Iron now THE key resource? Rome and Russia new top civs?

[Varanid]

The way it is now, according to that, the mammy cavvy will actually be *better* than the true cav for attacking cities, which just seems weird.

 

[Paeanblack]

Songhai and India are good right now, but Siam is so far out in front post-patch that I am having a very hard time thinking of reasons justifying the use of another civ. The old Babylon gameplan remains 100% applicable for Siam. It won't resolve in 200 turns, but it will work fast enough to win on Deity.

I just (finally!) did a 181 turn Deity spaceship with Siam. This is my first time to do it on Deity, but it is tainted by my abusing absolutely every exploit. I have to admit, I was getting desperate to get this in before the patch.

The start went extremely well: 2x grass+cow start, AH on turn 1 from a ruin, 2x culture ruins.

First thirty turns were REX while teching to HBR
Capital: Scout/Settler/Settler/Settler/Settler (size 2)
City #2: Partial Warrior/Settler/Settler/Finish Warrior (size 2)
City #3: Worker (size 1, nearly size 2)
City #4: Warrior/Partial Warrior (size 1)
City #5: Warrior (size 1)
City #6: Partial Warrior (size 1)

By turn 32, I had six cities, 1 settler, 1 worker, 4 warriors, and 2 partial warriors. I was at -9 Happiness (found 2 Natural Wonders). I bribed Sully to DOW India for ~230, and then sold City #2 to him for ~890. I bribed Rome to DOW Sully for ~750 and sold City #4 to him for ~1100. Gandhi wouldn't DOW anyone, so I only got ~500 for City #5.

On the next turn, HBR finished, so I used the 4 warriors to retake City #2 from Sully, settled City #7, and bought 4 horsemen, which left me with about ~200 in cash. Turns 35-50 were spent conquering the nearby AIs, leaving them with only the cities I had sold them, all touching in a triangle. They all sued for peace leaving me everything.

I teched to Education while building enough settlers to push me back to -9 happy. Three RAs quickly signed. I started directly on the Wat in my core cities and buying the Library when I could afford it. The fact that Siam can build these out of order is a big deal.

I met Hiawatha and Nappy and bribed Nappy for a DOW. Neither ever had enough gold at this point to bother selling a city, so they got my excess luxes instead. I screwed up the first round RAs, since I was concerned about finishing Compass in time. Archery finished in one turn, so I got Mathematics, Acoustics, and Astronomy and picked up Freedom. I re-signed the agreements after subsidizing Sully. India and Rome could barely afford it.

I did some minor expansion, allied some Cultural CSs, met Wu, backfilled techs, and researched Navigation. When the second round of RAs came in, I got Archaeology, Scientific Theory, and Chivalry, and I bulbed Biology and Banking. I popped a GG for a GA, picked up Communism, started the FP. I sold Wu one of my core cities for ~2500 and allied two Maritimes and bought Settlers. I retook the city, moved the horses in Wu's direction and then upgraded to Elephants. They began chewing up the stream of troops coming from Wu and working on a second GG. I started settling tons of cities with a Colosseum/Wat/Library build order.

Raw research and expansion until the third round of RAs came in. I dodged a 25% chance of missing Radio and was able to bulb Flight, Radar, and Rocketry. Apollo started on turn 147 and finished on 171. A GG, Chichen & Taj gave me enough GA to power through the end. Nappy and Hiawatha also came after me, but it was too late.

Cheesy, but done.



You are right about the power of Siam. They have several things going for them:

1) Wat not requiring a Library. This gives you a bunch of flexibility, and allows you to build the Wat directly and buy the library later when you have the population to staff it.
2) Culture...extra CS culture and the +3 from the Wat really add up.
3) The Elephant is good enough to stand up to riflemen. They can fight a defensive war against the AI when Knights would be too weak, and they last long enough to hold out until Cavalry are available. This lets you play an entire game without distracting yourself with foot soldier techs.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Hadn't thought about selling cities and retaking them with Horses. That is somewhat cheap. (and clever, of course)

Credit pi-r8 and Kamino for being the earliest Siam proponents. I've only joined the bandwagon due to the Maritime and Library changes. +4/+2 against +3/+1 is a much bigger deal than +5/+3 against +4/+2, and two Scientists against one is massive.

 

[Sneaks]

Paean, did you turn off pick em as you get em policies?

 

[Paeanblack]

Paean, did you turn off pick em as you get em policies?

This was my final pre-patch game.

 

[Sneaks]

I would like to congratulate myself on the excellent reading comprehension.

