SGOTM 10 - Smurkz

[Backwards Logic]

Moscow could spit the unit out for copperland. The land is fogbusted, so barbs can't threaten it so an immediate garrison is not necessary. As for Horsetropolis with the religion, during the GA I could see the city running 4-5 specialists with the seafood and later farms it will have. The extra 100% GP points would be substantial. I'm hoping another religion spreads to it beforehand, but Confucianism in the city is going to give us a ton more GP points which could mean another scientist that much sooner.

EDIT: We also have to decide when the cities start to run specs, namely Broberg and Seaside. Seaside we want timed so the Great Engineer from St, Pete pops first. In one of my offline games I popped a Great Artist in my GPP farm at 2% odds, so I'm wary of running additional scientists to speed its rate up. Broberg I think should run them as soon as the library finishes, but again it can't pass St. Pete. One option is to run as many specialists as possible then when the time comes that they'll pop a GPP pull the specs and run citizens to stall the GPP. I don't like stalling GP's for anything, but our whole strategy revolves around popping the GE for the Golden Age.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I've edited the plan in post 317; please check.

Do we want to trade maps with somebody to find that 5th AI? Who? Roose? Whoever is cheapest? When? Now, to minimize what we will be giving away? Does seeing an AI's location on a map suffice for establishing tech-trading contact or do we need to send a caravel for the formal handshake?

[Edit: Just for something to think about... Farflung settling is difficult (because of the 342 hammers to build a settler) and initially quite expensive in terms of city maintenance. Sticking some military units out in the middle of nowhere, though, is relatively easy and cheap. If we post a mace+Xbow or whatever on some islands, we could DoW and attack any settler party before they could settle. This has, er, certain diplomatic repercussions, but it would slow down the AIs and we could "claim" a lot more land this way than with settlers. Some of the islands may also be worth settling, and we could save them for later, buying time to build settlers and get our economy in shape to afford new cities. One thing I've never seen, though, is what happens when you and the AI have units on the same cultureless tile and you DoW. Who moves? I would guess that our units move to an adjacent land tile (which would be a problem on 1-tile islands). If we're lucky, whoever arrived on a tile first gets to stay. What do you think? We could build nearly 4 crossbows for each settler.]

 

[Backwards Logic]

We'd need to actually meet the AI, not just see where they were. Last I looked, maps were going for > 100 gold, so I'm not sure it's really worth it. I'd rather have the extra turn or two of 100% science. We'll find him soon enough.

If we declare war on an AI who has units in the same neutral tile, we'll get bounced out. It's an intriguing option, but I'd much rather have the AI against each other than have us as their mutual enemy. We get enough "you've declared war on our friend" penalties and it's highly likely we'll have no one to trade with which until nukes is looking more and more useful. It's not something I'm totally against, but some more discussion (ie, more than just the two of us) would be nice.

Hold on the 100% research - like I said earlier I gotta run some numbers to make sure we don't run out of money during our GA. Plus not all of the cities have libraries up yet so we wouldn't be getting max bang for our buck.

As for happy caps - events are off, yes? So actually having unhappy people wouldn't spawn the event where random tiles are destroyed, correct? If that is true, I'd grow both Seaside and Broberg to its highest pop possible. During the GA we'll starve them away and I think each unhappy person we have in the city would buy us an extra turn of the extra specs. I have to check this though.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I figured we'd exchange maps rather than give them gold. Would that be OK? We're going to get Nat'lism within about 10 turns, which doesn't leave a whole lot of time to meet the last AI.

[Edit: What about selling our map for extra gold? When would be a good time?]

Yes, events are off. I like the idea of maxing out on specs, but I'm getting worried about someone beating us to Nat'lism. If they start trading it then we'll have nothing to trade ourselves, which means no Gunpowder or Education, or then Lib'ism, Economics, etc. We really need to have a monopoly on something. I'm not worried about running out of gold--during the Golden Age we'll be doing quite well. I can see holding off for a turn or two as far as running specs and 100% research, but beyond that... If you want to max out specs, then maybe building that workboat in Seaside is looking better. We'll have the Copperville furs in roughly 15 turns, and maybe we can trade our 2nd silver for another happiness resource.

 

[Backwards Logic]

If we run 100% now we run out of money before the GA.

The GE in St. Pete pops in 17 turns, which means GA in 18. GA's on epic speed are 10 turns, so we'd need enough cash to run at least 28 turns of 100%. We're at 1471 right now and run a deficit of 82 / turn, which allows us almost 18 turns of 100%. Not nearly enough.

Also factor in we want Seaside to build a Monastery and missionary before totally committing to specs. The missionary is key here, as assuming a successful spread to Moscow gives the city another 10% beakerage during the 100% run. We also want Seaside to get a jump on the scientist gene pool. Starting this turn, remove the engineer and assign the scientist. Otherwise we'll have a pretty high GE contamination when we swap over to scientists for Seaside's first GP. When the city grows the turn after the revolt, assign it the workshop tile again. The Monastery would finish in 5 turns, and the missionary would be finished in four turns. Moscow builds Workboat in 1, Crossbow in 2, Settler in 6 (from massive overflow on the crossbow) and when the settler finishes the missionary from Seaside would be arriving just in time to get started on the monastery after the settler completes. The timing might be a bit off since the numbers will change as the tiles being worked change, but it'll be close.

