Deity Challenge 23 - Bismarck

[The Pilgrim]

I don't do what a lot of players do but I won't knock them for doing something that's in the game

Well, we've already established you're a nice guy. I, on the other hand, am not. And have no problem to knock those abusing every exploit one can imagine and then whining the game is not challenging enough.

well, as long as you play under the same rules, it is a fair game I think.
...
As far as I remember, I have played all DCs under rule 3 (HoF) and have not considered it as an abuse. Moreover, I thought this rule was the general understanding.

DC is not a competitive framework. No rules. Everything is legit.

I cannot believe that it is You who wrote this

Oh the irony... I loled.

Again all I wanted say and doing it again: At this point of game knowledge (there are x persons who got this knowledge) its 0 about strategies, micro and macro gameplay but all about finding new ways to abuse ai and thats just getting pointless ...

And for the 154554th time (and yeah, I realize this is pointless too ) what's the problem with not looking for new ways to abuse AI, forgetting the old ways and focusing on micro and macro?

 

[Maxym]

Some tommynt style @ end: Ah and btw if it was about micro and makro gameplay I d allways do best anyway

Sorry tommynt not so sure about that, from what I have seen in gotm, once glory7 adopted your style, he equaled and then surpassed you. Maybe you lost interest later on. Don't get me wrong you play some mean CiV but I found his solutions very imaginative. DaveMcW used to play like that, even more so, with very unorthodox ways of doing things, but without AI abuse.

 

[Maxym]

Spoiler :

for worker stealing, I do not have clear answer but from my experience it seems that AI does not guard workers if you scout is around or you place your warrior/spear 2 tiles from his border. When I place military unit right next to the border, with high probability they guard it.

Yes that has been my experience as well, I just messed it up by going to the border with a spear. I tried with scouts later and they were still guarded.

 

[tommynt]

Sorry tommynt not so sure about that, from what I have seen in gotm, once glory7 adopted your style, he equaled and then surpassed you. Maybe you lost interest later on. Don't get me wrong you play some mean CiV but I found his solutions very imaginative. DaveMcW used to play like that, even more so, with very unorthodox ways of doing things, but without AI abuse.

Everything good what some1 has done in civ I have done half year before him - dont worry about that

Its good that some guys catched up (too few did in mp) but game just got no more secrets - and acting like "going wide" with liberty is something new is pretty pathetic.

what's the problem with not looking for new ways to abuse AI, forgetting the old ways and focusing on micro and macro?

because when u know before game u will win anyway its boring, I wanted a sub t200 science fast win, that I have done with my maya game in which I did very few "ai absuing" - stealing workers and collecting gold before dowing but allways followed by real attacks ..

Once micro and macro is perfect there is no more optimising - just rinse and repeat.

But i m looking for 1 vs2,3,4s in mp - so if u want me give a fun game your welcome and bring a friend or 2 with you.

 

[tommynt]

Yes that has been my experience as well, I just messed it up by going to the border with a spear. I tried with scouts later and they were still guarded.

ai got same vision as u - if you place your scout next to boarder no worker will move close to it. I also think that if worker got a move left (ie he was sitting only 1 tile from capture spot away he ll move right back. And dont forget the 2 tile hill vision from ai boarder ..

But if no vision on the scout sitting 2 tiles from capture spot away - its a very safe bet that another worker will go there again - if its guarded or not is purly random.

 

[The Pilgrim]

because when u know before game u will win anyway its boring, I wanted a sub t200 science fast win, that I have done with my maya game in which I did very few "ai absuing" - stealing workers and collecting gold before dowing but allways followed by real attacks ..

'very few' has a pretty wide definition, doesn't it?

But i m looking for 1 vs2,3,4s in mp - so if u want me give a fun game your welcome and bring a friend or 2 with you.

Keep looking. I haven't played Civ5 MP at all and haven't played a full Civ game in two month now. However, I did refer some people to your thread already. In any case, if you manage to gather a group of players, please record this game.

 

[Sidor1982]

well, this is just stupid. seriously. this is what i get for playing on National Bourbon day while paying homage. I have no idea how i could do this different without map knowledge.

