Open Role Play Challenge: Atlantis!

[dalamb]

original faulty plan 4000 - 1320 BC
revised plan 4000-1640 BC
1640 BC - 620 AD
620-1180 AD

Working towards a cultural win, I've finally reached the point where I can calculate how much longer it will take.

Spoiler :

With the 7 Great Artists I have, and 1 more I can expect to get, and with switching to Free Speech, and running 100% culture, it'll take 74 turns; I'm at turn 241 out of 500 now. Unfortunately about 1 turn in 4 has to run at 100% gold to make up for the money lost at 100% culture, so that would seem to mean it'll be about 104 turns instead. I'm running Mercantilism; I think I need to trade for Astronomy with Saladin or Justinian, give up on the Colossos income, and hope for overseas trade to raise my commerce rate enough to make a difference.

I'm 5 turns from Combustion, the last tech from the list I discussed with JTMacc99, which will get my monopoly on oil (and thus destroyers), which should protect me from whoever might choose to invade. I wasn't sure about going off to find the AIs, but decided I wanted the extra movement for my destroyers, so in 1420 AD I traded Shaka's map for some cash, and:


I'm in about the middle of the pack with regard to power, but expect to start climbing that my production cities have nothing worth building besides units; some of them also have decent commerce, so I built banks and unversities in them previously.

The unknown is Shaka; I'll need to spend a few turns at 100% espionage to figure out how well he's doing. He does have the highest score:


I may be in danger of a cultural win by Saladin; he's ahead of me in his best city, but I'm ahead in the others, and "100+" for the culture-per-turn rate isn't all that informative; I'm at 500+ when running 100% culture. I'm not sure how safe I am from someone else' diplomatic or space win on Noble, but I don't think I can win any other VC than cultural at this point. Tokugawa is a little ahead of me on score, likely from conquests -- I've seen a few war announcements, though I haven't paid a lot of attention to them. From the VC screen and guessing about relative distances, I can guess that Shaka is ahead of Toku.


I'm doing OK on manufacturing compared to the others; the recent drop is from building culture in my legendary cities.

Edit: slight backup

Spoiler :

Shaka and Isabella, who are both each others' worst enemies, DoW'd me on the same turn, 1848. I backed up to 1814 to do some trading a little earlier than I previously did -- rifling from Justinian, so I could build better defences -- and focused on getting Combustion faster than I'd done before.

I got an offer of a defensive pact from Saladin. Nobody seems to be worse than Cautious with him, so he doesn't seem likely to drag me into any new wars. I wondered if we were allowed to accept such pacts, but I suppose I can always support him with my destroyers even if I can't send troops.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

@ De Lamb

Spoiler :

Defending with Destroyers is the way to go, look at my game, that will giver you an idea of how to set up a sentry picket line, 5 tiles apart diagonally and Horizontally.

I made mine 2 deep, so 5 out from coast, 5 to sentry point 2, and keep a stack of Destroyers forward on the most likely lines of attack.

I was able to fight Shaka, from Mia Bella's lands, with a sight promoted Frigate or Galleon, you can see them coming and pick them off.

 

[JTMacc99]

@ De Lamb

Spoiler :

Defending with Destroyers is the way to go, look at my game, that will giver you an idea of how to set up a sentry picket line, 5 tiles apart diagonally and Horizontally.

I made mine 2 deep, so 5 out from coast, 5 to sentry point 2, and keep a stack of Destroyers forward on the most likely lines of attack.

I was able to fight Shaka, from Mia Bella's lands, with a sight promoted Frigate or Galleon, you can see them coming and pick them off.

Spoiler :

Also, if you build enough of them, eventually your power rating gets nice and high to the point where even Shaka stopped declaring war on me.

 

[dalamb]

@IPEX,JTMacc99:

Spoiler :

If I understand the War Weariness mechanics, isn't it better to kill the enemy ships inside your own cultural borders? I did build enough destroyers in time, the second time through, to fend off two stacks of Shaka's invaders, but may need a few more.

