though it would also mean an amphibious assault because of his UU. I think that he would give up or just land them if there were at least 2-3 rifles in the city he was trying to attack. that's what the AI seems to do in all of my games
Immortal Dutch Domination - REX/Spy Fusion
- Thread starter axident
- Start date
Well the cities themselves would house the rifles and cannons, of course! We could probably hold off Ragnar if we really had to, long enough to sue for peace or for others to join the fray. Obsolete units, even berserker/maces, can't hurt rifles that badly.
Against a huge military, it is useless to try to outfight it right away; instead, we must use our diplomatic options to try to get that huge military to focus on someone else while we get stronger. We already got the ball rolling by getting many other civs to stop trading with him. If all else fails, we have the techs to bribe many civs into dogpiling Ragnar and taking the heat off us.
***
This post applies mostly to Domination-style games. In other situations, maybe you would rather not conquer more territory; maybe you are going for a space race or something and don’t mind helping out a friend beat back Ragnar. But I basically only do Domination or Conquest victories unless I get an isolated start. It’s a habit I picked up ever since Master of Orion, where it was too easy to get diplomatic victories.
***
This post is about Risk. Yes, Risk. You know, that board game? You can also play variations of it online, such as at globalcombat.com.
For those of you who don’t know what Risk is, it’s a board game where the world is carved up into regions that form continents. Each region you control at the start of your turn generates 0.5 armies. Each continent you control at the start of your turn gives you bonus armies. Intercontinental war is allowed only between adjacent regions, or a few sea lanes (e.g., between eastern South America and western Africa).
For instance, South America is cut up into 4 regions. If you control 3 of the 4 regions, you get just 1.5 armies. If you control all 4 regions, you get 2 armies from the 4 regions, plus another 3 bonus armies, for a total of 5 armies. So that extra region netted not +0.5 but +3.5 armies! Looking at it another way, the +3 continent bonus is like controlling +6 regions. So controlling continents is very important.
The 1v1 game has its own set of strategies; I won’t go into that. The multiplayer Risk game has a set of strategies that boil down into two: a) divide and conquer, and b) wait.
In divide and conquer games, you might start off with most of, say, Africa, and you quickly capture it before anyone else captures a continent. Then you punch into a neighboring continent and capture that one, then another. If other players all gang up against you, they might stand a chance, but they often won’t, especially if they get points for taking second place, in which case nobody wants to waste their armies fighting you when they can help you exterminate everybody else.
In wait games, which more closely resembles civ, players quickly settle into different continents. Nobody attacks, and army counts climb ever higher. If you have one of the smaller continents (Africa, South America, or Australia, which give +4, +3, and +2 bonus armies in addition to having fewer regions in the first place), you are almost forced to do nothing until one of the big continents makes a move, as the big continents get massive army bonuses which can wipe you out if you try to start anything with those big guys (+9, +7, and +6 for Asia, Europe, and North America, on top of the high army count that they get for having so many regions in them). (In practice though the Australia guy tends to wind up controlling most of Asia as well, so Asia basically means Asia + Australia in most games.)
Eventually someone needs to go to sleep or eat dinner or gets bored or gets enough armies that he or she thinks she can make a move. Now, what do you do if you are in one of the little continents?
Example: Asia-Australia invades Europe while clogging up Pevek to discourage N America from joining the fray. (A good player would simultaneously attack Europe AND N America if he or she had the armies, of course, but I’m trying to analogize this to civ). As Africa, which shares borders with only Asia, Europe, and South America, you could join Asia in beating up Europe, or attack Asia, or ignore that conflict and go after South America, knowing that your other neighbors are busy. Let’s examine what happens under each scenario:
1. Join Asia’s attack of Europe.
This is a foolish move. Asia-Australia is effectively killing 7 armies per turn by denying Europe the continent bonus. You might be able to get a few pieces of Europe before Asia takes the rest. Then what? Then Asia attacks you to kick you out of Europe and to get the +7 army continent bonus. You just helped the biggest guy on the block get even bigger, to the point where he can now crush everybody at the same time.
2. Come to Europe’s defense by attacking Asia.
An okay but ultimately weak move. In Risk, it’s often difficult for any one player to have enough armies to stiff arm 2 or 3 others at the same time. If you invade Asia to break its continent bonus, Asia will likely pull back its troops from Europe to deal with you. However, it might retain enough strength to deal with you and immediately hit Europe again, in which case you did nothing but anger the biggest guy on the block as he takes over Europe and then focuses on you. Even if you did lasting damage, the net result is that all three of you wound up weaker relative to N America and S America.
3. Go for South America.
A great move if you wait for N America to step in first. Let Europe and Asia duke it out; Asia will inevitably start to win, and many N America players would attack Asia at that point to prevent Asia from running away with the game. That’s your golden opportunity to ignore Europe and Asia and beat the living daylights out of S America. N America may try to thwart your armies by also invading S America, but if N America committed too many troops to fighting Asia, it won’t have enough to stop you. In fact, you might even have enough juice to then invade N America while you are at it. Asia might try to invade Africa at this point to try to stop you, but you should build up your border armies with Asia during your N American campaign enough to prevent that. Europe could stop you, but it’s probably very bloodied by then from trying to recapture Europe, as well as being ticked off more at Asia than at you, so Europe is unlikely to backstab you. Ideally, at this point, nobody but you and Asia will have continents; you have S America and Africa; Asia has Australia. Keep pushing until it looks like Asia will get the Asian continent back, then push into Asia itself.
***
Risk doesn’t map directly onto Civ. Nevertheless, it’s worth looking at the similarities.
If Ragnar invades us, we can probably obliterate his obsolete units with some cannons and riflemen, then sue for peace. If we control the AP, we can also get several other civs to DoW on Ragnar before we sue for peace.
If Ragnar invades someone else on Colossia first, we could help him, fight against him, or take the opportunity to DoW on someone else.
