SGOTM 18 - Fifth Element

[pigswill]

Its so Schrondiger's cat...

I'll be free to play a few turns.

 

[unclethrill]

Then it is all yours now PigSwill

 

[BLubmuz]

Its so Schrondiger's cat...

In the meaning that we'll be nuked?

It's an option, i'm afraid.

On more positive thoughts, i do not think that we'll have a fierce discussion on the settling spots.

I can see a priority on the PH near copper and fish, a decent/good city 1W of pigs and a city 1W of stone. 1W and not on stone to gain 1 more riverside GL.

There can be an interesting cow/banana/dyes just W of the mountains.
Then we must scout N to see if there's something interesting.

Spots outside the mountain range will have priority over ones inside, with the obvious exception of copper/fish.

As research, i'd like to complete AH, then wheel - writing.
I'm leaning towards Hunting first to reduce the cost of AH. It's 65b and all the AIs have it (immortal), so we have a huge discount. It reduces the cost of AH by 20%, which means 32b. Basically we can have it for free.

About slavery, i suggest to revolt as soon as the settler is completed. I suppose we don't wanna whip a s.3 Capital without granary.

EDIT:
On a last note, i strongly suspect that Evil's Lair is completely surrounded by mountains. And without teleporting chances, i guess. And maybe with some tactical nuke there.

If that's true, it will be Space. Preceeded by some nice war of expansion. Dom limit is 64%. Good.

ESPIONAGE

We must direct all our EPPs on Evil.

 

[Shaandore]

I'm going at noon, so I could check out the save.

I think we settled in the right spot. We have room for 4 cities. I would have considered building that cottage 1S because that is easier to share with fish, but I guess it won't matter because we will have another cottage to share in time.

I would also have considered building a farm first to have more growth, because with one cottage and wheat we still won't work the gold+marble.

But those are not huge issues, and maybe it was better this way, so less talk about the past, and more about future.

Since we have BW, the forest spot has a priority now, but the fish is also very important because of cottage growing and the copper. I would settle both cities ASAP in close succession. The earlier we have them, the earlier they will contribute. But we will need one more worker for the forest-pig.

I wonder that which is better: forest after fish or forest before fish. (and if we need one more worker before first settler.)

So we need to discuss and test:
- build order in capital
- forest and fish settling spot
- order of forest-pig and fish-copper

We should also start to think about wonders (aesthetics line, GLib?)

Please note that getting the Swinger's pad is not an early priority, we will need espionage to get it to legendary. On the other hand, clearing the way there and getting decent ESP discounts is important!

We are in a bad diplo situation, we will need to please at least a few immediate neighbours so we have trade routes and they trade techs with us. We could try city gifting.

 

[Folket]

I think we need to plan for an early war against the minor nation. They are south of us and have the great lighthouse and the colossus. Either they can be reached by galleys or they are going to be a non influence on the game.

On the other hand one AI which I think is goldmember has disturbingly large GNP. But with 2 cities and only 6 food Are they working 1F4C coastal tiles or some kind of improved valuable metal. 45 GNP should be more then 20 raw commerce. With 2 from trade, 8 from palace and 2 from city square so the tiles are probably better then coastal. Perhaps one PH gold mine and a coastal food resource. I'm not certain this is useful information at all. I was wrong. With only 2 hammers this can't be the case. My guess will be 2 non resource coastal tiles. Unless they have very nice second ring Goldmember cities does not look that impressive. Seems like most of our opponents are working 2F1C tiles.

Does anyone know how the demographics screen is rounded? It is just truncated or rounded to closes integer?

 

[Folket]

I think we should try to get Gandhi and Mansa happy with us. They will not get along with Dr Evil. Mongolia will love Dr Evil and Portugal will not be as easy.

To get them to +8 we need
Gandhi:
-5 preset + 7 US + 4 fair trade + 1 base attitude + 2 open borders = +9
Mansa:
-3 preset + 5 free market + 4 fair trade + 2 open borders = +8

We can win this game 25 turns after universal suffrage and 20 turns after free market. As long as neither Gandhi or Mansa is our opponent. To make sure of that we either need to keep Evil strong or make Evil or Mongolia build our UN. To make them build the UN should not be that hard. Preventing Gandhi and Mansa from conquering the UN should not be that hard either. Our main concern will be to prevent them from being dogpiled and surrender to Mongolia or Evil.

 

[BLubmuz]

We are in a bad diplo situation, we will need to please at least a few immediate neighbours so we have trade routes and they trade techs with us. We could try city gifting.

No, we cannot.

Please recall that it is still forbidden to gift/liberate cities to a civilization you are at war with except as part of a Peace Treaty.

