ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

To answer your question about Defensive Pacts, they do not get canceled if the civilization you are friendly with drops to pleased. So if you want a defensive pact with Gilly, you can get one now and keep it even if he changes to free religion. If you are going for a diplomatic win, then you probably should get defensive pacts with everyone you can, as you will need to have more diplomatic bonuses with all your allies than whoever you end up running against does.
 
80 turns to take down Monty and 5 AP votes defied was what I was expecting, though you are a little further behind on the tech ttree than I'd have liked. Quite a masterclass in tech trading to stay as close as you did.

The ai is determined to keep this a 9 civ game, isn't it? Julius Cerasar , the last original civ and another early UU. He's been planning and preparing his attack for years. He is third on the power list and Hatty is geared for war with him by being state property. Staying in her favourite civic seems sensible.

If you remain in theocracy the only religion that can spread to those two cities without religion is Buddhism, leaving two misionaries you'd have to create. Generating 7 missinaries to turn more than half Hatty's cities Taoist would be one use for Cuzco. I think you need farms to grow population moren than you need cottages and, once Cuzco 's grown as large as it can, to turn those farms into workshops. Turning some of the towns into workshops in your production cities will boost your production. You could found a city on those spices to make use of them.

I think your need is science, hammers and great people. Oxford and NE in Washington, Wall Sreet in Boston, libraries each running 2 science specialists, courthouses in all cities, jails to reduce WW, the Globe in New York and forges in the cities that would benfit.

Techwise, Hammy and Hatty are running away with the game. That might be why Shaka and Gilgamesh have a defensive pact. Finishing off rifling before going into anarchy would be better - at least you could draft riflemen. Gilgamesh was Hatty's rival to control the AP and it was Hatty proposing that the war with Monty end. Steam Power and Assembly Line after Rifling. I'm hoping that you'll be able to trade for Democracy, Mil Trad, Steel and Mil Science - West Point in Norfolk and Drydock, once available. The Ironworks may go into a city you haven't conquered yet.

I'd take that Defensive Pact with Galgamesh. Whilst OR is going to help down the line, maybe Pacifism to speed the production of Great People is of more immediate use.

If Caesar DOW's Hatty, Zara and his vassals are liable to follow suit. Asking Hatty for techs, whilst she's still "Friendly" and bogged down ith Ceasar will give you an indication of how her war is going. The more techs she'll give, the harder time of it she's having.
Try and get deals with Zara, Charlie, Sal and Julius that mean you can't DoW them for ten turns. Once Hatty doesn't control the AP anyymore, isn't Buddhist, you can support a motion to DOW the heretic. If that fails, A DP with Shaka and try to goad Hatty into war
 
I didn't read all the post round posts. I'm sure they all have good direction on what to do. Here's one thing I'll suggest although it may already be out there. Perhaps switch to caste system, take the one turn anarchy hit, starve a city to quickly generate a great person, burn a golden age, and then change the rest of your civics. A four turn hit of anarchy is probably another tech for just about everyone.

As far as techs go, I'd say biology as the AI doesn't seem to prioritize too heavily. It's a great tech to trade back for democracy, steam power, and perhaps some others. With the golden age and perhaps some deficit spending, you might be able to nail scientific method and come close to biology. I realize that emancipation is important and will help boost research, but once someone has it, the other AIs seem to chase it quickly, and you'd continue to have zero trading leverage.
 
I say why not try for an AP win before the resident gets Mass Media and obsoletes the AP.

1. Vote for the next resolution so you get your full member status back
2. Send missionaries to Caesar, Charlemagne and Saladin (gift him since he's running Theocracy probably) to make sure everyone has Buddhism so the diplo victory vote comes up.
3. Send missionaries to the rest of your cities that don't have Buddhism.
4. I don't remember who built the AP (was it Hammy?) but from the glance screen it look like you have a pretty good chance of winning. You'll get Gilgamesh's and Shaka's votes and even though Hammy and Hatty have some positive invisible bonuses towards each other you can get the shared civic bonus and gift them gold to push up the attitude bonuses.
5. If the AP resident gets mass media before you can do this then I'd say forget the UN victory and go for space because then you'd have to worry about the votes from the Christian block.
 
On civics changes - you could have switched civics a little before the war ended - making the four turns of anarchy coincide with the last four turns of war weariness. Now you should just use your next great person for a golden age, and switch civics then. Assuming you haven't used up your 1 GP golden age yet.

