Be a while before we can get cats. Could likely take Lisbon and Hamburg, possibly Athens with HAs.
SGOTM 23 - Xteam
- Thread starter AlanH
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Dhoomstriker
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That observation is pretty neat. If the Bear shows up again next turn, we might take this approach (in order to avoid the Bear), although we would risk walking adjacent to a different one of Frederick's Units.
It might still be preferable to die to the Bear if we are confident that we can scare away the Settler than to risk dying to one of Frederick's other Units and thereby not scaring away the Settler.
I.e. Losing Warrior 1 to secure the north-east City would be a worthwhile play, since settling there means +1 Food Resource being available in the short term. If we lose the north-east City location, I suppose that we'll want to settle the south-east City to obtain the Sheep by using the Missionary's Culture.
It took a while for Frederick to come threaten our north-east City in all of the test runs that I had tried.
I wouldn't suggest it. Earlier graph gazing showed that Phoenix Rising went with the Turn 55 Alphabet approach and Turbo Ants went with the Turn 47 Alphabet approach, which are both variants that we had tested. Phoenix Rising could have gotten as many as 5 techs in trade while Turbo Ants could have gotten as many as 3 techs in trade, based on their Score changes. Of course, additional tech trades could have come later as time went on.
Both teams then went for a Military build-up and started spamming troops. Horse Archers are likely. Axes are possible, but the Power graph jumps don't indicate an immediate build-up of Units. If the AIs were more advanced, they could have theoretically stolen Math and then self-teched Construction, but I think that that possibility is a stretch. I'd bank on Horse Archers knowing some of the players on both teams.
We also don't need Masonry that quickly.
Yes, unless you want an Axeman war, which isn't going to go very well against an AI with Chariots (Joao)--the counter-Unit to a stack of Axes--or an AI with Axes (Frederick)--another counter-Unit to a stack of Axes when defending, not to mention an AI with Protective Archers (Churchill)--another counter-Unit to a stack of Axes. Horse Arches are the answer to all of those Units, with Spearmen being a bit of a challenge but still being fightable with enough numbers on our side.
With AIs being gifted Wonders and Buildings, and with multiple Great Scientists having been built in the game, a big part of this game is going to be racing out to capture those Cities.
Waiting for Catapults will take too long for us to get started.
We actually have a competitive advantage in our Library--Phoenix Rising may have built one based on their Culture graph, but Turbo Ants didn't, so we can get a competitive date for learning Horseback Riding, while still having enough research power to later carry us through (Mysticism? -> ) Masonry after first learning Horseback Riding.
Well, we'll soon have 4 Cities and the goal will be to get Granaries quickly in each of them.
If we can't get Masonry in time to 1-pop-whip-overflow XO Cognac's Lighthouse into The Great Lighthouse, we can simply slow-build the Lighthouse to completion (for +1 Food per turn) and then can plan to 2-pop-whip Horse Archers (or, perhaps better, Spies) occasionally for overflow Hammers into The Great Lighthouse, then finish off the Wonder with Chops and manually-earned Hammers.
Other Cities will build Work Boat (except for Paris) -> Granary -> Horse Archers, and it would be wise to toss in a couple of Spies and maybe some Chariots into the mix.
Indeed, it will be a complete detour that will pay back many times over once we go capturing those juicy AI Cities. We might want to go capture Mehmed's Great Library City, and having mobile Units that can do a decent amount of damage (Horse Archers) will be a solid way of getting us such a City.
"No Domination Limit" was about as big of a clue as we could get for us to "go forth and employ a war economy!"
If you doubt the efficacy of war, go look at the Power and Score graphs. We are at 39 for Power, and that includes having most of the early-game, Power-providing techs. 1 Axeman = 6 Power. 1 Horse Archer = 6 Power. 1 Catapult = 5 Power. Regardless of which Units they are spamming, they are spamming a ton of Units. Team Unallocated has tried to do the same, but it looks as though they started doing so a bit later or aren't whipping as aggressively.
By Turn 80, Phoenix Rising and Turbo Ants both have more than 150 Power. Some of that Power can come from population points and a bit more of it can come from techs, but they must be fielding some serious armies to have climbed in Power that much.
Horseback Riding = 10 Power
Iron Working = 10 Power
Mathematics = 6 Power
Construction = 4 Power
Metal Casting = 4 Power
and that's about it for additional Power-giving techs.
Barracks = 3 Power
Forge = 2 Power
The Great Wall = 10 Power
Every 2 population points = 1 Power
When we said that we'd be going for Currency + Horseback Riding, we'd been planning on doing the same, but Paris will have its Granary very soon and thus at any time it will be ready to start pumping out Horse Archers--we just need to unlock the Horseback Riding tech. Other Cities won't be far behind Paris in their ability to start spamming Horse Archers. Seeing the other teams' graphs doesn't change our strategy, but just reenforces that if we want to compete on an equal playing field, we should stick with our strategy.
When you see a Power graph go down when a Score graph also goes down, it could be from whipping. But, when you see a Power graph go down and a Score graph jumps up, it's almost certainly from warring. It's highly unlikely that a team would, say, build a City Wall and a Barracks and then gift away that City while also simultaneously growing other Cities and/or learning Score-increasing techs that don't increase Power.
It looks as though Turbo Ants started capturing Cities just after Turn 70. Can we challenge ourselves to do the same? I think that we can do it, gang!
Dhoomstriker
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During Turns 55, 56, and 57, we'll need to overflow 60 - 20 (from a Chop) - 3 (from City Centre, Deer, and Fur on Turn 58) = 37 Hammers.
However, we need to make at least 37 - 29 (max Hammers to still have a 2-pop-whipping action at the start of Turn 57) = 8 of those Hammers on Turn 57.
On Turn 57, we'll be at City Size 5, meaning that we could make exactly 8 Hammers from working Wheat, Deer, Fur, and 2 Scientists. If we didn't have 29 Hammers in our Worker at the start of Turn 57, we would need to fire a Scientist on Turn 57 in order to earn +3 Hammers from a G For square.
We can essentially trade 1 Scientist for 3 Hammers on any of Turn 55, Turn 56, and Turn 57, although we can't make more than 29 Hammers by the start of Turn 57. We could also delay the north-east City's Work Boat by 1 turn and have Paris steal the G Cow Pasture to trade 1 Scientist for 6 Hammers for a single turn.
There are a couple of ways that we could make the micro work, with the main point being that we can make it work, so we can thus send 2 Workers to the second Fur at the same time as each other, meaning that we'd Chop the Forest that is 1 SE of Paris in order for both Workers to be able to arrive at the same time as each other.
We can also keep working the G Riv square for 2 turns, earning us 2 Flasks for 1 Commerce per turn due to getting a multiple of 4 Flasks for the Library to multiply for the extra Flask.
The biggest uncertainty right now is what Frederick's Units will do, so it would be nice to play another turn forward to find out.
We also need to decide if we're going to meet Egypt next turn--we'll meet Egypt on Turn 55 or Turn 56 using one of our Settlers settling a south-east City, so I don't see much harm in meeting Egypt next turn. Please raise an objection if you'd rather wait. I have no real preference on this issue.
The other decision that we need to make now is whether to drag Alex into a war with Frederick. I think that the timing is right, as it would be before Frederick settles his City #3 and while Alex is willing to give us a great deal for going to war. Yes, Alex will likely build a few more Military Units as a result, but we can at least direct them toward Frederick's Cities as long as we remain at war with Frederik ourselves.
If we have to Cease Fire or make Peace with Frederick, Alex can act as a siphon for Frederick's excess troops until we're ready to declare war on Frederick again, hopefully leaving Frederick with less defenders in his homeland.
So, the Frederick situation leaves us with a short PPP. I am currently unable to play, but I can at least propose the PPP.
Suggested PPP
Diplo:
If any AI Demands/Requests anything, give it to that AI unless we have already discussed wanting to declare war on that AI in the next 10 turns from the time of the Demand/Request. For now, that means give into any Demand/Request, since we're more than 10 turns away from fielding an army of Horse Archers.
Turn 52, 1920 BC
Open Borders with Alex
Bribe Alex to declare war on Frederick <-> Writing
Talk with Alex and ask him to attack Berlin
Confirm that we are teching Horseback Riding at a 100% Science Rate
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv (SE + S of the Fish)
Missionary stays in Paris
Double-checking numbers: Paris makes 30 Flasks and XO Cognac makes 7 Flasks. Both Cities will produce a Settler in 2 turns' time.
Turn 53, 1880 BC
Ensure that XO Cognac's build queue lists Settler > Warrior
Talk with Alex and ask him to attack Berlin
Scout moves 1 SW G > 1 S G to try to meet Egypt
Worker 1 moves 1 SE G Riv Fur > 1 SW XO Cognac > 1 SE G For (1 E of the G Cow) (or, just auto-move to that square)
Worker 2 Roads G For that is 1 NE of Paris
Stop play to decide what to do with Warrior 1 and decide how to handle Diplo with Egypt
However, we need to make at least 37 - 29 (max Hammers to still have a 2-pop-whipping action at the start of Turn 57) = 8 of those Hammers on Turn 57.
