Acid_04: The final frontier

[uberfish]

Theocracy still gives 1* draft units, but we don't have that and we would need to spread some religion. Anyway, we had better forget about democracy and go for steel now, before Shaka starts thinking about upgrading to infantry or MGs. I hope he's suffering at least a bit of WW from the ridiculous bloodbath at Uppsala.

Should I play this or wait for Mark? He's back in a couple of days, I will need at least one before I have time to play.

 

[acidsatyr]

hmm..well i guess you can take it i'm sure Mark won't mind.
I agree going for steel

 

[Mutineer]

Uber, I think really problem appear becouse of unexpected trade mission behavior.
To be true, based on blake information I expected all money from trade misssion become avalible in trade for a turn, not 10% of them (I think trade amount increased by 100 gp when trade mission happend. So, I was waiting for it and did not spend tech to make Shaka to go into war, otherwize we wold not have anything to trade for gold.
But when trade mission fiasco become clear, he was allredy had to mach on his hands.

You played with out waiting for trade mission, so, you did not run into this preblem.

At the end of the day, on deity we are playing AI again itself, because we know how it is react. If we do not know, or getting false information, then it stop working.

 

[uberfish]

preturn:

1) How can our capitulated vassals claim we are too advanced? Fix this crap, it is broken.

2) General city micro. For example hired merchants instead of engineer in New York since it has a bank. Order citizens to work towns at Uppsala. Made most of our citizens that are working off-river farms into specialists so we can get steel.

Philadelphia has 11 WW... changed bank with nothing invested to jail.

3) Trade. We were giving Alex and Toku more free stuff than they deserve. Renegotiate so that we are just selling cows, for 20 to Toku and 10 to Alex. Supply iron and horses to our crappy vassal. Sold liberalism to Toku for 450 gold.

4) sent some workers to sort out chaining irrigation to corn at Heliopolis

Steel is now due in 8 turns.


turn 1 (1360): nada


turn 2 (1370): Shaka sinks our caravel at Visigoth and pillages our village next to Uppsala with a 3 cav 5 cannon stack. Our cat retreats. I try to level up some of our low xp troops against this bunch and lose 5 out of 6 at about 65-70% odds. How annoying is that? We have another general now though in time to be added to our Ironworks city. Since the consensus seemed to be Uppsala for its frontline position I send it that way. I place a worker on the pillaged village to try and bait some enemy cav out of Jelling so we can attack with Grenadiers.

Whip caravels to clear annoying Zulu caravels.


turn 3: since we have some stables done, train a few cavalry. upgrade CR3 pike to grenadier to help break the first city.

Alex and Shaka sign peace. Trade Replacable Parts to Alex for 320gp and war with Shaka in the hope we get some help against his annoying boats. This is worth another turn off steel, but slightly hurts our relations with Toku.

Trade Chemistry to Toku for 90gp and stop trading with Shaka (he won't declare war because he doesn't like us enough, but why not hurt the Zulu economy some more)

We baited a cav out of Uppsala. I sac an obsolete crossbow and mace to it trying to improve the odds a little for another 1* rifleman. Our rifle then loses again, at 74%. Restrain urge to throw monitor out window.

Shaka has 3 more cav and 2 cannons incoming. Sac a cat. Lose formation rifle at 88%, lose 2* rifle at 73%, swear some more, clean up mess. I draft in Washington and as cities recover from previous draft unhappiness to replace troops.

Scout with knight, I see only 2 loose cav from shaka, and 5 rifles and 2 cavs in Jelling, set up to attack.


turn 4 (1390) We are hit by a cannon and cav which retreat. Suddenly another 10(!) enemy cav and 3 cannons appear in Jelling and I retreat back to the hill in our territory as we would have to wait 1 turn while reducing city defences and be shredded.

Sink pesky Zulu caravel at Washington, bait another worker


turn 5 (1400) - sac 3 cats to weaken incoming cav stack. How come Shaka always gets to retreat and I don't? anyway, I only lose the Cannon Slayer cav and a rifle this time and killed the aforementioned 10 cav/3cannons from shaka.

