SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[bcool]

so I updated my test game, I think the only difference between my updated test game and LC's is mine has the manhattan project and I removed more fallout from the wilderness as well as around the AI capitals.

link to post with updated save
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9621575&postcount=157

 

[LowtherCastle]

I did some field testing of DoP with Gandhi on T9.

Will DoP for:
1. Math 390
2. Phood+TW+BW 93+93+187

Will not DoP for:
1. IW 312
2. Fish+TW+BW 62+93+187

ZPV, this seems to cost a lot more than what you were saying here.

Questions on your DoP formulas: For the treaty, who is furious or annoyed?

 

[mdy]

I'm a little concerned that we are trying to plot too far ahead on too little information. I think testing out to 1000B.C. is pointless at this stage as new information could render all the current tests a waste of time (and committing to a plan that far ahead now might blind us too other possibilities.)

Right now I think we should be focussed on our immediate priorities: Where to settle, our first tech and our first build; and we should choose them so we will be in a strong position whatever happens.

Based on the previous posts and a bit of playing around I have done I think this means settling by the coast and researching fishing and building a worker first.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm a little concerned that we are trying to plot too far ahead on too little information. I think testing out to 1000B.C. is pointless at this stage as new information could render all the current tests a waste of time (and committing to a plan that far ahead now might blind us too other possibilities.)

Right now I think we should be focussed on our immediate priorities: Where to settle, our first tech and our first build; and we should choose them so we will be in a strong position whatever happens.

Based on the previous posts and a bit of playing around I have done I think this means settling by the coast and researching fishing and building a worker first.

Exactly my opinion as well, as I said earlier. Only questionnable point is where to settle, I'm not sure but we might be favouring NNE?

 

[LowtherCastle]

@mdy
For me, testing to 1000BC doesn't necessarily mean planning to 1000BC, and that is especially true in this scenario. You're right, there are many unknowns for now. The testing serves at least these general purposes: 1) Gives us an idea of what this scenario is like and any traps to watch out for; 2) GIves us an idea of how many turns the various slingshots will take; 3) Gives us a feeling for the various MM possibilities we have, in advance, so that we're better prepared forthe various unknowns; 4) Hopefully helps us answer your question: where to settle, what to research, and what to build to put us in a strong position no matter what happens.

Traps to watch out for
1. DoPing Gandhi and the others. It turns out that this is a ROYAL PITA. We might play ourselves into a situation where we're fighting off a major SoD (=forget a medal). Furthermore, if we screw up the DoPs, the AIs will all max out their common war plusmods and those carry on through the game for all intents and purposes.*** Without this testing, we'd have no idea about this. We're starting in an ALWAYS-WAR-type situation. No joking matter.
1.A. Did you know? If we don't get Gandhi to DoP before he meets Stalin, de Gaulle, and/or Mao, we may miss our chance to get him to trade with us in any foreseeable future, because we might remain his WE forever or until we give him a humongous tech. I didn't know this before testing, but now I do.
2. Fallout MM is complicated and unusual.
3. Both our development and tech pace are non-standard.
4. Gandhi starting with Alphabet is non-standard.
All of this takes getting used to. I don't see any way to learn this stuff other than testing.

Where to settle?
I'm anything but convinced that the coast is better than in place. The jury's out for me. Especially if we want to guarantee getting the AIs to DoP. Frankly, I'm not sure there's any good way to do that other than...beelining Alpha!?!?! Have you found a better way?

REX
Again, not sure what we want to do, no matter what we find out down the road. Pure REX? REX+GLH? REX+Oracle? All three? Only GLH+Oracle, then REX? This is a very complicated start, imo.

In other words, your seemingly simple and wise prescription: "choose them so we will be in a strong position whatever happens"--I have no idea. Why do you think settling NNE, researching Fishing and building a worker will give us that? I'd be overjoyed if you could somehow simplify all this, because I'm struggling.

***EDIT: This may be worse than one might think at first glance. The various AIs can gain enough of these plusmods to be Pleased with people they have no business being pleased with. The obvious consequence would be that if we later decide to DoW someone, we get negmods with everyone else. As it is, if you check out the factors, it's currenty borderline for us to get any AI up to Friendly. Add 1 or 2 negmods and you can rule that out permanently. Do we want to do all the research alone?

 

[Mitchum]

I did some field testing of DoP with Gandhi on T9.

