SGOTM 14 - Xteam

The-Hawk · Nov 5, 2011

Very good input, thanks all. I believe I will be incorporating almost all of them. :goodjob:

A couple more comments/questions:

We still have a couple of settlers sitting idle. Clearly we need to save 1 settler for OZ, what about the second? I see four options. I am leaning towards the last (do nothing with it), would like your opinions.

Settle the seafood city near our capital. We will be done research before that site can contribute and it doesn't have hammers to build units. But I suppose it can whip one now and then.
Settle 1W of the silver in the hub. Adds two new happy resources and has some hammers. However, it will require a defending army and may be bypassed.
Settle a city 1N3W of Boston. It could take Boston's rice and then work two mined hills to make units.
Do nothing, keep the settler for one of the AI territories. E.g. we might want to raze and replace a city to create passage across a spoke.

RE: Civics. I like slavery, PS, theo. However, I think it needs to wait until Gunpowder is complete. We don't want to lose the representation bonus on all those scientists. I don't think we should switch to nationalism. I don't want to lose turns of anarchy while we are still researching and once we are done, our primary offensive units will be on horses. Would rather save that our excess population for whipping curiassers.

As far as conquest. I assume we are keeping any decent AI cities. Decent is defined as good hammers (and food to use them) or good commerce (gold or cottages). I think purely food sites should be razed since we will be running slavery.

-Asterix- said:
Has anybody checked if getting Engineering messes up our way to Astro bulb-wise?

Yikes! I think you are right. Engineering opens up chemistry which is a higher bulb priority for a GS than Astronomy. The bulbing of Eng needs to come after Astronomy.

leif erikson · Nov 5, 2011

The-Hawk said:
Yikes! I think you are right. Engineering opens up chemistry which is a higher bulb priority for a GS than Astronomy. The bulbing of Eng needs to come after Astronomy.

Nice catch, shouldn't do detail work before :coffee:

Cactus Pete · Nov 5, 2011

The-Hawk said:
We still have a couple of settlers sitting idle. Clearly we need to save 1 settler for OZ, what about the second? I see four options. I am leaning towards the last (do nothing with it), would like your opinions. A canal city SW of York would seem a likely use.

As far as conquest. I assume we are keeping any decent AI cities. Decent is defined as good hammers (and food to use them) or good commerce (gold or cottages). I think purely food sites should be razed since we will be running slavery. Perhaps not so simple. Will need land for Dom'n victory and empty space will generate barbs, so an isolated city that will at least provide some commerce should probably be kept -- we can whip a courthouse to reduce maintenance.

Yikes! I think you are right. Engineering opens up chemistry which is a higher bulb priority for a GS than Astronomy. The bulbing of Eng needs to come after Astronomy.

Did not know that. Good show, Asterix. Doesn't Chem require Gunpowder? Would it make sense to delay Gunpowder until we have bulbed Astro and go ahead and use the engineer for Engineering? (I do like trebs, as well as the movement.)

BTW, is there a third victory condition (beyond Dom'n and Conquest) that we should consider? Was it specified that we have to achieve victory before taking out OZ?

leif erikson · Nov 5, 2011

Cactus Pete said:
BTW, is there a third victory condition (beyond Dom'n and Conquest) that we should consider? Was it specified that we have to achieve victory before taking out OZ?

From the maintenance thread:

Victory: The laurels will go to the team that can secure the fastest victory that is not Religious.

Special Condition: You must find and destroy the Wizard of Oz before you achieve the normal 'victory'. Any team not accomplishing this will not be considered for the Laurels. It might not be strictly what happened in the book or the movie, but he has it coming!

Cactus Pete said:
Doesn't Chem require Gunpowder? Would it make sense to delay Gunpowder until we have bulbed Astro and go ahead and use the engineer for Engineering? (I do like trebs, as well as the movement.)

Yes, it does. We could be building Trebs and Galleons while we await Gunpowder for Cuirassier?

Cactus Pete · Nov 5, 2011

"Yes, it does. We could be building Trebs and Galleons while we await Gunpowder for Cuirassier?" Hope Hawk will consider that. (I'm out of contact for at least 24 hours.)

The-Hawk · Nov 5, 2011

Cactus Pete said:
"Yes, it does. We could be building Trebs and Galleons while we await Gunpowder for Cuirassier?" Hope Hawk will consider that. (I'm out of contact for at least 24 hours.)

