G-Major 45

[ParadigmShifter]

I've been dropping subtle hints to bhavv to lay off the wonders as well

I wouldn't give up on your game though, just build the ironworks and head straight for computers and the internet.

 

[bhavv]

I cant help it, I want the wonders, they are shiny .

I will retry the Darius game with the flood plains and gold start and avoid building wonders anywhere except the capital. I got major tech slowdown entering between eras because I didnt have enough developed cities. Before I were building too many, this time it was too few.

Or maybe I should use the map generator to get a start with much more golds, but I dont think Im supposed to have more then one commerce city.

How do you develop your cities? What do you build, whip, and in what order?

Not that Im giving up, I want to start again with faster expansion instead of the religious wonders.

 

[Lexad]

I hope you're aware you cannot submit the games you've replayed. So you can do it for practice, but for the tourney get a new map.

 

[bhavv]

I hope you're aware you cannot submit the games you've replayed. So you can do it for practice, but for the tourney get a new map.

Thats fine, I dont think I will be submitting for this gauntlet. I'm just playing by the HOF rules to get better at the game - I wont even start a full game with the Incas because I want to learn to play as Darius without any wonders, I just have the Important ones - GLH and Glib, and then think I only really need the Internet much later on, Im finding it hard to tolerate not building the Versailles, having Versailles, Palace and Forbidden Palace is incredibly powerful for making a large empire.

This is my replay of the Darius game, and I'm now getting better at it, its 1 AD and I am researching Civil Service while the AI has just founded Taoism so I'm not too far behind:

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/2384/civ4screenshot0063gl3.jpg

At first I actually did try to restart on a new map using map finder to get one with another Floodplain + Gold start, but I was looking for ages and didnt get one, so I decided to play on the same map again. If I dont like how the game is going, I usually just start on a new map anyway, but here this map has the best start location and I really only want to play maps with a floodplain + gold start now for Immortal difficulty. I am now fine at the early game, and will save this game as my restart point for mid game practice - 11 cities, healthy economy with courthouses whipped in most of them (I wanted 12 cities by 0 AD with a courthouse whipped in each, but that is a little too much to get done by then), and now I want to practice the mid game and setting up a workshop ecomy with Guilds.

I also found another great commerce city spot surrounded by dye -

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9055/civ4screenshot0062jq4.jpg

Dye and Gold are my favorite resouces in the game, and I have both a gold and dye city in this game .
Plus there are two silvers on the glaciers near one of my tundra coastal cites, but they are going to be hard to develop without dikes.

I only got three cities on my starting isle - It has 5 great spots with lots of food resources, but Wang Kon is just on the Island to the south and they settled my edges. So I set sail and found the dyes .
He vassaled his cities on my Island to Togugawa, but they had swordsmen defending so I will wait untill I have knights again, as they will be nicely built up by then as well ...

Lets just hope I dont start another world war - Hammurabi and Gilgamesh have already declared on Boudica, prior to which they were all great trading partners, and now because I didnt side with any of them I have annoyed Hammuabi and Gilgamesh, and Boudica I managed to keep on cautious.

I cant have my favorite ally in this game, no fair .
Boudica normally gives me defensive pacts so I have her in every game as a potential powerful AI protector. I am actually on good terms with Korea and Greece, but I want those cities that Wang Kon vassaled, he stole spots on my Island !!!

Nice, I got the largest Civ ranking -

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2964/civ4screenshot0064pf2.jpg

Now I need to learn how to grow them properly and develop a strong economy.

I was the first to get Civil service and traded it with everyone for cheaper techs plus gold and world maps . Now I tech for Liberalism and try to get Astronomy for free and spam my building, I'll trade for the techs up to Guilds along the way.

I need to get Galleons, Knights and Trebuchets ASAP to capture the red and blue cities (Tokugawa and Wang Kon):

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4047/civ4screenshot0065oz3.jpg

It will help me with my score and output and they are large and healthy cities. I want major payback for them stealing my space.

 

[Dynamic]

Org trait is the single trait that works during the hole game and doesn't depend on revolutions, amount of Wonders or Cottages....

 

[bhavv]

Org also gives you a building advantage in three seperate eras - lighthouse in ancient, courthouse in middle and factory in the industrial age.

I never thought that -50% civic upkeep was that much saved, and I still dont know how much my civics cost. Im more interested in the cheaper lighthouse and courthouse, which are the two most important buildings on archipelago maps.

 

[Lexad]

For space civic upkeep is a lot. If you have chouses, but don't have corporations yet, it is usually the largest part of expense, even for 20-30 city empire.

