SGOTM 9 - Smurkz

[Niklas]

WarDance, sounds like you're doing great!
How about that turnlog then?

AlanH's comments sure are interesting, and it means we can stop worrying so much about Gandhi. I wish we wouldn't have to wait until MT though, but I guess that's doable. The fact that we can give away one town of our own choosing means that we know at least one town that will retain all the nice buildings like factory and powerplant.

Another thing that bothers me though, if India is indeed not expanding, what is it doing? Building units probably, in anticipation of our invasion. I have a disturbing vision of India building unit after unit up to the free upkeep limit, then continuing for as long as they have commerce to pay for the upkeep, which will strand them at 0 research. If that's the case, it more or less means we are forced to go for the Great Library, how could India ever keep up in tech with no income or research? I hate being forced into a strategy we didn't choose ourselves.

Renata's comment makes me wonder, recall in SGOTM 7 they split the classic award into two because the AIs in Vanilla built far less units even when at war. It might be the same thing here, with the Vanilla teams seeing regular incursions from India while our incarnation of Gandhi sits hiding on his rock.

 

[zyxy]

I'll try to run some test tomorrow to figure out what's happening in India.

Second the comment on the turnlog. Satisfy our curiosity!

 

[ControlFreak]

The fact that we can give away one town of our own choosing means that we know at least one town that will retain all the nice buildings like factory and powerplant.

Another thing that bothers me though, if India is indeed not expanding, what is it doing? Building units probably, in anticipation of our invasion. I have a disturbing vision of India building unit after unit up to the free upkeep limit, then continuing for as long as they have commerce to pay for the upkeep, which will strand them at 0 research. If that's the case, it more or less means we are forced to go for the Great Library, how could India ever keep up in tech with no income or research? I hate being forced into a strategy we didn't choose ourselves.

If we get another leader, I would definitely build the Great Library in the south, just in case. Should we start wasting the shields in Grad now trying to build the wonder? I fear the cascade is coming from the other continent soon and the Library isn't possible without a leader at this point.

Without currency or construction it's not like India is building an aquaduct or a market so I suspect they are just building a bunch of units. Or have already built a bunch of units and are stuck beneath their weight. To help alleviate their burden, we could plan to cull their stack using Berserks. It would have to wait until we want to trigger our GA, but it might be helpful in getting them to build the one galley they need.

Nobody mentioned anything about moving the Mongols to the mountain atoll. Is it a bad idea or did people miss my question in the string of posts? (Or did I miss your response?)

EDIT: May the World FEAR the vikings who are now safe at SEA! Let's get to invention! (After Education of course.)

 

[WarDance]

Man oh man was I miserably sick last night. It's been a long time since I've felt like that. Anyway I just have 3 turns to go and of course I meant to do it last night... will finish and post today.

 

[ControlFreak]

Hope you're feeling better. Have fun mopping up.

 

[WarDance]

Finished. We've met the rest of the world. They all have monarchy but are down a couple techs each. Uskudar is razed so we are ready to make peace with Ottomans and Carthage. India is still just sitting out on their rock fishing, dreaming of a grand rocket ship that they will never build unless they "get up, get out and get something. How will you make it if you never even try?"

The save here
Log to follow

Turn 0) 150 BC: MM for food per CF's suggestions. Victoria switches to library.

Move warriors south. Some settler and worker moves. Set Niklas' battle plan in motion for
Carthage. Hire a taxman in Smurkzentral instead of entertainer.

IBT: chop complete at Smurkzgrad

Turn 1) 130 BC: Galley finds sea by Theveste but no coast. Worker moves, etc.

Forces move on Edrine.

IBT: Settlers moving around in Ottoman lands far north. Otto galley moving by
Mongol island. Ottos found town on Mongol island.

Turn 2) 110 BC: Battle for Edrine: e.sword vs r.spear wins, now 3/5
v.sword vs r.spear loses, spear 1/3
r.sword vs r.spear wins, now 1/3
e.horse vs 1/3 spear wins, taking the town and 3 workers. Note: I keep Edrine because I'm
not sure what the plan is with this town. We can abandon it later if we decide to.

e.horse vs v.horse wins flawlessly.

