There are a few things I have always tried to avoid. One is Archipelago maps. I just never liked coastal starts much, and the rest of things that go with it. So recently I decided it may do some good to force myself into playing that sort of thing to make myself more of a well rounded player.

I’ve also avoided financial leaders as I prefer much stronger traits, so I will again force myself to play some financial, which at least shouldn’t be TOO bad for archipelago. Of course, I also don’t like to build cottages but that’s where I draw the line. We are simply not going to go there. And while everyone may think it’s stupid not to with financial, IT IS MY DECISION!

That said, I noticed there are 10 financial leaders, and now I don’t know which to pick. After thinking about it for a while, I decided the hell with it. I’ll make myself a little series 10 episodes long so that way every leader will have had its chance.

And hopefully, by then I will have discovered enough of all the quirks for this type of map, that I can switch gears and move this thing back up to deity.


The leaders in alphabetical order are:

Dareios I.
Elisabeth
Hannibal
Huayna Capac
Mansa Musa
Pacal II.
Ragnar
Victoria
Wang Kon
Wilhelm von Oranien


So, I will try and go through them in order…


But before I start… I need to know what are the original standard settings for the map? My options have changed a bit from past team-games so I’m not sure anymore. What is both sea-level and climate supposed to be set to?

I see right now they are set to Temperate & Low. I’m not sure that is right.

medium seas (I think) and temperate climate. GLH for the win on archipelago.

Hello there. I'm a relatively new player dropping by to say I tested out your settled great person/specialist economy (from the Impossible series) and I liked playing it a lot. I was a bit skeptical at first, but it was a nice change from the usual cottage spam economy to have so much surplus production. I noticed I had a great deal more early momentum in this game than my usual ones; it amazed me when I got a forge built in 3 turns immediately after I Oracled Metal Working.

I had pretty terrible luck getting great artists though. I might have got 4 or 5 during the course of the game, just from building the National Epic in the capital (despite running 4+ priests the majority of the game, and only building prophet/engi wonders!).

My tech did lag a bit towards the end (usually whenever I had to switch out of Representation to war/rush buy) so I did end up cottaging some cities I captured later, but practice makes perfect and I bet I'll be able to keep that early momentum going with a little more work.

Getting back on the topic of this series: Financial is actually a pretty good trait, if you can stomach the traditional cottage spam economy.

I find one of the best uses for the trait is to cottage riverside tiles early, so the tile immediately jumps up from the usual 2c to 3c. I might aim for earlier civil service so you can reserve more river for cottages and chain farms elsewhere. It's also a strong trait for coastal starts, like this series, because all of your coast tiles start at 3c. If I recall correctly, you can also gain the +1c bonus even for ocean tiles by building the Colossus, for a total of (4c coast/3c ocean). You may just ignore cottages altogether and decide to work Colossus!coasts =P.

Anyway, good luck with the series.

Since it's your first go at Archipelago I would pick either Willem, Ragner, or Hannibal for your first game. Three of the best civs for water maps.

HC is also amazing. He is so good I refuse to play him.

And why not go BIG!! [puts in a plug for HUGE maps] :king:

Sounds like an interesting game. I don't need to tell you that the water-based wonders (the Great Lighthouse in particular) are musts for an archipelago map. ;)

Anyways... good luck.

Hmm. Well I thought Ragnar on archipelago was the one that was too amazing that people ended up avoiding him?

Even if Darius I isn't so hot, so be it. I'll still just do it in alaphabetical order.

As for the lighthouse and colossus, interesting. Because these are primarily the wonders that I just about always avoid, haha! But we'll see. I can understand the lighthouse in the right situation as I did that before, but the colossus? It expires soooo quick.

Anyhow, it's not exactly my first archi-map, I did partake a bit in that deity of random thread, but of course snaaty's team already had done some good groundwork. And in a way I think it was cheated a bit since after the start there were votes on the best early save to use.



I had pretty terrible luck getting great artists though. I might have got 4 or 5 during the course of the game, just from building the National Epic in the capital (despite running 4+ priests the majority of the game, and only building prophet/engi wonders!).

I am convinced at least in 3.17 that the gene-pool doesn't get factored into the probability correctly of what to pop. It should correlate, but time and time again the results prove this is not the case. If there are 3 different types of GPs to pop, the odds of me getting an artist are at least 1 in 3, and NOT 1 or 2 percent even if the probability tells me it should be 1 or 2 percent.

Chalk it up as another of the many bugs...

Another reason to avoid the NE...



And soon... we start...

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/7/obsolete/f_GeneralSnaam_269f9d0.png

BTW, I noticed there are 3 options for land-mass type. One of them archipelago. Shouldn`t that one be the default for.... ahem... archipelago.

Hmm. Well I thought Ragnar on archipelago was the one that was too amazing that people ended up avoiding him?

Depends on your tastes, really. He's excellent for an archipelago warring game but his economy's not all that remarkable. Hannibal is much better for an archipelago economy because he has the best trade route economy of all the leaders.

Looking forward to this...

http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/3/1/17/obsolete/f_4000bcm_8f34735.png

Alright, here’s the start.

I’ve been looking at this for a few minutes now and I’m still not sure. What ever I do here.. I am going to be stuck with that decision for the full 500 turns. So I want to do this right.. But it’s just too hard to tell here.

I really want to move into pos 9. It will make up for that 1 turn delay, but can cause problems. I will be stuck with only sea-food, which can lead to some problems, especially since I don’t even start with fishing. Grrr.

There is a possibility for a land-based food source south of me, and another spot where if I get lucky maybe horses pops. And I’ll really be sad if I moved THEN only to find this out. So I just don’t know… I feel like I’m gambling if I stay here.. And I’m gambling if I don’t.

Also, there is a good chance that a metal or other may pop on that plains-hill, so moving onto it isn’t so hot.

I will move my scout to the 9 pos, and if I find another sea-food there, I’ll move the settler, but if not????

Going to be a tuff decision/gamble here….

If I move, I know for 100% my aggriculture tech is an absolute waste here. And my silly hunting isn’t exactly the greatest of things either.

I can already see why he's not so hot for archi... even his UU probably isn't going to get used :sad:

Alright, on second hand, maybe I should move my scout to the W/S first and if there is nothing in plain sight there, then just move the settler to the #9?

I can understand the lighthouse in the right situation as I did that before, but the colossus? It expires soooo quick.


Is it that bad? It expires about the same time as the Parthenon and the Great Library, two other wonders that many consider highly valuable regardless of the expiration date. Then again, you will probably want to get Astro as early as possible on a water map like Archipelago. I guess it's a wash.

The start looks pretty average... at least we have a lot of hills to work with the seafood. That plains hill NE of your settler is conspicuously without forests, so my bet is that iron or copper is there.

I might move the scout south to see if there are any good commerce/strategic resources we can work with the seafood, otherwise it seems a bit light to start only with food resources.

Darius is ORG which means half-price lighthouses, good thing on a water map.

I don't think moving will do you any good. Why not settle in place? Settle, start fishing, build a warrior and then switch to a workboat when fishing comes in.

Well damnit, I still can't make up my mind.

Moving would get me a bonus boost. I'd get earlier stuff out faster. But I just don't know.. It's possible that nothing at all will pop up on that hill.. grrrr!!!!

I was thinking, tech fishing first, while getting worker out through the bonus hill. Then right away road the hills to get them ready for the lighthouse.

At least the normal lighthouses are cheap, but there are still 3 strikes against me for the Great Lighthouse. I am not industrious... and I I don't start with fishing... and I don't start with mining. And hell, if I try to whip I lose another turn with anarchy, etc.

Grrrr, I want my trusty old Ramesses back, cause this sucks. I suppose I can try to gamble for it. I'll have to try to get it within what... 50 turns? But I don't think it's going to happen. Hmm.

It expires about the same time as the Parthenon and the Great Library, two other wonders that many consider highly valuable regardless of the expiration date.

No, they expire at the UN-SCIENTIFIC METHOD tech. The colossus is just wasted hammers, sorta like the chicken pizza.

[QUOTE=obsolete;7663315]
At least the normal lighthouses are cheap, but there are still 3 strikes against me for the Great Lighthouse. I am not industrious... and I I don't start with fishing... and I don't start with mining. And hell, if I try to whip I lose another turn with anarchy, etc./QUOTE]

The AI is often late with the Great Lighthouse. It seldom goes before 1000 BC on immortal, and on archipelago you get foreign bonus + intercontinental bonus for trades with other nations on other islands.

Damn, damn, damn. I am still pondering here. IF I stay where I am, I at least get a river health bonus. But if I move... I get to uncover 4-5 new sea tiles which MAY bring in another food source which can be BIG. Also, I could get something good in some of the other land tiles to that east.

Can't...... decide!

At least, I think we can agree Fishing --> Mining --> Bronze --> Sailing --> Masonry ?

That's 5 techs away, and one of them very expensive.

I suppose, I could get lucky and pop a hut for bronze... or better yet, a horde of nasty units.


First unit.. Worker... and then warriors... If I move #9, I lose 1 turn, but can get him out in just 12. But if I stay... will take me about 15 turns, but I could MINE that 2h hill while waiting for bronze to come in.

I am absolutely stuck on this decision.

Alright, the hell with it.

I think I'll move scout to #9, and if I don't so much as see a sea-food tile, aggricultural tile, or a cow.. then I stay in place.

Looking forward to this one. I actually think SSE can be quite strong on archipelago maps given enough hills to spend the seafood.

Don't underestimate the colossus, if you have bronze it's not that expensive and getting one or two (off-coast fish) extra commerce per sea square is not that bad. Plus, if you find any lakes they'll be 3f4c which is pretty good for an unimproved tile.

I think you should be able to get an early wonder (SH / GW or even oracle for MC) and still snag the GLH, even on immortal

At the end of that SSE-WE series it seemed people were already getting bored with seeing it over and over again. So I never bothered continuing with it. That's a good thing I think, since I guess it means the original tests were validated.

For this archi series I am thinking on just going with the flow. I have no real goals on anything and will have to wait to see what happens and take it as it comes. But I'll probably end up doing something that looks weird.

Anyhow, I guess I will get to turn #1 now and do my ten-turn run for the day. I'm starting to feel almost freiken nervous already and it's only immortal. What the hell is wrong with me?

All I can say is: relax, it's a game :-)

I agree that you showed pretty convincingly that you can do very well by pimping one city using wonders and settled GPs. In retrospect, it is a logical conclusion from the fact that OCC games can be quite strong, even before getting multiple nat wonders, simply by focusing on one city and not spending all resources building settlers, escorts, workers, and maintenance for new cities. So take away the nat wonders and add auxiliary cities and you still have strong play. It makes sense, but you deserve full credit for (AFAIK) being the first to see this and implementing it with such rigor and detail.

I loved the game where you start with tons of seafood but never bother to research fishing, instead totally focussing on wonder techs and getting them. Chapeau!

You could save, explore the immediate area, and then reload with a better idea of where to found your capital, if it bothers you that much. (Would this be considered "bad form"? I'm unfamiliar with gaming etiquette for public games.)

This is indeed "bad form." Generally, if people post games online, and make a mistake, the community expects them to live with it.

If this were a game I was playing by myself at home and I wasn't posting it online, I'd probably do something like that. I definitely wouldn't do something like that if I were to post it online. I would live with my mistake.

Well I'll make a promise.. If I get bronze, I MAY take a shot at this... colossus. But no promises (no pun intended).


http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/18/obsolete/f_turn10m_7df45e8.jpg

Alright, good and bad news.

