Blackbetsy HOF Attempts

[Spoonwood]

Yes, Persia just either doesn't have extra luxes or resources or trades them away to someone else.

Do you have embassies with everyone? If you go to the trading table screen, and have 'trades' enabled, it will tell who is trading with whom, but not what they trade.

 

[BlackBetsy]

The war with German really showed how bad WW can get. I had to put the lux slider up to 70% at the end, even though I had 3 luxes and marketplaces in key towns. Dortmund wound up being their only (native) source of iron and a second army - this time a Knight army - was created from an elite MI and we pillaged Berlin and a couple of other core cities. In the end, WW was causing such a problem and the Germans had opened up a threatening new front, that I decided to make peace given that I had secured the 2 luxes and materially reduced the German empire. Otto was willing to give me 4 cities and all his gold in the peace deal, including Salzburg (shown on the screenshot) which is actually in the first ring around Berlin. Its status as a low population city cut off from Berlin probably was a material reason why it was handed over. Knowing it and another core German city that was handed over - Hannover - would flip, I gifted them to the Babylonians, making the Babylonians Gracious towards me. I also got my army, which had been teleported to near Hannover when it was kicked out of Germany, re-teleported back to my capital, which was nice.

We caught up on tech in a couple of turns with the pillage road technique, but the war really slowed down the economy. Until the 2 luxes are hooked up (unfortunately through a dense jungle where I think I need 5 roads), I still need to run 30% lux to have productive cities and it's still 10+ turns to research Military Tradition. I built some libraries and unis in the core to spur tech but that process isn't done.

War chest is only 4500 right now. No one is paying for techs and I've missed monopolies by 3-4 turns a couple of times, choosing the wrong techs (I could have gotten a monopoly on Metallurgy, but the Persians went for Banking the same time I did).

I know that I really need to go after the Persians next, but it's a very wide front against them, which is painful. I've also got a Persian city near my core (see minimap) that I need to take out, diverting some of the army. I can distract them by roping the Babylonians into a war with them, and probably add the Japanese and Chinese as well. Heck, the Germans might even jump in if I give them tech, meaning I can kill a couple of birds with one stone. ( I could also give them horses without iron).

I need to wheel my army around from Germany and re-position it to the east, boosting up my Knights as well. We've converted all trebs to cannons at this point, but at 14, it's not enough. Probably need to get up to 20 at least to make sure I can have 2 decent stacks to reduce the Persian cities. We need to get more cities vs. towns, as well as get more cities settled to reduce unit support costs (70 gpt at this point).

I have to double-disconnect (my saltpeter and then my capital) to do the pillage road technique, which is a pain and takes up 6 worker turns which could be improving my civ. I'm assuming that war with Persia will free up some additional trade pillage options, given that Persia has a lot of luxes and is trading them away.

All in all, I don't feel like this one is going as well as I would like, mostly because I'm in a less secluded part of the Pangaea and have too many open fronts. But once Persia is down for the count, it should all get a lot easier.

 

[Bartleby]

I always have major problems with WW during the conquest phase, I never seem to be able to blitz quickly enough.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Played out some war against Persia. I'm just not shaking the feeling that this isn't going well for me. I got a turn with the pillage trade with Babylon after the war started, but the other AI immediately gobbled up Babylon's extra luxes and now I'm stalemated on that. I wound up stealing Military Tradition from the Persians, and then buying my way into the Industrial Age by buying ToG and trading it for Magnetism. My war chest, which had reached 4500 or so, now is down to just 400 gold. Steam Power is available, but I have nothing to trade for it and I can't afford to steal it. I really need it to hypercharge my civ, so that's the main problem.

War against Persia started well. I razed three border towns on the east and captured (and abandoned) the town west of my core. I got everyone else except Egypt (which landed troops near my cap and then declared war when I asked them to leave) involved against Persia, and Persia is distracted enough that I'm not facing hordes of troops coming my way. I don't think Persia has a stable supply of horses, because I've only seen two Persian cavalry early and none since.

I am a little stalemated now since the one Persian saltpeter town is on a hill and I only have 3 cannons in the cohort attacking it, and it will take 5 turns to get 7 more cannons in place - I probably need 5-6 at least. I thought it was a lightly defended outer town, but it definitely has at least 3 rifles in it to protect the saltpeter. Even a Knight Army isn't a good bet against a fortified rifleman on a hill. Unfortunately, despite 5-6 elite on 1-bar unit battles, no new armies to generate a Cavalry Army, which I most desperately need.