Forces move in on Carthage

IBT: Spain builds the Collosus. Oh, well. Was hoping we'd get a leader and be able
to build it in City of Sages. This is one of the latest Collosus builds I've ever seen, by
the way. Chop at Kalmurkz completes, rushing a worker of all things! Didn't notice that
was what would be rushed.

Turn 3) 90 BC: Battle for Carthage: Catapults: 1 reduces pop to size 3,
other 3 miss. Notes here are sketchy but I think this is what happened.
v.sword vs r.numid wins, now 3/5
v.sword vs r.numid loses, numid 2/3
v.sword vs r.numid dies flawlessly
v.sword vs r.numid dies, numid 2/3
v.horse retreats from 2/3 numid, now 1/3
v.horse kills 2/3 numid
e.horse dies to 2/3 numid
e.horse retreats doing no damage
v.archer kills 2/3 numid
1/3 numid remains but I have no attackers left. I forgot to move the 3/4 sword from the
hill so that Carthage could take our bait If I had remembered there probably have been
one less defender which would mean we would have taken the city. Was a good plan, Niklas.
Leave it to me to mess it up.

Missi has grown and is rioting so it gets a taxman. Either that or WW is affecting it.

IBT: Bugger! I miskeyed a galley last turn and it sinks. r.archer rushes out from
Istanbul and attacks stack. e.sword defends and wins going to 4/5.

Turn 4) 70 BC: Carthage, round 2: 3/4 sword dies to 3/4 numid
3/5 sword kills the numid and takes the town.

Worker moves, settler moves, etc.

IBT: We become a Republic!

Turn 5) 50 BC: Albasmurkz is short 1 food but has a full granary, and Smurkzfood
will build a worker next turn freeing up 1 tile.

Entertainment to 20%. Research to 0%. +117gpt after MM. Cash rush library in Sages for
284.

San Ansmurkzio founded w/nw of Leptis Minor.

IBT: Resistance in Carthage ends. Karakorum builds worker-->settler(disband for settler)
Kazan: worker-->settler (will disband for settler)
Smurkzfood: worker-->worker
Leptis minor: worker-->settler(disband)
City for Sages library-->courthouse (prebuild for market?)

Turn 6) 30 BC: Battle for Istanbul: 4/5 sword vs v.spear wins flawlessly
e.horse dies to r.spear after doing 1 damage
v.sword kills 2/3 spear. Weird. Now there is another r.spear there. Shouldn't the 2/3
spear have dropped in the queue? Am I even spelling that word right? Maybe my notes are
wrong. I was starting to feel bad at this time so that might be it.
v.horse vs r.spear dies flawlessly, leaving 4/4 spear.
e.horse kills v.spear, horse now 2/5
v.horse kills v.archer. 1/3 spear remains

IBT: Smurkzgrad:horse-->horse
Deer: worker-->worker

Turn 7) 10 BC: Istanbul again: 4/5 sword kills r.spear and we take Istanbul,
the Lighthouse and 4 workers.

Battle for Sabratha: v.sword vs r.numid: sword wins, now 3/5
v.sword vs r.numid, sword wins and Sabratha is taken. Again, I kept this town because I
didn't know the plan. Pumps our territory graph up and will keep anyone from settling there
for the time being anyway.

Smurkastle founded west by the ivory.

IBT: 'adelphia: horse-->library
vladivo' grew to size 2 but is not connected... riots.
palace expands
Karakorum builds worker and is now down to size 2. Set it to 0 food for disband.
'food: worker-->library
Ol Smurkz River: horse--> library
Olive: horse-->library

Turn 8) 10 AD:Galley finds coast off in the West. Blue border there.

IBT: Missismurkz riots. It either just grew and I didn't notice or it has WW. They get a taxman.

Turn 9) 30 AD: Smurkzala founded 2 se of Carthage. Smurkzland founded. Move forces
on Uskudar.