First, after moving the scout to #9, I spotted the bananas. Which, wasn’t exactly the resource I was looking for. However, I was still TEMPTED to give it a shot to settle up there because there were still a few water tiles I could hit lucky on. After debating on it for quite some time, I decided to just settle where I was, as I knew for certain I’d be able to at least get a mine up before bronze working hit.

On turn 0 I was pretty happy after hitting the settle button in place. Mainly because I did get a rice patch after all. And also because moving up north wouldn’t have gained anything (except silly bananas). So I would have been behind more than ahead, and mad.

But I may have made a mistake still, not sure. I still went with my original plan of going Fishing first. I figured that one clam tile can support itself AND give 3 beakers, which is 33% of my early output. Which, should lead to gains on getting to bronze working faster, etc.

However, I may have been over-thinking this, and trying to leverage financial too much. In all honesty by the time I am done my worker, and get the city to pop 2 in order to get that clam tile, it would have a lot of catching up to do to pay off. If I had gone Mining -> Bronzeworking first, I could possibly chop faster, and get things going to a much better start. Not sure… I’ll have to run these numbers later on, but it’s possible I already misplayed this like a rookie, from turn 0 !!!

Well, fishing seems cheap, 65 beakers. Mining takes up 80, and bronze 195. Starting capitals always have a base of 9. Hmmm!

Anyhow, I popped one hut, but only got a lousy 27 gold. I also made sure to wait till the right moment. I felt for sure I was going to get something big, like animal husbandry, haha! No luck there.

Anyhow, some more bad news. Seems I’m on a really small patch of land. I already knew this a few turns in advance because you can often (illegally?) see coast lines behind hill tiles. And while it’s not 100% certain, I think it’s 95% or so that this patch is all my continent is going to get.

Grrrrr! And when I settled on that tiny river tile I was so thinking ahead of that game looking toward the SoL and 3GD. Now the only real point in building them would be to deny them to the bigger giant guys.

At least it doesn’t seem I’m at the extreme poles, so maybe I am within bounds to build the space elevator if I want to go that route, we shall see. But with so little terrain it’s doubtful if I will even get a resource like aluminum. Haha!

Soon I’ll have to get off this sh!ty little island. I was hoping I would share some patch of land with someone else… and then have a close friend only to pounce on them in the very late stage if I ran into an emergency.

It looks like the only thing I can do now is try to get a bunch of small islands and hope a lot of them will get a lot of future resources. I’m worried about not getting any oil, aluminum, uranium, and coal. And god help me if I don’t get any iron/copper cause already it looks like I got no marble or stone. On fractal it’s just too easy for a human player to march a settler off and grab whatever resource site he wants. But definitely these maps force a different kind of game.

By the way, turn #9 someone founded Buddhism. Anyone want to take a guess on who that may be?

Tough start...you should hope the other AI's get a spot like this. They usually can't handle those starts.

Stick with your plan. I would suggest putting a chop or so into a workboat, just to speed up your early growth. Try to do this before farming the rice. Honestly, the rice is just 4 food...nothing great compared to a fish or a clam.

I don't see what you're so uppity about. ;) Archipelago maps are probably as easy as they get if you're financial and grab the Great Lighthouse... Just settle island chains, open borders with transcontinental AIs and enjoy the commerce coming in. Odds are you'll be using the whip a lot for production as seafood is abundant and not much else.

My first archipelago game was with Willem, got an island much worse than this... not much bigger and 70% tundra/ice! :lol: Could only fit one decent city besides my capital. But I grabbed the Great Lighthouse and Collossus and expanded all along a nearby island chain, a lot of it desert/seafood, but the trade routes came pouring in.

The main thing with archipelago isn't that you're super powerful but the AI plays it so poorly. If they're on a small land mass their tech rate will suffer, as they're slow to expand to islands. I managed to get Assembly Line off of Liberalism because no AI was close. (Though it was only on Monarch... my skill level at the time.)

Also if you have copper I would recommend snagging the Collosus simply because its no cheap that building it is a non-issue! You'll work so much seafood it'll pay for itself for its brief run. Plus if you start a golden age, all your coast tiles will be money bags, which is just fun to see. :king:

DMoc, yes it looks like I have no choice but to go for the workboat now. But time is of the importance now... 10 turns have gone by.. so that's 40 left for my GLH. Another 5 will go by just before I can even start my bronze-w and get my worker out.

I am thinking, as soon as the worker is out, I will trade off 1 food from the rice to work the 2 food 3 commerce clam tile, while growing a second worker. The first will road & mine a bit. This will shave off about 5 turns from bronzeworking. That's 5 turns sooner my first worker can start chopping. I will complete a second worker from a chop, then both combine powers to chop the boat, and then chop the regular lighthouses, before chopping the great lighthouse after masonary is through. Actually I haven't checked yet if I have enough forests for that.. I doubt it though. Grrr!!

I managed to get Assembly Line off of Liberalism because no AI was close.

Hmm!

5 turns shaved off of BW from working a clam tile? :eek: Considering this is normal speed, I'd think it save about 2 turns.

Anyway, you'll get the Great Lighthouse if you prioritize it. The AI's do not get it that fast.

one thing in your favour is that you have Ivory. that resource doesn't get spread about much at all, and 2 on one island may be the entire worlds source. Depending on map size, I think its usually 3/4 for Normal, scaling up as the map increases.

On Settling, I'd have gone in place, better the devil you know/can see, than the deep blue sea. Lots of Islands, means no Colony maintenance, and the ability to gain over seas trade routes.

Jumbos? Amphibious war elephants attack ;)

I played a few immortal games on archipelago as Hannibal, doing ok until my inevitable fatal mistake caused me to retire :( I got the GLH every game, no probs. He does start with fishing though.

5 turns shaved off of BW from working a clam tile? Considering this is normal speed, I'd think it save about 2 turns.

195 / 9 = 21.6
195 / 12= 16.25

one thing in your favour is that you have Ivory.
Unfortunately it goes obsolete, even if the AI thinks it's a strategic resource. I'd much rather trade both those tiles for just one single food tile, but no such luck on that south coast.

I will probably settle a city directly on top of one of the phants. I don't remember doing this before, but I am assuming the city will gain +1 hammers?

budhism on turn 9 is pretty standard for normal speed from what I read in people reports

you'll probably have to move the capitol on hopefully the continent to the east(hope it's a continent there, but then I have no clue about archipelago, never played that map type), but beside that, the start seems above average. I prefer capitols which I can heavily bureau cottage, but you hate cottages anyway and the site has very good production(which anyway, is important given archipelago is famous for it's production problems).

you're org, so with cheap lighthouse, you have forests, the ai doesn't prio glh, so...

ivory on city tile gives 1 hammer

Remember, the fish is an unpillageable, and +3 without lighthouse, food resource. If moving removes that from the BFC, then don't move. Barb galleys are a PITA before you have triremes.

Edit: BTW, Obsolete, the spoiler pic in your last spoilered post doesn't show, just a lil pic saying you've exceeded your bandwidth:)

Fish can be pillaged, though.

The fish is ocean, hence cannot be touched by barbs for a long, long time. During war it cannot be pillaged pre optics.

pre astronomy really, as caravels cannot pillage

I still get confused by that one since I played warlords alot where the rules were different.

I can't see the screenshot as its showing bandwith exceeded but a couple of quick observations about archi maps. Only played 2 Snaaty's/Aelfs shadow games (that I can remeber) the first I gave up after missing the GLhouse, the second when I built them the trade route income enabled me to settle where I liked and lead to any easy win. Much more of a challenge to avoid building them :).

The main problem I found was a lack of production (plus the game slows down a lot if like me you have an old computer late on :)). So lots of workshops/watermills. Plus side with ivory much needed extra production and late on they make good workshop/watermill tiles if you remember to change them (I've usually automated my workers by then).

Looking foward to following this thread.

Holy crap, I didn't expect this thread to get so many views in just 24 hours, and I certainly don't remember seeing an image bandwidth exceeded issue before. I even had it hidden in a spoiler tag.

I will replace the PNG to JPEG and compress it to the 50% mark right now. Then re-upload right away so it should work a minute after this post.

As for the fish issue, I had been looking at it last night and thinking how terrible a spot it is in. I am getting ripped off by another +2 beakers here, haha! I was thinking definitely the way to go is getting clams up first, because even with the -1 F, I it gives me a couple more early beakers, AND I can use it the same turn the boat moves out, while the fish would have to take an extra turn.

Hmm, but the safety from barb issue is an interesting angle.

Oh well, I'll do my next turn set now as well...

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/18/obsolete/f_turn20m_20c766b.jpg

Well some good news.. And bad news…

Bad news…

Scouting off to the west, I was hoping there was a small chance I was still connected to a larger mainland. Unfortunately no, we are stuck in this small patch of land.

Well, at least I was expecting to find a whole bunch of sea-food. After all, we got absolutely zero sea sources down south. Surely we are going to spring a big cluster to the west so it would all balance out?

Unfortunately, no, but at did find ONE lousy seafood source. Just one…

Well, surely it would be crabs, that way our cities would at least have the full health combo. Nope… it was a duplicate sea-resource.. !

Well, now lets get to the good news….
That’s it. That was the good news.

Now for the bad news to continue…
We didn’t even get any other sources, strategic or not. Not even another lousy banana. No even any single calendar resource. Or a wine.. Or a……

No stone or marble!!!? GTFO!

Hmmm….

Also… there were no other huts to pop. We didn’t even get another lousy 23 gold.

Well that pretty much settles it then… I definitely want to find a better island. Going to make that top priority. I also will have no choice but to break up my capital’s BFC into many smaller chunks and share them with a few other cities all cramped into my tiny continent. But somehow… we will find a way…

****

In the meantime, I aborted my plan to get a second worker asap. Workboats are cheaper in relation, so I grew the capital up while teching, and then started to use my brand new mine now to get 5 hammers a turn into a workboat. This SHOULD allow me to get my pop up past 1 when BW comes in, which means I can whip another worker or something soon afterward.

Right now it shows BW will be done in 10 turns, but that’s a bit off because I will have it finished slightly sooner.

I won’t be roading anything for a while. I got confused earlier because Darius starts with aggriculture, and I went into my Ramesses starting-tech mode.

For now, I will move the scout to #1 to fog bust more tiles, and then try to get a warrior down south, which means mainland is 100% fog busted. And then I have to worry about barb galleys sprouting. But they don’t show up until when… after turn 100?

Welcome to the Forums Outshined. :beer:

Obsolete:
That is Archipelago:lol:. This very much might be mainland. Islands will be quite smaller.

I think a Medium and Small map would have been a better choice for the kind of game you are trying to highlight. Your island is actually about as big as they get on Arch.

What mod is that which has all new shiny buttons and the score modifier at end of turn?

Beyond the Sword Unaltered Gameplay.

Welcome to the forums.

Grrr, I was in the middle of sleep when someone banged on my door and woke me up, now I can’t get back to bed so time to browse the civ forums!

Question now is, what to do for tomorrow’s set. My worker will right now get the rice up running because that’s rather obvious, nothing else he can do right now. I will probably still bee-line metal-casting because…even if I get no copper, I can at least get a trireme out or two. Maybe send a couple to opposite ends of the world to pick up contacts (I miss selling contacts from civ III), and hopefully win the circumnavigation bonus. Or.. I can try to get paper up fast and get it the cheesy way.

I also may get a couple workboats out fast and use them for scouts, until barbs are ready to show up, then bring them back.

I also should at least work more on my beaker calculations. I know there are extra hidden modifiers for how many beakers you get into a tech each turn. So far we are at a surplus.

