Deity snowballers discussion

[Jednooki_John]

I'd like to suggest something.

I think every deity-related discussion inevitably ends up with the suggestions/accusations reg. someone's poor skill.
Since it is very hard to "prove" (since we do see actual games of people who comment) and it kinds shuts down a discussion, what if we try to approach all the arguments and suggestions posted from the good will perspective, meaning - assuming that players who chose deity make reasonable decisions?

I think this would help with debating actual gameplay/mechanics propositions without spiraling down into essentially futile back-and-forths about someone's supposed skill.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I'd like to suggest something.

I think every deity-related discussion inevitably ends up with the suggestions/accusations reg. someone's poor skill.
Since it is very hard to "prove" (since we do see actual games of people who comment) and it kinds shuts down a discussion, what if we try to approach all the arguments and suggestions posted from the good will perspective, meaning - assuming that players who chose deity make reasonable decisions?

I think this would help with debating actual gameplay/mechanics propositions without spiraling down into essentially futile back-and-forths about someone's supposed skill.

That would be nice to clear the topic of constant fighting but to be honest I'm done suggesting anyway and I'm fed up with discussing various strawmen people make of my words. I'm out, I'm sure many people will be glad of my disappearance anyway.

Have fun being forced to play two civs in order to have a decent shot at peaceful winning. And don't forget to exploit ranged units against AI. It's so much fun, especially against 10000% of anti-warmonger penalty, I'm gonna throw up from the excitement!

 

[kawyua]

I'd like to suggest something.

I think every deity-related discussion inevitably ends up with the suggestions/accusations reg. someone's poor skill.
Since it is very hard to "prove" (since we do see actual games of people who comment) and it kinds shuts down a discussion, what if we try to approach all the arguments and suggestions posted from the good will perspective, meaning - assuming that players who chose deity make reasonable decisions?

I think this would help with debating actual gameplay/mechanics propositions without spiraling down into essentially futile back-and-forths about someone's supposed skill.

before debating actual gameplay/mechanics, its necessary to argue about the basis, the problem first. We have to agree about what the problem is in the first place. We all have our own ideas of what balance means and our own inherent evaluations of what's strong and not. If someone is arguing about a problem they have and not fully discussing about the ways to circumvent, outvalue or contend with it to the point that we can trust their conclusions, what can we do but question them? Its understandable that a person can't fully explain all the details, but I think we need to give that due respect in our explanation to others.

Then if a person is just blatantly giving out many suggestions and changes or whatnot, without a solid basis and connection to a problem, its changing the game that we all know to some other game. Big fundamental changes require big steps for readers to inference. And really, its hard to discuss that new game with so many things that are different without questioning how much they thought through this. There are way too many things to think about and have to agree upon to make this a normal argument about the validity of that change. Its asking too much from readers to evaluate every single change in combination, so just we have to question person themselves.

 

[looorg]

So I decided to do another one this morning but this time selecting a civ that normally have a very so-so start. Hello Germany! I guess the city-state bonus could be considered early -- but it still requires some work to activate (or randomness) and maintain. But nothing like America. Same "rules" (no starting wars, stealing workers, intercepting settlers, liberation ok, forward settles -- as in one ring out from the capital should burn) Map settings -- standard size (i used Milaes map script, it's pretty cool) epic speed (I just can't stand standard speed), deity, no events/techtrade/techbroke ragebarbs/ruins on. It's still the previous patch, I have not gotten around to update yet due to issues and such. Going Tradition again.

This isn't probably the place to post these things but since we are talking about it I guess it sort of is -- as in can you do deity peace and deal or somehow survive the snowball. Turn timers for Pantheons, Religions and Wonders below for the first 200ish turns.

Spoiler :

Pantheons
P1-T37 ancestor (Greece)
P2-T37 expanse (inca)
P3-T38 home (netherlands)
P4-T40 (germany, me!) as i finished the Stonehenge; Sea -- i have double coral, fish, pearl in my capital. (I had a global monopoly on Coral at T118)
P5-T47 renew (assyria)
P6-T54 purity (?) -- marocco
P7-T57 sun (?) -- poca
P8-T60 commerce (?) -- rome

Religions
R1-114 Netherlands (home, divine, veneration)
R2-126 inca (expanse, hero w, stupas)
R3-126 Germany (yay!) (sea, theocratic (wanna be in love the king day as much as possible), cooperation (+5 yields on pop))
R4-127 greece (ancestor, apostolic, ascetism)
R5-143 rome (commerce, pilgrim, orders)

This is quite good. Assyria didn't get a religion and they are next door. I should be able to convert those heathens. Theocracy turned out great for the first few goes and then got stuck asking for a luxury only available in some far away city-state and eventually all cities wanted that (silver) so I had to go all the way to circus just to reset that. That it doesn't periodically just purge, and re-select, the need is quite annoying. I was thinking of picking churches for my enhance just to trigger a king day. But I didn't. The other bad part is that I didn't have or take a faith sink, i guess i better save or spend it all on missionaries, or just eventually take the fealty opener to get monasteries.

