The Immortal Challenge 2: For the Fatherland

Use the GE to finish the S of L, I wouldn't switch to FS, but let Izzy research MT as your doing, let her get out of Vassalage, either through, 50% land, as she's at 47% now, or unreasonable demands. Then fully absorb her into your burgining empire....no "We long to rejoin our home land " more gold and production from FS with accompaning culture.

Prosecute Georgie boy, Make him your vassal, and stir up trouble between HC and the Celtic prince.

Scout out Lewis, and watch out for a pre-emptive raid by that French scoundrel....He's proberly just sitting back, building up a fleet of Galleons to ship over a pillaging or invasion force...either into a poorly defended Berlin. Or just to pillage and annoy you for a while...

Otherwise, Beeline to your UB's and Units.....and 'Blitskreig' the continent for a domination win..........

definitely beeline to Assembly Line by trading for Economics and Corporation. the assembly plant is so cheep under organized and 50% quick with coal. they are even cheaper than forges. then SM for the location of oil. Railroad and Combustion for modern navy against attack from Louis. use the GS for physics , biology or electricity. then industrialism plastics and fiber optics. internet may be called again this time. i don't know where to insert Rifling maybe from Isabella or Washington?

i will use two GE to hurry the SoL , the earlier SoL the faster your research rate. u will get lots of GE after assembly plants getting built in every city. but losing the SoL is great pain. nationhood maybe good as i look at the screen shot, Berlin is defended by a Warrior and Louis is so close to Berlin. Please protect Berlin before Combustion(destroyer).

sorry when i look at the save , burning 1 GE is enough to get the SoL. another GE could light bulb tech like assembly line or combustion. or hurry the pentagon.

UncleJJ said:

Ozar is right, Izzy's cultural pressure might cause a few problems from lost tiles unless aelf takes action. Once SoL is built I suggest switching to Free Speech to get the 100% culture boost. Bureaucracy costs 4 gold more than FS and it only gives +17 commerce in Berlin, while there are several towns in various cities to get +2 commerce from FS. Once the need for the +6 hammers in Berlin is gone (i.e. Sol is built) then the +100% culture in the border cities is well worthwhile.

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Good idea. I was thinking of doing this too, but I was debating with myself whether we have enough towns to make the commerce and hammer loss from switching out of Bureaucracy worth it. I find that the bonus culture itself is usually good enough an incentive, though.

UncleJJ said:

You seem to be working forest tiles when you have grassland farms available and that is significantly less productive in most cases as long as you can use Slavery, and you can right now... In Cologne you are working 2 forests when there are 2 riverside grassland farms available, this means over 10 turns, you'd gain 20 hammers and 20 commerce from swapping tiles Other cities are also working forests when grassland farms are available.

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Aside from the fact that I might have missed out on the micro (playing time is limited!! ), I usually only do this if the city is still suffering from whip weariness.

Anyway, I just opened the save and made the changes. Thanks for the reminder!

IPEX-731BA5DD06 said:

I wouldn't switch to FS, but let Izzy research MT as your doing, let her get out of Vassalage, either through, 50% land, as she's at 47% now, or unreasonable demands. Then fully absorb her into your burgining empire....no "We long to rejoin our home land " more gold and production from FS with accompaning culture.

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Interesting gambit, but I don't know if it's worth it. If we're going to mop up Isabella, we have do a clean sweep, which means going for all her smaller cities as well. That would be quite a waste of time. Maybe there will be time after we've vassalized Washington, but by then our land would large enough that she has no chance of breaking away. I think it's better that we concentrate on our next target.

I'd leave Izzy alone; just do your thing. Hope for WFYABTA to wear off a little, and focus on beelinsing key techs. First, you need factories. Second, you need panzers. Really, that's all you need. Panzers can compete with MA effectively, so you'll only run into trouble vs. MI. Sure, they're tough, but enough panzers will pull you through, and you'll definitely start to snowball well enough.

As far as the war goes, it looks like you've got good plans for Washington.

Also, don't worry too much if you start running more of a CE than a SE. Running pure economies at higher difficulties is hard, and I'd only really focus on the SE aspect if you decided to use the culture slider to control WW (not a bad idea...), as that would minimize your slider losses. I'd do that if you thought Washington or Brennus was about to get a key defensive tech while you're on your way to finishing them.

Incidentally, what victory condition are you going for? I'm assuming domination, based on gut instinct. Do you have enough land on your continent for a dom win if you vassalize people, or will you have to go mess with Louis as well? If you're going space, do you have a good way to limit people's (i.e. Louis) tech progress while you set yourself up?

Using a GE on SoL and then whipping the remainder (costs 6 pop) looks a good option. It assures that you win the wonder and gives a big boost to all other cities. Berlin will soon replace the lost specialists if it works high food tiles. The sooner it is done the more GPPs it will give overall.