IIRC, Immortal has a 1.25x research cost, while Settler only has 0.60.
Also, Standard has 1.30x research cost, while Duel has 1.00.

Hmm, we haven’t met anyone yet, so how come we are getting a bonus. It’s been a long time since I’ve paid more attention to these issues.

Obsolete, I may not play even close to your level, but I can give you some Archipelago tips.

1) REX like the shiz (yes, i just said that). Your priorities should be Sailing, Masonry (GLH), and Metal Casting (leads to optics, Colossus).
2) You're Financial, what are you freaking out about?
3) Pump Settlers and Work Boats, stopping occasionally for military (to escort the Settler) and Wonders.

I suggest a city 1S of the Rice to claim the 2 Ivories. At that point, it should be able to work the Rice if necessary to build some Galleys.

Your first Work Boat should hit the Clams, the second explore.

Gooblah, I was looking at that spot at the start but decided against it. Things will be just too cramped, and it’s bad enough as it is. If I land a city on the left elephant, I’ll get a bit more breathing room, and free up more water tiles, which I can at least turn into food-neutral after a lighthouse is made. I’ll also get a city bonus, and my elephant happy source will be hooked up without even needing to road anything.

Anyhow, I decided to do the next 10 turns here since I’m up… and some very interesting developments, which are rather important.

Turns 20-30

http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/18/obsolete/f_turn30m_141862b.jpg

First of all, we popped that bronze source I was expecting. Yup, it even was right in the fat cross, as I suspected. But what I didn’t expect was that it was in the wrong tile. It appeared south, not on that plains-hill. Hmmm! Could I be really lucky and about to get Iron on the plains-hill?

I am god-aweful pleased now I didn’t make that early move to #9.

But there’s been a bad development. When my worker had nothing to do, I had him sit south to fog-bust and watch out for anything passing by. And suddenly a red (maroon) border just popped up next to me. Ughhh.

I don’t mind.. Cyan borders… but Red!?? Why did it have to be… Red!??

At first it looks like I’m protected because there is an ocean tile separating us. However I learned in a past game that despite the manual claims Triremes,etc. can’t enter ocean squares…. If there is an ocean connected on both sides by a coast then you can indeed pass through them. Now I’m not sure if this mechanic requires a culture border to be in that ocean tile or not.

Can someone who knows how this works in 3.17 explain more definitely? It’s obviously critical here. I think, I will have to beeline a settler and place him on the right elephant tile ASAP, which will at least block him from both the left and right sides of my coast, and HOPEFULLY save the other islands for me. Though he’ll probably end up finding another way…

Anyhow, as for city builds, I decided to get a warrior asap because I want to keep those phant tiles fog-busted. When my border expands the next time I‘ll bring him home for POLICE-CONTROL.

I was originally thinking on whipping him, but I will only get 7 overflow of hammers with the rest being converted to 9 gold. That rather sucks, so I’ll just move the rice tile to the mine and get him out in 2 turns for now.

You can settle a city on the easternmost elephants and keep your borders closed with that guy (is it Tokugawa? If so, then no need to worry about that ;)). That will prevent him (her if it's not Toku but Catherine?) from settling your island.

Of course, you'll eventually want open borders for the extremely lucrative trade routes (especially after the Great Lighthouse).

Are you planning on making a settler before the Great Lighthouse? I think you should do so.

Thanks, supr! I've been lurking for a while, so I figured it was time to post =P.

Obsolete's starting situation looks pretty lame... the only option we really have is to settle our 2 or 3 cities and then get some galleys and hope that the next island over is a better rock than this one =P. It looks like we can explore to the west and east a bit, at least.

Is that Tokugawa to the south? He threatens expansion a bit, but in the long term, he's just a waste of space. He hardly ever trades techs or even opens borders... if you get an opportunity, just eliminate him and take his island =/.

I don’t think it’s Toku because the shade of red is a bit off. I suspect it is a Russian leader, but I am not 100% sure. The FoW combined with just the edge view can be distorting it quite a bit.

Whoever it is, I know they are there, and I know where their second city is now… but they don’t know where I am (yet), hehe.

I guess I could use photoshop color-picker to compare the silhouette with the other red leaders to see who it may be. Haha! Makes you wonder… shouldn’t someone have made a color-pallete for the civ community so we can do a simple eye-judgement call without the guesswork?

As for the trade-routes, they are simply going to have to suffer, because I am NOT going to open up the routes for a very long time. I am going to try and box off whatever islands I can for quite a while. I’ll turn the routes on later when I start to sprint to liberalism. I also don’t want any religions spreading to me until around that time also.

Anyhow, my settler will have to wait. I am NOT going to stall TGL. That Deity-of-random game had the wonder gone at turn 50 in one of the runs. And since immortal gets no more and no less wonder bonuses than deity, I simply can’t expect them to be any much worse, because the era-bonus doesn’t even kick in at that time.

Can someone who knows how this works in 3.17 explain more definitely? It’s obviously critical here. I think, I will have to beeline a settler and place him on the right elephant tile ASAP, which will at least block him from both the left and right sides of my coast, and HOPEFULLY save the other islands for me. Though he’ll probably end up finding another way…



Something like that happened to me before in a recent game I played. Huayna Capac was on a continent to my southwest, and his workboats were able to cross over to my continent, but mine couldn't reach his.

The reason his boats could reach my continent was that his cultural borders went out into the ocean, and were just far enough to touch one of my coastal squares. On the other hand, my cultural borders didn't go that far, and the place where they met Huayna's borders was on ocean tiles. Therefore, my workboats could not pass into his cultural borders because they would have to enter ocean in order to do so.

Alright, that settles it then. I need to block that off as a priority. At least, before the Red-guy ends up getting compass. IIRC compass is the only thing that extends borders past another water-tile.

So unfortunately, my other island will have to wait, despite the boosted trade bonus for now. Safety first... fun later.

Since I don't have control of the Oracle, and I don't have control over the goodies they popped from Huts.. I'm not going to mess around here. That spot gets settled right after TGL.

hopefully it ain't stalin or tgl can be in danger...

Alright, that settles it then. I need to block that off as a priority. At least, before the Red-guy ends up getting compass. IIRC compass is the only thing that extends borders past another water-tile.

Optics is the tech that gives you +1 water view.

Also, Compass doesn't extend cultural borders past another water tile. It's normal culture that does it, and its capped at 2 water spaces.

If there is only one row of ocean tiles separating you two, whoever's culture covers it will be able to travel over into the other territory. So if his culture controls the ocean you better close borders, but if you get control keep them open as you'll be able to travel to his lands (and not vice versa).

Or of course there might be two rows of ocean tiles in which case travel will be impossible for either side until astronomy and you might as well open borders for trade routes (which can travel over oceans pre-astro through culture touching)

if he manages to cultural wrestle those ocean tiles he could benefit both from trade routes and be safe from invasions(assuming those borders are for a newly placed city which will also pop its borders). If the red guy gets those tiles, he can invade pre astro.

Or if it's Joao, he can invade at Optics. :eek:

Really, obsolete, this game looks fine. There is no need to worry about it. :)

Alright, we have some bad news… and then some worse news…

First, the bad news.

Turns 30-40

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/18/obsolete/f_turn40m_635d0dc.jpg

I whipped a workboat and sent it asap to scout toward the east island. Unfortunately, from the tiles scouted so far, there is nothing of value. Nothing! No food, no other sources, not even a production hill. Not even a river! Cant even find a defensive spot for a pill-box. Ohh, but we got jungle-tiles if that’s your fancy!

Hmmm! Hopefully something gets discovered fast near the south of it or… the hell with that, let the barbs keep it. I’ll come back later and maybe get lucky in 400 turns from now to see uranium on it or… SOMETHING.

My other work boat will immediately go to the west, probably start with the lower west since it’s closer to the red-guy, and see if there is anything decent I can try to claim before I get out-paced. I was originally going to whip this second workboat, but then realized I will have a stacked unhappiness for 16 turns. Ummm…. Maybe I’m going a bit over-board already.. As I don’t even have a police-guard in the capital. I ended up backing off from the whip for now… Though I should have thought of that earlier, cause then I could have got a second work boat timed out better. You know how it goes, often missing something by 1 turn ends up spiraling out of control and you lose the game.

And now.. The worse news.

Remember how I figured it was a Russian leader? I was thinking we got 3 of them, so odds are in our favour it is not Stalin. I mean, the game couldn’t be this cruel to us could it? The only guys I didn’t’ want to see right there were aggressive, or industrious. No… the game couldn’t be this sick could it?

Well, you guessed it! Stalin greeted us. That’s right.

Ohooo, not only did he greet us, you ask, how is that possible? Well look, right away his border popped! That can only mean one thing, he already has the Stonehenge… and is in his shiny-factor mode. So… we are in …. serious trouble.

I am going to have to take a good long pause here and try to regroup how to get out of this mess. Notice that ALREADY he can cross the ocean tile with a workboat… or entire naval army if he wants and land directly in my lands. And there is nothing I can do about it. And he is aggressive!

Very big problems here… I don’t know how this lighthouse thing will work, when Stalin starts on a coast… and gets mining and fishing techs due to the bonus techs from the start. And gets 50% wonder bonus… I just HOPE he really has the stone I don’t, so when he gets masonry to unlock TGL he will be tempted to go for TGW or Mids instead. Maybe.. He delays sailing for a while, even on Archipelago? I don’t know how he thinks, in fact the AI is so terrible a thinker, I often don’t even try to guess anymore.


I think, I will try to grow my blocker city asap while bee lining caste, so I can run a bunch of artists. That way I can try to win the culture-war over the ocean and have a protection net from getting backstabbed and a$$-raped by him without any warning. If he wants to attack me, he’ll have to snake around other islands the hard way. Now.. If only I can last that long. Sadly, I’ll end up losing some great Gps due to artists, but what else can I do?

Here's what to do:

1. Get the Great Lighthouse ASAP
2. Settle that southern elephant city to block
3. Quickly get 2-3 more settlers on your main island
4. Open Borders with Stalin. If you see any galleys heading your way, you might as well close your borders.

Also, check your espionage level in comparison with Stalin's to see if he's in contact with anyone else.

umm, and prioritize a wall in that ivory city :p

I wouldn't ob, you'd gift him alot of early commerce - and stalin won't ever let you be anyway...

hopefully it ain't stalin or tgl can be in danger...


:mad::mad::mad:

Optics is the tech that gives you +1 water view.

Also, Compass doesn't extend cultural borders past another water tile. It's normal culture that does it, and its capped at 2 water spaces.

Yes I meant to say optics, but was thinking about the pre-requisit when typing that. My bad.

BTW, I know compass doesn’t extend borders, but IIRC optics does. The lines shift out but… this could be some sort of freak coincidence if not.


If there is only one row of ocean tiles separating you two, whoever's culture covers it will be able to travel over into the other territory. So if his culture controls the ocean you better close borders, but if you get control keep them open as you'll be able to travel to his lands (and not vice versa).

I think I may very well try to exploit this. But… if he DoWs on me, he will still be able to cross that ocean, just because I have my own culture in it right? Yet if none of us had any culture in it then he couldn’t. That just seems… sorta broken.



Or if it's Joao, he can invade at Optics. 

Really, obsolete, this game looks fine. There is no need to worry about it.

If I end up at the bottom of the sea this game, I’m taking you down with me DMOC…

BTW, I know compass doesn’t extend borders, but IIRC optics does. The lines shift out but… this could be some sort of freak coincidence if not.

The reason the lines shift out is that Optics gives you +1 visibility over water tiles. It does nothing to extend your cultural borders.