Which brings us back to when we run 100%. Broberg finishes its library in 4 turns, so let us run the numbers for that. Will it be enough? Four more turns of 0% nets us another 144 gold. Assuming we stay at - 82 / turn that gets us to 19 turns of 100% funding. At this point we still need 24 turns of treasury to run 100%, so no, it's not enough.

Working backwards now, and running under the assumption that worst-case scenario Pacifism and its increased military costs balance under the GA (this looks to be true - we'll have around 25 military units and with the GA giving +1 commerce to tiles already producing commerce we have roughly 25 tiles that can be worked and would benefit from this. Tack on multipliers like the market and Bureau in Moscow and it looks like we'll run a small surplus during the GA with Pacifism compared to what we run now), let's bank away 900 gold to cover the costs of 100% during the GA. This should be more than enough, but not excessively so. We pop the GE in 17, so in 18 turns is when we'll need this banked cash.

If we run 8 more turns of 0% from turn 75, that puts roughly another 288 gold in giving us 1759 coin. GE pops in 9 turns from this point in St. Pete with the GA in 10. We run 100% from here, which costs roughly 820 gold at 100% leaving 939 gold for the GA. Between the GA itself and the increased income we'll get in the near future (specifically Silverton when it starts working the two silver tiles for +10 gold / turn), we'll have enough to cover 100% through the GA.

But will we have Nationalism done before the GE pops? I don't think so. In my best estimate I think we're looking at two - three turns of the GE waiting around for Nationalism to finish. However, we run 100% a turn or two sooner and we run out of cash during the GA. The good news is the closer we get to this point the more accurate our numbers will be - the point still is we can't run 100% for at least 7 - 8 turns or so. The other good side to this is more of our beaker multiplier buildings will be in so we'd be getting more bang for our buck. I'm not too worried about not being able to trade Nationalism to everybody - worst case is the final AI techs Nationalism then trades it to another AI for Education. Then there would be two AI with Edu and Nat and two with just Edu with nothing to trade for Nat.

The other issue is when we get Constitution, and it's looking bleak for it to be done before the GA is over though I think it will be close. I don't want to delay the GA either, since that sets our GP's back and the added culture in St. Pete. It looks like we'll have to burn a turn going into Representation. It probably won't be so bad - Liberalism should be in by that point and we can flip to Rep and FR with one turn of anarchy. Speaking of culture in St. Pete - the Hermitage is looking like a nice option. I don't really see what other National Wonders could go here - Wall Street maybe, but only if we popped a prophet and shrined it which I don't see happening. Red Cross should go in a coastal city paired with Heroic Epic if we get that far experience wise, Oxford is probably going in Moscow, IW in Moscow, Globe in Seaside to avoid emancipation issues and we probably won't need Mt. Rushmore or get access to West Point. And if we build the Forbidden Palace it won't go in St. Pete either. So what does that leave for St. Pete? Hermitage! Finally a use for that wonder outside of cultural victories...

I should point out that the one turn of anarchy is not factored into my numbers, but impacts everything evenly across the board.

Our map by itself can fetch 20 gold from De Gaulle and 40 from Mao. We could trade our map to De Gualle or Mao and 15 gold for his map. I'd trade for the other AI's map first, then trade our map around to the remaining AI's to see how much gold we can get. Roosevelt was the only one asking for a small fortune for his map (our WM and 115 gold...), so maybe after we acquire the other AI's maps we could then acquire his for a discount. It always seems to me like the other AI's already 'know' how much our map reveals and always price theirs accordingly. With Roosevelt's map so damn expensive he must have explored quite a bit or already traded for the other AI's maps. I don't think it matters when we trade for them though I might wait a bit for the other AI's treasury to get a bit bigger. 60 gold is hardly worth it right now.

More discussion?

 

[Xcalibrator]

So you're suggesting that we do the Caste System revolt now, have 1 turn of anarchy, and then run another 8 turns at 0% research? While growing cities to their happy caps? And the 8 turn delay is so we can run 100% during the Golden Age? And... why is that so important? Because we want to get Constitution done during the GA so we can do a free revolt to Rep (and Free Religion)? But then it sounds like you're willing to give up on that free revolt because we probably won't make. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely puzzled by what we're trying to optimize here. I can see that delaying the Golden Age by a few turns will let us get more beaker multiplier buildings completed, which is probably an advantage. But it puts back Nationalism and the Taj, too, and I worry about somebody else having a Gt Eng and doing the Taj before us.

How important in this plan is keeping St Pete 100% Eng? If you would accept 98.6%, would that speed up the schedule at all? By the way, we need Printing Press to get Democracy--we might want to hold onto a Great Sci just in case.

 

[Backwards Logic]

So you're suggesting that we do the Caste System revolt now, have 1 turn of anarchy, and then run another 8 turns at 0% research?

