Mediterranean Adventure

[beetle]

It will probably be ~24 hours before I can go, sorry. I got my 2nd Covid vaccine shot Friday and have had pretty severe flu-like symptoms since.

Plan is the still the same yes? Buy votes then liberate Enrico right before the vote?

 

[vadalaz]

Get well soon, @beetle.

Yeah, that's the plan. And I'm pretty sure we can secure three more CSs with gold gifts, maybe four. We also have Valencia and La Coruna to liberate from Spain, though it might be hard to keep them free unless we make peace with Isabella.

 

[beetle]

Thank you @vadalaz, I am very nearly 100% recovered this morning. Started taking my turns. Diplo VC looking feasible. Harun would not deal, but other AIs selling vote for either 27gpt or 45gpt. You have Satellites unlocking in three turns, so that will give us visibility on the two caps we are missing.

• T311 Liberate Valencia and it looks like Isabella only has Gunships, so I don’t think it will be a problem to keep. Isabella wants four cities for peace.
• T312 Capture and puppet Libson, which I had planned to liberate, but it has Statue of Zeus, and coast is clear to La Coruna. I think there there is just enough time to liberate it, make peace, and send Isabella a diplomat. Isabella wants 81 gpt for peace.
• T313 Alex wins by SV. Isabella offering 89 gpt (half her income) and all her strategic resources (16 coal, 21 aluminum, 2 uranium) for peace.

Good Game gentleman! I really enjoyed it, and it was very close.

 

[Nizef]

Yes. I don´t feel disheartened of our loss. After all it was long coming. But nevertheless this was a very interesting game with loosing and conquering cities combined with all this naval warfare! If anything, this game gave me a better feeling than our "clinical" t257 win with Ethiopia.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, good game guys! I thought it was interesting all the way through from turn 0 to 313.

 

[raider980]

I agree, this was a fun one. I'm surprised it was so close, I thought we were done when Dido attacked and was so far ahead in tech. Can't wait for the next one!

 

[beetle]

FWIW, I kept playing since I was curious about the plan and the WL vote.

• T315 Neither Babylon nor Carthage willing to sell us their votes. Diplomats to Ahmad and Theodora will be in just in time for Globalization buff, but not early enough to negotiate WL bribes.
• T316 Liberate La Coruna (Zurich) and make peace w/ Isabella. That traps most of our Navy, and it seems a turn too late to send her a Diplomat, but I do so anyway.
• T317 Lancers swimming to Caesarea (Milan) gifted enough for her to become our ally. Happy at -21 even working all specialist slots and get message that Cumae will revolt. I flip to Autocracy, figuring that’s two more votes. We still have six policies, so Clausewitz.
• T318 Upgrade the three Artillery near Salona.
• T319 Buy out Florence and Jerusalem as those were the only CS we could afford, then drop most of our Atomic Bombs on Greece.
• T320 Liberate Salona, recalling Enrico. Drop the last two Atomic Bombs, mostly to clear carpet of embarked units.
• T321 Capture Halicarnassus and gift to Venice. WL vote is this turn.
• T322 We have way more than enough votes! Needed 43, had 58: our 32, 6 from Venice, 4 from Portugal, and 16 that I paid for on T311 (Ottoman, Persia, Egypt, Songhai).

 

[vadalaz]

Alex may have fled to space, but we're the undisputed autocratic leader of Mediterrania, and our words are backed with nuclear weapons.

Some closing thoughts and suggestions for the next game(s):

• I liked this map a lot and I'd be down to replay it, or an extension of it, with a different civ. I kind of want to play as Arabia at some point, but any civ is fine by me
• Or maybe a Large/Huge Shuffle map with random opponents so that we really don't know what to expect
• We've done a CV and fought hard for a DipV. Should we go for science or domination next then?
• Another option is a Time victory game with max turns set to 250-300. This is done in GOTM occasionally

Regarding rules:

• I liked No Bees.
  
• No worker steals from CSs is fine as well, and I'm willing to try a game with no workers steals at all. Or at least change it to this: worker steals allowed only after we've settled an expo. This way the AI can actually demand a city for peace when it thinks it's winning the war. Otherwise stealing workers is just another form of white peace abuse.
  
• GPT and lump sum gold from AIs is tricky to balance. Banning it altogether isn't a good solution I think, especially for warlike games where you need something to offset the army upkeep costs. And I think selling conquered cities can get a bit silly too. Any ideas? I was thinking about setting limits that scale with era, e.g. 10 gpt from other civilizations is allowed in ancient era, 20 in classical etc. It's easy to keep track of that if you just hover the cursor over gold in the top bar. @beetle said he'd rather play without such limits, but I haven't come up with anything better yet.

