SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

what about a sheep city? (on copper/corn island) Instead of a Silver city?

We could use the . We could still send the banana city settler on the galley over there, and the galley would still be back in time. ALternatively, Bahamas could build the Sheep CIty settler later. Much later. In the next two turns, the warrior will see most of what the Sheep area looks like and the settler could still be diverted. Interesting idea.

when are we going to build up to steal philosophy?

Chs come after forges, in my thinking. We can run a spy specialist or two also. We could even go for a GSPy, I guess.

What about a confu missionary to spread confu to GP Farm to speed up its development?

ANother good idea. GP Farm will need confucianism and the chances of spread are now slim. Might as well be sooner than later.

Are we planning to switch to Theocracy for the macemen/catapult army?

I doubt it. Another reason to start some fighting earlier. Hopefully get a quick GG to settle in Moscow.

Does DeG have decent stack to attack us with? Could get ugly with limited defenders at Pigs...

dG has not been sending his Marseilles stack anywhere. If he waits till the second turn of the DoW, we can DoP after 5t before the stack can get to Pigs. On the other hand, we don't want to DoP. I'll have to think about it.

Are you planning to build another fort to get the galley that we used for island settling into the stack for attack on Paris?

One fort at Galley CIty 1E.

Isn't one coming back (or is it just too far away)

That wb has more exploring to do on the west side of that island.

Is a trireme really necessary since we can move and unload troops next to Paris on the same turn? So what if De Gaulle attacks an empty galley?
I would prefer a catapult.

I think it's necessary. We want to keep the galleys loaded with units so they land each turn. Otherwise, he can poprush/draft/bring to many reinforcements. dG suicides his galleys relentlessly in testing. The odds are 1 out of three wins.

 

[bcool]

We have 16 workers already and I expect we will have the DeG discount on workers for at least 10 more turns. Do we really need the HS? I don't think we do. We have a good shot at an engineer even without HS, we can run an engineer in a few cities (might delay one of the GS).

By the way excellent job, LC on the worker capturing and wonder building. It gets crazy managing everything.

Moscow could build Confu missionaries, or wealth (or we could trade for a bit of gold with significantly lopsided trades) and we could get machinery in 3 turns. Revolting to representation and theocracy in 3 turns.
I think we need to build up the military asap. And the revolt to theocracy really helps with the build up.

I think it's necessary. We want to keep the galleys loaded with units so they land each turn. Otherwise, he can poprush/draft/bring to many reinforcements. dG suicides his galleys relentlessly in testing. The odds are 1 out of three wins.

with combat 1 or drill 1 galley we might be able to fight off the galleys and with accuracy promoted catapults we could drop Paris in 3 turns maybe.

After the military build up...
We could consider revolting back to organized religion?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I think we need to grow Moscow to about 14 relatively soon. We should maximize production right this moment for the wonder gambit(s), but the mace build-up should be synched with a good amount of growth. I'd still argue for farming the other two grass

Two workers are building one of those farms as we speak.

I'm not too happy that we don't have OB with Roos. It's the cheapest +2 we can get longer term, so we should have done it already. In fact, we have to do it now, since the religion strife will make it impossible in a matter of turns.

I've been waiting for Theology. I wanted a sure thing, in large part because I couldn't figure out how Roosy might use the techs we give him to trade around and prevent us from getting enough techs to get the +3 we need. So I'll do it next turn. Sound okay?

Does Siberia really need a forge so bad? We should be building settlers and workers, IMHO. Fish could also skip stuff like trireme and either build settler/worker or military.

We can't afford more than a few more cities right now, including Rheims, Paris, and Orleans. We're getting close to deficit spending already.

We need population to lower our massive unit costs.
We need chs to lower our massive maintenance costs (and steal Philo).
Some cities need forges long term, so prefereably we build them asap.
There are exceptions to the rules.

I'd like to see Siberia with a forge+ch asap, and then at pop8 or more to work six tiles and run 2 or 3 specialists. It could even run 2sci+1eng+1spy at pop10. But I could see us poprushing the ch, then just slowbuilding the forge. Depends on whether we want to try to pop an early GP (GS?) from here or not.

Spreading Confu to the rest of our cities (at least Siberia, GP and Bahamas for Oxford) would be advisable, but I don't know that we can spare production. Maybe in Fish?

Need to think about that.

