SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

[Bugg123]

@dingding

Thanks.. very good info!

Generally: We're now entering later stages of tile-improvements and such, which as I've said previously is where my games kinda decline in quality dramatically, so we'll see how my plan ends up (and I'll appreciate any criticism )

Updated testgame below. Now with units and barb island. Probably still some infra/improvements off, but hopefully nothing major.

 

[dingding]

2. Assemble army for barb island (and go there). If there's no fur we really don't need to take the cities, but I suppose our army has nothing better to do... (We may need 2 settlers down there if fur is in a waste area)

Whether there is fur or not, you don't need to rush to grab those cities, given that kind of barbarians! With the actual units on the island, you are completely able to grab a Meh city: Ankara. Slow down his tech, reduce his power and gain War Weariness.

The main battle field can be set in Ankara. When his SoD arrives, your newly-built units will be there too to kill them all.


6. Complete Astro as duckweed suggests in time for upgrading galleys and shipping them, then start -> Mass Media.

Look, now you have 25-30 pops working on sea tiles, complete Astro means -25~-30 Cpt loss. Liber is needed to be completed anyway, why not spend beakers on it now?

Delhi is busy building Taj. If you turn the slider to 100% without Obers here, you lose -40Bpt here.

Finally, if the barbarian cities are not needed immediately, we don't need either Astronomy nor Galleys upgrading now. Loss from Colossus + Obser in Delhi + upgrade cost, you may easily lose 1000B here.

- You can give Machinery to Izzy and make her research Engineering, then trade it (though in 30+ turns).

- Sell obsolete or useless tech when AI has more than 80-100 gold. For example, you can sell Toku Theology now for 140g.

 

[Duckweed]

@kossin
Yes, whipping UN can be considered. I think the major issue is not how fast we can complete UN after researching MM, but how fast we can get enough GPs to the FUR tile. I'm in doubt that we can move the GSpy from Communism to there in time. However, we might not need it. We need a clear plan for GPs before 800AD. Pat, Madras, Aksum can produce 1 each and Delhi can probably produce 1 or 2 and that's enough.

@dingding
commerce is an unimportant issue in this stage. A few hundred commerce won't affect our research by 1 turn. At most we only need to accumulate 2000~3000g for the final push to MM. Therefore there's not many turns to delay. It's almost 100% that the FUR is on that island and hence there's no doubt we want to capture them as soon as possible, We need those units back for the war with Meh. The timing is tense. It's about 30 turns from MM.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Generally: We're now entering later stages of tile-improvements and such, which as I've said previously is where my games kinda decline in quality dramatically, so we'll see how my plan ends up (and I'll appreciate any criticism )

On our mainland, we could use plenty of farms.
There's the "obvious" Bombay-Vijay-Calcutta triangle, but I don't think it's the top priority.
We can farm south of Aksum's lake (tiles of Gondar).
We can irrigate to the wheat tile, past Lalibela. I think that's the high reward area. Lali and Calcutta will benefit a lot from this.

@dingding
commerce is an unimportant issue in this stage. A few hundred commerce won't affect our research by 1 turn. At most we only need to accumulate 2000~3000g for the final push to MM. Therefore there's not many turns to delay. It's almost 100% that the FUR is on that island and hence there's no doubt we want to capture them as soon as possible, We need those units back for the war with Meh. The timing is tense. It's about 30 turns from MM.

My emphasis.
Then if we want to be uber careful and get the fur asap, we need to send 2 settlers and 1+ worker in addition to the macemen.
- 1 settler to put up a coastal city (trade network).
- 1 settler to claim the fur in its radius (maybe there won't be a coastal possibility for this).
- 1+ worker for roads/improvements.

Too early to know what we really need, though. 1 settler is probably enough. But, as is, the fur is OUTSIDE those barbs' cultural borders
EDIT : Prolly uneeded, though, the barbs already have a worker or 2.

 

[kossin]

Re techs
It's quite simple : someone run a test at 100% science to see how much gold we need until completion of MM. After that we can decide when to turn on slider and whether to finish Astro fast or not.

GPs:
2 GGs on Fur (doubt we can get 3) so as others said 2 more, 2 more for a GA and another for bulbing now.
That's 4 GPs in all - it will be difficult to get the free GPs from either Communism or Economics to the Fur on time though as Duckweed said. Delaying SM a bit will help with GPP in Delhi. Just run a test to see how much GPs we get before MM (to have time to ship them) while testing how much gold we get.

