SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[BLubmuz]

I have no idea about the war. I know this won't help, but all i can say is that for us it can't be more than a "phony war".

I think we can always use it later, when we can better evaluate pros and cons.

Just play, you're already one day in late. And i don't know how difficult will be to set up a decent plan for me.

BTW if Dhoom can help with some guidelines after your TS, i'll appreciate it.

I noticed that i was right on the circumnav bonus, even if no one spent a word on it.

 

[havr]

Small question (part of catching up):
I see mention of "contacting Mehammed and going to war with him".
Why?

 

[havr]

The implication is that if Mehmed gets Confucianism, we won't be able to force Toku and Zara to Open Borders with each other until Toku can get a Work Boat up to Mehmed (the opposite won't happen as long as Mehmed and Isabella are at war with each other).

You can give a work-boat near Mehmed to Toku. Instant contact.
This is your trick initially.

(Probably someone, or even you, said it later on. Reading backwards...)

 

[havr]

We should avoid connecting a second of any strategic resources, to avoid demands for those resources.

Some useless idea (probably will not work and has some cons anyway):
Isn't it better to connect it and give it as a present to some AI that already has it (and that we want to be friendly with)? If we suddenly need it (lose our resource) we can always cancel the deal...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

War? For what is it good?

Small question (part of catching up):
I see mention of "contacting Mehammed and going to war with him".
Why?

What is the value of "going to war" in a Diplo game? That's what we're ultimately trying to determine here: is there more gain to be had by going to war than remaining at peace.

Okay, from a PRIDE point of view, it would be neat to say "hey, we won this game by remaining peaceful with all of the AIs, look at us, neener, neener, neener, we're really niiiiiice..." Although, if you say it in that prideful, taunting way, you are showing your true colours as not really being all that nice of a person.

So, beyond the "bragging rights," which are a concept outside of Civ 4 itself, what is the benefit of going to war vs staying at peace?


The ANSWER: Diplo modifiers!!!!!!!!!!


That's it. It's really that simple. Going to war lets you "shuffle" the Diplo map, modifying some AIs' Attitudes to liking you less while modifying others' Attitudes to liking you more.


War vs Peace
A peaceful game vs a war-like Diplo game is EXTREMELY dependent upon the AIs in the game and the random "dice rolls" (aka random numbers) that are used to determine the Initial Base Attitudes for each AI towards every player in the game.

While many people have complained about the "randomness" or the fact that "these Initial Base Attitudes are hidden from view," the truth is that this randomness offers great variety and replayability to the game.

Have you ever seen a "tame" Montezuma or Shaka? I have.

Have you ever seen an aggressive Gandhi take over Peter, amass the largest amount of land, bully other AIs and the human player into submission, and totally own the human player in a Space Race? Oh, that was one tough XOTM game!

Have you ever played an XOTM where all of the AIs were Pleased with each other or within a couple of Diplo points of being immediately Pleased, while there were 2 American Leaders and getting anyone to fight anyone else was a nightmare? Were you daring enough to decide that "everyone else would go for a Diplo game, now's my chance to win a Domination game" and then blow the game because you had your 3-massive-stacks of an army "hide" in a neighbouring AI's territory, only to be ambushed by the AI that you were attacking before you could invade your target AI, essentially losing you the game? Oh, the shame.

The point is that each game is different as a result and presents you with unique challenges. While a game like Diablo 2 offers great replayability due to its randomness of the dungeons created and most of the things placed in them, it does get tedious to fight the same "Enemy Leaders" (bosses), who only have a few set number of tricks, over and over again, once you've "figured them out."

How awesome would it have been if Diablo decided that instead of spitting pink lightning and wreaths of fire at you, he'd switch to pulling a poison dagger out of its shealth and stab you with it? Even just once in every 20 encounters with him. You'd likely have gone into battle with negative poision resistance and been completely unprepared, making you enjoy the game a whole lot more due to the AIs' unexpected ability to apparently exceed its "deciphered pattern" and thus adding to the game's replayability.

Okay, that analogy will be lost on a lot of players, but the point is that each and every game has a different set of AIs liking and hating each other and the human player by default values, which greatly affects the way that they respond to the other AIs and the human player in the game and thus changes the whole map of trades, tech rate, wars, defensive pacts, open borders (think about Toku in this game), and on and on it goes.


In our particular game, from the intelligence that we've been able to gather, we have a situation where
TOKU, the SECOND LARGEST PLAYER AND HENCE OUR DEFAULT UNITED NATIONS OPPONENT is VERY WELL LIKED BY DEFAULT

Spoiler :

Actually, Toku has the MOST population right now, but I am projecting that we'll be able to get more population than him near the end of the game, counting our current greater number of Cities plus the planned capture of the Barb Cities, hence I refer to him as the "second largest" even though he's currently the "largest" in terms of population points.

Unless we have a strategy for gifting the United Nations, there is a VERY STRONG CHANGE that WE WILL LOSE THE DIPLO VOTE or at least, NOT BE ABLE TO WIN THE DIPLO VOTE FOR THE REST OF THE GAME, without using war or some other "major factor" to "stir up" the Diplo values.

THE THIRD, FOURTH, AND FIFTH LARGEST AIs in the game all have EXTRA positive Initial Base Attitude values towards the SECOND LARGEST AI in the game.

Justinian is totally in love with Toku and Saladin is not far behind. Mehmed, although we only have one inital figure to go by, is Pleased when by default he should be Cautious with Toku, so he, too, likes Toku better than normal.

On the other hand, Justinian and Saladin appear to like us "about the expected amount" or perhaps hate us by about -1 as their Initial Base Attitudes towards us.


