SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

I definitely want to capture Rheims. Asap. That's why I don't think we should be pillaging the road any more, if he rebuilds it. We can pillage the road to Tours though.

Btw, I view Tours as a temporary iceball, when we get that far. Then we can replace it with the real one later on.

What do you mean by asap exactly? How many units in the short term? All from Moscow?

It seems that we could easily be facing 3 or even 4 archers (mostly promoted) in a 20% city there. It's doable, but an axe/chariot stack won't be able to advance further then Rheims in the short term, and that could be an investment of about 3-4 axes (100+ hammers) to get one city. Might not even work if we're seriously unlucky. Am I missing something?

 

[LowtherCastle]

What do you mean by asap exactly? How many units in the short term? All from Moscow?

It seems that we could easily be facing 3 or even 4 archers (mostly promoted) in a 20% city there. It's doable, but an axe/chariot stack won't be able to advance further then Rheims in the short term, and that could be an investment of about 3-4 axes (100+ hammers) to get one city. Might not even work if we're seriously unlucky. Am I missing something?

Rheims gives us +1or2, +1or2, and stone. It's quite a haul all by itself.

Okay, this is my thinking. dG has metal, so if we have two chariot pairs stealing workers, each pair should have an axe escort, the sooner the better. Well, that's already 6 units--more or less enough to capture Rheims. If we get a spy down there and build a road on the dyes and the hill, for example, then we are in a position where we can monitor what Rheims has and sneak attack at the right moment (we don't want our stack within 2 tiles of Rheims, because that can cause dG to build more defenders than he otherwise might). In general, the code only gives Rheims 2 defenders max, I believe, so hoepfully other archers will come and go.

Btw, there's a military reason to capture Rheims, in addition to the stone, corn and gems. When we decide to attack Orleans/Paris, we could always leave Rheims empty to attract any stack out of Orleans/Paris. Our spy tells us where teh stack is, and at the right moment, our defenders jump back in, while our SoD comes from the SE forest to attack either Paris or Orleans, as seems apporpriate.

 

[babybluepants]

One question:
I don't really remember a situation where an AI may have attacked via galley in the early game. Do we know if it's possible for DG to sneak a stack into our core at DOW?

 

[babybluepants]

Okay, this is my thinking. dG has metal, so if we have two chariot pairs stealing workers, each pair should have an axe escort, the sooner the better. Well, that's already 6 units--more or less enough to capture Rheims. If we get a spy down there and build a road on the dyes and the hill, for example, then we are in a position where we can monitor what Rheims has and sneak attack at the right moment (we don't want our stack within 2 tiles of Rheims, because that can cause dG to build more defenders than he otherwise might). In general, the code only gives Rheims 2 defenders max, I believe, so hoepfully other archers will come and go.

Ok, sounds relatively reasonable. I know he's only coded to have two, but the random ones could be wandering around there. That's what I meant. 3 promoted archers can really screw you if you attack with just the minimum 6-7 units.

I might build the spy asap, if we're thinking of sending one anyway. Could give us a better idea of what we're dealing with before we invest in anything further.

 

[babybluepants]

Are we considering gifting Roos some tech to get OB? I'm not sure how much + we need to open trading? It's currently in the Currency+Calendar range for +3, but not for long. +2 will require two techs, as well, I'd think.

 

[Mitchum]

Btw, there seem to be some confusion about how espionage stealing works. It does not get any cheaper, the more people know Theology. We can minimize the cost by:

1. having a spy in the city 5t = -50%.
2. having our religion in the city when he's running a different religion = -15%
3. minimizing the distance cost. Galley City costs us +6%. (The absolute minimum is +4%.)
4. Maximinzing our total espionage points ever invested versus Gandhi's total espionage points ever invested = -50% max. (Right now this is +5% for Gandhi.)

The starting cost is 1.5X the tech cost, so the formula appears to be something like this for Theology (780):

steal tech cost (Theology) = (780*1.5)(.5)(.85)(1.06)(1.05) = 554epps​

I don't know the rounding factors, so this equation tends to be off somewhat from when I test it, but not by much.

I ran a test using our test game, and it appears that there were a few more factors involved:

1. There was a -20% "Trade Route" factor. When I revolted to Confucianism (which is in Galley City but is not Gandhi's state religion), this factor went away and was replaced by -40% (not -15%) for "State Religion".

