SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

Playing...

Turn 48, 2080 BC
Frederick is no longer Stalin's Worst Enemy
Wow, one AI has 99 for their GNP! Contrast that with our 44.

Warrior 1 wakes up and moves 1 S G Riv Road
XO Cognac switches G For to the G Horse
Both Cities keep building their Settlers
Our Missionary heads toward Paris

Turn 49, 2040 BC
The Bear moves 1 N, so we follow our plan of Warrior 1 moving 1 SW GH Riv and Worker 2 moving 1 S G Riv > 1 SE G Riv Road

EP Values
Stalin 17 (+0) / 0
Churchill 301 (+8) / 196
Frederick 156 (+0) / 0
Joao 13 (+1) / 0

Wow, is Churchill ever dumping a lot of Commerce into EPs!

There are 85 (-1) population points in the world, 10 of which are ours.

Some AIs are regularly whipping.

Incredible... one AI now has 111 GNP! We remain ranked 3rd for GNP. Perhaps the top-ranked AI just started working a Gold Mine?

Frederick already has another Worker, as he has improved the G Riv Sheep from which we stole his first Worker.

Turn 50, 2000 BC
The Bear moves back 1 S, so we stick with our plan of Warrior 1 moving 1 S GH For, spotting no additional Barb Units, and then Worker 2 moving to join Warrior 1.

EP Values
Stalin 17 (+0) / 0
Churchill 309 (+8) / 200
Frederick 156 (+0) / 0
Joao 15 (+2) / 0

The City with The Pyramids is at Size 7! A City without a Wonder is at Size 6. Meanwhile, London, The Oracle City, and The Great EDIT: Library City are all at Size 3.

There are 88 (+3) population points in the world, 10 of which are ours.

Hamburg grew to Size 3.

Frederick is building a Road on his eastern Sheep. Here's how we can tell:

Spoiler :

In Between Turns
The Most Powerful Civs
1. Stalin
4. Frederick
7. Joao
We aren't even in the Top 8.

Turn 51, 1960 BC
EP Values
Stalin 17 (+0) / 0
Churchill 317 (+8) / 204
Frederick 156 (+0) / 0
Joao 17 (+2) / 0

There are 86 (-2) population points in the world, 10 of which are ours.

Alphabet is in!

Spoiler :

Churchill will trade Mining but nothing else, consistent with an AI who is isolated
Joao will trade Archery, Mining, Pottery, and Sailing
Stalin won't trade techs at Cautious
Churchill and Stalin know Masonry, while none of the AIs know Mysticism (nice cheat, there, Churchill, getting Stonehenge without Mysticism)
None of the AIs know Iron Working

Frederick still wants something for Peace (he asks for XO Cognac, but he would take a tech)

Churchill will give us Mining for any one of Agriculture, Writing, or Animal Husbandry, although we probably want to trade with Joao first, since the value of your techs goes down as you trade those techs away to other AIs.

Joao will trade:
Pottery + Archery <-> Writing + Agriculture
Sailing <-> Writing + Agriculture

Joao will not trade:
Sailing + Pottery <-> Writing + Agriculture
Sailing + Archery <-> Writing + Agriculture
Sailing <-> Writing

I'm going to propose that we do: EDIT: See later in this message for an updated version
T51 Pottery + Archery from Joao <-> Writing + Agriculture
T51 Mining from Churchill <-> Writing
T52 Bronze Working + Sailing from Joao <-> Alphabet (we should test that combo in the test game)


Consequences:
1. Trading Writing gives Joao and Churchill a chance to start on Mathematics. Either AI being close to us gives us a chance to steal a tech via gifting a City and then taking their Cities, but Joao might not live that long

2. Joao has a chance to go after Currency

3. Joao could trade techs with neighbours, although if we keep him technologically advanced, he won't have anything to get in trade and trades won't happen

4. When we declare war on Joao, an AI could get bribed into declaring war on us, which would generally be a good thing, as then we'd avoid negative Diplo Attitude hits for declaring war on that AI

5. We can remain at war with Frederick, which may or may not help us

6. As Folket points out, we want Sailing for our Foreign Trade Routes, while we also want Pottery and Bronze Working. I think that giving up Alphabet to Joao is a good compromise for technologically enabling a weak AI whom we can crush while getting the techs that we want in the short term


I'm not sure whether to gift a tech to Stalin or not. He's a bit powerful, and gifting him Writing might help with him going for Mathematics or Aesthetics sooner, but can we even get him up to Pleased status to trade with him? Maybe by gifting him a City that we settle close to his capital later.

Writing also leads to Feudalism, so with him being powerful, perhaps not trading techs with him will make sense. He'll probably fall behind technologically if we don't enable him due to his REXing so much.

Our next two Settlers are due on Turn 54.


Note that if you talk with an AI while the game is Paused, you will have to Exit to the Main Menu then load the game in order to talk with the next AI.

Also, it is forbidden to ask whether an AI will accept a Cease Fire when the game is Paused, but we don't need to try, as we know that Frederick wants something for Peace (please don't ask again in case we accidentally give him XO Cognac by asking him).

The top AI is up to 112 GNP to our 45.

Link to the REAL Turn 51, 1960 BC saved game.

Here is your Session Turn Log from 2080 BC to 1960 BC:

Spoiler :

Turn 50, 2000 BC: You have discovered Alphabet!

Turn 51, 1960 BC: Joao II will trade Archery, Mining, Pottery, Sailing
Turn 51, 1960 BC: Frederick will trade Archery, Mining, Pottery
Turn 51, 1960 BC: Churchill will trade Mining

I'm glad that Folket's testing agrees. Thanks for the accurate numbers in order to give us a clear picture!

There wasn't a Great Engineer created in the real game like there was in the test game on Turn 50. Did Mehmed start with a Library and perhaps he was one of the AIs who spawned a Great Scientist earlier with the help from some Great Engineer GPP?