So, in order to beat Toku in a Diplo Vote, we need not just ONE differentiating factor but TWO DIFFERENTIATING FACTORS with EACH OF THOSE 3 AIs, if we're going to expect to beat Toku in a head-on (non-gifting-the-United-Nations strategy) Diplo vote.

Here are some factors that can be used:
1. Initial Base Attitude (Toku is one up on us here, which is why we need two of the others with each of the other 3 AIs just to be able to beat him)

2. Religion (Toku already has what we can at best hope to get later, so we can call this point even)

3. Open Borders (Toku has those with all 3 of those AIs, so at best, we can tie Toku here)

4. Shared Resources (Toku has a ton of Resources and already has a trade going with Saladin. Chances are that he'll take Mehmed's Pig if we don't, and if not, his Silk, so really, we have no advantage on this point, except MAYBE vs Justinian, but a trade could happen later between Toku and Justinian, so this point is likely a tie and at best is only in our favour for Justinian)

5. Mutual Military Struggle points. If we don't go to war, we can't get these.

6. Giving tribute and giving help. While we'll more likely get these, at best expect +1 total out of each of those for the AIs. That's still not even enough of a bonus to count for one of the above bonuses, so at best I would call it a "a third of a bonus" that we have over Toku.

7. Shared Technological Discoveries (some AIs don't give you any, while most only give you 1 point. It's hardly a differentiating factor and with Toku being a tech-leader, there is a chance that he'd get this value as much as we could, so we can't count on "winning" this point), but again, let's be very generous and give ourselves "a third of a bonus" over Toku for this item.

8. Fair and forthright trading. Well, we can certainly aim to get +4 here with each of the relevant AIs. Toku might or might not get these values, but let's assume that at most he'll get +1, so we'll say that we can win this point.

9. Favourite Civic bonus. Well, Toku keeps staying in war mode and is likely to go into war mode in the future after his first war. So, he will actually get the exact same bonuses that we can get here, since all of the other AIs have "war Civics."

10. Being asked to switch into a Favourite Civic or a Favourite Religion. This point has its downsides, as this bonus doesn't last for long. Also, if we switch out of said Civic or Religion just to convince other AIs to "ask us," then we won't be gaining the Fave Civic and Fave Religion over-time bonuses and we might end up with less over-time bonuses at the end of the game than if we hadn't tried to get these positive modifiers. But, let's be generous and say that we can get +1 with 2 of the relevant AIs, giving us yet another "one third of a bonus" over what Toku can get, since Toku will likely just stay in his Religion and chosen Civics.

So, what's the problem? With PERFECT PLAY, we can BARELY BEAT TOKU. We can do it, right?


The problems come in via our interations with the AIs, since the AIs will CONTINUOUSLY TRY AND JOCKEY for your favour or disfavour.

Literally, they won't stop bugging you until they have you doing what they want you to be doing or until they're angry enough with you to start cancelling deals, cancelling open borders, and eventually, declaring war on you. That's just how the game goes.

To you, a lot of the AI requests appear to be very random. To me, whenever an AI comes to me with a tech deal, it tells me something. Whenever an AI asks me to stop trading with another AI, it tells me something. Whenever an AI asks me to switch religion, civics, give a gift or tribute, etc, it all means something. What it generally means is that they are "jockeying" for either your favour or disfavour, forcing you to choose to make them your friend or your enemy.


THE PROBLEM IS THAT BY CHOOSING SOME AIs as FRIENDS, if other AIs DISLIKE those AIs, then YOU WILL MAKE SOME OF YOUR FRIENDS DISLIKE YOU, so in the end, it becomes a real wash and you end up having few Friends, several Acceptable Aquaintances, and the odd Enemy, due to how you picked your trading partners and how you responded to the AIs' requests of how to deal with the other AIs (cancel deals or not, join in a war or not, traded with them or not, etc).

So, here is a list of things that can go wrong:

1. Traded with our Worst Enemey. Toku is unlikely to do so, as he is the tech leader. He doesn't trade away techs unless he is Friendly with someone or until almost all players know a tech

Spoiler :

and if an AI is one of the last AIs to learn a tech, what will they possibly have of value to offer Toku in return? Maybe Divine Right? That's about the only trade that I can think of that might apply.

While we don't know about the Initial Base Attitude of Mehmed towards Saladin, Mehmed towars Justinian, and vice versa, what we do know is that they will all share a Religion, so none of them is likely to be a Worst Enemy of the other. Since Toku is only going to consider trading with one of these Buddhist AIs (an AI that he gets to Friendly with), he'll never get this negative bonus. We, however, can easily get it. In particular, we have it already with Mehmed and since we want to curry favour with Isabella, we'll likely keep getting this negative bonus witih Mehmed. Now we're back down to "neutral" in terms of Diplo bonuses with Mehmed and he could equally vote for Toku as well as for us, based on a difference of a single Diplo point (or abstain because he likes us equally).

2. Refused to join a war. Mehmed went to war with Isabella once, he can do it again. Justinian is on his way to war. Even Toku is on his way to war. All that it will take is for a war to be started and an AI asking us to join in, and we're up the creek without a paddle. I've never seen an AI get this negative bonus, but it appears for the human player and it lasts for a long time. Our best bets will be to use the Apostolic Palace to stop wars and to bribe the aggressors into stopping their wars. Still, there is a good chance that we'll get at least one negative bonus with one of those AIs, while Toku will not get any of these negative bonuses.

3. Refused to stop trading. Again, it will be very easy to get this value with Mehmed. Now, combined with one of points 1 or 2 above, even if we play perfectly, we will have too many negative bonuses to outweight our positive bonuses and thus Mehmed will already vote for Toku instead of for us. Even under our United Nations gifting strategy, we'll likely have too many negative bonuses with Mehmed to even get his vote. Note that I'm not even done talking about the possible negative bonuses yet and I'm already "writing off" Mehmed's vote.

