SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

[WithTea]

I'm not opposed to diplo, and am for using whatever we can to make it work, however, I feel that culture's more certain. I kind of feel that it's the rock band approach. We may be talented and we might be the next Beatles, but then again we might end up as the house band at the Marriott. I think that it's wise to go forward with our engineering degree (culture).

I suppose the breakdown is how much we would have to devote to either in resources. I think that we can run both for awhile without it being adverse to either. I don't see the need for a drastic decision on it for about 120 to 150 turns.

Also I'm all for hooking up metals. We just need to stockpile some warriors(4) and leave them in the capitol till needed.

 

[WithTea]

Thought of this right after I hit submit. One big point for culture is war without war. We'd be able to grab land, resources, and cities without ever firing a shot.

 

[WithTea]

Sorry to spam the board but Fluroscent got me to thinking on this. I would like to point out that our usual way of getting either done, and everyone else's for that matter, is going to be blown out of the water by the scenario's shift for religion. With everyone having there own religion, it is going to be an uphill battle against the "You have fallen under the sway of a false religion." With only one religion present free religion loses a lot of luster.

On the other side with only one religion we are going to be limited to only one cathedral in the culture wars.

Whatever we decide I would like propose that we get the Oracle. Good for both, and a Great Prophet to build the Holy Shrine would help our finances greatly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Checking in!

I don't care about the turn order. I'll be more active here this time, since my SP activity is way, way down.

Settling the plains hill looks to be a superior move. On the one hand, we might be missing out on a SR (likely), but we get a faster opening to offset that issue. Emp is not hard barbwise so we won't encounter a lot of pressure that SR from 2nd pop hurts us (and it might be iron anyway, or nothing early).

My vote for VC is also diplomatic (I officially make the semantic argument that the AP IS a diplomatic victory, because that's exactly what the screen says when you win that way, but the admins explicitly banned AP so I am also pushing UN here). UN tends to be faster than culture. Also, bear in mind we have access to diplo manipulations, AND we can DoW twice if we need to do so -----> a common UN ploy is to capture a civ or two to get #1 pop, then let someone other than the #2 build the UN, while making friends with #2. #2 then votes for you (#1) and you barely need anybody else. We are also SPI and have access to civic + spy manipulation. There is absolutely no reason we can't win diplo, it's just a question of how rapidly.

If the map is full of asinine warmongers, then we have the option of antagonizing them into a DoW on us, then capping them (this is not against the victory condition rules whatsoever).

One final note: Technically, we can obsolete ivory based on the written rules, as long as we can trade for it. Fur is the same way though somehow I don't think the AI is going to gain access to it easily. IMO, this is moot, since nobody who gets a competitive finish time will have the technologies that obsolete these resources.

Hopefully, my knowledge on cheesy UN victories (it is by far my #1 victory condition in single player and even on youtube) can help us here. We do still need to reach that technology ASAP and adapt however...and remember to stockpile 4 warriors.

With everyone having there own religion, it is going to be an uphill battle against the "You have fallen under the sway of a false religion." With only one religion present free religion loses a lot of luster.

No. We are SPI, we can actually swap religions the turn of the vote without affecting the outcome pre-religion, in other words, we can run free religion (if necessary) right up until the turn before victory, then convert, and we satisfy the rules.

On the other side with only one religion we are going to be limited to only one cathedral in the culture wars.

Cathedral culture multipliers apply regardless of state religion.

Whatever we decide I would like propose that we get the Oracle. Good for both, and a Great Prophet to build the Holy Shrine would help our finances greatly.

Map read. We're a good civ for oracle and have a start which can point us that way potentially, but we need neither to found a religion nor own a shrine to attain the VC we need...we just need to spam out a few missionaries and pick a religion (or switch to one right before we win).

I am not opposed to oracle but I am opposed to deciding on it turn 0.

