[BTS] Hesha's Random Questions

[Hesha]

I figured rather than spamming the forum with new threads everytime I have some question, I might just collect them all here...

First off, would you raze Seoul? If doesn't have any wonders or religions founded or anything. I think the placement in regards to resources is pretty terrible, so I would like to raze it and build 2 or 3 cities instead...

Spoiler :

 

[Gumbolt]

I would keep it. Size 4 so you can whip buildings. If you want both fish you would need to settle on corn which kills a decent food resource. You also lose the horse.​

 

[Hesha]

Thanks! Makes sense.

Next question: Why does nobody seem to build the GW? I know, it pollutes the GP pool, but if you have stone it's very quick to build and not having to worry about barbs AT ALL seems to me like it should be a pretty big deal on IMM or Deity, especially when I see the lengths to which you have to go to fogbust and all that.

 

[krikav]

The AI builds it's cities in moronic positions all the time, it's very annoying and it insults my sense of order.
BUT correct play is to just suck it up and go on.
A decently developed city that has already reached a certain size is much more valuable than two properly placed cities 50 or 100 turns later.


The reason noone builds TGW is because it's nearly impossible to build on deity, if you settle on stone and start with myst or mining it might be possible.
It's a very nice wonder to have, and GSpy points I don't consider pollution at all, if you get a low odds spy it's a boon in almost all plays except in isolation.
SH or Oracle (Or ToAR) is more problematic because of the GProphet points.

 

[Lennier]

To be fair, the AI always settles in place, so it's just an odd capitol that had two fishes in the third ring. But still has (dry) corn, three clams, horse, and a flood plain in the default BFC.

 

[Hesha]

Thanks. Makes sense. Lakes do not allow to build LHs, do they? Not even if they are like 10 tiles large?

 

[krikav]

At a certain number of tiles, the lake becomes a ocean and the tiles only yield +1F instead of freshwater lakes +2F, the freshwater bonus also dissapears.
There is one threshold for being able to build lighthouses and workboats, and another higher treshold to be able to build galleys.
Can't remember the exact number of tiles, but I think it's up around the dozen.

 

[Hesha]

I've just checked. 9 tile freshwater lakes are not big enough for LHs and WBs... pitty. Makes the lakes pretty worthless, if you can't get three food.

 

[lymond]

I actually might raze Seoul in this case. Settling on corn would be fine here. Busan should be razed and resettled.

 

[Hesha]

In one of the Civ Illustrated articles there is talk of this exploit:

There is also an exploit, where you offer / turn to the AI to make the AI offer the maximum value it is willing to offer, and then trade the resource for the full amount of / turn. After 10 rounds, you cancel the GPT-trade(s) and you now get huge amounts of / turn while the AI is economically crippled. If you're really good, you can even gift a resource with the / turn, then you only need to pillage the resource, and the / turn trade gets cancelled, so you don't have to wait 10T. As told, this is an exploit, so it's in the legal grayzone. (S)GOTM forbids using that exploit, HoF doesn't, so you need to decide on which side you are. I personally never used it because I usually always had enough in my games due to a strong economy and lots of tech-selling, so for me, it was an advantage if an AI gets not crippled, because then, I could longer and more often trade techs with it.

Has this been fixed? Doesn't seem to work somehow. Or I'm just not clever enough

 

[Gumbolt]

You would still need 10 turns for a border pop. It would open up a 2xclams/horse city. Of course it's already 75ad. How quickly could you get 2x settlers out? Looks like you are isolated and some way off astronomy.

If you raze both cities you risk barb galleys unless you fog bust the coast. On Ocean the fish resources are safe.

Game has not been patched for many years so in theory the exploit still works. You shouldn't really need this on Monarch level.

 

[Hesha]

I certainly shouldn't need an exploit, no This is EMP, though, not Monarch. I took the step back down from IMM because I couldn't cut it there.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong then. I gave Catherine 56 GPT, but she still only trades with the 2 GPT she had previously.

 

[Hesha]

Next question: Are there any other "achievements" like circumnavigating the globe?

Or in other words: Music, Liberalism, Economics, Physics and Communism + Circumnavigation is a comprehensive list of things where you get a bonus for doing something first?

 

[lymond]

You get a free GG from Fascism and a free GE from Fusion. I think that combined with your list is about it.

Oh..fwiw..and I have not done it in so long, but if you complete the Internet Project (Computers), you learn all tech that you don't know that the AIs know.

 

[Hesha]

Thanks! Now I just have to get that exploit to work

 

[drewisfat]

The Great Wall is my favorite wonder, but I don't blame people for not wanting to play with espionage mechanics. And as has been mentioned, it goes super early. It's my go-to with BFC stone (often settling on stone), but otherwise not so much. It's a very risky wonder to go for, because if you come up short instead of having impervious barb defense you have ZERO barb defense since you haven't been building warriors. And since you really need to make the attempt with your capital, the failgold you'd get isn't even immediately valuable til you've settled a 2nd city.
It also isn't great on seafood starts because it won't stop barb galleys, so you still need spawnbusters on the coastline which kind of defeats the purpose.

