SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

Sounds like an exciting plan brewing for this war with Mehmed. Just one question, have we managed to spread Confucianism to Tokugawa? If not, how are we planning on doing so? Gifting him a city with it might work, and get us some diplo points on the way.

Toku had Confucianism during my turnset. He picked it up in a minor City via a Trade Route before he got Theology (which he got on the last turn of my turnset) for Theocracy.

Looking at the real game (carefully), I see that all of Toku's Cities have Buddhism in them and one extremely marginal (no Food Resources) Size 3 City has Confucianism in it.


The other beauty of this plan is that we won't drag Justinian and Saladin into the war, so Toku and the others won't start liking each other a ton, just in case we for some reason decide to build the UN and not gift it at the end, relying on everyone else to vote for us instead of voting for the largest AI.


In fact, Saladin has been a busy little bee and has managed to spread Buddhism to every City on his continent, no matter which AI is the owner of said City. Chances are that he'll start spreading Buddhism via boats soon (maybe he'll wait for Optics or Astronomy, though), perhaps making our job of spreading Buddhism a bit easier.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

One more point:
We have to be running Confucianism at the time of the Apostolic Palace vote, or else the Holy War can't be ignited.

It must be that one Full Member (i.e. us running Confucianism) is at war with an AI that has NO Confucian Cities AND that another Full Member (gotta love Zara) is NOT at war with that AI. If the vote passes, Toku, as a Voting Member, gets dragged along for the ride...


So, we should use the Test Saved Game to find out exactly when that Apostolic Palace vote will come up and thus avoid any requests to switch into Buddhism at the last minute within those last 5 turns before the vote that a sneaky AI may try to trick us into doing...

 

[Irgy]

Here is the test save.

Thanks! Look forward to playing it tonight.

I'll write out my objectives and plans in more detail after playing with the test save, but any suggestions of objectives that I might not think of are welcome.

Here's what I know so far:
* Since we have a GSci for Education, we should be slamming out 6 Universities and then Oxford.
* There was mention of a plan to put the whip overflow form universities into military units, switching into Vassalage, Theocracy and Police State. With representation off, I gather we'll fire most of the specialists, work food tiles and whip.
* It looks like we want to find Mehmed, and start an AP directed war with him.
* There's some fiddling to be done with optimising the chances of getting the techs we need in trade without delaying our own research into them too much.
* Most of the general things to watch out for from the last turnset still apply.
* Not really sure what else we're planning to do? Improving tiles with workers, and running lots of specialists I assume.

So, we should use the Test Saved Game to find out exactly when that Apostolic Palace vote will come up and thus avoid any requests to switch into Buddhism at the last minute within those last 5 turns before the vote that a sneaky AI may try to trick us into doing...

This means switching to Buddhism ourselves 6 turns before the vote, right? And being very careful to switch back before it.

Do we have open borders with Toku yet? If not, the AP is can help us with that also.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Open Borders

Do we have open borders with Toku yet? If not, the AP is can help us with that also.

We do have Open Borders with Toku, although if they get cancelled, we won't get them back until he is Pleased with us again or until we use the Apostolic Palace to open them.

If, when the Apostolic Palace voting options come up, we have Closed our Borders with Zara, then a voting option will come up to Open Borders with all Members. That would be a sneaky way to get Toku and Zara to Open Borders with each other, as they aren't really talking to each other right now...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Building Universities

* Since we have a GSci for Education, we should be slamming out 6 Universities and then Oxford.
* There was mention of a plan to put the whip overflow form universities into military units, switching into Vassalage, Theocracy and Police State. With representation off, I gather we'll fire most of the specialists, work food tiles and whip.

Indeed, we want to use that Great Scientist on Education, so that we can switch research from Compass to Liberalism (without accidentally learning Liberalism, eh?).

That said, our University Cities are not all currently prepared.

Delhi was working Scientist Specialists, so that it could get out that Great Scientist, but those dudes can probably mostly be fired to go and work the Mines. We are currently building the University of Sankore there.

The sooner that we build that Wonder, the longer of a delay that we'll create in the AIs researching Paper, meaning that we'll be able to get a higher-valued tech with Liberalism. Once an AI grabs Paper, it's very possible that they will beeline Liberalism from that point onwards.


So, while we could whip some Universities now, we can't get them all immediately. It'll take some playing around to see if you figure that it will be best to whip Universities or slow-build them in Cities that are "ready" to build a University. Those that whip could go onto building a Confucian Temple and then a Confucian Monastary.


Delhi is questionable... we want to finish that Wonder, so that we can get greater value out of Liberalism. A University would be nice there, but it can probably wait until after we get the University of Sankore.

