ALC Game #4: Egypt/Hatshepsut

[Sisiutil]

Well, I'm actually relieved to hear ALC vets like Nares and pigswill recommending holding off on deciding which victory condition to pursue just yet. That's my instinct as well, but in this and previous ALC threads several posters urged me to move towards my win conditions as early as possible. Of course, that's likely because we keep kicking around the notion of a cultural win, and that one usually requires planning from very, VERY early on.

My own preference, at this point, is to pursue relatively short-term goals that leave the choice of game win flexible and decide later on. I would very much like to know what other three civs will remain as my competitors, and what state their empires are in, before making any commitments.

Frankly, I've never pursued and won a cultural win on a continents map. I've done it a couple of times using the fractal map, when I found myself alone on a continent capable of supporting at least 9 decent cities.

At this point I'm simply looking forward to finishing off Vicky and taking a break from warring to turn builder for several turns. That will present its own set of challenges. Who knows, maybe after a few turns of that I will get bored and decide to upgrade my veterans and let slip the dogs of war yet again.

This may be the longest ALC thread so far, but that's because this is the one that's lived up the most, for me, to the "Challenge" in "All Leaders Challenge". I'm learning a lot, and I going by the feedback, several other people reading the thread are as well. Playing as Hatty does, indeed, entail extremely careful management and strategic choices during the early game.

I've made a few mistakes in this game, but when I consider the big picture, that's a good thing. It's a risk I take by posting these games, that I'll expose my own shortcomings as much as my competencies, but I'm willing to do that. (I've been married for 13 years; believe me, I've been made well aware of my shortcomings!)

Speaking as a former educator, mistakes are crucial; they're how we learn. We advance as much because of our failures as our successes. Along the same lines, I'm reminded of the old saying: "God save me from the man who never makes a mistake, and from the man who makes the same mistake twice."

 

[pigswill]

I agree that it would be back door diplomacy and in many ways not very challenging. I still reckon this is not the culture game. Maybe it is about rebuilding the economy and occupying the continent which is likely to be interesting in its own right and after that think about victory condition (easy enough if you've ruled out cultural).

 

[Araqiel]

All this talk of mistakes being good makes me think you fail to see the advantage of conqueroring your home continent, no one disputes how your glorious empire rose to its current perfection under your flawless rule .

I think you're right about victory conditions, unless you're going for a high score or fastest finish. The main reason I try to target a certain condition is that otherwise I find myself ALWAYS just winning in a space race in a rather boring fashion. Just one war sometimes two to ensure I have sufficient green land to cottage my way to alpha centauri.

 

[Sisiutil]

All this talk of mistakes being good makes me think you fail to see the advantage of conqueroring your home continent, no one disputes how your glorious empire rose to its current perfection under your flawless rule .

Wise guy.

Of course I see the advantage of owning my continent! I think I've made that a preliminary goal in every ALC so far, and it's contributed substantially to my winning all of them so far. Unlike the other games, though, I'm not yet reaping as much of the benefits yet. But unlike the other games, it will be accomplished much, MUCH earlier. That will make this game very different from its predecessors.

I think you're right about victory conditions, unless you're going for a high score or fastest finish. The main reason I try to target a certain condition is that otherwise I find myself ALWAYS just winning in a space race in a rather boring fashion. Just one war sometimes two to ensure I have sufficient green land to cottage my way to alpha centauri.

I think the one win I don't want to pursue this time is space race, just because I've done it in the previous two ALC games and this time I think it would be ridiculously easy. I want to do something tougher and riskier even if it takes a little longer. So domination or even conquest are not ruled out, but neither are cultural or diplomatic, back-door or otherwise. I'm nothing if not flexible.

I think we should postpone planning for win conditions until after I meet the other AIs and know a little more about the other continent.

 

[Nares]

Speaking as a former educator, mistakes are crucial; they're how we learn. We advance as much because of our failures as our successes.

I'm sure you'll sooner delay Alphabet too long than pass up on CoL from here on. As you say, however, making mistakes is part of the learning process. The general response that I've seen to the ALC format is that it is highly instructional. As much as it reflects upon you, it does more to help the other players who are following the thread (but, in general, do not post).

I think we should postpone planning for win conditions until after I meet the other AIs and know a little more about the other continent.

Sounds like a good idea. There's certainly enough to occupy you in the meantime. Now get to it.

That's my instinct as well, but in this and previous ALC threads several posters urged me to move towards my win conditions as early as possible.

