Fix the 5th trash game

[KMadCandy]

mice, about my play-through of cam's game:

Spoiler :

i didn't trade hardly any techs at all. resources, you betcha, everything but my copper. altho i did snatch a spice back and irrigated over it to get chain irrigation to gergovia to run one more engineer ... cam would not recognize his IW city if he saw my final map . i sold a couple techs for like 700-800g when they were 2 turns away from it anyway. i refused several demands for space techs, while thinking "no thanks, i'd rather win the game!" after one, roos dropped from pleased to cautious, at that point i went from jewish to FR so that he'd be pleased again. later gus built the UN and we all went FR. i didn't want to lose my back up power, since i had zip zero nada power myself! for a while there roos had DPs with me and with augustus. somehow i think he would have gotten a touch more protection from the one with gus if he'd been in real danger . and yet he was the one to offer it to me, go figure.

i used spies to see what they were researching, so i knew what i'd get from the internet, and spent my beakers on the other stuff (health mostly, which was fine i wanted it soonish anyway). i used the money to sabotage some of roos's health resources. couldn't afford, and didn't want to risk, sab'g the actual production, but hitting his only source of corn for example, hurts him everywhere! gus had one deer tile, i hit it quite a few times before he finally wised up and put an intimidating military dude to stand guard *giggle*.

i played from another save last week and lost by i think exactly two turns like you did, to gus tho, not roos.

i *know* my golden age wasn't at the perfect time. cyrus was very slowed by the war with korea, his score was sky high but his tech rate was pitiful. he ended up with two vassals, altho wang capitulated, it wasn't voluntary on and off like brennus was. roos teched in peace but he just didn't build really quick. my starving his citizens didn't help him any . and he didn't have any coal, that was handy, except that it made my spies move slower of course. gus built parts quick but wasn't done researching at the end. and wang/cyrus/brennus weren't competing tech wise, bismarck either. bis went off on this whole mass media side track. brennus kept making money losing hollywood races and such to gus, which was fine, he donated to the "KMad needs sabotage money" fund several times, bless his heart.

i haven't done a space ending in about forever. i had forgotten how much time you spend at the end waiting for the final techs to come in. i'd build the other parts already, so i ended up with every city on wealth except the one building the statis chamber? i think it was, and then again every city on wealth except that one finishing up, and the one that started the engine . i most definitely could have timed that better!!!

i want to finish my own save at some point to. i certainly don't think it's in a better position to win than cam's. but i knew better what i was planning to do ... not that it was the right thing, of course! so i wonder how it would have turned out *giggle*. one of these days

i do have a question for you space race experts. well, even if you think you're not experts, you're more experienced at it than i am:

there's an HoF gauntlet going on, settings are you can choose to play as any leader, but it has to be a terra map (standard size), and on epic speed. ps i hate terra maps, they're too crowded on the non-barb continent, but whatever. question is, assuming i was equally skilled at using all traits to their best advantage (which i'm not of course), which traits are really well suited for space in your opinion if i know i'm heading that way from turn zero? i want to experiment around some. we can try a zillion times, the limitation is just one attempt per map. oh and you can play in vanilla or warlords, with vassals on or off, just to complicate things further! all victory conditions are left turned on, so i can't just slaughter them all down to one city or anything since that would trigger domination, that sort of thing, blah blah, have to aim for alpha centauri. any ideas?

i really just haven't done space in ages and ages before this game! and it was a blast, i'm glad y'all talked me into it, but playing one myself won't quite be the same .

 

[mice]

So if you dont go for space, what victories are you getting?

Re traits, Financial. Maybe Ragnar to get the jump on the sea- faring aspect of Terra.

 

[KMadCandy]

if i don't go for space, i don't get credit for the gauntlet so i lose even if i "win" the game according to firaxis! ragnar's a good thought, i'm not used to terra, i should play around with it. it's so bizarre, so crowded on the starting side, and so not crowded except by those barbarian fellows on the other part.

oh you mean what have i been playing? lots of OCC, starting world wars or going totally peaceful diplomatic to be the total opposite of each other ... cultural ... that sort of thing. haven't done space in forever and a day!!!

i'm going to start this bizarre cultural variant this weekend. it's really weird. i have a feeling i will die a horribly painful death!

edit: by "starting world wars" i don't mean i go around bonking the world over the head with axe-men. i really suck at that. i mean that if someone declares war on me, i bring all my buddies in to declare on them, so then the whole world is at war. but i don't start the thing. i get a major kick out of that. getting much better at it lately. even got toku in on it the other day ... toku, monty, huayna all on my side hahahahaha!

