GOTM-02 Second Spoiler

How do you get civs to line up on your side for the UN vote?

I was allied with Mansa Musa and Cyrus, the #3 and #4 civs, in a Hindu bloc. Isabella only had Washington because I'd wiped out Saladin back in the 15th century. So I thought I had the diplomatic win in the bag when I founded the UN in 1768.

Unfortunately, around that time Cyrus switched to Free Religion so we were no longer "brothers and sisters of the Hindu faith". And that meant he was only Pleased with me - the same as he was with Isabella - and he voted for her in the next 80 years of elections, resulting in deadlock after deadlock.

In the end I came up with a plan for getting him onside. I managed to sign Cyrus and Mansu Musa up in defensive pacts with me (Isabella had a pact with Washington). My plan was to really piss off Isabella and Washington by jacking up culture to 50% and pressing on their borders, causing them to declare on me, and forcing Cyrus to join the war on my side. It was essential that they declare on me rather than vice versa, because otherwise Cyrus would shift even more toward Isabella. Anyway, I thought a war started by Isabella would ensure he would vote for me, instead of Isabella, in the next election. It would be tricky - I'd have to avoid beating up on Isabella too much, or else Spain would be bumped down to #3 and the election would be against Mansa Musa instead!

Well, all this cleverness failed, because neither Isabella nor Washington would declare on me. I think it's because I was #1 in power and they were too scared to attack, even though my borders were right up against their cities (see attachment). Quite a refreshing change from getting repeatedly assaulted because of my usual weak military, actually. Fortunately, eventually Cyrus just decided to vote for me instead of Isabella, and in 1848 I won a diplo victory with 26,690 points.




P.S. I have to agree with Eliezar ... by 1600 AD, was clear that I would win the game, and the next 100 turns was just a question of checking off the techs until Mass Media. It probably would have been more fun (and higher scoring) to continue conquering with my Redcoats and vote myself in earlier ...

Grogs said:

Strange/buggy things I noticed:

- As soon as I discovered Alphabet, an AI popped up wanting to make a trade. It happened several more times before any of the AI's discovered alphabet. As it says in my log: "how the heck does that work?"

- There seems to be some lag between when the AI discovers one tech and the follow-on techs appear in his trade window. For example: on turn 1, I look in the F4 screen and see that Mansa Musa lacks education. On turn 2, I check the F4 screen, and he now has education apparently. However, I don't see that he lacks liberalism and economics until ~ 5 turns later. This gave me quite a scare a couple of times, thinking the AI had somehow caught up about 6 techs in a couple of turns.

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Both these "problems" are by design rather than bugs I think:

- Trade of techs is possible even if only ONE of the parties have Alphabet.

- Tech-trading is limited: You can't give/trade several techs in succession, if one of the techs is a prerequisite of another. You have to wait one or two turns between each such trade. This was changed in the 1.52 patch I think, and I guess the point is to slow down the tech-pace a bit. A good change IMHO.

-- Roland

Roland Ehnström said:

- Trade of techs is possible even if only ONE of the parties have Alphabet.

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Can you, human, initiate a trade if AI developed Alphabet, but you didn't?

Roland Ehnström said:

Both these "problems" are by design rather than bugs I think:

- Trade of techs is possible even if only ONE of the parties have Alphabet.

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Solenoozerec really hit what I was after. I was under the impression you had to have alphabet to initiate a trade. Maybe I've just never had that happen - even on higher level games where I'm getting crushed on early tech, I'm usually first to alphabet.

Roland Ehnström said:

- Tech-trading is limited: You can't give/trade several techs in succession, if one of the techs is a prerequisite of another. You have to wait one or two turns between each such trade. This was changed in the 1.52 patch I think, and I guess the point is to slow down the tech-pace a bit. A good change IMHO.

-- Roland

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I have seen this one from the player's point of view. For example, in 100 AD I traded for hunting. Archery showed up as a 'can't trade' tech. I had to wait until 120 AD before I could trade for archery, so I was expecting that. So when I opened the F4 screen and saw Education was gone as a tech Mansa was missing, I assumed he had just researched it and it would show he was missing Liberalism & Economics the following turn. When they still weren't there the turn after that, I got a little bit concerned. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from my save:

In 1560, Mansa lacks chemistry:


In 1565, Chemistry is now gone:


It wasn't until 1595 that the 3 follow-on techs, Steam Power, Scientific Method, and Steel showed up on the F4 screen:

Maybe it means that AI will not buy a tech that it is curently researching (or close to get, e.g. 3-5 turns from getting it) ?