Also plan a whip into UN like dingding said... Best way to get cheap hammers in it.(or pray for a second GE) lol

 

[Bugg123]

Small clarification on what army we want:

If we end up taking the barb cities (which it looks like most of you want):

We want 3 cats, 1 Plain Warrior, 1 Med Mace, 6 Lvl 2 Maces, 1 settler (or actually 2, but the last one can even be whipped from barb citizens)

Army assembles in Cordoba and ships when ready on 4 upgraded galleys (1 warrior, 1 settler and 1 mace can be slightly delayed on 4th galleon).

For Meh:

5 WE from Vijay
4 Airship
5 more cats (out of Bombay)
15 maces (what we have now, we shouldn't lose any to archers+axes, really) or do we build additional once in Vijay waiting for Physics?

Assembled in Barcelona or Santiago? (and shipped up to coast to attack)

1 Char to Meh land to see if we can find his SOD.

That about right from our discussion so far?

About GPP:
Start up Aksoum, Pata and Madras on 1 GP each, get 2 more from Delhi. Assume one more GG from war. Get 2 fresh GP ready by the time Taj GoldenAge completes.

About tech:
Before posting a plan (it's not ready now anyways) I'll also play through to the end to get a better feel for MM finish date. Plan is to finish Astro once army is assembled in Cordoba, research SciMet, and partial bulb Physics with the GS in Delhi.

About Pacifism:
Switch once Taj is done in Delhi, I assume? Finish all infra whips at that time.

About infra:
I'll run with duckweeds proposal from before his turnset:

Spoiler :

Agra (Forge->lib->univ->cash , the 2 gold mines here make it a good commercial city)
Lah(CH->cash (wonder with resource for cash/wealth), I dooubt any other building can pay off before we win the game)
Hyde(Forge->Miao->cash )
Bangalore(Forge->HMs->cash )
Var(HMs->Market->cash )
Pat(Market->cash )
Vij(Macemans->Cats->lot of Warrors->Units)
Bombay(Macemans->wonder cash)
Delhi(MoM->Market->Taj/Astro->HMs)
Mandras(1 HM->Market->cash )
Cal(Maceman->Market/HMs->cash )
Lal(Culture->Gra->Set->HMs)
Askum(Culture->Gra/LH->Forge->Lib->Univ-cash)
Gonda(Culture->Gra/LH->Forge->HMs )
Codoba(Culture->Gra/LH->Forge->CH->cash )
Madrid(Culture->Gra/LH->Forge->CH->Market->cash)

About spreading Hindu:
Spread to Lali and Zara now. Next to Madrid and Meh. Then backfill all our cities ASAP.
More detailed in plan.

Trades - @kossin:

In other things: we it doesn't really matter that much but we can update resource trades a bit, cancel happy deals with Toku and Justinian and replace them with health deals/metals perhaps.

Will look at this.

Thoughts?

 

[kossin]

I think it sounds good.

Maybe if our next GP is a GS we can double-bulb Physics. If not then we need not worry too much about having sufficient GPs for victory. (is Electricity next in bulb order after Physics?)

 

[Bugg123]

@kossin:

Electricity is next after Physics as long as we stay clear of Chemistry, I think

 

[Duckweed]

@bugg123

1. Sorry, I took a look at the distance and found that the galleons from Madrid are closer to reach the island in 2 turns. We actually don't need medical units for the war. To save the cash for upgrading, 3 galleons are enough. We can send 1 galleon back for the settler.

2. Can let forces stay in Barcelona for the war with Meh, where to attack depends on where's Meh's SOD, we might not need navies in the beginning. You need to scout it with our chariot. This war will be launched in next set.

3. GPs -- Pat and Madras can start to hire 6 specialists when the size hit or going to hit 12. We don't need to switch to CS, but do switch to CS if necessary.

4. Tech -- No need to delay Astro further, but to delay SM as late as possible. A small trick is to partially research SM and Lib to maximum and 100% slider to finish SM and push to MM.

5. Infra -- Lal can start HMs after Gra and settler whip, so does Gonda after Forge whip. If Aksum is needed to produce a GP then it can't whip too many infras, but lib and univ should be done.

 

[Bugg123]

@duckweed:

So basically you're thinking finish Astro this turn and load troops in Madrid asap (3 cats, 6 maces) and go.

 

[Duckweed]

I guess that's a few turns later since not all galleys and level 2/3 macemans are in position.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

About GPP:
Start up Aksoum, Pata and Madras on 1 GP each, get 2 more from Delhi. Assume one more GG from war. Get 2 fresh GP ready by the time Taj GoldenAge completes.

