SGOTM 17 - Fifth Element

BLubmuz · May 8, 2013

Shaandore said:
@Blub: I don't agree with the need to be hasty here. Edu is very expensive, and lib can't be immediately bulbed either. And most AIs don't prioritize Edu. (See Qin going for Democracy before Edu? That's a good example of what I'm talking about) Sury will have a war on his hands in 5 turns, he just doesn't stand a chance.

In my experience the AIs that prefer Edu are usually the tech-savy guys: Mansa, Cyrus, etc. Our enemies are rather warlike guys except Churchill and Sury, but then again they are no threat to Lib.

Let's say Peter is going for Edu->Lib as we speak, and he pops a GS next turn. Even then it will take him 5+ turns to reach lib, and we can still beat him when we see that he got Edu by doing the mission in the next two turns.

@Folket: no, we are looking at the same save.

On a theoretical basis i can agree. I've seen AIs go for Physics without Edu :crazyeye:

But i just opened a 1420 save and Sury already has Paper. Not in the 1380 one. Thus he was plenty of time to research Edu. His problem is that he spends an absurd amount of commerce on espionage, as you can see from F9. In those 17 turns he researched Optics, but not other techs. Can you affirm that he can't get to Edu in very few turns? I'd say let's hope he does, because Astro would be a disaster for us.

unclethrill · May 8, 2013

Okay so I will take Shan's city recommendations into account along with all the other notes and go ahead and play 3 to 5 turns. I'll play in about an hour or 2.

unclethrill · May 8, 2013

Sorry but got too busy at work to play tonight. I'll play tomorrow night as early as possible and hopefully be able to get a couple small TS in over the night if possible.

unclethrill · May 9, 2013

Just waiting for the boss to go home before I play some turns

unclethrill · May 9, 2013

Played to T172.

Confirmed Ice wall around Britain.
No one had Edu yet. Church and Toku still don't have paper
Lib 4 turns away

Units in GF:
Treb 6, Cats 4, KN 5, WE 3, HA 1, XB 1, LB 1, LK 2, SW 1, AX 2, Char 3 (1 in Angor), Arch 1

Units on Boat:
Treb 1, Cat 1

Ready for transport:
MM 2, Treb 5, LB 1, Spy 2

I would like to run some tests but I think we are ready or dang close to declare on Sury.

Take a look at the SS and save, make some more suggestions and statements about what I overlooked or jacked up and let me know. I could play more turns tonight and be in place to war tomorrow night if you think we need 1 or two more turns before we DoW.

In an effort of complete disclosure, I did make one mistake (probably more but only one I'll admit to). I whipped a spy into a bank in Vienna to get rid of the unhealthy there. Realized the mistake as soon as I did it. Sorry!

Shaandore · May 9, 2013

We need oxford ASAP. Start 6 unis, and whip them so they get ready the same time as the slowbuilt university in Vienna. Then start oxford in Vienna. This is much more imprtant than our war at this point, because now tech pace is the bottleneck to victory.

I can't open the save until tomorrow ~~morning.~~ actually, until late night tomorrow.

Note that we have more time for the wars now, going with advanced units is definitely an option. Having Qin around as trading partner for a little longer might be a good idea. In the meantime we could smash Sury, then Peter and Toku.

BLubmuz · May 9, 2013

unclethrill said:
Played to T172.

I would like to run some tests but I think we are ready or dang close to declare on Sury.

I think too we're ready. Kill the LB on the mine with a KN and pillage it. It's Sury's only source of iron. But first beg from Qin a small sum of gold.
Keep 1 WE, the HA, the archer, 1 LK and the 2 axes in GF, then move. Move on their roads (i tell you just in case your brain goes on strike again).

Then, cities: Build a settler in Anvil the turn before it grows seems another point for Alz (he's the friend of Haimer, the 2nd german gnome which keep hiding you things)
And barracks before the forge in Luxenburg is a point for the latter. :lol:

Where's the 2nd sci hired in Mainz? On strike him too?

You can see the 6 candidates for unis in F1. I think Mainz can be the 7th or can swap Florence, which is high thanks to the sea tiles. Thanks to the 2 sci from the GLib and the 2 we permanently hire there, it has a good output.

All the 6 candidates are building structures but Aachen, so we candecide in any moment when to start with Unis then Oxford.
At this point, we know for sure what we need and it's darn long tech path. And a war with pareas it's long: if you're forced to raze cities, they can't use their ability. They will be just a powerful unit, period

Can you find a way to have Church's WM?

