SGOTM 21 - Plastic Ducks

[Doshin]

It's always good to begin a turnset and immediately hear the war horn.

Mansa is in the game? Did we all forget to check the soldier counts?

Approximately how long will it take us to reach Civil Service, in a CoL ---> Civil Service ---> Construction tech path?

If MM still lacks Writing, he won't get to CoLs to Construction any time soon. So we should probably evaluate our own situation first and foremost, and the benefits of going to Construction early. If we intend to switch into Bureaucracy with Monarchy, we will presumably be the ones who research CoLs, so the main question is "when?"

Founding Confucianism also means that Mansa will ignore CoLs entirely, which will increase the likelihood that he will go to Alphabet or Metal Casting: both useful techs for us to trade.

Getting Mansa AI to Alphabet early, in fact, would be huge for us, since it will open up Iron Working and Monarchy.

So I would favor sticking with CoLs.

 

[Duckweed]

If we could grab GLH, which is going to offer ~30C. We should be able to complete CS before T90. One reason that I consider switching to Construction is that if Shaka has some luck to beat down William (the poor William is producing chariots) quickly, we are likely the next target. Therefore, getting a SOD earlier becomes more urgent. If we go CS before Construction, it's quite dangerous.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Mansa!

How did he get in our game?
Immortal Mansa always has 26,000 soldiers.
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/demographics.php

Mining - 2000 soldiers
Hunting - 2000 soldiers
Agriculture - 0 soldiers
The Wheel - 4000 soldiers
Archery - 6000 soldiers
Skirmishers (3) - 4000 soldiers (x3) = 12,000 soldiers
Total: 26,000 soldiers.

Game started out with 23,000 soldiers on turn 0!

And not just that, but the health bar trick also indicated that the strongest unit at the start of the game was 3

Spoiler :

Finally got around to doing the Health Bar Trick.
I don't trust it as much using a Scout since the hp bar is so tiny that it makes accurate reading difficult.
It appears to indicate that the strongest unit in the game on Turn 0 is 3 and the strongest unit in the game on Turn 30 is 4

Mansa Musa doesn't appear to be in our game.
If we want monopoly techs, we should focus on getting Willem to Friendly since we started out +3 with him.

Interestingly, Shaka started out -3 with Willem.
Test game didn't simulate Shaka whom I consider the most dangerous warmonger in the game, so we should keep both eyes on him once he opens his speech with "Fear my Impi!"
2% chance each turn he'll go to war with someone (us ) once he gets a strong unit.

I got snookered by the mapmaker.
I apologize to the team.

T66. Shaka blows the war horn, his target is William, ...

Hooray!!!

 

[Duckweed]

I remembered that AIs started with warriors in SGOTM20, so it's normal to evade player's analysis in this game.

 

[Doshin]

Yes, don't worry.

In SGOTM 19, our entire team missed the fact that the mapmaker had used the world builder to prefound Aluminum Co. until we were less than 10 turns from victory.

----

My main reasoning for sticking with CoLs is the following:

Founding Confucianism also means that Mansa will ignore CoLs entirely, which will increase the likelihood that he will go to Alphabet or Metal Casting: both useful techs for us to trade.

Getting Mansa AI to Alphabet early, in fact, would be huge for us, since it will open up Iron Working and Monarchy.

Basically, if we found CoLs, Mansa will research something else instead, and there are many possible techs that we lack. The main risk is that he switches to Mathematics. If he researches Alphabet, that is good for us if he gets there before Elizabeth, and bad for us if he gets there after.

 

[Duckweed]

However he is the founder of Hindu, and probably does not have Writing yet as Mansa has not OB with Izzy.

I don't expect too much that Mansa will research CoL anytime soon. There should be other AIs who have not gotten a religion are researching CoL. It's the annoyed Shaka worried me now.

One of my main reasons of going CoL 1st is that we reserve the flexibility of getting CS before construction, this route sounds risky now if Shaka beats William in less than 30 turns. With Mansa, an alternative route is Construction->Music before CS and hope for CoL trade. The free GA can be used for anarchy free religion and civic switch after getting CS.

 

[Yamps]

I'd definitely want Construction before CS for the war and also for those Odeons buildings. They are even cheaper than warriors, when you take into the account unit fees.

Depending on how much settling do we want to do before catapult building, we probably have the time to do CoL -> Construction as currently planned. So it comes down to being able to trade for CoL. I don't think that's likely, even with Mansa. If some other AI gets it, they won't trade it.

