SGOTM 18 - Kakumeika

[Kaitzilla]

Here is the war situation to chew over.

Turn 104 Real Game Genghis:

 

[Kaitzilla]

Turn 104 Real Game Screenshots!

Empire

Spoiler :

Techs and Stuff

Spoiler :

Foreign Lands

Spoiler :

 

[bcool]

Just to be clear Kaitzilla has the turnset, I've got a fundraiser to organize for my robotics team on Friday. Will be relatively free after Kaitzilla's turnset

mabraham

 

[bcool]

mabraham
Kaitzilla ... UP NOW
bcool ... ON DECK
Seraiel ... IN THE HOLE
WastinTime
Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Goals PPP​

Grand Strategy
Mission summary:
1) Recapture Swinger's Pad, make it legendary with espionage without using Culture bombs
Will involve capturing the city, building Hermitage, building a Theatre, and running 2 artists for 30 turns.
Try to generate 3000 in 40 turns.
Then give to Genghis, lose Representation, transfer the capital nearby, and use 75ish spread culture missions (assuming 83% success rate) and about 20,000 points.
Or 94ish missions if we can only get 1500
2) Raze Dr. Evil's Lair w/Paratroopers (most likely)
Attempt to get Dr. Evil's Lair for 10 turn Peace Treaty after taking Swinger's Pad
3) Achieve Diplo victory with votes from Mansa and Gandhi (Dr. Evil as opponent)
Gandhi remains troublesome by not staying in Buddhism!

General:- Maintain relationship with Mansa and Gandhi. Give in to Mansa demands. Probably also give in to Gandhi for +diplo, but recall Gandhi doesn't give -1 diplo for some things.
Work on building a shared religion with Mansa Musa & Gandhi.
- Don't tech or trade for Liberalism cause then we have to have Free Religion (This implies no Communism and no Intelligence Agencies)
- Since Paratroopers require Railroad and Assembly Line, plan for a GE for Mining Inc and get this corp up as fast as possible. (Validate need for Paratroopers)
- Consider options for stealing any advanced Technology an AI might possess on t0; Dr. Evil for example might have Fascism which we could steal as soon as we have the prerequisites.
- Empire/War plan: Capture cities fast. Fast does not imply: early. We don't need to start war ASAP, but once we do, make it quick. Take all GK, Joao, and Goldmember cities + Swinger's Pad and raze Dr. Evil's Lair. Take a lot of Dr. Evil's cities too, but eventually plan to gift him enough population to be our opponent for Diplo Victory. Try to share wars with Mansa Musa & Gandhi.

Short term goals (in order):
01) Conquer Genghis Khan's hilltop city
02) Scout Goldmember's city with a +1 vision chariot
03) Get axe and horse archer west of Oporto so they can pillage and camp Ivory starting around T112
04) Get capital as big as possible to exploit our Oxford advantage
05) Start the long Joao war around T112-T114 if Goldmember has a strong city.
06) Chop lots of fail gold for National Epic and Mausolleum
07) Finish Mausolleum by T115 if Joao isn't close to done or stops building it and Golden Age between T115-T120 with Great Scientist from Shark. If GE then delay Golden age
08) GS bulb Printing Press after we have Education and Machinery.
09) Research Gunpowder/Engineering/Printing Press once we see what Mansa techs next.
12) After Joao's 4 main cities are taken, keep going for Swinger's Pad
13) Add as much seed culture to Swingers' Pad as possible (at least 1000-2000, preferably more if it can be done quickly).
14) Give Swingers' Pad back to an AI other than Dr. Evil to maximize City Culture espionage discount. Thinking Genghis would be good as long as Goldmember/Mansa doesn't try to take it.
15) Beeline Mining Inc/Assembly Line (if Paratroopers are required)
16) Only after Mining Inc founded (or Steel if Paratroopers are not needed), build spies and get them in SP. Move the Palace next to Swinger's Pad.
17) Beeline MassMedia, start the UN (no need to rush with GE, gold, etc.)
18) Run 100% espionage slider to get Swinger's Pad to legendary with spies (research is completed with specialist and build Research because of Mining Inc); when legendary, take ownership of SP.
19) Beeline Paratroopers (if needed): Raze Dr. Evil's Lair
20) Diplo victory with votes from Mansa and Gandhi (Dr. Evil as opponent)