On the other hand, Shaka "protected" his galleons with large stacks of caravels; I had to chew through all of those before getting to the invading troops, so they got quite close to landing. I don't understand why that was possible: caravels are strength 3, galleons 4, so why didn't his stack defend with the stronger galleons? Is there some special mercy that troop-carrying galleons get attacked last?

After taking its one attack, each destroyer moved to block someplace the galleons could have gone to land their troops, but if I'd had even one less destroyer he'd have managed to set foot on the holy soil of Atlantis -- which, if I read Mad's RPC correctly, is a no-no even aside from the tactical issues.

 

[JTMacc99]

@IPEX,JTMacc99:

Spoiler :

If I understand the War Weariness mechanics, isn't it better to kill the enemy ships inside your own cultural borders? I did build enough destroyers in time, the second time through, to fend off two stacks of Shaka's invaders, but may need a few more.

On the other hand, Shaka "protected" his galleons with large stacks of caravels; I had to chew through all of those before getting to the invading troops, so they got quite close to landing. I don't understand why that was possible: caravels are strength 3, galleons 4, so why didn't his stack defend with the stronger galleons? Is there some special mercy that troop-carrying galleons get attacked last?

After taking its one attack, each destroyer moved to block someplace the galleons could have gone to land their troops, but if I'd had even one less destroyer he'd have managed to set foot on the holy soil of Atlantis -- which, if I read Mad's RPC correctly, is a no-no even aside from the tactical issues.

Spoiler :

The caravels were probably promoted to be better defenders. I don't remember any specifics about them being better defenders than galleons for any other reason.

Speaking of promotions, you might want to consider picking up Military Science if you can. The Blitz promotion is hugely entertaining in this game. One Blitz destroyer can wipe out entire stacks.

You are probably right about war weariness, but in my game it wasn't too hard to remain at peace once I had the moat set up. It also didn't hurt that I started spamming battleships to keep the power rating up.

I admit, the destroyer moat was an unusual move, and in any other game, would be kind of stupid. However, in this game, it seemed true to the concept as well as eliminating the endless amount of repositioning ships to block off the surviving galleons. For me, it felt like a WWII ship shooting down the first 29 kamikaze attacks but still having the 30th one sneak through. By literally circling the island with destroyers, I put an end to that problem.

 

[Pluton]

@ De Lamb

Spoiler :

Defending with Destroyers is the way to go, look at my game, that will giver you an idea of how to set up a sentry picket line, 5 tiles apart diagonally and Horizontally.

I made mine 2 deep, so 5 out from coast, 5 to sentry point 2, and keep a stack of Destroyers forward on the most likely lines of attack.

I was able to fight Shaka, from Mia Bella's lands, with a sight promoted Frigate or Galleon, you can see them coming and pick them off.

Spoiler :

This defensive strategy was not sufficient for me. I tried a space victory and Shaka was the only one technical advanced enough to beat me.
I declared war myself to slow him down with war weariness, wasting hammers in ships and i used the destroyers more offensivly by blocking all of his coast cities.
This denies him traderoutes and working the sea (sea food!money! and therefore research) . With this methode , he will not send ships to your continent. He attacks your blockade with ironclads, which are meaner than frigates, but as HE attacks YOU,
it saves you the stress to hutn his ships.

In the end, it was not enough .. His spaceship launched 6 turns before mine
But the tactics is valid, it was only too late to use it on him.

 

[JTMacc99]

Spoiler :

This defensive strategy was not sufficient for me. I tried a space victory and Shaka was the only one technical advanced enough to beat me.
I declared war myself to slow him down with war weariness, wasting hammers in ships and i used the destroyers more offensivly by blocking all of his coast cities.
This denies him traderoutes and working the sea (sea food!money! and therefore research) . With this methode , he will not send ships to your continent. He attacks your blockade with ironclads, which are meaner than frigates, but as HE attacks YOU,
it saves you the stress to hutn his ships.

In the end, it was not enough .. His spaceship launched 6 turns before mine
But the tactics is valid, it was only too late to use it on him.

