Blackbetsy HOF Attempts

[Spoonwood]

Today I learned you can destroy Great Wonders through bombardment by Trebuchets? My trebs are doing a good job killing everything BUT the troops in Akkad.

I thought this didn't happen in Conquests. So are you playing PtW? Was it The Great Wall?

 

[BlackBetsy]

Conquests, downloaded from GOG. My trebs took out Knights Templar and Great Lighthouse with two consecutive shots. It's got that bug going now where you take shots, they animate, and nothing happens .... neither "failed" nor "successful" - but there is no indication that it succeeded.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Conquests, downloaded from GOG. My trebs took out Knights Templar and Great Lighthouse with two consecutive shots. It's got that bug going now where you take shots, they animate, and nothing happens .... neither "failed" nor "successful" - but there is no indication that it succeeded.

Ahhhh.....it's the Great Wall bug. Hammy has the Great Wall.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ahhhh.....it's the Great Wall bug. Hammy has the Great Wall.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Well, just had a great Sumerian opening with 4 luxes and a good opening with 11 cities by 1000 BC. Tried to take out the Babylonians in a war and just couldn't pull it off. Took one city in my area and was able to keep it, the one close to Babylon flipped after 2 turns, taking 4-5 wounded troops with it w/o a fight. Germans were already building JS Bach and Cope and I didn't have Astronomy or Gunpowder yet (6 turns away) in 270 AD.

When I went into the Republic after learning it from the Great Library, I once again had bad unit support costs + a not as productive empire commercial wise. I had 13 workers going, only 32 allowed units meaning that I would have a difficult time defending war-front cities and having a large invasion force (10 trebs, 5 knights, 3 ancient cavalry after losing 4 units in Akkad). Babs will make peace after I took 2 cities but they won't give me any tech.

I tried to set up for the trade road pillage trick but the AI NEVER had an extra resource lux until the end.

I have a feeling that Sumer is right for this challenge but I am just not getting enough commerce in my empire to do the research.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ok we are still in the previous Sumer game. Germany hooked up an extra silk and ... the pillage trade route trick has completely turned the game around. I am at parity with Germany in tech, and building up a war chest. The only problem now (I guess its not too much of a problem since Germany is doing the research) is unit support costs as I need to grow my commerce / settlement size to all 6+ cities ASAP. I've got a golden age because an Enkidu Warrior held off a Longbowmen and the Marketplaces and Universities are getting built so that I can tech the bottom half of the Industrial Era tech tree while the morons do Fascism.

I have unit support cost issues (paying 10 per turn). Normally I go to war with the Babs after building up a big Cavalry / Cannon army before we hit Replaceable Parts....but do I need it?

Right now I am doing 8 turn research on Magnetism at -76 per turn to hit the Industrial Era (we are in 440 AD) while Bismarck likely goes for Printing Press / Demo / Free Artistry. Bismarck will give me his free cash every turn, so I don't feel too bad about going that negative to hit the IA turns earlier. I'm considering not gifting them the tech to the Industrial Era, but it all depends on what Bismarck does when I sell him Magnetism. If he gets free Nationalism he won't sell it at a price I can afford but if he gets Medicine or Steam Power I think we are in business.

Only 21 settlements, trying to squeeze in a few more to take advantage of some food.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ok we are still in the previous Sumer game. Germany hooked up an extra silk and ... the pillage trade route trick has completely turned the game around. I am at parity with Germany in tech, and building up a war chest. The only problem now (I guess its not too much of a problem since Germany is doing the research) is unit support costs as I need to grow my commerce / settlement size to all 6+ cities ASAP. I've got a golden age because an Enkidu Warrior held off a Longbowmen and the Marketplaces and Universities are getting built so that I can tech the bottom half of the Industrial Era tech tree while the morons do Fascism.

I have unit support cost issues (paying 10 per turn). Normally I go to war with the Babs after building up a big Cavalry / Cannon army before we hit Replaceable Parts....but do I need it?

Right now I am doing 8 turn research on Magnetism at -76 per turn to hit the Industrial Era (we are in 440 AD) while Bismarck likely goes for Printing Press / Demo / Free Artistry. Bismarck will give me his free cash every turn, so I don't feel too bad about going that negative to hit the IA turns earlier. I'm considering not gifting them the tech to the Industrial Era, but it all depends on what Bismarck does when I sell him Magnetism. If he gets free Nationalism he won't sell it at a price I can afford but if he gets Medicine or Steam Power I think we are in business.

Only 21 settlements, trying to squeeze in a few more to take advantage of some food.

