Von Münchhausen III

[NotSure]

Wait, what did I say Goz? For the life of me, I can't figure out what you're referring to. I hope I didn't come across like I was criticizing something you did in your sets. Are you talking about my suggestion to put a citizen on the mine in that one city? If so, I was just making a suggestion - no criticism intended.

I definitely don't expect someone to follow my all of my advise, or all of anyone's advice really. It's just my opinion that we have enough science lined up to hit Globalization and that we might get more out of wealth. If Grandad puts our production on research, then so be it. That's why I like playing these group games. Everybody plays the game differently and it's interesting to see the results.

We have a safe deal with all the CS's, only the AI putting in more money into them can stop that.

Again, don't get mad at me brother! I just don't agree with this. I've seen backwards and long defeated civs pull a successful coup with long odds and take all of my influence away in one turn. You could be right, and they all may be focusing on another VC by now, but I'm just telling you what I've seen. I'm good with whatever Grandad and the group decides to do though.

 

[grandad1982]

So the way I saw it was to put the cities on wealth for maybe this set and some of the next but get them switched over to boost our research 8 turns prior to any GSci bulb.

I hadn't noticed about the temple in the southern cities. I may consider buying them rather than the public school. I would like to get 2 GP from faith buying by the end of the game (GEng a priority).

I'm kind of with NotSure on getting a stack of gold for CSs once we build the UN. it would be VERY annoying if we had to go through more than one vote cycle.

When I looked at the save I did plan some citizen tile swaps to work different tiles, leaving the 2 Old Faithful for a 3 spec slot being one of those moves.

 

[gozpel]

Wait, what did I say Goz? For the life of me, I can't figure out what you're referring to. I hope I didn't come across like I was criticizing something you did in your sets. Are you talking about my suggestion to put a citizen on the mine in that one city? If so, I was just making a suggestion - no criticism intended.

I definitely don't expect someone to follow my all of my advise, or all of anyone's advice really. It's just my opinion that we have enough science lined up to hit Globalization and that we might get more out of wealth. If Grandad puts our production on research, then so be it. That's why I like playing these group games. Everybody plays the game differently and it's interesting to see the results.


Again, don't get mad at me brother! I just don't agree with this. I've seen backwards and long defeated civs pull a successful coup with long odds and take all of my influence away in one turn. You could be right, and they all may be focusing on another VC by now, but I'm just telling you what I've seen. I'm good with whatever Grandad and the group decides to do though.

I didn't yell at you, I agreed that IF you want to use a mine instead of getting more pop, I'm happy with that! I should use smilies more often.

I'm not really fussed if we choose research or gold, I'm just trying to help poor Optional from not playing another turnset Still, we're making enough gpt as is now, maybe a check on what choice will be the better one, like putting all cities on wealth/research? If we gain just a mediocre return on wealth, then I don't see why we wouldn't pick research instead. And IF we get heaps of extra gpt by building wealth, then I'll back down.

 

[Optional]

Notsure: If you want a building done early, by sacrificing growth, do it! It's not like our science will improve hugely if you get another citizen in that town. If you read my reports, I do that a LOT! It means the city could be bigger, but instead we got that building 3-4 turns earlier, which will benefit the city to the end of time.

You're underestimating citizens, it's just the other way around! Although at this point in the game it's fine to stifle growth; we're close to the end, but earlier in the game growth should be a first priority. Buildings are nothing without citizens, but citizens can do a fair deal without the help of buildings.
As a rule population should always come first. We could have had a lot more population right now.
I'm not always keeping a check on it, but in the 190 - 200 turn set I played we gained 7 citizens, but in the 3 turn sets after that together we only gained 11. There's no reason why that couldn't have been 21, there were even more WLTK days going on.
10 more citizens, boosted by libraries, universities and an occasional observatory or research lab would have meant a nice bit of extra research.
The team normally puts lots of scientists in slots with an eye on the next RA's maturing, but that just helps the next couple of RA's. In the long run more citizens are better. Then when you're near the end you can fill all specialist slots up, as there won't be much time for new citizens anymore (in my last set I left all the specialists in their slots, but not before).
The role of spies makes it even more dubious to emphasize research at the cost of growth when you're still mid game or so, because techs can be stolen; spies offer a huge compensation for being behind a bit in mid game.
To work mines instead of farms to get a university some 3 or 4 turns earlier seems like bad policy to me. A uni that got built a few turns slower is still there at the end of the game. It will even be better if more citizens have been born in the meantime, as it's a multiplier building; it adds a percentage to what citizens are already making. The citizens come first.

