ALC Game 17, Take 2: Russia/Peter (BtS)

Regarding vassals, if I misunderstood how they work, my fault. I haven't played Warlords yet and my response was based on my understanding of how vassals work.

As far as the price for war goes, during the last round, it wasn't so much about losing units as it was about war weariness. You can have a major advantage in terms of units, but if war weariness gets out of control, it _will_ cripple you.

Now, Sisiutil does have a sizeable treasury, but it certainly would help to stop and think for a minute about what he wants to do next, rather than just going on a land grab. Rebuilding is just as important as bringing down your opponents.

How much land does Sisiutil need to claim a Domination victory? I think it's safe to assume he has the population. If he isn't far off on the land and get it from Toku, then it would lean toward going to war, but if Toku's land may not be enough, it may be better to stop, rebuild, then go to war, or go with one of the other victory options (space race appearing to be the best, but diplomatic is definitely possible).

Congrats on a well played game. Maybe it's time to try a higher difficulty level?

^ He hasn't won yet. Don't encourage him to let his guard down .

There may be another map factor contributing to ease of victory. It's not just the nice resources, land types, and opponent set. I suspect the AI doesn't play as well on a map with this many islands. I'm playing a Big and Small map right now too, and I really like the map itself, but I'm not sure the comps know what to do with it. I hear the AI knows how to launch amphibious invasions now, but does it know how to expand and flourish if it ends up on a medium-sized landmass surrounded by islands?

Delhi and Bombay; Madras if India will cede it; Calcutta and Vijayanagar are strong possibilities. These to keep. These are presumably the cities with the shrines and wonders.

I'd like to see how you deal with colonial maintenance, I was playing my first monarch game/aggressive ai today and after I took Khmers continent the colonial maintenance went craaaaazzy, wasn't sure what to do so I kept it along for awhile trying to counter it with wealth and merchants, eventually I caved and made it a colony.

I ended up losing the game but I have decided the moment I lost was when I tried to maintain those colonies myself, it crippled my economy.

Colonies are better then vassals I believe, when I made my first one earlier today from that game I got a +10 liberation bonus plus all the defense pact and open borders, so it started at around +14, the colony can never break away on it's own unless it refuses tribute so I think it's better to make a colony then a vassal in that regard, but I agree this game is won which is unfortunate cause your still going to have to end up playing the turns which could get boring

If you can emphasize or show a way to deal with the new colonial maintenance before you actually give in and make a colony I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for teaching me how to play btw

I left a post regarding the new Aggressive AI settings in your bullpen, check it out, it's suppose to have alot of changes in BTS.

SickCycle said:

If you can emphasize or show a way to deal with the new colonial maintenance before you actually give in and make a colony I'd appreciate it.

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Well I haven't played BTS at Monarch yet, but here's what I noticed about colonies at lower levels:

1) 4 cities per island/continent is manageable; any more, and maintenance really starts to HURT.
2) Building FP/Versailles helps a lot.
3) Commerce cities are much better at supporting themselves. I had 4 cities on an island with silk plantations & lots of seafood, with the Forbidden Palace nearby, and they were able to pay for themselves (I tried making them a colony but doing so actually lost me money!)

The final option is to have an economy so robust you can afford to sink a few hundred gold into an overseas colony...which is probably Sisiutil's best option if he wants to keep all those new shiny wonders.

I'm hoping he will keep them so I can see what he does

I'm pretty sure Delhi can pay for the entire continent, so it may not be the best example lol

SickCycle said:

I'm hoping he will keep them so I can see what he does

I'm pretty sure Delhi can pay for the entire continent, so it may not be the best example lol

Click to expand...

That's what I thought too. Delhi can do even better if I spread Judaism as much as Hinduism. As I recall, it already has all the commerce multipliers...

Oh, dang. This is where I start getting confused again between gold and commerce. Refresh my memory--is shrine income gold rather than commerce that doesn't get multiplied by banks, markets, and grocers, or not?

At any rate, I've decided to change its build and put Wall Street in Rostov so we can see how that affects the use of corporations.

Sisiutil said:

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Oh, dang. This is where I start getting confused again between gold and commerce. Refresh my memory--is shrine income gold rather than commerce that doesn't get multiplied by banks, markets, and grocers, or not?

Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but this is what I've gleaned from a recent comprehensive strategy review.