Or maybe yes, but this does not fit with a war of expansion.

I think we need to plan for an early war against the minor nation. They are south of us and have the great lighthouse and the colossus. Either they can be reached by galleys or they are going to be a non influence on the game.

On the other hand one AI which I think is goldmember has disturbingly large GNP. But with 2 cities and only 6 food Are they working 1F4C coastal tiles or some kind of improved valuable metal. 45 GNP should be more then 20 raw commerce. With 2 from trade, 8 from palace and 2 from city square so the tiles are probably better then coastal. Perhaps one PH gold mine and a coastal food resource. I'm not certain this is useful information at all. I was wrong. With only 2 hammers this can't be the case. My guess will be 2 non resource coastal tiles. Unless they have very nice second ring Goldmember cities does not look that impressive. Seems like most of our opponents are working 2F1C tiles.

Does anyone know how the demographics screen is rounded? It is just truncated or rounded to closes integer?

Golmember is Ragnar and has the Colossus. He can have a second city, but we can't see it in the score because we're at war. ATM the only AI with more than 1 city is Evil.

I doubt that Golmember can be reached via galley. I don't discard totally the option, but it looks like Evil's Lair is placed to block sea access between E and W.
In any case, it would be a total drain on our economy, being on the other side of the map.

Our first objective will be Joao or another neighbouring AI.
If we need paratroopers to reach Evil's Lair, the best option is to destroy all the AIs but one city in the NW corner of the map. Quickly. And move fast to Alpha Centauri.

Axepults are the best option for the first war, we'll see how the game evolves for the others.

Unfortunately we need a lot of culture-by-espionage in SP, so we can't benefit from the Pyramids soon.

ATM, my strategy will be the same of an AW game.

EDIT
which seems the opposite of what Folket xposted. Diplo? see Von Clausewitz. Only the higher option is the one which ensure something.

 

[Folket]

We know there is one AI with two cities from the demographics screen. Also would we not see Goldmembers city in top 5 if it had both colossus and great lighthouse in the same city?

 

[Folket]

I would much rather attack Mongolia then Joao. He is more dangerous to my plan of diplo victory then Joao. With the railroad he is about as far away.

I do not see how playing this as AW and going for space could be faster then a diplomatic victory.

 

[Shaandore]

We are not at war with the minor nations, and those are the ones that we should try to please. I see no chance befriending dr. evil or goldmemeber in the near future.

City gift is not a huge investment: it only costs one settler, (100 hammer) and can be done once we have a 3-4 cities and we are ready to road into neighbours. It could give us hundreds of beakers via tech trade and commerce via trade routes. Why would we pass on that opportunity?

I still can't see how space race can be competititve here, I see no reason for us to plan for that yet. Setting up a strong economy and expanding to ~10 cities is good for any win condition, so we should focus on that for now.

 

[Shaandore]

I would much rather attack Mongolia then Joao. He is more dangerous to my plan of diplo victory then Joao. With the railroad he is about as far away.

I do not see how playing this as AW and going for space could be faster then a diplomatic victory.

Our first target shouldn't be that far away, city maintenance would slow us down considerably. For now Joao looks like our best bet... but he as also the best ally we can see for now. This won't be an easy decision.

 

[Folket]

We are not at war with the minor nations, and those are the ones that we should try to please. I see no chance befriending dr. evil or goldmemeber in the near future.
Minor nation are in permanent war with everyone else. The only minor nation in the game is Goldmember. And he will attack us since it is likly he is isolated and unable to attack anyone else. I can see how you could refer to other nations as minor.

City gift is not a huge investment: it only costs one settler, (100 hammer) and can be done once we have a 3-4 cities and we are ready to road into neighbours. It could give us hundreds of beakers via tech trade and commerce via trade routes. Why would we pass on that opportunity?
It makes sense to me. But we might have problem to reach others than Joao or Mongolia. I think we should have it in mind and discuss it again later

I still can't see how space race can be competititve here, I see no reason for us to plan for that yet. Setting up a strong economy and expanding to ~10 cities is good for any win condition, so we should focus on that for now.
If we want to have a shot at diplomatic victory we need avoid getting negative modifier with our intended friends.

Comments in qoute.

 

[Folket]

Our first target shouldn't be that far away, city maintenance would slow us down considerably. For now Joao looks like our best bet... but he as also the best ally we can see for now. This won't be an easy decision.

That is a good argument. But Goldmember is slightly closer to us. If we can get to him with Galleys he should definitely be our target.

I do not see Joao as a good ally. He likes Evil and will be harder to please than Mansa and Ghandi.