Regarding the Music line, it's a good option, but we should be fine to get it first either way.

There's some potential value of getting the religion and CoL monopoly so if we're not going to press as much as I stated before for early catapult building, then let's take CoL. If on the other hand we're not continuing with another settler from the capital, then let's take Construction.

 

[Duckweed]

Getting Confu is not the main reason for going CoL, it also decreases the chance of getting other religions, the best case is that we could get Bud spread from Izzy so that we could have 1 more trade partner and AP religion in the future.

Music has to be before CS to gain its maximum value. anarchy free religion and civic switch offers more than the bonus of bureaucracy.

 

[Yamps]

If we don't want the religion, even more so to just go for Construction and Music after that.

 

[Duckweed]

The benefit of CoL 1st

• The flexibility of going for CS before Construction, save 1 turn of anarchy to switch to HR + Bureaucracy, earliest Bureaucracy, therefore best case from economical consideration. This route become risky now since Shaka DOWed 10 turns before my expectation. The earliest time that we could gather SOD is ~T100 with this route.
  
• Confu religion. This is a less important reason as I said in the previous post.

The Merits of Construction 1st

• Early date of gathering SOD, probably ~T90, safer. It's likely that Liz locates on a separate continent from us since it's a protection of her from Shaka. Therefore we are very likely Shaka's next target.
  
• Reserve chance of trading CoL while going for Music 1st.

Please indicate your choice, I'm going to continue on the rest today.

 

[Yamps]

Well, my choice is clear. 40 hammers Odeons for 2 happy are better than Monarchy and T100 sounds rather late.

 

[Doshin]

What does the power graph show? And any guesses (from zoomed out culture) about the location of Willem's third city?

 

[shakabrade]

Are there any resource or gpt trades?

 

[kossin]

The thing with doctored maps is the mapmaker can hide anything he wants so it's not important that we knew Mansa was in at the start. Rather, it's good we found him now.

So I was right with GLH in my opening posts but it seems early Astronomy is not very important OTOH.

That being said, with all those waters open to barb galley spawns, we should think hard at planning some kind of defense down there.

Unsure for Construction right away, I need to think about what happens moving forward. That being said don't wait on me because...

~~~

Bad news.

I need to be put on hold for playing. Family issue which I don't know how long it will take to get under control. Things are ok though.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm not a big fan of going Music.
We are Philosophical and can get half price Universities, so Education with 2 bulbs would be very useful.
For the cost of 1 worker, we can find out Isabella's 2nd task and forget all about giving away 3 Great People.

If we are going Civil Service, I assume that means fast Astro+Engineering is out of the picture.

How about Code of Laws -> Construction -> Civil Service?
The AI is being very pathetic researching stuff since Mansa and Isabella don't have open borders yet.
A slight delay in Construction might allow us a bit more time to build settlers/workers/barracks and get a cheap Library in the 2 gems runt city of Corinth.

Construction isn't only a war tech for us, it's an empire building tech with Odeons(+2).
With our own religion, catas, and odeons, we can tech straight through Civil Service -> Paper -> Education without any more worries.
If Elizabeth is on her own island, then we can forget about getting missionaries from anybody, so founding our own religion is still useful if we want Org. Religion or Pacifism later.

@Kossin - Sorry to hear that. Hope it works out ok.

 

[Yamps]

I'm not a big fan of going Music.
We are Philosophical and can get half price Universities, so Education with 2 bulbs would be very useful.
For the cost of 1 worker, we can find out Isabella's 2nd task and forget all about giving away 3 Great People.

Going for Music doesn't automatically exclude bulbing Education. Also, the great artist could be used to start us a golden age rather than gifting it to Isabella.

If we are going Civil Service, I assume that means fast Astro+Engineering is out of the picture.

I think yes.

How about Code of Laws -> Construction -> Civil Service?
The AI is being very pathetic researching stuff since Mansa and Isabella don't have open borders yet.

That's an option, if we don't want the golden age from Music. If we do, then we'd like to have it before CS like Duckweed stated earlier to start the golden age before civic switches. Is there a good reason not to want it? We're not really tech pressed on the map so we have some time for warring and massive expansion before going for Education -> Liberalism.

 

[shakabrade]

The benefit of CoL 1st

• The flexibility of going for CS before Construction, save 1 turn of anarchy to switch to HR + Bureaucracy, earliest Bureaucracy, therefore best case from economical consideration. This route become risky now since Shaka DOWed 10 turns before my expectation. The earliest time that we could gather SOD is ~T100 with this route.
  
• Confu religion. This is a less important reason as I said in the previous post.

The Merits of Construction 1st

• Early date of gathering SOD, probably ~T90, safer. It's likely that Liz locates on a separate continent from us since it's a protection of her from Shaka. Therefore we are very likely Shaka's next target.
  
• Reserve chance of trading CoL while going for Music 1st.

Please indicate your choice, I'm going to continue on the rest today.

CS before Construction is problem without happy resources. Happiness after GLH becomes a big issue. Since we don't get noticeable commerce boost, and we don't do anything about getting an academy, Bureaucracy is only helping with hammers from whips, and we, again, don't have enough of happiness to support that. I think that we have to find (capture) us a commerce site soon. Construction will give us something to produce after GLH is in and it will be useful. Warriors do cost us a maintenance and Odeons are cheap. However, if we find us couple of happy resources, I'd change my mind.

What does the power graph show? And any guesses (from zoomed out culture) about the location of Willem's third city?

No screenshots with that and can't asses...

I don't see the benefit of earlier CS, but I am still undecided about CoL or Construction. I actually lean to CoL and then Construction for safety since we have enough happiness to wait for Construction after CoL, don't we. We won't get a religion spread without spreading it ourselves. And religion gives us happiness too.

Are we going to have to grab that Copper where Mansa is? I'd like to plan like we are going to do that just for safety. We can easily switch if we find anything closer. It is 10-ish turns away from us but with GLH, we could live with that maintenance. Anyway, all the decisions are postponable for a couple of turns at least.

 

[Duckweed]

What does the power graph show? And any guesses (from zoomed out culture) about the location of Willem's third city?

Spoiler :

William's 3rd city is probably east West of his capital, from the culture graph, we can only see his capital.

William's power is about 65 and Shaka is probably the #1 with 108.

Are there any resource or gpt trades?

Spoiler :

This is available, or 3 resources will do as well.