Just as in Risk, though, the first two options aren’t that great:
Ganging up on a neighbor with Ragnar makes it easier for him to take more cities, and even if we take some too, the target civ might capitulate to Ragnar first, making him even stronger. (Odds of capitulation to a rival seem to go way up if a human and an AI civ both go after a victim AI civ; the victim civ often capitulates to any one of the attacking civs, and it might not be to you!)
But fighting against Ragnar is just plain stupid if we are way behind him in armies and can’t strike a permanent blow against him. It would just make our armies weaker relative to everyone else for no gain. Would the original victim of Ragnar be grateful? Yes, but not by that much, and not enough to give us any cities.
The third option is to pray that Ragnar’s victim holds out long enough for them to make peace, and to take the opportunity to invade someone else. If done quickly enough, our victim is unlikely to capitulate to anyone else, and we just gained a lot of territory while our main rival wasted his armies on someone else. Ever bribe civ A to attack civ B and then take the opportunity to attack civ C? Same principle.
Also, we could take the initiative and DoW on someone right now, but that risks them bribing someone into dogpiling us, or Ragnar or Suleiman dogpiling us just because they want to. We're like a recently-consolidated large continent; we have the regions and a good growth trajectory, but we are currently weak on armies and it's just not a good time to be the first to declare war in the game. Maybe once we have some cannon action going.
This post applies mostly to Domination-style games. In other situations, maybe you would rather not conquer more territory; maybe you are going for a space race or something and don’t mind helping out a friend beat back Ragnar. But I basically only do Domination or Conquest victories unless I get an isolated start. It’s a habit I picked up ever since Master of Orion, where it was too easy to get diplomatic victories.
***
This post is about Risk. Yes, Risk. You know, that board game? You can also play variations of it online, such as at globalcombat.com.
For those of you who don’t know what Risk is, it’s a board game where the world is carved up into regions that form continents. Each region you control at the start of your turn generates 0.5 armies. Each continent you control at the start of your turn gives you bonus armies. Intercontinental war is allowed only between adjacent regions, or a few sea lanes (e.g., between eastern South America and western Africa).
For instance, South America is cut up into 4 regions. If you control 3 of the 4 regions, you get just 1.5 armies. If you control all 4 regions, you get 2 armies from the 4 regions, plus another 3 bonus armies, for a total of 5 armies. So that extra region netted not +0.5 but +3.5 armies! Looking at it another way, the +3 continent bonus is like controlling +6 regions. So controlling continents is very important.
The 1v1 game has its own set of strategies; I won’t go into that. The multiplayer Risk game has a set of strategies that boil down into two: a) divide and conquer, and b) wait.
In divide and conquer games, you might start off with most of, say, Africa, and you quickly capture it before anyone else captures a continent. Then you punch into a neighboring continent and capture that one, then another. If other players all gang up against you, they might stand a chance, but they often won’t, especially if they get points for taking second place, in which case nobody wants to waste their armies fighting you when they can help you exterminate everybody else.
In wait games, which more closely resembles civ, players quickly settle into different continents. Nobody attacks, and army counts climb ever higher. If you have one of the smaller continents (Africa, South America, or Australia, which give +4, +3, and +2 bonus armies in addition to having fewer regions in the first place), you are almost forced to do nothing until one of the big continents makes a move, as the big continents get massive army bonuses which can wipe you out if you try to start anything with those big guys (+9, +7, and +6 for Asia, Europe, and North America, on top of the high army count that they get for having so many regions in them). (In practice though the Australia guy tends to wind up controlling most of Asia as well, so Asia basically means Asia + Australia in most games.)
Eventually someone needs to go to sleep or eat dinner or gets bored or gets enough armies that he or she thinks she can make a move. Now, what do you do if you are in one of the little continents?
Example: Asia-Australia invades Europe while clogging up Pevek to discourage N America from joining the fray. (A good player would simultaneously attack Europe AND N America if he or she had the armies, of course, but I’m trying to analogize this to civ). As Africa, which shares borders with only Asia, Europe, and South America, you could join Asia in beating up Europe, or attack Asia, or ignore that conflict and go after South America, knowing that your other neighbors are busy. Let’s examine what happens under each scenario:
1. Join Asia’s attack of Europe.
This is a foolish move. Asia-Australia is effectively killing 7 armies per turn by denying Europe the continent bonus. You might be able to get a few pieces of Europe before Asia takes the rest. Then what? Then Asia attacks you to kick you out of Europe and to get the +7 army continent bonus. You just helped the biggest guy on the block get even bigger, to the point where he can now crush everybody at the same time.
2. Come to Europe’s defense by attacking Asia.
An okay but ultimately weak move. In Risk, it’s often difficult for any one player to have enough armies to stiff arm 2 or 3 others at the same time. If you invade Asia to break its continent bonus, Asia will likely pull back its troops from Europe to deal with you. However, it might retain enough strength to deal with you and immediately hit Europe again, in which case you did nothing but anger the biggest guy on the block as he takes over Europe and then focuses on you. Even if you did lasting damage, the net result is that all three of you wound up weaker relative to N America and S America.
3. Go for South America.
A great move if you wait for N America to step in first. Let Europe and Asia duke it out; Asia will inevitably start to win, and many N America players would attack Asia at that point to prevent Asia from running away with the game. That’s your golden opportunity to ignore Europe and Asia and beat the living daylights out of S America. N America may try to thwart your armies by also invading S America, but if N America committed too many troops to fighting Asia, it won’t have enough to stop you. In fact, you might even have enough juice to then invade N America while you are at it. Asia might try to invade Africa at this point to try to stop you, but you should build up your border armies with Asia during your N American campaign enough to prevent that. Europe could stop you, but it’s probably very bloodied by then from trying to recapture Europe, as well as being ticked off more at Asia than at you, so Europe is unlikely to backstab you. Ideally, at this point, nobody but you and Asia will have continents; you have S America and Africa; Asia has Australia. Keep pushing until it looks like Asia will get the Asian continent back, then push into Asia itself.
***
Risk doesn’t map directly onto Civ. Nevertheless, it’s worth looking at the similarities.