If I end up at the bottom of the sea this game, I’m taking you down with me DMOC…

:scared:I'd better offer some top-notch advice. Which, of course, I'm trying to do....

Hmm, I had THOUGHT the culture expands out, which expands the visibility but I am probably remembering it wrong.

By the way, I don't want top-notch advice. I want... something that is guaranteed to win. Capische? Comprende? Or you'll be sleeping with the fishes....

Anyhow.............


I’m still just shaking my head over this. Why of all people.. Does it have to be him?

High aggression level…
Base peace weight of only 2 !!!
Still backstabs at pleased…
Warmonger respect of 1
Even razes cities…



Ugh… And to top it all off, his favouric civic comes very late, and it doesn’t even match well with archi-maps…


%$@#^%

I think I have to forget about the colossus here, I just can’t do it with this set-up. It’s rigged for bloodshed. I can not get him to friendly until very late in the game. So he will be attacking me.. He also will be happy with other aggressive Ai’s due to the warmonger respect.

There is no point in bee lining the metal-casting. He will just demand it and attack if I don’t give it to him. And he’ll use his 50% forge discount if I DO give it to him.

I think I MUST beeline to caste for artists. But then… he’ll use the culture pressure as another excuse to start a war….


Oh well, time to get the handy-dandy chart out...

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042637/Ny%20mappe/peaceweight.PNG

I think I may very well try to exploit this. But… if he DoWs on me, he will still be able to cross that ocean, just because I have my own culture in it right? Yet if none of us had any culture in it then he couldn’t. That just seems… sorta broken.

Nope, if he does not control the ocean tiles in his culture he cannot cross them. Neutral lands, open borders, closed borders, wartime... doesn't matter. So if you get all those tiles under your control, you'll be safe until astronomy, unless there's another route of course.

Edit: I am 100% certain of this, just went and tested it.

Nope, if he does not control the ocean tiles in his culture he cannot cross them. Neutral lands, open borders, closed borders, wartime... doesn't matter. So if you get all those tiles under your control, you'll be safe until astronomy, unless there's another route of course.

Edit: I am 100% certain of this, just went and tested it.

This could mean that Stalin decides to declare (goes WHEOOHRN) before he has the means to attack. All the while you work at getting him to friendly, only for him to declare when he has Astro, all because he had to scratch an itch in the early AD's.

I am also absolutely certain that the rule regarding boats is this: your boats can enter any water tile that you culturally own. This allows your work boats to access food resources in ocean tiles and you to reach lands that are 1 tile away from your borders.

If you take control of those ocean squares, he won't be able to invade until Astronomy without some other route.

Nope, if he does not control the ocean tiles in his culture he cannot cross them. Neutral lands, open borders, closed borders, wartime... doesn't matter. So if you get all those tiles under your control, you'll be safe until astronomy, unless there's another route of course.

Edit: I am 100% certain of this, just went and tested it.

Alright thanks for testing that. Now if I go down in flames by turn #51, at least some people will have learned something from this thread :blush:

By the way, part of the confusion is because earlier I had held right-mouse-button down over the Stalin-ocean tile, and the workboat plotted what appears to be a valid-legal waypoint into it. I suppose this is just a typical Firaxis glitch then.


Turns 40-50

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn50m_c2467f1.jpg

Well, we scouted as far as we could toward the East. There was a tiny bit of good luck in that we found 2 islands there, and when combining the two, we ended up with actually still just single fish resource. Just one.. But it’s better than nothing.

One of those islands is a rather large continent. In fact, I named it Jumbo Continent because it is so big. Big enough to fit our capital on if we want to move it over… but that’s about all that will fit :P


Over in the West I did find a spot that has 2 food resources. I will try to get a settler there asap after I lose this wonder race. But Stalin already knows it’s there so that could be a fat-chance of ever happening.

And for the bad news… There is no way to stop Stalin now. He’s already got a workboat behind my capital and scouting out all my terrain and backlands. He’s got multiple entry points to get to my coast, so I just don’t know anymore. I may just forget the whole thing about the elephant city cause I can’t stop him, and who knows. He is dumb enough that he is probably bee lining a settler to it right now, so he can claim the elephants.

Maybe I should let him…hopefully I have a small chance of flipping that city with TGL culture.

Anyhow, my borders expand next turn, so I will start marching my warrior to my capital this turn. Anyhow, turn #50 and TGL is not completed & I am starving it down.. And yet it still shows 12 turns remaining. However.. I do have one forest pre-chopped and the current hill is pre-mined so we should get it before the city starves down to pop 2. Haha!

Tech wise I want AH cause it’s faster to CoL this way. Also I want to see where the strategic resource is, not for my UU, but so I can trade it around. If I gift Stalin horses hopefully he spams them. His trait will be useless with horses, and I will rape him with my copper.

Base peace weigh and warmonger respect don't affect you. His aggression level and backstab at pleased do. It'd be good if you could get cultural control over those ocean tiles so he can't reach you.

By the time astro comes along you should be ready to attack him.

Dirk, his warmonger affects other AI's, which in turn ends up reflecting back on me. Another problem, is he starts off already with -1 diplo. And looks like I"ll never be even able so much as to trade maps with him until... trading maps is useless.


Turns 50-60

http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn60m_d1fb4aa.jpg

Alright… good news.

1720 BC the Great Lighthouse was founded in our HOME. So… I feel a bit better now that I will have slowed down some of those guys.

I also continued to scout over in the west. That 2-food spot, turns out to have 3 foods now. So I am cranking out a galley RIGHT NOW and will send it asap. I will also have a scout rush over and load into it once it’s at the corner of my island so I can safely pop the hut there, then I’ll add a settler to it next.

Some bad news.. Pacal is in the game. And Pacal met me very early. Looks like I am very cramped here. She also now sees the same island and will probably try to get something there too. Grrrr. Hope I can make it…

Ohh Animal Husbandry showed 2 sources. One is on our little continent, and another is on what I labled Horsie Island. Just another reason why I want to get a settler down there ASAP.

I was very stuck on whether to research wheel or archers next. I then decided to go wheel so I could get axes & spears online right away, and archers for when my culture city is founded. Spotting the horses had the most impact on this.

By the way, Stalin early had already hooked up quite a lot of food. 4 Clams and 3 Corns I think. Oddly enough he reds out his clams for trade. Now I understand, I have clam so it may seem odd to trade for his, but why would he logically try to refuse a trade that would greatly benefit him, and be stupid for me?




So… city #2 goes to Horsie Island, I will call it “SE I City” just because of the food, despite I’ll stay in monarchy cause of Pacal. City #3 goes to the elephants for blocking, and I guess I’ll call it “Pill-Box City” because of the great probably of it becoming a slaughter-house in the near future.

SE-I builds worker first…
Pill-Box goes Walls (Laugh, but I’m not laughing this time) - - > Barracks - - > Archers with a few spears in the mix.

All spy points were targeted on Stalin from the moment we met. He is a spy points maniac, and since he is the closest, I want to store up against him.

As soon as Stalin gets OB enabled, I will open borders with him, since I simply am helpless to stop him from going anywhere now. When I get my PillBox set down, I’ll close them again I think.
This is all easy said… but now to see what really happens.

Archers? You have copper, build axes and stockpile them in "pill-box" city. :)

The "Ocean Galley" rule is also why Barbs cant pillage those Fish tiles that arent coastal, their Galleys must stay on the coast as well.

Ob, you're going to dominate this game. It wont even be close. Remember, as bad as your little landmass is, the AIs are just as bad off, and cannot make strong adjustments like you can. When I move to Immortal, its going to be on watery maps where the GLH = win with less than perfect play. Thats what you have here. Get the GLH, you win, even if you make a few blunders.

Archers? You have copper, build axes and stockpile them in "pill-box" city. :)

Archers are dirt cheap, come with 50% city defense, and 1 first strike. I"ll also be able to update them to the mighty longbows, and all the way up to mech-inf. And they can get awsome garrison promotions.

Stalin has no fear-factor. He will suicide even at 0% to take a city, so I won't have to worry about chasing his army around with axes and other junk.

If he takes a few islands so be it, I can't defend ALL of them.

Yeah I have to agree with the others. You are in good position with the TGL down. ToA is a good match to it to boost that trade income, its ridiculous. I am not an Immortal (or even really Monarch) player but I like the water maps and you are in a solid position. Homeland defense all you need to worry about is Stalin and pre-Astronomy its not like he is going to ship over a large SoD in galleys. You could probably invade him easier than he can you. Or play nice and reap the trade routes.

Get some of those other islands settled and you will be in for a nice surprise with trade route income. Again, others with better experience will have more to say and say it better.

Stalin has no fear-factor.

"I smoke crack rocks, Joe Rogan. Fear is not a factor for me."

Turns 60-70

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn70m_39b1751.jpg

Alright, I moved a scout onto the hut, unfortunately all we got was lousy gold.

I also scouted another island, unfortunately it is all desert with nothing.. No resources, not even a hill.

Higher up North, is another island, but so far I’ve seen most of it, and nothing at all shows up on it either. Hmm!!!

Alright, let’s go for broke, I’m going to push up to the West/North island now and see what treasures we may find.

By the way, Desert Island has a tile I misclicked with a workboat so I didn’t quite scout it correctly. This means there is a possible coast connection, but I didn’t want to waste any turns backtracking on it right after.

I also did something very dumb with my tech beakers. I was researching for libraries, and then realized after half way through that this is stupid. Right now I’m making axes to defend my future island cities from barbs, when it’s costing me too much time to make, and more hammers than needed. I should have gone archery. And since the AI’s tech so slow on immortal, I can’t just trade around to fill it up. I’m going to have to do it manually, NOW.

Dumb dumb dumb decision by me. Seems when I try to micro-manage too hard, I always end up missing the over-all picture and I ended up playing this turn-set like a monarch-rookie.

If you hadn't connected your copper you could still have built warriors, right? Since most islands will be completely fog-busted by a city , you don't actually need barb defense. And one archer is not going to stop Stalin anymore than one warrior is...

You should have moved the work boat to the tile that said possible connect, as there is still a tile to uncover. It is entirely possible on an archiepelago map that there is more land to be found. Never miss an oppurtunity to reveal tiles

Yes, one stupid misclick by me, and then I risk compounding the error... Good lessons learned for the future. I will try to snake a galley back up that way to double-check in a bit.

Turns 70-80

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn80m_3d4909d.jpg

Grr, not good again.

Look what happened. Not only can Stalin wonder-hog, but he can also rex like a maniac at the same time. Freiken immortal bs bonuses.

Furthermore, thanks to wonder-culture I have no chance here to compete. Knew I was going to lose the pig but what else can you do? I am still bee lining to caste for my artists.

I will whip the boat next turn… then go to a lighthouse and try to grow pop up for when CoL hits. My only problem is the AI techs so slow on immortal that I may have to slow down a bit to avoid the religion that comes with it.

Anyhow, I traded a health for a health to Stalin, and I gave one away to Pacal.

That theory earlier about me having a monopoly on elephants here is in error. Yup, Stalin has those too!

I was able to get my pillbox city up before a galley went through, but sadly this only makes me believe he found much superior islands in his east instead.

And as for scouting up north, I found more islands, but they were just desert tiles… with a couple jungle here and there. There is only one clam resource there even with all them combined. At least there is another crappy ice-tundra clam in the south. So I guess I will try to settle those because there is nothing else to gun-for. Good chance I lose those races too.

If you open borders with Stalin, your trade route income will skyrocket.