Attached find the updated test saved game. I don't think that we can make Churchill "un-meet" Frederick, so you'll have to ignore the fact that Chruchill is willing to trade more than the non-monopoly tech Mining in the test game. I also had fogotten to declare war on Frederick previously in the test game, so I did so on Turn 48 in the test game, meaning that Frederick won't talk to us yet in the test game (although he's willing to talk to us in the real game).


Here's an alternate proposal, after having played around in the test game:
T51 Sailing from Joao <-> Writing + Agriculture
T51 Mining from Churchill <-> Writing
T52 Bronze Working + Pottery + Archery from Joao <-> Alphabet (it worked in the test game)

Getting Sailing in the test game nets us +4 Commerce per turn from 2 overseas, Foreign Trade Routes with Churchill.

In the test game, if I give Masonry to all 4 AIs, none of them will trade that tech to us. So, maybe we'll have to go for self-teching Masonry. It looks like Turbo Ants didn't have time to get to Currency before pumping up their Power, so we'll probably go for Horseback Riding before Currency in order to roughly match their warmongering pace.

 

[Folket]

I tried out the whipping scenario.

Paris:
not whipping:
size 7
19 food
5 hammers
whipping:
size 6
5 food (-47)
51 hammers (+46)
research (-3)

XO:
not whipping:
size 3
2 food
5 hammers
whipping:
settler one turn late
size 2
4 food (-22)
35 hammers (+30)
commerce (-1)

69, 4 research to 76 hammers. Also the delayed settler will add 2F/H to the cost. Since it does not give us settlers faster and XO will loose a few more hammers the turns following it does not seem to be a good idea.

 

[Folket]

Sailing is gold in the pocket. Should be a priority.

 

[pigswill]

It might be worth moving scout 2E to contact Blue this turn to check out trading possibilities (and we'll meet Blue once SE is settled). Being able to acquire pots, sailing, mining and archery would be nice. Pots is good for cottages in Paris bfc as well as granaries for whipping.

Maybe 100% cash until we decide on research path (HbR>currency sounds most likely).

Edit: At what point do we make peace offerings to Fred? Stalin has a new worst enemy?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

It might be worth moving scout 2E to contact Blue this turn to check out trading possibilities (and we'll meet Blue once SE is settled). Being able to acquire pots, sailing, mining and archery would be nice. Pots is good for cottages in Paris bfc as well as granaries for whipping.

Do you object to giving Joao Alphabet? We don't need to meet another AI if we're okay with giving Alphabet to Joao. All the power to us if he goes for Currency while we go for Masonry -> Horseback Riding.

It'll be fine if he later uses Alphabet to bribe another AI into declaring war on us, as we'll already have our initial army when we declare war on Joao and then we'll save a Diplo Attitude hit with any of the AIs who like the AI (or AIs) who declare war on us for Alphabet.

Plus, then we save 5 WFYABTA counter hits with any AI whom we have yet to meet. That's a significant quantity. It's already enough to make an AI like Stalin get pretty close to not wanting to trade techs with us after we get a few more techs in trade in the future (I think that he'll accept us learning about 8 techs). Any AI who will only let us learn 5 or 10 techs on paper (more like 8 or 13 in reality) will be significantly impacted by 5 techs--that's our team's competitive advantage.

Maybe 100% cash until we decide on research path (HbR>currency sounds most likely).

It's an option. Alternatively, we could learn Masonry by Turn 54, just when our Settlers get built.

We wouldn't need Masonry quite that quickly--XO Cognac will want a Granary > Lighthouse before starting on The Great Lighthouse, but we have cheap Lighthouses and we'll want to put at least 1 Chop into the Granary, so those Buildings will come out quickly.

But, we also don't need to save up a ton of Gold--roughly 2 turns' worth of Gold should be able to carry us through Masonry + Horseback Riding.

We could either figure it out exactly or else we could say, just spend 2 turns at 0% Science and then go for 100% Science from then on and hope that we've got roughly enough Gold saved up.


We could do something like:
Paris Settler -> Anarchy -> Worker for 2 turns while working a G Riv instead of a G For for a total of 29 Hammers -> 2-pop-whip a Worker and stop working 1 Scientist -> Chop + overflow Hammers will complete a Granary while not working the Deer -> Don't work the Deer for another turn -> Stop hiring 1 Scientist while growing with a good amount of Food in the Granary -> Size 6 again where we can work our 4 improved squares plus our 2 Scientists

XO Cognac could probably just build Settler -> Warrior -> Granary with the help of a Chop or two, or possibly 1-pop-whipping its Granary. We'd probably slow-build its Lighthouse close to completion and then 1-pop-whip it for some overflow Hammers into The Great Lighthouse

The north-east City simply builds a Work Boat, as does the south-east City.

We'd probably use the Paris-built Worker 3 for the south-east City's Fur Camp, while using the other two Workers to Chop Forests into Granaries in Paris and XO Cognac.


Yes, Stalin must know another AI whom he hates even more than Frederick.


As for Frederick, we might as well stay at war with him until he sends a stack our way and then we can pay him a tech for Peace. If we peace out sooner than that, we might take more Diplo hits the next time that we want to declare war on him. If he doesn't send a stack our way, we might not need to make Peace with him at all, waiting until some later fighting for some War Success for a tech or an opportunistic City capture and then perhaps immediately Cease Firing after grabbing a City from him.

 

[pigswill]

One of the issues we need to decide is whether we go for Glight. I agree that Glight is worth more than 4 HAs but its not guaranteed for sure and 3 HAs and earlier DoW would be worth more than 150 failgold. We'd need to check out how many turns it would take us to build it and how many AIs have started on it already. Unwilling to trade sailing and masonry would be a clue but there's six civs we haven't met yet and none of them will be building Pyramids.

We'll need to get cash at some point in the near future, building cash before academy is more efficient and we don't really want to waste commerce on unessential techs.

I'm guessing your overall strategy is research focussed turtling with a breakout at some point, maybe once we've got a stack together.

 

[Folket]

I expect that Fredrik will be willing to trade if we make peace with him. We could aks him if he wants a cease fire?

