SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

Dhoomstriker · Jul 18, 2010

Mitchum said:
AI Demands for Gold
If an AI demands a quantity of Gold of 200 Gold or less, and the AI making the Demand is not the Worst Enemy of anyone, then I will give into the Demand.

Since less than 200 Gold is such a small amount, I'd be tempted to give into such a Demand even to Isabella or Zara, since it shouldn't increase Traded with our Worst Enemy negative Diplo modifers by TOO much. I guess it depends upon thresholds--if you're fearing an attack from Zara and you're just barely at Friendly with him, then it makes sense to keep him Friendly, but if it happens after you're Friendly +1 (for example, he'll go up to +8 with us just for Religion alone, so there is room to grow that relationship), then there is "Diplo room" enough to take a -1 hit without him being allowed to declare war on us.

If we get a non GS, I will push for another quick great person by running scientists in Delhi in the hopes that we get a GS in time to bulb half of Education. When were close to getting this next great person, I will switch research to Compass to prevent researching too many beakers into Education such that a GS bulb will not waste any beakers.

Of course, if you were successfully able to receive Machinery in trade by this point, you would be better off putting said research towards Printing Press (which has Machinery as a pre-requisite tech), with the hope to get more of the full amount of Compass in trade.

That said, your current plan of having some Flasks invested into Compass is better than having our Gold Demanded away, should we be unable to get Machinery in trade by this point in the game.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 18, 2010

Future Lightbulbing of Great Scientists
Our Great Scientists will presumably be used for:
1. Lightbulbing part of Education, should we get a Great Scientist in time to do so
2. Lightbulbing techs after Scientific Method. Those techs would be, in order:
Physics (good)
Chemistry (bad)
Biology (bad)
Electricity (good)
Fission (useless)

That means that we will want to only received ONE of the two following techs in trade, in order to block Chemistry from being Lightbulbable:
Gunpowder OR Engineering, which are the two pre-requsites to Chemistry.

If we get only one of those two techs in trade, Great Scientsts will Lightbulb:
Physics (good)
Electricity (good)
Fission (useless)

After we learn Electricity, if we THEN trade for both Gunpowder AND Engineering, any extra Great Scientists that we receive will Lightbulb:
Chemistry (could be useful at that point for Frigates or Privateers, especially if the AIs have Privateers of their own and wants to "sink" our Great People)
Fission (useless)
Biology (would have been nice, but Lightbulbing won't give it to us)

Now, we really shouldn't need Biology to win. However, in the small case where multiple AIs are getting Privateers and where we managed to get a ton of Great Scientists instead of Great Prophets, or we have at least one such AI (that has Privateers and thus has Chemistry) at Friendly with us, we can consider trading away a couple of techs to other AIs to get us Gunpowder and Engineering, then trading for Chemistry with the Friendly AI that has Privateers.

Then, Biology would be open for Lightbulbing.

The downside is that then we'd probably use up most or all of our Great People in Lightbulbing and we'd need 4 of them for the end of the game. The minor upside is that future Great People will come faster, due to having Lightbulbed Biology. A more significant upside is the ability to more safely shuttle our Great People to the Fur, without worrying about Privateers sinking our Great People.

So, it's a matter of cost-vs-benefit analysis that we'll have to make as the time approaches and the exact makeup of our Great People is known.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 18, 2010

Irgy,

Since you will up next, do you have any idea of what you're going to do during your turnset?

As a suggestion to get you prepared, perhaps you can start by downloading the Latest Test Saved game from my earlier message. Then, you can follow through the "Non-worker Unit Movements" and "Turn-by-turn Plan" sections of Mitchum's PPP.

Although the Turn-by-turn Plan isn't QUITE yet complete, it'll give you a picture of what he's up to in his turnset, so you'll know what kinds of things he'll be facing and thus what kind of a situation you'll have to continue playing from. I did so and found it quite illuminating.

The fact is that you basically have "5 quick days" to focus on the game, get a PPP up, get it finalized, and play the game. There's not a lot of time there, so the more involved that you can get with the game ahead of time, the more smoothly things will run. Essentially, it is a way to buy yourself an extra day of time to prepare for your turnset.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 18, 2010

BLubmuz said:
So, Whales is decided.

Well, building the Settler for Whale City and getting that Settler into place has been decided.

