SGOTM 10 - Team Liz

[Abegweit]

grey line A team 4 squares increase in territory between 750 and 550 BC. And increased culture.

Ah yes. I see what you mean. I think I may have been looking at an old graph.

It does look like they have gone on the warpath. My interpretation is that they too captured the ToA. They just had it for less of the round than we did. We'll both probably have the same slope in the next installment.

I think the only team to actually have built culture is Klarius.

 

[Andronicus]

@ Redbad - yes I suspect you're right -on the war path and another culture building

@ juballs - thats fine, I'll take it later today

@ moderators - is there a problem with my playing from the save which I have opened (and closed) 5 or 6 times? - this presumably will affect my reload count

 

[Abegweit]

No. It won't affect your reload count. You have to save and then load for that to happen. I assume you haven't done that. You shouldn't have anyway.

 

[Andronicus]

No. It won't affect your reload count. You have to save and then load for that to happen. I assume you haven't done that. You shouldn't have anyway.

no only opened save, taken some screen shots and poured over the MM possibilities

 

[Andronicus]

Ah yes. I see what you mean. I think I may have been looking at an old graph.

It does look like they have gone on the warpath. My interpretation is that they too captured the ToA. They just had it for less of the round than we did. We'll both probably have the same slope in the next installment.

I think the only team to actually have built culture is Klarius.

Klarius may alos have captured ToA looking at their latest culture curve.
Actually when you think of it most teams should expect to get pyramids and ToA built on their starting continent. It would be bad luck for barbies to build it. The lucky break we got was the AI building them just prior to our capturing allowing max advantage (referring particuarly to pyramids here, ToA will have little bearing on final results)

 

[Abegweit]

Klarius may alos have captured ToA looking at their latest culture curve.

I agree. But I do think that their increase between 1250BC and 1000BC was self-generated.

 

[Andronicus]

Hi guys
I've played to 470AD and have paused for some team discussion
The save is posted for any who wish to see
I have had a bad run with rng and our small force of horses has been depleted against Mayans. I have captured Palenque, but have not been able to get to Bonampak (there is one more Mayan city further south)
Mayans will give money and lit for peace, however currency has just come up this turn in the hands of Byz - if Mayans trade with Byz, might we get both or am I greedy. I think if I could get Bonampak I could relieve Maya of all techs and money (although if they trade with Byz for currency they wont have money left)
We have just got republic and I have done a few whips prior to revolt (ready to revolt immediately) as our forces needed reinforcing. Interestingly Sumeria beat us to Republic - so much for hopeless AI research, they got all AI techs inc Rep whilst we did republic.

I could trade Theodora republic for lit + currency + 12gpt, but if going to get lit and currency from Mayans I would rather use republic to lever her free tech.
Dutch will give 240g + lit for republic.
Sumerians lack lit at this stage as well as construction, but have republic, but Dutch know lit and construction so that situation may not last long.

If I can trade for currency and get Sumeria into next age, it will take a lot to trade for their medieval techs. As our trading rep is trashed the only way to pay gpt is through renegotiation of peace deal. This would allow us to get all AI gold for gpt, then pay for techs with cash.

May still not have enough so other option is to artificially get high gpt ( hire all taxmen), then renegotiate large gpt payment to Teodora for her tech, then dow her cancelling the gpt payment and can then put taxmen back to work - IS THIS AN EXPLOIT?
This would involve immed war with Theodora (risky as we enter our anarchy period), I would probably endevour to keep some gpt payment to Sumeria as breaking a peace treaty means they are much more likely to suddenly attack us (and we have many Sumerian units freely traversing our land). We currently rank average to Byz with 14 horsemen. I might add our horsemen have not been performing well against 2 defence units and Theodora has had swords on mountains N and NW of Smyrna.

 

[Paul#42]

Woohoo! We finally got a complex situation to solve. That's what we play this for, right?

Let's take some time for these decisions, good job yopu stopped right there!

I will have a closer look at the situation at night (which is in ~8 hours). Please delay going on for at least 24 hours so all can comment on this.

This is cool stuff!

