SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

I don't think we can trade with Gandhi till one of us has a unhindered route from his capital to the other's capital.

That's what I figured, but it's an uncommon situation, so I thought I'd check.

This little piece of poopoogroats is going to have other teams either scratching their heads of grinning widely:

See the game summary on page 1 of this thread for a probable answer to this dilemma.

 

[babybluepants]

1.a. OBs/trade techs with Gandhi: As many as possible.
1.c. Gift dG Sailing+Masonry, if we get them from Gandhi (urgent/asap)
1.d. Warrior continue exploring to the SW
1.e. Spread COnfucianism to Galley CIty, asap (move to Galley-E-SE)?
5. Tech:
Currency (0% till we get Alpha)? ;
Monotheism, if we get Poly in trade? ;
Sailing/Masonry, if not in trade, for dG?
6. Revolt to Bureau, wait for BW/slavery?

All of these depend on how we plan to trade with Gandhi. Is everyone happy enough to give away CS? Can we try to come up with an alternative of some sort? I'm not really liking it, but I'll acquiesce if it's consensus.

4. Build exploratory galley
7. How to get a galley to dG for worker stealing after 10t of peace? This should give us 10-20 wkrs by 0AD.

Aside from the logistical difficulties on our end (i.e. we probably can't actually get a galley much before 1AD now), how do you expect DG to have 10-20 workers in this period? He probably couldn't build 10 by 1 AD if he built nothing else in his capital from now on.

Can we build a WB in Fish next, for exploration purposes?

1.b. Unit to threaten dG and cheap DoP (urgent/asap)

What kind of unit does this need to be?

1.e. Spread COnfucianism to Galley CIty, asap (move to Galley-E-SE)?
3. Roads toward Pigs, Moscow Rice, Silver
8. Run two scientists in Fish.

Ok.

2. wkr-wkr-settler-settler

Sounds right. I was going wkr-gran-settler, so should be the same schedule. When would you build the DG-threat unit?

 

[LowtherCastle]

See the game summary on page 1 of this thread for a probable answer to this dilemma.

Well, I guess that was my second turnset...

All of these depend on how we plan to trade with Gandhi. Is everyone happy enough to give away CS? Can we try to come up with an alternative of some sort? I'm not really liking it, but I'll acquiesce if it's consensus.

My long-term thinking is that if we don't beeline Communism, our expansion will be limited. So I'm not worried about Gandhi getting Philo. It would be great if he could help us along the way. Losing Galley City is a setback, but we can leverage it at least a bit by not reseraching all these piddly techs that take two turns here, three turns there.

Aside from the logistical difficulties on our end (i.e. we probably can't actually get a galley much before 1AD now), how do you expect DG to have 10-20 workers in this period? He probably couldn't build 10 by 1 AD if he built nothing else in his capital from now on.

He would build nothing but workers if we kept stealing them, but the numbers came off the top of my head.

Can we build a WB in Fish next, for exploration purposes?

Makes sense to me. Fish is anyway hammer-poor while working the 2 sci.

What kind of unit does this need to be?

A warrior will suffice to threaten dG. I'd build it this turn in Moscow.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Can you ... give me a detailed summary of what you propose?

Just eyeballing the current save, I saw the two northern workers managing to road to and scrub Silver site and 1 deer just in time for the first settler (~14t). The two southern workers road and scrub site+pigs just intime for the second settler (~18t). The two Moscow workers road, scrub, and irrigate the rice a little bit late for the second settler completion (15t) or just in time for the third settler (marble?) completion (19t). That's also just about right for the completion of calendar so that those two workers could immediately begin plantating. The important thing is to never waste worker turns. There's always a way to do something useful, with careful planning.

This parallel processing gets us rice, pigs, and deer hooked up. That's just about right for us to settle high-fallout cities like GP Farm. It also gets silver producing to help support our REX.

I think that's a decent balance, overall, which is what we're looking for. Exploration is weak, but so be it. That's what happens when you start inland. The Pigs city should be able to get up to speed rapidly and send out a galley.

Btw, another very important aspect of this REX phase is settling two offshore cities to double our trade route income in all our cities.

 

[bcool]

Don't we want to focus on getting 6+ well developed cities for the earliest possible Oxford University? So more workers than settlers once we get at least 6 nice city sites?

Do want to go with Communism instead of corporations? Or would we want just spend a short time in Communism before switching to corporations?

Edit: hey we might get better trade route values with the city gift too (at least in the short term)

 

[LowtherCastle]

Guys, there is a galley alternative to Galley City: two forts between Fish and the west coast make a canal. I tested it. That's a lot of worker turns 2*(1+6+10), but we get a lot of workers back eventually. Food for thought.

