[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[scooter]

Congrats scooter! Looks like I was way off in my sense of the game, I really did think Oxy was a lock. But I guess you were the only one with a still functioning economy. What a crazy game.

Thanks! Yeah, the raze of Hampstead swung the game. In general, he was already on a timer because I had FIN + GLH, and his tech was built on Colossus (obsolete) and bulbs (not repeatable). However, his Kremlin + Police State combo was overwhelming, so knocking both of those out meant all I had to do was hold his army, and then it would swing. Getting to Military Science was a huge deal, while he was bleeding money at 0% science.

[luddite]

Ah, I didn't realize you had Military Science! That is a big deal. Funnily enough, I did a thread once at civ fanatics (my account name there is pi-r8: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a...sh.506511/) where I showed a military science rush vs the AI. But that didn't occur to me you were that far ahead in tech.

Out of curiousity, how long would it have taken you to get ironclads from here? The numbers in this game really throw off my game sense. Friggin 100 AD chemistry...

[scooter]

Ah, I didn't realize you had Military Science! That is a big deal. Funnily enough, I did a thread once at civ fanatics (my account name there is pi-r8: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a...sh.506511/) where I showed a military science rush vs the AI. But that didn't occur to me you were that far ahead in tech.

Out of curiousity, how long would it have taken you to get ironclads from here? The numbers in this game really throw off my game sense. Friggin 100 AD chemistry...

Oh yeah, surviving long enough to complete MilSci was my goal - I felt if I could hold off that long, I would start to turn the tides. Oxy was basically tech-off, and while my economy was massively damaged, it was still moving with FIN/GLH and a whole continent to myself + islands. Basically I was upgrading Zerks -> Grenadiers and my first Ship of the Lines were getting whipped right now, which was my plan to start whittling down his Frigates. If you read back a page or two you’ll see my gold for GPT offer was used to upgrade to two Grenadiers.


I’m not sure about Ironclads, but that wasn’t really something I was super worried about overall. My issue was Oxy just spammed so many Frigates that I could never build enough to fight Frigates-on-Frigates, but if I could get SOTL out, I could start taking fights. In general my tech rate was gonna depend heavily on how long the Oxy war took.

[luddite]

I've been hoping Luddite wouldn't notice or report this to ensure the surprise. I actually renamed the GG to "Galleon" to increase the likelihood he wouldn't notice . I thought about naming it something like "shh don't report" but that seemed like a borderline thing to do. No idea if he said anything, but hopefully not. Guessing not otherwise I would expect the lurker thread to be blowing up with guesses.

Heh, sorry but I did report that in my thread. That was a funny moment to me seeing that ship, a real "ships passing in the night" moment. I figured you were doing something sneaky, but I didn't realize it would have such a massive impact on the game.

This game gave me a new appreciation for GGs. Not only did this GG galleon win you the game, but I also had 2 GGs that basically kept me alive earlier in the game. I feel like in normal games they're usually not that important, but when you have limited units like this they really make a difference! Pretty cool to see that. Did you settle any, or just use them all on units? In single player I almost always settle them, but here I used them all to make super units.

[Zed-F]

Scooter was saying he got very few GGs this game, and that he had to wait quite a ways into the Oxy war before he finally got the GG he used for the super-Galleon. I'm not sure whether he got any more after that.

[scooter]

I've been hoping Luddite wouldn't notice or report this to ensure the surprise. I actually renamed the GG to "Galleon" to increase the likelihood he wouldn't notice . I thought about naming it something like "shh don't report" but that seemed like a borderline thing to do. No idea if he said anything, but hopefully not. Guessing not otherwise I would expect the lurker thread to be blowing up with guesses.

Heh, sorry but I did report that in my thread. That was a funny moment to me seeing that ship, a real "ships passing in the night" moment. I figured you were doing something sneaky, but I didn't realize it would have such a massive impact on the game.

This game gave me a new appreciation for GGs. Not only did this GG galleon win you the game, but I also had 2 GGs that basically kept me alive earlier in the game. I feel like in normal games they're usually not that important, but when you have limited units like this they really make a difference! Pretty cool to see that. Did you settle any, or just use them all on units? In single player I almost always settle them, but here I used them all to make super units.

I used them all on units. The main way I like to use them actually is for free upgrades. I didn't highlight this in my last turn report, but if you look closely you'll see I have a GG warrior in Shiv. That was actually a mistake by me - I accidentally used all of its movement points prior to taking the free GG upgrade, so the upgrade was going to wait a turn. But what I did was picked 4 units that needed 5XP each for promos, and attached it to the Warrior. The net result was I got 3rd promos on a pair of Knights + a musket, and I got a 2 promo Grenadier out of the free Warrior upgrade. That felt really impactful to me.


I also highlighted another way to use them in the Yuris conquest in this thread. Did the landing + attach + Morale trick to pillage his iron amphibiously which was impactful. Basically, GGs are terrifying in MP - so many things you can do attached to units, especially with Morale being available. Oxy razed a couple lesser cities with an obnoxious Morale Knight.


I think settling them in MP is mostly bad unless you're planning to make a late-game commando pump, and then settling is super powerful.

[scooter]

Scooter was saying he got very few GGs this game, and that he had to wait quite a ways into the Oxy war before he finally got the GG he used for the super-Galleon. I'm not sure whether he got any more after that.

I explained this in my last post, but to be super clear, I got 3 of them:


1) Used on a morale landing to disconnect Yuris Iron - worked but immediately died

2) GG Galleon that razed Hampstead - obviously effective, but was unable to escape and died.

