Aristocracy Experiment: Arturus Thorne

EverNoob

Prince
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
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This is another Aristocracy experiment, based on the last experiment and in response to the aristocracy thread.

More specifically there was a debate about God-King vs Aristocracy in the early-mid game with the Khazad. The goal of this experiment is to refute the assumption that aristocracy is always better (or nearly always).

To clear up any misunderstanding, I do not think aristocracy sucks. It's a perfectly good way to play in the right situation. I just don't think the right situation is "all the time".

Map: Continents, standard size
Standard settings, Immortal difficulty

This time there are no rules, no special settings. It's a real life game! Just play any way you see fit. I just uploaded the game without looking at the map or AI civs, it's a totally random map.

At turn 150 and 200 please post a summary of the game in the following format, for easy comparison:
  • # of cities
  • score
  • Your :gold: amount in treasury
  • Your civ statistics (example below)
  • Any free tech from lairs, dungeons, events, etc, plus bulbs
  • What civics you used, and when
  • Attach your save game
Spoiler Statistics example :
Techs researched:
Agriculture - 124
Exploration -124
Crafting - 187
Ancient Chants -124 - came from a graveyard event so I am giving 2 totals - costs 25 gold
Calendar - 249
Animal Husbandry - 280
Horseback Riding - 561
Trade - 702
Mining - 312
Masonry - 218
Bronze Working - 624
Education - 436
Writing - 592
Code of Laws - 499
Sanitation - 998
Some overflow as turn 150 was the turn masonry completed but I see no way to figure out the amount of overflow
Total - 5906 beakers (6030 with Ancient Chants)

Production:
Granary x 2 - 240
Public Baths x 2 - 300
Training Yard x 2 - 200
Deruptus Brewing House - 240
Monument x 5 - 300
Courthouse x 5 - 600
Smokehouse - 120
Worker x 8 - 600
Settler x 5 - 1100
Goblin x 5 - 75 - 4 have upgraded to wolf riders but I list as goblins here
Rantine x 1 - 180
Warrior x 4 - 100
Incomplete Production -274
Total - 4329

Stats:
GNP: 134 (1)
Mfg: 74 (1)
Crop: 141 (1)
Population: 3398000 (1)
Soldiers: 85000 (4)
Land: 130000 (2)
Approval: 53 (4)
Life: 58 (4)
Goodluck and thanks for participating! :)
 

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Here's my turn 150 summary.

I went GK at turn 77
One of my mines discorvered gems at turn 106
Founded RoK at turn 107

For now I don't feel it's time to switch to Aristocracy yet.

This is for 0.41?

Now that AI improves again I really hope to stick to Emperor and below in my own games, but will consider participating in this if I have time.
AI's performance is still disappointing :cry: I thought 0.41 would help but it doesn't seem so. Should've picked the AI civs after all, though for the purpose of comparison it doesn't matter.
 

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There are very few changes to the AI in v0.41, unfortunately. Apart from the new favourite techs/units the leaders have (and the removal of the Python beelines), the only things that spring to mind are that they'll avoid replacing tile improvements they built in the last 20 turns and that they'll be less willing to accept peace when they're clearly winning a war. Not exactly major things...
 
I'm having some problems with my computer and as of right now I think my only recourse is a complete OS reinstall. So it will be a while before I can get to this, especially since my Civ IV vanilla disc may or may not be unusable at this point which will make the reinstall problematic.

Why choose Arturus though? There were some passionate arguments that anything but God King was horrible for the Khazad and so I see no problem with stacking the deck for Aristocracy in that context.
 
Very well, but is this a saved game from 0.40z or 0.41?

0.41

------

I picked Arturus because I think he'd be better at the God-King thing. When people talk about the Khazad, they mean Kandros by default? It can get confusing when ppl talk in general about a civ, because the same civ can be played totally differently depending on leader.

