SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

bbp, can you play the test game forward to the current turn, please?

Here it is, for worker actions and builds. How do we adjust for Mao? Replay the whole game?

 

[babybluepants]

DG got IW in 775 BC. I completely missed the 3h city tile. He had 72h into a build when he 1pop whipped (build complete in 650 BC, I think).

 

[LowtherCastle]

That looks like a settler. You can verify by checking how many hpt went into before it got poprushed. dG's schooling us on REX here. (Actually, I'm pretty sure he's telling us that Paris is a 2-food-resource piece of crud.) We'll need to check if it was 650BC or earlier, because that definitely affects our decision making. We could wait for the settler to appear, especially if it's unescorted again. We could get two workers in one turn. In any case, we don't want him settling again, the kid-punk.

 

[babybluepants]

Yes, settler seems likely. He's also quite boxed in by Mao already.

Sabotage production was on 72h in 675 BC, with Paris at pop 3. 650 BC, there was no sabotage production value with Paris at 2. I'm just not sure how AI turns work, and when he gets use of the settler exactly.

Can you track this stuff for all of his cities? Your post yesterday seemed to suggest so. How?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Okay. We should assume an unescorted settler's at Orleans-SE.
We put chariot-W on the hill (some risk of Buddhism spread and teleporting) and chariot-E goes in the forest and we should spot the settler no matter where it goes next turn, if it appears at all.
Capturing the worker within 2 roaded tiles of Orleans is risky, unless we're fairly sure neither Orleans nor Paris built a metal unit.
It also wouldn't be uncommon for another worker to join this one roading. All told, it makes sense for us to wait a turn or two.

The warrior should probably stay close to Mao so he doesn't get attacked by dG.

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We can't follow the production of Lyons, but we should analyze the production of Paris and Orleans from when he got IW till now to see if he built any metal units.

 

[babybluepants]

The lack of escort seems to be the rule?

I suppose we can assume that the worker will continue roading south (not like it can do anything else with all the fallout ). I'm ok with delaying a turn or two - your plan sounds good.

To clarify: I don't really understand how you follow production. Can you explain? My understanding so far was that if I go Ctrl+E and select DG, Sabotage Bldg and Sabotage Prod show Paris. How do I look at other cities?

 

[babybluepants]

ROSTER UPDATE

Mitchum Played T0-27 UP
bcool Played T40-48 ON DECK
LowtherCastle Played T48-57
mdy Played T57-75
babybluepants Played T27-40 T75-90 JUST PLAYED
shyuhe M.I.A.
ZPV M.I.A.
mystyfly M.I.A.
Silu (lurking)
Soirana (erasing)

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Hey, bbp, since when are you part of the GOTM staff? Congraz, I guess

Nice catch Mysty and congrats BBP ... what did you do?

Now that we got a spy in the house... some GOTMing seems in order
(first question to the staff -yeah that's you bbp -: I have a valid save from BOTM30, is it elligible for hof? I haven't opened any spoiler threads... just missed the deadline as always)

edit: any news from Shyuhe? Where is he?

 

[Mitchum]

Moscow: finish settler (for pigs) -> worker -> granary -> settler (GP Farm) -> rax -> units (when do we want to research Machinery for Macemen?)

Fish: granary (1T) -> back to wb -> whip granary for 2 once GS is born; citizens on fish and cow) -> complete wb (to net fish for Pigs city after exploring the landmass to the SE for a few turns) -> wb (to net clams NE of Moscow for +1 health) -> galley (for off-shore settling)

Siberia: granary -> library?

Pigs: granary

GP Farm: granary

I’m not sure exactly what the mechanics are, but I’ve heard that if an AI has less than 3 cities, they will accept (as a gift or peace treaty) any city, no matter how bad it is. Should we plan to settle 4 “ice-ball” cities in the north for De Gaulle, Mao, Roosevelt and Churchill? Then we can take all of the rest of their cities and leave them with one crappy city each… That would mean that we should research Machinery soon. Macemen should have no problems as long as we are attacking archers and not long bows.

Do we want to coddle Gandhi as a possible tech trading partner or should we “ice-ball” him too?

