Competing VC's

[RRRaskolnikov]

Oh I only just noticed, dhoomstriker's swordsman has 4 legs

Oh boy No wonder why we lost that other SG

 

[r_rolo1]

Damn you rolo; now I even have to wait to download a CFC-savegame

I suppose you haven't read the explanation I gave about this to lymond in a earlier SG so I'll give it again . The issue is that i have the CFC disk space filled with saves i don't want to erase ( mostly LHC saves ). I had to use other system instead

The fun thing about this discussion on culture is that the majority ( or all ) of the people involved in it was other VC

P.S

Why... won't... that... whip... button... work? Oh yeah, we're not running Slavery.

I think it is obvious the reason I haven't revolted to Slavery yet ... basically to avoid the slave revolt event ( the medium civic maintenance is also a issue, but not very significant for now ). As I wasn't going to whip in my turnset and we are Spi, why would I risk having that obnoxious event ?

P.S II

Well, we have already seen the opposite effect... building Flood Plains Farms "just to reduce the chance of someone else building Cottages on those squares" instead of building faster-to-build Mines...

No, I have not done that

My plan for the whole set was to grow the cap to make a 3 pop settler whip ASAP ( that is considerably faster than trying to build the thing @ 3 or 4 pop ). I said it before playing the set and no one said a thing against it. Making mines instead of FP farms would delay that, so why should I do a thing that was in direct disagreement with my stated and public plan ? To prove that I'm not a cottage hater ?

To add, making the mines would actually take longer, due to the lost time moving around ... and besides that, I actually left the worker making a mine

 

[shyuhe]

For tech-swapping, just to clarify, is it 15 turns at the current sustainable Science Rate for the entire tech or just for the remainder of the tech?

For example, if the sustainable rate would make the tech take another 12 turns to research but we're already halfway through research on it, would it "count" as only 12 turns or the full 24 turns in terms of the "15 or more turns for switching to a different tech" rule?

The latter -- the remainder of the tech. The goal of that rule is to make sure each player gets to choose at least one tech to research. If a tech starts taking more than 15 turns on normal speed, we're probably doing something horribly wrong.

If we get techs, Gold, or Gold per turn offered to us as part of a Peace deal, are we allowed to take them?

Also, these rules seem to greatly reduce the value of going for Alphabet, since we won't be able to get techs in trade. Similarly, Aesthetics is reduced in value (except for the Wonders themselves), since normally you tech it in order to get Alphabet in trade, which we would not be allowed to do.

Since we're going to likely be very technologically backwards, some AIs are likely going to offer to gift us techs. Are we allowed to accept these gifts (which do not actually increase the amount of "liking" that an AI has towards us)?

We cannot take them as part of a peace deal. You can vassal/capitulate an AI but that's it. I don't see any harm in accepting gifts from the AI -- that's a choice for the active player of course.

Similarly, does "demanding Gold/a tech from an AI" fall under the definition of "AI demands" in terms of being an okay thing to do? Once again, no AI will actually like us any more than they did before for having made such a demand.

Of course, even if we do allow demands, we might want to allow only demands made of AIs that are Pleased or Friendly towards us, to avoid someone "gaming" versus a Diplo/AP win by "fake demanding" 10 times in a row in order to get a -10 negative Diplo hit with an AI that was Cautious or lower towards us to begin with.

The rule right now is that you can't demand gold/tech from the AI. I guess you could fake demand resources... but then again, I think we all assumed (at least I did) that the Diplo/AP will be done through diplomination win anyways.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

But from what I see, whorkshops are far more flexible than towns.

Monasteries likely won't be buildable with the excess Hammers since we'll probably have Scientific Method (prevents you from building Monasteries) around the time that our Workshops start being decent (learn Chemistry to improve Workshops -> learn Sci Method) and late-game Wonders tend to be terribly inefficient for the Hammer to Culture ratio--if we can even beat the Immortal AIs to building them.

Only way towns contribute to culture is through the slider which gets multiplied by cathedrals which you (= culture player) must probably all unlock by yourself). OTOH all the hammers from workshops get converted by building culture but multiplied by a whole lot of stuff which are probably far more commonly built here.

