SGOTM 12 - Regular

[archphoenix]

I can explain some.
Research:
we should finish the industrialization, which have invest half. after that we can discuss, build Darwin to get atomic and electronics, so it is not so eager to build, only beating AIs by 1 turns is enough.

Constantinople
we need not shields, we have 20pops in Constantinople,
get all incomings we can get, slaves improve tiles only to get more shields, and now we can build 70s knights, and when MT come, we can build 80s cavs. so other have said
even factory is needn't.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Welcome back Kulko

I haven't been able to look at the save recently but...

Darwin should always be arranged to finish on the same interturn that a research completes. It's better to delay the wonder than the tech of course, and we should take care to allow for the possibility of pollution during construction of the wonder. That kind of stuff is easier to arrange when doing 4-turn research, which we aren't going to see in this game, but still we will want to do some sums when it comes to planning Darwin.
As arch says, Atomic and Electronics are going to be the best techs to take.
Why do we delay? Well Industry might be of use to us in the short term, whereas Scientifc, Atomic and Electronics are of no use other than getting through the tech tree. In the medium term, there is one more tech which has the power to directly improve our commerce; Mass Production allows the commercial dock; we should plan to prebuild these in all core towns which work coastal tiles (i.e. Tenoch and Delhi probably shouldn't sweat over it). So in an ideal world we would research as fast as possible to Mass Prod before going for Scientific. But I think we might get nervous about the (small) risk of France doing Scientific>Darwin ahead of us, and prioritise it sonner.
Here's a little thought. Can we actually get a lot of commercial docks built as soon as that tech arrives? It seems unlikely that we could be that well organised, but if it can be done, maybe the best techs to take from Darwin are Atomic and Mass Prod. I'll try and do some sums.

In theory, we want to irrigate everywhere, including Constan, and max out on scientists. But an extra scientist in Constan adds only 3 beakers to our economy, same as an extra scientist in somewhere corrupt like Hattusas. Whereas a mine irrigated in Constan drops our net production by 4 shields, and a mine irrigated in Hattusas probably doesn't affect our net production at all. So I'm happy to have our workers toiling elsewhere for now.

As for the diplo prospects, they don't look good do they? I've never really been good at identifying what is affecting AI mood, and whether it can be helped, but there are plenty of possibilities... they could be angry because we broke deals with them (short alliances, interrupted trades), or because we have been at war and taken their towns (applies only to Persia I guess) or just because we are stronger than them. As you say, we have been careful to avoid using our most dastardly diplomatic tricks on some of these AI, but maybe they are just upset because they saw us do it to other people...
Now when it comes to the voting, I think some of these people will be prepared to ally with us, and some will not. Those that do ally (and ROP and MPP) should see a miraculous rise in attitude, as happened with Joan, who went from annoyed (or worse, I don't remember) to gracious just for the sake of 3 alliances.
Anyway, I repeat my advice to get a unit into every town. What we really don't want any more is people who are supposed to be our friends attacking us just because they think they saw an easy target. And even a gracious AI can fall into that trap sometimes.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Just having a look at the save... looks pretty good. The diplo situation isn't hopeless yet.

Korea: furious; we are at war, but we haven't taken any towns, so Wang's mood may improve after the war, if we decide not to bother pressing it further.
Persia: furious; we took his towns. We currently have ROP.
Celts: polite, gpt deals ongoing.
Babylon: annoyed, maybe just because we have a close border. MPP would cost 1690gpt!! No current deals.
China: polite, gpt deals ongoing.
Zulu: annoyed, perhaps because of gpt he is paying us.
Russia: polite, ROP and paying us gpt.
England: annoyed, maybe because she is so weak? Also she is giving us lots of gpt.
Arabia: furious; we are at war, but haven't taken any towns.
Greece: polite, ROP and a lux deal.
Ottoman: annoyed; no idea why. No deals ongoing.
Scandinavia: furious; not sure why - we have been at war, but didn't take any towns or slaves. He is paying us plenty of gpt of course.
Sumeria: won't talk.
Iroquois: polite, paying gpt.
America: furious; we are at war. Abe will not consider an alliance in the peace deal, unlike Wang and Abu.
Carthage: cautious, paying gpt.
France: gracious, lots of ongoing deals, including 3 alliances.

