Monarchists' Cookbook I

vale said:

I agree having the protective holy city as our only neighbor is going to be a huge pain even with catapults.

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And this brings me to the next tidbit from my screenshot.

Go back and take a look at the espionage ratio.

Nares said:

And this brings me to the next tidbit from my screenshot.

Go back and take a look at the espionage ratio.

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Ahh ok. So he sees someone else. I guess that is something. I had to do some digging to find your screenshot in all the spoiler tags.

vale said:

So he sees someone else.

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With a little number crunching, it might be possible to determine if he sees one or two additional civs.

I think beyond two would be too difficult to determine. Even picking up on the second would require some significant guessing at this point, having failed to track the ratio every turn since meeting him.

Would definitely need to know the ratio over time to figure out exactly how many neighbors he sees.

vale said:

Would definitely need to know the ratio over time to figure out exactly how many neighbors he sees.

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At this point, I would be working backwards from his current score.

I can calculate the turn I met him, and how many turns I've known him, from the current ratio, factoring for my two turns of anarchy in swapping to slavery and Hinduism. Remember, Saladin is spiritual, and so his EP score is unaffected by civic and religion swaps.

At this point, I would need to know more about how the AI chooses to apply its espionage points. 111/172 suggests to me that Saladin knows two others. Or the other AI that Saladin has met is "unfriendly." It could be that the other AI founded Buddhism, or that the other AI is programmed to be a little more hostile.

Or it could be that Saladin just feels a need to catch up on EPs with this third AI, perhaps because the third AI hasn't met anyone else and is applying all of its espionage against Saladin, having not met us either, and Saladin sees us as either not a threat, or friendly enough thanks to religion, to drop his EP spending against us.

Or maybe the AI just seeks to maintain a minimum EP score for the minimum passive bonus. I'm unsure of all the "whys" of AI espionage actions.

For example, in my PYLII game, I chose to play as Vicky. I focused my EPs against Cathy from the moment I met a third AI, Monty. Most AIs have a EP score against me ranging from roughly average to bare minimum, with one as low as zero total EP accumulated against me. Cathy, who I've been focusing EPs against, has matched my score, most likely through the using the slider.

Why would she do that? Better yet, is this what she has actually done? Or has she focused almost all of her passive EPs against me? If she has touched the slider, I think we may see some modifications to the AI or espionage in the future.

Coming only in 10% increments, I've essentially reduced her economic output by as much as 10% just through passive EP application. Being an AI, she's too stupid not to reduce her research in order to match my EP score while still maintaining presumably reasonable EP scores against other AIs.

vale said:

Would definitely need to know the ratio over time to figure out exactly how many neighbors he sees.

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I'd be really interested to see the EP ratio others have with him, from games in which only Saladin was met, and especially ones in which religion did not spread to the player.

So I took a look at the saves. Keep in mind that not only will events be unfolding differently for the player, but also for the AI as a result. I chose to track the EP ratio as a percentage rather than a fraction, and let me emphasize that these numbers are rough. Some are rounded down and some are rounded up. I have my reasons, with the most predominant being that a high degree of precision is unnecessary in this analysis.

Most games actually fell into the category I was hoping for. Only futurehermit failed to meet Saladin, and only Jerrymander met anyone beyond Saladin.

Winston Hughes, slobberinbear and r_rolo1 all met Saladin fairly late, ranging from 14 turns to as few as 4 turns ago. In Winston's game, he has a 100% ratio with Saladin, possibly meaning Saladin hasn't met anyone else. The two remaining games, slobberinbear's and r_rolo1's, have a 55% and 51% ratio respectively. I interpret this to mean Saladin knows one other AI, that he met before meeting the player, and has evenly split his EP since meeting the player.

Bleys, OTAKUjbski and Solon70 all met Saladin fairly early, about 55 turns ago. Vale also qualifies in this category, but his game offers additional insight that I'd like to separate from this. Bleys', OTAKUjbski's and Solon70's have ratios of 80%, 81% and 87%, respectively. Interesting to note is that Bleys and Solon70 met Saladin on the same turn, yet Saladin has different EP scores against each of them. Could he have met a third AI in Bleys' game?

