No Sales Challenge

alpaca

alpaca

King of Ungulates
Joined
Aug 3, 2006
Messages
2,322
Having recently reflected on how reliant most of the strategies I use are on selling luxuries and strategic resources to the AI, I decided to start a game soon (@immortal) with this little house rule:

Don't sell anything to the AI

That is, I will trade resources for resources but not for gold. Edit: I will also not use resources to bribe the AI into war, etc., as it's essentially the same as selling them (with the exception of them asking for the luxury while in a DoF as you get a negative modifier if you refuse). This includes cities, open borders, embassies, and whatever can be construed as selling. Getting money in peace treaties is borderline acceptable and left to your own discretion.

Why do such a thing? We all know the AI is very bad at deciding whether or not buying your resources actually makes sense. They will beggar themselves to buy your luxuries, even if they're sitting at +50 happiness. It's not quite as bad for strategic resources but they're still very indiscriminating when checking whether or not to buy those from you.

Obviously, one can anticipate a much slower early game that requires a much larger focus on money than usual. I'd also guess that a wide strategy, which generates a lot more resources at the cost of bad diplomacy, is much more competitive in such a scenario. Even the commerce tree might actually become a real contender...

I'd welcome anybody who'd like to give this a try as well, or is already playing like this, to share their experiences and tips :goodjob:

Edit: If you'd like to compare your finish dates, etc., you should ideally play a standard speed, standard size, pangaea, immortal difficulty game aiming for science victory. If you want to discuss things even more in depth, you can download an initial autosave with Pacal attached to post #14
 
Sounds fun. I would go wide Honor/Commerce and aim for Domination. Pillage and plunder!
 
Great idea.

I think you'll need a hammer economy since you won't have the funds to buy stuff. It also means you'll have to seriously pursue CS quests in order to gain their friendship, rather than dumping cash on them. I also think this could indirectly lead to an early military confrontation, due to your profusion of hammers and need to get resources (and cash, from puppeted cities) that you can't trade for, since we all know the AI is bad about getting a second copy of luxuries online.

You could also consider a rules tweak where you can sell but not for cash, only for GPT. I think this is more realistic and fair to the AI -- you're giving them 120 happiness (4 happiness for 30 turns) but not all at once -- so why are they giving you the cash all at once?

Anyway, I like the rule idea and I'll fire up an Emperor game of this shortly and report back. I'll do a "pure" no-GPT trade version.
 
Scarpa said:
Sounds fun. I would go wide Honor/Commerce and aim for Domination. Pillage and plunder!
Click to expand...

Puppets are likely very useful for a cash injection without increasing your policy cost. Askia might be interesting to play for extra cash when a-conquering in such a game :lol:

I'm actually not sure domination is such a hot idea. Sure, you won't mind the diplo hits so much but you also can't sell all those extra luxury copies or strat resources you take.

slobberinbear said:
Great idea.

I think you'll need a hammer economy since you won't have the funds to buy stuff. It also means you'll have to seriously pursue CS quests in order to gain their friendship, rather than dumping cash on them. I also think this could indirectly lead to an early military confrontation, due to your profusion of hammers and need to get resources (and cash, from puppeted cities) that you can't trade for, since we all know the AI is bad about getting a second copy of luxuries online.

You could also consider a rules tweak where you can sell but not for cash, only for GPT. I think this is more realistic and fair to the AI -- you're giving them 120 happiness (4 happiness for 30 turns) but not all at once -- so why are they giving you the cash all at once?

Anyway, I like the rule idea and I'll fire up an Emperor game of this shortly and report back. I'll do a "pure" no-GPT trade version.
Click to expand...

That's actually a house-rule I was playing with for a long time before I wanted to benchmark my finish dates against other peoples' a couple of weeks ago.

The other house rule I used was to never sell strategic resources to the AI. Personally, I only buy strategic resources in very rare cases (such as conquering a city that has said strategic resource or to buy coal for factories) as it's just too risky to lose the supply and then be straddled with a number of units at a -50% modifier.