The team doesn't have a good eye for multiplier effects. With WLTK days it's similar. It's good to give foody tiles to a town that's in a WLTK day, because it give a bonus % to food.
As an example; when Utique has a WLTK day, and Carthage doesn't, then give those fish tiles to Utique, to max the food bonus.
There are lots of free bonuses in the game, and this team as a rule ignores them. Like increasing CS bonuses when entering Medieval, or more money from camps when snapping up Economics. Those are good boosts that were held off by this team by not researching that way directly (or in the case of Economics not choosing it when Yzebel had it on offer). Also I didn't see any temples being built, even though we were up Religious Centre.

But to come back to the current save, I think the game will indeed not last very long anymore. 3 RA's still to mature and 2 scientist still to use should speed thing up quite a bit, although the techs are getting increasingly expensive.
I'm not expecting any sort of threat from the AI, but to have a bit of money on hand seems a good thing to me. I'm not thinking of more than a few 1000 or so, so I'm not thinking of any special efforts, just being a bit cautious with spending. The AI in this game doesn't seem at all equipped to give us a bidding war, but a few rigged elections and coups would be normal.

I'm okay with buying a public school in Gades, although the science return doesn't seem better than what we're getting from a CS. If the last screenshot shows we're getting 127.57 from CS's and we're allied with 10, then that would mean some 12 - 13 per CS. If pledging protection, rigging or completing a quest already nearly allies us with a CS, not a fortune is needed for an alliance. There's still a CS we're not allied with as yet - I think it's Budapest - so maybe spare some money for when we've rigged the election there, which would be in 5 turns.

Both military builds and putting towns on wealth isn't needed in my view - I think in both areas we're already doing fine. It's in the early game that I'm feeling this team always builds way too few units, and we're not even able to scout the map.
In my set I forgot about the putting towns on science option, otherwise I would have put at least Saguntum on that instead of going for an amphitheatre.

 

[NotSure]

I mostly agree with you about growth. After playing some games with the expansion, I'm pretty much convinced that Tradition is the best policy tree and should probably be completed immediately. The 15% additional growth is significant and if you stack it with other growth modifiers like Fertility Rites (10%) and Temple of Artemis (10%) you can pretty much do whatever you want in your cities and they still grow. The result is more of everything as long as you have the happiness. Both you and Goz made great trades to get us into WLTK days, which is even better than the Tradition closer I believe. That's something I don't do very well and one of the things I hope to do more often in my own games. Having said that, I still think assigning science specialists ASAP and producing as many GS as possible is the most effective (and yes, predictable and boring) strategy in the game. I think that we got unusually lucky with our spies in this game, which is great because I like to win.

I would love to see Liz attack us and I think she could easily screw up the game a little by wiping out some of our allied CS and/or snatching one of our cities. I don't think it's going to happen though. Maybe something regarding the AI weight for diplo balance (I assume this is the term to describe the AI concern for avoiding diplomatic isolation?) is what stops some of them from attacking when it seems to be in their best interest. Prior AI performance probably justifies slacking off on military upgrades and our treasury, but I'm not fond of that approach.

 

[gozpel]

Optional: I'm not underestimating population, I'm most likely overestimating buildings.

I agree with more pop, more than anything. But at times we sit on 4 happy, we can't just explode in pop at a time like that. So when someone sits on 4 happy and pop is to happen in 2 cities next turn, you just have to hold back for that turnset.

But generally, you're are right and I have nothing to say against your post.

It is correct that we've played somewhat sloppily, blended in with a gem here and there. A game like this needs focus from turn one, with precision order and all of that . Here we play as a sortof scattered team and do our best each turnset. And we're not doing it that bad. Maybe MadDjinn could show us our mistakes, he kills everything on Deity, seemingly everytime.

But we're are mere Emp/Imm-players that want to have fun and learn more.

I've learnt more from you Optional, than from any of the guides.

Same with the rest of the team, you taught me more than those guides. Because I'm playing along with you and new ideas appears.

Still, the bottleneck in a team-game is everyones preferencies on how to play. We can only stem that down by making certain decisions already at turn 0! I didn't play your first game, but second was sort of sloppy too.

By heart, I'm a builder and when it comes to my turn, I need to build something. Without clear orders or objections to my plan, I will build stuff! Of course not neglecting the overall picture, I build buildings and ignore military, but if it was set in stone: gozpel! -> create 3-4 more units NOW, then I think I would get the hint

To make a teamgame, without sloppiness is already a fail. Just let a robot run the game.

I wouldn't mind to participate in another game later on, but then we have to focus really hard on every citizen, which is the hated micro-managing. Where I was one of the kings in CIV3 in micro!

I do understand it, but ingame, it's not fun. I can do it, and you all can do it, but will it be fun?