T181 i reformed (defender) and the netherlands enhanced (sacred cal, thrift)
T191 i enhance (mastery, symbolism)
T201 rome enhanced

Wonders.
T040 Stone, (me!)
T046 Pyra, unknown (not greece, inca, baby or neth) -- marocco, found out eventually
T078 Zeus (inca)
T086 temple (me!)
T096 Mauso (me, rushed it -- scetchty times so I start rushing when people era change and get boosts)
T109 petra, (marocco, lost a lot of prodction there in my third city -- 57 cult)
T115 hanging (me!) -- I like it but it comes with issues, so much food and growth is really a problem.
T116 lighthouse (inca)
T126 great library (me!) -- i normally never really go for it but I thought I would just see if I could pull it. It's normally fairly high priority for the AI.
T135 terracota (me!)
T148 Oracle (maroc)
T155 Angkor wat (me!)
T156 parthenon (inca)
T157 great wall (assyria)
T184 Alhambra (poca) sankore (me!) -- the first policy wonders.
T186 Colossus (poca)
T205 Haga sofia (marocco, lost of lot of producation again in Berlin -- +135 cult, somewhat annoying I had needed that to fix my luxury issue in the capital
T213 Barob (neth, lost a lot of production again in Berlin -- +142 cult)
T230 Machu picchu (inca, i had planed to engineer rush that ... never mind then, had a sweet city in the mountains and every thing)
T233 Notre Dame (me!)

T222 Netherlands enter Renaissance era and instantly declares war on me, along with half the city-states in the world. F*DGE! It's quite annoying since I have somewhat forsaken having an army (at the start of the war I only had 16 out of 28 units). I didn't think there would be any issues until I saw the Sea beggers. Damn those things rip coastal cities apart. I did manage to just sell everything (fire sale on horses, iron and everything not nailed down!) to my friends, emergency build a crapton of x-bows. Guess I should be thankful I picked Defender of the Faith after all. But it's a big issue since so much of my game up until this point hinged on being friends with city-states and now half of them just declared on me. Happiness dropped below 50. They pillaged a fair amount of my fishing boats etc. But they didn't manage to take any cities (except one city-state ally that fell), it was very close tho -- Hamburg could probably only have taken another hit or two. Just being super annoying. I really need to bulk up my four costal-cities to prevent that surprise from happening again.

There isn't really a clear tech leader yet, Netherlands is on top. But they are somewhat boxed in by me and Greece. I guess they'll try and have a go at Greece next to see if they can Sea Begger crush that. But most of the other civs in the world are within 1-2 techs. Netherlands are running away on the culture front tho, already 3 policies in front of me. The culture issue is the same as with America. Come renaissance the wonders "cost" to many policies to keep it up without some extra source of big culture that just isn't around unless you do wars it seems. Spamming great people and wonders just isn't enough.

I guess it's all about taking what you get and create the little engine that could. So doable. Winnable in the long run? Not sure. But there isn't a clear snowball yet even tho Netherlands are clearly going for it. I suspect Marocco will give it a go to. Rome is in a bad spot so they are probably out. They didn't manage to capitalize with the Legions. Poca and Marocco will probably be at war soon.

 

[crdvis16]

So I decided to do another one this morning but this time selecting a civ that normally have a very so-so start. Hello Germany! I guess the city-state bonus could be considered early -- but it still requires some work to activate (or randomness) and maintain. But nothing like America. Same "rules" (no starting wars, stealing workers, intercepting settlers, liberation ok, forward settles -- as in one ring out from the capital should burn) Map settings -- standard size (i used Milaes map script, it's pretty cool) epic speed (I just can't stand standard speed), deity, no events/techtrade/techbroke ragebarbs/ruins on. It's still the previous patch, I have not gotten around to update yet due to issues and such. Going Tradition again.

This isn't probably the place to post these things but since we are talking about it I guess it sort of is -- as in can you do deity peace and deal or somehow survive the snowball. Turn timers for Pantheons, Religions and Wonders below for the first 200ish turns.