Yup. You weren't considering waiting for the GA to switch to CS, were you? We gotta swap to CS at some point, and serfdom isn't doing us any good anymore. While the specs don't come into play now, while small, the hammer bonus for the workshops do.

While growing cities to their happy caps? And the 8 turn delay is so we can run 100% during the Golden Age?

Yup.

And... why is that so important? Because we want to get Constitution done during the GA so we can do a free revolt to Rep (and Free Religion)?

If I'm reading what you're saying right, how could we not want to run 100% during the GA? The extra commerce gets turned into beakers (which because of the libraries gets multiplied further) for 10 turns - how is running 100% beforehand and coming up short during the GA better? We're still stuck waiting for the GE anyway if we don't speed up St. Pete, or we're stuck waiting for Nationalism finish if we do. Plus I'm saying the underlined isn't looking possible.

We're limited on coin to run 100% before and during the GA. The delay of going 100% (and subsequent delay of Nationalism) is to ensure the treasury can support 100% for the duration of the GA. It's a catch-22 - we start going 100% too soon and yea, we'll get Nationalism done early, but we still won't get Constitution done and we'll have to run 0% during the GA. We're also limited on when we pop the GE from St. Pete which is 17 turns from now. Let me ask you this: What happens if the RNG grants us a GS out of St. Pete if we pollute to speed things up? Then what? Burn him for the GA? We can't rush Taj anymore, but a scientist for a GA at this juncture? In that case I'd rather take the Academy especially since Constitution won't be done nor will we likely have Liberalism. Everything hinges on the GE to rush the Taj, get our GA, deny the AI of a free GA, not to mention the huge culture boost St. Pete enjoys. St. Pete is producing 12 culture per turn and it's still losing to Bombay - we're up to 20% Indian in the city. You may be paranoid with losing cities, ( ) I'm paranoid about popping the wrong great person.

But then it sounds like you're willing to give up on that free revolt because we probably won't make.

Yea, I am, because I'm not optimistic Constitution will be complete during the GA. At 100% at this point it would take 22 turns to finish. Now I know we're going to run specs, get more beaker multipliers, have more pop to work more commerce tiles, Academies, etc, but will it be enough to subtract 12 turns off its research time (figure GA at the start of the GA Constitution needs to be done in 10 turns for the free revolt to rep)? I'm not optimistic here, which is why I'm conceding the possibility of having to do yet another revolt to FR and Rep when they are both available.

I can see that delaying the Golden Age by a few turns will let us get more beaker multiplier buildings completed, which is probably an advantage. But it puts back Nationalism and the Taj, too, and I worry about somebody else having a Gt Eng and doing the Taj before us.

As I said earlier, we're restricted when we actually finish Nationalism and when we pop the GE. We hurry Nationalism along by running 100% earlier and then we have to wait for the GE anyway for Taj. Then we run out of money anyway during the GA. If we speed up St. Pete we run the risk of totally screwing the strategy over. A foreign GE rushing Taj is a legitimate concern, however we don't really have to worry about that too much. Let me explain.

I looked back through the event Log to see when the Great People popped across the globe and what their subsequent actions were. I made some educated guesses as well to fill it in further than what the event log shows. I'm also thinking the remaining civ out there is Philosophical, but I'm not 100% certain. Here's the list:

1640 - Roosevelt/Washington, Great Merchant. Popped via Economics (tech screen confirms this)
1635 - Unknown/Capital, Great Scientist. Judging by the prior GP's, I'm fairly certain this occurred in the civ we haven't met yet.
1620 - Mao/Shanghai, Great Prophet. Mahabodhi built in Shanghai.
1615 - Gandhi/Bombay, Great Merchant.
1575 - Roosevelt/Washington, Great Scientist.
1545 - De Gaulle/Paris, Great Engineer. Rushed Shwedagon Paya.
1515 - Unknown/Secondary City, Great Merchant.
1515 - Us/Moscow, Great Engineer.
1490 - Roosevelt/Unknown, but probably New York, Great Engineer. Rushed Spiral Minaret in Washington.
1490 - Mao/Shanghai, Great Engineer. Rushed Angkor Wat.
1490 - Gandhi/Bombay, Great Artist. Bombed us.
1465 - Unknown/Capital, Great Engineer. Rushed University of Sankore.
1445 - Mao/Beijing, Great Engineer. Rushed Notre Dame.
1445 - De Gaulle/Orleans, Great Artist. Judging by future and past GP pops, it's the only possibility for this one.
1435 - Roosevelt/Washington, Great Scientist. Built Academy.
1420 - Gandhi/Bombay, Great Engineer. Rushed Sistine Chapel
1395 - Unknown, Great Scientist. Probably built Academy.
1370 - Gandhi/Delhi, Great Scientist. Appears to have built an Academy.