But, do we need to really settle it immediately? Can it wait, like other Cities waited, until an AI threatens to settle the area ahead of us or until we finally get some Courthouses built?

I mean, we are short on Workers as it is, so the City will hurt our economy until it can work an improved square, and even after it is working an improved square (since the squares there are quite horrid, including the Ice Silver), it will still hurt our economy.

Also, what DO we plan to work in that City? 1 Silver Resource, just to have the City almost pay for itself, until the City can get out a couple of useful buildings? That would turn it into a Silverado Clone... a City that just stagnates at Size 1 but doesn't cost THAT much in Maintenance, which it (mostly) makes up for by working a Commerce square plus maybe some positive Trade Route income.

Then... slow-build a Granary and a Lighthouse until we get our State Religion spread there, then chop out those buildings (for the Org Rel bonus)? Maybe by then we won't even be using Org Religion? Maybe we will use Org Religion for a short 5-turn period to whip (in other Cities) and chop (here) in our empire temporarily, before going back to Pacifism?

Then, once another City has built a Work Boat for Whale City, Whale City can start to work the Whale, slow-growing into being able to work the Whale, an Irrigated Non-river Grassland square, and either a GHRiv Mine or a Silver?

Sound like a plan?

Irgy · Jul 18, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
Irgy,

Since you will up next, do you have any idea of what you're going to do during your turnset?

Well, some idea. I played through the old test game, and I've had a bit of a play around with the new one. Not quite enough to make intelligent comments on the PPP (which is mostly why I've been so quiet) but enough that I've got the gist of what's going on.

I have to admit, for all that I'm not going away anywhere, I'm more busy than usual at the moment as we're moving house in a few weeks and I've got a blood-bowl tournament on this weekend. I've still got more than enough spare time to do the turn properly though, it's just a matter of negotiating the use of that time with my better half

Mitchum's turnset will probably (hopefully) be complete before I get another chance to look at the test save.

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
Future Lightbulbing of Great Scientists

The goal is to get to Mass Media as quickly as possible. I'm not overly worried about the techs after MM. In addition to Education, Physics and Electricity, we can also bulb Printing Press and Astronomy. However, we should try to have 2 GSs saved up for Physics and three more (2 plus the free 1 from Physics) ready for Electricity. If we have these 4 + 1 free GSs ready and waiting, we can go from Scientific Method to Radio in just a handful of turns. Wouldn't it be great if we could then use Liberalism to take Radio!!

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

OK, I just ran into the character limit (30,000) when trying to update my PPP. It's never happened to me before, but I'm sure Dhoomstriker has hit it many, many, many times...

I'm set to play tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then it won't happen. I will try to play at about 10 AM Pacific Time (California). If any AI demands or trades come up, I'll post and wait. If you want me to hold up play or have comments, please post them before 9 AM and I will incorporate them into my plan... or I won't play at all if the comments require more discussion.

I updated Dhoomstriker's suggestions about demands for gold and researching Printing Press rather than Compass if available.

Here is the updated Turn-by-Turn plan:

Turn-by-Turn Plan

Spoiler :

Dhoomstriker · Jul 19, 2010

Music and Gifting Literature

Dhoomstriker said:
the AIs will probably completely ignore self-teching this tech, now that The Great Library is gone. So, likely only one more AI will get this tech, on their way to Music.

Dhoomstriker said:
All of this stuff goes to pot if Saladin is the one to get the Great Artist--either we'll lose the western Gold or we'll lose the Crab, depending upon which City he Culture Bombs. So, in that respect, it might make sense to trade Literature to Toku ASAP, since he has the highest tech rate, the best chance of beating Saladin to Music, and won't trade around the tech. If Zara weren't Toku's Worst Enemy, I'd say give Literature to Zara, too, since he favours Music reasonably strongly, but we can't trade to Zara TOO FREQUENTLY without angering Toku for the rest of the game...

Justinian would just turn around and give Literature to Saladin

Okay, so we gave up getting Music for ourselves.

Saladin getting it would suck, as he could easily steal our Crab permanently or takeover Goldfish, taking on 2 Golds and a Fish permanently.