Will DoP for:
1. Math 390
2. Phood+TW+BW 93+93+187

Will not DoP for:
1. IW 312
2. Fish+TW+BW 62+93+187

ZPV, this seems to cost a lot more than what you were saying here.

Questions on your DoP formulas: For the treaty, who is furious or annoyed?

Using bcool's latest save, I ran a quick test. I gave everyone Currency to keep the relative scores the same. I then gave us 500 gold.

On T5, De Gaulle would talk to us and offered a Peace Treaty for 320 gold.

On T6, Gandhi would talk to us and offered a Peace Treaty for 335 gold (De Gaulle stayed at 320 gold).

On T8, more would talk to us. Here are the values:

Stalin - 460
Gandhi - 335
De Gaulle - 320
Mao - 310
Churchill - 310​

On T11, we grew to 2 pops (and we know Fishing). The new values are:

Stalin - 460
Gandhi - 330
Roosevelt - 310
De Gaulle - 310
Mao - 295
Churchill - 295​

I'm not sure if the AI values one gold = one beaker, but this does show that the cost of peace drops slowly over time as expected.

Will these numbers (or a more thorough test) help us confirm that we have the correct formulas and we've made the correct assumptions for the cost of peace?

 

[Mitchum]

And I left Stalin with 7 tactical nukes which only gives him 220k soldiers.

The Soldiers would work out if we give Stalin Rocketry (10K soldiers) rather than Ecology. It appears that Erkon didn't give any of the other civs Ecology, so it's a safe assumption that he didn't give it to Stalin either, no? Maybe he wants us to be responsible for cleaning up all of the fallout ourselves as it's highly likely that several of the AI won't tech up to Ecology themselves in this game unless we help them all to get there.

 

[bcool]

The problem with rocketry is that Stalin might start the apollo project while he only has 1 city. (We don't think the AI is smart enough not do strange builds like this.) We were tentatively ruling out rocketry and laser for that reason. However Advanced Flight is a possibility.

We should probably test out if the AI is or is not smart enough to handle rocketry or another similar tech that unlocks big projects and/or wonders.

The other problem with rocketry is that it unlocks SAM infantry (with no other prereq) So giving Stalin SAM infantry from the beginning would be a huge advantage.

 

[shyuhe]

This is an emperor level game, so it's highly unlikely that the AI will contribute any useful research for us, especially towards the backend of the tree. And while I think dissecting the opening save for all available information is good, there are obviously going to be limits on what information we can extract from it and we will have to make certain assumptions about it.

Mutual war modifiers decay much like any other modifier in this game. So as long as we can get peace in a reasonable amount of time (say 50 turns), it should not affect the long-term diplo. In particular, Gandhi and Roosevelt will be hated by the others if they pick up a religion because of the peaceweight differences.

If getting peace is important for our mid- and long- term strategy, then should we consider oracling alphabet? It's a cheap tech but it will also provide a lot of intelligence on the other civs and what techs they have.

 

[bcool]

Maybe we can have a bit of a competition to get peace as early as possible using the latest test game. Personally I think peace with everyone before turn 80 will be a very impressive feat.

We are slowed down significantly by the fallout, and thus we can't tech as fast as in a normal game. And everyone is at war with us and researching techs that are
1) valuable enough
2) something we can trade with the AI
3) something they are not researching themselves
has been quite difficult for me at least.

What is the earliest Oracle that we could get with 2 cities? I think the earliest Oracle that we could conceivably get with 2 workers and 2 cities would be at least 1400 BC.
Options for the tech from Oracle
1) currency
-- usually enough to make peace with Gandhi. But doesn't leave us with much to trade for the Alphabet with


2) alphabet
-- I don't think we would would have enough techs of the right kind to make peace with most of the AI.

3) code of laws
-- enough to make peace with Gandhi, but only if he has researched Priesthood.
And we can't gift him Phood if we are still at war with him.

4) civil service
-- risky even if we can get it by 1080 BC. I think someone built it ~1200 BC in the latest test save (less fallout speeds them up)
--I think going for civil service might be the best way to go, changing our plans if we detect AI researching the required techs or hooking up marble too quickly.
----With buearucracy we will be able to get a significant research rate lead and get the peace we so desire.
----I was able to fend off an attack by Stalin with archers in one game where I went with a CS sling. If you notice the river to the west gives us a very defensible terrain to stop any early stacks coming our way.

 

[shyuhe]

In terms of big picture scheduling, I think it would be good to get through at least the oracle sling by mid October, through liberalism by mid November, and that should leave us enough time to finish up the end game (which will mostly be worker micro + SS construction timing).