4. Religion. We're hoping that we can get the bonus here, but it's all a wash whether we get it or not, as Toku will be Buddhist. So, we can't get ahead of Toku here no matter what we do.

5. Spies causing trouble. Well, Toku will at most anger Justinian and Saladin. However, it looks just like Justinian will anger Toku, which won't affect how Justinian votes one little bit. On the downside, we will ALMOST CERTAINLY have to use Spies on Mehmed just to keep him out of Free Religion. If, on the other hand, we go to war and drag Zara into it, Mehmed will more likely get just one Religion spreading to his Cities than if we stay at peace with him, where he'll likely get all 6 Religions. Using Spies to convert him is a very difficult endeavour, with Spies dying in his territory, Spies failing in their missions, and him wanting to "switch back" every 5 turns meaning that our timing has to be perfect and our Spies can't fail. With the big distance from our capitol, the chance of failure is pretty high. We will have to put in a SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT in Spies just to keep him out of Free Religion. I am talking ON THE LEVEL OF HAMMERS OF AN ENTIRE ARMY. Either that or we'll have to have an ARMY OF BOATS AND SPIES sitting in his Cities and will pay the "full price" instead of the "Spy sat there for 5 turns discounted price." I can all but guarantee you that with us and Zara getting Open Borders with him before he's met Saladin and with the relative proximity of our Holy Cities, he'll likely get at least 5, if not more Religions in his Cities. Free Religion is in the cards for Mehmed. WAR with Mehmed would give us options--"culling" the extra Religions by capturing Cities selectively, capturing a City, spreading a Missionary of a chosen Religion in there, and then abandoning the City for Mehmed to retake (if the City sucks), and even possibly getting a "war conssession of switching Religious Civics" at the end of the game through a peace treaty. Regardless of whether we go to war or not, some of our Spies will fail and thus we will get negative bonus points with Mehmed for Spies causing trouble, so there really is no way that he will ever vote for us, regardless of who our UN opponent is going to be.

6. Close Borders sparking tensions. Here, we may have a slight advantage over Toku for Saladin and Justinian, since he is smack-dab in the middle of those two. However, we have no advantage when it comes to Mehmed.


SUMMARY OF THE ABOVE:
A) Mehmed will never vote for us. Period.
B) Toku is going to be a very difficult Diplo Victory opponent to beat. If Zara vassalizes through capitulation or peacefully, the game is OVER. WE LOST. UNLESS, we set ourselves up with a backup option of going to war with an AI for whom we can possibly build the UN (and allow them to capture the City after it is built).


War with Mehmed vs war with any AI vs no war at all

I'd rather declare war with someone who's going to be difficult for us to please, like Isabella (although I'm not saying we'd do it yet).

Okay, so if you read all of that, it should be clear that Mehmed won't vote for us. So, there's no loss in angering him, since we won't have his vote no matter what we do, anyway.

Also, when considering a war with another AI, there is only negative bonus that I didn't mention in my list above, and that is "You Declared War on our Friend." I saved this point for here, because it is very important: ISABELLA IS LIKED WELL ENOUGH that declaring war on her might be just enough to lose us either Justinian's or Saladin's vote. If it won't be enough, then adding on another one or two negative bonuses (there are a lot of them possible, see the list above) could cost us their support in a Diplo Vote. The best thing to do is not to get these PERMANENT negative Diplo bonuses at all.

What about a different AI, say, Zara? We could stay at war with him, hope that he doesn't become too weak to captiulate, and then allow him to capture our UN City. Once again, he is well-liked. More negative Diplo bonuses for Saladin and Justinian.


But, a -1 Diplo bonus isn't the end of the world. We could risk it. Well, if that were the only risk, then sure, we could do it. BUT, the BIGGEST RISK is that a weak AI like Isabella or Zara will get tired of the fighting and will immediately captiulate to an AI that declares on them. Even worse, said war target might peacefully vassalize to an AI, making that AI Master decalre war on us. As soon as their new Master accepts Isabella or Zara as their vassal, they will cancel Open Borders, Resource Trades, etc with us, losing us our over-time positive bonuses and probably their support in the Diplo Vote.

That's a terrible situation and the risk is a VERY REAL RISK.


If anyone wants to make a case for declaring war on any of Toku, Saladin, or Justinian, feel free to do so, but not only is that suicide, but it's basically throwing away our chances of a Diplo win.


So, that just leaves Mehmed.

Thus, we come back to the question of: is it worth it to declare war on Mehmed?

After the above analysis, I am convinced that it is not only a good idea but that it is all but NECESSARY.


Isabella will never vote for us if we try and please both her and Mehmed.


Mehmed will never vote for us period, according to my above analysis.


We have a reasonably strong chance of facing Toku in a Diplo Vote unless we declare war on somebody, and Mehmed is the only "somebody" that is a valid option. Our chances of beating Toku in a Diplo Vote require "perfect play" and "perfect circumstances"--let's not set ourselves up to have to win under such ridiculous circumstances.


The fact is that war with Mehmed lets us reshape the entire Diplo modifiers' map. In exchange for the loss of Mehmed's favour, which we have determined is not enough for us to get his vote even if we are nice to him, we can do the following:
1. Gain Isabella's favour
2. Gain Zara's favour
3. Gain Toku's favour
4. Get Justinian and Saladin a bit angrier at Toku
5. Create an AI of "universal hate," so that there aren't multiple Worst Enemies that make the trading game a nightmare to navigate
6. Never have to worry about Mehmed's Demands or the refusal of said Demands causing him to "prepare for" and launch a well-planned war on us

Dhoomstriker has given very good advice about how to go about the war, and stated a preference for it, but not a strong conviction that I've read.

