SGOTM 16 - Kakumeika

[Kaitzilla]

Don't want to trade with Ramesses so we can keep gems? gah

I really want Construction


We can squeeze another +1 trade relations out of Brennus T131 with another tech gift to help keep him Cautious and gems-giving but face -4 "worst enemy" by trading with Ramesses.

Let me scheme some more.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The post about how powerful the sentry promotion is nice, but Kakumeika is rarely gung ho about war

Getting those wars and war techs is like pulling teeth.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Looking at the test game, it looks like Jungle Pigs will take back the 2 tiles just to its south when it gets a border pop. From either of those tiles within our borders, a horse archer rush could smash Camulodunum and we'd instantly have gems with a road 1S1W of Jungle Pigs.

We just need a 2nd island city somewhere to make up the trade route loss.

 

[mabraham]

The post about how powerful the sentry promotion is nice, but Kakumeika is rarely gung ho about war

Getting those wars and war techs is like pulling teeth.

What strategic purpose is served by war *right now*? Why is that more important the other things we could do?

Brennus's land is nice, but it's just more of what we already have, which we are a long way from using to best effect - see my previous list of things we have we could do.

Check out the meta-game graph. We're clearly on a different strategy path from everyone else (as usual). They all provoked a war with Brennus about now, possibly by setting too close. Our choice of capital location and wonders made a big buffer in which Brennus didn't want to settle. It seems wrong to stop and play catch-up to the others' war when we have not yet acquired a strategic edge *for war*.

How fast can we gear up and capture everything up to Vienne if we start with cat/HB/axe army? (We're not stopping short of stone once we start, and probably we'll just carry on and kill him. But if we get HBR and build an army around it, we should not then tech down Mach and Eng, but rather get Edu and prepare to use the stone we're ostensibly getting earlier access to.)

If we get a GMerchant for a trade mission, then we will have enough cash to get Mach and Eng by 20-25 turns from now. Then I'll be keen for war. Starting the war with trebs and maces will catch up lost ground pretty quickly - there's lots of time spent with cats bombing down city walls... If we don't get the GMerchant, then the shrine will also be useful economically in the longer term, but our access to Eng will be rather slower

 

[mabraham]

Looking at the test game, it looks like Jungle Pigs will take back the 2 tiles just to its south when it gets a border pop. From either of those tiles within our borders, a horse archer rush could smash Camulodunum and we'd instantly have gems with a road 1S1W of Jungle Pigs.

We just need a 2nd island city somewhere to make up the trade route loss.

That's how to manage a HBR war, but it's not a reason to choose war The movement of the horse archers is basically wasted because they need axes to defend them against Gallic Warriors and spears and there's a pile of jungle and hills anyway.

A treb-mace attack vector from the pigs can capture Camulodunum on the second turn of the war, and keep rolling to Tolosa.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Well, if we want peace with Brennus, then we have to choose between gems and trading with Ramesses.

Shall we put off trading with Ramesses until we can re-negotiate the gems deal again on T132 to ensure a supply until T142?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Now for the main question left for the turnset. Trading with Ramesses. Once the gems deal is signed T122, I'm not really worried about the diplo situation anymore. Other than converting Brennus to our religion, there isn't more we can do to keep him Cautious with us.

Lots to discuss. Let's take things one at a time.

1. Brennus will cancel the gems deal on T132 (I assume) if Annoyed with us. What he is between deals shouldn't matter. So if we can have him as Cautious on T132, we can cancel and redo the deal.

2. We're at -2 (invisible) now and we'll gain our final +1 civic bonus T131. We also have a margin of +1 for Fair Trade, though we'd have to keep trading to maintain +3 and upgrade to +4. So that's a margin of +2. The trading with WE negmods cost this (do we have any points against us yet?):

     FairTradeValue 
       if X AIs own it
Tech   0 AIs      1 AI
----   -----      ----

Curr     910       780  
MC      1020       870
CS      1820      1560

Brennus met us T19
WE   T131
--   ----
 1   1130   WE has a twice higher factor (10 instead of 5)
 2   2260   WE Negmods = FTV / (#TurnsKnown * 10)
 3   3390
 4   4520

Curr + MC = 1930; WE = 1 
1930 + CS = 3860; WE = 3

I assume our FTV is calculated the same as AI FTV.

So if my calculations are correct, we'll only get -1 from trading Currency + Metal Casting. Civil Service would bring us up to 3 on T131. (I used T131 instead of T132 just in case.) So that's borderline, depending on whether we trade CS to Ramesses and if we trade anything to Brennus.

But...I have an idea. If we're keeping Gems/Clams, then the AP Resolution that will come up next is this, if I understand the theory (no personal experience with this).

