SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

kcd_swede · Apr 30, 2012

We should also keep track of the member votes, to know if someone is self-spreading Hindu (this is one risk of infecting before ready to get votes).

t174
US 196 votes
Shaka 11 votes
Toku 6 votes

total votes=213 75% mark is about 154votes.

ChrisShaffer · Apr 30, 2012

kcd's mini turnset gets a green from me. Good analysis.

Trystero · Apr 30, 2012

I am in agreeement with kcd's mini-turnset to get OB and sell a tech for peace with Hammy to buy us some time.

If we are going to go on the offensive, perhaps we should tech Engineering next. We will need trebs to deal with Hammy's longbows.

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

Thanks very much for laying out the AP options, kcd! :goodjob:

And I hope you're right about Liz not taking Agra, DH. I think close-borders annoyance requires about 8 overlapping tiles, so we should be OK for awhile. Cyrus and Genghi being willing to have OBs must be new--I've been checking their techs and offers for our map every turn. Nice that the common war with Hatty is starting to pay off, although I wish she'd take Lahore! I've been starving Tokyo (running mer's) to make it less useful to her, but since she's dillydallying so much I guess I should feed it again, since it looks like we might be keeping it for quite awhile.

Since we'll be able to have OB with Cyrus and Genghis, does that change the calculation on what to put on our caravels? One of our spies has reached Genghis's eastern shore so I'd vote for an Hmiss on our first caravel. If not, I'll need to chop out a spy in Calcutta or else we'll delay the caravel setting sail.

We have 2 Hmiss's next to Kago, so the odds are indeed very good that Liz will be infected next turn.

I'd like to try to hold Vijay. A substantial fraction of its units are of more use defending (fortified in a city) than on the offensive, and they'll at least take some of Hammy's units with them. We have a decent reinforcement stack nearby. And being able to invoke kcd's Option 2 (get all members at war with Babylon) would be sweet.

Plan:

Send Kyoto GG toward Vijay for possible use as Warlord (archer-->Xbow with Drill).
Withdraw supermedic scout and settler from Vijay if there's any danger of death (not necessary this turn).
Save up gold and upgrade an archer if necessary.
Sell map for whatever gold we can get.
Immediately get OB with Cyrus and Genghis.
Continue shifting spare units up north.
Plan to put Hmiss on first caravel.
Hit return. See what Hammy does. Infect Kago with Hinduism (2 miss's available). Stop and report.

I'll try to play that one turn as soon as I get home so we can decide what to do next. In the interest of keeping things moving along and to give you something to discuss in advance, my plan would be to try to hold Vijay (unless things go badly), build 2 caravels with Hmiss's, and continue our military build up to punish Hammy. How far should I play? Up to the AP vote, stopping so we can agree on what Resolution to propose? Or can we choose one in advance, with a decision tree? E.g., if we still own Vijay then propose holy war against the infidel; if we've lost Vijay, propose it be returned to us (although I'd still prefer to do the holy war resolution), etc..

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

Xposted with Trys above. Right, peace or continued war will have to be decided. We can decide now, or (I think) it can be safely delayed until the next turn. Hammy's cats will either reduce (by about half) our defenses and the rest of his units will attack our full-strength fortified units, or he'll bombard for one turn but not do the main attack, or he'll attack with cats to soften us up and then do the main attack with our cultural defenses still in place. Whichever he does, we'll have no losses or very likely give as well as we get, so I'd rather wait a turn to decide unless there's a strong sense that we should offer peace right away.

And yes, choosing the next tech would be a good idea! :hammer2:

We're close to finishing Feudalism but all it gives us is longbowmen (and it's along the path to Banking). Engineering, with trebs and pikes and extra road movement, would be very useful. It'll take quite a few turns to get, though--don't have the save open so not sure how long but I'm guessing 1000 base beakers times 1.56 game factor divided by 1.4 prereq factor = 1115 beakers. I think we're making around 175 bpt at breakeven so that's 6 or 7 turns. Longer if we spend gold on unit upgrades. Eh, pretty good. So I'd drop Feud and go for Eng. But save up gold for the next turn regardless.

Edit: How would you feel about sticking a worker next to Lahore in the hope that Hatty will capture him and then say "Hey, maybe I'll take this empty city as long as I've got a unit over here?"

