SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

[kossin]

Specialists as I see them:

Delhi: max scientists this turn, we will starve Delhi a bit (I ran 8 scientists) to have the best odds of a GS
Bombay: too small, let it grow (at some point it will borrow 1 corn from Delhi to help growing)
Vijay: all non-hammer tiles to Merchants (it won't starve before we go back to Slavery)
Patali: don't run anything more than a GE to let it grow to 20 (or we could farm the plains tile and use that instead)
Varanasi: let it grow to 8 and then run 3 merchants keeping the mature cottages
Agra: let it grow for drafting
Calcutta: run 5 merchants (keep fish and horse)
Lahore: whip settler then grows back for drafting
Madras: needs 2 full turns to grow to 12. Run at least 7 merchants (we let it grow a bit when not in Caste)
Hyderabad: working coast is better than merchants
Aksum: work merchants as pop grows (work mature cottages first)
Gondar: too small, grows some
Lalibela: grows
Cordoba: grows
Madrid: grows
Barcelona: grows

 

[kossin]

Aww, too bad.

There are still a few spots that could be used for planting a city though:
-5S of Kyoto
-near the Fur island by Justinian (there's a fish there)
-on the stone by Justinian

I think it's pretty safe to say the spot by Toku is still available. The 2 spots by Justinian might be gone now but it's too hard to tell.

EDIT: trading maps with Justinian should give a decent idea of the situation. Having looked at the test game, I'm not very optimistic anymore but we should still look into this.

 

[dingding]

Don't waste the hammers invested on the settler anyway. Finish it and send it on the other continent.

There are still three tiles (two beside Justine, one beside Toku) where we can settle the third city on the continent, which makes us a land target of Saladin.

If we can vassalize him at the end of the game, it's quite an incentive for milking

 

[dingding]

I think it's pretty safe to say the spot by Toku is still available. The 2 spots by Justinian might be gone now but it's too hard to tell.

Bugg should just have traded map with Justine. It's quite sure that the two tiles are still available.

 

[kossin]

Well if they are indeed free, whip settler, and let's make a galleon bridge to get it over there ASAP.

 

[Bugg123]

I was pretty sure I actually did get Justinians map. But now I don't know

But I suppose we'll see.. producing the settler in Lali then and shipping it via Galleons maybe to west of Justinian. I'll trade maps with Just again to make double-extra sure before posting the plan tomorrow morning (unless I can fix that tonight). Plan should be ok editing in the last pages with discussion.

Good job on specs too kossin. Will look at it a bit later / in the morning.

 

[Duckweed]

Oh, there are quite a lot thoughts proposed, I hope to see the victory soon so that I can have a look at other teams' progress.

@kossin

Some questions about your new thoughts.

1. Why do you care about drafting? IMO it's close to useless. We won't switch to Nat before completing MM. Even we need power to vassal Meh, whipping is 5 times more efficient than drafting. Last, we can draft in any city including Delhi. Therefore, why do you want to favor food in Agra and Lah than commerce and hammer? which is more important now.

2. What's the good of vassaling Saladin? I don't see anything better for the UN vote, but 149H cost for a settler and the risk of triggering domination.

3. Aksum need 1 pop whip of CH with the forest chop, I don't see any good reason of not completing it, so does Madrid.

4. Even with a few workers captured, it still takes quite a few turns to build a fort, I don't see better profit of not liberating Devilsgate. Any convincing number to support your opinion?

@Bugg123

Good luck on the GS and religion spread.

I also have questions for you and some suggestions as well.

1. Why didn't you whip Univ in Agra immediately? It's better to whip it and work on the 2 gold mines as soon as possible. Let the overflow go to Part and then build wealth.
2. Why do you want to hire 10 merchants in Madras? My feeling is that there's a balance point (6~8) for maximum GP production before running out of food storage. I don't think Madras needs to grow further, can start to produce GPP now.
3. Gift a Marble to Justinian and hope that he can complete Part in time.
4. You probably need to renegotiate the resource trade deals.
5. Whip the settler and send it to the island as soon as possible, make sure you settle it and create the colony before capturing Zhou.
6. Coastal tile is better than 3F tile except in Pat. Readjust some of the city tiles.
7. I would not run merchants in any cities (except Madras) before we whip enough airships.
8. Scout Ankara, should be where Meh's SOD locates.

 

[kossin]

@Duckweed

1. Why not? How is whipping more efficient other than you can do it everywhere? You are sacrificing 2 pops to get 1 unit and some overflow that doesn't cover the second unit.
The only goal we want with troop spamming is to gather enough power to capitulate Mehmed... speed is the goal, not efficiency. Drafting and whipping should be used.