We'd probably NOT want to whip in Delhi if we plan to switch into Police State and all of that other jazz, as overflow into Oxford University wouldn't get the Organized Religion bonus. It's not clear whether we want to stick in Org Rel for a bit longer to pump out Oxford University or if we can go ahead with the proposed plan of switching into Military-producing Civics for a 5-turn period (I'd probably say just don't whip in Delhi and we can still carry out the Military-producing Civics plan, but that's a claim made without having done any testing on the subject).


But yes, if we do switch into the Military Civic combo, we'd certainly fire the Specialists for that period of time.

We'd probably hav 1 to 2 rounds of whipping while in Police State... Cities that can afford to whip a lot can whip on the second turn of being in Police State, while Cities that cannot afford to whip a lot could whip on the second last turn of Police State, so that we'd get the Theocracy and Vassalage bonuses for our Military units, but then could switch into Org Religion to benefit from the overflow Hammers put into building Buildings.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Religious Civics

* Not really sure what else we're planning to do? Improving tiles with workers, and running lots of specialists I assume.

Running Specialists with Representation is good, but also with Caste System (to be able to run more of them) and Pacifism (to be able to get more GPP) is obviously better.

But, the tradeoff of running Pacifism is that we aren't running Organized Religion.

We still need Confucianism in 3 more Cities, but since we'll want to build a few Confucian Monastaries for the Apostolic Palace's Hammer bonus, it shouldn't be too hard to build Confucian Missionaries from Confucian Monastaries when running a non-Org-Rel Civic.

It's the spreading of Buddhism that becomes troublesome, as, unless we build Buddhist Monastaries in our relatively few Cities that contain Buddhism, we won't be able to build Buddhist Missionaries when we switch into Pacifism.

A possible solution is just lots of Civic-switching every 5 turns... run Specialists for 5 turns, then build Missionaries and buildings for 5 turns under Org Religion, whipping when required, then back to Pacifism or perhaps a 5 turn round with Military Civics, if we can afford the extra whipping.

Of course, the implementation of the timing is what's going to take work--it's easy for me to say "just switch your Civics a lot," but planning how and when to do it, to maximize the value of doing so, is going to take some effort.

 

[Irgy]

Yep, switching the civics a lot sounds good. I'll have to plan it out a bit, but that's ok. I wasn't planning on whipping Dehli, it's too high population to be worth it I'd imagine. It's not a big deal to lose OR on Oxford, as with beaurocracy and the stone bonus already, Oxford is only effectively an 11% bonus to hammers. I'd personally rather get some military protection sooner.

I'll delay whipping the universities until they can all be complete on the same turn, except if there's a few cases where we'd particularly benefit from having the multiplier sooner. Normally at this stage of the game I'd set the slider to 0 until we have Oxford for maximal beaker efficiency, but we need to balance the risk of a high AI gold demand.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Yep, switching the civics a lot sounds good. I'll have to plan it out a bit, but that's ok.

Alright, sounds good. Of course, it will be like you're playing in a vacuum, where you can go through the motions for our Workers, build items, and Civic switches, without worrying too much about the AIs around you.

The more of these details that you can get out of the way for your PPP, the more that you'll be able to focus on the AI situation while you play.

I wasn't planning on whipping Dehli, it's too high population to be worth it I'd imagine.

Yeah, we shouldn't really need to whip there anyway, but we do at least have the opportunity to work a lot of Food-based squares, so whipping isn't as bad as in a City that has grown to use most of its Mines but only has 1 or 2 Food surplus remaining. Half of 69 Food gives us rougly a cost of 34 Food for 45 Hammers... still an acceptable tradeoff if we need to do it, but if we can avoid whipping there, it would be best to just keep growing, since we seem to have more Health and Happiness room (the Happiness room will shrink by 3 when we slip out of Representation, though, so watch out for that situation). A quick Forge would solve the Happiness issue, but I'm not sure about the ideal time to fit it in. We'd get the most Hammer bonus out of it the sooner that we fit it into our build queue (even pre-University-of-Sankore), but getting it does delay the timing of everything that we build after it... although the sooner that we build it, the less delay overall. Basically, you'll have to get a feel for when the last University can come in to see if we can sneak in all of:
a) a Forge
AND
b) the University of Sankore
AND
c) a University

by the time that our 6th University is ready to be whipped. If you can't do so, then we'll either have to consider whipping in Delhi or else skipping the Forge until after we build:
d) Oxford (although--without me running the math--I would believe that getting it before all 3 of those buildings would certainly come close to having the Forge pay for itself).

It's not a big deal to lose OR on Oxford, as with beaurocracy and the stone bonus already, Oxford is only effectively an 11% bonus to hammers. I'd personally rather get some military protection sooner.

