SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[bcool]

Pac: 43gpt * 1.29 = 55gpt - this will increase quickly. Should we run some Theo here? It will cost us 25gpt * 1.29 = 32gpt, so immediate savings of 23gpt + more soon. And we get two-promo drafted units.

Aren't drafted units at half xp? So without a barracks and just theocracy we would only get 1 xp? The value of Pacifism is pretty big. I guess we should attempt a chart out the predicted gp production to see if we will have enough for the GA's and perhaps a merchant or two for trade missions or a great spy or two for infiltration missions.

China: capture Guangzhou @ T+3? Then CF, gift St Nick and steal. We should try to steal Changdu if possible - it's a good city.

We only have to get China down to 3 cities? I thought you need to get them down to 2 to gift a city. Anyways I think Changdu too, and it would be nice to get rid of Nanjing's culture by capturing and perhaps gifting it or keeping it too.

Re: war with DeG and China
Is the unhappiness from 2 wars something we don't have to worry about now since we have more happiness resources?

If we don't kill any of DeG units we could be stuck in a war with him for a while.

When do we wanna finish Taj? I think we should go all out until it's 1t away, then think about the timing.

Sounds good unless we want to produce a workboat in Bahamas for Crabbes? Looks like we will be able to use the Great People for the next GA, the prophet + what Pigs produces (although a great spy might be better for infiltration to Rosey, so wait on the workboat I guess).

GP Farm: farm a sugar? Re-farm some tiles. We should be almost able to regrow in 1t at any pop as long as we're working the food reso + grass farms with all citizens.

Farming a sugar sounds good. Could we run a specialist or two and draft and keep pop at a steady number?

I assume we want a barracks in GP Farm (maybe this was what you were saying with the Theocracy suggestion?)

Police State? Could be useful for a bit, but not so much if we're not spamming from many cities. I wouldn't...

Not worth it I would assume.

National Park? Ironworks? Kremlin? Intelligence Agencies?

National Park in Siberia (preserve one of the furs hope for forest growth, destroy adjacent workshop would be what I would do) Cancel fur trades

Ironworks settle Hammer city to set this up asap?
Otherwise maybe Siberia (with a levee it would be a pretty good ironworks)

Kremlin (I haven't found this to be a useful wonder, perhaps I'm missing something but representation is going to be our civic of choice no? So much better for teching)

Intelligence Agency (Pigs I would assume, Bermuda as well, maybe others)

Other random thoughts

-Crushing Churchill's stack in enemy territory would go very easily. Maybe we let him take Lyons and then hit the city while his units heal. Time this with an assault on another city of his if possible.
--Draft from a number of cities for an assault on Churchill even before we are totally set up with cannons etc.
---allows us to pass on the war with DeG, avoiding any happiness issues (which might be non- existent now)

 

[babybluepants]

Aren't drafted units at half xp? So without a barracks and just theocracy we would only get 1 xp?

Ofc, they are. You get 1xp with barracks or 2xp with barracks/Theo.

Like I said before, I'm unsure about rushing the 2GP GA. I was only suggesting a delay in Taj as an option if we want a different timing for civic switches. It's unlikely, 'cause I guess we want State Prop asap.

Edit: what cities do we need to settle in the short term?

Edit2: need to figure out how fast we can get Steel... Maybe we should build conventional troops in Moscow until then (rather than trebs)? If we were going with the 2GP, I'd consider throwing pre-Steel Moscow hammers into Taj for failure, then maybe elsewhere, too.

 

[babybluepants]

We only have to get China down to 3 cities? I thought you need to get them down to 2 to gift a city. Anyways I think Changdu too, and it would be nice to get rid of Nanjing's culture by capturing and perhaps gifting it or keeping it too.

Re: war with DeG and China
Is the unhappiness from 2 wars something we don't have to worry about now since we have more happiness resources?

If we don't kill any of DeG units we could be stuck in a war with him for a while.

It's 3 cities. We can steal after Guangzhou.

WW is a function of number of battles. We won't have any from the DG war. Don't really care about the refusal to talk period.

 

[babybluepants]

I think forget Theocracy after all. We're attacking primarily with siege from here on. I don't think I would switch any civics right now, but wait for the next GA.