 

[Fluroscent]

Yeah, we should definitely look into building Oracle. However, I do not think it is correct that we can postpone a final decision on the VC for long. If we chose to go culture, we have to, say, get BW+pottery before writing, to get a bunch of cottages working in 2-3 cities before 1000BC, and also make sure to found confu+taoism.
With diplo, we have to focus on a SSC and maximising the science push by getting academy/alphabet/CS asap.
Thus I think our decision has to be made as early as choosing our next tech after agriculture.

Culture flipping happens too late to really matter, so I would not count that as a great bonus.

As for religions and diplo, we need to either create or join a block, since free religion is out. We have to see what AIs are around. Preventing any AI getting into free religion has to be one of our main concerns, which means we may have to spam a religion worldwide. And we may want to use our allocated wars against those who do not really care for religion to prevent them from ever reaching liberalism.

Another thing, once we found our capital, we should use some testgames to figure out optimum builds/worker moves and how much leeway we will have in teching.
Also desirable is knowing typical oracle BIFAL dates and barbarian activity levels.

 

[Fluroscent]

Heh, I forgot about spy civic changes. That makes me feel more comfortable against the free religion lovers.

 

[beestar]

One thing to clarify is that every one of our cities has to have our state religion. This means lots of hammers on missionaries. My ideal would be to start next to Isabella or some similar missionary-spammer who converts our cities for us. Then suppress them (vassalize them?) and take their shrine for cash.

The other AIs can be running any religion - they can even all share ours. They just have to not be in FR (edit: nor No State Religion)

I'm fine with going for diplo or culture. diplo has the advantage of maintaining a tech lead for the entire game (and thus military superiority)

Is a spy mission to change civics cheap or do we need lots of EPs? Iis it screwed like a 'add culture' mission?

Finally, when do warriors become obsolete? I recognize we can unhook metals to build them quite late, but at some point the weakest unit is a musketman or rifleman or something.

 

[beestar]

WT, nothing's stopping us from having multiple religions in our cities if we wanted FR happiness - should be no rule against that. so having many cathedrals is possible.

 

[pnp_dredd]

I'm gonna argue for culture (but not tied to it).

I looked through results of a few BOTMs and it's a mixed bag. Usually diplo wins happen earlier. However, the earliest culture wins are much earlier than the earliest diplo wins. It's possible to pull off a ~1100ad culture win if you are Grey Cardinal and the map is tailored.

BOTM 27 - no diplo
BOTM 26 - diplo 1650, culture 1760
BOTM 25 - diplo 1565, culture 1720
BOTM 24 - diplo 1876, culture 1927
BOTM 23 - diplo 1160, culture 1460
BOTM 22 - neither
BOTM 21 - diplo 1700, culture 1959
BOTM 20 - diplo 1804, culture 1635 (grey cardinal)
...
BOTM 17 - diplo 1765, culture 1050 (grey cardinal)

The HOF generally has diplo faster than culture too, for harder difficulties on Sm-St-L maps and Epic speed.

Hmm, I seem to be talking myself out of culture...

 

[orb]

I like the data analysis pnp. This suggests Diplo is more likely to gain us a laurel so this is what we should go for.

I think from memory in all the XOTM I've played I've only achieved 2 Diplo wins where as I've achieved far more Culture wins...but I'm not Grey Cardinal i.e. They aren't super early culture wins.

So for the sake of having an interesting and fun game where I can learn more Civ skills, I'm happy to go Diplo. - My only concern is "Who are the AI?"

If we can agree to notionally go for Diplo now and deliberately miss the early religion tech's in favour of growth/science then we should review our decision once we know at least some of the AI's we are up against.

Also...Lets move to the plains hill. - If this reveals nothing worse than we have at the moment in terms of tile yield or resources then lets settle. - If it reveals deserts and mountains then lets move back. - Should be a fairly straight forward decision. I'm actually wondering if this location gives us enough surplus (or whether we will end up with city 2 or city 3 as far better locations....but then I suppose that's part of the fun of the game)

BTW. @beestar the spreadsheet works for me.

