All Leaders Challenge Game 19: Sumer/Gilgamesh

[steve7811]

Sisiutil,

Your ALC games are extremely educational and entertaining. I am a long time lurker that recently registered, and I periodically check the forums every day, anticipating next updates. I have learned a lot, just from reading your posts and following along with the save files posted.

What really impressed me the most, especially from this challenge with Gilgamesh, was how you managed to conquer Washington and save your empire from the brink of economic collapse, while putting yourself back into a position to become a tech leader. Not only that, your diplomacy that put you in a good position to win a space race game in an environment where an aggressive bully like Shaka has managed to vassalize every other existing AIs... that is some fantastic stuff.

My previous favorite was your game with Peter on a Big-and-Small map, but I think this one will easily replace it.

I hope that you make it through all of the leaders.

Thank you again.

 

[Yesod]

Impressive game so far, Ive been ghosting this site for some time now and never thought to register till I started watching this game.

I personally don't think you should bother with land units. Building wealth would do alot for your research. Battleships cause collateral damage, which makes AI stacks a piece of cake in my experience.

Good game though, I laughed when you were stuck in that war with Washington, thought you were doomed. Shows what I know.

 

[athelious]

Three distinct ways I go with Sushi's depending on my situation:

1. If my civ is low in Production, I turn farms into workshops and run US or PS.

2. If my civ is behind in Science, I leave the farms, get the specialists and run Rep.

Option #2 requires higher health and happiness caps, but also gives more votes for AP and UN not to mention a higher score.

3. If you are not drastically behind in either Science or Production then you can get away with running a hybrid of the two to maximize your city specialization. Then the choice becomes simply:
Rep for science
PS for military/war + extremely high production in a few specialized cities
US for balanced production bonus (higher production in commerce cities but no bonus in production specialized cities)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Very Nice.. Well if Space is preferred, then save the Merchant for a GA

Make sure you spread Taoism to your cities to block Shaka's AP votes
Also spread some of the other Religions (you have five others I believe, do they all have Monasteries?) as the preferred way to deal with unhappiness

Otherwise this looks like a cake walk.. Get Radio, pick up some Wonders, get Computers.. the Internet may actualy be useful to you (the AI gives its techs away to its vassals, so any tech Shaka researches, soon 4 civs that will have it) This is also how Hannibal keeps up in tech.

By getting the Internet, you can then divert into one side of the Tech Tree (Refrigeration->Genetics, for Labs and Health bonuses)

As for builds, I'd focus more on Naval military builds than land based ones. That allows you to set up a warning network, and it is actually useful if war does break out.

and once you have all the techs needed move the Espionage Slider to max, and get some preprepared spies to thwart other options for victory.

 

[Gooblah]

Nice round, Sisutil!

Okay, time to talk Victory:
Conquest, Domination, and (I think, if Vassals are forced to vote for master) UN Diplomatic are out of the question. The former two would require declaring war on the rest of the world...

Space is probably your best option. You already have Rocketry, and the rest of the techs could be close. You have high-production cities, enough to get the higher-hammer parts out fast.

One other note: This Vanilla Player may just get BTS within the next week....

 

[Scarredroman]

Staying good friends with Shaka is easier said than done. If all his vassals liked him and each other there'd be no problem. Unfortunately, they don't If two of his vasals dislike each other and ask you to stop trading with them, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. The 'you refused to cease trading' applies against Shaka as well as the vassal. You can almost guarantee that one of his vassals will DoW you. A strong navy will protect you from the dominating Shaka.

Then it's island taking and the eradication of Sitting Bull and Hannibal. "Cyrus only has three cities left on his continent" raises an intriging possibilty and you are protective. PS+MT Rushmore and Jails = no war weariness even facing the Statue of Zeus. Meanwhile, left alone on your continent, the space race continues in the chosen cities unhindered by war.

 

[ori]

You can almost guarantee that one of his vassals will DoW you.

Vassals cannot DoW and Shaka will not care at all what demands Sis refuses from his vassals, the vassals can all hate Sis as long as Shaka is friendly all is good...

 

[Scarredroman]

Vassals cannot DoW - Oh , yes they can and do.

What you do to a vassal, you do to their master, too.

 

[ori]

Vassals cannot DoW - Oh , yes they can and do.