The free specialists from SoL will add beakers from Representation (to partly make up for the loss of research in Berlin) and culture from Sistine Chapel and that will help against Izzy and Washington's culture. The extra GPPs in Madrid and Hamburg should help get them a GP faster and other cities might sneak a GP as well later in the game.

Incidentally, you are definitely running a SE here in my opinion, or at least a HE heavilly flavoured with SE. There is no other way to describe an economy that has Representation, Sistine, Mercantilism, Pacifism and SoL (assuming you take it) and producing GPs in multiple cities this late in the game.

Just a few quickies:

1. I like your war plan.

2. or not, I agree with UncleJJ that using the GE to rush the SoL and then whipping the rest is a good plan too. That's what I would have done, but don't use that as a basis for smart play.

3. Leave Issy alone to play coy with you for a while. As your American conquests come out of revolt she'll drop away from the 50% "freed vassal" mark anyway. Since you won't be able to keep up with the AI in tech for a little bit, the WFYABTA problem will wear off fairly quickly if I'm remembering the mechanism right. And that quick theocracy switch might help get her trading techs again once you're not "too advanced".

4. What, you mean you didn't feel the need to trade for drama and archery?

Since, if I understand you correctly, you're facing stiff competition from Brennus for the SoL, I would suggest saving the GE until the hammers he provides will finish the SoL on the next turn. Otherwise, if Brennus beats you to it, you'll have lost a GE and only have gold to show for it--which isn't bad, but I think you'd prefer to use a GE for a wonder. If not this one, then another one.

It's pretty easy to do: subtract both the number of hammers the GE will contribute and the number of hammers already invested from the total hammers required for the wonder. Divide what remains by how many hammers the city is now contributing towards the build. The integer value is how many turns to wait before using the GE.

It's pretty easy to do: subtract both the number of hammers the GE will contribute and the number of hammers already invested from the total hammers required for the wonder. Divide what remains by how many hammers the city is now contributing towards the build. The integer value is how many turns to wait before using the GE.

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or you could just put the cursor over the bulb and see if it says that it will pop the tech. If it won't, it will tell you how far towards the tech it gets you. Rinse and repeat.

No disrespect, Sisiutil, just that some of the slower members like me are intimidated by integers and whatnot.

@ aelf, re the cultural border screenie. zoom out to world view, then click on the musical note thingy... hope that made sense.

Admiral Kutzov said:

or you could just put the cursor over the bulb and see if it says that it will pop the tech. If it won't, it will tell you how far towards the tech it gets you. Rinse and repeat.

No disrespect, Sisiutil, just that some of the slower members like me are intimidated by integers and whatnot.

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Not to mention adding and subtracting? You kids and your calculators! Grumble mumble grumble...

And I take it you mean "complete the wonder" rather than "pop the tech" in this circumstance.

For me, it's this optimal play thing of not wasting hammers. Hammers from a GE do not go into overflow if used to complete a wonder. If you use the GE as I described, so that the hammers the city is producing are necessary to complete the build, those hammers will go into overflow for the next build.

And I take it you mean "complete the wonder" rather than "pop the tech" in this circumstance.

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yeah that's the ticket

For me, it's this optimal play thing of not wasting hammers. Hammers from a GE do not go into overflow if used to complete a wonder. If you use the GE as I described, so that the hammers the city is producing are necessary to complete the build, those hammers will go into overflow for the next build.

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me too, I just have a less brain cell intensive way of it.

and aelf, factor in flight soon...

Sisiutil said:

Since, if I understand you correctly, you're facing stiff competition from Brennus for the SoL, I would suggest saving the GE until the hammers he provides will finish the SoL on the next turn. Otherwise, if Brennus beats you to it, you'll have lost a GE and only have gold to show for it--which isn't bad, but I think you'd prefer to use a GE for a wonder. If not this one, then another one.

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I know what you mean, but we can burn the GE and whip the SoL to complete it immediately, so the risk is substantially lower.

Admiral Kutzov said:

and aelf, factor in flight soon...

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That's a little too distant. You have to wait till we get Panzers first.

I'll post the cultural boundary screenshot later.

Gr8scott said:

My understanding is the following:

Once the actual city tile (middle of fat cross) is below 50% culture (perhaps 50% and below?) then revolts can occur. The chance of a revolt then depends on the number of units in the city. It could depend on the actual culture %, but I think it only matters that it is less than 50%.

Sullla did some really nice analysis on the flipping probability of a city with tremendous culture pressure--it had 0% culture. The analysis indicated the flipping chances per turn were:

5 defenders = 0%
4 defenders = 1.07%
3 defenders = 3.21%
2 defenders = 5.36%
1 defender = 7.50%
0 defenders = 9.64%

I would link the post by Sullla going into this detail, but it is in an active competitive succession game thread and I don't want anyone to accidentally get spoiler info.