Especially Gil really surprises me , I thought Thea would be quicker in research. Let's rearrange our foreign affairs strategy

 

[Abegweit]

I have captured Palenque, but have not been able to get to Bonampak (there is one more Mayan city further south)
Mayans will give money and lit for peace, however currency has just come up this turn in the hands of Byz - if Mayans trade with Byz, might we get both or am I greedy. I think if I could get Bonampak I could relieve Maya of all techs and money (although if they trade with Byz for currency they wont have money left)

Mayans will also give Quirigua. This seems to me to be more useful than Lit.

We have just got republic and I have done a few whips prior to revolt (ready to revolt immediately) as our forces needed reinforcing. Interestingly Sumeria beat us to Republic - so much for hopeless AI research, they got all AI techs inc Rep whilst we did republic.

We didn't do Republic; instead we gave them money to research.

I could trade Theodora republic for lit + currency + 12gpt, but if going to get lit and currency from Mayans I would rather use republic to lever her free tech.

Republic won't come close to getting her free tech; it wouldn't even if we had a monopoly.

May still not have enough so other option is to artificially get high gpt ( hire all taxmen), then renegotiate large gpt payment to Teodora for her tech, then dow her cancelling the gpt payment and can then put taxmen back to work - IS THIS AN EXPLOIT?

Not according to the GOTM ruleset but it will trash what's left of our rep and make it much harder to get any IA free techs.

My recommendation: take the deal with Theo for Republic. It's a fair price and we need to get value for the tech before everyone knows it. Then revolt. If the Sumerians don't know Construction by the time we get out of anarchy, give it to them. We'll know what to do next at that point. Probably time for another pow-wow.

Incidently, I note that Bill now has Iron. This state of affairs needs to rectified immediately. Where did he get it from? If he's trading we can break the deal by taking the deal for Quirigua. If he has it locally, there are other ways

So... recommendation #2 Take Quirigua. Then get everything we can from Bill and Smoky including the two workers. Finish exploring Bill's lands, then solve the Iron issue as soon as we get out of anarchy and the ROP ends.

 

[Redbad]

I would do next trades:

Thea:
currency, literature, 10 gpt, 31 gold for republic

Maya:
Quirigua, english & dutch worker for peace
385 for currency + republic

Bill:
240 for currency + republic

Gil:
45 for construction + currency

revolt,
send our army to Bonampak and wipe out Maya
find dutch source of iron

After having our first MA tech researched we will most likely be able to trade with Gil for his MA tech as we have also literature and some 1800 gold. Maybe Gil trades his MA tech to another AI for literature or to Thea for her MA tech, that would make his tech even cheaper. Should Thea have gotten a different MA tech then Gil, we most likely wil be able to tade with her also as we will 2 MA techs and cash to throw in. Se might even take gpt.


btw.
What have you done to our culture and territory graph, Andronicus. They look absolutely horrofying And the A team is relaxing it's territory graph

 

[Paul#42]

btw.
What have you done to our culture and territory graph, Andronicus. They look absolutely horrofying And the A team is relaxing it's territory graph

It looks like they also got ToA, but with half the towns.
But more likely, regarding the players - they built some libs and continue their rapid research game.
It will be interesting to find out, which strategy finally succeeds.

I fear, our territory curve will soon stall as we had our expansions already. Let it look like that a little longer
I like it that we are not the leading team in the category "turns played" anymore.

I'd do the trades, too - like Redbad suggested.

btw: Happy Gilmore is the traitor giving his Iron to Billy the Kid. I guess Sumer has too much culture already to get another town squeezed in to steel its iron source, right?
Oh could we get 3-5 of Thea's swords there - we might block Gil's forces with some workers and watch Thea take that town - but it would take much too long I guess

 

[Andronicus]

Please delay going on for at least 24 hours so all can comment on this.

No problem, I probably wont play on till 12 hours from now and then only if consensus on our plans

Especially Gil really surprises me , I thought Thea would be quicker in research.

Well Thea is in medieval age already depite centuries of war with Gil

 

[Abegweit]

Well... Where exactly are the points of disagreement? Both Paul and Redbad agree with me about the trade with Isabella, the peace with the Maya, subsequent trades with Bill and Smoky as well as what to about the Iron issue. Paul has added the helpful info that all we have to do about the last is to declare war. Are you on board?