Together, these make the game a fair bit more interesting but also increase your effective difficulty rating by at least half a difficulty step (at least on higher levels where you can sell to the AI).

-----

I usually play with a food/hammer economy anyways as TPs are really weak w/o economics or finishing commerce. I'd actually say that with a no sales rule you'd be even more likely to settle near cash-crop luxuries as you need to produce some money to bribe CS and seal research agreements. Since duplicates are fairly worthless, you'll want to pay even closer attention to getting as many unique luxs as possible. So yes, I'd also anticipate at least one or two wars to get some more resources and puppets.
 
So, to clarify, is it just lump sums on resources (strategic & luxuries)?

Or do not collect cash from the AI for any reason, like embassies and open borders?

I guess a cash settlement in a peace treaty is OK?

I will also try am emperor game, but time is tight the next couple of days...
 
budweiser said:
So, to clarify, is it just lump sums on resources (strategic & luxuries)?

Or do not collect cash from the AI for any reason, like embassies and open borders?

I guess a cash settlement in a peace treaty is OK?

I will also try am emperor game, but time is tight the next couple of days...
Click to expand...

Selling cities, embassies and open borders is also out. Peace treaties are borderline, as the AI often grossly overpays, but acceptable.
 
I think there is some cash to be made on emperor for peace deals, but the really big payoffs only happen at immortal+.

Still, I wont collect any cash at all. The biggest impact will likely be in the beginning because I like to sell my early resources for cash. The early deals also go along way towards building relations with your neighbors, but we can still trade other things to help with that.

This reminds me of a game I played with the Inca in Civ II, never spend a single gold. Just the opposite, and I was filthy rich.
 
@Alpaca Why don't you suggest a victory condition and then we can all try games and compare better...
 
I have been wondering how much of what happens at higher level play comes from AI funding. :)
 
ifinnem said:
@Alpaca Why don't you suggest a victory condition and then we can all try games and compare better...
Click to expand...

Good idea. Let's go for science victory! Don't feel compelled to go for science, but it's indeed easier to compare finish dates and such if everyone's playing for the same goal.

Edit: I should also specify standard speed, standard size, pangaea and immortal difficulty for best comparability. As above, this only matters if you care to compare your game in detail
 
This sounds like a great idea and is more in line with how multiplayer civ games play out (no one is dumb enough to do a front loaded cash for luxuries deal). Ideally just initiate a save and share it and everyone can play it out so they can compare equal starts.
 
Islandia said:
more in line with how multiplayer civ games play out
Click to expand...


This. Some guys are already pretty used to this type of game :p(plus facing intelligent neighbors)

Deity could be doable for some maps and immortal shouldn't be too hard.
 
In multiplayer, I often get cash incentives to destroy barbarians/encampments/get workers back. This also works well because my opponents think they can CONTINUE to have no army, and eventually I will crush them like bugs.
 
Islandia said:
This sounds like a great idea and is more in line with how multiplayer civ games play out (no one is dumb enough to do a front loaded cash for luxuries deal). Ideally just initiate a save and share it and everyone can play it out so they can compare equal starts.
Click to expand...

Alright, here's the initial autosave of the game I just finished on turn 266. I will provide a write-up tomorrow as it's getting pretty late here.
 

Attachments

Can we loan gold in exchange of gpt? Like for RAs(era ahead) or to rush buy something urgently?
 
Tabarnak said:
Can we loan gold in exchange of gpt? Like for RAs(era ahead) or to rush buy something urgently?
Click to expand...

While I personally didn't do this, I rule it as ok if you do it in good faith (i.e. you don't cheese out of the payment by declaring war). While I don't think the AI should do this as readily as it does, the impact is a lot smaller than selling luxuries because you don't actually get more money, you only get it earlier.
 
Alright, so here's my write-up of the game. It will be divided into two parts: general observations and a specific discussion of my strategy and the map. As the second part contains a lot of spoiler information which you shouldn't read if you want to participate in the challenge yourself by playing the save-game I provided, I will put it in spoiler tags.

