SGOTM 11 - ChokoMisfits

Mighty Dwaarf · Jun 24, 2010

If we have already invested hammers into a settler we might as well complete it, we could hold off settling until we can afford it better.
I get a feeling that there is going to be more to this game than simply racing to UN and winning the vote. I do get the feeling that there is going to be a twist which will involve some other units/techs.

haphazard1 · Jun 24, 2010

Good city sites will pay for themselves...eventually. And a big reason our economy is so poor is that we do not have Currency and CoL, and hopefully we will get these soon from trade. So let's build the settlers, and can keep them ready at the sites we intend to found. If Zara moves his settler and goes for those sites, then we settle; otherwise we can wait for a stronger economy.

I am not sure if Justinian will just walk all over Toku or not -- Toku can be pretty tough. He usually loses because he never trades with anyone and falls behind in technology, but that may not happen this game. Toku already has Metal Casting -- if he can get to Machinery and crossbows he should be able to hold off Justinian, I think.

I would certainly prefer Mehmed to be our UN rival, if we could manage it -- Justinian is one of the civs we will have shared Theocracy bonus with, so he would be a lot easier to convince to vote for us. But this may or may not be possible.

Gunpowder units, and opening Chemistry/Biology...this is off our beeline, yes. But the stronger troops would be good to have. Not just the muskets, but access to grenadiers and cannon as well if we need them. And since we are planning Rep specialists for most of our economy, Biology to boost all the farms we are building would be more powerful than usual.

Also, the whip is not our only way to generate troops. If we go through Philo for Liberalism, we can also pick up Nationalism and use the Nationhood civic to draft troops. Again, it is off our beeline. But Nationalism and the draft, plus Taj Mahal, plus opening Constitution for our UB (more happiness and EP) -- this could be a worthwhile diversion.

Sun Tzu Wu · Jun 24, 2010

haphazard1 said:
Also, the whip is not our only way to generate troops. If we go through Philo for Liberalism, we can also pick up Nationalism and use the Nationhood civic to draft troops. Again, it is off our beeline. But Nationalism and the draft, plus Taj Mahal, plus opening Constitution for our UB (more happiness and EP) -- this could be a worthwhile diversion.

Nationhood's Draft action is very powerful:

I agreed that Nationhood can be very powerful. The number of units that can be drafted per turn is 3 for a Standard Map (if I'm not mistaken). (I believe that on Duel and Tiny Maps the draft limit is only two units per turn; for Large and Huge maps the limit is probably four units per turn.) The down side is a drafted unit's initial Experience Points is halved. So, a unit drafted in a City with Barracks and Theocracy active would get (3 + 2) / 2 = 2 Experience Points. A Draft in a City is only possible if the City would be Population 6 or higher after subtracting the Population needed to draft the unit.

Unhappiness caused by drafting:

The biggest drawback of drafting is the -3 Happiness per drafted unit. High happiness Cities are thus good targets for drafting units. Nationhood's +2 Happiness per Barracks helps to mitigate this disadvantage for the first draft of Riflemen or lower units.

Drafting efficiency (Population consumed when drafting):

Drafting is most efficient when drafting Riflemen. Rifleman is the most expensive military unit that can be drafted with the consumption of just one unit of Population. Drafting Musketmen is reasonably efficient when one doesn't yet have the Rifling Technology needed for Riflemen. Unfortunately, it is not possible to draft Grenadiers.

(Note that Infantry require 2 Population and Mechanized Infantry require 3 Population to be consumed as part of the drafting action.)

Effective sustained drafting method:

An extremely high Food City with Globe Theatre can draft 1 unit indefinitely, assuming it grows 1 Population every turn (which is unlikely without a Granary

); The idea Population for this City is 7 for drafting Riflemen or lower. (Drafting Infantry requires 8 Population and drafting can be sustained at one draft per two turns; Drafting Mechanized Infantry requires 9 Population and drafting can be sustained at one draft per three turns.) The remaining (two) drafts per turn can be rotated among the remaining Cities, usually the ones with the highest Happiness to Unhappiness margin.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu · Jun 24, 2010

haphazard1 said:
I am not sure if Justinian will just walk all over Toku or not -- Toku can be pretty tough. He usually loses because he never trades with anyone and falls behind in technology, but that may not happen this game. Toku already has Metal Casting -- if he can get to Machinery and crossbows he should be able to hold off Justinian, I think.

