RBD7 SG - Cuban Isolationists

[Sirian]

We won! Weeeeeeeee... WONNNNNNNNN!!!

Haha, not bad for being born on a snowball.

Castro the Magnificent!!! Hot dang, not bad for first real emperor game! The score is just a touch behind rbd1, a good bit behind rbd2, and higher than almost all of my solo games.

Yep, much higher score than I expected. The thing is, we would NOT have gone up in score, I believe, but down, with more time. We have had this much territory most of the game. We actually finished early enough (almost 200 turns to go to 2050) to get some bonus points for early finish.

I checked my high score panel, this game comes in 7th out of 17 finishes. Here's a picture and a list of the games I've finished, the top ten, plus the rest assembled with screwy numbers due to paste job.

1) Apolyton Tournament 5 - earliest submitted finish
2) RBD SG2
3) Rumble in the Jungle - First Emperor Game in 1.16f
4) Emperor of France - First Emperor Game ever, 1.07f
5) Apolyton Tournament 2 - highest submitted score
6) RBD SG1
7) RBD SG7 - CUBAN ICEOLATIONISTS
8) A Harsh People (3rd game ever for me, and a mega comeback)
9) Apolyton Tournament 3 - 3rd earliest finish
10) LK7 SG (my first game ever below Monarch -- and my last such too!)
11) Apolyton Tournament 4 - earliest conquest
12) First World - my first ever game of Civ3, lost the space race in 1995 by just a couple turns.
13) First Game in 1.16f - free settler from hut in 3900, most crushing victory, retired early. Boring.
14) Last Game in 1.07f for me, retired to upgrade to 1.16f
15) My OCC victory.
16) 2nd-ever game, never finished, retired when I patched to 1.16f.
17) Rumble in the Jungle II - a most heinous start I could not pull out, first game in 1.17f

I've also have maybe a dozen game starts that got abandoned for various reasons. Not being what I considered either sure wins or sure losses, nor even whole efforts, I did not retire and record them.

I have a few games still in progress, such as my solo Builders and Infantry games, and some nonvariant Emperor games.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Charis: well, that was much fun. I think the windfall of nabbing the Great Library unexpectedly, then getting a whopping 18 techs from it after sitting around for about 1500 years waiting and waiting, made the most difference. If we had had to claw our way up like the Iros and Russians did, we might have had more problems.

Watching the replay, I was surprised at how little real action there was, with all that warmongering. Rome lost one city on their continent, but got it back, and Egypt only ever managed to take and retake Kyoto several times, but no more. Iros were losing it at the end there, but the rest was all colonial squabbles, that I could see. China took over somebody's island near the end, but not a homeland. Other than England being conquered, it was a whole lot of hubbabaloo. Realistically speaking, that's just the kind of world where a diplomatic solution would make sense. Too bad in real life we can't just build the UN and declare victory.

The long turns are the main reason why I avoid huge maps. The huge maps can be a load of extra fun, but requires patience in the extreme. Helps to be listening to music in the background, or have something else to partially occupy your attention while waiting for the long process to complete. That's too much for a normal game. Large can bog a bit too, but is much more tolerable. Something about that jump to huge size just creams the AI. Like it has to calculate more pathfinding, and more complex paths, and once rails come online, and with so many units being checked, it just CRAWLS. Not good for most succession games. I had hoped that being isolated would help reduce that, but it didn't You think your 1.2G is bad, I suppose it must be markedly better than my Duron 600.

So yeah, as curious as I may be, I'll pass on the military epilogue. Still, but for the dragging delays, it would have been fun to try.


So... are you interested in another 2-man "while we're waiting on the regular RBD SG's we have something to pass the time with" variant events? Shall we go again? If so, at what? If we do, I want to start the next one, make SURE we don't move off the river.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

One more note:

In addition to being my first diplo win, and first isolationist game, this was also the first game I've played with:

* NO wars
* NO golden age

I think the only other game I've played without a great leader was my OCC. We never bothered to use the one in RBD1, but we got him. Hmm, there've been no leaders in RBD4 yet, but there's still time.


- Sirian

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Yay! Cuba saves the world from nasty vicious warmongering AIs!

Good game. Most instructive

 

[Ozymandous]

Great game fella's. Was a lot of fun to read about.

