SGOTM 23 - Turbo Ants

[LowtherCastle]

Not sure Hamburg would work because Fred probably built a settler this turn and will settle Fredburg in a couple of turns. Of course, there's also Fredburg. It'll grow to pop2 in 7t. Hm...CEB could 2whip a spy into a chariot and they're born knocking on the door of Fredburg.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Still Unanswered Questions

1. Tech Math, put eps on Hatty, or put eps on Hatty on T62 to see what she's teching?
2. Gift nothing, gift FC, gift, CEB, or capture and gift Fredburg, or c and g Hamburg?

 

[WastinTime]

let's for sure see what she's teching, then decide.

Gift city: play it by ear, but some plans...
Fredburg and hamburg are nice cities and should be easy captures snag them as soon as Fredburg gets to size 2. If we get them in time--before the DoW, then we'd probably use Fredburg as the gift. Hamburg is just farther.
If we whip out cities to death, then we'll just gift away the one that is either most angry or the one that times well, i.e. has little/no OF hammers and lower food in the bin.

I suppose we only get to pick one and use Jesus. Then use that city over and over.

 

[WastinTime]

You can never lose The Granary or any buildings except culture buildings as long as you have more culture in the city

and you also don't lose population, so the city doesn't need to be size 1. Just the food in the bin and OF hammers or partial builds.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The city doesn't need to be Christian. That only saves 15% and costs us a turn of revolt. Ideally, what we really need to do is capture a garbage city we don't care about where she can live until we've taken all her techs. Then put her out of our misery.

The drawback of keeping her alive is Motherland unhappiness in Thebes and Alexa.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The hard part to all this is having a spy stationary for 5t. That's where the delay on Math might begin to hurt. Anyway. We can play forward 2t and see what she's teching.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The city doesn't need to be Christian. That only saves 15% and costs us a turn of revolt. Ideally, what we really need to do is capture a garbage city we don't care about where she can live until we've taken all her techs. Then put her out of our misery.

The drawback of keeping her alive is Motherland unhappiness in Thebes and Alexa.

Check that. Jesus puts our culture in there. Gotta have that. Now I get your point.

 

[LowtherCastle]

HaGift has to be either CEB or FC because the spy built there is born stationary. So born on T69 is ready to steal on T74, whereas in Fredburg, the nearest of nearest cities, he'd be ready on T76. Plus, he'd never risk his life except in the mission itself.

I tested that no buildings get lost. Added 10 buildings and the only change I noticed was that on re-capture my observatory changed into a salon. So the cost is merely re-filling the granary, big deal. We don't even have to worry about whipping it to death. We simply abuse this mechanic to our advantage. We could even have a couple of spies and do it in both CEB and FC if we want some techs faster.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Gandhi has Monotheism also, so it would be useful to get that before revolting to Representation, so we can revolt to OrgRel for free.

 

[Mitchum]

Are we really going to self tech Math this late? I was hoping to get it in trade...

 

[ZPV]

let's for sure see what she's teching, then decide.

Gift city: play it by ear, but some plans...
Fredburg and hamburg are nice cities and should be easy captures snag them as soon as Fredburg gets to size 2. If we get them in time--before the DoW, then we'd probably use Fredburg as the gift. Hamburg is just farther.
If we whip out cities to death, then we'll just gift away the one that is either most angry or the one that times well, i.e. has little/no OF hammers and lower food in the bin.

I suppose we only get to pick one and use Jesus. Then use that city over and over.

Ok, I think I'm on board with stealing one tech this way. Probably CoL, which means researching Currency or Priesthood.
EDIT: Rereading this, I wasn't very clear. I meant I'm OK with a 0-turn gift of CEB or Fur City

Not waiting for Philo though. I don't think Hatty will actually bulb it since the religion's gone, and we won't have CoL+Med in time anyway.

More than one tech will have to wait for another AI though, unless we can also set up a proper gift city to keep Hatty alive (i.e. Fredburg) before we repeat on Furs/CEB.

@Mitchum: I don't expect to get Maths in trade for at least 20 turns. So yes, I want to self-research it.

 

[WastinTime]

Isn't it likely Hatty will settle a 3rd city which means we have all the time in the world to properly steal Philo and whatever else she techs in the next 15 turns.

 

[WastinTime]

Not waiting for Philo though. I don't think Hatty will actually bulb it since the religion's gone, and we won't have CoL+Med in time anyway.

She did tech CoL and Theology which made me think she's not concerned whether there is a religion available. However, we all know that one AI will bulb Philo -- always, but a 2nd AI never does. Now the question is: Is that because the religion is gone? or it only because it would no longer be a monopoly tech.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Isn't it likely Hatty will settle a 3rd city which means we have all the time in the world to properly steal Philo and whatever else she techs in the next 15 turns.