Undecided goals:
Forbidden Palace in Furry so capital can move towards Swinger's Pad?
Academy in Capitalist?
National Epic in Karakorum?
Mausoleum of Mausollos in Washington or Turfan?
AP anywhere?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Time for some calculations!

Oporto now has (1698/732)*100 = 232 in Mausolleum on T104.
Compare that to T100 when he had 170
Doing about 13 per turn without Marble if the formula is right.
I think a 4 pop whip only gets 60 on a Wonder instead of 120 on a regular building.
Oporto has 25% bonus from Organized Religion+Hindu, but there is no forge or civic bonus.
Would estimate Joao will whip Mausolleum complete in about 11 turns (T115) unless he adds more hammers per turn with pop growth or a chop.


Swinger's Pad now has (1965/1068)*100 = 184 in Statue of Zeus or Shwedagon Paya on T104.
Compare that to T100 when he had 118
Doing about 16.5 per turn. Dr. Evil doesn't have Organized Religion and may or may not have a forge. No civic bonus for wonders.
Wheat+citytile+CopperMine+Gold would get that for Paya.
Or add in GMine and some Pfarms to get 16.5 without Ivory for Statue.
Probably building Shwedagon Paya with the gold bonus.
Will know for sure if the city passes 300 since Soz is 300 vs. 450 for Shwdagon Paya.

Gandhi Beg
Last one was on Turn 83 for 30
If we begged right now we could get (50+104)*2*power rating/2
Assuming Gandhi is equal in power to say, Mansa, then it is (50+104)*2*1.121/2 172.6
Subtract off the 30 we already got, and Gandhi should give us up to 140 unless he is more powerful than Mansa.
Now, is 21 turns long enough for Gandhi to forget his last beg? 5% chance to forget each turn
Maybe save the beg for later. Gandhi's population should keep going up.

Fail Gold
Shark has 57 in National Epic
Washington has 225 in National Epic
Turfan has 84 in Mausolleum

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm half tempted for us to attack Genghis right now by moving the WoodyII spear 1N1W to see if we need catapults. I don't really care if the settler retreats into the city. We could just get 2 workers instead of 1.
DOW on Genghis will put Shark into sadly.


Also, scouting Goldmember.
If his city is on a hilltop, our +1 vision chariot on the boat should see it from 1N of clams.
If his city is on flatland, we'd have to go onto clams to see it, and then we'd be in danger if he had more than 3 galleys or triremes.
Say we start the turn 2S of Shark. Move 1S1E and see if his city is hilltop or not.
If it isn't, instead of sailing 1S and putting the fleet in danger, how about sacrifice the +1 vision chariot and move it 1S1E onto the pigs 1E of clams?
Sure, it would die, but a 30 land unit is way easier to replace than 150 worth of boats that we can't really replace. Fleet would retreat 1N1W.


And I assume even though we spent 2000 on libraries, universities, and Oxford, that I won't be allowed to really whip cities to make an army because of the golden age in 15 to 20 turns?


For the Joao war, Joao's new city and possibly even newer city if there is another settler in Caimbra might cut off our river trade to Mansa+Gandhi and cancel our trade routes and resource deals. Will have to check in test game.
**Edit**
Oh! Road 1W of wheat if it's a problem
Should remain beyond his possible culture.

 

[WastinTime]

Are we that sure MoM is going to be complete by Joao ~T115? Why don't we just capture this wonder?