On Turn 57, we'll be at City Size 5, meaning that we could make exactly 8 Hammers from working Wheat, Deer, Fur, and 2 Scientists. If we didn't have 29 Hammers in our Worker at the start of Turn 57, we would need to fire a Scientist on Turn 57 in order to earn +3 Hammers from a G For square.
We can essentially trade 1 Scientist for 3 Hammers on any of Turn 55, Turn 56, and Turn 57, although we can't make more than 29 Hammers by the start of Turn 57. We could also delay the north-east City's Work Boat by 1 turn and have Paris steal the G Cow Pasture to trade 1 Scientist for 6 Hammers for a single turn.
There are a couple of ways that we could make the micro work, with the main point being that we can make it work, so we can thus send 2 Workers to the second Fur at the same time as each other, meaning that we'd Chop the Forest that is 1 SE of Paris in order for both Workers to be able to arrive at the same time as each other.
We can also keep working the G Riv square for 2 turns, earning us 2 Flasks for 1 Commerce per turn due to getting a multiple of 4 Flasks for the Library to multiply for the extra Flask.
The biggest uncertainty right now is what Frederick's Units will do, so it would be nice to play another turn forward to find out.
We also need to decide if we're going to meet Egypt next turn--we'll meet Egypt on Turn 55 or Turn 56 using one of our Settlers settling a south-east City, so I don't see much harm in meeting Egypt next turn. Please raise an objection if you'd rather wait. I have no real preference on this issue.
The other decision that we need to make now is whether to drag Alex into a war with Frederick. I think that the timing is right, as it would be before Frederick settles his City #3 and while Alex is willing to give us a great deal for going to war. Yes, Alex will likely build a few more Military Units as a result, but we can at least direct them toward Frederick's Cities as long as we remain at war with Frederik ourselves.
If we have to Cease Fire or make Peace with Frederick, Alex can act as a siphon for Frederick's excess troops until we're ready to declare war on Frederick again, hopefully leaving Frederick with less defenders in his homeland.
So, the Frederick situation leaves us with a short PPP. I am currently unable to play, but I can at least propose the PPP.
Suggested PPP
Diplo:
If any AI Demands/Requests anything, give it to that AI unless we have already discussed wanting to declare war on that AI in the next 10 turns from the time of the Demand/Request. For now, that means give into any Demand/Request, since we're more than 10 turns away from fielding an army of Horse Archers.
Turn 52, 1920 BC
Open Borders with Alex
Bribe Alex to declare war on Frederick <-> Writing
Talk with Alex and ask him to attack Berlin
Confirm that we are teching Horseback Riding at a 100% Science Rate
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv (SE + S of the Fish)
Missionary stays in Paris
Double-checking numbers: Paris makes 30 Flasks and XO Cognac makes 7 Flasks. Both Cities will produce a Settler in 2 turns' time.
Turn 53, 1880 BC
Ensure that XO Cognac's build queue lists Settler > Warrior
Talk with Alex and ask him to attack Berlin
Scout moves 1 SW G > 1 S G to try to meet Egypt
Worker 1 moves 1 SE G Riv Fur > 1 SW XO Cognac > 1 SE G For (1 E of the G Cow) (or, just auto-move to that square)
Worker 2 Roads G For that is 1 NE of Paris
Stop play to decide what to do with Warrior 1 and decide how to handle Diplo with Egypt
I have no problem with the PPP and can play those two turns in about 10 hours, if no one else wants to (happy for someone else to do it), but please refresh my memory on how to talk to Alex about where to send his units.
Dhoomstriker
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For an SGOTM, whenever we talk with an AI, I recommend that instead of clicking on that AI's Name or Civ in the Scoreboard that we visit the F4 GLANCE or F4 TECHS screen and then right-click on a Leaderhead portrait to talk with an AI.
That approach goes for any deal... Open Borders, trading techs, etc.
That's to avoid an accidental declaration of war which can happen if the Alt key is held down when clicking on a Leader's Name or Civ in the Scoreboard, or if the game THINKS that the Alt key is pressed down, which some players on these forums will swear can happen even when their Alt key is not pressed down.
Better to take the bit of extra time and be safe by doing what we intended to do.
When talking with Alex, we'd then do:
Let's discuss something else...
Why don't you attack...
Berlin...
(See a response along the lines of "We'll do our best!")
Fairewell... (Exit)
Got it. Thanks.
pigswill
fly (one day)
At what point do we go for Glight? Or to put it another way how long can we delay masonry? Certainly having copper will speed up Glight but given that wonder building decisions are slightly random its impossible to predict. I've seen Oracle built 1700bc on Prince and built Oracle 500ad on Emperor.
Report on rest of T52 and most of T53:
T52: Talk with Alex -- get Open Borders and a DOW on Fred for Writing; move warrior 1N; GWall built in Russia
T53: England will trade Masonry for AH and Agriculture; Fred's settler party moves 1W, confronting our warrior, but the spear is a no show (perhaps gone to fight Alex?); meet Hatshepsut who is technologically advanced (Mysticism, Masonry, and IW) but annoyed that we have traded with one of her worst enemies -- Alex -- so she offers nothing except open borders; pause game without moving warrior
Suggest (again) that we trade fish for Alex's clams, get Masonry from Church, and open borders with Egypt.
Save from central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC1880_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
T52: Talk with Alex -- get Open Borders and a DOW on Fred for Writing; move warrior 1N; GWall built in Russia
T53: England will trade Masonry for AH and Agriculture; Fred's settler party moves 1W, confronting our warrior, but the spear is a no show (perhaps gone to fight Alex?); meet Hatshepsut who is technologically advanced (Mysticism, Masonry, and IW) but annoyed that we have traded with one of her worst enemies -- Alex -- so she offers nothing except open borders; pause game without moving warrior
Suggest (again) that we trade fish for Alex's clams, get Masonry from Church, and open borders with Egypt.
Save from central: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/download.php?file=Xteam_SG023_BC1880_01.CivBeyondSwordSave
pigswill
fly (one day)
Agree with suggestions.
Move warrior NE to forest tile and hope it goes like test game.
Egypt has Glib and Pyramids in seperate cities, Hats is running rep with Glib which probably explains her tech rate. She is unwilling to trade masonry ('we have our reasons...') which might suggest she's building Glight as well. Good job its Hats and not Ramses.
Move warrior NE to forest tile and hope it goes like test game.
Egypt has Glib and Pyramids in seperate cities, Hats is running rep with Glib which probably explains her tech rate. She is unwilling to trade masonry ('we have our reasons...') which might suggest she's building Glight as well. Good job its Hats and not Ramses.
GWall was just built last turn. Can we assume that she has already taken that into consideration, or do we need to wait a turn to trade for Masonry to see if that changes?
Hats, with Mids and GLib, would seem a potential early target for conquest, especially if its going to be difficult to trade with her. How long is it likely to be before she asks us to quit trading with Joao or Alex ?
BTW, I did ask Alex to attack Berlin both turns. Does this have to be done every turn?
Dhoomstriker
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Another short but nicely-played turnset, with some great news being reported!
There is an "iValue" factor in the formula for determining whether an AI will trade you a tech. Buildings have an iValue factor of 30. Wonders have an iValue factor of 80, but that value goes down by 50 to 30 if a Wonder gets built. Units vary a lot in their iValues, and those values vary based on the strongest Military Unit that exists in the game--a couple of examples with a 6-Strength Unit being the strongest Military Unit that has been built (or pre-added to the map) gives us an iValue of 15 for Archers, an iValue of 58 for Axemen, and an iValue of 80 for Horse Archers. If someone has built a Maceman or a War Elephant, those iValues become 15 for Archers (no change), 37 for Axemen, and 55 for Horse Archers.
A change in an iValue of 50 from a Wonder being built is significant.
Masonry is a tough tech to get as it unlocks Walls, Dun, Aqueduct, Hammam, and Barray (5 Buildings) for an iValue of 5 * 30 = 150, regardless of whether the Celts, the Ottomans, or the Khmer are in this game.
It also unlocks 3 Wonders (The Pyramids, The Great Lighthouse, and The Great Wall) for an iValue of 3 * 80 = 240.
Even when 1 out 1 of the contacts that Churchill has met (Stalin) know Masonry, which gives Churchill a Trading Willingess value of 1 / 1 * 100 = 100,
An iValue total of 150 + 240 = 390
gives us this Trading Threshold (the number that the Trading Willingness value has to be bigger than): floor( 30 for Churchill's iTechKnownPercent * 390 / 100 ) = 117
Since 117 > 100, he wouldn't have traded us Masonry with 3 of those Wonders being unbuilt.
Before The Great Wall had been built, the Wonder iValue would have been 2 * 80 + 1 * 30 = 160 + 30 = 190, for a total iValue number of 150 + 190 = 340
Trading Threshold: floor( 30 * 340 / 100 ) = 102
102 > 100, so still not enough
But, with The Great Wall gone, we get:
Wonder iValue = 1 * 80 + 2 * 30 = 80 + 60 = 140
Total iValue = 150 + 140 = 290
Trading Threshold = floor( 30 * 290 / 100 ) = 87
Since 87 < 100, Churchill is willing to trade us Masonry.
