SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[mdy]

Great turnset LC!

Given that China already has longbows, and that we will inevitably pull much further ahead of him in the not too distant future I think we should confine our military conquests to de Gaulle for now, especially as we still have plenty of room for peacefull expansion.

If we are limiting our conquests to France then the number of hammers spent on the Heroic Epic will probably exceed the extra hammers we get from building military units in the near future, I therefore think we should settle the GG in the fish city. 2 CR1 and 4 CR2 maces should be enough to take Paris without catapults. We should get another GG out of the war with De Gaulle to settle in the capital for later use and if we are carefull we should still be able to get a level 4 unit out of the war for the Heroic Epic. Hopefully by the time we have taken Paris catapults should be available to help with our future conquests of France.

I think we should settle the GG in fish because with the need to finish the HS, a possible attempt on the HG, upcoming universities, and the fact that the capital still does not have a barracks means that the build queue their would be too crowded to build units in the near future.

After pigs has produced a GS I think we should allow Moscow to generate our next GP to increase our odds of getting a GE.

Where are we planning on settling next? We don't have immediate need of a city to ice ball France, so maybe we should go for the corn/fish/deer site next.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Well, London is an interesting story. It has Moai Statues and an aqueduct. We traded him CoL on T125 and he already has his courthouse. Can can produce 23hpt, so he would need 9t max to build the Hanging Gardens. He's already got 77h into some build, so that means HG in 6t or less, if he's building that.

The more interesting part of the story is this:

Spoiler :

So we know that Churchill has Steam Power.

We could DoW Churchill, in hopes that he might switch production in London to units. Or we could trade him Currency for 60 gold and hope he's building something else and then builds a market. That would take him 4-5t.

If we're interesting in the HG, that is. Strikes me as a quality investment, if we can get it.

Other cities have aqueducts. Mao may be a threat.

 

[bcool]

I think we want to take most of De Gaulle's cities and those 5 xp catapults really speed up the process. DeG will put up a fight. Those axes in a city with 40 or 60% cultural defense would likely stop our maces without some catapult support.

Edit: the Heroic Epic pays for itself by building just 1 macemen and 1 catapult. I think building the Heroic Epic in Fish isn't a bad idea. (lets us build boats too, and lets Moscow make an attempt at HG maybe). Settle the GG in Fish as well can pump out a few catapults with 5 xp (even using the whip) then the Heroic Epic?

2 macemen and 2 5 xp catapults with another macemen (even with no xp) from Moscow might be enough to take Paris.

Edit: However, leading a stack of units with the GG might just be enough to take out DeG and save us the time we need build the HG in Moscow.

 

[mdy]

Could that levee have been built in world builder instead? I thought we had identified all the AI's free techs?

We could build Hagia Sophia-barracks in Moscow, that way if it does look like Churchill is building the HG we won't have lost anything, and it wouldn't delay the HG if we decided to proceed with it.

edit: XPost with bcool

catapults would undoubtably be a big help, but I think we can take his capital, (and probably Tours and Lyons without them). If we had constriction I would certainly support building them, but as we don't I think we should wait for another AI to research it rather than researching it ourselves.

 

[babybluepants]

We need 8t to get stone within borders and 14? worker turns to improve it. Edit: obviously, we can pre-scrub, so with 4 workers, we should have it in T+10 That gives time to finish Hagia, build Aque and barracks + some. Or, we could do a no-stone build in 11-12-ish turns with HS-A-HG. That doesn't seem very good, but may still be worth it?

Would he even abandon the build under any circumstances if he's into it already?

 

[babybluepants]

Siberia, Pigs and Bahamas seem behind on Universities. Maybe abandoning forge in Bahamas would be better? And whipping the WB in Cuba. Library first with CRE is a good move anyway. Pigs is likely the slowest, though, since we want max OF into NE at every step. I guess we should figure that one out and adjust other cities accordingly.

Edit: I think we can have Educ in 8t at the fastest (GS + 4t 100% + 4t savings + trade for circa 100g). Pigs could do Forge-maxOFintoNE-LH-maxOFintoNE in about 12t, and would then probably need 7-8t for a maxOF whip of Uni. That's a very rough estimate, though. If we skip LH for now and just slow-build NE for a few turns, it's presumably 4t faster for T+15. We could maybe shave some turns off that.

Pigs could really use MP, btw. Should we maybe just trade for Archery or is that too much of a ? (I never do)

 

[bcool]

Right I forgot we didn't have construction

 

[babybluepants]

Can we make a more accurate test save, now that we know most of the map? LC, can you advance the game to 500 AD? I can try WB-ing some stuff, but don't know how far I'll get.