We are planning to capture ALL of Joao's cities by T115-120. It's perfect. We can just delay our Golden Age a couple turns. Last GS, didn't we already test that if you get MoM after a GA starts it won't have any effect? Or did we prove the opposite? that it will extend the GA?

 

[WastinTime]

I'm half tempted for us to attack Genghis right now by moving the WoodyII spear 1N1W to see if we need catapults. I don't really care if the settler retreats into the city. We could just get 2 workers instead of 1.

Now, how are you going to get me my 20 cities if you trade the Spices/sheep city for a worker?

 

[WastinTime]

And I assume even though we spent 2000 on libraries, universities, and Oxford, that I won't be allowed to really whip cities to make an army because of the golden age in 15 to 20 turns?


For the Joao war, Joao's new city and possibly even newer city if there is another settler in Caimbra might cut off our river trade to Mansa+Gandhi and cancel our trade routes and resource deals. Will have to check in test game.

It'd be great if our university cities could concentrate on beakers, however, your goal is 20 cities by T115, so you are allowed to whip, etc. whatever it takes to make it happen. Don't worry about a golden age coming soon. We're going to have an eternal golden age.

Trade rts: I thought about this a while ago. I figured the rivers would hold out and it looks like they probably will, but the backup plan is to connect the North RR. It runs thru the mountains. IIRC, It only needs 2 roads. edit: looking at the game again now, I see 1 road west of Wheat should keep us connected.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Draft PPP T104-T114 War with Genghis/Joao/Goldmembers​

Techs - 100%
T104-T107 Machinery
Main danger is Mansa overflows Divine Right so much that he can put 2 turns worth of research into say Construction and then he won't trade it at all T108 since it's half done.

Know Your Enemy:
Mansa, Gandhi, Joao, Genghis, Shaka/Dr Evil, Ragnar?/Goldmember

T104 Real Game Screenshots Here


Cities
Capitalist
25 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Catapults


Pigs City (If we could get a 10xp unit somehow, Heroic Epic would let this city produce a Swordsman every turn at Size 8 )
7 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Catapults


Shark
15 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Finish Galley, then?


ClamStone
8 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Pure hammers for 4 turns, 1 pop whip granary


Washington
20 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - 2 pop whip horse archer or catapult, overflow into Masolleum


Furry
0 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Slow build granary


WheatIron
32 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Buddhist Missionary for hilltop city, then chariot


Ning
1 turn of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Granary, then forge, then Courthouse


Karakorum
0 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - National Epic, then Courthouse


Turfan
2 turns of Whip Anger

Spoiler :

T104 - Courthouse, then triple chop into MoM fail gold or settler for Ivory+Dye

Workers
Dixie

Alotta

Vanessa


Units
Fembot Stay with army and heal


Diplomacy

Accept techs or gold request from Gandhi
Refuse Joao and Gandhi demands to switch into Hindu
Refuse any Mansa requests unless it is a small amount of gold
Refuse all Joao demands
Refuse all Dr Evil demands
Refuse all Genghis demands

Espionage - 100% on ???

Stopping conditions -

Check every turn
Save the game at the start and end of the turn
Check the cultural view to pick out hidden AI culture
Check if Gandhi can be bribed into Buddhism

 

[Seraiel]

Goldmembers city is on a hill so you can rule that out Kaitzilla. It can be seen when looking closely under the Fog, city is 1S of Pigs, only alternative would be that there's a Fort on that tile because I did see the Galleys coming from exactly that tile.

 

[mabraham]

Are we that sure MoM is going to be complete by Joao ~T115? Why don't we just capture this wonder?

We are planning to capture ALL of Joao's cities by T115-120. It's perfect. We can just delay our Golden Age a couple turns. Last GS, didn't we already test that if you get MoM after a GA starts it won't have any effect? Or did we prove the opposite? that it will extend the GA?

I recall that adding the MoM does not enhance an existing Golden Age. This would certainly be the easiest way to implement the spirit of the MoM rules.