BTW, are we sure that Gandhi is on our landmass? I don’t see any foreign units around, but is it possible that Mao and Roosevelt saw Galley City?

Now that we know that Roosevelt is reachable pre-Astronomy, how soon can we capture the GLH?

Do we plan to revolt to Confucianism any time soon?

Research Calendar -> ?? MC -> Machinery or Poly -> Aesthetics -> Literature

When do we want to go for the GLib?

Follow LC’s suggestion for worker stealing De Gaulle. One chariot on the hill SW+SW of Orleans. Another chariot on the forest N of the dyes (so that he can still capture the visible worker if needed). Current worker is 3S of Orleans, so we should be safe from any units there. Wait for settler and/or second worker to appear. Capture two workers! QED.

Warrior explores near Mao. Missionary, at risk by Churchill’s archer, continues to explore west.

Things to do each turn:

• Monitor De Gaulle’s production in each city (except Lyons, which we cannot see). Should we also be monitoring Mao’s cities as we uncover them?
  
• Check for peace with Churchill each turn.
  
• Check tech treading options. Once Polytheism is on the table, offer Gandhi Currency for Mono and Poly?. Or self-research Poly (2T at 100%) and try to get Mono…

I will work through worker actions once I we have agreement on the higher-level plans above.

 

[babybluepants]

Nice catch Mysty and congrats BBP ... what did you do?

Now that we got a spy in the house... some GOTMing seems in order
(first question to the staff -yeah that's you bbp -: I have a valid save from BOTM30, is it elligible for hof? I haven't opened any spoiler threads... just missed the deadline as always)

edit: any news from Shyuhe? Where is he?

shyuhe's just disappeared. Not really like him at all. I guess he finally got sick of this game. At least for a time... I'm sure he'll be back at some point.

I wouldn't think you can submit a GOTM game into HOF, but that's not any insider knowledge, or knowledge period. Just my personal assumption.

BTW, are we sure that Gandhi is on our landmass? I don’t see any foreign units around, but is it possible that Mao and Roosevelt saw Galley City?

Gandhi knew the others, but not DG before the Galley City gift. It looks as though all AI (except possibly Stalin), are on our continent. Gandhi and Roos should be to the west or south-west of Mao, with Churchill somewhere directly south of Mao, I guess.

I'll respond to the rest tonight, no time now...

 

[LowtherCastle]

@Mitchum: Looking good.

Chariot-W: I meant the hill at Rheims-2N. If his settler is at Orleans-SE, then next turn it either goes SE to the forest (doubtful) or takes the road SW-S-(SE). If it were heading SW it would have gone to Orleans-SW this last turn. So you look for that. If that doesn't happen, then either the settler didn't move last turn or it moved 2 tiles with an escort, both generally more typical than unescorted actually. Anyway, I don't see any benefit from putting the chariot at Orleans-2SW.

We want IW(+Masonry), above all imo, before we trade Currency to anyone. An important question is, do we give Gandhi Currency if he demands it? He does so often in my tests. I'm not sure.

I thought we were planning to grow Moscow before building the GP Farm settler, at least to pop6 or pop7, but maybe not. In any case, we can't settle it till it's scrubbed obviously, and it needs at least 2 workers full-time, even better 3-4, so maybe you play that by principle rather than a set plan. A couple more units out of Moscow while growing would be great. We're a bit vulnerable between Rheims and Pigs City. The hill at Dyes-E is an incredibly good lookout to warn us about a stack from any flank.

On Pigs, I think the workers should mine the plains hill right after the pig pasture. That's the fastest way to get a wb there, so we can poprush the granary at pop4. That also frees Fish up to build the galley rather than another wb.

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

We konw excatly where CHurchill is: We see his culture 2SE of our Missionary. My guess is the missionary is on a 2-tile-wide isthmus, below which is CHurchill, above and to the west of which are Gandhi and Roosy. We don't know if we have direct land access to them.

