SGOTM 15 - Kakumeika

[DanF5771]

One thing we want to start doing is noting what visible diplo level leads to Cautious and Annoyed with the AIs we know. That will allow us to infer what the hidden modifier is, which will be different for each Toku. This is critical for judging what we need to do to get Pleased and/or Friendly levels.

The hidden modifiers of all Tokus towards us amount to -2 (without the unlikely underdog bonus) as mentioned earlier (-1 Toku's base attitude, -1 Emperor level), they are fixed and not subject to any randomness.

The hidden modifiers of one Toku towards another Toku are a bit random due to iPeaceWeightRand=3 for all leaders. So the actual peace weights of our Tokus are in the range 1(base) +0...2 = 1...3.

 

[mabraham]

The hidden modifiers of all Tokus towards us amount to -2 (without the unlikely underdog bonus) as mentioned earlier (-1 Toku's base attitude, -1 Emperor level), they are fixed and not subject to any randomness.

The hidden modifiers of one Toku towards another Toku are a bit random due to iPeaceWeightRand=3 for all leaders. So the actual peace weights of our Tokus are in the range 1(base) +0...2 = 1...3.

Hmm, you're right. I even checked the code. Perhaps I was extrapolating from last SGOTM, where we were up against unknown personalities. Then we needed to observe changes to infer the hidden modifiers.

 

[DanF5771]

I teched Masonry-Hunting-Wheel-BW-PH-Pottery with a view to SH+TGW+Oracle->MC. ...
The value of Hunting is that we have the NW city up to a sound size to either pump workers, TA fail gold, or units. We also have an extra prereq for AH to get the fourth through sixth city sites moving.

I also like early Hunting (after Masonry) to let NW-Deer city pump out Workers. I squeezed in BW after that and chopped some more. Got 5 Workers but Oracle only at T63, would you consider this too late?

With Hunting online (and TGW fail-gold for less commerce pressure) I'd prefer our 4th city in the spot 1NE of Deer instead of Pigs-Gems.
Helps us more to get the gift-settler-wave rolling ...

 

[shulec]

Do we have enough consensus on Masonry and settling in the NW to allow WastinTime to play on accordingly?

I am good with this.

 

[WastinTime]

I also like how early hunting sets up our cities.
The only reason I was interested in SH, was because I thought culture VC was on the table. I also wanted Mono. Now that I'm against culture win, I want TWG for the spy instead. I tried a new plan,
Early Preisthood to build Oracle w/o marble:

Hunting-masonry-ph-wheel-bronze-pottery

TGW turn 51 (in 2nd city, so guaranteed spy first)
Oracle turn 59 (1 chop, no pop loss)

I played very fast/sloppy, so there is room for improvement.

 

[WastinTime]

Here, I settle city 3 near the marble and skip bronze....

(Hunting-masonry-ph-wheel-pottery)

TGW turn 51 (in 2nd city, so guaranteed spy first)
Oracle turn 57

The Oracle can also be built in city3 instead of the capital on T62. This way we get city 4 (sheep/gold) sooner.

 

[shulec]

In my test games, I see potential problems with GPP. I was building SH and Oracle in the capital. TGW GSpy points were falling behind the GPreist points for the second GP. The first GPreist builds the holy temple, and the second goes to Theology, but this dramatically slows the appearance of our great spy.

We may have trouble with GPriest contamination all game.

What WastinTime suggests will help this. It will make it easier to get a GEngineer when we need that too.

All that being said, I still like the idea of SH. I think we need to ask the question: "Will we need Astromony and will we need SH later in the game if we don't need astronomy?" This again comes back to choosing a VC.

Edit: Cross post. The suggestion of the Oracle in the third city helps dilute the GPreist points.

 

[bcool]

Is it agreed that we are going for a Religious Diplomatic Win?

What grand strategy will we be using? (plan for great people, tech path, way we are going to spread hinduism, etc)

The answers will help us decide what we want to do in regards to wonders in this turnset and the next.

It looks like we need more tests to explore

1) SH & GW
2) SH and GW fail gold
3) GW and SH fail gold
4) GW and forget about SH fail gold?

What will the Great Spy do for us in a Religious Diplo victory game? Can we still get a great prophet to bulb theology (with a temple in the city that builds the Oracle for example?)

Do we want to get a great engineer with the pyramids and a forge? for a machinery bulb?