3) GG to sprinkle XP and get a Grenadier - just this past turn

[luddite]

Ah, I didn't realize you had Military Science! That is a big deal. Funnily enough, I did a thread once at civ fanatics (my account name there is pi-r8: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/a...sh.506511/) where I showed a military science rush vs the AI. But that didn't occur to me you were that far ahead in tech.

Out of curiousity, how long would it have taken you to get ironclads from here? The numbers in this game really throw off my game sense. Friggin 100 AD chemistry...

Oh yeah, surviving long enough to complete MilSci was my goal - I felt if I could hold off that long, I would start to turn the tides. Oxy was basically tech-off, and while my economy was massively damaged, it was still moving with FIN/GLH and a whole continent to myself + islands. Basically I was upgrading Zerks -> Grenadiers and my first Ship of the Lines were getting whipped right now, which was my plan to start whittling down his Frigates. If you read back a page or two you’ll see my gold for GPT offer was used to upgrade to two Grenadiers.


I’m not sure about Ironclads, but that wasn’t really something I was super worried about overall. My issue was Oxy just spammed so many Frigates that I could never build enough to fight Frigates-on-Frigates, but if I could get SOTL out, I could start taking fights. In general my tech rate was gonna depend heavily on how long the Oxy war took.

I see. In that case, I have to say I would have liked to see your war with Oxy go on a bit longer. I still think you would have *probably* won, but in my experience frigates vs SOTL is surprisingly closer than you'd expect. Especially when he still had a production advantage. But of course that depends on him being able to actually afford his units and not go on strike.

Did you have any plans to sneak attack me, or were you just fully focused on Oxy?

[luddite]

Ok, let's talk about the elephant in the room.


The Military Techs

The two that got brought up earlier were Artillery and Rocketry. Rocketry nets you SAM infantry - 18 Strength for 150h with no resource requirements. That's probably the single scariest unit. Artillery nets you Artillery and Anti-Tank, 18 and 14 Strength for 150h and 120h respectively. There is no way to trade evenly on raw hammers against these units in ancient or classical or really for a long time, although in the right conditions you can get reasonably close. My example above about odds is crude - what happens if the SAM infantry is on a hill or forest? You sure don't attack it. However, the larger point is still important here - you do have options at your disposal to deal with them.

That said, I would bet the player with SAMs would probably win the fight if they played it right. So why am I not prioritizing it? Well, because this isn't a duel. To me, it's the same age-old trap of all the games here where we've seen someone take Aggressive Rome, successfully rush, and then watch as a player on the other side of the world built cottages, settlers, and wonders instead and ran away with the game. Sure, SAM are better than Aggressive Praetorians (although, are they actually on hammer efficiency?). However, the economic options are better in this game.

So, sure, you could win a duel with a few SAM Infantry. But what are the other 3 players doing? Settlers are also cheaper than SAM Infantry. Victoria + State Property will have twice your cities and a bunch of FIN cottages and be an era ahead of you tech-wise and maybe get Kremlin up and running. Pacal + Bureaucap or whatever will be laughing the entire time and doing the same thing. I think picking Rocketry is a free ticket to finishing 4th place. The other problem I have with Rocketry or Artillery - they're all 1-movers! We've set map expectations to be somewhat roomy while not huge. As a result, a 1-mover rush is going to be sloooow. You could take the rather enormous time to get 2 of them built and then spend another 6-10 turns walking them at a neighbor I guess? And then you can only kill 2 enemy units per turn while your health possibly gets chipped down. So, if you're going to go the military tech route, you really have to go with 2-movers.


Gunpowder would be my choice. You obviously pair it with France. An 80h 9 Strength 2-mover is absolute lights out for anyone. Add on Shaka and good luck. I still think it's weaker than the economic techs because while you can get land, you have to find a way to convert it economically, but at least with these units you could feasibly go after multiple players. What do you need tech for after all when killing everyone pre-Knights would actually be vaguely plausible. So I think this is the clear best military tech. Speaking of Knights.


Guilds would be similarly terrifying. Obviously you have to tech HBR, but you also need to build cities, so by the time you've done that you can probably slip in HBR. You also need Iron Working which is a bigger barrier. I'd just say don't overthink it and take Byzantines, but you could get cute and take Arabia in order to skip Iron Working. I like Musketeers a bit better because they're cheaper and have defensive bonuses, but this is an option. Plus I guess you could Oracle Gunpowder, not that you'll want to spend the hammers or tech time on it.


Like I said, I wouldn't do it. But there is one big huge caveat to all this - how does the draft unfold? Let's say someone takes Communism with pick 1. That's easy. Let's say I have pick 5. I then watch in horror as 3 players take Rocketry, Artillery, and Gunpowder. That probably changes things. The reality then is the military players are not going to target each other, so they're going to feed on the greedy builders. In that case, yes, my calculus changes. The draft will be really fascinating, and if the wind starts to blow a different direction, it could really force my hand. You also have to consider if you really want to take one of these techs that unlock a killer wonder only for someone to wait for you to build it and capture it with the unit they have. So, the short answer is "not interested in a military tech" while the long answer includes "... but let's see how the draft goes."

LOL, this was pretty prescient!

[Tarkeel]

I definitely feel like Civil Service was the right choice for this setup, but the caveat here is that neighbor luck, which already decides games regularly, is like 10x more impactful in this setup. For example, if Oxy and Yuris were to have swapped positions, I probably would have won this 50T ago. If I was next to Cairo, I probably would have gotten conquered. Very happy with how this very silly game turned out.

Agree that Civil Service is likely the most impactful tech to have from T0; There's a reason they nerfed that Oracle slingshot. However I do think that the reason you won was more related to abusing other broken base-BtS mechanics. Apologies that I overdid the start-unbalancing a bit.