 

[Mitchum]

Chariot-W: I meant the hill at Rheims-2N. If his settler is at Orleans-SE, then next turn it either goes SE to the forest (doubtful) or takes the road SW-S-(SE). If it were heading SW it would have gone to Orleans-SW this last turn. So you look for that. If that doesn't happen, then either the settler didn't move last turn or it moved 2 tiles with an escort, both generally more typical than unescorted actually. Anyway, I don't see any benefit from putting the chariot at Orleans-2SW.

If the settler is headed to the W or SW (over the rice road), having the Chariot-W on the hill at Orleans-2SW allows us to cover that. If our Chariot is on the hill at Rheims-2N, the settler could get away to the west, especially if it has an archer escort, which I'd be tempted to attack with both a chariot and warrior backup available.

EDIT: I forgot the chariots can only move 1 tile with fallout. Maybe the hill 2N of Rheims is better...

We want IW(+Masonry), above all imo, before we trade Currency to anyone. An important question is, do we give Gandhi Currency if he demands it? He does so often in my tests. I'm not sure.

I think it's best to deny this request. We'll get + diplo modifiers with Gandhi for shared religion soon enough, right?

I thought we were planning to grow Moscow before building the GP Farm settler, at least to pop6 or pop7, but maybe not. In any case, we can't settle it till it's scrubbed obviously, and it needs at least 2 workers full-time, even better 3-4, so maybe you play that by principle rather than a set plan. A couple more units out of Moscow while growing would be great. We're a bit vulnerable between Rheims and Pigs City. The hill at Dyes-E is an incredibly good lookout to warn us about a stack from any flank.

OK. But Moscow can't grow until the rice is farmed (and irrigated via farm chain). So then our build order should be: finish settler -> worker -> chariot X2 while growing to 6 (hopefully Fish can work the gold while we grow) -> GP Farm settler. When do we want to squeeze in the granary? The sooner the better, right? Maybe we could build one chariot and a granary and grow to 7... I'll have to verify that our workers can improve the Copper in time to make this worthwhile.

Note that Fish can build a worker or two as well since it currently only has 3 improved tiles to work (4 if you count the gold, which is better worked in the capital for the Bureaucracy + academy bonus).

On Pigs, I think the workers should mine the plains hill right after the pig pasture. That's the fastest way to get a wb there, so we can poprush the granary at pop4. That also frees Fish up to build the galley rather than another wb.

OK, so then Fish doesn't need to build a work boat to net Pigs fish tile if we're building it locally prior to the granary. Should the build queue in Fish be granary (whipped for 2) -> complete work boat (to net the clams NE of Moscow) -> galley (for exploration and to support off-shore settling). Also, if the land mass to the SE is big, we may want to load a chariot onto said galley to explore the inland tiles.

We konw excatly where CHurchill is: We see his culture 2SE of our Missionary. My guess is the missionary is on a 2-tile-wide isthmus, below which is CHurchill, above and to the west of which are Gandhi and Roosy. We don't know if we have direct land access to them.

Churchill has an archer next to our missionary. Do you think he sent it over to our continent on a galley? I assumed that it meant we did have direct land access to him.

I'll start putting together worker actions until Calendar is in (0% slider until Academy is built in Moscow and then 100%).

 

[Mitchum]

I didn't see our work boat SE of Moscow. Should this wb explore the land mass to the SE a bit and arrive at Pig's fish in time for the border pop? That would free up Pigs to build a granary first.

 

[babybluepants]

Pig city: improve the pig asap > grow to 2 > whip the WB > start granary. Forget the hill mine. We have 2x 6fpt + 1x 4fpt tile there and several bonus happy. Just whip the sucker in the near future.

Not sure if these new cities should just build a warrior each before granaries, though.

Moscow: build granary in 3t, while getting as close to 15f in the bin as possible, then grow to 7 in 4t. I was previously doing this on barracks, but we could maybe skip that and build two chariots instead. Ideally, it's timed so Fish can work the gold during these turns. We don't need to rush the granary whip there, if we are working gold, just don't go over 30h into granary. Also, that whip should ideally happen so that we end up with 12f in the bin after (i.e. 12f - current_fpt the moment you whip).

I completely disagree with denying any Gandhi requests. I'm kinda just hoping he gets IW before demand. Not sure what to do there...