What you do to a vassal, you do to their master, too.

No if you refuse a demand to a vassal the master does not care. And no a vassal cannot DoW unless the master does so first and forces the vassal into the war. The whole point about the vassal thing is that the master can force the vassal to do things but not that the vassal can force the master...

 

[xaka]

If you really are worried about Shaka sneaking in a backdoor AP win, remember full members get twice the votes. This means that switching back to Taoism (and out of FR) before a vote will double your voting rights thus giving you a perfect blocking minority on the AP even if your part in the Taoist population were to fall under that thin 40% line...

But remember that it would cost you two turns of anarchy to do so : one to switch out of FR and another to switch to Taoisme as State Religion.

 

[Refar]

About cheesy AP victories... I think you are just two tech's away from obsoleting the thing. You have Electricity. Just reserach Radio (it's on the Spacerace path anyway) and Mass Media. Dont build the UN - it will take a little bit, until one of them does.

You could even build Hollywood in LosAngeles

 

[KMadCandy]

But remember that it would cost you two turns of anarchy to do so : one to switch out of FR and another to switch to Taoism as State Religion.

no, switching out of FR into another religious civic (OR, pacifism, whatever) sets your state religion to what it was at the time you changed to FR. FR over-rides your state religion and temporarily puts you into NSR while you're in FR, but the religion doesn't actually reset behind the scenes. so it would be only one civic swap since we were Taoist before.

in cases where you do want to change out and FR and away from your former state religion, then yes you need two different swaps. which you can't do on the same turn unless you're spiritual. gosh i love spiritual!

edit, didn't see this one:

About cheesy AP victories... I think you are just two tech's away from obsoleting the thing. You have Electricity. Just research Radio (it's on the Spacerace path anyway) and Mass Media. Dont build the UN - it will take a little bit, until one of them does.

You could even build Hollywood in Los Angeles

ah, but we'd have to trade/gift shaka electricity, radio, and mass media to obsolete the AP. us knowing them doesn't take care of it. i think we're fine even with it active, certainly enough to not give away those juicy techs .

 

[Sisiutil]

I haven't really played BTS, but what makes Sid's Sushi so good? At first glance, General Mills seems a lot better, since culture is kind of a waste. Is it because there are are more seafood resources available than grain?

Culture is not a waste. I will be claiming that northern crab tile from Cyrus thanks to Sid's Sushi culture; it can help you win a lot of late-game culture battles. A lot of people focus on flipping cities, but I tend to focus more on flipping certain valuable tiles.

Also, seafood and rice tend to be more prevalent in the game that grains, so Sid's Sushi usually gives you more food. And finally, it's available earlier.

The only downside to Sid's Sushi is that Medicine is a dead-end tech. But as you saw, it's very good for trading; in fact, since it is a dead-end tech that makes it more attractive to trade than others that lead somewhere dangerous.

Hey Sisiutil, can you spoiler tag all Civ Pics you post on your ALC after your Gligamesh game from now on?

I Don't know if I'm the only one but I find it annoying when I'm reading a post while the page is loading a pic and I can shifted to another part of the page because of the pic expanding then i have to scroll back to find the post I was originally reading.

btw I heard somewhere that Winning space race without flight is worked as intended by the creators of the game, apparently the theory of flight and rocketry are different or something like that.

What is really strange is that you can build the Apollo Program with out the electricity tech... how the hell are you suppose to ignite those engines without electricity? with a Really HUGE wick? lol.

I'll consider the spoiler tag idea, though it is more work.

If you've ever seen The Right Stuff, you won't be able to imagine a space program without flight--specifically, without test pilots.

excellent work sisuitil and great luck on the GP's.

how are you doing on actually spreading the corporations? execs only take 1-2 turns at this point in the game yet I see none in your builds? do you already have sid's and mining in the cities you want? (all of them.. trust me on this)

if not focus and get that done.. like the national epic the longer you wait the less the effect will be.NaZ

I hear ya. As I recall I have a couple of builds to get out of the way, then I'll be focusing on spreading the corps. Sid's Sushi I'll also try to spread to the AI for the financial benefit to me and the financial burden to them, but I'll be keeping Mining Inc. to myself.

