[BTS] SGOTM 25 - Home Slices

[LowtherCastle]

@Kaitzilla
1. Do we want Stalin to settle cities around Moscow or StoneAge him instead? Moscow would also be a nice worker pump, wouldn't it? Not that much farther than Shanghai.
2. We need to test those two connecting roads to Gau.
3. Before stealing Civil Service, .we need to bulb Astro if we want to at all. I think early Astro is more important than early Bureaucracy. In fact, I'd like to beeline Astro while AIs tech the rest for us.

 

[LowtherCastle]

How are we going to generate commerce without cottages? Eventually we'll need lots of commerce for epps. GLH and tons of cities, or what?

 

[WastinTime]

Seems like improving 1 food. Then maybe chop worker would be better.

 

[WastinTime]

Tokugawa has fur!!!
What a fine city Manchou is.
I'm fine with our 1st city conquest being either Manchou

I like it for the Fur too. Remember: if we take Tao, then Manchou's borders won't expand (easily)

 

[babybluepants]

9) Gau should be able to be connected to our empire with 2 roads.
2N1W and 3N2W.
If I recall correctly when 2 rivers are on the same tile such as 3S1W of our capital, that will form a trade route.

Correct! I did not know this.

 

[WastinTime]

I'm still wondering if we need to tech hardly anything or build GLH. Astro is really the only thing since GLH would probably end up in Washington with a bunch of other wonders we want to capture.
Conquest gold should get us thru the tech tree, and bulbs get us to Astro. My gut is telling me to conquer the world and build a stack of spies.
I can't imagine getting to Cavalry (req. Rifling). I assume you meant Cuir's, bbp. The only reason I would even consider Cuir's as an option is because we believe we can steal Gunpowder and Mil Trad. The reality is, we'd probably go thru guilds to get to Gunpowder. Why not just stop there with knights?
MT means we need CS (kills Astro) and Nationalism. I do like the idea of Taj, but Nationalism is a big tech.

I wonder if engineering (for fast road movement) is a good target.

I would research 0% until we get Alpha and Monarchy free while conquering with Choko's (maybe swords cus they're cheaper, but still thinking Chokos+chariot cleanup should be tested). chariots are good at snagging workers while conquering too.
Steal Feudal and then get Guilds super fast, steal? constr, then do Eng.
Steal? calendar, get compass, bulb? optics, 2-bulb Astro.

(edit: on 2nd thought, I'd probably skip constr and Eng, especially if we can't steal construction)

I wouldn't worry about money, so currency and GLH, meh.

 

[WastinTime]

The AI doesn't seem too challenging. I almost I wish the AI had Rifling or something, so we'd have a good reason to go to Cuirs or Cavalry.
Just as an exercise, wouldn't we still be able to bulb Astro and get to Cuir's this way:

Steal CS
bulb or research Paper
1 or 2 bulbs Education
steal Gunpowder
research Nationalism
Music for GArt (and prereq for MT)
Steal MT
steal Calendar
compass
bulb optics
2 bulb Astro

Nothing supercedes Astro here does it? Oh crap, yea, Printing Press. So we'd need another bulb.
That's a lot of GS's

 

[LowtherCastle]

I'm still wondering if we need to tech hardly anything or build GLH. Astro is really the only thing since GLH would probably end up in Washington with a bunch of other wonders we want to capture.
Conquest gold should get us thru the tech tree, and bulbs get us to Astro. My gut is telling me to conquer the world and build a stack of spies.
I can't imagine getting to Cavalry (req. Rifling). I assume you meant Cuir's, bbp. The only reason I would even consider Cuir's as an option is because we believe we can steal Gunpowder and Mil Trad. The reality is, we'd probably go thru guilds to get to Gunpowder. Why not just stop there with knights?
MT means we need CS (kills Astro) and Nationalism. I do like the idea of Taj, but Nationalism is a big tech.

I wonder if engineering (for fast road movement) is a good target.

I would research 0% until we get Alpha and Monarchy free while conquering with Choko's (maybe swords cus they're cheaper, but still thinking Chokos+chariot cleanup should be tested). chariots are good at snagging workers while conquering too.
Steal Feudal and then get Guilds super fast, steal? constr, then do Eng.
Steal? calendar, get compass, bulb? optics, 2-bulb Astro.

(edit: on 2nd thought, I'd probably skip constr and Eng, especially if we can't steal construction)

I wouldn't worry about money, so currency and GLH, meh.

Good. This is my thinking too. Go absolutely minimalistic on the tech tree.

There are some wrinkles though. Music for the GA? We'll eventually need commerce for epps. Also, Calendar sooner (happies and commerce for us since we have a bunch of silks and dyes)?

And a couple other thoughts. Pyramids for a specialist economy to help beeline Astro? Gives us beakers for making GPs. We have food-rich cities and we could use 1-2GSes, GSpies and GArtists.

And the killer: Do we really need the Kremlin? If so, when?

 

[LowtherCastle]

The AI doesn't seem too challenging. I almost I wish the AI had Rifling or something, so we'd have a good reason to go to Cuirs or Cavalry.
Just as an exercise, wouldn't we still be able to bulb Astro and get to Cuir's this way:

Steal CS
bulb or research Paper
1 or 2 bulbs Education
steal Gunpowder
research Nationalism
Music for GArt (and prereq for MT)
Steal MT
steal Calendar
compass
bulb optics
2 bulb Astro

Nothing supercedes Astro here does it? Oh crap, yea, Printing Press. So we'd need another bulb.
That's a lot of GS's

Here's the thing on Astro -- getting it really early is super powerful. Crank out galleons and forget about roads. The map is toroidal.

