Buzzdowan's let's play series

[RedRover57]

Do you think you still need that scout there? Seems possible, but unlikely that the AI would settle that spot at this point and you could probably use a better look at the other continent soon?

Someone will definitely settle that spot if he moves the scout. Also, there is one possible city site north of Canterbury. It is one tile SE of the cows and it's the only possible spot there. You should plant a cheap unit there until your culture borders grab the spot or risk it being settled by England. Alternatively, you could settle another city there yourself, as well as near your scout. Then you would have completely secured your territory.

In addition, you are going to need a navy pretty quick in order to guard your troops as they move to the other continent. The only question is whether to use a land based assault or a a naval assault - it depends on where the capitals are on the other continent. if they are easily accessible by sea you could go with primarily a naval force with destroyers and carriers plus aircraft. In that case you won't really even need siege weapons as the planes can break down the cities. It would be good to build barracks, armories, etc. in your production cities as you want the aircraft to get to air repair and logistics ASAP. MadDjinn's recent England video series is very helpful in terms of naval strategies if you haven't seen it already.

 

[buzzdowan]

Part 14 and 15.

 

[NotSure]

Hi NotSure,

This is my second play of city trader concept. The first game I played for myself to see the dynamics. I noticed more politics and more turnarounds, meaning that an AI who was beaten came back into the game. This would be even better if AI would know how to annex cities. In my previous game I had china with enormous amount of cash and all cities puppeted. They built buildings when they needed units?! Another weird situation was, when I payed an insane amount for open borders to a hostile AI. I needed access to the last capital, which was in the middle of continent.

The point whole point of these special rules is: "Instead of giving extreme bonuses to not-so-clever-AI, let us impose some extra limitations onto human player, so that even a simple AI would be a serious threat."

You are right about my research strategy. I admit I am a poor player in this area. I simply disregard median shifting. It is a waste I know. I hope it is not distracting too much.

I like the idea of changing this aspect ("extreme bonuses") of the game. AI has to have bonuses, but they seem so extreme at higher difficulties. It also seems, to me at least, that the game deals some pretty harsh limitations (production and happiness mostly) on the player to keep the AI somewhat competitive. I really wish there was a way the devs could balance this up a bit by making the AI play a little better and tweaking some of the bonuses and limitations.

I didn't mean to criticize your research strategy. It's not a distraction at all. I just noticed, in that one instance, you would have gained about 1 turn of research from an upcoming RA. I believe you actually caught it yourself though.

Someone will definitely settle that spot if he moves the scout. Also, there is one possible city site north of Canterbury. It is one tile SE of the cows and it's the only possible spot there. You should plant a cheap unit there until your culture borders grab the spot or risk it being settled by England.

I think I didn't notice the pearls there. I suppose the AI would settle that spot and that, under the imposed rules, it's important for him to block these sites off for the moment.

 

[RedRover57]

I think I didn't notice the pearls there. I suppose the AI would settle that spot and that, under the imposed rules, it's important for him to block these sites off for the moment.

As it turns out there is oil on that spot. I have rarely seen the AI settle directly on a tile with a resource so maybe he would have been fine moving the scout. But better safe than sorry.

More importantly I'm wondering how you will deal with Darius. He's a monster and you will have a tough time bringing more units to that continent as well as upgrading your current units to match him. One possibility would be to try to fight a mostly covert war. Try to bribe Darius into taking all of the other capitals (possibly with some help from you, although that would reduce your trading partners). By not taking any cities over there you will stay friendly with Darius and won't need to worry about a DoW from him. In the meantime you could try to beeline toward nukes and then at the very end you could backstab him and nuke your way to Persia's capital, which hopefully wouldn't require a large army. A possible wrinkle in the plan would be if Darius builds the U.N. before you are ready for your final assault as it seems he is intent on buying a lot of CS allies.

 

[buzzdowan]

Part 16 is up.

Enjoy!

 

[buzzdowan]

Part 17 is up.

We've got the right juice for the final push

 

[RedRover57]

You went unhappy when you lost ally status with Helsinki the first turn into this latest video. They were giving you cotton and gems and you probably had sold off all of your other copies.

Also I noticed that you don't have aqueducts in some of your major cities. This would have increased your growth a lot if you had built them earlier in the game. With Gandhi you want to grow your cities large to take advantage of his UA. I'm not sure if they would help that much now though.

 

[buzzdowan]

Hi RedRover57,

I just finished part 18 (uploading now) and my status with Helsinki is allies, anyway also my happiness issue is now resolved.

I also built one aqueduct in the last part in Delhi, thank you.

 

[buzzdowan]

Part 18 is up.

