SGOTM 19 - Also Sprach Sid

[Doshin]

^^^^ Good job. ToA gold is well timed, and a better build for us than Chichen Itza or the Pyramids.

I need to eat but will look at the save after.

We could complete CS with a few more beakers from building research, and 30g beg from HC, Commit?

Spoiler :

Does it make a difference whether we research CS on this turn or the next? 30G is not much, and the AI is generous with their first gift.

OTOH, I am not sure how close we are to Cautious. Is the shared civics bonus still accumulating?

 

[Duckweed]

Test game attached.

 

[Duckweed]

Does it make a difference whether we research CS on this turn or the next? 30G is not much, and the AI is generous with their first gift.

1F in capital and another 1F in sheepish.

OTOH, I am not sure how close we are to Cautious. Is the shared civics bonus still accumulating?

Yes, HC likes HR very much. HC is pleased with us now, begging 30g from him costs no diplomatic hit. We always have some techs to offer if there's more cash.

Anyway, it's ancient history now.

It's a deep and fresh memory for kossin.

 

[Doshin]

What I mean is, the AI begins with a certain amount of generosity (let's say "100") and this grows the longer you wait (again, making up numbers, let's say... +"1" per turn), and begging or demanding a tech resets this ("100" to "0"). But 30G for +2F (and some in the capital) is good with me, so go ahead.

I think kossin is still catching up on sleep from the final week of the last SGOTM.

Spoiler :

So am I.

 

[Duckweed]

What I mean is, the AI begins with a certain amount of generosity (let's say "100") and this grows the longer you wait (again, making up numbers, let's say... +"1" per turn), and begging or demanding a tech resets this ("100" to "0"). But 30G for +2F (and some in the capital) is good with me, so go ahead.

[/SPOILER]

It's 50 and about 25g.

I need some time to run a bit longer test to see when we could gather enough HAs. I already found that it's hard to manage 1 turn per unit in RP with 1 turn stable unless we want to stagnate the growth completely. I'd probably squeeze more units from other cities instead, which means 2 turn stable before HAs, and hence 1 less HA from RP.

 

[Doshin]

The real save looks good. I think we can sell Clams to Alex, provided that we connect another Corn in the next ~8 turns. It's funny how Napoleon REX'd so hard during pomthom's set, but has stopped ever since.

It would be useful to scout Tokugawa's Copper and Floodplain city.

I wonder whether the Ice in the middle of the map is there for a reason, or if it is just the mapmaker's whim.

 

[kossin]

Yes to earlier food!

 

[kossin]

It's a deep and fresh memory for kossin.

It's good practice to learn from your mistakes and push harder in that area.

What I mean is, the AI begins with a certain amount of generosity (let's say "100") and this grows the longer you wait (again, making up numbers, let's say... +"1" per turn), and begging or demanding a tech resets this ("100" to "0"). But 30G for +2F (and some in the capital) is good with me, so go ahead.

I think kossin is still catching up on sleep from the final week of the last SGOTM.

Spoiler :

So am I.

To be honest, life got busier, I just toned down on civ4 to compensate. That last week though was freakish brutal with all those 4~5 AM sleep -> 6~7 AM get up.

It's 50 and about 25g.

I need some time to run a bit longer test to see when we could gather enough HAs. I already found that it's hard to manage 1 turn per unit in RP with 1 turn stable unless we want to stagnate the growth completely. I'd probably squeeze more units from other cities instead, which means 2 turn stable before HAs, and hence 1 less HA from RP.

Is it a big difference from lvl 4 HA vs lvl 3 in terms of combat odds? (assuming they win first fight and then promote)

 

[Duckweed]

The real save looks good. I think we can sell Clams to Alex, provided that we connect another Corn in the next ~8 turns.

Yes, besides that, I'm wondering whether we want to sell Ivory to KK when it is connected.

It's funny how Napoleon REX'd so hard during pomthom's set, but has stopped ever since.

No room or good site, I guess.

It would be useful to scout Tokugawa's Copper and Floodplain city.

I could send a HA to scout.

I wonder whether the Ice in the middle of the map is there for a reason, or if it is just the mapmaker's whim.

Is it a big difference from lvl 4 HA vs lvl 3 in terms of combat odds? (assuming they win first fight and then promote)

Yes, Doshin suggested it. I tried 1 HA before the stable and then 1 turn stable next, I could let RP produce 1 HA continuously, but at the cost of stagnating growth. That's why I said that I prefer 2 turns of stable without stagnating growth, but 1 less HA.

Another issue is that do we want to send CoL or Aes to Toku for some small cash 40~50g. All the other AIs got them now, and it's good that Toku has more choices of infrastructures.

I could not complete the test tonight, need to continue on tomorrow though.

 

[Doshin]

A "no" to the Ivory from me. Kublai will just start to add War Elephants to his stack instead of Xbows and Macemen. We can renegotiate the Pigs deal on the following turn. Even if the AI's gold plummets to 0GPT after cancelling a resource deal, they get it back soon after (unless they are at war).

The AI usually avoids CoLs after the religion is gone, so I've no problem with selling that to Tokugawa. He won't build a Courthouse, but let's hope for that anyway. We'll need to wait ~7 turns to regain tech visibility, so it's not worth waiting for that.