That's a fair point. If we manage to first get the Forge in Delhi, then there will be no real relative loss. Then again, we'd just get the same 11% bonus with a Forge.

It sounds like some "spreadsheet-based math" might be in order for calculating the immediate value of building the Forge. It is too late at night for me to do that now... any volunteers?

I'll delay whipping the universities until they can all be complete on the same turn, except if there's a few cases where we'd particularly benefit from having the multiplier sooner.

Sounds great!

Normally at this stage of the game I'd set the slider to 0 until we have Oxford for maximal beaker efficiency, but we need to balance the risk of a high AI gold demand.

Hmmm, yes, but with a Diplo game we are more inclined to accept Demands that we'd otherwise ignore... and having been Wondermongerors, our Power level is weak (just look at the SGOTM graphs--we're running the most "efficient" game in that regard), meaning that the AIs are more likely to make Demands from us.

Oh well, we've researched most of Compass ourselves due to "saving on Gold Demands." In the end, it may be a wash if it becomes easy to trade for Compass, but we definitely want to switch to Liberalism in order to give us the possibility of trading for Compass, or, if not, then to delay the AIs' ability to piggyback off of our research into Compass.

 

[Mitchum]

At the end of my PPP, I wrote:

The status of our primary and backup university cities are:

1. Delhi: Size 13. University in 5.
2. Silverado: Size 6. Library in 10.
3. Riverdale: Size 7. University in 12.
4. Bedrock: Size 7. University in 16.
5. Wheaties: Size 4 (size 6 in 9). Library in 7.
6. Grt. Person Farm: Size 10. University in 16.
7. Three Clams: Size 5 (size 6 in 2). Library in 8.

So, only 4 cities could possibly whip a university on this turn (the turn after learning Education). Three Clams can do it in 9 turns (8 turns to complete the library and 1 turn to put hammers into a university. Wheaties can do it in 9 turns (once it grows to 6). Building the Moai statues in Silverado just took too long for it to make any progress on a library.​

I don't think it will be possible to build a forge, the U of S, and a university in 9 (+/- 2) turns. I think Oxford has a higher priority than the other two items.

Also, we're running an SE and need a LOT of Great Scientists. To do so effectively, we should be running Representation, Caste System and Pacifism more than 75% of the time. I think we should try to forego the OR bonus once Oxford is done, so we'll need to figure out where to build a monastery or three.

 

[Irgy]

Ok, played around a bit. Amazing how long it takes just to do that. Anyway, I have some questions;

* The settler is for Whales, right? And the plan is not to settle it from what I remember, but to be ready to?
* Dehli is the biggest hold up in the universities, if it wants to build the U. Sankore first and we don't whip. I actually found I ended up wanting to work the plains forests there, and to me working these tiles is a sign that I should just be whipping. Despite saying otherwise earlier, I'd be inclined to whip the university, even if just 2 pop.
* I remember some talk of going to war with a barb city, is that still happening? Am I sending some of the troops from the post-university military buildup?
* The first resolution is at 700AD. The hope is to use it to declare war on Mehmed, right? I can't really test this in the test game, as Peter not just has but *is* confucian What are the conditions for the declare war resolution? Does everyone need to have met the civ? Do we or does someone need to be at war with them already?
* I gather I can't put too much faith in the tech and resource trading situation in the test game? If so, I should really confirm all of the tech trading policies before playing the turn. I can start doing that now in fact.

My understanding of tech trading is basically:
* Don't trade with worst enemies (some exceptions though if the trading is fair, as it won't be quite as bad - there was talk of trading with Zara for instance)
* Don't trade away anything on the Liberalism line.
* Don't trade anything we have a monopoly on. However, once a couple of AIs have something (particularly including when we give it to them), trade it around to everyone where possible to stop them trading amongst themselves.
* Don't trade for anything we don't need. The Astronomy line techs are the current priority, and there's a few other techs that have been talked about as ones we don't mind getting.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

While our Empire is pumping out an Army and a Navy for a 5-turn Military Civic period, Delhi keeps building its current Wonder (Oxford?) and uses its relatively Highest-powered Base Input at the Time: Food

Yep, switching the civics a lot sounds good. I'll have to plan it out a bit, but that's ok. I wasn't planning on whipping Dehli, it's too high population to be worth it I'd imagine. It's not a big deal to lose OR on Oxford, as with beaurocracy and the stone bonus already, Oxford is only effectively an 11% bonus to hammers.

I'm not sure exactly how you came up with the 11% bonus but I'll assume that you said something like the following:
Base Hammers = 100% (of base Hammers)
Stone = 100% (of base Hammers)
Bureaucracy = 50% (of base Hammers, although it can be less than 50% for non-even multiples of base Hammers)
Org Rel = 25% (of base Hammers, although it can be less than 25% for non-divisible-by-4 multiples of base Hammers)

Let's just assume that our City is making a "multiple of 4 Hammers," to keep the calculations slightly simpler.

