Minimal Histographic Variant
- Thread starter Spoonwood
- Start date
vorlon_mi
Emperor
With wonderful subtle implications.
To win by histographic, the human player must both a) reach year 2050 and b) ensure that no AI win the game before the last turn.
Reaching the last turn means *not* carrying out many tactics advised here for aggressive military campaigns in the Middle Ages designed to crush AI opponents quickly, to achieve Domination. Reaching the last turn will involve significant research infrastructure, and may well mean completing the whole tech tree.
Ensuring that no AI win before the last turn means building the UN yourself, while never holding elections. It may mean military strikes in the Modern Era to ensure that AI do not complete their spaceships. The human player needs to control a significant chunk of territory, so that domination is off the table for everyone. The human player needs to build enough cultural buildings and/or wonders to ensure that the AI cannot win a 100K cultural victory *and* have more than twice the human player's culture.
But the "cherry on top" is the small score difference between the human and the 2nd place AI. The AI love to build large metros, so their score will go up that way. Higher score for more happy citizens could imply lots of trade in luxuries. Let the #2 AI get just big enough to get a good score, but not cross a line for a victory condition.
To win by histographic, the human player must both a) reach year 2050 and b) ensure that no AI win the game before the last turn.
Reaching the last turn means *not* carrying out many tactics advised here for aggressive military campaigns in the Middle Ages designed to crush AI opponents quickly, to achieve Domination. Reaching the last turn will involve significant research infrastructure, and may well mean completing the whole tech tree.
Ensuring that no AI win before the last turn means building the UN yourself, while never holding elections. It may mean military strikes in the Modern Era to ensure that AI do not complete their spaceships. The human player needs to control a significant chunk of territory, so that domination is off the table for everyone. The human player needs to build enough cultural buildings and/or wonders to ensure that the AI cannot win a 100K cultural victory *and* have more than twice the human player's culture.
But the "cherry on top" is the small score difference between the human and the 2nd place AI. The AI love to build large metros, so their score will go up that way. Higher score for more happy citizens could imply lots of trade in luxuries. Let the #2 AI get just big enough to get a good score, but not cross a line for a victory condition.
It could mean those things, yes. Or (some of) those things might be a motivation for turning some of the victory/loss conditions off, especially if it's higher level. Even with all loss conditions off, it still means more more infrastructure than usual. Things like offshore platforms, manufacturing plants, and recycling centers as potentially meaningful.
But whatever the choice on victory/loss conditions, I think there's a lot of nice possibilities here, which have a certain subtleness as you pointed out.
I tried to think about which civ would have the most advantages for it. England seems to fit, since more commerce remains useful on every single turn of a game. Industrious might still be useful enough for pollution cleaning. The scientific trait would fizzle out, I don't it has enough advantages for this. The agricultural trait would still mean 1 more food, but that doesn't sound like it has a whole lot of appeal for metros. Religious might be more appealing than usual, because of more revolutions. Militaristic might be about the same, I don't know.
WeirdoJoker
King
What kind of military strike would stop the AI Spaceship? Would it require a nuke, or would Bombers be sufficient?
The most guaranteed as effective strike against an AI spaceship is to just turn off the spaceship loss condition. Perhaps that is not a "military strike" though.
I think if an AI capital is razed, they have to start all over on their spaceship. Though, just capturing their capital might be sufficient. I don't know.
Multiple strikes against modern AIs may not be necessary to stop their spaceship. A war to pillage out their access to uranium, aluminum, or rubber, or all three, might be needed. But, if you can sign an RoP and then remain at peace with them with a unit of yours denying a worker to make a road to those resources, that might work. If they can't get those resources anywhere else on the map.
If you use more than 2 revolution you are doing something wrong. And if using only 2 revolution religious is too weak in the long run. Commercial+agricultural seem like a good idea, especially with lots of desert.
But argueably the biggest challenge is avoiding victory before 2050 and ensuring that the second place is close enough. I guess the best way to ensure the later would be take out all but one AI early and let the other AI take at at least 50% landmass, wait many many turns and as soon as it seems prudent bite off a bit of land so that by 2050 you barely win.
That sounds more like trying to winning by as small as possible of a score difference.
Avoiding victory can get ensured, I think, by unchecking all of the victory conditions in the startup screen. Winning (or losing) a histographic victory still remains possible, I think.
vorlon_mi
Emperor
According to @tjs282 in this thread, https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/losing-the-space-race.647177/ one would need to conquer the AI capital to cause the loss of an AI spaceship. When you capture their capital, they would likely start building another in the new capital. Parking a unit on their aluminum -- while controlling all the other sources -- could also keep them from finishing their spaceship.
Honestly, I never thought about turning off victory conditions. I wonder what, exactly, would be deactivated when one turns off Science Victory. I would expect the AI to keep researching techs into the Modern Era. Perhaps the Apollo Program project becomes un-buildable?
I would assume that it's still buildable. But, I have no experience to back that up.