Well, we can help ourselves here by providing Tokugawa with advanced Land Military Technologies, and no Naval Military Technologies.

This can be best done by providing these Technologies well in advance of the potential Justinian I versus Tokugawa conflict. This would entail no Diplomatic penalties from Justinian I for providing Technologies, unless Tokugawa is already the Worst Enemy of Justinian I. This would also allow Tokugawa to produce sufficient Technologically advanced units that would allow him to take 2-3 of Justinian I's Cities, which should help Mehmed II become the AI Population leader.

This does add some small argument for pursuing Gunpowder sometime soon, so we can trade it to Tokugawa. It might be better to trade him Civil Service and Machinery, so he can built Samurai units, but we obviously don't have those Technologies either (yet).

Sun Tzu Wu

Sleepless · Jun 25, 2010

Well it looks like I can play my turnset in about 30 hours ish as I'm out tonight and probably won't be a good idea to play when I get in.

Tech path pursue compass and if we get CoL on to Civil service. trades as they come available.

Send settler for silver site but not settle yet. Perhaps better to keep near capital and then we can send him whatever way we need to.

Grow cities so probably no use of whip. Look to get next settler from 3 clams when at happy cap.

@haphazard1. OW will definitely get gp before HC. Just want to make sure.

There is a possibility that if I get feud early enough to change civics to serfdom for a few turns to speed up the workers. Downside if Zara declares I cannot whip any defenders. Thoughts although I would build some military in OW after the settler finishes.

haphazard1 · Jun 25, 2010

Plan looks solid to me, Sleepless. Good luck!

On the next GP, I was just looking at the bar provided by the BUFFY mod. :lol:

But I believe this is correct, as the issue came up in a previous SGOTM. If two cities both reach the required number of GPP on the same turn, the city which is "processed" first will generate the GP. The other city will then be working towards the increased threshold. The order of processing for cities is based on the date the city was founded, which is also the order cities are listed in the F1 screen (assuming you do not sort by a specific column).

I am not sure what happens if you conquer an older city from another civ. Does it count as the date it was founded, or the date you added it to your empire? For the moment this is not an issue for us, but it might be later.

On using serfdom if available...do we really need it? I dislike the risk of not being able to whip in an emergency, although this will be true once we start running Caste System as well. A good reason to build some more units, hopefully some longbows.

Sleepless · Jun 25, 2010

Won't bother with serfdom then just in case we get a surprise declaration from Zara. We are a land target though I'm not sure what the required strength difference is. Will look at building a couple of spears as any attackers will be mounted. (Probably)

Sun Tzu Wu · Jun 25, 2010

Sleepless said:
Tech path pursue compass and if we get CoL on to Civil service. trades as they come available.

Clarification on Technology plans requested:

Research Compass

Trade for Code of Laws and Feudalism

Later Trades may be: Philosophy, Currency, Calendar, Metal Casting, Civil Service, Machinery, Optics, ...

There is also a good chance that we can get Metal Casting in trade, ideally by the time we finish Compass; Assuming we get Metal Casting in trade, we should continue Research with Machinery.

Does this sound reasonable? Do we have a Consensus on our Research plans?

Sun Tzu Wu

Sleepless · Jun 26, 2010

I would prefer to go for Civil Service so we can run beau in the Capital. machinery is high on the AI list of techs so would expect to pick that up in trade quite easily

The main thing is can we afford to hold back on trading music till we have compass. A lot depends if Just declares on Tok. Would need to make the trades before that. Think I'll put the warrior off the galley so he can scout around a bit.