If Ragnar invades us, we can probably obliterate his obsolete units with some cannons and riflemen, then sue for peace. If we control the AP, we can also get several other civs to DoW on Ragnar before we sue for peace.
If Ragnar invades someone else on Colossia first, we could help him, fight against him, or take the opportunity to DoW on someone else.
Just as in Risk, though, the first two options aren’t that great:
Ganging up on a neighbor with Ragnar makes it easier for him to take more cities, and even if we take some too, the target civ might capitulate to Ragnar first, making him even stronger. (Odds of capitulation to a rival seem to go way up if a human and an AI civ both go after a victim AI civ; the victim civ often capitulates to any one of the attacking civs, and it might not be to you!)
But fighting against Ragnar is just plain stupid if we are way behind him in armies and can’t strike a permanent blow against him. It would just make our armies weaker relative to everyone else for no gain. Would the original victim of Ragnar be grateful? Yes, but not by that much, and not enough to give us any cities.
The third option is to pray that Ragnar’s victim holds out long enough for them to make peace, and to take the opportunity to invade someone else. If done quickly enough, our victim is unlikely to capitulate to anyone else, and we just gained a lot of territory while our main rival wasted his armies on someone else. Ever bribe civ A to attack civ B and then take the opportunity to attack civ C? Same principle.
Also, we could take the initiative and DoW on someone right now, but that risks them bribing someone into dogpiling us, or Ragnar or Suleiman dogpiling us just because they want to. We're like a recently-consolidated large continent; we have the regions and a good growth trajectory, but we are currently weak on armies and it's just not a good time to be the first to declare war in the game. Maybe once we have some cannon action going.
Welcome back from vacation, Maarten says to Willem and Ilse as they enter the war room in Amsterdam palace.
Thank you, Maarten, Ilse says.
Thanks. Situation report? Willem replies.
Weve built a marble hall of heroes in Middelburg that should encourage Dutch youth to join the army.
Chris enters the room. Im sorry for being late. Welcome back from your vacation.
Thanks, Chris, Ilse says. Did our electricity research project ever bear fruit?
Yes, we are powered now and Willems latest erection to you will be Broadway. Also, local resident Alexander Graham Bell, who settled here as a Great Engineer so many years ago, has invented the telephone. Chris proudly points to the funny-looking object in the middle of the war room table.
*RING RING*
See? It works! Chris says as he picks up the receiver.
Hello? Chris says. After a moment, Chris cups his hand on the speaker and says, Willem, its Huayna. He wants you to cut off all trade with Sitting Bull.
Im not here, Willem says.
Im sorry, but hes not here right now and wont be here for the next few years. Im sorry. Uh huh. Okay, bye.
*RING RING*
Now what is it? Willem sighs.
Would you like to try the phone this time, Willem? Chris asks.
Oh all right, Willem says. He picks up the phone and listens for a long moment. Oh, hi Suleiman. Hereditary Rule? Sorry, but the Dutch are democratically-minded. Uh huh. Tell you what, well think about it and get back to you after a few decades. Okay. Okay. Uh huh. Okay, bye.
Actually, were on the verge of becoming comrades; we just researched Communism, Chris grins as Willem hangs up the phone. We just need to time the change to avoid anarchy; maybe we should get Cristo Redentor.
Very well.
Another thing, Chris says. We have reopened borders with Ragnar and are trading resources with him again. That might move us down his hit list. Also, all of our intelligence reports indicate that he is not preparing for war against anyone yet.
With an army that big, its just a matter of time, Willem replies dourly.
Speaking of bigger armies, Inca has a bigger army than us as well, though not on the scale of Ragnar or Suleiman, Maarten says, elbowing Chris out of the way.
Chris says, soon, we will have self-reloading repeating machine guns for you, Maarten.
Oh?
Yes, its an offshoot of our efforts to mold steel railroads for faster troop and supply shipments. The main peacetime benefit is lower transportation costs, especially for ore from mines and lumber from lumbermills.
A messenger bursts into the war room just then, out of breath.
Sirs! Mr. President! Maam! Intelligence agents have relayed this urgent message. The messenger gives Maarten a sealed envelope.
Dismissed, Maarten says as he opens the letter and reads it to himself, silently, as his face grows pale.
Whats the matter? Willem asks.
Suleiman is about to declare war on someone!
***
Mari Bushnell? Ilse asks as she knocks the door to a nondescript Amsterdam apartment.
A woman holding a crying baby opens the door, her Incan features striking even at dusk.
Yes?
Ilse drops her veil.
Oh, milady! Im sorry, I didnt recognize you. Come on in.
Thank you.
What do I owe the pleasure to? Mari asks Ilse when they are seated.
Im not supposed to tell you this, but you deserve to know the truth about your husband.
You mean he wasnt captured and killed by pirates?
Not exactly.
Thank you, Maarten, Ilse says.
Thanks. Situation report? Willem replies.
Weve built a marble hall of heroes in Middelburg that should encourage Dutch youth to join the army.
Chris enters the room. Im sorry for being late. Welcome back from your vacation.
Thanks, Chris, Ilse says. Did our electricity research project ever bear fruit?
Yes, we are powered now and Willems latest erection to you will be Broadway. Also, local resident Alexander Graham Bell, who settled here as a Great Engineer so many years ago, has invented the telephone. Chris proudly points to the funny-looking object in the middle of the war room table.
*RING RING*
See? It works! Chris says as he picks up the receiver.
Hello? Chris says. After a moment, Chris cups his hand on the speaker and says, Willem, its Huayna. He wants you to cut off all trade with Sitting Bull.
Im not here, Willem says.
Im sorry, but hes not here right now and wont be here for the next few years. Im sorry. Uh huh. Okay, bye.
*RING RING*
Now what is it? Willem sighs.
Would you like to try the phone this time, Willem? Chris asks.