Spoiler :

Pantheons
P1-T37 ancestor (Greece)
P2-T37 expanse (inca)
P3-T38 home (netherlands)
P4-T40 (germany, me!) as i finished the Stonehenge; Sea -- i have double coral, fish, pearl in my capital. (I had a global monopoly on Coral at T118)
P5-T47 renew (assyria)
P6-T54 purity (?) -- marocco
P7-T57 sun (?) -- poca
P8-T60 commerce (?) -- rome

Religions
R1-114 Netherlands (home, divine, veneration)
R2-126 inca (expanse, hero w, stupas)
R3-126 Germany (yay!) (sea, theocratic (wanna be in love the king day as much as possible), cooperation (+5 yields on pop))
R4-127 greece (ancestor, apostolic, ascetism)
R5-143 rome (commerce, pilgrim, orders)

This is quite good. Assyria didn't get a religion and they are next door. I should be able to convert those heathens. Theocracy turned out great for the first few goes and then got stuck asking for a luxury only available in some far away city-state and eventually all cities wanted that (silver) so I had to go all the way to circus just to reset that. That it doesn't periodically just purge, and re-select, the need is quite annoying. I was thinking of picking churches for my enhance just to trigger a king day. But I didn't. The other bad part is that I didn't have or take a faith sink, i guess i better save or spend it all on missionaries, or just eventually take the fealty opener to get monasteries.

T181 i reformed (defender) and the netherlands enhanced (sacred cal, thrift)
T191 i enhance (mastery, symbolism)
T201 rome enhanced

Wonders.
T040 Stone, (me!)
T046 Pyra, unknown (not greece, inca, baby or neth) -- marocco, found out eventually
T078 Zeus (inca)
T086 temple (me!)
T096 Mauso (me, rushed it -- scetchty times so I start rushing when people era change and get boosts)
T109 petra, (marocco, lost a lot of prodction there in my third city -- 57 cult)
T115 hanging (me!) -- I like it but it comes with issues, so much food and growth is really a problem.
T116 lighthouse (inca)
T126 great library (me!) -- i normally never really go for it but I thought I would just see if I could pull it. It's normally fairly high priority for the AI.
T135 terracota (me!)
T148 Oracle (maroc)
T155 Angkor wat (me!)
T156 parthenon (inca)
T157 great wall (assyria)
T184 Alhambra (poca) sankore (me!) -- the first policy wonders.
T186 Colossus (poca)
T205 Haga sofia (marocco, lost of lot of producation again in Berlin -- +135 cult, somewhat annoying I had needed that to fix my luxury issue in the capital
T213 Barob (neth, lost a lot of production again in Berlin -- +142 cult)
T230 Machu picchu (inca, i had planed to engineer rush that ... never mind then, had a sweet city in the mountains and every thing)
T233 Notre Dame (me!)

T222 Netherlands enter Renaissance era and instantly declares war on me, along with half the city-states in the world. F*DGE! It's quite annoying since I have somewhat forsaken having an army (at the start of the war I only had 16 out of 28 units). I didn't think there would be any issues until I saw the Sea beggers. Damn those things rip coastal cities apart. I did manage to just sell everything (fire sale on horses, iron and everything not nailed down!) to my friends, emergency build a crapton of x-bows. Guess I should be thankful I picked Defender of the Faith after all. But it's a big issue since so much of my game up until this point hinged on being friends with city-states and now half of them just declared on me. Happiness dropped below 50. They pillaged a fair amount of my fishing boats etc. But they didn't manage to take any cities (except one city-state ally that fell), it was very close tho -- Hamburg could probably only have taken another hit or two. Just being super annoying. I really need to bulk up my four costal-cities to prevent that surprise from happening again.

There isn't really a clear tech leader yet, Netherlands is on top. But they are somewhat boxed in by me and Greece. I guess they'll try and have a go at Greece next to see if they can Sea Begger crush that. But most of the other civs in the world are within 1-2 techs. Netherlands are running away on the culture front tho, already 3 policies in front of me. The culture issue is the same as with America. Come renaissance the wonders "cost" to many policies to keep it up without some extra source of big culture that just isn't around unless you do wars it seems. Spamming great people and wonders just isn't enough.

I guess it's all about taking what you get and create the little engine that could. So doable. Winnable in the long run? Not sure. But there isn't a clear snowball yet even tho Netherlands are clearly going for it. I suspect Marocco will give it a go to. Rome is in a bad spot so they are probably out. They didn't manage to capitalize with the Legions. Poca and Marocco will probably be at war soon.

I'm pretty impressed you managed to grab all those wonders tbh. Germany has very little to help him early game. Did not many AI choose tradition, which maybe made for less competition for wonders early?

To me, Germany is in more of a position to lay low and stay middle of the pack and then rely on late game WC vote counts and their late blooming UA/UB/UU. The fact that you're more at the top of the pack already is pretty promising.

Settling coastal was probably a mistake given the current dynamics. Melee ships do a lot of damage and it's really hard to have a strong enough naval presence when tradition due to unit cap. With a sea monopoly you had no choice though- that's tough luck.

 

[looorg]

I'm pretty impressed you managed to grab all those wonders tbh. Germany has very little to help him early game. Did not many AI choose tradition, which maybe made for less competition for wonders early?