I am pillaging around the Persian core, so it's been heavily reduced in terms of productivity. I will need the Knight Army that's pillaging to join my main force attacking into core Persian towns. No railroads on the map for Persia yet - Steam Power must have just shown up as a free tech when Germany / Babylon made it to the Industrial Age and after the war started. I feel like I have a good enough army to take out Persia, which has fewer towns than I thought.

The German core east of Berlin was much more substantial than I thought and is going to be a problem later.

The key now is figuring out how to get Steam Power as fast as possible. WW has me with a 40% lux slider even with 5 native luxes, which leaves me accruing gold very slowly. I have 100 per turn in unit costs, which I am desperate to reduce by settling more towns and trying to disband units.

Edit: I just realized - Steam Power was only German, I think, and they must have pulled it as a free tech when I traded them ToG for Magnetism. So its new to the game for the turn I'm on.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Ugh. Its 1010 AD, and though I've really weakened the Persians (down to 8 cities, broken up into 2 pieces), the Germans have gotten stronger again and their civ is as large as it was in the expansion phase. I still haven't eliminated even a single civ, as war weariness has overwhelmed my ability to prosecute wars to the end. In the Persian war, I felt like I could push on and eliminate Persia, but WW got me up to a 70% slider again, even though I wasn't losing cities to the Persians.

Now I have 11 turns left on a Right of Passage agreement with the Chinese, my natural next target (WW with them should be low). I guess I can use these 11 turns to shore up the civ and begin railroading (researching SP in 8 turns), but then I'm in 1120 AD with no dead civs. And the Babylonians will have Rep Parts and Flight soon enough.

The AI's were not useful in eliminating any of my war opponents when I used alliances with them.

The fact that the pillage trade isn't available has nearly killed this game for me. I think the most likely outcome is a Space Ship loss, likely to the Bablylonians.

And now this happens.....in a town 15 tiles away from China that I've had for 60 turns. I think I'm about done here.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Yep, I'm calling it. This was my last good map with 3+ cows, so I'm going to have MapFinder run another set for me.

 

[Spoonwood]

The fact that the pillage trade isn't available has nearly killed this game for me.

I tried to give you a hint before, but I think I was too indirect with my question:

Do you have some town next to 2 luxury sources in corrupt territory that Persia does not have?

Sometimes in order to get, you must give first!

Here's something I did from another thread:

To get Persia to declare on me, I plan on gifting them my Dye sources.

Original source

I know I gifted cities in some other situations to get AIs to declare on me in that game.

The first person to use gpt for luxuries followed by pillaging (not around his capital, but the trade route still got pillaged) in the hall of fame was Gyathaar in a standard Sid diplomatic game. He ended up trading with Greece heavily I think. How did he trade with Greece? See the light green area in the middle of the purple area below?

No, he did not have Mauch Chunk captured by Greece. He gave Greece that city which had two luxury sources. Then he traded for the luxury source, other stuff, and pillaged.

In another game I played last summer I gifted Persia a city which I intentionally planted next to silks. I didn't know that I would give them the city when I founded that city. But, I planted the city just in case it seemed useful enough to get other things from them. I do remember that Persia had some technology when I gave them that city.

In the 10 AD save it says I'm getting deals of 105 gpt, 47 gpt, an RoP for nothing, 13 gpt, 1 gpt, 20 gpt, 96 gpt, 2 gpt, 1 gpt all from from Persia, and paying 13 gpt to Persia for those silks.

I remembered I had seen evidence of having given at least one city away by Drazek in his 93,000+ game. In the 10 AD save I observe he's importing dyes from Babylon from a city that he gave to them. He also gave another source of dyes to The Hittites:

Drazek's 90k+ game also has a city name "Wines" which Korea owns in the 10 AD save. And he's importing wines from Korea while getting gpt from them also. Maybe he learned a good amount of technology in his games, because in part of those gifted cities also.

 

[Spoonwood]

Also, I'm curious if there existed AI-AI trading of luxuries or resources. I know I've used disruption of trade routes via signing one AI into war against another in my France game, to get a luxury source from Portugal by first declaring war on Rome, and then signing Portugal against Rome, because I had detected via a blue line in the F4 screen that Portugal and Rome were trading (and I had seen that Portugal had an extra wines source).

