ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

I like Sisuitil's espianage idea. Smart plan.

When it comes to AL, by the time you have it, most of the others will too (Looking at techs, almost all of them can research it), thus making it useless to trade. Throw Democracy on top of the list.

Any thoughts about using corporations? Philosophical will help with generating the GPs...

Sushi would be great for population (if you're going for a diplo win) and culture(for borders and cultural win).

The consensus seems to be to run State Property, hence no Corps

I would not throw away the idea of corps that easy. With a lot of GP potential left, Creative Construction, Civilrized jewelry an Sids Sushi combined would be possible and a culural victory a serious option then. Otherwise, Sushi and Mining inc in ervery city adds a lot of production for quick army production. You do have a lot of resources to trade.

To spread Taoism to 92 cities or even 70 would take way too long. The hammers invested would be better spent on an army to take Hatty's. and put Wall Street in there Hatty can't be converted whilst she her own two shrine cities. As you pointed out OR is her favourite civic; Sisiutil would have a friendly vassal who would share her techs (croses fingers). That the American cities should be developed a specialized cities is something I think Sisiutil is well aware and why he wants to get into OR. When he goes after Hatty, he should have cannons, infantry and cavalry. I think he could take three or four cities, depending on Hatty's deployment, with the army he's got at the moment, not that there'd be much left to withstand a counter-attack. to upgrade everything may require running merchants under caste in Washington, which would slow down teching.

Putting the Globe in New York deals with unhappiness for the rest of the game.
Current -
6 top science cities - Washinton, Boston, Cuzco, La Jolie, Tiwanaku, Sacremento
6 top commerce cities - Washinton, Boston, Cuzco, La Jolie, Tiwanaku, Berkely
6 top production cities - Washington, Boston, Norfolk, New York, Tacoma, Portland

If you think an AP victory is cheesy, then why not turn it off?

oynaz said:

If you think an AP victory is cheesy, then why not turn it off?

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I guess I like having the risk that the AI will pull it on me even if I refuse to do so myself. In other words, can a man of honour survive and triumph if his enemies are not honourable?

To answer your previous question Sisiutil:

Hereditary rule as a late-game civic is vastly under-estimated IMO. Until you have enough towns to warrent universal sufferage for the production, you always have enough units sitting around so that you will gain at least 3 hapiness per city with HR. That's a lot more happy faces in your empire than representation. More true in BTS, because if you don't have at least 3-4 units per city, your power rating will be low enough to get dog-piled. AI's can and will charge into defensive pacts.

Representation gives you a temporary boast in science, useful if you're in a tech-hole, but inyour case, tech-hole is a symthom, not the sickness. Your sickness is a general lack of economic development, and I proposed growing your population and working more tiles. After you grow your population, you can go for CE or SE as you please. Montezuma doesn't develop his lands very well, in case you haven't noticed.

oynaz said:

If you think an AP victory is cheesy, then why not turn it off?

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Because turning it off would also turn off normal diplomatic victories as well as prevent you from building the UN

sylvanllewelyn said:

To answer your previous question Sisiutil:

Hereditary rule as a late-game civic is vastly under-estimated IMO. Until you have enough towns to warrent universal sufferage for the production, you always have enough units sitting around so that you will gain at least 3 hapiness per city with HR. That's a lot more happy faces in your empire than representation. More true in BTS, because if you don't have at least 3-4 units per city, your power rating will be low enough to get dog-piled. AI's can and will charge into defensive pacts.

Representation gives you a temporary boast in science, useful if you're in a tech-hole, but inyour case, tech-hole is a symthom, not the sickness. Your sickness is a general lack of economic development, and I proposed growing your population and working more tiles. After you grow your population, you can go for CE or SE as you please. Montezuma doesn't develop his lands very well, in case you haven't noticed.

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I think the key factor at this point is the loss of diplomatic bonuses with either Hammy or giggles. I'm not sure which. But if Sis breaks up the Buddist block then his diplomatic standing will need the favorite civic boost. So HR is probably the way to go.

These I believe are the 3 things you need the most to right your economy.