Nothing changes, you can still build Apollo and the spaceship parts and then click launch, it just doesn't trigger the end of the game and a victory.
A quite monumental folly, but what else are you going to build at that point in the game when everything only takes 2 turns.
A quite monumental folly, but what else are you going to build at that point in the game when everything only takes 2 turns.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
When the Diplomatic VC is disabled at game-start, I believe that (I read somewhere that) the UN gets removed from the build-list for all Civs.
(I never disable any of the default VCs, so can't say for sure one way or the other)
But if such a "Chosen VCs require this Wonder-build to be available? [YES/NO]"-check has indeed been included, it wouldn't surprise me if it was only coded for GWs, not SWs...
(I never disable any of the default VCs, so can't say for sure one way or the other)
But if such a "Chosen VCs require this Wonder-build to be available? [YES/NO]"-check has indeed been included, it wouldn't surprise me if it was only coded for GWs, not SWs...
Last edited:
Sure, but deactivating victory conditions seems like cheating when not winning before 2050 is the challenge.
The challenge is winning a histographic victory with a small difference in score between you and the leading AI. There is no deception in turning off victory conditions. There is nothing inconsistent with playing for a small score difference in turning off victory conditions. There is no breaking of rules by turning off victory condition(s) ... after all, we're talking about a single player game here. There is no hack of the game's program by having victory conditions unchecked. If anything, the game's program *encourages* unchecking those victory conditions if you see fit. Since those checkboxes are upfront it also seems likely that it got expected by the game designer's that players uncheck them. If anything, players unchecking them probably falls within what the game designers intended for the game... unlike how in The Conquests (e. g. Rise of Rome), victory conditions are set for the human player before the game and are unchangeable.
Supposing that the AIs will build spaceship parts, is it unfair to the AIs, since they will build spaceship parts? But, the AIs will irrigate tiles in the ancient ages in despotism and then never change those tiles for any purpose. Human players can and often do change improvements on tiles, something that the AIs cannot do. And human players often use suicide curraghs. AIs can't do that. And shortrushing. And pillaging of one's one resources for more upgrades. And prebuilding (not wonder cascading... prebuilding). And knowledge of the move order (though maybe the AI programming takes that into account someway, I don't know). And research patterns... AIs can't pick what tech to research based on a guess or conjecture of what other players will research. And pillaging of trade routes. And using "leave or declare" after buying something for gpt.
If turning off the space race victory is unfair, because the AIs won't adapt, aren't also all of those techniques, and others probably, also unfair?
Also, the human player always moves first which affects research, attack order, and building completion. Is that fair to the AIs? Might they call it a 'cheat' if they could talk?
I also think that the AIs are also incapable of cash-rushing. If so, is cash-rushing unfair?
The AIs also can't use the luxury slider, can they? Is using the luxury slider unfair?
Is the human player having a rate of 100% science unfair, if the AIs can't do that?
Everything about Civ 3 (and most other computer games generally) is a question about what you consider fair play.
I was having fun on an Emperor map yesterday, until three of my warriors died, in a row, in the course of about 5 turns, just attacking single Barbarian Warriors.
Was that my bad for not sending in an overkill force? Was that the game's bad for having appallingly coded combat? Am I cheating if I reload? Is the game cheating for deliberately trying to slow me down?
It's a single player game, so it doesn't matter, you can deal with it however you like. Sometimes I reload, sometimes I just quit, but mostly I just quit. Because the game just makes me feel like I'm wasting my time when it does this kind of thing.
The Hall of Fame has strict rules though, and it always fascinates me how and why people choose what is and isn't allowed for that. Might as well throw random darts at a dart board blindfolded.
I was having fun on an Emperor map yesterday, until three of my warriors died, in a row, in the course of about 5 turns, just attacking single Barbarian Warriors.
Was that my bad for not sending in an overkill force? Was that the game's bad for having appallingly coded combat? Am I cheating if I reload? Is the game cheating for deliberately trying to slow me down?
It's a single player game, so it doesn't matter, you can deal with it however you like. Sometimes I reload, sometimes I just quit, but mostly I just quit. Because the game just makes me feel like I'm wasting my time when it does this kind of thing.
The Hall of Fame has strict rules though, and it always fascinates me how and why people choose what is and isn't allowed for that. Might as well throw random darts at a dart board blindfolded.
I just reloaded the save, now it's back in my mind, this time moving the Settler onto my Warrior's square instead of having my Warrior attack the solitary Barbarian Warrior. My Warrior is now fortified on a forest square. The Barbarian Warrior attacks my Warrior and slaughters him and takes my Settler. Yawn, Yawn, Yawn. Guess I'll have to reload again...
Exactly, capturing their capital destroys their current spaceship parts, so they'll have to start over. And besides denying them the required resources (aluminum and uranium), there is another way to stop their spaceship: capturing their city that built Apollo. It doesn't destroy their current parts, but they need to build a new Apollo program, before they can build further parts.
