SGOTM 19 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

Th save looks AWESOME nocho! :D

Some initial thoughts.

I see absolutely no reason to bulb Lib anywhere near this point. No one even has Paper yet! I think we try to take Democracy from Lib, and should tech that direction. EDIT: Now I see, we can't bulb the whole thing! Brilliant!

I see the next set as a builders set really. If we don't go Free Religion, then I think we should go back to OR.

I think we wait on completing the the new Palace and try to time to completion of FP in Clam Bake. We can speed that up a bit with a chop.

The biggest question I see is Diplomacy. With all the warring, someone(s) is going to ask us to join.
 
Here you are Aj.
Spoiler :
 
My conventional thinking here is to turn research off until I get OxU built. An early Lib for Nationalism and Taj might make sense, especially with the rate at which HC can tech.

I hope there aren't a few Ironclads spread about. :(
 
Diplomacy... don't forget we would need to actually capture or lose a city in any war we fight before making peace.

I would DECLINE any request to war against KK or Alex. KK because he would make a better friend for us, and Alex because he is far away and taking a city off him would be difficult.

I am inclined to accept any request to war against Napoleon, because I'd expect we would be able to take Gondar off him. Having said that, we are lagging behind in military tech and to be honest it would be best if we just didn't have to fight any wars not of our own choosing.

A better solution would be to take FREE RELIGION right now, thereby getting most (if not all) of the AIs Pleased with us, and then BEGGING for 50 gold from each of them.

I don't think OR is worth it now: Increased civic maintenance cost, most infrastructure already built, Free Religion has more benefits like +:), +%:science:, +diplomacy, +:culture: in Aksum/AA.

Maps
Now that we have Paper, can we trade for the AI's world maps? It seems Napoleon and Alex would only do so at Friendly, but HC and KK should be willing to trade once they are Pleased.

Once we have the maps we should start discussing which Corporation we want to aim for. With that decision will also come a list of resources we still need to claim, and most likely AI cities we need to capture before our ultimate victory.

I allready see us joining the lurkers' thread before the others reach 1ad :)
That would be nice :)
 
Proposal

This is what I propose for the next turnset:

1. Switch civic to Free Religion. Keep HRule, Bureaucracy and Slavery.
2. Beg gold off any Pleased AI. See below for more details.
3. Part bulb Liberalism with GS.
4. Go max research to discover Liberalism.
5. Take Nationalism for free tech.
6. Turn off research until OxU is built.
7. Trade away techs to learn Machinery, Feudalism, Music, Engineering (KK and HC have it I think)

Tech Trades

We should be able to get some good value out of Philoshopy right now I think. Eg, Sell it to KK for Theology+gold, or Philo+Compass+WorldMap for Theology+Machinery. We can then hopefully on-sell Theology+Philosophy to Napoleon for something more expensive like Feudalism.

Begging for Gold

Recall our discussion in the last SGOTM about begging for gold: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12822112#post12822112

The last AI we met was HC, back on turn 80, 49 turns ago. Beg 'points' = 50 + numTurns*2*3 = 344. Multiply by our relative power, ie, 0.7 for KK and we have 240 'points' to spend. This should be enough to beg for 120 :gold:... perhaps ask for up to 100 :gold: to be on the safe side. Do this after trying the tech trades with KK though.
 
Got my response eaten again. :(

We have a lot of happy right now, so FR would be mostly useful for diplo. Since it should boost us (by removing religon -diplo) with every remaining AI, I think that is worth doing. The +beaker boost helps as well.

I don't see why we would use the Liberalism free tech for Nationalism, when none of the AIs even know Paper yet. :confused: We can part bulb Liberalism so we can finish it fairly quickly if needed, then tech Nationalism directly and start building the Taj Mahal. When an AI looks like it could be getting close, we finish Liberalism and take the most expensive tech we can. Hopefully Democracy, but I think Constitution would be almost certain.

What would be the time difference for finishing Liberalism -> Nationalism grab, compared to self-teching Nationalism? Would that time difference be enough for us to risk losing the Taj Mahal? That would be the only reason I can see for using the free tech on Nationalism.

That ironclad prevents early access to the barb city, which presumably has the Aluminum Corp HQ. But I doubt it is the secret task.

Statue of Liberty once we reach Democracy? Every city except one tile islands (KK has one such city I think) would get the free specialist, which is pretty attractive.

I agree with refusing most (all?) war requests for now. We do not have current generation military units, and taking cities would likely be quite costly. If we can get at least Machinery for maces and xbows, we will be a lot safer. None of the AIs have Guilds for knights yet, but with their fighting I expect that someone will head for it pretty soon.
 
