SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

[Niklas]

Gee, what's with you guys and powerouts? I thought America was the center of modern civilization (well, not really ), surely your power distribution must be reliable? I can't remember when we last had a power outage lasting more than an hour, and I live in an area where they are considered common.

I'd love some of that weather as well. The past week we've had temperatures below 15F (-10 C), currently it's around 27F (-3 C) (see, I'm not only bilingual, I'm bi-metric as well )

Normally I would say never mind the skip, we can wait. But I guess WD won't have time to play during the weekend, which would mean a long wait. So I guess if WD doesn't show up then zyxy will have a go at it.

 

[ControlFreak]

Gee, what's with you guys and powerouts? I thought America was the center of modern civilization (well, not really ), surely your power distribution must be reliable? I can't remember when we last had a power outage lasting more than an hour, and I live in an area where they are considered common.

I'd respond but my power is out and I can't connect.

 

[Niklas]

I'd respond but my power is out and I can't connect.

 

[WarDance]

Electricity!! I'm back in business. My plan is to play the first turn or 2 late tonight and then finish tomorrow. That ok with everyone?

Nope, it wasn't weather related. The past few days here have been really beautiful. Cool enough in the mornings for a light jacket and then shorts and t-shirt weather in the afternoon. My power outage is actually quite embarassing. Our electric company here is the only bill we pay that does NOT have online billing. We do everything online so the electric company got "forgotten" one too many times I guess. Sure would have been nice if they had said "hey, uh, we're turning your power off tomorrow unless you pay up". But no, they just come and turn it off. I actually tried to run my computer running off the van's power supply but it just sucked too much juice and kept cutting it off.

 

[ControlFreak]

Niklas@

How's your paper coming? With all the posting you've been doing at all times of day, I'd say you're either done early or PROCRASTINATING.

EDIT: Cross posted with WarDance. Now that you tell me you're wearing a t-shirt, I don't feel bad for you that you got your power shutoff.

Just so you don't call me a spammer:

Cascade Analysis
In three turns we finish the Great Library first.

I believe Spain goes before America based on their unit movements. Spain has two wonder builds: The Great Library which started at most 20 turns ago in a city that makes a max of eleven spt (hill, 2BG and three more mines/unmined mountains) That's with no corruption. It would waste sheilds switching to the Great Wall so it would switch to Sun Tsu, especially since Santiago is already building the Great Wall. Santiago started the Great Wall ~8 turns ago IIRC and also makes in the neighbor hood of 11-13spt if little or no corruption. That means it has about 100s and won't finish the wall either.

America's turn. San Francisco has had steady growth without much shield gain. They have cleared the jungle and revealed a BG by the end of CB's turns, irrigated it and cleared another Jungle by the end of my turns. That puts it at approximately:
84 (investigation) + 10 * 6spt (CB's turns) + 10 * 7spt >200. So they will cascade and FINISH the Great Wall as it's the only tech they possess.

From what I can tell, we are not using the "Wall in Every Town" Mod so capturing the Great wall is not that big of a deal. But I still like ending up with my units facing Spain than facing away.

 

[Niklas]

Electricity!! I'm back in business. My plan is to play the first turn or 2 late tonight and then finish tomorrow. That ok with everyone?

Sure thing! Just make sure you've remembered your ISP bill...

 

[ControlFreak]

On another topic, are you guys aware of ship-chaining. I think it would really help us as we build more boats and end up with more Caravels. I won't get into the details unless you need me too.

 

[WarDance]

On another topic, are you guys aware of ship-chaining. I think it would really help us as we build more boats and end up with more Caravels. I won't get into the details unless you need me too.

I'm familiar with the concept but I've never actually done it.

 

[ControlFreak]

Real ship chaining is difficult in our situation because of where the cities are and the fact that differential navigation is on.

I think we would need 5 ships set in the right places for poor man's ship chaining (units waste a move getting in and getting out of boats). This is from either Olive or Victoria. We would need another 5 boats to run units from both.

