CivBE:RT Soyuz: going for "just LOTS more turns, please"

[Fins]

Hi!

After going back to CivBE and trying Rising Tide for a little while, i decided to try to do one long relaxed game and see how it'll go. This here topic will be the place i'll be reporting my progress with it.

The goals are:
- to win the game in order to get "Just... One... More... Turn" otpion, and
- to "live happily ever after" afterwards, for as long "ever" as i'll be able to, while having my Colony within its borders (not expanding, not shrinking).

The start is:
- Soyuz difficulty (dubbed "very hard" by the game; one step below Apollo)
- Standard pace
- Standard map size
- Lush biome (i prefer its looks, nothing else)
- Terran planet type
- Victory conditions: all
- Time limit: off (obviously)
- Sponsor: Polystralia
- Colonists: artists
- Titanium/oil/geothermal revealed
- Free worker
- Random seed: on

The rest settings are at their default values.

One more thing - in this game, i do save scum (hence random seed on) in some situations: namely excavating and when picking up resource pods. I'll possibly be "living" with results of those activities for very long time (one guy played a single Civ2 game for TEN years, you know, famous story). Not likely i'll ever get close to that, but i still want to "squeeze" the best at all possible beginning for that colony of mine.


1. The start.

Made nearly 40 restarts and finally found what i was looking for for a capital city location:
- coast start;
- river going right next to the city;
- some tiles with 3+ food per tile when improved (sadly, no tiles with 4 units of food, though) close to the city;
- abundant hills;
- workable titanium tile;
- no AI landing nearby.

Luckily, the last point in my game was fulfilled unusually well - nearest AI is on the far side of "my" continent, and that continent is a big one. I tried some more restarts after finding this game, and realize it would probably take eternity to find anytihng better. Good thing i saved that start's turn1!


2. Early game.

First thing i did was to build 6 explorers and send them hunting for artifacts. With some save-scumming, i was able to get an artifact per each resource pod and per each excavation which can give one.

Second thing i did - was to build the Ultrasonic Emitter. Polystralia is obviously trade-heavy colony, and i want the "aliens can't attack trade units" upgrade ASAP. Problem is, it can get massively delayed by other building-related quests. I've had it happen before, and i won't have it now. Plus, it's not Apollo game, so i have some space (i mean, time) for such "wrong" things done very early. Why not use it.

Then the usual starting buildings.

By the turn 50 my capital reached population = 7 (with one expedition providing 1 population for free), and had some mines on nearby hills and that neat Titanium tile (which also happened to be a hill). With over 30 shields to produce things, Settlers are built rather quick.

Too quick! I found that it's not exactly reasonable to "spit out" more than 3 settlers in a row when you only have the capital. "Too many units" problem! %) But, of course, it's of short issue.


Turn 69.

Nice number, i know.

At exactly this sexy turn, i got my 3rd Progenitor-class reward from collected artifacts. So in total, by turn 69, rewards from combining artifacts which i managed to get - are those:

- Dimension Folding Complex (-50% population-generated unhealth in all cities, Progenitor class)
- Temporal Calculus (+2 visibility to all units, Progenitor)
- Relativistic Data Bank (-1 Intrigue per turn in all cities, Progenitor)
- Ground-Penetrating LIDAR (+100% expedition speed, Mixed)
- Warp Spire (+50% yields from domestric trade routes, Old Earth)
- Drone Command (all cities work 2 more tiles than they have citizens, Old Earth)
- Frontier Stadium (military units start with free promotion and +10 city defense, Old Earth)
- Pan-Spectral observatory (+100% prodution for orbital units and +2 city orbital coverage, Old Earth)
- Xenomass Bathhouse (+2 culture and units heal for 100% in one turn when in city, Old Earth)

This already makes my colony tremendously more potent than any AI present, but this is still not all i plan to do with 'em artifacts. There are still large "black" areas on the map, where i'll get few more Progenitor and Alien artifacts. There will be no more Old Earth ones as i exhausted full pool of them (24 total), and now resource pods never give me one (and i believe, nor any AI will get Old Earth ones anymore). But since i got everything i wanted from Old Earth artifact type rewards, this is OK. I still have 2 Old Earth artifacts sitting in my library, and those will help me get few more Mixed type rewards i still don't have, but want to get. After those are taken and almost all of the map revealed - which is mightily easier with Temporal Calculus already active on all my units, - i'll get nasty towards aliens and get as many alien artifacts from their nests as i can. That all should allow me to get most or even all of the following:

- Slumber-Slaughter extract (+50% worker build speed, Mixed)
- Soul Discerner Training (+25% Covert Operation speed, Mixed)
- Sky Chitin (+50% strength and +3 range to all air units, Alien)
- Vapor Shield (+100% defense to all embarked units, Alien)
- Projected Chassis Construction (+2 Worker Movement Speed, Alien)
- Tidal Navigation (+100% defense to Naval Units against Ranged Attacks, Alien)
- Statecraft (+2 Diplomatic Capital from Agreements, Mixed - if i'll have artifacts for it)

That all would be 15 or 16 artifact rewards (out of 24 possible), requiring in total 45 or 48 artifacts, correspondedly - i.e. the majority of theoretically available in a game 72 artifacts (24 max per each cathegory, 24x3 = 72).

Granted, this is only possible with heavy save-scamming when getting any chance of gaining an artifact, to make that chance actual 100% "granted" every single time, and may be considered by many as "unfair" play. But not by me. Those AIs have large bonuses to lots of things on Soyuz difficulty i play, and they are not shy to use them. So in very same manner i am not shy to use my own advantage over them - which is the ability to save and load in order to maximize my benefits when collecting artifacts. And since it's a single player game, my stance here won't affect any living player, so - "why the heck not".

Besides, i do enjoy save-load process, as strange as it may sound - mostly i do it when i'm in bed for the night, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a three, and most of the save-load cycle doesn't require neither my eyes, which i close for the time being, nor my hand to use the mouse. So it's quite relaxing, and interestingly helps to get sleeping (which i sometimes have some problem with). %)

Anyhows, back to artifacts' rewards. The thing is not only to get those most useful for a long play features myself, but also to deny them to AI opponents. In a long play, eventually AIs will get to as high tech and affinity levels as i will ever be, but those features - those powerful bonuses to both peace and war times, - will allow me to have an edge. And so, even if at some past-end-game stage a single AI will consume all other AI colonies and become hostile to me, i'll still have means to resist his attacks. At least, that's the plan!

Research by this turn 69 is quite OKish: i have all the basic technologies ("cheapest" ones, including both leaf techs in very center of the tree) opened, the tech which allows Spy Agency opened, and one leaf tech which allows to build Panopticon.

