SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[bcool]

Did bbp gift rosey Troy already?

If not we can still get 50% culture the first turn can't we if we keep the city 1 turn no?

 

[Mitchum]

Here are the current prices to steal techs from Roosy:

       Silver  Troy    Vlad  Difference
       ------  ----    ----  ----------
		
Guilds	421	531	463   +110  +42
		                                       
Bank	295	372	324    +77  +29 
		                                       
Econ	590	743	648   +153  +58
                                       		
Corp	674	850	740   +176  +66
                                       
Const	842    1062	925   +220  +83

-----   ---    ----     ---   ---- ----

Total  2822    3558    3100   +726 +278

We need to figure out some intelligent way to maximize our benefits here. It's not easy because we only have five spies in Troy anyway.

Notes:
1. Hangzhou is of course useless for tech stealing (no religion, no culture). It's purpose is solely to enable us to gift Vladivostok.
2. We no longer get the 20% trade route discount because Roosy revolted to Mercantilism during bbp's turnset.
3. We have ony 5 spies in Troy.
4. The table includes the Silver City site, for comparison.

I was going to do this analysis myself, but I don't have to any more. Good things come to those who wait!

Are you thinking to settle Silver where it is marked (closer to our capital) or between the Silver and the Deer (a better location long term)?

Since the cost between Silver and Vlad is fairly small, maybe we should just do all of our stealing from there. I'll have to move all of our spies from Trojan there + some near Old China.

Once we steal Economics and revolt to FM, we can bribe Roosy to convert to FM too.

EDIT: We won't be able to do the stealing until T+6 so that the spies get their 50% stationary bonus. By then, we should have 4K+ epp points, which is more than we need.

 

[bcool]

We are overreacting and should not steal from a new city near Silver. I wish I could test this, but I'm almost sure we get 50% culture bonus on steals the first turn regardless since Rosey wouldn't have any time to put culture into the city.

We don't want to waste the time necessary to get the stationary spy bonus on a new city site.

Even if Troy is more expensive, the turns without corporation we would need to waste getting the 50% stationary bonus on another site would cost us more than we would get from having the tech corporation earlier (because of the bonus trade routes).

 

[Mitchum]

@LC

I just put both Buddhism and Confucianism into Trojan City in our test game and we still got the -40% state religion bonus. Is it the case that we have to have our state religion in the city and he has to be running something else and what other religions that are in the city don't matter?

If we still get the 40% discount, since Buddhism is there, he will start to generate culture there. So I think we should run an artist there to get the most culture possible before giving it to him.

 

[bcool]

ok good that means we still have Troy, we will get 50% cultural bonus the first turn regardless of how much culture we put into it, and the bonus for religion if it has confu.

 

[Mitchum]

We are overreacting and should not steal from a new city near Silver. I wish I could test this, but I'm almost sure we get 50% culture bonus on steals the first turn regardless since Rosey wouldn't have any time to put culture into the city.

It's not the culture discount, but the 40% state religion bonus that is in question. My testing shows that we still get both...

EDIT: xpost with bcool. Let's wait and see if LC's testing shows something different.

 

[Mitchum]

Maybe I missed this, but how do we know that Roosevelt already knows Corporations?

 

[babybluepants]

Sounds like I may have screwed things up a bit.

Merc: didn't report it, 'cause I didn't make the connection of that to stealing.

5 spies: we were supposed to have 6, I guess, according to LC's earlier post. This is entirely my mistake, I somehow got 5 in my head.

Buddhism: my plan was to have a Confu Miss in place. I got confused when LC said that we should rush the Troy settler for extra culture. Should have stuck with the plan, since I really didn't think through it. Frankly, it never would have occurred to me that IBT auto-spread is a danger.

Too bad I sent the settler to Orleans. Should have just left it idle in Siberia this turn, for an option on Silver at least.

Once we steal Economics and revolt to FM, we can bribe Roosy to convert to FM too.

Merc is his fave civic. Don't think that's gonna happen.

Edit: if we still get the SR discount, I guess we can at least take Guilds-Banking quickly, right? We need that infra builds asap.

 

[Mitchum]

@bbp How long have the spies been sitting in Troy and Vlad?

If we gift now and use 2 spies for Guilds and Banking, there is a chance that our other spies will get caught...

OK, so we want to steal at least 5 techs (assumes Roosy knows Corporation) and we have 6 spies. At about 80% success rate, that's cutting it close, but it will have to do.

I can get four more spies from Old China in about T+3 to pick up any later techs we want.

 

[Mitchum]

Regarding the war effort, we currently have 3 stacks.

