G-Major 144

[WastinTime]

If your army is right there, it's hard to pass up the 2 cities, especially since they look like they have nice resources and forests. But, I see it's not your first 2 cities--you already have 5, so that makes it easier to pass for now.
You could get a double shrine with Judaism , plus you get Monotheism.
It wont take 100 turns. Hatty will accelerate that.

 

[LowtherCastle]

*snip*

 

[Seraiel]

Does anybody know how long it can take 'til an AI converts towards another religion if that religion is dominant or what makes an AI convert its religion? I somehow remember that AIs evaluate civics every 5T if SPI or every 20T if non-SPI or so and that the timings again are different for non-war-phases and war-phases, but I'd need some reliable info.

Tia.

Anybody having info on this? Pollina?

 

[Folket]

Perhaps capture the capital and leave the other cities.

 

[Seraiel]

I think I found out myself already. I got +4 from religion with one AI and it didn't switch yet, so I assume that AIs only evaluate the civics every 5 or 20T but that the mechanics for religion-switching are different.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I believe that an AI without the Spiritual trait may not switch to a new religion until its size in population is 5 or more than the current religion.

 

[Pollina]

Does anybody know how long it can take 'til an AI converts towards another religion if that religion is dominant or what makes an AI convert its religion? I somehow remember that AIs evaluate civics every 5T if SPI or every 20T if non-SPI or so and that the timings again are different for non-war-phases and war-phases, but I'd need some reliable info.

Tia.

Sorry for not responding sooner. Was busy playing the game.

Turns until AI considers another civic switch:

Religions:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 15t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

Civics:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 25t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

 

[LowtherCastle]

Sorry for not responding sooner. Was busy playing the game.

Turns until AI considers another civic switch:

Religions:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 15t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

Civics:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 25t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

Very interesting, especially the difference between bribes and espionage and the auto-switch difference between SPI and not. All sorts of ramifications of that info. Does that scale to game speed?

 

[Pollina]

Should not scale with game speed.

A bribe or espionage mission won't shorten the time until the AI considers another civic/religion switch. For example, a non-SPI AI that switches civics on t+0 and then gets switched into another civic via espionage/bribe on t+7 still won't switch civics again until t+25.

 

[Kaitzilla]

If your army is right there, it's hard to pass up the 2 cities, especially since they look like they have nice resources and forests. But, I see it's not your first 2 cities--you already have 5, so that makes it easier to pass for now.
You could get a double shrine with Judaism , plus you get Monotheism.
It wont take 100 turns. Hatty will accelerate that.

Ya, really hard to pass up 2 cities.


I've given it a lot of thought and financially, the 2 Hatty cities won't boost me very much since the gems are in jungle and the capital is mostly hammers.

Decided to roll the dice and let Hatty live. (for now)
Her favorite civic is Org. Religion, so I might get some free missionaries eventually.
And a Hindu shrine would be awesome on Huge map size.

De Gaulle is also Hindu, so he is probably close to Hatty somewhere.
I'll spread out and look for him next.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Sorry for not responding sooner. Was busy playing the game.

Turns until AI considers another civic switch:

Religions:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 15t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

Civics:
SPI: 10t
non-SPI: 25t
after bribe via diplo: 10t
after espionage mission: 5t

That is really cool info Pollina.

I suspected the 5 turns after espionage flip since I've seen it a few times, but the rest is all new to me.

 

[Kaitzilla]

This game.

First, it gives good luck.

Spoiler :

Then, when you are about to ninja Egypt's capital that has the only source of Horses, the luck goes bad.

Spoiler :

I'm only down 5 Checkers so far.
Might turtle up, try to threaten multiple cities, and buy a Peace Treaty with a tech.
No Hatty Great Prophet yet even though I gifted her Gems and raised her happy cap.
Hmm.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I can't wait months to try out my idea, so I'll present it here now.
Please poke holes in this idea so I don't waste time on it if it's dumb.

For my ideal high score game, I'd like to found Sid's Sushi as fast as possible, spread it to 2.5 cities per turn (or 5 cities per turn on the mainland) to as many cities as possible with the most amount of
Getting to Sid's Sushi fast is pretty straightforward, but what about after?