Annnnddddd.....Bismarck hit the industrial age first when he chose Magnetism instead of the Printing Press. So I traded for Magnetism and learned you don't get the "new era" screen when you trade for the last tech. Meaning while I was still in the Foreign Advisor screen, I got Steam Power immediately after I traded Magnetism to Hammy. Fortunately, he got Medicine so I got that for Steam Power, which I traded to Biz for 44 gpt after getting all my money back and pillaging the road.

However, my work is cut out for me. I've got 17 turns to Electricity at 80% and a deficit of -27 going to -5 in a few turns when peace/gpt for Astronomy deal with Hammy ends. I have got to get my commerce way up, fast.

Being in the Industrial Era @460AD is 15 turns faster than my Demigod game but by that time I could research Electricity in 10 turns. If I kept the tech pace from my Demigod win, I'd be in the 1200(s) for a Diplo finish. I doubt that, though. We'll see. More workers, now!!

LETS GO GIL.

 

[BlackBetsy]

3 sources of coal in the world and 2 are in Babylon and 1 in Germany. FML. Can't win without coal, can I?

No rifles yet in Babylon since no Nationalism. They are broke probably because of unit support.

Babylon's nearest source of coal is Nineveh, three cities deep and on the OTHER side of Babylon from us. 8 tiles away from our closest point and my cultural deficit means I can't keep Babylonian cities at all.

I mean, at lower levels, I just plow through. I've got no armies and only 9 Cavalry and 9 cannons built right now, maybe enough to take back Akkad (note how I renamed it after I captured it in the last war) but not hold it. I can afford 5 more military units. I figure I need to take back Akkad, Izibia, Uruk, Ellipi, Babylon and Nineveh to get and keep the coal. I can't raze the cities because this is a Diplo win... And war kills my profitable trade with Bismarck...

Can I win without railroading my civ? If I buy coal from Babs I will have to pay through the nose + I lose my ability to do the pillage trade route with Bismarck. And obviously I am at a huge disadvantage relative to the other civs if they declare war on me with industrial age stuff.

Really would like advice here. Leaning on trying to win without war/ buying coal for 20 turns...

 

[Spoonwood]

If I buy coal from Babs I will have to pay through the nose + I lose my ability to do the pillage trade route with Bismarck.

I don't understand how buying coal from Hammy would prevent the pillage trade route with Germany.

I think it's conceivable that a game could won by someone without coal (and iron) on this level. But, for sure, that means fewer scientist specialists.

But thinking more... keeping up in technology and having lots of gold and no more war with the disconnect trick won't help you build the U. N. So, coal seems likely enough that it could end up necessary.

Really would like advice here. Leaning on trying to win without war/ buying coal for 20 turn

I would try roading up each source of coal in Babylon. Now it's possible to road up an extra coal source and the AIs trade it immediately away to someone else. But, if you can complete the road before they trade it away, you probably can purchase it with gpt. More hopefully there's some time where you might trade a technology for it, if you want more gold. Is it 6 turns to road up a jungle tile before Replaceable Parts? I roaded up one yesterday, and don't recall what I saw. I might have once roaded up an extra resource or luxury and it got traded away, though I don't recall.

Assuming 6 turns to get a single worker to road up a jungle tile, my advice on a plan would go as follows:

1. Get two explorers up.

2. Sign an RoP with Babylon.

3. Move the explorers to both coal sources, assuming no city got built on a coal source. If Babylon has a worker on one coal source, of course, that's o. k.

4. Move 6 workers in a stack to one jungle tile and 6 to another. Then road up both tiles in a single turn.

5. Then contact Hammy and trade for the extra coal.

Disclaimer: I haven't done that before. I've usually just sent out a worker or a few workers to road up their tiles if they have extra coal, but I don't have any.

If still trading with Germany for luxuries, gold, gpt, or luxuries, just purchase coal from the Babylonians after that and before the turn ends. I don't know you have things set, but a turn won't end with the settings I use until I manually click it for next turn.

Corrupt cities can use courthouses and then libraries and universities. Once they learn Communism, that might end up advantageous also for you for a few cities, because of police stations. Maybe they will research Sanitation sometime also? Get hopsitals up, and irrigate all tiles and hire scientistis. Coal and iron means more scientists who can eat. Which sounds kind of funny to me, though I guess faster shipping of food prevents spoilage.

 

[BlackBetsy]

We are at a decision point. Give up the German trade (@Spoonwood its the same road to pillage for trading with Germany and Babylon). Right now, it's just lump sum gold each turn through the pillage trade, they are doing the wrong tech tree. I guess the next 20 turns I could be railroading as much as possible.

 

[Spoonwood]

I think it depends on how much more cities can grow and become useful for research. I think give it up. If you need it later, you can still start it again.