 

[Shaandore]

Sorry, mixed up, I obviously thought about the normal nations (yeah, Joao and Mongolia looks like best gifting targets)

 

[BLubmuz]

Sorry, mixed up, I obviously thought about the normal nations (yeah, Joao and Mongolia looks like best gifting targets)

Don't count on my support for a Diplo VC.
Without a shared religion it won't be easy as you depict it. And Mansa is a real jerk if you have another religion.
Speaking of jerks, Joao is one of the worse Leaders in game: a backstabber and a squeezer in case you try to trade something.

Too many variants in play to my taste.

If you just look at the save, you can see that Evil has 3 cities, the others 1.
We can't see Goldmember à of cities because we're at war.
Permanent war, we can't even enter diplomacy with a minor nation.

Maybe you missed it, but we can only presume where he is. Maybe i placed him correctly in the test game, if you bother to use it.

There's another problem in Diplo. It's a pretty long path to MM and if we need paratroopers Space it's not much expensive in beakers than Diplo. And it's safer.

 

[Folket]

I guess you missed that we can see Goldmember south of us in the live save.

We can get Ghandi and Mansa to +8 by running free religion, universal suffrage and free market. If they ask for help or tribute it will just be easier. As long as we are careful not to get negative modifier diplo victory should not be difficult.

 

[Folket]

I'm certain Goldmember is the one that started with two cities. Evil probably had 1 city and then captured our city and settled Ulundi outside of it.

 

[pigswill]

Befriending a couple of AIs is certainly good advice. Until religion spread works out it will be hard to plan this in any kind of detail.

In terms of diplo/space/culture a lot will depend on which units we'll need to defeat Dr Evil (or at least capture his lair) because that'll determine how far we go down the tech tree. On that subject does anyone know if Internet is affected by no tech brokering?

 

[BLubmuz]

I guess you missed that we can see Goldmember south of us in the live save.

Yes i did. I didn't looked S of Wash, i was so sure there was nothing. But i can bet it's not the GLH/Colossus city.

We can get Ghandi and Mansa to +8 by running free religion, universal suffrage and free market. If they ask for help or tribute it will just be easier. As long as we are careful not to get negative modifier diplo victory should not be difficult.

It can be, because without warring with Joao and - probably - Gengis we can't expand, so we can't be competitive.

You must also think to paratroopers and to the time needed to bring SP to Legendary.
A well played all-war game to arrive to 60% of the land will bring us to AC sooner than a Diplo where we need to have 2 friendly opponents and our opponent on the election hatred by them. Who do we choose? Evil? Joao? - forget it, he's sharing Mansa's same religion. Gengis? And where do we expand? Submerged cities perhaps?

Your diplo plan must take in account this:
1- we must have 2 AIs friendly or almost
2- they must hate our opponent in the election
3- we must give the techs to our opponent and hope he will build the UN
4- we must be big enough to be first in population to win

1 and 2 can maybe be achieved in themselves, but how do we expand without fight Joao? This will give negative diplo
3.1 Goldmember is discarded because no one can have diplo relations, so gifting techs is impossible
3.2 Evil won't be much hatred and we need to almost wipe him (better if we can wipe him completely)
3.3 who remains considering 4?

I'm certain Goldmember is the one that started with two cities. Evil probably had 1 city and then captured our city and settled Ulundi outside of it.

Yes, Gold started with 2 cities. I must revise the test.
Evil is evident: he started with his Lair, captured SP and probably started with a settler. He can't have had time to build one in SP and probably the Lair is isolated by mountains. OTOH SP is still size 2, so maybe he built a settler there.

Note for myself: real save Wash is X 36 Y 11. Same in the test! I'm great!


The difference is that the test shows Future Era and the real game Ancient Era.

 

[BLubmuz]

Befriending a couple of AIs is certainly good advice. Until religion spread works out it will be hard to plan this in any kind of detail.

In terms of diplo/space/culture a lot will depend on which units we'll need to defeat Dr Evil (or at least capture his lair) because that'll determine how far we go down the tech tree. On that subject does anyone know if Internet is affected by no tech brokering?

Can we assume that we need paratroopers? Is seems plausible see the mountains around the Lair.

I never built the Internet in my games. When you arrive there, it's game over in few turns, usually less than the turns needed to build it.

Mainly this time: we start with Fusion and Composites, so we can start build Casings and Engines right after the Apollo is built. FiberOptics can be the last tech. The components unlocked by Genetics and satellites are the most expensive.

I also think that we don't need Plastics, because Ecology is unlocked by Fission and we already know Composites. We need Industrialism only to see Aluminum.

Better plan a GE and found Mining Inc.