For me, I spread Sid's Sushi all over the place, my economy crashes, I stop spreading for a while to fix my economy, then I spread it to all my cities and submit my final high score game.
Smarter players like WastinTime perhaps gift away food resources to keep the Sushi costs down and doesn't ever pause/stop spreading Sushi?


What if the cost didn't matter?
My idea is to spread Sushi everywhere, crash the economy with 100 turns left in the game, and then keep crashing the economy even more.
Basically, 100 straight turns of STRIKE.

Essentially, this is One Short Straw's end strategy from SGOTM14 4 years ago taken to an absurd level.


Now, I'm not crazy, hear me out.
First, some info:

A quick look at the code shows (BTS 3.17): Every player has a counter starting at 0 and incrementing every turn his units are on strike, it appears there is no way to reset this counter. In case of strike and counter > 1 the game will disband up to counter/2 units (disbanding will stop if break even is reached).

Units safe from disbanding: transports with cargo, GPs, single military police

Factors that decrease the likelihood of a unit to be chosen for disbanding:

• high production cost
• high XPs + level
• city defenders
• currently in home territory

Units sorted according to Type/AI from least likely to most likely to be chosen for disbanding:
Sea Explorers, Settlers, Work boats, Scouts/Explorers, Spies, Workers, Missionaries, City defenders, non offensive Navy, ICBMs, non offensive Air Force/Missiles, all other units (mostly offensive).

So maybe producing cheap low xp Warriors/Archers/Chariots and moving them out of one's territory quickly to "sacrifice" them might help to keep those valuable CR3 Swords/Maces/Trebs at the front alive. Still, the choice of the units for disbanding is sort of a Russian Roulette, since -no surprise- the RNG has quite an impact there too...

I've found this to be mostly accurate during testing.
Strike starts out with 0 disbands, then 1, then 1, then 2, then 2, then 3, etc...

Settlers and One City Garrison unit in each city are indeed immune to STRIKE disbanding.

Transports and units on transports vanish during STRIKE, so DanF was wrong on that one minor detail.


One Short Straw's plan to create Warriors to be STRIKE bait worked.
In my limited testing, Quechuas (30) outside my borders were 100% of the STRIKE casualties after all my Triremes died. (both inside and outside borders, STRIKE hates Triremes for some reason. )

Spoiler :

Quechuas can be produced after Sushi (gift away all Iron+Bronze to colonies/AI) along with Muskets as long as you don't research Rifling (Warrior replaced by Rifleman/Infantry), don't research Military Science (Warrior replaced by Grenadier), and don't research Railroad (Warrior replaced by Machine Gunner)
Sorry, no Mining Inc!

Spoiler :

Now having the Quechuas outside your borders is very important. (In neutral territory or AI territory)
In my test game, as soon as I moved my Quechuas into my borders my Galleons, Caravels, and Galleys vanished to STRIKE.
Also, when I ran out of Quechuas, all my units except Settlers, Great People, and 1 city garrison unit vanished, so this technique is quite dangerous!


Now, I'm sure you are thinking how do i get to pay my Sushi Executives to spread into a new city if I'm in STRIKE constantly?
Easy!
Just whip a Quechua once you have 1 in it in any city and reap the overflow gold.
Running Police State civic (+25% military units) and The Kremlin world wonder (-33% rush cost) allows a 1 Quechua to be whipped into 87
Overflow gold gets deposited after the STRIKE takes away everything.

Spoiler :

After 50 turns of STRIKE, Civ 4 will be disbanding 25 Quechuas per turn as long as they are outside your borders.
But you should still be spreading Sushi constantly as long as Quechuas are being whipped in 2 or 3 cities each turn as needed to pay the Sushi Executives to spread.

Why such a dangerous tactic at all?
If you are so deep into STRIKE, then the budget doesn't matter.

Don't whip Courthouses. (4 population)
Don't whip Forges. (2 population)
Don't whip Banks/Markets/or Grocers. (6.6 pop, 5 pop, 5 pop)
Run Environmentalism (+25% corporation costs) for the +6 in all cities if you're at the end of a Golden Age and won't get Anarchy for changing civics.
That's like +6 Free in very unhealthy cities.

