more than the number of turns left, if you don't kill the civ.
Just the time to kill the previous owner if you do
.
ALC Game 20: Vikings/Ragnar
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Just the time to kill the previous owner if you do
.
OTAKUjbski
TK421
the quickest way IMHO is to
1) attack the weak guys first, vassalize if you can't take one out fast enough (mostly if there are inland cities)
S has probably already made his decision and nearly finished the round, but I'll toss in my 2
anyhow:I always find convincing Mehmed or Sury to Capitulate is like pulling teeth.
Hammurabi and Roosevelt seem much more likely to Capitulate sooner.
Bribe Sury and/or Roosevelt to attack Mehmed while you vassalize Hammurabi.
Then backstab Sury and Roosevelt for the win.
-- my 2
S has probably already made his decision and nearly finished the round, but I'll toss in my 2
I always find convincing Mehmed or Sury to Capitulate is like pulling teeth.
Hammurabi and Roosevelt seem much more likely to Capitulate sooner.
Bribe Sury and/or Roosevelt to attack Mehmed while you vassalize Hammurabi.
Then backstab Sury and Roosevelt for the win.
-- my 2
the idea is not necessarily to capitulate all of them, just to avoid being forced out of the boats if it isn't necessary.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 11: 1790 AD to 1882 AD (67 turns), Part 1
I started the round with an anarchy-free civics change (thanks to the Golden Age).
As several of you recommended, I adopted US so I could buy units and infrastructure as well as boosting production a little, and Free Speech to accelerate my land claims and to help with the bottom line. This turned out to be my last civics change of the game.
To further press my tile accumulation for the domination win, I founded another city:
And I captured that barbarian city, as many of you recommended.
I packed up my amphibious city raiders onto Transports and headed south, to take on this guy.
He fell pretty quickly, like the proverbial deck of cards in fact, and I gained another holy city and a couple of wonders for my trouble.
I researched Electricity and Radio, then obtained my next, very important military technology.
Tanks FTW!
Around this time, a complication arose. Someone else was feeling acquisitive and decided to beat up on one of this game's 98-pound weaklings:
Yes, Mehmed went after Roosevelt--my next target! I had to keep a close eye on that situation, especially after he quickly captured an American city:
I didn't want Mehmed to take too many American cities, and I certainly didn't want Roosevelt to capitulate to him. I let the war go on for a few turns, though, to keep them both preoccupied--and to weaken Roosevelt for me, I hoped--while I finished off the Khmer empire.
Which did not take long.
With my forces ready to pounce on America and Mehmed's stack threatening another American city, I felt it was time to push the Ottomans out of the picture.
Excellent. That left Roosevelt as ripe pickings for me.
Sidebar: I also finally got around to founding that last city on the Viking home continent.
Better late than never, I guess!
Hammurabi built the UN around this time, but he couldn't compete with my commanding lead in terms of population and the votes that entails.
Close examination of this picture will reveal why I posted it to the "Funny Screenshots" thread. Roosevelt voted to make me S-G... but I'm at war with him! Well, the simple truth is that the S-G vote came up before I declared war. If FDR had been a human player, though, being reminded of his vote would have been adding insult to injury, I'm sure.
I couldn't resist building another wonder, of course.
I was thinking of using it to switch between Representation and Universal Suffrage. But I never did. I passed the two economic resolutions through the UN, which meant I had money coming in hand-over-fist, so I was gold-rushing builds almost every turn. Oh well, at least I kept it out of the AI's hands, and it added to my final score.
And when I captured Washington, I captured yet more wonders.
Interesting. In spite of being somewhat backward, Roosevelt managed to complete a significant number of wonders. Obviously being Industrious with a source of marble helped there.
To be continued...
I started the round with an anarchy-free civics change (thanks to the Golden Age).
As several of you recommended, I adopted US so I could buy units and infrastructure as well as boosting production a little, and Free Speech to accelerate my land claims and to help with the bottom line. This turned out to be my last civics change of the game.