Pyongyang out of revolt, the market's about to be done, after which we will build theatre and other culture producers to stop it revolting so much.


turn 6 (1410) - Toku and Alex drop cities in the fish/gold/desert area in the NW of our continent. Don't blame me for that one. Shaka runs more cannons and cavalry into our territory where I kill them, losing only 1 rifle this turn. Counterattacks once we're defending conquests on his turf are going to be brutal.


turn 7 (1420) - Steel is in! Use our GE to rush Ironworks in Uppsala and start cranking out cannons. I check techs and Shaka has steam power already, so I guess he is beelining infantry.

I decide to research steam power next as Alex doesn't have it (only Shaka does) and I hope we can trade him for astronomy or Sci meth later, it will also power up our Ironworks, and we can get ironclads for fish wars if needed.


turn 8 (1430) Fish in washington are back online finally. Shaka is keeping up his steady stream of units and I keep losing rifle-cav fights at favourable odds, but we are gradually building up a good number of promoted rifles.


turn 9 (1440) ... Shaka just upgraded all his rifles to infantry.

Just when I was feeling good about finally going on the offensive and we used our GE to set up ironworks. What a nightmare. This is why I play builder/diplo style by preference as I don't have to deal with this ludicrous AI exploiting as much.

I will stop here, and we can decide what we want to do now as a change of research might be in order. We might be able to just blow our current troops to take down a few cities and sue for peace.

 

[acidsatyr]

Lol. Love your report; i can feel the anger.

This is why I play builder/diplo style by preference as I don't have to deal with this ludicrous AI exploiting as much.

Yeah but we would be dead by now if we played builder game with Shaka.

turn 9 (1440) ... Shaka just upgraded all his rifles to infantry.

Oh well... what is brown and sounds like a bell? ......... Dang!

I won't be able to play this for the next few days....i think. So, unless you don't mind waiting like last time, mutineer you'r next..

I'll look at save later and give some suggestions...

 

[ThERat]

sounds like a rough round with frustrating losses at good odds...this is CIV for me when playing a war game like this. It can be utterly frustrating and making one angry...but this is deity, supposed to make one angry rather than happy

I would have thrown our stack against him much earlier, and defend a new front. We are stuck at a stalemate and this won't help us.

How can our capitulated vassals claim we are too advanced? Fix this crap, it is broken

I really wonder whether they actually tested their crap vassal concept at all...a vassal is basically worth nothing and it's far better to eliminate the opponent. What for introduce a new concpet that's utter nonsense...

 

[uberfish]

Normally I get everyone else to fight each other once I have enough land, and play for space or diplo while they're distracted. If they hate each other a lot they will attack each other instead of you.

When the AI mass upgraded, I actually wanted to find Blake and throw him out the window too for making the AI so much better at production while leaving its upgrade cheats in. This is not fun, or balanced. We poured vast resources and drained our economy into building a huge military that was still just half of Shaka's numbers... that the AI can just make a mockery of by upgrading. Twice now.

 

[ThERat]

the issue with the better AI is that is it merely looking at making the AI better, while the goodies it enjoys are left untouched for the moment.
I always felt that the AI bonus are far too many, but it just masks the stupidity of it. Without all those modifiers, it will be easy to beat. Nothing at all has changed since older versions.

I am very sure even WW is no issue for them on deity, Shaka has been burning his units like mad, but surely he won't suffer much. Maybe someone could open the world builder and have a look...I mean in retrospective once the game is over

 

[Mutineer]

I can not look on save, but the only think which come to mind mind is, we can not mach him on thew field. But, how mach navy does he has?

If I remember correctrly most of his cities are coastal. What is we build banch of Galeons (Very fast), loaded our trops on it and try to raise his cities by ampfibious attacks?

That is only iddea come to my mind, but it would only work if we get enoght galeons going befor he got combastion and fligth.

I really not sure how collateral damage calculated, I believe it based on base strength of units ignore promotion/terran or any other bonuses.

