The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[Dirk1302]

Agree about Delhi, we can run 2 gs and keep on working fp's so we can keep on whipping and work some science.

Those tiles near Bombay are not improved as of yet. Improve them first. At this moment there is no choice in Bombay, we have chosen that city to get the first GS. So if we now decide no it has to grow first then we have made some serious bad decisions earlier. Have you never run 2 scientists in a size 3 city with a grass cow as food resource. You have to be very opportunistic in the early game often to get something done in time, that first GS is way more important than some concept of working more food or whatever in Bombay. There's only one cottage there' it can wait till the GS is ready.

We're sofar behind in tech that you will have take some risks eventually. Meantime opening borders with Churchill will not anger the monty_team too much, they will ask to stop sometime, well we'll take it from there. Maybe give in, maybe no.Being 20 techs behind but having everybody pleased with us might even lead to a diplo win (well very unlikely), if not we just lose all the same.

 

[shyuhe]

Tentative plan:

Research set to alpha, 0% for now (until we get our GS - academy or settle, we'll want to run him through some better multipliers ~8 turns).

Delhi: Finish library, hire scientists while building settlers (or just build settlers while working improved tiles?)

Bombay: Build workers while farming a GS

Wijay: Whip settler to grab ivory from Toku, then finish library.

Blood hill - finish archer (not sure), then granary.

Resource - finish library, then grow to size 3 (granary I guess) then start settler for gift

Kushans - monument then settler for gift

Angle - monument then granary

Diplo: Get OB with the nuts, sell meditation for 40 gold. Because of the AI diplo, nobody can tech trade with anybody else right now, which is the one thing we have going for us Revolt out of Hindu until we get a gift city to Toku, at which point we can swap back to religion assuming the modifiers work out.

Military: Re-allocate archers for HR purposes. Disband all warriors. Move offensive units towards barb cities.

 

[obsolete]

I'm not so sure I like alphabet. Aesthetics is the same thing as a mini-liberalism. So we could take Aesthetics and then get alphabet for practically free (assuming we are not too late). And again, that's assuming we can actually get/keep the teams in a TRADING MOOD.

How are we going to get Monty to pleased w/o religion? He is -2 just for starting on deity.

Is that a newer change? IIRC from the old days, it was just a hidden -1 from all leaders when on deity.

 

[Dirk1302]

@shyuhe,

Looks ok,

Delhi, we need to improve more tiles there (chop the river forests), for now work the 8 improved tiles + 2 gs. Maybe we do need to grow it a bit more for whipping purposes. Something like grow to 11 building lib/swords, 2 pop whip settler with max overflow, grow back to 10 in 1 turn. Or grow 12 first so we keep working 8 improved tiles + 2 gs at all time.

Viay, settler will be in time if Toku goes for fish/ivory, he will i think.

Bombay, agree. Growing costs 3 turns and then we can build GS working the extra grass cottage but i don't think it's worth it. Also because worker is delayed.

Resource, needs to grow with granary.

Kushans, most efficient is switching to library now, 2 pop whip in 6 turns popping borders the same turn as with monument but getting a useful building.

Angle, agreed.

There are a few tiles that need to be improved asap, 4 resources near angle/resource city, borders pop in 5 and 12 turns. 2 fp's near Viay, an fp + river grass near Bombay. I'd chop the river forests near Delhi. Only Bombay is building workers in this scheme. Maybe get another worker in Delhi before gift settler?

Aest is a risky option. Since it's useless to us it only pays off if we can trade it to both teams that don't have it so,

We'll need to be in time
Must be able to trade with Toku_team
Have to research a few turns into alpha
Will take a diplo hit with Monty_team for trading with Willem_team

Since research will be 0% for some time we can reconsider later.

 

[bestsss]

Monty has -1 base attitude and deity is -1 too, so -2 total.

Will take a diplo hit with Monty_team for trading with Willem_team

We can fit the deal w/ gold (or the AI, just in case) to avoid worst enemy hate. Worst enemy hate is avoidable relately easily, or minimized to have no impact.

