SGOTM 9 - Bede

Lots of good discussion going on.

I will be more coherent when the file is available but here are some first inklings:

1) As a SEA nation we start with Alphabet, get a curragh in the water ASAP.

2) We start with Alphabet and have a coastal commerce bonus, so I would research Writing at maximum consistent with happiness and go for the Philo->Republic gambit. After revolting to Republic then shut off Research entirely. We want to contribute as much gold as we can to the world economy and buying our techs is the best way to do that. And being a Republic is the best way to accumulate the gold.

3) War weariness only becomes a problem when you are losing the wars or have to spend a lot of time in enemy territory. Since our offensive UU is amphibious we won't be marching across enemy territory and if we take along a couple of strong defenders to cover any brief landings we won't be losing too many troopers either. It may become a problem when we start gifting territory to the Indians but we should be able to deal with that with cash we collect being a non researching Republic.

4) We should plan on building no more than 12-16 core and productive cities. Any thing outside that number should be intended for our Indian pals.

Gotta go cook a chicken. Back later.
 
Oh father of the English history - good that you have arrived - Hi and welcome on board captain - crew is ready to go!:D

I must have missed something concerning war weariness. I got my info from the war academy article that states:

the following describes the effect for a human:
Add 1 wwp for each
- lost unit without defence value
- improvment pillage/bombed
- unit that are bombard down to 1 hp
Add 2 wwp when a human attacker is defeated
Add 2 wwp when a unit with defence value is attacked. (Even if you win)
Add 16 wwp when a size 1 city is captured 17 wwp for bigger cities.

Since we are on always war with India - every city we give them raises wwp by 16, so far as I understood the article. O.K. that would leave us the possibility not to hand over cities - o.k. but we will get 2wwp by every Indian attack on our defences no matter whether we win or lose. And we can never take the 20 turns to remove ww completely we are on always war. And attacking India doesn't sound too promising to me. That was my understanding of war weariness. I must say my own experiences with that are similar - only defending chokepoints is normally enough to get your cities revolting, but correct me if you have better infos on that or if I misunderstood the article.:sad:
 
Good points, Mason!

I don't think the article addresses the effect of city infrastructure, luxuries, entertainment allocations from the budget or the use of specialist citizens, however. I may be wrong, it's not the first time, nor the last.

My experience is that if the economy is strong enough War Weariness is not an issue in a Republican government if the war is with only one foe. And since the level is Monarch, I don't expect to see a flood of enemy units. And if we can bop the bogies on the beaner every time they show their face, before they can do any damage to the homeland I don't foresee any problems, if we can control enough luxuries and have the economy to run higher rates of entertainment when needed.

I will gave more to add in an hour or so when the saves come up.
 
@ch, why don't you start us off if you can fit in 20 turns.

I'm not a big fan of a lengthy moves to settle but Mason's suggestion of 1E1N looks sound. The water to the east is fresh, however. So 1E is probably the best choice as it keeps the capitol on the coast. City 2 can go north.

Build a boat first, or maybe two, then a settler. Barbs are roaming but with any luck they won't roam in our direction quite yet. You can't depend on Moinarch AI to keep them under control, though.

Research to writing at maximum. Pottery is a pretty buyable tech on most maps so I generally prefer to buy it after making lots of friends.

I also like to keep buildings at a minimum until the economy can support them, settlers, workers and military tend to be my priorities in the very earliest stages.

Roster suggestion:
classical_hero - starts us out and plays twenty
Marc Aurel
Bahzell
Crakie
madviking
crazybeard
Bede

We might as well play twenty each for the first round, then ten turns after that.

I would like to adhere to a strict 24 hours to post a got it and 24 to play and post. If you can't make those deadlines please let. Auto-skips are encouraged. Just post a got it and get with it. And if post the roster at the end of your log that will help keep the game moving along.

Any questions on mechanics? I know there are some SG neophytes so please ask.