 

[mdy]

We could use the prophet to found the Confunican shrine. By my estimate there are currently 16 cities with Confuncism which will give us 48 gold with Wall Street+bank+market+grocer. This will inevitably grow with time as we get more cities. Given the large number of GP's needed for the last golden age doing so is very unlikely to cost us one, and a shrine now will be more useful than having a GP hanging over at the end. We can use the Taj for our second golden age, and by the time we want the third we should have 2 more surplus GP's.


I think we should stay in pacifism/caste - We need to start building GM points for Sid's. I can't see how police state can possibly outweigh representation.

-Crushing Churchill's stack in enemy territory would go very easily. Maybe we let him take Lyons and then hit the city while his units heal. Time this with an assault on another city of his if possible.
--Draft from a number of cities for an assault on Churchill even before we are totally set up with cannons etc.

I agree - We can easily crush him without cannons, but we might skip a barracks in GP farm as drafting costs us 0.5 XP. Most of our none siege battles will be conducted at very high odds regardless of what promotions they have, so a medic III should keep our advance going quicker than settling the GG in GP farm.

Does the Kremlin make drafting cheaper? If so I definateltly think we can build it if we can find the spare production anywhere.

 

[bcool]

Another idea for GG

Use him for a Forester III unit and medic III unit. Split the xp from the GG bwtn 2 units. If the C1, medic I macemen gets one more experience with 10xp and a GG attached he can become the Medic III unit, with 10xp the axe 1/2 xp can get forester III.

 

[bcool]

Persumably Churchill will upgrade his archers to longbows once we threaten his cities, so he won't go that easily without siege support (at least once we start driving into his home territory)

 

[babybluepants]

Churchill war: Let's wait and see what happens in Lyons. I don't see the units to take out his stack ATM, but we'll work towards that.

Unit production after setup:
Moscow can do treb/cannon per turn
Fish can have 30/41hpt towards Maces (2t) or Cannons (3t)
Bahamas can probably do siege per 2t
GP Farm can draft a musket per turn (after 6-7t?)
11-12 other mainland cities can draft a unit
Anything else?

Current: 16 Trebs, 2 Catapults, 10 Maces, 2 Muskets, 1 Pike, 2 Axes

T+19 built: 12 Muskets (GP) + 12 Muskets (other) + 19 siege (Moscow) + 4 Maces (Fish) + 4-5 siege (Fish) + 6-7 siege (Bahamas) = 28 conventional + 30 siege = total of approx. 40 conventional + 50 siege

After that just keep producing siege as needed. It's a bit slow initially, but we don't wanna commit further cities to it, right?

 

[bcool]

Alternative plan

I think there is a reasonable chance to get Sushi by the end of the next GA (w/i 15 turns)

We need Guilds (1560) Banking (1092) Economics (2184) Constitution (3120) Corp (2496) and Medicine (7020)

We can steal Guilds, Banking, Economics, Constitution (and there is a good chance to steal Corporation as well--I'm not sure but don't AI prioritize? Is Rosey smart enough to not research it since he has the GLH?)

Anyways we can steal Guilds, Bankding, Economics, Constitution for
1560+1092+2184+3120 * 1.5 * (espionage modifiers)
espionage modifiers (0.5 stationary spy * 0.6 religion+holy * 0.5 culture * 1.06 distance * 1.06 espionage spending difference) = ~0.17

So we can steal Guilds Banking, Economics, Constitution for 2029 espionage.
We could possibly steal Corp as well for 637 more.

We need to research Medicine 7020 / 1.2 (prerequisite) = 5850

We have 657 at 100% during GA right now
and we have 558 at 100% during GA right now

So to get Sushi we need 5850 / 657 ~9 turns of 100% research and 2029 / 558 ~4 turns of 100% espionage + either 1 more turn to steal corporation or 3 more turns to research it ourselves.

Best case 14 turns of 100% science or espionage to get Sushi
Worst case 16 turns of 100% science or espionage to get Sushi

Now these numbers are overestimates since we will be growing and will benefit some from teching corporation. They are underestimated too since we won't be in a GA 100% of the time.

But this is big isn't it? With Sushi we will be able to whip out units perhaps? Whip out Courthouses, in general accelerate to space that much faster.