Maybe mdy's idea of a northern city somewhere makes more sense. We'll want the wine eventually anyway.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Don't we want to focus on getting 6+ well developed cities for the earliest possible Oxford University? So more workers than settlers once we get at least 6 nice city sites?

Do want to go with Communism instead of corporations? Or would we want just spend a short time in Communism before switching to corporations?

Edit: hey we might get better trade route values with the city gift too (at least in the short term)

1. Moscow; 2. Fish; 3. Marble; 4. Pigs; 5. GP Farm; 6. Gems/stone. 7. ?. I think they'll be ready by the time we get to Oxford.

I doubt Corporations works in this scenario. Off our tech path a bit and we want to uber-REX to clear all the fallout fast enough. Plus, they're expensive if you don't have another AI or two, spamming them for you in their cities, right? Maybe someone with more experience with corporations could correct me on that. My thought is that we might use the Fusion GE to build MIning, Inc, just in time for our engines, or something like that. Maybe Sid's late in teh game, if things slow down more than I expect and we need more GPs or population forsome reason. I'm hoping the game doesn't last that long.

The city gift won't affect trade route values, I don't think.

 

[babybluepants]

What do you guys think about just gifting Gandhi COL right now as a first step? We could see what happens diplomatically. In the test game, it gives +2 and opens up trading.

Edit: I just realized that he knows 3 AI in both real and test games. That adds a 1/8 to fair trade value compared to what I was calculating this morning. That gives me exactly +2 at 75t in my equation, but it seems to last until T85 in the test game.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sounds fine with me. Just be careful to save it and know which save you're playing with.

Are you saying that G knowing dG gives us more value for our trade?

Even if it doesn't give us +2, it still might flip dG to his WE. CHeck.

 

[babybluepants]

Nevermind for now. We can't give it to him this turn - I forgot about that.

Are you saying that G knowing dG gives us more value for our trade?

Part of the formula is (CivsKnown-CivsWhoKnowTech)/CivsKnown. The value increases when he knows more civs without the tech.

 

[LowtherCastle]

So you include us in that formula?

 

[bcool]

Updated LC's test game with almost all of the revealed map, with the exception of a small ice area to the far north.

Moved the warriors

Gave De Gaulle a 2nd city where it looks like it is from the map.

 

[babybluepants]

One unfortunate thing that just happened in test-play: if we trade Math and hold back CS, Gandhi can demand CS. In past tests, he's almost always demanded techs after the DoP/OB process, so it's quite likely. In that case, we'd have to give it to him for free and still use Currency on Alpha... I think I now prefer trading for everything with CS immediately. It's a sucky situation, imho. Hate giving it away.

 

[babybluepants]

The two Moscow workers road, scrub, and irrigate the rice a little bit late for the second settler completion (15t) or just in time for the third settler (marble?) completion (19t).

Just a note: I don't wanna grow until the rice is irrigated and we have a granary built. We need 24 total worker turns for this, including a skip by roading 1E of Moscow first. Including the revolt, 2 workers would be done at T+5 and T+9, I think, giving us 24t by T+19. Then we can go: granary+15f (3t) - grow to 6&7 (4t), while finishing barracks. It's the most efficient sequence, imho.

It seems the southern workers are too fast and northern too slow, especially if we want a marble city asap...

I'm ok with these worker actions (two road towards silver/deer, two towards pig) for the next two turns. If no one objects, I'll try playing one turn and gifting COL tmr morning.

 

[babybluepants]

We have 60 days left. No idea how long this game will be. If I assume 1700's AD, we're 75t into a 250-270t game. It took us 25 days of play, after the initial discussions, so we're on schedule. Especially since it should speed up for stretches in mid-game.

 

[babybluepants]

PLAN

Turn 75 - 1000 BC

Worker from ivory to cow - start road
Worker from desert to 1NW of cow
Missionary to 1NE of Galley City
Slider to 90% with research on Currency
Moscow to build a warrior ?
Turn 76 - 975 BC

Gift Gandhi COL

 

[bcool]

Don't we want to go 0% until we revolt to bureaucracy?

 

[babybluepants]

^ Why?

 

[LowtherCastle]

PPP looks good to me. If the missionary is on the eastern road, it will work the same turn we get OBs. Edit: Fish can work the ivory for a turn and gain a turn on the wb.

As mdy pointed out, Alpha gives us an extra 20% bonus on Currency, so 0% till Alpha makes sense.

Thx for updating the save, bcool.

 

[mdy]

^ Why?

So we get the 20% bonus for knowing alphabet whilst researching currency.


We will also need to gift/trade maths at the same time as COL in order for us to trade CS for alphabet next turn.

Why does Moscow need to build a warrior, we already have one down there. I don't think it matters if we had to give De Gaulle an extra tech for peace anyway.

In my experience whether state property or corporations are more useful is highly situational, so we shouldn't commit one way or another for a while.