LK113 - always peace, prince

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/LK113BC-2400.zip

I don't want to repeat a civ that has been played the LK series. So what do I roll? India, China, Spain, India, and I finally get something different with England.

I a fit of silliness I disbanded the initial settler one of those junk games, and the game kept going.


4000 BC
I pop a hut and get $35. I move the settler one north to get sheep and cows within our borders.


3960 BC
London is moved. It seems weird to actually understand what the units are saying. The settler blurb is "lets get moving" if I heard it right. I start a warrior so that we can explore faster.
Hunting is pretty worthless, but it is the quickest path to animal husbandry.


3680 BC
(IT) We make contact with the Incan. I am starting to get tired of seeing his face in LK games.


3600 BC
(IT) Contact is made with France.


3520 BC
(IT) France beats us to a hut by 1 turn, and gets a free scout.


3360 BC
Once again I have the Mongols for neighbors.


3320 BC
(IT) Since we are playing always peace the next tech choice is Mysticism so that we can build Stonehenge. I am hoping for a lot of wonders in this game.


3280 BC
I pop a hut and get a lousy $29.
(IT) Add Egypt to our list of neighbors.


3240 BC
Add Germany to our list of neighbors.


3080 BC
(IT) We complete mysticism. I start the wheel heading toward pottery.

==========================

Summary:
Writing was just started for libraries and open borders. No beakers have been invested.

After Stonehenge we should slip a settler in. I expect us to be wonder hogs with always peace.


Signed up:
LKendter (skip Dec 23 to Dec 26)
Methos (currently playing)
Vol (on deck)
MeteorPunch
Tinkez


Remember 10 turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to at complete.

Win target: Diplomatic or space with the game parameters.


For the first time ever I got hit with a CTD trying to exit back to the desktop.

Got it....

What about settler spamming? Even if it cuts our science for awhile, it will pay off later.

Stonehenge was a good idea.

Turn 40 (2400 BC)
Methos: Health-wise we're doing great (10/3). Happiness isn't so good (5/4). We can grow one more pop before growth needs to be stopped. We should probably build a warrior or two before switching to settler after Stonehenge.
Methos: Decide to stay with Writing. A library would work great with London and the river commerce.
Contact made: Roman Empire

Turn 41 (2360 BC)
Methos: Unsure where our warrior was heading, so I decide to turn him back towards London. Without some MP we can't grown beyond size 4 without angry citizens.
London grows: 4

Turn 42 (2320 BC)
Methos: I slow London's growth down to coincide with our Warrior arriving back. Hammers stays the same but our beakers increase by 2 (now at 14 bpt).

Turn 43 (2280 BC)
Methos: It appears the Egyptians have built a second city already. It's located near the gold to the east of their capitol.

Turn 44 (2240 BC)

Turn 45 (2200 BC)
Methos: Our warrior spots an archer/settler pair leaving Mongolian lands. A warrior just behind them.

Turn 46 (2160 BC)

Turn 47 (2120 BC)
London finishes: Stonehenge

Turn 48 (2080 BC)
London begins: Warrior
Tech learned: Writing
London's borders expand

Turn 49 (2040 BC)
Research begun: Bronze Working
London grows: 5
London finishes: Warrior

Turn 50 (2000 BC)
London begins: Settler
Methos: Once again London is maxed on happiness. With two MP size 5 is currently the most we can grow too. I suggest after the settler completes setting the city to no growth would be wise.

Here's the 2000 BC save.

Well I am completely baffled at this point. I though the only point at which MP was available was if you took the hereditary rule civic. Could someone explain why we have an option for MP?

Signed up:
LKendter (skip Dec 23 to Dec 26)
Methos
Vol (currently playing)
MeteorPunch (on deck)
Tinkez

Remember 10 turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to at complete.

Win target: Diplomatic or space with the game parameters.

LKendter said:

Well I am completely baffled at this point. I though the only point at which MP was available was if you took the hereditary rule civic. Could someone explain why we have an option for MP?

Click to expand...

Nope, you get -2 (I think) unhappiness when the town hits a certain size and has no units inside (MP). "We fear for our safety. We demand military protection." something like that.

LK, in your save mouse-over the happiness indicator in the city screen. You'll notice one of the unhappiness points is from lack of protection. Once the warrior returned to London that unhappiness point went away.

From my understanding of Hereditary Rule you don't lose unhappiness from MP, you just gain +1 happy from each unit. I don't believe the two are the same at all.

Edit: Cross-posted with MeteorPunch.

Methos said:

LK, in your save mouse-over the happiness indicator in the city screen. You'll notice one of the unhappiness points is from lack of protection. Once the warrior returned to London that unhappiness point went away.

Click to expand...

I guess I never noticed this since I never have a naked city in Civ4 except for maybe one or two turns at size one when the settler beat the military to the spot.
I guess the always peace option is a bit broken, as what do you need protection from?

Methos said:

From my understanding of Hereditary Rule you don't lose unhappiness from MP, you just gain +1 happy from each unit. I don't believe the two are the same at all.

Click to expand...

With HR you can get larger cities before you go unhappy. While my syntax wasn't perfect, the net effect is MP = happier cities.