That said, I just got my first Siam Science win - launch on 283 Deity. The new wonders are completely broken. I found the fountain of youth nearby with the initial warrior, pumped a settler to grab it, and that was pretty much game at that point. The extra 10 happiness meant the first round of REX was free. The plan was to early rush towards Chivalry/Education, build in this order: Wat, Circus, Colo, Monu, Market I managed 5 pre-industrial policies thanks to some early culture CSs and a culture ruins. Sometime in Medieval I also settled next to Fuji for an additional 5. Policy order: Tradition, Legalism, Piety, Org. Rel., Theocracy, then headed towards Communism. My war force comprised of the UUs and Pikes whom all got medic early + Fountain, meant they were a rolling healball of doom. The AI seemed a bit more competent in battle, and cities sure hit harder, but they were still liable to string out single units for easy pickings/promotions. About halfway through the game, I had a pretty sexy economy going, so I could afford to do some major factory/windmill purchases late. Another thing that I did new this patch. If a major civ charged after me, a few quick wall/castle purchases absolutely absorb and demolish forces. Oftentimes, I would end up getting favorable peace treaties more or less based solely on city damage.

Overall, nat wonders are ridiculous and should probably be redone. Siam is sexygood. Growing a huge capital with Tradition is pretty much happiness in the bank. ICS still works just peachy. Tech feels like it absolutely drags, and this is probably because I made the decision to skip Patronage and Rationalism. I think either one or the other is needed for a reasonable time frame win. That being said, the Trad/Piety route pretty much made happiness a non-factor the entire game.

 

[alpaca]

The worst thing is that if you don't play Siam, the top part of the tech tree is very, very lackluster. I'd pretty much always go straight for rifling because it's the fastest way to the Renaissance now, and you need military techs anyways. The university wants a second scientist slot, badly (or one at lib, one at uni, which I would prefer).

I really have to wonder about Siam. That they added a science slot must mean they thought about how Siam plays and that it would be too weak after the patch, so they gave the Wat an additional slot to compensate. As if kick-ass elephants and extra food and culture weren't enough.

Sneaks: If you choose Rationalism, Siam still has a good tech speed due to their 2 scientist slots. I'm sure it's better than Piety if you play with Siam, not so sure about other civs as the extra pop might be more useful than the little science gain.

 

[Ahriman]

The worst thing is that if you don't play Siam, the top part of the tech tree is very, very lackluster. I'd pretty much always go straight for rifling because it's the fastest way to the Renaissance now, and you need military techs anyways. The university wants a second scientist slot, badly (or one at lib, one at uni, which I would prefer).

The fact that you think this just proves that the game was too great scientist oriented.
You shouldn't be driving your entire strat around great scientists. You should want universities for their yield boosts, not primarily their specialist slot.

Nerf the great scientist lightbulb, *then* put scientist slots back.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Nerf the great scientist lightbulb, *then* put scientist slots back.

1) That's what he did in his mod.
2) Siam is getting twice as many Scientist slots as anyone else until Scientific Theory. That's a serious discrepancy. Since you must have military techs to survive on Deity, pushing Education isn't returning enough value for anyone but Siam to justify the detour.

 

[Ahriman]

Siam is getting twice as many Scientist slots as anyone else until Scientific Theory. That's a serious discrepancy.

Its a serious discrepancy because:
i) Great scientist slots are too valuable
ii) Non-military techs don't give high enough benefits. Non-military techs in Civ4 gave all kinds of passive boosts, we don't really see those anymore, civilian techs only really tend to allow you to build new stuff, which takes a long long time before it sees any benefits.
iii) Tech costs don't increase enough by tier, so tech boosters aren't as important, and you are rewarded for going deep rather than broad
iv) Nearly all the military techs are concentrated in a single techline with few other dependencies.

 

[Sneaks]

Agreed about the Rationalism thing, alpaca. I really wanted to try out the new Piety thing, and it certainly probably cost me near 50 turns. I will say that my production benefited from Piety though, thanks to actually being happy positive for half the game. I got two happy GAs in the period of time I would ever get 1 before. Next time, I will most certainly go Rationalism, but probably start Tradition again.

 

[alpaca]

Its a serious discrepancy because:
i) Great scientist slots are too valuable
ii) Non-military techs don't give high enough benefits. Non-military techs in Civ4 gave all kinds of passive boosts, we don't really see those anymore, civilian techs only really tend to allow you to build new stuff, which takes a long long time before it sees any benefits.
iii) Tech costs don't increase enough by tier, so tech boosters aren't as important, and you are rewarded for going deep rather than broad
iv) Nearly all the military techs are concentrated in a single techline with few other dependencies.

The problem is that with the removal of GS slots from the library, the yield bonus of the university is quite small. In a size 6 city, you now get 4.5 science for building a university, which isn't a lot and in my opinion doesn't trump going for the warmonger branch.

I agree with you on pretty much all counts. But it doesn't invalidate my point.

