ALC 27: Churchill of England

Fluxx said:

On the game. Very nice job, absolutely amazing what you can accomplish before 1 AD.
Also deity tech speed is ridicilous as always.

On the math subject. Use Matlab indeed for easy answer .
The equation itself though is absolutely not hard. There are 2 functions inside functions, so just keep applying the rules which I forgot from highschool.

Also your notation is weird, ln is normally used as the natural logarythm of e. So do you mean ln(2x^234)? or do you mean 2 log(x^234)

Shouldnt be a cakewalk

Click to expand...

Don't know what I meant, since I made up that problem from scratch.

Anyway, since today is Friday, I finally got to play some Civ! I played up to about 500 AD ish. We have discovered Liberalism first, as expected.

What is Matlab btw?

Is this game a cakewalk or is that math problem a cakewalk?

I believe that Matlab is a program that lets you plot equations (and take a closer look at whatever portion you want to look at) and helps you to solve calculus problems. My memory is a little hazy on the specifics as I only used the program for a semester about 8yrs ago.

Massive OT: Matlab is a mainly numeric mathematical program, as opposed to symbolic programs like Maple and Mathematica. It's often used for calculating stuff like statistical analysis and DSP. Though it does have some symbolic features nowadays that would allow you to differentiate functions.

Now go nail that game and write us some of those funky reports!

DMOC said:

What is Matlab btw?

Is this game a cakewalk or is that math problem a cakewalk?

Click to expand...

Answer to the first question

Answer to the second question ( the part of the game , ... haven't tried to solve the equation 7th derivative yet )

Is there an update coming this weekend? Just curious, I know you are busy as I have been lurking here since the start. Calc just gets more annoying, I'm at U of I myself trying to knock it all out for CS.

Good luck with school, eagerly awaiting more churchill update.

Check the first post. If DMOC has enough time to post it, he will update it with a link.

I've been tryingto play, but every time I try I've got some other chore to do. It doesn'thelp that I need to file in my colelge applications soonn. And as you can see fmf my typos im typing quite fast

Hi

I've been lurking the ALCs for about a year now.

This has been a fun game to follow because I've never even tried a Deity game myself and it's cool to see the ruthlessness apparently needed to succeed at it.

I'm hoping to follow subsequent games live and maybe I can even contribute to the discussion, if only to highlight how not to play the game

Also loving this ALC. Churchill being my favorite leader since I wind up in the grinder many many times. War helps even out the AI advantages in my opinion(assuming the human is competent), and from crossbowmen/longbowmen on through the ages it is quite hard to handle a stack of super churchill units, being both charismatic and protective.

My only gripe is the starting techs (mining and fishing) leaves one two techs from archery. This means that it is an imposition to tech it if one lacks nearby horse or copper. This has no synergy with the first unit he has all the goodies for. Id rather have hunting myself. (for closer AH and one tech from archery)

Wouldn't it be cool if the starting tech's and leader characteristics were split between the leader, the civ and the map. For instance, England's people/race could have a financial bent regardless of leader, the map could dictate one starting tech. If the settler gets a coastal start, the civ gets fishing, if plains they learn agriculture, if mountainous they get mining. The leader would contribute a non-terraforming tech, some kind of philosophy, ideal or military knowledge: mysticism, the wheel, archery sailing or something like that. The leader would also bring some extra characteristic to the table.

With random maps it's kind of silly for England to start with fishing just because it's real world counterpart came from in island.

Sounds interesting Carl. Probably would prove to be too big a change for me to handle.

I got my October SAT score back. The College Board website says students who take the SAT as juniors in May and then as seniors in October improve by an average of 9 points. I improved by 200.

DMOC said:

Sounds interesting Carl. Probably would prove to be too big a change for me to handle.

I got my October SAT score back. The College Board website says students who take the SAT as juniors in May and then as seniors in October improve by an average of 9 points. I improved by 200.

Click to expand...