Yes for sure, makes perfect sense.

Leif, is it OK if I play tonight? Seems like we have alignment, no reason to wait until Monday (I am away tomorrow).

leif erikson · Nov 5, 2011

If you feel you are ready, please go. Good Luck and Happy Hunting. :hammer:

Finally got through all the server busy messages. :rolleyes:

Sent you an email as well as I couldn't get through to the site.

The-Hawk · Nov 5, 2011

Wow what an ordeal. OK, things did not go quite to plan. :lol:

I pretty much started by following our plan. Only thing I did different... I did not take CP's advice to skip a barracks in SF. I saw two stacks coming and decided I would probably be needing to build some units. How prophetic was that :rolleyes:

.

Long story short... here are the challenges I ran into:

Rags and Asoka started mobbing SF. At one point, was hit in short succession by 2 stacks of 8, followed by a stack of 6, followed by another stack of 8, followed by 6.
The first two stacks of 8 hit me 1 turn apart, I honestly thought the city was doomed. However, the RNG were my friend. I believe I made 4 straight cat attacks at about 60% without losing one. Needless to say, they pillaged the crap out of SF so there was no rush to research Curaissiers since we had no horses.
Meanwhile, I was getting ready to send a few galleys and a trireme over to Asoka per plan. However, just as they were getting started, a caravel popped out and sank the trireme. I was able to duck the galleys into New York, but then Asoka brought a second caravel out. Without our own caravels, our aspirations for Prayaga were on hold.
Finally, our trade for Machinery had one unintended consequence... it opened up PP for a bulb. No problem, we had two scientists left and another GP on the way (after the bulb of Liberalism). Problem was, the new GP turned out to be an engineer at 10% odds. This delayed astronomy, which further delayed the attack on Prayaga (I could have upgraded a gallet to take care of the caravels, instead I needed to build 2 of my own). I eventually used the engineer for Gunpowder, but earlier galleons would have been better.

Anyhow, in spite of the challenges, there was lots of good news too.

I did not lose SF. Currently there are no enemies in the area. The horses and sheep have been reconnected. The body count was 38 Eastern units killed vs. 3 losses.
Research is complete. Natl was researched. Liberalism, Eng, Astronomy, PP, and Gunpowder were all mostly bulbed. Traded for Machinery, Drama, Guilds, Optics.
We are finally ready to take Prayaga. I have a very large force over on his land and they have already reduced his culture to 0. Way more units than needed, but while I was waiting on Caravels, I built lots of other units. Once we get some of our galleys up to galleons, maybe we can drop some of them on Rags.
Oh one last thing... one of our map trades might have revealed Oz... not 100% sure, but looks suspicious.

The turn log is too big for one post. Here is the first half:

Spoiler :

The-Hawk · Nov 5, 2011

Rest of turnset log:

Spoiler :

Some decisions to be made:

For the time being, I have banking queued up. I figure we might want to head for Cavs.
Two cities have started Cuissiers. We need to decide if we want to build stables first.
We popped a GS, also another GG. Need to decide what to do with them. I had joined an earlier GG to NK.
Now that research is done, need to consider a civic change.

leif erikson · Nov 5, 2011

The-Hawk said:
Some decisions to be made:

We popped a GS, also another GG. Need to decide what to do with them. I had joined an earlier GG to NK.

Now that research is done, need to consider a civic change.

Have to look, but can we use them for a Golden Age, or are there better uses?
edit2 - cannot use GG for Golden Ages. :sad:

Off to have a look.

edit - Nice work Hawk. Filled in that tech tree nicely. :worship:

Roster:
Cactus Pete - UP
Mad Professor - On Deck
leif
DJMGator13
-Asterix-
Htadus
The-Hawk :woohoo:

Depending upon whether we wish to give up Liberalism, we can trade for Banking, WMap + 100Gold from Mansa.

Be interested to know if Oz is in the far west, been guessing that for a while. :mischief:

Fastest way seems to be to sail a Galleon around the top of the map.

Looks to me as though it is time to raise hell! :hammer:

Htadus · Nov 5, 2011

Tough time Hawk, too bad we chose not to build that 2 seafood city. Good Job holding it togather, I would have done something rash.

The best mongers out there seem to think a supermedic is a great thing and I, a mediocure monger, too recommend it.