Even Zara getting it would suck, as we might lose Riverdale prematurely. I don't mind trading with Zara if it makes sense to do so. Say, Zara gets Metal Casting--we can see what he'll research next. If he goes after Machinery next, we'll aim to get Machinery from Zara and get Metal Casting from someone else, for example. That kind of "fair value" tech trading will wear off. But, gifting a tech like Literature to Zara will likely create a much longer effect upon Toku that won't wear off immediately like our other "fair value" trades will do.

So, I've made a case to give Literature to Toku and I still stand by that. He's unlikely to chase the tech himself, but AIs DO evaluate tech research up to 3 techs in advance. They also count tech pre-requisites in terms of evaluating the cost vs benefit of each tech. If we give Literature to Toku, Music will become cheaper for him in his calculations and will become a more attractive option.

We all know that Literature makes for terrible trade bait. What you may not know is that AIs try to be "fair" with their trading--it may seem like they "always trade around amongst each other," but to be honest, if they REALLY did that, especially if they colluded with each other or used Espionage from each other to research techs that the others weren't going to research and would just "trade around for any kind of a deal that they can get" like a human player can do, then they'd consistently get pre-1000-AD Space Victories. The fact is that the AIs do not trade this way and thus are constrained by finding a "fair deal."

That's part of the reason why you so rarely see +4 Fair and Forthright Trade Relations amongst AIs unless the AIs just recently met each other (which is a special case because of dividing by the number of turns of contact for the value of a trade, making such a trade always "worth" a lot more in terms of the Fair and Forthright Trade Relations Diplo Modifier).

So, for example, I don't foresee Justinian trading Literature away to Saladin for Feudalism unless Justinian has almost completely researched Feudalism himself.

Justinian, on the other hand, weights Drama with a high value. Consider that it's his Unique-building-unlocking tech, which not only encourages him to research it, it also can be an uber-source of Happiness in the hands of an AI, even potentially stronger than Monarchy.

So, my suggestion on T192 is to:
1. Gift Literature to Toku (we get 3 times the "credit" for gifting a tech than we do for selling it, from what I've been informed, plus I just took all of his Gold on this turn for Theology, so we have no choice but to gift it--we might as well gift it to him first, to hopefully help "offset" all of the "bad" trading that we've been doing with Zara). Whatever, it doesn't matter if it works, it's a chance at working in our favour and that's good enough for me in deciding who gets Literature first, so just trade with him first.
2. Next, trade with Justinian for whatever he'll give us. I traded theology to him LAST turn, before we had researched Paper, so I missed out on getting his World Maps. We should be able to snag those and whatever Gold he has. That way, your exploring Galley might have no work left to do, or if he does, it'll just be "not cutting corners" in order to search for islands, since when you automate your Work Boats to explore, they tend to "cut corners," which means that the AIs probably do the same thing.

There's a whole layer of complexity on AI tech research. I was reading up on it and the code if very elaborate and complicated, but it basically comes down to the facts that:
- Toku is the tech leader, so he has the best chance of beating Saladin to Music
- Justinian strongly favours Drama and favours Music more than Saladin and Toku, so if we hand him Literature, he'll be more likely to chase after those 2 techs, since an AI "looks ahead" as far as 3 techs and will weight the techs, including increasing the chance of researching a tech (like Music) based on it being cheaper due to having one of its pre-reqs (like Literature).
- Unless Justinian is researching Feudalism now or goes for it next, he won't be able to get Feudalism in trade for Literature. Basically, he won't get any tech in trade for it unless he first partially researches that tech or has a ton of Gold surplus (and you're about to buy up all of his Gold surplus). Finally, if he chases after Music himself, he'll hold onto Literature (and Drama, if he researches it), so Saladin will be left out in the cold. On the turn that Music is learned, though, we should seriously consider giving Literature to Saladin, assuming that he has not become a Worst Enemy (say, of Isabella's if she gets peace?), since at that point Justinian will either have Music or will stop chasing after it and Literature (and Drama, if he has it) will be more likely traded away to his "Friend," Saladin.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 19, 2010

Mitchum said:
OK, I just ran into the character limit (30,000) when trying to update my PPP. It's never happened to me before, but I'm sure Dhoomstriker has hit it many, many, many times...

For a forum that encourages people to share their thoughts and ideas, it is kind of a shame when you run into that limit.

