Beyond The Sword

[mystyfly]

I think we should try for Oracle. Even before AH. It will mean we can't improve the Pigs in new city. But we will want to work the gold there initially anyway. I think we should Oracle Code of Laws as having a Holy City helps with spy mission costs.

Strongly disagree. To kickstart the EE we need 2 things: A GSpy and Courthouses. Since we're mighty Sumeria we get them with PH instead of CoL. CoL gives us nothing but religious trouble if we adopt confucianism. Since Asoka will surely have his own SR and Alex may have as well we should adopt one of their religions. I'm out of practice in reading espionage ratios so I can't tell whether there are more AIs on our island but we won't run our own SR anyway.

Again, IMO we don't gain anythig from the oracle but the beakers saved on CoL. OTOH, bypassing AH cripples us. In the early game, pigs is the most valuable resource, plus we also have cows in our capital. I strongly suggest teching that after masonry.

Speaking of which, masonry on the way to the GW is fine. There is exactly one city we need to get out quickly, Pigs/Gold, to deny Asoka. I would do the following: Finish the warrior, build a settler, then GW. Our current warrior moves NE, NE and explores the coast towards the Pigs/Gold site to ensure our settler can, well, settle in peace. After the GW the barbs are the AI's problem.

The jungle to the south gives us time (deters Alex from settling in our direction) so we can focus on Asoka and the GW for now.

We definitely should focus our EPs. Out of the blue (with limited enemy intel) I'd say focus on Asoka because he techs better and is closer.

 

[Smilingrogue]

I wouldn't adopt Confu if we manage to Oracle it. But isn't it useful to have a Holy City for EP discounts?

For us to get to space purely by leeching off the AIs, I think we will need to leave Asoka alone to tech stuff. That means we can't take his Holy City. (He is bound to have one, if not multiple). The other option if we want one is Taoism via the bulb. But if we are Sumeria, wouldn't it be a good idea to go for the Oracle? I don't mind trying for it after AH. We do have Masonry and should have Marble from city 2.

 

[mystyfly]

Mystyfly is an ace player. You'll be glad to have him on board.

It did suck we could not complete those Deity SGs, mysty

Haha thanks But I think these times are in the past... which SGs are you referring to?

Hi from another old timer.

Hey Lee, how ya doing?

I wouldn't adopt Confu if we manage to Oracle it. But isn't it useful to have a Holy City for EP discounts?

For us to get to space purely by leeching off the AIs, I think we will need to leave Asoka alone to tech stuff. That means we can't take his Holy City. (He is bound to have one, if not multiple). The other option if we want one is Taoism via the bulb. But if we are Sumeria, wouldn't it be a good idea to go for the Oracle? I don't mind trying for it after AH. We do have Masonry and should have Marble from city 2.

I may very well be wrong but as I remember, we get a discount if the city is running our SR or something.

I don't think we'll be able to leech off Asoka for too long. Leave the late-game teching to an AI that is further away from us. Asoka will probably build a few cities and wonders for us. But we can't tell yet, for all we know he has no space to the east or south and will be limited to 3ish cities.

If we want a holy city, Taoism is the way to go. However, bulbing it requires a GS (or GP?) and I think running scientists goes against the spirit of an EE.

As to the oracle... it is a huge gamble, AIs can build it quite quickly on immortal, especially those that start with Mysticism. I doubt we'll have Marble hooked up too soon and roaded to the capital. The Oracle is useful only if we get a proper benefit off the tech we're getting. Being Sumeria greatly limits the use of CoL. The "only" alternatives to oracle are Aest, IW and MC. Aest isn't much use since we won't build GL (I think... right?). The colossus might be worth building but I wouldn't take such a gamble for it. IW would be very useful but is quite cheap to selfresearch. I'd rather emphasize REX ("Land is power." hehe). Maintenance on immortal isn't tough, we have gold and we have zigs. Would be a shame not to REX. Depending on what we find along the coast, fishing will be somewhat of a must after AH. But that's why we stop turnests frequently, to adapt to new information

 

[lymond]

Haha thanks But I think these times are in the past... which SGs are you referring to?

We kept trying some Deity SGs here not that long ago with a group of great players - the BBP games

 

[mystyfly]

We kept trying some Deity SGs here not that long ago with a group of great players - the BBP games

Ah right hehe... Well we did keep trying... for a while at least

 

[vranasm]

well kind of agree with mysty and kind of disagree...

it's true that one of the main benefits of CoL you get from PH, but since you go for PH anyway why not shoot for Oracle itself?

teching PH for courthouses and not building oracle if still open feels like shooting yourself.

GW is bigger priority though.

you could even oracle something else then CoL... for example oracling Aesthetics I found partially useful with marble starts.

 

[mystyfly]

well kind of agree with mysty and kind of disagree...

it's true that one of the main benefits of CoL you get from PH, but since you go for PH anyway why not shoot for Oracle itself?

teching PH for courthouses and not building oracle if still open feels like shooting yourself.

