The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

[dingding]

There are 4 techs W/C can be researching: AL, Physics, Medicine and DR.

I don't think they are doing DR and I should know if they are going for AL 3 turns later when I get AL (by asking what they will pay for AL). Then Phy/Med is 50/50.

I take Duckweed's decision as the final one as he's the OP

 

[Duckweed]

Actually in most cases you are the one who make the final decision on this issue.

Shyuhe has not express his opinion on this, which means he does not have a clear tendency, so his vote is counted as 0 (he might change his mind and post something after he see this. )

Hence now it's a tie between bestsss and me, and your decision is final.

The only case that your opinion will be banned is that bestsss is convinced by my last post and Shyuhe decide to stand on my side and it will be 3:1 even you stand on the opposite. Of course you can propose new points to support your own opinion and people will be convinced by strong point.

I don't think they are doing DR and I should know if they are going for AL 3 turns later when I get AL (by asking what they will pay for AL). Then Phy/Med is 50/50.

During the war time, AI has very high tendency to after military techs, hence the chance they will go for DR and Medicine (there is also no wonder related) is minimal. Therefore >95% it's either AL or Physics, which imo is a little high since it also leads to Artillery to open 2 new military units.

 

[bestsss]

AIs don't care about opening new tech.
After combustion they need 3 (usually) tech deep for the next.
Having warplan (active war too) adds a bit depending on the type of the unit the techonology provides (attack city/collateral are the top choices, iirc, which might not be case right away).

 

[shyuhe]

^^ I didn't post because I didn't have a strong opinion either way. I guess I'd prefer to go AL--medicine first so that we can get factories up earlier regardless of what W/C tech, and hospitals to eliminate unhealthiness. I think physics is a pretty high priority tech for AI in general so I think it's more likely that W/C will tech that first.

 

[dingding]

AL finished (t+2). I ask Churchill what he'll pay for this. He offers Combusion+500 gold (the max money he can pay). I feel it safe to skip this trade and go for Medicine in order to get a multi-trade.

Spoiler :

WoV doesn't seem to have the force to defense. Our two scouts find one thing interesting: All the Japanese troops go to attack WoV and the Portugal go to England. Maastricht is about to be captured.

Spoiler :

After the colddown, I changed the civics to FS+OR. As I counted before, Bureau=>FS make 20+ beakers and 20+ gold, but FR=>OR costs some beakers in contrast.

Then Factories + Coal plants are whipped. Workers have to farm some tiles for a quicker pop recovery. The next player can change them back to workshops or water mills.

Medicine finished at t+7. Luckily W/C completed Physics. I try to trade Medicine + AL to them for Physics + Demo + Combustion, but they decline. However they are still willing to pay Combustion + 500 gold or Physics + 95 for AL, I suppose they are not researching AL (Edit: AL=5000b, Physics=4000b, 5:4 is a fair Deity trade) and try to research Demo for 1 turn and trade for Demo+Phy+Combustion in the next turn.

Spoiler :

Thing becomes complicated the next round, they will ONLY trade Combustion for AL + Medicine. I know they are researching AL, and we still have the possibility to obtain Physics+Combustion+500g by giving AL + Medicine.

Spoiler :

On the other hand. London is captured by the Japanese at a great cost. Our GP Farm is able to turn 9 pop into spe.

Spoiler :

http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt338/dingdingzhu/Civ4ScreenShot3660.jpg[/IMG]

I decide to stop here to discuss some points:

1) I suggest to trade AL+Medicine right now. It's not quite possible to trade for Demo+Physics+Combustion next round even we spend another turn on Demo.

2) Now we've got a chance: nobody has Flight. If we get Physics from trade now and try our best to beeline it we can get it in 6 turns. It can probably be used to stop the war between J/T and W/C. Then we can trap their SoD in Holland and England.

3) The next GP will be born next time, it can be any type. The second one in 9 turns, the third one in 18 turns. I want to change the civic Slavery=>CS in 2 turns when most of factories + plants are whipped. Then pop a GM. We'll use the first and third ones to trigger a GA (in around 20 turns)

 

[PaulisKhan]

2) Now we've got a chance: nobody has Flight. If we get Physics from trade now and try our best to beeline it we can get it in 6 turns. It can probably be used to stop the war between J/T and W/C. Then we can trap their SoD in Holland and England.

This fact alone has to be worth a tech.

Doing well guys.

 

[bestsss]

Willem/Churchill are not very far from kissing the ring...
If we can stop the war we shall do it but that means that Toku/Joao not getting flight between (and I am not sure it'd be enough)

 

[Duckweed]

Looks good.

