Delayed bronze working #2: Deity isolated

[Mylene]

Why are you ignoring simple facts all the time, Sun Tzu and Brennus?
If you bulb Edu only 1x you gain nothing out of "bulbing Lib strategies".
If you skipped any good bulb on it's way or an Academy, you get nothing.
Lib dates slower than 800 AD or sumthing are late, but you used that as example for a good Lib strategy.

This thread...biggest rats catcher and dummy stuffs i ever saw. Funny how some seasoned players also support that, you must be out of your minds.

 

[shakabrade]

In normal Cultural victory, you'll generate at least 14 great people. Using 5-6 for bulbing purposes isn't a waste, especially because they have positive feedback on your culture. What I can't accept is playing game in isolation with intention of staying isolated and hoping an AI will not achieve any VC before you hit your cultural win. That is not a strategy. For me, strategy should always take care you don't lose the game and any other objective is secondary. You need astro on isolation so you can influence foreign relations and also protect yourself with alliances and by keeping other continent(s) fight each other while you are farming those artists, and for resources so you can grow your LCs and work all your cottages and also to avoid health issues which can reduce GP production in your GP farm, foreign trade routes don't hurt either to raise that culture slider a bit.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

What I can't accept is playing game in isolation with intention of staying isolated and hoping an AI will not achieve any VC before you hit your cultural win. That is not a strategy.

I agree that what you describe is more of a crapshoot than a strategy.

It's not at all clear to me whether or not this is a fair description of the approach under discussion. If this play style does introduce a significant postponement of the AI victory, it's legit.

You win the game by achieving your legendary cities first, not by getting to your legendary cities fastest.

 

[ahcos]

It's not at all clear to me whether or not this is a fair description of the approach under discussion. If this play style does introduce a significant postponement of the AI victory, it's legit.

To know that we'd need alot more games played... and i sure as hell won't do that, as cultural victories are boring as fack.

Now, obsolete's SSE back then had something trackable in it why the AI's slowed so much: no GPs. What could that be in the delayed BW approach? General low production for the player?

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

To know that we'd need alot more games played... and i sure as hell won't do that, as cultural victories are boring as fack.

It might not be necessary to go that far; looking at some proxy like the GNP demographic on some particular turn might make things clear.

Not sure if that's quite fair - I understood one of the claims to mean that the strategy was shunting the AI into non optimal research tracks. So perhaps we'd need something like the LogTool to date AI tech discoveries.

 

[UnforcedError]

It might not be necessary to go that far; looking at some proxy like the GNP demographic on some particular turn might make things clear.

Not sure if that's quite fair - I understood one of the claims to mean that the strategy was shunting the AI into non optimal research tracks. So perhaps we'd need something like the LogTool to date AI tech discoveries.

The LogTool would be a good idea, although in this particular game Brennus did nothing to influence the AI tech path as he didn't even know them at the crucial stages. And I suspect it was rather the map itself that kept the AI from teching and their self-initiated wars that kept them from trading and prevented them from going for culture themselves. Playing a Tokugawa is fine for role-playing purposes but you will not be able to prevent the AI from winning in case you have to. Or how do you plan to raze an LC or a cap launching the ship with this strategy? Teach your muskets how to swim?

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

In normal Cultural victory, you'll generate at least 14 great people. Using 5-6 for bulbing purposes isn't a waste, especially because they have positive feedback on your culture. What I can't accept is playing game in isolation with intention of staying isolated and hoping an AI will not achieve any VC before you hit your cultural win. That is not a strategy. For me, strategy should always take care you don't lose the game and any other objective is secondary. You need astro on isolation so you can influence foreign relations and also protect yourself with alliances and by keeping other continent(s) fight each other while you are farming those artists, and for resources so you can grow your LCs and work all your cottages and also to avoid health issues which can reduce GP production in your GP farm, foreign trade routes don't hurt either to raise that culture slider a bit.

Shaka you forget that BQ has proven that he plays Civ like he plays Roulette. He makes extreme gambles, and if they work he has a chance at winning. If they don't he pretty much auto loses.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

If you bulb Edu only 1x you gain nothing out of "bulbing Lib strategies".