Rep, Caste, Free Speech, Free Market seems like the right choice. Maybe Pacifism instead of OR. It might not cost that much due to you having a lot of cities - which means more free support for units (I think). If you switch civics at the beginning of a golden age, you can switch again before the end of the golden age, if you wanted to try out a set of civics.

Also, I haven't looked at the save, but if you have a lot of obsolete units around, warriors, archers, chariots, axemen, then DELETE them (maybe even catapults, depending on how/if you see future wars happening). This will give your economy a boost without hurting your power rating too much. It doesn't look like you are in much danger of being attacked anyways, especially if you take a defensive pact (which I think you should).

Z
 
I loaded up the save. It's hard to get a handle on how its flowing not having played it myself. But, you have TREMENDOUS room for pop growth. You have plus 20 food in washington that you can use right now by changing tile allocations. That will give you the next pop point in 2 turns. I know you want a GP for a GA but you could switch to food and then start assigning them. The observatory can wait, it wont give that much of a boost by itself. I would strongly suggest doing this in your other towns as well; switch from hammers to food, then back fill the hammer tiles as you grow. By changing around your the way your cities were working tiles, I was able to go from your 9 gold per turn surplus to 20 per turn while still emphasizing food. Also consider you can get rifles 1 turn earlier by turning up science 1 notch. I think it wil cost about 50g per turn. You may want to do it being so far behind in tech. It looks pretty nice though as far ar what towns are building what, etc.
 
Now it is Caesar who is in WHEOOHRN! Although Hatty is his worst enemy I doubt Caesar is after her, since she is soooo far away. So who might it be???
Trying to convert him to Buddhism will not work via trade, due to the aforementioned bug, so you would need to do so with a spy or send enough Missionaries to make him switch out of his own will. But with his war plans started it will probably not be worth it.
I hadn't noticed Caesar was gearing up for war, though his power rating should have been a clue.

Could he be coming after me? Our power ratings are currently quite similar, and once I get Rifling and upgrade several units I should jump ahead of him.

Could he be considering Shaka, which means Gilgamesh too? Nutty, but I've seen the AI do crazier things. If so, I'd say Caesar has become our new Monty. In which case, do I want that DP? Maybe I should hold off until I know who Caesar is targeting.
you're in a bit of a tech hole at the moment, and for the next few turns at least its going to continue to get wider, you're opponents have you somewhat beat in GNP right now, and that means that they're likely going to tech faster than you can catch up, at least until your new holdings begin to kick in. your next great person is in 18 turns from Washington, and unless its something useful, its going to pop DR. If you can wait that long on your civic swap (and maybe you can't, maybe they'd pull too far ahead in that time) i would suggest popping that next GP for your golden age, and use the GA to whip your economy back into shape right quick. the extra hammers and commerce will jump up your research and your production, and by waiting a few turns you can save yourself the 4 turns of anarchy you quoted for the civic swap. If you can't wait 18 turns, then load up Washington to the max with specialists and the wait drops to 9 turns. If you blow the GP for a golden age it doesn't matter what kind it is so pollution of the pool won't matter. My thought is that 4 turns of absolutly nothing is probably going to cost more than 10 or 15 turns of slightly less effective civics, although without actually braving the anarchy its hard to say what the gain would be, and that makes it hard to compare.
Yes, the thought of using the next Great Person for a Golden Age had occurred to me as well. If I load up Washington with Specialists, I get the next GP in 9 turns. That seems like a reasonable solution, and it leverages the Philosophical trait.
Civics: hereditiary rule (not representation), free speech, caste system, free market, organized religion. Techs: democracy first, above all else. Then switch to US and emancipation. You're Lincoln.

I'm curious: why HR rather than Rep? If I load up on food and start running lots of specialists, Rep seems like the obvious choice. The war's over, most of my cities now have very good happiness caps, so there's little need for HR :) garrisons. There's a big need to squeeze as many flasks out of my cities as I can, however.

I'm starting to lean towards a diplomatic victory. Space may be overly optimistic, given the tech gap.
 
At this point I stopped caring about anything but killing off Montezuma. I didn't care about my economy. I didn't care about my research. I didn't care about growing my cities. I didn't even care about winning the game. I just wanted Monty to die, die, die, die, DIE.