1. Research. I did an 'experiment', I listed your cities in research from No 1 downwards, then changed the city names so 1 was in front of Science cities name, etc down to 12. I then upped the research rate by 10%, the order doesn't change (well Duh!!!). 64 Beakers boost=10% Roughly

But....2 of your TOP 5 CITIES DON'T EVEN HAVE LIBIARIES (La Jolla & Sacremento)

This I would rectify Numero Uno.. finish the current build if it has economic merit, but build the Libairies/Uni's/Observatories for a 75% boost.

2. Trade bait technologies, here I would defer to your wisdom, as I'm a pathetic tech trader.

3. Economic buildings. You'd ideally would want to be able to raise your science slider by the afore mentioned 10% and still be in the green. So Custom houses for a raise of 20+ gold in the coastal cities, along with the banks 50%, etc.

Victory. As the AI's seem to be constrained in their lands, and vertical expansion (ie pop growth and associated economic production and science benefits) your set for a Peaceful space race run.

Diplomatically, I wouldn't enable a Apoc Palace victory by spreading Buddism, too risky, too many buddy buddies.

U.N. Again, buddy buddies, though if your both friendly, will they vote one over the other, or will they abstain. i.e, both candidates

War. Ha...I don't think so, you'll have tac Nukes dropping on your head, or a Buddy buddy alliance crushing your army, remember your 6th in Military.

Cultural, You could try a late game cultural push, but you'd really need to deny the media wonders I feel. too late for that.

Time, well its not on your side.

that's my input. Civics; Uni Suff (you don't need HR happy), Beau (hammers/science), Emansipation (cottage growth), Free market (trade routes) and Organised religion (building stuff)

Await a Great Person inspired golden age, change civics as needed, build the Libairies AT LEAST in those cities, and tech on to trade.

Round 7: 1525 AD to 1720 AD (45 turns) - Part 1

Oh, man. You guys and gals are gonna love this.

Okay, remember this post? Maybe you don't, but bear with me and re-read it.

Sisiutil said:

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I know I often get criticized for not devoting myself to a specific victory condition early enough, but I like to leave my options open. I'm deliberately going to avoid a AP win because I did that once before and it's cheesy, and I'd like to see the UU and UB in action.

I just came out of a war; typically in Civ IV that puts you in a bit of a hole. Let's see if I can climb out of that hole and then see where I stand before we decide upon a victory condition to pursue.

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Let me interpret for you. What I'm really saying here is, "I just played a good chunk of the next round, and it went really well, so anything's possible at this point!"

But of course, I didn't want to give anything away. And on top of that, I was continuing to get excellent advice. So much good advice, in fact, that I began to think that a round I played based on very little ALC feedback could have gone even better if I re-played it based on even more feedback. I usually don't do that, but I've been playing and posting pretty quickly this time, so I thought, hmm, let's be fair to everyone and I'll replay the round and incorporate even more of these good ideas and it will all turn out even better!"

Or so you'd think.

With all due respect to CivCorpse, Scarredroman, sylvanllewelyn, and the rest of you... but when I re-played those turns following your advice, things turned out worse. A lot worse.

So then I had a choice to make. I had been prescient enough, you see, to set aside the screenshots and the save from the first attempt that went better. So should I post that round, or the one that incorporated more ALC advice but was, well, mediocre in comparison?

Then I said screw it. First off, it's my game thread, I can do what I want; second, it's my first Immortal game, so I cut myself some slack. What follows, then, is the first attempt that got better results. Mind-bogglingly good results, in fact, I think you'll all agree by the end of it. So let's get to it.

Now, I didn't ignore all the advice I got--I played mostly based upon the first few responses to the last round. So I started off by loading up Washington with specialists in order to generate my next great person ASAP so I could begin a Golden Age, change civics, and get 10 turns of boosted commerce and production to help me catch up.



I also adjusted my espionage allocation as described, attempting to get visibility into the research of the board stragglers, who were also my most likely tech trading partners.



I also wanted more EPs on Caesar because, as we all know, he was up to something.

Early in the round, an AP vote came up. Some of you recommended that I vote in favour of the proposition, whatever it was, as this would restore me to Full Member status in the AP from the Voting Member status I currently had thanks to defying several resolutions. By the way, would anyone care to spell out all the differences between the two different types of memberships?



