SGOTM 15 - One Short Straw

[LowtherCastle]

ZPV, what are your plans for Hatty and GIza? Memphis is going to be growth limited because of MOtherland unhappiness. I don't think we need to be concerned about the AP Victory vote.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I was able to get our deficit down to about 44gpt buiding wealth in selected cities. Don't forget to NOT finish galleys, unless we need them. That axeman about to capture Satsuma is hilarious. That's another cottage we could pillage. MInes are good to pillage too, they give 10g on average.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Galleons to the Lizzie Canal

We should be able to bring galleons to the Lizzie canal across forts to Akkad, so we can build the galleons anywhere and get them there asap.

We could pre-build a trireme near the canal that we let transform into a caravel when we get optics (does that happen automatically?) so we can explore Lizzie's coastal culture asap.

If we're lucky, maybe we'll be abe to surprise attack London and load it with enough Pikes and whatever to hold it.

Also, do we know if anyone has circumnavigated yet? Isn't that announced?

We'll need workers to build the canal forts.

 

[Mitchum]

Nice going so far, ZPV.

I was just checking our economy and things are looking bad. We'll have to build wealth and/or run merchants where it makes sense as LC said. We also need to push on through Hammy and Genghis. Genghis is going to be a pain with LBs and maces though.

Using that canal near Cherokee is going to be dicey when we drop off that first stack in her territory.. We haven't seen any of Liz' boats on it yet, so either she's not settled on the canal or there isn't a way through. Time will tell. By looking at the map on the F5 screen, which gives a nice consolidated view, it looks like we can get in due west of Cherokee. Hopefully it's a fairly short run...

Should we wait for after the AP vote before declaring on Genghis? Having that war stopped for 10 turns would really hurt. My guess is that the vote will be to return a city to Hammy again. That would be better than ending the Hammy war since we need about 4 more turns to capture both cities.

It's interesting how HC's culture is outside the donut. Do you think that all but HC and Mansa are on the donut and those two have a small island each which is reachable only via Astronomy?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Incidentally, we could re-locate Cherokee to CHerokee-2W if we wanted to. We would have to get teh culture of Herrapin up to 100, then gift Cherokee to someone and when it revolts and ask if we accept it, we decline and the city auto-razes, if I'm not mistaken. I believe I tested that early on.

That possibility may have been available before we captured the City. Now that we've owned the City, and particularly if we've owned it while having a Monument in the City from Stonehenge, does this possibility go out of the window?

Note that a Barb City will not require you to revolt a City twice... if it revolts from Culture once, it will give you the choice to keep or disband it.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Yeah, if that Axeman manages to capture Satsuma, that'll make my day as the icing on the cake of a well-played turnset.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

My guess is that the vote will be to return a city to Hammy again.

While a vote to return a City can still "go through" after you have declared war, I'm pretty sure that you have to be at Peace when the vote is proposed in order for that voting option (return a City to its "rightful" owner) will come up.

It's interesting how HC's culture is outside the donut. Do you think that all but HC and Mansa are on the donut and those two have a small island each which is reachable only via Astronomy?

It is always nice when there are overseas AIs that are teching better than you... it's like... after you've conquered your part of the world, your worldview opens up and then you face a brand new challenge.

Perhaps we'll be able to avoid having to go after them if they aren't between us and the Apostolic Palace.

Also, do we know if anyone has circumnavigated yet? Isn't that announced?

It does get announced in blue text (just like when Liberalism is first learned)... if it has happened, there will be a record of it having happened in the Event Log.


Do we want to start thinking about spreading Buddhism around?

With a limit of 3 Missionaries at a time, we can't exactly leave that task until the last minute.

That is, unless we think that Conquest will definitely be faster--which, at this point, I don't think that we're ready to make that call.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Has anyone looked at the City-Liberating code to see what sort of criteria are required in order to get a positive Diplo bonus out of returning a City to an AI player? Like, is it purely Culture-based? If yes, is it plot Culture or City Culture?

 

[Mitchum]

I think a religious victory is going to be the fastest if we can make it work. Domination would be very hard with the maintenance costs and sheet-loads of peaks and Conquest would require us to take on the nutters that we likely can't reach until after Astronomy (HC and Mansa). So, at a minimum, this is what we need to do if a Religious VC is our goal:

1. Capture the AP
2. Get a Voting Budding TM
3. Ensure all living AI have Buddhism in at least one city
4. Gain more votes than our competitor

Again my ignorance of Religious victories is showing, but I assume that the AP stays Buddhist no matter who owns it, right? If so, then:

1. We have to take on Elizabeth and capture the AP. That's clear.

2. We should pick our Voting Buddy TM soon and start trying to butter him/her up. Hatty may be a good choice since she's not running Buddhism at the moment. We could capture Satsuma from the barbs, plant Hinduism there, and gift it back to Hatty. With any luck, she'll convert to Hinduism giving us plus mods for a common religion. Then we'd have to liberate several cities to her, take them back, rinse and repeat until we have her to Friendly. We will need to test this to figure out how much it will take if we repeatedly declare, capture, liberate and how many cities to liberate each turn for maximum benefit.

