SQ2: Schizophrenic Shaka

[Whomp]

Then build an Infantry/Cavalry SOD and see what happens.

Arty too! Nothing will stop us with enough arty.

 

[Mirc]

The only problem is the discrepancy between the 3 movement points of Cavalry and 1 movement point of Infantry and Artilery.

 

[Whomp]

The only problem is the discrepancy between the 3 movement points of Cavalry and 1 movement point of Infantry and Artilery.

Unquestionably they do. However, cavs without coverage are dead meat so we should not move cavs without infantry/arty coverage and if Orange moves without coverage they're dead.

 

[Mirc]

It's right. This is one of the biggest advantages the human player has: uses artilery correctly!
But let's see if we should declare or not, and then plan the war.

 

[choxorn]

They all have 0 on railroads. Plan:
1. Use 50+ artillery against city defenders.
2. Use Cavalry until city is ours.
3. Defend with Infantry.

 

[Andronicus]

Got it - will post comments shortly

 

[Andronicus]

Had a look at the save and there are a few things I think could be changed.
To explain my reasoning for these changes I'll go over where we are and where I think we need to go.

Goal
Diplomatic victory not voting for ourselves (variant requirement)

Requirements
Research Fission
- currently req 2581 beakers for combustion, then 4200 for each of mass production and motorised transport, 5400 for flight, 6000 for radio and 8400 for fission
- currently making 886bpt, so less than 35 turns (if can boost science then perhaps less than 30)
- research currently being boosted by gpt payments from multiple Zulu allowing 100% reseach
Build UN
Need prebuild for 1000 shields - best current is 'unguin @ 64spt in 16 turns, so need to consider starting in possibly 14 turns
4/7 voting for us (we abstain)
- will require good relations with at least 4 Zulu, preferably all
- note variant requirement cannot form MA v our opponent so will have to go about it inroundabout way. My suggestion is we discourage war AMAP up until voting time. Turn before MPP all bar our UN rival, then dow them leaving an easy unit for them to attack in the interturn. This should result in everyone else dowing on our rival and hopefully enough votes for us.

Spanners in the works
Flips!
This has several significant impacts
Corrupt distant cities flipping is irrelevent, though annoying
Core cities flipping causes us to lose important commerce generators and should be avoided if possible. Especially important will be avoiding our UN building city from flipping
Flip risk for cities in this game is increased by size of city and decreased by culture in that city. Distance from capital is also a factor but we cant control that. Flip risk overall is affected by our overall culture compared to other civs, only orange has stronger culture.
I have divided our cities into 3 groups for consideration
A) Our core (<10% corrupt) (9) - losing these hurts us most.
- civassist shows these all < 1% flip risk but require between 13 and 26 units to totally suppress flip risk, the worst is Iron Works requiring 26 units (unguin which I suggest for UN pre-build requiress 14). I suggest we put the units in unguin. In the next 30 turns the likelihood of losing one of our 9 core cities is about 50%.
B) Corrupt far away cities (8) - these generally have >2% flip risk, so each one is about 50% likely to flip inm next 30 turns. I recommend selling all non culture improvements in these cities as they only benefit the AI after flipping (if flips to original owner). Starving these cities down with intensive use of scientists results in decreased flip risk plus boosting our science.
C) The rest (16) - these can be assisted to reduce flip risk by rushing / shortrushing cultural improvements

Ok now some specific comments
Note that hospital rushed in 'babwe - why not shortrush? Rushing wastes the 46spt it produces next turn and spent an extra 160g. A colloseum at 120 shields would have made an ideal shortrush for the 160 shield hospital.
Other than our capital which cannot flip I recommend not building any hospitals - we do not want larger more flip likely metropolises
There have been some mass irrigation going on - eg 'babwe has 11 excess fpt it cant use. I try to match the food to growth, whilst growing a healthy food surplus is OK, but many of these cities were size 12 several turnsets ago and their production has been decreased by irrigating.
Why specialist in core cities? eg 'bane is hiring a taxman when working a roaded river tile gives an extra 6 beakers per turn
Lots of clowns in 'ombe - they could be specialists (although I'll make all citizens specialists here to shrink the city to make less flip risk -see B above)
Building infantry in towns with no rax and arty in rax town?