Sleepless · Jun 26, 2010

urn 0

Sell corn to sal for 4 gold. beg 40 gold from Sal.
Trade incense to Just for Spice.

Turn 1

OW Settler - Spear
PF Nat Epic - Research (lowers one turn off compass)

Turn 2.

Whip Monument in Crab Town.
Sell Mono - Mehmed for 50 gold

Turn 3.

Change PF to Settler
Change Crab Town to culture.

Turn 4.

Stop gifting rice to mehmed and get 3 gold per turn.

Turn 5.

Mehmed asks to stop trading with Isabella. Refused.
3 AI now have currency but none willing to trade it.
Tok now has machinery.
Compass in Justinian won't trade CoL for it so put 1 turn into Col

Turn 6.

Trade Compass - Just for CoL mistake as Isabella now WFYBTA and won't trade currency.
trade compass + 80 gold - Sal for Currency.
Trade Lit/Comp/Cal - Zara for feud. Won't adopt theo as wants paper so asked him instead and he adopted it.
Help with diplo.
Cancel fish deal with Tok and get 4 gold per turn from him.
Set science to 0 until Oxford built. Tech path set for Civil Service.
Crab Town gets crab back changed to granary.
Whip Lh in 3 clams change to courthouse
Whip temple in rice change to courthouse
HC and OW change build to LBs
Try to beg gold from Justinian doesn't work.
Sell isa theo for 60 gold will help her troops and might buy Mehmed off her. get Isa to adopt Theo as a friend.

Turn 7.
Just will now trade philo/hbr. Wants paper/music + 110 gold or paper + music will get us it.
Decide to tech part of philo and trade music.
Sell Feud to Tok for 40 gold to help when Justinian attacks.

Turn 8 and 9.

Oxford built start working all commerce tiles.
Trade Music + 30 to just for Philo.
Need MC before we bulb Lib.

Saved game and uploaded.

Here is your Session Turn Log from 235 AD to 385 AD:

Spoiler :

More thoughts to come later.

haphazard1 · Jun 26, 2010

Sounds like an excellent turnset, Sleepless! :thumbsup:

We got Currency, CoL, Feudalism, and Philo in trade and teched Compass ourselves.

We got Isabella and Zara into Theocracy so we can start building up +diplo. We finished Oxford. We got CrabTown's crab back.

All very good things.

I will have more detailed comments once I have looked at the save. Once we finish getting some courthouses up, hopefully with Currency we will actually have something resembling an economy. :lol:

ianw1610 · Jun 26, 2010

Very good turnset, Sleepless!! :goodjob:

Sun Tzu Wu is up next.

We need to be watchful about future trades with Mehmed, as Saladin now views Mehmed as his worst enemy, so we don't want any -ve Diplo from Saladin.

Also we need to think about how we will obtain a source of Silk, given that all the Silk is in Mehmed's lands, and we are unlikely to build strong enough relations with Mehmed to enable him to trade it to us.

It looks like a couple of the AIs are attempting to build the Colossus, as they are not trading Metal Casting to us.

I agree we need Bureaucracy, so our research path should likely be Civil Service ---> Metal Casting (from a trade if possible) ---> Machinery (from a trade if possible) ---> Optics (and build Caravels to explore the hidden lands).

The existing Settler should settle SilverWhale, and the next one should likely settle HorseFish.

Try to find as much as we can about that Ice / Mountain Barb land, to see how accessible it is, and to see if it does indeed include the world's only source of Fur...

haphazard1 · Jun 26, 2010

OK, a few thoughts:

- Zara's settler is no longer visible, but he has not founded any new cities. Given that he has units on Silver Peninsula and near the deer tile, we need to found these cities soon. Or at least be ready to do so the instant we see Zara's settler moving for them.

- Our economy is +1 gpt at 50%, a huge improvement.

I think we can afford to found our remaining city sites and get those cities growing.

- Justinian will trade us ivory and 9 gpt for our stone, which we are no longer using (at least for the moment). We could use the happiness and cash, and being able to build war elephants could be useful.

