The Pauper's Challenge

[DeAnno]

As of late the more and more I play the more I see one thing utterly dominates the difference between mediocre play and sharp play above all else, and that's abusing gpt deals with the AI. Selling Strategics is the poster child of course, but there are lots of other dumb things too, like selling embassies for 4gpt and buying back for 1gpt, or even selling luxes an AI doesn't need, and probably isn't WLTKDing off of. There's even the hilarity of selling your WC votes you would do anyway. This is especially annoying because I'm sure many will agree that executing these deals constantly is among the fussiest things in the game, constantly shopping around for prices in a zombie dance of clicks I'm sure everyone is familiar with.

Especially at high difficulty, gpt from the AI is often the majority of your gpt, and will usually fund most of your buildings to be invested and many more idle pursuits besides. It totally distorts the value of gold-producing anything, and also distorts the value of strategic resource tiles quite a bit. I'm sure that all of us think Merchants are by far the worst specialist outside of playing Venice, and that the main use of Banks is the science yield you can spam again and again.

This all brings me to the challenge, which is quite simple. In a Pauper's Challenge game, you may not accept Gold from the AI in the deal screen for any reason. Not as part of any deal, or peace treaty, or gift. Not even if the AI proposes it at you in between turns. You can't demand it as tribute either. Not flat gold or gpt.

You can use the deal screen in all other ways, accepting anything else you can make an AI give you. You can trade strategics for luxes for example. You can even give the AI gold, you can do that as much as you want. You're allowed to make DPs, DOFs, take Vassals, etc. You can basically use whatever other game settings or maps you like as long as they aren't dumb, and I'm explicitly saying you may turn off tech trading and use research agreements instead if that floats your boat.

I plan to Pauper's Challenge on Immortal for my next few games playing on the new patch (maybe downloaded tomorrow, hopefully on the first hotfix by then.) Maybe if it's too hard I'll even go down to Emperor. But I think it'll be an educational way to play the game, and could really be a different, less click-filled experience.

 

[Ranslee]

Will participate for sure, it's going to be interesting to see how much power is in arguably one of the least fun parts of the game.

I remember one time I got 120gpt for 8 horses in early industrial... why would you even build gold buildings

 

[Stalker0]

I remember one time I got 120gpt for 8 horses in early industrial... why would you even build gold buildings

sanctions

 

[Ranslee]

Haha - I mean, I still build them, but the bad state of Merchant Specialists and both of GM's abilities combined with easy of milking the gold from AI trades means that gold buildings are always very low priority.

 

[DeAnno]

After some painful fumbling, another thing I'm declaring allowed: Tile Buy Sciencing. You can save, then buy a tile and then look to see how that changed the highlight expansions of your city and/or the new tile buy prices. If you don't like the result you can reset. Try not to use this in situations where it reveals fog. The high value of gold simply makes it too punishing to need to play Russian Roulette with the arcane tile expansion system.

 

[azum4roll]

I've always played this game trading fairly with the AI (always underselling and overbuying), e.g. if AI values the luxury I want to buy at 201, I have to pay 5 GPT for it. Not as extreme as to not sell luxuries to happy civs though (they really shouldn't be buying luxuries they don't need).

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Interesting challenge, looking forward to seeing people's results. I already try to play "fairly" with the AI when it comes to trading, for example I'll pay the same for embassies as I'll get, I'll sell my horses for more if the AI doesn't have any and for less if it has a few horses, I'll trade lux-for-lux if I want a luxury instead of buying theirs for 2gpt and not selling mine even when they ask (to deny them happiness and WLTKD).

 

[CrazyG]

I'm doing this on my current game. By turn 60 it already makes a big impact.

 

[DeAnno]

I played a couple different quick starts to get an idea what was going on before settling and trying seriously. My big initial impression is Workers feel surprisingly bad, worse than I expected. It makes sense because each lux/strategic is effectively making 4 gpt less at minimum, but it really made Progress starts a bit laughable even with the bonus gpt on the policy.

Another thing is that despite not using many workers, you're really more at the whims of the barbarian spawns/political situation than usual because pumping out an early military of size really ruins your income in a way that can be hard to dig out of.

Also, getting lux for lux trades is surprisingly tricky, the AI often trades it surplus away the instant it gets it and usually not to you.

 

[CrazyG]

Also, getting lux for lux trades is surprisingly tricky, the AI often trades it surplus away the instant it gets it and usually not to you.

I find trying to buy an AI lux when they connect it but before some other AI buys it to be an act of reflexes.

However in my game AI will trade luxes they have only 1 copy of for a lux + embassy.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright I'm going for the challenge! I'm dropping back to Emperor for this one, hehe tired of losing on Immortal under normal circumstances let alone a challenge, so lets see how this goes!

Update: hehe so I may have to go back up to Immortal, playing on Emperor after you have actually won a Deity game feels a little like kicking a puppy. Its actually interesting to note the lack of "confidence" in Emperor play comparatively. In Immortal the AI will just move their army force and stomp all who dare oppose it, on emperor I have an enemy legion actually skittish around a group of cbows doing 6 dmg a shot to it. Its like the emperor Ai doesn't believe it can do it

 

[DeAnno]

Update: hehe so I may have to go back up to Immortal, playing on Emperor after you have actually won a Deity game feels a little like kicking a puppy.

