Cultivating a dose of Anglophilia!

[KMadCandy]

yeah that's a really weird thing about this style of SG. picking "the best" is different from picking "the one that i know what to do with in the next phase"; that's part of what i meant but i always use too many words. and picking "the one i know what to do with" isn't necessarily the best for as far as learning from the whole experience!

aren't you scared about Mao????????????? *giggle*

 

[Ozbenno]

yeah that's a really weird thing about this style of SG. picking "the best" is different from picking "the one that i know what to do with in the next phase"; that's part of what i meant but i always use too many words. and picking "the one i know what to do with" isn't necessarily the best for as far as learning from the whole experience!

Equally, having to play a save that you're unsure of how to achieve the prescribed goals isn't a good learning experience. We should hopefully be out of our comfort level, just not too much

aren't you scared about Mao????????????? *giggle*

Not at all

 

[KMadCandy]

it's the goldilocks issue. this porridge is too easy, this porridge is too hard, this porridge is juuuuuuust right *giggle*. and we don't want to just sit back and watch one super-expert play, we want to all play and learn! it's so cool. i'm just glad i don't ever have to be the captain, we'd be in so much trouble .

and that last bit ... speaking of goldilocks and fairytales ... you're reminding me of pinocchio there buster!

 

[Mutineer]

OK, I will try to answer on this questions.

First, compare economical situation. I can not compare many save, but I can compare with Cam_H save.
1) Number of cities and quality of cities:
Cam_H- 8
Mutineer-6

From this 8 of Cam_H cities 3 are marginal. Even after full development
Cumae and Neapolise will not be good. ONly if you go in War with Washington you can make somehting of them, otherwize they are culturally pressured. and have marginal land.
Hasting has no food excess and no way to get it untill Burocracy. It might be dicent city at the end, but it will take a very long time to get there.

All 6 Mutineer's cities are very good, and Atlanta will be raised soon to mace space.

Economics:
ON neitral state (not loosing money)

Cam_H - 20% +0 gold 55 Gold 23 research
From demografic, production 48, food 92
Mutineer - 50% (-2gold) 39 gold 41 research
From demografic 77 production, 77 food
That is practically double research and production. With one more city coming online next turn difference will be even bigger.
A bit lower food is because Mutineer has 2 sea food pillaged and one corn, will be reconected in 3 turns.

Military:
Cam_H - 11 Axes, 1 spear, 6 workers, 3 warriors.
Mutineer - 10 axe, 1 spear, 5 workers, 3 warriors, scout, 4 archers, 1 trirema

It looks simular, but Mutineer building Cats, and HE ready in 2 turn for fully military production city.

Texnological development:
Cam_H Missing.

HB riding, MOnerchy, Calendar, Construction, Col, Dramma, Music!, Philosofy.
Agains Mutineer missing Monotheism+Cristianity.

Yes, has had GA, but how can he use it? It will be along time befor he will be able to research Dramma, Music would be lost.
Mutineer Has GA settled in Washington.

On other hand Mutineer allready can build Cathedrals.
Number of religions, same 4, but in Cam_H 2 of them based on stone, needed to go to war or put big mil pressure to get.
In Mutineer's religions only 1 need stone.

Wanders: same, except Mutineer Has Oracle, GL ready in 2 tirns with coming chop, Cam_H ??? as he does not prioritise it. I think it is very risky, as other continnet seems to advance fast. Remember how early they RESEACHED CoL?

Mutineer are not building chapel yet.

Building:

Cam_H - 2 barracks, 5 granaries, 2 libraries, 4 temples,1 monastery.
(Note, London still does not has Granary)

Mutineer: 3 barracks, 6 granaries, 2 libraries, 2 ligthouses, 2 monastery.

It looks about the same, only Mutineer concentrated on economic+ religion spread building, when Cam_H on temples. I suppous he need them becaus ehe does not has HR.