 

[Optional]

Having said that, I still think assigning science specialists ASAP and producing as many GS as possible is the most effective (and yes, predictable and boring) strategy in the game.

The thing with putting a scientist in a slot at turn 100 is that the same single scientist is still sitting there at turn 200. Compare that with a citizen on a growth tile, doing 2 - 3 food. In 100 turns he'll have gathered 200 - 300 food, enough to spawn a couple more citizens. Make one of them a scientist if you wish.
What's stronger at turn 200; one scientist or a couple of citizens + a scientist? I know what I would choose!

I believe it's only happiness concerns that should make us stop growing. I think it's perfectly acceptable to occasionally buy a lux from the AI for money or to build a colosseum or other happiness building. That's something the team seems to shy away from, but if it supports expansion or growth I'm happy doing it. The extra citizens will pay back the expenses in time (unless you're expanding on the north pole, like Liz, that's not what I mean, I'm thinking more of a spot like Vijanagara, which remained available for a long time).

I think that we got unusually lucky with our spies in this game...

I take your word for it, although you also posted somewhere we didn't get caught, which isn't true; both Gandhi and Liz are still pissed off about us spying on them. Also one of our spies got killed in our only attempt of a coup, while the chance of success was 72%.
But we came to rely so much on spies because of a bad start. With a more normal start we wouldn't have fallen behind so much. I had no experience with island maps before this game, but I'm now convinced you should nearly always go straight to Optics and snap up those goody huts that are lying about everywhere. To not grab even a single tech from a goody hut isn't usual either, and we did that in this game.
In a more normal game you'll then still be behind somewhat; it's Immortal after all, but I rather catch up through expansion than through buildings. With expansion first you'll still get your buildings, just a little later, but with buildings first you won't get your expansion anymore, as the AI will have beaten you to the better locations.

It is correct that we've played somewhat sloppily...

I don't think that's something I have complained about. You'll probably even see sloppy things in Hall of Fame games. I certainly see sloppiness in my own sets. Why on earth did I start that road to Venice from our own side instead of from Venice's side? I should have started from their side, my approach ended up costing us a lot of unnecessary money in road maintenance because of the bottleneck situation there (I maybe still had CS's in mind before Gods & Kings, when they did their own bit, God knows what got into the patch team to get rid of that, but I certainly wasn't on the ball there).
Sloppiness is not what I'm complaining about, though. Most of the game I still also enjoyed, but the sheer division between the team and me is too big. Whether it's about units, buildings, religion, cultural policies, CS's or growth and expansion, I nearly always take the opposite approach from what this team is doing.
In a Domination game like Von Münchhausen II that was less of an issue, I think the focus of Domination is simply much clearer; there's the AI, those are their capitals, go out and grab them!
I've long wondered why in the Civ III forum Always War is such a popular number, but I think it's because of the same thing. It's very clear what needs to be done. It's always tight placement, towns on a hill if possible, military techs first, units first, Great Library a must. There's very little room for different opinions in Always War.
A Diplomatic game is much harder in that respect, as it's easy to start dithering about how to approach the game. In a way it would have helped if Liz had chosen to attack us at some point, as that would have given the team a much clearer objective for that moment.

Still, the bottleneck in a team-game is everyones preferencies on how to play. We can only stem that down by making certain decisions already at turn 0! I didn't play your first game, but second was sort of sloppy too.

Von Münchhausen II was played rather tight, in my opinion. Unless you're talking micro decisions, but I believe the major decisions about what to build, where to settle and when to attack were spot on. Except with social policies, with them we were awful in that game, never knowing what to do. Von Münchhausen I we played with Egypt on Emperor and we built nearly every wonder there is to build in the game. That's not the most effective way top go for Domination, but it wasn't too bad and we had fun with it.
In this game what also showed I think is a lack of experience with the chosen social policies. We were playing like we were up Liberty, which we weren't. And Religion was new for us, I think we played that very weakly. I don't mind that, because to learn about religion was one of my objectives to start this game, and I now know more about it, so I'm happy with that. I'm just not sure what other team members actually think about religion now, or our performance with it here. Religion would be worthy of a discussion of its own.
Our handling of Tradition was more disappointing for me, because I thought we would know those mechanics better by now.
CS's are still undervalued by this team, or maybe there's just not an active enough approach. Sometimes someone is putting 250 gold in a CS, so as not to lose influence, but I'm not seeing people scanning CS's for quests they've got going to get them on our side in the first place. The bonuses they give aren't miserable, and we were lucky in this game with the type of CS's we had closest to us; a few maritime ones, a couple of cultural ones and a religious one. None of them hostile, and they came with decent quests. It was good stuff, and they helped us big time. They're contributing a lot of growth, culture and science. Even in a non-Diplo game I would have been interested.