However, if Churchill were to meet another AI who does not know Masonry (either one of Joao or Frederick), then Churchill's Trading Willingness would change to:
1 / 2 * 100 = 50
Since 87 > 50, Churchill would be unwilling to trade us Masonry.
So, I do not suggest that we delay in getting Masonry in trade.
Churchill is no one's Worst Enemy, so I would suggest making the tech trade now.
Since Churchill won't give us Masonry (119) for Animal Husbandry (149 Flasks) when Stalin knows both techs, I'm going to have to assume that Churchill is already researching Animal Husbandry.
Since we want Churchill getting techs for us, I'm going to recommend that we do:
1. Masonry from Churchill <-> Animal Husbandry + Agriculture (which will force Churchill to pick a new tech on his next turn)
2. Gift Alphabet to Churchill (to get some Fair and Forthright Trading value out of Churchill and to see if he'll go for Currency for us)
Since the Bear is gone, I'm going to suggest that we move 1 N G Riv again, which would have the same effect as moving 1 NE G For if our Warrior is not attacked, according to the test game.
However, our Warrior has a greater chance of meeting another one of Frederick's Units by moving 1 NE G For, hence why it seems to be less risky to simply move 1 N G Riv.
Hatshepsut could start Demanding that we Close Borders with Alex after 9 turns.
Churchill could start Demanding that we Close Borders with Stalin after 8 turns.
We'll need to make some decisions in those regards when the time comes.
With Joao and Alex both having Hatshepsut as their Worst Enemy, I'd probably suggest not Opening Borders with Hatshepsut just yet--we can't really expect to get better than 3-Commerce Trade Routes.
I'm not sure if we'd get 3-Commerce Trade Routes from Joao for Lisbon with its Harbour or for Hatshepsut's Cities after settling City 3, so I'd suggest leaving the decision to consider Opening Borders with Hatty until we have settled City 3 and find that we don't have a 3-Commerce Trade Route.
After 9 turns, we can decide whether to maintain trading with Alex or to Close Borders with him and to cancel the Resource Trade 1 turn later.
If we go meeting another 5 AIs, we could get stuck spending days analyzing the complexities of the AI-AI relationships. I'd rather hold off on meeting additional AIs until either:
1. We have an army of Horse Archers that has started conquering
OR
2. AIs are starting to learn Calendar and might soon have Happiness Resources available for trade
As for Hatty, she has Mysticism, Meditation, Polytheism, Priesthood, and Monotheism. With no other AI having gone down the Religious tech path, she either loves those techs or maybe was gifted some of them to begin with. I'm not sure what the answer is, but she is only 2 techs away from Feudalism, with an additional 20% bonus to research on Monarchy due to knowing both Priesthood and Monotheism, so we may or may not get a chance to fight her before she starts fielding Longbowmen.
On the plus side, Hatty hasn't built a 3rd City yet, so we theoretically could gift her a City close to our capital and start Stealing Techs from her by gifting her a City before she settles her 4th City.
What's annoying, though, is that she is Creative, which would mean that techs not stolen on the turn of gifting her a City will start to cost a bit more to steal, as we won't get the full Culture bonus on said techs.
I'm not totally convinced that we'll want to steal Mysticism and other cheap techs from her, but if she were to get Metal Casting, Code of Laws, Mathematics, Compass, or Aesthetics, then I think that we'd want to make it a priority to gift her a City at 3 S of Paris and start stealing techs from her.
In that regard, we'd be competing with Hammer Resources for building Horse Archers, but it could be a sneaky way of getting a bunch of techs relatively early on in the game.
Stolen Techs don't increase WFYABTA counters.
A gifted City would also mean Hatty splitting up her empire's defenders, and her building a Road right to our doorstep, given enough time of owning our City, and probably also slowing her tech path to Feudalism.
I don't think that I'd want to use our City 3 or City 4 Settler, but if we built a Settler out of Paris while waiting for Horse Archers to get unlocked, we could build our 5th City and then plan to build some Spies for that City.
I'd also advise waiting to spend our EPs on Hatty, later turning our Commerce directly into EPs (say, after learning Horseback Riding), so that she doesn't spend (a lot) of her EPs on us in the short term, keeping the cost of stealing techs from her low later.
It's a tricky point, as building Spies will compete with building Horse Archers, but also having some Spies around to, say, bring the Cultural Defenses of Lisbon and Berlin down to 0% also saves us from losing Horse Archers, so the Hammers dumped into Spies can be seen as a worthwhile investment.
I don't think that it's worth waiting 1 turn to get Masonry in trade just to find out--if Churchill meets either Joao or Frederick, we won't get Masonry in trade at all. Let's just plan to attack Hatty for whatever Wonders she has at the time and plan to self-build The Great Lighthouse; we'll want a Lighthouse in XO Cognac anyway, and while missing 3 Horse Archers' worth of Hammers in Failure Gold isn't the best of booby prizes, it's pretty rare for an AI to build The Great Lighthouse with only 2 Cities to their name. I'd rather take the secure Masonry trade than find out that Hatty is building The Great Lighthouse, only to find out that she's taking so long to build it that we could have beaten her to it but another AI would have lost to us but would have beaten her to completing it.
At least we won't see an AI Great Engineer appearing anytime soon in the real game like we do in the test game.
With the way that Hatshepsut keeps growing and whipping her Cities (the population points of The Great Library and The Pyramids Cities keeps going up and back down), and with her running Representation instead of Hereditary Rule, I would imagine that she has Flood-Plains heavy lands (typical for an Egypt start on nearly any map, and more so for a real-world-like map), so her raw production power probably doesn't even allow for her easily choosing to build The Great Lighthouse. She'd also need to first build a (not-cheap-for-her) Lighthouse.
I would be very surprised to find out that she is building The Great Lighthouse, but if it happens (say, she was gifted a Lighthouse and pre-Mined Hills squares--she doesn't normally start with the Mining tech), then why would the Map Maker leave the Wonder open as an option for us to build? Why not simply gift that Wonder to Hatty at the start of the game, as well?
I think that we have to proceed with the thinking that if we want to build The Great Lighthouse in XO Cognac, we will get a fair chance to do so, and with the relatively-late Great Wall, I think that our odds of completing The Great Lighthouse ourselves are even higher than in the test game.
EDIT: Hatty is NOT building The Great Lighthouse, otherwise she'd tell us that "We have our reasons" for not wanting to trade Masonry to us, but she simply says "We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet!"
As an example to explain what I mean by manually-cancellable, on the F4 ACTIVE screen, we see "Open Borders to Napoleon REAL for Open Borders (9 Turns)" with Alex. After 9 turns, we can either visit the F4 ACTIVE screen and click on that ongoing trade to cancel it, or we can talk with Alex, look at our current trades, and click on it to cancel it.
Also, after 9 turns, if Alex remains Hatty's Worst Enemy, she can ask us to cancel all trades with Alex. If she did so, but we'd made the Resource Trade on the current turn, the Resource Trade wouldn't get cancelled, as it would still have 1 of the 10 enforced turns remaining on it, but Alex would stop talking to us.
In general, we shouldn't accept any Request/Demand to Stop Trading with a Worst Enemy, so I should clarify that distinction in our PPP's Diplo Policy.
Hatshepsut won't ask us to stop trading with an AI who is not her Worst Enemy at the time. So, unless Joao became her Worst Enemy, Hatty would be unable to ask us to stop trading with Joao.
But, if on the way there, that Unit gets distracted (it meets an enemy Unit, it meets a Barb Unit, etc) that Unit will "forget" about your order. Think of it how when you tell a Worker to perform an action but then it "forgets" about it because a Barb Unit comes nearby. It's the same thing with the AI Units, so you have to keep reminding them every turn.
Plus, when the AI builds a new Unit, you'll want to direct that Unit to join the war, too, by making the request after that Unit gets built. Since we don't see when Alex is building new Units, that means asking every turn, just in case he has built a new Unit.
EP Values
Stalin 17 / 0 (+0)
Hatshepsut 0 / 0
Joao 20 / 0 (+1)
Frederick 156 / 0 (+0)
Churchill 317 / 212 (+0)
Alex 0 / 0 (+0)
We have 10 out of the world's 94 population points. Hatty has 9.
We also will need to decide what to do with our Scout. It will be needed for spawn-busting until we settle our south-east City.
After that, I'd suggest that we send it toward Joao, to get a feel for what Joao is up to. Is Joao spamming Archers? Is he still sitting around with just Warrior defenders? Has he built a Galley? How about a Settler? This info could be quite valuable in helping us to determine the ideal time to attack Joao.
Also, it seems that a City settled 3 S of Paris wouldn't give us the -50 Culture bonus on Espionage Missions unless the City itself until we had earned 1 of our own Culture from within that City itself! Sigh. So, we'd need a Religion to spread to that City just to get that bonus, or else get Culture there some other way (building a Monument is possible, but then we'd end up gifting the Monument intact to Egypt). A Spread Culture Mission might work, but they're a bit unreliable when a City doesn't have much Culture in it, as the cost of the Mission can become below 1 EP and thus the Mission won't be available.
It seems that Cactus Pete got us the answer.
I was certainly concerned that England knowing Stalin and both of them having Masonry still resulted in Churchill not wanting to trade it to us, but when we perform the math, the result is actually expected.