The cycle starts with a boat at the starting tile (a coastal tile near the starting city). It's full of units that have not moved yet. (They jumped into the boat last turn. The rest of the boats are sitting with theif full movement at specified tiles within range of the previous boat. One by one the boats move forward, you wake it's transported units and reload them in the boat that still has units left. That's where named boats really helps because on the "Where do you want to load" dialog, there's no indication of which boat has movement left. I usually setup the boats so that 1 loads 2, 2 loads 3, etc. In our poor man's version, the last boat will make it to a coastal tile and the transported units use their move to jump onshore.

The next turn, all boats return to their previous position. If you start with Boat 5 and move him to Boat 4, it's easy to remember where they go. The last Boat moves to the starting coastal tile and two more units jump in. This method will send two units all the way to the other side every other turn.

If you upgrade to Caravels, that's 3 units every other turn, Galleons 4 and Transports 6! When we get to Galleons, we can do rich man's ship chaining. The exta moves would allow us to get inside the starting and ending cities. That allows a fresh unit to load from the city into Boat 1, hop over all the boats and unload in the destination city WITH ALL HIS MOVES. Do that with a calvary and you could attack New York from Victoria on one turn without railroads.

Ship chaining to Spain will be much more effective because the trip is shorter. And once we establish an appropriate city, we could go from Point Smurkz to Madrid with a lot of units. If you double the boats, you get units delivered every turn.

(I gave you the details because if you haven't done it, it takes a little bit to work it out.) I'll post a picture indicating our chain links tomorrow. For your turn, I don't think you are going to be doing ship chaining, but you could have it setup for the next player if we don't upgrade to Caravels.)

 

[Methos]

On another topic, are you guys aware of ship-chaining. I think it would really help us as we build more boats and end up with more Caravels. I won't get into the details unless you need me too.

This would definitely speed up the invasion. Could save a few turns too.

Like WD I'm familiar with it, but have never done it.

 

[WarDance]

@WD: Astro should be in the research pipeline, just after Edu. We want Copernicus, and we want to be able to upgrade galleys to caravels (note CF's comment on harbor in Victoria btw).

Indeed I was jumping ahead a little too far! So Education in 1, Astronomy, Gunpowder, then starting Chemistry.

When Zentral and HotB finish their universities should they switch to unit production?

 

[Methos]

AlanH just made a very important announcement that we should all be aware of.

 

[WarDance]

AlanH just made a very important announcement that we should all be aware of.

interesting. As I plan on starting tonight and finishing tomorrow sometime can we have Alan take care of that afterwards? Otherwise I will need a skip for the weekend.

Edit to avoid spamarama:
Revised Strategy Plan

Long Term Goals:
Cripple Spain
"Give" Ghandi a nice new core
Hijack Ghandi's spaceship


Medium Range Goals:
Cripple America, and boot Spain off our new continent
Get a Great Leader
Found New Zentral on the new Continent
Build second core in the New World
Find satisfactory prisons for Celts, America, Ottomans, Carthage, and Mongols.
Protect OCC civs so no other AI's wipe them out.
4-turn research all the way!
Embrace our inner builders and construct some nice wonders
Let Ghandi off his island

Short Term Goals: (My turns)
Colony on iron near Entremont.
Harbor in Victoria
Try some leader fishing with the Ottomans
Build mines on plains around Missi. 3 total as suggested by Niklas
Build the Great Library
Universities!
War on America! Take Atlanta and San Fran, then follow CF's war plan
Continue unit builds and ship them off to the New World
MM tips outlined by CF and Niklas
Research: Education in 1 turn, then Astronomy and Gunpowder, switching then to Chemistry


Questions: should I go ahead and gift Sing Sing? Might as well do it now to reduce the corruption in the RCP 10 towns.

And speaking of RCP... won't the cities on the new continent be unaffected by RCP? I thought that cities around the Forbidden Palace didn't get any benefit from RCP.

And what kind of ratio of MI's and horses should I build? I feel we should build both but you guys may have different ideas about that?

