SGOTM 11 - tao

[Tone]

Although there is still some further work to be done on my computer, I have a new motherboard and it is now semi-operational. I'll be finished by the start of the weekend but at least I can now look at saves again.

GLHouse seems like a good idea. Even if we get Astro before we are ready to attack the other continent, we'll benefit by keeping the AIs apart. As Htadus says, we want the tech pace to be as slow as possible. Prebuild? Ulundi looks like a good site but would this hamper our exmansion if we started right now? Whilst we are short of workers, this is our only site that is not in need of water.

Research. I can now see why you're going straight for Philosophy. This'll be a tough race but if we win it what should our free tech be? If the AIs get to CoL or Poly, then it's a no-brainer IMO. We trade via the Big Picture and then get a government tech. If we have a choice (highly unlikely) then see below for my views. If these two techs are not available, then we trade for maths and take the most expensive monopoly tech left. This could be construction but we need to check after trading for maths as one of the three tech leaders may have gained currency or construction. This could lead to further tech trading so we need to make sure that we have an agreed plan here.

Preferred govenment. My choice is also Republic. I'm not worried about WW as we'll soon have a continental war going on. We'll only be at war with one civ whilst we are on the defensive (unless alliances are formed) and with all those civs close by, those MPP will kick in soon enough and we'll hardly be troubled. If other civs do declare, we get the benefits of War Fever so even though we only have one lux, I think that we can expect to be using the lux slider very lightly. I'd accept Monarchy rather than 30 more turns of Despotism though and the Ottomans often like to blaze the bottom trail so we may find that it is an option open to us.

 

[DBear]

Well, here is my tentative plan:

Zimbabwe--after impi finishes, build a settler and send him sw to the horses.
Ulundi--after impi finishes, start Lighthouse
Hlobane and Bapedi keep building.

Do we want to send impis to attack Mecca? Can we trust the Koreans to keep them small? How bad will barbarians be?

 

[tao]

Well, here is my tentative plan:

Zimbabwe--after impi finishes, build a settler and send him sw to the horses.
Ulundi--after impi finishes, start Lighthouse
Hlobane and Bapedi keep building.

Do we want to send impis to attack Mecca? Can we trust the Koreans to keep them small? How bad will barbarians be?

I would not yet actively engage in warfare, but just instigate wars among the AI blocks and concentrate on expansion.

Settle on the hill SE of the horse, I suppose. Shields will come from the mountains. Maybe the new city should build another suicide curragh to explore west. Please note: differential naval movement is on.

 

[Tone]

Surely we want to keep our Impis out of the way of other AIs as we do not want a Despotic GA if we can help it. If Arabia comes knocking at our doors, we should try to deal with them with archers and/or warriors. We just use the Impis for barb hunting and hope for promotions.

How urgent is it that we start on the GLHouse? Ulundi is larger than we can manage w/o using the lux slider at the moment so can we not at least get a worker out of there before going for the wonder build as we need workers badly? We really need to get water to that cow and yet we have just one worker on this massive task.

 

[Htadus]

Let us not attack with impies. We should send a stack of archers/horses instead. As a matter of fact after building the current stack of impies, we should not build any more.

Also I would prefer to not research at max after we get (hope) the sling. We should resort to extortion for techs.

Lets build a worker in the second city after the Impi.

One last point for Monarchy....With the locked alianses, will it be easy to sue for peace with all the civs before war wearyness become a problem? We could end up being the looser in peace settlements. Also we are going to keep civs at war with each other.....so their tech pace should not be fast to require Republics research advantage. We should be able to complete this game before cavs.

 

[tao]

Ulundi is about to be manageable: It gets an additional impi as mp plus the road on the goat mountain will connect the gems. (A mine is expensive, but adds another shield even in despotism!)

IMHO we should research at max until we have philosophy plus government tech at least. Preferrable until he have chivalry. With Great Lighthouse, we should completely ignore the upper Middle Age tech tree and extort to lower branch techs. Otherwise spend the money on rushing units, until we can switch to rushing culture.

IMHO it will be easy to sue for peace, because we will be much larger/stronger than the other civs.

 

[Tone]

Ulundi is about to be manageable: It gets an additional impi as mp plus the road on the goat mountain will connect the gems. (A mine is expensive, but adds another shield even in despotism!)

Short term it is managable but do we want the Impi for mp duties? Ans: no, we want it for barb hunting.

More importantly, where are we going to get a worker from if we don't get it here?