It was going to cost me 8 GPT and a potential trading partner, but I could live with it. Caesar is so woefully behind that having him possess a tech I didn't seemed unlikely to recur. And he seems to have a very low WFYABTA threshold, as well. But I'd be back in good stead in the AP, and as you'll see, later in the round, that became very important.

On the next turn, before the results of the vote were displayed, I finished my next tech:



I then decided to pursue Validator's recommended Assembly Line gambit.



While everyone had Steam Power, you see, only Hammy and Gilgamesh had AL. The gambit also went on the assumption that (a) neither of them would trade AL to anyone because they were building the Pentagon and (b) few of the other civs would research AL because they usually don't make it a priority. You'll see how if those assumptions were correct in a little while.

On a broader note, it's often worthwhile to look for target techs like this that can get you back in the game when you're behind. In one of the very first ALCs--the Qin game, IIRC--it was Steel that was used this way. It should usually be a very expensive tech and one that most of the AIs make a low priority.

The vote results came in, and Caesar was persona non grata in the Buddhist community.




It was just the beginning of things getting very bad for JC, in fact. And yes, you might notice that I held the swing votes in the ALC. Interesting, no? You have no idea. Just wait...

As predicted, voting for the resolution restored me to full member status:



However, it unfortunately did nothing to alleviate the AP-villain unhappiness. This caused trouble in New York and Pasedena--the two cities with -10 unhappiness left over from defying resolutions during the war--throughout the round.

With Rifling in place and money in the bank, I went around upgrading some of my best units in order to boost my power rating and deter any foreign adventurism.



This is, as I recall, the only level 4 unit I upgraded, because it had the newly-relevant Pinch promotion. I upgraded all of my level 5 units, of which I had several thanks to the Charismatic trait and the war with Monty. I didn't upgrade any of the City Raider Macemen, however. Since I had no plans to fight a war right away, it didn't make sense to spend money on that.

Shortly after this, Caesar's WHEOOHRN came home to roost: he declared war. On... Gilgamesh! Who had a defensive pact with Shaka, you might recall.



Okay, it's now official. Caesar is the game's new Monty.

I mean, he has Galleons. Gilgamesh has freakin' Infantry. What on earth is he hoping to achieve? "I built the damn units, I may as well use them..."

No, I did not join Gilgamesh in his defensive pact, and I was glad of it at this point. I didn't join for exactly this reason, that I didn't want to get drawn into a war while I was working on recovering from the previous one.

As you'll see, however, things were not going to remain that way. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

From the mix of specialists running in Washington, I drew a Great Scientist.



He would have lightbulbed part of Scientific Method, a tech I need, but I needed the civics change without anarchy and 10 turns of boosted production even more. So he started my first golden age of the game.

Right away, I changed civics. These are the ones I chose:



This is where, you can see, I was playing without the benefit of the advice that came along later in the thread. So I didn't stick with HR, nor did I adopt Bureaucracy. I did not research Democracy so I couldn't switch into Emancipation. I also left Slavery behind and chose to run Organized Religion rather than Pacifism. In retrospect, the last two were my only regrets here. I probably could have benefited from a few judicious applications of the whip, and I certainly could have used 9 turns of boosted GP production before changing to CS and OR as I did here. However, with CS boosting workshop output and letting me run more specialists, I think the results were similar.

Then Shaka came along with a request.



Hmm. I thought on this long and hard, then I went with it. I want to keep Shaka at Friendly, after all, and I'd already ticked off Caesar by voting to stop trading with him. I doubted he could inflict any real damage on me. He still didn't have Chemistry for Frigates (I did, and had a couple off my west coast by this point). JC was also going to have his hands full with Giggles and Shakey, here. AND I'd get another diplo boost for "mutual military conflict". So I agreed, and engaged in a largely phony war with Caesar for the rest of the round.

Oh, you can also see from the above shot that I was prioritizing banks as suggested, to help raise the slider. I was also getting libraries and universities built. And here and there I plunked down a monastery while I still could before Scientific Method came along.

In the middle of the golden age, I finished my next tech.



It's strange to be so far behind that when you research a technology you find you can't trade it to anybody. That usually only happens to me at the very beginning of the game, if at all. Welcome to Immortal level, Sissy-boy!