So, collateral damage cannons do should not be effected by ampfibious attacks. the only problem will be will we be able to dammage a top unit?

 

[darrelljs]

Lurker's comment

the issue with the better AI is that is it merely looking at making the AI better, while the goodies it enjoys are left untouched for the moment.

Yeah, that was my one complaint/suggestion I posted on that thread, but I don't believe there will be any changes . In order of bogusness, I would rate starting with Workers/Settlers #1, cheap upgrades #2, and reduced maintenance costs #3. However, the one that really annoys me is the cheap upgrades. It is just ridiculous when you finally gain the upper hand in a war and then blink and you are back to square one. I mean, if you read the turn reports I don't think you guys could have done a better job at weathering the storm despite having to deal with this crap twice . Mutineer's suggestion seems a good one but the question is can you afford to open up another front while fighting on this one? I kind of doubt it. Besides, if Shaka has Assembly Line he is halfway to tanks and you guys are not going to be able to catch up with him you are now too far behind in tech and no real good way to make up the difference.

My one and only non cultural Deity win was with Elizabeth where a lot of lightbulbing lead to early Redcoats (on vanilla) and I had a fish/pig/corn Globe city. Stirring some wars for techs slowed everyone else down and gave me a long window with which to use them. I can say that a ton of breaks went my way in that game, whereas in this game you guys didn't really catch any (especially with your neighbors). I'd never count a team with this much talent out, but at this point things look pretty grim.

Edit: I even forgot the WW discounts they get...that's another piece of BS. And with the new AI they are much less likely to sue for peace.

Darrell

 

[uberfish]

Well, this game proves that the AI mod is not balanced properly for deity with upgrade bonus left in place.

 

[ThERat]

I agree with the general sentiment that the free (or almost free) upgrades for the AI are the single most irritating issue. It would be great if this particular bonus would be scraped completely.

We can now fight a war against infrantry since all their rifles had been upgraded, lovely really. I'd say try and throw a bunch of cannons at them and see what happens...let's go down in flames and smoke

 

[acidsatyr]

imo the biggest problem here is that we'r fighting Shaka and not somebody else ... Shaka, Stalin, J.C. ,maybe few others, but these guys always have power graph trough the roof... I am positive that if we had some other neighbor itd be 10 times easier.

Few concepts suck in Warlords however, vassals just never seem to work out... it is only useful for AI player itself and more than a hindrance to a human player ..
Also better Ai mod isn’t really “better”, AI is not smarter or better said given any new algorithm its just buffed up improvements to make game harder…
deity is supposed to be the hardest difficulty lvl, but still the one you sohuld win given the normal circumstances....

 

[Mutineer]

I look on save, and his jump in power from upgradign to infantry is surpriselly small, like he does not have a lot of infantry.

And we do not have astronomy, there going that idea.
So, as I see it, the option is to do go true him, we seems to ahve a big stack, but luck cannons. Build cannons as soon as posible and go and start to take cities at all cost. It's allmost look like he run out of cavalry.

Continue baiting tacktic to force his units out one by one and hit with a main stack.

 

[uberfish]

Maybe Mark could take the turn as a swap if he's back today, rather than skipping two rotation players.

I am not sure how to try and win though. I think we have no choice but to try and hope Shaka's mobile defence force is exhausted and suicide our grenadiers to overrun some ex Viking cities and take out some of Shaka's research capability. Due to his heavy losses he is currently offering to pay us off for peace.