So, presumably you added everyting up:
100 + 100 + 50 + 25 = 275
Then took the Org Rel bonus and divided it by that number: 25 / 275 = 0.0909, or 9.1%

Maybe we should just look at the bonuses and ignore the base Hammers?
100 + 50 + 25 = 175
Org Rel bonus divided by that number: 25 / 175 = 0.1429, or 14.3%

So, I don't know where the 11% came from. Perhaps you can explain it to me, as, to this day, the intricacies of Percentage-based Math still elude me.


Anyway, one important consideration is that when we lose the Org Rel bonus due to switching into Military Civics, we will ALSO LOSE THE BUREAUCRACY bonus.

Not running Bureaucracy has several implications:
a) The impact of the loss of Org Rel is greater
AND
b) The impact of the loss of a Forge is greater
AND
c) Running Cottages and Mines in the captiol has far less value than running Specialists will have when we aren't using Bureacracy, but we'll be running Slavery, so we can't just hire a ton of Scientist Specialists, either
AND
d) The whole argument about "building Missionaries" or other items in favour of building a Wonder in a Bureaucracy-based capitol COMPLETELY DISAPPEARS! Without Bureaucracy being run, this argument goes right out of the window, so we have to be careful to not "trick ourselves" into believing that building something other than the World or National Wonder in Delhi (such as a Military unit or a Missionary) would actually be a good thing due to the "savings" on Bureaucracy reason, since we wouldn't even be running Bureaucracy.


So, what can we do here?

Well, one thing would be to forget about the Vassalage experience bonus and stick with Bureaucracy. However, it is VERY NICE to have units start with 4 experience points (think of Vanilla-based Barracks), as you will just need to win ONE BATTLE in order to get a second promotion, and a second promotion starts to allow your Combat I units to both specialize (Shock for anti-Melee, Cover for anti-Archery, Pinch for anti-Gunpowder, etc) and immediately heal most of their health back. THEREFORE, WE REALLY DO WANT to run all four of these Civics at a time:
Police State, Vassalage, Slavery, and Theocracy.


So, if we're running those Civics, where does it leave Delhi?

Well, technically, since we want to get the Wonders (University of Sankore and Oxford Univeristy) built there ASAP, we shouldn't switch into Military-unit-production mode in Delhi, further delaying the main point of Lightbulbing Education (getting Oxford University). No, we will stick to building the buildings there, even without the Bureaucracy and Org Rel bonuses.

But, without these other two bonuses, the benefit provided by a Forge gets CONSIDERABLY LARGER and thus I believe is a very justifiable investment. Even if we don't make a lot of Hammers per turn, whenever we get a Hammer infusion (whipping or chopping), the Forge offers a sizeable Hammer bonus. If we can build (say, whip) a Forge while running Bureaucracy and Org Religion, not only is it an efficient way to build the Forge, but it won't cost that many population points due to the extra Hammer bonuses reducing the number of population points required.


Now, let's think about it:
Delhi will be limited in many ways during the time period while we are running the Military Civics for 5 turns.

1. The Hammer output of each base Hammer will be greatly reduced. Without the Bureaucracy and Organized Religion bonuses, we'll just be relying on the Stone bonus (and the Forge's bonus, which I think will be worth building) to keep our Hammers going. Stone is still nice, but working Hammer-based squares will net us MORE VALUE when we're running those Civics than when we aren't.
2. The Commerce output of each base Commerce will be greatly reduced without the Bureaucracy bonus. Well, we could just run more Specialists in that case, right? Hmmm, see point 3:
3. The Flask output of each Specialist will be reduced.
4. Even if we wanted to run a lot of low-Flask-valued Specialists, we'll be in Slavery, so the max number of Specialists that we'll be able to run

Spoiler :

at least until after we build Oxford University, which we'll likely be just starting to build now anyway, since Oxford University lets you run 3 additional Scientist Specialsits

is 2 Scientist Specialists, which isn't a lot for a high-Food site like Delhi.

So, it sounds like just about everything in Delhi will be nerfed. Just about... but not everything. I didn't say a thing about Food. In fact, Food is the only basic input that is NOT being nerfed in Delhi during this time period. Therefore, relative to working Food-based squares on other turns, working Food-based squares for this 5-turn Military Civic time period GIVES US GREAT RETURN ON OUR INVESTMENT.


Okay, so what? Well, it's a great revelation, because it means that we can actually COME AHEAD by whipping the Forge (and say, overflowing into the Unviersity of Sankore) and even whipping the University in Delhi.


