?? (best case scenario: BarbG goes to Parthian)
T54 mv to GC-1e
   IT ?? (BarbG might have moved to SHS-2se)
T55 mv to GC to drop off knight
   IT ?? ([COLOR="Red"]BarbG could move to SHS[/COLOR])

Teching is our priority. If AIs are likely to bulb GP, then we should aim to get it for free. Here's how I read the xml

          trade at  techtrade%  #ofOtherAIsMustKnowTech
Gandhi    furious      20%             1
Churchill cautious     30%             2
Roosy     cautious     30%             2 or Friendly+0
dG        cautious     40%             2             
Mao       cautious     50%             3

So we can always get a tech G is willing to trade, unless we're his worst enemy. Will we be able to get GP from someone else?

The 3 workers will definitely come in handy, but they will also cost 3gpt. My hunch is that CC will be okay if we can end the war soon enough (although maybe we'd rather not end the war at all, because each DoW gives us a negmod with Roos). We have a solid game going, so risks may be unnecessary. That said, I love risk-taking, so I'm a go if you decide to go for it.

 

[klarius]

Tech trade % works differently. First the percentage doesn't take into account the civs trading, so the relevant number is 4 and 2 is already 50%.
BtS also adds a tech monopoly value modifying tech trade known %. This should currently be 70% if no war plan 150% otherwise for GP.
Gandhi will not trade at 1 other knowing as long as he plans a war against us (or is at war).
Churchill and Roosy trade at 2 knowing, but would go down to 1 w/o warplan.

 

[klarius]

I played a fraction of a turn (mainly for better planning).
Did GA, revolted converted and assigned scientist.
Moved trireme and found barb galley. Blocking not needed, so moved galley into GC to unlaod knight.
But now another thing we should think about . Our caravel established a galley path to marble island via Washington. As Alcatraz is problematic anyway, because of NY's culture (culture expansion in ~18 turns, there's the question if we give it up and go for marble.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'd rather see Alca, Stone and Marble settled asap, but frankly, I don't see how we can even keep the second fish on T72, to say nothing of keeping it after Roosy builds a Stupa, Mahabodhi, or whatever. The galley gets the settler to marble on T68, a galleon on T71......alas.

I'd go for it. Something like send the settler + wkr to Marble, switch GC immediately to wb for the third wb. Build the stone settler in Murkow. Pretty cool actually. Crazy but cool.

 

[klarius]

I'd rather see Alca, Stone and Marble settled asap, but frankly, I don't see how we can even keep the second fish on T72, to say nothing of keeping it after Roosy builds a Stupa, Mahabodhi, or whatever. The galley gets the settler to marble on T68, a galleon on T71......alas.

I'd go for it. Something like send the settler + wkr to Marble, switch GC immediately to wb for the third wb. Build the stone settler in Murkow. Pretty cool actually. Crazy but cool.

Well, we can probably keep the second fish in A., but that needs theater before library and work an artist most of the time until second culture expansion ~T73. Build settler in Mu. and CC for both stone and marble

Going for marble, OTOS, 3rd wb shouldn't be necessary, we could chop it there.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, we can probably keep the second fish in A., but that needs theater before library and work an artist most of the time until second culture expansion ~T73. Build settler in Mu. and CC for both stone and marble

Going for marble, OTOS, 3rd wb shouldn't be necessary, we could chop it there.

That's livin'! Sending the marble settler by galleon can mean two wkrs. But I'm always reluctant to build wbs in cities that need to build other stuff, especially bldgs like a library, when more mature cities can instead. What would we use marble for? GS city? Spam settlers?

Edit: When do you see the Murkow and CC settlers finished?

 

[klarius]

That's livin'! Sending the marble settler by galleon can mean two wkrs. But I'm always reluctant to build wbs in cities that need to build other stuff, especially bldgs like a library, when more mature cities can instead. What would we use marble for? GS city? Spam settlers?

Edit: When do you see the Murkow and CC settlers finished?

Marble would probably build at least 1-2 settlers, for nearby nice sites. If it then still makes sense to do a GS is another question.

Murkow can be pop-rushed immediately when we are in slavery. CC needs at least 2-3 turns after the last GS (and then it's still 5 pop).

I'm still unsure what to do. Alca has to be settled now to have 2 fish and is beneficial immediately by the trade routes in our continental cities, while the settler under way will cost.
OTOH, marble (the resource) would be really nice to have soon. Marble city is the better city in the long run and another settler before Kremlin is quite some effort.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm still unsure what to do. Alca has to be settled now to have 2 fish and is beneficial immediately by the trade routes in our continental cities, while the settler under way will cost.
OTOH, marble (the resource) would be really nice to have soon. Marble city is the better city in the long run and another settler before Kremlin is quite some effort.

5popping CC is also a cost to weigh in, I suppose.

Another factor is what else is Alca useful for. It will have fairly polluted gene pool for a GS. Plus, poprushing both a theatre and a library will significantly delay it's growth.

This raises another long-term question, which is spawning at least 4+1 more GSes, for Physics and Fission. That's 4050 gpps. That's a lot, especially if we don't run another GA. The complex part is having them by T110, so we can build Manhatten by T130. Or? How long will it take to build Manhatten? How soon do we need Fission? For example, if we want to starve a city from pop20 down, it requires 537f (I think) to get to pop20. That's 54t @ 10fpt...

