SGOTM 23 - Turbo Ants

Pretty sweet how Hatty was forced to whip us a (settler) worker and it was only a 1-whip leaving us with size 6. It will be 10t before we can work the 4 fish, but at least we won't starve. The 2 fish are just enough food. We'll do 15 hpt and 17 hpt if we do the other mine. (although I'll want to whip)

I guess those workers will be farming Alexa.

If it matters, the BFC tile at Thebes-2E-N will be barb culture, but not our mines.

Need time to consider the Alex situation. Don't wanna steal ZPV's thunder.
 
Some random thoughts and observations:
- Chinese have started plotting war
- Alex will get some tiles at Thebes 2N(1E/W) on t82. We need to move our galleys elsewhere (Thebes-2N2W) if we want to attack him on t82.
- We can attack Athens with 7 HAs. That's overkill, especially if we flip Alex into Caste. We could send one of our 0XP HAs to scout out Jerusalem. There might be a couple shrines hidden there for all we know.
- That canal spot is fantastic. I think we should settle it. Maybe not so much for the canal and more for the gems. It has pre-improved clams, so it won't take long for it to become useful.
- We need to get some +fair trade mods with Mehmed to get him to pleased. We should give him Mono before someone else does it.
 
Got it!

Just to throw this out there before I make any real plans, I'm thinking about researching Aesthetics and building the Parthenon in Athens (followed by MoM). This means committing a minimal force to Athens, and focussing mainly on Barb City/Istanbul/Edirne so we get marble.

Athens is likely our best city for a junk GP for the second golden age. Thebes is actually useful for the final lightbulb push because a GE will still lightbulb on our tech path.
 
Couldn't Hatty get Aes for us? or will she be too slow? Is the motherland unhappy going to be too much to keep her around that long? I don't see a need for Parthenon before our golden age.

I want to settle canal too, but let's be sure to whip a settler--at least 3whip. No slow building.
 
Hatty is done teching. There's no way she will get Aesthetics.

How long will it take to get the marble online? We don't need Aesthetics until then and could probably pick up something else first.

Are we going to settle the gold at some point?
 
Is there a way to teleport our warrior towards Istanbul? I want to be able to see what's going on there, to plan our attack. If there are too many units, I'll try to plan catapults - otherwise the cheapest cannon fodder I can find to go with our promoted HAs.

Marble online? Probably not before t96. No need for Aesthetics just yet then.

I'm not sure I'm on board with skipping CS - it's extra hammers as well as commerce, but I'll try and keep an open mind. If we don't have Guilds yet by the time our golden age comes, a GM will lightbulb CS before Guilds.

I'm trying to put together a rough plan of which cities will pop GPs during our golden ages, and which techs we need to research by that time.
If that tells us we need more GPs than our planned cities can easily produce, I'd like to attack Lisbon with the forces that are currently taking a break from Germany.

It'll also probably take me a day or so to put together a coherent military plan, so there's no rush on the bigger picture decisions.
 
I envisioned us having guilds and banking for Merc before the golden age.
Our cities are so food-rich, that we don't really need Merc, but it's a good thing.

I still see the 'long pole' as conquest. But now we're tossing around the idea of Theo->Paper which means we could go with the AP. We should see if we can identify a friendly block of AI that we attempt to keep happy and alive. Ideally that would include Stalin. Currently, we have no neg mods with him.
 
Pre-PPP Discussions

Tech Path

Skipping Education is good, because it blocks Economics, and frankly we don't need no education. We'll have to research Steam Power rather than Liberalism too. I'm not sure if it's worth it, but let's run with it for the sake of discussion.
However, that means GSes are almost useless.
We can lightbulb Philosophy, and Chemistry (x2?). That's it.
Maybe Paper, but I'm don't think it's worth it.

On the other hand, we have GMs that can lightbulb

Railroad (x4)
and if we have Civil Service
Printing Press (x2)
Replaceable Parts (x2)

That's more like it - 11 GPs, plus the three for the GAs.
Without CS, I see us having to use beakers for both of those, and only being able to lightbulb 7 GPs.
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On the whole, I'm on board with rushing to Banking for Mercantilism in our golden ages.
However, I think we do need CS eventually (it blocks 4GPs worth of lightbulbing), so if we're going to bear the cost of researching it we should do it while we have the most time to benefit.

If we do go for CS, I'd love to be able to burn our first GS on an Academy in Paris. It would hopefully beat lightbulbing Paper, over the course of the game, and would bring some of the beakers into useful techs sooner.
I just don't see where Philosophy would come from. Delaying our Golden Age until t125 is not an option, although I guess we could speed it up a little with Parthenon and running extra scientists in Alexandria. (This assumes GP #2 comes from Thebes). Does anyone have any ideas on this?

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Thebes:
I want to build the Great Lighthouse here. Partly for the commerce boost, but also for the GPPs. Later on we can consider building Hanging Gardens here if we have the time.

