UNGY-02 We like our people

[ungy]

I think it would be easier to bribe him at pleased. If he cancels deals with Toku, Toku will attack him.
I didn't think about Toku attacking us, but now that Rusten mentions it, I think our priority is to break the Toku-KK friendship.

I think converting KK and stirring up trouble between him and Toku should be a top priority. If not we could end up facing both of them before we're ready.
I'm not sure how Iz gets missionaries to him, so we should be able to get him to convert easily.

 

[silverbullet]

All right, I think I will start playing in about 5 hours with the following general plan unless there are objections or you want more discussion:

Tech: meditation->calendar(partial, trade Aesthetic with Just)->currency->CS
Fire the GS in athens for 4 turns.
Bulb philosophy with the spartan scientist. Revolt to caste/pacifism.

Workers will be sent immediately to chop dye jungles.
After lighthouse athens will build a worker, perhaps followed by either a settler or a monastery.
Athens: complete lighthouse and build worker, settler, monastery, missionary
Corinth: monastery and one or more missionary, followed by palace. Will get academy with the next GS (after philosophy)
Thebes & corinth: delay lighthouses. build at least 1 WB (scout) and 1 worker, perhpas even 2 WB, 2 workers and a settler (for cow fish city).
Sparta keeps building military the whole time for now. With cast we will hire more scientist so that we don't work unimproved tiles

Knossos will delay its granary at size 3 to build a worker.

Will check if Toku or KK have enough on their hands. If we are in danger, workers will immediately shift to fort building on the forest 2N of athens.

I think a good place to stop would be after currency or perhaps after CS, unless something major happens before that.

 

[mystyfly]

Fire the GS in athens for 4 turns.

2 turns would do. OTOH I'd fire them until the Granary is built and the NE whipped. A spec before the NE will only generate 2/3 the GPP it'll generate after the NE is built.

After lighthouse athens will build a worker, perhaps followed by either a settler or a monastery.
Athens: complete lighthouse and build worker, settler, monastery, missionary

I disagree. Granary and NE are priority, sparta for example could train the worker (+ settler). As sparta has low food + high prod it won't waste much food on worker/settler.
If we want to avoid war (via missionaries) we don't need to build units non-stop (but mostly). OTOH if we don't try to convert KK we can train units in sparta and settlers/workers in thebes/corinth.

 

[Rusten]

I disagree with your disagreement about the NE.
The NE is not as important with philosphical as it is without the trait as we will get GP from several cities. It might be better to assign it later for a special pourpose (for instance in a "cleaner" city without an academy where it can produce a required great person for a corporation on demand). Further, Athens has a really high food count but a very low production count, so it's much better to get our workers/settlers there to save empire-wise for units or missionaries. A granary is nice indeed, but we can make that after the workers and settlers, it won't matter whether it's before or after.

 

[ungy]

2 turns would do. OTOH I'd fire them until the Granary is built and the NE whipped. A spec before the NE will only generate 2/3 the GPP it'll generate after the NE is built.

Well remember nothing is whipped
Not that I'm a big fan of whipping national wonders anyway.

I don't have the save ATM but I do agree we should get working on the NE in Athens--it's pretty useful. Don't know if it's a higher priority than the other things mentioned.

Silverbullet (and rest of team): don't be afraid to pause for comments if something unexpected turns up and you're not sure how to proceed.

 

[mystyfly]

I don't really get it.
I understand that the NE isn't that important for philo leaders (it only increases GPP by 50%). We'll have another great GPFarm, with grass cows + 2 fish. Sparta will only produce up to 2 GPs I think. The other cities we have atm aren't that strong food-wise and won't be running lots of specs.