Oh all right, Willem says. He picks up the phone and listens for a long moment. Oh, hi Suleiman. Hereditary Rule? Sorry, but the Dutch are democratically-minded. Uh huh. Tell you what, well think about it and get back to you after a few decades. Okay. Okay. Uh huh. Okay, bye.
Actually, were on the verge of becoming comrades; we just researched Communism, Chris grins as Willem hangs up the phone. We just need to time the change to avoid anarchy; maybe we should get Cristo Redentor.
Very well.
Another thing, Chris says. We have reopened borders with Ragnar and are trading resources with him again. That might move us down his hit list. Also, all of our intelligence reports indicate that he is not preparing for war against anyone yet.
With an army that big, its just a matter of time, Willem replies dourly.
Speaking of bigger armies, Inca has a bigger army than us as well, though not on the scale of Ragnar or Suleiman, Maarten says, elbowing Chris out of the way.
Chris says, soon, we will have self-reloading repeating machine guns for you, Maarten.
Oh?
Yes, its an offshoot of our efforts to mold steel railroads for faster troop and supply shipments. The main peacetime benefit is lower transportation costs, especially for ore from mines and lumber from lumbermills.
A messenger bursts into the war room just then, out of breath.
Sirs! Mr. President! Maam! Intelligence agents have relayed this urgent message. The messenger gives Maarten a sealed envelope.
Dismissed, Maarten says as he opens the letter and reads it to himself, silently, as his face grows pale.
Whats the matter? Willem asks.
Suleiman is about to declare war on someone!
***
Mari Bushnell? Ilse asks as she knocks the door to a nondescript Amsterdam apartment.
A woman holding a crying baby opens the door, her Incan features striking even at dusk.
Yes?
Ilse drops her veil.
Oh, milady! Im sorry, I didnt recognize you. Come on in.
Thank you.
What do I owe the pleasure to? Mari asks Ilse when they are seated.
Im not supposed to tell you this, but you deserve to know the truth about your husband.
You mean he wasnt captured and killed by pirates?
Not exactly.
It’s what, the fifth time now that we have voted no against Incan resolutions to stop trade with Gilgamesh? (480-81)
Communism for State Property, but Inca stole the free great spy without my realizing it until now. (482)
Electricity for the quick commerce boost, before we aim for railroads, as our workers are still busy developing our cities and can’t spare any bodies for railroads yet. (483)
HE finally done; I wish there were a better city to put it in, but I want to save Moai for Ironworks. Plus the fact that Moai is not mature yet, whereas Middelburg is mature and can crank riflemen. (484)
You know that all of your available tiles suck when the governor would rather run a citizen-specialist than work a tile. Also, in hindsight, those new cities should have started off by building Hindu temples to get some hammers going from the get go, rather than going for lighthouse + dikes. (485)
We’re fine tech-wise. Ragnar has steel on us, and we’ve avoided the dead-end military techs for now. We’ll go for Mil tradition once we have a unit approaching level 6, which we need to build West Point. Check out Inca’s gold, by the way. I bet someone failed to get Statue of Liberty before we did. Heh, heh. (486)
It’s no use to try to close the gap with just riflemen, so why bother spamming them immediately? Rotterdam and Middelburg take a few turns to build some EP-generating buildings before resuming their riflemen spam. (487)
You see why I had a hard time figuring out which city ought to get HE? Middelburg is a far cry from a true powerhouse like a watermill-and-workshop city or the Moai city, but Moai is still building infrastructure, whereas Middelburg is a mature city that can utilize HE right away. (488)
Ragnar’s huge military is going to be tops for a long time. We might as well open borders and trade with him to recover some lost diplomatic ground, in the hopes that the other Hindus won’t. Those other Hindus would then become juicier targets for his wrath, assuming that we keep up the pace militarily. This is where dikes shine; they give a big boost even in non-pangaea maps. The effect would be even stronger had I not selected Low Sea Levels in this game. (489-90)
Ragnar is being a pacifist for the moment. (491)
We have enough EPs now to see Inca, who are stronger militarily than I expected; I thought they would be lower thanks to the division of power and research and everything else, when Inca split into two pieces (one of them being America). (492)
The thing about Pleased civs is that you can often say no to them without much effect, provided that they have someone they hate more than you. In this case, Huayna hates at least Ragnar and Gilgamesh, if not others, based on his AP resolutions. So we aren’t his worst enemy and he is unlikely to DoW on us as long as we have almost as big of a military. As expected, his hands remain empty after we reject his demand. (494-95)
Suleiman is a bit different, in that he has a bigger army and is not Pleased and might not even have a worst enemy other than us. Nevertheless, HR is such a crappy civic that we say “no” anyway. Heck, if he wants to ship crap over here, let him; he isn’t technologically as powerful as Ragnar and we could easily defend against all but the biggest amphibious assaults with our rifles against his pre-rifle stuff. (496-97)
Electricity. (498)
With the Buddhist brothers’ power ratings so high, it’s only a matter of time before one or both of them starts a war, which might then expand to our borders. We need cannons to collateral the hell out of invading stacks from the sea, and even by the land. Also, Railroad is a very strong economic tech and also unlocks machine guns as a bonus. (499)
In the meantime, Amsterdam starts on Broadway. We might leave it up to the Incans, but we could use the extra GPP. (500)
Kampen is founded to take advantage of the oasis, uranium, and silk. (501)
Ragnar seems content to beat up barbarians for now, continuing the usual pattern of the AI preferring to beat up civs only when it runs out of barbs to beat up. (502)
We renegotiate our trade deals with some civs. (506-10)
The worrying part about the trends in the power graph: Ragnar still has a high growth rate, whereas the Incan and Ottomans have leveled off. Sumer (I hate writing “Sumeria” as that is historically inaccurate) also has a high growth rate and is also closing the gap with the Ottomans. (511)
Railroads are extremely powerful. Fast movement means that we can shift large volumes of troops around to defend large swaths of coastline. Railroads also boost production (hammers) by quite a bit in many cases. And they unlock machine gun units, which are very buff against collateral damage from siege and gunpowder units. (513)
A few turns before Utrecht was all set to spam missionaries to Long Island and Kampen, this random event shows up. Apparently Hinduism infected at least one Ottoman town [editor's note: actually that's not the case and we should have spent gold to infect the Ottomans with Hinduism and make them comply with AP resolutions], but why bother paying to spread it to more Ottoman cities, when we don’t even control the Hindu shrine? Let Suleiman spam missionaries if he wants the AP hammer bonus so much. We’ll just let the random event spread Hinduism to our own cities that don’t have it yet, instead. Also, we finally get on the ballot as a potential resident of the AP. (514-21)
We can expect action soon. (522)
So what's the benefit of creating the central city on long island? just hte fact you can build a light house and dike? btw what victory condition are you looking for? space? also, how has your trading experience been with sitting bull? I found that he was one of the stingiest civs in my last game, even at pleased.