I think we milk the Taj Mahal for all the failure gold we can, and use the 2 great people for 2nd GA to switch to Communism but timing it so we can switch to free market at the end and found Sushi. (Or even triggering the Taj GA for the eventual switch to free market)

edit: Of course this means delaying steel and cannons, so it needs to be debated. I just wanted to put it out there.
edit#2: a great spy could infiltrate and give us all the we need against Rosey. (in which case I would use the Taj Mahal GA, and the Great spy for the infiltration mission, and perhaps use the Great prophet for a shrine)

 

[babybluepants]

I was just thinking about how we beeline Corps from here. Sounds attractive, but I think it's hard to estimate the escalation in military costs if we keep delaying the final build-up. Corps are useless until we can spread them, build CHs everywhere and Market-Grocer-Bank-WS somewhere. I think earlier Sushi would only entice us to further delay conquest, in other words.

For Mining Inc. we also need RP (tech or steal), Steam (steal) and Railroad (tech). That gives us, best-case scenario: Steel-RR-Medi-Corp, assuming we can steal RP.

Slavery? I'm not sure. I'd like to avoid it if possible.

Our research situation at the moment:

Steel 186b/4368b = 4182b = 3485b base
Current rates: 657bpt @ 100% w -314gpt / 55bpt @ 0% w +111gpt
Non-GA rates: 529bpt @ 100% w -314gpt / 55bpt @ 0% w +19gpt
Cost per 10% slider = 33.3gpt
State Property benefit = approx. +75gpt

Steel requires another 6-7t of full research (depending on GA or not), which amounts to over 1900g needed in costs.

Those two options are:
Steel(b) - Guilds(e) - Banking(e) - RP(b) - RR(b) - Constitution(e) - Corporation(b)
Medicine(b) - Guilds(e) - Banking(e) - Constitution(e) - Corporation(b) - RP(e?) - RR(b)

In my experience, cannons are infinitely better at this stage than Trebs. I don't actually know how true that is. LC, you wanna do one of your famous battle-odds / hammer-efficiency spreadsheets?

Edit: We seem to be having some trouble committing cities to military production, and I don't really see this changing. Newer cities are gonna be consistently lagging in basic infrastructure, and we'll want further buildings in the more mature ones (Intel Agencies at 180h a pop right now, for instance), then corp-spread and religion-spread, etc.

PS: Do you guys not think that we're better off saving GA's until later? I would personally just fire them off right now, as I'm a bit concerned about our pace getting to Corps and full conquest. Still, I'm wondering if it's wise to do 3 in a row with only 20-ish cities, when we'll eventually have 40-50 fully developed.

 

[babybluepants]

We could use the prophet to found the Confunican shrine. By my estimate there are currently 16 cities with Confuncism which will give us 48 gold with Wall Street+bank+market+grocer. This will inevitably grow with time as we get more cities. Given the large number of GP's needed for the last golden age doing so is very unlikely to cost us one, and a shrine now will be more useful than having a GP hanging over at the end. We can use the Taj for our second golden age, and by the time we want the third we should have 2 more surplus GP's.

A GP could be quite useful for a multi-GP GA, but I don't necessarily mind this. We'll probably want Confu in all (most) cities later - which could amount to 150gpt or so eventually. What do others think?

 

[babybluepants]

One other thought:
Is there any chance we could put Roosevelt into "financial difficulty" with the succession of gift cities? I don't know enough about AI economies.
"Financial Difficulty: if (1 + beakers output + golds output - total cost)/(1 + beakers output + golds output) < 40%"

 

[bcool]

But this is big isn't it? With Sushi we will be able to whip out units perhaps? Whip out Courthouses, in general accelerate to space that much faster.

Slavery? I'm not sure. I'd like to avoid it if possible. We have yet to really put Rep to use, IMO, and we're basically at Constitution already. Which is why immediate conquest, followed by Mining Inc. seems more appealing. Even now we're lacking a lot of infrastructure, and it'll be worse later

With Sushi we will have more pop and food than we know what to do with. Slavery is a decent way under these conditions to get the infrastructure we need. We have significantly more seafood resource opportunities, so Sushi first would be more powerful. In the cities with infrastructure Sushi allows us to run a ton of specialists. Getting us to Mining Inc that much faster than the other way gets us to Sushi.