 

[cabert]

best traits for space IMHO :
- expansive (yes I mean it, health is a big problem for late cities)
- financial (obviously)

edit : on a terra map, you won't hit domination if you kill'em all

 

[pigswill]

I would probably suggest spiritual (saves several turns on civics changes, particularly in later game) and either philosophical if you're going for specialist/lightbulb type game or financial. Health is a problem in later game especially with factories and powerplants but you can get round it with hospitals/supermarkets. The only way you can get round anarchy is with spiritual trait.

Edit: You won't hit domination if you kill 'em all but you might possibly get a conquest victory .

 

[cabert]

I would probably suggest spiritual (saves several turns on civics changes, particularly in later game) and either philosophical if you're going for specialist/lightbulb type game or financial. Health is a problem in later game especially with factories and powerplants but you can get round it with hospitals/supermarkets. The only way you can get round anarchy is with spiritual trait.

or not changing civics .

 

[Cam_H]

1950's finish ... just ...

Spoiler :

OK … bee-lining The Internet is often a pretty useful strategy in Monarch+ space race games, but having posted my 1900AD game and mulled for a week about whether I should have taken a ‘leaf’ out of Öjevind Lång’s ‘book’ and “Darn it!” just gone straight after the Apollo Program and worried about The Internet later.

India self-researched all technology except Mass Media (picked up in a trade from Brennus) and ran at mostly 100% throughout. Sales of technologies helped bankroll the net deficit, while many cities ‘built research’ when not working on Spaceship parts.

• Rocketry > Robotics > Satellites > Fibre Optics > Fission > Fusion (Roosevelt beat me by 4 turns to get the Free Engineer) > (Mass Media in trade) > Refrigeration > Genetics > Ecology > Flight.

The Apollo Program constructed in 1925, some four years behind most rivals (1921) while Korea was the first in 1902.

The Space Elevator built in 1928 in Delhi after two Great Engineer burns.

(No Internet after all that!).

Frankfurt was used as a farm and popped a Great Artist in 1934 who was burned in a Golden Age with the sleeping Great Scientist in 1945. I opted to build The National Epic in Frankfurt (part hurried), which in hindsight was not required.

The war between Cyrus/Brennus vs. Wang Kon continued through the game. Bismark also declared on Cyrus/Brennus in 1916 where they settled for peace in 1939 (irony?).

Ergili fell into German hands during the war with Cyrus/Brennus, and flipped to India in 1938. India opted to keep it.

Environmentalism was forced upon the world in 1936, and even though India was relatively small and unhealthy, it still was a major blow to finances and productivity. Workers were sent scurrying to reshape the empire. Towns were knocked over in order to turn Gergovia into a production powerhouse. Unfortunately in order to secure Aluminium from Cyrus he demanded Iron, which diminished some of the value of Ironworks for a while. When the Aluminium boosted Spaceship parts were done, I cancelled the deal and reshaped it substituting Uranium for Iron.

I only used one Spy in a mission – to aim to knock out a Farm near Washington that was constructing the Spaceship Engine powered with Specialist Engineers rather than terrain improvements (the A.I. has a lot to answer for!). The Spy was caught, and I figured that I didn’t want to tempt fate further, as Roosevelt was already Cautions due to my refusal to gift him Satellites.

With the bulk of the research done, and the clock running against getting the Stasis Chamber completed in Delhi, I switched to Bureaucracy. Towns continued to fall and were replaced with Workshops.

By 1956 it was clear that I could not fall over the line by 1958 due to the low population in Gergovia, and I would instead lose population by running a greater food deficit than was already the case. The Stasis Chamber and Life Support were finished on the same turn. There wasn't much reasoning behind most of the other city builds towards the end of the game once Ecology was in and research was turned off.

Gandhi blasts off in 1959. The save is just after the video, but don't read too much into the citizen allocations in Delhi or Gergovia that got shifted around in the final two turns.

I have a blow-by-blow account, but some of my moves included;

• Delaying The Space Elevator by one turn thinking that the Great Engineers would complete it quicker provided there was at least one in the build box (seemingly not). I also picked a poor choice in Delhi, as that city still required five additional turns to complete it.

