SGOTM 14 - Unusual Suspects

[SteelHorse]

Oops - Just noticed that we do not have Gunpowder yet. Will need to add into the plan before getting Cuirs. More HA's for upgrade then. Does anyone know offhand the upgrade cost?

Ragnar/Asoka need MC and Machinery before Engineering - and it does not appear they have good trade material so we should not need to worry about pikes. Pillaging the Ivory is a high priority.

Will add the scout in for the medic.

Sounds like we need to get about 15-20 Cuirs out.

EDIT: Peace treat runs out in 4 turns with Asoka/Ragnar. He has a force built of 2 Cats, 4 Chariots, 1 HA, 1Ax and an Archer in Indra. We are not his worst enemy,
but we do share borders. He is not WHEOOHRN, how worried should we be?

 

[SteelHorse]

Sci redployment. This gets us Nat in 3 with 500 bpt at -161 gpt. We currently have 715 gold in the bank. 3x161 = 483 leaves us with 232 gold.

Gunpowder is 1872 bkrs. Should be able to get in 4 turns.

Chi - 2 Sci
Seattle - 2 Sci
SF - 1 sci
LA - 1 sci
Houston - 2 sci
Wash - 2 sci
NY - 3 sci
Bos - 3 sci
Phili - 2 sci
Atl - 1 sci

Still wondering on timing of Golden Age.
Options:
1. Immediately after MoM
2. After MT
3. After GP
4. Save Great Artist for border pop

I am leaning to number 1 to help with teching for GP and producing gold for upgrading HAs. Perhaps swap to FR immediately after Lib , then switch to Slavery after Gunpowder (min 5 turns though from FR)?

How many turns of GA will we have?

EDIT: Can we bulb Lib the same turn that Nat finishes or do we need to wait a turn?

 

[kcd_swede]

Oops - Just noticed that we do not have Gunpowder yet. Will need to add into the plan before getting Cuirs. More HA's for upgrade then. Does anyone know offhand the upgrade cost?

Ragnar/Asoka need MC and Machinery before Engineering - and it does not appear they have good trade material so we should not need to worry about pikes. Pillaging the Ivory is a high priority.

Will add the scout in for the medic.

Sounds like we need to get about 15-20 Cuirs out.

EDIT: Peace treat runs out in 4 turns with Asoka/Ragnar. He has a force built of 2 Cats, 4 Chariots, 1 HA, 1Ax and an Archer in Indra. We are not his worst enemy,
but we do share borders. He is not WHEOOHRN, how worried should we be?

Normal speed upgrade cost from Chariot to Cuirasser is 245gold, from HA to Cuir is 170gold. To upgrade the Cuir to Cav is 80gold.

I don't think we need worry about Asoka/Ragnar declaring war on us since they aren't wheoohrn, and our power is going to go thru the roof very soon.

I think we can do the GA after MoM, too. We can get more artists easy enough if it looks like a shortcut to Oz.

Golden Age should last 15 turns with MoM (10 turns without) on normal speed.

I have had my Civ deleted from my hard drive during virus-cleaning ops, so it will take me a couple days to open the game, which is why I can't help on specifics and timing stuff very much right now.

 

[ChrisShaffer]

Definitely run the golden age *after* we get MoM.

 

[SteelHorse]

Turns of GA = 15
Rough Turn Plan
T146 - Golden Age with GA
T148/9 - Finish Nat (bulb Lib? or T149) Switch to FR after Lib
T152 - Finish GP - switch to 0% Res to build gold
T153/4 - Switch to Slavery
T154-159 - Whip out Cuirs/Upgrade HAs
T159-161 - Switch back to Caste (or should we try to complete Econ and also switch to FreeMkt) not sure we can squeeze in and get enough $ for upgrade HAs which should be the priority.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I also favor the GA immediately after MoM is done. However, I'm pretty sure a GA lasts only 8 turns on normal speed, 12 with MoM; 10/15 is with Epic speed. Wash should concentrate first on finishing Oxford ASAP rather than running specs during the GA because we'll be relying very heavily on Wash/Oxford for research while other cities are pumping out war materiel. Don't forget to chop Wash's last forest for Oxford.

Prebuilding HAs: I think you can put an identical unit in a build queue--maybe use <control>unit to add it to the front before the current unit completes? I'll try it when I can.