 

[Cactus Pete]

"The City with The Pyramids is at Size 7! A City without a Wonder is at Size 6. Meanwhile, London, The Oracle City, and The Great Lighthouse City are all at Size 3." The GLH has already been built? Presume you mean the Glib.

I share the concern that building the GLH before the AI is problematic. Also, wondering if owning Lisbon isn't more valuable, at least in the short run, than owning the GLH. In the long run we may be able to capture the GLH.

Are we not going to meet the blue and yellow civs immediately after this first round of trading? Might not one of them trade us Masonry?

In the test game, I was able to get BW without giving up Alpha. Are you certain that's not possible here? Churchill would seem a possibility.

What if we use our missionary in the SE to get both sheep and fur, and settle SE of fish and SW of sheep in the NE?

 

[pigswill]

Would Fred take fishing for peace? Might be worth a try, it would leave possible writing for BW next turn.

From the tech trade table the known AIs are not bombing ahead in techs, none know writing, IW or any of the religious techs. On this evidence we don't have to worry about WFYABTA and we should worry more about any AIs having any techs worth trading.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Presume you mean the Glib.

Yes, I meant The Great Library, sorry. The Great Wall hasn't even been built yet, which is likely to be a priority for AIs who have learned Masonry before they start on The Great Lighthouse due to The Great Wall being a cheaper build item.

Most of the AIs started with 1 City. We suspect that Stalin started with 3 Cities, leaving 2 other AIs with 2 Cities or 1 other AI with 3 Cities.

The fact that The Great Wall hasn't been built yet is a decent indicator that we have a pretty strong chance of building The Great Lighthouse ourselves, if we want it.

I don't think that anyone disagrees that we really want it in a teching game. It's impact is huge on a map with overseas domestic Cities and we know that we can have at least 3 of them (Churchill's 2 Cities plus Spice Girls Island). I'd put it on the level of getting 3 Oracles on a map where we're settling so many Cities on the coast.

Also, wondering if owning Lisbon isn't more valuable, at least in the short run, than owning the GLH.

For a teching game like this one, and with the map's layout as it is, there's little doubt that if a team doesn't build or capture The Great Lighthouse will be out of the running for the Golden Laurels.

It's a Wonder that's going to be better than us capturing several Cities in the short term. The same might not be true of a Domination Victory, but that Victory Condition has been disabled.

Lisbon is already Unhappy for Joao in the test game, which would be a concern for us, too. More valuable than Lisbon would be capturing a Happiness Resource or two. A large pile of Food is nice, but if we're stuck at a Happiness cap of 6, such a City's utility will be somewhat wasted.

Are we not going to meet the blue and yellow civs immediately after this first round of trading? Might not one of them trade us Masonry?

After getting our first 5 techs in trade (Sailing, Mining, Pottery, Bronze Working, and Archery), we will definitely meet the Light Blue AI, as we'll have to meet that AI in order to settle our south-east City.

If it is Pericles, he could potentially trade us Masonry, assuming that he has teched it. If it is Pacal, Cyrus, Darius, or Alexander, he would not trade us Masonry, particularly with Frederick not knowing it and the two of them guaranteed to have met each other via their Cultural Borders, if not earlier via their Units meeting each other.

Charlemagne, Hatshepsut, Ramesses, and Shaka would also not trade us Masonry.

Even if Churchill were to meet one of Joao or Frederick, that other AI would have to know Masonry for us to get it, and neither of them has learned Masonry yet.

If we do choose to meet the Yellow AI, it will take us a few turns to do so. I'm not sure what tech we'd hope to get, but we could meet the Yellow AI since it's a relatively close AI.

The sooner that we meet AIs, the faster they will get to Feudalism, particularly AIs with whom we don't go to war in the medium term, so we should have a pretty good reason for every additional AI that we meet prior to having built an army that could reach said AI.

In the test game, I was able to get BW without giving up Alpha. Are you certain that's not possible here? Churchill would seem a possibility.

As I noted, the test game is inaccurate because in the real game, Churchill will only trade us Mining due to not having met any other AIs. I do not believe that the World Builder has the power to make one player go back and pretend that it did not meet another player.

In the real game, Churchill will trade techs such as: Fishing, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Monotheism, Monarchy, and Liberalism without having met any other AI, but otherwise won't trade techs with us unless we were to get him up to Friendly status. Friendly status would likely require settling 2 Cities for him on his landmass (if it is big enough to even do so), Liberating those Cities to him, and running Christianity as our State Religion. So, all that we can get out of Churchill in the real game is Mining.

I have been secretly hoping that Churchill would have met another AI by now, but he has not done so in the real game.

Churchill could also be bribed to declare war on another AI if we get Churchill to be Pleased toward us and if Churchill is only Pleased toward that other AI... but, Churchill is likely to be immediately Pleased upon meeting nearby Christian AIs, and he also has to meet an AI before we'd even have the chance to ask him to declare war on said AI.

That said, there should be a chance to bribe Churchill into declaring war on Frederick if the two of them meet each other, depending upon whether they are instantly Pleased toward each other or not due to a shared State Religion. In the test game, when they first met each other, they were both +1 Cautious toward each other for having a shared State Religion. If they don't meet each other until Turn 60, they'll also have +1 for being at Peace with each other for 60 turns, but in the test game, them being at +2 with each other still is also Cautious both ways.

On that note, we need Stalin to be Pleased toward us for bribing him to attack someone and he'd be even easier to bribe onto someone by only needing to be Pleased or lower in Attitude toward another AI in order to be bribed onto that AI. Of course, he also would need not to have his hands full with a war of his own that he was plotting.

I don't see any value in having Joao join us in a war.

What if we use our missionary in the SE to get both sheep and fur, and settle SE of fish and SW of sheep in the NE?

It's an option.

If we instead settle 2 S of that Sheep later (after conquering Berlin and making Frederick's Cultural Borders go away) and settle in the north-east now to share the G Cow, then we'd get to work an extra 4 GH squares that we otherwise wouldn't be able to work. Further, it's possible that Frederick would even settle a City 2 S of the Sheep as we'd be blocking him from settling any closer to us due to the rule about Cities having to be settled 3 squares away from each other on the same landmass.