Commerce is produced by trade routes and from city tiles. It is then converted into science, culture and now, espionage via the sliders -- what isn't taken by a slider is converted into gold.

Shrines do not produce commerce, only gold. But banks, Markets, Grocers multiply gold, not commerce. So Shrines do get multiplied.

Commerce, however, does not get multiplied in its 'pure form.' It only gets multiplied after it's been through the slider: i.e. as science (lib, uni, etc.), culture, espionage, or gold.

alcaras has got it right. Shrines are gold and aside from Bureaucracy and Harbors (and now Customs Houses?) all the buildings boost gold anyway.

Thanks for the clarification guys, that distinction seems to haunt me in Civ IV. It's like a word I always mis-spell or something.

I'll try to play and post the next round tonight.

Hello all, at the risk of sounding cliche I'm a long time lurker, first time poster...

Since no one has really commented on what popejubal said about Christo Redentor, you really should make it a priority. Its the closest thing to a gamebreaking wonder in civ.

Imagine this scenario: you've suddenly been invaded, and have a minimal defensive force. Even if you just changed civics, you can switch over to vassalage and theocracy, switch to slavery and police state whip a few troops, switch back to Caste System for your SE, switch to nationalism for the draft, and then back to vassalage all in one turn

what's more, if I remember correctly you can go for a space race win without researching mass media...

EDIT: Yes, that wonder's just crazy ridiculous. Hope they nerf it somehow in the next patch.

It feels like Spiritual is pretty heavily nerfed b/c of Cristo, ironically.

Round 11: 1780 AD to 1812 AD

Heeding NaZdReG's advice regarding corporations, I changed builds right off the bat, discontinuing Wall Street in Dehli and starting on it in the capital, HQ of Sid's Sushi Co.



Frankly, it makes more sense that Corporations, if implemented properly, would have better synergy with Wall Street than shrines do, doesn't it? I mean, the Vatican City is not the financial centre of the world, New York is. It's like the change in siege weapons: it's just more realistic. No catapult or trebuchet unit ever captured a city. So now, in the game, they can't. Their job is now historically more realistic.

But I digress.

Wouldn't you know that war against one opponent--Gandhi--was not enough for Tokugawa. He had to go and declare war on the Chinese as well! Then he sent his lackey to try to get me to join in:



I turned him down, and later as well, when he asked me to fight in the war. I was glad it was Wang Kon rather than Tokugawa, because remember Toku has some nice resources--dye in particular--that I'd like to keep getting from him.

Back on the war front, Gandhi, I recall, had a whole mess of Frigates on his west coast. I'd been wondering what happened to them. Well, they turned up off of my west coast:



I relocated all my Airships to the nearest cities and then attacked his fleet with them on the next turn, when they'd moved snug up against my coast. Two Ships of the Line took out a couple of Frigates that had escaped any damage, then it was up to my own Frigates. I lost a few of them, but eventually wiped out Gandhi's fleet before he could do any damage to Russian fishing grounds.

I was pursuing the UB this round, and decided to stick with the shortest path from point A to point D. Point B was reached in 1788:



Meanwhile, there was one more Indian city on the continent to take care of. I followed a suggestion from ShredZ and used a spy rather than siege weapons to remove the cultural defense:



This still doesn't eliminate the need for siege weapons. Notice how unlike a true cultural revolt, the defenders have not suffered any damage:



I still needed Cannon to damage the defenders, especially since this city was on a hill. I lost one cannon in the process.



I kept the city for now--it has a source of bananas, after all--but we'll see what happens to it. It's under even more cultural pressure from Japan than Bombay is.

Back home, Yakutsk generated its first Great Person. Given how I've been keeping my economy afloat, the result wasn't a big surprise:



Since Wall Street was well under way, I decided to settle this GM and another one I'd had hanging around since the previous round in the capital. Would a trade mission have been better? Maybe, maybe not. Frankly, I was starting to get tired of moving all those little units around.

I also settled the Great Artist:



Which probably means I'm not going to bother fighting Tokugawa unless he forces the issue. Like I said, I was getting tired of managing war weariness and shuffling units hither and yon. Furthermore, under Representation, all settled Great People provide another +3 research points. And Bombay is a holy city, so the GA's gold will go nicely with the gold from the shrine. I'm thinking I should also spread Sid's Sushi here, mainly for the additional culture boost it grants.