Well, that certainly is a function of a Cultural victory. I think it's also a requirement for a real Diplomatic victory (having to pick at least some allies very early).

 

[pigswill]

In terms of rebuilding the economy I suppose the first question (aswell as finishing Vicky) is should you build cities next (keeping research down due to maintenance costs) or develop the cities you've got and get research going again. I'd go for the latter coz you have enough troops to keep the barbs quiet.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well the Conquest option, (If you don't get Domination by just Settling the Home Continet) is interesting, because that would mean all you have to do is just wipe out every city On the Other continents... (be fun to annihilate those Heathen monotheists)

Looking at the Win Types...

Space Race=You rally can't lose at this point unless you mess up, just about any tech path works... just Cottage Spam most cities, and have a few producers [pairing NE with Globe Still works if you use Caste].., can Choose to win another way up in the Industrial age (about the time you begin building parts)

Domination/Conquest=well you Can lose this way but it would probably let you win another way in the process (Need to start invading late Renaissance Era...can change to Space Race relatively easily once Industrial Era is reached)

Cultural=again you Can lose this way, but you can reverse course with the Only losses being Great Artists produced (which if you saved them can be burned for techs/GAs instead) and any turns you spent with the Culture slider flipped. [a complete loss for other Victory Conditions]

 

[Araqiel]

In terms of rebuilding the economy I suppose the first question (aswell as finishing Vicky) is should you build cities next (keeping research down due to maintenance costs) or develop the cities you've got and get research going again. I'd go for the latter coz you have enough troops to keep the barbs quiet.

That is a simple question to answer. Once Vicky is eliminated settler spam immediately in every desirable location. Don't bother with marginal fishing villages and the like right away of course. Its better to get your cities established and growing sooner rather than later. The main reason you hold off is that your neighbors might take advantage of any temporary tech deffiency or that you'll lack the infastructure technologies to recover. He has no more near rivals and can build libraries, markets, granaries, and courthouses which are all you need to build.

His older empire can focus on missionaries.

 

[Nares]

That is a simple question to answer. Once Vicky is eliminated settler spam immediately in every desirable location. Don't bother with marginal fishing villages and the like right away of course. Its better to get your cities established and growing sooner rather than later. The main reason you hold off is that your neighbors might take advantage of any temporary tech deffiency or that you'll lack the infastructure technologies to recover. He has no more near rivals and can build libraries, markets, granaries, and courthouses which are all you need to build.

His older empire can focus on missionaries.

The only drawback to this approach is that it may cost either the Liberalism race and/or the circumnavigational bonus race. Though what you suggest is the overall better approach (it's better to get more important cities started earlier), it most likely sacrifices the aforementioned advantages. Of them, the circumnavigation bonus is far more important. The tech can be very easily recovered once the empire is fully functional.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Domination/Conquest=well you Can lose this way

I'm not sure how. Domination might already be won (after settling the rest of the continent). If not, it's certainly close. Worst case scenario you might need to clear out a few stray settlements that the AI drops on the home continent and take over 2 or 3 cities on a foreign continent. With the production of the home continent behind you, I don't see how the AI can possibly hold off an invasion. Conquest could be a little harder, but really it's the same thing where you build more offense (to take more cities) and less defense (because you don't need to keep any cities).

With the landmass that's currently available, all you need to do at this point is build some cities, cruise to the late game military technologies, crank out a huge army of planes with a few marines and tanks to back them up, and watch the magic happen. So much territory has been claimed that once it becomes productive it's going to be a massacre.

 

[Sisiutil]

With the landmass that's currently available, all you need to do at this point is build some cities, cruise to the late game military technologies, crank out a huge army of planes with a few marines and tanks to back them up, and watch the magic happen. So much territory has been claimed that once it becomes productive it's going to be a massacre.

That's why I like owning my continent: industrial and commercial capacity. It's fun being the biggest, baddest, but also richest kid on the block.

 

[Nares]

That's why I like owning my continent: industrial and commercial capacity. It's fun being the biggest, baddest, but also richest kid on the block.

I think the Cultural and Diplomatic victory options are implemented to provide a means of victory outside of owning your own continent. When you do decide to pursue them, you'll need to make the conscious decision to limit your expansion to the cities needed for this.

Cultural seems best suited for when you find yourself alone. Diplomatic requires you to be in contact with other civs from a relatively early point. Neither seems suited to the Continents map. You may want to consider switching up map selection. A (un)lucky Continents map might seed you by yourself (such as Mansa Musa's island in ALC3). I don't think there's any map selection that would give you a strong chance of having a quality island to yourself. A Pangaea map would give you the ability to exercise more diplomatic options. You could, alternatively, increase the difficulty to Monarch. The other option for spicing up the game is to follow some sort of variant rules, similar to how the Realms Beyond players approach the game.

