SGOTM 16 - U'nu'sual S'us'pec'ts

[neilmeister]

Well, if power is not lost, I can potentially play Fri/Sat. If nothing else, can work on a PPP tomorrow as it looks like office will be closed. If anyone else is up and ready, i am equally happy to wait.

Yes, this sounds great. Everyone must play

I was just looking at the save again. We really need courthouses soon. We are paying over 5 gpt in almost every city for maintenance. One city (East Fish, I think) is paying almost 13 gpt maintenance. We could use CoL just for the courthouses.

Didn't realise we were paying that much.
OK, I like the Compass for CoL+50g trade, and not MC or Monarchy. (edit: AFTER the Astro bulb obviously)

We want to hit Brennus before he gets decent units from either Machinery or Feudalism. Compass only leads to Optics, and he needs Machinery for that.

 

[Trystero]

We want to hit Brennus before he gets decent units from either Machinery or Feudalism. Compass only leads to Optics, and he needs Machinery for that.

Yeah, that was my other "big picture" question. How soon do we need to start building a stack to roll through Brennus? I presume we are going for maces/cats? I like Horse Archers, but it might be late for that.

 

[neilmeister]

Crossbows & Cats would also work, as we already have crossbows.

Fingers crossed we find the other hemisphere in the next 9 turns, when we finish Astro, so we can trade for Construction and go straight to reseaching Civil Service.

We are already paying to support our units, so every unit we build early will cost us 1gpt. So, I would think after we have Construction, we mass whip ourselves an army in 5-6 turns, and start it rolling.

 

[Trystero]

We could afford more unit maintenance if we were paying less city maintenance.

Edit: Holy cow, I had less than 2000 posts before this SGOTM started.

 

[neilmeister]

Yes, and we could also afford a lot more cities as well.

The Buddhist shrine should help a lot.

 

[Benginal]

Looking at the schedule, Benginal is the next available player who's only played one set. Benginal, do you think you can play this week?

I imagine I might be able to find some time. . Tuesdays are super busy for me. But look for a PPP during the day (NYC time) on Wednesday.

I think the next turnset shouldn't be as bad as last time, since it's just going to be careful growth management and getting to astro quickly, yeah?

Edit: NVM! Show us how it's done SH!

 

[neilmeister]

We could afford more unit maintenance if we were paying less city maintenance.

Edit: Holy cow, I had less than 2000 posts before this SGOTM started.

I've had more posts than X-team and Fifth Element and I am closing in on the Misfit Gypsy Nuts.

User Name Posts
neilmeister 440
Revent 305
ChrisShaffer 277
Trystero 241
Benginal 149
Deckhand 71
SteelHorse 53
Brian Shanahan 35
kcd_swede 10
Xcalibrator 3
AlanH 1
vra379971 1

 

[Trystero]

Benginal! If you can play before SteelHorse, that would be great.

We need to keep this thing moving.

 

[Trystero]

I've had more posts than X-team and Fifth Element and I am closing in on the Misfit Gypsy Nuts.

Fifth Element has not posted a save since turn 35! They want to make it close with the Blazing objective, apparently.

Edit: And amazingly we still trail Phoenix Rising in team thread posts. We need to talk more.

 

[Benginal]

Looking at my schedule, the earliest I'd actually be able to play is this weekend. So it looks like I'll let Steel take this one. We have enough to talk about to keep us happy tues-thurs I think.

What are the major talking points for the next round? Or is it going to be mostly micro discussion?

 

[neilmeister]

I think it is likely to be a micro discussion only really.
Apart from the potential CoL trade

There is no debate on what to do with the GS, and what we should be researching.

edit: and we are never going to catch PR

edit2: the graphs just look so sweet

 

[Trystero]

OK - I think we should try to get another turnset in before next weekend. We need to keep moving when there are not major debate points, so we don't have to rush important decisions later. I can extend my turnset another 5-10 turns if needed.

Revent or Deckhand, do you have time to play turns before the weekend?

Edit;

edit2: the graphs just look so sweet

I was afraid to say anything because: 1. We are ahead of most teams in turns, 2. the objectives play in final placement as well. Let's just focus on getting this done as best we can and see where the chips fall. (That said, I am amazed with how well things have gone so far.)

 

[Trystero]

I was just looking at the save again, and realized that I named "West Coast Sugar" as "West Coast Silk". We might want to rename that since the city doesn't actually have any Silk.

Anyway here is the current maintenance cost in breakdown by city:

Paris: 4.56
GP Farm: 6.04
Production: 7.48
Commerce: 6.59
Clams: 6.24
East Fish: 12.78
Barb City: 7.89
Zhou: 9.74
Fake Humbaba: 9.94
West Coast Silk (Sugar): 8.49
Wheat: 5.14
Two Fish: 7.46

As you can see we are in need of courthouses on the barb island and WC Silk/Sugar.

 

[Deckhand]

8 pages in 12 hours! And two hours to read them.
Great job and great realtime discussions.

We should finish the caravels before revolting for civics change.

I love SGOTM, but the pressure when actually playing turnsets is intense.