Diplomacy
Current
Get 298gpt (pink), oil, furs, 152gpt(orange), 14gpt (L blue)
Give wines (orange), salt (L blue)
Possible trades
Pink 126gpt + 150g for electronics
Orange 92gpt for electronics
L blue21gpt + 30g for steel
Yellow 16gpt + 60g for steel
Backward and broke - Green and D Blue - can gift them money to improve relations then get money back by selling techs

I propose doing all possible trades to maximise relations - any other suggestions to improve relations? Do we want to give rop to others as this improves relations? Note none of our cities are undefended. We are currently weak to pink and orange, strong to others.

 

[choxorn]

You might want to prevent flip in super-important core cities (like schizoironworks).

 

[Whomp]

Very well thought out Andronicus! No wonder your team is rocking in SGOTM10!
I really like the weak unit idea when we're ready for a vote. It seems like orange is our main target.

I agree doing max trading at this point is very important. I'm not sure if signing ROP's will help a lot and at the risk of a ROP rape I'm a little concerned about that.

 

[Andronicus]

I agree doing max trading at this point is very important. I'm not sure if signing ROP's will help a lot and at the risk of a ROP rape I'm a little concerned about that.

My understanding is that rop improves relations, however I am also concerned at possible RPO abuse by the AI (I got ROP raped by Theadora in the French diety COTM the turn before UN vote - leaving an undefended capital with railroads and rop is something I'll never do again)
My thought is to give rop to other civs just prior to vote with sufficient defencwe to discourage rop abuse.

The other thought I had was switchinng government. Zulu's shunned government is republic and preferred gov is despotic - a late change to despotism just prior to vote may improve relations (and by that stage the loss from despotic penalty should nit be a concern). Does anyone know how many turns after UN built that elections are held?

 

[gmaharriet]

Does anyone know how many turns after UN built that elections are held?

lurker's comment: The first opportunity to vote is immediately after it's built. After that I believe it's every 11th turn.

 

[Andronicus]

@ gmaharriet

Thanks, I had thought it was perhaps every 8, but I'm sure I got it wrong last time I went diplo.
Hopefully we can get the vote on first try

 

[Andronicus]

Played 9 turns till 1450AD - stop there as its a round number

Summary
Rushed lots of culture builds - we remain behind Orange in culture, but have moved further ahead of L & D Blues
2 flips - we lost corrupt lighthouse to Pink (original owners) and regained a core city in deathpit from L Blue.
Researched combustion and mass production. We are now making 1100 bpt and motorised transport comes in 2 turns with 5 for flight, 6 for radio and 7 or 8 for fission (7 requires 1200bpt). Thats 20-21 turns before we want our prebuild
Best producer now is ironworks @ 102spt giving 10 turn UN (note palace pre-build is also 1000 shields). Hopefully this game finishes 21 turns from now .
Despite gifting and trading all other zulus remain furious with us. I think we should do the rop at the last possible moment (co-inciding with mpp), the only other question being do we need to consider switching to despotism (we lose 1 point of attitude for being in republic and would gain 1 if in despotism). Does anyone know if the attitude change is immediate or gradual? Does it really matter if we can get everyone else at war with our UN rival?

Turnlog

1405 Pre turn
Make changes previously described
Do deals
Pink 126gpt + 150g for electronics
Orange 92gpt for electronics
L Blue gift 100g, Get 21gpt + 130g for steel
Yellow gift 100g, Get 16gpt + 160g for steel
D Blue gift 6gpt, get 5gpt + 20g for Corporation
Green gift 6gpt (must be running on deficit as unable to offer anything for tech)

IBT
Renew 14gpt for salt with LBlue
babwe hospital -> cath
ombe temple -> lib (again asign all citizens to specialists)
folozi temple -> lib
mtata Gulf temple -> lib (re-starve with specialists)
mbabwe temple -> lib
bahdading lib ->worker
wana lib -> worker

1410AD
Mine some irrigated tiles in core where food being wasted
Discover some workers on auto
unguin now 0% flip risk

IBT
ironworks temple -> uni
pedi -> lib -> worker

1415AD
cant find all the workers on auto, find 1 irrigating tile I just mined!
with lots of scientists I can just squeeze combustion next turn @ 80%
For some crazy reason civassist alerts lists towns that have shunk as having just grown and vice versa!

