SGOTM 12 - Team Zoe

[gmaharriet]

I'd never checked out the QSC stats before and I'm not sure how they relate to a diplo game (or any other, for that matter). We have the lowest score and we were the only team who had no additional techs at 1000bc. Can anyone explain whether that is good or bad for us and why?

 

[zerksees]

Mr. ThERat - that's not what I was thinking. The most backward AI I can think of right now is the Celts. They still need like 3 techs to get out of ancient ages. So I say load up 4 ships and go take out the Celts. After taking their first city, gift it to the Koreans, then DOW on Korea and take their two cities. (Changed my mind about gifting Carthage since the Arabs could change their mind and DOW/knock out Korea. On the Celt landmass the Koreans would share the land with only us.) Celts will be a little trickier than the Romans since they have a fast moving unit that attacks at 3. With care we could take the first city and gift it in the same turn then go get the other city. In the meantime we can have the spearman cleanup operation on the Ottomans.

I really think we need sanitation. Growing the big cities would give us a big boost in beakers. I would like to research it after industrialization (and AT and electronics free from ToE). I now think we should have researched it as soon as we entered IA since it would have had more time to benefit.

Should we wait til we are done with Industrialization before selling/gifting out the techs to Persia/Arabs/France in the hopes the AI will research Replaceable Parts?

 

[ThERat]

I still have not given up hope that France actually gets industrialization for us before we finish it.

If they get it soon, I would then swap to sanitation or corporation, delay ToE to coincide with it.
I agree that hospitals will benefit us far more than any factory. In fact I think we should only build few factories, e.g in our prebuild city. They cost us maintenance and units aren't an issue anyway.

I am fine with your plan for Celts. The gifting plan sounds good to me. If we hide our units under the army, we should be able to take out both cities and then take Korea's heartland.


@gmaharriet. Our QSC is terrible, we are behind in everything and I think most teams went for the tech slingshot and got 2 tier techs...after looking at those figures, I am not so optimistic that we have a shot at victory

 

[zerksees]

At 1000 BC we were a 3 city challenge. That was on Feb 20th! I can't even remember that far back. We are definitely mid-pack at that time. At that time we had spent a lot of shields to build SoZ and not enough time to get the dividends on our free ancient cavs. I'd like to see that QSC score at 10AD.

I hope France or someone finishes industrialization in the next couple turns.

My military actions will be to prepare for Celt invasion. Actual invasion will be left up to next player.

 

[gmaharriet]

Thank you, ThERat. It does seem like we'd need to be ahead in tech to ensure getting the UN, and it takes lots of land and pop to ensure fast research. What we've been doing so far would seem like the best way to make that happen, so I'll be curious to read the other teams' threads after the game is over to see what they've done differently.

 

[zerksees]

Pre-flight

Maybe we went a little crazy renaming all the cities? I'll just have to join in

Rome situation is not good as I mentioned before. At least I can see Rome will be less than 50% corrupt.
Look for a bait situation but can't find any. Load the army into the boat. Fortify those I can and swith all citizens to scientists. Sell the barracks in Rome for 10 gold. I'll not have them healing up quickly or producing veterans during their remaining stay on our map. Galleons with remaining movement points are headed to east of Foot Print

- Buy worker from Babylon for printing press
- Decide not to gift nationalism and fascism. If they are already working on industrialization they are - if not they might research communism or something
- upgrade the pike to rifle in Lion Trainer for 150 gold
- Change Osaka and Thebes to build a rifle
- Leader fish on a Zulu Impi with our elite knight - defeat the Impi but no leader [1-0]
- move the med inf near Seoul 1 east so Ottoman can't seal the choke with 1 unit. I doubt they are smart enough to use two units

MM Panda Exhibit - to finish uni in 2 instead of 3, Moose Trail to finish uni in 3 instead of 7
Cporto uni in 4, can't be helped

MM some other cities to gain about 12 beakers.

