Competing VC's

[Habitus]

So I've played my turns.



Justinian decides to go into War Mode, I decided to be safe and whip/chop some of the current builds and overflow into chariots. It hurts our research somewhat, about 5 turns later i realise he's not massing on our one border so i feel safe to start granary/library production again. Our border city also got a rax since if i had to whip hard he had the highest food surplus for regrowing to whip again

It also made me go IW after writing rather than Alphabet.



We get our first religion, and another is founded. Sitting Bull was the founder giving us 4 AI Religons, thou only hindu share any real border with us. And not long after



I've not changed yet, I'm hoping one of the AI's bordering us ask us to for the free Diplo.

I've kept the Chariots and warriors around at the moment, as Justinian still hasn't made his declaration and at worst we might be able to use them to grab a city.

I found Sitting Bull's land on the other side of Willem




Even at 0% research we should soon get IW due to me hiring scientist in cities that can, this is mainly incase we need metal.

Roading the jungle at moment to allow us to just chop it quickly, and i have a WB waiting on a border pop at the cow settle location.

 

[mystyfly]

Looking good.

3 more AIs got alpha.. looks like they're not so fast to me.

I agree regarding religions. Accept if someone asks to convert (but switch back after 5t). We don't want to piss off anybody just yet and we can use the culture once we get multiple religions in any city.

Don't think we're in any danger of just as hatty is his WE.

Bombay probably should've whipped the library one turn previously (2pop whip).

@ Vijay, with all those cottages Thank god there are tons of workers nearby to correct that

Looks like rolo will get to decide upon our first GS's fate... also note that agra has a WB available and waiting for the borders to pop.

Am I the only one wondering why we see willems research? (and no other's graphs). Well him teaching calendar is great news for us as you can see we should be getting sugar, spice and dyes in trade pretty soon (+3 ).

 

[Habitus]

The cottages were mainly to stop jungle growing, i was going to farm but cottages take a turn less and we need commerce to support troops if we had gotten DoW. I fine with replacing them.

We see Willem cause we're focusing on him

*edit*

I also wanted to keep workers around there since IW is in soon, i think 3 or 4 more turns you might even be able to finish it with turning the slider up.

 

[mystyfly]

It's not a criticism but I have a reputation to live up to regarding my attitude towards cottages Having them down there is fine, especially roading the tiles so they get cleared a little faster.

I guess it might be nice getting a few swords once basic infra is in place. With SB getting another religion too we might soon get an opportunity to snag a city or two in a dogpile.

 

[shyuhe]

Roster duty:

Habitus (played)
rolo (UP)
shyuhe (on deck)
Dhoom
mysty

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Justinian decides to go into War Mode, I decided to be safe and whip/chop some of the current builds and overflow into chariots. It hurts our research somewhat, about 5 turns later i realise he's not massing on our one border so i feel safe to start granary/library production again. Our border city also got a rax since if i had to whip hard he had the highest food surplus for regrowing to whip again

Can you please clarify which Cities had their Granaries interrupted?

I ask because there were 3 out of 4 Cities that had a Granary as their current build item when I passed the saved game off to you.


Also, what build items were in the queue at the start of your second turnset? Technically, those build items should have been finished (even though you got a "double" turnset) before you could have been allowed to queue-shift.

I suppose that the possibility for making an exception for a "double turnset" exists, but many of us will be unable to benefit from such a double turnset throughout the game, so I'd rather not have a special benefit for someone getting such a situation.



It looks like things are in nice shape!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

As to which mod I use; I think buffy was the HoF merge by the BUG team, I think I'm using this for offline games. For some reason I can't log on to the HoF website so I can't check. For online games I use the CA install of BUG (and that's it). Is that now a problem? Or, another question: Who is using a completeley unmodded version of the game anyway?

BUG in the Custom Assets installation is fine, since I'm using that, too. However, that alone will mean that you will get 0 Gold from excess overflow Hammers.
Kindly check the following file and it's file size:
{Your Civ 4 installation directory}\Beyond the Sword\Assets\CvGameCoreDLL.dll
If the file's size is 4834 KB, then you are not using BULL and you will get 0 Gold (and 0 Hammers and basically nothing to show for) your excess overflow Hammers.
If the file's size is 5132 KB, then you are using BULL in combination with the BUG Custom Assets installation and you WILL get Gold from excess overflow Hammers, on a 1-to-1 ratio for base Hammers (i.e. Hammers before multipliers) getting turned into Gold.

BUFFY, since it does not use BULL, will not give you Gold for your excess overflow Hammers. Remember that fact, as it means that you won't get Gold in your HOF games, just like I don't get the Gold in my "BtS of the Month" games, since we also use BUFFY there.

It's not a criticism but I have a reputation to live up to regarding my attitude towards cottages

It's a game and no one can hold you to such a silly standard except for yourself. Even obsolete recently played a Cottages game. It's not the end of the world--just another alternative.

You won't expect people to laugh at you if you choose to play a no-Slavery game, would you? The same applies here.

Having them down there is fine, especially roading the tiles so they get cleared a little faster.

That said, this comment of yours still made me laugh!