WB should be exploring. There's an island directly south of pig city.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If the settler is headed to the W or SW (over the rice road), having the Chariot-W on the hill at Orleans-2SW allows us to cover that. If our Chariot is on the hill at Rheims-2N, the settler could get away to the west, especially if it has an archer escort, which I'd be tempted to attack with both a chariot and warrior backup available.

EDIT: I forgot the chariots can only move 1 tile with fallout. Maybe the hill 2N of Rheims is better...

Here's an idea. Leave the warrior as is for this turn. If dG's escorted settler is going SW, we'll see it at Orleans-SW next turn.

I think it's best to deny this request. We'll get + diplo modifiers with Gandhi for shared religion soon enough, right?

We have to make a decision sooner or later. Are we going to try to get Gandhi to Friendly and have him reserach advanced techs for us or not? If so, we need every possible pluspoint we can get. The problem is, we already kind of screwed that foreve when we DoPed with Roosy. Gandhi always takes -2 for declaring on his friends. So I think we're probably stuck with never gettnig Gandhi to Friendly and planning to ice-ball him also eventually. IN this case, I see no need to give in to his demands. We don't get a negmod from it, just miss the plusmod.

OK. But Moscow can't grow until the rice is farmed (and irrigated via farm chain). So then our build order should be: finish settler -> worker -> chariot X2 while growing to 6 (hopefully Fish can work the gold while we grow) -> GP Farm settler. When do we want to squeeze in the granary? The sooner the better, right? Maybe we could build one chariot and a granary and grow to 7... I'll have to verify that our workers can improve the Copper in time to make this worthwhile.

I agree with what bbp said about granary in 3t after the settler. You actually have to slow growth 1t, iirc, to not waste food, meaning not work the rice 1t. I'm not sure about RAX before or after the chariots. Maybe play that one based on your situational analysis at the time too.

Note that Fish can build a worker or two as well since it currently only has 3 improved tiles to work (4 if you count the gold, which is better worked in the capital for the Bureaucracy + academy bonus).

I would assume we'll be 2popping (or 3popping) FIsh until it gets healthy enough to grow and has tiles to work.

OK, so then Fish doesn't need to build a work boat to net Pigs fish tile if we're building it locally prior to the granary. Should the build queue in Fish be granary (whipped for 2) -> complete work boat (to net the clams NE of Moscow) -> galley (for exploration and to support off-shore settling). Also, if the land mass to the SE is big, we may want to load a chariot onto said galley to explore the inland tiles.

I didn't see the SE workboat either... I thought that wb build in Fish was taking longer than I had remembered.... Again, I agree with bbp, let that workboat explore that island freely. And please don't cut corners--you never konw when there are more land tiles off that corner. Or even land tiles that are reachable by a city's second border expansion, which we can also detect by inference if we don't cut the corner.

Churchill has an archer next to our missionary. Do you think he sent it over to our continent on a galley? I assumed that it meant we did have direct land access to him.

I doubt it. I think we're on the same land mass as Churchill, with the isthmus connecting our area to his.

Caution: Careful fog-gazing to the west shows that Mao probably is blocking us from Roosy and Gandhi. The immediate significance is that our warrior and chariots will eventually be in danger of the 2-3 strike CHurchill archer (starting about 5t from now). If we can't get peace before that, we'll have to really watch out. Note that Churchill and dG will love each other as soon as they meet and share borders, so CHurchill's archer will be able to waltz on over to Pigs City.

On the other hand, if we can somehow worm a chariot past the archer, and get within two tiles of one of his cities, we'll get peace for cheap. Food for thought. The isthmus has plenty of no-fallout plains tiles for the archer to slide by.

 

[LowtherCastle]

bbp's response below, I think, is to a post I posted then deleted about a minute later. Anyway, bbp, I agree with you on Pigs City: 1pop the wb asap. It's simply better because we have no other tiles to work, as you say below. Now, for 2poprushing everything else, we need at least three tiles we can work. Pretty soon, we'll want the mine and the ivory so we can grow to pop6 and 3pop a forge and a ch. But for now, I agree, pigs-rice (scrub the hill for a turn on the way to the rice to not waste worker-turns).