That said, SOME kind of a practical limit is important, to avoid someone spamming the contents of their entire thesis or some other huge and important-to-them but maybe not-as-important-to-a-lot-of-us kind of a document.

I think that the worst experience that I had was after typing up an XOTM report, where I got that warning message, so I found about the halfway point and cut the second half of the text out--only to get the same message about being over the character limit with HALF of what I'd previously written... :lol:

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
Music and Gifting Literature

So, my suggestion on T192 is to:
1. Gift Literature to Toku (we get 3 times the "credit" for gifting a tech than we do for selling it, from what I've been informed, plus I just took all of his Gold on this turn for Theology, so we have no choice but to gift it--we might as well gift it to him first, to hopefully help "offset" all of the "bad" trading that we've been doing with Zara). Whatever, it doesn't matter if it works, it's a chance at working in our favour and that's good enough for me in deciding who gets Literature first, so just trade with him first.
2. Next, trade with Justinian for whatever he'll give us. I traded theology to him LAST turn, before we had researched Paper, so I missed out on getting his World Maps. We should be able to snag those and whatever Gold he has. That way, your exploring Galley might have no work left to do, or if he does, it'll just be "not cutting corners" in order to search for islands, since when you automate your Work Boats to explore, they tend to "cut corners," which means that the AIs probably do the same thing.

I've added this to my detailed, turn-by-turn PPP in post 2267.

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

I will play in about 30 minutes...

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

I've made it to T198 without any issues. We got our Great Engineer in Delhi at 60% odds.

On T198, Zara came asking for CoL. Per our pre-agreed arrangement, I would come back and consult the team on what to do in such a situation. I'm inclined to accept his request, but I'd like some quick feedback. I'll wait 30 minutes and then proceed.

On another note, Christianity spread to Addis Ababa (Zara's fourth city) on T193. He now has three religions...

In other news, Isabella get a Great General on T195, so the war is ongoing, much to our delight.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 19, 2010

Mitchum said:
On T198, Zara came asking for CoL. Per our pre-agreed arrangement, I would come back and consult the team on what to do in such a situation. I'm inclined to accept his request, but I'd like some quick feedback. I'll wait 30 minutes and then proceed.

Some quick questions:
1. Can you check the F4 -> TECHS screen and tell us if anyone else knows Code of Laws? Saladin was scheduled to learn it, and if it's not a complete monopoly tech, it could get traded away by Saladin to Justinian or Toku at anytime anyway, so giving it away would be less hurtful than if we still had a monopoly on Code of Laws.

2. Did Zara give us +6 for Shared Religion yet?

3. Have you cancelled Open Borders with Zara yet?

4. Are Justinian and Toku still in "have our hands full" mode?

5. Can you check the F4 -> GLANCE screen to confirm that Toku is still Cautious with us?

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
Some quick questions:
1. Can you check the F4 -> TECHS screen and tell us if anyone else knows Code of Laws? Saladin was scheduled to learn it, and if it's not a complete monopoly tech, it could get traded away by Saladin to Justinian or Toku at anytime anyway, so giving it away would be less hurtful than if we still had a monopoly on Code of Laws.

2. Did Zara give us +6 for Shared Religion yet?

3. Have you cancelled Open Borders with Zara yet?

4. Are Justinian and Toku still in "have our hands full" mode?

5. Can you check the F4 -> GLANCE screen to confirm that Toku is still Cautious with us?

Sorry. I should have provided that information the first time.

1. Yes, Saladin learned CoL on T193 as you suggested he would.

2. No, we are still at +5 for shared religion with Zara.

3. No, we still have OB with Zara.

4. Yes, Justinian, Toku and Izzy are still WHEOOHRN.

5. Yes, Toku is still cautious with us at +0.

Also, Zara is still Tokugawa's worst enemy, so nothing has changed there.

Dhoomstriker · Jul 19, 2010

Answering Mitchum's Dilemma

Alright, the way that I see things, here are the risks of REFUSING Zara's Demand:
1. Zara could stop being Friendly with us and thus could attack us. It is LIKELY that we will, instead of being "Friendly + 1," we will simply be "exactly Friendly" with him, but I'm not certain about this fact. What I do know is that we are BARELY Friendly with Zara, by either 0 or 1 extra positive Diplo modifiers. So, it is POSSIBLE that Zara could immediately capture 2 of our Cities by declaring war "on his turn" before we can even whip any units if we are currently "exactly Friendly" with him, he goes down to Pleased, and attacks based on a Refused Demand. Note that Zara has positive values for both "iDemandRebukedSneakProb" and "iDemandRebukedWarProb." Also note that he can go to war with a player if he is Pleased with them, meaning that he could go to war if we are currently at "exactly Friendly" with him.