I feel the same way. I mean, the fun (or the challenge) of this is to make the AI strong (so the score difference is as small as possible), while at the same time making them weak (so they can't win). If the second part (the "they can't win") is being taken care of by simply disabling all the victory conditions, this challenge would appear too easy to me: just pick one AI as your friend, capture the world and gift them 50% of it. If you gain too many points, gift them a few more cities, if they get ahead of you, take a few cities. I think that could be implemented quite straightforwardly...
If, however, you have to think about how to prevent them from reaching any one of these victory conditions, now that's where the challenge starts! Give them 50% of what you have, but at the same time make sure they can't win by space race, UN, 20K and 100K! That needs a bit of thinking and effort... (Domination and Conquest are easily avoided by default, I would say...)
- Taking care of the UN victory is probably the easiest of the remaining VCs: just build the UN yourself and never hold an election
- The best way to avoid spaceship victory is probably by making sure all occurrences of one of the two resources, uranium or aluminum, are in your half of the world and not trading them any.
- 100K is probably not so difficult as well: just always have about the same amount of culture output as they do, then you will prevent their victory while they prevent yours... (You also don't want to win that way before 2050AD, right?) This can be achieved by selling or rushing a few a few libraries, as required.
- But what about 20K? That appears to be the most difficult to me, especially on higher difficulty levels. You need to make sure to build most of the wonders (in different cities, so as to not trigger 20K yourself...), but I think it is possible to get 20K culture by 2050 AD, just by building ordinary buildings and small wonders, isn't it? Then you would have to resort to "military strikes"... But you don't want to take too much of their empire, so as to not gain too many points of them... The first time around, you can do a "surgical strike" via RoP rape. But after that, they won't grant you another RoP, so when the next city in the middle of their empire threatens to reach 20K, you will have to fight your way to it, causing a lot of collateral damage and point loss for them. (Perhaps you can counter-balance that by disbanding the same amount of your own cities...?!)
Last edited:
vorlon_mi
Emperor
Disclaimer: I have not won a 20K victory myself.
From what I understand, the 20k culture victory depends on "compound interest", the doubling of culture buildings once they are 1000 years old. Once the ancient wonders are built -- remember, they can only be built once -- they begin to age. If the human player builds them, spread out, then no single city will have a high enough culture-per-turn to get to 20K. If an AI player builds one or two, and the human player takes that city, the AI player no longer gets the benefit of aging. Raze that city, and those wonders no longer produce culture for anyone.
I haven't done the math, but I believe that a city can't accumulate 20k culture using only the non-wonder buildings, even going out all the way to 540 turns. Not enough buildings will get the double culture, nor do they produce enough culture per turn to get to 20k. Perhaps 8k or 10k, but not 20k.
From what I understand, the 20k culture victory depends on "compound interest", the doubling of culture buildings once they are 1000 years old. Once the ancient wonders are built -- remember, they can only be built once -- they begin to age. If the human player builds them, spread out, then no single city will have a high enough culture-per-turn to get to 20K. If an AI player builds one or two, and the human player takes that city, the AI player no longer gets the benefit of aging. Raze that city, and those wonders no longer produce culture for anyone.
I haven't done the math, but I believe that a city can't accumulate 20k culture using only the non-wonder buildings, even going out all the way to 540 turns. Not enough buildings will get the double culture, nor do they produce enough culture per turn to get to 20k. Perhaps 8k or 10k, but not 20k.
Without small wonders it should be impossible, with small wonders it should possible, but highly unlikely.
If everything is build in 4000 BC this means that you get 20 turns single culture and 520 turns double culture. So that is 1060 times single culture. Only palace, temple, lib, collosseum, cathedral, uni and research lab would be (1+2+3+2+3+4+2)*1060=18020.
Practically speaking losing to 20 k should be easy to avoid, especially as the next best city is named in F8 and the five best cities in F11. Not winning by 20k yourself might be the bigger challenge.
Last edited:
Not winning by 20k yourself is pretty easy. If worst comes to worst, you can disband your city and rebuild it, but accidentally hitting 20k seems very unlikely. Unless you want to win by culture, you don't build temples, cathedrals, and colosseums. Despite that, if your culture is approaching 20k too rapidly, you can just sell the library (or other culture buildings) and rebuild it so as to lose the doubled culture.
I've read someone's account of winning 20k with no wonders, but I really don't see the AI managing it. However, on higher levels it will be hard to keep the AI away from the wonders. I'd be tempted to encourage a single AI to build as many of the early wonders as possible, and then wipe them out and let a different AI grow large. This gives me the wonders without the culture or the shield investment.
I've read someone's account of winning 20k with no wonders, but I really don't see the AI managing it. However, on higher levels it will be hard to keep the AI away from the wonders. I'd be tempted to encourage a single AI to build as many of the early wonders as possible, and then wipe them out and let a different AI grow large. This gives me the wonders without the culture or the shield investment.