As much as you may have felt you were playing out of irrational anger, I don't know that you really had any other options for dealing with the war with Monty. Giving in to the AP and stopping the war would have opened up the possibility of Monty becoming the vassal of one of your friends, and even if he didn't you still would have gotten the "declared war on our friend" hit from all your friends when you restarted the war. And the AP resolutions still could have come up in any subsequent war. The bottom line is that Monty had to die if you were going to have any chance of winning the game.

The real mistake was made in the previous rounds when you allowed Monty to expand unchecked. But that's water under the bridge now.


Moving forward, you're definitely facing a scary tech situation. Especially when you look closely and see where the AIs really are:
Hattie has Communism, Bio and Physics. :eek:
Zara has Fission and Electricity. :eek:
Hammurabi has Assembly Line. :eek:

The good news is that there are some differences between the AIs, so some tech brokering might be possible. Hattie doesn't have Rifling, so it might be possible to trade that for either Military Science or Democracy, and then trade that tech to another AI, etc. Then again Hattie may finish Rifling first making it worthless for trade purposes. :(

An Internet beeline may be the only option at this point. Checking the tech screen you're 12 techs away from Computers. The 11 pre-reqs basically fall into three lines:
  • SciMeth->Physics->Electricity->Radio
  • Steam->AL->Industrialism->Plastics
  • Steel->RR->Combustion
(Of course there are some additional dependencies there.)

The bad news is that there are some other techs you really want to get that aren't on the list: Democracy, Bio and Refrigeration (for the UB) being the most significant.

It's hard to know what the best option would be for tech trading, but I would pursue Steam->AL after finishing Rifling. AL is expensive enough to get 1 for 1 trades from it, and the AI usually doesn't prioritize it. Hopefully Hammurabi will start building the Pentagon and won't trade it to anyone. At the very least AL will provide you with a significant upgrade to your military as well as a means to boost your production.

After AL is finished RR is only 2 techs away (1 if you can trade for Steel). Another good trading tech that the AI doesn't usually prioritize.

After that you'll need to see what you've gotten in trade and also what the AIs tech status is before deciding what to research next.



Regarding espionage, one of the reasons you're in such bad shape is that the AIs undoubtedly have jails and maybe even security bureaus in their cities, while you're relying only on courthouses. The good news is that since you have more cities than any of the AIs you can also get more EPs from buildings, if you can get the full set of espionage buildings in each city.

So you may want to look at founding as many cities as possible. In addition to the location mentioned between Cuzco and NY there are a couple more filler sites available. The coastal tile 3 NE of Boston can work 4 grassland, 3 grassland hills and a couple of coast tiles that no other city can work and the hill 3N1W of Pasadena can work 6 grassland tiles that no other city can work. Both should be able to at least pay their own expenses, so they're probably worthwhile.
 
Haven't checked the save so far, but my 2 eurocents ATM:

- You need to break the Buddha block..... it will be extremely hard to outtech such a group of cozy Immortal AI, not mentioning the danger of AP misusage ( 5 votes to stop war vs Monty? :faint: ). Your diplo should be done accordingly.

- I think that JC is gearing towards Charlie and his master or against Hatty...... nothing that it matters much to you, unless you can use this war to get some diplo mayhem around.