Can we get a great engineer without the pyramids? Will the pyramids significantly help us in other ways other than helping get a great engineer? In a religious diplo game our teching is usually pretty much done after theology and optics... So the research boost the pyramids gives by opening up representation wouldn't help us too much would it?

P.S. sorry I don't have enough time to do testing myself (I have another 2 weeks of intense pressure at work)

 

[shulec]

In a religious diplo game our teching is usually pretty much done after theology and optics... So the research boost the pyramids gives by opening up representation wouldn't help us too much would it?

I think it would be a risky idea to stop research after Theology/optics if going for a religious victory. I believe a religious victory will need much more teching for possible offensive/defensive war and heavy tech bribing.

 

[WastinTime]

So just to refresh everyone on the immediate concern. Masonry or Hunting?
I think I can play out my turnset when we have that decision. Now that I don't really care about SH, I'm voting for hunting.

 

[mabraham]

So just to refresh everyone on the immediate concern. Masonry or Hunting?
I think I can play out my turnset when we have that decision. Now that I don't really care about SH, I'm voting for hunting.

I'm not too fussed about SH for itself, but if we think T60-3 is the window we want to aim at for Oracle, then I think early SH for the border pop to marble is a better approach than the third city near marble, because it caters better to competing with Toku for the gold-sheep-corn site by settling there third. I'm worried we'll lose that site by settling it third, never mind later! The side effects of SH (border pops and GPro perhaps for Kashi) are nice but not awesome.

There is time for Hunting after Masonry after settling NW - Eiffel improves its gold to accelerate the tech, and then we improve the deer, all while building a second worker. The desire to build a second worker means it doesn't matter a great deal which improved tile we work first. The capital builds SH during this time, of course. This is what I did in my test games, and it times out well.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

So just to refresh everyone on the immediate concern. Masonry or Hunting?
I think I can play out my turnset when we have that decision. Now that I don't really care about SH, I'm voting for hunting.

I would prefer Masonry next for very early Stonehenge for the reasons mabraham mentioned above.

It would also be a good start for DanF5771's to have a high culture homeland.

Regarding RL DV, there may be potential to gain extra diplomatic points for shared war.

We could focus on Domination and RL DV and see which one yields victory sooner. I'm sure that RL DV would be best, if contact can be made with all opponents and they are either reachable or we can give them a Hindu city that is close enough to their border. Otherwise, Domination would be best; can try Great Scientist bulb of Machinery, but that requires no Fishing and other tech restrictions.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[bcool]

If masonry/hunting doesn't matter too much if we settle NW first and build a worker there then I think I would prefer masonry first and SH in the capital to grow while Eiffel improves the gold of the 2nd city as mabraham outlined above.

Unless we want the Great Wall and a Great Spy first, then use a temple and the Oracle to get a great prophet to bulb theology.

In a religious diplomatic game it seems like stonehenge and the Hindu holy city building would be more valuable than the great wall and a first great spy (unless we get a lot of Hindu spread that we don't want with it ... i.e. AI that don't like us get a significant amount of Hindu cities which would make the Hindu AP voting more difficult.

I would rather go for Religious Diplomatic all out rather than try to hedge our bets with a path that keeps early domination possible. Go for one and win it. If it becomes impossible sure, go for domination just to finish the game, but I think we can give up on a medal if we have to fall back on a victory condition.

 

[WastinTime]

So when (not if) Toku attacks, and we go after his cities, and find the walls/castle/capital. How do we deal with that? Does the Great Spy do anything for us? or do we just leave it alone until cats/trebs?

With Great Spies, it's not about the exploring, right? A regular spy does that.

...just trying to understand the role of the g.spy and how bad we want it.

 

[WastinTime]

Detailed PPP T24-29

Research Masonry

Warriors
Amundsen u-turn back to clear/protect the sheep site.
Burke scout SE to reveal more in the South. Then head north to the settling site.
Cook, will Explore NorthWest a couple turns, but keep the deer/gold area clear of barbs.

Worker
5 turns into corn-farm.
Then 1 turn Farm the Floodplain

Delhi

Work both mines, building a settler.

 

[mabraham]

So when (not if) Toku attacks, and we go after his cities, and find the walls/castle/captial. How do we deal with that? Does the Great Spy do anything for us? or do we just leave it alone until cats/trebs?