It is time we leave Paci, CS and Rep. Also consider sending another force throught the hub to finish india asap. The sooner we remove production from him, sooner his units start disapearing form the front. Let Ragnar attack SF. We will soon should find asoka's horses too. Have the workers replace the pasture with a fort and fortify a few LB's with drill2 and see how well the ragnars units die there. I have done this on a recent Diety AW game Snatty was runing. Alot of fun.

leif erikson · Nov 6, 2011

Did some tile counting and we have 131 tiles at 10.07%. The map should be about 1300 tiles. Don't know how current our maps are.

The South Witches (Mansa/Shaka) are first with 20% of land. Their tiles total 243, which works out to 1215 tiles.

Domination = 68% of tiles, so somewhere between 826 and 884.
There seem to still be many unclaimed tiles.

Cactus Pete · Nov 6, 2011

Well done, Hawk.

I will download save from Central andhave a look late tonight.

What are thoughts on our best victory condition?

Mad Professor · Nov 6, 2011

Good job holding it together under pressure Hawk. It ended well.

Htadus said:
The best mongers out there seem to think a supermedic is a great thing and I, a mediocure monger, too recommend it.

I like the super-medic idea. That extra 25% healing a turn is awesome. I've used it before to huge effect - it's particularly awesome in partnership with units who have been promoted comb-3 then march if you're playing a game where there is enough war to get a significant number of units that promoted. Even without the march promotion, that super medic cuts significant turns off a military campaign, healing units really fast.

Cactus Pete · Nov 7, 2011

Looked at save . . . some observations and queries, not prioritized:

Still wondering about best victory condition. Both Domn and Conquest are going to take a while.

Dont see why I would settle on the pink or blue dot during my set. Dont see any reason not to trade Lib for Banking. Any disagreement?

Any way to get Zulu to like us well enough to trade map?

What allows you to form Defensive Pacts? Might it make sense to have one with the far pair?

What chance the north will declare war on us, their worst enemy?

Anything I should be considering regarding espionage and spies?

Surprised to find the the NE has not been built. Is there a reason for this? Perhaps we should get it built Phily would seem best to continue to take advantage of our Philosophical trait and provide a GMerchant and/or GPs for a GA going forward.

What is the wkbt in Harappan for?

Note workshops are yielding 3 hammers. Is this correct (not in Vanilla)?

Thinking Chemistry allowing frigates and added hammer from wkshops, plus possible way to MS or Steel is more valuable and more readily attainable then Rifling for cavalry.

Settling GG in Wash will yield 3-promotion experience points for new units there (but so would Theology).

What is the bulb order for GEs?

Not sure we want to change any Civics right now. We have a great many GP points accumulated, so seems wasteful to abandon them. Were running GMs for gold, but they are yielding science and eventually GPs (hopefully a GM). Change of 2 Civics will cost one turn, but a third will cost two. If we do switch two initially. Which 2?

Im concerned about staying in the black as we go forward, even with the gold from city capture (and, long term, the possible capture of the GLTHS). My usual approach is to use a GA and/or a trade route from a GMerchant to help stay out of debt. Thoughts on this?

Thinking Ragnar after Asoka. Is there a good reason to get after the English before Ragnar?

The-Hawk · Nov 7, 2011

Cactus Pete said:
Looked at save . . . some observations and queries, not prioritized:

Still wondering about best victory condition. Both Domn and Conquest are going to take a while. Yes, wondering this myself. The wars against teams are a bit of a challenge. Of course, in this case, it was worse because the AI prepared and DOW'd on us. However, still quite a few turns to tech to UN and we don't have a GE for the UN. Also, many of the AI's are unfriendly so we will need to capture quite a bit of population anyhow. I think it would be worthwhile trying to model this a little.

Dont see why I would settle on the pink or blue dot during my set. Dont see any reason not to trade Lib for Banking. Any disagreement? Agreed.

Any way to get Zulu to like us well enough to trade map? Hard to know since they are random personalities. I suppose we could gift a tech and see if that works.
What allows you to form Defensive Pacts? Might it make sense to have one with the far pair? Not sure what this buys since we plan to do some DOWing. DOW would negate the pact.

What chance the north will declare war on us, their worst enemy? Good question. We might need to shift our attention to them soon.