Going to war with Mehmed is the best solution to all of our problems.

Finally, doing it using the method that I previously outlined (waiting for the Confucian Open Borders' vote to pass first) is the best way to take advantage of him having Open Borders with a Buddhist and Closed Borders with non-Buddhists, giving us the best chance of keeping him from adopting Free Religion.

I'm convinced. Are you?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

You can give a work-boat near Mehmed to Toku.

Gifting units is a very neat idea. It may have its place in this game, say, if we find Zara or Isabella under attack and having a serious risk of being eliminated from the game.

Unfortunately, the way that gifting works isn't that you get to "pick" to whom you gift a unit, like how you can "pick" to whom to gift a tech in the trading screen.

Instead, the player to whom your gift will do depends upon the current square where the unit is standing. So, for us to gift a Work Boat to Toku, the Work Boat would have to be in Toku's territory.

That would mean that we'd have to send our Work Boat to the west "just barely" into the edge of Toku's Cultural Borders in order to gift it.

Either that or:
1. Wait for Toku to attack us, capture our City, and get peace with him. Then, somehow get Open Borders with him. Then, walk our Work Boat into the Cultural Borders of the City that he captured and gift it to Toku.
OR
2. Wait for Toku to attack Zara. Let Toku capture one or more of Zara's Cities. Watch as Toku vassalizes away our easiest chance at an easy victory. Hope that neither side asks us to join the war against the other or to cancel deals with the other. Move our Work Boat into the Cultural area of Toku's new City that he stole from Zara. Gift the Work Baot to Toku.


I like that you are "thinking outside of the box" and are contributing. Thank you. It will be very good for us to remember that if Zara or Isabella get into a war, we can help them out with a bit of unit gifting, as the game conditions state that no player is allowed to be eliminated. Gifting them units might also be enough to keep them from being vassalized by their aggressor. Therefore, great suggestion!

We should avoid connecting a second of any strategic resources, to avoid demands for those resources.

Isn't it better to connect it and give it as a present to some AI that already has it (and that we want to be friendly with)? If we suddenly need it (lose our resource) we can always cancel the deal...

Let's say that we connect our second source of Horses.

Who will want it in trade?

Well, each of Toku, Justinian, Mehmed, and Zara are refusing to take it in a trade. They must all have their own Horse Resource and have it connected.

Now, it is possible to do as you suggest if we gift the Horse Resource early in the game before the AI has their own source connected. Unfortunately, we missed out on this opportunity.

It is also possible to do as you suggest if a Barb unit pillages a source of Horse. Well, our continent and the western continent are populated enough to be free of Barb Land Units, so it's not possible in those cases.

Maybe Mehhed's Horse Resource could get pillaged, though. He does have a lot of land area and only has 8 Cities, so there is a good chance that Barb units are still spawning somewhere in his area. Arrggghhh! Mehmed thought of this possibility and has planned ahead: he has built The Great Wall. Hmmmm, too bad. That means that no Barb Land Units can enter his territory. He is not immune to Barb Galleys spawning and chewing up his Fishing Boats, though, so there is still a "silver lining" to that cloud.


So, who will take our Horse Resource? Well, Saladin will, as will Isabella. Hmmm, let's look at their Unique Units, just to be certain, shall we?

Saladin: He has a Unique Knight, called the Camel Archer, which gets an extra 15% chance of surviving an offensive fight that it would have otherwise lost. That's kind of powerful and scary. Well, he doesn't need a Horse Resource to even build it! So, he can build them anyway, right? Why not give HIM the Horse Resource?

The trouble with that plan is that on these higher difficulty levels, the AIs LOVE to build a lot of cheap Military units when the Hammer cost is low. In this case, Saladin would get the ability to build Horse Archers. At higher difficulty levels, the AIs get EXTREMELY CHEAP unit upgrades, costing them mere pennies to upgrade their armies.

So, if Saladin gets Horse Archers, he will indeed have a ton of DEADLY, DANGEROUS Camel Archers running around. Don't ask me how he breeds his Horses into being Camels, he just does it, alright?

But the point is that if we wait until he has Guilds, then he will have to MANUALLY build every Camel Archer, which takes a lot longer because they cost a lot in Hammers compared to building Horse Archers. So, he won't end up with a lot of Camel Archers and we can breathe a sigh of relief.

COULD we dare to connect our Horse Resource if and when he learns Guilds? Yes, we could. Could we Pillage it later? Yes, we could. So, that's an opportunity.

However, one concern that I have is that Saladin prioritizes the Military Tradition tech. If anyone is going to get Nationalism first (that is, if we aren't forced to take Nationalism ourselves via Liberalism by an AI almost beating us to Liberalism super-early on), it is likely going to be Saladin.

So, our window of trading a Horse Resource to him is small. He has the technology to breed Camels out of Horses, but not the other way around; he'll need a Horse Resource source to be able to breed his Camel Archers into the even more powerful Cuirassiers, which we would be supplying to him.

So, we would have to be EXTRA DILLIGENT to watch for Saladin learning ONE of Gunpowder or Military Tradition--if he learns one, he could trade for the other one on the NEXT TURN and IMMEDIATELY, BEFORE YOU CAN SAY "BOO," have spent a few pennies to get himself an incredibly deadly army of Cuirassiers.