General Observations

The first, perhaps somewhat surprising, result of my test game is that, in the grand scheme of things, selling stuff does not have as high an impact on the finish time as I thought. In fact, this was my fastest science victory so far. I could probably have shaved off 15-20 turns or so had I sold the AI things, but it wasn't in a whole different league. I should mention that I got one of the bugged RAs, yielding 13k research.

While the lack of luxury sales makes for a quite noticeable slow-down in the early game, it mostly meant I had to focus more on my strategy than usual, not that I would miss out on things like research agreements. I could see it having a bigger impact if you have a map with few river tiles, but that actually is a point in favor of lux selling because it somewhat equalizes the map.

I also noticed that I didn't have as many extra luxes as I'd thought. For most of the game, I probably wouldn't have been able to sell more than four or so of them, plus perhaps three single copies due to excess happiness (which isn't so bad as it at least provides golden ages).

There are two main differences in how the game feels: your evaluation of city locations and the number of CS allies. I razed a perfectly fine city conquered from one of my opponents because it only would have provided two extra copies of luxs I already had and a couple of horses. Both were useless to me. I also only had one CS ally for much of the game, later augmented by a second one I had liberated.

To conclude, playing without sales is a fun alternative if you're looking for a change but it warps the game in some unfun ways. Selling only for gold per turn rather than lump sum, which, as I mentioned, was the mode I played for a long time, is much more fun because it still allows you to profitably conquer a number of cities and doesn't affect your selection of city spots, etc.

Game Specific Observations

This part contains a lot of spoilers. Don't read if you want to play the map unbiased.
Spoiler :
Unfortunately, I didn't take screenshots during the game as I wanted to play fast, so I will try my best to reconstruct it from memory as best I can.

Playing Pacal

For those of you who never tried The Maya, here's a quick run-down of what they do (be sure to check them out, though, they're becoming my favourite faction):

The Long Count
After researching Theology, you receive a free Great Person every 394 years. You can choose which one (including admirals and generals) but you can choose each only once. This ability is one of the few ways to get an extra-early GE, GP or GS, which makes a deep beeline to Theology immensely valuable.

Pyramid
The Mayan unique building is the Pyramid, a replacement for the Shrine that provides an extra faith point as well as two research, both of which are extremely handy. The faith allows you to almost always get a religion, often even an early one, and an early pantheon. The science lets you tech a fair bit faster in the extremely early game, making the NC and Theology appear so much earlier.

Atlatl
The UU, while not as splashy as The Long Count or the Pyramid, harmonizes very well with Pacal's ability. It's a slightly cheaper replacement for the Archer, but more importantly, it doesn't require Archery, so you can build it immediately and can focus on getting Theology ASAP without compromising your security.

Starting Location

With that out of the way, let's take a look at Palenque, my capital (large image).
Spoiler :
attachment.php

Nestled between two rivers and with two luxs nearby, this was a very good capital location. It was pretty food-poor before Civil Service due to its plains location, but afterwards it went bananas. I couldn't see the copper in the beginning or I would probably have settled a tile further west.

Opening

I actually tried around a bit with different openings before starting this game. I tried four cities and three cities, but both felt fairly slow. So I decided on a two-city opening to get the National College as fast as possible. Being so food poor, I also wanted to go for the Fertility Rites pantheon, which provides a 10% growth rate boost. Policy-wise I decided to go for tradition as I didn't really need the free GP from Liberty and Tradition is better for low-food starts anyways due to Landed Elite and the finisher.

My second city was Tikal to the north (marked in blue on the image below). I figured I would need to settle this spot early, before Venice takes away too many of its tiles, as this was my only really food-rich location. I also wanted the silk pretty desperately.
Spoiler :
attachment.php

Tikal immediately started on a library. Meanwhile, Palenque was building a settler for plopping down Chichen Itza to the east the turn the NC would be ready.