 

[BlackBetsy]

We traded for coal for 20 gpt. We have 17 turns left with it. Replaceable parts will absolutely maximize what we can do with it. I can do this deal:

Or this deal:

With the gpt deal, I can probably turn off science if I want and rely on the 2 free discoveries from ToE (I flipped a palace pre-build and have 8-9 turns left effectively depending on RR speed) to trade for techs (maybe getting several on the same trade from different AI). I can get Industrialization in 10 turns, but the AI would get it before me if that's the path they chose. If I choose Sanitation, I could get that in 8 turns, but the AI would get it before me if that's the path they chose (grrr). Sanitation isn't required.

With the GPT deal being 3 turns longer than the coal deal, I can cancel it and save 426 gold, meaning the total cost is 2414. Moving the lux slider down to 10% with the silks means that I can save another 612 gold if I do 8/1/1 on the 8/1/1 or get Industrialization down to 9 turns (I am projecting a 1 turn savings from extra beakers I'm able to generate vs. current 10 turn projection). So the GPT deal is economically more efficient.

The question - keep science on or turn it off? If I keep it on, do I go for Industrialization or Sanitation?

 

[BlackBetsy]

We took the gpt deal and somehow someway Catie Romanov showed up with the cash.

And she was willing to pay me for Otto's tech!

.....meaning that if I can break Otto's bank for Atomic Theory, I may just put them on a slower tech pace.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ok, Babs and Germany are in a Mutual Protection Pact. I will need to have Babs declare war on Germany to win the UN. How can I do that?

 

[BlackBetsy]

The MPP between Germany and Babs is over. Russia is barely hanging on by a thread. My MPP with Germany was tripped by a war against Russia and I wound up grabbing 3 Russian cities.

We are at 1040 AD and I've turned off research because there is only one possible tech to research - Combustion - and Germany will easily beat me to it. I'm hoping that they go for Flight while I go for Mass Production, which would give me trade ammunition. They'll beat me to Motorized Transportation, but hopefully I can buy it and my way into the Modern Era.

We are sitting on 9048 gold with +650 a turn doing 8.1.1. Somehow I need to end my MPP with Germany, get one with Babylon and then trigger a war in my far east where Otto doesn't have many troops. Not gonna lie I don't have any desire to face a Panzer attack in my 1-turn war with Germany.

I don't have a 1000 shield Palace pre-build (gulp). I guess I could quickly ICS some territory to get up to the minimum # of cities for 1000 shields.

 

[BlackBetsy]

The Babylonian-Russian war ended, so now I could buy a MPP that Hammy was "insulted by" when it was for free at the steep price of 100 gold.

We are 1060, waiting for Otto to finish Combustion and set his asking price.

We have no oil, so anything other than a Diplo victory is impossible.

What CivFanatics REALLY needs is a predictor of which tech the AI will pick next.

Update: His price is 7450 Gold. That's 75% of my stash, and I absolutely have to be right that he goes for Flight instead of Mass Production. Its 400 gpt for a gpt deal. I can't do that because I have lots of gpt deals rolling off and my max GPT per turn right now without science is 733. I wouldn't be able to do research AND buy Mass Production if I needed to.

If I spend the gold now, I can research Mass Production on my own at a decent pace with my remaining reserves, and I might get Hammy to pay me something (or I can buy something second hand from him). I don't worry about the last GPT deal to get Motorized because I will be breaking it assuming we can get Fission.

Either way, we are in a quandary here (again). I think cash on the table is the way to go.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I gave up. I lost. Mostly because I didn't know the rules of Diplomatic victory. The UN finished right on time - I traded for Flight when I finished Motorized Transportation and got Fission as my Modern Age tech.

I forgot that any civ with more than 25% of the population or more than 25% of the territory stands for election at the UN. In the Small world, with 3 opponents....that is really going to wind up with at least 3 entrants. And with the need to get a majority of votes.....I had no path to victory. I allied Babylon against Germany but Hammurabi still votes for Hammurabi. My only hope was for the Germans to thrash the Babylonians and overrun their territory, but several turns into their war no Babylonian cities fell (I took two German cities on my side of the continent). The German army was superior to the Babylonians (who lost all of their 7 tanks in one turn). I couldn't fight this war without oil.