If you open borders with Stalin you will only be able to trade with the city stealing the pigs. The rest of Stalin's empire is off limits due to ocean tiles. Stalin's empire would be able to trade with you however, so opening borders may benefit him more than you.

How did Stalin get a city by the pigs if the rest of his empire is off limits due to ocean tiles?

Stalin would have sent his galley over from past the 2 fish.

As Stalin controls the ocean tile by culture only he can trade or move through it.

Turns 80-90


http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn90m_8732f0c.jpg

Alright, suddenly there is an orange border that is right north of my capital. I don’t want to say it… but I think it’s Willem.

In other news… I found a hidden fish resource at Dead Man’s Island. And obviously, I now found Pacal’s capital, and she(well he) has 2 religions in it now, including it’s a holy city. I was going to put a city at the Outpost Continent, but now I risk it flipping to culture pressure if I do that… Hmm Maybe not.. The water tiles should help block his culture pressure right? I’ll guess I’ll continue with the plan and go for it.

I did something stupid (what else is new) and did not correctly whip Pillbox city right. Oh well, typical…

Jewdisasm spread to PillBox, but there is no point in converting. At least it adds 1 culture for now.

I also opened borders with Pacal because she already can go anywhere unconstrained and I can’t do anything about it. At least I have Stalin partially blocked, so if he tries to snake around the long way to my East Indies, I’ll see him coming for miles. So when Stalin asked recently if I could OB with him, I told him where he could take his OB deal and shove it.

Oh, and quite a while back we got Tin on that plains hill. So that's what the no-trees was all about.

Can you get tin on a hill with a resource hidden?

Culture can't travel more than two tiles over water, that's correct. So while I'm not positive, an outpost city should be safe from flipping as long as it isn't founded on either of the two southwestern jungle tiles (which only have one water tile separating them).

Also now this map wouldn't give you Willem as an neighbor would it? :mischief:

Culture can't travel more than two tiles over water, that's correct.

That's a little misleading. My understanding of the rule is that culture cannot extend more than two tiles past the edge of a landmass. The key is that if two landmasses are separated by only 1 water tile, culture can extend only 1 tile into the second landmass.

I'm not disagreeing with you, as you explanation of which tiles would be safe matches what I know. I just wanted to clarify that culture cannot continue spreading onto the second landmass past 1 tile because the channel between them was only 1 water tile.

Well that's interesting because as soon as I founded my city on that continent, I already got the pop-up that my guys want to revolt and join the Pacal empire!

I told THEM where they could shove it...


Turns 90-100

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn100m_e69207b.jpg

More than 20% of the game is gone, and yet I don’t feel I have done much at all yet.

I still haven’t met contact with Mr. Orange, but I will be joining hands with him in the next set, because I have culture in the ocean tiles and can cross over to a new coast now. I will then OB with him to exploit this non-reciprocal trade mechanism. Haha.

I also aborted getting the clams at the south pole because I saw a red galley going toward dead-man’s Island. I didn’t want to lose that too!

I will try to get my second phant hooked up now, and get another city going up next to my horses.

Well that's interesting because as soon as I founded my city on that continent, I already got the pop-up that my guys want to revolt and join the Pacal empire!

Unless Archipelago maps follow different rules (might make sense), Pacal's culture shouldn't be able to encroach the land of that outpost island. Normally, the culture can only extend two non-both-diagonal tiles past the mainland. His culture should, in fact, completely fill that channel.

I'm playing an archi game now (inspired by you!), so I'll post again if I can confirm it either way.

I've had a situation where i'd founded a city on a small offshore island and they immeaditly asked to join Cyrus iirc, sad thing was A: I'd never even met the tosser B: there were at least 2 ocean tiles seperating our continents and C: i didn't have optics. Broken programming at it's best.

More than 20% of the game is gone, and yet I don’t feel I have done much at all yet.



Rest assured the AI won't have done too much either. Its an archi after all:D

Woohoo, I inspired one of my Civ coder idols. Now I feel like I did when… Bhruic added my spy-GUI suggestion and fixed a critical spy bug issue I notified him about with 24-hours after I gave him the message.

Turns 100-110

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn110m_80f9baa.jpg



BTW, I founded Igloo City at the extreme south. And again, the very next turn I get the pop-up that my city wants to revolt and join the Russian empire. Man, I wasn’t even on his continent. It was just a sheet of ice with a copper deposit (yes I was desperate so I settled it). His culture wasn’t even near me.

Anyhow, onto the latest bad news. Yup… as I feared, that Mr. Orange was Willem. Just typical…
And to rub more sault into the wound, seems he beat me to that awesome island up there, lots of food, and hills for production. And he even founded, not one, but two holy cities. He even built the hindu shrine already.

Unfortunately settling a spot there is futile now, I will end up just flipping to his massive culture.

In other bad news, I got hit by a barb galley already, and despite he only had a 32% chance of winning the battle, he won the first 6 strikes all in a row. I sank to the bottom of the sea, and he still was able to pillage my sea-food in the same turn. Nuts.. And then on my counter turn, I had over 95% odds with my second galley, and I almost lost it too!

Right now, I am basically boxed in already with no where to go. Because of this, I decided I’ll try to take a shot at the colossus after all. Well I traded currency around to pacal (no on else will trade with me!). The menu said last turn no one had metal casting. So I hit done, and next thing I know, she already has metal casting! And of course she wont trade it, that @#%@$.

I’m going to try to make a run for it anyway, despite being really behind. At least she doesn’t have 50% forge production either.. So I hope she builds it in one of her stupid COMMRCE-RICH HAMMER-POOR typical cities. I may just have a shot here. I have my last hill pre-mined, and will pre-chop my last two forests. The problem is I’m 8 tech-turns behind her….

Ohh, in other bad news. Stupid random event came, and I end up with -1 relations with Stalin. Just great…

<Delete post due to civ forum database corruption again.>

edit: deleted double post from earlier

Turns 110-120

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn120m_196dc84.jpg

I forgot to mention in last post. I canceled my OB with Pacal and only ran them with Willem to exploit that one-way trade-route. Unfortunately a round later Willem found a route to connect his trade to me. $^%#^@#$^

And now… lets get on to the latest bad news. Willem got Metal Casting soon after Pacal did. This is much worse. He gets crazy immortal bonus on the forge. Also, he build his Apostolic Palace. Now he has another 4 to 6 base hammers getting boosted through all that too. AND he also hooked up copper for another 100% boost. Unbelievable!

I have set up every deity trick I can for the next set of turns to try and get a chance in hell of getting it, but the odds are very slim. Oh and of course, did I mention, he is in OR for yet ANOTHER 25% production boost?

You see what I mean…

The only good thing that happened is stupid Pacal demanded a resource. I gave in to get her to pleased, which means she has no choice but to give me the 40 g. This let me shave off another turn from MC.

Beating her was do-able.. But having Willem here is just too much…


And here is a shot of that Igloo city I mentioned. Beggars can’t be choosers right?


Turns 120-130

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn130m_57084a2.jpg

Bad news again. As soon as I hit end turn Willem already completed the Collosus. Very weird because I could swear I was checking the wonder list EVERY TURN. I know that doesn’t seem to work in on-line play as of late, but I thought that was only with on-line. Did they fix that issue where you could still build it after it was built, and was in plain sight on the wonder-screen?

Anyhow, this Willem is definitely a problem maker for me. Sandwitched between him and Stalin.. Hmm! And when he gets his Levee, it will just turn into utter hell, he is already just grabbing wonders and cultures like there is no tomorrow. But IIRC he gives up teching and focuses on culture at the end, so I will probably halt invasions until the modern or future era.

I was going to try to remain peace-ful until Computers, but I don’t know anymore. I realized that SE I city has enough food for a good food factory. In fact, that’s why I designated it SE I. I will POSSIBLY try to do a nice hit & run with rifles against Stalin. I never bothered with the cannon route, I prefer to slam SoDs of cavalry into fortifications, but in this case, there isn’t lots of mega terrain to cross so I may experiment with the normal A-B-C war-strat that seems to be the fad.

I guess my priority now will be to try and scout Stalin ASAP.

Turns 130-140

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn140m_920d92a.jpg

Alright, nothing much, just Willem wonder hogging some more, even Stalin grabbed Zeus (he had elephants). Here is the latest top-5 city update. Note I’ve scouted all of them but 1, and that one I basically know where it is and will spot it in the next turn-set.

It seems this map decided to dump me right smack-dab into the center of the top 3 runners. I also noticed another technical problem. It seems Stalin is upset at Pacal for having a different religion, but my BtS sheets tell me Stalin doesn’t give penalties for different religions. Now what is the explanation for that?


Turns 140-150

http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn150m_7476eca.jpg

There is nothing much to show this event, so here is a shot of the victory conditions. Luckily I am not doing as bad as I feared, but there is a reason for it.

Turns out we are all isolated by ocean to the other 3 civs. So there won’t be any contact for a while.

And some bad news, everyone has Iron except for me. So much for that war-fare idea… The only way possible now I see of doing this, is going to my old cavalry slam tactic. Question is…. Who to invade first. I’ll have to think a bit and keep spying some more.

But most likely it will be Stalin. I so hate to do it because he likes to get hordes of units, and he has high promotions, and he has so much cultural defense now. But that JERK refuses to trade anything with me, and because of it he is falling farther and farther behind in tech. So I may as well….

Guess it’s time to focus on Liberalism - - > Nationalism - - > Military Tradition - - > Catch up in muskets, replacable parts… then finally rifling…. And BAMB BAMB BAMB BAMB!!!!

And all this is… assuming it works!

I may get pounced on before I get halfway there.


Turns 150-160

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn160m_399551c.jpg

Look at this crap. Stalin preparing trained SoDs in order to hit whom????

Hmmm! Very interesting.

And unfortunately there is no way for me to regain my ocean tiles, as his wonder culture is just too great so I’ve given up on that cause. Surprisingly my power factor is still at 0.5 with him.

This really sucks it had to be Stalin, because if it was someone I could trust, I could go and crush Willem, as he seems to have few units around his capital island at all. But I know if I do that now, Stalin’s horn is going to blow.

Anyhow, I got a GE from my forge, and as much as it pained me, I used him to rush build the UoS, otherwise Pacal would get it. It really doesn’t matter either way, but I figured I want to deny him the wonder, as that will slow him down a tad, and it doesn’t obsolete until computers. I’m not going to use it for a while as I am not under a religion, but I’ll probably flip to Christianity (AP religion) once I get my military up quite a bit down the road.

Turns 160-170

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn170m_e5a1ad5.jpg

Hit liberalism right at the end. Last round I traded education to Willem. The others refuse to trade with me for one stupid reason or another. I really wasn’t sure if I should take Nat or the PP. I took Nat just because it was worth more, but maybe I shouldn’t have because the AI’s love to go after it so much.


Turns 170-180

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn180m_8777403.jpg

Well, there was a little hidden path at the extreme south of Stalin’s territory that linked to a patch of ice, and from there.. I saw some yellow that looked like……. Shaka!

I can’t believe how backward he is, looks like he built up a very large but out-dated army and stiffened himself to death. I gave him mono and he gave me world map and 10 gold. Now how the hell does he have 10 gold if he is stiffled? I have no idea what’s with this retarded AI.

Right now I will make a run for that free merchant, and maybe use him for a golden-age… not sure. Chemistry is only good for the workshops because nobody has any iron to spare me. Anyhow, I did get Stalin up to pleased now, but since he still backstabs at pleased it’s not that big a deal. And both of us seem to keep increasing our stacks in this PHONY-WAR.