3. If at the end, we get Hatty (or whoever our Voting Buddy TM is) to Friendly, we could just let her keep many of her cities so that she has Buddhism. Alternatively, we could spread Buddhism to Satsuma at some point but then she may switch out of Hinduism. Best may be to liberate just one Buddhist city and let her hang on to Hindu Satsuma.

4. Since we're not running Buddhism as our state religion, our pop only count as 1 vote while the Buddhist's pops count as 2 votes. So, as Dhoom said, we should start spreading Buddhism around to all of our big cities at a minimum. We'll have to continually "do the math" to ensure that we have enough votes including ours and our Voting Buddy's TM to win the Religious victory.

So, if we think this is the fastest route to victory, then anything we do from now on needs to support one of these four items listed above. Or are there more than four items... In any event, you get the idea.

So, in deciding to attack Genghis, is that required to get to Elizabeth? Maybe. Is that required to secure enough votes? Maybe. We have an experienced army sitting on his doorstep, so maybe it makes sense to plow on. An alternative could be to park the army in our cities and wait for the door to open to Elizabeth. I guess it all depends on how many votes Genghis has. IIRC, he would be the opponent for a Religious victory, so he must have a lot...

Regarding bulbing Astronomy, is that required to get to Elizabeth? No. Having Galleons would be nice, but not required. Is it required to get enough votes? No. We shouldn't need to take on either of the nutters to have the required votes. However, it still may make sense to get Astro for insurance purposes in case reaching the AP isn't doable in a timely manner and we want to try our hand at over-seas warfare... again.

Regarding taking on Cyrus and/or Shaka, is that required to get to Elizabeth? Maybe. Is that required to secure enough pop/votes? Maybe. I guess we can decide this once we've captured the next two Hammy cities to see if there is a route "through the donut" to get to the inner channel.

So, as soon as we have two GSs (should be in two turns IIRC) and Compass (5 or 6 turns IIRC), we need to bulb Philosophy and Optics and crank out a caravel (may be worth 5 turns of Slavery...). In parallel, we have to build forts to connect the ocean to the channel through the ex-barb cities while at the same time, expanding the barb city's culture enough to allow passage through the forts. We'll likely be doing the same thing on the West Coast as people, including Neil, like symmetry and in all likelyhood, there are at least two ways into the channel: east and west. As LC suggested, the caravel will allow us to quickly scout the channel to see if there is quick access to Elizabeth. We also need to test if a trireme will auto-upgrade to a caravel in the build queue once we know Optics. I expect it will but I'm not 100% sure.

In the mean time, we have to decide whether to attach Genghis and how far to go against Hammy, Cyrus and Shaka. We also need to select our Voting Buddy TM to start currying favor with him/her. Finally, we should start spreading Buddhism now.

Time to start poking holes...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Shouldn't we build a Lighthouse in Bombay? Or is the plan to run Merchant Specialists there at City Sizes 5 and 6?


Does Memphis really need to be working a Rice square? Wouldn't it be better to stagnate at Size 6 and hire 2 Merchants? Either that or switch the Rice to a GRiv Hamlet and grow into Unhappiness (if we think that Hatty will die soon)?


I'm not sure, but will it possibly save us a turn on completing the Forbidden Palace to whip it in Heliopolis once it becomes a 1-pop-whip?


Should Alexandria switch the GRiv Farm and PIvory to 2 Coast squares? We really need Commerce everywhere that we can get it right now, right?


It looks like we're about to build a Cottage for Pi-Ramesses--be sure that it steals this square out from under Heliopolis' nose.


Cherokee still has zero Culture... now's the time to test if we can still get the City to be disbanded. Are we able to get some Workers in there quickly to Chop its Forests for Harappan? There are two Forests at Cherokee that could go to Harappan, say, for a Theatre... but only if we Chop them within the next 2 turns while Cherokee is still in revolt and also only if we gift Cherokee before the Chops are "realised."


Either Elizabeth or Genghis will certainly accept Cherokee (or Harappan, the other Barb City right next to it)--I didn't check for other Leaders.


If we do gift Cherokee, be sure to move our Trebuchet out of the City toward the east (toward Harappan) so that our unit doesn't accidentally get teleported somewhere where it will get trapped.