Approaching the ALC from the standpoint of making the most out of leader traits and unique units is another way to take the format. It was partially emphasized in ALC3, when I asked you to make use of the Cho-ko-nus, though that particular strategy would have been better suited to ALC2, given the terrain layout. Unfortunatly, resource placement was more inclined for a builder strategy in ALC2 (early access to Stone and, with some expansion, Marble). ALC3 was purely an odd map, hence why I refer to Continents seeding you by yourself as being (un)lucky. It's lucky when you have the right civ for it, unlucky when you have the wrong one. The trend would have you playing Kublai Khan (Agg/Cre, IIRC) when stuck by yourself, or Louis the XIV when surrounded by Tokugawa, Montezuma and Alexander.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Given that you were able to pull off the Great Library and Music after 1000 AD, it appears that the other continent is going to be very weak and underprivelaged when you meet them. Imagine the despair that they would feel when their explorer's to the new world find out that it has already been taken over by a huge empire, and they're next.

Yes, I would support a Conquest victory, these pathetic back-water civilizations are not worth letting live.

On the other hand, you do seem to have some trouble with conquering other Civilizations...given that you haven't even killed little Vicky by 1200 AD (I'm still biased by my ability to do it 1000 years earlier).

I am also horrified by the positioning of Alexandria. I had thought of commenting against placing a city NE of location "A", but thought it so obvious to be not worthy of mention. It causes a completely unnecessary overlap situation with Heliopolis, and doesn't even net you additional land tiles for your effort. All for the sake of borrowing some copper? That's what food resources and whips are for!

 

[The Tyrant]

Given that you were able to pull off the Great Library and Music after 1000 AD, it appears that the other continent is going to be very weak and underprivelaged when you meet them.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. I was expecting caravel contact before now, so the other civs are probably fighting themselves silly. I think the situation looks really good right now.

I'm playing a (non-mirror) game right now where the science slider hit a low of 20% due to my expansion, but with cottage spamming it climbed back to 70% in a decent time frame. The extra commerce (for the rest of the game) was definitely worth the reduced commerce for a while. It meant missing Liberalism, but after that it shot me into a tech lead.

I agree with expanding like crazy while cottage spamming. No contact so far, the GL and being first to Music -- I would say you are probably already stronger than the other civs and you're in a position to become much stronger still.

 

[Sisiutil]

Round 9: to 1450 AD

The Queen is dead. Long live the King. (That would be me, by the way.)

Before I get to that, though, I finally got my first Great Person, a Great Scientist, in Vandal, of course:

Before I decided how to use him, I checked the religious advisor: no, Taoism had not been founded yet. Philosophy it was:

That's four religions on my continent now, all owned by me, and one more up for grabs. Alexandria is not such a bad spot for a holy city. (Despite Hans' objections, allowing it and Heliopolis to trade working that copper mine seems to be helping both cities a lot). Alexandria boasts lots of Grassland for cottages and that gem mine. A shrine would certainly add to its lucre.

Given this auspicious event, I decided it was time to bid my neighbour a not-so-fond adieu:

Eggolas, your war strategy worked like a charm. Two stacks, each comprised of a War Elephant, 3 Swordsmen, 2 catapults, and 3 War Chariots made their way from London, following the protective forests, to Nottingham and Hastings. Meanwhile, 3 Cats and 3 Spears were making their way towards Coventry. Two Spears, an Axe, and a couple of late-arriving Cats remained in London--which promptly took this opportunity to rebel. Ungrateful peasants.

Vicky attacked London as predicted, with Horse Archers, which the Spearmen promptly dispatched. She had a couple of Longbowmen wandering around and even threw one of those at London, but to no avail. After these attacks and the rebellion, however, London's city defenders were weak (and I did lose the Axeman). So I launched the Cats at the last Horse Archer; the first one suicided, the second one was victorious. London was now safe from recapture.

Meanwhile, the cats outside Coventry removed its defenses and weakened its Horse Archer defenders. Then the Spears had their say:

Another English city razed.

It took a little longer for the Cats to remove the defenses of the two remaining cities. It was a necessary delay; the Swords and WCs were getting 25% odds or worse with the defenses still intact and the defenders at full strength. A little collateral damage later, and the Elephants and Swords were able to do their sweet funky:

Both cities fell on the same turn, and England was no more.