 

[LowtherCastle]

I think ZPV's T130 for Rocketry is realistic. A rough sketch looks like this:

Tech Timeline
--------------	
T75	RepPts
T85	Rifling (trade for GP by T75)
T95	Chem
T105	Steel
T115	Elect + Fission
T123	Artillery
T130	Rocketry

We produce 4 GSes for Physics and Fission, physics gives us the 5th. Chemistry comes too early to bulb. We run a second GA on T105, with the two Physics GSes coming on the first two turns (maybe it's possible to get the 2 earlier and use the free GS for the GA). This allows us to stay in slavery till T105, spamming settlers. The GA will also be timed to get us Electricity mucho fasto, so we have 15t to build Manhatten, along with extra galleons and knights/cuirassiers/cavalry/whatever.

-----------------

So we need tons of GPPs for 4 GSes and a GA, starting at 810. How to do that without CS till T105 and while we're spamming settlers out of CC? We either need 5 GP farms or Murkow has to produce two GPs, because CC can only do one. The five would be GC, Sala, Pete, Mu, and CC, in that order (I think). Or it might work to go Sala, Mu, Pete, Mu, CC. In either case, it's important to plan this out now, because we need to use THIS GA to get our farms as close as possible to 810 by T105.

What's clear to me, though, is that Alca will NOT be able to make a GP by T105 (without switcing to CS earlier).

Edit: Plus another detail. Pete needs a library.

 

[klarius]

Murkow can not do 2 GS after the current 2. Even one is a stretch. We need to work cottages, we need a lot buildings. And there's still no way to see that we can get enough health to grow really big (which we anyway can't do, if we work scientists).

Alca can do a Gx for golden age (engineer, 2 scientists, 2 artists). The question is just what we can afford to pop-rush (as with all other cities).

I fail to see what big things we can still do during this GA. Murkow, CC and Pete are anyway running on food we scarcely can afford. We can run scientists in Sala at size 6 for ~250 GPP, that's about it.

I also don't believe that our research rates in your estimate are realistic. We will be running out of money soon after the GA. State property does not help much, before we have a lot more cities. Distance maintenance isn't that much currently and we lose all the free mercantilism specialist, w/o gaining many foreign trade routes (maybe none). And inflation is on the rise.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hmmm... I forgot about SP replacing Merc. That's a big strike against SP since all the AIs are running Merc forever. On the other hand, Free Market one additional reason to consider teching Econ. The GM already pays for the tech cost, imo, since it gives us the second GA. The question is, what's the likelihood AIs will switch to FM if we trade them Econ?

There's also the problem of not finishing Econ first, of course. What's the likelihood AIs will tech Econ after Educ?

--------------

klarius, what would be your best quick-and-dirty estimate of the tech timeline?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I fail to see what big things we can still do during this GA. Murkow, CC and Pete are anyway running on food we scarcely can afford. We can run scientists in Sala at size 6 for ~250 GPP, that's about it.

To make a long story short:
My calcs and worksheets are showing that producing the 4 extra GSes is a difficult, complicated task that we have to plan for now or we'll be sorry.

To make the story long:
Regardless of when we decide to time our GS production, in trying to time it, I've noted that what we do during this GA makes a huge difference. I don't think starving our cities a little more or less right now makes any long-term difference. Getting the GPPs right, on the other hand, can make a big difference. The difference is only amplified in light of losing the Merc specs in our GP farm cities. The more GPPs we pour into those cities during this GA, the better. Those cities have plenty of food to grow back with. Anyway doing the GA right now is sub-optimal (in terms of using the g/h bonus for example). We have to decide what we want out of it. It's really hard to get the four extra GSes fast enough to have time to build Manhatten. We don't want to screw it up because we didn't plan it out right.

I'm saying this in view of the plan to slingshot Communism, spam settlers, and switch to SP. If we were to decide to go a different route, such as focus on low maintenance, slingshot Physics instead of Communism, and max our research in our existing cities, plus perhaps some more nearby, then keeping our cities large might be the highest priority, because they'd have to do all of the research.

If you see it differently, please let me know so I can adjust my point of view.

 

[klarius]

I don't see what free market shall help. One more weak trade route will neither pay for a lost free specialist nor for distance maintenance and lower civic cost.
If we do economy, it should be for the merchant only which is indeed paying for the beakers, best probably by trade mission. In this game we really have to think how to come by cash. We will have no income by city capturing until we don't need it anymore. Trades will also be very limited (we won't have a bunch of obsolete cheap techs). We have a deficit of 75g currently 8 from military unit cost (but civic cost is 4-9 lower than other rel. civics), 12 from distance maintenance. New cities will add ~6 number of cities maintenance empire wide currently, going up to nearly 14, before saturating to 7. I think we will have more than 100g on average cost for the next 50 turns.

I did some tests some time ago. All leaders did go for liberalism except Mansa. But that doesn't say that there couldn't be a freak accident.


My estimate is fission ~T130, rocketry T150.

To the GPP in this GA:
Murkow gets anyway pretty near to empty food bin. In CC it's not better to use the food in this GA compared to after NE. Pete needs to leave food resources unworked already (paying 4f for 9 gpp instead of 2f for 6gpp pacifism w/o GA). The rest is too small anyway.
There is still the question if we should revolt to OR at the end of this GA.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I didn't mean Free Market for us, I meant so that AIs could potentially switch to it while we're in CS. We won't be able to bribe them into it. What is the likelihood they would switch on their own?