I'm willing to explore capturing the MoM, but it is being built in Oporto and we'd want to capture it ASAP (ie. the turn after the DOW). That does sync up with having nearby forces for denying Joao elephants. I'm just not sure how we can capture Besh ~T107 and get a HA stack over to Oporto for a ~T115 DOW. We can probably rely on constructing a few tiles of westerly teleport, of course.

 

[mabraham]

I'm half tempted for us to attack Genghis right now by moving the WoodyII spear 1N1W to see if we need catapults. I don't really care if the settler retreats into the city. We could just get 2 workers instead of 1.
DOW on Genghis will put Shark into sadly.

Don't we want to avoid the extra two archers returning to Besh? I think it is wise to wait until we see the city settled, so that we can be sure the city settles and that its defenders will not leave it during our march on Besh.

Also, scouting Goldmember.
If his city is on a hilltop, our +1 vision chariot on the boat should see it from 1N of clams.
If his city is on flatland, we'd have to go onto clams to see it, and then we'd be in danger if he had more than 3 galleys or triremes.
Say we start the turn 2S of Shark. Move 1S1E and see if his city is hilltop or not.
If it isn't, instead of sailing 1S and putting the fleet in danger, how about sacrifice the +1 vision chariot and move it 1S1E onto the pigs 1E of clams?
Sure, it would die, but a 30 land unit is way easier to replace than 150 worth of boats that we can't really replace. Fleet would retreat 1N1W.

Any movement towards Goldmember should use the ocean tile on the western edge of the culture border that is in our culture - so we can station boats there and Goldmember cannot reach us there. We can move the navy 1SE from there with the vision chariot and still retreat safely (or unload chariot) as the intel suggests.

And I assume even though we spent 2000 on libraries, universities, and Oxford, that I won't be allowed to really whip cities to make an army because of the golden age in 15 to 20 turns?

I would definitely leave our major GP producers (Shark, Karak), army producer (Pigs), and commerce producer (Capitalist) nearly exempt. Most of those are under happy pressure anyway. Everywhere else is size 2-3, so what are they going to whip anyway? Washington is a bit whippable if we commit to capturing the MoM, but it's also under happy pressure. Even if we did whip all the above cities, I'm still skeptical we can have a force that can kill Joao by T120. Just getting units to his capital will take 8-10 turns of walking, so those units need to be spawned by T112! It's fine to set ambitious goals - but I'm skeptical that T120 Joao-kill is possible, even if we had no competing objectives.

I didn't adapt well enough to the expectation of Construction - I should have put the settler in Turfan back on the queue, so we can settle dye-ivory ASAP for 2 happy. Sorry.

For the Joao war, Joao's new city and possibly even newer city if there is another settler in Caimbra might cut off our river trade to Mansa+Gandhi and cancel our trade routes and resource deals. Will have to check in test game.
**Edit**
Oh! Road 1W of wheat if it's a problem
Should remain beyond his possible culture.

There's a turn on a road marked there, which would be good enough so long as Braga does not pop borders before we raze it.

 

[bcool]

The MoM isn't that expensive for us as an industrial civilization with Marble, I think it is wise for us to just finish it ourselves and not plan to capture it.

Remember if an AI goes to war, he won't necessarily continue working on the wonder unless he has 3 turns left. Plus I think the T115 is the minimum target for Joao to complete the wonder if he 4 pop whips it. He might not whip it and thus may never finish it.

If we finish it before the war with Joao starts we would be able to trade Joao for some of his fail gold on the MoM.

I think we finish it ourselves asap.

Re: GK
I agree we should wait for GK to settle the his city before we DoW him again.

I'm a little pessimistic about the plan to give Swinger's Pad to GK, because Mansa or Gandhi might declare on GK again if he gets a city.

Re: Joao
Are we just going to eat the -2 diplo for declaring on Joao from Gandhi?

