Featured Game 1 Spoiler thread #1

[rf900]

Thanks Thal, I feel more confident now. After stabilizing happiness I had 3 options: Domination (not good as I am friendly with all and a bit behind tech), Science (complicated as Suleiman seems to be going for the same and has more pop, cities and points).

So I picked my last option, Diplomacy. I am allied with 4 CS like Elizabeth, good thing she is not very friendly amongst some civ he he, I will probably try some backstabbing latter on. Now I concentrate on growth, keeping happiness on the limit. AI has so much more pop, gold and happiness, is it worth comparing to his values or I shouldn't mind about it?

 

[Thalassicus]

You might be able to catch up if you continue expanding. There's a large number of valuable islands scattered around the continents which the AIs tend to not settle. These typically have stone or other luxuries on them for a happiness bonus. Diplomatic victory would probably be the easiest one to go for, though.

 

[Geppenguin]

I'm not used to playing on King as I prefer a more relaxed game where the AI doesn't get significant advantages (i.e. Prince), so I'm more or less being owned right now. The score screen speaks for itself with Suleiman at the top with more than double my points. Greece and Siam allied against me after my relations with Greece fell apart (which caused Siam, India and France to denounce me). I'm trying to take Bucharest (an ally of Greece) but it is spam purchasing skirmishers. I'll have to wait for cannon and minutemen before trying again... :/

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: The post by rf900 is now in the spoiler thread (here).

 

[Txurce]

I'm really enjoying this game - my first one in almost a month, on a better monitor than I had before. The many barb camps led me to research Archery after Mining, and that paid off as I quickly cleaned out all the local camps.

The critical move in my game so far was accepting a DoF with Greece. They DoW's a weak Arabia, so it seemed wise short-term, although I know how troublesome they can be. Sure enough, they asked me to denounce the continent-leading Ottomans, and I had no choice. While I was able to have them engage in a second war, the Ottomans eventually DoW'd me. Fortunately I had two Militaristic allies, and have used them to keep me in units. The Ottomans are still not past the Levy stage, so I drove them back and am now harassing Ankara with two range and two ground units.

I decided to stick with Liberty as an experiment - I play these games either with Tradition, Honor, or a mix like Seek. But I have yet to clear the tree - I was saving the free GA, and forgot about it (...). I've also researched up to Protectionism in Commerce and Aesthetics in Patronage.

Washington missed out on the Pyramids, but has built the Great Lighthouse, The Oracle, Angkor Wat and the Porcelain Tower.

As a result I've had two GM's, and these have allowed me to buy more buildings than I ever have before.

I reached Astronomy on turn 136 with four continental cities (11. 11, 6, 5) and a present tech rate of 131 bpt (DoF's with Greece and Siam.) I didn't particularly hurry, researching Machinery for defense before making the final push. My score is better than usual: 408, with the Ottomans leading at 511.

As soon as Washington finishes an aqueduct, I'll start settling 3 cities on the islands to the NW. I don't know if being at 4 solid cities at this stage means I wound up playing tall. Still, that should help me not fall much farther behind Thal... and maybe allow me to sneak up on Seek!

 

[Txurce]

Here's the thing: Alexander bloody bought Budapest off of me just as he did his backstab! On the first turn of the war, Budapest slaughtered my catapult and archer, set there in anticipation for the attack, from the rear! Meanwhile Alexander did the anticipated frontal attack. Boston was promptly surrounded by pikes and the lone catapult couldn't keep it for long, even with the pioneer fort.

That is brutal, and nothing I would get down on myself for.

In retrospect, my biggest mistake was not exploring the islands, and settle to the free space, instead going towards the middle were everyone else was. Another was not playing either tall or wide, going liberty but still not able to avoid my old habit of wonder-building. Now I'm stuck with a tall empire with neither Tradition for all the perks nor Professional Army to pay for the war.[/QUOTE]

I've played much like you, tall-ish with Liberty, but built my four cities where they can be defended. The big difference is that I'm allies (for now) with Alex, whereas you were on a collision course after building west of Budapest. (I'm north of Budapest, NW of Washington, and SE from Edinburgh. The only one at all threatened is the one north of Budapest, and it's pretty easy to hold that one vs a somewhat depleted Suleiman.