Run a -10,000 per turn deficit.
Build Quechuas instead of Wealth in all cities.
Eventually you will run out of Quechuas and all military units except for 1 City Garrison per city will vanish, but if you do it right, then it will happen after all cities have Sushi.

Press enter until your score is high enough.
Have a Settler found a city on 9 tiles to win the game.

Here are the Spreadsheets on Quechuas lost per each turn of additional STRIKE.

Spoiler :

Perhaps you are only comfortable with 20 turns of STRIKE and not the full 100?
Can always start stockpiling Quechuas earlier.

==============================================
If your empire is so big that there is no neutral/AI tiles near your main production cities (1 Quechua per turn), found a new runt city and gift it to an AI (can't gift to vassals or colonies).
As long as "City Flipping After Conquest" isn't turn on, then the city will just revolt and revolt and revolt and never flip, so the sacrificial Quechuas can all gather there.

**Testing indicates that units produced by cities in between turns (newly produced units) don't get killed by STRIKE.
Not sure how useful this info is though.
Test game attached. (BUFFY 3.19.004b)

 

[Seraiel]

I read your post Kaitzilla. It's an idea but I don't think it necessarily works. You don't lose 30 for a Quechua that you whip, you lose 1 population and 1 population is at least 90 . The OF is completely wasted so it doesn't matter. If you need to spread Sushi to 300+ cities then that takes over 100 turns. From my experience one maybe loses something between 1000 and 1500 during a non-GA phase. If spreading takes 100+ turns then one would at most lose 100k of during that phase. The Quechuas you'd whip at the same time however cost over 200k of . Whipping is not even efficient anymore at the size the cities will have then, a size 30-40 city maybe has an efficiency of 1 = 0.5 , so you're wasting over 400k of . Now lets say you run Enviromentalism and by that gain 6 / city because of the extra , then that's 900 / turn. Assuming you save 900 in 150 cities for 50T then that's 7M of . If you waste 500k of them then you still gain 6.5M through enviromentalism. 900 / turn extra only allow you to whip maybe 10 Checkers / turn so if you'd need to whip 50 or even more then you'd waste x times more than you'd gain from Enviromentalism.
The deficit when not running Enviromentalism is not that great though. Even 1000 can be quite easily countered by a few GMs that one will get every few turns because of the crazy amount of population and Specialists. Building a strong economy that finances the island-cities is possible via building Banks in the continental cities and specializing them to Cottages. Maybe this is something for the few very final turns but the point at where the loss through strike comes much faster than the gain from Enviromentalism is after a few turns. Maybe if you'd need to produce 10 Checkers because those would get disbanded, but you'd need to save a GA for the final turns. If at all then be very careful and be aware that an earlier GA also helps spreading Sushi faster, helps REXing at a higher rate and that you need something to end the game with. Founding a 9-tile-city in the very end is not possible, there's almost no land left at the end of the game so you need units and need to conquer cities.

 

[Folket]

I read your post Kaitzilla. It's an idea but I don't think it necessarily works. You don't lose 30 for a Quechua that you whip, you lose 1 population and 1 population is at least 90 . The OF is completely wasted so it doesn't matter. If you need to spread Sushi to 300+ cities then that takes over 100 turns. From my experience one maybe loses something between 1000 and 1500 during a non-GA phase. If spreading takes 100+ turns then one would at most lose 100k of during that phase. The Quechuas you'd whip at the same time however cost over 200k of . Whipping is not even efficient anymore at the size the cities will have then, a size 30-40 city maybe has an efficiency of 1 = 0.5 , so you're wasting over 400k of . Now lets say you run Enviromentalism and by that gain 6 / city because of the extra , then that's 900 / turn. Assuming you save 900 in 150 cities for 50T then that's 7M of . If you waste 500k of them then you still gain 6.5M through enviromentalism. 900 / turn extra only allow you to whip maybe 10 Checkers / turn so if you'd need to whip 50 or even more then you'd waste x times more than you'd gain from Enviromentalism.
The deficit when not running Enviromentalism is not that great though. Even 1000 can be quite easily countered by a few GMs that one will get every few turns because of the crazy amount of population and Specialists. Building a strong economy that finances the island-cities is possible via building Banks in the continental cities and specializing them to Cottages. Maybe this is something for the few very final turns but the point at where the loss through strike comes much faster than the gain from Enviromentalism is after a few turns. Maybe if you'd need to produce 10 Checkers because those would get disbanded, but you'd need to save a GA for the final turns. If at all then be very careful and be aware that an earlier GA also helps spreading Sushi faster, helps REXing at a higher rate and that you need something to end the game with. Founding a 9-tile-city in the very end is not possible, there's almost no land left at the end of the game so you need units and need to conquer cities.