In addition to the war weariness ending, I picked up those silk tiles for an additional happiness boost. Nice. I want my cities to grow, grow, grow, and my citizens to work all those lovely cottaged tiles.

Now I finally had the continent all to myself! Hmmm, well, not quite. Seems I had several uncouth interlopers to take care of:

There was one more barb city to clean up, located right on top of Rome's ruins. None of them are in ideal locations, so they all got razed. Another barb city has appeared down on the ice near the silver, and it will also have to be taken care of.

I have posted my veterans as fog-busters all over the map, but there's a problem with this. Unit maintenance. As they're all outside my borders, the cost is quite high. I'm at 60% research and have just under 500 gold in the bank and I'm running a -16 GPT deficit. That's mostly because of the fog-busters.

Ironically, expanding with more cities will be a bit of a break-even proposition, since that will allow the fog-busters to come home and reduce their maintenance costs. I can probably even disband some of them to save more money once I have few barbs to worry about.

I'm also thinking that I should pull the fog-busters back within my borders and just deal with the barbs as they pop up. I certainly have enough units to throw at them, and if I lose a couple, well, that's one less item on the negative side of the balance sheet. Plus I'm thinking I should allow those barb cities to appear. At worst, I raze them for free gold, at best, one gets built in a spot where I was planning on building a city.

Now here's an interesting piece of information:

Such a simple little message, but it says so much. It confirms what I and several others have been thinking, that at least one of the civs on the other continent has been warring like crazy and, as a result, holding back their advancement. And indeed, we now see that that civ--possibly the help of the other survivor--has wiped out one of its competitors.

Wouldn't it be funny if, by the time we meet up, the third civ has been eliminated? So much for tech trading! Honestly, that's another reason I'm behind in that regard. I usually manage several more tech trades in my games. The only two I've managed so far in this game were extortions from Vicky.

Here's a look at the map in 1450 AD:

And just for laughs, the Foreign Advisor:

Sorry, but that just cracks me up. The screen doesn't show it, but let's just say that I'm "Pleased" with myself.

You might notice that I've gone a little wonder-crazy. Perhaps I'm over-compensating, but hey, I get to completely indulge my builder side for several turns. Also, I need to keep improving my finances. If Heliopolis completes Ankor Wat, I might even let it have a run at Chichen Itza--for the GP points.

I could use several Great Prophets; I have one shrine, but imagine if I have four (or even five, if I snag Islam), with every religion in all of the 25+ cities I'm going to have! I have spread Hinduism to all but two cities, and I'm building Missionaries in London to address that. I'm thinking of running Pacifism for awhile once I'm able to reduce the number of military units I have, just to get more Great People--hopefully Prophets.

Yes, yes, Barcelona will be GP Farm...eventually. It's a ways off for now. I still have to build NE there, and every temple I can for priest specialists if I want GPs.

I am doing my run at Liberalism, you might notice. I heeded Nares' warning that sudden, rapid expansion would necessitate lowering the research slider and could cost me Liberalism. So why not get it out of the way now, especially since I burned a GS on its pre-req, Philosophy? Then I can go back and pick up Banking, etc. It would be handy to be able to start building Universities and Oxford, too.

I'm tempted to grab Divine Right as the free tech if I win the Liberalism race, which I think is highly likely, and Islam has not yet been founded. But what I'm really after are the two wonders it unlocks. Versailles would go in Thebes (I made Vandal the capital to capitalize--pun fully intended--on Bureaucracy, while Madrid has built the Forbidden Palace). Spiral Minaret may go in Heliopolis as well, to further add to the GP points. I can build cheap temples for my State Religion (still Hinduism) and SM would rake in the gold.

Oh, I have also built my next Settler and I'm going to build Nova Roma one tile west of the original. I want to access the stone for some of the Wonders I'm building, and that corner of my continent currently requires four fog-busters, so its maintenance will be an even trade. After that, I think I should build the city near the dye tiles (site I on the last dotmap).

As always, I appreciate everyone's input. Any other tips on how to improve my economy, in particular, would be very much appreciated.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Alexandria is not such a bad spot for a holy city. (Despite Hans' objections, allowing it and Heliopolis to trade working that copper mine seems to be helping both cities a lot). Alexandria boasts lots of Grassland for cottages and that gem mine. A shrine would certainly add to its lucre.

