SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[bcool]

This is getting very interesting.

I'm wondering if we should use our 1st great scientist for bulbing philosophy. And teching Christianity ourselves. This opens up Pacifism of course and the chance to build the Hagia Sophia. And keeps Gandhi in Confu for the foreseeable future. And if we are lucky, America will be converted to Confu as well by our missionary.

And thank god someone built the GLH, I was so worried I led the team astray with my argument to skip the attempt on the GLH.

I tried a game going for the pyramids, but it took me quite a while to build it (after 1AD) and by then an AI had built it.

Right now I'm thinking the GL, NE, Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sophia in our capital (assuming we want to get the great engineer for a play at Mining Corp and want to put the NE in the capital)

I hope to play a game out this weekend going for the corporation route and seeing how well it works.

edit: xpost with mitchum

 

[mdy]

Unfortuneately the borders of the gems city will have popped, and there are likely to be 2 archers there by the time it grows to size 2, so I think we will have to wait until we go to war to take the French capital before taking it (probably with maces). If we are planning on worker stealing might we still want a second chariot to protect the captured worker in case of bad RNG? It might still be worth continuing to build the road to help with the logistics provided we would still have enough worker turn to improve the pigs site fast enough.

I'm wondering if we should use our 1st great scientist for bulbing philosophy. And teching Christianity ourselves.

I still think we should use the GS for an academy. We have no immediate use for philosophy and we should still be able to trade with Gandhi, even if he adopts a different religion.

Right now I'm thinking the GL, NE, Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sophia in our capital (assuming we want to get the great engineer for a play at Mining Corp and want to put the NE in the capital)

An alternatie would be to put the Hanging Gardens and the Hagia Sophia in a dedicated GE farm. They can still produce a GE if you wait long enough and it avoids the possibility of the RNG screwing us again.

 

[LowtherCastle]

bbp's right. Rheims won't grow to pop2 forever and is useless to us, we can't capture it, only raze it. I prefer 1NE anyway, much better site for space.

Our challenge from now on is having enough workers to improve our cities fast enough to not kill our economy. That's our limit on REXing, I think.

We should be able to DoW dG and Mao as much as we want without getting negmods with Gandhi and Roosy, as long as Mao doesn't get Confucianism. Let's hope he gets Buddhism. We should worker steal the living bejesus out of them.

I would build 2 chariots in a row after the current settler. One worker stealer for each of Mao and dG. Both, btw, still threaten only with archers. We want to keep it that way if possible. Mao has IW.

I would send the missionary south to scout, send the warrior further north to scout Mao and dG. HE should eventually return home or maybe join in worker stealing or city catpuring as a last resort unit.

bbp, you might as well just keep on playing. Up to T93 or something, stopping if you feel you need to. But give us a PPP first, I guess.

xpost with mdy

 

[babybluepants]

bbp's right. Rheims won't grow to pop2 forever and is useless to us, we can't capture it, only raze it. I prefer 1NE anyway, much better site for space.

I like the current location for coastal and saved settler. We can discuss this further when the time comes.

I'm quite busy all day, but I'll keep playing tmr or the day after, I guess. Can everyone state their opinion on chariot builds?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Guys, now that we know all these AIs are on our landmass, we can consider building an army and running a war economy, supporting our research by capturing cities. I'm farily certain that Mao has a very food-rich capital. Maybe the richest on the map. He was buiding everything by poprushing and growing back in a few turns when we were watching that stuff earlier. We would be wise to go for his capital. Seriously. If we can keep him from connecting up metals, he's dead meat and we wouldn't want to wait too long.

But I'm not talking about changing anything for bbp's turnset other than the 2 chariots I mentioned before. This is just discussion for the near future.

@bbp: The problem with Rheims is that when its borders expand it will block our peaceful travel and slow down our wartime movement. It's a pain in the neck and won't grow to pop2 for probably 100t. He can't scrub the 5.

Edit: In fact, I would send those two chariots straight to the hill that can see into Rheims and if there's only one archer, Dow and capture/raze. But this raises an important point for your turnset:

After teh missionary goes to that hill this turn, we'll be able to monitor each turn when Rheims gets a religion. We want to attack it before border expansion. Forgot about Stonehenge. Sheeeiiit. That means it's borders expand in 8-9t. Faawwwwk.​

Edit2: Okay, if we build two chariots immediately and the Rice worker builds one road west, we can get both chariots past Rheims before the borders expand. That's the way I'd go. (Either that or plan to send 5 chariots soon.)

 

[babybluepants]

Forgot about Stonehenge. Sheeeiiit. That means it's borders expand in 8-9t. Faawwwwk.Edit2: Okay, if we build two chariots immediately and the Rice worker builds one road west, we can get both chariots past Rheims before the borders expand. That's the way I'd go. (Either that or plan to send 5 chariots soon.)

Yeah, I initially forgot about it, too. I think we need two chariots passing through, as well, since we don't know anything about DG's metal/worker location. Not enough time to finish the settler first?

I don't think a chariot per AI is remotely sufficient for controlling metals, btw (responding to your Mao suggestion above). If we're military-prod limited in the short term, I probably prefer instituting a reasonable worker-steal metal-choke play on DG.