Some info on Mao:

Spoiler :

TECHS
Doesn't have Lit, Theo, CS, MC
Has Archery, Feud, Construction

BEIJING
Population: 11
Buildings: Palace, Barracks, Granary, Library, Lighthouse, Aqueduct, Intelligence Agency

SHANGHAI
Population: 7
Buildings: (Maybe Barracks), Walls, Granary, Library

NANJING
Population: 5
Buildings: Monument, Lighthouse, Colosseum

GUANGZHOU
Population: 9
Buildings: Granary, Lighthouse, Library, Aqueduct

CHENGDU
Population: 1
Buildings: Monument, Granary

HANGZHOU
Population: 1
Buildings: Monument, Granary

XIAN
Population: 5
Buildings: Barracks, Walls, Monument, Granary, Lighthouse, Library

 

[mdy]

By my estimate we should be able to build/whip 6 universities within 15 turns of now provided we switch to building a library in GP farm/Bahmas before the forge.

Cuba looks like a good site for Maori statues. Maybe we should whip workboats there and put the overflow into it?

 

[babybluepants]

After we hook up stone, I guess? Not sure that's the best place, though... I'm almost inclined to just abandon that city (run specs, whatever). Bermuda could be a production powerhouse with Moai, for instance.

15t sounds about right. If we go for HG, that would basically leave Moscow with a continuous build queue that doesn't include any military...

 

[Mitchum]

Mining Inc. should be in the 15-18hpt range? That should be quite good, with an awesome 45-reso Sid's Sushi to boot.

We see all Mining Inc. resources other than coal. Assume that every AI has access to coal and we'll have a rough idea of the total hammers per turn. I don't have access to the game but 15 to 20 sounds about right.

I don't usually put espionage to such good use, so I wonder how we measure the cost of tech stealing relative to beaker research? Investment in epp costs us beakers, I just don't know how many relatively speaking.

Just by building a courthouse or two, we should have enough espionage points to steal Philosophy from Gandhi fairly soon without having to do much else. If we're serious about stealing Communism, we'll have to take a bit more active approach. I haven't done the analysis, but from LC's recent post, it seems quite a bit cheaper to steal it than to self-research it.

 

[bcool]

Who is up?

I don't think mdy responded to this

mdy, are you taking it now?

 

[mdy]

Yes, I can take the next turnset.


I will try to post a more detailed provisional Pre Play Plan later today.

 

[babybluepants]

Just by building a courthouse or two, we should have enough espionage points to steal Philosophy from Gandhi fairly soon without having to do much else. If we're serious about stealing Communism, we'll have to take a bit more active approach. I haven't done the analysis, but from LC's recent post, it seems quite a bit cheaper to steal it than to self-research it.

I know about Philosophy. LC suggested that we need about 50t to unlock Communism, and an average of 35epp during that time. That's quite steep (to the tune of 5 CH and 5 continuously run Spies). We'd also need to invest in reducing Mao to just 3 cities, which is the even steeper opportunity cost. I'm not sure how to evaluate this. If stealing Communism cost us 10000 epp, it would obviously not be worthwhile. What's a reasonable cut-off?

The issue is that we need Communism fairly quickly, since it's somewhat tied to Liberalism date. We also, practically speaking, need / want / will get it prior to Steel, meaning that we'd have to go Mace/Cat-Treb vs. PRO LB in the relatively short term.

We could also alternatively invest in stealing Nationalism (which could be delayed quite a bit if we reduce DG to where he's completely incapable of building Taj), or even maybe Steam?

 

[Mitchum]

Have we considered spreading Confucianism to our 6 university cities? Building three missionaries could save several turns on our Oxford date just by getting the OR bonus, which would allow us to whip the universities that much sooner.

Edit: Worst case would be to only build missionaries for the city(s) that is causing the largest delay on Oxford.

 

[babybluepants]

Considered, but I'm not sure we can afford those builds right now. Moscow, Fish and Pigs are all seriously backed up in build queues. Maybe mdy can work it out. It seems to me like Pigs (which already has Confu) is most likely the slowest, or at least about even to the others, in any case.

 

[mdy]

Have we considered spreading Confucianism to our 6 university cities? Building three missionaries could save several turns on our Oxford date just by getting the OR bonus, which would allow us to whip the universities that much sooner.

If we made an attempt at the HG we would not complete the uni in Moscow until T15 so speeding up other universities would not allow us to build Oxford earlier.

Even if we don't go for the HG one of the limiting cities would be the Bahamas, and given the other uses we have for our galleys I can't see how we could get a missionary there.

 

[LowtherCastle]

One nagging question for me:
I don't usually put espionage to such good use, so I wonder how we measure the cost of tech stealing relative to beaker research? Investment in epp costs us beakers, I just don't know how many relatively speaking.

Good question.