I actually improperly analyzed the "A" to Alexandria shift. It actually only costs you 1 Coast and 3 Ocean tiles, which is like...5 commerce. A perfectly fine trade for the shorter-term advantages you gain by the shared copper, and shared development of cottages in the region.

 

[pigswill]

Your troops seem somewhat dispersed. Rather than fog-busters you maybe better off having citybuster stacks.So reorganise your units, consider disbanding your archers and replacing them with cats which are worth keeping longer term. Unit maintenance is still the biggest part of your deficit.
Once you've got your wonders done switch from production to cottage tiles.
Looking at the tech tree liberalism will only give you DR or nationalism. It might be worth gambling a bit, divert to machinery after education then liberalism unlocks printing press which would be more useful in building the economy (machinery also unlocks optics).

 

[Nares]

I am also horrified by the positioning of Alexandria. I had thought of commenting against placing a city NE of location "A", but thought it so obvious to be not worthy of mention. It causes a completely unnecessary overlap situation with Heliopolis, and doesn't even net you additional land tiles for your effort. All for the sake of borrowing some copper? That's what food resources and whips are for!

Heliopolis had chosen unwisely.

Not having Alexandria whip for every single improvment built there is significantly more advantageous than giving those few tiles to an otherwise backwards city (Heliopolis). Though, for what its worth, Heliopolis is working alright at the moment. Without looking closer at the tiles, I don't think it will ever be anything more than a good hybrid city. Alexandria can at least specialize to be Cottage heavy.

EDIT: On second thought, Heliopolis has more Grassland than I thought it did. Long term, it's good enough. Short term, as Hans notes, Alexandria can at least work some of its Cottages.

On the city front, 1N of Dead Parthian isn't bad, though 1S of that crater might be a better site. My own city placement (1N) was dictated by Izzy, but I think you could do better (1S).

And yeah, that area around Rome is a PITA. That mountain is in the way. Lots of Jungle. Not enough Hills. All in all, it's one of the most annoying areas to keep de-fogged.

Btw, you may want to consider doing the math on double Silver (if there's enough food down there; there might not be enough for one city to work both mines). Alternatively, you could either build on top of one, then mine the other, or build two cities so that each one grabs one, works whatever else it can, and doesn't grow beyond size three or four. More cities that can at least be profitable relatively quickly is always a good thing when planning the majority of your expansion into uncleared Jungle, though the Jungle cities will need as much time as possible to grow/whip stuff (get the Farms and Calendar resources up fast; read: ).

On a side note, have you ever seen a Barbarian city spawn in a gap in your cultural boundaries? It's amusing, especially when the gap was no bigger than ten square tiles (little bit of fog remaining in that annoying Jungle area SW of Rome provided me the offending gap).

Sisiutil, did you ever see which civilization it was that was destroyed? (I suspect it was the same one that was destroyed in my own game).

 

[Hans Lemurson]

On the city front, 1N of Dead Parthian isn't bad, though 1S of that crater might be a better site. My own city placement (1N) was dictated by Izzy, but I think you could do better (1S).

Though that city would be good itself, placing any more good cities in that region becomes a pain in the posterior. In my grand dotmapping plan, all of those resource there get distributed among different cities, all for the greater good.

 

[Eggolas]

Sisiutil, you followed a preservation of unit approach in the final attacks while I favored throwing the obsolete units in glorious combat against overwhelming odds. I moved an entire war chariot stack against Nottingham directly, one turn next to it, next turn capture and raze at the loss of 3 low-xp WCs.

The other stack of 2 cats, swords and war elephants went directly to Hastings and in a total of three turns, captured and razed Hastings. I only bombarded down to 20%. The losses were 3 low-xp swords. The war elephants did indeed mop up an escaping longbow.

The third task force was three catapults, augmented by a WC and Spear from north of Coventry and two healed WCs from the battle of Nottingham. The catapults didn't bombard, they attacked. The result was a loss of one catapult. The two horse archers didn't stand a chance.

The net effect is that London didn't have time to revolt, so I saved the anarchy turns and was done with England at 1240AD.

I mention this because if the intent was to disband obsolete units after the war to save on maintenance costs, then the best way seemed to me to be to lose them in battle. Generally, a weakened AI will not attack out of a city against a stack when there are only two or three units in the city. Thus, a protective cover approach was not necessary. Besides, if they attacked out of the city, great!

It will be interesting to see how this game develops. I wonder if the AI has an adjustment feature allowing a civ on another continent to grow in size and strength when the human player defeats everyone on his continent. Anyone have experience in this regard?