A journal of Spain, Prince edition

Tzar Sasha · Aug 29, 2018

I decided to play a game with Spain on Prince difficulty. I know there are people that do write ups for Deity and Immortal, but I am not at that level yet. I figure if I do a write up, maybe I can get some insight as to what I could have done better or even suggestions as to what I could do next. Plus, with a posted write up, I'll be more likely to finish off the game than "rage quit" at some point.

To that end, here we go.

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That is it for today... I'm curious where others might plant this 5th city given the choices I've made so far. I am leaning towards settling on the cattle. I feel if anywhere along this landmass might have some late water based oil it would be this area. Its the only spot with visible ocean tiles rather than just coast.

wistak · Aug 29, 2018

1 Why only bad events are disabled? Isn't it unbalanced?

Tzar Sasha said:
The ruin gives me 62 faith. I can get a pantheon next turn and haven't even built any faith providing building as of yet. This is a big boost. Plus no one else has obtained a pantheon

I was sure that you can't obtain faith from ruins if no one else have pantheon

CrabHelmet · Aug 29, 2018

Thoughts:

1. You mentioned early on that if you had the gold you'd buy down the Shrine. Why? You're Spain, you'll hit your Pantheon before everyone else anyway. Why did rushing the Pantheon then help you?
2. Going Shrine -> Stonehenge is a very odd choice. This will leave you very sorely lacking on Culture. Why not Monument -> Stonehenge? And while we're there, why would you even build Stonehenge? Your UA gives you 40 Faith on settling. Stonehenge gives you 50 Faith. In the time you build Stonehenge, you can build two Settlers and two Warriors and get 80 Faith and better infrastructure.
3. Why did you take the Tradition opener? You're Spain, you get two free Citizens on settling anyway, and you won't be concerned about growth. The opener is largely redundant.
4. I would have bought the Worker and built a Warrior, in your position. If you connect your Mine monopoly 8 turns earlier because you bought a Worker instead of a Warrior, then that's 8 turns more of +10% gold in all owned Cities. This can meet at least half the purchase price of your Worker, pretty frequently, they're a very good deal. It also saves you time - Workers are a very slow build early on.
5. Petra wasn't worth building. It gives you an extra trade route, but you're on an isolated start, so it will only be an ITR or a to a City-State. Even later on, you're not a Statecraft civ, so it won't have so much impact. There's only three Desert tiles Petra will work in that City. That's a trivial amount of Gold. All this did was lag your infrastructure.
6. Why haven't you gone for Sailing? The second I realise I have an isolated start, the very first thing I do is try and rush Sailing, for two reasons: firstly, I get contacts sooner, and secondly, I can have a chance at the Great Lighthouse. Since Triremes and Dromons can cross Ocean as long as they end on a Coastal tile in VP, the extra range from the Great Lighthouse can sometimes be the difference between getting contacts in Classical vs. getting contacts at the end of Renaissance.
7. Why did you build Mausoleum? It gives you WLTKD bonuses. But WLTKD requires trading partners most of the time; without them, you often won't be able to get a lot of the stuff your cities demand. So Mausoleum ends up being wasted.

I think your choice of Wonders, which has dictated the rest of your game, has been very odd, in all honesty. You've picked ones I would have considered worthless in the situation. For me, my thoughts would have been: a) this is a heavily Forested start, I need to reduce Improvement speed ASAP, so Pyramids, b) this is an isolated start, I need to get ocean-going ASAP, so Great Lighthouse.

Tzar Sasha · Aug 29, 2018

Why did I do any of it? I have no idea how to play VP. I am looking for the safe bet that fits all civs. That path that says, you can win if you do this but there may be better ways. Only with future games can I improve.

How the heck do wonders dictate the rest of the game? They are all going to be fighting me anyway. VP does not believe in a warless peaceful game. No matter what, I will end up a warmonger. Any other victory that takes place happens not because I tried but because it came before domination. That is what I see with VP and thus wonders are gravy if you can get them, no matter what wonder they are.

There also needs to be a larger notice of faith gain, or that prophet icon removed like it becomes in the Industrial era. It does not show any faith except for the per turn value. That screams get your faith going when at 0. I am not one to look at all the little details. I love the civ games but hate the micromanagement.

Viralvoid · Aug 29, 2018

Tzar Sasha said:
Screwed up on accidentally sent my scout inside Kathmandu's territory. They'll be angry for a few I'm sure.

I think you're overreacting here.