Communism costs: 3640 base beakers
Communism costs: 1401 epps on T135 (Mao with a 138% epp advantage)
Communism costs: 1070 epps on T185 (Mao with a 105% epp advantage)

What is the cost of 1070 epps versus 3640 base beakers?

In a food-rich city (e.g., Siberia), a courthouse costs a 3pop, which takes 7 turns to grow back. So the courthouse costs us 7t of running 2sci = 7*6*1.5(lib+uni)=63.

Then we compare 2sci versus 1sci+1spy. 2sci = 9bpt. 1sci+1spy = 6bpt + 4ept. So we're comparing 3bpt + 63 to 4ept.

(3640 - 63)/3bpt = 1193t

1070/4 = 268t

Btw, I didn't include the 3.5gpt that the courthouse saves...

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

Obviously the epps are outrageously better, but there are two constraints:
1) We have to produce enough epps in time to get the tech when we want it.
2) We have to have Mao down to 3 cities in time to gift him Moscow-2S1SE.
3) (In other games, there is an additional constraint: some AI has to have the tech you want. Mao already has it for us. )

To produce enough epps for both Philo (~500) and Communism (~1070), minus the 255epps we have, I have calculated we need to average 4.33 ch+spyspec over 50t. That's 9 ch+spyspec over the last 25t of the 50t.

Of course, we can also the espionage slider at the end, if need be.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Attacking Paris with or without 60% cultural defenses

Assuming we settle the GG in Fish and build CRII maces (and 5xp cats)

      With 60%                 Without 60%
      CGIarcher CIsword CIaxe  CGIarcher CIsword CIaxe
      --------- ------- -----  --------- ------- -----     
bonus    135      95     145       75      35      85
mace     -45     -95     -95      -45     -95     -95
Total     90       0      50       30     -60     -10
Modified
strength 5.7     6.0     7.5      3.9     1.9     2.7

we win   85%     78%     66%     98.9%   100%    100%

Not only is the difference overwhelming, but 2 maces are 40h more expensive than 2 cats, which is precisely a Confucian missionary. To make a long story short, let's just research Construction. We capture cities faster, gain gold faster, rebuild cities faster, lose fewer units, and build missionaries with the difference, thus getting our unis faster, thus making up part or all of the 500. Meanwhile, it seems that were going to finish Education too soon anyway.

Edit: We could still hold off a turn or two, timing teh completion of COnstruction to coincide with the completion of 2 CRII maces (the amount that would go over to Paris with the 2 cats on T1). Or something like that, giving us a few more turns to maybe get COnstruction in trade.

EDIT2: The other rearson to research Construciton is that CHurchill appears to be the only one who's likely to get it next and who knows when that will be. If he's doing Feudalism next, it could be a long while. Why risk waiting for Godot? It's a cheap tech in the bigger picture.

 

[mdy]

Provisional Pre-Play Plan for the next 15 turns:

Research: Education via GS bulb. Trade for construction as soon as it becomes available. If an AI has a large amount of spare gold sell him some rubbish tech.

Fish:
T+1: Mace
T+2: Settle GG
T+3: Mace (2pop)
T+5: Mace
T+7: Mace (2pop)
T+9: Mace
T+15 University (3pop)

Moscow:
T+2:Hagia Sophia (by working plains farm instead of grass farm for 1 T)
T+5:Courthouse (Can also build barracks first then 1-2 units in pace of courthouse)
T+6:Barracks
T+8:Aquaduct
T+11:Hanging Gardens
T+15:University

Bermuda:
Continue to build granary, whip when possible.
Then start Library.
Worker improves and hooks up sheep, then starts building mines.

Bahamas:
Switch to library.
Start forge
Start Uni once we have eduction.
T+15 University (4 pop)
worker build plains mine, then starts scrubbing and building workshops?
as it grows work clams-grass forest-plain mine-plain mine.


Cuba:
T+9: Workboat(whipped)-send to Bahamas
Overflow into Maori.
T+11: Whip second workboat for Maori-send to Bermuda.

Rheims:
Start granary once out of revolt.
Workers scrub stone and gems. Micro so we can get the stone quarried as soon as the borders expand.
Send 1 chariot to pigs to act as military garrison.

Pigs:
Build forge while growing.
T+15 5 pop whip the university.

GP Farm:
T+9: Library
T+15: University (whipped)
workers scrub the grassland to put down farms.

Siberia:
T+6: Settler
Continue courthouse.
Start University one we have education.
T+15: University (whipped)

Where are we planning on sending the settler.


Sign a cease fire agreement with De Gaulle.

Once we have 6 maces in galley city DOW De Gaulle, drop 4 CR2 maces off next to Paris and load 2 more maces on to a galley so they can also attack next turn.

Southern front:
Before we attack Paris take any worker stealing opportunities that arise. After that remain on the defensive.

edit: Xpost with LC