Meet Spain. They have Monarchy and know the Celts and the Americans. They are missing
philos, math, and lit. Trade philos for contact with the Celts and 25 coins.

Meet the Celts. They have monarchy but are missing code, math, philos, lit, and map. Trade
map making and philos for 12 gold +American contact.

Meet America. They have monarchy too but are missing math and philos. Trade math for world
map, 4 gold and 3 gpt.

IBT: HotBeard: library-->courthouse (prebuild for market?)

Turn 10) 50 AD: Steinsmurkz founded nw of Edrine. By my calculations it's distance
10 from the palace.

Battle for Uskudar: e.sword vs r.spear: spear wins and is 3/4
e.sword kils 3/4 spear and is left 4/5.
e.horse retreat from r.spear who is now 2/4.
e.horse kills 2/4 spear and we raze Uskudar to relieve cultural pressure on IStanbul. We capture 1 worker.

Let me get a screenshot or 2 to post

 

[Niklas]

Gee, it was looking great until turn 9!!

India has Maths, Philo and MM. What techs did you just trade the off-shore civs?

Oh well, the Celts still don't have Maths, and the contacts and WMs should be worth quite a lot. Let's hope that will be enough for the time being...

 

[WarDance]

Gee, it was looking great until turn 9!!

India has Maths, Philo and MM. What techs did you just trade the off-shore civs?

Oh well, the Celts still don't have Maths, and the contacts and WMs should be worth quite a lot. Let's hope that will be enough for the time being...

Jeez, I really fouled that up.

I'm lucky though. I went back to the 30 AD save and bought contacts for cash and traded Indian contact. India ends up 2 techs behind... Republic and construction. Of course currency too but we don't even have that yet.

This is the same situation we are in now. I didn't check civassist2 on the last turn. Now in 50 ad somehow Carthage (or one of the other) has met the other civs and sold contacts! India is 2 techs behind... Republic and construction, and of course curency.

Edit: Carthage will give currency, monarchy and 71 gold for peace. Maybe the Ottomans will give up their free tech for peace? I hope so. Then maybe Wardance will be forgiven his idiocy.

EDIT: Disregard the completely flawed info I've posted here. I was indeed looking at the wrong save.
Wardance, the village idiot is very very sorry.

 

[Niklas]

Yes, that was stupid. Hope you've learnt something from it, "Wise men say...".
But don't blame yourself too much, we'll get nowhere by that. Better start thinking how to remedy the situation.
And with the way the AI's trade, it's not even clear that India would have been better off with more to trade.

This is the same situation we are in now. I didn't check civassist2 on the last turn. Now in 50 ad somehow Carthage has met the other civs and sold contacts! India is 2 techs behind... Republic and construction, and of course curency.

Huh? Where do you read this from? In the save that you uploaded to the server at 50 AD, Carthage hasn't met anyone, and India is way behind still. Did you perchance look at the 50 AD from your test game?

EDIT: Monarchy? Now I'm sure you're looking at the wrong save!
EDIT2: Forgiveness? Gee, I've forgiven you already. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes though...

 

[zyxy]

Excellent! These are exciting times we live in.

I am not so sure the trades were bad. If India insists on staying OCC, then we cannot hope they will stay up in tech through the Middle and Industrial Ages anyway. This means the GLib may be our best bet, and in this case we want to keep India back and without contacts. Unfortunately there are some prebuilds going on, and Spain and America have Lit. We may have a good chance though, as Entremont and Frisco are small, and Madrid is the only serious contestant (so it will probably get HG). 'grad would be a good city, it can easily do 14-15 spt. An embassy with Celts will show how far they are, and we could investigate Frisco as well. I think we should do this, so that we can draw our plan: either try to keep India in the tech race as good as possible, or keep her back as much as possible and use the GLib slingshot.

If India OCC's because it's at max free unit support, then berserks may be able to help. It's tricky though, we don't want to kill the last defender...

