AZ-05: Dan Quayle Challenge

[azaris]

Well we won't go for UN since that requires too many techs. We have to win the game with the AP, and that requires not spreading Christianity at all until we are ready to win the game.

We can spread Islam if we want to convert and control our neighbors. Right now it looks like most of them will be Jewish.

 

[NoChildren]

but it might be a problem having open borders with all other countries in order to spread Christianity at last minute, but perhaps it is possible. and then we should run a high espionage game to slow down the tech pace to make sure the discovery of radio comes as late as possible. but still we need a decent military or else they will attack us, when do we stop teching?

 

[shyuhe]

As long as we don't build the holy building, christianity shouldn't spread too far. I don't think the AI will complete the UN by 2000 AD so as long as we can stay alive until then, we'll be in good shape and we can eek out an AP win pretty late. I think we need to tech at least into the industrial age, but probably not the modern age. That way, we can bribe and gift techs to make the AI pleased. Does anybody know the AI war declaration %'s at pleased for the AIs that we have to deal with? I know Augustus and Jaoa are reasonable leaders, as is Ramses. Pericles and Hammurabi are unknown to me...

 

[azaris]

Look under http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5746414&postcount=16.

How far we can go on the tech tree depends on points, luckily we can monitor them constantly (the game shows a 'score to win this turn' when you hover over Dan Quayle in the leaderboard). I think we can go up to Rifling, but possibly not to Assembly Line. Skipping all the wonders does wonders to lowering your score.

Re: espionage, yes it's an idea, but remember it's likely to piss off our neighbors. After the medieval times I find most spies get caught almost immediately after they step foot on foreign soil. Highly aggravating. I would probably rather build a big big army to act as a deterrent.

 

[NoChildren]

you don't actually have to use your spies, just spending a lot of espionage points on your rivals makes them do so as well and therefore teching slower since the spend their money not loosing the spy-race.

 

[tycoonist]

correct on the spies: running 50% will slow their research considerably

 

[tycoonist]

i played but its late so i will just give a quick summary:

we captured two barb cities: they were in decent locations so they were kept. and that's pretty much it. oh and i raised the espionage spending.

 

[shyuhe]

got it. Will play tomorrow most likely.

 

[azaris]

Looking good, except for some red faces here and there. If that happens you can switch production to an axeman or a spy, whip away 2 faces, then go back to building a courthouse.

Now that we're spending big on espionage, don't forget to adjust the weights - they're 100% on Freddy at the moment. We should first get everyone's demographics, then start using a lot of espionage on whomever seems to be pulling ahead in tech. Hopefully they will return the favor, ******ing global tech speed.

Hurrian is off by one square, but it's not a big deal. We need one more city up north on the coast and then one to prevent the AIs from popping up iceball cities on the tundra south of Boston. After those are in place we can start to backfill and fortify the American eastern border from invasions.

Diplomatically there are no wars brewing up. Pericles is at -2 Cautious towards us but that's about as bad as it gets.

Roster

azaris
tycoonist (just played)
shyuhe (UP for 16)
NoChildren (on deck)

 

[shyuhe]

The AIs are all still cautious with us, except Joao and Augustus (who both demanded techs which I gave). AP is ours (not that it was ever in doubt since nobody even had the tech to build it). However, Christianity has not spread beyond our borders. I've adopted OR because I think we're going to be doing a lot of infra building after we finish building some more workers. I did mostly civilian builds in my set.

Now for the trades/demands that were made of us...











As a result of the trades, we're basically at tech parity with everybody. I've redistributed our EP so that it's flat across the board. Feel free to adjust that but I'm too lazy to MM espionage spending. CS is coming very slowly, but I don't think we're in any particular hurry to tech. Our tech rate will speed up as we finish libraries and get more workers. All in all, a quiet set, although I did think hard about giving in to the demands...

 

[NoChildren]

got it. will play sometime tomorrow hopefully.

 

[azaris]

We should convert to Judaism to make friends with the AIs. Look at the diplomacy screen, they love each other almost as much as they did in Warlords. Being heretics here risks a severe chance of getting backstabbed. I would love it if they all dogpiled on Pericles the culture whore.

Convert all our cities to Judaism. Christianity can wait. Ideally we want the entire world to have a religion in every city until we start going for the AP victory. Ramesses for example could go for a cultural victory and spread every religion he can get his hands on. We don't want him spreading Christianity.

We need markets in a lot of places. Just because we won't tech quickly doesn't mean we should be poor. Also, build a decent army, the AIs will backstab us at Cautious if we're too weak.

 

[shyuhe]

Judaism spread towards the end of my set. Feel free to spam it, but I think we'll be fine in christianity. None of the AIs in our neighborhood are warmongers so if we keep a respectable army, I do'nt think there's much concern of a backstab.

I disagree on markets. Workers are more important right now as our land is largely unimproved. Washington and NY are the two cities that should get markets - the other cities can wait a lot longer as they don't have much commerce coming in yet.

 

[NoChildren]

all in all a quiet turnset. played 15 turns. captured Phoenican, but missed out on Tartar to which Pericles beat me by three turns unfortunately.

