SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[frogdude]

Checking in

Welcome to the new members, and cheers to the old crew .
I'm sorry frogdude is not participating, but I guess he'll chime in at some point to at least check on how we are doing.

Looking forward to start this up.

I will be lurking and providing moral support.

 

[shulec]

I think we need to give strong consideration to sending our warrior north east. The purpose if this would be to try to stumble on an AI with workers to steal.

We need to watch extremely closely for a scout that may come in and out of the fog. I want to know where the AI are coming from so we can find them quickly.

Unfortunately, a settler first approach really delays our scouting if we send our warrior off looking for workers. We cannot safely use our settler to explore by using only one move of two because we may run into a wolf or panther.

I fear that if we don't steal a worker right away, it will be too dangerous. After turn 14 we may quickly be everyone's worst enemy and primed for dogpile bribe if we declare on a Buddhist. We will likely be attacking someone that is friendly with a few of our worst enemies. In STW's test game, this got me three AI's declaring on me.

p.s. Glad to hear you'll be around from time to time frogdude!

 

[shulec]

Big picture religion situation. We will likely found Christianity first. If the quirk with meditation is in the real game too, that would be even better. We want the AI to found as many religions as possible and hope they will convert out of Buddhism into that religion. This of course depends upon them all starting with Buddhism.

 

[Walter_Wolf]

Nice to hear that frogdude, welcome aboard.

I have an offtopic if you don't mind sorry.

I asked this in the newbie questions thread, but still no answer. I know I'll get one here .

A quick one:

Do pike (mountain) tiles count as "land" towards domination?

Thanks in advance

I need it for one of my games I currently play.

Thanks

 

[neilmeister]

Yes, mountains count the same as any other land towards a domination.

 

[Manco Capac]

Big picture religion situation. We will likely found Christianity first. If the quirk with meditation is in the real game too, that would be even better.

Talking about Christianity, something came up in my mind; I think we should put a rule in regards to Theology (yes, it is a bit early to think about it and it doesn't have any link to the Meditation quirk) and the AP.
I think we have to stop the AI from building AP under Buddism; the consequences would be disastrous, putting us more likely under real AW conditions or worse. Even with the kind of thinking we gun for the AP and raze the city along with it, this may end up impossible and too far away.

I think we should keep in mind the AP as own, built by our own men.

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Hiya frogdude. Wish us luck.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I think we should keep in mind the AP as own, built by our own men.

Agreed. Whether or not we attempt a RL DV, we should prioritize Theology and build The Apostolic Palace.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[mabraham]

Agreed. Whether or not we attempt a RL DV, we should prioritize Theology and build The Apostolic Palace.

Sun Tzu Wu

Yeah, agreed. Does that suggest arranging for a GPro (presumably after a GSci) to bulb Theo?

If early war is likely to be problematic against a likely all-Buddhist coalition, then planning for a suitable combination of settler and wonder spam seems wise. If so, we probably want to consider Stonehenge and/or Oracle fairly early for the GProphet points.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

This one gets the demographics much closer to the real game by juggling the technologies that provide Soldiers such as Hunting (2000), Mining (2000), The Wheel (4000) and Archery (6000). Actually, all AIs have Archery, since the AI would be crippled for a while as it researched it. The test game was still 4000 Soldiers short across the board, but simply added a Chariot (4000) to all AIs, even though none have Animal Husbandry and one lacks The Wheel. Adding an Archer would have added 3000 rather than 4000. Adding a Skirmisher would have added the necessary 4000, but an extra Skirmisher for each AI makes even less sense than an extra Chariot. At least I got the Strength 4 unit in. I wonder whether the chariots will cause Barbarian Spearmen generation?

Next version will include one AI with Mali Empire for the strength 4 units. I'll probably add 2 Archers = 2 * 3000 = 6000 and remove Mining (2000) or net -2000 technologies to make the Soldiers match. Could be a Barracks in each capital and one extra Archer too rather than two extra Soldiers.

It also crossed my mind that each AI retained its Settler for the second city. Four Archers per AI would make sense, two per city to defend.