This strategy works in Vanilla but not in Warlords or BtS. Culture, as well as Wealth and Research, used to go through the related building modifiers, meaning that the Hermitage and Cathedrals would multiply the Culture build item. Now, you're stuck using Hammer multipliers, which is an improved ratio for Wealth (125% Hammers with a Forge compared to Vanilla's 50% Hammers with a Forge or Vanilla's 100% Hammers with a Market, Grocer, AND Bank), but is a poor as dirt approach for the Culture build item, since you generally use Liberalism (already +100% = Market + Grocer + Bank and then the Hermitage and Cathedrals add the real value... but not in BtS...).

Even in Vanilla, though, I'd rather be building Monasteries than the Culture build item, as the Culture build item is still pretty weak in Vanilla and is just pathetic in BtS for anything other than your first Cultural Borders expansion.

You may say that the yield is greater with towns, it takes forever to get there. Especially if they're only worked 1/4 of the time (well, at least most likely not all the time...).

Of course it will take a long time to get there, but it's still probably one of the most feasible methods. Why do you rarely go for Cultural Victories? One answer could be because the improvement types that you use (Workshops and avoiding Cottages) do not really mesh well with an early-game Cultural Victory, so your playstyle already prevents you from winning by Culture before any other Victory Conditions in most cases.

As you say, during the other turnsets, those same improved Cottages can be used for other Slider items, so it's not like other players will get hurt by keeping around improved Cottages.

I agree to leave them alone after they're villages though.

That would be my preference, too.

Oh I only just noticed, dhoomstriker's swordsman has 4 legs

It's an arachnid Swordsman... if you look very closely, you'll see the 4 arms, too... two are empty-handed arms--presumably one is for punching/pulling out a dagger for close-quarters combat, while the other arm is for quaffing healing potions (March promotion). 4 legs = 2 movement points.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

We cannot take them as part of a peace deal. You can vassal/capitulate an AI but that's it. I don't see any harm in accepting gifts from the AI -- that's a choice for the active player of course.

Presumably, we are not allowed to trade techs or lump sums of Gold with our Vassals, either, right?

The rule right now is that you can't demand gold/tech from the AI.

I'm okay with that rule, although I would be okay with lifting that rule as long as the Demand was made to an AI that was Pleased or Friendly towards us, since we can't really get any positive Diplo modifiers for making such a Demand, while the Pleased/Friendly restriciton prevents anyone from getting said AI angry at us for "Demanding Tribute." Disallowing Pleased/Friendly Demands (I'd call them "Requests" when they are to AIs that are Pleased/Friendly towards you) just takes away one additional dynamic (although the impact is generally quite small) that can be used in the game.

 

[mystyfly]

@Dhoomstriker: The reason why I rarely go for culture aren't my improvements but rather my affection to warring (which is why most of my games end in domination). And because I don't like sitting there with my pants down hoping nobody notices I'm going culture with a bunch of warriors. And maybe because wonders are a pita to persue on deity

I thought I saw some more arms but since I didn't see another sword or shield I just assumed my eyes were playing tricks on me

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I suppose you haven't read the explanation I gave about this to lymond in a earlier SG so I'll give it again . The issue is that i have the CFC disk space filled with saves i don't want to erase ( mostly LHC saves ). I had to use other system instead

Could you not free up around 250 Kb of space and then when your next turnset ends, you can delete the previous file and reupload another one? We don't need a record of your saved games, just access to the most recent one at a time. I, too, am at my quota, but that's how I do it... I delete something that's not completely necessary then I simply recycle that file space after every turnset.

I didn't download the saved game that you uploaded because the Megaupload site tries to install spyware on your computer (or so I am told--I believed the people who made the claim and did not to access that website try myself).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Dhoomstriker: The reason why I rarely go for culture aren't my improvements but rather my affection to warring (which is why most of my games end in domination). And because I don't like sitting there with my pants down hoping nobody notices I'm going culture with a bunch of warriors. And maybe because wonders are a pita to persue on deity

Well, you can certainly go to war and go for Culture simultaneously: just raze the Cities that you capture instead of keeping them and then you can make money to fund your Cultural Slider. While you'll probably be limited to using Maces + Trebs (and other defensive units in a similar era), that's still a solid combo for a good portion of the game.

I thought I saw some more arms but since I didn't see another sword or shield I just assumed my eyes were playing tricks on me

Well, it's from an in-game screenshot (although the bird companion on my shoulder was edited-in by me)... so, I don't know why the game decided to display my unit that way but I thought that it was neat enough to take a screenshot of it for the relevant XOTM game where it happened and then later I decided to make it my avatar, since a 2-movement, free-March Swordsman would make for a daunting opponent.