Delhi has 46 GPP/turn from wonders alone, counting the National Epic bonus but not the GA and PHI bonuses. When the Taj Mahal completes, that will be 50 GPP/turn...
In contrast, a specialist in Pali/Madras/Aksum is worth 3GPP/turn...

--> If we want a single GP from Pata we will probably need to starve it. 6 specs is 18 GPP/turn (compared to 50+ in Delhi).
--> I don't think we can reasonably expect Pata, Madras AND Aksum to produce their GP.
Maybe Pata and Madras is doable. I doubt about Aksum since it still lacks crucial infrastructure.

EDIT : Hum... Aksum has 16 food surplus... That's a lot. It may be a better choice than Madras, actually. But maybe we shouldn't whip anything else than the Granary, then ? (i.e. favour growth) Would slowbuilding the Library and University be a bad thing ? It has very good tiles to work and could hire specs once grown and once we're in Caste.

 

[Bugg123]

We have 6-7 maces in and around Barcelona that can load in 2 turns (= when Galleons are ready to move). Unless you want the 2 3exp maces from around Aksoum to tag along, then it'd be in 3 turns, which I suppose is a good idea

 

[Bugg123]

@BIC:
I'll test to see what's possible before posting my plan. By the looks of it, there'll be no plan today. It's very good to get input on these things before putting a plan together, though!

 

[Duckweed]

Delhi has 46 GPP/turn from wonders alone, counting the National Epic bonus but not the GA and PHI bonuses. When the Taj Mahal completes, that will be 50 GPP/turn...
In contrast, a specialist in Pali/Madras/Aksum is worth 3GPP/turn...

--> If we want a single GP from Pata we will probably need to starve it. 6 specs is 18 GPP/turn (compared to 50+ in Delhi).
--> I don't think we can reasonably expect Pata, Madras AND Aksum to produce their GP.
Maybe Pata and Madras is doable. I doubt about Aksum since it still lacks crucial infrastructure.

Pat and Madrad can only produce their GP after the one from Delhi for sure.

I'm also not sure whether Aksum is able to produce 1 GP, but it will grow very fast and can hire more specialists under CS.

 

[Duckweed]

@BIC:
I'll test to see what's possible before posting my plan. By the looks of it, there'll be no plan today. It's very good to get input on these things before putting a plan together, though!

Yes, running tests and writing detailed plan without agreement is very time consuming.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@Duckweed :
Yes, I realized that about Aksum after posting and edited my post accordingly.
It has a monster food surplus.

Maybe the no infra, max growth is what Aksum needs...

 

[Bugg123]

Done some tests.

It does not seem like generating enough GP to go to FUR is a big problem. I suppose it depends a bit on where the next GG spawns and such. The communism Spy won't really help us, I think.

So right now I think we can use 2 GS to bulb Physics, but will try it some more (Physics should be in around the end of my turnset, I guess).

Pati can produce 1 GP, Madras can starve 1 GP and Delhi supplies the rest.

I guess my real problem in testing was getting Meh to bend to capitulation. Took forever (Taking down Istanbul is just timeconsuming for me). Luckily that won't be my war

Why not shift EP to Meh like right now?

Transporting the char to Meh takes forever, I think I finally got it there T218, but it could easily be sufficient. Locating any SODs in Meh's land is helped by Airships, though.

 

[Duckweed]

EP was already put on Meh in my set, it does not matter now.

Taking cities is not an important factor to let Meh bend, a very efficient kill rate is the key factor. That why we need to find his SOD before making the war plan.

Edit: Workers need to irrigate the tile around Pat since it's a better place to build UN. Let Delhi focus on Commerce.

 

[kossin]

Building UN in Patali? How do we expect it to grow and produce 1 GP?
Perhaps that can be accomplished in Aksum though if we decide to not whip at all there (I guess it will grow a pop every 2 turns or so given enough happy and health cap).

Delhi is the best spot for GPP due to NE but those Bureaucracy towns are just so good like Duckweed said. My only concern though is whipping UN works way better under Bureaucracy from added 50% production. The pop cost for rushing after GE in Patali/others will be much higher.

We can have a single unit move around the border cities of Meh to check for his SoD... Waiting on the chariot is long.

Re fur island: either 6-7 macemen will be overkill or it will not be enough. We can always send the settler later yes but that will hurt our research (they are pretty good cities after all).