We are within a couple turns of being able to see HC's research. If he is going for Nationalism right now and was clearly going to beat us, we could always finish it (lib). We will know before we have time to finish Liberalism for sure.
 
I'd also try for something more expensive than nationalism. But bulbing lib now nearly to completion to be able to trade machinery etc would be good.

I'd take FR now. OR isn't quite as needed anymore. Back to slavery of course.

Try to speed up the FP as much as you can. I even build a workshop for some base hammers.

Oh, forgot to mention, but the beauty of caste: ran 5 artists in AA for the last 2 turns, which got us two more flood plains. :D

I see no reason to join any wars atm. Was surprised not to get any requests btw.
 
Things looking really good there Nocho.. :goodjob:

I'm in AJ's camp I think we should take Nationalism from Lib. Part bulbed now and concentrate on the Taj for the free Golden Age. Our tech rate will still be pretty abysmal unless we build wealth etc and if we turn off tech (which I think we should do) till OU is built in Askum we won't be getting Nationalism anytime soon. Plus Consitution is only about 300 beakers more than Nat in actual cost. Of course the other thing what is HC going for. We still need some beakers in lib so if he is going for NAt and can see his research shortly that will give us more of an idea. Note if he gets Nationalism before us he is likely to build the Taj quicker as well.

Tech trades. Shame Nap is KK's worse enemy so if we do tech trades with him we'll get the -4 with KK. Otoh when we go FR there is a good chance we will be able to trade with Alex so Philo - Paper - compass with Alex should get us feud and machinery. Then next turn see if we can get engineering from KK for assorted techs.

Ironclad. That could be the "secret requirement". Can't see another reason for it being there. We do need to get a sentry unit up to the NE of Minoan to try and see what tiles are hidden there as well. We might have to build a city there and if Minoan is still standing we won't be able to.
 
I think we can be fairly sure to lib democracy. Everyone is miles away from edu still. I think it's probably a good idea to build wealth in cities after universities (primarily thinking NH+SS here) and go full on nationalism after some more unis are out. Maybe would not wait for Oxford though.

Then build Taj in NH, maybe we have some forests left?

I think with FP in CB and Oxford our tech rate will start to take off. Both should have been built by the end of next set (a few forests left for Oxford... Aksum just received a chop btw, could be redirected to uni if we want to postpone palace. Then again, bureau will speed up univ+OU in Aksum ;)).

In short, if we're not even sure HC is going for nationalism now, I think we should just aim for demo from lib. And even if he is, I think we may still beat him to nationalism (or rather, Taj) with a concentrated effort. In either case, we'll get demo from lib, if we want.
 
About the secret VC, the ironclad and the Barbcity:

Since forever I asked myself why the mapmaker place that strange river in the Ice.

Now that we see the sea and the ironclad we know we are supposed to conquer the city. Its not there just to 'hold' the corp. And because its 'just' an ironclad we are ment to do it rather early. The river is there as a trade link. It makes it possible to connect the city to a trade network using that river; it would have been impossible otherwise.

I suspect the secret condition to be directly linked with that city in some way. Maybe its not about capturing it, but doing something with it. It could hold rescources we need to get or something like that.

The normal way to reach the city would be to build a city at the shore, build a tiny fleet, then carry units over and assault the city. Would it be possible to build a city blose to the barb-wall, throw a great artist in it and run artist spoecialists non-stop there to flip the hidden barbs with culture pre-schedule and save us a dozent turns at the end?

I know its costly, but we are battling the other teams for early victory dates, right? And most likely that city is at least somewhat usefull. It will have *something*

Spoiler :
flip_Barb.jpg
 
Indeed, the ironclad is the guarding unit for the only access point that doesn't need teleporting or paratroopers. So yeah, surely we'll end up settling up there. Ingeniously this is revealed at democracy, in other words, with access to rushbuying boats. Now how to kill an ironclad? Or hope the thing goes to the left tile and sneak units past? Not sure it'll move at all, unless maybe sacrifing a workboat on the left tile. ;)
 
Well we will get a rough idea of our "tech rate" next turn when we come out of the GA. I'd be very surprised if HC isn't going for Nationalism. I do think we will be able to get Demo from Lib but it still requires us to tech a lot of beakers. I assume the next GP from Constan will bulb most of PP but were still looking at 7000 - 8000 beakers very approx for Nat/Con/PP and rest of Lib. I can see quite a bit of wealth building going on. :)
 
Indeed, the ironclad is the guarding unit for the only access point that doesn't need teleporting or paratroopers. So yeah, surely we'll end up settling up there. Ingeniously this is revealed at democracy, in other words, with access to rushbuying boats. Now how to kill an ironclad? Or hope the thing goes to the left tile and sneak units past? Not sure it'll move at all, unless maybe sacrifing a workboat on the left tile. ;)

I guess it would probably just move back again after killing a weak unit. Not much we can do atm but with early democracy we can rush buy a few frigates down the line. Would lose 2 or 3 probably but clear the route out. Of course what we find on the other side might not be appealing either!!! :lol:
 
About the secret VC, the ironclad and the Barbcity:

Since forever I asked myself why the mapmaker place that strange river in the Ice.