Then Mitchum can decide if those workers are free to scrub the GP Farm or if they should improve the mine and the ivory...
.

 

[babybluepants]

If you had the mine done already, maybe. It's 10 worker turns that could be used elsewhere, though. I'm too lazy to think it through carefully right now, but I get growth to 4 on the same turn either way on quick calc. The difference is the saved worker turns.

We don't need to wait between whips. We have 3 resources already, and it takes close to 10t to re-grow anyway. Just 2pop granary, LH, library. Or, emergency unit if needed.

Edit: x-post, sorta. this doesn't make sense anymore.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mitchum: One more point of finesse on the worker stealing cycle. What to do on T91 if the settler hasn't shown up yet? The worker will have finished the road but not moved. The catch is that if the worker moves to the tile where the chariot-on-the-hill is, and we DoW, our chariot will teleport somewhere. But we don't actually know if the worker will move SW, S, or SE next turn. So...if we're not going to capture the worker that turn (risky 3 tiles from Orleans), then probably the best is to move the chariot-on-the-hill to the tile the worker is on. Then the worker will move and can be safely captured. The chariot-in-the-forest on T91 could remain there or join the other chariot, I suppose.

If it happens that another worker and the settler shows up, 3 units on two different tiles, I'd risk attacking 3S of Orleans and capture all three.
.

 

[mdy]

2. When Rheims is connected to Paris, it will rquire 32t to grow to pop2, unless dG has a fourth resource. He doesn't have fish or cows, he could have pigs. Too slow to wait for.
3. The current Rheims location is MUCH WORSE than dyes-SW for a space race. We want to work workshops, not coastal+ocean tiles. Plus, the current location misses the dyes.

Are you sure? By my calculation Rheims has a surplus of +1 food after taking account of the effects of the fallout which will lead to growth in 22T not 32. Given the time it will take us to build a force of macemen to take out De Gaulle this is more than quick enough.

Dyes SW does not look like a much better site to meet as it would need to share the rice with the pigs/ivory GP farm in order to grow. We can found a city here, and keep Rheims anyway.

We also need to capture Rheims for continued worker stealing because on ~T117 Orleans' borders will expand again, making that passageway virtually impossible. This is not a trivial matter. Ideally, we will put together an attack force for Rheims before it has any metal defenders. But of course, we don't want to mess up our REX, growth and research in the process.

De Gaulles unpillagable iron makes continued worker stealing from De Gaulle too dangerous in my view. If we are reasonably confident we can capture 2 workers when De Gaulle sends out an unescorted settler in a few turns I am all for it, but in the longer terms his access to swords/spears will make it much riskier too continue.

Do we want to coddle Gandhi as a possible tech trading partner or should we “ice-ball” him too?

Gandhi will probably be a good tech trading partner in the short term, but in the longer term his cities will probably be more useful if we capture them.

An important question is, do we give Gandhi Currency if he demands it?

He should still trade with us even if we get a -1 modifier, so we can afford not too.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are you sure? By my calculation Rheims has a surplus of +1 food after taking account of the effects of the fallout which will lead to growth in 22T not 32. Given the time it will take us to build a force of macemen to take out De Gaulle this is more than quick enough.

Dyes SW does not look like a much better site to meet as it would need to share the rice with the pigs/ivory GP farm in order to grow. We can found a city here, and keep Rheims anyway.

Okay, I had a brainfart. +1fpt gets pop2 in 16t, not 32t , of course. (AIs need 16f for pop2.) That's after connecting to Paris. So with 3 in Paris, 16t, more 8t.

Btw, I was talking about dyes-sW (not -sE), but I calced the difference is only +3h after all, because of the mountain and the lake. Insignificant. Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to keep Rheims if we can. I always was. I just didn't want to wait, so if we don't wait, no probs.

I still don't want to wait for maces, though. Hopefully, Moscow will have time to build a few axes and we can capture Rheims sooner. I'd like to get a couple axes down there asap to protect our worker stealers, but that's the next turnset.

He should still trade with us even if we get a -1 modifier, so we can afford not too.

We get zero negmods from Gandhi for denying a demand.