Well, couldn't the other AIs do so? Hmmm... probably not Toku, as he doesn't build that many Horseback units, but Justinian might. Still, Justinian has his own source of Horses, so we really can't do much about that. Also, Justinian is at least far away from us... Saladin is our neighbour and could "surprise attack us" with a bunch of landed Cuirassiers before we realized that we were evan at war. Yikes!

So, if our entire team can commmit to watching the tech trading screen and watch to see when Saladin learns either Nationalism (since, if we don't learn it ourselves, we won't know if and when he's learned Military Tradition without using some extreme attention-to-detail on the tech screen, watching to see what he's got lised in the Can Research column, too) or Gunpowder, then immediately pillaging our Horse Resource.


UNFORTUNATELY, we cannot Pillage our Roads. So, we would be unable to have a Pasture on our Horse. So, for a short-term trading benefit with Saladin, we would lose out on the long-term benefit of being able to work our Pastured Horse. Do you think that this tradeoff is worth it? It could be, if he has something great to offer to us, but I don't see any Resources from Saladin on the trading table at this time, so I would tend towards NOT building a Road on our extra Horse Resource.


Isabella: She has a Unique Unit called the Conquistador. It is a mounted unit. With a mounted unit for her Unique Unit, she, too, will tend to build a lot of mounted units, like Chariots or Horse Archers. Those units can be upgraded extremely cheaply to Conquistadors, should she ever get that high in the tech tree.

Her Conquistadors are absolute BEASTS. They own Melee units like there is no tomorrow, getting a +50% bonus against them, on top of their already-high base 12 strength!!! Further, what is really scary, is that they are one of the few (perhaps the only) mounted unit to get DEFENSIVE BONUSES. One of the weaknesses of mounted units is that they don't get defensive bonuses. One of these puppies defending in a City is going to be tougher to take down than a couple of Longbowmen, and they aren't any easier to counter in the field, either.

She CANNOT be allowed to get a Horse Resource from us. Yuck. Those units are sickly powerful. So powerful, that it makes me want to go and play a game as her.


A similar argument can be made in terms of not connecting our Iron (do you want an AI like Isabella or Zara to get Crossbowmen, Swordsmen, Knights, Cannons, etc?) or our Ivory (we all know that War Elephants are overpowered--let's not give them away to an AI, okay?).


Unfortunately, circumstances work against us from being able to trade a Resource to an AI that already has said Resource.


As for your point about "lets have a backup source," that's a very neat idea. Fortunately, while not for our Ivory, but at least for our Horse and Iron Resources, we do have backup sources, and we have speedy Workers that get the Hagia Sophia bonus. 3 movement points to get there plus 2 turns to build a Road? I think that we are very safely going to have our backup sources available should our empire get into a state where the AIs have divided it up amongst each other and we're down to our last few Cities--we'll still be able to hook up our backup sources in such a case, but would otherwise never hook up them, so we are safe in that regard, too.

Good idea for us to "keep in mind" that even if our empire is falling to ruins around us, we will still have backup sources of Iron and Horse that we can connect "in a pinch" to help save our empire. Hopefully, the situation will not get to be so dire.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

And i don't know how difficult will be to set up a decent plan for me.

It won't be that hard to do. I have a lot of ideas on the subject already.

Getting war with Mehmed gives us a lot more flexibility and makes for a lot less "little rules" that you have to follow in terms of how you would handle the Isabella-Mehmed relationship.

BTW if Dhoom can help with some guidelines after your TS, i'll appreciate it.

Since there are so many thing that can happen between now and then, I'd rather wait to see how the situation pans out. You'll get your guidelines soon after Irgy has played, though.

For example, Toku has 2 Galleys on the horizon.

The entire strategy will change whether he declares on us (at which point Irgy should pause play) or whether he walks through our territory towards Zara (if he declares on Zara, Irgy should pause play). Counting the number of turns that it would take for Toku to be able to declare on Zara would bring us to approximately T233, which is after when Irgy will stop, so if Toku doesn't declare war on us, this situation will be the "mess" that you will have to deal with at the start of your turnset.

But, we'll talk about whichever possibility comes to pass after we know which one it is--I don't want to have to write TWO novels on the subject; just one, please.

I noticed that i was right on the circumnav bonus, even if no one spent a word on it.

Yeah, I guess that Mitchum and Irgy have just been taking the extra movement points for granted. They are probably used to getting this bonus in their games, so it's nothing really special to them.

To be fair, the circumnavigation would have happened during Mitchum's turnset, not Irgy's, and Mitchum was very pressed for time--it was either write a detailed report or provide us with an updated test saved game, and I think that he chose wisely by giving us the updated test saved game instead of the detailed report, wouldn't you agree?

 

[BLubmuz]

Mine wasn't a complain about the circumnavigation. I understood Mitch's time problems.
BTW i'm used too to gain it in my solo games and i know it's a great bonus, mainly in a less peaceful game.

And, if YOU think that's better start a holy war against Mehmed, let's do it. I never liked that guy. I still think it will be a phony war on our side, maybe just a couple of triremes can be enough, provided he can afford to attack us and he's not busy with Izzy.

And if you like to play a game as Izzy to toy with Conquistadores, let's just finish our practice game once this one is gone. I'd like to do it in any case.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

let's do it. I never liked that guy.

That reason can be just as valid of a reason to go to war as any of the reasons in the pages of notes that I wrote.

Keeping Mehmed technologically backwards is great, too, by bringing in war allies against him so that he can't trade with them, as it keeps him from getting to his Unique Unit: a Musketman called the Janissary that gets bonuses against Archery, Mounted, and Melee units (but not against Gunpowder or Siege units).

Toku won't trade anything to him (because Toku doesn't like to trade out techs), so I don't worry about him getting techs from Toku, and if we get Zara to go to war with him, then they'll dislike each other enough not to trade techs, either.