There is an "iValue" factor in the formula for determining whether an AI will trade you a tech. Buildings have an iValue factor of 30. Wonders have an iValue factor of 80, but that value goes down by 50 to 30 if a Wonder gets built. Units vary a lot in their iValues, and those values vary based on the strongest Military Unit that exists in the game--a couple of examples with a 6-Strength Unit being the strongest Military Unit that has been built (or pre-added to the map) gives us an iValue of 15 for Archers, an iValue of 58 for Axemen, and an iValue of 80 for Horse Archers. If someone has built a Maceman or a War Elephant, those iValues become 15 for Archers (no change), 37 for Axemen, and 55 for Horse Archers.
A change in an iValue of 50 from a Wonder being built is significant.
Masonry is a tough tech to get as it unlocks Walls, Dun, Aqueduct, Hammam, and Barray (5 Buildings) for an iValue of 5 * 30 = 150, regardless of whether the Celts, the Ottomans, or the Khmer are in this game.
It also unlocks 3 Wonders (The Pyramids, The Great Lighthouse, and The Great Wall) for an iValue of 3 * 80 = 240.
Even when 1 out 1 of the contacts that Churchill has met (Stalin) know Masonry, which gives Churchill a Trading Willingess value of 1 / 1 * 100 = 100,
An iValue total of 150 + 240 = 390
gives us this Trading Threshold (the number that the Trading Willingness value has to be bigger than): floor( 30 for Churchill's iTechKnownPercent * 390 / 100 ) = 117
Since 117 > 100, he wouldn't have traded us Masonry with 3 of those Wonders being unbuilt.
Before The Great Wall had been built, the Wonder iValue would have been 2 * 80 + 1 * 30 = 160 + 30 = 190, for a total iValue number of 150 + 190 = 340
Trading Threshold: floor( 30 * 340 / 100 ) = 102
102 > 100, so still not enough
But, with The Great Wall gone, we get:
Wonder iValue = 1 * 80 + 2 * 30 = 80 + 60 = 140
Total iValue = 150 + 140 = 290
Trading Threshold = floor( 30 * 290 / 100 ) = 87
Since 87 < 100, Churchill is willing to trade us Masonry.
However, if Churchill were to meet another AI who does not know Masonry (either one of Joao or Frederick), then Churchill's Trading Willingness would change to:
1 / 2 * 100 = 50
Since 87 > 50, Churchill would be unwilling to trade us Masonry.
So, I do not suggest that we delay in getting Masonry in trade.
Churchill is no one's Worst Enemy, so I would suggest making the tech trade now.
Since Churchill won't give us Masonry (119) for Animal Husbandry (149 Flasks) when Stalin knows both techs, I'm going to have to assume that Churchill is already researching Animal Husbandry.
Since we want Churchill getting techs for us, I'm going to recommend that we do:
1. Masonry from Churchill <-> Animal Husbandry + Agriculture (which will force Churchill to pick a new tech on his next turn)
2. Gift Alphabet to Churchill (to get some Fair and Forthright Trading value out of Churchill and to see if he'll go for Currency for us)
And, the Bear is a no-show, so it must have automatically disappeared.
Since the Bear is gone, I'm going to suggest that we move 1 N G Riv again, which would have the same effect as moving 1 NE G For if our Warrior is not attacked, according to the test game.
However, our Warrior has a greater chance of meeting another one of Frederick's Units by moving 1 NE G For, hence why it seems to be less risky to simply move 1 N G Riv.
And, now we see one of the many complications with rushing out to meet multiple AIs--having to navigate a diplomatic minefield.
Hatshepsut could start Demanding that we Close Borders with Alex after 9 turns.
Churchill could start Demanding that we Close Borders with Stalin after 8 turns.
We'll need to make some decisions in those regards when the time comes.
With Joao and Alex both having Hatshepsut as their Worst Enemy, I'd probably suggest not Opening Borders with Hatshepsut just yet--we can't really expect to get better than 3-Commerce Trade Routes.
Spoiler :
I'm not sure if we'd get 3-Commerce Trade Routes from Joao for Lisbon with its Harbour or for Hatshepsut's Cities after settling City 3, so I'd suggest leaving the decision to consider Opening Borders with Hatty until we have settled City 3 and find that we don't have a 3-Commerce Trade Route.
Sorry for not adding that part to the PPP. I wrote the PPP based off of the test game and I had missed that point. Yes, I'm for making that trade. Hatty will have to die, so I think that we'll be okay with trading a Resource with her Worst Enemy, at least for the next 10 turns.
After 9 turns, we can decide whether to maintain trading with Alex or to Close Borders with him and to cancel the Resource Trade 1 turn later.
Spoiler :
If we go meeting another 5 AIs, we could get stuck spending days analyzing the complexities of the AI-AI relationships. I'd rather hold off on meeting additional AIs until either:
1. We have an army of Horse Archers that has started conquering
OR
2. AIs are starting to learn Calendar and might soon have Happiness Resources available for trade
As for Hatty, she has Mysticism, Meditation, Polytheism, Priesthood, and Monotheism. With no other AI having gone down the Religious tech path, she either loves those techs or maybe was gifted some of them to begin with. I'm not sure what the answer is, but she is only 2 techs away from Feudalism, with an additional 20% bonus to research on Monarchy due to knowing both Priesthood and Monotheism, so we may or may not get a chance to fight her before she starts fielding Longbowmen.
On the plus side, Hatty hasn't built a 3rd City yet, so we theoretically could gift her a City close to our capital and start Stealing Techs from her by gifting her a City before she settles her 4th City.
What's annoying, though, is that she is Creative, which would mean that techs not stolen on the turn of gifting her a City will start to cost a bit more to steal, as we won't get the full Culture bonus on said techs.
I'm not totally convinced that we'll want to steal Mysticism and other cheap techs from her, but if she were to get Metal Casting, Code of Laws, Mathematics, Compass, or Aesthetics, then I think that we'd want to make it a priority to gift her a City at 3 S of Paris and start stealing techs from her.
In that regard, we'd be competing with Hammer Resources for building Horse Archers, but it could be a sneaky way of getting a bunch of techs relatively early on in the game.
Stolen Techs don't increase WFYABTA counters.
A gifted City would also mean Hatty splitting up her empire's defenders, and her building a Road right to our doorstep, given enough time of owning our City, and probably also slowing her tech path to Feudalism.
I don't think that I'd want to use our City 3 or City 4 Settler, but if we built a Settler out of Paris while waiting for Horse Archers to get unlocked, we could build our 5th City and then plan to build some Spies for that City.
I'd also advise waiting to spend our EPs on Hatty, later turning our Commerce directly into EPs (say, after learning Horseback Riding), so that she doesn't spend (a lot) of her EPs on us in the short term, keeping the cost of stealing techs from her low later.
It's a tricky point, as building Spies will compete with building Horse Archers, but also having some Spies around to, say, bring the Cultural Defenses of Lisbon and Berlin down to 0% also saves us from losing Horse Archers, so the Hammers dumped into Spies can be seen as a worthwhile investment.
Stalin's turn comes EDIT: after Hatty's, so Hatty might have been building The Great Wall. I'd say that it's likely, given that she only has her 2 initial Cities and that's the type of Wonder that an AI will build when they aren't REXing--she probably has a Hammer-poor City that started to build it, or else Stalin has Stone (we don't know what Resources Stalin has available to him).pigswill said:
I don't think that it's worth waiting 1 turn to get Masonry in trade just to find out--if Churchill meets either Joao or Frederick, we won't get Masonry in trade at all. Let's just plan to attack Hatty for whatever Wonders she has at the time and plan to self-build The Great Lighthouse; we'll want a Lighthouse in XO Cognac anyway, and while missing 3 Horse Archers' worth of Hammers in Failure Gold isn't the best of booby prizes, it's pretty rare for an AI to build The Great Lighthouse with only 2 Cities to their name. I'd rather take the secure Masonry trade than find out that Hatty is building The Great Lighthouse, only to find out that she's taking so long to build it that we could have beaten her to it but another AI would have lost to us but would have beaten her to completing it.
At least we won't see an AI Great Engineer appearing anytime soon in the real game like we do in the test game.
A lot of games have AIs building The Oracle, Stonehenge, or The Great Wall with only 1 or 2 Cities, but it's quite rare to see the more expensive Wonders being built that way.
With the way that Hatshepsut keeps growing and whipping her Cities (the population points of The Great Library and The Pyramids Cities keeps going up and back down), and with her running Representation instead of Hereditary Rule, I would imagine that she has Flood-Plains heavy lands (typical for an Egypt start on nearly any map, and more so for a real-world-like map), so her raw production power probably doesn't even allow for her easily choosing to build The Great Lighthouse. She'd also need to first build a (not-cheap-for-her) Lighthouse.
I would be very surprised to find out that she is building The Great Lighthouse, but if it happens (say, she was gifted a Lighthouse and pre-Mined Hills squares--she doesn't normally start with the Mining tech), then why would the Map Maker leave the Wonder open as an option for us to build? Why not simply gift that Wonder to Hatty at the start of the game, as well?
I think that we have to proceed with the thinking that if we want to build The Great Lighthouse in XO Cognac, we will get a fair chance to do so, and with the relatively-late Great Wall, I think that our odds of completing The Great Lighthouse ourselves are even higher than in the test game.
