SGOTM4 - Team Bede

[Zakharov]

I have looked at the save and have come up with a new plan.

The Palace prebuild is already past the 200 shields required for a university, so we will be wasting shields switching to that. We know that we will get education and gunpowder next turn, so we have a choice of researching astronomy, music theory and chemistry.

J.S.Bach's costs 600 shields and gives 6 culture/turn.
Copernicus' costs 400 shields and gives 4 culture/turn.

I therefore propose switching research to astronomy and using the Palace prebuild to get Copernicus' Observatory. If the Palace is due to complete before we get astronomy, then switch forest tiles to sea tiles in Utica. Once we get astronomy, switch to CO and move back to the forest and hill tiles.

Then, set research to Music Theory so that it is done 2 turns after CO in Utica. When CO is complete, disband-rush the university with the MDIs in one turn. Then on the following turn when we get Music Theory, use the leader to rush Bach's.

edit: This should all take no more than about 15 turns, which is too little time for the AI to beat us to any wonders.

We can then follow the research path of banking > democracy > free artistry, for Shakespeare's Theatre (which we can prebuild for).

The reasons for this plan are because:
1) I do not want to waste the excess shields in Utica on a university.
2) Bach's is a more efficient use of a leader rush (600 shields).

What do you guys think?

 

[Zakharov]

Some more thoughts:

The granary in Leptis Minor should be sold, saving 1gpt in upkeep. All barracks should also be sold.

Hippo and LMOZ1 should switch to a granary prebuild, then switch to a university next turn. Hippo and Leptis Minor can also switch to universities next turn. We need the research boost and our military is large enough already.

I agree with loading some of our units into our cities to disband towards universities. We do not need quite that many units. The first ones to go should be the elite* units, as they cannot produce leaders.

We should not feel we should end wars for the sake of it. If our people remain happy, then we should wait until we can get a favourable peace treaty. However, I think we should make peace with Rome for 20 turns, then redeclare war.

Persia and India have horses to trade, but I don't think we need them. Our island is small enough to defend with slow units, and I would rather get gold for research out of those two nations.

@MOTH, I like how you have spread the workers across our territory. This will allow us to hook up any possible saltpeter resource asap.

 

[TimBentley]

What is the next big capital expense after Unis and is this more than 40 turns away?

I would think banks (in cities other than Utica) would be next. That should be less than 40 turns away.

I don't think we need Rome to have less cities, but we could take their workers and their money.

I like Zakharov's plan. If I'm not mistaken, disbanding 18 MDIs in Utica would be enough for the university in one turn.

 

[MOTH]

I would think banks (in cities other than Utica) would be next. That should be less than 40 turns away.

I like Zakharov's plan. If I'm not mistaken, disbanding 18 MDIs in Utica would be enough for the university in one turn.

I made a miscalculation in the break even point. I was talking about two MDIs being worth 20 shields and only costing 2 maintenance. They would actually cost 4 maintenance, so the break even point is 20 turns, not 40. The more expensive the unit the less critical the rounding loss and the longer until the break even point. How much are muskets anyway? We should probably start building them for future disbands instead (assuming we get Saltpeter).

 

[TimBentley]

I made a miscalculation in the break even point. I was talking about two MDIs being worth 20 shields and only costing 2 maintenance. They would actually cost 4 maintenance, so the break even point is 20 turns, not 40. The more expensive the unit the less critical the rounding loss and the longer until the break even point. How much are muskets anyway? We should probably start building them for future disbands instead (assuming we get Saltpeter).

Musketmen cost 60 shields (easily produced in 3 turns in LMOZ1 and Theveste, at least; haven't examined the spt of other cities). Banking probably can be obtained in more than 20 turns, but less than 30 turns. Also, the impact of the different build (ie wealth) has not been evaluated for your break even point. I may or may not consider this further later.

 

[TimBentley]

Okay, I've looked at the save and here are some thoughts:

Leptis Minor's laborers should be placed on the river when it is not building an improvement, since it already has more shields than it needs.