 

[Txurce]

So I picked my last option, Diplomacy. I am allied with 4 CS like Elizabeth, good thing she is not very friendly amongst some civ he he, I will probably try some backstabbing latter on. Now I concentrate on growth, keeping happiness on the limit. AI has so much more pop, gold and happiness, is it worth comparing to his values or I shouldn't mind about it?

I agree that you have the building blocks to win. Forget the AI until closer to the end - they'll always have more of everything than you, except maybe science. Just be strategic as you close in on the UN in terms of DoWing your rival, having a base from which to strike with one turn until the vote, etc.

 

[Seek]

I'm really enjoying this game - my first one in almost a month, on a better monitor than I had before. The many barb camps led me to research Archery after Mining, and that paid off as I quickly cleaned out all the local camps.

The critical move in my game so far was accepting a DoF with Greece. They DoW's a weak Arabia, so it seemed wise short-term, although I know how troublesome they can be. Sure enough, they asked me to denounce the continent-leading Ottomans, and I had no choice.

Glad you're back! I encountered a similar situation with Greece - I had actually accepted two DoFs (couldn't resist that juicy science) and was thinking "I sure hope this DoF is almost over" because I smelled a rat, when they demanded I denounce Arabia, and knowing that Arabia are much more loyal friends than Greece ever will be, I refused. Greece immediately denounced me, giving me a major diplo penalty with everyone else in the world (including Greece, they hated that "a friend found reason to denounce me" just as much as anyone, even though they were the "friend" in question!) and eventually DoWed me. Thankfully every other Civ hated Greece as much as I, so in the end it was a diplo positive.

 

[Txurce]

Glad you're back! I encountered a similar situation with Greece - I had actually accepted two DoFs (couldn't resist that juicy science) and was thinking "I sure hope this DoF is almost over" because I smelled a rat, when they demanded I denounce Arabia, and knowing that Arabia are much more loyal friends than Greece ever will be, I refused. Greece immediately denounced me, giving me a major diplo penalty with everyone else in the world (including Greece, they hated that "a friend found reason to denounce me" just as much as anyone, even though they were the "friend" in question!) and eventually DoWed me. Thankfully every other Civ hated Greece as much as I, so in the end it was a diplo positive.

Arabia is definitely the friend you want for most of the game. I'll be very curious to see whether the diplo hit hurts you in any meaningful way (can't get a DoF, trade deals bad enough to hurt). I expect to be sorry for my choice!

 

[Seek]

Arabia is definitely the friend you want for most of the game. I'll be very curious to see whether the diplo hit hurts you in any meaningful way (can't get a DoF, trade deals bad enough to hurt). I expect to be sorry for my choice!

Without giving away any meaningful spoilers, the denunciation did make friending up the (worthwhile) civs overseas more difficult. I'm certain I could have gotten earlier DoFs with at least one civ without that stain on my reputation.

I find it very surprising that you opted to side with Greece, though I admit to holding a longstanding grudge against Alex and unless Monty is nearby I will plot war as soon as I meet him. It sounds like the Ottoman's have fared far better in your game than mine (I think that Greece had whittled them down to just their capital at one point; they were pretty gimped after that) - what was your diplomatic position with them before Greece's demand, friend or foe?

 

[Txurce]

Without giving away any meaningful spoilers, the denunciation did make friending up the (worthwhile) civs overseas more difficult. I'm certain I could have gotten earlier DoFs with at least one civ without that stain on my reputation.

I find it very surprising that you opted to side with Greece, though I admit to holding a longstanding grudge against Alex and unless Monty is nearby I will plot war as soon as I meet him. It sounds like the Ottoman's have fared far better in your game than mine (I think that Greece had whittled them down to just their capital at one point; they were pretty gimped after that) - what was your diplomatic position with them before Greece's demand, friend or foe?

Alexander is by far my least favorite leader, and I felt I was mistaking a mistake when I accepted his DoF. I did it because it was my first offer, and Arabia is sometimes slow to make an offer. At the time they were at war with Greece doing much better than Arabia, so it was one or the other, and I took the bird in the hand. The Ottomans jumped out to a huge points lead earlier, and kept it, oddly, even after losing a city early to Greece. They were neutral with me, but wouldn't trade OB's straight up.

 

[Txurce]

I'm well past Astronomy by now, but have some questions about the game mechanics.

1) Why were there so many barb camps at the start, and why were they so passive?