Alright, so we look at the list and see every civ has popped a GP in the last 100 years with the exception being De Gualle. He last popped a GE which he used to rush Shwedagon Paya. We know what all of the other recent GP's were used for, which is why I conclude the latest scientist is from the unknown civ. Which also means his GP counter has reset back to zero and despite likely being Philosophical (judging by number of GP's and when they popped) so he's ways of from popping the another GP, let alone another GE. He's the only candidate who could possibly have Nationalism now since we know the others went for Education. Roosevelt has also teched off Economics, so it's possible he could be going for Nationalism. He is the other possibility, but he's already popped three GP's the hard way so unless New York has National Epic (Washington doesn't) we have some time here.

How important in this plan is keeping St Pete 100% Eng? If you would accept 98.6%, would that speed up the schedule at all?

As I've said earlier, everything relies on popping the GE from St. Pete. And let's say we will pop a GE no matter what the odds are - we still have to wait for Nationalism to finish since 14 turns is the fastest it could get done (maybe 13 if we ran specs in Broberg too).

Basically what it comes down to is the decision between running 100% now and speeding St. Pete up or waiting to run 100% for 8 turns and not speeding up St. Pete.

As far as speeding St. Pete up - worst case scenario (if I crunched the numbers right) is about 90% odds in favor of an Engineer if we ran an Engineer and a Scientist now which will pop in 9 turns (as for the math - the city is at 219/270, which makes 81.11% of the GP bin full as GE points. The rest of it gets split 50/50 as we'd have one Eng and one Scientist so 50% of the remaining 19% goes towards the GE and the other half towards a GS. I personally don't like any risk involved here but I suppose it could be worth it if we get lucky. As I mentioned earlier a GS in this situation would be disastrous. If we wait six turns on running the extra GS the odds go to just under 94% and would take 12 turns as opposed to 9. Seaside could start running 2 scientists this turn and it would be one turn behind St. Pete in popping its GP. If we started running 100% now, Nationalism would be done in 14 turns, Taj rushed in 15, then 10 turns of GA. Oh yea, but we'll still run out of money though since the numbers I ran earlier still hold true. If we wait on running 100% to keep money for the GA then Nationalism takes longer to finish and the GA gets delayed anyway despite taking the risk and speeding St. Pete up. See what I'm getting at?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Nice work on the GP history. I worry about DeGaulle a little.

Who knows how all the patches have changed things, but long ago there was a thread describing how the GP probabilities are computed, and it's weighted by the number of turns with a given GP type, not the number of GP-type points. We've run 73 turns with 100% Eng. We need another 51 GP points to pop. If we run just 1 spec it'll take 17 turns. If we run something like 12 turns with just the eng and then 1 turn with 1 eng + 4 sci's then our probability for an Eng would be [(73+12)*1.00 + 1*0.20] / [73+12+1] = 85.2/86 = 99.07%. In other words, we could get an Eng in 13 turns with 99.1% probability. But like I said, I can't swear that's still how the numbers work. I'll look around the threads to check. I don't know the Seaside status, but we will need to run specs soon after we hit the happy cap to avoid growing, and we'd really rather they not be plain citizens just to avoid beating St Pete to a GP pop. If that's the case then we'd want to speed up St Pete, and from the above I think we can do that pretty safely. [Edit: Well dang, it doesn't work as I thought anymore. See the last few posts of this thread. GP probabilities are as you described, i.e., the logical way using weighting by points, so in my example the odds of an Eng would be 86/90 = 95.56%. So yes, it is best to use as few contaminants as possible, no matter how they are temporally arranged.]

How about this? I check every turn to see if DeGaulle has Nat'lism. If he has it, I go full bore on research for Nat'lism (and do this regardless on the 9th turn after we come out of the Caste System revolt) and set things up with St Pete to get a GP on the turn we get Nat'lism, keeping the Sci contamination to a minimum.

What should be our strategy on tech trading? After the Taj is completed we can safely trade Nat'lism. Our first priority is Education. Well, actually it might be Printing Press since that's required for Democracy but we'll probably have to wait awhile for that and might even have to
research it ourselves. Once we have Edu then we can trade for Lib'ism, although it might be awhile before there are enough AIs with it that someone is willing to trade. Without knowing what the AIs are teching and how far along they are, we should assume that our Nat'lism is losing value every turn so I'd use it trade for everything I can right away. Sound good? Of course, we'll be lucky if I make it to Nat'lism in my first session. I'm hoping to play some tonight. Shall I write up a fresh plan?

[Edit: Now that you mention it, maybe we do want to wait to switch to Caste System. The GA will start in somewhere between 12 and 17 turns. We've decided to grow our cities first before running lots of specs, and we have 2 sci slots in cities with libraries. Do we really need more sci slots before the GA? Yes, we'll get another hammer in our 4 or so workshops (which won't be in use all the time), but we'll lose a turn of hammers, commerce, and GP points civ-wide. Is it really worth it? Hmm, if we need to run a bunch of specs in St Pete for one turn, will we have enough slots?]

 

[Backwards Logic]

On tech trading: Trade Nationalism to someone other than Roosevelt, then swing Nationalism to Roosevelt the following turn for Economics. This may change as new techs may become available from other civs.