With one additional luxury, every citizen would be happy with the luxury slider turned off (until the discovery of steam power).

Now for some additional analysis of the break even point described by MOTH, assuming we can obtain saltpeter. I'll start with LMOZ1, since it's the easiest. A musketman can be built in 3 turns, or LMOZ1 can build wealth gaining 6 gold. The musketman can be disbanded for 15 shields, saving 60 gold. Therefore, if the musketman waits longer than 27 turns, wealth would be the more cost-efficient method.

Theveste would lose 6 possible gold by making 3-turn muskets rather than wealth (via laborer reallocation), so the break even point would be 24 turns.

Leptis Minor can get 9 gold from wealth in 3 turns, so the break even point would be 25.5 turns.

Hippo cannot currently build 3-turn muskets, but can get 2 gold from wealth. Currently, the break even point would be 26 turns. Once the hill is mined, I believe 3 gold could be lost making 3-turn muskets compared to weath, making the break even point 25.5 turns. Something doesn't seem right with these numbers.

I'm not sure what to conclude from this, but production directly to the improvement itself is obviously best.

 

[fbouthil]

I agree with what has been said before: build uni everywhere except Utica, slow down production in Utica and max research on astronomy to build Copernicus. Rush Uni with maces and Bach with GL. Make peace with Rome taking slaves & gold only.

At 60g per NuMerc upgrade to Musket, should we use NuMerc for disband rush and build Musket ourselves or upgrade them? I do not think we want to upgrade the elites that did not give any leaders, but the elite* and veteran can be upgraded.

Since we are at war with far away civs and they will have astronomy soon, should we have a better garrison in Utica? I am not counting the maces as they will disappear when uni is rushed.

I also suggest you want one turn before making peace with Rome, in case saltpeter is under or near Cumae.

 

[Bede]

RL intrusion today. Will post tomorrow 10/6 early evening.

So far so good, though no leaders for the next monument. Bach's built, building toward Copernicus now. Took the uni at Utica for the 4cpt some turns earlier, same as Copernicus.

Our 20K date is now 1854 BTW.

 

[Zakharov]

So far so good, though no leaders for the next monument. Bach's built, building toward Copernicus now. Took the uni at Utica for the 4cpt some turns earlier, same as Copernicus.

You didn't like my plan then?

Now for some additional analysis of the break even point described by MOTH, assuming we can obtain saltpeter. I'll start with LMOZ1, since it's the easiest. A musketman can be built in 3 turns, or LMOZ1 can build wealth gaining 6 gold. The musketman can be disbanded for 15 shields, saving 60 gold. Therefore, if the musketman waits longer than 27 turns, wealth would be the more cost-efficient method.

Theveste would lose 6 possible gold by making 3-turn muskets rather than wealth (via laborer reallocation), so the break even point would be 24 turns.

Leptis Minor can get 9 gold from wealth in 3 turns, so the break even point would be 25.5 turns.

Hippo cannot currently build 3-turn muskets, but can get 2 gold from wealth. Currently, the break even point would be 26 turns. Once the hill is mined, I believe 3 gold could be lost making 3-turn muskets compared to weath, making the break even point 25.5 turns. Something doesn't seem right with these numbers.

Have you forgotten the 2gpt military upkeep for each unit built? Over 20 something turns for say 10 muskets, an extra 400 gold would be spent on support.

 

[fbouthil]

Concur with plan as outlined. Johann, then Willie.

RL intrusion today. Will post tomorrow 10/6 early evening.

Somehow, I have a very hard time understanding Bede. What does Johann mean? And Willie? RL? 10/6?

Building uni faster seems a good idea since the AI is a very slow researcher. I guess I was too chicken about loosing one of the 2 wonders to think about it.

Our 20K date is now 1854 BTW.

Did you calculate this using our current cpt or are you using a tool of some kind? A tool would be much more precise since it could take into account the added cpt when buildings become 1000 years old.

 

[Zakharov]

Somehow, I have a very hard time understanding Bede. What does Johann mean? And Willie? RL? 10/6?