Regarding Berserks: I think the next couple of turnsets we really need to build units we plan to put into use right away. I think the earliest we would want to use Berserks is the beginning of the IA... which of course is not very far away. Ideally we want to have our new core ready to go when we trigger our GA, but that might not work out timing wise. Our GA could be used
A) early for temples, cathedrals and universities, and units to take the Spanish homeland,
B) later for factories, a coal plant or 2, maybe even the iron works if we have resources in a suitable place, and the IA wonders, or
C) much later for speedy research in the late IA or early Modern Times.

Oh, and welcome back, Zyxy!!

 

[CommandoBob]

Edit to avoid spamarama:

Avoid spamarama? I thought we embraced it!

And what kind of ratio of MI's and horses should I build? I feel we should build both but you guys may have different ideas about that?

How many Conquistadors have been sighted? As I recall, they need Astronomy before they can be built. They cost 70 gold, replace Explorers and require horses. Their stats are 3/2/2 and they treat all terrain as if it were roaded.

Fighting America, I thinks maces will do just fine. Fighting Spain, maces will work almost as well, but we would need some horses for scouting and attacking weaken Conquistadors (so that they can not run away).

On the shipping chain, I would fill our boats with maces the first two to three times, and then a boat of horses once every two to three times after that. So I guess I think 1 horse for every 3 or 4 maces, roughly about 20% to 25% of our invasion force.

Our GA could be used
A) early for temples, cathedrals and universities, and units to take the Spanish homeland,
B) later for factories, a coal plant or 2, maybe even the iron works if we have resources in a suitable place, and the IA wonders, or
C) much later for speedy research in the late IA or early Modern Times.

I prefer option B and for mostly one reason: faster building time on wonders. Theory of Evolution and Hoover Dam are the IA Biggies for us, plus we could pick up any MA wonder that we missed and wanted (Smith's Trading Company comes to mind, as does Magellan's Voyage.)

 

[Niklas]

You go ahead and play, we'll let AlanH have his way with the save after you're done.

You can gift SingSing if you like, unless it becomes a capitol it won't start amassing culture.

You're right about the RCP around FP to some extent. It's not Ring CP, it's Disk CP, so we don't have to be strict about where to put towns. But towns outside RCP 5 will suffer increased corruption, so it's not completely irrelevant.

I would like to see more maces. I'm still hoping we won't have to use knights/cavs for the Spanish campaign, and without the upgrade perspective it makes more sense IMO to build maces. We should have horses as well though, for the higher speed and the ability to retreat. So my vote would be a mix, with the emphasis on maces.

About Zentral and HotB, do as you see fit. The next major thing we'll want is factory (or possibly bank) which is many turns ahead still, so I'm sure a few units wouldn't hurt.

Regarding the berserks, as I said earlier I'd like to use them against Spain. Depending on Isa's research strategy, we might even delay our attack somewhat in order to delay the GA. This would be if she doesn't go straight for Gunpowder, which unfortunately seems the likely path. I agree that we would like a second core before starting it though, and once we hit Spain we'll be going at really negative gpt, so a later GA might be more important than I care to admit...
Don't build berserks yet, and we can have this discussion in full after your turnset.

 

[WarDance]

First turn is done... well actually the preflight MM'ing for education in 1 is done. Hit the button and watched things go. Now we've got Astronomy in 4 with the slider at 70% at -31gpt. Ouch. Pushing the entertainment slider to 0% gives us +19gpt. So perhaps some specialists are in order. I'll see if I can drop research to 60% and reach 4 turns with scientists and MM. But that will be later as I'm going to bed.

 

[Niklas]

We still have the option of selling something (Republic?) to Spain for 39 gpt (at least it was 39 last turn). We probably won't go after Spain before 20 turns anyway, and if we do...

Regarding the 70%, even if you can't get it to 4 turns with 60% it's likely that you could run at 70% for 1 turn and then 60% for the remainder. CAII says the cost of Astro is 1193 beakers, meaning 374 bpt on average over the next 4 turns. At 70% (350 AD save, no tweaking) we make 409 bpt,and at 60% it's 351 bpt, so clearly it's closer to 60% than 70% even without any tweaking. The library in on turn 3 will also help, giving some extra 9 bpt. I'm sure it will be fine.

