SGOTM 9 - klarius

[klarius]

Ok looks fine .

Some remarks.
No settler building on our continent, please. Don't waste the foreign population. I really think even no settlers at all any more.
We don't need more cities, more population in existing cities is now more useful.

Set the science to 0 for a turn. The fair price difference between medicine and RP is about 2000 as monopoly techs. For some reason Isa is now furious with us. That may cause a few 100 more cost. I think one turn at 0 could give us just enough money and it's no problem to finish the research after that in 2.

With the GA of Spain I don't think we can still use suffrage as a prebuild for modern age. That means electronics should not be the last tech to research. So I'm thinking now SM->MP->AT->EL->MT.
Entremont can then prebuild with army then hoover. Hoover itself is unimportant for us, but for Gandhi we will want it. Battlefield medicine will soon allow a decent prebuild.
Don't sell/gift AT to Spain before the flight deal. I also don't like to get them SM soon.
So my take is:
Do the RP deal (med+gold for RP-> san for gold back).
Research MP->AT.
Next deal with spain is MP. We will give them SM only when we want to deal for flight (with AT and gold or AT gpt and peace reneg). That's not necessarily right after they get it.
If we don't run into money problems we can even hold back MP for the flight deal.

A small point:
I don't see that we need any more cavs and also no additional transports.
The knight army is also disposable to speed up a hospital or commercial dock.

@killer
We will handle the resources when we know where they are. We can gift cities to Spain so they have spares to deal (we should anyways do with luxes). Spain will stay as trade partner for India through the whole game, if necessary. We might have to kill off their big cities then.
Alternatively we could still use Ottomans. There is no need to ever kill them, in fact their culture covers a lot tiles we don't want and helps with domination limit.

But the more important problem:
Does anybody have an idea how we get India to build boats. If they wanted they could have 2-3 galleys by now, but that's obviously no priority for Gandhi.
I'm thinking of giving up Stockholm, so they see some juicy tiles.

 

[ThERat]

Does anybody have an idea how we get India to build boats. If they wanted they could have 2-3 galleys by now, but that's obviously no priority for Gandhi.
I'm thinking of giving up Stockholm, so they see some juicy tiles.

I would try that too. I don't think we have a problem getting all techs for their SS on time. Even if we can't do a 4 turn research cycle in the MA, but we should be close.

We need to get India off their Island on the way to Carthago, maybe giving up Stockholm might help though it hurts

 

[Northern Pike]

I'm thinking of giving up Stockholm, so they see some juicy tiles.

Giving up, in the sense of abandoning? That's fine with me if we can't think of anything else.

 

[klarius]

Ok, as usual a bit more after thinking .

I don't want our relations with Isa to detoriate any further.
We should not give up any city with half ore more foreign population. That counts as razing and gives a malus even with neutral civs.
Excess cities are best gifted away, not abandoned.

We could think also of an MPP with Spain. But that could lead to war with Ottomans, which I want to avoid for the free tech trading.
So better not currently.

We have some excess luxes currently. You can trade them for a few gpt with Spain. Gifting isn't any better for attitude.

Well, killercane missed a chance for making a sneak attack by Spain more unlikely. She didn't have oil until she got Iznik (with Magellan's BTW, a little bit ). We could have made her more dependant on us by trading her oil.

Stockholm is the city that hurts least, if we think of freeing some tiles. It should also get Gandhi visibility to the nearby coal. You now he knows about it w/o knowing steam, but as I read somewhere he needs to know a path to it to be allowed to head for it.
And yes I think of abandoning it (get some settlers out first to join to hospital cities).

 

[Ronald]

OK, plans so far:

Abandon Stockholm. If Ghandi settles in this place should I capture Delhi?
Research as outlined: SM - MP - AT
Irrigate Spain
Watch domination limit

At what time should we finish ToE? Starting the MA or late MA. Personally I prefer starting MA for quick SETI. I am not sure whether we decided on that one or not. Could not find it in our thread.

@klarius: I did not get the idea of Hoover in Entremont. It should be on our home continent in order to be of value for Ghandi, or did I misinterpret something?

 

[Gyathaar]

AlanH and me have been discussing something that may affect your plan to abandon a city. So you may consider holding off a bit on playing that way till we decide..

 

[klarius]

@Ronald
I was talking about using Hoover as prebuild in Entremont. Entremont should build Seti ASAP in MA. So it should have nearly 800sh in Hoover, because I think suffrage will not be available anymore and the palace is needed for the internet prebuild in Reykjavik.
Hooverville on our continent can accumulate up to 500sh in battlefield medicine, so it will still need some time in MA to complete it. But Hoover is not urgent, we don't really need it, it's just for Gandhi.