To further press my tile accumulation for the domination win, I founded another city:
And I captured that barbarian city, as many of you recommended.
I packed up my amphibious city raiders onto Transports and headed south, to take on this guy.
He fell pretty quickly, like the proverbial deck of cards in fact, and I gained another holy city and a couple of wonders for my trouble.
I researched Electricity and Radio, then obtained my next, very important military technology.
Tanks FTW!
Around this time, a complication arose. Someone else was feeling acquisitive and decided to beat up on one of this game's 98-pound weaklings:
Yes, Mehmed went after Roosevelt--my next target! I had to keep a close eye on that situation, especially after he quickly captured an American city:
I didn't want Mehmed to take too many American cities, and I certainly didn't want Roosevelt to capitulate to him. I let the war go on for a few turns, though, to keep them both preoccupied--and to weaken Roosevelt for me, I hoped--while I finished off the Khmer empire.
Which did not take long.
With my forces ready to pounce on America and Mehmed's stack threatening another American city, I felt it was time to push the Ottomans out of the picture.
Excellent. That left Roosevelt as ripe pickings for me.
Sidebar: I also finally got around to founding that last city on the Viking home continent.
Better late than never, I guess!
Hammurabi built the UN around this time, but he couldn't compete with my commanding lead in terms of population and the votes that entails.
Close examination of this picture will reveal why I posted it to the "Funny Screenshots" thread. Roosevelt voted to make me S-G... but I'm at war with him! Well, the simple truth is that the S-G vote came up before I declared war. If FDR had been a human player, though, being reminded of his vote would have been adding insult to injury, I'm sure.
I couldn't resist building another wonder, of course.
I was thinking of using it to switch between Representation and Universal Suffrage. But I never did. I passed the two economic resolutions through the UN, which meant I had money coming in hand-over-fist, so I was gold-rushing builds almost every turn. Oh well, at least I kept it out of the AI's hands, and it added to my final score.
And when I captured Washington, I captured yet more wonders.
Interesting. In spite of being somewhat backward, Roosevelt managed to complete a significant number of wonders. Obviously being Industrious with a source of marble helped there.
To be continued...
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Round 11: 1790 AD to 1882 AD (67 turns), Part 2
Within a few turns, I captured Philadelphia. And unlike the temporary setback this proved during the American Revolution, in this game, it sounded the death knell for the Yanks.
I played peacefully for a few turns, waiting for the American cities to come out of revolt and expand their borders to the BFC so I could see how close I was to a domination win.
Pretty darn close:
I had the population, obviously, but I would need several tiles for the required land area. I decided to take a few more turns to build up my forces and attack Mehmed with a multi-pronged approach. Once I felt ready, I declared war.
The first prong was aimed at that island city just off my coast. Taking it acquired me a little more land, but it was also a defensive move, denying Mehmed a convenient springboard to counter-attack the Viking mainland. I used Destroyers to remove the defensive bonus, Bombers to weaken the two Infantry serving as the city's garrison, and one Transport of Marines to take them out.
On the same turn, I used my amphibious task force to capture the two Ottoman cities that were sharing an island with Teoihuacan--the former barbarian gem city.
As you can see, neither city capture gained me much land because Istanbul, Mehmed's capital, was so close by. That would have to be remedied on the next turn.
Mehmed launched several Destroyer attacks against me in retaliation. I lost a few Destroyers protecting my amphibious task force and fishing grounds, and had some fishing boats pillaged, but suffered no damage aside from that.
On the next turn, then, my next "prong" was thrust home--at the American city Mehmed had captured. This was where my main tank force was concentrated, and a good thing, too. Mehmed had about a half-dozen Artillery in that city, and the tanks, which had to move within one tile of the city and wait until the next turn to attack, took a pounding. Fortunately I'd parachuted in a Woodsman II Paratrooper to take most of the damage.
