Acid_04: The final frontier

[ThERat]

I have to disagree with this one, you can come back from behind - in fact you spend the entire game doing that at deity or at least trying.

Of course we are behind in terms of units and cities from the start. But, compare that with a C3C scenario where you find yourself an entire age behind, but can still make a miraculous comeback. Not possible in CIV. Have a look at our SG we played some time back 'Silence is Golden'. We did fight with ancient units and were far behind, but still able to make a stunning comeback. Not possible in CIV...

Look at tech trading or stealing. It is so badly nerfed, no way to come back. Only taking the beaten track of getting the techs the AI neglects gives you some edge. And in CIV tech trading looks so lopsided...offer the AI a tech, they will never give you even close o the same beaker tech

 

[uberfish]

We are a full tier of units behind, and still were in a position to at least fight for the win if Toku had not decided to invade us twice. As fun as tech stealing and unlimited trading was, I think it was just overpowered to be able to neglect research and have a free pass to tech parity anyway.

Maybe it's not totally hopeless, maybe the AI will decline to build spaceship parts while the fighting goes on.

 

[acidsatyr]

Lurker comment :



Why didn't you guys roll-back to that save and try to play on that different path ?

This is Deity level - and such an attempt didn't seems dishonorating at all !

Anyway - great game !!

Regards

Alright, i'm down for that. Actually I were were to play from that position, I would never turn Wong into vassal to begin with as i said first time, but i don't mind experimenting with this game a little bit more. OR should i say, i dont want to let it go.

 

[uberfish]

I'm completely against any sort of official replay, the win would be meaningless. Just finish this and start a new game.

 

[ThERat]

agree with uberfish...what's done is done...
Let's first finish this...and who is up btw?

 

[Mutineer]

Uberfish is up.

 

[ngraner42]

Great effort and thank you for laying this out for all to see and learn from your play.

I am not familiar with C3C, but it seems like the ability to come back from a large deficit is a flaw, like those arcade driving games that make your car slower if you are in the lead. That said, I do find it unfortunate that equality of conflict tends to be a knife edge affair in Civ4. If you get the uperhand early you can cruise to victory and otherwise the AI runs away with the game. It is rare that you see a true toe to toe match up across a large part of the game. The best games probably come from more difficult starting positions on Monarch or Emperor.

In this game you seemed to have great fortune early to even have a chance of winning. I took your 1800BC save to play around with, and in several tries I always found the core American cities much more heavily defended, including multiple Spearmen. The stack of War Chariots did not stand a chance.

 

[uberfish]

update 4 turns in:

Overall - Somehow we are holding our own for now but it looks impossible to win as we're facing a 2 front war against superior tech foes while our own forces slowly get depleted, and Toku only has two space parts left. Gunships, SAM inf and fighters are proving their usefulness (albeit only because too far behind in tech.)

Western front - Toku started doing stupid things like dropping stacks of 8 unescorted artillery next to Philadelphia, so I took back Hieraconopolis a turn before it could come out of revolt, then of course he dropped a proper stack next to Philadelphia, I might lose that now.

Eastern front - Shaka's air force is really annoying and his MA/mechs always take at least one of our units with them on the attack. Captured Umwhatever anyway with heavy casualties. Unfortunately I don't think the 2 front casualty rate is sustainable

Southern "front" - Shaka's vassal decided to contribute his 2 gold to the war effort by dropping 1 cannon at Heliopolis which I failed to notice until it suicided on the city defence.

Alex is doing nothing at all apart from moving destroyers around. Which is bizarre since he's supposedly been preparing for war forever.

 

[futurehermit]

I still can't get over the insane luck you guys had this game I mean, really, all you need right now is Monty attacking you also

 

[uberfish]

1900:



Shaka leaves this city too lightly defended and a strike with gunships (that 4 move is handy) and tanks takes it out. It's indefensible being surrounded by Ulundi's culture and I raze it.



I also retake Khangela which had fallen to some random troops striking behind the lines. I made a great general medic 3 artillery in the hopes that it won't be chosen as a defender.



Toku swarms all over the western front and lands a big drop near Philadelphia. I have too many damaged troops to hold this and evacuate the city.