• I should have knocked over the Towns around Gergovia and Delhi much sooner than I did.

• I wastefully built Wall Street in Madras that could easily have been ‘building Research’ through those turns.

• As mentioned earlier, I hurried The National Epic which ultimately led to only one who was put to sleep for a number of turns anyway.

In the end though, it's nice to get a win in a game where we were a bit shakey at times! ... and let's face it, if India attacked by anyone from 1900 things would have been very grim.

 

[KMadCandy]

cam: "Delaying The Space Elevator by one turn thinking that the Great Engineers would complete it quicker provided there was at least one in the build box (seemingly not). I also picked a poor choice in Delhi, as that city still required five additional turns to complete it."

the number of hammers a GE gives depends on the population of the city. makes no difference if you have any hammers invested or the actual hammers the city produces per turn, it's pure population, the higher the better.

"best traits for space IMHO :
- expansive (yes I mean it, health is a big problem for late cities)"

O M G i have never had health problems like we did! only two cities on fresh water total! and only one of the granary resources! that was hell . i do like expansive a lot more than some folks do, partly cuz of my OCC addiction. and spiritual rocks for staying out of trouble. financial is the bomb tho.

spiritual/expansive is cool cuz then you never have to face miss fanatic herself . but it's such fun taking over barcelona as a lovely pre-made double holy wall street city, i miss that when i'm her.

oh i didn't mention another way this ending was bizarre for me ... my first time building the internet! well, one game way back when, i changed CustomAssets so that it had no prereqs, and cost one hammer to build, and made it in my capital on turn 1, in a deity game, to see just how fast they learned stuff. by the way, did you know that the AI learns stuff really really fast in deity games? i've never built it for real before.

 

[shyuhe]

congrats on the space win guys! I thought I had doomed the team with my war with Cyrus but I guess not.

Kmad - I think the easiest (and fastest) way to get a space win on terra is to aggressively eliminate your neighbors using a few quick rushes and trying to ramp up to 30-40% land. Then you just sit down and go for the space victory. Financial may help the late game space push, but I think the other trait is pretty much up for grabs. Just pick whatever you think is most useful.

 

[KMadCandy]

haha shyuhe nah, you just made it all the more interesting!!!

so your advice seems to suggest my trait should be "play as cyrus, and get mansa as a neighbor and get him to capitulate early to be the financial part". since i do quick rushes best, and kind of only, with cyrus. my most serious weakness in civ. like, i want to be prepared. good thing hubby's at work and can't lean over to type just how "overprepared" that means in his opinion .

the thoughts are helping me, thanks guys!! it'll be fun even if i lose every time, that's the main thing. and if it stops being fun, then i play some other type of game. flexibility is wicked cool.

the only time i played terra map was a week or two ago, in an RB event. i met monty in the first 15 turns, he said the standard "may the peace last 1000 years." i was like "ummmm that's only like 40 turns pal, i need waaaaay longer than that!!!" so crowded, i gotta off that part!

HoF rules allow no barbs, i usually use that. on terra that feels sooooooooo against the spirit and design of the map that i won't. will increase dramatically the chances of an early demise, but make me feel better somehow.

 

[cabert]

without barbs, a quick rush to astronomy may be a winner!

 

[pigswill]

Without barbs quick astronomy will be a winner. If you ain't playing barbs go for philosophical and run a straight astronomy beeline: use GS to lightbulb compass, optics, you'll need to pick up calendar in trade, avoid CS, theology and meditation and use 2 GS to lightbulb astronomy.

 

[Cam_H]

i played another save to finish earlier, so i've played in a sense! it wasn't mine, it wasn't yours, it wasn't cam's. it was one i figured would be fun (i bet they all will tho).

Piggy's? With regard to the 'official' 1900AD save;

Spoiler :

I'm concerned that I inadvertantly set a trap for the roster by chasing Fibre Optics in this game, as The Internet apparently gave the player so few Spaceship oriented technologies in a game where our self-research capacity and 1900AD tech position was already pretty reasonable. In my 1900-1959 game, Augustus Caesar and Roosevelt went on very different technology paths, so it would have been hard to pick up 'known by two civilizations' technologies in a timely manner anyway. As such, KMad's other 'unofficial' game's earlier finish makes some sense in not chewing up on The Internet for an earlier finish. I am not against The Internet as a WoW (it's been a saviour for me more than once), but I'm wary that it was possibly more of a liability than an asset in this particular game.

b.t.w. : Did anyone else end up getting Environmentalism thrust upon them? I was quite surprised how my economy became once I lost State Property!