Now that we see the sea and the ironclad we know we are supposed to conquer the city. Its not there just to 'hold' the corp. And because its 'just' an ironclad we are ment to do it rather early. The river is there as a trade link. It makes it possible to connect the city to a trade network using that river; it would have been impossible otherwise.

I suspect the secret condition to be directly linked with that city in some way. Maybe its not about capturing it, but doing something with it. It could hold rescources we need to get or something like that.

The normal way to reach the city would be to build a city at the shore, build a tiny fleet, then carry units over and assault the city. Would it be possible to build a city blose to the barb-wall, throw a great artist in it and run artist spoecialists non-stop there to flip the hidden barbs with culture pre-schedule and save us a dozent turns at the end?

I know its costly, but we are battling the other teams for early victory dates, right? And most likely that city is at least somewhat usefull. It will have *something*

Spoiler :
flip_Barb.jpg

I think we would be one tile to far away as we'd need 50000 culture to surround the city. i.e legendary. Even 5000 would be a big ask if thats all we need especially as we wouldn't have any food to feed artists. Bearing in mind the barb city has its own culture as well.
 
Well we will get a rough idea of our "tech rate" next turn when we come out of the GA. I'd be very surprised if HC isn't going for Nationalism. I do think we will be able to get Demo from Lib but it still requires us to tech a lot of beakers. I assume the next GP from Constan will bulb most of PP but were still looking at 7000 - 8000 beakers very approx for Nat/Con/PP and rest of Lib. I can see quite a bit of wealth building going on. :)

Wealth is an excellent build after universities. Not much else to build anyway. :) Hope we get fail gold from Angkor one day. Does that wonder come with philo? In that case no wonder we didn't cash in yet. :lol: Also some cash around in trade.

Which reminds me, we should check university nr 6. I think I mentioned CP, but IIRC it doesn't have a library yet. We may get it quicker from Thessa.
 
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. Trade away techs to learn Machinery, Feudalism, Music, Engineering (KK and HC have it I think) I guess we would need another AI to have engineering before KK will trade it I assume.

Tech Trades

We should be able to get some good value out of Philoshopy right now I think. Eg, Sell it to KK for Theology+gold, or Philo+Compass+WorldMap for Theology+Machinery. We can then hopefully on-sell Theology+Philosophy to Napoleon for something more expensive like Feudalism. Theology though no real use for us would give us a few more options on tech trades. Especially if we want to keep paper a monopoly. Must admit I often use Edu on engineering and guilds once I don't have any use for it

Begging for Gold

Recall our discussion in the last SGOTM about begging for gold: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12822112#post12822112

The last AI we met was HC, back on turn 80, 49 turns ago. Beg 'points' = 50 + numTurns*2*3 = 344. Multiply by our relative power, ie, 0.7 for KK and we have 240 'points' to spend. This should be enough to beg for 120 :gold:... perhaps ask for up to 100 :gold: to be on the safe side. Do this after trying the tech trades with KK though.

yep begging is always good and we don't fear a war declaration atm. Good old Alex was pretty certain KK would be his obvious target.. :)
 
Wealth is an excellent build after universities. Not much else to build anyway. :) Hope we get fail gold from Angkor one day. Does that wonder come with philo? In that case no wonder we didn't cash in yet. :lol: Also some cash around in trade.

Which reminds me, we should check university nr 6. I think I mentioned CP, but IIRC it doesn't have a library yet. We may get it quicker from Thessa.

Yep AW comes with philosophy. Do we want to pick another city for the Heroic Epic. Especially as SS and NH will mostly be building wealth. Also if Thessa can get a quicker uni out I'm all for that. Just have to time a whip so all uni's (well those ones not finished) are done on the same turn to get OU built asap.

Of course for building wealth UoS comes with paper so another thing we can do.. Also agree we want to clean up the AI's spare cash.
 
Heroic Epic has been built in SS.

So what techs do we trade away? Philo and compass? Maybe I'd sit on paper for now. Didn't trade any maps yet, so maybe our map still has some worth too.

If we sit on paper it might take a while to get fail cash from UoS..
 
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