Back home, I completed my next wonder in production powerhouse Yakutsk:



So now, until I switch to Free Market, I have two free specialists on the main Russian continent--one from the SoL, and one from Mercantilism. Too bad the continent's not bigger for more cities to benefit from this wonder, but it's also kind of good to know that not everything about the map was a dream for the specialist economy.

With Gandhi pushed off of the other continent, there was just one annoying city to clean up:



That freed up another clam tile for Delhi. I razed it, not seeing any reason to hang on to the city. I have more than enough cities on tiny little islands as it is. If Toku or Shaka want to put a city there, let them.

The next tech on the way to the UB was completed in 1808:



That should be handy; several of my cities are getting very large and encountering health problems, so having Supermarkets available will be beneficial to some of them. Yakutsk could especially use one.

I noticed Tokugawa had 500 gold just laying around and sold him Nationalism for it. This had another benefit, improving relations with him to Friendly:



I still have a lot of negative modifiers with him, and I'll lose a big +6 with him when I leave Mercantilism behind. Switching to Free Market will drop me to +8 with Toku, which I think is "Pleased". I'm not sure what the threshold is for "Cautious", which is when he'd probably start canceling deals--anyone care to enlighten me?

As I said, I was getting tired of shuffling units around. Gandhi had two lousy cities left, both on islands to the distant southwest of Delhi. He'd managed to sink all but one of my Galleons in that area, which meant building several more and sailing them over there, along with protective ships, in order to ferry my troops down to his little islands. Tedious.

Well, that's why the vassal system was introduced, in my mind.



Besides, I wanted Divine Right to activate the Spiral Minaret. I haven't liberated any cities back to him, but I'm thinking of doing so with Goth, Calcutta, and Pataliputra. Then I'll get bananas from him as my tribute resource. This should also turn him back into a half-decent vassal and tech source. He might be able to finish researching Steam Power for me!

I played through a couple more turns once peace was restored and Wall Street was complete in Rostov.



I also moved most of my specialists out of the marketplace and back into the science lab, with the exception of some of my smaller, distant cities with few specialists, and of course the Wall Street city. I'm also getting ready to spread my corporation to other civs. I did manage to spread it to one of Qin's cities (he was one of the few running Free Market), and he was good enough to spread it to another city for me. I'm hoping that Shaka in particular will be accommodating in that way.

So that was the round! The war is over, the race to Alpha Centauri begins, and it's time to see how powerful corporations can be. A state of the world post will follow in a little while.

The State of the World, 1812 AD

The Domestic Advisor, first off:



Some of the cities running scientists don't have Observatories yet (hey, I had a war to fight!). So I'll have to rectify that ASAP, what with Research Institutes on the way.

The Financial Advisor, as some of you requested:




So colony and corporate payments are taking their toll, as is inflation (remember I'm still playing without that unofficial patch). However, none of them are breaking the bank, and I suspect a change to Free Market will also help significantly. I'm teching at a decent rate and I'm even socking a little money away at 30% on the science slider.

I have to say though, I don't think I would be managing this well strictly on a cottage economy. Then again, I have kept most of the cottages in Indian territory, since many of them are reasonably mature, so they're making a contribution as well. And the good news is that several of those former Indian cities with cottages still need some of the commerce multipliers built.

Civics:



I'm anticipating several changes here. First and foremost, it's time to switch to Free Market, what with my plans to spread Sid's Sushi Co. around a little bit. Several of the other civs are starting to run it now. Nationhood is no longer necessary now that the war is over and war weariness is no more. But should I go to Bureaucracy or to Free Speech? The latter would take advantage of the Indian cottages, and would help Bombay with its cultural struggle versus Japan.

And what about Organized Religion? A lot of the infrastructure is built, and the Great Person supply suddenly dried up, so I'm thinking of Pacifism even though the unit maintenance costs will rise. I'll probably make a point of deleting many of the older, obsolete units to save money there. As you'll see, my power rating is insane right now.

One thing to keep in mind is that this civics change will not be happening during a Golden Age, so we're talking 3-4 turns of anarchy here. I think I can afford that, however.

Foreign relations:





Info:



So as you can see, several more civs are running Free Market (so is Saladin, not visible here, and Wang Kon is running Decentralization). I can probably persuade some more to do so via bribes or espionage.