 

[mice]

I had environmentalism thrust upon me but it was a few turns from the end. The internet was a poor move for me. I thought about opting out of it and then just didn't make the right decision. I think if I replayed I could squeeze though to the win.

I put the Space Elevator in Madras and finished it after 1 turn with the GEs.

Aluminium came late because I couldn't figure out what it was that Cyrus wanted.
How do we figure that out???

It came late, but before Apollo was finished. Does aluminium speed up the Apollo project?


Edit; Terra map space victory. Do you even need the other continent? If you take out 2 good nieghbors you won't need more land. (2 because it's a crowded map.) Play with barbs on and let the AI settle all that territory.

 

[KMadCandy]

cam_h: "i played another save to finish earlier" i meant i played it until the bitter end, at a real life time earlier than the time the spoiler i read was posted . i didn't win that game earlier than the wins we've gotten from your save, in fact i lost that game! most of my spies were on roos since he seemed to be the most competition. gus was playing like a human, had like 3 non-casing/non-thruster ship parts finish within 2-3 turns of each other. well, it was too late for me to recover by then! two lousy turns and my ship was done

i didn't get environmentalism thrust upon me. i chose to use it! i had such a small empire i figured i wasn't getting use out of the no distance costs like i usually am. and the food, well, the land was mostly town still. almost all of the workshops/watermills i had were in the new little towns. so when i got medicine (thanks internet, i really wanted that one!), i swapped to check, and i liked it. vienne could run more engineers now, stuff like that.

that truly surprises me that it made your economy unhealthy! italics on economy makes me think you're talking gold, but you might not be. i'm curious now, gonna load a save and check the impact on gpt at the end. edit: had to go back earlier than i'd remembered to find one before the UN resolution. changing only the civics (no tiles worked, etc), SP would save me 39 gpt compared to enviro at that point. turn science down to 0 for a turn and i'm set for centuries of expenses . i've had environmentalism send cities into starvation, since their diet was based on watermills/workshops rather than irrigation. but here the main benefit would have been food not maintenance/civics cost, since i just wasn't landscaped that way. the parts-building cities had a workshop or 3 but they also had farms. of course since i don't play space race games i'm 99% sure i hadn't landscaped the right way!!! but the nice mill-able rivers weren't in the parts-building cities really.

i hated our health problems this game all along. like seriously big time. i got medicine in the previous round. checked my notes, it was self-research at a point where i was way ahead of most of them except gus had plastics, and was waiting for someone to build 3gd so i could get that. i mean some didn't have elec still and i had radio, hadn't had trading opportunities in forever. so i figured sure, detour for health, i have plenty to trade and can't make a ship if i have no people. i'm terrible, i get my cities big and then starve them down so bad to make that last GA for a cultural victory, or here to make that spaceship engine ... i ought to be ashamed

mice: aluminum does speed up apollo. if you're losing money every turn they'll say "no way" to trades like that. adjust science (or turn cities to wealth) until you're making quite a chunk a bit of gpt before you talk to him, and see what he says he wants.

what i do is cancel trades with people who are buying stuff from me that he doesn't have, like bananas, whatever. if he can use bananas but my last is going to say roos for clams, and i don't want to lose roos's clams, i look for what other thing i can give to roos instead for the clam, to keep the nanas for aluminum. sometimes i rearrange 4 trades in this process . cancel anything you're selling to him directly of course. and then see what he says, and try to haggle him down.

about the gauntlet:
astro and no barbs on the other continent is just silly easy tho! that's totally cheesy! not that i'm gonna play raging barbs, i'm not that insane

"Without barbs quick astronomy will be a winner. If you ain't playing barbs go for philosophical and run a straight astronomy beeline: use GS to lightbulb compass, optics, you'll need to pick up calendar in trade, avoid CS, theology and meditation and use 2 GS to lightbulb astronomy."
that i might have to try someday just for the pure weirdness of "OMG i have to skip CS for so long!" haha. haven't looked it up yet (i would before i did it, not that i don't trust you of course). i guess you're avoiding both theo and CS because otherwise you'd get the paper/education route i usually want.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Congratulations for the space win! If there are to be any more trash games, how about one aimed at a cultural victory? I'd like to win one of those but seem unable to do so on higher levels than Warlord. That is to say, I'd enjoy an opportunity to learn some nifty tricks...