Some thoughts while I have lot of free time.
-Spain is one of my best bet, and I think you're playing it kinda off. Stonehenge and Spain is not the best choice tbh.
-Turn 12: Coasts with no lighthouse/resources is a useless tile, don't even mind working on them, if you have no more tiles to work, then stop growing, it is a waste of happiness and resource (which you could work production tiles)
-With that large map on my own, I would choose Progress, and with raging barbarians on, Authority is viable.
-Turn 50: I'm always last there, but could still snowball, that is a not "not good" spot.
-Granary then Settler is odd, seriously, you're wasting 1 gpt for the maintenance.
-Turn 75, what a waste of policy point. :nono:

Tzar Sasha said:
How the heck do wonders dictate the rest of the game?

-It really does, If you failed to build a wonder 1 turn before, you failed to get either a settler or worker.
-It increases prices of future "more useful" wonders.
-Not all wonders were good for different gameplays.
-Wonder-whores were juicy targets for warmongers.

Tzar Sasha said:
They are all going to be fighting me anyway. VP does not believe in a warless peaceful game.

-No, I disagree, You can win without wars.
-DOW'ed will make the game interesting, but it is not necessary to go mongering after that.

Tzar Sasha said:
Any other victory that takes place happens not because I tried but because it came before domination. That is what I see with VP and thus wonders are gravy if you can get them, no matter what wonder they are.

Again, If wanted to go warmongering, what's the point of "you" building the wonders? if you can conquer them by yourself?
You can build lots of horsemen and catapults with those productions used for wonders.

Sorry for being too frank, some of your opinions were not congruent of that of mine.
More insights:
-Spain + Fealty is the best, why would you choose 2-ancient policies?
-Policies in VP were designed to be finished, hybrid policies were odd.
-You don't know what victory type you really wanted, that won't basically work on higher difficulties.
-By just founding cities, you can have lots of faith with Spain.
-You neglected exploring the sea, yet you're still seeking wonders.

tu_79 · Aug 29, 2018

Relax, people, he's just doing something like a Let's Play. Some people just like to watch other people playing. A good thing about lower difficulties is that you don't need to play to the civ strenghts, as long as you can beat AI on something, so you don't need to overthink anything.
He's also claiming he wants a feedback to improve his game, be gentle

Viralvoid · Aug 29, 2018

tu_79 said:
Relax, people, he's just doing something like a Let's Play. Some people just like to watch other people playing. A good thing about lower difficulties is that you don't need to play to the civ strenghts, as long as you can beat AI on something, so you don't need to overthink anything.
He's also claiming he wants a feedback to improve his game, be gentle

Yuh, now I overthink for a game, and became unhappy for simple mistakes.

andersw · Aug 30, 2018

Don't give up despite any negative commentary, these early games are very good to have and look back at later when you've finished a few games.
I can see some of the mistakes you make that I made myself.
Since decisions can't really be unmade I will try comment on what you can do.

First regarding settling the cattle, it's mostly useful in early game vs warmonger to settle horse or elephant to get the resource connected asap, since you're past that stage and have no neighbours that does not apply, therefore settling it you will "lose" the tile settling on top of it, however it's not a big deal if you consider the spot better.
Also when asking for settle points, please turn on resource icons (and for me yields), it makes it easier to evaluate and see whats on the map.

Second regarding policys "Turn 75, Progress policy" did you go 2 tradition and then into progress? (this is a question not a critique)
Whatever path you go you want a long term plan, are you staying small or are you planning to expand and cover your entire continent.

Third you will be swimming in faith (well atleast if you go for a couple more cities), use next gp to reinforce and you can easily go for zelotry or a religious building or both and still easily afford to faith buy missions (your UB).

I've had almost no tradition experience in VP (had enough of it in vanilla I guess) but most say it's the more difficult way to play so I'm not sure how much you can afford to expand or strenghts/paths.

andersw · Aug 30, 2018

wistak said:
1 Why only bad events are disabled? Isn't it unbalanced?

I was sure that you can't obtain faith from ruins if no one else have pantheon

Yes it makes things easier but probably because bad events are unfun.

tu_79 · Aug 30, 2018

andersw said:
Yes it makes things easier but probably because bad events are unfun.

Actually it does not change balance, just makes the game faster since all players play with the same setting (no bad events for AI either).

andersw · Aug 30, 2018

tu_79 said:
Actually it does not change balance, just makes the game faster since all players play with the same setting (no bad events for AI either).

Oh cool I didnt know this.

Tzar Sasha · Aug 31, 2018

I do not know how to turn the resource icons back on. I have looked under Options and cannot find anything. Is it something that has to be done outside of the actual game?
I have bad events turned off as I've encountered some rather bad neutral events, at least bad from my perspective. Spend X of something and hope to get something else. The bad events are even worse, destroy your tiles, make you unhappy. I've enough issues with those things, don't need any more.

