SGOTM2 Germany - Team scout

[Tallanas]

Can't check the save right now, but does Cathy have rubber and oil for Mech Inf?

 

[scoutsout]

She's got Infantry, which means she's got Rubber. IIRC (not sure) she has one oil that isn't connected (yet).

The thing that I'm most worried about is my last turn. I don't recall if I hit that F1 before the thing went through its autosave routine... I hope I at least got the autosave.

Note to Mistfit: Stacks of 6 native workers seem to do a nice job in the jungle.... I will try to organize the workers into groups of 3 or 6 for you. (I think I still have a few 'spares' out there...)

 

[Mistfit]

Can you recall what techs are needed for getting us into the Modern Era?

 

[scoutsout]

Can you recall what techs are needed for getting us into the Modern Era?

We're working on Mass Production->Motorized Transportation. Add Flight to that, and we're Modern.

We are on a hard burn to endgame.

 

[Tallanas]

Autosave is the first thing it does. So unless you crashed during the IBT, you will have at most to go back and do your last turn again.

What is it with this game, anyway? It's just crash-happy...

 

[Tallanas]

Speaking of hard burn to endgame, it's apparent that it's very unlikely the game will go round again!

This must be how a member of a relay team feels, knowing he's passed on the baton and can't do anything else to help the team except cheer!

 

[Mistfit]

Ok - with out seeing the save the plan for my turns looks like:

1.) burn through the final Industrial era Techs MP->MT->hopefully buy Flight from Russia set queue to computers.
2.) No more gifting techs - I believe Russia will be doing the selling of these as soon as she can. So we may have everyone in the MA the turn after we gift it to Russia.
3.) Prep Cologne to be gifted - tile improvements - culture improvements
4.) once we get MT build panzers like crazy
5.) Stop spending cash - build war chest
6.) no more per turn deals with Russia - leave current lux deal alone until we war
Scout I think that you are underestimating the remaining time for this game - remember Russia still has to Build a 1000 shield wonder.

Questions:
1.) why are we planing to build Manhatten Project? So Russia can build nukes for when we attack her?
2.) when do we do our gifting of cologne?

 

[Tallanas]

1) I have never used nukes in a civ game! I can only assume it's a Bad Thing, and so question the sanity of building the MP

2) Would gifting Cologne (i.e. empty build queue) and Fission at the same time be a good idea?

 

[Northern Pike]

@NP, would you rather I went ahead and posted the save tonight, and let you and Mistfit start working on setup/endgame?

There's no need to post until you've tied up all the loose ends, both in game terms and technically.

We've certainly reached the point at which we have to plan and discuss everything very carefully--but I agree with Mistfit that some of you gentlemen may be underestimating the number of turns left in the game. Even if everything goes perfectly, it will probably take the Russians 15-20 turns to get the UN built, and after we capture it it may be another ten turns or so before we're allowed a vote (here I follow Mistfit, the only member of the team to have expressed an opinion--does anyone else have anything to say about this?)

Mistfit, we would build the MP simply to remove it as a Wonder option for the Russians, so that we could more easily manipulate their UN build. As long as only the Russians are in the Modern Age, I don't think we much need to fear a nuclear war. They don't have a lot of territory and they may not even have uranium.

It seems to me that giving the Russians Cologne only when we give them Fission would allow us the most control over their UN build. Does anybody see a downside here? [Cross-post with Tallanas. ]

 

[Tallanas]

I take your point, both in terms of time left (wouldn't it be fitting if Team Scout's final turns were played out by Scout ) and the MP build. I hadn't thought of the AI being daft enough to build MP over the UN...

And like you say, maybe they won't have Uranium... :weneedafingerscrossedsmiley:

 

[Northern Pike]

My first double post in this thread, I think. [Edit: No, saved by Tallanas. ]

It won't matter much if Cathy has mech inf units, provided we have plenty of artillery to soften them up for our Panzers. So we should continue steadily building up our artillery force.

 

[Mistfit]

Since the number of turns has not been extremely regular in this SG my thought was I could play until the turn before we get fission, stop post the save so we can have a discusion on our next moves.

 

[Northern Pike]

That sounds wise.

 

[Tallanas]

My first double post in this thread, I think. [Edit: No, saved by Tallanas. ]

It won't matter much if Cathy has mech inf units, provided we have plenty of artillery to soften them up for our Panzers. So we should continue steadily building up our artillery force.

True enough. As long as we have plenty of Mech Inf to repel the inevitable counter-attack, I'm happy.

Since the number of turns has not been extremely regular in this SG my thought was I could play until the turn before we get fission, stop post the save so we can have a discusion on our next moves.