 

[Brichals]

Hi guys, I didn't chip in for a while. I liked Gozpels general scheme a few posts back, but I think however we play it we are in a good position now. I think we've done well even though we were a bit all over the place, and it will not be a super fast win but I never care about that (that's why I rarely do the GOTMs). We kept up with Liz who is a clear runaway, and that takes some doing.

I think to get better we have to fail on Deity until we can beat it. Immortal is allowing a looser playstyle, but imagine how difficult it would be to coordinate perfect micro and everything for a team to beat Deity.

 

[gozpel]

Optional, for CS money, I didn't spend much, maybe a little bit here and there only. And I spent more money on vital tiles, which is a bit silly when you think of it. But not so silly if you gain a resource.

When nothing really is ordered and stamped down as next turn, every player in this team go nilly-willy. So in the future, I hope there is one? We should discuss a bit more on what we want and how to use SP's properly. I admit I took Rationalism to gain us more beakers, which was a good move. Still by finishing the Tradition tree would've been better, maybe.

So as it is now, with scattered ideas of what is better, let's finish this game off. We are sitting in a position to just press enter until we win. So let's win this game.

We didn't have any warfare in this game, it's Immortal and usually someone attacks you, but we played very well diplomatically.

Brichals: If we play the next game on Deity and small map, we're are most likely dead before you get your turnset as number 4 But I like the challenge in it, maybe a standard map with 1-2 less AI's? Or would that make the existing AI's even stronger?

 

[grandad1982]

Hi. I've played. I've been pretty busy in the run up to christmas (as I'm sure we all have) hence the slow turn around. I'll get the report up today at some point and I'll also comment on all of the things about this gam,e you've been talking about regarding our team play etc.

 

[grandad1982]

PFT

I buy the Fur from Oda for 3 oil and 105 gold. Anything to speed us towards our next golden age.

Instead of buying a temple in games I decide to build it. it will only take 3 turns.

I spot an English battleship in Warwick. Not sure if anyone else had noticed them yet but thought I'd mention it.

1

IBT, Liz want to trade OB. I turn her down as I don't want her scouting our lands.

Tech, Atomic Theory > Penicillin

Spoiler :

We enter the Atomic era.

Spoiler :

Do we have uranium? No. Well nearly. Jerusalem will get some soon (hopefully) and there is some to our north.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Would it be worth dropping a junk city on the uranium between Hippo and Carthago? Its a 4 tile and the other is a 2 tile.

Liz has the only other uranium tile I can see. Its a 4 and already connected to her trade network.

Spoiler :

We gain a 4th spy who is sent to London to see what Liz is up to. She is still tech leader so if we get a steal then even better.

2

IBT, Oda buys our OB for 50

Our DoF with Oda runs its course so I resign it with him.

Carthage, research lab > Eiffel Tower. Rio wants it and more means we're nearer to that golden age we want.

3

IBT, Japan and Persia sign an RA. Liz calls us and is annoyed we are friends with oda.

Spoiler :

Gades, temple > wealth. I'm going wealth for the time being as every extra penny will help with CSs and upgrades. I intend to switch to science 8 turns before the GSci is born to max his beakers.

Utique, research lab > temple

4

IBT, Gandhi is pleased we DoFed with Japan.

Spoiler :

IBT, Liz wants us to resell her our Ivory. Go suck.

5

Jerusalem requests a road so I send our work to start on it.

Our spy learns that the English are building the Manhattan Project in London. It'll be ready in 3 turns...

Spoiler :

I resell our ivory to Darius for 1gpt and 209g.

Spoiler :

Utique, temple > great war bomber. These will be much better at attacking warships than fighters.

I move an iron clad and find a sub. How can we see this with the iron clad?

Spoiler :

We gift Budapest 1000 gold and ally them

Spoiler :

I upgrade our Frigates located near our main island. Better ready than dead!

Hmmm. Lots of screens for this turn!

6

IBT, America and Japan sign a peace deal. No cities changed hands as far as I can tell.

In Florence and Yerevan foreign spies make us lose influence!

Our spies rig elections in Warsaw, Budapest and Jakarta. It only gives us a disappointing amount of influence at about 20 apiece (I forgot to make a note last turn to see how much we earned).

I move a spy from one of the CS to another CS. I totally forgot to make a note of which cities they were though! I left the other spies in place. Were ever that place might be

Carthago public school > wealth.

7

IBT, Japan DoWs Yerevan! Bastard! I pay him off to make peace straight away as I want to avoid pissing anyone off with taking sides (Oda might vote for us).