I was assuming this sub-thread was more about general isolated starts than specific

This is map size dependent. Smaller maps have Education that is about 1.5 GS bulbs in size. It is debatable whether double GS bulbing is worthwhile in this case, because one loses 1/2 the value of the second GS on Education whereas its full value applies when bulbing Liberalism.

As far as I can recall, your assertion is correct for Huge maps, but nothing smaller. A small loss on Large maps, moderate loss on Standard maps, etc. There is also a Population contribution to bulb beakers, but Cultural Victory populations are usually very small and can almost be ignored in bulbing calculations.

Thanks for your observation.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The LogTool would be a good idea, although in this particular game Brennus did nothing to influence the AI tech path as he didn't even know them at the crucial stages. And I suspect it was rather the map itself that kept the AI from teching and their self-initiated wars that kept them from trading and prevented them from going for culture themselves. Playing a Tokugawa is fine for role-playing purposes but you will not be able to prevent the AI from winning in case you have to. Or how do you plan to raze an LC or a cap launching the ship with this strategy? Teach your muskets how to swim?

The map itself is a requirement of the strategy. It must be low food with few forests. The AIs do not thrive well in such land. It's not surprising that their research rate is so slow that none of them could reach a Victory Condition before Brennus did.

Brennus' technology trading policy could be characterized as "stingy", so that may have helped keep the AI backward more than the opportunity costs of not trading with them.

Yes, Wars between the AIs are great for keeping them "stone-aged". Sometimes they DoW each other without help from the player.

The best way to prevent the AI from winning, is for the player himself to win earlier. I would suggest looking for ways to win the Cultural Victory much sooner. Generating more Great Artists sooner will certainly help a great deal. Thus, intervening militarily or via Spies may not be necessary; it may be better to apply those resources to winning sooner. However, hiring Artists requires food, something this map is short of. Even researching to Biology for National Park is weak, because there are very few forests preserves for free Artists. The remaining option is Sid's Sushi, but that requires Corporation and Medicine which is too deep into the Technology Tree for this start, perhaps; just doesn't seem practical though. All Cottages is the only remaining alternative; meaning the three Cultural Cities must huge commerce cities consisting of almost all cottages for a massive Cultural rate when the Culture Slider is set to 100%.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Bandobras Took]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but is it still the case that nobody has actually beaten this map except Brennus Quigley (twice)?

 

[ahcos]

Perhaps i'm missing something, but is it still the case that nobody has actually set up a map except Brennus Quigley (twice)?

To clarify my point: no one will play this map. Give another map (read: a map one might want to play) and there surely will be more contributions. If you want players to give this thing some more serious thought, you might want to do that. So far nothing has been proven except the fact that BQ doesn't die of boredom when clicking "End Turn" for like 100 times without anything happening.

 

[Bandobras Took]

To clarify my point: no one will play this map. Give another map (read: a map one might want to play) and there surely will be more contributions. If you want players to give this thing some more serious thought, you might want to do that.

Is this a direct admission that players' previous comments in this thread have not been given sufficient serious thought? If so, why were they made?

I'm just having difficulty understanding why there are so many comments attempting to silence him when the quickest and most direct way to do so is simply to beat the map more convincingly than he did.

Or put another way: what does not playing the map demonstrate? Surely it's not that a given opponent has better things to do; otherwise, they wouldn't be posting in this thread at all. It can't be to demonstrate that they can beat the map more convincingly; beating the map is the most effective way to do that.

What would playing the map and beating it more convincingly demonstrate? There are two possibilities:

1) The RNG is nicer to you, which is easily noted and commented on when it's an event, and few if any people care if it's combat, or:
2) He's wrong. Playing and posting the map is the simplest and quickest way to demonstrate this. And again: if a given poster doesn't want to demonstrate that he's wrong badly enough to actually do so, why are they posting in the thread anyway?

 

[Mylene]

Silence him?
Most just question his presented strategy, and also this map and how he thinks that players should have fun with Iso culture. It's a game, and most just do not like this kind of map..and are not ready for spending several hours just for an argument.