- Zara is researching Metal Casting, and that will make 3 AIs who know it. Hopefully it will available for trade soon. Maybe once someone finishes the Colossus?

- We have a GS sleeping, and will get another (100%) in 2 turns from HorseCopper. Once Metal Casting is known the bulb target should be Liberalism -- we can bulb one GS and then finish the tech in maybe 3 turns. Or we could self-research Liberalism (see below) and save the GS for later.

- Tech path: once we finish CS, we will be out of non-beeline techs to research that are not already known by at least one AI. We could either research them ourselves anyway (probably wasteful) or research a non-beeline tech. Possible non-beeline techs would be Liberalism (self-research rather than bulb, while we hope to get a trade), Gunpowder (alternate path to SciMeth, and good for military), Nationalism.

For techs already known to at least one AI, we have Metal Casting (Toku, Saladin, in progress for Zara) and Machinery (Toku and Saladin, based on their "Can Research" lists). We need both for the beeline, to open Printing Press (prereq for SciMeth), Optics, and Astronomy.

- Saladin may become friendly in a couple more turns, when he gets another bump from shared Theocracy. So we may be able to get Metal Casting and Machinery very soon.

- ThreeClams should probably whip the courthouse for 3 immediately. Give up the two coastal tiles and the marble -- RiceMarble can work it instead of the plains forest.

- The worker near RiceMarble is farming a plains tile -- why? Will we ever work it, as compared to running another Caste scientist? I think this worker should be chopping for CrabTown's granary instead.

- We should be converting to Caste System very soon, and running more scientists in many cities.

- Once we have CS, we will need a lot of chain irrigation. OasisWheat especially will need work so it can grow larger.

Overall, we are doing pretty well.

We are still horribly weak in military power, but we do have a couple longbows in production which is a start. But we are going to need more units, a lot more, in order to be safe and in case we ever need to make a military intervention.

Sleepless · Jun 26, 2010

Hopefully we can get MC soon in trade and then pick up machinery from Sal (probably).

I would prefer to put one bulb in to Lib nearly finish then go after the more expensive techs. Once we get Caste we should be able to pop a few fast GPs to bulb us through Sci Meth and pick up Physics/Elec or even Radio fom Lib. I don't think the latter is out of our range. I would like if possible to avoid gunpowder atm as it opens the chemistry/bio bulbs in front of electricity.

Thats the easy bit. What we need to do is work out how we are going to win the UN vote.

The worker farming the plains. Wasn't sure what to do with him. So used to not chopping forests in my games that I didn't think about chopping into CrabTown.

Note. Zara cannot settle horse/fish now so only the deer site is a possible one and PF is nearly finishing a settler that can go there.

I was looking at ways of getting Justinian's 9gpt and as we have just finished Oxford selling stone is a good idea. Still need hbr for phants though and we should leave that tech for later.

haphazard1 · Jun 26, 2010

I always forget the HBR requirement for elephants. Oh well, maybe later in trade. The ivory is still good for happiness, the 9 gpt will be very useful, and this is one of our required resources. So the trade is worthwhile.

One issue we need to think about is religion. We are required to have a state religion at the end, and to have it in all of our cities. Since we are running Theocracy without a state religion for diplomatic reasons, we can not get any spread at all (free or otherwise). So adopting and spreading a religion will have to wait until later. But since we are working to get SciMeth as quickly as we can, monasteries will be obsolete later.

We need to finish the Hindu monastery in HorseCopper (I believe it was there), and maybe build monasteries of whatever religion in any cities which have a religion. This will give us more options later. We can always fall back on Organized Religion if necessary, but having other options so we can run other religious civics would be helpful.

As for the UN vote, I am not seriously worried at the moment. Theocracy will give us a significant boost with 4 civs (Justinian, Saladin, Zara, and Isabella). Resource deals should give us +2 with everyone. Depending on wars, we should be able to get +1 for sustained peace and +2 for Open Borders with at least some civs. This gives us a "base" of up to +5 with everyone, although we may lose some or all of that with specific civs depending on wars, demands to stop trading, etc. But the opportunity is there.