On CS: Maybe we should wait. Hammer-wise running some rough numbers we'd break even for both Moscow and Seaside in 11 turns but the other cities would take longer. Commerce-wise would be sometime longer. If we need the extra specs somewhere for whatever reason we'll revolt then.

On the plan for Nationalism with regards to De Gaulle: Yea, check on him every turn and if he does end up with Nationalism stop and post. I'll run some more rough numbers to see where we'd stand if we ran 100% from that point forward.

Go ahead and write up a fresh plan to confirm we're on the same page and I'll comment on it.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Updated Plan
=========
Check tech trades every turn. Especially check for DeGaulle getting Nat'lism.
Do not change to Pacifism.
Do not revolt to Caste System unless "necessary" and after stopping to discuss.
Run 0% research for 8 more turns (not including any revolt anarchy).
Keep St Pete GPPs pure Engineer as long as possible. Grow cities to happy cap before seriously running specialists. Slow Seaside and Broberg GP pops if necessary--St Pete must pop first. Probably wait to run specs in Broberg until library is completed.
Use an eastern slave to lure Gandhi's longbow off Broberg's eastern hill once we have a new longbow in Broberg. Shift our longbows to occupy both hills.
Build/send Confu missionary to Horsey but do not convert until beginning of Golden Age to maximize time for Horsey to collect another religion.
Check if Mao can reach us by galley--Seaside has only an archer.
Until we have better city defenses, always keep enough gold to upgrade a warrior to a mace.
Trade Nationalism to someone other than Roosevelt, then swing Nationalism to Roosevelt the following turn for Economics or whatever. We must have Printing Press to research Democracy and we want Liberalism to enable revolt to Free Religion along with Representation (from Constitution). Consider trading our tech(s) to foment war.
Trade maps if we're close to getting Nat'lism and still haven't found the 5th AI. Trade maps for gold.
Chain irrigate toward Horsey so we can run more specialists, especially during the Golden Age. Mine (or windmill?) the two desert hills by Horsey.

Move caravel34 (by Moscow) to keep an eye on Parthian (1S2E) and give us advance warning of barb invasion and/or sink galleys.
Use other caravels to explore (find that 5th AI) and escort Broberg workboat to southern crabs for Copperville. Don't send Broberg caravel very far--needed to escort workboat past Delhi.
Move new Woody2 mace to 1NE of Delhi and fortify.
Once most work around Silverton is complete, transport one worker back to mainland. Leave the other to road out east to the warrior in preparation for future settling (or maybe build a fort so boats can leave/enter Silverton from the west). Post the galley where he can be of help in fending off barb invasions if the caravel fails.
Settle Copperville with Moscow settler, hook up copper in time for Democ/SoL.

Build times are estimates after the first item:
Moscow: workboat for Horsey(1), Xbow(2), settler(7), Xbow for Copperville
St Pete: Confucian temple(7), Confu missionary for Horsey, Bank or Xbow(5)...
Seaside: workboat(2), Islamic monastery(5), Islamic missionary to Moscow, theatre?
Broberg: library(4), longbow, workboat for Copperville(3), caravel or galley...
Horsetropolis: culture(2), library(<17)...
Silverton: workboat(2), library...

 

[Backwards Logic]

Looks good, just a few things to point out:
Mao can reach us via galley. I've already checked that - there's two coastal tiles next to each other that border our respective landmasses. Fortunately Gandhi is still his worst enemy and we'd have heads up due to the Buffy Mod if he went into WHEOOHRN.
As for saving money to upgrade the warrior - I think we only have two left, and one of them is outside our borders leaving only the one in St. Pete. I don't think we'll need to upgrade him unless the barb does something wacky, so saving money for him long-term isn't a necessity in my book. It would certainly be a nice luxury though if we could afford it.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Played to turn 80/1685. Things are OK but I carelessly lost a mace and delayed Moscow's settler by 2 turns to build a pike replacement. I have played 5 of the 8 0% research turns. We could likely shave that down to 7 by selling our map.

Turn 75/1660: Skip Seaside workboat, start Islamic monastery--we're growing fast enough. The archer there can be upgraded to a longbow for 122g, to Xbow for 164. Mao, Degaulle, Roose have Education.

76/1665: Barb mace (1.3/8) kills our wounded Xbow. Moscow finishes workboat, starts Xbow (2 turns). Mace9 by Delhi promo'd to Wood2, moves to 1NE of Delhi. Horse Lbow25 kills barb mace (100%). Our caravel meets Churchill pretty much due North of us. He also has Education, and is the worst enemy of Mao. I trade our fish to Mao for 3 gpt. Churchill has 2 gpt but we'll wait to trade until we won't annoy Mao. I open borders with Churchill. The 5 AI have a total of 200 gold that we might get for our map (although Roose will only give us 10 of his 60). Workboat hooks up Seaside fish. Confusion spreads (via missionary) to Seaside. Ooh, Gandhi has 1 Lbow and a settler in the forest S of Delhi. Was he there before? I send our knight farther west. 2nd Silverton silver mine complete. 3 workers now farming the plains tile 2E of St Pete. Caravel34 by Moscow is healed and moves to watch Parthian.