Mehmed's boats won't be able to go and "seek out" Justinian or Saladin due to our war status--likely it won't be until one of those latter two AIs sends out Caravels before they will meet up with Mehmed.

Self-techning to Gunpowder could take Mehmed a really, really long time (Feudalism, Machinery, Guilds, any other techs that he researches in the meantime, such as Currency, and finally, Gunpowder).

And if you like to play a game as Izzy to toy with Conquistadores, let's just finish our practice game once this one is gone. I'd like to do it in any case.

Hmm, good idea! Although not until AFTER this SGOTM is over, please.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

BTW if Dhoom can help with some guidelines after your TS, i'll appreciate it.

Stop the War against X during BLubz' Turnset
One thing that should be certain is that you will use the Apostolic Palace to vote to "Stop the War against X."

X will be us if Toku attacks us.

X will be Zara if Toku sails past us.


Now, here's another beautiful part about bribing Zara into war with Mehmed (assuming that he doesn't want all of our techs to join in on the war, but he shouldn't want that much, since it's pretty cheap to bribe an AI into war when you are already at war with the target): Zara will already be at war with a Confucian Member.

So, if Toku does not attack us, we can pre-emptively stop the war against Zara.

In particular, the Apostolic Palace's Resolution would have us "stop the war between all Members and the chosen Full Member (X) for 10 turns." So, by having Zara declare war on Mehmed, we can use the fact that Zara and Mehmed are at war to PREVENT TOKU FROM ATTACKING ZARA for a period of 10 turns.

Who knows, Toku might even be programmed to "cancel the war" due to being "unable to declare war." If not, it will buy Zara some time, so that the NEXT vote, should Toku declare after those 10 turns, will only be 3 to 4 turns away.


If, instead, we do NOT pick this "Stop the War against X" option, then Toku could have somewhere between 10 to 15 turns for his war to run its course before we can call another Apostolic Palace vote. Surely, within that large timeframe, we'll have at least one of those two war participants asking us to join the war or cancel deals with the other, hurting our Diplo situation.


So, regardless of who Toku attacks, we can confidently plan to vote on the "Stop the War against X" Resolution during the first bit of BLubz' turnset.


Closing Borders with Zara during BLubz' Turnset
Also, shortly before this event happens, it will be up to BLubz to cancel the Open Borders deal with Zara that should be put into place in 1 to 2 turns from now, as Irgy's turnset is scheduled to end just before that 10-turn time period.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Irgy's Turnset: Wheat Deal with Zara
Can you please cancel the Wheat deal with Zara on your first turn of play (T220)? It looks like there is no longer a turn timer on this deal.

Simply sell the Wheat back to Zara again for whatever he will offer to us, and if it's nothing, just gift it to him for nothing.

Since you'll be whipping in several Cities on your first turn of play (T220), we shouldn't need the extra Health from the Wheat during the rest of your turnset. We can decide during BLubz' turnset when we need to cancel the Wheat deal again if we should renew the deal or not, based on our Cities' Health levels at that point in time.


Be careful when starting up your turnset again--there aren't any active units
There is no "active unit" so be very careful when opening the saved game... we don't want you to accidentally advance the turn before you've whipped our buildings and then changed Civics (plus renogotiated this Wheat deal). T220 is the ideal time to be whipping in several Cities, preferably not on T221 due to an accidental Enter keypress (but if such a thing happens and the turn advances, we'll still go ahead with the whipping ASAP, but we'll just be behind by 1 turn in our plans).


On that note, try not to move at least 1 Worker or leave some unit with movement points on your last turn before handing the save off to BLubz. It's best to leave a few units without having made their moves if you have any doubt about what to do with them. The next UP player will have the benefit of a couple of days to think about what to do, so the more movements that you leave to the next player on your last turn, the easier it is for us to ensure that the units are doing what we want them to do.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

More Build Order adjustments for Irgy
After the Military Civics time period, here are some suggestions for what to build in Cities:

Risaia: Since we can't build a Confucian Monastary now (we'll switch to your military unit on T220), build the Confucian Monastary afterwards. If you choose to whip the Confucian Monastary after the Military-unit-building period (I don't know if you'll have enough population points to do so, but if you do) then the next build would be a Forge.

Sugar Daddy: After the Military units, build a Confucian Monastary, since we will already have whipped the Confucian Temple on T220 and won't need to immediately continue work on the Forge since we have Confucianism there.

Goldfish: I would suggest that we whip the Confucian Monastary on T226 (one turn after we have switched out of the Military Civics), since that will be the ideal time for whipping in this City (just before it grows to Size 3) and not only will the extra Hammers from the Confucian Monastary help, but more importantly, the extra Culture will help us to keep our "claim" on this City. Please add this point to your turn-by-turn PPP, since it's not easy to remember to go into a City to whip unless you check every turn or else have it in your PPP. I would make the next build item be a Buddhist Monastary, again with its relatively-cheap Cultural output in mind.

 

[havr]

Isabella: She has a Unique Unit called the Conquistador. It is a mounted unit. With a mounted unit for her Unique Unit, she, too, will tend to build a lot of mounted units, like Chariots or Horse Archers. Those units can be upgraded extremely cheaply to Conquistadors, should she ever get that high in the tech tree.

Her Conquistadors are absolute BEASTS. They own Melee units like there is no tomorrow, getting a +50% bonus against them, on top of their already-high base 12 strength!!! Further, what is really scary, is that they are one of the few (perhaps the only) mounted unit to get DEFENSIVE BONUSES. One of the weaknesses of mounted units is that they don't get defensive bonuses. One of these puppies defending in a City is going to be tougher to take down than a couple of Longbowmen, and they aren't any easier to counter in the field, either.