To me, Germany is in more of a position to lay low and stay middle of the pack and then rely on late game WC vote counts and their late blooming UA/UB/UU. The fact that you're more at the top of the pack already is pretty promising.

Settling coastal was probably a mistake given the current dynamics. Melee ships do a lot of damage and it's really hard to have a strong enough naval presence when tradition due to unit cap. With a sea monopoly you had no choice though- that's tough luck.

It was fairly split between Tradition (4), Authority (2) and Progress (2). Then it became a split between Statecraft (6) and Fealty (2). Nobody went artistry. I didn't know that at the time so I just had to pick blindly after the Netherlands.

Spoiler :

I have bulked up a bit, i had to redo some tech paths to get better at range fast. I recently just engineer rushed Haijme castle in Berlin.

The problem in Berlin at around T200 was that I had more or less been chaining wonders non-stop since the start with an occational settler or building. So i was sort of running out of steam and into issues. To many wonders, to little basic infrastructure buildings.

T260, this is towards mid-end of the Renaissance era
Netherlands, 37tech, 12 policies (tradition statecraft done), 4 wonders
Germany, 37tech, 9 policies (tradition, statecraft), 10 wonders -- I actually have 10, I just put one into Fealty to unlock the monasteries but it doesn't show in the tooltips.
Morocco, 35tech, 11 policies (tradtion, statecraft), 4 wonders
Shoshone, 34tech, 10 policies (authority, fealty), 2 wonders
Rome, 33tech, 10 policies (authority, fealty), 0 wonders
Inca, 35tech, 10 policies (progress, statecraft), 4 wonders
Assyria, 36tech, 11 policies (progress, statecraft), 2 wonders
Greece, 34tech, 10 policies (tradition, statecraft), 0 wonders

From the image, this is the layout of the land. The Hague is an issue. I either have to build a navy to just get rid of that. More probably is that I'll get range3 units and bombard it from land and then take it out. Burn it and then just make sure Hamburg reach that place so it can't be resettled again. I could try holding it from the shore but I doubt it would work and it would always be risk.

Weird thing about the world was that it was supposed to be continents but they snake around and became one weird land-bridge pangea.

 

[tothePAIN]

Slow work day so I set up a random game, became America, to try this lets all be friends and hug it out peace game again. Set some basic ground rules for myself -- no starting wars, no stealing workers from city-states, intercepting settlers (which would be war), if I attacked I'll just defend and push them back, I can liberate cities and I could raze cities if I was forward settled. But I was not to power up thru conquest. Went with Progress (+statecraft, +rationalism).

I was about 15 turns or so away from snagging the last religion. So I had to be happy with the one that Ottomans, closest neighbor got. Not good. No faith sinks what so ever. Had a hard time getting a good religion established for more then a turn or so, enough to build a faith building but not more.

I didn't manage to snag a lot of early wonders either, the last one I got was the Leaning tower. In total I got pyramids, sistine, forbidden and parthenon to. No time to be picky really. Build what was available. I lost a few wonder races by less then 10 turns. In the Industrial/modern era stage the Celts are currently leading with 15 wonders, they got most of those from Egypt after they took their capital. Venice has 10 and Siam has 6. What has happened now is just a shift in problem, happiness and tech are fine but culture is horrific. When I entered the industrial era I was already 2-3 policies behind to build any wonders, I lost Neuschwanstein by 7 turns -- as in I was about to get the last policy so I could rush it with an engineer with the Celts finally got around to build it in a non-core city -- yay By that time I had waited -- as in had the tech but not the policy for two policies. At this point I think I can pretty much forget about wonders since while I can close the tech gap I will never be able to close the culture gap -- you can always regain tech but you can't regain lost culture. When the Celts picked an ideology everyone else was an entire policy tree behind.

I have managed to get 9 cities, 2 are horrific 1 tile-island that in the case of war I doubt I'll be able to hold. The Ottomans are constantly smack talking me and denouncing me, our capitals are only 11 tiles apart on a large map. Even when I'm at the unit cap of 50.

Besides that the game has been smooth, no happiness issues. Tech is fine. But as noted culture is a massive issue. I tried to spice it up since most of the game was just next-turn or checking trades and diplothings by agreeing to a defensive pact with the Celts. It was renewed once but so far no war. I think it saved me from a war declaration from the Ottomans. They bulked up along the border then just backed down.

So the judgement so far is that without Authority I have a lot of issues to gain enough culture which in turn prevents one from getting wonders which in turn makes it just worse by every passing turn. The Celts are three techs ahead at the moment, Siam two. I could close that gap. But I just won't ever be able to close the culture gap that will gain me any more wonders.

Was this game standard speed or epic? Given your comments in a later post, I'm guessing epic.

Even with the scaling of deity bonuses for epic and marathon on this patch, epic deity may still be easier.