Awesome! I improved by roughly 100 points. But my writing crashed a bit...

My writing was the biggest jump, 610 to 710.

ACT score?

Round 4: 35 BC to 610 AD (44 Turns) - The Expanding Society

Part 1 - Where England Attempts to Remain at Technological Parity

Okay, break's over. In light of the incredible (and unacceptable ) delay between rounds, I think I did quite a nice job. (I had to replay this round because I lost the save from last time - but I don't even remember how I played out the last round anyway .)

To start out the round, I checked everything. Literally - everything - from resource trades, to the technology situation, and so on. I negotiated some deals in order to increase my gold-per-turn. Always be on the lookout for deals like these.



I switched Nottingham (one of my production cities) to building a forge. A library this early didn't make sense at all. I dont know what I was thinking before when I kept the library in the queue.



Here, incidentally, is Washington, the captured American capital. It's being severly culturally pressured, and would soon lose the pigs from Washington's new capital, New York. Unfortunately, a future development meant that I would be unable to capture New York easily. To alleviate the cultural pressure, I whipped a library. Following that, I believe that I built "culture" up to Washington's next border pop, then I built an islamic monastery and a theatre. Still, I would never get the pigs back by the end of this round. Darn American culture!



My exploring warriors (which, by the way, are very convenient, especially if using chariots - use explorers in your games) came across the Carthaginian capital. Wow, Hannibal has both stone and marble. No wonder he's leading the pack here in terms of wonder construction. But as you can see, Hannibal sucks at expansion. He let Peter get a city, Yaroslavl', that close to him! Compare the distance between Yaroslavl' with Moscow and Carthage, and you see what I'm talking about.



Here's the "future development" that I talked about before. Washington decided to friendly-vassal to his bigger, stronger neighbor, Augustus Caesar. Oh well. To be honest, I kind of expected that.



With Civil Service nearing completion, I opted to do some tech-brokering with Joao II, Zara Yaqob, and Peter, respectively.

First - Compass. My failed beeline to music (see: Round 3) at least proved somewhat useful here. I then clicked "next turn" and then resumed trading with Zara.



Second - Feudalism, which is also a prerequisite of Civil Service. Notice that I'm using the Compass technology that I obtained from Joao II. Yes, that is the same Zara Yaqob that I declared war on earlier.



Finally - Civil Service from Peter, who is the score-board and tech leader right now. Sisiutil said that he never liked to trade with the leaders in tech, and neither do I - but sometime's it's necessary. You'll notice that I was able to get "full value" for this trade, because I researched part of Civil Service in order to cheapen its value in the eyes of Peter.



This allowed me to switch civics to Bureaucracy, which is absolutely a boon for an empire like mine that relies on practically one city for its research. I opted not to switch to Organized Religion - I mean, I think I only have three Buddhist cities in my empire!



Hannibal continues to wonder-whore. Man, you'd think he was industrious or something ....



Here's just a quick overview of England proper in 130 AD. My research is solid now, and London will soon complete the National Epic in order to generate Great People at an accelerated rate. I'm thinking that National Epic and Oxford University are the two National Wonders for London, right? It's my "super-city" after all.

(I've said this before, but I'll say it again - population in the capital is extremely important for higher difficulty levels if the capital is to serve as your research center. Several years ago, I would probably have, on average, a size 6-8 capital by 130 AD fo rmy games. Look at London now - it's size 15 already!)



I was researching Philosophy in the last screenshot in order to clear up prerequisites for Liberalism. Once I finished Philosophy, I started on Paper. I was able to get Augustus to give me Engineering. Augustus, by the way, is in the third "tier" of AI's in terms of "We Fear You Are Being Too Advanced." Mansa is in his own fourth "tier" with 20 base technologies allowed, while Augustus and several others have a base value of 15 technologies allowed.



I got a second Great Scientist from York. I held him off, for a reason you'll see later.