She CANNOT be allowed to get a Horse Resource from us. Yuck. Those units are sickly powerful. So powerful, that it makes me want to go and play a game as her.

I thought I saw indications in the previous posts that Isabella is weak, even dangerously weak (cannot let her be eliminated). Maybe if we give her access to her super-UU she will get stronger and hopefully cause trouble to other AIs.

(I didn't open the say so I am not really sure that isa is weak...)

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I thought I saw indications in the previous posts that Isabella is weak, even dangerously weak (cannot let her be eliminated). Maybe if we give her access to her super-UU she will get stronger and hopefully cause trouble to other AIs.

An interesting idea!

For now, she and Mehmed are at Peace with each other, but it is true that we would love to see them to go war with each other, so that we can gain Mutual Military Struggle bonuses with Isabella.

Let's hold off on connecting Strategic Resources (Horse, Iron, and Ivory) for now, but maintain the possibility of connecting one and gifting it to Isabella if she does join our "crusade" against the "evil" Mehmed and starts to lose badly.

We certainly do not want to make her strong and then find her attacking US instead!


One further thought is that if she loses a City, we can capture it. Since her two Cities that border Mehmed both have a Dye Resource, it could be a sneaky way for us to "guarantee" access to one of those Resources at the end of the game.

Alternatively, we could Liberate such a City to her, gaining us a +1 Diplo modifier for having "Liberated our City," should we feel that we need it.

So, for now, I'd rather keep her weak enough to be able to lose a City, but if she does lose a City and looks like she is in danger of being overrun, then we can certainly entertain the thought of making her strong enough with a Resource gift to stay alive.


It's a "permanent" thing though--if we connect up a Resource, we can only disconnect it if we choose not to work that square, as we can only pillage the improvement (the Horse Pasture, the Iron Mine, or the Ivory Camp) but not the Road itself through self-pillaging, so the decision must be made carefully.

(I didn't open the say so I am not really sure that isa is weak...)

She has 4 Cities to Mehmed's 8 Cities. Zara, too, has 4 Cities. Either Isabella or Zara could capitulate if put under enough pressure.

The hope is that if she loses a City, she won't capitulate as long as we're also at war with Mehmed, as to do so would mean going to war with us as well.

Even if it turns out that she went to war with us by becoming Mehmed's vassal, it would be fine, since we wouldn't have to use up one of our 2 "AIs that we are allowed to declare war against" targets, since she'd be the one declaring war on us.

In such a case, we could capture the Great Lighthouse from her. If we captured enough of her Cities, she could become liberated from the vassal relationship and then we could make peace with her and Liberate a couple of the captured Cities.


Basically, by being at war with Mehmed, we have this flexibility. If, on the other hand, we were to remain at peace with Mehmed, then such a vassalization of Isabella would be a dangerous thing, as the only way to attack them would be to use up both of our 2 "AIs that we are allowed to declare war against" targets in one single war.

 

[havr]

Just a question. What happened to our (brilliant) strategy of making the world a buddhistic heaven (except Ethiopia) by founding all religions and controling spread?
Did that fail, or is it still our main Diplo strategy?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Just a question. What happened to our (brilliant) strategy of making the world a buddhistic heaven (except Ethiopia) by founding all religions and controling spread?
Did that fail, or is it still our main Diplo strategy?

It's still there, but it is taking time to get there.

We're still at the stage where we are spreading Buddhism domestically, so we have yet to be able to create Missionaries for foreigners.


It now becomes debateable as to which Religion we want Mehmed to end up in, since we could make him the UN Opponent if our plans to make Zara our UN Opponent fail.

Technically, we should still be able to go with the plan of Zara being the UN Opponent.

Things that can mess up with the primary plan of making Zara our UN Opponent are:
1. Toku treating Zara as his Worst Enemy, which would mean that gifting the UN City to Zara would probably lose us Toku's vote. We're trying to address this situation by getting the two of them to share Open Borders via the Apostolic Palace's Resolutions, and hopefully, by making them common war allies against Mehmed.

2. Zara becoming someone's vassal. If he vassalizes to an AI, certain items can no longer be "traded" with Zara. One such this is "trading a war declaration," such as "War with Mehmed." The item that we care about the most, however, is that we would no longer be able to trade a City to Zara. We'd be prevented from gifting him the City with the UN in it. Our alternative to getting Zara this City would be to declare war on the Master as well as on Zara and let Zara capture the City, but the Master probably wouldn't vote for us, and the Master's friends might not want to vote for us either, so it wouldn't be an option to declare such a war. So, our choices are to do our best to keep Zara from being a vassal, finding someone else (such as Mehmed) to receive the UN, or somehow managing to beat Toku as our UN Opponent (since he'll likely have the most population points besides us and thus would automatically be our opponent).

3. Saladin spreading Buddhism aggressively. If Saladin starts sending out Caravels with Buddhism in them, then Zara might become a Buddhist. Other AIs might actually vote for Zara over us in a UN vote, so it would help to have a "hated AI" take the UN off of our hands (Mehmed) in such a situation. It will be tricky to get Saladin and Justinian to hate Mehmed, but perhaps we can selectively capture certain Cities of Mehmed's that would force him into a different religion. Alternatively, we could LET him get into Free Religion so that the Buddhists wouldn't like him so much and then make peace with him after the Victory Vote, taking "Switch to Theocracy" as one of the Peace consessions. We'd need Spies in his Cities as a backup option, in case, say, he'd switched Civics within the past 5 turns and was unable to offer that "Switch to Theocracy" peace consession.


