SGOTM6 - Xteam

[leif erikson]

That's my understanding - assuming the corruption calculator (as reported by someone earlier) is correct, it appears that we won't have much production anywhere once we switch.

A couple of other things to let people comment on before I look at the save - Should I try to get a ROP with France? Any reason not to finish off Japan and the Irroquois? I assume we're still building mostly settlers (or military units or harbors) in corrupt towns to ICS our territorry rather than building much culture at this point, right?

Gyathaar knows better than I about switching to Communism and I think he has a valid argument, although it is unfamiliar territory to me. I have a lot to learn in this regard.

I wasn't quite sure what to do about builds either. What I tried to do, right or wrong (perhaps someone better at this could comment), was, in captured cities, build Workers to draw down the pop, then Temple and then Settler. In established towns, if the pop was high, Settler, if it needed to grow, Temple until we get to 20 turns remaining and pop-rush, otherwise, more workers. I'm not sure how many workers we need, but we have 99 Natives and a ton of slaves that I didn't take the time to count.

I think we should use ROP abuse with France if it is available us, and I think it should be.

Finishing off Japan should be fairly easy as all their cities are clustered in the deep south of their former empire and it can be done while we prepare for France.

The Iroquois and Carthaginians are not like that. Iirc, the Iroquois have at least 1, 1-tile island and a city or two is tucked up behind India's territory. Carthage has some cities on land we really don't need for anything, but could fairly easily go after.

I'm not sure the diversion from getting the Pyramids is worth it at this time. If they prove to be a problem later, then we can go after them. Imho, the focus now should be France and the Pyramids, and finishing the Japanese for the joy of it.

But WillowBrook, by all means, please feel free to be a true XTeam'er and do some good warmongering before we have to devote our energies to culture; whatever that is????

 

[WillowBrook]

Okay, a few more things here upon looking at the save:

1. France won't talk to us, so a ROP is clearly unavailable ATM. Of course, we aren't ready to invade yet.

2. Japan has little valuable land, so I'm thinking it's not worth our time to take them out before Paris. We, of course, should finish then off soon after Paris. In the mean time, should I be nice to them, like by giving them a lux or something?

3. I'll take the last core Iroquois city next turn and then make peace (maybe wait a turn or two in case a resisting city flips).

4. Should we switch to Communism immediately upon getting it? That seems to be the way the wind is blowing, but I want to make sure.

5. We'll have over 50 cavs (assuming minimal losses in the meantime) by the time Communism comes in in 6 turns, and I'll pop-rush a bunch of cannons. Then I'm thinking draft a pile of rifles (say, 20 or 30 or so - this will take several turns) in formerly productive cities once we switch to Communism, rush a few more galleons, and start loading up the troops. (If this troop build up doesn't at least make our military average compared to France, I'm not sure what will.)

6. There are a bunch of workers RR hills in currently productive territory. Since it won't be productive much longer, should I divert them to RR and irrigating?

7. Anyonw have trade assist already installed and willing to run the palace jump calc? I'm curious which city would currently get it - I'm willing to count the score and see how many troop we'll actually need in Paris. Edit: this could be premature at this point, though.

 

[Gyathaar]

Gyathaar knows better than I about switching to Communism and I think he has a valid argument, although it is unfamiliar territory to me. I have a lot to learn in this regard.

I am not sure how bad corruption in communism is in vanilla with this many towns, but from I have heard it is bad. In C3C the cities would be loosing about 1/2 of the shields to corruption.

4. Should we switch to Communism immediately upon getting it? That seems to be the way the wind is blowing, but I want to make sure.

Make sure you switch in the interturn with the big picture, since this will give us 0 turn anarchy I believe?

6. There are a bunch of workers RR hills in currently productive territory. Since it won't be productive much longer, should I divert them to RR and irrigating?

I would allow them to finish, but not start railing any more hills unless it is needed for movement.

 

[DJMGator13]

5. We'll have over 50 cavs (assuming minimal losses in the meantime) by the time Communism comes in in 6 turns, and I'll pop-rush a bunch of cannons. Then I'm thinking draft a pile of rifles (say, 20 or 30 or so - this will take several turns) in formerly productive cities once we switch to Communism, rush a few more galleons, and start loading up the troops. (If this troop build up doesn't at least make our military average compared to France, I'm not sure what will.)

50 cavs and some cannons


Try to get the cannons and a few rifles stationed together, as near the front as possible.

Don't worry about the ROP with France I forgot we are already at war with them. Can we ROP with anyone else (and rr'd a path) to speed up troop movements?

 

[AlanH]

@WillowBrook: 50 cavalry and some cannon, I like! But what would the rifles be for?

 

[WillowBrook]

@WillowBrook: 50 cavalry and some cannon, I like! But what would the rifles be for?

The rifles would be additional cheap troops to ensure the capital flip to Paris, and they would suffer the damage (and destruction) from counter attacks rather than our cavs to minimize healing time for the cavs. (I'm assuming that once Paris is our capital we'll be trying to take out some of or all of the rest of France, too, as we'll have plenty of troops there.) I don't claim to be anything of an expert on invasions, though, so if we'd rather use the rifles we'll soon be able to draft to build culture, let me know.

There is another possible issue: do cannon count as military for purposes of a capital jump? IIRC, units with zero attack don't do anything to quell resistance, but they do count toward flip-risk reduction; I don't know about for capitol flipping. If they don't count for the capital jump, then we'll need at least a few units besides cavs for flip-purposes.

 

[leif erikson]

2. Japan has little valuable land, so I'm thinking it's not worth our time to take them out before Paris. We, of course, should finish then off soon after Paris. In the mean time, should I be nice to them, like by giving them a lux or something?