Anyway probably will have more to say after checking the save
 
OK, just looked at the save and I have a few more concrete suggestions:
  1. You've got units on "goto" to Cuzco and Tiwankwu. Stick them in New York where you actually need the HR happiness. None of the Buddhists are going to declare on you at friendly so they don't need to be stationed on the front line right now.
  2. The slider's currently on 50%. Your priority infrastructure build should therefore be banks, since they'll give you a +50% boost to wealth generation, allowing you to raise the slider. More bang for the buck there, so they take a higher priority than observatories/markets/grocers.
  3. The other building to prioritize is the cheap university, since you still need 5 more for Oxford. Getting that soon (trade for Hammy's stone to help) will give your research a much-needed boost while the new cities get up to speed. Boston is probably the best short-term location for that wonder.
  4. By maxing out specialists in Washington you can get your next GP there in 9 and use him for a GA, which as others have said probably makes more sense than sinking 4 turns of anarchy into a civics swap now. FP can be whipped in Portland in 5 turns, so you definitely want to stay in slavery until then.
  5. Swap research to democracy now so you can revolt to emancipation before the end of your GA. I'd consider US then too as a chunk of your unhappiness should be fading.
  6. Founding the extra city between New York and Cuzco is worth it if you're going for a diplo win since it can grow to around size 16 post-biology with farms and windmills; if going for another victory condition I'm not sure I'd bother since you already control the land and resources and it'll take a while to start paying for itself.
  7. Focus all your EP on Hatty now. She's spammed 4 religions to most of her cities already, which means she could be heading down the cultural route. Redressing the balance there will allow you to sabotage her buildings more easily later on. Zara may be going cultural too (although he only has one religion), but he's a much easier diplomatic target for the Seals (as is JC).
Things look pretty strong on the whole, as you're #1 in land and have massive room for economic growth thanks to your small cities and new acquisitions. Tech seems bad, but thanks to all the friendly AIs, there's scope to trade your way back up as the economy grows, particularly with Shaka and Hammy. Taking madscientist's suggestion of democracy followed by a beeline for the UB makes sense for that.
 
As much as you may have felt you were playing out of irrational anger, I don't know that you really had any other options for dealing with the war with Monty. Giving in to the AP and stopping the war would have opened up the possibility of Monty becoming the vassal of one of your friends, and even if he didn't you still would have gotten the "declared war on our friend" hit from all your friends when you restarted the war. And the AP resolutions still could have come up in any subsequent war. The bottom line is that Monty had to die if you were going to have any chance of winning the game.
Thanks, I appreciate that.

It was strange how Monty did not capitulate. I seem to recall checking at one point--it was shortly after I'd taken his capital and I think one of his other coastal cities, that he was willing to capitulate. I was worried that he would capitulate to someone else, though if he had, I would have gone to war with them too, such was the mindset I was in. But he never did.

I can think of a few possible explanations. Remember that the AI code was supposed to have been tweaked a while back to make the AI "prefer" to vassal to whoever has done it the most damage. That could have played a factor, especially since Monty was never at war with anyone else. In addition, all the civs he could have capitulated to were Pleased or better with me and therefore would not want to go to war with me (though as I recall that depends on the different leaders' background settings). I don't think it was because of my power rating, which wasn't among the highest.
 
- I think that JC is gearing towards Charlie and his master or against Hatty...... nothing that it matters much to you, unless you can use this war to get some diplo mayhem around.

Anyway probably will have more to say after checking the save
rolo's psychic :goodjob:

JC is WHEOOH at the moment, therefore I'd definitely sign the DP with Gilgamesh. It might also be worth finishing off rifling before teching democracy, just to be safe, even though Hatty is a more likely target since she's his worst enemy.
 
It was strange how Monty did not capitulate. I seem to recall checking at one point--it was shortly after I'd taken his capital and I think one of his other coastal cities, that he was willing to capitulate. I was worried that he would capitulate to someone else, though if he had, I would have gone to war with them too, such was the mindset I was in. But he never did.

I can think of a few possible explanations. Remember that the AI code was supposed to have been tweaked a while back to make the AI "prefer" to vassal to whoever has done it the most damage. That could have played a factor, especially since Monty was never at war with anyone else. In addition, all the civs he could have capitulated to were Pleased or better with me and therefore would not want to go to war with me (though as I recall that depends on the different leaders' background settings). I don't think it was because of my power rating, which wasn't among the highest.

Civs can only capitulate to civs that they are at war with, and you were alone in the war so there was never an option for Monty to capitulate to another civ.

Monty would have had to become a voluntary vassal of another civ during your war, and Firaxis changed the decision making logic behind that in the Warlords patch so that civs won't take a voluntary vassal if that would force them into war with a Friend.

So Zara was the only possible leader that could have become Monty's master during your war. And I don't think they really like each other enough.
 
rolo's psychic :goodjob:

JC is WHEOOH at the moment, therefore I'd definitely sign the DP with Gilgamesh. It might also be worth finishing off rifling before teching democracy, just to be safe, even though Hatty is a more likely target since she's his worst enemy.