OK, now some data extracted from the XML files on diplo factors and leaders. (Long blobs of data ahead!)

Justinian

Base attitude: 1
Warmonger respect: 1
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 15
Tech trade known threshold: 30%
Worse rank attitude: -2
Better rank attitude: 0
Close borders max penalty: -4
Shared religion max bonus: +6
Different religion max penalty: -4
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +3
Favorite civic max bonus: +5 (Theocracy)
Will not declare threshold: Pleased

Justinian will trade many techs before hitting WFYABTA, with a low (30%) known threshold. He is likely to be a key source of tech trades, especially later once other civs have stopped trading with us. He also gets a fairly large max bonus for favorite civic.

Saladin

Base attitude: 0
Warmonger respect: 1
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 10
Tech trade known threshold: 40%
Worse rank attitude: 0
Better rank attitude: +2
Close borders max penalty: -3
Shared religion max bonus: +5
Different religion max penalty: -4
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +4
Favorite civic max bonus: +2 (Theocracy)
Will not declare threshold: Pleased

The big item here is the very small max bonus for sharing favorite civic, only +2.

I was expecting us to get another bump in a couple turns, but that now seems unlikely. Saladin is a reasonably good tech trade partner, although not as good as Justinian.

Zara Yaqob

Base attitude: 2
Warmonger respect: 1
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 10
Tech trade known threshold: 30%
Worse rank attitude: -1
Better rank attitude: +2
Close borders max penalty: -2
Shared religion max bonus: +7
Different religion max penalty: -4
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +3
Favorite civic max bonus: +5 (Theocracy)
Will not declare threshold: Friendly (10% chance at Pleased)

Zara may attack at Pleased, as we have been aware of. He is a decent tech trade partner, and gets a fairly large max bonus for shared favorite civic.

Isabella

Base attitude: -1
Warmonger respect: 1
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 5
Tech trade known threshold: 60%
Worse rank attitude: -1
Better rank attitude: +1
Close borders max penalty: -3
Shared religion max bonus: +6
Different religion max penalty: -4
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +2
Favorite civic max bonus: +4 (Theocracy)
Will not declare threshold: Friendly (10% chance at Pleased)

Isabella is a rather poor tech trade partner. She gets a modest max bonus for shared favorite civic, and may attack at Pleased.

Tokugawa

Base attitude: -1
Warmonger respect: 2
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 5
Tech trade known threshold: 100%
Worse rank attitude: 0
Better rank attitude: +1
Close borders max penalty: -3
Shared religion max bonus: +3
Different religion max penalty: -2
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +4
Favorite civic max bonus: +6 (Mercantilism)
Will not declare threshold: Friendly (10% chance at Pleased)

Tokugawa is a horrible tech trade partner, never trading techs not known to everyone else he knows and with a very small WFYABTA limit. He may also declare at pleased. He does have a large max bonus for shared favorite civic. If we have problems with his vote, running Mercantilism will help greatly given enough time.

Mehmed II

Base attitude: -1
Warmonger respect: 1
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 5
Tech trade known threshold: 40%
Worse rank attitude: 0
Better rank attitude: +3
Close borders max penalty: -2
Shared religion max bonus: +4
Different religion max penalty: -4
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +4
Favorite civic max bonus: +5 (Vassalage)
Will not declare threshold: Pleased

Mehmed is a poor tech trading partner, with a low WFYABTA limit. He has a fairly large max bonus for shared favorite civic, so if we end up needing his vote running Vassalage for 30 turns will give us a significant boost.

Gandhi (for reference)

Base attitude: 2
Warmonger respect: 0
Tech trade threshold (WFYABTA): 15
Tech trade known threshold: 20%
Worse rank attitude: 0
Better rank attitude: +1
Close borders max penalty: -2
Shared religion max bonus: +4
Different religion max penalty: -2
Defensive pact max bonus: +2
Shared war max bonus: +2
Favorite civic max bonus: +7 (Universal Suffrage)
Will not declare threshold: Pleased

The main thing to note here is the warmonger respect value of 0. Tokugawa is 2 and everyone else is 1, so Tokugawa will get a negative with all other AIs. This factor does not apply to the human civ, so we are neutral on this point even though we are the only civ with a value of 0.

