SQ2: Schizophrenic Shaka

[choxorn]

Oh. Oh, and BTW I have a "comment" on the fact that you guys thought vikings might attack.

Come on, guys, this is vannila! and all the civs are Zulu!!

 

[Andronicus]

The comment re vikes was for your general information, certainly not pertaining to this game where everyone is zulu and, as you point out, not to any vanilla / PTW game. Nevertheless worth remembering when you are playing conquests

 

[choxorn]

Maybe it's just pretty easy to make me

 

[Sima Qian]

Kind of surprising that with all these "lurker comments" popping up in this thread, nobody seems willing to take the save and play a few turns

 

[Andronicus]

I thought Whomp said he was going to play? If not I might be able to grab it, but I have several other SG turns coming up very soon so would appreciate knowing soon


posted 29/05/2006

I'll be home tomorrow so I can try to get a set in sometime this week.

 

[Whomp]

Feast mode here. I just finished Sgotm10 and still have husky01 on the docket. I can try Thursday.

 

[Andronicus]

Well if you cant play till Thur, I'll play first - consider this a got it

 

[Andronicus]

Played very quiet builder turns (kulcha builds ).

Science
Researched Nationalism 1st IT, then electricity. Sold Steam for bulk gpt, still have monopoly on industrialisation and electricity. Currently 4 turns from Medicine. AI have researched Commie and thats all!
Suggest we get to Scientific Method for ToE, should look to prebuild (see below). Aim for free atomic / electronics on our way to fission and our UN goal.

Military
All quiet on the western front. Everyone else is in demo - we could but I dont think its worth it for the drop in culture, science and production.
I built no military, may want a few more cavs for security (and to discourage AI who mostly owe us heaps of gpt), although hopefully tanks not too far away.

Economy
Running 100% science thanks to generous AI donations for steam and a few resources with a handsome profit (being used to shortrush / cashrush culture buildings in shield poor locations).

Workers
I would have liked 2-3 times as many as I had. I built 5 or 6, bought a few from AI, but we are still badly lacking
I prioritised 1st connecting towns in our main empire (ignored remote locations), took 2 turns to complete. Then started on least corrupt cities trying to get them to size 12 and max production, also added a few to Iron Works (otherwise the game will be over before IW built)
There is much work still to be done around core esp hills, never mind all the jungle in the south (this is low priority)

Wonders
We lack a FP. My thought for best site (I havnt studied civassist though) is Iron Works - needs IW (12turns) and factory first.
'Babwe 8 turns from completing Suffrage, will have sig shield loss if switch to ToE unfortunately
'Bane 6 turns from Wall St - could switch to palace and complete ToE in 18 if my calculations are correct (158 shields in box @ 25spt) Railing more mines would speed this further, but probably research sanitation and / or corporation in interim.
Hoover pre build also req consideration - ? 'babwe after Suffrage

Culture
During my turns culture increased from 128cpt to 173cpt total 8750 -> 10282
However we are still inferior to pink and orange in culture, but we are now dismissive of DB and yellow's culture (were unimpressed). I rushed quite a number of libs and temples.
Only 1 flip in my turns - to us

 

[Andronicus]

Preturn
Note no FP - ? Iron Works a poss site, only size 3 will take a long while (IW in 63 )
Our culture has slipped significantly with respect to orange and lesser extent pink - this puts us at risk of wrong end of flips. Aim to correct
Much worker activity required. Railroading core, mining around core and then consider southern jungle - have 43 workers, I'd like at least double, could always fold in after completion.
MM every town, every town put on culture or worker build except 'babwe (Suffrage)
Science to 30% and Nationalism in 1

An hour and a half later press enter ...

IT
Nationalism -> electricity
Trades
Steam to Orange for 168gpt + WM + 9g
Steam + WM to LB for 41gpt + silks + 13g
Steam + WM to pink for 34gpt + dyes + 13g
Steam to Yellow for 31gpt + 14g + WM
Steam to DB for Democracy + 1g
(could get Free Artistry from Green but I decline)
Build 2 workers and a lib (cant read my notes in which towns ), all go to worker builds
We love the chief days all over the place
Bapedi 2 joins us , sell rax -> temple

1) 1160AD
whats the caravel doing? Exploring empty ocean . Send it back (probably should have disbanded immed, but decided to disband in port)
Buy worker from pink for 27g
orange will give 152gpt +167g for indust - decide to hold monopoly a while longer
Trade salt to LB for 64g + 16gpt

IT
'bane worker -> Wall St
'lieya uni -> cath
New Zim2 lib -> temple
'ivory temple -> uni
'flipper worker -> worker

2) 1170AD
RRing

IT
lose furs deal, req 27gpt + wines to renew - I dont
'deathpit temple -> cath
'jungle temple -> cath
'spices temple -> lib

3) 1180AD
more RRing, now doing core
Trade pink coal, spices, 4gpt for incence and 44g