Unit-wise, at this point i have those 6 explorers still going strong, one "free" soldier for establishing by 2nd city, one Drone (from one of excavations) doing awesome-sauce scout and pick-em-pods duty, and two trade vessels. One trade vessel is permanently doing Trade Station job for extra food and science in the capital, another is on shift duty helping outposts grow faster.

2nd city is already shaped and is building its trade depot. 3rd city is still an outpost, but will "pop out" in a few turns. The outpost for 4th city is just starting to grow.

Speaking of new cities, there is one special additional consideration which i followed when picking locations for them: alien nests. 2nd city has one alien nest among its workable radius, and i already bought the tile - it was the 1st thing i did after that city formed up. 3rd city has none alien nests in its workable area, but it sits in a strategic location i had to take ASAP. 4th city will have TWO alien nests in its workable radius, and as before, as soon as the city will fully shape itself up, i'll buy tiles under those alien nests. Those three alien nests in my territory will be left undisturbed, providing continuous improvement to my "Polystralia - Aliens" relations. Thanks to those i hope not to "fall" into full hostility with aliens for long when i'll start that "artifact war" with them.

Diplomatic relations are almost none, as it should be that early in the game and being far from other (AI) colonies. However, i made one agreement - one of AIs was kind enough to "sell" me an agreement of rather strange nature: for paying them 3 dimplomatic capital per turn, i got me a bonus of +3 diplomatic capital at neutral level relations. But i improved relations to "cooperative", at which point the "price" remained the same, while the bonus increased to +8 diplomatic capital per turn. So i'm getting net +5 diplomatic relations "out of thin air" out of this one. Hehe. The only thing bothering me about this is that "cooperative" level of relations grants that AI open borders to my territory. But it sits far away from me, so for now i let it be.

In terms of virtues, i went for the most wise - IMHO - investment there is if we talk post-late gameplay: namely taking 4 virtues in Military 1st to get the bonus to any affinity points taken from researching technologies. It piles up. Getting it that early allows to get maximum possible affinity points in all 3 (or should i say "in all 6?" %) ) directions. After those, i went for the usual Industrial virtues' tree, aiming to eventually get the mighty +0.2 health per each building bottom-row virtue, while getting other neat virtues along the way. Of which, by turn 69 i already got 2. Not too many, but in a few turns it'll be 8 virtues taken total, with the free (bonus) virtue for 6 tier-one virtues taken. Good enough for me.

... to be continued (i hope)

 

[Fins]

3. Middle game.

Turn 158.

Made a little video of things at the end of turn 158. Added to it one of Gennadiy Gladkov's melodies (with few words spoken 1st).


Link to video.

As one can see, i now have a war with Daoming Sochua. She declared it by turn 156. I expected it, seeing her respect and fear dropping slowly for a long time before turn 156. However, i did not expect her declaring it so soon after getting from "Normal" to "Sanctioned". Anyhows, she started it without having any large army near my territories: one armor near my capital which i already taken out, plus 3 low-tech ships near one of my outposts. Strangely, she did not attack the outpost during turn 157 - her ships were just staying there. By turn 158, that outpost grew into a city, which instantly got two defensive buildings plus one Arbiter ship bought into it. Now she won't take it. The rest of my territories have few roads and few troops - but enough to deter anything she could throw at me, with occasional unit or two bought if things go south.

I plan to wage war with her until she will be wiped out, raizing all her cities except (obviously) capturing her capital. I'll do it slow, making sure to have colonists right behind front lines to build cities of my own instead of ones i'll raze. Don't want no unhealth from annexing (except unavoidably her capital), plus i want to pick locations i deem the best (which differs quite much from what AI considers the best).

Eventually, i'll take her out and populate almost all of "my" continent with my own cities. Few bits of it will remain occupied by Integr - it's OK to me, those folks show lots of respect and do agreements with me. As do african folks nearby in the north-west, too. I don't declare war to AIs myself. But when they DoW me, i feel that i have the right to reject their following peace offers if so i see fit. Yep, i'll be going very wide, as obvious from in-game map in the video (i already started to take over a part of western big ocean, and all the "purple" chinese space will eventually be mine too). I know that it already slows - and will slow even more, - my science and virtue progress. But i don't mind. As can be seen from the score, i am already massively ahead of all AIs, beating them to most wonders (any ones i really want anyway). It should be more than enough time to both go that wide and make a victory before any AI would. In fact, may be i'll even manage to have _all_ victories achieved before any AI would achieve any. At least, that's what i aim for. Why? Those victory buildings are big and pretty, so i want them all to myself. That's why.

Since turn 69, i had yet another war. Kavitha declared war to me some time around 130s. The big positive health stat of my colony which can be seen in the video - was not the case until 140s, and she dislikes "unhealthy" nations, plus has another trait which causes her to dislike me. That war, however, was completely different from the one Daoming started. I want to keep Kathiva in the game, for her very nice agreement of "specialists consume no food". Plus, she's far from me on another continent. So once she declared, i had my "fleet" - currently it's just two arbiters and two tier-3 melee ships which go together as a unit of sorts, - quickly puppeting one of her cities and defeating her (rather weak and small - less than 10 units) fleet. After that, i could go on and capture more cities of hers, but i didn't. On purpose. I just kept my ships near the city i captured, and took out any ships she sent in in attempts to re-take her city.

She grew tired of this rather quick. Very same turn 156 when Daoming declared war - Kavitha offered peace, to my relief. I took another of her cities during peace terms, annexed the 1st, and set both to be razed - to teach her a lesson; hopefully she'll think twice before declaring on me again, and in the same time that loss should be small enough to keep her on her feet. Plus, with mighty positive health i now have, she hopefully will develop some respect to me now. And i sure can use my small but deadly fleet doing some harm to Daoming instead of fending off Kavitha's ships. Yet one another reason to raze those two cities - is to "free some space" for her to re-colonize without taking on part of the ocean i plan to settle myself.