For all the leaders, we should keep an eye on their "worse rank/better rank" modifiers. These are hidden, but apply based on the score rank difference between the AI civ and us. For these, "worse" means the AI has a worse score than you, and "better" means the AI has a better score than you. The factor is modified based on how many "places" different the two civs are in rank, as a fraction of all the civs who have ever been in the game +1. So if we were first place in score, then the civ which was last place would get the full value of the "worse" rank factor.

There are also some other factors which do not depend on the specific civs, such as "losers unite" which gives a shared bonus between civs which are both in the lower portion of the score rankings.

OK, here is what we currently see:

Justinian - Friendly, +12 visible

+1 sustained peace
+2 Open Borders
+2 resources
+3 favorite civic
+4 fair trade

There should also be +1 (base attitude); all the other hidden factors should be zero. So Justinian is actually +13, very solidly Friendly.

Saladin - Pleased, +9 visible

+1 sustained peace
+2 Open Borders
+2 resources
+2 favorite civic (max possible)
+3 fair trade
-1 refused to help

All other hidden factors should be zero. So we need just +1 more and Saladin should be friendly; the refused to help is really hurting us here.

We could maybe get it by gifting him a tech to get fair trade up to +4.

Zara Yaqob - Pleased, +4 visible

+1 sustained peace
+2 Open Borders
+2 resources
+1 favorite civic
-1 close borders
-1 refused to help

There should be +2 for base attitude, and 4 (rank diff) / 8 (total civs +1) * -1 worse rank = -0.5 for rank difference. This probably rounds to -1, so we actually have +5 total. Zara has no fair trade bonus right now; as we have known him longest, this will be more difficult to boost. But we should continue to get more bonus for sharing Theocracy. It should not be too difficult to get Zara's vote, unless we get a lot more penalties with him.

Isabella - Pleased, +6 visible

+1 sustained peace
+2 Open Borders
+2 resources
+1 favorite civic
+4 fair trade
-2 traded with worst enemy
-1 refused to help
-1 refused to help war-time

There is -1 base attitude, and 5 (rank diff) / 8 (total civs +1) * -1 worse rank = -0.625 for rank difference. This probably rounds to -1, so we actually have +4 total. We will get a couple more points from sharing Theocracy, but Isabella's vote is going to be very tough to get without sharing religion unless we are lucky and she forgets some of the negatives.

Tokugawa - Pleased, +8 visible

+1 sustained peace
+1 Open Borders
+2 resources
+4 fair trade

There is -1 base attitude, so we are actually at +7. We will need three more points to get to Friendly, and I don't really see how we will manage it any time soon. Longer term we may get some shared Mercantilism if we need Tokugawa's vote.

Mehmed - Cautious, 0 visible

+1 sustained peace
+1 Open Borders
+4 fair trade
-4 traded with worst enemy
-1 refused to help war-time
-1 refused to stop trading with worst enemy

There is -1 base attitude, so we are actually at -1. We should eventually get +2 resources and another +1 from Open Borders for +2 overall. But unless Mehmed forgets a lot of trangressions, we are probably never going to get his vote. Sharing Vassalage for a long time plus sharing religion might do it, but otherwise Mehmed is not going to back us.

So we have a solid friend (Justinian), a high pleased and likely vote (Saladin), a high pleased and borderline vote (Tokugawa), a low pleased possible vote (Zara), a low pleased difficult vote (Isabella), and a cautious near impossible vote (Mehmed).

The upcoming war between Justinian and Tokugawa is likely to lose us Tokugawa's vote as we take a few negatives for refusing to help.

Justinian is happy enough with us that he should remain on our side. Of course, if he takes enough of Toku's cities to be our eventual rival, it won't matter how friendly he is. We really need for Mehmed to be our rival, given how friendly Justinian is and how unfriendly Mehmed is.

