SGOTM 13 - klarius

[klarius]

The tech situation looks so nice now that we might not need any special tricks.

Buy ToG with gpt from Russia. Swap with Hittites for economics, Korea demo for ToG, eco and some cash and Magnetism from Carthage for ToG and Economics.
Then gift up the scientifics. You weren't supposed to make an alliance against Germany BTW, but to make peace with them (OK, forgot to mention it again, it was on the list some time ago). So now we have one sci laggard less to play with.

Then check the broker possibilities. Try peaceful trading first. All the optionals should be enough for a not monopoly IA tech. If you get not any further use the rest of the gpt to get something more from Russia (cash or tech) and steal from them (unsave). Or if the problem is monopoly nationalism somewhere, you can try a save steal on that (as it is worth so much).
But if the brokering goes really fine even that might not be necessary.

Edit:
An alternative is to start the sequence with ToG from France for cash. That has the advantage that we haven't committed to stealing at all at that point and might get away with brokering only.

Thinking some more, I like this better so:
France ToG for cash
Hittites economics for ToG
Korea democracy for ToG, economics and probably a little cash.
Carthage magnetism for ToG and economics.
Gift up Persia,Sumeria and Byzantines and broker away.

Edit2:
In the gifting up process you might want to add some alliances against our arch enemies (Dutch and Vikings), just to keep them out of the trading later. No further alliances currently, as we first want to check the resource situation.

 

[Northern Pike]

Gift up Persia,Sumeria and Byzantines and broker away.

You don't mention Babylon--omission or deep scheme?

 

[klarius]

You don't mention Babylon--omission or deep scheme?

Just forgotten.

 

[klarius]

And BTW, when I say check the resource situation, I mean, do all to get coal that doesn't hurt our reputation. If we have to make peace with somebody and gift him up to steam, fine (w/o alliance breaking).

 

[Northern Pike]

590 AD, still early in turn

 

[Northern Pike]

590 (4): 3213 gold to France for ToG; ToG to Hittites for Economics and WM; ToG, Econ, and 761 gold to Korea for Democracy; and ToG and Econ to Carthage for Magnetism, 19 gold, and WM.

We gift up the four eligible tech laggards, with alliances against the Vikings and Dutch, and even collect 39 gpt from Theodora.

Demo, Econ, and 33 gpt to the Byz for Steam Power; SP, Econ, Demo, and Nav to Sumeria for Nationalism; and Nationalism and WM to Russia for Medicine and 4420 gold.

I’ll post the position for comments again now, first because I’d like other eyes to have a look at the coal situation; it’s easy to miss something on a map this large. As far as I can see, we can choose between gifting the Arabs or the Mongols (with whom we’re at war) up to Steam Power, and then trade for that civ’s spare coal. The Ottomans and the Maya also have two coal each, but the former have already traded their extra and the latter don’t have harbours [!].

There’s quite a lot of gold and gpt in circulation which we can scoop up now. But after we’ve done this, how far do we want to go in gifting? Do we want every reasonably advanced civ to have Nationalism (as I would imagine), Medicine, and SP?

And are we interested in self-research, with the AI civs about to waste their efforts on Communism and Fascism? We’re approximately twenty turns away from Industrialization. Or even Ironclads (seventeen turns) as trade bait?

 

[Northern Pike]

The embassy to Persia:

 

[klarius]

As Arabs may declare any time, I would like Mongols for coal. As they are a middle weight elephant on our nearby continent, I would anyway like them to be on our side when we go into any adventures there.
Edit: And naturally we want them against Vikings and Dutch, so there is no counter alliance there.
I'm still undecided where we want to go there, the obvious Portugal-Spain (lots of desert) or rather still America with their grassy peninsula.

For techs, trade anything that rakes in a nice amount of gold (like the more than 500 gpt you can get from Osman for nationalism ). I also assume that there will be soon communism and fascism around and the AIs will start to self destruct. No need to hold anything back, but also no need for gifts to the middle civs. They will anyway not catch up. Ottoman, Russia, France and maybe Korea will probably our tech trade partners.

