SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[babybluepants]

Guys, we're in serious trouble. Gandhi has researched Paper.

Random thoughts:
- Sell to Roos now, if there's a way to get something useful for it.
- Let's try to estimate his research capacity. IIRC (I can check later), he got Feudalism circa T142-143. He did get a GS in Galley City last turn, btw.
- What's our fall-back for Lib at this stage? Could we get Chemistry at least? That would require Eng+GP+Lib, before Gandhi does Educ-Lib. Otherwise, I guess PP?

Barrage: sorry, an annoying habit I have from way back for some reason. Since I pretty much never use accuracy siege to actually attack, it doesn't ever come back to bite me.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Didn't you buy Gandhi's map? I meant to ask this sooner, but how can he have 2 cities that we don't see on the map? When I created the test save, which was right after your turnset, there were still two hidden cities and this was right after you bought his map...

T133: G had 8 cities, all of which we could see.
T134: G settled Lahore.

 

[LowtherCastle]

He did get a GS in Galley City last turn, btw.

Good point. It's gone now, so I think he bulbed Paper. Bummer, but at the same time, that's a slightly positive indicator. He still has a lot of stuff to research that ought to take priority to Education. Let's hope so. It also may mean his research isn't going so fast. Maybe he's researching Nationalism... . I think I've seen such craziness before.

Okay, I would propose:
1. Do NOT trade Roosy Paper.
2. Immediately trade Gandhi MC for 40g + Maps + archery. (Not archery because it might put G or Roosy over the trade limit.) Roosy won't trade Machinery because only we know it. This might also encourage Gandhi to research Machinery for maces, an AI priority. (He has no gold/gems/silver and we have the Colossus, so MC is low priority.)
3. Check EVERY TURN if Mao finishes Machinery. If so, trade it to Gandhi immediately.
4. We have to get our EPs up to where we see Gandhi's research. Hire a spy specialist in GP Farm and keep him hired. Keep the spy spec in Siberia hired nonstop.
5. Poprush the ch in Bahamas asap and hire a spy spec full-time.

We might have to switch to CS sooner than we wanted and flat out beeline SciMeth. If we pop a non-GS, we might take the golden age. BUt we won't panic till we can see his research. THen we'll panic hysterically.

 

[Mitchum]

I don't think we have to worry about reaching WFYABTA with Gandhi or Roos anytime soon, if ever:

Gandhi        21
Churchill     21
Roosevelt     21
De Gaulle     14
Stalin         7
Mao            7

Why not take Archery then?

 

[mdy]

I agree that we need to be able to see Gandhi's tech ASAP. Perhaps we should consider skipping engineering - this might allow us to gain a more valuable tech from liberalism?

I would also trade for archery, we may as well get it while we easily can.

 

[babybluepants]

3. Check EVERY TURN if Mao finishes Machinery. If so, trade it to Gandhi immediately.

If Mao finishes Machinery very soon, we may have bigger problems than tech trading returns. Our maces meet their nemesis.

I think we may as well get Archery soon, for stack and newly conquered city protection a bit later.

Edit: x-post
@mdy,
Our plan is to go at Sci Meth via Chem, which requires Eng.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If Mao finishes Machinery very soon, we may have bigger problems than tech trading returns. Our maces meet their nemesis.

Mao's cho-ko-nus will only shoot chopsticks without iron...

EDIT2: Okay, Gandhi has an extra iron and will trade it to Mao at Cautious. Plus, Gandhi is afraid of Mao, so will probably cave to extortion. Proposal: Gift CHurchill our iron immediately. Then cancel current trades with Gandhi and trade him furs+gems to get his extra iron+gpt (hopefully). Gandhi is running HeredRule so has no happiness problems. Let's take away his health resources.

Then 10t from now we cancel the iron gift to Churchill. Note this may be urgent, because CHurchill has an iron tile showing that it's been mined. Not sure why he'll accept our iron, but no probs. Maybe that's another artifact of the common war.

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

Okay, take archery. Then we can make horse archers, if we want.

 

[babybluepants]

Mao's cho-ko-nus will only shoot chopsticks without iron...

Ok, so, they'll use chopsticks? Could that still be dangerous - something like this?

 

[bcool]

Gandhi just popped a great scientist, so he is at least 15? turns from another great person. And his research is what at best 120 per turn? So education is 10 turns away at the very least?

I guess we will know more when we get eyes on his research, how long will it take with the proposed spies and courthouses to get eyes on him? We could even do a turn of 100% espionage while waiting for Oxford to finish.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Gandhi just popped a great scientist, so he is at least 15? turns from another great person.

Hard to say. He's Philosophical and running Pacifism + caste systems.

 

[babybluepants]

He popped from Galley City (which is hilarious, btw - he can't actually work tiles there ), so he could be right around 100 gpp away elsewhere. That's 5-6t for Phi/Pac with just 2 sci. In my experience, he can def. beeline Lib.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Gandhi's GPs so far, as far as I can determine:
300BC - GS born in Galley City, bulbed Philosophy
100BC - GSpy BIFL, settled in Delhi probably because there is a corresponding jump in his espionage graph
560AD - GA (Music), bombed Calcutta
800AD - GS born in Galley City, bulbed Paper

If we don't give him any health resources, he can run at most 2 specialists in Delhi. He doesn't have a temple in Delhi, thankfully, because the GProphs can bulb Divine Right-Liberalism. I don't think he'll use a GS to partially bulb Education, so we may be okay after all. Plus, he has no libraries that I can find...

