[BTS] SGOTM 25 - Home Slices

[Kaitzilla]

Pop3 arrives on t19, the second mill on t20 because we can't mill river corners (Beijing-1N2W). If we want to slow down chariots, speed up city growth, we could mill the chopped grass and the flood plain first...

I wouldn't be surprised if those lbs are all city garrison or something frozen into the city. Otherwise, we could lure them out with a scout or something and capture the city more easily. So if we lose a chariot+worker, that would be excellent info for capturing other AI cities. We could also go with two chariots. In any case, that cow tile is outer ring, so your bomber plan should work too. Like dG, Stalin is the only one with his religion (Judaism), so he won't be too popular either.

I don't really care that much, but Shanghai is such a good city. Plus, stealing from Stalin starts building roads in the right direction for our future warring.

Ok, let's steal Stalin's capital worker!

Can we use the capital garrison Archer with Bomber vision to steal it on cow starting right now?
Chariot could come help later, and capital has less happy problems and the most need for workers.

 

[Kaitzilla]

If we want to conquer our continent faster, why not use horse archers?

It looks good on paper if the Bomber knocks cities down to 0% defense first and then does a good bombard.
Not a lot of hill cities in our game.

Might have to declare war many turns before Horse Archers arrive to give the Bomber enough time.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Ok, let's steal Stalin's capital worker!

Can we use the capital garrison Archer with Bomber vision to steal it on cow starting right now?
Chariot could come help later, and capital has less happy problems and the most need for workers.

Unfortunately our nearest archer is 14t away but that's a good idea anyway. We should send it thataway. Maybe joined by a chariot at the right time to dissuade the lb from attacking.

It looks good on paper if the Bomber knocks cities down to 0% defense first and then does a good bombard.
Not a lot of hill cities in our game.

Might have to declare war many turns before Horse Archers arrive to give the Bomber enoughe time.

We'll have to capture or settle a city or two strategically. Right now we can't reach Moscow or the cow road from Istanbul or Yanan-3N2W.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Can bbp continue playing? Do we agree on chopping two more workers at Yanan and Shanghai? And sending the closest archer toward Moscow?

 

[babybluepants]

Thnx.

If you make a test save with 84x52, then just make it quick and dirty, don't worry about exact AI placements, just far enough away to screw with their maintenance costs. But frankly, I think we can do without. I'm not planning to do much testing. I was just curious about Kait's plan.

Here's a work in progress.

 

[babybluepants]

Can bbp continue playing? Do we agree on chopping two more workers at Yanan and Shanghai? And sending the closest archer toward Moscow?

I doubt I will have time today, but I could tomorrow. Also not sure we're ready to play yet.

Some questions before we play further:
1. What to tech? Kaitzilla is arguing for Alpha. I'm not sure what WT and LC want. I was for Currency first, but that doesn't seem to be a popular choice. I don't mind just putting 1bpt into whatever for a while longer.
2. Do we adopt Tao and OR, and when? In the short term, we are only building granaries, I believe, which have 2.1x multiplier right now. OR saves only 3 base-h per granary, and it is 2t of anarchy + diplo hit.
3. Do we improve the fish early? Gua needs some thinking in general. The 2-road trade network connection changes things. We may be able to build a chariot early now and go with the whip frenzy / Toku gift / recapture plan, slotting in a galley whip. Worker could go corn - chop - roads. I need to test this...
4. Other builds? I think Beijing should go worker-worker-granary-chariot. Should Yan'an get a second worker, as well? I don't think so. Gua worker-granary-wb-galley-chariot or something along those lines. Probably want one more whip before gifting.

 

[WastinTime]

T17: Size 2, 18/24f, 12/30h chariot, wheat farmed, forest 1NE chopped, ivory watermill, iron mined

I don't like having 3 improvements and a chop all done at size 2. And one of those is a watermill (which takes the time of 2 improvements)
Is it really worth it to have the first Ivory watermilled? Couldn't one worker do the farm and a camp? I'd like to see more options tested. 5 workers feels wrong. It might be good for a few turns, but then what? road? Maybe if you tell me you're going to chop the Kremlin, I might get excited.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't like having 3 improvements and a chop all done at size 2. And one of those is a watermill (which takes the time of 2 improvements)

We're pop3 2t later and cranking out chariots every 3t. I'd like to win this game before my grandchildren die.

