[Spoilers] Alhazard ruins a Renaissance fair

[Alhazard]

I'll post the discussion on the game with my dedlurkers of this game from my PB30 thread when I get home tonight.

[Alhazard]

password

pastpeacex

[Alhazard]

I played several SP test games so far. As far as leaders go, I really want a Spi leader and I claim that Ghandi is the best at this setup because by running pacifism with serfdom, we should be able to get at least 1 GE before anyone else and the Spiral Minet is a powerful wonder.
If we get 2 GEs first we can grab UoS as well.
I really like Asoka next because of the passive bonuses the most important being cheaper settlers. My third choice would be Isabella because of the cheaper settlers and the cheaper workers. The extra health will be relevant if the game goes to factories. I don't like Mansa since I can't imagine we will be building any cottages besides the capital's.[/spoiler]

Spiral Minaret and UoS will be a poor use of GEs. The AP is not allowed, so you cannot get the religious building trinity, and Monasteries will be obsoleted fairly quickly. Workers and Settlers will also be more important than Temples, and without a huge number of cities the wonders just don't offer enough to justify a beeline.

If I were you, I would focus upon a plan to win Liberalism. I think being able to get this and reaching Communism ASAP (for both the Kremlin and State Property) will be the strongest play. 4x Great Scientists, to double bulb Education and Scientific Method, would probably be necessary.

That being said, I haven't tested or thought that much about the game, let alone running tests. This is just my first impression.

AP is banned?

For lib: after PP and Education is knocked out a Great Prophet can partially bulb Lib. Scaling of tech costs will affect bulbing strategies though. [/spoiler]

Well DTG that seems to be a very good plan let me ask you how can we get the GSs? I guess run scients in cap after 1st GE (can he bulb gunpowder so we can lib chemistry?) and in the 2nd city working a citizen until we get the library up? My thoughts on the Spiral Minet strategy is expand very fast only building the cheap temple and a rax in each city initially and use the 2gold from each city to fund our expansion so we don't go broke. The build order in each city generally will be culture for 2 turns to pop borders, worker for a few turns then 1 whip with the overflow completing the temple. If the city has enough resources and trees, it can 2 whip a settler on the 2nd whip cycle. Maybe that is a suboptimal strategy if we actually get Ghandi and can rush Communism. Better review what Dreylin/OT4E did. I think you can build the AP for the hammers but cannot use resolutions. And we definitely want to skip PP if rushing Communism.

I see at least 2 other alternatives:

1) Since we start with Mercantilism and only Eng slots we can burn the first Eng on Golden Age and then quickly make Priest-> GS-> GS or something. It's costly to burn Engineer but it may get us to Communism much faster.

2) Run caste early on. Downside is that we'll almost certainly want to whip 1 pop into a worker asap from the first few cities, at the very least.

Also, part of point behind the Great Prophet bulb plan is that PP is needed for Communism anyway; PP-> Scientific Method-> Communism.

Regarding Spiral Minaret, I'm still thinking about it but am starting to lean to DTG's view.

about PP
Then GE for GAge? and hard research Gunpowder
1 GS for partial Edu
1 GS for partial PP
1 GP for partial Lib grabbing chemistry
1-2 GS for SM
Hard research Communism?

That is a lot of GP and if we get 1 GE from those, our plan is SOL. Wonder how will we get the GP. I assume of course that this is all dependent on Commodore not grabbing Ghandi first.

Alternate strategy:
GE for GA
1 GS for partial Edu (1500/1800) in prince
Hard research lib (1400b) and grab PP (1800b)
Hard research Gunpowder or clear (1000/1200) with GE
1 GS for Partial Chemistry (1500/1800)
1 GS for SM? (1500/2400) so might need 2 GS
Hard research communism (2800b)

I will try some test games with the above strategies.

test game findings
I am going to rule out the strategy using a GP to bulb since that is very GPP intensive. Using the 2nd strategy, it kind of works. Make sure that the capital works a citizen until library is built (with overflow from 2nd worker whip) since the 2nd city really needs the extra hammer from the Engineer or otherwise it will be impossible to get religion in the capital to build library with overflow from 2nd worker whip. Put 300b into education using scientists then gunpowder, bulb Education ASAP, then start putting scientist beakers into lib while you work on getting the 2nd GS from the 2nd city. When ready, turn on research, Lib PP, then start GA to finish researching gunpowder while getting the 2-3 scientists to bulb chem and SM. My expansion did not slow down too much which is always a good thing.

why gunpowder and chem when astro suffices?