EDIT: Hatty is NOT building The Great Lighthouse, otherwise she'd tell us that "We have our reasons" for not wanting to trade Masonry to us, but she simply says "We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet!"
Spoiler :
As soon as we can manually cancel an ongoing trade (Open Borders, Resources, Gold per Turn, Defensive Pact, etc) with AI 1, then any AI who has AI 1 as their Worst Enemy can generically ask us to stop trading with AI 1. If we were to foolishly agree, AI 1 would stop doing any diplomacy and any ongoing trade that is currently manually-cancellable would get cancelled.Cactus Pete said:
As an example to explain what I mean by manually-cancellable, on the F4 ACTIVE screen, we see "Open Borders to Napoleon REAL for Open Borders (9 Turns)" with Alex. After 9 turns, we can either visit the F4 ACTIVE screen and click on that ongoing trade to cancel it, or we can talk with Alex, look at our current trades, and click on it to cancel it.
Also, after 9 turns, if Alex remains Hatty's Worst Enemy, she can ask us to cancel all trades with Alex. If she did so, but we'd made the Resource Trade on the current turn, the Resource Trade wouldn't get cancelled, as it would still have 1 of the 10 enforced turns remaining on it, but Alex would stop talking to us.
In general, we shouldn't accept any Request/Demand to Stop Trading with a Worst Enemy, so I should clarify that distinction in our PPP's Diplo Policy.
Hatshepsut won't ask us to stop trading with an AI who is not her Worst Enemy at the time. So, unless Joao became her Worst Enemy, Hatty would be unable to ask us to stop trading with Joao.
In practice, yes, we have to ask every turn. It can be a bit tedious, but what I have found is that each turn, an AI will send its "available" Units (not its City Defenders, for example, and not Units that already have other plans, such as escorting a Settler as part of a Settler Party) toward the target City.Cactus Pete said:
But, if on the way there, that Unit gets distracted (it meets an enemy Unit, it meets a Barb Unit, etc) that Unit will "forget" about your order. Think of it how when you tell a Worker to perform an action but then it "forgets" about it because a Barb Unit comes nearby. It's the same thing with the AI Units, so you have to keep reminding them every turn.
Plus, when the AI builds a new Unit, you'll want to direct that Unit to join the war, too, by making the request after that Unit gets built. Since we don't see when Alex is building new Units, that means asking every turn, just in case he has built a new Unit.
EP Values
Stalin 17 / 0 (+0)
Hatshepsut 0 / 0
Joao 20 / 0 (+1)
Frederick 156 / 0 (+0)
Churchill 317 / 212 (+0)
Alex 0 / 0 (+0)
We have 10 out of the world's 94 population points. Hatty has 9.
Spoiler :
We also will need to decide what to do with our Scout. It will be needed for spawn-busting until we settle our south-east City.
After that, I'd suggest that we send it toward Joao, to get a feel for what Joao is up to. Is Joao spamming Archers? Is he still sitting around with just Warrior defenders? Has he built a Galley? How about a Settler? This info could be quite valuable in helping us to determine the ideal time to attack Joao.
Also, it seems that a City settled 3 S of Paris wouldn't give us the -50 Culture bonus on Espionage Missions unless the City itself until we had earned 1 of our own Culture from within that City itself! Sigh. So, we'd need a Religion to spread to that City just to get that bonus, or else get Culture there some other way (building a Monument is possible, but then we'd end up gifting the Monument intact to Egypt). A Spread Culture Mission might work, but they're a bit unreliable when a City doesn't have much Culture in it, as the cost of the Mission can become below 1 EP and thus the Mission won't be available.
Concur. Perhaps in time we can put him on a galley to check out Hats and Alex.Since we want Churchill getting techs for us, I'm going to recommend that we do:
1. Masonry from Churchill <-> Animal Husbandry + Agriculture (which will force Churchill to pick a new tech on his next turn) Concur.
2. Gift Alphabet to Churchill (to get some Fair and Forthright Trading value out of Churchill and to see if he'll go for Currency for us) Why do this now and risk Alpha being traded to Stalin and other AIs? We don't have anything to trade to Church now, if he did get something we want, and we won't have anything until the next tech after HBR. I would be against trading HBR to him. What are the odds of Church researching Alpha next if we don't give it to him?
And, the Bear is a no-show, so it must have automatically disappeared. Could he not have stayed in place?
Since the Bear is gone, I'm going to suggest that we move 1 N G Riv again, which would have the same effect as moving 1 NE G For if our Warrior is not attacked, according to the test game. If there is a possibility that the archer will attack our warrior, wouldn't we be better off both in terms of minimizing that possibility and of winning that battle, if we move onto the forest?
However, our Warrior has a greater chance of meeting another one of Frederick's Units by moving 1 NE G For, hence why it seems to be less risky to simply move 1 N G Riv. Not sure this is the greater risk. Were there any attacks in the test game? Also, where exactly did the settler party divert to in the test games?
With Joao and Alex both having Hatshepsut as their Worst Enemy, I'd probably suggest not Opening Borders with Hatshepsut just yet--we can't really expect to get better than 3-Commerce Trade Routes. It would improve diplo relations in time, but how likely and how quickly are we going to get H in a tech trading mood?
Spoiler :
After 9 turns, we can decide whether to maintain trading with Alex or to Close Borders with him and to cancel the Resource Trade 1 turn later. Would this pre-empt the negative consequences of doing so at H's insistence?
Spoiler :
If we go meeting another 5 AIs, we could get stuck spending days analyzing the complexities of the AI-AI relationships. I'd rather hold off on meeting additional AIs until either:
1. We have an army of Horse Archers that has started conquering
OR
2. AIs are starting to learn Calendar and might soon have Happiness Resources available for trade What about gold, silver, gems, ivory, and wine?
As for Hatty, she has Mysticism, Meditation, Polytheism, Priesthood, and Monotheism. With no other AI having gone down the Religious tech path, she either loves those techs or maybe was gifted some of them to begin with. I'm not sure what the answer is, but she is only 2 techs away from Feudalism, with an additional 20% bonus to research on Monarchy due to knowing both Priesthood and Monotheism, so we may or may not get a chance to fight her before she starts fielding Longbows. Perhaps a reason to go after her before Fred, or at least before Berlin. To do so, it would make sense to take Lisbon and use it to whip the needed units, especially a couple of galleys.
I don't think that I'd want to use our City 3 or City 4 Settler, but if we built a Settler out of Paris while waiting for Horse Archers to get unlocked, we could build our 5th City and then plan to build some Spies for that City. We could take a less devious approach and just build a chariot(s) and a spy(s) in Paris and get on with capturing Hamburg, Lisbon, then the GLH and the Mids, extorting techs as we go.
EDIT: Hatty is NOT building The Great Lighthouse, otherwise she'd tell us that "We have our reasons" for not wanting to trade Masonry to us, but she simply says "We don't want to start trading away this technology just yet!"
Not sure why Pigswill got that wrong, but I should have caught it. Stalin and/or some unknown AI is therefore our competition. Any reason to think Stalin is as ill prepared as you argue Hats is to build the GLH?Spoiler :
In general, we shouldn't accept any Request/Demand to Stop Trading with a Worst Enemy, so I should clarify that distinction in our PPP's Diplo Policy.
Hatshepsut won't ask us to stop trading with an AI who is not her Worst Enemy at the time. So, unless Joao became her Worst Enemy, Hatty would be unable to ask us to stop trading with Joao. Follow that.
In practice, yes, we have to ask every turn. Got it. Thanks for the explanation.
We also will need to decide what to do with our Scout. It will be needed for spawn-busting until we settle our south-east City.
After that, I'd suggest that we send it toward Joao, to get a feel for what Joao is up to. Is Joao spamming Archers? Is he still sitting around with just Warrior defenders? Has he built a Galley? How about a Settler? This info could be quite valuable in helping us to determine the ideal time to attack Joao.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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Churchill is our good tech-trading partner. Any tech that he gets in trade is a tech that we can probably get in trade. If there's a time where we have nothing that we want to trade to him, we can at least then Steal the tech from him, or change our tech path so that we get the tech that we wanted by trading away a tech that he isn't going to get himself.
Stalin will only trade techs when he is Pleased toward another player. He's not going to trade any techs with Churchill or Frederick, being Annoyed toward both of them.
We'll have to gift Churchill some reasonably-big tech in order to get Churchill up to Pleased status if we want to ever be able to bribe him onto Frederick. Alphabet gives us +3 Fair and Forthright Trading with Churchill in the test game, which brings us almost there, and the +1 from Open Borders should be enough to get Churchill Pleased toward us.
Churchill having a chance to go after Currency would be nice. He certainly came through for us with Masonry.
Another AI would also have to have a relatively equally-valued tech to give in trade. If Churchill were to get Mathematics or Aesthetics in trade, then more AIs would know the tech and he might be willing to trade it to us, or we'd at least have a pretty easy chance of stealing said tech.
Another benefit of Churchill having Alphabet is that he can build the Research build item (and AIs do use it from time to time), thereby speeding up his tech rate.