Likely, no. She can't whip and Thebes put all of 2 hammers into its build last turn, totalling 2 hammers now. Alexa put 1h into its build of 25/26h. She thinks in terms of millenia, building her personal pyramid one slab at a time.

 

[Pollina]

I like Maths next.

Hatty has no Maths or Alpha. She can't bulb Philo unless we give her those techs (and risk a diplo hit with Alex, Joao and maybe others).

With Hatty being CRE, I don't much like the idea of giving her one of our cities to keep her alive. I do like the idea of stealing a tech or two from her if she settles a 3rd city before we capture her two main cities. Not sure if it is worth it to delay capturing the Mids for it though. Our / ratio won't be all that great anyway, maybe around 1.4 2.8 after running the EP slider. She's been running her EP slider quite a bit. With the prereq mod from PH and Currency, the cost of self teching CoL is roughly the same. There might be a better use for our free 4 per turn.

Did the AI start with the whole map (or at least a good chunk of it) revealed? Seems pretty likely at this point.

 

[ZPV]

She did tech CoL and Theology which made me think she's not concerned whether there is a religion available. However, we all know that one AI will bulb Philo -- always, but a 2nd AI never does. Now the question is: Is that because the religion is gone? or it only because it would no longer be a monopoly tech.

The scientist AI gets a few shots at lightbulbing.
The first one is for techs which give a religion or free unit/tech for the first to discover them. She won't do it if the religion is gone or the free unit/tech has been taken.

She won't get to the second lightbulbing opportunity - settling it in Alexandria would take preference.
---------------------------
After doing some tests, the religions don't count as gone, unless BSP specifically gave those techs to the barbs. However, Pollina's point is a good one.

 

[WastinTime]

Pollina's point is a good one.

I'd bet Hatty will have math before she gets a GS. So all we need to do is give/trade her alpha the turn she pops the GS. She could even tech that one herself too. Pacifism is very important to us. Not needed for a while, but it's not like any other AI will ever get it this game.

The only thing that we might need to consider is the fact that Alpha means she could bribe other AI to DoW us. (edit: which would be Sal--if anyonee) I'm sure we can prevent or deal with that.

 

[ZPV]

I'd bet Hatty will have math before she gets a GS. So all we need to do is give/trade her alpha the turn she pops the GS. She could even tech that one herself too. Pacifism is very important to us. Not needed for a while, but it's not like any other AI will ever get it this game.

The only thing that we might need to consider is the fact that Alpha means she could bribe other AI to DoW us. (edit: which would be Sal--if anyonee) I'm sure we can prevent or deal with that.

I'm really struggling to work out how much stealing Philo is actually worth to us.
The alternative, for comparison, is we'd just lightbulb it or research it ourselves when the time comes, or (unlikely) ignore it and build/capture Shwedagon Paya.

I tend to place a lot of value on the hassle now (e.g. delaying the GLib GPPs), plus somewhat significant EP cost when we steal it, for something we're not going to use for a while.

 

[LowtherCastle]

The only thing that we might need to consider is the fact that Alpha means she could bribe other AI to DoW us. (edit: which would be Sal--if anyonee) I'm sure we can prevent or deal with that.

We met Sal on T48. Will that be long enough to demand he feed us fish for 400 years?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Hard, cold, battle-tested facts

1. The earliest we would steal Math or CoL from Hatty would be T73 (FC) or T74 (CEB), because they need to 2whip spies (T68, T69).
2. Delaying Alexa by 8t costs us 240 raw beakers @30bpt. If Alexa is currently running a castes scientist, she could pop the GS as early as t70, bulbing T71. Pollina, can you tell if Alexa is working more than two tiles in the current save? The two fogged desert tiles would have roads if they were improved, right?
3. If Alexa settles the GS, that pays itself back in about 3.5t * #turnsdelay.
4. Hatty is teching at about 110 f-bpt so she's likely to finish 2-3 techs before we attack her, maybe another before we take both cities.
5. It will take us a while to steal all those techs. To me, Math is the only pressing tech.
6. Fred will talk after 1t if we capture Fredburg with no losses, after 3t with 1 loss.
7. Option: We could DOW Hatty and land at Thebes on T69, and attack on T70 with 4 HAs.
8. Option: We could land at Athens on T67 and attack T68. Our spare warrior could see into Athens on T65, although such a decision would delay any attack on Alexa, in other words, this would be a decision made after seeing that Hatty's not teching Monarchy and deciding to delay the attack on Alexa.
9. Option: We could DOW Joao T68, attack Lisbon T69.