[BTS] SGOTM 25 - Home Slices

[babybluepants]

I know, but we could actually get 100 military points without getting to the domination limit (something like 65% pop, 50% land + 4 kills), or we may not quite need the full 100, if we capture more wonders or get an extra tech era or something. If it’s between waiting for the AP vote turn and having to plant a bunch of settlers and pop borders, it might be useful to have some flexibility.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I like Currency first unless an AI revolts to Monarchy Turn 1. In that case I'd like Alpha first to trade for fast Monarchy.

6 of 7 AIs have Monarchy. That's no guess. That's a guaranteed fact carved in stone. YOu think Monarchy so fast is worth teching Alpha for?

That allows some roads to connect to capital if needed.

Guangzhou already has a 3c trade route with Hong Kong. No need to connect to our capital until we DoW England.

I'm okay with the plan to capture Hong Kong asap, if scouting shows it to be the best option in our vicinity. It gives 2c TRs to all our cities, along with the gems. I would look for the fastest way to whip at least 4 swords in Guangzhou. Also, Guangzhou will need a garrison for whip unhappiness.

 

[babybluepants]

Guangzhou already has a 3c trade route with Hong Kong. No need to connect to our capital until we DoW England.

Iron?

Edit: I think that AIs may road to us pretty quickly. If we connect to Tsingtao, we should be able to connect to Guangzhou by scouting the eastern coastline with the bomber.

I'm ok with capturing HK on principle, but it seems like a hairy proposition - PRO LB on an island. We'd need a bunch of swords and half as many galleys. If the AIs do have Feudalism, he could whip another. I suspect we will have some easier expansion options in the short term.

 

[WastinTime]

anyone thinking we rename Guano... Tsing... etc.

 

[babybluepants]

Definitely.

Guangzhou is henceforth Gua.

I did some quick testing of Gua and tend to like worker whip first. Kaitzilla's proposed start (whip worker / whip granary / chop wb) feels strong.

If we go for LC's suggested very quick recapture, we need to whip more than 4 items for it to pay, and we need to somehow connect the horse to Gua very quickly. I think worker first still wins out.

What do you guys think doing 1t of bomber recon to start? Or we could even roll a turn and do 2t of recon, since we'll be in anarchy anyway. What should the bomber do first? I would suggest 1t of recon in the south (maybe 6S of Beijing?), revealing the area between Gua and the mainland, the French? city and hopefully the coastline. We would get an idea of what it would take to connect Gua, meet the AI and hopefully trace the entire coastline from Tsingtao to Hong Kong.

 

[Kaitzilla]

6 of 7 AIs have Monarchy. That's no guess. That's a guaranteed fact carved in stone. YOu think Monarchy so fast is worth teching Alpha for?

Ah, sorry I missed your earlier post.

Yes, I'd be for Alpha 1st once we save up enough gold to tech it.

We have a big tech lead, 3 super cities, endless health resources, and Wine in our big fat cross.

Hereditary Rule would be a big help.

Alpha would also give 20% research boost to Currency.


I've also given thought to Great prophet and want the Shrine in capital as soon as possible.

It is instant 3 gold per turn and will double the spread of our religion to new cities we build near our capital.

The cap will get a Market at some point too, and a shrine gives us 4 more points for the endgame.

Those 4 points is like 6000 less we need in our 150,000 city.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Definitely.

Guangzhou is henceforth Gua.

I did some quick testing of Gua and tend to like worker whip first. Kaitzilla's proposed start (whip worker / whip granary / chop wb) feels strong.

If we go for LC's suggested very quick recapture, we need to whip more than 4 items for it to pay, and we need to somehow connect the horse to Gua very quickly. I think worker first still wins out.

What do you guys think doing 1t of bomber recon to start? Or we could even roll a turn and do 2t of recon, since we'll be in anarchy anyway. What should the bomber do first? I would suggest 1t of recon in the south (maybe 6S of Beijing?), revealing the area between Gua and the mainland, the French? city and hopefully the coastline. We would get an idea of what it would take to connect Gua, meet the AI and hopefully trace the entire coastline from Tsingtao to Hong Kong.

Sounds good to me.

I've run out of ideas to contribute, so good luck on what you decide to do!

Remember, don't give away the Homeworld.

Ya, I'm old.

 

[babybluepants]

I've also given thought to Great prophet and want the Shrine in capital as soon as possible.

Agreed. I previously mentioned an archer escort. I don't think this is necessary. We get to American borders by T2, and straight into our borders after that. T5 shrine.

 

[WastinTime]

If you two agree that worker first is best, I can't argue. Good job testing the options.

Recon: 6s doesn't look good to me--too much is already revealed. I liked your other idea--something like 6E6S. do the south before the north.

Alpha, yuck. This is an automatic give-away tech for the AI. I would not tech it. Let the Deity AI do something for us. Monarchy will come soon enough.

Shrine. My gut reaction is no. or even 'no way', but I suppose there may not be a better use for it. Other than golden age. Let me think out loud...