I downloaded and played the last save from Sirian and Charis was right, it was slllooooowwww.... Too bad on that however I was hoping you guys would play past the end and whip some butt with paratroopers, et al. Although I thought you could keep captured cities (just not build boats).

Look forward to reading another great game, and by the way Charis, you didn't have to give the other Civ's anything, you should have still won, at least that's what happened when the UN was built (after 30 minutes real time, ergh) in the game I played.

Thanks for the story!

 

[T-hawk]

I'd just like to comment on the irony about how absolutely pissed all we players get whenever some random minor AI happens upon the UN wonder and grabs a diplomatic victory, suddenly ending the game.... yet that's exactly what you two just did to the AIs here.

 

[sgrig]

Congratulations on your victory!!

Great game!

Inspired by this game, I started my own sp 'isolationist' game, but not as strict as yours. I just edited the starting locations so that I would end up on an average continent (on a very huge map 256x256) on my own. But I allowed myself to build ships and colonise nearby islands.

I built the Great Library, following your example, but unfortunately, no one was advanced enough to find me on my continent before I had to research Education...

I was surrounded by ocean so my little triremes kept sinking in search for intelligent life (only small rocky islands with lots of barbarians).

Judging from the wonders which the other civs were building, I was terribly behind in tech race.

The first contact was made when I just crossed into Industrial age!! By that time the AI tech lead has narrowed because I was in Republic all along and did not have any wars. Since I was rich enough I could buy all the techs which I ignored in Middle Ages (such as Chivalry - pointless, since I did not have horses, Music Theory - pointless since JS Bach was already built, etc).

Now however I'm frantically searching nearby islands for coal, since no other civ wants to sell me coal. So I've still got a long way to go.

 

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by T-hawk
I'd just like to comment on the irony about how absolutely pissed all we players get whenever some random minor AI happens upon the UN wonder and grabs a diplomatic victory, suddenly ending the game.... yet that's exactly what you two just did to the AIs here.

Ah, sorry, did you miss this part of Charis' post??

We were ranked first in approval rating and Literacy,
No.2 in GNP, Mfg Good, life expectancy, and ... Mil Service! Hehe.
No.3 in income and population (!) Score-wise, we actually shot up to second
slot behind China. 3326 vs their 4038. We could certainly of artifically
pumped that a lot higher. Our next nearest competetors were Greece at 2854
and Egypt at 2512.

Doesn't sound AT ALL like "Cuba" was a "random minor" Civ, especially when they were top 3 in virtually everything. Now if they had been dead LAST in everything then you might call the end of this game irony, but otherwise, this is simply a good ending to a great game.

 

[T-hawk]

Okay, the "random minor" part isn't accurate, but that isn't the point. The point is that it's a travesty of game design, an arbitrary random loss, better-off-disabling-diplo-victory when an AI suddenly ends a highly competitive game... but it's a glorious victory, triumph of ingenuity, hah-take-that-you-AIs when done by a human player.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar, really I'm not, but just wondering a bit at the logic involved here. IMO, the win was as unfairly cheap as when an AI does it. (Just the victory condition itself, mind you, not the conditions leading up to it, which involved some fine play and placed you in decent position to make a space race or score victory run. I just don't think you had actually won anything yet.)

 

[Sirian]

IMO, the win was as unfairly cheap as when an AI does it.

Who says the AI's are "unfairly cheap" if they can pull out the vote against you? If that happens, you screwed up. Period.

You have five ways of dealing with the diplomatic victory option:
1) Build the UN yourself. You control it, that's the best option.
2) Be the diplomatic prince of the game. If a majority of civs are in your favor, then even if someone else controls the UN, they won't dare hold a vote.
3) Win the game before the modern age arrives.
4) Prevent anyone else from obtaining the UN. Raze the cities where it's being built, or destroy it once it has been built. This is not an easy task and holds lots of risks, but is possible.
5) Disable the diplomatic option.

With all those choices, a player has nobody to blame but himself if he loses on the vote. Personally, it has never happened to me, and I have been in the situation where someone else built the UN. I wouldn't put Complaining That The Diplo Win Is Cheap as an item on the list of options for dealing with it.