I was able to ally Venice, even though I had no money, by fulfilling two of their quests (barb camp and research). Unfortunately, this led to, or at least preceded, an attack of my neighbor Ramesses on Venice. Thinking I would be his next target, I went for Construction directly after Theology as I would otherwise not stand a chance against his chariots. I was also plotting revenge. With crossbows. But first, I went to Education.

At around this time I noticed that the continent must have a really strange shape as the only civs I'd met yet were Egypt and Polynesia. I used my first Long Count Bonus on a Great Scientist, who was settled in Palenque.

Mid-Game

After researching Education, I went for Acoustics so I wouldn't have to waste a policy and then straight for crossbows in order to take Thebes and liberate Venice. With that in mind, I constructed walls in Chichen Itza to lure in my opponent and slaughter his army. Ramesses had another idea, however, and declared war on me four turns before popping Machinery. So the money I had saved up to upgrade my CBs into XBs was spent on rushing a wall in Tikal instead.

The result was not that close: I was able to annihilate most of Rammy's army without even losing one of my CBs. I had six of them as well as two pikes and a cat I would upgrade into a Trebuchet. The siege of Thebes took a pretty long time as it had 39 defense, but luckily it was not strong enough to kill my units in one turn so I could rotate them. The city was quite a prize, having Chichen Itza (the wonder), Petra, The Hanging Gardens, The Great Library and The Grand Mosque. It would develop into a very nice science city even though I left it in puppet mode for the whole game. It also produced as much money as Palenque, which left me in pretty good shape financially.

I then proceeded to liberate Venice as an additional ally to Warsaw, the cultural CS sitting on my borders whom I had allied with the Great Merchant (and his money) from The Long Count. These two were the only allies I had for most of the game.

After finally finding a way to the rest of the continent, I was able to join an alliance between Polynesia, Russia and China. I also traded with America but refused their DoF offer as they were a Pariah.

Wrapping Up

The rest of the game was pretty standard fare. I got the key wonders (Leaning Tower for a GE for Hubble, Porcelain Tower via the Long Count engineer) and even some others, Taj being the stand-out, combining with the conquered Chichen Itza and a natural GA for 30 turns of goodiness. I got the Research Buildings up as soon as I could, signed RAs, etc.

It's all about timing and in this game my timing was a lot better than usual. I got Rationalism as my seventh policy, got the last policy just after Computers so I could use the free techs to unlock Robotics and Nanotech and got my RAs in time to be useful (one of them was bugged and yielded 13k research, as I just noticed).
 

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Played this one out and ended up with a turn 243 space victory - probably could have shaved 10 turns off if I had been optimizing my great scientists but I was trying to finish in a hurry. With Maya I decided I would see if Infinite City Sprawl would actually work. I've attached the save and will have a writeup later after lunch and some other craziness. Fun game and not selling to the AIs definitely is more of a challenge early.
 

Attachments

I started doing a write up of this game and the specifics of no sales of resources to the AI, but as I started playing through this save, I found that it was an almost perfect set up for trying out a rapid expansion, infinite city sprawl type set up because both of the civ and the unfortunate placement of the capitol (more on that in the spoiler!).

As a result, I am going to write this up as a Let's Play which will take a bit more time and requires me to dig around my autosaves to get correct screenshots from key points in the game. I'll start with my general observations though.

General Observations:

My playstayle and background are mostly multiplayer and this is actually the first single player G&K game I've finished so I can't really tell if this is faster or slower than "normal" but I do think that since I normally don't take advantage of selling resources to the AI anyway, this fit my playstyle quite well. I did notice that I had a considerably faster start selling resources to AI with a tradition opening, but the liberty opening seems to negate the need to sell resources in order to buy settlers/ workers. I think that on immortal, a sub 250 turn space race victory in G&K seems a decent speed.

It seemed like ICS playstyle with the lack of reliance on wonders and the ais doing deals for gold so it was an interesting option.
 
I'm trying this challenge for current Quick Emperor game I am running

Spoiler :
rTGXU.jpg


It should be good
 
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