I don't understand that "special purpose". What do you mean by "cleaner" city. Athenes has no polluted GP Pool yet IIRC and will probabely run the most specs so the risk of a GA is minimal there. And what does the academy have to do? The academy only provides culture and science.
A GP req for a corp? Like a GE or a GM I assume. The GM we can easily get by running merchants for some time, this is no problem. Only the GE would be a problem as we don't have that many engineer slots (not unlimited anyway ) so if we want mining inc, we could build a forge in one of the two cities and constantly run a GE (later, after factories even more) so we can get a GE sometime and save him.

I looked at the save this morning and IIRC athenes has 2 hills + some forests + we have marble so NE can be done in 5-7 turns. A stong GPFarm usually doesn't have lots of hammers usually btw. cows + 2fish site has 3 base hammers from working its 3 strongest tiles.

edit: X-post

Well remember nothing is whipped

D'oh...

 

[ungy]

It might be better to assign it later for a special pourpose (for instance in a "cleaner" city without an academy where it can produce a required great person for a corporation on demand).

Is this really practical? We can surely get a merchant easily--the engineer is the roadblock GP. In another city we'll run 1 eng and get a lot of NE pollution--plus miss out on major GPP from not having it in Athens.
I would assume the better plan is to run an eng in Athens when we can (GE mid game is always much better than GS) and figure we'll pop one or two eventually.

Even with phil, I'm thinking Athens could be a runaway GP farm with our variant, the GLib, and the amount of food there. Might be better to plan on most of our GP from Athens--maybe pick up one or two elsewhere (after the ones we're working on), and have the other cities concentrate on growth and production once we estimate they've popped their last practical GP.

 

[Rusten]

Assigning merchants, engineers or artists in Athens means wasting the academy for X amount of turns because it adds to science specialists only. It's pretty minor, but so is the added GP growth. We're entering Pacifism soon, so the NE will matter even less (33% increase). We can get the NE there later when we have the settlers and workers we need and are leaving pacifism, but I don't think it's worth the hammers yet.

I would assume the better plan is to run an eng in Athens when we can (GE mid game is always much better than GS) and figure we'll pop one or two eventually.

That works too, but you might get unlucky with the rolls so I still often put my NE with my Ironworks for engineers later (when philosophical) for GP safety.

 

[mystyfly]

That works too, but you might get unlucky with the rolls so I still often put my NE with my Ironworks for engineers later (when philosophical) for GP safety.

I don't think IW + NE is a good combo. You either have a good GPFarm and waste IW or you have a strong production city and waste the NE. Or you have a city that is so-so in both. I'd rather use the national wonders for more specialisation.

... but I don't think it's worth the hammers yet.

Both philo and NE are about getting GPs early so it's a good idea to build the NE early.
If we had no forests to chop or no marble it's another story but in this case I'm clearly for NE.

We can generate that merchant by running merchant specs in this other city (soon to be founded...) which will easily catch up with athenes due to very high food surplus.

 

[Rusten]

I don't think IW + NE is a good combo. You either have a good GPFarm and waste IW or you have a strong production city and waste the NE. Or you have a city that is so-so in both. I'd rather use the national wonders for more specialisation.

The engineer specialists will be hammer-boosted by the IW and you can add even more of them with factories. You can farm/workshop to keep the balance to have a lot of production and to run specialists. As ungy also stated, GEs are better than GSs in the midgame, so it's better to max out specialists from that city with a high engineer GPP. With philosophical you already get enough specialists (GSs) with or without the NE to the point where you almost don't know what to do with them in the early phases (we've already settled 1). If we're going to chop forests I'd rather chop them for a monastery or two.

We can generate that merchant by running merchant specs in this other city (soon to be founded...) which will easily catch up with athenes due to very high food surplus.

If we're going to get GMs there we should get amplifiers first to maximize efficiency and to keep a higher science slider.

 

[mystyfly]

Wow you kinda convinced me BTW I really enjoy those discussions.

I agree that we'll surely have enought GSs. But hey, they're still useful. We can bulb, say up to physics (Philo, paper, edu, lib, PP, chemistry, sci meth, astro, bio, physics). That's quite a lot (10) GSs that would definitely not be wasted.