Edit: if we can really get two chariots in range of a single archer, I'd probably take the chance. That's an "if", though.

 

[babybluepants]

Yeah, I initially forgot about it, too. I think we need two chariots passing through, as well, since we don't know anything about DG's metal/worker location. Not enough time to finish the settler first?

Ok, it looks like we'd need T+8 to get a second chariot through if we switch production immediately. How long before the second border pop in Orleans? It has both the free monument and Buddhism, but I don't know the dates on which it got them. LC, do you have a record of some sort?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Orleans was founded T65, no idea on BUddhism, so max 36 now. Border pop about T115 or earlier. Rheims could pop sooner, of course, if it gets Buddhism even for only 1t. Not sure of the probability on that at that distance. This is annoying. Rheims is really a PITA.

Okay, let's simplify this.

Here are two ideas:

1. The warrior explores the northern side of Mao and loops back around to dG. The missionary explores the south side of Mao, then works his way south, clearing the eastern coast for trade routes. We're trying to find Mao's metal. Let's not forget we won't "see" iron, but there will be an extra hammer where it shouldn't be, unless he mines it in the near future, then more hammers. He's had BW and IW for plenty of time, so either it's covered in fallout, outside his unexpanded culture or he just settled next to it, if he has any at all.
   
   The warrior also looks for a decent chance to steal one of dG's worker (4t of peace still to go). Meanwhile we decide how many chariots to build for now and send them. We could go for 2, hoping they'll get past. Even if they don't the warrior ought to spot a worker somewhere and then we're at war anyway, the chariots can go through. This also means we dont' need to take out Rheims till we have a gems settler in the plans.
   
   
2. The warrior and missionary do the above, but we don't hurry the chariots. We build two after the first settler, which is on a tight schedule, and simply DoW dG when the chariots are ready to pass. Because of the fallout, Rheims border expansion only slows down our movement by 1t anyway, now that I've looked more carefully.

What do you think about something like that?

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In general, I agree that a chariot pair is better for metal denial. For worker stealing too, really, because AIs will attack a lone chariot with an archer pair. For the time being, though, we may have a chance with a single chariot, since the chances are any metal is in distant cities.
.

 

[mdy]

Does it really matter much if China hooks up metal? We aren't that far from macemen, in which case it doesn't matter if he can build sword/axes.

Abandoning plans to attack him soon would leave a chariot pair free to focus on worker stealing from De Gaulle without delaying our peacefull REX.

The warrior/missionary can then be dedicated to exploration.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Does it really matter much if China hooks up metal? We aren't that far from macemen, in which case it doesn't matter if he can build sword/axes.

Abandoning plans to attack him soon would leave a chariot pair free to focus on worker stealing from De Gaulle without delaying our peacefull REX.

The warrior/missionary can then be dedicated to exploration.

I think we're actually in agreement, even though it sounds like we're not. Okay, just to be clear here, we just found out some important stuff:

1. Mao is close to us.
2. Gandhi and Roosy are also within reach.

We're discussing several ideas:

1. worker stealing dG
2. worker stealing Mao
3. razing Rheims
4. capturing Mao's capital

The information possibly affects all our previous plans. Imo, we need 2-3 wkrs/city, in other words, building/stealing wkrs is part of our REX. Now, we know that we can DoW dG and Mao without affecting our trade relations with Gandhi and Roosy. Also, dG and Mao are both close. So for me, we have:

Conclusion 1: Let's worker steal both Mao and dG. Twice as many workers, cheap. Speeds up our REX.

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Now, if either one has a metal, then that one becomes a threat to mount an invasion force against us, which isn't in our interests right now. When dG and Mao meet they will be probably pleased with each other and share OBs, so Mao can send an SoD. So we have:

Conclusion 2: Metal denial to both Mao and dG is important for our REX.

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Razing Rheims is something we'll eventually have to do, but because of SH, it won't be easy in the next 10t. Rather than worry about that, maybe it's better to stay focused on worker stealing.

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Capturing Mao's capital is a more long-term idea, rather than something we need to commit ourselves right now. I think it would be extremely wise to create the potential for that if it doesn't delay our peaceful REX. So if we can deny Mao metals, that would be a bonus to Conclusion 2. That's Option 2 in my previous post.

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Hopefully, this clarifies my position better.

 

[babybluepants]

That totally didn't clarify anything for me. A+ for effort, though.

Like I said yesterday, I prefer focusing on DG right now. We simply don't have the production capacity, IMHO, to mount a 2-AI offensive of any kind (or defend if they move 3-4 axes towards us). There are 3-4 excellent cities we can still settle at a fairly low cost, as well. Finally, capturing Paris precedes capturing any Chinese cities, and that won't likely happen until maces (for both hammer-efficiency and REX timeline reasons).

Right now the issue is whether to build the chariots asap or stick with the settling plan. Yes, we could DOW DG to pass through, but that's probably a waste of a stolen worker, I think.

 

[babybluepants]

I'd build the 2 chariots, btw. Delaying Marble by 3t isn't too bad, I think, since we can just scrub and road in the meantime.