Trying to make it sound like a good idea....
If we average +5gpt over 100 turns, that's 500.
If religion auto spreads a few times, I suppose that has value.
wonder points

but build a Market? not likely.
Religion won't spread a lot if every city has religion, right?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Forgot about Gua needing iron/horse resources. Hm...

Both SE and SW look possible for river connection to Gua, so we want to cover both options in 2 turns. bbp, did you test recon missions from mountain tiles versus flat tiles? I vaguely remember some difference in effect.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Capturing nearby cities with Culture, not DoW

Don't have the save in front of me but my nighttime work gave me a new idea. We have to have our culture over the city center of a city we want to do the espy-culture missions, right? If we're planning to use Roosy's city near us, for example, we'd need a third or fourth or fifth ring of culture from one of our cities over it. We'd also like to have some of these cities but preferably not by warring.

We capture with culture! Iirc, we need to have culture on more than 50% of the BFC and they'll offer us the city on T4, T24, T44, .... We could try to get our choice of cities on those turns. There might even be a possible concatenation (capture or settle one, which leads to the next, and so on) if we don't want to build extra cities for it. Finally, we could use Kait's Chinese pavilions to do the heavy lifting on enculturating those 50+% tiles.

 

[LowtherCastle]

More thoughts:

1. Hong Kong won't grow to pop2 for, what, ~22t (including AI revolt)? So we can't capture till then.
2. AIs will revolt to religion and civics on T0, right? That means 2-3 turns of revolt. So Gua should easily own the clam tile from Hong Kong. Also, we'll find out if AIs have Feudalism if they revolt to Vassalage. Would they? Would they go: HR+Vassalage+Slavery (or Serfdom)+OR?
3. Barb galleys will be spawning as soon as barb units spawn. Will be a thorn in our side.
4. We pretty much know where AI capitals are, right? Most likely that's where their free workers are. Our recon needs to find: workers and AI units!!! We especially need to be on the lookout for samurais and any other deadly units.
5. We should spy on AI city Build Production to see if they're building workers or other things. Especially Hong Kong. How many bonus hammers do they start with? 10h?

 

[LowtherCastle]

@bbp, when you tested AI research, did you give them capitals halfway around the world? Also, about when were they getting IW? We could consider gifting Hong Kong our worker at some point to road and mine the gems and time it for DoW and recapture.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I can see why Kaitzilla wanted HR asap. We have a ton of good tiles to work but are very limited on citizens per city. It would be great to also run two scientists in a couple cities to get Astro asap. Then there's the whip unhappiness. We need to make sure we brutally think in terms of fastest finish. How fast can we get Astro? sossos made the map toroidal for a reason. So far, everything he's done has been to speed up our victory. With galleons, we could go straight east or northeast or southeast to America, instead of going all the way around Africa.

Still not sure we need Monarchy that soon but it's something to keep in mind, because we'd want to build a bunch of warriors.

 

[LowtherCastle]

bbp, have we revolted yet?Make sure we do that before finishing the turn.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Shrine. My gut reaction is no. or even 'no way', but I suppose there may not be a better use for it. Other than golden age. Let me think out loud...

Trying to make it sound like a good idea....
If we average +5gpt over 100 turns, that's 500.
If religion auto spreads a few times, I suppose that has value.
wonder points

There's a subtle fallacy in the +5gpt over 100t logic, btw. +3gpt on T5 can have a much more significant effect than on T100. But if we're just storing gold it might not be so important. If we want to get Currency or Alpha fast, then it saves X turns in the process.

 

[babybluepants]

Forgot about Gua needing iron/horse resources. Hm...

Both SE and SW look possible for river connection to Gua, so we want to cover both options in 2 turns. bbp, did you test recon missions from mountain tiles versus flat tiles? I vaguely remember some difference in effect.

Nope, mountain is exactly the same - 5 tiles visible in all directions.
I agree with going SE, followed by SW, per my original post about this. I was trying to think of a way to save a turn, since the coast is probably close. But, we may as well recon the whole area.

 

[babybluepants]

I'll revolt to SP+slavery, do the recon to the SE, sign OB with France and map their other city in 10 minutes.

I think we need more discussion on some of these things before rolling the turn (ie where is the GP going, first build in Gua).

 

[babybluepants]

@bbp, when you tested AI research, did you give them capitals halfway around the world? Also, about when were they getting IW? We could consider gifting Hong Kong our worker at some point to road and mine the gems and time it for DoW and recapture.

No, it was a random map roll with these settings. Didn't note the IW date, but you can see the second tech dates. IW was less than halfway to that date, so we're looking at T12-18 roughly.

 

[babybluepants]

Shrine. My gut reaction is no. or even 'no way

I would have thought it was automatic, due to the 4 points we get towards the 420. That could easily shave a turn or two off or win date. And I don't see a better use for the GP. We'll get another for a golden age later, but we may not get a prophet. Also, the 3gpt is big early, since we are losing cash right now. It's