 

[looorg]

Yes it was all on epic speed. Further and end notes below, but in summary it all went to sh*t -- tech is no issue, just getting culture crushed by Netherlands and Morocco and that just pretty much killed the game.

Spoiler :

That said what started out good eventually just turned to crap. I can not compete with the culture output of the others, there is no issue holding the tech line but culture is just ridiculous. When I reached the modern era I was lacking 4 policies to even start construction of the Empire state building. So all you can do is just sit there and wait for the AI to build them. The industrial era was more or less the same, lacking culture to build any of the wonders. So you get the tech and then just nothing. Netherlands just crushed it and built three wonders in that era (slatter, eiffel and westminister). I have not been able to build a single wonder since the renaissance era and I doubt I'll be able to build anymore. Nor am I getting a corporation as the Netherlands built the only one I could build (crab and coral is the same corp).

As I enter the modern era this is the standing.

Netherland (50 tech, 17 policies, 10 wonders)
Shoshone (49 tech, 15 policies, 3 wonders)
Rome (50 tech, 15 policies, 1 wonder)
Morocco (49 tech, 16 policies, 5 wonders)
Germany (50 tech, 14 policies, 13 wonders)
Inca (48 tech, 14 policies, 5 wonders)
Assyria (50 tech, 15 policies, 4 wonders)
Greece (44 tech, 14 policies, 0 wonders)

That Greece have not yet been taken out by the Netherlands is just weird. Besides that the world is just stale, nobody is conquering anyone. But as far as I'm concerned the game is more or less lost at this point. I can tech up with them, but I can never close that culture gap. I tried to get the Netherlands sanctioned three-four times now and to no avail, the fifth time was apparently the charm but it's to late. All this mean is that Morocco will take his place.

Rome is winning the religion war, Rome+Morocco+Shoshone+Assyria are now following his religion. There is a literal flood of Roman prophets running around the map at this time.

T373 Netherlands ideology (freedom), so I'm 3 policies behind him at this stage.
T397 Morocco ideology (order)

Not a single piece of aluminum in my entire land, great ... There was a minor amount of oil tho.

Anyhow. Game over man ... Game over.

 

[tothePAIN]

It was fairly split between Tradition (4), Authority (2) and Progress (2). Then it became a split between Statecraft (6) and Fealty (2). Nobody went artistry. I didn't know that at the time so I just had to pick blindly after the Netherlands.

Spoiler :

View attachment 561774

I have bulked up a bit, i had to redo some tech paths to get better at range fast. I recently just engineer rushed Haijme castle in Berlin.

The problem in Berlin at around T200 was that I had more or less been chaining wonders non-stop since the start with an occational settler or building. So i was sort of running out of steam and into issues. To many wonders, to little basic infrastructure buildings.

T260, this is towards mid-end of the Renaissance era
Netherlands, 37tech, 12 policies (tradition statecraft done), 4 wonders
Germany, 37tech, 9 policies (tradition, statecraft), 10 wonders -- I actually have 10, I just put one into Fealty to unlock the monasteries but it doesn't show in the tooltips.
Morocco, 35tech, 11 policies (tradtion, statecraft), 4 wonders
Shoshone, 34tech, 10 policies (authority, fealty), 2 wonders
Rome, 33tech, 10 policies (authority, fealty), 0 wonders
Inca, 35tech, 10 policies (progress, statecraft), 4 wonders
Assyria, 36tech, 11 policies (progress, statecraft), 2 wonders
Greece, 34tech, 10 policies (tradition, statecraft), 0 wonders

From the image, this is the layout of the land. The Hague is an issue. I either have to build a navy to just get rid of that. More probably is that I'll get range3 units and bombard it from land and then take it out. Burn it and then just make sure Hamburg reach that place so it can't be resettled again. I could try holding it from the shore but I doubt it would work and it would always be risk.

Weird thing about the world was that it was supposed to be continents but they snake around and became one weird land-bridge pangea.

Yes it was all on epic speed. Further and end notes below, but in summary it all went to sh*t -- tech is no issue, just getting culture crushed by Netherlands and Morocco and that just pretty much killed the game.

Spoiler :

That said what started out good eventually just turned to crap. I can not compete with the culture output of the others, there is no issue holding the tech line but culture is just ridiculous. When I reached the modern era I was lacking 4 policies to even start construction of the Empire state building. So all you can do is just sit there and wait for the AI to build them. The industrial era was more or less the same, lacking culture to build any of the wonders. So you get the tech and then just nothing. Netherlands just crushed it and built three wonders in that era (slatter, eiffel and westminister). I have not been able to build a single wonder since the renaissance era and I doubt I'll be able to build anymore. Nor am I getting a corporation as the Netherlands built the only one I could build (crab and coral is the same corp).

As I enter the modern era this is the standing.