Next thing is artifacts. Basically, i managed to pull off my "artifact plan" declared in the previous post, by turn 151. With one small change: instead of "all embarked units get +100% defense", i realized that i better get "cities can attack through terrain obstacles" one: after all, end-game, embarked units are not a frequent sight and can be screened by fleets, but if things to VERY bad at some point, then this city's ability can save a day. To get exactly desired rewards, i kept piling up artifacts since turn 69 and then combined them in such a manner that i get one of desired rewards from each and every group of 3. Sure takes lots of time to write down all the possible combinations systematically, when it's over 15 artifacts sitting in the library, was darn full sheet of paper spent to write 'em down! I also found there was an error in the list of Old World rewards i given above: i forgot that i decided in the last moment not to take that +2 culture / unit heals 100% in city thing. Still, the actual final list of artifact rewards in my game - is totally satisfying in terms of my "post-late-game" plans:

1) Dimension Folding Complex (-50% population-generated unhealth in all cities, Progenitor class)
2) Temporal Calculus (+2 visibility to all units, Progenitor)
3) Relativistic Data Bank (-1 Intrigue per turn in all cities, Progenitor)
4) Ground-Penetrating LIDAR (+100% expedition speed, Mixed)
5) Warp Spire (+50% yields from domestric trade routes, Old Earth)
6) Drone Command (all cities work 2 more tiles than they have citizens, Old Earth)
7) Frontier Stadium (military units start with free promotion and +10 city defense, Old Earth)
8) Pan-Spectral observatory (+100% prodution for orbital units and +2 city orbital coverage, Old Earth)
9) Slumber-Slaughter extract (+50% worker build speed, Mixed)
10) Soul Discerner Training (+25% Covert Operation speed, Mixed)
11) Sky Chitin (+50% strength and +3 range to all air units, Alien)
12) Projected Chassis Construction (+2 Worker Movement Speed, Alien)
13) Tidal Navigation (+100% defense to Naval Units against Ranged Attacks, Alien)
14) Whaddayacallit (cities can attack through terrain obstacles, Mixed)

This is 14*3=42 artifacts spent to get those rewards. Plus i have one more Alien artifact in my Library, plus i'll get one more Progenitor from Progenitor device locked in southern ice field - once i get the transporter satellite to get an explorer there (and with my progress, i'm positive i'll get it before AIs, plus i have a drone occupying the tile just in case, and there is already my city nearby). I know there can be no more artifacts via "normal means", as i exhausted both Old Earth and now Alien artifact pools (24 per cathegory), and there are no more Progenitor sites apart from the one mentioned. So this means i am one artifact short from making yet another mixed reward.

But may be i'll get it! Interestingly, i discovered an "unusual" way to get artifacts - even after the game stopped to "give" them from usual pods and expedition locations. Quests! I made some quest around turn 140sh (sorry, didn't write quest's name), and all of a sudden, BAM, it gave me an Old Earth artifact - while all the resource pods i picked up since ~turn 57 or so gave me no Old Earth artifacts at all! So i still hope to get 15th reward "some day". On the other hand, that "42" number is sure hinting that i got everything i need... If you know what i mean. And i feel so, too. Don't _need_ any other artifact reward for an "ever and ever" game". Still, i keep 'em in the library, since burning them for their relatively small - at this stage of the game - individual rewards is too microscopic anyway.

Again, this much of artifact rewards was done with lots of save scumming, of course. So in a "normal" game, it'll be way less rewards. But if the player aims for it, i think 6-7 rewards is quite realistic - without any save scamming whatsoever, and with much earlier "war with aliens" to deny AIs more alien artifacts (and get them yourself). Lots of troops and explorers going around with military protection, plus leashing is very useful. Should work. And i think, hoard up Old Earth artifacts until you can make both Temporal Calculus and Warp Spire (if you go Polystralia). The Warp Spire is insanely powerful when combined with Polystralia's unique feature (more trade routes) and that personal trait for more powerful internal trade routes. I now sometimes see trade routes which give more than 30 units of food and production (combined) per vessel - and i'm still VERY far from end-game with that. As can be seen in the video, my capital is now blooming with over 100 surplus food, even while being configured for shields (mostly), of which it got 132, etc. And the Temporal Calculus is incredibly useful for both exploration and war, i must say. Can't enjoy it enough!

Speaking of trade routes, i do the usual "all cities send a trade vessel to the capital", and the usual "capital sends out trade vessels to trade stations only", and the usual "there is 2nd-best city to which most or all other cities except capital send their trade vessels too". With all the new cities now popping out left and right (literally ), it sometimes gets hard to dish out enough "tertiary" trade vessels from older cities, in order to make that mighty "1st incoming" trade route to every new city right after it popped up. Of course, the bonus from Ultrasonic Fence protects them trade vessels from any alien attack, and so far those wars i wage - resulted in very few (3, iirc) trade vessels lost.

Speaking of aliens, yep, i had that war i had planned. Even with couple more nests added to my territory, making the total of 6 (and later 7) alien nests combining their bonus to "fix relations" each turn, aliens went from green to orange and soon to full red during that war. I pillaged quite many of their nests to get those alien artifacts, taking out their defenders in the process, plus during same period i had a quest to kill 10 aliens, which i've done. All that quite easy when one has some good affinity levels already - very few units needed. But once i got that last Alien artifact found and ceased hostilities to aliens, they went back to orange and then to green pretty fast. Definitely in time, as i switch attention of my (small so far) armed forces to waging war with Daoming.

My culture/virtues are going rather slowly, but i manage to keep it at nearly "one virtue per a dozen turns" before any extras, so far. I already got the industrial tree (with one extra virtue for +1% energy) and just started to get into Science virtue tree, as can be seen in the video. In fact, i don't want virtues going too fast: the plan is to get most or all techs researched while still having pretty many virtues not taken. Why? Because of free affinity levels. See, when most/all techs are researched, i won't get any more +affinity points from researching technologies (obviously), at which point i'll know which affinity i'd like to spend those "free affinity levels" from virtue bonuses and virtues themselves (like the one in the Military tree). And best of all, it is exactly then - i.e. "after all affinity-boosting techs are researched" - that free bonus affinity levels from virtues and virtue bonuses "translate" into most virtual affinity points (since the higher you go in affinities, the more affinity points each affinity level is worth). As can be seen in the video, with lots and lots of technologies still not researched, i already sit on quite comfortable 10/10/8 affinity level. This was done, obviously, with some save scumming to get extra affinity from alien skeletons and progenitor locations, but nothing too intense. Ideally, i'd want all three affinities high enough to unlock "everything" there is, and i think it should be very easy to get; perhaps i'll get all three to maximums? I'll try and see.

Covert ops are doing good. I took one personal trait to level 3 for boosting them, plus there is that artifact reward for +25% faster covert ops, plus some quest reward for +10% more, - so most of the time they do their job and survive stealing science mission (my favorite), which now takes them 8 turns to complete. Good enough - for now.