Spoiler :

t52 conquistador? upgrade ruin?
View attachment 353073

and as a result, well, i can say good bye to this one.
t58:
View attachment 353072
i saved it here. not playing further til tomorrow, when ive had a chance to sleep this rage off.

I've got a prinntscreen with a Knight on turn 18 (deity, standard pace). I'm gonna post it sometime in the funny screenshot section.

 

[Light Cleric]

Spoiler :

I must admit this was quite difficult for me. I'm not a fan of ICS at all, but this is a very unusual map that actually makes it somewhat viable because you can get a copy of every single luxury except Pearls. Still, going wide is against my nature so I was kinda flying by the sea of my pants here

Was tempted to use the Tradition opener for faster borders but decided that would slow down things too much in the long run so I just started a Monument and went straight to Collective Rule. Was able to hit 5 pop right as Collective Rule came and I started Settler spamming. I was able to recruit a number of barb Archers to come work for me which was helpful in dealing with Spain who DoWed me right when I dropped Munich lol. I pushed her back and liberated Bucharest. I was able to chip at her army after that; however, she bought walls and heavily fortified Barcelona and had dropped Seville so it was going to seriously slow things down. However she offered me Barcelona and Seville in a peace deal. I ended up razing Barcelona because it was an annoying high-pop puppet with NO good buildings(seriously, 2nd city and it was garbage, WTH?) and kept Seville as a launching point. DoWed her 10 turns later and wiped her out.

I'm about 5 turns from finishing Liberty, hopefully that last religion slot doesn't fill before then but even if I do Ceremonial Burial is gone so I may have to take Tithe/Church Property. I'm a little torn about where to go next. I kind of want to go attack Genghis and liberate Singapore for the happiness but I'm concerned about attacking into Keshiks. Still, it's my only real hope for a mercantile CS since Persia, Mongolia, and France all murdered a Mercantile CS each.

National College is totally hopeless because the capital is so terrible, so I might as well keep the city spam going for Libraries + Messenger of the Gods. I am tempted to go Mercantilism like glory7 is but I may have to go Rationalism instead to keep pace with the AI; I won't have as much happiness to play with so growing cities big enough to support Universities will be difficult. I may end up annexing Madrid and using it to try for Hagia Sophia for my enhancer Prophet since it has decent production. and then get an Inquisitor to wipe out her religion, otherwise any cities I drop down there(and there's PLENTY of luxuries down there) won't benefit my religion.

 

[nanomage]

played until t95 - that's going really slow and painful.

Spoiler :

So I kinda bodyslammed into Izzy and captured Barcelona and Madrid. She had two more cities, but Harald took the crappy one and she's left with decent Seville. Took 7 gold for peace, she was broke totally. Lost 2 CB but bought some more.
Settled Liberty GS near Berlin - for some reason, I wasn't offered a Prophet. Why so, I checked later and the're only 4 religions founded. Small map?
I'd really like some advice from you deity players here, because I kinda don't know where to go from here. Pushing again with CBs seems rather lackluster, because if I got two of them killed by crippled Izzy, I'd imagine what would GK do to them.
Also, should I stop plopping new cities for a while to build NC? I've 4 cities, one settler en route to new location and 2 puppets.
Screenshot:

Spoiler :

 

[Vintage Port]

I wanted a sub t200 science fast win, that I have done with my maya game in which I did very few "ai absuing" - stealing workers and collecting gold before dowing but allways followed by real attacks ..

No doubt you are good at Civ, a lot better than I am, but I'm surprised you haven't broken your arm yet patting yourself on the back.

So "ai abuse" is Ok as long as you are doing it but when others do it you criticize. Even above you said you did ai abuse... oh but it is OK if it is a little.

Did you not also reroll that Mayan map once to get the sub 200 victory? Again it is impressive but you played it twice through so you knew where the huts/AIs/CSs were. Just saying.

Also, glory7 said he bribed to DOW but no where did he say he gave up lux or gpt to get them back after he DOW'd. Maybe he did? Maybe he just paid gold straight up?