IT
Peace treaty with Green expires, accept straight up offer to continue
'flipper worker -> lib
New Ibab3 temple -> lib

4) 1190AD
More RRing

IT
Pink req MPP - decline
Um3 duct -> lib

5) 1200AD
zzz

IT
'tugger worker -> temple

6) 1210AD
Buy pink worker for 16g + WM

IT
'barbport lib -> worker

7) 1220AD
Buy DB worker for 27g
decr science to 70%, electricity in 2

IT
'whaleport cath -> factory
'unguin cath -> factory
New Bap3 temple -> worker

8) 1230AD
Switch all scientists to tax and still electricity in 1 @ 70%

IT
Electricity -> Medicine
'Barbport worker-> worker

1290AD
Orange have commie
Buy yellow worker for 1gpt + 9g

IT
'spices lib -> worker
New Ibab3 lib -> worker
Beatya lib -> harbour

1250AD
Trades holding value
Industrial will get 21gpt +52g pink, furs 117gpt + 237g form orange, 16gpt + 32g from DB, 1gpt +39g from LB, 46gpt +71g from yellow. Green has just got steam and is broke

The core as it now stands

And on to next better player
? Whomp

 

[Whomp]

Great stuff Andronicius!
I will try to get a turnset in tonite or tomorrow for sure.

With all the flips is it worth keeping some of the cavs outside the outer corrupt cities? I wonder what the flip chances are with and without MP's.

 

[Andronicus]

With all the flips is it worth keeping some of the cavs outside the outer corrupt cities?

Good pick. When you see the save you will notice most cavs stationed outside towns, you could probably take it a little further and keep all outside. I was reluctant to leave too tempting a target for all those AI in our debt

edit
civassist says max flip risk is less than 1% in all towns except
'lighthouse 12.8% (I think I made a mistake not starving it down to small pop ? 4, -> hire some specialists)
Bapedi 2 2.6%
New Zimbabwe 1.8%
' ironworks 1.1%
Towns with less than 1% flip risk generally require garrison of about 10 to totally eliminate risk.

 

[choxorn]

My $0.02: Get rid of those barb galleys. They are really annoying.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Lurker commment:
Are you still going for a diplo win? From the save it sure looks impossible to accomplish ...

 

[Whomp]

@Lord Ems. It will be a monsterous task since we can't vote for ourselves.
Do you want to step in and take a set?

As it turned out I screwed up in another SG and played the wrong save. There were 3 saves up and I grabbed the wrong one. :crazyeye;

 

[The 777 Hoax]

@Whomp - Why can't you vote for yourself?

 

[Whomp]

@Whomp - Why can't you vote for yourself?

Because we would have no idea which Zulu we are.

 

[Andronicus]

@Whomp - Why can't you vote for yourself?

because ...

The Schizophrenic Variant

The Schizophrenic variant is where you play a civ against multiple identities of itself. I've chosen Zulu in this game, purely because of the alliteration of "Schizophrenic" and "Shaka." Even though it might seem nothing extraordinary, it actually lends itself to several variant rules, most of which are self-enforcing.

1. No military alliances or trade embargoes. How are you going to ally against an enemy when they all have the same name? On the other hand, Rights of Passage agreements and Mutual Protection Pacts are still possible.
2. No slave workers. How are you possibly going to make them slaves when captured workers are of the same nationality as you?
3. Culture flips like mad. Every city will have Zulu people who admire one particular Zulu culture, but whose?
4. Impi on Impi action. When was the last time you triggered two golden ages on the same turn?
5. Ahh, and here's the kicker. We want to cure our schizophrenia somehow. Desired victory condition: Diplomatic. Guess what? You can't vote for yourself, because you don't know which Shaka is you!

 

[Andronicus]

Lurker commment:
Are you still going for a diplo win? From the save it sure looks impossible to accomplish ...

Difficult yes, but impossible?

We require -
1) building UN, obviously
2) knowing who our oponent will be
3) getting mpp's with as many of the other civs as poss the turn before elections (will only work if they are not currently involved in any war)
4) dow our future oponent turn before elections and let him attack us

No doubt I've forgotten some basic issue - if so now's the time to find out so we can plan our strategy

edit: there are 7 zulus left including us. We must abstain, our opponent will vote for themselves. We require at least 4 votes of remaining 5 zulus, so at min would req 4 mpp's. It could get mighty confused if our opponent has any mpp's operating, hopefully once he attacks us it will trigger all the mpp's we have set up thus cancelling any pre-existing ones.

 

[choxorn]

Well, we're going to need to find a way to get those AI to like us, or they will abstain.

 

[Andronicus]

Well, we're going to need to find a way to get those AI to like us, or they will abstain.

I have little expirence in diplo victories, but I was under the impression that being in an alliance against a mutual foe makedly improved relations - an mpp activated alliance I would hope could achieve this.

Other modifiers for relations are donations - 100g improves relations for 20 turns I think, perhaps someone with more knowledge of how this works could comment

Any thoughts on why our relations are all so bad?