SGOTM6 - Xteam

[WillowBrook]

Deficits
If we're forced to deal with a deficit in despotism and the treasury is running out, the only non-traditional source of cash I can see is building non-needed buildings and selling them right away. I don't think that would be an exploit as you only get in gold 1/4 the shield cost of the building. Also, any non-corrupt cities should build banks (as they're free w/ Adam Smiths). And we could sell aquaducts, especially in cities that have become very unhappy due to drafting.

We were very lucky that Babylon and Paris didn't split the pyramids and Adam Smiths - we would have had to have picked the pyramids over smiths, of course, and I doubt we'd have considered going after both. I'll be very curious to see which civs built which wonders in the other games. (Alan, have you posted us a spoiler yet?) If, for example, China or Japan built the pyramids, those teams would have a distinct advantage.

On Trying to Beat Team tao
I'm no military expert, but I know we don't have the forces currently to destroy France. And I don't think we need to - we just need to make sure that Paris stays in our hands (gems would also be nice, but not necessary). How does this plan sound?

1. Capture all French cities with cultural borders touching Paris - that is, Reims, Orleans (their only source of horses), Lyons, and Amiens (though this one's on a hill and perhaps should therefore be left alone). We should get Orleans and Lyons next turn, and Reims the following. Check size-1 Paris's flip risk, and if 30 units or less will hold her, don't bother with Amiens.
2. Switch to Communism.
3. Bring in settlers and replace all French cities but Paris to eliminate chance of flips. Fill in productive land, as well. (We should be building tons of settlers at this point, so they should be available). Make sure to bring in adequate protection!
4. Make peace with France (once she will talk).

EDIT: Anyone happen to notice that New York is currently a French city?

 

[DJMGator13]

@Willow - if France is down to defenders and not actively counterattacking we actualy have enough troops to put a big hurt on them. We need to layout a plan so that we can keep our troops together and only have to worry about 1 front.


Another source of funds maybe to actually keep warring and rob the treasuries of the other Civs as we capture and raze cities. I'm not sure if we can sue for peace and gpt with our rep hits in this game.

 

[WillowBrook]

Maintenance...
...nearing the end of the game

Here's a quick calculation concerning maintenace (I don't know the outcome as I write this, but it should be an interesting exercise). Take every estimate with a grain of salt.

Hypothetical Future
- 100 cities with the four major culture builds (12 cpt, 6 gpt)
- 160 cities with temple and library (5 cpt, 2 gpt)
- total culture of 2000 cpt

Maintenance: 6x100 + 2x160 + 80 (aquaducts) = 1000 gpt
Income: Assuming Beijing is capital AND no cities have been built closer than current ring-5, here's an estimate:
247 - current (1000AD) gpt
172 - current maintenance
85 - income from 85 addition corrupt cities
100 - income from bank in every non-corrupt city
694 gpt - total available for maintenance

We'd be about 300 short. This means building and disbanding about 10 coliseums per turn. Our procudtive cities could probably produce about 2 per turn, and the other 8 would require a total of 48 pop-points (drafted and/or rushed). If doable, that would be even more tedious than what we're already doing.

However...
I have just recalled another source of income!
Drumroll, please!
(Or perhaps I should whisper so that other teams don't overhear...)

WEALTH!
Every single town can contribute a second gpt to the treasury by going to wealth (I've just now verified this). I don't think we'll want to put productive cities on wealth (IIRC, the sheild to gold ratio is really bad under despotism), but under the above scenario, let's say that 220 cities are on wealth, and the other 40 building coliseums. We'd then only need 3 coliseums per turn to make up the remaining 80 gpt deficit, a very doable proposition.

Now the question is, when do we want to start putting towns on wealth, and which ones? Towns with low food that require partial rushing can't be put on wealth, as that empties the shield box. I don't think we should put new towns on wealth, either - they usually take at least 6 or 7 turns to reach size 3; it's worth waiting until 10 turns from founding to rush the temple with one instead of two citizens, saving the second for the next project. And there are too many possibilities going around in my head.... I'll let the rest of y'all throw in your two cents....