Edit2: Delaying Fedualism while we get Engineering would also mean we could continue to make archers for cheap garrisons--could be useful if WW builds up, as it well might. And pikes would be very handy against the WEs that several AIs have. Some AI also have knights. Yes, Engineering looks very good right now.

kcd_swede · Apr 30, 2012

Well, if I was going to actually try and hold VJ, I think I'd wipe out those cats next to the city. He only has one other seige, and it could be a while before he attacks in that case.

I'd still put a spy on the first or second caravel. The reason is that I think the map is so designed that there is only one way in to some places. I think DH is right that Liz's units came by galley with OB through Byblos. I suspect the ONLY way to get to Liz is via Byblos. Having her hold hindu Kago would in that case be a godsend.

I'm thinking that the land route to GK and Cyrus might be the ONLY route. Of course, putting a HMiss on a caravel is a good hedge, because predicting Neil's map is an impossible task.

I thought we were going banking now. I guess we need guilds, and for that feudalism. But a detour for Engr is acceptable, though I'm not really sure what its going to give us. Trebs for the later Babylon smack-down? 3-movement on roads? Pikes for war-elephants? All can be good, but I don't have the game open and can't remember why this looks like a worthwhile detour.

Whatever... since we're getting OB without Merc it might not be best to aim for banking ASAP anyhow.

Don't sacrifice a worker... Hatty will eventually talk to us for peace and take a city as booty, even if she doesn't have the sense to take an empty city when its there.

Good luck!

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

kcd_swede said:
Well, if I was going to actually try and hold VJ, I think I'd wipe out those cats next to the city. He only has one other siege, and it could be a while before he attacks in that case.

Er, um, did I miss something? :confused:

Are you saying he has another stack (not on the wheat) with more units? (gulp) If you're talking about the stack of 3 cats, a sword, and a spear that were there when you last played, I killed them my first turn. If you're saying we should destroy the cats in his stack on the wheat, well, we'd need to wipe out the whole stack, right? And that just ain't gonna happen.

I'd still put a spy on the first or second caravel. The reason is that I think the map is so designed that there is only one way in to some places.

OK, spy on the first caravel. But Hmiss on the next.

I thought we were going banking now. I guess we need guilds, and for that feudalism. But a detour for Engr is acceptable, though I'm not really sure what its going to give us. Trebs for the later Babylon smack-down? 3-movement on roads? Pikes for war-elephants? All can be good, but I don't have the game open and can't remember why this looks like a worthwhile detour.

I suppose that cats, if we build a LOT of them, would be adequate against maces, Lbows, and WEs. But the extra road movement would let our spies cover 50% more territory. And we'd really like to take Babylon, which will be a tough nut to crack without trebs. And if we don't take Babylon, then we'll need defensive units to hold our north; pikes would really help against WEs and knights. The path to Banking offers us no new unit types--I'd be much happier if we had some new toys in our arsenal.

Don't sacrifice a worker... Hatty will eventually talk to us for peace and take a city as booty, even if she doesn't have the sense to take an empty city when its there!

OK. But maybe I'll let an archer wander into Egyptian territory by mistake, and accidentally pillage as he looks for truffles. If Hatty doesn't care about her frontier, we might as well take advantage of it.

So... still waiting for other comments. ~~Could someone open the save and see if Hammy has more than the big stack on the wheat, and one treb behind? If there are more units by Vijay I would reconsider my suggestion to hold and fight.~~

vra379971 · Apr 30, 2012

Xcalibrator said:
Er, um, did I miss something? Are you saying he has another stack (not on the wheat) with more units? (gulp) If you're talking about the stack of 3 cats, a sword, and a spear that were there when you last played, I killed them my first turn. If you're saying we should destroy the cats in his stack on the wheat, well, we'd need to wipe out the whole stack, right? And that just ain't gonna happen.

OK, spy on the first caravel. But Hmiss on the next.

I suppose that cats, if we build a LOT of them, would be adequate against maces, Lbows, and WEs. But the extra road movement would let our spies cover 50% more territory. And we'd really like to take Babylon, which will be a tough nut to crack without trebs. And if we don't take Babylon, then we'll need defensive units to hold our north; pikes would really help against WEs and knights. The path to Banking offers us no new unit types--I'd be much happier if we had some new toys in our arsenal.

OK. But maybe I'll let an archer wander into Egyptian territory by mistake, and accidentally pillage as he looks for truffles. If Hatty doesn't care about her frontier, we might as well take advantage of it.