OK on dumping the catapult idea. But it would probably help to have at least one galley in our south to ferry cuirs across to India as reinforcements rather than take the long land route. Since Seattle's culture extends out 2 tiles into the sea we're safe from attack and can drop off cuirs without any worries about getting sunk.

Regarding use of first Great General: We're Charismatic so the Levels increase at 2,4,8,14,21,30 XPs. A scout with GG (net 20 XPs, or 23 with barracks) could get Combat1, Medic1, 2, 3, and Morale (+1 movement) but nothing beyond that because it won't ever be engaged in combat. (We could upgrade to a terrain-ignoring Explorer at some point.) A horse archer (25 XPs with barracks and stable) could start with Combat1, Medic 123, and Flanking (prereq for Sentry), and then take Sentry (+1 visibility) at 30. I'd probably vote for the latter.

 

[SteelHorse]

On Washington, I will add the chop for Oxford, should we whip a forge before starting Oxford?

I agree on the galley/ferry, but can it wait until the next turnset?

The question on a scout v HA for the super medic is likel hood of attack. If it is in a stack of wounded Cuirs might it be target before the scout? I do like the idea of Sentry though.

12 turns of GA is a difference. Will look more at the turn sequence.

 

[Deckhand]

Agree with most of above; and points I was going to make have been made by others.
12 turn GA w MoM. Start it next turn.
You can have as many units of a given type queued as you want, but you can't put hammers into the 2nd one until the 1st is finished. The one with the hammers will always go to the front of the queue. You could get both a chariot and a horse archer almost complete and both would have their hammers allocated to cuir's.
Cuir only army sh be enough for Asoka/Ragnar. Then cavalry for the rest.
I usually use chariots for great medics.

I recommend building Taj during the artist GA.

 

[SteelHorse]

A couple of points. With a 12 turn GA we can have 3 civic changes. T1, T6, T11. Or 2, 7, 12.
If we want to exit the GA in caste and FR and ready for war then we need to decide on 2 or 3 swaps.
Getting FR right after lib and slavery right gunpowder seems optimal.
But it implies not whipping the last university.
Working backwards
T12 switch to caste.
T6-7 switch to slave
T1-2 switch to FR
But won't have lib until Nat is done in 3.
So need to wait until we are 1 turn from Nat to go into GA.
Does that make sense. Would be nice to test if we bulb lib same turn that Nat finishes that we can get MT. I will not have game access before Friday pm to test.
Second point, do we want to use a city that could be building troops to build the Taj.
If so, which one?

 

[Xcalibrator]

Xpost with SH.

On Washington, I will add the chop for Oxford, should we whip a forge before starting Oxford?

Nah. The hammer multiplier for Oxford is already 2.5; a forge would make it 2.75, only 10% faster. And we don't want to whip in Wash, ever, I think. Certainly the galley/ferry can wait--just wanted to plant the idea so we don't forget.

SH: The question on a scout v HA for the super medic is likel hood of attack. If it is in a stack of wounded Cuirs might it be target before the scout? I do like the idea of Sentry though. DH: I usually use chariots for great medics.

Oooh, I didn't think we could still build chariots. If we can, then yeah, build that for the supermedic.

Bummer about the no-duplicate partial builds. However, according to anion's guide, war elephants can also be upgraded to cuirs, and more cheaply than HAs (120 vs 150 gold if I'm reading things correctly). I suspect, though, that WEs do not become obsolete when cuirs appear, so we would have to pay for upgrades rather than partially build them and then finish as cuirs. Can somebody doublecheck in a test game? To clarify: (1) Will partially built HAs (and chariots) finish as cuirs when we have the techs for cuirs? (2) Same question for WEs. (3) How much gold to upgrade HAs to cuirs? (4) How much for WEs? Upgrades are much less cost effective than building from scratch but they save time. How desperate are we for speed?

I recommend building Taj during the artist GA.

In Chicago? It's a lot of hammers. Is it worth it? As a very rough estimate, let's say each of our 10 cities is working 5 hammer tiles, so a GA will give us 10*5*12=600 extra hammers, or 250 net benefit. Plus extra commerce and GPP production, and the ability to switch into slavery for more whipping (or perhaps Nationalism for drafting? Or would we get rifles instead of cavs?). Why golly yes, I guess it's worth it!

 

[Deckhand]

Would be nice to test if we bulb lib same turn that Nat finishes that we can get MT.

