SGOTM 11 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

for the next 3 weeks I'll hardly post anything as I'm once again spending some time at the barracks... So make sure you include some pics

I think mysty is still gaining XP in his private RAX...

Both he and I could use an occasional pic.

I in particular would be interested to see a pic showing the diplo relations for us and all the AIs in addition to any pic which shows the powere rankings down in the lower right-hand corner.

 

[babybluepants]

Spoiler :

 

[Mutineer]

Problem as I see it that Maxmed has mach more and and better land, after he develop it.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm starting to think Mehmed may be our best war target. He's a bit of a unit spammer but if we strike with highly advanced units, we might be able to whittle him down efficiently while capitulating him, thereby ensuring silk and dyes. This should also prop up Toku as the UN opponent assuming he doesn't get destroyed warring against Saladin (which he really shouldn't).

 

[babybluepants]

That sounds reasonable to me, shyuhe.

Justinian could also beat out Toku for election opponent potentially. I think we'll have to let it play out a bit further before deciding on the course of action.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If every single AI is in the Buddhist block except Sal, then we win. Period. All we have to do is make sure we have the most population, gift the UN city to Sal, game over.

The onlyl units we need are to capture the furs and maybe to defend against Sal in a fake war to gain common war points with Toku and anyone else necessary.

 

[shyuhe]

Will Saladin accept a gift city that's not on his continent? That's my only concern with that strategy. And sorry, caught up with RL stuff so I haven't had a chance to do a full re-calculation of the GPPs yet.

 

[babybluepants]

We'd have to make sure we have more pop than Mehmed, though. That'll be tough to achieve without some conquering - which means Sal.

We should be able to build it anywhere with a GE, I guess.

 

[Silu]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9156025&postcount=269

So, we'd have to choose the UN location carefully. Shouldn't be such a problem if we get an Engineer as it builds well over half of the UN. Though the hurry cost is QUADRUPLE for hurrying the UN, so it's kinda iffy to rush it. Still wouldn't take that long with 100% Wealthbuildage.

For a size 12 city for example the GE would give 1110/1500 hammers, the remainder would cost 4680g to hurry right away.

EDIT: I might give the (Liberate) criteria a closer look at some point to see if we can abuse that.

 

[babybluepants]

GE = 750 + (30*Pop), correct? The rush buy's steep, but 100% gold + wealth buildage + plenty of techs to sell... Should be doable pretty quickly, if we really need to rush it.

 

[shyuhe]

Are you guys calculating GE hammers for normal speed or epic? I thought a GE can finish the UN almost in its entirety.

 

[Silu]

UN 1500 hammers, GE 750+30*POP. So yeah in a size20 city it's pretty much insta-finished, but if we need to build it in a fringe city to enable gifting it to Sally...

 

[mdy]

Great work everyone. We seem to be in a really strong position. I will try to post some comments tomorrow after I have had some more time to look at the save.

 

[shyuhe]

Oo, mdy's back! You want to pick it up since we skipped over you earlier? I'm actually a bit busier with work than I thought I'd be so I'm not sure I'll have time to post a PPP until much later in the week. I'll try to do the GPP re-calculation though.

 

[Mutineer]

I would suggest to include MoM in capital too. This is one wander I really want to build if we can.

I am in favor of researching Calendar before we finish Oxford, so we can start MoM straight after we finish Oxford.

I believe prolonging golden age will have maximum benefits for as.

 

[mdy]

Oo, mdy's back! You want to pick it up since we skipped over you earlier? I'm actually a bit busier with work than I thought I'd be so I'm not sure I'll have time to post a PPP until much later in the week.

I can post a plan later today.

With Justin, Izzy, Mehemde, and Zara in Buddishm (we should be easily able to convert Zara) we should have no difficulty winning a peaceful UN victory even without Japans support. The only potential difficuly I can see is that if the current war goes badly for Saladin we may need to intervene to prevent him from being wiped out. At the moment they can be bribed into peace, but that could change. We should probably send a scout down there so we can see what is going on.

I like the idea of popping a GM for use in the TOA city, and with popping an early specialist in the capital if it gives us good odds on getting an engineer. I am however sceptical about the value of the MOM. With 4 specialists needed at the end and the rest needed for bulbing I doubt we will be able to run enough golden ages (possibly none) to justify it.

 

[Mutineer]

MDY, please, read previous discussion, I do not see point to repeat it.
But bottom line, we need Toky or Saladin as our competitor.

 

[mdy]

But bottom line, we need Toky or Saladin as our competitor.

Given the typical AI management we should be able to outgrow the Ottomans and gift the gold city to Saladin, leaving us and Saladin as the 2 candidates. If we did find ourselves needing to capture a few cities later the easiest target would be Saladin. Maybe we should bribe him into peace with Japan in order to leave us with the largest possible number of targets?

If we take on a vassal does anyone know if the AI's take into account there relations with the vassal when deciding whether to vote for us?

 

[Silu]

Vassals don't matter for voting, except by giving the "Your vassals are our rivals" (this doesn't have anything to do with their relations with the vassal, just the power of us+that vassal) diplo penalty.

 

[shyuhe]

I like the idea of popping a GM for use in the TOA city, and with popping an early specialist in the capital if it gives us good odds on getting an engineer. I am however sceptical about the value of the MOM. With 4 specialists needed at the end and the rest needed for bulbing I doubt we will be able to run enough golden ages (possibly none) to justify it.

I haven't had a chance to re-do the math but I'm almost certain that burning a GP on a MoM enhanced GA is bad. Even with Taj + MoM for an extra GA, that's only 12 turns of +100% GPP in our cities. But our max base GPP's for Delhi, 2-fish, and Marble are 13, 25, and 18 respectively. So that's 56 GPP/turn that we'd gain from the MoM for 12 turns, or 672 GPP. This number pales in comparison to the 3000 GPP that we'd have to reach to pop an extra great person to compensate for burning one on a golden age. Unless someone can show that a well timed golden age speeds up our overall GPP production, I don't see why we need the MoM.