I'm not sure how to get the Diplo victory on a Small world other than by having max opponents (4), making sure to get to 25% of the land mass, and hoping to keep all of the opponents alive and no more than 1 over the 25% land or population limit. I would say that I could go for the Byz and archipelago, but that creates a HUGE problem for the road pillage trick, and it creates a huge premium on the Great Lighthouse for trade in order to do the capital road pillage trick. I think the more likely answer is max opponents on pangaea and just getting a good map where I'm at a corner of the continent and have minimum 3 luxes. Those are very favorable conditions. My conditions were pretty good this game with 4 luxes. I missed out on grabbing a peninsula on my east coast in my expansion that got settled by the Germans and Russians. And I never took at city from the AI that wasn't rightly in my sphere of influence / later settled. I had only 2 turns holding onto Akkad before it flipped on me. I was so far behind in culture I couldn't dream of keeping a city in an opponent's core.

SoZ was a non-factor in this game. I used the units but they weren't decisive. I would have been interested in seeing how the game played out if Babylon didn't have the Great Wall and I could have ripped through its core early in the game with my 9 knight / 9 treb stack. The Great Wall bug made it so that I could only take 1 core Babylonian city before I stalled out. If I had take the 3 eastern cities, that would have put me in a much stronger position. I might have been able to take Babylon itself.

I did learn a TON about the game during this game. The road pillaging trick single handedly kept me in the game. If you can use it at this level, you have to, even though it is a questionable exploit.

Also, AI pathing on techs was very interesting. We all know the Fascism dead end they take. I thought it was interesting that the AI values Sanitation, but won't ever research it over the Fascism route. The Germans at the end chose Amphibious War over MT. At the beginning of the Industrial Era, they reached back into the Medieval era to finish out Printing Press / Democracy / Free Artistry. ToE was never in doubt, and Atomic Theory got me Industrialization in return. I got to Steel first but didn't bother with Combustion (as shown above). I was able to trade for Flight when the Babylonians got it, reducing the price to only 4200 gold (I paid through GPT).

Somehow I got Newton's even though I started it very, very late. So of the 4 key Wonders in the game (Cope, Newton's, UN, ToE), I got 3+ the Great Library. I did not get a SGL despite hitting several techs first (Literature, Sanitation, Electricity, Scientific Method, the Corporation, Steel, and Motorized Transportation), which isn't bad luck, since its only a 30% shot.

One thing I need to get better at is producing workers. I was understrength on workers despite building even more workers this game. I had 13 workers emerging into the Republic. Clearly not enough. I missed a good city spot that I only filled much later.

My war with Babylon never produced a great leader, so I never was able to produce armies or the Heroic Epic. I eventually got one in my later war with the weak Russians, but my Military Academy was just finishing when I quit. With no Oil, it's not like I could have filled a built Army up with tanks or anything stronger than Tow Infantry.

There is an argument for the Greeks on Small/Diplo. The higher OCN by 2 cities, plus the extra commerce in the city square is very appealing, although the fast growth of the Sumerians is amazing. You need 2 food bonuses to get a settler factory going in a non-Ag civ. 12 cities and +2 commerce sounds pretty good.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I ran the UN Election in 1210, so had I won it (which I couldn't have), I would have had the #2 spot on the Small / Deity Diplo chart. It would have been a fine score, and #3 on the Small / Demigod Diplo chart.

I may go down to Small Demigod. It has only 4 entries, one of which is 1620, which I should be able to beat. It's 100% Sumeria on that chart, so I might bring some diversity with the Greeks. Maybe I will play until I get a settler pop?

 

[Spoonwood]

The road pillaging trick single handedly kept me in the game. If you can use it at this level, you have to, even though it is a questionable exploit.

It's more efficient for getting technology from behind than using espionage (you don't need an Intelligence Agency to do this, it just makes attempted steals cheaper).

You used it, and I believe to enough of an extent for its use to have meaning, and still lost. It's not a cheat on HoF competitions to use road pillaging after signing gold per turn for luxuries and gold or techonlogy.

The HoF rules page in the Allowed section has a list of exploits which are legal. Prebuilding is a questionable exploit. ICS is a questionable exploit, even though many 100k entries use this and so do people who make scientist specialist farms. Buying a worker and then an army before the turn ends could get called a questionable exploit.

If you want an archer with 9 shields in the box, and the city now has 10 shields for the next turn, and rush a worker, then change to an archer, you've broken into the unit build. That purchasing of a worker could get called a questionable exploit, even though it required some skill in calculation to pull it off and time to see what a city was doing.

According to the HoF rules page, if you purchase gpt for technology and then tell a strong rater AI to leave or declare, you used an exploit. But, it's legal for GOTM and COTM competitions and admitted in some old comment as getting used also by Moonsinger when she played.

 

[superslug]

Writing that page was a pain in the butt. The line separating questionable vs full exploit is extremely nebulous, especially with a game so massive and complex. Game acceptance happens one submission at a time, and the real goal is consistent standards and an environment of fun, fair play.