WB test confirms that when we bulb lib we must immediately select a tech. So Nat needs to finish (it finishes IBT) before we do the lib bulb.

edit
AND

You can build 'phants, chariots and horse archers simultaneously, even if you have Mil Trad (&gunpowder); provided that you don't have iron/iron working. Once you have iron, gunpowder and Military Tradition and can build cuirassiers, then they are the only mounted you can build.

 

[kcd_swede]

The new server sucks bigtime. Busy all day. Not that I have anything important to say, except... ooops about the length of golden ages. 12 with MoM is right for normal speed. The cost to upgrade to cuirs (170 from HA) I got from the reference table for v3.17 and I don't think it changes for v3.19. But I guess we'll find out, eh?

Yeah, ok, the chariot medic probably makes more sense if we only need it to get a few XP off heavily damaged units (>98% odds I hope).

What is the tech plan after MT? Are we going to beeline rifling or do something else? Econ GM for research financing and/or upgrades?

I might suggest (later) astro for observatories and then Chem for frigates followed by MilSci for grens to counter when AI get rifles. But I think rifling should be first. Can we get the GSci to bulb PPr, or is it going to be Astro? Rep Parts is GE bulbable, but not sure thats a good use of GE. How many turns until we can get rifling (recall that cuirs will cost maint, but count on getting some conquest gold)? Are we doing that at 0% research or binary?

Not sure any of this matters for the coming turnset, but we should at least have a plan in mind... so we know where to direct beaker overflow when we get Nat and then bulb Lib.

Its looking like we have a plan coming together. I won't be available to play until after the weekend. Maybe SH can adjust his priorities and play this befotre the weekend? It would be good if team members state when they would have time to play so we know whether we have lots of time to think more (and thereby extend the lenght of the turnset) or if we are getting ready to go... I think the PPP can be summarized (its spread over several posts atm) and then we could go with 24hrs for last minute adjustments? We will probably need to pick up the pace a bit... if not now then at the finish.

 

[Xcalibrator]

You can build 'phants, chariots and horse archers simultaneously, even if you have Mil Trad (&gunpowder); provided that you don't have iron/iron working. Once you have iron, gunpowder and Military Tradition and can build cuirassiers, then they are the only mounted you can build.

Nice solid info. So we could prebuild up to 3 protocuirs per city.

What is the tech plan after MT? Are we going to beeline rifling or do something else? Econ GM for research financing and/or upgrades?

I might suggest (later) astro for observatories and then Chem for frigates followed by MilSci for grens to counter when AI get rifles. But I think rifling should be first. Can we get the GSci to bulb PPr, or is it going to be Astro? Rep Parts is GE bulbable, but not sure thats a good use of GE. How many turns until we can get rifling (recall that cuirs will cost maint, but count on getting some conquest gold)? Are we doing that at 0% research or binary?

Rifling: Machinery --> Printing Press --> Replaceable Parts --> Rifling
Astro: Machinery and Compass --> Optics --> Astro
Chem: Machinery --> Engineering --> Chem

Looks like we need Machinery no matter what. Bulbing-wise, once we have that we'll get PP. We can then bulb Astro if we research its prereqs and do not have Engineering. Or we get Chem if we have Engineering. I think we'll bulb ~all of PP, and most but probably not quite all of Chem and Astro. Personally I'd do Machinery, bulb PP, Engineering (for faster road movement), and then on to RP and Rifling and bulb Chem when we can.

 

[SteelHorse]

Ok chariot for medical though can wait until war starts as we need a gg.
We can get a chariot, ha, & phant all partially built then have 3 cuirs finish when gp is researched.
I question building taj at the same time we are: 1 building army and 2 building oxford. Would prefer getting army in place. Then building taj, but will take direction from the crowd.
Thanks for the bulb test. Need to finish Nat and bulb on next turn. Can we switch to FR that turn or another 1 turn wait?
Shooting to finish discussion Thursday. Publish plan Friday am and play Friday night or Sat am.
Edit: xpost. I am on the road wo game access to Friday. Anyone else is free to take before.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Just to be clear, if we have a WE, HA, and chariot in the queue when MT and Gunpowder complete, then they all stay in the queue and all will be completed separately as cuirs? No funny business about duplicate builds causing problems?

I question building taj at the same time we are: 1 building army and 2 building oxford. Would prefer getting army in place. Then building taj, but will take direction from the crowd.

