BOTM 27 Final Spoiler

[jesusin]

- but what a struggle!

Founded Christianity in 525bc, build AP in 225bc, spread Christianity to everyone in 100bc.
I choose Peter as my friend, spread Christianity to a few more of his cities and tried to make him happy, and here things started to go wrong.
I figured (guessed) I needed Peter at +8 for him to vote for me, so I had to work on our trade-relations

How do you get these guys to like you enough and how much is enough?

First vote around 50AD our borders sparked too much tension, and the same turn Mao and Napy declared war!

I was prepared with a bunch of archers, and the funny thing was, Napy kept lurking around in the woods with his large stacks, without attacking or pillaging at all for a very long time.

The years went by and Peter and I grew a bit more fond of each other , and after a few more votes everything was set up.
Then he petrayed me on the turn of the election and adopted Free Religion, and my +3 for sharing his religion was gone.

Well he was my only friend so I had to stick with him and a few turns later I adopted Bureaucracy, his favourite civic and we were best buddies again when the vote came up, and guess what? 50 turns had passed and I got elected Resident of the AP

OK ten more turns to Victory - in my dreams!!!

Meanwhile the warfare had put me down to Thebes as my only city and when the vote came up Pete and I didn't have enough votes.

Making peace, founding more cities and gifting Peter a lot of Christian missionaries finally did the job 10 (or was it 20 or 30 or...?) years later.


And this brings me back to my question:
How do you get these guys to like you enough and how much is enough?

+8 is enough. Now, +8 including visible and invisible parameters. Read the thread "AI attitude explained".

peace +1, OB +2 and gifts +4 already puts you on +7. Get 4 more (to account for border tension and for a invisible -2) and you are done.


Now, I don't understand your situation. You built Christian AP? You sent tons of Christian missionaries to Peter? You had +3 for sharing religion so he was Christian?
Then, had he not changed to FR, he would have been your rival in the election and would never had voted for you, no matter how many positive modifiers you got!!!

Have I missed something?

 

[zamint3]

I've tried everything to like me again, but he just kept voting for himself. How did you ever get him to like you enough to have him vote for you?

If they can I think they will always vote for themselves!

zamint3, could you have switched into Bureaucracy earlier? Shared civics bonuses are usually the easiest to get (though some AIs don't rate them very highly - I don't remember if Peter's one of them)

I switched asap and got a +3 immediately (edit: Well +1 immediately, and soon +3 !?) - but I had forgotten all about Civics so this was pure luck

 

[zamint3]

+8 is enough. Now, +8 including visible and invisible parameters. Read the thread "AI attitude explained".

Not sure I found the right thread, I think I remember reading that it depends on the civ and the leader??
I tried in a replay to get Napoleon as friend and he needed more than +8

peace +1, OB +2 and gifts +4 already puts you on +7. Get 4 more (to account for border tension and for a invisible -2) and you are done.

In the end I had:
+1 Peace
+2 Years of supplying resources
+2 Open borders
+3 Wisely chosen Civics
+4 Trade relations
-1 Border tension
Better to play it safe...
(Resource supplying and open borders take a while to reach +2)

Now, I don't understand your situation. You built Christian AP? You sent tons of Christian missionaries to Peter? You had +3 for sharing religion so he was Christian?
Then, had he not changed to FR, he would have been your rival in the election and would never had voted for you, no matter how many positive modifiers you got!!!

Have I missed something?

Christian AP yes! But I was the only one ever being Christian!
Most of the time I shared Peters religion, Buddhism.
The Christian missionaries came much later, when Peter (with FR) and I did not have enough cities with Chritianity. I think the count was Peter 3 cities, and Mao, Napy and I each one city with Christianity and that was not quite enough for Peter and I to reach 75 %

 

[jesusin]

Not sure I found the right thread, I think I remember reading that it depends on the civ and the leader??

Just use the "search" utility and you´ll quickly get to the thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204328&highlight=attitude+explained

I tried in a replay to get Napoleon as friend and he needed more than +8

Invisible modifiers are invisible. If invisible = -2, then you need visible +10 to have a total of +8.

Most of the time I shared Peters religion, Buddhism.

Aaaah, that explains it all.

The Christian missionaries came much later, when Peter (with FR) and I did not have enough cities with Chritianity. I think the count was Peter 3 cities, and Mao, Napy and I each one city with Christianity and that was not quite enough for Peter and I to reach 75 %

Just an idea: what about changing to Christianity (and Bureaucracy) once Peter went to FR? That way you double your voting power.