 

[tao]

Short term it is managable but do we want the Impi for mp duties? Ans: no, we want it for barb hunting.

More importantly, where are we going to get a worker from if we don't get it here?

IMHO when going for a Wonder, you should really and whole-heartedly go for it.

Zimbabwe could finish the impi and then build warrior (freeing impi from mp), worker. During these 4 turns, it could already give the goat mountain to Ulundi.

 

[Tone]

OK. I'd prefer to see a settler come out of our capital rather than a worker but I'll go for that. We just have too many tiles that need developing to not hold back on worker builds.

(I also don't want a potential front line city being defended by an Impi until we are out of Despotism.)

 

[DBear]

(1) 1725: Arab spear killed scout1. Zimbabwe impi-->settler. Zimbabwe also hit pop 4. By working the plains square north, Zimbabwe has +2,8 growth. I can MM so that growth and settler will come at same time. We need mapping for the lighthouse, so I set Ulundi on Pyramids. Ulundi also pop expands, they work other mountain. 4 shields is not that much. Men in white show up to the south. Scout2 sse. Archer disperses camp. Warrior n. Curragh nne. Curragh2 nnw.

(2) 1700: The rest of the Arab league (Russia, Ottomans, Egypt) declare war on the Koreans. Warrior e, archer heals. Irrigation done, worker e. Scout2 s. Curragh 2n. Curragh2 nne. It makes no difference whether we run at 0.10.0 or 0.9.1, both in research and happiness.

(3) 1675: Barb attacks impi in Ulundi, repulsed, impi goes leet. Warrior e, worker irrigates. Ulundi roaded, so impi can go barb hunting without worry of rioting. Impi kills barb, se to forest.Curragh 2n, meets the Germans. They have nothing to trade. Curragh2 2n. MM worker from plains to grassland. Workers from mountain move to plain between Zimbabwe and Hlobane to road and mine.
Scout2 s.

(4) 1650: Archer s. Warrior w. Workers road. Scout ese. Impi 2se. Curragh nnw. Curragh2 nne.

(5) 1625: Zimbabwe settler-->worker. Warrior and archer e. Impi from Zimbabwe sw, 2s to mountain, sees barbs. Settler ssw. Scout 2e along desert isthmus. Impi 2se, finds camp. Curragh wsw, spots French border. Curragh2 n,e.

(6) 1600: Curragh w, contacts France. Nothing to trade. Curragh n. Curragh2 ene. Archer s to iron mountain. Warrior w. Workers finish roading, stay in place to irrigate next turn. Settler s to join impi, impi waits. Other impi attacks barb camp--A LEET impi DOESN'T EVEN SCRATCH the barb! !&(*%$#@! Scout2 n, sees barb, retreats s. Switch citizen in Bapedi to gem mountain to hurry the grainary.

(7) 1575: Zimbabwe worker-->impi. Shift citizen off sheep mountain so Ulundi can work it, but it doesn't matter as the extra shield is corrupt. Barb is heading for Bapedi, so shift warrior from Zimbabwe to guard. New worker joins fellow w of Hlobane to road. Settler and impi sw to horse. Scout 2w. Curragh 2n, finds bay. Curragh2 n, e. Archer and warrior sw.

(8) 1550: Warrior sw. Isandhlwana founded, starts rax. Scout2 2w to sheep mountain. Curragh 2se. Curragh2 2e.

(9) 1525: Hlobane impi-->worker. Hlobane will hit pop2 at same time that worker pops. Archer moves s, sees barb camp. Workers move to sheep mountain to mine. Curragh 2se. Curragh2 2e, finds tundra. Not sure if peninsula or island. Impi from Hlobane moves ssw of Zimbabwe. Scout2 moves nw to Bapedi. MM.

(10) 1500: Get philo, check big picture. Trade Korea philo+60 for math+HB. Sell philo to China for 102 cash.

DECISION POINT
We can get poly from Japan for philo+math+HB+105+11gpt. I can sell math to Germany and France for 99 total. Should we do this so we can get monarchy for the bonus? 11 gpt is a lot to pay out, though we are in the tech lead and could set tech on minim for 20 turns and buy tech w/monarchy if need be. I have the turn saved so I can replay the trades before this decision point.

 

[tao]

IMHO it would have been better to trade for polytheism first!

What about the war status? Can we close the deal and achieve that Japan declares on us? That would not harm our trading reputation.