It seems like Chicago is the best place, being far away from the front. It would be nice to really focus on getting out an army but on the other hand, Chicago benefits the most from the GA in terms of production because all (?) its tiles have hammers and therefore get more hammers. I'm guessing but with that leftover forest to chop we can probably finish MoM in about 7 turns. Hmm, that means we'd get a 24-turn double Golden Age right when we're making our army. On the other hand, maybe we actually don't want to finish it so quickly--hold off until we're ready to whip out some cavs. But then... maybe we'll be able to build cavs before the double GA ends. We need Nat'lism (3), Gunpowder (3), Machinery (3), bulb PP (will we have a Great Sci in time?), Replaceable Parts (?), Rifling (?). If Wash finishes Oxford quickly and then concentrates on running sci's to maximize research we might just be able to do it. Maybe we should hold off just a little on starting the GA. Or perhaps revolt to Slavery right away so we can whip the last uni and get started on Oxford, then revolt back to Caste to run lots of specs, then back to slavery partway through the 2nd GA and back to Caste before the end. Sorry, I've lost track of what the timing is for Nat'lism and first GA. I'm sure SH can come up with a crystal clear plan, though.

 

[kcd_swede]

Ok chariot for medical though can wait until war starts as we need a gg.
We can get a chariot, ha, & phant all partially built then have 3 cuirs finish when gp is researched.
I question building taj at the same time we are: 1 building army and 2 building oxford. Would prefer getting army in place. Then building taj, but will take direction from the crowd.
Thanks for the bulb test. Need to finish Nat and bulb on next turn. Can we switch to FR that turn or another 1 turn wait?
Shooting to finish discussion Thursday. Publish plan Friday am and play Friday night or Sat am.
Edit: xpost. I am on the road wo game access to Friday. Anyone else is free to take before.

I think you should plan to play it then. And I think we should even make it a little longer turnset since we have a couple days to add the extras. But that's up to you. XCal is right about Machinery having to come next. Who is our GPP spreadsheet God? We should try and figure out if holding off engineering is going to translate to more/better bulbing opportunities or not.

 

[SteelHorse]

Let's make sure priority is clear.
1. Prepare for war.15-20 cuirs for DoW.
2. Washington Oxford
3. Chicago Taj - should we delay #1 for this or can it wait until we have our army. Having the ha, we, char in the queue is 3 less that other cities need to build. Please vote.

I suspect tech will be slow post army build due to troop cost. Some merchants will be required plus cash for any upgrades.

I am happy to plan and play beyond but would want to pause after gunpowder to see what the army looks like and plan invasion.
Would not want slavery yet as the bkrs from the sci are critical for Nat and Gunp. Imho at least. Sooner we get gunpowder the sooner we can whip the cuirs. Unless we say #2 is higher priority.

Will take a stab at a turn by turn a little later. Tough without the game.

 

[kcd_swede]

Let's make sure priority is clear.
1. Prepare for war.15-20 cuirs for DoW.
2. Washington Oxford
3. Chicago Taj - should we delay #1 for this or can it wait until we have our army. Having the ha, we, char in the queue is 3 less that other cities need to build. Please vote.

I suspect tech will be slow post army build due to troop cost. Some merchants will be required plus cash for any upgrades.

I am happy to plan and play beyond but would want to pause after gunpowder to see what the army looks like and plan invasion.
Would not want slavery yet as the bkrs from the sci are critical for Nat and Gunp. Imho at least. Sooner we get gunpowder the sooner we can whip the cuirs. Unless we say #2 is higher priority.

Will take a stab at a turn by turn a little later. Tough without the game.

Server ate my post again. So you get the condensed version:

I agree with prio. I would not delay #1 to get #3 faster either. Start Taj after Shytown has made its last Cuir for the attack force unless an AI gets Nat before then (if so, start Taj immediately).

CS instead of slavery at least until we have the last tech for the cuir attack force.

Turn by turn planning not required... just summarize whats been agreed upon so far. Done a great job so far considering no access to the game.

Team: Can someone project the next 2-3 GP's (when and what kind?), this is needed info to know whether engineering is after Mach or not.

That's it... though it was much more entertaining in the first version.

 

[Deckhand]

Server ate my post again. So you get the condensed version:

That's it... though it was much more entertaining in the first version.

Copy text before posting?
Although, this version avoids the TL;DR

 

[Deckhand]

Congratulations to kcd_swede and SteelHorse for snagging the cow award in GOTM71 and WOTM39 respectively!

bovine buddies?