So... still waiting for other comments. Could someone open the save and see if Hammy has more than the big stack on the wheat, and one treb behind? If there are more units by Vijay I would reconsider my suggestion to hold and fight.

I'd ditch banking for now, and try to get a GP up to bulb DR if we can to cover the lost revenue. Maybe look to adopting Pacifism soon to the temp GP rate boost.

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

vra379971 said:
I'd ditch banking for now, and try to get a GP up to bulb DR if we can to cover the lost revenue. Maybe look to adopting Pacifism soon to the temp GP rate boost.

Ain't got no Philosophy for Pacifism yet. Bolly is running 2 priests to try to get a Prophet but I think we're roughly a dozen turns from the next GP. Are you OK with waiting for a turn before deciding what to do about Hammy, or would you try to get peace now?

kcd_swede · Apr 30, 2012

I can wait for peace with Hammy. I forgot you killed the cats already. :blush:

Short-term memory is the first to go. :old:

If you can hold VJ, that's great. 5 (6 actually, since the resolutions don't take effect until the votes are counted) turns is enough. Lets hope he spends a long time knocking down cultural defenses. Care with the medic... everything else we can replace easy enough.

From a religious VC standpoint, it shouldn't make much difference what happens at VJ... but ya never know. Engr is OK by me. Like I said, Merc will be needed for the final vote, but before that we can get OB with common wars. Nice that Toku likes war, eh?

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

Played 1 turn. Got OB with Genghis and Cyrus. Sold map to various people for 115 gold, enough to upgrade a CG1 archer in Vijay to an Xbow. I also trade our marble to Cyrus for 7 gpt. (And yes, those OBs only became available at the beginning of this turn. Sorry I missed the announcement, and glad kcd caught it.)

Liz is running Theocracy, so we can not infect Kago. I gifted one of the missionaries to her and she sent it off toward the homeland. I have another miss which we can gift this turn--shall I?

Hatty now has 2 units next to Lahore. Liz has a knigh and mace in Drona--she can reach undefended Agra next turn--nothing we can do about it.

Hammy has bombarbed Vijay from 47 to 29% and added the treb to his stack, but no new units in sight. We will add 2Xbows, 1cat, and 1 spear next turn. A mace, Xbow, and archer arrive in 2 turns. We have just enough gold to upgrade one more Vijay archer this turn but I don't think we need to.

We can research Engineering in 6 more turns at breakeven. Our first caravel will be finished in 2 turns.

Whatcha wanna do now? Save uploaded momentarily.

Spoiler Upload log :

Xcalibrator · Apr 30, 2012

Since a major question is still unresolved--whether or not Liz is infected with Hinduism--and I'm not very worried about Vijay, I'm continuing to see if Liz takes Agra, which will give her Hinduism. To avoid spreading Hinduism too far, I have not gifted another missionary. AP vote in 4 turns. We are down to being WE of only Hatty and Hammy. Just realized why we're hurting a bit on health--lost Agra's fish. Hit return.

T176--Liz captures Agra; Toku is dead, Liz has Hinduism. She also starts a Golden Age. Hatty captures Lahore (finally). Hammy bombards Vijay but does not attack. We now have plenty of units in Vijay. I say "Let them come!"

T177--Hammy gets a GG. Our spy in Persia was caught.

We are again the WE of Liz since she no longer has Toku to hate. In Vijay we lose 5 cats, Xbow, mace, sword, 2 archers. Hammy loses 3 cats and an Xbow.

But we have enough units to hold for a second attack and we'll heal a lot faster than he--I will let him attack again and then kill them all! Varanasi's caravel departs with a spy. We can now see what I assume are Hatty's borders off to the west. Liz now has genadiers! :eek:

There's one in Agra (upgraded from mace) even though it doesn't show in the Strategic Advantages page. AP vote in 2 turns.

Um, having a knight and grenadier, and a knight and WE in two nearby cities belong to an AI who considers us her worst enemy makes me very nervous. I am stopping here. Think we need to build some units to defend Osaka, Drona, and Bolly right now. :eek:

Yes I do. Save uploaded.

Spoiler Upload log--lots of combat :

SteelHorse · Apr 30, 2012

Suggest getting Feudalism and switching to Slavery for getting some on-demand LBs. This would help in both VJ as well as if Liz turns on us. I think this is more important at the moment that the trebs and pikes from Eng. Would we see Liz go into WHEOOHRN before DoWing US?