Someone founded our first corporation of the game--the very desirable Sid's Sushi Co.



I later found out that it had been founded in Arabia, of all places.

Then look what AP vote came up next:



Of course I voted in favour! First off, there was even more diplomatic points to be earned for the shared military struggle. Furthermore, this helped further ensure that America would be unlikely to see any fighting, because Caesar now had to worry about a plethora of enemies.

The vote passed.



And Caesar found himself at war with the whole freakin' world.



Well, he started it, and he's gonna finish it--or, more accurately, it's probably gonna finish him.

Then I finished my next tech, the one I'd been waiting for, the one that was going to save my sorry butt, or so I hoped.



So, would it help me catch up at all? Or had the AIs already beaten me to it?

Stay tuned...

Round 7: 1525 AD to 1720 AD (45 turns) - Part 1

Okay. Remember how much tech brokering I did early in the previous round in order to keep up in techs?

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

First stop: Hatshepsut, the tech leader. AL and some gold was worth two techs to her:



Actually, saying she was the "first stop" is a bit disingenuous. What I did was went around to every civ to see what I could get. So for example, there was no need to get Steel or Scientific Method from Hatty, because I had already checked and made sure I could get them from someone else.

I actually didn't put any research into Fascism--I just chose it as a placeholder for my research while I went trading.

I then saw Shaka, who as you'll see proved invaluable to me in this round.



Then I went to the bottom of the board and talked to Charlemagne:



It's also weird when the vassalized civ at the bottom of the scoreboard has techs on you. I got DR from him just because it was the only tech he'd top up the trade with. And this way I wouldn't have everyone else and his dog schlepping it around and shoving it under my nose.

On the next turn, I began brokering in earnest, taking around the techs I'd researched and the new ones I'd obtained in the previous round to the other leaders I hadn't been to see yet.



Getting Biology was huge, of course, allowing me to grow my cities even larger, work more tiles, and run more specialists.

And it was a handy trading tech, too. On the next turn, I did some more brokering with it.




And once again, Shaka proved incredibly valuable to me in terms of tech trading, which is surprising--he usually drags behind by this point in the game the way Monty usually does.



As many of you suspected, Hammurabi built the Pentagon.



Fortunately, I'd done all the trading I could with Assembly Line, so if he was willing to trade it now, he was probably going to find that everybody had it. So indirectly, the gambit paid off in another regard, by slightly limiting the usefulness of the key tech to the first civ to research it. And it had helped me nearly catch up. Beautiful.




And I still wasn't done! On the next turn I went to see Shaka again.



Ouch, those techs of his were getting pricey! Still, Combustion is a hugely important strategic tech, allowing you access to oil (I had 3 sources, same with coal, by the way) and allowing you to build modern naval units. So I thought it was worth it.

Then... the Apostolic Palace election rolled around. And thanks to my prioritizing growth, look who was a candidate:



As I eagerly awaited the results of that vote, I finally saw a little action in this war with Caesar.



Yeah, I sank one of his Galleons. One. Because that's all he sent. Pathetic.

Oh yes--with Assembly Line now in my pocket, along with some gold from all those tech trades, it was time to upgrade some units again.



Looking back, I probably could have saved some gold by only upgrading once from Pikemen etc. to Infantry. Then again, who knows if doing so earlier affected Caesar's DoW decision? (Though considering Gilgamesh had a much higher power rating and more modern units, I don't think it was a factor.)

Guess who won the AP vote!



Maybe the reason that revenge is a dish best served cold is because it's often served late. But it's nice nonetheless. And you can see the benefits of my triangle diplomacy decision, made early in the game, to buddy up to Hammy and Hatty, who both voted for me. Finally--look how my vote has gone up! It's nearly doubled in this round from 262 to 426. And my cities still have a lot of growth potential, so my share of the vote should keep going up.

My next Great Person appeared in Tiwanaku, the result of running several artists in an effort to reclaim some tiles from Hatty and Hammy.



Again, I remembered some of you saying I should have kept the previous GA from Tiwanaku for a Golden Age instead of settling him there, so I decided that this made sense. I sent the Great Artist to Washington to await the arrival of another Great Person.