With that done, my amphibious task force moved against the Ottoman capital.
I obtained a few more wonders for my trouble:
The best one there was probably the Sistine Chapel, as it would add to the culture my cities were generating and help me sooner claim more tiles towards the domination win.
At this point, I faced a decision: continue the war or make peace and wait for my borders to expand for the win? Other factors came into play. Mehmed had created a colony for himself:
Hammy refused to enter the fray:
And I was ridiculously close to victory:
Washington's borders were going to expand within a couple of turns, right around the same time Eskisehir (that Ottoman island city near my mainland) was going to come out of revolt and claim another tile for me. And when Chicago came out of revolt I'd be way over the required amount.
So it was time to talk turkey with the Ottomans. (Get it? See, the Ottoman Empire became modern Turkey... All right, I'll keep my day job.)
And on the next turn...
Woo-hoo! Eskisehir and Washington were more than enough after all.
The post-win saved game file is below. The post-mortem will follow.
Within a few turns, I captured Philadelphia. And unlike the temporary setback this proved during the American Revolution, in this game, it sounded the death knell for the Yanks.
I played peacefully for a few turns, waiting for the American cities to come out of revolt and expand their borders to the BFC so I could see how close I was to a domination win.
Pretty darn close:
I had the population, obviously, but I would need several tiles for the required land area. I decided to take a few more turns to build up my forces and attack Mehmed with a multi-pronged approach. Once I felt ready, I declared war.
The first prong was aimed at that island city just off my coast. Taking it acquired me a little more land, but it was also a defensive move, denying Mehmed a convenient springboard to counter-attack the Viking mainland. I used Destroyers to remove the defensive bonus, Bombers to weaken the two Infantry serving as the city's garrison, and one Transport of Marines to take them out.
On the same turn, I used my amphibious task force to capture the two Ottoman cities that were sharing an island with Teoihuacan--the former barbarian gem city.
As you can see, neither city capture gained me much land because Istanbul, Mehmed's capital, was so close by. That would have to be remedied on the next turn.
Mehmed launched several Destroyer attacks against me in retaliation. I lost a few Destroyers protecting my amphibious task force and fishing grounds, and had some fishing boats pillaged, but suffered no damage aside from that.
On the next turn, then, my next "prong" was thrust home--at the American city Mehmed had captured. This was where my main tank force was concentrated, and a good thing, too. Mehmed had about a half-dozen Artillery in that city, and the tanks, which had to move within one tile of the city and wait until the next turn to attack, took a pounding. Fortunately I'd parachuted in a Woodsman II Paratrooper to take most of the damage.
With that done, my amphibious task force moved against the Ottoman capital.
I obtained a few more wonders for my trouble:
The best one there was probably the Sistine Chapel, as it would add to the culture my cities were generating and help me sooner claim more tiles towards the domination win.
At this point, I faced a decision: continue the war or make peace and wait for my borders to expand for the win? Other factors came into play. Mehmed had created a colony for himself:
Hammy refused to enter the fray:
And I was ridiculously close to victory:
Washington's borders were going to expand within a couple of turns, right around the same time Eskisehir (that Ottoman island city near my mainland) was going to come out of revolt and claim another tile for me. And when Chicago came out of revolt I'd be way over the required amount.
So it was time to talk turkey with the Ottomans. (Get it? See, the Ottoman Empire became modern Turkey... All right, I'll keep my day job.)
And on the next turn...
Woo-hoo! Eskisehir and Washington were more than enough after all.
The post-win saved game file is below. The post-mortem will follow.
Hackapell
Rhetorician
an excellent win! 
Sure! Although it would be great to see Conquest Victory (we haven't seen one in ages...), it maybe would make the game too much of a tedious mop-up. Still, I think you should continue the war, rather than wait 
So the next time is Shaka? I'd like to see some references to Anglo-Zulu war from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. ("Tiger? In Africa?")