Opening borders w/ Willem should not be a problem, we can close them if requested to gain some extra diplo bonus but we can use trading partners. I'd risk w/ that.

Also I'd wait 2-3 turns to see if Ragnar (or Monty) gets more money for Meditation. We can get more than 40g for it and they won't obtain it due to trading. Request all the gold Monty might have before switching out Hindu.
---
We should decide on the research now if we hire scientists.

 

[Dirk1302]

How does this fitting work exactly bestsss? Agree on the rest of your post. I was wondering about what to research too. Sailing or alpha for me. Since we're going to gift Toku a city i think road it first then give it and tie our road network to it. Hope we're connected then. So alpha first as even sailing will take some valuable time atm. After alpha sailing is cheap if we'd need it.

 

[bestsss]

worst enemy hate is based only on the leftover value AI gets for the deal. Tech/map have some weight, the AIs won't trade if we offer them less weight then theirs. They value out stuff through their eyes (so our tech. weight less than theirs), so this is why you don't see beaker for beaker deals (have not played noble for long time but I think on warlord human tech weight more). Also the tech. gets cheaper if more parties know it, some tech might have AI modifier as well (but don't know which)
Anyways assuming we trade aesthetics+monotheism for alphabet. Lets say for the AI (not based on real case) aesthetics=300, monotheism=100, alphabet=360. The difference is 40, which would generate hate, if the AI fits the deal w/ 26gold (gold has 1.5weight), there will be no value for the AI. Alternatively we could fit the deal (aesthetics <-> alphabet) w/ extra 40 gold and there will no hate either.
The same leftover value generates 'fair trade' bonus. If there is no fair trade, there is no hate.

The hate "decays" each turn. So does fair trade. It's based on the turns the civilization know each other. This is the reason when meeting a new civ often -4 is seen.


I tried to explain how approximately works in Taxman SG (w/ formulae and all).

 

[Dirk1302]

Clear, so we should fit the deal with gold instead of extra tech. Still think aest is risky. To get Toku_team pleased we need to give that city but we need buddhism to get Joao to pleased too. Since we need all our gold we'll need to research some turns into alpha to fit the deal. If it all works out we could trade for alpha and math (probably also research for 1 turn) but a lot of ifs.

 

[shyuhe]

Do we want to gamble on aesthetics? I guess given our current situation, a gamble may be necessary to close the gap...

@Dirk - are you suggesting we whip the two necessary settlers for gifting (Ragnar and Toku) from Delhi?

 

[Duckweed]

Kushans -- as Dirk said, 2 pop whip lib is better, let it grow.
Angel -- culture is not necessary for now, granary is better.
Bombay -- depend on the usage of GS, if academy, then it does not matter a few turns later since we won't get enough cash 8 turns later, if settled, then 3 turns earlier is a little better than working the FP.
Delhi -- grow to at least size 10 before start settler, I think we can make it in 5 turns, so whipping is not that good now, constant hiring 2 scientists is very important right now.

BTW, from my experience in the emperor team game, it seems the tech in our hand is more expensive than in AI team, so we probably don't need beakers in Alpha, but still I think Aes is risky if Willem/Churchill decide to go for it.

 

[Dirk1302]

@shyuhe, depends on how much haste we make with gifting. Viay makes a settler for phants, the rest of the cities will take some time to build settlers. So yes i'd think, we need to grow the capital first so it can keep on working 8 improved tiles + 2 scientists through all the whipping. Alternatively we can slow build them at size 10, will be faster in the end as the capital doesn't grow that fast anymore so that may be best.

@Duckweed, if we take the barb cities we'll have enough cash in 8 turns to make the run to alpha with academy. I don't like settling GS's it's good short term but once we'll reach currency we'll regret it i think. Still it's not such a clear decision here, i'll go with the majority on this, maybe it's clearer in 8 turns.

For our next GP we may risk including a temple to speed him up. Not that disastrous if we'll get a GP.