 

[bcool]

Wow giving him Galley City really boosted his GP production

 

[babybluepants]

Wow giving him Galley City really boosted his GP production

and, apparently, screwed our Liberalism plans. Philosophy and Paper...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Wow giving him Galley City really boosted his GP production

lol I was thinking the same thing.

and, apparently, screwed our Liberalism plans. Philosophy and Paper...

I'm actually realxing on this. I think we're going to be okay after all.

 

[babybluepants]

I'm actually realxing on this. I think we're going to be okay after all.

Relaxing how? What your thoughts now? I doubt we'll pull off the Bio sling. We're very short on cash, and that's a lot of beakers we need. That's ok. I don't think we need a major Lib sling here. If we did need it, we'd have had to focus on it more and much earlier, imo.

My inclination would be to:
1) finish Engineering first - gives us trebs and faster roads, both of which could be quite useful in the near future.
2) ideally take Lib close to completion
3) proceed with GP > PP > Chem (only when ready to complete in 2-3t) > Sci Meth, aborting as needed to PP > Chem > Sci Meth.

The problem is we can't steal Philosophy asap, as that takes away our ability to view his research. So, I guess we steal when he's into Education and delay teching Lib accordingly.

 

[bcool]

I would like a test game to practice with this turnset. It looks like the war plan will need to be modified and I find it difficult to plan without actually playing the test game.

I can probably make a crude test game for this purpose, but I'm not sure if bbp is working on it as I write. So I'll wait a bit for it.

Some ideas to get us started

Not sure how far we will get but...
Tech plan Engineering > Gunpowder > Chemistry > Printing Press (if liberalism not threatened by Gandhi)
Otherwise Engineering > Gunpowder > Printing Press > Chemistry

With the plan to steal philosophy only when we need it for Liberalism

Trades
Metal Casting to Gandhi for gold, maps and archery
Check every turn for Mao to learn Machinery, trade to Gandhi immediately for what I can get from him
Trade Churchill our iron (couldn't find the iron that LC was talking about--I don't think Churchill has Iron it looks like the iron is covered by fallout)
Cancel trades for resources with Gandhi
Trade for his spare iron (non-health resources)

spy in GP farm
spy in siberia
Pop ch in Bahamas asap

Pigs can finish NE this turn 152 by working ivory

Bananas pops granary (starts galley?) (Maybe even stealing the 2nd bananas to get a 2 pop whip of a galley)
(needs more farms soon)

Cuba pops lighthouse immediately (it doesn't seem worth waiting for overflow here)
starts building up pop for courthouse pop

Siberia works a catapult and 2 pops next turn

I'd like to avoid popping a catapult in Pigs if possible (starting next turn we want 3 specialists at least, and want to maintain those if at all possible)

Fish could 1 pop current catapult and probably can finish a 2nd one next turn (need to look at MM more closely)

Moscow (Oxford, catapult, HE or 2nd catapult if not possible) (now that war plans are delayed?)
Moscow takes back gold, stops engineer, takes grass hill instead of iron to grow in 3 turns

 

[babybluepants]

I would like a test game to practice with this turnset. It looks like the war plan will need to be modified and I find it difficult to plan without actually playing the test game.

I can probably make a crude test game for this purpose, but I'm not sure if bbp is working on it as I write. So I'll wait a bit for it.

Sorry dude, can't find any time for this tonight, after all. I can try tmr. If you're planning to do it, I've attached saves from every turn. Maybe it helps...

 

[bcool]

No worries (I think)

I suppose a Friday play date is more likely now. I won't be able to focus on the game tomorrow (and I suspect I'll be pretty tired when I get home) So a detailed PPP on Wednesday before noon PST is my goal. (If there is no test game I'll make one Wednesday morning and then go from there with my planning)

Any advice is welcome.

I see we have to balance the war effort with GP production, espionage production, infrastructure whipping, and failure gold accumulation all to set up a short term push for liberalism --> biology ( I think is still on the table) and long term teching to Railroad and corporation.

We can have tanks without Combustion (just a curiosity with that offshore oil platform--I doubt that particular beeline is worth it)

 

[mdy]

I've been thinking, that as we have already, or will shortly have whipped all the key infrastructure in our key cities, maybe we should revolt to CS in the very near future. With high food surpluses we could very quickly hire a large number of scientists, leading to a massive boost in our research rate. If we sole philosophy we could revolt to pacifism at the same time. This would mean we couldn't know precisely when Gandhi would discover liberalism, but it might be worth it if it enabled us to get biology from liberalism. As long as Gandhi does not have Education we should be safe to continue. We would certainly get biology and subsequent techs quicker with this strategy which is another advantage.


Does anyone know if we get failure gold for a wonder when we discover a tech which makes it obsolete?