Due to poor AI performance of this game, I'm considering restarting it with handpicked civs anyway. We could always try it out with Kandros. Cuz now that I think about it, it's not entirely clear Kandros wouldn't do well with God-King either.
 
Although I've warmed up to Aristocracy a lot, I would be up for rocking City States in order to prove a point - but less so with an Organized leader. (Exactly how does City States stack with Courthouses, anyway?)

With this game, it didn't matter either way in terms of competing against the AIs. My ad hoc economy (God King turn 102, Aristocracy 193) easily got me to what I think is such a guaranteed winning position (IW 262, ready to sweep continent on 267) that I'm not interested in finishing.

That said, I'm not going to win any awards for this game. Terrible micro, fast play, didn't bother taking the whole continent early. It was fun, though. :)

The zip file has turns 59, 150, 200, and 267.

Sorry for omitting the requested statistics (I don't want to do the work). I will say, looking at turn 150, my economy is weaker than what EverNoob posted.

Spoiler turn-by-turn excitement :
2 - found capital 5E3S of start. I picked the spot without even seeing the Corn - just with the lake, there would have been adequate food, and it had the calendar tiles in the fat cross. The idea was to put my second city 1SE of the start and found Kilmorph there. 5E3S also be good for the Brewhouse if I needed something to do before settling the third city.
14 - Ag -> Cal
18 - lose exploring warrior to polar bear
? - Cal, Agr+Nationhood
46 - bard event
54 - mining -> explo
59 - cardith leaves his second city with one warrior as his defense stack moves off the city tile to fight a barb. I have 12 warriors and declare. City captured with monument.
67 explo -> chants
78 chants -> mysticism
82 cardith pillages my incense, forcing my hand to start attacking the rest of his cities so that my units don't strike. I have a total of 5 warriors in my two cities and 21 warriors in my attack stack
102 mysticism, GK+Pacifism -> festivals
104 last cardith city destroyed
113 deleted a bunch of warriors, 10 turns too late really
117 festivals -> education
128 education -> BW
130 settle dyes/gems (4th city)
133 prophet bulbs earthmother
136 settle corn/copper (5th city)
137 pop gems
143 BW -> Drama
148 fertility monument in holy city
155 eastern clam blocking city
161 win Drama, bulb Sanitation, start Fishing; great prophet builds shrine
164 Fishing -> AH
168 AH -> Arete
175 Garrim completes Nilhorn
178 Arete -> Masonry
180 Masonry -> Construction
183 founded silk/clam finally
184 Construction -> Archery. Then I realize I don't really have that many good irrigation chains. but whatever.
189 Archery -> COL
193 COL; Aristo + Apprenticeship. Start Writing.
196 Scientist Academy in capital
197 Writing -> Medicine
198 Barb city flips, accepted
202 Bambur
207 Galdur; Medicine -> Ether
210 Ether -> Messages
215 Messages -> Math
219 Math -> Philo (Incense)
221 Philo -> Engy
222 Arthendain
234 Engy -> Smelting; Bazaar. Start Currency
237 Decius dies
240 Currency -> Alteration
244 Alteration -> Smelting
248 Guild of Hammers
250 Smelting -> IW
257 Garrim asks for Sanitation. I wasn't paying attention to when he got Trade. He's Friendly, so I trade Math + Drama + Mysticism for Cartography + HBR + Sailing + Hunting + 90
258 Trade Sanitation + Ether + Philo + FOL for Trade + Stirrups + map + 30
262 IW. Trade Medicine for Optics + Warfare. Turn research off and start Astro.
264 belatedly adopt Consumption
 

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Although I've warmed up to Aristocracy a lot, I would be up for rocking City States in order to prove a point - but less so with an Organized leader. (Exactly how does City States stack with Courthouses, anyway?)