EDIT: ORRRRRRRRRRRRR... maybe we want that to happen? For example, we build a Fort toward Cherokee and put a bunch of fully-loaded Galleys inside of the City... and once Harappan's Cultural Borders and Pi-Ramesses' Cultural Borders have both expanded, and once we have Pillaged the Fort, we gift away Cherokee and hope that our units get teleported to the waters to the west? Then also hope that those waters actually lead to somewhere useful? Nevermind. In trying to set up a test game, I realised that we can't move from a Fort into Cherokee with a Galley. This idea won't work.


Even vijay should probably switch to the Lake instead of a GCottage for now. Every coin pre-Forbidden-Palace will count.


Where's the army to capture Giza? I guess that we're delaying that capture, huh?


Two turns to Horse access... unless we temporarily swap a Scientist for an Artist in Thebes for a turn.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I assume that the AP stays Buddhist no matter who owns it, right?I assume that the AP stays Buddhist no matter who owns it, right?

You are correct.

We should pick our Voting Buddy TM soon and start trying to butter him/her up.

Hatty still likes everyone except for Huayna (Who we might not need to declare war upon) and Hammy. She's also going to cause us Motherland Unhappiness issues by staying alive, is "in the way" at Giza, and Liberating her Cities means giving up good Cottage Cities.

I don't think that we'll get credit for Liberating a City if we recapture Satsuma and gift it to Hatty.

Also, we are about to complete the Forbidden Palace in Hatty's old lands, so we've kind of ruled her out.



Hammy's lands aren't amazing, but they are still relatively close to our lands and we'll have time to improve them somewhat.



I'm thinking that someone a bit further away but that has plenty of Cities (i.e. Shaka or Genghis) will be a good candidate... we won't want to keep their Cities and there will be enough Cities available for a large Liberating bonus for each war (Cyrus doesn't have enough Cities to make that plan all that viable).



Continuing to spread Hinudism is a good idea, too... it's like a second Hindu Temple (+1 Happiness and +1 Culture) but that can be built by a different City... although there is the risk of failing to spread said Religion.

We do eventually want to spread Hinduism to our Voting Buddy (so that the Voting Buddy can choose us over an AI), so it'll be nice to have some Hindu Cities that are relatively close to our potential Voting Buddies.


@LC: A partially-started Trireme does not auto-upgrade to a Caravel since you can still build Triremes when Caravels are buildable. Normally, I have to build a Trireme and pay to upgrade it... it's a cheap upgrade... although we're in the unfortunate position of being unable to afford it.

In fact, we may soon need to send Warriors outside of our Cultural Borders to die due to Striking. :Crazyeye:

we have to build forts to connect the ocean to the channel through the ex-barb cities

Can someone make me a map (either a picture or a description of the terrain on the squares that you're talking about and where those squares are located relative to other Cities), because I'm not seeing how it's going to work, thanks.


As for spreading Buddhism, I would tend to spread it to our medium-sized Cities first... the ones that aren't at their Happiness caps... so that if Brothers and Sisters of the Faith creates +1 Unhappiness, we won't see a Riverside Hamlet go unworked as a result of our faith-spreading efforts.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If you gift a City that is in revolt to an AI, your units that were inside of the City will still get booted outside of the 1-square radius, as though the City weren't in revolt and as though it's Culture really did extend to the 1-square radius (or should I call it the 1.5-square radius? nahh... 1-square radius gets the point across).


Oddly enough, when I proposed the vote to stop the war between two AIs, everyone voted No, except for one of the war participants, who Defied the resolution. Whenever it's about an AI that is at war with us, every AI votes Yes to end the war. Then again, there was a vote for a different AI-AI war and at least some of the AIs voted Yes to end the war.


If we have 0 Culture in a Fake Cherokee (a test agme), we are able to disband the City using a Fake Harappan... although I had to World-Build in every Temple, Monastery, and Cathedral, as well as a bunch of other buildings, in the Pretend Harappan City and then still had to end the turn a ton of times to get the Pretend Cherokee to revolt twice.


With 1 Culture in Fake Cherokee, we could also disband the City.


With 29.5 Culture in Fake Cherokee, we could also disband the City.


It may make sense, if we're really going to try for this whole "disbanding Cherokee" tactic, to gift the City to Genghis, so that we'll be able to recapture it from him when we're ready to end the war, then gift it back to him after the war, just to ensure that he has had no chance to build any Cultural Buildings or Military Units to reduce our chances of overthrowing the City (either destroying what he has built or destroying the production that he has invested toward one of those types of build items).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

In terms of our Voting Buddy, we'll just want to make sure that he/she doesn't become our opponent in the vote... thus... getting said AI into Hinduism is probably the easiest way to accomplish this goal... at least then 1 other player would share Hinduism with them (us), meaning that they'd be less likely to switch back to Buddhism than if they were, say, running Islam as their State Religion when no one else was.

