SGOTM 12 - Plastic Ducks

[Duckweed]

I have thought about whipping a WB from Yek, however Yek has 2 more whipping angers than Yaku. Anyway, delaying OU is no big deal. We will keep research at 0% for long time. Let's see whether we can break the 10K BPT in the end.

PR is amassing troops now, do they have macemans? I guess so. They seems entirely skip the wonders.

 

[kossin]

PR has vicawoo on board. I looked at his recent S&T thread, they most likely went early catapults. I'd guess WE+Cats+regulars with no wonders.

I think their score was too low for them to grab CS earlier (and they have so little culture). Definitely not getting both CS and Machinery that early without Oracle.

EDIT: either we have team members in the shadows or some consistent lurkers. For some reason the test games are getting more than 1 download

 

[kossin]

t156
Not sure if I wouldn't put Moscow on 2 farms to favor growth a bit instead of 1 farm+windmill

I ran through the rest of the micro quickly... not much more opinion for the moment but I think it looks pretty good.

 

[Duckweed]

EDIT: either we have team members in the shadows or some consistent lurkers. For some reason the test games are getting more than 1 download

Right, I only downloaded once.

I think their score was too low for them to grab CS earlier (and they have so little culture). Definitely not getting both CS and Machinery that early without Oracle.

Their power started to rise ~T125, that's ~10 turns later than our date. It's possible with the extra hammers saved from Oracle and GLH.

t156
Not sure if I wouldn't put Moscow on 2 farms to favor growth a bit instead of 1 farm+windmill

When capital grows to certain size (~15), those island cities will get 1C more trade route income.

 

[kossin]

I will try to revise tonight, if you don`t hear from me in 12 hours, consider it a green flag

 

[kossin]

2 minor details:

The archer from Rostov to Ore is late by 1 turn [7 tiles = 4 turns], causing 1 unhappy citizen in Ore for 1 turn... Send the chariot there, and then send archer to SP/Moscow, warrior from SP/Moscow can go instead of Chariot on galley without causing city unhappiness (certain about Moscow, I'd need to double check for SP).

t159
You say Ros(Fur to farm)... I imagine you mean both furs to both farms? Nov isn't using the 2F1H1C at the time... just making sure.

That's all... good luck, it's a pretty heavy set!

 

[Duckweed]

You referred to the unhappiness of Oren at size 7, unless we lose heavily in battles and causes WW, Oren stays even (12 - 7pop - 2 safety - 3 whipping anger)

T159 -- Fur to farm means 1 fur to 1 farm, Is the plain farm not worked this turn? 1F1H4C is about the same as 2F1H1C unless the farm let Ros grow 1 turn faster at the moment.

Every set is heavier than previous one, that's why I'd like to finish this one and then hand over to you, hopefully you can complete the next 30 turns in 2 weeks.

Will play in a couple hours.

 

[kossin]

Alrighty!

I'll try to put in as much time as I can to free your hands up, 40 turns could be possible

 

[Duckweed]

Screwed micro of Nov from the beginning (T152) and found it until T155 when I saw a Spy in the city screen. Have to stop for a while to clear my brain.

 

[kossin]

Oh well. Stuff happens. Drink something cold and breath deep

 

[Duckweed]

Sorry, I'll continue on tonight rather than rushing yesterday. SOD is ready to take Shanghai, which is lightly defended by 5 units. However, Beijing is also on hill and defended by ~ a dozen of units.

 

[kossin]

No problem!

Any possibilities in sac'ing a few catapults?

 

[Duckweed]

We have 5 cats in the front line, sacrificing them is necessary to keep low loss of macemans, expect them all dead if the battle ring is not favorable, taking Beijing is going to be costly.

 

[kossin]

As long as the city is worth taking I don`t see a problem really. Cats don`t cost much, we can pump 1/turn from SP with not much difficulty.

 

[Duckweed]

Game Log

Again more than 30K chars, anyway you can check in game.

Micro difference

1. Nov and SP. messed up the tile management.
2. Again I forgot to whip the CH in Kra on T160 as the plan. Probably not a bad move, this lets me think whether to whip CH immediately or delay it until the cost is more than the yield from 3 citizens.
3. Mag worker did 1 more turn of workshop (2 turns) before on board.
4. Captured a Chinese worker, so it did 1 turn of SF on the riverside grassland and 1 turn of SF on Sugar.

Game report

The war went great. You'll find out in the detailed report.

Churchill completed SoZ, I have not thought about this wonder when I gift him Ivory. Anyway, better him than Roosevelt, who is an easier target than Churchill. Canceled the ivory deal the last turn as he just get Construction. Also noticed that English have Levee, so Churchill could be the next EP target.

T156 -- The battles for Shanghai, 2 cats survived and we took it with zero loss.

Spoiler :

The remaining building were great.

Spoiler :

T158 -- This was the only worker we captured from Chinese, I didn't even know where he was last turn.

Spoiler :

T159 -- Gandhi had got enough resources, back to normal trade

Spoiler :

T160 -- Defense in Beijing, Mao just suicided 3 units last turn and sent 1 archer to Shanghai, we had good chance now. Sending 2 sacrificing cats 1st, 1 survived, and only lost 1 level 4 maceman with a winning odd of 96.5%.

Spoiler :

3rd GG was born in Moscow, I'm not very sure where to settle it. In the long term, SP might be better, however in the short term, Moscow is better as it can pump some units next. I'm a little more favorable of Moscow (another minor benefit, better yield when we switch to representation) since level 3 units are much better than level 2.

Spoiler :

T161 -- The final defense in Beijing

Spoiler :

You will be more than happy with Beijing!

Spoiler :

Are you satisfied with this deal? Definitely NOT!

