SGOTM8 - klarius

[Northern Pike]

I don't like slow games too much.

In principle, I agree. But we're approaching what will probably be a close finish, and the important thing now is for everyone to play accurately. I'd hate to see anyone submit a sloppily played round at this point because he felt the pressure of an arbitrary deadline.

 

[Ronald]

In principle, I agree. But we're approaching what will probably be a close finish, and the important thing now is for everyone to play accurately. I'd hate to see anyone submit a sloppily played round at this point because he felt the pressure of an arbitrary deadline.

I agree, accurate play is very important. I don't mind reducing the turns from ten to five.

Ronald

 

[Ciceronian]

I don't mind reducing the turns from ten to five.

I was going to suggest that. I can't play 10 turns at a time anyway, I think 5 turns would be much better.
My computer crashed on me so I uploaded the file to the server. I've only played 3 turns but I didn't want to download it again and go again, so I'll pass on to the next person. The save is here.
The turnlog is here:

750 AD - Lux slider down to 0. Gift Metallurgy to Japan. Gift Greece into IA, they get Medicine, we trade them for MT, Steam Power, 222 gold and 85 gpt. Get the gold back with Industry. Electricity in 5 turns, 154 gpt. Trade maps around. MM between Houston and Seattle. Hurry Cav in Cleveland.
760 AD - Get units in position for gift and retake of 5 corrupt towns.
770 AD - Hurry Cav in Anyang. Gift 5 towns to Japan. Declare and retake. Capture Yokohama, garrisoned with 2 spears, no losses. Fail to take Sapporo. Killed 2 spears, one ancient cav, but lost one cav trying to take out an ancient cav which is the only unit left in the city. Got one elite cav.
780 AD - The lovely Romans pay us a visit and move a settler to the island west of Miami. Yokohama is garissoned with two injured cavs. However three Japanese ancient cavs and one archer turn up next to the city interturn. Ouch. I decide to save our cavs and abandon the city to the evil Japanese. After that I take Sapporo without losses. The Japanese still have 4 ancient cavs, 3 of which are near Yokohama. Sorry about loosing the city, but I think there was no way to avoid that. Electricity will finish in 2 turns, +170 gpt.

As I already said, I'm in favour of cutting the amount of turns to 5. I think there will be about 50 - 60 turns left in the game so then everybody could still play twice.

 

[Ronald]

I checked the latest territory graph. Wacken is doing very well. They definitely got flight around 950 AD. About the same time we will get it. It's going to be close. The only advantage I see for us is, we most probably have more footholds on foreign territory.
Also CDZ have flight by now I believe.

Let's go and get them!

 

[Ronald]

and looking at Wacken's culture graph. I think they are in mobilization mode (before or after advanced flight?)

 

[Northern Pike]

I've got it.

 

[Northern Pike]

Ciceronian was right not to try to hold Yokohama. But it looks as though I should gift it to the Chinese rather than letting the Japanese re-capture it. Does anyone see a problem with this?

The dates at which we'll get Flight and Advanced Flight are more or less fixed at this point. So universities needn't have absolute priority any more, and I think I'll change the uni builds in Houston and Detroit to factories, unless there's violent objection.

 

[Ciceronian]

Ciceronian was right not to try to hold Yokohama. But it looks as though I should gift it to the Chinese rather than letting the Japanese re-capture it. Does anyone see a problem with this?

I left it open to you what to do with Yokohama. I was thinking of razing it but your suggestion of gifting to the Chinese seems a better one.

The dates at which we'll get Flight and Advanced Flight are more or less fixed at this point. So universities needn't have absolute priority any more, and I think I'll change the uni builds in Houston and Detroit to factories, unless there's violent objection.

More factories are proabably better at this point, yes.

We should decide on how many turns we should now play. Any strong opinions? I would vote for 5 turns.

 

[Ronald]

We should decide on how many turns we should now play. Any strong opinions? I would vote for 5 turns.

No strong opinion. Let's get back to comparable dates (850 AD) with most of the other teams and five turns from then onwards.

 

[Ronald]

Ciceronian was right not to try to hold Yokohama. But it looks as though I should gift it to the Chinese rather than letting the Japanese re-capture it. Does anyone see a problem with this?

The dates at which we'll get Flight and Advanced Flight are more or less fixed at this point. So universities needn't have absolute priority any more, and I think I'll change the uni builds in Houston and Detroit to factories, unless there's violent objection.

I would not gift to china, I would just abandon the city. I don't see the advantage of gifting at this moment, I only see it as one more city to retake, but maybe I just don't get the point and you can explain why it makes sense.

No objection to factories at all.

 

[Ronald]

Just looked at the file:

Washington: universal suffrage should be changed into coal plant (due next turn)

I also think we should slowly stop to produce workers and set these cities on wealth.

There are about 8 possible city sites to complete ICS. Similar as with workers I would produce these 8 settlers and then set the city on wealth.

By then we should have finished the railraods, can add most of the workers to cities (only leave about 2 crews for cleaning pollution) and can optimize the number of specialists

There is a barb camp at the NW corner of our continent.

 

[Megalou]

Ciceronian was right not to try to hold Yokohama. But it looks as though I should gift it to the Chinese rather than letting the Japanese re-capture it. Does anyone see a problem with this?

If it is abandoned, someone will settle the spot later, which I think is worse than having a Chinese town there (there may even be settlers on their way there when (knock on wood) we take the last AI town.

The dates at which we'll get Flight and Advanced Flight are more or less fixed at this point. So universities needn't have absolute priority any more, and I think I'll change the uni builds in Houston and Detroit to factories, unless there's violent objection.

