SGOTM 12 - Xteam

[Cactus Pete]

Played two turns (first one, very slowly due to steep learning curve) with pleasing lack of difficulties.

Turn 287 (1834AD):

Trade for FR's map
Start GA
Move airships and destroyers
Micro-manage cities, including starting building spies IBT: uneventful

T288:

Move units toward Stalin
Declare on G, sink many of his ships without losses, unload units on his mainland

IBT: G attacks coastal frigates with frigates and wins one, loses one

T289:

Move forces into place to attack Stalingrad next turn
Reduce culture in G's cities, preparing to take 2 and raze 1 next turn

FR does not have that many units (can see on save, as I flew over most of America), but he could upgrade navy and perhaps deploy paratroopers. Note that he has only one source of mined uranium (and still no oil), so that will be a target of initial attack.

Don't foresee problems with military, WW, or tech rate, (we may have over prepared) but espionage troubles me. What about building Security Bureaus in critical component cities? Have no idea if it works or is worth it.

Should be able to play some more in about 16 hours.

Interim save is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=278690&stc=1&d=1294821143

 

[Conquistador 63]

Don't foresee problems with military, WW, or tech rate, (we may have over prepared) but espionage troubles me. What about building Security Bureaus in critical component cities? Have no idea if it works or is worth it.

Hi guys. Sorry again for not being much help. But this is a question I can actually answer. We can raise our odds of intercepting enemy spies by keeping a spy inside it or having a security bureau in a city. Those are not cumulative. Since the spy is cheaper, for intercepting purposes it is better hammer-wise than the building. Keeping more than one spy stationed in each city (or a spy and a SB) won't help.

The source is Bhruic's thread about spy interception.

p.s. weather report from Rio de Janeiro: 33ºC, scattered thunderstorms. Unfortunately, some flooding and landslides in the surrounding mountainous region.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Interesting information. In the linked thread it says that the chance of interception depends on the ratio of total spy points generated NOT only the spy points directed towards the spying civ and that helps a lot considering that we directed all towards Stalin. It also tells us that closing borders help defend against spies.

Anyway it seems to make sense to build some spies - at least for the most productive cities. I suppose we are close to a point where we have closed borders with everyone due to all the wars. Perhaps we should close borders with Roosevelt as well. And when we are done researching in 17 turns or so we can put all excess commerce into spy points as Griff suggested.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Sounds like life is tough in Rio. Great input, C63. Will try to get a spy in every space-part city.

Problem with closing borders with FR right now is that it will limit available shipping lanes, but will look to do so ASAP.

Looks like 12 hours before can play again. Any advice welcomed. Hope to finish two wars and pause before retiring tonight.

 

[Frederiksberg]

Sounds like life is tough in Rio. Great input, C63. Will try to get a spy in every space-part city.

As I understand it you don't need to put a spy in those cities that already have a security bureau.

 

[Grifftavian]

Looks like 12 hours before can play again. Any advice welcomed. Hope to finish two wars and pause before retiring tonight.

Looking good so far. A couple of MM suggestions...

@Rostov, if we move citizen from coastal tile 2S of city to an Engineer Specialists, we gain +4 Hammers which converts to +4 Gold while building Wealth, with no loss of Beakers in the city. And the extra hammers will help when we start building Space Ship parts. Note that this would stagnant growth in Rostov, but it is +1 food now, and if it grows another population (which would take 29 turns), it would go to -1 Food and start shrinking. IMO, the Engineer specialist would be better.

@Coventry, there are 2 citizens assigned as generic specialists. The city is stagnant growth with no health or happiness issues. There are 2 Seafood resources which could be worked. Or we could work 1 Seafood resource and move the other generic specialist to a Merchant or Spy specialist.

As I understand it you don't need to put a spy in those cities that already have a security bureau.

That's the way I read it as well. However, we don't have any cities with a Security Bureau. Several former Chinese & English cities have a Jail and either a Courthouse or an Intelligence Agency, Shanghai has all three. Canterbury, Coventry & London all have a Scotland Yard (so Churchill generated at least 3 Great Spies). Since that article said spy detection was enhanced by the total espionage points generated, we could consider running a Spy specialist or two in some of those cities.

SCREWBALL IDEA OF THE DAY
I don't see any offshore Oil resources near any of Roosevelt's cities. We could trade Plastics to Roosevelt, and since he apparently already has Biology, we could then gift him Ecology and see if he starts scrubbing his own fallout. If he does, we could gift him Workers later on, after we've got most of our fallout scrubbed. Roosevelt would give us Military Science, Military Tradition, 430 Gold & his World Map for Plastics (see attached screen shot).