I'm a little surprised that Willem/Churchill did not research Artillery after Physics. Clearly they are researching AL right now, otherwise AL + Medicine is enough to trade for all 3 techs. Yes, I'll take the trade of AL + Medicine <-> Combustion + Physics + 500g with Churchill.

Willem/Churchill are not very far from kissing the ring...

I think Willem/Churchill are still far from vassal state. They still have 33% of the land atm.

Here's the plan next:

Tech -- Electricity, which will boost our economy a lot. I think it's unnecessary to worry about Willem/Churchill and we can't guarantee that we can get Flight before Joao/Toku.

I am thinking about switching to spy economy next, but not very sure when. Anyway I'm going to focus on espionage buildings next since we will use them sooner or later.

Will switch to CS.

Question:

Do we want to propose an AP resolution to stop the war?

Edit: Will settle our last gift city to Toku 4S of the wine city and I will save it before all Toku's cities are captured -- my intended 1st gift city to Toku.

 

[shyuhe]

We should definitely use the AP to stop the war if possible. Anything to trap J/T's stacks would be awesome at this point. I agree that they're a ways from capitulating - they have way too much land to capitulate yet (although they'll break as soon as they hit the land threshold). I think electricity will be very powerful for our economy given our tile improvements.

 

[bestsss]

I didn't count tile by tile yet
losing York and Coventry would open a lot of land due to lack of culture, same w/ Maastricht.
I think those 3 and one more city and that's it about capitulation.
--
about the gift city, I think it's too far to be counted as liberated.

 

[shyuhe]

Can we go plant new cities over there and gift them to forestall capitulation? I'm not sure if it's worth the hammers but just a thought.

 

[Duckweed]

I didn't count tile by tile yet
losing York and Coventry would open a lot of land due to lack of culture, same w/ Maastricht.

Not true, this three cities will only add ~10 tiles to J/T team.

about the gift city, I think it's too far to be counted as liberated.

This city will be named as "Trojan Horse".

I think those 3 and one more city and that's it about capitulation.

This is probably true, W/C's remaining power will be in danger then. Then the only safe way to stop the war is to devote our cash. Futhermore, this will also put us in danger of being J/T's next target, Can we beg for cash from Joao? bestsss.

@ dingding
When was the last AP resolution popped?

 

[dingding]

@ Duckweed:

It was the AP election and we won it (turn 223).

The next tech trade can be AL+Medicine<=>Physics+Combustion+500g+Civic change:OR. Then we may stop the war by AP in t233.

But I don't think it's workable: if WoV is still FR, it seems that we can stop the war by AP. Even if we can propose it, J/T will probably deny. We can try to spread Confucius in J/T, that may help a bit but not much.

We might use cash to stop the war but J/T don't seem to be in financial difficulty, so we need 4000-5000+g to stop the war from my exp (depends on the warfear as well). That's not far from a Flight.

btw, I don't think we can beg for money from them (Joao and Toku are cautious).

 

[dingding]

This city will be named as "Trojan Horse".

Maybe the warfare can be run at two aspects:

1) Land: we trap their SoD in some broader cities (like this one) and kill them with Bombers/Artilleries/Tanks.

2) Sea: Marines/Transporters/Battleships raze their coastal cities with the help of bombers/carriers.

AI usually leave only 5-6 units to defense a normal coastal city. At the most, 3 Marines can destroy one unit (Infantry mec, etc.). From my exp in Continents, it's a good way to weaken their production and forces.

 

[bestsss]

The Trojan City:

I understand the point of the city. I just pointed if won't (I think) be counted as liberated diplo bonus.

---
Demands (for forced peace)

Problem w/ the begging is that it depends on the a hidden random, w/o begging, itself, it's impossible to tell. Of course that needs 'pleased' status too. Every turn there is 5% chance the AI forgets One previous request. In my set Joao has not forgotten it and the counter has risen to 2.
There is some chance both of the requests would be forgotten by the time we need but... it's just pure luck.
Btw, above 75%power of the target (we are far from that), we can demand (w/ the diplo hit "around demand").
---
Capitulation:

The problem is that adding few tiles also makes the target losing them. Willem is overly small now and the east flank of Churchill is going down. We should have traded AL earlier.