Very strange to be so advanced, with only these techs at this stage, but I have to keep researching so much stuff because the Ais are either too far behind, or don’t want to trade when they actually have something.

Anyhow, right now finishing up theatres for the Globe. I don't think Stalin will see it coming...

Moscow looks like a great city for production or GP farming... two corn (both irrigated after civil service!) and triple seafood! No wonder he expanded so fast in the early game.

Looks like SE 1 managed to reclaim the pigs, that's a small bit of kindness at least, considering your general misfortune this game =P.

By the way, the stupid pop-up where your cities ask to join the motherland is based on whoever's capital is closer, and not on actual culture or nationality or anything. Really stupid design there. Though to be honest I had completely forgotten about the pop-up since I turned it off months ago...

Good luck on your war. :hammer:

Joshua, where do you turn off that pop-up? I always wondered if there was a way to stop that annoying issue. I hate it when you vassal someone, and then you get 10 pop-ups EVERY turn telling you your city want's to join their mother land or some other nonsense, despite the mother land is like.. moved 50 to 500 tiles away. Come on.... I'm the master, I"m SUPPOSED to have culture-protection in this case, I thought that was put in because otherwise you might as well finish the damn vassal off in the first place.

Anyhow..................... onto the game.

Turns 180-190

http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn190m_e65a396.jpg

Here is a shot from the globe view of our updated world maps. Unfortunately I lose the navigation bonus. Willem had discovered that little hidden path at the East-South before me and got a ship over there. I still had a chance to win the race by purchasing updated maps every turn, but I was getting tired at this point, and I half forgot/fell asleep at the wheel, and this is what happens. Dumb dumb dumb.

I really need to find a way that forces me to stop playing when I get fatigued. But I often just can’t push away the addiction once I really get into a game. GRRRRR..

Anyone have any ideas for this? Aside from taking a bronze-axe to my computer…

Turns 190-200

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn200m_ecc2081.jpg

Well, ever so slowly now my power is starting to slightly increase. Stalin owns me in power… culture… espionage… but over all I got the higher score for now :)

Turns 200-210

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn210m_adcc3d2.jpg

What an interesting turn of events.
Stalin went weehorn on me. I immediately demanded my rightful 40g, and cranked out elephants for the next 10 turns. I also gave Pacal a great tech trade to make her friendly and signed a protection pact. I then STILL made another peace-pact with Stalin because the AI is too stupid to know when he’ll be fighting one or two people. Well finally his horn blew, but it is Willem he is after now. But the idiot left a lot of his units behind on his island!!!

Also my partner Pacal now got bribed into counter attacking him. I don’t see the point, it’s mostly going to be a fake-war with pacal.

I have made and upgraded to 12 galleons now. I will possibly get a few more, and get ready to do mass upgrades to make up for my hammer-deficiency.

Turns 210-220

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn220m_a35bc19.jpg

I have 20 Cavalry, and a lot of rifles, and I am still going to keep cranking them out and do a bunch more upgrades before our thrust into soviet territory.

We are rapidly closing the power of the Red army here, but the soviets are STILL getting more powerful even in the middle of their war ???

This is definitely one of those bs fake-wars. However Stalin did at least capture a very weak, city from Willem. Funny thing is Stalin didn’t raze it. He is supposed to raze! He has no chance of holding onto that city because of Willem’s immense culture. I suppose he didn’t raze it because he doesn’t like to raze wonder-buildings?

Turns 220-230

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn230m_173145d.jpg

Well here we go. Invasion started on turn #226. Our Darius I decided to gamble most the divisions on a plan to rapidly run over the Communist main-land. And then re-evaluate after things (HOPEFULLY) GO WELL.

Unfortunately we do not know where the SoD’s are, particularly the last one I saw in St. Petersburg.. But.. The next turn more units ran into there, but no problem has I had a bunch of fortified spies on the ready. Now lets see… 105% culture defense… and he really expected that Chicken Pizza wonder was suppose to really help him?

At the end of this turnset, I had captured the mids city, which had some goodies like:
2 Engineers
1 Priest
Mids
Chicken Pizza (haha)
Statue of Zeus
The Kong Miao

Bad news is I barely have enough points for one final walls drop. I will save it for the city where Stalin is harvesting his horses from. As soon as I draft another stack of rifles I”ll march onward.

Ohh, and I also took out a city off to the east of Stalin, after causing confusion with my horses I tricked him into defending the wrong cities, haha!

And since I have no more spies to do anything, and never built any seige, I have no choice but to take my non-flank cav and slam them straight into those 100% culture defenses against his fortified grenadiers. Most people can’t stomach such a thing, but it’s my way.

And finally, I got a GG, and used him for a mobile Medic III which is doing a very good job right now considering some of my split stacks got counter hit hard by some others. We may not have grenadiers like Stalin, but I feel we are still in a superior position as he does not have his precious UU cavalry. That would be a major pain right now, he‘d be getting 50% bonus against mine!

I have also taken our his iron, which now brings us closer to parity since neither of us have it now. The only problem is he got to make a bunch of warships and so I had no choice but to lose a few galleons and they are now all in hiding. @^$@#$%

Oh some more final thoughts. SE I city is temporarily out of commission. All food has been pillaged due to Stalin’s Iron units. But last turn I checked and he was willing to agree to peace with me. He is willing to give me that city he captured from Willem, the one he can’t hold onto because of crazy culture. LOL

I may actually take him up on that, but I need to make some more gains on him first and remove his horses or I will get rapped by his monster UU the next time I come around.

Stalin got to go. When he is gone, and you have filled his vacuum, you will have so much production capacity compared to the others its not even funny.

On archi maps. You feel like your civ is underdeveloped, but the ai fights with the same problems, but cannot adapt.

Oh, and delay corporation until you really need assembly line, as it obsoletes the great lighthouse.

Joshua, where do you turn off that pop-up? I always wondered if there was a way to stop that annoying issue. I hate it when you vassal someone, and then you get 10 pop-ups EVERY turn telling you your city want's to join their mother land or some other nonsense, despite the mother land is like.. moved 50 to 500 tiles away. Come on.... I'm the master, I"m SUPPOSED to have culture-protection in this case, I thought that was put in because otherwise you might as well finish the damn vassal off in the first place.

Go into the Options and uncheck the "Advisor Pop-ups" selection. It kills a few more pop-ups as well... stuff like "this city should build a library!", "you've connected horses to your empire!" and "your empire now exceeds one million souls!" but it's a worthy sacrifice in my opinion. :p

Buwahaha. Yeah, I''m sure people like being told "Your drafting-city should build a library!", particularly when you built the internet.


Turns 230-240

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn240m_3df5ea8.jpg

Well, some very good news. Best news since… we won the lighthouse race. My cavalry exploits were a bit too powerful that even I surprised myself. In 4 turns I had already cleared every city on Stalin’s continent. Strange though, aside from his two wonder cities, the others were so poor, we are talking like only 3 infrastructure buildings. I was rather shocked myself, but I guess the AI just doesn’t know how to turn FOOD into buildings. Or maybe he a was just too busy whip/drafting it all into soldiers?

I also took his horse city on my SE I island. But the horses are in his culture still so I can’t really cut them off, that’s fine because I hurt him bad, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about the UU in the near future. I decided to make a truce for the time being because he has too many deadly ships all over and I can’t co-ordinate anything with just galleys or I’ll get raped.

Well, oddly enough, he is willing to give me Divine Right (don’t laugh, the AI values this very highly). He also will give me gold.. Gold per turn.. World map… that city he took from Willem.. AND capitulation.

I am not interested in capitulation right now. Who the hell want’s to keep seeing the old “Your cities want to join the crappy empire of Stalin!?” lol..

So I decided to be very, very, lenient. I told him he can keep his stash of gold, his gold per turn.. His world map… he can keep his divine right… and….. He doesn’t have to capitulate!

All I wanted was chemistry, and I’d be happy to take that culture swamped Willem city off his hands if he wants. Now let me refrase this. I DID NOT REQUIRE HIM TO EVEN CAPITULATE!

And he… FUSED ??!!!?

Wtf. Any human would be jumping out of his skin and doing summer-saults at that.

So.. I ended up taking just Divine Right.. and that Willem city, then I traded Divine Right to Montezuma (I ran into him and Sitting bull and Washington). Monte then gave me chemistry as part of the deal.

Hmmm… very interesting how retarded the AI figures its deals.

Anyhow, I lost a few precious cav but will add a few reinforcements and make my way to romp on Willem now. He got his super strong UB online so unfortunately I can’t help that now, but maybe I can sort of break his back a little bit. Then we’ll see if I finish off Stalin, or hit Pacal before he gets too advanced.

Why wouldn't you take Stalin's money, even if you didn't desire capitulation? Was it for diplomatic reasons?

Hmm, I can not remember now. It could have to do with being lazy. But the last time I remember being at the bargaining table, he was down to just 2 gold per turn anyhow. It’s possible I did take the lousy 2 gold per turn but didn’t think it worth mentioning.



Turns 240-250

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn250m_47820a8.jpg

Monte went weehorn on me. It’s possible he wants to hit on Sitting Bull, who is the master of Washington, but you can never tell with him. Anyhow, the war vs. Willem was a HUGE success. Almost too-much so, in the fact that I gained so much ground so fast, that the last few turns I’ve just been sitting in his cities waiting for him to talk to me again so we can make peace, ahaha!

He has his UU all over the place, and stupid me found out the hardway what a pain they can be. As long as I hole up I his cities for now, he can’t do much with them.

Anyhow, part of my stupidity was experimenting with the block trade function on the galleys. I never really played with this much and I’m probably not really doing it right. I don’t see any GUI that tells me how much I am blocking, or am I missing something? I hope it’s another one of those cases where we just shut out eyes and HOPE the software is handling it all correctly.

Anyhow, I took out the city next to the one Stalin gave me on the continent above my capital. Then I took out a one-city island north of that, but not before taking out Willem’s old capital and a sister city next to it. I captured these so fast it was rather shocking.

He was getting 105% tile-defense alone, but I still slammed my cav divisions into those hills head-on, and my riflemen did the same on other cities. I still can’t get iron because my captured cities don’t have enough culture to work the tiles, and since I am in slavery now, I can’t run my artists again.

Grrrrrr…


To say I captured a few wonders doesn’t say enough tough. Just Willem’s old capital alone shows this… and it doesn’t even mention he had Versailles in it as well.

So many AI's moved their capital... :lol:

The only thing I can think of telling you is to hurry up and eliminate the other AI's ASAP.

No matter how bad you do on an archipelago map, the AI does worse. :hammer:

Well I must say I have felt pretty confident since that bloody slug-fest on Stalin’s continent. Part of the reason I was worried earlier was I had been used to large maps lately, where even a decent size of terrain is actually a pixel in the bucket. However, when I eventually saw the layouts of the world map here, I realzed how standard maps are much smaller than I had anticipated. Which is actually a very good thing for when you get boxed in somewhere.



Turns 250-260

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn260m_b26861a.jpg

The war went pretty awesome vs. the communists again. I quickly took the Horsie Island, and a nice feature about Stalin is he has a rael QUICK turn-around time for coming to the bargaining table after a war.

He was only 3 turns away from Military Tradition when I DoWed him, and was in prime opportunity to trade it around to EVERYONE. He also had Military Science.

Again, there is something retarded with this AI. He was willing to capitulate obviously. But again, I decided to be very generous and let him have his own independence, all I wanted was his MS. Yet, he REFUSED such a generous offer.

???

So the hell with it, I just vassaled him. Unfortunately this talk about getting free tributes doesn’t work. I tried to ask (well demand) he cancel deals with everyone, and he refused me. I can’t even get his tech as a tribute, and since he has not even any gold per turn, I can’t get anything.