 

[Cactus Pete]

Will look into Coventry and Rostov.

Screwball idea worth considering. Comments solicited.

When have a bettter feel for extent of WW generated by scrubbing war, may run some spy specialists. Being ignorant of how much a few more esp points will benefit us, opting to maximize hammers and commerce for now.

Can paratroopers operate without airplanes (and oil)?

 

[The-Hawk]

RE: Paras: I believe they do not require oil. And in one of those classic Civ oversimplifications, I don't believe they require a plane. However, you can shoot them down (e.g. with a SAM).

RE: Griff's "Screwball idea". Yep, worth considering for sure. On the one hand, the AI's clearly have the ability to scrub without ecology (or they would still be in the stone ages). So it seems unlikely gifting him ecology will help. On the other hand, I can't see any downside to trying. Who knows, maybe it will trigger a different behavior. In any event, a good out-of-the-box idea...

 

[Frederiksberg]

Paratroopers have limited range (4 or 5 tiles), they must para drop from a city, and they can't attack the same turn they drop. Should be possible to take counter measures.

Trading Plastics for some techs and gold seems OK. Effect of gifting Ecology is dubious and we should certainly not give away any workers. Either way we have to declare war on Roosevelt quite soon and start scrubbing his land. Can't sit around waiting.

Now that we are losing very little gold it may be better to replace all the merchants with scientists because we have significant science multipliers in most cities.

EDIT: Moscow should work both gold mines. If the plan is to get a GP this can be done more efficiently by maxing specialists in Yekat when the Research Institute is done.

 

[Ronnie1]

EDIT: Moscow should work both gold mines. If the plan is to get a GP this can be done more efficiently by maxing specialists in Yekat when the Research Institute is done.

YES to the gold mines for sure! Yes to the Scientists also, IMO, but we aren't trying and don't need any more great people, we have 1 and we get the free GE from Fusion to trigger the final golden age!

I actually think that Roos will scrub more once he gets Ecology. I have been looking at old save files, and it is really hard to tell if the AI's have been scrubbing at all. I think it is possible that some of the AI territory was "pre-scrubbed" by the map maker to speed their development. Even if this is not true, I think it is worth a shot to try. I am also not overly concerned about gifting away workers, we have a bunch of cities that can build workers in 1 turn, so they can be replaced very quickly if we need too.

 

[zamint3]

Now that we are losing very little gold it may be better to replace all the merchants with scientists because we have significant science multipliers in most cities.

Agree, but once we start building Spaceship parts in cities now building wealth we will be burning our gold pretty fast so we should be a bit careful about this.
For example: If we take Rostov and Yaroslav off wealth, we'll go from +18 gpt to -262 gpt

I actually think that Roos will scrub more once he gets Ecology. I have been looking at old save files, and it is really hard to tell if the AI's have been scrubbing at all.

I looked as well, and I did not find one single tile that I could say had been scrubbed by the AI..... and I thought we had evidence from the forums that the AI cheated and did scrub without Ecology
I sure would like to see how anxious Roose will be to scrub.

Regarding spies: Wouldn't counterespionage missions against Roose have some effect? They are not that expensive.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Windows just updated my computer and shut down the game without warning. I was just finishing a turn (and they are long ones). Not in the best frame of mind, so I am going to stop for the night. Had autolog set at one, so will only have to replay one turn, but it will be very difficult to replicate every move, there are just so many. Will continue as soon as I can, but probably be at least 12 hours or so.

Here is report up to shut-down turn:

T289:
Implement suggestions in the thread

IBT: FO>Fusion

T290:
Take 2, raze 1 Indian cities (lose one cannon)
Trade map to Stalin for 20g and declare war
Take Stalingrad (no losses, and nukes just disappeared)
Move workers toward Indian fallout
Get a GG, which will use to help heal units attacking Stalin.

IBT: uneventful

T291:
Note worst WW cites (will build happiness where practical) and make peace with G
Begin tedious task of moving workers around map for fallout work
Start healing units from Indian campaign

IBT: Appollo completes in Rheims

T292:
Take Smolensk without losses and make numerous moves, but game shuts down and I will have to replay [leif, please inform the authorities once again.]