If your current voting power * 2 is less than 75% and your current voting power * 2 + Peter's votes is more than 75%, you are done.

 

[azzaman333]

One of the screens in BUFFY calculates how close you are to getting the diplo win, iirc.

 

[zamint3]

Just use the "search" utility and you´ll quickly get to the thread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=204328&highlight=attitude+explained

Thank you, tough reading though.

Invisible modifiers are invisible.

Just an idea: what about changing to Christianity (and Bureaucracy) once Peter went to FR? That way you double your voting power.

If your current voting power * 2 is less than 75% and your current voting power * 2 + Peter's votes is more than 75%, you are done.

Yes I know, frustration clouded my mind.

Most of the game (when Peter had Buddhism) I was afraid that my current voting power * 2 was more than 75% and I was afraid that Peter would convert to Christianity and vote for him self if I gifted him any more missionaries. (Quite unlikely i guess???)

 

[zamint3]

One of the screens in BUFFY calculates how close you are to getting the diplo win, iirc.

And you tell me that now!

 

[lroumen]

If they can I think they will always vote for themselves!

Rather lame. I mean, the game asks me to vote for either me or someone else so it assumes that I would maybe not vote for myself, but the AI never votes for someone else?

 

[kcd_swede]

Rather lame. I mean, the game asks me to vote for either me or someone else so it assumes that I would maybe not vote for myself, but the AI never votes for someone else?

It can make sense to vote for your opponent if (a) you know your opponent won't win, and (b) you want some +diplo from that opponent for "you voted for us"... for example you anticipate that in the next vote someone else will be your opponent.

So it gives options to the human player that are not available to the AI. What's wrong with that? While humans can have all sorts of motivations for trying to lose a vote, certainly you do not want AI programmed to try to lose the game, do you? Don't they already do a good enough job at that?

 

[Lexad]

You might want to not win right away - either to milk score or prolong fun. If it was auto self-vote, I think the stench from the forums would've reached heavens.

 

[Earthling]

I hope I don't have the highest base score here again ...wasn't trying, no real food corps to spam anyway, but it did get really high; my empire never felt as big as it apparently was but I guess that's me not being used to the mapsize. ~8k base score put me at 133k final score, now that I am happy with.

Anyway, I was probably pushing a personal record for a fastest Space Race after Liberalism. The problem being, of course, that I got Lib => Democracy in 1400 AD

My game was summed up with massive REX early on, followed by economy-snailing periods of warring. I snagged some great cities early; all those resources for growth (though later it hurt having so few happy resources) and creative + Libraries made culture no problem. Around mid-Mathematics tech was turned off to afford expansion but my plan was to get back going with all the gems/gold cities online. Would naturally be able to run plenty of scientists, bulb my way up and generally take off; I was aiming for Space Race from the start.

The monkey wrench was Napoleon DoWing me early of course, so I had to slave out military (war chariots). He was a different religion (Budd) than the rest of us (Hindu) but of course as the human player I was weaker early on so that DoW was annoying. But I'm not one to pass up opportunities...after fighting off Napoleon, and seeing some pathetically defended cities snuck up on my cultural borders from Peter, the stacks went his way. I did capture the Pyramids in my initial blitz and a few cities quickly but I also had a couple of annoying failed assaults on Moscow/other cities. So had to go for a brief period of peace with Peter (bought Nappy off with this kinda worthless border city by the Chinese).

Once I was able to re-DoW Peter probably and finish him off I clearly was set for the game - 50% land and pop, and icing on the cake that Mao and Nappy hated each other over religion so I could bribe/keep them at war indefinitely. Unfortunately, that also left me all alone to tech by myself so I had to gear up hard for pure economy - I basically just teched everything I could, focused on Sci/Eng specialists (Representation the whole time. Annoyingly had to switch out of caste when Mao went Emancipation since 8 unhappy were killing me). But I ended up about an era ahead of the AI and finished with close to 200 turns left so not a bad Space Race in my books.