I think GP should switch to working rice next turn, so we can do an efficient granary whip in 3t. Also, I'd probably build library ahead of forge.

My plan is to work the mine(1t)-rice(1t), then poprush while working the bananas. In my tests this is the best by a few bushels.

I guess we could go library-ch in GP. The forge will add 1, which will limit GP somewhat around pop14.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We have 16 workers already and I expect we will have the DeG discount on workers for at least 10 more turns. Do we really need the HS? I don't think we do. We have a good shot at an engineer even without HS, we can run an engineer in a few cities (might delay one of the GS).

Moscow could build Confu missionaries, or wealth (or we could trade for a bit of gold with significantly lopsided trades) and we could get machinery in 3 turns. Revolting to representation and theocracy in 3 turns.
I think we need to build up the military asap. And the revolt to theocracy really helps with the build up.


with combat 1 or drill 1 galley we might be able to fight off the galleys and with accuracy promoted catapults we could drop Paris in 3 turns maybe.

After the military build up...
We could consider revolting back to organized religion?

I must say that I just don't see the need for a rush to war. The Fish galley is 12t from transporting 2 units to Paris. The other galley 13t away if it delivers the settler to Sheep. But aside from those logistics, I just don't see the hurry. dG has lousy land. Only Rheims is exceptionally nice, as far as we can see. Paris is an average 2- or 3-food (probably) city. Orleans is decent but using the rice for the best site around--1SE of Shanghai's dye--because of all the river tiles. To prevent these cities from being a major drain on our economy, we'll need to be able to develop them asap. Hagia enables us to develop them ~30% faster and cheaper in terms of unit costs. I see Hagia as the silver bullet here. We stumbled into it by gifting Gandhi Galley City. Now I think we should grab it while we can. We could put half our 16 workers on GP and it might not be enough.

Furthermore, Hagia can be done in 6t. So maces start 3t later than you're suggesting.

Now, the real reason I'm interested in grabbing Rheims asap is that I'm still interested in building the Hanging Gardens. That's another kick in the rear for our population, plus the health. Also gives the GE, of course. Rheims is the only prize out there that I see hurrying for.

I guess we'll have to sleep on it and discuss it again tomorrow.

 

[bcool]

One reason I was suggesting a rush to war to make use of the turn of anarchy and switch to Theocracy.

I must say that I just don't see the need for a rush to war. The Fish galley is 12t from transporting 2 units to Paris. The other galley 13t away if it delivers the settler to Sheep. But aside from those logistics, I just don't see the hurry. dG has lousy land. Only Rheims is exceptionally nice, as far as we can see. Paris is an average 2- or 3-food (probably) city. Orleans is decent but using the rice for the best site around--1SE of Shanghai's dye--because of all the river tiles. To prevent these cities from being a major drain on our economy, we'll need to be able to develop them asap. Hagia enables us to develop them ~30% faster and cheaper in terms of unit costs. I see Hagia as the silver bullet here. We stumbled into it by gifting Gandhi Galley City. Now I think we should grab it while we can. We could put half our 16 workers on GP and it might not be enough.

We can get 2 galleys near Paris much faster (~8 turns) than you suggest if we
1) build a fort 1NE of Galley City

or we can get 3 galleys near Paris ~8 turns if we
2) build 2 forts 1NE of Galley City and 1E of Galley City (so we can get the existing galley in without going around.
--- and not use that galley for a city near the sheep.

The AI's are slower to develop in this game. We can take them out cheaply if we hit them before they get Feudalism or (Horseback and Construction for that matter and WE). Hitting them earlier allows us to build the Heroic Epic that much earlier.

Furthermore, Hagia can be done in 6t. So maces start 3t later than you're suggesting.

We probably want a barracks in Moscow too(so HS delays macemen 5 turns)

We could rush machinery and perhaps upgrade the axes near Rheims to Macemen and take more than 2 archers out. (seems unlikely it will only have 2 archers, no?) Might be worth it if we get stone and could build the Hanging Gardens.

If we take out Paris quickly we might be able to whip out a courthouse quickly. And/or run merchants with representation. Like bbp suggested we can crash our economy with representation and still maintain a decent research rate. Plus the loot from the cities we capture can boost our economy. I don't think war is going to cripple us. We might even pillage the cottages that hurt bbp's eyes so .

 

[Mitchum]

The time to debate the HS was before we stole Theology. If we weren't going to build it, we would have saved our epp for Philosophy, right? I still think it is a great wonder on this map (with the GE gpp as a bonus).