2) I have had two militaristic allies pretty much all game long. I have received mounted units from them about 2/3 of the time... and zero siege units. This has had a major effect on my warring. Is there any reason for it?

 

[Seek]

I'm well past Astronomy by now, but have some questions about the game mechanics.

1) Why were there so many barb camps at the start, and why were they so passive?

2) I have had two militaristic allies pretty much all game long. I have received mounted units from them about 2/3 of the time... and zero siege units. This has had a major effect on my warring. Is there any reason for it?

1) I suspect Thal placed the with the Tuner and it's bugged. In the other games I've played with 10.8 the barbs have been spawning normally.

2) I received siege units in my game, I suppose you just had bad luck.

 

[tlaurila]

The game's about to close, but I'm still only just reaching the end of renaissance. Anyways, here's a situation report from my game:

After Greece declared on me and took Boston, I made a defensive line at New York, at that little lake W of Washington. Held it quite easy, even made use of a couple forts there, but more important are roads. One funny occurence was the Greeks expanding to the neutral hex under my fort (4 hexes from NY), "taking" the fort while my unit was on it, and the fort started to hurt my units. Easily pillaged, though, but just occurred that it would be smart if you couldn't expand borders on a hex occupied by an enemy.

I switched techs from going top-side heavy to the medieval-renaissance military techs at the bottom row. I'm now researching dynamite for arty, and still I don't have astronomy. In retrospect, I probably should have stopped the military tech run at cannons and shoot for Scientific Theory, since I'm owning Greeks with "just" cannon anyway. The Great Library from my erroneous early wonder-building days have netted three Academia for Washington that could use the boost.

Turning point of the game was me starting to settle the islands NE, which gave much needed gold. Greeks also bought allies with Vienna while I was just friends. I took and puppeted Vienna relatively easily with couple swords and catapults, by then obsolete but more than enough against Vienna's levies and archers. Puppeting Vienna allowed me the gold to mount a decent war machine to go on offensive. I was actually suffering science penalty from negative gold for a while there.

War with the Greeks have been slow, but I've broken them by now. They also fought Arabia some, and now are in a war against me and Ottomans. I took a city by the Fountain of Youth the Greeks had taken from the Ottomans. Then took back Boston, which is in the hills next to the dye and elephants. Boston was the hardest-fought, annoyingly protected from trebuchets by the forest at the dyes. After Boston, Budabest was a breeze. I razed a Greek city by the inland sea, and took another SW of it. Now I'm going for Sparta S of Athens, and then Athens. Ottomans are knocking on Athens's gates from the north, so it'll be an interesting run to try to nab it out of the Ottoman's jaws before they bite the killing blow.

India is by far the score leader in my game at ~1200. Ottomans are second with ~950. I'm right with the pack with ~850. India and Arabia are tech leaders, Ottomans have by far the biggest army, though I'm catching up. India seems to be going culture, having 3+ trees, and hogging up culture wonders. Maybe I will have to nuke them later on

Since Alex hogged CSs, more than half of them now hate my guts, even though we barely seen each other. That flushes down Diplo victory chances, or does that min 20 relation in Patronage cancel the relations set at -60 after war? Going Science seems to be the option I got left. I have plenty of land, so time to start turning puppets to occupations for more science.

Question at this point is: After Alex is dead, his lands divided between me and Ottomans, where do I go from there? I have a strong army, so it'd be a shame to just let it sit there. But I'm also really stretched for happiness as is, so can't absorb much more conquests. And India, Arabia and Ottomans seem to be in a peculiar polyamory triangle where they all love each other . Arabia has a weak army, so if I prep for it I should be able to take on Ottomans and Arabia both, especially if I time it right with my early arty, which should be able to really slaughter Suleiman's horde of renaissance units.

Declaring war on any of this gang of 3 strong civs will likely only drive them closer together, however, and me fusing an alliance between the current score leader and second doesn't sound anyhow sound. Theoretically Ottomans should not really like India, them being #1 and #2 in score now, so maybe I could break their triangle by allying with Ottomans against India and Arabia. But that's a long shot, Ottomans probably hate me more than India for "coveting lands you own". So I could just try to develop Greek lands and keep fingers crossed it is enough for science victory before India pops Utopia. I should then prepare to decapitate India if must, too. Never had to disrupt a culture victory before, actually. Any pointers on how to? (Nuking capital seems less effective than with space ship)

By the way, isn't it odd that minutemen upgrade to rifles? Normal skirmishers keep to the vanguard line and go Light Infantry.