 

[LowtherCastle]

This game feels so exciting and mysterious.
Why are Ottomans so weak?
They are so weak they should not even exist without their precious gunpowder unit!

If we could capture their capital quickly, the janisary vaporizes with it...

Btw, I checked the saves and it looks like neither Stalin nor Mehmed started with workers. At least they haven't started any roads yet. Will they sit in the city center waiting for an improvable tile to appear in the BFC?

 

[LowtherCastle]

On stealing techs -- don't forget, that erases our eps for culture.

 

[WastinTime]

Here's the thing on Astro -- getting it really early is super powerful. Crank out galleons and forget about roads. The map is toroidal.

We don't know if there is ice making it really act like cylindrical, and I don't see galleons getting us from our core to places like Istanbul, Moscow, or even Rome. Just Washington and maybe London.

I'm finding it hard to justify Astro just for one civ. From what we think we know now, we should just do domination and take the hit to the Civil Ministry for having another civ alive.
Maybe we get our army moving and then build spies and use wonders to make up the score. Maybe get like 5 more GPros/shrines by using Angkor Wat. No bulbs.

On stealing techs -- don't forget, that erases our eps for culture.

I want to disagree, but I'm not sure I understand you.

 

[babybluepants]

I can't imagine getting to Cavalry (req. Rifling). I assume you meant Cuir's, bbp.

I sort of meant cavalry, but it would probably go through cuir's and only upgrade if needed. It was just a random thought, and I only think it is worth considering if we didn't need Astro.The idea being that we can win without getting off the main continent.

I don't necessarily think that's the way to go, but I feel like playing the devil's advocate. Why do we need Astro? As of right now, there is only one American city (albeit a possible wonder spam city) that is unreachable. It looks to me like we can win this without.

1) The 1st thing our Workers in capital and Beijing should do is .. chop a 2nd Worker.

Interesting idea!

Intuitively, I would have thought farm first, then chop. Here's a couple of quick tests:

Worker whip / granary / worker chop / start chariot
T17: Size 2, 15/24f, 19/30h chariot, wheat farmed, forest 1NE chopped, iron mined, 3t into ivory watermill

Worker whip / worker chop / granary / start chariot
T17: Size 2, 15/24f, 10/30h chariot, wheat farmed, forest 1NE chopped, iron mined, ivory watermill

We need to hook up the horse by T14, which is exactly what I was previously calculating for Yan'an (pasture pig - pasture horse). With that first test, we could have a chariot ready to move on T19. Probably T18 with some optimization.

Edit: xpost with WT

 

[babybluepants]

From what we think we know now, we should just do domination and take the hit to the Civil Ministry for having another civ alive.

That's what I was thinking. It's actually not much of a hit to the Civil Ministry. I've been thinking about that a bit, and I'm pretty sure that if we get anywhere close to domination, we will have 80+ points in Civil. GNP / Mfg goods / crop yield / soldiers / land area / population would be #1, giving us 66pts. We would likely have killed 3-4 AI, making us at worst #5-6 in the other categories, which is approx. 80-85pts, but I think we would actually be better. We would have hoarded all of the happy and health resources, and we would have a bunch of small cities with high caps. Also, we can do things like make sure we sign CF with everyone by the last turn to wipe out the WW, turn up the culture slider on the last turn to boost Approval Rating, cancel any resource trade deals to decrease AI approval rating and life expectancy, etc.

 

[LowtherCastle]

I want to disagree, but I'm not sure I understand you.

Stealing techs costs eps that we would otherwise use to create espy-culture.

 

[WastinTime]

I glanced at a couple of my old games where I dominated, like my BC space race.
Seems like Approval rating and Imports/Exports are the problem areas. (edit: life expectancy a little too)
I don't know what makes up the calculations for those.

 

[WastinTime]

Stealing techs costs eps that we would otherwise use to create espy-culture.

Ah, right, I didn't understand you. That's correct.

 

[babybluepants]

Imports/Exports is foreign trade routes. You need OB.
Edit: It's actually this = (total commerce we get from foreign city TRs) - (total commerce foreign cities get from TRs with us).
I'm not sure how to manipulate that. Have to look into it.

Approval rating is a ratio of unhappy and happy points. It would be high in a pop 1 city with 10 resources, low in a very large city.
Edit: the formula is = happy / (happy+unhappy)
Edit: life expectancy is the same, only with healthy/sick

 

[WastinTime]

Imports/Exports is foreign trade routes. You need OB.

Approval rating is a ratio of unhappy and happy points. It would be high in a pop 1 city with 10 resources, low in a very large city.
Edit: the formula is = happy / (happy+unhappy)
Edit: life expectancy is the same, only with healthy/sick

excellent info. So can these values/ratings be changed instantly? or is it a score over time. Like you can't go from 10th in approval rating to #1 all in a few turns? Probably instant, huh?

Still, every category doesn't count dead AI, right? so with only Roosy alive, we'd be #2 at worst?

 

[babybluepants]

excellent info. So can these values/ratings be changed instantly? or is it a score over time. Like you can't go from 10th in approval rating to #1 all in a few turns? Probably instant, huh?

Still, every category doesn't count dead AI, right? so with only Roosy alive, we'd be #2 at worst?

Instantly. If you go into an old domination game on the victory turn, and turn up the culture slider, you will go up the Approval Rating. (Edit: assuming you're not in STRIKE, ofc )
And, yes, each dead AI boosts our ratings.