Turn logs can be as detailed as you like. I prefer a narrative style with lots of pictures to the catalog listing of builds completed----->builds started. Major events should be noted with a timeline, though, and it does help if you note the years elapsed at the start of the log.

We have a creative challenge ahead of us so let's have some fun.
 
Bede said:
Good points, Mason!

I don't think the article addresses the effect of city infrastructure, luxuries, entertainment allocations from the budget or the use of specialist citizens, however. I may be wrong, it's not the first time, nor the last.

My experience is that if the economy is strong enough War Weariness is not an issue in a Republican government if the war is with only one foe. And since the level is Monarch, I don't expect to see a flood of enemy units. And if we can bop the bogies on the beaner every time they show their face, before they can do any damage to the homeland I don't foresee any problems, if we can control enough luxuries and have the economy to run higher rates of entertainment when needed.
Click to expand...

Also good points, Bede!

I agree to settle 1E since the northern water is fresh!
I concur that you can counter war weariness (ww). What I want to point out is, that with countering ww you might lose the benefits republic may have had over monarchy. I also normally play republic slingshot, but I am aware that the advantages of republic to monarchy are only a few. Both govs are of similar benefit with rep normally a little bit better. Losing benefits of republic would mean :

A 12 sized city normally has 12 trades more in rep than in mon :

- A colosseum that you need for ww reasons costs upkeep (2) and ressources - you must subtract this from the republic benefits. If you go for culture, you have a double benefit from it and it is worth the effort, but since culture is not an issue that does not count in our situation. In fact I normally place my first cities tight pack CapitolxxxCxxC around the capitol so they cover all tiles without any culture. That is similar to the RCP 3/5 in vanilla/PTW. Culture is more for the outer rim cities to move the borderline – if I don’t go for culture victory.
- For the cathedral the above stated is also applicable, not to speak of the fact that you have to invest 120/160 shields for building the improvements. Why should we, if we do not yield for culture and can manage happiness without them? Together that equals 4 berserks.

- For a specialist entertainer you have to sacrifice for ww normally 2 income!

- Great wonders (Bach's, etc..) would be very helpful - but - they also would be helpful for India, if we can arrange to give it to them!

- Unless we can live with a small military, each city equals from the start 1
income by military upkeep higher costs in rep costs. India has deity level upkeep, so can afford a large military. Unless we are not out of Indias reach, we would have to face a long war. In my test games India really came close to killing me off with its elephants in MA when I let them grow early and took no measures in MA to mobilize military.

- The "giving cities to India" concept would totally vanish since after city 8 we would have 100% unhappiness without fighting a single Viking - Indian battle. Calculating at least 15 battles in MA (not too conservative from my point of view) the number would drop to 7 cities - but then we have 100% unhappiness and have to find a countermeasure for every citizen. It would be hard in the beginning to find so may counters, but we reach 50% unhappiness already with 60 wwp, what means we have only 3 cities left before half our pop gets unhappy without care.

- What really helps is luxuries - but can we be sure to get them all? O.K. we already have incense, but one luxury is not a great help - they become powerful with marketplaces and 5 lux. Below this the normal “too crowded unhappiness” equals up the lux benefits and these penalties have to be added to WW. It will be harder to get the luxes this time than in normal games, because for every lux we first have to make sure India has it. Since they are often bundled in regions we would possibly have to share that region with India, what means enduring battling.

- By normal corruption the benefit for the outer ring cities never reaches the 12 income level since you lose averaged 6 of them by corruption, but the military upkeep benefit of a city in mon is the same for corrupt cities. So best is 5 income advantage of a city in any case