You need no playthru to know how lucky this deity win comes across, unless of course you are not playing Deity (normal games, normal speed, no Inca...) yourself and have no experience with that.
He's wrong if he thinks that's like a regular Deity win, yep so what? Everybody can tell you that, without playing anything.

Are you maybe trying to say he does what...uh...regular Deity players cannot do?
Who would be silly then? Not us, a little hint..

 

[babar]

Dirk beat him to Liberalism. WHICH WAS THE WHOLE POINT. Dirk is one of the best so that doesn't prove a whole lot, but to claim no one else has tried this map is strange.

A 1920s culture win is just not impressive, and cannot prove anything.

I read this thread with curiosity at first as I like to see unorthodox strategies, but the OP's arrogance and basic failure to string together a coherent arguement lost me pretty quickly.

 

[ahcos]

@Bandobras:

what does not playing the map demonstrate?

That people don't play the map. Nothing else.

What would playing the map and beating it more convincingly demonstrate? There are two possibilities:

1) The RNG is nicer to you, which is easily noted and commented on when it's an event, and few if any people care if it's combat, or:
2) He's wrong. Playing and posting the map is the simplest and quickest way to demonstrate this. And again: if a given poster doesn't want to demonstrate that he's wrong badly enough to actually do so, why are they posting in the thread anyway?

3. Someone's a better player, either BQ or the other guy
4. One strategy is superior
5. The chosen VC was the right or wrong choice
6. You're willing to bore yourself just to make a point (Well, maybe for someone that map actually is fun - don't know, but doubt it)

I'm repeating myself, but beating one map doesn't show anything. It's no evidence, not even close. We'd need at least dozens of games played by several people to get better picture. Ain't happening so far... because the map's simply not fun. Isolation alone rarely is, but given the land it's even worse than LHC (which has some nice maps, sometimes), which already suffers from very few contributions.

Seriously, why does it have to be THIS MAP? If his strategy only works on maps no one will ever play because they're boring, so be it, but so far we don't have a strategy, so what are we talking about anyway? Arg, darn it, i'm really trying to take this whole thing serious, but it's not easy, not at all ..

 

[Bandobras Took]

Dirk beat him to Liberalism. WHICH WAS THE WHOLE POINT (. . .) the OP's arrogance and basic failure to string together a coherent argument lost me pretty quickly.

Now I am posting an isolated Deity start where I was able to employ the delayed Bronze Working Liberalism bulb en route to a Cultural victory.

With whatever respect is due, that isn't the whole point. Getting to Liberalism first doesn't mean you'll win more quickly or more strongly. In fact, his replay with the earlier Liberalism date actually pushed back his eventual victory by several turns due to GP pollution.

I have yet to see him state anywhere that the earliest possible Liberalism date is the key to winning the game. He's said that on map types where it makes sense to delay Bronze Working anyway, there's a Liberalism path should it make sense for you to go for it.

Silence him?
Most just question his presented strategy, and also this map and how he thinks that players should have fun with Iso culture.

When did he make any claims about fun? His claim is that this is a map where delaying Bronze Working makes sense and puts you in a winning position. Fun has nothing to do with it. Nor is the Strategy & Tips forum a clearing house for discussing "fun." Is is for discussing whether various approaches to the game allow you to win.

You need no playthru to know how lucky this deity win comes across, unless of course you are not playing Deity (normal games, normal speed, no Inca...) yourself and have no experience with that.
He's wrong if he thinks that's like a regular Deity win, yep so what? Everybody can tell you that, without playing anything.

Where did he claim that's a regular Deity win? This is a Deity win that demonstrates that one can win while delaying Bronze Working on maps where delaying Bronze Working makes sense. That is his fundamental argument.

Are you maybe trying to say he does what...uh...regular Deity players cannot do?
Who would be silly then? Not us, a little hint . . .