LKendter said:

I guess the always peace option is a bit broken, as what do you need protection from?

Click to expand...

Yet the AI will still build military. This gives us a definite production advantage.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, remember that 'Always Peace' is only for the human player. The computer AI's can still declare war.

Figure everyone knows this but said it anyway, just in case.

Got it for tonight.

Methos said:

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, remember that 'Always Peace' is only for the human player. The computer AI's can still declare war.

Figure everyone knows this but said it anyway, just in case.

Click to expand...

I didn't know that. Can they declare on us or just each other. I don't see how there can be wars if it's always peace?

MeteorPunch said:

I didn't know that. Can they declare on us or just each other. I don't see how there can be wars if it's always peace?

Click to expand...

From my understanding any of the optional checked boxes at the start-up screen only apply to the human player. By stating always peace we will never have the option of declaring war, though we can have war declared on us. The AI is not at always peace.

I can't remember where I read this at, as it was around when the game came out or before. My apologies that I can't link it.

Checking in.

Methos said:

From my understanding any of the optional checked boxes at the start-up screen only apply to the human player. By stating always peace we will never have the option of declaring war, though we can have war declared on us. The AI is not at always peace.

I can't remember where I read this at, as it was around when the game came out or before. My apologies that I can't link it.

Click to expand...

I was also under the impression that always peace would apply to all players, also AI. I didn't see a reference for the always peace option in the manual. The custom game section did not describe that. Guess someone will confirm that or we'll find it out eventually in the game

I can't find it either. Maybe I'm wrong, it's been known to happen before.

Guess there's only one way to find out.

Well I am not sure how to answer the AP debate. I expected zero fighting anywhere, and was planning on almost zero military. I am really confused what to do now.

Can't say I've ever seen this: an SG start and go two turnsets without any screenshots, and nearly no discussion of strategy.

Let's start producing some answers!

The tooltips for Always War, Always Peace, and One City Challenge:

As you can see, the language is deliberate and exact for all three. It leaves no doubt that in Always Peace it is impossible for any civilization to declare war. With no barbarians, this means no military is needed except for the single unit required to keep a city from incurring an undefended happiness penalty. Only one unit is required to mitigate this penalty (illogical as requiring any in an Always Peace/No Barbarian game is).

Confusion in the past over Always War has arose from this line in the manual (page 171 in the spiral bound version): For instance, if you choose to play a game with the "Always War" option, all civilizations will always be at war with one-another. This is incorrect, as proven in the Always War games Handy22, DI1 and LoTR20. The statement would be true if it were on the following page in the manual, covering multiplayer games, and all players were human. Errors of this kind are extremely common in manuals, and the guidance is always to trust the in-game material, as it is undoubtedly more recent.

Further, I have played solo Always Peace/No Barbarians games (most interestingly, on a Duel map with 17 other civs), and both of the above facts were true: you need on military unit per city to avoid a happiness penalty, and there are no wars between AIs (if anything would provoke a war, 17 civs on a Duel map would). I also learned another really interesting fact: it is possible to eliminate civilizations through the culture flip. A civilization's last city (yes, even its original capital), can culture flip and thus eliminate a civilization. Something to keep in our back pocket, but on Settler difficulty it is possible to win by Domination or Conquest with the right conditions in Always Peace.

Other thoughts on this variant:
- Diplomacy takes a slight twist, since your negative actions can never result in war.
- We have an inherent advantage in knowing we don't need to build a big military, this advantage is probably greater than the Prince bonuses to the AI, so this is a Noble-minus in the long term if everything goes normally

First things first, our start!

I really love food bonuses, so the Sheep and Cow are big plusses to me. Also, there's Stone! Tons of Wonders indeed, we need to get that hooked up and start building!

Time for a dotmap (labelled for color-blind friendliness)

There's no reason we can't get Red, Yellow, Blue and Purple. Green is likely a stretch with Germany that way. White is extremely unlikely with the Incan over there. I didn't bother with a dot planned in the oasis area due west of London, as the Inca will likely grab it, and it secures no resources.

Clearly the Red dot comes next, for the Stone. At least, that's clear to me. What do you all think?

Red and Blue both get the +1 hammer bonus from their city square by settling on a Plains Hill.

Yellow is a classic fishing village. The rest of the locations don't seem particularly specialized.

I thought Purple would be better off the river, as this makes it more of a powerful city with the Cow, and it lets us work the flood plain (very potent with a Town as a Financial civ). As an Expansive civ with lots of health bonuses, this seemed worthwhile.

One of my favorite uses for an early dotmap is knowing what forests are safe to chop. We don't have a lot of hills for productivity, and lumbermills down the road might be critical. I'd prefer to keep many forests around. A 2 food, 3 hammer railroaded lumbermill is a very nice tile for the last half of the game. So I have put Red X's on definite safe chops. Chops of forested hills and forest on top of resources are also long-term no-brainers.

Don't know what to do with the Marble in the north (let yellow culture expand a few times?), or the Dyes in the south (I think the French will settle there and make that decision for us).

Of course, I'm an equal opportunity dotmapper