2. Even if we stay at "Friendly" after refusing his Demand, we will now be forced to keep Open Borders with Zara for a longer time period, just to keep him at Friendly, due to the extra -1 for Refusing his Demand. That would greatly increase the chances of Toku asking us to cancel our deals with Zara. If that happens, then we'll have the choice of taking one of two bad options:
a) Toku gets -2 with us that takes a really long time to decay (a lot longer than the Traded with our Worst Enemy penalty takes to decay)
OR
b) Zara is immediately Pleased instead of Friendly with us and chooses to use our earlier refusal of his tech as an excuse to attack us immediately. We would at least get 1 turn to rush units, but rushing a unit in Wheaties probably means missing out on The Apostolic Palace

Zara has us by the throat and he knows it.

Now, if we GIVE INTO Zara's Demand, we have an interesting situation:
1. Toku will hate us a bit longer for trading with Zara, but honestly, if we trade with Zara for Metal Casting or Machinery, Toku will hate us just as much (-4 Worst Enemy Trading), so there's no real change here, other than the fact that we won't be able to get Toku to Pleased for a while. Getting Toku to Pleased would only help if ALL AIs minus ONE AI know a tech, at which point Toku would finally be willing to trade with a player that he is Pleased with. Since this situation is very unlikely, at least for the techs that we want to trade, the fact that we will keep Toku at his maximum of -4 Traded with my Worst Enemy penalty isn't going to affect us in any way in terms of tech trading, and this value will wear off faster than other negative Diplo penalties will wear off.

2. Zara will actually LIKE us more. That means that we can IMMEDIATELY cancel Open Borders with Zara, without waiting for the Shared Religion bonus to kick in. That means that there will a greatly reduced risk of Toku asking us to cancel deals with Zara... I don't know how the code handles a situation where your only Trade Deal is an uncancellable one, but at least we'd remove one of the two trading possibilities (Open Borders) while still trading a Resource with Zara (the other trading possibility), so the risk of Toku complaining would go down

3. Zara will BE UNABLE TO ATTACK US for 10 turns. That means that if we are asked to switch into Buddhism, we can do so safely, as we won't care that much about angering Zara for the duration of the switch. We'll still want to switch back into Confucianism ASAP for our Apostolic Palace strategy to work, but we gain flexibility of not NECESSARILY having to refuse an AI's Demand to switch into Buddhism. We would still refuse a request to switch into Hinduism, though, as doing so would halt construction on the Apostolic Palace. We'd also probably have to consider refusing to switch into Buddhism if the Apostolic Palace is due to be completed within less than 6 turns, counting any whipping that we'd planned to put into it, but at least we'd buy a "window" of turns where we could feasibly switch (assuming that Buddhism was or gets successfully spread in Wheaties, that is).

4. While it sucks that Zara would get Code of Laws, perhaps he will:
a) Trade it to get a tech that we want to trade for from him, such as part of Metal Casting
OR
b) Trade it with an AI that Toku somewhat likes and then Toku will hate that AI for trading with Zara, his Worst Enemy. Such an AI, for example, might be Saladin or Justinian, who last I knew, were AIs that Toku was Pleased with and thus won't go down to Annoyed level from just -4

So, as long as Toku is still Pleased with both Saladin and Justinian, which would be a flaw in my argument if he wasn't, I will vote to give Code of Laws to Zara and then, BEFORE YOU CLOSE THE TRADING WINDOW, if it is at all possible, ask Zara to cancel the Open Borders deal, just in case the NEXT window that appears is a window with Toku asking you to do that very thing (Cancel deals with Zara)...

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

Dhoomstriker said:
So, as long as Toku is still Pleased with both Saladin and Justinian, which would be a flaw in my argument if he wasn't, I will vote to give Code of Laws to Zara and then, BEFORE YOU CLOSE THE TRADING WINDOW, if it is at all possible, ask Zara to cancel the Open Borders deal, just in case the NEXT window that appears is a window with Toku asking you to do that very thing (Cancel deals with Zara)...

