SGOTM 13 - One Short Straw

[Dhoomstriker]

I've been trying to get Dooms idea of growing gold to size 10 and I can't get it to work without delaying the final GP by 1T to T177, and losing several scientist turns in gold/capital. This would also mean delaying the golden age by 1T.

Okay, I'll run a test to see if I can make it work with the Great Person dates that you have provided.

I will assume that:
1. We want Great Person 2 by your listed Turn 156, since delaying it probably means delaying other Cities' Great People
AND
2. We will start the Golden Age on Turn 167, as per your suggestion, even if doing so doesn't work out ideally for Gold City, since you probably have other Cities tweaked in order to work with this date

From there, we'll see what date I can get Great Person 6 to arrive on.

I'll be honest: there probably isn't going to be a lot of "magic" and what I'll probably end up doing is delaying Trireme 2 in favour of earning more Food. We'll see how the numbers turn out.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Keep the trieme fortified on the clam until it is healed, pick off barb galleys when possible at 100% health.

While my testing had a Barb Galley consistently going after a defenseless Work Boat instead of a 1.7 Health Combat I Trireme, I make no guarantees that a 0.1 Health Trireme would not be a target. So, if possible, be careful about how you go about this "picking off" endeavour.

Currency-aesthetics-Civil Service(stop 1T before completion).

Civil Service in trade is virtually unlikely, but Aesthetics is a possible, yet somewhat unlikely, tech to get in trade (due to its increased monopoly cost for all of the Wonders that it allows an AI to build). So, if we're ignoring Compass for now (to possibly get it in trade) and EDIT: Machinery for now (to possibly Lightbulb it) and are just going to be researching other techs during this "delay," then why not go:
Currency-Civil Service(stop 2T before completion--I say 2T to avoid an accidental Enter-keypress from destroying our Lightbulbing path)-Aesthetics?


Or had you hoped to use Aesthetics as part of a potential trade deal? If that was one of the reasons for Aesthetics, then sure, we can aim to research it after Currency.

 

[mdy]

Or had you hoped to use Aesthetics as part of a potential trade deal? If that was one of the reasons for Aesthetics, then sure, we can aim to research it after Currency.

I assumed that the chances of us getting aesthetics in trade are so low as to be negligable, however as it doesn't matter which order we research the techs in we may as well make this change.

While my testing had a Barb Galley consistently going after a defenseless Work Boat instead of a 1.7 Health Combat I Trireme, I make no guarantees that a 0.1 Health Trireme would not be a target. So, if possible, be careful about how you go about this "picking off" endeavour.

I will be.

Okay, I'll run a test to see if I can make it work with the Great Person dates that you have provided.

I'll delay playing until you have run this test. When I drew up the plan I was trying to get a trieme finished there ASAP as we are fairly exposed at the moment. We can probably equal the dates I posted if we abandon this requirement, but I can't see any advantage of the grow to size 10 plan which would justify this risk.

 

[Mitchum]

I'm fine with you playing forward when you're ready, mdy.

EDIT: I missed the pagination... Let's see what Dhoomstriker finds out with his testing first.

EDIT 2: Dhoom, didn't we take Metal Casting from the Oracle?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Okay, I'm fine with your existing Gold City plan.

Here are my results:

Gold:
T147 Work gold, 3 seafood, gold, and hire 4 scientists.
T148 Grow size 9. Hire 5 scientists, work gold+3 seafood
T150 Hire 1 scientist instead of working gold
T156 Generates GP2 100% GS for astro. Work 3 seafood+gold+5 coast (0 specialists)
T158 Build Trireme. Start whatever (Barracks?).
T159 (The Crab must be netted by this turn.) Work 3seafood+1 coast+gold+5 scientists
T161 hire 1 scientist instead of working the 1 coast (3seafood+gold+6 scientists)
T162 hire 1 scientist instead of working the gold (3seafood+7 scientists)
T175 hire 3 scientists instead of working the 3Seafood (10 scientists)
T176 Shrunk to Size 9; Generates GP6 at 100% chance of being a great scientist

Final Hammers = 41 Hammers in a build item (a Barracks?)


Summary:
- The Trireme gets built 5 turns later (bad)
- We still get the Great Scientist on the same turn (T176) (no change)
- We still end up at Size 9 (no change)
- We had to use-up our Work Boat on a Crab that we'll probably never need again (bad)
- I have no idea if we have more Hammers in a Barracks and thus will have a tiny bit more Commerce, but these points are pretty meaningless (who cares?)
- As long as you are still at Size 9, you probably have equal or more Food than I did, since I was at 0 Food in the Foodbox at City Size 9 (probably worse)

Nothing in those results compels me to think that Gold City growing to Size 10 beats your current plan, so stick with what you've got for Gold City.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

By the way, good job in optimizing things! You end up with our final Great Person being generated with 1 turn remaining in the Golden Age.