A reply to this post

Grogs said:

I tend to agree with you somewhat. As Shillen noted, all the ice tiles at the top and bottom of the Lakes map means you have to pretty much have to either control ~90% of the 'useful' tiles, or else build a lot of useless ice cities to reach the domination limit. That means you probably had to take over at least 1 extra civ than on a different sort of map. If you tend to micromanage everything like I do, that adds a great deal of time to the game. I'd like to see what epic feels like on a continents map for comparison.

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Indeed. I almost hit conquest destroying the last civilization. I was producing culture in my newly captured cities and using artists as specialists. I had no idea that it would be so difficult to achieve Domination, usually it take 3-4 civs. I hit the limit in 1475AD with ~93K score.

solenoozerec said:

Maybe it means that AI will not buy a tech that it is curently researching (or close to get, e.g. 3-5 turns from getting it) ?

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Nah, that wouldn't make any sense. Because they *eventually* do show up as not having the tech, and it might be another 20 turns or whatever until they get it.

Grogs: I see that a LOT. I see it every game, but there's only one place that I ever really notice it, because I'm paying close attention. Around the time I'm going for Liberalism.

What I'll normally do is get Paper and Education, and on Monarch, I'll get them both before all the AI's. I can see they don't have Paper and whatever else, all is well. Then I'll go back for Guilds and Banking, and wait on Liberalism to try and take Economics as my free tech.

What normally happens is that one AI, at some point, will learn Paper during this time. But they NEVER (including my current game) show that they don't have Education at first. It takes a good 5-10 turns before it appears that they don't have it. I used to freak out and think that they used a Great Scientist to learn Education, and switch to Liberalism and crank 100% science. Now I know that it's just a bug in the game, and I wait it out...nervously...but I continue onto Banking and go with the original plan.

It have yet to see this NOT happen. It's really annoying.

I'm sure it happens all the time, but I always notice this one because of the strategy I use at this point in the tech tree, and how vital it is for this to know if another Civ has picked up Education.

shadow2k said:

What normally happens is that one AI, at some point, will learn Paper during this time. But they NEVER (including my current game) show that they don't have Education at first. It takes a good 5-10 turns before it appears that they don't have it. I used to freak out and think that they used a Great Scientist to learn Education, and switch to Liberalism and crank 100% science. Now I know that it's just a bug in the game, and I wait it out...nervously...but I continue onto Banking and go with the original plan.

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Why do you think it's a bug and not by design?

-- Roland

solenoozerec said:

Can you, human, initiate a trade if AI developed Alphabet, but you didn't?

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Guess so, but I really don't know. But the AI seems VERY reluctant to research Alphabet anyway - in fact I think I have been first to discover Aphabet in EVERY game of Civ4 I've played so far. Perhaps someone could test it to find out?

-- Roland

Roland Ehnström said:

Guess so, but I really don't know. But the AI seems VERY reluctant to research Alphabet anyway - in fact I think I have been first to discover Aphabet in EVERY game of Civ4 I've played so far. Perhaps someone could test it to find out?

-- Roland

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I was too lazy to play half of a game to test it, but I fired up worldbuilder and gave an AI alphabet (plus a scout so I had contact.) I was able to see what techs they had and initiate trades. So apparently that's not some sort of AI cheat, just a situation that rarely happens to the player. Actually, it has some rather interesting implications. On a high-difficulty game, an AI could theoretically demand alphabet from you on the turn you discover it. Agreeing would hurt you, but refusing might not be an option.

Goals: I really wanted to push for a domination victory this game. I took advantage of our financial trait by putting up many cottages. This really helped me out financially and technologically. Only Musa was ahead of me in the tech race.

Early Game: The early game consisted of constant wars between the Aztecs and the Spanish. I was busy defending against barbs, although my situation wasn't as bad as many others. The aztecs killed the spanish early in the game by themselves and I was impressed. From this point on, I switched to the Aztecs religion of Buddhism and we remained best friends for the rest of the game killing everyone that got in our way.