 

[bcool]

Trading it, using for theocracy civic makes it worth stealing. We will get Philosophy too with a courthouse build or 2 and maybe a spy or 2.

 

[bcool]

I know this game was built for the HS, but it really isn't significantly better than 3-6 workers. Which we probably can steal anyways.

A well managed war against archers and metal units with Macemen/catapults (especially 5 xp units) is just good for us. We can raze a city or two if we really think the maintenance isn't something we can handle under representation.

What happened to "war" economy?

 

[babybluepants]

We pretty much can't even research maces before the HS build is complete, so I don't see a reason not to. Theocracy is great when needed, but I don't think it is. Mace against archer is so overwhelming that CR1 vs CR2 isn't very big, I think. Agree with Mitchum - I would've argued against spending ep on Theo if we weren't determined to build HS. We'll kill him soon enough.

@LC,
I think we can support quite a bit more in maintenance costs. Don't worry about French cities, the capture cash basically pays for the city until it can contribute. I'm not afraid of even hitting a semi-permanent 0% here. More cities will pay off quicker than you think, esp. with our suddenly quite decent worker force.

 

[bcool]

I disagree we can get Machinery in 3 turns (either with lopsided gold trades or a turn or two of wealth building)
barracks and 1 turn of wealth building in Moscow then macemen (after a revolt to representation and theocracy) is my vote.

An army of Macemen/catapults and soon enough treb. is enough to take out Mao too I bet. (heavily promoted macemen can take out longbows with treb support with few to no losses)

We are not going to have time to conquer the world if we don't take advantage of our military advantages as soon as we get them. As bbp said, the gold from conquest pays for the maintenance until we can get them profitable.

 

[bcool]

Used LC's test game with the pyramids (wasn't that close but we can have a good army in DeG even sooner than this test shows if we focus on it.) The fallout really does go quickly with a lot of workers... Test game had fewer workers and I built 2 fortresses.

Builds are far from optimized. This is just a quick simulation of a war focus might produce...

(Paris has the buddhist holy city, it probably would pay for itself... even not counting the gold from capturing it.)

 

[mdy]

Whilst I do think we need to use our military advantage with maces to grab as much land as we can before the AI gets longbows, I do think we should go for the Hagia Sophia in the capital first (More for the rare GE points, though the extra worker turns are nice).

Stone for the HG would be nice, however with the number of archers France has running around I doubt we can capture Rheims before we get maces. More worker stealing followed by cease-fires are probably a more useful use for our current units. Even if we could take Rheims we would probably miss the HG. It is already getting late to build it and we would need to wait for Rheims to come out of revolt, and then for the borders to expand.

I also favour switching to theocracy at the same time as rep, with a couple of upcoming wars it will probably save us more hammers than Organised Religion.

 

[babybluepants]

Well, we got a Jan 20 extension.

 

[babybluepants]

I'm for Hagia Sophia. It's very quick to build and if we really want Mining Inc. we should give ourselves a good chance at it.

It is getting late for HG, but the Pyramids were ridiculously late. Is it possible that stone/marble is fallout-covered everywhere?

Since we just got an extra month, we should talk some longer term strategy.

I slightly prefer OR over Theocracy. We'll need to spread Confu to quite a few cities soon, and I'm not sure we really need to build that many units. How much conquering do you guys envision in the short term? Mao's PRO and appears to have a very healthy empire. I expect that the difference in expenditures between taking down France and China would be significant. With France alone and all the land still available for settling we should have upwards of 20+ cities. That may be a roughly optimal number before going on a massive Renai-era campaign around the time we get State Prop. The likes of Mao and Church would be much easier to conquer with a more overwhelming tech advantage, and once we have multiple cities set up to pump units.

If we're making a run at Communism via Chem, Steel is an easy get, btw. MT is off-path, and mounted most likely gets shafted by all the 1-move terrain around. Paper>Educ>Eng>GP>Chem>SciMeth>Lib-Comm>Steel is the path. It's really unfortunate that we probably won't be able to trade for crap like Eng and Guilds in this game. I wonder if there are ways to work towards those trades, like gifting Gandhi Machinery, but I'm reluctant to give him too much of anything as he is a bit of a Lib danger and we can probably self-tech these things faster anyway.

Shorter term I would like to plan for an efficient Oxford get and the run to Lib, more than any large-scale warring.

