Extreme Ice Age 2 (and a 1/2): United States of Alaska

[SirRealSurreal]

Hello everyone! I am back after a long hiatus from civ after getting busy with my new job, but decided to pick back up just in time to see a new version of VP dropped! Big fan so far btw, but anyway it wasn't long before I decided to revisit my old project from like a year ago, but with this fancy new vox populi: my homebrewed extreme ice age scenario.

Basically, In order to examine the effects of widespread scarcity on both AI behavior and optimal human strategy, I will (hopefully) be playing a series of games that I will screenshot and document here.

Previous iteration/extreme ice age #1: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/scenario-extreme-ice-age.660103/

Full Background:
The trick is that they take place on big, fully populated ice age maps set to "cool" temperature. Doing such settings leads to vast swaths of ice and tundra interrupted by a fairly thin equatorial belt of plains and jungle, making usable land VERY valuable and high-demand. Civs are chosen based on whether they have special traits, units, and/or buildings which could prove advantageous in such a world, with bottom-performing few being replaced in each iteration.

As I alluded to, I've tried this a couple times before. Didn't really save or document first go around, where I played Morocco and lost (winner was Russia via science though, remember that much). Im retroactively designating that Extreme Ice Age 'game 0'. After that game, though, which was even more interesting and tactically unique than I'd expected, I decided to try more and start keeping and posting photojournals; I very narrowly won as the Inca via diplomatic (narrowly as in, I was just two turns away from the much higher-score Sweden finishing their spaceship; it was practically a draw).

The link for that is at the top, as is my aborted second attempt at playing US after repeated technical issues with that old version, which eventually led to me dropping civ for awhile as soon as I got a little busier around the same time. Hopefully won't have same issues with the new full version and all.


TLDR: game played on ice age map set even colder via "cool" temperature, and seeing what happens with civs having to push and fight for every rare scrap of usable land, or find ways to thrive w/o any.


So anyway, without further ado, Here's the set-up:

Difficulty: Immortal
Human civ: US
Map size: Huge
map type: Ice Age
Temp: cool
Resources: normal
Players: 12civ 24cs
Sea level: normal
Landmass type: Wide continents

*Note: Might play around with those last couple in future playthroughs to compare*

Only additional mod is the "VP7" extra events, and Only options changes are disabling start bias (for obvious reasons) and enable GG points from Barbarians (not scenario-specific, I just like it more and never really understood why it wouldn't be the default in the first place).

I'll start uploading photos and actual logging of game itslef soon, just wanted to get this intro post out of the way.

Good luck to me.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Sorry for delay, bit of a busy week combined with issues with the first game I tried; I updated to the 1.03 version, and even though I could no longer load the previous saves from 1.01, I just started a new one and haven't had any issues so far.

So without further ado, here's the start:

Turn 01: As you can see, I got a bit of a more fertile start compared to last time. looks like my capital is pretty intermediate between the snow and equatorial regions. Also, it looks like Gold is going to be my main local/monopoly resource.

Turn 04: Going a little farther, see border of my first neighboring city state as well as my first wonder. Probably gonna try and settle this region first, before it gets gobbled up by my still-hidden neighbors (presumably).

Turn 12: so I've ran into a couple pathfinders and scouts, but so far Only found the actual lands of Russia and two city-states. I have found a few solid ruins rewards so far though, like gold and 2 separate population boosts (Truly, a nation of Immigrants it is that I lead), so overall not much to complain about from early exploration.

See, the Gold is important early on for American strategy, due to manifest destiny converting land purchase to production. I've only played Washington once before, but I remember that the rate is especially efficient early on. a couple nice gold hauls from ruins allows things like, oh, I dunno...