As I noted earlier, futurehermit had not met Saladin by turn 80, so I'm discarding his game from this discussion for lack of data. Diamondeye has yet to post his game.

Which finally brings me to the two remaining posted saves, vale's and my own.

Vale's save, as I noted, was interesting. Only three saves got lucky with religious spread. Winston Hughes has the third such save, but he met Saladin on turn 76 and offers a 100% EP ratio; interesting but not what I'm looking for here. Vale's save and my own both have religion as well. More interesting is that these saves offer a 69% and 65% ratio respectively. Where we differ is in when we met Saladin.

For comparative purposes, I'll post our respective scores. Vale had an EP ratio with Saladin of 142/204. I had an EP ratio with Saladin of 111/172. One significance of the religious spread is that, of the games with significant EP ratios, ours are the only two which offered two turns of anarchy. While this could be coincidence, there may be some correlation via the random seed. I have yet to compare tech paths, or other confirmed random seed affecting elements, but this could have resulted in the singular divergence between our games and some others.

So, what does the 65-70% ratio mean in comparison to the 80-90% ratio? I believe it means that, in vale's game and my own, Saladin met a third AI. The 80-90% ratios exhibit Saladin's behavior in knowing two AIs, and I think the 65-70% ratios indicate that Saladin met a third AI not too long ago.

Alternatively, as we're discussing random seed issues and most of the map is unexplored, it's possible that the "singular divergence" I refer to happened much earlier, and isn't indicative of the presence of a third AI, but rather that Saladin met the second AI much earlier in vale's game and my own, and split EPs much earlier.

There is also the religious interpretation. As I noted, only three saves offered religion. The 65-70% ratios came from the two games in which Saladin was met in a "timely" manner and religion spread, so another possible explanation is that Saladin is more inclined to spend his EP against this second, "hostile," AI, given that we're now his religious buddies.

I'm still having trouble reading the AI's specific EP reactions, hence why I used percentages here. Counting points is useless unless you understand how the AI allocates them. When it splits, does it split evenly 2/2, or does it split 3/1 to make up the difference? How does its opinion of you affect its application of EP? How does its opinion of others affect its EP? How far does your own EP application push the AI?

So interesting fact:

In the mulligan game I played where I pursued a wonderspam approach the ratio is 166/208.

I met him the same turn (the turn I discovered Bronze Working). Only difference in my EP's is the lack of a turn of anarchy from a conversion. His is significantly higher I would say. So maybe attitude is relevant.

vale said:

In the mulligan game I played where I pursued a wonderspam approach the ratio is 166/208.

So maybe attitude is relevant.

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That is interesting.

I take it Hinduism didn't spread to you in that game?

Care to post a save marked mulligan? Provided you have one, of course.

Offhand, it falls more in line with the other games, at a roughly 80% ratio. For example, OTAKU had a ratio of 169/204.

No Hinduism spread.

Here is the save.

My initial game save was similar to Otaku although he did a better job of managing the overflows.

For grins, I tried two different [the golf term is provisionals] approaches re Saladin. The first was to establish an early foothold in his island, this was met with war and a stack of archers to my lone warrior.

The second approach was to get some warriors to Mecca as fast as possible. Being a protective with a holy city, he had 70% culture defense and over 6.5 strength on his archers in Mecca. Not even a chance with less than axemen.

I like seeing the different approaches and it is interesting to have a challenge with the small island. I usually play continents and leave sea power development until late in the game.

Sojolly

vale said:

No Hinduism spread.

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Interesting.

It took me a moment to realize that you had already built the Great Lighthouse.

And look at that forest spread. That was twice?

I'm still hoping to get some forest spread in my game, so I don't plan on touching those plains tiles east of Berlin. I saw jungle grow over a road the other day. I don't know if that's a jungle-only feature or if it works for forests as well, but I'm thinking now of not even putting roads on those plains.

It's not like I need to. Sailing makes most of the necessary connections.

Roads halve the chance of forest/jungle spread. So you definitely want to avoid roading tiles you hope to get some forests on.