Anything I should be considering regarding espionage and spies? I tried to send our spy to look at Ragnar land since I knew we'd be getting a good look at Asoka via our amphib landing. He died the first turn he moved onto Ragnar territory. We might want to send another.

Surprised to find the the NE has not been built. Is there a reason for this? Perhaps we should get it built Phily would seem best to continue to take advantage of our Philosophical trait and provide a GMerchant and/or GPs for a GA going forward. I'm not sure GP's are that critical now, unless we try for diplo victory.

What is the wkbt in Harappan for? Not ours...

Note workshops are yielding 3 hammers. Is this correct (not in Vanilla)? Guilds provide +1. This is one of the reasons I took Guilds in my trade for Optics.

Thinking Chemistry allowing frigates and added hammer from wkshops, plus possible way to MS or Steel is more valuable and more readily attainable then Rifling for cavalry. Cannons would be nice

Settling GG in Wash will yield 3-promotion experience points for new units there (but so would Theology). I'm assuming we will switch to Theo. I think the super medic would be a better option.

What is the bulb order for GEs?

Great Engineer:

Machinery
Assembly Line
Industrialism
Combustion
Metal Casting
Mining
Iron Working
Engineering
Replaceable Parts
Steam Power
Steel
Robotics
Railroad
Feudalism
Fascism
The Wheel
Plastics
Masonry
Construction
Guilds
Bronze Working
Corporation
Electricity
Animal Husbandry
Gunpowder
Priesthood
Monarchy
Code of Laws
Constitution
Agriculture
Economics
Chemistry
Fission
Genetics
Fusion
Optics
Civil Service
Nationalism
Communism
Ecology
Pottery
Calendar
Currency
Banking
Scientific Method
Physics
Medicine
Refrigeration
Computers
Divine Right
Fishing
Mathematics
Flight
Fiber Optics
Hunting
Horseback Riding
Rifling
Future Tech

Not sure we want to change any Civics right now. We have a great many GP points accumulated, so seems wasteful to abandon them. Were running GMs for gold, but they are yielding science and eventually GPs (hopefully a GM). Change of 2 Civics will cost one turn, but a third will cost two. If we do switch two initially. Which 2? Slavery and PS would be my votes. The two exp points for theo can also be had by building stables. We can let our current cities with settled GG focus on trebs/maces and build stables in the other cities with barracks for cuissiars.

Im concerned about staying in the black as we go forward, even with the gold from city capture (and, long term, the possible capture of the GLTHS). My usual approach is to use a GA and/or a trade route from a GMerchant to help stay out of debt. Thoughts on this? Good point... this might be a reason for NE in a city. GMs would be nice. We are going to start to need to conquer quickly. It might also be a reason to stay in caste... we will need the merchant income.
Thinking Ragnar after Asoka. Is there a good reason to get after the English before Ragnar?

Agreed. Only concern about the English is the one you noted above... might want to preempt a DOW.

Cactus Pete · Nov 7, 2011

Thanks, Hawk. You seem a bit ambivalent regarding staying in Caste. If we do say in, does it make sense to get out of Pacifism and Representation? This is not a clear call in my mind. Would like input from others on Civics and the rest of the above.

"What allows you to form Defensive Pacts? Might it make sense to have one with the far pair? Not sure what this buys since we plan to do some DOWing. DOW would negate the pact." Does DOWing negate pack or just not require partner to join war?

The-Hawk · Nov 7, 2011

My waffling on caste came from your comment on economy. Up until then, I was pretty sure slavery was important to avoid wasting civilians who would otherwise starve. However, your comment reminded me of what I experienced when I played. Managing financials will be a challenge. Without merchants, I think we will be red. This will require a very rapid conquest to fund our army via city capture gold. However, not sure we can manage that given the big armies we will face.

On top of that, I am not 100% convinced research is done. Two reasons. 1) We might want to go for a non-military victory. 2) The AI's are teching quicker than normal and we always get a 2 army vs. 1 dynamic with teams. Curaissiers may not cut it.

I think it would be worthwhile to spend some time thinking about our economy. I.e. how bad will it be with no merchants (an alternative is to build wealth). I'll try to take a deeper look later today.

RE: Pacts. It has been my understanding that DOW ends the pact. Wonder if anyone else knows for sure.