OTOH what wonders would you like to rush with a GE up to this point?

If we're going to get GMs there we should get amplifiers first to maximize efficiency and to keep a higher science slider.

That makes this spot not a good city for wall street + ne, mostly because it has lots of other stuff to build and we can't whip. I think we'll still be able to run merchants there.
Are you suggesting NE in Athenes, but just later?

 

[Rusten]

Are you suggesting NE in Athenes, but just later?

Sure, there's nothing wrong with putting it in Athens, but as I pointed out we have other options to consider as well.

PS. I like these discussions as well, they're why I play and enjoy SGs. If we just play by ourselves without discussing there's no point

 

[silverbullet]

I think the national epic adds MUCH less on this game compared to a normal game. Not only because we are philosophical, but because we are running cast ALL the time.
In a normal game you typically run slavery and then the NE+GL is pretty strong and this is your main GP farm for the first half of the game.
On this game we have several cities which can alternate multiple great people. Assuming we will mostly run pacifism, we already get +200% to GP in athens. NE would add 100% to that, or 33%. 33% might still sound good, but the side effect of that is that no other city will catch up with Athens, which effectively means our overall gain to GP production in the empire is more like 15~20%. Add to that the fact that it is costly in hammers, polluting our science GP points, and makes it more difficult to get a GE/GM in another city (mainly for mining inc and sushi I would say).

The reason I would like to keep one city still building units is that we are not 100% sure to succeed with our diplomacy plans, and KK will attack us even at cautious if our power rating falls too much behind him.

 

[ungy]

I guess that is philosophy, educationx2, paper, liberalism.

not to flog a dead horse here--I'm just trying to learn
Am I correct that to bulb lib you need to have compass but not machinery?

Now when I look at the settle/save for bulb decision I tend to try and estimate how long until I get use out of the bulb and also if it's a strategic bulb (tao) or a short beaker bulb (paper). Hard to evaluate early beakers but they're pretty clearly a lot more valuable than later ones. Also you can assume the settled spec value drops to zero after a "decision point" --assuming you have a midgame decisive war that should win it.

So when deciding whether to save them up for something like paper or the short half of edu, you can estimate how many turns you leave it idle.
Other factors--do you expect to win the lib race regardless or is it too close to call. Are you way behind on tech an desperate for something, anything to trade?

Now I would think our variant would increase the value of a settled spec since w/o drafting the rifle rush is off and the game may go longer to a decision.

Now I would also consider the opposition and potential trading opportunities.
Faster AI tech=more lightbulbing--slower game =more settling.

In our game the AI seem to be teching slowly and we're a bit worse off than normal IMHO trading wise and we may have serious difficulty late trading.
So I would be leaning more to settling.

I think the academy vs settling decision is rarely the difficult one.

Does this make sense to you guys?

 

[Olodune]

A good discussion here I'm in the "no need to rush the NE just yet" camp, mostly because our GP generation is already very good -- its the rest of our economy that needs more immediate work (like workers).

 

[Olodune]

Now I would also consider the opposition and potential trading opportunities.
Faster AI tech=more lightbulbing--slower game =more settling.

I think this is a good summary. Because I typically go more commerce heavy than we are this game my decision is usually "another academy" or "bulb" as optimal options. Figuring out how much more earlier beakers are worth than later beakers is a PITA, especially as earlier beakers lead to beaker boosters more quickly In my games I often use the rule of thumb: If I'm behind the AI -> bulb, if I'm at parity or ahead -> settle/academize.

The notable exception to the above is a deep dedicated beeline (like rifles or steel) where bulbing is nearly always better.

Edit: Turinturambar (sp?) has demonstrated bulb powered beelines to a very early biology, so perhaps I under-value that option

 

[ungy]

As for the NE--I'm coming around on waiting on it. Rusten as usual makes good points and I wasn't thinking about the upcoming pacifism. Up 33% with GA pollution is just not that critical, while we really need to get those other cities up and running.