You are right however that there is no need to cap Mehmed too soon so we should still look to maximize commerce.

2. It guarantees we get his vote. Right now, it will be difficult to guarantee we get it (although we should get it by a hair).
Vassals' land only counts toward 50% of your land for domination. There is 0% risk of triggering Domination (if you want a number, we get 43% of the land with both vassaled while the trigger is 64%)

3. The original plan had us going into Caste/Pacifism this turn. Physics should be in at 670AD ~680AD = t217/t218. Since we are now on t214, I agree it makes no sense to go into Caste right away. If we use 8 cities to whip Airships on the turn after we get Physics we can go into Caste that same turn (we could use a few more than 8 to store in Izzy's northern city). In this light, 1-pop whip of CH in Aksum is worth it yes. (Madrid is also worth it because of cost)

4. There are at least 3 workers on the island, a fort is 15 worker turns and can be built outside culture. It depends on when we capture the workers yes - that is the problem, but can be fixed by shipping a few workers over there.
Anyway, the city comes out of revolt on 715AD, with 3 workers, the fort is done in that time and road connection made.
The city has 2 mines (10H under GA), 2 hamlets, wheat and 1/2 pigs.
Cost is 19.5 gold/turn but with 8 pop we can whip a CH on 730AD, or simply run 5 merchants ( = 15 gold, 15 beakers), add in the 2 trade routes from the mainland the city gives: 24 beakers, 15 gold for -19.5 maintenance
i.e. 24 beakers for 4.5 gold -> I'd call that profitable.

There is plenty of time to road and camp the fur afterwards.

On Bugg's notes you have said:

1. Was my doing. Sorry!
2. It was because of the plan to go into Caste then back to Slavery. I'm not sure it is not worth letting it grow a bit more while we're not using Pacifism, having more pop to deficit run merchants can be good.
3. Sure
4. Yup
5. Needs to be discussed for direction but yea, it will be whipped
6. Yup yup
7. This shouldn't be an issue much since we're not adopting Caste right away anymore
8. It will most likely be similar to the test game where Meh has no SoD but troops spread all over.

~~~

It seems we have to re-plan a bit but it's nothing major. Biggest thing is determining GPP production in Delhi/Madras and consequently whether we should head into Pacifism right away. We do need to get a GS out from Delhi to bulb Electricity pretty soon. In my test Electricity was bulbed in 715AD (same turn it completed) - that's 7 turns so we've got a few things to figure out.
I will look into it in about 12 hours but everyone is free to chip in.

Getting GPP is as big an issue as vassaling Mehmed.

 

[Duckweed]

@kossin

1. You did not get what I mean. Whipping from every city gives us 17 macemans, which is 5 times more than drafting of 3 macemans. Therefore it's 5 times more efficient of timing. I know drafting is efficient hammerwise. Moreover, I mean there's no need to draft in Agra and Lah at that time, every city is the same. That's why I said drafting was close to useless.

2. Without settling the extra city, we still guarantee to get Saladin's vote. So we lose the yield from 3 citizens for getting nothing.

3. We might not need to delay CS since Aksum can naturally complete CH is a few turns when working hammer tiles. It seems Physics can be delayed a couple of turns from Bugg123's opinion. I also think it's the case since the units from the barbarian island could not come back in time.

4. I have a different point of view. It's unrealistic of sending more workers to the island as they are busy in Pat and Madrid. Fort requires to be in culture border. Have you considered the loss of trade route income from Zhou, that's 9C per turn and Zhou will come out of revolt 1 turn later than Devilsgate. So the cost of keeping Devilsgate is 45C + 15 worker turns to gain 24B - 4.5g, One more city also add more maintenance fee to number of cities payment and civic cost. I don't think it worth the effort.
Edit: Opened CIV and found that fort can be built outside culture border. I'm OK to keep the city.

I agree GPP is the major issue atm and that why I only reminded this issue to Bugg123 in one post previously and did not comment much on that since it requires real test run.

 

[kossin]

1. Yes I did say that (can be done everywhere). I just figured that if we could vassal Meh before research is done then we should try to- and in that case Slavery isn't available. However it indeed is better to leave that for after research is done, Bureaucracy is worth as much as traderoutes from Meh.

2. No we don't necessarily get his vote. If we get a random relation of -1 or -2 we'll be in trouble. Also whipping Lahore is out, we'd use the Lali settler.

3. Delaying Physics can work, and instead bulb Electricity 2-3 times. This is one of the things I'll try out tomorrow (along with timing of civics). In any case, we probably should head to Pacifism right after whipping this turn.

4. Whatever. Either works (I did it). I'll agree just so we can move on.

 

[Bugg123]

@duckweed:

1. I guess kossin took the "blame"... I aggreed too, so we're all to blame. The whole draft + whip argument got us into it. It's done, so we'll just have to live with it. Sorry.
2. The spec assignment is still "to do". My suggestions were kinda butchered, and are reworked. Since we're running pacfism for 5-7ish turns it'd be ok to get as much GPP out of madras over those turns (before growing back). As long as it doesn't starve, I suppose running more specs under CS (10) and less under Slavery (0) works out pretty much like running less under CS and more under Slavery. Overall we may be better off not growing Madras and using the food stored before it grows to 12, though.
3. Sure (we're selling Marble for 1 to Just this turn .. it's under the "trades to fix" category). Also selling Stone for 1 to Toku would work out.
4. Yes (I think I hinted at that in my report)
5. We're whipping the settler it seems. It's probably ok to send it to Toku/Just land to have the option to vassal Saladin so we're sure he'll vote for us. In the testgame we're not close to dom land (as kossin says). Could be different in the real game. I see you now also aggree with the 2 cities + fort (that can indeed be built outside of cultural borders) plan on barb-island, so that's settled?
6. I suppose I went for max growth into running mercs all over the place. All tiles will be rearranged (depending on timing of CS+Pac, which I now think we should do right away.. running mass-mercs means we're not running out of money regardless)
7. Why not run mercs? We're not starving cities (but emptying food-stores). We should have enough airships (8ish?) whipped from cities at current size?
8. Ankara will be scouted prior to invasion (along with most of Meh's land) under current plan. I'm not convinced he actually HAS a SOD, but we'll see


Other stuff:
Whipping CH in Aksoum, Madrid and Barcelona (I think) works this turn.

I don't think we need to whip in Airships untill say T220-222 somewhere (attacking T222-225). So there's no harm in running Caste now. What I'm not totally sure about is wether we want to delay Physics or not to that time. If we don't need the money (because of running mass mercs), then delaying Sci-met/Physics now could lead to slower end-date. (Kossin is getting 920AD, which is impressive)

Will run over one more GPP test as well before commenting more on it.

 

[Duckweed]

@kossin
2. No, we will get Saladin's vote without doubt. There's room to improve relation from shared religion, fair trade, and remove the close border tension. There's NO EVENT in this game, hence no random negative relation. The only way to screw it is ourselves.

@Bugg123
1. I did not want to blame. It's still an issue to be discussed in this set as kossin mentioned to work on the food tiles instead of gold mines. So I tried to convince kossin before you. We all will be wrong in something and myself will be glad to confess mistakes if others correct me.