 

[cabert]

Congratulations for the space win! If there are to be any more trash games, how about one aimed at a cultural victory? I'd like to win one of those but seem unable to do so on higher levels than Warlord. That is to say, I'd enjoy an opportunity to learn some nifty tricks...

I'm quite good at cultural wins, but I'd be really pissed if I had to correct mistakes in this area.
It's very sensible to timing and diplomacy=not easy to fix.

 

[KMadCandy]

yeah i have to agree there. so many things that don't seem important at the time would be critical mistakes that could make fixing the trash require entire changes of plans and add years to the game ending date ... not to mention much more danger! best way to learn is from experience and making mistakes, but i'd probably pull my felt hair out doing one of those as a "pick the best/pick the worst" series.

someone on the ALC bullpen thread was asking for someone to do a walk-thru of a cultural victory and i was like well dang, that would be soooooooo nitpicky to write. i mean i know the usual ALCs are time-consuming to write up as well. but cultural the power graphs show nothing in a sense, you can't sum up pictures of battles. you spend so much time watching diplomacy, timing the planning of your GAs, etc. the fun for me is that i don't play it as "just get to a certain point and then hit enter over and over", i like to have them all hit legendary as near the same turn as i can, and as early as i can, but typing up every little decision about what i do and why, and which cities i starve when, and so on and so forth, would drive me crazy if i was doing a walk-thru!

ps cabert, here you meant "sensitive" instead of "sensible". sensible = reasonable, rational, logical, basically the opposite of monty . i can't imagine learning english as a second language, it's hard enough to learn when you grow up surrounded by it and nothing else!

 

[Cam_H]

KMad,

Unfortunately as comprehensive as my notes are for that last round, I didn't take notes on the 'before and after' effect of the State Property > Environmentalism switch other than as you note, some cities went into starvation and my research deficit went from something like -20 at 100% to -100. I am not sure if the net per turn increased or decreased in light of having fewer unhealthy citizens vs. less from Watermills and Workshops, but I have my suspicions.

Öjevind Lång,

You should play out the game!

Öjevind Lång and Cabert,

Cultural is my favourite victory condition too and the one with which I feel most comfortable, but one trash round where you lose one of your designated 'to be legendary' cities could kill off the competition - or we'd have to introduce some 'safty net' rule to stop games with that incidence (or generally a war ravaged empire) from being selected. I agree with Cabert on one dumb diplomatic move and we could be in 'serious poop'.

( ... and when I say "we" I should advise that Mrs. Cam isn't watching and I have not yet secured approval to participate in any further succession games! ...)

{Edit} KMad - cross-post! It's crossed my mind to do a cultural walkthrough too, but you're right in that it would be time consuming and difficult to lay out. If you're willing though, I'd be happy to contribute 'my two what's its'. {/Edit}

 

[KMadCandy]

Unfortunately as comprehensive as my notes are for that last round, I didn't take notes on the 'before and after' effect of the State Property > Environmentalism switch other than as you note, some cities went into starvation and my research deficit went from something like -20 at 100% to -100. I am not sure if the net per turn increased or decreased in light of having fewer unhealthy citizens vs. less from Watermills and Workshops, but I have my suspicions.

maybe your gold went so dramatically since you had cities set to produce wealth and i didn't, hmmz. my notes weren't comprehensive at all, but i still had the saves around .

i never said, and did not mean to imply, that i was at all willing to do a culture walk-thru! just that i thought about how big a task it would be, when i saw someone ask for it. and that i realized it would be useful for him, but i wouldn't have the time or be the right expert for the job .

i did have the nicest person PM me to say he was brand new (like 6 posts to his name) but looked for my posts on strategy and tips forum on purpose since i had unusual but helpful things to say about diplomacy, and he suggested that i write a guide that's not like the usual ones. i was flattered but of course wrote back "ummmmmmmmm i'm a permanoob". his account wasn't allowed to accept PMs, altho he could send me one. perhaps he was locked up in a rubber room after sending that one, since clearly he was insane! quite sweet tho.