Stats that summarize the game:
-Built 133 War chariots (soooo many forests, bit of a pain all that warring while the rest of the game took like one sitting, but still )
-26 tanks
-21 Mining Inc
-14 Catapults
-12 Workers and 12 Settlers
-9 GS, 6 GE, 4 GM (including all the free tech ones, also had a couple other Great People of other categories too; burnt up thru 3 golden ages worth I think)


Funniest things in the game:
-Mao repeatedly tried for religious votes to stop the war against Nappy; I always voted down and he was short. When I was able to vote myself in control of AP just voted nothing at all.
-Napoleon asking for Aluminum for, you guessed it, one of 16 deer near the end of the game.
-Nappy actually DoW'd me late game, that's where many of those tanks come from; was fun killing about 50 Grenadiers/Curassiers/cannons with Blitz tanks, and vassalizing him so quickly (didn't quite put me over Dom, which is why I couldn't take his lands myself). Annoyingly though either he or Mao managed to sabotage a couple of my Spaceship parts with spies and maybe delayed a turn or two (you always have to wait on the Fusion engines anyway....)

Anyway it was a good game to get back into BOTMs for me. I haven't read everyone else's reports so will edit with comments soon.

Well, I have to say congrats to those who pulled through and my sympathies to those who fell in battle; I could definitely see and sympathize with things going the wrong way in fighting these AI. Some of those with great Conquest/Dom victories naturally probably have it (really sorry to hear Dhoomstriker got tie-broken into Domination, sounds like he might have won the Conquest medal otherwise).

 

[lroumen]

It can make sense to vote for your opponent if (a) you know your opponent won't win, and (b) you want some +diplo from that opponent for "you voted for us"... for example you anticipate that in the next vote someone else will be your opponent.

So it gives options to the human player that are not available to the AI. What's wrong with that? While humans can have all sorts of motivations for trying to lose a vote, certainly you do not want AI programmed to try to lose the game, do you? Don't they already do a good enough job at that?

Makes a bit more sense now I guess, but I'm still not 100% convinced. I think that if the AI is fully friendly with you he should have the possibility to vote for you and yes lose the game.

You might want to not win right away - either to milk score or prolong fun. If it was auto self-vote, I think the stench from the forums would've reached heavens.

Kind of irrelevant I think.... you could just disable a diplomatic victory in your game or simply use the "just one more turn" option.

 

[azzaman333]

Kind of irrelevant I think....

Not for an XotM.

 

[kcd_swede]

Makes a bit more sense now I guess, but I'm still not 100% convinced. I think that if the AI is fully friendly with you he should have the possibility to vote for you and yes lose the game...

I used to think so, back when I thought diplo victories were really hard. Now, I think it would be tooo easy if all you had to do was get the #2 pop civ to friendly and he votes for you (all other diplo relations meaningless).

I could see that the gamemakers might want to make is "possible" for the #2 civ to vote for you if he is friendly AND if you do something that requires additional effort (like a very expensive espionage mission or such).

Oh well... its just to learn the game as it is and make the best of it, whether its how you would have designed the game or not.

 

[Lexad]

Kind of irrelevant I think.... you could just disable a diplomatic victory in your game or simply use the "just one more turn" option.

You're writing this in BOTM thread.

 

[lroumen]

I guess so. I like most of the game features but the logic of diplomacy is a bit beyond me sometimes.

XOTM = milk for a medal?

I just play them for the challenge.

 

[jesusin]

jesusin, contender. Goal: fastest religious victory. Result: 200BC religious victory.


Initial thoughts:

I have no time for this game, so I'll play for a religious victory.
I don't have the slightest idea what the optimal number of cities for a religious victory is. I'll try not to go broken, as I've been warned in the pregame thread.
Obelisk will be useful for bulbing Theology. Alpha is important, I'll use it to make 1 friend, together with common civic or something.
Chop a lot, have many many workers. Stay away from early religions, so that they all have their own.
I'll probably never research IW nor Calendar, so settling on dyes looks good.




Initial moves:

Settler 1S, Warrior 1SW. See more deer. I'll move 1 turn to settle with much more food. Settler 1SW. Following turn, Warrior SE, nothing interesting, Settler settles 2SW of starting position, without river, with 3 deer and 1 gold.
Research Hunting, building Worker.

Builds: Worker-Warrior-Worker-Warrior-Settler
Techs: Hunting-Mining-BW for chopping-AH (no pottery cause no copper around and barb defense needed; of course all horses are 1 tile out of my borders)-Writing-Alpha

Cities:
02 E, gold, 2deers, ivory for happiness
03 N, 4deer 3 horses, 2000BC
04 SE, 2deer 2gems, I had thought I'd stay at 3 cities but 2 gems where irresistible.



Mid game:

1240AD I get Alpha. Start building Pyramids, since all favourite civics are late ones. My friend will probably be Peter, since his' is Bureacracy.
Barbs unconnect Eastern Gold. Whip Granaries all around.
Economy: +17gpt at 0% research.