It should be clear from the Population demographics that each AI has exactly one settled city of 1 Pop to provide a Population value of 1000. Since, F7 Religion window shows Buddhism founded 4000 BC with 100% influence, we know that every city must have Buddhism. When we found our city, Buddhism's influence should drop to 90%, since nine of ten cities would then have it.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php

Please provide any comments about the test game.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Yeah, agreed. Does that suggest arranging for a GPro (presumably after a GSci) to bulb Theo?

If early war is likely to be problematic against a likely all-Buddhist coalition, then planning for a suitable combination of settler and wonder spam seems wise. If so, we probably want to consider Stonehenge and/or Oracle fairly early for the GProphet points.

A Great Prophet bulbing Theology would be possible, but we would have to trade for Meditation before bulbing, since Meditation has a higher bulbing priority for a GP than Theology. I'd prefer an early Great Spy from The Great Wall. Oracling Theology directly is another option.

It may be possible to start a Holy War that results in a rather early RL DV, but we'd have to make contact with all AIs first, convert most of them to Hinduism and ensure we can get a Caravel to them with a Hindu Missionary or two and several Spies to ensure conversion at the proper points in time.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[mabraham]

A Great Prophet bulbing Theology would be possible, but we would have to trade for Meditation before bulbing, since Meditation has a higher bulbing priority for a GP than Theology. I'd prefer an early Great Spy from The Great Wall. Oracling Theology directly is another option.

I'm skeptical about the Great Spy value. Infiltrating the pair of AIs for stealing techs might be useful - if we get to meet them. Gifting them a small fourth city to make missions cheap is an option if the circumstances occur. However no tech brokering and aggressive AI suggest slower-than-normal tech rate, which is not ideal for TGW.

It may be possible to start a Holy War that results in a rather early RL DV, but we'd have to make contact with all AIs first, convert most of them to Hinduism and ensure we can get a Caravel to them with a Hindu Missionary or two and several Spies to ensure conversion at the proper points in time.

Sun Tzu Wu

We'll have to wait and see, of course.

 

[shulec]

I think we have to stop the AI from building AP under Buddism; the consequences would be disastrous, putting us more likely under real AW conditions or worse. Even with the kind of thinking we gun for the AP and raze the city along with it, this may end up impossible and too far away.

There is a high likelihood that Buddhism will spread to one of our cities via autospread or AI missionaries. I think the AP holy war is less likely because of this. I can't think of any reason to try to avoid getting buddhism either.

Reminder Tachy, no city razing.

 

[bcool]

I'm skeptical about the Great Spy value. Infiltrating the pair of AIs for stealing techs might be useful - if we get to meet them. Gifting them a small fourth city to make missions cheap is an option if the circumstances occur. However no tech brokering and aggressive AI suggest slower-than-normal tech rate, which is not ideal for TGW.

Actually with one team of AI with the Buddhist holy city building giving them 9 gold/turn from the start, and all the other AI loving them and trading them techs they research, the team AI might tech like monsters

Also a city gift is a way to get a perhaps critical +4 relations boost early on, not to mention the espionage benefits.

Plus with likely war declarations on us, the great wall might help out with GG points in a significant way if we kill a few stacks in our borders.

 

[Manco Capac]

Reminder Tachy, no city razing.

Even worse!

Anyways, my other point about building the AP was we won't have any vote power or balance given we have to be Hindu the whole game.

 

[bcool]

So possible grand strategies

Go for a religious diplomatic victory
Expand, build the great wall, Oracle theology, spread hinduism to select AI, build the AP, declare a holy war against Buddhist AI target, rack up diplo points from shared war, use espionage to convert a few AI to hinduism get them to like us even more, wipe out Holy war target, spread hinduism to any remaining AI (possibly need optics), and win.

Go for military victory
Expand, build great wall?, Oracle Construction?, avoid teching meditation, civil service, theology, sailing, fishing, bulb machinery and engineering with 2 great scientists, conquer the world with crossbows and trebs, fend off combined might of buddhist coalition by converting select AI to hinduism via espionage, cripple AI target by taking key cities and possibly creative city gifting peace deals, expand until ready to finish off crippled AI, win via domination.

issues can't tech theology until we bulb machinery and engineering (and self tech/trade/steal writing, math, wheel, alphabet, aesthetics, iron working, metal casting), and so the risk of a Buddhist AP is a real one.

 

[DanF5771]

Okay, found the time to create the Highlands-Test-Game.