Here's London, max-ing out at 180 beakers and helping me rush to Liberalism. If you're wondering why I didn't cottage the northernmost grassland, it's because I thought that Washington's culture would take it. However, that hasn't been the case thus far, so by the end of the round, London was working a cottage on that tile.



Once I finished Paper, I started on Education. I checked the tech screen. Apparently, only Peter had Paper (and he finished several turns before me). Basically, if Peter doesn't beeline Education, the Liberalism race is won.

Once I finished Paper, I did my trademark "buy/sell/trade world map" trick that I like doing. In some games, I'm able to net over 5,000 gold from this. However, in this game, I only managed to get 125 gold. It's probably because Peter was first to Paper and initiated map trades before I could, thus lowering the amount of gold that other leaders were willing to give me for my maps. Oh well, nothing's perfect.



In this screenshot below, I want to emphasize the importance of winning cultural battles. You can see that the former barbarian city of Aryan holds my only two wine resources. If I lose them, I lose a major source of happiness. I didn't want that, so instead of completing a granary in Aryan, I opted to build culture (yet another benefit of beelining to music - building culture!) until the next border pop. Apparently, if you get a border pop, you get a cultural bonus for the tiles under that city's control. After the borders of Aryan popped, I resumed normal construction of its badly-needed granary.

This idea of cultural battles is one of the reasons why I'm such a big fan of the Creative trait.



So ... in 280 AD ... my Great Scientist was ready to partially-bulb Education. So did I? Absolutely not! You can see in the screenshot that I had no less than three cities that were about to gain a population point the following turn! The amount of beakers that a Great Person gives you is proportional to the amount of population you have. This is why I almost always hold off on bulbing until I absolutely have to do so.



[To be continued in next post]

Round 4: 35 BC to 610 AD [44 Turns] - The Expanding Society

Part 2 - Where the Race to Liberalism Takes an Unexpected Path


I was able to get some more technology trades going here with Joao II. While Optics wasn't really necessary, the gold was helpful. I like to make trades where the AI is the one giving me gold instead of the other way around. Can anyone confirm if that's the optimal way to do these trades?



Suddenly, out of nowhere:



Okay, so it's not a complete disaster. I have several cities with Islam, so if a diplomatic victory does come up, no one should win. In case you're wondering, I voted for Peter. He's my neighbor, and he's annoyed with me due to different religions. A +2 was, indeed, enough to lift him to cautious with me. The other choice, Zara, was not appealing to me. He had already incurred so many negative modifiers with me that it would be pointless to vote for him.

Education was finally completed in 385 AD.



I checked the tech screen, and found out that I was first to Education! The only leader who's not displayed on the tech screen (since only 8 leaders can be shown) is Tokugawa, and he was lacking paper as well.



So it was time for me to research Liberalism and take the "standard" free technology - Nationalism, right? After all, that's probably the most common liberalism path route.

But wait ... I decided to do some inspecting. I asked Peter how much he was willing to give me for Education:





I think it's safe to say that Peter, my closest competitor, was not close to completing Education! If he had been close to completing Education, he would not have offered me that much for the technology. This is how I can tell what other leaders are researching without the use of espionage.

Coventry, my eleventh(!) city, was founded overseas. It immediately earned 2 very lucrative 5-commerce trade routes - a huge benefit of being an overseas city. Moreover, it's borders meant that I would probably not be seeing any more barbarian galleys for the remainder of the game. Nevertheless, I had a trireme nearby in case. I like to be prepared. A worker from the mainland was sent on a galley to mine the hills in Coventry. As you can see, I already had a workboat ready to increase the food output of the fish, once it would be under Coventry's culture. Coventry first built culture, which was accelerated once the worker mined a hill.



By the 200-turn mark, I found out that I was rounding out the power list at last place (most likely). But I thought - who cares. No one is planning a war now, so why should I have to build any military at all. The only war that's actually going on now is a war between Ethiopia and Zululand, a war that was happening before the start of this round and after the round ended. Neither party in the war was gaining any ground, which was probably due to the distance between the two civilizations.