IBT
Combustion -> Mass Production
front uni -> cath
Beatya uni -> cath

1420AD
use spare cash to keep rushing culture
Trade rubber and coal to yellow for 47gpt + 72g

IBT
folozi lib -> cath
Lighthouse flips to original owners - pink (minus all its improvements )

ironworks uni -> cath
vry factory -> cath
kulu uni -> cath

1425AD
find a worker clearing jungle not in any cities radius (2N, 1NE of pedi)

IBT
babwe cath
banago uni -> cath
lots of cultural expansions

1430AD
discover another 2 automated workers
Trade wines to green for 5gpt
Trade spices to yellow for 13gpt
Sell WM netting over 150g
Use money to rush temple in undi (our sole source of incense)

IBT
diamond factory
remote lib -> wealth
undi temple -> lib
ironworks cath -> inf (now 96spt so best site for UN pre-build)

1435AD
MM for mass prod in 1
Add units to ironworks (civassist says req 28 to prevent flip so it gets 28)

IBT
Green Zulu req mpp and rop - I decline - the time is not ripe yet
Mass Production -> Motorised Transport (in 4)
deer lib -> temple

1440AD
Trade pink combustion for WM 66gpt + 100g
Trade orange combustion for 40gpt + 113g
100g gift to D Bue, then steel for 1gpt + 110g

IBT
grapes cath
spices cath -> uni

1445AD
Trade D Blue salt for WM, 8gpt + 20g

IBT
ombe lib -> wealth
mata Gulf lib -> wealth
vry cath -> wealth
deathpit rejoins the fold

1450AD
Tidy up
I have done no trades this turn - selling maps is always an option, we cant get much for our techs at present (37gpt).
Making over 600gpt - can use to rush cultural builds or bribe other zulu ( I think bribe benefit only lasts 20 turns so may want to wait 2 turns)
There is a worker at middle who has nothing to do - probably best to join him and save unit upkeep - I dont suggest marching him back over forign soil as that will not help relations
I'm suspicious thaat the worker irrigating SW of pedi may be automated - I dont recall assigning that task


The Save

 

[Mirc]

Nice!

Everything seems to be more organized now.

Who did the worker automation? I also suspected 2 or 3 workers of being automated. Maybe this is the explaination for the exces irrigation? Also I noticed that when I got the save most of the workers were in stacks of 2, and 5 where fortified in a city while one other worker that was 3 tiles away was trying to clear a jungle . Well, I guess this is the disadvantage of an open SG. We can't be sure when or who did these.

 

[choxorn]

Discover some workers on auto

I swear, this wasn't my fault! Strange, I didn't notice any automated workers on my turn. (points finger at Mirc)

1425AD
find a worker clearing jungle not in any cities radius (2N, 1NE of pedi)

I think that was my fault

Add units to ironworks (civassist says req 28 to prevent flip so it gets 28)

That is a lot of defense! Hopefully, the AI is smart enough not to attack!

 

[Mirc]

But I never automate workers! The only way to realise if they are automated is if they move without an order from you.

BTW, I didn't read that part: 28 units for defense?

 

[choxorn]

Well, maybe, but I didn't see any workers that moved without me telling them. And I also never automate workers. Maybe you didn't, but I didn't. Something is strange here.

 

[Mirc]

I guess they are older then.

 

[choxorn]

Lets see, who has played turnsets? Sima, Tupac, Andronicus, Whomp, Mirc, and me. Who automated the workers? We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Mirc]

This is the best way, asking them. And yeah, I think we'll believe their word, since we can't check every single save and play it until we see if any worker is automated. And in the end, if really nobody says "I automated 3 workers because I was in a hurry" or "I pressed 'a' acidentally and forgot to click the unit again to de-automate it", we will probably think that it's better to move on. But I would advise anyone that automated workers ever, in any game, to not do it again (I'm saying this from my own experience, since when I couldn't win on Chieftain, most likely this was the cause, so I'm never doing it again), or unless you are playing some crazy variant (I saw a SG with all automated workers at Deity. I lurked there a little, but I didn't join because I didn't think I can do it).

And BTW, who is going to get the save next?