77/1670: Silverton pop4, finishes workboat, starts library(15). I have the new citizen work the coast to grow. Churchill discovers Liberalism and chooses Astronomy. Delhi settler moves back into city but Lbow remains. Bombay Lbow moves 1E. I move our knight back to where he can strike. Horses 31% Russian.

78/1675: Delhi Lbow kills our maceman on the western silk. Why wasn't he posted in the forest? Oh, our mace was healing at strength 3.74. Sorry, didn't know. Darn. Lbow at full strength. Moscow will go to pop 12 next turn if I delay the settler so I start a pike. Delhi caravel comes out to threaten ours; I send him back to Broberg. Horsey borders pop, workboat arrives but doesn't yet net clams. Library started (32). Bombay Lbow retreats. I drop another worker on Sivler island to help build a fort W of the city. Seaside to pop 10; I unassign the new scientist it created.

79/1680: Broberg to size 10, finishes library, starts Lbow(5). Moscow to size 12, has 1 unhealthy, 2 spare happiness. I'm going to finish the pike then start the settler. Delhi has a catapult. Second Silverton fish hooked up. Horsey clams hooked up. All AI have Education now.

80/1685: Moscow finished pike, starts settler(7). Seaside finishes Islamic monastery, starts missionary(3). It also grows to 11 (happy cap) and will grow again in 2 unless we change. I unassigned a new scientist. It has 14 extra food when emphasizing growth. I've left it that way for now but we'll want to change it soon. Delhi has sent out a cat(SE) and its Lbow is W of the wheat on the plains hill. Our knight can reach either one, with 75% odds on the Lbow and 99.6% on the cat. The pike we have NE of the cat has 77% odds. The knight can easily take the cat but then it'll take 3 turns to get back to the Lbow assuming the Lbow continues west to threaten our workers. Odds on flatland are around 96% but there are several hills and forests. I've sent our new pike from Moscow to St Pete. I've left the knight unmoved.

We could get a fair amount of gold for our map--when do we sell?

I'm very tempted by the cat but then we'd have to chase the Lbow, during which time our workers would have to leave their fogbusting positions, and the Lbow might fortify somewhere inconvenient. Very sorry about losing that mace--I forgot he was wounded and didn't mouse over to check his status.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Got the save, few things:

St. Pete shouldn't be working the plains farm - you took away turns from improving a hamlet! The extra hammer isn't worth all that much to the city, but the commerce will be.
When improving barren tiles, improve the tile, then road it. Roads on desert hills don't help (even though desert hills aren't too good to begin with). Mine them both I suppose - windmills before electricity and replaceable parts on desert hills are not worth the worker time it takes to build them. I'd cancel the road building and start a mine somewhere - stack the workers to get it in faster, I'm thinking to get the library done faster we'll want to work it as soon as the city grows to pop 4. As for Horsetropolis, I'd probably switch out the grassland farm for the grassland hill - it'll still grow to pop 4 at the same rate (though certainly not to 5 and beyond) and we'll get a bunch more hammers invested into the library, which we want sooner than we think.

My guess is the longbow that escaped will head 1 S next turn then 1 SW the following to stay in defensible tiles. We could move our Knight to the tundra forest to stop this, but this may open up Gandhi to attacking our longbow. But I also think if he was going to attack our longbow he would have done it last turn, so moving to prevent the longbow's escape to 'our' lands would be a solid move. Remember in 7 turns the settler from Moscow is headed over here unescorted... Speaking of that settler, in five turns (when the settler completes in 2 turns) we should send our galley over east to pick the settler up which will speed the founding of the city up by a turn or two. I'd have him positioned 1 W of the forested tundra hill. As for any barb worries - since Optics gives plus +1 LoS across water, Gandhi's borders have fogbusted that whole area for us. So unless something sailed all the way around from the west, we'll be fine.

Silverton should probably work both silver mines for the extra hammers and commerce. By swapping the coastal tile to the mine, we only lose one turn on growing to pop 6 but gain 2 turns on the library which we also want sooner rather than later. Explanation coming...

The map trades look fairly lucrative. I'd first trade with DeGaulle - he'll trade his WM for ours and 10 gold and he only has 30 to begin with. From there we could trade it to Mao and see what he'd give. Churchill won't trade his to us because he doesn't like us enough (also notice he's in WHEOOHRN - watch out Mao), but with DeGaulles and Mao's he might buy ours for more than 10 gold. And I was right about Roosevelt trading his dyes away to the then unknown nation - he's getting corn (corn!) in return for it. And since Roosevelt is pleased with us, let's see if we can beg some gold away from him if we can't get his money via world map trade.

The Caravel off the coast of Silverton is not in a good spot - yea, we'll see what Parthian is up to, but the last two galleys came from the northern coast of that island mass. We're screwed if they do that again, which is why I had suggested the caravel position be where it was. It can still watch Parthian while also being able to react to anything up north.

Gandhi also finally improved his clams again (did that happen last turn?), though his merchant is still twiddling his thumbs in Bombay.

