SGOTM 12 - One Short Straw

[Mitchum]

Roosy got Corp ages ago. Yes, for a while it showed up on his Can Research list, then vanished later.

Strange, I didn't know we could see any techs in the "Can Research" list unless we knew the pre reqs and could research the tech ourselves...

@LC your updated plan is still a bit confusing. I has us stealing Corprations on T+X in Troy, then stealing Corporations again on T+7 in both Troy and Vlad. Is this just insurance in case the first spy fails in Troy at T+7? And I guess the T+X is in case our first set of spies is successful and we have leftovers, right?

On a side note, editing a post like #2631, which contains vital information when edited, is very risky. I would have missed this updated plan had I not gone back to read the message. I could have easily missed it... I think Edits should be used for minor editorial changes rather than changes to vital information.

 

[Mitchum]

And I'm wondering if we should just spam workshops everywhere and forget about Sushi. Beeline factories instead...

You're killing me, LC!! I thought the Sushi train left the station about 1000 years ago...

Let's look at this. We have 18 Sushi resources right now. We'll get 3 more soon (Moscow's clam, Nanjing's rice and Chengdu's fish). We'll get 4 more by settling 2 cities on Bcool's island and 5 more as we work our way down Churchill's east coast. So by the time we're spamming Sushi we could have 18+3+4+5 = 30 Sushi resources.

So I agree with the first part of your statement. Let's spam workshops. With Sid's we'll be able to work every single mine, workshop and resource tile in every city and still have a bunch of food left over to hire a bunch of specialists. The only cities that I would keep any grassland or plains farms would be GP Farm (which should have all farms) and Pigs (our actual great person farm at the moment). Of course, we'll still farm resources (e.g. wheat, rice, etc.) and any farms needed for irrigating said resources.

We should only build the minimum required infrastructure in each city. We build units if needed for war. We build executives and possibly missionaries as required. Otherwise, we build wealth. This will allow us to keep the slider above 80% for the rest of the game. Once we have Mining Inc., we'll have more money than we know what to do with and our science slider will be pinned at 100%! So our tech path should go Medicine (Sid's) -> Replaceable Parts -> Steam Power (steal from Churchill?) -> RR.

So what do we consider "required" infrastructure? I guess it depends? Since we'll be running a high science slider, most cities with any amount of commerce should get libraries, universities, observatories and laboratories. Cities should build markets and grocers as needed for happiness and health. Banks are optional in most cities since I assume that we'll start running scientists instead of merchants once we start building wealth. Of course, since we'll be in full HE mode and building a lot of wealth, every city will need a forge, factory, power plant and levee. And the basics, of course: granary, lh, ch. Then the odd aqueduct, temple and colosseum as needed. So it looks like we'll be building just about everything everywhere... J/K.

 

[babybluepants]

We don't actually need Kremlin as fast as we're building it. Could Siberia or Bahamas build it for a few turns?

How are we stealing from Church? One plan was copper city (I scrubbed it). We need to leave him with Marseilles for that.

 

[Mitchum]

We don't actually need Kremlin as fast as we're building it. Could Siberia or Bahamas build it for a few turns?

Good point. I'll try to work in some failure gold when possible.

How are we stealing from Church? One plan was copper city (I scrubbed it). We need to leave him with Marseilles for that.

Is it remotely possible that we'll have him down to 3 cities by the time we need Steam Power? Sounds doable. Our Mao campaign was 20ish turns against a protective AI, with cities on hills, and without cannons, rifles or drafting. Maybe we can get Churchill down to 3 cities in 15 to 20 turns due to the harder troop logistics but easier fighting. I could be way off...

If not, we could quickly settle Copper City (need a quick missionary; a settler is already in the area) and then gift it to him before war begins. This would be tight, I think.

 

[bcool]

Maybe what LC was suggesting, and what I'm wondering is if we should stay in State Property until the start of our next GA ~20 turns. That would give us plenty of time to get Versailles built, FP built, WS built, a large part of the AI world conquered and allow us to build some infrastructure we need to really spam the corp executives without sacrificing critical builds in our cities.

The extra food from the workshops is immediate and would be available to all our cities faster than we could spam the corp executives.

 

[Mitchum]

It's going to take a while for me to finish my PPP, so it won't be done until tomorrow. Until then here's some food for thought on the Wall Street Plan. I'd like to get this integrated into my PPP after everyone's thoughts/comments, if possible.