I see no problem bribing AIs to DoW, especially if you are paying full gold.

What I find funny is you constantly promote your videos yet you yourself showed strategies of GPT/DoW and said how it helps you get fast times.

Personally I don't care about "abuse". If it is in the game then go ahead, play that way. If you don't like playing that way, no worries here. Play however you like.

But if it was a big problem IMO the developers should/would have changed it. They could put in a patch to "fix" said problems.

tommynt - just a friendly tip: you don't do yourself any favours treating people poorly and talking down to them. Respect.

 

[tommynt]

you don't do yourself any favours treating people poorly and talking down to them. Respect.

hi my friend i am so thankful for your pro tip!

My opinion stays that bribing ai into sveral wars (obviously for gpt/lux) THEN denounce THEN dow self is exploiting the game options to a new lvl - why?
Like that your dow got no negative consequences, unlike it has when you dow after a gold trade just like that (whole world will be in hate soon)
As said its creative but thats about it ..

And again this shoouldnt be criticising about glory, its just my personal opinion about the "game option"

If i find time i ll try win this map with no contacting ai ever - but even then - in fact even dowing ai is kind of exploiting ai as its so bad at fighting ..

As other have written - maybe new expension make things more interesting ..

Did you not also reroll that Mayan map once to get the sub 200 victory? Again it is impressive but you played it twice through so you knew where the huts/AIs/CSs were. Just saying.

try playing it 10 times and doing a simple sub turn 200 win or just sub t210 and then come back talk ..

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

I must admit this was quite difficult for me. I'm not a fan of ICS at all, but this is a very unusual map that actually makes it somewhat viable because you can get a copy of every single luxury except Pearls. Still, going wide is against my nature so I was kinda flying by the sea of my pants here

Was tempted to use the Tradition opener for faster borders but decided that would slow down things too much in the long run so I just started a Monument and went straight to Collective Rule. Was able to hit 5 pop right as Collective Rule came and I started Settler spamming.

I'm about 5 turns from finishing Liberty, hopefully that last religion slot doesn't fill before then but even if I do Ceremonial Burial is gone so I may have to take Tithe/Church Property. I'm a little torn about where to go next. I kind of want to go attack Genghis and liberate Singapore for the happiness but I'm concerned about attacking into Keshiks. Still, it's my only real hope for a mercantile CS since Persia, Mongolia, and France all murdered a Mercantile CS each.

Spoiler :

It looks pretty similar to my game, except that in my game Spain 2nd city had a market so I kept it.

Another thing is that your pop for expos are low. with lots of lux, I assume you hit unhappy when you conquered Spain, but even taking that into account, it is unusual to have 1 or 2 pop for all other cities.

I feel that for REX it is nice to get pop 3-5 fast in expos and 7-10 by university time. Usually happiness is the limit, but this map the production is.

I guess that getting free workforce or not (so I saved gold for workers and had enough workers to improve all tiles) and not building library until pop gets 3-5 is a critical difference, and also maybe b/c I went sacred rivers instead of motg. Afterthought, I think you choice of motg is a better one.

 

[glory7]

for some reason, I wasn't offered a Prophet. Why so, I checked later and the're only 4 religions founded. Small map?

It is a large map - and you cannot choose prophet for liberty finisher if you do not have pantheon. unless you plan to get religion from Hagia sophia, you need pantheon.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Spoiler :

It looks pretty similar to my game, except that in my game Spain 2nd city had a market so I kept it.

Another thing is that your pop for expos are low. with lots of lux, I assume you hit unhappy when you conquered Spain, but even taking that into account, it is unusual to have 1 or 2 pop for all other cities.

I feel that for REX it is nice to get pop 3-5 fast in expos and 7-10 by university time. Usually happiness is the limit, but this map the production is.

I guess that getting free workforce or not (so I saved gold for workers and had enough workers to improve all tiles) and not building library until pop gets 3-5 is a critical difference, and also maybe b/c I went sacred rivers instead of motg. Afterthought, I think you choice of motg is a better one.