---
Defy

Defying is random based, nothing to do w/ the amount of religion spread (unfortunately). All defy vote decision look something like that below. Since there are 2 civs involved there is significant risk since the check is performed for each. [bValid is the vote, false=no, true=yes], snipped for peace defy (from CvPlayerAI::AI_diploVote):

if (!bValid && iWarsWinning > 0)
{
	if (GC.getGame().getSorenRandNum(2, "AI Erratic Defiance (Force Peace)") == 0)
	{
		bDefy = true;
	}
}

The only non-random defy vote is for trade embargo, and only by the civilization(s) [plural, if team based] itself and it happens if the civilization is out of mercantilism (I think).

---
Being a war target:
As long as our attitude is equal (or better) to Churchill/Willem, we should not be selected a target. They have way more border tiles and way higher closeness city value. No way Churchill/Willem would have enough power (in this game) to preclude it.

 

[shyuhe]

I was suggesting that we send settlers over and pop them to 20% culture, then gift them to W/C to "expand" their land territory. Not sure if it's feasible given how far it is from our land though, much less how much it'll actually help forestall capitulation. At the minimum, I think the land should revert back to W/C culture if we do it (slowing down their forward progress).

 

[bestsss]

shyuhe, I dont know if the cities will hold more a turn.
Otherwise the best pick is 3S from Maastricht.
Even w/ railroad it will take quite a few turns to get there.
--
the best (and probably only) way to stop the war is [what duckweed mentioned] get the gold off Churchill and 2-4turns stalling our research. That's a very costy option, though.
What sucks more is (of course) Toku/Joao can redeclare as they please.

 

[Duckweed]

Maybe the warfare can be run at two aspects:

1) Land: we trap their SoD in some broader cities (like this one) and kill them with Bombers/Artilleries/Tanks.

2) Sea: Marines/Transporters/Battleships raze their coastal cities with the help of bombers/carriers.

AI usually leave only 5-6 units to defense a normal coastal city. At the most, 3 Marines can destroy one unit (Infantry mec, etc.). From my exp in Continents, it's a good way to weaken their production and forces.

The Trojan city is intended for spy missions. We can send spies to the spot for stationary bonus without risk and we can also get culture bonus. Our tech situation is way behind and our research power is way below Joao/Toku. With Jails and IAs up in cities, we can produce more EPs than beakers and each tech needs less EPs than beakers.

Expect report tomorrow.

 

[Duckweed]

Played a short set since there are several important issues to be determined next.

Turn 227

Made the tech trade with Churchill and then set research to 0% on Electricity in order to save cash to stop the war under emergent situation. I was surprised that we could still trade with W/C! Switched to CS.

Turn 228

Maastricht was fallen as expected. A GS was born.


Turn 230

As you can see, Joao made the barbaric attack against city with full culture defense and this made their war pace much faster. York was in danger, the best defensive unit was cannon.

So I called the peace with 2K cash. Resume 100% research, Electricity will be completed in 4 turns.

As you wished, part of J/T's forced are trapped. There is a bigger SOD in canterbury.

But that's not all!, here's another Joao's untrapped SOD.

Turn 233

AP resolution popped, I chose "City return" and voted for No to make Joao pleased. We can do it next time to gain friendship from Toku.

Turn 234

Electricity in. We are facing some issues now. As proposed, I have made spy buildings prioritized in my set and here's the result, we can produce similar EPs as beakers now.

Here's the beaker output. Also you can find that a settler is sitting on the Trojan site now. However, I'd suggest to settle it at least ~5 turns later so that enough of our spies will have maximum bonus to steal. Make sure to steal next turn after gifting so that we can get culture bonus. Moreover, we may need to adopt Judaism to get the 40% bonus and the Confucian missionary in the queue of Beaver city should be changed to Judaism missionary.

Tech -- We can take the Electricity trade with Churchill and then do the US + slavery? switch. J/T are flying at teching, every tech only takes them ~3 turns. They got Advanced Flight last turn, so that we need Jet fighters for the war! The best way for us is stealing again and we are set to go now.

NOTE: I let Madras produce WP to gain some extra cash, we can also do the same trick in other strong production cities for Rushmore(HE city is good to start it this turn). Make sure to cancel it before done so that WP can finally go to HE city. Oil has not been connected yet.

 

[bestsss]

Duckweed, very well.

>>Moreover, we may need to adopt Judaism to get the 40% bonus and the Confucian >>missionary in the queue of Beaver city should be changed to Judaism missionary.

I'll move the capital in the beaver city.
Aside paying 50% for the passive espionage the tech won't be very expensive (around 4k for radio).
So all the spies should mature 5 turns before gifting the city (will produce only culture there). I'd propose to collect "more" EP and burn it 2-3 turns. As far as I remember stealing is different and doesn't check technologies obtained on the very turn.

Oil should be connected when we are ready to produce navy/tanks/jets.