I think we should research full steam sanitation first. We should get all population we can in the cities we have.
Conquering new land will be difficult in this game. We will also get the 500sh BM prebuild by that.
That means then also that Shimonoseki will have to go at some time (not now as I think we are 1 city away from FP, which I would like to have in Iron Tip - better fast than optimal). Make a galleon or privateer out of the library and then build workers.

Rush infrastructure first (all our big cities should have market, courthouse and university), then short rush units.

No golden age currently, we want first to look how the tech pace develops.

 

[Northern Pike]

630 AD, end of turn

 

[Wotan]

Trying to catch up in both this game and the CIV SGOTM. Not really sure about the status re. roster. I am going through the back log in the thread and will be up to speed soon. And if NP just played I guess I am still a few slots from having a turn set.

 

[Northern Pike]

590 (4): Nationalism to the Ottomans for 521 gpt.

Economics to the Mongols for peace, 21gpt, 56 gold, and WM; then we gift the Mongols up to Steam Power, gaining anti-Viking and anti-Dutch alliances, and get coal for just 19 gpt.

Medicine to France for 3213 gold and WM, then Medicine to Korea for 771 gold and WM.

The Arabs backstab us and declare war.


600 (5): Castelo Branco is down to one Portuguese citizen.

The Russians join the Zulus’ war against us.


610 (6): We found Kichijoji on the gamma island—in a very cramped location, but now we can build the FP, and we switch Iron Tip to that project.

The Carthaginians join the war against us, and we lose our spices.


620 (7): We send 47 gpt and WM to France to renew our saltpetre supply.

We pimp out Medicine, gaining 74 gpt from three civs and furs from the Mongols.

The Koreans join the war against us.


630 (8): After an American LB is landed next to Mitaka on the beta island, we ship-chain our only elite unit (an MDI) over from the gamma island to attack it…and it pays off, as we generate the GL Tojo (2-0).

The GL gives us a lot of new options, so I’ll end my round here to allow for discussion.

Two elite victories this round produced one Great Leader.

 

[Northern Pike]

We’re at war with seventeen enemies, which should be enough to satisfy even Klarius’s hunger for war happiness , so perhaps we should make peace in a few cases.

No civ which will speak to us has advanced beyond Nationalism-SP-Medicine, although we can’t tell about the Russians and Koreans at the moment.

We can get 51 gpt from Theodora for Nationalism now, and it’s probably worth doing, though I leave this for the next player in case we choose to combine anything else with the sale.

We’re seven turns away from completing the FP in Iron Tip, running the town at a slight food deficit and giving it most of nearby Izumo’s shields, on the assumption that we’ll be rushing in Izumo anyway.

The settler which will eventually found at the very tip of the gamma island is waiting in Kitatama.

Of our large cities on the beta island, New World still needs a courthouse (after the worker it’s about to complete), Nara a university, Izumo a uni and a courthouse, and Iron Tip a uni and a market, though perhaps not a courthouse as it’ll have the FP.

With a little more railing it should soon be possible to get Nagoya onto a stable two-turn, size 4 --> 5 worker cycle, with the town working three wines tiles.

The American galley off Mitaka has landed its unit, but the American galley off Castelo Branco and the Spanish galley off Mitaka haven’t.

Next turn, when the galleon off Kagoshima reaches New World, we’ll be able to establish a proper two-way ship chain between the beta and gamma islands—a good precaution when both are so lightly garrisoned.

We have only one Samurai after I upgraded the other, and of course we should be careful with it since we don’t want our GA yet.

 

[klarius]

Looks pretty good
No my hunger for war happiness is not satisfied. We don't have much. If somebody declares on you because he is bribed, you don't gain war happiness. There are also still some nations we declared (America, Rome).
And we are at war with a lot of the wrong people.
Especially Russia hurts and we have to get out of this ASAP. Will cost some but nevertheless. So no alliance against Russia.

We want alliances with our friends (especially our resource sources, but also the sci civs) where we pay gpt or resources. Not big Emsworth like agreements, just what they want. Still we want our gpt back, if possible.