IBT
Rome strikes back
We defeated 5 legionary and 1 horseman but then the medieval infantry overpowered us. We lost the rifle, all 6 knights, 3 cannons (Romans do not know metallurgy so they were razed) and 53 gold - terrible news sir! [7-10]

My mistake - did not make peace with Zulu. Defeat an archer but lost the ancient cav to a sword [8-11]

Delhi: rifle -> cannon
The Zoo: rifle -> galleon
Rabid Corvette: harbor -> worker

Turn 1: 760 AD
Make peace with Zulu collect 4 gold
Korea has a worker, WM and 12 gold, sell printing press
Planned to sell coal to Joan - wrote it down, but did not do it
Sell spices to Persia for 95 gold and 9 gpt
Sell printing press to Ottomans for 37 gold
Sell navigation to Greece for 16 gpt and 27 gold
Upgrade another pike to Rifle in Bears Den 150 gold
Scientific method in 6

IBT
France DOW America
Seeing some Persian ships headed toward Rome
Panda Exhibit: uni -> med inf
Kyoto: heroic epic -> rifle
Rat Hole: knight -> rifle

Turn 2: 770 AD
MM Panda Exhibit - might have been a little hungry while finishing the uni
MM Moose Trail - still uni in 1 and now 554 beakers total
Sci meth in 5

IBT
Bears Den: knight -> rifle
Zoo: galleon -> rifle
Moose Trail: uni -> market

Turn 3: 780 AD
Sell education to America collecting 22 gpt, 45 gold and WM
Sell printing press to Russia collect 7 gpt, 17 gold and WM
With some MM I am able to trim sci method to 3 turns!

IBT
More Persian ships on the move
Oporto: uni -> galleon (we'll need this to reinforce Spanish cities)

Turn 4: 790 AD
Sci meth in 2 - 570 beakers . I was able to switch a couple scientists back to working citizens and still get it in 2
Sell music theory to Korea for another worker
Sell code of laws to Celts for WM, 15 gold

IBT
Delhi: galleon -> rifle

Turn 5: 800 AD
Sci meth in 1
Payback time arrives as I land 16 units next to Veii, including the army - mostly knights, but 1 rifle and some vet/elite AC and some med inf

IBT
Scientific method is completed -> start industrialization
Zoo: rifle -> rifle

Turn 6: 810 AD
Switch palace prebuild to ToE, due in 10
Industrialization due in 9

Attack Veii:
Lose 2 MI vs 2 vet pike leaving pikes redlined [8-13]
Vet knight puts reg pike to 2/3
Vet AC defeat med inf [9-13]
Elite AC defeat 2/3 pike [10-13]
2 Vet AC defeat two 1/4 pikes [12-13] and Veii falls
I wanted to move the AC out of Veii and gift it to Ottoman, but Veii is on a hill and it has no movement points. Instead, I bring in a second rifle and all come in to the city to defend. The army is healthy - use it to cut road to Rome.
There are 5 legionary outside Veii
Preparations for Rome invasion next turn.

Upgrade 4 treb to cannon for 120 gold

IBT
Babs and France sign MPP. I see a world war coming
1 legionary falls vs our rifle [13-13]
The others apparently want to pillage
10 legionaries and 4 medieval infantry rush toward Veii, but are stopped and must stand on the newly pillaged tile outside Veii
Panda Exhibit: med inf -> knight
Cat Eyes: knight -> knight
Kyoto: rifle -> frigate (I would feel much better if our army in a boat had an escort)
Osaka: rifle -> rifle

Turn 7: 820 AD
We are running -50 something deficit.
Sell spices and coal to France for 111 gold and 11 gpt (maybe this was a bad idea? At least it'll cost them if they backstab)
Sell Zulu poly for 10 gold and WM
Sell Russia music theory for 3 gpt, 12 gold and WM
Land our force on the hill by Rome's capital city. Persia may be landing next turn

IBT
2 legionary leave Rome in futile effort to save Veii
2 MI from Rome land near Foot Print
Zoo: rifle -> rifle
Moose Trail riots due to no market and war weariness at 36%!
Guided Tour: aque -> market
Babs DOW America

Turn 8: 830 AD
Attack on Rome:
Army defeats legionary
MI defeats reg pike
Elite MI defeats reg pike and Rome is ours again [16-13] (38-13 if you count the “poof” of Roman units)
Industrialization in 7 and ToE in 8

Session 2:
MM up to 579 beakers but still 7 turns
Change Zoo to med inf
No Persians landed so we won’t have to kick them out of our Roman territories

IBT
Thebes: rifle -> rifle
The Zoo: med inf -> med inf
Rat Hole: rifle -> knight
Lost our furs, wool and silks

Turn 9: 840 AD
Indus in 6 at 579 beakers
Sell nationalism to Arabs for Furs + WM.
Contemplate selling elec to France for wool, silks, 54 gpt and 111 gold. Decide not to since furs is enough to keep cities from rioting

IBT
Zoo: med inf -> med inf
Oporto: galleon -> rifle

Turn 10: 850 AD
France has industrialization!
Trade electricity, collect industrialization, wool, silks, 56 gpt and 149 gold.
Start on the corporation, which will be done in 7. I think maybe we should do sanitation, but that will also take 7. MM ToE to be done in 7 (please double check)
Should we now sell/gift techs around to get AI onto repl parts?