I was sorta figuring that was probably the biggest reason. I guess in a good number of turns with a lh and dike it will actually be an ok city. and domination? you're mine kinda guy lol. It seems that that is always the victory condition that I'd like to achieve. Have you been using the whip alot? whipping armies is probably the one thing I need to improve most on.
Yeah, I think I wrote something about preventing a Cuban Missile Crisis kind of situation, very early in the thread... so early that nobody probably remembers my writing it.
Cause really, Long Island is pretty lame as far as land and resources go; having Dikes makes it a lot better, though!Aiming for Domination is very flexible so long as you have a decently-sized empire to get the ball rolling--and we do! The land and resources and military let you kill off Cultural and Space competitors if you end up going for those conditions instead. And controlling lots of land and population can lead to a Diplomatic Victory or Conquest, for obvious reasons. So I always go for Domination unless it's an isolated start.
Whip? It's the 18th century now, what whip?? You mean drafting via Nationalism? That's definitely viable but I'm a sucker for the Representation + Bureaucracy combo. It's too bad that there wasn't a huge forest-and-grassland covered area where one could build Globe Theater + National Park, which could serve as a GP farm as well as a drafting center.
If you really meant the whip as in building units via regular production, and chopping trees, and whipping: Early rushing is very popular, and it can be very powerful if you have 1-2 cities and build a death squad of axemen early on (with some whipping and/or chopping to help), when the enemy is mostly +20% culture cities and archers (if you have more than 1-2 cities when axe-rushing it's weaker cause you will either have to raze cities or eat high maintenance costs or let a rival civ live; whereas axe-rushing with 1-2 cities lets you keep every city you capture, which is like getting free settlers... call it military REXing if you will...). You can also cheesily rush the AI with Immortals or Praetorians and such as well, but it's basically the same thing as an axe rush, in many cases.
SE + bulb-and-tech-trades is also popular. I think I wrote enough about this already; I don't want to diss it, but it's just not "the" path to victory that some people think it is, not with Espionage available.
Neither rushing nor SE+trading are very robust strategies; what if you don't have copper or horses or whatever? What if you have an isolated start so there is nobody to rush, and nobody to tech trade with? What if your neighbors are all Protective, or you have one immediate neighbor and he's Sitting Bull?
The REX-and-spy strategy is more robust, because, well, REXing in general is pretty robust, and it's not hard to always get the Great Wall for Infiltration, though on Deity you have to really prioritize it even more than on Immortal. REXing in general is robust cause it gives you more land, resources, and, well, more EVERYTHING! The spies let you catch up in techs.
If you're isolated, you can skip the spies and just go even MORE settler-and-worker crazy since you have Great Wall. Then cottagespam, build a strong navy and aim to get caravels to make contact with others, while aiming for a Cultural or Space Race victory. Easy victory as long as you have a decently-sized empire, plus a) good diplo relations OR b) a good navy OR c) a good army OR some combination of the three.
*RING RING*
“Hello?”
“Hello, Willem.”
“Um, hi, Sitting Bull.”
“I hear that the Dutch are doing well these days.”
“We are. Thanks.”
“Now, about those 720 talents of gold you owe us...”
“Wha--what? This is the third time you’ve asked us to ‘donate’ to your cause.”
“What’s your answer, paleface?”
Willem sighs. “I’ll authorize 720 talents of gold to be delivered to your palace by the end of the week.”
“That’s better.”
“Good bye.”
“Later, paleface.”
*RING RING*
“Hello?”
“Hello!”
“How are you doing, Ilse?”
“I’m fine. I’m updating our latest figures on our cultural outlook, like you wanted, Willem. Is everything okay?”
“Sure. How are we doing domestically?”
“It seems like the Native Americans’ propaganda is really working, as their culture is pushing ours very hard. Our border cities are barely hanging on. Even Nijmegen, site of the Sistine Chapel, is barely hanging on, and we’ve built the Forbidden Palace there in part to counter the Incan propaganda coming out of Cori.”
“All right. I’ll see you later this week then; there’s a lot we have to accomplish in the face of the Buddhist threat.”
“Okay, I’ll give you a call later.”
“Bye.”
***
“Come in, Chris.”
“Thank you, Comrade.”
“Comrade?”
“We’re Communists now.”
“Ah, State Property is finished?”
“Yes, comrade, along with your latest erection to Ilse, the phallic Redentor.”
“Good, but what are we doing to stop the Viking threat?”
“Well, The Hague is helping out by training a few machine gun divisions as it waits for other buildings to become available through research. As for our long-term strategy of building up our economic base while building just enough military to keep our rivals at bay: Utrecht is training lots of workers to speed up our cities’ development. We’ve settled just about all the cities that we can settle, except maybe one more spot, north of Leiden. Railroads are being laid, and an iron discovery near Middelburg will only help us train and equip troops more quickly. Ragnar and company seem content to capture the last few barbarian-held lands on the planet, though they will soon run out of easy prey. By the way, Ragnar has artillery now.”
“Artillery?”
“Even bigger cannons than we have.”
“This had better work, Chris. Maarten’s latest reports show that Ragnar is not slowing down at all, and although we’ve gained some ground, our army is still relatively weak.”