Spoiler :

In most of the games I've read through here, Space was going to be really hard, simply because one of the AI civs usually gained control of a lot of land. Taking the war to Shaka certainly seems like a better way to go about it once he's attempting to build a spaceship.

I have two thoughts on that. First, is it more efficient to sit in the coastal waters, where the ironclads can actually reach you but with the defensive bonus, or is it better to set up the blockades in ocean tiles?

Second, I was surprised how easilly I was able to take on a vassal once I declared war late in the game with nothing more than the intention of destroying ships with my battleships and submarines. Since my game didn't feature all of the other civs becoming vassals of either Shaka or Toku, I've been wondering what would have happened if I had declared war on all of the weaker civs once my navy-driven power rating got really high. I think it might have been possible to have won a diplo-mation victory, just by securing a lot of votes for myself without ever landing a troop on foreign soil.

 

[Pluton]

Spoiler :

In most of the games I've read through here, Space was going to be really hard, simply because one of the AI civs usually gained control of a lot of land. Taking the war to Shaka certainly seems like a better way to go about it once he's attempting to build a spaceship.

I have two thoughts on that. First, is it more efficient to sit in the coastal waters, where the ironclads can actually reach you but with the defensive bonus, or is it better to set up the blockades in ocean tiles?

Spoiler :

I recommend the coastal waters position. I created battlegroups consisting of 1 battleship & 2 Destroyers (against his airships, one with medic I promotion).

They hold a looooong time against him and ironclads against battleship (will nearly always defend) with the defense bonus even better odds as frigate against destroyer.

He may also continue to build frigate/galeons if he cannot reach you with irocnclads.

but... maybe you should allow that... to kill the land units aboard and also destroy the production of inland cities you cannot reach wiht that.

 

[Sian]

meh ... lost ...

with 15 turns to go before my space ship landed i declared on warmonger party to keep their naval stacks from attacking Religous party (slightly tricky since Genghis, which was the master over there had demanded Uranium from Shaka), which initially worked fine enough ... expect that i left a hole over at my capital which Isabella used to ship a crapload of units over to my lightly defended capital (see ... i didn't expect anyone from that direction and trusted my battleship moat), which had to be broken shortly for fighting off Genghis) ... even though i moved everything noncritical to my capital (including draftees) she captured it on turn 2 of the war with her

 

[dalamb]

original faulty plan 4000 - 1320 BC
revised plan 4000-1640 BC
1640 BC - 620 AD
620-1180 AD
1180 - 1822 AD

Grinding slowly toward a cultural victory. A few questions in red, on which I'd appreciate feedback.

Spoiler :

I've gone 100% culture and am building culture in my legendary cities; aside from diplomacy and possible invasions, I have to hit Enter 72 more times to win (plus a turn at 100% gold every 6 turns or so), unless somebody builds a spaceship first. Which seems entirely possible -- I'm way behind my original projection from my last post, because the military buildup slowed down culture-building and, I think, increased maintenance costs.


After that little hiccup that caused me to back up a bit and get destroyers built more quickly, I fought off invasions by Shaka, Izzy, and Ghengis, and eventually made peace with them all. As of 1884 I was ahead of everyone in power, but within a few turns my espionage ratio with a few of them dropped to the point where I can't see Shaka, Saladin, or Tokugawa. Should I build security bureaus in the non-legendary cities for the extra spy points, or just run 100% espionage for a couple of turns once in a while? Or just ignore the possibility of Shaka getting tough enough to try invading again, figuring I can kill him off with my destroyers?


All my cities are coastal, so I can continue to build destroyers in all of them, but I think my maintenance costs keep going up because of it. Should I disband old archers (and perhaps some of the mustketmen), leaving me with just riflemen and cannons? I have riflemen scattered around the coast to make enemy landings a bit harder, plus several in each city. Should I keep building destroyers? I currently have 28 divided between the east and west coasts, where all the invasions have arrived in the past; only 2 on the north coast and 1 on the south, guarding the seafood.

I think I have the right civics.

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

@ De Lamb

Spoiler :

Let the AI's have the espionage, nothing you can do anyway.

