SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[Dhoomstriker]

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?

It's not as much of a cost as it sounds, since we'll get our City back, there's a good chance that we will keep our Spies (they won't auto-die for being in an AI's territory when that territory is our territory due to us owning the City initially, so we just need to pass the chance of successfully surviving when performing a Spy Mission), and we'll get to abuse Whipping in the gifted City to the extreme, giving us more Military Units at the efficient Food-to-Hammers conversion that Whipping provides but which is normally limited by one's Happiness cap. We'd use a City that we'd have settled anyway (probably the north-east City), and the cost in EPs would be much smaller than the cost in Flasks to self-tech said tech.

It's exactly how we got Metal Casting for dirt cheap from Willem 2 SGOTMs ago when it was a monopoly tech for him, without having to pay the even higher costs involved with getting Willem up to Friendly status.

But, hypothetically, if we don't do so, Joao is still the most harmless of the nearby AIs, and the AI who is likely to know the least other AIs (at least out of the AIs who are actually willing to trade techs with us, cough, cough, due to Churchill being the self-proclaimed monopolist, cough, cough), so Joao also happens to be the best AI to enable if the general team consensus is that we are afraid of enabling an AI with techs.

 

[Cactus Pete]

That's a compelling argument. I'm fine with your PPP. And get something for that hack -- sure hope you don't have MDR TB.

 

[Folket]

I would still like us to meet blue before we get BW from Joao.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I would still like us to meet blue before we get BW from Joao.

Understood. I'm not sure that we can get away with avoiding trading Alphabet to Joao, even if we delayed the Archery trade.

Consider:
1. We still need to get at least Bronze Working + Pottery in trade.
2. Getting Archery now helps reduce WFYABTA counters with other AIs that we will meet afterward but isn't absolutely critical for us to get now, while the other techs are important to get within the next few turns.
3. Stalin won't trade those techs to us, nor will Churchill.
4. Frederick will trade techs at Annoyed, but not with his Worst Enemy. Frederick is -2 toward Stalin but would be -3 toward us, meaning that he'd be unlikely to switch his Worst Enemy status from us to Stalin without us giving him Fishing for Peace and a gift of Writing, leaving us only having Sailing and Alphabet to trade to Frederick, and Sailing won't get us Bronze Working. And, that's assuming that we want Peace with Frederick, which I'm suggesting isn't in our best interests relative to being able to bribe Churchill into attacking Frederick once the two of them meet each other. Having a Friendly Churchill would be a very efficient way to increase our tech pace, as he's also getting overseas, foreign Trade Routes from us, and with a Friendly relationship, whichever tech he researches would become our tech, too.
5. We don't know which techs the Light Blue AI has, so we don't know if we can get both of Bronze Working and Pottery from the Light Blue AI. If the Light Blue AI is backward, we won't be able to get both techs. If the Light Blue AI is advanced, we won't be able to trade Sailing for one of those 2 techs and thus we still won't be able to get both techs. In either case, we'd still have to sell Alphabet to someone, probably Joao.
6. There is a chance that the Light Blue AI knows precisely Bronze Working, Pottery, not Sailing, not Writing, and hasn't started to tech either of Sailing or Writing. Those are the exact circumstances that we'd need to have happen. Note that Joao has already started teching one of Agriculture or Writing, which is why he will only give us Sailing for both of Writing + Agriculture (in the test game, Joao will also toss in one of Mining or Archery, since he hasn't started researching one of Writing or Agriculture in the test game). Even 1 turn of research into Writing by the Light Blue AI would mean not being able to trade Bronze Working from Light Blue <-> Writing, since the techs have equal Flask costs and the only reason why we'd be able to make that trade is when Writing is seen as a monopoly tech and Bronze Working is known by many AIs. I'm not sure what the exchange rate would look like after Joao gets Writing, as we're not positive whether Joao and the Light Blue AI have met yet, and if they have met, then the value of Writing to the Light Blue AI will go down after we trade Writing to Joao.