First City States modifies the base maintenance cost for the city, then Courthouses (and other maintenance-reducing factors, such as Law mana) lower that base by some percentage. In other words, the -80% maintenance cost for distance to palace + the -40% maintenance costs from a Courthouse don't combine to mean that you pay 0 distance maintenance no matter how far away a city is from your palace. With City States and a Courthouse (assuming no other modifiers) you pay 12% of the distance cost + 45% of the number of cities cost.
 
Well, I'll give it a try sometime, though I am curious why we abandoned the other Khazad save (maybe because it was in 0.40z and this one is 0.41, right?). At any rate that map had almost everything going for Aristocracy that one could think of (boring, flat open land/grassland, most accessible resources all farms/calendar, no significant AI aggression). And we're still going to get some very important differences on different mapscripts, just so that's out there (I personally don't tend to use Continent-based ones, I'll use tectonics occasionally, Pangea, and often Erebus Continents sans flavor-start though. But for the early game these conditions shouldn't matter too much).

Edit: That Clan game should have been absolutely perfect to compare long term City-States vs. Aristocracy - if someone had the time to play out like 300 turns and take over the whole continent, then see if the added commerce from farms offset maintenance/larger cities (I'd suspect it wouldn't with an empire that big). But I also agree city-states is a very useful civic when you need it.
 
Here's my summary at turn 200. I also compiled Jet's stats for his turn 200 as well.

Turn ~140 switched to Arete+Consumption (still GK and Agrarian)
I'm using a 100% science cottage economy for :science:, with Bazaar of Mammon and merchants at the capital for :gold:

I foresee a switch to Aristocracy soon.

Jet's game is interesting for comparison because he went early conquest instead of builder. So naturally his economy at turn 200 is weaker, but he has ~50% more land so he has more long term economic growth potential. This is reflected in our equiavalent scores.
 

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I played to turn 150 twice the other day. You might want to just check out the last conclusion after first game and see the second one with the nice GNP. :)

First game highlights, tech path and stats:
Spoiler :
turn 0: Nationhood
turn 1: settled Khazak 2 southeast on plains hill, map from village
turn 33: 61 gold from gy
turn 48: worker killed by goblin I didn't get warning about, and not shown in enemy moves. Weird.
turn 63: settled Halowell west of Khazak
turn 8x: God King, Mother Lode
turn 111: Garrim Gyr declares war on me
turn 113: after I lose most of my warriors killing Garrim's forces, Cardith Lorda declares war on me
turn 126: conquered Avelorn southeast of Khazak, Aristocracy
turn 140: founded RoK in Avelorn, converted

(Crafting)
Mining
Agriculture
Ancient Chants
Mysticism
Calendar
Education
Code of Laws
Exploration
Way of the Earthmother
Bronze Working


Turn 150 summary

3 cities
score: 427
treasury: 367 gold

GNP: 87
Mfg. Goods: 34
Crop Yield: 51
Soldiers: 67000
Land Area: 54000
Population: 1038000
Approval Rate: 50%
Life Expectancy: 53 years

Total beakers so far: 3615

Production:
I don't write these down as I go. Supposed to include current stuff (like settlers, warriors) or total ever? I'm including the save, anyway.


Conclusions after first game:
Spoiler :
- I need even more warriors on Immortal than I thought.
- A close Creative neighbor somewhat pushes this start towards early conquest, or otherwise slows you down by having to deal with the culture.
- Just like I remembered, the 2 promotions that Immortal AI gets for all units after the first ones are tough to deal with.
- I will settle my capital in the same spot again. Not only will it keep my games more comparable, but it's at least a good contender for best spot anyway. Interesting compared to going for the Corn. At this spot Mining->Agri->Calendar should be best start.
- To get a better start, I can either try to expand like mad or start a very early war. In either case, to keep up I'll try playing with empty vaults (<50 gold per city, +2 unhappiness)