 

[Txurce]

Since Alex hogged CSs, more than half of them now hate my guts, even though we barely seen each other. That flushes down Diplo victory chances, or does that min 20 relation in Patronage cancel the relations set at -60 after war? Going Science seems to be the option I got left. I have plenty of land, so time to start turning puppets to occupations for more science.

Question at this point is: After Alex is dead, his lands divided between me and Ottomans, where do I go from there? I have a strong army, so it'd be a shame to just let it sit there. But I'm also really stretched for happiness as is, so can't absorb much more conquests. And India, Arabia and Ottomans seem to be in a peculiar polyamory triangle where they all love each other . Arabia has a weak army, so if I prep for it I should be able to take on Ottomans and Arabia both, especially if I time it right with my early arty, which should be able to really slaughter Suleiman's horde of renaissance units.

By the way, isn't it odd that minutemen upgrade to rifles? Normal skirmishers keep to the vanguard line and go Light Infantry.

Aesthetics means all those angry CS will be predisposed toward you one turn after peace, so a Diplomatic win is still an option. If you can generate the gold, and don't think there's another AI focusing on it, there's no reason to pursue it. I haven't played for a Diplo win since the tech tree was rearranged, so I don't know how much longer it would take for you to reach a Science victory. Where do you rank in techs?

I was surprised by the Minuteman option as well, although I don't have strong feelings about it.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm well past Astronomy by now, but have some questions about the game mechanics.

1) Why were there so many barb camps at the start, and why were they so passive?

2) I have had two militaristic allies pretty much all game long. I have received mounted units from them about 2/3 of the time... and zero siege units. This has had a major effect on my warring. Is there any reason for it?

1) This variable exists in the game files:
MAX_BARBARIANS_FROM_CAMP_NEARBY = 2

I'm guessing an unintentional side-effect of the way I placed the barbarian camps is some of them were within range of one another, which meant each camp counted its neighbor and believed there to be 2 barbarians present. I'd mistakenly assumed it doesn't count barbarians in a camp. In GotVEM Game 2 I spread out the camps more, which should avoid this problem. I place camps manually so everyone has a level playing field at the start.

2) Militaristic rewards are totally random so you just had bad luck.

Since Alex hogged CSs, more than half of them now hate my guts, even though we barely seen each other. That flushes down Diplo victory chances, or does that min 20 relation in Patronage cancel the relations set at -60 after war?

Whether your influence is 0 or -40, if you're at peace, it gets set to 20. This is the main use of the policy.

Question at this point is: After Alex is dead, his lands divided between me and Ottomans, where do I go from there?

Based on the current status of your game, and since you said Gandhi is going for a culture victory, I'd probably go invade India after getting Astronomy. It's not too far from Washington's territory. This will set you back a bit in relation to Arabia, but the Ottomans don't particularly hate warmongers so you might make it out without any denouncements. To disrupt a culture victory, just capture the capital. There's plenty of room for a landing force near Delhi.

Minutemen upgrade to Rifles in vanilla. I forgot to change this to Light Infantry, which was an unintended bug fixed in v108.1 beta.

 

[tlaurila]

Based on the current status of your game, and since you said Gandhi is going for a culture victory, I'd probably go invade India after getting Astronomy. It's not too far from Washington's territory. This will set you back a bit in relation to Arabia, but the Ottomans don't particularly hate warmongers so you might make it out without any denouncements.

Too late, I tried to maneuver to get someone to hate on India with me after being done with Greece, but now I've been denounced by everyone but France. Looks like the World is thinking I expanded too much - even though both India and Ottomans are yet larger.

Another major misfortune in this game for me to have India runaway on the other continent. India just entered the Modern era, whereas I'm just a couple techs into industrial, India is out-sciencing everyone, including me, clearly. The race looks bad both culture and science-wise. But very interesting and fun!

Looks to me like I will have to either focus fully on attacking India, risking annihilation if Arabia and Ottomans join in. Or move quickly to gut the capital areas of Arabia and Ottomans, and hope I don't end up choking on unhappiness for too long to mount an attack on India. Because of India's lead on better units, I think I'm going latter and then trying to nuke them at the right time as my last ditch effort...