[IMM] Some Random Game Writeup [No Huts, No Random Events, large fractal]

[Manco Capac]

I will hold the chastity of this thread at all cost!

 

[Lone Wolf]

So, as I see from Aram, in TAM you can capture culture buildings that still give culture?

 

[Manco Capac]

So, as I see from Aram, in TAM you can capture culture buildings that still give culture?

Outside the Obelisk which I get for free from the Stonehenge, the rules are different which buildings remain or not. The most notable is for wonders: all wonders have 50% to get destroyed at conquest. Thus, letting the AI do the wonder isn't a valid strategy other than gambling. Especially when the most critical ones (like the Sphinx) are dirt cheap.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

Immediately, I culture bombed Hadrumentum to augment to culture seed on that tile. Indeed, since I'm not familiar with Espionage culture spread, I did not realize that the city previous cultural investment is mighty important to fasten the culture spread value. With a 4000 culture bomb, the future culture spread in that city will be 200 culture and higher. That is far better than starting 1 culture spread. Especially when limited to 4 spies at a time. BTW, I did not mention it yet, but don't you it's weird Minos accept my distant cities like that when his capital is far from them. It's because there is a hidden clause when the AI has 3 cities or less, they agree on any cities.





Let's see the culture seed now. 214 culture spread as a start is infinitely better than 1.




Arminius is getting out of control. Just for the capture of one city, he doesn't want to end the war. Not that I mind because he'll be stuck with Decebal until I finish my business.



And the weird factor being Decebal who succeeded taking out the invader.



Oh no, oh noes. Too fast forwarding, Arminius. Calm the f-ck down in your tech progress!




Just a few culture spread and now I'm at 247 culture. This is the snowball effect and the importance to have a strong culture seed. Next time, I shall make two culture bombs!



What the hell? Is it spiralling into hell? Because he is speeding up. The only limiting factor being the Silk Road Project needs its posts built successively. You can't build all of them at the same time.



Democratic Arminius, yeah...



I forced Minos into Greek gods for the discount.




Oooooh! Arminius is going savage!



Poor Decebal. Nah, I don't care.



At the same time, Decebal decided to move into Arminius' lands.



Uuuuuuooooooh! Frikkin' Berserkers already....!!!!1!111! This, I wouldn't be able to deal if I was the target. It's the reason I avoided coastal cities early because I think the AI doesn't deal well with naval invasion of inland cities.



316 culture spread.



Figures.




(•_&#8226
( •_&#8226>⌐■-■
(⌐■_&#9632



This isn't the time to fail!



I don't care I'm the biggest, I'm losing to spiritually bigger.



Oh gosh. Again, Arminius made peace.



Crazy Arminius...



Yes, I wholehearted agree into anything you ask for.



Still annoyed...T_T



Awww come on! You make no sense!

 

[Manco Capac]

THE END​

Spoiler :

Just got Iron Working from a trade IIRC.



Ok, this is the end. Arminius has a huge army, almost finished the tech tree and I don't have the nuke equalizer in ancient ages.



515 culture spread.



Wow, he already has built the equivalent of the U.N.



Useless late GScientist.



Two more trade posts and Arminius has won.



800 culture spread!!!



926 culture spread!!!!!!



One more...



He literally finished the tech tree!



Oh well, this is game.



Here it is. I got my second legendary city out of espionage.



Close enough.




Aeetes is getting destroyed. Guess who again.



Game over.



Oh waiiiiiiit.



Silk route....upward.

With Noah's Ark.

Anyways, 10 turns later. Arminius contacted China and made forture, allowing to have more beyotches and to buy the world.



Woohoo! Just like its historical counterpart, Carthage has lost.

 

[Manco Capac]

Thanks Peter.

Later, let's see how to approach a culture game better and return to the first failure game.

 

[Lone Wolf]

How many culture points did you have in your third cultural city candidate at the end?

 

[RagingHordes]

Great game, Tachy! Nicely reported, with lots of details that make me want to try the mod. Dacians to victory!