Around this time, I got a little impatient with the AP villain unhappiness that was lingering for what seemed to me to be an obscene amount of time in Pasadena and New York. I also wanted to accelerate the growth of my cottages, and further reduce maintenance costs of my empire. So I made a civics change.



Emancipation and State Property. By this point I was more or less on par with the AI in terms of tech and figured I could afford three turns of anarchy. Especially if SP reduced costs enough to allow me to raise the slider a notch, which it did. Nevertheless, I look back on this and think that maybe I could have saved those three turns. After all, I had one GP for another golden age, and I'm Philosophical, so the second one wasn't all that far behind. Live and learn.

I had more gold in my pocket, so I upgraded more units.



And then I finished another military tech.



Now Artillery was not as expensive as Assembly Line, nor as much as Electricity, one of the remaining techs most of the AIs had on me, so I wasn't going to get as much for it. Nevertheless, I was able to use it for a few things.



With Fascism now in hand, I was able to do some brokering by combining it with Artillery:



If I'd turned Tech Brokering off for this game, I'd be toast.

Gaining Electricity meant that my next Great Person, a Great Scientist who appeared in the capital, would lightbulb part of Fission.



Again, it's a tech many of the AI have on me, and it's on the space race path... but I'm thinking of using the GS with the GA to start another golden age. Maybe I could run the slider low for a few turns, generate some gold, and run Universal Suffrage for a few turns to buy some more infrastructure. Thoughts?

Now, Caesar has been getting his sorry togate butt kicked around, so he's willing to settle. He won't capitulate--I haven't done enough damage to him--but he'll cough up a little cash for peace.



Whaddya think, should I take him up on it? I think it's too late at this point to try to invade him and vassalize him; I think he's going to vassalize to someone else before long. Maybe Shaka, who took one or two of his cities.

Anyway, that's the round! I got myself out of that hole--I'm now the score leader, the resident of the Apostolic Palace, and I'm a tech or two shy of being the leader there as well. Quite a turnaround, if I do say so myself!

However, I know I could find my foundations shifting from underneath me if I'm not careful. I have to choose my next few techs carefully, so I can hopefully use them as I used the others, to trade like mad and assume the tech lead.

With victory looking more possible than it did at the end of the previous round, I should also now devote my energies to a specific victory condition. The cool thing is that many more of them seem possible. I hesitate to say it on immortal level, but I almost regard space race as a lock at this point. On previous levels, if I was this close to the AI in techs, I knew I could win the space race because the AI gets distracted and pursues techs it doesn't need to go to space, techs like Mass Media and Flight.

On the other hand, the UU is going to be available shortly. The UB as well. And with America very nearly at tech parity with the other civs... well, I don't think we can eliminate domination as a possibility. It would be coming late, though, and would be a tough slog, so I should probably submit that to the school of sober second thought.

Anyway, the saved game file is below, and a state of the world post will follow.

If the game is well in hand . . . wipe out Caesar with some Marines.

Oy vey, what an amazing turnaround! Obviously prioritize Industrialism, but try for the Space Race win anyways. If someone tries for a cultural win, whack 'em with seals! (LOL)

The State of the World, 1720 AD

Let's start, as usual, with the map.



I didn't get around to founding those three additional cities several of you suggested. Maybe that's not such a bad thing--the impetus for them may vary depending upon the victory condition we decide to pursue.

Domestic Advisor:



Still mostly civilian builds. I did get the National Epic in Washington, but that's about it for national wonders. Another regret I have for this round is just that. Oxford, Wall Street, West Point, the Globe, the Hermitage, the Ironworks, the National Park--none of them have been built. I'm open to suggestions for all of them, of course.

And while I have most of the modern military techs, I'm kind of weak and need to beef up. I may need to devote a build from each city to military early in the next round. I usually alternate builds during peacetime, military-civilian-military-civilian, unless I'm building up to war. I think I need to start doing that, lest I get dogpiled.

Civics:



Not much to say here. I'm hesitant about changing to Free Religion despite the happiness and research boost--I'd rather wait until my military is stronger, since several of my Buddhist buddies will likely drop from Friendly status. So maybe the Golden Age should wait a while? This would also give me time to build up a stash of gold to go on a US spending spree.