Yeah, from my experiments so far I don't think the Challenge is worth quite a full difficulty level, especially since you can do some things with your luxes and strategics which are rather less efficient than making money but better than nothing. For example if you have need for either horses or iron its sometimes possible to trade one for the other at not ruinous exchange rates. I had a Immortal tall game going at Industrial where I was pretty solidly second, and have also played some Deity games where I was getting wrecked. Probably Ill settle on Immortal.

 

[CrazyG]

Lost my challenge haha.

It probably cost me more than 1,000 gold within the first 100 turns and I had no use for the horses anyways, so a significant increase in difficulty but ulitmately I think I lost due to a tough map. I was USA on terrain with a lot of mountains, and my neighbor was the Inca, I just couldn't deal with his ranged units on the mountains.

 

[Stalker0]

Lost my challenge haha.

It probably cost me more than 1,000 gold within the first 100 turns and I had no use for the horses anyways, so a significant increase in difficulty but ulitmately I think I lost due to a tough map. I was USA on terrain with a lot of mountains, and my neighbor was the Inca, I just couldn't deal with his ranged units on the mountains.

hehe I'm on my way.

Spoiler :

Holy crap! Russia actually peaced out (that feels like a bug no way they should have let that go imo). So I get a chance to citadel up, might survive this one afterall!

 

[CrazyG]

I'm in the middle of a second game with this challenge in place. I'm really glad this was proposed, as I'm enjoying the game a lot more. I've also made a house rule against bullying city-states in the period where I have 1 warrior and 1 pathfinder because it's just so stupid.

Here are some observations:

• I actually built a farm connecting horses because food was light. Wouldn't even remotely consider that normally. This also felt nice because I realized that if those horses were a cow instead, I wouldn't be cursing the start under my breath.
• I'm turning ancient ruins back on. Without the possibility of getting gold, buying a worker and immediately selling the resources connected, ruins are a lot more balanced. They introduce a lot of variety too, for example: Pyramids and Stonehenge can get built early if the AI gets their tech from a ruin. They also provide a reason to actually scout rather than just harass city-states.
  
• My military is much more diverse. I'm using melee and ranged cavalry. Normally I build 0 of those units ever in defensive armies.
  
• Religion is delayed, I couldn't invest in shrines. I consider this a positive.
  
• I considered a much wider range of beliefs. Thrift is actually appealing.
• Food is indirectly a lot better because I consider external trade routes much more heavily. I strongly considered food from religion.
• Growth is stronger because many of the good-not great tiles (like sheep) yield gold. I can't remember the last time I gave a damn about connecting sheep, normally they are just +1 food to a great person tile.
• Just as a test if I sell all the embassies/horses/iron/luxuries I have on the turn I got my religion. I can earn up to 65 gold. If you spread the sales out over a few turns I think that would get higher. I only have 8 positive gold per turn without that.

I do want to note a few negatives:

• Later-cities are much worse. I don't have the gold to invest in many buildings.
• Roads add up, and without progress I'd easily be in the red. I have tutelary gods for 2 gold per city and I'm still barely positive.
  
• I'm unable to buy a luxury from the AI using cash, though this is saved because apparently my embassy is worth more than a luxury to them.

I think the negatives show that when gold from AI is zero, problems do emerge. But overall this is an improvement for me.

Moderator Action: Post edited to remove inappropriate language. Please keep your word choices family friendly. - Recursive

 

[DeAnno]

After some experimentation it isn't surprising but Carthage is probably the best civ not named England for this, it's not even just the free gold it's the early lighthouses and how they let you work the water tiles for more gold and get city connections for more gold and not pay for roads. Also I remember years ago when I used to play Carthage more the AI was really intent on getting the Commerce Pantheon, that changed bigtime since then and it's usually available now.

Carthage even helps with the really heavy barbs that intermittently come up this patch, you can use the starting gold bonus to buy a T0 warrior and be able to fight them right away instead of letting them build up and become a bigger issue.

I've also got in the habit for trading a single strategic for a lux whenever the deal comes up, it's not as good as strategic for tons of gold but also way less degenerate and still feels like getting value.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

I will experiment going with The Aztecs on this one, give me luck

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Doing the oposite experiment - putting more efforts in my negociations - I notice the value given by the AI to world map is insane.

 

[kawyua]

Reading through this challenge is quite funny.
Abusing Gpt deals mostly comes from the mechanic about "acceptable range". The player is incentivized to make consecutive small trades because of the flat acceptable range for each trade deal. This coincided with the fact that AI has a flat cap of +2gpt to stop trades which is NOT good enough especially in volatile early game economies and warring. A player can debilitate an ai economy by getting all their gpt down to 2 while in early game/they are going to war to bankrupt them.

I get really frustrated with this "acceptable range" trying to play in quick speed because its like at the same amount of like +49 being the acceptable range which is the same for ALL game speeds. This means that this "acceptable range" is HUGE for quick speed. A big pet peeve of mine is that despite having perfect information on, this "acceptable range" obfuscates the trade value going on, so I have to constantly to go through the motions of calculating trading breakpoints.

Both of these mechanics about trading with ai is why any discussion about "changing the price of strategics/luxuries" not hold much weight. Its also an especially mind numbing thing to have to deal with especially towards the later half of the game.