Their grand strategy has never been better than us, but their micro usually could earn some turns. You could take a look at their current save, quite neat in my view. For instance, their 2 south cities are dedicated to producing galleons. Ours was all mixed.
SGOTM 14 - Plastic Ducks
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
OSS's economy is about to hit a rock.
EDIT: added links to reports inside the thread, that took forever!
I hit <Enter> and two catastrophes befell us, one after the other.
1. Genghis the Crumb DoWed. Our gpt went from +19gpt to -57gpt.
2. Ragnar won the Apostolic elections.
So we need to handle both asap. I'll try to figure out exactly what war success we need against Liz to accelerate her willingness to talk.
Bbp, maybe you could check the AP info on how soon a vote will come up. What we need to do is cease fire the turn before the vote, then re-declare the turn of the vote (or something like that). Rinse and repeat. Because the AP is Buddhist and we have 6 cities, including Washingtion, with buddhism, so we can NOT afford the -5for refusing to abide by a resolution.
EDIT: added links to reports inside the thread, that took forever!
Theoretically, the anger caused by the refusal of AP resolution will be gone if you accept the next resolution, but in fact it's hard until you could control the AP yourself.
Edit: They are only worrying about the cease war resolution and have not realized that there's also returning city back resolution, which they have to refuse too, so the AP angers are unavoidable before they completely wipe out east witches!
Their economy can still be better because of the possibility of 2 GAs.
The determinative point is whether they can do a better job on the war vs North witches, I think GK will give them some headache as well.
Edit: North witches are researching Engineer at the moment. On the plus side, the east witches in their game still have not started Feudalism.
Edit: They are only worrying about the cease war resolution and have not realized that there's also returning city back resolution, which they have to refuse too, so the AP angers are unavoidable before they completely wipe out east witches!
Their economy can still be better because of the possibility of 2 GAs.
The determinative point is whether they can do a better job on the war vs North witches, I think GK will give them some headache as well.
Edit: North witches are researching Engineer at the moment. On the plus side, the east witches in their game still have not started Feudalism.
Bebekija
King
Plus there's that :
It's time the AIs brought up a little resistance! Indeed, I've checked and their tech pace is way slower than in our game, that's a reason why they were breezing through Asoka's land.
with the links for the report! It's the flip side of doing 2-3 turns turnsets, you end up with 100 links to put in the summary.....I'm a little disappointed in us, I realize now we didn't put much care in our reports, so it'll not be an enjoyable read for lurkers, making it harder to actually follow what we've been doing.
Other teams such as Maple Sporks did a much better job.
On the plus side, we have a lot of saves uploaded: 42 plus a few duplicates on a few turns.
Duckweed had a post at some point summarizing our grand strategy (before GPP production), I'll link to it and make a general summary of what we did.
Once the war started, there isn't that much to show, whip, move troops, kill AIs.
Duckweed had a post at some point summarizing our grand strategy (before GPP production), I'll link to it and make a general summary of what we did.
Once the war started, there isn't that much to show, whip, move troops, kill AIs.
2 key factors make slavery unnecessary in the early stage in this game.
1. The abundance of forests in this map. Almost every site has 4+ forests to be chopped into Granary + LH, so that the new cities are able to grow big enough in short time (Size 9~10 in ~17 turns) to be able to act as an efficient GP farm.
2. Dorthy is philosophy, which makes bulbing Math a good option. The Math powered forest chop is critical for fastest REXing.
Slavery is still the most powerful civic as I have always advocated, however, every civic has its usage in specific situation. For instance, we switched from Pacifism to Paganism in T105 for economical consideration.
The #1 rule is adapting, the difficulty level, the map, the goal of winning, the trait, the in-game changes, and etc.
Bebekija
King
A little update on OSS progress : they're doing really well, I'm almost certain that they will beat us now. 