In general, people will go for alliances and MPPs with us. I think America looks like the only exception, although maybe when we are at peace Abe will reconsider that. Alliances usually cost a tech or two, which is expensive, but will be a price we can easily afford on the last interturn of the game.
So it looks to me as though we are very much electable.

 

[Kulko]

Research
Ok I will finish Industrial, but afterwards we should go for Darwin I believe. After all France can research SciMeth Too, and they can still build roughly our speed.

Other cities
We build workers and hospitals, railroad the area and then rejoin the workers?
No remarks here, so thats what I will do. I assume we do build fabrics in our cities?

Military
I will play that purely defensive as we have annoylings enough

Diplo
no current ToDo here either.

Well looks like an easy 3 turns which I will play now.

 

[archphoenix]

we will beat joan when we keep sanitation,
...
and Industrial.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Yes, right now France doesn't even have railroads, and can't work all those juicy tiles over there.

Really there are two ways of playing it:
(1) We get a factory and coal plant put in Constan, and continue researching towards Mass Prod. Then if Joan gets Scientific, we immediately buy it from her using anything but Industry, and build Darwin faster than her. This has a risk that we can't delay Darwin to hit the right interturn (i.e. a moment when we have 0 beakers invested).
(2) We do Darwin now, timing it to arrive at a neat interturn. We also sell Joan Sanitation in order that she can grow her towns in size and research faster for us. She has some cash and gpt available right now. I checked.
This has a risk that Joan is currently researching Sanitation, then we duplicated her effort by researching it ourselves. Also, we get to Mass Prod 6 or 8 turns slower, which will cost us a turn or two of research due to beakers forgone.

Technically I think (1) is the better choice, but the difference is not great, so I don't really mind if we do Scientific>Darwin now.
Actually, I'm more worried by the possibilty that Joan is wasting her time (i.e. our time!) researching Industry than the chance she is doing Scientific. Scientific is not an AI favoured tech, and the Darwin slingshot is a sure-fire catch-up opportunity if you find yourself industrial and behind in tech, at least as far as emperor level.

 

[Kulko]

Ok played my 3 turns:

750 AD:
I misclick and move both knight out of Con.

IBT: Arabia lands 2 units near Con

760 AD:
I panic, mismanage some moves and suddenly we have a problem. Luckily I find 2 more units in Delhi and a shipchain, which is just long enough to land them in Con.

After that scare I decided to take a pause and try again when I am more concentrated. As the landed Units have destroyed our rhythm in Con I have switched to a fabric prebuild.

760 AD cont.
I also destroy some Koreans units and continue railroading.

IBT:
Arabia attacks our knight with an Ansar and dies (phew1)
Also the MI takes on Con Rifleman and dies too.
Unforunately gooey appears in Con so my plan of building a fabric is delayed by one turn.

770 AD:
I finally get a defensive unit in every town, and most of our Continents are now railroad connected.

IBT:
Industrialisation researched
The landbridge between India and Maya is finally within pour borders, and we now can build ongoing linnes of communication.

780 AD:

Conclusio
Sorry, for the scare, and the corresponding mismanagement of Constantiople, I was obviously still in holiday in that turn.

I would also like to continue playing, but wanted to ask a few questions before:

I will go for MassProd like you suggested, buit want to remark that we can trade only Sanitation and/or Industrialisation to Joan right now. still, even after she gets it she still needs some turns to build the fabrics and the plant, so I believe, you that we are fine.

I know we need workers,but I believe, we are bleeding our productive cities a bit too much for them. For instance our FP is shrinking in size as it produces Workers faster then it grows them. I think we should change that.

But we really need morte Workers in Con, to whack the enviromental damage that will appear there more often from now on.

I would also suggest to squeeze in some rifleman from time to time, as our defense could use a few more troops.

 

[PaperBeetle]

That's what you get for talking about taking a defensive stance!
We should have Constan post some Frigates in the three entrances to the Byzantine sea (between Japan and Maya, between Rome and Portugal, and between Rome and Aztec). Which is better between rifles and knights depends on whether Mil Trad or Replaceables turns up first, and we just don't know that, so I don't mind which unit we build.