GS

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I'm responding to this late but I think I read a thread on here about the programmed mechanics of flipping and it's not the number of defenders per se, but their strength. So an infantry counts more than a pair of archers, for instance.

Also, aelf thanks for this thread, things were dicey early on but that correct call on early Construction has propelled you close to your UU/UB and expected romp.

Well, beelining to Assembly Line is our choice, that much is clear. So it's Replacable Parts -> Steam Power -> Economics -> Corporation -> Assembly Line next? Given that WFYABTA might stick around for a while, we would probably not be able to trade for the two economic techs.

Sorry for not playing the next round yet. I've been busy with something else. I'll be playing tomorrow and posting the day after.

I gave her Nationalism and asked her to research Military Tradition. Hopefully relations would have improved by then, thanks to defensive pact and mutual struggle bonuses, and we can get it from her.

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How can you ask another civ to research something? Is this only possible with vassals?

Andraeianus I said:

How can you ask another civ to research something? Is this only possible with vassals?

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Yes they have to be your vassal (permanent allies can also be treated this way, I think). You simply use the "we have something else to discuss" option and then select the tech that is available to them for research. aelf gave Izzy Nationhood so she could research Military Tradition otherwise he'd have to select another tech.

The potential problem with what aelf has done is that Izzy might not be inclined to trade the tech to him after researching it as she won't like him enough. Then he'll regret razing all her cities

Thanks! And maybe Aelf made a mistake in vassalizing (is that the way you say it?) the Spanish. An unfriendly vassal is only a problem, unless you want to go for a quick domination victory. In one my latest games I was the victim of such a strategy. It went like this. The Zulus attack civ A and conquer a couple of cities. Civ A becomes vassal. Then the Zulus attack civ B. Civ A declares war also. The Zulus conquers a couple of cities; civ B becomes a vassal. Then next victim is civ C. Both A and B declare war... Well, in short: I was the last victim....

Oh, here's the cultural boundary screenshot that I forgot to post:

UncleJJ said:

The potential problem with what aelf has done is that Izzy might not be inclined to trade the tech to him after researching it as she won't like him enough. Then he'll regret razing all her cities

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Well, razing the cities was necessary. It's more important than MT alone.

Andraeianus I said:

Thanks! And maybe Aelf made a mistake in vassalizing (is that the way you say it?) the Spanish. An unfriendly vassal is only a problem, unless you want to go for a quick domination victory.

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Not if you want to move on to your next target and want a sort of buffer zone to prevent invasion of your own territory.

Round 7: 1515AD - 1685AD

This round, we began our trudge through the tech tree to get to Assembly Line and our UB. I decided to research Replacable Parts and Steam Power first to give productivity a boost.

With regards to the Statue of Liberty, here's a look at how the construction was going:



A GE would add 820H to it, and as you can see, there would still be about 140 hammers to go. It would be several turns of risky construction, not knowing if we'd get it or not. However, rushing it might be rather costly in terms of population. It was a game of nerves. In the end, I could only hold it off for another turn before burning the GP and then pop rushing the rest.

At the cost of 5 citizens, the SoL was built:



I don't know if it was the right decision or not, but I think we kind of need the wonder quite desperately.

And, as expected, we captured New York quite easily:



The grenadier SoD seems to be too much for the AI to handle. Now, on the tiny city of Chicago.

A few turns later, our next GP was born:



Err, ok. I guess he could culture bomb New York to cut short its revolt period and increase our control over its surroundings, especially against Celtic influence. Hmm... maybe it's so not bad after all.

And then Louis came to us with a demand, characteristically:



I wasn't agreeable, but the last thing we need is a very angry and annoying AI at our back while we try to win some lebensraum on our continent, so I thought it was wiser to say yes this time.

On the same turn, Chicago fell and was razed:



As planned, we stopped the war to recover. I went to Washington to check out what he was willing to give for peace. Not much, it seemed:



Bleh! It wasn't worth the 10 turns of wait, so I decided to just sign a cease fire, which could be broken anytime we were ready.

We repositioned our troops and prepared our economy for the next push, which wouldn't take long. However, it seemed events were about to overtake us when Brennus dogpiled on Washington:



Our troops weren't ready yet, but the Celt would take time to get to the main American cities to the east anyway. On the next turn, though, Brennus came to us:



How could we refuse? Well, we were almost ready anyway.

I made a civics switch to better accommodate WW:



That got rid of the Emancipation unhappiness, making WW more manageable. And the change to Free Speech was due, in any case. Now, we would march on the rest of the American cities and annex them to glorious German Empire. For the Fatherland!

I will post the next part of the update tomorrow.

[to be continued in the next post]