About Lib, i still think that take Econ is the best move. It's only 600b less than Chem and, frankly, i do not think that we can have a shot on Steel. At this rate Chem is 20 turns away, not counting the trade mission. But even with that is too faraway, so too risky. There's another point in favour of a quick Lib: we can trade Edu to Qin.

Use the GM to finish to map Japan, it doesn't matter if you left a few tiles fogged, but at least to see all his cities. We're not in a hurry and we can afford a couple more turns. If possible, verify in any city the amount of the trade mission.

Shaandore · May 9, 2013

I think we do have a shot at a bigger tech, yes, I think Steel is doable. Especially if we can bulb into Chemistry

After all they still don't have Edu, and most likely nobody is researching it. We will see if Qin starts on it. We have the GM gold coming in, and we could do some tech boost finally.

We will be able to trade Edu to Qin, since we will see the exact moment he starts to research it.

About paras: yes, they are weak alone, but it's likely that Churchill won't have anything more advanced than rifles at that time, and we will also have fighters for support. We should try to stay far under dom limit so we can keep one or two city on the other side of ice and airlift some units there and have a place to land our fighters. (We should try and get Flight before Fascism so we can build airports first and then airlift the paras to the front quickly)

EDIT: gold beg from Qin: very good iea!!!

unclethrill · May 9, 2013

BLubmuz said:
I think too we're ready. Kill the LB on the mine with a KN and pillage it. It's Sury's only source of iron. But first beg from Qin a small sum of gold.

He doesn't have any money but I could get sugar from him.

Keep 1 WE, the HA, the archer, 1 LK and the 2 axes in GF, then move. Move on their roads (i tell you just in case your brain goes on strike again).

Then, cities: Build a settler in Anvil the turn before it grows seems another point for Alz (he's the friend of Haimer, the 2nd german gnome which keep hiding you things)

Got me there. Brain fart.

And barracks before the forge in Luxenburg is a point for the latter.
Did that on purpose since the Barracks could be ready in 5 turns and the forge in 40. But as you wish.

Where's the 2nd sci hired in Mainz? On strike him too?
He gets rehired every turn. I also have to fire a couple spies every turn.

You can see the 6 candidates for unis in F1. I think Mainz can be the 7th or can swap Florence, which is high thanks to the sea tiles. Thanks to the 2 sci from the GLib and the 2 we permanently hire there, it has a good output.
Vienna, Timbu, Mainz, Aachen, Florence, Nurem. Gao has too little production to count on that Uni in the short term and Anvil is only one higher than Nurem but it is busy with a settler.

All the 6 candidates are building structures but Aachen, so we candecide in any moment when to start with Unis then Oxford.
At this point, we know for sure what we need and it's darn long tech path. And a war with pareas it's long: if you're forced to raze cities, they can't use their ability. They will be just a powerful unit, period

Can you find a way to have Church's WM?
If I sell him Drama for 60 gold then I should be able to beg his WM.

About Lib, i still think that take Econ is the best move. It's only 600b less than Chem and, frankly, i do not think that we can have a shot on Steel. At this rate Chem is 20 turns away, not counting the trade mission. But even with that is too faraway, so too risky. There's another point in favour of a quick Lib: we can trade Edu to Qin.

Use the GM to finish to map Japan, it doesn't matter if you left a few tiles fogged, but at least to see all his cities. We're not in a hurry and we can afford a couple more turns. If possible, verify in any city the amount of the trade mission.

If we had the trade mission right now, then we could have Lib in 2 turns instead of 4. I don't think it is worth not finishing the exploring though. I am starting to lean towards the econ from lib though. With it we can get Econ and most of PP out of Lib but I guess that really depends on when the AI gets Edu.

So question for the team, once an AI gets education, how long are we willing to wait to finish Lib? What if that AI is Sury and we are at war or ready to DoW? Does that change the amount of time we will wait? I ask because if I DoW on the next turn and Qin or Sury get Edu, I don't want to wait another day or two before I can continue the war. I would rather have a plan in place. I can play at length tomorrow night and probably knock out the war but if I have to delay until Saturday then my playing time gets much more limited for several days.

Shaandore · May 9, 2013

Why not try for steel with econ as backup plan?

I think everybody agrees that if we can get steel it is far better. And we risk nothing, we can always just pop lib for Econ if somebody threatens it. I think that we have a very good chance of getting there IF Qin's next tech is not Edu. Otherwise we will end up with Econ I guess.

I would like to emphasize that building the unis is far more important than a settler or anything really, becuase at this point research is the bottleneck to victory. I agree that we are ready to declare with our current troops, and it also means that reinforcments can be cut down for a little while in 6 cities (at leadt half of them is low hammer output anyway), so we can start those unis and whip them at the right moment. Make sure to start them everywhere, especially in those cities where we don't want hard whips.