O. K... it looks like I had Rome declare war on France. But the ensuing military alliance with Portugal against Rome still liberated Portuguese wines and ended up rather profitable.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I didn't understand what you said at first, now I do, and I could have gifted Beijing, which had 2 wines. Damnit. I could have done that 60 turns ago, at least. Maybe I will play a few turns after doing that.

 

[BlackBetsy]

I played a few more turns, got the trade up and running because I realized I was at war with Egypt (a phony war) and I could ally Babylon and free up their resource. I managed it for a few turns before the trade died out when Babylon re-traded their gems. I may come back to it, but I moved on to other maps.

I had a 3 cow map that started out pretty well with a huge, if long expansion area. My problem was that my immediate neighbors who I planned to go to war with (Persia) had the Great Wall and everything close to them flipped to Persia relatively quickly. The core was too small and spread out - it was an oddly shaped Pangaea. I lost my entire stack of catapults and called it a day.

Now I'm running Mapfinder on 80% water to get some maps. I think I screwed that up, it should be 60% water but I'm at work now and can't do anything about it

I really need at least 2 native luxes. I find myself coming out of the Great Library period with too much unhappiness and not enough beakers (I don't build libraries).

 

[BlackBetsy]

My last attempt started out pretty well - had a good core, big bank account, tech traded well early. But zero native luxes and no horses. Eventually I acquired two luxes and horses from Babylon, got Babylon down to a one city civ, was poised to take them over when Gunpowder came, I had no saltpeter even close to me, no options to trade for it, and the tech leader (by a lot) invaded on the side of my civ that was essentially undefended.

 

[Bartleby]

If you're planning to milk it then 60% water would definitely be better. How many opponents are you using? If you can add more then resources should be more available, but obviously space will be less available, so it's a trade-off.

 

[BlackBetsy]

If you're planning to milk it then 60% water would definitely be better. How many opponents are you using? If you can add more then resources should be more available, but obviously space will be less available, so it's a trade-off.

I'm thinking about adding opponents because (a) more chances that I can get the pillage road trade going; (b) each civ will be weaker.

For 6 opponents, I use the Germans, Babylonians, Persians, Japanese, Egyptians and Chinese. I am avoiding anyone with Alphabet for obvious reasons. If I added 2, maybe the Mongols and America? Arabia possibly?

 

[Bartleby]

The disadvantage of the Arabs is their 3-move knight UU, but that's not worse than China I guess.

 

[BlackBetsy]

Holy cow......

 

[BlackBetsy]

Holy cow......

View attachment 697917

This map is turning out to be decent. 2 native luxes, native iron and horses hooked up early. Early pillage trade route action that built up a 10k war chest in BC. I am in 190 AD and I just finished off the Chinese, neighbors to the Southwest. Directly south of them are the Egyptians, with whom I have 15 turns left on a ROP agreement - enough to build up my civ a bit more after the China war, build some libraries / universities in the core to tech later and give some culture - and then pounce. Germany is unusually large and populous but teching slow. I'll use the 15 turns to scout Egypt.

Unlike my last attempt, I have a position that does not have a second front in my rear (except for 2 Persian cities and Xerxes is very happy with me from all the times he's traded his furs to me and found the road cut and unable to deliver furs).

The one problem I see is that the pillage trade is currently interrupted as Xerxes has traded away his furs to someone else. He has a trade with Egypt that I will interrupt and I should be able to get it back on when the war starts. I also have a city with multiple luxes I can gift if necessary.....

 

[Spoonwood]

The one problem I see is that the pillage trade is currently interrupted as Xerxes has traded away his furs to someone else.

Oops. I usually reacquire any luxuries or resources I really want to maintain a lock on before the end of a turn. Because of that, I'll have at least two full sets of workers and pillagers by my capital, if not a third for military alliances at the start of a war or some more also to mine that tile. Sounds overall like it's going better though, so that's good!

 

[BlackBetsy]

I should probably do that, although it significantly cuts gold per turn.

 

[BlackBetsy]

If I trade a tech for gpt (say Engineering for 20 gpt) and the AI still has 10 turns left on the deal, does it ruin my trade rep if I attack them?

 

[Spoonwood]

If I trade a tech for gpt (say Engineering for 20 gpt) and the AI still has 10 turns left on the deal, does it ruin my trade rep if I attack them?

If they are paying you gpt, but you are not paying them gpt, then no. You won't ruin your trade reputation if you attack them.