Well! I hope this topic hadn't too much spam wih it.
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam... (Seriously, it was the most amusing quote I've ever read in your ALC stories, except the Camelot one.). 
So the next time is Shaka? I'd like to see some references to Anglo-Zulu war from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. ("Tiger? In Africa?")
Well! I hope this topic hadn't too much spam wih it.
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam... (Seriously, it was the most amusing quote I've ever read in your ALC stories, except the Camelot one.).
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Post-Mortem
We begin with the tale of the tape... or graphs, as it were. GNP for the whole game to start off with:
You can see how this took off for me right around the time I (a) conquered Hannibal and (b) switched to Emancipation.
Production:
Interesting how you can see each of my three Golden Ages reflected in this graph (the GNP graph, because of slider and trade route fluctuations, I suppose, is harder to read in that regard). Even before I started my conquering binge, no one could compete with me here. I've come to realize that Civ really is about hammers more than anything else. Never mind if you're behind in techs or gold; if you can out-produce the other civs, you can win.
Power for the entire game:
Notice how the power and production graphs pretty much run in parallel? Not a coincidence.
Power over the last 100 turns:
Interesting--the Carthaginians, Spain, Khmer, and Americans all fell within 100 turns of each other! It looks like the Ottomans wouldn't have taken too much longer either, if I'd kept going. I could have won a conquest victory, but I was getting tired of micromanaging all my units and cities; that's why it took a while to play and post this last round. I needed a lot of breaks.
Demographics:
Statistics:
Heh. So I founded a baker's dozen cities, but by the end, I controlled something like fifty.
And finally, my score.
WOW! That's not just the first ALC to break the 100,000 point barrier--that's my first game to do so, including all my off-line games!
Mind you, in retrospect, I have to admit that the deck was kind of stacked. As we saw, the AI does not handle this map type very well. It over-emphasizes naval units, which are really not much more than an annoyance, and under-emphasizes land units. I mean, Mehmed was still defending his cities with Longbowmen, of all things.
And playing as the Vikings on an archipelago map is like playing on a Pangaea as the Romans: overpowered. As some of you pointed out, the Vikings have several UUs--besides the Berserkers, the UB means that every naval unit is a pseudo-UU, what with that free Nav I promotion. And in this game, my UUs became even more so, with a free Drill I for the melee units and an additional move for the ships thanks to winning the circumnavigation race. I had the game in the bag from early on--and that was even with having to overcome the challenges of an isolated start and very few cottage sites for Financial Ragnar to take advantage of.
On the Berserkers--I used them exactly as I intended, upgrading them to Grenadiers ASAP, and combining them with siege weapons even if the latter attacked at a significant disadvantage from aboard ship. They are a very powerful unit on this map type.
The real key to winning this game, however, and the most noteworthy gambit within it, was gaining Astronomy ultra-early. Full credit to Validator for that one. Just to refresh everyone's memory on how it was done:
Early Astronomy was huge economically, gaining me lucrative trade routes before anyone else had them, and long before Mercantilism closed them off, as well as being able to trade for valuable resources so my cities could grow. It could have been even more powerful (for an even earlier win and higher score) if I'd launched Viking raids aboard Galleons even earlier, though frankly, it took a while to ramp up production. If I'd focused solely on military I could have made it happen, but I prefer to play a more balanced game.
Overall, then, it was fun playing as the Vikings, but it was a definite romp on this map. Playing as Ragnar on Continents or Big & Small might be a bit more balanced.
Next up: Shaka! In a while. I want to take a bit of a break and catch up on some Princes of the Universe story entries first. I also want to play a couple of off-line games with the "No tech brokering" option turned on to see what that's like.
We begin with the tale of the tape... or graphs, as it were. GNP for the whole game to start off with:
You can see how this took off for me right around the time I (a) conquered Hannibal and (b) switched to Emancipation.