2. There was a -16% "Culture" factor. This may have to do with how much culture pressure we're putting on this city.

Assuming the test game is somewhat accurate, we would then have:

Stealing tech cost (Theology) = (780*1.5)(.5)(.60)(1.06)(1.05)(.84) = 328 epps.​

We currently have 396 epp on Gandhi. Assuming the religion and culture factors are as I described above, we already have enough epp to steal Theology right now.

Regarding how much epp to continue to put on Gandhi, I have found that in general the more epp we put on an AI, the more they put on us. The converse of this is true as well. So, if we start splitting our epp between Gandhi and Mao, Gandhi should start putting fewer epp on us, keeping the 105% advantage fairly constant. I suggest that we try this and watch Gandhi's epp over the next several turns. If he starts to gain on us, we can revert back to 100% on Gandhi, if we intend to steal Theology.

Another point, the chance of success in stealing a tech will be in the 80% to 85% range, so even if we have enough epp, it's not a done deal.

Obviously, for this to work, we will need to learn Masonry, Polytheism and Monotheism first. Also, don't forget that we need to learn Masonry for access to marble before we start building the GLib. I'm sure that this won't be an issue, but I just wanted to point it out.

We have these epp accumulated on Gandhi, let's use them!

 

[Mitchum]

Forges usually make sense to build asap, but we should obviously be smart about it.

A forge in Moscow pays for itself very quickly. Working 2 gold, 2 cows, horse and copper gives 20 base hammers and 30 w/the Bureaucracy bonus. A forge gives an extra 7.5 hammers, so break even is 120/7.5 = ~16 turns. This doesn't count the extra happiness provide (+3 w/silver and gems) So, the sooner we complete the forge the sooner we cross the break-even point. Since Pigs can start the GLib right away anyway, I think MC first is the way to go.

I definitely want to capture Rheims. Asap.

Ditto.

Btw, I view Tours as a temporary iceball, when we get that far. Then we can replace it with the real one later on.

Excellent point. We capture all of De Gaulle's core cities and fallout ball him until his iceball is ready, which we would be in no hurry to do.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mitchum, that's very interesting. I couldn't get additional factors in my testing. COuld you upload a save, please?

 

[bcool]

forge gives an additional +25% hammers that is added to the +50% from bureacracy so the hammers from a forge in Moscow would be 5 (with a 20 base) (20*1.75 = 35) instead of (20*1.5 =30)

But I agree that a forge in Moscow is nice (it will pose short term health problems with the proposed forest chops)

We want a lot of stuff and we are going to running into problems trying to produce all of them...

We want 2 axes for worker stealing and capturing rheims

(right now in my test games I've been pushing it to build 3 settlers (and forge) a barracks, a warrior, and an axe (and the Parthenon) in the next 19 turns. (that is with 3 forest chops)

Maybe we want to build an axe instead of a warrior (but we need MP in our cities soon too...)

If we skip or delay the Parthenon, we can build a spy and another axe pretty easily (and MP units)

 

[LowtherCastle]

One question:
I don't really remember a situation where an AI may have attacked via galley in the early game. Do we know if it's possible for DG to sneak a stack into our core at DOW?

Are we considering gifting Roos some tech to get OB? I'm not sure how much + we need to open trading? It's currently in the Currency+Calendar range for +3, but not for long. +2 will require two techs, as well, I'd think.

+3 is what we need from fair trade, that is, -2 visible total modifiers. I'd like to get OBs with him when we can.

 

[babybluepants]

+3 is what we need from fair trade, that is, -2 visible total modifiers. I'd like to get OBs with him when we can.

I think we can do that with Currency+Calendar right now. I haven't been able to calculate these things very accurately, though. In any case, I'm pretty sure this would expire fairly soon, and we'd need another tech then. Not sure... I was hoping to get Masonry+Poly+IW from Gandhi with Currency, and to withhold from others 'till then. He could well research IW next...

They def. will attack via galley on an Archipelago or something similar. I'm just not sure they would ever go for that when there's a land route available. Doesn't seem likely. Silu?

 

[LowtherCastle]

We want a lot of stuff and we are going to running into problems trying to produce all of them...

I played around wiht your test save today and it's getting a bit hairy, figuring everything out. Good luck...