As for what to do with the University's overflow Hammers, we have a couple of options:
a) Overflow into the University of Sankore, although doing so might leave us with not much left to build, since we might complete the Forge, University, and the University of Sankore prematurely this way, being unable to start on Oxford University since the Universities won't exist yet in other Cities. Presumably, we'll use this approach if we're slow to build the University of Sankore and will still be completing that Wonder for a couple of turns after we switch into our Military Civics
OR
b) Overflow the University's Hammers into Oxford University on the turn that we switch into Military Civics. Now, yes, we'd miss out on the Bureaucracy and Org Rel bonuses on the overflow Hammers, but at least this way we wouldn't have to put in a "placeholder" build item due to having all 3 of our Forge, University of Sankore, and a University completed prior to unlocking Oxford University

The answer will mostly be dictated by how quickly Delhi will complete the University of Sankore with a whipped Forge, rather than by a choice that we make.


Then, while all other Cities are focusing on pumping out a few quick Military units (Triremes count, hint, hint, wink, nudge), Delhi can quickly recover from the whipping by:
a) Ignoring the hiring of Specialists (no Representation, no Philosophy, plus we want to grow quickly during the time period where working the Food squares offers us a higher relative value, so let's not hire any Specialists during this time period)
AND
b) Focusing on working Farms + the GCopper, followed by working Cottages with any leftover citizens (since these squares give the most Food of the remaining squares but still aren't giving us the Bureaucracy bonus for their Commerce), followed by working GH Mines with any additional citizens (since they give us the most Food out of the remaining squares)


Since Delhi DOES have a high Food output, we'll be able to quickly make up for the lost population. A Forge with access to Gold + Silver = +2 Happiness, which, in the short-term balances out the 2 Unhappiness from whipping twice, while in the medium-term allows us to grow Delhi to a larger City Size. Even if we lose our Gold to Saladin's Culture capturing the Goldfish City for him, we can always trade for Gold with one of the AIs for, say, Incense, later on.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Ok, played around a bit. Amazing how long it takes just to do that.

Don't say that I didn't warn you!

* The settler is for Whales, right? And the plan is not to settle it from what I remember, but to be ready to?

Yes, the purpose of building the Settler was for Whale City. I guess we can call it "Whales," even though there is only 1 Whale Resource there. We did the same with Crabs, so why not?

It was my suggestion to delay settling the City, due to a few reasons:
a) We already have Sugar and will soon enough have Incense, so we're not in a major immediate need for tradeable Resources
AND
b) Settling the City will hurt our economy
AND
c) Settling the City before we have one (or even two?) Workers ready to start improving a square, such as an Ice Silver square, will hurt our economy even more than when our Workers are less busy and can commit to improving at least one square for this City's usage

* Dehli is the biggest hold up in the universities, if it wants to build the U. Sankore first and we don't whip. I actually found I ended up wanting to work the plains forests there, and to me working these tiles is a sign that I should just be whipping. Despite saying otherwise earlier, I'd be inclined to whip the university, even if just 2 pop.

It sounds like we are on the same page here. I'd even go so far as to suggest that on your first turn (T209), you start to build a Forge, then whip it on the next turn (T210), overflowing into the University of Sankore (T211).

I would even go so far as to consider the possibility of on the following turn (T212) start to build a Confucian Monastary, as it gives bonus Flasks to a high-Flask-output City like Delhi and gives us bonus Hammer--so, why not? Then, whip it on the next turn (T213) to overflow into the University of Sankore (T214). The University (not the Sankore one--the "normal" University) can be whipped a bit later, depending upon when other Cities are ready to whip theirs and depending upon the timing of the completion of the University of Sankore, if you find yourself finishing that Wonder ahead of schedule.

* I remember some talk of going to war with a barb city, is that still happening? Am I sending some of the troops from the post-university military buildup?

We will need to discuss this issue. It's going to be the most influencial issue of your turnset.
The question essentially boils down to:
Do we go to war with Mehmed?

Likely, even if the answer is yes, we will send MOST of these troops to the west, but it wouldn't hurt to send 2 defenders to Ivory Towers if we do go to war with Mehmed, to protect the area until we get a Trireme Navy built up.

* The first resolution is at 700AD. The hope is to use it to declare war on Mehmed, right? I can't really test this in the test game, as Peter not just has but *is* confucian What are the conditions for the declare war resolution? Does everyone need to have met the civ? Do we or does someone need to be at war with them already?

I think that a test game (obviously, it won't work in our current test game) is worthwhile, to check out your questions and to confirm that our plan is actually feasible. If it isn't feasible, we'll need to discuss how we want to alter our approach.

* I gather I can't put too much faith in the tech and resource trading situation in the test game? If so, I should really confirm all of the tech trading policies before playing the turn.