Can we actually get 22 more cities in the time we have left?

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm12/Team_Zoe_SG012_AD0850_01.SAV

Landmass – inhabitants
#1 – Byz – The Zoo
#2 – Byz (former Aztec)
#3 – Byz (former Indian), Korea
#4 – Byz (former Egypt), Persia, Babs
#5 – Byz (former Rome)
#6 – Celts
#7 – France, American
#8 – Byz (former Carthage), Arab, Greek, Russian
#9 – Zulu, German
#10 – Ottoman
#11 – Sumeria, England
Dead: Aztec, Japan, India, Maya, Inca, Egypt, Hittite, China, Iro, Mongols, Carthage, Vikings, Spain, Dutch, Portugal, Rome

Mr. Whomp I believe you are up

 

[ThERat]

great news on France getting us industrialization, now couldn't they have sped up a little

Anyway, I think we should go for corporation and give electricity to Persia/Arabia as well to get them on Rep Parts. Maybe, we might consider giving medicine to them so someone goes for sanitation as well...

And, we better watch out for France, makes sure we have working home defense, they are furious and might attack someone

 

[zerksees]

we might consider giving medicine to them so someone goes for sanitation as well...

And, we better watch out for France, makes sure we have working home defense, they are furious and might attack someone

France DOW on America in my turnset so hopefully that will keep them busy. But I agree more defensive prep is needed

Don't Arabs and Persia already have medicine and at least some of the scientifics we gifted forward? This will need to be checked.

Oh and 4 boats full have disembarked Roman territory on their way toward Celts.

 

[ThERat]

Turn 3: 780 AD
Sell education to America collecting 22 gpt, 45 gold and WM

Question for Sanabas. What happens if America gets killed during the 20turns of that deal. Will it affect our rep or only if we pay gpt?

 

[ThERat]

update on our tech plan

1. chemistry - 7 turns
2. physics - 7 turns
3. ToG - 7 turns
4. Magnetism - 8 turns
5. Metal - 5 turns
We entered IA with magnetism, gift all needed techs to the Sci Civs and with the help of optional techs acquire nationalism/steam/medicine. Got fascism for that
6. Electricity - 11 turns
7. Sci methods - 7 turns
8. Industrialization 5 turns, then France got it for us

9. Corporation (4000) 7 turns

Prebuild timed that FP city nets s ToE and AT/electronics at the same IT as getting corporation

10. Steel (5600) ~ 9 turns
11. Refining (6400) ~ 10 turns
12. Combustion (6400) ~ 9-10 turns
13. Rep Parts (5600) - hopefully done by AI
14. Mass production (5600) ~ 9 turns
15. Motorized Transportation (5600) ~ 9 turns
16. Flight (7200) - 11 turns (maybe done by AI)

That's a total estimate of 65 turns left assuming that we only get rep parts from the AI.

We are currently able to make around 580 beakers a turn
for steel we would need > 625 beakers to make it in 9
for flight in 11 we need > 650 beakers

The UN is 1000 shields, we need to start a prebuild in our FP city the correct time, Bombay should be able to make ~ 50spt with a factory/power plant, thus we need to start maybe 20 turns before flight is done (but we need 30+ cities for a 1000s palace). Bombay should switch to factory immediately

 

[zerksees]

The UN is 1000 shields, we need to start a prebuild in our FP city the correct time, Bombay should be able to make ~ 50spt with a factory/power plant, thus we need to start maybe 20 turns before flight is done (but we need 30+ cities for a 1000s palace). Bombay should switch to factory immediately

Bombay is now called Foot Print and it is working on ToE at the moment. Did you mean after the ToE is done?

Thanks for the tech update.

With 65 to go (even 80) I wonder how much more conquest - can we even get the cities we need to get the 1000 shield palace? With 21 cities to go that would be a city every 3 turns. Logistically that is going to be difficult.

 

[ThERat]

of course, I meant after the ToE finished

I don't think we need another 20 cities, more like 10+. This can only work, if we acquire Persia later on (once we have Cav armies).