 

[WillowBrook]

@Willow - if France is down to defenders and not actively counterattacking we actualy have enough troops to put a big hurt on them. We need to layout a plan so that we can keep our troops together and only have to worry about 1 front.

Since we only recently became avarage to them, I'm guessing that means similar numbers of units, with France still somewhat ahead. And if it takes about 2 cavs to take out a rifle in a city, we'd have to keep pumping out cavs to have any hope of taking them out (EDIT: or even of maintaining our avarage size to theirs). (According to the combat calculator, a vet cav has only a 35% chance of taking out a regular fortified rifle in a city.) But I trust Alan and Gyathaar's estimates about needed culture to win, and I think we need to go to Communism to have any hope of getting our culture rate up fast enough to challenge team tao. And we won't be able to maintain military production in Communism.

 

[Gyathaar]

There is another income method.. every (corrupt) city that has all culture buildings can also have atleast 1 taxman..

 

[WillowBrook]

There is another income method.. every (corrupt) city that has all culture buildings can also have atleast 1 taxman..

Doh! Of course! Between wealth and taxmen, it looks like maintaining a 2000 cpt empire shouldn't be a problem. Now we just have to get there.

 

[AlanH]

FWIW my spreadsheet says we hit 2000 cpt by 1280 AD. That's about when we start building universities, and we are at over 3000 cpt by the time we finish.

Sorry, I've been finishing off a very mediochre GOTM 40, so I haven't had time to write the spoiler yet. I'll post a draft here first anyway, but I was also giving all team members a chance to say no first. I doubt if there will be any great insights in other team spoilers. Read M-B's first two posts to see that he set the game up for the major wonders to be in predictable places and for our neighbours to be weak.

 

[DJMGator13]

Sounds like it's time to go COMM and start some major poprushing.

@Alan - my GOTM40 wasn't spectacular either. I'm hoping my COTM10 will be better.

@Willow - I was just making a point in general about Frances postion. I'm all for the COMM change and getting the culture rolling.

 

[Gyathaar]

Btw.. incase you have wondered, I have been holding back a bit on starting my turns, and havent started playing yet.. I will prolly play 10 turns thou when I do play

 

[DJMGator13]

Not a problem. I'd rather have quality play then fast play. Especially considering the juncture we are at in the game.

Another nice tactic I'm starting to use more is a good forestry operation. We should form up some crews and start planting and choping forest for those 10 shields. Try to concentrate forestry in one area and note which tiles have already been chopped. I know we'll plant some tiles that have already been chopped but overall it should help speed up the process. We should also try to get temples and libraries in all the corrupt/low food cities before setting them to wealth.

 

[WillowBrook]

@ Gator - yes, good forestry operations could really speed things along, especially in the tundra areas that don't have much food. Once the prodictive (food-wise) land is irrigated and RR'd, we'll still have plenty of work for our 200+ workers and slaves.

@ Alan - how many cities does your plan to intercept Team tao's culture graph require? I made a quick estimate on the current map and it looks like we'll have space for at least 70 more towns in our current holdings, and another 20 or so if we take Lyons, Orleans, and Reims and fill in the French land we capture.

@ Gyathaar - no problem with the wait. As Gator said, better play well than fast. Given your experience with fast 100k wins, I expect that if anyone can figure out how to increase out cultural output at the rate needed, it's you.

 

[AlanH]

My model assumed we could get to 350 towns in the territory we have and can grab. This was based on a conservative version of leif's guess. I assumed that we would build or aquire 6 towns per turn from now until we reach that limit. I assumed each town builds a temple, then a library, then a cathedral and then a university if it gets that far. Gator gave the number of temples we currently have, and I guessed we already have a few libraries, probably in towns that already have temples.

