SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[Kaitzilla]

There is one potential minor issue of timing. The PPP builds a road SE of Delhi with two worker turns. That road saves Karl one worker turn, and will maybe be useful in the short term. In the long term, the arterial road we want runs NW-SE between the two deer tiles. A road SE of Delhi is useful only pre-Construction, or if we're heading to southern city sites. If we don't get that road up, then we can put a T56 on the deer camp with Hoover, pre-chop 1S of copper T56 with Fritz, and waste T57 with Karl. This swaps the two turns on the road SE of Delhi with a turn on the camp and a wasted turn. Ideally, I'd like to find a way to get the camp complete before DeerCows settles, but the only way I can see to do this involves using Fritz after the marble quarry, and I think we'd rather he headed off T60 to get the gems mine up the turn that PigGems will settle. We can get the camp up T63 whether we do this swap or not, and all those eastern workers will be a little bit stuck for work after chopping and before AH completes, so perhaps we'd rather have our bridge-free road SE of Delhi.

Well, if we settle DeerCow on T62 and run tribalism T52, it looks like animal husbandry completes T63. That should give the three workers out east plenty to do.

Regarding a road network between the two deer tiles, I think that is something we can construct later. The road SE of Dehli will allow easy chopping of that forest later, faster settling of Banana City or Fish City, a speedier settling of DeerCow, and Marble to be completed in 2 turns instead of 3.

 

[mabraham]

Well, if we settle DeerCow on T62 and run tribalism T52, it looks like animal husbandry completes T63. That should give the three workers out east plenty to do.

OK great.

Regarding a road network between the two deer tiles, I think that is something we can construct later. The road SE of Dehli will allow easy chopping of that forest later, faster settling of Banana City or Fish City

It does these, but they're somewhat distant in time.

, a speedier settling of DeerCow, and Marble to be completed in 2 turns instead of 3.

DeerCows settled T62 needs either road SE of Delhi or chop SE of Delhi and chop of the DeerCows tile, so my suggestion is unsuitable. There was no delay to Marble - the wasted turn of Fritz moves him to help with the marble.

 

[mabraham]

We might want to revisit the grand strategy as well. I had hoped that we would do that before each turnset.

here is what I have written on the first page. I think several things have changed and/or still up for debate. I edited based on what I thought we are currently thinking.

The Grand Strategy

work in progress...

Goal Religious Leader Victory

Stonehenge early to give options for repeated city gifts later (and to help get early great prophets to build Kashi and Bulb Theology.
Assuming we need caravels to reach everyone we will take metal casting with the Oracle
Bulb Machinery with a great scientist before we research meditation and fishing after we research alphabet, mathematics, aesthetics.

Maximize fail gold on the GreatWall and the Pyramids to power research thru to machinery and beyond

Tech either currency or alphabet to allow us to build wealth/research to accelerate research to optics without any non-Theology bulbs.

Bulb Theology after we then research meditation

Bulb Optics with a great scientist after we research fishing and sailing
Analyze map via coordinates of capitol/equator to try to determine what base map the mapmaker used.
Explore the seas asap with caravels to assess what we need to do to win religiously.
Spread hinduism city gifts, missionaries, and gifted caravels (upgraded wounded triremes! to make sure the AI unloads the missionary) with a missionary in the case where we can't get open borders or random religion spreads.

Dealing with Tokugawa either
1) flip him to Hinduism and somehow keeping him there (and make a friend to trade with)
2) play a defensive war with him and bring a holy war against him for diplo benefits of all the Hindus in the world (that we happened to randomly convert with the Kashi)

Sounds good to me. The diplo problem of getting OB after an espionage flip is more acute for Toku than Hammu because of our close borders. So maybe our options are

1. EP on Toku, fight defensive war and maybe get AP peace or gift (back) a Hindu city for peace
2. EPs on Toku and kill him with a revolt on Kyoto, after perhaps milking AP holy war for diplo
3. EPs on Toku for a flip after we've managed to get him to like us enough for OB
4. EPs on Hammu as for option 3

 

[Kaitzilla]

Hmm, once we get a Great Prophet on T64, if we found Kashi we get an extra +1 priest gpp per turn. That gives us until T81 roughly to construct a library in another city and start working 2 scientists, or Dehli will naturally produce another Great Prophet first.

If we want our 2nd Great Person to be a Scientist, then we can make that happen 17 turns after we start working 2 science specialists.

Alternatively, we can run 3 priests in Dehli starting around T66 and crank out the 2nd Great Prophet in about 9 turns.

Were we aiming for Kashi? Bulbing Theo? Using a Great Scientist for Machinery?