Spoiler :

I don't think he was in a position to do much damage to be honest but as I said I wanted to avoid diplo spats.

8

IBT, Japan and India sign an RA. Nice to know Japan appreciated the money I gave them.

IBT, Liz finishes the Manhattan Project. Is he building nukes? Well not in London, she's building a police station instead.

Sag, Opera house > science. I also switch the wealth builds to science. I forgot that the extra sci spec in Utique would speed the GSci up and it is only 5 turns till its born. Just remember to give it 3 more turns after its born before you bulb. Thats if you care

9

IBT, we sell Persia our OB for 50g.

I notice Liz has rocket artillery.

Tech, Penicillin > Ecology.

Spoiler :

10

Nothing going on on this turn really so just the demo screen.

Spoiler :

Well I think I've played my last set as I suspect in NotSure's set we stand a good chance of getting Globalization and with a faith brought GEng the UN will take hardly any time at all.

The only things to say are remember to take Order with the SP and consider dropping a city on that Uranium. Once the GSci has been used I would think about going back to wealth building.

Before you spend money on CSs bear in mind that we are going to get some "free" influence with some of them soon (Rio, Jerusalem and maybe some others I can't recall).

The Save

 

[NotSure]

We can see Liz's subs because they're in shallow water. Japan and US are two of the absolute worst civs to be friends with because they seem to go out of their way to f-up diplomacy. Our relationships with these two has been very expensive. Nice set Grandad. Hopefully I'll get a chance to take a look at the save by tomorrow afternoon and get some feedback from the team so I can knock out my set before Christmas.

 

[Optional]

Good set! I've never seen any diplo negative for being allied to a CS that some civ is at war with. If they bully a CS they ask you where your true allegiance lies, and your answer will affect your relationship somewhere, but with a full-out war this is strange enough not the case.
I don't think we should be interested in uranium at all. An extra town would affect our happiness surplus and therefore our science. I like the happiness efforts in this set to maximise science and to time the next Golden Age with the building of the UN.
With some RA's to come in, hopefully we'll be a lot nearer to the finish line once NotSure set is in!

 

[NotSure]

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday! I had a chance to look at the save. I'll just post some things I noticed and what I intend to do with my set and wait a while for some input before I play.

You can skip this first paragraph, 'cause it's just me babbling. Anyway, the first thing I noticed was that Liz has Rocket Artillery in the city near our continent and it appears she's 7 techs ahead of us??!!! The good thing about the changes in the most recent patch is that now you can afford to keep some city state allies. In the games I played before the patch, most AI were taking in about 200-400 gold per turn at this point in the game and they'd continually bribe away my allies. The downside is that now they expand like crazy, build/buy ridiculously large military forces, and tech way too fast. I don't see why you would program a computer opponent to consistently win a 500-turn game in half that time, even on the hardest difficulties. I've played some Deity games - just to be able to say I did I suppose - but I won't do it anymore. It's just not fun. Immortal isn't much better. I win, but I don't enjoy it. Does that make any sense? Maybe it's just me.

Here's the way my set looks:
- A GS will be born in Utique in 2 turns.
- A RA will resolve in 2 turns (GW) and another in 9 turns (Darius).
- We have 3 cities converting production into research. The result is an additional 23 beakers per turn. If I change their production to wealth it amounts to 20 gold per turn. This surprised me because I assumed the converted gold/research would be multiplied by buildings in a city, but they are not. We have more gold multipliers (50%) in those three cities than research multipliers (33%). I still can't figure out why research conversion is more effective than gold conversion.
- We only have two Battleships. None of our Frigates have promotions. It seems it would more affordable to replace these ships than upgrade, especially if we're not converting production to gold.

This is what I intend to do:
- Leave the three cities converting research. I still don't think it's necessary, but 23 beakers per turn is somewhat significant, and it's clearly what the majority of the team wants.
- Build a Seaport in Hippo Regius when the Research Lab is completed.
- Build Battleships in Utique and Carthage. We have a 15% production bonus for building naval units in these cities and the Battleship is clearly the best unit we can build. The Battleship has 65. A GW Bomber on has 50. I could understand building some Fighters to counter Liz's Bomber build-up, but bombers are significantly inferior to Battleships.
- Bulb the GS on the last turn of my set (after the RA with Darius resolves) to complete Globalization. I'll bulb him sooner if it's clear that we can finish Globalization sooner.
- Refuse further RA proposals.
- Open Order as the next SP and faith-purchase one (or two if possible) Great Engineers.
- Finish the road to Jerusalem and keep an eye out for any other possible CS quests. I'll only dump gold into CS who give the "Public Works" quest or CS that are stolen by an AI.
- Queue tech path to Combustion after Globalization. This path includes Railroad, which I believe gives us a 25% production bonus in all cities except the capital.
- Mash the "Next Turn" button.