Roughly this is how I would do it in a solo game:
- get enough beakers in lib so it can be done with merely 1 turn of 0% research.
- use the GM gold to power through gunpowder. Try using binary as much as possible to run more beakers through our universities.
- if we get GS, bulb into chemistry, otherwise sit back. Get Chem as soon as possible with maybe a little wealth building if it helps a turn.
- lib steel :cool:

I think we have 2 turns of wiggle room if sy other than Sury and Qin pops Edu. With Qin it is easier: we will see his research, so we will know when he is getting near and when to give up the race. And we don't care if Sury pops it, because he won't be able to research a large tech so fast with ~30 units in his territory taking his cities.

BLubmuz · May 9, 2013

unclethrill said:
Can you find a way to have Church's WM?
If I sell him Drama for 60 gold then I should be able to beg his WM.
You can even trade ours to him, to gain diplo points. Surely he can't have paras before us

If we had the trade mission right now, then we could have Lib in 2 turns instead of 4. I don't think it is worth not finishing the exploring though. I am starting to lean towards the econ from lib though. With it we can get Econ and most of PP out of Lib but I guess that really depends on when the AI gets Edu.

2 or 4 changes nothing, know the map does.

So question for the team, once an AI gets education, how long are we willing to wait to finish Lib? What if that AI is Sury and we are at war or ready to DoW? Does that change the amount of time we will wait? I ask because if I DoW on the next turn and Qin or Sury get Edu, I don't want to wait another day or two before I can continue the war. I would rather have a plan in place. I can play at length tomorrow night and probably knock out the war but if I have to delay until Saturday then my playing time gets much more limited for several days.

IMO our best bet is to not wait. There's only Steel worth the risk and it's surely out of reach.

I think that the best use for the GM is to keep it for a GAge. We can have PP from Qin in trade for Edu. In case we can use the GM for Constitution, it's his next priority because it's in the path to Corps.

About the barracks/forge thing, this is a long game and a forge is needed, mainly if we run Merc. To build a barracks you must be ready to produce units and surely that city is not.

Resuming:
1- start the fireworks with Sury now
2- keep researching Lib slowly for Econ, but if you see no one has Edu yet, to 1 turn to completion switch to GP and pray for a GS from Mainz. In any case it's not research wasted, no one has it yet. You can be able to see if we can do it to Steel or if we risk too much. I think 3 turns after you see an AI with Edu are safe, not 1 more.
3- map well Japan before the mission
4- try to have England's WM, but wait some turn to see if he gets some tech. 60g for Drama is a bit of a sale.

Then, we can keep the research to 0% until Oxford is in and try to trade Edu with Qin.
Also Peter can have something interesting.

I think that point 2 is reasonable so you can have hands free. It's the only choice we have. Watch F4 every turn.
edit Xposted with Shaan, which basically says the same. Thus go ahead!

unclethrill · May 9, 2013

One other thing. GM mission is 1300 in Kyoto and 1100 in other cities so after mapping, I need to move him back to Kyoto.

unclethrill · May 10, 2013

Okay my TS is done. I had a computer issue and had to upload the save, download it to my wife's computer and play tonight. I stopped on T183. Some one else needs to pick it up since I need to work my computer issues.

Highlights:
Lib is in. Took steel with it. We lost insight to china so I was unable to sell edu to him.

I have the map of the entire world (almost).

The war is moving along. The first city was a bit tough to crack. He filled with a lot of units but eventually it fell while I continued to ferry units. We now have 2 stacks that are about even in units and they are currently knock down defenses on the next two cities. Some of the battles went much worse than they should have but such is the random number generator. Sury had a Caravel and it took out our Trem and a Galley so we may need to bump up our navy a bit.

Almost all cities are on wealth right now (it was to make a good shot at steel).

Edu went to Sury on T173, Qin had it on 174, Peter took Econ on 177 so by waiting 3 turns after Qin got Edu we lost out on the Econ GM so I pushed for Steel (YOLO, BTW I hate that term but it seemed appropriate :lol:

)

The barbs have been sending a steady stream of MM at Hammer so next person up needs to keep a close watch on that.

The settler for the bridge to Peter is built and close to in place.

6 Universities are built and Oxford is under way

Mainz popped a GS. Shan said something about using it for a Chem bulb but he was only able to bulb into PP not Chem so he is sitting in Mainz. He should be able to bulb all but 1 turn of PP this turn (if we want that).