As far as Toku goes, we have to option to start gifting resources to Hammarugawa right now I think.

Spoiler :

I know there have been times when I've gotten open borders with a Toku with +5 relations, and I vaguely recall having to get to +6 before on other occasions.

Being different religions means we start out -3 effectively. It takes 20 tech gifts to get a +1 shared your technology bonus with a Toku, so that won't work. Can't get the +2 open borders or the shared civic bonus.

To get the positive +8 diplo benefits to open borders without spy flipping requires +1 peace, +4 trade relations, +2 shared resources, +1 from liberated city/gave into a demand, and no additional negatives such as border tensions or refused demands. This might be possible with Hammarugawa, but border pressure with Tokugawa is about to come on in a big way. I think only a religion flip will bring Tokugawa onto our side in the real game, if we can also spread Hindu to his capital.



My usual advice is to just burn any Tokugawa found to the ground because he is more trouble than he is worth, but there is no citing razing even the junk cities we give him, and someone who shall remain nameless probably put a castle into his capital

 

[bcool]

Hmm, once we get a Great Prophet on T64, if we found Kashi we get an extra +1 priest gpp per turn. That gives us until T81 roughly to construct a library in another city and start working 2 scientists, or Dehli will naturally produce another Great Prophet first.

If we want our 2nd Great Person to be a Scientist, then we can make that happen 17 turns after we start working 2 science specialists.

Alternatively, we can run 3 priests in Dehli starting around T66 and crank out the 2nd Great Prophet in about 9 turns.

Were we aiming for Kashi? Bulbing Theo? Using a Great Scientist for Machinery?

The current thinking based on tests is that it is faster not to worry about bulbing anything with a great scientist. We can power through machinery and optics with fail gold and perhaps researching alphabet and/or currency to help speed the process by opening up research or wealth builds.

The bulbing paths with great scientists make the timing of theology awkward. So yes we plan to accelerate a great prophet out of Delhi to bulb Theology, but we have no plans to try and get an early great scientist.

 

[shulec]

Analyze map via coordinates of capitol/equator to try to determine what base map the mapmaker used.

I did extensive testing with this and I didn't share my conclusion. I concluded that the base map was altered after being world built. It does not fit with any maps that can be chosen. IIRC, the map coordinates matched the latitude, but not longitude of Global Highlands.

 

[mabraham]

As far as Toku goes, we have to option to start gifting resources to Hammarugawa right now I think.

Spoiler :

I know there have been times when I've gotten open borders with a Toku with +5 relations, and I vaguely recall having to get to +6 before on other occasions.

Being different religions means we start out -3 effectively. It takes 20 tech gifts to get a +1 shared your technology bonus with a Toku, so that won't work. Can't get the +2 open borders or the shared civic bonus.

To get the positive +8 diplo benefits to open borders without spy flipping requires +1 peace, +4 trade relations, +2 shared resources, +1 from liberated city/gave into a demand, and no additional negatives such as border tensions or refused demands. This might be possible with Hammarugawa, but border pressure with Tokugawa is about to come on in a big way. I think only a religion flip will bring Tokugawa onto our side in the real game, if we can also spread Hindu to his capital.

So assuming there's going to be -2 for border proximity, it's going to be nearly impossible to get Toku to net +8 for Friendly for OB, even if he gets Hinduism randomly and we flip him to it with espionage. +1 shared religion, +4 trade relations, +1 peace, +2 shared resources if we start early... still need another +2.

So we should probably gift Hammu resources on the theory that maybe we can make something happen there. Gift deer now, and some AH resource soon. It's the integral over time of the number of resources traded to him that matters - gift or trade doesn't matter. IIRC 50 for +1 and 100 for +2. Higher levels are AI dependent, and we'd have to check Toku's XML values... but he's such a pain he's probably capped at +2.

What demands might the Tokugawa personality make that we might be prepared to accept? From Hammu? From Toku?

My usual advice is to just burn any Tokugawa found to the ground because he is more trouble than he is worth, but there is no citing razing even the junk cities we give him, and someone who shall remain nameless probably put a castle into his capital

Agreed, but we have to play this game

 

[Kaitzilla]

So assuming there's going to be -2 for border proximity, it's going to be nearly impossible to get Toku to net +8 for Friendly for OB, even if he gets Hinduism randomly and we flip him to it with espionage. +1 shared religion, +4 trade relations, +1 peace, +2 shared resources if we start early... still need another +2.