Here, you can see that I just finished the Heroic Epic in Nottingham. I always like to try and get the Heroic Epic "out of the way" early so that I don't have to build it come war time. The marble I got from conquering America (thanks Washington!) certainly helped. In addition, you can see the settled Great General.



I needed some help in my cultural battles, so I called Hannibal up for a trade. Yes, I'm aware that I'm giving away a key Liberalism technology to someone who's already highly-advanced despite his lack of land. But at least I got Drama.



Here's Washington building a theatre, aided by a chop to the northern forest.



Ugh, more AI's are friendly-vassaling to others. I'm being pushed to the bottom of the scoreboard, as you can see.



In 460 AD, aided by the National Epic in London, I earned my third Great Scientist of the game. He would bulb part of Printing Press - which I did not do yet. I had another idea for him ....



Uh oh! A diplomatic victory vote came up. I abstained, and crossed my fingers ...





Yes! No one won!

Now I could focus my efforts on the Liberalism race. In 550 AD, I was one turn away from gaining the prize ...



And then, I stopped. Honestly, how would I really benefit? No less than three civilizations already possessed knowledge of Nationalism. Where would the trade opportunities be?

So ... I unleased my master plan. I turned research down to 0% to gain gold (I've been running 100% or 0% research all game - nothing in between), and then struck a trade with the lowly vassal Washington to get Gunpowder. You see, I had little concern that Washington would get Liberalism because of (1) his size, and (2) espionage revealed that he was researching Chemistry. I have, since then, lost visibility of his research, though, because my 4 points are focused on Peter.

*You can check the screenshot where I got my third Great Scientist - it clearly shows that Washingotn is researching Chemistry.



I then set research on Chemistry and launched a 10-turn Golden Age with the scientist that I had hanging around in London.



Here's my super-science city, London. (It's literally generating half of the beakers of my total empire.) I'm aware that there's a farm - perhaps I should put a cottage there. Nottingham has enough farms for now.



It turned out that I wouldn't have to finish Chemistry by myself. Thanks, Tokugawa!



And by now you probably know what my plan was. I put research back to Liberalism ....



YES! Steel!





A state-of-the-world post will follow.

(Part 2 wasn't done when I posted)
Very nice update and very informative, especially liked the bulb delaying part.

Great to see the game is alive!

kossin said:

(Part 2 wasn't done when I posted)
Very nice update and very informative, especially liked the bulb delaying part.

Great to see the game is alive!

Click to expand...

Part 2 is now up!

Thanks for your comments. My aim here is to be largely didactic, after all.

State of the World - 610 AD

England - with resources and without.





The updated map of the world. Shaka sure got boned in his start.



Technology:



Resource deals (at least, the only relevant ones):



Demographics. I'm still only average in GNP despite my Golden Age.



Civics. Should I make a change?



Finally - victory conditions. It's a bit early, but what do you think?



Closing Thoughts: We've now won the Liberalism race and have Steel in our hands for cannons. So what's the next step? Cannons + (?) for the next war vs. (?). The only logical targets are the Roman/American team, the Russian/Japanese team, or the Ethiopian civilization. I'm honestly torn at which civ is the best target.

Civics - I don't think I'll be switching to Free Religion since I'm getting diplomatic points from fellow Buddhists. But I'm in a Golden Age, so other anarchy-free civic changes are possible. I could switch to Caste System and get a Great Merchant for upgrading troops. But which troops?

So ... the time's come. We have our window of opportunity to conquer someone. But that window won't remain open forever. I will need your help and opinions.

The round is now complete. Expect the next one to be posted during President's Week (for the U.S.A. anyway). Now if you'll excuse me, I've got the Super Bowl to watch!

The save:

5000 gold from trading maps? Do the AI really value the maps that much?