Disband all defenders except 1, Guard coast with Destroyers. Challenge is 'no foreign foot shall set foot on the fair soils of Atlantis'

Now take that as you will, never lose a city, never a foreign troop, never survive more than 1 turn.

1 defender/ city, guard sea routes with Destroyers, post out in overlaying layers to give sight 10-15 tiles out.

Civic's seem right. forward defense and declare on AI stacks sailing towards you, they generally attack along set Vectors.

 

[dalamb]

original faulty plan 4000 - 1320 BC
revised plan 4000-1640 BC
1640 BC - 620 AD
620-1180 AD
1180 - 1822 AD
1822-1902 AD

Spoiler :

I followed IPEX' advice, which reduced my military to a single spy and rifleman in each city, plus all the destroyers; as a result, while building wealth in non-legendary cities, I had positive gold at 100% culture. It took me about 40 minutes to hit ENTER 72 times, interspersed with a little bit of fighting off Shaka's hopeless invasions.

Unfortunately, late cultural wins on Noble don't impress the fans:


Several of the others were significantly ahead in score and power:

Spoiler 1972 score :

Spoiler 1972 power :

It occurs to me that the power graph is highly misleading, since nobody could match my destroyers and they had no way to reach me overland. Eventually somebody might have achieved nuclear power and built a stronger navy, but right at the end Shaka and Tokugawa's power was meaningless.

A couple of minor highlights:

Uruk went legendary 6 turns ahead of the others instead of the expected 5:




And I managed two of these by the end, having traded with someone - Izzy, I think - for Military Science:


Unfortunately Shaka wasn't sending stacks, and I only managed a maximum of 2 kills in one turn with one of the blitz destroyers; killing off a major stack would have been a spot of fun amidst the tedium.

Personal evaluation:

Spoiler :

I made several significant mistakes, the main one being: miscalculating culture rates, so that I thought Kish would be a legendary city instead of Uruk. I settled a GG and built the Heroic Epic in Uruk, when they should have gone to Kish. If I'd been able to save two of the 4 art bombs that went to Uruk, one for each of the other two legendary cities, I'd likely have finished earlier. I know how to write a better culture calculator, but have been a bit lazy about it.

This is only my 6th win at Noble, though, so probably I shouldn't feel too bad; a win is a win.

 

[JTMacc99]

Unfortunately, late cultural wins on Noble don't impress the fans:

Heh-heh-heh! No, not really. Not to mention we had no real way to pump up the score-boosting population to something more impressive. A win is a win.

 

[Killroyan]

In my culture games I am usually running a load of artists and have propably a state religion with UoS and Sistine. In that case the optimal civics are in my book rep/FS/Caste/merc/pacifism. Representation in a small empire is a big boost for as well as beakers. FS is a no brainer. Caste if I have enough food (emancipation if you are starting to get to many ) Mercantalism for the extra artist is never bad and pacifism for 2-3 artists extra.

 

[Bruceleet]

First post since lurking since I thought it was a funny RPC concept. Playing at Emperor/Epic, have only played civ for 2 or 3 months tho so not that great altho I did read up alot.

Spoiler :

I build GLH, GP and GL which helps alot with my high food SE economy. Running alot of science specialists in most city's. When i finally met the other civs I found shaka had completely dominated his continent with both toku and genghis as vassals (toku just broke loose with 3 cities). The holyland is evenly divided with everyone DPing eachother.

I won lib race and got most GreatPeople techs first (Music, Physics, Communism and Economics). It's 1605 AD now and I'm nearly done building watermills over all my riverside farms, that along with levee's makes my production pretty insane in most cities. Izzy declared on me however she chose the perfect time, since I just signed a DP with saladin and I had been pushing out Frigates from 4 or 5 cities non stop to up my power rating. She send 4 Caravels to escort around 8-10 Galleons full of troops which all got sank since they ended turn right besides one of my 15 big stacks of frigates with the other one also in range. Downed those then quit for now since I have some RL stuff to attend to.

I have a decent 3-4 tech lead on justian and the rest are pretty backward especially the warmongers.