Yes, Toku is still pleased with both Saladin and Justinian. I'll wait a few more minutes. If no other replies, I'll play and accept the request.

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

OK, I've played and uploaded the save. I'm going to be brief because I need to update the test save for Irgy and this is the last chance I have to do so. If you have any questions, just ask.

The highlights:

We got the Parthenon in Delhi, the AP in Wheaties, the National Epic in GP Farm and Moai in Silverado. We got a GE first and a GS second as expected by the odds.

The only tech trade I did was Feudalism to Justinian for Metal Casting. I did also give Toku Literature and traded it to Justinian for his map as suggested before I started.

Regarding cultural pressure, we finally got the cows in Riverdale. We are slowling increasing our cultural control over the tiles we already have. We are at a standstill for Crabs crab and Gold Fish's second gold.

No AI have learned Music yet, so we just have to hope that Toku or Justinian beat Sal to it.

Tokugawa completed Shwedagon Paya on T200. He's still running Theocracy.

Toku, Justinian and Izzy are still WHEOOHRN. Zara is still Toku's worst enemy. No one else has a worst enemy (that we know, at least). Isabella and Toku finally met on T206.

We just recently won the AP vote, so we should be able to propose resolutions soon.

Our GS is set to research the rest of Eduction, but I haven't done it yet.

Any thing else you need to know? I'm off to finish the test game...

Dhoomstriker · Jul 19, 2010

Shwedagon Paya

Mitchum said:
Tokugawa completed Shwedagon Paya on T200. He's still running Theocracy.

The part about Toku staying in Theocracy is a relief. It's also a self-fulfilling prophecy... the longer that he remains in Theocracy, the more that only Buddhism will spread to him, so the more inclined he will be to stay in a non-Free-Religion Religious Civic!

The Apostolic Palace Gambit

Toku, Justinian and Izzy are still WHEOOHRN. Zara is still Toku's worst enemy. No one else has a worst enemy (that we know, at least). Isabella and Toku finally met on T206.

We just recently won the AP vote, so we should be able to propose resolutions soon.

Okay, so here is our dilemma:
1. Zara is a great tech-trading partner.
AND
2. Toku hates us every time that we trade with Zara.
AND
3. Toku is coming after one of us (Zara or us), since we're the only players that he knew that weren't his Buddhist Buddies. Okay, sure, he has a chance to declare even on the two AIs that he is Pleased with, but he would have attacked them by now if that were true, what with his almost continuous tech lead and close proximity to them.

So, if Toku declares war on us, we can use the Apostolic Palace to stop the war. However, we won't really benefit much from that war and it'll be a struggle to rebuild our Open Borders and Resource Trades with him, as we'll need to get to Pleased (or at least use the Apostolic Palace for the Open Borders part). Still, we won't come out ahead.

If Toku declares war on Zara, then they are never going to like each other and we'll be hearing about it until the end of the game, where either side will ask us to stop trading with the other, and while they are at war, to join their side in the war.

Now, what if we used the Apostolic Palace to DECLARE a war? Well, if an AI that is planning a war gets involved in a war, their war plans disappear out of the window. So, what if we use the Apostolic Palace to declare a Holy War that TOKU is involved in? That would mean that he would give up on his current war target and become our Attack Dog!

He would ALSO:
1. Give us Mutual Military Struggle points
AND
2. Give Mutual Military Struggle points to Zara
AND
3. Start liking Zara enough to get rid of the Worst Enemy penalty so that we can ONCE AGAIN TRADE WITH ZARA ALL THAT WE WANT TO
AND
4. Still not like Zara enough to vote for Zara over us in the end
AND
5. We'd be keeping Zara from becoming a vassal

So, how do we do it? Well, first we need to declare war on an AI. Then, we simply put up the vote. The vote could get DEFIED, but if an AI simply votes NO, then, since we have enough votes to make the war vote pass, the Holy War will be ON!

The beautiful part is that whomever we choose to be our target will only hate us by -3, not an additional -2 for each War Ally that we bribe to join!!!

So, who would be our war target?