- and then it gets nasty .... you stated not more than 12 - 16 cities - that means before hospitals military max size without budget upkeep is : 48!
Subtracting:
16 workers (My growth approach normally has about 1 worker per city in MA)
6 - 10 galleys
16 defenders (I normally play 1/per city, not in each city - I play the core unprotected and the front lines double protected) Depending on our empire shape that number may vary – the Indian borderline must be protected.
6 - 10 attackers to have at least a little freedom of action
no artillery
no military ships later on
If we will have a border to India that's quite few, since we want them (India) to grow. And the more they grow, the more dangerous for us they will get. Every unit above our minimum military above counts double (2 income instead of 1 in mon) fast eating up our benefits
- slider entertainment adjustment is 10 % of total city income (around 39, 3 income each tile averaged) so we lose 4 income per grown city per slider step! O.K this is reduced to 2 for the average outer rim city, too, I admit.
Given the average of rep benefit is 9 income between center and outer rim cities subtracted by 1 for the genral mon upkeep benefit = 8, that is very fast consumed up by countermeasures against WW and than we would have to face an 8 turn anarchy losing around 2000 income.

the distance corruption for Mon is equal to Rep :

da = 0.5^Ni * min(Gd * t * d, MaxD)
where
Ni is the number of anti-corruption buildings,
t = 1 if the city is on the trade network
5/4 otherwise
Gd = 3/2 for Rampant corruption (Despotism)
3/4 for Minimal corruption (Democracy)
1 otherwise
[quoted from alexmans article on corrution]

only the rank corruption is better in Rep, but that only really becomes important when Number of cities Nc >> Nopt, what should not be a problem for 12 –16 cities on a standard map. So I think at least in this case the rep is not obviously from the first view better than mon.

Go home from work now, will be back on Home PC in 2h. Write to you then, so long!
 
Wow! The team agreed to my choice of location! :) That'll probably be the last time that will happen.

I'm a little uneasy about 3 builds before our first military unit, but I'm sure that CH will keep an eye out for barbs. Expand and explore, that's the way I like to play.

Has any decision been made as to Wheel and Iron Working? If we're gonna put off building units, we should at least have the "meanest SOBs in the valley" when we do build them.

I hope this discussion on war weariness is decided by the time my turns come around, it's all going over my head :(
 
Hi again and thanks for your comments.

@crazybeard : Sorry, I didn't want to bother you with these calculations.

I agree, that very much is depending on the real setup of landmasses! Once we know the continents we have to come together in a splinter discussion and work the world map knowledge into our plans. However the different points I have proposed are closly linked to a plan, with most points inside making only sense if you look at the complete plan. I am aware that I am not in the position to define a masterplan and don’t want to do so. I can not claim to have won a single Diety game and also suck most often on Demigod. Emperor is the level I normally play in private games and I feel comfortable with this – with the background of enjoying my games and relaxing without calculating and micromanaging too much to lose fun. But please let me introduce the plan only for common understanding what should have been achieved with the different points. At least the plan is influenced by the thoughts of your posts:

· Bahz - concerning the early MM research,
· Crakie concerning the other continent residence – honestly, I first planned to stay on our original one.)
· Crazybeard & classical_hero supported by Crakie – concerning the more peaceful approach against my first thoughts of warmongering all time

The main reason for this post was Crakie’s goal:

"Our first priority should be to get India and it's palace on the main land and work from there."

That is what I wanted to avoid with the Great Library! The Great Library plan is only really useful if we will keep India small and weak (only until the MA) to avoid spending ressources for the war with them. What would we do? As Crakie stated : early development is the key – absolutely correct. –And that is done most effective when we are at peace. In this permanent war with India this would mean throwing back all (but one single) Indian trys to get more powerful. O.K. What is then the situation at beginning of MA? We are probably the most powerful civ on the map (unless we are on a small island, what I do not believe) and everything is well in a normal game. The problem is, India is far backwards what contradicts our special game goal. Hmmmm? If we would support India earlier (during AA) we would:

· Have less ressources for our own development – loose turns to the other teams
· Loose further ressources by needing to invest in the Viking-Indian war since we probably will get attacked (o.k. choke points would help)

The question was : Is there a solution to this paradoxon ? Can we achieve both? Maximum growth of Scandinavia to get freedom of action by being technologically far ahead and getting India to tech lead?


