SGOTM 10 - Xteam

[Frederiksberg]

The article about Espionage Cost in the War Academy shows how to run an espionage economy. I have never tried it and I think it's only relevant in games on high levels where the AI techs faster than you do (Immortal and Deity).

The most important thing to adjust to when moving to BtS is the fact that building wealth and research is 3 times (!!) more powerful compared to Vanilla and Warlords.

 

[Mad Professor]

The article about Espionage Cost in the War Academy shows how to run an espionage economy. I have never tried it and I think it's only relevant in games on high levels where the AI techs faster than you do (Immortal and Deity).

The most important thing to adjust to when moving to BtS is the fact that building wealth and research is 3 times (!!) more powerful compared to Vanilla and Warlords.

Thanks Fred. I've grabbed a copy of that. Lief also pointed me at SCT's primer he did a little while back. I'll read and digest them when I get a chance. Meanwhile I want to play with SCT's test save for this game too.

 

[ShannonCT]

MP, I just posted my Espionage article in the Strategy Articles forum.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330515

 

[Grover22]

I've been thinking about the task before us. To me it seems like a lost cause to try to pull off a conquest victory at emperor difficulty without taking a city that hasn't been nuked first. Monarch is enough of a challenge for me. I probably only eke out a win 15% of the time or so. And I'd just get stomped on Emperor, even without the added handicap of not capturing any un-nuked cities.

Do you experts really think that we'll be able to achieve a conquest victory without taking a single un-nuked city? I think for any conquest victory on emperor, we'd need to start an early war and take enemy cities. If we delay taking any enemy cities until we have nukes, I can't see that we'll win at all.

To me it seems like early (pre-nuke) wars of acquisition will be necessary no matter what, and that we should be trying to minimize the number of un-nuked cities we take in those wars. And maybe we get the AI to capitulate early so that we don't have to take all the cities and still earn partial credit.

The early REX idea to grab as much land as possible is fine. I'll be amazed if we can pull off a win without taking a city pre-nuke, though.

But you guys are much stronger players than am I.

Humbly,
G22

 

[Mad Professor]

I've been thinking about the task before us. To me it seems like a lost cause to try to pull off a conquest victory at emperor difficulty without taking a city that hasn't been nuked first.

In two words: Test games! I'm not sure how we'll do it yet, but lots of test game attempts will sure give us a lot of information.

We'll figure it out.

 

[ShannonCT]

I expect to see more defeats in this SGOTM than most. But the top teams will find a way to win without capturing an un-nuked city. The AI don't beeline nukes. We can probably start nuking cities 30-50 turns before the AI can retaliate. If we can capture all of the uranium before the AI gets Fission/Rocketry, victory should be fairly easy.

XTeam has tasted bronze twice already. I don't think we want to settle for a middling finish.

 

[Frederiksberg]

In my experience it's possible to rex and tech as fast as the emperor AI so we should be at least on par with the AI when we get nukes and certainly with better military techs.

 

[Frederiksberg]

I was thinking it might be a good idea to post some of the intermediate saves from test games. Not only to show the results but also for others to be able to grab one of those saves and play on with other ideas that need testing.

It would be particularly helpful if SCT could post a few saves after 40-50 turns (if you have time ) for other to use as a start. Without a strong opening sequence the game could very well diverge into something less useful and the test time could be wasted.

 

[rrau]

My best test so far was the one where I didn't adopt a religion. Let me trade better and not get dogpiled in a religious war.

These are the only intermediate saves I made. (The last one after I launched all nukes at one city and had them all shot down by SDI) I'm very rusty with Civ due to not being able to reinstall BTS until recently after I had major crash, so I expect others to do better.

 

[ShannonCT]

OK, here's some intermediate saves from a practice game. The last one might be of particular interest. It's the turn after the Manhattan project has been completed.

I've got a stack of Cossacks ready to make war with Justinian. Some of his cities are in range of tactical nukes launched from our cities, or from forts built in our territory. But certain cities are unreachable with the tactical nuke's range of 4, so you will need to build some ICBMs as well. Once you get a Level 4 unit, I suggest building the Heroic Epic somewhere with a lot of hammers.

When you nuke a city, be ready to rush in Cossacks so the defenders will be low on HPs. Some of the tiles around the city will be hit with fallout. Fallout is like forest or hill as far as movement points go. A Cossack can only move 1 tile per turn through fallout in enemy territory.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks for the intermediate saves.

I'll post one below in which I started research with Gunpowder. Took forever!!
I'll try to continue later in the week after it cools down here. :yikes:

It is quite interesting trying to maintain an Engineer Specialist while pop rushing. Tried to get the city to pop 5 before pop rushing 2 citizens in order to work two food tiles and keep the Engineer. Built mostly units.