If anyone wants me to do something else, or doesn't want me to do something on my little list, please let me know soon. Thanks.

 

[grandad1982]

Yeah I noticed that Rocket arty on T9. I guess it might have been there earlier. The tech situation with Liz is another reason having a spy in London is nice.

I switched the cities to to get the max out of our GSci bulb. When the Gsci is born they will have only been on for 5 turns so if you want the max then leave the bulb for 3 more turns. Since you intend to leave it till the end of the set that won't be a problem.

I wouldn't change the tech path at all. We only have 2 (3?) techs to go so I see no benefit in adding more techs. If we finish the game sooner then the production boost from Combustion is irrelevant.

I also see no reason to build the seaport. It can't pay back the investment in the small amount of time the game has left to run.

I would make sure no CS drops form ally status as they are giving us a good wedge of our sciences.

Other than tjhat the plan seems sound to me.

 

[gozpel]

Well played again, grandad and no comments on your play. We're heading straight to victory!
Except that you pointed out Order as next SP, which I've been begging for. So we might get a Golden Age as we finish the game.

NotSure: Of course you can babble and I read every line you post, as I babble as well. Only one thing, we can buy a GSci anytime and still afford a GEngineer in 5 turns, when we pick Order. A GSci is 1000 faith, so buy him after we get the natural one from Utique in 2 turns, a first GEng shouldn't be more than 1000 faith either, and we have already over 2k faith saved up and 47 faith every turn. Another GSci in Carthage will be delayed, don't know if we'll get to him at all.

That should speed it up a little bit more.

Holidays came and went and things are still blurry

 

[NotSure]

I'll play in a couple of hours. Goz, I don't know if a GS will get us the win faster than two Great Engineers. I don't do diplomacy games very often, but I thought I remembered the UN being very expensive. I think I've tried to bulb the UN a couple of times with a GE, but the bulb only finishes about half of the production. I'll look at the numbers and see what's better.

I certainly didn't intend to change the tech path. I'm just going to queue the overflow after Globalization to go towards the techs that lead to Railroad and Combustion. It looks like the win is almost guaranteed, but we have to build the UN and wait ten turns. That's at least a few techs. Then there's always the chance that the AI actually does something to delay a win like attack us or attack or steal our city states. The plan for Hippo Regius, Utique and Carthage is really just insurance. I'd rather upgrade our Renaissance-Era navy with those cities than try to squeeze out a few more beakers or gold.

 

[NotSure]

Turn 261
- When I first looked at the save, I didn’t notice Japan had a Great Merchant camped out near Warsaw. It just hung out on Warsaw’s little island for a few turns and left. Strange.

Turn 262
- GW proposes we continue OB and we agree. Our GS is born in Utique. I tried shuffling some citizens around there to get some more production but the science specialists are worth about 6 beakers each – almost as much as the converted production from an entire city.

- Bomber finishes in Utique > Battleship.

Turn 263
- We have one turn left to complete the Eiffel tower, so of course… Darius completes the Eiffel Tower. We get 897 gold in compensation.

- The Research Lab finishes in Hippo Regius, which increases our BPT by 53. I’m kind of surprised at the buildings that our cities are missing. I don’t think it means anything more than proof that water tiles are painfully weak and coastal cities aren’t as good as they should be. Anyway, the only cities in our empire that have Seaports are Utique and Gades. Our capital doesn’t even have one. I put Hippo Regius on research conversion and started building a Battleship in Gades (previously on research conversion).

- Carthage goes from Eiffel Tower fail to Seaport.

Turn 264

Spoiler :

- Our RA with GW is complete (about 6 turns worth at our current pace).

- Elizabeth has entered the Information Era.

- I had a look inside London. Liz is building a Military Base there. We’ve already been caught spying there once and I believe we said we’d stop. London has a police station and constabulary. I think our odds of getting caught again are good and I think breaking a promise might give us universal diplomacy problems, so I’m going to move our spy. If that’s not a good enough reason, we’re losing influence rapidly with quite a few city states (thanks Gandhi) and another election is coming in six turns. Yerevan seemed like a good choice. It’s a hostile cultural CS. We only have 84 influence with them and I don't think we have any intention of completing the quest they gave us (spread religion).

- Two trades ended that I can’t renew. We can’t sell any more oil (3 oil to Darius ended) because apparently all, or nearly all, of our 31 oil is coming from city states. Gandhi is running a deficit now and cannot afford to by our ivory. I looked around and couldn’t find any takers.