Spain has Gems and Furs, America and Celts have Wines and Wool, complementing the 5 luxes we have already. The Spanish island is small and our next FP core is best placed on Celrica. Luxes in Spain can all be grabbed by Barcelona, so we'll want this city, but this leaves enough space for 6 cages I think. For caging it would also be nice to see where those patches of sea are going. Could be red herrings of course.

Btw, Mapstat will warn about riots, but not always if they are due to WW (because that may accumulate during the turn).

 

[Niklas]

Thinking some more on it, I don't think the trades were bad even if we want India to keep up.

As an OCC, there's no way we can trust Gandhi to keep up in tech for any longer period of time. So there's no point in making him the tech leader, he wouldn't be able to make use of that situation. And if that's not the goal, then clearly we should make sure that Gandhi gets the most bang for the buck.

The contacts and WMs will be tradable as a monopoly whenever, so the best deal for India is of course to buy as much as possible for those monopolies. That means techs should be as cheap as possible, which in turn means we should gift everything around (possibly leaving some minor gaps) to everyone and let India buy all the techs at 7/8 of their original price.

So WarDance, my appologies for making you feel bad (though that was a bit rash ), maybe those trades will be all for the better in the end.

 

[WarDance]

Yes, that was stupid. Hope you've learnt something from it, "Wise men say...".
But don't blame yourself too much, we'll get nowhere by that. Better start thinking how to remedy the situation.
And with the way the AI's trade, it's not even clear that India would have been better off with more to trade.

Huh? Where do you read this from? In the save that you uploaded to the server at 50 AD, Carthage hasn't met anyone, and India is way behind still. Did you perchance look at the 50 AD from your test game?

EDIT: Monarchy? Now I'm sure you're looking at the wrong save!
EDIT2: Forgiveness? Gee, I've forgiven you already. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes though...

Jeez, I am looking at the wrong save! I went to 30AD to see what would have happened... and then I loaded the 50AD autosave and of course it was not the same as my final 50ad save. Now I really need to take a couple tylenol and go back to bed before I cause more trouble.

 

[zyxy]

Some thoughts on how to continue:

We can make peace with Carthage and Ottomans for Currency and gold and WM, unfortunately we cannot get the Ottoman city. Gift Ottomans up to MA (but not Republic or Lit, of course). If they get Monotheism, research Engineering and then trade for Mono (possibly using Republic + Eng, or so). If they do not get Monotheism, then research that. In both cases continue towards Education. AI will hopefully do Feudalism for us, so we can skip that tech for now.

Our infrastructure is well under way. Sages and Missi are nicely groomed for wonder cities and can start prebuilds soon, perhaps right after markets and a harbor in Sages. Sages could use some forest chops to speed the market and harbor, so we need more workers here. Forests on roaded tiles can stay for now, but to maximize commerce the unroaded forests either need a road, or a chop+road+improvement. Sages can go to +5 food by using oysters (and +6 on the first turn). Plains need to be mined around here: the city center, 2 oysters and sheep produce 8 surplus food (with harbor), so we can use 8 mined or forested plains at size 11. There are 2 roaded forests and 4 unroaded, so 2 irrigated plains need to be mined (after reaching size 11).

At Missi the city center, floodplains and lamb produce 8 surplus food, so it can use 2 hills and 6 mined plains as well (at size 11) - meaning the coastal plains, the one currently being irrigated and the one under Karakorum should be mined. Then one more plains can be mined once size 11 is reached.

Btw, 5 luxes + market = 9 happy faces, so size 11 (EDITED: wrongly said 10 before) is possible without lux tax. Probably 10% tax for size 11 (EDIT2: so this should be 12 ), with some room to spare for a little WW.

Istanbul is a risky flipper and perhaps needs to rush some culture. If I understand CF's analysis correctly then Karakorum and Leptis could both do a worker before settler which seems like a good idea.

If we want to build the GLib for India, then 'grad seems the best spot. It can already do 11 spt, and in about 6 turns we can get this up to 15 spt (finish the incense mine and the forest chop, mine two plains and use the cow to make up the food deficit). It can go even higher if we mine a mountain (EDIT: or let it grow), but that will take time. With 36 shields in the bin, we're looking at ~25 turns for the GLib.