Last but not least is my devious plan about Orbital Fabricators in my capital one aquatic city of mine. See, the tech which opens up orbital fabricators - i briefly hovered over it in the video, and i have most of it already researched, - that same tech also unlocks the wonder which allow satellites to overlap their fields of effect by 1 tile. This means, i believe, that i can launch an orbital fabricator over EACH and EVERY tile of the city's workable area. Huh? WHAT? Will their extra production effects add up as fabricators' areas of effect overlap over a single tile? If so, it'd be insane! Even if not, they'll spam the terrain with a crapload of strategic resources in relatively short order (few dozens turns), which give big amount of all sorts of goodies - food, shields, energy, science, culture. And then i can get every other city in my colony to do a trade route right to this one city - the net effect of such a "terrain upgrade" would be astounishing, increasing internal trade outputs around whole colony massively. I even have one desert city (4th city founded) fully prepared to spit out lots of Orbital Fabricators, fast - once i get them available. Oil supply is short and i urgently need to increase it for the thing to do well, though... I'm only delaying finishing researching it to get (research / unlock) one extra wonder i want badly - the one which gives ability to earn two extra veterancy levels to all military units. I obviously want it very much for the time when all AIs will reach maximum affinity levels (and so get strong units) - another "extra edge" to defend myself.

This thinking about "how it'll be when the game moves well past 1000 turns" shapes lots of decisions, as you see. And rather often this results in slower development, "wrong" order and types of technologies taken, "suboptimal usually" quest choices, "wrong" affinity progress, you name it. I am fully aware about it, yet so far it seems i am doing fast and good enough in terms of getting to victory before any AI. So i think to myself: "why not?".


P.S. The words spoken before the music starts in the video - is russian which i'd translate something like "He went [to the forest] for the third time to get the fir tree, and taken it... But this was already during spring time, and so he carried it back [into the forest]." This is the end of a fairytale-like story about one rural man who (for unusual and often funny reasons) did not manage to bring a fir tree home for the Christmas.
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Turn 187.

Here's a screenshot of it:

Spoiler :

For a long game, this is still "middle" game, i believe. But things changed massively during those 29 turns since the above (turn 158) report. It is those 29 turns which catapulted my colony to become the major power on the map - hugely beyond and above any other. Simple numbers are as follows: during those 29 turns,
- base science output more than tripled from 366 to 1219;
- same for energy output - from +171 to +607;
- same for culture - from 149 to 495;
- energy reserves increased 8 times from 913 to 7700sh.
Number of cities pretty much doubled, number of built wonders tripled, overall score approaches total score of all AI opponents _combined_.

Trade lines overabundant, as you can see. I'm keeping them to their limits. Best trade lines now provide about 45 shields+food combined each, and you see how many trade units there are... Well, in fact it feels like way less than a half of them trade vessels, give or take, since the colony is now way too big to fit into a single screenshot, and these things are rolling everywhere within it, around it, and some even go through "other half" of the planet. %)

As visible on the minimap, i have won the war with Chinese people (purple color). I decided not to give that Daoming any delay, after she managed to force my small fleet to fall back to one of my cities and get support of town artillery and one land ranged unit. She did it by pushing in with more than a dozen tier-2 melee ships. And the only reason i managed not to lose any unit to her attack - is the Temporal Calculus (+2 visibility to all units, Progenitor artifact reward). Because thanks to it, i was able to see her main force approaching, and i had enough time/space to retreat back to one of my cities sitting next to a narrow water passage, and bottleneck her forces. Even so, one of arbiters went to red. After grinding down the bulk of her fleet and healing up my units, i puppeted her cities right away. Was not ready to raze them on the go - but i'll have time to annex and then raze them very soon. Already building colonists for it. The only remaining city is her capital, which i keep blockaded, for now, as there are no other non-zero intrugue cities for my spies at the time.

She fought to the end - she didn't ask for peace until she got only her capital left. Denied her request, she has nothing to offer, and i am a clear winner there. So, as soon as there will be some other city for that spy of mine to switch into, with some level 1+ intrigue built up by some other AI(s), i'll annex it and end her agony. If i won't, other AIs most likely will. She really made the point with that naval melee rush, i guess... To her own demise.

For now, naval combat became especially easy for me, as i got my experienced arbiters finally upgraded to Vindicators. I decided to go for the aircraft capacity. With the artifact reward for extra 50% air unit strength (Sky Chitin) and jets upgraded for damage to land/naval units plus splash damage, even few Vindicators will be able to hold their ground against large waves, i hope. Later in the game - when AIs pick up the pace with affinity levels, that is. As for air-to-air combat, i think +50% from Sky Chitin and "built-in" bonuses from upgrades should be enough to intercept and sweep well. So, i hope won't need "proper" carriers at all. The thing with carriers is that they level up extremely very slow during normal gameplay, if at all. And this doesn't help their defense. While air-carrying Vindicators level up just alright, because, well, they get XP from using their guns. So they grow up to much-harder-to-kill mini-carriers (in compare to "proper" ones), with time. Obviously, that's good.

Relations with Kavitha fixed up even faster and better than i hoped. In less than 30 turns since Kavitha made peace with me, she went through sanctioned and neutral all the way to 7 respect and cooperative stance - she asked for it herself, i agreed. For now. The perimeter of "my" area, which now is quite obvious on the minimap, is still full of openings. But i have aquatic cities shaping up, ready or almost ready for 1-tile-per-turn sprints along my borders. Once i get my territory borders "solidified", i think i'll drop to neutral with her - as well as with the rest of AIs (majority of them respect me very much). Which will deny them open borders. By then, i'll be totally ready to not regret any loss of agreement power from them, too.

One exception to general respect (apart from Daoming), though. For some not exactly clear to me reason, INTEGR went from full (9) respect to very low (0...2) respect values. She downgraded relations to neutral and the only thing which keeps her peaceful - barely, - is 3...4 fear value she had towards me. Of course, i'm totally confident about deflecting anything she could through my way, with those affinity levels and some good defensive city buildings available, i'm pretty much invincible for the next who-knows-how-many turns in military terms. I'd prefer to keep peace with her, but if she will declare war, then i probably do her like i did Kavitha - and for her, it'll probably be her capital city, as it's the only one on "my" continent. She's barely visible on the eastern side of the continent on the minimap. Despite relatively small space she occupies so far, she leads the list of AIs in terms of score, steadily (but by not much). Definitely good candidate to crop a little, hehe.