So we should probably gift Hammu resources on the theory that maybe we can make something happen there. Gift deer now, and some AH resource soon. It's the integral over time of the number of resources traded to him that matters - gift or trade doesn't matter. IIRC 50 for +1 and 100 for +2. Higher levels are AI dependent, and we'd have to check Toku's XML values... but he's such a pain he's probably capped at +2.

What demands might the Tokugawa personality make that we might be prepared to accept? From Hammu? From Toku?

Hmm, I'm pretty sure Toku usually gives open borders at +5 pleased. If we flip him to Hindu that is:
+1 Peace
+4 Trade Relations
+1 Shared Religion
+2 Shared Resources
-2 Border Tensions (Worst Case)

With +6 we are guaranteed to get open borders.


Alternatively:
+1 Peace
+4 Trade Relations
+1 Shared Religion
-1 Border Tensions

With +5 we have a chance to get open borders.


It is a real pain to attempt open borders with Toku and fail, gifting techs and resources and even cities.

A demand for one of our resources would be a big deal. I think we could spare anything but stone.

 

[shulec]

I did a test:

Toku gave open borders at +5 pleased. If we flip him to Hindu that is:
+1 Peace
+4 Trade Relations
+1 Shared Religion
-1 Border Tensions

Spoiler :

Alternatively:
+1 Peace
+4 Trade Relations
+1 Shared Religion
+1 Shared resources
-2 Border Tensions

Spoiler :

Conversely, +4 is not good enough:
+1 Peace
+4 Trade Relations
+1 Shared Religion
-2 Border Tensions

Spoiler :

Note: I did see -3 Border tension was possible.

 

[mabraham]

Great, thanks for the tests and info guys.

So if we get a spontaneous Hindu spread to Toku, then a gift of a fourth (already Hindu?) city (say 2N of sheep) after suitable resource gifts/trades should set up him for a religion flip that will lead to OB, assuming +1 peace, +1 shared religion, +4 trading, +1 or +2 shared resources and -1 to -3 border tension. Accepting a resource demand would be even better. (We should check that such a city gift will probably be worth +4.) Then a missionary to Kyoto will lock him into Hinduism. Maybe another missionary for insurance.

So that's 100 "hammers" for the settler (plus maybe 40 for its missionary), 80 hammers for a spy (which we are about 90% to retain for the future), about 200 EPs for the mission (Hinduism makes the mission cheaper), and 40 hammers per missionary for the follow-up. A wartime revolt of Kyoto would also need a spy (and we'd have to have a second in position for backup) so let's forget about the spy hammers in the comparison.

Call that a worst case of 100+40+40 = 180 hammers and about 200 EPs to get Toku our friend for (likely) the rest of the game, and he will perhaps become our RL VC voting ally. I expect the city revolt mission in Kyoto to be rather more EPs (no Hinduism, further from our capital, not sure about base mission cost). 180 hammers is 5.1 axemen. I'd guess we'd need at least that many for >95% confidence of taking Kyoto defended by only two fortified protective archers.

It sounds to me like setting up Toku for a Hindu flip will be cheaper than an offensive war to capture Kyoto. So I think preparing the way with

• EPs on Toku,
• a road link towards the corn (so we don't have to rely on him getting Sailing to get the chance for spontaneous Hindu spread to Osaka) and
• resource gifts to Toku

is a good idea. The resource gifts might help avoid the DOW. A few axemen might be wise also.

We may as well gift deer to Hammu in the short term, because we'll likely have a second deer to gift to Toku when it becomes possible to gift it.

We should tend to accept a demand from Toku (but not religion flip, of course!).

 

[shulec]

Then a missionary to Kyoto will lock him into Hinduism...
to get Toku our friend for (likely) the rest of the game, and he will perhaps become our RL VC voting ally.

He will be our RL VC opponent! We need to get him to friendly while in Buddhism or some other religion or Free Religion if we want his votes. The only way we get a different opponent is to have someone else with more votes and also running Hinduism (assuming we own the AP). We will not be able to get him to FR since we are locked out of that civic per the SGOTM15 rules.

 

[DanF5771]

Yeah PPP looks really nice, Kaitzilla.

I was trying to squeeze in Animal Husbandry somewhere for earlier Sheep and to reveal Horses as we have a lot of commerce, but couldn't improve anything. Let's just hope the AI understands and complies with our TGW-timing.

 

[mabraham]

He will be our RL VC opponent! We need to get him to friendly while in Buddhism or some other religion or Free Religion if we want his votes. The only way we get a different opponent is to have someone else with more votes and also running Hinduism (assuming we own the AP). We will not be able to get him to FR since we are locked out of that civic per the SGOTM15 rules.