The subsidy trick still works and I consider it a fair play mostly because it's more useful on hard maps and less useful on pangaea. The main objection people raise seems to be about crippling an AI and not over how much money it raises - which to me indicates a lack of actual experience. It's not a free "bankrupt the runaway AI" button. A runaway AI by definition is rich in both gold and resources, and on Deity they can about break even off the resource trade even if the cost looks to be a fortune. You *can* cause some hardship to a small AI -- but that's probably a bad play.

 

[Hesha]

The Great Wall is my favorite wonder, but I don't blame people for not wanting to play with espionage mechanics. And as has been mentioned, it goes super early. It's my go-to with BFC stone (often settling on stone), but otherwise not so much. It's a very risky wonder to go for, because if you come up short instead of having impervious barb defense you have ZERO barb defense since you haven't been building warriors. And since you really need to make the attempt with your capital, the failgold you'd get isn't even immediately valuable til you've settled a 2nd city.
It also isn't great on seafood starts because it won't stop barb galleys, so you still need spawnbusters on the coastline which kind of defeats the purpose.

The subsidy trick still works and I consider it a fair play mostly because it's more useful on hard maps and less useful on pangaea. The main objection people raise seems to be about crippling an AI and not over how much money it raises - which to me indicates a lack of actual experience. It's not a free "bankrupt the runaway AI" button. A runaway AI by definition is rich in both gold and resources, and on Deity they can about break even off the resource trade even if the cost looks to be a fortune. You *can* cause some hardship to a small AI -- but that's probably a bad play.

How does it work then? It was my understanding that you are supposed to give the AI an amount of GPT as a gift and then the AI is supposed to have that money available for trade to spend per turn. The extra trick that Seraiel mentioned was to gift a resource along with the gold, because then, if you pillage the improvement that makes your resource available, the "gift" gets cancelled automatically and you don't have to be giving away the money for the minimum of 10 turns.

My problem, however, in my current game is that I gave Catherine 56 GPT as a gift, along with copper, but she still has only 2 GPT available for trade. I reopened the conversation, still 2 GPT. Then I let a turn pass, still 2 GPT. What's my mistake?

 

[Hesha]

A little addition to my experiment. In a different save game, I gave 50 GPT to Monty, which brought his available GPT for trading up from 8 to 12. Tried the same with destitute Pericles, no matter how much I gave him (gave him 400 GPT), it only brought his available GPT from 1 to 2.

If anyone knows how to do this, please teach me I love cheese.

 

[6K Man]

Seoul would be better on the Corn, as Lymond says, and Pusan should be SSE of where it is. But IMO, razing Seoul would be a mistake here. Look at it this way:

It already has at least a Lighthouse and it’s size 4. Resettling it means you need to build a Settler, and at size 4, New Seoul would have +10 food at size 4 (City square Corn, Fish/Fish/Clam/FP) versus the current Seoul which also has +10 food at size 4 (Corn/LH Clam/LH Clam/FP). If you build or whip a Lighthouse in New Seoul, it’ll be at +13 food at size 4, but will take that much longer to get to there.

And on top of that, New Seoul would have 10 Coast/Ocean tiles… ugh. Not much good for anything but whipping. Old Seoul has Horses, is riverside (fresh water) and 2 more riverside tiles than New Seoul would.

As for the subsidy trick, FWIW it's never worked for me. I do routinely cancel resource-for-cash trades whenever the AI has free income, and renegotiate them.

 

[Kaitzilla]

My problem, however, in my current game is that I gave Catherine 56 GPT as a gift, along with copper, but she still has only 2 GPT available for trade. I reopened the conversation, still 2 GPT. Then I let a turn pass, still 2 GPT. What's my mistake?

An AI will offer per turn that maxes out based on their empire's total population.
Since Catherine will only offer 2 per turn, that means she has between 20 and 29 population in her empire total.

As for the subsidy trick, FWIW it's never worked for me. I do routinely cancel resource-for-cash trades whenever the AI has free income, and renegotiate them.

I like to use it in the mid-game on middle sized empires.
They will offer a good amount of per turn for each resource because they have a decent empire population.
And since they are medium-sized, there are a few resources I have that they are missing.
Small AI empires don't offer much gold, and huge AI empires with great population and per turn don't usually need any resources.

I don't think I've ever tried to combine subsidized trading with corporation resources.

I know that subsidized resource trades hurt the AI's tech rate.
One of my larger vassals was sucked dry so badly they stopped teching
I had to ease up so they could tech things for me still.