Minor points:

1) Redbad wants to rape the Maya yet again. I hadn't thought about this but I imagine that once you've done it once , it doesn't inflict further damage on your rep to do it again. Is this true? If so, I go along with the idea.

2) When should the Sumerians enter the ME? IMO, we should slow the tech pace but I don't feel strongly about this. Certainly a measly 41g, which we will probably pick up later anyway, should not affect the decision. If we do want to go fast, gift him a bit of money, then get it back in the trade. He'll like us more fro that.

 

[Andronicus]

I would do next trades:

Thea:
currency, literature, 10 gpt, 31 gold for republic

Maya:
Quirigua, english & dutch worker for peace
385 for currency + republic

Bill:
240 for currency + republic

Gil:
45 for construction + currency

Agree - (although Bill will deal for just rep) the question is then whether we can extract their free tech(s)
As Thea still at war with Gil, paying Thea large cash sum may get Thea to buy Bill in against Gil (who is getting way too strong). Then Bill may have money for us to recoup with currency. Maya still allied v Sumeria with Byz.

revolt,
send our army to Bonampak and wipe out Maya
find dutch source of iron

Do you mean wipe out Mayans on expiration of 20 turn peace treaty - they will be stronger with Quirigua's units sent to Bonampak.
Exploring Byz & Dutch fog of war is immed priority if at peace with Mayans

After having our first MA tech researched we will most likely be able to trade with Gil for his MA tech as we have also literature and some 1800 gold. Maybe Gil trades his MA tech to another AI for literature or to Thea for her MA tech, that would make his tech even cheaper. Should Thea have gotten a different MA tech then Gil, we most likely wil be able to tade with her also as we will 2 MA techs and cash to throw in. Se might even take gpt.

I think the tech pace may be a little quicker - we have to wait until after anarchy to rstart research, and it will be slow to begin with no markets, no libs, no science farms yet and large gpt payments for units. Much MM will need to be done to quickly turn this around (eg folding workers into core cities to get them size 7 and working as many productive tiles as poss)
I think the only way we will be able to pay with gpt is through renegotiaion of peace treaty. I quite like the idera of paying Gil gpt to keep his greedy eyes off us whilst giving Thea cash to hopefully bring Bill also in against Gil. Gil against the rest gives us more trading opportunities

btw.
What have you done to our culture and territory graph, Andronicus. They look absolutely horrofying And the A team is relaxing it's territory graph

Unfortunately the next part of my turn will be much less impressive as anarchy puts a sudden brake on culture.
As far as I can glean, no team other than the A team shows signs of an early revolt.

 

[Redbad]

If (in my deal proposal) we trade Bill for only republic we run the risk that Gil will trade Bill literature for currency, undermining our tradeposition for Gils MA tech.

Gil will almost certain live in his golden age now, and thus wil be strong for a while yet and be a research partner. Thea also is still a good research partner. Both have proven this by having republic and currency. And I'm in favour of going full speed on research, including possible trading.

If as Paul states Bill is getting it's iron from Gil then it can also be considered to just trade republic to Bill for his cash, dow him and use currency + construction to buy Gil on our side. Then Gil is at war with everybody except us, which makes risks of getting backstabbed by him small.

edit: @Paul
Why do you think Bill gets his iron from Gil. I can't think of a way to make this certain at this moment. Btw. if Gil is trading iron to Bill, knocking out one of Gils iron sources won't help, as he will loose his own iron before stopping on supplying Bill.

I did mean to wipe Mayans out within the next few turns. It's a military goal that can be handled while we're in anarchy. I expect a few other will go into anarchy as well. I don't think it will have an (noticeble) impact on our reputation.

I sense some regret that our reputation is gone and I'm aware that we are hindered by it in our trade possibilities. But I did have my reasons.
When I started the war with Mayans I bought in Gil to prevent any danger that he would come in on Mayans side and also to have him have his golden age when not fighting us. Buying Bill in also was of minor importance then. I didn't want to buy in Thea as the price would be high and I'd rather have her research then fight a war. (Alas a few turn later Maya got her in against Gil). Destroying Mayans within 20 turns would be considered a violation of the alliance. As I don't think we can effort the luxury of letting wars last that long, I considered violation of the treaty unavoidable.
The first peace with Maya enabled us to get 2 small cities that would have been autorazed upon capture. Moreover the former garisons of those citiies left his capitol in order to fight the dutch and sumerians. The rop enabled us to get our horsemen in position to take his capitol. So the next turn we took his capitol and slaughtered his former garisons in the open field.
Now we have a broken reputation versus broken Maya and relative safety from Gil.