 

[Manco Capac]

What's the deal with Dacians? You are Parisian, right?

 

[Manco Capac]

This post has purpose to organize thoughts and strategize around the culture victory. You may say *grand-self-talkie* how on earth culture is hard or interesting. Indeed, normally, it doesn't have much action nor much effort needed to win it. Nevertheless, TAM made unconsciously culture hard as hell or simply unwinnable peacefully starting IMM+. Let's cite the reasons of such infamy to the easiest and most boring victory of all.

First, here is the tech tree. Techs bolded in red are all those that will help towards the quest of culture. And the exception is the green one being the most helpful.

Spoiler :

Starting about the green one being one of the dead last one; it enables the most important civic being Patronage. It is basically Caste System allowing infinite number of artists, scientists and merchants. Now, HOW THE HECK is it useful at the end of the game. If I need a quick shot at a GScientist, GMerchant or GArtists, it's not going to be useful at the end of the tech tree where a ferocious match is unfolding for the Silk Route.

Normally, per definition, a culture victory is about shutting the tech slider down mid-game and float towards victory while hiring artists. But the most accessible source of artists is patronage itself. And by the time you arrive there, the IMM AI has finished the tech tree 10 turns or more.

At most, you'll spawn one GArtist. Insufficient.

Then, how to hire artists? Well, there is only two slots for the whole game.

Spoiler :

The buildings are the Garden (Architecture tech) and the Amphitheatre (Drama) enabled mid-game. Still, it is insufficient. Especially when you either spent GPeople earlier, making the GArtist spawning journey sluggish to a point the Silk Route Project is already won by some obscure AI.

It is not like we have 50,000 culture per Legendary City. At least, we see it was logically adjusted to 20,000. But still, it is still hard because GArtists are missing from the early spots and culture modifiers are rather rare. Normally, a culture game has a Great Temple per religion giving 50%. In TAM, they vanished. Replaced by things like this.

Spoiler :

Ok, they are randomly located buildings and civics that give small culture modifier boosts, but only at increments of 25%. I calculated and it gave a total of 185% modifier. Pretty weak, especially when you have to break it into three cities.

Here is the list of those buildings and civics:

Spoiler :

It is simply too weak compared to the system of cathedrals/great temples that can give ~200% per LC.
Ok, let's say the attenuation to 20,000 culture makes the deal easier. At least. But remark most of those buildings are wonders you could lose on a bad start. That's already minus 75% Now we are at 110%. Just a Hermitage building. Now, THAT is too weak! Combined with the few artists sources, it is then infernal.

Let's count all the sources:

3 for Garden
3 for Amphitheatre
5 for MoM
2 for Statue of Zeus
2 for both Heroic Epic and NatEpic
2 for Aristotelean Theatre

ONLY 17 of GArtist the whole game until too late Patronage. That's insane.
And minus the gamble wonders, that is 8 GArtist GPP remaining. That's outrageous. Just mix with other GPP sources and gamble until the end of the game. At least, Drama tech gives a free GArtist. If you don't lose the tech race. Good luck IMM+ on a bad start.

Of course, they are way to boost like the typical GAge, some civics (mostly 25%) and several wonders, but that doesn't suffice.

And that doesn't end there. One might say wonderspam early and pray to gobble them all and wait the nice after 1000 years culture doubling. Tell me. Do those wonders really are awesome culturally?

Spoiler :

Nope. Yes, there are some extraordinaty wonders that give the best output of +6 like the Mids, MoM or SoZ, but in the end, wonders culture rates all suck.

And that is the problem with TAM. Everything is weakened. Few sources of culture, few and weak modifiers and lack of specialist slots.

I wonderspam in my capital and +100 of culture is considered awesome. Normally, it is piece of cake in the base BTS.

To resume, we need 60,000 culture for three legendary cities. Each GArtist is worth +4000 culture. Let's say you get a minus 10,000 from miscellaneous sources. You need at least 12-13 GArtists. Repeat? Wow, impossible.