Foreign Advisor, Relations:



One of the main reasons I've remained in this phony war with Caesar this long is because of the diplomatic benefits. While he's made peace with my two main triangle diplomacy partners, he's fighting everybody else, and that's adding to my own diplomatic score for "mutual military struggle". 110 gold isn't that much, not compared to the goodwill of other civs, so I may just stay at war until he buckles and becomes someone's vassal.

Glance:



Hmmm. I have a higher score here with Shaka than Gilgamesh does. Unless that's recent, shouldn't Shaka have voted for me in the last AP election? I'm wondering because I'm not ruling out a UN diplomatic victory as a possibility.

Active trade deals:



Zara built Broadway, but he's trading Hit Musicals to all my Buddhist buddies, with none left over for me.

Resources:



Trade Route Income and Civics:



Despite not running the favourite civic of Hammy, Gilgamesh, Shaka, or Zara anymore, my diplo score has remained high thanks to the war against the rogue state of Rome.

Technology:



Now that's more like it. I'm not the tech board leader, but I'm thinking that can't be far off if I play my cards right. I've put some points into Rocketry, but perhaps I should research something else? I'd rather not trade it away, after all. Perhaps Industrialism for the UU? I'm only worried that because of my EP blindness, the other AIs might be partway there already, leaving me with a tech I can't trade.

Here's what it would take to go after Industrialism:




Religion:



I had to generate a few missionaries, but I managed to get Buddhism to all my cities. Hence the AP win. Now I need to work on spreading Taoism for the shrine payola.

Power:



One thing I'd really like to do in the next round is get tech and demographic visibility into the other civs. That will require me to build espionage buildings, run spies, and even jack up the slider for several turns. Hence my desire for a tech lead, so I can afford to do that.

Demographics:



6th in soldiers. Worrisome. And being 5th in GNP indicates I should be patting myself on the back for my recovery too hard. 2nd in production is good. But then again, look at Crop Yield and Population: both #1. Because I'm still emphasizing growth.

Espionage, with a focus on Hatty:



So that's where things stand! Much better than a mere 45 turns earlier, but I may not be out of the woods yet. I know I've got several more things I should be doing, and should have done, to make things hum along even better. But as I said, when I tried the round a second time in an attempt to play better, the results weren't nearly as good. Go figure. I'll appreciate your input on how I can maximize the beneficial results of this round in the next one.

awesome. To be honest, I am not a savvy tech trader and usally play with tech brokering off. So when I plan out a strategy for my offline games, I tend to think in terms of having to manually tech things myself. Nice job shopping AL around. Did anyone else notice it took you 3 turns to go from 3rd place on the leader board to first?
Have you made up your mind about a victory path? If it is space you might want to take a shot at ye ole internet. Which means saving the next golden age to build the internet or using it to boost production for parts. Pray for an engineer. Mining inc would be quite dandy.

Just read through the save. A little attention to the science buildings might be handy. specifically in laJolla and Berkley. Both have pretty good beaker output. La Jolla might even surpass boston in beakers. and it doesn't even have a library yet. New york can crank out a university in 5 turns. Maybe 4 once the factory is completed. Then you can finally start building Oxford. Oxford in boston plus libraries in berkley and la jolla will boost your science out put by 10% and la jolla is about to have a few hamlets become villiages which get the PP bonus. Wall street in Cuzco gives you an immediate bump of 38 GPT. that means you can change 13 of your merchants into scientists or spies. Maybe cottage the horses bear boston. Three per turn isn't a lot compared to the commerce you can get. Windmills on the 2 hills would be ok as well.
BTW, Hissyfit has rocketry. It shows on the trade screen.

I also like the idea of using at least malls and corporations heavily in this game if you miss the opportunity to use marines; remember you are american this time!

Sisiutil said:

I guess I like having the risk that the AI will pull it on me even if I refuse to do so myself. In other words, can a man of honour survive and triumph if his enemies are not honourable?

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That cheesy AP victory you got before with Isabella was two official patches ago. It's not that easy anymore, and I don't think an AP victory in this game here would have been (or would be) cheesy, since it required/-s considerable war and diplomacy efforts.