“That might be true, but our Ironworks at East Fort can build an erection or two before building an entire navy almost all by itself. The Hague will build some warships in the meantime as a stopgap measure. Also, Delft is now online and can train troops. We’re getting there, sir.”
*RING RING*
“Are you going to get that?” Chris asks.
Willem picks up the phone. “Hello, Maarten. Okay. Okay. What?! Okay, good. Keep at it.”
“What happened?” Chris asks.
“We captured Nine Feather’s son, Ten Feathers, trying to break into Oxford University’s electrical labs. Unfortunately, he escaped somehow while we were transferring him from his original jail cell to a federal prison. We’re sending out the dogs, literally and figuratively, to track him down. Word has it, though, that he’s escaped back to Inca. If so, the Incans are keeping quiet about it and denying everything.”
“Wow, Willem, is this, as they say, an ‘international incident’?”
“It might well be.”
*RING RING*
“Hello? Wow, good for Suleiman! Uh huh. Okay. Keep me updated. Thanks. Bye.”
“What was that?” Chris asks.
“The Ottoman Empire just declared war on Korea, the day after it unsuccessfully sneak attacked Seoul from the sea. Now, that is an ‘international incident’!”
“Hello?”
“Hello, Willem.”
“Um, hi, Sitting Bull.”
“I hear that the Dutch are doing well these days.”
“We are. Thanks.”
“Now, about those 720 talents of gold you owe us...”
“Wha--what? This is the third time you’ve asked us to ‘donate’ to your cause.”
“What’s your answer, paleface?”
Willem sighs. “I’ll authorize 720 talents of gold to be delivered to your palace by the end of the week.”
“That’s better.”
“Good bye.”
“Later, paleface.”
*RING RING*
“Hello?”
“Hello!”
“How are you doing, Ilse?”
“I’m fine. I’m updating our latest figures on our cultural outlook, like you wanted, Willem. Is everything okay?”
“Sure. How are we doing domestically?”
“It seems like the Native Americans’ propaganda is really working, as their culture is pushing ours very hard. Our border cities are barely hanging on. Even Nijmegen, site of the Sistine Chapel, is barely hanging on, and we’ve built the Forbidden Palace there in part to counter the Incan propaganda coming out of Cori.”
“All right. I’ll see you later this week then; there’s a lot we have to accomplish in the face of the Buddhist threat.”
“Okay, I’ll give you a call later.”
“Bye.”
***
“Come in, Chris.”
“Thank you, Comrade.”
“Comrade?”
“We’re Communists now.”
“Ah, State Property is finished?”
“Yes, comrade, along with your latest erection to Ilse, the phallic Redentor.”
“Good, but what are we doing to stop the Viking threat?”
“Well, The Hague is helping out by training a few machine gun divisions as it waits for other buildings to become available through research. As for our long-term strategy of building up our economic base while building just enough military to keep our rivals at bay: Utrecht is training lots of workers to speed up our cities’ development. We’ve settled just about all the cities that we can settle, except maybe one more spot, north of Leiden. Railroads are being laid, and an iron discovery near Middelburg will only help us train and equip troops more quickly. Ragnar and company seem content to capture the last few barbarian-held lands on the planet, though they will soon run out of easy prey. By the way, Ragnar has artillery now.”
“Artillery?”
“Even bigger cannons than we have.”
“This had better work, Chris. Maarten’s latest reports show that Ragnar is not slowing down at all, and although we’ve gained some ground, our army is still relatively weak.”
“That might be true, but our Ironworks at East Fort can build an erection or two before building an entire navy almost all by itself. The Hague will build some warships in the meantime as a stopgap measure. Also, Delft is now online and can train troops. We’re getting there, sir.”
*RING RING*
“Are you going to get that?” Chris asks.
Willem picks up the phone. “Hello, Maarten. Okay. Okay. What?! Okay, good. Keep at it.”
“What happened?” Chris asks.
“We captured Nine Feather’s son, Ten Feathers, trying to break into Oxford University’s electrical labs. Unfortunately, he escaped somehow while we were transferring him from his original jail cell to a federal prison. We’re sending out the dogs, literally and figuratively, to track him down. Word has it, though, that he’s escaped back to Inca. If so, the Incans are keeping quiet about it and denying everything.”
“Wow, Willem, is this, as they say, an ‘international incident’?”
“It might well be.”
*RING RING*
“Hello? Wow, good for Suleiman! Uh huh. Okay. Keep me updated. Thanks. Bye.”
“What was that?” Chris asks.
“The Ottoman Empire just declared war on Korea, the day after it unsuccessfully sneak attacked Seoul from the sea. Now, that is an ‘international incident’!”
