The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

As uberfish said, the oasis will help a greater percent when researching a more expensive tech (Polytheism). For this reason I suggest going for Hinduism as a safer bet. Also, Polytheism is a prerequisite for Literature, a valuable tech for the GL, HE, and NE. I think this makes settling in place and researching Polytheism a more attractive option than any other.
 
As uberfish said, the oasis will help a greater percent when researching a more expensive tech (Polytheism). For this reason I suggest going for Hinduism as a safer bet.

I play at Monarch level so I'm not sure of the particular values at Immortal, but it seems to me that with the AI's research discount at higher levels, getting either Buddhism or Hinduism requires that none of the AIs choose to research that tech first. If any of the AIs do choose the tech they'll get it first, even with the human having a couple of extra commerce from a tile.

Or is it that the AIs tech bonus on Immortal is enough that an AI can research Mysticism and one of the religious techs before the human player who starts with Mysticism can complete the religious tech?
 
I don't think the bonus is that high! To research 2 techs right off the bat before the human gets one. I don't think even deity has that power. Well, maybe it does as on deity the AI gets 2 cities. However, i highly doubt that with one city on Immortal the AI will beat Aelf to Polytheism.

**getting ready to be laughed at when Aelf loses Hinduism by one turn***
 
ok, calculations.
On immortal human tech cost 1.25 of AI.

First city allways has 8 commerce from palace + 1 commerce city tie = 9 commerce.

additiona worker tie could bring for AI 0, 1,or 2 commerce, as there no other financial civ with Mysticism exist.

So, we would have
12 commerce, AI 9 + x
you can clearly see that is x=0 we win, if x > 0 we loose.

AI tend to prefure hammer ties (city goverment allways chouse to work forest insted of grassland river or lake, if no floodplan avalible).

So, if no civ other with Mysticism which choise to research our choise of religious tech can work floodplance or oasis we win.

ON deity tech cost 130%, still hold this conclusion.
You can see, that on levels immortal only + 3 from commerce has any effect on founding religion. +1,or +2 will not make any diference. AI will be faster anyway, if it choise to research same tech.
 
So, we would have
12 commerce, AI 9 + x
you can clearly see that is x=0 we win, if x > 0 we loose.

Maybe I'm missing something. How would aelf end up with 12 commerce? Wouldn't it be 9 + 2 = 11? Since 125% of 9 is 11.25 wouldn't aelf still end up missing out even in an AI is working a tile without any commerce?
 
He is not? darn I am mixing it up with new deity GOTM.

Well, in this case probability to found religion independent from which tie we work.
 
Base cost for Meditation is 80 beakers. So it costs human 100beakers on Immortal (125% research cost). At 11cpt we get it on 10th turn (there is no other commerce around, even if we grow to 2 pop). OTOH, if AI researches Meditation at 9cpt, it gets in on the 9th turn.

(Note that if research times are equal, human wins because human starts first IIRC.)

It is even harder for Polytheism which has a base of 100beakers. Human will take 12 turns at 11cpt and AI will take 11turns at 9cpt.

That means that at Immortal, you can only be highly confident of getting to Mediation first with HC or Korea if you start off with a 3commerce tile to work.
 
Research rate for either religion should be
8 for the palace
1 for the city
2 for the oasis
--
11 commerce @ 100%
+1 free research for having any cities
--
12 research
*1.2 (20% "I have the OrTech bonus")
--
14 research/turn.

I would expect Buddhism to be the better better bet - the lower beaker cost means that the AI has a smaller window in which to use their advantages (worker improvements) to goose their research rate.
 
(Note that if research times are equal, human wins because human starts first IIRC.)

No. Religions are passed out at the beginning of the turn, based on all civs eligible.

If I remember the code correctly, the human does have two advantages - the human teams get a +10 bonus added to the die roll, and has the advantage of winning ties thanks to having the initiative.

For the first religion on the board, I believe that it turns out that the human always wins a tie (why does the human always seem to land Judaism in later starts? Because that's the religion rolled first), but I won't put money on it without the SDK code in front of me.
 
Hi VoU, can you explain this a little further? What is "+1 free research for having any cities" and "20% "I have the OrTech bonus"? Is the latter the research discount for having a prerequisite tech?

Are your above calculuations for Human or AI? I assume human...?

Thx :)
 
No. Religions are passed out at the beginning of the turn, based on all civs eligible.

If I remember the code correctly, the human does have two advantages - the human teams get a +10 bonus added to the die roll, and has the advantage of winning ties thanks to having the initiative.

For the first religion on the board, I believe that it turns out that the human always wins a tie (why does the human always seem to land Judaism in later starts? Because that's the religion rolled first), but I won't put money on it without the SDK code in front of me.

What exactly do you mean by "+10 bonus added to die roll"?
I assume a similar mechanism is in place for tie breakers to Liberalism and techs with GPs?
 
There's +1 beaker on national level. That's why on 0% aelf will get # of turns for research, instead of Div 0 line.

You get +20% research bonus for every prerequisite you have, required and optional. There was (is?) an exploit to that, not sure if it had been addressed in Warlords.
 