Spoiler :

Because Mao is thinking this 2 units have some real impact on the negotiation. So I sent all we left. Kill any unit in the BFC of Beijing so that Mao will be willing to sign a much better treaty! Now there's a decision to be made -- We need to get IW (either research ourselves or trade it) so that we can twist Compass probably plus Drama next turn.

Spoiler :

 

[kossin]

Most excellent work Duckweed!

Beijing as an amazing catch! All it needed more was some settled GP

Going to take a good look at the save now and start thinking about directions to take.

 

[kossin]

Iron Working: Gandhi is researching Music, we can sell it to him for IW+gold.
Monotheism: could sell to Churchill, grab some gold

GG to Moscow, agree. We can make it grow to ~15 rather fast so it's infra/units for a bit. SP also kinda needs a break from whipping and maybe a -building or two.

Seeing as pretty much everyone is gearing for war against us, we'll be needing more units in the ex-chinese area.

DG: in war mode Hopefully he will DoW us so we can avoid the -1 penalty.
Churchill: levee? There's a 2H grass hill with a fort, should be an Iron. We'll need quite a few troops near him to absorb his SoD (it'll be pretty big by the time he DoWs)
Roose: is pretty backwards...sell Aesthetics+Lit? maybe grab +1/2 and OB.
Mao: he will be pretty depleted on troops, taking his western city will take 2 turns of walking and free up Beijing - this in case he's being stupid again next turn about the peace treaty.

I would like to do some exploration ahead to the southeast, we've been settling on the edge of fog for a while.

Forbidden Palace: we have enough CH's now, we should get it going to save anywhere from 20~50 gpt.
Gandhi will probably be nice enough to build Versailles for us by the time we take over management of his island. tbh, most of his cities aren't that impressive so it's not high priority unless he grabs MoM or something we really need... maybe gift marble to Roose and hope for the best?

EDIT: I am quite busy tonight and tomorrow morning so I won't start testing before Saturday. Saturday night/Sunday should have a good draft going.

 

[Duckweed]

I guess Machinery could be a better tech for selling to Gandhi as he will probably starts researching Phi next, which we don't like. We'd better finish it after we get Drama from Mao. Moreover machinery also opens the Engineer for Gandhi.

Note, I only sold map to Gandhi(Map<->Map + 35g) and Roosevelt (95g + 35G), so the map selling is available for others -- Churchill and DG?

SP should keep pumping units before we repel the English invasion. Expecting a SOD of more than a dozen units from English and think about how to deal with it.

We can deal with Mao after we wipe out French, make sure to gift the city before DOW.

Do you have a clear idea who is Roosevelt target? we might need some defensive units in Beijing.

The 2 galleys are free to explore further, settle whatever you think is good, close to further. The site near copper could be a good site.

Shanghai seems to be a good site for FP.

Gifting Marble to Roosevelt is a good idea.

 

[kossin]

Roosevelt started planning war circa t122, at which time he was Annoyed to us and we were his WE as well... there is little doubt that he's after us as well. The only question mark is whether DG is after us or Gandhi but I'd say us because he probably doesn't have the power to DoW Gandhi while due to Stalin being at war with us, everyone has enough power to DoW us. (maybe we should buy peace to stall the future WHEOORN's from weak AIs like DG/Mao).

Churchill stack: his last stack was 4 Axes, 6 spears and 1 archer. I'm expecting maybe 2~3 more Axes, more spears don't matter, some 3~4 longbows and maybe 2~3 catapults. Suiciding ~2 catapults should be sufficient to clean that stack with 8~10 maces.

More after dinner.

 

[kossin]

Cities - job

Moscow - grow to 14 = focus on food (+1 commerce for overseas cities), ~2 catas, *Maces, aqueduct as needed, OU when available
SP - ~2 catas, *Maces, focus on hammers, occasional whip without wasting hammers to gold
Nov - whip Uni in 6 turns. CM and spread Confu
Rostov - whip Uni in 2 turns, get a garrison, barracks and whip some maces with excess food
Yaro - Forge-Harbor-Market-Uni (harbors should be worth 4C which is better than market, also cheaper)
Yek - whip Uni in ~5 turns, harbor-market, possibly a settler
Yaku - whip Forge, 1-whip library, whip University (this will be the city slowing down OU)... needs further examination to determine when it can be ready, will influence other cities whipping dates
Vlad - CH-Forge - possibly a settler, garrison
Smo - barracks - 2-pop whip some catapults for suicide missions, *maces
Ore - whip Uni in 5 turns, Harbor+Market+Uni
Kras - CH whip later, 2F3C tiles are better than +2 EP, Forge-lib-harbor
Rh - CH-Forge
Kha - CH-Forge
Bry- LH-CH-Forge
Tv'-CH-Forge
Tours - Gran-CH-Forge
Novo - CH-Forge
Mag - CH-Forge
Xian - CH-Forge
Mur - LH-CH-Forge
Nan - CH-Forge
Irk - Gran-LH-CH-Forge
Chita - gran-LH-CH-Forge
Shanghai - LH-Forge-FB (have not checked if it's best here but as you said it will be up fast here)
Beijing - LH - barracks - Maces

Military: convince Mao to pay us better for managing his cities
Need maybe 4~5 maces in Beijing, having a hard time thinking of Roose as a threat
Churchill: 2~3 suicide catapults, 6+ Maces on Sugar (uncertain where he'd go, maybe park on hill)
DG: heal CR troops, add some fresh recruits as we will need to sac a few catapults

Biggest problem I see is troop movement. It's very far from our base to Beijing for reinforcements.

For research: finish Philo if Gandhi starts it. We would do very well with Banking from our low slider... maybe get Feudalism from Gandhi+IW.