They uploaded a save on T138 (560AD) so I was able to compare with one of our own :
OSS 560 AD :
- Number of cities
Dorothy : 16
Lizzy : 8
Genghis : 10
Gandhi : 8
Monty : 10
Mansa : 11
Shaka : 8
Asoka : 2
Ragnar : 8
- Military techs :
North : CS, Machinery
West : Feu, CS, Machinery
South : Feu, CS, Machinery
East : Nothingcry
-Financial situation : -30gpt @ 0%
Income : 201 commerce + 33 in resource trades
Expenses : 66 in Unit maintenance, 92 in City maintenance, 71 in Civic maintenance
====
PD 560 AD :
- Number of cities
Dorothy : 22
Lizzy : 2
Genghis : 9
Gandhi : 9
Monty : 8
Mansa : 10
Shaka : 6
Asoka, Ragnar RIP
- Military techs :
North : Feu, CS
West : Feu, CS, Machinery
South : Feu, CS, Machinery, Engi
-Financial situation : -116gpt @ 0%
Income : 222 commerce + 9 in resource trades + 47 building wealth
Expenses : 78 in Unit maintenance, 165 in City maintenance, 101 in Civic maintenance
They really did manage very well the little bump in the road yesterday, but one has to admit that the North/East AIs are giving them an easy time...
Indeed, they're about to attack both English and Viking, and none of them has Feudalism yet !!
Besides, Asoka was kind enough to give them an "almost-Canal" city, it will make reinforcements to South go much faster than they were in our game.
Plus, what about all those resource trades? Why weren't they available to us?
One thing I'm starting to wonder is really how much of an influence the GLH had in their economy. We discarded it because we thought that many of our cities would be inland (they were indeed), but also because maintaining foreign TRs would be difficult. However it seems like OSS are about to succeed in doing just that (if they manage to connect TRs with the South witches).
They uploaded a save on T138 (560AD) so I was able to compare with one of our own :
OSS 560 AD :
- Number of cities
Dorothy : 16
Lizzy : 8
Genghis : 10
Gandhi : 8
Monty : 10
Mansa : 11
Shaka : 8
Asoka : 2
Ragnar : 8
- Military techs :
North : CS, Machinery
West : Feu, CS, Machinery
South : Feu, CS, Machinery
East : Nothing
cry-Financial situation : -30gpt @ 0%
Income : 201 commerce + 33 in resource trades
Expenses : 66 in Unit maintenance, 92 in City maintenance, 71 in Civic maintenance
====
PD 560 AD :
- Number of cities
Dorothy : 22
Lizzy : 2
Genghis : 9
Gandhi : 9
Monty : 8
Mansa : 10
Shaka : 6
Asoka, Ragnar RIP
- Military techs :
North : Feu, CS
West : Feu, CS, Machinery
South : Feu, CS, Machinery, Engi
-Financial situation : -116gpt @ 0%
Income : 222 commerce + 9 in resource trades + 47 building wealth
Expenses : 78 in Unit maintenance, 165 in City maintenance, 101 in Civic maintenance
They really did manage very well the little bump in the road yesterday, but one has to admit that the North/East AIs are giving them an easy time...
Indeed, they're about to attack both English and Viking, and none of them has Feudalism yet !!
Besides, Asoka was kind enough to give them an "almost-Canal" city, it will make reinforcements to South go much faster than they were in our game.
Plus, what about all those resource trades? Why weren't they available to us?
One thing I'm starting to wonder is really how much of an influence the GLH had in their economy. We discarded it because we thought that many of our cities would be inland (they were indeed), but also because maintaining foreign TRs would be difficult. However it seems like OSS are about to succeed in doing just that (if they manage to connect TRs with the South witches).
srad
King
Congratulations guys! I lurked a lot and as always very interesting the thread!
From my look at things, we are still 15+ turns ahead in the east, based on when we captured Nidaros (250AD is T125).
The first time we really lost time warring in the south was against Mansa so I'm not too worried on that front despite the AI comparison being really in their favor.
However, we lost a TON of time in the north when facing Genghis (5~10 turns) so they'll probably gain some turns there unless GK proves difficult. Having mostly WEs makes Keshiks easier to handle of course.