I have tried restarting this same map, making a beeline for Pyramids and trying to build them. Only twice was I able to get the Pyramids and neither time did I get a religion as early. I played one of them until I did get religion, turn 107. 20 some turns later than what I posted here. Also going to Fishing as fast as possible after that followed up by Sailing. I still didn't get off the continent until probably the 90s. I was also trying Progress only. I saw the culture jump every so often because of buildings being built and such. I was still behind in policies. Science on the other hand, I was one tech behind the leader with the rest of the pack.

My goal was to cover the entire land mass so that the AI would not wish to settle there. If they cannot settle and there are no adjacent borders, they'll have no early reason to attack unless I skimp on my army or something like that. Fairly certain my issue on the repeat attempts were that because Spain gets faith with settling I kept putting off building shrines. I should do monument then shrine in the secondary cities then work on infrastructure.

As far as policies, my original idea was to get the happiness policy from Tradition and the happiness policy from Progress then fill out Fealty. Depending on how the game was going, I was going to consider Statecraft for diplomatic or Artistry for culture. But apparently going into multiple trees is not allowed or something. Don't see why we cannot. What if I wanted to do Tradition but missed Pyramids by 1 turn? I could go into Progress for the worker speed there. Its actually better than the pyramids to be honest, faster workers, longer movement plus you get the science for when citizens are born in the capital. Which fits nicely with a tall city like what Tradition is geared for.

Anyway, I have to put this off. I need to switch over to the Austria game for the comparison thing. And according to the non-spoiler, it may be a nightmare...

tu_79 · Aug 31, 2018

Tzar Sasha said:
I do not know how to turn the resource icons back on

Look at the mini-map, there are 4 buttons there. One lets you turn icons on.

Tzar Sasha said:
I have tried restarting this same map, making a beeline for Pyramids and trying to build them.

Sometimes your start is lacking something and does not allow for many whistles. This is something you must learn to read and adapt. Spain's main strategy is ignoring early faith, and just settle fast. You don't need pyramids for that. In my opinion, pyramids are only for the warmongers that love to enslave workers, or maybe for Morocco. Best starting policy for this strategy is Progress. I dislike switching trees, so I'd stick with Progress until finished.
Your main goal is claiming the territory fast, before barbarians slow you down or other civs claim your territory, your secondary cities building another settler just after the monument. Sometimes you have to forward settle: claim a far away city where there is something interesting, like a very defensive location or plenty resources, that you want to negate to your neighbour. A Progress civ should be able to settle 8-10 cities. If you think you don't have that much room, even settling at 3 tiles each other (a hint is when you've met other civs too soon), then go for Authority and make yourself some space with warriors who enslave workers and build Pyramids, that gives you 2 settlers (authority+pyramids), and the 4th city you can start puppeting, so you don't need to produce any other settler in a while. When your supply gets too low, regain control over the best puppeted cities.
If you can settle Progress like, you have a guaranteed religion, otherwise, pick God of War pantheon, and you know, do what such believers usually do.

Tzar Sasha said:
And according to the non-spoiler, it may be a nightmare...

I stopped last night at turn 150 and so far it was not that hard. But I didn't fight Mongolia that much, either, I was just securing marriages and a few extra wonders.

Workerspam · Aug 31, 2018

Tzar Sasha said:
I have bad events turned off as I've encountered some rather bad neutral events, at least bad from my perspective. Spend X of something and hope to get something else. The bad events are even worse, destroy your tiles, make you unhappy. I've enough issues with those things, don't need any more.

I also play with bad events turned off. I don't mind the minor ones so much but some of them I feel are close to game wrecking. I decided me and the AI could both use a break from it.

Tzar Sasha said:
As far as policies, my original idea was to get the happiness policy from Tradition and the happiness policy from Progress then fill out Fealty. Depending on how the game was going, I was going to consider Statecraft for diplomatic or Artistry for culture. But apparently going into multiple trees is not allowed or something. Don't see why we cannot. What if I wanted to do Tradition but missed Pyramids by 1 turn? I could go into Progress for the worker speed there. Its actually better than the pyramids to be honest, faster workers, longer movement plus you get the science for when citizens are born in the capital. Which fits nicely with a tall city like what Tradition is geared for.

The reason tree hopping is generally discouraged is because of the finishers. If you put 6 policies into a tree, you effectively get 7 policies because of the finisher. If you spread your 6 policies around you only have the 6 policies. There are specific strategies and situations where dipping into multiple policies can make sense but usually you just end up effectively shorting yourself on policy rewards.