Middle Game: I continued to push for my domination victory by going to war with anyone that the Aztecs asked me too. Together we ganged up on America. I signed peace with America right after Aztecs did, and I concentrated on a war with Arabia (they declared on me) and I asked Aztecs for their help and they accepted. After this war, Persia and Arabia duked it out with eachother for a while. Me and Aztecs went back to war with America and eventually crippled them down to one city that they had captured from barbs - Hittite. I continued going into wars with Arabia. They were strong however, and the wars with them were the biggest challenge in the game.

Late Game: Musa was ahead in tech and was starting to build Space Ship parts. I immediately declared and crippled them in the first war. Meanwhile, the Aztecs were destroying Persia. The Aztecs finally killed Persia after a long war. I declared war on Musa again once he started building more spaceship parts. I asked Aztecs for their help (without giving them anything) and together we destroyed and infidel Malinese people. After this, I took America's last city. At this point I was still planning on going towards a domination victory and only Arabia stood in my way. Aztecs and I went to war with them and I took a few cities.

Conclusion: At this point in the game, turns were taking very long. I had built the UN. I was constantly being voted Secretary General because I had enough pop where only I had to vote for myself. The other canidate had been Monty. Every time we voted for a domination victory everyone would abstain except me (who voted for me) and Monty (who voted for himself) and I didn't have enough points to win. I could have conquered all of Arabia and won a backdoor domination but this wasn't the way I wanted to go. With only one peice left on the space ship (when Musa started building parts so did I as a back up plan) I decided to just build the last part of the space ship for the victory. I did it and I won

This GOTM I was really just focused on having fun and not going for a high score. Looking back now though, I could have built the spaceship 50 turns earlier and done much better and I wish I did. Either way it was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next GOTM.

Grogs said:

On a high-difficulty game, an AI could theoretically demand alphabet from you on the turn you discover it. Agreeing would hurt you, but refusing might not be an option.

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Yes, this could be an interesting decition in high-difficulty games... Do you research Alphabet early, to be able to trade your way to tech parity, or do you stay away from Alphabet for as long as possible, to slow down the tech-pace and give you a chance of catching up?

-- Roland

Part 4: The Green Goo Aftermath

Continued from:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3539922&postcount=36

Goal:
To walkover montezuma like I did Isabella, since he should be weak from being at war almost all game.

Outcome not as expected.

Game Year: 750 AD

War Declared in 650 AD (14 game turns after last war... I wasn't ready but wanted seville and figured I could steam roll )

Took Seville and sent my Great Artist(from music) for a culture bomb there to allow for a further advace.

However upon seeing his protection (Pic: better stop now) I was in tough unti lreinforcements came

I made peace in 750 and decided to continue to build a large military (Pic: Demographics) while I
Filled in the hole to the south East where Barbarians keep comming from.
A Screen shot of the void is posted (Pic:Fill me in)

A Summary of my cities is posted (Pic:Cities)


New techs: Contruction (Cataputls)
Theology (Sistine chapel is being built)
Music For the culture bomb

Wonders: Great Library now finished in London

Current Score: 1139;

Next Spoiler: Montezuma Round two

Edit: Forward link
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3583343&postcount=67

Roland Ehnström said:

Why do you think it's a bug and not by design?

-- Roland

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All the patch did was to start showing you techs that are not allowed to be traded (because you learned them that same turn), provided you can research them yourself (IE: you now know the prereq's and can set research to that tech, and they can be traded on the next turn).

The only time a tech is not supposed to be shown is when you cannot currently set research to that tech (or in the case of the AI's, you are shown being ahead that tech one turn after the prereq's are discovered).

So to hide techs for more than a turn makes no sense (if prereq's are known), considering that the patch had the opposite effect of showing you techs that couldn't be traded.

That barely makes sense to me when reading it, it's kind of confusing...and I wrote it. But I don't know any better way to explain it.

I did not do so good this month. I conquered Spain and the Aztecs, but somewhere along the way, I fell way behind everyone else in techs. As a result, when America decided they wanted to take a few of my cities (OK, they were actually taking back a few of their cities, but still ...), I was trying to fight off tanks and modern armor with machine guns. I also neglected my culture early on and thus lost a few border cities to the Arabs and Americans, both of whom were relative cultural powerhouses. Mali launched their space ship in 1965 while I was still researching Assembly Line. 2226 points -- not exactly a stellar showing (but I did better than Isabella and Monty, so I guess I can take some comfort in that).