I had another thought about gifting. How about gifting Sumer onto Celt island or Carthage? We can thus ban Korea and Sumer to those Isles and keep the nicer parts ourselves. Sumer? England is nice land for growth actually. Much nicer than Celt land and Carthage, which is just a pain actually.

 

[Whomp]

OK I got it and will play tonight. I'm wondering if we're going to encounter the same problem with the Celts as we did with the Romans. Did they have iron?

Do we want to mess with any wars on civs that are polite?

 

[zerksees]

Whether they have iron or not should not affect the outcome. As long as they do not have feudalism they will be defending at 2.

Here is my plan to take Celts:
1) DOW Celts, maybe sign in an AI or two a couple turns before the landing - this will help get the units out of the cities.
2) Land all the units next to city 1 (make sure the city is not on a hill)
Position the boats right next to the city
3) Take city 1. Make sure the last unit is a horse unit so it will have a movement point left. In fact I would use the knights and ACs first, only use army if needed - since it needs to stay strong enough it will not get attacked when landing by city 2
4) Load everyone onto the ships and sail toward city 2. Gift city 1 to the Koreans (or maybe even Ottomans). Maybe leave one unit out of the city as bait - run as fara away as possible.
5) Repeat for city 2. This time use the med inf, army, rifles whatever it takes to secure the city.
If there is a nice block you can set up so the fast moving units can't make the city, you could go that route and keep both cities.

There are a ton of variations using bait as needed, mostly dependent on logistics.

Once the Celts are dead you can either retake city 1 (Ottoman) or it can become the new capital of the recipient as we take their other cities (Korea). This should take 6-8 turns.

As far as messing with polite civs, I don't much care. If we kill them off (Celts) they will be dead and won't affect the outcome. If we let them live (Korea), we could consider having our expected UN rival MA with us against whoever we attack. In the end they will all be in MA with us vs our rival anyway full of gifts of lux from us so I don't think it will be much problem.

BTW who is our expected rival for the UN? Arabs or Persia or maybe France? Do we care?

Edit: Going after England/Sumer after Korea and Ottoman cleanup seems like a good idea to me. I doubt we'll have time for much more than that.

 

[ThERat]

we still have a peace treaty with celts running for a while...

we should agree as a team whom we want to take on to get more cities for an expanded palace.
I still think we should take out England and Persia. Someone will get mil trad sooner or later, I am sure. This would give us Cavs and the capability to take Persia out. Before that, I would not touch them.

We could try the Celt operation, but I would gift the city to Sumer, so that we can relocate them to that exile while taking their cities once England is out. Sumer has cows and would grow far better for scientists than Korea. We only need those cities for the palace prebuild anyway. Scientists won't matter that much.

By the way, if ever someone lands again on Carthage soil to attack (just like Persia did), I would gift one city to Korea (so we can exile them) and the other to Arabia. A bigger Arabia can only benefit us. In fact I think Arabia would do good for us, if they would own that whole Island. They would then be our UN opponent and we have to make sure, other won't vote for them, but us.

Do we think Korea/Sumer/Babylon/Germany/Ottoman + ourselves are enough to net fission via slingshot? Or do we need to make sure Persia/Greece and Russia stay alive too?

 

[Whomp]

OK so no Celts which means England is the logical next up, yes?

 

[ThERat]

logistically, the boats can sail east and would reach England as well...past France and southeast...

If we do that, we should get Sumer to declare first and clean up some before we land and take the rest...would then gift a Carthage city to Sumer and take their core...

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Too bad about the peace deal with the celts.

Gifting a Carth city to Sumeria sounds ok, that's a good island with a lot of dyes down there. MA vs England and move on from there.

 

[Whomp]

OK sounds good. I'll get Sumer into the mix.
So to summarize
Get Corporation (4000) 7 turns
Prebuild timed that FP city nets s ToE and AT/electronics at the same IT as getting corporation then Steel (5600) ~ 9 turns.
Start a war with England with Sumer's help.

I probably won't have time for this tomorrow so feel free to chime in.

 

[zerksees]

Or they could double back after Korea? Are they not the closest? [edit - we'd have to give Korea a Carthage dity before DOW on them]

Argh. Sorry about the peace deal I should have checked that. It looks like about a 2-3 turn delay if we wait. Normally I would just wait it out but I don't know if we can afford the time. Somehow I missed the war with them?

The nice thing about the attack on Celts is the volcano. The volcano and one pillaged tile can cut off the north city from the south. Though it may be moot now.