Another challenge with settling next to the Sheep is that we'd have to make Peace with Frederick, so we would limit our options for easily getting war allies for Diplo Attitude benefits.

I'm not too concerned about missing the Sheep to the south-east in the medium as there is a Gems square to partner with it, and it's only a 4-Food square, which, while nice, may not be worth giving up the Fur for in the short term plus 2 G Riv Helper Cottages for Paris in the medium term.

Ultimately, we chose a strategy of building Helper Cottages in Paris to partner with an Academy, Bureaucracy, and Oxford to meet many of our teching needs, so it's nice to have some Cities which can actually work some Helper Cottages.

I expect that Fredrik will be willing to trade if we make peace with him. We could aks him if he wants a cease fire?

We already asked him and he wanted XO Cognac. In the test game, he'd take Peace for no techs AFTER we had learned Bronze Working, as he then deemed us to be sufficiently more powerful to not want anything from us, but by then we wouldn't need any techs out of Frederick as we'd already have gotten our techs from Joao.

In the test game, if I give Frederick Pottery in the World Builder, we can get Please from Frederick for Fishing, we can get Mining from Churchill for Writing, and we can get Sailing from Joao for Writing plus Agriculture.

We would then trade Writing and Sailing to Frederick for Bronze Working and Pottery, but that trade is not guaranteed as Frederick might have already started researching Writing.

Also, it leaves us short of learning Archery before meeting other AIs.

I do not believe that it would be preferable to enable the tough-to-beat AI (Frederick) instead of staying at war with Frederick for potential war bribes (particularly Churchill when they meet each other), and enabling the AI that will be easy to pulverize (Joao).

Do we really want Frederick building a Galley to harass our seafood Resources? Do we want to miss out on the chance to get an AI to declare war on Frederick? We we want Frederick Opening Borders with other AIs? Do we want to risk taking Diplo Attitude hits by redeclaring war on Frederick in the future?

Joao getting Alphabet and teching Currency would be a fantastic circumstance, and although it's a bit of wishful thinking, if he has all of our other techs, it's not outside of the realm of possibilities, but only if Joao gets Alphabet from us.

We'd need to check out how many turns it would take us to build it

200 Hammers required
Say, 24 Hammers overflow from a whipped Lighthouse
40 Hammers from 2 Chops
Leaving 200 - 24 - 40 = 136 Hammers
136 / 7 Hammers per turn = 20 turns after having our Lighthouse
Add in a third Chop to bring it down to 17 turns
We could also 2-pop-whip a Spy near the end for another 20 overflow Hammers, bringing it down to 14 turns after having our Lighthouse

how many AIs have started on it already.

A better indication will be the date that The Great Wall gets built, as the turn after that turn is likely the soonest turn when AIs will start slotting in The Great Lighthouse as a build item, and that's only if the AI has a coastal City with a Lighthouse already built in it.

Unwilling to trade sailing and masonry would be a clue but there's six civs we haven't met yet and none of them will be building Pyramids.

Do AIs deny the trading of Sailing or Masonry for The Great Lighthouse? Is it really both? I would assume that it's one or the other, but it would be nice to know which one.

We'll need to get cash at some point in the near future, building cash before academy is more efficient and we don't really want to waste commerce on unessential techs.

Another approach is to do whatever we can to get Gold so that we don't have to reduce the Science Slider much. Whipping and Chopping into Warriors is one option. Whipping Missionaries is another option for the medium term. Building Stone-based Wonders, including building Moai in multiple Cities, is also a medium-term option. Capturing AI Cities is another option.

I'd rather not save up Gold for 6 turns and end up delaying Horseback Riding by 3 or 4 turns just to earn a bit better ratio out of that Gold post-Academy. Let's get the techs that we want in the short term without worrying about the Academy's efficient conversion so that we can make sure to get our Wonder and War items unlocked quickly.

We might have some turns where Paris only has 1 Scientist hired, and I don't want us relying on having that Academy before we tech Horseback Riding, only to further delay learning Horseback Riding.

I'm guessing your overall strategy is research focussed turtling with a breakout at some point, maybe once we've got a stack together.

I suppose that you could say it that way, but rather than turtling, which implies getting a bunch of Archers and waiting to get attacked, at least in the traditional sense of turtling, I'd say having a low-Maintenance, compact empire that can share Cottage squares with Paris in the future, getting to the techs that we need ASAP, then building the relevant build items, those being Granaries, a Lighthouse and The Great Lighthouse in XO Cognac, at least 1 more Settler (settling a 5th City to share Paris' Wheat and several G Riv Cottages squares), plus maybe a Galley and 2 additional Settlers to be gifted to Churchill could also be an option, and then Horse Archers everywhere else, with the odd Chariot thrown in to help in dealing with AI Axemen.


Joao must have already started teching one of Agriculture or Writing in the real game, since he will give us:
Sailing + Archery from Joao <-> Agriculture + Writing in the test game
But he won't toss in Archery in the real game (see the turnset report for the trades that Joao will or will not be willing to make)

 

[Cactus Pete]

The fact that The Great Wall hasn't been built yet is a decent indicator that we have a pretty strong chance of building The Great Lighthouse ourselves, if we want it.

For a teching game like this one, and with the map's layout as it is, there's little doubt that if a team doesn't build or capture The Great Lighthouse will be out of the running for the Golden Laurels. If that's a good estimate, wondering why the mapmaker didn't give it to an AI as he did the Oracle and Glib.

Lisbon is already Unhappy for Joao in the test game, which would be a concern for us, too. More valuable than Lisbon would be capturing a Happiness Resource or two. A large pile of Food is nice, but if we're stuck at a Happiness cap of 6, such a City's utility will be somewhat wasted. That reasoning suggests that we wait for Joao to build a city west of the cows (which captures the spices in its expanded borders) and that we settle a gem city ASAP. How practical is that? Might we have to go to war with the blue civ? Alternatively, it suggests that we meet civs and trade for some happiness resources, then capture Lisbon.