 

[Salomo]

I was just having a go at this gauntlet, and things were going quite ok (at least considering i think i never played immortal before). But suddenly something strange happened:

I just started researching philosophy, which only good ole sitting bull has and wont share. I got education and wanted to go for liberalism next, while the AIs don't have paper yet... Hatshi builds the apostolic palace, i win, and all seems nice and fine. Then suddenly as i want to come begging i notice Asoka suddenly is cautious towards me because he no longer shares our religion. Apparently he somehow switched to free religion.

The thing is, there is no way he can have liberalism yet!

Is my game bugged, or is this some strange feature you only encounter on immortal and above? How can he suddenly have free religion when he doesn't even have paper yet? And will i still get my free research if i get liberalism now?

Very weird thing... Never had that happen before.

 

[ZPV]

The wonder Shwedagon Paya allows its owner to adopt any religious civic.

 

[Salomo]

The wonder Shwedagon Paya allows its owner to adopt any religious civic.

Ah, thanks! I had totally forgotten about that!

I'm actually quite enjoying immortal level, would have been a pitty to loose it to a bug... So now i guess i'll have to prepare for the coming endgame, which is always my worst phase. Though with Asoka no longer loving me, i think i might wipe him out first - people always say he's so peaceful, yet he always seems to love backstabbing me.

 

[Salomo]

Oh, though perhaps some of you space-race pro's could give me some advice on the mid- to endgame?

I play Darius and got Asoka, Mansa, Hatshi, and Sitting Bull left in the game. Sitting seems to love me the most, at least he was the only one besides me to vote for me in the apostolic palace elections. But at the same time he doesn't love me enough to share his tech with me (or anyone else it seems). All other civs share the same technologies and religion, me having a tiny lead over the other for the moment. Asoka recently turned cautious to me, as he no longer shares my religion. I assume the same will happen with the rest once free religion spreads (i did the mistake of relying too much on religion and not fulfilling all their wishes).
Mansa is cornered in with just a few cities between jungle and ocean from a previous war we had (he declared). Hatshi's empire stretches out to the far west and is biggest after mine, but does not directly border mine (though it's close). Asoka is up north and west along my entire very long northern border. Sitting is in a little box to my southern west. Hatshi and Asoka are building cultural wonders like crazy, while Mansa seems more focused on culture-bombing at my borders. Sitting is just sitting there and sending his spies around.

I definetly need some better production cities for the spaceship and the place is packed, so i can only steal them... And getting rid of one more enemy also seems like a good idea, so that at least i wont have to face a 3 front war (or 5 front even... imagine my empire as a banana stretched between mansa in the curve and the other three on the long side).

Who would you take out in preparation for the race? Who usually is most dangerous of landing some kind of win before i can finish my ship, who can one usually profit the most from in the endgame?

Tough decision for me that i've never played an immortal space race before :-/

 

[bestje]

mansa is a reliable trader of any techs he gets but if he is quite small he is unlikely to research very well, he might make a good vassal if you can leave him mostly intact that way you could direct his research.

i'd be very wary of the culture attempts I lost my first two attempts to culture runs.

once you get lib. will you switch to free religion? as this is asoka's civic it should get him back to pleased. my guess is Hatty would be the best target but maybe finding who has some good production cities would be a good plan

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i'd be very wary of the culture attempts I lost my first two attempts to culture runs.

Destroy all 50% culture buildings, the granary, the aqueduct, and if coastal the harbor with spies (basically, get rid of their health). The AI loves building stupid crap like forge/factory/coal in its culture cities. Taking down its health buildings and poisoning its water will very frequently jam a culture city down to 1 pop. Apparently, cesspools of filth and rot aren't very endearing to the rest of the world!

 

[The-Hawk]

Urgh, I still have not had time for one decent try at this gauntlet . However, I will try today. Lots of the posts are convincing me that Liz is not the best leader, but I previously generated some good maps with her, so I will still try her first.

Has anyone given consideration to PAs? I've used them in the past to gain the AI's tech prowess. However, I usually do not warmonger on space race. Given PaulisKahn's success with near-Dom warmongering, maybe a PA is useless?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Urgh, I still have not had time for one decent try at this gauntlet . However, I will try today. Lots of the posts are convincing me that Liz is not the best leader, but I previously generated some good maps with her, so I will still try her first.

Has anyone given consideration to PAs? I've used them in the past to gain the AI's tech prowess. However, I usually do not warmonger on space race. Given PaulisKahn's success with near-Dom warmongering, maybe a PA is useless?

The AIs tend to tech too slowly for them to be competitive against the best players, but it seems also that they do annoying things like build parts in suboptimal cities.

...Building on spyrape to shut down culture, have a look:

Obviously, this particular AI city wasn't very threatening to actually win, so I was just screwing him over for fun. However, the point stands that the AI is horrible at choosing late game buildings, which means that you can just anti-health them to death until the city is down to 1 pop and can't grow no matter what it works. Ouch.