Good point. Have you checked the beakers with CivAssist II? If those unis save a turn of research I think perhaps we should build them.

 

[klarius]

The idea of gifting cities instead of abandoning is mainly to limit the movement of the Japanese. But also gifting a city to a weak nation far away, stores the city to be retaken easily, so one can use it's culture boundary again for faster access to other cities. I'm still thinking of keeping this Japanese war short and then do the Chinese dog-pile.
The Japanese can be dealt with easily any time after flight, except for their antarctic cities, where we need a foothold. The Japanese main cities are of no big use and in fact I would raze e.g. Kyoto, if the opportunity presents itself. No use to invest a lot of money there to reduce flip risk.

I don't think we have that many workers, so we should continue to produce more. There are still a lot of useful railroads to build on our home island and they can also be airlifted for a military railnet on other islands. And don't forget the airfields.

We should also think already what we want to prioritize after we get flight. Do we want to go after Rome soon, which needs a lot of land units, or do we concentrate on building bombers to try for more extortions (Vikings, maybe Greece).
It is still a big issue to get all two tile islands, before they should get really strong defenders.

 

[Ronald]

The idea of gifting cities instead of abandoning is mainly to limit the movement of the Japanese. But also gifting a city to a weak nation far away, stores the city to be retaken easily, so one can use it's culture boundary again for faster access to other cities.

I understand your reasoning. Gifting to China is fine with me

I'm still thinking of keeping this Japanese war short and then do the Chinese dog-pile.

I think we have enough troops to keep fighting the Japanese. After their ancient cavs are gone its only archers and spears. I don't know what you mean by chineese dog-pile. I would just take Macau and Yokohama back and deal with their capital at the end.

The Japanese can be dealt with easily any time after flight, except for their antarctic cities, where we need a foothold. The Japanese main cities are of no big use and in fact I would raze e.g. Kyoto, if the opportunity presents itself. No use to invest a lot of money there to reduce flip risk.

They are not worth much, that's true, but every city taken before flight leaves one city less.

I don't think we have that many workers, so we should continue to produce more. There are still a lot of useful railroads to build on our home island and they can also be airlifted for a military railnet on other islands. And don't forget the airfields.

I forgot about the airfields, so no joining of workers to cities. Nevertheless I would only finish the ones already in production and then set the cities to wealth.

We should also think already what we want to prioritize after we get flight. Do we want to go after Rome soon, which needs a lot of land units, or do we concentrate on building bombers to try for more extortions (Vikings, maybe Greece).

I would go against Rome as soon as possible. They are the most advanced and the more we delay the war with them the stronger Rome and especially the defending units will get.

It is still a big issue to get all two tile islands, before they should get really strong defenders.

Yep, lot's of work to be done.

 

[Megalou]

I would go against Rome as soon as possible. They are the most advanced and the more we delay the war with them the stronger Rome and especially the defending units will get.

I agree. Patience will be needed anyway; I think they will be a tough opponent. When/if we see the end of a Roman war, we can start mopping up Japan.

I take back what I said about universities. I think the ones that are being built should be changed to factories. Many turns without factories will matter more than slower research amounting to a turn or two.

 

[Ronald]

Maybe we should write the first spoiler. I will make a draft during the weekend and post it first here for your comments, or has anybody else an urgent desire to write it?

 

[Northern Pike]

or has anybody else an urgent desire to write it?

Even lacking telepathic powers, I'll answer a confident "No" to that one.

I would guess that Team Wacken carried out a massive RoP-rape in 1160 AD. Offa and Wacken, I'm glad you learned something from SGOTM4. But do our graph analysts think they've won?

 

[klarius]

I would guess that Team Wacken carried out a massive RoP-rape in 1160 AD. Offa and Wacken, I'm glad you learned something from SGOTM4. But do our graph analysts think they've won?

Well, the domination limit is 1476 according to CivAssist. I would expect that the territory graph goes flat around this value before anybody wins, but that part may only be 5-10 turns and not visible due to the hiding of the last save. Still I expect that it takes more than 10 turns from territory below 1000 to conquest.

 

[Ronald]

I would guess that Team Wacken carried out a massive RoP-rape in 1160 AD. Offa and Wacken, I'm glad you learned something from SGOTM4. But do our graph analysts think they've won?

No, I don't even think they have advanced flight by now. They probably got flight between 900AD and 950AD. It takes another 25 to 30 turns at least to get to advanced flight.
We will have flight in 900AD and advanced flight shortly after 1250AD, so we are approximately at the same pace they are. It will be a tight race. I don't think anybody can win before 1350 AD.

What we can learn from their culture graph is, that they used mobilization to boost production something we should be thinking about after we finished factories and some coal plants.

 

[klarius]

Ronald, I think you underestimate Team Wacken.
The only reason, I can think of, that they started the big push to territory so late, is that they waited for advanced flight.
So, I think they are actually ahead in research and got to advanced flight around 1000.
We could have reached this also, if we would have played the high research game.
I think that means we currently have still the advantage to have more cities on remote islands than they had at this time.
Based on the estimation when Wacken got AF, we will not win the competition if we just follow them.
So how about the high risk option (originally proposed by Megalou ) - no research to AF, try to get a city everywhere by diplomacy.
To pull this off, we need skilled and lucky diplomacy and a world war ASAP. Wars to last only until the enemies talk, brokem alliances, bombers getting cities down.
I have no idea, if this is really possible, but I'm pretty sure we will not make first place, if we need advanced flight.

Disclaimer:
First place isn't important.
We all play for fun.
But...