Of course, longer term we will have to pick a religon which will have significant effects. Also, we may be able to share military struggle with some civs. If we get lucky, we will be asked for some things we can give or do (switch civics, religions, etc.) and gain some bonuses. If we are asked to switch a civic (can not happen right now, as Mehmed lacks Feudalism and Tokugawa lacks Banking) we should always do so. If asked to adopt a religion...we should probably do so, as we could switch back after 5 turns. Although the hit during those 5 turns could potentially cause another AI to declare on us.

Finally, of course, we can declare war on up to 2 civs and take their votes (by conquering their cities), and possibly vassalize them and make them vote for us. Given his bad relations to us and his control of silk, Mehmed might make an excellent target for "acquiring" more votes. But we will have to see what happens.

We will need to be very careful when Justinian declares on Tokugawa.

Saladin will get a -1 with Justinian as he is Pleased with Tokugawa; this may be enough to push him to Cautious, where he might join the war on Tokugawa's side. We would be getting requests to join in from all three AIs.

It might be worth thinking about joining Tokugawa and Saladin if this happens, although that is a tricky question.

Sleepless · Jun 27, 2010

Nice post haphazard1. :goodjob:

I've thought all along we would have to assimilate Mehmed although best not to vassal him to win a UN vote as Justinian is going to be our opponent. It is very unlikely that Emp level AI are going to make much of a dent in another one without our help. If we keep mehmed backward we should be able to roll over him quite easily. Probably be able to bribe the other AI to attack as well for shared war civic.

A lot depends on what techs we require to get to the fur as I'm still assuming it will be hard to reach but astro is not far away if that is all that is required.

Sun Tzu Wu · Jun 27, 2010

Sorry, I've been a bit busy this weekend and didn't realize I'm up.

I'll review the situation and relevant posts later this evening and put forth a draft plan for the next turn set.

Sleepless, excellent turn set!

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu · Jun 28, 2010

Research:

Research or Trade for the following Technologies in the order specified:

Civil Service -> Metal Casting -> Machinery -> Optics -> Astronomy -> Printing Press -> Scientific Method -> Physics -> Electricity -> Radio -> Mass Media

There will be no deviations from the beeline to Mass Media, except for Civil Service to run Bureaucracy and Liberalism to get free Scientific Method, Physics, Electricity, or Radio.

Trades outside of Beeline to Mass Media:

Guilds -> Banking to run Tokugawa's favorite Civic, Mercantilism

Gunpowder -> Chemistry -> Steel + Military Science to build Canons and Grenadiers

Gunpowder -> Replaceable Parts -> Rifling to build Riflemen

Nationalism to run Nationhood to draft Macemen, Musketmen or Riflemen.

Civics:

After completing Civil Service, immediately adopt Bureaucracy. Serfdom adopted with Bureaucracy would allow faster completion of larger numbers of Farms post Civil Service, but prior to the time where Caste System would be more effective.

If all Courthouses (none in Capital) are whipped, adopt Caste System at the same time as Bureaucracy. However, it may make sense to delay Caste System by five or more turns to maximize Population in most of the six earliest Cities.

Diplomacy:

Observe Worst Enemies and try to avoid trades with them when possible. Do not accept demands to stop trade, except possibly with Mehmed II or Isabella (we either don't need their Votes or in the case of Mehmed II we plan to make him our TUN Opponent.

Remain in Theocracy for Favorite Civic Diplomatic bonus with Zara Yaqob, Saladin, Isabella and Justinian I. Adoption of other Religious Civics should be avoided or kept as brief as possible (5 turns), since Favorite Civic Diplomatic bonus can decay rapidly.

Minimal effort (none) will be expended to improve relations with Mehmed II or Isabella.

A trade to Zara Yaqob will be very lopsided to improve trade relations from 0 to +4.

A trade to Saladin will be slightly lopsided to improve trade relations from +3 to +4.