I ran some numbers. It's going to be really, really close (like as in +/- 1 turn on having enough cash), but I think we can go 100% now. The Engineer pops in 12, if we swap out to coastal tiles in Seaside for scientists this gets Nationalism done in 12, but obviously we couldn't run the specs permanently. Enter Broberg, where when Seaside is a turn away from popping its GP (6 turns from now) we pull the three from Seaside and put two scientists on in Broberg. Plus the other AI are getting multiple different techs (Lib, Edu, Astro, Economics) and we gotta get something to trade for them all asap. We're falling behind here...

 

[Xcalibrator]

OK, will put St Pete back on the hamlet. I'm roading the desert hills first because I didn't know if we wanted mines or windmills--will mine 1 then the other. Are you sure you don't want Horsey to grow ASAP to pop 5? If you are, I'll swap out grass farm for grass hill and work the desert hill mine at pop 4. Any other farms desired around Horsey?

Our forest-fortified units by Delhi should be pretty safe--I'll move the knight to the tundra forest. You said "send our galley over east": west, right? In a few turns I'll move him to the tile 1W of the forested tundra hill. Exactly which tile are you recommending for our eastern caravel?

OK on Silverton: work both silver mines. Will do the map trades immediately (get map from DeG, get gold from Mao,... Roose) and beg gold from Roose whether or not he gives us anything for our map.

Didn't notice clams but I'd guess it was this turn--his caravel twirled around and might have hidden the workboat movement.

Our new pike is in St Pete. Shall I send him to replace the dead mace near Delhi?

Now about the specialists... St Pete is still 12 turns from its GP pop and Seaside is 17 or 18. I'm confused by you saying Seaside will be 1 turn away from popping in 6 turns. At the moment it only has the eng spec, but it's 2 turns from growing past its happy cap so we're going to have to run specs of some kind very soon (unless we want to turn on the growth limiter, which would let us still collect commerce but has no other redeeming feature). We could run citizens for the hammers, but that is also rather wasteful. The alternative would be to speed up the St Pete GP pop but, as we've discussed, there will be a few-several percent risk of popping a non-Eng. You apparently have a plan for specs in Seaside and Broberg but it isn't clear to me--please explain. [Edit: Ah, swap out 2 coastal tiles in Seaside for a few turns. Why not run sci's in other places at the same time, such as Broberg and Moscow? I bet we could run at least 1 in Moscow without slowing the settler.]

How does a revolt to Caste System fit into this picture? Broberg, Seaside, and Moscow can run 1 eng and 2 sci's because they have libraries. Other cities can't run anything beyond the eng. Does your plan work with this?

Agreed that we need to get Nat'lism ASAP, so going to 100% research now seems a given.

For diplomacy, what do we do if someone asks us to close borders, join a war, etc? Deny all requests? Closing borders probably wouldn't hurt anything, though.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Yea, I meant west for the galley. That's twice now I've done that... Caravel sits 2 N 1 W of its current position.

Grumble... No I'm not sure about Horsetropolis and working the mine over the farm... Both tiles have their pros and cons. I guess work the farm until pop 4, then work the grassland hill when it grows to pop 4. I think we want another farm or two by the city to get it to grow a bit more before the GA.

Which worker are you planning on shipping over to be a sacrificial offering to the longbow by Broberg? The longbow completes in 4 turns there.

Seaside runs two scientists starting this turn (including the engineer). It helps our teching and gets the GP bin full. Since we're running the extra specs in Seaside, it would put it popping the GP before St. Pete which is no good. When it is one turn away from popping, pull all of the GP's from Seaside (run a citizen) and give Broberg (which now will be at pop 11) two scientists to run. Wait on running specs in Broberg until this point - we want the city to grow a bit more before the GA. And you're right about Moscow being able to run a spec, in fact, I'd let it work two. At the cost of one settler turn, we get an extra 27 GP points in the bin. So in Moscow run the Engineer and two scientists at least for the next 8 turns - remove 2 citizens from the workshops.

As for CS, we'll wait for the GA to switch in. Right now the Engineer coincides with finishing Nationalism, and we can't run extra specs before then (well we could in Broberg, but I'd like to get as much food in the bin before we start starving it during the GA).

I've given this some more thought and I've come to the conclusion that the woody II mace should kill off the catapult. Bombay's stack is starting to look like that it may have some offensive potential before long. Kill the catapult with the mace then depending on damage swing the pike off of the plains hill to give him cover for a turn. If the mace needs to heal, stick him on the plains hill to heal and have the pike take the mace's spot 1 NE of Delhi. Bring the new pike on over to where the other mace had died being careful not to stick it on a tile adjacent to Bombay. There's a chance one or two of the longbows may sally and try to kill him. Don't move any of the fortified units around Bombay - it'd take 5 turns to get that bonus back if we swapped them all around.

For Diplomacy - the only issue as of right now I see would be Churchill asking as to cancel our deals with Mao which would mean we'd lose 3 GPT from trade and open borders, plus have the negative diplo modifiers with Mao. Churchill can also make Galleons, so we should be wary of that too. If we refuse Church I don't think it'll be enough to make us his new worst enemy - he has the close borders issue with Mao and the heathen religion penalty so the minus 1 from Church shouldn't be enough. So if that happens I'm leaning towards ignoring Churchill.