No one else will probably play through your turnset in a test game and I only played through it for Gold City (well, I didn't actually copy your results but I see what you are doing). Thus, it deserves saying that I don't think that the timing could have been planned any better.

So, nice work!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Another thought:
If we aren't going to build very many Buildings at the end of your turnset, we may want to consider Paganism instead of Organized Religion.

The Hammers gained won't be very many if we're mostly just building partially-completed Barracks before building Military Units.

Also, Cities that don't have a Barracks might be better off being boat-pumps, so for them, we wouldn't even need Organized Religion.

Even if we do eventually get Theology, using Organized Religion to spread around Confucianism for that eventual +2 Experience Points in Cities that have Taosim probably isn't going to be a valid investment, either.

So, if we're mostly skipping Forges, then we can probably skip Org Rel (but we'll know better as the time approaches).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Even if we DO have time to build Barracks in all of our 6 primary Cities, the current plan looks like some of the Barracks will be completed by the end of the Golden Age, anyway. So, yeah, there's not much to be gained from Organized Religion given the current plan.

 

[Mitchum]

Things are looking good. Great job, mdy!! I give my approval for you to play forward per your PPP. The only thing I ask is to stop play if things get dicey with either barb galleys or we get DOW'd.

Also, what do you plan to do on the diplo front? Will you refuse all demands or are them some you would consider giving in to?

 

[mdy]

Things are looking good. Great job, mdy!! I give my approval for you to play forward per your PPP. The only thing I ask is to stop play if things get dicey with either barb galleys or we get DOW'd.

I will. I will also pause at currency and just before the GA so we can discuss gold trades and if we want to delay the golden age.

Also, what do you plan to do on the diplo front? Will you refuse all demands or are them some you would consider giving in to?

I propose to reject all demands unless they are for a tiny amount of gold. We don't want to go around giving the AI significant techs if there is no gain for us. I do think we should gift maths to Jao however.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I would be inclined to give in to a reasonable Demand from Ragnar or Cathy, since either of them will almost always (80% chance) plan a Sneak Attack upon a Demand being refused. Sneak Attacks suck because they only really declare when they know that they have a good advantage, such as being able to take a City amphibiously.

On the contrary, an Honourable War Declaration often leaves the AI unprepared... whereas Ragnar has a 20% chance of pulling one of these, Cathy has a 0% chance.

So, unless they ask for something big or ask for a tech that leads to Feudalism, I would be tempted to give in to either of them making a Demand, at least until we're strong enough to take them on in a fight.



Isabella is also one to watch out for, with a 60% chance of a Sneak Attack and a 10% chance of an Honourable War Declaration.



Joao has a 40% chance of a Sneak Attack and a 10% chance of an Honourable War Declaration for a refused Demand, while Willem's numbers are 50% and 10%. We probably want to weigh the size of the gift against the trouble that we'd face if either of these two declared war on us.



Vicky has a 0% chance of either a Sneak Attack or an Honourable War Declaration if we refuse her Demands, so there's no harm in refusing any Demand that she makes.



If an AI asks for Meditation and they already have Priesthood, then I see no harm in giving it to them. On the contrary, if an AI does not have Priesthood (such as Cathy), I would not give that AI Meditation. Along the same lines, I wouldn't give out Priesthood, Monotheism, Polytheism, or Mysticism.


As for Joao... we might as well wait for Currency before giving him Math, so that it can count as a trade instead of a gift by getting a bit of Gold for that tech. I mean, if you seriously want to be able to get some techs in trade, we need to be careful here: we currently have alienated 3 AIs from wanting to trade with us; we don't want to do the same with Cathy, especially since Cathy has a very low Monopoly threshold (i.e. she will trade techs quite readily, almost as readily as Willem would).


Joao is a bit of a Monopolist anyway (he's a 40% Monopolist--the second worst in our game, after Isabella), so it's not like we really need to try and get on his good side by giving him a gift... he probably won't give us techs in return no matter how much we try and please him. And if we anger Cathy by gifting Math to Joao, then what's the point of gifting Math... I mean, if the AIs will research techs but we won't be able to get the techs in trade because too many of the AIs hate us, then we will have defeated the entire purpose of gifting them Math.


