[BTS] SGOTM 25 - Home Slices

[WastinTime]

You going to reveal your trick before or after the game is over...

Depends on if/when we need it. Problem with saying it now is that a lurker can read it and go off on a espy-culture binge in the HoF or elsewhere--which may prompt a public discussion of how such early dates were being posted. Other teams could get wind of our trickery.

 

[WastinTime]

Saves available. Attack! I'm afk, and not very good at T0 save analysis anyway

 

[Deckhand]

Deckhand posted last night, but now I don't see his post. Maybe AlanH deleted it and is going to revise the OP?
It said deity. Didn't change much else that I can remember. There was "Earthlike added to map type.

Alan must have deleted that as spoilerish.
Any resemblance to any actual planets is entirely coincidental.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Today's a good day for anarchy. Should we revolt?

 

[babybluepants]

It would help with distance maintenance.

Morning coffee and studying the save...

 

[babybluepants]

Ok, so we have 3 cities, all pop 2. 1 archer in each, GSpy in Yan'an, bomber in Beijing, and GP in Guangzhou. No workers to start.

We can see the following cities: Moscow (NW), Istanbul (W), Hong Kong - English - right next to Guagzhou on an island, Tsingtao - German. The red borders to the NE are Japan. Blue borders to the south American. Visible AI cities have LB+Archer.

All religions have been founded. Christianity is the only one without a holy city. We have Taoism in all 3 cities, and Yan'an is the holy city.

Interesting tidbits:
Stalin has Military Tradition.
Barbs have a population of 8.
Dark blue border visible NE of Guangzhou. I would think it's French, but it might be Roman?

Total land area is = 1677 tiles

The land we see so far appears really squeezed. WT suggested a large continent only reachable with Astro, and there is the existing barb population. Maybe they are the only ones there? We only need Calendar - Compass - Optics before Astro here.

 

[babybluepants]

I don't know - do we just 1-pop whip 3 workers here?

Don't think I'll have time to work on the test save today. If anyone else does, maybe just post a "got it", so we're not duplicating efforts.

 

[LowtherCastle]

More observations:

Five AIs have a city they can liberate to us. Will they do it? One AI is MIA.

Map is Toroidal! Does that only affect distance maintenance? That'll nerf the AIs even more.

We start -9 gpt. Revolt to Slavery + State Property (1 turn) lowers that to -6gpt. Revolt to OR or Pacifism (+1t) raises it to -7gpt, more for each unit with Pacifism. Revolt to Taosim (+1t).

That's Toku's red tile to the northeast but we can't trade ivory yet. We can OB with everyone else we've met. We see a praet and a janissary.

Questions:
1. Eps on whom?
2. Revolt?
3. Liberate cities?
4. Whip workers?
5. Where's the Wonder Bread? Whipping 4x walls?
6. What units to AIs have?
7. Big picture strategy?
8. When do we capture cities? Immediately, after 50t?
9. Will AIs road to nearby cities, giving us a slave trade?

 

[babybluepants]

6. What units to AIs have?

Demo - soldiers:

Spoiler :

AI starting techs = 26,000 (Sailing, Hunting, Mining, AH, TW, Archery, BW)
AI city units = 9,000 per city (LB+Archer)
Praetorian = 8,000
Janissary = 9,000

92,000 China = 54k tech + 9k archers + 16k bomber + 10k GW + 3k pop
60,000 rival best
49,625 rival avg = 397,000 rival total
40,000 rival worst

Assuming every city has LB+Arch:
Churchill = 26k tech + 27k city units + 1k pop = 54k
Roosevelt, Stalin, Bismarck and Toku = 26k tech + 18k city units + 1k pop = 45k
Mehmed = 26k tech + 9k city units + 9k jan = 44k
JC = 26k tech + 9k city units + 8k praet = 43k
Uknown AI = min. 40k
Doesn't quite work out for max and min values, and the total is about 36k short. It's conceivable that AIs have been given some additional techs or units, but it's not much. I think what we see is pretty much what we get.
One thought I had was that each AI has one of its UU, but that's not possible with the soliders values we see.
Maybe Stalin does have a cossack, as that would put him on exactly 60k, which is the max value. And we know that he has MT.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Excellent work, bbp. We should be able to estimate the strongest unit in the game right now, right?
Also, I thnk we might discern something about advanced techs AIs have by looking at the buildings in their cities. Moscow (MilTrad) has very advanced buildings. Mehmed and Churchill don't, but Bismarck does. Anyone know which Age Bismarck's buildings are from?

 

[WastinTime]

I also figured everyone gets their UU and the tech that goes with it ever since I saw we got Machinery, but we can probably prove that's not true, right?

Cossack would also get Rifling . I doubt the AI will have that.
Bismarck would get a Panzer and Rifling and Industrialism. I doubt that too.
Mehmed would have Gunpowder.

However, if the above fit into the numbers we're seeing then these are things to watch out for.

 

[WastinTime]

Where's the Wonder Bread? Whipping 4x walls?

I was also exploring the use of walls. But we don't get 4x, right? We get +200%, so that's 3x.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I don't have the green bars above the units and can't figure out how to turn them on.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I was also exploring the use of walls. But we don't get 4x, right? We get +200%, so that's 3x.

Details details. Now figure out what we get with Kremlin... Of course, that's later.

 

[WastinTime]

Will Toku jump to Pleased if we gift him ivory on T0 or thereabouts? Nice to get OBs for rebasing our bomber, easier to find his slaves.

We can only rebase into our own cities, right? Does a peacetime recon mission require OB?

 

[LowtherCastle]

I also figured everyone gets their UU and the tech that goes with it ever since I saw we got Machinery, but we can probably prove that's not true, right?

Cossack would also get Rifling . I doubt the AI will have that.
Bismarck would get a Panzer and Rifling and Industrialism. I doubt that too.
Mehmed would have Gunpowder.

However, if the above fit into the numbers we're seeing then these are things to watch out for.

Panzer alone is 30K, which would eat up all the rest of the available power. Like bbp said, there's not much more there. Techs are possible since they mostly don't have power values. We could also analyze their score values and biangulate on the techs that way.

 

[LowtherCastle]

We can only rebase into our own cities, right? Does a peacetime recon mission require OB?

Wrong. With OBs we can rebase to any AI city, including fogged.

 

[WastinTime]

I don't have the green bars above the units and can't figure out how to turn them on.

esc - Options - Graphics - Show Health Bars.
Now explain to me how you read those tea leaves.

 

[LowtherCastle]

esc - Options - Graphics - Show Health Bars.
Now explain to me how you read those tea leaves.

ZPV alwaays does it... . I think you have to have the map zoom set to a fixed amount and then compare our save with a comparable save that has only jannisaries (as the max unit), for example. Then we see if the health bars vary.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Plus you have to have the tilt set the same. It's subtle. Not sure how ZPV does it exactly.