Turn 265
- Budapest gave us a Conquistador. Maybe that explains some of the settlement spam in this game. That’s basically like getting free settlers on a map like this. Not much we can do with a medieval era unit now though.

Spoiler :

- Social Policy time. I took a look at which great persons would get us to the finish line fastest and this is what I came up with. The last RA gave us about 6 turns of research. The next one comes in four turns. The GS we have now should clear the rest of Globalization if I understand it right (last eight turns worth of research?). If I would have bought a GS with faith two turns ago, we’d still have had to wait until about t269 to clear Globalization. I decided to let the RA and one GS do the work. The UN costs 1,500 hammers. A GE bulb will give us 900 hammers in Carthage. The 600 hammers remaining would take us an additional eight or nine turns (we’ll be in a golden age in five turns, so we'll get an additional 20% bonus). We'll have some time to discuss this because it won’t happen until Goz’s turn set, but I’ll go on the record now in favor of using two Great Engineers.

Turn 266
- Carthage finishes Seaport > Battleship.

- Our ivory trade with GW ends. He’s earning about 250 GPT (probably in one of the 10 golden ages that the AI gets in every game), but he has nothing saved.

Turn 267
Comrade Oda

Spoiler :

- GW got enough gold and proposed we fire up the ivory deal again. He gave us 20 more gold than the last time though and raised the rate himself? Last deal was 4 GPT/94 gold and he offered 4 GPT/114 gold (which is the standard “friendly” rate I believe). Anyway… not much to talk about.

- Our DoF expired with Darius. I renewed it because I don’t want our RA to be a dud (I don’t know if this still happens, but it used to).

- We impressed Brussels with the culture that Brussels is giving us, so we gain 40 influence with them.

Turn 268
- Darius completed the Statue of Liberty. I was tempted to go for that or Christo Redentor as they were both CS quests, but had a strong suspicion Darius was going to snag those as well.

- Darius stole Yerevan. He only has 7 more influence than us, but his little three-city empire is generating the same 140+ GPT as ours (thank you endless golden age). The election is in two turns, I’m going to hold off until I see the results because we have a spy there. Jerusalem now has the “public works” quest but we’re working on a road for them and we’re in relatively good shape there. I’m just building up the gold stack so Goz and Brichals can make whatever moves are necessary during the 10 turns after the UN is built.

Turn 269
- Utique finishes Battleship > Battleship.

- Faith-purchase a GE in Carthage (+40 influence with Florence). Nothing else.

Turn 270
- A slight disappointment. Our RA with Darius resolves and gives us the six turns of research, which I expected. I thought, however, we’d get eight turns of research from a GS bulb, but I was wrong. It only gave us 6 turns? Anyway, I don’t think this makes the bulbing strategy faster. Considering how weak the GS bulb is, we’d have only shaved two turns off our finish by bulbing another GS, and we’ll certainly shave more than that by using two GE on the UN. Another strategy could be to build a bunch of cheap buildings before the UN, use the accumulated overflow to shave off a bunch of turns, and then hit it with a GE on the second turn. That requires a lot more patience and planning than I can offer I’m afraid, and probably more production than our capital can offer as well.

Spoiler :

- There might be a couple of small upsides to building the UN a little slower with only one GE. I seem to remember a lot of city states requesting the UN after I discovered the tech, but that might have been a one-time experience. Then there’s the opportunity to use faith to pop a second wonder (Brussels wants Christo Redentor, but that wonder has been available for a while and we have plenty of influence with them) or to convert Yerevan with a Great Prophet. I still prefer rushing the UN with two GE and letting Brichals play the winning turn set... again!

- Of course GW waits until we enter a new era to ask for a RA (with a bonus 100 gold kicked in). We decline.

- Washington built Brandenburg Gate.

- Carthage finishes Battleship (I had it planned out perfectly!) > UN Battleship. You’ll have to drop the Battleship behind the UN in the queue Goz. Sorry.

- There are two Battleships headed south past Rio. We can start deleting Frigates down there when they arrive, or hold on to them just in case.

- Our gold stack is at 3550 and the GA brought us up to 207 GPT.

- I send our new spy (Hamilcar) to Warsaw. It’s a hostile/cultural CS that we currently have 77 influence with (although we may win a culture quest in four turns). It won’t make much of a difference as the election is this turn, but the cultural city states are usually where I see coup attempts in the late game. I think Liz’s spies will probably try to coup a maritime or two, but I can’t remember which ones she favors. I thought it was Ragusa?

- Anyway, all done. Here’s the demographics.