Stack 1: 8 Trebs + 1 cat + 8 maces + El Cid -> Capture Nanjing in T+3 (move, bombard, capture)

Stack 2: 8 muskets + 1 treb + 2 muskets on T+1 + 3 trebs on T+1 + 1 axe -> 2W of Marseilles

Stack 3: 4 trebs + 1 cannon + 2 muskets + 1 mace -> healing in Orleans for 2 turns

Of course, we also have more cannons and muskets coming every turn.

Churchill has the following in Marseilles: 2 LB + 1 LB next turn + 6 cats + 6 axes + 9 spears = 24 units. It will take all three of our stacks + a few more units to kill them all in one turn. Of course, we could kill all but the cats and them mop them up the next turn.

Should we plan on a DoW with Churchill in about T+6 with everything we've got and be prepared if he DoWs us first? I would prefer to hit him in Marseilles if we can so that our trebs can be the most effective.

 

[babybluepants]

@bbp How long have the spies been sitting in Troy and Vlad?

I think they were all there at the last upload, so should be min. 4t most longer. IIRC, Vlad doesn't even have any culture yet. I think we can wait 1-2t.

Churchill has the following in Marseilles: 2 LB + 1 LB next turn + 6 cats + 6 axes + 9 spears = 24 units. It will take all three of our stacks + a few more units to kill them all in one turn. Of course, we could kill all but the cats and them mop them up the next turn.

After some siege hits, the catapults might come up in combat. I was kinda hoping we could somehow avoid having to kill all the stupid spears, but not sure what will come up. If he attacks himself, he'll leave the LB's in Marseilles most likely and some more units. I'm hoping that we get a 15-unit no-LB stack to kill in the open.

He's been upgrading units a lot and has maces unlocked now - I'm a bit worried about waiting too long. We're def. not ready just yet, though.

 

[Mitchum]

I think they were all there at the last upload, so should be min. 4t most longer. IIRC, Vlad doesn't even have any culture yet. I think we can wait 1-2t.

You only have to hold the city for 1T to get the 50% culture bonus if I understand the mechanics correctly. Since we're only stealing one tech from Vlad, we shouldn't let this determine when to pull the trigger.

I guess the real question is, how soon do we want Guilds/Banking, which we can affort right now if we steal Guilds from Troy and Banking from Vlad. Again, this exposes our other 4 spies in Troy to detection.

We should have enough epp in 4 turns to steal all 5 techs with 1304 current + 473/turn * 4 turns = 3,196. Can we afford to wait that long?

I would love to build the banks during a Golden age if possible to finish them all quickly. I'll post my "6 Bank" plan soon.

 

[Mitchum]

If we prioritize hammers, here is how long it will take cities to build banks (assumes 10% SP bonus, which may not be in effect after the GA... and no overflow, so all turns are rounded up):

               Turns w/GA        Turns w/o GA
Moscow             3                    4
Bermuda            4                    6
Siberia            4                    5
Bahamas            5                    6
Fish               5                    7
Rheims             6                    8
GP Farm            7                   10
Paris              8                   12
Kamchatka         10                   13

So I suggest that we build the banks in Moscow, Bermuda, Siberia, Bahamas, Fish, Rheims.

We could swap Moscow with GP Farm so that we can keep building cannons, but that could delay starting WS by about 2 turns. Maybe that isn't such a big deal since Fish has to build a bank (5 to 7 turns) and a Grocer (4 to 5 turns).

 

[bcool]

We want to consider a slavery switch at the end of the GA. With Kremlin we can whip out the banks if necessary.

 

[babybluepants]

I think we wanna look into Slavery and maximizing OF into WS. Needs more precise calculation. We probably need to know the timing on next GA then, too. Don't really wanna be out of Caste for too long.

Edit: xpost w bcool

 

[Mitchum]

Is that why we're building the Krimlin?

Actually, I had in my notes a possible switch to Slavery/OR to speed up the infrastructure builds in our cities. Also on the table are SP -> FM for Sishi/Mining Inc and Representation -> Police State (for -50% war weariness). Slavery+OR+PS+Nationalism has good synergy and supports whipping and warring from the end of this GA until our next one.

EDIT: I always get confused on the -33% hurry cost with the Kremlin, so I'll run some tests now to make sure that I understand this for optimal pop whips.

 

[LowtherCastle]

EDIT: I always get confused on the -33% hurry cost with the Kremlin, so I'll run some tests now to make sure that I understand this for optimal pop whips.

It's a good idea to test using the Kremlin. I'd be particularly interested in what sort of overflow you get, to see what the max overflow is (is it max base hammers, as usual, or max base hammers * 1.5?)