I already know where I'll be sending my free settler.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Oh Also, I kiiiinda might have forgotten this, so I'll just address this now: the choice of civilizations. In between iterations, I want to try any Civs with units, abilities, or whatever else might directly benefit them in a frozen hellscape. When I played the Incans, last time, the Mountain based-bonuses really held explain what could be consider "habitable" areas, and terrace farms made even snowy/arctic ranges able to produce decent enough food for a nearby city. As another example, Polynesians can use their ocean bonuses to rely on the sea and Moai can turn even patches of snow and tundra into something at least nominally useful (I'm happy to elaborate further on any specific choices if anyone asks, btw).

I'm gonna be replacing the lowest few performers between each iteration, though that doesn't mean I might not throw 'em back in later. Last time, that would be Spain, India, Venice, Celts and Egypt, I believe. New to this round are Portugal, Shoshone, Indonesia, America (obviously) and England. The English weren't actually included because they seem like they be particularly well-fit to the Ice age map, I just figured that if I'm playing a nation built from the colonies of another, might as well include the historical parent/foundational enemy as well.

Anyway, I'll be including more over the coming days. I went up to about turn 100ish just to make sur there wouldn't be any early crashes like the last time, but it shouldn't take too long to catch up, and then I'll be posting pretty much as I play through.

So, stay tuned I guess. Or don't, if you don't want to, it's up to you. After all, this is a Free™ Country...

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Continuing on; by the 50s turn wise, the map is really starting to fill out as other, non-pyramid-building civilizations are building their second cities (and sometimes third ones right after). I finally have a better idea who and where my neighbors and not-so-neighbors actually are.

Also...

As you can see, besides the Russians to the west, I have the Polynesians and the Dutch to the East, with their unfortunately juxtaposed yellow & Orange/yelloe-orange and white color schemes already clashing at shared borders. Also worth noting, I cant tell if there's a northern connection to the northern side of their continent with mine yet. Even if there isn't though, the Dutch aren't exactly known as a bunch of hydrophobic land-lubbers, historically speaking. Due to the high possibility of future conflict, I decided that I wanted to keep the city "New York" in storage, so to speak, for future use; if I conquer a Dutch city in the future, I will immediately rename it New York.

So, second city of mine, you are retroactively being renamed... lets go with... Chicago. Still one of the largest cities in the country, surrounded by plains and wheat, in the middle of everything... fitting enough. Especially if that sea really ends up being an inland sea.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

So fun fact, it is an inland sea! also, the Dutch went and already colonized the most fertile part of my continent's eastern coast.

As you can see, the city of Utrecht (hereon referred to as "future New York") is in quite a prime location, one I was planning to settle myself, in fact. It has access to pearls, sugar, iron and horses... I mean I cans till sttle the area above I suppose, have a port on the ACTUAL ocean... its probably even better for it, I'll tell myself unconvincingly.

Luckily, I don't think I have to worry about the Dutch beating me to settling again, since by an amazing non-coincidence I had already been building a settler to settle the exact tile Future New York is located! You can see its already built and on its way by the time of this screenshot, but I will just use it to settle above Future New York as I alluded to above. Now, that northern river still leads out to an ocean with clams and fish, is situated to the frigid north of an already cold but bigger and more economically significant port city of (future) New York, one which it will likely serve as a base of rivalry and antagonism (in this case militarily) towards in the times to come...

Of course I named it Boston.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

I'd be remiss to say though, I'm having some other territorial issues in the southern realms.

Honestly I was seriously considering sending out my next settler to that area, not that exact tile but just one over to the southwest, where it could also make use of Solomon's Mines (and put me in purchasing distance of Harald's marble, if I felt like playing with that particular fire). Unlike the location of Future New York, I wasn't fully set on the decision though, just because it would be difficult and very resource/unit intensive to defend if Harald ever saw it and thought "MINE". Maybe its for the best. I do still have plenty of room in the western Quasi-Siberia region between me and a fairly distant Russia to build out too, so its not like I'm being smothered. Still probably should have focused on expansion a bit more a bit earlier in retrospect, but oh well. I do still have the famous tropical paradise of Chicago.