Production:
Interesting how you can see each of my three Golden Ages reflected in this graph (the GNP graph, because of slider and trade route fluctuations, I suppose, is harder to read in that regard). Even before I started my conquering binge, no one could compete with me here. I've come to realize that Civ really is about hammers more than anything else. Never mind if you're behind in techs or gold; if you can out-produce the other civs, you can win.
Power for the entire game:
Notice how the power and production graphs pretty much run in parallel? Not a coincidence.
Power over the last 100 turns:
Interesting--the Carthaginians, Spain, Khmer, and Americans all fell within 100 turns of each other! It looks like the Ottomans wouldn't have taken too much longer either, if I'd kept going. I could have won a conquest victory, but I was getting tired of micromanaging all my units and cities; that's why it took a while to play and post this last round. I needed a lot of breaks.
Demographics:
Statistics:
Heh. So I founded a baker's dozen cities, but by the end, I controlled something like fifty.
And finally, my score.
WOW! That's not just the first ALC to break the 100,000 point barrier--that's my first game to do so, including all my off-line games! Mind you, in retrospect, I have to admit that the deck was kind of stacked. As we saw, the AI does not handle this map type very well. It over-emphasizes naval units, which are really not much more than an annoyance, and under-emphasizes land units. I mean, Mehmed was still defending his cities with Longbowmen, of all things.
And playing as the Vikings on an archipelago map is like playing on a Pangaea as the Romans: overpowered. As some of you pointed out, the Vikings have several UUs--besides the Berserkers, the UB means that every naval unit is a pseudo-UU, what with that free Nav I promotion. And in this game, my UUs became even more so, with a free Drill I for the melee units and an additional move for the ships thanks to winning the circumnavigation race. I had the game in the bag from early on--and that was even with having to overcome the challenges of an isolated start and very few cottage sites for Financial Ragnar to take advantage of.
On the Berserkers--I used them exactly as I intended, upgrading them to Grenadiers ASAP, and combining them with siege weapons even if the latter attacked at a significant disadvantage from aboard ship. They are a very powerful unit on this map type.
The real key to winning this game, however, and the most noteworthy gambit within it, was gaining Astronomy ultra-early. Full credit to Validator for that one. Just to refresh everyone's memory on how it was done:
Validator said:For these reasons I think you need to make getting Astronomy a higher priority than waiting for Liberalism. Once you've finished optics you can get to the point of researching Astronomy quickly. You'll only need Math->Calendar.
While Astronomy is an expensive tech it should be possible to use a GS to bulb about half of it, and possibly even use 2 GSs to bulb it entirely. According to the GS tech list kniteowl posted a couple of pages back the only other tech you would need to get out of the way for the Astronomy bulb would be Alphabet. You would need to avoid Meditation, CS and Theology to block Philosophy and Paper.
If you build NE in Nidaros ASAP it will produce 2 GPs in the next 35 or so turns if you continue to work the 2 scientists. Both will be highly likely to be GSs (about 70% for the first and 75% for the second). That's about a 50% chance of having both be GSs, which would mean getting Astronomy around 600 AD.
Early Astronomy was huge economically, gaining me lucrative trade routes before anyone else had them, and long before Mercantilism closed them off, as well as being able to trade for valuable resources so my cities could grow. It could have been even more powerful (for an even earlier win and higher score) if I'd launched Viking raids aboard Galleons even earlier, though frankly, it took a while to ramp up production. If I'd focused solely on military I could have made it happen, but I prefer to play a more balanced game.
Overall, then, it was fun playing as the Vikings, but it was a definite romp on this map. Playing as Ragnar on Continents or Big & Small might be a bit more balanced.
Next up: Shaka! In a while. I want to take a bit of a break and catch up on some Princes of the Universe story entries first. I also want to play a couple of off-line games with the "No tech brokering" option turned on to see what that's like.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Great job on the score!
iamnleth
Warlord
Quick question: What made that score so big?! It's gigantic! It even beat out the Kublai ALC... perhaps the difficulty?