So, it's not just me that feels that way.

Revent or Deckhand, do you have time to play turns before the weekend?

I can play on Friday, but can't do a PPP. If someone else wants to make it, then I could play the turnset.
Our pace is really good, maybe just have Steelhorse do the PPP Tuesday and play Saturday.

After this weekend, I am going to be out of town without Civ or CivFanatics access during the month of November. You can put me back in the lineup in December.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Yup on the vassals voting for their master, but it gives -diplo to the non-vassals. Both because of having a vassal and because of the diplo-averaging. I don't know the exact details, but if you friends don't like your vassals, it impacts your diplo score with them.

I hear you on the maintenance, but with Forbidden Palace and some CHs, it can be mitigated, and if there are as many coastal cities as our continent, it shouldn't be too bad.

What happens is that a non-vassal's AI actual relation to you is an average of their visible relation to you (i.e. what it'd be if you have no vassals), and their relations to your vassals. Therefore you could be friendly to Toku (you wish) but still get nothing from him, because you vassaled his worst enemy <insert any leader here>.

Oh in other news, I'll be playing Senior Football next year.

 

[Trystero]

I can play on Friday, but can't do a PPP. If someone else wants to make it, then I could play the turnset.
Our pace is really good, maybe just have Steelhorse do the PPP Tuesday and play Saturday.

After this weekend, I am going to be out of town without Civ or CivFanatics access during the month of November. You can put me back in the lineup in December.

OK - No problem DH. So let's just plan on SteelHorse playing this weekend. I was probably just a little too anxious to keep things going after my turnset. I was simultaneously completely (mentally) exhausted and really excited by how well things are going. It made me a little .

Edit: Based on availability, the next turnsets will be: SteelHorse > (Benginal or Revent in some order) > Chris. I thought the deadline was in December for some reason, we have until January 21st. I think our pace is fine.

 

[Revent]

Yup on the vassals voting for their master, but it gives -diplo to the non-vassals. Both because of having a vassal and because of the diplo-averaging. I don't know the exact details, but if you friends don't like your vassals, it impacts your diplo score with them.

I hear you on the maintenance, but with Forbidden Palace and some CHs, it can be mitigated, and if there are as many coastal cities as our continent, it shouldn't be too bad.

Perhaps it may be worth taking out an isolated AI then.
Anyway, for diplo, we don't need everyone to vote for us! Our continent super powered with Sushi shall do the trick with some vassals. We don't need other AIs to vote for us and if we have double their power rating (very easily possible end game), they can't even declare

As for availability, sorry guys, don't think I can spare the time for a PPP this week.

 

[Trystero]

Oh in other news, I'll be playing Senior Football next year.

Congrats! Are you playing for Pallasgreen, Brian?

 

[SteelHorse]

OK - Starting to work on PPP.
General Goals:
1. Get Caravels sailing - east with a missionary and west with a spy. Open borders with any AI found. (If we find Humbaba ask him to join us to conquer the new lands).

2. Bulb and Finish Astro, Trade Brennus MC for CoL and gold (but only after Astro otherwise bulb moves to Philo - correct?). Then onto CS at 0% for Bureau & Maces ??? Or Const for Cats on Brens??? If reasonable trade for Theo comes up take it. I am not up for getting Brens closer to LBs, so would avoid trading him Monarchy.

3. General Infra in cities - harbors for TR benefits, cottages in commerce cities (commerce, Wheat, Zhou), usual infra in developing granary, forge, lh, lib.

4. No additional cities at this point.

5. If we can spare a unit, see how the war is going and cheer both sides on. If it looks bad for Rams - stop and discuss to see if we can bride Brens out of war.

More detailed plan later (lots of micro to add) - but is this the rough jist?

Questions:
What if any civic swapping do we want - none before CS/Bureau i presume.
Tech after Astro/CoL: CS, Const. other?

EDIT: Another option is to trade for CoL now, switch to caste, add a few more GS in GPF, self tech Philo and then bulb Astro. Rational is that we may lose the value of MC if Brens starts researching MC and gets us Philo sooner. Then again getting Philo sooner doesn't necessarily buy us much. Just thought I would throw it out there.

 

[Trystero]

1. Sounds good.

2. We can trade for CoL this turn after we use the GS to bulb part of Astro:

We can use Aristotle to part bulb Astro right now, for 1701 beakers, adding to the 271 we already have. So we will have 1972/3120, or 1148 to go. We have enough cash to do 1 turns @ 100%, for 293. After that we can do 98bpt sustainably. Therefore Astro is 9 turns away.

We can sell Compass to Brennus (after the Astro bulb) for CoL & 50g.

I agree with neilmeister in that we don't want to give Brennus MC. He apparently will take Compass, so let's give him that for CoL.

3. Once we get CoL prioritize courthouses in our high maintenance cities: East Fish, Zhou, and Fake Humbaba.

4. Agree

5. Ramesses made peace with Brennus this turn. It would still be a good idea to get a unit down there to scout around and keep a look out for stacks. Maybe send a chariot when we can spare one. We don't have many available units at the moment.