If it makes the game more fun to policy hop, by all means do it, but understand that it's usually a sub-optimal strategy. For example, dipping into Progress got you science on births in the capital, culture from techs, and faster workers. All nice bonuses. But it comes at the expense of the last two policies and finisher in Tradition, all of which are far more powerful for a tall Tradition capital (or if you still finish up Tradition, two policies in the Medieval trees). You can always build more workers.

andersw · Aug 31, 2018

Workerspam said:
I also play with bad events turned off. I don't mind the minor ones so much but some of them I feel are close to game wrecking. I decided me and the AI could both use a break from it.

The reason tree hopping is generally discouraged is because of the finishers. If you put 6 policies into a tree, you effectively get 7 policies because of the finisher. If you spread your 6 policies around you only have the 6 policies. There are specific strategies and situations where dipping into multiple policies can make sense but usually you just end up effectively shorting yourself on policy rewards.

If it makes the game more fun to policy hop, by all means do it, but understand that it's usually a sub-optimal strategy. For example, dipping into Progress got you science on births in the capital, culture from techs, and faster workers. All nice bonuses. But it comes at the expense of the last two policies and finisher in Tradition, all of which are far more powerful for a tall Tradition capital (or if you still finish up Tradition, two policies in the Medieval trees). You can always build more workers.

I fully agree, in general there are not enough benefits for policy hopping.
I did find exceptions, going 2 tradition as Russia (Sovereignty helps them a ton) into authority was over the top good.
I've also had a game where I picked a bit of Artistry and Fealty as Persia and sure I got infinite golden age but was not super impressed.
There are probably more ones that are okey-ish.

A few other things.
Going for a huge map makes games take longer, if you're playing and learning and even restarting that makes things take even longer again.
No problem as long as you enjoy it (we do play for fun right?) but normal sized map is I think better because things doesn't get that dragged out.
Isolated starts gives a false sense of security, it's better practice to learn how to deal with agressive opponents and/or cramped space.

Tzar Sasha · Aug 31, 2018

I like the huge maps over the smaller ones. I feel so cramped with the smaller maps. Like move two tiles and you can see the border of your neighbor already (exaggeration I know but still). Also, I'm so used to the timing of huge maps (base game) that when I play anything else I cannot get that feel of whether I am behind, in the pack or ahead. But, hey, what do I know. I tried marathon and epic speeds on huge. Nope, too long! Standard speed on huge is about the longest I want to play a game anyway. And VP seems to drag it out even further to be honest. Quick movement/combat seems to help with that but enemy units seem to just appear rather than seeing what direction they came from. A minor gripe. I know that they face the direction that they came from but still, its an oddity to me.

tu_79 · Aug 31, 2018

Tzar Sasha said:
I like the huge maps over the smaller ones. I feel so cramped with the smaller maps. Like move two tiles and you can see the border of your neighbor already (exaggeration I know but still). Also, I'm so used to the timing of huge maps (base game) that when I play anything else I cannot get that feel of whether I am behind, in the pack or ahead. But, hey, what do I know. I tried marathon and epic speeds on huge. Nope, too long! Standard speed on huge is about the longest I want to play a game anyway. And VP seems to drag it out even further to be honest. Quick movement/combat seems to help with that but enemy units seem to just appear rather than seeing what direction they came from. A minor gripe. I know that they face the direction that they came from but still, its an oddity to me.

Why don't you play standard with 6 players?

Tzar Sasha · Aug 31, 2018

tu_79 said:
Why don't you play standard with 6 players?

I feel like the less players there are, the more likely they'll gang up on me. If there are a lot of players, there are chances for them to take each other on instead of always picking on me. I don't know. I've just been comfortable with the huge maps ever since I started playing Civ 5 years ago.

tu_79 · Aug 31, 2018

Tzar Sasha said:
I feel like the less players there are, the more likely they'll gang up on me. If there are a lot of players, there are chances for them to take each other on instead of always picking on me. I don't know. I've just been comfortable with the huge maps ever since I started playing Civ 5 years ago.

Well, play as you prefer. But if you think you are too crumpled in standard with 8 players, try 6 players. They won't take on you more than they already do. Usually AI bites the easy preys and the runaways. Just try to not look like a target.

But the game is not balanced for such setting, progress is stronger the bigger room you have for settling.

A journal of Spain, Prince edition

Tzar Sasha

Tzar of Nowheresville

wistak

Chieftain

CrabHelmet

King

Tzar Sasha

Tzar of Nowheresville

Viralvoid

Warlord

tu_79

Deity

Viralvoid

Warlord

andersw

Emperor

andersw

Emperor

tu_79

Deity

andersw

Emperor

Tzar Sasha

Tzar of Nowheresville

tu_79

Deity

Workerspam

Prince

andersw

Emperor

Tzar Sasha

Tzar of Nowheresville

tu_79

Deity

Tzar Sasha

Tzar of Nowheresville

tu_79

Deity

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