And hence the conclusion Culture by assistance of espionage is the only way. You wonderspam the capital while finger crossing to get several GArtists and you choose a weakened AI (you are evidently the one who weakened it) to give two cities crushed culturally. Get 4 GArtists at least and you seed those two cities of 8000 culture for 400 culture for starting culture spread mission.

I made tests and it takes ~18 culture missions each city to get a legendary city.

Here is the approximate cruise of culture spread:

Spoiler :

404
424
443
467
491
505
541
568
597
626
658
691
725
762
800
840
882
926
----
11350

Combines this to 8000 and you almost got it.

Here is also a graph showing the nice "exponential" aspect of espionage assisting culture. Far better than the approach of GArtists when the next one takes more GPP to spawn it

That's mighty reasonable deal because I didn't expand on a last problematic of TAM for culture. I let the picture tells.

Spoiler :

 

[Manco Capac]

How many culture points did you have in your third cultural city candidate at the end?

Only 1566 . I didn't bother capturing it in the end. I hade to load the end game to actually see the result. I knew I hadn't reach far because I realized the power of seeding culture with culture bombs too late.

 

[Lone Wolf]

^^ Very entertaining analysis, thanks.

 

[RagingHordes]

What's the deal with Dacians? You are Parisian, right?

I am not Parisian, I am not Dacian either! I don't see many references to this ancient nation. Strangely enough it's the name of a car...

 

[Manco Capac]

 

[Laurino]

I laughed, and read, then laughed again, then kept reading, for 2 hours. When we tackled the task of making TAM for Civ4, I guess we hoped it would be an enjoyable mod, this goes without saying. But the way you told the "story" of your game was really captivating, as I didn't expect there could be suspense and humour as well used in a game report involving only pics and comments. It's a shame you didn't win, but I'll give it to you, TAM is harsh... real harsh... I myself may have played not more than a dozen of games even if I've worked on it for more than 2 years (Graywarden would play and report, while I, alongside all the others involved, would input digits and gfx to make it viable). Really interesting to see that people are still playing it after all those years! You are a great game/story-teller, once again, thank you.


P.S.: gota love the angry man pic that ends the Carthage game hope you'll still give another shot at culture victory! I'll follow it for sure.

 

[Manco Capac]

Un Montrélais! Que ce monde est petit!

Spoiler :

Yeah, TAM is harsh because it kept the handicaps dating the times of Vanilla/Warlords.
Right now, I'm attempting deity and...man, can't keep up.
So, I guess you are one of the beta tester. EDIT: Note to myself: Read the entire post before saying things like that lol.

I don't think they are many playing it right now. It's sad I can't reverse the machine by promoting it like I'm doing it.

 

[Seraiel]

Whats the problem with only using 4 spies to get 2 cities to legendary? Just send them in one after another until the city is legendary, if cities want to revolt, gift some units and park some attackers in front of the cities and AI will defend, courage mechanic should still work, so if you take some Guerilla-promoted Infantries or MGs...

Sera

 

[Manco Capac]

Usually, a game in TAM has a runaway leader on IMM+. With 4 spies, it just limits my rate of culture spread. If I had infinite number just like the base game, I wouldn't need the GArtist culture bombs seed.
And without roads allowing 3 moves (or I tech deep to enable it), it takes two turns before making the spy mission.
In the end, the AI catches up and wins.
I know I could make a huge campaign to crush all the AI's then win culture, but that kills the purpose of a peaceful culture game. Of course, my game wasn't peaceful at all being picking on Minos, but otherwise, the culture game would have been 10-fold harder.

BTW, this is an ancient age game, I can't get better than a unit that resembles a lot to the Macemen, but called instead Heavy Infantry and has 10 strength. But by the time I get it, the culture is too late.

 

[jihe]

I enjoyed this a lot. Are you going to do any other mods? Rise of Mankind A New Dawn perhaps?

 

[MarigoldRan]

Somewhat jealous. You're so much better at these write-ups than I am.