No, I'm saying that between the various people with reading comprehension issues and the flat-out refusal to take the most intelligent approach to contradicting his strategy, one side of the argument has nothing to even remotely back them up. Perhaps a little recap of the arguments in the three threads would be useful:

BQ: Delaying Bronze Working makes sense on certain map types.
Pros: You can't win on serious difficulties by delaying Bronze Working.
BQ: Here's a map where I win on Immortal by delaying Bronze Working.
Pros: It wasn't Deity.
BQ: Here's a map where I win on Deity by delaying Bronze Working.
Pros: I got a faster Liberalism date but didn't win the game.
BQ: Here's a replay where I got a faster Liberalism date, which pushed back my victory several turns. This seems to indicate that the fastest Liberalism date does not indicate the fastest victory date.
Pros: You got lucky twice in a row on an isolated Deity map.

At this point, the Pros should interject with a simple "Here's a playthrough that shows what we're talking about. Note that we won fifty turns earlier, and there was absolutely no luck whatsoever involved."

Instead, all that's happened is: Mock the strategy that has won this map, then bluntly refuse to back it up with anything remotely resembling actually playing the game.

There are forums and threads for fun. This isn't one of them. It is for discussing whether a given strategy/tactic works/is optimal. What the expert players should have done as soon as he won the map was play it through and post their own victory screens. This would have allowed for

We'd need at least dozens of games played by several people to get better picture. Ain't happening so far... because the map's simply not fun.

What has fun got do with it? Either you're here to discuss strategy/tactics, or you're not.

 

[Mylene]

If you are not seeing that not his strategy "won" this map, any further discussion is pointless anyways.
You are right, this thread is not one for fun. Starts with several peoples writing style, i feel like reading a professors lecture about what should be done. Too bad they are not as wise in Civ4 as you should be when acting like professors here.

 

[Revent]

BQ: Delaying Bronze Working makes sense on certain map types.
Pros: You can't win on serious difficulties by delaying Bronze Working.
BQ: Here's a map where I win on Immortal by delaying Bronze Working.
Pros: It wasn't Deity.
BQ: Here's a map where I win on Deity by delaying Bronze Working.
Pros: I got a faster Liberalism date but didn't win the game.
BQ: Here's a replay where I got a faster Liberalism date, which pushed back my victory several turns. This seems to indicate that the fastest Liberalism date does not indicate the fastest victory date.
Pros: You got lucky twice in a row on an isolated Deity map.

At least one person won the first map with bronze working with better results in regards to the statement in bold.

 

[babar]

He's said that on map types where it makes sense to delay Bronze Working anyway, there's a Liberalism path should it make sense for you to go for it.

Unfortunately that is not what he said at all.

He claimed it was the only way he could have won, and challenged various players to prove it wasn't the optimal strategy.

Brennus and his defenders keep changing the goal posts. If I understand correctly, the entirety of the strategy is to avoid teching or trading for compass and metal casting so that you can bulb liberalism a particular way. But what is good about this new way? It doesn't get you there faster, or in a better position, even on this specially rigged map. If it could be explained how this "no BW" strategy is different post-liberalism, then there might be an argument for playing past liberalism to test it.

Besides, getting liberalism first is nice, but unnecessary for a culture win. All you lose is a few turns researching Nationalism, but you are likely to lose more turns by spending GPs to get liberalism first anyway.

Honestly I'm mildly impressed that Brennus found delaying bronze working until after liberalism is even viable (in very specific circumstances), and if that had been his only claim, then I for one wouldn't be chipping in here.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

...
Honestly I'm mildly impressed that Brennus found delaying bronze working until after liberalism is even viable (in very specific circumstances), and if that had been his only claim, then I for one wouldn't be chipping in here.

Very generous of you to say so.

Unfortunately, you still don't seem to understand the strategy that Brennus.Quigley clearly explained as well as is humanly possible. One does not delay Bronze Working until after Liberalism is completed. One delays Bronze Working until one has bulbed most of Liberalism; this allows Bronze Working and technologies dependent on it to be traded for and thus the 1st to Liberalism free Technology can be one that requires technologies that dependent on Bronze Working. This vastly increases the value of the Strategy under certain circumstances where the desired free Technology depends on BW.

Sun Tzu Wu