 

[ControlFreak]

My preference would be no more than 50% Maces. Our entire strategy is based on getting a leader and units that retreat with the Military Trait are much better at getting leaders. The reason is that a unit can lose the battle but not die. That gives a veteran more chances at promoting and an elite more chances at getting a leader. This coupled with the fact that you can build 4 horses for every Medi, I think you want more horses. Thinking about it in stacks of 6 (my minimum attack force for a town with two spears) I would want 1-2 Maces and 4-5 horses. The Maces knock down the really nasty defender, e.g. a veteran spear or pike, the then horses take on what's left. If the remaining defender is still a tough one, I expect the first couple of horses to retreat or die but the others will usually prevail. This will work with Spain too but we'll need larger stacks (10 horses?).

Another thing I do is estimate which type of unit will waste fewer sheilds. We're getting to a static point in terms of improvements. To reduce my MM headaches, I try to get towns to a nice 10 or 20 spt. 15spt can also work well. Here's an analysis of the most economical build options. I don't strictly build by what's most economical but given a choice, I favor the unit that will waste the least number of shields:


I'm torn about Sing Sing. The corruption is a good argument to give it away now. But there is a list of reasons to hold onto it also:

• It delays the build of Celts "cheap" temple.
• It would steal a desert mine from Missismurki that is currently useable until enough plains are mined.
• It gives the elite horse by Gergovia some chances at getting a leader if the Celts come out with an archer. (Of course, if you settle for peace, he could go join the war on the Americans.)
• Making peace with the Celts reduces their cost of getting peace with Spain. If Gergovia is drawing units away from our new core, then I would rather not have Spain and the Celts settle for peace (even though I doubt the Celts could afford a peace deal with Spain at the moment).

OMT, there are two barrack builds going on the New Continent. We should consider rushing them because we have so few units up North. I'd rather be able to heal in one turn. If we want to rush some defenders. Spears are relatively cheap and can be upgraded to pikes soon, muskets later. That will be a great help against Spain and would also free the horses to leader fish.

 

[WarDance]

Making peace with the Celts reduces their cost of getting peace with Spain. If Gergovia is drawing units away from our new core, then I would rather not have Spain and the Celts settle for peace (even though I doubt the Celts could afford a peace deal with Spain at the moment)

I'm confused by this. Aren't the Celts and Spain allied against America?
That elite horse could go down to Richborough to assist as there are only 2 wounded horses there for defense. The surrounding area was an active spot for skirmishes between Spain and America on the IBT.

Edit: I checked the last turnlog and they aren't allied, but Spain and Celts have a peace deal.

Edit again: I'm tempted to sell Republic to Spain right before we declare on America, and sell it to America too and see if they revolt Would be cool to have them in anarchy for a couple turns while we whack them. On second thought, since Spain is at war with America they won't trade Republic to them. So sell Republic to Spain now to suck their gpt, and then sell it to America the turn before we attack.

 

[ControlFreak]

You're absolutely right, I forgot that Spain was no longer at war with the Celts.

So rethinking my previous list:

• Delayed "cheap" temple probably not a big deal as it's not the first build for Sing Sing anyway.
• Desert mine from Missismurki isn't necessary and will be obsoleted as the plains get mined.
• The elite horse can get chances at a leader by heading south.
• Spain is not at war with Celts

That pretty much settles it that Sing Sing should go now.

We should keep an eye on it though as the Celts may include Sing Sing in a peace deal with the Americans. It's a size 1 town with worthless tiles (I hope it's not our only supply of saltpeter ) If it does change hands, the Celts should be gifted another prison town as Spain is known to ROP rape and has the units to take out Gergovia which would be a productive town for them being so close to their homeland.

I agree with Republic to Spain, and to America before the war. I doubt they'll revolt since they are at war with Spain, but it's a great idea and would be to our advantage if they do revolt. Spain being religious would switch and we could benefit from the higher gpt they get.