Are we concerned that cultural pressure could cause the two cities that Liz has to flip? If so, is that good or bad?

Deckhand · Apr 30, 2012

SteelHorse said:
Are we concerned that cultural pressure could cause the two cities that Liz has to flip? If so, is that good or bad?

If she uses the missionary she moved north to convert one of her cities, then it is good. That is unlikely if she is only accessible by boat.
I was concerned about Kago flipping. Agro seems less likely.
Could we gift it back, since she will have culture there? Certainly not our immediate problem.

Trystero · Apr 30, 2012

SteelHorse said:
Suggest getting Feudalism and switching to Slavery for getting some on-demand LBs. This would help in both VJ as well as if Liz turns on us. I think this is more important at the moment that the trebs and pikes from Eng. Would we see Liz go into WHEOOHRN before DoWing US?

Are we concerned that cultural pressure could cause the two cities that Liz has to flip? If so, is that good or bad?

We knew Liz had a huge tech lead before we OB and let her take Toku's cities (OK we really just wanted her to take one...). No sense in worrying about it now.

She is not WHEEORN, and everyone else has gone WHEOORN before the DoW, so we should be OK, for now. Remember that these are all Toku, so I presume they should all behave somewhat in the same manner.

I think we should continue towards Engineering to attack Hammy, but going for LBs might be the safer move.

Xcalibrator said:
We can now see what I assume are Hatty's borders off to the west.

That border looks more brownish-yellow to me. Maybe Mali?

kcd_swede · May 1, 2012

Without another full member, the AP resolutions available become rather limited.

Everyone DOW Hammy option is gone. poof! :lol:

If Liz does DOW us, we can stop the war.
We should get a resolution to return Agra to its rightful owner. Might want to wait for her to use that Miss first. :rolleyes:

I'll have a look at the save and see if I get any inspiration.

Good job at VJ, Xcal :goodjob:

kcd_swede · May 1, 2012

Are we worried about war with Liz now? No WHEOOH yet, but since its another Toku, you can bet it will come eventually.

AP vote in 2 turns.

We should get the option to "end the (Hatty)war against US" which would give us 10t peace with all members (Shaka, Hatty, Liz). Could be useful. Note, resolution "end war against Hatty" would only stop our war and give us (and Liz, +Shaka) 10t peace with Hatty. GK + Cyrus are unaffected.

Another resolution that should be active is "assign city to rightful owner", though I suspect it will only refer to Agra and Lahore, which we want them to keep, at least until they have Hindu somewheres else.

We could also get an option to stop trading with infidels, though as the only full member it means we could only have embargo against the infidels WE are trading with. Only useful if we are going to make a new whipping boy out of GK or Cyrus, which doesn't sound like a stellar idea atm.

Which brings us to the topic of "New whipping boy".
...or in this case, girl. :mischief:

If GK has enough success, Hatty could end up a full member. We could help that along with capture/infect strategies... but really, just staying at war with her for now is giving us +diplo with 2AI.

Of course, any other AI-AI war we see is a good way to get some diplo by choosing a side.

Now, I feel bad that we didn't plan adequately for getting Liz to take Kago without letting her get Agra too. I thought closing borders with Liz would do it, but did not think about the 10t trade-cancel rule, nor was I sure that our borders would protect Toku. No OB with Toku meant we couldn't gift him units. I didn't foresee any of this, but next time we'll be more thoughtful and careful. Really what we should have done is time the taking of Kago with the AP vote cycle so we could get the war on Hammy or peace on Toku. Live and learn. :blush:

As it stands, its not so big deal... its a missed opportunity but there will be others. Can't win until we infect everyone anyhow. That gifted HMiss should pay off, (gift another just in case?) and then we can flip Kago+Agra back to us (or even reassign via AP). For this purpose we need to watch closely for notification of Hindu spread - not sure we get notice if its in a city we can't see, so also keep track of Liz's AP votes. She has 2 votes now... if her vote count ever exceeds the visible pop in her Hindu city, we'll know she has another city and can get back Agra. Liz is unlikely to DOW us if she doesn't share borders (though she did dow Toku under those circumstances, she was perhaps bribed by Hatty). So getting back those two cities after she infects herself would be good for us.