Like most others all my cities are defended by warriors or a single longbow. Tactic was stop em at see no need for land troops, that way even tho I'm about about half the power of everyone since my power is all navy I can keep them off my precious Atlantis!

Sidenote haven't seen any barbs except 1 galley and animals, spawnbusting really is a big advantage on isolated starts.

 

[MadmanAtW]

No screenshots, but quick summary- I lost. Or at least I stopped playing.

Spoiler :

Was first to circumnavigate, got Liberalism and took Astronomy, had a fleet of galleons. Spain declares, I beat up a lot of caravels with my galleons. Then I see a huge stack of Saladin's approaching. For some reason the galleons in that stack decide to chase my lone galleon sitting off spain's coast blocking trade, so I manage to get them about 5 turns away before they turn around, and I knock them out. Then Spain re-decs (pretty much immediately after the peace wore off). At this point I have frigates and am most of the way to ships of the line. Spain somehow in those 10 turns skipped from caravels all the way to frigs, which is mildly problematic. Unfortunately my ships are just slightly out of position from fighting Saladin, and Spain manages to land 10 Knights and 2 'pults on my soil. At this point I just said screw it and quit out- my land defenses are near nil.

My gameplay was somewhat unfocused. I planted 9 cities so I could go cultural, and I founded Taoism and Islam to get two of the cathedrals from them. But, I also had a pretty large tech lead (playing Monarch), so I didn't want to bail on the science and I wanted to leave the space victory as an option. Another mistake was choosing my best three cultural cities at the time as my "win" cities... only later realizing that choosing three cities that overlap their BFCs means they're all slightly gimped. Much better off had I taken a slightly more behind city elsewhere on the island just so it could at least use all the resources available to it.

Also, never managed to spawn a prophet despite building ankor wat and pressing that city hard to produce them. 85% chance of prophet, got a GEng.

I did have the Sistine.

I probably could have recovered from the landing with time- would have lost 4 of my cities but could have maybe taken them back. But I needed an excuse to call it a day and get something else done.

 

[dalamb]

pacifism for 2-3 artists extra.

I switched out of Pacifism to Free Religion once I made contact with the AIs. Without doing that I figure that first invasion would have come a lot sooner, and I barely got Combustion and destroyers in time to hold off the galleons (and, later, frigates).

Did the rest of the culture-mongers this game keep their state religion post-contact, or take the coward's way out like me?

 

[Fish Man]

Wow, what an amazing game! Certainly unique, and I did not expect the AI to be this competent at naval invasions. Good thing I started spamming infantry once I got assembly line because I looked through these posts and received plenty of warning on Shaka. For the record, I played on prince, so I guess things were a bit easier, but even so I'd say prince in IV is about as hard as immortal in V BNW.

Started out with the usual REX and spammed wonders. Missed the Mausoleum but got everything else; I whipped generously to make sure of that. Rushed U of Sankore, Spiral Minaret, and Taj Mahal with GE that I got, which saved a good cumulative ~100 turns of production. OP was very cruel to start us out without any marble, stone, or copper...

I won turn 311 culture victory without ever touching the culture slider. My legendary cities were Uruk, Eridu, and Lagash. Shaka, as expected, attacked multiple times. The first time I easily destroyed his war elephants with infantry; the second time, I barely held out against cavalry spam (at one point my cap killed a stack with 2 infantry left in it, each at ~1.5 hp). Still, it was all over once I got destroyers. Founded 3 religions (Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam) which helped immensely with gold and culture.

My tech path was AH then sailing, and I got code of laws with Oracle, reaching medieval by 1AD and liberalism by ~1120 AD, which I got nationalism with. From there I beelined straight to radio for Broadway, Rock'n'Roll, and Eiffel.

Attached are pics with legendary cities a couple turns before win and an overhead view of my 7-city empire after the victory (for the record, I got the second silver near Lagash in a random event).

This is my first time winning a culture victory in IV and 3rd victory ever in IV, so given the circumstances I don't think I did too badly. Being able to turtle for 3/4 of the game was a welcome change to the early war(s) required in many IV games. Again, thanks OP for posting this; had loads of fun!