Frankly, the reason this is the first time I've ever won by the vote is that, with my playstyle and leanings, I consider the vote a high risk contingency. You can't afford to have made lots of enemies, and rare is the game that goes by for me on Monarch/Emperor where I haven't gotten into some big wars, even though I go well out of my way not to stain my honorable diplomatic reputation. So I pick from the five options, and choices 1 and 3 are my priorities. Just one more thing to factor in to the game plan. There is always option 5, as well, so really... no use to calling it cheap. If you don't want to deal with it, turn it off. That simple, right?

If you want to call our game plan, performance, results, or anything else here, "cheap", that's your prerogative, but don't be surprised when Charis and I beg to differ. We played a rough difficulty level with impoverished lands and coasted to a handy victory. There's no doubt that we were the commanding diplomatic, scientific and financial power, could have handily beaten ANY other civ on the planet militarily IF WE SO CHOSE, stayed out of the fray of petty squabbles over irrelevant colonial lands, and were no slouch with our culture. I consider the result logical. The pen truly can be mightier than the sword.


- Sirian

 

[T-hawk]

Originally posted by Sirian

Who says the AI's are "unfairly cheap" if they can pull out the vote against you? If that happens, you screwed up. Period.


I've seen much complaining from other players about the diplomatic victory, and seems like the most common opinion is just to turn it off. I hadn't realized you weren't in that camp.

And notice I worded it "as unfairly cheap as" -- if you think it isn't unfairly cheap for the AI, then by extension I wasn't calling your win that either

FWIW, this entire game was definitely played in the *spirit* of the diplomatic victory by the winning civ, which is VERY rarely the case when an AI grabs the diplo win.

If you want to call our game plan, performance, results, or anything else here, "cheap", that's your prerogative,

I was trying to make it clear that I WASN'T doing that, in my last parenthetical comment. Should I invoke the old Lurker Lounge flames about "read the entire post before responding"? Nah, I'll just go ahead and compliment you again on a well-played game, with a truly astounding exploit of the Great Library.

 

[Charis]

Thanks T-hawk for the nice comments (I didn't take it as a flame, except on first skim). Diplo win, both for AI and for player really is an odd lot, eh?

I've never actually seen the AI snatch a diplo victory, although when enabled fear of it does move me to be sure to get the UN.
I think Firaxis did an excellent job of being sure the earlier cascade would NOT extend to the UN, making it a "yours if you want it" wonder.

If an AI was strong enough to secure the vote victory and did so without making enough enemies in the process, more power to it! I'm particularly pleased with a diplo win in our game for the following reasons:

- It was a goal from the start. Not a "ugh, we'll never win by conquest, space or culture, we better hope to snag a cheap diplo win"
- The trades, exacting attention to our offer prices offered, carefully avoiding taking or giving any map, took alot of work, and were executed in a way to maximize our diplo chances.
- Getting the Great Library was a shocker, but in reality came about from a very nicely executed infrastructure build order
- Getting the most *OUT OF* the Library, while not falling so far behind with nothing to build, also took some hard decisions on science rate
- Getting *18* techs out of the GL on one turn was in part, a very lucky stroke, but also could have easily been blown by not watching communications like a hawk, or failing to make contact with all civs in one turn, on our turn
- I've never even imagined getting 30K gold in one game, or being THIS dominant financially. This with ZERO luxuries on our island and a huge initial science deficit
- Despite being diplo and trade meisters, our island was impregnable militarily. Anyone who wanted a piece of us needed our permission to land (by removing the shoreline patrol), would have set off our GA, and would have resulted our unleashing about 10 other civs on them
- I've never had a victory with not a SINGLE combat with the AI
- Looking at the constant barrage of alliances and backstabs and leaders being called cheats, truly we were the one nation that anyone could trust, and could get not just a fair but a generous deal with
- Space victory was ours for the taking if we wished, or if not for our self-imposed restrictions, domination. (If this in doubt, think about what 30K gold would do in a tight space race with espionage, or what 30K would do for rapid development of an invasion force. Think of what it does for alliances -- with that cash and our rep, we can get ANYONE on our side against any other civ, that's huge). Diplo was just the most fitting, by far.

These points aren't counterpoint, per se, because no one's disagreeing But I did want to point out why I was so pleased with this particular game, and the fact that it was a diplomatic tour du force (more Swiss than even the Swiss!).

Thanks again,
Charis