Now what the hell… I thought there was supposed to be some sort of.. Benefit to being a master? Not even allowed this infamous free tribute?

Now I’m stuck with negative diplo modifiers from having Stalin as a vassal. I will have to rectify this by DoWing on Pacal next, so Pacal can swoop down and eliminate his last city getting rid of him for good.

What a strange and illogical game-mechanic this is….

Anyhow, here is a shot from his mainland where I had earlier trapped a lot of his seige in my culture. Now, at the beginning of THIS war I will slaughter it while taking out HORSIE-ISLAND on the left.

No kidding about Moscow being a food monster. 1 Lake, 2 Irrigated Corn, 3 sea-food. Hmmm!


I also ended up giving Willem about 600 gold just to make peace with Stalin so I didn’t have to risk Stalin vassaling to him after I did all the hard work.

The only thing you can demand as tribute from vassals are resources. They can not refuse (block off red) any resources, you can demand them with penalty of war if they refuse, or you can safely get incredibly good deals. (like all of his happy/health resources for just a single strategic resource)

They will also never block off converting religion or civics, though you might have to offer things in return.

Everything else, gold per turn, gold, technologies, stop trading... they have to be willing to share this stuff. Otherwise it'd be broken: Fall way behind in techs, build a decent army of axes to attack techwhore mansa musa or whoever and vassalize and jump right up to tech parity. They have to like you enough to trade techs normally, things like WFYABTA apply. You can order them to research specific techs though (We would like to discuss something else...) if they have any decent research capacity left.

Other benefits include no cultural war for tiles within your cities' BFCs, (though if the culture reaches the city itself, it can still go into revolt without a large garrisan) half of their land/population to the domination threshold, and they have to vote with you in any polls. Also you get 1 :) in all your cities and they get 1 :mad: in theirs.

The biggest side effect though isn't even shown... the diplo penalty is much worse than the -1 or -2 that's shown. All AIs will now average their attitude towards you and Stalin. Those friendly with you and cautious with him will treat you as pleased, those annoyed with you and pleased with him will treat you as cautious, and so on. This is not shown in game!

The biggest side effect though isn't even shown... the diplo penalty is much worse than the -1 or -2 that's shown. All AIs will now average their attitude towards you and Stalin. Those friendly with you and cautious with him will treat you as pleased, those annoyed with you and pleased with him will treat you as cautious, and so on. This is not shown in game!

Are you saying that even though the hover text says they are Pleased with you, they will act as if they were Cautious if they were Annoyed with your vassal? And does it average out to a single attitude toward the whole group if you have multiple vassals? Ouch! Though it could be good if you vassalize a world favorite.

I wonder if this is something we should show in BUG's scoreboard. If it's a known game mechanic, it's not showing you information you couldn't learn yourself by doing your own average. Hmmm...

^Wouldn't that require to know about the true AI-AI attitude values which are not given in the normal game?
Edit: Nevermind, averaging works with attitude levels, not attitude values, too tired, sorry...

^Wouldn't that require to know about the true AI-AI attitude values which are not given in the normal game?
Edit: Nevermind, averaging works with attitude levels, not attitude values, too tired, sorry...

Actually, I don't know (haven't looked at the code). I assumed it averaged attitude levels, but it makes more sense to average the behind-the-scenes numbers and derive an attitude level from that. If it does the latter, it would violate UG and I wouldn't include it. If it averages the visible attitude levels, that should be okay to include.

Anyone care to look up and/or post the code? :mischief:

thread derail danger! ;)
AttitudeTypes CvTeamAI::AI_getAttitude(TeamTypes eTeam, bool bForced) const
{
int iAttitude;
int iCount;
int iI, iJ;

FAssertMsg(eTeam != getID(), "shouldn't call this function on ourselves");

iAttitude = 0;
iCount = 0;

for (iI = 0; iI < MAX_PLAYERS; iI++)
{
if (GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).isAlive())
{
if (GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).getTeam() == getID())
{
for (iJ = 0; iJ < MAX_PLAYERS; iJ++)
{
if (GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iJ).isAlive() && iI != iJ)
{
TeamTypes eTeamLoop = GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iJ).getTeam();
if (eTeamLoop == eTeam || GET_TEAM(eTeamLoop).isVassal(eTeam) || GET_TEAM(eTeam).isVassal(eTeamLoop))
{
iAttitude += GET_PLAYER((PlayerTypes)iI).AI_getAttitude((Player Types)iJ, bForced);
iCount++;
}
}
}
}
}
}

if (iCount > 0)
{
return ((AttitudeTypes)(iAttitude / iCount));
}

return ATTITUDE_CAUTIOUS;
}
averaging levels for team attitude (tech trades ...)
player attitude does not seem to average (bonus trades ...)

This averaging system is pretty flawed. Here’s why.

You are looked at as friendly, your vassal is looked at as cautious.
You have 99 pop, your vassal has 1 pop.

Where is he getting this magical hidden +98 pop in order to cause the average to lay at PLEASD?

Rediculous.


Turns 260-270

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn270m_a2956e0.jpg

Well this set didn’t quite go as I had hoped. To put it rather bluntly, some factors all went against me here, and resulted in me getting absolutely creamed in one spot.

First, my vassal went and traded around his MT to everyone (which I had tried to make him stop). This caused a flurry of tech trades and suddenly Pacal jumps very deep up the tech tree. He had no rifles when I was on my way to drop off at his first city. Then I had to slam into his rifles and rush my way to his second holy city, which unfortunately ended up getting machineguns just as I got there. A few bad rolls and it was absolutely impossible. I couldn’t use my frigates to do anything because he already had modern ships blasting around.

Lesson learned, never vassal Stalin. He won’t listen to you, in fact he won’t even give you a damn bone to chew on. What a joke… And now he screwed me.

Anyhow, it wasn’t a total failure, as I did capture this holy city, but I certainly did not meet my objections and I paid a hefty price for it…

No thanks to my dumb-ass vassal!

I’m still laughing at this flawed mechanic. And to make matters worse, he didn’t even properly defend his capital with much, and Pacal simply didn’t bother to take it. Instead Pacal decided to just throw stuff at me, despite he could have eliminated my vassal from the start. So who says the game isn’t biased against the HUMAN player?

Another thing, Pacal was ready to already talk peace on turn 2 after the war started, and then the next turn he wasn’t, and he still wont talk peace again. What… the hell. Someone really should write up an article explaining in details all the mechanics that cause this.


I’m just lucky that Pacal was so STUPID he didn’t pounce on the last of my severely mauled and mangled cavalry as I tried to save a few by running them back south the captured city. He had units near by to hit, but he only hit a couple times then stopped. ???

Instead Pacal decided to just throw stuff at me, despite he could have eliminated my vassal from the start. So who says the game isn’t biased against the HUMAN player?

Another thing, Pacal was ready to already talk peace on turn 2 after the war started, and then the next turn he wasn’t, and he still wont talk peace again. What… the hell.

They often head for their target city and don't bother with worthless vassal junk.

Refuses to Talk length is dependent on war success! Your lost units made him stubborn again. This (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7418601&postcount=2) might help a little.

Thanks Dan, I bookmarked that chart and will study it later...


Turn 270-280

http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn280m_c75bbb8.jpg

I wasn’t sure where to go, Biology or Physics. I ended up going physics so I could get some air-ships online to hammer Pacal with… That after I regroup and lick my wounds no thanks to my dumb-ass VASSAL! I thought we were supposed to be on the same team now no?

Speaking of that. Stalin just came out and DEMANDED that I give him liberalism. So! He want’s to give that away to everybody too now!?

I told him where he could stick it.

At least I got a source of oil on that original Pacal-outpost island. So that early beelining for it will pay off now, despite it did really nothing for the entire game.

So now to get oil up… navy updated.. Core of airships, and let’s see.

And my SE I city is back online. Seems every war the food gets pillaged to crap and it goes offline. Not to mention my dumb-ass vassal was going around stealing techs from me and destroying my infrastructure.

Turns 280-290

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn290m_979b48d.jpg

Nothing to say, got the oil hooked up and researched to artillery. Now I am doing mass-upgrades of units to modern navies. I also converted Moscow into my official naval-yard.

Willem went weehorn on me, so I made a temp peace-pact for now, but I fear when it’s done he may hit me to get some of his cities back. I will pause my attack on Pacal until I can get a new peace pact with Willem or he’ll probably dog pile on me.

Anyhow.. The Apostolic palace always seems strange to me. Here, it gives the hammer bonus to Christianity buildings, yet it is listed as Hinduism. Also, Willem is the only one who gets on the list, despite he is not even running under any religion. Stuff like this just seems often silly to me…

Well Ob if Willem built the thing he is eligible for vote against anyone regardless of what religion he is in(kinda like how if you build UN you are auto eligible for election), He is the only one eligible I believe because no one is Hindu, I honestly do not know why you are getting +2H for your christian buildings, maybe its because its your state religion? Idk, but I presume the palace is Hindu because it says you have 12 votes, and I doubt that you would have spread Christianity to only a city or two as is suggested by the number of votes you have.

Will go back and look at all your posts.

looking at previous screenshots, Amsterdam has 12 pop and the Hindu shrine, that explains your votes, I am fairly sure the palace is Hindu and the hammer boost is glitch?

MMK edited and researched
http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/19/obsolete/f_turn150m_7476eca.jpg - here shows Willem has built AP, and below Josh shows that Hindu is indeed getting 2H bonus

Anyhow.. The Apostolic palace always seems strange to me. Here, it gives the hammer bonus to Christianity buildings, yet it is listed as Hinduism. Also, Willem is the only one who gets on the list, despite he is not even running under any religion. Stuff like this just seems often silly to me…

You sure? Looks like the Hindu shrine is getting the +2 hammer bonus in this snapshot (http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn250m_47820a8.jpg).

I just double checked last turn, seems my bad. Indeed I DID have the christian hammers but they are gone now, while the Hind temples got them for the moment...

I should take more session breaks....

Turns 290-300

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn300m_7767d3f.jpg

If this shot is sort of hard to follow, I DON’T BLAME YOU! Pacal’s flag and colors so closely match Darius’ that even I lost a bunch of units due to thinking certain naval pieces were friendlies. These units got into my backlands under cover of disguise, and then I ran into quite a nasty surprise.

Willem still hasn’t attacked anyone, and I don’t know how long he figures to stay weehorn. But I got a little extra defense up north for when/if it happens. He’d better backstab me soon though, or I’m going to give him a few SoD’s pretty soon myself.

Game over, you win. Time to ramp it up to Deity =)

As soon as I figure out a few more archi-quirks we'll do it again. I also should figure out a better tech-line for these maps.


Turns 300-310

http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn310m_89270a3.jpg

Same thing again. Pacal had a stack of infantry, while right beside it Stalin had a capital with just a few out dated units, and Pacal didn’t so much as even take one unit over to capture it. $^@^$%!$#^^

It seems Pacal does not play to win.

Anyhow, I took out the continent her capital had originally been on, then low & behold she capits. Though she wouldn’t give me any techs for it. I took it anyhow to speed up time and now it’s time to pounce on Willem as he’s getting powerful again.

Here is our DoW turn…

Check out that AWESOME SUPERB LAND near Willem's capital! :eek:

I wrote a short post on AI naval ability earlier but deleted it because it sounded presumptuous lecturing a regular Diety player =)


Willem is the most dangerous AI on archipelago maps if he has tech parity, simply due to the 20-30% MFG bonus he ends up getting from Dikes over any other Civ in the same situation.
During a war most of that production goes into naval units which can make extended supply lines virtually impossible to maintain (he can spit out CII destroyers in multiple cities almost every turn).