Like I said, you might consider going lh(1t)-galley-lh-settler at pop4 or pop5 in Fish or something like that. Not sure if that helps. We could also skip the barracks in Moscow for now. Just thoughts.

 

[Mitchum]

Mitchum, that's very interesting. I couldn't get additional factors in my testing. COuld you upload a save, please?

In this test save, I have not revolted to Confucianism yet, so you see the -20% Trade Route factor. Once you revolt, it changes to the -40% State Religion factor.

 

[Mitchum]

forge gives an additional +25% hammers that is added to the +50% from bureacracy so the hammers from a forge in Moscow would be 5 (with a 20 base) (20*1.75 = 35) instead of (20*1.5 =30)

You're right. I always get this mixed up. What's strange is that the Burea bonus for commerce is multiplicative but the Burea bonus for hammers is additive...

 

[Mitchum]

We want a lot of stuff and we are going to running into problems trying to produce all of them...

To make bcool's job of planning this turnset a bit easier, can we prioritize what we want in the next 30 turns or so? Things that we want include, in no particular order:

• Settler for GP Farm
• Settler for closer SE island
• Settler for island further SE
• Spy
• Axes (and how many)
• GLib in Pigs
• Parthenon in ??
• Colossus in ??
• Forge in Moscow
• Market in Moscow
• Barracks in Moscow
• Workers (and how many)
• Infrastructure in other cities
• Others?

 

[babybluepants]

Forge is additive to Bureau, as bcool pointed out. Strictly speaking a forge is also only +1 right now. So is a Silver-city settler, for instance, without -1 . A market is 3 on the other hand, and contributes a lot of cash. Our economy will start to sputter soon. Theoretically, building a forge sooner is better, ofc, to get more benefit, but you could really say that about almost any build. Moscow certainly isn't hurting for hammers - the problem is lack of contribution from elsewhere in the short term. Fish contributing a couple of settlers/workers would be ok, but that leaves Colossus out, potentially strains GS production, etc.

I'd also like to think about settling Silver or corn/fish asap. Would even like to settle the 2banana site soon.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In this test save, I have not revolted to Confucianism yet, so you see the -20% Trade Route factor. Once you revolt, it changes to the -40% State Religion factor.

Hm...this is good, but extremely annoying. WHy do I not get the 40% and you do? The trade route is clear, sort of. If you go into worldbuilder in your save, you can see that Gandhi actually should NOT have trade routes with us--he has no clear, defogged path between us and his capital. Nonetheless, he does have trade routes with us and gets that bonus. By the way, in your save, after you come out of anarchy, the -20% trade route discount reappears, in addition to the 40%. That makes it really cheap. BUt we don't have trade routes with Gandhi and may not get them with Mao and dG between us, unless we can capture Rheims...

 

[Mitchum]

Hm...this is good, but extremely annoying. WHy do I not get the 40% and you do? The trade route is clear, sort of. If you go into worldbuilder in your save, you can see that Gandhi actually should NOT have trade routes with us--he has no clear, defogged path between us and his capital. Nonetheless, he does have trade routes with us and gets that bonus. By the way, in your save, after you come out of anarchy, the -20% trade route discount reappears, in addition to the 40%. That makes it really cheap. BUt we don't have trade routes with Gandhi and may not get them with Mao and dG between us, unless we can capture Rheims...

Do we need a trade route between us and Gandhi's capital in order to get the -40% State Religion bonus? If not, then getting trade routes between us is no big deal. If so, our missionary should be opening up trade routes with Gandhi soon (I think we'll need to own Rheims and possibly Churchill's last settled city first though). I never really understand when the trade route gets opened up, especially when it goes through territory owned by other AI that we do not have open borders with.

The best way to find out the real details in our game is to build a spy and put him in Galley City.

 

[Mitchum]

Moscow certainly isn't hurting for hammers - the problem is lack of contribution from elsewhere in the short term. Fish contributing a couple of settlers/workers would be ok, but that leaves Colossus out, potentially strains GS production, etc.

Well, we could put one turn's worth of hammers into the Colossus once we know MC. Having done this may prevent the AI from researching MC at all. If they do research it, they may postpone building the Colossus as you successfully tested with the Oracle earlier in the game. It would be a shame NOT to build it since it would be so cheap with the copper, forge and Bureacracy bonii (assuming we build it in Moscow).

 

[babybluepants]

We can't build it in Moscow. Has to be Fish.