We can trade Lib to Qin. He is willing to give Theo and Music plus some cash. If we throw in GP then he will give us PP, and several other things but not sure if we want to trade away GP.

Spoiler :

unclethrill · May 10, 2013

Rest of the log

Spoiler :

Shaandore · May 11, 2013

Great news! Well done, Unclethrill!

I had a hunch that I might be wrong about chem because this time I didn't check the bulb order.

I guess it's my TS now, so I'll check the save and write a PPP in a few hours.

Looking at the scores we might be going for the wooden spoon. 1615 AD lib is far from a good date, but we need to work with what we have, huh?

BLubmuz · May 11, 2013

Alright, so it worked at last. :goodjob:

I've checked the save and Qin accepts to trade us PP+Compass+110g for Lib and GP.
But i doubt give him GP is a good idea.
For Lib alone he will trade compass and one of our choice between music and Theo +110g. I think we must accept this trade. I prefer music to Theo.
I see our spy in Beijing can steal Compass, but with only 45% chances.

Mainz can run more specs to pop one in 12 turns and Ulm too, to pop in 22 (26 considering the increase from 700 to 800).

PP is worth 2340b and a GAge (15 turns) is worth 191cpt from tiles, not counting the hammers and other benefits. 191*15=2865 it's superior to a bulb, but we must consider that a GS gives the 50%, so a bulb is still preferable. This will be the last one. PP will give us 36cpt at present, so i think it's worth push for it.

The settler in the galley for the bridge to Peter can be unloaded in Hammer, so he can be in place this turn. The worker there can start road the rice.

Then, a strategic doubt: can be worth to raze the AP city? We can have problems from it, more when we'll go after Qin than now with Sury. Once it's gone, it's gone. I doubt we'll build many buddhist temples. There're 0 votes until next election, so the AP resident will simply disappear.

About cities, i think Luxemburg and Strasbourg must whip their forge and Goldfoot must work the gold. Good move the missionary there. I think we need one for the W bridge city too.

Abut the war, i think it's time to attack both the cities we're sieging.
Better always keep an empty galley stacked with the loaded ones, so it will always defend first.

About research, after PP we can go for Nationalism->Constitution. We need both for Fascism, so better have the chance to switch to Representation during the Gage we'll surely launch once we have captured Yasonda and we have 2 GPersons.

We're OK on military techs for now. We can consider to upgrade some treb (4, i think) to cannon. 80g each, well spended.

Shaandore · May 11, 2013

PPP

Research and Diplo:
Switch to 0% until Oxford is ready.
Trade Lib for Compass+Theo+110 gold. (we don't need music, but we will need Astro for Physics)

War:
Take Harihalaya and Angkor Thom.
raze Hariharalaya? to get rid of AP
March on the two southern cities with, keeping the stacks as they are, reinforcing if needed. Stop if all four cities are taken, and check what we could get from a peace deal (?).

Cities:
Establish new city where the worker stands, and build two forts to have a passage to the west without landing any units. (i.e. our boats can sail through). Hades Anvil builds a worker to help building the forges and improve the new city. Hades hammer builds 2 LBs to spawnbust and protect the land.

Sail three or four cannons and 1-2 muskets west to get Koishan and maybe Khazak too.

Most of our cities will build cannons with a couple muskets because they have no counters.

Mainz works 6 specs (4 merchant, engineer, spy) to get a max probability non-scientist in 11 turns. Meanwhile we build a theater to have artist slots.

Vienna finishes Oxford, then its bank.

Ulm gets the next GP, maybe with some starving towards the end.

Whip forges and Rathauses in Luxemburg and Strasbourg.

--------------------

Let me know if you need more details about something, or I forgot something important.

BLubmuz · May 11, 2013

Shaandore said:
PPP

Research and Diplo:
Switch to 0% until Oxford is ready.
Trade Lib for Compass+Theo+110 gold. (we don't need music, but we will need Astro for Physics)
With music we can build culture, with theo??? Unless we plan to revolt to Theocracy. Anyway, music is more expensive. Compass for sure.
War:
Take Harihalaya and Angkor Thom.
raze Hariharalaya? to get rid of AP
It's the question i raised. I think it's worth raze it. The city is not bad, but we can resettle later if we want. The value to not be bothered with "stop the war" or assign the city" surpasses the benefits (few) we can have from the AP.
March on the two southern cities with, keeping the stacks as they are, reinforcing if needed. Stop if all four cities are taken, and check what we could get from a peace deal (?).
If you can stop on Angkor to heal and upgrade a couple trebs it would be great. They can be of great use in Yasoda.
Not sure about the peace deal. I give great strategic importance to the coastal city, but much depends by what we can have.
If we can obtain PP and Optics or at least one of the 2 we can consider to accept peace. So we have time to heal and reposition.