I wish we had some more military, we are low on the power graph. I tried to build a couple of axes while still managing to get some infrastructure in Washington and New York as well as getting out some more workers. we have loads of jungle to clear still.
But what's most important to me is that we are going to have the the best-educated American people in the world so I built some libraries even though some cities didn't produce that much commerce, but i want our people educated so we can look forward to a better yesterday than tomorrow.

We got a random event with our neighbors the Greeks.

Also I made this trade with the romans. Everyone else had the tech and we could use some positive diplomacy points.

I decided not to trade away civil service yet, since I didn't think it made any sense trading for techs we don't desperately need and in the process speeding up the tech-pace of the entire game. After Civil service I set research to Feudalism and it is 6 turns from completion, I honestly had no clue what to research thinking that we only want to go for military techs I went with Feudalism despite that one always is available to trade for.

Oh and in order to lower the tech-pace i raised espionage spending yet another notch figuring we still research at an ok pace. I also redistributed the espionage points for a while to get intel on what all the AIs are researching, but I think I remembered to switch it back to an even spending amongst them all at the end of the turnset.

We should probably settle that fishing village up in the northwest and build up military and infrastructure. I didn't switch to judaism, but that might be the way to go though, to get a diplomatic boost with all but Pericles, but i think we should spread it to all our cities before we make the switch unless something happens on the diplomatic front.

 

[azaris]

Turn 0 (145): Pericles is Annoyed with us for a -3 negative events penalty. He's not very warlike but he has nearly twice our power and will attack at some point unless I do something that makes him change his mind. I drop espionage spending for a while so we can get Feudalism and start spamming longbows for defense. For added safety I convert to Buddhism.

Turn 1 (146): Ramesses completes Statue of Zeus. Pericles now at +2, everyone else is also positive. Barb sword approaching Boston, where there is only a lone warrior.

Turn 2 (147): Washington -> forge, New York -> forge, Boston -> market, Philadelphia -> worker.

IBT: Freddy offers us Machinery and some gold for Civil Service. I take it. The barb sword attacks our axeman instead of pillaging the pigs near Boston. Nice. The axe takes no damage, of course.

Turn 4 (149): Feudalism -> Engineering. Washington -> maceman, New York -> maceman, Hurrian -> courthouse. The AP leader vote comes up, I abstain. Dan Quayle is modest.

Turn 5 (150): Maceman loses at 95.1% against a barb sword. Guess I should have brought in an axe instead.

Turn 6 (151): Washington -> maceman, Hurrian -> settler, Phoenician -> courthouse. Hunting begged from Pericles. I also change research to pick up Archery. LBs are much better defenders than pikemen and maces. The spy trick has so far only caught Joao and Frederick, who are racing us in EPs.

Turn 7 (152): NY -> LB. We're slowly climbing on the power rating. America shall be the most powerful American nation in the world.

Turn 8 (153): Washington -> LB, Philly -> library. Dan Quayle has topped the leaderboard. The American people don't want to know of any mistakes Dan Quayle may or may not have made.

Turn 9 (154): NY -> LB, Boston -> ChristMonastery. Prophet born in Washington.

Turn 10 (155): Washington -> IslamMonastery, Phoenician -> lighthouse. Masjid al-Haram founded to spread Islam and make some . Shrines don't count towards score, I think. Ramesses and Pericles are refusing to enter the spy race.

Turn 11 (156): NY -> LB, Boston -> Walls, Hurrian -> barracks.

IBT: Joao wants us to convert to Judaism. I say no. He's still Pleased.

Turn 12 (157): Washington -> LB, Philadelphia -> market.

Turn 13 (158): Washington -> LB, NY -> LB, Boston -> BuddhaMonastery.

Turn 14 (159): Washington -> LB, Scythian -> courthouse. Proud fishing village called Atlanta founded.





1000 AD - America now has a credible army. It's time to enter the new millenium. We lead in both GNP and MfgGoods. Our espionage spending has attracted the attention of Hammurabi, Joao, and Frederick. The rest are still teching away. Engineering is one turn from completion. Only Pericles is at -2 towards Hammurabi, all other relations are nonnegative. This could become an "always peace" game. We are still Buddhists.

At the moment we have 16% of iMaxScore (Dan Quayle). Score by winning this turn = 63597 (Augustus Caesar).

 

[shyuhe]

It's rather unfortunate that none of the AI are biting on the espionage game... I thought the shrine counted as a wonder? I'm not 100% sure though.

Nice to see we have an army. Now we just need to continue turtling up for the rest of the game

 

[azaris]

I thought the shrine counted as a wonder? I'm not 100% sure though.

If it does it's worth it. Shrines on pangaea with lots of OBs are cash cows.

 

[azaris]

I think tycoonist is busy, so you could play the next turnset, shyuhe.

 

[NoChildren]

just letting you all know that I will be out of town 13th-17th and I have no idea whether I will be able to access Civ so if unless I say anything else i the coming days, please swap or skip me.

 

[shyuhe]

ok got it. Hoping to play later tonight. Should have post up sometime tomorrow. I will probably do a builder set. Maybe build some castles for once since they add to power without costing upkeep.