Is it really worth it to have the first Ivory watermilled? Couldn't one worker do the farm and a camp? I'd like to see more options tested. 5 workers feels wrong. It might be good for a few turns, but then what? road? Maybe if you tell me you're going to chop the Kremlin, I might get excited.

How about six workers, then? Two from each city. How about connecting the gold around T14 or asap thereafter? We want to road to Manchou and/or Shanghai. We want to road to Moscow. We need a bunch of watermills. To say nothing of chopping the Kremlin and the GLH. I'm talking myself into 3 workers per city. Shall I continue?

 

[LowtherCastle]

Do we want to build the Kremlin before capturing cities like Manchou, Shanghai and Hong Kong? Seems like we have a choice between putting hammers into swords or Kremlin in Beijing. Beijjing produces 15hpt at pop4, 20hpt at pop5 with the stone quarry after two ivory mills and the iron. That's a sword every two turns.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sheesh. The bomber is killer. In the test save it needed 2t to bombard 20% to 0% (16+4%) and 1t to knock the lb down 38% or 32% or 42% in three trials. What is the range for that percentage? In any case, the first unpromoted sword was at 61% odd against the 62% lbm. Those cities are dead meat any time we choose. With SP, what are we waiting for?

 

[WastinTime]

Now i"m thinking we will conquer everyone and have 10% land . I suppose just make settlers to fill in.

 

[LowtherCastle]

If we make a vassal, does he get a bomber too?

ANd the other units took collateral damage.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Another reason to hurry is so few AIs have met each other. I wonder if sossos erased their scouts. Maybe that's what they're building. Anyway, if we can DOW them before they love each other, all the better.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I doubt I will have time today, but I could tomorrow. Also not sure we're ready to play yet.

Some questions before we play further:
1. What to tech? Kaitzilla is arguing for Alpha. I'm not sure what WT and LC want. I was for Currency first, but that doesn't seem to be a popular choice. I don't mind just putting 1bpt into whatever for a while longer.
2. Do we adopt Tao and OR, and when? In the short term, we are only building granaries, I believe, which have 2.1x multiplier right now. OR saves only 3 base-h per granary, and it is 2t of anarchy + diplo hit.
3. Do we improve the fish early? Gua needs some thinking in general. The 2-road trade network connection changes things. We may be able to build a chariot early now and go with the whip frenzy / Toku gift / recapture plan, slotting in a galley whip. Worker could go corn - chop - roads. I need to test this...
4. Other builds? I think Beijing should go worker-worker-granary-chariot. Should Yan'an get a second worker, as well? I don't think so. Gua worker-granary-wb-galley-chariot or something along those lines. Probably want one more whip before gifting.

My votes:
1. Keep it on 0% for now.
2. No Tao yet.
3. I'm okay with fish nets. I'd like to see us capture Manchou>Shanghai>Hong Kong (in some order), each time gifting away Gua in advance of DoW, so we need either a chariot or galley + unit to re-capture Gua.
4. Yanan: wkr1>granary>wkr2
Beijing: same, I don't think 5 workers is close to enough, so it's surely not too many
Gua: wkr1>granary>wb

 

[babybluepants]

Here is the current test save at T4.

 

[LowtherCastle]

While the moon rolled

Warring
Use chariots + bomber for distant chariot rush on Europe?

EPs
Take EPs off of Roosy? Without Astro, we won't be able to force him to accept the three island vassal cities, right?

AI teching
1. If we want AIs to tech faster, we capture their distant cities, or surround them so they gift them to us
2. Kill off non-teching AIs so the techers will trade sooner?
3. Stone-Age Roosy's tech rate by gifting him a junk city or two? (So he doesn't tech Theology or whatever)

Warriors
Should we use Manchou as a warrior pump? We could connect the furs without connecting Manchou (I think, not looking at the map)

GP Production
Fast elimination of continental AIs, then switch to Pacifism with low number of units and spam GPs?