Tokugawa's Resource trade relations will be improved from +1 to +2 by letting current Resource trades slowly progress in this direction or by addition or a Resource we don't need to accelerate this bonus.

Espionage:

All 4 Espionage points (per turn) have been applied to either Zara Yaqob or Saladin. That's OK, since we will soon build several Courthouses that will each generate 2 Espionage points (per turn); we can then easily apply several Espionage points against the remaining four Opponents without converting Commerce to Espionage. Commerce to Espionage will be a good after we complete Mass Media.

Cities:

Capital:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 9P -> 13P -> 14P
build Christian Monastery -> Market (Pop whip) -> resume Christian Temple (+1 Happiness)
alternative The Hagia Sophia (GE points if completed; 2 x Hammers input in Wealth if not)
Workers build three riverside (RS) Plains Cottages and two Grassland Cottages

OasisWheat:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 6P -> 12P
build Courthouse (whip) -> resume Longbowman -> resume Spearman (Engineering -> Pikeman)
Workers build two Grassland Farms (via Civil Service)

HorseCopper:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 6P -> 9P
build Courthouse (whip) -> resume Longbowman
alternative University of Sankore (GS points if completed; 2 x Hammers input in Wealth if not)
Workers build four Grassland Farms (via Civil Service)

PigFish:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap after whipping Courthouse
build - continue Settler -> Courthouse (whip) -> Harbor (whip)
Workers build six Grassland Farms

RiceMarble:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 8P -> 9P
build - continue Courthouse (whip) -> Harbor (whip) -> Galley (whip)
Workers build seven Grassland Farms and one Floodplains Farm (via Civil Service)

ThreeClams:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 7P -> 10P
build - continue Courthouse (whip) -> Harbor (whip) -> Settler
Workers build one Grassland Farm (via Civil Service)

CrabTown:
Grow to Max Happiness Cap 1P -> 8P
build - continue Granary (whip) -> Lighthouse (whip)
Workers build two Grassland Farms (via Civil Service)

SilverWhale:
Settle immediately; Grow to Max Happiness Cap
build Granary -> Lighthouse
Workers build new Silver Mine

DeerFish:
Settle in 6t via Settler being built in PigFish; Grow to Max Happiness Cap
build Granary -> Lighthouse
Workers build two Grassland Farms

Workers will preChop Forests before and after above mentioned Farms are completed.

Exploration:

Galley with Axeman will continue to Island SW of Justinian I's Domain where Barbarians dwell to see what Terrain and Resources are located there.

Warrior near Justinian I/Tokugawa border will observe military build up on both sides along the Border and beyond it.

Feedback:

Please respond with your corrections, suggestions and comments, etc.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sleepless · Jun 28, 2010

I'm still struggling to see how we can get mehmed to be our opponent? Justinian will win in his war against Tok unless we help Tok which loses us Just's votes and probably end up with Tok as our opponent instead of mehmed. Much better to reduce Mehmed to a couple of cities and win with Sal/Tok's/Zara's votes. With memhed backward we shouldn't have any problem rolling over him. My favoured war nowdays is Curr/Cav for speed and against LBs shouldn't be to hard.

With the whip we can get 2 currs per 4 turns out of big cities. Main problem would be the shipping overseas. I'd probably prefer to build a few galleys and upgrade to galleons.

This leads on to another point used by Murky Waters in the previous SGOTM. Privateers? Could be a good use of getting GGs but obviously need chem/gp. Hopefully we will no more once our axe gets to the barb land mass.

More comments later.

ianw1610 · Jun 28, 2010

I think we should ensure that we have a Spy fortified in each of our cities, because we are at risk of our technologies being stolen and then traded around.

If we want to consider the alternate victory condition (Cultural) we need to make a decision now, as the Sistine Chapel is still available to build...

SGOTM 11 - ChokoMisfits

Ginger Beast

Dancing Bear

Deity

Deity

Deity

Dancing Bear

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Dancing Bear

King

Dancing Bear

Deity

Dancing Bear

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

King

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