Re Joan... if we are going to hold off Scientific, then we don't want to give Joan anything now. It would in fact be nice if we never have to give her Industry. Then we can use Suffrage to prebuild Darwin. Anyway, I think there will be a long wait before we see the results of her current research.

But, if we currently have shields built up in Constan, then rather than making a factory and then overspending on subsequent units, why don't we switch back to going immediately for Darwin? In fact, I'm really warming to this plan now , because as soon as we have Darwin in the bag, we can feel safe about letting Joan build hospitals and factories and whatever she likes. And after she has grown up in size, we can ply her with luxuries and hope she researches faster for us.

Pasargadae should not be shrinking. That is a severe micromanagement error! Unless our capture of Holland has drastically changed the corruption in the area (I don't see that it should have done), Pasar should be capable of 1-turn growth and 10spt. Let it up to size 11, then set it to do 1-turn growth with as many shields as it can get. The new citizen will surely hit the mountain and we have a 1-turn worker. This is true of all the worker pumps I planned a couple of pages ago; they should all pump workers while maintaining their current size. Of course they do need to be checked every turn, as the city governor doesn't believe in 1-turn growth (even when set to optimise food, they cap out at +4fpt or something useless...)

 

[Kulko]

ok Forgot we have suffagre now for a prebuild. I think I rather go for SciMeth in 7 then.
and I remanage the worker pumps.

Will continue playing now.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Good luck

7 turn research - not bad! Is the limiting factor the actual research, or the time it takes to finish Darwin? I guess its the research, as it sounds like we have about 200 shields in the box already? So Darwin could finish in 6 turns if necessary. Which would be handy if we find we have the chance to squeeze the research to get an extra turn off...

 

[Kulko]

780AD cont:
Switch Con to suffrage
remanage some worker pumps.

IBT:
Arabia is engaging in some heavy frigate building and bombarding. this sounds like something where we rather make peace sooner then later? does anybody know if we need the war happyness?

China asks for a defensive Pact for merely 148 gpt. haggle him down to 129gpt and decline for now.

790 AD

Nothing really

IBT: Russia agrees to a trade embargo against us. I think we should finish this arabian folly soon, before russias joins the fray.

800AD:
My Wife gets home so I don't finish this turn, but only upload.

Darwin watch
SciMeth due in 6 turns
600 Sh also due in 6 turns. I assume cities comes beore science? so we will waste one turn production before we can switch, but we hit the right interturn not to waste any science.

 

[Kulko]

I don't think I will play before Sunday, so whoever wants can also take over.

 

[PaperBeetle]

SciMeth due in 6 turns
600 Sh also due in 6 turns. I assume cities comes beore science? so we will waste one turn production before we can switch, but we hit the right interturn not to waste any science.

Commerce on an empire-wide scale first, then city by city, the game checks food and then shields.
So we want them to both be at 6 turns to complete; when the commerce gets counted and we reach Scientific Method, we get the tech choice popup and go to the big picture to switch the prebuild, as is normal in these prebuild situations. And we choose Atomic as the next tech. So, a couple of moments later, the game reaches Constan and we finish Darwin. We are researching Atomic and have 0 beakers invested: the most expensive tech in the industrial era for free .
Although we could then take Corporation as the second tech, to get to Mass Prod faster, I'm sure it isn't worth it; Corp is almost half the beaker cost of Electronics, so we're still best doing the usual Atomic>Electronics slingshot.


Ouch, facing actual resistance from the Arabs sure wasn't part of the plan! I don't know about happiness, but I guess the main reason not to give them peace yet is our alliance with France, which we don't want to break. I would suggest we try and find a town to build some frigates of our own, and go sink the Arabs. Hopefully our railroaded cannon can help out with that as well. I wonder do we have any ability to actually go over there and take their towns from them?

P.S..
why did I even make those war deals in the first place? .
I think it was some moral objection to giving techs to France without getting something in return...

 

[PaperBeetle]

Roster Check!