Do you feel that item 6 is likely enough that we should bet on it? Do you also feel that after all of this delay in meeting the Light Blue AI for WFYABTA purposes that we should throw part of that reason away, still taking a 3-tech WFYABTA hit?

If yes to both questions, I suppose that we should put it to a vote.

Do you want to explain your reasoning to persuade the rest of us?

 

[pigswill]

Thinking about Glight in XO. We presumably get sailing T51, Xo finishes settler T54 and presumably starts LH rather than granary. We then wait for SE city to settle before contacting Blue to see if it has masonry and is willing to trade it. If not we research masonry ourselves. If we're serious about Glight should we research masonry as soon as we have mining and not lose turns gambling on a trade?

Thinking about war with Frederick. How likely is Fred to build units while at war? At what point will he have enough of a stack to invade? If we're still at war at this point what units will we have to defend? Will we need more units in a hurry? Lots of uncertainty for me on this issue and I'm not yet convinced the benefits of staying at war outweigh the benefits of peace while we're focussing on expansion, growth and building Glight.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thinking about Glight in XO. We presumably get sailing T51, Xo finishes settler T54 and presumably starts LH rather than granary.

That's an interesting thought.

I was thinking the other way, that by getting the Granary sooner, we'd be able to afford to whip the Lighthouse for overflow Hammers and then again whip a Spy or two for overflow Hammers going into The Great Lighthouse.

What clinches it for me is that we have 2 Food Resources, so it's nice to find a way to be able to convert that Food efficiently into production. In the end, we might end up with about the same overall Hammers in The Great Lighthouse due to having to pay the cost of a 60-Hammer Granary, but I'd call the cost of the Granary paid off from the extra growth and efficient whipping that we'd be doing.

If we only had 1 Food Resource, I'd probably lean a lot more heavily to just slow-building The Great Lighthouse without whipping and by skipping the Granary.

It's the high quantity of Food that's the persuasive factor here.

We then wait for SE city to settle before contacting Blue to see if it has masonry and is willing to trade it.

I was afraid that there might be a Barb Unit close to the south-east City location, but if we use the World Builder to give us Light Blue's Cultural Borders, then those Cultural Borders fully Culture-bust the area, meaning that we could certainly take that approach.

If not we research masonry ourselves. If we're serious about Glight should we research masonry as soon as we have mining and not lose turns gambling on a trade?

Well, assuming that we'll be whipping the Lighthouse for maximum overflow Hammers into The Great Lighthouse, we won't need Masonry for several turns. We won't need Masonry for even longer if we're fine with the approach of getting a Granary in XO Cognac first. Masonry takes us at most 4 turns to research (3 turns of teching plus 1 turn of saving up Gold in the worst case).

Thinking about war with Frederick. How likely is Fred to build units while at war?

He's more likely to build Military Units and Settlers while at war, thereby slightly increasing his rate of REXing.

It would be really nice if we could bribe Churchill against Frederick, which can happen during a time window where they first meet until 7 turns later, assuming that they also already have the +1 Diplo Attitude for 60 turns of continuous Peace with each other. After that, they'll be at +3 and Pleased toward each other (at least as per the test game).

At what point will he have enough of a stack to invade? If we're still at war at this point what units will we have to defend?

He's already willing to talk with us, so we won't need to fight him; we'd just give him Peace if he came at us with an army.

Frederick will Open Borders at Annoyed, so in the worst case, even if he built up a huge army such that we wouldn't want to fight him for a long time, once we have Peace, we'd just need to gift techs to get ourselves out of Worst Enemy status and then we'd have Open Borders to be able to send our units right through Germany's territory at softer targets.

It's the second declaration of war that will make Frederick particularly hard to deal with, which is why I'd rather delay that second declaration of war, hoping that we'll be able to build up some Horse Archers and scoop a City or two off of Frederick before having to end this current war.


