GOTM 52 - first spoiler

[lroumen]

Yes, there is a problem with the submission process at the moment. Give it a day or so.

Sure thing. It's not as if there is any hurry yet. The game still runs a few weeks.

I had a lot of fun, pity I was knocked out so fast. I'm certain to give this map another try and see where it gets me but of course that's not eligable for submission.

 

[Marc Aurel]

Since nobody has responded so far I assume, not too many people know the reason for the Ottoman capital being named Sogut. Just a new and interesting consideration of myself: I managed to find out, that Sogut in Turkish, if written with a soft 'g', and then pronounced So-oot means 'colder'. Do we have a master player called 'Colder'? Not in English IIRC, but taking the Italian language, (tR1cKy correct me if I'm wrong) that's :

Tada - "Piu freddo"!

Is that correct? Good enough is he. Ok, it was my first try to figure out. I will keep busy hunting for the secret.

 

[Kingsley]

You shouldn't be suprised when all science civs get monotheism. That's what happens in civ3 vanilla. It happened to Klarius too, and that was more suprising as he's playing PTW.

Really? I can't say I'd noticed it before.

Are you saying it happens every time or just more frequently than it should?

 

[Più Freddo]

Tada - "Piu freddo"!

I wish. My Greece and Carthage didn't quarrel, but Greece attacked me and it cost 24 gpt to ally Carthage against it. I've stopped playing it.

 

[ionimplant]

I wish. My Greece and Carthage didn't quarrel, but Greece attacked me and it cost 24 gpt to ally Carthage against it. I've stopped playing it.

well, if you had 24gpt, isn't it a reasonable price to pay for your two nearest neighbor to fight?

 

[Nata]

This is what klarius said in COTM13 after Twonky had a similar experience as Nata.

Thanks Redbad, I tried it and it worked!

 

[Redbad]

Really? I can't say I'd noticed it before.

Are you saying it happens every time or just more frequently than it should?

Always. I.i.r.c. in civ3 vanilla science civs get
monotheism at the start off the MA
nationalism at the start off the IA
rocketry at the start off the MT

 

[lroumen]

Well... I didn't get very far. I suppose Greece just wanted my silks and kept dominating me with an overload of military. I did have 2-4 spearmen in each of my towns as a safetystack until my culture grew. Did anyone else have problems with Greece needing the silks? I started up two new games and went for the silks again and similar things happened. In one game once I got my town to 2 Greece hit me and in the other I traded silks with them and kept him away from becoming grumpy but for some reason he still wanted me dead.
Oh well, 4th try, lol. I must get beyond Deity some time... or maybe I just ought to go try it for a Conquest. I was planning something cultural or maybe a chance for space.


Btw. here's my pitiful submitted score.
Software Version: PtW 1.27f for Windows
Entry class: Open
Game status: Conquest Loss
Game date: 130 AD
Firaxis score: 410
Jason score: 392
Time played: 01:11:04

 

[tao]

Always. I.i.r.c. in civ3 vanilla science civs get
monotheism at the start off the MA
nationalism at the start off the IA
rocketry at the start off the MT

Not always, but in 95+% of the cases. There once was a post on this a long time ago. And IIRC I once got engineering and once computers.

 

[k-a-bob]

Always. I.i.r.c. in civ3 vanilla science civs get
monotheism at the start off the MA
nationalism at the start off the IA
rocketry at the start off the MT

No - not always. I have at least seen Mono and Feudalism gotten free in Vanilla - and maybe even an instance of Eng.

And I know I've seen Medicine as a freebie before.

 

[k-a-bob]

This is a mini-spoiler, I will edit later. Goal: Conquest/Dom

I settle in place, and plan to do a ring 3/5 around my capital. Very soon I soooo enjoy seeing Greece and Carthage right next to me - which means no early archer rush here, and ended up meaning no AA war at all. I took the advice of the monopoly techs (of which, some I didn't know they were not researched by the AI) and maintained tech parity through the entire age. In 1000BC, I am short Curr, Constr, Poly, and am doing a min run on Republic. The turn before 850BC, I see the world has Curr and Const, so I buy them for the gold I've horded for the few turns, plus some GPT, which will run out the turn before I get republic. The next turn, I see Carthage's towns change ages, so I go and buy Poly as well.