Spoiler :

i think its practically required if you are forgoing NC. (i didnt get a pantheon in mine.) when i get liberty finisher im going to use it on GE (even tho i might need a GS more) for NC because it takes forever even with 4 cities. i just cant chop those forests since ill be saving some for lumber mills for later unit hammers. the only saving grace will be some coal for mines. havent gotten that far yet though.

 

[Light Cleric]

Spoiler :

It looks pretty similar to my game, except that in my game Spain 2nd city had a market so I kept it.

Another thing is that your pop for expos are low. with lots of lux, I assume you hit unhappy when you conquered Spain, but even taking that into account, it is unusual to have 1 or 2 pop for all other cities.

I feel that for REX it is nice to get pop 3-5 fast in expos and 7-10 by university time. Usually happiness is the limit, but this map the production is.

I guess that getting free workforce or not (so I saved gold for workers and had enough workers to improve all tiles) and not building library until pop gets 3-5 is a critical difference, and also maybe b/c I went sacred rivers instead of motg. Afterthought, I think you choice of motg is a better one.

Spoiler :

Yeah, the main problem was the lack of Mercantile CSes. Genghis killed Singapore, Napoleon killed Zanzibar, and I just didn't have the money to ally Cahokia because they were Hostile. Once I liberate one my happiness will be fixed and I can (hopefully) grow pretty rapidly. In hindsight I might have been able to trade lux for lux with someone to keep my happiness up in the meantime.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Spoiler :

Yeah, the main problem was the lack of Mercantile CSes. Genghis killed Singapore, Napoleon killed Zanzibar, and I just didn't have the money to ally Cahokia because they were Hostile. Once I liberate one my happiness will be fixed and I can (hopefully) grow pretty rapidly. In hindsight I might have been able to trade lux for lux with someone to keep my happiness up in the meantime.

Spoiler :

in my game genghis has crazy gold and we DoFd so i can sell him everything at full and trade lux for lux. its the only reason im still around i think.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

meh.

Spoiler :

i gave up on this one. ive replayed from a milestone save to just try out different things, none of which worked very well. there's only so many times i can replay the same turns before i get bored with the familiarity. i tried some bribe dow tactics, some focused wars, and some expansion but by the time i get nechts they just arent stout enough to take cities over 25 def, which are most of the caps at this point. i had a couple catapults to help but i just dont care to try with normal xbow strats.

i took 14 units down to madrid and took it but i lost 6 of them in the process (2 cbows and 4 nechts--lost to taking out her units) and then lost it back to her with 1 pike and 1 conq the next turn, both coming from off screen from the road in barcelona. even after taking her cap she had a 100pt lead on me in the score. i stole chivalry from her the turn before taking madrid, that was nice at least. anyway, ive lost interest in this one. i might come back to it a couple months from now when most of this will be forgotten.

 

[Light Cleric]

Update:

Spoiler :

I have to say I really underestimated the utility of Landsknects in the past. 45 hammer cannon fodder is pretty awesome.

After wiping out Spain, I was chain denounced including a couple of backstabs. About two turns later I was met with a double DoW from Genghis and Napoleon. About 10 turns after that, Harald DoWed me, but his attack forces got stuck on Lhasa and Venice so he didn't really get anywhere Then a bit after THAT, I got a fourth DoW from...Ethiopia. Dude's all the way across the map, getting beat up by France, zero chance of getting any units at me, and he DoWs me?

Anyway, I repelled France's attack pretty easily as I hit Civil Service around that time.Got my spy from Pachacuti hitting Renaissance, saw Genghis had Xbows and decided to spy on him to steal Machinery and was able to get it about ~t110. Napoleon eventually gave me some gold for peace(possibly because he wanted to go back to beating up Ethiopia), letting me focus on Genghis. I attacked New Sarai near Singapore, razed it(no buildings...) and planted my own city in its place. Then I attacked and liberated Singapore and wiped a bunch of Mongolian Xbows/Pikes/Muskets in the meantime. He finally realized he was losing(crazy, right!?) and gave me a very nice sum of gold which will go towards buying some Universities. What happened to the AI spending its gold? I still see Pachacuti, Genghis, and Napoleon sitting on a bunch of cash.