The economy probably slowed us a good 10 turns (we'd have had way more troops at Genghis) so in retrospect GLH is quite good - BUT considering we captured it at T125, it means we didn't get THAT behind on the economy. Remember our big problems came quite later compared to their current situation.
The big benefit of GLH, imo, is slowing down the AI expansion. In our game, East witches were the first to Feudalism on T117.
The more the AI keeps expanding, the more they have to kill to trigger domination. It'll still be a close race despite our poor performance and their AIs' poor performance as well.
The first time we really lost time warring in the south was against Mansa so I'm not too worried on that front despite the AI comparison being really in their favor.
However, we lost a TON of time in the north when facing Genghis (5~10 turns) so they'll probably gain some turns there unless GK proves difficult. Having mostly WEs makes Keshiks easier to handle of course.
The economy probably slowed us a good 10 turns (we'd have had way more troops at Genghis) so in retrospect GLH is quite good - BUT considering we captured it at T125, it means we didn't get THAT behind on the economy. Remember our big problems came quite later compared to their current situation.
The big benefit of GLH, imo, is slowing down the AI expansion. In our game, East witches were the first to Feudalism on T117.
The more the AI keeps expanding, the more they have to kill to trigger domination. It'll still be a close race despite our poor performance and their AIs' poor performance as well.
@Bebekija
You are too optimistic on OSS's current situation. They are still 15 turns behind us, as kossin said.
They do manage the economy better than us, at the cost of the opening part, they built GLH, send a WB, a scout and even an explorer to enable the foreign trade routes. From their result and our test result of building GLH, it's clearly a suboptimal decision. In my view, the GLH benefit in their game won't count more than 1T to their victory. Their 2 GAs will give them a major economical benefit. Our own decision of researching CS is the major hit in our side. In total, they could gain ~5 turns in economical part. They will also need to whip CHs in captured cities, but later than us.
Our major war setbacks came from the war with GK and Zulu.
1. Loss of a galleon of 3 trebs and failed to capture the last Zulu city, so that stack's progress is delayed by 10+ turns.
2. The battles outside Tabris, the whole stack has 1 wounded treb left and we lost the GG as well.
3. The battles between Tiflis and Besh, the whole stack was serious wounded and we lost another GG as well. The progress of that stack was delayed by ~5 turns.
The unbalanced unit production and inefficient war routes also caused a good portion of setback.
So the total delay of our war is about 10 turns.
You see, those turns are not so easily to be caught up. As I said, the determinative point of OSS's effort will come from their war with north witches. Whether AI has LB will only give player a little more trouble when you have trebs to attack. Although OSS are facing weaker troops, AIs in their game have settled more cities due to their late war.
In conclusion, although it still could be a close race between us, I would bet on our side.
You are too optimistic on OSS's current situation. They are still 15 turns behind us, as kossin said.
They do manage the economy better than us, at the cost of the opening part, they built GLH, send a WB, a scout and even an explorer to enable the foreign trade routes. From their result and our test result of building GLH, it's clearly a suboptimal decision. In my view, the GLH benefit in their game won't count more than 1T to their victory. Their 2 GAs will give them a major economical benefit. Our own decision of researching CS is the major hit in our side. In total, they could gain ~5 turns in economical part. They will also need to whip CHs in captured cities, but later than us.
Our major war setbacks came from the war with GK and Zulu.
1. Loss of a galleon of 3 trebs and failed to capture the last Zulu city, so that stack's progress is delayed by 10+ turns.
2. The battles outside Tabris, the whole stack has 1 wounded treb left and we lost the GG as well.
3. The battles between Tiflis and Besh, the whole stack was serious wounded and we lost another GG as well. The progress of that stack was delayed by ~5 turns.
The unbalanced unit production and inefficient war routes also caused a good portion of setback.
So the total delay of our war is about 10 turns.
You see, those turns are not so easily to be caught up. As I said, the determinative point of OSS's effort will come from their war with north witches. Whether AI has LB will only give player a little more trouble when you have trebs to attack. Although OSS are facing weaker troops, AIs in their game have settled more cities due to their late war.
In conclusion, although it still could be a close race between us, I would bet on our side.