GW is bigger priority though.

you could even oracle something else then CoL... for example oracling Aesthetics I found partially useful with marble starts.

Who said anything about going for PH? It would require 3 techs with no immediate benefit (like AH for example), offers nothing to developing cities (like Pottery (but not Writing with the variant) for example) and "only" unlocks Ziggurats. We don't need zigs just yet, or rather we can't spare the hammers atm. The reduced maintenance has zero effect yet and while zigs are also cheaper than CHs, we'll need quite a few workers to get rid of all the jungle...

Which wonder from aesth with marble would you build? None directly benefits EE. We'll have trouble getting GPs so parth would be an option. The wonder I'd build (if any) would be the paya for pacifism.



The techpath after AH depends on the land but likely I think we should go somewhere like fishing > pottery > IW.

 

[vranasm]

Who said anything about going for PH? It would require 3 techs with no immediate benefit (like AH for example), offers nothing to developing cities (like Pottery (but not Writing with the variant) for example) and "only" unlocks Ziggurats. We don't need zigs just yet, or rather we can't spare the hammers atm. The reduced maintenance has zero effect yet and while zigs are also cheaper than CHs, we'll need quite a few workers to get rid of all the jungle...

Which wonder from aesth with marble would you build? None directly benefits EE. We'll have trouble getting GPs so parth would be an option. The wonder I'd build (if any) would be the paya for pacifism.



The techpath after AH depends on the land but likely I think we should go somewhere like fishing > pottery > IW.

ziggs = spy spec in capital

and parthenon was on mind, it is decent trade bait too ofc.

 

[mystyfly]

ziggs = spy spec in capital

and parthenon was on mind, it is decent trade bait too ofc.

Well I'm not sure we could run specs just yet. Trade is a good argument though.

I think it's too soon to discuss this though. Masonry > AH should be some 15ish turns I think so it's perfect for a turnset. That reminds me: I'd rather play odd number of turns per set but play until a "natural stopping point".

edit: Are we allowed to buy techs?

 

[Smilingrogue]

I may very well be wrong but as I remember, we get a discount if the city is running our SR or something.

I am not sure on this either, will look that up.

I don't think we'll be able to leech off Asoka for too long. Leave the late-game teching to an AI that is further away from us. Asoka will probably build a few cities and wonders for us. But we can't tell yet, for all we know he has no space to the east or south and will be limited to 3ish cities.

The only other option we have right now to prey upon is Alexander. And I am not sure he will agree to who is to be the prey and who the predator in that relationship. As things stand, I am all for letting Asoka live for a while. (Eventually he will stop being useful as he prefers culture, we can put him down then.)

And frankly, why do we want to go far when we have a cash cow right next door with little distance penalty to EP spending?

If we want a holy city, Taoism is the way to go. However, bulbing it requires a GS (or GP?) and I think running scientists goes against the spirit of an EE.

I think refusing to run scientists and expecting to pull of a Space win is giving the AI far too much credit. I think we should run specialists. Bulbs should be part of the strategy. If we are going to exclusively rely on AIs for all our tech needs, we will probably be bored out of our skulls as they all chase Divine Right instead of Physics or Gunpowder.

As to the oracle... it is a huge gamble, AIs can build it quite quickly on immortal, especially those that start with Mysticism. I doubt we'll have Marble hooked up too soon and roaded to the capital. The Oracle is useful only if we get a proper benefit off the tech we're getting. Being Sumeria greatly limits the use of CoL. The "only" alternatives to oracle are Aest, IW and MC. Aest isn't much use since we won't build GL (I think... right?). The colossus might be worth building but I wouldn't take such a gamble for it. IW would be very useful but is quite cheap to selfresearch. I'd rather emphasize REX ("Land is power." hehe). Maintenance on immortal isn't tough, we have gold and we have zigs. Would be a shame not to REX. Depending on what we find along the coast, fishing will be somewhat of a must after AH. But that's why we stop turnests frequently, to adapt to new information

We want Ziggurats because they generate raw EP. They also allow for a spy specialist to be recruited. Why would we not want to get a jump on accumulating EPs if all it means is teching PH? And if we are teching PH and have Marble, why not go for Oracle? I would be happy to try and lose for the failgold, instead of never try in the first place.

CoL is a great trade bait. It opens up Caste System and gives us a religion to screw with the diplo picture if we so desire. Frankly, just because we want to focus on Espionage, completely disregarding the other options of gaining techs will not only leave us at the mercy of AIs, we will be wasting resources that could have gotten us even more beakers.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Sorry for the double-post. I looked it up, we only get EP boost if we are running the religion as our State Religion. Still, well worth shooting Oracle -> CoL IMHO, just for the trade bait, Caste and a chance to make Alex hate Asoka.