Cactus Pete · Nov 7, 2011

We are waffling in sinc, Hawk. Cur's against rifles would be a problem. Grens would solve it. Appreciate the feedback.

leif erikson · Nov 7, 2011

Sorry, a bit slow this morning...

Cactus Pete said:
Still wondering about best victory condition. Both Dom’n and Conquest are going to take a while.

Yes, diplo won't be much better I'm afraid. We have about 35,000 beakers worth of research to do to get to Mas Media and the UN. Vassalage is off, so it'll be difficult to align all the votes we'll need and I have no idea how that would work as teams? Would we get both members of a team voting the same way or? :hmm:

Cactus Pete said:
Don’t see why I would settle on the pink or blue dot during my set. Don’t see any reason not to trade Lib for Banking. Any disagreement?

Agree, enough maintenance coming. Still think Oz is far west? Until we know...

Cactus Pete said:
Any way to get Zulu to like us well enough to trade map?

Interesting that we have +4 trade relations with Mansa but only +2 with Shaka, so we could get that up by gifting or making trades favorable to him. Whether that will get us a map? :dunno:

Cactus Pete said:
What allows you to form Defensive Pacts? Might it make sense to have one with the far pair?

Defensive Pacts are broken when either partner declares war on someone else. They are only effective when someone declares on either party. As we plan to go to war, do not know how much sense it makes?

Cactus Pete said:
What chance the north will declare war on us, their worst enemy?

They are guarded atm. Looking at the power graph will explain why, I think. They are inferior in power, way behind in tech. With random personalities, not sure, but seems they are less inclined that some of the other civs.

Cactus Pete said:
Anything I should be considering regarding espionage and spies?

With only +4 espionage points, do not think we are in much of a position to do anything. Most of our points are with the north witches, may be able to use a spy against them at some point. Only thing I can think of is to put all our points into Gandhi's team in case we need TGWall? Can use those points to cause riots and bring down the cultural protection for a turn. :hmm:

Cactus Pete said:
Surprised to find the the NE has not been built. Is there a reason for this? Perhaps we should get it built – Phily would seem best – to continue to take advantage of our Philosophical trait and provide a GMerchant and/or GPs for a GA going forward.

Think I agree with Hawk. Could build it in Philly or Atlanta, maybe hasten a GMerchant for some gold. If there is anywhere to send him... :mischief:

Cactus Pete said:
Thinking Chemistry – allowing frigates and added hammer from wkshops, plus possible way to MS or Steel – is more valuable and more readily attainable then Rifling for cavalry.

Agree, I like Chemistry. Opens a lot of options and is on the beeline to Mass Media.

Rifling for Cavalry is fine, once we decide how to win.

Cactus Pete said:
Settling GG in Wash will yield 3-promotion experience points for new units there (but so would Theology).

Fast conquest is what we'll need, so a supermedic sounds reasonable to me. Theology and Stables should get us promo's we need?

Cactus Pete said:
Not sure we want to change any Civics right now. We have a great many GP points accumulated, so seems wasteful to abandon them. We’re running GMs for gold, but they are yielding science and eventually GPs (hopefully a GM). Change of 2 Civics will cost one turn, but a third will cost two. If we do switch two initially. Which 2?

We have 81 units, so changing out of Pacifism will help a bit, think about 40 gpt?

edit - To answer your question, think changing Pacifism to Theology and Representation to Police State makes the most sense at this point?

Cactus Pete said:
I’m concerned about staying in the black as we go forward, even with the gold from city capture (and, long term, the possible capture of the GLTHS). My usual approach is to use a GA and/or a trade route from a GMerchant to help stay out of debt. Thoughts on this?

Perhaps a research goal should be Communism for State Property, no distance maintenance. That would help keep the requirement to whip Courthouses low?

We've also built Wealth in captured cities, iirc.

GLightHouse is in Tenochtitlan, going to be a while to get there?

Cactus Pete said:
Thinking Ragnar after Asoka. Is there a good reason to get after the English before Ragnar?

Thought we discussed that there is a research penalty if one partner in the team has been mostly captured/destroyed? Once Asoka is dealt with, perhaps the next victim should be either England or Mongolia, unless we want to go for the farthest civ first?

edit -

Cactus Pete said:
We are waffling in sinc, Hawk. Cur's against rifles would be a problem. Grens would solve it.

I like Grens. :beer:

SGOTM 14 - Xteam

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