Charlemagne, Hatshepsut, Ramesses, and Shaka would also not trade us Masonry. But might they trade us a happiness resource or perhaps BW for less than Alpha?

Even if Churchill were to meet one of Joao or Frederick, that other AI would have to know Masonry for us to get it, and neither of them has learned Masonry yet.

In the real game, Churchill will trade techs such as: Fishing, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Monotheism, Monarchy, and Liberalism without having met any other AI, but otherwise won't trade techs with us unless we were to get him up to Friendly status. Follow you now on Churchill. I didn't know any AI would trade any tech before meeting other AIs.

It's an option. Not utilizing the southern sheep with our 3rd city is a better option if we are going to also settle a gem city sooner rather than later. In any event, let's see where the copper is before deciding settlement sites.


200 Hammers required
Say, 24 Hammers overflow from a whipped Lighthouse
40 Hammers from 2 Chops
Leaving 200 - 24 - 40 = 136 Hammers
136 / 7 Hammers per turn = 20 turns after having our Lighthouse
Add in a third Chop to bring it down to 17 turns
We could also 2-pop-whip a Spy near the end for another 20 overflow Hammers, bringing it down to 14 turns after having our Lighthouse Shouldn't we delay the chops until nearing completion with them?


Do AIs deny the trading of Sailing or Masonry for The Great Lighthouse? Is it really both? I would assume that it's one or the other, but it would be nice to know which one.

In Vanilla, pretty sure it does delay trading Sailing, not sure about Masonry.

 

[Folket]

I would be willing to bet on trading for mining with Churchill and, sailing from Joao. After we have done that move down and get BW from yellow.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If that's a good estimate, wondering why the mapmaker didn't give it to an AI as he did the Oracle and Glib.

If you want my guess it is because The Great Lighthouse is a Wonder that normally isn't quickly built by the AIs, such that even on Deity, if you want it, you can generally get it.

Meanwhile, the Oracle has a lot of randomness to when it gets built, which gets increased when there are a lot of AIs on a map.

Stonehenge would fall into a similar category as the Oracle, except that in most games, players ignore it, but here, it could have been worth going for due to being Charismatic.

I don't know about The Great Library except to encourage teams to avoid a Music beeline and thereby stick closer to the same tech path across teams.

The Pyramids are probably so that we can be gifted Stone but so that one team doesn't pull ahead by building The Pyramids while other teams do not manage to do so, allowing us to have Stone for Oxford, again leading us down a similar tech path across teams, making for a more controlled race.

That reasoning suggests that we wait for Joao to build a city west of the cows (which captures the spices in its expanded borders)

In test game runs, I have seen Joao do any one of:
1. Build a City on the PH square, which misses out on that Spice, and Cultural Borders won't expand to another landmass (in BtS) if that other landmass isn't within the City's big fat cross
2. Build a City where you suggested
3. Take a really long time to build a second City

If 2. happens, great!

and that we settle a gem city ASAP. How practical is that? Might we have to go to war with the blue civ?

Open the World Builder and you'll see that the Light Blue AI's Cultural Borders are already covering the Gems square, so, yes, we'd need to capture the Light Blue AI's capital before we can work that Gems square.

But might they trade us a happiness resource or perhaps BW for less than Alpha?

It's possible that a nearby AI will trade us Resources, but it's quite unlikely that we could get a Resource from a faraway AI.

I'm not understanding the hesitation to give Alphabet to Joao, which unlocks Joao to have the chance to research Currency for us, but doesn't allow him to become a runaway AI as his land is quite limited.

I'm quite fine with enabling AIs who are relatively isolated and who we feel that we can relatively easily control.

Joao is the best of those worlds, as he has little room to expand, but being small allows for a reasonably-fast tech pace in the early game, making it feasible to get Math, Aesthetics, or Currency out of him. He's close enough and will be small enough to accept a Trojan City for a tech theft of said tech or techs just before declaring war on him. He's also unlikely to meet a lot of the other AIs, so he's unlikely to go trading away techs that we give to him.

Churchill could be a good tech-trading target, too, as AIs who are overseas are terrible at launching wars, and he's also quite isolated, having not met any other AIs to date. The sticking point is that we need Churchill to meet another AI, but when he meets Frederick, I suggest that we gift Churchill up to +4 Fair and Forthright Trading and then try to get another +1 with him, perhaps via Open Borders, so that he'll be Pleased toward us and then we can bribe him to attack Frederick, giving us a good chance of getting Churchill up to Friendly status.

Frederick is a poor tech-trading target as he is in our way and already has Copper in a well-defended City, making him a challenge to take on militaristically; giving him additional advantages may hurt us.

Stalin has over-REXed, which will hurt his tech rate. He may be kept out of the tech-trading game if he becomes the most behind in techs, as the AI in last place is shunned by the other AIs in terms of tech-trading. But, as soon as there is a tie for last place, a fury of tech-trading happens, so we'd want him far out in last place, particularly since it won't be easy to get on his good side and stay there. An AI who REXes and who gets techs in trade can become a runway AI. An AI who REXes their way into technological backwardness will be ripe for the pickings later.

That said, since we're likely staying at war with Frederick, we probably could Open Borders with Stalin now for the eventual +1 Diplo Attitude, hoping to get him up to Pleased status so that he can declare war on someone for us, thereby making it easier to sustain him as a tech-trading partner in the future. He's a terrible tech-trading partner except if you can get him up to Friendly, as he hardly trades techs at all, but once he's at Friendly, you can count on him not to give away your techs (like Mansa or Pericles will do) except to any AI toward whom Stalin becomes Friendly. He could become a valuable war ally, or we could bribe him against multiple AIs and then backstab him with the help of multiple AIs on whom he declared war.