Another curious thing happened with aliens. After having them back in green for a while, i had them falling back to orange and then to red - despite all the nests in my territory (i even added another couple since the last report, so now it's some 10 nests on "my" tiles). They went red apparently for a heavy "leashing" campaign made by one lone explorer who was desperate to grab one last remote resource pod right next to a nest and do an expedition nearby, too. So that explorer ended up leashing a force of 6 alien units (healing the damage inbetween leashes), before that whole bunch was able to overpower remaining alien "forces" and get to the goodies. It all lasted for about two dozens turns or so. That REALLY made all aliens mad at me. Sigh... After that Explorer got 'em goodies, i obviously deleted all the leashed units, but i have no idea how long it'll take for aliens to get neutral again. Not that it's a problem - of course it's not, at this stage of the game. But sure can be an annoyance once in a while. Like that coral-like alien structure i keep intact within the territory of one of my cities - you know, just for collection of things, - when aliens are red, each turn i get the "hostile aliens in range" because of that little harmless coral... Etc. %)

On the home front things are going extremely well, too. Workers do their job like mad now - i stick with fully manual control, that's the way i like 'em do. The +2 movement and +50% work speed from artifact rewards, plus +50% faster work from a wonder added on top - really speed them up. If it's not across a river, they hop into any new tile and build a road on it all in 1 turn. Removing miasma - same, 1 turn job. Since turn 158, i don't improve any tiles without resources on them, at all (saving those for future Orbital Fabricators), so workers really made lots and lots of roads all across the continent. And removed almost all miasma within 3 tiles range around all land cities. I don't like the looks of it, so it goes. Still ain't got magrails researched, though - at this stage of the "long" game, i research things heavily prioritized for getting all the wonders i want to get before any AI would (and that's quite many! %) ). Plus, i got an agreement with african fella for +50% faster travel through roads/magrails (for now), which helps to get by until magrails.

Speaking of agreements, now i got me "specialists do not consume food" from Kavitha, +2 science per each strategic resource and -15% (iirc?) cost for technologies which unlock units - both from ARC, then that thing about roads from African guy, and +lots% outpost growth speed from i forgot whom. The latter will obviously be replaced with something more suitable once i'm mostly done with spamming outposts left and right...

And i got me one more Old Earth artifact, just as expected - from a quest. Now i have two artifacts in my library and one more Progenitor expedition to do (still didn't research the transporter satellite, that dig won't run anywhere anyway). Means i'll get one more artifact reward.

At this stage, turns take quite very long to do (and i'm not a hasty type while playing this game, too), so i'm not quite sure when i'll get to do next report. But i feel i definitely am going to do this game for a long, long time onwards... I like everything in it - geography, AI traits, how things develop, all the decisions i took earlier (so far, no major decision to regret), etc. I didn't quite have such a feeling in no other Civ run before, except one particular game of Civ 2 many, many years ago... ^^


To be continued in some not extremely distant future.

 

[Fins]

4. Late game.

Turn 220.

I'll be making a video of it later today, taking few separate video fragments together and cutting them to fit one particular song i have in mind. Edit: here it is.


Link to video.

Things go superb.

By the turn 199, i took and annexed Daoming's capital, thus wiping her off the face of the planet...

By the turn ~210, all other colonies developed high (7+) respect to me, and most of them - high fear as well, as i slowly add max-tier military units here and there to my border cities and territories. And, perhaps, they keep in mind what happened with Daoming? All the better for me, any wars now would slow down my internal development, if only a tiny bit - but i still don't want it.

Most of land cities have all miasma within their workable areas cleaned, forests removed, and right now workers are mainly in the process of establishing magrail network - some cities are already connected to the capital by magrail, some others not yet. They soon will be.

One of land cities have 10 canyon tiles within its workable area, and is building the wonder for +5 shields per canyon tile right now. It most likely will have it. Other worthy wonders were and are being built in 3 other cities, and so far i managed to deny AIs getting any single more wonder after their initial grab of 3 early-tech (and rather useless) wonders much earlier in the game. I'm "giving" them AIs fourth wonder, though - the one for extra satellite duration, as i want _not_ to have it, - and may be they'll still manage to grab one or two more on top of it, but overall with 22 wonders built on my side, i clearly won the "wonder race" against AI.

In any case, now that i have my borders almost established (only very minor additions will happen from now on, only to give proper working space to border cities) - any wars declared to me will be fought defensively, within my own territory or right next to it, without capturing any AI cities. Now that half of the planet is under my control, i don't need any more space. Right now, i could easily claim even much more space - by expanding into big unsettled southern part of the western land mass and into big unsettled part of north-eastern ocean. But i don't. Those places are left for AIs to eventually settle. The only possible exception to this plan is possible capture of Integr's capital city and perhaps razing few INTEGR cities next to their capital, to complete my control over eastern mainland. But this would only be done if INTEGR themselves would declare war to me. As before and most likely as it will always be in this game, i don't declare war to any AI myself.

By turn ~205, aliens became neutral to me, and by turn ~215, they became friendly (extra speed is from one wonder which helps it to happen twice faster).

By turn 220, by quite a coincedence, i both completed all 3 affinities - 18/18/18 - and also completed closing my borders all around, creating no-gap "chain" of tiles from one ice cap to another on both "sides" of my space. Several turns before, i downgraded relations with other colonies to "neutral" (thus denying them open borders to my territory and internal "pockets" of not yet claimed space), except for Kavitha - whom i still have at "cooperating" temporary, as a measure of helping her in her wars. She had one with Elodie, and now they made peace - but not before Kavitha declaring another war to ARC. Even if Kavitha will use open borders to my space in order to colonize a bit of still not-claimed space within it - i don't actually mind. I want her surviving till the end of time, because of end-game'ish agreements she has to offer.

One of my water-based cities which i decided to focus trade routes to - became insanely powerful, producing over 500 shields and over 600 excess food each turn. The initial goal was to have a city with lots of shields to build "water cities only" wonders, but now this city grew to something more. I managed to have this city build some wonders which increase its combat capacity - increasing range of its attack to 3, its strength by 25%, decreasing all ranged damage taken by 50%, etc. And now, i plan to have this city moved from a place deep within my territory to very front-line territory right in the middle of the map, most of which is already claimed by another water city in wait for the big one to get there and anchor down for good. It will sit there as one most tough fortress there can be, closest to AIs, serving as an extra military power in case of any hostility. And it is already my most populated city, too.

That same city has the Abyssal Mirror wonder - the one which allows satellites launched from this city to overlap their fields of effect by 1 tile. So far i didn't do any many Orbital Fabricators with it for the simple reason: the city doesn't have turns to spare in order to _build_ them - building wonders and moving the city are more important now and for next ~50 turns; and i didn't have any much spare energy - and for ~dozen more turns, i still won't have. Because most of my energy surplus is still being spent to claiming new tiles. But this part of spending will be done soon; i'm mostly done with it. Since turn ~210, i had this city buying orbital fabricators - each turn - with diplomatic capital, though. Works well. Their cost - 870 - is still substantially higher than my diplomatic capital income per turn, but i have just enough diplomatic capital reserve to last in this mode of operations until energy would "kick in" and help with it. As usual, i prefer to keep energy at nearly 10000 reserve for the bonus 1% from virtue to work its full potential.