 

[Ahriman]

In a size 6 city, you now get 4.5 science for building a university, which isn't a lot and in my opinion doesn't trump going for the warmonger branch.

Why do you think that you should be building a university in a size 6 city?
Science comes from population, universities should be built in science specialist cities, science specialist cities should concentrate on food and should be large.

I agree with you on pretty much all counts. But it doesn't invalidate my point.

The points mean that the correct fix is not to adjust universities, its to adjust great scientist lightbulb, benefits of passive techs, tech costs, and tech dependencies.
Fix the core problems, not the symptoms.

 

[Paeanblack]

Why do you think that you should be building a university in a size 6 city?
Science comes from population, universities should be built in science specialist cities, science specialist cities should concentrate on food and should be large.

Science does not come from population, it comes from specialists. You need 4 population to match the beakers you get from one specialist. Rationalism bumps that ratio up to 6:1 (4.33:1 with library)

Science specialized cities should not concentrate on food. That is the least efficient way of getting science. Science cities need to concentrate on specialists. This means having as much population as you have specialist slots and no more. Doing so maximizes the science you get from a given amount of happiness.

 

[Ahriman]

Science does not come from population, it comes from specialists.

It did when libraries provided two science specialists, sure.
But their changes suggest they're trying to move away from that.
They're specifically trying to make it so that science comes from population, not specialists. That's their design goal.
They don't want science coming from tiny little cities that just have science specialists.
They want you to be using the science from population and libraries and such.

This means having as much population as you have specialist slots and no more. Doing so maximizes the science you get from a given amount of happiness.

Only if you ignore the 2 unhappiness per city and the discreteness issues from happiness buildings (why be a size 3 city with a colosseum?)

 

[Paeanblack]

I really have to wonder about Siam. That they added a science slot must mean they thought about how Siam plays and that it would be too weak after the patch, so they gave the Wat an additional slot to compensate. As if kick-ass elephants and extra food and culture weren't enough.

The fact that you don't need a Library to build a Wat is a much bigger deal. Siam can skip straight to the Wat. Getting 12 beakers AND 3 culture in a size-2 city with one building is pretty insane, especially since it only takes 2 allies to feed them because of the UA.

 

[alpaca]

The points mean that the correct fix is not to adjust universities, its to adjust great scientist lightbulb, benefits of passive techs, tech costs, and tech dependencies.
Fix the core problems, not the symptoms.

The issues are not really related. Sure, adding a scientist slot to the university is just part of making the top half of the tree more interesting, but as it is you only get one slot until Scientific Revolution, which makes generating GS very hard, which is, I agree, the wrong way to balance it. I don't really understand why you are so aggressive when we pretty much seem to agree, but whatever.

 

[Paeanblack]

Only if you ignore the 2 unhappiness per city and the discreteness issues from happiness buildings (why be a size 3 city with a colosseum?)

Paying the happiness penalty for another city is still worthwhile.

A size-4 city with colosseum/library/uni running 2 specialists + 2 farms is food neutral with no policies or techs, and it generates 18 beakers for 2 unhappiness.

Adding 2 population to an existing city with library/uni will generate 4.5 beakers for 2 unhappiness.

18 beakers vs 4.5 beakers? There is no comparison here. Science from specialists and science from population aren't even in the same ballpark.

Even if all you have is a size-1 city with just a library, that is 4.5 beakers for 3 unhappiness. Adding 3 population to an existing city with a library is also 4.5 beakers for 3 unhappiness. You are already breaking even with JUST a library.

 

[pi-r8]

I just (finally!) did a 181 turn Deity spaceship with Siam. This is my first time to do it on Deity, but it is tainted by my abusing absolutely every exploit. I have to admit, I was getting desperate to get this in before the patch.

Wow good job. I'd say in a game with as many exploits as civ V, there's something to be said for not worry about what is/isn't an exploit and, and just abusing everything you can.

Am I reading that right that you got communism, but no policies in rationalism? That's suprising to me. Is that because you were able to use bulbs/RAs to research almost all the later techs?

 

[pi-r8]

The fact that you think this just proves that the game was too great scientist oriented.
You shouldn't be driving your entire strat around great scientists. You should want universities for their yield boosts, not primarily their specialist slot.

Nerf the great scientist lightbulb, *then* put scientist slots back.

Regardless of what you "should" and "shouldn't" want, that's how it is in the game right now. The yield boost is helpful, but it's the scientist slots that really boost research.

The issues are not really related. Sure, adding a scientist slot to the university is just part of making the top half of the tree more interesting, but as it is you only get one slot until Scientific Revolution, which makes generating GS very hard, which is, I agree, the wrong way to balance it. I don't really understand why you are so aggressive when we pretty much seem to agree, but whatever.

There is one other way to get scientists early on-the observatory has scientist slots now. Settling near mountains could be important.