 

[babybluepants]

I agree with more or less everything LC said. I've been doing deeper runs (circa 500 BC), so as to get a feel for the level of development possible in the mid term.

I'm currently in favour of an inland capital, as the coastal one appears to be considerably slower in the short term. IMHO, the priorities here should be:
1) Getting up and running asap = as much production as possible by T50, T60, T75...
2) DoP > OB > trading. We're slow to start here, and will have a difficult time breaking 200bpt by 1AD. We need to find a way to trade techs effectively going towards the Edu-Lib era.

Edit: I'm simply not managing to get peace in the latest test saves - this should be the first thing to figure out.

 

[Mitchum]

If getting peace is important for our mid- and long- term strategy, then should we consider oracling alphabet? It's a cheap tech but it will also provide a lot of intelligence on the other civs and what techs they have.

I'm not sure getting Alphabet from the Oracle is our best option. We would have to invest ~ 300 beakers (Myst, Med and PH) and 150 hammers for a tech worth 468 beakers.

I would be more inclined to go for a Currency sling through Math. It would be awesome if we could get peace with Gandhi for Math and trade him Commerce for Alphabet... or push for the CS sling.

 

[babybluepants]

I would be more inclined to go for a Currency sling through Math. It would be awesome if we could get peace with Gandhi for Math and trade him Commerce for Alphabet... or push for the CS sling.

My thought, too, except in LC's latest test save Gandhi still didn't have Wtg to open up a Math gift by 1000 BC.

Edit: Also, with two gold we can just research Currency about as easily as we can sling it. Frankly, I'd rather just build the GLH in that case, or REX.

 

[Mitchum]

Edit: I'm simply not managing to get peace in the latest test saves - this should be the first thing to figure out.

That is a problem. What trade bait do you have for peace that the AI is not taking?

As many have stated, if we have to fight off a stack or two, we'll quickly fall behind the teams that don't have to do so and can focus on a more peaceful REX. War is fine, but it's better to do it on our terms.

Note: I should be able to play some test games tomorrow...

 

[Mitchum]

My thought, too, except in LC's latest test save Gandhi still didn't have Wtg to open up a Math gift by 1000 BC.

It sucks to have to self-research Alphabet when an AI already knows it, but we may have to do it if we want peace quickly. Did you try a Currency sling through Alphabet (only 78 beakers more than the path through Math)? Will Gandhi (or anyone else) accept peace for Writing?

 

[bcool]

I built the great lighthouse and managed peace by 200 BC. Probably could have gotten peace earlier, but I guessed wrong on the tech Stalin was researching. Didn't go for Oracle at all, although it was built very late 275 BC I think...

Stalin is probably going to be the hardest AI to get peace with, maybe we want to put espionage on him so we can guess better.

I'm sure we can do better than this, and I think skipping the oracle might be the way to go. Unless we can build it opportunistically later.

Edit: no one will accept writing by itself for peace.

 

[babybluepants]

Settled NNE, goals were:
1) GLH
2) Peace (all but 2), OB (Gandhi and Roos)
3) Expansion
4) Circumnavigation (failed)

I just tried the same thing settling NW, but the GLH was gone in 1120 BC. Try again later...

 

[ZPV]

I did some field testing of DoP with Gandhi on T9.

Will DoP for:
1. Math 390
2. Phood+TW+BW 93+93+187

Will not DoP for:
1. IW 312
2. Fish+TW+BW 62+93+187

ZPV, this seems to cost a lot more than what you were saying here.

Questions on your DoP formulas: For the treaty, who is furious or annoyed?

Basically, something must be wrong with my formula. I did field testing too; the cost of peace was 330 gold on t7 (others similar, Stalin 480g).

It's the average of their attitude and ours. I'm fairly sure we're going to be Annoyed with them, and also that it'll round down to Furious if they are furious towards us.

 

[babybluepants]

Ok. I'm mainly worried that something may still be different between actual save and test save in this respect. If the costs are what they appear to be, Math seems to be the quickest way there. We'd need Gandhi to research Writing first, though. Otherwise, it's Currency. The required timeline is ok in our test save, but I think we should move one AI much closer to us to see whether we have to field an attack by then.

Edit:

half-peace treaty, we pay in addition:
(50+Turn+(OurCities+TheirCities)*8)
*3(Annoyed) or *5(Furious)
*40/(Turnsatwar+10)

What is this Turn? Turns at war?