Netherland (50 tech, 17 policies, 10 wonders)
Shoshone (49 tech, 15 policies, 3 wonders)
Rome (50 tech, 15 policies, 1 wonder)
Morocco (49 tech, 16 policies, 5 wonders)
Germany (50 tech, 14 policies, 13 wonders)
Inca (48 tech, 14 policies, 5 wonders)
Assyria (50 tech, 15 policies, 4 wonders)
Greece (44 tech, 14 policies, 0 wonders)

That Greece have not yet been taken out by the Netherlands is just weird. Besides that the world is just stale, nobody is conquering anyone. But as far as I'm concerned the game is more or less lost at this point. I can tech up with them, but I can never close that culture gap. I tried to get the Netherlands sanctioned three-four times now and to no avail, the fifth time was apparently the charm but it's to late. All this mean is that Morocco will take his place.

Rome is winning the religion war, Rome+Morocco+Shoshone+Assyria are now following his religion. There is a literal flood of Roman prophets running around the map at this time.

T373 Netherlands ideology (freedom), so I'm 3 policies behind him at this stage.
T397 Morocco ideology (order)

Not a single piece of aluminum in my entire land, great ... There was a minor amount of oil tho.

Anyhow. Game over man ... Game over.

I managed to snag Empire State Building in my 4 City America game. I went Prophecy as my enhancer, so even though I'm behind a little on culture, I could build the wonder.. It took a great engineer, industry, and a gold purchase though. I also got Broadway, since the other leaders went rationalism. No wonders in Renaissance or Industrial era though.

The leader, Russia, just declared war on me so I've got to decide how peaceful I want to be. I think I need to take a few cities from the leaders to let me take the lead.

My conclusion from the America games is that America has the tools to snag key early wonders and that it's very, very difficult for other peaceful civs. I'll give an Arabia playthrough a go at one point. I think America is better suited to win because of stronger late game power though.

There's also a clear difference in timing for standard vs epic. Wonders seem more achievable on epic.

 

[looorg]

You are comparing two different games tho. Both was equally good at producing a fair amount of early wonders, to have a good start. America had a lot of it's production base in the ability to convert gold to tiles to production while in the case of Germany they had a very good start with a set of random resources around the capital. But none of that was enough in the long run. Eventually they both did succumb to the power of one or another snowballer that I didn't have the power to intervene with, or well to be more specific I chose not to intervene early to see if you could run a more or less completely peaceful game. At the moment I say it's unlikely cause nobody really is stepping up to try and stop the snowballer until it's to late. I can probably keep up techwise as Germany and perhaps space myself to victory, as where I left it off the threat from the Netherlands was gone. Morocco or some other would probably rise up but they are probably to late.

But it's hard to compare games like this, maps was different, the competition was different. Etc. But the constant seem to that they are pulling a lot of extra yields out of thin air that doesn't reflect their actual production capacity and that is just hard to compete with. You can usually cover one level of it or another but to cover all the bases probably for the most part requires the simplest and most direct solution -- to take them out before they become a threat. Anything else is at your own peril, cause the snowball just keeps on rolling.

Standard vs Epic. Epic gives more room for planning and as it also takes longer you have to live and plan a bit more with your choices. From a war perspective that is "easier". But for the others? It requires more planning. Something I guess the human mind is better at then the AI decision tree. Standard is imo to fast and nothing really matters, it's all -- or was at least when I did play -- all about making crazy b-lines in the tech tree to more or less skip things. To make them irrelevant. There is nothing that is irrelevant when everything last for longer.

 

[Milae]

The issue of being forward settled isn't something we can realistically fix

Well why does forward settling happen from AIs every game? Seems like it's due to the fact that they get free pop and production when they found cities which is due to bonuses that are given to them.

T126 great library (me!)

This is new version? This and some of the other timings makes me wonder if the bonuses actually were scaled with gamespeed. Possible this game was an outlier though.

there is no issue holding the tech line but culture is just ridiculous

This does seem to be an issue particularly when trying to build wonders on Deity as tech moves faster. A/B/C does give equal culture and science in a game and I would assume most civs make more science than culture in a game so the bonus has a larger effect on culture. Anyone ever calculated this? (Total Science/Culture produced in a game). Perhaps there is more to it though as usually it seems like snowballs are way ahead on policies whereas A/B/C should be affecting all AI civs equally.

Standard vs Epic

Yea I agree the game just feels better paced on epic and I often end up with things being built in under 1 turn later on on standard. Also I noticed that playing on standard doesn't really make the game much faster to play. You still have the same number of decisions to make there are just more turns in between each one.

Only (debatably) better thing about standard is that you have to be mega efficient with your units as every turn matters more, but it's a shame if there is still an AI difficulty imbalance between them.