 

[beetle]

I was thinking about setting limits that scale with era, e.g. 10 gpt from other civilizations is allowed in ancient era, 20 in classical etc. It's easy to keep track of that if you just hover mouse over gold in the top bar.

That sounds simple enough for me! I would add: no selling singleton resources for 2 gpt.

 

[Nizef]

That sounds simple enough for me! I would add: no selling singleton resources for 2 gpt.

This is something I almost never do in my SP games. It is only when I am so low on gold that it will affect my science output, that I make these 1iron/horse for 2gpt. So that one I am definitely fine with.

What about Arabia on a Shuffle map next? I have rediscovered that map template and have had a few fun games recently. I guess Camels = DomV?

 

[raider980]

Arabia on Shuffle sounds good to me. Large map size would be fine but I don't know about Huge (especially for DomV). I don't really care for Time victory; mainly because I don't understand it and its difficult to calculate all those point values.

For the gpt rule, did we abandon that toward the end of our Mediterranean game? Or are there exceptions I wasn't aware of because we started getting gpt from the AI in several instances. And for the next game does the gpt limit apply across all Civs or is it a limit per Civ? So for example, in Ancient we can only get 10gpt from all sources? I'm guessing its all sources because I don't think an AI is going to give 10gpt in Ancient for anything.

 

[vadalaz]

I would add: no selling singleton resources for 2 gpt.

Sure. Let's say that 1 strategic resource = 1 gpt, so if we're selling 5 horses, we ask for 5 gpt.

What about Arabia on a Shuffle map next?

Sounds good to me as well

For the gpt rule, did we abandon that toward the end of our Mediterranean game? Or are there exceptions I wasn't aware of because we started getting gpt from the AI in several instances.

I thought we did it because it made little sense for us not to get any spoils of war after so many turns of fighting Dido.

So for example, in Ancient we can only get 10gpt from all sources? I'm guessing its all sources because I don't think an AI is going to give 10gpt in Ancient for anything.

Yeah, 10 gpt total from all sources. I was referring to this line specifically:

This is from T311 of this game. It calculates the total of all deals with the AIs, so eventhough we were getting a lot of gpt from selling cities, our total is only at +55 because we were paying the AIs quite a lot as well.

 

[beetle]

Arabia on Shuffle aiming for DOM is fine with em. @Nizef could you point me to post(s) where you describe why Shuffle turns out to be quite interesting? I did not grok the appeal from my first read.

Here’s our rules as I understand them:

• No Bees: No bribing AIs into war. No bulbing GMu and GS.
• No negotiating peace: Peace deals must be accepted as-is.
• No early working stealing: Can DoW AI for worker only after 1st expo planted. No DoWing CS just to steal worker(s).
• No abusing gpt trades: Accept the default offer for resources (typically 1 gpt per resource).
• Cap on net total gpt from AIs at 10 gpt per era. Exceptions made on occasion to accept peace offers from AI.

 

[Nizef]

You could try out EDGE#143 and #144 (and soon to come #145). They are indeed very different and you have no idea what is waiting for you. The risk for the intended Camel rush, might be if we get a very watery map (Archipelago style).

 

[vadalaz]

I've started rerolling maps, I'll post a new thread when I have 3-4 to choose from. You can usually identify an islands map by the starting location, so I don't think this will be a problem. I'm looking for a desert-heavy start, preferrably coastal, with a backup pantheon option, decent food and production. So this might take a while.

Regarding rules, I guess we'll just have to see how the game goes and adjust some things if problems arise.

 

[beetle]

Regarding rules, I guess we'll just have to see how the game goes and adjust some things if problems arise.

For sure, I just thought the recap would be helpful. I forgot one though: No buying one-way-OB.

 

[raider980]

I was just playing around checking out shuffle maps and I rolled this. Pretty good; no sea resources for food though.

Spoiler Arabia :

 

[Nizef]

I was just playing around checking out shuffle maps and I rolled this. Pretty good; no sea resources for food though.

Spoiler Arabia :

View attachment 597936

Was this a large map? Camels do not eat fish anyway and the start looks great, but of course it all depends on what possibilities there are in the vicinity.

 

[beetle]

Nice looking start @raider980!

 

[raider980]

Was this a large map?

Yep, its large.