I (even after my statement in my last post) draw Mono, as did all the other scientific civs

As for infrastructure and military, I have 7 towns including one crunched next to Greece to the SW of the start, 4 (I think) rax, 2 horsemen, 4 swords and 2-3 cats a few turns before I hit the MA. The next few turns will be spent building swords and cats to go after Greece (I switch b/c Carthage builds the Wall). I plan to use Monotheism to buy in all the non-sci civs to attack them.

 

[AdrianE]

I settled on the spot. I went minimum science and saved cash to buy techs. I made sure I was paying both Carthage and Greece gpt.

Carthage and Greece had a long and nasty war. That allowed me to poach some good city sites. I went for RCP 3 and 6.

After Greece took Carthage, I let them buy me into the war and my horsemen wiped out Carthage.

At the end of the AA, I was building up to attack Greece (cats and swords and horsemen) I spotted a huge stack of Babylonians heading south. My exploring warrior trailed them.

The Babs attacked Greece! On the very same turn Greece attacked me! The Babs softened up the Greeks and I took Carthage and Utica (horses and iron) and razed Sparta. My horsemen did surprisingly well against the Greeks given that they had the great wall.

This war extended into the MA so I'll stop here. There was one unfortunate consequence of the Babylonian declaration: it severed a trade route so I lost my reputation.

My biggest problem will be the Babylonian culture. They have several AA wonders. I'll have to clobber them ASAP.

I plan to take a big chunk of Greece and leave them resourceless and sign up the Chinese and Spanish to attack the Babylonians after they exhaust themselves on Greece.

However, once again I had severe instability problems with lots of crashes. It getting really annoying.

 

[WarDance]

Since nobody has responded so far I assume, not too many people know the reason for the Ottoman capital being named Sogut. Just a new and interesting consideration of myself: I managed to find out, that Sogut in Turkish, if written with a soft 'g', and then pronounced So-oot means 'colder'. Do we have a master player called 'Colder'? Not in English IIRC, but taking the Italian language, (tR1cKy correct me if I'm wrong) that's :

Tada - "Piu freddo"!

Is that correct? Good enough is he. Ok, it was my first try to figure out. I will keep busy hunting for the secret.

With the magic of google I found this for you:

The Ottoman Turks were descendants of Turkoman nomads who entered Anatolia in the 11C as mercenary soldiers for the Seljuks. At the end of the 13C, Osman I (from whom the name Ottoman is derived) asserted the independence of his small principality in Sogut near Bursa, which adjoined the decadent Byzantine Empire.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Iroumen: I don't have a huge amount of experience with deity, but I have found that the AI comes after me when several things are true:

1) The military advisor thinks I'm am weaker than them - this seems to be true until you destroy a lot of units.
2) I have something they want - lux, money, tech.
3) I have a vulnerability, usually a city a ways away from my core that is lightly defended, or they walk by an undefended city.

The silks were quite a way from Sogut - my guess is that you were just overextended, particularly since you would have had a long border with greece at that point. That's just a guess, of course.

That's the thing that pretty much always kills me - overextending in the AA and taking stuff that the AI thinks are rightfully their's.

 

[I. Larkin]

Vanila, Predator.

I moved the settler north to get away from tundra and not between the rivers for faster AA-movement of my settlers & workers. See Cow and settle.

Sogut built warrior, warrior, warrior, granary, warrior, settler, worker, settlers...

I researched Pottery at max, and got monopoly.
Traded it for Alpha and WC. Then research wheel at max, and writing at min.
Get behind. To get parity borrow money from Cartage twise (197 for 12 gpt). Got Monopoly on Literature at 1475 BC. Trade around for contacts, WM, Tech Parity aarch phylo -> Republic at max. Leptis Minor flip to me. Cartage establish embassy and was Gracious. At 1400 Babs ask 40 gold: I cave in a hope to trade Phylo next turn. At 1300 Greeks demand Phylo at 1300 BC, I cave again, but probably better not to do it…
Rapid Expansion with Settler factory gave me incense and 7 towns.
I use RCP4 + 1, Cartage found Hippo at ring. I built (and poprush) libs everywhere , may be it was a reason that Leptis flipped. Babs and Cartage go for Spain. I joined this war for some cash.
Cartage got Republics 1 turn before me, at 850 BC, I got it for 11 gold and revolt. (4 turns Anarchy). At 800 BC I declare Greeks, in a hope to take Pharsaphalos (fur) and pillage around Athens and Sparta. Meanwhile Babs and Cartage get Polytheism and enter to MA. At 750 BC China got Poly, and I drug them to war with Greeks for Republic for Poly. Cartage went to this war for Monotheism. Greek built TGL in Athens, China Lighthouse and Babs GW. (Babs had Colosus and Oracle, Cartage- Pyramids).
I manage to capture Pharsaphalos and hope about Sparta but hesitate about Athens.