Oil is limiting factor for fabricators, of course... Hard to get any much more of it, unlike in vanilla CivBE, since all spawned by fabricators strategic resources spawn with amount = 1, plus there is no more quick way of "do orbital fabricators over water = tons of oil, because other strategic resources can't spawn in water" - now they can. But i have enough of oil in my territory (some is still not claimed) to have about 5 cities fully covered by 7 Orbital Fabricators each (that's with Abyssal Mirror effect accounted for). For each city, this will produce about 10 strategic resources per each cycle of orbital fabricators - i.e. in 60 turns (i am not getting any +arbital-duration effects, on purpose).

I won't bother to de-orbit fabricators manually after they spawn a single resource, as it makes things rather chaotic in terms of new fabricators' producing/launching. So, _if_ there is no glitch or bug with spawning strategic resources within much-overlapped Orbital Fabricators effect areas, then it should be ~10 strategic resources per 60 turns per city, which translates - considering my oil budget - into ~50 strategic resources per 60 turns per colony, or almost +1 strategic resource per turn per colony. As i go for "ever and ever" kind of game, this sort of improvement surely looks attractive to me.

And the direct effect of Orbital Fabricators - yep, it adds up! It's possible to have 7 fabricators all within a city's workable area, and each gives +7 shields (+1 per tile, over 7 tiles) a turn, so over 60 turns they can give a total of 7*7*60=2940 base shields to one city (subject to further big increase by the city's +% production buildings, i believe, so more like 4...5 thousands shields). Which is quite insane, considering the cost - in energy, it'd be less than 3000 to buy 7 fabricators!

Internal trade routes continue to increase in both average efficiency and quantity around the colony. Truth be told, i always wanted to create this kind of colony - very wide, many cities, craploads of internal trade routes - in vanilla CivBE. But i couldn't, because there was no option to auto-renew trade routes, and i grew tired of the "job" of renewing trade routes manually - soon enough after i made somewhat big network of internal trade - every time. But in RT, there is auto-renew. It's awesome! So i can make this HUGE internal trade network and still keep going. And i did. And i'll be able to even expand it further in the future, using open territories within my borders to make some more cities.

I'll be able to optimize my internal trade network bit by bit, too, once i have most cities shaped up to the form i want them to be in. And as cities grow, extra trade routes are being added, thus improving my trade network further. All the possibilities i see for doing more with it - are invigorating! That city with over 600 excess food, which i have now, at turn 220 - i think it's still but a spark, a small bit of the might and glory of this same city as it will become massively bigger and more potent by, say, some turn 500 - if i'll keep it fully supported by my trade network (and i probably shall).


Turn 237.

By this turn, i have researched almost all technologies and built all wonders, except 3 early ones (most weak) built way earlier by AIs and the one for +50% satellite duration (which i don't want to have). Current science output is over 4500 beakers per turn, with top-tier leaf technologies being 6300sh beakers cost. So i get one new technology every turn, by researching one "cheap" technology (lower tiers) one turn, and then using excess beakers from it to add up to those next 4500sh, which allows to get one top-tier technology in very next turn, rinse repeat.

Don't even need spies stealing science anymore - now they do some funny things around. One worm strike already made in the ARC capital, just to see how it goes while intrigue there is still high, two more in progress in other AI cities. In vanilla CivBE, Worm Strikes had the potential to _raze_ AI capital cities, and i'm just curious to see if this is the case in RT as well. However, even in Vanilla, to do it reliably one had to militarily blockade the city and ensure no military units (except one possibly in the city itself) would be around to take out 'em worms for it to work, so in this game chances are pretty slim to see worms taking out any AI city. But if it'd happen somehow, it'd be rather funny. Hey, if they can't defend their capital from a few slimy worms, then they really deserve to get their butt kicked, right?

Victory progress is at 50% for all victory types (except domination, obviously), and now i am quite ready to start building all four victory projects. I decided to put them near my capital, south-west of it, onto one empty piece of land, to the north of the nearby trade station. All four will have one empty tile between themselves - should be quite a sight when i'll have them done. Plus, all four will be out of workable area of any city.

The mainland magrail network is complete, and i am now dismissing some workers, and put others to sleep next to cities - one worker per city. Just for convinience. Their maintenance is now insignificant in compare to both total unit supply and energy surplus.

I also finally researched phasal transporter satellite, and i found that my hopes to get that last Progenitor artifact from an ice-locked area - will not be fulfilled. The area has no land tiles in it to teleport any "land" unit there. In vanilla CivBE, there was a way for this situation: explorer could be teleported into a Vindicator with +1 air capacity upgrade (which i have), and then that Vindicator could be teleported into such "sea only" ice-locked area, carrying the explorer with it. But in RT, this was fixed - i tried this and that, it just doesn't work. Sigh... Apparently, i'll need some other quest to give me 3rd artifact, if i'd want to have one more artifact reward, and this late in the game, i'm not sure i'll get any more quests of the sort. Well, if not... 42 it is, after all!

I am also completely done with buying tiles at/near my borders - for now, there are no more tiles of the "gotta buy them before an AI could take them" sort. So now i'm piling up my energy for the "energy excess is set to zero" period which i'll probably have soon enough for the Contact victory. I think i'll go for Contact 1st, and all the other (three) victory types after it.

I am really curious to see if any AIs would declare war to me when i'll start to build victory projects right about now. Normally, they would. But right now, with a few upgraded SABRs built and placed in cities next to AIs, plus some more top-tier naval and air units produced and more coming in a few turns, their "fear" to me is quite high. And, none of AIs managed to get any significant victory progress (except INTEGR, who managed to get to the point of being able to start one victory project construction few turns ago).


To be continued!

 

[Fins]

End game.

Turn 252. By this turn i completed researching very last available technology.

Turn 261. By this turn i achieved Supremacy victory and clicked the mighty "Just... One... More... Turn..." button.

Turn 268. This is when i got very last virtue taken.

Yep, all 4 trees, all the 60 virtues, are complete. In no small part thanks to the wonder which "decreases new virtue cost by the percentage equal to the city's population". I have this wonder in my most populated city, which at this point was about 60sh population. Rather powerful wonder, eh. Even so, i had most of my cities doing culture development for a while, and specialists focused on culture as well. So, at the peak of culture "rush", i had over 6500 culture per turn generated, while last remaining virtues had some 8...11k culture cost.

Turn 286. By this turn i completed the last - fourth - victory.

Happened to be Contact victory. They didn't fix the "the more energy per turn you have, the faster the Beacon will achieve contact with progenitors" feature which is mentioned in Civilopedia in both vanilla CivBE and RT. Still doesn't work. Worse, they increased Contact victory wait from 30 turns to 45 turns, normal speed, from the moment the Beacon is activated. Well, whatever, i guess...