Yeah I got lucky with the forest spreads in that one but no other events of note.

re: forest spread

I replayed the first round for grins, got the forest fire event again, still had insufficient gold to avoid it, and it repeated itself twice. Yep. Raging, uncontrolled Berlin forest fire. A killer.

@OTAKU I'm surprised ToA fell so late in your games. In my games it seems to go around the same time as the Oracle ca. 1200BC. *Sometimes* it is still around a bit later, but usually it is gone earlier. How do I know this? Often I would like to go for it when I play as an industrious leader, but if I also want stonehenge, GW, oracle, and pyramids I can't also get ToA because in my wonder spamming I find I can't fit it in between the oracle and the pyramids because it is gone around the time of the oracle.

Anyways, I think regardless of order we can get both ToA and GLH if we beeline them and if we are going to lose out on a wonder as I've said I would rather lose out on the Oracle. Colossus I think is going to really help make our subpar cities into slightly-better-than-subpar cities, which is important. The coastal tiles are going to be our commerce because we are going to need the inland tiles for workshops to enhance production. Once we hit Astronomy the overseas trade will make up for the loss of the colossus.

I added OTAKU (who gets a for making me think I was insane) to my list. I haven't added vale's second game. Are replays allowed here? Things could get very complicated if they are.

Thoughts on the game (do I still need a spoiler?):

futurehermit said:

The coastal tiles are going to be our commerce because we are going to need the inland tiles for workshops to enhance production.

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Do you feel that early workshops will be worthwhile? Or is it an issue with knocking down developed cottages?

I actually see the problem as a bit different. There's little production, and almost as little food in many of these sites. I don't know that workshops would be, well, workable.

With regards to ToA, you're building it primarily for the GPP, correct? Are you looking for more Great Merchant Points, for Great Prophet Points, or for the +1/?

Which Great Person are you looking for, and what do you intend to use them on?

Are you also considering a stab at the Pyramids?

Well, we could knock down developed cottages if that's the route we decide to go, but all I care about is that we are working workshops after guilds/chem are in because we will need the production. Imo that makes state property important as well. That's probably fine because corps on this map would be a pain imo (although if we could get mining inc then that would change my mind here).

I'm building ToA for BOTH the (excellent source of) gpp AND the trade routes. Even if the trade routes have been diminished, the ToA is still one of the ways to increase your trade route income early in the game. A large, coastal capital is a great way to get excellent income from the ToA, especially if you also have the GLH.

I don't care either way on the gp. I make plans for both. If it's a GP I would settle him for the hammers. If it is a GM I would plan to bulb currency so we can be freed up to research other priorities (currency for the trade routes, which synergizes with GLH and ToA).

The problem with pyramids is no stone and low production. If they are hanging around later I would obviously love to have them, but I don't think they are worth the investment this game imho. The low food in our other cities means we're not going to be running any specialists there.

The thing is outside of our capital we just don't have good cities, period. None of our other cities are going to give us much at all in terms of beakers or production. That is why I think we need to make our (subpar) capital as strong as possible imho.

I would rather attack Saladin from a tech advantage if possible because our low production means replacing losses is going to be a pain.

Winston Hughes said:

I added OTAKU (who gets a for making me think I was insane) to my list.

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... my bad.

Winston Hughes said:

I haven't added vale's second game. Are replays allowed here?

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Definitely not. It's 'bad' enough we get 8 saves to choose from, lol.

futurehermit said:

I would rather attack Saladin from a tech advantage if possible because our low production means replacing losses is going to be a pain.

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We need to do it once and do it right that one time!

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Especially now that I see more of the map, GLH is the focal point of my strategy, because it makes every city worth 7 at the turn it's founded (6 in and 1 for the city center).

That means the simple act of settling a city brings in a net profit -- which will only get better with Currency and as we discover more AI's and Open Borders with them!

This makes every city a production city, because they aren't all tied down working cottages or coasts to pay for themselves! Granted, the cities have low production ... I just mean this to say the cities won't be hurting our economy as they focus on infrastructure.

Berlin and the Floodplains cities can both emphasize production and should be able to handle our military needs. We can only hope Saladin and the other AI's are in similar situations as us right now!

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I think the real question is whether we want to play nice with him for a while or try to choke his cities with Warriors.