I'm wondering if it is worth building a Galley and getting a unit or two to the southern island to prevent Barb cities from spawning? Doggone Barbs are sending Horse Archers and Swords against my Warriors. No chance. Give me some hammers for a War Elephant, or two...

EDIT -
@SCT - Have you tried starting with Gunpowder? I see the 1485 AD save is running research on Education?

 

[ShannonCT]

It is quite interesting trying to maintain an Engineer Specialist while pop rushing. Tried to get the city to pop 5 before pop rushing 2 citizens in order to work two food tiles and keep the Engineer. Built mostly units.

Aren't you using Mercantilism for the free specialist?

@SCT - Have you tried starting with Gunpowder? I see the 1485 AD save is running research on Education?

I think my reasoning was to partially research Education while waiting for a GE to bulb most of Gunpowder. After burning the GE on Gunpowder, Gunpowder can be researched in a few more turns, and some AI should be willing to trade the remainder of Education for Gunpowder.

 

[Mad Professor]

These are the only intermediate saves I made. (The last one after I launched all nukes at one city and had them all shot down by SDI) I'm very rusty with Civ due to not being able to reinstall BTS until recently after I had major crash, so I expect others to do better.

We just have to launch a lot of nukes before the AI builds the SDI. And we might need to think about how to slow down SDI building in a civ we think is building it. Even if it only does its average of 75% shoot down, that's four times as many nukes we need to build, and that's a lot of hammers. And every time I've come across the SDI playing vanilla it always seems to do a lot better than 75%! This will be a *major* strategic consideration.

 

[leif erikson]

Aren't you using Mercantilism for the free specialist?

OK, I can see this is clearly an advantage over running Hereditary Rule.

I think my reasoning was to partially research Education while waiting for a GE to bulb most of Gunpowder. After burning the GE on Gunpowder, Gunpowder can be researched in a few more turns, and some AI should be willing to trade the remainder of Education for Gunpowder.

Curious why Education and not Printing Press, as it is necessary to get to Communism?

Is there an advantage in Education, perhaps getting to Liberalism to run Free Religion? Or do nearly all the civs go for Education, so that is all we can trade for?

I've been thinking about the use of Espionage. Gyathaar was clearly trying to find a way to keep Espionage in this game and I am wondering if it is the key to holding back the other civs while not declaring war on them? If we go to a hammer and specialist economy for research, could we not devote a greater portion of our gold income to espionage? Is there a limit to the number of spies we can build and operate? We might also consider diverting some hammers into Security Bureau and Intelligence Agency and running Nationhood?

Generating enough Spy points, we could keep our close neighbors backward with pillage missions and our neighbors further away busy with Cossack raids?

 

[ShannonCT]

OK, I can see this is clearly an advantage over running Hereditary Rule.

You can run both at the same time. They're different types of civics.

Curious why Education and not Printing Press, as it is necessary to get to Communism?

Is there an advantage in Education, perhaps getting to Liberalism to run Free Religion? Or do nearly all the civs go for Education, so that is all we can trade for?

Printing Press is an option. It's worth a bit less than Education so we wouldn't be able to trade it straight up for Education.

Another option would be to self-research Gunpowder to start, use the early GE for part of Chemistry, and a GS for part of Printing Press. After we find out who has won the Liberalism and Economics races, we can get Education, Liberalism and Economics in trades for Gunpowder and PP (from 3 different AI).

 

[PaulisKhan]

I still have a feeling that oxford + NP + mass scientists in the settler starting location is the way to go. This setup will anihilate the AI's tech rate, nevermind that their start is unlikely to be as strong as ours. Whether or not this would be our capital isn't entirely clear, we might want to make use of the two gold mines and early Bureau for our capital to push things forward while the gp/beaker farm comes online

I don't see a huge opportunity for espionage in this game, great scientists will take us most of the way towards where we want, then it's just a matter production.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Belatedly getting to SCT's original test, having downloaded 3.19 and Buffy. Now I'm being asked to customize the 'BUG mod'. Would someone please direct me on this, as I don't even know what BUG is or how or when I acquired it.

 

[rrau]

From what I can tell, 'that control alt o' white text floats periodically at the bottom of the screen while you play. I went into it once, but didn't select anything as I don't know what to do with it. Seems to play ok without customizing.

 

[Grover22]

You can get rid of the nagging reminder by unchecking the "Options Shortcut Reminder" under the "System" tab in the options menu (which you open with ctrl-alt-o).

I'd also vote for unchecking "Enabled" under the "Unit Naming" tab. The default names are unwieldy.

Other customizations are up to you.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Thanks, Grover22.