I think there are 2 good reasons for taking Japan out.
1. It reduces any flip risk to zero for former Japanese cities.
2. What I don't think we need are Japanese Samauris showing up when all our Cavs are in France. The Japanese capital is size 7, iirc, and the other cities are clustered around it, so they have the potential to have some productivity. They also sit in a place where they can attack us in several directions, so they are not easily contained by a few units. They should go down fairly easily, so, imho, we should eliminate the problem before it becomes one.

3. I'll take the last core Iroquois city next turn and then make peace (maybe wait a turn or two in case a resisting city flips).

OK!

4. Should we switch to Communism immediately upon getting it? That seems to be the way the wind is blowing, but I want to make sure.

I'm willing to try?? Eliminating the Despotism penalties seem to drive this, to me.

5. We'll have over 50 cavs (assuming minimal losses in the meantime) by the time Communism comes in in 6 turns, and I'll pop-rush a bunch of cannons. Then I'm thinking draft a pile of rifles (say, 20 or 30 or so - this will take several turns) in formerly productive cities once we switch to Communism, rush a few more galleons, and start loading up the troops.

I'm not sure about the Rifles either. What is the unit support level in Communism? I know that last time I looked, we aren't even close on unit support, so I don't think that is an issue. If we need them to make the jump, then OK, otherwise, will we need them to "promote" happiness?

6. There are a bunch of workers RR hills in currently productive territory. Since it won't be productive much longer, should I divert them to RR and irrigating?

I assumed (that word again) we would not change to Communism until we had Paris so I decided to rail them last to promote Cav production. That is why it is being done, if it matters.

I'll look to see if I have Trade Assist.

 

[DJMGator13]

I have Trade Assist, but I won't be home for several more hours (around 6ish). It will give us the expected jump city, then we can calculate what we need in Paris to make it number one.

Won't we be using some of the rifles for disbanding in lower pop cities?

 

[Gyathaar]

The rifles would be additional cheap troops to ensure the capital flip to Paris, and they would suffer the damage (and destruction) from counter attacks rather than our cavs to minimize healing time for the cavs. (I'm assuming that once Paris is our capital we'll be trying to take out some of or all of the rest of France, too, as we'll have plenty of troops there.) I don't claim to be anything of an expert on invasions, though, so if we'd rather use the rifles we'll soon be able to draft to build culture, let me know.

There is another possible issue: do cannon count as military for purposes of a capital jump? IIRC, units with zero attack don't do anything to quell resistance, but they do count toward flip-risk reduction; I don't know about for capitol flipping. If they don't count for the capital jump, then we'll need at least a few units besides cavs for flip-purposes.

Drafted rifles can be disbanded for 20 shields, which is same as using the pop to poprush something, so there is no problems drafing them since they are saved shields for later, and in meantime has military value..

I dont think units with no defense or attack value count for flip risk reduction either.

 

[Gyathaar]

As for effect of communism you can always just have a look at 100k Gator succession game
Might be an idea for those that play in that to have a go at poprushing there too before we get to the culture rush phase here

 

[DJMGator13]

Nikof just kicked off our culture rush over there. Are we in COMM in that one, I cant recall?

 

[Gyathaar]

you are in communism.. and you capital with courthouse and police station loose 9 of 15 shields to corruption.. (damn communism sucks in vanilla civ3 )

looking at that save I see maintainance will be a bigger problem than I thought...

we may actually have to switch back to despotism again at one point when most of the rushing is done to prevent going bankrupt... we will have to see...

 

[DJMGator13]

@leif - I need the 850AD autosave file for Trade Assist to work. There's no way to point it to our Xteam_06...save file.

 

[WillowBrook]

looking at that save I see maintainance will be a bigger problem than I thought...

we may actually have to switch back to despotism again at one point when most of the rushing is done to prevent going bankrupt... we will have to see...

I don't think I've every ended the game despotism....

Should I turn off research once we get Communism to start building up a cash excess? Is there anything else we need to research?

Edit: And about Japan, anyone else want to throw in their estimation as to if it's better to take out Japan now and eliminate the flip risk but delay the capture of Paris by a few turns?

 

[DJMGator13]

I just looked at the save and we can sign a ROP with ENG straight up. This would allow us to start transporting troops to just outside FRA. Should we make peace with them just to avoid our galleons from being attacked during the troop move phase. AMR will also give an ROP but the one with ENG puts us at the French border.

 

[DJMGator13]

Double Spam Please

On the flip issue, I think I'd concentrate on getting troops to Paris. Here is a look at the current flip chances and the IRQ are actually influencing our cities more than JPN.

 

[Gyathaar]

Should I turn off research once we get Communism to start building up a cash excess? Is there anything else we need to research?

Definately turn off research.. doesnt seem like we can expect to make much more than 1-2gpt from any city unless it builds wealth or has taxmen... so as soon as a city has temple/library/cathedral it would to build wealth and make 2 taxmen to be even..

 

[leif erikson]

@Gator - Here is the 850AD Autosave
I didn't realize how large the autosaves were, over 2 MB!!

Hope this gives you what you need. I dumped Trade Assist when I downloaded CivAssist.

 

[AlanH]

Note that, if you need an expanded save, you can use Mapstat, or JMapstat - the Java version linked in my sig. These are NOT Dianthus' product.

When you open a compressed SAV file using Mapstat/JMapstat a temporary expanded file called Mapstat.tmp is created in the directory containing the Mapstat application. You can copy this file (it will be deleted as soon as you ask Mapstat to do anything else), rename it with a .SAV extension, and it will then behave like an uncompressed autosave.

 

[WillowBrook]

What's with the flip percentage ranges? That's apprently a newer version of Mapstat than I have.

So skip Japan and straight to Paris? (after Awkasasne of course.) Barring a convincing argument otherwise, that will be my plan.