Edit: We seem to be having some trouble committing cities to military production, and I don't really see this changing. Newer cities are gonna be consistently lagging in basic infrastructure, and we'll want further buildings in the more mature ones (Intel Agencies at 180h a pop right now, for instance), then corp-spread and religion-spread, etc.

We can draft the military units we need. And a few cities can build the treb we need to take Churchill. Yes they are more inefficient than cannons, but they are enough to take churchill.

 

[babybluepants]

With Sushi we will have more pop and food than we know what to do with. Slavery is a decent way under these conditions to get the infrastructure we need. We have significantly more seafood resource opportunities, so Sushi first would be more powerful. In the cities with infrastructure Sushi allows us to run a ton of specialists. Getting us to Mining Inc that much faster than the other way gets us to Sushi.

Well, you can't whip and run a mass of specialists. Sure, I know we could run a dedicated spell of Slavery right after and switch back, but I imagine it'll be difficult to time this to full benefit across all cities. Anyway, I'm not really opposed to Sushi first given the ridiculously doctored amount of resources available. The main issue right now is whether to tech Steel first, it seems, and I think we should asap.

We can draft the military units we need. And a few cities can build the treb we need to take Churchill. Yes they are more inefficient than cannons, but they are enough to take churchill.

Cannon efficiency is in that they basically don't appear to die pre-Rifle, ofc, whereas Trebs are already disposable for only 20h less base cost (which Moscow can do in 1t regardless). This is important in moving forward, esp. as our military production center is half-way around the map from all future battle zones. We also benefit more from Corporations when we conquer faster, btw.

Which makes me think - RR beeline might help with troop movement later, though I have no idea what the actual timeline of everything is.

Edit:
Sorry I'm spamming the thread like this. It's a complicated TS. I think we need some sort of consensus on tech, civics and GA timing over the next 20-ish turns first. A number of build priorities and timelines kinda depend on this, I think.

 

[bcool]

Cannon efficiency is in that they basically don't appear to die pre-Rifle, ofc, whereas Trebs are already disposable for only 20h less base cost (which Moscow can do in 1t regardless). This is important in moving forward, esp. as our military production center is half-way around the map from all future battle zones. We also benefit more from Corporations when we conquer faster, btw.

Yes true we don't have as many losses, but treb are pretty cheap to upgrade to cannons. That is even faster than railroads.

Well, you can't whip and run a mass of specialists.

In developed cities we might have a courthouse, library, market, perhaps intel agency is 7 specialists that isn't too bad. And oxford would allow more in Moscow.

 

[babybluepants]

In developed cities we might have a courthouse, library, market, perhaps intel agency is 7 specialists that isn't too bad. And oxford would allow more in Moscow.

Fair enough. I know - I was just being a bit of an *ss with that comment...

Ok, first up: Are we teching Steel or Medicine? Are we doing fastest Taj or 2GP for next GA? Can we have a vote?

I can do an initial PPP tonight based on that, for discussion/tweaking tmr. I'd like to play at least some turns Sat-Sun, as I tend to be quite busy during the week.

 

[Mitchum]

It's hard to say whether Sushi -> Mining or Mining -> Sushi is better. Once we have Mining, we should be able to keep our research slider at 100% once we've spread it to several cities and can start building wealth. Of course, this wouldn't happen until after we're done building units for our war effort and most cities have their basic infrastructure (which will happen much faster with Mining as well).

I just did a quick count and this is what I came up with (+/- 3 ):

                   Mining          Sushi
Current              9               15
Beijing              0                2
BCool Island         2                6
Mao                  2                1
Roosy                2                8
Church               1                6
Gandhi               2                5
Coal                 6?

Totals              24               43

Not sure if this helps...

I prefer to save the GPro for now. We already have a Buddhist shrine in Paris. I was thinking that we would put Wall Street and corporate HQs there. I'm just not sure if we want to go to the expense of spreading Buddhism around unless we switch to that as our state religion, which doesn't seem worthwhile. Roosy may help spread Buddhism as well...

I agree that teching Steel, taking on Churchill and stealing what we can from Roosevelt is the way to go. What are our thoughts on when we can get the city-gift chain done, which includes capturing Chengdu and Hangzhou?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Things are getting very complicated, as you guys have pointed out. My calcs show that by the time we get either Sushi or Mining, we would have, including trades with Gandhi:

Sushi resources: ~43
Mining resources: ~18

I think Sushi is better first, because 1) it's cheaper to tech, and 2) it has great synergy with the Kremlin and poprushing infrastructure.