Future wars: we have 10 horse, 10 swords, and 7 cats, and it looks like they are still usable. We need some forces behind for defense, but I think it's safe to send all swords, half the horses and some (perhaps half) the cats across the water. From the F8 screen it looks like Spain is the strongest, so they might help a bit with research - hopefully their strong culture isn't just cheap temples - and we may want to let them be for now. Both America and Celts are weak and have two luxes. They are about equally valid and valuable targets I think, and 10 swords + 5 horses + 5 cats + some settlers + perhaps a small second wave should be able to make a serious dent in either. If there is a safe sea passage from Theveste to Washington then it makes sense to do America first, otherwise the Celts are easier to reach, sailing past Spain (or perhaps we can find a passage through the east?).
Objective would be to knock out Celts and Americans, grab 2 more luxes, and establish a future FP area, for now this would be a science farm. Unfortunately luxes would not be useful until Navigation or Magnetism. But at least early war is easier than late war, and has less WW usually.

 

[Niklas]

I must agree with zyxy's earlier statement: These are exciting times to live in!

Our research potential is staggering. We can almost get Mono in 4 turns now - at 70% research! And that's before we've built a single library!

Right now we'd be doing 310 bpt at 100% research. Probably need 10% lux for a while though, which means a max of 283 bpt. At other % rates we'd get, at this instance:

70%: 227*4 = 908, almost enough for Mono or Eng.
80%: 258*4 = 1032, almost enough for Theo.
90%: 283*4 = 1132, almost enough for Edu or Inv.
100%: 310*4 = 1240, almost enough for GP.

Most expensive techs of the MA are ToG and Mag, require 1813 beakers, which means 454 bpt for 4 turns. Should be more than doable with libraries. We have 1669 gp in the treasury, that should sustain our research at negative gpt throughout the MA surely.

My assessment is that we have already more than enough science potential to research Mono (or Eng) - Theo - Edu in 4 turns each right where we are now, so we could safely let a few towns get markets before libraries. In particular this goes for Zentral and Missi that can finish their markets fairly fast. Cabana is a bit of a pain, it builds far too slowly. We need to mine those incense tiles, and some more desert tiles as well possibly, it can easily sustain itself from the flood plains. I agree with zyxy's plans for mining elsewhere, and I think Zentral could use a few mined plains as well.

Regarding town sizes, this is Monarch so we have two free happy faces, plus the 9 from luxes + markets makes 11, isn't that enough to sustain towns at size 11 with 0% lux? Possibly we could let them grow to 12 as well at 10% lux, but unless we're suffering some WW too that would definitely not repay itself.

For the next 20 turns, our current economy can (just about) manage research in 4 turns at 90% or lower, leaving 10% for lux. That means Mono, Theo, Edu, Eng, Feu, Inv where one is gotten via the Ottos. Right now we couldn't get 4 turn research for GP at any less than 100%, so before 20 turns from now we need a bunch of libraries, markets for lower lux rate, and/or larger towns. After GP, costs are rising rapidly, so the increase in research capacity is fairly urgent if we want to keep up 4-turn research, which we are more or less forced to do if we want a chance to catch up with the other PtW/Vanilla teams who are presumably quite some ways into the MA by our current date.

Might be back with some MM notes later. I have a slight problem though, by computer is acting weird and has started making strange noices. I can't start windows on it except in failsafe mode, so right now I'm working on my laptop connected to the internet via the ordinary computer operating failsafe. That's not something I can keep up (and those noices are signals of disaster) so I might have some unexpected downtime in the following days.

 

[Niklas]

Roster:

• WarDance - Just Played
• CommandoBob - UP!
• Methos - On Deck!
• zyxy
• ControlFreak
• Niklas

 

[zyxy]

Did you switch Methos and CBob?

You're right about the happy faces, I counted only 1 free happy face, but we get 2 in Monarch.