 

[bestsss]

BTW, from my experience in the emperor team game, it seems the tech in our hand is more expensive than in AI team, so we probably don't need beakers in Alpha, but still I think Aes is risky if Willem/Churchill decide to go for it.

Oh, yes, that's true. Since they are 2 civs in a team (forgot about team members difference). The based cost of our tech. are 1.5 times highers, however that almost evens out w/ the deity bonus (our tech are 1.3 higher). Still, an important point.

 

[shyuhe]

Bombay is currently set to a worker - it won't grow unless we swap it to something else. Thoughts?

 

[Dirk1302]

I'd keep it as it is for now.

 

[bestsss]

That might sounds weird however after duckweed's remark about the team I'd say aesthetics w/ this setting is the best. We can get even gold some extra gold/minor tech (like polytheism) for it aside alphabet, even if we trade it to Willem only.

If we can get Toku's team to pleased and trade it once again we have a clear winner.
I think we might be able to trade for currency+50-60g!

But if we gift a city to Ragnar I think we won't be able to trade w/ Willem and they will hate us w/ -4.

I change my vote and it's aesthetics. Of course we should keep zero slider till we can trade it. Hopefully both teams won't research it. Even if one team gets it but we can trade it, it will be still better than teching alphabet on our own.

So if we gift city to Toku, and make Joao pleased due to civics, we have very good odds to trades: alphabet and then currency for just aesthetics.
---
Overall trading here is considerably more powerful per technology than regular games.

 

[shyuhe]

The upside of alphabet is that it opens up research builds. It'll depend on how fast we can trade aesthetics for alphabet of course.

 

[The Rook]

Tentative plan:

Research set to alpha, 0% for now (until we get our GS - academy or settle, we'll want to run him through some better multipliers ~8 turns).

Delhi: Finish library, hire scientists while building settlers (or just build settlers while working improved tiles?)

Bombay: Build workers while farming a GS

Wijay: Whip settler to grab ivory from Toku, then finish library.

Blood hill - finish archer (not sure), then granary.

Resource - finish library, then grow to size 3 (granary I guess) then start settler for gift

Kushans - monument then settler for gift

Angle - monument then granary

Diplo: Get OB with the nuts, sell meditation for 40 gold. Because of the AI diplo, nobody can tech trade with anybody else right now, which is the one thing we have going for us Revolt out of Hindu until we get a gift city to Toku, at which point we can swap back to religion assuming the modifiers work out.

Military: Re-allocate archers for HR purposes. Disband all warriors. Move offensive units towards barb cities.

Delhi/Kushans: Agree with Dirk.
Angle: Granary first, no pressing need for border pop.
Blood Hill: I'd switch to granary, we can finish the archer anytime, and we don't want to be hit with more maintenance.

Agree with the rest. Alphabet seems safer than Aesthetics to me, and building research could be temporarily useful in our current situation.


@Team
I'm going to be away for the next couple of weeks or so. Just letting you know in good time so that you can rearrange the roster (assuming I'm up during that time).

Good luck!

 

[Duckweed]

@Shyuhe

Regarding the tech, I'm on the fence between Aes and Alpha, so it's up to you what's to go next, you may set to Aes 0% now.

 

[Dirk1302]

It'll take some time to research either alpha or aest as we lack funds atm. If we go alpha first though we can then make a run for aest with research converted production, combined with scientists as i take it we'll be out of gold by that time. We can now trade aest for currency if we're in time. If we really focus on converting production to research we can probably get aest in ~6 turns despite slider at 0%. This lowers the risk of getting nothing for an otherwise useless tech. It can backfire of course if both parties research aest between the time we get alpha and aest but at least we have alpha in that case. Hard to guess what's best but this is a reasonable alternative. Setting research 0% to aest is ok in both schemes so i'm ok with that, we'll have better idea what to do once funds are raised and the parties in question are willing to talk trade with us.

 

[bestsss]

Like I've told I prefer aesthetics at zero slider. The risk/reward even if we trade only to one is way higher than teching alphabet on our own.