I think you missed several important points. You only need to whip units to get overflow gold enough to spread. 87 gold a whip, 50 whips would give 4350 goild which is way more then spreading sushi five times.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I read your post Kaitzilla. It's an idea but I don't think it necessarily works. You don't lose 30 for a Quechua that you whip, you lose 1 population and 1 population is at least 90 . The OF is completely wasted so it doesn't matter. If you need to spread Sushi to 300+ cities then that takes over 100 turns. From my experience one maybe loses something between 1000 and 1500 during a non-GA phase. If spreading takes 100+ turns then one would at most lose 100k of during that phase. The Quechuas you'd whip at the same time however cost over 200k of . Whipping is not even efficient anymore at the size the cities will have then, a size 30-40 city maybe has an efficiency of 1 = 0.5 , so you're wasting over 400k of . Now lets say you run Enviromentalism and by that gain 6 / city because of the extra , then that's 900 / turn. Assuming you save 900 in 150 cities for 50T then that's 7M of . If you waste 500k of them then you still gain 6.5M through enviromentalism. 900 / turn extra only allow you to whip maybe 10 Checkers / turn so if you'd need to whip 50 or even more then you'd waste x times more than you'd gain from Enviromentalism.
The deficit when not running Enviromentalism is not that great though. Even 1000 can be quite easily countered by a few GMs that one will get every few turns because of the crazy amount of population and Specialists. Building a strong economy that finances the island-cities is possible via building Banks in the continental cities and specializing them to Cottages. Maybe this is something for the few very final turns but the point at where the loss through strike comes much faster than the gain from Enviromentalism is after a few turns. Maybe if you'd need to produce 10 Checkers because those would get disbanded, but you'd need to save a GA for the final turns. If at all then be very careful and be aware that an earlier GA also helps spreading Sushi faster, helps REXing at a higher rate and that you need something to end the game with. Founding a 9-tile-city in the very end is not possible, there's almost no land left at the end of the game so you need units and need to conquer cities.

Thanks for the thoughtful response Seraiel
One whip with Police State + Kremlin produces 2 Quechuas (Overflow makes a 2nd Quechua) and 87
The gold is not wasted because it is used by Sushi Executives to spread into a new city.
Most all of the gold consumed before the turn ends if planned properly.

If spreading Sushi to 1 city the following turn, whip 1 Quechua in 1 city.
If spreading Sushi to 4 cities the following turn, whip 1 Quechua in 3 cities.
Carefully planned whips should result in roughly 1.3 population lost in every city averaged out over the whole empire by the time the game ends.
Increased Sushi spreading speed, lack of whipping Economy buildings during STRIKE, and maximum Sushi resources with no gifting away to lower costs should more than make up for overflow gold whips.

Spreading Sushi to 300+ cities does take over 100 turns, but I envision starting the STRIKE when around 100 cities have Sushi, the golden ages are ending, and so many Sushi resources are coming online (200 resources give +50 per turn on Huge map) that the economy goes negative.

According to my spreadsheets, the Quechua casualties on the 100th turn of STRIKE are 2500 Quechuas disbanded total or 75,000, not 200k .
50th turn of STRIKE is a much more manageable 650 Quechuas lost or 19,500

I admit the logistics would be even more of a nightmare getting island Quechuas outside your borders, but those Galleons gallivanting around with 1 Sushi executive have 2 open spaces available
1 Quechua could garrison the island city while the 2nd one could go be STRIKE bait.
With 16 colonies increasing the dom limit to 74%, that is an extra +16 happiness in each city, so island cities should have no problem work all water tiles for max food even with some whip anger.
With 300 cities, only 2 or 3 need to be 1pop whipped each turn to pay for Sushi Executive spread costs.