Restarted with autosave to make sure it was working and that is interim save here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=278817&stc=1&d=1294908657

 

[Frederiksberg]

These windows updates are quite inconvenient at times

Now that Apollo is done remember to set our space ship plan in motion. We can already build thrusters and life support as far as I remember.

Regarding Roosevelt I support doing the trade for gold. The rest about gifting Ecology and workers is not going to help much since we are about to declare war on Roosevelt anyway in a few turns. Gifting workers is certainly a bad idea. Why should we give away a worker that may or may not scrub when we can keep him and make sure that he scrubs?

If you can capture Stalins remaining cities without spending the GG I suggest we attach him to a tank that can get a free upgrade to modern armor after we research Composites. Having some of these in our scrubbing stacks should make Roosevelt think twice about attacking.

z3, can you elaborate on the counter espionage mission. What does it do?

 

[leif erikson]

Regarding Roosevelt I support doing the trade for gold. The rest about gifting Ecology and workers is not going to help much since we are about to declare war on Roosevelt anyway in a few turns. Gifting workers is certainly a bad idea. Why should we give away a worker that may or may not scrub when we can keep him and make sure that he scrubs?

I agree with this. The AI never does what you expect them to do. I can him now, using them to change Towns into Workshops and back into Cottages...

I cannot think of a single game we have played in which the AI helped us with anything!

If you can capture Stalins remaining cities without spending the GG I suggest we attach him to a tank that can get a free upgrade to modern armor after we research Composites. Having some of these in our scrubbing stacks should make Roosevelt think twice about attacking.

This sounds like a good idea.

z3, can you elaborate on the counter espionage mission. What does it do?

It doubles Roosie's cost for a spy mission (+100%) for about 8 turns. We are making 166 Ep's per turn and it costs 304 EP's to attempt the mission. We can certainly afford to give it a try. Give us something to burn EP's on.

That cost will go up once borders are closed and we go to war. If there is time, we should do one immediately.

@CP - Have PM'ed Alan on both occasions as you requested.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Thanks again, leif.

Tell me exactly what to do to accomplish counter-espionage -- completely unknown to me.

Will use GG as suggested and look to build spaceship parts ASAP.

Will be 7 or 8 hours before I can play, though.

 

[leif erikson]

Thanks again, leif.

You're welcome.

Tell me exactly what to do to accomplish counter-espionage -- completely unknown to me.

Move a Spy into an enemy city and, after waiting one or more turns (the Spy cannot do a mission after it has just moved and the cost of a Spy mission goes down each turn up to a maximum of 5 turns, there is also a chance that the Spy will be caught while he waits.) Down in the unit moves box (bottom-center of the screen), you should see an espionage symbol, click it and the Spy Mission menu pops up. Select Counterespionage and the game will tell you whether the mission succeeds or not.

I'm sending you a PM with espionage info in it. Something ShannonCT wrote up a while ago. Hope it helps.
edit - If anyone else would like to see the Espionage Primer, please post and I'll PM it.

 

[Grifftavian]

Windows just updated my computer and shut down the game without warning.

IIRC, there is a user option in Windows update that reads something like...

"Download updates automatically, but let me choose when to install them"

When set, the updates will download in the background, and once they're done, you will get a small icon on the bottom right of the task bar, which when you hover the mouse over it, says something like...

"Updates are ready to be installed"

You'll need to be logged in as an Administrator to change the Windows update settings.

 

[Ronnie1]

These windows updates are quite inconvenient at times

I #&%**@% hate them...I set my computer to ASK me before it even downloads updates any more. It gives you the chance to to decide what if any updates you want to install. I am much happier now!

 

[Cactus Pete]

Well how do I ask and/or log on as an administrator?

BTW, Griff, I can't figure out how to get to the box on Buffy that you recommended that I X. Can you give me some guidance?

leif, I re-read SCT's delineation of spying but can find nothing about counter-espionage. Where do I send a spy, and how do I get him to spy on other spies?

 

[Frederiksberg]

I don't think it makes sense to build happiness buildings in cities that are not going to make space ship parts. Just hire some specialists to stop growth. The reason we are closer to the happiness limit is that Mao has gone back to Emancipation. If we had pushed Gandhi out of Emancipation as a part of the peace deal we would have had 1-2 fewer angry faces (We did that after all the other wars).

We can stop working the mines in Yekat and hire some specialists. I suggest we max out specialists. We can get another GP - possibly a GS that may save a turn of research.