 

[beestar]

Some thoughts on the rules and their implications.

1. All AIs must be alive and running a state religion.

Obviously we must avoid AIs going into FR or NSR. This can be implemented by winning before the AIs get Liberalism (!), using spies to revolt them out of FR, bribing them to move out of FR. Blubmuz makes a good point about bribing the other AIs to revolt a few turns before the winning point - this ensures that the AIs cannot revolt back to FR on the turn we win.

Vassalage is allowed but no killing of AIs. An early war will be tricky because we can cripple an AI, but not finish them off - and we won't have teched Feudalism for vassalizing yet. This leaves motherland unhappiness and an angry neighbour.


2. Must win by Diplo or Cultural

Already discussed earlier. It wound be useful to review the tech tree working backward from Mass Media to find the fastest tech path needed.



3. All our cities must run a state religion

This is going to cost a lot of hammers in missionaries which is why I would prefer to have a zealot neighbour proselytize us. Also, if all our cities have one religion, that religion is going to be bringing in a lot of cash to someone. There will be a big advantage to capturing the shrine (or building it).

Diplo problems with running the wrong state religion can be mitigated by revolting to the "Spread Religion" just before we win. We do have to spend a lot of hammers spreading the religion, which is why I would prefer to make that religion the AP religion to put up some AP temples and earn back some the hammers. Sankore, Sistine Chapel, and Spiral Minaret are tempting because we could then earn beakers / culture / gold out of the temples, but there is the diplo downside that we would actually have to convert to the Spread Religion. With AP hammers we don't actually have to run the AP religion.


4. Fur tile

It's been specified that the fur tile will be guarded by barbarians (and implied that those barbarians are advanced units), so we don't have to worry about it being immediately captured by other AIs. However, there could be some mapmaker evil like the barb fur city being in the centre of another AI's lands. We definitely should find its location early.

What does it take for AIs to trade away Fur if they only have the one fur resource? Do they have to be our vassal?

5. You declared on us!

We can attack a maximum of two AIs. More than that can declare on us. I suspect it will be a good move to take out a neighbour early so we can grow fast and tech fast, but we'll have to see.


6. All cities need access to fur, dye, silk, and ivory

Depending on how many of these resources are available, we may need to claim a lot of land or be really good traders. Also, note that every city we own has to actually be hooked up to the resources, so watch out for newly-captured cities, and enemy units blockading our cities.

We should be careful about teching advanced techs that obsolete these resources.

7. Welcoming party

4 warriors are trivially easy - these could be city garrison troops reserved from the BCs. Generating 4 GPs will require a certain number of GPPs, or bonus GPs from techs:

Music (GA)
Economics (GM)
Physics (GS)
Fascism (GG)
Communism (GSpy)
Fusion (GE)

 

[beestar]

P.S. I had a look at the charts. Phoenix Rising settled in place (you can tell because 2 culture per turn * 20 turns = 40 culture at turn 20). It looks like everyone else moved 1 or 2 turns before settling.

Not sure it helps anything to know this, but hey, more data

 

[Fluroscent]

Sometimes the scores on particular BOTMs are unreliable, since they are heavily influenced by whether or not experts make attempts at those VCs.

What I do think is clear, from personal experience and BOTMs, is that diplo shines in more difficult games, where it can be really hard to reach a culture date that is even remotely close to ideal settings dates, but UN can still be built very early, especially with a PHI leader like Gandhi. Of course, Gandhi is a top choice for both VCs, although I prefer Elizabeth for culture.

For the record, I have both culture and diplo victories in the 1100-1200s with easy settings, but I believe the potential is greater for diplo for the reasons that culture hits a growth barrier by ultimately relying on the output from three cities, and actually being hurt by not being able to run 100% culture with too much expansion, whereas diplo benefits more from empire-wide growth as the net beaker count grows.