 

[Soirana]

Conclusion 1: Let's worker steal both Mao and dG. Twice as many workers, cheap. Speeds up our REX.

Conclusion 2: Metal denial to both Mao and dG is important for our REX.

AI do not build enough workers on emperor for that to work in my opinion. If you sit on metals some workers will be next to unreachable which leads to poor gains.

If you want to farm workers you most likely will need repetetive declarations... Problems might be in getting peace in between.

 

[LowtherCastle]

That totally didn't clarify anything for me. A+ for effort, though.

Like I said yesterday, I prefer focusing on DG right now. We simply don't have the production capacity, IMHO, to mount a 2-AI offensive of any kind (or defend if they move 3-4 axes towards us). There are 3-4 excellent cities we can still settle at a fairly low cost, as well. Finally, capturing Paris precedes capturing any Chinese cities, and that won't likely happen until maces (for both hammer-efficiency and REX timeline reasons).

Right now the issue is whether to build the chariots asap or stick with the settling plan. Yes, we could DOW DG to pass through, but that's probably a waste of a stolen worker, I think.

Just so you know, I tested this. If we capture 1 worker, dG is willing to talk and accept a cease fire 2t later. If we capture 2 wkrs, it's the same.

With Mao it was slightly different, in the test save. If I captured 1 wkr, he would talk after 4t and DoP for 5g. If I captured 2wkrs, he would talk after 2t and cease fire. He also had a ton of swrodsmen and axes, so evidently that power has some factor in it. Or perhaps it's the other power, because we were ranked 4th and he was ranked 3rd, whereas dG was ranked 6th. Silu?

One more detail, if Mao captured one of our chariots after we captured his worker, he wouldn't talk for 8t and wanted serious technology for DoP. So if worst comes to worst, we give up a tech. Big deal. There's no way one of his fearsome stacks will reach us in 8t anyway.

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All in all, I would say this:
1. We'll have no problems with a pair of chariots for Mao and one for dG. It simply means for each investment of 60h we get in return 90h * X stolenworkers, where X=1,2,3,....
2. Let's not be freakin' chicken-hearted wimps. We can monitor, turn by turn whether Mao has acquired a metal resource ("watch out for my spearmen/swords/axes").
3. The second pair of chariots can come after you turnset anyway.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'd build the 2 chariots, btw. Delaying Marble by 3t isn't too bad, I think, since we can just scrub and road in the meantime.

Have you thought about what the wkrs will do? I'm thinking they could each road one of the grass tiles to the S and SW. That way they can reach the rice quicker and after roading the rice, reach the western deer quicker.

Anyway, after they camp the furs, they'll have a couple of turns before our borders expand, so they could road at Marble-1N, enabling them to hop from the north to the rice in 1t, if pre-roaded as above.

WHen are you planning to play?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Odds and ends

1. We need an additional +2 to get Roosy to Cautious. No point in trading him any mroe expensive techs till we're sure we'll get that. Otherwise, the fair trade value just decays.
2. Churchill could complete the Temple of Artemis (yay!) any time now. Hopefully after we get Currency. On that turn, we need to pay attention to whether Gandhi has a bunch of failed gold we can collect in trade.

 

[babybluepants]

Busy today. I'll try and post my thoughts later tonight.

Yes, the workers would do some roading on the rice-deer path.

For the plusmod for trade relations, it doesn't matter when we give/trade. I agree it's generally better to hold anything back that we can afford to, since we could get hit with a demand and score an extra +1.

 

[bcool]

Played a bit with the test game. Went out to 1725 AD

With early representation and the GLH, Rosey does very well.

I wasn't too careful with the AI relations, so Rosey just declared on me. (He wasn't happy about my multiple declarations on the French. Which shouldn't be a problem in the real game if we are careful).

Also test game is a bit odd, in that I had no access to oil, so my military conquests are going slowly and the war with Rosey will be unpleasant because of that.

Other interesting developments...

Gandhi declared war on me. Even though I thought we were at least cautious (The close city will make it more likely that he declares on us).

Corporations.

I didn't go through Communism, I used liberalism for steel. Probably would have been better to go with Communism especially if we expand more aggressively than I did.

It is a bit harder to get a ton of resources since many of the AI will not like us enough to trade us the resources.

An early Mining Inc is powerful even with those limitations.

I made some mistakes that I really should have fixed. I settled a merchant that I was saving for Sushi, that delayed Sushi by about 15 turns.

Anyways I attached the latest save for your review.

Edit: I screwed up with my religion for most of the game too, so my great people population is much smaller than it should be.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Excellent work, bcool! Your long-term testing is invaluable. Convinces me that we should

• beeline state property, bulbing Educ-PP-Chem-SciMeth
• conquer our continent asap, then the world
• switch to Mining+Sushi asap

I still think we should tech Calendar next. Not decided on whether MC or Asth-Literature after that. I suppose we can let Gandhi build the Pyramids. We'll capture it asap, though I'm still tempted to try, because it's incredibly useful, give GE points and we have some forests to chop.

 

[mystyfly]

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