Don't think we're in any danger of just as hatty is his WE.

It should be noted that "Worst Enemies" are not directly factored in at all as part of the war declaration code.

Indirectly, a Worst Enemy is a player with whom the AI is Annoyed or Furious. The Attitude that an AI holds towards another player DOES have a direct impact on the war declaration code.

So, by the very fact that Justinian has Hatty as a Worst Enemy, we know that he is either Annoyed or Furious at her, which will influence his war declaration.

However, Hatty being his Worst Enemy will have absolutely no effect on Justinian's choice of war targets, meaning that if he is also Cautious, Annoyed, or Furious at us, then we shouldn't become complacent.

Am I the only one wondering why we see willems research? (and no other's graphs).

Someone else did that and I noticed and simply increased the Weighting to demonstrate that I approve.

It's a very good policy to focus all of your Espionage on a single target at a time. I can go into the details of why, but only if someone requests it, since I already explained it in the SGOTM 13 thread.

Well him teaching calendar is great news for us as you can see we should be getting sugar, spice and dyes in trade pretty soon (+3 ).

Another reason why Iron Working = good... having a second Gem Resource to trade in exchange for a second Happiness Resource.

 

[Habitus]

I'm 90% sure i didn't interupt any of the ones already being build, i chopped/whipped those in my 2nd turnset (10% i'm unsure about is the buildings from my first to 2nd turnset thou still pretty sure i finished everything before doing anything new), but until i felt safe i didn't start them in other cities. I think all but our last city have a granary now, Attitude is one variable in war targets, and a strong influence on it, luckly we also aren't a land target while Hatty is so its highly unlikely we'll be attack but i played it safe incase plus sets up a backstab if its viable.

Yeah we have 2 spare Ivory + a spare Gems with IW for trading

 

[Dhoomstriker]

but until i felt safe i didn't start them in other cities

Okay, fair enough.

Yeah we have 2 spare Ivory + a spare Gems with IW for trading

Hmmm, yes, trading Ivory is a short-term option, but there will be a window of time where we probably won't want to be handing out Ivory (aka War Elephants), regardless of what our respectively-chosen Victory Conditions are.

 

[Habitus]

Hmmm, yes, trading Ivory is a short-term option, but there will be a window of time where we probably won't want to be handing out Ivory (aka War Elephants), regardless of what our respectively-chosen Victory Conditions are.

Very true hopefully all the AIs will pick up alpha soon as that lets us know when to stop any ivory trades

Looking forward to everyones turnsets, the game could be over before i play again if i end up last on the next set

 

[Habitus]

Looking good.
Bombay probably should've whipped the library one turn previously (2pop whip).

I think i was going but since I'd already whipped on my turnset, as plan i said about at end of my last turnset and overflowed in to a WB for the newly settled city. Probably wouldn't of been seen as being too abusive but played it abit safe

After IW, i think our 3 options are heading to construction/currency thru maths, Grabbing HBR first for HA, or heading for CoL for courthouse and alpha for spies and try and steal some techs to keep up with AI?

I'm hoping Charle will found Christianity and switch since we don't have a border with him, lots of AI tension then

 

[mystyfly]

It's a game and no one can hold you to such a silly standard except for yourself. Even obsolete recently played a Cottages game. It's not the end of the world--just another alternative.

You won't expect people to laugh at you if you choose to play a no-Slavery game, would you? The same applies here.

Well I don't mind cottages in a buero capital. Otherwise - no I don't like them, no matter what other players do. They may be not bad but regarding my style of play, they are inferior. Since this SG is unusually much about individual styles I am more stubborn about this than in an "ordinary" SG.
Regarding no-slavery games, you might want to check ungy-02 (in my sig), I don't remember anyone laughing at me back then Maybe I really should update my sig more often, it's already proved useful twice this SG

That said, this comment of yours still made me laugh!

I like being entertaining, especially when drunk

It should be noted that "Worst Enemies" are not directly factored in at all as part of the war declaration code.

Indirectly, a Worst Enemy is a player with whom the AI is Annoyed or Furious. The Attitude that an AI holds towards another player DOES have a direct impact on the war declaration code.

So, by the very fact that Justinian has Hatty as a Worst Enemy, we know that he is either Annoyed or Furious at her, which will influence his war declaration.

However, Hatty being his Worst Enemy will have absolutely no effect on Justinian's choice of war targets, meaning that if he is also Cautious, Annoyed, or Furious at us, then we shouldn't become complacent.

That's exactly that SGOTM vs SG argument (for me): in SGOTM there is so much to be backed up by code and triple-checked. In SGs, going after you feeling and experience is just fine, which is what made me write my post earlier today. Very rarely I have been attacked by an AI who has another civ as WE. Especially since they share more borders than us here. Also you say that just is either annoyed or furious with hatty and he's cautious (at least, later pleased) with us so I am not too scared.

Someone else did that and I noticed and simply increased the Weighting to demonstrate that I approve.

It's a very good policy to focus all of your Espionage on a single target at a time. I can go into the details of why, but only if someone requests it, since I already explained it in the SGOTM 13 thread.