With the opportunity to build every wonder we decide to be useful for our approach to win and have military superiority by far advanced units (tank versus musketman) to decide for every city to which civ it shall belong. I.e. we see an Indian city is much closer to the palace of their good friend civ TL on the Indian continent. The city is corrupt by distance and of no technological use for India. Civ TL is on friendly terms with India and will never take the city by war – but we can send a couple of tanks there by naval invasion, take the city and move our tanks on to India denying the Indians the city further, but letting the soldiers of civ TL move into the city. The city starts researching for TL and they later on will share their knowledge with India. So we have optimised the science pace and in the end maybe won four or five turns. Being in the good position of controling the other continent we have a good time at playing regisseur of the piece and arrange what we want to arrange – as you said the AI sucks at overseas invasions - we are safe. Can we combine this scenario with the need to grow India instead of us? Our own race to power we cannot improve further – o.k. I assume
· Micromanaging
· Tight pack city placement CxxC
· Researching the technologies that can be maximised by trade
· Etc …
is well understood by every team and will be applied everywhere.
But the growth of India is something where we have a handle to manipulate. India does not need to get cities continously. They may take them all in a couple of turns later if we back out of all of them the same turn. What will India have lost? Nothing but science – and there our Great Library comes in. They will keep up immediately in the tech pace – and I repeat - also until the IA if they know two advanced civs. The Great Library is not made obsolete for India by any civ discovering education, but then when India gets it. But in that same turn it still works – the effect will be gone the next turn but they have gotten all techs of the two far ahead civs they learned to know. Of course one of these two are we ourselves. The other civ they should learn to know ideally the the turn before they get their hands on the Great Library. So to maximise the effect of the Great Library it is better to keep India weak and their tech pace slow – (again a paradoxon to our main goal; but only in the AA and early MA. The question is when has this point arrived ? To speak with Crakie in phases: I think the first phase (Scandinavian maximum growth and India poor and weak) ends at this point, I will refer to as the Indian Explosive Ascent IEA! That is the time we have to invade the Indian home island (making sure they than have their core city on the continent) What is required then? The situation will change dramatically for us, since from that turn on India will be a dangerous enemy – so we need to be out of reach – and ideally as you said on the other continent, since India as far advanced and powerful they might become as an AI, sucks at oversea invasions. So after our growth to the corruption limit for one palace, we have to start a war on our continent to harvest one Great Leader – and not to stop until we get one. Even fighting on without taking enemy cities will do better than conquering the enmy and move to the next civ on our continent since we will need them to play TL for India. There is an uncertainty, when we will get the GL, but all rules to harvest Great Leaders must be appplied. Since we are militaristic, we would need very bad RNG luck not to succeed within the given time frame. Once we have him, we transport him immediately to the then already known other continent and build the FP asap. We build up our second core there and take over the whole continent mercylessly. If we are fast and lucky this happens still in the great time of our UU. Depending on the size of this continent it is not necessary to finish before IEA, but we need a strong position there. During this phase we need to keep an eye on India. We must not miss the day they come close to research education themselves. We must in any case be prepared to initiate IEA if necessary before the optimal time for us has arrived, since the benefit of the Great Library will be crucial – remember they will get through the MA in one single turn.- It is too crucial for this plan to avoid India making contact with other civs before, but the setup looks as we would have a chance to do so. O.K. if during the AA a couple of other civs come around the corner the plan has failed, but we shall have a good chance to have our naval forces ready for interception the day the first curraghs are lurking along the coastlines of our territory. Here is the point where I got persuaded, that MM is slightly more important than monarchy slingshot. We need to intercept Indias ships as well. And that is the only reason I wanted to play war with everybody if necessary. When their galleys are sunk we can go back to peace – no problem, we will need these guys later on as TLs. All along I estmate this IEA to come (mid to end of MA), so it nearly halves the game. Before is lying the age of Scandinavia – after is dawning the age of India. After that we can only :
· Defend ourselves
· Produce workers en masse and send them to India in case they lack development of certain regions - at least hindering them to waste their own growth for worker production
· Maintain a final well defended foothold on Indias continent to build some last Great Wonders, we think would be helpful for Indias way to the stars. We have to find the best date for this. If we build wonders too long India has too few beneficial turns left to make use of them. I think 3 of them will do. (@ Crakie, o.k. I admit you can live without wonders against the AI, but in competition with human players they can be terribly effective: i.e. the hoover dam has a cost of 800 shields and provides on a standard continent map normally around 20 Hydro plants which would cost 240 each that is 4800 all together. The wonder saves 5/6 of the costs- that really rocks. O.k. bad example, since it normally comes when the game is done)
· Decide for every city on the Indian continent (IC) who shall be the best owner to fulfill our contract by invasion.
· Making peace from time to time with Indias TL neighbours to transfer our superior technology to them
· Keeping India the strongest power on the IC but prepare an invasion for all remaining TLs (2 or 3) for the day India comes close to have all techs ready for launch – to make sure no TL will launch before
· Press enter to move on to the next move
· Finish the game by Indian spaceship launch around 1400