Lib astro, or as like the prophet strategy knock out PP plus education and a scientist can partial bulb astro

Try a game where you generate 5 Great Scientists: one or two for Education, one or two for Printing Press, two for Scientific Method. Use Caste System to generate these. Whipping Libraries will slow the bulbs down, so consider these low priority.

My main concern would be losing Liberalism, even after bulbing Education. How many beakers would a second bulb of Education waste? A lot?

1200b, which is a lot. My concern with running caste is that it will slow expansion by a lot if we are not running serfdom. But will try.

[Alhazard]

We can use the 2nd worker overflow from cap into a temple so we can work a priest to bulb lib. Now any suggestions if we don't get Ghandi?

PHI/IMP?

then we cant run caste and pacifism at will and lose lib and comm to the spi/phi player. Also in this setup you can be only change 3 civics w/o 2t penalty. Spi/org or Spi/exp and just REX and rush the person beelining comm? We can bulb gunpowder with GE and Nat with GA. Need to test if we can bulb MT

if you want to rush someone then spi/agg should be best. EXP just isn't that strong enough imo without granary bonus.

I think you are underestimating how important the cheaper worker is we will be building whipping a lot of them but ORG is much more better economically and I am really inclined to take that. Let me rephrase. focus on expanding and take out a weaker neighbor or the person going for comm by taking what should be their land. But you might ask should we take an imp leader? This is actually a very good question since but From what i tested 2 chops can allow a city to 2 whip a settler so we can keep up the pace in expansion

lets rephrase the question. What is the best leader at Rexing if we lose ghandi? Is giving up spi for imp worthwhile?

With spi, i am considering org or exp because of the cheaper settlers which is pretty significant when we need the satelite cities whip settlers

To be precise, exp has diminishing returns for savings on worker production, given the existence of other production boni.

Assuming pure hammers (for maximal hammer savings), in the ancient era the base hammer cost without vs with exp bonus is 60 vs 48 h, so there's a saving of 12h per worker.

But when there's a forge, the cost with vs without exp is 48 vs 40, so the saving is 2/3 of 12h.

And if the worker is built in the capital with bureaucracy, the matchup becomes 34.3 vs 30, and so the saving is ~4h, or 1/3 of the Ancient Era saving.

Hammer calculations aside, there is the snowball factor from faster worker builds. EXP might allow quicker whipping of workers from city #2, 3, and other early ones. But since settlers are costly without IMP, this should only be a crucial factor for city #2 since we start out with 1 worker for 2 settlers.

Not sure if I'm missing something...how does spi/org or spi/exp give cheaper settlers?

in the later eras, exp ind and org lowe settler cost by 10h. I guess spiorg is the backup leader unless dtg has more to say on this?

[ipecac]

I forgot about the Settler discounts :weed:

[Alhazard]

As for the civ, we will be 2nd to last to pick so I expect 4 civs out of Byz, Khmer, France, England, and Russia would be gone. Any thoughts of picking Arabia instead with Ghandi? Since the bulb patterns will be GS, GS, GP, GS, GS, we can get the GP out by working 3 Priests from the temple and the UB. Also the UU does not require iron or horses if we get cornered badly.

W/o Arabia, we would have to get the GE 1st then GP from Capital then 4 GS in a row. Which cities would generate them will depend on the food placements...

In the beginning we will just build Settlers, workers, LBs, and missionaries, skipping infrastructure like rax and libraries (except for temple and Arabian UB in the capital) to prioritize land grab.

[ipecac]

Arabia sounds good. And there's a good chance someone picks Spain

[Alhazard]

pb33 spoiler

Looks like there is talking of re-opening sign ups if this game ends soon. In that case, not likely we will have a shot at Ghandi with rerolling snake pick order. If so do we change the bulb strategy to Nationalism (GA) and Constitution (GM)?

[Alhazard]

now that I tested more, it is too easy to get the prophet as the 2nd GP. We should not pick Arabia and instead take the next best civ available. And I would rather have the Dutch than Spain if we are going to lib astronomy.

[Alhazard]

Also the problem with Representation is the same with Spiral Minet, need a lot of cities to get the full benefit. But maybe that is not a problem since by T231 in the latest test game, I have 8 cities already, which is on par with the other games but I only have 9gpt at 100%...