Anyway elsewhere, I think I might have found a Greenland type island or continent... Who knows, maybe it snakes down into living biomes just out of my current view, but for now it looks like a fairly sizable landmass to my northeast that might be all ice and snow. And hills, apparently. Idk, maybe the inca will come colonize it one day, especially if there's an actual mountain range nearby.

That would form a fitting parallel to my sucessful mid-game AntarctInca colonization project from last game... (IMAGE FROM PRIOR GAME, NOT CURRENT ONE):



...Wherein I settled one side of a small icy but mountainous continent and used it as a sort of base of operations to conquer a nicely situated (i.e. hella mountainous) though inland indigenous city state to form a surprisingly industrious dual-city colony.

We'll see how things shake out up there.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Oh my God, not only is does it look like that Northeastern landmass is really a small, unconnected frozen continent, It's literally inhabited by Sidon again. They even gave me dromon to "join my expedition" as I'm the first one to bother exploring up here I guess. Unfortuantely, the "port" city of sidon touches a single coast tile fully blocked in by ice.

I just gifted it to another city state, because literally what else could I do with it... ridiculous. Ya know what Sidon, just for that cruelly ironic gestue, I might just conquer you AGAIN this game too. consider yourself liable to some Manifest Destiny.

On the bright side, I did find some more ruins, which gave me nomads to settle around th enearest city. This is actually pretty useful considering my expansion race between Boston and William's future New York, so no complaints on that point.

Well at this point, We're almost to where I actually have gotten in-game, so I'll post again tomorrow or later this week with another batch, but I can say it will start with the development of religion in this god(s)forsaken icy hell of a world; the optional 'stay tuned' continues to apply.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

On turn 91, I get the prophet my people have assuredly been anxiously awaiting. Mine will be the third religion founded, which is pretty good all things considered, but the pantheon I chose (Stars and Sky: tundra resource tiles get culture, food and faith bonuses) is kind of OP on this map believe it or not. I believe, as Russia has founded the Orthodox church and Morocco founded Islam not like just a turn or two before this, actually. Now, America is historically a fairly Christian-majority nation; but you know what's arguably the MOST American sect? The one that came up with "Jesus, but American!"

Note: I just picked the Catholic cross cause it looks cooler than the protestant one.

As you can see from my beliefs, I've decided I'm going to try and go cultural victory as primary goal this time. This is more of a default tactic then anything else; As I've said previously, I want to try and play a few XIA games until I win one of each main victory type. I just squeaked by and got diplo victory last time, and domination is going to probably be the hardest and require the earliest commitment, especially since I'm playing these on huge maps to maximize battle-royale aspect. That leaves Science and Culture, and science is by far the easiest to 'Plan B' so to speak while going for any of the other three. That just leaves culture for this run to aim for.

I also finish my first policy branch around this time, and obviously will probably go artistry next.

I also build a settler around this time, and am trying to decide where to next settle. I'm first thing about going farther down the strip of tropical land and building just East of Tyre; I could build get some Amber and more pearls, plus theres some areas with tice atolls and---

Ok. Well, plan B, it's not quite as optimal but theres a patch of desert on the southern coast between Chicago and Wittenberg, wouldnt et me a ton of new land or resources, but could still make strategically valuable canal in a fertile area that---

Harald backstabs and denounces me about two turns later.

What a dick. Not a fan.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

I sent my redirected settler to a river/port area within 3-tile reach of horses, Coral and gold, + iron and extra horses just 4 tiles away. Though a bit far from my mainland, this city does have the potnetial to serve as a real gateway to the west, so I named it St. Louis because I think I heard that term when visiting the big metal rainbow -thing that one time as a kid.

Hey, there's horses and a river too; I mean, good enough. I promise to come up with a more clever city name/association with my next settler, which I'm already building. See, I've fallen into a trap that I am, if anything, usually on the other side of: I may not be playin wide enough.