 

[mystyfly]

Well, you can certainly go to war and go for Culture simultaneously: just raze the Cities that you capture instead of keeping them and then you can make money to fund your Cultural Slider. While you'll probably be limited to using Maces + Trebs (and other defensive units in a similar era), that's still a solid combo for a good portion of the game.

That has to be the most expensive way of making money I think I'd rather stay with building wealth in non-culture cities, thank you very much

 

[Dhoomstriker]

That has to be the most expensive way of making money I think I'd rather stay with building wealth in non-culture cities, thank you very much

Perhaps it isn't the cheapest way of making money, but your stated primary concern was the AIs becoming too powerful for you to deal with. Good diplomacy can be and usually is a preferable solution, but laking that, an alternative is to bring war to the AIs before they advance past (or too far past) your current tech level.

 

[mystyfly]

Had a look, please excuse the delay.

Pretty clear what to do in my set, scout the rest of the land we could eventually settle then we can attempt a dotmap. Hopefully there is a good GPFarm site in the fog. Would've preferred the forested hill to be chopped not mined, chop/whip combo gets early settlers/workers out a lot faster than by working mines. What I'm unclear about is techpath; do we want to go writing straight or detour to AH? I myself would prefer hunting > AH > writing after pottery as we get lots of discounts, need hunting soon anyway for and we should find horses closeby since there's no copper. If that's ok I'll play tomorrow.

 

[shyuhe]

Plan sounds fine with me. You don't need to get approval from other team members before playing given our format though

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I think that it was said that one of the AIs has already learned Writing. As such, I'm okay to delay getting Writing for a bit, to see if other AIs will also research it first... giving us the chance for Foreign Trade Routes with Sailing as well as a discount on Writing.

If you're going to settle near the Ivory, then yes, for sure, get Hunting, as the Ivory looks like it might be our only Happiness Resource for a while.


Certainly, feel free to post a new dot map. I don't see the harm in having posted one earlier in order to spark a discussion and get a feel for what we might be thinking about in terms of goals.

I think that I've made my point clear in regards to The Pyramids--if we want them, let's plan to get that Stone, which will limit our choices for one of Cities 2 or 3, depending upon whether we will put the Stone in our 3rd Culture ring or within our fat cross. Since I don't care about The Pyramids, you're still open on where to settle, as far as I am concerned.

Different goals will lead to different results... west is good for an early trade route, south is good for blocking encroaching AIs, and we could even consider being really abusive by settling next to Willem on the Plains Hills square that is 2S of the Stone and next to a bunch of Food Resources that he owns--if we are willing to commit to a Culture push there, of course.


If you, however, don't plan to put City #2 near either Ivory or Sheep then perhaps skipping both of Hunting and Animal Husbandry would be okay... but it would also depend upon how soon we'd plan to get out Settler 3 as well as what the settling plan for that City would be (i.e. if it would attempt to grab either Ivory or Sheep itself).


I'm pretty flexible in terms of whether we want to try for a blocking City or a fast-trade-route-enabling City, but if we do go for a blocking City that is Coastal that won't have Sheep or Ivory, perhaps we could even go for Sailing before Hunting, so that we'd have a chance to set up some early Foreign Trade Routes to make back the investment.

 

[mystyfly]

Plan sounds fine with me. You don't need to get approval from other team members before playing given our format though

No but I need to know what others want to do the opposite muahaha






...... wait. Now you'd say the opposite of what you want to get me to do what you want anyway. Aaaarghh!!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

...... wait. Now you'd say the opposite of what you want to get me to do what you want anyway. Aaaarghh!!

Don't worry. I'll say the right thing.

Or will I?​

Also, nothing says that what I think that I want is really the best thing for my assigned Victory Condition. So, if I don't know what I'm talking about and you do the opposite, then you might be playing right into my hand...

 

[mystyfly]

Firstly, if I may suggest, I think it a good idea for all players (using BUG) to set a reminder after 15t to tell them when to stop.


Now to the game... my main objective was to find a good GPFarm and that's what I did

But, first things first:

Some were suggesting OB with justinian



... I would rather not just yet.