So, with future trading possibilities in mind, there's another reason to accept Demands from Cathy and Willem: they are by far our best chances of any of the AIs in terms of being able to get techs in trade from the AIs.



In other words, I think that we should have a more flexible Diplo policy than "simply refuse every Demand."

 

[shyuhe]

I'm not really worried about an AI declaration -- other than Ragnar. So I'm in the "refuse everything" camp unless it's for a small tech/gold.

I know this is a bit far out but who is going to be our first victim?

 

[mdy]

Catherine is already pleased with us so at worst we would be at pleased with her after gifting maths to Jao, so we aren't at risk of losing her as a trading partner. We could open borders with her to get more diplo points which would get us back to pleased. Even more importantly this should boost her research which we want as it would increase the possibility of tech trades.

Gifting maths to Jao should also bring him back up to cautious, making him a potential trade partner in future, additionally gifting him maths may result in him researching calendar/construction earlier opening up potential trades with Catherine/William which we may not otherwise have.

I agree that we may as well give away a copule of minor techs, but nothing important. Not COL because that is the best tech we have for making trades with the AI, and not MC because we don't want to face AI triemes if someone attacks us.


As for our first victim I'm thinking of Cathy, and use The GL to support our conquests.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

EDIT: I did it AGAIN! This message is wrong. It's when the AI GIVES us a tech that the others will get angry at them. Somehow, I keep mixing that point up and thinking that us giving the AIs techs will in some way affect their Diplo relations towards each other, when all that it will do is potentially hurt some of the AIs' Diplo relations towards us.

Please ignore the rest of this message:
One additional consideration for whether to accept or refuse a Demand:

Other AIs will get angry at the AI that made the Demand. It may not appear to matter now, but once we're at war with multiple AIs, it won't be long before their Relationships with EACH OTHER start to skyrocket. This situation can be very dangerous if we see pairs of Friendly AIs, as they might quickly trade around Feudalism, Guilds, Gunpowder, Engineering, etc. You may laugh, but don't underestimate the COMBINED research power of multiple mutually-Friendly AIs.

So, if we give-into (accept) a Demand from an AI, here are the AIs that will get angry at that AI:
Vicky Demands and we give-in: Ragnar gets mad at her
Cathy Demands and we give-in: Joao stays forever mad at her, Ragnar gets mad at her, and Isabella gets mad at her
Joao Demands and we give-in: Isabella gets mad at him (important since we'd be removing the only Friendly relationship in the game)
Willem Demands and we give-in: Joao gets mad at him, Ragnar gets mad at him, and Isabella gets mad at him
Ragnar Demands and we give-in: Isabella gets mad at him
Isabella Demands and we give-in: Joao gets mad at her (important since she is Friendly towards him and we want to avoid him being mutually-Friendly towards her) and Ragnar would get mad at her


So, once again, Cathy and Willem are near the top of the list to give-into a Demand, since doing so will get 3 AIs to hate them. That's a big effect on worldwide AI-AI relationships.

If Isabella or Joao Demands and we give-in, we have an opportunity to break up the first potential mutually-Friendly AI-AI mass-trading relationship. This point is not to be underestimated, as those two AIs are the most Monopolist-hogging AIs in the game, but they'd essentially become "Mansa Musas" with each other if their relationship gets much closer.

And finally, once again, we might as well just tell Vicky a big fat "no."

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Catherine is already pleased with us so at worst we would be at pleased with her after gifting maths to Jao, so we aren't at risk of losing her as a trading partner. We could open borders with her to get more diplo points which would get us back to pleased. Even more importantly this should boost her research which we want as it would increase the possibility of tech trades.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of Opening Borders with Cathy.

I wouldn't be very upset if you gifted Math to Joao, as it is already a "junker tech"--a tech that everyone else knows, so the impact on Cathy is likely to be small.

However, Cathy recently picked up Monarchy. She could be on her way to Feudalism now. I don't think that speeding up her Research by Opening Borders with her is a wise move, particularly if your plan is as follows:

As for our first victim I'm thinking of Cathy, and use The GL to support our conquests.

Good luck fighting through her Longbowmen, and by the time that we eventually do so through major unit-spamming, the rest of the world will probably have had time to research Feudalism, too.

Gifting maths to Jao should also bring him back up to cautious, making him a potential trade partner in future, additionally gifting him maths may result in him researching calendar/construction earlier opening up potential trades with Catherine/William which we may not otherwise have.

As I say, it may not have all that much of an impact as a tech. I suppose that, if you think it is somehow important to improve relations with Joao, that gifting Math NOW will have the most impact, shortly after having met him, than will gifting a tech later.