That's a tough question to answer, as the AI tech-selection logic has about 1/3rd of the decision coming from a random number factor. Another roughly 1/3rd of the decision (for Churchill) comes from the following chart:
Spoiler :
Other AIs will have different values, based on their individual "flavour" values (Gold, Military, Production, Religion, Science, Culture, and Growth).
No, that's not how Barb Animals behave. They don't stop to heal. The Bear would have moved last turn if it were still alive. Barb Animals prefer not to move next to Cultural Borders, but they can move next to Cultural Borders (probably when they have nowhere else to go), while they cannot move onto Resource squares. So, there's a 0% chance that the Bear didn't move and a 0% chance that the Bear moved 1 E because there's a Sheep there, so the Bear has to be gone or else we'd see it right now. At least the real game is consistent with the test game in that regard, although in the test game, the Bear disappeared a couple of turns sooner than in the real game.
Play it out in the previous test saved games. If we block the path of the Settler Party on the G Riv that is 1 SE of the Fish, the 1 or 2 Military Units that accompany the Settler will stay in place and the Settler will run away.
It was the 3rd Military Unit that threw us off, as it wasn't accompanying the Settler Party and thus it was roaming around and could have attacked us.
We're in the clear here, though.
The only way that we will be in trouble is if there is a roaming Military Unit who attacks us before the Settler Party's Units move. Frederick has 3 extra squares on which he could have a Military Unit if we were to move 1 NE G For. The extra defensive bonus from the Forest wouldn't help us enough against a Spearman or an Axeman of Frederick's that was wandering around, and if his Spearman had gone 1 N, we'd be walking right next to it, thereby risking sacrificing our Warrior 1's life, which would not prevent Frederick from settling to block our north-east City.
It's possible that there isn't a Military Unit that we'd reveal by moving 1 NE G Riv For, but since there are 3 possible squares where such a Military Unit could be lurking, why take the risk when we don't need to if we just move 1 N G Riv?
The Military Units stay in place. The Settler runs toward a German City. On the following turn, the Military Units are no longer grouped with the Settler and are free to attack.
It's part of the "better" coding of BtS AIs, although there are some logic flaws in that coding and we're taking advantage of one of those flaws.
Another flaw is that if you have a Woodsman II Unit, you can not only get the Settler to run away but you can capture it when it is undefended on the following turn, but we don't have a Woodsman II Unit, so we'll just have to be content with scaring away Frederick's Settler.
In the test game, the Settler tries to come back a second time, so we can consider trying to scare it a second time (1 N G Riv (1 SE of the Fish) > 1 N G Riv For (1 E of the Fish) > 1 SE G Riv For (1 S of the G Sheep)), after which point it seemed to give up. But, we wouldn't necessarily need to scare it a second time, as our Settler will be ready to settle the north-east City after the first scaring event.
I also have a minor fear that the Settler Party will just ignore us if we move 1 NE G Riv For. For whatever reason, the Settler Party ignores us if we stay in place. I'm not sure why being 1 N of the Settler Party scares it into not moving 1 NW while being 1 W of the Settler Party does not scare it into moving 1 NW, but if stand on the square where Frederick wants to settle ("where he wants to settle" both as per the test game and as per his "move diagonally last" algorithm in the real game), which is 1 N of Warrior 1, then he can't simply ignore Warrior 1 and will have to run his Settler away (as per BtS Settler Party coding).
After 9 turns, at the start of any turn where we don't Close Borders with Alex, we can incur a -1 Diplo Attitude hit with Hatty for having Open Borders with Alex. We also have -4 with Hatty for having traded techs with Alex. We'd also likely get -4 You Traded With our Worst Enemy Diplo penalties with both Alex and Joao for trading with Hatty. Hatty was Wonders that we want. I don't really see her as a useful tech-trading partner; do you? I'd be willing to steal techs from her, though, which we can do regardless of what Diplo Attitude she has of us.
Yes. I'm not sure if Hatty would have a 1-turn window that we can't do anything about or whether the AIs are nice enough to wait until we get our turn and can make the decision to cancel a trade ourselves. I also recall that one of the two spots where you can cancel an ongoing trade lets you do so one turn in advance of the other spot; some further research could be done in this area.Dhoomstriker said:
If some AIs have Wine for trade, we will have bigger troubles (them being 1 tech away from Feudalism and probably already partway through researching it by the time that they have improved 2 Wine squares). Plus, with 2 Wines of our own, there probably aren't too many AIs out there who will have Wine available for trade.Cactus Pete said:
Gems, if available for trade, will probably come from Alex.
Silver, if available for trade, will probably come from an AI in northern Europe/northern Asia or from southern Australia. So, if available, they could come from Churchill or from Stalin, assuming that Stalin is in his real-world geographical location.
Gold or Ivory... valid points. But, we already can't trade Resources with Stalin. We'd probably need a network of Roads before we could trade for Resources with far-away AIs. We're not quite far enough in the game to have those Roads built.
I'm not in disagreement of wanting to go after Hatty. Hopefully, the terrain won't be all Forests and Hills, otherwise it likely won't be much faster in getting to Hatty relative to capturing Frederick's land and using his Roads to get toward the east.
With any luck, we'll find a City or two of Frederick's relatively undefended that we can snipe from him if his armies get busy with Alex's Units.
I'm not totally convinced that whipping a ton of Spies and giving away a nearby City will be the way to play, particularly with Hatty not currently having techs that we really want (the Religious techs will be nice to get before going after Code of Laws, though). But, if she gets Mathematics or another useful tech, then it could be a valuable way to play (part of the investment would come back from the more powerful Chops and the techs unlocked by Mathematics, including being on the path Civil Service).
But, Chariots are not going to be the way to go. For 1 Whipping Unhappiness, you can get either 1 Chariot or 1 Horse Archer and 1/3rd of a Chariot. We're mostly going to be limited in the short term by our Whipping Unhappiness when it comes to building our military. That's another reason why I'm doubting the idea of 1-pop-whipping a Lighthouse in XO Cognac and would probably prefer to 2-pop-whip more Spies/Horse Archers for overflow Hammers into that Wonder.
I can't be certain, as the "We don't like you enough" message will prevent us from seeing the "We have our reasons" message, and Stalin will just tell us that he doesn't like us enough to tell us the answer until we get him up to Pleased status.
The fact that Stalin has been REXing (which requires building Settlers AND Military Units) and was building a different Wonder (which means that that City couldn't have been building The Great Lighthouse) certainly makes the chance of him having started on The Great Lighthouse a low possibility.
That's a good idea. It's nice to have some future plans to work toward.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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I'll post a suggested plan, but I do not have time available to play for the next couple of days, so it would be nice if someone else could pick it up. Please try playing it through in the test game to make sure that I didn't make any errors.
Suggested PPP
Diplo Policy
EDIT: If Churchill, Joao, or Alex asks for a tech, say yes
EDIT: If Stalin or Hatty asks for a tech, say no
If an AI asks for a Resource, give it to that AI
If an AI asks us to convert to Christianity (Joao does so in the test game), say yes? (we didn't discuss this item yet, but with our chosen friends all be Christian, I suppose that we can afford to convert if doing so means a shot at getting a Friendly tech-trading partner)
If an AI asks us to Stop Trading with their Worst Enemy (it shouldn't happen in this turnset), say no
Stopping Criteria
A Unit that isn't a part of Fredick's Settler Party is threatening our City, or is threatening our Unit after our Unit has already moved
Something unexpected happens or the double-checking items are incorrect
A tech-trading opportunity arises
We meet another AI
Turn 53, 1880 BC
Trade Masonry from Churchill <-> Animal Husbandry + Agriculture
Gift Alphabet to Churchill
Trade Clam from Alex <-> Fish
Double-checking numbers: Paris makes 30 Flasks and XO Cognac makes 7 Flasks. Both Cities will complete their Settlers this turn.
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv (1 SE of the Fish)
Missionary stays in Paris
Turn 54, 1840 BC
Paris completes it Settler and builds a Worker
XO Cognac completes its Settler and temporarily builds a Warrior
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Stop play if Warrior 1 died (I really don't foresee it happening), but we'll do some different actions than the actions below if Warrior 1 dies, so we should stop play to redo the PPP if Warrior 1 is dead.