Second game highlights, tech path and stats:
Spoiler :
turn 0: settled Khazak 2 southeast on plains hill, 35 gold from village
turn 4: 44 gold from village
turn 8: skeletons from gy
turn 20: great bard and 15 turns of disorder event. Took bard and created great work to remove disorder
turn 28: declared war on Cardith Lorda, took a worker from him
turn 32: visions of death and destruction event, forced to sacrifice 25 gold at local temple
turn 34: took Naggarond from Cardith Lorda, southwest of Khazak and northwest of Kwythellar
turn 42: made peace with Cardith Lorda
turn 55: +24 research towards Calendar from event (estimate went from 5 to 3 turns)
turn 58: Nationhood, Aggrarianism
turn 60: settled Halowell west of Khazak
turn 69: wasting disease event, -1 population in Khazak
turn 76: declared war on Cardith Lorda, took Avelorn from him southeast of Khazak and east of Kwythellar
turn 90: God King (went from +2 gold and +20 beakers at 50% research to +9 gold and +20 beakers after anarchy)
turn 92: made peace with Cardith Lorda
turn 109: cast Mother Lode
turn 114: Apprenticeship, Aristocracy (went from -2 gold and +24 beakers at 50% research to +9 gold and +36 beakers after anarchy)
turn 124: settled Riylod northeast of Khazak
turn 130: Runes of Kilmorph is founded by me in Naggarond
turn 132: settled Kadar north of Halowell
turn 133: Great Sage born in Halowell, sent to Khazak to construct Academy
turn 145: declared war on Cardith Lorda with my upgraded warriors. Too bad Kwythellar had too many swordsmen...
turn 150: Acheron takes over the barbarian town just north of my lands and keeps glaring at me

(Crafting)
Mining
Agriculture
Calendar
Ancient Chants (needed monuments asap!)
Exploration (to spread happiness from resources)
Mysticism
Education
Code of Laws
Bronze Working (Avelorn culture finally reaches copper and Cardith Lorda is about to pass me on power chart) STOPPED at 249/624 after Avelorn comes under even worse culture assault
Way of the Earthmother
Bronze Working
Festivals
Drama 841/936

Yeah, Drama is 1 turn away from completion. Next turn I finish it and use the Great Bard to lightbulb Sanitation.

Turn 150 summary

6 cities
score: 595
treasury: 4 gold

GNP: 148
Mfg. Goods: 41
Crop Yield: 85 (103 with Sanitation next turn)
Soldiers: 78000
Land Area: 105000
Population: 1098000
Approval Rate: 57%
Life Expectancy: 60 years

Total beakers so far: 4736

Production:
I don't write these down as I go. Supposed to include current stuff (like settlers, warriors) or total ever? I'm including the save, anyway.
Quite a lot of buildings in my cities IMO.


A short stint with God King before Aristocracy is probably my most common start. It'd be interesting to try earlier Aristo or RoK.
 

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OK I tried this twice to turn 200 with semi-beelines to aristocracy.
Spoiler :

First time was a complete cakewalk with me getting the great engineer and the great bard event in the first 20 turns and conquering the continent before turn 200. Second game was slightly more interesting, I got lucky and popped agriculture and animal husbandry from the hut/graveyard and stole a worker very early, then proceeded to kill cardith. He was dead around turn 60. Initial Tech path was calendar-mining-ancient chants-education- code of laws. I got a free golden age around turn 160 from the constellation event, which was nice.

Here are the stats from the second game, since that seems more comparable

Score: 1683
# cities: 11
Treasury: 4000
GNP: 513
Mfg Goods: 172
Crop Yield: 319
Soldiers: 252000
Land Area: 184000
Population: 16940000

Techs:
I won't bother listing all the techs, here are just the most advanced that I researched in the given paths:

Astronomy: 4680
Drama: 936
Trade:702
Sanitation:998
Currency: 1404
Mathematics:1482
Knowledge of the Ether: 561
Philosophy: 468
Arete: 998

Production:
Warrior -51 :1275
Worker -7 : 525
Axemen -6 : 360
Great Prophet - 3 :
Settler - 3: 720
Great Bard - 1:
Caravel -1 : 100
Work boat -1: 30

I won't list all the buildings, notable buildings are:
Great Library
Bone Palace
Bazaar of Mammon
Tablets of Bambur
Deruptus Brewing House

 

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My first time through, to turn 200 (about 20-30 turns from victory, but hey, an easy map).