The 40 population core cities would indeed be a poor choice to whip.
I'd recommend any island cities that just got Sushi + Granary + Lighthouse for a few 1pop Quechua whips for overflow gold.
The core cities could try and focus on Windmills, Levees, and a Workshop or two so they can crank out Quechuas every turn.
(With Forge and Police State, only need 20 base per turn to do this)


The safest way would be to try something like this for the final turns and save a Golden Age to pay for Sushi spreading at the end ya.

Or you could burn those Golden Ages getting Sushi absurdly early and try this insane, barely tested strategy instead.


Never stop spreading Sushi simply because the economy crashes.
Don't whip any Courthouse/Forge/Grocer/Market/Bank once the eternal STRIKE starts.
Either get Sushi to every city before you run out of Checkers, or crash and burn your massive hour investment.
Win, or die prematurely to the STRIKE black hole!

Founding a 9-tile city to end the game at the end ought to be possible, but it would have to be carefully arranged.
Maybe surround your colonies with Privateers to keep their boats with Settlers from escaping.
Or surround the few unsettled lands with Privateers if that is easier.
Not being able to end the game because all your military is gone (it will happen), you can't pay to use your culture slider, and you can't settle a new city anywhere would be pretty embarrassing.

Maybe produce a whole bunch of Muskets + Knights/Cannons (get your Iron back).
Then draft more Muskets and change civics to go into a long Anarchy to keep them from disbanding long enough to conquer 1 AI city.
This would cause Score to drop every turn since the empire is no longer growing.
Not an attractive choice.

 

[WastinTime]

I've definitely been planning a strike phase which I've done in the past. I didn't spend much time planning it yet since I'm not that far, but I like your extreme thinking. I think your plans might be too extreme. You may be over-engineering it. You certainly don't have to plan for 100 turns. It will take a long time before you can settle and net enough seafood to cause a crash. I'll probably try to keep my economy afloat as long as I can.

 

[Pangaea]

Then draft more Muskets and change civics to go into a long Anarchy to keep them from disbanding long enough to conquer 1 AI city.

Isn't this a banned exploit? It should be.

Maybe there could be a separate HoF table for the people who just want to play the game within a reasonable interpretation of how the developers would have wanted it.

 

[WastinTime]

Isn't this a banned exploit? It should be.

Maybe there could be a separate HoF table for the people who just want to play the game within a reasonable interpretation of how the developers would have wanted it.

As Kaitzilla pointed out, this strategy would be a horrible choice since your food/growth is halted. This is at a time where you're making 50 x 300 = 15,000 food/turn!

The thing that was banned (or actually patched out) years ago was being able to stay in perpetual anarchy. Kaitzilla is only talking about one anarchy period. Not worthy of being banned.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Isn't this a banned exploit? It should be.

Maybe there could be a separate HoF table for the people who just want to play the game within a reasonable interpretation of how the developers would have wanted it.

There were rumblings over this in the past.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11862120&postcount=128

The GOTM forum mentions it here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=152399

Perpetual Anarchy: DISALLOWED: It is possible to operate in a near-perpetual state of anarchy to prevent losing units due to going broke with high maintenance costs. By revolting to anarchy, and ensuring that the anachy is a minimum of four turns, no units will be disbanded due to lack of maintenance funds during the anarchy period. On exiting anarchy, there is a one-turn grace period in which no units will be disbanded - long enough to produce more units from forest chops (that get stored-up in the production box during anarchy) and then revolt again. This is considered exploitive.

Playing Guideline: You are allowed to revolt however frequently you like, provided you can pay for your units! If you cannot afford your unit upkeep, you may not revolt until at least four turns* after then end of the last anarchy period.

*This period may be reviewed.

Not sure about HOF forum.
HOF rules are here:
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/rules.php?show=disallowed



**Edit**
Further STRIKE testing reveals that Forts don't protect one garrison unit from disbanding.
However, foreign cities do!
1 Knight in every AI city cowering from the STRIKE monster mmm.

**Edit2**
Wow , db8044db submitted 8 HOF games averaging 3.2 million points each.
http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/stats.php
Did they ever post anything in the forums?