I wasn't going to post about my game, but even the forums bugging me about not communicating enough with the outside world now :

Hello kipperthedog it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?

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Hardest I'd ever played before was Noble, so I was fairly pleased to get within 2 turns of a diplo victory (Washington beat me to it with spacerace).

What was unusual for me in this game were the four wars I had. When Mansa Musa attacked me in 1465, I noticed that my score rose substantially when I fought him off. I attacked Monte in 1652 to see if it was a fluke, but that boosted me to 3rd place.

I was so excited by this discovery that war was good for my game, that I attacked Monte again in 1724 and came out at number one.

I cruised for a while, but I soon realised Washington or Mansa Musa would hit the space race victory before I could win with just a high score (I don't 'do' spacerace myself, but I always leave it as an option for the AI even in my own games).

It was at this point I started on the UN and thought about diplo. I read one game account (was it Sulla's walk through?) of a diplo victory. It seems you can pick someone to overrun and get yourself an absolute majority - as soon as you know who's for you and who's against you.

Unfortunately I left my final war too late (1969) - It was good old Monte again - he had a substantial population - All I had to do was conquer and keep all of his cities. Which I did.

The final UN vote cropped up just after I took Monte's last city and I was feeling pretty good about myself, let me tell you, but sadly Washington got spacerace on the very next turn.

It won't turn me into a warmonger, but I will be more aggressive in my future games. I will always play on Epic speeds now, and I will never disparage the diplo victory again.

Diplomatic victory, 1900AD, 3325 / 11583 points

A rough start
Initially expanded east and south, before taking some barb cities to the west. Maintenance nearly kills me, I was down to 0% tech and my units were disbanding in the field. I abandonded some border cities (to the west among vineyards, and south west near gold) to the barbs to reduce maintenance and finally get some cash flowing. But my tech is behind the pace and my army obsolete, and I've got no religion yet so am missing the science benefits of monastaries. I slowly recover and retake the cities. But Montezuma is on the war path, he's nearly wiped out Isabellas and declares war on me. He sends axemen and archers across my border, razing two cities before I buy him off.

Recovery
I refound the cities that Aztec had destroyed, and Confucism spreads into some of my cities - I don't hesitate to spread it further. I also found Taoism. The middle ages are peaceful, I'm building up but still behind Washington and Mansa in tech. I manage to get a good number of great leaders and rush some wonders. I've got good relations with Isabella, Cyrus, Mansa, and Washington who are all also Confucists, and have avoided further war with Saladin and Montezuma. At this stage I decided to aim for either a UN or spaceship victory.

Opportunity
As my first Redcoats are bing produced Mansa's armies are sweeping through Saladin's lands - so I join in, capturing three of Saladin's cities. One revolts to Isabella and I gift her another. Montezuma declares on Cyrus, and when Cyrus asks I declare on Montezuma. I take four of Monty's cities and gift three to Isabella. My southern borders are secure, I've picked up a few cities for myself (one of which turns out to have oil next door), my two main enemies are effectively destroyed, and Isabella is eternally grateful.

Victory
I've settled on a diplomatic victory as I'm too far behind in tech for a space race. I pursue my war against Monty a little longer to unlock West Point and keep doing pretty much whatever my allies ask of me, and practically give away my extra resources to them. Washington has a spaceship well under way by the time I build the UN. But fortunately I've got enough friends:
Lessons
I learned one main thing at the start of the game - don't build more cities than you can afford. Also, the lack of a religion can slow your growth significantly. A diplomatic victory doesn't seem too difficult provided that you focus on keeping at least half the other civs friendly.

Shillen said:

A couple notes about this:
3) Different games all play out differently. Sometimes the AI's are all too busy hating each other you can only hope to impress one other civ.

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That is very true. I had a training game with similar setup to this GOTM, where five players including me were budhist. I had friendly relations with 2 of them and was pleased with others without having even try. I have tried to repeat this in GOTM with poor luck.

Well, my goal was a little different from most others. Of course I wanted to win and win early with a good score, but I wanted to mainly reduce the "real time" hours put into it as well. For 4otm 1, I spent over 12 hours. This time, with a bump up to Epic and Prince, I "only" spent 8 hours! Also, I reduced my victory date (again diplomatic) by 110 years!