What would be really ideal is if we had a spare City to gift to an AI (Light Blue?) so that that AI would build a Road toward our gifted City. Lacking that, which I'm not really seeing available, I suppose that at some point, we'll need to start building a Road toward the east with a Worker of our own.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Need to move ahead soon.

 

[Folket]

Fredrick starts of with -2 with Stalin so it is not to unlikely that we would no longer be worst enemies if we make peace.

 

[Folket]

But I'm fine with the PPP.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Fredrick starts of with -2 with Stalin so it is not to unlikely that we would no longer be worst enemies if we make peace.

I'm not sure what you're arguing for. Is it "Let's not trade away Alphabet to any AI and take whatever steps are necessary to achieve that goal?"

If that's the case, I respect that you have that opinion.


Personally, I believe that Joao having Alphabet will be a good thing. If we can get so lucky as to have an AI research Currency for us, then after Masonry (if needed--Pericles might be an AI who would trade it to us) and Horseback Riding, we could go straight for Code of Laws and get Currency from that AI. Such a situation would be great.

I do suggest that we plan to trade Alphabet to Churchill for war on Frederick, also to give Churchill a chance to research Currency.


Besides the chance for Joao to go after Currency, I would love to see Joao bribe an AI into attacking us when we declare war on Joao, to save us from getting negative Diplo Attitude hits from declaring war on an AI that is likely to meet more AIs.

I.e. Maybe Joao has met 3 AIs but the AI that he bribes has met 10 AIs, so we don't anger too many AIs by declaring war on Joao and then we don't anger anyone for the second war, not even the AI with whom we go to war. And, such a war bribe leaves the AI who got bribed not in a position to invade us, since no war was being plotted at the time.


Add to that that I think that the right AIs to enable are those that we can easily clobber before they can reach Feudalism (as well as AIs whom we can get up to Friendly status or who will trade techs easily--such as Pericles, Peter, Willem--and thus can remain our long-term tech-trading partners).

Based on the Cultural Borders from the test game, we'll have to "pick" between defeating Frederick, defeating the Light Blue AI, or Vassalling one of them. I wouldn't be surprised to see such "choices" littered throughout our path. Of course, we could just defeat everyone, but doing so may not be ideal.

Whether we kill Frederick or not, I'd rather not enable him, as, if we leave him alive, he may come seeking revenge later.

I also really want Churchill as a Friendly AI as he's relatively isolated, so he won't have a lot of AIs with whom to trade techs that we sell to him. Then, we can both enjoy overseas, foreign Trade Routes until we've outgrown him and can take over his Cities ourselves.

If we have Pericles as a neighbour, I'd love to make him a long-term tech-trading partner, meaning reducing WFYABTA now and never needing to get him to Friendly (why bother when he readily trades techs that only a few AIs know?). If we have Pacal or Alexander as a neighbour, then that AI isn't going to be an effective medium-term tech-trading partner if we meet that AI before trading 3 more techs, as they both will stop trading after we've received 8 techs in trade after having met them, and 8 techs will come up pretty quickly once we factor in techs such as Mysticism, Meditation, Priesthood, Mathematics, and Aesthetics.


To me, this game is a teching game, so matters of teching are important.


We're going to capture Cities because we believe that doing so will increase our overall tech rate in the medium term, even if there's a dip in our tech rate in the short term due to whipping away population points.


I think that we should approach multiple aspects of this game from a tech-emphasis approach and I do believe that incurring more WFYABTA than we need to, while it is only really a small concern in the grand scheme of things, may lead to us having to self tech an extra couple of techs, which does slow down our victory date.

Managing the AIs well is a big part of winning this particular challenge, particularly with the restriction of only being allowed to have 1 Vassal.

But I'm fine with the PPP.

Well, I have run out of time to play today, so it will have to be tomorrow, unless someone else wants to volunteer in the thread and then play through the PPP before tomorrow.

I enjoy planning more than the playing, so keep that fact in mind if you have time to play turnsets when I throw out a plan.