 

[mystyfly]

The only other option we have right now to prey upon is Alexander. And I am not sure he will agree to who is to be the prey and who the predator in that relationship. As things stand, I am all for letting Asoka live for a while. (Eventually he will stop being useful as he prefers culture, we can put him down then.)

And frankly, why do we want to go far when we have a cash cow right next door with little distance penalty to EP spending?

We don't know anything yet so we can't really assume who we're going to milk at the moment. However I don't think we'll stick with Asoka for the whole game. The early game is easy, it'll be tricky later, and then we'll have many more targets available. For now, definitely stick to Asoka though.

I think refusing to run scientists and expecting to pull of a Space win is giving the AI far too much credit. I think we should run specialists. Bulbs should be part of the strategy. If we are going to exclusively rely on AIs for all our tech needs, we will probably be bored out of our skulls as they all chase Divine Right instead of Physics or Gunpowder.

Again, I expect to run into teching trouble only later, say, post-sci meth. By then, bulbing is nearly useless anyway. The whole point of EE is to steal the techs, compared to the usual ways of aquiring it. I say we see what the situation is later and decide then how to adapt. A possibility is to vassal some overseas civ or, say if we find an isolated civ, to take over and create a colony. We can direct their research and trade/steal/buy off them.

We want Ziggurats because they generate raw EP. They also allow for a spy specialist to be recruited. Why would we not want to get a jump on accumulating EPs if all it means is teching PH? And if we are teching PH and have Marble, why not go for Oracle? I would be happy to try and lose for the failgold, instead of never try in the first place.

CoL is a great trade bait. It opens up Caste System and gives us a religion to screw with the diplo picture if we so desire. Frankly, just because we want to focus on Espionage, completely disregarding the other options of gaining techs will not only leave us at the mercy of AIs, we will be wasting resources that could have gotten us even more beakers.

I'm not saying "no" to PH, I'm saying "not yet". Right now, getting cities up and running (that means settling, granary and tile improvements) is priority. We won't steal JUST YET anyway, because we don't have hammers for spies (or beakers for the alphabet either).

If we want to shoot for the oracle we need to tech PH pretty much immediately. There are some charts with a few dates (turn numbers) of when AIs build certain wonders. I'll see whether I still have something like this (I have a folder, somewhere, with tons of reference stuff). Remember, we're already building the GW.

 

[mystyfly]

Sorry for the double-post. I looked it up, we only get EP boost if we are running the religion as our State Religion. Still, well worth shooting Oracle -> CoL IMHO, just for the trade bait, Caste and a chance to make Alex hate Asoka.

It's not that I think it's a bad idea or not worth it, I don't think it's doable with reasonnable chance of success.

 

[vranasm]

one thing I wanted to mention is you should think what you do with the first great spy...

you probably have 2 options I saw used
1) build scotland yard
2) inflitration mission.

it's very obvious conflict between long term and short term, but it looks like you have tons of grass riverside around capital and running EP slider with cottages is actually good usually.

one disadvantage on normal speed of EE is that those 5 turns for discount are not properly scaled, thus you will be in slight disadvantage compared to marathon games examples from OneLeggedRhino

 

[Revent]

Welcome aboard Mystyfly! Great to have you on! The only reason I had it on Monarch was because I was not sure of the difficulty level here in this forum and did Monarch because I thought it was a nice easy balance.

As for post game stealing; we want to vassal the strong techers that are not on our land (if there are any) and direct their research for our techs so we can steal.

So some goals we need are multiple strong production cities. We won't be winning a typical Immortal Cuir sweep of the continent because the AI rarely ever research MT quickly enough and our research rate should (hopefully) be slow enough that the AI will have rifling by then. The result is, we will need lots and lots of units because we won't have seige or a tech advantage (most likely).

As for our first GSpy, I will vote for a scotland yard since we will be using our slider doubling our EP output.

Re Oracle, I think it's a good idea, but agree with Mystyfly. If it happens en route, it happens, but we don't particularly need it since Caste is not particularly useful in EE and I chose Sumeria for early CH's anyway.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Hello, Revent!

Ok then. I will tech AH after Masonry and stick to the GW after settler plan. Will stop if something major happens. How many turns am I playing, again?

 

[Revent]

Hello, Revent!

Ok then. I will tech AH after Masonry and stick to the GW after settler plan. Will stop if something major happens. How many turns am I playing, again?

Hello there, it seems quite a discussion occured since the last post I made here! (Work is a killer and distracts me from more important things in life such as Civ IV )

Feel free to play as many as you are comfortable doing so. However, a relatively short turnset is advisable at around 10-15 turns.

 

[Smilingrogue]

Got it. I will play until the second city is settled then. That will take some 10-12 turns I reckon.

 

[Revent]

Should wait for a greenlight from Mystyfly and outline your plan (maybe I missed the plan bit or I have a bad memory).

 

[Smilingrogue]

I am pretty much sticking to this-
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11904540&postcount=32

The only change I suggested was to try for Oracle. But we aren't doing that now, so going back to that plan.