Edit:
@Andronicus:
You stated you suffered bad RNG. Can we conclude that Maya are in their Golden Age? To my knowledge Maya didn't get an UU win against me. Only a couple of retreating horsemen, which doesn't count as a win. If so trading them down to 1 city is even more important. But better investigate Bonampak before launching an attack.

 

[Redbad]

Another question.

Are we sure we want to research into the IA? We can fight the Barbs with cavalry without researching:
1560 banking
1920 physics
2040 theory of gravity
2040 magnetism
3600 steam power
3600 industrialisation
Even if we would be able to trade for steam power (we have 2 times a 1 in 3 chance of the ai getting it) we still have spend more then 11.000 beakers on research to get to industrialisation.

If o.t.o.h. we stopped research after MT and set our scientists to taxmen, we could by dis- and reconnecting salpeter get ourselfs a lot of upgraded cavalry.

 

[Andronicus]

If (in my deal proposal) we trade Bill for only republic we run the risk that Gil will trade Bill literature for currency, undermining our tradeposition for Gils MA tech.

Gil will almost certain live in his golden age now, and thus wil be strong for a while yet and be a research partner. Thea also is still a good research partner. Both have proven this by having republic and currency. And I'm in favour of going full speed on research, including possible trading.

If as Paul states Bill is getting it's iron from Gil then it can also be considered to just trade republic to Bill for his cash, dow him and use currency + construction to buy Gil on our side. Then Gil is at war with everybody except us, which makes risks of getting backstabbed by him small.

edit: @Paul
Why do you think Bill gets his iron from Gil. I can't think of a way to make this certain at this moment. Btw. if Gil is trading iron to Bill, knocking out one of Gils iron sources won't help, as he will loose his own iron before stopping on supplying Bill.

I did mean to wipe Mayans out within the next few turns. It's a military goal that can be handled while we're in anarchy. I expect a few other will go into anarchy as well. I don't think it will have an (noticeble) impact on our reputation.

I sense some regret that our reputation is gone and I'm aware that we are hindered by it in our trade possibilities. But I did have my reasons.
When I started the war with Mayans I bought in Gil to prevent any danger that he would come in on Mayans side and also to have him have his golden age when not fighting us. Buying Bill in also was of minor importance then. I didn't want to buy in Thea as the price would be high and I'd rather have her research then fight a war. (Alas a few turn later Maya got her in against Gil). Destroying Mayans within 20 turns would be considered a violation of the alliance. As I don't think we can effort the luxury of letting wars last that long, I considered violation of the treaty unavoidable.
The first peace with Maya enabled us to get 2 small cities that would have been autorazed upon capture. Moreover the former garisons of those citiies left his capitol in order to fight the dutch and sumerians. The rop enabled us to get our horsemen in position to take his capitol. So the next turn we took his capitol and slaughtered his former garisons in the open field.
Now we have a broken reputation versus broken Maya and relative safety from Gil.

Edit:
@Andronicus:
You stated you suffered bad RNG. Can we conclude that Maya are in their Golden Age? To my knowledge Maya didn't get an UU win against me. Only a couple of retreating horsemen, which doesn't count as a win. If so trading them down to 1 city is even more important. But better investigate Bonampak before launching an attack.

I viewed an Inkinu victory in my first turn, so if not before, then Sumerians certainly are in GA now
I lost 4 horsemen (3 in a row to start the turn) to javs taking Palenque which had spear and 2 javs, lost another 3 defeating a jav outside their new capital.
Horses stink!
I no longer have any horses in the area except a few redlined ones. We are in no position to attack Bill and would need to get all our horses to the front to attack Mayans if we get peace / redeclare. If we suffer similar losses on next attack we will be left with almost no useful units and no way of replacing them in anarchy.
I am very wary of further war until we can replace units. It doesnt matter how huge our empire is, it still produces nothing in anarchy.