If we have infiltrated someone, missions against anyone get cheaper because our total spending is higher than theirs - the infiltration doesn't need to be directed at them. To execute the mission requires that we have directed enough EPs on the target, either natural ones or from the infiltration on them.

The classic scenario is to infiltrate Toku, send in some spies and execute city revolt missions. The mission cost likely doesn't matter because we'd expect to kill him before we run out of EPs regardless. Now we only need enough siege to give our units acceptable odds on attack when there is no culture or building defence. The gain is that the war is fast (no long sieges against city walls) and needs fewer units (to conduct those long sieges, and to counter the units that he builds during the siege) despite needing to build some spies and risk losing some. EP spending makes future spending cheaper (if any). If the AI stack is out of position, the main cities can have fallen before it even shows up - abusing the access to roads the turn or two after cities fall.

So this mechanic can be used to conduct a successful holy war as an adjunct to religious VC, without needing to tech to Construction or Eng, if that's what we judged we wanted to do. For example, mass crossbow after Machinery.

With Great Spies, it's not about the exploring, right? A regular spy does that.

...just trying to understand the role of the g.spy and how bad we want it.

A regular spy can do that, but can be caught. If we use a GSpy for scouting, he cannot be caught. Once we infiltrate, IIRC the chance of normal spies being caught is infinitesimal for a short period because of the massive ratio. (Or maybe that's the chance of being caught during an active mission... I forget. There's a post in our SGOTM14 thread where I discussed this in detail.) Eventually the AI gets sick of having a bad EP position and spends hard to catch up.

 

[mabraham]

Detailed PPP T24-29

Research Masonry

Warriors
Amundsen u-turn back to clear/protect the sheep site.
Burke scout SE to reveal more in the South. Then head north to the settling site.
Cook, will Explore NorthWest a couple turns, but keep the deer/gold area clear of barbs.

I'm not all that keen to explore the south any more. There's only one tile that could have seafood that could make us want to settle inner-ring marble-seafood with later banana access. There's a four other possible seafood sites for a BFC with marble-banana-seafood. If we get a fast SH or TGW in the capital, then that's how we're getting marble access, and I don't think we will settle the marble third even if there's a seafood in a useful tile. That ~T57 marble border pop will also get vision off those hills of the three coast tiles of the five that might have useful seafood.

I am keen to find out if we have more accessible neighbours and to see if there's stuff worth competing with settlers further NW. That means Burke relieving Cook ASAP.

I think Cook needs to move to the deer tile soon, and probably shouldn't move far from there, since that position plus the border pop gets visibility on the widest range of tiles, and visibility prevents barb unit spawn. Can a barb warrior spawn by T30? An animal we can dodge, because settling expels the animal from our culture if necessary.

Worker
5 turns into corn-farm.
Then 1 turn Farm the Floodplain

Delhi

Work both mines, building a settler.

... until corn farm finishes, of course.

Otherwise, looks good to me.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

A Great Spy has 2 movement points per turn versus Spy with only one. Also, the Great Spy is invisible to enemy units, including enemy Spies. The Great Spy can't be caught crossing borders without Open Borders in effect.S So the Great Spy can be very useful exploring in dangerous areas though he has other more beneficial things he can do such as an Infiltration, settling in a city (3B 12E), construct Scotland Yard or even start a GA.

In SGOTM-14, our 1st Great Spy was quite useful exploring. It could be the same for SGOTM-15.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I agree that we should focus on RL DV exclusively, except do so such that Domination is a viable backup victory condition that can also get us a 1st place standing. Just in case one or more Civs are proven to be out of reach of either natural, holy shrine assisted or Missionary Hindu spreading.

There is some synergy with a military approach if we can cause division between our opponents and gain shared war bonuses with our allies and capture our enemies cities; thus we pressure all cities to support our RL DV and gain diplomatically with our allies.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WastinTime]

I'm on board with no spy. SH it is. I updated the warrior moves in the PPP below.

Detailed PPP T24-29

Research Masonry

Warriors
Amundsen u-turn back to clear/protect the sheep site.
Burke, head north to the settling site.
Cook, will keep the deer/gold area clear of barbs until Burke arrives to relieve him. Possibly fortifying on the deer

Worker
corn-farm (5 turns).
Then 1 turn Farm the Floodplain

Delhi

Work both mines, building a settler.