Spoiler :

Summary:
Settled the capital a bit SE, teched Agriculture, Mining, Calendar, and Mysticism, then RoK. Was completely peaceful, just fought some barbarians, no real excitement on the continent. Cardith was an incredible nuisance, spamming settlers everywhere (a couple of sites I wanted), and Garrim expanded rather aggressively too; rather than go to war I just let them be happy fellows and build up as a good dwarf though. But oh yeah, made one stupid mistake with my first Thane, clicking on culture bomb rather than spread faith - really pissed me off that it autospread to like 3 of Cardith's cities then but not mine till I got another thane :mad:. But at the end I have converted most everyone to RoK and just needed some missionary spam to the other continent for the win (52% at turn 200).


Stats:

"Most Advanced Techs" (I like this concept a lot)
Arete
Philosophy
Currency
Bronze Working
Optics
Trade

Demographics:
Total Cities: 3
Gold (Vault) 1402
GNP 262(at full research, in the save I think I'm filling treasury)
Mfg 94
Food 88
Land 87000
Population 3756000
Soldiers 115000

Production:
Warrior -13
Thane of Kilmorph - 17
Worker - 8
Settler - 3
Axeman - 4
Caravel - 2
Great Prophet - 1
Bambur -1
Work Boat -1

Notable Buildings:
Dereptus
Tablets of Bambur
Mines of Gal-Dur
Great Library

@Turin: One thing I am curious about - on your "first" game, where you took over the whole continent yourself, you're behind in tech compared to your other game? Was it tech trading or simply better play (from knowing the map and all) in the second game that helped?

If I was to play another game (certainly could if anyone wants) and other musings:
Spoiler :
Adding in the cheeze and rushing Cardith like Turin does would obviously give vastly improved stats across the board. I was half expecting this one Specter to own Cardith in this game but it didn't make it to a Wraith (or maybe that was changed in some update, I dunno). And there was also a dungeon spawn of 4 fawns + hill giant I think...looking back I am surprised he lost none of his settlements, the annoying boy-dog. For myself I could hope for better luck on huts/graveyards etc... got nothing from them this time (in fact it was the graveyard which spawned skeletons > specters). Also should go for the Bazaar of Mammon rather earlier in the Holy City - changing the order/location of founded cities would help with all of that in general. Obviously a quick religious win isn't all that exciting but that's what works as the dwarves anyway - at least when you've got no real opposition and can convert anyone you wish.

About the game in general, it's a particularly easy one, definitely doesn't have any drawbacks to any economy really imo (as the viability of warrior rushing shows, the competition isn't all that great) but that's ok. I agree it would have been better to have more aggression to face and an actual challenge out there, even on the other continent it seems Ethne tends to just dominate.


Saves:
View attachment ArturusGK80.CivBeyondSwordSave
View attachment ArturusGK200.CivBeyondSwordSave


Edit: Evernoob has a really remarkable save too, it's different from mine in a lot of ways albeit also GK, but I'm very, very impressed with his tech.
 
@Turin: One thing I am curious about - on your "first" game, where you took over the whole continent yourself, you're behind in tech compared to your other game? Was it tech trading or simply better play (from knowing the map and all) in the second game that helped?

There are three main reasons:
Spoiler :

1. In the first game I had lots of warriors left over after attacking Cardith and only disbanded them a couple turns later, which cost me quite a bit in upkeep.
2. I teched bronzeworking before education/col, in the second game I went for Col first, then Runes which is obviously a more tech-orientated tech path.
3. Not having reached astronomy yet. Those intercontinental foreign trade routes are huge.
 