 

[WillowBrook]

I've taken a more careful look, and it appears we can make it to 350 cities - but not on current holdings. The combination of inconveniently placed mountains and badly spaced current cities (mostly by dead or dying civs) does not allow us to get the optimal one city for every 4 land tiles.

Current Holdings (plus 3 more French city captures)
I'm sure I've missed a potential site or two or not arranged them most advantageously, but here's how we can get 122 more cities in, on top of our current 175 (please excuse the crude dot-maps):

In or near Keltoi homeland land (4)
-NE, NE of Glevum
-on dyes E, NE of Gergovia
-on island S of Glanum
-S, S of New Mohacs

In Old China, outside Ring-5 (8)
-E, SE of Shanghai
-E, SE of Nanjing
-S, SE of Nanjing
-SE, SE of Hangzhou
-island off coast of Xi’an
-E, SE of Paoting
-E, NE of Ningpo
-W, SW of Ningpo

In Old Mongolia (11)
-E, NE of Tabriz
-SE, SE, (SE) of Tabriz
-NE, NE of Darhan
-NW, NW of Tabriz
-N, N or Karakoum
-SE, SE of Karakorum
-NE, NE of Almarikh
-S, SW of Burdigala 2
-S, SW of Ta-Tu
-SW, SW of Skier’s Heaven
-W, NW of My Will

In Old Carthage (20)

In Old Iroquoisland (56)

In Old Japan (13)

In Soon-to-be-Old France (20)
19 dots on map plus one west of Orleans

Total: 122
Plus current 175: 297 cities

Other sources of cities
-France. I haven't made estimates for capturing any French cities beyond Lyons, Orleans, and Reims.
-India. (25) If we capture 8 nearest cities, we’d have space for about 17 more, or total of 25 more cities.
-Carthage (16). If we capture the six remaining accessible Carthagian cities plus the last Iroquois one and then fill in the land, we’d have about 16 more cities total.
-Within Ring-5 around Beijing (9). But we don’t want to do this unless necessary.

 

[DJMGator13]

We can squeeze a few more border cities by aggressively settling, especially after our borders expand. I've been running into a food/growth issue in my current game so we need to make sure there is enough food. As long as we can rush atleast a temple in a city it's worth building the city.

 

[leif erikson]

You guys have been busy; Nice maps Willow!

Sorry, between RL, GOTM40 (worst finish yet!), and Gator01, I feel like a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest! But I'm catching up on my reading!!

Looks like we have some cities to build and some culture to rush.

Good luck Gyathaar, keep those settlers and culture points comin' on!!

 

[Capt Buttkick]

Sorry, between RL, GOTM40 (worst finish yet!), and Gator01, I feel like a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest!

I've told you before. I don't want no unauthorized buttkicking

 

[leif erikson]

I've told you before. I don't want no unauthorized buttkicking

OOOOOooooopppppps, sorry Capt! Kinda forgot about that.
Can I obtain a Butt Kicking License that would allow me to network the buttkick to all the computers of the team? I suppose that could get expensive, in M$ terms. Of course, Alan would be exempt 'cause he ain't doin' windoze!!!!

 

[AlanH]

Mac OS X kicks *ass*, not *butt*, so I commend this as an Open Source alternative to the Captain's hegemonistic and exhorbitant proprietary licensing policy

 

[AlanH]

Here's a draft spoiler. Let me know if it represents our position, if you spot any glaring errors, or if you think it gives any aid and comfort to the enemy.

The Team
A couple of Xteam players opted out of this one, probably very wisely, and we were privileged to welcome some new members. Having demonstrated our previous inability to grasp or spell the advanced Civilisation concept known as Kulcher, we were delighted to discover that our new colleagues had seen it before and knew something about it. So our line-up for this game is:

Gyathaar - 100K HoF exponent
WillowBrook - GOTM culture victory
Tomoyo - all-round good egg with cool avatars
plus DJMGator13, leif erikson and AlanH - old Xteam warmongers eager to learn.