If I seemed more middle of the road expansion-wise for most of last game, that was actually an act of restraint on my part. I know my playing style well enough to be able to point to over-extension as the biggest risk I set for myself, but this game... I don't know, there's just always been something more pressing. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that its possible this might be exacerbated by an aspect of this challenge I've already noticed in the past. For anyone who read my prior photojournal, while its still a bit early, its looking like the...

ICE AGE INSIGHT™ #1:

... that the AI actually plays WIDER when faced with resource/good land scarcity.

Now, rough eyeballing tells me that, for this game at least, they're a bit less expansive than last time but still a bit more expansive than fertile/normal maps. Maybe this is a product of slight changes in the AI after a year, maybe its random variation or statistical noise. I don't know (yet), but the realization has led me to decide to prioritize expansion a bit more in the near future. Really Manifestiny that mostly-untouched western frontier, especially.

In the mean time though, I get an unexpected message from my Siberian not-really-neighbor:

someone obviously pays too much heed to the words of an angry, mediocre Viking.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Been a busy week, but I'm back. Anyway, The settling conundrums continue:

Oh HELL no William. I actually asked him to not settle near me, however, and to my surprise he listened.

Damn right.

Danish expanionsism continues unabated, however, and its hard not to feel like conflict is inevitable. In the meantime I'm going to try and build another settler or two to shore up the central area of my empire. Perhaps I've been manifesting my destiny a little early/overzealously when areas right at my backdoor are being gobbled up all of a sudden. We shall see.

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Coulda seen this coming. Luckily I'd already been focusing on building up my army to an adequately mediocre size, so I wasn't completely unprepared for a military campaign from Harald Bluetooth the Wireless.

I also think that despite his ramblings, the real reason for his war declaration might have just been bribery from someone else, for whatever reason, because he does not hae an arm amasssed at m border when this happens. This gives me enough time to quickly move most available, non-garrison troops to my southern border, and even to lay siege to Viborg before Harald can move in to block my path with his larger army.

I'm very helped by the geography, as you can see. Harald can't attack me by sea, and has to defend a city easier for my troops to reach than his own, especiall given the presence of my ally wittenberg right by the two-tile connecting isthmus. I just pump out mostly catapults at a rate matching their deaths and keep the pressure on while I use stronger troops to guard the isthmus into my continent.

Success does come eventually, though with the Danish navy on the coast on standby, I just can't defend my new conquest. After pupprting it the first time n a fit of naive optimism, we trade it back and forth as I try razing it instead from then on, though with the population loss from turn-ly sackings, this is hardly necessary; but I can't have Viborg, Im not gonna let Harald have it either.

I do find a way to salvage a solid consolation prize though. See, while it would be foolhardy to try and settle a city of my own on the southern coast, I CAN make a citadel on the isthmus during a brief window of controlling Viborg.

I briefly lose it when Viborg is finally razed to the ground, but I quickly settle a new city on the south western coast three tiles away and buy the necessary now-unclaimed tiles. I then try to build a fort on the northern shore (where Wittenberg built a desert farm), though its predictably hard to keep a worker on the tile for three turns. Once ir done though, it will give me a one-way canal into the southern sea that Harald can't use himself. I call the city Los Angeles cause its warm, desert adjacent and on the southwestern shore of my empire.

All the back and forth moves the Warscore to zero, but Harald does not want peace. Instead, he shifts then to on-and-off seiging Wittenberg (even though the Dutch had already usurped my alliance, HArald did not make peace with them) and occasionally sending a troop or two into my borders to be pillage around until being sacrificed to my army for awhile. Honestly, fine by me.

 

[4CV]

Very nice to read your report. Good luck to you!

 

[SirRealSurreal]

Very nice to read your report. Good luck to you!

Thanks, glad to hear!

 

[SirRealSurreal]

One other thing happening around this period is Dutch expansion to the north. at first this does not really bother me, I mean look at this:

I get the value of the general area, but this is one of those baffling specific tile choices I might have ever seen. I've noticed before that the AI in VP seems to have a slight over-bias towards maximizing sea tiles in comparison to land tiles; but in this case, if William had settled just one tile lower, he not only would have kept the same amount of sea and traded snow hills on the north shore of the bay for tundra hills and a gold source within his workable tile reach.