Johann = Johann Sebastian Bach, ie. J.S. Bach's Cathedral.
Willie = William Shakespeare, ie. Shakespeare's Theatre.
RL = real life.
10/6 = October 6th.
Well I assume this is what Bede meant.

Did you calculate this using our current cpt or are you using a tool of some kind? A tool would be much more precise since it could take into account the added cpt when buildings become 1000 years old.

I use Ainwood's CivAssist utility for a 20K prediction. I don't know if Bede uses a different utility.

 

[TimBentley]

Have you forgotten the 2gpt military upkeep for each unit built? Over 20 something turns for say 10 muskets, an extra 400 gold would be spent on support.

Sorry, I didn't mention some of the stuff MOTH mentioned in his discussion of wealth vs. MDIs. If at a certain time, the decision was made whether to build wealth or a musketman in LMOZ1 for example, it would be worth it to build the musket if it would be disbanded in 27 turns or less. For wealth, it would make 6g and save 54g or less in upkeep. Disbanding the musket would save 60g in rushing. Thus, the break even point. What seemed strange is that producing 4-turn muskets in Hippo seemed to be better than 3-turn muskets.

 

[fbouthil]

Obviously, we qualify for this spoiler. On the maintenance thread, MOTH said he was thinking about writing our team summary so unless someone has a big urge to write it instead of MOTH, I say go for it MOTH! Keep us posted as we should not go to the spoiler thread until the team has posted his summary. Our summary will probably be very short since we cannot write about contacts with other continents.

 

[MOTH]

comments to team:
As follows is a tentative post for the spoiler.

Comments, Edits? Is this level of detail good? Should I include more images? I think the timing works out well as the Forbidden Palace trick is just around the corner when we take Rome. I also didn't mention the blockade that we just setup. Maybe we should cut off at 150BC when we started Mono....

Did I include enough Discussion points of interest to Mad-bax:
1. City Placement.
2. Victory condition choice, and how to acheive it
3. Resource aquisition
4. Research methodology
5. Chosing between the Green and the Gold laurel awards.

START SPOILER POST:

SGOTM4 Team Summary for spoiler 1 for team Bede

We decided that we would go for a 20K attempt and that we would aim for the Golden Laurels. With our graph on the early part of the team summary graphs perhaps we will also get the Wooden Spoons.

We spoted the Cow in the initial start so we moved the worker East to confirm and settled SE and founded Carthage. We first produced some warriors so that we could scout for a good 20K location.

At 3000BC we have 3 warriors, 2 workers, and a newly built settler looking for a 20K city location. We also had contacted Rome at this point. We get BW from Rome for Masonry.

Our initial research was set to writing in the hopes of trading for CB. Writing was going to take about 40 turns and there wasn't much we could do about it at this point. Over the years we will buy several early techs from Rome for Techs + G + GPT. On our own we research Writing, CB, Lit, CoL, Philo, Republic, Construction, and Poly. Great Library gives us: Mysticism and eventually some Middle Age techs.

For the 20K City location we decided that we would build Utica only 2 tiles from Carthage on the river and coast. We decided that Carthage would be a throw-away city and use it to produce settlers, workers, and some troops for disbanding purposes and we would get rid of Carthage when we had a good location for city #5.

Since it looked like we wouldn't have CB for a while we decided to start right in on Colossus as this would finish not long after we had CB. We also start looking for locations for cities 3, 4, 5 and the replacement of Carthage.

By 150BC we enter the Middle Ages but don't start researching a MA tech until 210AD. At 210AD we are nearly in position to attack Rome. Except for Pyramids and Oracle, we have built (are building HG) all AA wonders plus we built Heroic Epic. We have only recieved one great leader who became an army. We still only really have 4 out of our 5 cities as we will throw out Carthage once we have defeated the city of Rome.

Timeline:
2850 Utica (20K city) founded on the coast.

2550 - 30 We have essentially explored our entire continent.

2390 Found Leptis Magna

1675 - Build Colossus in Utica for the start to 20K!