You don't have to, imo. I learned that it is good even though I didn't check it out by some code. Another example of gut-feeling

Another reason why Iron Working = good... having a second Gem Resource to trade in exchange for a second Happiness Resource.

See, we wouldn't have those 2 gems, as well as another extra source of cows and ivory if I didn't rush our settler down there Talking about taking cities from AIs to expand is nice and everything but it's not until much later in the game, and we need those boosts now. Hah!


edit: X-post (yeah took me some time to write that post, eh )

As I mentionned a couple of times ago I don't like planning too far ahead much, especially early, when so much can change in a short amount of time. I agree though that currency or CoL are our short-term goals after IW. Currency means instant boost by TR as well as the ability to build wealth, CoL means slowly decreasing upkeep costs as well as caste system. IMO currency wins here as we have most of our cities reasonnabely close to the capital (not too high upkeep) and we need that boost in commerce. To add icing to the cake, with libraries nearly everywhere in place and (possibly an academy ) running high slider is very favourable so building wealth is good. Then we'd need a couple of more techs on the route to CoL compared to currency, whereas those techs to currency are very useful.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Since this SG is unusually much about individual styles I am more stubborn about this than in an "ordinary" SG.

Fair enough. And the rule seems to be that you are allowed to pave over Villages, if you'd like, so go nuts.

The biggest thing that I would disagree with, though, is paving over Cottages with Farms and then whipping down our population so much that neither of those versions of the square's improvement get worked. Better to have the Workers doing something more productive in the meantime (even Chopping random Jungles or Mining unmined Hills would be better than fighting to change improvements which won't get worked for a long period of time).

Regarding no-slavery games, you might want to check ungy-02 (in my sig), I don't remember anyone laughing at me back then

Well, that's my point: no one is (likely) to laugh at you for playing in a game with Cottages. And if RRR laughs, it doesn't count, anyway.

That's exactly that SGOTM vs SG argument (for me): in SGOTM there is so much to be backed up by code and triple-checked.

My intent was just to share some of my knowledge on the subject. I don't expect to be able to offer a lot of tips to a player like you, so I will share whatever tidbits that I can when I can see the possibility to do so.

If I discover that my input is unwanted (I haven't seen any indication of this possibility yet), then I will take a hint and will stop sharing my knowledge.

You don't have to, imo. I learned that it is good even though I didn't check it out by some code. Another example of gut-feeling

I am the one who "invented" and publicized the focused-Espionage tactic and my thinking on the subject has purely been on instict + experience, not code-digging.

See, we wouldn't have those 2 gems, as well as another extra source of cows and ivory if I didn't rush our settler down there

Yeah, yeah, well... who settled that City on your behalf, huh? Of course, it may have taken some gentle persuasion before I did so...

yeah took me some time to write that post, eh

Time to take a typing class (or download a typing program from the internet). I learned to type quickly on a typewriter.

I agree though that currency or CoL are our short-term goals after IW.

So, let's go the Math route instead of the Alphabet route. That opens up Currency, Construction, Calendar, and Civil Service. Alphabet only opens up Currency and Spies. Spies won't be of use until after we've built Courthouses.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, got it Oh, I will get a GS ... Will bulb fishing

Will say more after digesting the save and the page long commentaries above

 

[shyuhe]

Alpha route is MUCH stronger for getting to currency than math. It lets you build research when you have nothing better to build.

I suggest settling the GS. Our economy hurts and we can't bulb anything decent. At least fishing isn't an option

 

[Habitus]

Could bulb Maths to go straight for Currency, saving our money up with 0% research into IW (still get it somewhat soon)

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, sorry for the delay, but I'm reinstalling the OS in my civ comp , so I'll only be able to look at the save very late tonight/ tomorrow ( yesterday the comp started to go iffy and I haven't booted civ because of that )

Anyway, I guess there is not much discussion to be made except what to do about the GS. I assume that it would bulb alpha ATM ( correct me if I'm wrong ), but I agree with shyuhe that setting is the better course....

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Well, what to do with the Great Person is completely your choice.
Cultural (4 Culture per turn), Space, and Diplo would probably be best building an Academy
Conquest and Apostolic Palace would probably be best settling the Great Person

I don't see Lightbulbing helping anyone.

On the same vein, researching Iron Working -> Math would be my suggestion for any Victory Condition.

 

[Habitus]

Nope it will bulb Maths

Preferences down to Alpha are

Writing
Mathematics
Scientific Method
Physics
Education
Printing Press
Fiber Optics
Computers
Laser (BTS)
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)

 

[r_rolo1]

True enough, a GS now will bulb Maths ( and only after that Alpha ).

On teching, IW->Maths? I agree with Dhoom that it would be for the best, regardless of the VC. What I am bittersweet is about the GS ... settling would give us 6 now and a academy would give us 3 now, but OFC that number would increase fast...

As there are only 3 cities where I can expect to be able to queue anything , there is not much to decide regarding queues ( and because I do not plan to whip much for now ... we are close of getting some more manovuer margin in terms and our cities are still small.

I'll just wait a little for some input ( and also to give a look at my other game ... and for dinner ). anyway I'll play tonight.