However, if gifting Math to Joao means that you will also want to Open Borders with Cathy, then I am against the plan. I really don't want Cathy using The Great Lighthouse against us (i.e. getting Feudalism before we can land on her shores and take the Wonder from her).

So, as long as you are okay with keeping Borders Closed with Cathy, then I don't mind if you try to gift Math to Joao in order to see if he'll give us more positive Diplo points than Cathy will give us negative Diplo points.

 

[mdy]

Good luck fighting through her Longbowmen, and by the time that we eventually do so through major unit-spamming, the rest of the world will probably have had time to research Feudalism, too.

Longbowmen aren't that bad when you have maces and trebs and we will have to fight some wars against them anyway.

The AI's almost invariably research several other techs which will be useful to us before feudalism, so if we make her our first war target we can probably still take her down before she gets longbows. The risk of not being able to trade for a major tech far outweighs this. Opening borders with her over the period of interest would give her less than 320 commerce-only about 20% (around 27% taking account of multipliers) of the base beakers needed for feudalism, so in the unlikely event we had to fight longbows under the open borders scenario we would almost certainly still have to under the no opened borders scenario.

Even if Russia's research rate around the time we went to war was as little as 60 beakers/turn there would only be around a 5T window where pening borders would make a difference on the feudalism front. Realisticly her research rate is likely to be somewhat higher the difference will be more like 3-4.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Your argument could equally be used the opposite way: if the Commerce that we give to Cathy won't be sufficient for her to research Feudalism, we also won't be giving her sufficient Flasks to research one of the techs that we want her to research.

Besides, if she is our first war target, then we might prefer that she delays the completion of her research on a tech until AFTER we have already started the war with her. That way, we can grab a tech for peace once her empire is reduced in size and The Great Lighthouse is ours. Doing so beats letting her, say, research Construction BEFORE the war and getting Catapults... far better for her to get a tech like that partway through the war, which would be more likely to happen if we delayed her research by 320 Commerce.


It's probably more efficient to "beat down" an AI and then move on to the next target instead of completely finishing off an AI. Doing so allows us to use their Cities to whip a new army that can redeclare and take out their remaining City or two, while also reducing the possibility of other AIs expanding into the gap left by razed Cities. So, I think that it is quite realistic to believe that we'll be making peace instead of eliminating Cathy in the first war with her.


So, I'm still voting for keeping Borders Closed with the owner of The Great Lighthouse (Cathy). I'd say that we can feel free to Open them with her AFTER we own The Great Lighthouse (if she will still like us sufficiently to even agree at that time).

 

[Mitchum]

I'm fine either way on OB with Cathy. I can see the pros and cons of both approaches.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I was wrong in my message #1654 above. Wrong again on the same topic. I think that's three times now.


So, really, if we want to affect AI-AI relationships, we should ask for a gift from someone, preferably an AI that is Pleased with us... like asking Willem to gift Archery to us. If he accepts, then all of our Worst Enemies will dislike him for having given us Archery.

 

[mdy]

That way, we can grab a tech for peace once her empire is reduced in size and The Great Lighthouse is ours. Doing so beats letting her, say, research Construction BEFORE the war and getting Catapults... far better for her to get a tech like that partway through the war, which would be more likely to happen if we delayed her research by 320 Commerce.

We want Catherine to research construction in the next 20-25 turns as we want to trade for it.

Your argument could equally be used the opposite way: if the Commerce that we give to Cathy won't be sufficient for her to research Feudalism, we also won't be giving her sufficient Flasks to research one of the techs that we want her to research.

Catherines research rate will be higher at the point where we go to war with her than it will be at the point where trades with the AI will cease to be useful, as such the window for the extra commerce to research a useful tech for us is greater than it is for her to get feudalism. Furthermore in the test games I ran earlier this amount of commerce would have made a significant difference to what we were able to trade for, but the AI's were still some way away from feudalism.

It's probably more efficient to "beat down" an AI and then move on to the next target instead of completely finishing off an AI. Doing so allows us to use their Cities to whip a new army that can redeclare and take out their remaining City or two, while also reducing the possibility of other AIs expanding into the gap left by razed Cities.

Or we could wipe out an entire AI to avoid the "we wish to join our motherland" happiness penalty, and then use this bonus to whip out more units to go after the next AI.

So, really, if we want to affect AI-AI relationships, we should ask for a gift from someone, preferably an AI that is Pleased with us... like asking Willem to gift Archery to us. If he accepts, then all of our Worst Enemies will dislike him for having given us Archery.

I think this would be worth trying if your sure your not wrong 4 times in a row.