Spoiler :

*note: this ended up being like 3400g instead of 3500, I took this while I was fiddling with what he would actually give me by going down increments of 50g This is still NOTHING compared to peace deals I've gotten in the past though.

That gold is hardly gamebreaking but it is a very very nice sum. From here I'm probably going to crank out more Landsknects/Crossbows/Trebuchets, get to Chemistry for Cannons, and either attack Mongolia after the peace deal is up or go smack France around a bit. My concern with going back to Mongolia is he has so many tightly packed cities and a huge empire of high defense cities behind his capital that I may not be able to cut off his unit spam effectively to snipe Karakorum.

For policies I took the Commerce opener in case I wasn't able to get to Renaissance for my 8th policy but thankfully I was and used it on Rationalism. I think I'll be short of the Industrial to open Order with the 9th but that's alright because Secularism is still a very nice policy with all these specialists being run(including in Workshops). I got an Inquisitor down to Madrid and wiped out Spain's religion, meaning mine is free to run all down through that area and through Mongolian territory unabated.

Pachacuti stayed fairly friendly with me throughout all this as did Darius(he went Guarded but never denounced me and has started to go back to Neutral). Pachacuti is my biggest worry because he looks like he's turning into a bit of a runaway, although thankfully I am keeping decent pace in tech(only like 3% behind the average like 12-14% behind Pachacuti but I have some "garbage" techs to clean up).

Overall I feel like I have a good shot to win but even if I don't this has been a VERY fun map, got to do something completely different. Spamming cities and massing Pikes is way out of my zone of "normal" play so it's a good learning experience too, lol.

Thank GOD my post got saved when I accidentally closed the tab while typing it.

 

[nanomage]

turn 137 update

Spoiler :

teched to knechts, machinery (stole from incas), education (rush bought 2 Unis immediately). Upgraded my 8 or 9 CB to xbows (I dont know where I got the money, looks like just God sends it in this game) and went killed Nappy. Paris was 41 strength and pesky musketeers costed me two or three xbows. That's becoming painful because they're kinda promoted. GK BFF, trade him everything and we smile happily. Harald kinda friend too.
Went right side Commerce second tree, but haven't hit mercantislism yet. NC turn 131, no hammers at all.

Nappy still wants all my cities for peace even after I captured Paris. was hoping for some nice cash.

Spoiler :

 

[Justice1337]

I find this discussion about what's fair and unfair to be pretty amusing this time around.

One guy says he bribed AI civs to go to war with lump sums, then everyone jumps on him as having used an exploit, such and such, then speculated on how trading is going to be fixed. It's funny that neither side seems to know what it's talking about. So the result is a cloud of nonsense that seems to suggest it's always an exploit to get any amount of gold from the AI under any conditions.

Here's the problem with the game. When one party to a contract promises subsequent performance in return for immediate performance on the other side, you have a non-simultaneous exchange. Non-simultaneous exchanges always present the dilemma that it benefits the person who recieves performance first to cancel the agreement. Contract law evolved largely in order to solve this dilemma and make possible non-simultaneous exchanges. But to this day, parties would not make these types of exchanges unless they had a legal recourse in the event the other party breached. A bit theoretical, but it's basic stuff.

The problem in Civ V is that it doesn't recognize this dilemma. It never should have been possible to trade a per turn benefit for an upfront benefit. But it's always ok to exchange upfront benefits for upfront benefits or per-turn for per-turn. So...

Lump Sum for DoW = OK
GPT for DoW = Dilemma
Per Turn Luxury for DoW = Dilemma
Luxury for GPT = OK
Luxury for Lump Sum = Dilemma
GPT for Lump Sum = Dilemma


So, it's fine to bribe an AI to DoW with a lump sum, then Denounce, then DoW. There's no non-simultaneous exchange, and no dilemma that the AI can't solve.

We can only hope that BnW will implement some sane, reasonable version of exchanges with the AI so that people don't have to think too hard about what is an exploit.