Worker 1 Chops G For that is 1 SE of XO Cognac
Worker 2 completes the Road that is 1 NE of Paris
Paris Settler waits for a Road to exist at 1 NE of Paris
Paris Settler moves 1 NE G For > 1 NE G > 1 NE G For (SW + S of the Fish)
Missionary moves to the same spot 1 NE G For > 1 NE G > 1 NE G For (SW + S of the Fish)
XO Cognac Settler moves into Paris
Revolt into Slavery
Double-checking: We are in Anarchy, XO Cognac has a Warrior at the top of its build queue
We make a note of which Units of Frederick's Warrior 1 can see
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv For (1 E of the Fish)...
unless Frederick has a Unit that we'd still be adjacent to, in which case we could move 1 W G Riv (1 S of the Fish)...
unless Frederick would still have a Unit that we'd be adjacent to, in which case stop play
Scout moves 1 N G > 1 NE GH For (just to ensure that the Settler won't get messed up by Frederick, as happens in the test game with Frederick's Scout moving there)
Turn 55, 1800 BC
XO Cognac builds a Granary and leaves the Warrior as the second item in the build queue
City 3 gets settled, it steals and works the G Cow, and starts building a Work Boat
We spread Christianity into City 3 (Do not convert to Christianity when prompted to convert)
Paris works: Wheat, Deer, Fur, 3 G For squares, and 1 Scientist
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Worker 2 moves 1 SW Paris > 1 SE G Riv For Road > Chop (1 SE of Paris)
The XO Cognac Settler moves 3 SE to the GH For that is 1 E of the Fur (1 N of the Fish)
Double-checking: We are making +35 Flasks (see the top left of the main game screen), Paris is building a Worker, and XO Cognac is building a Granary
If all is clear near the south-east City, our Scout can move 1 SW G > 1 NW G For (1 SE of the Wheat) on his way toward Joao
Warrior 1 stays in place on the G Riv For (1 E of the Fish) to see what Frederick does...
unless Frederick already has Military Units on the G Riv For that is 1 S of the G Sheep (as happens in one test game), in which case make note of the Units and move 1 SW G Riv (1 S of the Fish)
or, unless we see a Unit of Frederick's coming at City 3, in which case we can move 1 SW G Riv (1 S of the Fish)...
OR, if last turn we moved to the G Riv that is 1 S of the Fish, move into City 3
Turn 56, 1760 BC
Settle the south-east City (1 E of the Fur), work the Fur, and build a Work Boat
Paris works Wheat, Deer, Fur, 1 G For, 1 G Riv, and 2 Sci
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Worker 1 completes the G For Chop at 1 SE of XO Cognac
Double-checking: Paris should have 15 Hammers in its Worker + 5 F + 4 H going into its Granary, XO Cognac should have 11 + 26 Hammers going into its Granary, we should be making a total of +43 Flasks with 7 - 6 Gold available to us
Scout can move 1 W G > 1 SW GH For (1 SW + 1 S of the Wheat) toward Joao
Turn 57, 1720 BC
Science Rate 0%
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Paris, with 24 Hammers in the Worker, 2-pop-whips the Worker
Paris Works Wheat, Deer, Fur, and 2 G For (but not the 1 SE G For, since it will get Chopped this turn)
Paris should be adding 9 F + 5 H into its Worker
XO Cognac 1-pop-whips the Granary
XO Cognac works Cow + Horse
XO Cognac has Granary > Warrior in its build queue
Worker 1 moves 1 N G Copper and Mines
Worker 2 completes the G For Chop at 1 SE of Paris
It's probably a good time to stop play here to re-assess the overall situation, including how things are going with Frederick, before figuring out what to do with Warrior 1
Suggested PPP
Diplo Policy
EDIT: If Churchill, Joao, or Alex asks for a tech, say yes
EDIT: If Stalin or Hatty asks for a tech, say no
If an AI asks for a Resource, give it to that AI
If an AI asks us to convert to Christianity (Joao does so in the test game), say yes? (we didn't discuss this item yet, but with our chosen friends all be Christian, I suppose that we can afford to convert if doing so means a shot at getting a Friendly tech-trading partner)
If an AI asks us to Stop Trading with their Worst Enemy (it shouldn't happen in this turnset), say no
Stopping Criteria
A Unit that isn't a part of Fredick's Settler Party is threatening our City, or is threatening our Unit after our Unit has already moved
Something unexpected happens or the double-checking items are incorrect
A tech-trading opportunity arises
We meet another AI
Turn 53, 1880 BC
Trade Masonry from Churchill <-> Animal Husbandry + Agriculture
Gift Alphabet to Churchill
Trade Clam from Alex <-> Fish
Double-checking numbers: Paris makes 30 Flasks and XO Cognac makes 7 Flasks. Both Cities will complete their Settlers this turn.
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv (1 SE of the Fish)
Missionary stays in Paris
Turn 54, 1840 BC
Paris completes it Settler and builds a Worker
XO Cognac completes its Settler and temporarily builds a Warrior
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Stop play if Warrior 1 died (I really don't foresee it happening), but we'll do some different actions than the actions below if Warrior 1 dies, so we should stop play to redo the PPP if Warrior 1 is dead.
Worker 1 Chops G For that is 1 SE of XO Cognac
Worker 2 completes the Road that is 1 NE of Paris
Paris Settler waits for a Road to exist at 1 NE of Paris
Paris Settler moves 1 NE G For > 1 NE G > 1 NE G For (SW + S of the Fish)
Missionary moves to the same spot 1 NE G For > 1 NE G > 1 NE G For (SW + S of the Fish)
XO Cognac Settler moves into Paris
Revolt into Slavery
Double-checking: We are in Anarchy, XO Cognac has a Warrior at the top of its build queue
We make a note of which Units of Frederick's Warrior 1 can see
Warrior 1 moves 1 N G Riv For (1 E of the Fish)...
unless Frederick has a Unit that we'd still be adjacent to, in which case we could move 1 W G Riv (1 S of the Fish)...
unless Frederick would still have a Unit that we'd be adjacent to, in which case stop play
Scout moves 1 N G > 1 NE GH For (just to ensure that the Settler won't get messed up by Frederick, as happens in the test game with Frederick's Scout moving there)
Turn 55, 1800 BC
XO Cognac builds a Granary and leaves the Warrior as the second item in the build queue
City 3 gets settled, it steals and works the G Cow, and starts building a Work Boat
We spread Christianity into City 3 (Do not convert to Christianity when prompted to convert)
Paris works: Wheat, Deer, Fur, 3 G For squares, and 1 Scientist
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Worker 2 moves 1 SW Paris > 1 SE G Riv For Road > Chop (1 SE of Paris)
The XO Cognac Settler moves 3 SE to the GH For that is 1 E of the Fur (1 N of the Fish)
Double-checking: We are making +35 Flasks (see the top left of the main game screen), Paris is building a Worker, and XO Cognac is building a Granary
If all is clear near the south-east City, our Scout can move 1 SW G > 1 NW G For (1 SE of the Wheat) on his way toward Joao
Warrior 1 stays in place on the G Riv For (1 E of the Fish) to see what Frederick does...
unless Frederick already has Military Units on the G Riv For that is 1 S of the G Sheep (as happens in one test game), in which case make note of the Units and move 1 SW G Riv (1 S of the Fish)
or, unless we see a Unit of Frederick's coming at City 3, in which case we can move 1 SW G Riv (1 S of the Fish)...
OR, if last turn we moved to the G Riv that is 1 S of the Fish, move into City 3
Turn 56, 1760 BC
Settle the south-east City (1 E of the Fur), work the Fur, and build a Work Boat
Paris works Wheat, Deer, Fur, 1 G For, 1 G Riv, and 2 Sci
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Worker 1 completes the G For Chop at 1 SE of XO Cognac
Double-checking: Paris should have 15 Hammers in its Worker + 5 F + 4 H going into its Granary, XO Cognac should have 11 + 26 Hammers going into its Granary, we should be making a total of +43 Flasks with 7 - 6 Gold available to us
Scout can move 1 W G > 1 SW GH For (1 SW + 1 S of the Wheat) toward Joao
Turn 57, 1720 BC
Science Rate 0%
Ask Alex to attack Berlin
Paris, with 24 Hammers in the Worker, 2-pop-whips the Worker
Paris Works Wheat, Deer, Fur, and 2 G For (but not the 1 SE G For, since it will get Chopped this turn)
Paris should be adding 9 F + 5 H into its Worker
XO Cognac 1-pop-whips the Granary
XO Cognac works Cow + Horse
XO Cognac has Granary > Warrior in its build queue
Worker 1 moves 1 N G Copper and Mines
Worker 2 completes the G For Chop at 1 SE of Paris
It's probably a good time to stop play here to re-assess the overall situation, including how things are going with Frederick, before figuring out what to do with Warrior 1
pigswill
fly (one day)
Fair point re not opening borders with Hats at the moment.
Definitely unsure about giving alphabet to Chill. Bringing him up to Pleased means he might consider dowing Fred but we'd have to bribe him with something else which sounds quite expensive and I'm not sure it would be good value.
Under what conditions might Stalin dogpile on Fred?
Once SE city is settled we have to decide what to do with scout. Maybe send her east to check out Greek coast.
Definitely unsure about giving alphabet to Chill. Bringing him up to Pleased means he might consider dowing Fred but we'd have to bribe him with something else which sounds quite expensive and I'm not sure it would be good value.
Under what conditions might Stalin dogpile on Fred?
Once SE city is settled we have to decide what to do with scout. Maybe send her east to check out Greek coast.
I saw a question regarding Joao trade route. We will not get a 3 gold trade route since we do not gain any bonus from the harbour. He is getting a 3 gold trade routes from us.
I suggest we do not give in to any demands from Stalin. If we give him alphabet Churchill will remember that for a long time negating our efforts to get him to pleased/friendly.
I suggest we do not give in to any demands from Stalin. If we give him alphabet Churchill will remember that for a long time negating our efforts to get him to pleased/friendly.
Dhoomstriker
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The big hope for me is that Joao or Churchill will go for Currency. It's a tech that we'll want soon, but if an AI goes for it, then we'll be ahead of the game relative to other teams who didn't get that luck. It's similar to playing a game where you can get Philosophy in trade on your way to Liberalism, rather than having to burn a Great Scientist on it or self-tech it. And, yes, luck is definitely involved, hence why I'm suggesting we have 2 AIs that can possibly go for that tech, to increase our odds of success.