Conclusion:
From every economic category Mutineer is Mach better or = to cam_H. Especially notisable double production and research.
Mutineer can Jump research even more by selling meditation for gold and coming currency will improve economic situation even more.

General plan and policy.

I do not knowhow you, but I do not like to crunk 100% culture when I have 2 neaibors near by. Adopting religion can be hurd, as one of them probably will have a different ideas. IN addition, NO Washinton and no god Mao are peacefull. I do not want to waster resources on maintaining military parity.

Cam_H practically finished expanding, if he does not go to war and he can not lucking construction. He can take barbarian city and no other area are scouted. So, 9 cities, 3 or them marginal. He practically forced to pure development now on.

Mutineer, everything ready to war push with pplan of selectivelly taking or raising Washington cities and Roman cities. After that probably strike to Mao with Idea to Vassal him.
After that no competitor on starting continent, go full culture.
Gifting Mao old military units and some tech should get him power higth evogth to avoide oversea military conflict, and even if it happened, it is mach easier to defend. Vassaling Mao after just 1 war and after absorbing all north of continent should let him with resonable chank of land, so probably tect trading/exploting wil be posible.

Diplomacy and trade.
Mutineer more or less finished trading with same continent civs, still there some extorcion will hapended. So, when New continent made contact mutineer will start with clean state.
Cam_H did not trade mach becaue of luck trading matherial.
Resonably soon other continent contact as or we them.
Technologically there is no comparesing.
Amount of beakers Mutineer own is more then double that Cam_H own, it is absolutly no contest. Mutineer did not traded Philocofy or Music or construction away, still having monopoly on them.

Now, because of that Mutineer does not DEpends on tech trade with civ on same continent any more and Can simple do with them as he please.
Cam_H in Passive position.

Conclusion:
Simply put in game plan.
Cam_H Forced to take passive position and Hoped to get safety for cultural win diplomatically.
Mutineer in position to dictate and force on same continent a good diplomatic situation. Even If Mutineer would not go ionto war with Mao, adopting same religion as mao will help to achieve a good relationship with him.
Tect trade wize it does not matter as mutineer finsihed with trade and after contact with second continent trade will become avalible.

There some argument about what one to do for cultural win. But it is not matter what you should do, but what you can do to get to best position posible.

 

[mice]

Well now it is clear.

I am new to culture victories and see that most players play conservatively.

I see the logic that if you clear out your continent that you don't need to depend on military later on.

 

[KMadCandy]

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[Öjevind Lång]

Equally, having to play a save that you're unsure of how to achieve the prescribed goals isn't a good learning experience. We should hopefully be out of our comfort level, just not too much

That's how I feel too. I'll come out and state that I awarded two votes to Cam's game and three to Mutineer's, but that I will probably feel more comfortable playing from Cam's save than from Mutineer's. As for Mao, clearly we should build walls and garrison the cities down south. OK, that's a no-brainer, but with such neighbours as ours, we simply can't aim to please at any cost. Whatever the save, it is not a question of whether Mao will attack us but of when.

 

[mice]

not to mice: . if your thinking of me as part of the reasoning for "most players play conservatively" i am far from typical! or if you're looking at it as "conservatively = get rid of your neighbors", my experience from the HoF forum is that isn't typical either; that's not a true sampling of all civ4 players by any means.

No I was thinking of the Euro-trash SG where the players were talking about culture flipping Julius' city instead of axe rushing it. And .... well that's all actually.

That's what I meant by conservative ; not attacking much.

What in your opinion Kmad is the best approach in a situation like this. Continent with three neighbors.

 

[KMadCandy]

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[pigswill]

While I can certainly understand mutineer's frustration I guess it comes down to whether we carry on with Cam_H's game or re-vote.

It's happened before in previous trash games that the vote for best (and worst) games have been something of a surprise to me. It may be that more experienced players analyse and interpret saves differently to less experienced players but who says democracy's perfect.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

While I can certainly understand mutineer's frustration I guess it comes down to whether we carry on with Cam_H's game or re-vote.