There is actually a chance that you can still lose this game via diplo. If you or Shaka builds the UN, Shaka will get all of his vassals votes. You need to make sure your maintain at least 40% of the world's population to prevent that backdoor.

Those additional cities I was thinking about suddenly became a lot more important. Thanks!

about kniteowl's spoiler request: if you spoiler it, can you please spoiler the whole thing in one box? that would solve the "auto-scrollback" problem and the "ugh i have to keep clicking spoiler boxes" annoyance i think.

Wouldn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of what kniteowl was talking about? I may try it for the next round update and see if I like it.

Otherwise this looks like a cake walk.. Get Radio, pick up some Wonders, get Computers.. the Internet may actualy be useful to you (the AI gives its techs away to its vassals, so any tech Shaka researches, soon 4 civs that will have it) This is also how Hannibal keeps up in tech.

I was thinking that the Internet might still be worthwhile to me as well, though I don't think Shaka is as generous as you think. I mean look how backward poor Sitting Bull is. Nevertheless, Hannibal is still researching competently, and Shaka can tech well just from the sheer size of his empire. As I focus on space race techs, there will be several I'll be ignoring that the AI will likely obtain, such as Flight and Mass Media, which the Internet would give me.

 

[KMadCandy]

Wouldn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of what kniteowl was talking about? I may try it for the next round update and see if I like it.

i dunno. what bothers him is how it scrolls you back on the page if you're trying to read while it loads. i thought spoiler boxes helped slow downloaders because then the pictures get downloaded even while the spoiler boxes are closed? if the browser doesn't try to get the info until he opens the spoiler, then yeah, my idea would be worthless. wouldn't be the first time!

ps yeah medicine is technically a dead-end tech. but i like it anyway, because the health problems in BtS are insane! oh how i wish i could be like normal people and ignore the green toxic clouds .

 

[Gliese 581]

Hmm Dogs Of War, no. Demand or War..doesn't sound right.. Do Or Woo? /nubb

 

[Sam_Yeager]

Hmm Dogs Of War, no. Demand or War..doesn't sound right.. Do Or Woo? /nubb

Declaration of War perchance? Although I must say that it's absolutely awful english.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I was thinking that the Internet might still be worthwhile to me as well, though I don't think Shaka is as generous as you think. I mean look how backward poor Sitting Bull is. Nevertheless, Hannibal is still researching competently, and Shaka can tech well just from the sheer size of his empire. As I focus on space race techs, there will be several I'll be ignoring that the AI will likely obtain, such as Flight and Mass Media, which the Internet would give me.

Maybe they improved it (one of the reasons I was annoyed with PAs in Warlords is they would shovel all our tech into the vassal) hopefully its more intelligent now.

 

[Refar]

ah, but we'd have to trade/gift shaka electricity, radio, and mass media to obsolete the AP. us knowing them doesn't take care of it. i think we're fine even with it active, certainly enough to not give away those juicy techs .

Are we absolutely sure about it ? Because it sounds strange.

I know the Buildings/Wounders/Ressources normally obsolete on per player basis. But the AP Election is something that affects every one. So the simple logic says: we have to vote as well, and for us the thing is obsolete. The criteria "Every Civ must be member" is not met.

Shaka can have his 2 Hammers from temple as long as he like - we dont care - but there should be no Diplomatic Victory votes, as soon as one civ has Mass Media. I must admit i just assume this, because it makes sense, never really tried it - at least not that i remember. Still i would be very sad to learn, that the developers didint bother to think of this

 

[KMadCandy]

they absolutely can both exist at the same time! i'm not really awake right now but that doesn't make sense to me even when i am, but it's true. membership cards don't go obsolete at all, just the institution itself.

if you think that's the only thing strange about civ4 ... well, you sound kinda strange to me in that way, bud . did you know you can build broadway without ever learning drama? rock and roll with ever learning music? well okay, that last one kinda makes sense for some forms of rock and roll, scratch that.

your picture totally made me have gigglefits, just as hubby was coming in to head to work. he thought i was insane! not for the first time.

 

[Refar]

I tried around with the world builder, and you are right. The owner of the palace must have mass media to obsolete it. Until then everyone happily kkeps voting on the Diplo Victory.

I guess it's easier for me to overlook the other strangeness, if it does not to the AI winning the game out of nowhere