As for when we get Nationalism... We're going to want to trade it around asap to prevent people asking for it.

As of now, Churchill has Education, Lib, Economics, and Astronomy
Roosevelt has Education and Economics
Mao has Education.
De Gaulle has Education.

Nationalism goes to either De Gaulle or Mao. Nationalism then goes to Roosevelt for Economics then onto Churchill for Lib (and hopefully some cash too). This may change as other techs come into play though.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Time will be tight for me the next two evenings but I'll try to play. If someone else wants to do it, holler and I'll upload and formally hand off--we don't want two people playing at the same time! CB, you following along closely? Your time will be soon, one way or the other.

Updated plan:
SWITCH TO 100% RESEARCH NOW.
ST PETE MUST POP ITS GP FIRST. CHECK OTHER CITIES EVERY TURN.
Seaside runs two scientists starting this turn (plus the engineer). When it is one turn away from popping, pull all of the GP's from Seaside (run a citizen) and give Broberg (which now will be at pop 11) two scientists to run. Wait on running specs in Broberg until this point - we want the city to grow a bit more before the GA. Have Moscow run eng + 2 sci's (which will delay settler 1 turn) for at least for the next 8 turns - remove 2 citizens from the workshops.

Use an eastern slave to lure Gandhi's longbow off Broberg's eastern hill once we have a new longbow in Broberg. Shift our longbows to occupy both hills. 4 turns to Broberg Lbow.
Build/send Confu missionary to Horsey but do not convert until beginning of Golden Age to maximize time for Horsey to collect another religion.
We must have Printing Press to research Democracy. Hold onto first Gt Sci just in case.
Settle Copperville with Moscow settler, hook up copper in time for Democ/SoL.


Moscow: settler(7), Xbow for Copperville, Islamic monastery? Bank?
St Pete: Confucian temple(7), Confu missionary for Horsey, Bank or Xbow...
Seaside: Islamic missionary to Moscow, theatre?
Broberg: longbow(4), workboat for Copperville(3), caravel
Horsetropolis: library
Silverton: library

Put eastern caravel 2N1W of where it is now.
Silverton work both silver mines.
Put St Pete back on the hamlet (off plains farm).
Mine Horsey desert hill(s).
Swap Horsey grass farm for grass hill and work desert mine, both at pop 4. Mine the grass hill, I assume? Oh, that grass hill mine. Right, ready to go. Work 2 seafood + farm, then add the mine at pop 4. I think I'll mine 1 desert hill and windmill the other to provide flexibility. Plus do one more farm.
Build another farm or two around Horsey.
Move knight to tundra forest.
Wood2 mace kill catapult. If wounded, move pike from plains hill to protect for a turn. If the mace needs to heal, stick him on the plains hill to heal and have the pike take the mace's spot 1 NE of Delhi. Bring the new pike on over to where the other mace had died being careful not to stick it on a tile adjacent to Bombay. Keep other units fortified as is.
Ignore demands from Churchill if it won't make us his worst enemy.

Have galley ready 1W of forest tundra hill to pick up settler from Moscow.
Trade our map to DeGaulle for his map, trade our map for gold from Mao, .... , Roose.
Beg for gold from Roose since he's pleased with us.

When we get Nat'lism, trade to DeG or Mao, then to Roose for Economics, then to Churchill for Lib and gold. Consider trading our tech(s) to foment war.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Looks good, just keep Horsetropolis working the two seafood and the farm. At pop 4, work the same tiles plus grassland hill mine. I don't think there's a grassland hill to mine but if there is mine it.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but I'm leaning towards an Academy with our first scientist rather than bulbing PP with it. We're ways off from this though, and things are bound to change.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I'll be home tomorrow and can play then, hopefully all the way to the Taj. Do you think it matters if we trade Nat'lism before or after the Taj is built in terms of its value to the AIs? And if we do it before, will we absolutely be guaranteed the Taj if we burn the Eng on it the same turn that we trade Nat'lism? I recall having "completed" a couple World Wonders, expecting the movie to play on the next turn, and having an AI beat me to it. That was way back with vanilla Civ and I haven't seen that since, but it would be... frustrating. Please advise. And, of course, if anything major comes up while I'm playing I'll stop and fill y'all in.

 

[Backwards Logic]

The only way for them to beat us to the Taj is if they researched Nationalism before us and built it sooner. If we trade it to them then rush the Taj ourselves, even if they rushed it to we'd beat them because of the turn order. No idea if completing the wonder before trading it around is going to affect its value. I think it does, since you see AI's not wanting to trade a tech away if they are building the wonder themselves. But I'm not sure though. Niklas, if you're still lurking could you shed some light on this?

 

[Niklas]

No, the value the AI places on a tech is solely based on two things: what it would cost the AI to research it themselves, and whether the tech is considered "extra valuable". That last thing is a simple static boolean value, yes or no, defined in the XML. Typically it's used on military techs, the AI wants more pay for those.