From the looks of it, Mitchum only had time to update the Worker actions and build items before he went on vacation, so no, the techs are not going to be accurate. Already, that's a huge advantage that our team has over any other team that hasn't invested that time.

You could certainly take the time to give techs to the AIs and remove techs from the AIs, as appropriate. We've been doing so for past test saved games and the hope is that you'll be able to do so at the end of your turnset, as well, unless you're going away on vacation or something too, so if you update the test saved game for yourself now, it'll make life easier on you later, and will give you a more accurate picture during your testing. At a minimum, you'll have to give ourselves Metal Casting, so that you can actually build a Forge building in Delhi and Triremes in our Naval Shipping Yards.

Spoiler An aside for other SGOTM team members that read our thread in the future (haha, like any sane person will read this far) :

Any SGOTM team that wants to complain in the future about us having relatively accurate test saved games where they did not have them can do so if they can conclusively prove that they did not use any tools to help them out in planning their games, such as spreadsheets, logs, advanced BUFFY options, or even their brains. Yes, your brain is one the best tools that you have available--use it wisely.

Also, don't forget that these test saved games did not "come for free" and took considerable time investements from team members that could have been used in other ways, such as by drafting complicated spreadsheets, playing countless more practice games TMIT-style, or scouring the forums for more info.

* Don't trade with worst enemies (some exceptions though if the trading is fair, as it won't be quite as bad - there was talk of trading with Zara for instance)

That would be my general advice. The other advantage of trading to Zara is that he isn't trading that much with the others, whereas the others (particularly Saladin and Justinian) will trade away what we gave them as soon as they have a trading opportunity available to them.

Ideally, we'll get Toku to like Zara either through a Mutual Military Struggle or through long-term Open Borders, either one being an Apostolic-Palace-enforced resolution.

* Don't trade away anything on the Liberalism line.

We might eventually have to trade away Education to get other techs, like {ONE OF THESE TWO TECHS: Gunpowder or Engineering}, Guilds, Nationalism (I'd probably save Education until we can get a high-valued tech like Nationalism out of it), etc. But, we'd probably still hold onto Education until a few of the AIs research it and we'd definitely hold onto it until after we've been the first to learn Liberalism

Spoiler :

as even if an AI gets Education, they might not beeline Liberalism, but if all AIs get Education from us trading it around, surely one of them will beeline Liberalism and maybe beat us to it.

So, as far as your turnset is concerned, yes the rule that you wrote should apply. That means DO NOT trade away Philosophy, Paper, and Education, to try and hold onto our monopolies or relative-monopolies for as long as we can. If the AIs learn one of them and trade that tech amongst themselves a lot, such that nearly every AI already knows it, then we might consider trading away that tech, but only after consultation with the team.

* Don't trade anything we have a monopoly on. However, once a couple of AIs have something (particularly including when we give it to them), trade it around to everyone where possible to stop them trading amongst themselves.

Again, we have to be careful about the "trade it around to anyone" part, because Zara, Isabella, and Mehmed all have Worst Enemies (okay, we're assuming about Isabella and Mehmed, but it's a pretty strong assumption that a -8 negative Diplo modifier from a long-term war will equal them being each others' Worst Enemies).

Toku won't give away his techs, but he has a fast tech pace and can manually pump them out.

Probably the only "rule" to consider is that if ONE of Justinian and Saladin have a tech but the other does not, then we may need to consider selling (or gifting, if they have nothing to offer to us) the other one of them the tech. It's not a straight-forward call. For example, what if Justinian learns Compass and we've also self-teched it by then. Should we give it to Saladin? Well, the answer will completely depend upon what techs Justinian is missing that Saladin could give him in exchange for Compass... if there is a tech that is of close or equal value, such as if Justinian had started to research Music but had abandoned research on it due to Saladin getting it first (and thus "cheap" Compass equals "cheap, partially-researched Music") then they might trade with each other.

But, in this case, we might WANT them to trade with each other, as then more AIs would know Music and we'd have a greater chance of getting it in trade. But, then again, we don't really NEED Music, so we might want to BLOCK such a trading opportunity by trading Compass to Justinian.

It's a tough call. We want ONE of these two scenarios to occur:
1. The AIs don't get a lot of naval techs and thus we won't have to worry about them getting Privateers for a long period of time
OR
2. The AIs will research Optics and maybe even Astronomy for us, while we focus on partially-researching Liberalism and researching Printing Press

Just because we pick an above strategy doesn't resolve our approach for us, either.
Let's say that we choose strategy 1, where we don't want the AIs to get a lot of naval techs.