What's culture, anyway?
During initial team briefings Gyathaar pointed out that our strategy would start by taking over large tracts of land from our local Civs by raping, pillaging and burning and putting innocents to the sword. We would then build an indecent number of towns on the acquired territory, and finally we would work large numbers of our innocent citizens to death building temples, libraries, cathedrals and universities. This quickly destroyed any lofty thoughts of the high moral ground, dreaming spires and cultural castles in the clouds (see I already know how to spell it), but the first phase made the Xteam regulars feel really at home - we know how to fight dirty.

The Goals
We decided we needed to pursue the following primary goals:

- FP in our first core as soon as possible
- horses, or iron then horses, to expand
- a Palace Jump to create a second core
- Military Tradition + saltpeter so that we can conquer the parts of the world we need.
- the Pyramids so that we can build population quickly
- Steam to enable us to get more food out of irrigated tiles
- Communism to remove the Despot penalty on food tiles

Starting Moves
We settled one tile west of the start, set up shop and planned out a tight build at RCP 3 and 5 where we'd be able to build an eventual FP core. We staarted research on Mysticism at minimum, and we had an early cash flow problem when a barb walked into Entremont on turn 5 and stole all our gold We traded for Pottery from China to allow a granary build. Entremont built warrior, archer (to go after the barbs), warrior, granary, 6-turn warriors/settlers forever. We contacted the southern civs one at a time, then in 1575 BC Mapmaking appeared on the trading screens and we traded for most of the map, all of the contacts, and close to tech parity. We traded our way into the Middle Ages in 1000 BC.

Territorial Expansion
We had lots of discussion about the costs of our UU, which at 50 shields seemed excessive, and was going to cost 80 gold each to upgrade from a warrior. However, as we rolled back the fog it seemed we were going to have to use them to get us some horses from China. When we found out where our iron was relative to our RCP radius-3 ring we decided resource disconnection was going to be awkward because it would also disconnect our silks. So we deferred connecting our iron and built towns and workers and barracks and warriors as fast as we could.

We prepared to go to war against China first. We wanted their horses, and we worked out the city plan for a second core around Beijing. However, before that could happen we needed some Euroswords, so in 550 BC we declared war on Babylon to get out of a rather expensive gpt deal so that we could afford warrior upgrades, and Babylon bought the Mongols in against us to make life interesting. in 470 BC we completed the iron road and started upgrading warriors to Euroswords. In 410 BC Carthage joined in with Babylon, and a Mongol death in 390 BC started our Golden Age. In 310 BC we finally declared war on China, our prime target. By 90 BC we had negotiated peace with everyone again, we'd acquired a city or two from Mongolia, and, most important, we now owned all of mainland China. In 10 AD our Golden Age neded, and in 30 AD we completed our FP and jumped our Palace to Beijing.

By this time Japan was public enemy #1, with a major dogpile developing, and we had started to build knights. In 110 AD we did some sharp deals for techs, learnt gunpowder and established that M-B had carefully put saltpeter out of reach of the children .

Our Minimap at 110 AD:

Territorial Expansion to be continued ...

M-B's questions:

Below are the histographs at 110 AD. We are the strongest civ. France are next, then America and Babylon. Babylon's culture is massive. Effect on the later game? France is a target, primarily for her Pyramids, so we have to develop a strong cavalry force to take them from her.

All the wonders have been too far away to help us up until now. The only one we'll want to take time and effort to grab will be the Pyramids, and maybe Smiths to pay for harbours.

Our strategy remains the same. We'll grow our territory by acquisition using knights and cavalry, build cities like crazy, research to Steam, rail and irrigate everything we can, switch to Communism as soon as poossible, feed the population and kill 'em with kindness (aka culture).

 

[AlanH]

Writing this up, it occurs to me to ask if we should go after the Sistine Chapel and/or the Oracle. Would they double the culture effect of our religious buildings?