Looking at that stack though you're going to be dealing with nothing but GG points since you've already gutted the heart of his empire and killed off his teching ability.

I've played a few deity archipelago games myself as both Hannibal and Willem and it really is equivalent to playing down one difficulty, unless you're completely isolated by ocean in which case it the equivalent of playing UP a difficulty.

If you're interested in saving time learning things the hard way here are a few tricks I've picked up along the way (though you're probably already aware of them).

1. Popping astronomy from huts is very doable if you head to optics fairly early on and ensure that Astro is a teching option for you (and trade for HBR so you don't pop that instead)
I've adopted this as a deliberate strategy in my last 3 submitted (but not updated) HoF wins (including an immortal terra map) and always try make sure to have two explorers and two caravels ready to go asap.
If you can reach this point before the AI then it's like getting a second liberalism plus you guarantee the circumnavigation bonus which is more than a little useful on this map.

2. Abuse the GLH more. Settle on pretty much anything with a seafood or strategic resource, just don't settle too many cities on a single non-capital landmass or you'll get a kick in the gut from the instantaneous hit of colony maintainance once you cross that threshold (map size dependent I believe)
It pays off well, even without foreign trade routes.

3. I can't think of a 3) that you don't already definitely know. Other than that obviously trying for both pyramids AND GLH on Deity is virtually suicide and that the GLH is by the far the best of the two.

Check out that AWESOME SUPERB LAND near Willem's capital! :eek:

Willems capital doesn't need land

It has Moai+Dike+Lighthouse+Financial :P

Gotta love 2 hammer coast, Moai + Dike = that giant Navy with the craplands, Willem isn't as stupid as he looks, however I wouldn't have settled 4 cities on that island...

DMOC, I’m not sure how Willem’s capital got moved. I can only assume Stalin took it, but I never did get a notice about that, despite I did get the notice he took another city of Willem’s. I suppose it could be a turn order issue, where in a certain order, if a player re-captures his own city back in the same turn it was lost, that the other players don’t get notified of the event.

Paulis, my combo for Willem when the time comes will be Moai + Dike + IronWorks. Muahaha…

:hammers::hammers::hammers::hammers::hammers:


Turns 310-320


http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/1/20/obsolete/f_turn320m_86225bc.jpg

I took his new capital, and another city. I am just about to take the last 2 cities on this continent. My problem is I ended up playing with artillery too much, and they REALLY are slow compared to my cav. So I got bogged down.

Anyhow, Willem doesn’t want to capit, well that’s ok I’ll just take this piece of ice & tundra just because I can.

Taking a look inside, I decided since I own the A-Palace now, I may just try to experiment with this religions victory? I always tried to avoid such things as I thought they were cheasy but I don’t know, maybe I should try it just once for my own experimentation. Though I have yet to see any voting pop up since I took it.

What’s the normal # of turns before each resolution comes around? I assume it’s similar to the UN, but the last time I asked on the forums, no one knew for sure either.

By the way, Willem came with a LOT of wooden ships (a few iron-clads), I got free-promotion heaven with all my destroyers.

Turns 320-330

I captured the other cities on that Iceland, and then made peace with Willem. I then started trying to get hindu spread around to try out this AP diplo victory.

Unfortunately I got snagged in problems. Sitting Bull was in theocracy so I couldn’t spread. And Washington refused to open borders.

Eventually I got around the SB issue by gifting him the missionary.

I then tried to gift a caravel with a missionary to Washington, but noting ever happened. I then tried to swap religions… and gift him tones of stuff to get him happy, but no.. he still won’t even open borders. I finally decided, THIS IS STUPID, and just GIFTED him one of my cities (that works).

Unfortunately nothing else happened… so no pictures for today.

Turns 330-340

http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/1/20/obsolete/f_errorturnm_6909b00.png

Hmm! All this waiting around… waiting around… waiting around and I’m not getting any AP pop-ups? Strange considering so many times I try to attack someone that freiken AP kicks in right away and forces peace. Hmmm!

And now, SB got in a war with Monte, and fractioned off into a new independent nation. Now I have to spread to SB again.

I still haven’t seen any pop-up for this AP thing. And one thing I’m not sure about, I seem to have spread enough to my own cities that I finally have enough votes to win the election. However I noticed it just turned red (vote count). Am I correct in assuming that this actually means I wont get the option to vote at all because I can vote myself winner? Sort of like how the U.N. votes.

I guess I’ll just screw it and nuke the world then. If I had continued with my military plans I’d have won already…


Ohh, and I guess leaving the game running for a few days in one single session has its breaking point. Thank god for auto-saves.

AP in hibernation? I recommend 3.17 + Dresden's unofficial patch.

The hibernation problem came up because currently the AP is most likely without a resident which can cause up to 50 turns without any votes. BTW the vote interval is 10 turns (game speed normal, timer starts at 9 counting down to 0 -> vote -> reset timer to 9 ...; it's 6 turns for the UN) scaled for game speed, with elections of secretary generals / AP resident every 5th vote (timer starts at 4 counting down to 0 ..., equal for AP and UN).
The AP is locked in Hinduism - a religion no player has as SR, so Willem -the former AP resident- was only a valid candidate for AP residency because he owned the AP, then you (Christian) took it away from him. The AP needs a new resident to re-enable any votes, otherwise the vote-timer will just count down and reset without any votes getting triggered until the next regularly scheduled AP resident election. (In the unofficial patch (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7370826#post7370826) this period of AP muteness got significantly shortened by setting the SecGen-timer to 0 in situations where the AP loses its resident, so that a new valid resident can be elected again at the very next vote to resurrect the AP.)

You can gift cities to your beloved vassal (who is forced to vote for you) to get below the 75% vote threshold again.

Archipelago on immortal are pretty easy, when you manage to get the GLH, and even more so, when you are fin due to the extra commerce on coast... ...and beeing an expert civver like obs also helps;)... ...some cottages and some siege also might help speeding up things, but well, different people, different style of play.

...

offtopic:

@ Obs:
The 3 players AW teamgame you have been starting the threat in the SG forum can start whenever you are ready, my shedule is looking (way) better now and Auron also is ready for action now:)

...sorry for the delay from my side but RL was popping up and such

For all who want to lurk, the threat is here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=305380

Dan, thanks for the added details. That hibernation issue sounds nasty! Any how, I looked at your RTT chart last night and it looks pretty handy. Makes me feel sorry for the poor guy who gets backstabbed by SittingBull and is not currently ready to handle a war yet. This mechanic only serves to prove the point that if you're about to get hit by a war, it is often better to DoW the war yourself, especially if you are not ready for a long drawn out one.

@Snaaty, I'll try and get that other game going soon. As for this one I did not play optimal and I'll try and get it down better for the next leader on the list (Elizabeth). Either I will go for my first ever Diplo-win with Darius (cheasy?, but let me do it just once), or I will go ICBMs and really put the RTT charts to the full test:

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm105/DanF5771/Leaders_RTT.png

Turns 330-340

Alright, I spread Hindu to SB again so everyone was a member. Unfortunately I realized I was just ending up in a catch-22 situation. If I spread Hindu out more, I don’t have enough votes to win the election. But if I get myself enough votes to win the election, I won’t be able to vote for myself?

Since nothing interesting happened, no images.

Turns 340-350

http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/1/21/obsolete/f_turn350m_e4215be.jpg

Somehow, the variable ended up not being redded out at one point where I would have had enough votes to vote for myself. I don’t know if this is a bug, I probably still don’t understand this latest wonder addition. And for some reason, the voting for the expected turn didn’t come up.

Also, I have a lot of cash cause I stopped teching. I decided FOR ONCE I’ll try to get to US. So I kept trying to set a UN vote for US that way I save on anarchy. And typical, the ONE time I want US, is the only time the AI’s defied it. Even my own vassals keep defying my vote against me! Rediculous… They are my vassals after all! I’m re-learning a great lesson here how painful vassals really can be.

I finally gave up in frustration and just decided to nuke the hell out of Sitting Bull. From the RTT chart, he SHOULD be able to talk to very next turn if you hit him hard enough. But despite I CRUSHED him beyond belief, and ripped right through his power rating, he wouldn’t talk to me the next turn (I guess I was expecting too much?) So then I blasted his vassal to hell, but when the next turn came he was willing to talk again.

He didn’t want to vassal, so I kept blasting him, and finally he capited. This let me also capit Washington and Hannibal (his previous vassals). Now I have enough votes to win the UN, or I will just drop nukes on someone else. I don’t think it’s worth hitting Shaka, he doesn’t vassal until basically he’s down to nothing. And even then he’ll break away as soon as you demand a tribute. I made those mistakes before…

Turns 360-370

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/21/obsolete/f_turn370m_c549799.jpg

Continuing off from the last post, which was a bit past the 350 mark anyway, we’ve attacked Willem, and now vassaled him. This came with a cost, Monte got bribed and dog piled on us. That’s ok though because we just unleashed nuclear hell. But the guy is an IDIOT.

I have been flattening his cities. To explain it… to squash… to make thin. To reduce height. And yet, despite being an aggressive leader, who is SUPPOSED to train units. He is still off trying to build the Apollo building despite it will never be completed in time to even have a chance of starting the space race. Geeze, while he’s getting bashed up to hell, instead of fighting his war properly he still thinks he can go off building stuff, and basically puts his own cities out of commission.

How is stuff like this not fixed? Take a look, for yourself. 325 turns!! Thank god he has a nuke-proof priest-specialist, or he’d be waiting over a thousand!

Anyhow, hopefully this will be over next turn, I just selected Diplo from the UN voting.

--------

Turn #371

The funny thing about turn 371, was it wasn’t really a turn. We win!


http://img18.picoodle.com/img/img18/3/1/21/obsolete/f_victorym_0811140.jpg
http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/1/21/obsolete/f_top5m_32514eb.jpg
http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/1/21/obsolete/f_demographicm_d08e7ff.jpg

And now… I will look forward to the next leader on the list, as soon as I try to solve a few more unknown issues. I have been focusing too long now on fractal maps, so this was a good exercise in getting me more well rounded.

Grats on the win... thanks for the lesson :)

I finally gave up in frustration and just decided to nuke the hell out of Sitting Bull. From the RTT chart, he SHOULD be able to talk to very next turn if you hit him hard enough. But despite I CRUSHED him beyond belief, and ripped right through his power rating, he wouldn’t talk to me the next turn (I guess I was expecting too much?)
SB is the most stubborn AI with a RTT of 12 turns. The reducing effect of war success is limited -- you can only reduce the value to a minimum of 20% of the RTT (rounded down), so that the earliest SB is willing to talk again is after 2 turns.

Congrats from me too :goodjob:.
What I take away from this game is that :nuke: on Archipelago is good, as :nuke:-induced global warming can't strike on the many water tiles :D.

Dan, looking at the chart, there are 2 numbers. Since 12 is the Max, I assume the 0 means the min. But I don't see how this is correct then if there is a 20% limit on the max.

BTW, I think throwing in the Standard Deviation was going a little too far :P

:lol: This chart is just an extract of my AILeaders spreadsheet (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=187201&d=1220053927) containing all the variables and attributes from the xml (standard deviation helps you to find the variables which are equal for all leaders). The chart is split into 2 halves aligned horizontally for better readability. The "Game" column is just an added filter function to only display the attributes of my opponents of a particular game. The "RTT" column has min = 5 (De Gaulle).