 

[babybluepants]

Two workers are building one of those farms as we speak.

I saw that. The river farms do have extra but I guess we should leave the cottage option.

I've been waiting for Theology. I wanted a sure thing, in large part because I couldn't figure out how Roosy might use the techs we give him to trade around and prevent us from getting enough techs to get the +3 we need. So I'll do it next turn. Sound okay?

Ok. It's just that the cost of +3 increases by (very roughly) 30bpt, and we've been waiting for, what, a good 20t now? OB +1 is 25t, as well.

We can't afford more than a few more cities right now, including Rheims, Paris, and Orleans. We're getting close to deficit spending already.

We need population to lower our massive unit costs.
We need chs to lower our massive maintenance costs (and steal Philo).
Some cities need forges long term, so prefereably we build them asap.
There are exceptions to the rules.

I'd like to see Siberia with a forge+ch asap, and then at pop8 or more to work six tiles and run 2 or 3 specialists. It could even run 2sci+1eng+1spy at pop10. But I could see us poprushing the ch, then just slowbuilding the forge. Depends on whether we want to try to pop an early GP (GS?) from here or not.

Sounds like you're effectively investing a fairly steep 240h in the ability to maybe run Eng and Spy, which I'd question at this stage. Non-ORG courthouse in a nearby city is a bit of a luxury, as is a forge in a city with very little hammers, IMHO. If we really want the EP and GE gpp so bad, ok, but I personally wouldn't go broke for it. Moscow will be by far our best shot at the GE, and we'll have other marginal shots from Pigs.

 

[babybluepants]

Even a scientist specialist only Oxford University (no cottage) GP Farm might be better than Oxford in Moscow. How many scientists could we get there? 12?

I'm not saying it is better than Moscow I'm just looking at the possibility. And it will be a longish game so long term view might make it a viable option.

There are two grassland river tiles near GP Farm (opening up soon when Paris falls)

Sure you could run 12sci after Bio.

Post-Bio GP Farm
8 sci @ Pop 13 with one sugar farm
+1sci per 2 pop beyond that (via 4f grass farms)
So, 12sci @ Pop 19 (and you're not working any of your cottages, btw)

Post-Bio Moscow
3-4sci @ Pop 10, working 1 or 2 gold
+1sci per 2 pop beyond that
So, 8sci @ Pop 20, while also working 2 gold and 2 silk under bureau
Or, 6sci while also running two riverside cottages.

Moscow also has +2 fresh water, unlike GP Farm.

Most importantly, the difference in setup cost is simply astronomical. Getting all the requisite infrastructure (including, in this case, Palace) in GP won't actually allow you to run all those specs and/or cottages very much, I'm pretty damn sure. It would also be quite difficult to accomplish while running Caste, for instance. I think that city needs only minimal infrastructure and then runs maximum specialists. It's most useful that way.

The real problem with this is that Moscow would be wasting all its awesome hammers by focussing on research (though it doesn't necessarily need to be in continuous research mode just because it has the research infra). This is why you're looking at alternatives, and I do appreciate that. I'd also love to find another spot for a primary science city, but I just don't see it. GP Farm and Siberia are closest, I suppose, but I wouldn't consider either a very great science city and they're way behind in development. Anything we see from here on will have a very steep setup cost, since we could be closing in on Oxford very soon. Unless one of the AI capitals (not Paris) is totally wicked... We likely won't be capturing those for a while, however. I suppose it may be ok to consider a significant delay in Oxford, but I'm fairly confident that any major Space player, starting with Dynamic, would just roll his eyes at that decision. We're talking a major delay in getting to Lib-Comm-Bio-Sushi/Mining, and all the associated payoff. The relative value of the Oxford city does (somewhat) diminish once we have 30-40 cities under SP or Sushi/Mining. It's greatest in the upcoming period. That's what I think, anyway. Hardly super confident, but it's a very important discussion right now.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Okay, so what options are we discussing?

1. Build Hagia
2. Build 2 5XP cats and 3 maces (seemed like plenty in bcool's test)
3. Build a ch or two
4. Spread confu to X cities
5. Revolt to Rep (and Theo and then later back?)
6. Capture Rheims and Paris (frees the pigs for GP Farm), minimally
7. Continue developing our cities

Can we somehow do all of the above, is my first thought.