However, given all that, my score dropped 5K

My 'plan' was to use farms or whatever to increase the population as fast as I could, and then cottage spam. Since Liz is both financial and philosophical, I thought this would take advantage of both of her traits. Then, hopefully having a decent tech lead and Redcoats, to take out other civs.

This plan went so and so. Early on was tough because I had little production because most tiles went to increasing pop or cottages. I tried to do the chop/switch (which I've done before) but I screwed up TWICE and got several warriors out of it. But that might've been good since I never really had a problem with barbarians. Actually, 2 of my 6 cities were barbs.

I'd fall behind in tech but I'd research something (of course Alphabet was one of them) and I'd trade with AIs to catch up. That happened a few times. And because I was weak, I gave in to the AIs often. Even if they only asked for help. This helped me out because only Monte didn't like me throughout the game (later Saladin as well, but that's another story*).



When I picked my cities, I bulit near copper/stone/etc, but they weren't in my city radii. I was concerned more with food, tiles for cottages and usable tiles. The last part, in retrospect, was stupid because it's not so critical to use every single tile and often you get hampered with happiness or health. However, things turned out okay. York wasn't good for anything (growth, cottages, production) but wasn't bad for anything. Nottingham was placed in the forests next to the cows and rice, so even with water or farms, it could grow at a decent rate (and it later became my capital). With the pigs and bananas, it was easy to get Hastings to a high pop which allowed it to quickly grow the cottages. With London and the 2 barb cities, those were all my cities.

I read hendrickzon's idea of building the library early and getting great scientists. I thought it interesting but didn't put much stock into it. But as the game bore out, I got 9 GSs! I built 4 academies (in the cities I built) and 5 were merged into Hastings. I got one GA, but I wasn't going for a cultural victory so they didn't see particularly useful to me. I didn't found a religion until Islam and I didn't even build a temple in London for a long time**. So I decided to focus on the GS to catch up on tech as well. I got one GE and I used him to build the UN.

Unlike other players, I thought the map was easier than usual because there was decent space between us and the other civs allowing some expansion or taking over barbs, etc. It also allows for less hostily along borders. I noticed early that the other civs liked me and I tried to minimize any animosity. I changed religions if asked, even if only 2 cities had the religion. Isabella can be a b1tch about it and since she's on my border, I was a Jewish state for most of the game.

In regards to techs:
I tried to get whatever seemed most useful in the beginning. Stuff like monarchy to increase happiness, drama to increase culture, currency..
Then I tried to get a religion. Philo failed me so I then went to divine rights.
I was going to get Liberalism, but somehow Mansa Musa beat me to it, even though I didn't know he had education!
Then I beelined for rifling.
Then Democracy
Then mass media

After rifling, I built A LOT of Redcoats. I was considering war, but to do so would require more "real time" management. I had like 30 redcoats doing nothing. I noticed that Monte had pissed EVERYONE off. So I was going to try to use him to get better relations with everyone (from pleased to friendly). I placed several redcoats in Washington's territory next to Monte and was ready for war whenever someone asked.

I noticed that Saladin had the most pop and so after the UN, he would be my main opponent (even though mansa musa was in the tech lead). Saladin and Cyrus had been warring. I got Mansa to fight Saladin (for Democracy!). So basically, Saladin has no chance to beat me, but everyone could abstain.

Two turns later after Mass Media, UN is built.

Saladin votes for himself as Secretary General, Monte abstains, the rest vote for me.

Then hell breaks loose. Isabella declares war on Monte. Then Washington. Then Mansa. And someone asked me to join (which I did). I gain New York and gift it to Washington. I get two more cities.

Then I win diplomatically next turn.

I did very little management this game (relatively). With only 6 cities, I don't have to check up on so many cities. All I have to do with find out how many turns the next city will grow in and check then. And once I grew the population, I didn't have to worry about tile management much. After rifling, most cities just built redcoats and occasionally something else. Without any war, much less strategery (spell check on a pseudo-word?). My last prince game with Gandhi took over 25 hours!

However, despite my cities growing to pretty good populations and London, York AND Hastings being in the top 5 cities and not engaging in any war for all but a couple turns in the game, the score reflects none of that... yes, I'm bitter. How could you tell?

there should be some award for winning with diplomatic victory with the least votes for yourself. Not that I'd win but I'd like to know who would.