2. As I mentioned, there's an optimal point. Considering if Madras has 30 food storage at size 11, then running 8 specialists from beginning will give you more GPP in 5 turns than running 10.

5. Same as kossin, I don't want to insist on issue that no way is clear better. If we don't create a colony, then no need to have the settler, just cancel it.

7. By running merchants, you only gain 3B compared to coastal tiles, but whipping airships takes away 2 or 3 citizens? so why not getting some food now so that those cities can have 1 more citizen after whipping.

8. Emperor AI does not have a sizable SOD, but Meh has 9 cities, so I guess it's normal to see a SOD of size 10 in Ankara.

Yes, running CS now should be fine. Whipping Aksum costs 2 pops this turn, you can try to finish it naturally by working on hammer tiles and/or hiring a Eng.

I can't have comments on the timing of research and GP production, it needs test run.

 

[kossin]

@Duckweed
I was under the impression that there was a dice roll at the start of the game. I've seen confirmation of this for AI-to-AI relations but could only find a picture for evidence to a human.

Anyway, analysis of Saladin's attitude toward us:
+7 at the moment
(+1 peace, +3 religion, +2 resources, +2 OB, +4 Fair Trade, +1 accept religion,
-1 close borders, -1 vassal, -1 WE trade, -1 DoW friend, -1 refuse stop trading, -1 trade embargo)
There is an hidden -1 from Emperor difficulty, giving +6 in reality.

What can change:
Religion: +3->+6 (10 turns per +1, we should be pretty close to the next +1)
Civic: 0->+1 (won't have time to get 10 turns of Theocracy)
Close borders: -1->0 (gift 2 cities)
The random decays can go to 0 (both good and bad)
Vassals: -1->-3
Total:+3 -> +6 becomes +9

So I guess there is very little chance we screw up indeed if there is no random dice (I think there is a +/-2). However consider this:
Vassaling Saladin gives us Engineering on t219 to accelerate the war.
If not it goes to t228. That's quite a bit of movement.

@game
Fur Island

Spoiler :

Devilsgate comes out of revolt on t221 so we must complete the fort on that turn.
For 3 workers, that means t217-t221
Worst case scenario we gain the 3 barb workers on t219 so they get there on t220 meaning 6 worker turns. If we temporarily ship 3 workers (this can be done easily as we don't need to keep the catapults there after Devilsgate, Zhou has no defenses) [ship back the catapults to Madrid on t219 then come back to pick up the workers to help chop Madrid] on t215 via 2-galleon bridge, they get to the island on t218 and can start on t219 to work for 3 turns (219-220-221).
Totaling 15 worker turns and a fort on t221.

After we pop borders (1~2 turns), we will have trade routes to the mainland.
There will be plenty of time to road and camp the fur afterwards. (14 worker turns total)

Settler on Saladin land.

Spoiler :

Whip this turn (214).
On t216 we galley-bridge to Madrid and use the 3rd Galleon to send it to Justinian's west end. It will get there on t219 (EDIT,1 more turn) so the city is ready to be made on t220 (EDIT, 1 more turn). We can gift it to Justinian if need be.

Doing these 2 actions will delay troops movement to Barcelona a little bit and shipping of warriors/GPs to Fur island. We can use the Caravel to ship GPs/missionaries while it's doing nothing so get it back.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Agra: whipping the University is NOT best for research.
We 2-whip now, then allow it to grow to size 4 in 1 turn, totaling 54 bpt.
Or we work the 2 gold mines now and 2 scientists for 56.25 beakers.
The latter might cost 1 more gold in citizen upkeep (being generous here).

I will start looking into GPP production, bulbing of Electricity/Physics and civic changes.

 

[kossin]

I tried triple-bulbing Electricity:
It's risky but should work.

We finish Physics t221 (with 500 extra research in real game and some micro).
We get Delhi's GP on t221, each GS is worth ~3114 beakers which is 9342, less than the 10530 needed. The overflow should finish Electricity in 1 turn (t222), Liberalism in 1 turn (t223) and then carry over to Mass Media (t224~t230?).

I didn't quite make it because I hadn't planned for it correctly but I'll try over.

 

[kossin]

Latest try: assuming we get another GS for 3x bulb Electricity, and Patali size 20.
Madras GP: t234
Delhi GP: t236 (the Golden Age is over... can't do it in 1 turn as I thought =\

At that point we walk both GPs to a galleon chain of 5 galleons (we can upgrade 2 galleys after MM is in and place them accordingly) so that they are unloaded on the island's fort on t236.

t237
Walk both GPs 6 tiles (we have Engineering)
UN vote

t238
UN win
View credits... hit continue.
Move last 2 GPs on Fur. Save, submit.

On why this is legal: (from the SGOTM11 Rules Discussion thread)

Spoiler :

In answer to the various questions about this...

When you win the game, you select the option to continue playing, which takes you to the turn immediately after you have won. You may submit your final winning save at any time during this turn, it does not have to be at the beginning of the turn. However, you must submit during that turn - DO NOT allow the game to proceed to any subsequent turn before submitting, as that'll risk disqualifying your victory.

Eldine will examine the save you have submitted, no matter at which point during the turn it may have been made, to determine which of the game conditions your team has satisfied.

The IBT is actually the last part of the turn we just completed, right? Rather than some unassigned limbo. So it sounds like you are saying the victory conditions need to be met at the end of the completed turn before victory (which is the same as the start of the turn of victory) BEFORE you make any moves in the turn of victory.

So if I am interpreting this correctly, a team can use the moves it has during the turn that victory is announced to make those last minute preparations for the Goddess?

dV

Correct.

What would be safer: Patali size 21 (stay in Pacifism on Mass Media)
t233 Madras GP
t235 Delhi GP
t237 both GPs in place on fur.
t238 win