Very nicely done. A great demonstration of Ragnar's power. 
And maximum respect for giving Validator the credit he so richly deserves. I always find his contributions to the ALC to be wise, insightful and enlightening - they are yet another reason why these are the best threads on the forum.
And maximum respect for giving Validator the credit he so richly deserves. I always find his contributions to the ALC to be wise, insightful and enlightening - they are yet another reason why these are the best threads on the forum.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
A good question, especially since the Kublai win came so much earlier--150 or so turns earlier, or thereabouts, and we keep hearing how early victories make such a big difference to scores in Civ IV. Here's a breakdown of the Ragnar score on the winning turn:
And here's the Kublai score, from the winning turn in that game:
(Yes, I actually dug out my old Warlords CD and the saved game file to snag that screenshot. Really, the lengths I go to for you people.
) Land was approximately the same, with the more land-based Kublai game having a very slight edge (I played on a Fractal map in that game that gave me a virtual Pangaea). (And did you like how the above screenshots' backgrounds emphasize that difference?
) You can see, though, that the Ragnar game, finishing later, therefore has a higher technology and wonder score. But the biggest factor here by far is population, with the Ragnar final score having around 2x the population score compared to the Kublai game. Significantly, I had not yet researched Biology by the end of the Kublai game (I was researching Scientific Method, and very slowly at that, when the game ended). Factor in the higher difficulty level (Emperor for Ragnar, Monarch for Kublai), and the result is a higher score despite a later finish (though 1882 is still respectably early IMHO).
Someone else more mathematically inclined may want to post a more detailed analysis, but that's the gist of it.
Hackapell
Rhetorician
Hm! interesting anaylsis, but since I'm not a math guy, I'm inclined to agree.
Before going on hiatus to work on your other stuff (Specifically, Princes of the Universe), start the next pre-game thread and post the start screenshot and save so we can spend 13 pages over where to put the settler. That way, you can come back and have all the analysis you need to start the game.
Also, Winston Hughes is right; the quality of Sisutil's play is only heightened by the input he receives here, so
Since I don't have BtS yet, I haven't been following as closly as I would like, but I'll definently watch the conquest of Shaka
Thanks for a great game, Sisi!
Before going on hiatus to work on your other stuff (Specifically, Princes of the Universe), start the next pre-game thread and post the start screenshot and save so we can spend 13 pages over where to put the settler. That way, you can come back and have all the analysis you need to start the game.
Also, Winston Hughes is right; the quality of Sisutil's play is only heightened by the input he receives here, so
Since I don't have BtS yet, I haven't been following as closly as I would like, but I'll definently watch the conquest of Shaka
Thanks for a great game, Sisi!
Did you guys notice that the land requirement got down from 64% to 60 % because of the new colony?
I guess If you had founded a colony for some remote cities, you could have gotten domination a bit earlier.
Probably with a lesser score though.
I guess If you had founded a colony for some remote cities, you could have gotten domination a bit earlier.
Probably with a lesser score though.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Interesting! I hadn't noticed that.
Anyone know how that works in terms of more specific game mechanics?
In custom games, you can fill the map with more than usual AIs.
This leads to domination being less "costly" in terms of land.
Each new colony acts as if you had added 1 more AI at the beginning of the game.
The strange part is it doesn't even look at the number of dead AIs...
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
So in other words, the more AI civs are in the game (one way or another), the lower the land requirement for domination?
But (probably I will say Something Obvious) you have to take on account that you get more points, the LESS civilizations are in the game. I learned this in one of the multiplayer games, where my ultimately crappy civ (on crappy lands BTW) somehow managed to get quite a high score (1000 or such points in 1000 AD? Yeah, you get the idea). I think I have been explained that the score is somehow "dealed" between the civilizations, but I don't quite know how it works.
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
FTFY.
sin, the former English teacher who's Quixotic enough to try to correct grammar on the Internet.
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