1525 - Build Temple in Utica

1500 - The Southern Front

1400 Found Theveste in the South near the Romans.

1125 IBT - Rome declares war after being frustrated at our blocking moves. We get back some GPT we were paying them.

1100BC - A NuMerc kills a Roman Warrior and we enter our Golden Age. We have a few elites from killing barbs so we hope for a leader soon... We don't see any Roman Legions at this time as they have not hooked up their Iron yet! We eventually send an archer and Merc to sit on the Iron so Rome can't hook it up.

975BC Found Hippo in the north far enough away to greatly expand our territory once enough culture is present.

925BC - Build the Great Library in Utica!

825BC - Build Library in Utica

750BC Here is a picture of the Roman front:

530BC - Peace with the Romans so that we can use our Palace Pre-build for something. We get MM in exchange for peace and Lit. Pyramids and Oracle have been build overseas so Lighthouse is the only wonder we get to quickly.

510BC - Build the Great Lighthouse in Utica!
- Other continent Civ Galley shows up and GL teaches us Myst.

410BC - our first galleys start making contact with additional foriegn powers. We descend into anarchy.

370BC - We install a Republic government following a 2 turn anarchy.

210BC - Utica builds Great Wall of Carthage!

190BC - Rome declares war again when we ask them to leave our territory.

150BC - We research Polytheism and enter the Middle Ages.

We start reseaching Monarchy so the timeline doesn't end for this spoiler yet.

130BC - Utica builds Colloseum

10BC - We get a Great Leader and build an Army so we can build Heroic Epic eventually. We have another Archer/Merc pillage team heading for the Roman iron and they see a Legion defending Rome.

50AD NuMerc Army kills a spear and we can now build Heroic Epic.

70AD Utica builds Heroic Epic!

150AD A Civ from the other continent builds a town near our Ivory

210AD Learn Monarchy and shut down research (start on Mono in forever). Hanging Gardens in 8 turns. We are prepared to march on Rome with a stack of death:

 

[Zakharov]

I like the write up, but maybe it could use some more images. I think it would be best not to mention either the blockade trick or the FP trick. If the slower teams post their spoilers just after they qualify, they may still get some use from these tricks.

I'm not sure if the last few sentences (150BC - 210AD) still qualify as the ancient age. You haven't mentioned any middle age techs, units or resources though, so maybe mad-bax will let it stay. The siege of Rome is a good place to end the spoiler if it qualifies.

EDIT: You will probably have to adjust the minimap so that it blacks out all but our starting continent.

 

[MOTH]

I put some questions in the maintenence thread on these points. I will als browse our thread for some other images to include.

EDIT: I have included several pictures from earlier posts.

 

[Bede]

My civilipedia tells me a university is 4cpt and Copernicus is 4cpt. So rather than delay the university for the wonder the shields are getting dumped for the 4cpt now, then research at max to Music Theory for Bach's, then on to Astrnomy for Copernicus. As I see it the math works this way: University 4cpt in 850, Bach's in 910 for 6cpt, so 10 cpt by 910, then Copernicus for another 4 in 1080 with the hopes of another leader to rush Shakespeare.

Making nice with the Romans is not in the cards right now as they have nothing to offer. It is time to do little troop training however.

Education and Gunpowder come in right on time, Utica gets its university and the science budget is raised to 100%. WLKTD will continue in all the towns.

1-860
Break up a barb camp. Start universities everywhere and an MDI at Utica. Research is towwards Music Theory at 100% due in 4 @-122 with 3448 in the bank.

We have saltpeter on a hill SE of Hippo, plus another spice and some more ivory that can be hooked up for trade bait.


Pick up 100g selling the Celts to the Persians and the Persians to the Vikings.

2-870
Bombard a couple of Roman cities just for the practice. Three vet NuMerc fail their promotion boards at Cumae attacking redlined spears. Two are beheaded for incompetence. Veteran MDI at Pisae kills his target but fails the boards.

3-880
Pull back from Cumae as there is no further point in carrying on that battle. Make one more try for promotion for MDI at Pisae, spear dies but no promotion.