Wait and don't trade for Poly till it comes with Sailing too (1000BC). Start Mono then.

1000 BC Stats: 4 cities, 13 pop, 6 workers, 11units(3WC), 1 strategic resources, 2 luxury resources, 1 health resources, 0 great persons, 0 world wonders, 0 national wonders, food/production/commerce=45-25-52, 28 sustainable beakers per turn, 18 culture per turn, 3 great person points per turn, 100 gold, 3gra,3lib, barr. 0 religions, 0/0 cottages used, 13 Techs: Alpha, Poly, BW. 0 civs killed. 6 hours played.



The three key turns:

Next turn the 3rd early religion is discovered by Peter. They have one each! I won't need to research CoL for economy nor CS for favourite civic. I just need to convert to 1 of those religions to make 1 of them happy. I realize I don't have time to pop a GPro after the GS I've bulbed Maths with, so full speed research of Theology.
Next turn Peter gets a Gpro. I panic, since he can bulb Theology and I won't have any religion of mine to base AP on.
Next turn, Peter uses his GPro on a silly shrine. Uffff.



The end game:

I make all of them pleased through tech gifts, while building some units to look strong.
It's a good thing I won't have rival in the elections, since they are Pleased with each other even at -2!!!
3 of my workers chop the Pyramids. The other 3 chop in other city that builds research, thus accumulating all the hammers.
My units hardly save the gems city from a lucky Barb Spearman. The city is whipped to exhaustion. I get Pyramids the turn before I get Theology.

A missionary from Peter infects my capital. One of my cities builds AP with all the accumulated lumber, other builds missionaries, the other 2 realize they can get Oracle and CoL in 6 turns so they net me a beautiful CS slingshot. I gift CS to Peter and pay him to be in Bureaucracy.
AP is built 475BC, 6 turns after Theology is discovered. Then I revolt to Peter's religion. I am gifting him so many resources that I get the OB and resource trading bonuses, he's at +12.

Take my missionaries slowly to their cities, infect two 1 pop cities of Napo and Mao, infect one 10 pop city of Peter, while I have the religion (Chistinaity) in only 2 of my cities, with 16 pop in all.
Wait the 10 turns between elections.
I risk nothing, if spontaneous infection happens in my cities I can whip them bellow 75% of world's believers. If spontaneous infection happens in Napo's or Mao's cities I can infect 2 more of my cities and 1 more of Peter's so our votes go beyond 75% of world's believers.
Final pops are 17-9-2-1, I am at 60% well bellow 75%; me and Peter together are at 90%, well over 75%.
Victory 200BC, 11 turns after AP is built.



Do you know how to count up to 10?:

Common wisdom says votings occur every 9 turns. HOF counter said I was 8 turns from next decision the turn I built AP.
8 turns later, it said it would happen in 0 turns. The following turn, I chose to pass the victory voting. The following turn votes were counted.
So I stand by my words, it's 10 turns between elections.



Wow, isn't victory in the BCs great?:

No, it isn't. I made too many mistakes.

Small stupid mistakes:
- I forgot to OB when I got Writing. I did it 3 turns later. 5 more turns and I would have lost 1 relation point with Peter.
- I forgot to set my cities to grow for 2 turns when I traded for Sailing and gems came online in the capital.

Big, slowing mistakes:
- Building Pyramids. It was useless. I should have been building research all the time. All Workers should have been accelerating AP building.
- Building Oracle for CS sling. I didn't need it for Peter's relations.
- Building 4 cities. 2 were more than enough. The gems never got to even pay for themselves due to barb activity.
- Getting a GS. Nurturing a GPro from the beginning would have finished researching so much sooner! Maths could have been traded or even ignored.

The fact is I was scared of messing things up. I built myself a decent position to get a victory even if all religious plans failed.



Another consideration is the religious victory feels cheesy. 12 hours to win an Immortal game? Not spreading the religion, not even to my own cities? It smells fishy.

 

[kcd_swede]

Thanks Jesusin for proving my pre-game speculation to be correct with your religious victory in the BC years.

Another consideration is the religious victory feels cheesy. 12 hours to win an Immortal game? Not spreading the religion, not even to my own cities? It smells fishy.

Cheesy? Fishy? Is someone hungry?

 

[zamint3]

Another consideration is the religious victory feels cheesy. 12 hours to win an Immortal game? Not spreading the religion, not even to my own cities? It smells fishy.

No, not in a BOTM.

Anyway, it's important that some of you experts show us mortals how game mechanics work.