Sure, it could be argued that we could keep Churchill a bit behind in techs so that we could later trade him Alphabet for, say, Iron Working, but we'll get Iron Working in trade at some point, since all of the AIs whom we have met know Bronze Working, but we are a lot less likely to get Currency in trade, as AIs would first have to learn Mathematics or Alphabet, and in some cases, would need to learn Writing before learning one of those techs.
I'm pretty sure that we'll have to self-tech Code of Laws, since many AIs will avoid Religious techs where the Religions are gone, but if we don't have to also self-tech Currency but can benefit from getting Currency early on, we'll be ahead of any team in terms of Research who didn't do so.
True, but Alex was willing to go to war for just Writing. If we were to say, get Iron Working in trade, which is a pretty normal tech to get in trade, we could use Iron Working to bribe Churchill.
Alternatively, if we were to steal Aesthetics or Mathematics from Joao, we could trade away that tech to Churchill for war.
Probably only when Stalin has built up a sizeable force and has access to building 2 types of Military Units that aren't Archers (Spearmen + Axemen count as 2).
Stalin has to be Pleased toward a player for that player to be able to bribe Stalin into a war, and that situation isn't likely with Stalin being Annoyed toward Churchill.
We could do that. Would we potentially be attacking Greece as our first war target?
I'm thinking that we do want to capture Lisbon at some point in the short to medium term, possibly as our first war target, so keeping an eye on Lisbon with our Scout seems like it would help with determining when would be the best time to strike at Joao.
After we've declared war on Joao, the Scout won't be needed there and can certainly go to check out Greece's coast.
Thanks for clearing that up. The AI's Harbour will help for Trade Missions, but we're not anywhere close to getting a Great Merchant such that Lisbon will likely be ours before we'd get a Great Merchant.
Hmmm, that's a valid point. In that regard, which AI is someone's Worst Enemy?
Stalin is Churchill's Worst Enemy
Hatty is Joao's Worst Enemy
Hatty is Alex's Worst Enemy
Alex is Hatty's Worst Enemy
Assuming that we're trying to be friends with Churchill and Alex, at least for the medium term, then we probably should refuse both Stalin and Hatty if they ask for a tech. We could mount an army before either of them could launch an assault at us in retaliation.
An AI asking for a Resource should be fine, as we'd be unlikely to get much of a Worst Enemy penalty for that.
I'll make a note in the PPP that we shouldn't give a tech to Stalin or Hatty if they ask for it.
pigswill
fly (one day)
We have enough time for scout to explore Portugal and Greece before we're in a position to declare on anyone. One of the many things I don't know is whether we have to defog AI cities before we can have trade routes with them. If we need to to discover Athens before we can have a trade route that's an argument for exploring Greece first. There is of course a chance of encountering more AIs when we explore, there's also a chance of course that other AIs might find us if they have OBs with our neighbours.
What's our research path after HbR? If we're going currency>CoL then we'll probably get currency before eg Chill or Joao given their other research choices and I would be quite happy to pick up stuff like IW, maths or MC in trade.
There's a bunch of stuff we could be building eg Glight, granaries, another library somewhere, galleys, spies, HAs, garrison troops but I'm unsure of team priorities.
Maybe this is a good time to be running some test games up to eg T75 to compare approaches.
What's our research path after HbR? If we're going currency>CoL then we'll probably get currency before eg Chill or Joao given their other research choices and I would be quite happy to pick up stuff like IW, maths or MC in trade.
There's a bunch of stuff we could be building eg Glight, granaries, another library somewhere, galleys, spies, HAs, garrison troops but I'm unsure of team priorities.
Maybe this is a good time to be running some test games up to eg T75 to compare approaches.
Dhoomstriker
Girlie Builder
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I'm not so sure. We'll be able to whip some units as of about 6 turns after the end of the PPP. It would be nice to have an idea of how many forces we should be planning on building before going in.
That's not necessary. You just need a path to their Cultural Borders along the coastline. I think that we already have that, although the AI in question would need a River going to the coast or a coastal City.
That said, without a River that goes to the coast and without a coastal City, we won't get Trade Routes even with their empire fully mapped out.
If one of them is researching Currency, we go for Code of Laws and trade to get both. Or, with so many coastal Cities, we go for Metal Casting and trade that to get Currency.
In which City do you see an early Library being warranted? 8 Commerce total in a City is hardly justifiable for a Library when there are other competing build items, and that's probably the best that we'll do in a City outside of Paris, prior to completing The Great Lighthouse.
Galleys probably fall off of the initial list, too. As CactusPete suggested, we could whip Galleys out of Lisbon, but we'd have to build Horse Archers (and maybe a Spy or two for a possible City Revolt) in order to be able to own Lisbon.
Regarding Spies, probably the most important thing to determine is just how costly it would be for us to launch a City Revolt in an AI City such as Berlin or Lisbon, based on how long the Spy had been stationary in that City (say, get values for the bare minimum # of turns versus the full 50% Stationary Bonus). Using that info, we can decide if we want to use our Hammers and Commerce to drop City Defenses or if we just want to go in with Horse Archers.
The Scout at Lisbon will give us good insight into what we'd be facing and thus whether it would be worth it to use a City Revolt.
If we're attacking Joao's Chariots, they don't get Defensive Bonuses, so we almost certainly wouldn't bother with a Spy, as a City Revolt wouldn't help against defending Chariots.
I believe that we can concurrently build an army of Horse Archers via whipping while also building The Great Lighthouse during turns where we aren't whipping.
As ever, if you want to test, test away, by all means!
Along that line, why don't we switch spy points to Portugal in anticipation of stealing tech or de-culturing Lisbon with a spy?We'll have to gift Churchill some reasonably-big tech in order to get Churchill up to Pleased status if we want to ever be able to bribe him onto Frederick. Alphabet gives us +3 Fair and Forthright Trading with Churchill in the test game, which brings us almost there, and the +1 from Open Borders should be enough to get Churchill Pleased toward us. Did not know that. Does the +3 deteriorate over time, or is it permanent? If permanent, I'm OK with the Alpha trade now.
That's a tough question to answer, as the AI tech-selection logic has about 1/3rd of the decision coming from a random number factor. Another roughly 1/3rd of the decision (for Churchill) comes from the following chart:
Spoiler :
Isn't the probability of researching HBR affected by the presence of horses in the AI's territory?
It's possible that there isn't a Military Unit that we'd reveal by moving 1 NE G Riv For, but since there are 3 possible squares where such a Military Unit could be lurking, why take the risk when we don't need to if we just move 1 N G Riv? Follow that. If there's no possibility of the settler party attacking, then 1N is optimal.
The Military Units stay in place. The Settler runs toward a German City. On the following turn, the Military Units are no longer grouped with the Settler and are free to attack. So, why wouldn't they go after our warrior or our new city, making a Peace deal with Fred inevitable? There's nothing in the plan about the need to get another unit to the NE.
In the test game, the Settler tries to come back a second time By himself? Does the settler turn around the next turn and try to rejoin his party?
Hatty was Wonders that we want. I don't really see her as a useful tech-trading partner; do you? No, that's why I asked the question. Open Borders would be needed to put a scout into her territory for scouting (or to sail a spy there). If we eventually do open them, will her enemies have to wait 10 turns to insist that we close them?
I'm not in disagreement of wanting to go after Hatty. Hopefully, the terrain won't be all Forests and Hills, otherwise it likely won't be much faster in getting to Hatty relative to capturing Frederick's land and using his Roads to get toward the east. I was planning to sail our attackers there, or perhaps to a bordering tile, probably owned by Alex. Also, Thebes may not be on a hill.
With any luck, we'll find a City or two of Frederick's relatively undefended that we can snipe from him if his armies get busy with Alex's Units. If we have to get Peace to keep our NE city, won't we want to delay attacking Fred again?
I'm not totally convinced that whipping a ton of Spies and giving away a nearby City will be the way to play, particularly with Hatty not currently having techs that we really want (the Religious techs will be nice to get before going after Code of Laws, though). But, if she gets Mathematics or another useful tech, then it could be a valuable way to play (part of the investment would come back from the more powerful Chops and the techs unlocked by Mathematics, including being on the path Civil Service). That would delay capturing Alex and Thebes (and perhaps extorting Math).
But, Chariots are not going to be the way to go. For 1 Whipping Unhappiness, you can get either 1 Chariot or 1 Horse Archer and 1/3rd of a Chariot. We're mostly going to be limited in the short term by our Whipping Unhappiness when it comes to building our military. Follow that, but we could 2 pop-whip a spy into a chariot efficiently, and we will need a spy to thwart culture and are likely to want a chariot along for all-purpose and clean-up duty in any attacking party, plus future anti-axing. That's another reason why I'm doubting the idea of 1-pop-whipping a Lighthouse in XO Cognac and would probably prefer to 2-pop-whip more Spies/Horse Archers for overflow Hammers into that Wonder. Good with that.
That's a good idea. It's nice to have some future plans to work toward.
Concur that another library is not a priority. Would like to consider a barracks.
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