 

[Redbad]

Very true, we shouldn't risk everything by insisting on war at this moment. Besides leaving Smoky with just 1 city will ruin his GA. He maybe even be tempted to start on a wonder because of unit support issues

 

[Andronicus]

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm10/Team_Liz_SG010_BC0350_01.SAV

Turn log to follow

Short story
Did trades as discussed
Forgot to revolt after doing trades so revolt delayed 1 turn
Took a while to accumulate troops, but in 350 our hordes attacked in battle for Bonampak and Mayans had only 1 spear, so no losses (they were building GLib). They still have a settler pair in Byz lands (getting good value for their GA)
Byz lost Smyrna to Sumerians
Troops ready to dow Bill next or following turn - plan as discussed to ally Gil v Bill for remaining AA techs (Bill gave Gil lit already)
Need to think about how get Byz and Sumerian free techs. Ideally we should trade for Byz mono so we can self research Theo - -> Astronomy whilst Byz and Sumerians do lower techs. No research yet done on Engineering

 

[Andronicus]

Turn log

Pre turn
Switch Liverpool and Exeter to harbours, York, Canterbury & Dover to settlers
MM for extra gold

IBT
lots of Sumerian units marching through
witness Inkendo defeat sword on defence - so Gil definitely in GA if not before
Hastings horse -> horse
Coventry worker -> worker
Newcastle worker -> worker
Byz complete GLH in Constantinople

1) 530BC
@ Palenque - lose 3 horse before defeating spear and JT, a redlined JT remains, we fail to take city (2-3)
Rush a few settlers as anarchy cming soon

IBT
York settler -> worker
Nottingham horse -> horse
Canterbury settler -> worker
Liverpool harbour -> worker
Dover settler -> worker
Sumerians completee HG in Lagash

2) 510BC
Settle Manchester NE of former Tiawanaku -> worker
@ Palenque - horse loses to JT and promtes, ehorse redlined but wins -> capture (3-4)
Mayan and English workers captured

IBT
Maya and Dutch peace treaty
Mass cultural expansions
London settler -> settler
Machu Picchu, Coventry, Oxford, Brighton, Leeds & Birmingham worker -> worker
Hastings & Warwick horse -> horse
Byz building GLib

3) 490BC
Sumeria has Republic (1 turn before us!)
Dutch and Byz have lit
Wines and Incense connected -> decrease lux
Attacking 2 JT to get access to Bonampak, lose 3 horse, 1 retreats and still 1 JT remains - was redline, but promotes (3-7) - gained an English worker
Settle Bristol in NW corner -> harbour (forest being chopped)

IBT
2hp JT retreats full health cav and recaptures English worker
Research Republic
Chicken Itza settler -> worker
Nottingham horse -> horse
Norwich worker -> worker
Dutch commence GLib

4) 470BC
kill JT, first horse retreats, 2nd successful (am out of healthy horses to attack further) (4-7)
Leister founded north of Canterbury

Game saved for comment

Following discussions

Trade Byz lit, 11gpt + 19g for republic
Peace with Mayans getting 2 workers and Quirigua
Trade Mayans 385g + 7gpt for republic
Trade Dutch 240g for republic
After all these deals I forget to revolt

IBT
Hastings & Warwick horse -> horse (whipped)
Coventry, Ollantaytambo & Richmond worker -> worker

5) 450BC
Settle Carlisle and Ipswich in former Mayan lands
Gil has lit - must have traded with Bill who now has some gold
Whip a settler and horse, then REVOLT!

IBT
Sumerians capture Smyrna
London settler -> market
Nott horse -> horse
Sumerians building GLib

6) 430BC
Settle Portsmouth to grab Sumerian wines

IBT
Exeter harbour (chop) -> court
Maya building GLib (in only city during GA )

7) 410BC
Our exploring worker discovers Gil's second iron

IBT
Cambridge riots after growing (missed that one )

8) 390BC
Start bringing in troops to Bonampak

9) 370BC
All troops assembled

IBT
Copan settler (chop)
Emerge into Republic

10) 350BC
@ Bonampak - an anticlimax as first horse defeats sole spear there -> capture (5-7), capture a worker. Spot Mayan settler pair in Byz area east of Constantinople