4-890
India has taken a couple of Persian cities as Gandhi's treasury has taken a big boost. Relieve him of 140g of the money for contact with the Germans and the Celts, none of whom can do the others any good.

Romans send an archer within range of our catapults and vet NuMercs. Archer dies but we win no promotions.

5-900AD
Fail to win promotions attacking encroaching Roman archer. We can get three towns for peace but with no way to build an army hold off until MT finishes and Bach's is built.

6-910AD
Sell some extra ivory to the Persians for cash and terms 62g +5gpt which just happens to cover the deficit from studying Astronomy due in 11 turns.

Bach's finishes and Utica goes to placeholder for Copernicus.

7-920AD
Trying to set up to pick off some Roman archers for promotions. Kill two, but no promotions.

8-930
Roman archer boogies out of Neapolis and promotes vet MDI to elite.

9-940
Not much to report. Trolling for Romans and barbs.

10-950

Didn't feel comfortable disbanding military just yet and we can afford them at the current research rate. We could turn up the heat on the scientists just to open some more trade potential but selling luxes will increase the research pace elsewhere, when that might not be in our best interest. Chivalry is now on offer from more than one seller. Buying some horses from the Persians or Indians and building some horsemen for upgrade at some point is probably useful. Having only foot sloggers for skirmishing for leaders could be costly.

A couple of riverside grasslands could be forested at Leptis Minor if we feel like it, just to balance the food shields and get maximum commmerce/shields.

We have enough in the treasury to finish Astronomy and get to Free Artistry in about 25 turns and have cash in the bank. Continuing the war with Rome to catch an MGL is probably the fastest route to Shakespeare's Theatre.

I have to keep reminding myself that our objective is not to beat the AI but the other teams in the competition. The conclusion to my ponderings on this is that speed and concentration are the essence, and speed to victory is not the strongest attribute of a 20K culture game. We haven't missed any critical milestones that I can see so far but the next couple of sets should concentrate on farming leaders out of the Romans. I was less than successful in my attempts, only got one promotion from killing archers and spears and took some losses. Maybe some horsemen, then knights, would be more successful...

State of the Republic

 

[Bede]

Roster check:
Zakarov - UP
fbouthil - on deck
timbently
MOTH
Bede

@Zak,
I re-wrote the plan without comment, my apologies, but the math seemed to work in favor of the university first and the shield waste was the equivalent of a 1/2 MDI. Apologies for my impatience and I will try to control the impulse in the future. You are making a far greater contibution here than I when it comes to thoughtful planning.

@Moth,
Nice write up. Concur that details of the FP and the blockade are not necessary in the spoiler. And just make sure to edit out the reference to the Indians and the mini-map.

 

[MOTH]

The spoiler has now been updated in respect to Zak and Bede's comments.

 

[Zakharov]

Ok, I have got the save. I will look at it now and if I see nothing I am unsure of, I will play tonight.

@Zak, I re-wrote the plan without comment, my apologies, but the math seemed to work in favor of the university first and the shield waste was the equivalent of a 1/2 MDI. Apologies for my impatience and I will try to control the impulse in the future. You are making a far greater contibution here than I when it comes to thoughtful planning.

I came up with my plan on the basis that we were wasting shields. If you worked out that we could gain culture more quickly doing it your way then that is fine by me. We are shooting for a 20K win as early as possible, so culture is more important than shields.

Thanks for the praise about the planning. I have amazed even myself, as I would never put this kind of thought into a solo game. Playing the game ten turns at a time really forces me to step back and look at the bigger picture. Normally I would employ the 'just one more turn' philosophy. As I stated at the start of the thread, this is my first SG, and this is probably the most enjoyable game of civ I have had.

@MOTH, I read your questions in the maintenance thread, but didn't want to reply there. I think the intent of mad-bax's first two conditions:

1. Your team must be researching a middle age tech.
2. You must have the complete map of the starting landmass.

is that your game is currently at these points, not that the spoiler write up goes up to these points. The other teams can see we are now at 950AD so we obviously qualify. I believe you can include the Monarchy research time period as long as you make no mention of anything to do with the MA, which I don't think you have.