As for the next academy--I'm not totally sold on that as pacifism and 2 cities (granted one is planned to be a cottage farm but will take a while) will whack our research % further. Although the culture is useful and shouldn't be discounted.

 

[Rusten]

Am I correct that to bulb lib you need to have compass but not machinery?

You need to avoid machinery and need to have researched MC, compass, calendar and aesthetics.

Lightbulbing with a slow general tech pace just means you'll keep your lead for a longer period of time. You can lightbulb further techs and trade your earlier lightbulbs (the AI often goes feudalism/machinery/guilds/engineering quickly for instance). The sooner we can get to grenadiers the better imo. Slow AI or not, they won't help you research towards the military techs, so I never see the point in settling. While we're teching gunpowder we can backfill our paper/education for machinery/engineering etc.

Now I would think our variant would increase the value of a settled spec since w/o drafting the rifle rush is off and the game may go longer to a decision.

Grenadiers? They come sooner and our workshops will be great with guilds, CS and chemistry. This is the best time to go to war as I see it.

If we lightbulb instead of settling we can take Steel from liberalism to shave off further turns before the war. If we choose to do that we should ->
- lightbulb liberalism and leave it at 1 turn ->
- ligthbulb printing press and finish it ->
- research gunpoweder ->
- lightbulb chemistry with 2 GSs ->
- finish liberalism and pick Steel ->
- start making cannons while teching military science

 

[ungy]

You need to avoid machinery and need to have researched MC, compass, calendar and aesthetics.

thanks.

Lightbulbing with a slow general tech pace just means you'll keep your lead for a longer period of time. You can lightbulb further techs and trade your earlier lightbulbs (the AI often goes feudalism/machinery/guilds/engineering quickly for instance). The sooner we can get to grenadiers the better imo. Slow AI or not, they won't help you research towards the military techs, so I never see the point in settling. While we're teching gunpowder we can backfill our paper/education for machinery/engineering etc.


Grenadiers? They come sooner and our workshops will be great with guilds, CS and chemistry. This is the best time to go to war as I see it.

If we lightbulb instead of settling we can take Steel from liberalism to shave off further turns before the war. If we choose to do that we should ->
- lightbulb liberalism and leave it at 1 turn ->
- ligthbulb printing press and finish it ->
- research gunpoweder ->
- lightbulb chemistry with 2 GSs ->
- finish liberalism and pick Steel ->
- start making cannons while teching military science

this sounds like a strong plan--I think we could have it as a goal.
Assuming we can pick up construction and HBR since we have jumbos we have a margin of safety in avoiding machinery for a while.

Since I probably oversettle, I'd much rather play the opposite style anyway.
Another mistake I often make is overcottage and underworkshop so I'm really looking forward to the next phase of this game.

As to the grennies coming earlier--not much earlier and I find them much worse not to mention the drafting=large army quick piece. Again, I look forward to our team educating me on the error of my ways.

 

[Rusten]

Not being able to draft isn't that much of a handicap, not being able to whip is a big one. I'm not as fond of drafting as you are, it's very good obviously, but whipping cuirassiers or grens is just as good imo. In this game we'll have to rely on workshops, but that works too. I did a warm-up with Cyrus in the immortal university and forced a no-whip no-draft rule upon myself when doing some warring, it worked out just fine. I whipped infrastructure before and after of course, so this will be much harder, but I still produced a huge army there even without the whip so I see no reason for it not to work here.

I don't find grenadiers worse at all, once you get enough of them they have no real counter when you're on the offensive. There's only cavalry, but that comes much later and won't get defensive bonuses in cities. They absolutely tear apart riflemen and with strenght promotions they beat knights/cuirassiers too. They dominate when massed so they play out differently from a tiny stack of CR upgraded riflemen. I hardly use drafted riflemen anymore after seeing the light that is cuirassiers and grenadiers.