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How many Great People can we generate?
Paris, Lisbon, Berlin, and Istanbul can all starve out 100% GMs in our final golden age, pretty much at any cost.
With a bit of build-up they could certainly do #11-14. (1200,1400,1600,1800)
A 15th might be possible (Thebes) but I think we'll probably hit diminishing returns by then so we can use that city to generate extra smaller GPs.

Where could the rest come from?
3-4x GS: Alexandria (3 lightbulbs + 1 for the 2nd GA)
200GPP junk: Thebes
Junk GP: Athens
GM: Fredburg
GM: Hamburg
GM/GE: Thebes
GM: Possibly Canal City.

I think that's doable. Maybe we could squeeze an extra one out somewhere (Nat. Epic in Alexa or Athens?) and save Thebes for a big 2000GPP starvedown.

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War Plans:
Athens:
With Alex in Caste System, I think 4 HAs would be enough; I'll bring 5 to be safe.
2 from Paris and CEB, plus the three wounded/about to promote HAs around Thebes.
Give Currency t80, CoL t81, DoW t82.

One HA will explore the barb city; one will try to mop up the workers.
One galley is free to try and look at Istanbul.
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Istanbul & Jerusalem:
The reinforcement lines are by road to Canal City (sorry - it's going to be a 2-pop whip in Stone Quarry. Waiting for pop 6 is painful), then by galley thereafter.
The precise unit composition for Istanbul is still up in the air. We'll have 7 units (minus any losses at Athens) already committed to the front, so I don't expect too many extras to be required.
When we're at war with Mehmed, we'll lose trade connections with the East, so there's not much point cancelling deals before then.
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Lisbon:
We have a chariot in Fur City looking for a job. Scouting Lisbon is that job. If it's weakly defended, I'll try and capture it sooner rather than later. Otherwise I'll just try and mass a HA force for Berlin (catching that spear off-guard outside the city).
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Espionage: I'm not sure right now how many EPs we need. I'll work this out for the PPP proper
City Micro: TBD

P.S. This is such a long post, it won't do to leave it smiley-free :banana::banana::banana:
 
Alex would have 3 defenders, right? or are you going to go amphibious and try to pick it off with only 1-2 defenders.
If 3 defenders (one being an archer), I see 4 HAs as very risky. 5 HAs pretty safe, but 6 would be nice if you have them. Or maybe have a couple amphibious finishers on a boat.
Maybe you amphibiously take out one of the wandering warriors or something. Your call, just commenting.

Don't our trade connections go around Sal to Gandhi/Persia? So Memed won't block anything.
 
Yes, we have a trade connection to Gandhi via Thebes and Sal.

200GPP junk: Thebes
That means 3-whip a library as soon as Thebes comes out revolt? Can we work 2 scientist there and still finish GLH in a reasonable time?
 
The good thing about Econ is:
If we have to bulb it, we get a free GM, so it's very cheap.

Yep, I think you're right.
Researching Education means:

double-bulb Education
Can skip CS
three (or four if we go for #15) bulbs between them for PP+Econ (1 free GM)
Research Liberalism
Free Steam Power
Research Replaceable Parts.

It's much of a muchness beakerwise, but lets us run more scientists.
 
Yes, we have a trade connection to Gandhi via Thebes and Sal.


That means 3-whip a library as soon as Thebes comes out revolt? Can we work 2 scientist there and still finish GLH in a reasonable time?
Good question. Wow, this is really tight.
We've got 33 turns to produce a GP (the revolt to Rep+OR delays Alexa by a turn).
6 turns' revolt
2 turns to build Library. 4GPP
3 more turns to hit pop 6. Run two scientists at pop 5. 16GPP
Need to finish GLH in 18 turns. 160GPP
4 turns for the GP.

How do we find the hammers for GLH while running scientists? At pop 7 we could work 2 fish, 2 scientists and 3 mines easily enough. Extra fish and 2-pop whips would speed things up a little and give us extra units, but I haven't calculated that exactly.
 
Alex would have 3 defenders, right? or are you going to go amphibious and try to pick it off with only 1-2 defenders.
If 3 defenders (one being an archer), I see 4 HAs as very risky. 5 HAs pretty safe, but 6 would be nice if you have them. Or maybe have a couple amphibious finishers on a boat.
Maybe you amphibiously take out one of the wandering warriors or something. Your call, just commenting.

Don't our trade connections go around Sal to Gandhi/Persia? So Memed won't block anything.

I'd try and pick off any wandering warriors amphibiously.
95% odds for 2 free XP, and the unit can attack again next turn. There's no need to sacrifice HAs amphibiously against the city though.
 
Yes, we have a trade connection to Gandhi via Thebes and Sal.
One more thing. Will Darius refuse to talk to us, when we cancel his deal with Mehmed?
EDIT: nope. :)
 
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