Spoiler :

Roster
Grandad1982
NotSure – just played
Gozpel – up next
Brichals – on deck
Optional

Save

 

[grandad1982]

Nice set NotSure.

Boo! I hate you Darius. I really thought we'd get the Eiffel Tower. Oh well we're in are GA anyway.

I'm also surprised by the GSci. I thought it was 8 turns as well. 6 seems far to weak IMO.

I'm in agreement that we should just double GEng the UN. Put all the extra production from our GA in to gold production or units I guess.

Looking at the save I see we get a GSci in Carthage in 4 turns. He's not a huge amount of use to us but I'm pretty sure his overflows so burn him when you get him and carry on filling out the bottom of the tree?

Also on the tech side studying the tech tree shows that someone (Liz) has Advanced Balistics (SS booster, nuclear missiles and guided missiles) and Satellites (SS cockpit, Hubble Space Telescope, and reveals the entire map). You can tell these are gone as the only cost 7734 rather than 7700.

When you combine the tech situation with the fact that Liz only has 3 rather than her 4 Uranium left it all becomes a bit of a worry. I would consider building bomb shelters in Carthage and Utique. I'd also un-cluster military units from around our cities so if she does strike one of our cities then collateral damage will be reduced.

Since we're in a GA I would consider putting some of the spec to work on tiles. We've hit ouor tech goal so a slow down might not matter so much, though I'd wait till after the GSci is bulbed to max his output. The same principal is true for the cities on science production. I'd switch to gold focus in these cites as thats what we need to win the game now.

On the diplo front both Oda and Washington will declare war on Liz with us in 10 turns if we ask them via the discussion tab. Whilst this isn't totally necessary or even wise its could be fun once the UN is built. It would have the side effect of stopping Liz being able to steal our CSs as well. Something for the team to consider anyway....

 

[Optional]

Getting nearer to the finish line now! 3 turns for Globalization to come in, then Gozpel to mix some mortar and put up a nice and shiny UN building, which with the aid of 2 Great Engineers will be done in one turn, then 10-11 turns later it's voting time - again Brichals to finish the game? It sure looks like it.

I've looked at the saves, but I find it hard to comment on the builds and stuff, as it should all make very little difference anymore. Engineering a war might be a little bit risky, as I don't know whether Liz couldn't grab a few CS's and that would make us lose votes.

I’m kind of surprised at the buildings that our cities are missing. I don’t think it means anything more than proof that water tiles are painfully weak and coastal cities aren’t as good as they should be. Anyway, the only cities in our empire that have Seaports are Utique and Gades. Our capital doesn’t even have one.

Water tiles without a resource are indeed weak, but then humans aren't exactly marine life, so it's realistic this way, and I think even for the game it's okay.
I believe coastal cities are reasonably strong, the situation is better than in Civ III. Marine resource tiles get very nice boosts and there are a lot of them. God of the Sea has also helped making them stronger. That would always be a good Pantheon on an Archipelago map, considering the amount of fish those maps have. In the World Builder I generated some standard maps, and you'll be surprised at the amount of ordinary fish you'll find there:



These are some average values, obviously they differ per map. Arch maps have more water than Continents maps, and Pangaeas have the least amount of water. So what you'll see on average is that Pangaeas have more land-based resources, although even they still have lots of fish. Obviously your production will be better on Pangaea maps. We were playing on a small Archipelago, you're not going to get those huge productive towns there, as it is all little bits of land. It's already lots better on a standard Small Continents map; we did have a bit of a weird map type here.
But defense should be easy on an Archipelago, so if you're going for a peaceful win you shouldn't be needing a lot of production for units. And hoarding buildings has never been strong, expansion has always been much stronger, and that's easier on a water map - a human player can easily get boxed in on a Pangaea map on a difficult setting.

I'm not sure why we started the Eiffel Tower so late when we wanted it; it think it has been available for about a full round of sets before Grandad started it. I remember suggesting the Eiffel Tower at the start of Grandad's previous set, just before it was available. Not that it makes a lot of difference anymore, but I believe if we want to go for a wonder we should plan it better.
Gods & Kings has given us spies, so we can see in the AI's capitals now, and we can see for ourselves that they're just building wonders. Personally I find the Gods & Kings AI disappointing. Also religion seems to have weakened them. Darius used to be a good AI, but is he now only interested in spreading his religion? What benefit does he get from all those English towns that he has converted? That benefits England, not him. And I think it's no coincidence that the AI who cared least about religion - England - is now the strongest civ on the map, while the civ that had the first religion - India - is the weakest.
A good pantheon is strong, compared to the meagre investment it takes, but all those full religion bonuses are weak, compared to the huge extra investments they cost.