Techs:




Yeah, it's too bad Shaka won't trade Steam Power. Them's the breaks. It also occurs to me that I should sell Divine Right to Mao, Qin, and Wang. I'm thinking of researching Radio after Superconductors in order to build the Cristo Redentor. And, what the heck, the Eiffel Tower and Rock and Roll too. Yakutsk is just rockin' as a Ironworks city.

Religions:



So there are several cities to which Judaism and Christianity could be spread to further boost shrine income. A few cities need Hinduism as well, though that's a low priority if I switch to Pacifism, as those cities are unlikely to produce a Great Person.

Corporations:



Unchanged since the previous round, though Sid's Sushi did get spread to two of Qin's cities.

Victory conditions:



Domination is possible but would take a lot of work at this point. I don't think Mao is likely to pull of a cultural win, and Peter definitely lends himself to a space race win, as we said from the get-go.

Power:



Like I said, it's almost embarrassing. Mind you, I can't rest on my laurels or Shaka will be breathing down my neck. That guy just loves his shiny toys that go "Boom!".

Demographics:



Top 5 Cities:



The amount of wonders now owned by Russia, by the way, is also ridiculous.
Espionage:



I'd love to steal Steam Power from Shaka, but that might require a Great Spy--or a lot of patience. It might be faster to just go back and research the tech. If I put a couple of turns' worth of flasks towards it, Shaka might loosen up.

And finally, the map:



So the main decision points that I see are civics, what if any cities to liberate back to Gandhi, and what to research after Superconductors. Let me know what you think!

About civics, I wouldn't change a thing.
You still have a lot of buildings (your UB!) to build, and you certainly won't see the great person flow dry up once your national park is done .
So I think OrgRel is doing more for your GPPs right now than pacifism.
Nationhood is just what you need too.+25% EP is good for you. Bureaucracy wouldn't help a lot IMHO.
Free Speech would be good to fight the cultural war on the japanese front, but maybe you could do it locally with the hermitage?
I don't think free market is any good to you right now either. Do you want foreign corporations?
+ you're so big that most of the new trade routes would be domestic anyway.
And leaving caste system is a big right now.

So, I suggest sticking with your civics, but reweighting EPs. You don't need to spy on gandhi at all. I would focus on 1 AI at a time, or 2 maximum.
I would put all the EPs towards bismarck and shaka.

This game has really been over for the past couple of rounds, but I've got to say that you're getting kind of sloppy and are making some moves.

If you intended to vassalize Gandhi why didn't you do it at the start of the round? By capturing and razing Madras you denied your vassal a valuable city. Pataliputra would also have been better to have remained in Gandhi's hands as it would have been a lot easier for the Indian culture to fight the Japanese culture. All you did by extending the war into this round was weaken your vassal and waste a lot of time moving all those units around.

Why did you settle the two GPs instead of using them for a golden age? You built the MoM to maximize the effect of golden ages but you're not really using it much.

The specialization of your cities could use a little work. Why are your Oxford and IW cities running so many spy specialists? There are a couple of grassland farms around Yakutsk that should have been replaced by workshops once Sid's Sushi was spread to that city. And now that Wall Street has been built in Rostov wouldn't it be a good idea to chop those forests and build some cottages?

I don't want to be overly critical, but there seem to be a number of players that use the ALC games to learn how to improve their games. If you're just fooling around then that should be noted so they'll realize that this isn't an example of optimal play.


Moving forward I would recommend teching to Combustion and Assembly line next. You'll get a big hammer boost from both railroads and factories. Since you have oil you might as well get it hooked up so you can build destroyers and maintain your naval supremacy. You might want to research Radio next in hopes that somebody will have Steam available for trade by then, but Steam isn't an expensive tech for you at this point.

In terms of civics, Bureaucracy will give you about an extra 25 commerce/turn in Rostov relative to Free Speech. The Indian towns will pretty much make up for that, although those cities have lower multipliers. You'll also get some extra in Rostov, but I would think the extra from Free Speech would probably be a bigger advantage.

Hi all,

First time posting although I have been reading the forums a fair bit lol. Been trying to learn this game for ages and even though you read strategies and the like on here it's still difficult to get to grips with and these threads that you do are just fantastic I had no idea civ was so damn complicated lol.

Thanks for these threads, it's obvious I have lots to learn and look forward to more of them

I'm interested to see which way you actually end up winning this game because as said it's obviously been won for a while now but still nice to see the way you finally end up doing it

Scott