@Sun Tzu Wu:
I reckon you chose the Global Highlands Mapscript ... this creates a huge map (104x64 though 'Standard' in size). As mentioned above, the real map is probably smaller.

Nice tweaking of the AI powers, but I'm afraid the Chariots (with UNITAI_ATTACK) might be of too offensive nature (one AI even has a 5 unit).
Therefore I like your idea to add Skirmishers better and added them in my save. They will merely defend cities and protect them against choking Warriors.
BTW there is some code (CvUnitAI::AI_poach()) which would let Attack-Units of the AI steal workers with AggAI on, but as far as I can see it never gets called ...

The problem with the random religion getting automatically founded after turn 5 (the isReligionSlotTaken for Buddhism remains false when adding Meditation in WB) can be avoided by using the Python command: gc.getTeam(1).setHasTech(1,true,1,true,true). I expect this is the way Neil has done it.

There is a high likelihood that Buddhism will spread to one of our cities via autospread or AI missionaries. I think the AP holy war is less likely because of this.

Sure? I suspect the likelihood of Buddhism spreading to our lands is rather small. The AI won't send Missionaries, because we will likely have closed borders as everybody's Worst Enemy. Depending on where the Mahabodhi is located on the map, the chance for auto spread might also be near or equal to zero early on. And the Shrine-AI will pop lots of GPs, which means we could face a very early Theo-Bulb + Buddhist AP. Best way to get Buddhism into our lands is to conquer a city.

 

[shulec]

Sure? I suspect the likelihood of Buddhism spreading to our lands is rather small. The AI won't send Missionaries, because we will likely have closed borders as everybody's Worst Enemy. Depending on where the Mahabodhi is located on the map, the chance for auto spread might also be near or equal to zero early on. And the Shrine-AI will pop lots of GPs, which means we could face a very early Theo-Bulb + Buddhist AP. Best way to get Buddhism into our lands is to conquer a city.

We should be able to get open borders with some of the AI before they hate us too much. Granted these will likely be more distant AI that haven't had time to hate us that much. Therefore they will be less likely to spread their religion such a distance. Perhaps we need to put writing high up on our tech lists to try to get OB for diplo benefits.

 

[DanF5771]

Yeah, let's see what our neighbours will be like and how much we'll have to invest to get them to CAUTIOUS (gift resources, cities, money, techs, adopt fav civic).
Additionally challenging: Denial due to Worst Enemy overrides the leaders' individual thresholds, e.g. Justinian would open borders at ANNOYED, but only if he had some-one else as Worst Enemy.

It's interesting to see the differences in the incremental portions of the attitude changes for same and different religion:
As a heathen you can 'accumulate' just -1 after 5 turns, whereas as a brother in faith you can go up to +7 (Asoka, Zara) after 70 turns.

Therefore meeting our zealot neighbours early or late in the game isn't that important.
We'll likely drop from a -2 to -3 after said 5 turns for false faith, with the founder of Buddhism giving us an additional -1 on top.

 

[bcool]

We need more feedback on where to move the warrior and settler.

There seems to be a consensus that we want to move the settler to the stone although there might still be some disagreement there. Please speak up if you still object to moving the settler to the stone.

Also I like moving the warrior to the Marble now for these reasons

I'm not sure we have enough information to commit to building a settler first.
Moving the warrior to the Marble will reveal if it might be worth settling on the marble with a settler that we build first. If the Marble site isn't that great then maybe we don't want a settler first. So while it might be a slight waste of the warriors scouting to go explore the marble and have to come back. I think it will help us make a critical decision.

You could have the warrior do a small loop to the south to minimize backtracking. So it goes on the marble then goes in a SW direction, then S, then SE, then E, then NE, then N, then NW to return to the marble area for settler protection if we decide to go that way.

Of course this isn't ideal if we are on the southern edge of the world as the DanF and others have suggested from their observations.

Also having the warrior wander a bit away from the capital rather than around the capital might let us explore a worker stealing opportunity that shulec suggest we need to do early if we don't want to be dogpiled by the buddhist coalition. (but south isn't a great direction to find the other AI...)

 

[bcool]

If we think settling on the Marble with a settler is great no matter what else we might find around it, then mabraham's plan of scouting SE and then looping around to the south of the marble is fine with me.

But it remains unclear what is best, so for now Walter_Wolf should wait for more feedback.