Then, if we gift Compass to Saladin, it might work in our favour, as Justinian might choose to finish researching Music (or whatever tech Saladin was going to trade to him), while Saladin might continue reasearching whatever tech he was in the middle of researching (which works as long as he wasn't currently researching Compass) until he learns that tech. Then, neither AI might go for Optics for a while.

But, if we don't trade to Saladin, Justinian might not give Compass to Saladin either, meaning that it will take Saladin that much longer to reach Optics.

Maybe the best answer is to consult with the team, like Mitchum did when Zara came to use demanding Confucianism, but be prepared to do so for tech trades, not just Demands.

* Don't trade for anything we don't need. The Astronomy line techs are the current priority, and there's a few other techs that have been talked about as ones we don't mind getting.

It's again a tough call. We've almost self-researched Compass, so if we finish self-researching it (please delay doing so until the last minute, though, so that the AIs do not piggyback off of our research investment), then we won't increase our WFYABTA counter.

Then again, maybe we won't care if we increase the WFYABTA counter if we don't care about a lot of future tech trades.

We might even want to try to get Astronomy in trade, if enough AIs get it within a short period of time, so self-researching the rest of Compass (not now, but later) might make a lot of sense, just to ensure that we have a low enough WFYABTA counter with enough AIs to be able to receive Astronomy in trade (which was not one of the "4" techs that we are "for certain allowed" to trade with all of the AIs before hitting the WFYABTA limit, thus swapping Astronomy for Compass in the list of 4 techs that we can for certain get from any AI).



I'm sorry that a lot of my answers are not "magic bullet solutions," but that's the nature of the game--if the game was mostly dictated by "cookie-cutter" strategies, many of us would probably have quit playing it a long time ago.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

* The first resolution is at 700AD. The hope is to use it to declare war on Mehmed, right? I can't really test this in the test game, as Peter not just has but *is* confucian What are the conditions for the declare war resolution? Does everyone need to have met the civ? Do we or does someone need to be at war with them already?

I think that a test game (obviously, it won't work in our current test game) is worthwhile, to check out your questions and to confirm that our plan is actually feasible. If it isn't feasible, we'll need to discuss how we want to alter our approach.

You could probably use a far-back version of the test saved game to check out your questions. Give yourself the Apostolic Palace using the World Builder (or gift yourself a Great Engineer to rush-build it, making the building of this Wonder "more realistic"). Only in an older test saved game would some of the AIs not have met each other, for your question about Civs needing to have met each other. You can also use the World Builder to selectively add or remove Confucianism from the AIs' Cities and to spread it to our Cities, using the Edit City icon.

Note that I would imagine that as soon as the AP is built, any Civ that has a City with Confucianism in it will "meet" all other Civs that also have a City with Confucianism in it, possibly messing up your testing if you don't remove Confucianism from the AIs' Cities before completing the Apostolic Palace.

Further, if, after building the Apostolic Palace, you give Concufianism and then take it away from an AI, you likely won't be able to test your your "haven't met each other" condition, since they should automatically meet as soon as Confucianism is assigned (although I don't know if the World Builder would update this fact immediately or only upon exiting the World Builder--but I would assume that it is an immediate thing), so watch out and thus have multiple saved games to work from, in case you need to revert to a point where AI1 doesn't know AI2. Note that I have no idea how to remove a "contact" using the World Builder--chances are that there is no interface option to do so and thus once a player has met another player, you're stuck with that fact unless you revert to a previous saved game version.

Thus, you might want to have a "couple of versions of saved game paths," such as whether or not contact was given between the participant AIs, so name your saved games accurately enough for you to be able to tell the difference. It probably would help to have a couple of saves that are saved on the turn before the vote comes up, so that testing of different options can be executed faster.


EDIT: One more point: if you open up the World Builder, you can still get to the Domestic Advisor by using the F4 hotkey. Doing so will allow you to see all of the contacts between players, even between players that we (the human player) have yet to meet, so it is a quick way to check to see if the test saved game version that you've chosen will allow you to set up the conditions that you wanted to test in regards to some of the AIs not knowing each other.

Note that it doesn't have to be "Pacal = Toku" in this Apostolic-Palace-Resolution testing, if switching the roles of the AIs (i.e. the roles of who is the war target, who is our war buddy, etc) makes setting things up easier on you.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Settler for Connecting up the Western Barb City
We shouldn't even need a Settler for the western area by the Barb City. Actually, I should say Barb Cities, as the real game clearly shows Barb Culture that fits a typical fat-cross size for a northern City, while there is also a PWheat Resource (it has a Farm on it, too) to the south-east of there that has Barb Culture on it, indicating the presence of at least TWO Barb Cities (and who knows--there may even be more than two).