Good point. To get the vote option, presumably there needs to be someone else eligible to be resident, i.e. in Hinduism? So we'll probably need to get two AIs into Hinduism - one to get to Friendly and vote with us and one to vote against. I guess it's possible to get a non-Hindu to Friendly, but we'll have to wait and see...

 

[DanF5771]

The AI will go into WHEOOHRN (we have enough on own hands right now) when you move your mouse over the option for them to declare war on someone else. This indicates that the AI is preparing its own war. And in the BUG mod, a little fist appears in the lower right corner to indicate the AI has gone into this state so you don't have to check the diplo screen.

So if we see Toku preparing for war we have time (at least 5 turns) to build/whip axes in nearby cities and send them over to SheepGold.

I personally don't see the value in producing the military units necessary to take Toku's cities. His cities don't look all that great especially when we take the corn from his 2nd city. I don't see us capturing his cities, so I do like the espionage option to try and make him our friend.

Apart from AP holy war and bribery DOWs, 2 exceptions come to mind where a DOW can happen 'out of the blue' without the regular WHEOOHRN preparation period:

1. the AI is pursuing AI_STRATEGY_DAGGER and skips WHEOOHRN when starting a total war
2. the AI instant-DOWs after a rebuked demand (target needs to fulfill the isLandTarget-condition, we will do so for Toku, unlikely for others)

Luckily Kyoto is positioned at (x=6,y=6; we know thanks to Stonehenge) so that the NonsenseFactor crazyeye amounts to only 0.1 which renders AI_STRATEGY_DAGGER impossible for Toku.

There is a 25% chance for Toku to start a war immediately after we deny one of his demands. He will ask us to convert to Buddhism (should it spread to us) with a 0.2% chance per turn. We should give in to other demands unless we are prepared and favor war.

The WHEOOHRN preparation period is at least 5 turns for limited wars, it is at least 10 turns for total wars. All in all I think we are pretty safe from bad surprises.

 

[DanF5771]

Good point. To get the vote option, presumably there needs to be someone else eligible to be resident, i.e. in Hinduism? So we'll probably need to get two AIs into Hinduism - one to get to Friendly and vote with us and one to vote against. I guess it's possible to get a non-Hindu to Friendly, but we'll have to wait and see...

No, the vote for Religious Victory is possible with us as the only eligible candidate = the only player in Hinduism. And this is also the best case! If we face a Hindu Toku as an opponent, it will be quite difficult to get other Tokus (Hindu or not) to vote for us instead of the Hindu Toku due to the identical peaceweights and warmonger respect.

Also, we don't need anybody at Friendly, +8 = Pleased from one tiny AI is enough.

 

[mabraham]

No, the vote for Religious Victory is possible with us as the only eligible candidate = the only player in Hinduism. And this is also the best case! If we face a Hindu Toku as an opponent, it will be quite difficult to get other Tokus (Hindu or not) to vote for us instead of the Hindu Toku due to the identical peaceweights and warmonger respect.

Also, we don't need anybody at Friendly, +8 = Pleased from one tiny AI is enough.

Sweet. Thanks.

 

[bcool]

It will be very hard to get 2 AI in Hinduism, 1 who likes us more than they like the other Hindu.

So if we want a friendly Toku Hindu neighbor, we may very well have to kill him before the AP election.

So do we want to get Toku to pleased/friendly, get open borders, trade with him, send missionaries through him, and then kill him?

Or do we want to just kill Toku?

 

[shulec]

PPP looks good to me.

 

[bcool]

So we do need a plan to get someone to vote for us...

1) Get a Buddhist to vote for us
What is the minimum negative for heathen religion? -2?
+4 trade
+2 open borders
+1 peace
+2 resources
+city liberation?
+/- hidden modifiers
It does seem difficult to get a Buddhist to +8 especially if the non-Toku AI are all religious fanatics


2) Convert 2 AI (at least 1 has to likely be non-toku) to Hinduism (1 for our opponent and 1 to vote for us)

3) I suppose we could plan to tech to Liberalism and give it to an AI so they adopt free religion? That would make it significantly easier to get to +8. (If this is the plan we might want to make an effort to get great scientists after we get our 2nd great prophet.)

Giving Toku Liberalism might be a way to keep him friendly without killing him. (by him adopting Free Religion--which I'm not sure he would willingly do-- and we can't use espionage to switch him since we can't adopt Free Religion ourselves)

 

[bcool]

Kaitzilla I think you can pick a time to play. Everyone seems happy with the PPP (at least everyone who has gotten a chance to comment on it in the last 24 hours)

Edit: I guess you should wait at least 8 more hours since you posted the PPP about 16 hours ago.