 

[stii]

I don't think forward settling happens every game? It is just something that makes the game much much harder when it does. I only play on 6p pangea , which is probably the most compressed map and you still will sometimes have space for 3 cities and sometimes space for 6. And as the tight area games are much harder it amplifies the advantages of authority. I'm not really sure you can win with just 3 city tradition, it is at least much harder. So if you are trying to win the highest % of deity game then opening authority every game makes a lot of sense. Authority is fine with 3 cities and just attacking.

 

[CrazyG]

Epic is a lot easier than standard.

Well why does forward settling happen from AIs every game? Seems like it's due to the fact that they get free pop and production when they found cities which is due to bonuses that are given to them.

I don't see forward settling every game. I think the biggest impact of that early production is how the AI build shrines so fast.

 

[Milae]

I don't think forward settling happens every game? It is just something that makes the game much much harder when it does. I only play on 6p pangea , which is probably the most compressed map and you still will sometimes have space for 3 cities and sometimes space for 6. And as the tight area games are much harder it amplifies the advantages of authority. I'm not really sure you can win with just 3 city tradition, it is at least much harder. So if you are trying to win the highest % of deity game then opening authority every game makes a lot of sense. Authority is fine with 3 cities and just attacking.

I feel like the context of discussing forward settling here is that the fact that it happens often (and before it's possible for a human to settle) is another factor which forces players to go authority in most games, as you mention.

Can't speak for everyone here but imo a 'difficult' game forces you to adapt to situations to maximise your winning chances, not just follow a set path every game for an easy win.

 

[Milae]

I don't see forward settling every game. I think the biggest impact of that early production is how the AI build shrines so fast.

'Every game' was an exaggeration yes, seems we both agree on the problem though.

 

[looorg]

This is three games, or two depending on how you like to see it. I started with a completely random game that became America. I wanted to do peace so I picked Progress. That didn't work out very well. The Celts ate the world I just fell behind in every aspect. So it was suggested that Tradition would be better as a wonder spammer. Fine. I had a save for when I selected the policy so I went back. Picked Tradition and went again. The result was better but the end the same as Celts ate the world. Then the comment was that America has to strong an ability for the early game (gold=production).

So I sat around a bit looking at the civs for one with a weak early game in the sense of units/buildings/abilities. Germany should fit that bill. But it was still possible to pump out a lot of early wonders. It's just that the game stalls out, on culture. War is what appears to be bring the culture. Spamming wonders and great people is nowhere near close enough apparently. Or technically it isn't what brings the culture, even tho it does, but what the war brings is putting a stop to the AI getting culture cause you shut them down via conquest. If you want to go all peace that never happens instead the snowball is just allowed to accumulate and reach critical mass and it seems that nobody is really inclined to stop them until it's way to late -- if ever.

Basically as Germany I was just chaining out Wonders as fast as I could. Some was built, some was rushed.

Not sure if it has been calculated for an entire game. But I did log and calculate how much bonuses the snowball got, a few patches ago, Deity Difficulty, for the first era of the game. Since I wanted to see the cumulative effect of all the little bonuses it gets since apparently I was told they were minor or almost insignificant, which imo is a matter of some debate. It's a bit weird that they get equal amounts of Science and Culture, when as so clearly noted they are not equal in production. While production values might be similar, even tho science should be somewhat higher -- there are more sources of science then culture; you can't steal a policy from someone but you can steal a tech. Which is then a significant amount of science. Just as an example.

 

[tothePAIN]

This is three games, or two depending on how you like to see it. I started with a completely random game that became America. I wanted to do peace so I picked Progress. That didn't work out very well. The Celts ate the world I just fell behind in every aspect. So it was suggested that Tradition would be better as a wonder spammer. Fine. I had a save for when I selected the policy so I went back. Picked Tradition and went again. The result was better but the end the same as Celts ate the world. Then the comment was that America has to strong an ability for the early game (gold=production).

So I sat around a bit looking at the civs for one with a weak early game in the sense of units/buildings/abilities. Germany should fit that bill. But it was still possible to pump out a lot of early wonders. It's just that the game stalls out, on culture. War is what appears to be bring the culture. Spamming wonders and great people is nowhere near close enough apparently. Or technically it isn't what brings the culture, even tho it does, but what the war brings is putting a stop to the AI getting culture cause you shut them down via conquest. If you want to go all peace that never happens instead the snowball is just allowed to accumulate and reach critical mass and it seems that nobody is really inclined to stop them until it's way to late -- if ever.

Basically as Germany I was just chaining out Wonders as fast as I could. Some was built, some was rushed.

Not sure if it has been calculated for an entire game. But I did log and calculate how much bonuses the snowball got, a few patches ago, Deity Difficulty, for the first era of the game. Since I wanted to see the cumulative effect of all the little bonuses it gets since apparently I was told they were minor or almost insignificant, which imo is a matter of some debate. It's a bit weird that they get equal amounts of Science and Culture, when as so clearly noted they are not equal in production. While production values might be similar, even tho science should be somewhat higher -- there are more sources of science then culture; you can't steal a policy from someone but you can steal a tech. Which is then a significant amount of science. Just as an example.