 

[Fluroscent]

Three posts while I was typing

Nice to see the discussion picking up, since we were (are?) dead last in post counts!
I think we have consensus on moving to the PH by now.

Great points beestar, I have some more points.

On warriors: I don't know when they will be ultimately obsoleted, but we should probably have a few more than four, just in case something goes wrong. Since we have them anyway, we could consider running HR early to make them economic investments. But they could just pay for themselves spawnbusting anyway, and lets see if we have stone first anyway..

On fur: I think it is likely that a barb city is preplaced and buffed up not unlike Atlantis in SGOTM9. However, with two games featuring barb galley invasions, I would be surprised if this was the case again (but still something to be aware of). I think it is likely that this particular barb city (holding furs) is located on an isolated island, likely non-coastal, and likely requiring galleons to reach.

On DOWs: I think we should be cautious about early DOWs, since we may not know for a while who we need to attack to acquire the needed resources, or for other reasons. It would be stupid to pinpoint our two enemies before we have more knowledge.
This of course means that we should put extra priority on exploration, and that early landgrab is more important by using blocking cities and so on, because taking our neighbours cities may not be an option.

On GPs:
Fascism and Fusion are obviously out of the picture. And depending on the AI, Economics will probably be lost before it is worth the detour.
Music is easy to pick up if we go for Literature before Education, which is usually nice for a PHI leader.
For culture, Physics and communism are too advanced, but for diplo, Physics is on the path and communism can probably be won even after we tech Mass Media.
Great Generals are easily the cheapest GP to come by, since their used effect is minimal compared to other GP, and they are already a byproduct of something productive (WAR), unlike most GPP generation. If we can generate a few of those, it could be worth a lot of turns by burning a couple of scientists more on Physics/Electricity. Specifically, a war may be smart to prolong a bit if it can make us another general.

On AIs alive at the end: We need to be careful that an AI-AI war does not end up with someone dead. When we see someone WHEOOHRN, we should carefully consider the situation.

On Free Religion: If there is an AI with a FR favourite civic, we should consider making them a war target to avoid them reaching liberalism.

 

[beestar]

On AIs alive at the end: We need to be careful that an AI-AI war does not end up with someone dead. When we see someone WHEOOHRN, we should carefully consider the situation.

Yikes ... good point.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, we should definitely look into building Oracle. However, I do not think it is correct that we can postpone a final decision on the VC for long. If we chose to go culture, we have to, say, get BW+pottery before writing, to get a bunch of cottages working in 2-3 cities before 1000BC, and also make sure to found confu+taoism.
With diplo, we have to focus on a SSC and maximising the science push by getting academy/alphabet/CS asap.
Thus I think our decision has to be made as early as choosing our next tech after agriculture.

Culture flipping happens too late to really matter, so I would not count that as a great bonus.

As for religions and diplo, we need to either create or join a block, since free religion is out. We have to see what AIs are around. Preventing any AI getting into free religion has to be one of our main concerns, which means we may have to spam a religion worldwide. And we may want to use our allocated wars against those who do not really care for religion to prevent them from ever reaching liberalism.

Another thing, once we found our capital, we should use some testgames to figure out optimum builds/worker moves and how much leeway we will have in teching.
Also desirable is knowing typical oracle BIFAL dates and barbarian activity levels.

I have to iron this out. It is not true. The rules do not prevent us from running FR ALL GAME until the turn before we win, as long as we get a missionary spread and switch off the final turn. Also note that on the turn of the vote, the AIs have already decided, so nothing you do will change their vote the following turn once the vote screen comes up (short of killing them, which we can't do). Yes, an AI that declares on you in that IBT will nevertheless vote you winner if you had +8 or more pleased and they were backstabbing. Because of this, we can run any SR or NSR that we wish, and only change just prior to victory, as long as we have all of our cities with one kind of religion so we can do an 11th hour switch.