We can’t whip our six banks until the last turn of the current GA when we switch to Slavery/OR. So the plan is to start WS on the first turn after our GA with maximum overflow hammers from the bank. The six bank cities will be:

Fish – Duh…
Moscow – Good production and commerce
Siberia – Good production, good commerce and max overflow into Iron Works
GP Farm – Will be working a lot of merchants, max overflow into National Park (although it may be done already…), and no unhappiness from whipping
Cuba – Good commerce
Bermuda – Good commerce​

 

[Mitchum]

Maybe what LC was suggesting, and what I'm wondering is if we should stay in State Property until the start of our next GA ~20 turns. That would give us plenty of time to get Versailles built, FP built, WS built, a large part of the AI world conquered and allow us to build some infrastructure we need to really spam the corp executives without sacrificing critical builds in our cities.

The extra food from the workshops is immediate and would be available to all our cities faster than we could spam the corp executives.

The decision of FM vs. SP isn't an easy one and one I was struggling with when drafting my PPP.

Another point: With Roosevelt in Mercantilism, FM won't be quite as lucrative...

I'd still like to see a WB test so that we can compare our economies under FM and SP with our current empire. Of course, the extra food and 10% hammers comes into play as well.

 

[babybluepants]

It seems that we can get 2 more GP (Moscow and Pigs) in about 12t. I really don't see the rush to FM.

Edit: since we are swicthing to Slavery, we'll be crossing our fingers that we get two different types, though. Pigs would have to run 2sci+2mer+2art+1eng+1spy

 

[bcool]

T+1
Steal Guilds from Troy
Steal Banking from Vlad
Steal Econ from Troy
Steal Const from Troy (I think we should have enough EPs, just barely, but maybe not, because I think when it shows 1.08% EP spending, it's actually somewhere between 1.08 and 1.0899%)

Spy on the Beijing rice tile boards the galley at Shanghai-3N which transfers the spy to the galley at Shanghai-2NE-1E, which moves into Vlad and deposits the spy in Vlad on T+2

T+1+X
Troy steals Corporation (if spy still available and we have EPs for COnstitution)

T+7
Troy steals Corporation (whichever is now cheaper)
Vlad steals Corporation

Without doing the numbers, I would assume that stealing Corporation without a 50% stationary spy bonus would be worth it. The espionage points saved doing it with a 50% stationary bonus vs. a 10% bonus would be less than the commerce gained by the extra trade routes.

You want to wait at least 1 turn for better mission success odds though.

Edit: Also could build a spy in Siberia to get another spy to Trojan city next turn. (But move him there after the others steal)

 

[bcool]

Other points:
I would workshop over the ivory near Fish.

I would look into building wealth and going 100% espionage this turn to see if we can get everything next turn or the next after that even with a less than 50% stationary spy discount.

I think
State Property, Caste System, Representation, Pacifism, Nationalism is the way to go for ~15 turns until our next GA.
Caste System for the workshop hammers and ability to control gp production and the ability to control pop in city with specialists.
State Property for the workshop food, production bonus, and reduction in maintenance (but it would be interesting to compare the with Free Market)

As I said this gives us time to prep for the switch to Free Market, and thus make the transition that much more smooth and profitable. Avoids unhappiness from whips --which will be a problem when combined with war weariness. We can milk Kremlin for failure gold, etc.

I think with full powered workshops, whipping loses its appeal. (However once we have sushi then a few whips with Kremlin power would make sense)

We could tech something else other than Medicine, (like a beeline to assembly line, or just have a bit more time to tech medicine so we can afford to upgrade a few treb to cannons and with a steal of military science a few upgrades to grenadiers) That would make the wars a lot easier and less costly in terms of war weariness and perhaps reduce the number of units we would have to produce and maintain.

 

[babybluepants]

I agree with most of that. Except Grenadiers - we haven't lost a single mace yet and we probably won't. Just plow through with cannons, what do we need Mil Sci for? Don't know about going off Medicine beeline, either. Why would we need AL first? For early factories? I don't think that's either necessary or easy to actually execute pre-Corp.

Slavery was an option for getting Fish ready mainly. We would take, what, 25t to get WS built otherwise?

 

[bcool]

Next 7 turns for Fish
cancel merchants work 2 plains workshops
grows next turn works gold mine from moscow
guilds next turn gives +2 hammers
workshoping ivory gives +2 hammers in ~3 turns
lose 10 base hammers in 7 turns for end of GA
get engineer in ~6 from growing to 14 pop

Hammers per turn...
44 this turn into Market
49 next turn with gold mine T190 (starts bank)
52 next turn with guilds T191
52 next turn T192
55 with ivory work shops T193
55 no change T194 (finishes bank)
58 with engineer specialist T195 (grocer while wait for other banks to finish?)
58 T196 (grocer while wait for other banks?)
44 for the rest (with end of GA, keeping caste system, state property) (Starts WS--finishes in 14 turns)

(Could convert a farm or two into a workshop too after growing to 14)

I think someone else did this calculation and slavery saves 5 turns? Is that worth -1 hammer for all of our workshops elsewhere and prevents us from controlling our specialists and great people production) Or would we not be able to finish banks on a reasonable schedule?