It's happened before in previous trash games that the vote for best (and worst) games have been something of a surprise to me. It may be that more experienced players analyse and interpret saves differently to less experienced players but who says democracy's perfect.

Of course we carry on with Cam's save! We can't go back and revote, no matter how dissatisfied some participants may be with the outcome of the vote.

 

[Ozbenno]

I agree we carry on with Cam's game. I certainly don't see anything in it to suggest we won't win from this position.

 

[KMadCandy]

Of course we carry on with Cam's save! We can't go back and revote, no matter how dissatisfied some participants may be with the outcome of the vote.

oh i wasn't actually saying we ought to do that. by "bottom line: if anybody voted in major part for cam's save because we're at peace and you think that we have good relations and that it appears that we'll stay at peace for a while, you may have analyzed the saves wrong and we may need a recount ."...

i mostly wanted to flash a big red warning sign of O M G did you guys see this??? about the WHEOOHRN *giggle*. and have that serve as a reminder that relationships aren't totally revealed by the category of Friendly/Cautious on the screen, to maybe help us all when comparing different games in this SG, and when playing our own games of whatever style.

i did get the feeling that some people voted for cam's partly because the relations were "good" or because we're at peace. and if so, then a big red warning sign was warranted before we play the next round IMO . because if my guess is true (and again, i don't know that mao's gonna come at us, he might not) then those voters may need to re-think a bit how they intend to proceed. but i really don't know why people voted the way they voted and i do think both games are winnable from where they are now!

plus i said that cuz i always have to be typing something.

 

[Mutineer]

While I can certainly understand mutineer's frustration I guess it comes down to whether we carry on with Cam_H's game or re-vote.

It's happened before in previous trash games that the vote for best (and worst) games have been something of a surprise to me. It may be that more experienced players analyse and interpret saves differently to less experienced players but who says democracy's perfect.

It is not about revote, it is about ability to measure saves, undestanding what work and what does not, undestandig why.

My flustration come not from wishing to play my save, thougth it is Mach easier to win from and mach faster. It comes from attempt to teach, well to show I am not a good teacher.

There was very short aborted game about same type, but with a bit different rules.

After turn one everyone was thinking that my save is worst, but in just 1700BC it become best, as I was doing correct addaptive plan from the start.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=206619

Take a look.

 

[Ozbenno]

/*enter ramble mode*/

Another thing to consider is how much are we going to learn about winning by culture if we just destroy the AI and then "culture up". Its not that hard to do on Monarch. Berserks ran a SG that was Always War but we had to win by culture (this was the original premise of ROTQM4 as well but he stoles it from us precious , anyway Rex's later idea was much better ). What did we do? Beat up the AI, pillaged them back to the stone age, razed all their cities and when there was one AI left, start doing cultural stuff. Didn't learn much about cultural victories at all. This is not a criticism of this approach as it is very effective.

The main reason I joined this game was too learn about the fine points of cultural victories (says the first person to declare in this game) as I pretty much suck at it. Winning as peacefully as possible is much harder but more rewarding. As KMad has said many times, diplomacy is crucial, as well as the reseach path and the order of GP generation etc.

Cam's save has a number of problems with it, the placement of some of the cities, Mao's impending war against someone, a not-so-strong economy but we have a good number of cities, 4 religions (3 holy cities) and no Romans to worry about, it should be an interesting ride and hopefully an informative one.

Phew, think that's all.

/*exit ramble mode*/

 

[Mutineer]

As I see it, there again some confusion about what cultural victory is about.
I repeat again, it does not matter that victory conditions one want to get. All victory conditions needed best possible economy and diplomatic work.

At the end of day it is about producing 150 000 point of culture. All culture production use economic resources. Do you produce is by using specialists, running slider or building buildings. All of that demand strong economy. Better economy – fastest victory.
Amount of resources you can spend on culture depends on:
1) Your own economic, how mach resources you can have.
2) How mach of resources you need to spend in order not to loose your culture cities.