 

[ControlFreak]

Boy, one day away from the forums and look at all the new posts!

Things are looking good. I'm particularly impressed with zyxy's analysis. I agree with everything (at least the editted post )

Not much else for me to add right now. I probably won't get a chance to look at the save until Monday so I'll be a little quiet for a few days.

Way to go Team!

 

[WarDance]

Question: is there a difference in unit support between size 11 and size 12 cities? Or does it come with size 13?

As for city size might we have a slight advantage in letting them grow all the way to 12 and using the 12th citizen as a specialist? Maybe this wouldn't be ideal everywhere but maybe with any cities that have extra food.

As for mining plains I obviously am locked into the "mine the green, water the brown" mindset. I was going for rapid growth but now some cities are growing way too fast and don't have enough production, like Zentral and Missi. Good to point that out, Zyxy.

Should we cash rush a market in Missi to get started on Chapel prebuild? Or would that be too much of a dent in our surplus that we'll be needing to fuel research?

There are barbarians on the ring and uprisings are imminent. I moved some units south from Sabratha to head toward the western side of the ring and it would probably be safe to move some of our units in the southeast to that side of the ring. Probably best to just fortify on a mountain and let the barbs come.

We need just a few more settlers to finish off colonizing our continent. I should have built a couple in hindsight. We should probably go ahead and settle the ring and maybe even gift one of the towns to the Mongols as CF suggested. I imagine in 10-20 turns we can have the continent filled.

I agree with Zyxy in future war plans. The forces we have could be used against either America or the Celts, grabbing a few towns in the first wave. Make peace with Civ A and then attack Civ B, possibly with reinforcements. Bring more forces over and then go after Civ A again... we could wait the 20 turns from the peace agreement or not, it might not matter. We should plan to completely cripple Civ A the second go around. Then do the same for Civ B. I haven't lloked at the map enough to plan good landing sites.

I agree with the idea of Spain being a good research/trade partner, but we may want to look at knocking out a key wonder building city if it looks like we might miss the Great Library.

 

[zyxy]

I ran a test to see why India does not build ships. In the test, the Indian start is roughly equal to the one in SGOTM9. I play the Zulu (same traits as Vikings), and their start is somewhat better than the one in SGOTM9. I modded the rules a bit so that I can easily monitor and manipulate India, but nothing that should affect the outcome of the test.

Zulu and India start at peace, I research to MapMaking an gift it to India. From there I try several things: go to war, stay at peace, disband my entire military, abandon a town to make room for Indian expansion. I regularly investigate Delhi. It doesn't seem to make any difference what I do, India will not build naval units, in fact she will not build anything but land based military. No workers or settlers, no improvements or wonders (harbor, granary, temple, and several wonders are available to her). Occasionally the buildqueue was set to wealth it seems, perhaps just for a single turn, to avoid a deficit.

India spends at least 30% of her budget on science (and more if the treasury doesn't go negative). The minimum is perhaps for despotism only. This means a science output of 3 bpt in the test, perhaps a little more in the actual game as there are additional bonus tiles, but in any case it is very little, and not enough to research Middle Ages techs faster than min speed.

India built units even if she could not support them, maxing out at 17 units in the test, reached somewhere around 1250BC IIRC. Some warriors were auto-disbanded (or so it seems) everytime she reached 18. Free upkeep is 9 units, btw: 4 per city in despotism, and Monarch level gives an extra 4 for free, plus 1 per settlement.

The typical view of Delhi:

 

[WarDance]

An interesting test for sure! I wonder if a civ's traits have anything to do with their build queue, thought that would probably have more impact in a C3C game where you have the seafaring trait. But even then India is commercial and religious...

Edit: Is there any chance at all that a city close to Delhi could flip? I know we were worried about it before but now I'm wondering if we could LET it happen. BUT, if we allowed India to get a "leg up" in this manner would it really help our finish date? If we are going to build the Great Library for them in the south lands for them to get up to speed then is it better to just let them remain on the island? Well now I'm just thinking out loud...