For sure ToE timed exactly to the start of MA. We want internet right away and Seti 2 turns later. And we want the free tech of Ottomans also. This should all be handled via TBP.
The capital can build ToE in 11 turns easy (after all tiles are railed) and in 10 with effort (and luck for no pollution). So three techs away from MA is about the right time to start the build in Trondheim (plus 1-2 turns).

Well, with the above post of Gyathaar, we should wait what the powers above decide about the somewhat hydrophobic Indians.

But capturing Delhi would anyways not work soon. We have only 4 berserks left and cannot build more once we have RP. And I don't want to delay buying, RP just for that.

 

[killercane]

To klarify, we will need to start an Army in Entremont coinciding with beginning research on Electronics, TBP picture when we discover Electronics and switching the Army over to Hoovers will give us the 800 shields going in to MA. Assuming we get flight from Spain, that will be on the player after Ronald's turnset.

We can put units in the empty cities along the rim +Oslo to encourage Ghandi towards the empty Stockholm or if we abandon it, the North in general.

Well, killercane missed a chance for making a sneak attack by Spain more unlikely. She didn't have oil until she got Iznik (with Magellan's BTW, a little bit ). We could have made her more dependant on us by trading her oil.

My ADD kicks in at inopportune times .

 

[klarius]

To klarify, we will need to start an Army in Entremont coinciding with beginning research on Electronics, TBP picture when we discover Electronics and switching the Army over to Hoovers will give us the 800 shields going in to MA.

Nice calculation, but not quite right.
Entremont will go to over 400sh/3turns when we get it all 20 tiles. So we don't need TBP when researching Electronics, but should start the army prebuild later.
Also another point is that we cannot allow it to go over 800sh when entering MA. We are guaranteed to get computers only when we get ToE.
ToE in capital will complete only after the shields in Entremont are added (Entremont is older than Trondheim), so we cannot switch the build in Entremont after that.

Now, the real hard core method (not recommended for the faint at heart) would be to enter MA with about 750sh in Entremont already.
On TBP try for the Ottoman free tech, if computers, trade for it (will need 100s of taxmen to get enough gpt for peace renog) and change Entremont to Seti. If not MM Entremont to stay below 800sh on build cycle.
You can expect about half an hour of MM and one wrong click can make all the nice planning go down the drain and you build Hoover in Entremont .
Probably not worth it for maybe 60-70 more beakers by building Seti one turn early (this doesn't mean that I haven't done such crazy actions already ).

 

[AlanH]

Please read an important addition to the rules HERE

 

[klarius]

Ok, just seen AlanH post in the the maintenance thread.
Read it .
No need to abandon any cities.

Edit:
I think we shouldn't try to optimize the implications this rule change (it's probably an emergency change after all).
We already accepted to give up Stockholm, so just give it to Gandhi when we enter MA and deal with the implications later .

 

[ThERat]

agree, gift Stockholm city to India. As it looks it will still take them ages after that to get anywhere, should give us plenty of time to get all techs needed before 'leading' them to Carthago.
By the way, 'leading' them can be done in which way? Creating a funnel with units where they have only 1 chance to head for the next city? Does that work or would they attack units?

 

[klarius]

Leading is easy.
Put a trail of workers in the right direction and defend all cities along the way. They will always rather catch (and disband ) a worker than attack a unit with defense.
If we want we can get them all the way to Carthage w/o giving them another city, by that.

But really we should let them have more cities before they get Carthage and all necessary techs. It's no use them having all techs, but having no cities to build anthing.
We have to further watch closely their tech progress and find the right time for them to get more cities.
BTW now, we are at the point we want India as slow as possible. We might think now of really blocking Delhi's tiles.
We are still a monarchy after all and did this for some purpose.

 

[ThERat]

BTW now, we are at the point we want India as slow as possible. We might think now of really blocking Delhi's tiles.

Absolutely correct and that's why we should not ever take out an Indian unit unless necessary. We want them to choke again in unit support.
If we would have known of the updated 'gift' feature, they might have continued their 50 turn research. I hope our cleansing operation won't now backfire and give other teams an advantage (if they have chose the same strategy, that is).