Suleiman is Cautious with us. Hes Friendly with Inca/America and Ragnar. That leaves Willem, Sitting Bull, and Wang Kon as his most likely targets. Sitting Bulls power doesnt show up on the graph, but hes got a pretty sizeable empire. Wang Kon has lower power than us. Therefore, it is likely that Suleiman is going to declare war on Korea soon. Just in case hes declaring against us, we should speed towards Railroads machine guns. Also, were going to send a ship to snoop around Ottoman ports to see where their fleet is headed. (524)
Sitting Bull extorts money from us for what, the third time this game? This time he asks for more than a pittance: 720 gold! This being a game where no reloads are possible, and my not wanting to risk getting dogpiled (if Suleiman turns out to declare on us rather than Korea) and losing the game over something as stupid as 720 gold, we give him the gold and vow to destroy Native America sometime in the future. (525)
Yay, one of the many mines near Middelburg is laden with iron. (526)
Nijmegen finishes the FP and Delft refunds us some gold for starting and stopping the FP construction there. That gold brings us out of Sitting Bull-induced poverty; its always nice to have some spare gold lying around in case you need it for random events. (527)
Its hard to tell from the screenshot, but Nijmegen, despite the Sistine Chapel, is about to lose its western tiles to Cori. Its another reason why Nijmegen got the nod for the FP rather than Delft--we need every bit of culture in Nijmegen! (529-30)
Railroads researched. Amsterdam is 3 turns away from finishing Broadway; we dont want Amsterdam to be idle, so we go for Radio and Cristo next, before hitting Assembly Line. Radio is vulnerable right now to Incas teching towards it, whereas AL should be somewhat safe for now. (532-33)
Okay, this strategy of building up our economic base before embarking on a mass military production program had better pay off soon, because Ragnars military buildup is not slowing down at all; if anything, its speeding UP! Also, I think I know how he got to be the big dog; his Financial and numerous overseas trade routes gave him enough money to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade his already sizeable armies, with Immortal AI discounts, whereas other civs did not have that kind of economic base for such continual upgrading. (534)
Sorry, Inca, were trying to get a military edge here, and Cuzco is a very tempting target for our armies, so why should we give you Steel for cannons? (535-36)
Broadway. If we get all of the wonders that make happiness, we can refuse to trade those resources and keep our rivals happiness-deprived. (537)
Despite my horrible job in developing Amsterdam properly, its still size 24 and spawned yet another Great Person, this time a Spy. (538)
Utrecht has spent long enough making spies to counter Koreas saboteurs; its time to seriously crank workers to railroad Amsterdam and build that irrigation project to its rice. (539)
The western powers are definitely carving up the barb cities among them, which is probably why nobody has declared war on a rival civ yet; why bother, when there are plump barb towns for the taking? (540)
Ragnar has artillery, which is a very bad development, as anyone who has ever faced massed artillery can attest to. Wang Kon avoided all the more useful techs to get Medicine. Way to go, moron. (541)
We go around the world to mark foreign oil fields and such for destruction, should we go to war. Also note that ultra-mature commerce towns like The Hague are building barracks and military units while they wait for additional techs to unlock additional buildings. (542)
AL for Infantry and Factories and Fascism! (545)
Amsterdam starts on Cristo so we can finally switch into State Property without losing an entire turns worth of production/research. (546)
Delft has matured into a prod city to crank out troops, giving Rotterdam and Middelburg a few turns to build some infrastructure. Is Sitting Bull going for a cultural victory or something? His culture-washing is really hurting our border cities, especially Maastricht, which is losing the culture war despite having The Hermitage! (549)
Moai City is going to rock extra hard when it finishes Ironworks. It can take some of the wonder overflow from Amsterdam, and in the lengthy periods between wonders, it will be a major naval yard. (551)
That wasnt very nice of you, Huayna. (553)
Inca got a boost in EP from their random event, but our early Democracy and Jail spamming has paid off; we havent had any Korean sabotage attempts succeed in a long time, and we have parity or more than parity with others EPs now. (554)
We also have Native American power rating available now. Were ahead of Korea, ahead of Inca (but not Inca + America), and behind everyone else militarily, but were also about to explode with factories and Infantry soon, which would leapfrog everyone elses Riflemen. In fact, we already have the lead in manufactured goods. Note that Ragnar isnt outproducing everyone to get his massive army, judging by his production graph; he appears to be upgrading his way to a high power rating. (555-58)
Suleiman was going to get Demo in 1 turn anyway; might as well get some cash. Hell probably turn around and trade it to everyone else, but whatever, we cant keep a lid on many techs right now. (559)
Renegotiating a resource trade. (560)
Ouch. (561)
State of the world. (563-64)
The Ottoman fleet appears to be sailing towards Korea. If it suddenly breaks north, we will mass our troops to meet the invaders. (565)
Workers begin working on a coastal railway system to allow faster troop movement along the relatively undeveloped northeastern coast. (566)
Korea asks for help; its the beginning of the turn so we cant be sure, but this probably means that Suleiman just DoW on Korea. (567)
Assembly Line done. Fascisms free general, here we come! Mt. Rushmores culture wouldnt hurt, either, given our culture problems on the western border. (569)
It's unbelievable how long it took Huayna to build the Hindu shrine! Anyway, mousing over Seoul, we see that the Ottoman declared war on Seoul and then attempted an amphibious landing. It was an abject failure. Come now, Suleiman, you know that Wang Kon is Protective, right? (571)
IPEX-731BA5DD06
Deity
excellent and informative reading, not only do you write an excellent story, but you give an informed view of what you do and why??
1 things puzzles me, why did you want to move rotterdam 1 tile north, to claim the Spice..and give up a hills gem mine??? and GAIN a mountain in the BFC.......
Anyway, going by your write up on risk, I assume, your victim AFTER, all the factories are built, will by Hyana capac, to take the hindu holy of holies...expand your lands, and take on a non protective civ.
Long Island to the north, any reason you haven't spun off a colony to the north, did you want to withold tech trading options from a future vassal, do you believe that only the Dutch can fully exploit the land, or don't you want a vassal to complicate things.
P.S. only been reading thread for under 24 hr's, so have read through the lot..gave it 5 stars, and was refered here via a post by another in the ALC game 19, again, read that from Post 1....
Intersting too, you've NEVER had the Spy slider above 0%, yet have maintained the ability to view other civs and steal techs, you never sent a mission against Korea to up spying costs, 10 turns not worth it?
ty for taking the time to post and inform...
my belief is, Hyuan is ripe for the plucking, Infantry/factories, makes for a quick army geneation, combined with tanks= quick anaxation of Incan lands.
1 things puzzles me, why did you want to move rotterdam 1 tile north, to claim the Spice..and give up a hills gem mine??? and GAIN a mountain in the BFC.......
Anyway, going by your write up on risk, I assume, your victim AFTER, all the factories are built, will by Hyana capac, to take the hindu holy of holies...expand your lands, and take on a non protective civ.
Long Island to the north, any reason you haven't spun off a colony to the north, did you want to withold tech trading options from a future vassal, do you believe that only the Dutch can fully exploit the land, or don't you want a vassal to complicate things.