2. Trade Embargo against X
Prerequisite: One Full Member must be trading with X, and X must be a Non-Member.
If passed, all Members now have Closed Borders with X and all trade agreements with X not made within the last 10 turns are cancelled.​

Of course, we'll vote against the resolution, that is, in favor of Brennus, right! Does that give us +2 plusmods or something like that? (Which can degrade, right?)

 

[Kaitzilla]

Oh nice! According to the test game there is a chance Brennus will keep giving us gems for fish longer than 10 turns. I set him to furious and he was still trading gems for fish on T137.

Just if he ever cancels the deal because he found some fish somewhere, then we are out of gems as long as he remains Annoyed with us.

I think that means we can sign the gems deal and trade with Ramesses.

Spoiler :

 

[mabraham]

Well, if we want peace with Brennus, then we have to choose between gems and trading with Ramesses.

What's the problem? We can get gems right now, I presume. There's 10 turns of access. What criterion will Brennus use to choose to stop supply later? If we trade with Ramesses (and IMO there's only a rush to do that if Brennus is coming for us, in which case retaining the gems trade is not relevant) then Brennus will start liking us less, but that was going to come sooner or later anyway.

Shall we put off trading with Ramesses until we can re-negotiate the gems deal again on T132 to ensure a supply until T142?

I'm not too fussed about gems, to be honest. Yes, happiness will be a problem, but we have these plans to spread Confu and get temples and the gems is only as good as Confu, apart from 3-4 cities that have forges (which don't have enough improved tiles yet to what to grow much more, and they all have 1-2 happiness spare now anyway).

In my hypothetical Engineering plan, we get 10 turns of gems now to grow up a bit, organize our forges and barracks, get most of the way to Mach, maybe Brennus cancels the deal, and we're nearly in position to start mace production. We get Eng later and put out the trebs then. Then we capture gems back on turn 2 of the war.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Lots to discuss. Let's take things one at a time.

...

But...I have an idea. If we're keeping Gems/Clams, then the AP Resolution that will come up next is this, if I understand the theory (no personal experience with this).

2. Trade Embargo against X
Prerequisite: One Full Member must be trading with X, and X must be a Non-Member.
If passed, all Members now have Closed Borders with X and all trade agreements with X not made within the last 10 turns are cancelled.​

Of course, we'll vote against the resolution, that is, in favor of Brennus, right! Does that give us +2 plusmods or something like that? (Which can degrade, right?)

Ya, we can do the Jungle Pigs and vote "no" to get +2 relations and let Brennus keep the city. But we still need to fix Brennus' economy first before he will take Jungle Pigs.

That means a lot of gpt or Currency.

The +2 "voted for us" decays pretty quickly and is usually gone after 10 turns. I can't recall the formula.

But ya, in theory that would get us to +4 on T132 if the bonus didn't decay. I've seen them decay in a few turns though.

 

[mabraham]

Lots to discuss. Let's take things one at a time.

1. Brennus will cancel the gems deal on T132 (I assume) if Annoyed with us. What he is between deals shouldn't matter. So if we can have him as Cautious on T132, we can cancel and redo the deal.

2. We're at -2 (invisible) now and we'll gain our final +1 civic bonus T131. We also have a margin of +1 for Fair Trade, though we'd have to keep trading to maintain +3 and upgrade to +4. So that's a margin of +2. The trading with WE negmods cost this (do we have any points against us yet?)

We have one with Rameses and zero with Brennus.

 

[mabraham]

Ya, we can do the Jungle Pigs and vote "no" to get +2 relations and let Brennus keep the city. But we still need to fix Brennus' economy first before he will take Jungle Pigs.

That means a lot of gpt or Currency.

The +2 "voted for us" decays pretty quickly and is usually gone after 10 turns. I can't recall the formula.

But ya, in theory that would get us to +4 on T132 if the bonus didn't decay. I've seen them decay in a few turns though.

Well, we want to time the gems deal to come up for renewal the turn after the AP vote, so that we've got our +2 if it's possible.

 

[Kaitzilla]

What's the problem? We can get gems right now, I presume. There's 10 turns of access. What criterion will Brennus use to choose to stop supply later? If we trade with Ramesses (and IMO there's only a rush to do that if Brennus is coming for us, in which case retaining the gems trade is not relevant) then Brennus will start liking us less, but that was going to come sooner or later anyway.



I'm not too fussed about gems, to be honest. Yes, happiness will be a problem, but we have these plans to spread Confu and get temples and the gems is only as good as Confu, apart from 3-4 cities that have forges (which don't have enough improved tiles yet to what to grow much more, and they all have 1-2 happiness spare now anyway).

In my hypothetical Engineering plan, we get 10 turns of gems now to grow up a bit, organize our forges and barracks, get most of the way to Mach, maybe Brennus cancels the deal, and we're nearly in position to start mace production. We get Eng later and put out the trebs then. Then we capture gems back on turn 2 of the war.