I would expect Buddhism to be the better better bet

Actually if you redo Godel's calculations to take into account the free beaker plus the 20% pre-req discount, assuming they apply to both the AI and human, then Polytheism/Hinduism would be the better chance as it would result in a tie if the AI is working a 0 commerce tile.

Meditation would take the human 8 turns (100/14) and the AI 7 turns (80/12). Polytheism would take both 9 turns (125/14 for human and 100/12 for the AI).

This assumes that the pre-req bonus also applies to the free beaker.
 
What exactly do you mean by "+10 bonus added to die roll"?
I assume a similar mechanism is in place for tie breakers to Liberalism and techs with GPs?

I don't believe that the mechanism is the same.

OK, basic drill for determining the holy city. Before player one starts his turn, there is a check to determine which holy cities need to be founded.

First, the game loops through all of the teams - every team that has discovered the necessary tech gets a die roll (a random number between 0 and 9), and a bunch of modifiers (one of which is the +10 for being human). The winner is the team with the highest score (after all the modifiers).

Second, the game loops through all the players on that team, using the same algorithm. This determines the winning player.

Because of the modifer to favor the human player, you have very good odds (they may be a certainty) of winning the first religion - see previous comment on late era starts.

BUT none of this matters if the AI discovers the tech the turn before you do. Assuming I'm not out to lunch, the AI should be able to research 80 beakers in 7 turns (7 * 12 =84). 7 turns at 14 research is 98 beakers < 100. So you are guaranteed to lose a drag race. Your only chance of winning is that none of the other civs decide to persue Meditation off the bat.

Edit: crossposted with Validator, but he correctly points out that Poly may still produce a tie
 
Actually if you redo Godel's calculations to take into account the free beaker plus the 20% pre-req discount, assuming they apply to both the AI and human, then Polytheism/Hinduism would be the better chance as it would result in a tie if the AI is working a 0 commerce tile.

I think I also blew my estimate of how quickly the AI can change its starting commerce. 8 turns isn't enough time after the first improvement is finished to make a difference, unless the AI shifts from working a 3F tile to working a 2F gem mine, or something stark.
 
I think I also blew my estimate of how quickly the AI can change its starting commerce. 8 turns isn't enough time after the first improvement is finished to make a difference, unless the AI shifts from working a 3F tile to working a 2F gem mine, or something stark.

Yeah I think the bigger threat by far would be that the AI works a 1 commerce tile unimproved tile right from the start.

So I guess at this point if all of these calculations are correct then we've determined that if aelf does decide to pursue an early religion then Polytheism is probably the best choice as it provides two chances of getting the religion:

1. None of the AIs start out researching it.
2. An AI starts researching it but works a 0 commerce tile throughout, resulting in a tie-breaker that will likely give the religion to aelf.

Meditation only offers the first option for getting the religion.
 
I am not sure you are correct in your assumption how religion is rolled out.

I allways based my calculation on assumption that religion rolled out the same way as Wanders.

I know that wanders based on Max overflow from wander building in case if bouth are going to be build the same turn.

So, I assume that religions will work the same way, only on beakers overflow.

It is resonable assumption, as civ was designed as multiplayer game and creators needed to find a fair way to do this. Civ try to avoide lines like
If human then
I do not look on sdk, just base on general assumptions.

Bease on this any *, like prerequisites or map size (standard beaker cost is for small map) do not matter at all.

ONly Number of base beakers matter.

I do forgot about 1 free beakers, putting base research to
10 and simplifying mathematic.
we need 3 commerce to beat AI becaus eof out 1.25 cost. It is as simple as that. We have only 2 max, so no matter what tie we work. Do we get religion or not depends only on what AI decided to do.
 
So, if I understand correctly, the upshot of all this technical jiggery-pokery is that aelf is not guaranteed to get the religion, despite having an oasis. On the other hand, if there are no AI civs that start with mysticism, or if all of those that do have it go for the other religion, then he's guaranteed to get it (with the oasis shaving off a turn or two, so as to move more quickly onto the worker techs).

Overall, then, we're either:

1) getting into seriously complicated probability calculations, to figure out the chances of winning this particular race

2) playing aggressively and taking the risk of going for a religion

3) playing conservatively and leaving the early religions to the AI

Personally, I would say hang the exact probabilities; you've got a half-decent chance of grabbing an early religion, and that's enough to work with; imo, the key questions are:

a) What is the opportunity cost of going for a religion at this time?

b) Which religion represents the better/safer choice?

c) Would losing the race be such a disaster that it's not worth taking the risk?

This being immortal difficulty, perhaps the conservative option would be more sensible; concentrate on worker techs and getting the food and hammers rolling in, so as to get those settlers out asap.

Nevertheless, I'm always inclined to bold moves in situations like this, so I'd say go for a religion. Hinduism looks the better bet to me; from my experience you've got more chance of getting it and, should you fail, at least you'll have picked up a prerequisite for the GL. There's no guarantee that any of the AI civs on your continent will land an early religion, in which case having your own one would be a huge advantage. And the happiness bonus would also be most helpful, given the low happy cap at this level.

I reckon it's a risk worth taking.
 
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