Probably could start another GA before WS finishes we could switch to slavery then and whip a partially completed Grocer into WS, then whip executives with excessive into WS.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Without doing the numbers

With doing the numbers:

21 TR * 3/TR=63

With our current slider, it costs us 50g to buy 63EPs. Our revenues are 468 with markets multiplying that for +38g, so our currency to gold factor is (468+38)/468=1.08. 50/1.08=46, so we have:

46 = 63 EPs

Assuming a 1.04 spending rate, 10% stationary for Corporation will cost us an extra 518EPs.
518/63=8.2
46*8.2=377

377c/63cpt=6 turns

If we delay Corporation by 6 turns, we break even.

 

[Mitchum]

@bcool

I like how you're thinking regarding WS, but it's hard not to dip into Slavery for a bit. Slavery is arguably the most powerful civic if (ab)used properly. Add in the Kremlin bonus, which adds 50% more hammers, and I go giddy every time I use the whip. We'll have to think about this carefully.

 

[Mitchum]

It seems that we can get 2 more GP (Moscow and Pigs) in about 12t. I really don't see the rush to FM.

We already have one GS waiting. All we need are two GMs (one for Sushi and one for the next GA).

 

[babybluepants]

We already have one GS waiting. All we need are to GMs (one for Sushi and one for the next GA).

Ofc, we do.
Edit: That doesn't change the timeline by more than maybe 1t, though.

 

[Mitchum]

Regarding Civics:

I'm fine with staying in State Property. The real benefits of Free Market won't be seen until we found Sid's anyway (~15 to 20 turns). I was trying to think of a way to avoid having to burn yet another mid-game golden age to switch to FM in 20 turns or so. We were originally talking about running all of our GAs for the end game but now we're considering burning our third one...

Can we get agreement on which civics we'll switch to at the end of the GA? This will help me better plan my turnset.

My vote is:

State Property, Slavery, OR, Nationhood and either Representation (more synergistic with Castes and Pacifism) or Police State (fits well with our war plans to reduce WW).

 

[Mitchum]

I just tried a test game where we've circumnavigated the globe but have not gotten the message yet. I wanted to make sure that trading away our maps would not give the AI the circumnavigation bonus.

My test must have been flawed. I used "Reveal Tiles" to get us 99% of the way there and then used a caravel to get the last tile. I hit end turn 3 times but never saw the circumnavigation message for us or the AI I gave our map.

Are we sure that if we give away our map that we won't be giving away the circumnavigation bonus as well? I assume we're fine since we should get it at the end of this turn, which happens before the AI get their turns, but I just wanted to be sure...

 

[Mitchum]

I just ran a quick calculation (attached) and we will get the following great people unless we make major changes in hiring specialists:

Pigs - T190 (next turn) - 85% GM
Pigs - T200
Moscow - T215​

Assumptions:
We switch from Caste System to Slavery and Pacifism to OR at the end of the GA.
Moscow continues to run 4 specialists (which may not make it possible to generate 1 cannon/turn after the GA).
Pigs runs 9 specialists until the end of the GA and then 8 from then on.
Pigs does not build any more buildings opening up spec slots, limiting it to 8 specialists total. We could build a Grocer and add 2 more merchants if we want.

So, if we get one GM and one non-GS from Pigs, then we can found Sid's and start a golden age any time after T200.
If we get a GM and a GS from Pigs (or two GSs), then we'll have to wait until T215 to switch civics again without any anarchy.
If we then get another GS from Moscow (which will likely be high odds since we're running so many GSs there), then we're SOL.
We could, of course, start working more specialists in other cities to speed up GP production in those cities.
We could also stay in Castes and Pacifism, but then we "waste" the power of the Kremlin.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I just tried a test game where we've circumnavigated the globe but have not gotten the message yet. I wanted to make sure that trading away our maps would not give the AI the circumnavigation bonus.

My test must have been flawed. I used "Reveal Tiles" to get us 99% of the way there and then used a caravel to get the last tile. I hit end turn 3 times but never saw the circumnavigation message for us or the AI I gave our map.

Are we sure that if we give away our map that we won't be giving away the circumnavigation bonus as well? I assume we're fine since we should get it at the end of this turn, which happens before the AI get their turns, but I just wanted to be sure...

Let's just not do it. I didn't even think of that...

On the GPs, I was assuming we'd MM to make sure that MOscow was next (after Pigs(1t)).