 

[pigswill]

Do we have a playing roster?

So far we've had:
Noble Zarkon T1-2
pigswill T2-12
Dhoomstriker T12-17
Jersey Joe T17-35
Cactus Pete T35-48
Dhoomstriker T48-50 and UP

No turns yet for Folket or neilmeister...

 

[Cactus Pete]

I can play the next two turns in about 9 hours, if no one else can.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I can play the next two turns

Please do so.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Playing . . .

 

[Cactus Pete]

T51 and 52 went pretty much as planned.

T51: Opened borders with Stalin; got Sailing from Joao; traded Writing for Mining with England

T52: Great Prophet born far away; Fred advances a settler stack toward our proposed NE city site; bear disappears, probably moved NE; trade Alpha to Joao for BW, Archery, and Pottery; discover copper in Cognac; meet Alex, who is backward technologically but will open borders with us, trade clams, and can be bribed into war with Fred (who is the only AI he knows that we know)

Looks like we can move our scout south next turn and meet the yellow civ.

Save from central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC1920_01.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nice work, CP!

Fred advances a settler stack toward our proposed NE city site

Ouch! It's going to be tight! I wonder if our Warrior will be able to scare him away? Perhaps not in time. We're going to have to try to set up those same conditions in the test game to see if we can figure out how we might move our Warrior to have a chance of scaring Frederick's Units away.

Spoiler :

bear disappears, probably moved NE

Let's hope that the Bear scares Frederick away, but that's wishful thinking. The Bear may have also just disappeared from the map, so we should see if we can get Frederick to send out a Settler Party in the test game to see how we might alter its trajectory temporarily.

trade Alpha to Joao for BW, Archery, and Pottery

I'm glad that that trade worked out!

meet Alex, who is backward technologically but will open borders with us, trade clams, and can be bribed into war with Fred (who is the only AI he knows that we know)

That's an interesting thought. We can make the war happen for just Writing.

Spoiler :

I'm thinking that it's a worthwhile trade.

We can bribe a one-City Alex now but might not be able to do so once it's a declaration against a three-City Frederick. It could be a good idea to split up the Christian AIs, since Alex is also Christian.

Looks like we can move our scout south next turn and meet the yellow civ.

It appears that you are right. And, we can stop calling it the Yellow AI because I just realised that we could have hovered our mouse over top of Cultural Borders long ago to figure out the Civ... Egypt!

Spoiler :

It seems like a decent choice to meet Egypt, now that we've exhausted our neighbours of their tradeable techs.

Spoiler :

Churchill has met Stalin. Stalin is Churchill's Worst Enemy, so we're probably going to have to Close Borders with Stalin again in 9 turns.


Churchill only (appears to) know Stalin and us, and while the two of them know Masonry, neither of them will trade it to us.


Since no AI knows Mysticism, is it worth it to self-tech Mysticism on the way to Masonry? Mysticism costs 74 Flasks, but we don't get a 20% bonus to research when learning it. We do get an extra 20% bonus to research on Masonry's 119 Flasks for learning Mysticism, but we'd also better plan to have a use for a Monument.

Even with Mysticism, I'm not sure that I'd settle 2 E of the Fur in the south-east... we'd first have to Chop a Work Boat, then grow to Size 2, then whip a Monument, then wait 10 more turns... that's a long time to be without the Fur's bonus Commerce.

The Sheep is nice, but settling 2 E of the Fur would also more quickly spark Close Border Tensions with Alex.

I think that being able to work the 2 G Riv Cottages for Paris leaves me feeling happy with settling 1 E of the Fur.

If we lose our north-east City, we can simply settle 1 S of our G Riv Wheat.


It's a shame that Frederick's Settler Party constists of a Spearman, an Archer, a Warrior, and a Settler. He's not playing games; he wants to settle a City!


As for our Workers... I suppose that Worker 1 needs to decide between moving to the G Copper and Mining it or moving to a Forest (say, the G Riv For that is 1 SE of XO Cognac and 1 S of the G Copper) and Chopping it into a Granary.