Socralynnek - up? (skipped last week)
PaperBeetle - on deck
archphoenix
Kulko - just played

madviking, Taxpayer'sMoney, Wardancer - out there somewhere... maybe in ... ... Real Life!

 

[socralynnek]

me really up?

If you want, you can play PB, but I could play tomorrow.

I'll take a look into the save later today anyway.

 

[socralynnek]

Oh, France has captured Madrid from Korea...but I guess that won't help much for their research...

I doubt that France is a big help in research, but let's see...

The save looks ok, I think I could play, but nevertheless PB, if you wanna take it, then go ahead (and write it here before)

BTW, Mariens would be nice, then we could capture e.g. Celts in the tunr we declare...or Carthage...or Arabia...or Vikings....

But I guess we won't see any Marines in this game...

 

[Kulko]

Ouch, facing actual resistance from the Arabs sure wasn't part of the plan! I don't know about happiness, but I guess the main reason not to give them peace yet is our alliance with France, which we don't want to break. I would suggest we try and find a town to build some frigates of our own, and go sink the Arabs. Hopefully our railroaded cannon can help out with that as well. I wonder do we have any ability to actually go over there and take their towns from them?

The problem is not so much their resistance, although the frigates start to hurt, but the fact, that they are starting to draw other people (russians) into the war. So as soon as our alliance is up, we should end this unnecessary nuissance. If we want to start offensive actions, then we need to build some troops first, but it would give us a foothold on the beta continent.

 

[PaperBeetle]

@Socral.. yes, go ahead. The weeknights are fine for me.

On micro:
Tenoch can probably finish hospital this turn if you max out shields there, as a railroad is due to finish on the interturn.
Don't forget to get Constan back to working all tiles. It has been disrupted by enemy activity. Darwin and Sci Meth should both be achievable in 5 turns without much difficulty.
Bringing Oporto to WLtKD may be sufficient to get that worker done this turn.
As for Pasar, personally I would use the worker gang near Tarsus to irrigate the mined grassland, which will let Pasar grow this turn. If we switch it to galleon, it will be finished in 2 turns as the town hits size 11, and can start pumping out workers.
Persep surely should either build hospital or run as a worker pump.

We can give Sumeria peace (after hammering their fleet near Persep of course), which will save us having to deal with the disruption of the bombards and landings which they have "planned".

 

[socralynnek]

Damn, I am currently micromanaging food (read: make dinner) to surprise my wife.

I have chosen something complicated for me and thus it's taking longer than expected.

If I don't play tomorrow, you can throw me out of the team...

But I'll promise to make it.

 

[socralynnek]

800 AD - Bombard the Sumerian Fleet with Cannons and sink their ships.
Make peace with Sumeria without asking for something...we won't get Sumer and the rest is of no interest...maybe they love us for that.
They are annoyed to us now which is ok, I think.
That means we can get them to gracious at some point.

Micromanaging. Constan back to 5 turns for ToE (8 turns til US)

Rush Courthouse in Amsterdam. I think it's worth it...

Switch Persepolis to Hospital.

810 AD :

Tenoch finishes Hospital. Start Harbor.
Lisbon Worker->Worker.
Amsterdam Court->Lib.
Kyoto Granary ->Factory.
Bombay Worker->Worker.
WLTKD is not enough in Oprto for the worker.
Teo Hosp->Factory (as CommDock Prebuild?)

We lost our supply of furs.

Buy Furs from China for Chivalry.

820 AD - Persia offers a ROP, agree, maybe that will increase his love.
Pollution strikes Constantinople.

We lose our supply of Silks and Wool. Give Ragnar Economics for Silks.

France has captured Pyongyang.

830 AD - America lands a knight and an archer enar Karak.

More pollution. Damn. Know it might finish one turn too late. 4 workers transported to Constantinople island.

840 AD - Iroqouis and Arabia have signed a peace treaty.

A Knight has been attacked by a Korean Knight and severly hit. He can't move away because of a Persian spear blocking.

Transport more workers to COnstantinople...The last one removes the pollution...
Luckily this brings us up to 70 shields, which means we 'd have 602 shields in the box next turn.
I let PB do the important interturn and the MMing in this turn.