So... what to do with the coming turns? Do we get forced peace with Liz/Shaka/Hatty and buy some time to smack/infect Babylon? (And thereby lose the +diplo and probably the OB with Cyrus/GK). Or do we keep a phony war down there? Keep troop concentration in Kyoto so Hatty can't get the choke point, and to support in case of a dow by Liz? Note, if Liz goes into WHEEOO, we could do the forced peace later (assuming we let the war with Hatty continue to smolder). I think the latter is probably most advantageous since Hatty's troops are north, for the most part.

So I think we choose "no resolution" on this cycle, unless we get the chance to assign Kago to us, which we should do. Agra could flipp back to us fairly soon, so I hope that British HMiss is successful.

Carvel should meet Hyuanagawa soon (guessing from the dark yelow color), and that will give us contact with the last two teamed AI. Then they need to find accessible coastlines if there are any. Cyrus and GK first since we have OB there.

Go all out and crush Babylon. Use the whip judiciously. Kill, kill, kill'em all! :ar15:

Our power now is 0.9 that of Babylon, which says to me that once that stack is dead he should be weak enough to steamroll. Since we'll be on the offensive, I think Engr first is preferred over Feud. Liz/Hatty not immediate enough danger to go to LB's for defense right now. But slavery is good.

Great Person in 5t: 64% GPro - bulb DR and do the SpMin
23%GSci - use both GSci to bulb Edu.
13% GM - Save for trade mission when/iff we find coast access to Cryus/GK or otherwise have safe passage + OB somewhere decent. Or do a Golden Age?
Edit: oops... OB not needed for trade mission says you guys, so if we get a GM and we have coastal access to the dark yellow, send him there on a caravel. However, lack of AI ships except Babylon makes me tend to think there is no coastal access.

Dat's my assessment of the situation.

kcd_swede · May 1, 2012

Agra being Liz's could be a frickin goldmine for us. Look at the espi screen! Stealing a tech from Agra costs 210 EP!!! That's practically FREE!!!

And a successful spy can get back on the job very quickly.

You want ENGR and FEUD and everything else FAST as possible? We can make 127EP per turn sustainable. A 5t parked spy would cost 105 EP, more for more expensive tech but still practically FREE!!!!

Put EP slider on 40% with everything on Liz, and you can have Engr in 2 or 3 turns, and Feud in the same. Still making 14gpt. Lets not tech anything ourselves that we can get for free from Liz. :woohoo:

Man... its almost like we planned it this way. :lol:

...and when we drain her, we could convert her to Hinduism before any AP vote, making her a full member... making war on Babs with Shaka, Liz, Hatty a no-brainer! Maybe that should come before we even steal the tech. Hmmm... can we get a spy there and 180EP before the vote??? That would do it! War with Babs by all Hindu... I love it!!!! Sneaky, devious, evil, oh man... and when she's hindu, that will get us off her WE list (at least until she inevitable converts back in 5t).

Darn... we can get the 180EP for religion-switching easily by then, but we can't get a stationary spy in Agra in time for the vote. Plan to have that ready 7t from now and switch her just before the next vote, keep the war with Babs on in the meantime, and then DOW the crap out of 'em (or force them to defy, wash rinse repeat until succeeds).

vra379971 · May 1, 2012

kcd_swede said:
Agra being Liz's could be a frickin goldmine for us. Look at the espi screen! Stealing a tech from Agra costs 210 EP!!! That's practically FREE!!!

And a successful spy can get back on the job very quickly.

You want ENGR and FEUD and everything else FAST as possible? We can make 127EP per turn sustainable. A 5t parked spy would cost 105 EP, more for more expensive tech but still practically FREE!!!!

Put EP slider on 40% with everything on Liz, and you can have Engr in 2 or 3 turns, and Feud in the same. Still making 14gpt. Lets not tech anything ourselves that we can get for free from Liz.

Man... its almost like we planned it this way.

Pft, speak for yourself! I for one foresaw this eventuality aaaaaalll along..... :goodjob:

....and yeah, lets do that. Can we steal DR? XD

....Agra could flipp back to us fairly soon, so I hope that British HMiss is successful.

Any good ideas on how to AVOID this?

kcd_swede · May 1, 2012

I'm excited. This is maybe even better than having Toku alive. Getting Liz on our side in a war would be awesome. Forget the research slider for the moment. As long as techs cost not even 1/10 in EP that they cost in beakers, it would be insane to tech anything. 266EP in Lahore, if you are squemish about -diplo from spies. But I think we do Liz first, what say ye?

SGOTM 15 - Unusual Suspects

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