I suppose that the G Copper will take precedence since 2 Cities can use it.

Spoiler :

Worker 2 will need to Road the G For that is 1 NE of Paris to give us any hope of beating Frederick to settling a north-east City.


As for teching... I'm tempted to just stay on Horseback Riding. We have a pretty good tech pace thanks to the Library, and if we're going to build a Granary in XO Cognac, we won't need Masonry right away.

Our tech rate will slow down a bit once we settle our next 2 Cities, but since they'll be settled close and since we'll be able to improve the second Fur pretty soon, I don't see our tech rate slowing down significantly in the short run.


There are 92 population points in the world, 10 of which are ours.


EP Values:
Stalin 17 / 0
Joao 19 / 0
Frederick 156 / 0
Churchill 317 / 208
Alexander 0 / 0

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Note that I edited some images into my last message to give a better understanding of our current situation.


Argh, that 3rd Military Unit may cook our goose.

With a typical Settler Party, we could challenge the Settler Party and its 2 Units would cower in fear while the Settler ran away.

See the "I" test game.

But, with the third Unit being there (it was hard to simulate that situation, so I may have gotten the AI Units' Missions wrong), there's a good chance that one of those Units will attack us--see the "H" test game.

Even if we move 1 E G Riv to "challenge" the Settler Party from across of the River, with that third Unit there, we might get attacked.

It could still be worth the risk of sending Warrior 1 moving 1 E G Riv to see if we can win a battle or even make 3 Military Units cower if I got the Missions of Frederick's Units wrong, but it's not as straight-forward as of a decision as it would have been if Frederick had only had 2 Military Units escorting his Settler.

EDIT: I'm not sure that I got the Units' Missions right, because if we instead don't move our Warrior 1, or if we have our Warrior 1 move 1 N G Riv, then Frederick's Units split into 2 groups. From there, if move 1 G Riv again (1 SE of the Fish), we will scare the Settler away... but, that's assuming that the Bear doesn't kill us or has already disappeared from the map.

In the test game, it has disappeared from the map. I added a Bear back in and then moved north twice, with the Bear attacking us and us surviving while Frederick's Settler ran away because he didn't have 3 Military Units on the same square as his Settler.


So, it comes down to a choice:
1. Warrior 1 moves 1 E G Riv and hope that we either scare off 3 Military Units or that we win one or more multiple battles, thereby causing the Settler to run away
OR
2. Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv and hope that Frederick's Units split up and that the Bear has disappeared or won't eat us if it has disappeared, then if things look good (i.e. if Frederick doesn't have 3 Military Units escorting his Settler), move 1 N G Riv again (1 SE of the Fish) and hope that we scare Frederick's Settler Party away

Of course, if 3 Military Units continue to escort Frederick's Settler, then perhaps I have the AI Missions wrong and all 3 Units would cower in place.

Right now, I'm leaning toward heading 1 N G Riv in the hopes that Frederick's stack of Units has split up, but then we may still end up being at the mercy of the Bear (although we'd at least be able to defend across of the River against the Bear).


EDIT 2: Thinking about it even further, if the Bear is there and it kills us, then the Bear would have a chance of scaring away Frederick's Settler Party. So, in that light, moving 1 N G Riv is probably our best bet, and even if the Bear is alive, that fact may help us.

 

[pigswill]

Does the bear move before or after Fred? i.e. do barbs move before AIs or after. If Fred moves first and goes NW he meets the bear. If he moves N he doesn't. If bear moves first it will probably head SE avoiding cultural borders and Fred has a free run.

We have copper?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Does the bear move before or after Fred? i.e. do barbs move before AIs or after.

We move, then the AIs move in turn order (the order that they are listed on the F4 GLANCE screen), then the Barbs move.

If Fred moves first and goes NW he meets the bear. If he moves N he doesn't.