All of that said, Mehmed will be easier to control if he doesn't have every single Religion spread to him, as we can always capture and "lose" Cities (on purpose) to him after having spread the Missionary of choice to said Cities. We could even raze Cities (or just keep them) that have Religions in them that we don't want him to have.

We gain this flexibility by going to war with him.


Ideally, we would have waited to meet Mehmed until we had Buddhist Missionaries at his gates, but he met us early by snagging Confucianism in at least one of his Cities. In the final analysis, it looks like he wouldn't have voted for us anyway (unless we decided to totally shun Isabella). Shunning Isabella has the danger of allowing her to become someone's vassal, which makes it easier for said Master to start vassalizing the rest of the world, starting with Zara (see point 2 above why that would be a bad thing).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Confucian Isabella?
In fact, we may even want to build a couple of CONFUCIAN Missionaries for Isabella (say, in Ivory Towers).

With 2 of her Cities having Confucianism, we should be able to pay her to temporarily switch State Religions to Confucianism.

There is a much smaller risk of her going into Free Religion due to having each of Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism at the end of the game than the risk of Mehmed going into Free Relgion, since she has Theocracy has her Favourite Civic. Even if she did switch, she'd probably be willing to be bribed into her Favourite Civic, and with all of the AIs around having that same Fave Civic, she'd be more likely to "stick with the crowd," even with 3 Religions in her hands.

By making her have Confucianism as her State Religion right before an Apostolic Palace vote comes up, we can effectively stop any war against her with any AI that has Confucianism in one of their Cities (Mehmed and Toku).


Obviously, the end goal would be to make her Buddhist, but if we were able to keep her alive by also allowing her to be Confucianist, then it might be a good option to explore.

 

[Irgy]

Ok, a lot of posts. I'm convinced by the sheer weight of Dhoomstrikers argument (the physical weight of all those words if nothing else ) that this war with Mehmed plan is the go.

I think I'm ready to finish off the turnset tonight in that case, following Dhoomstriker's advice of declaring once the open borders resolution is through. I'll need to run over all the other comments as well to see what else I need to add to the plan.

Just a couple of quick and easy replies:

Irgy's Turnset: Wheat Deal with Zara
Can you please cancel the Wheat deal with Zara on your first turn of play (T220)? It looks like there is no longer a turn timer on this deal.

Simply sell the Wheat back to Zara again for whatever he will offer to us, and if it's nothing, just gift it to him for nothing.

Since you'll be whipping in several Cities on your first turn of play (T220), we shouldn't need the extra Health from the Wheat during the rest of your turnset. We can decide during BLubz' turnset when we need to cancel the Wheat deal again if we should renew the deal or not, based on our Cities' Health levels at that point in time.

Yes, sorry, I should have cancelled it last turn, and indeed had even written down to, but it slipped anyway. I hadn't forgotten about it though.

Be careful when starting up your turnset again--there aren't any active units
There is no "active unit" so be very careful when opening the saved game... we don't want you to accidentally advance the turn before you've whipped our buildings and then changed Civics (plus renogotiated this Wheat deal). T220 is the ideal time to be whipping in several Cities, preferably not on T221 due to an accidental Enter keypress (but if such a thing happens and the turn advances, we'll still go ahead with the whipping ASAP, but we'll just be behind by 1 turn in our plans).


On that note, try not to move at least 1 Worker or leave some unit with movement points on your last turn before handing the save off to BLubz. It's best to leave a few units without having made their moves if you have any doubt about what to do with them. The next UP player will have the benefit of a couple of days to think about what to do, so the more movements that you leave to the next player on your last turn, the easier it is for us to ensure that the units are doing what we want them to do.

I was going to do that on the last turn of the turnset. The trouble was, I just saved so that I could quit and check whether or not I needed to pause the turnset. It was only afterwards that I ended up deciding to upload the save, and I didn't think of opening it back up to activate a unit first. All just silly excuses of course, but just letting you know what's going on.

 

[Irgy]

So, just a quick question (hopefully someone's about). It's turn 223. Izzy is demanding I switch to Hinduism. I'm inclined to do so. We will lose the benefit of Theocracy for a few turns, but imho it's no big deal. The plus side is that by pleasing Izzy we can likely talk her into joining us and Zara in this war with Mehmed. She's been free to do so since last turn, but wouldn't because she "didn't like us enough".

 

[Dhoomstriker]

So, just a quick question (hopefully someone's about). It's turn 223. Izzy is demanding I switch to Hinduism. I'm inclined to do so. We will lose the benefit of Theocracy for a few turns, but imho it's no big deal. The plus side is that by pleasing Izzy we can likely talk her into joining us and Zara in this war with Mehmed. She's been free to do so since last turn, but wouldn't because she "didn't like us enough".

If you agree to her request, then we'd lose out on Theocracy bonuses for almost all of our Military units produced during your turnset, as well as Org Rel bonuses on overflow Hammers from Military units when we switch our Civics back.


-1 Diplo Relations with her should still keep her at Cautious, instead of taking her down to Annoyed.


I guess the question becomes--do we fear an attack from her? I would think that the answer is "no," but you're in the best spot to judge that. If you fear an attack from her, then I suppose we could accept, but otherwise, due to her valuing Religion so much, it should be just as easy for BLubz to switch into Hinduism at a better time during his turnset to be able to bribe her into the war vs Mehmed.


Since the timing is so poor (we'd go from having units that are easily promotable to a second promotion after a single fight to having units that aren't really all that easy to promote), and since she wouldn't go down an Attitude Level if we refused, and since we can still likely count on her help later by switching Religion and even gifting her a bit of Gold to make up for the -1 with a +1 Fair Trading bonus, I think that we can safely refuse her request.