(1)
delhi




(3)
pottery > hunting


(4)-(6)
not much but a little scouting and delhi MM: After another settler got the overflow, I switched to a warrior to regrow to 4.


(7)
hunting > ah

There it is, our GPFarm



By far the best site anywhere. Working fish, cows, bananas, grass farm (CS) we have +20 food resulting in 6 specs

You may notice there is no warrior really close by. That's cuz the guy who was scouting there got eaten by a barb archer who in turn got killed by some AI unit (there were quite a number of archers running around).

You may also notice that there is double gems down there $.$ Double riverside grass gems with actually cows and dyes there as well Can't pass that up especially since the only other -resource available is ivory. Glad I went for REX here.


(8)-(13)
Yaaawn. Some chopping for settlers, after whip anger disappears the MP-warrior gets out of delhi to escort settler. Hatty gets judaism sometime, sweet, more AI-AI struggles.


(14)
ah-fishing

Timing is great there, 4t to growth in bombay (and monument whip) and 4t to fishing so we can start on the WB just afterwards.


(15)
I drew a tentative dotmap which got kinda screwed by willem

Before



After



Orange city is willem's. I did move green city slightly.

That's bad news but we have horses Making a good city even better


---


Now some comments:

- Apart from the forested hill, our Fat Worker also chopped 2 grass forests then moved down to bombay and will likely continue his journey to $.$ soon.

- $.$ is ready to be settled next turn



Another huge city However I'm pretty sure it's bordering ham's capital who has a shrine so culture will be a priority there to keep the dyes

- As to the dotmap: Willem securing the stone is a big blow but the real culture wonders are built with marble anyway, which we won't have. I suggest settling (dark-)green site next to compete for the corn which we should be able to take since it's in our inner ring. After that city got built, whip the last settler of the First Expansion Wave for saladin-green ivory-sheep city to seal our border. Then there's the settle-on-cow fish-city that is slightly visible up there and a possible tundra city getting us to 7 in total. With some chain irrigation we could settle another filler city getting spare wine.

- I marked AI cities. I'm pretty sure I got ham's right and utrecht should be right as well, I'm just not sure on amsterdam as we have pretty out-of-date maps there.

- I think going for stone (and thus mids) would've been a huge mistake. There is no spot to get a decent city with stone as there's no food unless we get both stone and corn in outer ring and hooking everything up takes forever and a day. Not to mention all the hammers dedicated and the resulting tiny empire due to lack of REX; all the resources we would've missed (especially the double gems).

View attachment Crazy Gandhi BC-2000.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Apart from the forested hill, our Fat Worker also chopped 2 grass forests then moved down to bombay and will likely continue his journey to $.$ soon.

What would you have the Worker do at Bombay before moving on? Just Mining a Hills square or two?

- $.$ is ready to be settled next turn

Cow is the only Food Resource for that City, right?


Any thoughts on teching? We can't trade for techs, if I recall correctly, so would we good to go straight for one of Currency or Construction or Civil Service?


Is a Chariot-only attack going to be suicide?


Also, is the expectation that I will whip Settlers or is it better not to whip Settlers?

 

[vranasm]

lurker

@mysty

I would like to know why you prefer jungle city over that nice corn+ivory (on PH) spot...

if anything I would probably think about some elepult war for the improved jungle once AI's get hold on it a bit.

if you settle that spot you would feel forced to get IW "soon".

 

[Habitus]

I agree with settling Green then Light Green quickly to seal off the land we haven't settled yet, it also should help with the culture wars for both cities with Willem (2 Cities vs 1 should let us keep up hopefully)

After the 2 Settlers we'll need to catch up on workers before settling on the cows, and possible tundra city i think. Cutting workers to rex for land is fine aslong as we then catch back up after the rex

*edit*

I'd of settled the corn + ivory too, but the gems + ivory + cow city isn't a bad settle, improve the cow while building a monument, once monument is done start pumping out workers for us, whipping extra pop off (first worker possible improving grass hill/ivory) from building monument if any. With not being able to trade techs we'll need IW at some point anyway and you usally don't self tech it as the AI love it so its easy to trade for

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Hmmm, vranasm has a good point in that those two "really good" Gem squares seem to be Junglified. Yuck.

I suppose that it is my perogative to pick up that Settler and send him elsewhere...


I have got the saved game but won't play tonight. I am still open to further feedback if anyone has any to offer.