Make peace with Germany. They were bribed and we generally aren't at war with sci civs as long as we can avoid it (though we will not need Germany for quite some time).
We can also make peace with Rome and America for now to get embassies up. But that raises the question what's our next war plan.
As far as I remember our war happiness sources are currently Iroqouis, Spain, China, Arabs, Aztecs, Maya, Inca, Zulu. We can make alliances against these just to improve relations. We still have long lasting alliances against Vikings and Dutch. All others we could make peace as soon as they talk.

 

[Northern Pike]

Does anyone want to jump the palace with our Leader, or shall we just create a cav army? As long as we don't have a single unasterisked elite unit hoarding the GL doesn't hurt, but still we should have an idea of what we plan to do.

 

[klarius]

Ok, some more .
Our Iberian island cities need culture expansion and harbors yesterday. Rush!
Then maybe a few rushed workers, but then aqueducts in the seafood cities. They can feed quite a few scientists. Nevertheless we will also want courthouses and libraries. They are far from being totally corrupt.
BTW, workers. Don't stop any of our worker factories. We still have rails to lay, soon we'll have hospitals and want to pump up cities. Maybe even peel off some more temporary workers in big cities, except Iron Tip.

Next military goal: Eliminate Portugal completely.

For this: Leader->cav army.
Cities that finished infrastructure, build troops with short-rushing as appropriate.

As soon as there are troops ready to eliminate their island stack, make them furious and give boot order. If that doesn't help wait for the treaty to expire.
Then probably a bit of a dog pile to get their continental troops out of the way. I'm thinking here of Rome, maybe France (but they may be too powerful), maybe Spain (sacrificing a source of war happiness for now , but we don't want them to get in our way), even America might help some.

We also want at least one small stack of fighting ships (we are at war with Vikings and just lost our best ally, though I don't know if they are at peace with Vikings ). As long as galleys are around privateers are very good. For harder targets we also want a frigate or 2 to bombard.

Don't do anything crazy, like stealing from the top dogs, when they come up with the next tech.
Wait for sanitation and look for trades first.
We don't know currently how the tech pace will develop. All may research fascism in parallel now for slow pace, or they may be on different techs (even electricity - rare but I have seen it) and we are all of a sudden again behind 3-4 techs. In such a case we might still implement another GLib gifting to a non educated civ, to steal from a small civ.

 

[klarius]

Does anyone want to jump the palace with our Leader, or shall we just create a cav army? As long as we don't have a single unasterisked elite unit hoarding the GL doesn't hurt, but still we should have an idea of what we plan to do.

No we don't waste the leader on a palace jump. Even if we wanted to jump the capital we would do it with a free palace jump. But currently I don't see a gain, but rather quite some loss by increasing the rank of our best cities.
And we want also an army victory soon to enable HE and MA.

 

[ThERat]

looking very good
Best part is a Cav army. That will make the job on the mainland so much easier. The alliances and WH situation is mind boggling. I hope we don't screw up anything accidentally.

I am pretty sure, the AI will go for fascism and then fight like mad while tech pace will drop. Might not be what we want.
(Question as I forgot, can we use civil engineers for space ship parts?)

And Wotan asked who is up. Since the last order of play was
Klarius
TheRat
Northern Pike

I guess it is either Wotan or BeF (haven't heard a thing for a long time)

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Sorry, didn't find much to add lately and my video card died. For some configuration reason beyond my reach, this means full-screen games won't run properly or at all from the on-board card, and for C3C it's not at all. Fixing this today though.

 

[Northern Pike]

Wotan, the above isn't exactly a got-it from Beorn. So I'd suggest that you go ahead and play if you have the opportunity.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Yeah, sorry about that. Next semester is beginning tomorrow and I have a lot of stuff to discuss with a lot of people, long story short, I'll be working on my course planning pretty much until next Monday the 14th. I'll try to keep up with the pace and stay up to date, ready to play, but I can't say I'll be able to play on every roll.