Bebekija
King
I finally edited post #1598 to add some screenshots for those interested!
Mmmh I had almost forgotten about those. It all happened at a time when RL distracted me from the game, it looks like I should get back to reading our own thread ! !
Mmmh I had almost forgotten about those. It all happened at a time when RL distracted me from the game, it looks like I should get back to reading our own thread ! !
we also failed to capture the last mongolian city thanks to a rambo lb there (or alternatively poor planning and not leaving enough troops there)... ...so indian invasion fleet had to be turned around and unloaded there (1t), then city was attacked and taken (1t) and fleet had to set sail again (1t)
... and someone also lost our healer gg against mansas counterattack on his horsie city, against a knight (mali canal)
...
so i guess i also had my share on drawbacks
... and someone also lost our healer gg against mansas counterattack on his horsie city, against a knight (mali canal)
...
so i guess i also had my share on drawbacks
Mmmh I had almost forgotten about those. It all happened at a time when RL distracted me from the game, it looks like I should get back to reading our own thread ! !
I only listed the 3 biggest hits in our war and all of the three counted for no more than 5 turns of delay. We were running multiple stacks at that time, so even the vanish of the whole stack won't be disastrous.
This was big!
I just tried to give you an idea how hard to lost 1 turn in war, hence how hard for OSS to catch up. As I already mentioned, I'd take the responsibility of the 3rd one.
Everyone contributed to the glorious setbacks!I think it's easier to put all the blame on obsolete
Duckweed, you can give credit for #3 there and I'll forward mine.
Looks like OSS should finish in time. Will they do it in 23 turns??? Begs the question could you of done domination a bit quicker? This could be quite close. OSS are fighting archers and this would make taking cities much easier.
Time will tell, it should be close in any case - comparatively in the south we are pulling ahead while in the north our setbacks still leave us ahead but not as much as prior to them.
Killing Monty and Gandhi wasn't too long for us, we lost most of our time on GK as said plenty of time already. That and our whipping strategy meant we had a much lower population overall making Domination more complicated.
Killing Monty and Gandhi wasn't too long for us, we lost most of our time on GK as said plenty of time already. That and our whipping strategy meant we had a much lower population overall making Domination more complicated.
Bebekija
King
Alright, moment of truth, guys!....
OSS have just landed in Mongol land, and they're about to declare on Zulu.
Those are the two AIs that caused us the more trouble, so let's just hope that they provide the same service to our good friends...
It doesn't look like it though : Mongols don't have longbows and probably never will, and Zulu cities are defended by 2-3 units at most, so I hope Shaka has a SoD hidden somewhere....
Overall, I'm sorry guys, but I'm still firmly standing on the pessimistic side.
What they have to do next is to clear up Mongol/Zulu then get Mansa out of the center of the map.
Given the time to get out of revolt, and the time needed to reach 100 culture, they would have to conquer the biggest Mongol/Zulu cities before T165 + settle ~15 settlers by T175 to beat us.
I can't see them *not* doing that. My guess is that they will finish ~T175.
I'm still wondering if maybe we didn't choose the wrong VC after all. Couldn't we have switched to Domination at some point, and adapted our whipping rate to grow a bit more?
OSS have just landed in Mongol land, and they're about to declare on Zulu.
Those are the two AIs that caused us the more trouble, so let's just hope that they provide the same service to our good friends...
It doesn't look like it though : Mongols don't have longbows and probably never will, and Zulu cities are defended by 2-3 units at most, so I hope Shaka has a SoD hidden somewhere....
Overall, I'm sorry guys, but I'm still firmly standing on the pessimistic side.
What they have to do next is to clear up Mongol/Zulu then get Mansa out of the center of the map.
Given the time to get out of revolt, and the time needed to reach 100 culture, they would have to conquer the biggest Mongol/Zulu cities before T165 + settle ~15 settlers by T175 to beat us.
I can't see them *not* doing that. My guess is that they will finish ~T175.
I'm still wondering if maybe we didn't choose the wrong VC after all. Couldn't we have switched to Domination at some point, and adapted our whipping rate to grow a bit more?