Re: whips & Golden Age
I agree whip to your hearts content in all but the key great people cities and the capital.
I'd like to see us switch to caste system and pacifism at the start of the golden age. That's the only way that we can hope to produce the great people we want.

Re: maps
We can sell our maps to Dr. Evil for 10 gold (I suspect we can sell our maps to another AI or 2 for a few gold)
As you explore check this every turn. For example Goldmember's lands are worth money.

Great People
I redid the spreadsheet to reflect the current game situation. Kaitzilla please consult the spreadsheet for targets on how many specialists to run. It might not be realistic in some cases but it is close.
here is one possibility assuming T116 GA (and switch to pacifism and caste system)
Shark T114 (for 1st GA)
Karakorum T121 (for 2nd GA)
Pigs T127 (our great engineer?)
Karakorum T129 (for 2nd Ga)
Shark T132
Washington T140
Karak T141 (last 3 for 3rd GA or perhaps great scientists for bulbing purposes?)
(Capitalist might produce a great person T154 or so if it is relevant and we get big enough to run a few specialists after working all the cottages) (earlier if the GA runs more than 24 turns)

Re: Capitalist
I would run a grass land cottage this turn to grow 1 turn earlier (and turn of the gold mine for 1 turn)

 

[bcool]

Do immortal AI get a bonus on wonder builds? I know it isn't as much as for buildings but Joao might only have to pay 450 hammer? 90%?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I don't think we can attack this turn. The settler will just retreat.

Yes, the settler will simply retreat into the capital when we submit our DoW. The stopping condition should have been when GK's settler moves more than a turn from his capital, making retreat to it in 1t impossible.

We are simply going to have to wait a turn before submitting the DoW. I'd even wait until the new city is founded, making settler retreat impossible regardless of possible hidden roads. We would effectively have to wait for GK's new city to be founded without the complete kills option; the AI might still try to retreat his settler rather than found the new city.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Seraiel]

Ok guys, we're gonna win the gold laurels. I don't know how yet but we're gonna have luck until the end of the round, I just had so much bad luck in the last game for the current Gauntlet that no more bad luck is possible for us as a team. Say goodbye to the ducks.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

We need to attack Joao II before he acquires Feudalism and starts upgrading Archers to Longbowmen. He is working on Horseback Riding now, so we have a few turns to spare, but he might start researching Fuedalism next. He is behind in technolology, so its seems unlikely that he would be able to trade for Feudalism once it becomes available for trade.

If we can't get a mediaevil army (primarily Macemen) together in time, we may need to wait and complete Gunpowder and possibly Nationalism for drafting Musketmen. We may need to consider Spies to destroy Walls, helping Catapults bring down cultural defense faster or possibly to Support City Revolts in key cities.

Spies can really help our mediaevil army too via destroying walls. A castle only slows down bombardment by -25% (Walls is -50% and walls are half the price of castles).

Most of our cities aren't going to be whipping much soon due to their small size.

We should resume Gunpowder after we complete Machinery. Or research Nationnalism after we trade for Philosophy.

I hope our Machinery gambit works. Completing Gunpowder and trading for Construction might have been better.

I still think we should be improving our espionage capabilites. At least building Spies and planting them in strategic places like Gandhi's nearest city for Influence Religion missions. Maybe building Trojan city settlers.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Kaitzilla]

Goldmembers city is on a hill so you can rule that out Kaitzilla. It can be seen when looking closely under the Fog, city is 1S of Pigs, only alternative would be that there's a Fort on that tile because I did see the Galleys coming from exactly that tile.

I tested this morning. Whether the city is on the hill or 2S of clams shouldn't matter too much. The +1 vision chariot works better than I thought.

Spoiler :

So we don't have to worry about sacrificing it. We can keep it on the galley and sail it west to look at Dr. Evil's mountain chain too. Or maybe just garrison Shark with it since it has happy problems.