I want to start trading now because I feel that waiting only:

1) Gains us a wider choice of techs to trade our techs for
or
2) Weakens our trading hand because Ramesses techs something we already have.

With only 1 trading partner, there aren't any trading games to play. Just raw beaker vs. beaker. I don't want to be on T140 and have watched Ramesses tech Currency, then Metal Casting because he is industrious, then Civil Service due to some weird RNG choices.

We've been guessing what he'll tech next wrong all game. First it was Monotheism that never came for the longest time, now it is Music that isn't materializing.


So I'd like to trade Currency for Construction as soon as possible before something goes wrong.
I see from LowtherCastle's post that just Currency by itself alone wont trigger a -1 Worst Enemy penalty. I want to trade Currency and a tiny bit of gold if needed for Construction T123.
I don't mind waiting to trade for Aesthetics as much if we wanted to see what Ramesses techs next.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Well, we want to time the gems deal to come up for renewal the turn after the AP vote, so that we've got our +2 if it's possible.

Oh I see, do some kind of city gift T135 and get the +2 voting bonus T136 to enable a gems trade again. Hmmm

 

[mabraham]

But...I have an idea. If we're keeping Gems/Clams, then the AP Resolution that will come up next is this, if I understand the theory (no personal experience with this).

2. Trade Embargo against X
Prerequisite: One Full Member must be trading with X, and X must be a Non-Member.
If passed, all Members now have Closed Borders with X and all trade agreements with X not made within the last 10 turns are cancelled.​

Of course, we'll vote against the resolution, that is, in favor of Brennus, right! Does that give us +2 plusmods or something like that? (Which can degrade, right?)

I checked the code. You only get "voted for/against us" mods if the vote was assigning a city, for residency/secretary or for victory. So the idea of abusing a trade emargo proposal for diplo won't work.

 

[mabraham]

Oh I see, do some kind of city gift T135 and get the +2 voting bonus T136 to enable a gems trade again. Hmmm

Brennus would have to have more culture than us on that tile by the time of the vote, which seem seems impossible. So I don't think a city plant can work in this time frame.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Ya, we can do the Jungle Pigs and vote "no" to get +2 relations and let Brennus keep the city. But we still need to fix Brennus' economy first before he will take Jungle Pigs.

I don't know the AP mechanics well at all. The Trade Embargo resolution is against someone without Confu, right? So that should come up next simply because we have a deal with Brennus, a non-member, right?

Or is there something else? Like no resolutions if there are only two members?

xpost with mabraham==forget it....

 

[mabraham]

I want to start trading now because I feel that waiting only:

1) Gains us a wider choice of techs to trade our techs for
or
2) Weakens our trading hand because Ramesses techs something we already have.

One of those is good, one is bad

With only 1 trading partner, there aren't any trading games to play. Just raw beaker vs. beaker. I don't want to be on T140 and have watched Ramesses tech Currency, then Metal Casting because he is industrious, then Civil Service due to some weird RNG choices.

We've been guessing what he'll tech next wrong all game. First it was Monotheism that never came for the longest time, now it is Music that isn't materializing.


So I'd like to trade for Construction as soon as possible before something goes wrong.
I see from LowtherCastle's post that just Currency by itself alone wont trigger a -1 Worst Enemy penalty. I want to trade Currency and a tiny bit of gold if needed for Construction T123.
I don't mind waiting to trade for Aesthetics as much if we wanted to see what Ramesses techs next.

OK, if it seems like it won't affect the Brennus diplo situation (and it isn't clear that the Brennus diplo situation would ever certainly lead to a gems cancel anyway), then we have nothing to lose by trading Currency+change for Construction. If we had some roads, we'd have something to gain from the bridges but otherwise there's not much upside in doing it *now*.

 

[mabraham]

Oh nice! According to the test game there is a chance Brennus will keep giving us gems for fish longer than 10 turns. I set him to furious and he was still trading gems for fish on T137.

Just if he ever cancels the deal because he found some fish somewhere, then we are out of gems as long as he remains Annoyed with us.

I think that means we can sign the gems deal and trade with Ramesses.

Spoiler :

Your screenshot actually shows him at Annoyed, but that is good enough evidence that we should not worry much about gems access getting revoked.

 

[mabraham]

Also note that HBR is 390 base beakers and calendar is only 546 beakers. If a HBR war is about ensuring gems supply, teching calendar for incense+silk and hopefully sugar sounds like a stronger proposition to me. It's better still if we can trade/steal for Calendar, of course.

Representation isn't actually doing much for us other than the happiness. Switching to HR is far from silly if we prepare a suitable pile of warriors...