~~~~

In light of the above, maybe the next segment should be until t221 where we will know whether we can 3x bulb Electricity.

 

[Bugg123]

@kossin:

So we're pretty much at about the same turns in testing for GPs (I got Dehli 222, Madras 232 (but that was in testgame, so 233 is probably more correct for real game and Dehli 235).

Got my playtime cut short today, but I was just wondering.

Are we taking on Sal T218 and gifting the new city to Toku/Just the same turn? Is there any chance Sal will cut loose before we win?

 

[Bugg123]

And one final thought.

If we're delaying Physics, isn't it just as well to delay Sci-met by a couple of turns (for more GPP in Dehli), rather than focusing on 3xbulb on Electricity? EDIT: OK, I shouldn't be posting at this hour. It's probably not just as well.. since we're "losing" 2 turns of research as well

EDIT: I'm ok extending the set by 2 turns if everyone thinks that's ok. Not that much happening 219-221 except troops moving around, I guess.

 

[dingding]

Are we taking on Sal T218 and gifting the new city to Toku/Just the same turn? Is there any chance Sal will cut loose before we win?

I'm not sure of the conditions of freeing from vassal, but it's possible. Better not do that.

 

[Duckweed]

@kossin

Your calculation of the attitude of Saladin was a little off. There are more than 20 turns left from UN vote, hence we will get +2 from shared religion. Favorite civic does not need 10 turns, it gives +1 immediately right after we switches to Theology. Therefore if we really want, we can see +12 from Saladin on the diplomatic screen, which is +3 extra than necessary. Remember that I said "we only need only +9 but not the common +8 with Saladin to get his vote." since I already counted the hidden modification. I might be wrong on other aspects of the game more often, but rarely on diplomacy.

Now back to your favorite toy -- vassal Saladin

You new support is Engineer now. It will probably let us launch the war a couple turns earlier, but trivial effect on the war progress. The question is whether these 2 turns worth the yield of 2 citizens plus the navy force used? I'm very doubtful. War in T225 leaves us more than 10 turns already, which is enough to defeat Meh from my experience. That's why I felt pretty surprise when Bugg123 told me he had problem on that in the 1st test. I'm glad he showed better results in the following tries. My vision of the war plan with Meh is to use 2 stacks. Major stack marches toward Ankara and another small stack lands outside the eastern coastal city. If Meh's SOD indeed locates in Ankara, with efficient kill, we could even make him bend in less than 5 turns.

About FUR island, As I already mentioned in last post, sending more workers to the island is not a good idea as 1 worker around Madrid is far from enough to do the forest chop there. The major point make me reconsider is that fort can be build outside the culture, which decreases the cost of keeping Devilsgate.

Agra -- remember that whipping Univ gives overflow hammers, which can be translated to cash by Moai or Part. So no, whipping IS better, the earlier, the better.

About your GP test -- Don't worry about the timing of whether GPs can arrive the FUR if 1 or 2 turns late. As I mentioned before, we can control the completion date of UN to make all GP arrive in the turn of victory. Therefore, as long as the bulb of the GS shortens more turns than the delay of gathering GPs to the FUR, we should bulb it.

@Bugg123
Delayed Physics means delaying SM for sure, also you need to set research to 0% this turn for the Univ from Agra next turn. Anyway, all those things are small issues and won't affect the final result more than 1 turn.

I have no problem for longer set as you and kossin are most familiar with the game now.

 

[kossin]

@Duckweed
If my memory serves right, shared religion bonus did NOT go up during the last set Bugg played (8 turns was it?) meaning within 1-2 turns we'll get +1, and then +2 for 10 more turns. Which is why I said +3.
Agreed we get +1 from Theocracy just for using 1 turn (this might be delicate depending on need for Organized Religion/Pacifism but should work out fine).
Remove closed borders and we get the +12 you are talking about.
However, you are neglecting the -2 from additional vassals (+10) and then the possibility of Saladin forgetting good/bad demands (only 1 good, several bad so this should be positive).

I do agree it is (almost) certain we get his vote.
However, what if he comes to beg all our gold next turn? That's a big -1 and then we'd be sitting on the edge of the UN vote. Also a demand to convert to Theocracy could be bad [he can do it at the start of a turn which could screw us over].
I would prefer not peace-vassaling him, I'm just trying to cover all the corners. If he's our vassal, there's no doubt at all that he'll vote for us. Plain and simple.

Good point on whipping Agra to OF in Moai, hadn't thought of that.

@Bugg
No need to turn off research now, it's just delaying our win.

Yes, as I noted Madras is 87 ahead in the test game, which is why it takes 1 more turn. If we manage to grow Patali to size 21 then it should be 1 turn earlier in both places as we can stay in Pacifism for a little while longer.

The Delhi GP on t221 might or might not be important. By delaying 1 turn (getting Physics t221), we lose a few hundred beakers of bulbing. However by running 1 less scientist we get more research and hammers (working the silver).
The difference is 7H/turn and 13 bpt (t214-t221 is 8 turns) so 56H and 104 beakers, plus about 40-80 beakers from 1-2 turns earlier Observatory but slightly lower chance of getting a scientist.

I am not sure how much beakers we might lose from the 3rd bulb but I think it won't affect the MM finish date (I'm really not sure, need to run a test to know).