Some AIs are more prone to switch to FR vs not, and some can/can't be bribed. When we get close, we evaluate how much EP we need to get them back into a SR. Keep in mind that even these bonuses can be worked to our favor than changed the turn before the vote...though the setup must be careful.

 

[WithTea]

To clarify: I was not saying that we could not run Free Religion. We can and switch at the last minute. I was looking at the point that if we have no cities empty of religion we would have to depend on being "gifted" by visiting missionaries. Not an issue if we have Justinian or Isabella on the border, but Ragnar sure as Hell won't.

As I read the start rules we aren't going to have to push for a religious tech. I'm operating under the impression that the map maker has divorced the religions from the techs, therefore religious tech would only be useful as the benefits of the tech, not for religious founding.

Another clarification: TMIT I understand the exactly how cathedral works. I was making the point that if we don't have any religion besides our own we will only be able to build only one per great city. Which is sad as with Gandhi they are cheap (temple prerequisite half price).

Oracle: Not pushing for a decision now. Just wanted to throw it out there. Arguments against it from back in nine still haunt me. We got it then but I was thoroughly shot down on contaminating the Great Person Pool any further. I was trying to make the point that the who we get now is not so important. We need great people. Granted either VC we would want to use Great People to maximum benefit, but we are still going to need to sacrifice four of them for the win.

(Forgot to add a rebuttal to Fluro: I had a game last night Emperor level culture flipped a city from Suryavarman with Justinian in the BC's.

 

[beestar]

Hi WT!

As I read the start rules we aren't going to have to push for a religious tech. I'm operating under the impression that the map maker has divorced the religions from the techs, therefore religious tech would only be useful as the benefits of the tech, not for religious founding.

In SGOTM10 it was the case that each civ was assigned a religion right at the beginning of the game, but I didn't see anything that says this would be the case in SGOTM11. I believe everyone founds religions just as normal.

The rules do not prevent us from running FR ALL GAME until the turn before we win, as long as we get a missionary spread and switch off the final turn.

Absolutely true. In practice we may need to run a religion for the diplo benefits, which means we do have to think carefully about which block we join.

Hey, just to check my understanding: shared religion diplo bonuses (like favorite civics diplo bonuses) accumulate over time. But they go away instantaneously once we are no longer of the same religion, is that right?

 

[Fluroscent]

(Forgot to add a rebuttal to Fluro: I had a game last night Emperor level culture flipped a city from Suryavarman with Justinian in the BC's.

Yeah, it is obviously possible, but some AI usually has to found a city close to a wonder spamming city It is hard to control anyway, and control is good. But hey, if it looks like a city may be easily flippable, we can maybe go for it. Not like there is much culture difference in the BCs as a function of VC anyway (I assume you were not yet pushing the culture slider ).

But I actually thought of a related, and possibly quite ridiculous pitfall, in which we culture flip a city on the turn of victory that does not have our SR! But of course, we could just raze it in that case. But still, what a way to lose it would be

TMIT: A very good point, we should definitely not handicap ourselves by imposing rules that are not actually there . FR is definitely allowed, but we probably want to be running OR/Pacifism for most of the game if we can handle the diplomatic consequences. Might as well use the forced religion spam to our advantage.

WT: I do not see where in the rules it states that religions are "divorced" from the techs. Unless I just misunderstand you . As I understand, the game looks pretty standard apart from the specific constraints and requirements.

 

[beestar]

I propose that pnp_dredd move the settler onto the PH and we start teching Agriculture (I'm assuming the move doesn't reveal any surprises. Gandhi doesn't have any other food techs anyway.

- In parallel, we need to continue the high level discussion of how we're going to win (and win fast). I understand things like AI diplomacy can't be predicted yet, but having a starting point will help us generate the ideas. For example, in SGOTM10 I think we totally missed the option of drafting our Riflemen instead of hammering them out, and we missed on using Privateers to stop AI settling of the islands. A good starting point for discussion is a proposed tech path, even at this early stage.

- Are we OK with going for the diplo path? More discussion?