 

[Mitchum]

I just ran some WB tests and this is what I found/confirmed:

1. Every time we declare war on an AI, we get a -3 "You declared war on us!" neg mod.
2. Every time we liberate a city, which can be done multiple times with the same city, we get a +1.5 liberation plus mod.
3. If we capture the AP from the current AP Resident, on the next vote, a new vote takes place for the AP Resident. KEY: This only happens if, upon capturing the AP, the current AP Resident is no longer the the AI with the highest Buddhist pops. For example, in one test Liz (actually Mansa in the test game) still had the highest Buddhist pops so no vote was called for a new AP Resident but instead Liz called for a vote to stop a war since she was still the AP Resident even though she no longer held the AP. In another test, a different AI had the highest Buddhist pop such that Liz was no longer eligible to be the AP resident. In this second test, on the next vote it was for AP Resident.

So, we need to select a Voting Buddy TM and liberate at least 4 cities (if not more) every cycle. Then for every war-capture-peace-liberate cycle we'll gain +3 in our relationship and +6 on the final one since we won't get the -3 "You declared war on us!" neg mod.

We will have to watch out for the neg mod "You declared war on our friend!" which will get worse in the coming turns as we declare on Genghis, Cyrus, Shaka and/or Liz.

We should pick our Voting Buddy TM now based on all of these facts and the hidden modifier so that we can plan how many war-capture-peace-liberate cycles will be requied to get them to Friendly. Having our Voting Buddy TM running Buddhism actually helps us since then they get 2 votes per pop.

Regarding the AP voting cycle, either we need to own the AP when the next AP Resident vote is due or we need to make sure that we capture enough of Liz' Buddhist cities to ensure that she's no longer eligible to be AP Resident, which will force a new vote.

Regarding when the next AP Resident vote is due, there is 1 turn until the next AP vote and 3 votes until the next AP Resident election. I'm not sure how many turns this is, but in the test game there are 10 turns between votes. 3 votes until the next election implies that we'll have votes in 1 turn, 11 turns and 21 turns (3 votes) so that the next AP resident vote will be in 31 turns. Does that sound right? If so, rather than getting Liz down in Buddhist votes (if it turns out to be too hard), then we should target to own the AP in 30 turns so that we'd go up against Liz for the AP Resident vote (40% of votes required). We'd then have 10 turns from then (assuming we won the AP Resident vote), to get our votes in order for the AP Victory vote (75% of votes required).

 

[Mitchum]

FYI, the current AP votes are:

Liz      158
Shaka    118
Genghis  118
HC        90
Cyrus     82
Hammy     22
OSS       47
Mansa     13
Hatty    N/A

 

[ZPV]

Planning ahead:
For Hatty, I'll use:
the treb in Cherokee
assorted real units around the former egyptian empire, including two cats.

It's unfortunate, but I'll have to let some of Thebes's scientists become unhappy for a few turns - as soon as the war is over they can go back to work. Archers can hang around to try to alleviate this.

I'll build Wealth in places to stop us going into strike. A 40gpt deficit is one we can manage with city capture gold, etc.

I'll DoW Genghis after the vote comes up.
I'll hopefully inflict lots of damage on Hammy and secure a valuable DoP after the vote to DoP him comes up.

 

[Mitchum]

Here is a picture of the Cherokee area:

Spoiler :

As Dhoom said, unless that city is on a body of water, there is no way to sail through it using a canal of forts. So we either need to figure out how to disband this city or push on through Genghis and/or Hammy, Cyrus and Shaka to see if there is another way in.

 

[Mitchum]

@ZPV

Plan looks good. If we're planning to eliminate Hatty soon, we just have to make sure that we allow ourselves some time before the next vote to ensure that we don't enable a Religious defeat. Are we eliminating Hatty for happiness reasons or because we want her last city?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If we capture the AP from the current AP Resident, on the next vote, a new vote takes place for the AP Resident. KEY: This only happens if, upon capturing the AP, the current AP Resident is no longer the the AI with the highest Buddhist pops. For example, in one test Liz (actually Mansa in the test game) still had the highest Buddhist pops so no vote was called for a new AP Resident but instead Liz called for a vote to stop a war since she was still the AP Resident even though she no longer held the AP. In another test, a different AI had the highest Buddhist pop such that Liz was no longer eligible to be the AP resident. In this second test, on the next vote it was for AP Resident.