Even Justinian or Saladin COULD become our target, for the sole fact that we would only take a -3 Diplo relations hit with them, although we'd have to rebuild our over-time trading bonuses with said AI. Plus, there is a risk that Toku would vassalize one of them, and there is a strong chance that we'd simply lose Goldfish without being able to take any of their Cities. It wouldn't be too hard for one of them to bribe the other into war AGAINST ONLY US, and our Holy Alliance wouldn't help us out in that regard... Toku would just let the other AI's troops walk through his territory to be able to sneakily pounce on us.

So, no, those guys are out.

What about Isabella? Well, unfortunately, Isabella seems to have sneakily gotten the other AIs to like her due to their Shared Favourite Civic bonus. So, to declare war on her means a -1 Diplo modifier with Justinian and Saladin. That's not the end of the world, but if we can avoid it, let's avoid it. Plus, she's still only got 4 Cities, so there is a risk that (while Zara wouldn't) Toku might vassalize her.

So, how about Mehmed? Well, thanks to the Great Wall graphic, we can see that he has a lot of territory. Certainly, he has 3 Cities and they are well-spread out, indicating that he easily has another 3 or 4 Cities in between them. Given that situation, he'd be tough for someone like Toku to vassalize.

So, what would we need to do?

Step 1. Meet Mehmed before the first Apostolic Palace vote comes up. If we beeline there right away with our Ivory Towers' Galley, we should be able to make it
Step 2. Possibly trade for whatever techs, Gold, and World Maps he will offer. We'll anger Isabella, but then we'll shortly get Mutual Military Struggle points with her, so it'll all balance out, and she'll eventually forget about the Worst Enemy trading transgression
Step 3. Right after that, declare war on Mehmed. We don't want Mehmed to get Confucianism in any of his Cities. If he gets that, then our plans are off, as we won't be able to successfully claim a Holy War. We know that he doesn't have this Religion as having the Religion spreads "contact," just like building the United Nations will do, and we haven't been contacted by him yet. So, there is still a window of opportunity here before the random number generator decides to spread him the Religion with the Holy City that is closest to his homeland.
Step 4. Send a Longbowman over to Ivory Towers.
Step 5. Build a few Triremes, to be able to withstand anything that he can throw at us. Remember that he'll be busy with Isabella for a while, so there's no need to kill our economy to fulfill this goal--we can just make it a slow but sure priority.
Step 6. When the Apostolic Palace vote comes up, vote to start a Holy War against the Heathen Mehmed. As long as he's still a Heathen, we're in good company. With us being at war with him, the chance of Confucianism spreading from our borders is extremely tiny, as he needs a "connection" to the Confucian Holy City, which we conveniently just happen to control.

BAM! Toku and Zara fall into line on our side.
BAM! Toku forgets all about his other planned war.
BAM! Toku starts to like Zara enough for us to trade with Zara
BAM! With Zara at war, he can't backstab us if we're asked to switch into Buddhism
BAM! With only a -3 Diplo Modifier against Mehmed, he might even vote for us in the end. Or, if enough AIs hate him, we can consider capturing a large City of his with Forests nearby and gift HIM the United Nations... that last one is a long-shot, but it's a possibility. If we can't get his vote, we'll take a couple of Cities near the end and maybe Toku will vassalize him for being smaller-sized--who cares, the vote will be between us and Zara thanks to our new Cities giving us more voting value that Mehmed's half-valued Cities to Toku. Mehmed can then be our "backup" Voting Opponent in case Zara gets cold feet and somehow manages to become someone's vassal.

Quintuple BAMs. Hard to beat that!

Irgy · Jul 19, 2010

Good work on the turnset Mitchum

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.

Mitchum · Jul 19, 2010

Here is the test save. The techs of the other AI are off. We met Peter (Mehmed) in the test, but not the real save. Our beakers are off and our gold is too (I could have fixed it but forgot).

But, our worker actions, builds, hammers and food are exact. So, we can use this test save to work out MM details.

Good luck!!

SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

Girlie Builder

Girlie Builder

Girlie Builder

Girlie Builder

Emperor

Deity

Deity

Girlie Builder

Girlie Builder

Deity

Deity

Deity

Girlie Builder

Deity

Girlie Builder

Deity

Deity

Girlie Builder

Emperor

Deity

Attachments

Similar threads