SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

[Pollina]

Tech steals:

t92: Monarchy (322 EP)
t96: BW (128 EP)
t98: IW (215 EP)
t100: Math (258 EP)
t102: Sailing (107 EP)
t104: Construction (376 EP)
t106: Poly (107 EP)
t108: Monotheism (128 EP)
---------------
total: 1641 EP

Already half of our EP on Darius used up.

The values for EP cost assume we still have the 20% trade route discount after Sailing. That's not very likely, unless we cancel open borders with most AIs. Without it, we'd have to pay 1819 EP (Sailing on t102) or 1816 EP+149 (Sailing on t98) for all those techs.

 

[Pollina]

How much would self-teching Sailing speed up our production of galleys?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sal settled Medina and Damascus before Baghdad, so there's a good chance Mecca doesn't have uber-promoted units. Damascus and his 5th city will receive the brunt of the barb invasions.

It would be nice to be able to gift Darius cities we don't care to keep, but we'd want to let them come out of resistance and whip them to pop1. For this to work realistically, we'd really like to grow Rome to pop12 or 14 to have a cushion to work with. This would also give us a praet or two per gifted city. Not surehow workable this is.

 

[LowtherCastle]

How much would self-teching Sailing speed up our production of galleys?

DOn't know but I wouldn't start that before the worker so we could decide on T98.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Don't road the worker trap. Not needed.
Plan to get Peace by threatening a city. Then we can stake out the Ivory tile for another worker.
Send another Chariot or two or three up north to successfully bring back each worker.
barb metal units might start appearing if they haven't already. Would be ~40 turns after most of the AIs got BW.

My issue with the CF is that I'd like to keep that in our back pocket while worker stealing. It's not just the cost, it's also the willingness to talk.

Roads at stone and stone-1SE would also speed up our return by 1 turn. The barb city spawnbusts that area. I'm not sure how much of a natural path there is there for barbs to Hadr. For some reason barbs have been hugging our culture from east to west rather than beelining Hadr from east to northwest.


We could also consider upgrading Woodie. Paired with a chariot is fairly safe combination.

.

 

[LowtherCastle]

When do we want to revolt to HeredRule+Slavery? BW+0? Then cancel pigs for fur?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Mecca has another huge drawback. It's much farther (too far) away.

And more bennies: 2t border pop and some tiles not shared with other Sal cities. Probably marble as well.

 

[LowtherCastle]

DaGift will complete a worker for us in 11t.

 

[Pollina]

When do we want to revolt to HeredRule+Slavery? BW+0? Then cancel pigs for fur?

I think so.

Are we going to build barracks anywhere before we start building praets?

 

[Pollina]

And more bennies: 2t border pop and some tiles not shared with other Sal cities. Probably marble as well.

... and one more drawback: It's on a hill.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Are we going to build barracks anywhere before we start building praets?

Is it worth it in HC @ 1praet / 3-4t in the long run?

... and one more drawback: It's on a hill.

So true. Our cats could arrive just in time if Mecca is 2nd or 3rd. One more benny of galley chaining.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Updated PPP a bit.

 

[WastinTime]

... and one more drawback: It's on a hill.

One more drawback of Sal in general.
We're going to get swarmed by barb galleys. Shortly after that AI Triremes become a problem.

We may not survive even the first the trip to Sal

 

[LowtherCastle]

We're going to get swarmed by barb galleys. Shortly after that AI Triremes become a problem.

We may not survive even the first the trip to Sal

Knowing our luck, maybe you're right, but the numbers don't support your fears:

XML says 400 UnownedWaterTilesPerNarbarianUnit for Monarch. I'm guessing the barb galleys will spawn all over, making them far more sparse than otherwise, which would also create vastly greater randomness for which team gets nets pillaged.

64x40=(2560-928)/400=4.08 barb galleys on the entire map. sheesh. To get harrassed by one of those is extremely bad luck. Of course, raging barbs probably increases that somewhat, but I also didn't subtract owned water tiles.

RB doubles the number of galleys. Still not too scary.

Shouldn't be more than 8 galleys on the entire ocean.

 

[Pollina]

Is it worth it in HC @ 1praet / 3-4t in the long run?

I haven't played a praets game in a long time and don't recall how useful C1 and CR1 promotions are for them against axes and protective archers. I would think it is worth it to have at least a couple promoted attackers. Not sure if we should delay HC's granary for RAX. Probably not.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I haven't played a praets game in a long time and don't recall how useful C1 and CR1 promotions are for them against axes and protective archers. I would think it is worth it to have at least a couple promoted attackers. Not sure if we should delay HC's granary for RAX. Probably not.

Maybe you're right. RAX is just 1 praet. We have a couple of chops to speed things up.

 

[LowtherCastle]

WT, I'm not in favor of Mecca before Baghdad or Medina or both, in case you feel the need to still debate that. I don't see any reason for that because our war machine will still be ramping up. We'll probably be able to capture (Baghdad or Medina) + Mecca as fast as just Mecca.

That said, it's a bit of a moot point until we send a scout to Sal to check it out. I guess we should send him soon too, but worker 3 needs an escort so the scoutint chariot isn't likely to leave before T98/99 anyway.

Mecca will give us marble and Baghdad gold, so that will assist your Aes wonder building.

 

[LowtherCastle]

In addition to having to build a settler for iron, we might haveto expand the borders of HC or Bovino. Whipping a monument is one, slow solution. A faster one would be whipping an monument and putting hinduism in, if we build a monastery in Rome. Food for thought.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Any more feedback/discussion/objections/concerns/beef/sausage/crackerjacks on the PPP?

 

[WastinTime]

play as long as you want whenever you're ready.