That’s it ! That’s what I figured out in several games on randomly created continental maps and opponents with the given setup somewhere in the center of the map. Obvoiously I played too much tests because this totally new goal for a civ3 game challenged me. Sorry, I'm off!
 
Marc Aurel said:
@crazybeard : Sorry, I didn't want to bother you with these calculations.
Click to expand...

Please don't apologize. This sounds like a concept that I really should know, at least in the abstract. :blush:

It looks like a lot of our strategy is going to depend on the rest of the map, (but we knew that going in, right?), so let's get that fog dissappated soon. :eek:
 
I encourage everyone to take a close look at the SGOTM threads 6, 7, 8 for Wacken's team. Those guys really showed the rest of us how to play for a strong start.

Saints alive, Mason, and I thought I was an analytical kinda guy, your treatise above makes me look like a seat of the pants horseback estimator. Good work! And anybody who plays three test games just to get a feel for the issues gets a big :salute: from me. :goodjob: You are officially appointed Master Strategist of Team Bede!

On the Monarchy vs Republic debate: That one extra gold piece from every imporved field makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of the entertainment allocation. I have not performed the same kind of analysis so I speak at best anecdotally, but here's my take: In Monarchy with three luxes and a matketplace and 10% in the entertainment budget you can get to pop9 pretty comfortably. After pop9 you either need more luxuries or you need an MP garrison. In Republic under the same conditions you can get to pop12 and have no need to maintain miilitary in the core cities, only on the borders to deal with incursions. That said I have not had to deal with the business of letting an opponent capture towns, so there you have it. So let's make all deliberate speed to Monarchy.

@Mason: if classical hero does not put up a got it by 5:00AM EDT, 11/12/05 you are in the driver's seat.
 
Bede said:
.
@Mason: if classical hero does not put up a got it by 5:00AM EDT, 11/12/05 you are in the driver's seat.
Click to expand...

O.K. I got it, even if I wanted to avoid being responsible for the first decisive moves in the game. I can understand that you (Bede) are still involved in SGOTM 8, but I think Crakie would have done better as a demigod. I think I he is master in micromanaging compared to me. But o.k. I will take out my spreadsheet. I agree to keep the 24 h deadlines, but in the exceptional first turns - until QSC I would prefer to give opportunity for you to intervene, when new map info is available. So it may take a little longer in the beginning. So, I get out the spreadsheets! Prepare to hear soon from me!
 
Judging from your commentary, Mason, you will do just fine.

Stopping mid set for advice and counsel is encouraged!!!
 