1902: Shaka drops 8 MA/arty near Uppsala, and hits uMsakjhsdakj with a bunch of random stuff causing damage. Toku is running around Hieraconopolis with gunships and sending tank forces against Washington and Boston which I defeat


1904: Shaka repeats the same thing, except with 12 units at Uppsala this time. I simply don't have enough defenders to have a chance of holding this - my GG artillery was killed too - and am forced to sign a ceasefire. This will let me move the units to hold the western front. Enemy planes have really done a number on our improvements.

Alex still hasn't done anything. I don't get it, he could have had our southern cities and Seoul easily. Pay him 90 gold for peace.


1906: Toku appears with stealth bombers, pulls 12 or so gunships out of his backside and overruns Hieraconopolis.

Oh, he also completes Stasis Chamber. This is over soon.


1908: Toku throws his gunships in to harrass, clean them up


1910: the artillery from the eastern front arrives back in America and I recapture Philadelphia.


The next player gets the dubious honour of watching Japan launch; at least we have not only avoided a military defeat but even gained ground against Shaka.

 

[ThERat]

nice work, uberfish...now if someone could eliminate Toku in 2 turns before he launches

 

[acidsatyr]

i wont be able to play this for a couple of days, so unless you dont mind waiting that long - mutineer you'r next.

 

[Codex]

Lurker comment

I've learned a ton from this thread (thanks!), and I'm sure that lots of people will jump in after the endgame. The postmortem promises to be ... lively. For my money, the most revealing comment about the AI tactics is Mark's [post #295]:

[...] Toku declares on us and lands tanks on our far western boarder, City defended by 1 rifle. Much of our army is trapped in Zululand and I can't switch out to nationalism for 5 turns. This may take a while. He was friendly. Very smart thing for him to do by the way. If Shaka jumps in we are finished.

Vassalage issues aside, isn't this what we want the AI to be able to do? And this has to be the first time that I've seen top-notch players acknowledge that they're adopting strategies employed against them by the AI -- the sincerest form of flattery for the AI programmers, no?

 

[acidsatyr]

well, yes and no. We don't want to have 5 deity AIs jump on you because that is clearly an unwinnable position. Especially since AI has tremendous advantage in both production and research. In fact it that was the case, the earliest contact with AI would be deadly for human as AIs could just rush you with earliest units. That’s why you have things like diplomacy so you assume your friend who is pleased with you wont attack you. If every AI would ignore diplomacy like humans do (when I say ignoring I mean deciding to attack AI you have friendly status with because you know you can kill it), then every level where AI has advantage in terms of production and research would be unbeatable basically. Granted in this game we were surrounded with AIs that played exactly like humans would.

 

[futurehermit]

^^^damn human nature

 

[Mutineer]

I played my little experiment (It is not an offecial replay), from the same save I got from Acid.

5 diferent thin I did.
1) Did not wait for trade mission, declare early and kill GM.
2) I was buiding Global theater in my turn set by whipping greens and trow overflow into GT. After my tunrset people stop doing that and it took 20 turn to build naturally. I continue my strat and builg GT and then draft musket or riffle from it each turn.
3) I was buiding in capital mostly cats, with trow Green time form time when overflow become big enogth to build it in one turn. I continue to do that.
4) I build monsteries and spread a lot of different religion for happiness, lifting my happy cap and maintaning dicent city size longer.

5) I made resonable good use of Wang. He even upgraded all my warriors to greens. He halp me to take 3 cities with allmost no loses. I noticed his stack behaviour. If city still have cultural defence he bombard, if not he cyicide.
I attack after his cyicide, killing damaged units for small WW.
I used him well to keep seas clean, by gifting him caravels to upgrade to frigs. Most of my nets survive the war.


As result, here is save when I now forced to make peace, as he got infantry.
But I made a good progress. I was thinking I can take 2 more cities befor WW kill me, but JUst found infantry when I move stack next to next city.

Save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/84898/Acid_IV_AD-1430.CivWarlordsSave

 

[uberfish]

So, you guys up for a new game after we lose this one?

 

[Mutineer]

I am game.

 

[ThERat]

I think we should try at least again...maybe this time without Blake's AI until it is really better balanced

 

[uberfish]

The AI WW and free upgrade cheating was toned down some, but there are reports on the better AI forum of military AI doing weird stuff like heavy spearmen in attack stacks and city defence siege that doesn't attack. So I'm open on the question of whether to use blakeAI or not.