So, task one – make yourself as strong as possible economically.
Task two, minimize amount of resources you need to spend on defense.
Now, there are theoretically 2 ways to do that in civ4, Make a friendly neighbor kill neighbor. To make him friendly one can get fair trade, have common religion and share civics or help in wars or one can vassal him.

To kill one need just to kill.
Now, can we realistically make Mao friendly?
Not very likely. His religion modifier is low and his favorite civic is police state.
Vassal him or kill him are the best options.

Again, I repeat, we continue with Cam_H save, as per rules. Purpose of this discussion is to explain that there NO difference until one start to spend a big part of one income on what victory condition one is going. So far we did only little tweaks, like trying to collect max religions or me settling GA in planed legendary city.

I think it would have been more beneficial to choose isolated continent start. That would be typical case when cultural victory comes more naturally, from luck of neighbors.

 

[Ozbenno]

Purpose of this discussion is to explain that there NO difference until one start to spend a big part of one income on what victory condition one is going. So far we did only little tweaks, like trying to collect max religions or me settling GA in planed legendary city.

Good point.

I always tend to have the finish in my sights, so when I'm trying for cultural win I keep telling myself "do cultcha stuff" all the time, rather than just playing as you said above.

@Mutineer - if we had continued on from your save, you said you'd try and rid oursleves (or cripple I assume) of our neighbours. Would you still end up with 9 cities, or just build an empire of however many useful cities as you could find?

 

[Mutineer]

I would try to get the Best cities. I do not limit myself to 9 cities, actially I had my fastest cultural win with 14. Spreading religion for Cathedrals are cheaper if you have more of them around and tenples build faster, spreaded trye more cities and having a few cities as religion catchers later in game is good.

I would raise Atlanta and keep Washington, I did not think about other cities yet, but I would get best cites and still claim all land in north and would take best cities from Mao.

 

[KMadCandy]

hey ozbenno: about "/*exit ramble mode*/"

can you teach me that trick? my mother says my very first word was a complete sentence. my father says i haven't shut up since *giggle*.

 

[cabert]

hey ozbenno: about "/*exit ramble mode*/"

can you teach me that trick? my mother says my very first word was a complete sentence. my father says i haven't shut up since *giggle*.

how come I'm not suprised?

Good point.

I always tend to have the finish in my sights, so when I'm trying for cultural win I keep telling myself "do cultcha stuff" all the time, rather than just playing as you said above.

@Mutineer - if we had continued on from your save, you said you'd try and rid oursleves (or cripple I assume) of our neighbours. Would you still end up with 9 cities, or just build an empire of however many useful cities as you could find?

this 9 cities thing is not a rule
It's just about the ability to build enough temples.
It's easier to build 9*4 temples with 18 cities than with 9 cities (see mutineer's answer).

I would try to get the Best cities. I do not limit myself to 9 cities, actially I had my fastest cultural win with 14. Spreading religion for Cathedrals are cheaper if you have more of them around and tenples build faster, spreaded trye more cities and having a few cities as religion catchers later in game is good.

I would raise Atlanta and keep Washington, I did not think about other cities yet, but I would get best cites and still claim all land in north and would take best cities from Mao.

It's also easier to run 100% culture if you have more cities, because you can run merchants and build wealth in more of them.
It's also easier to deter an AI if you have more cities.
There is a "dice roll" against your number of cities.
So you don't need to build than many troops to climb up the power ladder.

edit : and about the vote's results, I must say I was afraid of starting a cultural game because of this.
It was hard enough in a SG to go for cultural. Here with no agreed strategy, it's certainly hard to assess the games. I must say I was very surprised of the vote results up to there (except kmad's game grabbing the best city site ever ).
Don't get mad at me, but I'm actually glad I'm not playing this one.
To answer mice's question about who I had to war, I was attacked by the chinese, and it's certainly no surprise for anyone who played a game with them as neighbour.