Turn 298.

This is where i am at, right now, and this changed quite much since turn 237. Discovered some things which surprised me. Going extremely strong overall, nonetheless.

Soon after turn 237 report, i had AIs starting to claim my territory - without any declaration of war, - by moving their aquatic cities over it. I hoped they would not do so, at least when they are "cooperative". But they do. Kavitha happily took two tiles of mine despite cooperating with me at the time. INTEGR, Elodie and african fella were also taking - or trying to take - a few. Which is when i discovered that if i move a city of mine to any spot which is 2 tiles away from the spot their city is "going to", and my city arrives to its destination before their city would, - their city movement will be cancelled when it's time for it to finish. Useful.

But also dangerous for relations. I found that every tile of their territory i take back - including every tile which was "originally" mine, as claimed by colonization and expansion, - reduces their respect to me by 2...3 points.

This didn't bother me, i foolishly thought that my (now) big army is good enough guarantee that none of them would dare to declare a war to me. I was wrong. So i took back most of what was taken by AIs, moved my cities (and created some new ones) to ensure no AI could venture any aquatic city of theirs any deep into my territory, and went on to claim some convinient tiles of their own lands with the same manner - naively thinking that if they do it during peaceful neutral and cooperating times, then i can do it too without provoking them to war.

By some turn 270sh, INTEGR declared a war - strange enough, as i didn't take any tile of "her own" space, iirc. She were at fear = 9 to me at the time, moderate respect iirc, and neutral relations. And then all of a sudden - BAM, "we had enough". My thinking at the time: "huh? WHAT??? Well, i was expanding almost all around her, may be that pissed her that much...".

Anyhow, with lots of my cities already done with building all the buildings i want them to have for a fair while, and then producing Evolved SABRs, Vindicators and 3x Shrikes per each such city - which is my default "city garrison" for each city (minus Vindicator for any land-locked city, of course - but i have only 3 such cities) - with lots of those end-game combat units already present, it was really waaaay too easy to annihilate INTEGR's modest army and take one of her cities during very 1st turn of the war. I took 5 more cities during 2nd turn of the war, including her capital, which i annexed (with a nice bonus of Master Control wonder). Other cities were set to burn right away, i'll have my own cities within this territory, instead. With this conquest, i had very last bit of my continent under my color, as well as all the eastern ocean also being so. By turn 298, i am half-way of getting that ocean back under my color (after her cities disappear, "their" tiles become noone's).

This way, not only the whole eastern continent is firmly mine, but also complete circle of water - oceans - around it, as well. I also claimed some more of northern ocean to "wall off" ARC and Elodie, and i took few more tiles near Kavitha's lands (and only 2 of her own tiles, but she did take two tiles of my own earler, so we're "even" about it, at least in my book).

After my rush, INTEGER had two more cities remaining. I stopped my assault there, however, the sea alliance guy took both INTEGR cities - one quickly, another after ~dozen turns. She didn't propose peace to me, she didn't manage to make peace with sea alliance... Well, i guess her diplomacy is wrong on more than just one occasion of declaring war to the ultimate power of the planet (at the time). RIP, INTEGR.

But in the late 280s, ARC also declared war to me. And once again, doing so directly from neutral relations and high (it was at least 7!) fear stat. This one, i keep fighting while not going out of my territory, not even sending my (massive now!) air forces out of it. My air units now have the range = 15 from any city and any vindicator. They are are called "Shrikes" in this game. So, once again, i instantly evaporated humble strike force ARC sent to "attack" me - it was merely 5 units or so. I am really at a loss what she tries to achieve, at this point, by this war. I made victory long ago. Granted, i did some expansion near her cities to form that "no aquatic city can get through" line of 3 cities of mine, spanning vertically across the northern ocean, true. But i didn't take a single tile of her space while i was at it. Why attack?

That new war is quite insignificant, - i don't lose any units except occasional loss of a trade vessel (but i have hundreds of those now, so it's pretty much insignificant). And my troops have some free target practice whenever she sends anything my way. And i didn't have (directly before this war) any agreements with her i'd want. So, "why not".

Yet few turns later, Elodie declares war as well! And for the third time since the last report, AI declares war to me while having high fear and neutral relations. What gives??? She were tolerating me taking quite a bunch of "her" tiles, because i was moving aquatic cities of mine and her tiles were in my way. I came through and afterwards stopped taking any more of her tiles (as my cities arrived to "blocking" locations i desired, mainly to hold the nearby african guy at bay). For a while Elodie was staying neutral, yet _now_ in late 280s, she declares a war... Sigh. Well. Once again, 1-turn total victory over her army - Elodie had it quite better than ARC, sending over a dozen top-tier combat units at/into my borders during her turn, - yet she still failed to do any significant harm. Once again, more target practice and no real trouble to have - another AI with no agreements i'd want from her. As with ARC, i once again plan to stay within my borders, taking out any units she can send, and waiting for when those two girls would realize how pointless those wars are and ask for peace - which i intend to agree with.

That was the plan. "Was", yep. Now, by turn 298, it's not exactly the "plan" anymore. Why? Because by turn 298, the game demonstrated how... broken its diplomacy relations are. Kavitha, Sea alliance and the african guy - all declared war on me in the same time.

And that, i didn't not expect at all. I was "cooperating" with Kavitha, she had fear = 9 and respect = 3 to me (i took two of her tiles not too long ago, yet i was gaining her respect back through regular background effects at least once). The african guy was neutral, fear = 9, respect = 1 (he was the most agressive guy taking several tiles of mine a while ago, some of those are now his lands for good, so i thought i am quite fair taking some of his own for my own needs). But most interesting, the sea alliance was fear = 8, respect = 7. And he was sanctioned or at war with most other AIs, including ARC and Elodie - and thus i hoped that "enemy of my enemy" would keep him at least neutral, whatever happens. Especially since we have very little common border. Seriously, do those numbers mean _anything_? =)

Of course, i can take out all of them in terms of military power. With well over a hundred end-game military units, most of them ships and aviation, plus a huge production base, i can roll over the map and level everything. But i don't want to. So i just take out their attacking armies and sit tight defending my "slightly more than a half of a planet" colony. In military terms - yep, i can easy do that, as well. But now i am affraid i'll be locked in this "eternal war with everyone" for the remaining length of the game (i.e. forever). And i wouldn't mind it, if not well slower progression of time (doing turns), should it be permanent hostility with everyone.