If we want the Gems City, I'd be very hesitant to trade techs to the Light Blue AI, as well. That AI is already going to be a bit late of a war target, with us setting our eyes on Joao and Frederick. If it is Greece or Maya, I'd hate to enable that Civ into successfully REXing (i.e. having Writing and Opening Borders with AIs to help sustain a REX) and spamming Unique Units that are the direct counter to Mounted Units (Phalanx and Holkans).

It's all a balance. Once we feel that we can field an army that will let us control the nearby AIs, then we can afford to enable them with techs to try to get them to research something useful for us, but with us being able to take them down before they benefit too much from their techs. Joao is the only AI that I currently feel comfortable whom we can pulverize at a whim.

And, if we do enable the Light Blue and Yellow AIs, we'll want to be able to get some techs in trade from them, to make our investment pay off, meaning avoiding the early WFYABTA counter hits by meeting them after ob our obtaining irst 5 techs in trade. I'm not sure why we'd get cold feet on our agreed-upon strategy at the last minute by meeting them prematurely.


If we'd wanted to meet AIs, we should have chosen to do so from the start, when we'd get map knowledge (a gain) for the cost of having to meet with and deal with many AIs and all of the consequences that would ensue (them teching faster on techs that we already know instead of learning techs that we'd want in trade being one such consequence). But, I'm also not sure why it would seem like a fun game to quickly meet 12 AIs and have 12 AIs continually bugging us to stop trading with their Worst Enemies until after refusing so many Demands/Requests that we become everyone's Worst Enemy, at which point trading ceases and the dog-piling on us begins.

Better would be to meet only some AIs at a time, control them and work on getting good Diplo relations with 1 or 2 of them, and only then meeting other AIs when we can afford some negative Diplo for trading with their Worst Enemies.

Shouldn't we delay the chops until nearing completion with them?

It's arguable. I don't think that we will be at risk of missing out on The Great Lighthouse if we really try to build it. If we have an excess of Worker turns, sure. As soon as Bronze Working comes out and we need to start Chopping plus improving our growing Cities, Worker turns will be at a premium, so I'd be a bit hesitant to worry about pre-Chopping and would suggest just getting the Chops done when we have our Workers in position to Chop. Failure Gold on a Wonder without a Resource bonus is equal to excess overflow Gold earned from Chopping into a whipped Warrior.


Suggested PPP
Turn 51, 1960
Science Rate EDIT: 100%
Tech: Horseback Riding (for this turn)
Open Borders with Stalin
Trade Sailing from Joao <-> Writing + Agriculture (for overseas Trade Routes)
Trade Mining from Churchill <-> Writing (to unlock Churchill going after Mathematics or Aesthetics)
EDIT: Paris switches G For -> G Riv
EDIT: Double-checking: Confirm that each of Paris and XO Cognac has a 3-Commerce Trade Route from Churchill and that Paris is making 30 Flasks while XO Cognac is making 7 Flasks. If these numbers are not correct, stop play to re-evaluate the situation
Missionary moves into Paris
Scout stays in place
Warrior 1 moves 1 N GH Riv to keep an eye on the Bear... in the test game, the Bear has already disappeared a couple of times; if the Bear is gone, make a note of that fact

Turn 52, 1920 BC
Trade Bronze Working + Pottery + Archery from Joao <-> Alphabet
Stop play if the above trade cannot be made so that we can discuss our options before meeting any additional AIs
If the Bear is adjacent to Warrior 1, Warrior 1 moves 1 S GH For
If the Bear disappeared last turn, Warrior 1 moves toward the City location by moving 1 NW Go For
If the Bear didn't disappear last turn but likely moved 1 NE in between turns, stay in place on the GH Riv to watch for the Bear's reappearance next turn
Worker 1 completes the Road on the G Horse
Worker 2 moves to the G For that is 1 NE of Paris, likely Roading it next turn
Only if we have received all of Sailing, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, and Archery in trade, send our Scout 1 SE G > 1 NE GH For (1 N of the Fish) to meet the Light Blue AI
Don't move the Missionary yet so that we will have a Unit which hasn't moved, pause the game, and stop play to discuss the new situation

 

[Dhoomstriker]

In Vanilla, pretty sure it does delay trading Sailing, not sure about Masonry.

I tried it out. Both techs will be denied due to "We have our reasons."

It took a really long time, though. Even with gifting Lighthouses and Masonry to multiple AIs, they just weren't building The Great Lighthouse easily and I had to end the turn many times before one AI even started to build that Wonder. It shouldn't be too hard for us to get it if we go for it.

I would be willing to bet on trading for mining with Churchill and, sailing from Joao.

Those trading possibilities are already confirmed options. See the turnset report. It was actually based on your idea that I checked to see what it would take to get Sailing from Joao right away.

After we have done that move down and get BW from yellow.

Unless the test game is quite wrong, we won't meet the Yellow AI until we get a Unit near Lisbon, say, by using Warrior 3 built out of XO Cognac after it builds its Settler.

 

[Folket]

Still, I agree with Pigswill that we do not need to worry about WAATYABTA since we are unlikely to get many techs this game.

Thinking that Russia has overexpanded is a grave mistake. I think they have been given a very strong start. They are the AI techleader with agriculture/masonry over Joao and agriculture/animal husbandry over Churchill. He is likely one of the two AIs with a larger economy than us.

There is also an AI with 2.5 times our economy. At the moment we are in the dark of what our challenges will be. Joao will be willing to trade Alphabet away. It does not seem like a great idea before we know what Yellow is.

I think we are better off getting BW from Frederick.

 

[pigswill]

I must admit that I am warming to Dhoomstriker's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle approach. Its not conventional for sure but we're already committed to it by not expanding earlier and going for early academy instead so let's play it out.

I do still think that WFYABTA is a minor consideration and favour earlier exploration.

We know that one civ started with three cities, and its probably Stalinist Russia. The chances are Uncle Jo will spam units and fall behind in the tech race due to unit maintenance a la monte.

GNP and economy aren't always the same thing if culture is included in GNP.

I'm wondering if Blue is Alexander.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Joao will be willing to trade Alphabet away.