Cities:
Establish new city where the worker stands, and build two forts to have a passage to the west without landing any units. (i.e. our boats can sail through).
Absolutely wrong!!!!!
The city has to go 1W of where the worker stands, or you lose pigs. It's also stupid to be forced to build 2 forts when one is enough. It can be 1E or 1NE of where the worker stands. Forts are the most expensive improvement in terms of worker turns. To lose big food source for an hammer poor city is not a good idea.
Hades Anvil builds a worker to help building the forges and improve the new city. Hades hammer builds 2 LBs to spawnbust and protect the land.

Sail three or four cannons and 1-2 muskets west to get Koishan and maybe Khazak too.
Take Khoisan to keep it as a foothold, sure. But if you wanna go after Khazak, raze it!
It can be a disaster for the dom limit. We must keep only strategic cities. Pillage the cottages, we can have a good income. In case you decide to take it for conquest gold, take it first, so you can let the units in Khoisan. Also because you need time to build the fort.
Speking of pillaging, pillage that pigs and farm just outside the BFC of Hammer. Pillage also the farm where you want build the fort. It's not much, but it's gold for free. Use the GG or another fast moving unit.
Most of our cities will build cannons with a couple muskets because they have no counters.
Sure and some knight. Fast moving units are always welcome and they are great against LBs. But remember that for taking cities, maces are still stronger than muskets.
Mainz works 6 specs (4 merchant, engineer, spy) to get a max probability non-scientist in 11 turns. Meanwhile we build a theater to have artist slots.
Moment: we decided to burn the GS on PP, right? if so, Mainz can have a GS. We need a different GP from Ulm. Or the contrary.
Vienna finishes Oxford, then its bank.
Then an Harbor.
Ulm gets the next GP, maybe with some starving towards the end.

Whip forges and Rathauses in Luxemburg and Strasbourg.

--------------------

Let me know if you need more details about something, or I forgot something important.

Comments in red, as usual.
You forgot the research. Switch the research keeping to 0, but what? Not PP if we can have it from Sury for peace. Nation -> Const as i proposed, because we can have also Optics if we're lucky. We must consider to dealy Astro to keep the commerce from the colossus, hardly compensated by observatories. We're working some 20 water tiles ATM and more can be worked soon.

Then if we manage to have 2 GPeople ready after we capture Yasoda, we can revolt to Repr, which is a great civic.

I just cheked in game and Sury offers Theo+Wm+190g for peace. 4 more cities and he will give us even his old mom. Switch research immediately to Nation and keep it to 0 until we take the 2 southern cities.

Cats first attacking cities. They're obsolete by now and too expensive to upgrade.

@UT
what did you demanded from Toku and Peter that they're upset for that? Have you seen what the hell of an army Toku has?
question 2: how did you manage to have Toku give in to a demand? Hypnotism?

Attention: heavily edited

unclethrill · May 11, 2013

Looks like a good plan to me but here is my input anyway:

I think we need to bombard both cities until the defenses are down and then send a couple trebs in for collateral before we attack. This will allow for maximum survival of melee/mounted units and trebs attacking at that point are almost guaranteed to retreat. BL thinks to attack right now but we will lose a bunch of units and we don't have to if we wait two more turns.

If we settle 1S of rice we get rice, dye, spice and pigs plus then we only need 1 fort 2E of the rice to make a complete path to Peter's continent.

I also like the idea of a city around the two gems. I know it is late to start a new city but double gems is really nice and we should have several extra workers soon since we are close to done on our main continent with workers

BLubmuz · May 11, 2013

unclethrill said:
1) If we settle 1S of rice we get rice, dye, spice and pigs plus then we only need 1 fort 2E of the rice to make a complete path to Peter's continent.

2) I also like the idea of a city around the two gems. I know it is late to start a new city but double gems is really nice and we should have several extra workers soon since we are close to done on our main continent with workers

1) OK 1S of rice, but not spices there.

2) no, only strategic cities. We must to take in account the dom limit by the end of the game. If we can keep all the good cities we capture it's far better than plant new cities. I think that many resources are there to bait us. Don't fall in the trap.

About your conservative warring

what you said can be true - and probably is - for the AP city which has many units. We have 4 turns before the new election, so that is the limit.
But for Angkor a cat and a treb will level the road for our attackers, with only 3 units there and only one of them is a LB.

SGOTM 17 - Fifth Element

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