 

[lroumen]

Thank you for the tips Teller. I think it explains why I always have difficulties at Deity. I always try to scatter as far as I can and do a run for luxury to keep my people happy. Those silks were very far away so maybe I should let Greece take them and start a trade with them for it. I don't like trading too much though, but I've gained the impression that at high difficulty levels it becomes really important.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think on the higher levels, trading is a necessity, at least until you are the bad boy on the block. That's why having wines like that was good - 3 luxes means 2 civs you can keep off your back, at least for a while. Also, the AI will often not attack someone they have traded with - I think that AI attitude does help determine who gets attacked. I just played a deity game and germany and Babylon were the big powers - both had been trading partners all game, but I broke some deal with Babylon (not sure what), and then I got a stack of about 50 mech infantry in my pretty much undefended core and they just went nuts. At that point, I didn't have 50 units in my entire army, so the gig was completely up...
The inability to spread out and the near certainty of a city plopped about 4 tiles from your capitol before you get a settler out was the hardest thing to get used to for me. Those civs just become early targets, is all.

Well, that and the large stacks of warriors that walk through your lands at will. I think that may be why there are so many early AI/AI wars - a 4 warrior stack walks through exploring, they get demanded to leave and they flip each other off.

 

[lroumen]

I don't like how they can just walse through your culture influence like you're nothing. In the lower difficulty levels I rarely see it happen as much, but this deity game I get spearmen with settlers walking across my borders to steal one nice positioning away from me. That's all fine and dandy because I'm building my empire slightly slower than before having only 7 cities now packed veryr close together (the usual circular motif).

Then a few turns later both cities flip to me due to my higher culture (them being Spain and China (?) who have their capital half a continent away and no other city nearby) and they declare war on me. I didn't even do anything in particular, they just can't keep their city in order. Worse even, they immediately got Greece involved in the same turn they declared war so before I get my turn for diplomacy. Now I only had Carthage to ask but they were already down to 3 cities because of their own AA war with Greece so I get no help at all.

..... and I got squashed again.... retry nr 4.

I'd best only let Greece settle near me and I should try to keep Spain and China from settling near me since they will flip in no time.

I'm still having fun though. I hadn't tried deity much since I can only handle Regent and below without problems and higher I'm struggling. At least I'm getting more experienced in trading which is my goal for this GotM and then I'll try to apply it all to the next one.

 

[k-a-bob]

@Iroumen

A little trick that seems to placate the Diety AI, I think anyways, is when I notice that someone is furious with me, I will gift them 1 GPT (If I can afford it). This usually gets them back up to Annoyed, which means they are less likely to declare war. Sometimes, though, they just have their mind set on your destruction, but in this game, I have been able to keep the wars to whom I want to fight and when, not vice versa.

Also, do not accept their flipping cities - less of a reason for them to attack, plus, those are easy to roll over when you do go to war.

And one more thing - they can run over you militarily probably because you are building too much culture! Those shields are probably better used on some horsemen/knights.

 

[Paul#42]

A little trick that seems to placate the Diety AI, I think anyways, is when I notice that someone is furious with me, I will gift them 1 GPT (If I can afford it). This usually gets them back up to Annoyed, which means they are less likely to declare war. Sometimes, though, they just have their mind set on your destruction, but in this game, I have been able to keep the wars to whom I want to fight and when, not vice versa.

If someone is annoyed with you, you probably already made a mistake unless this someone is weak or far away. Casually they do not even accept gifts of 1 gpt

If I note some "important" AI being not friendly I try to gift something. If you are the tech broker this is quite easy, because they seldom have as much money as they would pay you for a tech. Just gift them so much money that they can just afford what you are selling them and get it immediately back in the deal. If you do this kind of "priceless" donation on every opportunity, you will hardly encounter furios rivals. If I'm not sure what price they will accept, I do the gifting in portions of 10-20g and check if I get all my money back.

All gifts add on to a nice attitude in my games. Which of course does not spare me from casual assaults - but at least I get my allies cheaper / the attacker has to pay more for allies against me.

Remember: It's always convenient to be regarded as the nice guy (until YOU want to change it ).