Sounds sensible. If that's only 8 turns or so, then why not go back and finish off afterwards, after all there's nothing wrong with stopping half way through your turns and asking team advice...

 

[scoutsout]

Turn 13 (1380)

Look for a few cities with fresh Infantry queues
Brandenburg, Konigsberg, Frankfurt, Munich, and Bremen are switched to Wealth... for just a couple of turns. Take science up to 70%, Mass Production in 3, -142gpt

I am almost finished with terrain improvements around Cologne.

Trade Balance

Russia: 25gpt for our Iron and Spices (standing), we are also giving 2gpt (10t remaining)
Important: Before declaring war on anybody, we must peacefully end all deals at the diplmatic table, then declare war, then move the troops in.
France: We are getting 10gpt for Spices and Incense (standing) a Furs for Incense deal has 7 turns remaining. We have 2gpt going to France for another 10 turns. (?)
England: We are sending her Saltpeter and Ivory for 7 more turns, 2gpt for 10 turns. (What was I thinking?
Japan: We are paying 50 gpt for wines, one turn left on the deal. We also have coal and spices to dicker with. We're also sending him 2gpt for 10 more turns.
India: 10 turns remaining on Dyes for Rubber.
China: 10 turns remaining on Rubber (for balance of power).

F3 Check - we are "Average" compared to France, strong compared to everyone else.

IBT - Berlin trains an infantryman, Leipzig starts a barracks, Heidleberg and Salzburg continue training Infantry.

Turn 14 (1385)

Russia, France, and India have all learned the secrets of Radio.

Taking the science slider down to 60% still gets us Mass Production in 2 turns, +2gpt.

Terrain improvements are generally completed around Cologne.

This looks like a very good point to stop, upload the save, and let the team have a look.

@Mistfit: This is pretty close to a beginning-of-turn save. Since Tokugawa didn't try to re-negotiate wines for 50gpt, you should be able to re-negotiate this deal on your turn. I would try taking the gpt off the table and offering coal and a lux.

@Team: The save is on the server now if you want to download it and have a look.

 

[Northern Pike]

Again, , Scout. Some thoughts:

1. Konigsberg should begin a palace pre-build for the Manhattan Project as soon as it completes its police station. We can easily slow down the build if it seems to be going too quickly, or even decline to build the MP when the moment comes, but to make up for a tardy start would be much harder.

2. Cologne might profit from a worker merge or two before we turn it over to the Russians.

3. BUT, a vital point we've been overlooking: culture-generating buildings, including the happiness structures, disappear when a city changes hands, even by gift. This makes the Cologne gambit rather less attractive, though it's still a strong option and we should continue preparing for it. (Perhaps Scout grasped this point, since he didn't start happiness buildings in Cologne--negligence or genius? )

4. It's unfortunate that we won't be able to research MoTrans--and Flight, unless we're lucky--at the four-turn rate without running an unacceptable deficit. We can address this problem by merging many of our 69 native workers, a good number of whom are now working on outer-ring jungle burns and other marginal projects. Loosely speaking, every worker merged into a good town should be worth 3 gpt, provided we pay attention to where the AI governors put their new citizens. So merging 30-40 of them might well move us back onto a five- or even four-turn research pace, while still leaving us with a reasonable labour force.

5. If we reach the MA, and then don't get Fission as our free tech, it'll be tempting to gift the Russians immediately into the MA to see what free tech they get. But I think we should resist the temptation, since it would probably mean relaxing our grip on the tech situation prematurely just to see the Russians get Rocketry.

6. Scout, I appreciate your foresight in saving the Intelligence Agency for a pre-build, but I think we ought to build it in one of our good cities. It's possible to imagine situations in which we'll want spies, and surely the two better pre-builds available (palace and BM) will be enough.

7. It wouldn't hurt to adjust our mix of military builds in the direction of more artillery. In vanilla, we can only assume that we'll get about one hit on a city's garrison per five artillery shots, so too much ain't enough, as they say in Texas .

8. Mad-bax/Karasu, if you're lurking: would it be permissible in this variant to use the UN as a pre-build, or can it never be started at all?

 

[mad-bax]

You can use the UN as a pre-build. Absolutely.

 

[Mistfit]

what are we using the un as a prebuild for? Manhaten project? Icbm's?

 

[Tallanas]

I second the Intelligence Agency idea - if the Cologne gambit doesn't work, we might need a few 007s before we are done...

 

[Northern Pike]

MB, thanks for the answer. Mistfit, I wasn't planning to pre-build anything in particular with the UN; I just wanted to clarify our options.