I would hold off on signing any defensive pacts as of now since one Caesar attacks, the defensive pact bonus will go away anyway as both sides declare war on him. Also, Gilgamesh should be the last one to worry about diplomatically as he built the AP and you'll be competing against him. (if you choose to try the AP win)

I think sending off a missionary to Caesar should be priority right now to make sure he has a vote in the AP. Otherwise once he declares war on whoever his target is, you might have to be dragged into war to keep your diplomatic relations happy (unless his target is Zara) and then it'll be too late to send a missionary.
 
rolo's psychic :goodjob:

JC is WHEOOH at the moment, therefore I'd definitely sign the DP with Gilgamesh. It might also be worth finishing off rifling before teching democracy, just to be safe, even though Hatty is a more likely target since she's his worst enemy.
...or just highly intuitive when it comes to Civ?!

Nice game. Haven't much to add, I normally just lurk ALCs and anything like that, but dropping in to say - nice one with renaming Monty's cities. You must really hate him to do that. I suspect you might get hauled up for genocide though by the AP if you do it to the Inca cities as well...

@Validator - I hate that when one civ suddenly DoWs on you after taking on your target civ as a vassal, but you somehow miss that and in negotiating peace with the master you accidentally stop your war in its tracks. It was fortunate for you nothing like that happened, though personally before any big mediaeval conflict I normally beeline the AP to make sure I get to control it myself. I'm not sure whether it would work on this sort of level - that is my Warlord strategy to go through the early religion gambit Mysticism (Stonehenge) -> Polytheism -> (Hinduism) -> Priesthood -> (Oracle) -> Great Prophets for shrine and Theology bulbing -> AP before anyone else can nab it. It doesn't automatically mean I can win the residency and prevent what happened to you, but is it feasible that you could have gone this route before taking on Monty at all?

Mind you, that probably takes a lot out of the early game at this kind of level, and would be better as a more productive leader or at lower levels. It is something I may have to practice somewhat before I move on up to Noble.
 
Ok, I gave a look at the save ( and I'm not psychic... just read the glance and picked earlier reports of JC "hands full" status ;) ):

1- 50% :science: with 20 cities is quite nice... when the cottages start hitting on the finances, things will shoot up.

2- Hatty is too big to confort... she has to go down, one way or another. But not now and not by your hands ( if possible ). I know that this will not be consensual, but she is clearly in front of your shiny road to victory: pop, territory, religion access, diplo status....

3- Following 2: you need to break the Buddhist bloc. This is mandatory.... I don't think I need to explain why.

4- My opinion of JC DoW direction still stands: he will DoW Charlie ( or far less likely Hatty... JC is not Monty ).

5- Followinmg 3 and 4 : You should accept DP with Gigla .

6- AP victory is pretty viable, but you should try to put AI in FR for that. Hammy will be always your contender, though.....

7- Given the ammount of islands still open, I would expect some more colonies popping in. I'm specifically expecting a Hatty colony in the north with some luck.

8- You need Democracy badly..... Clearly 1# priority after Rifling. After that Scimet. You should switch to the nice CE civics as soon as you get Democracy or a nice useless GP ( ( still debating about FR or Org Rel... depends strongly of how peaceful you want the game to be )

9 - some filler city suggestions:
Spoiler :





First is the best NP site you still have around and it can work some overlapping cottages while the rest of the nearby cities regrow. The other 2 are simply decent fillers. All sustainable even now.

For now it is all...
 
I would hold off on signing any defensive pacts as of now since one Caesar attacks, the defensive pact bonus will go away anyway as both sides declare war on him. Also, Gilgamesh should be the last one to worry about diplomatically as he built the AP and you'll be competing against him. (if you choose to try the AP win)

I think sending off a missionary to Caesar should be priority right now to make sure he has a vote in the AP. Otherwise once he declares war on whoever his target is, you might have to be dragged into war to keep your diplomatic relations happy (unless his target is Zara) and then it'll be too late to send a missionary.

I forgot it was Gilgamesh who built the AP. If it's Sis vs. Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh has the advantage with Hatty (+14 to +11) and Hammurabi (+14 to +12) over Sis. If that's the case, then moving to Representation makes more sense and Bureaucracy and OR are the priority before the next election to get those two in better graces than they are with Gilgamesh. Switching to Rep also means it's a higher priority to spam Caesar with missionaries; he already likes you more than Gilgamesh without the Representation bonus.

I like the move to get the golden age in 9 turns via the next great person.
 
One more thing, S man: you should rework the canal forts in NY area. You have a desert hill and a plains that could be used instead of the inland grassland tiles you're using now.
 
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