Maybe this kind of anti-ingenuity is probably why the Dutch could never seem to hold onto their real colonial holdings for very long. Regardless, his next settler shortly after proves a bit more problematic. See, at the moment I traverse the northern sea, as there's a single tile ice blocking the path near Malacca; However there is also an area just to the south where a single fort canal could fix that little issue...

The general are isn't exactly a future breadbasket-in-waiting, and the only nearby luxury is just another gold, so settling close enough on the mouth of a nearby river mainly to give access to my own little northwest passage has not been an immediate priority with everything else going on, especially since it would probably take a while to get any city there to be productive enough to stop compensate for yield requirement increases. That being said...

...William forces my hand. I have progress and he doesn't, so my settlers are a bit faster, but even after I buy some tiles near Washington for the quick production boost, It onl proves to be kind of enough.

Not only is there an encampment on the tile I would have wanted to settle, even the other side of the river is just out of reach, since William (who is clearly aiming for it) would beat me to settling by a turn. Unfortunately, If I want the land, I'll have to settle inland, and now. At least There's some consolation horses nearby.

I decided that this cold city, nestled between more significant cities and placed just near the coast without touching it, is going to be called Philadelphia.

William briefly shifts his settler to the southern coast between Washington and St Louis, but I quickly Manifestiny some sudden border expansion to cut that option off too.



Meanwhile, Through all of this, Harald has STILL been refusing to make peace with me even by around turn 170. This only finally changes when his belegered troops finally succeed in conquering wittenberg...

...which I immediately recapture and liberate. And I can just keep doing so from the northern ocean that Harald cant touch me from, but he doesn't make me do this; instead, the Danish dunce finally realizes the pointlessness of his endeavor and sues for peace before he can inflate my warscore any more with any further captures of wittenberg.

Now I can get back to focusing on literally almost ANYTHING ELSE. This unending war has been a real setback and drain on my resources, and as you can probably tell from the scores, I have fallen behind in a lot of big ways. The next few centuries are definitely gonna be focused on infrastructure and the like, and hopefully its not already too late to catch up, but we shall see.

 

[4CV]

again... Was Wittenberg not worth keeping, for better control of that canal area?

 

[SirRealSurreal]

again... Was Wittenberg not worth keeping, for better control of that canal area?

I did think about trying but honestly, It's moreso that I'm not positive I could have expected to keep it . I doubt I could maintain control for more than a turn at a time just based on Harald's land army, and I'd rather have a buffer satellite state as an ally that would keep increasing my warscore everytime we flipped it if Denmark decided to keep recapturing, than have another Viborg situation where Wittenberg slowly burns to rubble under massive casualties on both sides. Besides, I got the fort built by the time it actually happened, so the canal remained in place and usable even after the city was liberated with all immediately adjacent tiles taken back.

 

[4CV]

Yes, thinking about it you're right, otherwise you had probably no peace yet. And I didn`t know you can use canals on allies grounds...

 

[SirRealSurreal]

The next 50 turns or so aren't all that eventful for me, I basically just try and play catch up with culture and science, and to a lesser extent my military, though soon thats enough that my allie finally start offering defensive pacts. I take up the Dutch and Polynesia's offers, but decline Morocco's since they seem perpetually at war with their neighbors. On a related note though, lets see how other empires are developing.

England for example, is getting characteristically colonize-y, such as this area to their northeast:

I'll be referring to that island England is taking over as "Ireland" for any future purposes by the way.

Portugal on the other hand, not doing so well; any attempted expansion just gets taken over, to the point they're starting to look more like an urban starter kit for their neighbors than an actual empire:

I'm not even sure if they're gonna last much longer; and here I thought their Naus and feitorias would give them a real boost when the time came.