Edit: the Stables would mostly be for quick healing after 1XP battles (retreat or 98%+ odds). Although I think it will be worthwhile, I don't have my heart set on it.

 

[Duckweed]

Stable and 7xp HAs or no stable and 5xp HAs but 2 more HAs?

Probably 2 more HAs is better since the critical battles will happen in 2 turns and the extra promotion will only help later.

 

[kossin]

If we're aiming for ~3 cities only, then the 2 extra HAs can make the difference for the first 2 cities, which is the most crucial part of the attack.

If we want to speed up troop movement from RP to the west, the 'best' (but also most worker extensive) path is along the north west towards Sea Horse such that each turn has a westward component to movement.

 

[Duckweed]

Even without the road network in north, north path is still the shorter way than south for HAs from RP. Won't be much problem to connect the road since the 2 workers in Dye Hard will be free soon.

 

[Doshin]

+1 for two more Horse Archers > Stables.

We should be able to delay the Hanging Gardens until after the Toku rush. Should I run some tests on random Lakes maps with Aggressive AI to get an approximate feel for the build date? I can set up HC with a Marble/Stone capital like the real game.

 

[Folket]

I prefer stable. It will pay for itself after one turn of battle.

 

[Duckweed]

+1 for two more Horse Archers > Stables.

We should be able to delay the Hanging Gardens until after the Toku rush. Should I run some tests on random Lakes maps with Aggressive AI to get an approximate feel for the build date? I can set up HC with a Marble/Stone capital like the real game.

Only Nappy and HC have stone, all HC's cities' build can be checked by EP. Nappy will be busy on fighting Alex in short time. Not dangerous till T110. OTOH, we are able to complete MoM and start GA ~T105. Will the yield from 10 more citizens for 5~10 turns be better than 3 pops from Toku's cities. It depends on whether we want to start the GA and when we are ready to attack though.

I prefer stable. It will pay for itself after one turn of battle.

If you look at the map, you will see that HAs participating in the battles on Askum won't be able to reach Condar in the next turn.

 

[Doshin]

Okay, good. I immediately regretted offering to run such long tests of uncertain utility.

---

Since we are about to finish Civil Service, now would also be a good time to clarify some of the issues surrounding the GA and switch into Bureaucracy.

• MoM: the switch will occur after the MoM is built. Does that mean that we need to wait four/five turns, Duckweed, at minimum?
  Maximizing fail gold in this wonder will help offset the delayed switch into Bureaucracy (i.e. although the capital does not receive a commerce or hammers boost, we receive a 125% conversion of whip OF or chops into gold elsewhere via the wonder).
  There are not many reasons to build the wonder before we plan to start our Golden Age (GP points, mostly), and the fail gold will be guaranteed (unlike, e.g., the Sistine Chapel, which may never be built)
  
• Population: do we want ten cities with an average size of 4+ population, when we start our Golden Age? Or 6+ ? 8+? Eventually cities will take too long to grow to the next size to justify further delay, and the capital will also be large enough to justify the GA and civic switch.
  
• Civics: I assume that we will switch into Caste/Pacifism, which suggests that we cannot start our Golden Age until we have a Courthouse in Dye Hard and Bacon Sandwich.
  
• Hanging Gardens: is it better to receive +10 population and +2GP (Great Engineer) ASAP, on the turn the GA begins, or after we have captured Toku's cities, resulting in +13 population?
  
• Capital: at what point does the hammer/commerce boost exceed the growth potential of our small cities?
  
• Great People: we plan to grow Constantinople and Case Depart. Should we run Great Scientists in Case Depart during the Golden Age, or work Cottages? Will we try to pop a Merchant in Bacon Sandwich? If so, how much pop do we need before we start a GA, or start running GMs, and so on?

^^^ I don't think we can answer all of these now, but they will all influence our play over the coming turns and are largely unrelated to the Horse Archer rush. There are a lot of different areas to balance.

I'll post my thoughts later. Now I need to do some work.

 

[Duckweed]

MoM, unless we want to prioritize chops which means delaying the cottages on grassland tiles, we can't complete in 5 turns, T105 from my test. We won't have much OF to MoM since they are going to be used for HAs.

The cost of delaying bureaucracy becomes bigger, 20C+6H on T105.

Capital: 1 turn to size 14
Const: size13
RP: size 11
Sheepish: 1 turn to size 11 without whipping HAs
most other cities are size 5~6.

All the pops do not count the extra pop from HG.

All cities will have CHs before T105.

HG will be done on T106

We will have a stack of 16~18 HAs ready to attack on T109, depends on whether we want to whip a HA in Sheepish and DH.

Regarding GP production and whether capital should hire scientists. It would be easier to plan it while we are there. It won't be wrong to grow the GP farms as big as possible for the moment.

 

[soundjata]

Dropping by to tell you guys I'm still reading posts on a daily basis.

I don't have much availability to participate though. New work is demanding and quite far from my temporary accommodation. Have yet to find a temporary settlement. Gosh housing near Paris is a nightmare.

Can't see myself able to contribute/play in the coming weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to play some turns near the finish line.

Keep it up a$$es!

Edit: Is there anything we can deduct from the drop in the score graph of MGNs? Mass whipping for what?

 

[Duckweed]

Good to see you around.

We are in the middle stage of the game now, which needs quite some time to run tests and plans. Would be easier after setting up the GP production for our 1st GA.