From playing around in the test game:
Fred's Settler Party consistently plans to settle 1 SE of the Fish. Settler Parties first move horizontally or vertically (going around terrain obstacles) until they reach a diagonal toward their desired settling location and then they move diagonally. Don't ask me why; moving diagonally first would be more efficient on average, but maybe it's because it's harder for an AI pathing script to get messed up that way.

If the Bear is still alive, it is 1 E of the Fish. It won't move to block Frederick... with one possible exception, and that's to eat our Warrior if our Warrior stands in a spot that will block Frederick.

But, in thinking about it, we'd have already scared Frederick off (or not) by the time that the Bear could attack us. So, the Bear being alive won't help us and we can just hope that it has disappeared off of the map.

We have copper?

Yes. See one of the pictures in Message #536. I forgot to add it to the test game. It's 1 E of XO Cognac.


Chopping does seem to help us more than improving the Copper.

Even Whipping away the G Horse Pasture citizen is okay if it means getting our Granary before City growth.


Here's what I think will work best for micro, but feel free to try to beat it:
Worker 1 moves to the G For that is 1 SE of XO Cognac, while XO Cognac leaves the Warrior in the build queue after the Settler but switches to building a Granary instead of putting any Hammers into the Warrior. We switch into Slavery on the turn when both Settlers are complete. The XO Cognac Settler moves into Paris if we're going to get the north-east settling location, otherwise it moves to the G For that is 1 W of the G Riv Wheat. We Chop into the Granary and then we whip the Granary on the following turn. When we whip the Granary, we can work Cow + Horse (the City Governor wants to work Cow + Fish), then when the Granary is built, we switch back to Cow + Fish.

For Paris, we build Worker 3 after the Settler. Worker 2 completes the Road before the Paris Settler moves and only when the Road has been completed at 1 NE of Paris do we send the Settler and the Missionary to the north-east settling location, assuming that Frederick hasn't ruined it for us, otherwise we'll send the Settler to the south-east location and will consider settling to get the Sheep, since we have an extra Missionary in the case of not being able to settle in the north-east.

We spend 2 turns building the Worker in Paris. After completing the Road at 1 NE of Paris, we Chop the Forest there. With overflow Hammers from the 2-pop-whipped Worker and the Chop, we can complete our Granary in the span of 1 turn if we've emphasized production (no longer working the G Riv square and/or firing some Scientists, perhaps getting less production and building the Worker for 3 turns, or perhaps borrowing the G Cow Pasture from the north-east City?--the exact details need to be worked out). The whipped Worker moves to the second Fur. Arguably, we could instead Chop the Forest that is 1 SE of Paris and have both Workers move to the Fur, earning us the Fur being Camped 2 turns sooner--yes, that approach does sound better than Chopping the Forest 1 NE of Paris.

Our Warrior moves 1 N G Riv and then we check to see what the situation is. We'll probably move 1 N G Riv again (1 SE of the Fish), and then possibly 1 N G For after that if he's still alive. At least as per the test game, we then move 1 SE G For just to mess with Frederick's Settler again, being able to stop play and sue for Peace if we've gotten into a mess.

After moving our Warrior 1 to 1 N G Riv, if all 3 of Frederick's Military Units go with Frederick's Settler, we will probably want to have a vote as to whether our Warrior will move 1 N G Riv the second time (to 1 SE of the Fish).


Unfortunately, we've gotten Bronze Working in trade too late to be able to whip out a Settler any faster than we can slow-build one; Frederick just has too good of a start. All that we can do is try to finesse our Warrior 1 and see where doing so takes us against Frederick's Units.

 

[pigswill]

Moving warrior N>NE scared off settler in test game. NE city got founded and then threatened by German spear so tech for peace anyway.

Should we be getting masonry before HbR (or even myst>masonry)? Do we need HbR? We're going to spend time settling and growing cities, we need masonry for Glight and maths for CS so we could go for cataxe war instead. At least construction is on the way to RR while HbR is a complete detour.