Its clear that its very hard to keep up with the AI on both science and culture sufficiently to be able to build wonders. I'm just pointing out that I was able to nearly do so. I also chose to go statecraft to keep up in science and reduce the need for culture for wonders.

It also seems that epic is easier in certain aspects than deity, which is relevant to building early wonders. You managed Hanging Gardens and Great Library as Germany, a civilization without a strong early game. That's flat out impossible on standard. That strongly suggests to me that comparing the epic and standard deity experience is like comparing apples and oranges, not comparable.

I'm not sure that any changes need to be made to the game directly, i.e. nerfing warring, so much as the early game bonuses a little bit, so that a player has a decent shot at either hanging gardens or great library. I'd like a deity player who is beelining those wonders to be able to get them about 50% of the time. Right now, it's very low.

 

[stii]

I feel like the context of discussing forward settling here is that the fact that it happens often (and before it's possible for a human to settle) is another factor which forces players to go authority in most games, as you mention.

Can't speak for everyone here but imo a 'difficult' game forces you to adapt to situations to maximise your winning chances, not just follow a set path every game for an easy win.

I think it is mostly a case of what is possible. My suggestions for how to deal with this are pretty complicated and I'm not sure they are even possible.

Firstly if we are trying to make things fair you need a map script that force equal starting positions. Not perfectly but roughly equal areas. Currently pangea really doesn't do that and I'm pretty sure the other maps are even worse. If you have equal area the AI expanding early is less of an issue you'd have some space even if the land isn't ideal.

Secondly the AI would need to be a bit more reasonable in where it puts its early cities. They shouldn't be using their first two settlers to build within 5 titles of your capital. Roughly numbers are just an educated guess.


From your suggestion I agree in theory but I'm not sure where the line is. There will always be plenty of things that on the highest level you simply can't do. No peaceful play at all seems like a bad thing but early game peace into mid game war might just be required because otherwise your interaction options are too limited.

 

[looorg]

Its clear that its very hard to keep up with the AI on both science and culture sufficiently to be able to build wonders. I'm just pointing out that I was able to nearly do so. I also chose to go statecraft to keep up in science and reduce the need for culture for wonders.

It also seems that epic is easier in certain aspects than deity, which is relevant to building early wonders. You managed Hanging Gardens and Great Library as Germany, a civilization without a strong early game. That's flat out impossible on standard. That strongly suggests to me that comparing the epic and standard deity experience is like comparing apples and oranges, not comparable.

I'm not sure that any changes need to be made to the game directly, i.e. nerfing warring, so much as the early game bonuses a little bit, so that a player has a decent shot at either hanging gardens or great library. I'd like a deity player who is beelining those wonders to be able to get them about 50% of the time. Right now, it's very low.

I would say pulling both Hanging gardens and the Great library is an outlier tho, it's not something I think I can pull in most games, I don't recall now but I don't think I built any of them in the America game. So just cause I managed it once is no indication of that I'll manage it again or even with consistency. That said I'm fairly certain tho that with a wonder focus I should be able to pull at least half the wonders in general up until about the industrial era with more or less any civilization. But no guarantee of specific once or combinations of them. It's probably also easier to get some of them compared to others since they are not equally prioritized. But with that in mind I'm also now more certain that it's not going to be enough as a base for a late game win.

While I don't remember exactly now which was which I'm fairly certain that not all wonders was hard-built but several of them are rushed with an engineer -- which technically in the start of the game is a giant waste of hammers since the engineer produces a large amount of excess hammers compared to the cost of the wonder. In the long run, or non-gimmicky, play you would/should be better of building the special tile improvement. If I was to just hard build, or possibly boost some with gold, I think there would be less wonders. As an example I know that when I get a notification of era changes in game there will be a large production boost for said AI so if they have tech they can pump a wonder in just a turn, or a couple of turns at worst. So in that case if there is a wonder I want you better rush it or risk it, in the case of the Germany game I lost at least three wonders at the late stage of building due to the AI getting there first and the minor amounts of culture you get then is more of an insult then anything.

 

[DeAnno]

While I don't remember exactly now which was which I'm fairly certain that not all wonders was hard-built but several of them are rushed with an engineer -- which technically in the start of the game is a giant waste of hammers since the engineer produces a large amount of excess hammers compared to the cost of the wonder. In the long run, or non-gimmicky, play you would/should be better of building the special tile improvement.

I have a habit of rushing wonders with Engineers too much maybe, though I think in a real run where you can't reset you must at least want to rush Terracotta if you're ever in a position to. Probably some other wonders as well, depending on how much your position needs them, for example HG in inland Tradition with somewhat sketchy food supply.