Enjoy!

 

[buzzdowan]

The final part 19 is up.

See how the story ends

It would help me a lot, if you let me know what you liked and disliked about these videos. I am already planning the next series which will introduce a different kind of modification.

Stay tuned!

 

[RedRover57]

Nice job! All of that cash certainly did Persia a lot of good, didn't it? I'm not really sure what Persia was trying to do in that game since they didn't build the Manhattan Project, the UN or the Apollo Program and they had almost the whole tech tree researched.

 

[buzzdowan]

@RedRover57

I'd say Persia was aiming for domination victory. They took out everybody on their continent. I am still not sure if AI is able to complete domination victory on continents map. Somehow they are never effective at naval invasions. Therefore, I'd say you are lucky, if on continents map an AI from another continent decides for domination victory.

It is sad how much cash Persia had and they just watched me buy all those city states This is definitely broken.

 

[Buccaneer]

@RedRover57

I'd say Persia was aiming for domination victory. They took out everybody on their continent. I am still not sure if AI is able to complete domination victory on continents map. Somehow they are never effective at naval invasions. Therefore, I'd say you are lucky, if on continents map an AI from another continent decides for domination victory.

It is sad how much cash Persia had and they just watched me buy all those city states This is definitely broken.

Had the same thing happen in my last game, only it was Arabia. There have been many complaints about the AI "playing to win" (i.e., they should have more personality, whatever that is, instead of winning) but I have always countered that the AI needs to be even more agressive in going for more victory conditions. In my case, Arabia had the cash to buy city-states and did for a while (taking some of mine) but then it stopped and went space. That gave me the time to win culturally.

They need to 1) assess their current winning condition and be more aggressive, 2) be able to switch to another better condition and be aggressive there and 3) target the human player more (i.e., if they can't win on any line, they can try to hurt the human player).

 

[RedRover57]

That seems the most likely, but usually when an AI civ is looking like they are going domination they build nukes. They were ahead of you in science and clearly could have had nukes if they wanted them. Nukes are about the only thing that the AI knows how to use effectively in terms of modern warfare units.

I don't know what you are considering for your next play-through, but I like to use a rule set that is almost the opposite of what you did in this game. It's a total conquest rule set as follows:

- No selling conquered cities (puppet or annex only); razing only allowed with cities of pop 1 or 2
- Must completely conquer all AI civs on the map, therefore your very last city conquest must be the capital of the final civ remaining
- Peace treaties are allowed, but you must eventually conquer all of the AI civs (except for CS - they don't need to be conquered).

It's an interesting rule set for several reasons. It forces you to build your civ efficiently so as to not have a happiness issue (since you can't just sell off cities). In addition, eventually all of the other civs will become hostile because of your warmongering (and diplomacy hit for completely wiping out civs) so the lack of trading partners makes it more challenging. I normally play it on a small pangaea map just so the game doesn't go too long.

 

[buzzdowan]

They need to 1) assess their current winning condition and be more aggressive, 2) be able to switch to another better condition and be aggressive there and 3) target the human player more (i.e., if they can't win on any line, they can try to hurt the human player).

Totally agree with 1) and 2). As per 3) I'd say target competitors (AI or human) more ... It should be unbiased otherwise it would be predictable again. Human player would always know who is AI going to attack next.

 

[buzzdowan]

I don't know what you are considering for your next play-through, but I like to use a rule set that is almost the opposite of what you did in this game. It's a total conquest rule set as follows:

- No selling conquered cities (puppet or annex only); razing only allowed with cities of pop 1 or 2
- Must completely conquer all AI civs on the map, therefore your very last city conquest must be the capital of the final civ remaining
- Peace treaties are allowed, but you must eventually conquer all of the AI civs (except for CS - they don't need to be conquered).

Interesting. That is what I like to read. I know you guys are making your own games

How long does it usually take to complete such mission? My concern here would be late game. Even with standard rules the last part of the game can be a drag. The part when you have an advantage, the outcome is already known, you just have to wipe out the whole map. The question would be how to bend these rules so that in the last phase you could loose that advantage. Any idea?

My next game will be Siamese Twins. The rules are in a separate thread. Let us know is you try it.

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

Interesting. That is what I like to read. I know you guys are making your own games

How long does it usually take to complete such mission? My concern here would be late game. Even with standard rules the last part of the game can be a drag. The part when you have an advantage, the outcome is already known, you just have to wipe out the whole map. The question would be how to bend these rules so that in the last phase you could loose that advantage. Any idea?

My next game will be Siamese Twins. The rules are in a separate thread. Let us know is you try it.

Minimize the map size.