There are two levels of votes...
Turns until the next Voting proposal
Votes until the next Resident election

The way that I read how the Apostolic Palace works is something along the lines of: if the Resident is ousted, which apparently can only happen if the Resident was the owner of the Apostolic Palace and doesn't have the highest number of Buddhist Votes excluding the new owner of the Apostolic Palace (as per your testing), the Turns until the next vote will count down until 0, then the Votes until the next Resident election will count down to zero, and then the new Resident election will appear.

We definitely want to confirm this behaviour and basically ensure that the "Turns until the next Voting proposal" aren't reset to the full amount for each of the "Votes until the next Resident election" remaining.

Watching that F8 -> MEMBERS screen and seeing how it changes from turn-to-turn will be a vital part of the testing.

We should pick our Voting Buddy TM now based on all of these facts and the hidden modifier so that we can plan how many war-capture-peace-liberate cycles will be requied to get them to Friendly. Having our Voting Buddy TM running Buddhism actually helps us since then they get 2 votes per pop.

I'm not exactly sure how ties work, i.e. whether they are Attitude-based (Cautious, Pleased, Friendly, etc) or if they are a net-Attitude-Points-based (total of -26 and +34 = +8)... but however ties work, an AI would abstain if they think that we tie with our rival in the vote.

We'll want to test that feature, too, just to find out if we really do want the other AI to be in Hinduism.

I can't see getting said AI into Hinduism really being a bad thing, though, since we just need a total of 75% (or maybe just over that amount) of the votes (if I recall correctly) to be "on our side" of the vote, but we're not allowed to personally control 75% or more of the votes... so, if our Voting Buddy is good for 5% of the vote versus 10% of the vote, it won't really matter as long as we're able to control our population levels properly around voting time... although, having a larger margin of error (so that we don't accidentally reach or go over 75% of the votes ourselves) would be a nice safety net to have.


The other point is that if an AI is running Hinduism, they are unable to be our competitor in the Diplo Victory vote, but if they are running Buddhism, there is a chance that they may end up being our competitor, which would mean that wouldn't win the game at that point.

Regarding the AP voting cycle, either we need to own the AP when the next AP Resident vote is due or we need to make sure that we capture enough of Liz' Buddhist cities to ensure that she's no longer eligible to be AP Resident, which will force a new vote.

When does the timing matter in terms of determining whether or not Elizabeth can remain the Apostolic Palace Resident? On the turn that we capture the Apostolic Palace? On the turn of the next Voting proposal? Possibly, but unlikely, on the turn of the Voting proposal (it doesn't have to be the first one for this case) where Elizabeth drops below being an eligible Resident--I kind of doubt that this case would be the right one?


If we are somehow able to manipulate an AI into going to war with another AI (a very unlikely scenario), if one of the AIs at war is our competitor in the Diplo Victory vote, then any AI at war with our competitor will not vote for said AI... they might still abstain, but they won't vote for someone that they are at war with. Of course, the same goes for us, but we only care about buttering-up one AI.

3 votes until the next election implies that we'll have votes in 1 turn, 11 turns and 21 turns (3 votes) so that the next AP resident vote will be in 31 turns. Does that sound right?

I'm not quite sure how the "count down to zero" part works, so we should definitely confirm how it works before basing our plans off of that functionality.

Are we eliminating Hatty for happiness reasons or because we want her last city?

I think:
Primarily for extra Happiness, which is ironic in a way, since we'll first have to suffer some additional Unhappiness in order to obtain it. Still, I think that our Hatty Cities are going to be wanting to grow and some are at the point where the Motherland Unhappiness is going to get in the way of that growth being effective.
Secondarily for being able ferry units over toward Genghis by Galley; although there probably won't be too many of these, we do get the ability to gift Cherokee to an AI without worrying about blocking off our Road access toward Genghis.
Tertiarily to get her City, although it's not going to be an amazing City (Ocean-based Clams, a Corn that we're going to have to Fort, no Rivers, if I recall correctly).


I'm still of the opinion that it would be worth it to move our Treb toward Giza, gift Cherokee to Genghis, then Chop Cherokee's Forests into Harappan before Cherokee's Cultural Borders expand by coming out of revolt.


We'll also want to be sure to hide our Galleys once we declare war on Genghis... if that'll even be possible without us first owning Giza... maybe once we declare war on Hatty, we can send our Galleys to hide in Pi-Ramesses or something?

 

[ZPV]

Look up by Bulgar. That's where a possible fort-canal would be.
Hatty? Happiness reasons. We can grow these cities large if we kill her off.
We might also be able to circumnavigate via culture.