Ok, went ahead with one more playthrough of this game, some rather interesting results. The second half of the game veered off in a completely different direction than I was expecting; I'll make two shorter spoilers for details. I've probably had enough of this same game/map though if anyone really wants me to I could replay from the first save on for a different economic buildup. The turn 81 checkpoint is really a very good situation whatever you'd do next I think.

As for what we've observed so far - generally the one thing I am wondering about though is that some of the Aristo games still seem rather poor in production (holistically, not the game below as one can see in that spoiler). I know there is a tradeoff in favor of commerce, but still - have players been consciously choosing to not work mines etc... or is it just that the food is lacking, or what? GK of course gets huge benefits early on and it even multiplies things like forest chops, so maybe if someone was to play another Aristo game on this map it could do with an earlier GK and a little later of a transition.


Spoiler turn 81 :

Played a war-heavy dwarf, initially declaring on Cardith and taking him out in the first turnset. Really does save you a ton of everything - no need for producing more settlers, workers, etc... Kurios and Luchuirp are the two weakest AI imo but it's alright - at least this rush puts me on an even footing with others who do the same. Other notable info - I got one tech from a hut I think, Mining, nothing else from any lairs or the graveyard. Got Ag/Mysticism/Calendar as before and then went for RoK.

View attachment Arturus2GK81.CivBeyondSwordSave

Spoiler turn 203 :

So after killing Cardith I was planning for a tech/economic buildup to see how things compared to other games. But this wasn't the case, apparently Garrim was also out for blood and he declared on me (he briefly dropped to cautious from some event/constellation or something, which was enough time to do it I guess, arg). So then I went very heavy on the war effort to proceed to take him out, it was a long, drawn out war pretty much all the way up to 203. I had massive production with Cardith's cities and all to draw on but some very frustrating setbacks. Spies sapping our trebuchets and everything, with 80% withdrawal it hurts when 3 out of 5 die. But by far the most insulting was a trebuchet attacking an open stack of warriors, strength 6 vs. 4.5 something and 96% odds - and it still dies :mad:. But the war effort succeeds eventually, the other clan of dwarves is no match in the end, so this game I have a much larger empire/score/etc... than the other, even while I don't have all that much tech. Also lacking in trade/contact with other civs, and some health techs and resources - so it's not the best economy at this point, would take some turns of shaping up.

Other notes + a couple mistakes - Stayed in GK the whole time here, switching to city states may have worked out better but by the end I was getting rather dragged down and bored just with the war effort. I got one free golden age from constellations, which is nice. All GP I generated myself, a prophet for Tablets, the next was a scientist which made an Academy, engineer hurried the Lighthouse. I probably didn't tech the best, went for math which really didn't do much (should've gotten Philosophy + Bone Palace at the time instead, scientist also should have just done Golden Age I think) and I had literally just gotten cartography to go convert Garrim when he dowed me. So this game basically boils down to a very heavy war effort, which is reflected in these stats:

Most Advanced Techs
Trade
Warfare
Mathematics
Arete

Demographics:
Score:1621
Total Cities -12
Gold (Vault)-1264
GNP-240
Mfg-245
Food-299
Soldiers-285000
Land-239000
Population-10757000

Production:
Warrior-70
Axeman-15
Trebuchet-10
Thane of Kilmorph-10
Worker -10
Settler-2
Scout-2
Workboat-1
Chariot-1
Bambur-1
Great Engineer-1
Great Prophet-1
Great Sage -1

Notable Buildings:
Dereptus
Tablets of Bambur
Great Library
Great Lighthouse
Mines of Gal-Dur
Bazaar of Mammon



View attachment Arturus2GK203.CivBeyondSwordSave

Lastly I do like the RoK music. One of the better sets overall, it really brings out the best in dwarven engineering.
 
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