The Million Dollar question is: Where to put Wall Street? Because we need to plan that asap. Fish? Paris? Fish surely has more hammer production and a forge. I think the goal is Wall Street asap, right? The problem is, we're using Fish for warpreps. If we're going to build Wall Street in Fish, then I think we need to grow it non-stop working all our farms from now on, while building units a little slower. And no drafting in Fish!

Here are the techs we are likely to be able to steal or trade for:

Spoiler :

Music
Guilds
Banking
Econ
Constitution
Steam Power
Military Science
(Divine Right)
(Corporation)
(Astronomy)
(Rifling)
(Democracy)

I think we can plan to attack Roosy with cannons about Steel+10t and still steal the techs we hope for. Furthermore, Roosy is building banks--Washington and Boston already have them--so the timing of capturing those cities might dovetail with our need for 6 banks for Wall Street.

Based on what you guys have posted and my analysis of the map, here is a first draft of how we might proceed. It only includes the most important points that I thought of. The purpose such a summary is to guide us/bbp in planning this turnset.

Steel/Sushi beeline phase

I. Research: Steel-(Communism)
Warring: Guanzhou-Chengdu-Hangzhou(raze!)-Nanjing (we lose ~12 trebs)
Warpreps: Moscow + Fish -- nonstop trebs for Nanjing-Churchill Campaign
Builds: Taj + Globe + settlers/ConfuMiss/spies for Hangzhou2W + Trojan City + Kamchatka3S
GPs: GM in Pigs (ongoing project)
Gift-chain to Roosy: Hangzhou2W-Kamchatka3S-Trojan City
Golden Age:
1. Taj Mahal and save the GProph for a late GA, imo, we don't really need Confucianism in too many more cities, or do we?
2. Run GA asap with 2GPs and put failed gold in Taj? Do we have available production for this?

II. Research: Medicine-(Guilds)-(Banking)-(Economics)-(Constitution)-(Corporation)
Warring: Tours-Hastings-York-London-Canterbury-Newcastle
Warpreps: Rapid drafting muskets for Churchill Campaign + Moscow/Fish -- nonstop cannons for Roosy Campaign (via galley chain to Chengdu)
Builds: Kremlin (in Beijing) + chs for all future corporate offices + settle Hammer City and
five 2-sushi sites

Mining beeline phase

III. Research: (Replaceable Parts)-(Steam Power)-Railroad
Warring: NewYork+Xian-Washington-Philadelphia-Boston-...
...etc.

Notes:
1. We should sabotage the monument in Galley City pretty soon, so it won't pop its culture again. GP Farm should take those two river tiles in about 33t. (We may capture this anyway, but just in case.) We may need ~10EPs more for this.
2. Our trebs have plus survival odds against lbs in flat cities. Churchill is all flat.
3. We capture New York first against Roosy because of the Statue of Zeus.
4. Gift-chaining Chengdu-Hangzhou to Roosy drastically complicates capturing New York first while defending against attacks from Xian+Chengu on one side and Philly+Washington on the other.
5. If we have enough EPs, then we'd like to squeeze in (Military Science) somewhere to build a military academy in Moscow with our next GG and maybe to upgrade CRIII maces to grenadiers for the Roosy Campaign. Hard to calculate now.
6. For what it's worth, the Kremlin is far and away the most overpowered Wonder in CIV, imo. Combine it with Sushi and Cristo Redentor, then close your eyes and rocket to the stars.

 

[bcool]

2. Our trebs have plus survival odds against lbs in flat cities. Churchill is all flat.

If this is true why do we need to research steel before medicine?
(edit: we could upgrade the trebs to cannons for Rosey war)

edit#2 I didn't realize Krelim helps with whips as well as gold rushes...

 

[LowtherCastle]

Use him for a Forester III unit and medic III unit. Split the xp from the GG bwtn 2 units. If the C1, medic I macemen gets one more experience with 10xp and a GG attached he can become the Medic III unit, with 10xp the axe 1/2 xp can get forester III.

Very interesting idea. Our Medic III doesn't need to be a Medic III till after we capture Guanzhou anyway. Of course, the WoodsmanIII is only +15% and only on the same tile, but that's better than nothing.