A. Especially tricky is the revolt to Rep. We want that asap, obviously. Revolting to Theo and then back is costly, but we seem to agree that we want OR for a while. Can we do without Theo? To me, the main reason for Theo is the 2 5XP cats. 2XP galleys is also a bonus. We could build 4 3XP cats, a third galley (and a trireme) instead of THeo. That's a lot of extra hammers and a time delay.

B. Only Roosy has built any wonders quickly (GLH). No AIs currently have marble. If we don't trade Roosy Theology yet, then we may have some time to build the HS. Delaying HS till after 2 5XP cats and 3 maces could argue for a quick switch to Rep+Theo and then soon a switch back to OR. Is that too big a waste?

C. We could go down on Rheims asap, trying for the quick GG to provide the 2 5XP cats. This also gives us stone pretty quickly, which is useful for HG and Moai (in Cuba or Paris?) in the short run. This would avoid Theo altogether and delay HS as little as we choose. It would also delay Paris.

Some warring strategy for Rheims:

Spoiler :

It's conceivable to get Rhwims with only two archers:

1. Pillage a selected road to cut off its metal.
2. Road to the hill 2SE of Rheims.
3. Position our two attack stacks to wait 3 tiles from Rheims (SE+NW corners), on a road, and put 2 workers or scouts out as bait, so that the archers taking the bait can't return in 1 turn.

Some warring strategy for Paris:

Spoiler :

1. Position 1 more more units 2 tiles from Marseilles and Orleans. This, theoretically, should "threaten" those cities, freezing the units inside.
2. Land our units at Paris, which now has to defend on its own.

Tech stealing
I've done some more research and I believe I fully understand the mechanics of this now. I also tested some bright ideas. We should plan to steal every tech the AIs have and any new ones they research. That means before we get to Communism we should plan to steal both Philosophy (~550epps) and Communism (~1200 or less for a 4368 tech ). Then we can slingshot Biology or something else. It also means we need to have Mao down to 3 cities by then.

Testing from bright ideas:

Spoiler :

Get this, guys. A city settled at Moscow2S1SE will give us this:
1. -50% for culture (Galley City is giving us -15% and this will decrease to about -5%, depending on when we steal Philo). That is almost half again cheaper!
2. Here's the fun one. In my tests I was able to fortify the spy in the city for 5t before gifting/trading the city to Mao. Bingo! He's already been stationary for 5t! This is important for 2 reasons. 1) Mao could switch to our religion, costing us 15%. (Actually Mao already is running Confu, but hopefully we can manipulate that.) 2) The culture -50% will immediately start to decrease each turn that Mao own it.

 

[babybluepants]

Testing from bright ideas:

Spoiler :

Get this, guys. A city settled at Moscow2S1SE will give us this:
1. -50% for culture (Galley City is giving us -15% and this will decrease to about -5%, depending on when we steal Philo). That is almost half again cheaper!
2. Here's the fun one. In my tests I was able to fortify the spy in the city for 5t before gifting/trading the city to Mao. Bingo! He's already been stationary for 5t! This is important for 2 reasons. 1) Mao could switch to our religion, costing us 15%. (Actually Mao already is running Confu, but hopefully we can manipulate that.) 2) The culture -50% will immediately start to decrease each turn that Mao own it.

Interesting. Stealing Communism would be wicked. It requires reducing him to 3 cities, so he'll accept the city gift, correct?

 

[mdy]

We could go down on Rheims asap, trying for the quick GG to provide the 2 5XP cats. This also gives us stone pretty quickly, which is useful for HG and Moai (in Cuba or Paris?) in the short run. This would avoid Theo altogether and delay HS as little as we choose. It would also delay Paris.

If we can only take Rheims if we can lure units out until it has 2 archers, then taking Rheims will not get us a GG, nor will picking off the other odd unit. If we switched to theocracy then confunicism should spread to most of our cities soon enough without us having to invest hammers into them. The one exception is the GP farm, but we don't really need a religion there until we can switch to pacifism and we should be able to build a monastry by then.

 

[babybluepants]

No, we won't get a GG from the France war. Hope we have only very minimal combat there.

If we adopt Theo, I'd be inclined to stay in it for some time, which would then make me wanna put it to use... We're revolting way too much otherwise.

A Confu monastery in Moscow would be ok sometime soon even for just the +10% bpt, I guess, but I wouldn't wanna spend to many hammers there on spreading religion.

Edit: do we have a plan for the NE build?