On the western side of the world, meanwhile, I think we are beginning to see the related phenomena of inevitable city state mass-absorption into the major civs and the seeming inevitability of large-scale Danish and Russian military expansion:

Wouldn't be surprised to see Prague become a Danish province soon too. Regardless, Reeeeeally don't like how Cahokia now gives Harald Headphone-enabler access to the northern sea even in a potential war scenario (by the way, at no point since peace has he stopped being Hostile).

I'm honestly more focused on Russia for now though, for two reasons:

a) The city I was about to found near its borders an b) the already-eastbound army I discovered in the process. I thought about holding back on settling until I figured out what was going on, but in the end just moved back one tile to give more of a snowy buffer. I may not be able to purchase those whales from Ife later, but at least I have fresh water now, so whatever.

I'm calling this arctic, western edge of my empire Anchorage, for several reasons. One is that given my naming of this playthrough "The united States of Alaska", it's probably abpout time I have an actual city in Alaska, and this seems the natural choice given it's cold-even-for-the-map climate and unique proximity to Russia.

I think its worth the risk because its a much more valuable area than the snow-covered ground around it betrays. Along with the metla riches of nearby Iron and copper (yes, I plan to probably eventually steal that one already claimed by Russia to the south), is juust close enough to the northern(est) sea give me an opportunity to fix a critical but previously overlookeded issue:

There are actually TWO glaciers that were blocking my Northwest Passage. GIven the opportune placement of that iron resource, though, hopefully my border will expand to take it within a reasonable timeframe so that I can citadel the next tile up and build a fort on the potential canal tile right above THAT. We shall see if my gambles pay off, but In the meantime I'll definitely be building up defensive units and buildings (with the help of a lot of manifest destiny tile purchases, of course) as a priority, since is hard not to expect real conflict with Russia at some point in the foreseeable future.

Agree to disagree, Catherine.

 

[4CV]

Settling right into the dragons mouth... But if Russia does not declare war instantly and fire two good volleys of round shot at your longsword, this can only be because of her bad vision at the area. She'll hardly get a better chance to take your new city, with four cannon already nearby and a longsword not too far west.
(AI cannon running around without a single unit for better vision might even be worth opening an issue on github, maybe.)

 

[SirRealSurreal]

The danger of immediate attack isn't actually as dire as it might first seem. For one thing, with America's special abilit to turn tile purchases into production, I can knock on walls and a castle almost immediately. I also have some military units already on their way, while Catherine's are in the middle of the snow. this is significant since the snow limits most units to a tile a turn, my Alaskan stronghold literally can't be attacked as fast.

It ends up being moot, after bring a few more troops close by, she abandons my borders after a few turns. Also, a few more later, my borers finally expand to that iron 4 tiles away, and send of my general to stake his claim.

She doesn't play COMPLETELY nice though, since she does take away some iron and deer to my southwest with her own citadel. Thats ok though, because I ALSO have another general, and the perfect place to park my own citadel.

\

(Its that snaky southernmost tile).

Anyway, in other news, Portugal has gone off to the big Porch in the Sky, making them the first dead civ this game. We'll see if more follow.

Oh one other tiny development... I finally got to Scientific theory, so I can start trying to buy my way out of backwards-dom. I noticed something interesting when shopping around for trades though. And that is the fact that William really, REALLY wants Philadelphia of all places. I guess it makes sense, I've built moderate infrastructure there by now and for him it could connect the two little icy northern ports to the Northwest and north east, and give a bunch more land to develop for those cities as well. But just how much is he willing to give up to create the Pennsylvania Dutch?

Objectively WAY too much. Fantastic.

He'd even just built slater mill in Utrecht/Near-future New York, so once he gicves it to me, it's already the most productive as well ad the most populous city in my empire.

Man I've really been falling behind, haven't I. Oh Well, maybe my somehow-peacefully-acquired New York will help fix that. As long as I can continue my extended peacetime rebuilding phase, and maintain healthy income for purchasing oth--

*Sigh...