I am playing now :

This is the situation 3600 BC

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=103510&stc=1&d=1131815798
SGOTM_9_3600.JPG

Our AI opponents are :

Spain : late and useless Conquistador UU
SEA and religious with Alpha + CB

Ottomans : late but terrible Sipahi UU
scientific + industrious with Masonry + Bronze W

Carthago :
SEA + industrious with Alpha + Masonry

Mongols : MA average Keshik UU
militaristic + expansionist

Celts : early and terrible UU Gallic Swordsman
agri + religious with Pottery + CB

I just have thrown out the first curragh. I stopped because I wanted to mention, that land exploring is as important as sea exploration, so I want to build a warrior next.
@ Bede : You encouraged us to start like Wacken in SGOTMs before : They went the granary first approach! So I think speed up to pottery is seen important there. We should get it asap.
I stop for 2 h then go on.
 

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Water to the cattle I think.

Expanionists and agri get pottery so it should be tradeable, if we meet them. Grow to 3 then start a settler.

Another curragh to sail north wouldn't hurt but a warrior is also useful.
 
Really strange things happend! The Indian capital is damned powerful with all their ressources. Terribly we have lost our first curragh in the first Viking-Indian battle after we already led by 2:0 in the end by 2:3. But not before we saw, that Indias island is inside an inland sea. w.r.t this geography I decided to switch the 2. curragh to an archer, the last turn possible. At the moment I tend to fight off India on the beach, but we have to think over our early tactics against India. The Mountains around the Indian sea are only a small ridge, sea is lying behind. But according to this news, I decided to throw out a another land unit (warrior) to speed up land exploring.

@ Bahz : The entertainment slider is set to 10% to enable me to send out the second unit for exploration.

@ Bede : Sorry, was too late for the water on the cow. It's a reflex for me to mine cattle. The pic is just one turn before completion. I didn't want to lose the turns invested. We can switch back later.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=103518&stc=1&d=1131819415
SGOTM_9_3000.JPG

The lands to the north are flood plains, good in my opinion. The lands to the south are also very good lands. The settler is in production - will drop out short after growth to 4. Hope we make contact to trade pottery. Neyt I would connect the incense - then build 2. worker and sende him to city 2 in the south. We can get game forest and 2 BG's. I think we should try to place city 2 at the coast to east. So far, Bahz, take over!
 

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SInce it is an inalnd sea losing the curragh is not the worst thing that could happen. We do need to check out the coastline to the east then for a coastal town that will het us access to the rest of the world. It may be possible to build a canal town from the lake to the sea in the east, unless of course that is another lake or inland sea.

Interesting configuration for the Indian capitol :hmm:

Leave the goody huts alone and pop them with town foundings instead.

Don't need to worry about Indians holdiong clam bakes on the beaches until Map Making, though, and we don't have to worry about them making lots of friends until we let them onto the mainland.

Need to bust some more fog, though, before we can make any solid settlement plans.

Roster check:

Bahzell - up
Crakie - on deck
madviking
crazybeard
Bede
classical_hero - enjoying a holiday
Marc Aurel - got us started
 
Hats off to Gyathaar - again. All our careful planning about exploiting the sea lanes for naught. With India stuck on that island at least until they discover Map Making they're going to have a ton of units to send over the water against us.

We've now seen three bodies of water (+ a river) and two of them are inland lakes (well, one is an inland sea, but the idea is the important thing). I'm not sure we should proceed on the assumption that the coast intended for city 2 isn't another inland lake. Our exploring Warrior should give us more info before the Settler pops.

My usual playstyle would be to send a Settler off to the floodplain, but then I realize that that's why I suck at this game :p Time for the floodplain later. Perhaps in my turnset :) And we need to see what's on the other side of that ridgeline.

Don't underestimate the Gallic Swordsman! They're just about the best city-crackers until Medieval Infantry comes along. And I've seen them take out Knights! If we meet the Celts, I would suggest making nice with them.

[EDIT: I can spell, really I can. I just can't type and think at the same time.]
 
Got it.
Will be back shortly to get confirmation to where our 2nd city is going when settler pops.
 
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