 

[darrelljs]

Also better Ai mod isn’t really “better”, AI is not smarter or better said given any new algorithm its just buffed up improvements to make game harder…

Sorry for the threadjack, but just a quick note on this...I think the question is what do you mean by the above quote? From what I understand it is true that the original algorithms are in place, however they have been optimized to be less stupid. For example, it places cities in better locations, grows them faster and larger, and manages the tiles around them more effectively. The net result is that the AI techs faster and produces faster and IMO no longer needs some of the hidden bonuses to compete. I think you are looking for true behavioral differences, i.e. does the AI now "think" at a strategic level? There have been some changes in that direction recently (e.g. the AI will now pursue cultural victory, although I've found this makes the game easier). There have also been some changes to the AI approach to war, but I still haven't see an AI approach the domination limit so there is probably a ways to go on that front. There have also been some smaller scoped changes that can have a major ramification on gameplay, e.g. how the AI values gold in trade. My $0.02 is that the city management stuff has been if not a complete success, at least a major improvement to the baseline. The other efforts are much more ambitious and may take some time to pan out, if they ever do.

Darrell

 

[Mark1031]

I'm back and can take it for tomorrow.

 

[acidsatyr]

sounds good
then i can take it after you

 

[Mutineer]

This game forced me to revaluate value of units promotions.
IN Vanilla they were not matter that mach, as achieve more then 6 ex stright of were not posible, exept in one city and very specific case.

For example, cannon with L3 collateral promotion has +100% collateral str, making it 24 for collateral purpuses.

UNforchinatly even in our capital we are short from it, even with theocracy.

But , mai be if we adopt Taoism (I spread it to all our best cities), Theocracy and Vassalage we can achieve L3 units stright from the bat in 3 cities, Capital, GT(whiped) and Ironwork cities.

This L3 cannons could be our saviour for a time.

 

[Mark1031]

OK from what I can see we are not getting anywhere with this war. We are not going to make a significant advance with rifles against infantry, with or without cannon. We were doing well in tech now we were falling behind. Why do we have this vassal as it does nothing for us if he doesn’t give tech. Not only that, we cannot declare on him and just get rid of him. We have a huge army of useless troops. I suppose they are not useless but really it will be very costly vs. infantry . I am at a loss for strat. I guess I will press on vs infantry. Does anyone know the WW algorithm. I could throw a lot of troops at him and maybe take 1-2 cities which will give us WW. Is he getting lots of WW by loosing troops in our territory?

Pre: Adjust a few cities to get us steam in 8 and more cash. We are whipped/drafted pretty bad to get an army of rifles. We will have to lay off a bit. We really need cavs at this point as they are pretty good against infantry and cannon. Plus it takes forever to get rifles/cannon to the front. I don’t anticipate doing much except defense. Since we have taken the war route I think we should just kill his troops for now and build up an even bigger SoD with cannon and cav.

1450: Another revolt in Pyongnang. What a nice idea to vassal Wang.. Rifles to Alex for Econ and Theology and 40gp.

1460: OK now Alex is in WFYABTA as is our useless vassal. Toku is pleased but doesn’t like us enough to trade techs with is and feels he would have nothing to gain from a war with Shaka. I thought Toku was one of the easy ones to bribe into war. This sucks. I send a small expeditionary force to do some pillaging for $$. Shaka has an ironclad headed our way.

1470: Our expeditionary force gets nailed and we loose 2 cav and a rifle but take out 3 injured but level 3 infantry on the next turn.

1480: A brave rifle takes out 2 cannon before he succumbs. 2 Cannon blast our stack but we hold and loose only 1 rifle. Retreat back home to heal.

1490: Move attack force on Jelling.

1500: Destroy annoying stack that got the hill but wouldn’t advance.

1505: Take Jelling for the loss of a rifle,cav and cannon. Not bad. Maybe we can take him on. We are about to loose some fishing nets to ironclads. How the hell do we get rid of this vassal Pyonyang just popped back into revolt.

Shaka is not pleased FU to you too buddy.

1510: Retreat to heal. Start Corp for the trade and to move to infantry.

1515: Move a big stack to a small new city on the boarder. WW is getting problematic.

1520: Shaka and Alex make peace. Take that small city for 2 cannon. Moving on. Can get 410 cash but no tech for peace. Engineer born in Thebes. General born, sending him to draft city. Next player can decide where to put him.

1525: Loose a few win a few moving into Zulu territory. Plan is to raze Kagnela and plant a forward city in the vicinity and make peace.