If that happens, perfect, I say. Joao will already have all of our techs. So, anything that Joao gets in trade is a tech that we would want. To get that tech, EDIT: we will need to perform these steps:
1. Have a City earmarked for gifting to Joao
2. Whip 2 Spies and have them wait for 5 turns in that City
3. Put our Espionage Slider at 100%, our Espionage Weight at 1 on Joao, and our Espionage Weight at 0 on every other AI (for how many turns will depend upon how valuable the tech is--we'd use a test game to check the cost in Espionage Points)
4. Gift that City to Joao
5. Steal the tech, with 2 chances to get it right
6. At our convenience, declare war on Joao and recapture that City

We could gift a City that has whipped heavily, thereby resetting its Whipping Unhappiness.

Joao could start Roading toward the gifted City for us.

Joao would send some City Defenders for the gifted City, meaning less of his Units guarding his core City or Cities, and we could potentially kill those units in the field if they are Archers.

I think we are better off getting BW from Frederick.

Do we really want Frederick Opening Borders with other AIs and making friends? If Frederick forces us into Peace with an army on our doorstep, Frederick is likely to be alive for a while. Even if he doesn't send an army, we're more likely to capture Hamburg (the two Sheep City) then take a Cease Fire before we're ready to clobber Berlin, which will probably happen after he has sent out another Settler Party during the period of Cease Fire.

In the meantime, do we want him having earned +1 Diplo Attitude with the AIs that he has met, possibly directly giving us additional -1 Diplo Attitudes with other AIs who got Pleased toward Frederick when we declare war on Frederick again and anger the AIs who have started taking a liking to Frederick for shared Open Borders?

Joao hasn't sent any Units past us and his Work Boats have been busy on seafood, so Joao likely only knows the Yellow AI (due to the Yellow AI's expanded Cultural Borders) plus any AI who has sent a Work Boat out to meet Joao--but who would possibly have needed Open Borders with the Yellow AI. Meanwhile, Frederick could have met most of the AIs by now, by being in a location not blocked by us and with us not having seen his Scout (we see it in the test game). So, I'm not worried about Joao making too many friends out there, but Frederick certainly could make a lot of friends before we declare war on Frederick a second time to finish him off.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle approach.

It is convenient that there is a movie out about them...

I do still think that WFYABTA is a minor consideration and favour earlier exploration.

Well, that's the reason for not meeting some AIs until we've gotten our first 5 techs in trade.

An additional reason for not meeting AIs until later also involves exactly how AI teching works and how AI tech-trading works.

When an AI knows a player who has learned a tech, the cost for that tech goes down for the AI player. This factor weighs in the decision of which tech an AI picks to tech next, leading to duplication of research.

Duplication of research can be both helpful and harmful. It is harmful if AIs meet us and start duplicating research on techs that we already know. It is helpful if AIs don't meet us and instead duplicate research on techs that other AIs know, such as Aesthetics or Mathematics in the short term, or Metal Casting and Literature in the medium term.

Why does it help if the AIs duplicate each others' research?

Look at Churchill, as he is the perfect poster child for why.

When an AI determines whether they will trade a tech, that AI looks around at every player that it has met and checks those players' handbaskets of techs. If that AI is stingy with tech-trading, then most of the other players' handbackets (only counting players that this AI has met) must have that tech in it in order for that AI to be willing to trade it. If that AI is liberal with tech-trading (say, Pericles), if at least one other AI knows that tech, then that AI might be willing to trade it.

Monopoly techs are techs that an AI BELIEVES it is the only player who knows that tech. AIs only check the handbaskets of players that they have met. Churchill can only look into our handbasket and say "well, dude, you're rather backward, you don't know Archery, and I'm the only other player in the world, and I happen to know Archery, so you'll have to become my best buddy before I'll give you Archery." "But, since I think that everyone in the world should have techs such as Fishing, Mining, and Monotheism, I'll let you have Mining, although it will cost you a bit extra to get in trade since I am the only one in the whole world who knows Mining!"

Then, Churchill goes out and meets Joao. "Oh, fiddle sticks," Churchill cries, "I am not the only one who knows Archery and Bronze Working. I suppose that I can be willing to trade those techs around since 66% of the world knows those techs. I will also reduce the price on those tech trades, to increase the chance that I'll get the trades instead of that Portuguese punk."

Later, Churchill learns Mathematics. He won't trade it because he's the only one in the world who knows it. But, then Joao learns Mathematics, too. Suddenly, Churchill will be willing to trade us Mathematics. Well, he would be if he hadn't met anyone else. But, in the meantime, if Churchill had met 1 other AI and that AI did not know Mathematics, Churchill would still think that Mathematics was worth trading around. But, if Churchill had met 2 other AIs and neither of them knew Mathematics, Churchill would go back to thinking that he has a relative monopoly on Mathematics and he would again only be willing to trade Mathematics with his best buddies.

Each tech in BtS has different monopoly thresholds, with the primary factors being how many other players' handbaskets contain the tech (only of the players that the AI has met), how many Units are unlocked by the tech, how many Buildings (including each Unique Building but not including Religious Buildings) are unlocked by the tech, and how many Wonders (World and National) are unlocked by the tech and have not yet been built (by anyone for World Wonders or by that AI for National Wonders).

Other factors can have a role, such as being in "hands full" mode, i.e. when there is a fist beside the AI's name in the Scoreboard, the Strength of the strongest Unit in the world, whether there is an AI who is alone on their landmass (Churchill appears to be one), whether the AI shares 8 squares with another AI OR is plotting an overseas war, whether a tech unlocks a Project (The Manhattan Project being an example, as some Spaceship techs are generally not tradeable by AIs who "Want to win the game"), and whether the Circumnavigation bonus is still available (for Optics, since it unlock Caravels and their Unique Unit equivalent).