Even the hassle with trade vessels getting destroyed can be sorted out by re-designing internal trade network so that trade vessels move only through my own territory (most of them already do, but not exactly all - some "shortcut" through AIs' space). Totally doable. If it'll come to this, then i'll go for it. However, there is one thing very regrettable: the loss of agreements. At the time, i was using useful +15% (+25% if i get cooperating) city strength agreement with the sea alliance guy. Plus i was using the amazing "specialists consume no food" agreement with Kavitha for a long time now, and another one with her for less unhealth from global population (recently taken), and faster road movement agreenent with the african guy. Later in the game, with the land and cities much more developed, i would care none about losing any of those agreements, but now it's still quite a loss.

Speaking about land development, i moved my best city (shown in the video above) to the other side of my territory - almost to very middle point of the whole map. This move was planned well in advance. Every turn during this travel, as well as well before and after it, the city was launching orbital fabricators and weather controllers all over my lands. I did it by buying them for either diplomatic capital or energy, and by turn 298, i am finally extremely low on oil. With +50% strategic resources virtue and few more oil sources taken, it's now something like 160 oil total, i.e. 80 satellites. I launch 6 per city now. 1 per turn - ~80 turns to just launch that many. Which is why i built that wonder for +50% satellite duration and also took another +50% satellite duration from a virtue - i can always deorbit them manually, yet for end-game with even more oil (from fabricators, if nothing else) i don't want them to drop down on their own before i am ready to replace them with new ones.

When my best city arrived to its final destination - which is a location with Fabricators working over it several dozens turns before the city itself arrived, and every last tile with range=3 is workable, - i instantly bought all the remaining buildings. Right now the city is some 79 population, and produces way over 1200 production while making ships - so pretty much it can produce any ship every single turn. I've set it to industrial development for peaceful times.

With all the buildings and that special wonder, plus all the population, the defense stat of the city is some 490sh. With range = 3 and all the extra damage from relevant upgrades, this city can evaporate any attacker within its workable area in a single hit, i believe. And it can withstand pretty much any bombardment, too. Pretty much indestructible city.

Other cities are also very high defense. Even new ones. I switched one of my personality traits to +city_defense bonus from extra population (+2,5 city strenth per each population), - it rocks. And my spies (all 8 of them) are doing +1% city defense each, in headquarters. Any new city i do which is somehow close to my borders - instantly get at least 5 defense buildings bought upon formation, and this boosts them to nearly 200 defense in an instant, and this goes higher and higher as they quickly grow through initial 20 population units.

This is how my defense tactic is all revolved around _putting_ cities under fire in an event of any trouble, instead of trying to avoid that. Those cities are the best "tanks" there can be, safely holding a Sabre and a Vindicator within their walls, as well as 3 Shrikes. And of course, they draw attention of AI units extremely well. The "free" fleet i keep rather small; i've yet to see a situation when i'd really need it. With range = 15, Shrikes from nearby cities are able to shred any attacking army i've seen so far even on their own.

In terms of energy, since the Beacon finally completed its job, i am sitting with nearly 10k evergy income per turn (11k+ lately), which is surely awesome. All the quest decisions for extra energy i made during the game are starting to matter. Plus more and more cities get done with buildings and units for self-protection, after which i put them all to industrial development (need nore science nor culture now, and i don't want food development because i don't want no population overshoot). So i feel myself rather comfortable keeping my energy reserve at nearly 100k, for the time being; and it gets harder and harder to "spend enough" each turn to keep it from growing.

I even buy completely non-important tiles within my own territory now, to save moving turns for aquatic cities, even while their price is sometimes over 2500 energy per tile. I'm putting terrascapes (with their 5 energy maintenance cost) on every previously improved tile (mostly around two AI capitals i have captured), i do similar thing in water (with domes and health boosting improvements, and within range=2 around former AI capitals, since water farms and alike further from a land city - can be erased by moving an aquatic city over them, which i do to give even more space for future resource spawning with fabricators and weather controllers). But what i'd be doing with excess energy when there will be no more tiles left to buy? No idea. Can my game crash for getting "too much" energy - some few millions of it?

Oh, and the good news, i almost forgot. That war from 3 more AIs which was declared by them before the start of my turn 298 - there was a flaw. Little tiny flaw in how it began: i lost one combat unit when Kavitha declared war to me. It was a submarine-type unit with +2 visibility upgrade, which i used to see huge part of northern ocean out of my borders. At the time, it happened to be idle right next to few of Kavitha's ships, which were doing war to ARC a short while before. And since i didn't expect at all to have a cooperating AI to backstab like that, instantly, - i felt justified to reload end-turn-297 save (i always save by the end of a turn late-game, every turn - they are _long_ ), and move the poor sub away. So i did. Guess what, NEITHER of those 3 AIs declared war to me when turn 298 started "this time". Will they do it few turns later? Or will they not do it? I don't know (yet).

Funny, huh? They declared a war to vastly superior military power to do what? To sink a lone sub??? Gee. Who wrote that code, i wonder. Don't let the guy into real world diplomacy. He'll do a world war over a cheeseburger!

As i'll be doing turn 298 actions, i'll get cooperating with the sea alliance AI, and i'll set my best city to food development while that +30% development agreement is still present. Because it'll take ages to overshoot population of _that_ one city even with food development; even without it, it has food excess fluctuating wildly between roughly 1000...2400 food per turn. Yep, that's what possible with several dozens cities all sending a trade vessel to this same aquatic city... The potential would therefore be for this city to some day reach 1000+ population (and some ~5k defense stat? Hillarious). But of course it'd take ages. Food development would help those ages to be slightly less... agish.


Turn 299

Ah, now i get it about those last 3 AIs declaring war between 297 and 298... The game was indeed going nuts. Something grew too big. It was probably too many units being made by me, or something like it... Turn 299 never happens for me. I tried this and that, but whatever i do with game's settings and my system, every time i press the button for "next turn" being turn 298, i see this:

Spoiler :

Unhandled Exception
Code: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Error reading address 0x0

Call Stack
-----------------------------------------------------
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0
??? ! ??? ???, line 0

So... Well, i guess next time - if there will be one, - i better pick a tiniest map. My system is by no means weak, rolling with Ivy Bridge i5 CPU, MSI Lightning 770 GT, 16Gb of RAM, server-grade SSD disk, RAID array (mirror) made of seagate HDDs and very strong PSU unit powering this all up. Still, it seems the game was not designed with such a wide approach in mind, or perhaps it's indeed some truly broken code involved in end-game diplomacy. No idea what it is, i run stable in all major game projects, and this does not pop up during any earlier turns if i load 'em up.

I guess i am defeated... By a game's bug. Well... It was fun while it lasted. May be i'll try another one indeed on tiny map, some day, would be Apollo for how easy it is (my turn 298 score is some 40k+ points, while only two AIs barely made it above 1000). But even if i will, it'll be in a new topic.

The end...