Just to give people an idea of how it's supposed to work, here are a couple of posts from MW SG8:

Spoiler :

Well, I'm not really calculating all the truncations .
In principle it's like:
The number of hammers per population (or per gold in the case of cash rushing) is multiplied by 1/2 for WP or RC. LC: Ignore this. This for poprushing a wonder, e.g., West POint or Red Cross...
Then its multiplied by 100 divided by 67 for Kremlin.
The result is then multiplied by the hammer modifiers in the city (200%-225% in your examples IIRC). So we are talking something like 44-50 hammers per pop.

Edit:
For Khazak there is also another thing to consider:
Pop-rush theatre from scratch, before you start your wonder.
As one pop will already complete the theater even from scratch with 300% modifier, you get one full turn of production (+ a few coins) overflow.


Yes. Yes.

Dammit! I only checked Versailles and Hermitage . I had no idea that the rush cost varied! Thanks

Just to complete the list:

Versailles 1/2
Forgotten Palace 2/3
Hermitage 2/3
National Park 2/3

LC - There are two factors affecting rushing

Without (A) or with (B) any hammers invested
Without (1) Kremlin or with (2) Kremlin

A1 is then without hammers invested and without Kremlin
A2 is then without hammers invested and with Kremlin
B1 is then with hammers invested and without Kremlin
B2 is then with hammers invested and with Kremlin

Each pop provides base hammers, just as hammers from tiles are considered base hammers.

When rushing a building without hammers and without Kremlin (A1) you get 20 hammers / population.
When rushing a building without hammers and with Kremlin (A2) you get 30 hammers / population.
When rushing a building with hammers and without Kremlin (B1) you get 30 hammers / population.
When rushing a building with hammers and with Kremlin (B2) you get 45 hammers / population.

These base hammers are further modified when you rush a wonder. The modifier could either be

2/3 (Forgotten Palace)
1/2 (Red Cross)
1/3 (Broadway)
1/4 (UN)

Base hammers for wonders then range from 5 to 30.

Example: Poprush Red Cross without hammers and with Kremlin, and no production bonus
1 pop = 30 * 1/2 = 15 hammers. Red Cross costs 600 hammers => 40 nurses are distributed among the world to repair the war damage we produce

The modified base hammers are then multiplied with the production bonus in the city.

Example: Above Red Cross is rushed without hammers and with Kremling (as above), but the city has a forge, factory, and power. Bonus = 100%.
1 pop = 30 * 1/2 * 200% = 30 hammers. Only 20 nurses are sent.

Worst rush case is then rushing UN without any hammers and without Kremlin in a city with no production bonus:
1 pop = 20 * 1/4 = 5 hammers. It then takes 200 pop to make peace in the world.
Best rush case is National Park in a capital with IW, factory, powerplant, while running bureaucracy, organized religion and state property (bonus 25 + 25 + 50 + 100 + 50 + 25 + 10 = 285 %) with Kremlin and hammers invested:
1 pop = 45 * 2/3 * 385% = 115 hammers.

SO basically the formula is:

(((# of pop)*30h)*100/67)*(1.25 for the forge +25%)​

With one or more truncations in there somewhere.

 

[Mitchum]

OK, here is how many hammers/pop we'll get under different scenarios with the Kremlin:

Nothing        44.75
SP             49.25
OR             55.75
Forge          55.75
OR+SP          60.25
Forge+SP       60.25
Forge+OR       67
F+OR+SP        71.33
F+OR+Burea     89.5

EDIT: All had 1 turn of production so as not to pop whip from scratch.

EDIT 2: I did all of these in a test game and the results match LC's formula.

 

[LowtherCastle]

It's not the culture discount, but the 40% state religion bonus that is in question. My testing shows that we still get both...

EDIT: xpost with bcool. Let's wait and see if LC's testing shows something different.

I'm glad you tested this, Mitchum. I checked the references and I misunderstood them somehow. The only requirement is our religion present and Roosy NOT running our religion.

This is also easy to verify in our real save because the cost for stealing a tech from Philly and Xian are the same, except for the slight variation in distance costs.

@bcool: Yes, we will get the full 50% culture discount on the first turn. Then it will decrease to:

-50%*(ourculture/(Roosyculture+ourculture)) each turn.​

So we actually want to be running an artist rather than working a tile each turn.

 

[Mitchum]

It's a good idea to test using the Kremlin. I'd be particularly interested in what sort of overflow you get, to see what the max overflow is (is it max base hammers, as usual, or max base hammers * 1.5?)

I put 64/200 hammers into a bank in Fish (OR+Forge). Each pop gives 67 hammers. After whip of 3 pops, bank has 265/200 hammers. The actual number of OF hammers would be less if we don't build infrastructure next for the OR bonus. Base OF was 44 hammers (i.e. usual max * 1.5).