AI Wonder Production
1. Settle duplicate stone, marble, etc, and gift to AIs to enhance their wonder production?
2. Capture Holy Cities, build temple, then gift back to AI to produce a prophet for shrine? (for AIs that don't build the temple themselves)

Spy Production
REX coastal cities so when the time comes, we can whip a zillion spies and galley chain them fast?

 

[Kaitzilla]

My votes:
1. Keep it on 0% for now.
2. No Tao yet.
3. I'm okay with fish nets. I'd like to see us capture Manchou>Shanghai>Hong Kong (in some order), each time gifting away Gua in advance of DoW, so we need either a chariot or galley + unit to re-capture Gua.
4. Yanan: wkr1>granary>wkr2
Beijing: same, I don't think 5 workers is close to enough, so it's surely not too many
Gua: wkr1>granary>wb

I am very satisfied with getting 5 Workers in this fashion.
We don't have to argue over every hammer as long as we make the right decisions broadly I feel.

In the future, I can see the capital making a Settler for the 2 gold and then a Chariot or two for Worker steals.
Our Great Wall city can make lots and lots and lots of military to take Japan's awesome fur city.
Gau can make a Galley and lots of Swords+Axes to take Hong Kong, or skip the galley and make lots and lots of swords to take France's great The Great Lighthouse city.

Either one could be argued, but I'm leaning towards France before Hong Kong since The Great Lighthouse is so strong and we can get Toku's fur city first.

To expand the borders fast for fur, hmm.
Tao Monastery in capital, then Tao Missionary?
Probably x3 chops for a Library in fur city is best.
It can make the 1st Great Scientist.

**Edit**
Actually, we need a city with Library working 2 Scientist by turn 33 if we don't want another Great Spy.
Maybe in our capital?

==============

I think it is too early to think about Wonders or exotic plans when we have 3 great AI cities we can smash with Bomber and that decent double gold city site we can settle.
Once we have 7 amazing cities and a firm grasp of the map from Bomber recon, we can scheme about Wonders.

Here is the current test save at T4.

Thanks Bbp!

 

[Kaitzilla]

5 workers feels wrong. It might be good for a few turns, but then what? road? Maybe if you tell me you're going to chop the Kremlin, I might get excited.

I want more than 5 Workers since we will have so many cities soon, and Worker stealing gives ??? results in my experience.
Our capital archer will start heading over to Stalin and hopefully give good results around Turn 20.

5 planned Workers is the fewest I could live with!

 

[Kaitzilla]

Sheesh. The bomber is killer. In the test save it needed 2t to bombard 20% to 0% (16+4%) and 1t to knock the lb down 38% or 32% or 42% in three trials. What is the range for that percentage? In any case, the first unpromoted sword was at 61% odd against the 62% lbm. Those cities are dead meat any time we choose. With SP, what are we waiting for?

ZOMG!!!
I totally forgot about the damage the top unit takes.
My testing was all focused on collateral damage.

Spoiler :

The bomber can take the top defending Longbow down to 3.4 to 4.1 ya.
I now feel much better about taking any Longbow+Archer combo city.

 

[babybluepants]

Unfortunately our nearest archer is 14t away but that's a good idea anyway. We should send it thataway. Maybe joined by a chariot at the right time to dissuade the lb from attacking.
We'll have to capture or settle a city or two strategically. Right now we can't reach Moscow or the cow road from Istanbul or Yanan-3N2W.

In the test save (not sure how reliable), Stalin's capital worker builds roads 1W of Moscow - cow - silk, with a cow pasture slotted in. It is unprotected, though Stalin builds an extra archer right after. He doesn't have IW, so wouldn't see the iron. I think the worker will start roading towards Mongolia. Our archer from Mongolia can get to it at the silk tile around T16-17. It is likely to encounter a barb on the way, though.

Edit: we would also need to worry about any units coming from Mongolia, if we can't sign a quick CF.

DG builds wb first in Shanghai, which makes sense. Shanghai is also hard to get visibility on, with all the hills and forests. If we can't get OB soon, hopefully Tsingtao culture takes the tile 1N of rice and we can camp an archer there. I'm debating where the Beijing and Gua archers should go next...