P.S. only been reading thread for under 24 hr's, so have read through the lot..gave it 5 stars, and was refered here via a post by another in the ALC game 19, again, read that from Post 1....
Intersting too, you've NEVER had the Spy slider above 0%, yet have maintained the ability to view other civs and steal techs, you never sent a mission against Korea to up spying costs, 10 turns not worth it?
ty for taking the time to post and inform...my belief is, Hyuan is ripe for the plucking, Infantry/factories, makes for a quick army geneation, combined with tanks= quick anaxation of Incan lands.
excellent and informative reading, not only do you write an excellent story, but you give an informed view of what you do and why??
1 things puzzles me, why did you want to move rotterdam 1 tile north, to claim the Spice..and give up a hills gem mine??? and GAIN a mountain in the BFC.......
Anyway, going by your write up on risk, I assume, your victim AFTER, all the factories are built, will by Hyana capac, to take the hindu holy of holies...expand your lands, and take on a non protective civ.
Long Island to the north, any reason you haven't spun off a colony to the north, did you want to withold tech trading options from a future vassal, do you believe that only the Dutch can fully exploit the land, or don't you want a vassal to complicate things.
P.S. only been reading thread for under 24 hr's, so have read through the lot..gave it 5 stars, and was refered here via a post by another in the ALC game 19, again, read that from Post 1....
Intersting too, you've NEVER had the Spy slider above 0%, yet have maintained the ability to view other civs and steal techs, you never sent a mission against Korea to up spying costs, 10 turns not worth it?
my belief is, Hyuan is ripe for the plucking, Infantry/factories, makes for a quick army geneation, combined with tanks= quick anaxation of Incan lands.
Hi, thanks, and welcome to the thread! I put in a lot of time in doing write-ups so it's nice to know that some people have read everything since post 1 and can get a good feel for why the game has shaped up the way it has.
Rotterdam 1 north = yes it loses the gems, but Nijmegen would not overlap as much with Rotterdam, plus Nijmegen can build a dike and better utilize those riverside tiles. Some other Dutch city would eventually wind up with those eastern gems in its BFC. The reason why Rotterdam is shifted like that is because it was the best-looking location at the time... the moment I saw copper I was like, GET IT FAST BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES, and settled it before seeing the rest of the map around it. Which is why I probably should have built another scout to look around, first!
You correctly guessed our target: non-Protective Inca! Suleiman just dented pathetic little Korea, and while it'd be nice to beat the snot out of Korea, we don't really want to weaken them so much that Suleiman's next attack actually takes a city and gains a foothold on our continent. Also, Korea and Native America both don't have any cities on par with Cuzco, which has a ton of useful buildings like Hanging Gardens and Spiral Minaret and the Hindu Shrine. We're consolidating our economic and tech position and after the factories get cranking, we're going to invade Inca. It's just a question of when we can field enough units to be 100% sure of quick victory. NO RELOADS = more conservative play; we will leave nothing to chance.
Long Island is only fully exploitable by the Dutch, as it's crappy land for any non-Dike civs. Also, it's really close to Amsterdam and there are only 3 overseas cities, so the maintenance costs are low, even pre-State Property and even with the overseas colony penalties.
Yes, I learned a lot of things while playing this game and writing it up and listening to feedback, and in hindsight maybe we should have sent in an anti-spy mission to Korea, at least while the critical production cities of Haarlem and Delft were growing. However, anti-spy missions are not that effective; they just makes Korean spy missions more expensive for a short time (10 turns I think) if you succeed, so succeeding in an anti-spy mission deducts from YOUR EP pool. The only way it might help is if the AI succeeds despite our anti-spy mission, so that it pays extra EPs and thus depletes its EPs more quickly, but that's kind of risky, to have a 100% chance of losing EPs against them for a small chance that they'll lose extra EPs on a mission. What if during those 10 turns they only attempt 1 spy mission and fail, for instance?
As for the EP levels after we stopped picking on Huayna Capac (2 infiltrations against him, plus 100% of our EPs against him), remember that we basically beelined Constitution and Democracy after we got Liberalism. Representation is nice, but Jails and Intel Agencies are underrated. Courthouses alone give +2 EP, but with jails, the total EP = +2 (courthouse), +4 (jail), +50% EP = +9 EP per turn. Compare 9 to 2 EP per turn! That's why I even made our prod cities make jails after they made their first few riflemen. Intel Agencies' power (+8/+50% EP) is already well-known, and of course Democracy is good to get early since Statue of Liberty takes forever to build, plus Emancipation is very good for CE, and also hurts rival civs' happiness.
Read the response above for why I'm taking a page out of Risk strategy and looking at Cuzco.
J-man
Deity
Nice and entertaining story, I enjoy reading it.
Please promise me one thing, DON'T LOSE NIJMEGEN!
I live there (well only in real life, but it's hard to distinguish rl from CIV since
I almost am addicted )
Please promise me one thing, DON'T LOSE NIJMEGEN!
I live there (well only in real life, but it's hard to distinguish rl from CIV since
I almost am addicted
)
Ronnie1
Deity
Very nice thread!! It's taken me a couple days to get through the whole thing. Great story, I have tried similar projects in the past and it is very time consuming. Also, I'm barely an Emperor level player, but I now have some new tricks to try. I have seriously UNDERESTIMATED the power of the SPY!
I posted that before finishing reading your posts and i was half joking because he's such a nuisance 
. It looks like poverty points culture is at 80%, which will cause the incan christian holy city to flip to the native americans after you capture it, which will be a problem and split your new territory in half.
Also, I'm assuming you have open boarders with the natives, would you consider doing an assault from his boarders while assaulting from your own? If may also be useful to focus your eps more heavily on the Incans to get city visibility.
. It looks like poverty points culture is at 80%, which will cause the incan christian holy city to flip to the native americans after you capture it, which will be a problem and split your new territory in half. Also, I'm assuming you have open boarders with the natives, would you consider doing an assault from his boarders while assaulting from your own? If may also be useful to focus your eps more heavily on the Incans to get city visibility.