Some general conclusions:
1. It's good to get an AI or two up to Friendly to be able to have unlimited tech-trading restrictions with such an AI
2. AIs will often duplicate research of the tech leader whom they have met; if that's us, then there becomes a lot of wasted research in the world; if they haven't met us, then there's a decent chance that the AIs will piggyback off of each other on techs that we don't have, such as Iron Working, Metal Casting, Aesthetics, and Mathematics in the short term
3. When no AI is Friendly toward us, we need a decent percentage of the AIs that a given AI has met to have learned a tech if we want to get that tech in trade, so it's helpful if the AIs piggyback off of each others' research for multiple reasons:
a) so that some AIs are willing to trade that tech, whether it is the AIs whom we have met (Light Blue after a couple of turns) or whether it is the AIs that we meet later and can immediately trade useful techs with them
b) so that when those AIs are willing to trade techs, the AIs that they know who have roughly the same tech pace won't want to trade techs with each other, since they all researched similar techs as each other, leaving little room for AI-AI tech trading, leaving more room for us to do the tech trading
c) those AIs aren't duplicating our research, meaning that the global contribution of AI Flasks isn't going toward backfilling the techs that we know
d) if our desired tech-trading partner knows more AIs who also know the tech that we want to get in trade, we get more of a discount on that tech
e) conversely to point d), if few of the AIs who our desired tech-trading partner has met know the tech that we want to trade away, we get more value for trading away our tech

GNP and economy aren't always the same thing if culture is included in GNP.

In BtS, Culture is included in GNP. So is Espionage. So are bonus Flasks. Doubled-Wonder Culture from 3000 BC pre-built Wonders is also included.

 

[Jersey Joe]

It's arguable. I don't think that we will be at risk of missing out on The Great Lighthouse if we really try to build it. If we have an excess of Worker turns, sure. As soon as Bronze Working comes out and we need to start Chopping plus improving our growing Cities, Worker turns will be at a premium, so I'd be a bit hesitant to worry about pre-Chopping and would suggest just getting the Chops done when we have our Workers in position to Chop. Failure Gold on a Wonder without a Resource bonus is equal to excess overflow Gold earned from Chopping into a whipped Warrior.

I vote for really trying to build The Great Lighthouse. Also, we should postpone chopping in XO as long as practical on the chance another forest might grow.

Suggested PPP
Turn 52, 1920 BC
Trade Bronze Working + Pottery + Archery from Joao <-> Alphabet
Stop play if the above trade cannot be made so that we can discuss our options before meeting any additional AIs
If the Bear is adjacent to Warrior 1, Warrior 1 moves 1 S GH For
If the Bear disappeared last turn, Warrior 1 moves toward the City location by moving 1 NW Go For
If the Bear didn't disappear last turn but likely moved 1 NE in between turns, stay in place on the GH Riv to watch for the Bear's reappearance next turn
Worker 1 completes the Road on the G Horse
Worker 2 moves to the G For that is 1 NE of Paris, likely Roading it next turn
Only if we have received all of Sailing, Mining, Bronze Working, Pottery, and Archery in trade, send our Scout 1 SE G > 1 NE GH For (1 N of the Fish) to meet the Light Blue AI
Don't move the Missionary yet so that we will have a Unit which hasn't moved, pause the game, and stop play to discuss the new situation

Getting sailing will mean we have a new income stream and will need to change the research rate from 40%.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Getting sailing will mean we have a new income stream and will need to change the research rate from 40%.

Great point! Thanks for catching that! Hmmm, checking with us having two overseas, Foreign Trade Routes from Churchill shows that:
a) 0% Science Rate = 0.5 Flasks lost, with 2 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 3 Flasks missing out from the 20% bonus to research

b) 20% Science Rate = 0.15 Flasks lost, 0.2 Gold lost, with 1.4 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 4 Flasks missing out from the 20% bonus to research

c) 40% Science Rate plus Paris switching the G Riv to a G For = 0.3 Flasks lost, 0 Gold lost, with 1.2 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 0 Flasks missing out from the 20% bonus to research

d) 60% Science Rate plus Paris switching the G Riv to a G For = 0.2 Flasks lost, 0 Gold lost, with 0.8 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 1 Flask missing out from the 20% bonus to research

e) 80% Science Rate plus Paris switching the G Riv to a G For = 0.1 Flasks lost, 0 Gold lost, with 0.4 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 2 Flasks missing out from the 20% bonus to research

f) 100% Science Rate plus Paris switching the G Riv to a G For = 0 Flasks lost, 0 Gold lost, with 0 Flasks missing out from the Library's bonus, and with 3 Flasks missing out from the 20% bonus to research


So, I suppose that for the short term, if we get our two 3-Commerce Trade Routes, switching Paris' G For to a G Riv and staying at a 100% Science Rate will be the most efficient approach.

I vote for really trying to build The Great Lighthouse.

If that decision is what the team goes with, then I'm going to suggest that we do our 5 tech trades, then meet the Light Blue AI, then see whether it is Pericles with Masonry; if it is, we hope that we can get Masonry in trade from him. If not, then we switch research to Masonry and learn it ourselves--it's too cheap of a tech to try bothering to steal.

 

[Cactus Pete]

"If that happens, perfect, I say. Joao will already have all of our techs. So, anything that Joao gets in trade is a tech that we would want. To get that tech, all it will take Perhaps this would be better worded: To get that tech, it will take all of the following: is:
1. Have a City earmarked for gifting to Joao
2. Whip 2 Spies and have them wait for 5 turns in that City
3. Put our Espionage Slider at 100%, our Espionage Weight at 1 on Joao, and our Espionage Weight at 0 on every other AI (for how many turns will depend upon how valuable the tech is--we'd use a test game to check the cost in Espionage Points)
4. Gift that City to Joao
5. Steal the tech, with 2 chances to get it right
6. At our convenience, declare war on Joao and recapture that City" There is meaningful cost here -- settler, 2 spies, ESP points -- that would conflict with other priorities. Hypothetical: if we are unwilling to go to all this trouble to get a tech from Joao, is trading him Alpha now still a good idea? (Understand that we will want to get BW from someone other than Fred.)