 

[bestje]

on the subject of PAs I used one but I was playing OCC so it was pretty much an essential at this level, the problem is keeping your PA partner concentrating on teching.

i lost twice to my partner deciding to cast aside a certain (and faster) space win to go culture. so advice on PAs pick it carefully.

but in terms of competitiveness I would consider it, combine a PA with an already decent size empire. probably a couple of thousand bpt and it might be quicker than the domination strategy.

 

[Salomo]

The AIs tend to tech too slowly for them to be competitive against the best players, but it seems also that they do annoying things like build parts in suboptimal cities.

...Building on spyrape to shut down culture, have a look:

- pics -

Obviously, this particular AI city wasn't very threatening to actually win, so I was just screwing him over for fun. However, the point stands that the AI is horrible at choosing late game buildings, which means that you can just anti-health them to death until the city is down to 1 pop and can't grow no matter what it works. Ouch.

Alright, so that's how you do it!

I was trying on hatshi when she got closer to cultural victory, but i always only sent 1 or 2 thieves at a time and couldn't have done more with the spy points i had anyway. By the time i could destroy the next building, the last one had already been rebuilt, so in the end i had to attack her.

Now in my game Sitting Bull is gone (i decided to hit him cause he had the nicest production cities, though Hatshi's culture made them unusable for me), Hatshi is crippled and just lost her capital to me, and mansa (who had a defensive pact with hatshi) lost his entire offense and could be picked off by my troops as well... the problem is, this brings me no inch closer to the space colony goal. I had liberalism before 100 AD, now i'm at the end of the 15th century and i don't even have rocketry yet. I could, of course, easily ovverrun the world with my tanks, but what would i gain from that....

The lesson from this: Don't go warring just to get some juicier production sites. Stupid move of me. :-/

 

[bhavv]

I still suck at developing a strong mid game economy - most of my cities are still surrounded with cottages. I rarely ever build watermills or windmills, never used to use workshops before, and when I saw those watermill cities above I just thought /doh.

I also started a second game as the dutch, neither my game with them or with darius came close to a 1750 AD win, so I'm still not good at the end game - but I have gotten used to early city and galley spamming and taking islands before the AI does. I got the holy sea quest on my dutch game and managed to complete it - I settled on 12 islands in total, and the reward was astounding - convert up to 20 of my cities to confusianism which was the AP religion so I was using it and spammed +2 hammer temples in all those tiny coastal cities. The game really really picks up after you get to steam power and spam dykes in your cities, it is the most powerful thing in the industrial age onwards on coastal maps. My industry boomed and soon I had universitys, observatories, banks and custom houses in around 20 cities and had a powerful setup, but the AI were already miles ahead of me.

I think in my next game I am going to change from Archipelago to tiny islands, pick AIs that dont start with fishing, and see if it gives me more advantage as the dutch. I basically tech sailing first, then mining > masonry > bronze working, and pick up animal husbandry and pottery depending on my map. If I have animal resources, I grab animal husbandry first, if I have a big river with grasslands or floodplains, then I go for pottery.

I am really loving these immortal games. Now I can eat monarch difficulty games for breakfast .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Marathon sure is frustrating...

I'm around 1050 AD and I have cavalry/PA with gandhi who oddly isn't going culture ATM (now that we are PA I will prevent him from going culture outright via tech selection). PA can definitely help if you get one early. I'm getting around/over 1k bpt off the PA team tech and only about 280 of that is me...if someone actually does well for science a PA could speed things up.

I'm thinking if someone wants to ring off an easier win go like darius mass conquest on pangaea, put in a bunch of peaceniks except one guy like ragnar. Share war with him for a long time (he'll hate pretty much everyone instantly from peace weights so take your pick) and then PA up. The only issue here is that PA is late - it might be better to just take everything right away and use the land yourself. I'm not sure. I think an extremely favorable combination would be best though, like a hemispheres game where you immortal rush your continent and then PA someone on the other side for a boost.

 

[bhavv]

Adding boudica to my games full of peaceful civs is having its merits - she becomes dogpiled by everyone else =D. Boudica and Hammy are awesome for Agg civs, they are both easy to get along with in the right situation and are good tech traders.

My AI selection is:

Boudica
Hammurabi
Sitting Bull
Pericles
Frederick
Mansa Musa

None of these civs tech for Aesthetics, and I had a marble on my dutch game and were able to pick up both the Glib and Parthenon wonders from chopping.

Mausoleum and Taj would also be great wonders to get, but would ruin your GS pool, so maybe if you can spam them in a second or third city that wouldnt affect your GS farm.

It is always nice to save up 3 specialists and launch a triple golden age with the mausoleum and Taj - start two golden ages with your specialists the turn before Taj completes and then your third one starts after giving 48 turns of golden age in the modern era.
I might have to work this into my game if I want a win before 1700 AD.