~~~

Bad news.

I need to be put on hold for playing. Family issue which I don't know how long it will take to get under control. Things are ok though.

I'm going to hand over the game on T73. Shakabrade is probably available soon, it's between you and shakabrade to take over. Take care.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Music isn't just music, but Aesthetics and Literature or Drama also.
Without marble, none of those benefit us at all.
With the Great Lighthouse and more trading partners than any other AI has (we have 4 everyone else has 2) we will soon be in the driver's seat techwise.

...
Are we going to have to grab that Copper where Mansa is? I'd like to plan like we are going to do that just for safety. We can easily switch if we find anything closer. It is 10-ish turns away from us but with GLH, we could live with that maintenance. Anyway, all the decisions are postponable for a couple of turns at least.

That's a bit risky.
Mansa could settle it before us, and we'd have to dedicate a Galley+Settler+Worker unless we wanted to settle on top of the copper.
Hmm...

It would open up Axeman and The Colossus though.
And with 2 fish and a crab, it could always build itself up if we sent 1 workboat instead of a worker. Make it whip its own worker.

 

[Duckweed]

I'm not a big fan of going Music.
We are Philosophical and can get half price Universities, so Education with 2 bulbs would be very useful.
For the cost of 1 worker, we can find out Isabella's 2nd task and forget all about giving away 3 Great People.

For a long game, GP number is very demanding even we are philosophical since we need to plan at least 3~4 golden ages. An extra GArtist means over 1000GPPs.

If we are going Civil Service, I assume that means fast Astro+Engineering is out of the picture.

With the clearness of a beaker race, traditional economical route wins against Astro+Eng route, even better if we could grab GLH.

How about Code of Laws -> Construction -> Civil Service?
The AI is being very pathetic researching stuff since Mansa and Isabella don't have open borders yet.
A slight delay in Construction might allow us a bit more time to build settlers/workers/barracks and get a cheap Library in the 2 gems runt city of Corinth.

Construction isn't only a war tech for us, it's an empire building tech with Odeons(+2).
With our own religion, catas, and odeons, we can tech straight through Civil Service -> Paper -> Education without any more worries.
If Elizabeth is on her own island, then we can forget about getting missionaries from anybody, so founding our own religion is still useful if we want Org. Religion or Pacifism later.

This is a weaker choice as it removes the chance of trading CoL and delay the military build (only a bit). We are not in a hurry to switch to a religion soon. With 3 religions available to spread naturally, as I said, the best case is getting Izzy's religion.