 

[Ronald]

Although I had no wars, it took me almost 5 hours to complete my 10 uneventful turns:

preturn (1050 AD): switch reikjavik to hospital; research to 0; change trondheim to stock exchange

turn 1 (1060 AD): Entremont builds hospital -> bank; Bergen builds hospital -> bank; Reijkjavik builds hospital; -> palace (prebuild for Internet)
Haugesund builds worker -> wealth; spain still does not trade RP for Med. + 2250g


turn 2 (1070 AD): Hooverville builds aquaeduct -> library; Oslo builds Hospital -> bank, Bodo builds hospital -> factory
deal with Spain: RP for med + 2450 g; san for 2277g not a very good deal, but she's furious, turn some scientists to taxmen for gold optimization (SM of course still in 1 turn)

turn 3 (1080 AD): Research SM -> start mass production (4 turns)
Entremont builds bank -> stock exchange, birka builds hospital -> stock exchange, Tromso builds hospital -> bank

turn 4 (1090 AD): Teveste builds harbor -> wealth,

interturn: Madrid builds universal suffrage

turn 5 (1100 AD): Entremont builds stock exchange -> battlefield medicine,trondheim builds stock exchange -> prebuild for comm. dock,
Hooverville builds library -> marketplace, vadso builds hospital -> factory

turn 6 (1110 AD): renew gems deal with Spain ; maximise gold (MP in 1); mess up our chip chain, it will take a bit longer to chain workers, no real problem but not nice

turn 7 (1120 AD): stockholm builds hospital -> commercial dock; Aarhus builds library -> marketplace
switch trondheim, oslo, bergen, tromso to commercial dock
researched MP start Atomic Theorie at 100% research and lot sof former taxmen to scientists we can research in 4 turns with -74gpt (no problem we have more than 3000 g)

turn 8 (1130 AD): trondheim builds comm. dock -> battleship, Bergen builds comm dock -> bank, oslo builds comm dock -> bank, tromso builds comm dock -> bank, farsund builds hospital -> comm dock
with the commercial docks and joining a few workers for taxmen we now get AT in 3 turns at +3gpt

turn 9 (1140 AD): Entremont builds battlefield med -> comm dock, Hooverville builds marketplace -> university; Birka builds stock exchange -> infantry (don't know what to build can be changed anytime)
Stavanger builds factory -> marketplace

turn 10 (1150 AD): Entremenot builds comm dock -> coll, Stockholm builds comm dock -> bank, optimize gold to +138gpt AT due in 1

 

[Northern Pike]

That sounds good. Uneventful is fine, with Isabella furious.

If we would have known of the updated 'gift' feature, they might have continued their 50 turn research. I hope our cleansing operation won't now backfire and give other teams an advantage (if they have chose the same strategy, that is).

Yes. I realize that a variant this elaborate was always likely to blow up in some way, and that the mods had to act. But we've done numerous things since about 450 AD that now turn out to have been counterproductive. We're really going to be punished for playing quickly.

 

[klarius]

Ok, looks like a nice MM madness

Ok, now to some timings.
Spain should come up with flight in the next few turns.
In that case it's 9 turns to MA. Trondheim and Reykjavic need to go full steam production to meet that date. MM even before hitting enter to ToE in 9 in Trondheim, palace in 9 in Reykjavik. Reykjavic will need every shared tile from Bodo and Bergen for that. And don't forget to readjust some scientists, because we will lose some commerce.

Entremont should start army in three turns, then switch to hoover in 5 turns, but MMed to stay under 800sh for MA.
I wouldn't build a colosseum, just because it's cool to be able to do it in 1 turn. If you want happiness build temple and cathedral. Otherwise build some units.

Well, we have no decent prebuild for Hooverville any more, so I would just slow down the university build and grow the city.

Former Carthage land should not be used for scientists/taxmen except when absolutely necessary (and it's not currently).
Instead they should build infrastructure with engineers.

Commercial docks should come before factories (factories everywhere are even doubtful).

 

[klarius]

Roster:
Ronald just played
Obermot up
klarius on deck
ThERat
Northern Pike
killercane

BTW Obormot, if you're not absolutely confident (you probably are, just in case ) how to proceed with the entering MA turn, you could either step by and ask questions, or just play a shorter set and leave the mess to me.

 

[Obormot]

I got it. I've done such manipulations a few times before, so i hope we won't end up with a palace instead of the internet

 

[klarius]

I got it. I've done such manipulations a few times before, so i hope we won't end up with a palace instead of the internet

Well, the internet is the easy part .

But I want also to make sure to get three techs, so gifting of Osman and trading if he gets computers has to come first.

Just to make sure that everybody understands (ok Obormot you know all that, but maybe some lurkers are interested).

We enter MA by researching so we get into TBP for age change. There we dial up Osman. We gift him and look what he gets.
If it's not computers, there's no further action needed. We can just proceed normally with getting computers and miniaturization and change the prebuild from the other BP screen. Trading can be done later.

If it is computers, there are two options.
Either trade right away using peace renog and gpt (needs lots of gpt, slider will not be enough, so also taxmen needed).
Or take fission as first tech from ToE, trade computers for fission from this TBP screen and mini as second and then the switch of the prebuild.

BTW a good method for prebuilds to not end in catastrophy is to MM before so that they wouldn't finish. Only when you swap the prebuild over you change the MM to finish the build. If anything goes wrong you just lose a turn, not the prebuild.