 

[Tone]

DECISION POINT
We can get poly from Japan for philo+math+HB+105+11gpt. I can sell math to Germany and France for 99 total. Should we do this so we can get monarchy for the bonus? 11 gpt is a lot to pay out, though we are in the tech lead and could set tech on minim for 20 turns and buy tech w/monarchy if need be. I have the turn saved so I can replay the trades before this decision point.

Gov techs are so valuable, you buy poly at any price IMO. (Surely Poly would have been cheaper if you hadn't sold Phil to China first?) However, replaying even part of a turn is illegal unless I am mistaken. Can a mod confirm this? If this is the case, what free tech have we got?

 

[Tone]

What about the war status? Can we close the deal and achieve that Japan declares on us? That would not harm our trading reputation.

We can trigger the MPP by attacking Arabia if we have units nearby. DBear? Trouble with that is that it makes getting a PT more difficult as we will be at war with four civs rather than just one.

You think that replaying part of a turn is OK then, tao? (I'd still like to wait for official confirmation as this surely counts as reloading.)

 

[Htadus]

Dbear,

I do not understand what happend? Did we get a free tech?
This is what I think you are saying? IBT 9 and 10, we got Philo and traded it to Korea and china. You found out that we can trade to get Poly and saved the file. Am I on the right track?

 

[Htadus]

I think we need to wait for a moderator action. I do not want to be disqualified. If we lost an opportunity to get Monarchy for free...then it is done. We go on to research CoL and Republic since majority want Republic. Or we buy Poly and go for Monarchy. It will be faster than Republic

 

[tao]

My understanding is that DBear stopped to inform us on the status between turns and discuss how to go on.

We did not yet get our free tech.

He can trade for polytheism (at a steep price) in order to get free monarchy. The risk is that another unknown civ already learned philosophy and we will not get a free tech.

Since he needed to use his computer, DBear did not let Civ "stay in limbo" but saved the game immediately befor hitting return.

He listed the trades he did and upon resuming will do them exactly as done before and documented in his log.

He asked for our opinion on how to conclude the trading round. It may be borderline, but I hope it is not a violation of the rules.

Let us assume this to be true (to be confirmed by the moderators), how do we want to continue?

I think it is an extremely small risk, that we are not 1st to learn philosophy.

I am not sure whether we give a big tech push to the AIs in trading for polytheism. Do we give away monopoly techs?

And my question still stands: can we try to weasel out of the gpt deal without suffering a trading reputation hit?

And do we want monarchy?

And do do we want to switch to it?

 

[AlanH]

I'm confused. Are you saying the save was made during the interturn, and as a result you lost your free tech? I'm not aware that's possible. You remain in modal dialogs throughout the interturn until the game comes back to you. Only then can you save it.

I don't think you can save between getting Philo, choosing the next tech, and getting it awarded as a freebie.

If you are saying you want to change the trades you made during the interturn then that's a no-no

 

[tao]

He said he made the save pre-turn.

He then lists the trades he made.

Then he asked how to continue, but did not leve the game running.

Thus he has to re-load the pre-turn, exactly replicate the trades already made 8and listed in his log), and continue trading (including getting free tech) as agreed in the team discussion.

 

[AlanH]

No problem in that case, as long as he made the same trades an decisions as he made before shutting down. It's equivalent to a self-inflicted computer crash ...

 

[Tone]

I am not sure whether we give a big tech push to the AIs in trading for polytheism. Do we give away monopoly techs?

We have no monopoly techs, do we? If all goes well, we'll get Monarchy. I say that we do not trade that.

And my question still stands: can we try to weasel out of the gpt deal without suffering a trading reputation hit?

Well as I said before, yes we can if we trigger the MPP. We just need to enter Arabian territory. We will not get the rep hit as we will not be declaring war on them. The only downside is that we will be at war with several civs. Expensive PTs but at least we won't have to touch the lux slider so we win in two ways. The only question is how far is our nearest unit from the Arab cities. A supplementary might be is it worth sending an Impi rather than a slower unit? A GA might ensure that we get the GLHouse but would it be wasted to some degree with so few cities?

And do we want monarchy?

IMO yes

And do do we want to switch to it?

Yes. As I said before, we will not have a long period of anarchy due to our small size and how long will it be before we get Republic? +1 food on the cow and +1 shield on the goat is reason enough IMO.

And what do we research next? I'd go for Currency and look to trade it for MM when the AIs deliver.