See the following info for details:

FORTS in Beyond The Sword
Forts with roads function as nodes linking road-networks to coast-networks. This is especially useful for hooking up resources on small offshore islands which aren't worth an extra city. The fort itself can also be in neutral territory to establish the connection. These forts can also connect coastal trade networks which are split by impassable ice. (thanks DanF5771)

I found that a Worker finishing a Fort on a tile with a road will not trigger anything whereas the Worker finishing a road on a tile with a Fort will trigger an update...

The above bug was reported against BTS 3.17. It is not clear whether this last issue was addressed or not in the 3.19 patch or as part of BUFFY (although BUFFY isn't supposed to address bugs), so we'd be safest in building a Fort before building a Road.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

A minor fix that you (Irgy) will have to make to the test saved game
You'll also want to update the test saved game's Riverdale to be the Confucian Holy City.

I don't know why, but sometimes the Holy City indicator disappears--perhaps from having heavily saved and reloaded our test saved games? I at one point had to re-add ALL 6 Holy Cities' indicators, even Saladin's, to our test saved game, as the game was completely without Holy Cities, for whatever reason.


Note that if you do make a lot of changes to the test saved game, such as getting the techs up-to-date and addressing small inaccuracies like this one, feel free to share the updated version of the test saved game with us.


Zara's Spies
Another interesting tidbit is that Zara has a Spy in Riverdale and a Spy in his capitol (Aksum) in our test saved game. He could be doing the same thing in our real game, that little bugger.

 

[BLubmuz]

I've not opened the save yet and Mitch's report is the bare minimum, for good reasons.

I think Mitch have done a good job in any case. He was and continues to be a great contributor to this game. Greater than me for sure. Un fortunately it's not a good period, CIV-wise for me and I must admit that this one is definitely not my game. All those Diplo finesses are not for me. The highest peak of my diplo skills is "kille 'em, kill 'em all.

Good idea the forge in Dehli. No more for now, awaiting for Irgy's PPP and to open the save to add more.

 

[Irgy]

@#$% it! I just wrote up a detailed account of a more thorough run through that I did later last night, then when I clicked the "go advanced" button to add a save, I got some @#$&%^&* about the "token expiring", and when I clicked back all the text was gone. I don't have time to write it up again this morning. To add insult to injury, this is now also the second time I've written this rant.

I've attached the save anyway. Feel free to look at it for non-obvious mistakes. It wasn't meant to be optimal, but it was at least something like the right track. The only really stupid thing was where I whipped Oxford for 8 pop without the Beauro nor OR bonuses. I knew it was wrong but I coudln't help myself. Next time I'll go with Dhoomstriker's suggestion about the forge, which is something I now thoroughly agree with after playing this game through.

 

[BLubmuz]

@#$% it! I just wrote up a detailed account (...)

Since those things can happen, i usually use notepad to write my long posts or any text editor, like MS Word. Then i select all (Ctrl+5) and copy/paste in the post, adding images and anything.

 

[Irgy]

Since those things can happen, i usually use notepad to write my long posts or any text editor, like MS Word. Then i select all (Ctrl+5) and copy/paste in the post, adding images and anything.

I've done that in the past, but didn't this time. I mostly do it when I'm not sure I'm going to finish writing it in one sitting. I'll do it every time now. I have had these problems with expired tokens before, but in the past when I clicked back the text was still there to be rescued.

Anyway, in hindsight it was probably no great loss, it wasn't that interesting. The highlights were:

* Revolt to slavery T216. I did this so that we were in slavery already to whip the universities on T221, but able to switch straight into military civics after whipping them.
* One or two whipped military units in every city.
* That silliness in Dehli which I mentioned already. When I do a PPP-generating run, hopefully tonight, I'll build a forge and probably won't whip Oxford at all. Certainly not while half the bonuses are missing.
* Switched back to OR not Pacifism after the 5-turn military frenzy, as everywhere was busy regrowing so there was no point running Pacifism. Didn't run Pacifism at all in the end then for this turn set, but I expect we should be running it for almost the whole of the next one.
* Traded for Metal Casting and Machinery. Almost finished liberalism, and then almost finished Optics.
* Finished up with 7 universities, should probably have just built more missionaries in one of those cities.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Hi Irgy,

Would it be too much trouble for you to give us either the autosaves or manual saves for each of your first 5 turns? If you don't have them for all of those turns, then as many as you do have. You should be allowed to attach 3 files at a time to a message, but after uploading the first three, the interface lets you upload more files, up to a maximum of 10 files per message.

My hope would be to provide you with suggestions for optimizing the builds at the start of your turnset, as the part about whipping the Universities into Military units is relatively already decided, but we didn't really discuss as a team what you're supposed to do in the interim time period.

So if you don't have a PPP to provide at this time, I could at least take the saves, get a feel for what you're doing, and then provide some suggestions.